#6 symptoms of a heart attack a month ago

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

So, since I did groceries a month ago, I have been having pain and swelling in my biceps that has been getting progressively worse, not like, showing up the day after and healing slowly over 3 days to a week or something but, like not really hurting for the first week but then just getting more and more swollen and sore, worsening steadily over a month or more at this point.

At first I assumed autoimmune, and then I thought, well, maybe I -really- strained my arms getting my cart in the door... and then I thought, No way this HAS to be autoimmune it's so fucking vascular, there's just so much swelling. It was like the veins themselves inside my muscles and skin is what was getting swollen and stiff...

And then it spread, down my arms and through to the surface of my skin so now I have had a rash on both biceps for like a week now, with big visible veins... I kept trying to improve circulation to the area in hopes of getting it to heal and it just kept getting worse.

Well now the skin rash got so bad that I finally just looked up the symptoms for sore muscles coupled with rash in only specific muscle groups, because if it was something like a tumour or such you would expect it to be one-sided, not both arms, and I am pretty sure it's something systemic and autoimmune related.. and well

I think it's Dermatomyositis.

And not only that, but I think that's part of what's been wrong with my heart and lungs and arteries. Only now it's mainly attacking my biceps for some reason? Maybe the muscle strain from the groceries gave it a new target. I knew my immune system was already pissy about all the damage to my bladder caused by the ultrasound, and maybe lifting a 2-300 pound cart into my house was the last straw.

The thing is though, even if I am right, the *most* useful thing they'll do is try to convince me to chemically suppress my immune system without putting me on an anti-viral, again, which will only get me -dead- real fast... So the best thing I can do is take anti-inflammatories and antihistamines, either way.

Which was the only thing that was helping.

The problem? I metabolize things really quickly and am also already a bit yellow, so not only are anti-inflammatories not super effective on me, but I do not need the added strain on my liver or kidneys of taking a high dose of advil 4-6 times a day when it's barely doing fuck all.

The solution? I'm back to applying ibuprofen topically. This is a trick I learned to get past my stupid metabolism for sore joints before. Most NSAIDs can be applied topically and are just as effective that way, but you don't need as high a dosage, because it's being applied directly to the area you need it, instead of trying to dose your whole body with it, so it's easier on the organs and side-effects too... But they don't sell them that way [probably because people don't take dosage limitations with creams as seriously and would overdose a lot, I am assuming]. The one that was commonly available in cream form got pulled in general for being way too hard on your heart. So if you want actually aspirin or ibuprofen to apply topically, you have to make it yourself, not exceed the dosage you would take orally, try not to get it on anything, and -of course- put up with skin numbness. They are also acids, so some people might get rashes from trying this.

I haven't had to do this in years, but it's actually helping. I'm hoping that if I keep on it, I'll be recovered enough to do groceries this week.

I need more of the antihistamines I don't react to, and like, food and stuff.

This is also the first time in forever I have been able to put my arms over my head without them immediately losing all blood and going numb, on account of all the swelling. I don't know if my upper back appreciates that I can suddenly lounge with my arms behind my head :/

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

CW/TW- Pet Death

So last night I asked for prayers for me and my parents because we'd had a really rough and emotionally trying day. I will now explain. This is, unfortunately, also a Kitten Update on my Bengal kittens, so if you've become emotionally invested in them and aren't up for reading this right now, look away and come back to it another time. Or just don't come back to it. Alright, disclaimer over, you've been warned.

Alright, I'm going to keep this as succinct as possible to try and limit how much I end up crying.

We took the six girl kittens to get spayed yesterday.

Tulip, the littlest kitten, Leeli's runt, had a heart condition we didn't know about. It's all but invisible, there are barely any signs and there is no way to know it exists without special tests being done which we never even thought to do because we had never had an issue with it before and we have had Bengal cats for a long time.

They put Tulip under anesthesia and during the procedure her heart just... stopped. They did everything they could to revive her, they gave her CPR, they gave her epinephrine, but it didn't work. She died.

The vet said she likely had a heart condition where the heart walls thicken and it takes more and more effort then for the heart to beat. My mom looked it up and usually by the time symptoms are visible the cat only has 3-6 months to live. There is no cure, all they can do is slow it down/improve symptoms.

I realized, and shared with my parents, that Tulip was already showing symptoms. She always tired out before the other kittens, she slept more than them, when she was littler she'd come and fall asleep on me because she knew I'd keep other kittens from pouncing on her. Two days ago I'd left Madia and Tulip in my room for maybe 10-15 minutes and they were waking up from a nap, so I assumed they'd be tearing around when I got back. They were curled up on my bed again and I thought that was odd, but...

But Tulip was little, she was the runt, there was no reason to question these things because they're not uncommon behavior for runts (being smaller they have less energy/stamina). And she was as fiesty as any Bengal kitten we'd ever had. A few days ago I saw her attack Farid, her brother, who is over a FULL POUND heavier than her, and start beating him up. She gained weight, she ate well, she acted like a normal kitten!

She was already showing symptoms at 4-6 weeks old, maybe earlier. 3-6 months to live (usually) after symptoms show up. Her heart stopped when she was 4 months old.

It was basically as if we'd had her put to sleep. She felt no pain, she didn't even know. She just fell asleep.

There was no happier kitten in existence than Tulip. That little baby would purr like a MOTOR if you were in the ROOM with her, not even if you were holding her, petting her or playing with her. She just purred ALL THE TIME. She was such a sweet little bug that you couldn't get mad at her. All she knew was happiness and love, and like my mom said, there aren't many cats or people that's true of. She had the happiest kittenhood, the happiest life that any cat could ever have. Her siblings knew that their baby sister needed extra TLC so they made sure to always snuggle around her, Madia went slower so her baby sister could keep up, they loved her, they loved her, they loved her.

Tulip was going to die soon, we just didn't know it. At least this way, God gave us some answers and reasons as to why. I told my mom yesterday that this was simply her span of days, and it was short but very bright.

I named her after a spring flower. Tulips have a short season and then they fade. Tulip's season was short but vibrant and full of life. And when I thought about it today, about if I would have rather had her just not be born alive so I didn't have to go through the grief of losing her after I'd known her...

I couldn't imagine a world where I hadn't experienced that baby's life. I'd do it all over again. Her span of days was short but bright and I was with her every day of her life. I was her forever. And I loved her and I loved her and I loved her.

This was not my fault, I did everything right, I have no regrets. Sometimes things happen that are out of our control. She would never have lived long, but I gave her the best life any kitten could ever have.

Tulip is buried in my Hideout, in the Gnarled Forest, next to Dora. There is no higher honor I could give her than that.

All the others kittens came thought surgery fine and are recovering.

[macgyvermedical]

Hello! I heard you help out with some medical issues for writing and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to help me.

Some time ago I wrote a story involving a character (m, 47, general good health aside from anxiety/panic) getting maliciously drugged with synthetic cathinone with the intent to publicly embarrass/discredit him. Unfortunately he consumed more than intended, O.D., and had a a myocardial infarction caused by a drug induced coronary artery spasm. Happily since he was at an event that typically has an ambulance on standby, was near a hospital and didn't suffer the infarction until he was at the hospital, he recovers. Thankfully I found all the medical information I needed online for that fic.

My question is I am doing a follow up story that takes place 6 months later and I'm looking at what kind of medical care, if any, he'd have at this point. I'm finding far less information on that. I assuming maybe some monitoring and medication but I don't really know. I'm not planning on complications at this point, but it would be handy to know what kinds of things his doctors might be, or have those options in the back of my mind if I decide to go that route.

Thank you again for your time and expertise!

It would depend on the extent of damage suffered during the coronary artery spasm.

The severity of heart attacks is based on how much heart muscle died during the attack. When CAS occurs, the heart muscle is temporarily without oxygen, which causes chest pain and other heart attack symptoms. CAS that is immediately resolved may cause no damage, but if it goes on for a longer time period and the heart muscle starves for oxygen and glucose it would be the same as for any other cause of a heart attack (just without the underlying clotting or sclerosis).

As far as medication going forward, if CAS was likely to happen again, the patient would probably be on a calcium channel blocker like diltiazem, which would prevent CAS in the future. For this patient, who had a one-time drugging that clearly caused the CAS, they might be on a calcium channel blocker and anti-platelet (aspirin, clopidigrel) temporarily (a few weeks to a few months) and then taper off, though they may still carry nitroglycerin for an emergency out of an abundance of caution.

If they suffered heart damage during the CAS, parts of their heart muscle may be weaker and they may need to take medication to treat heart failure (anything from a diuretic to prevent swelling to a medication that makes the heart pump slower or harder to make it more effective) or go through a cardiac rehab program that gradually increases their exercise tolerance. You can look up "cardiac rehab" or "post MI care" to get more information about this.

[psypris]

Social Anxiety is Measurable

I felt the urge to share a personal anecdote that might be beneficial to anyone who has suffered from social anxiety but not had support. It’s easy for others who do not experience discomfort to invalidate others’ truth, even if it is not intentional.  So, a little background about me: I have had clinical depression for over 20 years (starting in high school) and after many years of battling, finally found a perfect combination of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication. However, I STILL suffer from anxiety, specifically social anxiety, and nothing has really soothed that discomfort. Instead, I practice mindfulness and walk myself through the experience I push myself to have, while practicing self-care and self-love by avoiding certain situations that I don’t feel confident I’ll be able to overcome.  Due to the above, and genetics, I have hypertension (high blood pressure) and while it had been manageable before, about 6 months ago, I was put on medication for this, since I was experiencing some rather unsettling symptoms (you ever see your heartbeat in your eyesight? Feel it in your teeth? Not fun!) Now that you know the relevant information, here’s the story: I had my 6th-month check-in with my physician to make sure my medications aren’t negatively affecting me and that everything is still going well. During the initial intake portion of the appointment, where the nurse assistant/technician weighs you and asks you simple questions, they took my blood pressure.  I had two nurses with me; I’m not sure if one was being trained or if they were just partnered-up to streamline the process (it went super smoothly!). Regardless, as the one was setting up the arm strap, I casually mentioned “oh yeah, my BP is a little high”.  So, I’m continuing talking to the other nurse and the first one gets a little stifff and goes over to her and says, “It’s 180/90″ (something like that - I know I heard “one-eighty” and “over ninety” but they might not have been even like that).  If you don’t know - which I didn’t know myself - This puts me in a Hypertensive Crisis. In other words, I could have a heart attack at any moment and all online research says to “seek medical treatment right away”.  So, the second nurse has a very subtle reaction and notably talks a bit more soothingly to me. I comment off-handedly “I suffer from social anxiety, so my BP is always a little high when I am tested at a doctor’s office.” They both respond something like “Oh, okay then,” which in hindsight was them trying to keep me calm and not stress out more. Once she’s done with the questions, she says, “you know, let me go ahead and just take another reading - the doctor might want to run an EKG” I’m ok “oh damn!” but she said, she wasn’t sure, they just want to confirm that everything is okay. This is especially important because my mother suffered from “The widow maker” heart attack a few years ago - and survived! - but clearly, heart issues run in the family. Luckily, by the second time, my BP went down to something like 160/?? they didn’t say it to ME, it was more to themselves. So, it had come down but it was still high. (Normal is 120/80 or lower, for reference).  I can hear them whisper by the door to the doctor about their findings - the nurse was very detailed and expressed that I shared I have social anxiety (and I’m self-pay, so an EKG might get a little expensive for me).  The doctor comes in and can I just say, she’s amazing! She’s technically a Nurse Practitioner, so I'm just using “doctor” colloquially in this story.   ANYWAY, she calmy says she wants to take it one more time with another cuff - I had taken a seat on the normal guest chairs (I had been on the exam table) and she was like “no, no! We don’t want to move you. You just stay right there and get comfortable.” I do some deep breathing, she returns with the reader and bam - perfect! I can’t recall the exact numbers, but I was back in the “it’s okay/normal” range.  No EKG needed! She explained that a lot of people come in and the same thing happens and yep - it’s the social anxiety! So, the next time anyone gives you grief, feel free to use my story as proof (my name is Cari & you can call me your friend!) that anxiety is REAL and causes SERIOUS CHANGES to the body! I was in “Heart-attack mode” JUST from visiting the doctor! Think about all the times I just go food shopping, have to speak up for myself somewhere like the bank, make an important phone call.... it puts stress on the body. No wonder I’m always exhausted!

[kkginfo]

Symptoms of Heart Attack and immediate treatment in case of stroke

Symptoms of Heart Attack and immediate treatment in case of stroke

By Dr. Rajesh Binani, Neurology Consultant. Heart attack is one of the leading causes of death and disability in India. Globally, one in four adults over the age of 25 has had a heart attack in their lifetime. Every year more than 1.8 million people suffer from heart attack and in recent times the incidence of this disease in the country has increased by 100%. symptoms of heart attack and…

[diaphragmjellyfish]

I Have This... Thing

Not My Gif

So as someone with vaginismus, it’s sometimes frustrating to read fan fiction, specifically smut. Y/N always has sex so easily and with very little foreplay, finishing with no issues. And it’s so great for people who can do that, but it’s not the case for all of us. Some of us can’t have any sort of penetration without pain. Some people can’t finish without toys, or hours of work. Some people will never be able to have penetrative sex. There’s all kinds of people, and there’s all kinds of sex. But not near enough fics featuring Y/N’s with these issues. So I’m going to write some, and feel free to request any issue with any character, and if I don’t know that character, we can collaborate to find a character you like that I do know. 

Paul Lahote x reader smut. 

You had lived in Forks for about 6 months now. You’ve known your new friends here for 5 months. And you’ve been the imprint of Paul Lahote for 3 months. Well, you’ve been his imprint since you guys first locked eyes at La Push when you first hung out with Emily, but he didn’t tell you about the whole werewolf/ imprint thing until 3 months ago. Safe to say it came as a shock. Your friends, the people who had welcomed you so easily, helped you move furniture around, and gave you tours of the new town, were WOLVES. Or engaged to wolves. *cough* Emily *cough*. You had to take a few weeks break from them after they told you. After Sam explained the legends, the lore. After Paul told you that you were basically his soul mate. It’s a lot to take in! 

But you quickly realized that you had grown to love the pack. And now that you knew the big secret, things were easier around them. No more lies about where they had all been. No more avoiding talking about their mysterious injuries that only seemed to last for a couple hours. No more awkwardly dancing around why Paul stared at you constantly and wouldn’t let any other guy get within 6 feet of you without having a rage attack and sprinting into the woods. Things were going good. 

Well… as good as they could be without sex. Yep. You and Paul had been together for 3 months and you have not had sex. You didn’t give each other head. You didn’t take your clothes off around each other. You didn’t even dry hump. And you knew it was your fault. You could tell that Paul was getting nervous about the fact that you wouldn’t let him touch you like that. He would never ask you about it, because he wouldn’t want you to feel pressured or rushed, but you could tell it was on his mind. The little sad smile he would give when you stopped things from going further. The hover of his hands over your ass before landing back on your waist. The way he looked almost guilty after looking at you in a swimsuit or crop top. 

See, vaginismus made relationships difficult. You never had a long term relationship before Paul. You were either too scared to tell partners about it, and just dealt with the excruciating pain, which would lead to resentment and breakups, or you would tell them and they would ghost you. Guys don’t normally go for girls who’s opening line is “Hi! I cannot have sex without crying.” You’d been dilating for almost a year now. It was going okay. Some days hurt more than others. A lot of times, Paul would ask you to hang out when you were in the middle of your physical therapy, and you would have to make up some excuse as to why you couldn't. Too tired. Headache. Stomach bug. He was starting to catch on. 

One day, you guys were hanging out at your apartment watching a movie. You had been making out, but as soon as it started getting slightly heated, you had pulled away and got up to get a drink refill. Paul, having gotten used to the routine, didn’t question you. While you were in the kitchen pouring some more juice, Paul asked “Hey babe? Do you have a charger I can borrow?”

“Yeah it’s in the top drawer of my bedside table,” you haphazardly yelled back. 

You heard him get up and go into your bedroom, rummaging around a little. Then silence. 

“Hey babe?” he said hesitantly. You thought he just couldn’t find the charger, so you began walking towards your room to grab it for him. Once you got to the doorway, you stopped dead in your tracks. Eyes wide. Face bright red. Paul held up the dilator you were currently on, which was about 5 inches long and looked… well let’s be honest. It looked like a dildo. The bottle of lubricant that was also in the drawer didn’t help your case. How the fuck were you supposed to explain yourself? You expected Paul to tease you, make some sex jokes, and maybe try to make out with you again, but he didn’t. He looked absolutely crushed. 

“Do you not want to have sex with me?” He asked, sounding on the verge of tears. 

“What?! Paul, of course I want to have sex with you!”

“Then why this?” he pressed.

“You don’t even know what that’s for. Let me explain,” you pleaded, afraid he was going to lose that infamous temper. You’d never witnessed it before, but you were scared you were about to. 

“I think I have a pretty good guess about what this is for!” He exclaimed, holding it up. “You won’t even let me kiss your neck but you have this that you obviously use when I’m not around. You don’t want to have sex with me. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Paul! That’s not true at all!” You were starting to get irritated at his assumptions. “It’s for physical therapy.” 

“Oh, is that what we’re calling orgasms now?” He questioned, exasperated. 

“I’m not talking about orgasms! If you gave me two seconds to explain, you would know that that does not bring me an ounce of pleasure. I hate having to use it.” You started to tear up at this, all the memories of your struggles surging back up. At this, Paul stopped. He looked super confused, but also worried about you. God forbid you shed a tear, Paul would rip the world apart to make you happy again. “Come sit down,” you said, resigned, as you moved to sit on the edge of your bed. Paul, still holding the dilator in his hand, sat down next to you. The silence seemed to last an eternity, but you knew that the longer you went without explaining, the more hurt Paul would feel. 

“I wasn’t lying when I said it was for physical therapy,” you whispered. “I have other ones. All different sizes.” You realized you might not have been helping your case with this. 

“I don’t understand. Why do you need them if you don’t use them to get off?” He looked like a kicked puppy. 

“Well… I have this thing. It’s like… a condition? And I need them so maybe one day I can have sex without any pain.” He still looked wildly confused, and you knew you were going to have to elaborate. “When I first started having sex, it hurt. A lot. But I always heard that it was supposed to hurt the first time. So I just kind of put up with it. It was bad though. I always tapped out, couldn’t go for more than a couple minutes. It felt like this really intense stinging. Like a rugburn all inside me. And it didn’t stop, even after I started doing it more. It never went away… I ended up googling it, and it’s actually something that a lot of women struggle with. I made a doctor’s appointment and was lucky enough to get diagnosed the first time. Lots of women are told they’re making it up. My doctor gave me these dilators, told me how to use them, and said that with enough time and physical therapy, I could have painless sex one day.” When you finished, you turned to look at him. He was staring intently at the dilator, thinking. 

“So, you have to like… stretch yourself? Were you just born too small?” He phrased it delicately, but you knew what he meant. 

