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david-lynch-ate-my-son · 1 month ago

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Title: Relative Fiction

Part: 1/?

Fandom: Animal Kingdom

Pairing: Andrew "Pope" Cody x Reader

WC: ~6k

Summary: Lena's in a foster home, Smurf is making moves to gain custody, and Pope is out of hope.

Enter: Lena's sweet, dependable, entirely-too-respectable next door neighbor with a very interesting proposition.

The one where Pope enters into a marriage of convenience and gains so much more than he bargained for.

Warnings: Possibly too much eye narrowing and jaw clenching, use of the word "simulacrum" (but I genuinely couldn't think of another way to say what I wanted to say), exposition bomb

The first time Pope called you by your real name, as far as you knew, was on your wedding day.

The entire affair felt like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel–the chapel in Vegas with its electric blue, shag carpeting, the plastic wisteria plants draped from the ceiling and trailing down the walls, the Elvis impersonator slurring his way through your vows, and a very confused (very high) Craig who’d been dragged out to Nevada to act as witness.

And yet, the most surreal moment was when Pope actually said your name at the altar–not “kid,” which was what he usually called you–but your legal, god-given name.

It had sounded foreign on his tongue–like a gauzy simulacrum of the name you knew–and you were so thrown that Elvis had to nudge you with his elbow to remind you to say, “I do.”

Pope’s gaze was always a blade, sharpened and direct. Cutting across rooms, through bullshit, to the heart of things. You knew it freaked some people out, having all that attention held so tightly against their throats. But you liked it; liked knowing that he was taking his time to look; that you could almost feel him prodding, nudging, grasping, looking for something (only he knew what) and refusing to be subtle about it.

And in that moment, at the head of the aisle, exchanging vows, the blade sunk deep. Pinning you with a singular focus you’d never felt before, like a moth mounted to styrofoam. All that blue, swallowed in an instant as his pupils dilated, then constricted, holding your gaze.

Before the words, “you may now kiss the bride,” were even halfway out, Pope was dragging you down the aisle and into the chapel’s front office to sign the marriage certificate.

You were certain the clerk was half-swooning at how tightly Pope grasped your hand, knuckles turning white. How impatient he was for the marriage to be legal. You’d smothered a wry grin; it was desperate, sure, but it wasn’t romantic.

You’d never been the type of kid to dream about her wedding day. You’d gone through phases where you imagined yourself married to Nick Carter (objectively the cutest Backstreet Boy) and then later Bam Margera (you developed a thing for bad boys in high school). But in those fantasies, it was always about the man standing at the end of the aisle, not the dress or the flowers or the first dance.

Growing up thumbing through your parent’s wedding album had taught you that great spectacles of love often worked as sleight of hand–a misdirect from something far less shiny and far more hollow.

So you didn’t mind the ill-fitting ring purchased at a nearby pawn shop or the gas station bouquet wilting in your grasp. At the cut of it, none of the details really mattered.

What mattered was the man standing next to you, the wedding certificate, and the little girl whose future depended on getting it signed as quickly as possible.

“Do you have any dirty laundry I can use?”

Skidding around the hallway corner and into the kitchen, you came to a halt in front of Pope. He was exactly as you’d left him 5 minutes ago–sitting with straight-backed alertness at the breakfast counter and staring with familiar intensity through the living room to the front door. While you’d been nervously skittering about the house, fluffing throw pillows and spit-cleaning smudges on door frames, he’d been maintaining the same position with the composed stillness of a sniper.

But your question briefly jolted him, as he turned his head slightly in your direction.

“What?”

“Dirty laundry,” you repeated. “So I can add it into the laundry basket with mine. Right now it’s just my stuff in there and I’m worried it’s going to look suspicious.”

His brow furrowed, a look of confusion, then concern, flitting across his face.

“Do you think they’ll come in the house again?” he asked, now turning on his stool to face you fully.

He was impeccably dressed, as usual, in a freshly-ironed, short-sleeve button-up, bootcut jeans, and clean leather boots. But his fists, clenching and unclenching against his thighs, ruined the veneer of composure.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” you sighed, running a hand through your hair. Pope tracked the movement. You knew he’d picked up on it as a nervous tic. “Normally, I’d say the home visits they did before signing off on the temporary placement would be enough. But, you know…” you trailed off, shaking your head.

Pope’s jaw tightened and his eyes darted away. But you caught the look of guilt that scorched through him before he could hide it.

You wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but you’d been through this song and dance enough times to know it would be a useless endeavor. You could take the whip from his hand, but a martyr would always find another way to self-flagellate.

And the sting of it was, his instinct to self-blame wasn’t entirely wrong. You’d fought tooth and nail for DCFS to allow Lena’s temporary placement into your care, and the shitstorm it had kicked up certainly wasn’t due to your track record.

A high school art teacher with a supplementary degree in school counseling, you were the perfect candidate to entrust with Lena’s care. You didn’t drink or do drugs, you’d never even had a parking ticket, your credit score was an impeccable 850, you’d shown up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for jury duty both times you were selected, and you recycled religiously.

Hell, you even drove a goddamn Subaru. You were DCFS’s wet dream.

Pope, on the other hand…

It wasn’t just the litany of charges marring his record that was the problem, but the way he’d flown off the handle when DCFS intervened to place Lena in foster care. To say her case worker wasn’t a fan of Pope was an understatement. You considered it a minor miracle, what you’d pulled off, and still couldn’t believe that Lena would be back home–intact and within arm’s reach–in just a few short hours.

“Just to be safe–even a pair of jeans I can throw on top of the pile will do.” You knew you were probably being ridiculous, but the idea of having come so far just for one minor detail to derail the whole plan had you feeling paranoid.

Pope eyed you for a moment, thoughtfully, before standing up and unbuttoning his shirt. You made a pathetically half-assed attempt to look away as he revealed his pecs, then his upper abdominals, then his–

“Here–” he tossed the shirt your way, “you can add this to the laundry basket. I’ll get another one.”

He walked past, and you tracked the movement of his back muscles for only a moment before ducking into the bathroom to artfully arrange his shirt atop the pile of your dirty clothes in the hamper.

You could hear hangers clattering in the main bedroom–formerly Baz and Cathy’s room–and pushed down the weirdness that thought brought up.

It had taken quite a bit of coercion for Pope to allow you to move into the main bedroom, and he still approached it with the wariness of a cat circling a cage, but where else were you going to sleep if you truly meant to pull this whole thing off?

You’d already leased your own house next door to a new tenant, and you both agreed that this marriage needed to look as real as possible for Lena’s sake. She had enough going on without you asking her to lie to her teachers or caseworker. So if anyone asked her whether her Aunt and Uncle slept in the same bed at night, or ate breakfast together in the morning, you wanted her to be able to say “yes.”

It was a situation you and Pope were still adjusting to.

You were once again nervously pacing the length of the kitchen by the time Pope returned, wearing a new shirt. He paused, eyes following your movements back and forth, head tilted to the side.

“Sit,” he said. His voice brokered no argument; not because he was being particularly stern, but because his voice always brokered no argument.

And–god help you–you obeyed immediately, taking up his former post at the breakfast counter.

He approached in that slow, deliberate way of his, never breaking eye contact. Stopping on the opposite side of the counter, he leaned down onto his forearms, his eyes level with your own.

“You need to relax.” He didn’t say it quite as a command, but it definitely wasn’t a request.

You scoffed. “You’re one to talk, you–”

“Relax.” He repeated, more forcefully, leaning in just a fraction of a centimeter, but filling the remaining space with the heat of his gaze.

After a moment, you took a deep breath, nodding.

“Only one of us can afford to be unstable right now.” There was a near-imperceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Track record says it’s most likely to be me.”

You pursed your lips, trying not to smile, and Pope’s eyes darted down at the move.

“Okay, yeah.” You relented. “You’re right. I’m calm. Can we just go over everything one more time?”

“That would make you feel better?”

“Yeah. Maybe. A little.”

“Okay.”

To tell the truth, the plan had been fucking insane since its inception. You’d known it was insane, too, which was why you’d spent three restless nights lying awake in bed, turning it over and over in your head like a wishstone, before you’d even approached Pope about it.

But you couldn’t stop thinking about Lena’s little face pressed against the car window, staring after her Uncle Pope, as the DCFS officer drove away.

And, god, the hunted look in Pope’s eyes when she’d finally disappeared from sight and he’d collapsed to the front steps of Cathy’s house, head in his hands.

That man loved his niece; not out of some moralistic, familial obligation. But truly loved her. Like he was cradling a light–watching it grow and feeling warmth for the first time.

And you knew that exact feeling, because you loved Lena too.

You’d been her neighbor, technically, since before she was born. The year you’d started your teaching job at El Camino, you’d moved into the bungalow right next door and instantly hit it off with Cathy.

She was a little serious and had a tendency to withdraw into herself at the oddest moments, but she also had a huge heart and reminded you of the older sister you’d always dreamed of as a kid. Someone responsible and steady, who you could confide in and watch trashy TV with.

Baz was another story.

From the moment you’d met, he’d struck you as arrogant and almost a little detached. It puzzled you, sometimes, how someone as dependable as Cathy could end up with someone as….weasley as Baz. And their affection for one another, while it seemed genuine, often flipped from hot to cold in arbitrary turns (always determined by Baz’s moods and whims, it appeared, and never Cathy’s).

Once Lena was born, your opinion of him only got worse.

Cathy worked a lot, and her hours at the bar weren’t always predictable. At first, it seemed like Baz was making a genuine effort to pick up the slack and take over childcare whenever he could. He changed diapers (occasionally), brought Lena to mommy-and-me classes (when he wasn’t busy with other things), and even took her on long afternoon walks (though you always found it a little suspicious how many bikini-clad women seemed to cluster around the stroller when he’d park it at the beach).

That effort lasted about two months. Then, it just seemed like he got…bored with it all. Like he figured he’d given full-time parenting the good old college try and found out it wasn’t really “for him.”

He started fucking off to god knows where at all hours of the day and night, leaving Cathy with a colicky kid and practically no money for daycare or a babysitter.

Which was where you stepped in. School let out at 3:20pm (2:50 on Wednesdays), which meant that you had afternoons free to look after Lena. And really, she wasn’t too much of a difficulty. Early on, you realized that if you rigged her baby chair to your oscillating fan just so, the back and forth movement soothed her right to sleep.

You couldn’t really go out on weeknights anyway, what with all the grading and lesson planning you needed to take care of. And having Lena by your side, even if she wasn’t much in the way of company at that age, made you feel less alone.

Which was how you became Lena’s auntie. Became the person who cleaned up her scrapes when mom wasn’t around, sang Joni Mitchell songs to put her to sleep, and taught her all the best clapping games to show her friends at school.

And until a little under a year ago, aside from Cathy, you were the only steady adult presence in Lena’s life.

Then her Uncle Pope got out of jail and suddenly there was someone else buying her ice cream and taking her to the park after school.

At first you may have been a little jealous, sure. After all, you weren’t used to Lena ditching you, preferring to spend time with someone else, and it kind of hurt. But then you actually met Uncle Pope and–yeah–you got it.

There was something about all that quiet intensity that was intoxicating. Watching him was like staring down at a glass-bottom boat, only catching the slightest movement toward the surface but knowing there were leagues of life beneath.

And for a kid like Lena, who’d been starved of attention from her sole male role model for so long, you could only imagine what it was like to have someone like Uncle Pope suddenly hanging on her every word.

She perked up when he came back into the picture. It was subtle–kind of like her uncle, everything with Lena was a little subtle–but it was there. And she talked about him a lot when it was your time with her.

Uncle Pope says I’m a good color-er. He asked if I could do him another picture like the one I did with the dolphins but I told him I had to think about it because it took me a whole recess to draw it and I’m supposed to play fairies with Jenna at next recess.

Uncle Pope got me chocolate ice cream today. He never gets ice cream but he says grown ups don’t like sugar like kids, is that true? You like ice cream. Are you a grown up?

Uncle Pope said the friendship bracelet you made me is cool. Can you show me how to make one for him? But maybe blue instead of pink. I don’t think he likes pink.

And if you also spent a little extra time thinking about Uncle Pope, who had to know, right?

All he seemed to wear were those damn short-sleeved button-ups, so who could blame you for lingering a little too long on the bulge of his biceps or the veins of those thick forearms whenever you caught a glimpse of him through your window picking up Lena.

Even before his curls began to grow back out, his face had a kind of gladiatorial-beauty–too rough to be classically-handsome but compelling in its resoluteness. The recent addition of those reddish-brown curls added something so soft to the harsh line of his mouth, the cold blue of his eyes. A clash of concepts you couldn’t look away from.

So damn compelling.

Then Cathy had ‘disappeared’ and Baz had been shot and bled out mere feet away from your front door.

Lena’s entire center of gravity, which had been losing stability and shifting from underneath her for months (maybe years), collapsed.

Watching Pope contort himself into unfamiliar shapes to hold Lena’s world together–rearranging his schedule to give her something constant to trust in, softening his edges to provide comfort, begging (probably for the first time in his life) for the opportunity to prove himself worthy to care for her–it broke something open in you.

It flayed you wide, peeling back layers of flesh and sinew and metallic-tanged viscera. Laying bare the infected heart of you–a splinter planted in your youth and left to putrefy–the injury that screamed–

Why didn’t anyone care about me that much?

Why wasn’t I ever worthy of such devotion?

Where was the devil-hero who would destroy the world to save me?

So yes, the plan had been fucking insane.

I know we’ve only really been acquaintances up until this moment, but do you want to get married and petition the family court for temporary custody of Lena with the goal of eventually working toward your full adoption of her?

But what could you say?

Truly, what could you do?

