#every time i do this (consistently forget meds for 2 full weeks) i get like 'why am sad???????? its gonna be like this forever. forever sad

[hungryhyena]

draw horse didnt work im still sad

[orangefoxes]

Hey, so I've been trying to submit a prompt but it won't work so here it goes I know this will be sad but what if Neil gets really sad and depressed (the reason is up for interpretation ex: bullied by jack or is haunted by PTSD) and so he becomes full of self hate and becomes anorexic and cuts himself #andreil (this would mean so much since I've been through similar circumstances and was strong enough to pull through and keep living, this book and your Tumblr have helped me so much)

Hi @soph-ie21 I am so sorry this took a whopping 4 years for me to post. I’m terrible for not checking my inbox as my notifications have been turned off for tumblr since I was like 13. I’m so glad to hear that you recovered from your ED, you must be so strong and I’m so proud of you as I know how difficult that is to do. I’m hoping this is the sort of prompt you were looking for, if you’re even looking after this long, as it’s not very dialogue heavy, but here you go.

TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDER, SELF LOATHING, ANOREXIA.

When in high stress situations, to cope, the brain releases a hormone called cortisol. It’s alright in small doses, helpful even. It triggers your fight or flight response and readies the body to do something, fast. Constant exposure to the hormone however, has some not so good long term effects. Effects that include, but are not limited to: high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and, arguably the mildest, weight gain.

Cortisol results in weight gain for two reasons. The first is because it slows your metabolism, and the second is because the drop in blood sugar from constant high blood pressure means that you start craving fatty, sugary foods, which leads to overeating. Neil’s memory is not nearly good enough for him to recall what foods he had craved over the years, but he and his mother shied away from sweets and chocolate for dental reasons, it probably would have been a hardship for many kids growing up but Neil had never much cared for sugar anyway. However, what he and his mother did indulge in is a lot of fatty, fast food. Partly because it was cheap, partly because it was something they could eat while on the move, and partly because no one would look twice at two sketchy people in a Burger King or remember a beaten up old car briefly pausing in a drive thru.

While never giving much thought to how he looked (short of checking for ginger roots and the bruise on his cheek from where his mother had slapped that smile from his face), Neil does remember his weight fluctuating a lot when he was younger. The more stressful the months, the chubbier he got. It was in the quiet periods as he and his mother settled down and didn’t dare to venture into the supermarket too often that he began to lose it again. It was a cycle.

In Millport, Neil was at his lowest weight yet. There was only a solitary McDonald’s in town and Neil wasn’t about to become a regular. He stocked up on tinned food from the supermarket in his first week in town instead and meticulously made his way through them, heating the can up on the hot plate he had bought for four dollars from the thrift store in the high street.

He gained weight again once he started at Palmetto, he gained muscle mass too. This, of course, was thanks to three free meals a day and a new training regime with daily exercise. It was to be expected, but if, perhaps, he gained weight quicker than his teammates and muscle slower, well, he had bigger things to worry about.

Then he knew he was going to live.

Then everything with the Moriyamas was…well, not gone, but resolved.

That’s not to say there was nothing to stress about. There was the influx of reporters wanting to catch the Foxes’ attention to ask about Nathaniel Wesninski. There was Kevin’s impending break down as Riko’s funeral came and went. There was Aaron’s trial. Honestly it probably would have gone as stressful situations for Neil always go - here and gone just as quickly - except it turns out that Nicky cooks when he’s stressed, and Neil, well, he’s a stress eater.

After Aaron is declared innocent, Nicky resumes as normal. Neil…not quite. He’s constantly opening the cupboards to look for something to eat only to close them again when he finds nothing of interest. Without Nicky cooking, there’s nothing he can easily dig into and Neil, while accumulating many skills over the years, had never been a hand in the kitchen. The only things ready-eat that were consistently in the dorm were ramen and ice-cream. Even the thought of ramen makes Neil want to vomit and Neil wasn’t so desperate that he would resort to eating something as sweet as ice cream. Not that Andrew would let him if he did. (Andrew wasn’t a sharer).

He started to feel hungry.

He was always hungry.

The first few days he started to skip meals, he didn’t even notice he was doing it. Surely he didn’t notice he was doing it.

It’s just -

Here’s the thing.

Maybe he stress eats. Maybe his mother did too. They spent long car journeys with a family sized bag of potato chips resting by the gear stick and they spent half the time stuffing handfuls into their mouths and the other half checking the mirrors for cars that stayed behind them a touch to long. So maybe he stress ate, but it was never because of hunger: it was because of craving. It was because it gave him something to do with his hands. It was only when things quietened down, when the weeks turned long with the monotonous almost-existence that took up the majority of Neil’s life growing up (here’s something no one tells you about life on the run, in between the moments of sheer terror, it’s very very very boring), it was only then, that Neil actually began to feel things like hunger.

So when the hunger pangs began to curdle in his stomach, well, he didn’t mind. It meant he was safe enough to feel the hunger.

Maybe for the first couple of days he didn’t notice it. But then he noticed it.

He noticed enough to avoid things like rice and bread. Danger foods that packed on the calories and that made him bite the inside of his cheek until it bled at the mere thought. He noticed enough that he began to watch the others train and saw their muscles flex and couldn’t help but track their muscle growth and measure it up against his own. He always found himself lacking.

That’s when it started to get worse. If Allison spent 20 minutes on the treadmill. Then Neil would do 30. If Kevin did 40 push ups. Then Neil would do 50. If Renee had a salad for lunch, then Neil would just have a fruit pot.

The first time Andrew noticed that he skipped a meal, Neil just blinked. Being who he was, Neil didn’t do stupid things like stumble for lies and this time was no different. When Andrew asked about him not eating Neil just blinked like he hadn’t even noticed until Andrew brought it up.

He blinked and said “oh, you’re right. I got so caught up in watching exy reruns i didn’t even notice”

He said, “thanks, I’ll grab something in a sec”

Andrew breathed a scoffing breath down his nose, rolled his eyes and called him a junkie. He didn’t look at all surprised, as though Neil was only confirming what he had already guessed. Which of course is the trick all good liars employ.

Neil wondered if he would be surprised if he were to find out how impossible it would be for Neil to forget a meal time. He could never forget. All he thought about was food. It was all he thought about.

Food began to feel like it was all he cared about. Cared about more than school. Cared about more than exy. Is it terrible of him that that more than anything else feels like the worst thing?

And then, as things do, it got worse.

It turned into Neil stood in front of the mirror (looking at his body but not his eyes, never his eyes) and pinching the flesh between his fingers. Noticing every part of him that didn’t harden into muscle like the others. Noticing all the scars that had stretched strangely over a waist and thighs that are no longer as small.

He begins to peck at his food. Rip it into tiny pieces. Andrew looks down at his plate and glowers at him. Neil gives him a cheeky grin. He knows what he’s thinking. That this is just another one of those Andrew-mannerisms that Neil is taking on for himself. Like the sarcastic salutes and the blank, waiting stares. It’s so much easier to hide how little you’ve eaten when it’s all in pieces.

He didn’t know how to explain it. He just knows he needs to be thinner. He needs to weigh less. It’s not about looks. It’s never been about looks. He just needs to do this. He needs to be smaller. It will be alright then. Because then…then…

Well it will be alright then.

So here’s the thing about guilt and self loathing: they’re useless emotions. Andrew would be quick to agree. (Though Andrew is a hypocrite and is chock full of the both of them). His mother would agree too. How many times had Neil slipped poison into someone’s drink, stole from someone just as desperate, shot someone who maybe or maybe-not deserved it? And how many times after that did his mother pinch and prod at him and repeat the same mantra of “don’t you dare let guilt slow you down, you slow down and you’re dead”

Well, Mum, he’s slowed down. He slowed down so much that he’s stopped altogether and guess what? He fucking hates himself.

He replays it all in his head like a terrible loop. The boy in Switzerland that he tricked into taking his jacket so His fathers men would go after him instead. The old women he and his mother tricked into housing them and then slipped something in her tea until she slept and never woke up again. The homeless man who had broken into the house they were squatting in that Neil had shot on instinct. Seth.

Seth. Seth. Seth.

He fucking hates himself. Honestly the hunger pains kind of feel like the best thing he’s ever felt after that. The pain, the ache, he deserves it.

Then it gets worse. Then comes the worst part.

Andrew’s meds change again. The others had begun to make him irritable and he always had an energy crash by about 5pm and a terrible headache. The new ones wouldn’t be of much note as they did nothing groundbreakingly different, short of getting rid of the headaches and not sapping so much of his energy.

Except for one key side effect of the meds.

They suppressed Andrew’s appetite.

More and more Andrew is missing meals. He won’t even eat more than a tablespoon of ice cream. Neil watches him and adjusts himself to suit. He doesn’t know why, but he just can’t be eating more than him, he can’t.

The frustration he feels about Andrew’s meds soon turn to resentment. He hates that he has to watch Andrew not eat and not seem affected by it at all. Andrew lessens his exercise under Betsy’s advice and yet nothing changes. His weight stays the same. He probably even loses some thanks to the loss of muscle. Neil watches and Neil hates. He hates that if he skipped out on training he would pack on the pounds, he hates that his stomach hurt and hurts and Andrew doesn’t spare a thought on food at all.

He starts to avoid the roof. He starts to dodge Andrew’s gaze the same way he does his own in the mirror.

The next time they’re alone and Andrew leans in, more hesitant than he’s been in months, Neil jerks back and snaps “No.”

It isn’t even completely because of the resentment. The majority of it is because he feels disgusting and fat and he can’t bare Andrew touching him right now. Can’t bare him looking at him.

Andrew’s face closes off and he slides back to the other side of the couch. He’s searching Neil’s face, trying to find the misstep, trying to find what he did wrong.

Good, let him think he did something wrong.

Now that’s the resentment.

It’s immediately one of the worst things Neil has ever thought. He remembers sitting, trembling, on the roof, Andrew refusing to touch him saying “I wont be like them, I wont let you let me be”

And Neil’s trying to make him think, wants to make him feel -

Jesus Christ. He’s a piece of fucking shit.

He slams his way out of the dorm and runs and runs and runs.

He sleeps in the locker room and slumps out in the morning so he’s first in the main room for the meeting with Wymack. He sits on a chair that’s as far away from every other seat as it can get while still completing the make do semi-circle around where Wymack usually stands. When the others begin to filter in they take in his new seat, but don’t comment when they see his storming expression.

When Andrew sees him he pauses for a beat in the doorway before continuing to his usual seat on the couch. He stares at Neil blankly, but his hands are clenching and unclenching in his lap. Wymack hesitates but doesn’t say anything. The others play at being uninterested and only Aaron openly looks between Neil and Andrew with a steadyingly darkening expression.

Neil slams his locker and gets changed in the cubicles for the first time in months. He’s vicious in practice. Throwing in as many dirty moves as he can. Andrew stands in the goal and does nothing. When it’s only Wymack’s sharp whistle that stops Neil bringing his racket down on Matt’s arm when he attempts to steal the ball, Neil is benched.

He yanks off his helmet and slumps down on the bench and tries to remember how to breathe through rage.

He’s sat, pinching at the skin on his thigh, for ten minutes before Allison joins him. She holds out a breakfast bar and Neil stiffens.

“Eat, it might help you stop being such a raging asshole,” she says.

Neil takes the breakfast bar and when she doesn’t immediately leave he opens it and snaps a bit off with his fingers.

He stares down the rolled oats and nuts and grimaces at the sticky feeling of the syrup that holds them together. He feels sick.

“Are you going to eat?” Allison says.

Neil looks at her and huffs a bitter breath through his nose. A wry smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

He remembers that Allison battled bulimia for years.

You can’t lie to a liar.

She looks at his face. Concern trying to become anger that she’s trying to force to stay concern. She looks at his face and then over at Andrew, who is stood in his goal watching them as Kevin shouts at him to fucking do something already. She looks back at Neil.

“You know, relationships are hard enough without mental health problems in the mix. Seth and I were a terrible combination for many reasons and that was one them. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done, I’m just saying it makes it so much harder. He used to try to make me eat. I hated him for that. Hated that I had to hide my own habits in my own room. One day, after he stopped me from going to purge one too many times we got into an argument. I said some disgusting things to him. The next day he was in the hospital because of an overdose. He had to get his stomach pumped. You know what the worst thing is? I don’t even remember what it is I said. I don’t know if what I did triggered him or if it would have happened anyway, but it couldn’t have helped. You’re always going to trigger each other at one point or another, it’s unavoidable. But if you know that and you don’t do anything to help yourself…well that’s when every shit thing you think about yourself starts to become true. So tell me, are you a piece of shit that’s going to drag everyone down with you, or are you better than that?”

Neil looks down at the breakfast bar. He still can’t make himself eat it.

He swallows harshly against the lump in his throat. He has to swallow two more times until he’s sure he can talk without crying.

“What’s betsy’s number?” He asks.

Allison doesn’t smile, but she nods like he’s done the right thing and pulls out her phone.

SIDE NOTE: I’d like to point out that Neil is very flawed and toxic in his thinking and Allison is harsh in what she says to him just because she’s a harsh person. If you have an eating disorder I know sometimes help and recovery seems like the worst thing in world and something you really don’t want, but please, please seek help. You can do it.

[mustangshelby04]

Boston Boy Chapter 2

Kate stared at herself in the mirror trying to see what had made Chris Evans want to spend an entire week with her.  He had stayed till almost one in the morning.  They had spent the whole time talking and looking at pictures on their phones. Chris had taken a few of them on his phone and set one of the selfies as her contact picture when he saved her number in his phone.  Now she was waiting for him to come pick her up and take her to the game.  She’d thrown on some jeans, a pair of black leather motorcycle boots, and her Brady jersey.  Her hair was in a high ponytail and she’d thrown on her usual makeup consisting of under-eye concealer, powder, mascara, and Chapstick.

There was a loud knocking on her door and she took a deep breath before opening it.  Chris stood there with his brother Scott and another guy she didn’t recognize.  Chris was beaming at her. “Good.  Got the lucky jersey on.  We should win today, right?”

“If the luck holds up.” She said, smiling back.

“Kat, this is my brother Scott and his friend Tyler.”

“Nice to meet you.” She reached out and shook their hands.

“You’re right, Chris.” Scott said. “She’s beautiful.” Chris blushed and avoided eye contact with her.

“Don’t embarrass him.” Tyler said.

“He’s my brother.  I can if I want.” Scott turned back to her. “He gushed about you the whole ride over here.  He used the word perfect about twelve times.  And I think he wrote a sonnet about your eyes.  Which are gorgeous, by the way.” It was her turn to blush.

“Scott!” Chris cried. “Man, you have no chill.” He turned to her. “I’m sorry about him.  I said I was going to the game and he invited himself and Tyler.”

“Seriously, it’s really nice to meet you.” Scott said, giving her a bright smile. “My brother is weirdly shy and for him to actually have a multiple hour conversation with a woman he just met is really rare.  Be glad he only told me about you.  If our mom and sisters find out…. Well, I hope you like Boston cause they’ll move your stuff up here for you.”

She laughed. “Wow. My brother is contemplating coming out here with one of my cousins and my step-dad to scare ‘the Boston boy’ off.”

“We might have a war on our hands.  Fun!”

Chris laughed and looked back at her. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.  Let me grab my coat and my phone.”

“Is that David Bowie you’re listening to?” Scott asked as they shuffled into her room.

“Yeah.  You a fan?”

“Of course!  I don’t trust a person that doesn’t listen to Bowie.”

“Me either.” She turned the bluetooth speaker off and unplugged her phone before grabbing her coat. Chris helped her into it and his fingers brushed the back of her neck as he helped release the bottom of her ponytail from the coat.  She held onto the urge to shiver but bit down on her bottom lip. “Ok.  To the game!”

“To the game!” Chris repeated, holding the door open for her.  Scott and Tyler made it to the elevators first and held the doors so Chris and Kate could get on too.  She caught Chris eying her a few times and smiled to herself.  Scott and Tyler were engaged in a conversation about the game and didn’t seem to notice the other two in the elevator.  Chris shot her a smile and she smiled back.  

The elevator doors opened and just before she stepped out, she remembered something. “Shit! I’ve gotta run back to my room.”

“What’s wrong?” Chris asked.

“I forgot to take my blood pressure meds.”

“Oh.” Chris turned and tossed the keys to his brother. “We’ll meet you out front.” He stepped back onto the elevator and waved at Scott as the doors shut.

“I’m sorry.  I keep forgetting that I’m supposed to be taking it. I haven’t been on it long, so it’s an adjustment.”

“High blood pressure?”

