#and i don’t exactly want them to be exacerbated by these meds

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Long story about some shit that’s so personal I’m a little nervous about posting it, and I don’t know how long I’ll leave it up, and I don’t know if there’s any reason to put it here. But it helped just to write it all down, and putting things on here tends to help me.

So, I’m going back on anti-depressants because Ahir Shah told me to. I watched his special Dots recently, and in it, he said he’d made the mistake of going off those a while ago. The act of stopping his anti-depressants, he said, surprisingly turned out to be a pro-depressant. He got worse, he got hopeless about everything, so he went back on them. Assuming he wrote that quite bleak show after going back on meds, they didn’t exactly restore all his hope. But they don’t normally restore all hope. No one ever promised that they would.

I have a degree in psychology, I know how these things usually work. It’s a common phenomenon for any mental or physical condition that people will go on medication, feel better as a result of the medication, decide they’re better now so they don’t need it anymore, go off the medication, and then feel worse.

For me, it was the opposite. I went off anti-depressants about a year ago, after having been on them for quite a while. That was by far the longest I’d ever stuck with a medication, though I’ve been prescribed them many times throughout my life. I’ve often been prescribed them and just never filled the prescription. Sometimes I’d filled the prescription and tried them for a month, hated the side effects, and gone off them (by which I mean tapered off under doctor’s supervision – I might be lax with letting my mental health go untreated, but I’m not irresponsible enough to take risks with sudden stops to medication). But a few years ago, I got to such a low point that I was willing to go on meds and actually stay on them. I stayed on that anti-depressant for about 2.5 years.

I went off them early last year because I thought they weren’t helping. I still got sad all the time, often for no reason or as a disproportionate reaction. I still got overwhelmed too easily from what should have been normal amounts of human contact. The pandemic had exacerbated that a lot. My anxiety levels were so high. If I was like that despite being on medication, what the hell was the point of the medication? I told the clinic that it wasn’t helping and I wanted to go off it.

The doctor recommended that I stay on it – he actually made me sign something acknowledging that he’d given me this advice, presumably to absolve himself of liability if anything bad happened as a result. And then he prescribed me the appropriate number of pills in lower doses so I could taper off safely, because seriously, even if I make other questionable decisions, no one should ever mess around with stopping medication cold turkey.

I didn’t fall apart the moment I stopped medication. Actually I sort of did, because I had a few weeks of withdrawal (which can happen to mild or moderate degrees even if you do go off it the proper way, the severe withdrawal that occurs if you go off it wrong is scary), but once I got past that, for a while, I barely noticed the change. It’s only now that I look back that I can see a pattern. And the pattern doesn’t correlate perfectly with my medication history, because there are so many other factors at play. My life was fairly okay for most of last spring, so for a while, I felt all right even once I was off medication.

But I did, eventually, have a breakdown. I didn’t see it at the time; at the time it felt like a normal downswing in the normal ups and downs of life. But I can look at it now and remember that I didn’t get downswings that low when I was on medication. I definitely didn’t get downswings as low I am right now, where I’ve been for the last few weeks.

I remember a conversation I had, about six months after I started medication, with a girl I’d coached for several years. She had some serious anxiety issues, which she talked to me about frequently. I always gave her the best advice I could, which involved advising her to consult a doctor. She was reluctant to do so, which I understood, as I spent most of my teen years with my parents taking me to doctors who might fix my severe anxiety, but I never wanted anything to do with it. Now, I advise teenagers to be more open to accepting help than I was at their age.

I’d been open with this girl, when it came up and was relevant, with the fact that I had experience with this too. She asked me, that day, whether taking medication had helped me. She was nineteen by then. If she’d been younger I would have sugar coated it more, but I thought an honest answer might help her and she was old enough to hear it, so I told her the truth. I told her I still felt sad and scared at disproportionate rates, I still struggled with stress and human interaction more than most people, but since I’d gone on medication, I could function again. I could accomplish things, even if they were difficult. And I hadn’t once felt the desire to kill myself – in fact, I could barely remember how it felt to ever want that. I could barely remember how it felt to be close to wanting that. Since the medication had taken effect, my days of wanting to do that felt like a dream or a distant memory. Medication didn’t solve everything, but it took that away, and that mattered.

That’s what I told a girl I coached, several years ago. But as I sit here now and write this, I can very easily identify how it feels to be in that very bad place that I’d once reduced to feeling like a dream. What I have trouble remembering is how I felt on that day when I told a nineteen-year-old how confident I was in the resurgence of my mental health. I’ve described that memory in the form of a conversation because that’s how I remember it now – I remember saying it. I know that a few years ago, I felt like a functional person who was a million miles away from the darkest parts of depression. But I only know that because I remember telling someone I felt that way. I can now barely remember how it actually felt.

It was a few things at once at the end of 2022. Objectively bad things did happen, things that would cause most people to be upset. So when I reacted in the moment, it felt like it made sense. I’m only now realizing I’m pretty sure the version of me on medication would not have had quite the reaction that I did.

In those last few months, I stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped exercising, ignored my friends. Every step, at the time, felt like a normal level of having a bad day. I was still obsessively going through comedy and posting on here about it. More than ever, in fact. But I’d stopped feeling joy or hope in anything related to real life. I couldn’t be around people. When I did manage to go to my sport’s practices, the thing I love most in the world and only recently started getting back after COVID (God, I hate the phrase “after COVID” when we were very much still in COVID, but I’ve started going back anyway), I felt cold and disconnected. I didn’t like anyone there. I didn’t like anyone at all.

There were occasional exceptions, times when something would happen that would make me feel alive. But those were tiny flashes among weeks and months of not wanting anything to do with anyone, and the fact that they were exceptions highlights how bad things got.

I was already feeling that way when in October, a guy I used to know and like committed suicide. At first I felt nothing, which scared me because I thought the pandemic had completely turned off my capacity to care about things. But then I felt quite sad, and realized it was just a delayed reaction. So that was fine. Until a few weeks later when I learned that he did it to avoid charges for sexual assault of a teenage girl I knew, and I knew him around her; for years before the pandemic I worked with them both and saw them together and had no idea. And for all those years I was fighting for the people who oversee our sport to do something about all those predatory coaches in other regions, and had no idea that a friendly acquaintance of mine from another team in my own fucking city was one of the worst.

I spiraled pretty hard from there. A bad reaction would be normal, but I know my reaction was abnormal, because my friends got upset for a bit and then moved on. I couldn’t. It solidified my growing view that no one can be trusted and everyone in the world is a terrible person and no one is worth caring about, and therefore, nothing is worth doing or investing in. That everything that’s ever felt fulfilling to me is poison. And that’s when the actual wanting to die set in.

For the record, I do think there’s something to the depressive realism theory, espoused by annoying people who think being cynical makes them better than everyone else. As much as I hate those annoying arrogant people, I don’t know if it is right to say my reaction was disproportionate just because my friends got over it faster than I did. It’s fucking horrifying, and so are most things in the world. I think it’s rational to be really really upset that everything is so fucked up. I think I might be objectively more rational than my friends are about this. Also, the world’s ending. The world’s ending and everyone is just getting on with life, making plans for the future, as though the world isn’t ending!

But if exercise or diet or willpower or medication can give me whatever ability everyone else has to irrationally feel hope despite how fucking horrifying everything is, then I want to do that. Cynicism doesn’t make me better than anyone else, and I’d rather be happy than objectively rational.

Anyway, in the process of this spiraling, I shut down and didn’t see my girlfriend for several weeks, and when she asked me how we could move forward, I broke up with her. Because in that moment she felt to me like the only truly good person I knew, and I felt terribly guilty about hurting the only good person by asking her to deal with this version of me. The least I could do was be miserable and self-destructive without hurting an innocent person more than I had to, which was quite a lot, because we had a good relationship for fourteen months and of course I hurt her terribly by breaking it off. And then I felt incredibly guilty about that, and I still do, but I also still think I’d have hurt her more in the long run if I’d stayed with her and asked her to deal with this, so this was the path that caused the least harm, which is all I ever want to do. Though the actual path that would have caused the least harm would have been not getting into a relationship when I can’t count on remaining a functional enough person to maintain one. Which is what I did for ten years, until 2021, when I was on medication and though I was finally okay enough to try.

After that I shut down even more. I ignored calls from my parents who were worried about me, I couldn’t get out of bed. I did the bare minimum of work that I had to, but I’m lucky I have a quite flexible freelance job that can withstand this. One day my dad turned up at my door because I’d ignored my phone and he was afraid I’d hurt myself. I told him I was all right and let him take me for a drive, and he dropped off some groceries for me and I am incredibly grateful to have people who care about me so much.

A couple of weeks ago my parents got me to come to their place for Christmas, and now it’s a bit into January and things have got a little better. I’ve socialized a bit and eaten more and feel slightly more like a real person again, just enough to realize just how bad things had gotten in the last few weeks of 2022.

Through all this, I was still following all the comedy. When I stopped liking everything else in the world, the comedy is the only thing that never went away. There were times when I had trouble laughing at it, when certain types of comedy made me feel sick, but it could still pretty consistently make me feel something. I’ve been watching and listening to comedy and posting about it on here, and I don’t even know anymore if that’s escapism from the real world or if it’s my only connection to the real world that never got severed.

I recently watched Ahir Shah’s show Dots. And I now want to emphasize that I’m not going back on anti-depressants just because Ahir Shah told me to. I’ve known for a while that I needed to do that. I’ve known since I broke up with my girlfriend, and she told me she hopes I can work on my mental health and get the help I need, and I wasn’t doing well enough to take steps toward it at the time but I knew she was right. Over Christmas, when I’ve come back up just a bit, I’ve realized I need to actually start doing that. Because aside from anything else, I’m supposed to be looking for better jobs right now so I can be financially stable, and I can’t imagine that succeeding unless something helps my mental health get better. And I really want that to work, because I want to find a good enough job so I can relax about my financial situation and start planning some way to see the UK.

I already knew all that, but I still knew it sort of theoretically, as something I should get on at some point. And then Ahir Shah told me that the act of stopping anti-depressants is in fact a pro-depressant, and I realized he was right, going off it was a mistake. That was what I needed to hear. I needed to hear that the practical step of going back on medication – the step that seemed so big and complicated – could be done and has been known to work.

But seriously, I was going to do it anyway. I am not going back on medication literally just because Ahir Shah told me to, because no one should be taking medical advice from comedians. Please do not take medical advice from comedians. Listen to the advice of doctors, I say hypocritically, less than a year after signing a paper that let me ignore their advice. Do not make medical decisions based on comedy specials.

On the subject of comedy specials, I keep relating to the bad guys in people’s stories. I keep watching stand-up shows about relationships that didn’t work out, and relating to the person who isn’t telling the story. The partner who could not accept or properly return their love, and eventually, the protagonist realized that this terrible person was terrible for them. Even as I wrote in this post about how I broke up with my girlfriend, I thought, I know how this sounds. “I’m just too broken to be a good partner for you, sorry, nothing I can do about that.” It sounds like the bullshit that the villain in a sitcom or a stand-up special makes up to justify their shitty behaviour.

Before I got with my recent ex-girlfriend, I spent years not getting into relationships because I was scared of being that person, the one who hurts someone by letting them tie their happiness to my emotional availability, and then lets them down. When I first got with my recent ex-girlfriend, I tried to tell her that. I can demonstrate almost exactly what I tried to tell her, because this is a rare case in which I relate to the protagonist of a dating-based stand-up story; the first time I’d ever heard anyone else describe what I do was when I listened to this bit of Daniel Kitson’s After the Beginning, Before the End. But that’s not a clip in which we’re supposed to relate to him, even though he’s the one telling the story. That’s him telling a story about how he’s a bit of a dick sometimes. Taking the sort of liability waivers that they make you sign in a doctor’s office, and thinking they work in human relationships.

It’s not just how it ended. Even when our relationship was good, I never really let my guard down with my girlfriend, because I knew I wasn’t mentally functional enough to do well in a fully committed relationship. She wanted to travel together, meet my family, have me come over during the week sometimes, and I didn’t trust myself to handle any of that without freaking out, so I never did it. Now I listen to stand-up comedy stories, mostly by straight women about shitty boyfriends, where they realized they were too good for someone who kept them at arm’s length, and they were right.

About a month ago, my girlfriend came over to drop off the Christmas gift she’d already bought for me by the time I broke up with her; she wouldn’t take no for an answer about me accepting it. I glanced at it quickly, just enough to see that it was a really thoughtful and kind and considerate gift. Then I hid it in my closet so I wouldn’t have to look at it or think about what I’d done. And then I lay on my bed, and to try to block that out, I put on the radio show I’d been listening to. The first thing I heard was the comedian doing the radio show tell a story about her shitty ex-boyfriend for whom she’d made a beautiful and thoughtful Christmas gift, and he uncomfortably barely managed to accept it, and then she realized she deserved better than that and broke up with him.

Earlier, she’d told us how this guy said he’d be happy to live next to her someday but not with her, and the audience groaned in sympathy for her putting up with this guy, and my reaction was to think living in a home next to someone I love would be ideal. Not living with them. I loved my ex-girlfriend more than I’ve ever loved anyone I’ve been with before, and I was barely able to keep up a relationship of spending a night at her place once every weekend or two for fourteen months. If you live with someone, not just a roommate who isn’t allowed into your bedroom but with all spaces shared, where do you go when you’re having a mental health crisis and can’t handle seeing anyone? Oh right, most people are able to be vulnerable with their partners or whatever, during moments like that. Fine.

The ex-boyfriend from that radio story is one of my favourite comedians, and I frequently relate to him when he’s doing comedy in which he describes his worldview, but fucking hell, I don’t want to relate to him when he’s the bad guy in someone else’s story about her terrible ex, and the audience is audibly sorry she ever had to subject herself to that. I would really like to be better than that someday.

Anyway, I’m going back on medication, and not just because Ahir Shah told me to, I knew I had to do that anyway. But to be honest, there is a pretty direct connection between me hearing him say it and me making the actual phone call to my doctor’s office. It made that insurmountable-seeming process feel more possible. Don’t take medical advice from comedians, everyone, but maybe if you realize you’re the bad guy in all of their stories, consider trying to change something.

...I’ll be honest: I wrote this post last week, all of it up to this point, and saved it in my drafts because it seemed like too much to actually post. Just writing it out did help, so I already got that out of it, and there isn’t really a good reason to post it now. But I think I’m going to anyway, at least for a little while. I don’t need this to stay up for long.

I do have a bit of update, even since last week. I’ve made myself start doing workouts every day again, keeping in mind what I learned when I first became an athlete at the age of twelve: if you get out of the habit, no matter how out of shape you get, when you get back into it, it doesn’t matter if you can’t do everything you could do before. It only matters that you can do more than you did yesterday - if you keep to that every time, you’ll end up back in shape. I fucking hate sports clichés, I’ve spent years hearing people cite them unironically and they’re the absolute worst, but that one’s pretty true. I’ve previously used that one as motivation to go from being in a rut to being back in the top athletic shape I needed to be to compete at the varsity university national championships. Now, I’m using it to go from doing nothing for months to going back to being able to get through what used to be the daily workout that I did to keep my mental health slightly regulated. And shockingly, after just a few days of it, I have been reminded: oh yeah, there was a reason I did this. People who tell you that physical exercise can cure mental health problems are full of shit, but it does actually fucking help.

I still have my appointment to talk to my doctor about going back on meds, though. Because actual health care is important. Physical exercise and obsession with comedy recordings can both be helpful, but not good replacements for actual medicine. Sort your life out based on recommendations from certified professionals, not from Ahir Shah. But again, a few words from Ahir Shah can fucking help.

I spent an hour on the phone today with my friend who coaches a team five hours away from me. We’ve been close for years; pre-pandemic we had a long-distance friendship, but it didn’t feel that way because I saw him nearly every weekend at tournaments. He was one of the things I missed most during COVID, as I couldn’t see him at all without traveling. I saw him once right before Christmas in 2022, at one of the two tournaments I managed to attend, and it’s almost silly how much that helped my mental state, at least for a few hours. I was at that tournament, seething with frustration about knowing I was surrounded by terrible people who were once my community (including the brother of that guy who committed suicide to avoid accountability for grooming a vulnerable teenage girl, and that brother definitely knew and said nothing and tacitly supported it and he’s still running that team with more underage athletes and apparently that’s fucking fine) and I didn’t know how I’d ever feel at home anywhere again, and then my friend came out of nowhere and threw his arms around me after 2.5 years and I thought, “Oh right, this. This was what mattered.”

Anyway, I spent an hour on the phone with him today talking about how that guy who died deserved to die, and he agreed with me, and after months of hearing “Well, it’s complicated, I mean we have to be respectful”, God I didn’t even realize how much I needed to hear someone say, “I’m also glad he’s fucking dead.” There’s an old Andy Zaltzman/John Oliver bit (I think it originated in The Department from 2005-ish, so that old) that makes fun of people who fantasize about the extreme violence they’d like to commit against pedophiles, and I see their point. I see why it’s not helpful when society is trying to have an intelligent debate about criminal justice, and some people walk around giving unprompted rants about “Let me tell you what I’d do if I were alone in a room with one of those kiddie fuckers for five minutes.” But having said that, he’s already gone, so this isn’t about criminal justice. And this isn’t unprompted. And somehow to restore my faith in humanity I really needed to hear a friend tell me I’m not the only person who feels this much anger about it.

My friend also told me today that he refuses to die until he gets rid of all the predators in our sport, and I said yeah, okay, I’ll get on board with that. We might have to concoct a way to live forever if that’s going to happen, and if we do get rid of all the predators and all the apologists and people who’ve protected them, our entire sport might just be him and me and like ten other people hanging out in a gym somewhere. But fine.

God, Rhod Gilbert reminds me so much of him. This friend of mine has a case of ADHD that can be seen from space; he and I used to make a good team in fighting political battles together because I could be organized and keep track of what was happening in a way he can’t, and he could stand up and say things with social confidence and connections I don’t have. I’d edit the emails, he’d send them. He’d stand up in board meetings and yell at people, I’d text him under the table to make sure he didn’t forget all the facts that I had both memorized and at hand in a spreadsheet. Part of why I got so into Rhod Gilbert during COVID is I watched him on Taskmaster and in his stand-up DVDs, and it was the closest I could get to hanging out with my friend again. I realize not everyone with ADHD is the same, but these two guys were in many ways. Fuck cancer and nothing is allowed to take Rhod Gilbert out of this world.