Your nerves immediately dissipated the moment Lena walked through the door.

As you’d suspected, her caseworker had insisted on a “final” walkthrough before the official handoff. She’d forced Lena to wait in the car, peering through the passenger window with too-tired eyes, while she scoured every corner of the house. Opening the pantry and assessing the array of (healthy, organic) foods available, turning every tap on and off again, letting the shower run long enough to test for hot water, inspecting every corner of Lena’s bedroom and closet.

All things she’d done before–multiple times. All completely unnecessary.

But it was a show of power; a reminder, specifically aimed at Pope, that he was under surveillance. That no place was sacred and nothing his own. Not even his home.

For his part, Pope had stood silently at the living room window, not sparing a glance at the social worker, but instead locking in on the outline of Lena in the car parked across the street.

You’d done what you could to cut the tension, answering all the case worker’s questions and steering her away from Pope any time she wandered too close. But you didn’t take your first deep breath until she was out the door and Lena was dragging her Frozen suitcase across the threshold.

“Hey, bean!” You smiled, dropping to your knees and opening your arms for Lena to walk into. “We missed you so much. We’re so glad you’re home.”

Lena’s hug was weaker than normal, but she tucked her little face into your neck and you felt some of the tightness in her shoulders melt.

As you were giving her a good squeeze, you could practically feel Pope’s energy burning into your back, impatiently waiting his turn.

In all the time you’d known Pope, you’d never seen him be particularly affectionate, physically, with anyone. But with Lena, he was different–holding her hand, hugging her goodbye before school, brushing her hair out of her face when it got too unruly. And you could tell he was done waiting his turn for a hug.

You stepped back and watched him kneel down, grabbing Lena and pulling her into a tight embrace. With his face turned toward you, you watched him close his eyes as dual feelings of relief and guilt contorted his features.

He was so often studiously, carefully blank– tightly controlled and able to bank his reactions under a blanket of inflexible coolness–that seeing the unrestrained emotion steal over him felt strangely intimate.

You wanted to reach out and comfort him–place your hand at his nape or pet your fingers through his hair. But you didn’t want to intrude on the moment.

So instead, you clapped your hands together, injected some pep into your voice, and announced, “I made birria for dinner–are you hungry?”

Pulling back from Pope’s hug, Lena shrugged and made a non-commital noise before heading down the hallway toward her room.

Still on his knees, Pope turned slightly to follow her progress, mouth tightening. Once Lena was out of sight, he shifted his stare toward you.

“Give her a little time,” you tried to assure him quietly. “It’s been a long, tiring day for her.”

From his expression, you could tell he didn’t feel assured, but he nodded anyway, standing to follow you to the kitchen.

“I’ll finish up dinner,” you said, opening the fridge. “You fix the table.”

Dinner was a quiet affair. Aside from asking, “are you and Uncle Pope really married?” Lena didn’t have much to say. She pushed her food around her plate, took a few bites when you encouraged her, but mostly sat quietly with a pensive look on her face.

Her silence agitated Pope, if his furrowed brow and clenched jaw were anything to go by. He kept shooting you pointed looks across the dinner table, as though he was waiting for you to say or do something to magically fix her.

But you knew it was best to give Lena a little space to readjust and find her footing. The last thing she needed was someone making her feel like her natural reaction to all the recent trauma was somehow wrong. Or making her feel guilty for not acting a certain way when she was just trying to figure things out for herself.

When dinner was over, Lena ambled off to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. You grabbed Pope as he brought his dishes to the sink.

“Hey, hold on a sec.”

He stilled instantly, his gaze dropping to your hand on his forearm. Instead of letting go, you gave into instinct and ran your thumb over the tender skin of his inner arm in a soothing gesture until his eyes came back to yours.

“I’ll do the dishes. You put Lena to bed, read her a story. Just sit there with her for a bit and let her soak up some good juju from your presence.”

He stared.

“Good juju?” The question was skeptical.

“Yeah, you know,” you gestured vaguely with both hands, “positive energy.”

His brows twitched downward.

“Positive energy?” he repeated, blinking. He held his arms out at his sides, looking askance.

You snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, I guess positive energy might not be the right descriptor.” You tilted your head back and forth in thought for a moment. “Protective juju, how about that?”

Pope studied you for a moment, eyes flitting across your face, then nodded. He turned to walk toward Lena’s room before stopping suddenly in his tracks and turning back.

“Do you know how to load a dishwasher?”

The question was so abrupt, it took a moment to register.

“Uh, yeah?” You meant it as a statement, but in your confusion, it came out with the lilt of a question. All the meals you’d eaten so far in the house had been small enough that you’d hand washed the dishes, so this was the first time you’d be using this particular dishwasher. But still, it wasn’t like Baz and Cathy’s dishwasher was from the future. “Who doesn’t know how to load a dishwasher?”

“The right way.” He narrowed his gaze. “Do you know how to load it the right way?”

“Like plates on the bottom and cups and bowls on top?”

Pope made a frustrated, growl-like noise and started back toward you.

“No no no!” You threw your hands up, stopping his progress. “Lena! Bedtime story!” You pointed back toward Lena’s bedroom just as the sound of her opening the bathroom door made its way down the hall. “The world will not end if the dishwasher isn’t loaded correctly, I promise.”

He didn’t look entirely convinced, but Lena’s bedroom light flickering on in the hallway drew his attention and he was forced to capitulate.

“If it’s not right when I unload it tomorrow, you’ll be hand washing the dishes from now on,” he grumbled as he walked away.

“No I won’t!” You called after him, smiling to yourself.

You heard him pause, as though seriously contemplating turning back around, before eventually continuing to Lena’s bedroom.

By the time you were done with the dishes, Pope had finished reading Lena her story. He didn’t use funny voices, or project particularly loud, but he read with a sort of rhythmic cadence that carried into the kitchen. So you knew the moment he was finished with that night's chapter of Blue Willow.

On your way to the main bedroom, you stopped just outside Lena’s door and quietly pressed in closer, eavesdropping. You caught the last half of whatever Pope had been saying.

“--would have got you out of there sooner if we could. I never wanted you to be anywhere else but here, you know that, right? Lena, tell me you know that.”

There was a desperate vulnerability in his voice that you’d never heard before, and you suddenly felt guilty for listening in. Before you could hear Lena’s response, you continued down the hallway to get ready for bed.

The entire time you’d been preparing for Lena’s arrival, Pope had slept on the couch, insisting that you needed your space. But now that Lena was in the house, that particular sleeping arrangement was coming to an end.

You tried not to overthink it as you brushed your teeth. While you briefly considered exchanging your normal sleep outfit of a big t-shirt, no bra, and men’s boxers for something a little more full-coverage, you decided against it. If Pope couldn’t handle the possibility of seeing a little nipple poking through your shirt, he’d just have to get over it.

You were walking out of the en suite when he came into the room. He stopped in his tracks so quickly, it jolted you, and you dropped the earring you were removing from your ear.

“Sorry,” he muttered, bending down at the same time you did, hand bumping yours as you both reached for the earring. “Sorry,” he repeated lowly, withdrawing his hand quickly, as if your touch burned.

“It’s okay,” you brushed it off with a chuckle. “You just surprised me. I can be a little jumpy.”

You both straightened, and while you turned to place the earring on the bedside table, you tried to ignore the heat of Pope’s gaze on your legs. It sparked a keen awareness up your spine; buzzed pleasantly at the nape of your neck.

“Lena down for the night?” you asked, turning back around in time to see Pope’s eyes dart away from your ass.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” You climbed under the covers and began nestling down. “Is it alright that I take the right side?”

Pope nodded, shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other, then walked into the en suite, closing the door after him.

Turning out the lamp–the only light in the room–you rolled onto your side away from the bathroom door. You didn’t want to make things any more awkward by staring straight at him when he walked out.

As much as he tried to hide it, you could tell he was skittish about this part of the whole arrangement. Knowing what you did about his personal life and his past, though it wasn’t much, you wondered if he’d ever shared a bed with a woman for more than a night.

The idea that you might be the first person to lay next to him night after night gave you a secret little thrill. Made an inappropriately proprietary feeling take plant its fingers in your chest.

Contemplating that thought, you tried not to react when the bathroom door creaked open and Pope padded quietly over to the bed. He hesitated briefly on his side before slipping under the sheets.

You waited to feel the customary wiggling and moving about indicating that he was getting comfortable, but Pope’s side of the bed remained dead still.

Glancing over your shoulder, moonlight from the window illuminated his figure–flat on his back, sheets pulled up to his chin, arms at his side, staring straight up at the ceiling. Like a corpse or a Pharaoh in a sarcophagus.

Rolling your head back over, you shoved your face in your pillow to stifle a laugh. There was probably something clinically wrong with you that you were charmed by how unsettled he seemed to be with the entire situation.

Once you had your giggles under control, you were about to say “good night” when Pope spoke.

“She isn’t talking.”

He said it quietly, but with weight.

You rolled to your back.

“Yeah.”

“Why isn’t she talking?” He continued staring straight up at the ceiling.

“She’s always been a quiet kid.”

“Not this quiet.”

“I know.” Running a hand down your face, you paused to gather your thoughts. Unlike Pope, you had some experience in this particular area. All of your pre-service teaching had been at Title 1 schools, and you’d acted as a support system for plenty of dispossessed kids navigating the system. Too many, really.

So while Pope was going into this with Lena blind, you weren’t. And you knew it would be up to you to help guide them both.

“It’s going to take some time, Pope. The last few months have been so unstable for her, just one sucker punch after another. When kids go through stuff like this, when they’re not sure what they can trust or where they’ll be the day after tomorrow, they enter into survival mode. They’re not thinking about laughing with their friends and doing schoolwork and playing with their toys. They’re just focused on what they can control–themselves. Which is why it’s going to take a while for Lena to loosen some of that control and relax.”

“When they’re not sure who they can trust?” Pope’s head snapped toward you, his voice still quiet, but with a dangerous undercurrent. “Lena knows she can trust me, okay?”

“No,” you turned your head toward him as well, “that’s not what I said. I said she’s not sure what she can trust.”

“What’s the difference?” His tone was accusatory, defensive.

“Andrew.” You rolled over completely, facing him squarely and holding his heated gaze. “Lena is a smart kid. She knows she can trust you–I believe that–but she also knows that you can’t control every circumstance in the world. She’s lost her mother, her father, and even briefly, her home–all in the span of a year. And none of that had to do with her trust in your ability to take care of her.” You gave him some time to absorb your words.

He made a choked, frustrated noise. Then, he sighed, resigned.

“Well then what am I supposed to do?”

“We.” You corrected. “We are going to give her routine, stability, and time to adjust. Kids are resilient. She’ll find her footing sooner than you think, as long as we keep the ground she’s standing on steady.”

It was quiet again, for a long moment. You almost assumed the conversation was over, preparing to roll back into your sleeping position. Then Pope spoke again.

“What if I’ve already fucked her up?” He whispered, so quietly you almost didn’t catch it.

“You didn’t.” Your answer was immediate.

“How do you know?” Still whispering.

“How do I know?” Shaking your head, you took a deep breath, not sure where to start. “First of all, if Lena were somehow fucked up–IF,” you emphasized, pausing until Pope turned his head back toward you and caught your eyes, “which she isn’t…it wouldn’t be your fault.”

He started to speak, but you cut him off. “I’ve known Lena since the day she was born, and she’s had a lot of less-than-stellar influences in her life, but you are not one of them. You’ve never yelled at her, belittled her, forgotten her at daycare, or left her alone at a party past midnight.” You didn’t have to say Baz’s name for him to know who you were talking about; the stories you’d heard from Cathy could fill a case worker’s files to overflowing.

“Secondly,” you continued, starting to rile yourself up a little, “even if things have been bumpy and you weren’t always able to shield her from the bad stuff, you’ve been trying. Genuinely trying. Kids see that–they know when someone gives a fuck about them, and it counts for a lot more than you think it does.”

Pope swallowed visibly, his lips twisting as he thought.

“And third, Lena’s just a good fucking kid. At her core. She’s smart and funny and she cares about people. That’s not going to change because DCFS took her away for a little while. Trust me.”

You fell back against your pillow with a huff, staring up at the ceiling once again. Pope’s side of the bed rustled as he rolled over to face you, stared for a moment, not speaking, then rolled to his back once again.

“Okay,” he finally said.

Just that.

Okay.

He said it without conviction, less an agreement and more a surrender. Like he didn’t know how to respond and so just gave up.

Worrying your lip a moment, you contemplated your next thought before you said it out loud. It’s not that you were particularly precious with details about your past, or that it was something you safeguarded out of a misplaced fear of vulnerability. But there were times you still felt trigger-shy about overplaying your hand, emotionally, and you worried that what you were about to admit might be a step in that direction.

“Look,” you rolled back over to face Pope, who turned his head toward you. “I spent two years in foster care when I was just a little older than Lena. It was not like her situation with a sweet house in the suburbs, yeah? It was messy and chaotic and scary. And even still, when I was sent back home, I didn’t want to go. That’s how bad it was with my family.”

You tried not to get distracted by the way Pope’s gaze narrowed and darkened, or the look that crossed his face that you couldn’t quite describe.

“I would have given everything to have someone like you looking out for me back then.” Pausing, you swallowed as an unexpected surge of emotion tightened your throat. “Everything. But even without someone to ride in and save me, I ended up just fine. And I’m not half as strong as Lena is. So when I tell you that you haven’t fucked anything up, believe me.”

“Okay.”

This time, when he whispered it across the pillow, you almost believed him.

As you drifted off to sleep, you considered that maybe Pope was going to need as much care and guidance recovering from this whole incident as Lena was.

