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#coma cw
wowa-bublord · 6 months
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Mentally lying on my bed and kicking my feet like a schoolgirl while joyously waiting for more Zack and Cloud sketchies ❤️ In your AU is Cloud completely conscious and aware when he first breaks out of his coma? Or is there a sort of in-between zone for awhile? If there is, is Zack overjoyed or worried out of his mind (or both)? Does Cloud struggle with allowing somebody to take care of him?
Sending you virtual hugs should you want them or a crisp and respectful nod of the head if not!
IM SORRY this ask only just showed up in my inbox but it says it's from march 24th?? tumblr killing me with daggers,,,, This is going to be a long one sorry!! I'll explain the stages of his coma first, and then the stages of waking up from it.
In the beginning, while they are on the run, Cloud is in.. something close to a catatonic state. He can perform basic instincts, such as blinking, swallowing, the small stumble-steps he's shown doing in gameplay, and making small noises. In my au/headcanon, this is because of the Mako keeping his body up and functioning in spite of his intense poisoning. Because of the Mako, his muscles also don't atrophy during this period. He has no memories from this era at all.
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After this, a little before the battalion but mostly after, his body begins to heal from his Mako poisoning. Which is good. but the lack of the access Mako leaves his body with far less functions. He begins to lose the ability to eat, becomes unable to even stumble, his eyes shut and don't open again. He falls into a full comatose state. Which, although it is very scary for Zack, and takes a lot more work and medical equipment, is actually a good sign for his healing. Fighting off mako poisoning this far is already rare.
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(In this segment, he is kept fed and hydrated through his IV, but he switches to an NG tube after he wakes up, due to the inconvenience of the IV and continued difficulty swallowing.)
His first signs of waking up were a few weeks before he opened his eyes. He began responding to stimuli, ears flicking at noises, hands tensing, eyes occasionally opening but not for long. It's at this stage that he also starts having nightmares, and becomes more aware of his environment. He has blurry memories from this era, but in the moment he was mostly just confused and distressed, and didn't process it. this took up most of the few weeks.
After some time, he began to have more moments of consciousness and rational thought. He could start to respond to simple questions or requests such as blinking or closing his hands. He only vaguely remembers this. It lasts a few days
when he actually began to wake up, initially he was incredibly upset and confused, not being recovered enough to actually process the situation. This resulted in him lashing out, not knowing where he was and initially not recognizing zack, he struggled and tried to pull his tubes out. This was the final stage to his waking up, only lasts an hour? possibly a few hours? and he was finally fully awake after this!!
When Cloud woke up from his coma, his body was incredibly weak from being bedridden so much. His muscles had atrophied severely over the few months, which put him in a wheelchair as they worked on him recovering.
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In this stage, he is mostly determined to improve again. He feels a lot of gratitude towards Zack for taking care of him so much, and a lot of frustration towards himself for not recovering faster.
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his next stage was crutches, he recovered his arm strength faster than his legs. He begins to pick up on zack overworking himself, but he's unsure how to approach it, and often ends up saying the wrong thing. (He still uses an NG tube in this era, but he begins to be able to eat on his own, so he doesn't have it in for much longer)
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His next stage is using a cane, which he ends up using for a long while. Even after his muscles have recovered, he maintains knee/hip pain for the rest of his life. He also has migraines and memory issues like in canon. At this stage, he begins to get frustrated with Zack more and more. He appreciates Zacks help, but feels frustrated with feeling like Zack doesn't trust him to take care of himself, and upset with how Zack prioritizes Cloud so much over himself. Due to these frustrations, he grows more confrontational. (<- comic linked is not 100% canon to this au, just an example.) Zack is overjoyed that Cloud is awake. He thought Clouds return to consciousness would help his fears and guilt ease, but for some reason he finds himself more worried than ever. He always backs off when Cloud says he wants space, but he finds himself worrying about what Cloud is doing now that he isn't able to be monitoring him all the time, and then guilty for feeling so worried.
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bittwitchy · 1 year
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Sebastian Stan as Jefferson
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creatingchimera · 1 year
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I left you alone
I tried my best
I failed the test
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ofsyzygies · 2 years
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🌕 ― a vivid memory. (for aki)
When her eyes first fluttered open, all she felt was pain, her eyes straining under the harsh white lights of the room she was in. Hazel eyes squinted in an effort to limit the light exposure, though her irises still darted wildly around the room in an attempt to take in her surroundings. Where was she? She attempted to push herself up onto her elbows, but it seemed to require a herculean amount of strength. When she realised she couldn’t get up, the panic set in and everything hit her at once. The object that was covering her mouth, hard plastic against her skin, the wires attached to her arms, the incessant beeping on the monitor by her bed, a sound that now seemed to be speeding up the more scared she got. Though there were no other restraints on her, she felt like she couldn’t move, fatigue weighing her bones down to the bed she was reclined upon. Her chest rose and fell erratically, her tender heart squeezing in her chest painfully. When had she gotten there? Who even was she? 
The wild drumming of her heart drowned out all other noise. It seemed to be all she could hear until she was met with sound of hurried footsteps, a door bursting open and people surrounding her. The anxiety had begun to hold her hostage, however, her vision blurry and her body numb to what was going on around her. They were speaking to her but their voices sounded far away, as though she was deep underwater. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she had started crying until the dried tracks had begun to irritate her soft skin. 
“Can you hear me?” The doctor had asked her in Japanese. “Nod if you understand.”
Trembling like a brittle leaf, she managed a nod. And it was just like that, she was born again into a new life, surrounded by things she could not begin to understand. “Welcome back. We’re going to take good care of you. You’re going to be okay.” They had said, but where had she gone to? Where had she come from? How had she come back? 
Would she ever really know those things or would they forever exist as a bottomless pit of unanswered questions? 
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braveryhearted · 8 months
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❛ ah, so you aren’t heartless after all. ❜ | Heisenberg @ Haseo
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Some meme I forgot.
@hauntedreality said: ❛ Ah, so you aren’t heartless after all. ❜ | Heisenberg @ Haseo.
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"And just what that's supposed to mean? Huh?". Haseo's a lot better person that these, what did Chris, Jill and Leon call them when forced to work together that one time? Bioweapons? That's it. The only thing that came close to those that the agents claimed to be bad were the AIDA and other computer viruses that could cause harm to a body in real life.
"My whole thing is saving my friend from a coma. I'm light years away from being heartless". Maybe this guy was the type to argue. Which made Haseo even more pissed off at the other. He crosses his arms in defiance, half a mind to get out his dual daggers, itching for a fight. However, Haseo is still a little curious in what this so called Heisenberg meant.
He's willing to ask questions first. a far cry in what he would had done in the past.
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wardogsong · 1 year
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@lt-ghxst
"Y'know— sorry again, 'bout all this, but hey! Y'get the upstairs all to yourself for a while, some peace and quiet without the kids botherin' ya." It didn't sit right with Maria, leaving behind their impromptu guest all alone. It wasn't a trust issue either, she trusted anybody that Frank called a brother and Frank had made Simon's case weeks ago when he first showed up on their doorstep— no, she just doesn't like the idea of him being lonely in an empty house. If it were up to her they would bring him along on the family picnic just like they used to do with Billy before he got busy and famous with his own company. Frank had married a woman with a heart of gold, but he had his reasons for making Simon's excuses and having a word with the man himself about taking the family out sans him.
Maria knew the broad strokes, not the details of why exactly the other man was being sheltered in their basement apartment— though more often than not she was all but dragging him upstairs to feed him and fuss over him like he was just another one of the kids. Frank had no qualms being there for him after what he'd survived and escaped, but he couldn't help needing to be cautious too, especially about his family. It was one thing to have Simon here at home, another to walk out into the world with him and the kids. He couldn't get them caught in a crossfire between his fellow military brother and the people hunting him and he knew the former lieutenant understood, having had his own family used against him. There was no offense intended in leaving behind, none at all.
So he claps his shoulder, gives a him a grin and nods over to the tv set that'll be unoccupied for once with the Castles out. "We'll be home for dinner, but help yourself t'whatever. You know the drill. Just don't throw a party without us"
Except that dinner time comes and goes with neither sight nor sound of the Castle family— not even a text from Frank, nor an apologetic call from Maria explaining their whereabouts and checking in on Simon. There's nothing. Just an absence of them entirely for way too many hours, until it's none other than the NYPD that shows up, knocking on their door, looking for any family left at an address pulled from a comatose man's wallet. The only survivor of the shootout at the Central Park carousel, currently admitted to Sacred Saints hospital in the city. Information they grimly relay to the only person they find.
