#and since monday ive felt like i need less sleep and have been even more nocturnal than usual which i think is making mornings harder | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

super-secret-sick-fics · 3 years

Note

ouu yes ive been so obsessed with them (osasuna) recently and there’s barely any fics for them in this department lol i wanted to see something like suna coming to school sick with the stomach flu or something and osamu taking him home to take care of him (i feel like it’s ooc for suna to go to go school if he’s not feeling well so it’d probably be one of those where it gets progressively worse throughout the day) sorry if this is too long haha

Okay!! Thank you for this request. Sorry it took so long. Honestly, I had a lot of fun with this and it ended up being so long, that I’m gonna post it in 2 parts!!

You can totally read either as a stand alone though. Part 2 should be up soon :)

Suna and I have the same birthday, so I actually kinda put a lot of myself into him in this one since we share a star sign lmao. I hope it’s not too ooc for either of them. It’s my first time writing sunaosa!

Sick at School: a SunaOsa fic

Pair: Sick Suna, Caretaker Osamu

Word Count: 3,024

Warnings: vomit & swearing & soft cuddles

Part 2 Here

_________________________________

Suna was confused.

There was a strange gnawing in his gut that wasn’t there when he woke up this morning. In fact, when he woke up this morning, he felt perfectly fine. Maybe he was a little more tired than usual, but he didn’t sleep all that well, so he brushed it off and got ready for school.

But now, he was sitting in class, his eyes burning as he tried to stay awake. It was only Monday and only the second class of the day, but he felt like he’d been at school for days already. On top of the grumbly feeling in his stomach, his brain was muddled, so paying attention to whatever his teacher was saying was taking every bit of energy he could scrounge up.

It didn’t make sense. He slept his eight hours (even if it wasn’t the best sleep), he ate a good breakfast, he was hydrated, there weren’t any tests or games coming up to make him anxious at all. So the unsteady, uncomfortable, unusual feelings he currently felt simply did not make a single bit of logical, rational sense.

And because they didn’t make sense—because there was no rational reason for him to feel that way—he ignored it.

Ignoring it proved to be more difficult than he anticipated as the fog in his brain solidified into a consistent pounding and the gnawing in his stomach started to feel more like his stomach acid was boiling. The sun shining on him through the window didn’t help any, and he started to feel rather warm. By his fourth class, occasional cramps rolled through his body, forcing him to tense every muscle in his body to keep from wincing.

When the teacher finally released them for lunch, Suna folded his arms on his desk and hid his face in the crook of his elbow, ready to take a nap. Within three seconds, he heard the chair in front of him scrape the ground, grating on his ears, and felt his desk shake as someone sat down. He adjusted his head and peeked over his arm to find Osamu staring down at him, his usual bored look gracing his features.

“Yer sick, Sunarin,” he deadpanned and took a bite of his sandwich. Suna blinked at him several times.

Sick? Was that why he felt so weird? But he wasn’t sick this morning. There was no way he would have come to school if he felt bad.

Still, it would explain why he slept poorly. It must be a fast acting bug.

“I guess so,” he mumbled and buried his face in his elbow again.

“Hmmm,” Osamu mumbled. They were quiet for a minute or two before Osamu spoke again.

“Wanna go to the infirmary?” he asked, his mouth full.

Suna looked up at him again and sighed before sitting up. The world spun around for a brief second and he closed his eyes until the feeling went away. When it righted itself once more, his stomach was hurting worse than before.

“How’d you know anyway?” he asked and rested his chin in his hand.

“You’ve been lookin’ bad all mornin’. Wasn’t hard to tell.” Osamu shrugged. His sandwich was gone and he started making his way through the onigiri he most likely made himself. The fact that Osamu could tell he wasn’t feeling well from across the room made Suna blush. Or maybe he had a fever?

“Plus,” Osamu continued, “Tsumu’s home right now with a pretty nasty stomach bug. Threw up all over his bed last night.” He scrunched up his nose cutely, probably remembering the disastrous scene from the night before. Atsumu was never good at being a sick person. Or an injured person. Or a person at all, really.

“Wouldn’t be all that surprising if ya caught it from him since ya slept over at our place last weekend.”

Suna nodded in agreement.

“What about you?” he asked. Osamu shrugged again.

“I’ll probably be spewin’ my guts out by Thursday. Usually how it goes. One of us catches something then the other is sick within the week. We’ve only been sick at the same time a handful o’ times.”

“Mmmm,” Suna nodded and put his head down once more. It was suddenly very difficult to hold his head up.

“Infirmary?” Osamu asked again. Suna shook his head.

“Can’t move,” he whined before he could stop himself. Osamu looked at him with wide eyes.

“W-well, I’ll help ya out, dumbass,” he stuttered and Suna returned the wide eyed look.

“Uh, sure. But finish your lunch first. I can wait. You should eat. Wake me up when you’re done,” he said and closed his eyes.

“Alright. Lemme know if we need to go sooner though…” Osamu said hesitantly and Suna tried to ignore the implication behind the phrase.

Just because Atsumu had a stomach bug didn’t mean that Suna did too. He wouldn’t throw up at school. The increasing nausea absolutely had to be related to the growing migraine that slammed away at his head. He definitely would not throw up at school.

Before he started overthinking himself into a downward spiral, Osamu placed a hand in his hair. Suna was tense at first, but then Osamu started gently scratching his scalp and he immediately relaxed. He was a little embarrassed, honestly. Not because this was unusual though.

Osamu knew it helped Suna with his frequent headaches, so Suna was sure he somehow knew about the incoming migraine. It was just that this was usually something Osamu did for him in much more private settings. He’d do it on the bus on the way back from away games, or in one of their rooms after school or during a sleepover. To be so affectionate in the middle of their classroom was unheard of and if Suna wasn’t feeling so poorly, he’d probably smack Osamu’s hand away.

“Ya got a slight fever there, Sunarin,” Osamu whispered gently.

“Mmmm.”

“Okay. I’ll let ya know when I’m done eatin’.”

“Mmmm.”

Within a few seconds, Suna felt himself drift off.

When he woke up again, it wasn’t because of Osamu.

A violent cramp rolled through his gut and he shot up in his seat, ignoring the startled looks of his classmates. The cramp passed quickly, but left behind a foreboding feeling of nausea so intense it left him paralyzed and glued to his seat.

A second later, he noticed that Osamu was nowhere to be found and his anxiety increased. The situation was becoming increasingly urgent and there was no way in hell he could move or speak without throwing up all over his desk.

His chest tightened and he swallowed back a gag. He needed help. He needed Osamu.

“Suna-kun?” a girl from his class touched his shoulder and he flinched. She withdrew her hand.

“O-osamu—“ he forced out and she nodded urgently and ran away and out the door. Less than a minute later, she came back, Osamu hot on her heels. She pointed to Suna and Osamu nodded before rushing over and stood in front of him.

“Sunarin?” he tried and Suna shook his head.

“Are ya gonna—“ Suna nodded before Osamu could finish his question. The eyes of all of his classmates burned Suna’s already flushed cheeks and as if to let everyone know what was going on, a gag forced itself through his body painfully and he leaned over his desk. He brought the back of his hand up to his mouth and whimpered.

“Can someone bring me a trash can, maybe?” Osamu snapped at their peers. The girl from before nodded and dashed to the corner of the room and dragged the trash can over to Suna’s desk.

Everyone froze again and stared with scared eyes at the situation unfolding. Suna shook with effort, trying to stop the inevitable. He really really didn’t want everyone to watch him throw up.

Thankfully, Osamu had his back.

“Leave?!” He shouted and everyone ran out of the room.

“I’ll bring the nurse, Osamu-kun,” the same girl said and Osamu nodded, but his eyes were focused only on Suna. They’d have to remember to thank that girl later.

“I’m sorry, Rintaro. I finished my lunch and you were sleepin’ so peaceful I thought I had time to go to the bathroom before I took ya to the infirmary,” Osamu apologized and cupped Suna’s face in his hands. His voice was much softer than a second ago. It was the voice reserved for those quiet nights that they spent chatting before they fell asleep. Or on the team bus early in the morning when everyone else was still too groggy to pay attention to them. And it comforted Suna in ways he couldn’t comprehend.

“I feel sick, S-samu,” Suna forced through gritted teeth. The swirling in his stomach grew more insistent by the second and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was leaning over the trash can.

“I know, Rin. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’ve got ya,” Osamu smiled softly at him and brushed his hair back. He frowned when Suna unconsciously leaned into his cold hands.

“Fever got higher,” he mumbled. Suna gagged again.

“Alright, c‘mon,” he said and circled around the desk behind Suna. Osamu gently grabbed his trembling shoulders and positioned him over the trash can. People’s leftovers from lunch filled about half the bin and the smell of all the different foods made Suna dizzy.

“Rin, ya gotta relax,” Osamu sighed and forcefully rubbed between Suna’s shoulder blades.

“N-no,” Suna said stubbornly.

“Yer an idiot.”

“Y-yeah.”

“It’s gonna feel worse if ya don’t just let it happen,” Osamu tried. Suna shook his head.

“Alright well, be mad at me later, then,” Osamu muttered. Suna was about to turn and look at him questioningly, but Osamu wrapped a hand around Suna’s front and placed it on his stomach. Even the minimal contact forced a wretch that left Suna reeling.

“D-don’t,” he tried, but the request was punctuated by a painful hiccup.

“I’m sorry. Can’t do that,” Osamu responded before starting to rub up and down on Suna’s stomach quickly. The motion shook the contents nauseatingly and Suna couldn’t stop the watery burp that followed. He shook his head, eyes squeezed shut tightly.

Osamu didn’t relent. He started patting Suna’s back with the other hand, forcing belch after belch. The conflicting motions wreaked havoc on Suna’s already chaotic stomach.

They stayed like that for what felt like forever, before Suna grabbed Osamau’s wrist tightly.

“S-stop—hurrk. P-please, Samu. No m-mor—hic,” Suna begged. All of his limbs felt like they were about a thousand pounds and he shivered, cold despite the sun beating down on his back.

“It’s okay, Rin. I got ya,” Osamu muttered. He pried Suna’s sweaty hand off his wrist and replaced it with his hand. Suna squeezed hard when a wet belch jolted his body. His other hand grabbed the rim of the trash can in a white-knuckled grip. Osamu used his free hand to rub gently between Suna’s shoulder blades again.

Suna squeezed his eyes shut when he wretched. His throat felt tight and he tried to swallow the accumulating saliva in his mouth, only for it to come back up with a noisy gag. He opted to just drop his mouth open and let the spit fall into the trash can disgustingly.

“S-Samu—“ he tried but was interrupted by a guttural, wet, burp that left his head spinning. Two seconds later, he wretched and a weak stream vomit dribbled out of his mouth. It burned his throat and coated his mouth. The disgusting taste left him more nauseous than he thought possible and a belch gurgled in the back of his throat. He heaved, but nothing else came up.

“Ah, Rin, I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry,” Osamu shushed him. Suna didn’t even realize he was crying.

He continued heaving for what must have been an eternity before another painful gag jolted him forward and brought with it a torrent of pale vomit into the trash can. At least he didn’t have to see everyone’s discarded lunch anymore. Not that his new view was much prettier.

“There ya, go Sunarin,” Osamu soothed. Suna sputtered and coughed, trying to catch his breath. His body was relentless though, and before he felt like he had sufficient oxygen, he was lurching forward with more forceful vomit pouring out of his mouth.

Suna’s body didn’t let up. It was stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of gasping breaths abruptly interrupted by a fountain of vomit forcing its way out. Eventually, he was just left heaving over the trash can, his stomach trying but failing to expel whatever might be left. Anxiety crawled up his spine and the room spun. He wanted to breathe, he really did. He just couldn’t.

“Fuck, Rin, breathe. Please,” Osamu demanded and his voice shattered through Suna’s panic. He nodded and closed his eyes to try and collect himself. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled heavily through his mouth. A minute or two of that, and he was able to take in his surroundings again.

At some point, Osamu wrapped an arm around Suna’s chest because apparently, his own arms gave out at some point and hung limply at his sides. He spit the residual nastiness out of his mouth and squinted up at Osamu.

“Can we leave?” he asked plainly. Osamu stared at him owlishly and then chuckled.

“It’s the middle of the day Rin, I can’t just—“

“Please?” he all but begged and grabbed Osamu’s arm. Osamu hesitated for the briefest of seconds before relenting with a heavy breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘course. Want me to call yer mom?” Osamu responded. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped off Suna’s face. Suna shook his head.

“Is it too much to ask if I can stay with you? I don’t want to risk giving this to my little sister and grandma.” His voice was quieter than he wanted, but he was wiped out. He cleared his throat and spit in the trash can. He was fading fast. All he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep whatever bug this was off.

“Yeah okay. I’ll ask my Ma. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue since Tsumu’s sick too.” Osamu pulled out his phone and massaged Suna’s scalp. It felt so good that he leaned over and buried his face in Osamu’s stomach. If he wasn’t careful, he’d fall asleep here. Hopefully Osamu’s mom would be okay with it and come quickly.

“Ma, can you come pick me and— no I’m not sick— well, if you’d just let me talk ya crazy—Ma I do have a good reason to be call— would ya stop talkin—yer damn right I’m being disrespectfu—Ma!” As Osamu argued with his mother over the phone (it was nothing new) Suna took inventory of his body.

There was no denying he was sick. That much was obvious. His head was pounding and his stomach still rolled and swirled uncomfortably. Shivers danced up and down his body, exacerbated by the sweat that coated his skin. He was sure that he had a fever. All of his limbs weighed him down and he didn’t think he had any sort of energy to move them. It was taking all he had to stay awake right now.

“Osamu-san!” The girl from before returned, the school nurse right behind her.

“Suna Rintaro, you poor boy. Caught that bug going around, I see,” he heard the nurse and pulled his face away from Osamu’s body. Blinking a few times to clear his blurry vision, he sniffed and stared at the old lady in front of him.

She stuck a thermometer in his mouth without saying a word and pulled a water bottle out from her coat pocket. While they were waiting for his temperature, Suna glanced at Osamu, who was now leaning against the desk behind Suna’s. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, his other still holding the phone to his ear as he continued listening to his mother rant.

Without thinking, Suna reached over and grabbed a hold of Samu’s shirt with one hand. Osamu looked down in surprise before his face softened and he put a hand on Suna’s shoulder.

The thermometer beeped and Suna winced.

“38.7,” the nurse read and pursed her lips. She pulled out some medicine from her lab coat and gave some to Suna. He grimaced. Even in his hazy state, he knew putting something in his stomach wouldn’t go over well.

“Suna-kun, you need to get that fever of your’s down. I know it’s not ideal, but please try.” Suna turned his head away. She sighed.

“Okay, but make sure you take something at home. Does someone need to call your mother?” Before Suna could answer, Osamu interrupted.

“I’ll take him ma’am,” he said, apparently off the phone with his mother.

“Osamu-kun, don’t you be thinking you can just skip out on school,” she warned.

“I would never,” Osamu charmed, “I think it’s the smartest move, ya see. Atsumu is at home with the same illness right now and so there’s no way I ain’t carrying the germs for it. Wouldn’t it be safest if I go home too? Before I infect anyone else. And I can take Sunarin with me.”

The nurse gave him a skeptical look, but then glanced over at Suna. She noticed his grip on Osamu’s shirt and the former’s hand firmly on Suna’s back. It must’ve made Suna look pretty pathetic because she relented almost immediately.

“Oh fine, fine. Does someone need to call your mom?”

“No, ma’am. Just got off the phone with her. She’ll be here soon. Said she’s got no problem taking Sunarin in ‘til he’s all better.” He squeezed Suna’s shoulder and Suna relaxed knowing he wasn’t at risk of infecting his little sister or aging grandmother. He sighed and smiled gratefully at Osamu.

It was comforting to know that Osamu was going to be looking after him. Because, if the swirling in his stomach told him anything, he was in for a really long night.

#my fic #haikyuu sickfic #sick suna #caretaker Osamu #tw vomit

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oimoi-op · 3 years

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when were you diagnosed with t1d?

Ok, so storytime! Short answer is, as of today, barely over two months ago.

(Very long post warning y’all, contains hospital mention and extensive, possibly upsetting descriptions of health conditions, specifically DKA)

My family doesn’t really have a history of T1D or even T2D, though my second-cousin-once-removed has had T1D for over a decade now. So, there was never any reason for me to try and get tests done for it. The only sign I really had up until last semester was two copies of a variant of an HLA gene that I knew about from a 23andMe report (which, according to the report, put me at a higher risk for celiac’s and nothing else), but of course at that time I had no idea that that could mean anything serious; after all, that sort of thing only happens to other people, right?

My college started in-person classes in the latter half of August. By October, I started feeling tired, having a lack of appetite, and needing water very, very badly. I actually went to my school’s clinic, and my erratic heartbeat prompted the doctor to recommend me for a Covid-19 test. My school’s protocols meant that I had to quarantine at my home (since I live within two hours of campus) until I got a negative test result. At home, I was drinking water all the time and sleeping constantly, and my parents had commented on how I’d been losing weight. I thought these were all good things. I had been slightly overweight at my high school graduation, and I’d always heard that drinking a lot of water is good for you, so I thought I was actually in excellent health even if I kind of felt like shit most of the time.

Well. Uh. I was wrong.

When finals came around in mid-November, I was just fucking tired. I’d get a decent eight hours of sleep and still have to take naps during the day. Hell, I was even late for work because I slept through one of my nap alarms. Studying was a pain in the ass. Attending classes was a pain in the ass. Staying awake for Zoom classes was a pain in the ass. I was waking up at 5 am to go to the bathroom, and then I would drink the rest of my water, refill it, drink half of it again, and then go back to sleep. Finally, November 20th rolled around, and I got to leave campus. It was my birthday (yeah I am a Scorpio and that weirds all of my friends out lol), and my parents took me to Fusion. And I just...couldn’t eat at all? I love hibachi, but I couldn’t even eat half of my food. The chef even got me a delicious banana split that I had to basically bully my younger sister into eating with me.

For the next week, I was sleeping about 18 hours a day. I didn’t think this was weird because I’d just had finals so yeah, it makes sense that I would be tired after exams and whatnot. I went shopping with my mom, sister, and sister’s bff. We were only out for a few hours, but I was fucking wiped out y’all, like in pain. Thanksgiving arrived, and again, I love food, I love eating, but I was not hungry in the slightest. I basically had to force myself to eat some of my favorite holiday foods just so I wouldn’t offend my mom, and then I didn’t eat for the day.

The very next morning, I was puking my guts out.

This started a pattern for the next few days: I would eat chicken noodle soup or some other food, sleep like the dead, and throw up every morning and every night. I started chugging large bottles of Gatorade constantly (which, if you know about diabetes and its health complications, did not help my situation in the slightest). I started breathing erratically after very little exertion. Like, I’m talking standing up and stretching brought about heavy, labored breathing. I weighed myself on my parents’ scale, and I was under 130 lbs. Now, for some people this might seem like a lot, but due to my height and build I could fucking see some of my ribs. That was when I started to realize that something was very, very wrong, but “losing weight is good” and I didn’t want my parents to laugh at me for voicing concerns (though, for all their faults, in hindsight, I doubt they would’ve). Yeah. Don’t do that, folks, that’s not a good mindset to have.

On Sunday, my mom took me to town to get tested for Covid. This was despite me saying that I didn’t have symptoms (which I knew very well due to some of my friends catching it at school). Rapid test came back negative, so I did a culture test. Hell, while I was sitting in the damn chair, I was about to pass out. I asked for a nausea pill but my mouth was too dry for it to dissolve. I got a cup of water, downed it all, and felt like my throat was on fire. For the rest of the day I felt so, so awful. At some point I was walking toward my bed in my room and I fucking fell. I’m fucking lucky there was carpet.

Regarding the rest of that night, things start to get blurry, for the lack of a better term. I legitimately cannot recall everything that happened that night or the following two days, so I will just try to explain it in the way I remember it best.

Around...midnight or one??? I was on fucking fire, so I went to my bathroom and decided to lie on the floor. The floor was hardwood and not at all cold, and it wasn’t fucking comfortable even in that state, but I was just in so much pain I didn’t even care. My mom must’ve heard because she found me there and asked me what I was doing. I said something about the floor. She asked me to go back to bed, but I must’ve scared her because she asked me if I wanted her to lie in the bed with me. I don’t remember what I said to her, but we were in the bed and she was trying to hug me, but she was too warm and so I told her to stop. I kept feeling this burning just below my chest, like there was acid in me (which I guess wasn’t too far off), so I would randomly sit up to try and alleviate the pain and not cry. I remember asking my mom to take me to the hospital in the morning.

My mom put me in the truck (I think around 5 am is what she told me). I remembered hearing my dad. I was lying down. Then I was awake, but I was on the floor. I thought this was wrong so I tried to tell my mom that but I guess I couldn’t talk. Then I was in a hospital bed, the ER I assume. My mom gave me some water with a sponge, and I was just so fucking thirsty. Then I was in the ICU hooked up to a bunch of machines. I didn’t know what was going on, but my mom kept giving me water with that sponge. That is all I remember from Monday.