One more comedy connection for me:

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Okay there’s one other comedy show bit that’s been helping me a little:

Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tim. Everyone needs to find a reason to want to stay around, even if it’s just to make sure the world keeps containing some people who are willing to hate bad things instead of being all fucking “Well let’s try to be centristly fair to the guys who groom vulnerable underage people” about it. Hopefully that’ll tide me over until I can get to the doctor’s appointment that I made because Ahir Shah told me to.

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[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Hi Ashley!

I’ve followed you silently for a long time, and I really admire and love learning from everything you share about disability and chronic illness rights and experiences. I’m always trying to be more educated about that stuff, as a (mostly) able-bodied ally. But I’m finding myself lately in a position I never expected: suffering from chronic pain I can’t get diagnosed.

I’ve been having knee pain for the last 6+ months that hasn’t been responsive to the treatments my PCP has tried with me— anti-inflammatory medication, months of PT. And I met with her today to discuss the results of an MRI she ordered for it, and she basically told me she has no idea why I’m in pain. I also talked to my aunt who is a doctor about it, and she just kind of vaguely wondered if it was the testosterone’s fault (I’m a trans man around 2 years on HRT), which I want to dismiss as just transphobic, but which I also find a very scary idea (it feeds that internalized transphobia part of my brain that tells me I’m ruining my body by transitioning, or something). I really don’t want to go off testosterone (which I know I wouldn’t have to, even if it were linked somehow with my pain, but it’s still a scary idea to me).

It’s been a very demoralizing and difficult medical process so far, and I’m scared not knowing where exactly to go from here with my very real constant, daily, disabling pain. I’m here in your ask box because I wanted to vent and knew you would be a kind ear, but also because I’m considering (at my PCP’s suggestion) going to an acupuncturist, and I’m wondering if you or any of your followers have any experience with that that you/they would be willing to share? I’m pretty scared of needles but I’d definitely be willing to try it if it might help.

Thanks for your time in reading, and I hope you are well! Even if you don’t have time to get around to this message rn, it was helpful to type this out.

hey there, sweetheart, i'm so sorry you're going through this. unfortunately, i completely understand. i spent several years seeing many doctors trying to get my diagnoses, and it was incredibly frustrating, exhausting, and frightening.

one of the most important lessons i learned from seeing doctors is that you NEVER take one doctor's word for gospel. some doctors are incompetent, some are lazy, some are, like your aunt, biased and don't look for answers beyond their own preconceptions. i had one doctor accuse me of faking, others tell me nothing was wrong with me, others just say "idk what's wrong with you, here's some meds for your symptoms."

i know it's demoralizing to say the least, but you have to be your own advocate and keep pushing. since your pcp can't find anything, i'd suggest you try to see an orthopedist who's more likely to specialize in knee problems, and/or if that yield nothing, a rheumatologist. if zero structural problems can be found (like a tear or strain), then you should also be checked for a systemic issue like rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the joints. if you have any swelling or redness around your knee, you should probably go there first.

no matter what, no matter fucking what, do not let anyone tell you that it's in your head or there's nothing wrong with you. walking on a fucked-up knee without treatment can exacerbate the problem and make it a permanent disability. keep fighting, love.

the good news is that i highly doubt your hrt has anything to do with this. i don't take t, but after years of following trans blogs, i've never heard anyone say anything about t causing joint pain, nor have i heard anything about cis men being more prone to knee problems than cis women. unless you're like, allergic to it or something, that seems super unlikely and a super lazy suggestion.

as for acupuncture, i've had acupuncture quite a few times myself, and the process itself isn't as bad as i thought. the needles are very tiny, and most of the times you barely feel them going in. if you do, it's usually just a small pinch. every once in a while you do get a bigger jolt of pain, but that's pretty rare, the pain fades quickly, and the acupuncturist will take the needle back out if you want. it's much less painful than a syringe needle.

i can't say that getting acupuncture made a significant difference in my pain levels, but my illness is extremely complicated and i think it's definitely a worthwhile thing to try. the practice that's helped the most with my pain is massage, so if you can, i'd recommend trying a massage therapist - maybe one that specializes in sports medicine, as they might be the most familiar with knee anatomy.

i'm really sorry, dear, i know how much pain just fucking sucks. it's okay to acknowledge that it fucking sucks and you hate it and it's causing you suffering for no good reason. it's okay to be upset and angry and scared and whatever other feelings hit you. it's okay to feel what you feel.

take care of yourself, hon, and keep fighting for answers.

[clockworkowl]

I don’t know why but I have spent way too much time developing a headcanon about how just about everyone behaves when either they are ill/injured or you/other characters are ill/injured. Will this lead to me actually writing a fic? (the odds aren’t great given how long it’s been since I’ve even written anything with my own characters let alone trying to stay true to the sketch of someone else’s) Who knows, but I guess this is the closest I’ve come to writing anything at all in far too long.

Sholmes:

*I think we can all agree that Sholmes is the absolute worst when he’s sick.

*He’s totally the type who being the slightest bit ill turns into a complete dramatic bitch and hams up the tiniest of colds like he’s about to die from the consumption. He lightly groans as though the effort of extending his arm fully to take a Kleenex out of the box himself is too much. Like my old rat D’onofrio his breathing is fine if he has no idea you are home, but the second he notes your presence every breath is a wheezy death rattle until you come and worry and fuss over him until his attention meter is full up.

*But also as soon as there’s something he actually wants to do he’s magically cured and runs off without even putting on a coat.

*In a modern AU he for some reason spends a lot of time on WebMD either convincing you that his allergy-related headache is a rare usually fatal disease. Or that you probably have a rare malady that is exacerbated by eating pheasant he should probably go ahead and eat your pheasant because he’s only thinking of your health.

* When you are sick it is unpredictable at best, but it depends on how sick you actually are. There will probably be a variety of dubious cures and tinctures which you should probably ignore unless Iris made them.

*He has literally tied Kazuma to a bed (this will make more sense shortly).

*He will also somehow claim to find Ryunosuke’s take all the meds at once approach reasonable.

Kazuma:

*Asogi is also a terrible patient who will drive you to want to drink, but in the opposite fashion to Sholmes.

*He’s the ‘it’s only a flesh wound’ type who will thoroughly ignore any and all evidence of illness or injury claiming he is perfectly fine and hale until he is half dead with it and passes out

*Even after he regains consciousness will continue to argue that he will be in tomorrow he only needs to run it under a cold tap.

*You will have to tie him to a bed to get him to take doctor’s orders, and then he will be sullen about it.

*Once you get him into a room and confiscate clothes he could go outside in where he is sulking he will change tactics and he will order you around a lot trying to make you angry enough to throw your hands up and let him take care of himself, except with Ryunosuke who he knows this won’t work on so he just tries to wheedle him into bringing his clothes back and makes double entendres and suggestive comments about being tied to the bed.

*When it is you who is sick he will become the overbearing one and you won’t be sure whether that is because he worries about you or because it’s revenge for when he was sick.

Ryunosuke:

*Ryunosuke is challenging when he’s ill because he will acknowledge the illness and neither exaggerate or ignore it, but he is too concerned about whether it inconveniences everyone else for him to be ill, so he will try to downplay or hide the fact he’s as sick as he is.

*He’ll try to get well as quick as possible hence doing dumb stuff like taking all the meds at once.

*He can be reasoned with, like you could convince him to go home and take a day off, or that if he shows up sick he’ll get you all sick, but he’ll try to work from home or come back before he’s 100% or he’ll also try to prevent anyone from helping him because he feels like he’s causing extra work or that he might get someone sick.

*Can also be intimidated into being a good patient with the threat of a Susato Takedown or Barok just glaring at him until he caves.

*When you are sick he worries over you and runs around trying to make everything easy for you. Sholmes will take advantage of that to the max, so he must be sent elsewhere to avoid that.

*Once threatened to tie Kazuma to the bed so he would follow doctor’s orders. Once he realized how suggestive that sounded and got flustered he gave up on that plan (even though everyone agreed it was actually the only plan that was likely to be successful.) Now they rib him about it every time either he or Asogi get ill.

Susato:

*Susato is level-headed and actually a fairly good patient to no one’s surprise, provided she is the only one who is ill.

*She will also be worried about being an inconvenience, but has the sense to do what’s needed to get better and then tries to make it up to everyone after even though no one thinks that’s necessary

*She won��t let anyone help her though unless she really needs it. As she doesn’t want them to get sick or to fuss.

*If others are sick she will tend to put them all before her even if she’s sicker, and gets stubborn about this. This has led to at least one occasion of Sholmes dropping the theatrics and Kazuma acting like a model patient at the same time.

* When you’re sick she is no nonsense and actually helpful. She spends a lot of time shooting down Sholmes’ webMD self diagnoses, and makes Ryunosuke give her his prescriptions so she can administer the dosage because she doesn’t have time to drag him to the hospital. She has also had to threaten the Susato takedown on Kazuma more than once if he doesn’t go see the doctor today.

Gina:

*Gina is in the Kazuma mold of patient, except when you finally force her to act like she is as sick as she is, she turns into Sholmes.

*When you are ill she is aggressive about you taking care of yourself and worries, she has a lot of past trauma with people dying from her time trying to take care of her orphan army in the rookeries.

*Is not above threats, guilt-trips, and shooting you with a smoke grenade full of vitamin c or eucalyptus vap-o-rub mist.

*has pickpocketed Ryunosuke’s prescription to give to Susato more than once to avoid him taking them all at once.

Iris-

*When ill Iris is a lot more like Susato, but she totally tries to invent her own tea-based cures, and she will also downplay or hide that she’s sick because she doesn’t want anyone to worry about her, but doesn’t go overboard with it the way Ryunosuke does.

*She is pretty much immune to Sholmes’ theatrics at this point, but sometimes will make up new imaginary web md illnesses that he might have to amuse herself.

*She will mother you with tea-based or soup-based cures which you will be safe consuming and will make you feel better emotionally if not physically, but often physically as well.

*Has also modified one of her smoke grenade guns to fire eucalytpus vap-o-rub mists, and also so they can knock Kazuma or Gina out safely and temporarily so they can be made to convalesce when they are being extra stubborn.

Barok-

* somehow Barok is the best patient of all of them. It’s probably the only time that he is truly polite and courteous with no sarcastic requests for forgiving discourtesies.

*This comes from some combination of Klimt telling him as a boy about a noble’s responsibility to the people of his estate (and his actually taking this concept to heart unlike a lot of nobles) and the sheer number of times he has had to rely on doctor’s, nurses, and staff due to the numerous attempts on his life over the years.

*He will downplay the seriousness of an injury especially out of habit and so as not to worry those who he cares about (though he finds it shocking always that anyone cares about him) but he will always get it seen to and respect orders provided they come from a professional and there are reasons given.

*He will insist that his staff gets things if he needs them and not you, but this is because he wants the staff to feel comfortable and he pays them extra compensation for it. Were he contagious he would not allow them but would pay their wages for them to be away from his home. (This is a big secret and his staff is very loyal to him even without this money. It’s just like the chalices and vintages all the theatrics of it is to fund these families of artisans. Charity without charity.)

*When you are sick, except maybe Sholmes who he just can’t even, he is kind and no nonsense. He thinks you should come to stay in his guest room and been seen by his doctor, that way you’ll get the best care and recover quicker. He’ll have his staff take care of you (but also report back to him if you aren’t being cooperative. He will tell you to think nothing of it, you’re friends and he’s rich and has no family left (except Iris and she doesn’t even live with him) so what else would he do with it, besides it provides wages.

*He is not above intimidating Ryunosuke (sometimes also Gina ) into convalescing as they should.

*This doesn’t work with Kazuma who he had also considered tying to the bed, but instead decided to let him have it his way and then when he got bad enough and passed out took him to the estate anyway and made sure the doctors told him exactly how much longer he had to convalesce than he would have if he’d listened to Barok in the first place.

*He brings this up every single time so they can just skip to the part where Kazuma sulks and is a grouchy patient.

*Is the only person that doesn’t join in with the group pastime of ribbing Ryunosuke about threatening to tie Kazuma to the bed To make him follow doctor’s orders.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Replying to the commenters of this post [heads up for angst]:

To @kine-iende, who said:​

hot damn. if "our" justin was a mom-friend in their home-universe, here people would start questioning if justin was in secret a very motherly scrull or something (and be fine with it ^^). but yeah, love the trope too. was it "for the want of a nail" or "through a mirrorm darkly"? well, contrast and a what could have been would be lovely. feel enabled, whenever you want to write this :)

.

I am not very familiar with the concept of Skrulls [...iirc, that’s something introduced in Captain Marvel, which I have yet to get around to], but yeah, that tracks. Assuming it’s a thing they know to look for, though, because here Justin’s being themself is the biggest and most obvious way to establish that they are not canon!Justin.

Sure, they’re identical physically, but the moment either Justin opens his mouth, the jig’s up. 

As is, not five minutes into this strange hellscape where their oldest rival looked at them with no small amount of disdain in his eyes at first, Justin had already managed to charm their way out of holding and into a very relaxed “we’ll keep an eye on him” Avengers custody. 

Well, on paper at least— in reality, most of the team doesn’t really give a damn one way or another, whereas Tony starts out morbidly curious as to just how different NHDD!Justin is to the one he’s used to dealing with, and ends up getting a concentrated dose of All The Feels™ because the moment NHDD!Justin realized this Tony had a metric buttload of undiagnosed-and-constantly-belittled mental health issues and a support system that was equal parts duct tape and caffeine, he went “oh, so this universe is the Hell Timeline, okay, makes sense :) :) :) dammit Ivan you’d better fix this stat”. 

In retrospect, Justin’s not sure when exactly the horror show started; if it was the absolute lack of concern or care the Avengers had for their Tony, or the minute they noticed the gauntness in his face. Maybe the tension between Iron Man and Captain America, or the obvious bravado this Tony used– and the fact that none of the others so much as noticed.

All Justin knows is, a version of someone they care about is hurting, hurting badly and has been for a long time now, and that’s more than enough for them to go “oh, okay, mine now”.

.

For his part, Tony has no idea what the hell’s going on. The non-annoying Justin Hammer who crash-landed an Avengers debrief is...something else, and he’s torn between shock, pleasant surprise, and no small amount of existential angst and jealousy because in the span of a few hours, Tony’s had a brief taste of what some other version of him had for a lifetime, and...

Tony’s not sure how he feels about it. He’s a genius, he can wrap his head around string theory and all that good stuff, but numbers are one thing, having to live with the fact that somewhere out there, a version of him grew up with someone so unfailingly kind and supportive and—Tony can’t think of a better word for it than nurturing— and, in the span of seconds, had been able to call him out on his bullshit and seemed to instinctively push him to be better but not in the demanding way his father or the rest of the world had—

If he thinks about it too long, it makes him want to cry, just a little. Somewhere out there was a Tony who’d been enough for someone, who had never been asked to change himself, who’d been pushed up instead of repeatedly torn down and he didn’t know how to deal. 

He’d thought having a non-annoying Justin around would be funny.

This was not, it was goddamn distressing is what it was, because Tony hadn’t even known it was a possibility but now he is acutely aware of the fact that he got stuck with his Justin— the human embodiment of one of those yappy dogs who nipped at people’s heels thinking they were so tough, despite not being able to back it up.

This Justin was, uh, not that. Tony wasn’t sure if he was always like this, or if it was only with him because he shared a face with someone Justin cared about, but... was he always this much of a mom friend? And where’d that granola bar even come from, anyway? Not that he minded, it was a nice change of pace, but really?

...Tony was really going to miss him, once they figured out a way to send him back home.

.

To the commenter who said:

Stephanie isn’t a canon character, is she? Because if not, NHDD!Justin might be able to pull off a “the birth of my little sister awakened my previously deeply buried parental instincts” to explain his whole… [gestures uselessly].

.

Technically, she could be, in that Justin Hammer has a sister and nephew in canon [according to the wiki and a deleted scene, apparently]. I chose to make her a younger sibling in NHDD, to really emphasize the ‘reincarnated with shitty memory’ aspect of this AU. Specifically, while it’s never specified, Justin’s past life was...not great, and part of it was the fact that their younger sibling was sick. 

With what, they don’t remember anymore, but sick enough that they know health isn’t something to take for granted; sick enough that towards the end, they remember their parents had to choose between paying hospital bills and electricity, remember going to bed hungry because meds were expensive and their next paycheck wasn’t until Friday.

...suffice it is to say, there’s a reason Justin’s so protective of those he cares about, even if his memories faded a bit on the specifics as time went by.

To be fair, canon!Justin also cares for his sister and nephew; it’s just that NHDD!Justin acted more like a third parent than a sibling, once Stephanie was born. 

Bear in mind that canon!Justin’s situation is very different than NHDD!Justin’s, because canon!Justin was basically set up to fail from the start as a normal kid who was constantly compared to a child prodigy two years younger than him and terrible parents. While NHDD!Justin’s situation is similar on the surface, the difference is they’re literally a reincarnated OC, with all the baggage that entails.

Maybe, if their second life hadn’t been surrounded by adults with A+ Parenting Skills, 0/10 Do Not Recommend, their issues and traumas from last time wouldn’t have been exacerbated. If they’d been born to a regular family, Justin would’ve been a good kid but nothing special, and their memories of a past life would’ve faded away by the time they hit puberty.

But instead, they were born to the Hammer family, and proceeded to be put through the wringer. 

Which is bad enough, and meant they immediately started leaning hard on everything from their past life because these people wouldn’t know good parenting if it bit them on the nose, but...then Justin’s little sister was born, which immediately kick-started every older sibling instinct they’d ever had because last time they’d been responsible for their younger sibling’s health and safety and you can probably see where this is going. 

aka yes, some of Justin’s behaviors could arguably be called trauma responses and/or coping mechanisms and it’s something I only realized as I was writing this, and no, this AU was not supposed to be this messed up

Justin’s responsibility, their willingness to deal with shitty parents and do tremendous amounts of emotional labor if it helped anyone they took under their wing? That’s no accident, that’s what happens when a soul has to be the adult, has to step up because nobody else is going to. There’s a reason Justin has so much disdain for Hank Pym and Howard Stark’s immaturity, why they have so little patience for their parents as time goes on; their mental age means the older they get, the more they’re looking at the adults around them and judging them hard.

...ahem. Sorry for getting a bit off-topic, but hey, at least now you know a bit more about what’s going on inside Justin’s head!

And yeah, if he had to bs an explanation for why he’s such a mom friend, Justin’d be more than happy to point to his little sister as an excuse. So long as they know she exists, anyway; if not, he’ll just laugh it off and try to chalk it up to one of the differences between their universes.