Should he go, it's proved true too. Frank is wrapped in bandages that protect the extraction of the headshot that got him, being kept hydrated via an intravenous line, and strangely guarded by a rotating set of cops who seem bored with the assignment of waiting for a man to either die or wake. There's no telling yet which direction he'll head in, though there's much whispering about it. Rumor has it, someone's trying to authorize a DNR order for him— maybe a kindness? It wouldn't exactly be a picnic to let him wake up and have to tell him that his wife and kids are gone.
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morganski-19 · 4 months
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Chills Right to the Marrow Part 11
part 1, prev part
As fast as Eddie opens his eyes, he shuts them again. Falling back into the slow, deep breaths and constant heartbeats.
Something changed.
Wayne calls the nurse. They check off things on their charts, try to ask Eddie some questions. Like if he can move his hand, try to open his eyes again. Nothing happens. They say something about checking back every few hours.
He’s convinced that they don’t believe him. That they think he fabricated it all out of some hope filled delusion. Not like he’s been waiting here for days. Praying for his boy to wake up. Wishing in some miracle that he’d be able to smile again. All for it to be answered and taken away from him in a blink of his eyes.
But the nurse assures him that they believe him. Explain how most coma patients start to wake up with opening their eyes, moving their hands. How if he shows more movement while Wayne’s here, they’d like to know about it. Will be checking up on him more frequently, and in longer increments to try and document them.
It all sounds too good to be true. Like the last string of hope holding on to dear life. The only thing holding Wayne together. Tying him down so he doesn’t fall down and break.
He needs to get out of here for a while. Take a night for himself.
He drives around, burning gas traveling to an unknown location. Mindlessly following the paths he knows well. Drives past the trailer park three times, almost turning in. Only stopped by the construction signs blocking his path. Ends at the bar he would frequent on his nights off. Would get a beer to cool off after work. Try to forget about life for a while.
Forgetting sounds nice. Loosening the stress that knots in his shoulders. Be able to sleep restfully for a night. Refresh enough to walk back into that hospital room with a full basket of hope. All for it to slowly drain again.
It can’t drain this time.
Instead, Wayne brings himself to a gas station and counts the stray dollars and quarters in his glove box. Has just enough to buy himself a case of beer. Giving himself a limit so he doesn’t spend, or drink more than he can afford.
Sees Harrington and his brown-haired friend walk out of the video store they work at. Closing it up and heading to the diner down the road. Perfectly fine.
No matter how hard Wayne tries, the anger still points in Steve’s direction. For reasons he doesn’t even know anymore. More because it’s easy. They went through the same attack. Steve knows enough about Eddie from that week to have the answer Wayne craved.
But no one tells him anything. Continuously keeps secrets from him without good explanations. Makes this so much harder than it should be. Makes him down beer after beer, wanting to just make any of this easier.
Wayne wakes up the next morning with empty beer cans pressed into his side and a crick in his neck that won’t quit. Cracks his back in a way that just makes it worse. Cleans himself up, tries to wipe away the bags under his eyes. Scrub off the hospital and beer in the shower. Change into slightly cleaner clothes. Cursing himself for using his quarters for beer instead of the laundromat.
He makes his way to the hospital. Eating a shitty stale toaster pastry and hoping it’ll be enough. Knowing his upcoming paycheck will be mostly eaten up by all the other things before him. Walks into the room a little after eleven. A nurse asking Eddie question after question.
Eddie responding to almost every one of them. Opens his eyes when asked, then closes them again. Squeezes the nurse’s hand gently. Turns his head just slightly toward the light.
The hope basket overfills this time.
Dustin comes in the room a little after three. Bookbag thrown over his shoulder, ruffling through to find the book. Shocked still when he sees Eddie opening his eyes.
“He’s awake,” he says in disbelief. Tears starting to form in his eyes.
“Not quite.” Wayne gently corrects. “He still has a long way to go before he can respond, or even register what’s happenin’ around him. His body and mind are racing to get back in sync with each other.”
That’s what the nurses told him earlier. How he’s slowly getting there but isn’t all the way awake again. He’s there, and awake, but not all the way yet. It just all takes time.
“Can he hear me?”
Wayne looks at his boy, watching as his head turns ever so gently toward the two of them. “I think he might, yeah.”
Dustin leans forward, placing his hand over Eddie’s. Watched as his hand tenses at the touch. “Eddie,” his voice breaks. “It’s Dustin. You know, Henderson. I just wanted to say that you’re doing a great job. I hope you get better really soon. I’ve really missed you. And I’m sorry. You should have never been apart of this, I should have never dragged you into it the way I did. I wouldn’t have if I knew you would end up here.”
Wayne wants to know what this all means. What Eddie was dragged into. How this poor kid knew about it enough to drag anyone into anything. How dangerous this all really was.
But it isn’t the right time for these questions. Not for this kid to answer right now. He just sits back and listens to the next chapter of the book. Watches as Eddie responds to it. Is almost brought to tears with each time he opens his eyes to a part he likes. As Dustin stops just to make sure it’s true.
He follows Dustin out when he goes to leave. Sees how he runs up to Steve in the waiting room. Eyes closed and head resting on the wall.
“Steve, Eddie’s starting to wake up,” Dustin shares excitedly.
Steve picks his head off the wall enough for the visible relieved breath to show. “That’s-that’s really good, Dustin.”
He takes a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and slides them on. His head thunks back on the wall. Almost like he’s hungover. Face lost some color, voice sounding breathless.
“Are you ok?” Dustin asks.
Steve shakes his head gently. “Call your mom, can’t drive home.”
“Shit ok.” Dustin runs off to the nearest payphone. Pulling a few quarters out of his bag and dialing a number.
The brown-haired girl that Wayne should really know the name of comes down the hallway. Immediately knowing that something’s wrong with Steve and rushing over with a bottle of water. Asking him something before scolding about how he’s going to put himself back into a hospital bed.
Wayne’s not so sure this is just a hangover.
“How bad’s the pain?” The girls asks, pouring some of the water onto a tissue and pressing it against Steve’s head.
“Eight,” Steve exhales. Fighting like he’s about to puke.
The girl must realize this too, as she slings one of his arms over her shoulders and basically drags him to the bathrooms.
Wayne’s starting to realize that there’s a lot he doesn’t know. Made harsh judgements that might have not been deserved. He’s starting to realize that he wants to know what happened. To all of them. About all of them. Why this group of people know each other and how it all connects to Eddie.
He just has to start asking the questions.
Next part
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abstem1us · 2 months
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Black Veil Brides - Temple of Love
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sweetblsphmy · 11 months
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ARE YOU THE SAINT THAT BURNED THE GODS OF MAN?
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tcmmykinard · 2 years
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You know, it’s funny, uh... my whole life my parents never really saw me ‘cause they were too caught up in their own grief. It felt like I was an annoyance they had to deal with. 
But here... here they finally see me.
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thatonebirdwrites · 3 months
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Sneak peak from my as yet unreleased fic, Shattered but Whole (this is an excerpt)
EXCERPT (from second part - Unravels. There is also Lena's Tale from The Event and Kara's Tale also in Unravels. A third part Integration is still being written. I'll post full fic at end of month hopefully):
Sam's Tale
Sam places the soup on the coffee table. The lack of sleep burns behind her eyes, partly due to Rory's tendency to wander. She sits down on the sofa and manages a smile for the huddled form under the pile of blankets.
Stubborn and unflinching like steel, Rory has failed to eat more than a few sips of broth for the past day. Frustration boils in Sam, but what can she do? She can't let that emotion show.
So she takes a deep breath to calm herself. Pictures the tidal pools, where her, Ruby, and Lena used to walk on weekends before Lex's escape and carefully crafted lies and manipulations that strangled the leadership of two countries and nearly killed them all.
Sam remembers the fires that raged from the satellite weapon. One blast had incinerated parts of Kansas, burning wheat fields, and destroying the town of Smallville. Then another blast had ripped through downtown Metropolis, obliterating one of the news stations and its neighboring buildings.
At the time, Sam had been making dinner when the flash of red swept across the sky. Next came the booms and the brief quake, then the horrid silence before the sirens started up. Most channels in town had gone off-air, but those from one state over functioned fine. It relayed images of the destruction, and how the Claymore satellite turned toward space again. Sam had started packing immediately, while she did everything she could to keep Ruby distracted.
Then hours later, Lena had called.
Sam won't ever forget how her voice whispered Sam's name over and over in a pained, panicked way, as if Sam was the rope she held tightly to keep from falling. In the background, she had heard booms and white noise. At first, she feared Lena had been near the epicenter, only to learn she was instead on the other side of the country. And the booms were just thunder.
Sam runs a hand through her hair. Stress and anxiety hangs like a shawl, the intense rush to reach National City still sizzling in her limbs. She should have returned sooner, before this tragedy.