“Basically, it’s an anxiety disorder with very physical symptoms. My pelvic floor muscles constrict when I try to put anything inside me, which makes it super painful. It’s like an involuntary reflex. Like blinking when something flies near your face. And I have to condition my body to learn that penetration doesn’t hurt, and that it doesn’t have to tighten up like that. The condition is called vaginismus. You can google it yourself if you want.” 

“Oh.” A pause. Paul knew you had some anxiety, but he never guessed it could cause something like this. He knew you were embarrassed. He could tell. And the last thing he wanted was for you to feel like you couldn’t be open and vulnerable with him. Did you think he would leave you? Or get mad? “Why didn’t you tell me?” Was the question that came out. 

“It’s humiliating. I could tell you were getting antsy about us not having sex, and I guess I didn’t have the heart to tell you that it’s not going to happen anytime soon. This physical therapy, it takes a while. I’ve already been doing it for almost a year, and I still have three sizes after this one.” A tear fell. You wiped it away quickly, hoping he Paul wouldn’t notice, but he did. He moved to wrap his arms around you, putting the dilator back on your nightstand. He embraced you, and the reassurance that he wasn’t going anywhere was more than you could handle. You burst into tears as he pulled you onto his lap and rocked you both, rubbing his hand up and down your back. You guys stayed there until you stopped crying, and then he finally spoke. 

“Y/N, I don’t ever want you to feel like there’s something you can’t tell me. I love you. And yeah, I would love to have sex with you one day, but I’m with you because of who you are. I don’t care if we never do it. You are my person, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you the happiest you can be. This? This thing you think is such a problem? It’s irrelevant to me. To my love for you. And I will be here every step of the way, supporting you, cheering you on, until you don’t want me anymore.” He brought your hand up to his mouth and kissed it. 

“I love you, Paul,” was all you could say. You leaned in and shared the sweetest, most loving kiss either of you had ever experienced. His hand cupped the side of your face, thumb rubbing your cheek. When you pulled away, the tension in the room was gone, replaced with you and Paul’s usual light, fun energy. 

“How do you use them?” He smiled as he asked, nodding his head towards your nightstand where the dilator still rested. “Do you like… just ride them? Or..?” 

You laughed, which made his smile broaden. “It’s not a sexual thing. Basically I put a towel down, cover the dilator in lube, and put it in as far as I can without pain. Then, I just sit there and leave it for like 20 minutes. And then I take it out.” 

“So you just like... do homework while you do it?” His concerned face made you laugh again. 

“You have to make your body associate it with pleasure, so no, I don’t do homework. Normally I’ll watch a funny show or eat some candy or FaceTime you.”

He froze at this. “You do this when we FaceTime?” 

This made you blush and look away from his piercing gaze. “Sometimes. I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s just a nice distraction.” 

“No, no. I don’t want you to stop. It’s just… can I see you do it?” This question shocked you. Not just the question itself, but the fact that you didn’t hate the idea. You loved kissing Paul. What better way to associate therapy with pleasure than by kissing him while you do it? 

“Are you sure? Like I said, it’s not exactly sexual. Or sexy. Like at all. I literally just sit there.” 

“I know, it’s ok. I want to be able to help you, but if you don’t want to we can just go back to the movie.” 

“I mean I do still have to do it today.” You thought for another second, before jumping up and saying “Okay. Let’s do it.” 

Paul looked happy and excited, but also lost. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, or with his eyes. Did you want him to touch you? Or just watch you? Or just sit in the corner of the room and face the wall? You were spreading a towel across the middle of the bed, and went to untie your sweatpants before looking at him. 

“Guess we haven’t really gotten this far, huh?” alluding to being naked in front of each other. It did make you a little nervous, and nerves equal tight muscles, which means pain. 

“Why don’t you put a blanket over yourself? That way there’s less pressure,” he suggested, and you could have kissed him for it. You smiled, nodded, and grabbed a throw blanket from the chair. He turned around to face the wall while you took off your pants and settled under the blanket. 

“Ok, I’m good.” you said. He turned back around, coming to kneel beside you on the bed. 

“Do you want me to just… hold your hand? Or sit here and talk to you?” 

“Would you want to sit behind me?” You suggested nervously, leaning forward slightly. 

“Of course! Yeah, I can do that.” He took this seriously, and you appreciated that. This was a scenario you had thought about many times, and though you knew he wouldn’t be the type to ask you to have sex with him despite the pain, it was always a possibility. The fact that he didn’t take your pain lightly, and let you be in charge so you would be comfortable, meant more to you than he would ever know. Paul gently climbed behind you, putting his legs on either side of you, and hesitantly rubbing your shoulders. You leaned back into him, as if to say I’m okay with this.

“Can you hand me the… “ You nodded your head towards the nightstand, and Paul didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence before he leaned over and grabbed the dilator and bottle of lube, holding them out in front of you both. You muttered a “thanks” as you took them from his hands, and brought them under the blanket. After slathering the dilator with a good amount of lube, you closed the bottle and tossed it towards the foot of the bed, leaning back and shifting your hips down. Paul clearly didn’t want to overstep his boundaries, so he was slow and careful as he wrapped his arms around your torso, giving you time to say stop. You didn’t, though. He felt your body tense slightly as you dragged the tip of the dilator around your entrance, so he started to rub his hands up and down your sides, kissing your cheek. You turned your head to look at him, and he met you with a sweet kiss. You guys pulled away slightly, before going back in as you began to push the dilator in further. He kissed you with love, tenderness, and care, so as not to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable. It was clear that you had the reigns, and Paul would stop as soon as you gave the slightest indication that you were uncomfortable. The dilator was about half way in, and you felt a slight stinging sensation, but kissing Paul distracted you. You brought one hand up to cup the side of his face, pulling him back in. 

Paul kept kissing you, waiting for your lips to part so he could brush his tongue against yours. This is normally where you would stop him, but he knew everything now. There was no expectation of more, and damn. Paul was a really good kisser. He sucked lightly at your lower lip, before nibbling it and letting it go, coming back in with his lips. The combination of Paul’s kisses, the slight heat they brought to your body, and the pressure of the tip of the dilator inside you had you shift your hips, and involuntarily let out a small moan. It was barely audible, but Paul and his super senses heard it. You pulled away and slapped a hand over your mouth, your face turning bright red. He chuckled deeply, the sound going straight to your body, and brought his hand up to pull your hand off your mouth. “Don’t you dare hide those sounds from me,” he teasingly whispered into your ear. You shivered, and Paul started to kiss your cheek, down your jaw, and onto your neck. He sucked on the soft skin, hands squeezing your waist and rubbing up and down. You wanted to try something. For the first time, dilating actually didn’t feel so obligatory, so mechanical and stiff. You pushed the dilator deeper in, just about a centimeter, but enough to give you that feeling you had moments ago. You let out a breathy sigh as you tilted your head to give Paul more room on your neck. He felt you shift your hips again, and brought one of his hands to rub circles on your lower stomach. Skin on skin. And it felt good. 

You kept going like this for a few minutes, and Paul could feel your skin grow hotter by the second. Your back was arched, your neck covered in light red marks, and Paul had the intense desire to see you unravel. He brought his lips from your neck up to the side of your face, getting as close to eye contact as he could in this position, and said “Can I touch you?” 

You knew what he meant. The thought of it made you nervous. No one had touched you without it hurting before. It was almost as if he read your mind when he followed with “I can just stay on the outside…” Oh. You could be down with that. You turned your head to him and nodded. 

“Just try not to touch the dilator,” you said softly. You trusted Paul. He was already being so kind and patient with this, and you knew he would die before he would ever hurt you. The hand that had been rubbing circles on your stomach travelled lower. Lower. Lower. Until he could feel the slight stubble of a past shave, and then your soft, wet skin. You gasped as he touched your most sensitive parts, even more so because of how turned on you were. He gently made small, tight circles over your clit, your eyes rolling back in your head as you fell completely slack against him and let out a moan. A real moan, that Paul swore he would never forget. And he made you make that sound. It only spurred him on. He applied slightly more pressure, but not so much as to overwhelm you. And he knew that when girls were feeling good, the secret wasn’t faster or harder, but to keep doing exactly what you were doing. So that’s what he did, and it had you writhing. Your moans kept coming, and your legs had started to shake. However, because it felt so good, your muscles had started to clench around the dilator, and it was beginning to hurt. 

You didn’t want to rain on the parade. It was going so well. But Paul being the attentive lover that he is, noticed you begin to tense up in a new way. He brought his hand back up to your stomach, concern racing through his brain, and asked “Are you okay? Does it hurt?” 

“It’s kind of starting to. Not you, the dilator. I think I might take it out.” You stared down at his hand still touching your stomach. Such beautiful hands. You didn’t want it to end. 

“Do you want to try a smaller one? Or do you want to stop?” He questioned. 

“I really don’t want to stop,” you laughed. He breathed a laugh as well, and waited for your direction. You had a thought. Paul’s index finger was smaller than the dilator. Much smaller. If you just told him what to do and what not to do, that could feel really good. “Would you want to maybe… Nevermind.” You got nervous. 

“Hey, hey. No. Don’t do that. Tell me what you want,” He brought a finger up to your chin and moved your face towards him. “Tell me. Whatever it is, Princess. It’s yours.” Your whole body shuddered at this. He’s never called you that before, and to say it did something to you would be an understatement. 

You let out a breath, gathering courage, and said “Would you want to… use your finger?” 

He stopped at this. “Like, put my finger inside you? That wouldn’t hurt?” 

“I don’t think so. It’s smaller than this,” you said, bringing the dilator out and up. “And as long as I tell you what to do, it could be really good,” you said the last part shyly. 

“Okay, Princess. I can do that. How do you want me to do it?” 

“Try to do more… pressure, and less… friction? Like try not to go in and out so much, but you can move it around inside.” Your face was once again blushing intensely. 

“Anything you want. You just have to promise that you’ll tell me if it even hurts a little.”

“I promise.” You said it confidently enough that Paul brought his hand back down under the blanket. He circled your clit a couple times, making you shiver and release a breathy sigh, before moving his middle finger even lower, circling your entrance. He gathered some of the lube that was there from the dilator, coating his finger, and you brought your hand down to hold it, guiding it inside you at a speed that was comfortable. It was smaller than the dilator, so he was in you in 15 seconds. He stopped, and gave you a minute to adjust. Your hips writhed again because of how turned on you were, so Paul brought his other hand down and began circling your clit again. Your head fell back on his shoulder as you began to moan again, hips moving even more now. Paul took this as his queue to press his middle finger up against your inner wall lightly, causing a loud moan to leave your mouth. You were too far gone to be embarrassed. 

“There you go, baby,” he praised. God, this was the hottest thing he had ever seen. He was barely touching you, barely moving his finger inside you, and you were a mess. He had been rock hard since you guys started, but your ass was rubbing against him as you moved your hips, and he released a small growl at the feeling. This only turned you on more. He kept moving his finger in you the same way. Pressure, not friction. Pressure, not friction. He kept telling himself this. He wanted to finger bang you into oblivion, but the risk of hurting you was too high, so he kept up with rubbing the tip of his finger against that spot on your upper wall, in a “come-hither” motion. Your moans began to get higher in pitch, your body tensing even more.

“Relax your muscles for me, sweetheart,” he encouraged, and you did. Your release was approaching rapidly, and you wanted to grind against his hand, but you didn’t want to risk pain, so you trusted Paul to get you there. You were panting, hips shuddering, face scrunched, as your climax hit you like a wave. Your legs shook as you opened your mouth in a silent scream, and Paul carried you all the way through it. You came down, and lightly grabbed his wrists. He knew that that meant stop. So he slowly withdrew his finger, brought it up to his mouth, and sucked on it. Head still up in the clouds, you watched him, slack-jawed, as he popped his finger out and moaned. “So sweet,” he purred. Watching him suck on his finger like that made you think of something you’d like to suck on, and you looked down at Paul, still rock hard, and turned around in his lap. 

“Let me return the favor,” you said with a smirk.

[skippyv20]

Our Prayer List🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who is having a bad week, and needs prayers to help her through it.

Prayers and good thoughts for Richard, who is recovering well, but still struggles with speech.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend’s daughter, Sonia who  has a brain tumor and prepping for surgery. Another friend, Eva, is getting a divorce and is having serious financial problems.  Also, our friend may be asked to pay back her unemployment benefits even though she was completely honest in her application.  She has been out of work for a few years.   She is so desperate to find a job.   Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who had Covid a few weeks ago & haven't felt right since. Her doctors say she has Long Covid Symptoms! She suffers from anxiety, depression, insomnia and panic attacks.   Prayers and good thoughts for a 6 week old baby with Covid in our local hospital please - he is our next door neighbours family baby and he has to stay in hospital with his mum who has Covid too.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s precious Penny fur baby.  Praying her treatment for heart worm is successful, and that she has a quick recovery.  Prayers for her family as well.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s 18 month old granddaughter Allie, who is very, very sick fighting a skin disease in the hospital.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s father who had surgery for a displaced hip, and is recovering.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who is has surgery for bilateral mastectomy, and is recovering.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s 18 year old daughter who is healing and taking steps forward.

Prayers and good thoughts for Carol.  Carol is very overwhelmed by life’s trials.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend whose father has Parkinson’s disease.  Praying for peace, comfort and that they feel God’s loving presence.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s nephew and his 4 children.  Praying for them to have a happy, safe loving home.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s cousin who has 4 children, and has terminal cancer.

Prayers and good thoughts for our 8 month old Novenas boy who has had a bone marrow transplant.  Praying for his complete healing and quick recovery.  Praying for him to have a long, healthy, happy life.  Prayers for his family.

Prayers and good thoughts for our Novenas Baby James,  He is doing well and has two bottom teeth.  We pray for his ongoing health Prayers for his family.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who is estranged from her daughter.  Our friend is overwhelmed with worry.  Praying they will reconcile.  Prayers for our friend to be kept safe from falling on ice during bad days.

Prayers and good thoughts for Baby James’ “heart” brother William.  He has had surgery and is now recovering, we pray for him to stay strong. He is doing well. We pray for his family.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend whose mother has pancreatic cancer once again.  It is terminal.  Praying for peace, comfort and for all the family to feel God’s loving presence.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s husband from our Novenas, who is battling pancreatic cancer.  He is just out of the hospital.  He is not worse, so that is a blessing.    His 7yr old son is having a hard time.  Also, prayers and good thoughts for seven members of his family that have Covid.  

Prayers and good thoughts for our 9 yr old Novenas boy.  He has had his bone marrow surgery  recently.  We pray for his quick recovery, that the surgery was a success, and that he will have a great prognosis.

Prayers and good thoughts for our dear friend little m who is mourning the loss of her beloved husband, and she is feeling weak & quite tired.  He was her caregiver as well.  We pray for God to place earth angels on her path, to ease her burdens as she moves forward.  

Prayers and good thoughts for the Queen who has had such a trying year, and the future looks like it will be very trying for her as well.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s cousin Paul.  His cancer has returned.  He is scheduled for surgery in February.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s cousin who is recovering from surgery to have a kidney removed due to cancer. She is doing well now.  Also, her friend has a long time illness with no diagnosis.  She has just had surgery to remove cancer from her arm, but is too ill to have skin graft. Now her cancer is returning and she will need another op or radiotherapy. She has underlying health conditions and her husband has Alzheimers.

Prayers and good thoughts for all who suffer from alcoholism.  Prayers and good thoughts for their families and friends watching their loved ones suffer.  Saint Monica please intercede on their behalf.

Prayers and good thoughts for all who have Covid.  We pray for God to touch them with his loving healing hands, and restore them back to good health.  We pray that they will not have long term effects

Prayers and good thoughts for all that have not had Covid, that we stay safe and Covid free.

Prayers and good thoughts for all who serve the public in all capacities, to be kept safe and out of harm’s way.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend.  We are praying she doesn’t have a relapse, and can go forward in good health.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend and her family. She lives in Russia but are innocents.  

Prayers and good thoughts for all who are suffering life trauma for circumstances that have arisen due to Covid and restrictions.   There is so much pain people are dealing with.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who had bloodwork done and numbers are high, she is in pain due to other issues.  Praying for the next round of bloodwork to show lower numbers.  Praying for our friend to start feeling better.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s father.  His knee is not healing as quickly as it should, and they family is very stressed.  Prayers for a quick healing.    Prayers for them to be relieved of that stress.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s husband who had bowel surgery.  Prayers for his ongoing healing and more energy.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s son still dealing with depression, doing better, but still need prayers for strength.

Prayers and good thoughts for Hunnymae who is mourning the loss of her precious sweet furbaby...dear Hunny Mae

Prayers and good thoughts for our dear friend Storm who is struggling with life’s trials.  Praying for her burdens to be lifted.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend Finding the Way Anon and her family who are going through many trials right now.  Praying for their burdens to be lifted.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend PG.

Prayers and good thoughts for all suffering from mental illness and their families that suffer with them.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend in Kyiv and her family

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s 5 yr old son who has speech delay/echolalia.  Our friend is quite sure he has ADHD , but am now worried that the echolalia means she needs to consider ASD as well.  Also, please pray for our friend as she is so stressed.

If I left anyone out, please let me know…if there are updates or corrections required…please let me know….

God Bless you and thank you for joining us in prayers and good thoughts…🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

the wolf should’ve been afraid of me.

Titans 3.04

just under the wire! ... i hope.

like with the previous review, i’m typing this up as i see the episode. here we go!

spoilers ahead.

1. ... well. that was an interesting cold open.

1.25. i don’t know whether to admire this show’s restraint when it comes to gotham and its excesses, particularly arkham asylum. it’d be easy to go hammer and tongs, like suicide squad (2016) did, or any number of bat media did, at a tropey, colourful~~insanity~~ that can be quite damaging, casting mental illness in strangeness and criminality. it definitely shows gotham as... separate from the rest of the country, its own ecosystem of heroes and villains, a sort of rogue state. 

but that ecosystem is still human, with its heroes needing to clip parts of themselves away just to survive, growing old and needing to be recycled, its villains languishing in the same kinds of systems that fail everybody else who needs to be helped. it’s a quieter, tenser sort of wrongness: not strange enough that you can dissociate, but not close enough that you can completely empathise. gotham is its own creature.

1.5. i know that the reasoning behind this is more doylist than anything, but i’m so glad that joker was killed off with little fanfare right at the start of the season. he is the one man in the batverse that’s transcended its confines as this sort of ethereal boogeyman/eternal edgelord and to justify his presence in the series would mean giving him this tired, overblown importance and too much of a stab at colourful, tropey “madness” in this otherwise-subdued series. i wish all batmedia would follow suit and get rid of this fucker.

1.75. so jason is bucking scarecrow’s control! or reminding him of who exactly holds all the cards right now. circling back to what i talked about in the last review, it’s remarkable just how little time it’s been since jason’s “death” and he’s already got ‘minions’ and elaborately set up plans to track, break and kill the titans. just how long has he been planning this? when did he first look at WE weapons prototypes and think that’s something i can use to blow somebody up? and the most unsettling question: did he plan his own death at the hands of the joker just so that he could break batman?

at this point it’s obvious that the scarecrow at least started jason down this path, but it’s frightening just how far he’s travelled already.