I remember a little bit more from Tuesday. My mom said something about diabetes, but that didn’t make any sense to me because I wasn’t “fat” and I’d been losing weight, even! What had I done to get diabetes? I was thirsty and tired, so I slept a lot. At some point I really needed to use the restroom so I unhooked my IV???? (I mean I must’ve disconnected myself somehow but I can’t remember the details) which set off a shit ton of alarms and people were Very Concerned and kept asking me Why Did You Do That? But I just needed to go to the restroom, and they told me to use the Red Button to Call the Nurse (it was already there, and I now realize that we’d probably had a similar conversation about the Red Button to Call the Nurse possibly multiple times before this) in the future. A Chopped Teen Tournament from 2017 was playing on the TV nonstop. There were commercials for CGMs. I thought that God wasn’t being very funny about the whole thing.

As of now I remember even less of Wednesday, but I know that felt better. There was this diabetes specialist who kept talking about insulin and life at college moving forward, but I wasn’t really there, either because of being so out of it for health reasons, disassociating, or a combination of the two. My mom told me she had emailed a professor so he would give me an extension on an assignment that was due by then, and I remember crying because I thought that was just so nice of him. That night, this guy got me in a wheelchair and put me in another room, which I would later learn was the ACU. My night nurse was this nice woman named Tanya, who had a very thick Eastern European accent. She got me orange juice to take some potassium pills, but it felt like swallowing rocks. I didn’t really get a lot of sleep, so I was awake when the nurses changed shifts. I remember one of them expressing surprise that I was out of the ICU so early.

My mom took longer to come that day because nobody had told her I’d been moved. I’d had plain Cheerios and orange juice for breakfast, but I couldn’t really eat because my throat hurt so badly. I talked to a lot of doctors. I guess at this point or somewhere near it I accepted that I had diabetes, but it wasn’t really real until the same diabetes specialist was going over carbs. I thought I was never going to eat shit I liked ever again. I really wanted a fucking McChicken sandwich. I signed some papers for Medicaid because I had aged out of the CHIP while in the hospital. I finally texted my friends and explained to them what had happened. I was so fucking tired.

I got out the next day, so that was Thursday. Normally, I would’ve been in the hospital much longer (especially because my Medicaid hadn’t been approved, meaning no insurance had approved of my insulin yet), but Covid cases were on the rise and the hospital wanted me out of there. The diabetes specialist and one of my nurses snuck me two fast-acting and two basal insulin pens, and I was out. I ate half a McChicken, a small fry, and drank my first Diet Coke. It tasted like diesel mixed with piss.

That’s the gist of it. The hospital staff was very nice and thoughtful the entire time, I think. I felt as though everyone involved cared about my health a lot.

For those of you who aren’t T1D or just don’t know, what I experienced is called DKA, short for diabetic ketoacidosis. To simplify, I was very close to entering a diabetic coma. My sister later told me that our dad had said (I assume a doctor had told my mother, who, in turn, had told him) that I was “approximately 45 minutes” away from death. DKA happens when a diabetic (usually a T1D like me) has too much blood sugar in their body due to them lacking the insulin necessary to break the sugar down, so their body breaks down their fat reserves and muscle to get the energy it needs. This is why I lost around 50 pounds over the course of a few months (I was 118 lbs. when I entered the hospital, the lowest I’ve been since grade school). I was officially diagnosed with T1D on November 30th, just ten days after my 19th birthday, which is a little older than normal I believe. It’s...well, it’s not fun, but I feel very grateful for my large support system, and tomorrow I’m trying out a CGM for the first time and applying for both it and a pump, so things are really looking up

#personal #iamapincushion #t1d #type one diabetes #type one diabetic #dka #diabetic ketoacidosis #tw hospital #tw dka #i don't think you meant me for to respond with such a long answer #but #well #it's something i've been wanting to post for a while now and this seemed like a good opportunity

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eulalia-heart · 4 years

Text

My Trip to the ER

In October, I had to go to the ER because I was having trouble breathing and had a low oxygen saturation level. I wanted to share this story with all of you because I feel you will understand in a way that those in my real life do not.

The Days Before:

It all started because I caught a cold or some other respiratory illness that the doctors never quite identified. On Thursday, I started to develop a cough. On Friday I woke up slightly sick and coughing but went to work anyway. My task that day was watering, like it is every Friday, which is a cumbersome task on a good day due to the number of plants and their sporadic locations across multiple gardens. Watering them involved dragging heavy, leaky hoses across long distances and loading and unloading an off-road utility vehicle with gallons of water which I than had to carry to trees planted far away from the paths. It is impossible to do this without getting wet, which was fine in the summer, but this was a cold and windy autumn day.

After doing this for only an hour I started to feel winded and weak. I could feel and hear my lungs wheezing. It felt like my lungs could no longer fully expand. I went to my locker and grabbed my albuterol inhaler and quickly administered it, which made me cough hard. I could feel my lungs be able to expand more and my wheezing subside but did not completely diminish. My heart rate increased slightly from the medicine. I continued working. As the day went on, I could feel myself getting weaker. Whenever I would lift heavy jugs of water, I would get winded and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, but it did not feel normal. My heartbeats felt frantic, fast, and forceful. Like my heart was trying to compensate for my lungs failing. About every half hour I would start to wheeze again and be forced to use my inhaler. Each time I used my inhaler it felt less effective, it could no longer stop me from wheezing or open my lungs any further. I continued until I finished watering, which took four hours.

At this point I felt weak, was wheezing, dizzy, soaking wet, shivering from the cold and had slight tremors from all of the albuterol I have been inhaling. I decide to just go home instead of taking lunch. My body was feeling just too weak to continue working. I grabbed some soup to eat on the way home, it did not make me feel any better. I took a shower and it helps warm me up but it did nothing to open up my lungs. I used my inhaler again and fell asleep on my couch.

Saturday morning, I woke up still sick and weak. I don’t think I really did anything at all the entire day but cough, wheeze and just try to breathe. I remember trying to play video games, but I couldn’t. For some reason, my controller felt astonishingly heavy and my arms felt really weak and shaky. Even watching videos seemed impossibly hard, I couldn’t focus, my mind was too foggy. At this point I really should have called the doctor or gone to the ER. But for some reason I didn’t even think to do that. I don’t think I really thought of anything at all. Just thinking was too tiring. I laid there all day just getting weaker. I was coughing and wheezing but since I was laying down, I never really thought to use my inhaler other than a few times in the morning.

By Saturday evening, I realized I couldn’t breathe at all when I laid down. It was as if when I laid down my lungs closed, and I would just be left gasping and coughing. No matter how many times I used my inhaler I was unable to breathe laying down. I was coughing constantly. With every breath I took I was wheezing loudly, it felt like my lungs were almost rattling when I breathed.

At this point even though my breathing was significantly worse than it was earlier I was much more alert. I could feel my heart beating fast with adrenaline, trying to keep me alert and compensate for my lungs. I felt scared and was mad at myself for not calling the doctor in the morning. There was no way I was going to be able to just go to sleep. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to wait until Monday morning to go to the doctors. I decided that if I just propped myself up with pillows and kept my inhaler in my hand, I would be okay. It eventually got to the point that I was using my inhaler every half hour again. But this time I needed it just to breathe at all. Once the medicine would start to wear off, I was gasping for air. I started to have immense trouble walking. I could feel my heart beating fast to compensate for my lungs. My head was throbbing with pain. I had several close calls where I had drifted to sleep and woke up gasping and coughing, needing to use my inhaler immediately. I decided I just needed to make it through the night and that in the morning I would go to Urgent Care.

Sunday morning eventually arrived, and I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see daybreak. I got dressed and went to Urgent Care. When I got there and told the nurse about how my night had gone, she yelled at me for coming to Urgent Care and not to the ER. I don’t remember what my vitals were, at the time I didn’t know how to read the oxygen levels on a pulse oximeter, so the number didn’t really mean anything to me. I do remember she seemed very concerned and was surprised I was able to even walk into the Urgent Care. I was taken to the back and they did an x-ray of my chest. They said my lungs were clear and I didn’t have pneumonia. They gave me an oral steroid and a nebulizer treatment which made me feel a bit better. But my oxygen level did not improve in any meaningful way and she told me to go to the ER immediately. I ended up having some difficulty getting to the ER but eventually got there two hours later

In the ER:

Once I got to the ER the nurse at the front took my vitals and admitted me. She asked me if I needed a wheelchair and I declined. The walk from the entrance to a bed felt excruciatingly long. I started to feel dizzy again and my heart pounded in my chest. When I made it to the bed, I crawled into it exhausted. They gave me a hospital gown and asked me to change into it which I did. A doctor came in and asked me how I was feeling and if she could have a listen to my lungs. She placed her stethoscope on my back which was exposed by my hospital gown and told me to take deep breaths. I tried to breath as deeply as I could. While breathing I could feel and hear myself wheeze loudly. She listened to multiple locations on my back while I took deep breaths and then moved the stethoscope to the front of my chest above my left breast. I could feel my heart beating forcefully against her stethoscope, I think her listening made my heartbeat even faster. She told me I was wheezing and that she was going to give me a blood test and more lung treatments.

A nurse came in and put an IV into my arm and took a blood sample. She also hooked me up to the EKG next to my bed, gently sliding her hand under my gown and placing the pads on my chest. She placed a meter on my left pointer finger to monitor my oxygen levels and turned on the machine. I was memorized watching it, my heart appeared steady but fast. Later another nurse came in and gave me steroids directly into my IV. She also gave me a nebulizer treatment through a respiratory face mask which she helped attach to my face. I took deep breaths letting the medicine fill my lungs for about ten minutes. I could feel my lungs open up more, I could expand my lungs further before wheezing. As my lungs began to relax my heart rate began to increase rapidly. I could feel it pound against my chest and shake my entire body.

The doctor decided to give me another nebulizer treatment because my oxygen saturation level had improved but was still low. I took deep relaxing breaths filling my lungs with the medicine. With each breath I could feel my heart beating faster and more forcefully. It was an unusual experience to be taking deep breaths, trying to relax my frantic heart but for my heart to just beat even more furiously. I felt slightly betrayed by my own heart, it would not slow down no matter how hard I tried to calm it. The medicine also gave me pronounced tremors throughout my entire body but especially in my hands. It was like I was shivering even though I was not cold.

The nebulizer treatment got my oxygen saturation level up to 80 and my heart rate to over 200 bpm. I remember these numbers because they stayed constant for three hours.

For hours I could feel and think about nothing but my heart. I could feel the blood moving throughout my entire body with immense force. It was like I could now feel the pulse in every capillary in my hand and every organ in my body. The pulse was extremely strong in my eyes, I could feel the blood moving through them and shake from the force. At one point it was so bad that when I could feel the blood rushing through my eyeball, my sight would go white and I could see nothing. I now realize my blood pressure must have been extremely high for it to be affecting my eyes in that way.

My entire body was literally rocking with every beat of my heart, when I would sit cross-legged on the bed, I could feel my torse moving back and forth from the force of it pumping. I could see my left breast bouncing up and down with my heartbeat. I desperately wanted someone to place there hand firmly on my chest so they could feel my heart pounding. I wanted someone else to acknowledge how hard my heart was working, someone to appreciate it. No one did. Occasionally a nurse would come in look at my EKG and take note.

About an hour after the last one they gave me another nebulizer treatment. This treatment did nothing to help my oxygen saturation level, it remained at 80. I kept getting mixed messages on whether 80 was a good number or not depending on what nurse I asked. After doing some research I now know your oxygen saturation level should be around 100 (mine is normally 98). Anything below 90 is considered low. However, I think 80 was good enough for me to no longer be in the ER.

After the ER:

I ended up being admitted to the hospital for observation for two nights. I continued to be given nebulizer treatments and steroids through my IV but at a lower level than in the ER. When I was discharged, I was still wheezing but only from my left lung. And my tremors had become significant. I could no longer drink out of a glass of water without my hands shaking so much that I spilled it everywhere. I could still feel the blood rushing through my body but not as strongly. My voice was hoarse, and I couldn’t talk for long periods of time. After a week of rest and slowly coming off the medicine I recovered.

TLDR:

The drugs made my heart wild. If you can’t breathe please go to the hospital.

#heartbeat story #cardiophile #eulaliaheart

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mrs--wheels · 3 years

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I made a human.

Yes, I made a human. I gave birth to a baby boy! Here’s my birth story: On Wednesday July 14th I went for my routine 36 week OB-Gyn checkup. At that visit they did a sonogram and everything looked normal, baby was in the 46th percentile for size. The Dr. checked my cervix and I was 2 cm dilated already. My blood pressure was high, which it had been for 6 weeks, but I did not have preeclampsia (yet - I was borderline.) The Dr. took me off work and said if I did not deliver by next week Thursday July 22 I would need to be induced. My blood pressure was causing really bad swelling everywhere in my body, but especially my calves, ankles, feet and wrists. I weighed 251 lbs at the checkup, about 55 lbs heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight. So I went into work with my disability form all filled out and basically peaced out, said goodbye to a few of my coworkers and my boss, and I ain’t lookin’ back. I went home, much to my husband’s surprise (he was working from home that day.) I’d like to say I enjoyed the last week of my pregnancy but that’s not entirely true. I was in terrible discomfort, especially my pelvis: I was having bad pelvic pain & pressure, so bad I could barely walk. The night of Monday July 19th I could hardly walk up the stairs to my bed, it hurt so bad. I did have surprisingly restful night’s sleep that night, which was good because of what was to come... At 5 am on Tuesday July 20th, I rolled over in bed and felt a wetness. Unsure if I peed myself or if my water broke, I went into the bathroom. Clear fluid was running down my legs, and it didn’t smell like pee. The puddle on my sheets didn’t either. I called the OB-Gyn’s office from the bathroom. and the Dr. on call told me if contractions started on their own to head into the hospital. If they didn’t start on their own, head in anyway but wait until after 8:30, 9 am. So I took a shower, made some toast & a banana for breakfast, and unloaded the dishwasher. Around 6 am I had my first contractions, but they weren’t too strong and they were about 7 or 8 minutes apart. I woke up my husband and told him I thought my water broke, and I was having contractions. He leapt out of bed and into the shower. As I lay on the bed waiting for him, the contractions were coming closer together (4-5 minutes apart) and getting stronger. My husband got dressed and I called my mom. She said she’d meet us at the hospital and we grabbed the overnight bags and diaper bag and went straight to the hospital. My husband drove like a panicked maniac, and I was gritting my teeth in the passenger seat with every contraction. We got to the hospital and I refused to let my husband get me a wheelchair, I wanted to walk in on my own. I had a contraction in the parking lot and barely made it to the 2nd floor to Labor & Delivery. By now it was around 7:30 am. They took me into a triage room for a workup, I changed into a gown, and a nurse put the fetal heart monitor on me. I got to listen to that little galloping horse heartbeat, nice and strong. In came a Dr. and 2 students, they did a history on me and after a very uncomfy pelvic exam it was determined I was 8 cm dilated and fully effaced! (The student who first checked me said I was 4 cm... the actual Dr determined it was 8... kind of a big difference!) The contractions were pretty much on top of each other by now, only a minute apart. I was moved straight into the delivery room, without stopping in a labor room first. This was at around 9:30 am maybe? I got to 10 cm in less than than 2 hours, and ready to push. I didn’t even have a hospital bracelet or an IV, things were moving way too fast. The Dr. showed up fully gowned, and they got me on the table and ready to go. This was the first time my mom was able to see me, she’d been waiting over an hour, since I was expected to be in labor a lot longer! I was ready to push at just before 10 am and I was absolutely terrified, I was so not ready. I had a birth plan packed in my overnight bag. In it, I requested an epidural. I wanted pain meds, to be able to sleep and rest during labor... My husband brought his laptop, we had a bluetooth speaker ready to play music in the delivery room... All of this was shot right out the window. I was terrified of the prospect of pushing, terrified of the pain. I felt like I had to take a massive poop, and even screamed “I’m gonna poop!” in the delivery room. My mom and the Dr were like “Just do it! That’s the baby coming out!” I pushed maybe a dozen times? Twice for every contraction. I squeezed my husband’s hand and felt my mom’s hand on my forehead. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe and shaking like crazy. They told me not to scream, that I was wasting energy I needed to funnel into pushing - but, like, ok, it hurts! I was hurling 4-letter words (and I never swear around my mom,) and gripping onto the back of the pillow under my head (which didn’t help the poor nurse still trying to stick an IV in my arm - they blew a vein in my left hand and ended up putting the IV in my right wrist - normally I’m bad with needles but I was in so much pain I didn’t even care.) The fetal heart monitor wasn’t working anymore, because the baby was moving down the birth canal. The excess skin & fluid on my lower abdomen made it difficult to get a reading, so a nurse was literally pushing the monitor hard into my belly, while I was trying to push at the same time. Eventually they used an internal monitor, this thing that looks like a cattle prod that attached to the top of the baby’s head, under the scalp, through the cervix. Luckily I didn’t know that had happened until after he was born. After about 15 minutes of pushing, and my poor crying husband looking like he was about to pass out (he hates seeing me in pain.) I gave birth to a baby boy at 10:14 am. It’s the most bizarre feeling in the world: like I was a bottle of champagne and he was the cork. I could feel everything since I had no drugs, the baby’s head and shoulders popping out and the gush of fluids afterwards. I did need a few stitches, I had a second degree tear, but I never felt that or the placenta being delivered. The whole room was in a flurry, there was at least 1 dozen people there - the Dr, an instructor, several students, nurses and my mom & husband. I was the talk of labor & delivery that day: the first-timer who came in at 7:30 and had a baby less than 3 hours later. The baby was put right on my chest after he was born. I had my eyes closed pretty much the entire time I had been pushing, but I opened them when I felt that warm, wiggly little baby on me. He was absolutely beautiful, rosy pink and screaming. My husband said he was born with his eyes open, arms and legs flailing, and a very healthy set of lungs. He scored a 9 on his one-minute Apgar and a 9 on the 5-minute too: the highest score you can get! He weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz and was 20.25 inches long. My husband cut the cord (squeamishly) and my mom and him just gushed over this perfect little guy. I was exhausted but exhilarated, I felt triumphant! I had given birth with no drugs, all natural, and made it out to tell the tale. I had no idea my body was capable of that, but it knew more than I did.... We (me, my mom, and my husband) were able to stay in the delivery room for 2 hours after the baby’s birth. We finally agreed on a name (well, I proposed the name and wouldn’t take no for an answer - after all, who had just given birth anyways?) We decided on Owen Paul. Owen because I love the name and it means “warrior”, and Paul after my brother who passed away 19 years ago. It somehow fits him perfectly, he looks like an Owen. He’s got beautiful red-gold hair that swirls on his head, and dark blue eyes that I’m hoping stay that color. I was able to start nursing him right away (my nursing journey is a story for another time, though...) and we were all able to bond. It was a wonderful experience, and it is true what they say: you forget all the pain once you lay eyes on the little miracle. Maybe it’s the huge rush of hormones that causes this amnesia, but it really is true. I’d do it all over again!

I’ve lost nearly all the weight I gained during pregnancy, since it was pretty much all baby, placenta, amniotic fluid and the fluid that was blowing me up like a balloon. I’m not in any pain, even with the stitiches. I only took a few Tylenol the first couple of days, I guess I have a pretty high tolerance! I’m feeling good, all things considered, and healthy. It’s nice not to have that constant pelvic pain anymore. Owen is going to be 2 weeks old tomorrow, and it’s been a huge adjustment (an obvious understatement.) The days are long, but the years will be short - everyone tells me that. It’s frustrating, and miserable and so so so tiring. But they are only babies for such a short time, I plan on enjoying every minute of him! He’s the best thing I’ve ever made.

#tw: birth #tw: medical #my birth story #personal

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fuckingthefictional · 4 years

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Cross my heart- Part 15

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OFC, John Shelby (platonic) x OFC

Warnings: Talk of sexual assault, semi smut.

A/N: Enjoy a long ass chapter, that hasn’t been proofread and it probably crap!

Previous//Next

“What the fuck do you mean she was attacked?”

“John calm down.”

“No I will not fucking ‘calm down’!”

“John your shouting isn’t helping the situation at all.”

“But Pol-“

“Don’t ‘but Pol’ me John, that girl was attacked and nearly raped! Your shouting is not helping the situation one bloody bit.”

Eliza listened from her spot on the sofa, her body ached and her memories were still intense and raw from the previous night.

Her eyes felt heavy and she felt bleary. Eliza wanted nothing more than to sink into the cushions of the sofa and just disappear.

There was a great deal of pacing coming from the kitchen, which she assumed could only be John’s.

Eliza wished she could’ve told him in a normal way, like she did with all her troubles- over a glass of scotch. That he didn’t discover the events of the night before in such a horrible way.

Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest, her entire body felt as if it were in shackles. Like she had her hands tired- as if there was no escape from this dark backstreet

She could feel ever grope, every unwanted kiss, she could hear every single taint and harsh laughter.