“Yes.  Genetics is a bitch.  Though I technically got lucky.  Mom was on them from the time she was 16 and her blood pressure is really high. I just got on them last month and it’s the lowest dose of medication since my blood pressure isn’t bad.  Just high enough to make my doctor and my mom worry.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. “Have you tried setting an alarm on your phone to remind you?” He asked.

She laughed. “I’m not sure it would help.  I did that for my birth control and I forgot to take it at least three days out of every month.”

“Yikes.”

“I don’t know why my brain doesn’t process taking medication daily on time, but it fails hard at it.  It’s why I got an IUD.  I never have to remember to take a pill every day.  If they could invent that for blood pressure pills I’d be set.” She opened her door and rushed into the bathroom, embarrassed that she’d just told him that she had an IUD.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry about my brother.  Sometimes things come out of his mouth before he can stop them.”

She laughed. “I have that problem myself.”

He appeared in the bathroom doorway. “I hope he didn’t embarrass you too much.”

“No.  It’s ok.  I think he got you worse.” She popped the pill in her mouth and took a drink of water from the bottle next to the sink.

“It wasn’t as bad as he said.  I don’t think I used the word perfect that many times.”

“I didn’t think you had. It would definitely be a major exaggeration if you said it that many times.  Using it just once is exaggeration enough.”

“Not at all. You’re pretty awesome.”

“You’ve only known me a day.  Trust me, I’m not that great.”

“I’ve got all week with you, so I’ll be the judge of that.” He shot her a smile and moved out of the way to let her pass by him.

They caught up to Scott and Tyler waiting in the backseat of the car.  Chris held open the passenger’s side door for her to get in before walking over and getting in the driver’s seat. “So, Kate,” Scott said as they pulled out into the street. “What color are your eyes?  Chris was confused.”

“Scott!”

“What?” Scott asked innocently. “You said they look blue, but sometimes they looked more green.”

“They’re both blue and green.” She said before Chris could get any more red. “And my left eye has a streak of hazel in it.” Scott leaned forward and she turned to look at him.

“That’s neat.”

“My eyes change color, too, depending on my mood.”

“What mood are you in now?”

“Scott!” Chris cried.

“What?”

She laughed. “I’m excited right now.  I’ve made new friends and I’m going to see my favorite football team play live for the first time.  Unless you count when they came down to Richmond for training camp last year.”

“You saw them at training camp?” Chris asked.

“Yeah.  They were at the Redskins training camp in Richmond for two days.  I was there both because I’m a dork.  I got the worst sunburn, but I got to meet Gronkowski.  The only thing I could think to say was ‘you are one big dude.’”

“Did you meet Brady?” Tyler asked.

“I shook his hand, but I didn’t get to talk to him.  There were a lot of fans there and I kind of got pushed out of the way.”

“That sucks.”  

Chris glanced over at her and smiled as she kept up a steady flow of conversation with his brother and Tyler.  They made it to the stadium and had no trouble getting inside the private entrance and up to their suite.  There were a few people milling about, but the stadium below was full of people. There weren’t any players on the field yet, but there were other people out there getting ready.  Chris watched her as she stayed standing by the glass, staring out at everything with a look that reminded him of Christmas morning excitement.  He ordered them some drinks before joining her at the window.

“Our seats are over here.” He pointed to ones in the second row.

“This is unbelievable, Chris!” She was beaming and the smile was infectious. “I can’t believe I’m at Gillette!  I’ve only ever seen it on TV and now I’m here.”

“I’m happy I could put that smile on your face.” He was suddenly engulfed in a bear hug and all he could do was squeeze back as he held her up. “Wow.”

“Sorry.” She pulled away. “I’m just so excited and you’re the best for doing this for me.”

He laughed. “Don’t be sorry.  This is exciting for me too.”

  They were well into the fourth quarter of a close game.  Chris and Kate had been yelling at the teams from their seats and barely able to sit down for most of the game.  Luckily they were surrounded by like-minded people.  Scott and Tyler were excited about the game, but Scott kept stealing glances at his brother and his new friend.  He was pretty sure that Chris was really liking Kate.  He’d never seen his brother act this way with a woman he’d just met before.

“GO!” Chris yelled suddenly as Amendola caught the pass from Brady.  The stadium went mad as the refs called a touchdown.  The people in front of them threw their hands up and one of the guys lost his grip on his cell phone and it flew back and hit Kate in the mouth.  She instantly threw her hands up, but blood was already running down her chin.

Chris moved into action to grab some napkins and the man that lost his phone began apologizing profusely.  Scott and Tyler left to get some ice and more napkins.  Finally, Chris escorted Kate out into the hallway and leaned her up against the wall.  It was quieter in the hallway.

“Are you ok?” Chris asked, holding multiple napkins to her lips.

“Ow.” She said, her voice muffled behind the napkins.  Her eyes were watering profusely and she kept wiping at them. “I think a tooth is broken.”

“Let me see.” He pulled the napkins away and sure enough, the lateral incisor on her left side was missing a chunk.  He hissed and put the napkin back.

“That bad, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.  I’m not going to lie.  You’re missing part of a tooth.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Don’t worry.  I’ve got a plan.”

Scott and Tyler came running back with ice in a towel and more napkins. “How is she?” Scott asked, handing the towel over.

“Broken tooth.  I’m going to call dad and ask if he’ll fix it for her today.”

“Good idea.” Scott looked at Kate. “That’s some awesome mascara you have on.  It hasn’t budged at all with all that leaking you’re doing from your eyes.” That made her laugh.

“Here, hold this.” Chris said, guiding her hand to the towel against her mouth. “I’m going to make a phone call.”

Scott moved over to take his brother’s place in front of her and he smiled. “Our dad’s a good dentist.”

“Good.  Cause this hurts.” She said.

“I’m pretty sure if you asked him to, Chris would go beat that guy up.”

She chuckled. “It’s ok. It was an accident.  I’m not mad.  Just in pain.”

Chris came back over. “Dad’s going to meet us at his office.”

“You guys go.” Scott said. “We’ll grab a cab to take us home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Scott gave Kate a quick hug. “We’ll see you later, ok?”

“Bye.” She waved at Scott and Tyler as Chris escorted her to the elevators.

“Are you ok?” Chris asked again as the doors shut.  He was clearly concerned about her.

“You should see the other guy.” She joked.

Chris chuckled. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was an accident.”

“I know, but you’re missing the last of your first game at Gillette.”

Her eyes widened and she looked down at her jersey. “Please tell me there’s no blood on it.”

He gently pushed her head back up, replacing the ice towel on her mouth.  With a chuckle, he grabbed the bottom of the jersey and pulled it out slightly to inspect it. “Nope.  No blood.  I saved the good luck charm with my quick reflexes.”

“Thank you.” The elevator doors opened and he led her out.

  Bob lead Chris and Kate back out into the empty waiting room of his dental office. “You might be a little sore for a couple of days and you shouldn’t eat any hard foods for the rest of today.”

“Thanks for doing this, dad.” Chris said. “I know it’s your day off.”

“Yeth.  Thank you.” Kate said, trying not to sound funny through the numbness in her mouth.  It must not have worked because Chris was desperately trying to hold back a laugh.

“It’s my pleasure.” Bob said. “If that tooth starts bothering you, or starts acting funny, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“I won’t.” She followed Chris back outside where the sun had begun to set.

“I know you’ve got to be hungry.  You haven’t eaten much today.” Chris said to her as he helped her in the car.  He walked around to the driver’s side and slid in. “Do you feel up to getting something to eat?”

“I’m tharving, but I think I thould wait until this numbneth goeth away.  I might drool on mythelf.”

He didn’t hold back on the laugh this time. “I’m sorry.  You sound so funny!” She stuck her tongue out at him, but it only made him laugh harder. “Ok,” His laughter finally died down. “Ok, we’ll go back to the hotel and hang out there for a while.  Figure out what we want to get for dinner.”

“Thoundth good.” He laughed again as he backed out of the parking space. “Can I play thome muthic?”

“Yeah.” He laughed and handed her his unlocked phone.

She scrolled through his music before selecting a track by Garbage.  He shot her an approving smile and she settled back into the seat and closed her eyes.  It wasn’t long before they were back at the hotel and headed back up to her room. Chris opened the door for her and she skipped the living room and went straight to the bedroom, plopping down on the king sized bed with her legs dangling from the side.  He laughed and took his jacket off, laying it across the chair in the corner before sitting down on the bed next to her.

“Did we win?” She asked.

“Yeah.  Scott texted me.  We won.” He laid back. “Good.” She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.  He was lying so close to her that their arms were touching and she could feel his breath tickling her nose. “Is this real?”

“What?”

“Are you really here?”

He smiled and linked some of his fingers with hers. “Yeah.  I’m here.”

“Chris….”

“Your talking is back to normal.  How are you feeling?”

“Light headed.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Me too.  Let’s go for a walk and just pick a place we come across.” He stood up and held his hands out to help her up.

“Sounds good to me.” She took his hands and he pulled her up.  For a moment they were almost pressing against each other, but she stepped sideways and went into the bathroom. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”

“Ok.”

She shut the door and sat down on the edge of the bathtub.  What was happening?  Chris Evans was flirting with her.  Her of all people.  She wasn’t a movie star.  She wasn’t a model.  She wasn’t even close to his league.  Why was he flirting with her?  Fairytales weren’t real and they definitely didn’t come true for people like her.  She looked in the mirror and stared at herself.  There was nothing remotely special about her.

There was a knock at the door and Chris called, “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” She stood up and brushed her hair. “Sorry,” She opened the door. “I was inspecting my tooth.”

“It looks good. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t talk much as they walked down the streets.  It was full dark out, but the street lights and the lights from businesses lit up the sidewalk.  They found a Tapas restaurant on Newbury Street a couple of miles away from the hotel and decided to eat there.  After they were seated, Chris watched her for a long moment.

“What?” She asked.

“Nothing.” He took a sip of water and looked down at his menu. “So, you haven’t mentioned a boyfriend back home yet.  Nobody special?”

She didn’t look up from her menu. “Nope.  You?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t had a lot of time recently.  You?”

“I haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I have no idea.  I guess I’ll know when I find it.”

“That’s a very romantic way of thinking.”

“Yeah?  I’ve never really considered myself very romantic, honestly.  I’m not a flowers and chocolates kind of girl.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “I prefer things that don’t die in a week and my taste buds get more excited over fruity candy than chocolate.” He nodded like he was taking mental notes. “I like stargazer lilies, though.  I would accept those flowers happily.” The waiter came and took their order and they no longer had menus to hide behind. “I also have a hard time trusting people.”

“Because of your father. I remember.”

“That’s not the only reason.” She took a deep breath. “I was engaged to this guy.  I met him at work.  He was younger than me by five years, but he seemed so much older.  When I met his family, it made sense.  They’re mostly barely functioning alcoholics and he kind of had to raise himself.  We got pretty serious pretty quick.  We moved in together barely three months after we started dating.  We were living in a house with an acquaintance of mine. Things were good for a while, but my best friend came over one night to take me out for a girls’ night out and he didn’t want to let me leave.  He whined and moaned and said he wanted to come with me, but I laughed and said no and didn’t think much of it.  But the next few months, he got really…. Possessive I guess is the word.  I was kind of kept at a distance, but he didn’t like me going out with any of my friends.  I look back now and realize he was using mental abuse to keep me at home. About a year into the relationship, he gave me a ring and we were suddenly engaged, but it wasn’t what I’d expected it to be.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know.  A nice gesture?  Him to at least get down on one knee, you know?  But we were sitting at dinner and he slid it across the table and said ‘we should get married’.  I was so excited, I didn’t even really think about it then.  My friends that I was still in contact with weren’t happy.  They all said that I looked different and sounded different…. Like they were talking to a stranger with my face.  A few months later it was Christmastime and we were busy at work.  He left his phone in my desk while he was out in the warehouse and it kept going off, so I pulled it out to turn it off.  The first thing I see when I unlock it is this message from a girl talking about how wet she was and how badly she needed him to come take care of her again.  I opened the text up and there were more.  There were pictures passed between them that should’ve only been reserved for us, you know?”

“They were sexting.”

“Not just.  He was meeting her behind my back.  And when I dug a little deeper, it wasn’t just her. It was two other girls as well. And I mean girls.  They were all about eighteen years old, if that.  I kind of lost my shit and my boss had to restrain me from killing my fiancé when he walked in my office.  I screamed at him and my boss told me it might be best if I went home.  When I got there, I just couldn’t stay there so I went to my parents’ house.  The next day was a weekend for us, so I went home and confronted him about everything.  He blamed it all on me.  Said I wasn’t what he wanted and the only reason he kept me around was because my paycheck helped him pay the bills.  I really felt less than human at that point.  I told him to get out, but he said that he was just going to move into the upstairs bedroom.  That he was going to bring his girls home and fuck them so loud every night I would never get any sleep.  So my roommate, who heard all of this, told me he would let me out of the lease if I wanted to leave.  I’ve never packed up a house so fast.  My friends Ryan and Mike, they had heard through my parents what had happened and they came and helped me move.  We were out of there in 4 hours.”

“Damn.  I’m so sorry.” He reached over and took her hand.

“It doesn’t stop there. After about a month of seeing him at work and still having these annoying feelings for him, I let him come back. We started seeing each other again. I found out that I had a strain of HPV that could be treated and gone in two years, but it was still an STD.  It’s a dangerous one, too, that can lead to cancer later on in life.  Anyway, he accused me of cheating on him because there was no way he had given it to me. You’d think I would’ve wizened up at this point, but I let him stick around.  I was living at my parents and they went out of town, so he came to stay with me for a weekend.  That Monday he left work before me and kept asking me for the key to my parents’ house. I told him no, I didn’t feel comfortable giving him the key and he said that someone had to feed the dogs because I didn’t know when I’d be home.  He promised he would be waiting for me.  I was busy with work and he just kept pestering me, so I gave in against my better judgment.  When I got home a couple hours later, he was just shutting his car door and getting ready to leave.  I got out to ask him what was going on and I spotted the Wii that he’d bought me sitting in his car.  He’d gone into my parents’ house and stolen it.  I tried to get past him, but he was bigger than me and he shoved me backwards. I ended up landing on the gravel and scraping up my hands and that snapped me back to myself.  I got up and decked him so hard when he fell, he cracked his window on the driver’s side of his car.  I grabbed my phone to call the cops and he hightailed it out of there.”

“Fuck!” He shook his head. “No wonder you have trust issues.”

“I’m working on the trust thing, but it takes time.”

Their food came finally and they ate in silence for a little while.  Chris kept stealing glances at her which she pretended not to notice.  The only conversation they made was on how good or bad the food was.  They had ordered about six different types of tapas and were making their way through each one.  

A little over half way through, Chris said, “Did he even feed the dogs?”

She looked up at him incredulously, but began to laugh. “You know what?  I don’t think he did.”

“Fucking asshole.” They laughed until their sides hurt and the waiter had to come over and make sure they were ok.  They finished their dinner and Chris paid for the meal before they started walking again. They made their way towards Boston Common and were standing on the bridge looking out over the lake with the swan boats.  

They leaned their arms against the railing and listened to the sounds of the evening around them. Chris moved closer to her and purposely rubbed his knuckles against the back of her hand.  She looked over at him like he’d lost his mind and he gave her an embarrassed look.

“Was that too forward?” He asked.

“Uh….”  She stood up straight.

“You seem a little freaked out whenever I touch you.  I don’t want that.  I just…. I like you.”

She gave him another ‘are you crazy’ look and shook her head. “It’s barely been two days.  You don’t even know me.” She started to walk away and he moved to catch up.

“But I want to get to know you.  I feel a connection to you, Kat.  You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know.  But it’s true.  I feel completely at ease with you.  I don’t feel that with anyone else outside of my family.  Especially not this quickly.” Chris boldly took her hand and pulled her to the stairs on the side of the bridge.  There was no one there, so he sat her down at the bottom of the steps and stepped back a couple of paces. “Look, I’m not saying let’s run off to Vegas and get married.  I’m just saying…. Let’s seize the moment.  Live in the now.  See where this goes.”

“I’m leaving in a week.”

“I’ve got two weeks before I need to be anywhere and I’ve never been to Richmond.  I want to get to know you and see what happens.  If you don’t feel like there’s anything here, I won’t push it.  But will you at least give it the two weeks?  Please?”

“What happens after two weeks?”

“I don’t know.  But if there’s something real here between us, I don’t want to regret not trying.”

“How could there be anything between us?  You’re completely out of my league.”

“What do you mean?”

