#I’m very busy and overwhelmed atm but when things settle down I will try to be more active here

[shyghosties]

YOUR LITTLE GHOSTIE IS SO CUTE I JUST WANNA SQUISH ITS CHEEKS

Thank you so much!! They are very squishy!! :•)

[pips-fics]

ask: Hi 👉👈 if it’s okay can I request a hyunjin centric fic? where he’s feverish and emotional nd the others give him lots of affection and comfort 🥺🥺 I love your blog so much it’s so soft and feels safe and ahhh it makes me happy 👉👈 thank you and it’s okay if you don’t feel up to it !!

ask: hello! how are you? i just wanted to say that this is my all time fave blog :) i’m kinda new to tumblr so i’m not sure if that’s how u say it tho hahaha. are u down for requested atm? if yes, could i request a sick hyunjinnie with any caretaker (preferably bangchan). if u are not taking requests atm, then carry on with ur day 🌸✨💜

tw: vomiting, fainting

let us break ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

all idols are trained actors. a lot of people don’t realize it, maybe, but they had to be, to some extent. even before debuting, they learned by observation how to fake health, confidence, and calm - and beyond debut, it was happiness all the time. once, hyunjin found out that one of his best childhood friends was in the hospital, and then sang and smiled through a fansign without blinking an eye an hour later. he knew other idols who had endured much worse.

so yes, while hyunjin might not be entirely comfortable playing a role in a movie or a show, he was quite capable of faking it. maybe that’s why he was able to convince his group mates that he was okay right up until he collapsed.

he hadn’t expected things to get so bad. at first, he was just a bit congested - nothing he couldn’t pass off as allergies, really. once he’d gotten wrapped up in practicing, it had been easy to brush anything else off - like sweating, achy muscles, even nausea - as an effect of intense exercise. too easy, maybe, because hyunjin was not at all prepared for his vision to flicker with darkness or for his legs to entirely give up in the middle of dancing.

fortunately, he retained consciousness, but he wasn’t able to stand quickly enough to dodge minho as he moved to their next formation. the older boy tripped over hyunjin and tumbled to the ground with an “oof,” which was then followed by the chaos of everyone trying to figure out what had happened at once.

it was way too much for hyunjin’s fevered brain to process. he shut down, the sounds blurring into something entirely nonsensical, so hyunjin tuned it all out until a gentle hand on his back made him jump.

“hyunjinnie?” it was chan, wiping tears away. “can you tell me what’s wrong?”

hyunjin shook his head. “minho-hyung–”

“he’s okay,” chan said. “don’t worry.”

shuffling his feet awkwardly, minho nodded. “i know how to fall safely. it happens to the best of us.”

with the greatest of his greatest fears alleviated, hyunjin took a few deep breaths and looked around the room. besides minho, who was still standing nearby looking moderately uncomfortable, and chan, who was rubbing comforting circles on hyunjin’s back, the rest of the members were hanging out near the benches on the other side of the practice room. jisung was talking to their dance teacher while jeongin and changbin were messing with felix in what was probably a deliberate attempt at creating a distraction. seungmin was quietly observing hyunjin from a distance, concern written all over his face. distractions didn’t tend to work as well on him. hyunjin managed a smile in an attempt to be reassuring, but it didn’t seem to have the intended effect.

rather than relaxing, seungmin’s frown deepened, and he stood up and walked over, arms crossed. “don’t act like you’re okay,” he said, and hyunjin suddenly understood. he waved his arms around placatingly.

“i won’t - i’ll take today off, okay?” hyunjin caved easily. next to him, chan looked shocked, and not without reason.

three years ago, things would have gone down quite differently. things had gone down quite differently when hyunjin had been a trainee, and he’d woken up in the hospital with a very rattled seungmin at his bedside. hyunjin wouldn’t make that mistake again any time soon if he could help it.

that didn’t make it easy.

somehow the tears started up again of their own accord as hyunjin relented. “i’m sorry,” he said. “i– i’ll make it up to you all later, i know i’m behind with the dance, it’s just–”

this got the attention of the rest of the group, eliciting a scoff from changbin. “please don’t - if you do that, i’ll be even more behind than i already am.”