“Rory,” Sam says gently. Grief coils in her chest when Lena's face turns to her, only for Rory's wide green-blue eyes to meet hers. As always, the haunted expression breaks Sam’s heart a little more. “It’s okay. I’m not angry. I’m just worried. Eating will help you feel better. So how about a few bites?”
Tentatively, Rory reaches out to prod the spoon in the bowl. It swirls the ingredients in little whirlpools.
For Rory to front this long? Without any sign of Kieran or Lena? Worry joins Sam's grief and exhaustion. It's been two — possibly three if she counts the night of Supergirl’s rescue— days with no sign of the others.
“We had to. We had to end the cycle.” Lena's words said so brokenly.
Sam isn’t a fool. Lena/Kieran killed Lex and burned the evidence. She still doesn't know how this came about or why it transpired in Northern California.
Will burning it all be good enough? Should she devise alibis just in case? This really isn’t her purview — Lena is the strategist or Jack. Sam is more of the ‘wild ideas and toss at wall to see if they stick’ person.
Advice definitely needed, but who to call?
Sam taps her fingers against her knee and teases her mind for solutions. How would Jack or Lena approach this? Systematically. Sam is decent with math, but she's never been able to keep up with those science geniuses.
Systematic she can do. She unlocks her phone to peruse her options.
Alex Danvers, FBI agent, who likely knows what they need for alibis. Can Sam trust Alex not to align with her job and bring in Lena?
The news this morning documented Supergirl's fight with Lex and the liberation of the alien power plant. Catco released the first part of a three-part article that exposes of Lex's megalomania and genocidal plans. Kara really outdid herself with that piece.
The tide favoring Lex shifts slowly. No, she can't trust anyone associated with the government. Not until Sam has definitive evidence they won't turn on Lena or Supergirl still.
Fine, whose next?
Kelly Olsen, Lena's therapist. Or soon to be ex-therapist due to Kelly dating Alex Danvers now. Due to Lex's brief reign of terror, Kelly and Lena — as far as Sam knows — hadn't had time to find a suitable replacement to continue Lena's work on integration.
Kara Danvers then? A rather naive journalist, who apparently is Supergirl's alter ego. Or maybe Supergirl is Kara's alter ego. That stormy night Supergirl rescued Lena confirmed they are one and the same.
Lena adores Kara, but her words that stormy night: “Did you know Kara is an alien?” had held a layer of pain.
Sam sighs and rubs her temple. The only other number she has is for James Olsen, who she doesn't trust farther than she can spit. He may have dated Lena, but he'd never truly let go of Lena's last name. Sam wishes she'd never pushed Lena to try, but that was before she understood the depth of Lena's feelings for Kara.
The clink of a spoon echoes softly in the sterile apartment. Rory still hasn't attempted food. Only swirls and swirls, the whirlpools sink into the depths of the cup and reveal bits and pieces of vegetables.
Sam watches and blinks back tears. Jack would have known what to do. He'd likely be mobilizing alibis and lawyers already, but he lay in a coma, trapped since the nanite catastrophe that destroyed Spheerical Industries. A memory Sam tries to avoid. Kieran and Rory had fronted for weeks after that disaster.
“Lena,” Sam whispers, “I know you're in there.” She reaches out to brush black hair from Rory's face. “How would you or Kieran handle this?”
Rory glances at her, her eyebrows scrunched as if in thought. Her other hand lifts from under the blankets and forms the sign for ‘endure.'
Yes, Sam knows Rory is the one that endures. Helplessness seeps through her limbs. She looks down at her phone and flips through the contacts again with her thumb. One by one names trickle by until she stops at Kara Danver's name.
“I’m going to make a phone call,” she tells Rory. “When I get back, I want at least some of this soup eaten. Then we can watch your favorite show. Or maybe play a game?”
Rory tilts her head, and her face contorts — wrinkles in forehead, scrunched eyebrows, flared nostrils, slight grimace, and sucked in cheeks — a sign of a possible switch.
Sam holds her breath in hope.
The expression fades, and Rory tugs blankets tighter around her body. One hand grips the spoon again and forms the whirlpools once more.
Sam lets out her breath. “Promise me, you'll eat? Otherwise, no games later.”
Rory narrows her eyes but reluctantly nods. Sam will take that as progress.
Standing, she glances at her daughter, who sits curled up in the armchair by the sofa. Her latest book — a science fiction novella about nonbinary monks and robots — lays open in her lap. Ruby's fingers crinkle the page right before she turns it.
Sam marvels for the millionth time how much Ruby looks like her. Only her nose and thicker build gives any hint of the worthless father.
Her baby, the reason for much of what Sam does. Today, Ruby's hair curls down past her shoulders, still damp from a shower, and her brown eyes scan the pages of her book. She looks up at Sam, her eyebrows furrowed in worry.
“Keep an eye on her, Rubes. I’ll be on the balcony.”
Ruby gives her a thumbs-up. She knows the drill. In a way, she and Rory act as sisters, which puts Sam in the weird-ass role of mother figure when Rory fronts.
So very different from the best friend role Sam holds for Lena, and the nebulous more than friend role for Kieran. All aspects that leaves Sam in a strange limbo of not able to ever confess her feelings.
Outside, the wind blows cool, the taste of salt off the ocean. Sam leans against the railing and struggles to hold back her tears. Is this disaster the one that finally breaks her best friend?
Sam had promised herself long ago to make sure Lena was never alone wih Lex, and yet, three days ago that exact scenario played out while Sam was stuck in Metropolis. She'd been there for the past three months fixing a major production and accounting mishap, which meant Ruby temporarily enrolling in the school in the interim.
Convenient that such a mishap happened just when Lex strolls back into Lena's life. Sam rubs her eyes and slumps against the railing. The mishap she repaired had been sabotage, that Sam knows, but she can't scrounge up enough evidence to confirm by whom.
Even though in her heart she's positive it was Lex's way to separate her and Lena.
To isolate Lena slowly. Like he always does.
Sam can't ever forget the moment she learns of his abuse. During the initial merger, years ago, Lena had been sitting in her office after a meeting with Lex. Sam only came by to drop off her report, but what she found alarmed her. Lena's expression had been twisted in what looked like pain. Her red, chafed skin and the red mark on her left cheek ignited a deep need to protect in Sam.
Yet she'd failed. All their work to free Lena from the Luthors shredded by Lex. The urge to scream and rip apart the world seethes in Sam.
At least Lex is dead. The fucking bastard. But it should have been her hands that did it. Not Lena's.
She rubs away her angry tears and pulls out her phone. Thumbs through the unlock and hovers over Kara's name. A number she's had since the worldkiller crisis ten months ago. That time of horror is where Sam finally understood viscerally the amnesiac episodes.
***
Sam stands in an alley. Her boots are muddy, and her head stuffed with cotton. Her breath catches in her throat, her lungs raw. Her body feels not her own, like a puppet on strings. She looks down at her hands, the grime under her nails unfamiliar. Her stomach twists in knots, her head aches, and she wants to curl up and weep.
How did she get here? Where is she?
Fog coils in her mind and sizzles with lightning. The air charged with apprehension despite the cloudless night glaring down at her.
Memories seep through slowly: She was skating on a rink with Ruby, who easily kept pace with her. Sam had turned to skate backward and make faces at her daughter. Typical pre-teen response of rolled eyes, but the hint of a smile gave away Ruby's amusement.
She'd just turned to skate forward again when a ringing started in her ears. Ruby passed her, while Sam's vision fogged over. Whispers crept into her ears: let go, let go.
Dark woods loomed then, while the fog tugs her from the fluorescent lights of the indoor rink. Bare branches curved like hands that reach for her, until darkness coats her mind and body. Freezing cold slithers through her.
Only to wake here, in an alleyway, alone.
Terror ignites.
Ruby.
Where is Ruby? She digs through her pockets but finds nothing. No phone.
Wait, why is she in khakis and navy blue button-down shirt? Where is her jeans and T-shirt she'd been wearing skating?
Why is one of her sleeves caked with blood? But she has no wounds.
Ruby. Her feet jerk into motion, and she sprints from the alley.
Car engines and horns assault her ears. She’s a block from L-corp. Definitely phones there to borrow. She dodges through the slow, meandering traffic, and ignores the driver's curses and car horns.
She bursts through L-corp’s doors. To the left is the security desk, where a lone guard reads a magazine, his only light a small lamp. The rest of the building is dark except for the fluorescent lights near the elevators and stairs. Sounds of traffic fade into a faint roar, only interrupted by the crinkle of pages.
Shadows stalk across the foyer, like the woods of her nightmares. One shadow forms the figure of a woman, red eyes aglow. She takes a step backward, her breath caught in her throat and her stomach bubbling with nausea.