She surged up and walked past him towards the water, stopping just before the edge. “Have you looked in a mirror?  Have you seen your ex-girlfriends?” She turned back to him. “I’m a fan of yours, Chris, remember?  I’ve looked up your name on Tumblr and seen you in magazines while I buy groceries. I know that I don’t even come close to stacking up with your life.  I’m ordinary. You’re extraordinary.”

He laughed. “I’m not extraordinary.  I’m nothing close to it.  I’m a dude from Boston who listens to 90s music and drinks beer and laughs at fart jokes. I’m the most ordinary guy out there. You’re the extraordinary one.” She huffed. “Really?” She huffed again. “Ok, from the little that I know about you so far, you’re remarkable.  You’ve survived an abusive parent, you were at the brink of suicide and fought back, you went through a terrible relationship that nearly killed your spirit, and you’ve survived a family full of boys.  As far as I’m concerned, you’re a fucking superhero.  I’m in awe of you.”

She shook her head. “The internet never said you were crazy.”

“Well, the internet doesn’t know everything about me.” He grinned. “Look, it’s two weeks and if at the end of it, you don’t want anything to do with me, then I’ll go back to work and we’ll both just have great stories about the times we went to new places together.”

“Fine.  Ok.  I will spend the next two weeks with you.  But if you’re going to get to know me, then I want get to know Chris Evans, the beer drinking fart guy from Boston.”

He laughed. “Ok. Fair enough.”

“I still feel like I’m Jim Carrey in the Truman Show, though.”

“There are no cameras. I promise.” He held his hand out to her and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

Tag List:

@joannaliceevans-fanficblog @jamielea81 @southerngracela @kelbabyblue @introvertedmouse

[marshmallow-phd]

The Experiments

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, Experiment AU

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Exo (????)

Summary: You were a med school graduate who just wanted to help research cures for the world. Instead, what you got was a dream job at EXO Applied Sciences. That is, until you discover the secrets of Level Sixty-Six and the nine inhabitants that are stored down there….

Warning: none

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I 15 I 16 I 17 I 18 I 19 I 20 I 21 I 22 I 23 I Final

The safe house was located in the middle of the woods, surrounded by tall, nearly impenetrable trees. No clear road actually led to the house, just an opening wide enough for the car to mow down the overgrown grass. A little barn sat on the right side with thick cords coming out of the roof. Your best guess was that it was a giant generator to power the lights and other modern conveniences. Giant gas barrels and an up-to-date well covered the remaining necessities.

“Well,” you turned around to face everyone, still avoiding eye contact with Yixing, “this is home for now. Let’s go.” Throwing open the door, you shuffled to the back of the suburban, lifting up the hatch and grabbing the different bags stored there. A few of the boys came to help you and they all cautiously walked behind you as you neared the front door.

According to the last note in the directions, a key was hidden in the rocks on the left side of the door. It took a few tries, overturning the multicolored stones that were bigger than your hands, but eventually you found the one that was hollow and shook the key free.

The front foyer was dark, barely visible in the midday light. You had driven for hours and all you wanted to do was find a place to lie down and be alone.

Junmyeon tested out the main light switch which thankfully had no problem in slowly flickering on the bulbs above. The house really was more like a cabin-themed mansion. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of a medium colored wood, not too bright but not depressingly dark either. Right across from the front door was a staircase that twisted up into the second floor.

“I think we should find places to rest for now,” you suggested. No one protested, following your lead as you headed up the stairs. The second floor consisted of only one hallway with several doors on either side and one at the end. Letting out a deep breath, you turned around. “My guess is that almost all of these are bedrooms, maybe one or two a bathroom. It looks like there’ll have to be double bunking, so just kind of shift into the groups that you want to room with.”

“Is this where we’re staying for now on?” Sehun asked timidly.

“Just for now,” you replied. “Soon, someone else is going to come and help us get you situated back into the world. So you can live a normal life.”

Minseok scoffed. “There’s no such thing as normal life for us.”

He stormed off, opening the first door he came to, and disappeared into the room, slamming the door behind him. You flinched at the loud bang, trying to not let his attitude be the hit that broke the dam.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jongdae said, sliding up to you and throwing an arm around your shoulder. “He’ll loosen up. He just doesn’t like strangers.”

“She’s not exactly a stranger to us,” Junmyeon pointed out.

Jongdae just shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll go make sure he doesn’t break anything.” He went into the same room as Minseok, shutting the door a bit more gently this time.

Shaking his head, Junmyeon turned to the rest. “If someone finds the master room, shout it out. (Y/n) should get that one.”

“What?” you looked at him, frowning. “No, that’s okay. I’ll take the smallest one. It wouldn’t be right for me to take the big room.”

“It wouldn’t be right for you to have to sleep in the same room with one of us or share a bathroom,” Kyungsoo countered. “You might get hurt. Besides, we’re use to a small room.”

In your peripheral, you saw Jongin look down, ashamed. He still thought he’d hurt you from that session. Helping him get over that was going to take time. Time that you really didn’t want to spend right now. Seeing how it was seven against one, you gave, in throwing your hands up.

“Fine,” you sighed. You were too tired and jumbled up to argue.

“My best guess is that one is the master,” Junmyeon pointed to the single door that ended the hallway. “If it’s not, just let us know.”

You nodded, adjusting your duffle bag on your shoulder before heading into the room.

It really was the master, running the entire length of the second story. The king size bed was pushed up against the opposite wall, a simple gray duvet laid across the mattress along with a toned down headboard. To your right was the bathroom which, on further exploration, lead into the walk-in closet. Across from there were two floor-to-ceiling windows complete with the metal crisscross framework.

Dropping the bag on the floor, you walked over to one of the windows, staring out at the sun. You’d driven for hours, unable to decipher where exactly in the country you were – if you were even still in the same country. The sun was starting to go down, although it couldn’t have been any later than four in the afternoon. With a rumbling beginning in your stomach, you began to worry a little.

There were ten of you here, ten mouths to feed three times a day. In a rush and forgetting about your exhaustion, you headed down to the kitchen. Relief washed over you as every cabinet was stuffed full of boxes and cans of fresh food. The overly large fridge was also packed with a separate deep freeze positioned off to the side. With nothing else to do and unable to fully rest on an empty stomach, you started pulling out ingredients, trying to come up with something cook.

That area wasn’t your strong suit. You could make several dishes without incident, but you were no gourmet chef. Living alone caused you to fall into a mundane routine of quick meals, only serving up a complicated recipe when you were particularly bored and needing a small, non-drastic change on a lame Thursday night.

It was only a matter of time before the kitchen began to slowly fill up with ravenous hybrids. The smell of the meat sizzling in the pan was making your own mouth water. Kyungsoo stood close to you, almost hovering as he watched you mix the vegetables in with the spices and sauce. The others simply stood around the island awkwardly.

With the food finished, you found plates and cups, setting one of each in front of the boys as they sat down on the stools. That’s when you finally realized that there were only eight boys in the room.

“Where’s Chanyeol?” you asked.

Baekhyun shrugged. “He said he would be down in a minute. But that was about ten minutes ago.”

Concerned, you laid everything out and told the boys to just go ahead start eating. It didn’t occur to you until you were already halfway up the stairs that they might eat everything before you or Chanyeol got a bite.

Unsure of which room he might be in, you started opening doors, hoping to that he was just resting or got distracted. When you came to the third room, you opened the door slowly upon hearing slight movement. Chanyeol was standing there near the large bed, shirtless. He had taken gauze from the first aid kit and seemed to be trying to wrap it around himself. At the sound of your entrance, he froze, those large round eyes meeting yours.

“What happened?” you exclaimed, running to him and undoing his sloppy work.

“It’s nothing,” Chanyeol, insisted, trying to turn away from you. “I’m fine.”

You swatted his hands away when he tried to take back the gauze. At the sight of four gnarled holes in his right side near his hip, your jaw dropped.

“Is this from the Taser?” You’d completely forgotten about Chanyeol taking the hit for you. Sighing, you dug through the kit on the bed. After pulling out some disinfectant, you shook your head, going to work on the wound. “You should have just came and got me. Simply wrapping it up isn’t enough.”

“I told you I’m fine,” Chanyeol argued, though his voice came out more as a pout than a snarl. “It’ll be scabbed over by tomorrow morning, gone by tomorrow night. My temperature would burn off any infection.”

He was right. Your doctor instincts were fighting with your knowledge of their super cells; this treatment was technically useless with how fast these boys healed. There wasn’t even a trace of Sehun’s cut from a few weeks ago.

“I’ll still feel better with it patched up.” You took out a thick, square patch of gauze from the kit and covered the holes completely. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but you taped up the edges anyway.

Just as you finished, Chanyeol placed his large hands over yours, stopping them from leaving his scorching skin. You peaked up at him, your breath hitching in your throat when you noticed how close his face was to yours. His breath was warm against your nose and lips and you were frozen in place.

“(Y/n)…,” he whispered.

As if you were back in the basement running from the guards, your heart was on high alert, pounding against your sternum in your chest. One of Chanyeol’s hands softly crept up your arm until his palm was cupping your face. Centimeter by centimeter, his face came closer to yours, his lips hovering above yours, achingly close. In the moment before they were about to touch, you came to your senses, pulling out his embrace.

“I-I’m sorry.” You ran out of the room and back downstairs, stopping just outside the kitchen. Pressing against the wall, you put your hand over your heart as if that would get it to calm down. You tried to concentrate on the chatter from the boys in the kitchen instead, but you couldn’t latch on to anything that was being said. Footsteps echoed off the top of the stairs and you pushed off the wall, trying to seem as casual as possible as you sat back down to try and get any food before it all disappeared.

[cosmosogler]

hi guys. another night of way too little sleep. makes me too tired to talk.

i didn’t draw much tonight. i worked on a digital picture for a little bit but i mostly watched youtube videos. some of it was about comics and literary theory and history of theater and stuff... so i can pretend i got something done i guess.

harrison helped me take snoopy to the vet this morning. it’s been too hot for me to want to force snoopy to sit in the carrier for 25 minutes while i cart her over to the vet’s office so he drove us. it was nice of him. i talked a little bit about how i feel like i’m never productive enough even when i work on physics consistently every day and i spend all my free time working on the comic or learning about stuff related to making comics or stories in general. 

i’m not sure what to do about it. i don’t know if i’d feel better or worse if i was getting more involvement from the audience. like, i know i’d feel pressured. i can try not to. i’m already disappointed that i had to move my posting schedule back to once every 3 days instead of 2 just because i don’t have anything i can draw fast enough to post that consistently at this point. i was hoping to get some requests but i didn’t get any... i dunno what to do. 

i realized i was obsessing a little bit over whether or not my friends were doing what i asked. i’m going to try to let that go even though i’m still kind of hurt and, i guess, legitimately upset about it. i suffer from being “permanently salty” and i have for my entire life!!! 

i just can’t be checking that garbage all the time. it’s like i’m back in 2014 waiting for a homestuck update. i wish i could be happy with the validation i’ve got. but it’s like, as soon as i have something i want secured, i immediately turn my attention to the next thing i need and forget about all the holes in my self esteem i’ve already plugged with whatever i can find. 

maybe what i want, more than for them to just read my dang story, is to have something to talk about. i just want my classmates to talk to me. i just want the people in my life to talk to me about SOMETHING. the comic is just a topic i have a lot to say about. 

i wish i didn’t feel so lonely. it’s making me feel all sore and hollow. i’m probably less pleasant to be around so the worse i feel the less people wanna hang out with me. 

this is what i was thinking about in group yesterday. most people have their friends to help them through difficult situations. like yeah friends can drift apart or be really confused by you acting weird or drop the ball, but i always feel so... abandoned i guess. pushed gently out of friend circles by people constantly making plans for parties i can’t attend because the plan was made same-day. for example. or being booted out of friend circles because a guy in the circle broke up with me (or we had whatever “falling out”) and no one wanted to hang out with me individually. like when it came down to me or him, they’ve always gone with him.

i feel like i can’t depend on anyone. like my friends are all well and good and fun while i’m fun, but as soon as things get rough for me i’m on my own. i’m only a good friend when i’m easy to have as a friend. that’s what i feel like. i’ve really... felt like that several times in my life, really acutely. with craig, naturally. high school when i had my wisdom teeth out and my friend threatened to kill himself because i was ornery when i couldn’t eat food and was in pain because mom stole my pain meds. sorry that was a big sentence. 

now, with the department causing all those problems for me. i didn’t feel supported by my classmates, not really. i don’t know if that’s because they weren’t supporting me... or maybe if it’s because i just physically cannot feel supported by other people any more. maybe it’s a problem with my perception. usually is. 

it’s always easier to say “maybe i’m the problem” than it is to say other people are the problem. i don’t wanna go casting blame around where it doesn’t belong. not if it’s something i could theoretically change. and i do want to change it. but if i admit it’s out of my control then... what am i supposed to do? 

like, if it’s not a problem with me, then am i just supposed to say “welp, it sure does look like my life is pretty lonely!” i can already see that! i want something to do about it. but the more i try to change the situation, the more upset i get when the situation doesn’t change... 

i wish changing the situation was easy. i wish i could just ASK whoever to hang out with me or whatever and they’d say “yeah sure” and then actually do it. could you imagine? 

the other option is to find another community. that’s been rough and slow going and not really going anywhere too. i feel like it’s not going anywhere. i feel like there’s something about me new people will take issue with and they’ll start ignoring me like everyone else. i wish i knew what was wrong with me. i wish i knew how to not overshare the many very depressing stories of my life. makes me look pathetic. no one wants to hang out with a loser.

i wish i wasn’t too shy to ask more people to hang out. i know some of you guys who follow me talk to me sometimes, and i know some of you even probably wanna play games. i wish i wanted to play games. i don’t wanna do anything... don’t even really have the energy to watch movies with oz. i don’t know where to scrape that energy up from. even during vacation days or weeks i just can’t seem to make myself do anything with people who actually seem to like me. 

is that, like, self sabotage? is that what that is? how do i make that stop? 

i guess that brings me full circle to the beginning of this entry then. i plug up the holes in my life and immediately turn my attention to the holes that aren’t filled and forget that the holes that were filled ever even existed. because they’re not urgent.

like i’m always putting out all this crap that’s on fire! that’s what it feels like. and i don’t have time to pay any attention to the stuff that’s not on fire any more because i gotta put out the NEXT fire. when am i supposed to rest? do i even know how to rest? i don’t think i do. even when nothing’s on fire my brain decides to pretend something is burning so i can panic and not pay attention to the stuff that’s fixed.

maybe if i pay attention to the stuff that’s fixed i have to stop feeling unhappy? and that’s a lot of pressure. if i stop feeling constantly stressed and unhappy, does that mean all the time i spent stressed and unhappy doesn’t matter? 

i already don’t matter. i guess i just want people to notice how bad i feel. but i can’t seem to get the amount of “noticing” that i want. maybe if i feel worse more people will notice and i’ll finally get the amount of noticing i want. but if i start to feel better, then that means i dealt with it all by myself and no one ever really helped in a way that made me feel better. 

i don’t know if that makes sense. i wanna look back on my life and say “yeah this person was really great, i love them” but i can’t seem to... find anyone like that. and if i feel better on my own then it’s like, i really am alone? i dunno. 

that was a lot of feelings. thanks for listening, internet. i feel like i learned something. or, i guess i have stuff to think about. it’s like 12:20 now and i’m hungry but i need to go to bed. but i’m too hungry to sleep, but if i snack right before bed it’s gonna be hard to sleep... i love these dilemmas with no good solutions! i live for them!!!

[singingunderthecurtain]

Baby, You Deserve A Song [III]

Photo not mine, found it on google.

Author: @julietsoddeye AU: Cannon Genre: (this ch) Fluff | Smut | Angst Pairing: (this ch) Kris Wu x OC Trigger Warning: Some swearing, Angst, Smut and jokes. Word Count: 3,673

MINI MASTERLIST

Plot: Kris finally realizes who he belongs to.

Last installment to The Eve.

Yanmei waves both her arms that were balancing a few plastic bags of snacks and dinner she bought for the two of them to share tonight.

“H—how long have you been there?”

Kris immediately stood up to greet Yanmei.

“Long enough. You didn’t even hear me enter the room.”

She rolls her eyes as she gently drops the bags on a table.

“I’m sorry I was spaced out.”

Kris said as he slides where she is and wraps his arms around her waist from behind. Yanmei immediately giggle when she felt Kris’ chin tickle her shoulder.

“What were you thinking about?”

Yanmei asks.

“Nothing important.”

“We’re still friends, Yifan. Nothing will change that, not even my relationship with Chanyeol.”