“give us a chance to catch up!” jisung added.

hyunjin shook his head. “but i’m supposed to be a dancer.”

felix bounded over and latched on to hyunjin’s arm. “you’re ahead of me, too. i think the only one you’re not ahead of is minho-hyung, and he made half of the choreography.”

minho nodded solemnly. “i cheated.”

hyunjin was too tired to feel better about himself, but too miserable to argue, so he just shrugged and avoided eye contact with everyone.

chan put a hand to hyunjin’s forehead, and nodded as if confirming something. “i’ll come back to the dorm with you, then - i could use a rest day, too, i think.”

with no room for argument, hyunjin decided not to bother trying, despite his misgivings about taking up chan’s time. also, out of all of them, hyunjin thought that chan could use the extra rest the most. by the time they arrived at the dorm, the guilt in hyunjin’s stomach was more or less consumed by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and fear.

he settled in to the living room, sinking into the couch and trying to repress his body’s violent shivering by wrapping himself in a blanket, though it wasn’t very effective. hyunjin was relieved when chan sat next to him, pulling out his laptop - as expected, not really taking a break after all, but hyunjin didn’t mind. he knew chan was busy, and liked to feel productive as often as possible. people relaxed in different ways, anyway. just like that, despite the growing ache in his stomach, hyunjin began to relax and drift off to sleep.

it wasn’t until chan moved to get up that hyunjin snapped back awake. he immediately latched on to chan’s arm.

“hyung, don’t leave me.”

the words were out of his mouth before hyunjin had a chance to consider them, and he immediately hid his face in the couch cushions in embarrassment.

“hyunjinnie,” chan said gently, brushing a hand through hyunjin’s hair. he didn’t sound annoyed, so hyunjin peeked up at him, and found him smiling fondly. “i wasn’t going to leave, just going to get some water. you want anything?”

hyunjin felt his cheeks redden, and let go of chan’s arm. he shook his head. “sorry, hyung.”

“nothing to worry about,” chan said.

being alone even briefly was unsettling to hyunjin, feeling as bad as he was. it meant being forced to take stock of his body, which meant confronting that he felt, somehow, even worse than before. his head was pounding, everything hurt, and his stomach–

his stomach flipped very violently, and hyunjin retched, leaning over the couch, a bit stunned. he swallowed back the vile substance that rushed up his throat with a whimper and scrambled to his feet.

he made it to the toilet just in time for his body to rebel again. this time, hyunjin was hopeless to stop it, and it wasn’t long before tears were rolling down his cheeks. his hair was sticking to his face, matted down with sweat and in some places vomit. hyunjin tried to push it out of his way, but his hands were shaking terribly, and the nausea was so overwhelming, it was hard to focus on anything else.

chan found hyunjin with his cheek on the toilet seat, expression vacant, past the point of caring about a mess. when he saw chan, his face scrunched up into a sad pout.

“hyung… i’m sorry…”

chan chuckled and shook his head. “don’t apologize,” he said quietly, moving to hyunjin’s side just as the younger man began heaving again. chan held hyunjin’s hair and rubbed his shoulder blades, wishing he could do more. he couldn’t help but wince at the way hyunjin’s muscles tensed beneath his fingers.

it took quite a while for hyunjin’s stomach to settle. for about 10 minutes, it was on-and-off puking, half his time spent bent over the toilet, and the other half bonelessly slumped against chan. by the end, he was so exhausted that chan was considering bringing a mixing bowl into the bathroom, just so that hyunjin didn’t have to put so much effort into moving.

finally, hyunjin let out a shuddering sigh - or maybe a sob - and curled up in chan’s lap.

“can i sleep here?” hyunjin mumbled, words slurred with exhaustion. some of the sick in his hair was beginning to dry.

“soon, jinnie. for now, let’s get you cleaned up.”

chan opted to give hyunjin a warm bath, and was pleased when hyunjin relaxed into it, half-asleep. he figured it was okay for the younger man to take a quick nap under chan’s supervision. by the time hyunjin was clean, chan was reluctant to wake him. just as he was about to, hyunjin’s face scrunched up, and he whimpered.

“hyunjin?”

“‘m sorry,” he mumbled, fresh tears slipping down his cheeks. “i’ll do better…”

chan shook him gently, and hyunjin’s eyes flew open. “i’m sorry, i–” he cut himself off with a gasp, taking in his surroundings slowly. “channie-hyung?”