1.8. aaagh, less than one minute in! i’ll shut up. 

2. conner washing his hands at the sink reminds me that he was directly in the line of explosion when hank got blown up and he’s probably got atomised hank-bits all over his skin that he’s desperately trying to wash off.

... you’re welcome.

2.25. conner, don’t you speak to gar fucking logan like that, sir, no!

2.3. if anything it’s the lex part of him that gave him the knowhow to recognise the weapon and build a de-activator for it. 

anyway, for that ‘half-breed’ and ‘talking tiger’ comment?

(i wish, tho, that we actually see conner more interested in the superman part of his legacy, like maybe listening to stories from gar, or even better, dick, so we get a better idea of the pressure he’s feeling to live up to that part of him and not the part that’s lex.)

((i talked about conner’s stages of moral development in his introductory episode last season, but i wonder if the next stage of his self-actualisation would be to further integrate the parts of himself and realise that they are only parts and he, conner, is an entirely different person unto himself that can make decisions on how to use what he has and what he knows. his superman abilities can be used to destroy. his lex knowledge can be used to save.))

3. oh dawn :((

3.25. is this the last we see of dawn and hank? i mean, we know donna is coming back; would it be a stretch to think they’ll try to have a go at resurrecting hank as well?

3.5. “deathstroke didn’t make us into killers.” good, because deathstroke didn’t make jason a killer either. there’s a missing step there you need to be looking for, dick. 

3.75. dick did try to break the cycle, step away from gotham, run from the possibility that he could turn into batman. it didn’t help; he couldn’t fully withdraw from his vigilante persona the same time he loathed it, and batman literally haunted him both asleep and awake. but maybe gotham doesn’t have to turn anybody into anything. maybe gotham has nothing to do with it at all. it’s about taking responsibility, realising some sacrifices are pure bullshit, and building an actual family instead of merely a team.

anyway: hugs!

(oh, also? mr “i hate flying”? i mean, there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate flying that’s not related to childhood trauma, but then again, this guy was literally a ‘flying grayson’ once. also also, remember that he also gets sea-sick. must’ve a lot of fun stories to tell.)

4. ooh that gar/kory confrontation was brief but cool!

listen, i have never seen a psychiatrist with that extravagant an office and SIR I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW--

4.5. kory’s so unused to reaching out for help and it’s breaking my heart that HPG likely is some kind of impostor that’s maybe causing her symptoms in the first place. 

kory and dick have mostly been apart this season but it’s remarkable how their journeys have paralleled each other; kory processes her grief, isolation and existential dread into a determination to take care of this new family she has, no matter what it takes; dick does much the same, forging ahead with plans and solutions until he has no fuel left in him and spirals into a massive breakdown.

4.25. listen titans this really is a TERRIBLE continuity error. we aren’t goldfish; we can clearly remember that two minutes ago it was gar’s upper arm that was burned, not his forearm. COME ON.

“sensory deprivation tank” *SNORT*

anyway, gar is the BEST

4.5. i wonder where these visions of experimentation took place. was it on tamaran, or on earth, after she came to hunt down rachel/trigon and before she lost all her memories? is HPG a part of the scientist group that experimented on her? ... god, i hope not. i mean, i think he is, but it would be cool to have some positive therapist representation in media. 

5. you’d think the van transporting a dangerous supervillain that only batman could catch would be more secure but... i’m also not entirely surprised. 

5.15. i love dick gives ZERO shits about hiding himself or even ensuring scarecrow is adequately contained. just turns away after kidnapping him in BROAD DAYLIGHT and says ‘let’s go’. I LOVE THIS DUMBASS

6. lmao gar is having a really really shitty day SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK or just a goddamn story arc of his own

6.5. i’m really confused about the timeline here. so... sometime ago, kory came down to earth to hunt down trigon, yeah? at some further point down the line she and her sister were kidnapped and experimented on. THEN she somehow escapes but... loses her memory? a few months pass and then we see blackfire alive and well and free; she kills faddei, can impersonate other people, and is clearly seeking out kory. but now she’s still in the experiment facility...? what’s going on?

i’m not entirely surprised about the facility being mostly deserted. either the biggest investors in this project gave up on it and it was left to the most fanatic to carry on, or they were deliberately trying to lure kory and get her to free blackfire--expand the environs of the experiment, so to speak.

7. hopefully barbara is going to get something to do other than listen to various men give her Attitude

8. how do you terrorise a terrorist? well:

i love when dick is a scary-competent motherfucker.

8.25. ooooh, the attack on crane at arkham a ploy to get crane to blackgate? nice one dick, i didn’t even think of that. but why though? to protect crane from the titans? to intercept the van to blackgate and “rescue” him? seems likely--red hood was there, except dick got to crane quicker.

9. still reeeallly unclear about the komand’r situation. was komand’r captured after s2? is this all A TRAP?? if so, why are you stepping into the only thing that can contain you, kory????

9.25. so... definite parallels between dick/jason and kory/kom here. i’m just. i’m still. really confused. i’ll shut up now.

10. this may be my favourite dick look yet:

woodsman!dick in a beanie.

10.5. i unironically love how titans has made this bizarrely-devoted-to-his-moniker, toxin-spewing supervillain into a tamer version of hannibal, psychoanalysing his victims into submission. it’s of a piece with how inward looking titans is, the way all of its villains are obsessed with how our protagonists’ minds work, to the point where they would actually spend time inside of them. 

there are no big plots to end the world. no apocalypses or endgames here. these villains collect the titans’ insecurities like infinity stones. the way the titans defeat them is by achieving character growth--literally winning by the power of love. literally “the real superpower is the friends we made along the way”!

10.7. anyway, i’m betting dick is used to this bullshit from crane and is humouring him in the service of getting more information. the story about the wolf? an implicit threat, not to mention dick getting to control what crane knows about him and what methods he would use to manipulate him.

am i giving dick too much credit here? i don’t think so. he’s really impressed me so far this season.

10.75. like. there’s a real unreliable narrator vibe coming off with every person that talks about bruce (much like how the various members of the titans talked about jason’s motivations) and to buy into crane’s talk about bruce being a psychopath is to fall for the same manipulation that jason fell for. dick is the only person who hasn’t really psychoanalysed bruce this season, and i think some part of his detective brain is piecing things together into a bigger picture.

11. i’m glad kory rescued kom but did she have to kill the scientist?

(i mean, yeah, probably - the less people know that kom escaped the less likely they’re going to have the fucking govt on their doorstep, but still.)

11.5. dick’s gonna come back to wayne manor, stare straight at komand’r and go, well which room would you like? because the team might as well adopt ANOTHER person, yeah?

12. oh MAN that red hood/nightwing fight was AMAZING! and he did the thing! the boomerang escrima thing! i’m so delighted!

12.5. the anger and disbelief in dick’s voice when he says you told crane EVERYTHING?! tells me that he knew exactly what he was telling crane himself.

12.75. “everything you are is because of him” - oh that reminds me of halluci!bruce from last season. i hope we see halluci!bruce again--he is so vicious but so entertaining... so much more effective at tearing dick down than crane or jason combined. goes to show that dick’s biggest enemy is own fucking head.

12.8. oh no! dick’s shot! crane is in the wind with red hood! blackfire is now with the titans! i love it!

honestly this season’s pacing is such a big step up from the last couple. gold star, show.

[emily-the-fae]

Sound of a Heartbeat

Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

Here we go. This thing started out as a one-shot and grew into something bigger; here goes the one-shot/prologue that came to me a month or two ago.

Inspired by watching ONLY the first four episodes of Castlevania, when I had no idea about the whole vampire community and there were only Dracula and his hellish demons.

!!!I have no beta!!!

Pairing: Dracula x OC

Warnings: umm none? angst, suicidal mood, a bit of tuberculosis, blood

a lonely cold night, a campfire and a shivering human next to it, with a dark shadow watching from behind the trees

***

The night had already creeped over the woods, and the fire was now standing out against the dark tree trunks. Shari sat by the bonfire, a long stick in her hand, lazily picking at blackened logs that were soon to fall apart. She briefly wondered, how it was always her in the end, who was left alone, the odd one out of the four - Adrian, Sypha and Trevor seemed to be the main trio - with her following behind to support. Though in the end it was quite obvious this was the right way - the three started off together, she only joined them when Adrian called - wouldn't have done that probably, but with the demons nearing she could never be sure how safe it was to be alone and how far she could go before being devoured.

Not to say she was scared, though. Some months ago, when the plague only started, a wounded winged demon rushed at her temporary hiding spot. The beast roared in rage and threw itself at everything it saw, slowly weakening at then pain, apparently originating from the long gash across the creature's ribs. Shari, of course, being the healer she was, and already cursing her complete lack of self-preservation, tried to stop and calm it - which turned out easier than it seemed when the dusk neared. When she finally got to stop the creature from running around and get closer to the source of its torture, Shari suddenly found that the animalistic demon was much more animal and far less hellish beast than she initially thought.

The wound was long, but nothing too deep - nothing terminal if tended to with proper care. Surprisingly, lavander oils worked even on hell's children, the demon fell completely still and silent in a few minutes, after she tossed an oiled tissue under its muzzle. Shari then carefully cleaned the gash and wrapped it - as good as she could - the cloth would fall off in a couple of days, if all went well. The monster slept soundly as she worked, and she couldn't help but notice, that the creature was somewhat a mix between a bat and a wolf, which amused her greatly for some reason.

Before the night fell, Shari took off from the spot, hoping for the monster's sake, that her operation went well, and, for her sake, that she would never see it again. Unfortunately or not - she was wrong. At the next dusk the beast found her new hiding spot, landed itself on all fours and crawled closer - completely wolvish, like a wild dog interested in a humans life, it's ears standing sharply, signing interest and alert.

Ever since it followed her around - more of a domesticated wolf day by day, Shari almost got used to him. Through him she found out that the winged beasts were not to be feared - one flap of his wings and a loud screech told the other animals that she was a friend (she doubted that her normal spiritual connection to animals existed for those, but somehow it did work) - they would not have attacked her even if she walked among them. It was the wingless beasts that were to be kept away from - these were smarter, more demonic, less animal - Shari only twice saw these from distance and decided that she most definitely did not want to get to know them closer - they would devour her in one gulp, no mercy and no wolvish interest. Though, it was not like they would be the only things eating her alive.

Shari was well aware of what set the plague on the lands of Wallachia. The first time she met Adrian was a little more than a year and a half ago when he stumbled into her small house at the edge of a village. The man was bleeding and in need of help, so she did the best she could. It was only later that she found out he was no man and her help was appreciated rather than useful. And it was him who told her to run away from the lands or go in hiding, told her of the threat; that in a year Wallachia would be set on fire. She had already heard the rumours of the witch and Satan in Tragoviste - these worried her grately, for the fear of the so-called witch hunters made her change her living spots quite often - but after Adrian's story it all started to make sense: Dracula the great vampire and his lost love. Raging out on humankind. So much of the centuries-old wisdom and learning of self control. But she knew it already then that no witty remarks would help her escape.

Adrian found her in a little more than a year of their first meeting. She was running, never stoping in big towns, never staying for longer than two nights. Sometimes sleeping on treetops - she knew she was fleeing from the inescapable, but by then it was the only way of survival. Shari agreed when he asked her to join them - not that she had much choice - but it was nice to be appreciated. She was far more limited in her witchcraft skills than Sypha, but was a much better healer, plus her immunity to the winged beasts turned out to be a very nice perk. Trevor growled, but tolerated her and hellish pet unwillingly at first - but then the demon stood up for the hunter during a particularly unpleasant encounter and afterwards Shari had spent a considerable amount of time healing up and easening the pain from his wound - and as a result even the hunter eventually grew more kind to the healer and her furry partner, who by then acquired the name of Rodo and somehow learned to waggle it's tale - weakly, but still a move.

And that was how she got in her current position: alone in the middle of nowhere by a campfire, Rodo snoring next to her and not a soul around - Adrian, Sypha and Trevor disappeared about an hour ago now, leaving her to protect their camp, and Shari had no idea when they were intending to return. The night was cold, and she half-consciously moved closer to the source of light and warmth. The dark trees around her formed a dreadful wall, only the flapping of wings far above her head and the occasional howl of some nocturnal animal would announce that she was not completely lost in time.

It had already started to snow a few days ago and the ground around her was covered in a thin white blanket. The cold air bit at her throat and lungs, causing Shari to cough up small pools of blood now and then. The irony. Just like all her life. Her name - Shari - meant Princess - but her life of surviving and sneaking had proved to be the complete opposite of the word. No, never a princess, not even once.Born into witchcraft, but never getting to truly learn sorcery. Accused of witchcraft - but for the healing and not the real magic itself. A healer, but sick with a disease she knew she would not heal. The second monster that would devour her, the one she feared more than the blue-eyed hellish creature.

Only two years before did Shari first feel that she was sick. It didn't seem serious back then, more like a series of colds, not a real threat. Now she knew better, she recognized the symptoms from many people that she had seen before, dying, weakening people whom nobody could help. And she was well-aware she stood no chance against that one beast in her lungs that burned her from the inside. She did not know how it started, but she well knew how it would end, and - to be fair - it scared her. In fact Shari was terrified of the way she could go - she could never tell how much she really had left: sometimes it seemed like a decade before her, but nights like this one, she could believe it was only a few months. Shari rather feared the weakness than the death itself - afraid to wake up one morning and understand that she was finally growing weak, that the logical ending of this sickness was coming and then the impending darkness would be far closer than ever before.

She brought a cloth to her mouth, whiping the droplets of blood away and suddenly, following some vague feeling, Shari turned her head upwards, staring at the opening between the treetops: the sky was clear tonight, endless dark sky filled with thousands of stars. Dark, cold, peaceful and lonely. The woman felt liquid going down the back of her throat - familiar unpleasant shiver ran over her, and she turned back to the fire, moving closer to it once more.

She was already willing to rest her head for a while, when she became aware of the eerie silence settled around her: the sound of flapping and the noise of nocturnal fauna disappeared completely, leaving the cracking of the fire and Rodo's snores the only to break the complete stillness. Something was not right.

Shari stood up carefully, looking around for any intruder, seeing nothing but the dark tree trunks and the white untouched snow. Rodo grunted and woke up next to her, his ears up in the air, muzzle sniffing - she knew that expression all too well - her furry friend was just as concerned as she was. Suddenly he jumped up, spreading his wings, and looking up at something behind her back. Shari turned on the spot and froze in a mix of fear and surprise.

There was a man in front of her now. Tall, almost unnaturally so, dark and sharp, his long black hair laying on his shoulders, ears somewhat pointy and eyes - she felt her heart jump to her throat - the red eyes stared right into her soul and Shari knew right away who was her visitor.

- What is it that you want, Count Dracula? - she hoped the vampire would not hear the tremble in her voice, silently cursing Adrian for disappearing when he was so needed.

- A glimpse of who my son is dealing with, to begin with, - the voice was low, but somehow pleasant to the ear.

- And you had no better way than to watch from the shadows? How classy. What are your observations then, Count? - hand on her small blade, she knew it would do nothing against him, but she had to at least try to defend herself.

- You are a good healer, - she coughed at his remark, feeling the blood rise to her throat once again and laughed bitterly:

- Well, not as good as your late wife. My condolences, by the way, - she bowed slightly. At least here she could be sincere.

- Unfortunately for all of us, no words can change anything that was done, healer.

- Oh no, no, no, Dracula, - with the way she was behaving, Shari was surprised that he still hadn't ripped out her throat. - I'm not playing that game of being good remorseful human. I am sure Lisa Tepes was a saint in her way - or so Adrian says...

- Does he now? - she noticed he got closer to her and she had no idea when he managed to do that. - But you aren't one? Is that what you were going to say?

- At least I'm actually a witch - not a turned, but a born one of course - though I do know a demon or two. And to add to the picture, I am also a thief, so yes, Count, I am definitely nowhere near as good as your late wife. And I am just as sure going to poke a hole in your chest if you make one step closer.

Shari took out her silver knife, staring up at the vampire in front of her. Somehow she knew from the look in his eyes, that her false bravado had no effect whatsoever. Maybe it was the slight amusement, or maybe the pity in his eyes, but she knew that he saw right through her and took her for what she was - a scared girl burning up from inside. Shari sincerely hated the vampire at that moment, hated for witnessing her involuntary weakness. She straightened her back, staring up at him with unreserved anger.

- You are not welcome here, Dracula.

- I am aware of that, - she knew that one step closer and she would have to either make a blow at him or step back.

- Then walk away.

- I am afraid that does not correspond with the initial purpose of my visit, - his response was calm, but the glint in his eyes made her insides turn cold.

- The purpose of watching us? - this time the tremble in her voice was audible.

- Oh no, I wouldn't have revealed myself for that, - his fangs seemed suddenly longer than before.

Shari bolted at him right then, blade in her hand, knowing well she stood no chance. If he was going to kill her anyway she might as well die with some dignity. Dracula caught her swift movement all too quick, twisting her arm and ripping her only weapon away from her. Shari screamed in pain and Rodo howled in response, wishing to help, but too terrified of his master to step in, tail between his hind legs and ears pressed to his head, he walked around the two, never daring to come near.

She tore herself from the vampire in a vain attempt to claim back her knife, droplets of blood from her damaged wrist coloring the snow beneath her feet. Dracula caught her swiftly, and she thrusted against him, fighting back with all the might she had left, helpless against his stone hard grasp.

His hand wrapped around her back, pressing her closer to him, her hands beating against his broad chest. Shari growled in her struggle, but couldn't do much. His other hand moved behind her head, almost gently removing the hair from the left side of her neck. As Dracula leaned his head closer to her, Shari finally froze, engulfed by the feeling of pure terror and helplessness. She pressed her eyes shut, stiffening on the vampire's grasp and feeling her whole body tremble, as he sniffed her.

When Dracula bit down, his nails scratching the back of her head, she shrieked, biting her lips, feeling him press her petite body closer to his, like a puppet, his fangs deep in her neck. She panted, clawing at his chest. An unwanted tear ran down the side of her face. Not like this.

- Shush, - her eyes were still shut, but his fangs removed for a moment and his grasp was no longer bruising, almost gentle. His voice seemed calming now, soothing. -Shush, my dear, no need to cry, - he whispered in her ear, his clawed hand slowly coming to caress the side of her face gently, almost lovingly, wiping away her tears. - My poor little girl. You don't have to fight. There is no one to pretend to here, - she felt a deep growl coming from his chest. - You know, you taste like sweetest wine, - she wailed quietly; his lips touched her earlobe and descended to caress the crook of her neck. - It will not hurt. I promise now. Just a kiss and a bright peaceful dream. Just like falling asleep, wouldn't that be nice, my sweet?