Hisako’s words still ring inside Kris’ head until now. It has only been 5 days since she and Chanyeol got together and that was the start of Kris’ demise. He knows she means what she said, but the mere fact that he’s far away from her is what scares him the most ever since. He wished he didn’t have invited Chanyeol that night. He wished he didn’t leave her alone with him. It was his fault why she slipped right through his own fingertips, straight to Chanyeol’s arms. Why does he have to be a nice guy, why didn’t he fight for Hisako to stay with him?

But how can he compete with him? How can he compete with 7 years of friendship? He met her through Chanyeol and only hang out with her once or twice in the past before he completely fled the group. They met again 3 years later and been in a weird courtship ever since. How can 2 years of strange on and off again relationship compete with 7 years of consistent sodality? And right off the bat, he knew that she was already taken by him, even though they were only friends. Kris knows she loves Chanyeol, more than she ever loved him or anyone for that matter.

“What are you thinking about?”

Yanmei, the girl in his arms, said as she traces shapes onto the skin of his chest.

“You.”

Kris lied convincingly, making Yanmei smile wide.

“What about me?”

She asks.

“That you’re hot and awesome in bed.”

It wasn’t a lie, not at all. But what’s really on his mind was the first woman he sincerely loved. Probably the only woman he will ever truly love.

“You keep saying that every time after sex, like a robot.”

She props herself up from Kris’ shoulder with a slight pout on her lips.

“It’s because it’s true.”

Kris replied with a nonchalant tone in his voice.

“Why am I even complaining? I’m just one of your many side chicks, anyway.”

She shrugs her shoulders once and stood up from Kris’ hotel bed to clean up inside the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Going home. I suddenly have work in the morning, I don't know.”

Yanmei said in a dispassionate manner while wiggling off Kris’ cling.

“I thought you took a few days off because of me? I’m sorry, please don’t go.”

Kris tugs Yanmei back and she fell right on top of him. She felt him getting hard yet again under her skin and she couldn't get enough of the handsome tall guy below him. She thought, how can Hisako let go of this man? But then again she’s with another handsome and tall guy now, Chanyeol. Yanmei knows their history together. And she knows she’s been in love with Chanyeol ever since they became best friends.

Kris inserted himself inside of her once again that night. She hums out a satisfied moan as she slides down his length.

“So how are you lately?”

He asks as Yanmei rides him.

“Good, I guess.”

She responded quite casually as if they’re not doing sexual acts presently.

“How’s work?”

“Good, but it’s kinda, ugh I don’t know... Because I always see two of my ex-boyfriends every single day.”

Yanmei rolls her eyes thinking about Suho and Chen.

“How’s Junmyeon and Jongdae?”

“Realy? You’re asking me that right now?”

“Well, you started it.”

Kris giggled as he thumbs Yanmei’s clit hastily, making her pace speed up.

“Fuck… Can we not talk about them? Let’s just fuck in silence, okay?”

“Whatever you say, babe.”

~~~

“Hi, you reached Amano Hisako’s landline! I’m not home right…”

There was a pause and a door opened.

“What are you doing?”

He heard the familiar voice of his ex-bandmate.

“Shut up Chany— Anyway, I’m not home but you can leave a message after the beep. BYE!!!”

BEEP~

“Oh, she finally changed her voicemail message.”

It’s already 9 PM she should be home by now, Kris thought to himself. Since Yanmei still works at SM, her schedule is unpredictable. Unlike Hisako, who works a 9 to 5 schedule. And sometimes she even has a full grasp of her own time being the Fashion Editor of one of the top-selling Fashion Magazines of her dreams.

Since she didn’t pick up her landline, Kris opted to text her instead. She’s probably busy doing something for work, he thought.

Me: Hisa I called ur house, but u dint answer. I’m in town let’s hang! (seen 21:10)

Hisa❤: Oh no. I’m not home right now… (seen 21:10)

Me: Where are you? Me: Can I come see u? (seen 21:11)

Hisa❤: If you could fly out to Sydney in an hour, then sure. 😆 (seen: 21:11)

Me: Sydney... Australia??? (seen 21:12)

Hisa❤: Yaaaas! (seen 21:12)

Me: What u doin there? (seen 21:12)

Hisa❤: I’m here 4 KCON. Hisa❤: I went wit uhm.. Hisa❤: w exo… Hisa❤: We just got back from dinner. (seen 21:13)

Me: Oh… Me: … (seen 21:14)

Hisa❤: Mei-mei gave up her spot for me, didn’t she tell u? Hisa❤: She told me something came up n she can’t go. Hisa❤: So Channie told me 2 come instead. :D ❤ Hisa❤: I guess ur what came up, huh? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (seen 21:15)

Me: 😜😜😜 (seen 21:15)

Hisa❤: What brings you to Seoul? (seen 21:28)

He couldn’t reply anymore. How could he when he lost all good mood he had a while ago. How could she ask what brings him to Seoul when she knew that the only reason he goes back to that God Forsaken country is that of her. She’s the only one who can make him forget the bad things that happened to him. Hisako is his rock.

He wanted to go home to Guangzhou right then and there. He wanted to lock himself in, away from the world for a few days and only come out when he’s ready. Only a day more and you’ll be home, he told himself.

“Yifan… Earth to Yifan!!!”

Yanmei waves both her arms that were balancing a few plastic bags of snacks and dinner she bought for the two of them to share tonight.

“H—how long have you been there?”

Kris immediately stood up to greet Yanmei.

“Long enough. You didn’t even hear me enter the room.”

She rolls her eyes as she gently drops the bags on a table.

“I’m sorry I was spaced out.”

Kris said as he slides where she is and wraps his arms around her waist from behind. Yanmei immediately giggle when she felt Kris’ chin tickle her shoulder.

“What were you thinking about?”

Yanmei asks.

“Nothing important.”

He assures her and she took it. She always does even though she knows there are only a couple of things that are constantly in her lover’s mind, It’s either his music or Hisako. She sighs as she sets aside her insecurities about Kris’ ex, she hovers her hands over his forearms that was snaked around her and give it a loving caress.

Kris buries his face in her hair that gave him another round of giggles from her. He loves it when Yanmei reacts like that to his physical affections, even how small and simple they are.

“Are you okay, Yifan? Is something worrying you?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You’re extra clingy today.”

Yanmei continues to caress Kris’ arms as they both sway lightly as if there is soft music playing in the background.

“Nothing is bothering me, babe. You’re here with me, so I’m happy.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but thoughts of Hisako with Chanyeol is definitely bothering him.

“Are you sure?”

She speaks softly, careful not to annoy him with her concerns.

“Of course, let’s eat and then cuddle in bed after, yeah?”

Kris immediately deviates the topic and removes his hold on her to check on the food she brought him. The loss of his arms made Yanmei frown a minuscule second.

“Okay.”

She replies with a tiny smile as Kris rips open the lid of the food he requested for.

“So how’s your mom Mei-mei?”

Kris asks as he took a bite of food in his mouth, Yanmei wiping the sauce on the side of his mouth with her thumb and casually lick the sauce off her finger.

“We talked on the phone briefly, but she was so loopy with meds so I have to end the call. Dad said she’s been a little bit better from when I was there 2 weeks ago.”

She happily reports the updates of her mother’s condition as if Kris has already met them. She wanted him to meet her family, but they are not on that kind of term yet.

“That’s great news. We have to visit her when we’re not busy.”

His lips gave out an empty promise and she knows it’ll never happen, so she just hums a response.

“I heard you didn’t go to Australia so Hisako can?”

“What? Who told you that?”

“Hisako told me she’s in Sydney or KCON.”

“I didn’t join just so she can go. I didn’t go to Sydney because I wanna be with you here. I wasn’t even needed there, but I chose you over extra pay.”

Kris continues to eat his food nonchalantly as if he didn’t just hear what she said.

“Ah, I see. So how were Hisa and Yeollie?

That’s it, Yanmei can’t deal with this bullshit anymore.

“I don’t know, Yifan. Why don’t you ask them? They are our common friends after all.”

“What’s with your tone all of a sudden?”

Kris asks her as if she did something so heinous.

“What’s wrong with my tone?”

“Are you angry?”

“Oh no, I’m not angry, Yifan. I’m mad!”

Yanmei stood up from her seat and attempted to grab her purse.

“What are you doing?!”

“You always do that, Yifan! ALWAYS! And I’m done.”

“Always do what, Yanmei?”

“Talk about Hisako as if it doesn’t bother me. Haven’t you realize that I know everything? I know your history, I know everything that happened between you. Because I was the one she rants it about, I’m the only one who knows about you two.”

“I— I didn’t know.”

“When you went for me and we hooked up, I wasn’t even planning on seeing you again because I know your feelings for her. But you keep on calling me and I guess I’m a weak woman, I felt sorry that you’re hurting this way and I know I shouldn’t have to keep on being with you out of pity but eventually, I developed a fondness for you, Yifan. Behind the insecure man you always show her, behind your apprehensiveness towards her I saw a good man who is equally as good a lover.”

Yanmei stops for a few seconds to take a long breath to continue.

“I stopped meeting with the two guys I was casually dating just so I can focus and give my whole self to you, Yifan. Because I know Hisako can’t do that for you anymore. I changed my ways just for you. I know she’s still your friend and I’m not stopping you from hanging out with her or anything. All I wanted was your complete attention when we’re together. But I’m so tired right now, Yifan. I’m tired of slaving myself to SM, I’m tired of constantly thinking about my dying mother. And I’m tired of being your second. Hell, I may even just be your fucking Fifth for all I know!”

Yanmei grabs her purse and drifts her way heavily to the door.

“If you’re not ready to give yourself to me yet, don’t call me. But I'll be there for you when you finally need me for things other than sex.”

And just like that, Kris’ hotel door slams shut leaving him with his thoughts in the cold and silent room.

~~~

“Yifan…”

Her velvety voice flows smoothly around him. Surrounding him with love and comfort as she writhes and moans beautifully beneath him. Her arms clinging strongly to his and her parted lips touching his ears slightly, her breath ghosting his skin making him tingle in the best way possible.

“Say my name, Hisako. Say my name.”

“Yifan… Yifan Don’t stop. Make it last forever.”

She said the last part breathy and weak.

“I love making love to you Yian, make it last forever.”

“Yifan…”

“Y—Yifan…”

“What is happening?”

“Yifan, I’m done!”

“You always do that, Yifan! ALWAYS! And I’m done.”

He looked behind him and there she was,

Yanmei.

Her purse dragging on the floor.

Opening the door.

Her face tear-stained, full of hurt.

“I developed a fondness for you, Yifan. Behind the insecure man you always show her, behind your apprehensiveness towards her I saw a good man who is equally as good a lover.”

“Yanmei?”

Kris calls out for her as he detaches himself from Hisako.

“Yifan?”

Hisako cries out.

“If you’re not ready to give yourself to me yet, don’t call me. But I'll be there for you when you finally need me for things other than sex.”

Before he can even reach for Yanmei, the door already slammed shut in his face.

“FUCK!”

Kris jolts awake, cold sweat dripping slowly down the side of his face.

It was only a dream.

A weird dream.

~~~

“Hey, did anything happened between you and Mei-mei? Channie told me she’s been spacing out a lot recently. Even Jongdae who doesn’t want to do anything with her anymore grew concerned..”

“Did you just call me to ask that?”

“Yes.”

Hisako answers truthfully.

“Nothing happened, Hisa.”

“You’re lying Yifan.”

“Okay, we kind of argued a little bit. More like she blew up on me. Totally uncalled for.”

Kris whines like a child over the phone.

“I know Yanmei. She won’t ‘blew up’ on you unless you did something really bad. What did you do to her?”

Kris can hear the disappointment in Hisako’s voice. Hisako and Yanmei have been friends for a lot longer than with him and even Chanyeol. Of course, she will take her side.

“Well to be honest… We argued about you.”

“A—about me? Why?”

Hisako was taken aback about what Kris just asserted.

“You know the reason already.”

Hisako definitely knows already, he doesn’t even need to verbalize anymore.

“Look Yifan I’m telling you this. You need to move on. I’m sorry if I’m being so blunt right now, but you need it. You really need to hear it and you really need Yanmei, she’s… Fucking hell Yifan, I think she’s in love with you already.”

The words Yanmei said to him a month ago started ringing inside his head.

“I know I shouldn’t have to keep on being with you out of pity but eventually, I developed a fondness for you, Yifan.”

“I stopped meeting with the two guys I was casually dating just so I can focus and give my whole self to you, Yifan.”

“All I wanted was your complete attention when we’re together.”

“I need to go Hisa. I’ll call you back soon okay? I’m in the studio trying to write a song.”

“Whatever. Think about it Yifan.”

And before he can even reply, Hisako already cut the line for him.

An hour later of trying to brainstorm for song ideas, inspiration is still not hitting him.

“Man, I’m still so dry right now.”

Kris said as he stretches his arms wide.

“I think you need a break, Kris. How long have you been in the studio?”

The concern on the producer’s face is evident.

“I only went home to take a shower.”

Kris admitted. He’s not only as dry of ideas as he said, he’s also very distracted. Distracted by Hisako’s words and very distracted with thoughts of Yanmei.

“Go home, bro. Sleep, eat and get away from here for now. Take a long break, as long as you want. Go on a vacation or something. Fuck a bitch or two, we don’t have to do this song today if you really can’t.”

Kris weakly laughs at what his friend said.

“I will, thanks. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

It’s been a week since then and his songwriting drive still hasn’t started. But his dreams and thoughts by now are full of Yanmei. He dreams about the things they have and haven’t done yet. And when he wakes, he smiles knowing it’s her again that he fantasized as he sleeps. But then the guilt of knowing that all she ever experienced when they’re together are shitty feelings eats him up real bad.

“Yanmei?”

“What yanmei? I asked if you’re alright. You’re getting distant again, bro. Stop spacing out!”

“I—I gotta go. I need to do something.”

“Oh, oka—”

Before his producer friend can even finish his reply, Kris is already out the door and speed dialing Yanmei’s number.

“The number you are calling is out of reach, please try again later.”

“Fuck, did she block me or something?”

Kris keeps trying to reach Yanmei a few more times as he frantically push the ground floor button of the building’s elevator and it dawned on him. He ended the call and dialed Hisako’s number instead. And not even two rings she answeres immediately.

“Hisa, this is important. I think Yanmei blocked my number, I can’t reach her. I need to talk to her. Please let me talk to her if you know where she is or if you’re with her. Please.”

“Yifan…”

“Please Hisa… I know now. I finally get it now.”

“YIFAN!”

“Hisako, please. Please let me talk to her. I need to hear Mei-mei’s voice. I need to—”

“YIFAN! Shut up for a few seconds first, dammit! You don’t even let me talk.”

“I’m sorry, I just really need to—”

“SHUT UP! I need to tell you something.”

“O—Okay…”

Kris can hear Hisako inhale a deep breath and he readies himself of what his friend’s about to say. She’ll probably scream ‘I TOLD YOU SO!’ into his ears through the other line.

“Yifan. Listen to me. Yanmei’s mother passed away 2 days ago. And I’m glad you called, just in time because she needs you now more than ever. She’s in Beijing with her family. Please, please go and be with her. She doesn’t want any of us to go with her and I know she’s really not okay right now. She turned off her phone yesterday and we haven’t been able to contact her since.”

Kris knows that Hisako’s already crying on behalf of her friend because of the quiver in her voice.

“I’ll text you her address. Please go. For Yanmei. She needs you.”

“Thank you Hisako, thank you. I will book a flight right now. Thank you so much, Hisa!”

“Call me when you’re with her, okay! Please take care and have a safe flight”

“I will.”

~~~

“I hope this is the right address…”

Kris whispers to himself as he adjusts the strap of his duffel bag. He doesn’t even remember what he packed in there, he was doing it so rashly and he actually left his room a mess. He inhales deeply and exhales just as headily before he presses the doorbell on the side of the red gate. Hopefully, he got the correct house.

~BZZZZZZZT~

The loud buzz of the house bell made his insides do crazy flips. In one sleepy after-sex cuddle session with Yanmei, she mentions that their house bell in China has the loudest sound and it always scares her whenever someone rings it. Kris will never forget that moment because the expression on Yanmei’s face as she tells the story was really funny. She was so serious he can tell she really hates the sound of it.

His patience is taking a toll on his nerves and he decided to push the doorbell again. But before he can even lift his finger up, the sound of hasty footsteps on gravel stones met his ears. The smaller doorway of the gate opens wide to reveal a very disoriented Yanmei. Hair sticking everywhere, eyes half-lidded with restless sleep and body barely covered with a black silk robe.

Kris looks at her entirety and he can tell that she hasn’t been eating lately, maybe even longer as her collarbones are sticking out more than usual. The bags under her eyes drooping and darkened. He immediately drops his duffel bag on the ground and envelopes her in a tight hug.

“Yi—fan?”

It took a few seconds before she realizes who it was in front of her. The irresistible manly scent of Kris that she misses a lot immediately enters her nostrils and made her heavy eyes flutter close.

“Yanmei… Baby, I’m so sorry.”

Kris starts rocking her soothingly, his face buried in the crook of her neck as he inhales her scent. She smells different right now, of floral detergent, but her distinct cinnamon sweetness is still there. Just a tiny hint of it.

“Wha… What are you— Whatr... Whar you... Doing here?”

Her soup-like brain cannot function well and won’t form a straight and coherent sentence.

“I’m here for you babe. I’m so sorry about your mother. I know I told you we’ll visit her right? I’m here. I may be a little too late, but I’m here now.”

Kris pushes Yanmei away only to cup her face with his huge hands.

“How did you… even know where my hou…”

She couldn’t even finish her sentence anymore, her tears just fell voluntarily. She’s overwhelmed yet again with emotions, just like when she first came to see her mother’s lifeless body for the first time.

“Shh, baby everything will be okay. I’m here now.”

“Yifan, please take me to my room. I can’t even stand any longer than this.”

Kris then noticed that Yanmei is actually holding on to dear life onto his jacket. Her legs wobbling like jello. So in one swift move, he grabs and slings his bag securely around his torso, kicked the gate close and scoop Yanmei up in his arms.

Two hours later, Yanmei starts waking up from the first real peaceful nap she took since getting home from Seoul. Kris caresses her hair gently to let her know he’s still beside her.

“Hey, you awake now, beautiful?”

“I—I thought I was just dreaming about you a while ago.”

“I’m here, I’m real baby.”

Kris gleams down at her and Yanmei reciprocates with a weak smile.

“Did— Did…”

Yanmei started.

“What is it?”

“Never mind.”

She sighs, she stretches her limbs as Kris shuffles on the bed a little bit to give her space to move her bones.

“No, tell me… Please.”

“Did Hisako make you come here?”

Yanmei immediately regretted her query because Kris’ bright face faltered.

“No. I couldn’t reach your phone, so I called her and she told me everything. She gave me your address and I came here on my own accord.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I understand your distrust, I totally fucked everything up for you.”

Yanmei’s face turns sour as she sees Kris’ frown.

“I’m sorry I even said that. At least you’re with me, that’s more important for me right now. Thank you, Yifan.”

“You don’t need to thank me, baby. I will drop anything just to be with you again.”

Kris slides his right hand from her shoulder up to her cheek and traces her jaw with gentle strokes. The gesture made Yanmei close her eyes and inhale a huge breath before heaving out a sigh as if saying she’s finally starting to believe that fairytales do come true. And Kris, her knight in shining armor, may not be perfect but at least he’s real and not imaginary.

This is not exactly the kind of story she dreamed of as a little girl, but this is the reality. And this is better than any fairy tale ever written.

“Look at me, Baby.”

Yanmei opens her eyes to Kris’ strong, but loving gaze.

“I need to see your eyes when I tell you this.”

She hums a response, not knowing what to say and just letting Kris do all the talking.

“I love— No, no. I don’t just love you anymore. I’m in love with you Yanmei.”

A tear rolled down from his eye and she watches as it fell to her pillowcase.

“I’ve been blinded by my previous emotions that I didn’t even see all the efforts you exerted just for me.”

He paused to wipe the tears that are already falling from Yanmei’s eyes.

“Thank you for being patient with me and I’m sorry it took me this long to realize you’re there for me without asking for too much. I understand if you don’t want to trust me anymore, but I am willing to do anything just to gain it back.

Yanmei gave Kris a shaky smile and run her fingers through his soft hair.

“I will take you back even if you hurt me time and time again, Yifan.”

“I will never dare to hurt you again babe. You deserve it and so much more.”

Kris grazes Yanmei’s lips with his thumb and gently, tenderly kiss her tears away.

Tell me your thoughts, feedbacks makes me feel alive. :D

[hellomissmabel]

The worst in us - part 3

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Bucky x reader, Steve x reader

Warnings: Mentions of abortion. Talk of sex and female body parts. BuckyNat.

Word count: 2.905 (not counting the recap from the last chapter)

Summary: Y/N tries to shove Bucky out of her mind and her heart, which of course doesn’t work.

A/N: Inspired by the word “Onsra” (Boro) - that heart-wrenching feeling you get when you realise a love won’t last. Written for @howlingbarnes her “languages of Love” challenge.

Part 1 - Part 2

Previously

“I’m sorry but I didn’t catch your name,” he half-whispers so only you can hear him.

“Doctor Y/L/N. Y/N.”

“Y/N,” he smiles warmly, adding complementary wink to add to the tension wrapping itself around your hearts. “It was nice meeting you.”

It’s impossible, right? That history would repeat itself? That you would fall in love with Natasha’s husband just like when you were younger and fell in love with her boyfriend? All those old feelings of guilt and remorse and self-blame have lingered even after all these years. You couldn’t allow yourself to get heart palpitations over a man that was already taken, not a second time. He will just use you.

So you did the one thing you thought would most definitely work. You focused yourself a full 200% on your job. When one baby had popped out, another followed and so on so forth. You worked as hard as you could, helped as many women as you could deliver their baby. And still, you couldn’t get those baby blues off your mind. So you hit the replay button every single day. Work hard so you don’t have to think about anything else.

This became your weekly routine. You didn’t have to think about Bucky for the rest of the week. And the week after that. And the following week. But once you were in the safety of your home and you didn’t have your work to plunge yourself in, your mind automatically conjured the image of his heart-breaking smile. This happened every time you saw a dark-haired man pop up on the screen of either your television or computer or even your phone.

So you eventually had to admit the ugly truth to yourself; you were smitten. Smitten by a married man you’ve only met once, during the birth of his baby girl. A man you’ve only spoken to once, after the birth of his baby girl. It also didn’t help that that his face was on every tabloid in the city. James Buchanan Barnes, the millionaire who bets on the bigger picture and speculates on taking risks. That’s how they profile him, that’s the kind of man Natasha married and the kind of man you’ll have to forget about. Because you can’t go back to that life again.

But what you didn’t know was that Bucky found himself equally swallowed by conflicted feelings. He always approached love like something that could be bought if you had enough money. Or at least that’s what his father lectured him about. But Bucky wouldn’t be his mother’s son if he didn’t believe in true love, didn’t hold out even the tiniest of hope that one day, that very special girl would cross his path and they’d fall in love. But grown-up Bucky allowed his lust for drop-dead gorgeous women like Natasha and his greed for more money take over, and he had carefully boxed away his desires for ever finding true love.

But just like Pandora, Bucky opened a box he shouldn’t have. That same box he had so carefully stashed away, he opened again that very moment he rushed into the delivery room and saw you. He felt a spark, that same spark that ignites when he sees the first rays of light seep through the curtains in the morning, announcing the beginning of another exciting, enticing day full of new possibilities. And it was you that lit the match, it was you that opened the curtains for him.

Yet it troubles his mind. So he bites his tongue, carries on with his day-to-day life. he doesn’t want to get hurt and neither does he want to hurt anyone else. But oh my, he would life off nothing if he could only change the past.

Meanwhile Steve, poor Steve, was trying his very best to take you out on the most mind-blowing dates. He took you swing dancing on your second date, a private wine-tasting on the third and the fourth date consisted of a home-cooked meal on the balcony of his Brooklyn apartment, falling asleep underneath the a starry sky, just like in the novels and the movies.

But enough is enough, you had decided for yourself. You simply couldn’t go out on any more sexless dates with Steve, all the while the blue-eyed stranger lingered at the back of your mind. So as soon as your fifth date arrived, you tore the clothes from off his muscled and toned body and got straight to it. Of course Steve already knew how to indulge your body so it would yield to him in a heartbeat and a sigh, treating you to the best night of your life.

Being with Steve was effortless and it almost helped you erase all memories and all thoughts about Bucky. There was nothing you’d rather do on your day off than spent the morning getting peppered with kisses from Steve, brunching at your favourite café and exploring the hidden parts of New York. Nothing you’d rather do than close the curtains and fall asleep in his arms once the sun had gone down and the city had somewhat grown silent. Because even though this city never sleeps, doesn’t mean you didn’t need your beauty sleep either.

It was on one of those days, where you were peacefully woken from your much-needed and much-deserved beauty sleep by your charming boyfriend, that the world had decided to turn its back to you.

It had started off small, like all great and disastrous things. You got up and stole a kiss from Steve, putting on some clothes and doing your make-up. Normally you’d take a shower together but since you both overslept a little, you skipped these kind of morning pleasantries and headed straight to the café. Once you’d sat down at your usual spot, Steve’s phone rang mercilessly, abruptly putting an end to your happy daze.

“It’s doctor Laufeyson,” Steve explained to you as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the line. “I need to operate.” Pressing a loving kiss to your cheek, he left with the promise of making it up to you next time. So here you were, sitting all by yourself in misery and self-pity.

“Mind if I join you?,” a familiar voice asks you, drawing your attention to that same set of oceanic pearls you’ve been begging to erase.

“Sure,” you reply dryly, your eyes scanning the room in a daze of panic, goose bumps rising as his gaze lingers a little too long on your face.

The owner, Scott, immediately recognises you as soon as he steps outside the kitchen and brings you both the menu. “So…,” Bucky says as his eyes scan the menu as you kindly thank Scott. “You come here often?”

“I wouldn’t say often,…,” you answer reluctantly, your resolve dissolving every waking second. You catch a waft of his cologne as the door opens and another costumer comes in. It’s not a strong, masculine and woody scent like Steve’s, but a bit more elegant, refined and certainly suitable for a businessman.

“But long enough to be on a first name base with the owner,” Bucky chuckles in victory, calling you out on your bluff without blinking an eye. “Surely you can tell me what’s good here, hm?”

It amuses him, the way you’re struggling not to lung yourself at him and revel in his toxicity. Because that’s exactly what he is, a beautiful and exotic creature, deadly to the human touch. You’ll wither and die if your planet ever ends up spiralling in his galaxy. You’re already compromising your emotional compass by just talking to him.

When Scott comes back to take your orders, you and Bucky both choose the banana pancakes with whipped cream and hot chocolate sauce. You never take anything else but pancakes, either with chocolate pieces or blueberries or any other topping that appeals to your senses but Steve’s isn’t big on pancakes and prefers the French toast with bacon and maple syrup. It seems like you and Bucky have the same taste in breakfast food. Great, just great.

Scott tells you he’ll make quick work of your order and you hand him back the menu. “So how’s the baby doing?” Crossing your arms over your chest, you lean back in your seat and study Bucky’s face.

“Ellie’s fine. But I don’t wanna talk about the baby.” He mimics you and leans back in his seat as well, folding his hands in his lap and quirking a brow. “I wanna talk about you.”

“But I don’t wanna talk about me,” you state frankly, taking a no-nonsense attitude.

Bucky completely ignores you and asks the first question that pops into his mind. “Why did you decide to become a gynaecologist?”

You let out a frustrated sigh, but you know that going against Bucky will get you nowhere, so you decide to indulge him just this once. “I guess it just happened. My mentor in med school pitched the idea to me and I helped out in a couple shifts. And it all just clicked in my head. That this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

“Staring at vagina’s all day long? I wouldn’t mind doing that either,” he grins cockily and you wish nothing more than to wipe it off his face.

He’s an offensive little fucker and as you throw your napkin at him, you decide to play along with his game. “I bet you did exactly that before you married Natasha. You certainly strike me as the type.”

He feigns to be insulted by your insinuations, crossing his hand over his heart, but does not reply to or refute your statement. It’s a small victory but a victory nonetheless and Bucky decides to let you have it. He’s got other plans for you.

You welcome Bucky’s silence, eager to ask a question of your own. “How did you and Natasha meet anyway?”

He wets his bottom lip, his eyes never letting go of yours. “She was one of my blind dates.”

One of his blind dates? Natasha never struck you as the type to agree to a blind date. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s always been basking in the attention of men. First it was her father that showered her with gifts and when she was old enough to start having boyfriends, an entire list of suitors followed suit. Never would Natasha agree to go out with a man that could potentially not only be ugly but also as poor as a beggar.

“I just like dating,” Bucky explains as he sees you struggling to wrap your mind around his answer. “I like to charm women, compliment women, make them feel special. There’s something incredibly sexy about a woman’s blush.”

“I bet you like ripping their panties off after dinner much more,” you mutter under your breath, too quiet for Bucky’s ears to catch anything.

“With Natasha it was different,” he continues in a softer tone. “She didn’t consider me as a piece of meat and I didn’t see her as my next plaything. We got engaged a year later.” Even though he does his best keeping up a happy façade, his words had a sad ring to them. “But two weeks before the big day she got cold feet, returned the ring and everything.”

“Why?,” you ask bewildered. That didn’t seem like Natasha either. She always made a point of marrying rich, accumulating wealth and becoming a prominent high society figure. It’s nothing like her to pass out on an opportunity to marry one of Manhattan’s most eligible bachelors.

“She met someone else. Said it was true love and all of that.”

And there you have your answer. True love, the boogieman of fate.  “Then how come you…”

“Are married and have a baby? Isn’t it obvious? Natasha’s broke! Her daddy gambled it all away! And in case you hadn’t noticed, I have money, loads of it. And the other fella didn’t. Her one true love,” he scoffs, resuming his haughty attitude.

“But if she doesn’t love you…,” you shake your head. You could never live with someone, let alone marry someone that doesn’t love you. It’s simply unfathomable to you. You want that, true love, but you know it will always be a fairy-tale for kids to lure them into the world of grown-ups. And then they will see, they will realise that life makes no distinction between the believers and the non-believers.

“We have an agreement. She gets a monthly allowance and in exchange she’s my prize bunny. She goes to big events with me, attends family dinners, keeps up a good front and makes the world believe everything is a-okay with the Barnes’ household. Plus, I wouldn’t have received a big chunk of my father’s inheritance if I didn’t marry before I was thirty. Otherwise it would’ve all went to my uncle Fury and I can’t stand the bastard.”

“So you both married for money,” you state flatly, a general disappointment in human nature seeping through your words. “I hope for Ellie’s sake that this little arrangement of yours doesn’t backfire.”

“That is, if Ellie is mine to begin with.”

With impeccable timing, Scott stops at your table with two stacks of banana pancakes. Bucky seals his lips, the tension palpable. As soon as Scott sets down Bucky’s plate and takes a step back, he gives you a thumbs up and a questionable look. You nod and smile, giving him a sign that there is nothing to worry about. Scott squints his eyes at you and mouths an “are you sure” and again, you nod and smile. When Scott is off serving another customer, you look back at Bucky, who’s already digging into his pancakes like a starving man.

You take a bite from your pancakes, a moment that should be blissful and provide you with instant happiness. Instead, all you can think about is Bucky and all you can go is keep your eyes locked on him. Money exerts a peculiar power on people. Yet he doesn’t strike you as the type to allow himself to be caged nor tamed by a woman such as Natasha.

Both of you continue to eat in silence, until you can’t resist the urge anymore. “Doesn’t it bother you, that Ellie might not be yours?,” you choke out while fidgeting with the quartz pending hanging around your neck, eyes still glued to his face.

He sighs and puts down his cutlery, wiping his mouth with the napkin before answering. “It does. It bothers me a great deal. But I don’t mind raising a kid. What I do mind is that Natasha wants a divorce. She wants to be with him, the other guy.”

“Then why not divorce her? I’m sure there are plenty of other women out there who’d give about anything to be your wife.”

“I can’t divorce her.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?,” you continue to press.

“Both,” he replies coldly, but you can read between the lines, stare right through his cold-blooded appearance.

“You’re not afraid of raising a kid, you’re afraid of raising a kid that isn’t yours, isn’t it?”

From the corner of your eye you can see him stiffen. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be a bastard. I don’t want history repeating itself.”

“I’m sorry, Bucky. But maybe you should consider a paternity test? You deserve to know the truth.”

Bucky’s had enough. Although you’re quite the exquisite human being, he can’t stand it when people are prying into his personal life when he clearly just wants them to leave him be. And that, that also includes young gynaecologists he may or may not take a fancy to.

“Listen, Y/N,” he growls at you. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my family and myself.”

You return to your pancakes, feeling slightly hurt. “I’m sorry I even asked.”

Yet subconsciously, he contemplates your answer, mulling over the words in his mind. Maybe you’re right, maybe he should ask for a paternity test. Ellie does deserve to grow up with a father, whether that be him or any other man Natasha’s slept with. But it doesn’t take away the fact they made a deal. It doesn’t lessen his jealousy. Why does Natasha get to have something he’s been searching for his entire life? Something she never asked for? It angers him and at the same time fills him with despair.

“Oh, don’t you dare judge me. I know you grew up in the Hamptons, too. Natasha has told me a few things about you.”

“I bet she told you her version of the truth. Added a little salt and pepper, omitted everything important,” you scoff at him.

The Hamptons is filled with sinners, so why should you be the only one to pay? The answer is simple; you’re the only one that possesses a shred of remorse and in this day and age, remorse is something preyed on by the vultures such as Natasha Romanova.

“She actually didn’t tell me that much. She did however tell me you stole her boyfriend away from her. But what happened after that, I had to find out myself. You see, I have enough money to hire a private investigator and guess what he found, hm?”

You close your eyes, dreading the accusation that is about to come. This is it, this is your judgment day when you’re called upon to make amends for your sins.

“You lied to Nat,” he says in an harsh tone. “You didn’t lose your baby, you had an abortion.”

Part 4

Tagging: @avengerofyourheart @a-little-hell-to-raise @marvelingatthewonder @mrshopkirk @hardcorehippos @knittingknerdy @winterboobaer @italwaysendsinafightt @viollettes @myserium @feelmyroarrrr @justareader @austinamelio @volklana @4theluvofall @bovaria @themcuhasruinedme @theoneandonlysaucymo @caplanbuckybarnes @nenyakj @amrita31199 @emilyevanston @minervaem @howlingbarnes @buchananbarnestrash @youandb @you-and-bucky @fvckingsteverogers @thatawkwardtinyperson @that-sokovian-bastard @abovethesmokestacks @marvelrevival @marvel-fanfiction @justanotherbuckydevotee @barnes-heaven @heartmade-writingbucky @buckyywiththegoodhair @captnbarnesrogers @mellifluous-melodramas @its-not-a-phase-hux @melconnor2007 @ivvitm1109 @toofuckinfabulous @ailynalonso15 @jurassicbarnes @hollycornish @delicatecapnerd @camigt1999 @learisa @curlyexpat @palaiasaurus64 @fanndas-snow-goddess @crisssivonne @yourenotrogers

Onsra tag list: @melavale @debzybrazy @supernaturaldean67 @tomboyk @shadowhunter7 @allyp1023 @sophiedarting @movingonto-betterthings @magicintheelements @seeyainanothalifebrotha @redroomproperty @dsny87 @aquabrie @shortiiqt16 @mmauricee @lost-in-the-stories @themanwiththemetalarm @passiononfire @with-a-hint-of-pesto-aiolii @tomshollandz @lbouvet @sugardaddybarnes @c0ldhearted @soymikael @ourdreamsrealized @aletheladyinred @mileysebschmidt @evyiione

@itsjaynebird (tumblr won’t let me tag you!)

[aquarianlights]

I am the anon who asked about nexplanon. I thought it could trigger you, that's why I didn't go into details. I wanted to know if it stops your period or if you are still bleeding? Hope I've been more clear.

Gonna write out a fuckton of details, putting the important things in bold…and then put a completely bolded TL;DR at the end:

I really appreciate the not wanting to trigger me. I thought maybe that was why you didn’t go into detail. That is really respectful and I really appreciate it, but for future reference for you and anyone: If it is medical, scientific, or for educational purposes and does not reference my parts sexually or treat me or my parts as sexual objects and I still remain male in the eyes of whomever is asking me questions, I don’t mind explicit detail.

I really appreciate that, though.

As for the answer….It’s a little complicated.

This is my replacement nexplanon. I had one for three years prior to this one. I got my replacement one put in on 11/22/2017.

With my FIRST nexplanon…the first three years I had it…I didn’t bleed at all. The one and ONLY time I spotted (did not get a full period and did not get ANY associated symptoms…just simply spotted) was when living with my ex-girlfriend and her husband. My ex had VERY alpha-essque hormones. I spotted tiny, tiny bit when living with Chelle but it was so unnoticeable that I didn’t even have to use a pad.

It is completely normal for anyone with female parts that has nexplanon to actually get a full period (even with all the associated symptoms) for the first few months after insertion… And, IF I UNDERSTOOD MY NURSE RIGHT…..(I may not have, coz I’ve been in a total daze this past week+), it’s even possible for people with the appropriate female parts to have full periods with associated symptoms every month on time for the entirety of their time with nexplanon. But every single person I’ve talked to who has nexplanon said that’s really not a thing and their periods, if they got them AT ALL, went away almost immediately after the first few months.

I have a bleeding/clotting disorder that especially affects my periods (and is also something I have to alert tattoo artists to which is why a lot of my tats come out unfinished). When I got my first period at the age of…maybe 13? I was hospitalized because I clotted so badly and I almost bled out entirely. They suggested I take my uterus out immediately because this wasn’t something that was going to go away and I would need to be on a VERY STRONG BC for the rest of my life that either eliminated bleeding/clotting altogether or made it to where I bled/clotted like a normal person’s period, which would still be awful. ALSO, my periods last approximately 2 weeks, give or take a couple days each time. This is normal for my entire family on my mother’s side…it would put my mom and her mom and their mom before that and all my mom’s sisters out of work and out of school and stuff the entire time every month of their period. They didn’t have it as severe as me because they didn’t have the bleeding/clotting disorder to worry about. But they did have as severe cramping as I had that was as bad, if not worse, than labour pains (spoken from women in my family who have been through it, some multiple times). They DIDN’T have something that I didn’t get until my late teens, early 20′s…and on… until I got my nexplanon. The psychological effects of the period. Every single time I got my period, I would wind up in a hospital the day before I actually got it because of the most extreme and impulsive suicide attempts you can imagine. I have NEVER felt such extreme psychological instability as I have when on my period. It’s like…every single disorder I have gets amplified by a million and they all clash and I’m unable to control anything and suddenly my body and mind act on their own and I’m no longer in control and I black out and wake up in a hospital or while being dragged, kicking and screaming, down the hall by orderlies to the floor with a ward on it. The hallucinations, the BPD symptoms, the other schizo symptoms, the homicidal and suicidal symptoms usually being taken over by suicidal, the self harm urges, the inability to make decisions for myself, the panic attacks while all of this is happening, flashbacks to rapes and being in wards and being trapped and sex training and all sorts of different things that i cant remember, …the list goes on and on. ALL AT ONCE. I just wake up and get FLOODED with all of these things all at once and Killian shuts down and idk what or who takes over but whatever does instantly goes for the most dramatic, impulsive, instantaneous, shocking, grandiose, suicidal gesture you could ever imagine that always seems to be in public (lets break a glass mirror in public with your brass knuckles and slit our wrists and throat open with a huge shard where everyone can see, why don’t we!?) so I mean, you can only imagine how many times I’ve been thrown right on the ground by a cop and cuffed and taken in. This is usually the day BEFORE my period. Also, I starve on my period. I starve naturally coz I’m anorexic…but it takes willpower to starve during non-period times and times when I’m sober..During my period…I can’t eat anything coz I always feel nauseated, my two lower quadrants are always in such intense throbbing or stabbing pain that I’m writhing and screaming despite heating pads and normally a dilaudid or fentanyl drip at the hospital, the thought, smell, and visual effect of food makes me feel….full? Idk how to describe… It’s not nauseated. But it makes me feel so full that I couldn’t force myself to eat even if I wanted to. And since my period lasts a MINIMUM of two weeks, give or take a couple days, I usually end up on IV nutrients, too.

I’m explaining all of this because I’m needing to explain WHY it is so important that I chose nexplanon over…say…The Pill or an IUD or something. I’ve heard that the Depo Provera shot works for people who can’t handle nexplanon and vice versa. Well, when I tried the Depo Provera shot, I wound up having the effects of an anti-depressant on me…in other words, it made me so insatiably suicidal that I ended up in a ward within a couple hours of getting the shot. Depo worked HORRIBLY on me…I didn’t even get to see if it worked for any of my period symptoms coz it had to be flushed from my system entirely coz of the EXTREME psych effects it had on me.

But Nexplanon….Nexplanon was my saving grace.

Coz not only did I literally NEED the bleeding/clotting to stop….But I NEEDED ALMOST ALL of the associated symptoms to stop. I think the only things that weren’t either life threatening or debilitating were mild acne that happened very rarely each period (never really had to deal with acne in my life) and the bloating/water retention. Very specific, certain mood swings associated with periods were something not life threatening or debilitating either. Just…annoying and a total bitch to everyone around me hahahaha. I slayed with my words and popped off on anyone…Yikes. But it wasn’t like my BPD mood swings where 0 to 100 in less than a second on being euphoric and suicidal almost simultaneously.

I explained all of that because I need everyone to realize I chose nexplanon and not anything else because almost everything about my period (the bleeding/clotting AND almost ALL associated symptoms) were life threatening AND debilitating and had almost killed me so many times, it was terrifying. Since my parents obviously did not agree to get my uterus taken out and since I haven’t had the money to get mine surgically removed and donated to a wonderful transgirl (got three of you lovely ladies in mind! you all know who you are!)…I needed a BC medication that was going to stop EVERYTHING. Not just “the period”. But the ENTIRE period. The bleeding/clotting and ALL associated symptoms.

That BC was either Depo Provera shot or Nexplanon. One works, the other doesn’t…it seems to be that way with everyone. I tried Nexplanon first. That worked well. I forget why I tried Depo inbetween but you just read how nearly fatal that was for me…

ANYWAYS…

So this is my second time on it. As I said, It was put in on 11/22/2017. 

The removal and replacement went smoothly and it’s been going smoothly……..until this month.

What I am experiencing is normal for a NORMAL PERSON. A NORMAL PERSON with a NORMAL PERIOD would be okay with these symptoms. Problem being….Idk what symptoms are associated with what because:a) I’m switching my migraine medication to something that causes certain side effects until it levels out in my systemb) I’m having what a normal person would consider a full periodc) Optical and chronic migraines are happening simultaneously and they are debilitating to the point of making me bed-ridden if I don’t take my old migraine med along with this new one (which I’m not supposed to be doing)d) I’m getting a rheumatoid diagnosis and seeing a rheymatologist soon (they’re gonna probably schedule me tomorrow for a week to a month out…month at the longest) for either a lupus or fibro diagnosis, but they’re also going to check for hyperalgesia presenting in the kicked puppy/”flinching disorder” way and there are a FUCKTON of new symptoms I’m experiencing because of whatever this auto-immune disorder or rheumatoid virus (or both) is and my period actually could be happening BECAUSE of all of thise) I added a new exercise regime in when I really haven’t exercised every day and night consistently since I got diagnosed with chronic costochondritis for fear of cardiac arrest, which I fear even more now that I’m on a med that makes it to where I can’t sweat, BUT….exercise is good for joint/muscle disease/virus/pain/etc etc etc…f) I’m under a LOT of stress and pressure regarding so many things but right now it’s primarily school…getting into a pre-med tailored general biology major and a good university to switch to a medical major and pass the MCAT and do a FUCKTON of things simultaneously in order to get into medical school (trust me, you have NO idea how many non-scholastic things you HAVE to do to even be considered an applicant at p much every med uni)… I mean, I’m enrolled in three different colleges right now and I’m taking 6 vet tech related medical classes right now and will be taking 2 general ed classes on campus 45 minutes from here to finish a different degree…so I will have two associates band a bachelors by the time I’m moving on to my doctorate (coz med majors don’t get their masters, we just move from bachelors to doctorate for some reason)g) FAFSA is another time constraint stress that is KILLING ME and scholarships and such….h) Getting into the “back to work” program with disability, trying to find a job, trying to find internships, keeping up with seminars, paperwork stacked a mile high that is all deadline, deadline, DEADLINE…I’m going to a bazillion, million doctors who are all 3+ hours away and a lot of them are turning me away at the end of the visit because they “just don’t know what to do” and “this is above [my] pay-grade” so specialists refer me to other specialists who just refer me RIGHT BACK to those other specialists and then it’s an argument on whose specialty it is because the symptoms are literally from head to foot in me and no one knows what the fuck to do to help until I see a rheumatologist so it’s MORE THAN STRESSFUL driving 6+ hours almost every day of the week to go through extensive medical exams and testing only to be told they can’t help me/don’t know what to do/recommend…….and refer me someplace else….. and also all the hospital visits I’m ending up having to endure… alone… because my roommates are an “every man for themselves” type of roommate situation….i) Being put on a new medication I’ve never tried before, Lyrica, and playing around with the dosage myself and pushing it up to 600mg a day sometimes when I’m prescribed 200mg a day (100/100 day/night) and the max legal dose for my issues is 300mg/day…not to mention I’m not being consistent with it at all…and I was supposed to titrate up from 25mg to 75mg because it can affect my psych issues the first month but I just started on 200mg per day anyways coz I’m an idiot and have a self-medication problem (hence why tons of psychs have discharged me…rightfully so)j) moving in general and getting adjusted to new roommates and a new state and a new city and a new environment in general….k) getting used to a new style of support that I WANT AND NEED OVERALL but can’t handle and don’t need specifically right now when I’m just now getting diagnosed and transitioning through all these things…L) my HRT doc finally cleared me for T after working with her and the HRT board with PPH because it was dangerous with my psych issues….and then all of a sudden all of these physical issues popped up, forcing me not only to change my entire moving plans, living plans, schooling plans, autonomy timeline, Echo timeline, screwed with my financial stability I had going on MAJORLY, a TON of other things….and then ONCE AGAIN…barred me from being eligible for HRT because it isn’t safe anymore and until I get a full, complete workup and diagnosis, as well as find out what medications I’m going to be on and the dosage and they level out in my system and we all see how they’re going to affect me…….HRT is not an option….so I have to wait EVEN LONGER….to transition….M) relations with my parents became more strained than ever lately which is odd because normally being away and being unable to be physically abused makes things better and healthier between us…but suddenly, I’VE become the abusive one…. I’m fucking lashing out at my mother every chance I get and that’s normal for chronic illness diagnosis and stuff but blacking out due to anger is not… and idk where the anger black outs are coming from…and there are other black outs…N) Shit going on with my grandparents that SHOULDN’T be going on as well as with my father that SHOULDNT be going on and only people who truly know my father and me and what has gone on between us and who he really is can comment on this (which those people I can count on one hand), but I hope to god he dies before I can get to him…Jesus fucking christO) ……I can’t go on with specifics anymore, I’m bad with list but SUFFICE IT TO SAY…..

I HAVE A FUCKTON OF STUFF GOING ON SIMULTANEOUSLY AND I’M DOING ABOVE A NEUROTYPICAL LEVEL OF ADULTING EVERY SINGLE DAY. Like….WAY above. Above an able-bodied level of adulting, too! Above a neurotypical, able-bodied person’s adulting workload every day…. Which is scary.

I’m mentioning all that because all of that is apparently stress related. Apparently if there is enough stress in your body, it can release certain hormones. And those hormones, if powerful enough…like…if the stress is powerful enough…can cause a period in people. For people who aren’t on BC, it can cause them to have it at irregular times (ie; having it right after having finally stopped it… having it twice in one month…having it once in 3 months….etc etc etc).

That list is the major things I can think of off the very top of my head that are going on with me at this very moment… It is POSSIBLE that all of that is the cause of me having a normal person’s flow and all associated symptom’s at a normal person’s level.

WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY NORMAL PERSON: I mean… A normal flow as in… +NOT going through over one of the biggest maxi pads available every half hour/using a singular biggest maxi pad available maybe every 6-8 hours, +NOT being bed-ridden due to cramps/being able to stand up and walk and walk up and down stairs on my own when I have cramps and be out and about if I NEED to and stand the duration of a shower with cramps, being able to eat if I need to, +having zofran or phenergen work when nauseated, +having actual acne that I clawed to shreds with my nails so it’s very noticeable (I’ve had acne less than 10 times in my entire life so it’s a little distressing to see it on my face coz idk how to deal with it, but I had to claw at it until the convex forms turned concave and started gushing blood…so now it looks like two, big, perfectly round, bright red, blood-coloured spots on my face that I claw open every morning till they bleed and claw at during the day and smother in neosporin during the night), +the clotting is about half the size of my fits and comes out only when I pee/sit on the toilet (normally, the clots are the size of my fits or bigger, which is why a D&C surgery is necessary if it were happening again, but my hands are very small…VERY small…probably smaller than President Tiny Hands…so half the size is not that bad),+Bloating/water retention to where my pants/shirts don’t even fit but my weight hasn’t gone up…but, man, it hurts my soul and my mind so badly that it makes me want to hurt myself for self loathing purposes which I haven’t wanted to do in a long time and kill myself for being obese and hideous despite the fact I know this is temporary.+Mild headaches/NOT MIGRAINES OR HEADACHES THAT HAVE ANY SORT OR LIGHT OR SOUND SENSITIVITY,+NORMAL mood swings that are not akin to BPD or bipolar disorder at all and aren’t bad enough to cause any fights, either with others or with myself,+NO Suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation…No instantaneous suicide attempts…no insatiable self harm urges,+This may be specific to me, but cravings for weird things like the feel of blood or the smell of the ocean,+Either an entire lack of appetite or a voracious appetite+Putting off adult responsibilities with a NORMAL amount of guilty conscious applied to it and not a “Jesus fucking christ, you’re absolutely useless, ON TOP of being obese and ugly, you really DO need to kill yourself RIGHT NOW because look at all the things you need to do and you’re not, you lazy piece of shit child” but more of a “You’re being lazy lol, but it’s okay…tomorrow is a new day. Fuck it. Fuck being an adult. I am NOT adulting today!”+INTENSE craving for chocolate…ALL the time… Like, not cheap chocolate, either. Like… mandarin orange infused godiva chocolate… All day, every day. Fuck.+Breasts swelling to almost a whole new cup size. Been having a hard time using the normal sized chest binder I use because my breasts swelled or retained water/milk/whatever so much. I don’t think they hit C’s, but my smaller B-cup bras which is what I normally wear to bed didn’t fit. Regular sized B-cups are normally WAY too loose on me to wear to bed and my girls will slip out during the night so I always have to find the tight, little girls training B-cups instead of, like…the ladies. I can fit into an A, but it’s just slightly too tight and a little too uncomfortable, unfortunately. I was an A my whole life until I got on antipsychotics. Hopefully T will bring them down to the smallest A possible and I can go down in my binder size.+Heightened sensitivity to pain and heat

Here’s a lack of symptoms I have entirely despite the fact I have my period that normally accompany MY period which also make this a “normal” person’s period:+No homicidal thoughts/desires/actions (thoughts past the normal)!+No suicidal thoughts/desires/actions (thoughts past the normal)!+No impulse spending to the point of spending the entirety of your money.+No sudden development of bipolar disorder but only for the duration of your period (a psych has confirmed this with me and gone over it with me and why I am bipolar on my period and not BPD and how this can be and how it is similar to a drug induced mental disorder, ie; drug induced schizophrenia, so I’m not just like…pulling this out of the blue, I swear lololol)+An ability to remain calm and level headed during arguments or fights if there even are any and turn things into a debate or a joke/satirical conversation instead of an argument like I normally do+No sudden surge of a loss of interest in things I love (which was hard to do to begin with since I lost everything I loved to depression over the years so this feeling of losing my passions during my periods was very soul crushing)+No getting triggered by noise, like… Being mentally overloaded by noise everywhere. I know there’s a word for this and it’s normally associated with autistic people but I’m blanking coz I’m not autistic and I don’t usually experience this and a cacophony of noise actually soothes me usually, tbh…lol.+No being overly sensitive to other people’s words and actions and no reading into and over-analyzing everything everyone says and does+No extreme panic attacks that are actually mental based and not physically based (I have panic disorder, which means I don’t get any sort of mental symptoms with my panic attacks because panic disorder does not have any association with anxiety or anxiety attacks or panic attacks that are caused by mental stuff… so my panic attacks are always purely physical…during my period, they can be started mentally…which is impossible for me otherwise)+No odd fears popping up that I overcame a long time ago (ie; phone phobia making me have a panic attack if someone calls me and making me unable to answer the phone or call anyone I need to, balloon phobia, needle phobia…actually, you know, I’m still not quite over balloons yet…I thought I overcame it about like…4 or 5 years ago but then my coworkers tied balloons to my car doors as a prank and I had a panic attack and broke down crying and had to have one of them come cut them off for me lolololol…so idk about that one, but you get my examples, right?)+No losing the conscience I have built up over the years and maintained so that I can force myself to stay away from being abusive and neglectful to people I love (ie; gaslighting, manipulation, coercion, pressure, charm, using my unique charisma for evil, threats, homicidal actions, conditioning, etc etc etc…) which comes with being BPD since I cannot feel empathy or sympathy and cannot “put myself in someone else’s shoes” due to ANOTHER disorder so I have made my own conscience and I lose it during my period because it’s made up and I have to be very self aware to keep it in place coz I don’t have a conscience naturally like most people do.+No hallucinations, auditory and/or visual+No catatonic moments+No psychosis, temporary/intermittent or permanent enough to need intervention+No purposefully making a dramatic scene in public in order to elicit a response from professionals and the crowd around me to come try to take me away to a ward so I can fight them+No lying without even realizing I’m doing it or meaning to about REALLY weird things to get attention (The things I lie about without realizing I’m doing it until after I’ve already done it while I’m on my period are INSANE!!!! It can range from something as innocent and benign as like… lying about the weather to a long distance friend…”Yeah, it’s raining outside. So nice.” When it’s fucking sunny as hell and making me miserable??? To something as big and severe as “I have a gun pointed at my head right now. I’m ready to do it. I have nothing left to lose.” Bitch, I can count the number of times I’ve held a gun to my head on one hand and it’s a VERY low number because it’s always been my dad’s gun and I’ve only been honest about holding a gun to my head to like… my ex girlfriend and one of my friends. That’s it. Yet, I have said this line so many times on my period without even realizing it until after I’ve said it and when it’s already been said it’s kind of a *shrug* “Welp…oh well…I guess…Too late to correct it…” sorta thing…So I go with it and just put on a whole act and it feels totally normal when I’m on my period??? My period turns me into a really fucking crazy, manipulative, evil little boy…)+Trying to steal the spotlight from others irl to get attention on me (ie; I can’t think of a real example, so I’m making up one: A coworker blacks out during a shift so they have to call 911…when the paramedics arrive, I go start unloading boxes, using one of those retractable blade thingies to open the boxes, while everyone is watching our pale, actually in distress coworker be loaded onto a gurney… I would go as far as to literally stab myself or slice a VERY deep wound in my hand or even chop the front part pad of a finger off (which I really have done before) just so I can scream (for real coz it hurts and it makes me yelp in surprise) so that everyone will turn their attention onto me and one of the paramedics will grab me and take me with them in the ambulance and I will go to the hospital with them and get all the “Omg are you okay? What happened? Did [x] really happen? Were you really in the hospital? Omg blah blah blah ATTENTION blah blah” as soon as I get back and it will rip ALL the attention away from the coworker who actually deserved it and actually needed…that’s not an actual example, I made that up, but I would not be surprised in the least if I did something like that while on my period if I were working rn and this happened)+Impulse stealing from corporate stores just for the adrenaline rush and to shove it to “the man”+Majority of my life, it was Cry and sob and cry and sob and writhe and pull my hair out and claw at myself and sob with full body shakes because of how much mental pain I was in because suicidal feelings definitely overpowered homicidal, but now and before my original nexplanon was put in 4 years ago…like…the very very very last period I had…Going out and looking for a fight with strangers…a physical fight…that I damn well know I will lose coz I’m a 5′2″ obese boy with absolutely NO muscle… SIMPLY TO GET MY ASS BEAT AND FEEL THOSE ENDORPHINS RUSH AND FEEL THE ADRENALINE PUMP AND THEN DIE OUT (similar to cutting)… Or just go to a bar and get in the most gruesome bar fight ever… Or find a human-like substance… and stab it over and over with a knife and beat it in with brass knuckles… Threaten people with knives… Etc etc etc …. Basically a bunch of homicidal stuff that I experienced the first two days of my period but now it’s gone coz the homicidal definitely overpowers the suicidal now+Such extreme apathy AND lethargy that I could lose whatever job I have at the time, go from a solid 4.0 to failing all my classes, and lose placement and lose progress in absolutely EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I’m attending/working towards/doing/etc+The extreme apathy and lethargy bleeds into self care, too. No showering, no brushing your teeth, no washing your hands, etc etc etc…

I can’t think of anything else, but there’s probably more…Idk. But Anyways…EVERYTHING ABOVE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MASKED MY NEXPLANON COMPLETELY!

What I am CURRENTLY experiencing…is the first list. The one prior to the one right above this one. Normal bleeding/clotting and a normal level of psychological and other physical symptoms.

However…this has never happened to me before…

During my first three years with my first nexplanon, it took less than the first month for ALL of my symptoms to go away and I didn’t even spot the first month. That’s kinda what it was like up until JUST NOW with the nexplanon. No spotting or associated symptoms or ANYTHING until….literally just a few days ago…Maybe even a week ago now. The bleeding has slowed to the point where I don’t need anything other than a thin pad now. The cramping has slowed to where I don’t need a heating pad all the time. The mood swings are gone… I’ll admit, the first two days I got my period, I wanted to kill myself so badly and I most certainly did self harm. I slit the fuck outta my wrists and was SO CLOSE to going for the 20-minute-kill-zone. But I didn’t. Thank GOD I didn’t do it…Also, the first two days were abnormal for me in the fact that I wanted to eat EVERYTHING. NONSTOP. I was SO HUNGRY. Normally my period makes me so nauseated and makes me want to stay away from food so adamantly that I can’t even force myself to eat to stay alive so, like I said, I usually end up on IV nutrients in the hospital during the second week… My hunger returned to normal level on the third day and then has gone to the forcing myself to eat to stay alive bit now because I’m never hungry and I’m looking at food either makes me feel full or nauseated. Smelling food definitely makes me feel nauseated unless it’s chocolate. Lmaoooo! I am prescribed both phenergen and zofran for different reasons, though, so I just pop some zofran and it normally takes care of it to where I can force myself to eat something to stay alive or to not have a hypoglycemic attack. Coz now if I don’t eat something (even if it’s just a fucking spoonful of peanut butter or a cup of orange juice or a bar of chocolate—listing those 3 things coz they’re the top three best things to bring someone out of hypoglycemic shock) within 24 hours, I will notice my blood sugar bottom out and I will go into hypoglycemic shock and if I don’t immediately take care of it, I need to be hospitalized. Which is why I ALWAYS have chocolate on hand and ALWAYS have orange juice in the house. Don’t always have peanut butter on hand…but I should. I also have chronically low blood pressure and for some reason that affects my blood sugar and how easily it can crash and such? I’m not quit sure how (med student here and I have no idea the physiology of this stuff lol….wow) but I have to pay SUPER SPECIAL ATTENTION to BOTH of those things (blood sugar and blood pressure) during my period…because if my BP bottoms out and I don’t get help, I go into a coma. God forbid it fucking happens while I’m sleeping which…since I take metropolol (migraine med which drops my BP coz it’s a BP med) before bed and go to sleep with ambien which lowers my BP double (ambien and sleeping lowers your BP) AND IF I’M ON MY PERIOD ON TOP OF THAT….my BP will just plummet…and if I’m sleeping, there’s no chance at getting help or found or anything… I’ll just go straight to a coma. Same with hypoglycemia. Which is why I make sure ESPECIALLY ON MY PERIOD to eat something chocolate or peanut butter or both…and drink a bit of orange juice before bed…just in case. Coz being in hypoglycemic shock is scary af…the few times I have been…being TOTALLY helpless like that…totally disoriented… totally at the mercy of whomever finds you…feeling yourself slipping away…. unable to call or move for help…that’s TERRIFYING. Lemme tell you…and MY PERIOD CAN MAKE THAT 20x WORSE. JFC.

So….

Tl;Dr: Yes, I’m bleeding this month… 3 months after getting it put in. I’m having what would be considered a “normal person’s” period with a “normal person’s” symptoms…nothing I’ve ever experienced myself with my own period. So this is a fucking miracle period, but it still sucks and is still terrifying.I chose Nexplanon because no other BC (other than I’ve heard Depo does this for some people?) not only stops the bleeding/clotting COMPLETELY, but also stops ALL associated symptoms, both physical and mental/emotional/psychological. Which…almost ALL (I can’t stress ALL enough; there’s barely any that ARE NOT) symptoms associated with a period have the potential to be fatal to me, including the mental/emotional/psychological ones. So a BC that stopped them all entirely is what I needed since my parents wouldn’t consent to taking my uterus out via surgery which is what doctors recommended over and over and over again and when I became an adult, it was too costly and is STILL too costly. So Nexplanon + the T I’m going to be getting on are a beautiful combination for stopping EVERYTHING.Apparently, it is NORMAL to have a period the first few months on Nexplanon, albeit I did not experience this with my first nexplanon and only experienced true spotting ONCE with my first nexplanon the first 3+ years I had it in when my hormonal alpha female ex-gf got her fullblown period and I was living with her and her husband and sleeping in the same bed as her. I only got spotting. No associated symptoms, physical or psychological.This time around, I am having what would be considered a normal period for a neurotypical person with no uterine problems or vaginal problems or bleeding disorders (I have vaginismus, too, so that factors in somewhere).The bleeding seems to have stopped entirely today, making it last around maybe 5-6 days, which I think is the “normal” time for a “normal” person. 

Most associated symptoms have left. The ones that remain are: Bloating, Breast swelling, Aching/Sore body (but that could be associated with the lupus/fibro/hyperalgesia diagnoses going on with me because the joints are the worst with sore-ness and aching),Mild, spontaneous headaches,Extreme heat sensitivity,Acne (but that could be because I literally clawed both spots open with my nails until they started gushing blood and now I keep clawing them open every morning and all the time throughout the day….so I mean..??? I’ve never dealt with acne. Idk how to deal with it. I’m just putting neosporin on at night.)

I am expecting these things to go away… The headaches, aching/soreness, and heat sensitivity could be associated with other illnesses going on with me that I’ve never dealt with before and don’t know what to expect. But I know damn well the bloating and breast swelling is from this…and I know the acne is from this, as that was confirmed by a doctor (coz I was scared about it being from something else) but I think it just hasn’t gone away because I keep clawing at it and making it bleed. If they don’t go away in a week, I’m gonna let my gyno know and see what she can do/recommends.

The first two days of this were ALMOST as rough, psychologically, as my normal period and the cramps and clotting put me in the hospital and warranted a high dosage morphine shot, 800mg of ibuprofen (and a script for it) and a hydro (and a script for it). 

The ONLY thing I’m worried about recurring other than the cramps and clotting and psychological symptoms is that… I don’t know if the physical black outs are related to my period or if they are related to my auto-immune disorder (lupus/fibro/hyperalgesia) because when I first got diagnosed with a joint-related virus, where they took x-rays that showed a virus of some sort was physically eating away my joints…I was literally blacking out for a couple seconds every 5-15 minutes. That was about a month ago. Now I have almost a full solid diagnosis, but I’ve thrown two new medications into the mix (Lyrica, which I’ve never been on before, and Topamax, which this is my 6th or 7th time being on) and a lot of new things/stressors/lifestyle changes in general… but the other day. ..maybe 3 days ago now? 2? It happened again. Blacking out for very short amounts of time…approximately 10 seconds every 5-15 minutes…but towards the end of the day, I blacked out so badly that I was out for a solid 20 minutes, give or take, and since I blacked out in the kitchen, my head either hit the tile floor or a counter when I went down and since I have a bleeding disorder AND it was head wound, even though it was barely even a surface scratch at all (it’s practically healed now, 2-3 days later), it bled badly enough in those 20 minutes or so that when my roommates came home and found me blacked out in the kitchen, there was a small pool of blood around my forehead. One of them was panicking and had me in his arms and was shouting LEON! LEON! WAKE UP! LEON! OMG ARE YOU OKAY!? WHAT HAPPENED!? CAN YOU HEAR ME!? LEON!!! Meanwhile, he turns to his boyfriend while I’m slowly coming to as he’s shaking me and shouting one of my many nickname’s at me…and he tells his bf to call 911…which is when I snapped out of it (sort of) and used a Scully catchphrase and pushed myself off of my friend and held up an accusatory finger to his boyfriend and was like …quoting that artwork of Scully in the jacket that I love, saying in a very slurred voice “Stand aside! I’m a medical doctor!” Which…lmao. I started giggling. They didn’t get the reference coz they’re not Philes… But I managed to make them understand to please not call 911… That was the last time I blacked out that day…but it was for a solid 20 minutes and I had been blacking out and throwing up all day that day…experiencing both chronic AND optical migraines simultaneously… the clots were bigger than ever and I could feel the flesh being ripped from my uterine wall and slowly oozing out of my vagina. It was the worst feeling. They were almost as big as my fist at this point. And I was so lightheaded and experiencing so much vertigo…but I have been experiencing constant vertigo and lightheadedness since this virus hit me and since we started researching into it and looking into lupus and such.

SO I DO NOT KNOW IF THE BLACKING OUT IS ASSOCIATED AT ALL WITH THE PERIOD….OR IF THE PERIOD IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE LUPUS AND SUCH WHICH IS WHAT THE BLACKING OUT IS ASSOCIATED WITH…OR IF BLACKING OUT IS JUST SEPARATE….

And Idk if this period is a one time thing…or if I’m going to get it again…because, although it is nice to experience a “normal person” version of a period, it’s STILL HELL ON EARTH. It’s nice to know my life is not in danger from a normal body function…it’s still awful and my life is in danger via my psyche and how it affects me psychologically very close to the same as my normal period the first day or two days… Idk if I can overcome it and JUST hurt myself the next time I have it.

But it seems to have…stopped…now? Today?

If it happens again next month at the same level, I’m going in to my gyno to talk about other options or to see if there’s a way to get medicaid or the state to pay to get my uterus surgically removed. The state would have paid when I was 13…sigh. Idk if they will now…

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

To answer your question simply? Nexplanon is supposed to stop your period and ALL associated symptoms COMPLETELY. However, as you know, every person is different and everyone will react differently. I was bleeding and did get a “normal” level period for about 5-6 days that is not entirely gone, but the bleeding has stopped now. This did not happen the first 3+ years I had my first Nexplanon. But this could be attributed to a fuckton of things going on with me (that I explained above for this reason exactly), personally, and may not have anything to do with the Nexplanon itself. 

I hope that answers everything….Coz I put some thorough af work into all of that. Lmao. But if you (or anyone) needs clarification on anything or has any other questions, Nexplanon is kinda one of my maxed out skill trees that I know a whole bunch about, having had it for over 4 years already and am on my second one now. Lol. Feel free to shoot me an ask!

[edmdma.tumblr.com/ask]

Gonna attempt to tag for triggers coz this was sorta graphic if you’re not really into medical things. Tell if you’d like these kinda posts tagged with something specific.

[vestaloflight]

some ranting about some stuff I think about from time to time, that is in general negative, involves some mention of suicide, and just some reallll bullshit

It is so so astounding to me that being overweight/obese/whatever, is automatically hailed as an individuals Biggest Problem. Like I can’t go to a doctor without getting the “lets try to lose x amount of weight in x amount of time”, and like, I understand. I KNOW that being overweight IS generally speaking, detrimental to one’s health. That there are lots of negative impacts of being overweight. But CONSISTENTLY, that is treated as my Biggest Problem, and other things go completely undiagnosed until -I- figure it out myself, and have to tell them. And then just the way other illnesses are treated like... I’ll never ever forget this. I was so terrified to talk about my depression, every time I tried to open my mouth about anything tears would well up in my eyes. It was hard to communicate anything at all, and the idea of talking about how I felt, which was just this indescribable void of feeling, that everything just felt dull, that I couldn’t find enjoyment in anything, that I couldn’t even make myself eat. I didn’t leave the house for weeks, and when I did someone forced me, and I would hide myself so I could cry in these public places because I couldn’t... stop it. The only reason I was finally able to speak up to my family about it was because I blacked out from not eating for weeks, and I was scared to death of that feeling, of doing something and then waking up on the floor with blood in my mouth, that I finally broke to the point of being able to speak.

So my mom took me to the doctors the next day, and I told him, through hysterical tears, that I just wanted to die, I just wanted to be done, that nothing felt worth it anymore. 

He made sympathetic gestures, but you know what he said to me? He said with a sad smile, “well at least you lost 20lbs, that’s good right?” 

And that, to this day, horrifies me. I lost 20lbs in 2 weeks because I was starving. And a medical professional congratulated me on that. 

Then, after a couple years of lots of drugs, I started to develop migraines, and intense dizzy spells. I blacked out a second time for no discernable reason. I went through many tests at this point - I had a CT scan, an MRI, all the good stuff. I saw a neurologist. And you know what he wanted to talk to me about? 

My weight. This man who knew nothing about me came to me and told me to try eating salad sometimes. That I should make an effort to eat the things I don’t like. As if he had any idea what my eating habits were. Salad is one of my main goddamn meals, I love vegetables, but because I’m fat, of course that can’t be true. I must be shoveling donuts and cake into my face all day long. 

In the end he prescribed me something to take daily to prevent the migraines and some painkillers for breakout migraines. It seemed to help, but when I went back to him to get a refill, I told him I had a really weird side effect. Everything carbonated that I drink (which I had made an effort to cut back on soda but I drank a lot of sparkling water), tasted flat. Everything. It was the weirdest thing.

He tells me this is intentional. He wants me to stop drinking soda (since that’s yanno, the only thing that has fiz, ok). To which I am irritated but mostly ignore, but then he tells me. He wants to double the dosage of the medication I told him was working. It was doing what it needed to do. And he wanted to double it. And see if I couldn’t lose 50lbs. I was too shocked to say or do anything but after I walked out of that place, I never went back, and I didn’t bother refilling the script anymore.

And then the best part of this is: it was one of my other medications causing the migraines. But two doctors couldn’t figure that out. I eventually became very afraid of all the meds I was on as they had very violent (you know: death) interactions with each other. And when I did that, weirdly my headaches vanished. Eventually I was having a lot of anxiety and I still had all the meds lying around so I started taking the ones for anxiety. And would you believe it: my migraines came back full force, along with the dizziness. Looked into it, and it’s a fairly common side effect.

So, yeah, anyway this was really long and I’m just, so so fucking pissed off about the way overweight people get treated. Like nothing else could be worse than our weight. That being fat somehow negates all other possible medical issues. Or is somehow the core cause of them. 

Whew okay, that’s enough of that, I dunno why I even wrote all this I doubt anyone will read it but if ya do and you’ve ever suffered this I fucking feel you.

[simplicityredesigned]

September 19, 2018, is a day that our world changed. Reine had a tonic-clonic seizure in my arms in the middle of the night. She was diagnosed on October 18, 2018. She was placed on medication as soon as she was diagnosed with epilepsy to help try and control them.

I had a lot of information thrown at me over the weeks that followed her first seizure (that I witnessed). There were phone calls, family history taken, tests ordered, appointments all over the place. I was researching things and had so many questions. For every question I had, I was asked 3 more by Reine’s specialists and doctors. I was clueless about the questions I was being asked. I felt stupid and helpless. Neither one I am comfortable being.

Common tells in neurotypicals

Odd feelings, often indescribable

Unusual smells, tastes, or feelings

Unusual experiences – “out-of-body” sensations; feeling detached; body looks or feels different; situations or people look unexpectedly familiar or strange

Feeling spacey, fuzzy, or confused

Periods of forgetfulness or memory lapses

Daydreaming episodes

Jerking movements of an arm, leg, or body

Falling

Tingling, numbness, or feelings of electricity in part of the body

Headaches

Unexplained confusion, sleepiness, weakness

Losing control of urine or stool unexpectedly

When I asked about seizure tells for those on the spectrum with Reine’s types of seizures I was told she wouldn’t have any. Once again I felt helpless. How was I supposed to help her and I navigate this??

We were missing medication doses even though I had alarms set. If we were out of the house or someone shut off the alarms before the meds were taken she missed doses. I  was forgetting questions I needed answers to because there was only so much my brain could retain at once. I was also supposed to be monitoring her side effects from the meds. Everything was scattered in various notebooks and misc pages. Enough was enough.

I created what I call Reine’s Seizure Journal. My husband rolled his eyes when he first saw it. However, it proved to be invaluable for myself and for Reine’s specialists and doctors.

Her journal consists of a yearly glance with her seizure activity, monthly calendars, daily medication trackers that also have her current doses as well as when she began taking that dose. The dates of the progression of meds and any side effects from the meds. It also has a daily journal , trackers, and a notes section for questions/answers/information.

In the beginning, I was using monthly inserts with just enough weeks in them for that month. It became apparent that this was not going to work long term pretty quick. Reine was hospitalized in November of 2018 for several days. Pulling out 3 different inserts to answer their questions was getting the job done but not efficiently as I wanted. When you are in a hospital setting, their time is short in your room. They want the answers or your questions quickly so they can move on to the next patient.

I started using a Japanese planner called Hobonichi Weeks Mega for my own personal everything planner in February of 2018. I love everything about this planner. From the size, the layout of the planner in general, the ability to change things up in the weekly portion, the notes section (that gave me the ability to section off into other things), and that it was a full year in one book. Took me a hot minute to realize that this would also be absolutely perfect for Reine’s Seizure Journal as well but I did not need the over 250 pages of notes in the back. I decided to use a regular Weeks because it only has 69 pages of notes in it. I have spent the past 2 weeks slowly transferring everything from the monthly inserts and the bullet journal system I have been using since December of 2018.

The Setup Yearly Glance Pages I use the yearly important dates pages as a way to see Reine’s seizure activity quickly and all in one place.

Monthly Pages I use the monthly calendars for 3 things 1. Seizures 2. Medication tracking (along with medication and dosage information) 3. Upcoming neurology appointments

Weekly Pages Weeklies are for a quick daily journal and tracking information. Because of the daily journaling, we (doctors and I) saw that Reine does have tells for her seizures and we learned that she has 5 different kinds of seizures. I use the left side of the weeklies for a quick daily recap of her day. The right side of the weeklies have a tracker that I use for her tells with ample space for me to write any notes about the day that I think is very important. I also write when someone is sick in the house. Reine’s white blood count is lowered with the medication she is on. Any illness/seasonal allergies can lead to increased seizure activity). The journal allows me to see when she needs something more from me (like extra patience, extra snuggles, help with communicating her needs, ramping up for her tonic-clonic seizures).

Note Pages This section will be used for any questions I have along with their answers, any research I have done or need to do, and anything pertaining to any testing or hospitalizations that Reine has to have.

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With everything laid out like this, I am able to see patterns, answer any questions, ask my questions and write my answers down and have everything in one easy to grab “book”. Reine’s doctors and specialists have even taken my inserts and books to quickly show other doctors and even parents them in hopes that others will do something like this in the future.

Reine’s Seizure Journal…September 19, 2018, to Present. September 19, 2018, is a day that our world changed. Reine had a tonic-clonic seizure in my arms in the middle of the night.

[angelasbryan-blog]

SCARS

We all have scars, maybe from being covered in chicken pox or from that bicycle wreck where you meet the pavement up close and personal or the beautiful but scary day the delivery of baby didn't go as planned.  No matter how we acquired them, they travel through life with us as a reminder.

I think it's safe to say that most do not have a scar that directly points to the day their life changed directions.   I do.   I see that scar everyday, multiple times each day.   It stretches from the base of my sternum to right above my belly button.  I consider it a large scar but it carries such meaning that I treasure it.   I'm thankful for that imperfection.  

This scars story started many years before the scalpel ever touched my skin.   Honestly, I don't know the true beginning of the story.  I do know that I heard a Dr tell me that I had lupus in April of 2003.  I will never forget that phone call and the fear and uncertainty that swept over me.    I had no clue what lupus was but judging by the tone of my Dr.'s voice it was serious.   For the next 7 years my days had no consistency, except for pain.  No matter how strong the medication was, no matter how good the day was, pain was a constant  companion.   A pain that hurt in the core of me.   A pain the could start out as a tiny ache and grow into a tsunami of pain that would flow over me almost rhythmically for hours...days.  Pain controlled every aspect of my life.  I never left home without my bag of medication.  My clothes had to fit just so and could not lay heavily on me. Hugs and a simply touch had to be given with the gentlest hand. 

As the years passed the pain grew and life was little more than counting the hours to my next dose of medicine.  My Dr.'s tried everything but it all failed till a simple blood test changed it all.   That blood test showed an irregularity in my liver function.   It wasn't a major irregularity but enough to warrant a second test.   BINGO! That scan found it! My bile duct was cystic (enlarged). At the time I was 33.  The specialist told me that my bile duct was the size of an 80 year olds. Surgery was put on the calendar. 

Surgery day was April 6, 2010.  I remember waiting in the waiting area with my husband and our pastor.  Looking back I know I didn't really grasp how serious this surgery was.  I was on so much pain medicine I was numb to most emotions.   The surgery lasted 8 hours.  But, the surgeon found more issues.  Not only was my bile duct cystic but my pancreas was also cystic and half of it had to be removed.   So at 33 years old I had what is called a whipple procedure.  The lower portion of my stomach, galbladder, bile  duct, half my pancreas and the upper portion of my small intestine were removed. 

Remember, I lived on pain medication.  I took 5 different narcotics daily and still hurt.   Being on pain medication wasn't a new or odd feeling to me.   It was normal.   I clearly recall briefly waking up after the surgery and having my husband standing on the left side of my bed holding my hand.   I looked him in the eyes and said, the pain is gone.   He smiled an "ofcourse it is your on morphine smile" and gave me kiss on the hand.   But he didn't understand, that pain that had been an unwanted companion for so many years was gone, really gone.

I spent 2 weeks in the hospital and another 6 weeks on bed rest recovering.   It took months to get back to a "normal" life.   Shortly after the surgery I convinced my pain clinic Dr that the pain med were no longer needed.   He carefully and slowly weaned me off of them over the course of a year.   One thing you must understand, typically a patient that is on this much medication stays on it for life. My story isn't typical or a normal occurrence at the pain clinic.   But just like the day of my surgery, I had no pain.   To this day, that pain is gone.   Yes, I have aches and I have pain. I still have lupus.

My scar isn't simply from a surgery, it's from a surgery that changed my life...no it saved my life.   Post surgery my gastroenterolgist sat me down and said that he hadn't told me pre surgery but I had only had 3 months to live.  3 months!!    I went from truly being at the brink of death to having a full life before me in a matter of 2 months.  

How is all of this possible you ask? Great doctors? Yes. Without the best team of doctors I would be dead. But I know, I watched God move my rheumatologist to run that blood test. She had already made the decision to not do the lab work and to wait til my next appointment the next month.  But at the end of my appointment she said she couldn't get that test off her mind. She had to draw for that test.   That was God!  Intuition?  Maybe. Luck? No not at all.   God's unending grace? 100% God working His plan in my life?  1000 times yes!

I am a completely different person today from who I was in April 2003.    I was given several amazing gifts. I was given years of nothing but time alone on the couch.   I'm not going to lie, some days were torture.  But I was able to spend hours studying and learning what I believe and finding out who God really is.   I also learned what a pathetic example of a Christian i had been.  God changed me and my heart.

I was also given a story or testimony showing God's grace, mercy and unbelievable love.  How did I make it through all those years of pain? Only God's grace got me through it.   I certainly did nothing that helped.  I had nothing to give.  I couldn't dress myself. What could I do?  When we all stop and look at our lives, no matter our situations, none of us have anything to offer.   God doesn't need me to be blemish free or in peek physical health.  He needs me to willing to be scarred and willing to let His glory shine through this crazy amazing life He has allowed me to live. 

I hope you understand,  my scar is my own personal picture of grace.  Everyday I am reminded that I am here for a reason. God so lovingly and graciously made me exactly who He needed me to be, scarred.

2 corinthians 12:9

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

[lenaglittleus]

10 Natural Cold and Flu Remedies That Work + A Giveaway!

The irony is not lost on me that I’m currently writing this post while recovering from a cold/cough. I generally get one really bad cold every year and seeing as I managed to evade it for most of 2017, I’m not surprised that it reared it’s ugly head in the final weeks of the year. Hoping this will be the only one I get during cold and flu season!

Sometimes you get sick. It happens to all of us. And even though it could always be worse, it still totally sucks to be coughing up a lung or plowing through tissues like it’s your job. Sometimes sympathy is the best remedy!

But when that doesn’t work, I have my go-to protocol to help my body heal faster. I’m someone who takes meds as a final course of action. I’m not against western medicine and using medication to treat your body, but for things like colds and flus, it’s just not my jam. There are so many effective remedies for treating colds and flus naturally that I’d rather reach for my kitchen cupboards than my medicine cabinet.

I know I’m not alone in this sentiment, so I’m thrilled to see big brands jumping on board with consumer demand for natural remedies. I’m thrilled to be partnering with CVS pharmacy on this post, who has just come out with their Live Better line full of products that provide simple solutions that help your body heal naturally. Using only essential ingredients, Live Better products are free from artificial preservatives, dyes, colors and flavors, so you can feel good about using for yourself or sharing with your loved ones. It’s amazing to see consumer demand driving business supply. Let’s keep it up!

With that, I do have a protocol I like to follow when I feel my body getting sick or if the illness has already set-in. These 10 Natural Cold and Flu Remedies will help your body heal naturally without the use of over-the-counter drugs. Do all 10 or pick a few to stick to, but remember to remain consistent and be kind to your body. Stress can also induce and perpetuate illness so don’t forget to relax, sleep and let your body slow down. With that, here are 10 Natural Cold and Flu Remedies that actually work:

1. