#Elbow Splint

[peachykcqt]

some ppl window shop for like. clothes or shoes or jewelry or whatever. i window shop for crutches and braces and finger splints 😂😂😂

[pinkbugtype]

I'm really brave and strong and I am not upset that I have a problem that affects me daily that even my specialist lead in the field doctor doesn't know how to help me with

[labsportstherapy]

How Dry Needling Can Help Treat Sports Injuries

Dry Needling is a therapeutic technique, often integrated into physical therapy, gaining recognition for its ability to accelerate recovery, reduce pain, and improve mobility.

[shortfeather]

upside of carpal tunnel: more time to write bc i can't do a lot of the stuff i normally do

downside of carpal tunnel: EVERY KEYSTROKE HURTS UNLESS I DIVEBOMB MY KEYBOARD

[mercvry-glow]

Friendly competition

parings. frank langdon x wife!reader

summary. the langdons believe believe in basic professionalism. but either way a kiss or two behind a set of closed curtains wouldn't hurt anyone, right?

warnings. princess pea brain and dr. dickwad strike again, frank has only been married to reader, they are similar in age though not mentioned, no mentions of drug use (in terms of frank), dog parents, let me know if there's anything else!

notes. local boy dad truther didn't hop on this certified boy dad just yet, but here's a silly/flirty one between frank and his wife who is another doctor! as always please enjoy and any feedback is appropriated!

wc. 1400+

Frank Langdon was a simple man. 

Wake up at 5 a.m., shower and brush his teeth, feed Nico your chocolate lab, text you since you were always out the door before sunrise, drink a cup of pre-made coldbrew for breakfast in his car, and roll into the Pitt by 7 a.m. 

Routine. Reliable. Not as glamorous as your four-a.m.-scrub-call lifestyle, but it worked for him. 

He tapped out a quick text before pulling out of the driveway:

FRANKY

How many brains have you terrorized already?

BABY

Two aneurysms, one awake craniotomy. Stay on your toes today, trauma boy.

He smirked at the screen. God, he loved you.

And God, you were the most competitive human alive.

Frank still remembered your first date, where you questioned his anatomy knowledge over sushi and then challenged him to a game of darts at a bar down the street—one you won, barely, after he’d been too distracted by your smile to aim properly.

Since then, everything had been a game: who could fold laundry faster, who got paged more often, who could make Nico sit the longest with a treat on his nose (Frank held that record at 20 seconds). 

You kissed like you argued—passionately and deep. 

 All teeth and laughter and stubborn pride. 

And yet, somehow, you made it work. 

He parked in his usual spot and thought about your smug little face telling him, “Don’t forget who finished med school top of her class.” 

Frank grinned to himself, he was gonna make today his bitch. 

FRANKY

Reminder that I once splinted a femur with duct tape and a clipboard during a blackout, sweetheart. 

BABY

Reminder that I once drilled through a man’s skull with no power, on the sidewalk. Try again.

God help him, he’d never loved anyone more.

After walking in and setting his stuff in his locker, he wandered around taking note of everyone who was on shift today. 

Frank didn’t expect to see you so early though. 

Neurosurgery lived in a whole different stratosphere most days—your floor, your ORs, your rules. You usually lived in scrubs that had been through hell and back and a ponytail that was more “get out of my way” than “good morning.” But today, as he stepped into the trauma lounge for another quick pre-round coffee, there you were. Leaning against the counter, arms crossed over your navy scrub top, sipping from a mug that very clearly had his name on it.

“Hey, babe,” you said, not even bothering to look up. “Nice of you to show up.”

Frank blinked. “Is that… my mug?”

“I earned it,” you replied. “Three surgeries before sunrise. I deserve all the caffeine this hospital has.”

He moved toward the cabinet, pulled out the backup mug—one that said ‘Trust me, I’m a real doctor’ in terrible Comic Sans—and narrowed his eyes at you over the rim.

“Is this your way of declaring war?”

You gave him a sweet, yet tired, unbothered smile. “No, Langdon. I declared war the day you said you could intubate faster than me.”

“That was four years ago.”

“And you were wrong.”

He chuckled, stepping closer, brushing your elbow with his on the way to the sugar. “You know, most people start their day with a kiss, not an insult.”

You leaned over, kissed his cheek quickly. “That was for being cute. Not for being right.”

He watched you walk away—confident, collected, the same sharp fire in your step you had on your first day in residency. You had charts under your arm and blood on your shoe and a smirk that said you’d already won whatever game he didn’t even know you were playing yet.

You were a smug, brilliant menace.

Especially because of that.

Frank took a long sip of coffee and looked at his pager. It was already buzzing with the first trauma of the day—multiple rollovers on the interstate.

He tapped out a message before heading out.

FRANKY

Bet I beat you on the case board today.

Your reply came five seconds later.

BABY

Already signed off on number 5. Better luck next time, husband. 🧠❤️

A bit later in the day a page came through just as you were wrapping up rounds: NEUROSTAT - TRAUMA BAY 1 - HEAD INJURY / MULTISYSTEM TRAUMA

You barely blinked. Tucked your tablet under your arm and turned on your heel. By the time you got down to the trauma floor, the hallway was already buzzing. Nurses shouted vitals, techs wheeled carts past with barely a glance, and a familiar voice cut through the noise like clockwork.

“Get me a line and open up the central tray—let’s move, people!”

You stepped into the trauma bay right as Frank looked up from the gurney, gloved hands bloody to the wrists, and—despite the chaos—his mouth twitched into a grin.

“Took you long enough.”

“I rushed down four flights of stairs and dodge two ortho residents arguing about tibial screws,” you fired back, snapping on your gloves. “Do you want me or not?”

Frank stepped aside just enough to give you a view of the patient—a mid-30s male, unconscious, intubated, with a deep laceration to the scalp and unequal pupils. His GCS was tanking.

“Blunt head trauma. Vitals are tanking. Pupils blew ten minutes ago. I need your magic fingers,” Frank said, handing over the head CT on a tablet.

You scanned it in seconds. “We’ve got a left-sided subdural, midline shift. He’s herniating. I need him rushed to an OR, now.”

He nodded once and spun toward the nurse’s station. “Page the rest of the neurosurg team, get an OR ready—she’s taking him up.”

“You coming with?” you asked without looking at him, already examining the patient’s vitals.

Frank glanced at the blood pooling around the patient's flank, the numbers on the monitor, then at you. “He needs decompression more than he needs a chest tube right now. I’ve got other patients after him too.”

You locked eyes for a second, both of you moving like pieces on a board already set in motion. No need to explain. No ego. Just you, him, and the patient.

“I’ll be with the team that brings him up after I stabilize the bleed,” he said, voice low as he stepped closer.

“Don’t be late,” you replied, almost a challenge.

Frank smirked, brushing his gloved knuckles briefly against your arm before turning back to the trauma team. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

You didn’t even catch how much time had passed since you had entered the OR. The surgery had gone well. As well as emergency cranial decompressions ever went, anyway. You were peeling off your gloves in the scrub room, sweat still clinging to your neck, your shoulders aching like hell from hunching over the table for hours.

The door creaked behind you.

You didn’t even turn around. “Took you long enough, Dr. Dickwad.”

Frank chuckled, slow and low, the sound bouncing off the tile. “Nice to see you too, Princess Pea Brain.”

You glanced at him through the mirror, catching the way he leaned casually against the doorframe—a surgical cap on his head, scrubs spotted with various fluids, that usual post-trauma glint in his eye.

“You missed the best part,” you said, pulling your hair free from its bun. “His brain practically thanked me for relieving the pressure.”

Frank snorted. “Right. I’m sure it whispered ‘thank you, brilliant goddess of neurosurgery,’ as you were drilling into his skull with a jackhammer”

You turned to face him now, arms crossed. “Hey. At least I didn’t almost forget to clamp the bleeder.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t forget. I was strategically stalling.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling panic now?”

Frank was grinning. That easy, post-shift, we-just-saved-a-life kind of grin that only came after the adrenaline settled and the reality hit you: you won.

Not against each other. Against the clock. Against chaos.

“Come here,” he said finally, stepping closer.

You raised a brow. “Why?”

“So I can do this,” he replied, sliding an arm around your waist and tugging you into him with zero warning.

You yelped, half-laughing, half-scolding. “Frank Langdon, we’re in a sterile environment!”

“We’re outside the OR,” he murmured against your hair. “And I haven’t kissed my wife since before the subdural.”

You softened a little at that. Just a little.

“You’re sweaty,” you muttered.

“You smell like iron,” he said fondly.

Still, you leaned into him, forehead against his chest, letting yourself exhale. He held you there, steady and warm, the weight of the shift slowly slipped from your shoulders.

After a few long moments, you mumbled, “You’re still a dickwad.”

“Yeah,” he whispered into your hair, kissing the top of your head. “But I’m your dickwad, princess.”

mercrvy-glow 2025

[p0orbaby]

they have an argument and hours later r gets hurt ??? guilty & terrified ale 🥺

-

The last thing you say to her is, “Don’t follow me.”

And she listens.

Which is exactly the problem.

It had started over nothing—truly nothing. Some throwaway comment, an eye-roll, one of you saying something too quickly and the other one not fast enough to let it go. And then it spiralled. Sharp words. Defensive ones. Yours, mostly.

She stood in the kitchen in that annoyingly calm way she does, arms crossed, expression pinched. You snapped first. Told her to leave you alone. Told her you needed space.

And now it’s been four hours.

No texts. No calls. Just silence you’re too proud to break.

You’re walking home from the Mercadona—milk you don��t need, biscuits to eat the sad away, something to do with your hands. The sky’s bruising, early evening, people spilling out of cafés. You’re not really paying attention when it happens.

A blur of wheels. A yell. The sick, cinematic sound of a crack.

You hit the pavement before you register the pain—shoulder first, then elbow, then a white-hot jolt in your leg that steals the air from your lungs.

There’s shouting. Someone calls for help. Someone else’s hands hover uselessly near yours.

You try to sit up. You can’t.

-

Alexia gets the call halfway through pacing a hole in her living room rug. She answers on the first ring, bored and frustrated and ready to stay mad—until she hears the words hospital, accident, emergency contact, and your name.