She felt cold and exposed where her clothes had been forcibly removed and the fearful tremble in her body refused to go away.

It felt as if she was helpless, there was nothing she could do. Like she was watching herself be pushed around and assaulted in the most cruel ways from the outside.

And then he came, cigarette burning and the soft glow of the ashy embers as they were flicked off onto the mud caked floor.

The man who had a red right hand in his pocket and a peaky cap perched on his head and she could see the blades tucked away, still glinting occasionally in the soft glow of the nicotine filled stick.

At long last she felt her knees hit the floor, as she simultaneously heard begging and screams of pain. Her hands were stained in blood and the screams got louder and louder until they just...stopped.

“Liza?” A frantic voice was calling to her, she felt like she was being shaken, “Liza wake up!”

She woke with a start, shooting up and rocking back and forth. Eliza felt someone attempt to hold her, but after the previous night she attempted mercilessly to escape whoever was touching her. She thrashed and tried to break free, but they held on.

Eliza was sure she was crying now, her voice croaked and cracked as she attempted to cry out in some sort of attempt at being rescued.

A small part of Eliza’s mind knew she was safe, that nobody was trying to hurt her. In any other situation she would relax into the embrace and find comfort. But this- this was to much to handle.

“Let her go Johnny boy-“

“Tom what the fuck is going on?”

“I’ll explain in a minute- just go through to the kitchen, aye an’ I’ll sort this.”

“Yer out ‘yer mind if yer think I’m leaving her here with you.”

There was a small pause, before the sound of retreating footsteps were heard by Eliza.

“Liza, open yer eyes for me.”

She slowly cracked open an eyelid, almost afraid of what she might find. Her vision was blurred as she burst into floods of tears at the sight of Tommy kneeled besides her.

“I- I thought-“ Eliza tried to explain, but couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

“You are safe.” Tommy couldn’t express the words hard enough it seemed, his gaze pierced into Eliza. He continued on leaning closer to prove is point, “I will keep you safe, my family will make sure you’re safe- I never want ye’ to live in fear Liza.”

Eliza just nodded, tears soaking his shoulder as he gently combed through a few stray locks of her hair.

She could feel gentle lips brush her forehead, a huge contrast to the violating ones that she had been forced to receive the night before.

“I just need time.” Eliza tried to reassure herself, “the wound will heal with time.”

“An’ I’ll be with you every step of the way, I promise you that much.”

“Just don’t go breaking my heart along the way.”

“As long as you don’t hurt mine either.”

Life was a struggle to get back to normal for Eliza, she went back to work a few days after the bruises had healed up.

Routine practically kept her sane the following weeks after the incident.

She’d wake up at six in the morning, fix Harry his breakfast and then meet Tommy outside the Garrison for seven. He would then walk her to the schoolhouse and wait with Eliza in her classroom until the children started to line up outside- she’d teach for the day and then be picked up by Tommy or John (and occasionally Arthur) where they’d walk back to watery lane and Eliza would stay until it nine helping with homework and bedtime routines. After a long day she’d walk with the Peaky men back to the Garrison where she’d go on shift.

By the end of the day Eliza usually felt exhausted enough to close her eyes without fearing the makeshift movie full of her past memories.

Routine worked.

Until Tommy showed up at Eliza’s window on a Sunny Sunday. Sunday’s were the day that Eliza allowed her routine to include a lie in, so she could relax and recover before Monday came around.

But of course Tommy kept tapping on the glass panes of her window.

Eliza wanted to do nothing but turn over and stuff her head into her pillows- but she knew Tommy was incessant and would stop until she payed him attention.

So she rolled out of bed and unlatched the window, pushing it open slightly before making her way back to her bed and sliding under the warm covers.

“Liza?”

She grumbled in response.

“Ive got a surprise for you.”

“Is the surprise letting me sleep for another hour?” Eliza grumbled groggily, “because that would be appreciated.”

She could practically see his smirk in her mind, there was a small chuckle from behind and then Eliza felt the covers be ripped away from her body.

“Tommy!” She shot up, to see him stood above her with a smile on his face. Eliza liked seeing him happy.

“Get up, we’re goin’ out.”

Eliza sighed, “Fine.”

“Where are we going?”

They had been driving for what felt like hours, Tommy had driven them out of the city- and Eliza could admit that it felt good to get fresh air and not be inhaling the heavy black smoke.

Eliza felt free, like she was in the rolling fields that her childhood town in Ireland held.

Away from Birmingham she felt as if she could leave behind her problems, and focus on some of the finer details in life.

Like the dewy grass, or the way the wind brushed against her skin, or how Tommy’s hands would occasionally tap against the steering wheel, or how his eyes would light up more every time they passed a horse in a field.

Eventually Tommy parked at their supposed final destination, it wasn’t much- a field and paddock which held a few horses, and a stable with what appeared to be a riders hut attached to it.

“Where are we?” Eliza was lost in her own befuddlement.

“My stables.” He replied striking up a cigarette.

“But I thought you had a stable in Small Heath?”

“If you mean Uncle Charlie’s boat yard, then yes- but technically it’s not mine.” Tommy opened his side of the car door, before jogging round and opening Eliza’s side too, “Besides, I prefer it when the horses have a bit of fresh air- Small Heath don’t do their lungs any good.”

Eliza smiled at that comment. She’d gathered that Tommy had a soft spot for animals, especially horses.

“Let me rephrase my original question then.” Eliza giggled, “Why are we ‘ere?”

The young man stopped in his tracks, “To ride of course.” He began to walk besides her, linking there arms together, “Yer told me that you’d ride when you were in Ireland, growing up- that yer missed it.”

Her heart swelled at the fact that Tommy had remembered that conversation. Eliza found herself struggling to form proper sentences, so instead she just nodded in awe.

“Now come on pretty girl, the longer we talk ‘ere- the less ridin’ time we’ll have.”

Eliza raises a brow and smirked, she leaned in as their noses brushed slightly. She could’ve sworn she heard Tommy’s breath stop.

With a final breath she steadied herself, “Race you!” She screamed sprinting away as quickly as her skirts allowed her to.

Tommy looked dumbfounded for a second before he also took off running, chasing after her trying to reach the fence first.

It made him smile, seeing how childish and free Eliza could act.

Tommy was a damn good businessman- but if he knew one thing, it was that he was willing to follow Eliza to the end of the world.

When he was around Eliza, Grace was forgotten in his mind.

When Eliza was around, he felt a genuine happiness that he hadn’t felt since before the war.

“Hurry up old man!” Eliza called playfully from the top of the terrain, Tommy shook his head a laugh escaping his lips.

“I am not an old man, you cheeky little-“ he cut himself off, “I’m not even thirty yet!”

“Old.” She retorted back still laughing heartily.

“Liza you’re 3 years younger than me- you’re ‘old’ too.” Tommy bargained.

“Are you calling me old Mr Shelby?” Eliza teased

“Polly raised me to never call a lady old.” Tommy replied, it was true- he remembered when he called his teacher old and Polly came marching into the school and smacked him right around the head. It was clear that he hadn’t done it again.

He looked across to see Eliza gazing wistfully at the horses in the paddock.

“I’ve got the perfect horse for you to ride.”

Eliza turned to him, her interest clearly peaked, “A dappled grey mare.”

Tommy could see her eyes scan across the field, trying to find the horse he’d just mentioned. When she did, she gasped and began to walk over to the gate.

He followed behind her, watching as Eliza’s steps became more springy as she got more excited. Eliza’s laughter consumed the air as she reached her hand out to pat the horses nose.

Tommy hovered behind her, his breath lingered near her neck.

“You need a hand getting up?”

Eliza just nodded as he helped lift her body off of the floor, his calloused hands grazed her waist.

“Thanks.”

“No problem pretty girl.”

“Thank you for today Tommy- I’m thankful, really.”

Tommy stepped forward, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ears. They had ridden for a few hours and had just finished putting the horses back into the stables.

They were both mucky and had thin layers of sweat coating their skin.

“No issue at all Liza.”

“There must be a way I can repay you.” She was stood in front of him now, even closer than before.

“Well,” Tommy licked his lips, brushing against the younger woman’s face, “there is one thing you could do.”

Their gaze lingered on each other, before the tension became too much and they met in a hot searing kiss.

Tommy walked them back towards the support beams as he continued to kiss Eliza with as much passion as he could muster.

Eliza was tugging and grasping at his hair as their lips moved together in tandem.

“jump.” Tommy breathed as he braced her body against his as her hips clashed up against his groin.

It caused them both to moan with pleasure, as Eliza rolled her hips against his again and Tommy planted hot kisses across her chest.

They began to shed clothes as they navigated through the stables and to the pile of hay in the corner.

Curses and pants could be heard throughout the area.

However before it progressed Tommy had stopped, “Liza...are you sure you want this?” He felt like he was pushing her.

But Eliza just caressed the sides of his face, and sweetly pecked his lips with her own, “I need to feel like I’m back in control- there’s nobody else who could take care of me in this way, except for you Tommy.” She pressed their lips together again, “So for the love of God- fuck me already!”

TAGLIST:

@peachy-aisha @marvelschriss @eternallyvenus @captivatedbycillianmurphy @annabethgranger123 @shadow-of-wonder

#peaky fookin blinders #peakyblinders #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x oc #thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #cross my heart

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unpack-my-heart · 4 years

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EXIT

@tinyarmedtrex @xandertheundead @constantreaderfool @violetreddie @oldguybones @eds-trashmouth @moonlightrichie @toziesque

The noxious smell of formaldehyde and death hung in the air like smoke, but Richie, for the most part, didn’t smell it anymore. Perhaps in the morning, when he walked through the large blue double doors, ash on his tongue from the cigarette he’d abandoned on the wall outside, cherry slowly turning octopus-ink black, he’d smell it, and his nose would wrinkle automatically, but it never lasted. Soon enough, it would filter into his nose and sprout its tendrils, stoppering up all the tiny smell receptors, until Richie could never remember smelling anything but that very specific odour that he’d smelt for the first time fifteen years ago, and had been smelling ever since.

The linoleum floor squeaked under his shoes. He squeaked down the labyrinthine corridors, passing nurses and doctors and people who were here now but wouldn’t be here tomorrow, he squeaked into the lift, he squeaked down more corridors, and he squeaked into the third floor staff room. His locker was the first on the left, the one with the broken door and the broken shelf, but he continued to bundle his meagre belongings into it anyway. He’d do this even though he knew that when the clock struck eight he’d stumble in here, exhaustion clogging his veins like cotton wool, and he’d pull the door open, and his trainers would smack him on the forehead vengefully. The locker door protested loudly, a great metallic whine, and Richie shoved his bag inside before slamming it shut again.

It was a Thursday morning. The clock struck six fourteen minutes ago, which meant that Richie was sixteen minutes early for work, for no other reason than he’d simply been bored at home. He’d woken before his alarm, almost an hour before his alarm, and had laid in bed almost petulantly, desperately trying to throttle sleep out of the slumbering body of the night, but it hadn’t worked. He’d quickly tired of staring at the small cracks that tumbled over each other on his ceiling, vein-like, so he had hauled himself out of bed, feet landing on the threadbare carpet with a soft thud. Wednesday night had become Thursday morning whilst Richie was still awake, and still he had woken before the rest of the world had even entered REM, eyes yet to flicker jubilantly behind velvety eyelids.

Read the rest under the cut or on AO3 HERE

Richie wiggled his socked toes. The staff room was empty, save for three coats hanging, limp and lifeless, from the hooks that lined the wall. Change-over was in three minutes, when his manager would bustle into the room, eyebrows pre-emptively raised, the uniquely disappointed look that he only gave Richie. He was the arse-end of twenty, just over half Richie’s age, and yet, he was still able to turn Richie’s knees into the gelatinous chocolate pudding they serve in the cafeteria when his eyebrows shot up like startled caterpillars escaping a bird. The schedule tacked onto the flaky corkboard had his name written on every morning shift this week, Monday through to Friday and then Saturday and Sunday as an extra added ‘fuck you’ to Richie and his bustling, raucous social life that didn’t exist.

When Richie had taken this job, fifteen years ago to the day, it had been a temporary stop gap. “Something to pay the bills,” he’d told himself and anyone who’d listen to him. The lady doth protest too much, the cricket on his shoulder would whisper casually to him, as the first week became the first month became the first year became the fifth year became ten years later and here he is, fifteen years later, older, greyer, wiser but only in ways that don’t count. Fifteen years an orderly, fifteen years a fucking fool in grey-white scrubs. ‘Are you the doctor?’ people would ask, simpering and with reverence in their voices, humbled by the glow of the M.D.-halo hovering over Richie’s head, until Richie would point out that the light of the halo was just a dodgy lightbulb, and that he was, in fact, just the person they employed to push people around and clean up their piss. Then, the reverence would slide off their faces like butter, and all that would remain was apathy tinged with vague disgust.

The door burst open.

“Ah, Richard. Finally decided to join us, have you?”

“I was fifteen minutes early, Henry.”

“Patrick was thirty-five. Now, Mrs Jefferson’s knee hasn’t improved so she’ll need wheeling down to x-ray at nine, but before that you need to clean up …”

The rest of Henry’s impassioned speech, Julius Caesar to the deaf Roman Republic, dissolved into the stale air of the staffroom like sugar in water that Richie refused to drink. As quickly as he’d arrived, Henry was gone, leaving behind nothing but a list as long as Richie’s forearm that simply had to be completed before Richie was allowed to disappear into the staff cafeteria to snatch at some feigned respite and to pretend that the meatloaf was anything but inedible.

With thirteen and a half hours to go, Richie stepped out of the staff room, and walked down the corridor, regulation crocs slapping the floor with every step.

– X –

When the interviewer had asked Richie why he wanted to be a hospital orderly, the answer that had come tumbling out of his mouth was well-rehearsed and only half a lie. He’d told the very bored looking man in the ill-fitting suit that he wanted to help people, Sir, and that the job of a hospital orderly perfectly suited his innate skill at problem-solving and would allow him to work with people who needed the most help, something I believe is so valuable, Sir, especially in the current nihilistic political climate, Sir. The sweaty, uncaring man simply stared at Richie, rolled his eyes, and told Richie to show up at half six the next day, and not to bother showing up at all if he can’t deal with mopping up the piss and shit of elderly patients who can’t wipe their own asses. Richie had grinned, manic, wide, false.

Mr Reitzman’s eyes were still open, and, had this been the first time Richie had come face to face with death’s prickly hand, he might have been shocked. Still a naïve young man whose only experience of death was the death of his hamster when he was nine, the first time Richie saw a dead body the predominant emotion he’d felt was confusion. Hollywood death, the death that’s illuminated on the silver screen, is powder-perfect and serene, bodies lying on tables, eyes closed demurely against the bright white light of the mortician’s lab, skin still a flushed petal-pink, even though their blood lay still and coagulated in their veins. Real death, the sort of death that comes creeping up on real people before pouncing and slashing and clawing and biting is … cold. Cold, stiff bodies, arctic-cold rooms with stacks of beginning-to-bloat bodies that are swiftly turning a grizzly grey colour, eyes that stare, glassy and cold. Cold. Richie was cold, and Mr Reitzman was cold. Richie tugged his open sweater closed, zipping it shut with a flourish. Mr Reitzman continued to stare at the ceiling, stare past the ceiling, stare into the void. The void stared back at him, reflected in his blown pupils.

There’s a picture on the wall of the room. The hospital tries to keep the end-of-life rooms – the rooms where people are wheeled into in a wheelchair, blinking, and are wheeled out of on a gurney unblinking – as light and fresh as possible. The walls are a clinical white, the sort of white that displays blood and piss in gory, vivid technicolour, and the bedspread is white, and the floor is white and the curtains are white, like every other room, apart from in the end-of-life rooms, the light and fresh end-of-life rooms, there is a picture on the wall.

Richie wonders idly whether the picture of a dozen small sheep grazing on a hillock made the rupturing of Mr Reitzman’s stomach any less painful, and whether the shepherd guarding the flock soothed him as his stomach acid dissolved him from the inside out.

The room is easy to clean. The mop glides over the floor, dances over the ice-white linoleum, and Richie hums tunelessly as it flies this way and that. Three other orderlies that Richie can’t name bustle in, heave Mr Reitzman’s rigor-mortised body onto a gurney, and wheel him out of the room, sheet placed pulled up and over his body, as if the sight of death would cause the whole world to scream in pain, in denial. In reality, Richie knows that the body will linger in the morgue until Mr Reitzman’s wife claims it, and then it will linger in the ground until the worms claim it, and then it will linger nowhere, forevermore.

Now, with nothing in the room but Richie, the bed, and the now redundant IV, the air feels warmer.

– X –

The end-of-life room only remained empty for as long as it took Richie to scrub the last remanences of life once lived out of the floor, before another life that was clinging to existence by a thread was bustled into the room. Where Mr Reitzman had been comatose for much of his stay, and had barely been able to grunt in Richie’s direction, the new end-of-life occupant was much more vocal.

“I want the best doctor, Eddie-bear, the best doctor they can find, I don’t care if they have to fly him in from… from Kentucky! Do you hear me, Eddie? Edward, are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Ma.”

The voice that spoke first was tea-kettle shrill, metal grating against metal, the sound of nails on a chalk board. It spoke with a nasally inflection that tugged at the ear, and warbled on without taking a breath. The voice that spoke second was small, retiring, reserved to the point of annoyance and Richie’s head whipped around as the screeching wheels of the wheelchair came to a halt just behind him.

“And who might you be? Are you the doctor?” The first voice implored, demanded, and Richie blinked.

“Richie Tozier, ma’am. Just an orderly, I’m afraid, you’ll have to –”

“Oh. Well, fine. Fetch the doctor then, go on, what are you waiting for?”

“Ma,” the second voice scolded, a verbal slap on the wrist that was as effective as a sugar placebo, “don’t be so rude.”

“Rude? Shut-up, Eddie. I’m dying, or have you forgotten? That your own mother is about to shuffle off this mortal coil with a tangled gut? Is that it? You’ve forgotten?”

The owner of the second voice, a smallish man around Richie’s age with a pinched face and bruised, lifeless eyes, sighed.

“You know I haven’t forgotten,” the man – Eddie – replied, helping the nameless orderly lift his mother onto the bed with Promethean effort.

Richie watched dumbly from the corner of the room, mop clasped between his hands, as this pantomime of family duty continued to unfold before him. Eddie and his bleating mother seem to have forgotten that he’s there, nestled in the cheap seats, as they continue to speed through the first act of their tragedy. Richie doesn’t plan on sticking around for the fifth act finale.

Before he can slip out of the room unnoticed, Eddie catches him by the arm with calloused fingers.

“Hang on, wait a second,” Eddie said, but Richie pre-emptively shakes his head.

“Look man, I don’t know where the doctor is, the cafeteria is down the hall on the left, there’s a toilet through that door right there, I don’t know how long it’ll take her to die. Just,” Richie shrugged, hoping that the hopeless motion of his shoulders would communicate more than his words could ever dream to, “just leave me alone. I have another room to clean.”

Eddie dropped his hand from Richie’s arm as if Richie had suddenly combusted into hot, blue flame.

Two little words floated after Richie as he all but ran from the end-of-life room and those damn sheep grazing on that damn hillock, they chased him through the hospital as he scrubbed and cleaned and mopped, they followed him home that night, and they burrowed deep into his brain as he lay in bed, sleepless, staring at the ceiling, eyes fighting the dark.

“Thank you”

– X –

The shrieking woman is still alive in the end-of-life room when Richie marches in the next morning, mop lodged safely under his arm like a musket. The man whose words had stalked Richie as he tossed and turned in his bed last night was slumped in the chair in the corner of the room. Family didn’t usually stick around. That was another thing that had thrown Richie when he’d first started here. He’d assumed that he’d be falling over the slumbering, weeping bodies of relatives who camped out in the wards, desperate to hold their loved ones in their arms as they slipped peacefully off to a better place. Death is a solitary experience, Richie had learnt this quickly. It happened in the middle of the night when relatives had gone home, when visiting hours were over and those who weren’t attached to machines with plastic tubing were tucking into their evening meals or fast asleep, wrapped in blankets and the womb-like comfort of unconsciousness. It happened in the middle of the day, when people were at work, faces buried in spreadsheets. It happened when the rooms were empty, silent, save for the laboured breathing of the person who was about to breathe no more. Death, for those who don’t die, isn’t an experience, it’s a discovery. The dead wait patiently for the living to have time to grieve.

The shrieking woman wasn’t shrieking when Richie shuffled in, she was asleep, snuffling and snorting like a newborn. Eddie looked up as Richie entered the room, before closing his eyes again.

Richie cleaned. Eddie breathed.

“What’s your name?”

The question came barrelling out of nowhere, cutting through the air like a knife through cheese.

“Uh, Richie. Richie Tozier, orderly extraordinaire, at your service,” Richie said, and Eddie let out a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob.

“Yes, yes, you told me yesterday. Look, Richie, I’m –”

Richie knew what was coming, he knew that he should stop Eddie from apologising for his mother, knew that the harpy lying in the bed was more trouble than Richie could even care to imagine, but he let Eddie continue anyway.