She felt a light touch to her neck, only a kiss, his lips touching her, hiding the fangs. The next moment the pain was gone; she opened her eyes and at once it was only her, Dracula and the endless starry sky above them. She held onto his shoulders, feeling his head pressed against her neck, her eyelids growing heavier with each moment as she surrendered to the long awaited sleep, now almost grateful to the vampire for the painless freedom he was giving. Maybe it was for the best after all.

- Let her go! - Trevor whipped at Dracula with no restraint. Him, Adrain and Sypha had been frozen in surprise at the scene they encountered, and the vampire-hunter was the first one of the three to return from the stupefied state.

Dracula hissed, but having to turn away from both the whip and Sypha's ice curses, knew he had better to disappear, leaving the small forest camp the same way he came. He intended no fighting with them that night.

Shari lay on the ground motionless and finally peaceful. Sypha was the first to rush to her, but unsuccessful in any attempts to awake her. Trevor and Adrian rushing about, trying to help move their defeated friend, and Rodo wailed quietly, crawling closer to the light of the fire and to the motionless body on the ground.

Dracula observed from behind the trees. He could barely see the motion of the three as his eyes were focused on one and only figure, still and peaceful, her face white and a small pool of blood on the snow next to her, the last lights of life were holding onto the weakened body.

- Sleep well, poor child.

***********

Here's what my mind came up with. There may be more chapters if I'm bold enough (they may or may not be written out and in the process of being edited in notes). But this one could also go as a separate piece.

Can't believe this is the first big piece I wrote in English AND actually posted.

[diesel-park]

hi hello i just need to toss my anxiety into the void for a moment because i cannot keep it inside me without having a freak out :(

i don’t have any concept of my body. i have to work really hard to remember which leg my ankle tattoo is on. (....maybe right leg?) every time i look in the mirror it’s a surprise. i need to physically shake my hands to determine right from left (potentially a fun side effect of dyslexia). in short: my physical being is constantly a surprise to me.

last fall we discovered a spot of skin cancer on my left shin (which i only remember because i love the giant scar i have now, and the corresponding scar on my right hip from the skin graft which has been a big fuckin hassle cuz it morphed into a hypertrophic scar so now i get regular steroid injections). as a result, i need to have my skin checked by a dermatologist every 3-6 months for the next few years to look for new and/or concerning spots. on the whole, i don’t care - having skin cancer doesn’t bother me unless i need to say the words out loud.

i have skin excoriation disorder (dermatillomania), ie, i pick at my skin. this results in an ever-changing assortment of pimples (of varying sorts), scabs, spots, etc.

and if you add all these things together, it’s a recipe for anxiety whenever a new spot is discovered. i have compensated for all of these by printing out a silhouette of a female body and, with the help of Husband, marking my moles, spots, and birthmarks. i bring this with me every time i go to the dermatologist - she thinks it’s a brilliant idea.

last month, we removed a triangle-shaped spot, about a mm in diameter, from my left hip. i wasn’t sure if it was a new spot, or a scab from picking, and my dermatologist couldn’t say with any certainty. turns out it was a sub-dermal scab.

and in the past two weeks, i’ve noticed two new spots on my left hand. one is in a prominent place right where my hand meets my wrist, and i KNOW it’s new. and i just found another one on my left middle finger. neither are from picking, they definitely look like spots.

my next appointment with the dermatologist is on 1jun. before then, i need to go to my family dr and get another referral, cuz the original one will expire before then (which is a hassle, but sure, whatever, i’m in canada so all of this is blissfully free for me, for which i am eternally thankful).

but like - fuck. what the hell do i do now? i just saw the dermatologist 3 weeks ago. she always emphatically encourages me to come in if i find anything else new, but...... what the fuck. what the fuck am i supposed to do here?

and truly, i don’t particularly care about the skin cancer part! if it was just skin cancer, that would be fine! but it’s the bad cancer, melanoma, which is known for metastasizing. so if i get a spot, and it’s cancer, and we don’t take care of it right away, then it can spread - which is the part i’m worried about. so i’m currently in this weird situation of feeling anxious every time i look at my left hand, and debating if this is worth making a fuss about, and not seeing melanoma but rather any other awful kind of cancer, like brain and spine and liver cancer (which my friend died from, after they found uterine cancer three months after she retired and it spread through her body) or bone cancer (which my grandma’s breast cancer metastasized to, and she died of a heart attack in my parent’s basement at thanksgiving, linked to her chemo treatments) or or or or or and so every. little. ache. or. twinge. becomes metastasized cancer. because who the fuck knows, it can happen any time, and we won’t find out until it’s progressed to the point that there are additional diagnosable symptoms.

so i’m going to spend my 10-day winter break from work, that i’ve been looking forward to for MONTHS, worrying about this. idf wtf to do here. i’m going to force myself into having-a-chill mode but UGH I DON’T LIKE THIS :(

[evabellasworld]

Storm of the Republic

Chapter 24

AO3 Link | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

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Summary:  When Tup murdered General Tiplar during a battle, Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex dispatched Ahsoka, Fives, and Yara to solve the mystery that was plaguing the Clone Army. Meanwhile, Senator Padme Amidala contacted Commander Fox, Commander Tori, Riyo Chuchi, and Dipper to help her continue investigating the death of Palpatine, suspecting that Dooku was behind the evil plot. But when Dooku send an ISB agent to stop them, the team had to race against time to search for the truth, which could alter the course of the galaxy.

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Holding a flashlight, Dr. Urakchaevy checked her patient’s eyes and noticed her eyes squinted towards the flare. Maria, the Rodian lady, felt her sight were blurry as the doctor found halos around her sparkling eyes, making her frown. This is unusual for a Rodian’s eyes to look like that, she thought, as she jotted down on her datapad.

Dr. Urakchaevy took a deep breath and sat back at her desk, facing Maria with a frown on her face. “I’ve checked your eyes, and it’s terrible. I can reach to the conclusion that you are having cataracts in your eyes.”

“I’m not surprised,” Maria hung her head low, her hands clutched together. “Is there anything you could do to cure my cataract from my eyes? I don’t think I can survive without my eyes.”

“I agree, nobody wants to lose their sight, but as you get older, issues like eye problems and chronic pains are inevitable. Do you have any history with diabetes before?”

“I’m afraid I do. I have been on insulins for years and I had my leg amputated because of gangrene, so maybe this could be the reason my health has worsened over the years. I guess I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Dr. Urakchaevy pouted as she bobbled her head before scribbling a prescription on a piece of paper. “Your appointment date for your surgery will be on Friday. The sooner we get your cataract removed, the sooner you can see clearly like a young woman.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Maria, as she got up from her seat and left her office, leaving the doctor alone. Grabbing a tablecloth and a sanitizer, Dr. Urakchaevy wiped every single part of her office as part of standard procedure, making sure her office was hygienic enough for her next patient.

Having worked in a hospital on Coruscant before, the turquoise Theelin had to sanitise both her equipment and patient’s seat to prevent infections. Medical centres treated various diseases, such as common flu, chickenpox, and the infamous Shining Death, which killed hundreds and thousands of patients two decades ago.

At some point, Dr. Urakchaevy was contracted with the virus, but recovered for a month in the hospital. Her wife, Thando, was pacing up and down back home, wondering when she would return. Nobody could visit the hospital ward back then, as doctors and nurses did not want the Shining Death to spread and kill more people.

Tossing her disposable gloves into the bin, the doctor groaned and stretched her back as she stepped out of her office, only to find Fives and Yara seated on a blue chair, with Tup still inside his gurney, breathing through his ventilator. She wasn’t expecting their company, but she was ready to help anyone who stepped into her clinic.

“Good afternoon, Doc,” Fives greeted her with a smile. “I’m Fives, and this is Tup and Yara. I believe you could help us with our situation right now.”

“I’m guessing Liana Halls had sent you here,” estimated Dr. Urakchaevy.

“Who?” Yara raised her eyebrows, gazing at the doctor.

“The medicine lady earlier. Did she send you here?”

“She did, Doc,” she grinned. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Dr. Urakchaevy stood there in silence and eyed Yara and Tup, taking a mental note of their current condition. The former was next to her brother with a dazed eye, munching on her cookies that Thando had baked while holding her forehead. She then glimpsed at Tup, who seemed to be in a critical condition and in a need of medical care.

“How long has he been inside?” she asked the ARC Trooper, agitated.

“Over 5 hours,” he told her. “Can you save him? He looks like he’s dying.”

“Yes, I can,” Dr Urakchaevy nodded, as she gestured to them to hurry inside her office.

Putting on another set of rubber gloves, Fives put down Yara on the doctor’s desk, helped the doctor to unstrap Tup and carried him towards the patient’s bed, before placing a new set of ventilators and a heart monitor beside him. The latter was beeping rapidly as Dr. Urakchaevy squeezed some oxygen for Tup, hoping to stabilise his heart rate.

“How is he, Doc?”

“He’s getting weaker,” she answered him. “Is he having a heart attack or something? He looks pretty young to have these health conditions.”

“It’s complicated,” Fives stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “We don’t know to explain this.”

“If you don’t tell me, it would be very difficult for me to save your brother. Besides, I’ve dealt with strange diseases throughout my entire career. I’m sure this isn’t as bad as the Shining Death.”

Taking a deep breath, Fives explained everything that happened earlier on Ringo Vinda. From how Tup was acting strange before the fight, how he shot Master Tiplee to death, and how he acted aggressive when he stared at another Jedi, without sparing a single detail about the incident. “We think it was a virus developed by the Separatist, but we couldn’t find anything through the scans. That’s why we came to see you instead, since you’re the best doctor in town.”

Dr. Urakchaevy blinked as she slumped on a black chair and crossed her legs. She stared at the floor for a moment, processing what she had heard from Fives. Out of all the patients she had treated, she had never thought she would come across a clone trooper until today. “Are you sure Tup isn’t having a case of PTSD, cause aggression is part of the symptom, you know.”

Fives shook his head, crossing his arms. “Tup, Yara, and I have been through many battles together and he never acted this way before, really. He’s been through a lot with us since Umbara. It was the deadliest battle for a rookie like him.”

“I see. Well then, I’ll have to apologise since I have never treated a clone trooper before, hence I’m only observing based on my experience.”

“No worries, Doc,” he assured her, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry for shouting at you. It’s been a stressful day for all of us, inclusing you.”

“Apology accepted,” Dr. Urakchaevy gave a slight smile. “Did you see a medic before you came to me?”

Fives gave a nod. “We did, Doctor. Apparently, the Jedi and the medic said that it could be a virus developed by the Empire to control clones like us. There were rumours about it, and I think it could be true.”

Dr. Urakchaevy could only burst into laughter as she heard his statement before composing herself. “This is the first time I’ve heard of a virus that can cause aggression in a patient. Honestly, it is the most absurd thing someone has told me, really. I don’t remember learning that in medical school.”

“You mean a virus doesn’t do that?”

“No, they don’t. I’ve studied and treated viral infections on patients and I have never seen a patient acting aggressive solely for that reason.”

“Well, maybe the Empire developed one in their fancy lab. It could be possible, considering they tried to take Tup away.”

“Even if the Empire had produced a virus in their lab, the first symptoms of any virus would be runny nose, coughs, fever, and lethargy. Did Tup have those symptoms before the battle?”

Fives denied. “He was perfectly healthy. It was unlike my brother to kill a Jedi General, you know. He’s not the kind to get into bar fights easily.”

“Yeah, he seemed like a sweet man,” Dr. Urakchaevy chuckled, before moving on with the next question. “What about his brain? Does he have any brain problems?”

“Not that I know of, though it could be possible. After all, he was rubbing his head before the fight, so that could be it.”

“In that case, I will start a brain scan for Tup,” she stood up, along with Fives. “What about your sister, Yara? Is she having the same problem as well?”

“She broke her left arm and hit her head after the ship crash,” Fives said. “I had to carry her all the way here since she looked dizzy.”

“I’ll get my wife to deal with her. In the meantime, you need some rest for yourself. It’s been a long journey for all of you.”

“What about Tup? Will he be okay?”

“He will,” Dr. Urakchaevy comforted him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can to save him.”

[booitislife]

Let’s Talk About Periods

My period is horrible. I have heard people who don’t get periods say: “It can’t be that bad.” Yes, yes it can. Some studies suggest that cramps can be a worse pain for women than a heart attack. My period technically starts a few days before bleeding. I get a period flu. A period flu is a few days of unexplained illness and flu-like symptoms (low grade fever, chills, etc) a few days before your period starts. I didn’t used to get this, but my body decided I needed this. The first time I got it, my doctor put me on antibiotics thinking I had a sinus infection. (She is proactive about fevers because I am a transplant patient).

My minor symptoms are bloating, diarrhea, lethargy, sometimes headaches, I get irritable, my breasts hurt for a few days, and some other lesser inconveniences. However - my biggest two issues? Pain and bleeding.

Bleeding - I bleed for eight to ten days every month. Usually the first one and last two of the cycle are light. I tend to have one or two very heavy days, depending on the month, and when I say heavy - I mean clots. Lots of them. I will soak through a ten hour pad in less than two hours. I have lost so many pairs of underwear. I now have “period underwear” that is darker or just old so I don’t care if it gets stained. The rest of the days are moderate.

Pain - This is the worst part of my period. I start cramping on day one and I usually don’t stop until the second to last day of my period. When I say it’s bad - I mean excruciating. I was once taken to the hospital by my mom because I couldn’t breathe right during cramps. The doctors rushed me in, thinking I was having a miscarriage, a burst cyst, or maybe appendicitis. They did lab work and ultrasounds. While I was waiting they gave me fentanyl, which is 80-100x stronger than morphine. I could still feel the pain. It dulled it, but didn’t negate it. The doctor came back in shock - there was nothing wrong. No miscarriage, no cysts, and my appendix looked great. These were just the cramps I was going to have to live with. I was given pain meds for every month - 20 - to deal with that I’m going through.

I have a few period journal entries that I would like to post. If you don’t want to read, please scroll down past the blue writing. Sadly, these are only four of dozens of examples.

September 17, 2020 - Day 5 of my period.

Woke up with horrible cramps that were so bad I was shaking. Slept on the couch again because I was tossing and turning so much from the pain. Didn’t fall asleep until nearly 4. Passed a clot which, usually by day 5, will alleviate some of the pain, but it didn’t. The exhaustion took over and I fell asleep until about 11:30, but when I woke up I was so tired I could barely move.

November 16, 2020 - Day 4 of my period.

I could not sleep last night. The pain is intense and comes in waves. The bleeding started to get heavy a little after 7AM. It’s a little after 8:30 when I’m writing this and I have passed 2 large clots and probably 5-6 smaller ones. I soaked through 1 pad already. I’m going back to bed and hopefully sleep for a few hours. Woke up with horrible cramps. Haven’t been able to get out of bed. Managed to get some food down to take my antibiotic, but that’s it. I am exhausted and the pain is radiating to my knees.

February 9, 2021 - Day 3 of my period.

I finally fell asleep around three, but I woke up a little after five with searing cramps. They went down my legs and around my back. I could barely think straight. I took meds, tried meditation, used a heating pad. Nothing helped, I finally passed a big clot and the pain subsided. I moved to the couch and was almost asleep when the pain started again around 9. I did everything the same - meds, meditation, heat. I’m going to try to get some more sleep.

April 14, 2021 - Day 2 of my period.

Having trouble getting to sleep. After taking pain meds and using pain cream on my back, the pain is just getting worse. I almost fell asleep, but woke up in pain. It’s 1:30 AM, and I am heading downstairs to lay on the couch with my heating pad. I can’t get comfortable and the pain is getting worse. It’s 5AM. I still can’t sleep. The pain is very bad. I just want to sleep through it and I can’t. Couldn’t sleep. The pain has somehow gotten worse over the afternoon. As of right now, I have pain meds in my system, pain cream on my back and abdomen, I took a very hot bath, and I am now laying with a heating pad. I am still in searing pain. I can’t do this much longer. I burst into tears a few minutes ago. Why won’t someone help me?

I have asked doctors, so many times, to have a hysterectomy. At first I was told I was too young. Then? I was told my husband would need to sign off on such a procedure. My husband was more than ready. If anything, he was just overtly appalled that he would have to do that, or that any doctor worth there degree would ask that. He asked what it would take for him to get a vasectomy. They said just call a urologist. “Would she have to sign off?” He asked indicating me, and when he was told no he said: “This is a ridiculous double standard. booitislife can make her own choices.”

I have seen 6 OBGYN’s in the last 8 years. The first told me I was too young. She offered a procedure called an Endometrial ablation. It does greatly reduce the bleeding issues. However, I wasn’t really worried about the bleeding - I was worried about the pain. She told me it wouldn’t really do anything for the pain, so I said no. I have to be careful with my transplanted kidney and any kind of anesthesia can be dangerous.

The second OBGYN was a man in the same office who was also conducting a cervical biopsy on me. I’ll never forgot the intense flash of pain and how I nearly yelled, but I did start to cry. According to my husband there was blood spray on the floor as the doctor looked up at me and said in a condescending voice - “That doesn’t hurt! Come on!” And then he laughed. He wouldn’t even discuss a hysterectomy. From that biopsy I learned I have pre-cancer on my cervix and underwent a LEEP procedure. They use a hoop wire heated by electric current to scrape off the parts that could become dangerous.

The third was about a half an hour away at a bigger hospital. He was the guy who did an endometrial biopsy on me. Different than the cervical biopsy, this was just a precaution after something looked off. He wasn’t as condescending as the others, and that biopsy came back normal. However, he wouldn’t do the hysterectomy either. He said I should go to a doctor in a hospital that has a transplant team - seemed reasonable.

Between the 3rd and 4th doctores I had been doing my research. I went to my nephrologist that was keeping track of my transplanted kidney, and told him about my struggles. He said he saw no issue with me getting a hysterectomy and, in fact, I should. He even confirmed with the current head of transplant from the hospital I had my transplant surgery in. So, I was off - feeling more confident. This new OBGYN was a doctor at my transplant hospital.

The fourth OBGYN - or as I call him “The Biggest Mother Fucker I had the displeasure to meet”. He dismissed a lot of my concerns quickly, and talked to me as if I didn’t know anything. Then, he asked if I wanted to try an IUD. Now, I have nothing against anyone who gets an IUD. If that is for you, and it’s working - awesome. I know my brain. I know my brain would focus on everything bad an IUD could do. I politely explained this to my doctor. This wasn’t an option for me. My panic would go crazy. He wrote some things down and told me he wanted to to a procedure just to check for any cancer cells that could be hiding, but (and oh yes, there was a big but) he would only do the procedure if I signed yes to getting a Mirana IUD. I had to sign a consent form before he would even schedule the procedure. So, I did. Then I canceled my procedure and never went to see him again. Oh, also, this asshole handed me pro-life pamphlets on my way out.