She’s out the door before they finish the sentence.

When she gets there, she’s breathless and wild-eyed, speaking too quickly to the receptionist, switching between Spanish and English in a panicked frenzy. “She’s here? She’s okay? She’s okay?”

They direct her to the curtained-off bed where you’re half-sitting, half-slumped in a thin hospital gown with one wrist in a splint and your ankle elevated, bandaged up, probably broken.

You look up when she pulls the curtain back.

You don’t even have time to speak. She’s already there—at your side, kneeling down, hand on your thigh like she’s afraid to touch more.

“Qué te ha pasado, mi amor? What—what happened?” Her voice cracks. “You look—fuck, you look awful.”

You try to smile, weakly. “Hi.”

“Hi? That’s all you’ve got?”

“I told you not to follow me.”

She lets out a sound—part laugh, part cry. Her hands are shaking. “You broke your leg.”

“Hairline fracture,” you correct. “Cyclist.”

“Cyclist,” she repeats, like it personally offended her. “I should’ve been there.”

“You were mad at me.”

“I was mad,” she echoes, voice low. “But I still should’ve been there.”

You let that hang in the air a second. Then, quieter, “You still came.”

“I’ll always come.”

You look at her for a long time. Her eyes are red. Her hoodie’s inside out. She’s sitting on a hospital chair like she belongs there—like she has to be there or she might combust.

You sigh. “I don’t want to be angry anymore.”

She exhales like she’s been holding her breath since the phone call. “Me neither.”

You don’t go back to yours. She takes you home. Carries your bags and helps you up the stairs and tucks you in like you’re made of glass.

She presses a kiss to your grazed knuckles before she turns off the light. “I was so scared,” she whispers, like a confession.

“I know.”

She slides in beside you. Holds you like something precious.

[alphynix]

Duonychus tsogtbaatari was a therizinosaurid dinosaur living in what is now the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous, around 96-90 million years ago.

Like other therizinosaurids it would have been a chunky-bodied herbivore with a small beaked head atop a long neck, long rake-like claws on its hands, stout legs, and a rather short tail. But it was rather small compared to most of its close relatives, estimated at about 3m long (~9'10"), with its known fossil remains including several vertebrae, partial ribs and pelvis, and a set of nearly-complete arms and hands.

Its hands had only two well-developed fingers, with a small splint-like vestigial third finger, an anatomical condition convergently seen in some other theropod groups but previously unknown in therizinosaurids. One of its long curved claws also preserved a rare example of a thick keratinous sheath, showing that in life the claw was over 40% longer than its bony core.

Duonychus' elbow and finger joints had a fairly limited range of motion – more similar to the forearms of Tyrannosaurus than other therizinosaurids – but its claws were able to flex almost 90° at the tips of its fingers, which may have given it the ability to reach out and grab onto foliage with a very strong and precise grip.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Kobayashi, Yoshitsugu, et al. "Didactyl therizinosaur with a preserved keratinous claw from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia." iScience 28.4 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.isci.2025.112141

Wikipedia contributors. “Duonychus” Wikipedia, 18 May. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duonychus

Woodford, James. "Two-fingered dinosaur used its enormous claws to eat leaves" NewScientist, 20 Mar. 2025, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2473027-two-fingered-dinosaur-used-its-enormous-claws-to-eat-leaves/

[aegonstradwife]

closer pt. 2 | aegon targaryen x reader

summary: anonymous requested; a sequel to closer, where aegon is further healed and reader rides him.

warnings: mention of various injuries / scars, established relationship, smut. (riding.)

a. note: link to the original request.

In the span of only 2 months, your husband's extensive injuries have healed to be quite less so; the burns along the left half of his body have left behind rough, blotchy scars that he is still self-conscious of. But you're just glad that he's alive.

His knee is still something of an issue, causing him immense pain whenever he tries to move it. But at least he can flex his toes now without screaming in agony, and the lower half of his leg can also be manipulated with little to no torture to him.

And that's why you feel so comfortable planning what you've planned; something wicked that is going to satisfy desires - both yours and the king's - that have gone neglected for months while Aegon has been bedridden.

At this stage, Aegon always, always, makes sure to instruct the maesters to keep the door unlocked, leaving you free to slip inside whenever you desire.

When you do so this morning, Aegon is of course still abed, covered only in a thin sheet, sun laying itself across his chest, setting his fine hair alight. He looks celestial, something too holy to be touched.

But that's exactly what you've come to do.

Your husband lights up upon spying that familiar head of hair poking through the doorway. He sits up with what is apparently minimal pain, though he's gotten very good at hiding it when he wants to.

"Finally come to liberate me from this forsaken chamber, my love?" Comes his sleep-thick voice - you hope you haven't woken him prematurely. He does still need all the rest he can get.

"Not quite yet," you mutter apologetically, closing the door softly behind you. Even though you're quite sure your coming here is no longer a secret, you'll gladly keep up the charade in order to keep a sense of normalcy during this time.

Aegon may still be mostly incapacitated, but his burns have healed nicely and he has much better range of movement now, at least with his upper half.

His poor knee, however, is still shattered. The maesters have done their best to splint it, but he is still well on his way to healing fully, and will probably walk with a limp even after.

You settle lightly on the bed beside him, running a hand down his scarred arm. "I have come to do something else, though. Can you guess what?"

Aegon licks his lips, which are dry and chapped from sleep. There are empty goblets on the bedside table that you could easily take and refill for him, but he's grabbing suddenly for your hand, keeping you beside him. "Care to give me a hint?"

You gladly twine your fingers with his, thumb roving over the mottled skin of his hand. Finally, you can touch him without him screaming in pain. "You've healed perfectly, my love. I think it's time, to do what we've wanted for so long.... What do you think?"

Your love's face goes blank as he realizes what you mean. After so long, you'll be able to have each other the way you deserve. Those chapped lips part, and Aegon releases a short, forceful sigh that you've come to know as his wife to mean that he's thinking very dirty thoughts.

It's a wonder he's not already trying to rip your clothes off.

He swallows hard against a lump in his throat and breathes, "I think you're finally going to let me have you the way I've been dreaming of having you."

"Mm," you agree with a hum. Aegon saying it aloud lights a spark between your thighs.... "I just want to touch you everywhere, Aegon. Now that I can."

Turning more to face him, you traipse your fingers lightly up over his burnt elbow, scar tissue bumping beneath your hands. "Does it feel different?" You whisper reverently, that same hand skimming up over his bicep and curling around his shoulder. The other is moving its way up his stomach, half over his healed burns and half on the smooth, unburnt skin beside it.

His breathing is already picking up as you touch him, and when your palm meets his sternum, a sharp, unexpected tremor rolls through him. His violet eyes roll back, and for a moment you're afraid you've hurt him.

"It does feel different." Aegon's voice is a grizzled moan, one hand clenching itself hard in the bedsheets, the other palming over your thigh just beside him. "It feels.... more sensitive than before. I d-don't know why."

You don't need to know why to know that this revelation makes you want to touch him even more, to make him feel so good, to take away all the remaining hurts from his battle.

"That's good." You're trying to keep your voice even, but the feeling of all of Aegon's gorgeous skin underneath your hands is making you shake with desire for him.

Your hands meet at the scarred skin of his left collarbone before both start a slow track over his chest. The scarring here is the worst, his armor having melted to the skin, peeling away as the maesters removed it.

But Aegon merely shudders in pleasure, reaching out desperately for you. He cries your name. "Please.... Please, I need you, my love. It's been too long."

All you can do is watch as your hands continue to palm over Aegon's torso. Your husband is shivering, making the most delectable sounds, and you can see his cock starting to tent the sheets below. You're sure he would be writhing under you if it wouldn't hurt his leg too much to do so.

All of a sudden, however, Aegon yelps in pain, head tossed back against the pillows. He has, in fact, tried to arch a little too hard into your touch.

"Aegon," you scold him, pinning him by the hips. "You can't, my love. Don't move so much, your leg...."

You know it must be throbbing, and you do your best to soothe your hand over his calf, just below the break.

He curses through clenched teeth. "I can't help it.... I want to touch you, and I need you to touch me, but. It hurts, and I can't believe how much it still hurts."

The grunting pain in his voice sends a wave of sympathy washing over you.

You purse your lips.

"I can believe it," you sigh, still caressing his lower leg, down to his ankle now. "You really did a number on yourself. It's honestly a miracle you've healed this much this quickly, you know."

With a groan and a huff of frustration, Aegon throws an arm over his face. "I know, the maesters are all impressed with how quickly I'm healing, but they don't understand just how badly I want you, and just how badly this damned leg is getting in our way."

Now, you think. He can't see you, with his arm flung dramatically over his eyes - you'll surprise him.

Quickly, but careful of his leg, you sweep a leg over him and settle yourself just over his hips. You picked out a thin night shift to wear just for this....

Not quite putting your full weight on him, you run your fingers back up his torso, fingers flirting with this collarbones again. "I, for one, owe my sanity to the maesters, Aegon. Can you imagine if you had died? I can't.... It doesn't bear thinking about."

Aegon jerks against the bed, arm coming down so he can grab for your leg as he looks up at you, surprised. The first thing he must see are your bare thighs, spread around him. Gods, he's missed this view.

The second thing he notices is the look on your face - the utter devotion, the love, the lust. "Darling...."

His hands, insistent against your thighs, push their way up under the loose material of your nightgown, coming to rest on your hips, thumbs pressing into your soft, supple flesh.

You moan, loudly, at the feeling. One of his hands is smooth, just as before, the other rough with burn scars. And you love them both.

"Gods, I missed that, Aegon. Your hands on me.... Touch more, my love. Touch whatever you want. I'm yours."

Those hands tighten their grip, and Aegon's purple eyes flash tiredly up at you. "As you wish, my queen."

His hands start a slow motion back and forth, up and down your thighs, over your hips and waist. His fingers trail over the warm, yielding flesh of your sides and stomach, before pushing higher, palming over the curves of your breasts.