#andrew pope cody #pope cody #animal kindgom #andrew pope cody fic #pope cody x reader #andrew cody x reader #what the hell is tagging #i'm just clicking all the ones that pop up #how do i do this #i haven't posted fic since 2018

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ew-selfish-art · 2 years ago

Text

DP x DC AU: Tim had heard the phrase 'The wrong twin made it home' a number of times in his life, his parents were always very upfront about how the felt towards him. But... 'made it home' doesn't indicate death, does it? ...Tim ends up taking Danny's place by Sam's side in front of Congress to lobby the end of the Anti-Ecto Acts.

...

Tim has been up for hours passed when he told Alfred he would be resting and he's wrapped up his case files into neat little bows to deliver to Babs and the GCPD/Lawyers to do their jobs. Damian had made a comment earlier in their patrol that night about Tim being the wrong sibling to make it to his rescue and... and it got him thinking about that phrase. His parents were negligent with him, certainly, but they were always very clear about how he stood in their eyes. Praise and criticism were the two options, and very strictly limited passes of 'I love yous' that faded as he got older.

He's run his DNA before in the national databases- it was critical for maintaining his Alias' that multiple people didn't flag- but he's never searched in records before. About his twin. About the one who didn't make it home.

And its definitely the lack of sleep, and definitely the lack of brotherly affection he feels these days, but Tim just can't close the door until he's seen a death certificate. He's hacked Gotham General Hospital a million times for work, but doing it for his own gain feels wrong some how and he works with extreme caution. He finds his own birth certificate and... One Theodore Daniel Drake.

Tim snorts with a short ha, pretentious name alert and goes on to find not a single certificate of death or medical record of atypia. Oh no, what he finds is adoption paperwork meant to be closed to all wondering eyes and one Daniel James Fenton leaving the hospital instead. Tim blinks a few times, retraces his steps and then sure enough, learns for a second time that his TWIN was still alive.

Finding the Fentons was easy enough, their Lab address on all of their patents was seemingly also their home address. Danny had a much better hidden internet presence, it was good cybersecurity he'd have to praise him, but Tim had been trained better. Getting into his brother's files... Raised a number of new questions. Why was he compiling evidence against the government? What the fuck was he doing analyzing policy? Why did he have 'rogue' files???

Then Tim hacks into Danny's phone (he's learned at this point that Daniel was a no-go) and sees the conversations between his twin and his twin's best friends.

Sam Manson has an appointment with a Senator to Lobby for the end of the Anti-Ecto Acts. She wants Danny to join her, demonstrate something Tim can't determine, but he's refusing to leave and let his adoptive parents have even a moment to develop a new weapon without him there to destroy it. Someone called CW warned him about changes coming his way or something cryptic. Tim learns a lot from their back and forth, but stops reading once it gets to their personal squabbles.

Tim gets the meeting details and forwards it to Tam- If Danny can't make it... Tim will. And if Tim can't demonstrate whatever Danny was going to, it would at least help to throw around his name.

Tim writes an email to Danny- It's meant to go out after the lobbying appointment- and it explains that Tim found out about him and wants to connect if Danny does, and if Danny doesn't he at least wants to get him set up with his half of the Drake family inheritance. He includes a few personal facts, including that he too ended up adopted in life and had siblings, that he helped run a company and took on the world too soon. It takes a lot out of Tim to be so candid- but he doesn't want Danny to be too blindsided by the Waynes. He attaches a family photo with the label "you'll be able to tell which one is me'.

...

Sam is tapping her stupid, uncomfortable heels waiting for these dumbass, elderly politicians to get their shit together so she can speak. Sam was resourceful and surprisingly, the second she took on politics as a way to waste the family money, her mother Pamela was all for it. She's wanting Sam to run for president now... At least she doesn't complain when Sam organizes protests.

The door behind her opens, and while she knows its not going to be Danny behind her, a girl can feel a bit crushed. She really thought he would be behind her today, but Danny was being weird about this whole thing. Clockwork had him spooked about something changing today, and Danny wanted to be in Amity Park in case it was another Pariah situation or something. His parents had been on edge lately too...

"Sorry, I'm not late am I?" A voice asks and it's just so close but not- Sam turns her head to see Danny in a nice suit with long hair and eyebags way darker than she'd seen on him in a while. This... Wasn't Danny. She blinks, and then something in her anxiously decides that the universe is fucking with her and she will be fighting back.

"Everyone is late." She glares at him, appraising his every move. The woman behind him is typing dedicatedly on her tablet and the man himself looks like he might fall over while he shuffles his files in hand.

"Well, then I'm on time. My name is Tim Drake, I'm here to help your cause in getting the Anti-Ecto acts repealed and the parties responsible for it apprehended."

"Tim Drake? As in-"

"As in Co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises. And I've done a lot of research, so I hope you'll let me play a supportive role while you speak."

"There's no way you've been able to research if you've been out of Amity, The whole city is under a media blackout." Sam's glare looks like it could cut him.

"Not to brag, but that sort of thing doesn't slow me down these days. I've made physical copies of the things they're most likely to delete and I've sent everything to the Justice League, who in turn are sending it to the Lantern Corps." He states matter-of-factly and Sam finally stops being angry at the world to just be... stumped. What the hell was going on?

"How did you... Why?"

"Tam, tell Ms. Manson how passionate I am about human rights?" The guy sounds anxious, the woman rolls her eyes and says "Very." without stopping her typing.

The doors open and Sam has only a moment to decide that Tim can join her... He proves himself to be an asset, and his name alone gets them further than she had anticipated getting today.

....

Danny is watching Sam walk into the space via C-span, gasping when his own likeness follows behind her. What the fuck???

He can barely drag his eyes away as the clone (?) introduces himself as Tim Drake and proceeds to rip them into shreds for delaying Sam Manson of all people. Danny is transfixed and Tucker is blowing up his phone.

"DUDE ARE YOU SEEING THIS?" Tucker's voice loudly calls out the second danny blindly answers.

"Dude, I just, I don't even know? He cant be a clone right? But he's gotta be?" Danny hypothesizes.

"Nah dude, there's like, a whole lifetime of media presence for Tim Drake since he was like, tiny. This is so weird he looks just like you..."

"This is so weird." Danny dumbly agrees because he can't think of anything else to say.

Sam finishes her points, Tim submits the evidence to the court and they leave. Danny's phone pings with an email notification.

"Danny my guy, you should check that, Sam isn't responding yet. Her phone is probably still off."

He follows Tucker's advise and opening his email... Is a new message from Tim Drake.

"...I don't know what the fuck is going on?" Danny continues to say, and Tucker asks him just to read it out loud, "It's just... Apparently I am both adopted and a twin?"

"...My guy." Tucker sounds just as much at a loss.

...

Sam calls them both after Tim Drake is rushed away by his PA Tam (who she found herself admiring more and more), and is relieved when they dont immediately answer by screaming.

"So Danny, Tucker, you guys are traveling with me next weekend." Sam deadpans.

"Apparently shit gets twilight-zone level weird anytime you leave Amity!" Tucker exclaims.

"...What's next weekend?" Danny asks, hesitation in his voice.

"Your twin invited us, well, mostly you, to a Wayne Family Brunch. We're going cause those assholes have money and political influence, you're going because we all probably need to know what the fuck is going on with that guy."

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #danny phantom #dc crossover #dp crossover #long post #tim and danny are twins #twins au #ehehehe could go in so many directions

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hannibals-favourite-meal · 1 year ago

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enemies to lovers w/ spencer reid plzz 💗

.⋆｡Whispers in the Dark｡⋆.

Spencer Reid x plus size reader

You and Spencer have been at each other’s throats for months and the team is sick of it. So while on a case in a conveniently tiny town, they do something to fix it

Warnings: usual cm warnings (kidnapping, murder, serial killer), enemies to lovers, one bed trope (i’m not sorry), confessions, little bit of partial nudity, Spencer and reader are horny for each other and neither know how to deal with it, implied smut WC: 2.4k

6k Follower Celebration Bingo

Library- @hannibals-favourite-meal-library

If there was one thing that was a guarantee in this life, it was the DOCTOR (as he always liked to remind you) Spencer Reid would not keep his fucking mouth shut. You used to think it was endearing the way he so passionately spoke about anything and everything but after the 30th time he interrupted you (in front of every mind you), it got annoying real fast. And somehow, it was even worse today.

A series of kidnappings occurring in a small town in the middle of buttfuck nowhere that exactly replicated the town’s urban legend about a vengeful spirit killing those who tried to leave without offering sacrifice. Given your extensive knowledge on the development of folklore specifically tied to serial killers, it was an unspoken agreement that you would be taking the lead on the case.

But Reid had a very different idea.

“This is obviously someone using the story to get rid of people they have a vendetta against.” You fought the urge to roll your eyes at the young doctor. His lean body blocked the column of victim photos as he pointed to the map of the town beside it. He had drawn over several places with a red marker and although the abduction sites did fall into his contracted triangle of a comfort zone, something in your gut told you it was more than that.

“Look, I’m going to keep saying it. This goes way deeper. This has been happening for generations. 2002, 1985, 1968, hell even all the way back to the fucking 1820s! It’s either all 17 year olds getting killed or 17 people killed total each year it occurs, with it switching each time.” Spencer made a sound that was almost a scoff but with Hotch’s steely gaze fixed on the both of you, he covered it up by clearing his throat.

“Mark Adin was 18.”

“He turned 18 the day he died, Reid! And if you looked at his birth certificate, you’d see that his time of death was an hour before he would actually turn 18.”

“If you would just-“

“Alright!” Derek placed a firm hand onto Spencer’s shoulder, making him stumble slightly. “We get it, you’re both freakishly smart but I think it’s late and we all need some sleep.” He shot you a look as you crossed your arms over your chest, red hot anger and frustration still bubbling up inside you.

It always ended like that, one of the other members of your team stepped in before insults could be hurled (it’s happened once or twice before) and suggested a break while you and Spencer continued to glare at each other. He continuously undermined your theories and in return, you questioned his intelligence.

“I’m sure Y/L/N will realise how ridiculous she’s being after some undeserved rest. I mean, when is she ever right.” Your stomach dropped and Derek’s smile dimmed for a second before he wound an arm around the young doctor’s shoulders and guided him out of the conference room the team had commandeered far quicker than he normally did.

You opened your mouth to shout something back at him but Emily grabbed your forearm before you could. “It’s not worth it.” You met her gaze and quickly deflated.

“Yeah okay.” She gave you a soft smile as you both left the room together, missing the weighty glance Hotch and Rossi shared.

——————

“I can’t believe that you and JJ are doing this to me,” you whined, hiking up the strap of your go-bag higher on your shoulder, “you promised last time that we had to share rooms that it would be you and me. I don’t want to get stuck with Hotch again, he snores like a fucking freight train.” Emily poked your ribs as she passed by, shooting you a mischievous grin.

“You were too busy flirting with Reid to notice us making sleeping arrangements.” You huffed and followed her out of the elevator.

“I wasn’t FlIrTinG with him and by the way, that’s disgusting you even thought of that.” The hallway was dead silent save for the faint buzz of the ice machine at the very end.

“Yeah, that’s definitely why you totally weren’t checking out his ass while he was setting up the white board.”

“Emily!” You hissed but she only laughed in response.

“Come on, it’s so obvious that you like him! This childish rivalry you have is just sexual tension so for all of our sakes can you please just fuck him already so we can actually do our jobs.”

“Alright maybe I would like him if he wasn’t such an ass to me all the time.” You conceded, earning you a sly grin from your friend as you both came to a stop outside your hotel room door. “But! He constantly undermines me and makes me feel like shit so it’s never gonna happen.”

Emily stood by her own door, her key-card already in hand. “And you love to rile him up. So, never say never.” And with that, she slipped into her room, shutting the door before you could retort.

You rolled your eyes as you unlocked your own door and stepped in. The shower was already running but what mainly concerned you was the lack of a second bed. You sighed heavily, dropping your bag on the empty side away from the door. You were too exhausted and frustrated to even be mad about having to share both a room and a bed with your boss. Too exhausted in fact to notice the sweater on the chair in the corner couldn’t have possibly belonged to the older man.

Quickly, you stripped down to your underwear and slipped on your sleep clothes, figuring you could wake up early and shower before heading back to the police station. You sighed as you crawled beneath the sheets, the worn mattress immediately cradling your soft body.

Your eyelids had just begun to flutter shut when the water turned off. You turned onto your other side in anticipation of the bright light from the bathroom fully waking you up but what you didn’t expect was the accompaniment of the one voice you hadn’t wanted to hear until you had at least 6 hours of sleep and a massive coffee.

“What the hell?”

“Fuck me.” You sat up and took in the sight of a very damp Spencer Reid wearing only a towel around his waist. You refused to look down at his naked torso (no matter how badly you wanted to).

“You’re not Morgan.” He retorted.

“And here I was thinking you were a genius. Do you usually walk around half-naked with Derek?” He didn’t dignify you with a response this time, only grabbing his bag and retreating to the bathroom once more. As soon as the door shut, you launched yourself at your phone.

<I’m going to fucking kill you

>We’ve all packed noise cancelling headphones so don’t hold back ;)

>BTW before you even ask, there’s no more rooms available. Small towns are just great aren’t they

<I’ll get you back for this

>Sweet dreams

You could scream as you shut off your phone, Emily’s texts disappearing, leaving you staring at your reflection on the black screen. You should’ve known something was up when Hotch insisted that everyone take separate SUVs to the hotel under the guise of everyone splitting up first thing in the morning. The man was a fucking menace.