The fifth OBGYN - more trusting, no results. At this point I was exhausted. I was tired of trying and being let down, fighting to get an appointment. This OBGYN was a woman and she worked in the same office as the second guy I went to. I laid it all out for her. I told her what the previous doctor did. I told her about the pain, about not being able to barely move. I poured out my heart and soul to her. She empathized, then told me she did not feel comfortable doing my hysterectomy. Because the uterus is close to the transplanted kidney, she thought I needed a specialist. A type of doctor called an OBGYN oncologist. As luck would have it, there was one on staff at my transplant hospital. I waited and waited for an appointment. I waited for over a year. Finally they called and said they were just too booked. They had one doctor who did it, and it was most dire cases first. I understand that. So, I wasn’t angry or frustrated this time. The office at the hospital asked me if I would like to see another OBGYN on staff. I said as long as it wasn’t OBGYN Biggest Mother Fucker I had the Displeasure to Meet. I asked if it could be a woman and we set it up.

Okay, the last one for now. The OBGYN they set me up with was a resident. She seemed nice at first. We sat and talked about my pain, the exhaustion. She wanted to talk birth control options. Great. Her advice to me was to stay away from the shot and the implant. She agreed about the IUD not being right for me. So, she said she wanted me to start talking the pill. I stopped her. I had been on the pill twice. Once when I was 16, another time when I was 24. Two different kinds. Both times I had side effects. The most prominent was this intense stomach cramp. I would get headaches, nausea, extreme weight gain. I couldn’t live my life. I told this doctor that and she didn’t even look at me in the eye when she said...... “Well, I won’t even consider a hysterectomy until you’re on six full months of birth control.” It didn’t matter what other symptoms I had. It didn’t matter what I was and wasn’t comfortable with, not really. So, here I am, looking for lucky number 7 when it comes to OBGYN’s.

As I sit here tonight, losing a lot of blood through clots, being so tired I can’t think, but in too much pain to sleep. I found myself so angry. About an hour before I started writing this I had a pretty big panic attack. I haven’t had one of those in a long time. But - Tuesday night I slept for three hours. Last night I slept about five. Tonight it is almost 3 AM and I’m still awake. The pain is exhausting, but also keeps me awake. It also makes me tense. So, parts of my body started tingling. Instead of my logical side taking over and saying, “Yeah, you have been clenching for four days. You’re gonna feel odd things.” I convinced myself I was dying and had to take medicine. I am so tired on a deep level. I don’t want to have to go through this anymore, and I don’t know if that makes me sound selfish... I just.., I DON’T WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS ANYMORE.

So, here we are. If you experience cramps like I do, I am so truly sorry. You don’t deserve them, and if I could do something to help you - I would in a heartbeat. People should not have to live like this. Doctors should listen to us and hear when we say that something like this is, genuinely, detrimental to our lives. If we want permanent birth control whether it be our tubes tied, an ablation, or a hysterectomy - it’s our body. We should decide what we can do with it. Please don’t stop fighting. Please don’t stop advocating for yourself. If you ever need to talk, I’m here. Have a good night, anyone who reads this. Thank you for reading this long-winded rant. Take care of yourself.

[didanawisgi]

Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite

I always get vaccinated. I have been fully vaccinated with the Moderna COVID vaccine. My three daughters have all been vaccinated.

I recently learned that these vaccines have likely killed over 25,800 Americans (which I confirmed 3 different ways) and disabled at least 1,000,000 more. And we’re only halfway to the finish line. We need to PAUSE these vaccines NOW before more people are killed.

The CDC, FDA, and NIH aren’t disclosing how many people have been killed or disabled from the COVID vaccines. The mainstream media isn’t asking any questions; they are playing along. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and others are all censoring content that goes against the “perfectly safe” narrative so nobody is the wiser. Tony Fauci, the “father of COVID,” is still in his job even though all of this is his fault. Cliff Lane, who reports to Tony, is still sandbagging early treatments so that people will falsely believe that the vaccine is the only option. The Democrats are still asleep at the wheel by refusing to request Fauci’s unredacted emails from the NIH which will prove he covered up the fact he created the virus in the first place. Biden is clueless urging Americans to vaccinate their kids with a deadly vaccine that has likely killed more than 25,000 Americans so far. Academics in the medical community are nearly all clueless, urging people to get the safe and effective vaccine. When I tried to bring this to the attention of leading academics they told me I was wrong and not to contact them ever again. Sound too hard to believe? I don’t blame you. But there is a reason that this article is the most popular article that has ever been on TrialSiteNews with over 1M views so far. It’s because everything I’ve said is true. And nobody will debate me live about it. They all refuse.

Based on what I now know about the miniscule vaccine benefits (less than a .5% reduction in absolute risk), side effects (including death), current COVID rates, and the success rate of early treatment protocols, the answer I would give today to anyone asking me for advice as to whether to take any of the current vaccines would be, “Just say NO.”Waiting for Novavax (and other traditional vaccines) is a much safer option. If you get COVID in the meantime, treating with early treatment protocols that incorporate fluvoxamine and ivermectin is vastly superior to getting the most dangerous vaccine in the last 30 years.

Vaccines are particularly contraindicated if you have already been infected with COVID or are under age 20. For these people, I would say “NO! NO! NO!”

In this article, I will explain what I have learned since I was vaccinated that totally changed my mind. You will learn how these vaccines work and the shortcuts that led to the mistakes that were made. You will understand why there are so many side effects and why these are so varied and why they usually happen within 30 days of vaccination. You will understand why kids are having heart issues (for which there is no treatment), and temporarily losing their sight, and ability to talk. You will understand why as many as 3% may be severely disabled by the vaccine. You will understand why doctors aren’t reporting these as vaccine-related.

What I find deeply disturbing is the lack of transparency on how dangerous the current COVID vaccines are. Healthy people could end up dead or permanently disabled at a rate that is “off the charts” compared with any other vaccine in our history. Look at the death report in our government’s official Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) summarized in the tweet below. This is the most deadly vaccine we’ve ever made by a long shot. That’s why they have to give you incentives to get vaccinated. They need to vaccinate everyone BEFORE people read this article or watch this video of Dr. Peter McCullough explaining clearly why the current COVID vaccines are unsafe and completely unnecessary for our children.

The stopping condition of a typical vaccine is 25-50 deaths. But there isn’t a stopping condition for this vaccine! It appears we’ve killed over 25,800 people (based on CDC “unexplained deaths”) and nobody is batting an eye. The CDC is focused on how to vaccinate more people. Clinics today report as high as a 10:1 ratio of vaccine-related cases to COVID cases. So now we have a new health emergency: deaths and disability from the vaccines.

But this is just the beginning of our story. We have a lot of ground to cover. I’ll talk about Fauci, NIAID, CDC, Congress, academia, Cliff Lane, and more. I will close with action items you can take and how to treat vaccine victims.

Before we jump into the details, here are some key points:

At least 25,000 deaths from the vaccine. The OpenVAERS team think it is over 20,000 due to under reporting. But we looked at the CMS database and it appears VAERS is under-reporting by 5X. And the CDC excess unexplained deaths are 25,000 as well. It matches up.

NOBODY will debate me. People resort to personal attacks because they can’t attack the facts. But nobody who counts (e.g., over 10K Twitter followers) will debate me. I’ve tried everything. People are too afraid I’ll win. If you have at least 10K Twitter followers and agree to a recorded live Zoom debate, just say so in the comments below.

Biodistribution data shows massive accumulation in ovaries of the LNP (which instructs cells in ovaries to sprout toxic spike protein). Whoops. That was never supposed to be leaked out. We obtained it via FOIA request. The CDC never told you about that one, did they? Of course not!

82% miscarriage rate in first 20 weeks (10% is the normal rate). It is baffling that the CDC says the vaccine is safe for pregnant women when it is so clear that this is not the case. For example, one of our family friends is a victim of this. She miscarried at 25 weeks and is having a D&C on 6/9/21. She had her first shot 7 weeks ago, and her second shot 4 weeks ago. The baby had severe bleeding of the brain and other disfigurements. Her gynecologist had never seen anything like that before in her life. They called in a specialist who said it was probably a genetic defect (because everyone buys into the narrative that the vaccine is safe it is always ruled out as a possible cause). No VAERS report. No CDC report. Yet the doctors I’ve talked to say that it is over 99% certain it was the vaccine. The family doesn’t want an autopsy for fear that their daughter will find out it was the vaccine. This is a perfect example of how these horrible side effects just never get reported anywhere.

25X the possibility of myocarditis for teen boys (can lead to heart failure and death)

Kids already have natural immunity (Science Magazine article), so there is no benefit to vaccination, only risk. Have you ever seen the risk / benefit analysis by the CDC?? Ask for it before you consent.

No point vaccinating those who’ve had COVID-19: Findings of Cleveland Clinic study. No benefit, only risk.

Doctors who attribute adverse events to the vaccine are punished (such as Dr. Hoffe). So under reporting is incentivized.

The CDC refuses to say how many people have died and is “still investigating” heart damage in kids even though it is obvious why (free spike protein causing clotting and inflammation). A 25X increase when the only “new” thing is the vaccine isn’t hard to figure out. Ask the CDC for their current top 5 hypotheses for the cause. It will be more than amusing to see what they say. If it isn’t the vaccine, heads should roll.

The CDC is deliberately misleading the American people. Check out the side effects page. Death, disability, excessive miscarriage rates, heart attacks, stroke, inability to walk, talk, or see, Bell’s Palsy, persistent pain, Parkinson’s like symptoms, re-activation of shingles, blood clots, etc. are all missing.

>500X more deadly than the flu vaccine

COVID vaccines have generated more adverse reports in the last 6 months than all 70 vaccines over the past 30 years combined. They missed that one.

Defective virus design (s1 was never supposed to be free, inclusion of PEG was unnecessary and allows LNP to be widely distributed)

Strong opposition to vaccination by extremely credible voices like Malone, Geert Vanden Bossche, others

NIAID (Cliff Lane) is improperly manipulating the COVID Treatment Guidelines to make it appear these drugs do not work, thus giving the world the false impression that the vaccine, even if imperfect, is the only way out. Ivermectin and fluvoxamine have been confirmed in Phase 3 trials. Ivermectin has a very high quality systematic review, the highest possible level in Evidence Based Medicine. Repurposed drugs are safer and more effective than the current vaccines. In general, early treatment with an effective protocols reduce your risk of dying by more than 100X so instead of 600,000 deaths, we’d have fewer than 6,000 deaths. NOTE: The vaccine has already killed over 6,000 people and that’s from the vaccine alone (and doesn’t count any breakthrough deaths).

Vaccines skipped proper toxicology studies in order to bring to market faster. We don’t know what we don’t know.

The unpredictable and horrifying side effects of this vaccine on heathy kids, such as the 16 year old girl who was unable to speak and see just 48 hours after being vaccinated

Debilitating side effects can happen at any time because vaccine victims are very similar to COVID long haulers (Dr. Bruce Patterson has discovered this) and we all know that long haul can start at any time (even when the disease is asymptomatic) and could be incurable.

Because the vaccine is not perfectly safe, the government is required by law to warn people of the death and disability risks caused by the vaccine and to obtain informed consent. Always be sure to ask for the 50 most serious side effects and how often they happen. And find out whether they will compensate you if you are disabled for life from the vaccine. This is important because the blood clots can form anywhere with this very unsafe vaccine....

[elizabeethan]

Always By Your Side

Part 5/6 of It’s About Bloody Time (Season 3 Canon Divergent after Neverland). 

Catch up on Ao3 or tumblr!

Summary: “Not that,” she says, and she does roll her eyes this time. “I told them about what happened before. You know, when you left me pregnant in jail for your crime.” 

The tone she uses and the satisfaction she gets from his reaction is slightly sadistic, but when his jaw drops open and his eyes bug out, as if this is the most shocking news she could have ever told him, she can’t help but feel her pulse buzz with the sensation of sweet catharsis. 

“You did what?” he hisses.

A/N: One part to go!! The next one will likely be a bit shorter, and I'm sure you can guess what it'll consist of content wise! Thank you so much for reading, reblogging and commenting! Reading peoples' reactions is what keeps me going :) 

Anna had been brought over in the first curse. Apparently, she and her fiancé Kristoff were in the Enchanted Forest, or Misthaven, as she calls it, looking for information about her parents when the curse struck. When they didn’t return, Elsa froze her kingdom and searched for her sister for 29 years, which is apparently something that she can do.

When Elsa found Anna on a whim, working in the ice cream shop that Henry frequents, she jumped from where she was seated with Emma and Henry and nearly gave Emma a heart attack. As it turns out, Anna knew she needed help getting back home, but was too scared to ask anyone because she kept seeing the sheriffs with the Dark One and wasn’t sure where to turn. Whoops.

Now that all is well, Elsa, Anna, and Emma sit in Granny’s while Kristoff and David catch up and Henry sits at the counter with Hook. They’re considering how they might find their way back to Arendelle, but Emma can’t seem to focus on the conversation at hand.

She has been trying to muster up the courage to talk to Henry for weeks now. Killian rarely lets her forget that she’ll be starting to show very soon, constantly placing his warm hand over her 14-week, not-quite-there-yet baby bump. She wants to tell Henry, she really does, but something in her keeps stopping her. Archie says she fears that she will somehow damage their relationship, and she knows he must be right. He also agrees with Killian that this pregnancy is bringing up some unresolved trauma from her past. What a shock, she thinks.

Talking to Archie has been hard. She told him all about her past; about how she was pregnant and abandoned in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, about how she gave birth while chained to a hospital bed a couldn’t bear to look at her son. She cries a lot during their sessions together, and she knows it isn’t really pregnancy related (now that she’s officially reached her second trimester, her symptoms have been a lot less obnoxious). They’ve been working together for about a month now, and she still cries every time. But every time she starts to apologize, he stops her to thank her for letting him in and for allowing him to understand how she’s feeling. It’s weird, but she thinks she likes it. It’s... what’s the word he always uses? Validating.

“Hopefully I can get another portal working,” Elsa says, drawing Emma out of her thoughts.

Emma nods in response. Elsa finally found a clue of where her sister went when she found Princess Aurora back in the Enchanted Forest, who told her about the curse and that many people were trapped in another realm. “I’m sure you can.”

“Someone is distracted,” she says with a smirk sent Emma’s way, and she hears Anna laugh lightly in agreement.

“I don’t think she’s heard a single word we’ve said, Elsa.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in response. “You’re right, I am distracted. There’s a lot going on right now.”

Elsa nods and Anna smiles sweetly to her, taking a sip from her mug. It’s started to get really chilly out with Christmas just two weeks away, so Emma has successfully turned her new friends on to the wonder that is hot chocolate. “You still haven’t talked to your son, have you?”

Emma smiles softly, briefly, and shakes her head. She and Elsa have become fast friends since they met several weeks ago, and she finds that Elsa can read her almost as well as Killian can. “No,” she says. “I still don’t know how.”

“Well,” Elsa starts, reaching across the table and taking Emma’s hands in hers. “I suppose I don’t know much about your situation. I’ve never been pregnant, and I don’t have any children, but I am the daughter of parents who neglected to tell me the truth for much of my life. Trust me when I say it would have been better for me if they had told me the truth.”

Emma nods, shooting another glance at Henry. He’s laughing at something Killian said, and Killian’s eyes are lighting up as if he’s happier than he’s ever been. “You’re right. I know I have to tell him eventually. I can’t exactly keep hiding it.” As if on instinct, she removes one hand from Elsa’s and reaches it down to rest it against her miniscule bump concealed by a thick sweater.

Much later that night, she finds herself in bed with her pirate again, his hand running soothingly up and down along her the bare skin of her belly as she nestles her back against his front. He continues to press soft kisses against the back of her neck, his nose nuzzling behind her ear, drawing a breathy laugh from her every so often.

“You’re growing, love. Every day the little blob gets bigger and bigger, and soon I’ll finally be able to see him.”

“Or her,” she amends, hoping to keep an open mind. She corrects him pretty often when he mentions the baby being a boy, but in reality, she thinks it’s a boy, too.

“Aye,” he says, kissing her neck again. “Tuesday will be 15 weeks. The applications say you should be getting bigger now that you’re feeling better and the baby is growing more. She’ll be the size of a pear.”

“Apps,” she says with a laugh as she squeezes his hand. “You're cute. And I am getting bigger. I think I have a bump, it’s just hard to distinguish it from regular bloating.”

He hums. “You're rather slight to begin with, love. I believe soon you’ll start to show much more, if the apps are correct.”

“Slight?” she laughs.

“Slim, slender, small,” he says, trailing off and obviously attempting to not offend her.

“Mhmm,” she says. “I was small with Henry, too, but I was probably a bit malnourished.”

“Well, we won’t allow that, now will we, Swan? Perhaps I should go and get you some fruit? You may need it to revive yourself after all that vigorous lovemaking.”

She snorts, reaching behind her to pinch the skin of his hip.

“I would like some fruit, actually. And some Cheez-Its.”

“Sounds like a nice compromise, darling. I’ll be back shortly,” he says, standing and exposing his bare ass to her. She reaches for it quickly and pinches him again, drawing a yelp from him as he leaves the room.