Still just hovering over him, not daring to sit all the way down, you revel in his touch. Nothing in this world compares to your love's hands running over you, worshipping your skin, your hips, your breasts!

That wrenches a particularly deafening groan from your lips, as you arch your chest into his palms. "More.... Please, Aegon. I missed this so much."

He continues to grab and pull greedily at your flesh, wanting to worship you - to worship every single inch of you.

"Gods, I've missed this too, darling. So much. I've been dreaming of getting my hands on you, of feeling these gorgeous curves. I won't ever let you go again, that's a promise."

To take some of the pressure off your legs, you list forward, bracing yourself with your hands on either side of Aegon's head. "More," you demand, pressing your lips to the corner of Aegon's mouth. "Touch me everywhere."

Aegon should know what you mean by that.

Your demanding tone makes Aegon smirk; he did always like when you took control.

"Yes, your majesty," he purrs, hands slipping back to tug the hem of your shift out of the way so he can palm over your ass, then pull hard at the gauzy material. "Let's get this out of the way, shall we?"

Wasting no time, you reach down, ripping the flimsy cotton off over your head. "How's that?"

Grabbing for Aegon's hands, you place them again on your breasts, squeezing. At the same time, you dare to sink an inch or so lower, and the sticky head of Aegon's hard cock brushes against the inside of your thigh. "You're still such a beautiful boy, you know that?"

The sound that falls next from his pretty lips is a strangled whimper. "Don't call me that," he sighs, and you can barely hear him. "You know what it does to me."

As if in corroboration, his cock twitches stiffly against your inner thigh.

"Oh, but that's what I want," you hiss, still braced over him, mouth hot and wet now on the burns at his hairline. "Do you even know how long it's been since you've been inside me? Of course you do - I'm sure you've thought about it just as much as I have. Maybe even more, confined to this damnable bed as you've been."

"You don't even know," he replies quietly, voice soft and small. His head is tilted back, baring his throat. "I've thought about it every single day. I've thought about it every night. Every time I've closed my eyes, it's driven me nearly mad."

There are tears at the corners of his reddened eyes, and you kiss them delicately away. There's not much to say, other than that you're sorry you're in this situation.

With his neck bared to you like that, you take the opportunity to attack the scarred skin at the base of his throat, loving how sensitive it makes him, how his body responds to you now. "Is this okay?" You ask, nosing at his jaw. "Not too sensitive?"

"Perfect," comes Aegon's reply, still barely more than a whisper, thumbs circling over your hips.

When he tries to grind up against you, you still him with a hand hard on his hip. "Aegon. I'm going to ride you. And if you need me to go faster or slower, raise higher or sink down more, just tell me. No trying to take control yourself, alright? I don't need your recovery set back any further."

He whines in despair, and his fingers claw miserably at your back. "I understand," he says obediently. "I'll be still, I promise. And I'll tell you. Just.... please, darling. I need you so badly I can taste it."

Gentle fingers cradling his jaw, you force him to look at you. He truly is beautiful, though he might not feel so with the scars scorching down his face. But to you, he is immaculate.

"You're going to be so good for me, aren't you, my little prince?" You lower yourself further, reaching down to position his thick head at your wet entrance.

The raw desire radiating off of him as he gazes adoringly up at you sends a lick of heat down the base of your spine. Your cunt is throbbing, aching to take him in, and his cock is twitching in your palm, equally as keen to be inside.

"Yes, my lady," is Aegon's eventual reply, and you're pleasantly surprised at how good he's being. His hands are petting themselves soothingly down your back, but his hips are completely still aside from the occasional tiny pump as he aches to be inside of you.

"Good boy." Unwilling to wait any longer, you tilt your hips back and bear down, opening up for him, sinking down onto his hardness after so many months being unable to do so.

It is a stretch after so long with only your fingers to do the job, but any discomfort is mitigated by the intense, overbearing love you have for your husband and the way his cock twitches inside of you. "A-Aegon...."

His name is a sob, you can't help it.

Aegon's hands are at your face, cupping, thumbs fluttering over your cheekbones. "My love.... I said I'd tell you what I needed. And.... I need you to move. Please. For me."

You nod, taking a long, rattling breath as you lean up and then slide back down, Aegon's cock dragging at your tight walls, the head nudging all the way back on every thrust down.

As you start to build at least some sort of rhythm, Aegon gasps and groans, body starting to squirm beneath you.

You still, fixing him with a critical look.

"I know," he gasps. "I know, I'm sorry.... You don't understand how hard it is, not to move. Not to show you how badly I want you, when you're sitting on me looking like that...."

"Looking like what?" You dare to ask, hips hitching back and forth over him.

"Like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he laments, hands coming around to cup and knead at your breasts again. He tweaks one hard nipple and you cry out, feeling your cunt starting to cream on him.

This used to happen all the time - Aegon would get you so worked up that when you both looked down to where his cock was opening you up, there'd be a thick, frothy cream making itself known along his shaft. And he'd be quick to fuck it back up into you, both of you messy and sweaty and absolutely blind to anything else in the world but each other.

"That's it," Aegon grunts, nails scraping lightly over your nipples. The sun is shining just right for Aegon to be able to look between the two of you and see your cream coating his cock. "That's.... oh, gods. I might - I'm close -"

His breath is choppy, the smooth skin of his unburnt cheek gone very pink. Physically unable to stop himself, his hips are working gently to drive himself up to you.

"Aegon...." You place a hand on his chest again, just over his pounding heart. Both of you still, and you assure him, "I'm going to bounce on you. Hard. Until we both cum. If you're in any sort of pain -"

But he cuts you off with a hard nod and a whine. "Yes, yes, I'll tell you. I promise."

Making sure you're leaning forward, as far away from his leg as you can while still keeping him inside, you start with a couple hard pushes down, the sound of skin slapping starting to fill the room.

Aegon's eyes close in pleasure, and there's no hint of pain anywhere on his face, so you tuck your legs under, now balanced on your toes as you start to fuck him in earnest.

You're fucking bouncing on him, as hard as you dare with a hand on his shoulder to keep you from listing backward.

Almost as though he can't decide which part of you to touch, his hands keep flitting from your breasts to your stomach to your thighs and back. There's absolutely no need for him to move at all right now - you're taking care of any need or want he could possibly have.

"Oh -" Aegon's eyes fly open, staring down between you, listening to the sweet wet sounds your cunt is making as you use him, watching the reddened, swollen length of his cock disappearing in and out of you. "I'm almost -"

You nod, wanting him to, needing him to. It's been so long since you've felt his cum flood your womb, since you whispered in his ear for your king to get you pregnant. "You can, Aegon. Whenever you're ready. You deserve to, after so long...."

His entire body goes taut, a long line against the sheets as he tries his damnedest not to move his broken leg. The other, however, has dug its heel into the bed and is doing its best to keep his back arched as he sprays inside of you.

Almost as an afterthought, long after his cock has stopped spurting, he gasps, grabbing for you, holding you close, petting your hair. "Was I - was I good?"

"Perfect," is your whispered reply as you shudder through your own orgasm above him, Aegon's hands on your hips helping you along.

Once you're both spent, you move to lay beside him, but Aegon is quick to grab you and pull you down on him instead, resting your head on his chest.

You can hear his heart still beating hard, his fingers comforting and gentle on your back and shoulders.

"I love you." He presses a kiss to your forehead. "I love you so much. Thank you.... for still wanting me."

Slowly looking up at him, Aegon tosses you a cheeky smirk. "Even though as your king, I could have you commanded to be mine for all eternity anyway."

"Oh, shut up," you sigh, teeth digging playfully into his chest. "I love you too, you absolute imbecile."

[nylqnder]

FAKING IT SETH JARVIS

summary: seth always visits the training room in hopes of getting your attention until one day it backfires. warnings: flirting + teasing, simply fluff! word count: 1.26k notes: first seth piece!! i literally love this man so much so i hope y'all enjoy. i've also had this plot for ages and i finally decided to write it.

Seth entered the team’s training room for what felt like the hundredth time since the start of the season, and his eyes immediately searched for you. He carried the same easygoing grin that he always did, the one that made it seem like nothing could bother him. It was one that was starting to become all too familiar to the other Hurricanes players and staff — a grin that usually meant Seth was up to something.

He spotted you by the cabinets, organizing boxes of splints and unrolling new lengths of tape with a focused intensity that made him pause. He couldn't help but admire how dedicated you were, how you seemed to move effortlessly despite the chaos that usually surrounded you. The first time he saw you, he thought it was just a fleeting attraction—something he’d forget about by the next practice. But as the days passed, he kept noticing more about you: the way you bit your lip when you were deep in concentration, the soft hum of a tune you’d sing under your breath when you thought no one was listening, and the bright way you laughed, like you weren’t weighed down by anything.

The training room started to feel a little brighter when you were there, and he found himself coming up with excuses to swing by more often. A slight tweak of his ankle, a vague soreness in his leg—any reason to have you check him out, even if he didn’t need it.

Over time, his visits became less about any actual injuries and more about getting to see you and getting to talk to you. He tried to be subtle, but his teammates noticed, throwing teasing comments his way when you weren’t looking. They’d tease him, elbowing him in the ribs, telling him to “stop pretending to be hurt just because he liked the company.” Seth would laugh it off, but he knew they were right. Every time he walked through those doors, it was just another chance to see you.

“Hey, y/n,” Seth greeted, a playful tone dancing in his voice. “Got a minute? I think something's up with my shoulder today.”

You turned, eyes meeting his with an amused glimmer that always seemed to make his pulse quicken. “Your shoulder this time, huh?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest. “You know, Seth, you might just set a record for the most visits to the training room,” you said.

“What can I say?” he shrugged, still grinning. “I’m a delicate guy.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” you replied, but the corner of your mouth twitched like you were fighting back a smile. You pointed to the table. “Sit. Let’s take a look at this ‘injury’ of yours.”

Seth hopped up on the table, swinging his legs like a kid. “I don’t know,” he said, voice dripping with dramatic flair. “It’s feeling pretty tight today. Might be serious.”

You rolled your eyes, stepping over to him. “Shirt off.”