“Ms. Arias?” the voice cuts through her frozen terror. The figure vanishes.
Sam turns to see a plump, older man at the security desk. His hazel eyes look up from his book, his mouth in a confused grimace.
“Are you all right?”
No, she most definitely is not. She can't let it show. Breathe, she tells herself. Four, eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty… she counts until her hands stop shaking. “Bill," she asks, slowly, "can I use your phone?”
“Uh, sure.” He turns his desk phone around to face her.
Sam dials Lena’s number. Her fingers tremble despite her attempts to calm down.
To her relief, Lena picks up after one ring. “This is Ms. Luthor speaking.”
“Lena, oh thank god you answered," she clutches the phone, almost in tears at her familiar voice. "Please, where are you? Where is Ruby?”
“Sam?” Relief floods Lena’s voice. “Sam, I’m at the office. Where are you? I can—”
“I’m coming upstairs.” Sam hangs up and sprints for the elevator. As the elevator ascends, she paces back and forth, terrified and nauseated. Her body aches from head to toe as if she’d been in a fight, but she has no memory of the past few hours — days?
It's been two months of horrific nightmares and amnesiac episodes. One month of trying to hide it all under a veneer of practiced poise.
Shadows play across the elevator walls, and one sneers like a face of a demon. She jerks backward, her back hitting the wall. Whispers in a language she can't quite distinguish sinks into the dark. Strange symbols form on her arms, and she tries to rub them away to no avail.
The metal of the elevator forms a face with red eyes.
No. No, no! She hits the buttons on the elevator desperate to escape. The elevator shivers and clanks. Horror stalks her.
"Four, eight, twelve," she says, out loud, desperate to calm herself. "Sixteen, twenty…"
The elevator doors open to darkness, except for a red light at the end of the hall. No, she can't enter that. The doors shut, and she slumps to the ground, her arms around herself. The doors open three more times, and each time she's met with a gloom so deep, she swears she can hear the creaking of branches.
She’s never been more terrified in her life. For these episodes to increase in severity, for them to now impact her daughter? Sam wants to scream and rip herself to shreds.
The fourth time the doors open, light cascades into the room. She throws herself into the precious light. Scrambling to her feet, her boots pound against the tiles as she sprints down the hallway, past a conference room, past Jess' empty desk, and finally to the door of her office.
She tugs open the door, her breaths sharp and agonized.
A figure sits at the desk, the glow of a tablet across her porcelain features and glossy black hair. A fluffy scarf wraps around the woman's neck, her jacket open to show a shiny red shirt that is far too reminiscent of blood.
Recognition sparks. Lena. It's only Lena. Relief stops her mad dash. “Where’s Ruby?”
“Sam! Thank god you’re okay.” Lena sweeps to her feet, her Irish accent faint, which means it’s Lena fronting. Kieran always has a heavy Irish brogue. She takes a few hesitant steps around the desk, but pauses a few feet away. Her concern etched into her perfect features. “Ruby called me right away. I took her home. I — I thought I’d check the office again in hope you’d return here. Like you had the other times.”
“Oh my god.” Sam turns away and presses her hand to her forehead. “How could I do this to her?” She throws her hand down and starts to pace. “What if I’d been driving at the time?”
Her imagination unhelpfully provides a vivid image of a crash and a bloodied body. Bile rises in Sam's throat.
Lena holds up her hands as if to placate her. “She’s safe, Sam. She did the right thing by calling for help.”
Right, help. Good. Emergency plan enacted. Yet Ruby never should have needed it.
Sam takes a deep breath and turns back to Lena. “Was she scared?”
Lena’s shoulders droop then, but the tension in her body shows in her creased brows “Yes. We all are.” Cautiously, Lena approaches her, one hand still upheld. “Do — do you remember anything?”
Sam shakes her head. Whispers, shadowed woods, and fog provides no clues. “No. No, I don’t. Same as always.”
Lena tugs at her fingers. “Ruby told me about the other times.”
Sam stares at her, unable to fathom at first Lena's meaning. “She doesn’t know,” she says, finally. “I — I haven’t told her yet.”
“She’s a smart kid. Had a time-line of dates, times, and places —”
“You told a twelve year old that her mother is sick with a illness no one can diagnose?” A coiling horror mixed with anger shudders through her body. No, Ruby can't know. “Seriously?”
“Sam, she already knew.” Lena holds up her hands again, as if to ward off Sam’s anger. “I simply reassured her that you didn’t abandon her. That we’re looking into this.”
“Si—”
The world sears in sudden frigid cold. It weaves into her bones, as dark grey fog coils. Let go, a whisper curls into her ears. A face forms in the mists, skull with no eyes, and hands reach up from the ground.
Bare branches leer over her like clawed hands. She staggers backward, only to hit the desk.
She’s back in the office. “What — what…” Bile burns her throat.
Lena stands on the other side of her, her arms around herself, and a haunted look in her eyes. She blinks and drops her hands to her side. “Sam? Are — are you back?”
Sam slowly backs up until her legs hit a chair. She lowers herself, shaken.
“Sam? Did you just have a blackout?”
Terror throttles her breathing, her gasps sharp and pained. Nodding, she shivers and grips the chair.
Lena holds up her hands as if to calm her down. “You don’t remember anything you just said?”
Tears blur her vision. She shakes her head. “I need help,” she whispers. Something more than therapy, more than Alex’s MRI and CT tests. Something that can dig deep into why these episodes happen when it’s never happened prior.
“Sam, do you trust me?” Lena drops to one knee next to Sam’s chair, and gently grasps her hands.
Sam clings to Lena’s warm and grounding touch and nods.
“Let me run some tests. You’ll have to stay in the basement lab for the night.” Lena bites her lip and looks down at their hands. “If I’m right about this, you’re in grave danger.”
Dread weighs heavy on Sam. “Whatever is needed, do it.” If anyone can find what’s wrong, it’d be her best friend. The person who understands amnesiac episodes, the one who is a genius with biology and engineering — the person Sam trusts and loves more than anyone else in the universe. “You’ll watch Ruby?”
“Of course. She’s in a safe place right now, and with someone I trust to keep an eye on her.”
Her words help only marginally; Sam can’t help but worry for her daughter. To not be able to see her? Out of fear of what she might do in an episode? The tears escape despite all her attempts to hold them at bay.
“I promise you I’ll figure this out. We’ll find the cure together.” Lena wraps an arm around her shoulder, while her other hand rubs her thumb over Sam’s knuckles. Exactly the same way Sam does during Lena’s panic attacks or amnesiac episodes. Oh, how the tables have turned.
True to her word, Lena sets her up in a medical bed in the basement lab and runs the battery of tests. Her best friend says very little, her entire focus on her work — like always when she hyperfocuses.
Needles used shimmer with a hint of green and leave a weird ache after. Hum of machines scan her insides, and the tool to scrape a sample from inside her mouth feels cold and unnerving. The only words spoken are gentle but short explanations of each procedure.
She knows Lena does it to try to calm her.
Nothing will calm her. Not until they know the truth.
Sam wonders if feeling shattered or scared is how Lena is all the time. If so, how does she cope? Admiration for Lena’s strength and resiliency floods Sam. Lena’s spent a life like this, while Sam falls apart after only a few months.
“This last test relies on you sleeping.” Lena stands a few feet away, her hands clasped in front of her. Her accent has stayed faint these last few hours, which means Kieran hasn’t fronted once. “Do you think you can sleep?”
Sam rubs her eyes. “Maybe. I’m exhausted enough.”
For a moment, Lena stands silently, her expression contorts almost in pain. She takes in a sharp breath, and her shoulders straighten, her posture rigid. A switch.
“Then rest.” Her best friend steps up to the bed, her accent a thick Irish brogue, where each word is pronounced slowly as if she tastes each one. That signals this is now Kieran. “We will watch over you.” She gently kisses Sam’s forehead and smooths back her hair.
Sam aches to hold her and be held in turn. Instead, she grasps Kieran’s hand. “Can — can you really cure this?”
“Not me, luv,” Kieran says, tenderly. “Lena can. She has a plan. We just need more data.” Her hand continues to stroke Sam’s hair, her other tightly holding Sam’s left. “Close your eyes now, and I shall sing you to sleep.”
Of Lena’s many parts, Kieran is the only one that can hold a tune, and she sings an Irish ballad. It ripples over Sam and encases her in warmth. She finally drifts to a dreamless sleep.
When she wakes, her head aches, her vision blurry, and her shoulder hurts. She reaches up and realizes there’s a device there, but she can’t quite see what it is.
“Lena? Kieran?” She’s not sure who is fronting for her friend.
“It's Lena.” Lena looks up from the desk, where several papers are scattered along with a tablet and a laptop. She gives her a faint smile. Dark circles line her eyes. Likely barely slept. Typical of her. “How do you feel?”
“Achey. What — what is this?” She taps the device.
“Precaution.” Lena stands and walks closer, only to stop a few feet away. “I — I have good and bad news.”
“Surely not as bad as the world ending?” Sam jokes.
Lena doesn’t laugh nor does she smile. Her eyes narrow instead. “I reviewed our data and the timeline of your episodes.”
The seriousness in Lena’s stance, the faint wisp of her accent, and the pain in her tone makes it clear that Sam isn’t going to like her next words. She braces herself.
“Your episodes align with when Reign appears.”
Sam jolts upright in shock. “No. That’s crazy.”
Lena frowns. “The data I’ve taken has provided proof. I suspect when you left on your trip ‘to find your origins,’ you were possessed. The time and date of that correlates to the timing of Reign’s cult leader escaping prison.”
Sam shakes her head. There’s no way.
“Let me show you then.” She picks up a remote and turns on the television. It plays a segment from a news report of a murder. “Two months ago you report a black out. Reign appears and kills three robbers and leaves an odd symbol all over National City. The same symbol the cultist gave Kara during her interview exactly two weeks before your ‘trip’ happened.”
Sam can’t believe her ears. She shakes her head again.
“A week later, you have another black out.” She hits the remote and another news segment appears. “Seven people killed at a warehouse. Their bodies mutilated.”
“Lena, why are you doing this?” Sam stumbles out of the bed. “You — you can’t— I get squeamish whenever Ruby asks me to kill a spider. Why — how — there’s no way I’d ever kill those people!”
Lena sighs. “I don’t think you did.”
“So what, I’m like you? Split personality now?” She snaps as she starts to pace. A weird energy tingles through her, and the area where the device is aches.
Lena takes a shuddering breath. “Sam, that’s —” She turns away and fiddles with her tablet. “Is that really what you think of us?” she asks quietly.
“No!” Sam put her head in her hands. “No, it’s not at all. I — I don’t know why I said that. You’re absolutely lovely. All of you.”
“Sure.” The flat tone to her voice hurts to hear.
“Lena, I mean it!” Sam drops onto the bed. “I’m not thinking straight. My body feels weird, and my head hurts, and — and I’m scared. Do — do you have dreams of dark forests with mists that whisper frightening things when you switch?”
Lena’s head shoots up, and she stares at Sam.”No, I don’t. I thought you said you don’t remember anything.”
“I don’t. But when — when I got angry at you at the office, I — I was briefly there, and, god, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” Lena picks up the tablet and types something into it. “That’s valuable information.”
“Do you know what’s wrong then?” Sam needs answers. Some sort of tangible goal, not this nebulous grey.
“I think Reign is possessing you,” Lena says, bluntly. “When she fronts, you lose all awareness. Your DNA essentially rewrites itself. None of my alters rewrite my DNA. Believe me, I tested myself to verify. It’s likely the Reign cultists targeted you, but what they used to cause this, I’m still researching.”
Sam stares at her, shocked.
“Please, Sam, understand, I wouldn’t tell you this if I wasn’t sure.” Lena’s words are sharp, firm, but her hands tremble, her eyes red-lined as if she’s been crying.
“This is ridiculous.” Sam starts to pace. Her body vibrates with energy, and she feels ill. Like her stomach’s acid eats through her intestines. Looking at the TV makes it worse. “I’m going home to Ruby.” She turns and walks straight into a wall. Startled, she stumbles backward. There’s nothing there.
She reaches out, tentatively, and her fingers bounce against an invisible field. “Lena, what the hell? Let me out!”
Lena shakes her head. Tears shine in her eyes. “I — I can’t. You asked me to help you. This is the only safe way.”
“No!” Sam slams her hand against the field. “Let me out, Lena. I want to see my daughter.”
“Until I find a cure, no.” Her voice shakes, but she holds her chin defiantly.
“So this is how it is?” She has the urge to lash out, to draw blood. Energy jolts through her, and her vision blurs further. Whispers of a fog curls around her mind and body. “Lena Luthor holds her best friend hostage —”
Lena breathes in sharply. “Sam, you asked me to help you.”
“I didn’t ask to be held in a cage!” Sam shoots back. “This was supposed to be just tests.”
Lena closes her eyes and turns away. Her shoulders shake, and her expression contorts. A sure sign she’s fighting against a switch. “I need to check on Ruby.” She takes the tablet and leaves.
The door clangs shut behind her. Silence envelops Sam, and with it, shadows plague her periphery. The light flickers. Fear swiftly replaces her frustration.
The TV still plays news segments. A desk with a monitor and keyboard sits under it. Distract. Must distract, otherwise the shadows creep closer, and the eerie sense of being watched looms larger.
She switches off the TV and settles in the chair. Clicking the start menu, she finds only generic games and a word processor. No internet connection and the clock is hidden. Meaning, she has no clue of the date or time.
Turning, she slams her fists against the forcefield, but it doesn’t budge. She grabs her chair and hits it against it again and again, but still nothing. It stays firmly there. Trapped.
A scream erupts from her throat, and she throws her body at the field, only to slide to the ground in a fit of panicked weeping. Claustrophobia claws through her, and she desperately wraps her arms around herself. Taps her shoulders again and again until the soft beat of her hands transforms the panic into a quiet, anxious simmer.
She thinks through all the years she’s known Lena, and nothing implies a trajectory to this situation. Her blackouts is the new data-point, which means, Lena doesn’t trust her as long as she has them.
Sam doesn't trust herself as long as they keep happening.
She rubs away her tears. Decides to focus on Aikido exercises to pass the time. Thinking about her situation only induces more panic, and she needs to try to stay calm for when Lena returns.
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time flows unsteadily, the buzz of monitors her only sound. When her muscles tire, she plays solitaire and later a generic racing game. Finally, sleep slithers up her spine, and she manages a nap.
When she wakes, Lena sits at the desk again. This time a picture frame lays on the desk by her tablet. “Good morning,” she says with her boardroom voice, a carefully modulated and emotionless tone. “Have you thought about what I’ve told you?”
“Lena, please, don’t play games with me,” Sam pleads. Being alone messes with her mind, and she fears the silence. “Let me go home. I told you, if I killed people, I’d remember.”
Her fingers tap against the tablet. “Amnesiac episodes would not allow you to remember such things.”
“Then give me a better explanation than, ‘hey, you’re a supervillain in your spare time,’” Sam snaps. “Aren’t we family, Lena? Locking me up like this isn’t cool.” Frustration tingles through her limbs, and the urge to lash out bubbles through her. “I guess the saying is right,” she says.
“What saying?” Lena frowns.
“Ask an oncologist what's wrong, they'll say cancer. Ask a pulmonologist, they'll say asthma. Ask a Luthor…” The words freeze on her tongue. What is she saying?
No, no, she can't finish that thought.
Fury radiates from Lena’s eyes, her fists clenched, and her accent is nearly nonexistent. “They'll say Supervillain?” she finishes for Sam. “Maybe on some deep level you do know.” Her voice is cold, deadly almost, as the most unnerving alter of all comes to the front.
Sam shakes her head. “No, no, I didn't mean —”
“Let’s take a look, shall we? How about Morgan Edge, the bastard who tried to poison a city for profit.” Angry Lena walks back and forth by the edge of the forcefield, while her thumb punches the remote.
The television turns on behind Sam to a news segment of the attack on Morgan Edge.
“What I wouldn’t give to see how that played out.” The sneer on Lena's face looks foreign.
Sam scrambles to her feet and backs away, only to hit the other side of the forcefield. “What — what — no.”
“Or what about Supergirl? What did it feel like to connect your fist with something that solid? That powerful?” Another news segment appeared on the screen, where Supergirl falls motionless from a great height. “Or those men?” A third one flashes into view that depicts entrails and mangled bodies. “You tore those men apart. Ripped their limbs from their bodies.” The fury in her voice accents each verb with deadly accuracy. “Did you delight in their deaths?” Angry Lena steps closer, her stormy eyes boring into Sam.
“No!” Sam clenches her fists. Her whole body vibrates, and she feels like she’s about to explode. “Stop this! I just want to go home to my daughter!”
“As if I’d let you near Ruby again,” Angry Lena snarls. “How did it feel living in that house with her day in and day out? When you could easily snap her in half with your bare hands?”
“Stop this!” The energy rattles through her bones, rises up toward her head, and she feels frantic. Something terrible looms, and she can’t stop it.
When Angry Lena speaks again, Sam fails to comprehend. Her words trigger a flare of pain that rips through Sam’s body, catapults her mind into a frigid, grey fog.
Her feet slide on rocky soil.
Branches creak but there is no wind.
Shadows coil in her periphery, whispers caress her ears. Let go. Let go.
Misty hands brush against her ankles. She kicks them away and staggers backward, only for her hand to hit something soft and moist. She screams and jolts her hand away. Her feet slip on the gravelly soil, and she tumbles into a ravine. She curls up with her hands above her head and whimpers.
“Four, eight, twelve,” she counts, just like she did many times with Lena, “sixteen, twenty...”
The coldness abates, the fog fades, and light warms her eyelids. Pain burns through her body. She gasps and opens her eyes to find herself flat on her back.
Around her, the bed has been torn in half. The desk shredded. The monitor is ripped apart, and the television swings back and forth on its cords. A video plays. She watches the last bit of Angry Lena's cruel words, then the monstrous change ripples through Sam's body.
Not-Sam unleashes heat vision and tears apart the room with her bare hands.
Terror freezes her, her eyes wide. Metal snaps off the bed and hurls at the force field. It shimmers brightly. Lena ducks behind her desk in the video, and that sours Sam's mouth with bile.
She leaps forward to stab at the TV’s buttons in desperation. “Turn it off, turn it off!”
The television goes silent.
“We — we needed you to see it for yourself.” Lena’s voice whispers, pain in her voice. “And we didn’t know how else to do it. You — you weren’t listening. I’m sorry, Sam.”
“All those people��” Sam crumples and breaks into tears. Her hands are coated in blood. How can she ever face her daughter again?
The forcefield flickers and drops on one side, while Lena springs to her side. “Sam, Sam, it wasn’t your fault.” She wraps her arms tightly around her shoulders and presses her forehead against Sam's. “You weren’t in control. When Reign fronted, I got samples of her DNA, okay? And knowledge is power. We’re going to get you through this, okay?”
Sobs cascade through her body. She doesn’t know for how long she cries, but Lena rocks her gently. Kisses her temple, and strokes her hair.
Her voice changes to the thicker Irish brogue of Kieran. “It’s okay, luv. It’s okay. You’re not alone in this. We understand. We can cure this. Lena has a plan, and I’m sorry we spoke so harshly. It won’t ever happen again.”
Sam clings to such frail hope. Slowly, her sobs slow. She shivers and pulls back. “Kieran, you — you can’t be in here with me then. Not — not if I could turn into Reign.”
Kieran brushes hair from Sam’s face and cups her cheek, her eyes a turquoise color instead of Lena's usual emerald. “We know the risk.” She pulls out a phone and gently places it in Sam’s hands. “Call your daughter. We’ll clean up.” She kisses Sam on the forehead, and stands with a sad smile.
The affection in Kieran's voice takes the breath from Sam. For a moment, she stares up at her best friend, the part that has stayed fiercely loyal to Sam, and always touches her with such reverence.
Kieran doesn’t just love her as a friend, but perhaps more than one.
But Sam can never act on this realization, not with her complex roles in Lena’s life — Lena’s best friend, this nebulous more than friends with Kieran, the almost motherly role for Rory, and the grounding role for Angry Lena.
Her current state mars her roles, darkens her impact, threatens to sever their connection. The hurtful words they hurled at each other fade to a dull ache. Instead, Sam holds back a sob of grief. Her roles in Lena's and Ruby's lives define her.
Without them, who is she? How can she be useful to anyone?
She looks down at the phone and sags against the wall.
Kieran pushes out the shattered bed and desk. Sweeps away the glass and metal. A new bed she rolls into the enclosure.
As she works, Sam unlocks her phone and stares at the number for Ruby’s emergency phone. What does she even say? Grief lances through her, her heart charred by the horrors.
Her best friend finishes and pauses at Sam’s side. “Call,” she says, quietly. “You need to hear her voice as much as she needs yours.” The thicker accent is gone, and Lena’s deep emerald eyes meet Sam’s. She reaches out to gently trail her fingers along Sam’s right temple. “I’ll be just outside the enclosure, okay?”
Sam nods. She waits until the hum of the forcefield activates before she finally speaks. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have said what I did earlier.”
“It’s okay, Sam. We’re sorry too.” Lena sits down on the other side, her tablet on the ground next to her. “We understand how scary this is. But a cure is possible. Whatever the cultists did, we can undo, okay?”
Sam shudders and tries to believe Lena, but her hope is fragile. Her mind keeps spinning back to the news segments, to the deaths by her hands — even if she wasn’t the one fronting. Images of entrails clog her thoughts.
No. Think of anything else. She takes a shaky breath and lets it out slowly. Thinks instead of the softness of Lena's hands against her face.
And the smile of her daughter as she eagerly shares a story from school.
Precious grounding moments.
She finally hits the dial button.
“Mom?” Ruby's voice shakes at first but then steadies. “Is it you?”
“Hey Rubes, it’s me. I wanted to check in on you.” She doesn’t dare tell her where she really is. In case it puts her in danger.
“Mom, are you okay? Is Aunt Lena with you?”
“Yes, she is. And the truth is, I am sick, so I have to stay in the hospital for a little while longer. But I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“Can I come see you? I miss you.”
“Oh baby, I miss you too.” The tears flow harder, and she chokes back a sob. “But you can’t. It may be contagious, and I can’t risk you. Aunt Lena will be by to check on you, okay? And I’ll be home as soon as I’m better.”
It feels so futile. So banal of a promise. She can’t bring herself to lie further.
“But Mom, can't I just put on one of Lena's special hazmat suits? I'll be good!” Tears mangle part of her words, but Sam understands.
“No, you need to do what Aunt Lena says is best. She's good at what she does, okay? She's helping me too. I promise you, we'll get through this, okay?”
Ruby's sobs echo in Sam's ears. “Mom… I love you, okay? And maybe we can do a video call instead?”
No. No, she can't let Ruby see her in this state. “We'll see. I love you, Rubes. Love you so much. Be good for your Aunt Lena.” She hangs up before Ruby can say another word.
Lena speaks then. “Don’t worry about Ruby. I’ll take her to —”
“Don’t tell me where she is,” Sam interjects with a strangled sob. She looks up to see Lena fighting tears too. “Not until I’m cured.”
Lena nods as a few tears escape. That Sam can’t bear. To be the cause of it? She hides her face against her knees and curls up against the wall. Sobs broil down her body.
Behind her, Kieran’s Irish brogue sings a haunting tune that wraps around Sam, soothes her pain, until her sobs fade to ragged breathing and counting in multiples of four.
The next few weeks is torturous. Sam's hold on reality untethers as her sense of time and space evaporates into a haze of pain and fear. A war of fluorescent lights versus seething grey fog. They learn that the place Sam's mind goes is an alternate dimension related to the possession.
Waking from that dimension leaves Sam in a cold sweat. She leans against the forcefield with Lena leaning against the otherside. "How do you deal with this daily?" Sam wipes away her tears. "I — I don't know how to move forward. Not with — with that monster inside me."
"Acceptance of the truth is the first step," Lena admits. "I always had Kieran. They wrote in our shared journal and signed the entries. But to learn of new alters? Practice acceptance. You're already good at it."
"How can I accept that a blood-thirsty killer is inside me?" Sam whispers. "I never want to hurt anyone."
"It's not about accepting their actions, Sam. It's about accepting that they exist. You don't have to nor should you accept what they do." Lena shifts to press her hand against the forcefield. "Look at me, hun."
Sam turns and meets Lena's green eyes.
"My alters are me," she says, quietly. "We may have split into separate parts, each of unique in a way, but they are still me. But Reign is not you. Reign was forced on you. Accept she exists, but resist her control. This is your body."
"How do I do that?" Sam presses her hand over Lena's, the forcefield separating them from feeling the other's touch.
"You do it with me often. Ground oneself in the present. For you, ground yourself in your body. In your senses." Lena taps her ears and above her eyes. "It may feel like a fight, but you are strong." She taps her leg and tilts her head, her accent still the light one of Lena. "Since you go to that other dimension, try focusing on your body and how it feels. Imagine each sense, the height and weight, and clothes. Imagination is a powerful tool."
Sam ponders Lena's advice and wonders if she can pull it off while terrified out of her mind. Maybe if she practiced enough? "Can we go through this as an exercise? To practice?"
Lena smiles, faintly. "Sure."
They spend the next two hours practicing, and make it part of their daily activities. Each practice session, Sam feels a little stronger, more like she might actually be able to pull it off if she gets trapped in the other realm.
A week later, Lena attempts to capture data during Sam's times in the alternate dimension. One day she accidentally causes both Sam and Reign to manifest in that terrifying forest.
Branches curl toward her, and whispers coil around her. Shivering, she turns and freezes. An exact copy of herself stands a few feet away, clad in black, except her eyes are red. They shine in the dark fog.
She dives behind a tree.
“Sam, do you truly think you can resist me?” the words slide off the other's tongue like poisoned honey.
One second Reign is several trees away, and the next she's at Sam's side. Her hands reach for Sam's shoulder.
Sam throws herself backward. “Don't touch me.” She strives for bravado. Grabbing a stick, she swings it desperately.
Reign stalks her, moving unnaturally fast. One moment on Sam's left, the next on her right. Fog billows around her like monstrous wings, and the air charged with sparks of black lightning. Trees creak despite no wind. The cold leeches away Sam's energy.
Stay focused. Sam adapts her breathing to her Aikido training, her stance to a loose defensive one. This time her swing hits Reign in the chest.
Reign snaps the branch like a twig, and darts forward to snag Sam's throat. She's slammed against a tree. Red eyes bore into her. Whispers from the broiling fog chant, let go, let go.
No! She can’t leave Ruby. Or Lena.
She knees Reign in the stomach. The grip loosens enough for her to twist and perform a throw. Gasping in air, she stumbles backward. Her body — she needs to imagine what her body feels like. As she runs from Reign, who is staggering to her feet still, she pictures how her legs feel while running in the real world. How her muscles pump, how the fabric of her clothes rub against her skin, the way her hair falls across her neck and back, and the sweat that dampens her hair's roots.
She trips and falls through the ground and into the soft blankets of the medical bed. She's back in the forcefield room, far from Reign. Sam weeps and curls up, the fire in her veins pulses from the device on her shoulder. “No, no, don't do that again, Lena.”
“What happened?” Lena presses her hand against the forcefield, but she doesn't lower it or come closer.
“I was there with Reign.” Sam shudders. “God, that monster. You got to stop her, Lena. Please.”
“Oh crap.” Lena drops her hand to her side. “I — I got a sample of the enzyme causing the change just now. While you were passed out. I think I can synthesize a cure from it.”
Sam clings to the first good news in weeks. But like all good things, the very next day, the world erupts into chaos.
Two aliens rip apart concrete and metal and break into Lena’s lab. Seconds later, Supergirl and three others teleport into the room in a flash of red light. In the ensuing fight, Sam loses control.
She crashes into the nightmare realm. Mists seethe over her, and this time she can’t find her way back to her own body. Claw-like branches leer over her, whispers to let go tug at her ears, and the ground heaves like it breathes.
Desperate, she stumbles to her feet. Faces form in the mists and dive at her. She ducks and runs.
She trips over something soft. Turning, she gasps and jerks her leg off the body. A Korean woman lies there, her face locked in a silent scream.
Sam gasps and scrambles backward. Slipping, she tumbles down a ravine and into a cavern. Flickering blue light shimmers in its depths. One hand against the wall, she stumbles forward.
Turning a corner, she stops in shock. Black woman carves words into the sandstone rock. Names, places, but other words make no sense. Over and over, she carves and mutters incoherently.
"Hello?" Sam tries, but the woman doesn't respond. She only carves and shivers.
That’s when Sam sees firsthand how this realm eats away memories. Tears down the mind, until there is nothing left but to die.
She doesn’t know how long she’s there. But soon the whispers and growing pain starts to eat into her too. Her mind grows foggy, her memories slither away like oil.
She keeps the other woman company but struggles to remember why. Finds her own sharp rock and carves her name, Ruby's, and Lena’s along with anything else she can remember.
Faces form in the mists, and whispers slither like hands across her shoulders. She shivers and carves until her hands and arms ache.
The woman coughs, shakes, and freezes with glassy eyes. Sam watches in horror as the woman ceases to breath and tips over as if frozen solid. Mists coil over the body, faces form in the shadows, and mist hands sweep over the body.
Horror spikes, and Sam scrambles deeper into the cave. Near bubbling pools, one clear and one muddy. The walls of the cave close in on her.
Sobbing, she carves the names over and over. Figures coalesce, familiar until their faces twist into snarls, their eyes empty sockets. She huddles closer to the rock wall, ducks her head, and digs her rock deeper into the sandstone.
Her nails start to bleed, her palm raw. Still she carves.
A voice calls out her name. An almost familiar one. “Sam?”
She keeps carving. It’s another phantom. Another to distract her from her task.
“Sam. Sam, it’s me.” Gentle hands turn her face.
She looks into emerald eyes. “No — not real…” She tries to tug free, but this one is solid unlike the others. Fear curdles through her. She’s too weak too fight. Now they’ll kill her like the others.
“Sam, please, I really am here.” The green-eyed lady strokes her cheek in a familiar, almost calming way. “Count with me, okay? Four, eight, twelve, sixteen…”
“Twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight…” Sam murmurs. Slowly, a memory surfaces of her doing exactly this with someone she loves. The name peels back. “Lena. You’re Lena.”
“Yes.” Lena embraces her. “Yes, it’s me.”
“But you — you’re not real.” Sam clings to her and a sob clogs her throat.
“I am. I really am.” Lena cards her fingers through Sam’s hair. “Supergirl and her friends helped me reach this place. She’s here with me, see?” She turns to look back, her arm still tight around Sam’s shoulders.
Two people stand behind Lena. One in a red cape with a red and blue suit. The other dressed in black with red hair cut short. Both familiar but the names escape Sam.
“Hey Sam,” the red-head says. “Remember me? We hang out a lot with your daughter. Gone clubbing a few times. You can drink me under the table.”
“Alex.” More names and memories bubble through the fog. “Supergirl?” She looks at the caped hero.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Supergirl smiles sadly. “Lena found a way to help you, but we need to find Reign first. We got to capture her. Go back to your body and signal us.”
“I — I don’t know how.”
“Hun, you do,” Lena says fiercely. “Just like you’ve always done for me when I’m lost in the fog.”
“Fog…” Sam struggles to remember, but the memories dance just out of reach. “What — what did I do for you?”
Lena breathes in sharply. She gently brushes Sam’s hair from her face. “I’ll teach you like you taught me. Count and breathe with me. Feel your body, use all of your senses.” She resumes counting. “Thirty-two, thirty-six, forty…”
Sam closes her eyes and leans her forehead against Lena’s shoulder. “Forty-four, forty-eight, fifty-two…” The multiples of four ground her, centers her breaths, and she feels a faint tug in her mind. She smells the air, feels Lena's touch against her skin, the weight of clothes on her body. As she continues to count with Lena, that tug grows stronger until it broils over.
She breaths in sharply and finds herself in a large cavern. On either side of her, two woman clad in a grey and black suit similar to her own chant in an unfamiliar language. Beyond them stands two people dressed in black robes with hoods, but they stand silent, eyes closed.
Energy seethes from the Reign-like women’s hands and her own. More sparks fly into the well in the center of the room. To her horror, with each pulse, the well burrows deeper, the bottom almost out of sight.
Quakes shimmer outward from the well, but the energy roots them. Meanwhile, the cavern itself shakes at each pulse, and a few stones fall near the hooded figures. Behind her, she sees a control panel with a blue crystal glowing in the center of it.
A memory surges through the simmering fog in her mind. That’s the same crystal she’d found when she went to speak to her adopted mother. It came from a pod in her mother's garage. Attackers had descended on them like rabid coyotes. She'd defended her mother, until a song ensnared her with pain. A dark fog blinded all her senses. She’d been trapped in a shroud of whispers, until she woke the next day in her bed at home.
Fury ignites. Lena is right yet again. Cultists did something, and it relates to that damn crystal.
It takes all of her strength to jerk herself out of the energy circle. Sparks sear across her skin.
She throws herself at the control panel, just as the two hooded figures call out in anger. She tugs it free. The energy currents flicker and go dark. She smashes the crystal against the console.
Howls of fury screech behind her. She’s ripped away from the panel, thrown across the cavern, and slams into stone. She stumbles to her feet, angry and desperate to stay in control.
The other two aliens attack, and she blocks their punches. Falls into her defensive stance. Throws one with a breath throw, and the other she dodges. Beyond them, the hooded figures start to chant, a harsh discordant melody. Black fog rises from the ground.
Sam knows she’s running out of time, but if she’s to get the signal out, she has to take out these assholes first.
She blocks their punches and tosses one of the Reign-like woman into the console. Strength beyond what she's ever felt burns through her, and she rips apart a rock to slam into the first Reign-like woman. She slumps against the broken console.
The second one catches her by surprise and slams a fist into her head. Sam stumbles, only to get another punch in the gut. She gasps and falls to her knees.
Dark fog curls around her legs.
But her body is still in the transformed state. She lets out a roar and ignites the heat vision. It slices through the cavern’s roof, burning through to the sky above.
The other Reign-like being punches her, and she skids across the ground. Her heat vision sputters to a stop. Another kick spends her spinning, and she lands far too close to the hooded figures. The dark fog coils around her, suffocates her breath, but dammit, if she’s going out, then she’s taking them with her.
She hurls herself into the hooded figures. One raises a hand, and she bounces against a shield.
Their feet still connect with the earth though. She digs her fingers deep and tugs upward with all her strength. The ground splits and the hooded figures shout. One tumbles into the pit, and the other snags a rock, holding on for dear life.
A chant sounds behind her. The remaining Reign-like asshole and sings a grating melody that bleeds into Sam's consciousness, like a worms burrowing into her flesh.
She can feel her consciousness start to slip away. She’s running out of time.
Desperate, she gathers the last vestiges of her will and rips up the ground and hurls it into the pit. The remaining figure falls screaming. Energy shoots upward, and the cavern shakes. Rocks slam down atop her. Her vision blackens.
She tumbles through the earth and hits the misty cavern of the nightmare realm. But no one is there. Lena and the others are gone. Shadows leer, lights flicker like sparks, and the pools behind her broil with wisps of light.
Terror threatens, but Sam grabs a rock and slams it against the sandstone. Ruby needs her. Lena needs her. She must hold tight to hope. Let it fuel her and burn away the memory-consuming fog.
She resumes her carving, and hours — days? — later violet energy sears into the ground around her. Pain rockets through her, and she screams in agony. Her cells rip and reform.
She’s thrown backward, through the earth, and slams into cold tile. There she shudders against the ground, spent.
“Sam?” Lena’s sweet voice, the one with the wisp of an accent, breaks through her exhaustion.
A warm blanket falls across her body. Sam blinks upward to see Lena holding a beaker stained with a black liquid. Relief surges at the sight of her beautiful face and emerald eyes.
“Do — do you have some Tylenol?” Sam manages a faint smile.
Lena drops to her side in relief, the beaker falls, and rolls under a half destroyed table. All around her lies the remains of a wrecked laboratory, and there, seated crosslegged near them is a cape-less Supergirl. She sights Alex and two others she doesn’t recognize sorting through the rubble.
“Sam.” Lena wraps her arms around her. Her warmth a balm to the cold that still clings to her from the nightmare realm. “God, I’m so glad you’re back.”
“You did it then?” She feels weak, shaky, but whole. Like a massive weight been lifted from her shoulders. “Destroyed Reign?”
“Obliterated her to dust,” Supergirl says, softly. “All thanks to Lena’s genius and a fancy, magical rock that hurt like hell to touch.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you, Sam,” Lena protests. “That signal you sent worked.”
“You stopped the cultists too,” Supergirl says, proudly. “Found them unconscious in that energy well. And you knocked out Reign. Made capturing her easy.”
“She did get feisty during the administering of the antidote,” Lena adds. She smiles tentatively, but her eyes still shine with a deep worry and sadness. “but we handled it.”
The tears in Lena’s eyes hurt to see. To know that Sam — even if it was some creepy alien possession using her body — caused that hurt? How much did it hurt her daughter too? How will they recover?
She wants to go home and hug Ruby, to reassure her that she’s back for good this time. To return to being just a CFO for Lena’s company. Back to her singleton self — as Lena often calls her.
But first, she wants to wipe away that worry from her best friend’s face.
“What can I say?” Sam jokes. “I just got that killing punch.” Her joke falls flat, and she ends up in tears instead. Who is she kidding? She can’t ever go back to the way things were after this. Her hands are stained now, even if it was another entity that used them for evil.
Lena holds her, gently rocking her. “Let it out, Sam. You’re safe now.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sam whispers. She clings to Lena and huddles under the warmth of the red cape. “All this horror? All those people dead?”
“Hey, that wasn’t you.” Lena strokes her hair. “Don’t take on the crimes of another.”
“She’s right,” Supergirl says, gently. “Reign was forced onto you against your will. You are a victim. A survivor in this. And in time, you will heal. Take it in steps.”
Sam takes a shuddering breath. Those words are ones she’s often said to Lena. What had once been abstract prior, now blossoms into a deep understanding. Lena may not be trapped in a nightmare realm when other alters front, but the pain and fear that amnesiac moments cause? Sam understands now.
And now she can do better. For herself, Lena, and Ruby. To find a new path forward.
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bittwitchy · 1 year
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Sebastian Stan as Jefferson
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ahit-oc-corner · 11 months
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A Hat In Time OC drawings part 4 the Angst the idea stems from snatcher doing anything he can to fuck with lurker bc of their issues with one another. Sai being made of paint means she's very sensitive to the cold, and gets hurt because of snatcher egging her on to mess around despite Lurkers protests this severely injures her and Snatcher hadn't intended for her to get hurt. Lurker refuses to let him see her. side note of this is snatcher is pathetically and madly in love with her, so its a lot help oUGH
Lurker belongs to @chocowhomps
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bakuraes · 7 months
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"What did you do? What did you do??"
"Ryou, this is a good thing—"
"What did you do to me???"
I also have a tendership vampire romcom au with tragic ryou backstory (he almost killed his dad accidentally when his dad got him turned into a vampire... which is a long story) but like. as much as ryou kinda angsts about being a monster in the au it IS a romcom. and I find that hilarious
but yeah this scene is moments before disaster TM (ryou bites papa too much)
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braveryhearted · 1 year
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More obscure muses ( Introduction ) series.
Fandom: CORRECTOR YUI.
Muse #1- Yui Kasuga / Corrector Yui.
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Age 14-16.
Fourteen-year-old Yui Kasuga born on June 10th 2006, is perky, creative, daydreamy… and at a complete disadvantage for someone that lives twenty years in the future: she's so computer-illiterate that she thinks "delete" is a snack food. Luckily for her, her best friend Haruna Kisaragi is a famous computer expert, taught by her father and her uncle.
However, Haruna leaves Yui to do her homework by herself and leaves with the rest of the other's friends that are at a virtual theme park. Yui puts the homework disk into her computer and manages to screw up so badly that a virtual creature hidden inside it is awakened by just the right key combination. Thinking he's stumbled upon a super-genius, the creature, IR, commands Yui to load her consciousness onto the "Com-Net" (internet) and become a virtual magical girl.
Yui immediately jumps at the chance to fight viruses and wear cute outfits (not to mention, one of the first people threatened by the Big Bad is her father), but as she finds out, there's more to the story than this.
Eight sentient programs, of which IR is one, have been created by one Professor Inukai, who is comatose after another program named Grosser rebelled against him and overrode his car. Grosser is after these programs, which uphold the very existence of Com-Net (and, since Everything Is Online, the real world too); presumably, he wants to corrupt everything for some unknown goal. Yui is commissioned to gather all eight and combine their powers with her own to delete Grosser.
Yui might turn to cliche once in a while, but in other respects, it's very different. She actually wants to be a magical girl, and has dreamed about it and written like stories for a long time. She has a few basic powers with her Fairy Elemental Suit, but each Corrector Program can grant her a different Elemental Suit with different powers, varying the battle tactics. And though the plot might seem straightforward, never fear: Grosser and his Corruptor Programs aren't simple Card Carrying Villains, Inukai's not such a saint himself, and Yui might not be what they think they are either.
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flownintothesun · 2 years
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⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── "𝐈 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞. 𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐞'𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲." 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 @ 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐬  
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            ⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── a legacy post for @batteredoptimist dated 30 July 2022.
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          𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃'𝐒 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 — and oh, if he knew just how much Francis wishes he could squeeze his hand, just once for reassurance, and be pulled back to his side. The place he is is not one of nightmares. It is peaceful and quiet and dark, fuzzy around the edges. His mind can take him anywhere he wishes to go here, anywhere at all. Anywhere but home. And so, instead, he imagines colors bursting in the garden — reds and oranges and yellows.  This, he thinks, is the effort of love. What it means to bury a seed in the ground with someone, and have him place his hands over yours as you pack in the dirt. This garden is a foundation of forever. It will bloom while we are here, and long after we are gone.
    His lilies are the sunset of the garden, and James’ sweet peas, he imagines, are the dawn — purples and yellows that for some reason in his mind, expand far beyond their lovely garden space — make their way out into the world where their love might bring joy to others, just by its existence alone. He wants to tell James that he’ll come home — that he doesn’t want his darling’s tears to water their garden. He wants to tell him that he’s his forever, that this is only a setback in something so much greater. More than any of this, he wishes that when James kisses him, that his own lips were not cold and lifeless — that he could rise to meet him — as it has always been, as it should always be. Never behind, never in front of, only beside — hand in hand in their garden forever. He imagines moving his tongue, imagines it with all of his heart and tries desperately to breathe it into reality. But his mind is a prisoner in his body, and while there is peace here, there is no reprieve from the desperation to make his mouth move, make his eyes open.
    I love you...
                            I love you...
                                                    I love you.
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