She rolls over onto her back once he leaves, glancing down at her belly and stroking it in small, soft circles. He’s right, she is going to start getting bigger very soon, and it’ll become harder and harder to hide. With this knowledge, she’s faced with the truth: she’ll need to tell Henry, and soon.

~~~~

A week later, when she finally breaks down and realizes that she needs to buy new jeans, she accepts the fact that it’s time. Henry has to know, no matter how he may react. This should be one hell of a Christmas present for him.

She picks him up from Regina’s on Sunday morning, promising him breakfast and cocoa from Granny’s. The moment he hops into the car, she can tell that he’s in a good mood.

“Hey kid,” she says with a smile as he bounces into his seat.

“Hey mom!”

“You're in a good mood today,” she points out.

“Yeah, my mom and dad have been talking about Christmas. I might be getting two Christmases this year!”

“Oh,” she starts, startled by his exclamation as she pulls out of Regina’s driveway. “you mean with Regina and your dad? Because you can spend Christmas with me and your grandparents, too.”

“Really?” The excitement in his voice is more than evident. “Awesome! That’s three Christmases!”

“Yeah.” She smiles over at him, hopeful that his good mood will extend as they arrive at Granny’s. “Come on, kid. Let’s get some waffles, I’ve been craving them all week. And nothing is gonna keep me away from Granny’s hot chocolate now that I can finally drink it again.”

“What do you mean, again?”

Oops. She falters, then says, “nothing, come on.”

Once they're inside and seated, Ruby brings over a mug for Henry and gives Emma a look, as if asking if she wants any, and Emma nods.

“So,” she finally says, once they have full plates set in front of them. “We need to talk.”

He clears his throat around his too-big bite of waffle and looks up at her, his eyes wide. “Am I in trouble?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, you're not in trouble, kid. Just… it’s just that things are changing around here, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“You mean like you dating Captain Hook?”

“Yeah,” she says tentatively. “Sort of like that; I guess this relates to that.”

“Okay… so what is it? Is this about my dad? I know you guys aren’t together, you know.”

“No, I know. It's not that either, Henry. It’s… I’m… Hook and I…” She inhales more deeply than she knew she could, reaching down to her mug and taking a long sip.

“Mom, whatever’s going on, it’s okay.”

She smiles up at him. Leave it up to her kid to be more mature than her. “Henry… you're going to be… you're going to be a big brother,” she finally spits out before immediately going back to her hot chocolate, her ability to look him in the eye failing her.

“Wait… you mean…?”

“I’m going to have a baby. In June.”

She still can’t look at him, still hides behind her mug, but when he speaks, she thinks she can hear a smile in his voice. “Really?”

When she finally finds it in herself to look up, she does see a smile gracing his face. “Yeah,” she says, matching his expression with her own.

“I’m gonna be a big brother,” he confirms.

“Yeah, you are, kid.”

He laughs now, standing up and walking around the table to sit on his knees next to her in the booth, wrapping her in a hug. “This is awesome!” he says into her ear, and she swears she feels tears stinging the back of her eyes, even though she thought she was past this particular symptom.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah! Of course! Is it a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know yet,” she grins. “We can find out in a few weeks when I go to the doctor.” His face is still alight, and she’s in awe of his reaction. “Henry,” she breathes out, shaking her head. “Are you sure you're… alright with this?”

His draws his brows together, as she often does, and cocks his head to the side. “Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, because of…” she starts, looking down from his eyes again and reaching for her mug. “Because of what happened. Because of what I did—when I had you.” She’s surprised at herself for even getting the words out, and she thinks that Archie will be proud of her when she sees him on Wednesday.

“Mom, I thought we talked about this when you came to Storybrooke? I know why you did that.”

She nods, still in awe of his maturity. “I know, but I didn’t want you to think that I'm replacing you. This baby wasn’t planned or anything, but… well, we’re planning on keeping him or her. And I don’t want to make you feel…”

He takes her hand in his, and she finally finds it in herself to look up at him, to meet his eyes with hers, and she sees joy. “You gave me up to give me my best chance. You were in jail; you couldn’t have raised me. But now you're happy and you're in a good place. Don’t you know what that means?” She shakes her head, feeling more childish than her own child. “It means that you're this baby’s best chance now.”

She does feel tears burning her eyes now, the heat of them dripping down onto her cheeks at the sound of his words. “Henry,” she starts, choking on words before they can leave her tongue.

“I’m not a kid anymore, mom. I know that things have changed between now and when you had me.”

She lets out a breath, finding it hard not to laugh at the wise words coming from her son. “You are perceptive, aren’t you?”

“Well, my mom is a bail bondsperson, I guess it runs in the family.”

~~~~

Emma Swan was never very fond of Christmas. Normally viewed as a holiday spent with family, Christmas has been a dark mark on Emma’s past for as long as she could remember. Although she was in Storybrooke last year, she had only arrived a few weeks prior and the curse was not yet broken, so there wasn’t much celebration taking place. The obvious lack of decorations and Christmas spirit should have struck her as odd, but she didn’t think much of it at the time. Now, she realizes that no one who grew up in the Enchanted Forest celebrated the religious holiday. However, now that she’s here and her parents remember her, they are determined to give her a happy holiday season.

They plan to spend Christmas day together tomorrow, but for tonight, she and Killian will be spending Christmas Eve alone in his apartment, and they start by decorating a tree. Killian is determined to give her an authentic Christmas experience as well, and so far, he’s delivering.

He curses as he rounds the tree over and over, trying his hardest to string the lights properly as she stands off to the side and holds the strands for him. “Bloody hell,” he says as he gets stuck with another needle. “Wasn’t there an option for a non-living tree? That might not hurt quite as much.”

“This is my first real Christmas, Killian. I need to have a real tree.”

“The whole tree tradition seems silly to me,” he counters as he pokes his head out from behind again, the lights finally reaching the top.

“That’s because you keep getting poked.”

“Aye, well, perhaps the task would be easier for someone with two hands.”

She rolls her eyes with a soft laugh. “Come on, I have never heard you use that as an excuse, don’t start now.”

He rolls his eyes too, smirking over at her as he takes a box of red and blue ornaments from her, balancing it on his left arm and hanging them with his right. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s compensating for his missing hand.

Once the tree is filled with colorful balls and lit with twinkling white lights, they make their way to the kitchen to work on making cookies, and it takes everything in Emma not to eat the dough each time she breaks a piece off. She elected to buy both the kinds decorated with reindeer and with Santa, figuring the more the merrier.

“These are horrible for you, Swan. The amount of sugar…”

“They're sugar cookies!”

“There’s absolutely no nutritional value. Perhaps we shouldn’t have bought two packages.”

She rolls her eyes again as she opens the hot oven and places the tray inside, trading it for a batch of freshly baked treats. The smells wafts over her nose and fills his kitchen, making her mouth water.

“Please, I plan on eating so many of these that I give birth to a gingerbread baby,” she deadpans to him, pulling a cookie from the parchment and tossing it from one hand to another in hopes of cooling it down before hoisting herself onto the counter.

“That makes no sense, love. You just told me these are sugar cookies, why would you have gingerbread?”

“It’s a children’s book,” she says, grinning to him as she finally takes a bite, saying a quick goodbye to poor Rudolph.

He chuckles, rounding the corning so that he was standing between her knees and placing a hand against her waist. “Perhaps the little love will enjoy that story.”

She giggles—actually giggles—as she presses a soft kiss to his lips. God, she is so gone for him, it’s scary. “Perhaps.”

With his hand running up and down along her waist, finally landing on her ass, he pulls her to the edge of the counter so that she can feel the heat of him against her center through her leggings.

“We don’t have time to do this before the movie comes on,” she reminds him as his soft lips trail along the length of her neck.

“Hmm,” he hums, “perhaps not, but I think it may be worth it.”

She groans when he nips at her ear lobe, then traces the line of her pulse with his tongue. “After.”

He backs away slightly, letting out a sigh and pecking her on the tip of her nose. “As you wish, darling, but I hope you're prepared for what’s to come after this wonderful movie.”

“It’s called It’s a Wonderful Life, you don’t have to be sarcastic,” she says with a laugh, taking his hand and hopping off of the counter. He heads over to the couch and fetches her favorite throw blanket while she takes the last tray of cookies from the oven, then places the cooler ones on a plate and carries them to the couch.

“Sorry, love, I don’t want you to think I’m not happy to be here doing this with you. I’m honored that you wanted to celebrate with me.”

“Well,” she starts, plopping down next to him as he wraps the blanket around her tightly. “You are my baby daddy. I suppose there isn’t anyone else available who I’d rather spend my evening with.”

“Ah, so I’m the best available option, is that it?” he asks with a laugh, squeezing her tightly in his arms and pressing a firm and lingering kiss to her temple.

“Yes, well, my son is with his mother.”

“I’m only teasing, darling. I am truly glad to have you here this evening. And evidently, this film is a classic, or so my baby mama will have me believe.”

She turns her head, unable to move much in the security of his arms and draws her brows tightly together. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

“Our dear friend, Ruby,” he says as the commercial ends and the movie starts. “She asked me this morning how my baby mama was feeling today.”

“I never told her,” she mumbles.

“According to her, she’s very perceptive, and you're horrible at hiding it.”

“Shit.”

“The little peach will be able to hear us soon, Swan, if they can’t already; we may need to find new vocabulary.”

She scoffs, unsure of her ability to not swear, especially during labor and delivery, and turns her focus back onto the movie.

Killian seems to like it, and Emma assumes that it’s slightly easier for him to watch because of the lack of twenty-first century technology getting in his way. She’s always had a soft spot for the film, perhaps because she always hoped to find her family. She knew that she wouldn’t take advantage of it like George Bailey did.

He runs his hand up and down her arm when she cries at the end, kissing her temple and her ear. “That was sweet,” he says as the credits begin to roll.

“It was always my favorite. They based Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street on those characters, you know.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he whispers against her hair, and she feels another kiss against the crown of her head.

“You will in a year or two, trust me.” He chuckles and she turns in his arms so that she’s facing him. “I got you something.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Swan,” he argues, but she’s standing anyway, struggling slightly with her hips and back aching after sitting for so long. She heads for his coat closet and returns with a few wrapped rectangles, thrusting them towards him as she plops back down.

He looks to her before peeling the tape away from one of them, unwrapping them carefully and not even tearing the paper. It threatens to drive her insane, but it’s so painfully Killian.

When he finally removes the festive paper, he smiles at the sight of the book’s cover art. “Peter Pan, why the bloody hell would I want to read this,” he says jokingly through a laugh, hugging her into his side and kissing her cheek.

“It’s more of a gag gift, I thought you might want to learn about this world’s depiction of you. The others are probably going to be more enjoyable.” He opens the other two, revealing Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe. “They're pirate books,” she explains. “There are movies you might like, too, but I thought you’d want to start with the books.”

“Aye, love, I’d love to. I look forward to reading them.” He kisses her softly, his tongue slipping along her bottom lip. “Thank you, love,” he nearly whispers, his voice rough and deep.

“It’s nothing,” she breathes out, overwhelmed by the gravel in his voice.

“It was a wonderful gesture,” he kisses her once more. “I got you something as well.”

She shakes her head, but he catches her jaw in his hand and kisses her again before standing and making his way to his bedroom. He returns quickly with a giftbag stuffed with tissue paper.

“Did you have help wrapping this?” she grins.

“Aye, Granny gave me a hand.”

She laughs at the picture in her head and takes the bag as he hands it to her. She removes some of the tissue and pulls out a maroon leather jacket, drawing a grin along her face. “I don’t have one in this color,” she points out, looking up at him and cocking her head to the side.

“There’s more in the bag, love.”

She looks down again, her attention being brought back to the gift bag as she digs her hand in deeper and feels more leather near the bottom. She pulls gently, expecting it to come out with more difficulty than it does. When she removes the item, she realizes it’s because she wasn’t tugging on a leather jacket made for a fully-grown woman.

What she pulls out of the bag instead is a tiny leather jacket, the same color as the one that was just gifted to her. A matching leather jacket for a matching tiny human.

“Killian,” she says, her grin somehow growing and her cheeks burning. “This is… this is so adorable.” She’s laughing as she holds the jacket up again, then she stands and holds it up against her tiny bump. “It’s perfect, look!”

He’s laughing now too, standing with her and placing his hand on her belly. “I’m glad you like it, love.”

“I do, I love it,” she says, nodding and looking up at him. Without thinking, she places the jacket back down on the couch and reaches her arms around his neck to link her hands in his hair, pulling him down to her for a soft kiss that eventually turns heated when his tongue runs along hers.

Before she knows it, her legs are around his waist and he’s carrying her out of the living room and down the hall before gently laying her down on his king-sized bed. It was certainly an improvement from his small bunk on the Jolly Roger, and if she thought she was sleeping well there, she had a new thing coming when she started sleeping here.

He trails his lips along her body, lifting her to remove her festive sweater and kiss along the cleavage peeking out of her bra. She lifts again, undoing the hooks for him and releasing her breasts for him to ravage before he trails his lips and teeth and tongue down to her belly, pressing soft and loving kisses along the slight swell of skin before reaching to remove her leggings.

His tongue dances along her clit for several moments before he adds two fingers, drawing her to her peak quickly as he sucks and nips at her sensitive skin. She tugs on his hair, begging him to meet her lips with his before he’s pulling his clothes off and sinking into her tenderly. His thrusts are gentle yet precise, and she’s nearly driven mad at the feel of his scruffy face dragging along the sensitive skin of her neck. He continues to drive into her, reaching his hand down to where they're joined to rub quick circles against her aching clit, drawing moans and screams from her parted lips as she finally flutters and clenches around his throbbing cock.

It’s as he finishes, his face buried into her neck just below her ear, his hand squeezing hers above her head as her other scratches marks into his back, that she hears it. His lips press against her neck as he lets out moans and words of encouragement before she hears him whisper, “I love you,” into her sensitive skin.

She’s in a post-coital daze, but she knows she doesn’t imagine it. She knows she heard it without a doubt in her mind, and although her breath catches and her body tenses, her heart still beating rapidly, she doesn’t pull away from him. She doesn’t try to run.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and she knows that he didn’t mean to let it slip. “I’m—” he starts, but he doesn’t seem to have anything to say.

“Killian,” she whispers, running her hands along his back and through his hair. “It’s alright.”

“I didn’t, uh,” he starts, perhaps suddenly realizing that he’s still inside her as he presses his body up from hers and reaches for the box of tissues by the bed. “I didn’t exactly mean to let that out just then.”

“I figured,” she says with a smile, accepting the tissue he hands her and cleaning herself up.

“It wasn’t exactly… how I’d planned to tell you. But… Emma, you must know that I meant it.”

Now she panics slightly, a bit surprised at herself for only becoming scared once she receives confirmation that this is, in fact, how he feels. “You did?”

“Aye, very much so. I realize that you may not be ready to say it back, which is why I wasn’t going to say it any time soon, but…” he trails off, still struggling to make eye contact with her, which she doesn’t mind. He takes the tissues from her and tosses them into the bin before taking a seat next to her. “I don’t expect you to say it back. But I need you to know that I meant it. And it’s not just because of the babe. He’s certainly helped to… solidify things… but how I feel is independent of this little bugger.”

She considers this. Considers saying something in response. It would be the emotionally mature thing to do, and she’s certainly been working on her emotional maturity lately. But she has no idea what to say, and now she’s starting to think about how she truly feels about him. About how he truly feels about her. Now, she’s starting to worry that she may love him too.

Is worry the right word?

Before she can say anything, she feels a soft flutter in her stomach, as if she’s the host to a flock butterflies and they're trying to take off. She immediately lets her eyes bug out, reaching down to her belly and pressing softly into it in hopes that she’ll feel more. “Killian,” she says, pulling on his hand and placing it under hers. It’s silly, she knows; he can’t feel anything yet. But she wants him to be a part of this. “I felt him.”

“He moved?” he asks with a smile thick in his voice.

“He was fluttering just a second ago,” she responds, grinning as she looks at him with tears in her eyes. “You won’t be able to feel it yet, but…”

“Aye,” he whispers, finally meeting her eyes with his glassy ones. He leans in to press another kiss to her lips before leaning down and kissing her belly. He whispers, “nice to hear from you, little one,” before kissing her skin again.

She laughs through her tears and squeezes his hand as it rests against their growing baby. She can’t bring herself to say anything to him yet. They haven’t even been together for very long, only about four months. Is that even enough time for someone to fall in love with someone else? With her?