“I’m sorry about her. She’s … She’s scared.”

“Aren’t we all”

“I suppose so. She’s got cancer, lung cancer. The doctor said her lungs look like she’s smoked forty a day for twenty-five years, and that just set her off, “I’ve never smoked a day in my life! Dirty, dirty habit” and all that. She’s funny about that stuff. Do you smoke?”

The question wrapped itself around Richie’s legs and tugged, pulling him off balance.

“Yes, yeah I do, but don’t worry, I won’t – it’s against hospital policy to –”

“I do, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Started when she got diagnosed.”

“…Shit”

Eddie laughed, properly this time, and it was an ugly sound, too high pitched and breathy, but it chiselled a smile out of Richie’s icy heart.

“Is that really fucked up? I don’t even like it, it tasted disgusting and it’s fucking with my asthma but … it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Teenage rebellion twenty years too late?” Richie asked, wringing the mop out.

Eddie chuckled. “Something like that.”

The woman’s snuffling became moaning which became groaning which soon became loud, verbal protests which made Richie’s teeth itch, and sent Eddie skittering off to his mother’s bedside.

“It huuuuurts Eddie-bear! Fetch the doctor, fetch him now, it huuuuurts!”

Richie took that as his cue to leave, the tragedy having steamrolled straight into Act II without him even noticing. He picked up the mop bucket, and left the room, but not before sending a quiet, “goodbye Eddie” over his shoulder.

The woman’s noisy protestations about her son befriending the janitorial staff followed Richie down the corridor, and Richie grinned.

– X –

The staff cafeteria of the hospital was hidden away behind a large white door marked with ominous red letters, STAFF ONLY DO NOT ENTER, as if it was concealing something much more exciting than lukewarm casserole and stale bread rolls. Richie often found himself in there, choking down whatever food the chef had decided to punish them with on that given day, as he hid in the corner of the room, sat at a table that hadn’t been cleared for days. This lunchtime was no different. The table was covered in used plates and cookie wrappers, and Richie sat hunched over his phone, trying to crush candy in a desperate pretence at fun. A small knock at the door echoed out across the room, and Richie glanced around. He was the only person in the room. The knock sounded out again, louder this time, and again, and Richie groaned.

Food now abandoned to becoming cold and more inedible, he got up and slunk across to the door, before pulling it open.

Eddie was stood on the other side, wringing his hands.

“Hullo, Richie. I was wondering, y’see, she’s asleep again, and I’m … well, I’m bored of watching her breathe and listening to her fart.”

A spluttery laugh erupted from Richie, and Eddie grinned.

“Do you want to come in? I can offer you stew that tastes like nothing and apple cake that tastes like pork”

“… Sounds appetising. Are you sure I can come in?” Eddie asked, gesturing to the ominous message on the door.

Richie shrugged. “It’ll be fine, and if anyone does ask, I’ll just tell them you’re interviewing me.”

“For what?”

“Orderlies Weekly, Orderlies Monthly, a podcast about menial labour jobs, some shit like that, I don’t know. Look, do you want this apple cake or not?”

– X –

When things take a turn for the worst, you can feel it in the air. Outside the room of the nearly-dead, the air ripples violently, as if preparing to absorb the energy of a life expended, and the cold creeps in, slowly at first, unnoticeable, but before long the room is frigid, held tightly in the gaping maw of Death, who won’t wait much longer. The air shifts around Sonia Kaspbrak’s room at four in the afternoon on the Tuesday after she’s admitted, and the tragedy reaches its climax. The medication has stopped working entirely, both the painkillers and the last ditch attempt at shrinking the cancerous squatters currently making the cavities in her lung their home. She’s left, bereft of all chemical comforts, to fend for herself, to will her broken, bruised, rebellious body to spare her some pain, to ease her into the sweet sleep of death without too much discomfort, but her body, as it is wont to do, proves stubborn. She moans in her sleep, grasping at her chest with arms on auto-pilot, as if she might rip through the papery skin on her clavicle and grasp her lungs, patch them up, make them work. Eddie watches her writhe in her bed, and Richie watches Eddie.

Eddie has barely moved from the chair for two days and two nights. He’s pushed it right up against his mother’s bed, crushed as close as he can possibly get to the metal bed frame, and he sits rigid in it, standing vigil over his mother’s sleeping body, as if he might catch her last breath, as if he might shock her stuttering heart into life one last time. He’s all but mute, nodding wordlessly to doctors who speak rapidly, popping into the end-of-life room for nothing but a cursory nod at the dying mother in the bed, and the already mourning son clutching at her crow-claw hand.

“She’s on her way now, Edward,” they say, voices hushed and gentle but removed, always removed. “It won’t be long now.”

Act IV of the tragedy rips past in a blur. A blur of endless silence, the only sound being the slopping sound of the mop on the floor, and of the regular beeping of the machines. Eddie barely breathes. Richie breathes enough for the both of them.

– X –

“Coffee.”

The word is sour in Richie’s mouth, and he spits it out. It falls out wrong, and Eddie blinks.

“Pardon?”

Eddie’s voice is hoarse, and it cracks violently, as if it hasn’t been used for hours, maybe even days. Richie knows it hasn’t.

“Come with me. You need a break, you’ve been sat in that damn chair for days, Eddie. Coffee. My treat.”

Eddie gets up wordlessly. Richie, who had steeled himself in anticipation of a fight, exhales. As the barista is mixing their drinks, the air shifts violently, once, just once, as if Atlas has shifted his grip on the world, and Richie knows it’s happened.

“Eddie,” Richie says, and he reaches out and grabs Eddie’s hand from where it was resting on the table, “it’s going to be fine, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

Eddie cocks his head, a dog confused at a command, but nods once, then twice, then his jaw is set and Richie knows he knows.

They get back to the room twenty minutes later and Sonia’s body is covered with a sheet. Her eyes stare up, open, unblinking.

Eddie doesn’t cry.

– X –

Cleaning the room is harder this time. Sonia’s body is removed almost immediately, and Eddie goes with it, eyes glistening with damp but no tears escape them. His voice wobbles but it doesn’t break. He is picture-perfect composure, and Richie is almost scared of him.

The room smells like bodies, the warmth of life hasn’t been chased out yet. This syrupy warmth makes the clean-up harder, changing the sheets sends beads of sweat down Richie’s spine, turning off the equipment has him panting and by the time he’s moving the chair back to the corner of the room he’s practically sobbing.

He doesn’t notice Eddie standing in the door way, a bunch of flowers clasped loosely in his hand, so Eddie coughs awkwardly.

“Richie?”

“Hiya, Eds,” Richie says, tears now streaming freely down his cheeks.

“These are for you,” Eddie says, thrusting the flowers at Richie. They’re a slapdash bunch of shocking reds and yellows and umbers, and they’re beautiful.

“Isn’t it supposed to be me who buys you flowers?” Richie asks, taking the flowers in his hand and staring at them as if they held the secrets of life, the universe and everything. They smiled up at him.

“Isn’t it supposed to me be who cries?”

“Ah, you got me there. I just –”

“It’s weird, isn’t it.”

“It never has been before.”

“Did you know any of them before?”

“No, but I didn’t know your mother either.”

“You knew her about as well as I did,” Eddie says, and Richie is caught in a web of silence and something that claws at his gut, something he doesn’t understand, something he doesn’t want to understand.

“You were very kind to me,” Eddie continues, “and these, they’re from the shitty hospital gift shop, but these … these aren’t shitty.”

Eddie gestures at the flowers, and their tiny red and yellow heads seem to turn in Richie’s grasp, turn away from the white room, and the white floor, and the white curtains, turn away from the picture that hangs, melancholy and alone, on the wall, and they turn towards the sun.

The room feels warm, and Richie grins.

#reddie #hospital au #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #it fandom #it fanfic #richie tozier x eddie kaspbrak #reddie fic #IT 2017 #IT 2019 #it fanfiction #fanfic #3-4k words

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baby-beej · 4 years

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Hello lovelies!! I am finally bringing you the second and final part of my Dewey fic. I had writers block when I reached the ending which left feeling very unmotivated to finish it but finally it’s done and I hope the ending is satisfactory. I have some more stuff coming soon including something a little bit different. But please enjoy this for now!

Till the sun won’t shine part 2...

Slamming the door behind him Dewey enters your once shared apartment. Tossing his bags next to the door to be left there until Monday morning when he had to return to work again.

It had been three months since you had died in arms and the pain was still raw. The funeral was a blur to him being blinded by his grief. What he could rember was the faint music playing as he carried your casket and laying a single white rose on your coffin before it was lowered into the ground. Never to be seen or touched again. You were actually gone.

He received many sympathy cards but he didn’t display any of them, it made the situation feel more real. He lived in denial for days, almost convinced he’d find you dancing in the kitchen as you prepared dinner or that when he reached over your side of the bed he could pull you close.

Out of instinct the night of before your funeral he reached over only to be met with cold sheets. Opening his eyes it all came back to him, making him tense up and his eyes water.

He took a few days off work to grieve and Rosaline insisted he could take as much time as he needed. He spent the days sitting on the unmade bed just staring at the wall for hours at a time. Chores around the house went out the window and the house soon became unkept. The dust became thick, the laundry piled high and the dishes were abandoned. The fridge also seemed to be empty except for beer and a few microwave dinners which he’d didn’t have much of a taste for.

Eventually he had to return to work but he was not the same Mr Finn he had been before. This version was less patient, snappy and just overall annoyed at little things. Band practice ceased and lessons soon became less interactive and entailed of Dewey passing out question sheets for the students to fill in. He didn’t want to be there, infact he didn’t want to be anywhere because no matter where he went, you wouldn’t be there.

This day of work had been the worst yet. During lunch when passing through the busy hallway he heard some kid in a older grade tell a dumb cancer joke and he lost it screaming at the kid right in the middle of the hallway. Mrs Mullins came out of her office to see what the commotion was and was shocked at the sight of an angry Mr Finn yelling a fearsome pupil, surrounded by wide eyed students looking stunned at his sudden out burst.

Mrs Mullins drags Dewey in to her office and shoos the students out of the halls and off to their respected classrooms.

“Dewey, what an earth is going on?”

Deweys scoffs, “stupid little sh- kid made a completely inappropriate joke”.

“What was it about?”

Dewey hesitates before telling her, “cancer,” he mumbles.

Rosaline pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes out a sigh, “Dewey I know your going through a rough time right now and once again I’m very sorry for your loss, but this isn’t you. You not an angry teacher that everyone should be afraid of, your the cool helpful teacher that they go to for help and I would love for him to come back.”

Can he come back or did the Mr Finn she speaks off die with you? He remains silent so she takes this as a sign to keep going.

“I will speak to the student in question and makes sure disciplinary measures are put into place. But as for the remainder of the day I want you to return to your afternoon lessons and on Monday start afresh, ready to enjoy your week like you did before. Understand?”

Dewey stands up, “sure, whatever you say,” heading back to his classroom opening his desk drawer and searching through his stash of dvds before pulling one out and putting it on for the class. He spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to work so that no one suspected that all he was thinking about was you.

At the end of the day Mrs Mullins hands him a apology letter from the student but he scrunches it up and throws it in the trash can not bothering to read it. The student wasn’t sorry, no one was.

So here he was once again alone in the apartment. He heads into the bedroom strips of his vest, loosens his tie, unbuttons his shirt and removes his trousers. He pulls on a ACDC shirt knowing it was one of your favourites to wear. Entering the kitchen he opens the fridge and grabs himself a beer before flopping down on the coach and watching some trash on TV. One beer turned into two and two turned into three. Somewhere along the line he headed up one of the microwave meals but only ate a few bites deciding it was gross and he wasn’t that hungry.

He did however continue he to drink right through the pack of beer, it wasn’t enough he still felt the throbbing pain in his chest which at times would make him feel breathless. He needed something stronger something to knock out the pain which led him to the bottle of whiskey. He’d never considered himself a whiskey drinker but desperate times call for desperate measures. The burning he felt as it ran down his throat distracted him from the emotional pain he felt so it went down smoothly.

Soon his head was foggy and he had no control of his body or emotions, hot angry tears ran down his cheeks. He was angry at the worldfor taking you away from him, angry that the doctors didn’t do more, angry at himself because he couldn’t save you. Stupid cancer. Stupid, stupid cancer.

He awakens the next morning in a fog. Taking several minutes to come around from his alcohol induced sleep. He grumbles as he feels the throbbing in his head, pulling himself off of the coach he goes to the kitchen filling himself a huge glass of water to quench his extreme thirst and throwing back some pain killers in the process.

What to do this weekend? When you were alive Saturdays were for fun. Shopping, rollerblading, picnics, road trips and Saturday nights were for music, drinking and dancing. Sunday mornings were his favourite, slowly waking up and cuddling close, coffee in bed and either snuggling on the coach to watch movies or he would play his guitar with your head resting on his lap.

His weekends were now lonely spent just trying to get through the days. He goes into the bathroom turning on the shower to the hottest setting. He stands in the heat for longer than he should then changes into sweat pants and a clean shirt. Standing in the shower made his headache worsen and drained him of the little energy he had when he woke up, so he gets into the unmade bed and just slept, well into the afternoon.

When he woke up he was at a loss of what to do, was it to early to start drinking again. Noticing his laptop on his bedside he knew he was falling behind in his work, sighing he opens it up and begins to work through his ever growing list of tasks.

After around 15 minutes he has almost finished his first task with all he had left to do was to paste a file into the document before emailing it. He opens up and begins to browse through his files in search of the correct one. As he scans the selection of files he notices one he hadn’t opened for months. It had a very specific file name. Y/N.

Hesitantly he clicked into it to be revealed with a selection of videos from throughout your relationship. Most were from Deweys point of view as he was a big fan of randomly filming little moments.

In one your were laying outside enjoying the sunshine in a light doze. Only for Dewey to come out, water gun in one hand and camera in other spraying the water gun over you causing you to jump out of your peaceful sleep and Dewey to laugh hysterically behind the camera at your shocked state. “Dewey Finn!”, you exclaim before getting to feet to chase him until he falls over still giggling as you take the water gun out of his hand and take your revenge.

Another entailed of you attempting to bake with Dewey hanging around in the background filming. “Hand me the flour Dew,” you say holding out your hand. He complies by throwing a handful of flour at you. Your face now covered in the white powder is a mix of shock and amusement, “your gonna pay for that!”, you say already grabbing a handful of flour. Deweys smiles remembering that day, the two of had a flour fight that left the kitchen looking like a winter wonderland. It’s took almost two hours to clean up but it was worth it with fun you had.

Many other videos followed. Even though Dewey was the main prankster of the house you’d pulled a few of your own over the years. Drawing on his face whilst he was asleep, the old shaving cream on hand, switching the sugar with the salt.

There were many videos of Dewey singing at gigs taken by you, he laughs at you cheering louder than everyone when he was finished. He’s in hysterics at the videos in which you’ve come from a girls night drunk, claiming when he gave you water he was trying to get you drunk and that how you kept complimenting his apartment saying, “you just have suuuuchh gooood vibes with your interior design”.

Videos of you dancing made him sentimental as these were some of his favourite moments spent with you. How he wished he had said yes every time you’d tried to pull him up to the dance floor, that was possibly his biggest regret. He even took some videos of you in the hospital, dancing around still attached to your IV, randomly visiting other patients and forming friendships, one thing he loved about you is how easily you could talk to be people and how you could rope anyone into a conversation.

He thought that was the end but was surprised when another one appears. He clicks play, and there you are on the screen, your beautiful eyes that’s he swore were looking into his. Your sitting in the same bed that he was in now, wearing his ACDC T-shirt , your head is bald from chemotherapy but your eyes still have that sparkle they always have.

“Hey rockstar, it’s me. If your watching this there is a very likely chance that I’m not around anymore. You my dear husband have left my side for a few minutes for groceries, which I’m not going to lie feels quite strange considering we haven’t been more than six feet apart in weeks.”

Dewey still can’t believe he’s watching you, it almost feels like you are in the room with him.

“ I wanted to make a few videos to talk to you and tell you things I couldn’t say to your face. I know what your like with emotions, Mr stick it to the man but I know sometimes you forget to take your own advice and prefer to hold all those feelings in until they eventually knock you out.”

You knew him better than he knew himself, “your a good man Dewey and I don’t want grief to change you, so please listen to what I have to say and take it with you. Now before I begin, I want you to put your hat and coat on and go for a walk around the city, just like we used to. And don’t you dare watch the next video before you do it. One step at a time is good walking”.

The screen then went black. He hadn’t walked around the city for at least six months when you became to weak to walk so far. He wanted to turn the next video on, and see your face again but you made it clear. He gets up throws his hat on and zips up his coat, the air is icy and he feels it hit his cheeks as reaches outside. He begins to walk not in any particular direction just where his feet wanted to take him. He ends up waking for 45 minutes just all over taking in the sights of the city.

As per usual you were right, his thoughts felt clearer and the fresh hair helped to shake his headache. When he arrives back he goes straight back into the bedroom and fires up the next video and you appear before him once again.

“Hey there, I’m hoping that walk was helpful, sometimes you need some time to cool of before you hear what’s to come. Mr Finn I know you don’t see yourself as a typical house wife but please keep the house from falling apart. If I had a nickel for every time that you argued that there is no point in making your bed when your going to get back into it later then let’s just say we wouldn’t still be living in this shabby apartment.”

He smiles remembering, “so get off your butt of the bed and make it. I know for a fact that it’s hasn’t been made in months let alone days. Another life hack is that if you do dishes as you go along you won’t run out. Oh and you know that little closet next to the bathroom, I know you don’t really go there but that’s where we keep the vacuum, please use it.”

To be fair to you he can’t remember the last time he opened that closet, “So please once again don’t watch the next video until you’ve done a little bit of cleaning up”.

It felt weird to obey someone who wasn’t even there but he found himself getting to his feet and pulling out the vacuum.

After several minutes of struggling to turn it on he gets there and goes through the whole apartment, he washes through the stack of dirty dishes, makes his way through the every growing pile of dirty laundry, cleans the bathroom which has become increasingly gross, dusts and disinfects the counters and not only makes the bed but changes the sheets.

You didn’t actually ask him to do so much but he wanted to make you proud. So with the smell of disinfectant fresh in his nostrils he hits play on the next video, smiling as you reappear on his screen.”

“Now my love, I hope you feel fresher after that. Now I know your no Gordon Ramsay when it comes to cooking although when it comes to food criticing he may have met his match.” You wink at him making him chuckle.

“But try and cook something nutritious. You do make a mean plate of nachos but please eat something other than that. Maybe something green a few days a week. So have fun chef Finn you idiot sandwich.”

Another order, he hadn’t eaten since well his few mouthfuls of that awful excuse of a microwaveable meal. He rummages through the kitchen cupboards in search of ingredients. Despite hardly going shopping in the last few weeks he manages to hunt down a packet of spaghetti, a tin of tomatoes a some dried basil. Not much but it would do.

He boils the pasta, heats up the tomatoes to act as a sauce and adds some basil. Overall it wasn’t that bad and he would eat it again. Of course he washes the dishes up when he’s finished at your request before going back for the next video. Your eyes in this video are teary and dread fills him.

“Dewey, I’m so proud of you for making it this far. You’ve accomplished so much in the last few hours, and I want you to keep it up.”

He never thought about this, he’d done more in those few hours that he’d done in weeks.

“I wanted to make this last video to say goodbye and to remind you to keep living your life. Do the things you love, play music, teach music, laugh, dance, sing! And please keep being yourself, your unique, funny, caring self.”

Keep living. It sounds so simple, but it’s easier said than done. He hadn’t played his guitar since the night before you died, could he start now.

“Don’t blame the world for what happened to me, it’s no ones fault. Please don’t remember me as being sick, remember me how I was, happy. I’ve had a good life made even better by your love. If I could go back I wouldn’t change anything, I am so grateful I met you and even though we didn’t have long together I wouldn’t trade the short time I had with you for a lifetime with anyone else.”

Tears stream down his cheeks. He knew you had loved him but hearing this just reminded him that you still did.

“This isn’t goodbye Dewey, it’s a see you later. I hope someday I’ll see you again, but until then I will be with you. You may not always feel it but I will be. I love you Dewey Finn and I hope you never forget that.”

You slowly fade away into a black screen. Thinking it’s the end he begins to slowly close the screen until he hears your voice again, he scrambles to push the screen back up and your back again.

“Oh and before I go, I got you a little something to help with the keep on living thing. Have a look behind the towels in the closet. I think you’ll be surprised.”

You wink at him then giggle shutting of your camera. Dewey rushes to his feet he goes directly to the closet and begins to pull all the freshly folded towels onto the floor. He’d clean them up later but for now this was more important. Eventually he sees it. A brand new red guitar, still shining as if you’d bought it that day.

He takes it out and brings it back to the bedroom sitting on the bed holding it in his hands like he’s holding a new born infant. Attached by a bow is a small box, which when opened reveals a customised guitar pick with the words “don’t stop believing” carefully carved.

Your karaoke song. Your wedding song. Your favourite song.

Taking a hand he wipes away the fresh tears which have fallen before taking the the pick from the box and carefully strumming his first chord in months.

The gentle music fills the room. He can almost feel you smiling down on him.

#deweyfinn #dewey finn fanfiction #dewey finn fluff #dewey finn x reader #school of rock #school of rock fanfiction

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love-mom17 · 4 years

Text

8/20/2020

****TRIGGER WARNING***

Please dont read if you cannot deal with reading bloody details or anything with a miscarriage.

Soooo here i am. I am feeling a lot better! I had a lot going on with my health and mental being and i just needed some time to myself.

SOOOO lets go back a little to let you know what went down this month... ON monday aug. 3rd i was confirmed that i was going through another miscarriage. Even though i wanted to believe that this was all a mistake. I knew it wasnt. I didnt cry during my appointment. I was kind of expecting this to happen even though i wished it wasnt that way. My sac had collapsed completely. THere was no sight of anything. I was prescribed Misoprostol that same day and i decided to take it right after my appointment. I had 4 pills that i had to take every 6 hrs to help move the process along.

I finished my last dose on Aug. 4th (tuesday) i had some clots come down and since i wasnt that far along i thought that was end of it. i was spotting off and on for the next few days. Friday night came along and i was just about to leave my parents house. I started to have some cramps. they werent bad but im a little bitch when it comes to cramps.

My parents were just like stay here and let the pain pass through and i was like naaa I want to be at home. I wanted to cry all my emotions where everywhere at this point. I left and here i am on my way home. A 30 minute drive that felt like HELL!!!! The cramps became more intense and i was crying the whole way home. I had a maxi pad on and i was able to feel it the blood just gushing out of me. My son was asleep and i wanted to yell!!!!! In that drive home i had felt a good 4-5 blood gushes coming out of me... I took my son out and tried to carry him out but I was in so much pain I couldnt do it with out making too much noise. I layed him down and i layed with him a bit so that he wouldnt wake up... To my surprise i was not able to lay down with him. I felt so much pressure down there that i felt like my uterus was going to burst. Since i wasnt able to get him to go sleep again after i laid him down , I rushed to the restroom and here I am. Just bleeding like crazy. With every contraction i had i was squirting out blood and blood clots. The pain was unbearable. My husband was working and here i am home alone with my son.

All im thinking is im having a hemorrhage. I’m soaking through my maxi pads so fast that I didnt know what to do. I called my parents to rush over here to help me go to the ER. I was trying to remain calm because i didnt want to pass out on my son and for him to freak out. By the time my parents got there i had already changed my pad 4 times (IN 30 MINUTES). I went to the closest ER to me and they took me in. The guy that took my vitals and my intake pissed me off because he had the nerve to say that “Exactly thats what the medication does to you, Thats normal. Your going to have a lot of pain and pass blood clots. Its normal!” It was the way he said it that triggered me. Making me look like if i was just there to waste their time. So I said “So you are going to tell me that its normal to soak 4 Maxi pads in less than 30 minutes? You assuming before knowing doesnt make you look that bright” Apparently, the doctor was listening and as soon as he heard me say that he stepped in and took me with him and gathered the rest of my information. I was taken to do another ultrasound and blood work. I was feeling sooo dizzy after they took my blood.

Im not one to faint after a blood draw. But i was soo weak. They confirmed with me that i had a small hemorrhage and that I had not lost a lot of blood to need a transfusion. My bleeding at this point was starting to slow down. They stated that i had not passed that sac yet. It was still sitting in my cervix canal. I had to get another dose of the medication. through out that week, i was bleeding normal and sure enough the weekend came again and its Aug. 9th 2am, having cramps. I was trying to sleep it off but when they got strong it would wake me up. Finally i took some pain meds after my pharmacy took forever to get my medication ready!!!! I ran some errands and i figured it would help me walk around to help me pass the sac. Its 5:30pm and im standing in line at Winco. When i feel this gush of blood come down and i felt something just sitting at the opening of my vagina. My pad kept it from coming out and my husband was outside dealing with my son because he was throwing his fit. I finish paying and it was so uncomfortable to walk. I tried to sit down in the car and i couldnt. It felt so weird and i told my husband to drive...I get home and walked as fast as i could to the restroom and i pull down my pants and there it was... the SAC!!!!

With everything that went down i couldn't even process what was all happening emotionally. That whole week after i was a wreck. I was angry and sad. I wanted to cry and yell and punch shit. My friend Jenn reached out to me and it was a while since i reached out to anyone. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Since then, Ive been able to cope with it better. But i can feel it that it lingers on and im just trying avoid it. Im not planning on trying again any time soon. I dont want to think about it. Im too scared of all of this to happen again. My first miscarriage went a lot smoother than this time. This time was just so scary....

#update

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cilldaracailin · 4 years

Text

A Kind of Magic

Hey everyone. I am back with the squeal to Under Pressure. This story is also on AO3 and can be found here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097855/chapters/58006354

Hope you all enjoy it :)

“Never stop just because you feel defeated. The journey to the other side is attainable only after great suffering.”

“Can I get you anything to drink sir?”

“Just some water would be great, thank you.”

Taron carefully took the small plastic cup from the air hostess and thanked her again as he put it gently down on his tray table, slotting his elbows back into the small space he had as he sat in the middle seat of row twenty-seven on the flight, taking a painful breathe in as sudden turbulence jolted him in his tiny seat.

Inhaling through his nose and then out of his mouth, he moved his body so it was slightly more comfortable in the hard seat, resting his head on the back of his chair. It was a breathing technique he had learnt less than a week ago and he had put it to use many times since he had stepped on the airplane and the reason why he was on the airplane was because of the person who had taught him that breathing technique he was using.

Robyn.

That letter she left for him in the hospital has caused an emotion Taron hadn’t expected to experience and that was loss. After another long sleep helped with medication, he woke only to remember once again that he didn’t get to talk to Robyn before she left and with all the time he had to sit and think in the hospital bed, the more Taron realised that he was not only hurt by the conversation that never happen but at a loss by her sudden departure. He recalled a chat they had had in the store about Robyn needing to take a flight home but with the nightmare they had been through, he really didn’t expect her to go so suddenly. In a day or two perhaps but not a few hours after they had been rescued from the 7/11. He knew she had her own injuries too and having experienced her level-headedness many times throughout their time together in the store, when she made the decision to take her flight, Taron really didn’t believe Robyn was thinking clearly.

His time in the hospital hadn’t been as relaxing as the doctor told him it would be. The decrease in his pain medication on the Sunday night, really brought to light how sore he was and although the pain didn’t compare to anything he felt while sitting in the 7/11, his body ached, stiff muscles and joints feeling the twinge once he was brought to his feet. After his full day of sleeping straight through on Saturday, thanks to the medication he was given, Taron then found it impossible to switch his mind off and spent his time dozing rather than deeply sleeping and any time he did manage to comfortably sleep, he was woken up by doctors on their rounds and nurses checking his IV line. Doctor Hart had come back to see him on Sunday afternoon and did another complete examination of him, and was so pleased with his assessment that he took Taron off the monitor that screened his vitals as well as the oxygen. He left him with his IV as Taron was still finding it difficult to eat anything more than a few bites, though he was pleased to see that this patient was drinking fluids. With some initial help from Ruth, Taron had also managed to be get up and walk a little by Sunday evening, and although his movements were slow, he felt less restricted and by Tuesday could smoothly walk around and had walked as comfortably as he could with his injuries down to the hospital coffee shop with Richard.

Richard, who had to fly back to Chicago on Tuesday afternoon to finish filming, had come to visit him on the Sunday morning as he had promised the day before, bringing with him some clothes so Taron could get out of the hospital gown and change into more comfy sweatpants and a t-shirt and stayed with Taron to be his moral support as he made two important phone calls, one more so than the other.

First was his mam and he wasn’t afraid to admit that as soon as he heard her voice, he broke down and cried, his mam being the one to comfort him instead of the other way around, as it was his plan to reassure her because he knew she would have been worried sick at hearing he was in the hospital.

“Taron, love it’s ok.” Soothed Tina as she heard her son break down in a sob, that cut her to the core, even more so when she couldn’t be there to hug him. “Richard and Robyn have both spoken to me and I know everything love. I know what has happened and that you will be ok.”

It took a few minutes before Taron could actually get any words out and speak to his mam and once he started talking he couldn’t stop, needing to get everything that happened off his chest, his mam listening to every word and interrupting when needed to comfort her son. “It was so frightening mam. I have never felt a pain like it before and there was just blood everywhere.”

“I can only imagine Taron.”

“It was just so easy for that man to shoot off a gun and not think twice.”

“There are some idiots out there but you can’t focus on what happened in the 7/11. You need to look at the positives and the first one I can think of, is that you are here, alive and talking to me.”

“Mam I don’t even remember most of what happened to be honest. There are moments that are completely blank for me.”

“And that is why I am so relieved Robyn was there Taron. I can’t even bare to think about what would have happened to you if she wasn’t there.” It was Richard who had explained to Taron’s mam about how he was given CPR in the store, as per Robyn’s instructions in the letter she had left him, making sure Tina knew how quickly he was revived, more importantly how Taron was going to make a full recovery with no complications and it was information that had really shaken her, knowing she had nearly lost her son. Tina understood so much better now why Robyn had left out so many details of what had happened in the 7/11 when she had called her, the young woman knowing it was only when Tina spoke to her son for herself that she would believe he was ok.

Tina heard her son go quiet very quickly once she mentioned Robyn. “Taron? Taron what’s wrong.”

“Robyn’s gone mam.” He answered quietly.

“Wait, what do you mean gone? I was only speaking to her yesterday.”

“She has gone home. Back to Ireland.”

It was hard for Taron to explain why Robyn left because he didn’t know the answer and it was a surprise that was echoed in his mam’s reaction too. “I don’t understand Taron. She just went home?” Once Richard had spoken to Tina and actually explained what had happened in the 7/11, Tina was desperate to speak to the young woman who had saved her son’s life, particularly when the way she explained what she did for Taron as ‘simple first aid’ was nowhere near the truth. “I really wanted to, well no, I needed to speak to her again.”

“You and me both mam. She just left me a letter explaining that she was sorry and she had to go home.”

“Oh, Taron love.”

The conversation with his mam lasted nearly an hour and then another half hour while he spoke to his sisters, all of them finding it hard to say goodbye to each other, Taron needing another emotional pep talk from his family as tears quickly came to his eyes again as they said goodbye.

His second phone call was to Matthew, his director, who appeared in his hospital room on the Monday morning during visiting hours.

“Jesus Taron.” Was his first reaction when he walked into the room, seeing Taron on his feet as he walked back from the bathroom, wheeling his IV with him as he moved.

“Good to see you too Matthew.” Taron cringed as he sat on the bed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Well I heard my lead actor had an accident. You look like absolute shit.”

“You didn’t need to fly out here.”

“Yes, I did. You are my friend first and foremost and I wanted to come and see you. Make sure you are ok.”

“I am going to be ok. I can actually walk by myself today and it hurts less to move”

“I’ve heard your look of lying on the floor of the 7/11 was worse than this.” Matthew sat on the chair beside the bed.

“I’ll live.” Replied Taron as he eased himself back onto the pillows behind his back.

“I have also heard rumours that you nearly didn’t.” Taron looked to his director from under his eye lashes. “So, it is true. Isn’t that something you think you should tell me.”

“Who were you talking too? My mam?”

“No Richard. I called him when you were quite sparse with the details of what had actually happened in the store. Why didn’t you bloody tell me you were given CPR Taron.”

“It’s not something I really like to talk about. It’s not good to dwell on the fact that you died for a minute.”

“Ahh shit Taron.” Taron couldn’t meet his eye. “What happened?”

“The doctor told me that the combination of all the injuries I had sustained and sitting in the store for over nine hours with no pain relief just caused my body to shut down.”

“Jesus Taron.” Matthew had no idea Taron had been through such horrific trauma. “The paramedics gave you CPR?”

He took his head. “There was a girl, well a woman… Robyn and she gave me CPR. Got me back breathing in under a minute.” Matthew sat back in his chair, running a hand over his face. “I am going to be ok. All my tests and results came back clear and the doctor is really happy with my recovery so far, quicker than he expected too. I have been up and walking around the ward and they plan on taking my IV out tomorrow. I was told I will be sore and tender for a few weeks and need to take it really easy.”

“CPR Taron, Jesus Christ. How did she not break your ribs?”

Taron shrugged his shoulders, regretting the simple movement as his left hand went to his right arm to soothe the twinge he felt from the wound there. “Doctor Hart was left puzzled too but it doesn’t mean she didn’t go hard.” Taron pulled up his grey t-shirt letting Matthew see the palm shaped bruises on the middle of his chest. “She went hard.” Repeated Taron as he pulled his t-shirt back down. It wasn’t until Taron took a shower that morning, one that was badly needed, that he saw the bruises on his chest from Robyn’s hands, bruises that hit home to him, just how important Robyn’s actions were. If Taron’s chest was sensitive and uncomfortable, he could only imagine the state of Robyn’s hands.

“She saved your life.” Taron nodded, his hand resting on his chest. “Well where is this woman. I would very much like to meet her.”

Taron lay back in the bed really not wanting to have this conversation again but with a calming breathe, he began to relay the story of ‘Robyn’.

Matthew left Taron with a hug and assurance that the filming of the movie had been suspended until Taron was back to full health and it was the way it was going to be, no matter how much Taron protested over it.

“Excuse me can I just get past you please? I need to stretch my legs.”

Taron was pulled from his memories and looked to the man sitting to his left. The downside to sitting in the middle of the row at the window, was having to move every time the passenger next to him needed to leave the seat and this was the third time since they had left the airport in South Carolina that the passenger to his right had wanted to get out of their seat. Gritting his teeth, Taron lifted his plastic cup of water, drank it down in one and then clicked his table back in and gingerly getting to his feet as his ribs protested at the quick movement, slid out of the row and into the aisle, allowing the customer to exit the row.

“Thank you.”

Taron gave him a nod and turned to the other passenger in the row. “I think I will have a stretch too.” He said using it as an excuse at not having to sit back down and then having to get back up again. He didn’t think he would able to hold in the groan if he had to get up and down twice in the space of five minutes and with his body already objecting to sitting so straight and so still for the last two hours, he thought maybe a walk would loosen his tight muscles.

Pulling his hat further down on his head he started to take slow steps down the skinny aisle. It was an overnight flight and the majority of the passengers on the flight were asleep, taking advantage of the low lighting and hum of the plane. Taron hadn’t properly slept in the last five days and couldn’t help but feel jealous of those who easily slumbered in their seat. It was actually his third flight and thankfully his last one before he landed in Dublin and the late-night flight would have him in Ireland at eight fifty am on Thursday morning.

However, it hadn’t been so easy as hopping on a plane. He had to fight his case with Doctor Hart to be discharged from the hospital four days earlier than planned.

“No Taron. Absolutely not.”

“Please just listen to me.”

“No Taron.”

“You told me that if I listen to the nurses and walk around you would discharge me.”

“Yes, at the end of the week, not today Tuesday. End of the week, Friday, probably even Saturday.”

Taron followed the doctor out of the door his room and to the nurse’s station. “I am not asking to be discharged today.” He said as the doctor stopped at the desk where Ruth was sitting. “I am asking to be discharged tomorrow.”

“For goodness sake Taron, are you trying to end up back in the hospital? You have only just come off the IV line.”

“I promise I will rest and take it easy but I need to go. I need to leave the hospital and I can’t do that until you discharge me.”

“And I am not going to do that Taron. I am sorry but even with your quick recovery, I won’t risk it.”

“Then write on the fucking papers that I understand the risks and let me go!” Shouted Taron, running his hands frustratedly through his hair, wincing as he brushed the dressing on his forehead.

“Taron…” Ruth stood up. “Hey, take it easy.”

Letting a sigh leave his lips, Taron looked to the Doctor. “I am sorry.” He said. “I am really sorry but I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t sit in that bloody room with my thoughts. I need to leave.”

“Taron, it’s four more days.” Replied the doctor. “I really want to be sure that you are not carrying any secondary injuries.”

“You told me I was clear on Sunday. You said you were amazed at how I had gotten to my feet so quickly, at how I adapted to the change in my pain relief.”

“And I am.”

“Then please let me go.” Begged Taron.

“Why are you so desperate to leave the hospital?”

“Robyn.” Answered Taron simply.

“Robyn? Sorry Taron you are going to have to explain that a bit better to me.”

He pulled the letter from the pocket of his sweatpants and pulled down the neck of his t-shirt. “These are the only two things I have from Robyn. A letter and some bruises. I cannot explain it, I don’t know how to explain it but all I know is that I feel empty, hurt and at a loss that this is all I have from the person who saved my life with no way to contact her.”

“You also have your life.” Chipped in Ruth. “You said you only have two things, but you have three. The letter, the bruises and your life.”

Doctor Hart looked impatiently to Ruth who shrugged her shoulders at him. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me discharging you early.”

“Ooh are we having a staff meeting?” Doctor Keane walked up. She was completing her rounds, when she heard raised voices at the nurse’s station and recognising one of those voices as Doctor Hart, went to see what was going on. She was surprised to see his patient standing beside him, looking frustrated and upset, even more surprised to see Taron on his feet as the last time she saw him, he was almost writhing in pain. “Hey Taron, it is good to see you on your feet. You look really well. Really well actually. What’s going on? Are you trying to raid the nurse’s chocolates?”

“He is asking to be discharged.” Scoffed Doctor Hart.

“What? Taron?”

“Robyn left.” Taron turned to the new doctor. “I mean the woman who…”

“… Gave you CPR. Yeah, I know her. I stitched her up.”

Taron had to double take. “You stitched her up.”

“Well yeah. I popped two stitches in her shoulder and examined her when you all came in from the 7/11.” Phoebe watched as the Taron’s eyes widened in surprise. “But you wouldn’t know any of this because she left and went home. Did you even get to see her before she left?” She watched as Taron shook his head, causing her to move forward and place a hand on his shoulder. “She took her flight home, didn’t she?” Taron nodded again, feeling that sadness he had been trying to keep at bay creeping into him. “Please tell me you are not going after her.” She was met with watery tired green eyes. “Taron…”

“Don’t.” He said talking two steps backwards so her hand fell from his shoulder. “Don’t ‘Taron’ me. I am not ashamed to say that I was shit scared in that 7/11 and there was one person there keeping me calm and together and that was Robyn. She never panicked. She never showed an ounce of fear and she didn’t think twice to helping when I was caught under that shelving unit. She held my hand for near five hours straight and she only let go to find a way, that I have learnt since, that risked her life so she could save mine and then she undertook something that I can’t even begin to comprehend because it causes my chest to tighten up and my stomach to turn and I haven’t been able to talk through my daunting emotions because the one person I needed desperately to talk to left. I am not going to go and do something stupid. I am not going back to work. I am going to go and find her; I need to find her.” The two doctors and the nurse watched as Taron took two breathes and closed his eyes as he tried to settle his emotions. “I cannot wait until Saturday.” He said his hands rubbing his eyes as he wiped unfallen tears away.

Doctor Keane looked to Ruth. “You got a spare chair back there Ruth.” The nurse nodded and the doctor walked around the desk of the nurse’s station and wheeled the chair around behind Taron. “Will you sit for me?” She asked him and held onto the chair as he carefully lowered himself into the soft leather, his head going straight into his hands, a wince filling his features with the movement. Phoebe could see the young man in front of her starting to crumble and she was nervous about him standing, much more comfortable when he was sitting down.

“Taron, look at me.” Doctor Keane knelt in front of him, placing two hands on his knees, feeling his legs shaking under her touch.

“Phoebe…” Started Doctor Hart but he stopped when he saw the look on Phoebe’s face. It was one he was used to seeing from his colleague when she was displeased.

“Taron, sweetheart, look at me.” Beautiful green eyes which were laden with grief and pain unwillingly looked at her. “Why do you need leave the hospital today? Why can’t you wait until Saturday? You know you were seriously hurt and although you are up and walking about and might feel a lot better than you did three days ago, your body is still healing and when we ask you to stay in the hospital, it is for a reason.”

“You looked after Robyn?” Asked Taron looking at the doctor and when she nodded, he continued. “Did she speak to you about what had happened?”

“To be honest, not really. I kind of had to drag it out of her. She was battling with a lot of emotions.”

“So after speaking with her, you can understand how I am feeing right now but the one person who properly understands what I am going through, the one person I needed to talk to and see when I woke up was gone and all that was left was a letter. I know you are all trained professionals and you have all taken such great care of me and helped me and I am so thankful to you all but please realise it is Robyn I am indebted too. It is Robyn’s solid presence I crave so I can get these building emotions under control because I feel like I am going to burst and as much as I need Robyn, it seems like she needs too. Richard and I have had the chance to talk about what has happened, but who has Robyn spoken too? I know we are strangers but I learnt one thing about Robyn as we were pushed together in such a horrific situation and that is, she is very stubborn.”

“Well that is something we can agree on. Robyn is a very determined young woman.”

Taron looked to the doctor. “I was breaking through those walls. She let me help her and I can’t explain how she helped me. I can’t form the words to describe what she did for me and if I am feeling so shaken and almost traumatised by what happened to us, imagine what Robyn is feeling. I need to talk to her. I need to see her. I just can’t wait until Saturday.” Taron placed his head into his hands again, trying to stop himself from breaking down in a flood of tears.

Doctor Keane turned to look at Doctor Hart and giving Taron’s knee a squeeze stood up and looked to Ruth who moved from her place at the nurse’s station to stand beside Taron as his body started to shake with effort he had just made to fight his case. It had taken a lot of energy which he didn’t have.

“No Phoebe. Don’t even start defending him. He is my patient.”

“And Robyn was mine.”

“She was nowhere as badly hurt as Taron was.”

“I don’t think that is something you can prove Steve. Just because Taron’s injuries are more visual than Robyn’s.”

“He was shot with a bullet.”

“And she gave him the CPR that saved his life and we both know it is the person who performs the CPR that is affected more and before the CPR came into play, wasn’t it Robyn who cleaned Taron up and stopped him from panicking. It would have been a very different outcome if she wasn’t there.”

“I understand all that Phoebe and I have met Robyn and saw that she was very vital to Taron’s condition when he arrived at the hospital. I saw her talk to him kindly before I brought him to the CT scan and believe me I know how she saved his life, I examined him but I just don’t feel comfortable letting him leave the hospital only four days after he was admitted, a day after coming off an IV line.”

“Steve, he’s not going to go and do anything reckless. He just wants to go and see the girl who saved his life. Don’t you agree with him when he says Robyn is the only one who understands what he has been through?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then shouldn’t we give them both the opportunity to heal their mental health too?”

“She chose to leave.”

“It wasn’t as easy as that for Robyn. Believe me. Her emotions were very raw too, just like Taron’s and while at the time she saw Taron as her responsibly, once he was in the hospital being cared for, she had her own responsibilities to think about and being a very sensible adult, she made a decision that was extremely hard for her. I have no doubt in my mind that Robyn wouldn’t have left if she didn’t have too.” Phoebe took Steve’s elbow and led him down the corridor a little. “They need to talk this through with each other. If he arrives at her door, do you honestly think she is going to turn him away?”

“He needs rest, not a reunion.”

“I am sure you have gathered by now that Taron is not from here and is working here, work that I am sure has been postponed until he is fully fit. He is not going to stay in America to rest, he will want to go home so he is going to have to take a flight where he will more than likely go to his apartment or house and be by himself…”

“… Or to his family.”

“Who have no idea what he is going through and I would like to point out that you have not argued with me on the ‘flight’ part of that sentence.” Doctor Keane continued before Doctor Hart could protest. “Surely he would be better off going to see the person he has been connected with in the most unusual way possible. There is no one else who Taron can talk to about this and I know for a fact, seeing as how I was the doctor who looked after Robyn that she desperately needs someone to talk to as well and that person should be Taron.”

“He wants to leave tomorrow Phoebe.”

“And?”

“And he has sustained some serious injuries.”

“And?”

“Phoebe!”

“For a man who has been shot, technically died and been through so much stress and anxiety in the last four days, he is still pretty resilient and you and I both know he will not give up that easily and as I speak, he proves my point. Here he comes.”

Taron couldn’t hear the conversation that was going on once the two doctors had moved away from him so even though Ruth tried to stop him, he got up from the chair and walked over to them.

“Look I am sorry for causing a fuss over this. I really don’t mean too. I just… I can’t… I don’t…” Taron stopped and took a shaky breath as he tried to think of what to say, taking another as words failed him. “The hurt, more than the physical hurt, is indescribable and intense and the only person who is going to help me get through this is Robyn and I truly believe that I can help her too. I promise I am not going to do anything that is more than getting a flight, seeing Robyn and sleeping a lot.”

Taron didn’t know if it was the private chat from the second doctor or his pleading but Doctor Hart agreed to discharge him the next day, with strict instructions that he was to rest, take the medication he was to be prescribed and if he felt faint, dizzy or short of breathe he had to go to the local doctor at once.

“Can I ask a favour though?” Chanced Taron talking more to the doctor who had looked after Robyn, feeling it was because of her that Doctor Hart had agreed to sign his discharge papers early. “I don’t know where she lives. I don’t even know her surname. Is there any way you can give me her address from the medical forms she had to fill in please? Or even a surname and I can try and find her myself.”

“That’s some serious breach of doctor and patient confidentially Taron.” Smiled Doctor Keane but without a second thought, walked to the nurse’s station and pulled out Robyn’s file. “Robyn Quinn, Poplar Road, Kilcreen, Co Kildare, Ireland.” She enjoyed the genuine smile that lit up his handsome features as she read out Robyn’s address to him and the unexpected hug he walked around the nurse’s station to give her too.

“You must promise me that you will look after yourself and Robyn too.” She said as she gently hugged him back.

Taron thought he was going to have a tougher battle on his hands when he called his mam to tell her that he wasn’t actually going home to Wales but rather to Ireland but Tina, who desperately wanted to see her son and hug him tight, supported his decision completely.

“Do not apologise to me Taron. Of course, you know I would rather you came home but I also understand this is something you have to do. You need to mentally heal after what you have been through and as much I would love to be that person to help you do that, I know it can’t be and I agree with you, Robyn needs this as much as you do.”

It was his mam who helped him to book the flights over the phone there and then but unfortunately as it was coming to the end of the summer season and most flights were fully booked, the only way to get to Ireland was by taking three flights. One from Tampa to Orlando, Orlando to South Carolina and then South Carolina to Dublin. It was a trip that would take about twenty hours with layovers included but it was his quickest option to get to Robyn so he took it without question.

Richard had already dropped his duffle bag off to him when they had said goodbye to each other Tuesday afternoon, Richards own work commitments meaning he had to leave his friend and Taron was so thankful for Richard when he opened the bag to see brand new t-shirts and jeans in his duffle as well as a peaked hat, some hoodies and a packet of turtles. Taron had only packed shorts and light t-shirts for the weather in Florida. He had already confessed to Richard that he was planning to go and find Robyn when they had a coffee yesterday morning and instead of telling his friend he was stupid, Richard told him he would bring his bag to him, filling it with new clothes, giving him a very supportive hug before he left.

Taron passed by the air hostesses as he walked down the aisle, giving them a smile as he kept going towards the front of the plane, the walking helping a little to relax tired muscles. With the flight being booked so last minute, Taron could only take whatever seat was available to him. He wasn’t bothered by travelling first class or anything like that but really would have liked to have gotten a window seat for the longer flight to Dublin but unfortunately was stuck in the middle for each flight and it was hard having no space either side of him to stretch or move a little and sitting in the middle meant there was not a chance of getting some sleep. He was thinking about using his table as a pillow but figured he would end up regretting staying in that position for too long, so he sat with his hat pulled down low, his eyes closed. He had already taken his pain killer before he got on the plane and it was helping to take the edge of the more severe pain he felt but as he walked up the aisle, each step caused a ripple of discomfort through his side and head.

Taron turned and started to walk back down toward the back of the plane and his seat. Right now, he may have been on the plane on his way to Ireland, but once he got there, he was at a loss of what to do next. It was a rush of booking flights, getting prescriptions filled and completing final examinations so Doctor Hart was absolutely sure he was happy to discharge Taron and he had left the hospital just before six that morning to get to the airport so once he got off the plane in Dublin, he actually didn’t have a plan for what to do next.

He had Robyn’s name and address and that was it and would figure out the rest when he landed. He reached his seat and apologised as the passenger at the end who had to get up to let him back into his seat which he carefully shuffled into, easing himself down. He clicked his seatbelt back in and leaned his head against the chair, closing his eyes and ignored the butterflies in his stomach.

#Taron Egerton #Taron Egerton Fanfiction #Taron Egerton Fanfic #Taron fanfic #Angst #friendship #loyalty #sequel #love fanfiction #determination

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human-trash-fire · 4 years

Text

Beautiful Disaster: Chapter 5 (Pynch Soulmate AU)

Alrighty my loves, this chapter has been a labor of love from the beginning. As you continue reading you will see art pieces and each is correlated with a song (those will be at the end), and references yet again will be made to the EMFS playlist (Ronan’s rehab playlist- I’ve actually made it on spotify! you can find it here)

As usual you can find this story on Ao3 @ glam_reaper 2 if you’re interested <3

TW: Mention of suicide attempt, a panic attack though not super descriptive, cannon typical language.

Iv.

You,

I made a friend last week.

I know for most people that wouldn’t be a big deal, but I assume by now You understand what that means for someone like me. I guess “friend” may be a generous term? I don’t know if we are there yet, Blue definitely disagrees with him “on principle.”

You see, President Cellphone as she calls him, or Richard Campbell Gansey III (I know, what a douchey fucking name) is all boat shoes and privledge and perfect teeth. Gansey isn’t someone I’d normally associate with mind you, Henry kind of met my quota for rich extroverts in the inner circle, and yet…

So, here’s the story. I’m writing my last letter right? And I was so fucking lost. I decided to walk home from Nino’s- I thought maybe it would help me settle. And there, right around the corner is this fucking ‘73 camero. It should have been beautiful, really.. A classic like that? It’s a dream to look at. Only this fucking thing is the UGLIEST color of candy orange you could ever imagine… And it’s blowing smoke all over the damn place. I was honestly going to leave boat-shoes to call his daddy or mechanic or what have you, but he looked so confused. I offered to help him out and was able to get it running long enough to get to Boyd’s.

I expected him to just drop off “The Pig” (the car) like any normal person and come back for it, only I apparently made “quite the impression.”

Gansey ended up staying with me, prattling on about his Masters History program and some welsh king the ENTIRE time I worked on the damn car. At first I was tuning him out, but without realizing it I became completely entranced by the whole story. I’ve never seen such passion for anything, and I have VERY spirited friends.

He has one of those voices you know? The kind that can stop a room, raise an army, lead a nation. The kind that demands to be heard without ever having to raise itself.

That’s Gansey though.

I think he’ll be good for me, I don’t think he’d give me much of a choice in the matter though to be honest. He kind of adopted me this week? That should bother me and yet, being around him is just… It’s being included. It’s a sense of purpose.

I think he needs it too, he doesn’t seem to talk about negative things but you can tell, he’s haunted by something. That’s what solidified it for me really. He may be a senator’s son but he’s seen some shit.

I wish you could have met him, I wonder if you would have been as intrigued by him as I find myself.

Blue is being a total idiot about him, but I’m about 82% sure it’s because she is into him. I know for sure the feeling is mutual. It took Gans approximately 15 minutes after meeting Blue to ask me for her life story, offend her beyond measure, and then haul ass out of Nino’s. It was the first time I’d seriously laughed in so long. Have you ever been second-hand embarrassed for someone? It was that.

I’m going to wrap this up now though, I need to head to Nino’s for my shift, Blue’s working so of course Gans is stopping by. He said he’s bringing one of his best friends with him, some dude named Noah. Apparently he’s pretty cool, so I’m moderately less apprehensive. He said he wished he could bring his other best friend/ his and Noah’s third roommate but the guy is staying with family for a few months or something. Idk? He doesn’t talk about the other roommate much. I honestly don’t even think he’s ever said his name. Who gives a shit though, I can barely handle one new friend, let alone a 3-pack of Ganseys. Good God… I hope Noah isn’t another Gansey…. Fuck.

Welp.

Here goes nothing.

*****

It started with a not-so-subtle idea from the esteemed Dr. Allen. “Show me what happened.” Ronan was never great with words before all this, and since… When he spoke it was usually a litany of curse words. So Dr. Allen had suggested art. In the weeks since his entombment in this fine rehabilitation center, Ronan had kind of already been doing what he was being asked to do now. Though, he didn’t mention it to Allen. He’d spent countless hours sketching his life, the whole thing, in snapshots inside that beautiful leather sketchbook Gansey had given him.

He started at the beginning, pictures of Aurora and his brothers, the Barns, his father playing guitar by the fire. He drew their family vacations, the cows he used to sneak out and sleep beside when he was a child, the feeling of winning the Tennis State Championship when he was 15. He drew the bad things too, his nightmares, his drug-trips, that old stained couch in the basement of Kavinsky’s house. He put every piece of himself, all 22 years of memories down in that book, woven together with song lyrics in the margins.

So when Dr. Allen asked him to look specifically to his addiction and create, he didn’t see a problem. He needed to return to school with a series anyways, Declan had called to inform him that strings had been pulled to allow him to finish his final semester at Georgetown, but he needed to walk in with something to show at the January exhibition. Two birds, and all that.

He settled on 7 pieces, each done in oils on canvas, each accompanied by a song. 7 moments in the life of his battle with addiction, from the beginning to now. With each stroke of his brush he felt infinesmally lighter, pouring his grief into the images before him.

It started with “The Fall.” His father’s murder in reds and greys; fracturing lines and deep shadows. He mixed his paints with tears and used his heart to drag color across the canvas. For the first time in years, Ronan allowed the memory to consume him. He’d re-lived it plenty of times in his nightmares, but this was different. His hands shook, jagged strokes of anger and confusion bleeding through. He painted the brief moment, the final moment, when his world was whole before his teenage mind finally realized what it was he was looking at. His last free breath. And he painted his screams, the cacophony of pain, endlessly mixing with sirens until his vocal chords gave out.

He drowned the canvas in un-kept promises and hung it out to dry with childhood dreams.

Then came “Chasing the Void.” It was a story told in stark lighting. High beams on a backroad, swirling smoke and broken bottles. It was white glasses and white-powder lines on shark-nosed hood. It was going 115mph, bones rattling with the beat of the bass in his sound system. Ronan painted a black tattoo, used the blood on his knuckles to tint bloodshot eyes. His brush moved with his mother’s disappointment and his brother’s anger. Whimsical lines and Gansey’s head shaking when he found Ronan passed out yet again. He painted the highs and lows when sobriety reminded him that he hated the face that stared back at him in the mirror.

Each new piece he added to the collection was brought to Dr. Allen’s office. Together they worked through each memory associated with the piece and slowly Ronan felt the weight on his chest lighten.

Gansey visited every Monday and Friday like clockwork. He kept Ronan apprised to all the goings on of Monmouth and updates on Matthew and Declan. Ronan never asked for them, but he appreciated it regardless. His current obsession though seemed to be a new friend, Adam something. He had been going on for 30 minutes now about how this man single-handedly raised the Pig from the dead. Ronan tuned out most of the conversation, but nodded at what he assumed were appropriate moments while sketching.

“Ronan, are you even paying attention?” Gansey asked, irritation only slightly evident.

“Mmm?” Ronan hummed. “For sure. Pig. Smoke. Some new guy.”

“Essentially. I was saying that Noah and I are heading to his second job, the man works 2 jobs and is getting a masters can you believe it? Anyways Nino’s, so Noah can finally meet him and Blue. Have I mentioned her yet?”

Blue? He thought. Who the fuck names their kid Blue. “Once or twice.”

“Well they both work this afternoon, so I assume we’ll just hang there until they get off. Then maybe grab a bite. I wish you could come, I’m sure you’d get along nicely with Adam.” Gansey said, choosing to ignore the previous sarcasm and barrell on. Excelsior.

“Doubt it.” Guy sounds like a douche.

“On that note, thank you for another lovely visit. I’ll see you Monday, Ronan.” Gansey gathered his coat and made his way to the door with a final wave.

Ronan waved back with a single finger and a saccharine “Bye, Dick.” Then shoved his Airpods back into his ears and lost himself in the EMFS playlist.

*****

As Adam gathered the tub of dirty dishes from above the trash and made his way back to wash them, he was lost in thought. These last two weeks, recent events, had been so much and yet he strangely was beginning to feel some semblance of peace. He knew that Blue had wanted him to write letters to help him cope. If he was admitting to it helping, he also needed to be honest with himself in noting that it may have been hurting just as much. He was falling in love with a ghost. A figment of his imagination that he could tell his every secret too, someone who listened without judgment; Someone who never asked more of him than he could handle. It wasn’t healthy, wasn’t what Blue had intended, of that he was sure. But, if it brought him peace and allowed him to sleep without seeing cold, dead eyes, then what was the harm?

He rinsed the mugs and plates loading them efficiently into the dishwasher, and dried his hands. As he moved to toss the towel into the bin, he heard the bell chime above the cafe door. He made his way slowly to the front, knowing that Blue was currently handling the register meant that he didn’t need to rush. On his way down the hallway he stopped to straighten a missing cat flier on the community bulletin board, taking a moment to snap a picture of the cat in question so he could be on the lookout, then continued toward the front; eyes glued to his phone.

He rounded the corner towards the coffee bar to the tune of laughter, it seemed Gansey had arrived. His eyes found Blue first. For all her insistance that she loathed the man in question, she was positively glowing, head tossed back in a hearty laugh. Lost in the bubble of charm Gansey operated in.

“-And so I asked him, mind you I’ve had a lot to drink at this point, ‘Hey senator, why do you fucking hate poor peo-‘ Oh! Adam” Ganseys story of embarrassing his mother at one of her Republican fundraisers interrupted, as he caught sight of Adam sliding behind the bar.

“Hey Gans,” He smiled.

“My apologies, this is Noah.” Gansey stepped to the side to reveal the man in question, and Adam’s breath stopped.

There, eyes blue and wide with shock, mouth agape stood the man from the alley. The one whose scream still haunted Adam in the dark, solitary hours of sleep. The one that began his every nightmare of that night.

He was different now, tears weren’t pouring from his eyes to dance across the plains of his smudgey face. His blonde hair free of blood was slightly tousled, and his clothes were clean, albeit a little disheveled.

“No,” the word was a broken noise, barely a word at all, closer to a sob. Gansey and Blue looked frantically between the two for what seemed like an eternity before Noah spoke.

“It’s you…”

“Who? Noah, you know Adam?” Gansey’s voice was quietly confused.

Adam began to shake his head slowly, increasing with speed as his breath finally returned to him; Erratic and wild. Crocodile tears blurred his vision, and he finally croaked a simple question, “What… What was his name?”

“Ronan.”

“Oh, god” Blue breathed.

Adam ran, desperately fleeing the scene and chorus of his name called from the front. Ronan, his name was Ronan. Adam couldn’t breathe. His pain fresh, an un-mendable wound reopened now that he had a name to grieve. He paused, only long enough to grab his messenger bag from the back, and took the alley door.

Then he ran, faster than he’d ever remembered running. Tears turning the colors of the world around him to a haunting watercolor. His breath came in painful stabs, each beat of his bleeding heart an excruciating truth.

He somehow made it back to his apartment. The moment the door closed behind him he fell against it and slid to the floor. Ronan Ronan Ronan-

“R-Ronan.” He spoke the name the first time aloud, the feeling of its weight on his tongue was an answer to a question he’d been asking for a month. For a lifetime.

Adam didn’t know how long he sat on the floor, grief taking time and twisting it in on itself. An amalgam of pain, hopelessness, and questions. Gansey, Gansey knew Ronan, knew Noah. Noah the boy he’d last seen carted away in the back of an ambulance covered in red red red. Noah, who’d screamed for help like the world was shattering. Noah, who’d clung tightly to the shredded arms of a bleeding man in a dark alley.

Help me, his mind screamed, his internal voice morphing into Noah’s from that night.

Help me, I’m not okay…

A key twisting in the lock above his head brought his attention to the present. Adam pushed away from the door, and waited as Blue made her way into his dark apartment. Night had fallen sometime since he’d been here, on the floor, lost in the alley. Lost in a name.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Th-that was-”

“I know. Noah told us after you left. Adam, there’s… Adam. I need to tell you something.”

It was a concentrated effort to drag his gaze from the space between their bodies on the floor to meet her eyes. Lights from the street poured through the window in the living room, painting Blue’s honey warm skin in a haunting glow. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, so he waited. He watched. She brought a trembling hand to his, her brown eyes lined with silver, she squeezed.

“Adam, he’s alive.”

A sob born of heartbreak and pain tore from his chest, he couldn’t form words. He broke then, completely and wholly. Blue came to cradle his head against her chest as he cried. Every hope he’d killed since the alley came barreling to the surface; All the pain and confusion, love and questions, beating like waves against the shores of his mind. Some minutes later he finally raised his head and met Blue’s eyes, her smile was wet and broken. He dragged his hand under his nose, across his eyes, and finally found the word to the question he needed to ask. “How?”

So Blue told him. Apparently, him finding Noah and Ronan in that alley, the tourniquet he’d made of his scarf, that extra minute he’d bought him had been enough. The doctors were able to stitch his wounds, and though it had been a close call, he’d pulled through. She explained that he’d had a hard life, though Gansey wouldn’t give details because he insisted those were Ronan’s to share when he was ready. He did however give her basic facts. Ronan Niall Lynch is an artist, a senior at Georgetown. He’s an orphan, and a brother. He’s an addict in recovery at a facility in Arlington, and Gansey’s third roommate.

Blue explained that, when Adam was ready Gansey and Noah wanted to meet with him, to talk more. She offered to accompany him when that time came, but they all agreed they wouldn’t push him until he was ready. “Thank you,” he’d said to Blue. For getting the information. For telling him. For allowing him space. She understood that his history made this difficult, an addict for a soulmate was something he would need time to process. She eventually asked if he wanted to be alone and when he’d told her “yes” she kissed his forehead, and made her way to the door.

“Adam,” she paused, and he looked up. “We’ll wait on your text okay? Whenever you’re ready. But please check in so I know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

With a perfunctory nod she slid back out the door.

Adam spent another minute in silence before dragging himself from the floor. He made his way in a daze to his desk and he collapsed into his chair. Slowly, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper.

His hand shook.

He took a deep breath.

He wrote.

Ronan,

You’re alive…

**********************

Art Pieces and their correlating songs (linked):

“The Fall” The War- SYML

“Chase The Void” For What It’s Worth- Malia J

#bd au #pynch #pynch fic #Adam Parrish #ronan lynch #ronan x adam #blue sargent #gansey #richard campbell gansey iii #gangsey #soulmate au

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incoherentbabblings · 4 years

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First Date (9/9)

Tim has one more test to pass before Bruce will allow him out as Robin. Like Dick and Jason before him, he has to avoid being caught by Batman for one night. He has already failed once, and is determined to succeed this time. Determination which might not count for much when Stephanie Brown is on the run from the mob. Her mother kidnapped as a way to threaten her father, Stephanie manages to escape and run into Tim. Unable to leave Stephanie alone when she is in need, Tim decides to try and multi-task. All he has to do is rescue Stephanie’s mother, take down the mob, avoid Batman, and get Stephanie to agree to a proper date all in one night. Absolute anarchy ensues Ao3 link here!

Tim hadn’t felt so close to crying since his mom’s death and dad’s coma. He sat, silent and despondent, staring at his knees, trying very hard to not start blubbering.

Batman, as always, was a stone pillar next to him. Saying nothing, making no noise, not even breathing for all Tim knew. He was brooding as much as Tim was.

He had failed the test. Again. But more than that, he had endangered a mother and daughter, and allowed a man to have been killed.

Head blown off. What a way to go.

Dick had warned him once, that not stepping in front of a bullet was not the same as firing the gun. Dick spoke as if he knew from first-hand experience. Tim couldn’t hold himself responsible for every injury and death that occurred, it would drive him insane with guilt, but still, Tim wondered what would have happened if he had done what he was supposed to.

Stephanie wouldn’t have gotten shot and fallen off the bridge for one thing.

All that was bad enough, but when Bruce said that he had found Tim just before he had run into Stephanie, Tim began to choke on his tears. He hadn’t even managed an hour. He had failed in every possible way.

He coughed in a lame attempt to cover up his unsteady breathing and to force air down his constricted throat. Batman finally took pity on him and spoke quietly once more. Thanking every god in every possible form, he didn’t sound angry.

“We’ll get back to the cave, Alfred will give you the once over, then I want you to go home. We’ll talk properly next weekend. Your father will be expecting you home soon. I’ll find Arthur Brown this week without you in the cave.”

Nope. The disappointed tone was worse. What Bruce was saying was reasonable, but Tim really didn’t want to sit around waiting to hear that Robin was a dead pipe dream.

“What time?” Tim asked. Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but Tim interrupted before he could reply. His nerves were getting to him. “I’ll come around at three. Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Bruce pressed his lips together and said nothing. Tim took that as a fine.

He managed to hold it together for Alfred to give him the metaphorical thumbs up. Changing into clean clothes, Tim waited whilst Bruce was checked and promptly sent straight to bed to rest. Tim rummaged through his bag, eating food he’d purchased at the corner store, and turned his phone back on. There were no messages from either Ives nor his father, so Tim guessed his lie had been a success. Alfred offered to drive Tim to his car in town, ready for Tim to drive back again to his father’s, and pretend he’d had a nice evening with Ives.

Sometimes lying to his father was easy. This was not going to be one of those times. Standing in the car park, Alfred placed a gentle hand on Tim’s shoulder, sympathetically – practically – saying goodbye and sorry. Tim smiled and shrugged it off. He got in his car and watched as Alfred left. The weather was still awful, grey and wet and chiller than it had been yesterday. It seemed to match his mood.

Head falling forward, Tim banged his temple against the steering wheel of the car, cursing himself for several hard years work, effort and dreams gone down the drain.

For the sake of a girl.

Tim felt no resentment at Stephanie. Not for one moment did he think anything that had happened last night was her fault. No, honestly, Tim knew where the fault lay.

Driving home was slow and painful. Traffic was bad and the weather was worse. By the time he got home, he just wanted to crash into bed and not emerge for the next week. But no, Monday was just around the corner, he had a week of school to get through. Maybe it would be easier, without training in the evening. Without anything to work towards.

Plonking up the steps to the front door, and desperate to distract himself from the heartbreak, Tim wondered how he could go about getting in contact with Stephanie. Opening and closing the front door, Tim somewhat resembled a drowned puppy.

“Tim?” He heard his father call from the living room. Steeling himself, Tim took off his shoes, and tried to smile.

“Hey dad.”

His father was bent over the coffee table, assorted papers and what looked like bills in his hand. Dana was probably working with a client in town.

“You just back?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m a bit soaked and shattered. Didn’t get much sleep.”

“You head out at all with Ives?”

“Um, just for a second, picked up some food and stuff. Played games mostly.”

His father nodded, then looked away, satisfied with Tim’s succinct responses and ready to return to his work.

“Well go ahead and take a nap if you want. It’s still early.”

“’Kay.”

Tim went to go up the stairs, then paused for a moment and turned back. He sat on the couch next to his father, who blinked owlishly at his son. They so rarely spoke, but even Jack recognized the solemnness in his son’s posture.

“Dad…how did you and mom meet?”

Jack was not expecting this question. He swallowed uncomfortably and put down the papers.

“We met through work. There’s not really a grand story to tell.”

“But how quick did you know? That you…liked her.”

Jack frowned, like he knew he wasn’t able to give the answer Tim wanted to hear. A broken marriage close to divorce before Janet’s death did not make a romantic story. “Tim… I don’t know. Honestly, I never really thought about it. Why? What’s brought this up?”

Telling half-truths was than flat out lies, so Tim twisted his hands and tried not to burn red from embarrassment.

“When I was out yesterday, I ran into a girl.”

That made Jack interested, he puffed out his chest and leaned back against the sofa, smirking knowingly and ready to needle Tim.

“Oh? And you think you’re head over heels?”

“After less than a day? Yeah, a little.”

Jack smiled kindly. “Everyone’s different Tim. Just because your mother and I didn’t…” His discomfort returned, like he wasn’t willing to lay bare his relationship with Janet to Tim. He broke off abruptly, then smiled once more, but this time it struck Tim as slightly patronising. “Doesn’t matter. You’re only sixteen Tim. Got your whole life ahead of you.”

Tim said nothing, trying not to start crying again. What he had wanted and planned for his life to be was no longer an option. A whole life of what? Taking up the family business? He felt the corners of his mouth turn down, and he struggled to neutralise his expression. Jack watched him with some concern.

“I guess so. Still, you’d like her. I think. She’s… pretty sharp.”

“She have a name?”

“Stephanie.”

As he spoke, Tim froze, remembering he had his phone. Pulling it out, he went to Facebook, and tried a search to see if she would come up. He found her not too far down, smiling beatifically in a cheesy grin for the camera. She was sitting at a dining table, probably at her school. A girl with bright blue hair was sat next to her, resting her head on Stephanie’s shoulder. The rest of her profile was private. Jack tilted his head as he looked, musing on whether or not he liked the name or the face. Abruptly ashamed for some reason, Tim decided to leave before the conversation could get derailed and Jack could give an unsolicited opinion.

“Anyway,” Tim stood up, leaving behind a wet patch on the sofa from his wet jeans and jacket. “I’m gonna go nap. See you later.”

Glad for the awkward conversation to be over, Jack waved Tim off silently and returned to his work.

Slipping into his room, Tim pulled out his phone once more. Staring at the smiling Stephanie, he hesitated only for a moment, then clicked to send her a friend request. He threw his phone onto his bed and tugged his shirt off to change into his pyjamas, exhaustion quickly making him feel a bit dead on his feet. Crawling into bed with wet hair, he sighed sadly. He truly didn’t want to face the next week. He buried his face into the pillow, and his chest began to shake with unspilt tears.

An aggressive buzz buzz on his phone pulled him away from despair long enough to activate his home screen.

A notification lit up before his eyes – Stephanie had accepted his request.

Tim didn’t know he was doing it, but he smiled at his phone, and for a moment the disappointment and crushed dreams vanished.

When one door closes…

***

“Is it okay that we talk out here?”

Bruce, who had opened the front door for Tim, paused, but nodded. Tim was being cowardly, refusing to go all the way downstairs only to do a walk of shame back up and off the estate. Best to get it done over and quickly, like ripping off a bandage, but Tim thought it more akin to hacking off a leg.

Shutting the door firmly behind him, Bruce and Tim sat on the stairs to the entrance of Wayne Manor. Tim placed his skateboard down in between them, to act as a literal and even metaphorical shield from anything that would come his way during the awful conversation. The sun was out, for once, and it was warm enough to not need a jacket. The two sat silent for a moment, watching the gravel path up the hill. The wind blew gently, disturbing the taller grass.

Tim waited for the anvil to drop.

“Arthur Brown was hidden over in Gotham Village, near the university campus. He’s back in police custody. Said he was doing the world a favour, stealing the money from human traffickers, said he did nothing wrong. His wife and daughter are going to have to testify about what happened to them. I trust Stephanie won’t reveal who helped her last week?”

“She hasn’t so far, no.”

“Hmph. You did well Tim, given what you had to work with.”

Tim stared at Bruce from the corner of his eyes, keeping his face turned forward, and expression caught between incredulous and anxious.

“I doubt that.”

“Look, there are two aspects to last week. The first, the test, you failed miserably. I told you not to linger at the starting point, which you proceeded to do. I don’t know if Dick told you that disobeying my advice is a good idea, but it wasn’t. You were told, you didn’t listen, and it backfired.”

This was what Tim had been expecting. A shopping list of what he had done wrong.

“That would have been that, except I think meeting Stephanie changed everything.”

Tim slowly turned his head towards Bruce, who was in return not looking at Tim. The kindlings of hope sparked.

“You tired to balance the test with looking out for a civilian hunted by the mob. I understand why you did what you did. It was all for moot considering you had already failed by that point-”

Ouch.

“But you protected her, saved the mother and made a significant dent on one of Gotham’s mob groups. Any other night that would have been a success. But you failed the primary objective.”

Tim took the stillness after Bruce’s speech as his cue to defend himself, but he didn’t grab it. “I could have activated the beacon you gave me. She could have been safe with you the entire time.”

“And I still would have failed at the warehouse. Except there may have been more of them there instead of arrested on the bridge and corner shops. You came, you won.”

“It was Steph’s idea… And she took out loads of people along the way.”

“Would she have managed alone?”

“No. No, she asked me to stay with her. She couldn’t have done it alone.”

“And neither did I.”

Baffled by what Bruce was saying, Tim tried to catch Bruce’s gaze, but he seemed stubborn to avoid it, as if he wouldn’t get the words out if he looked at Tim.

“I spoke at length with Alfred, Dick and Barbara. They think you’ve warranted the name. I suppose Dick’s opinion counts for Robin more than the others.”

“…What did he say?”

Sighing, Bruce planted his hands down behind him, leaning back, face contemplative.

“That Robin wasn’t mine to give, regardless. Dick had given you his blessing, and that was all that mattered. I said perhaps, but Tim also wants to work with me, and that part I do need to give my blessing to.”

“And… do…you…?” Whispered out of fear of what one syllable word was to follow, Tim watched, chest and stomach squirming with anguish, as Bruce blew an angry gust of air out and screwed up his face.

Alfred poked his head out the door then, making Tim jump a mile. Alfred smiled mischievously.

“Master Tim, I’ve let a young girl through the front gate. I believe you know her?”

“Wait what the what?” Tim turned to see Stephanie huffing over the crest of the hill on a bicycle. Tim and Bruce both stared in utter astonishment as the girl who had been shot twice less than a week ago began to wheel down the slope, apparently quite happy and over her brutal injuries.

“Well then,” muttered Bruce, standing up. He stared at Stephanie was a sort of fond bemusement. A distant echo of, “Oh this is a bigger hill than I thought,” drifted over to the manor, and they watched as she whirled over, pink helmet juddering up and down on her head. She was wearing jeggings with giant sneakers, and an oversized sweater that made her look like she was from the wrong decade. She belonged in a nineteen eighties teen sitcom, not twenty first century ragged Gotham.

She came to an abrupt stop at the base of the steps, losing control of the bike as it turned sideways sharply. She stumbled off, catching her foot on the pedals, squealing as the bike fell over onto her. She caught it, and corrected herself. Smiling brightly, she took off her helmet. Her golden hair had gone a bit static, flyaway strands sticking upwards. Bright red cheeks and a breathless joy made Tim’s mood lighter just from watching her.

“Hullo!” She greeted, glib as always. She wasn’t looking at any of the three men on the steps, however, she was focused on the massive scale of the stone house looming down. “Nice to meet you Mr. Wayne. Your house is very big.”

Bruce had put on his Brucie face and laughed fakely. “Yes, it is big. Who are you?”

Stephanie started awkwardly, and laughed, finally looking at Bruce, Alfred and Tim. “Oh. Sorry. This is rude. I’m Stephanie Brown. I’m hunting for Tim Drake which, hah, found you.”

Tim trotted down the steps and reached for her bike, holding it for her. “And how’d you do that?”

“Well, I found out where your dad lives, which – long story – was funny ‘cause when I turned up he said you were at Wayne Manor ‘cause you know you just casually hang out at Wayne Manor sometimes, like normal people do, so I asked him to tell me where it was ‘cause I wanted to surprise you! Are you busy? I think I’m interrupting something aren’t I? I can go if you want. Your dad was looking at me funny. Did you tell him about me? Did you tell him you’re madly in love with me?”

Tim blushed, Bruce stared, and Stephanie laughed.

“Seriously though, have I come at a bad time?”

“No! No, you’re fine.”

She really wasn’t fine, nor was she supposed to just roll up to Wayne Manor with no invitation, but Alfred could have turned her away if he felt there was a need to.

“Oh, good, I just don’t want to be a bo – Hey! That’s your skateboard?”

Tim looked back at it sitting on the top step. “Oh. Yeah, that’s it.”

“That’s so cool! Can you show me how to ride it? Got time to go to the park?”

Stephanie was interrupted by Bruce, who walked down to be on equal standing with the young couple. “Stephanie?”

“Yes?”

“I’m just finishing up with Tim. He runs chores for us every now and then you see. But we’re pretty much done now.”

Tim reached out and held Stephanie’s wrist, needing the physical contact. She nodded, completely oblivious to his mood.

“Sure sure. Sorry both, I know this is a little off the cuff.”

“Quite alright!” Bruce said, turning away. He reached across and grabbed Tim’s skateboard, and held it out for him. More than a little despondent, Tim limply took it.

“Tim, see that you come back around tonight though. Need to start fitting the suit for the thingy. Better let your dad know that your workload is going to go up from now on.”

Blinking at the floor, Tim felt the gears grinding in his head as the dots connected and the stars aligned. He looked upwards at Bruce; Alfred’s nose twitched mischievously at his employer.

“…Sure. I’ll tell him.”

“Grand. See you tonight Tim. Nice to meet you Stephanie.”

“Nice to meet you too!”

Tim stood, jaw against the floor, unable to comprehend what he thought had just been hinted. Bruce said nothing more and returned inside the manor.

Suit…Work…Evenings…Robin???

“I will buzz you out once you reach the front gate Miss Brown.”

“Thank you Mr…”

“Pennyworth.”

“Pennyworth! Thank you, Mr Pennyworth!”

Alfred rolled his eyes and closed the front door, leaving Tim and Stephanie alone in the front porch. Tim wanted to run a mile. He wanted to jump up and down. He wanted to swing Stephanie around. He wanted to ring Dick or Babs and just scream down the other end.

Instead, he turned to Stephanie, and kissed her cheek.

“Can’t believe you tracked me down.”

“I have my ways.” She whispered conspiratorially. “You know you can look people up from when they register to vote? Your dad’s a good citizen.”

“Oh… yeah. He tries.”

She giggled and went to climb back on her bike.

“To the park then? Then dinner.”

Tim gently bumped her back off. Saying nothing, he stuffed his board in his backpack and climbed on her pink bike. He gestured for her to clamber on as well, perched on the bars on the back wheel. She chuckled, the playfully slapped her helmet on his head and buckled it nice and neat.

“Onwards chauffeur.”

“You know,” he said as they set off. Getting over the hill was going to be a nightmare, Stephanie would be just as quick walking, but a strike of insanity made him determined to carry the two of them over the hill. He began to puff with the strain. “You shouldn’t… have cycled all this way! Your stitches…”

“Ah, it’s fine! Fit as a fiddle. Clean bill of health, mental and physical. Well kinda, but hey. I’ll get there. Mom and me got a court hearing in a few days. Starting to get on first name basis with those guys, seems like we’re there once a year… Anyway, you’ve been doing okay this week? I was worried about you. After the friend request I hear nothing…”

“Me? Stephie, I’m not the one who was… sick all over herself, hunted by the mob, shot in the leg, shot in the stomach… thrown off a bridge, betrayed by her father, tasered two people… and knocked out a few others, and of course let’s not forget running over your mother.”

“…Words hurt Timothy.”

“Wow… Timothy. Full name derision.”

He huffed and pressed on, struggling up the hill. He was determined to succeed, if only for the fact that he had a sneaking suspicion that Bruce was definitely watching through the front window. He was Robin now, he would cycle up a hill for goodness sake!

“Hey come on. Going home with Batman after… he wasn’t cruel was he?”

“Cruel? No. Felt like it at the time... He’s a big fan of the silent treatment. But –”

The bike wobbled as it had slowed down to an unbalancing pace. Tim grunted and stood up to gain more momentum. Stephanie saw the effort he was putting in and decided to tease him.

“But…?”

“But… it’s…fine.” Stephanie grinned as he punctuated each word with a cycle of the pedals, watching his cheeks puff in and out with the effort of speaking. “I…failed…the test… but… I still… got Robin…Wheew!” He stopped as he reached the top, collapsing on the hard seat. Stephanie tapped the top of the helmet, Tim’s jaw vibrating from the impact. She clambered off the bike, noticing he wasn’t pressing the breaks. The hill turned downwards, straight towards the large black gates that Mr Pennyworth had promised to open for them.

“As you should! Best guy for the job.” She moved to the back and rested her hands on the back wheel and frame of the bike. She rocked it back and forth, Tim raising his heels off the floor to allow her to do so. “And this is good. Now you can train me too to help at night.”

“Wait wh-”

She shoved as hard as she could, sending Tim rocketing down the hill. He screamed the whole way down, causing her to double over with laughter. He jolted the bike to the right as she had done, but still flipped completely over, rolling professionally as he was no doubt trained to do. Stephanie ran down the hill, breathless with joy. The bike clanged against the fence, which comically began to swing open a moment too late to prevent Tim’s accident. As she approached, she could hear him bitching to himself.

“God what the hell! Some warning would be you know…welcome”

She crashed into him, kissing him hard on the lips. Instantly his hands went up, squishing her cheeks. It was a wet and clumsy kiss, one that made a squelching sucking noise when they separated, but to Tim it was perfect. Steph pecked his lips once more.

“You have no idea how glad I am you were there last week.”

“Me too.”

She smiled, then reached behind Tim and tugged out his skateboard.

“C’mon, it’s flat from here on out. You skate and I’ll cycle. My dad’s going back to prison, my mom is safe, and I am healing nicely. Now…I want my first date, boy wonder.”

Taking off her helmet from his head, she set off, waving him to follow her. She wanted to move past her parents, wanted to look forward to something better, something more. That sweet, earnest, handsome boy who was more a hero than any Bat. Tim was her greatest chance to do more, to be more.

Snapping the board and wheels down, Tim kicked the ground a few times, then caught up. The past week of misery fell behind him, and instead of one door being slammed shut in his face, it was like the entire wall had caved in. So many new possibilities, and all with this mystifyingly bright faced blonde riding next to him.

***

Bruce and Alfred watched on the CCTV monitors as the pair rounded the hill and stumbled through the gate together. Both men were struck with how young they were.

Alfred coughed politely. “Those two may grow to be joint at the hip Master Bruce.”

Bruce said nothing and continued to watch. He frowned momentarily, but not from anger, only from being deep in thought.

“You think so?”

“I received the impression they are quite smitten with each other.”

“Let’s see what happens. If Stephanie truly does want training, to prevent a repeat of last week, maybe we can help her. Her mother and her are a bigger target than ever.”

“Hmm. I will inform Miss Gordon. She seemed quite intrigued by Miss Brown.”

“Sounds good Alfred. I need to call Dick, see if he can come home tonight.”

Bruce continued to watch until the pair were out of sight of the cameras. He laughed quietly to himself. Any plans he had made for Tim becoming Robin were looking increasingly vague.

Somehow, he didn’t particularly mind.

#dc #timsteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #bruce wayne #my fic tag #finished!!

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queenmaracasandlove · 5 years

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You’re My Best (Sex) Friend - Roger Taylor x F!Reader - Part IV

Word Count: +:- 2800

In the last chapter: Y/N and Roger had an amazing night after Queen’s concert on Christmas Eve but they have decided to keep their feelings for themselves. Roger wants to wait until the end of the tour and Y/N doesn’t believe it it’s mutual. Warnings: (Minor) angst in this one.

A/N: This chapter is not as full of action but the themes in it are really important to me. Hope you life it !

Part I Part II Part III Part V

MASTERLIST

Permanent Taglist: @reedusteinrambles

It had been more than a month now that Roger and Y/N had seen each other for the last time. He was in the middle of a tour in North America and she had been casted as a member of the ensemble in a West End musical. Y/N was still living in Roger’s flat and had made a few alterations to it, making it more welcoming, something worthy of a good homecoming. It’s been also a few months now that they had realise their true feelings for each other without saying anything about it. Roger wanted to wait until the end of the tour to ask Y/N on a date when she had decided to move on, or at least try to.

Y/N was coming back home after her Thursday evening show and she was exhausted. Although she was usually drained after the performance she was spending more and more time backstage every night because of one particular person, and came back very late. But she knew that nobody was waiting for her anyway. She had mixed feelings about it, not sure of what to do. She was afraid of letting herself go and to let him go at the same time. She was pouring herself a glass of water when she heard the telephone ringing. Only a few people knew she was living here and according to the time she immediately guessed who was calling, her heart starting to rush inside her chest. She quickly picked up.

“Y/N?”

She immediately recognised his raspy voice on the other end and she could not help but smile. She was so happy to hear him, delighted he would take the time to call her just to small talk.

“Roger? How are you?”

“Great, although knackered. And you love?”

“I’m great too. Tell me, where are you tonight?”

“I’m not sure but I think it’s Cincinnati. Can’t keep up really” he laughed

The phone calls were never long but they were always good. They usually exchanged on their daily lives for a few minutes before going back to it. Y/N started to think that maybe she should mention the person that was in her mind, now almost as often as Roger but she wasn’t sure. She found herself ridiculous. She could speak to him, he had always listened and she knew he would not judge her. But what she wanted wasn’t advice, it was more than that...

“Are the guys doing okay?” she asked

“Yeah. I’m trying to get on Brian’s nerves as much as possible. John finds it funny and Freddie barely cares”

“Sounds fun. Don’t be too bad okay? You’re already painful without trying too hard.” she added, able to picture the scene in her head perfectly

“Ah. Ah. Very funny.”

“You know I’m right that. I almost miss your shitty behaviour sometimes” she sighed

“So how do you deal with the pain of being away from me? How’s the show? Made any friends?”

“Well…”

Y/N felt her throat drying by the second. She had convinced herself that she had to move on and forget him. But she wanted to be sure, that she was not missing out on something. Christmas Eve had been very confusing but nothing since then had made her think that it was in fact different from their previous nights together.

“Yes. The show is doing amazing and I love it. Each night is different even if it’s the same show. And um… One of the dancers, Linda, she wants to go to the cinema with me next Monday, it’s our day off…”

“That’s great!” he said

Y/N was quite surprised by his answer. It came from the bottom of his heart. She was not sure he had understood well what she was implying.

“Yeah. I’m not too sure about it. Maybe now is not right time to…”

“Just go for it Y/N! I’m not gonna be around for a bit and I know you already have other friends but one more is always good. You sure need someone around.”

“Well… Guess I’ll give it a go then. But I don’t want just to fool around anymore, so if there’s a chance for it to be serious I…”

There were screams and loud noises over the phone, preventing Y/N from finishing her sentence. She wanted to tell him that she wanted a real relationship now and that if things started with Linda she would not stop when he would come back. That their little business would be over and that nothing else would be possible anymore. There had been times since the beginning of their friends with benefits thing where one of them had been involved in a relationship and they had stopped, starting again when both of them were single. But this time was completely different. And things could not go one the way they were anyway.

“I’m sorry love I have to go, soundcheck is about to start. Enjoy the movie. I miss you too.”

Roger hung up the phone before going back to the dressing room where his bandmates were waiting for him. He was upset that the phone call had been so quick but he was happy that Y/N managed to have a social life outside of work. He had convinced her to stop working at the hotel saying that it was useless and that she could stay at his place until she found somewhere affordable when he came back. In his wildest dreams she would never leave.

During the lonely hours on the tour bus he had confessed his feelings for Y/N to his friends who had all been supportive. Of course they all suspected it, apart maybe from John who wasn’t paying attention anyway more focused on his newly born son during the past few months than to everybody else’s love life. Freddie thought it was stupid of him to wait whereas Brian had been surprised by Roger’s patience and consideration. He wasn’t just a ladies’ man, he had had a few girlfriends, but he had always gone too far too fast. His feelings had to be very serious this time for him to be so careful.

“So, how’s Y/N?” Freddie asked

“Great! One of her colleague is taking her to the cinema next week.”

All the boys stopped what they were doing to look at him, surprised. That’s exactly why Freddie had said waiting was a stupid idea, because Y/N would probably go on with her life and find someone who was smart enough to ask her on a date without waiting.

“Are you okay with her going on a date?” John asked, suddenly curious

“It’s not a date, she’s called Linda and she’s a dancer in her production. I was very happy when she told me about it. I encouraged her to go.” Roger replied, confident

There was an uneasy look between Brian and Freddie and Roger noticed it. She was her best friend, he would know about it right? According to his confused look he did not.

“What?” he asked

Brian was trying to find the right way to put it but Freddie was not that considerate.

“She’s into girls too Roger. You’re fucked.”

Roger frowned, not sure he had heard it right and turned to Brian who nodded a little, confirming Freddie’s words. The news was a complete shock. He did not care that she was bisexual, that wasn’t the point although he did not understand how he could have not known that. They were supposed to be friends, that’s the kind of things he should have been aware of.

“When… How?”

“You did not remember when she was with Chris?” Brian said

“How was I supposed to know he wasn’t a fucking dude Bri?” Roger answered

“Maybe because her name was Christine and she came to the pub quite often?” John added

Roger was boiling. He was completely mad. Mad at himself for being so stupid. Of course now he remembered. Y/N had been very shy about giving them details about Chris, her partner at the time, it was right at the beginning of them starting to know each other. There was a girl who was often there also, Christine. And she suddenly stopped coming one day, after that Y/N was quite sad for a while. But for some reason Roger had never been able to put two and two together.

Before he could throw a tantrum they were all asked to go on stage for soundcheck. John was the first to leave the room, tapping on his friend’s shoulder on the way. Roger shrugged, feeling completely lost but followed him . He understood now, why she was so private about seeing other people. He knew she saw people from time to time but it’s not like they were going to talk about their ex-partners while sleeping together. And he wasn’t dumb, he knew that it was the seventies and that was not something you could talk about easily.

Roger wasn’t blind and he knew about Freddie, everybody did. But nobody said anything, it was not their business and they would support him no matter what. If he ever felt like telling them they would listen without judging, because there was nothing wrong. Roger was also aware that lesbians were less under the radar of the restriction laws but that did not mean they were safer in this stupid world. He understood her silence but he had just made a big mistake.

Roger banged his drums harder than ever during rehearsal without missing one beat, he rarely did and in fact was pouring all his heart in what he was doing. The first news was surprising, the upsetting one was that he had just old Y/N that it was okay for her to go on a date with Linda. He doubted she was asking for his approval but he knew he had just blown up his chances to try anything with her, worse than that, if this thing worked out, it would mean that they would not even been able to go on with the type of relationship they had before.

He knew it would not be fair to call her back and tell her not to do anything. She was free and she should do whatever she wanted to. He could only hope that he would still have a chance after the tour.

-------------------

Roger had not call for almost a month and soon it would be the end of the American leg of the tour. Y/N had been worried but understood that the band had other things to do. She had phoned Mary to have some news but she did not have much more information than Y/N, she was also pretty upset about something but did not want to say what. This comforted Y/N in her decision to try and erase any dream of a love relationship with Roger. In fact Linda had helped her quite a bit to do so. From the first day they had met they had known, they had noticed this little spark between the two of them and Linda had made the first move.

They had gone to the movie theatre together, and went for an ice-cream afterwards. They had hold hands during the film and that was it. Y/N was still confused, and she did not want to pretend like everything was fine. So she had told everything to Linda, how she had fell in love with one of her best friends (with whom she was occasionally hooking up) and how she wanted to get over it. Linda had listened, first like a friend would and then she had been honest. Was she pleased to know that Y/N’s heart was partially taken? Absolutely not. But Roger was away and Linda and Y/N were together in London. So they decided to give it a go.

They saw each other every working day but they made a rule not to behave as anything else but colleagues or friends at work. The show business world might have been more open minded than the rest but still, no need to risk being unsafe. Tonight was their fifth date, they had gone to an underground lesbian club and Y/N was really excited. Linda was much more aware of the events and parties of the community than she was. There had been many drinks and much dancing.

“You’re way too beautiful to be real Y/N.” Linda said “I can’t believe that stupid rockstar never fell for you”

Y/N’s hands were around Linda’s neck and she was thirsty for her every word. Linda was not afraid to say what she thought, she was not ashamed of her feelings and Y/N could tell she really cared about her and so did she. So she slowly kissed her lips and it felt great, it felt sweet and needy at the same time. Linda was right, Roger had not been able to see more than just a body in her (being a friend was something else) and she deserved to be in love with someone who did. Although it was only a spark for now she believed it could become something else.

It was so good to be able to kiss another girl and not worry about it. Y/N smiled during the kiss, making it more passionate as her hands were getting lost in Linda”s hair.

“Should we go back to my place?” Linda asked

“I would love too”

-------------------

Roger knew he was acting childish but he did behaved like he was used to anyway. He had not called back since Cincinnati, not even to tell Y/N when he was coming back. He was too afraid. He felt so stupid for telling her to go on a date with someone else but he had no right to be jealous. The boys had convinced him to enjoy the rest of the tour and not to worry about it. He would stay true to his first decision, wait until he was back to London. Although he was planning to ask Y/N on a date as soon as he would be back, without waiting for the end of the tour. If it wasn’t too late.

He would have less than ten days before going back on tour for another month but it would be the last leg and then he would be home for good, at least for a few months. All he had to do was to prove to Y/N that he was worth the wait. For hours he had thought about was he was going to tell her. The plane journey had been a torture and he had barely slept. The problem was, he didn’t realise that the world did not stop turning while he was away. That was often the case for people who were traveling, the feeling that everything would be the same as it was when they left.

He almost ran up the stairs to his flat, he wanted to hug Y/N, to make love to her and tell all the things he should have ages ago. How much he had missed her, how much he had fun, how much he wanted to share all his best memories with her, how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. He even had bought a scarf for her, a nice one that he had scene in Chicago and that immediately made him think of her. In fact he had went to a record shop in New York and asked for the latest vinyls from Musicals and had bought five of them because he knew she would love that.

He finally arrived in front of the door and took a deep breath in. His hands were almost shaking as he put the keys inside the lock.

“Y/N ! GUESS WHO’S BACK!”

But there was no answer. It was the middle of the day, maybe she was out he thought. He took the time to look around him, so many things had changed. He could smell her perfume in the clean flat. Some flowers were on the coffee table and there was a new plant next to the window. She must have nosed around his things because there were pictures on the walls. He put his bag on the floor to look at them. Some with his family, his friends, his bandmates and with her. He did not remember the one in the middle, Y/N and him after the Christmas Eve concert, his arm around her waist and hers around his neck, smiling and happy as ever. If only he had told her that night. He sighed, more impatient than ever to see her again. He would unpack waiting for her. Going to the bedroom he saw the paper on the counter with her lovely handwriting and the smile he had on his face immediately disappeared.

“Hello Rog’, You’ve probably been really busy because I had to call Mary to know when you were coming back… I decided to go to Linda’s place for the week so you could rest, her number is next to the phone if you have time to call. Can’t wait to see you (whenever) ! I’ve missed your stupid face. Love, Y/N (the best friend/flatmate in the world)”

#queenmaracasandlove #You're my best (sex) friend #queen #queen imagines #roger taylor #ben!roger x reader #roger x reader #roger taylor x reader #borhap #bohemian rhapsody

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loadingluke · 5 years

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Days 2-4 post op stage 2

Hey all, here’s a little update on how I’ve been going. Just warning in advance I’ll be talking about some sensitive topics so if that makes you uncomfortable read with caution. Unfortunately the nature of all of this surgery stuff is pretty gross and tmi, but I thought I’d warn you all the same since we’re here now 🤷‍♂️

SATURDAY

Day 2 I would say was my hardest day in hospital, possibly even including stage one to be honest. I was feeling pretty weak and uncomfortable with 3 cannulas in one arm and an iv machine that would just not shut up if I moved my arm at all. I was given a bed wash and that made me feel a lot cleaner, and I brushed my teeth and had some mouthwash, which always makes me feel at least 12% better. I got out of bed for a brief second and sat in a chair. I really wasn’t feeling up for much more, and with the pca, iv, catheter and all the padding I really didn’t want to walk too far at all.

I was still feeling kind of woozy and tired from the bloods from the day before and wasn’t eating or drinking all that much. I started feeling quite nauseous around lunchtime, and nothing really seemed to shake it. I had some anti nausea medication but it didn’t help too much unfortunately. Around dinner is when I started throwing up. I was sick once or twice, and then I felt a little bit of nausea relief for a few hours before it started up again. It really got to the point where I didn’t have anything coming up but I just wasn’t stopping 😫 I was feeling pretty emotionally and mentally wiped, barely drinking or eating and just waiting for it to pass. We believe I was having a reaction to one of the antibiotics I was taking, and by giving me an anti nausea med about half an hour before the antibiotic I felt much better. Over the course of the night I slowly started feeling better, and my vitals started to actually settle and get a little more regular. Everything was up from here to be honest, and since then things have been pretty peachy.

SUNDAY

After my monster of a night I was hoping for a little more relief from day 3, and thank the penis gods this was granted. The difference 24 hours made was night and day. I felt more alert, a lot less sleepy, I had more colour in my face and I felt tons better. I got out of the bed again, and managed to take myself to the bathroom to sponge bath myself, as well as brush my teeth, put on deodorant and change into a clean gown. Afterwards, managed to have a bit of a walk around the ward, dragging along my IV machine which surprisingly chose those moments to behave.

I had the pca and oxygen taken down, and my fluids were drastically reduced once I was able to keep my food and drink down. The drain coming out of my abdomen that was draining my scrotum was also taken out as nothing was draining from it (yay). The catheter wasn’t bothering me much either, so I was feeling pretty great to be honest. I spent most of the day pottering around, I got myself up a few more times, including to go and make myself a cup of tea (a feat I am still very chuffed about and excitedly told Maddy about (thanks for being patient with me, I love u)) I had a visit from a family friend who bought me some flowers and my hospital guilty pleasure that for some reason I always get a craving for, avocado and cucumber sushi. It was nice to see someone I knew and it definitely lifted my spirits.

I got myself off to bed and slept most of the night. The one downside was my IV. I don’t know if I mentioned, but I needed to be cannulated a second time for my blood transfusion, and unfortunately since they were both so close together it was all kinds of uncomfortable. Well, over the few days, as well as me moving, this cannula just would not quit. One of them started leaking and had to be removed, and the one remaining just seemed to jump out of my vein any chance it could get, meaning the iv was having difficulty properly draining. I swear the machine was going off every 2 or 3 minutes no joke unless I kept my arm in the exact same position. The nurses ended up wrapping my arm up with some gauze and a tubigrip to keep it all (somewhat) in place. This, coupled with me literally not moving a muscle, and I started getting a very stiff arm and neck which made it even harder to fall asleep. Also, one of my nostrils decided it was the perfect time to get blocked right then and there, so it was not great getting off to sleep. Once I was asleep though, I slept pretty solidly. I woke up for my obs, went back to sleep, and then woke up again because the machine screamed at me. I couldn’t get back to sleep for a couple of hours because of it, rip. Honestly don’t know how the nurses deal with them. Every time they go off I want to throw it out the window. Eventually I fell back asleep until about 7:30am.

MONDAY

Monday morning I woke up to Dr Goossen coming in for my my morning check up. He wasn’t in for long, and mainly explained what will be happening over the next few days for my discharge, and when I’ll be getting the padding removed. He said he was happy with how everything looked, prodded me a few times and asked if I could feel it (I could) and went on his merry way saving more lives I assume. I had my cannula removed and was taken off the IV machine (thank god) and then I hopped on over to the bathroom for my morning freshen up (at this point I’m getting pretty good at it all if I do say so myself) and then I had my mum and sister come to visit. It was really nice seeing them, and I’m honestly very glad that they didn’t come any sooner because I was in no shape for their energy until today. We ended up getting a wheelchair and going for a little walk downstairs. It was really nice to get some fresh air, and I had a hot chocolate which I enjoyed. After being outside for about 45 minutes I was suddenly feeling pretty wiped and I was taken back to my room. I had a bit of a power nap, and they went home. They’ll come back to pick me up tomorrow for discharge.

The rest of the afternoon I have to say I felt pretty gross. Now that I wasn’t feeling faint or nauseous anymore, and since the padding has been there for 4 days, I started to become uncomfortably aware of its presence. It feels very much like a cup that would be used in contact sports to protect someone’s balls, and it goes right between my legs and up quite high near my butt. This understandably has made navigating bowel movements rather uncomfortable. I managed to without much of an issue luckily, but I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.

I was talking to a nurse and they said they have a running joke that they’d be able to know right away if they were getting a Christmas present form Goossen, because it would be more like a pass the parcel. Honestly, when I was told this, I cracked up because it is so true. There is soooo much tape and padding, it’s honestly so overwhelming. It was the same for stage 1, so I don’t really know what i expected, but it’s really hard to see anything that is going on down there as it’s just a maze of gauze and tubes, so I’m just trusting the nurses and Goossen that they know if it was going in a way it wasn’t meant to. I have to say I did have to fight my brain a bit today, as that feeling of the padding is uncomfortably similar to the something experienced monthly before starting testosterone. Logically I KNOW that it is definitely not the same, but the padding + draining from all the wounds made me feel pretty rough. I think having it sitting there for 4 days has also made it feel pretty gross anyway, so I am counting down the seconds until I get that removed and all cleaned tomorrow morning. This was all bad enough, until I started noticing a little bit of leakage from the urethral catheter, which was awful smelling. It’s not too constant, but was enough that I noticed it and felt EXTRA disgusting. Then some of the padding started falling apart, so a nurse grabbed me a pair of hospital underwear to just hold it all in place. This is fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. ☹️. I’m just telling myself it’s only 12 or so hours until it’s all gone and I know I’ll feel tons better.

The afternoon was pretty uneventful besides one moment when I started feeling like I was getting bladder spasms. I have had these once before after my hysto, but surprisingly was fine for s1. I think I normally would have been okay, but since I was already feeling pretty gross I freaked out a little. I started worrying about the next 3 weeks and how long that would feel if I was in constant pain. The pain was starting to get more and more intense, and I felt like I was busting to go to the toilet. A nurse happened to come in as I needed to have some obs done, and when she had a look at the catheter it seemed to have been blocked or kinked or something. A little bit of a wiggle later and 800mLs flowed through completely fine, and completely relieved my pain. After that I felt much better. Nurses are heroes.

FINAL THOUGHTS

That’s about all that’s happened so far. One thing I haven’t touched on really is the pain, and honestly I’m managing really well. Pain hasn’t passed above a 2 or 3, and I’ve not had anything but Panadol and a one a day anti inflammatory for at least 48 hours. Most of my difficulty has come from the nausea and my low blood pressure, and once that was sorted I would say I was more uncomfortable than in pain.

In saying that though, I definitely underestimated this surgery. I think after overestimating stage one (which I knew would be hard and don’t get me wrong it was rough) but I had a very smooth and quick recovery following my first procedure and I’d heard some pretty horrid stories about how rough it was going to be, so I ended up feeling like it ended up being easier than I expected it would be. I was told that stage 2 would be a lot easier than stage 1 and in some ways it was, but in other ways it was harder. That second day was really hard on me and definitely the worst surgical experience I have had by far. Once I bounced back from that it has been a lot easier compared to stage 1 sure, but living through it at the time it just felt overwhelmingly difficult. My advice is to make sure you take every day as a baby step, and little by little you’ll get through it.

A picture is worth 1000 words, first one is from day 2 post op, feeling my absolute worst, second is from day 4 post op with my mum 😊

Let me know if you have any questions, I’m always happy to help 👍

#phalloplasty australia #ftm #trans #trans man #transgender #trans guy #bottom surgery #phalloplasty #rff #rff phallo #rff phalloplasty #lukes phalloplasty #lower surgery #phallo #dr goossen

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