“hey, buddy,” he said, speaking softly. “you okay?”

hyunjin was breathing in short, quick gasps. his eyes darted around the small room, as though searching for something. he blinked quickly, and looked back at chan, who offer a smile.

“it’s just us, you know?”

drinking air as though its supply was dangerously limited, hyunjin nodded. “i know, yeah, i just… hyung, i’m ruining your day off.”

chan shook his head immediately. “what are you talking about, jinnie? you know i’m here because i want to be, right?”

hyunjin bit his lip, trying not to cry. his fevered brain was not being kind to him. chan’s words were too genuine to deny, though, so he nodded, eyes closed. he felt chan’s arms wrap around him, hesitant until hyunjin hugged him back.

“jinnie, you’re allowed to be human. you’re allowed to hurt. it’s okay.”

something there caught him off guard. something broke, something that had been built up, something that had protected hyunjin for a long time. a little snap. it hurt, realizing he’d closed himself off without realizing it, and holding back tears was a lost cause, but then - that was kind of chan’s point.

why hide them?

so hyunjin cried, broken a bit, but held together by one of his best friends - his family. he let himself break a bit more - just as much as he needed - and didn’t flinch when the rest of the members came home. he let them in through a little crack of a doorway, let him hold him and remind him of who he was, and he began to heal.

——

no reader survey this time, too tired and my computer is breaking but please feel free to send in any thoughts you’d like to share, about the fic or otherwise!

——

feel free to send more asks! / rules

[unreasonablestarkstan]

Whumptober - Superfamily

Prompt: Stab wound

Words: 1612

Notes: Superfamily fic, AU where Peter is Steve and Tony’s son but they don’t know that he’s Spider-man. I got a bit carried away with this one, forgive me. 

TW for blood and knives

Read on AO3 as part of my Whumptober 2019 series - I’m writing Irondad, Stony, and Superfamily fics. 

xxx

One thing was absolutely certain: Peter’s dads were going to kill him. It was three hours past his curfew and he still wasn’t home. He had been out patrolling as Spider-Man and had just lost track of time. It was a busy night, and it was hard to think about curfew when there was so much excitement. He had helped stop a car thief, saved a kitten from a tree, and webbed up a man who was trying to steal from an ATM. But now it was 1AM and he was still 10 blocks from home, trying to think of an excuse to tell his parents when he finally got home. They couldn’t know that he was Spider-Man, they would lose it if they found out. He would never be allowed to go out patrolling again.

Peter had just settled on a lie - he would say that he and Ned lost track of time while working on their new Death Star Lego set - when he heard a woman screaming on the street down below. His own petty worries about missing his curfew vanished and he swung down to the scene. A man wearing a ski mask was holding a knife to a young woman’s throat as he forced her to empty her pockets and purse. She was shaking in terror, but her eyes widened when she saw the one and only Spider-Man sneaking up behind the mugger.

“Hey, asshole!” Peter said, tapping the man on the shoulder, “How about you try stealing from me, instead? Give yourself a challenge!”

“Shit.” He heard the mugger whisper before he dropped the woman’s money and spun around to face Peter.

“Nice mask,” Peter said, lunging forward to take the man down. It was an easy enough fight, the mugger was really no match for his super strength. He got him pinned against the wall and webbed one of his hands against the bricks. But Peter wasn’t fast enough, and before he could web his other hand, the man sunk his knife deep into Peter’s shoulder. He yanked it out and went in for another stab, this time closer to Peter’s heart. But Peter was faster now, his body pumping with adrenaline, and he was able to web up the man’s free hand before he could wound him again.

Peter didn’t feel anything at first. He just took a few steps back, staring at the man in complete shock. He had gotten his fair share of cuts and bruises in his time as Spider-Man, but he had never been stabbed before. He looked down at where the knife had been and saw a red stain starting to spread radially outward on his blue hoodie. The pain finally registered in his brain he cried out when he felt it, white-hot and terrible. With a last ounce of strength he webbed up the man’s mouth before falling to his knees.

“Spider-Man!” The woman yelled, running over to him.

“I’m okay,” Peter said through clenched teeth, feeling very much Not Okay. But despite the intense pain, he knew deep down that he would be fine. His healing factor was already taking over, and the blood flow was slowing down. Still, it hurt like hell.