She thinks of what Archie would say when she starts to doubt herself and whether she’s deserving of the love of another, using the skills he’s been teaching her to challenge her negative thoughts, then focuses back on her child and its father. Whether or not she thinks of herself as deserving of his love, or capable of loving him back, she sleeps soundly with the knowledge that she and Killian are both madly in love with the life they’ve created together.

~~~~

Emma Swan has never fully been able to relate to the term “like a kid on Christmas morning,” until she woke up on Christmas morning to Killian Jones with his head between her legs. That comparison may be slightly disturbed, but the feeling she’s experiencing now must be on par with how a child feels when they wake up to their dreams coming true.

He was determined to make this holiday season a good one for her, and so far, he’s off to a great start.

Her hips start to jolt upwards, and he reaches his hand up and places it gently on her belly to still her before he laces his fingers with hers. He continues to draw thick strips between her folds, the sounds coming from him absolutely sinister and drawing loud moans from her lips. His tongue zips from side to side over her clit before he starts sucking it into his mouth and releasing it with a pop, making her hips jump again.

Eventually, she drags their hands downward so that she can let go and lace her fingers through his hair once his own reach her opening and press inside. He doesn’t bother to tease her open with just one, seemingly able to read that she’s more than ready to take two of his thick fingers. He may regret letting go of her hips as she moves them with ferocity against his face and fingers, but it doesn’t seem like he minds as she feels the low buzz of his moans.  

He makes her come so hard that, once she feels herself becoming lucid again, she starts laughing. It’s a soft chuckle at first, but then it morphs into uncontrollable hysterics until her eyes are watering and her face is red and hot. He starts laughing too, wiping his mouth and scooting himself up to her level to lie down and comb through the ends of her messy hair with his fingers.

“What’s funny, love?”

“I don’t know,” she laughs again. “I guess I was just thinking about what a nice Christmas present that was.” She’s laughed so hard now that she begins to cough, and he reaches towards the side of the bed and hands her a bottle of water.

“Glad you enjoyed,” he says with a smirk and a kiss to the tip of her nose as she hums out another laugh.

“I’m nervous,” she finally says once she’s settled down, sinking back into the thick comforter and into the warmth of his arms.

“For dinner? I thought things were better with your family now that you’ve spoken to your parents?”

She hums, nodding into his shoulder and turning onto her side, slotting her leg over his hips to hold onto him like a koala. “They are, but my mom invited Neal and Regina, plus Granny and Ruby. I get why—she wanted to make it feel like a true family dinner for Henry. But I still don’t really want to face Neal.”

He sighs, his blunted arm running gently along her bare back and his fingers tracing patterns into the back of her hand, and says, “you can still be upset, love. I’m not particularly fond of the idea myself, but you're right. It is a good idea for Henry’s sake.”

“You're always thinking about him,” she sighs, kissing his neck where she can reach it.

“Only because I’m always thinking about you.”

“Cheese,” she says, pinching the skin on his side, just above a rather nasty-looking scar.

Once they're showered and dressed festively, they head over to Mary Margaret and David’s loft for dinner. She never did understand the concept of calling it dinner, since they arrived at noon and they’ll likely eat at one-thirty, but she lets it slide. She’s realizing that there are a lot of things about Christmas that she doesn’t understand, but she’s trying to roll with it.

The loft is decorated to the nines, covered from floor to ceiling in red and gold. The tree is sitting in the corner by the stairs, and it’s so tall that it almost reaches the second level, and Emma wonders how on earth they got it up the stairs and through the door. It looks beautiful, as if it should be featured in a magazine that she sees at the dentist office.

Mary Margaret, dressed in a red and gold sweater and black skirt and covered with an apron that makes her look like an elf, rushes over to the door when they arrive and embraces the two of them in a warm hug. “I’m so happy to see you both!” she exclaims excitedly into Emma’s hair. She returns her hug with one arm, smiling despite herself.

“Me too,” Emma responds truthfully with a small squeeze.

“Killian, you look positively dashing in red,” she says to him, taking in his royal red vest and making his cheeks turn pink. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him wear it, and when she found it in the closet and insisted that he put it on, he cringed and groaned and argued. But when he pulled it over his black button down, she grinned in a way that must have broken him down. “And look at you, Emma! You look so beautiful in emerald.”

“Thank you,” she says softly, pulling away and brushing down the front of her figure-hugging cowlneck dress and making her way towards the stool at the counter. “Where’s David?”

“Oh, he forgot to get the champagne yesterday, so I sent him out for it. I also asked him to get some sparkling cider for you, Emma, so you can be part of the toast.”

She laughs lightly, feeling Killian’s arm resting along the top of her shoulders and his body sliding to her left. “Thanks.”

Her father comes home, giving her a tight hug and shaking Killian’s hand before wishing them both a Merry Christmas. When Henry finally arrives with Regina, she grins at the outfit she has him in. He’s wearing a black three-piece suit with an emerald tie that perfectly matches Emma’s sweater dress, and she couldn’t have planned something better. “Hey kid,” she says, reaching out to him for a tight hug.

“Hi mom,” he says into her shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”

They separate a bit, and she takes his face in her hands and looks at him lovingly before reaching up to gently feel his gel-cast hair and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. He looks like a tiny gentleman and her hormonal heart can’t handle it. “You look so handsome, Henry.”

He puts his arms out at his side and spins. “Thanks. Do you like my new suit? My dad helped pick it out.”

Ugh, she thinks, before shoving the thought to the back of her mind for the sake of her son. “He did great.”

“And look, the tie matches you!”

She nods back at him with a grin before kissing his forehead once more and releasing him, determined not to press her luck with the amount of affection he allows her to show. He is nearly a pre-teen, after all.

Plus, soon enough, she’ll have another kid to dote over.

She grins at that thought.

Ruby and Granny arrive soon after, both giving her a hug. Granny surprisingly hugs Killian first, although he doesn’t seem that taken aback by the gesture, then comes to Emma and runs a hand over her belly briefly and shooting her a sweet smile. It’s as if the world has shifted on its axis.

Regina walks over to her, much to her continued surprise, and wishes her a Merry Christmas. She thanks Emma for letting Henry spend the night at her house, telling her that he had a great time eating sweets and watching Elf, and that he was very excited to come down the stairs to presents under the tree this morning. “Well, I suppose that congratulations are in order,” she says somewhat awkwardly, finally making eye contact with Killian before turning back to Emma and glancing down for a moment.

“Oh,” Emma says in surprise. “You heard.”

“Henry told me.” Emma almost makes a snarky comment about being surprised that Neal didn’t spill the beans. “You should know that he’s veryexcited.”

Emma smiles and Killian squeezes her knee as if to say I told you so, Swan. “He is?”

“Oh, yes. He thinks that he’s going to have a baby sister.”

Emma feels a grin splitting her face at that, and suddenly feels overwhelmed by the image of Henry holding a tiny pink bundle, leaning down to kiss her nose, talking to her about magic and curses and fairy tales. “Thank you,” she says after a moment. “That’s… very comforting.”

“Yes, well…” Regina trails off, stiffening again and pursing her red-stained lips. “Best wishes to you both.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Killian says diplomatically.

When Neal arrives, Emma wishes she could indulge in some champagne like the rest of the adults in the room.

Watching him with Henry is reassuring, at least. He’s proven himself to be a fairly devoted father, now that he’s in his son’s life, and she knows that she can’t hold their past over his head forever. She also knows that she isn’t ready to fully forgive him yet, but she can put their history to the side for the sake of their son… today.

At least, that’s what she had hoped, until he came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, making her flinch. “Hey, Ems,” he says, miraculously able to read her body language and removing his hand.

“Hey.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, thanks. You too.” She glances down at her flute of cider, wishing again that she could magically turn it into champagne to take some of the edge off.

“You look great.” She sighs, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, and instead doesn’t give him a response. “Emma, look. Since the pirate seems to finally be out of earshot, I wanted to come over and talk to you.”

She feels the heat of anger burning through her veins, her eye twitching and her fingers clenching firmly on her glass at his judgmental remark. “You're not off to a great start,” she says stiffly.

“Sorry, that was rude, I guess. What I meant was, I wanted to talk to you privately.”

“Okay,” she says tentatively. “What is it?”

He takes in a breath and lets it out roughly, taking a seat in the empty stool to her right. “I wanted to apologize. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I realized how stupid and selfish I was of me to go to you like I did. And for me to assume that the baby was mine. Like, that was really stupid.”

“Yeah, it was,” she agrees, not feeling like sugarcoating it. He’s right, it was stupid and selfish. Like, extremely stupid.

He laughs lightly, which only serves to piss her off more, and continues. “I guess I just got really jealous. I thought you and I could have worked out eventually, and he said he’s back off. I mean, we have a kid together,” he says with a laugh.

“Right, we do, and that’s great. But now I’m having a kid with someone else and you and I are over. We’ve been over for twelve years.”

“Yeah. I know that now. I'm sorry, Ems.”

She nods, still struggling to look him in the eye. It’s not exactly what she wanted to hear from him, but she supposes it’s a start. “I appreciate your apology, Neal, but I’m still gonna need some time. I can’t just forget about everything overnight.”

“I know, I know. Take your time. Just know that I’m here for you and Henry for whatever either of you need.”

She wants to roll her eyes. What could she possibly need from him? Henry, sure. She’s glad that he wants to be there for him. But her? He’s just being pompous. He’s probably expecting Killian to walk out on her the same way he did.

“Hey, are your parents okay? They seem kind of off today.”

She almost smiles, but fights it back, not wanting to be petty on Christmas. “They seem fine to me.”

“Well, I don’t know why it would just be me.”

Screw it, she thinks. “Maybe it’s because I told them about what happened between us.”

“Well, your mom knows I thought the baby was mine.”

“Not that,” she says, and she does roll her eyes this time. The idea that he genuinely thought that this baby could have been his still astounds her, the idiot. “I told them about what happened before. You know, when you left me pregnant in jail for your crime.”

The tone she uses and the satisfaction she gets from his reaction is slightly sadistic, but when his jaw drops open and his eyes bug out, as if this is the most shocking news she could have ever told him, she can’t help but feel her pulse buzz with the sensation of sweet catharsis.

“You did what?” he hisses.

“Oh, I told them what happened.”

“Why? You know I didn’t have a choice!”

She hums, still looking down at her hands and trying hard to fight the smile. “If you didn’t have a choice, then there shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“You're still making me look bad to my kid’s grandparents,” he spits out in a low tone.

“Oh, I’m making you look bad?” He’s triggered something in her now, making her whip her head in his direction and raise her voice just a touch too high. “It’s just like I said. If you didn’t have a choice, then your conscience should be clear. Doesn’t that mean you did nothing wrong?”

Before he has a chance to respond, Mary Margaret calls everyone to the table. She certainly would have continued to argue with him, but she keeps the spirit of Christmas alive in her mind.

Unlike the last time the entire family was sat around this table, her assigned seat is next to Killian’s. She also has Henry on her right, so she thinks she couldn’t be more pleased with the arrangement until Neal takes his seat across from her. It’s alright, though, she’s focusing on a positive attitude today, for the sake of their son.

“Before we begin,” David says, standing up once everyone has found their seats. “I wanted to propose a toast. Firstly, to Henry, for spending his first Christmas with his family, sans curse. The same could be said for Emma as well,” he lifts his glass and everyone at the table does the same, murmuring in agreement and passing around smiles. “I also wanted to say a thank you to my lovely wife, Snow, for graciously hosting this dinner for our family.” More murmurs and raised glasses. “And I believe she has something to say here as well?”

Mary Margaret stands now, holding her glass but not raising it quite yet, and each person at the table turns to face her. “Thank you, honey. I wanted to say a few words to Emma and Killian.” In surprise, Emma purses her lips and cocks up an eyebrow. “As I believe everyone here is aware, the two of them are expecting a baby in the middle of June.” She sees Ruby and Granny smirking at her from across the table. “When I first heard the news, I was surprised, and I didn’t handle it very well.” Mary Margaret is looking squarely at the two of them, and Emma thinks she can see her eyes glassing over as she speaks. “I wanted to say, to my daughter, I feel so much joy when I think about you having another child. I’m so sorry that my response at first wasn’t anywhere near what it should have been, especially coming from your mother. Now that I’ve gotten over the shock, I hope to support you in any way that I can. I cannot wait to meet my grandbaby and to see you as a mother again.” Emma’s eyes sting now as she smiles up at her.

“And to Hook…” she swallows, clearing her throat before continuing. “To Killian, thank you. I can see clearly now the way that you treat our daughter—like the princess that she is.” She chuckles a bit before continuing. “This pregnancy may not have been planned in the slightest, but the amount of love and respect you have for Emma is palpable each time I see the two of you together.” She smiles at each of them before going on. “I also wanted to apologize to him. David and I were not exactly accepting of him when we first heard the news, myself especially. But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that everyone deserves a second chance. And if there’s one person I know who has proven himself deserving of a second chance, it’s you. If the way that you treat my daughter is any indication, you will be a wonderful father.” She’s looking directly at him when she raises her glass, adorning him with a soft grin as a tear slips from her eye. Emma squeezes his knee this time, feeling the tears burning her eyes and heating up her cheeks as they fall.

“To Emma and Killian,” David takes over. “May their baby be healthy and happy, wanting for nothing.” Each person at the table brings their glasses to the center, clinking them together and giving her and Killian soft smiles. She doesn’t bother to look in Neal’s direction. “Now, let’s eat!”

~~~~

The weeks fly by, the new year coming and going, and before they know it, it’s the middle of January and Emma is twenty weeks pregnant. Killian was right when he said she would start to show soon—her belly has grown into a formidable bump, and the two of them can’t seem to stop themselves from touching it whenever they can.

She really needs him to stop touching it now, though, because she knows the ultrasound technician will be in any moment and she doesn’t want them to walk in on him tickling her like he is now.

Her symptoms have been relatively easy since starting the second trimester, the worst of them being the cramps she gets in her legs and her near debilitating heartburn. She remembers the heartburn from her pregnancy with Henry, but the muscle cramps are worse than she can recall. She’s been dealing with heartburn by eating small meals pretty frequently, and she finds herself to be hungry very frequently now that her horrible morning sickness is finally at bay. According to Killian's applications, she's gained a healthy amount of weight so far.

The anatomy scan is important and exciting, though they still haven’t decided if they want to know the sex. She’s looking forward to seeing the baby again and learning about its growth and development, hopeful that everything is going as it should. They’ve had many conversations back and forth, but they can’t seem to come to a conclusion on whether they should find out what, or who, she’s carrying.

They both sort of suspect that she’s having a boy, although they have absolutely no reasoning behind their thoughts. Henry is convinced that he’s going to have a baby sister, and she’s considering finding out just for him.

When the sonographer arrives, Killian sits back, finally moving to stop annoying her. She greets them happily, asks how things are going, and reaches for the cold gel before applying it to her bare bump. She scans the wand over her belly, showing them the baby’s face and body and organs as she notes things down and takes measurements. The process is a long one, and it seems to take hours of rubbing and pressing and Emma turning from side to side before she finally gets all of the information she needs.

“I can see the sex of your baby— very easily. This little one is not very shy! Are you two interested in knowing what you're having?”

They look at each other and she shrugs and smiles. She genuinely doesn’t know, and now that it’s time to come to a decision, she can’t see to make one.

“If you’re having trouble deciding, I can write it on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope.”

Killian laughs and squeezes her hand, looking back over to the screen at the baby’s round face and perfectly sloped nose. “I like that idea, love,” he says to her, and she nods.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Once they're home—or should she say, back at Killian’s place— she takes the yellow envelope from her pocket and places it on the kitchen table. Maybe they’ll have some elaborate announcement or maybe she’ll just rip the envelope open one day, unable to wait any longer. Whatever they decide, she knows it’ll be perfect.

~~~~

~~~~

Tagging: 

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @profdanglaisstuff @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook 

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.6

When Keith and Shiro left, Lance breathed a sigh of relief. Hunk’s father had to order parts from Platt city, leaving the two brother to spend the night at one of towns inns. Dropping them off, with Hunk, at Hunk’s family garage had been the first relief, the second was dropping Pidge and all her crap off at her house, and third returning home to Blue and a nice bag of blood. Stressed from his lack of sleep and house guests, Lance had drained a whole bag without thinking, something he had done since the time his Mami had had a fall at the home. She scolded him for fussing over her far too much, Lance not wanting to leave her all alone, despite the fact she was only in hospital overnight with a sprained wrist. All his Mami’s friends at her home had been jealous when he’d returned the next day with the biggest bouquet of roses he could buy. Taught to share, each little old lady was given a rose and a kiss on the cheek, more than one aiming for a cheeky kiss on the mouth. His mother all smiles and laughter over the attention he’d received. His Mami had such a great support network there, and he’d really lucked out on her care.

With his hunger quenched, next came cleaning through the house. Shiro and Keith had left their room neat, beds remade and everything else in order too, like they’d never been there to begin with. Not that he was looking, but Lance didn’t find a single strand of stray hair on their pillows. Almost as if he’d housed two ghosts for a evening. Letting his room dry out, and actively avoiding the mess, Lance cleaned through the whole first floor before finally admitting to himself he was procrastinating far too much. Stupid blood. His fatigue had melted away, now he had far too much energy, having already walked into the wall, kitchen table, kitchen counter, accidentally lifted the whole sofa in on go instead of just the end to sweep, and tripped face first over his coffee table. All his movements and actions were amplified by the blood coursing through his system, kind of like how he imagined popping Ecstasy. It was like some cosmic joke really. The worst he could expect was severe flu like symptoms if he accidentally drank bad blood, maybe a day or two of cramping then right back to being stupidly healthy. Bruises, grazes, cuts and scrapes all healed within a day or two, depending on how much blood he’d consumed. His dumb arse had fallen down the stairs before, broken his leg, and taken three whole bags of blood to heal the damn thing. He couldn’t win with his glasses on, and he couldn’t win with them off.

Doing a quick tidy through of the top floor, Lance finally faced his trashed bedroom. What he really needed was a maid... except he didn’t want a stranger in his house, and he didn’t want a stranger in his how’d he touching his things. All his bedding needed to be washed, his mattress needed to be stripped of its waterproof cover then aired once the rain stopped. Blue had had a few “accidents” on his bed, his mattress protector was an idea he could proudly claim as his own. Waking up to entrails between his sheets and seeping into his mattress wasn’t his idea of a good morning, no matter how happy Blue was over her caught mouse. He simply couldn’t find it in his heart to be mad at her, she was only doing what came naturally, and he definitely preferred the mice dead to running around messing up his stuff. Shit, maybe he should just join a coven and make a nuisance of at some other vampires lair... only, he didn’t get along with other vampires for the most part, and shacking up with a werewolf was asking for trouble. He was 44, it was well past time to put his big pants on and deal with things like an adult.

*

Wednesday was supposed to be a good day. He’d finished one of the family cases he was working on, his new window was installed with a nice new latch, he’d spoiled himself with a rather expensive bottle of red, and he’d assured Hunk that’d contacted Shay to confirm dinner was still on. He’d forgotten until that morning, almost spamming her to explain and apologise. Thankfully Shay was the awesome soul she was, understanding after he’d explained about his broken window.

Then it all went to shit.

Stuck on an “urgent” call, Lance had made a mistake. He’d been talking with a mother trying to get sole custody of her three children, online, offering her his business number so she could call and get some free advice. Not even five minutes in, he could already see why she was finding it difficult. No judge was grant her custody when she was more concerned about the next needle in her arm than she was about her children. On his personal phone he’d already called the police to request a wellness check after he’d explained the situation, but as he waited for a response there, he was stuck with a raving lunatic yelling in his ear about how meth didn’t make her a bad mother. She hadn’t even noticed he’d put himself on silent as he’d made the call. It wasn’t something that left him warm and fuzzy inside, he genuinely wanted to help keep families happy, with an emphasis on what was best for the children involved. This wasn’t his first making this kind of call, but it never got any easier. The mother needed help, she needed someone to reach out their hand and help her, but the system could only do what it had the budget for. He’d had a similar case nearly a decade ago where the mother had attempted to murder her children rather than share custody with the remarried father. She wound up commuting suicide, something that weighed heavily on his mind each time this kind of situation came up. It was nearly an hour later that the police showed up, Lance listening to the whole thing until it finally got too much, and he had to hang up. Snuggling up for some serious cuddles with Blue, the TV played in the background just so he didn’t feel that prang of pain... until it finally became too much. Spurring an unplanned trip over to Platt for some serious hang time with his Mami.

As always, his Mami was happy to see him. She could tell immediately something was weighing heavily on his mind, unable to even fake a smile or politeness to the other residents. Feigning exhaustion, he’d “helped” his Mami back to her room, crawling into bed with her and settling himself with his head on her chest. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t developed properly after being turned so young. He didn’t fit the stereotype for his age bracket, nor did he fit the stereotype for a typical 26 year old. His Mami didn’t push for an explanation, instead she stroked his hair and held him tightly. After being turned, he’d suffered screaming nightmares for months. His Mami would climb into bed with him, holding him just like she was now.

Whether she’d forgotten, because as much as Lance was loathe to admit she’d been doing that much more often of late, or whether his brother also felt the need for a spur of a moment visit, but when Luis entered the room, his brother wasn’t pleased at all to see him there. Luis had been the first to cut him off. Maybe because he was the oldest, he headed our first to carve out a life for him and his wife Lisa. Luis knew he had above normal hearing, mumbling about how he was a money draining blood sucker. A bit rich coming from a man who chucked a sook over his inheritance from their papi. For the sake of their mother, Lance just wanted to get along, Luis ultra polite in front of Mami as he fussed over her, making Lance feel he didn’t have a place by her side.

The drive back was depressing, not even his usual playlist managed to make it bearable. Rax was working at Balmeria’s, meaning he had to go in and ask for the pump to be turned on, the little shit further pissing him off as he mocked him for his down mood.

The goddamn cherry on his shit-tastic day was arriving home to find his front door wide open, with none of the lights left on. This was how people ended up murdered. He was going to end up murdered... but after the day he’d had, maybe a little bit of murder would be the best thing for everyone. At least his house was in order if he was to meet his demise... his only regret would be leaving Blue... and Hunk and Pidge... and his Mami. For a dead man, he harboured a lot of regrets over his imminent death. Saying a prayer, he wasn’t sure if God had time for his type, but he hoped that maybe he did. He’d been a good vampire, never drank human blood, never attacked a human, went to church and loved his Mami... now he was off to be murdered and his body dumped in a rolled up carpet somewhere in the back lands of Garrison. What a depressing thought. Fuck it, if he was going to die, his glasses weren’t going down with him.

Leaving his glasses beside the front door mat, Lance stepped into his doom.

*

“Hello?! Can you please not murder me, I’ve had a shit day!”

Someone was in his house. He could tell from the smell alone there were two somebodies. His skin has prickled with goosebumps at the first sniffs of the scent.

“Look, I already know you’re here!”

Because talking to his murderers was just how he rolled. Following the scent to the living room, he found his room trashed. Great. Just. Fucking. Great. No power to the house meant no security alarm and no security alarm meant no alarmed Pidge, meaning no forthcoming rescue. No forthcoming rescue meant at least his friends would be safe, which was one small mercy.

“We’ve got you, bloodsucker”

Lance raised an eyebrow. A fucking hunter was on his doorstep, well, not literally but he’d been good, he should have had a few more years of safety with his alias. What really made his eyebrow raise was that despite being decked head to toe in black, that voice very clearly belonged to the “Emo Edgelord” himself, sir “I’m too much of a douche to drink your coffee without protest”, Keith. Behind him clad in an equally depressing outfit was Shiro. Talk about bad fucking karma.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“You’re blood sucking scum, and we’ve come to bring your reign of terror to an end”

Holy fuck, Keith must have pop-cultured hard. The kid sounded like he was straight out the lowest budget slasher movie known to man kind. Ignorance was bliss?