.

edit to remove the stuff that got through my nonexistent brain-to-mouth filter because I was averaging a not-optimal amount of sleep as I got used to my new job

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 70

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"So they're letting you out?" Ruby asked.

"Well I've been in out-patient care and I got out of in-patient care." I shrugged. They were giving me my weapon back with a hefty fine and time-served. I guess they were desperate for reformed huntsmen on the right side of the law.

And my psychiatrist had eagerly pressed me through as truly reformed. I'd had to sit in front of a judge for my sentencing but my psychiatrist had explained who I was and the extenuating circumstances I had been through. A mind control semblance was the declassified word.

Horrifying.

"That's it then? You're free?" Ruby wondered.

"All horizons," I told her.

"Atlas law requires you to see a therapist for nine weeks minimum," Weiss cut in on my other side. "For the PTSD related issues."

"This fucking continent." I clenched a fist.

"It's for your own good. Better to not fight it and come out of it with something." Weiss said.

"I can't believe you're getting off so easily," Blake muttered.

"Hey did you get a deal like this once?" I asked. "And you weren't even mind controlled."

She looked away and said nothing. Truly reformed huntsmen were hard to come by and it was easier to snatch them up where they appeared. My psychiatrist, therapist, and neurologist all greenlit me.

"Speaking of, how are those meds they have you on treating you?" Weiss asked.

"They're sedating. But I'm managing. The ones they had me on before this batch gave me terrible nightmares."

"Is that how it works?" Weiss wondered.

"It's not an exact science. There's some guessing involved to find some that work for you."

"And these ones work for you?" Yang asked.

I waggled a hand. "I miss THC and CBD but this seems like a close second."

"The doctors said that those were both exacerbating your symptoms," Weiss wedged in.

"Those doctors have never had an alien goddess in their mind." I was met with a loud silence. They weren't sure what to say when I said something like that. No one was. Because no one knew what I was going through besides my sisters wherever they are. I paced forward. "So this is Atlas Academy?"

"We'll have to talk to the General about getting you a room," Ruby muttered.

"Oh I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." Yang rolled her eyes. "I mean, no offense."

"Yeah well I have to serve my time somehow. Military service is probably it for somebody like me. With my particular set of skills."

"But will he trust you?" Weiss asked.

"Better question. Should I be trusted or will I sell you all out to Salem again?" I asked.

"You didn't sell us out. You brought us the relic," Ruby said.

"I… I killed Ren and Nora, Ruby." I couldn't believe her. She still believed in me.  

"That wasn't you," she denied. Maybe she even believed it. I couldn't be sure with Ruby. Well I could. She was just hard to look at because of it.

"It wasn't not me. I have a lot to atone for, and I might do it again."

"You broke her control over you once," Weiss reminded me. She led the way through grey halls up to the headmaster's office.

"I keep telling everyone I have no idea how I did that though."

"You're not exactly selling me on this. On you," Blake informed me.

"Not really trying to. I'm trying to remind you how dangerous I really am. How much of a liability I could be. It's important."

"Cloud, how does this whole time served thing work?" Yang asked.

"That's a little up to Ironwood. He could send me anywhere but he sort of has to accept me somewhere. That's what the judge ruled. He's not a dictator. Not yet at any rate."

"It'll probably be better if you don't talk to him like that," Weiss said. "He won't appreciate it."

"You're probably right." I sighed. We took a grey elevator up to his office. It provided a scenic look out over the tundra and parts of Mantle.

Neo was out there somewhere. I contacted her and let her know I was watching for Cinder from this side and promised to let her know if anything was going down. I was sure she was managing just fine without me though. I was on the inside now. I could watch for Cinder better from here. I'd just have to trust that Neo would show up when it was opportune. I just hoped she wouldn't think I was abandoning her or the cause. Because I wasn't. I was still in camp ‘murder Cinder’ and she was a big girl, she could look after herself if only for as long as this charade lasted. It couldn't go on forever. Eventually I'd slip up and something Salem related would happen.

I also let her know I was getting some serious psychological help for the psychosis. She seemed neutral about that, though. Maybe she thought I was doing just fine. I hadn't been but I was glad she thought that.

Ironwood wasn't in when we arrived. That left us waiting outside for a bit. You couldn't really expect him to be in at all times.

Winter Schnee was there though. She gave me an icy glare and I just smiled back at her wolfishly.

"Oh, it's you," she said.

"Right back at you. How's the throat?"

"Just fine, thank you. You won't surprise me again."

"I don't need surprise to beat you," I told her. "You're fragile. Like glass. I was worried about breaking you. On accident. And don't think that becoming a maiden will bail you out. I almost killed Cinder and I was weaker then by a country mile."

"Weiss, you told him?" She looked shocked.

"He already knew. All about the bunker and what was in it." Weiss responded calmly.

"Neo and I did some digging in that department," I said.

"Ah yes, your criminal partner. Any idea where she is right now?" Winter asked.

"I have no idea." I told her honestly. "I have had no contact with her since my voluntary imprisonment," I then lied. I mixed the truth with lies.

"I see. Well should you remember anything Atlas would consider that necessary information."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I ought to teach you respect."

"Many have tried. Like my Mother. "

Her eyes gleamed, spotting weakness. "You meant Salem, I am sure."

"I did…" I trailed weakly.

"Winter, that's enough. Leave him be. Family is complicated and he didn't ask to be born to that monster. You and I should have some empathy for that," Weiss said.

Winter sighed down at Weiss. "Weiss…"

The general walked in and spotted us. He noticed Jaune armed with his weapon.

"They gave you your weapon back, so soon?" Ironwood asked.

"A week and half isn't that soon," I muttered. "I'm here for my assignment."

"I see. And team RWBY is…"

"Moral support," I granted.

"Have a seat Mr. Arc."

"It's Strife now."

"You changed your name, then."

"Arc was a fake name anyway. It was the name my parents gave me." I took a seat. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence I just said. Most people were given their names by their parents. Most people just didn't hate their parents like I did.

"I can respect that. Ozpin has recommended an assignment close by for you. I'm less convinced."

"He did? Why?" I asked.

"He wants to see if you are capable of his and Salem's kind of magic. He wants to train you if that is that case."

"Oh," I hadn't thought of that. "Well I did give his current body some training. Maybe he just wants to pay it forward."

"Perhaps. And he's done a great deal to protest your innocence. You should be grateful to him."

"Then I am."

"I have decided you will work out of this Academy. For the time being at least."

"You want me where you can keep an eye on me," I deduced.

"Things will go smoother if you have more trust in me than that. I am sure your therapists will have been trying to work through your paranoid thinking with you. Not everyone is trying to watch you, Mr. Strife." He steepled his fingers.

"But I'm pretty sure you are." Weiss elbowed me fairly hard in the side. "Regardless of your reasons for doing it I am grateful."

"I was hoping we could talk more about how you were made. You explored Merlot's laboratory and might have insights for me," he probed.

"I actually explored two different labs. I ran into someone in the second, near here in Solitas. Near a place called Nibelheim. He was a man with a mustache and a navy suit with yellow trimmings. He had green eyes and dark hair. I didn't see his weapon, though. He never used it. He said he was the one who made my sisters before he tried to use the laboratory…” I struggled for the word. “Defenses? To try and kill me."

"I see. But you found no more information on you or your sisters there?" He asked.

"No. Just more of my father's usual experiments on the Grimm. Something to do with turning them blue. I'm really not sure. The lab in Anima was like that too except he was turning them green and there were humanoid Grimm that he had designed. They were loose and in tanks in the facility. Tanks not dissimilar to the one he grew me in."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Weiss's comforting aura drew in beside mine. She tasted like whipped cream and clear crisp crushed ice.

"And he grew you in one of these… 'tanks?'" Ironwood asked.

"An incubator of some sort, I'm sure. But to me they were just these sort of pods. Merlot's book has more notes on the one he used for me. It was a bit different than the others. He grew me from a fetus until I was nearly an adult in just a year," I said.

"That would make you young. Like Penny Polendina." His brow went up at me.

"Yeah. Something like that. I'm between three and four years old. I don't have an exact date for my birthday either. Don't remember if they ever gave me one or if it really matters considering I didn't have a birth," I informed him. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

“A great deal. About your origins. How you came to Beacon. Whether you have any insights into Salem’s weaknesses.”

“I don’t really know. And I’ll remind you that I am just a failure, after all." I wasn't really meant to last. I was just a prototype.

"Cloud..." Ruby whined behind me. The noise she made sounded like she was sad for a dog. It wasn't a good sound.

I ignored her. "I don’t really know how I came to attend Beacon. I don’t have any insights into Salem’s weaknesses. From my perspective she seems pretty unstoppable."

"It's impossible to say." Ironwood returned. "But if we should come up with a way to divorce you from her we will let you know."

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"Of course. Now, let's see what you can do Mr. Strife."

"Finally, something I'm good at."

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I glid through the training chamber at one of the Ace Ops members. I hadn't learned their names but he had a boomerang rifle and he was a dog faunus.

I caught up to him and swung twice horizontally in two enormous strikes that buffeted him around when he tried to block.

He jumped back and tried to fire at me but my profile was low as I came at him in an unrelenting fashion. I palmed a dust crystal and hit him with a lightning bolt that knocked him to his knees.

I came at him with a diagonal cut when another Ace Operative grabbed me with extensions of his aura. He tried to stop me in place but I jumped and twirled and cut at his golden aura. I severed the extended hands and the removed parts dissolved into fading golden light.

I front-flipped, moving on to the new target. I landed up on some of the glowing cubes in the training room. He reformed his hands and tried to beat me but I just sliced through. I flew at him with both hands on my broadsword.

My sixth sense called out to me and I flicked my sword up to block the boomerang rifle. It rebounded back to its user and he opened fire on me as I went after the wacky inflatable arm guy.

I closed the gap on the pillar he stood on and slashed through his aura arms that got in my way. I kicked him off the pillar and brought my sword down on his head.  I cleaved deep into his aura and still I chased him as I blew him to the ground level with a massive overhead attack.

He had a lot of aura. He might be the only person I'd ever met in my own percentile of aura. He might even have more than me.

I chased him as he fell from when I slammed him and I beat him to the ground. I Cross Slashed him before he hit the ground. The devastating combination caught him up. The five move slashing attack tore away at his golden aura.

My Limit Break activated.

The dog faunus came around a corner and opened fire on me. I switched opponents again as I flew at him. I held my weapon between us and blocked most of his bullets. The few that got through pinged off my aura. I slashed upwards at him and he rolled to the side with a yelp.

I just stepped up on him again and swung upwards once more. Once he was airborn I had him right where I wanted him. I juggled him once. Then twice. Then again. He couldn't escape from the aerials I swung up at him.

I jumped up to match his height and Octa Slashed him with my Limit Break. He flew towards the ground and slammed into a pile of the boxes.

His light blue aura flowed to place over him before it vanished. I flew down on him in a swooping fashion and tackled him and carried him all the way to a wall of the arena. I stabbed my sword into the ground and beat the aura out of him with my fists. I punched him in the jaw. Then the stomach. Then I picked him up and slammed him into the ground.

Golden arms wrapped around me and picked me up and threw me across the room. I slammed into a pile of boxes back first. My head rocked back against the boxes. I stood up and put my sword against my shoulder.

The wacky arm guy landed next to the dog faunus and helped him to his feet. They turned to stare at me. I stared right back.

A golden arm slithered towards me across the ground and snagged my leg. It picked me up and slammed me face first into the ground. Then it rotated me and slammed me into the ground the other way.

Then it held me in the air and I got rocked by a boomerang to the face.

I snarled and cut myself free.

I landed on a pocket of air and descended towards the ground. I flew at the two of them through machine gun fire. An arm slashed at my side and I grunted but I cut through the next one and kept flying.

I landed between them and just to flex I charged my semblance to full. Then I swept my sword through the dog faunus's aura. He went down in a light blue crackle. He was lucky I hadn't hurt him for real.

I came at the next guy with a front-flip. I brought my sword down on him and he blocked with his aura. Even still my sword bit deep. I kicked him in the middle of the chest and he stumbled back a step. Then I flew at him with a knee and caught him in the face.

A golden claw slashed me to the ground but I never hit. Instead I floated on a pocket of air and rotated in place. I swept my blade around me and forced him back a half step.

The dog faunus stood up. "Marrow, don't!"

'Marrow' opened fire right into my back.

I whipped around and glared at him. I snarled. I hit him in the head with the blunt side of my weapon and he crumpled like a sack of bricks with a large bruise forming on the side of his head.

"Do you want to call this here?" I asked the one still standing. "Or do I have to beat you into unconsciousness, too?"

"I'll surrender. You fought well." The remaining man said sibilantly.

I nodded and put my weapon in the harness on my back. I hope there was more to Ace Ops than this.

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-WG

[leigh-kelly]

(More Hospital!AU)

The first days after Brittany’s surgery are difficult. Santana is used to being the one who tends to get snappish, but with Brittany in so much pain, it’s her turn. Every morning, she comes down stairs and a half hour later, she gets so frustrated by her parents fussing over her that she goes back up to bed and starts working on her computer. Santana tries not to get upset with her but she finds it so hard when Brittany isn’t listening to what Sue said, when Brittany isn’t doing the relaxing that her body needs to heal.

As much as Brittany is frustrated by her parents, Santana doesn’t know what she would do if they weren’t there. Even when they go house hunting during the day, they take Liam with them, giving Santana time to just focus on Brittany while Max and Oliver are sleeping. Though Brittany tries not to take the Vicodin every four hours, the pain gets so bad that she can’t even think straight and she cries out in pain in such a way that makes Santana feel like she’s going to be sick.

“Brittany?” Santana opens the door to the bedroom quietly, in case Brittany is sleeping. Instead, she sees her sitting up in bed, quietly staring into space. “Are you okay?”

“I just...I feel...Santana. I feel angry and sad and...useless. My leg hurts all the time, I keep getting frustrated with my parents and Liam and you. I can’t work, I can’t help with the kids...I just...” Brittany starts to cry and Santana sinks slowly down on the bed and picks up Brittany’s hand.

“Hey, Britt, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m scared every minute of every day right now. We’ve both seen it on med school rotations, patients that get injured and get hooked on opioids. I keep trying not to take these pills and every time I don’t I feel like I’m going to die.”

“Baby, you had major surgery four days ago, you shattered two bones in your leg. No one expects you to be able to stop taking the Vicodin so quickly.”

“I know that, I do, but I just don’t know how to be like this. I feel like I’m on another planet, I can’t focus, my head feels cloudy, you’re doing everything for the boys and...it’s just hard not being myself.”

“You know I understand that. Just tell me, what can I do?”

“I really, really don’t know.”

“Let’s lay down for a little bit. Your parents insisted on taking the boys with them to look at this house, which I personally think they were crazy for offering, but I couldn’t talk them out of it. I’m here, it’s just you and me.” Santana soothes, helping Brittany lay back down. “I love you, Brittany Pierce. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’re my rock, my love, my soulmate. I’m here.”

“I don’t want your anxiety to get bad.”

“I need you not to worry about me, I’m okay. I just want to take care of you. You take care of me and worry about me all the time. Your parents are here, my mom’s been over, I have help. Lay your head on my chest, listen to my heartbeat. That always helps me when you do that.”

“I’ve always been so in control.”

“I know, but you’re hurt. It’s okay to let someone else take care of you.” Santana promises, stroking Brittany’s hair.

“Thank you, Santana. Thank you.”

Santana lies with Brittany for a long time. The house is quiet and just whispering soft words to her until she falls asleep is exactly where she needs to be. She’s usually the worried one, the one who’s convinced the worst is going to happen, so it’s an odd role, talking Brittany down from feeling the same. But Santana does it, she wants to make sure she’s okay, that’s all she ever wants, and though truth be told, she has been an anxious wreck since she found Brittany in the kitchen, helping her calm down actually calms Santana herself.

Once Brittany is asleep, Santana goes back downstairs and picks up Liam’s toys. She starts a bean soup that she read about in the Times and she slowly sips a glass of wine. She’ll have to go back to work in three days, but Pierce and Whitney are staying. They’ll be there for Brittany, they’ll help Santana’s mother with the boys. In all of this, she’s most grateful that they’re moving to New York. For one single second she can’t imagine how she would have handled the last four days without them. They love their daughter something fierce, they love their grandsons, and probably most shocking to Santana, they actually love her too.

“Mommy Noodle.” Liam creeps into the kitchen, using his softest voice since he knows Brittany may be sleeping and she needs her rest. “Gramma and Grampa are gonna buy the little house. They told me in the car.”

“Really?” Santana looks over to where Whitney and Pierce are by the front door, each of them holding one of the twins. “Was it a good house?”

“It was a really good house, it has a swing set and everything!”

“Then this is really big news.” She smiles, not scolding him for raising his voice in his excitement. “I think when Mama gets up, she’ll really want to celebrate.”

“When is she gonna get better?”

“It’s going to be awhile, Sir. Remember, she got hurt pretty badly?”

“I miss playing with her.”

“I know you do, but if she feels up to it tonight, maybe we can read some stories in our bed so you at least get that.”

“Okay, Mommy Noodle.” He nods solemnly, though Santana can still tell he’s sad.

“Why don’t you help me with Max and Oliver and then we can hear all about the new house.”

Whitney and Pierce are overjoyed to tell Santana everything. They made a full price offer and they’re just waiting to hear if it’s accepted before they get too excited, but it all sounds good. Santana thinks that Brittany getting hurt made everything seem even more urgent for them to get to New York and she gets it. If it were one of her children, she wouldn’t be able to be so far from them when something went wrong and all of that is just exacerbated by the loss of Olivia.

When everyone is done eating, Santana makes a bowl of soup and carries it up the stairs to the bedroom. Brittany is just waking up and Santana places the food on the nightstand for her. They both know that she really should be coming down to dinner, but the medication seems to impact her more than normal. It worries Santana, but she doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it unless it becomes a real issue. It has only been a few days, the anesthesia is still wearing off and it’s okay if Brittany is utterly exhausted.

“Your parents found a house.” Santana tells her softly. “In Massapequa, so they’ll be pretty close.”

“Really?” A smile creeps into Brittany’s face. “So they’re really coming.”

“As long as their offer gets accepted, then yeah. You’ll have them back around.”

“I know I freaked out about the moving thing, but you don’t know how happy that makes me.”

“I do. It’s going to be good for all of us.”

“I’m sorry Santana, that I’m taking everything so hard right now. I know that when you were pregnant I was pushing you to stay home even before you got put on bed rest, but I understand now why it was so difficult for you. I’m in pain, but I also feel like I’m...I don’t know. What if my leg doesn’t heal right and I can’t stand for surgery any longer? It’s a really scary thing to think about.”

“I know.” Santana kisses Brittany’s forehead. “I figured you were having those kinds of fears because I know I would be. But Meeks did a really good job, we saw the scans. You’re going to be back on your feet in no time.”

“It’s part of why I haven’t wanted to come downstairs, I’m so scared of putting pressure on it even with the crutches, or falling again. And I keep beating myself up for not thinking before I did this. My hands are insured, not my legs.”

“I’m going to push you a little, because you always push me. We need to start getting you downstairs, then out of the house. We’ll take it a little bit at a time, but I need you to do it.”

“I know.” Brittany nods. “I really do.”

After Brittany eats her dinner, she manages to get up from the bed on her crutches. Though Whitney had offered to put Liam to bed, both Santana and Brittany think it’s really important that they do it together. Liam needs his routine back, it’s clear from his aching for his Mama that he does and though Brittany can’t do bath time, she can sit on the bed and do stories. Once Brittany makes it down the hall to Liam’s room, Santana goes to get him. She promises Whitney that she’ll be down for Max and Oliver in just a little while and she watches as Liam scurries up the stairs, anxious to see Brittany.

“Mama! Mama! Mama! You walked!”

“I did, bud, and I’m going to try to walk a little more every day. You think you can help me with that?”

“If I was big and strong I would carry you right to the park and put you on the slide.”

“You would, would you?” Brittany laughs. “I don’t know about the slide, but maybe in a few days we can try to walk to the park.”

“I’m a few days, Mommy Noodle has to go back to work.”

“I know, but we’ll have Gramma and Grampa here to come with us and maybe push Max and Oliver in their stroller. How’s that sound?”

“I think it sounds great!” He claps, wiggling as Santana helps him get his shirt over his head. His arm may have gained a lot of strength, but it’s still difficult for him to do certain things himself.

“Come on, Sir, let’s get you in the tub so Mama can read books.”

Once Liam is bathed and settled into bed, Brittany lays down beside him and begins to read. After two books, Santana kisses Liam goodnight and slips out of the room. Her boobs are sore, still not totally healed from the mastitis, and she knows it’s time for the last feeding before the twins go down for the night. She retrieves Max and Oliver and brings them up to the bedroom, dressing them in their footed pajamas and laying them down on the bed while she settles against the headboard. Max is a little fussy, so she starts him first and once he’s latched on, she picks up Oliver and puts him on her other side.

“Hey.” Brittany smiles from the doorway, leaning her weight on her crutches. “He’s asleep.”

“Are you going to come sit with us?”

“I was planning on it. I’ll take a shower when they’re finished, if you don’t mind helping me.”

“Never.” Santana meets her eyes and gives her the softest look.

“Are you okay?” Brittany asks when she sits down on the bed and props her leg up on a pillow. “I haven’t asked.”

“I’m okay. Worried about you, but holding it together. As scary as this is, I’m not immediately assuming the worst, so it looks like the dosage on these meds is really working.”

“I’m glad. I really am.”

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Britt. I can handle this.”

“It’s a lot on you.”

“And you take a lot on with me every day. I’m really okay, I promise you that.”

“You’ll tell me if you’re not?”

“I’ll tell you if I’m not. But I’m holding it together, for you and these guys.”

“They’re getting so big, Santana. It’s unreal.”

“I know. I’ve watched so many babies grow up on the Peds floor, but it doesn’t feel the same when they’re your own.”

“Do you mind if I take them when you’re done? I haven’t held them since I fell and I just...I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to ask, babe. I think they’d love to be with you tonight.” Santana rubs Max’s head and feels that he’s done and hands him to Brittany. “Oliver has been eating more than usual.”

“Growth spurt, probably.” Brittany cradles Max close to her chest and kisses his head. “That’s good news.”

“He’s so strong.”

“He got it from you, honey.”

“I’m far from strong.” She shakes her head.

“You’re so much stronger than you even know. You suffered so much trauma and look at you, you’re a pediatric surgeon, you’re a wife, a mother. You should be so proud.”

“I just wonder if I’ll ever stop wishing for his approval. I never want to see him again, but I just think...maybe he’ll see me published somewhere, in a mainstream medical journal, maybe he’ll he like ‘huh, she did alright for herself.’ I know that’s stupid...”

“It’s not stupid if that’s how you feel. But you’re so much better than him, I want you to know that.”

“Thank you.” Santana smiles a little. “That means a lot.”

After Brittany cuddles with the twins for a little while and Santana puts them down for bed, they go to the shower. Santana had gotten a chair from the hospital and Brittany sits down on it as Santana helps her wash her hair. She knows that her wife hates to feel helpless and she usually defaults to caretaker, but Santana massages her scalp and shoulders, helping her to relax as she sits in the shower. It’s only temporary, they both know that, but it’s an adjustment for both of them and they’re learning.

Santana is surprised that after the shower, Brittany wants to go sit downstairs with her parents, but it’s a good surprise. She helps her get down the stairs and sets up her pillows on the couch so she can put her leg up. Whitney and Pierce are ecstatic, since they haven’t been able to tell her all about the house yet and while they settle in, Santana goes to the kitchen to make four cups of tea.

“You’re sure about this, right?” Brittany is asking them just as Santana comes back in the room. “You’re not just doing it for us?”

“We miss you, Brittany. We miss Liam. We want to have more time with Santana, Max and Oliver. This is a big move, but it’s for all the best reasons.” Whitney promises, accepting her mug of tea. “Maribel has been helping so much and we want to help too.”

“My mom will be really grateful for that, I think.” Santana smiles. “She loves having the boys, but some time off would also be good for her.”

“With the insane hours you two work, I’m not surprised.” Pierce chuckles. “We are going to have to go back to Boston soon though to get ready if they accept the offer. Are you going to be okay?”

“We...” Brittany looks at Santana, who nods. “Yes, we will. But...Liv’s stuff.”

“We’ll bring it all, you can go through it when you’re ready.”

“We’ll pay for the extra cost of moving.” Santana offers, but Whitney rolls her eyes.

“It’s nothing. We wouldn’t throw it out anyway, we just want you to have your pick of her things, Brittany.”

“I know.” Brittany nods, a sad look in her eyes. “It’s mostly for Liam.”

“It’s okay for you to want things for you too.”

Brittany gets really quiet. Santana knows that it’s nearly impossible for her to talk about Olivia because she’s spent so long compartmentalizing her grief, so she just takes her hand and squeezes it. Knowing his daughter as well as he does, Pierce changes the subject and starts talking about how he’s going to put a swing set in the yard for the boys and the light comes back to Brittany’s eyes.

They spend much longer than Santana expected downstairs and she’s glad for that. It seems to do Brittany good, seems to get her out of that funk that Santana knows all too well. Whitney and Pierce go to the guest room and Santana helps Brittany back upstairs—she really has no idea how she does those stairs on crutches. It’s clear when they get into the bedroom that Brittany is in a considerable amount of pain and she is clearly conflicted about whether or not to take a pill.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just felt really good being out of that Vicodin fog. But my leg hurts like hell.”

“It’ll help you sleep, Brittany. In the morning, see if you can go without it for a few hours.”

“I just wish the pain would stop. I don’t understand why—“ Brittany stops short and a look of guilt crosses her face.

“You can say it, you don’t understand how people have elective surgery.”

“I didn’t mean you.”

“I know.” Santana shakes her head a little. “It’s okay. Looking back, you know I wouldn’t have done it either. My last surgery...”

“It was to stop the pain and make you feel okay in your own body. I don’t consider that elective.”

“But maybe that’s how other people feel too, when they go under the knife. They just want to feel a certain way.”

“Are you, Santana Lopez, defending plastic surgery?” Brittany chuckles and opens her pill bottle.

“I just have been thinking about when I was a teenager. I wanted so bad to be something I wasn’t. I wanted to be straight. I wanted my father to love me. I would have given anything for that.”

“Do you think Liam will feel that way? The first thing, not the second.”

“I think it’s different with Liam. We’re raising him to love who he is. But I don’t know. I just don’t know what my answer would be if he told us he wanted to change how he looked.”

“I would want him to wait until he was eighteen. I don’t think I could sign the consent forms for him.”

“I agree with that.” Santana nods. “After what my father did to me, I just...couldn’t.”

“You know you’re not him, right?”

“I know, I do, rationally, but I fear it every day. I’ve told you before, I wonder if he was ever kind to my mother, if he loved me when I was small. I just can’t think that maybe one day I’ll snap too.”

“You won’t.” Brittany shakes her head. “I know you won’t.”

“I’ve read so many studies on victims of abuse and trauma.”

“I know you have and you’re aware. Santana, the way you love our sons, there’s no way you’ll ever be any different. I never would have chosen you to be Liam’s mom, no way I would have had more children with you if I thought any different.”

“You have so much faith in me.”

“You’re the love of my life. You have the best heart of anyone I know. I believe in you.”

“You’re going to make me cry.”

“It’s okay if you cry.” Brittany swallows her pill and takes Santana’s hand. “It’s been a tough week.”

“I’m just so glad you’re okay.”

“Oh honey, so am I.”

Santana wakes up the next morning to Brittany sitting up beside her. She’d fed the boys at around four, so they’re still asleep and Brittany is reading the journal that was beside the bed. Running her fingers through her hair, Santana sits up, careful, as she’s bred, not to jostle the bed and disturb Brittany’s leg. Brittany looks over at her and gives her the softest smile, her special smile, and Santana’s eyes crinkle as she smiles in return.

“I can’t believe Liam isn’t up yet.” Santana marvels, leaning over to kiss Brittany.

“Oh, he is. My mom came up and got him and they’re going to the park. You were in such a deep sleep when she came in to tell me.”

“I think my body needed it. Have you been up long?”

“About a half hour. I wanted you to sleep in, I know the boys had you up half the night.”

“I don’t know when they’re going to start sleeping through the night. I feel like keeping them in here and letting them smell me is just hindering the process.”

“You know the decision is up to you when we move them to their room.” Brittany reminds her gently, looking over to where the twins sleep.

“I know, and I’m dragging my feet about it. I just worry about Oliver. I want to know if anything goes wrong.”

“We have those socks we got at the shower.”

“The socks that say they’re not for medical purposes?”

“It’s still an alarm. If something goes wrong, we’ll know.”

“I guess.” Santana sighs. “I know we should do it, I really do.”

“I do mean it when I say only if you’re ready.”

“I know you do. But if we wait until I’m ready, it might be never. I just...I don’t know.”

“Hey.” Brittany shifts her body as much as she can so she’s facing Santana. “That’s okay.”

“You’re so good to me you know. Even when you’re hurt, you’re still just so sweet and gentle with me.”

“I’m always going to be that way, I promise.”

After another three days pass, Brittany is itching to work from home. She has scheduling and consults she can do over the phone and she begs Sue for permission. Probably knowing there is little she can do to stop her, Sue grants her request and on the day Santana goes back to the hospital, Brittany is set up in the home office with her foot on a chair and her computer and phone in front of her. Santana kisses her goodbye, makes her promise that she won’t work through too much pain and goes to work.

In Santana’s absence, Dr. Zises has started and almost immediately, Santana feels the competition rise up. She hasn’t competed for surgeries since she was an intern and it’s not like that’s about to start, but having another young attending on her floor makes Santana feel like she has to step up her game. Being out for a week, of course, put her behind, but she’s got a slate of surgeries ahead of her and she dives in headfirst, putting her worries about Brittany out of her mind.

While she’s eating lunch in her office, Kurt comes in. She feels bad, she’s been neglecting him since Max and Oliver were born, but it’s different with Mercedes. Mercedes likes being around kids and Kurt simply...doesn’t. He’s one of her best friends, but she finds it hard to balance her relationship with him when so much of her life is about Liam, Max, and Oliver.

“How’s she doing?” Kurt asks, sitting down and opening his salad.

“She’s good, actually. The first few days were hard, but she’s working from home now and she’s dealing much better.”

“Dave was going to stop by while I was at work the other day, but we just felt..weird.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, things aren’t like they used to be.”

“I know.” Santana sighs. “My life is really different.”

“I hope you know I’m happy for you. It’s not the life I want, but it suits you.”

“You know you’re still a big part of my life, Kurt. Just because I don’t go to the bar anymore after work doesn’t mean I don’t still want to spend time with you.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. You’re just...doing your thing.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me right now.” Santana sucks in air, feeling rage bubble up in here chest. “Doing my thing? I had a traumatic birth, one of my sons is developmentally delayed, I suffered a pretty nasty case of postpartum depression, my wife had surgery. I’m not doing my thing, I’m trying to keep my head above water. I’m sorry that I don’t have the time I used to, but I’m not going to apologize for being who I am now.”

“No one said you had to.”

“Well it sure as hell sounded like that’s what you wanted. I’ve had a hell of a week and I thought I was going to be able to relax and enjoy lunch with you.”

“I didn’t say we couldn’t.”

“You’re being really...I don’t even know right now. Don’t veil your issues with me. What am I supposed to do, Kurt? I invite you over and you always find an excuse not to come. I know you’re not into my kids, but they’re part of me.”

“I never said I wasn’t into your kids.”

“You don’t have to say it.” Santana huffs. “Look, I don’t need this right now.”

“I’m literally not doing anything.”

“Get out of my office.”

After Kurt leaves, Santana is in a fury. Maybe in a normal week, she wouldn’t have taken things so much to heart—or maybe she would, she tends to do that—but with everything going on with Brittany, everything that’s gone on in her life for the past months, she’s past rational thinking. Instead, she gets increasingly mad at one of her best friends because she feels like her life is an affront to him. Things were easy with them when her whole life was the hospital and she went out drinking every night, but things are harder now. She hates to go out, she’s afraid to leave Max and Oliver when she doesn’t have to, she wants to spend time with Liam, she wants to be in her pajamas with Brittany. Maybe it makes her a shitty friend, she doesn’t know, but somehow things have remained the same with Mercedes.

The rest of the day drags. She checks in the Brittany who tells her she’s taking a break from work to lay down for a little while. She checks in with her mom who took the boys out for the afternoon so Brittany could have quiet and Whitney and Pierce could meet with their realtor. Everything is fine, but still, she aches to get home. And when finally, she finishes her last surgery, she’s out the door more quickly than she’s ever been before.

She smells her mom’s enchiladas when she walks in the door and it gives her such relief that she doesn’t have to cook. She hugs her Liam, she kisses the twins and she goes upstairs to gently wake Brittany up from her nap. Together, they go downstairs for dinner and Santana holds in all of her anger toward Kurt until the meal is eaten and cleaned up, Liam is asleep and she’s sitting on the bed fresh from a shower holding Max and Oliver while they nurse. She knows Brittany can see the day written across her face and Santana just inhaled deeply.

“According to Kurt Hummel, I’ve been spending the past few months just doing my thing.”

“What?” Brittany tilts her head to the side. “What did he mean by that?”

“I have no idea. I guess that I’m unavailable to do stupid shit, I don’t know. He care by my office for lunch today and we had a big fight.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, no, I don’t know. It’s just like, what am I supposed to do, Brittany? He doesn’t want to come over here much because of the kids, I don’t want to go out and leave them when we’re gone all day. And he made me feel pretty shitty that I’m not who I used to be.”

“And how do you feel about changing?”

“I feel like...I wasn’t happy with my life back then. Yeah, I had fun going out to the bar but at the end of the night I’d come home all dark and twisty inside. I don’t feel like me changing is me being a dick and ditching all my friends because I’m in love, it’s because I’m growing and healing and the things I used to enjoy just aren’t for me anymore.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No.” Santana sighs. “I just got really mad and pretty much told him that he has no idea what my life has been like.”

“That’s fair. But maybe you should tell him what you just told me. He loves you, honey. He might be a little misguided at times but he wants you to have the best life.”

“He wants it on his own terms.”

“I don’t think he does. I know it’s hard that he’s not all about the boys like Mercedes is but I think he’s genuinely happy for you.”

“I guess. I don’t know, it’s hard. I used to envision like, me Kurt and Mercedes in the old folks home for retired doctors or something and then you came along and my whole vision of the future changed.”

“And that’s okay.” Brittany kisses her temple. “That doesn’t mean you have to give up your friends.”

“Was I an asshole?”

“I don’t think you were, I think you’re just very guarded and he surprised you. And if you want a night to just go hang out at the bar with them, that’s okay.”

“That’s the thing though, Britt, I don’t. I want to be home at night to put the boys to bed, to fall asleep with you.”

“Then I think you should find some kind of middle ground with him.”

“I guess you’re right. But can I stay mad at him a little longer?”

“You absolutely can.”

[fizzyxcustard]

Fear and Loathing (4)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

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Fandom: seaQuest 2032

Summary: (Part 2 of The Right Thing - this will be a chaptered fic) Captain Hudson knows that you and Lucas are more than just friends, and after changing your shift rotations to make sure you’re not on duty together, you take things into your own hands and request a transfer from seaQuest. Before your transfer can be processed, officers and crew begin showing signs of extreme anxiety, anger and paranoia. Some are worse affected than others, you being one of them. Can you fight for not only your relationship with Lucas but your state of mind?

Pairings: Ensign Lucas Wolenczak x FemLieutenant!Reader, Commander Jonathan Ford x Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson (only slight)

Warnings: Language, violence, insecurity, angst, paranoia, anxiety, mental instability, very mild sexual references/smut mention, age difference/gap.

Comments: If you wish to be added to my seaQuest tag list, which will be separate from all my other tags, let me know, and I will only tag you in these if you specifically request to be tagged. This is practically a dead fandom now, but I would still like to share my writings with you. If you would like to ask any questions, then by all means just ask! People are probably wondering why I’m still continuing this fic when it gets so little feedback, but it’s purely because I enjoy writing it. It’d a pleasure to be reminiscing in old times.

That night, while you remained in the Med Bay, the mess hall seemed to begin hosting a midnight coffee refreshment for a handful of crew. Lonnie Henderson wandered into the room, drying the sweat from her brow and neck after waking suddenly from a nightmare of being suffocated by unseen hands. She saw Jim Brody sat with his head in his hands, and one of the engineers was resting with their eyes closed and their feet up on a chair.

“Tough night?” Lonnie asked, approaching Brody.

He gasped suddenly, nearly jolting out of his chair. “Yeah….ugh…..sorry,” he grumbled, and rubbed his face, trying to force himself more fully awake.

“What’s going on tonight?” Lonnie asked. “No one can sleep and everyone is on edge.” She then said your name and her eyes widened. “Do you think it’s got anything to do with her and the virus?”

“I doubt it,” Brody scoffed. “A virus that gives panic attacks and nightmares?”

“Come on, Jim. We’ve seen things more unbelievable than that in the last two years. We’ve contacted aliens and come face to face with Greek gods, yet we can’t believe that a virus may exist which causes panic and fear?”

Lucas remained in the Med Bay that night, falling asleep next to your bed. The gentle beeping of the monitors swept him into a dream. There was water, screams and fear. They were your screams; begging him for help. Lucas only remembered the cold water and your screams as he jerked awake.

Your eyes were open and you were smiling at him. “You okay? Have a bad dream?” you asked, yawning. You felt groggy, but strangely content, especially upon seeing Lucas.

He rushed to you, cupped your cheek and then kissed you softly. But gradually the kiss grew deeper, and hotter, until he pulled away. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Just tired,” you replied.

“Do you want me to get you anything?”

“Can I have a cold drink, please? Soda, milk, water. Just something cold.”

Lucas left the room and you pulled yourself up slowly. A thumping headache began in your temples and behind your eyes, a sure sign of tension and stress that you knew all too well.

***

The next two days saw more crew visiting not only the mess hall at night but the Med Bay, asking for advice on nightmares and panic attacks. Even Captain Hudson had noticed that he seemed more on edge of late. There were far too many crew affected now for it not to be noticeable and not be a problem that needed addressing.

Jonathan Ford and Tim O’Neill, along with a couple of the engineers, Dagwood, the chief cook and the doctor himself, were the only people who seemed to be unaffected. Every other person was showing symptoms, to varying degrees, of fear, panic and dread.

On the third day of you being in the Med Bay, a mild sedative still in your system to calm the nightmares you were having a night, you were awoken to Lieutenant Fredricks being pulled into the room by Brody and O’Neill.

“Please, don’t. They’ll run experiments on me,” she wept, pulling against the two men either side of her.

The screams had pulled you out of another beckoning nightmare with the visiting shadow demon, who sometimes came to you at night and stood at the foot of your bed. All of the noise and commotion shook you to the core, causing a shockwave of anxiety to race through you like a power surge. But your concern for your comrade still trumped the fear you felt.

“Freddie?” you called to her. She continued weeping uncontrollably as Brody and the doctor held her down on the bed, ready to administer a sedative. “Freddie? You’ll be okay. I promise. They won’t hurt you.” You slipped out of bed, almost falling in your weakness, and you took her hand in yours. “Shhh, it’ll be okay.”

The feel of your hand in hers, and your kind words, soothed Fredricks as the sedative was administered by the doctor.

“How can she feel so much fear when she has an implant?” Brody asked.

“The virus is somehow overpowering every other emotion in those who are the worst affected,” the doctor replied. “I don’t think the sedatives, long term, will be enough. The UEO still has no idea what’s causing this. They’re requesting blood works be sent of each crew member who is affected, which is over eighty per cent. I don’t know if I can get that many reports sent over all at once in the time frame they’re asking for.”

“How long are they asking for, Doc?”

“A week. I’ve only got the capacity to run five blood samples every twelve hours. That’s ten every twenty-four hours, and there are well over a hundred crew affected by this. If this gets worse, we may have to abandon the tour and return to land to fully hospitalise and test everyone. And we don’t know how contagious this is or where it came from.”

By the end of the week, the Med Bay was full. Most of the crew were utterly exhausted through lack of sleep due to night terrors. Frequent fights were breaking out over mundane issues. The latest fight had been when Tony Piccolo had had the last croissant at breakfast, pissing off an engineer. A broken nose and black eye later, Tony found himself in the Med Bay for a couple of hours.

You still kept dreaming of the shadow demon, and often you huddled under the covers, hiding from him, just in case he appeared at the end of your bed again. The fear seemed to come in waves; you would be peaceful for a few hours and then suddenly feel the panic rise and see the shadow at the end of your bed, set with glowing eyes and saliva dripping from sharp fangs. Nights were horrendous as that’s when the most fear came out to play and it hung over you all like a thick mist. Fredricks often woke screaming in the bed next to you. The engineer in the bed opposite you had had regular seizures. Thankfully, you had only had one.

The milder cases meant that crew had to continue working, despite being exhausted. Jonathan Ford felt as though he had had no sleep in a week. Every waking moment and he was on the bridge, taking the helm for part of it while Hudson tried to ward off the anxiety that was beginning to get the better of him. Tim O’Neill hadn’t seen his quarters in days, and was often found most nights dozing off in his seat on the bridge. Dagwood had even offered to help, but his kind offer was politely rejected.

Captain Hudson had been having regular talks with Secretary McGath, and it was now becoming a viable option to abandon the tour and return to shore. However, this virus was still unknown, and the UEO would have to make sure that strict quarantine procedures were put in place once the seaQuest returned to its berth. Crew would not be able to disembark immediately. McGath reassured Hudson that everything that could be done by the UEO was being done. The blood samples were being tested; each crew member, one by one, even those who were not affected and weren’t showing symptoms. Some were being tested multiple times. Even full genome scanning had now begun to try to pinpoint some kind of link to all those affected. The UEO had already received the sub’s black box recordings, knowing exactly where it was at any given time. No other infections had been reported in the waters recently visited.

Lucas lay in his bunk, listening to Tony’s snores from below. The snores had been louder and more obnoxious since his broken nose. Lucas was scared to sleep. Dark circles were beginning to frame his blue eyes, marring his pale complexion. Every evening and he visited you, sitting with you for a couple of hours. He would read to you, trying to soothe your nerves. But Fredricks’ outbursts would put you on edge and Lucas knew that any kind of relaxation was impossible. Whenever he closed his eyes, Lucas would see the water and hear you calling for him. It all felt so real, maybe too real.

The hallways were quiet, but then he would feel the energy buzzing from the mess hall, which was usually full of half dozing crew. Should he go for a wander tonight? Maybe a swim with Darwin would help. Or would the water only exacerbate the dreams?

He didn’t know how long he lay awake, but Lucas looked up at the pipes which ran above his bunk. He looked at the photo of you both which he had taped to the metal. You had your eyes open wide, shocked, whilst Lucas was gritting his teeth, pretending to be angry. He remembered fondly all the staged photographs that Tony took of you both whenever you were on shore leave back when Captain Bridger was aboard. There was such a happiness and peace amongst the crew. He remembered when Jim Brody had attempted to flirt with you once or twice, for him only to be scoffed at. Flirting had never impressed you. Humour and compassion impressed you.

He missed you so much, and slowly he turned over, pulling a pillow to his chest, trying to imagine it was you. To think that Lucas had been prepared to give up his place on seaQuest when he met Sandra just over a year ago. She had deceived him, pretending to interested in a relationship, when she only wanted the emergency codes to gain access to seaQuest. And now he was with you. It was a much, much deeper connection, that ran right through to his bones. It had become a dependency on you, a need, and considering that you were the one who had taken his virginity, that made everything so much stronger. Even though he had always had a crush on you since your first meeting, his very brief relationship with Sandra helped him forget the unrequited feelings he had for you. But then they came back even stronger. You had been the one to pick up the pieces of his broken trust that she had left behind.

Lucas lay awake, his eyes stinging with fatigue. Until finally he jumped down from his bunk and wondered out into the hallway, venturing towards your quarters. He just wanted to be close to you in some way, even if only sleeping on your bed.

The room smelled of you, sweet and flowery. And as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him, Lucas smiled to himself. There was a small stack of books on your desk with a pot of pens, all alongside your computer. A potted, ornamental plant and two matching china owls decorated the desk.

On your bed was your favourite patchwork quilt and on the wall were photos and little drawings that you had doodled. Lucas looked closer at the photos, recognising a few of you both with other members of the crew on shore leave. Then there were pictures of you with people whom he had never seen before, no doubt old friends or family members.

Lucas lay on your bunk and wrapped himself in your quilt, inhaling. He immediately felt warmth radiate through his chest and stomach, easing the tension. Exhaustion made it impossible for him to stay awake any longer, and gradually he fell into a deep sleep.

The dream changed; it was no longer water, but darkness. A light shone in the distance, a faint candlelight and when he got closer to it, he saw that he was standing in an empty garden. A candle, resting in a glass jar was upon the grass. He picked up the candle and began to walk, following a pathway. The whole place was empty, quiet and dark. The feeling of being so alone made Lucas’ heart speed up, pounding like a drum in his chest. Where was everyone?

He began to call, hoping someone would answer. But nothing. No one was there. Everyone had deserted him.

With a gasp, Lucas woke suddenly. He wiped his cheek, only to feel a tear clinging to it.

***

Captain Hudson reluctantly agreed for UEO officers to come aboard seaQuest in two days’ time to begin the gradual emptying of the sub of all crew. The crew would be taken to a contained quarantine facility in Florida whilst tests were still being carried out and their symptoms could be monitored closer.

Secretary McGath’s image dominated Hudson’s screen in his quarters. “Captain, it’s obvious that the crew aren’t recovering from this virus, whatever it is, and bringing the seaQuest into berth could possibly cause a contamination of the coastlines.

“So you’re saying that the boat has to be left out here in the middle of the Atlantic with no crew aboard?” Hudson asked in disbelief.

“Oliver, what else do you propose we do? The biggest cause for concern is the sub’s bio skin which can quite easily carry viruses and disease. Until we know what this virus is and how it’s affecting the crew, we have no other option. seaQuest will have to remain dead in the water until our chief scientists have figured out what needs to be done. All the sub’s recordings and mission data are still being analysed.”

***

seaQuest tag list: @shrimpsthings​

[sablelab]

Covert Operations - Chapter 119

SYNOPSIS: Dr Foster is with Claire when Murtagh Fitzgibbons arrives at Med Lab to see her and ask about Jamie. The doctor is pleased with their progress and when Murtagh asks to see Jamie he follows the physician on his rounds. However, Jamie’s only thoughts are of his brave Sassenach.

Chapter 118 and all other chapters can be found at … https://sablelab.tumblr.com/covertoperations

THANK YOU for reading Covert Operations and continuing on this journey with Jamie and Claire and bravo to Fergus for thinking on his feet.

CHAPTER 119

As Murtagh Fitzgibbons entered Med Lab, a voice behind him stopped him in his tracks. He recognised the sultry voice immediately and turned around to face the smiling face of his paramour Bóinne Rivière. "Hey, Murtagh. I was wondering when you would turn up here again.”  The sight of his lady love was a feast for sore eyes. He suddenly felt a whole lot better and gave her one of his quirky smiles. "Hi yourself."  In return she gave him a candid smile that made her eyes sparkle. "Are you here to see Claire?"  "Yes."  "She's doing quite well actually." The nurse’s eyes gleamed with pleasure as she saw the relief that crossed his face. "It must have been difficult for you to wait out the twenty-four hours … I'm surprised you didn’t sneak back and check up on her again sooner than this."  Murtagh tried to keep his face deadpan. "I've been a bit busy. Things have been chaotic in Comm., that’s why I decided to come here for some peace and quiet."  Bóinne smiled to herself as though his answer had amused her. With tongue in cheek she looked back up at him and replied just as poker-faced, "Of course you did."  “So? Is it okay to visit?” “Wait here, I’ll check with her physician Dr Foster. He’s doing his final rounds at the moment,” she answered. “Oh, I’m not going anywhere real soon. I’ll be right here when you come back.” He replied giving her a wink as she walked away to check with the doctor. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Jeremy Foster stood at the foot of Claire’s Beauchamp’s bed reading her prognosis chart before completing his final rounds for the evening. He was very pleased with her healing prospects despite the atrocities of her incarceration at the hands of the Rising Dragons. He’d dealt with other operatives in the past who had returned from missions in a similar condition as Claire Beauchamp, and they had managed to recuperate fully. He had faith that she too would do the same. If Operations and Madeline put in place the recommendations he’d suggested, then both she and Jamie would heal quicker and be ready to return to the mission sooner rather than later.  He signed Claire’s medication requisites for the next day, then glanced up from the report and looked at the patient. Even though she slept he saw that she was somewhat agitated as she began to thrash about in her bed. Dr Foster quickly replaced the chart and walked closer to her side and with a gentle touch held Claire’s shoulder. With his other hand he gripped her wrist and monitored her pulse rate registering that it had escalated a little. Leaning down he spoke to her in a soothing manner.

“Claire … are you okay?” Somewhere in her subconsciousness she heard her name. She stirred.  Once again, he spoke softly to her not wanting to alarm her if she opened her eyes quickly. “Claire … it’s Dr Foster,” he said soothingly. The person’s quiet demeanour was non alarmist and her jerky movements abated a little at his tone of voice. Blinking once, then twice, Claire slowly opened her eyes to see a person wearing a stark white coat. However, the harsh white lights of the infirmary made her squint even more as she tried to focus on the person standing by her bed. Compounding her disorientation, the incessant high-pitched beeping noises of the monitors exacerbated in her head and in the quietness of the room. Still half-asleep, Claire Beauchamp stared at him in confusion until becoming more lucid. Recognizing who it really was, she nodded and reached out her hand.  Helping her to sit up more comfortably in bed and checking the heart rate monitor at her bedside the doctor asked, “Are you in pain?” “No … I’m fine. Just a little restless … that’s all.” The physician looked at her with an assuring smile on his face. “Yes … your pulse is a little fast but otherwise you are doing very well considering what you’ve been through.” Claire looked down at her hand, “I hope I didn’t dislodge anything I shouldn’t have.” “No … no damage done,” he smiled reassuringly. “Your IV line will be removed in the morning anyway.” Closing her eyes she unconsciously bit her bottom lip. “Dr Foster…?”  The doctor mistook the meaning behind her utterance of his name for another bout of pain. He watched her closely then tried to allay her uneasiness. “You experienced terrible things on this Mission, but physically you're doing fine Claire. It won’t be long before you are back on the road to recovery, but mentally it may take a little while longer I’m afraid. That’s why I’ve suggested that you have some well-earned downtime when you are discharged.” Claire looked at him intently, nodded then closed her eyes again. Although his words were encouraging her thoughts were conflicted. She knew the sooner she got out of here the better but there was one major stumbling block to Dr. Foster’s suggestion … her superiors, Operations and Madeline. Thinking that his patient had begun to doze off he asked, “Will you be okay? I have to check on Jamie.” Suddenly Claire reached out with urgency and gripped his hand tightly. She didn’t need to say another word for he knew exactly what she was thinking. Dr Foster nonchalantly moved his body to shield her face from the surveillance camera. He then looked back at Claire and smiled reassuringly.

“Don't worry. Jamie’s doing much better than we thought. He’s being transfused at the moment. Hopefully in another twenty-four hours he will have passed the worst of it.” Her gaze was fixed on his face as he uttered every word as Claire’s eyes registered her inner feelings. She was extremely relieved to hear that. Sinking back deeper into the pillows she let her thoughts transcend to her mentor, partner and the love of her life in the next room.  “Try and see if you can get back to sleep, hmm? Things will be better in the light of day. Trust me.”  Although she heard the physician’s voice, Claire wasn’t really listening to what he had to say, instead she asked, “When will I be able to see him?” Jeremy Foster leaned down close to her face before replying. “Soon. Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.” Then switching the lights back to their usual dim night setting he made his way out of her room. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Pacing back and forth like an expectant father Murtagh Fitzgibbons turned when he heard muted footsteps echo in the Med Lab. On seeing the doctor leave Claire’s room, he forgot his promise to Bóinne Rivière and rushed over towards him before she could speak with him about his request. “Hey Doc!” He called out stopping in his tracks, “I’m sure glad you’re still here.” “Murtagh,” he acknowledged turning around at the sound of his voice. ‘What are you doing here?” “I came to see Jamie and Claire. Is that okay?” “No … not really. Both patients need their rest and you will only tire them out I’m afraid.” “But Doc?” he protested, “I need to know if Jamie is out of the woods and how is Claire? You said to come back in twenty-four hours and it is well past that. So, what about it? Hey? Give a man a break.”  He looked at the pleading face of the man who had miraculously saved both of Section’s top operatives, and relented. “Okay … you can see Jamie with me, but Claire has just gone back to sleep.” “Thanks Doc … I owe you one … Big time!” “Just make it quick … okay.” “Okay … I’ll be in and out like Flynn. Trust me,” he replied hoping that the doctor would appreciate this little bit of humour. Jeremy Foster noticed the slightly raised eyebrow of the wizened operative’s reply and smiled. Although he knew  Fitzgibbons was keen to see how both his friends were, he wanted his patients to get as much uninterrupted rest as possible for what may lay ahead for them. Unnecessary or prolonged visits would not aid in their recuperation and they had to also deal with Section’s recalcitrant leaders at some point. The road ahead would be tough and while he could lessen the impact a little while they were in Med Lab he would do so.  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ As they made their way over to Jamie’s room, Dr Foster reiterated, “Very well, follow me but remember you can only stay a few moments.” “Sure thing Doc.”  Murtagh held his tongue as they walked along, but he was biting at the bit to ask him if Jamie was going to be okay and that if his blood supplies were adequate to see him through.

Considering all the trouble that he and Fergus had gone to and the chaos that had ensued in Section because of their escapades with the phantom breach, he wondered if his and his buddy’s little adventure had really all been for naught. He hoped that there may be a positive from all that had transpired despite what had happened during the course of the day. If only one thing had come from their adventure it was that he and Fergus had solidified their friendship even if Fergus wasn’t too cognizant of that point at this moment. In time they would look back at what they’d done with a sense of pride that they were able to outwit TPTB … well so far anyway. 

Also, the information they’d found of Jamie’s relationship with the Mackenzie brothers was also very enlightening.  It explained a lot … Operations antagonism towards his Level 5 operative and his partner Claire as well as Colum’s unannounced visits to Section One. Obviously, there was something deep going on between the brothers and it certainly involved James Fraser one way or another.  Jamie was most certainly unaware of the connection but why was it being hidden from him?  It was certainly a mystery wrapped up in a conundrum that hopefully would be solved before too long.  

Trying to wrap his head around all these thoughts was nigh impossible at the moment so Murtagh concentrated on the here and now with Dr Foster.

“We didn’t hear from you in the last 24 hours … so does that mean Jamie is doing much better Doc?” “Decidedly so,” he replied looking over at Murtagh understanding the hidden meaning in his question. Dr Foster happened to notice an unusual expression crisscross the older operative’s face. He nearly missed it but Murtagh wasn’t fast enough to compose himself. He raised a slight eyebrow before asking quietly, “You didn’t do anything stupid … did you?” If only the Doc could read his mind. Classified Intel was hard to access but they had given it their best shot and, in the end, they had unwittingly discovered much more than they had bargained for and that in itself was a major coup in his mind. Their experience had also given him an adrenalin rush like the one being in the field … a feeling that was oh, so good. 

Murtagh  looked at Dr Foster and answered rather sheepishly. “No … No … Of course not. I was just asking out of curiosity.”  They soon reached ICU and entered. “Hmm?” he mumbled under his breath not quite convinced with his answer but he dismissed his misgivings anyway and replied. “Good. I wouldn’t want to see you put into abeyance for disobedience Fitzgibbons.” “Neither would I Doc. Neither would I.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dr Foster entered ICU and approached James Fraser’s bed as Murtagh trailed in behind him. Taking his file from the base of the bed he quickly read the nursing staff’s notes to check on the patient’s progress over the last few hours. Closing the file, he then looked up at the patient. Jamie was breathing soundly and all his vital signs were back to normal. He was also pleased to see that colour had finally returned to his face since having the blood transfusions. Due to his conditioning and fitness what had appeared to be a crisis in the happening had been avoided. It was evident that his patient was surely on the road to recovery and had turned a corner despite the critical trauma he had faced when he’d first come into Med Lab. The physician was confident that both Claire and Jamie would bounce back from their wounds and be ready for any future assignments Madeline and Operations had in store for them with the Rising Dragons’ mission. 

It had been well over 24 hours since Murtagh had seen Jamie and although he was shocked to see the IV drip and monitors surrounding him, he hoped that the worst was finally behind him. His eyes scanned all the equipment and monitors that the Level 5 operative was hooked up to, and as Dr Foster checked his vitals, Murtagh watched the persistent beats of the heart rate monitor at his bedside as it beeped. He also watched the liquid in Jamie’s intravenous drip make its way into his body giving him the nourishment to get better.

Darting his eyes from Dr Foster to Jamie then back to the doctor he tried to gauge his body language. “Is Jamie going to be okay Doc?” The physician looked at him with a wry smile that spoke volumes … it was obvious that James Fraser was going to pull through and there would be no need for additional units of blood.

“He’s stabilized and that’s a good sign.” He was thankful for that Intel even if he and Fergus had risked life and limb to ascertain what Madeline and Operations had had classified about their number one operative. He was a glass half full guy and thus could take a positive out of a negative from their situation. If nothing else living on the edge made each situation a challenge but also a necessity to survive here in Section One. Knowing that at any time you could be killed or put into abeyance meant that you lived what life you had in this hell hole to the fullest … and he and Fergus had certainly done that. What they’d done was dangerous but it was also exciting and exhilarating … it made you feel alive and that was vital to survival in Section. The patient was asleep and Murtagh didn’t want to disturb him unnecessarily by overstaying his visit. He looked back at Dr Foster asking in a hushed tone, “Will he recover fully?” “I don't see why not. He is still in good shape and has the strength to come out of this very well considering that he has been put through the wringer.” “Will there be any complications?” “As long as no infection occurs to his wound, he should be back to normal and as fit as a Mallee bull before we know it.”  “How long will that be do you think?” "It's hard to say ... perhaps a week maybe more depending on how fast he heals. I’ve suggested both he and Claire have some recuperation time away from Section. This will help immensely.”  "That’s good to know. I hope Madeline and Ops think so too." “Yes … that could be a stumbling block, but I’m working on it.” “Yeah … well good luck with that,” Murtagh replied knowing that an immovable object or possibly two, may have just been placed in the way of Jamie and Claire’s recovery. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ As they were quietly talking Murtagh turned his head when he heard Jamie take a deep breath. He was still a bit groggy, but nevertheless he looked around him until his gaze finally settled on the two men standing next to his bed. Jamie tried to sit up, then stopped, wincing in pain.  “Mmmm.” “Hey … How are you feeling?” Jamie knew that voice of concern and taking a deep breath moved his head so that he could look at Murtagh. “Like I've been shot.”  “Yeah. You were shot on the retrieval Mission ... in Hong Kong,”

“Hong Kong?” He was a little disorientated and closing his eyes Jamie rubbed his forehead, trying to remember what happened next.  A little alarmed at Jamie’s lack of recollection about the mission at the monastery and by his rhetorical answer and gestures, he asked, “Do you remember?”  Jamie’s eyes were closed as he spoke. “Aye … we were trapped in the monastery ... you rescued us ...” then without finishing his sentence he suddenly sighed darting his eyes to Murtagh then to the doctor. “Where's Operations? I need to debrief.”  “They’ve seen you already Jamie.” “Do they ken?” As he listened his face showed no expression.  “Yes, they know … I’m sure your mission debrief can wait.” The report was really secondary to what he actually wanted to know … but protocol required him to think of his obligations to Section first but it was not his primary concern. With the one pressing question hovering on his lips, James Fraser turned his head towards Dr Foster and asked solemnly, “How is Claire?” His patient was agitated and that was not good so he checked Jamie carefully for any relapse in his vital signs.  Dr Foster hoped that his next answer would appease some of his concern. “She’s doing very well,” he replied.

“Thank ye.” He spoke softly as if the words he’d just heard were a cool balm that had almost instantaneously made him feel better.  Jamie closed his eyes briefly and opening them he stared up at the ceiling before uttering in a voice cracking with emotion, “Can I see her?” “Not yet ... but soon.” “Soon? How soon?”  “I’m sure it will only be a day or two Jamie, and then you'll be able to see her.” Murtagh chipped in. “You need to build up your strength. You have to rest.”  “I’m fine.” Jeremy Foster had experienced James Fraser’s stoicism on other occasions when he’d been in Med Lab and he expected nothing less from the Level 5 operative. On the rare occasions that he’d been sent to medical, this man had often said he was “fine” even when he’d been bleeding all over the floor, but this time he was not well enough … just yet … to be going anywhere until his IV unit was out. The physician understood his frustration at being confined to a hospital bed but unfortunately there was little he could do about it. James Fraser was here and that was that.  “I’m sure you are fine Jamie … but … we need to look after you first. Press the buzzer if you need anything. And try to do what Murtagh suggests … get some rest, hmmm?"  “That’s right,” the munition’s expert reiterated like a concerned father. “O-kay.”

They heard Jamie’s softly spoken slurred reply as the two men turned and quietly left his room so that he could sleep. Although he was not yet able to visit his Sassenach his thoughts were anything but far away from the woman he loved. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Rest? How could he possibly rest knowing that his beautiful Claire was so close and he was unable to see her? He detested being in Med Lab and would rather discharge himself than be here one day longer than necessary. He moved in bed trying to get comfortable but comfort eluded him. The level of pain in his chest was almost bearable … if he didn’t move … but the pain of not being able to see his Claire was more unbearable. He was uncertain if he could wait another hour before being able to see for himself that she was okay. The worst thing was the not knowing what was going on outside these walls but particularly in her room. He’d been in here for over 24 hours but he had to rely on others for Intel on her progress. How much longer would he have the IV drip in for? Hopefully he would be recovered enough to have it removed tomorrow … then he would see her. He had to believe that his Sassenach was okay. He couldn’t bear to think of any other alternative. He’d lost count of how many times he’d repeated the same mantra over and over in his head, “I can bear pain myself, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.” He couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Claire in any kind of discomfort and he needed to know that she was now okay. Lying here in bed with his brave Sassenach within reach but also too far away was killing him. Murtagh and Dr Foster wouldn’t dare lie to him that’s for sure, so it must be true that everything was okay... that she was okay, but until he saw her with his own eyes, he was not convinced.  Pushing himself up into a better sitting position, Jamie grimaced as his wound started to throb unmercifully. He grimaced in anguish but gritted his teeth until the pain dissipated. He had a high threshold for pain and he wasn’t going to let a bullet wound be a setback. The surgeons had done a mammoth job of piecing him back together and because of his innate determination to fight affliction, he willed himself to be better. Jamie didn’t care about his pain. That was of no consequence … what he did care about was the hurt that his courageous Sassenach had suffered at the hands of the Rising Dragons. What motivated his recovery even more was the thought of the pain that he would inflict on the people who had hurt her. Only then would he be satisfied and then Claire would also be able to move on from the consequences of this mission.

Staring vacantly at the IV line poking out of the back of his left hand, Jamie’s thoughts turned to what would happen when they left Med Lab. 

There was no way known that he or Claire would be able to resume the Rising Dragons’ mission before they were fully recovered. So, he was totally resolute that come what may, the two of them would be out of here and away from the prying eyes of Section One and their superiors to recuperate.  Consumed by these thoughts of his love, James Fraser soon succumbed to the lure of sleep.  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ to be continued Tuesday 12th May

[lachryphage]

I think, for me, of course, self-isolating is a defensive behaviour. but to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it’s a wholly unhealthy one. 

self-isolation can be a form of self-sabotage. it can come from a place of fear of rejection, it can be a kind of preemptive rejection. but people, in general, exacerbate all of the things that weigh heavy on my mental health -- especially my self esteem.

over the summer I’ve discovered some lovely people and groups of people that have kept me sane as this world continues to descend. I cannot deny the benefits this form of socialization has afforded me. I’ve found comfort and happiness and friendship and I hope that can continue... but

god I don’t know how to really say this in a way that is organized and makes sense (I forgot my meds and am waiting for them to kick in and I’ve just had brain fog in general sooo...) but it’s like. we all know the dangers of comparing one’s self to others. or the pressure from society in general to be a certain way. or navigating the versions of you that others have created and applied to you. these are things that -- to my understanding -- most people struggle with. and this is an issue born of people and it’s become more prevalent the increasingly voyeuristic nature of social media.

and there’s my own personal problems with people too, the baggage I bring from childhood and previous friendships. I am someone desperate for praise and validation and attention. and when I don’t get that from my relationships (spoiler alert: I never get what I need from ANY of my relationships) it sends me into a spiral of self hatred. I create harmful mantras drilling into my head that I’ll get attention when I do something worthy of attention. and to no one’s surprise this doesn’t motivate me to do the things I want to do. it worsens whatever creative blocks I’m already struggling with and it digs me a little ditch of self-loathing in which I become mired.

however, the more isolated I am, the less I can rely on other people for what I need, the more positively I treat myself. around other people I am desperate for praise and support and attention, but if I have no one to look to for such things, then naturally I must provide it all for myself. I know exactly what I need and I know exactly what will make me feel better and then just like that, I am happier on my own. instead of sitting around hoping someone will come save me, I simply save myself.

self-isolation is by no means “the answer” -- obviously it has deleterious effects on people’s mental health and I am no exception -- but I know that for me at least it’s something I do because it does have benefits. I need to bring the self-confidence I have in isolation with me to the social world, because I am a person, and people need people. 

I am the most at peace with myself in the wilderness. away from society, away from mirrors, away from the internet, away from my friends. away from just about everything and everyone, I am a better, happier person.

I need to replicate that in my normal life.

[wicked-storybrooke]

Is Alice Jones Autistic?

I’m not entirely sure where the autistic!alice headcanon originated. It might have been from an Autistic Headcanons blog or it might just be from the observations of individuals.

I can’t speak for everyone because my main reason for believing she’s autistic is that I’m autistic and I relate to a lot of her traits. Now, some of those traits could be explained by her being forced to grow up in isolation or even by a mental illness (I do see her as having co-morbid mental illness(es)) and some of these traits are headcanons themselves, so it really just depends on how you see her.

I’ll list some of the things that lead me to believe she’s autistic and not all of these apply to every autistic person:

Has a possible special interest in painting/drawing, chess and maybe even parkour. Take for example in 7x13 when she needs to play chess to help her relax. She likely wanted to play chess a lot more than Rogers could keep up with and I bet she talks about it and art a lot.

She can talk in a very abstract way. It’s a way that makes sense to her but not necessarily to anyone else and I don’t just mean when she’s talking about the curse. It’s the way she talks about the curse: “See something? I see everything. Now I’m ten feet tall!” “There’s still time before the pills make me small again.” (I know it’s an Alice in Wonderland reference but say, in her cursed memories someone read the book to her, this could be echolalia). And I’d be willing to wager she makes up her own words.

She thinks outside the box. Like myself, she seems to have trouble thinking inside the box and doesn’t so easily conform to societal norms: “What’s the point of a solvable one (puzzle)” and she made a heart-shaped beignets that was literally heart-shaped. She also seems to have difficulty telling that some things are wrong (not that all autistics do this, but it can be an issue): “Weaver said it was for the best, and I can’t always figure that out for myself.”

Her father brings her things that could be seen as sensory aids (I know this was to help her experience the outside world but it’s an additional way of looking at it.)

Doesn’t have a great sense of danger. I know she’s got some mad skills, but still she doesn’t hesitate to jump out of the window of a goodness how many stories-high building. She’ll happily fight a jabberwocky, befriend a troll (that, at the time, she didn’t know was of her own creation) and defend said troll in front of angry dudes with weapons and she rolled out of a freaking moving car. She also walked across the road without looking in 7x14 (#relatable). That incident could have even been chalked down to her not being a good judge of distance or to her being over-stimulated by the traffic. When you get overstimulated your whole sense of exactly where everything is around you just goes out the window. It’s probably not the only time that’s happened. God knows how much trouble she got herself into in Wonderland and the other places.

Has a connection to creatures and and an attachment to objects like Mr. Rabbit and she even slept next to the viles of sand her father got her. It’s understandable that she would be attached to the inanimate objects that were her only company for years, whether she’s autistic or not. She seems to relate more to creatures, such as the troll and maybe even some creatures in wonderland (goodness knows if she was out-running the bandersnatch for fun or what).

Doesn’t like to sit still for long. Sometimes seen stimming with things in her hands.

Seems to be fairly selective with what she eats. Eating the same thing everyday is not an uncommon autistic trait (I literally have beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and it seems that marmalade sandwhiches are the thing for Tilly. It could be a sensory issue. She seems to have a preference for sweet food as salty food might be too strong for her or it could just be because we love routine. It brings a sense of much needed security in an otherwise over-stimulating world.

Likes routine. I’m sure her father liked to make sure they had a routine in the tower but as Tilly she seems to have her routine of going to the troll, playing chess with Rogers, talking to Weaver and eating marmalade sandwhiches. She doesn’t seem to be completely averse to spontaneity however, since she was willing to go to Wonderland and other places but then and again, she was desperate to find a cure.

Is more vulnerable to manipulation. Listen, I love Alice & Rumple’s frienship as much as the next guy but you can’t deny that he was manipulating her at first in 7x18. It seems she doesn’t have a brilliant sense for figuring out the intentions of others. The same goes for when Weaver tricked her into eating the pill-sandwhich.

Has what can be seen as autistic meltdowns. This is a difficult one to assess because her sometimes erratic behaviour is likely due to a mental illness but there are many co-morbid conditions that can come with autism. But if we are to look at her outbursts as meltdowns, then we can see that they are triggered by things not goin the way Alice expected. If an autistic person has pre-planned their day then any disruption to that can cause a meltdown or shutdown i.e. Rogers saying no to the game of chess, Rogers and Weaver not listening to her pleas for them not to talk to Eloise coming as a shock, Weaver giving her her meds and not remembering his life in the EF and the incident at the hospital. Nothing was going as Tilly expected and there was no way for her to fix it. She tried to calm herself down by pacing or swaying slightly from side-to-side. It could have all been further exacerbated by the bright lights and in some cases loud noises of the traffic/the hospital lights/the light in her shipping container. Her outbursts were completely out of her control. I’m sure she would have never pointed a scalple at Rogers and Weaver if she weren’t in that state. The fact that she didn’t remember how she got to the hospital could be because of her meltdown, often after or during one you don’t know what’s going on, what you’re doing or why your doing it. This could also explain why she loses time like she explains in 7x14. This could also be partly down to the fact that she might have poor short-term memory which is common in autistic people.

Could the fact that the curse couldn’t completely erase her memories be due to her having a very strong, photographic long-term memory? Just a theory!

Seems to prefer to socialise in small groups (this could be due to circumstance).

Is seen as ‘weird’, ‘eccentric’ or ‘odd’ by others who don’t understand her way of engaging with the world.

Sometimes repeats phrases “Something’s bad, something’s broken, something’s wrong.”

Has difficulty with conflicts, arguments and being yelled at.

Sees the world in a special way according to her father so it’s likely she’s not like other people he’s been around.

Is okay being around other people but may 'play’ on her own e.g. when she was in Rogers’ car with the mushrooms. She was content to be around him while doing her own thing.

In some situations she may be masking e.g. at first with Margot, so that she could pass for allistic.

Can sometimes get her words confused: “You know me better than anyone. I can't have done it, could I? Or I could've done it, can't I?”

Difficulties communicating her thoughts and feelings, in words, to others, especially if anxious, stressed or upset, hense part of the reason she ends up having an meltdown.  

I personally think she’s undersensitive to movement and touch so she might have issues with personal space and it could be why she isn’t often still and moves around alot.

May have issues with executive funtion e.g. time management, orgazisational skills, inhibitions, working memory and problem solving which she may have been helped with by Rogers once she moved in. It makes your mind a freaking jumble so I wouldn’t be suprised if she has issues with this.

Seems to have some trouble in social situations. This could be due to all those years in isolation but there are definitely times where she will just speak her mind or do things that might be seen as socially inappropriate e.g. the situation with the troll, her just popping up in Victoria’s car and scaring the shiitake musrooms out of her. She sometimes seems a bit confused by what other people are saying e.g. the whole “Targot” thing and others seem confused by her.

I could honestly go on about this for days. Like, there’s so much more I could talk about. I might make another post expanding on this, but this is just my perspective! As I say, a lot of this could be down to her years alone in the tower or a mental illness but this is just one way of looking at her traits!

[adhdtoomanycommas]

Emotional Abuse and ADHD

Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff.   TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).

I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am.  The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD. 

I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons).  On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out. 

It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.

At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship.  My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me.  I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD. 

Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something,  “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment.  If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was.  If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text.  Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough. 

As an aside,  he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.

Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later. 

Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily.  I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry.  Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying.  This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera.   And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.

Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment. 

A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory.  I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory.  Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things  for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).

Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order.  Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing.  I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me.  Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.  

 I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before.   But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics,  I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation.  Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too.  And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well. 

I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people.  If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al.  Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.

Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).

That’s all for now.

[thetravelerwrites]

To Lose, To Gain (Ebert and Reverence)

Rating: Orange Relationship: Human Male/Fem-Intersex Tiefling Additional Tags: Exophilia, Tiefling, Intersex, Third Person Perspective, Orange, Hurt/Comfort Content Warnings: Pregnancy, Birth, Children, Anxiety, Bodily Injury, Blood Words: 3574

Another commission for @ocsmutpocalypse. As Reverence prepares to give birth to Ebert's child in the aftermath of an assassination attempt, Ebert questions both the very idea of having a child of his own and the merit of staying in the village with a price on his head.

The Traveler's Masterlist

Ebert exhaled heavily with frustration. “Mrs. Tomlin, you have to take the medicine I gave you. Making tea with daffodils is not going to cure your gastrointestinal problems.”

“What do you know, Mr. Big-City Doctor Man?” The skinny elderly woman snapped. “I’ve had tummy troubles all my life. Me Ma gave me this tea when I was a sprout every time I got a stomach-ache. It’s the only thing that soothes me and I’ve been drinking it for years. Explain that!”

“The tea is why you have gastrointestinal problems!” Ebert snapped back at her. “Daffodils are toxic! You’re lucky to have survived this long, you stupid old skinbag!”

“I’m twice your age, boy!” She squawked, swinging a walking stick at him. “I don’t need your sass!”

“You called me to treat you,” Ebert said, throwing things in to his medical bag. “If you’re not going to listen, then do me a favor and don’t call on me next time you’ve got a problem. Just drop dead and save me the walk.”

He exited her house and slammed the door behind him, huffing, as she was still shouting abuse from the inside. He hobbled as quickly as he could back to his isolated hut in the woods.

As he was shuffling, a neighbor called out, likely for more medical advice that wouldn’t be heeded.

“Is someone dying?” Ebert asked petulantly.

“Well, no,” The villager said.

“Then it can wait,” Ebert replied darkly, and continued on his way.

It had been about three or so months since Rings and Reverence had convinced him to be more active in the village. Most nights he stayed in Reverence’s house, sometimes with Rings and sometimes without. Rings was her own person and liked to do her own thing.

He still maintained his little cottage just outside the village, where he could keep all his medicinal and magecraft supplies safe and away from prying eyes and grasping fingers. He also used it, as pitiful as it sounded, to escape.

When he had first laid with Reverence, she was determined to become pregnant. She’d succeeded. The tiefling gestational period was extremely fast, even for half-breeds, and Reverence was due to give birth in just another week or two. Ebert hated to admit he’d been avoiding her, but his impending fatherhood scared the living daylights out of him.

He was barely into his twenties, but he never had any intention of marrying or fathering children. His own experiences with his family had turned him off to the thought. But Reverence had a way of getting what she wanted, so there was a baby on the way that would share his blood. His foolish, arrogant, misguided, depraved blood. Gods, this was a bad idea.

He got to the hut and opened the door. He half expected to see Buttons, but she was back at Reverence’s house, in her own fluffy bed and happily chasing the mice about. He took down the herbs he’d put up for drying the week before and made annotations in his journal about either making a spearmint and lime zest tea and telling her it was daffodils so she’d actually get better, or just not treating Mrs. Tomlin anymore. He couldn’t decide which would be less work, since he’d likely catch hell from Reverence if the old bat died.

He missed Rings. She would have made Mrs. Tomlin sit down and take her meds. But Rings was away hunting down intruders. As Ebert was a wanted man with quite the bounty on his head, there was no shortage of assassins willing to take up the job with no qualms about endangering the lives of an entire village.

Two such fellows had crashed into the village, demanding that Ebert show himself. One of the would-be killers was cut down almost immediately by the temple guards, and the second ran with Rings on his heels. She’d been gone about a week and had written back that her quarry had holed up in a cave. She was going to wait him out after having a bit of fun with him first. She was a cat, after all, and did like to toy with her victims.

Reverence had tried to put his mind at ease about the assassination attempt, telling him that the village had its protections and they all looked out for each other, but that had only exacerbated his anxiety and paranoia. It wasn’t just himself anymore. It wasn’t just his own well-being that was on the line. There was now an entire town of people, the two women he loved best, and a child of his own flesh and blood that were going to be caught in the crossfire of future attempts on his life.

Shit. Staying out of the village from the start would have been better for everyone.

At that moment, the window exploded inward and something sharp pierced his shoulder. He yelled in surprise and flung a fire spell reflexively out of the window, catching the drapes as it passed through the jagged hole in the glass.

“Fuck!” He shouted, pulling the drapes down and dowsing them in a bucket of rainwater from the leaky roof. He grabbed his short sword and flung open the door, screaming, “Show yourselves, you fucking cowards!” He flung another ball of fire without looking, and heard a group of kids shriek. They shot out of the places they were hiding and high-tailed it down the trail back to the village. You recognized one or two of them as Reverence’s many children.

Damn it, Ebert thought to himself, trying to calm his breath. He was so jumpy that he nearly set a bunch of kids on fire and burned down his hut. Some father I’ll make, he thought to himself. Not only were people out to hurt him, but he was as much a danger to himself and everyone around him as the assassins.

“I can’t do this,” Ebert said, laying his cane against the table, sitting down heavily, and letting his head fall into his hands. “I can’t be a father. I can’t stay here. They’ve found me. More will come. Everyone here is at risk if I stay.”

His heart rate had not slowed. If anything, it was intensifying to the point where he could feel it in every corner of his body. His mind began to dart back and forth between what had happened, what could happen, and what needed to happen. He couldn’t pin down his thoughts, and it increased his anxiety the longer he sat there. He could still feel the sharp thing in his shoulder, but couldn’t reach it to pull it out.

He stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, and began throwing things into a travel bag frenetically.

“Have to go,” Ebert muttered, stumbling around the hut and grabbing things, trying to stuff it all into the bag, growing more and more frustrated as the bag filled and wouldn’t close. The frustration grew to anger and he pounded the table with is fist so hard that he threw himself off-balance and landed in a corner, hitting his head.

Terrified, angry, and paranoid, he wept, hitting the back of his head against the wood of the the ramshackle cottage in a desperate attempt to focus his swirling, shifting, reaching brain, to no avail.

He just sat there and wept.

Reverence had just come out from a inspection of the Temple while the evening was still high. With all the… fluids… that get sprayed around the place, a regular cleaning was necessary. Twice weekly was the minimum, and Reverence always oversaw the maintenance and upkeep herself. It was a temple, after all. Fysy deserved a temple worthy of her splendor and purity, and the best way to insure it was to maintain it properly. That duty, among many, fell squarely on Reverence’s shoulders. Being pregnant was no reason to shirk her duties. This was her fourteenth child, after all, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t have experience in working around her precious cargo.

She touched her belly fondly. Fysy had given her certain special gifts, especially when it came to conception and birth. She always knew who was pregnant, even before they did. She knew which of the women were looking to get pregnant, and often paired them with the man best suited to give them the child they wanted. She knew the best time for a person to get pregnant, including herself, and could pinpoint the day the child would be born, and even the gender of the infant, including if they were agender, intersex, or nonbinary. She knew her own child, a son, would be born in four days time, sometime in the afternoon. Even though she knew when it was coming, the wait was always hard.

As she was inspecting the cut on the topiary, the shine on the statues, and the cleanliness of the guards’ armor, Reverence’s attention was caught by seven children, all similar in age, running from the woods as if the devil were on their heels. She saw two of her sons running among the herd.

“Herit! Kiata!” She called, and both boys slowed. One looked very much like his mother, with no eyes on his face but on the antlers growing above his head. The other boy looked more human, except that his feet were hooves and his eyes were the same shade as Reverence’s skin.

“Mama! Mama!” They called.

“What is it, dear ones?” She asked, holding out her arms to them. “What’s wrong?”

“The grumpy doctor man almost set us on fire!” Kiata exclaimed, showing her the singed fur on his tail.

“I see,” Reverence said, folding her arms. “And what exactly did you to do to make him set you on fire?”

“Nothing!” Kiata said petulantly.

Reverence looked at her other son. “Herit?”

Herit kicked his hoof and didn’t meet his mother’s eye. “Well… we kind of… threw a rock through his window?”

“Why would you do something like that?” She asked him in irritation.

“Because he’s weird!” Kiata said. “He always yells at us when we play, saying we’re making too much noise when he’s working!”

“I’ve told you, he’s very sensitive!” Reverence said, boxing the little boy’s ear. “He’s been through a lot of terrible things, Kiata! He’s afraid and worried! Remember that pet rabbit you had that was always scared and skittish, and you didn’t realize why until the fox got him one night? Our ‘grumpy doctor man’ is just like that little rabbit. There are foxes looking for him, and all you’ve done is made him more scared and skittish.”

Kiata dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“I’m not the one you should apologize to,” she said, releasing him. “I’m going to go up and talk to him and tomorrow you’ll give him a proper apology, you and your friends. Now, Kiata, get home to your mother. Herit, your father has been looking for you. I suggest the both of you tell your parents what you’ve done and stay home the rest of the day. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mama,” They said in unison.

“Good. Go.”

The two took off to their respective homes, and Reverence sighed. She could only imagine the state Ebert was in right now. She stretched, cracking her back, and started up the trail to the cottage.

When the cottage came into view, there were indeed some singed spots on the ground and a broken window. She sighed. This was going to require more than a contrite apology.

She knocked on the door. “Ebert?”

“Go away!” He responded.

“Ebert, let me in,” She said.

“Who is it?!” He asked.

“The mother of your child,” She called back calmly.

“That doesn’t make me feel better!” He shrieked.

She sighed an folded her arms across her chest. “I can let myself in, you know. I knocked out of courtesy.”

“Then let yourself in!”

She uncrossed her arms and flicked the door with her middle finger, which made the bolt move out of place with a clunk! She pushed the door open to find him crouching in a corner, facing the wall, his arms covering his head in a defensive posture.

“Ebert, love,” She said, coming to kneel next to him without touching. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”

“I’m not safe!” He said. “Could you just pull the arrow out?”

She frowned, her many eyes searching him. “Arrow?”

“Something came through the window and pierced me. It’s in my shoulder. It hurts like a son of a bitch. Pull it out, will you?”

Her search of him revealed no arrow, but there was a sizeable shard of glass from the window lodged in his back. She grasped it and pulled it out, after which blood began to pour freely over his muslin shirt.

“Oh dear,” She said, tugging at his shirt. “Remove your shirt, if you please.”

“Reverence, I’m really not in the mood for that right now,” He said, trying to reach the wound himself.

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” She replied patiently, showing him the shard of glass. “You’re bleeding rather badly. I’m afraid you need stitches.”

“What do you know of medical care?” He asked her curiously.

“Who do you think did it all before you came here, sir?” She asked sniffily as she carefully helped him pull the shirt off and directed him to lie face down on the bed, which hadn’t been slept in in some time.

“Are you saying you did?” He asked a little incredulous.

“You think my only duties are love-making and creating children for Fysy’s glory?”

“Isn’t it?”

She popped his behind, making him jump. “Of course not. Priestess is a parent term for all sorts of little jobs we have to do. We’re doctors, counselors, handmaids, mediators, justice of the peace, and so on. ‘Priestess’ is just another word for a person who has far too much to do and not enough hours in the day.”

“Am I a priestess, then?” He joked.

“You don’t have the patience,” She said snidely.

“I’m a doctor,” he protested.

“My point exactly,” she retorted.

He huffed a laugh. “Strange. I used to do my damnedest to stay far away from religious types.”

“Strange indeed,” She said, swabbing the cut with an antibacterial salve. “Since one of the women you love is a religious type.” She paused. “Unless your feelings on that matter has changed?”

He looked back at her, frowning. “No, Reverence, of course not. You know I love you. That’s not changed.”

She chuckled. “Just making sure.”

Stitching him up took no time at all, but there was no way to salvage his shirt, so she threw it in the fire, which caused Ebert to make a choking sound, and pulled another out of the drawer while he sat up, gingerly putting weight on the injured side.

This was the first time he was able to see her belly clearly. His chest tightened with anxiety and his stomach clenched.

Having a dozen eyes had its benefits, so she could see his obvious discomfort at the sight of her heavily pregnant self.

“You’ve been avoiding me since I started showing,” she said simply, turning him to clean his shoulder properly and apply a bandage. “And you’ve delivered over half a dozen children since you’ve been living here. It shouldn’t shock you to see another pregnant woman.”

“The others weren’t carrying my kid,” He said, gulping.

She helped him put the new shirt back on and looked at him shrewdly. “Does the idea of fatherhood scare you that badly?”

He sighed. “I’ve told you, Reverence. A person like me isn’t… designed to be a father. You said it yourself: I don’t have the patience. To be honest, none of my family should have had children. Our line should have ended eons ago. I shouldn’t even exist. The fact that I, as someone who shouldn’t exist, has created a progeny, a further life that shouldn’t exist, is…” He gripped his already disheveled hair in frustration. “It’s distressing.”

“I’ve already told you that your involvement is not required, if that is what’s troubling you,” She said. “I have decided to raise this child alone. Before you came here, whenever I became pregnant, or impregnated another, I chose parents I knew would be willing to do the bulk of the child-rearing themselves so that I may continue my work as a priestess unhindered, but when I conceived with you, I knew the circumstances would be different, and I was content with that. I thought I made that clear to you.”

“That’s not the problem,” He replied, shaking his head.

“Then what is, my dear?” She took his face in her hands. “What has you looking so burdened?”

He stared at her eye-less face with disbelief. “Does it not bother you that hired killers came into this village, looking to kill me and not worried about who they might hurt in order to do so? Do you not think they might also seek to harm anyone I hold precious to me? Anyone with even a small connection to me is in great peril. Every person in this town is in danger if I stay! They’re in danger if I go! Any person who comes into contact with me has reason to fear for their lives!” He jumped off the bed and started pacing. “You are the leader of this community. Doesn’t the fact that I’m an outcast with a bounty on my head bother you at all?”

To his absolute fury, Reverence began to snicker.

“Really, I can’t imagine what’s so funny about this,” He said with agitation.

“Oh, I can,” She said. “You think I don’t have a price on my head? Do you have any idea how many people in this village are wanted persons for one reason or another?”

This shocked him into silence. “Are you… are you serious?”

She nodded, a smirk on her face. “Ebert, you are living in a village of outcasts. The worship of Fysy is illegal in my native country, which is why I fled and came here. The religious leader before me was a thief in his former life. Mrs. Tomlin, the stubborn woman who drinks daffodil tea, used to embezzle money from rich men while posing as a maid. We all have similar stories, all of which you’d know, if you’d bothered to get to know anyone here.”

“So…” Ebert said, trying to understand. “You just let any old criminal into this village with no thought to the consequences?”

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Necromancer,” Reverence said, and Ebert blanched. “Oh yes, don’t think I wasn’t aware of that. Having so many eyes allows me to see the truth of a person. I have a standard, of course; I don’t allow abusers or rapists or killers into our midst. We have enough trouble from the outside world to worry about without bringing trouble into the community. No one violent or depraved is allowed within our walls.”

“We don’t have walls,” Ebert said weakly.

“You know what I mean,” Reverence said wryly. “We have all made mistakes, Ebert. We are all misfits. And the best place for misfits is with other misfits.” She kissed him. “That’s why I’m not worried. We all come with danger. We all come with a past. It changes nothing.”

“Doesn’t it?” He asked. For the very first time, he reached out and touched her stomach with his fingertips.

“No,” She said. “Nothing at all. We will live as we always have, looking out for each other. And you are one of us now. And so is your son.”

He looked up at her, wide-eyed. “…son?”

“Yes,” She said with a smile. “By the way, you’ll need to make yourself available four afternoons from now.”

The birth was easy enough. Ebert had been staying with Reverence, and therefore was present when she went into labor. She informed him that her water broke as if commenting on a passing bird. Stuffing down his panic, he helped her to deliver a tiny but healthy baby boy, just as she had said.

Reverence delivered the baby into her own hands while Ebert helped her push the little thing out. Ebert then helped her clean him and wrap him in a small blanket. She offered to let him hold the boy, but Ebert didn’t think he was ready for that just yet. Buttons jumped up, sniffed the baby’s head, and wandered off indifferently.

“What would you have us name him?” Reverence asked.

“Oh gods,” Ebert said. “I hadn’t even given it a thought.”

“Can you think of nothing?” She asked. “I’ve either ‘fathered’ or given birth to twenty-two children before this one, and I’ve named them all. It’s someone else’s turn.”

“Well…” Ebert said thoughtfully. “I did have an uncle named Ethrik. He was the only person in my family that I didn’t have an immense contempt for. In fact, I could even say he was the only decent man in my family I ever knew.”

“Ethrik, then,” Reverence said. “Little Ethrik.”

Rings returned a week after the birth, and showed about as much interest as Buttons had. You were happy to have her back.

“Got him?” You asked her.

“Got him,” She said triumphantly. “Actually, it’s got me thinking: I know you just had a kid and all, but how would you feel about traveling with me for a while?”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[another-bedeviled-murdock]

Personal rant, feel free to ignore

I just.....I'm so fucking furious that I want to cry! As I'm sure most of you have gathered by now, I'm not exactly the most mentally rock solid of people. I have PTSD, chronic depression, anxiety issues through the roof, and what may be the beginnings of schizophrenia. Add that to what looks suspiciously like undiagnosed ADHD, and you've got a mess of a human being. That's not my problem though. My problem is that my school is making it almost impossible for me to get an education and have these illnesses at the same time. They frame themselves as helpful and progressive and oh so willing to help people like me, but they aren't, and you can tell that all their measures were made by neurotypicals who'd never been even remotely depressed a day in their lives. It's been incredibly hard for me to manage day to day living, but I've been managing, if only just barely, and the school has forcibly placed me back on medical leave because I was clearly heading into a depressive episode and they were concerned I'd kill myself. Oh, and did I mention that they helped exacerbate the problem by practically blackmailing me into a behaviour contract? Yeah. See, I have a scholarship to the school, and they threatened to take it from me if I didn't agree to a contract that required me to;

1) go to therapy(not unreasonable, except, you know, I'd already been doing that)

2) give full permission for the school to be able to access my therapeutic record and control decisions regarding said therapy (um, pretty sure that's illegal? And shady? But whatever)

3) take any medication given to me, regardless of my personal choice (aka, the took away my legal right to refuse any medication I am uncomfortable with)

4) immediately cease and desist self harm. Now, I dunno if y'all y'know anything about it, but immediately going cold turkey on a coping skill that I've been using for seven years is quite harmful to my mental well being. Additionally, they offered no extra support in the matter, in conjunction with the fact that I had no therapist at the time since they forced me to find a new one.

5) made sure to detail that if I ever self harmed again, or attempted suicide, my grants would be revoked effective immediatey and I would be expelled. Now, I'm no expert, but last I checked self harm was an addictive behaviour. Now imagine that this school found out I was a cocaine addict. They'd make sure I stopped, yes, but they'd send me to rehab and (speaking from past experiences of my fellow students) be understanding of the occasionally slip up. Yet I was offered nothing, and threatened with immediate expulsion if I so much as got a suspicious paper cut. (Also, I dont know how they don't think that if I were to suddenly kill myself just after this, or expulsion, or after they forcibly placed me on med leave, that they wouldn't be implicated for mistreating and mishandling a delicate mental health situation??? 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Yeah. There's more to it, but those are the main points, and it makes me absolutely furious when offer no help whatsoever in attempting to deal with these issues, some of which they gave me or heavily exacerbated, and I have to walk on fucking eggshells. I'm not even allowed to show symptoms of my illnesses without being punted back home in case I cause them trouble. I just......ugh.

[kingofthewilderwest]

TMI expression of my emotions below. [replies fine; *NO* reblogs]

I’m beyond the point of being able to take care of myself, and it’s been that way for years. I used to function fine living on my own, with a few quirky mistakes here and there (some friends may remember the Saga of the 3 month old Popcorn on the Floor). But now I legitimately can’t handle caring for myself in the most ESSENTIAL “keep this human running” tasks. 

Food? The refrigerator has lots of mold. I’m smart enough to subsist off things that can be microwaved (frozen vegetables, baked potatoes, etc.), done on stove top (canned soups, rice), or eaten right away (celery and peanut butter). But it means imbalanced meals with little protein and often turns into too much junk food (because it requires no cooking) ...which gives me no energy to function, obviously. And I can’t cook well, so even when I do have energy to prepare a meal, it tastes bland at best - where’s the payoff? It often turns into me skipping meals because... I’m bad at keeping food stocked - no energy to shop for food - or I feel depressed, exacerbated by the vicious cycle of no food-given energy in the first place.

Cleaning? The apartment is terrifyingly messy. Nothing is sanitary, not even the shower. I can’t access my own bed because my bedroom is piled with objects that haven’t been put away. I often trip over things. I’ll reuse dishes and clothes instead of washing. If I have an upbeat day and I clean, I’ll get part of the problem squared away, but never enough to make this place neat enough to function and be maintained. Yeah yeah, peck away a little at a time and keep it maintained, I know that’s supposed to be the trick, but it ain’t happening no matter what I do. And if a place I live in isn’t neat, it makes me feel more depressed and fidgety and unable to think clearly.

Sleeping? Well. My sleep schedule is always in flux. Currently, I’m sleeping from about 8 AM to 5 PM on a given day. Soooo I get no sunlight, either, and I’m not awake during hours when other people are awake or when most stores are open.

Physical health? Well, let’s say that I’m on several prescriptions, but because my brain is so FOGGED UP and I can’t think clearly anymore (I had such a sharp brain until my mid 20s dammit???)... and because my house is a mess... I constantly forget my pills, have no clue what they are, and am never consistent with them. The last time I took pain medication pills, I was in a desperate amount of pain, and I ummmm... overdosed pretty badly and found myself vomiting on the floor shaking for nine hours. (I LEARNED MY LESSON I AM NOT TAKING OVER PRESCRIPTION AMOUNT AGAIN). I also don’t think I’m on the right meds, either, so even if I were taking them, I don’t know how much I’d be helping myself. Let’s just say that I’m drastically overdue for asking for a diagnosis on bipolar. I want to visit a doctor, get this squared away, get help for this... but that would involve so many steps to find a doctor (I just switched health insurance), transfer my medical records, schedule an appointment, be awake at the right hours to get there, have extra money to pay for potential treatments, and lots of other steps. Which I don’t have the energy to do. Nowhere close.

Socialization? [laughter] Oh dear. Between living alone in an apartment (but I really do function better living alone because I’m such an introvert who needs My Space), living in a city where none of my friends live (most people are about 30 minutes to 2 hours away), and working remotely... I get VERY little physical social interaction.

At this point in time, I’m pretty lonely, but I’m so deprived of spoons that about the best I can do is exist in the same room as someone else. Big social events aren’t going to help me and are often too overwhelming for me to even consider attending. The little things are all I have energy for, but I need them. I want to exist in a room with someone else badly; another person in the area makes me work better, think clearer, feel happier, and express affection to them. I want nothing more than to physically curl up with someone and feel them and be with them and secure with them and listening to them and sympathizing with them and laughing with them or falling asleep on their shoulder. Can I be held? Please? Touch deprivation... yeah of course that’s going on.

Since I have so little energy, I often get behind on work. Which means that, when I *do* have energy, I have to prioritize making money. I live by myself in my own apartment; if I don’t got the money, I don’t got a place to live. And if I don’t do my job consistently, I’m at more risk for losing my job, duh. I expend ALL my existing energy on work. I don’t have time for anything else (food, hygiene, fixing my sleep schedule, socialization). It’s practical to focus my attention on the most important thing: making an income. Everything else will collapse if I don’t work.

Basic human needs are NOT being met for me anywhere. Food, cleanliness, human interactions, medical shit... I am objectively not taking care of myself. And I’m not a fucking irresponsible person who can’t handle large loads of things. This asshat graduated with four college degrees (including a graduate degree) and several minors in four years with Highest Honors in Phi Beta Kappa while working several jobs and even teaching a college course at one point - that sure as hell wasn’t lack of discipline that got me there. Sure, I’ve always been lazier on some things like cooking (I hate cooking, I’m so **BAD** at cooking, YOU eat my cooking and see if you like it). And sure, before I left for college, living with family helped me live fuller because I wasn’t taking care of me myself and I with no backup. But no period of my life was anywhere near the brain-muddled, helpless disaster zone I am now, unable to do anything ANYWHERE.

I’ve asked for help. My parents have done a lot, I’m infinitely grateful, but exactly because of that, I don’t want to put any more on them. They’re empty nesters; they don’t deserve to have this weird bag of bones they raised for nearly two decades and spent a fuckton of money on... crawl back needing nannying. As far as my friends? Either it’s people long-distance who express concerns (but can’t do what I need most because of the distance), or it’s people close-by who say they’ll do something... and NEVER follow through.

I get that we all have spoon issues. Sometimes you don’t have the energy to talk to me. Sometimes you don’t have the energy to come down and visit me, or have me visit you. But if you hear me say I need help, and say you’d like to help... and then never contact me again even when I try to contact you... because you’re so sparse replying to me... then nothing helps. Spoon issues make communication more difficult. I get that. I have that problem, too. But friendships cannot be maintained and cannot be meaningful unless you interact. I get people saying “We should hang out” or “I’d like to help” and nothing ever gets done. I’m not saying this out of the selfish “help ME help ME” - or to guilt-trip people into helping me because that’d be jackshit wrong... it’s just - if we’re all doing friendships like this, we’re just going to perpetuate loneliness and unfulfilled interactions, aren’t we??? I know lots of lonely people affected by shit like this. We need to get better about this.

Of course some of it’s on me. I have trust issues where I think that even very well-meaning loving people aren’t going to make a difference because I doubt they’ll understand me enough to get what I actually need helped. I’m a logic-oriented person and lots of my friends, precious and pure and glorious sweethearts as they are, think in more emotional ways. And I’ve noticed logic-oriented and emotion-oriented people get encouraged different ways. So I never get the help that works for my brain and needs? Not to be dismissive of the kind words people give because they do want to help, but it just feels like I’m the odd one out that they don’t understand how to help, so I’m stuck at being “unhelped”? Or people telling me, “Just appreciate what they’re trying to do because they’re helping as they can!” But it... but it DOESN’T help me!

Lots of ways people try to verbally encourage fall flat to me. “I believe in you!” changes nothing; what you think of me doesn’t make me magically able to actually do it, for fuck’s sake. The point is I can’t do it, and even if I could, you thinking I could doesn’t change shit or make the problem less difficult. Heck, “You can do it!” just makes it sound like people don’t understand and acknowledge how hard this is for me. I know other people get encouraged by things like that, but for me it’s just rubbing salt in the wound. “Things will get better!” is objectively false; life is a neutral force in how it progresses; sometimes it does get better and sometimes it doesn’t. Overly squishy stuff is too coddling and actually annoying to me. Advice tends to come off as people not having processed what I’m actually going through and telling me shit I know better than they do. I know what I need and I try to communicate it humbly because I believe communication is important to good interactions with friends, and I try to listen to others to know how I can best help them in their struggles... but it just seems like there aren’t the right people in my life to be able to get the help I objectively need. I don’t mean it to sound dismissive or selfish... I really don’t... I will be the first to jump on listening and helping to friends... I always want to be there for my friends and help THEM... and it took me years to even open up to people and admit I needed help because I didn’t want to burden them...

I’m just LEGITIMATELY stuck and in a hole I can’t get out of myself. 

If I forced myself to a near-point of breaking in exhaustion every day, I possibly could do it myself... and there’s something to say about us being determined and surviving through tough times by taking that teeth-gritting step... but I don’t feel the payoff in that, as I’m pretty depressed a lot and don’t feel like my life is going anywhere meaningful. It’s a flaw but I don’t have that determination to stick through a fuckton of really really hard life changes to climb out of this hole myself. 

It’s just... everything is a tangle. I can’t solve one issue without dealing with the other issues simultaneously. Cleaning the house to make my head clearer involves me having enough energy to clean in the first place, and the time off of work to be able to afford a cleaning day. Having enough energy to do work and then clean means eating better. Eating better means having a clean enough place to cook and store food... and more energy. Having more energy means... well... you get the point. They’re all so knotted together I can’t untie this myself in my current state of mind.

It’s pathetic, really. I know that if I had more motivation, I could potentially climb my way out of this. It’d be hard work and it’d be taskmastering, especially without taking significant work time off, but the end result would be TOTALLY worth it. I can call myself out on this lack of choice too. The most successful parts of my life were those in which I cracked down on myself and disciplined myself and got shit done. I should be doing that here, too, but I’m not. I’m letting it continue to fester for half of my days. But I keep telling myself, “It’s okay, you’ll get to laundry tomorrow, you NEED to do work to pay bills,” and such as it is, then I never get this taken care of. I keep telling myself, “You can afford to sleep in after your exhaustion, even though that means prolonging the sleep schedule fix again.” I am culpable for my own problems, too. I’m not blaming myself. I’m not guilting myself. I don’t feel blame or guilt or self-hate or anything; most else might be shit, but my self-confidence is fine. I just acknowledge this problem for what it is.

Until I get these problems solved, everything else is muted. My mental processing, muted. My ability to help all my friends with all their problems, limited. The community service and church involvement I want to get back to. My desires to work on an original novel. My desire to save up money to someday afford a house. My desire to be able to get out more and make meaningful memories with friends. All that. Instead I’m stuck in this limbo of too-tired-to-work or must-work-before-tired-again and whoops-didn’t-take-care-of-myself-today-again-huhhh.

Anyway. Rant ended. For now. 

I just really really really really really want help with this mental health struggling. And I really really really want another human to Be There and non-lonely me.

[saint-severian]

sand through a screen

Modernity is a Great Filter, a process that will culminate in the distinction and separation of the human from the subhuman (or the inhuman/superhuman from the all-too-human, if you want to look at it that way). Several questions remain.

What is the mechanism of separation?

What should be done with the subhuman?

Focusing on the first question: the most obvious and probable answer is Capital. I don’t like this answer. 

Every system selects for certain virtues and punishes certain vices. The set of virtues that Capital selects for, and the vices that it punishes, are they really the best human virtues and worst human vices, respectively? Would the world be a better place if only the rich or very rich or very, very rich reproduced? 

I’m not so sure. And without a comprehensive picture of the various human types sorted by tax bracket, you will never convince me to trust that wealth is the best possible token of eugenic quality for human beings. 

The whole resurgence of racialism is in part an effort to answer this question with Race INSTEAD OF Capital. 

This is a better answer, but still not True, for a couple of reasons. Our enemies are right when the say that “white” is not a categorically airtight concept, or even a totally coherent one, despite the fact that what it refers to is undeniably real and based in biological immutability. As BAP said, “there are many more races than people think”. 

Here’s a merit of Capital over Race as a mechanism of separation: it’s based more on action and proof than received categorical status. Unless our enemies get their way, what is white today is white tomorrow, but the plutocracy is always changing staff. 

Consider Paglia’s (and others’) thoughts on manhood, or the timeless acquisition of hero-status in myth: both are proven/achieved, never simply inherited. Pay attention: this doesn’t refute hard biological determinism (not that I or most people believe in it anyway), because the masculine or heroic actions of an individual could easily be an automatic expression of the inherent biological superiority they had all along. But how do we know about that superiority unless it’s proven? 

In the words of Jonathan Bowden, being white isn’t enough; being English, American, German, French, Italian, Nordic, Med., etc., isn’t enough. And neither is being rich. There are many among the rich who are subhuman, and many with superhuman potential who are totally without status (though, if you think you are a superhuman it wouldn’t hurt to secure your existence by becoming rich).

The third probable mechanism of separation is War. This one is the most tried-and-true in human history, for a good reason. Historically, it’s an athletic competition that would kill off or disprivilege elites who couldn’t defend their status either by killing them in battle or Nuremberg-style after the fact (slaughtering the defeated enemy chiefs is a lot more Lindy than NatSoc apologists imply). But, it’s not a wrestling match (that would be cool though).  Smart people win wars. This is not new. Tactics, clear thinking, and some amount of self-control have always been advantageous qualities on the battlefield. 

But there’s a problem: I, and many others, trace the source of the dysgenic state of the contemporary world not to a period of mass migration (though there is one in the works) nor a wide-scale economic event, but to a War. A World War. Two of them, that left nations globally without a huge number of their fighting, virile males. German military dead are numbered at more than 5.5 million in WW2, but this is nothing next to Russia. These along with Japan are extreme examples. I suspect that there was a great effect even on America, which lost relatively few in comparison to the former. As military technology and strategy become more complex, war as a mechanism of separation selects for increasingly abstract virtues, in exactly the same way as contemporary Capital, virtues that are good in almost no practical contexts besides the ones in which they are selected for. We do not want to become high IQ, limp-wrist bugmen-mandarins. Just the opposite. 

This problem is exacerbated by the advent of nuclear proliferation, which means no war at all for a while and then perhaps suddenly an enormous apocalyptic global genocide. This would certainly thin the herd, but it would be totally random. If nothing else is possible, global thermonuclear war would be a best-last hope of a superhuman future, like throwing the chessboard off the table instead of losing, or perhaps more accurately: engulfing the world in chaotic, all-engulfing inferno rather than submitting to a slow, icy decline.

Personally, I’m in favor of fascist, top-down solutions ;)

[salaciouscrumpet]

So, a bit of an update. It’s long, so it’s below the cut.

The situation with my in-laws has ... not improved, exactly, but stabilized for the time being. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s possible for things to suddenly improve in a drastic and meaningful way (unless we get a cure for dementia, in which case, yay!), but we can try to make life easier on my mother-in-law and safer/happier for my father-in-law, who’s suffering from rapidly-progressing dementia exacerbated by a spell of anaesthetic delirium following surgery a year and a half ago. I’m the only one in the family with (diagnosed) mental illness aside from my MIL, so I’m kind of being seen as the go-to person to help everyone else understand, and while that’s emotionally exhausting for me it also eases something in me to be able to help in some way. I explained Spoon Theory to my MIL and at the same time I explained that it’s not an excuse or a means to justify giving in to her depression and avoid the world. I think (I hope) I managed to get some of it across. From the sound of things my in-laws are trying to make more of an effort to stay in contact, so that’s a huge win right there.

As for myself, I have finally -- after more than two years on the waiting list -- gained access to a family doctor and have actually met with her. My blood pressure is, unsurprisingly, ridiculously high, so that’s the problem she wants to tackle first. Unlike my previous doctor back in the town where I used to live, my new doctor actually listens to me and doesn’t attribute all my problems to the fact that I’m overweight. I’ve also actually lost weight (well over twenty pounds, in fact!), so that helps. I’m scheduled for a mental health assessment in a month; she would’ve done it sooner but since she needed to start me on blood pressure meds she didn’t also want to start me on anxiety/depression meds at the same time. I admit I wanted to deal with my mental health first, but I can understand that, y’know, not dropping from a heart attack is probably pretty important, too. Additionally, the knowledge that my mental health is a priority for her is a huge boost; she’s not just brushing my concerns aside the way my previous doctor did.

I’m currently in a bit of a manic phase, I guess, although I don’t (to the best of my knowledge) actually suffer from manic depressive disorder. (It does run in my family, however.) I’m very excited and upbeat about an OW I’m working on (an old urban fantasy idea I had back when I was in university, updated because that was twenty years ago, and incorporating ideas I have for another story). I’m trying to hold on to this creative energy because I know how easy it is to lose it, and I’m a little afraid that once I properly start treating my anxiety and depression the meds might tamp down on this. I don’t know if it’s selfish of me, but I would rather be anxious and depressed than lose my creative spark. I remember past depression medication made me feel very muted and grey, and I don’t want that to happen again. There was a decade where I didn’t write, and I don’t know how much of that was anxiety/depression and how much was the medication I was taking to treat my anxiety/depression. I don’t want to go through that again.

I am currently putting my fanfiction aside for the time being in order to focus on my original work, in part because the idea won’t leave me alone and is demanding to be written, but also in part because if I can actually finish this story I could potentially get it published, and that’s always been a dream of mine. (Technically speaking I am already a published author but ...) If people were commissioning me to write stuff for them, that’d be one thing, but unfortunately my fanfiction isn’t paying the bills. I know that getting published (if that even happens) likely won’t pay the bills, either, but there’s the potential for it to be more than the nothing I’m currently making, much as I love my fanfic readers.

I am still curious about Patreon, but don’t know if there’s any point in creating one since I’m not an established author and my “fanbase” (such as it is) is surrounding my fanfiction rather than my OW. I don’t know if anyone would be interested in subscribing to read about my original characters and their shenanigans. I also don’t know how that would work, if I intend to publish elsewhere. Plus, ultimately, I don’t really know how Patreon works and don’t know anyone who can hold my hand through the process, which is what I would need to be able set one up.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. My in-laws are ... okay. I’m making progress with regards to my health. I’m writing, just not fanfic. I’m still an anxious disaster, just a little less on the depressive side (for the time being).