“How can I help you? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No!” Peter responded, sounding harsher than he intended. If he ended up in the hospital then his identity would be revealed and this whole thing would be over.

“Sorry, I mean, I don’t need an ambulance. I’ll be fine. My building is right over here, anyway.”

Peter got up to his feet and started walking towards his building, clutching his shoulder with his opposite hand. The woman followed him, her face full of concern.

“You’re sure you’re okay, Spider-Man?”

“I’m sure. You just call the police and tell them to come pick up that asshole we left on the wall.”

“Of course, Spider-Man. Here, at least let me get the door for you.”

Peter gave her a tight smile and walked into the building, trying to hide the pain from his face until she turned away. When he was sure that she was gone, he took off his mask and hoodie, his shoulder screaming out in pain at the motion. But it had to be done. His dads couldn’t see him in this outfit. He looked in his backpack and groaned when he saw that all he had was a white shirt.

Great. No chance of hiding the blood.

He put the white shirt on anyway, hoping he could get away with telling his dads that he had a nosebleed or something. It probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot. He got in the elevator and braced himself for the inevitable, the dread growing in his stomach as he ascended the many floors. At least it was taking his mind off the pain in his shoulder.

When he got upstairs, Peter stood outside the door for a few minutes, not at all ready to face his dads. He pressed his ear against the door and listened, irrationally hoping that they had already gone to bed. That hope was instantly dashed when he heard Tony’s voice through the door. He was very loud and very angry.

“Goddammit, Steve! Stop telling me it’s going to be okay!”

A moment of silence, then Steve’s voice, much softer and gentler than Tony’s had been.

“He’s a smart kid, you know that. He wouldn’t get himself into any trouble.”

Peter’s stomach dropped. His dad had so much faith in him, and here he was getting himself stabbed in the street at one in the morning.

“Anything could have happened to him! Anything! God, Steve, what if he...what if somone…” Tony broke down before he could finish his sentence. Hearing his father cry like that...it made Peter feel like the worst fuck-up in the world.

Peter couldn’t take another minute of it. He opened the door and walked into the apartment with his head hung low. He didn’t bother to try to hide the blood stain on his shirt, he knew it was a lost cause. Besides, it was hurting him so bad now he didn’t think he could move his arm at all.

“Oh my God,” Steve said, running up to him before he could take two steps into the room. His eyes were fixed on the dark stain of blood on Peter’s shirt. Tony was frozen in place on the other side of the room, staring at him in disbelief.

“Peter, is that…?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I had a nosebleed?”

Steve reached out and tilted Peter’s head up, forcing him to look him in the eyes. At the sight of his dad’s concerned face, Peter couldn’t help but break down. It was all too much: the pain, the guilt, the weight of hiding his double life, all of it. Tears spilled down his cheeks and his body started to shake. Naturally, that only made the pain in his shoulder worse and he cried out, unable to mask it any longer.

“Oh, Pete…”

“My...my shoulder,” Peter said, “it hurts so bad.”

Steve gently pulled back the sleeve of Peter’s shirt to reveal the wound underneath. It wasn’t very wide, but it was deep enough that a tendon was visible. Steve looked at it for a moment, his face completely stoic.

“Peter, honey, we have to go to the hospital, okay?”

“No!” Peter said, taking a step back, “Please don’t make me go, I just want to stay here.”

Steve sighed and looked back at Tony, who was staring at the wound in Peter’s shoulder with a dark, angry expression on his face.

“Who did this to you?” Tony asked in a low voice, his eyes still focused on the wound.

Peter hesitated for a moment, and then decided that he was sick of making up fake stories and lying to his parents about where he’d been. It was time to finally come clean.

“I have to tell you something,” he started, trying to brace himself for their reactions, “I, uh, I got bitten by this spider thing a few months ago and ever since I’ve been able to do weird stuff. Like walk on walls and lift pretty much anything. So I decided to try and use my powers to help people. That’s how I got hurt tonight, trying to help a woman who was getting mugged.”

Peter unzipped his backpack and pulled out his blood stained hoodie and mask, holding it out for his dads to see.

“I’m, um, you know...Spider-Man.”

The words hung in the air for a few moments. Peter braced himself for the yelling and lecturing to start.

“Peter. We’re going to the hospital.” Tony’s voice was shockingly quiet and gentle.

“I really don’t want --” Peter protested.

“Enough. We’re going right now,” Steve said, grabbing the car keys from the kitchen table.

Peter looked back and forth from each of them, trying to understand why they weren’t screaming at him.

“But what about --” he started, but was cut off by Tony.

“Later. We’ll talk about all of this later. After you’re all fixed up.”

Peter nodded, beyond grateful. He was already so overwhelmed, he didn’t think he’d be able to handle having to fully explain himself right now. Besides, his shoulder was hurting so bad now that the hospital didn’t seem so bad anymore.

“Okay,” Peter said quietly, “yeah, okay. The hospital.”

Peter knew that there would be a very long, probably unpleasant conversation about all of this later. But for right now, a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And that was enough.

[bewareofchris]

Public Relations 10/??

R atm | Alec Hardy/Dr. Bill Masters | Broadchurch, Masters of Sex | Strong language, eventual sexual situations

“The fact that Alec Hardy was not currently, had not ever, and did not want to date the American sex research did not seem very important at all to the town of Broadchurch.  They did what they had always done with a little bit of juicy gossip: they made a spectacle of it.”

<< prev

The fact that Bill did not belong here had not escaped his attention.  Bedsides were for loved ones, not for strangers that had been assigned that role by chance.  This chair, this modern torture device, was meant for someone so distracted by their distress that they didn’t notice their legs were going numb.  The lukewarm coffee clutched between his two hands was meant for mouths that were holding back sobs.  The constant light, the beeping and the creeping of nurses at all hours of the night were only tolerable to those that were holding their breaths, that were praying through the night that things would be alright.

No, this bedside vigil wasn’t made for him.  

It must have been meant for someone.  There had to be someone in all the world that loved Alec Hardy.  There had to be a former lover, or a Mother, or a sister or someone that could have been here.  Someone that would have cried, someone that would have prayed.  

Bill didn’t believe in the power of prayer.  No amount of faith in a thankless, unforgiving God was going to save Alec Hardy now.  Nothing was going to save the man if he didn’t want to be saved.  

Maybe that was the bit that pissed him off.  Bill wasn’t a doctor that dealt with death like this.  He didn’t often see it as it ate a man from the inside out; he didn’t beg his patients to care the way Alec Hardy’s doctor had probably begged him.  He didn’t have to deal with the seizure of fury in his gut, the knowledge that things could be done.  

No, when Bill had been faced with death, it was sudden and horrific.  It was consuming.  There was no time to prepare yourself for the sight of a lifeless newborn.  There was no way to break the news to a new father that his baby would be leaving without a Mother.  Those deaths were brutal, and the only mercy that they’d ever offered was that they didn’t linger.  Bill had never had time to settle in to watch them happening; he’d only ever had time to sort it out afterward.

Some things, you couldn’t sort out.  You couldn’t make sense of.  He could try for a thousand years, and he would never understand why his daughter had to die before she was even born.  He’d never understand why he’d insisted to be the one to deliver her.  How he had felt standing there with the baby resting in his palms--

Bill had thought he felt nothing.

He never stopped feeling that nothing.  He never stopped thinking that some part of him had been torn when he looked at her face.  He could barely hold her, he could barely stand it.  There had been a dozen nurses and a doctor or two and not a single one of them had tried to take the baby from him.  Not even Libby had tried.  No Libby had rolled to the side, with both her arms pressed to her face, crying uncontrollably in the quiet of the room.  

Nobody had moved.

Bill thought of that at Alec Hardy’s bedside.  He thought he should have been furious to sit next to a man that was playing chicken with his own death.  But it was hard to be angry like that, hard to sit in the quiet and listen for the sound of the people that loved this man coming down the hall.

--

Hardy woke up to the smell of black-black coffee.  It seeped into his face and up his nose.  It left a foulness on his tongue that layered over the dryness.  He was snarling a complaint before he’d managed to get his eyes open.  His limbs were heavy, and tired and his head was stuffed full of ambient noise.  

Except there, the obnoxiously familiar sound of beeping hanging over his head.  He could see the bright little lights of monitors when he squinted, and that strained-off-white quality of light unique to hospitals.  There was an empty chair by his bedside, and the busy sound of a nurse bustling in to poke and prod and ask questions.

“He’s been waking up for about five minutes,” Bill said.

Hardy turned his head toward the voice, he growled, “no.  Why are you here?”  There was more he wanted to ask, things about how he’d even gotten there and who had told him.  It could have been anyone at this point.

“Be nice,” the nurse said, “he stayed all night.”

Bill sipped his coffee with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.  He said nothing about how he’d stayed, or how he expected gratitude.  He knew as well as Hardy that they were caught in a sham.  

“Right,” Hardy said.  “Thanks.”

Bill looked over at him without dropping the coffee away from his mouth.  It was a good shield, as far as those things went, a good enough excuse not to do any talking.  He kept sipping his coffee until the nurse finished with her fussing and turned to leave.  “What happened?” he asked as soon as they were alone.

“Uh,” Hardy tried to sit up and managed to do nothing more than slide his head higher on the pillow.  He wasn’t ready to be awake.  Being awake meant facing the increasingly overwhelming reality that he really was going to kill himself.  “I was running.”  There was more to the story than that: little details about who he was running after, and who else was there, and none of it mattered.

“Ellie was here,” Bill said.  “She said you were an asshole.”

Hardy snorted at that.  “Sure she did.”

“She said you would know what she had to do and damn you for making her do it.”

Yes.  Miller would tell the Chief Super, and Hardy would be sent to the medical officer and then he would be out of his office.  He wouldn’t be allowed on this case or any case until he’d sorted himself out.  But that gave him time (just enough time).  He fought his way up to sitting, or what passed for it these days.  

Bill looked at him without surprise as he set his cup on the windowsill.  He said, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Is that your professional opinion, or your opinion as my boyfriend?”

Bill’s smile was very, terribly sad.  He looked older in the strained light from the window than he had before.  His hair had a wave to it that was threatening to be a curl if it wasn’t cared for soon.  His cheeks were darkened with a growth of scruff.  His voice was forgiving, and unforgiving in equal measure, “oh, I wouldn’t have you as a boyfriend if you insisted on doing things like this.  There’s a lot of cops in the world, it doesn’t have to be you.”

But this time, it did.  Hardy tried to blink but his eyelids were out of sync.  His body was too tired to humor him anymore.  But he had to get up, he had to finish the case.  He had to make this stupid life he had worth living before he bothered worrying about saving it.  “I wasn’t always like this.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it,” Bill said.  He dipped to the side and picked up the bag of Hardy’s belongings.  “We’ll have dinner soon, if you live.”  He didn’t throw the bag at Hardy but pull out his clothes and shake them out.  “Come on, I’m already here, I’ll help.”

Hardy considered the offer, and the exhaustion of his limbs.  He considered the rumors, and then he slid his legs off the bed.  His legs were jelly but they held him.  He pulled off the gown and the wires.  The sticky little pads stayed behind and Bill came around the bed to help him peel them off.  “You do this a lot?”

“No,” Bill said.  He held out the shirt so Hardy could get his arms in and once it was on him, he started buttoning it up.  His attention was intense, and focused.  He moved without speaking until he’d made it to the second from top button and then he looked up at Hardy’s face with shrug.  “But, most of the things I usually do make me unhappy.  I don’t want to be unhappy anymore.”

Hardy took the pants from bed before Bill could get ideas about putting those on for him.  He was capable of getting dressed.  “Do you get to make that choice?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bill said.  “I’m trying to figure that out.”  He picked up his own jacket off the back of the chair.  “So, if you’re not dead in the next twenty four hours, dinner?”

“My treat,” he agreed, “if I’m not dead.”

next >>

@it-is-ineffable, @marvelmisha, @e3105eb, @may-darling, @bigleosis, @jiffry6969

[wishingfornever]

12/28/17 – No Contact:  Unfortunate Conversation

My mom likes to nag me.  She’s basically been forcing me to drink ginger water because I have a cough.  It’s obnoxious, but I still love her.  She’s telling me everything takes five minutes to do. Yeah, I guess.  Still, I’ve been busy today myself.  x.x

Tomorrow is Friday.  I work Friday.  I had some issues with my bank and direct deposit but I settled that.  I don’t like being on the phone with my mom being in the same room.  I have nothing to hide, but I don’t know.  I feel like I don’t have my privacy anymore.

Regardless, everything has been settled.  I ended up walking to the HEB to pick my mom up some things.  I got most of it right.  Tomatoes weren’t specific enough.  Jalapenos weren’t available.  Just… ugh…  My mom is going to be doing more cooking around here and I’m not sure if me and Adela are prepared for that.

I… don’t remember my dream from earlier.  I’ve been working with my mom all day.  I slept on a foam mattress which Adela had.  It was far better than the air mattress because that thing kept deflating.  I feel stressed, though.  Maybe my sleep wasn’t that good if I’m feeling stressed.  Then again, I’ve been forgetting words all day. I’m stammering more.

And my mom keeps talking about Esther.  I wish she’d stop.

The and I have basically cleaned and done chores all day.  I’ve been very busy.  The time we’re spending together is nice when I don’t have to deal with Esther’s spectre, ever present thanks to my mom. I’m concerned that I’ll end up yelling at her.  I don’t want to lose my temper and I haven’t for a while.  I think I can control my emotions, at least for now.  Not sure about after work, however. I’ll already be drained and I’m not certain I’d have the patience for my mother.

I love her a lot, mind you.  She just… nags, so much.  She makes me drink this disgusting ginger water, as mentioned.  Like… why?  I told her that it was the last cup I’ll drink.  If she asks me to drink anymore now, I’ll take it, pour it down the sink, and leave the room.  I can’t handle the redundancy.  I don’t see a point to the ginger water, especially since my cough is mostly benign as it’s the final remnant of a putrid illness.

Adela is here now.  My mom is talking to her.  Gives me a break.  They’re talking now, my mom is wanting to get me shoes from the mall.  I can understand that much.  Ever industrious.  Always a mother.

I didn’t think I’d appreciate my mom being here.  Seems I was right.  She is too much of a mother.  It’s quite overwhelming. But, she is overwhelming because she cares.  My dad is overwhelming because he can’t control himself.

My mom and him gave me a bunch of money for christmas.  It’s nice to see but I can’t put it in the bank.  While I went to the HEB, I stopped by Chase to see if I can deposit with them.  Seems that’s not possible.  So…  I guess the money they gave me will go into next month’s rent and food.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine by me.  It means I can save all the money on my card for Ariel.  I can see her sooner.

Of course, I still have to work at that DREADFUL store for a while but I don’t have to withdraw money to pay Adela with.  Which is great because they charge for cash back.  I was certain that some places did cash back WITHOUT the fee.

They’re walking Max now.  My mom is joking about how firm I was with not wanting to drink the ginger water.  I told her I hated the taste and it didn’t feel right in my mouth.  That’s a lie.  The real reason I don’t want to drink the fucking ginger water is that it’s so fucking redundant.  I’m skeptical that it’s actually healthy for me so it’s just an additional chore and another step to just drink a glass of water.  I won’t stand for it.

I haven’t been able to watch many videos, either.  I don’t like watching videos with someone else is in the room.  I mean…  Esther. But she’s the exception.  Whenever I watched videos with Dennis, I got bored and wanted to leave.  One of the pictures I sent her of me at Dennis’s was of Dennis watching a video “with” me.  I had no interest in it but he obviously did, so I let him watch and I politely sat there.  Being bored.  Esther had messaged me at the time and I sent her a selfie.

I’ve been talking about her a lot lately.  Like, so much.  It’s weird. Maybe it has to do with the time of year.  Next year at this time… probably will be better.  Someday, her birthday will become just another day for me.

They’re back.  Time to head out.  D’oh…  Not in the best mood atm.  And I really don’t feel like horchata.  We’re going to El Rey.  Not a bad place but… I prefer Chipotle.  Brb

Back. Took longer than I thought.  Had a veggie torta.  Meh…  I prefer that torta with MEAT in it.  After that, we went to go see if we can find a NEW PAIR OF SHOES all for me.  Thing is, I hate most designs for footwear.  I HATE them.  Like, they’re often just… terrible. I hate white shoes with lots of squiggles, commonly addressed as dad shoes.  HATE them.  I don’t like shoes that are over-designed or shoes that have their logos featured so prominently.  I’m not a fucking billboard, I’m just trying to walk somewhere.

I thought I found a pair, but it turned out the two shoes were different designs.  Like, they looked similar but that was it.  One had extra padding, the other was super basic.  D’oh.