The mattress groaned as you laid back down, far closer to the edge this time. If Spencer took your hint and just left you alone for the rest of the night, you would consider it an overwhelming success. This time when the door opened, the light was already off, letting you breathe a sigh of relief.

The bed dipped and your body tensed for a moment. You waited for him to speak, but when he didn’t, you finally relaxed. In the silence and darkness of the room, you could pretend that you were anywhere else.

“Will you stop hogging the blankets?” You knew this peace couldn’t have possibly lasted.

“If you had turned on the heater I wouldn’t have to.” You grumbled but still released your hold on the covers just enough for him to take some more of it.

“Not my fault you’re always freezing for no reason.” The blanket lifted from your leg as Spencer fully wrapped himself up. You sighed but decided not to pick a fight, Emily’s words still circling your mind. Instead you wrapped your arms around your stomach as you drew your legs up, curling around yourself. You just wanted to sleep.

“What, no witty comeback?” You sighed heavily and squeezed your eyes shut.

“I get that I don’t ‘deserve to rest’ but I’m exhausted Spencer. Neither of us want to be here so can we just try to get some sleep and leave each other alone.” Thankfully, he stayed silent, for a moment at least.

“You called me Spencer.”

“Oh my god, can you please just let me sleep? Yes I called you Spencer, it’s your name isn’t it?” You snapped although you knew what he meant. You had never even referred to him by his first name in the almost 18 months since you had been on the team, just the same as he did with you.

“I’m sorry.”

“Fine.” You pressed your face into the thin pillow beneath your head, determined to finally fall asleep.

“No, Y/N I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t have said to you.” The bedsprings screamed in the quiet of the room and suddenly you could feel the gentle brush of Spencer’s breath along the back of your neck. You suppressed a shiver as best you could. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“Why are you bringing this up now? Are you trying to get laid or something?” Your tone held no bite but you could still feel the way he flinched. A sour taste bloomed in your mouth. “Sorry. For what it’s worth, I’ve been an asshole to you too.”

Tentatively, you rolled onto your back, your shoulder now brushing his. Soft light bled into the room from the light in the hallway, dimly letting you see his silhouette. Already, Spencer’s hair was a mess, different strands sticking up or to his face. His right hand rested on his chest while the left was by his side, barely a fraction of an inch from touching your own. He turned his head, making eye-contact with you for probably the first time since you had known him.

“Why— What did I do to make you hate me so much?” You muttered, suddenly unable to speak any louder than a whisper. You watched his chest hitch and then deflate.

“You didn’t do anything. I guess— it was easier to hate you than admit the truth.” The warmth of his skin made you breathe a sigh of relief as he pressed his hand to yours.

“And what is the truth Spencer?” Even in the limited light, you could see the way his eyes dropped to your lips. His lithe fingers curled around your wrist and gently lifted your hands so that it rested between your heads.

“That when I’m around you, I can’t concentrate on anything besides how beautiful you are, how intelligent, how capable. You’ve had me wrapped around your finger since the moment we met and it’s angered me.” You didn’t realise how close you were to him until the tip of his nose bumped against yours. You sucked in a breath but it did nothing to ease the floating feeling in your stomach.

“Why’s that?” You were both now on your sides in the middle of the bed, on the edge of something more, if only one of you would fall first.

“Because I knew that the second I accepted it, there was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling for you, even if you would never feel the same.”

You smirked. “And here I was thinking you were the smartest man alive, Dr Reid.” He pressed his lips to your knuckles with a smile and before you could tell him that he was wrong and quite frankly dumb for not seeing through you (like everyone else on the team did), his hand was on your jaw and his lips on yours.

You moaned into his mouth when he leaned onto you. You grabbed at his back under his shirt, your nails digging into the surprisingly well-defined muscles along his spine. Spencer’s head tilted, encouraging the kiss to become more passionate as his tongue traced your bottom lip. You tangled your fingers in his messy hair, tugging at it slightly as your mind began to go fuzzy with the lack of oxygen.

Spencer smiled against your lips, placing two or three more soft kisses against them before rolling onto his back once more, leaving you breathless beside him. You followed him down, putting your head on his pillow. You stole another peck from him as he clutched at your wide hips.

“I can’t believe how long it’s taken us to finally talk this out. We were both being really stupid.” You giggled against his now swollen lips.

“Yeah we have.” Something tugged at your mind, breaking you away from the warm bubble of affection you were lost in.

You shot up. “What, what is it? Did I do something wrong?” Spencer practically pleaded, his hand tightly gripping at your thigh.

“You’re right, we were both being stupid! We’re both correct. What if it’s not just one unsub, but a whole family of them? 17 years between killings, Spencer!” Now it was his turn to sit up, his brown eyes wide with realisation.

“It’s a coming of age ritual. The unsub is killing people they know but under the guidance of the person that did it before them.”

“So the place where they’re keeping the victims before they kill them should be in the comfort zone and it should line up with all the past ones!” He beamed at you. “But maybe we should wait till morning to tell the others, they do need their beauty sleep.”

“And we don’t?” His hand moved higher, slipping beneath your sleep shorts, making you shudder.

“Definitely not.” You swung your leg over his hips and sat on his thighs, kissing him once more.

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literaryvein-reblogs · 10 months ago

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Writing Notes: Autopsy

Autopsy - dissection and examination of a dead body and its organs and structures.

The word autopsy is derived from the Greek autopsia, meaning “the act of seeing for oneself.”

Also known as: necropsy, postmortem, postmortem examination

Why is an autopsy done?

To determine the cause of death

When a suspicious or unexpected death occurs

To observe the effects of disease; when there's a public health concern, such as an outbreak with an undetermined cause

To establish the evolution and mechanisms of disease processes

When no doctor knows the deceased well enough to state a cause of death and to sign the death certificate

When the doctor, the family or legally responsible designee of the deceased person requests an autopsy

Who does the autopsy?

Autopsies ordered by the state can be done by a county coroner, who is not necessarily a doctor

A medical examiner who does an autopsy is a doctor, usually a pathologist

Clinical autopsies are always done by a pathologist

How is an autopsy done?

After the patient is pronounced dead by a physician, the body is wrapped in a sheet or shroud and transported to the morgue, where it is held in a refrigeration unit until the autopsy.

Autopsies are rarely performed at night.

Autopsy practice was largely developed in Germany, and an autopsy assistant is traditionally honored with the title "diener", which is German for "helper".

The prosector and diener wear fairly simple protective equipment, including scrub suits, gowns, gloves (typically two pair), shoe covers, and clear plastic face shields.

The body is identified and lawful consent obtained.

The procedure is done with respect and seriousness.

The prevailing mood in the autopsy room is curiosity, scientific interest, and pleasure at being able to find the truth and share it.

Most pathologists choose their specialty, at least in part, because they like finding the real answers.

Many autopsy services have a sign, "This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live." Usually it is written in Latin ("Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae").

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION

The prosector checks to make sure that the body is that of the patient named on the permit by checking the toe tag or patient wristband ID.

The body is placed on the autopsy table.

Experienced dieners, even those of slight build, can transfer even obese bodies from the carriage to the table without assistance.

Since the comfort of the patient is no longer a consideration, this transfer is accomplished with what appears to the uninitiated a rather brutal combination of pulls and shoves, not unlike the way a thug might manhandle a mugging victim.

The body is measured.

Large facilities may have total-body scales, so that a weight can be obtained.

The autopsy table is a waist-high aluminum fixture that is plumbed for running water and has several faucets and spigots to facilitate washing away all the blood that is released during the procedure.

Older hospitals may still have porcelain or even marble tables.

The autopsy table is basically a slanted tray (for drainage) with raised edges (to keep blood and fluids from flowing onto the floor).

After the body is positioned, the diener places a "body block" under the patient's back. This rubber or plastic brick-like appliance causes the chest to protrude outward and the arms and neck to fall back, thus allowing the maximum exposure of the trunk for the incisions.

Abnormalities of the external body surfaces are then noted and described, either by talking into a voice recorder or making notes on a diagram and/or checklist.

OPENING THE TRUNK

The diener takes a large scalpel and makes the incision in the trunk. This is a Y-shaped incision. The arms of the Y extend from the front of each shoulder to the bottom end of the breast bone (called the xiphoid process of the sternum). In women, these incisions are diverted beneath the breasts, so the "Y" has curved, rather than straight, arms. The tail of the Y extends from the xiphoid process to the pubic bone and typically makes a slight deviation to avoid the umbilicus (navel). The incision is very deep, extending to the rib cage on the chest, and completely through the abdominal wall below that.

With the Y incision made, the next task is to peel the skin, muscle, and soft tissues off the chest wall. This is done with a scalpel. When complete, the chest flap is pulled upward over the patient's face, and the front of the rib cage and the strap muscles of the front of the neck lie exposed. Human muscle smells not unlike raw lamb meat in my opinion. At this point of the autopsy, the smells are otherwise very faint.

An electric saw or bone cutter (which looks a lot like curved pruning shears) is used to open the rib cage. One cut is made up each side of the front of the rib cage, so that the chest plate, consisting of the sternum and the ribs which connect to it, are no longer attached to the rest of the skeleton. The chest plate is pulled back and peeled off with a little help of the scalpel, which is used to dissect the adherent soft tissues stuck to the back of the chest plate. After the chest plate has been removed, the organs of the chest (heart and lungs) are exposed (the heart is actually covered by the pericardial sac).

Before disturbing the organs further, the prosector cuts open the pericardial sac, then the pulmonary artery where it exits the heart. He sticks his finger into the hole in the pulmonary artery and feels around for any thromboembolus (a blood clot which has dislodged from a vein elsewhere in the body, traveled through the heart to the pulmonary artery, lodged there, and caused sudden death. This is a common cause of death in hospitalized patients).

The abdomen is further opened by dissecting the abdominal muscle away from the bottom of the rib cage and diaphragm. The flaps of abdominal wall fall off to either side, and the abdominal organs are now exposed.

REMOVING THE ORGANS OF THE TRUNK

The most typical method of organ removal is called the "Rokitansky method." This is not unlike field dressing a deer. The dissection begins at the neck and proceeds downward, so that eventually all the organs of the trunk are removed from the body in one bloc.

The first thing the diener does is to identify the carotid and subclavian arteries in the neck and upper chest. He ties a long string to each and then cuts them off, so that the ties are left in the body. This allows the mortician to more easily find the arteries for injection of the embalming fluids.

A cut is them made above the larynx, detaching the larynx and esophagus from the pharynx. The larynx and trachea are then pulled downward, and the scalpel is used to free up the remainder of the chest organs from their attachment at the spine.

The diaphragm is cut away from the body wall, and the abdominal organs are pulled out and down.

Finally, all of the organs are attached to the body only by the pelvic ligaments, bladder, and rectum.

A single slash with the scalpel divides this connection, and all of the organs are now free in one block. The diener hands this organ bloc to the prosector. The prosector takes the organ bloc to a dissecting table (which is often mounted over the patient's legs) and dissects it. Meanwhile, the diener proceeds to remove the brain.

Another method is called Virchow method, which entails removing organs individually.

EXAMINATION OF THE ORGANS OF THE TRUNK

At the dissection table, the prosector typically dissects and isolates the esophagus from the rest of the chest organs. This is usually done simply by pulling it away without help of a blade (a technique called "blunt dissection"). The chest organs are then cut away from the abdominal organs and esophagus with scissors. The lungs are cut away from the heart and trachea and weighed, then sliced like loaves of bread into slices about one centimeter thick. A long (12" - 18"), sharp knife, called a "bread knife" is used for this.

The heart is weighed and opened along the pathway of normal blood flow using the bread knife or scissors. Old-time pathologists look down on prosectors who open the heart with scissors, rather than the bread knife, because, while the latter takes more skill and care, it is much faster and gives more attractive cut edges than when scissors are used. The coronary arteries are examined by making numerous crosscuts with a scalpel.

The larynx and trachea are opened longitudinally from the rear and the interior examined. The thyroid gland is dissected away from the trachea with scissors, weighed, and examined in thin slices. Sometimes the parathyroid glands are easy to find, other times impossible.

The bloc containing the abdominal organs is turned over so that the back side is up. The adrenal glands are located in the fatty tissue over the kidneys (they are sometimes difficult to find) and are removed, weighed, sliced, and examined by the prosector.

The liver is removed with scissors from the rest of the abdominal organs, weighed, sliced with a bread knife, and examined. The spleen is similarly treated.

The intestines are stripped from the mesentery using scissors (the wimpy method) or bread knife (macho method). The intestines are then opened over a sink under running water, so that all the feces and undigested food flow out. As one might imagine, this step is extremely malodorous. The resultant material in the sink smells like a pleasant combination of feces and vomitus. The internal (mucosal) surface of the bowel is washed off with water and examined. It is generally the diener's job to "run the gut," but usually a crusty, senior diener can intimidate a young first- year resident prosector into doing this ever-hated chore. Basically, whichever individual has the least effective steely glare of disdain is stuck with running the gut.

The stomach is then opened along its greater curvature. If the prosector is lucky, the patient will have not eaten solid food in a while. If not, the appearance of the contents of the stomach will assure the prosector that he will not be eating any stews or soups for a long time. In either case, the smell of gastric acid is unforgettable.

The pancreas is removed from the duodenum, weighed, sliced and examined. The duodenum is opened longitudinally, washed out, and examined internally. The esophagus is similarly treated.

The kidneys are removed, weighed, cut lengthwise in half, and examined. The urinary bladder is opened and examined internally. In the female patient, the ovaries are removed, cut in half, and examined. The uterus is opened along either side (bivalved) and examined. In the male, the testes are typically not removed if they are not enlarged. If it is necessary to remove them, they can be pulled up into the abdomen by traction on the spermatic cord, cut off, cut in half, and examined.

The aorta and its major abdominal/pelvic branches (the renal, celiac, mesenteric, and iliac arteries) are opened longitudinally and examined.

Most of the organs mentioned above are sampled for microscopic examination. Sections of the organs are cut with a bread knife or scalpel and placed in labeled plastic cassettes. Each section is the size of a postage stamp or smaller and optimally about three millimeters in thickness. The cassettes are placed in a small jar of formalin for fixation. They are then "processed" in a machine that overnight removes all the water from the specimens and replaces it with paraffin wax. Permanent microscopic sections (five microns, or one two-hundredth of a millimeter thick) can be cut from these paraffin sections, mounted on glass slides, stained, coverslipped, and examined microscopically. The permanent slides are usually kept indefinitely, but must be kept for twenty years minimum.

Additional small slices of the major organs are kept in a "save jar," typically a one-quart or one-pint jar filled with formalin. Labs keep the save jar for a variable length of time, but at least until the case is "signed out" (i.e., the final written report is prepared). Some labs keep the save jar for years. All tissues that are disposed of are done so by incineration.

A note on dissection technique: All of the above procedures are done with only four simple instruments -- a scalpel, the bread knife, scissors, and forceps (which most medical people call "pick-ups." Only scriptwriters say "forceps"). The more handy the prosector, the more he relies on the bread knife, sometimes making amazingly delicate cuts with this long, unwieldy-looking blade. The best prosectors are able to make every cut with one long slicing action. To saw back and forth with the blade leaves irregularities on the cut surface which are often distracting on specimen photographs. So the idea is to use an extremely sharp, long blade that can get through a 2000-gram liver in one graceful slice. Some old-time purist pathologists actually maintain their own bread knives themselves and let no one else use them. Such an individual typically carries it around in his briefcase in a leather sheath. This would make an excellent fiction device, which, to my knowledge, has not been used. Imagine a milquetoast pathologist defending himself from a late-night attacker in the lab, with one desperate but skillful slash of the bread knife almost cutting the assailant in half!

Note on the appearance of the autopsy suite: Toward the end of the autopsy procedure, the room is not a pretty sight. Prosectors vary markedly in how neat they keep the dissection area while doing the procedure. It is legendary that old-time pathologists were so neat that they'd perform the entire procedure in a tux (no apron) right before an evening at the opera (pathologists are noted for their love of classical music and fine art). Modern prosectors are not this neat. Usually, the autopsy table around the patient is covered with blood, and it is very difficult not to get some blood on the floor. We try to keep blood on the floor to a minimum, because this is a slippery substance that can lead to falls. The hanging meat scales used to weigh the organs are usually covered with or dripping with blood. The chalk that is used to write organ weights on the chalkboard is also smeared with blood, as may be the chalkboard itself. This is an especially unappetizing juxtaposition.

Another example using the Virchow method:

After the intestines are mobilized, they may be opened using special scissors.

Inspecting the brain often reveals surprises. A good pathologist takes some time to do this.

The pathologist examines the heart, and generally the first step following its removal is sectioning the coronary arteries that supply the heart with blood. There is often disease here, even in people who believed their hearts were normal.

After any organ is removed, the pathologist will save a section in preservative solution. Of course, if something looks abnormal, the pathologist will probably save more. The rest of the organ goes into a biohazard bag, which is supported by a large plastic container.

The pathologist weighs the major solid organs (heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, spleen, sometimes others) on a grocer's scale.

The smaller organs (thyroid, adrenals) get weighed on a chemist's triple-beam balance.

The next step in the abdominal dissection will be exploring the bile ducts and then freeing up the liver. The pathologist uses a scalpel or other similar tool.

After weighing the heart, the pathologist completes the dissection. There are a variety of ways of doing this, and the choice will depend on the case. If the pathologist suspects a heart attack, a long knife may be the best choice.

In the example: The liver is removed. The pathologist finds something important. It appears that the man had a fatty liver. It is too light, too orange, and a bit too big. Perhaps this man had been drinking heavily for a while.

The pathologist decides to remove the neck organs, large airways, and lungs in one piece. This requires careful dissection. The pathologist always examines the neck very carefully.

The liver in this example weighs much more than the normal 1400 gm.

The lungs are almost never normal at autopsy. In the example, the lungs are pink, because the dead man was a non-smoker. The pathologist will inspect and feel them for areas of pneumonia and other abnormalities.

The liver is cut at intervals of about a centimeter, using a long knife. This enables the pathologist to examine its inner structure.

The pathologist weighs both lungs together, then each one separately. Afterwards, the lungs may get inflated with fixative.

The rest of the team continues with the removal of the other organs. They may decide to take the urinary system as one piece, and the digestive system down to the small intestine as another single piece. This will require careful dissection.

One pathologist holds the esophagus, stomach, pancreas, duodenum, and spleen. He opens these, and may save a portion of the gastric contents to check for poison.

Another pathologist holds the kidneys, ureters, and bladder. Sometimes these organs will be left attached to the abdominal aorta. The pathologist opens all these organs and examine them carefully.

Dissecting the lungs can be done in any of several ways. All methods reveal the surfaces of the large airways, and the great arteries of the lungs.

Most pathologists use the long knife again while studying the lungs. The air spaces of the lungs will be evaluated based on their texture and appearance.

Before the autopsy is over, the brain is usually suspended in fixative for a week so that the later dissection will be clean, neat, and accurate.

If no disease of the brain is suspected, the pathologist may cut the brain fresh.

The kidneys are weighed before they are dissected.

It is the pathologist's decision as to whether to open the small intestine and/or colon. If they appear normal on the outside, there is seldom significant pathology on the inside.

One pathologist prepares the big needle and thread used to sew up the body.

When the internal organs have been examined, the pathologist may return all but the tiny portions that have been saved to the body cavity. Or the organs may be cremated without being returned.

The appropriate laws, and the wishes of the family, are obeyed.

The breastbone and ribs are usually replaced in the body.

The skull and trunk incisions are sewed shut ("baseball stitch").

The body is washed and is then ready to go to the funeral director.

These notes do not show all the steps of an autopsy, but will give you the general idea.

During the autopsy, there may be photographers, evidence technicians, police, hospital personnel, and others.

In the example, the pathologists submit the tissue they saved to the histology lab, to be made into microscopic slides.

When these are ready, they will examine the sections, look at the results of any lab work, and draw their final conclusions.

The only finding in this sample autopsy was fatty liver. There are several ways in which heavy drinking, without any other disease, can kill a person. The pathologists will rule each of these in or out, and will probably be able to give a single answer to the police or family.

CLOSING UP AND RELEASING THE BODY

After all the above procedures are performed, the body is now an empty shell, with no larynx, chest organs, abdominal organs, pelvic organs, or brain. The front of the rib cage is also missing. The scalp is pulled down over the face, and the whole top of the head is gone. Obviously, this is not optimal for lying in state in public view. The diener remedies this problem. First, the calvarium is placed back on the skull (the brain is not replaced), the scalp pulled back over the calvarium, and the wound sewn up with thick twine using the type of stitch used to cover baseballs. The wound is now a line that goes from behind the ears over the back of the skull, so that when the head rests on a pillow in the casket, the wound is not visible.

The empty trunk looks like the hull of a ship under construction, the prominent ribs resembling the corresponding structural members of the ship. In many institutions, the sliced organs are just poured back into the open body cavity. In other places, the organs are not replaced but just incinerated at the facility. In either case, the chest plate is placed back in the chest, and the body wall is sewn back up with baseball stitches, so that the final wound again resembles a "Y."

The diener rinses the body off with a hose and sponge, covers it with a sheet, and calls the funeral home for pick- up. As one might imagine, if the organs had not been put back in the body, the whole trunk appears collapsed, especially the chest (since the chest plate was not firmly reattached to the ribs). The mortician must then remedy this by placing filler in the body cavity to re-expand the body to roughly normal contours.

Ultimately, what is buried/cremated is either 1) the body without a brain and without any chest, abdominal, or pelvic organs, or 2) the body without a brain but with a hodgepodge of other organ parts in the body cavity.

FINISHING UP

After the funeral home has been called, the diener cleans up the autopsy suite with a mop and bucket, and the prosector finishes up the notes and/or dictation concerning the findings of the "gross exam" (the part of the examination done with the naked eye and not the microscope; this use of the term "gross" is not a value judgement but a direct German translation of "big" as opposed to "microscopic").

For some odd reason, many prosectors report increased appetite after an autopsy, so the first thing they want to do afterwards is grab a bite to eat.

The whole procedure in experienced hands, assuming a fairly straightforward case and no interruptions, has taken about two hours.

Complicated cases requiring detailed explorations and special dissections (e.g., exploring the bile ducts, removing the eyes or spinal cord) may take up to four hours.

AFTER THE AUTOPSY

Days to weeks later, the processed microscopic slides are examined by the attending pathologist, who renders the final diagnoses and dictates the report.

A final report is ready in a month or so. The glass slides and a few bits of tissue are kept forever, so that other pathologists can review the work.

Only the pathologist can formally issue the report, even if he or she was not the prosector (i.e., the prosector was a resident, PA, or med student).

The report is of variable length but almost always runs at least three pages. It may be illustrated with diagrams that the prosector draws from scratch or fills in on standard forms with anatomical drawings.

The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which certifies hospitals, requires the final report to be issued within sixty days of the actual autopsy.

The College of American Pathologists, which certifies medical laboratories, requires that this be done in thirty days.

Nevertheless, pathologists are notorious for tardiness in getting the final report out, sometimes resulting in delays of years.

Perhaps the non-compensated nature of autopsy practice has something to do with this. Pathologists are otherwise very sensitive to turnaround times.

THE BRAIN-CUTTING

The examiner returns to the brain left suspended in a big jar of formalin for a few weeks. After the brain is "fixed," it has the consistency and firmness of a ripe avocado.

Before fixation, the consistency is not unlike that of three-day- old refrigerated, uncovered Jello.

Infant brains can be much softer than that before fixation, even as soft as a flan dessert warmed to room temperature, or worse, custard pie filling. Such a brain may be difficult or impossible to hold together and can fall apart as one attempts to remove it from the cranium.

Assuming good fixation of an adult brain, it is removed from the formalin and rinsed in a running tap water bath for several hours to try to cut down on the discomforting, eye-irritating, possibly carcinogenic formalin vapors.

The cerebrum is severed from the rest of the brain (brainstem and cerebellum) by the prosector with a scalpel.

The cerebellum is severed from the brainstem, and each is sliced and laid out on a tray for examination.

The cerebrum is sliced perpendicularly to its long axis and laid out to be examined.

Sections for microscopic processing are taken, as from the other organs, and a few slices are held in "save jars."

The remainder of the brain slices is incinerated.

Sources: 1 2 3 4

If these notes help with your poem/story, do tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

#writing notes #spilled ink #dark academia #writing prompt #writers on tumblr #poetry #poets on tumblr #literature #writeblr #fiction #creative writing #writing reference #studyblr #langblr #linguistics #words #writing resources

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magnoliasforyourmedic · 9 months ago

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"Band-Aid Bandits" - Easy Company's Medics

Edwin Pepping and Albert "Al" Mampre were the self-proclaimed "Band-Aid Bandits."

When the regiment formed a medical detachment, Colonel Sink asked Mampre if he would like to be a medic. Mampre said yes and joined with Pepping. The two developed a knack for obtaining anything they needed without going through proper channels, calling themselves the “Band-Aid Bandits.” Both men considered medical training similar to what they learned in the Boy Scouts. The main difference: the medic candidates practiced giving shots to oranges. “I never ran into an orange in combat,” Mampre mused."

After Mampre and Pepping received their medical certifications, the regiment assigned a new lieutenant to toughen up the medics. He started off by teaching them to properly salute. In retaliation for the senseless exercise, Mampre lit a can of photo film on fire in his barracks. As smoke filled the room, Mampre ran outside to the lieutenant, shouting, “They’re trying to kill us!” The lieutenant went into the barrack and threw the burning can outside, telling Mampre, “I don’t think you’re gonna get killed.”

...

While the training honed the men’s physical skills, it stimulated voracious appetites. One day, Mampre and his fellow medics caught the smell of fresh muffins wafting from the cook house. They found the tray of muffins and grabbed it, but not before the cooks grabbed the other end. The tug of war ended when the Military Police showed up and took down everyone’s names. “One guy said his name was ‘John Smith,’” explained Mampre, “another said ‘Terpin Hydrate,’ which means cough syrup.” Later, Mampre and his comrades snatched a line of milk bottles laid out for the battalion’s officers. “We were growing boys,” he defended, “we needed them.” The medics drank more than milk. They often drove to local watering holes in an ambulance. Mampre would sit up front with the driver and Captain Samuel “Shifty” Feiler, the dentist, between them. When they reached the bar, someone would shout, “Last one out buys!” and everyone poured out. Mampre and the driver made sure they opened their doors last, ensuring Feiler, stuck in the middle, paid.

Despite the intense training, the medics managed small rebellions. One medic, a cook, smuggled some local girls into a stable. Mampre and Lieutenant (Dr.) Jackson Neavles, the battalion surgeon, went to the stable where Neavles ordered the cook out. When he didn’t respond, they threw in colored smoke grenades. The girls ran out crying, their faces streaked with colors. “Those girls had to walk back to Swindon [about five miles away] like that,” said Mampre. The cook, on the other hand, refused to come out. Other medics had their own way of doing things. They dyed their hair with medicinal peroxide, turning them all blond or shades of red. When their hair grew back, leaving them with dual hair color, their British hosts did a double take. “They thought it was all the rage back in the U.S.,” said Mampre."

...

Mampre also returned to his Band-Aid Bandit ways. He and some medics decided to steal an armoire from the upper story of an officers’ barracks. Mampre attached ropes to the armoire and was lowering it out a window when a lieutenant walked up and asked, “What are you doing?” Mampre told him he was trying to haul the armoire up to the room. Seeing that Mampre was about to be yanked out the window, the lieutenant told him to lower it and departed. Mampre and his buddies had a new armoire.

...

In need of a shower, Mampre went into the officers’ shower but, while he was showering, an officer came in and asked, “Lieutenant?” When Mampre didn’t answer, the officer asked, “Captain?” Mampre finished, wrapped himself in a towel, and as he left said, “No. Staff Sergeant, but I’m clean.”

While there he saw some washing machines in crates. He “borrowed” one and had his fellow medics dig a square into the ground to hide it. The medics looked cleaner than the rest of the regiment. “Colonel Sink was wondering what was going on,” he said.

#it sounds like easy’s medics could get away with an awful lot 😅#band-aid bandits #Al mampre #Edwin pepping #band of brothers #quotes #quote(s)#wwii #medics #easy company #medic shenanigans #eugene roe

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littlebird42 · 5 months ago

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~~Counting Scales~~ A short Story

~~Note from the Writer~~

To be honest, this little story way longer than I thought it would to write. The finished product ended up being just under 9k words and over twenty pages lol.

I figured I might as well post this around somewhere just to see if anybody was inclined to like it. this is by no means a polished piece of writing by the way, I may have proof read it for grammar and writing mistakes but it has not had any peer editing done.

Either way, I hope you guys enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If it had been in any other scenario, Mathew would have said that the sounds of the ocean were calming. The soft lapping noises of waves brought back many memories of walking on the beach with his mother and his younger sister.

The thought brought tears to his eyes. What Mathew wouldn’t give to simply be on a long walk with his mother on the beach. To chase his younger sister along the beach barefooted, and to beach comb for the biggest seashell.

In his memories, the coldness of the ocean had barely reached him. It was just the barest of a shiver if he waded too far.

That was nothing like he was experiencing now.

There was no sun beating on his back, nor laughter to be heard, and no warmth to be found in the fathomless waters of the ocean.

‘The Mariot’ as his father had named her, was on her last row.

The great ship that Matthew had spent the better part of four weeks on was slowly sinking in front of him. Great plumes of fire were licking at her exposed wood tearing her apart piece by piece, it seemed as if her soul itself was being carried away in the black smoke that careened towards the dark sky.

It had happened quickly, under the cover of night. Much of the crew, including himself, had been asleep as the raiders boarded their vessel. The crew was quickly overtaken, the lonely few who were awake were taken quietly, throats slit wide before they could scream.

Blood had soaked the sleek deck of ‘The Mariot’ seeping into the carefully maintained wood as her crew was taken from her.

To stunt their possible escape, the Mariot’s sails had been torn, left to sag uselessly in the late sea breeze.

It was truly a shame to see such a great vessel be plunged to the depths of the ocean. It was an unnecessary loss.

That ship had been a part of his fathers merchant fleet for just over two decades, and dutifully taken care of by the crew who called her home.

Mathew himself had been there when his father had purchased the ship and named her ‘The Mariot’. Mathew had only been four then, carried lovingly by his father as they did an inspection of the vessel before purchase. He even remembered when his father had scrawled his swoopy signature along the certificate of purchase.

After purchase, his family crest had been proudly hung along the highest point. It had stayed up there for her entire life; A great blue flag that shone the influence and proud nature of his family, and now it was tattered.

It was simply a rag that the raiders had torn down, throwing the fabric into the black ocean to be forgotten and lost beneath the waves.

During the intense overtaking of the ship, it had been the heavy footfalls and clamour of swords that had alerted Mathew to what was going on. He had barely made it to the top deck to see what was happening when he was stopped by a pirate himself.

It had been quick, an assault that he could barely defend himself from before being run through with a garish blade. The knife had been sharp, but it was rusted with an uneven edge from its unkempt time on the salted ocean.

With a solid push, the bandit had slammed the dagger to its hilt, the force of the blow letting the railguard smash into Mathews lower ribs before stopping.

The blow had knocked the wind from his chest, the adrenaline of the situation causing a numbness to leech into his limbs. It was a fatal and untimely development which had hindered his ability to react in the face of a gnarly seafarer who unfortunately wanted him dead.

The bandit took swift advantage of Mathews' shock and rammed the broad of his shoulder into the middle of Matthew's chest.

The rusted blade withdrew from his abdomen with a wet squelch as the force knocked him backwards and over the crumbling rail behind him.

Mathew regained his senses a second too late as he reached for the guardrail; His hand bouncing painfully off of the hull of the Mariot before he crashed into the turbulent water below.

The cold water was breathtaking, throbbing deeply in his chest as he grasped at the air above his head.

Trying to stay afloat, Mathews struggled to tread water in his shock. His head bobbed above the water as he heaved a breath in and watched in horror as more of his crew was dragged from their quarters and slain before being thrown overboard one at a time.

The ship was raided quickly, none of the bandits wanting to stay for long among the wreckage as they set fire to the sails and poured oil along the top deck.

It was clear they weren’t looking for any trails to be left behind, they didn’t want any survivors to tell of who had dared attack a Wathelet merchant ship.

Mathew had barely managed to duck out of the way as another body crashed into the water next to him. The crash of water pushed at his face, the salty water spilling into his mouth as he tried to gasp for air. Only taking a moment to catch his bearings, a choked gasp came from him as he saw who was so haphazardly thrown overboard.

Staring back at him were the glassy brown eyes of his navigator, Renard, a man who had truly been excited for him to finally take on the role his father had been pushing at him. He remembered many times that Renard had come to see his father, gaining insight as they plotted upcoming trade routes and possible weather patterns.

For hours, he had listened to his father and Renard plan business; and now, the elderly man twitched in the water beside him.

Thick blood poured from the skewed gash across his throat as Renard gurgled, his lungs filling with blood and water as time went on.

Warm tears pooled in Mathews eyes before spilling down his face. A strangled sob wracked through his chest, making his wound burn in anguish at the motion.

Mathew had only a few seconds more to grieve before a great crash split through the air. The sound of a cannon going off made Mathew flinch, dipping further into the water to avoid the projectiles flying over his head.

A sharp clap of wood snapping sounded out over the water as the Mariot began to succumb to her abuse.

One of the more rowdy cannonballs had clipped the center mast, that coupled with the licking fire which ravaged her decks was too much for her to bear. Her once beautiful center mast croaked under the pressure as it pitched towards the water, and with one more crack it slammed into the water beside Mathew.

Mathew had been lucky to have been missed by the wooden beam, but his luck was almost run out as he watched his beloved ship pitch to the opposite side. Orange flames trailed closer to the water as she was slowly eaten away.

Mathew felt a well of panic bubble in his chest as he watched the water rise along the Mariot’s hull. A ship this size could definitely pull him beneath the water if he was too close.

Treading water to spite the pain in his abdomen, Mathew pulled himself away from the wreckage. There was nothing else he could do, no one he could even save in his current condition.

The wound in his abdomen ached with every breath he took, the expanding of his diaphragm pulled at the unnatural wound in his gut. The searing pain brought hot tears to his eyes as he treaded water.

A devastated sob shuddered through his chest as Mathew grasped the fire warmed remains of the Mariot’s mast. He was still entirely too close to the wreckage to be comfortable, but a sour thought overtook his mind, telling him it was useless to try and get further away.

He would be long dead by the time the Mariot finally sank below the waves anyways.

Stirring among the darkest parts of the blackest ocean, The blood of man called to her.

A beast as she was, born in the deepest trenches of the saltiest sea she had emerged with a hunger for flesh and blood.

It had just been a fair coincidence that the dueling ships had happened so close to her lair. A happy fortune that allowed to fill her stomach before she truly had to go hunting for a poor lone vessel.

The thick blood of humans had stained the water, drawing her forward with its intoxicating scent.

Much like a shark, Wyn was drawn by the smell, able to track the blood of a bleeding whale over leagues of ocean. The sheer magnitude of blood muddling the water was a great lure, even through miles of water she could tell that there were more than a few casualties.

A crooked smile spread across her face as Wyn pushed off of the ocean floor. Beneath her, Wyn’s great tail stretched out, nimbly swatting at the thick layer of sand and murk that served as a comfortable bed for her listless stay in this part of the ocean.

Stretching wide, Wyn’s yellow eyes narrowed as she gave into the more animalistic side and swam off in the direction of her next meal.

The speed Wyn glided through the water was enough to carry her forward at a much faster pace than any man made ship could hope to out pace.

The fins of her tail were large, big enough to capsize a ship with the correct technique, after all, she had to get food somewhere. There were only so many whales, crabs and squid a girl could eat before she started craving something sweeter.

The thick braids in Wyns hair were swept back as she turned into a particularly strong current. Her dark hair had been braided tightly adorned with shiny stones, ropes and any other pilfered trophies she had gathered from shipwrecks.

As she grew closer to the surface, the water began to get clearer, growing lighter even without the sun overhead. It was a testament to how deep of water she was used to being in that Wyn felt just a tad more exposed even if she kept a good ship length from the surface.

Grumbling under her breath, Wyn pushed herself harder to reach her goal. Her tail, now showing its true navy hue, beat against the underside of the waves with fervor, pushing her along at a faster pace.

Wyn’s braided top made of sewn sails billowed in the current she cut into the water.

Miles of sea passed along in an instant before she came upon the wreckage. The smell was thick in the water even above the smell of oils and burning wood.

Settling far beneath the ruined ship, it was easier to survey the surroundings without the fear of being spotted, just in case there was backup coming or the other ship was still in the area.

It had been a large ship, indicated by the amount of bodies floating in the water around the glowing wreck. The mass of the ship, if it hadn’t been on fire, would have been closer to the size of her torso.

More than likely a cargo ship she surmised.

Wyn counted almost twenty five bodies before she was very rudely interrupted by a shark skimming into her view as it investigated the possibility of a late night snack.

Opening her mouth, Wyn bared her sharp teeth and hissed at the offending shark before she swatted a hand through the water. Her long claws were poised in a half hearted attack as she lazily let the shark skim away from her outstretched fingers.

Confident that there were no imminent dangers, Wyn let herself creep closer to the ship before reaching out and caught a floating body by an outstretched leg between her fingers.

Dragging the body below the surface, Wyn made quick work of stripping off any weapons and metal before stowing away the accumulation of small limbs into her mouth.

The first few crunches were sweet, the remnants of thick blood spilling into her mouth as she swallowed and continued to the next corpse.

This process continued for a while as Wyn began to curb her appetite. She barely paid any attention to her surroundings other than to swat away a few more pesky sharks who were scavenging on what was left behind; that was until her nose got the better of her.

Floating in the water, close to the ship was a delectable smell. It made her mouth salivate in anticipation as she made her way close to the glowing wreckage.

Wyn was searching for a barrel or box, something that contained what she could only assume was fruit or sugars by the way the smell skimmed in the water.

Though, Wyn was pleasantly surprised when her nose led her astray; to the wafting blood of another body, one who was still clinging to the broken mast of the fallen ship.

Taking a bold risk, Wyn climbed closer to the surface, her nose pushing her closer. Only with a breath of hesitation, Wyn gave in to what her instincts were telling her and broke her head above the cresting waves.

Mathew had grown weaker in the past two hours steadily growing more weary as the Mariot filled with water and lowered into the black ocean.

Mathews' brown eyes had dried, no longer shedding tears for his fallen vessel or crew. Replacing his despair was a hollow in his chest, followed by the throbbing in his side in time with his heart.

For the most part, the blood leaking from his abdomen had tapered off as Mathews' body desperately tried to clot the gaping wound. His human body struggled to maintain itself. It pulled at every resource it had, but after everything had been expended, Mathew still found himself slipping past the point of no return.

The constant turmoil of the ocean around him did little to soothe the pain in his side, or the loss he felt for his crew.

In the past two hours of being adrift, he had cried, cursed, and begged for what he had lost, knowing what he was sure to lose very soon. Mathew, at the very end had come to terms with his end, slowly dying out, much like the fire which continued to blaze in front of him.

The proximity to the fire made his eyes water as smoke trailed into the sky but it was still a comfort. The warmth of the fire drew his gaze to the dancing flames, they seemed to taunt him with their vigor, licking at the glowing wood of the Mariot's hull.

The flames were enchanting, they drew Matthew's attention from everything else even when his eyes continued to water from the smoke. Being alone with his thoughts, despair and the cracks and pops of the fire he almost missed the way the currents began to change around him.

Beyond his precarious perch, on the edge of his vision, Mathew caught a flash of something disturbing the surface of the water.

Brushing it off, Mathew didn't care much for the disturbance, there was so much blood in the water that it was only a matter of time before sharks showed up. Hounds of the sea as they were, they would follow their noses to the very end if it meant sinking their teeth into flesh.

Trying and failing, Mathew tried to pull himself further along the mast. His legs felt heavy and deathly cold as they drug behind him. He had no strength to kick his legs as he braced his arms to keep the majority of his torso out of the lapping water. It was one thing to die of the cold, or by sword, but another entirely to be chewed to pieces by a million teeth.

It wasn't long before another stir of movement caught his eye not another twenty feet from his perch. He watched expectantly for a maw of teeth to rise from the water and shear apart his crew; but he was clearly mistaken when two giant and deathly white fingers swiped up from the depths to drag his deckhand below the surface by an arm.

A dagger of fear trailed up his spine as he shuddered in the cold water. It was just his luck that his dying crew and burning ship had attracted the attention of a merfolk.

More tears welled up in Mathews eyes as he choked back another welling sob. His chest quaked with cries he wouldn’t let escape him.

Tucking his head close to the wooden pillar supporting him, Mathew turned his face away from the fire and looked beyond to the open ocean. He couldn’t bear to watch this creature take the bodies of his friends, especially knowing that the beast was more than likely chewing apart their limbs beneath him as he laid dying upon the mast.

Holding his breath, Mathew felt the cold water stir around him, water pushing and pulling under the guidance of a being so large.

He flinched hard when he heard it break the surface nearby. The tumbling and trickling of water created a cacophony of noise that filled the air with suspense as he refused to look at his demise.

It wasn't until he felt something brush up against his calf that he sucked in a gasp, the startled noise filling the air as his eyes snapped open.

In a million years he couldn’t have imagined what the giant sea beasts would look like; after all, he had only ever heard stories.

The way his father spoke of these creatures, he called them treacherous monsters that would kill for sport and eat the flesh off the bones of living men. They were the giants that sprouted from the darkest trenches in the ocean; created by the gods to keep those born on land in check. Every story and every dramatically drawn image in the history books made Mathew think of some twisted representation of humanity, a monster that would smile at him before it ate him.

That was the monster that he expected when he opened his eyes, a mouth of gnashing teeth attached to a beast that was just as smart as it was wicked.

But that is not what he saw.

Mathew was astonished, his mouth parted in surprise, and his eyes wide as he met the gaze of the mermaid.

Her face had broken just half way above the water, her mouth and nose still hidden beneath the waves lapping delicately at her cheeks. Her hair was skillfully braided back in tremendous dark waves of rope and beads that made her hair seem wild and foreign. Mathew even saw the curved end of a polished anchor glinting above her left temple as it hung from a thinner braid tucked behind her ear.

Her skin was pale, almost translucent in nature. It was a testament that she was truly a creature of the deepest parts of the ocean.

Though, most captivating of all were her golden eyes. Hovering just above the waves, her gaze reflected the flickering of the dying flames in an array of golds and oranges that reminded Mathew of a shiny gold coin.

She was utterly captivating, and nothing at all like the bloodthirsty creatures he had heard in the tall tales the other crew members had told him.

Another shudder quaked along his skin as he watched her face contort in confusion. Her eyebrows pinched together and her eyes narrowed as she honed in on his face.

Snapping his mouth shut with a clack of his own teeth, Mathew felt himself begin to tremble. Her gaze was heavy as she analyzed him and despite her beauty and otherworldly aura, she was still very much a deadly unknown.

Mathew let out a startled cry when he felt a pressure build around his calf, looking down he was horrified to see that she had reached out to grab him. With two giant fingers she had snagged his calf in her thumb and forefinger which came to rest heavily along the side of his leg.

The skin of her hands were warm, a stark contrast to the icy water as the giant quickly yanked him away from the wreckage and into open water. The force of her tug agitated the injury in his chest making him wince as he broke eye contact.

Mathew panicked as salt water rose deathly close to washing over his head before she pulled him from the ocean. Two giant palms came up beneath his back catching him swiftly before his head could sink below the cresting waves.

The speed of her movements left him reeling in their wake, and after the hectic night he had had, Mathew barely had enough energy left to try and tread water; much less try and fight against the giant woman who apparently wanted to hold him.

Her long fingers gathered around him, crowding into his vision as he found himself sprawled in her grasp and unable to move due to mounting exhaustion.

One of her long nails caught Mathews' attention as she moved, the blunt end of her fingertip being laced with what he knew was a nail sharper than even the blade that had tried to kill him.

Feeling the twitching in her fingers and both of the palms beneath him his eyes snapped to attention, his gaze quickly travelling from her sharp nails back up to her golden gaze.

Leaning down, it was easy enough to smell the blood on his small form. Pulling her hands further from the water, she began to see the small man clearer.

The ocean scattered away from his body, bestowing Matthew into Wyn’s care as if it had always meant to be so.

He shook in her palms, tiny legs and arms shivering from the cold as he met her gaze weakly in the fading firelight. The action of meeting her gaze sapped at the fading strength he had. He was trapped in her gaze, the wicked hue of her eyes wracking another tremble along his limbs.

Even as the rest of her face rose from the waves the small man neither tried to scream nor fight as her hands wavered in mid air.

Her bright eyes were much akin to the brilliance of a predator, the color reflecting the hunger which drove her to eat the floating bodies of his fallen comrades.

A blossom of red swelled in the well of Wyn’s palm, the dregs of human mortality spilling from the young man as he slipped closer to unconsciousness.

The blooming red was almost too much for Wyn to bear. The smell of the human made her want to eat him, to simply stuff away his small limbs into her mouth and take him from the world above, but another smell stopped her.

Despite her sense of smell being skewed above the water, at this range it was unmistakably obvious to smell the sweetness of land upon his skin.

This man was not of the sea.

He was not made for the endless oceans, and so did that mean that he was not hers to take.

His skin smelled of the nectar of fruit, the lusciousness of the unsalted air and the crispness of grass. It was a testament to his place in the world.

It would have been a mercy of her to simply end him, to give him the last push in the direction of death, but it was not her place.

She was to eat the people of the sea, those who smelt of the ocean and its sea breeze. To eat the flesh of man who basked in the rays of sunlight which dared not to touch the land.

But, it truly was not above her to simply let a snack slip away without a taste of what she would be giving up.

Cocking her head to the side, Wyn advanced upon the small man, bringing her face closer to his sweet red which continuously poured from that gaping wound in his chest.

Mathew twitched in her grasp, drawing in a shuddering breath as she grew near, her mouth becoming dangerously close as she made her decision. Mathew sincerely hoped that it would be over quickly. A passing thought remarked that it may be better to die in the belly of a beast than to drown or die when his body finally failed him.

Mathew tensed as her lips parted in front of him, her hot breath pouring from her full lips over his body. The warmth made him whimper in surrender, there was nothing he could do at this point but lay in her clutches and wait.

The warmth of her skin would have been soothing to his cold clammy skin if not for the imminent threat of being eaten waiting just beyond the plump flesh of her lips.

Turning his head away from his demise, Mathew’s head spun as he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to console himself.

Wyn closed her eyes to savor the moment, her chin settling in the careful divot her hands created around her mysterious temptation.

Pushing forward with a thinly veiled impatience Wyn dipped her tongue down, caressing the flesh of her own palm as she made her contact.

The tip of Wyn’s tongue gathered the barest of tastes of his red before lapping at the blood pooling in her grasp.

Pushing the bounds of her oath, Wyn treaded onward, trailing forward to brush her lips against the man's chest. It was the barest of tastes, her lips parting to flick her tongue out to find the delicious source.

Her instincts called for more. She desperately wanted to take him as she continued, almost becoming lost in her ministrations as her tongue found its way beneath his tattered shirt to press against his bare stomach.

Even as she was being gentle, it occurred that her poor morsel was more than certainly fearing for his life.

The thought made her sigh a warm breath over him, her lips curling into a soft smile as she felt him press against her upper lip with a deathly cold hand.

Beneath the force of her tongues caress, she felt the man breath out a shaking sound much akin to a sigh. His own puffs of breath dancing along the sensitive skin of her lips as his chest rose and fell against her smile.

Mathew had never felt so small in his life, he had kissed his fair share of women in his time as the son of an influential merchant, but none of it compared to this.

The giant merfolk was easily the most breathtaking creature he had laid eyes upon, even in his final moments he could see the beauty in her.

The ache in his ribs subsided against her warm breath which she laid upon him as if it was a comforting blanket.

The heaviness of Mathew’s limbs felt far away as her mouth drew close, his left arm which had been delicately cradling his wound was pressed against his chest under the soft pressure of her lips.

Mathews left arm sunk into the soft skin of her lower lip as she pressed forward. Shuddering in a soft breath against her skin he was alarmed to feel warmth spread along his chest as her lips parted.

Mathew prepared himself, signing away his last memories he leaned into her, his right hand finding the warmth of her skin as he winced. She had found his wound, her saliva creating a trail of smoldering embers along his torso as she worked under the fabric of his shirt.

Another warm breath flushed across Mathews' skin, as he began to relax, sighing into her dewy lips.

He was losing himself.

The tremble in his limbs began to quell as the numbness spread through every arching artery and vein. His arm that was braced against Wyn’s upper lip fell away, numbly landing at his side in her palm.

Falling into delirium, it was a twisted fact to say that he was thankful; He was finally warm enough to sleep even if he believed he would die in the belly of a giant mermaid.

Giving in, the warm grasp of sleep wrapped its fingers into his mind as he was pulled further from his senses.

He was succulent, the blood pouring from his side was just as delectable as Wyn could have imagined. He tasted of exotic fruits and decadent sugars, meats of the land and other creatures she couldn’t place.

Withdrawing her ministrations from his frail form was difficult, with just a taste it was hard not to follow through; but she followed her family code with strict control of herself.

If a creature smells of the land then it is the responsibility of the land beasts to take them.

It was not her place.

Pulling away, she lolled her tongue in her mouth lazily, gazing back at the man through half lidded eyes.

Her lips were blushed pink with the red of his blood which she quickly licked away and focused back in on his smaller features.

The paleness of his skin glowed under the fading firelight as she watched his chest slowly rise and fall.

Wyn had seen this hundreds of times before. She knew he was fading quickly as his eyes stared off into the sky beyond her.

Mathews brown eyes glazed over as he stared past her and into the endless sea of stars. The fluff of brown hair that had once been stuck to his head was drying in the ocean breeze, flitting around his face in loose waves.

Mathew didn’t react when Wyn leaned forward, her face once more crowding into his vision. He was too far gone as he blinked slowly, closing his eyes for what would have been the final time if it had not been for Wyn.

Breathing slowly, Wyn gathered a breath in her expansive chest and called upon the well of energy within herself. Tugging at the thin pulse of power that was always slithering beneath her skin, Wyn ripped at it, pulling the ribbon until energy spilled forth in billows of glowing light.

A cerulean glow danced beneath her flesh, racing across her skin much like the occasional shooting star along the night sky.

At her call, the inside of Wyn’s mouth filled as she inhaled deeply. The well of magic took the form of a swirling wisp crossing between the elegance of smoke and the turmoil of waves.

A puff of it escaped between her lips, glowing intensely in a beautiful and unnatural cloud. The rippling energy floated in the air above him before crashing against Mathews middle along with Wyn’s pursed lips.

Releasing the breath she had been keeping, Wyn pressed her moist lips against his small frame, effectively forcing her glowing energy into the small man.

The effect was almost immediate.

A budding grin grew upon her face as she felt his cold flesh stir against her. A miniscule gasping breath brushed along her cheek as his chest quaked beneath her lips.

Rolling the half awake man into one hand, Wyn’s left hand plunged below the crashing waves to pick at her billowing tail. Using one of her long nails, she ripped out a single navy scale from her side.

Pulling away from Mathew, Wyn watched as he began to heave for breath.

It was heartening to see that her powers could still be used in such a fashion. It had been many years since her own mother had shown her how to transfuse magic to help wounded creatures. Though, she supposed that her mother had never counted on her to use it on a human.

Cerulean tethers of magic linked them, trailing from her mouth as she drew back from the man who was so newly imbued with her blessing; but her work wasn’t done.

Magic itself could only cure a problem for so long before it began to spill out of such a spurting wound. Wyn was quick to act as she already saw the trailing ribbons of energy try to escape his flesh.

Invigorated from his new found energy and his time so close to death, Mathew began to squirm as he began to wake up.

He didn’t understand what had happened, he could have sworn he was dead. He had been gliding along the knife’s edge, swiftly teetering into the direction of death when he felt it.

A sharp spear of warmth dug into his chest. It felt as if he had been crushed beneath the weight of an ocean swell twenty feet high.

The force of it slammed into him without remorse, a painful and yet, relieving sensation that tore him from death's hands. It brought him back from the darkness as if it had all been a wicked nightmare.

Coming to, had not been pleasant.

Mathew’s head swung with vertigo and confusion as he was swiftly deposited into one hand and restrained.

He tried in vain to push at Wyn’s thumb which came down hard against his side, consequently brushing against the newly throbbing wound.

Hissing in pain, Mathew tried to push her thumb off of his chest, a feat that even if he hadn’t been injured would have been impossible. The mermaid's fingers beneath him were long and rivaled him in size, each of them strong enough to snap him in half if she wished.

Methews mind raced as he tried to right himself in her grip, a thick slice of panic trailed up his spine reinvigorating his trembling limbs.

Mathews' gaze shot up to her distant face, trying to gauge, or even find an inkling about what was going on, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

“W-Wait! What are you doing?” He belted out, his voice high with nerves.

He didn’t receive an answer.

It wasn't that Wyn didn’t hear him, she just didn’t understand; Nor did she care to try and mime her thinking to a man who wouldn’t grasp what she was doing.

Instead, against his thrashing arms she readjusted once more.

Wyn gathered both of Mathews' hands above his head as he continued to protest, holding his two wrists under the pressure of her thumb.

With his abdomen unguarded, Wyn had more room to work as she shifted his shirt up with the pinky of her other hand to expose his belly.

As the gentle flesh of his abdomen was born to her, Wyn felt the man grow very stiff in her grasp.

His shouts and mildly confusing strings of foreign sentences had trailed off, leaving just the melody of the ocean. Scrunching her eyebrows in confusion, Wyn finally looked at his face.

Mathews' mouth was open slightly, as if he was struggling to speak, but he wasn’t in any true distress.

His chest heaved with breath in her palm, his heartbeat fluttering wildly against her own skin.