“I’m not quite sure I know what you’re on about...”

“Shut up!”

“Look, dude. Take a chill pill. How about we talk? Look, the names Lance. I’m a lawyer, specialising in family law”

“You mean you rip innocent families apart! You gain access to their children and bleed them dry!”

“Um, no?”

“Don’t lie to me! I know you’re kind. What happened to your friends? What did you do to Hunk and Pidge?!”

What was he supposed to have done with them...?... right. Vampire. Dah... murderer, yep, right... pffft... He could laugh at how serious Keith was being if it wasn’t for the fact that they were indeed there to murder him

“They’re at home? I dropped Hunk off with, so maybe I should be asking what you did to him?”

“Don’t you turn this back on me, you abomination”

Lance crossed his arms in offence. He’d made them breakfast, they should be a little more appreciative

“I didn’t ask to be like this”

“So you admit it!”

Shiro obviously hadn’t trained Keith about how adults used their inside voices

“Stop yelling at me! Inside voice is just fine”

“Shiro, he knows us. He’s admitted what he is. It doesn’t deserve to walk this earth!”

“Keith...”

“Fuck this!”

Again with the yelling. Poor Blue was going to be scared with all the yelling

“So we can’t sit down and discuss this?”

“As Blades of Marmora, hunters of unwanted trash, our sworn duty is to destroy beasts like you! The holiest hunters of the Vatican, your blood will stain our blades!”

“My what now?”

“We saw your fridge of blood!”

Lance was starting to feel second hand embarrassment for Keith. He took stupid to a whole other level. He had the disadvantage when it came to the house layout, he had the disadvantage of being human, and he had the disadvantage of thinking with his anger and not his head

“Hurrah. I get blood packs from Platt”

Keith let out an angry snarl, lip raised... as if that could possibly be threatening?

“I’m going to kill you, before you take more victims!”

Keith threw himself towards Lance, twin blades sliding from his from his suit into his hands, silver glinting as Keith’s hands wrapped around the handles

“Whoa! Man, wait!”

Leaping back, Lance leapt too far, snacking his back hard against the hallway wall

“Scum sucker!”

“Time out!”

“Die!”

Lance had time to think “Oh, shit!”, as he ducked and rolled, wincing as the blades were embedded into the plasterboard wall

“Dude! My house!”

Leaping backwards into the living room, Shiro seemed pretty damn content watching Keith attempt to murder him

“Shut up!”

“Or we could talk?”

Keith snarled at him again, Lance really didn’t want to hurt the idiot. He was human... with a flick of Lance’s wrist he could snap Keith’s neck by accident. Holding his hands up, he backed up

“Would you just calm down before you destroy more of my house?”

The backs of his legs hit something, Lance tripping backwards like a moron

“Whaaaa...!”

Keith lunged forward, blades coming down at Lance’s face. With the most manliness of screams, Lance flinched at his impending death

“Keith!”

Called by the man formally known as his brother, Shiro, Keith paused. Lance laying there like a moron

“Let me do this!”

“Wait a second, he’s not fighting back”

“Because he knows it’s pointless!”

Well, if it was that pointless, Keith didn’t need his blades. Wrapping his hands around the blade, he pulled both from him Keith’s grip, throwing them blindly behind him

“Excuse me, I am right here! Why...”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!”

Dumb with anger, Keith swung at his face, hitting him fairly in his open mouth.

Lance didn’t know who was more horrified. Him for being punched in the mouth, or Keith who’d cut his damn hand on Lance’s fangs. As the blood on his teeth touched his tongue, Lance’s eyes widened in horror. He’d never... he’d never drank from a human before... he... it was... so fresh... and... god, what was that fucking awful after taste?

“What the fuck?! He bit me!”

“Me?! You punched me in the mouth!”

And chipped his goddamn tooth by the feel of it. Stumbling back, Keith fell back onto his arse, hand clamped around the wrist of his bleeding left hand. Shiro rushed to his brother

“Keith! Hold on, you’re going to be okay”

“He bit me! I can’t... I can’t turn... I can’t be one of those”

“You’re going to be okay...”

Panicked enough to vomit, Keith threw up next to himself

“I don’t feel too well”

“Keith!”

Keith’s eyes rolled back, Lance spitting out the blood in his mouth in disgust

“Yuck. What the hell is that?!”

God... it tasted... like metal? But not the taste of blood... it was like he’d sucked on a fishing weight, his nose firmly wrinkled in disgust

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! He punched me in the mouth”

Tapping Keith’s face, Shiro tried to rouse his brother... that wasn’t his brother...?

“Keith? Keith, come on, it’s Shiro...”

So this wasn’t an act? Keith wasn’t faking everything to lure him close?

“Is... is he okay?”

“Does he fucking look okay?”

Shiro was panicked. Ripping his mask off, the man’s face was ashen. For fuck’s sake

“Take his mask off properly, let him get some air”

Shiro did as Lance said, Lance cautiously climbing off the ruins of his coffee table and edging closer. With the mask off, he could smell sickness on Keith

“Somethings wrong with him”

“You fucking bit him!”

It was hardly Lance’s fault that the Vatican couldn’t design a suit that withstood his teeth

“No... wait, his blood tasted strange. What breed is he?”

“What do you mean, “what breed?”, he’s human!”

“If he’s human, his blood wouldn’t have tasted like shit”

Shiro let out a groan, Lance shying back as Shiro started rifling through Keith’s pockets before drawing out a spent syringe

“That idiot!”

“What? What is it?”

“Silver concentrate... with mercury. He must have injected himself”

What a fucking tool. Normal, smart, people didn’t go around injecting themselves with silver! Let alone fucking mercury! The idiot had gone and poisoned himself

“Well do something!”

“I can’t! It’s in his bloodstream!”

Holy fucking shit. Nope. No way. He wasn’t having a damn hunter die in his living room

“Get out the way”

“Wha-...”

“Jesus Christ, fucking move”

Taking just a smidge or revenge, Lance tore Keith’s suit open, looking for the damn injection point. Shiro’s fingers moved to his own blade, at which Lance cast him a very disappointed look. He was obviously about to do something very goddamn stupid for sake of this dumbarse dead beat. Letting his eyes roam Keith’s body, he found the pinprick on his neck, able to see the slight amount of residue built up around the marking

“Go get me a bucket!”

“What?”

“Or a bowl! Just hurry up!”

Shiro scampered off, Lance closing his eyes and saying a prayer. He’d never fed off a living human before, and thanks to Keith, he was going to for the first time in 36 years. 44 years if he was being technical. Shit. He was nervous as hell. The one taboo he’d never broken. For this... Lance’s stomach clenched, he’d been nervous about plenty of things, but this was whole other level nerves. Every cruel thing ever directed at him for being what he was... but Keith had gone and poisoned himself. Cringing, Lance sank his teeth into Keith’s neck, the taste in his mouth was rancid, he wanted to throw it back up and his damn mouth felt tingly. Pulling back, cheeks bludging, Lance tried not to spit out the disgusting sludge in his mouth. When Shiro finally came running back in, Lance ended up spitting blood all over him and not the bowl

“You drank his blood?!”

Ignoring Shiro, Lance forced himself to bite back into Keith’s neck, he couldn’t take another mouthful after this, his mouth would burn and blister, opening sores. Drinking quickly, he pulled back, spitting into the bowl this time

“What are you doing?!”

Letting himself drop back onto his arse, Lance wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His body didn’t know what to do. Blood was supposed to be good... it was good. It was fresh... soooo fucking fresh... but revolting... and the way Keith’s flesh slid up his teeth... Clenching his fists, Lance forced a breath down to calm himself down, before spitting again. Yuck

“What did you do to my brother?!”

Shiro sounded like the worlds most disappointed father. No wonder Keith was such an arsehole, that tone went right through Lance’s heart. Being punched in the face would be kinder

“I sucked out what I could... I think I did it right... I’ve never... I’ve never even drunk from a human before in my life... I couldn’t... he... he could have died... why couldn’t we talk?”

Shiro’s expression shifted to something Lance couldn’t read... No, more like he didn’t want to read the surprise and pain all over Shiro’s face at his shocked babbling

“You...”

Lance was getting teary now, disgusted with himself. He was covered in Keith’s blood. Human blood...

“Take him to the bedroom, use whatever you need... I... can’t do this”

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

WHO Announces Virus “Plateau” (Foreign Policy) Countries across Europe are beginning to reopen after months of restrictions. U.S. President Joe Biden has endorsed a proposal to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines, paving the way for accelerated production. But rather than achieving herd immunity, the world appears to be entering a new phase of the coronavirus pandemic, with more contagious variants spreading rapidly in places without stringent regulations or sufficient vaccines. In a Monday briefing, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the world had reached a plateau in new cases and deaths from the coronavirus, with numbers declining overall in most regions. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that the plateau was “unacceptably high.” Nearly 90,000 COVID-19 deaths were recorded worldwide last week. Thousands of those deaths occurred in India, where new cases and deaths have remained near record daily highs for days—and are still likely undercounted. Meanwhile, Malaysia announced a new lockdown on Monday amid a third wave driven in part by more infectious variants. Cases are rising elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia, as well as in Latin America—with potential consequences for political leaders.

Election reform controversy (Reuters) Democrats in the U.S. Senate hope today to advance sweeping election reform legislation making it easier for Americans to cast ballots, despite intense opposition from Republicans, many of whom support new restrictive voting rules at the state level. The 886-page bill would expand mail-in voting that was used widely in last year’s presidential election because of the coronavirus pandemic and would lengthen the hours of in-person balloting.

California expands drought emergency to large swath of state (AP) California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday expanded a drought emergency to a large swath of the nation’s most populous state while seeking more than $6 billion in multiyear water spending as one of the warmest, driest springs on record threatens another severe wildfire season across the American West. His emergency declaration now includes 41 of 58 counties, covering 30% of California’s nearly 40 million people, and he said a further expansion is likely as conditions worsen. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of the state and the American West is in extensive drought just a few years after California emerged from the last punishing multiyear dry spell. “We’re staring down at what could be disastrous summer and fall, with the potential of communities running out water, and fires,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Costa.

DarkSide Admits Hack (1440) Officials from the FBI confirmed yesterday a cyberattack that shut down one of the nation’s biggest gas pipelines was carried out by a cybercriminal outfit known as DarkSide. The group, based in Eastern Europe, is believed to develop, use, and sell ransomware—malicious software capable of locking IT systems until payment is made. Colonial Pipeline, which supplies an estimated 45% of the East Coast’s gasoline, shut down its network as a proactive measure after being hit with the attack late last week. In a twist, DarkSide representatives said they didn’t mean to create problems, but rather to simply “make some money.” The group, which claims to have an ethical code, represents an emerging phenomenon of hackers operating as enterprises—DarkSide even reportedly has a call-in number and help desk for its victims. It’s unclear whether the company paid the ransom; service is expected to be restored by next week. (AP) Meanwhile, more than 1,000 gas stations in the Southeast reported running out of fuel, primarily because of what analysts say is unwarranted panic-buying among drivers, as the shutdown of a major pipeline by a gang of hackers entered its fifth day Tuesday.

Central American leaders resisting Biden’s anti-corruption efforts (Washington Post) In a rebuff to the Biden administration, political leaders in El Salvador and Guatemala have forced out several senior judges known for their independence and anti-corruption zeal, underscoring the difficulties facing Washington’s new Central America policy. President Biden has put the fight against corruption at the heart of that policy. U.S. officials argue that graft is stunting Central American economies and driving citizens to attempt to migrate to the United States. The sidelining of the judges has raised concerns at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The administration is readying measures to increase pressure on El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, known as the Northern Triangle countries—including a name-and-shame list of corrupt politicians who would be denied U.S. visas. The efforts come as human rights groups warn of democratic backsliding in Central America, where the judiciary had emerged as a key check on presidential power.

Paris Teenager’s New Gig: Would-Be Queen of Italy. A Nation Shrugs. (NYT) Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, the son of the last king of Italy, gave his granddaughter a big 16th birthday present. In a formal 2019 decree, the “Duke of Savoy, Prince of Naples and by the grace of God direct heir to Head of the Royal House of Savoy,” amended a medieval law that for centuries had restricted succession in his royal line to male heirs. He bumped “our beloved granddaughter” Vittoria Cristina Chiara Adelaide Maria up the royal food chain, making her the first woman in 1,000 years to be invested with the authority to eventually lead the family and stake a claim to the defunct monarchy. “It was the best gift he could give me,” Vittoria, now 17 and a burgeoning Instagram influencer, said from her Paris home. But the gift didn’t include a crown. Italy is a republic, having abolished the monarchy 75 years ago for its disastrous support of Mussolini, and Italians have approximately zero interest in a royal restoration. “Never say never,” said Vittoria’s father, Emanuele Filiberto, an Italian television personality who claims the title Prince of Venice, which is also the name of his Los Angeles restaurant and former food truck. (“We do a lot of film premieres. We did Jumanji,” he said.) Obviously, he said, the monarchy wasn’t returning “tomorrow,” but he had no sons and the family needed a head of the royal household to run its historic orders.

Russian governor: School shooting in Kazan kills 7 students (AP) A school shooting erupted Tuesday morning in the Russian city of Kazan, killing seven students and leaving 16 other people hospitalized with wounds, a Russian governor reported. Rustam Minnikhanov, governor of the Tatarstan republic which has Kazan as its capital, said Tuesday that four male and three female eighth-grade students have died in the shooting. Twelve more children and four adults were hospitalized in the attack, Minnikhanov said. The shooter was 19. Kazan is roughly 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Moscow.

Deadly ‘black fungus’ cases add to India’s covid crisis (Washington Post) As coronavirus cases and deaths soared in India recently, doctors began to notice another disturbing trend. Some covid-19 patients who had been released from hospitals were coming back with different symptoms, including sinus pain, blurred vision, black and bloody nasal discharge and a dark discoloration around the nose. The culprit was a deadly fungal infection called mucormycosis that physicians say is increasingly preying on people with immune systems weakened by covid-19 and the steroids used to treat it. Though cases of the black fungus remain rare, its lethality and increasing prevalence have prompted government warnings, put doctors on high alert and added to the country’s health crisis. “The death rate from mucormycosis is 50 percent,” said Amarinder Singh Malhi from All India Institute Of Medical Science, a public hospital in New Delhi. “The death rate from covid is 2.5 percent. So we have to use these steroids very cautiously.”

100 days in power, Myanmar junta holds pretense of control (AP) After Myanmar’s military seized power by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, they couldn’t even make the trains run on time: State railway workers were among the earliest organized opponents of the February takeover, and they went on strike. Health workers who founded the civil disobedience movement against military rule stopped staffing government medical facilities. Many civil servants were no-shows at work, along with employees of government and private banks. Universities became hotbeds of resistance, and in recent weeks, education at the primary and secondary levels has begun to collapse as teachers, students and parents boycott state schools. One hundred days after their takeover, Myanmar’s ruling generals maintain just the pretense of control. The illusion is sustained mainly by its partially successful efforts to shut down independent media and to keep the streets clear of large demonstrations by employing lethal force. More than 750 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces, according to detailed independent tallies. Meanwhile, the junta also faces a growing military challenge in the always restive border regions where ethnic minority groups exercise political power and maintain guerrilla armies. Two of the more battle-hardened groups, the Kachin in the north and the Karen in the east, have declared their support for the protest movement and stepped up their fighting, despite the government military, known as the Tatmadaw, hitting back with greater firepower, including airstrikes.

China Targets Muslim Women in Push to Suppress Births in Xinjiang (NYT) When China’s government ordered women in her mostly Muslim community in the region of Xinjiang to be fitted with contraceptive devices, Qelbinur Sedik pleaded for an exemption. She was nearly 50 years old, she told officials. She had obeyed the government’s birth limits and had only one child. It was no use. The workers threatened to take her to the police if she continued resisting, she said. She gave in and went to a government clinic where a doctor, using metal forceps, inserted an intrauterine device to prevent pregnancy. She wept through the procedure. Across much of China, the authorities are encouraging women to have more children, as they try to stave off a demographic crisis from a declining birthrate. But in the Xinjiang region, China is forcing them to have fewer, tightening its grip on Muslim ethnic minorities and trying to orchestrate a demographic shift that will diminish their population growth. It is part of a vast and repressive social re-engineering campaign by a Communist Party determined to eliminate any perceived challenge to its rule, in this case, ethnic separatism.

35 killed in Gaza, 3 in Israel, as violence escalates (Reuters) Hostilities between Israel and Hamas escalated overnight, with 35 Palestinians killed in Gaza and three in Israel in the most intensive aerial exchanges for years. Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Gaza into the early hours of Wednesday, as the Islamist group and other Palestinian militant groups fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and Beersheba. One multi-story residential building in Gaza collapsed and another was heavily damaged after they were repeatedly hit by Israeli air strikes. It was the heaviest offensive between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in Gaza, and prompted international concern that the situation could spiral out of control. U.N. Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland tweeted: “Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation. The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now,” he wrote.

Israelis, Palestinians and Their Neighbors Worry (NYT) Let’s see, what happens when TikTok meets Palestinian grievances about right-wing Israeli land grabs in Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem? And then you add the holiest Muslim night of prayer in Jerusalem into the mix? Then toss in the most emotional Israeli holiday in Jerusalem? And a power play by Hamas to assume leadership of the Palestinian cause? And, finally, a political vacuum in which the Palestinian Authority is incapable of holding new elections and Israel is so divided it can’t stop having elections? What happens is the explosion of violence around Jerusalem on Monday that quickly spread to the Gaza front, and has people asking: Is this the big one? Is this the start of the next Palestinian uprising? The Israeli government, the surrounding Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority all desperately want the answer to be “no”—Israel because it would find little support from a left-leaning White House, let alone the rest of the world, for a big crackdown on Palestinians; the Arab governments because most of them want to do business with Israeli tech-makers, not get mired defending Palestinian rock-throwers; and the Palestinian leadership because it would expose just how little it controls the Palestinian street anymore. But unlike the Intifadas that began in 1987 and 2000, when Israel had someone to call to try to turn it off, there is no Palestinian on the other end of the phone this time—or, if there is, he’s a 15-year-old on his smartphone, swiping orders and inspiration from TikTok, the video app often used by young Palestinians to challenge and encourage one another to confront Israelis.

At least 1m people facing starvation as Madagascar’s drought worsens (Guardian) Madagascar’s worst drought in 40 years has left more than a million people facing a year of desperate food shortages. The south saw 50% of its usual rains during the October planting season, in a fourth year of drought. According to the Famine Early Warning System Network, most poor families have to rely on foraging for wild foods and leaves that are difficult to eat and can be dangerous for children and pregnant women. Aid agencies have reported people eating termites and mixing clay with tamarind.