He didn’t hesitate, stripping off his shirt in one smooth motion, revealing the lean, athletic muscles that came from years of hard work on the ice. You tried to keep your expression neutral, tried not to react to the way his skin gleamed under the fluorescent lights. But Seth saw the flicker of your eyes, the quick dart to his chest before you composed yourself. It sent a thrill through him—he liked that he could get a reaction out of you, even if you tried to hide it.

You stepped closer, fingers already tingling with the familiar sensation of checking injuries, but this time, you felt something different. Maybe it was the way he was watching you, eyes locked on your face like you were the most interesting thing in the room. Or maybe it was the way his skin felt warm beneath your touch, the slow rise and fall of his breathing under your fingertips.

“Any pain here?” you asked, pressing lightly on his shoulder.

“Maybe a little,” he said, though the slight smile tugging at his lips betrayed him. “I think you should keep checking, just to be sure.”

You sighed, a little exasperated, but you kept your focus. There was clearly nothing wrong with his shoulder, the lack of wincing or tension in his movements betraying his lie.

“Well,” you said, pulling your hands away from his shoulder, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “I think you’ll live. But just to be sure, maybe I should recommend you take a game off. Can’t be too careful, right?”

Seth’s eyes widened, panic flashing across his face. “Whoa, whoa, hold on—no need to get drastic here!”

“Why not? You keep showing up here all the time. It seems like you need the rest.”

He swallowed, trying to keep his cool, but you were so close now, and it was making his heart race in a way that had nothing to do with nerves. “Because,” he said, a bit too quickly, “I’m not actually hurt.”

You blinked, tilting your head. “You’re not?”

He let out a long, exasperated sigh, pulling his compression shirt back over his head. “No. I just… I just wanted an excuse to see you, okay? The shoulder’s fine. I’ve always been fine.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I know it’s stupid, but I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

You bit back a smile, trying to keep your composure. “You mean to tell me, all these times you’ve come to see me claiming your knee hurt, or you twinged your back… all those times you were faking it just to talk to me?”

Seth groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s pathetic. But you make it really hard to think straight, okay? And I’m not great with this stuff. I figured if I came in here enough, maybe you’d notice me.”

“I did notice you,” you said, and there was something softer in your tone now. “I noticed you every time you limped in here, pretending to be all tough. And believe me, I knew you were faking it.”

Seth’s head shot up, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You did?”

You nodded, biting back a smile. “Yep. Since, like, the second time you came in saying your elbow felt ‘off.’ You’re not exactly subtle, you know.”

“Well, that’s… that’s just great,” Seth muttered, feeling heat flood his face. “So I’ve been making a complete idiot of myself this whole time?”

“A little bit, yeah,” you admitted, stepping closer, “but it was kind of cute.” You reached out, gently tapping his shoulder. “You know, you could’ve just asked me out, Seth. It would’ve saved you a lot of time and fake injuries.”

“So… does that mean you might be interested?”

You rolled your eyes playfully. “Yes, Seth. It means I’m interested. Now, are you finally going to ask me out, or do you need to pretend to break a leg first?”

Seth’s grin spread across his face, genuine and full of relief. “Alright, alright. Would you… maybe want to go out with me sometime? For real, this time?”

You smiled back, nodding. “I’d like that.”

His heart soared, and he couldn't help the goofy grin that spread across his face. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirmed, stepping back and giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Now, go stretch that ‘injured’ shoulder of yours before I change my mind.”

He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’ve got it.” And as he left the training room, Seth couldn’t help but feel like he was walking on air.

[wlwsoccerfics]

Rugby is rough (MillieTurnerXRugbyPlayerReader)

A/N:OC is used for the 'Villain' of this Story.

Warnings: injury.

Summary: you Play Rugby and have a Game in the Womens World Cup Finale against the US. Your girlfriend and her Team come to watch you.

You and the rest of the England Womens 7 Rugby Team have worked your Asses off to her there. And now the world Cup Final against the US was finally here. The game was being held in London. So your girlfriend and her team made the little Trip from Manchester to watch the game. You couldn't believe how lucky you have gotten to have such an amazing girlfriend. The two of you always supported one another.

You got the chance to see her before the Game. Hugging her close.

"i am so thankful you are here, love." You said.

"i am glad i can be here. I am so proud of you!" Millie told you. Kissing you gently. You stood there in a Corner of the changing room. Your teammates either busy with their own Partners and Friends or trying to get into the Zone for the Game.

"i am proud of you too. And i love you very much. Can't wait to be back Home with you after we won this final!" You stated. Trying to be as confident as possible. But you knew the US was a rough opponent.

"i love the confidence. It's very sexy!" Millie told you.

"is that so?" You said and smirked softly.

"yes and there will be a reward waiting at Home!" She replied and winked at you.

"i like the sound of that!" You answered and kissed her before she had to go meet up with her Team in the Family and Friends section. You put on some Headphones and music to get ready for the Game. Listening to Linkin Park. You managed to shake off the feeling of being nervous only slightly.

But it fully went away when the opening ceremony of the game started. Within the First 2 minutes you managed to Score 9 Points. Not Bad at all. But Polly Randy. One of the US Players went after you way harder then necessary and she managed to do some illegal stuff like. Elbow you in the face without any consequences. You knew why Polly did it. You both used to play for the Bristol Bears together when you were Younger and she had a thing for you. But you were taken at the time and you are taken now. She doesn't seem to be over it.

You got more and more frustrated and so got your Team. Polly took it too far now and basically jumped into you. Knee first. Hitting you hard in the face. Which left you unconcious. The Fall also was quite bad so a crack was heard. That was your arm. It was fractured for sure.

Millie jumped out of her seat, already in tears cause the medics came on with a stretcher and were quick to load you into the ambulance. It was obvious that this was bad. Tooney tried to calm her down.

"my Girl!" She sobbed out.

"she will be okay. Let's Drive to the hospital!" Tooney stated. Gently guiding Millie Out of the Stadium, followed by the rest of the Manchester United Girls.

"it did look Personal!" Grace stated.

"she played for the same Club with her a when she was younger and that Randy Girl was crushing on her. But she was taken at the time." Millie explained and wiped away her tears.

"well that girl needs to freaking chill!" Phallon replied.

"agreed! That was fucking nuts!" Celin answered.

The all drove to the hospital in groups. Tooney tried her best to keep your girlfriend calm, bur Millie was stressed and really worried about you.

You had woken up in the ambulance and have been throwing up a few times . At the hospital they did am X-ray of your arm. And there was indeed a fracture. And the head CT was also not showing any bleeding.

"good news is you get a cast for now and then fracture might heal without needing surgery. But we have to wait how the next two weeks gonna be!" The doctor told you. "You will get the cast tomorrow and get a splint for now. We want the swelling to go down a bit at first." He told you.

"so i have to stay the night?" You asked, head pounding like crazy.

"yes we have to wake you up every hour to make sure you are alright cause of that nasty concussion you have." He explained. Millie walked in with Tooney.

"oh thank god you are awake!" Millie stated.

"i am, Babe! Did we win?" You asked her. Tooney checked cause Millie wasn't really sure and was kind of surprised that you cared about Rugby right now, given the state you were in.

"oh my...congrats you are officially a world Rugby Champion!" Tooney stated. And you smiled, even though you were in pain.

"Take that Polly Randy!" You said and chuckled a bit. Closing your eyes for a moment cause you felt dizzy again.

"i am proud of you, Babe! But can we Focus on your recovery now?" Millie asked and sat down next to you. The doctor explained to her and Tooney again what the plan for your recovery was.

The next morning your arm was in a Cast and you could leave the hospital. But had to take it easy. So Millie made sure you didn't do anything at all and just got your rest in. Your Team also came to visit you at Home to Hand you your gold Medal and Show you the throphy.

You couldn't wait to be back on the field. Cause you lived and breathed rugby. Millie felt like that about football. Having someone who understands you and your feelings was worth everything.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - The Stretcher - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

An ugly reckoning...

tw: gore, violence, medical trauma, limb loss

cw: suggestions of inappropriate relationships between mentor and student

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Silco walks on.

Inside, the odor of stale chemicals seeps through the air. Jinx's containment pod is a plexiglas sphere resembling a transparent hive. Inside, she is laid out on a narrow cot. Her left hand—the two clever fingers so cruelly excised—is strapped to a splint.  The stumps are a little red, but clean and dry. Each one is neatly sutured with black thread.

Black as the sucking hole in her chest.

Through the covers, Silco can see the delineations of the wound, a map of gauze adhering to her torso.  The flesh is still flayed. But it is no longer a disaster-site of hideous spillage. The raw tendons are scored with tiny stitches. Each one, a testament to Singed’s ruthlessly meticulous handiwork.

The rest of Jinx is bone pale as if the scant pigment on her skin has been sucked dry. Her freckles stand out in stark pinpricks.

Two bags of fluid hang on a metal pole, drip-drip-dripping down a tube into a needle jammed into her arm. The steady flow of antibiotics, morphine, and synthesized Shimmer will bolster her vitals and keep her under.  Her breathing—a tarred constriction of bubbles caught in her perforated lungs—has smoothed over the course of the night.  But it remains an effortful jag: deep, dragging, discordant.

Silco's guts churn. The instinctive grind of rage is offset by guilt.

Then: shock.

Jinx is not alone.

A longer body's curved around Jinx's small one. One arm, the sleeve rolled to the elbow, is flung over her hip. Fingertips splay against her thigh: an anchor. The other arm, metallic, makes a protective arc over Jinx's skull. The cybernetic fingers, tipped with steel, are threaded in her blue hair. The head, half-obscured in lank brown curls, is tipped to Jinx's own.

Their temples mirror. Their eyelashes kiss.  The cadence of their chests rises and falls in concert.

The Hexcore, with hypnotic rotations, bathes Jinx and Viktor in a violet glow.  

From his own extremities, Silco feels pure rage blast open as the Monster unlocks.

"What the hell—?"

Singed looms from the corner of the medbay: tall and fleshlessy thin as a mantis. He's clad in a white smock resembling a butcher's apron. The barest smear of blood is caught in the weave. He glances up at Silco's snarl.

Apart from an expression of insectile alertness, he shows no other signs of concern.

"Ah," he says. "You've returned."

"Open the pod." 

"I beg your pardon?"

"Viktor. What in the frozen hell is he—?"

"He's aiding her retrieval."

"What?"

"Her retrieval," Singed says, in the same imperturbable tone. "From what I understand, a plunge into the Void is not unlike falling into arctic waters. It takes a strong grip to pull oneself out. J17 is a skilled swimmer. But she remains partially submerged. She'll need a guide to drag her to the shore."   

"He has no right to—"

"To what? Hold his companion's hand?"  

"Companion?"

Singed nods.

Silco's jaw locks as the Doctor's meaning sinks in.

Guardians and Mages. He'd known, in his bones, that the bond between Viktor and Jinx held a strange, unearthly resonance. A tie that binds, like gravity does a comet: two celestial forces, inexorably pulled together by the galvanic charge of their shared potential. 

He'd assumed the nature of the bond was intellectual. That their kinship was a matter of mathematics: two minds, one wavelength.  Then Jinx's spells of strangeness and self-enforced secrecy began. He thinks of the audio recordings in the Aerie: the susurrations and whispers. The ungodly silence.

It wasn't sex—no matter the wildness of his paranoia, he knew Jinx was still too innocent, and that her tastes lay elsewhere. But the overtones—of communion, and a deeper, almost otherworldly intimacy—were terrifying.

Now, seeing them together—a tangle of arms, a knotting of fingers—his worst fears have been made manifest.

It's plain, from the ease between their bodies, that Jinx has slept in Viktor's arms before. Plain, too, that it's happened enough times for this closeness to take on overtones of trust.  A trust Silco had invited: to his doorstep, past his threshold, and straight to his daughter’s bed. 

A trust that’s been repaid with disaster.

Reflexively, Silco's fists ball.

"Open the pod," he says. 

"What?"

"Open it."

"With all due respect, that is not the wisest course of action." Singed remains maddeningly equable. He could be discussing a minor surgical procedure: the pros and cons of local versus general anesthetic. "The Hexcore—from what I gather—is acting as a buffer. It is protecting both J17 and Viktor as they work to draw her out. To separate them at this juncture would risk a backlash."

"Backlash?"

"I'm speaking in metaphysical rather than medical terms. From what I have gleaned, the Hexcore is a living organism. It has its own will and wants. I am not privy to the nature of the bargain it has struck with Viktor. But I hazard that it is his key to the Void. And that, in exchange for entry, it protects his and Jinx’s corporeal forms. To rip them apart would be... traumatic. For all parties present."

In Viktor's embrace, Jinx expels a sigh.  There's a subtle alteration in her breathing. The Void creeping across her brainwaves, perhaps. Viktor's arm flexes around her. His own breathing—that half-mechanical, half-organic rasp—deepens. His lips touch her temple. 

The Hexcore sings. The pitch is nearly ethereal.

Two spirits: locked in orbit.

Silco's jaw grinds. A vein ticks in his temple. Whatever's happening, it is not something he comprehends. Not something, he suspects, meant to be comprehended.  But that doesn't stymie the rage. Nor the dread.

The former, he can dissect with a cool eye, peel it down to the viscera of what it is: a primal need to keep his child safe. 

The latter, though...

That's a formless shadow stretching over his psyche. The sense of something very, very huge: a force the size of a godhead eclipsing the horizon. And the stormfront, lightning-laced, is rolling across the sea straight towards his ship of destiny.

It's not often Silco feels his smallness. But he does now, and the fallout is brutal.

"You knew," he says, deathly soft.

"Hm?"

"You knew. About Viktor. Compromising my child."

Singed is not a shrugger. Hedging is not his strong suit. But his silence speaks for itself.

"I would not call such a bond a compromise," he says at length. "In some ways, it was inevitable.  Viktor is extraordinarily gifted. J17, a creature of pure potential. They are both seekers in the dark. It makes sense that they'd find each other." A slight cant to his head: a gesture of self-reproach. "I will admit: I should have informed you. But there was no reason to believe the entanglement was of a carnal nature."

"No reason to believe they weren't fucking?"

The vulgarism stirs Singed out of scholarly calm. He doesn't smile. But his lipless mouth shows a glint of teeth. It's the same expression he'd wear when Silco would return to the Cannery after prowling the dank cloaca of the Lanes.

Always: with a plaything on his arm and ill-gotten gains in his pocket.  

He'd often likened Silco's gravitation toward vice as a form of self-medicating. The sex, the drugs, the power-plays: all symptoms of a man whose eye could not close, and needed other means to unwind. Other ways to blot out the light. 

It was a diagnosis Silco only partially agreed with. It was not autonomic impediment that kept his bad eye from closing. Simply the refusal to look away from the world as it was.

Now, his bad eye smolders in its socket. It's a marvel the Doctor doesn't wilt in its heat. Then again, Singed's always been a hard man to burn.

It's what he and Silco have in common.

"No," he says. "That, I do not believe."

"Is that so?"

"Given Viktor's... condition... it's unlikely."

"I'm not sure if you're aware, Doctor—" Silco's tone, beneath the frigid civility, is honed to cut jugulars, "—but there are ways around that."

The glint of teeth deepens. A grin, however cold. "Oh, I am aware.  But I'm also aware of Viktor's nature. I've known him since he was a boy. Frailty's always been his cross to bear. But that has not diminished his drives. Only... redirected them, as it were." 

"Sublimation."

"You sound dubious."

Silco's good eye slits. Singed's grin fades.

"I understand. We're men of pragmatic bent. There will always be a selfish component to our pursuits. A willingness to see the big picture, even if it means putting our better selves on the backburner."  He turns to the pod. "Viktor is different. His nature has a singular trajectory: up. He wants to ascend. To break free of limitations: both inborn and self-imposed. Sex, in comparison, is a dead-end. Love, though? That's something else. Something that can take him to the stars." 

Silco follows his stare. The pair, entwined, are haloed in violet. Their breathing is slow and steady.

A duet.

"The boy's always longed for a taste of the transcendent," Singed muses. "I imagine, in J17, he's found it. A force of pure creation. Pure entropy. It is only in chaos that order can thrive. The sense of a divine plan is what gives meaning to the world. And a multivalent, fractal reality is what allows a scientific theory to evolve into law."

Silco's knuckles pop. He says nothing. 

"If it helps," the Doctor adds, "I doubt the boy's done worse than hold her hand. The way he speaks of her, one would think her a... psychopomp. Someone to guide him to a higher plane of knowledge. Someone whose existence is to be worshiped. Not possessed."

"Worship and possession," Silco replies, in the voice of cold prescience, "often end the same way."

"Oh?"

"With someone on their knees."

Singed doesn't laugh, exactly. The sound's too measured. But his mangled lips stretch to show the full set of teeth. They hold the implacable sheen of scalpels. Each one slitting its careful way through the tissue of Silco's self-control.

"A cynic's view," he says. "And one I disagree with."

"Do you, now?"

"I'll grant there is a physical element to their closeness. But, I suspect, the physical is merely a conduit to that higher plane. A literal touchstone to guide them through the dark. The true roadmap, as it were, is the end each of them seeks."

"That end being?"

"Balance," Singed says. "If my theory is correct, they each serve as a counterpoise to the other. J17, in her unbound potential: a spirit of half flesh, half catalyst. A force in constant flux. Viktor, in his rigid catechism: a being forged in metal and magic. The very dictum of death. Each is, in their own way, an anomaly. Together, they are a paradox. One that introduces a new paradigm."

"Paradigm."

"Cause and effect." The grin's gone. Only Singed's eyes shine: a cold, methodical zeal. "Or, in your language: cost and reward."

A chill steals through Silco.

It's not the first time Singed's dissections of the metaphysical have taken a macabre turn. For the Doctor, the two are indistinguishable: the duality of life and death reduced to quantifiable variables of mess and mass. In his laboratory, Silco's witnessed the results firsthand.

The Doctor's a man who understands that knowledge only goes as deep as the knife cuts.  And Silco, a man who has cut to the marrow of humanity's ugliness, knows there's no limit to the incision when the rest's been pared clean. 

"If your intention was to disarm me," he says flatly, "you've failed."

"Disarm." Singed's chuckle is dry as bone dust. "Old friend, you are not the weapon. Only the steel that whets its edge."

"Flattery?"

"Fact." The corners of Singed's eyes crinkle. "We are, both of us, mere tools for a greater design."

Jinx cries out.

In the pod, the Hexcore spins rapidly. The rotations, faster and faster, become a multicolored blur. The fluctuating glow—sometimes blue, sometimes red—is phantasmagoric. Silco has the sense of something primordial unspooling into existence. The birth of a star, on a spiritual scale: chemical fusion gone mystic.

A subsonic hum fills the air. Jinx's cry spikes.

Her whole body begins shaking: a subtle network of pain radiating, it seems, from the epicenter of her wound. Viktor's embrace holds. But beads of sweat pop on his temples. His breathing goes choppy.  The pod's plexiglas walls turn milky as if with steam.

No—frost.

Silco can see the lattice of ice spreading. The cracks, fanning in jagged starbursts, resemble spiderweb.

Meanwhile, Viktor and Jinx may as well be under a full rig of stage lights: both of them are simmering in their skins.

Jinx's pallor is engulfed by a bright pink flush. Her breath comes in rapid drags. Her good right hand, fluttering, finds Viktor's good left. Their palms align, fingers twining. The twin rows of knuckles, flesh and bone, are deathly white.

The Hexcore's singing deepens. Jinx's own cry climbs to a keen.

Silco races forward. "Jinx!"

Before he can touch the pod, Singed seizes his arm. The grip is cold, cadaverous, yet somehow comforting.

"Not yet," he urges, as Jinx's wails echo and re-echo. "It's not done yet."

"Let go! She needs me—"

"No." Singed's grip is as unyielding as his gaze. "She needs to finish this. As does Viktor. Let them see it through."

Silco stares. Blood beats in his temples. He understands, remotely, that he is terrified. Paralysis, its predictable residue, clings like a second skin. It's a heaviness he despises. It's why he is so quick to reassert self-dominion with a dose of violence. To defend himself, monster and man, from threats that would otherwise devour him.

But what if the threat's taken root in the tenderest parts?

What if it can never be excised?

(Is that fatherhood?)

Tossing her head, Jinx screams. Viktor, gasping, shudders.

The Hexcore's pulsations go critical.

Then—with a flash of brilliant blue—the humming ebbs. The pod's opalescent frost, in icy bloom, evaporates. Within, Jinx and Viktor subside into stillness. Their hands are still twined, their foreheads together. Both breathe in unison. 

But there's a dissonance in the rhythm. A harmony, that, while still in tandem, is their own.

Viktor is the first to wake.

His arm loosens its cradle around Jinx. His head stirs, the dark crown dislodging against its blue perch of her skull. The gold eyes—with their black-rimmed core—flicker. They are glazed in shock.  Then he blinks, and they regain focus. The lineaments of his expression—grim-lipped and hollow-cheeked—are ones Silco knows well.

The sense of a spirit coming to the limits of its endurance, and shattering the barrier.

Now he's unsure what awaits on the other side.

Slowly, the golden eyes swivel. They find Singed. They find Silco. Then they fall on his and Jinx's still-linked hands. Something flickers across his wan face. Not a smile, exactly. But a certain softness around the hard brackets of his mouth.

As if he'd held on to a fear for dear life. And now, finding it unfounded, can let it go.

With a gentle tug, he unthreads their fingers.

Jinx doesn't stir. But she lets off a long slow exhalation that could be sadness, or a deep release of tension. Viktor disentangles their bodies. He does so with a delicate, deliberate care, keeping a light contact of fingertips all the way down her torso. Silco follows their path to Jinx's ribcage.

Under the gauze, the wound is closed. The meat is seared like a brand. But there's no trace of torn skin. Even the stitches—each raw suture point—have shrunk into a smooth pink furrow.

Jinx breathes. Each rise and fall—seamless—is a small miracle.

Silco is not a devout man. Contemptuous of all matters devotional, he treats prayer like a poor business transaction: an unstable currency of sacrifice, with no guarantee of success.

Now, the gratitude that floods his lungs is nearly a baptism. He hates every iota: the helplessness, the loss of agency.

But loves, gut-wrenchingly, what it's restored.

With effort, Viktor straightens. His bare feet, touching the tiles, let off a metallic clink. One hand grips the bedframe. The other reaches for his cane. Every muscle delineates the difficulty of keeping his balance.

The sheer exertion of willpower in holding his mind and body together.

As with all impossible endeavors, he does not falter.

"It is done," he says, hoarse but steady.  "She is back."

"Back?"

"Within herself. The Void... has touched her heart. She has seen its own. But she is intact."

"Intact?"

"She will recover." He swallows with a liquid click. "In time."

Silco nods.

On the rumpled sheets, Jinx sleeps. Her breaths hold a deep-sea serenity. Her delicate features are preciously girlish and lost-looking. The sight suffuses Silco with a tenderness that yet calls up the horror of it all.

He takes himself to a place of stillness, and allows himself to feel it. Not just last night's ordeal. Everything leading up to it. Strategy after strategy, error after error, so the outcome is the same as when Zaun first emerged from its ravaged shell.

His child in a sickbed. His paternal devotion in a deathmatch with politics. His and Vi's blood game no more than a war against specters.

A war they've both lost.

Badly.

Silco's eyes pass from his sleeping beauty to the man who'd saved her life.

"Doctor," Silco says. "Open the pod."

Singed does not argue. With a deft touch, he flips the controls. 

The plexiglas shell retracts. The air, trapped, is instantly sucked out. It is unseasonably warm from Jinx's and Viktor's body-heat. The smell holds a sterile bite of disinfectant. Underneath, a faint trace of musk lingers.

The unforgettable odor has been imprinted on Silco's olfactory landscape since Jinx began working with the Hex-gem. The permeating ozone-stink of night sweats and lightning strikes.

The afterglow of the Void.

Now Silco detects the component he'd not dared to put a name to: that singular, almost sexual tang. Two spirits, intertwined, coupling in a realm without flesh. 

Right under his roof.

His eyes lock on Viktor's. The younger man's ambivalent features, caught between exhaustion and relief, shift. Wariness creeps in. It's not the fear of reckoning. More the full awareness of a gamble gone sour.

Now the ruin, no matter how cataclysmic, must be accounted for.

The gold eyes—infinitely patient, infinitely reckless—do not waver.

"I believe," Viktor says, "you have questions."

"I do," Silco says. Then: "Doctor. Fetch the stretcher."

Singed's head takes on an insectile slant. As if he's caught the taste of blood in his mandibles, and is trying to parse its source.

"Stretcher?" he repeats. "Whatever for?"

"Viktor."

"The boy seems perfectly—"

Crossing the distance, Silco lays a hand on Viktor's shoulder. A steadying, almost paternal clasp.

The Monster, unsheathing its claws, rakes down.

His fist slams into Viktor's gut. The young man staggers with a strangled cry. His cane clatters. The rest of him slumps, jelly-legged, as Silco follows with a snapping right hook, smoking it straight through the boy's frail defense and connecting with his jaw.

There is a satisfying snap of bone on bone. The sound, visceral and rich, kickstarts a tidal wave of blackness that seethes from the balls of Silco's feet and climbs all the way to his hairline.

The Monster is awake, and it is hungry.

"Doctor," Silco says, as Viktor crumples to the floor. "The stretcher."

Wisely, Singed obeys.

[whumplicity]

The Memory Circuit [V]

Bite Down

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⎉: @chaotic-orphan @morning-star-whump Let me know if you'd like to be added or subtracted from the taglist!

CW: graphic depictions of physical and psychological torture, child abuse, grooming, sexual violence involving minors, institutional exploitation, non-consensual medical/technological procedures, trauma flashbacks, violence, captivity, dissociation, systemic abuse.

Line dividers by @sister-lucifer!!!!

It’s in the bones. In the soft tissue. In the places they didn’t bandage, because they didn’t care to.

His ribs are packed wrong—wrapped too tight, maybe broken in three places. His knees are locked in crude external splints. The shoulder—left—burns. Swollen. Dislocated. Maybe shattered? It feels like it. His right hand won’t flex. 

The chair holds him upright, fixed in place. Mechanical restraints at ankles, wrists, chest. A gentle hum. Cold metal bolted to colder floors. Bok can’t breathe easy. He can only sit in the wreckage of himself, eyes half-lidded, mouth dry and sticky.  

He shifts. Just once.  

The pain flares, vivid and immediate.

The door opens.

He doesn’t lift his head. He can hear the steps: unhurried, expensive. A rustle of real fabric, not synthetic. Cotton. Maybe silk.

“You know,” the voice says lightly, “you’ve got a remarkable pain threshold.”

Bok does look, then. Just a little. His neck protests, loud.

The man who enters is not dressed like a soldier. Civilian clothes: deep blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, collar loose; dark slacks. Wavy red hair pulled back loosely, some of it still curling at the sides. A gold necklace glints at his chest. Black gloves sheath his hands, and at his hip, a sleek holstered gun rests.

Pretty. Bok hates that it’s the first thing he notices. Pretty, in that careless, born-with-it way. Sharp nose, clean lines, dry eyes.

Coffee. He’s holding coffee.

Bok stares.

The man sets it down on the table beside him and gestures with an elegant little flourish, like they’re starting a chess match.

“Broke a man’s tibia with your elbow, apparently. While your own leg was already broken. I don’t know if I’m impressed or nervous.”

Bok can’t tell if he’s being mocking or not.

The man walks closer, retrieving the neural tap cable.

“You were still kicking. Still biting. Ribs broken, hand crushed, and you still managed to stab someone. So forgive me—” he glances at the restraints, “—for being a little cautious.”  

He crouches. Close now. Bok can smell the coffee.  

“I’m Ricky,” he says, tone clipped, unbothered. “You and I are going to get very close.”  

Ricky picks up the bit next, turning it between his fingers—black polymer, soft—and holds it up like a peace offering.

“Bite down.”  

Bok doesn’t move.

Ricky rocks forward onto his toes, his face barely beneath Bok’s eye level, but Bok gazes coolly back down at him nonetheless.

“It’s not for me,” Ricky snorts. “It’s for your tongue. Once I go in, it’s going to get ugly.”

He slips it into Bok’s mouth with steady fingers. Bok bites down hard.

Ricky jerks his hand back with a hiss. “Shit,” he mutters, shaking out his hand. “Yeah. Good man.”

He finally rises, shakes out his fingers one last time, then turns and strides to the console.

The rig hums to life. The tap slides into position, and Ricky’s fingers fly over the controls, quietly humming to himself.

“Not personal,” he adds—and hits one last switch.

¶¶¶¶

Whatever it is slams into Bok’s skull like a hammer.

He jerks in the chair. Screams against the bit. His back arches. The restraints groan. Every nerve lights up like a live wire.  

On-screen, the first images begin to flash.

¶¶¶¶

Age 13. Training Facility: Unit 17

A dorm. Sterile. White. He’s naked from the waist down.  

A clipboard passes between two adults. One nods. The other gestures.  

The handler steps forward. Grabs his jaw. Lifts it. Examines him like a horse.  

“He's grown,” they note. “Ready for evaluation.”  

He tries to speak. Voice cracks. They slap him. Open hand. 

He’s twelve. Maybe thirteen.  

The handler grips his shoulder. Turns him. Presents him.  

“You’ll be perfect,” they murmur, adjusting his collar. “Lower your eyes.”  

Bok watches from the chair, shaking.  

NO. No no nonono stop—stop this—no more, not now—

But it only digs in further.  

¶¶¶¶

Age 14. Night Session: Red Room

A velvet bed. Cameras in every corner. A glass wall.  

Three men sit behind it. Watching. Grading.  

Bok is told to strip. He does.  

Hands guide him. Lotioned palms. Voice at his ear.  

“Do it sweet this time. Smile like you mean it.”  

Sharp cologne. Bok kneels.  

His eyes are dead. Inside, he’s somewhere else.  

Behind the glass, someone nods. A ‘pass’.

Bok clenches his fists in the chair. Restraints grind against metal.  

His whole body is taut. Teeth digging into the bit.  

Ricky shifts. He clears his throat. Tries to skip ahead.  

Bok slams a mental wall in place.  

The machine screeches. Screen fuzzes. Glitches.  

But it finds another path.

¶¶¶¶

Age 15. First Kill

A hotel room. Expensive. Marble tub.  

A client lies back, champagne in one hand. His pupils are slow.  

Bok is dressed in silk. Lipstick.  

He laughs. Touches the man’s shoulder. Drops something into the drink.  

“Bottoms up.”  

The man drinks.  

Thirty seconds. His lips go slack. Bok leans in. Whispers something that isn’t picked up. Then drives the needle into his neck.  

The body spasms.  

Bok pins him with a knee. Watches the light fade.  

Then calmly strips the bed. Wipes the prints. Changes clothes. Twirls the keys, pockets them, gone. 

The whole act—flawless.

On screen, it replays twice.  

Ricky exhales. 

“Why did they pivot you to assassination?” 

Bok curls his lip. “Maybe I got bored.”

¶¶¶¶

Age 16. Assault

A handler. Drunk. Furious. Slams Bok into the wall.  

“You want to make me look bad?”  

He’s been failing evaluations. Slipping.  

Too much resistance.

The man forces him down. Belt off. No camera this time.  

It’s fast. Violent. Bok doesn’t scream.  

Afterwards, he lies there. Eyes open. Something gone.  

¶¶¶¶

Bok thrashes in the chair. Screaming now. Wordless. Gut-deep.  

The restraints dig into broken skin.  

On screen, the memory degrades. Fragments. Blurs.  

Then another—

¶¶¶¶

Age 17. Redress

A locker room. Same handler.  

Bok follows, humming.  

Injector in hand. Sharp. Fast.  

Stab to the neck. Hold it. Hold it—until the body stops moving.  

The blood freckles Bok’s cheek.

He laughs—soft, breathless.

¶¶¶¶

Back in the chair, Bok shoves with every ounce of mental force left.  

The screen hisses. Static. Feedback stutters.

Bok’s pushing back against the onslaught. Slamming doors in its face.

Ricky types frantically. Tries to reroute.  

Fails.  

Tries again.  

Fails.  

Overload. 

Sync disruption. 

Neural resistance spike: critical. 

“Stop fighting,” Ricky snaps. “Stop it—”  

Bok glares at him. His lips are bleeding dark.

He spits the bit to the floor with a slick clack.

“You get off on that, Ricky?” he sneers, voice tight, eyes wet, betraying him. “You enjoy it?”  

The screen explodes into white noise. Hard cut.  

Bok crumples. Not quite unconscious. His head pounds.

Ricky stares at the console. Then at Bok.  

His voice is thin.

“You little bastard.”  

Ricky crosses the room. Pages someone on the intercom.  

“We’ve got a failure,” he says. “Tap’s down. No data retrieved. He—overloaded it. I don’t know how.”

A beat.  

“No, don’t send a tech. He fried it.”  

He turns his back, pinching the bridge of his nose. Silence.

He clicks off.  

Ricky stands by the door, one hand resting on the frame, his gaze tracing the tense lines of Bok’s body as his chest heaves with ragged breaths.

“You know,” Ricky’s voice is hollow, the words hanging in the space between them, “I was hoping you’d make this easy.”  

“Go… fuck yourself,” Bok wheezes out.

The door hisses shut behind Ricky, sharp and final.

The lights dim.

And Bok lets his head fall back, eyes shuttering.

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[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 97

Part 1 Part 96

Perkins and Barb are already there when Eddie wakes up. Perkins hushed laugh grates at his brain, shredding it like cheese until he has no choice but to open his eyes. 

“What the fuck?” Eddie murmurs, rubbing dust bunnies from his eyes.

They’re sitting huddled together at the side of Steve’s bed, Wayne at their side in his own chair. 

“Mornin’, boy,” he says, sipping at his shitty cup of free hospital coffee as he looks down his nose at Eddie’s prone form. “You done hogging your friend's sick bed?” He puts a weird inflection on the word ‘friend’ that has Eddie’s cheeks blooming.

“Shut up, old man,” he hisses. 

The bed’s a tight enough fit that he can feel Steve’s warmth radiating all up his back and up his ribs where his arm’s partially wrapped around Eddie. He tries to shuffle free, movements slow and furtive so as not to interrupt his sleep. 

It doesn’t work. Steve’s arm tightens, the metal splint on finger painfully into Eddie’s ribs as he mutters, “where you going Eddie?” but he slurs it altogether and trails off so it comes out more like, “wherego, Ed.” 

Eddie smiles, helpless and aching with it as he settles back onto the hospital's shitty cardboard mattress.

“You’ve got visitors, angel.”

Steve’s hand leaving his waist feels like a loss. His elbow digs into Eddie’s back as he props himself up enough to be able to see past Eddie’s wild hair to who’s sitting beside his bed. 

“What the fuck?” 

Wayne huffs. “Mornin, kid, reaching past Eddie to ruffle Steve’s hair. “How ya feelin’?”

“I’m fine,” Steve lies, voice turning distant and small as he asks,  “Carol?”

Unable to stand not seeing Steve’s face for a second longer, Eddie shuffles within tight quarters to lever himself up, back plastered to what passes as the bed’s headboard. Steve’s still propped up on his elbows, arms shaking as he tries to hold himself up.

Eddie reaches over, pulling with all his strength until Steve’s settled upright beside him. Steve doesn’t turn his way, but he reaches over and takes Eddie’s hand like it’s instinct, and that’s even better.

Steve’s eyes are big as he looks over at his best friend. “What–” he starts, word cracking dryly in his throat.  “What are you doing here?”

Eddie reaches over to grab the pitcher of water on Steve’s bedside table, glowering when Barb beats him to it. She pours it into one of the hospital's flimsy paper cups, holding it out to Steve like an offering.

He takes it, gulps it down, doesn’t look away from Perkinsl’ washed-out face. 

She’s not wearing any make-up, and her hair’s gone all greasy and flat. Most damning, she’s wearing one of Steve’s Hawkins swim team hoodies that Eddie knows for a fact was folded up in his own dresser at home. It swallows her, hanging past her hips until she’s shapeless.

She looks worn down and tired. Still, she rolls her eyes as Barb settles back down beside her. “What, you think I was gonna miss the show?” she asks. Her lips are quirked up playfully, eyes glossy.  “It was like King Steve all over again” 

Eddie looks away from her to watch that land on Steve. Steve who has always somehow been more and less than those around him make him out to be. Steve who’s always been more than a simple high school king. He furrows his brows the way he does when he knows there was a joke but the punchline hasn’t landed for him. 

“Wha–”

“You know because you were out of your mind and lost control?”

Eddie whips his head around, ready to strangle and snarl, rend flesh from bone. Barb sighs, dropping her face in her hand. Perkinss just sitting there, biting her lip on a laugh as she keeps her gaze trained on Steve. Like she hadn’t just said the most insensitive fucking thing Eddie’d ever heard come out of her mouth. 

Eddie feels Steve’s whole body tremble where their pressed hip to overlapping hip in the small bed. The rage boils inside Eddie until he’s shaking with it.

Behind him, Steve Harrington laughs. Eddie turns. Steve’s shoulders are shaking as he bites his own lip against his own helpless laughter, eyes shining as he looks over at his morbid, fucking up best friend. 

“Personally, I think this is an upgrade,” Steve says because even in this, these two are fucking freaks about everything.

“Beer pong to dropping bodies?” Perkins asks.

Eddie can’t help the way he gasps, clutching at his chest like he’s a suburban Mom that just caught sight of some ruffian in the grocery store. Perkins shifts her eyes over to Eddie, and somehow looking at his beat up face is what gets her crying.

It’s less that she stands up and more than she tries to stand, lunges forward, knees hitting the metal edge of the bed with a thwack as she crawls over the safety railing and falls partially on top of both their mangled bodies. 

Eddie tries to squirm out and away, but she’s got her face buried in Steve’s shoulder, arms wrapped around both of their necks. “I’m sorry I got lover boy's face beat in!” she warbles.

Steve snorts, snotty and wet. “That was you?”

They’re both messy, crying and laughing, refusing to let Eddie off this fucking bed and away from whatever the hell has infected it. He raises his head in desolation to meet Barb’s resigned gaze. 

She shrugs at him, chin cradled in the palm of her hand as she watches the two idiots in the bed lose their shit over something that should’ve never been funny. 

Eddie squints at her. She looks so ready to accept fate, like of course Perkins would be like this, and of course she’ll stay anyway. Somehow, after such a short time, they’re already a package deal.

Well, she could do worse. They both could 

“Carol, you–” Eddie starts before stalling, staring with wide eyes at Barb’s amused face. He clears his throat, starts over even though it’s too late. Names hold power, and now Carol’s gonna have ownership of his soul. Or however it goes. “Perkins, you’re a fucking freak.”

Carol sniffles and snorts, like a pig in a bog before lifting her head from Steve’s neck. Her face is covered in snot and saltwater, eyes puffy and ruined, but she’s smiling when she flings her arms around Eddie, rubbing her face into his own shirts despite his protests.

“Takes one to know one, darling,” she says, hugging him tight. 

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren @canmargesimpson @bananahoneycomb @rainwaterapothecary @practicallybegging

Part 98

[flowersforthemachines]

I heard you want some Bellara headcanons and so I have come with a small one that’s been living rent free in my head for months

At the lighthouse in her casual/home clothes Bellara wears these gold bands around her elbow and wrist on her left and one around her hand on the right, now these could just be jewelry or part of the gauntlet she uses buuuut

my headcanon is that these are splints for her joints for carpal tunnel / EDS / hypertension/ arthritis. They look a lot like splint rings and hand/elbow braces and wearing them when you’re at home not fighting would make a lot of sense. And our girl uses her hands a lot and doing a lot of repair work or flexing her hands to get into strange angles to get at artifacts and she does so repetitively which is exactly the sort of thing that causes joint pain

Bels vs some real life ones

Send me Bellara-related things to celebrate my birthday ✨

Ohh, that's such an interesting headcanon! The devs did put a lot of thought into designing companion's starting armours/casuals, so I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be intentional.

Thank you for sharing <3

[turtleblogatlast]

after finding out he's trans from Draxum, Leo drops the news to his family with a joke and zero explication. The family wants to be a supportive as possible, but misunderstand and think that Leo just came out as transfem. The fact they didn't even consider Leo is biofem is surprisingly validating.

“Guess who just gave a new meaning to to word trans-portation!”

This is the first thing Leo says to everyone after going off with Draxum to who-knows-where for who-knows-what.

“Normally, I unfortunately understand the flow of logic for Leo’s puns, but I admit that I am blanking here.” Donnie says, looking at Leo with narrowed eyes.

Leo laughs - maybe a bit hysterically - as he saunters on over to the rest of his family. “Eh, just a little joke about my awesome portal powers mixed with- uh-“ He coughs into his fist, finding it difficult to keep his regular act up. “-a fab new finding about myself. Turns out I was born…a female turtle……?”

There’s silence for a moment.

Then- “Omigosh! Leo!” An orange blur rockets its way into Leo’s arms, making the slider let out and “oof” before steading both he and Mikey. “Thank you for telling us! Wait, is it still Leo? Or Lea now, maybe?”

The shock wheels its way out of Raph’s form as he comes over, eyes shiny, “I’m glad you told us, little sis.”

Leo blinks at them. “Wait-“

“Please note that if any of our enemies or allies refers to you incorrectly I can and will use deadly force to correct them.” Donnie states, with a grin that looked a little too excited about the idea.

“Same here!” April states, pounding one hand into another, “And- it’s cool to have another girl around.”

Leo thinks something got lost in translation. “Uh, guys-“

Splinter comes up to his side, patting his arm gently. “Oh, my Baby Blue, I’m so proud of you, my daught-“

“Okay, no, no, you guys got it wrong.” Leo laughs again, more uncomfortably than hysterically this time. “I’m- I’m not, like, a girl. I was-“ He looks away, feeling way too embarrassed about all this for his comfort, “I was born as a female turtle. Biologically.”

A beat.

“Oh.” Raph blinks down at him, surprise on his face, “Oh we may have jumped the gun there.”

“Well, this is embarrassing, though my offer of violence stands.” Donnie states.

Mikey rubs the back of his head sheepishly, “So…still Leo? Our brother?”

Leo gives a fond grin, “Yeah, yeah, still your brother.”

(April makes a noise of amusement, elbowing Splinter as everyone turns to her, “Hey, y’know what Splints? I think your DNA may have accidentally became some kinda HRT for Leo.”

Donnie thinks, “It does make sense, if a female red eared slider were to become mutated with a male human’s DNA then hypothetically it could create a mutant that takes on a more masculine outer appearance while retaining the female make up that was used as the base-“

Leo cuts in, “Okay, okay, no science-ing my gender, bro, let’s just order some pizza.”)

[melanch8ly]

smoke in her lungs, ash on her hands // 1

sevika x fem!reader enemies to lovers

Chapter 1: Smoke, Steel, and the Scent of Lavender

Zaun never truly slept.

The Undercity was alive with the grind of machinery, the hiss of exhaust from shimmer pipes, and the ever-present buzz of life just clinging on. Y/N knew the rhythm of it better than her own pulse. Her boots tapped a staccato rhythm down rusted metal grates as she crossed the narrow bridge into the market district, satchel hanging from her shoulder and curls half-tamed beneath her shawl.

She wasn’t dressed like much—a faded brown wrap, loose pants tucked into weathered boots, her belt jingling slightly from scissors and vials she hadn’t had the chance to put away. Her fingers still smelled of antiseptic and sage from a poultice she’d made that morning. She was tired. She always was. The kind of tired that settled in your marrow and made you crave silence, warmth, something sweet.

But just as she turned down a quieter alley, she saw it.

Blood. Not pooled—dripped. Fresh. Bright arterial red.

It led behind a stack of rotting crates behind an abandoned shimmer lab, the stench of chemical burn thick in the air. She stepped forward slowly, instinct overriding reason. Her breath caught in her throat as she spotted the collapsed form behind the crates—sprawled out in a patch of oil, breathing in wet gasps, hands shaking.

He was barely a man, maybe a year or two older than her—Zaun-born, inked across his throat in an old gang brand, his jacket torn and soaked with blood. One arm hung useless, bones shattered and sticking out at the elbow. His face was a mess of bruises, lips split, one eye swollen shut. He looked like death already had its fingers wrapped around his throat.

"Shit," Y/N whispered, already dropping to her knees beside him.

“Don’t…” he gasped, flinching. “She’s… she’ll come back.”

“Not if I get you out of here in time,” she snapped, already unfastening her satchel, eyes scanning the damage.

The boy was half-conscious, too far gone to resist when she jabbed him with a painkiller and started bandaging his wounds, wrapping tight with surgical gauze and splinting his arm with metal scrap from the alley. He didn’t speak again.

She carried him the whole way back—5’3” of sheer willpower and adrenaline, dragging his nearly dead weight through side alleys and rat tunnels until she made it to her little home, tucked beneath a collapsed chem processing plant. Her clinic was crude but clean. Handmade tables, glass bottles lined neatly on wood shelves. She patched him up in silence, sweat sticking curls to her cheeks as her hands moved with practiced speed.

She never asked names. Never gave hers.

That was how she survived.

But Sevika wasn’t a woman who liked surprises.

The lab was still smoking when she arrived—long strides, coat sweeping behind her, metal arm humming with leftover fury. She stepped over corpses, crushed canisters, the smell of burnt flesh and melted steel curling in her nostrils.

“Where the fuck is he?” she snarled, kicking over a half-destroyed desk.

“He was here,” one of her scouts muttered. “Didn’t die here though. Got dragged out. There's... tracks.”

Sevika’s nostrils flared.

He shouldn’t have lived.

He had information.

Schematics. Formulas. Shit his gang wasn’t supposed to know. Silco had sent her to erase the problem—clean and silent. But now the problem had legs again, and worse: a story to tell.

Her fury bubbled under her skin like a second pulse.

It didn’t take long to find the trail.

Zaun whispered. Someone had seen a curly-haired girl in a brown wrap hauling a body through the industrial quarter. Sevika followed the scent of antiseptic and blood, boots echoing through the old tunnels, until she found the place—small, barely a shack, tucked into the skeleton of a broken factory. Too neat. Too quiet.

She didn’t knock.

The door crashed open under her boot, slamming against the wall.

Inside, Y/N jumped.

She was tying off a linen wrap around her wrist when the door burst open, light from outside slashing across her face. She turned sharply, curls spilling over her shoulder, eyes wide and dark and startled.

“What the hell—?” she began, but stopped.

Because the woman that stepped into her home wasn’t just anyone.

Sevika was massive. Steel-arm massive. Her presence sucked the air from the room. Smoke clung to her coat. Her eyes were metal—sharp, narrowed, set in a face carved from anger and war. Every inch of her said: I kill for a living.

“You,” Sevika growled.

“Me?” The younger woman blinked, setting the bandage aside.

Sevika was already across the room in two strides. Her metal arm shoved her hard—not even full force, just a warning. But it was enough. Y/N stumbled, catching herself on the edge of a shelf as glass vials rattled violently.

“You patch him up?” Sevika spat. “That rat with the broken arm?”

“He was bleeding out,” Y/N said, heart hammering but voice steady. “He needed help.”

“He needed to die.”

Y/N's jaw clenched. “That’s not my decision to make. I don’t choose sides—I treat whoever walks in needing help.”

Sevika’s mouth curled into something cold. Her voice dropped low and venomous. “You think this is a fucking charity? That bastard had intel. Dangerous intel. The kind that starts wars. You think you’re helping? You're giving them ammunition."

“I’m giving them a chance to live,” Y/N snapped.

Wrong move.

Sevika was in her face in a heartbeat, breath hot with rage, steel fingers curling like she was fighting the urge to grab her by the throat. Y/N refused to back down, though every inch of her trembled.

“You just made my job harder. And I don’t like that, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” Y/N said, voice cracking like fire over frost. “And maybe if your job involves murdering bleeding people in alleys, someone should make it harder.”

A beat of silence.

Then Sevika laughed. A low, dangerous thing. No mirth in it—just disbelief.

“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that,” she said, circling her slowly like a predator. “But you just interfered in my business. You don’t get to cry innocence when that comes back to bite you.”

“I’m not innocent,” Y/N said quietly. “But I swore to help people. I don't ask what gang they belong to.”

Sevika stopped. Turned.

And for the first time, she looked at the girl.

Really looked.

Not at the shawl. Not at the clinic. At her.

Young, maybe mid twenties. Too soft for this world. But eyes like tempered steel, and a stubborn fire in her that hadn’t been stamped out yet. Sevika had expected some old crone, a babbling alchemist, a medtech dropout with more ambition than brains.

Not this.

Not dimples and defiance in the same breath.

She hated how surprised she was.

“You keep this shit up,” Sevika said, voice a low rumble, “you’re gonna end up dead. You hear me? Someone’s gonna gut you just to make a point.”

“Then they’ll have to try harder,” Y/N said.

Another beat.

And Sevika stepped back.

Not much. But just enough.

She tilted her head, cracked her neck like a wolf losing interest—for now.

“I see you patch him up again,” she said coldly, “I’ll come back. And next time, I won’t just shove you.”

“I won’t stop doing my job,” Y/N said, lifting her chin. “Even if you threaten me.”

Sevika’s smirk was dark. “Yeah. I figured.”

She turned and walked out, the door creaking in her wake, heavy boots thudding into the distance.

Y/N exhaled. Hard.

Her knees buckled as soon as the sound of footsteps vanished.

And yet, even as her hands shook, even as she went to pick up the vials that had fallen from the shelf… she couldn’t get those silver eyes out of her head.

Or the way Sevika had looked at her.

Like a warning. Like a promise. Like a storm just beginning to form on the horizon.

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