Mathews' brown eyes caught Wyn’s golden ones in a heartbeat. He looked wild, shaken and afraid. He was unsure, and Wyn had not given him any notion that she was indeed not going to eat him after whatever had already happened.

But, he knew that she had brought him back, and that alone was enough to give him pause.

The glowing magic gushing from his side suggested that she had, as it was too obvious that the same magic made her lips glow in a stark shade of blue.

Seeing her eyes again was like being set under a great magnifying lens, but it wasn’t so unsettling this time around.

Wyn’s face softened under the careful scrutiny of the man. Her gaze warming as she drew closer. She kept careful eye contact with him till her face hovered a few inches above her palm.

She waited for him to continue, to shake or scream, or do anything she could assume from the smaller species that inhabited the land, but instead his mouth closed.

He was still afraid, but there was no reason for her to save him, and no way he could stop her.

She could have easily eaten him when he had lost consciousness before, or simply dragged him below the water, but she hadn’t. These facts alone left him with very few possible outcomes, some bad, and some so tantalizingly hopeful.

So, with a resolute expression, Mathew held her honey gaze, clenched his jaw and nodded.

With both of his arms restrained above his head, Mathew braced himself for whatever she was doing. Closing his eyes he felt a few stray tears fall down his cheek, he desperately hoped he was going to at least live through this.

He had already given up once tonight; and it was cruel for him to have to make that decision again.

Mathew turned his head away from the mermaid, finally breaking their silent exchange as he let out a shaky breath into the tattered sleeve of his shirt.

Wyn had been content to wait a moment for the man to calm down, though she had expected for him to thrash for longer. It was an anomaly, but she supposed that not all of the smaller folk could be counted on to be flighty, maybe it was just a land-people thing.

Moving slower for his sake, Wyn continued with her mission; she had already waited long enough to be finished.

Using her left hand Wyn quickly pressed her own navy scale along Mathews torso, restricting the flow of escaping magic.

The thin scale was as sharp as a whip. The texture biting harshly into Mathews skin making him groan as Wyn effectively plugged the hole in his side with a scale the size of a dinner plate.

Leaning down once more, Wyn closed her eyes as she gently pressed her lips over the given artifact.

Mathew hissed in pain as the billowing ribbons of magic spilled from Wyn’s mouth to seal the scale over his skin.

The flesh of his abdomen warped over the obtrusive material, stretching as they were melded together with magic.

Mathew groaned as he finally opened his eyes again, greeted with the close up of Wyn’s face as she pressed her lips to his chest. The warmth was almost unbearable as he watched more strange energy pour from the crease of her mouth.

The entrance of magic made him woozy, the massive amount of energy itself causing him to lose focus on what was happening. With a last drowsy thought, Mathew realized that he was drifting back towards unconsciousness.

The thought itself should have inspired some anxiety, or fear to be stranded with a giant mermaid in the middle of the ocean, but with her magic pouring directly into him, he couldn’t bring himself to distrust her.

It became clear that with her lips pressed heavily against his chest, that she was trying to help him.

A last bright flash of light seared into the scale as it began to glow vibrantly under the last dregs of Wyn’s magic. Making the finishing touches and using the rest of her well of energy, Wyn felt the man completely relax under her.

Pulling away, Wyn herself was a tad lightheaded from her expenditure. Finally allowing herself to dip deeper into the water she held both hands above the waves as she let go of his wrists.

Catching herself, Wyn pushed herself back up to see the small man again, only to find him asleep in her palm.

Dragging a wandering finger down his side, Wyn smiled at her handiwork. The blue of her scale had fused with his skin nicely and created a discolored area on his abdomen. There wasn’t a trace of any stab wound in sight.

A trill of excitement rumbled in her chest as she smiled brightly.

Spying the small man's face, Wyn pushed his arms back down to his sides. He looked much more at peace like this. There was no shaking or shouting or fighting. He was calm.

With the smallest brush of her finger, Wyn tilted Mathews head straight so she could get a good look at his face before deciding that it was time to go.

With a careful glance around, Wyn was sure to check for any nearby ships along the horizon. When she found none, Wyn ticked her tongue in annoyance, there would be no easy dumping of her new pet on some passing human vessel. She was going to have to carry him back to shore if she didn’t want her efforts to go to waste.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Wyn candidly searched for something to carry him in. If she was going to have to swim to the nearest human settlement, then she would have to have both hands open.

Among the debris, there was mostly wood, a few floating boxes or barrels, but other than that, the sails had burned up a while ago and sunk with the Mariot.

Wyn searched for multiple minutes before her eyes managed to pick up something discolored in the water nearby.

Dredging closer to it, Wyn pulled the blue scrap of fabric from the water. Spreading it out over her hand, Wyn was surprised to see a symbol she actually recognized.

Adorned on the blue sun bleached fabric was the emblem of a silver whale beneath a yellow sun. She had seen the emblem multiple times during her time in the area.

The ships that carried these flags were usually ladened down with lots of cargo, they were heavy and hard to take down so she usually left them alone. Not to mention that they were very sorely missed by the settlements nearby Wyn thought sourly.

Passing a look over to her passenger, Wyn decided that the fabric would be plenty big enough, and with the added insignia to her knowledge, she knew exactly where he belonged.

Thinking again, Wyn looked around, taking into account the lack of little barrels or boxes that usually accompanied a sinking ship of this size. It was unusual for a ship to be this empty even when it was obviously not weighed down by extra cargo.

Wyn let a wicked grin spread across her face. There was another ship in the vicinity that was moving slower than usual.

A soft trill escaped her chest as she planned her next meal, all the while carefully wrapping up her precious cargo in a fabric hammock.

Tying all the ends together, Wyn made a big knot before bringing it up to her mouth. Holding the knot between her teeth, Wyn let herself sink lower into the water so she could swim, and with a few testing strokes she was off.

Using her powerful tail and navigating with her arms, Wyn was quick to get closer to shore. The longer she strayed from her territory, the more likely the other ship was going to get away.

The swim took a little less than three hours before Wyn began to see the signs of human civilization along a stretch of land. The small shimmerings of lanterns speckled the hillside in different clusters. Wyn could have almost mistaken it as a continuation of the night sky if it hadn’t been for the musky smell of earth and fish that clung to the air.

In her time around the area she had observed many ships come and go from this port, and in some cases she had indulged in a bit of thievery.

Sometimes it was better to simply steal things off the deck than it was to capsize the entire ship. If too many boats went missing, the pesky coast militia would be out in force.

Ships especially with this silver whale were good at stocking boxes of exotic fruits and snacks she had never seen before, but beyond that, Wyn had no idea what the insignia meant.

Though Wyn thought it was a fair assumption that if her mysterious boy woke up at the port flying his matching banner that he would be okay.

Making sure to glide as closely to the water’s surface as possible, Wyn tried to not get seen or stir up a fuss. The last thing she needed was an angry fleet of ships trailing after her over a ship she didn’t even destroy.

Rolling her eyes at the thought, Wyn waded closer to the emptiest part of the docks. The ships in this area were smaller, belonging to local companies and personal fishing vessels. Coincidentally, they were also furthest away from any of the funny looking buildings which more than likely had people in them.

Using her right hand, Wyn was careful to gather the bundle hanging from her mouth and place the man along the wooden slats of the platform.

Trying to stay low in the water, Wyn’s chest rumbled with a low groan of frustration as her tail was drug across the sharp rock face in the shallow water. It was hard enough to move when this close to shore, and it was even harder when trying to be inconspicuous.

Struggling a bit more than she had liked, Wyn managed to untie her clumsy knot before letting the edges of the flag fall to the damp wood.

Beneath the edges of the wet cloth was Mathew, still asleep from the effects of her magic. He was peaceful, sleeping with his mouth open and his head turned away from Wyn’s gaze.

Glancing around the docks before she moved, Wyn rose a bit above the tide. Using a careful finger and the barest of pressure Wyn lifted at his shoulder to roll him towards her.

Under the barest flutterings of light from the western sky Wyn’s yellow eyes dilated. Mathews' face was tranquil, none of his previous fear or worry was present on his face; it was as if the night had never happened.

Wyn wondered idly if when he woke up in the morning he would be able to chalk this night up to a very vivid dream, or a simple rowdy night of drinking that left him sleeping on the docks.

Though she supposed it would take just over a fortnight for her scale to be completely absorbed, and then she would be just a memory. A discolored blemish on his side to remember her by.

Sighing abruptly, her breath tousled his brown hair away from his face as she withdrew from the docks sinking back into the water. Turning from him, Wyn spared one backwards glance before she pushed off from the sandy shore and sunk her head beneath the waves.

It was unlikely that she was ever going to see him again, and even more so that he would ever look upon her favorably; but it was probably better that way.

Flipping her tail heavily, Wyn quickly drug herself back to deeper water to catch up to her runaway pirates.

Consciousness hit Mathew over the head like it was a steel pipe.

It was a fortunate gift that he truly hadn’t rolled off the dock in his sleep, though what was waiting for him wasn’t much better.

A stab of nausea dug into Matthew's temple like a nail as his head lolled to the side, neither did it help that the brilliant light of the sun was high in the sky and trying its best to blind him.

The dried crusting of sand and salt clung to his clothes in a way that managed to chafe all of the wrong areas. As he rolled over on his side, Mathew first became aware of the swimming feeling of vertigo that made his head spin and his stomach swell.

His brown eyes tried their best to focus in the bright light, but it was no use. Mathew only managed to crack his eyes open a peek before his stomach lurched and he was forced to retch up a stomach full of bile and seawater.

Gagging hard, Mathews stomach tightened as he pushed himself to his hands and knees. His head swam with the constant barrage of questions and prayers. He was happy to be alive, but incredibly confused as to why.

He was at sea? The last thing he remembered was the giant. The Magic?

Mathews hand grazed down to his side before brushing away his starchy shirt and feeling for his wound.

Over where there should have been a tattered hole in his abdomen there was nothing. His skin was smooth to the touch, albeit colder than the rest of him, but there was no hole, and there was only a remnant of soreness.

Over the crashing sounds of the water, some of his nausea subsided as he began to gather his bearings. Opening his eyes fully, Mathew felt the sunburned sin of his face crinkle under the strain of his surprised expression.

He was on a dock.

Around him were small fishing vessels and dinghies used for shallow water cruising. They were all orderly tied off to the posts of the dock, and not a thing seemed out of place.

The only actual thing that did seem odd was him.

Over his cresting confusion, Mathew heard a voice cut through the noise of waves hitting the wooden posts.

“Huh, to be hones’ kid.. I thought ye were dead.” he heard a hearty voice laugh out from one of the nearby boats.

Snapping his head to attention, Mathew met eyes with an older gentleman who had been idly watching him from his vessel.

Mathews' mouth was dry, and in desperate need for a drink of water but he still tried to answer the man anyways.

“Wh-What?” he croaked, his voice cracking.

The older man simply cocked an eyebrow at him and began to chuckle.

“Boy” he laughed, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiled.

“I remember those days.. though out of all of the odd places I ‘ave ever ended up, I don’t think I was ever drunk enough to end up sleepin’ on the docks.”

Mathew was even more confused. The docks? His mind reeled as Mathew struggled to find a coherent question.

“What port are we at?” Mathew asked, trying to figure out where the giant mermaid could have brought him.

His question only seemed to make the man laugh harder at his predicament, and Mathew was left to flounder on dry land.

With a groan, Mathew finally pushed himself to sit on the creaky boards. Flipping his shirt back down, he carefully covered his torso as his bare feet splayed out in front of him. With a look of thinly veiled nausea and incredulity Mathew wiped a hand down his face and cringed as his rough palm scraped against what was definitely sunburn on his cheeks and eyelids. Beyond his form, the lone fisherman wiped tears from his eyes as he tried his best to regain his composure.

“We’re a’ port Allerbell” The man laughed, finally regaining his composure enough to meet Mathews' gaze once more.

Allerbell? Mathews' confusion grew even more. That was at least two days southeast from where the Mariot went down.

In his confusion, Mathews' gaze swept downward and caught sight of a familiar blue fabric beneath him.

His right hand splayed out along the fabric as he ran his hands along a sunbleached edge. A soft smile split across Matthew's face as tears welled in his eyes which were quickly swept away.

Beneath him, there was the rumpled and tattered blue fabric of his family crest. It was the flag that had been hung on the Mariot and then tossed overboard.

The mermaid had brought it with him, he concluded. The thought was sweet as he managed to pull himself together.

The skin on his face was radiating heat at this point, and Mathew was severely uncomfortable if not ecstatic to be alive. He had to get under cover at this point and find a way home.

His family's estate was only a few hours north of Allerbell. There he would be able to recuperate and tell his father his own tall tale about a beautiful sea beast that had saved him and brought him to shore.

Wobbling like a baby bird, Mathew managed to pull himself to his feet and gather the worn fabric from the sun bleached docks. He counted his blessings as he tried to maintain his balance through his nausea and dehydration.

He had been on many trips to Allerbell before, there was a Wathelet merchant outlet not too far from here; all he had to do was make it there.

A smile spread along his face, and despite his sunburn he grinned at the old man sitting in the nearby boat.

“Thank you” he breathed before his gaze swept out to the brilliant blue ocean.

Mathew beamed at the distant horizon, sending another silent thank you to the open water.

Turning away, Mathew waved a hand over his shoulder at the man as he made his way towards the shore.

He supposed it was better this way. It was just a shame that he hadn’t been able to thank her, or even ask her why she had put so much effort into saving him.

Shaking his head, Mathew concentrated on what was immediately important, which at the moment was his balance.

Putting one foot in front of the other Mathew slowly made his way to the shore, and on his way, he made himself a promise.

He would find her again.

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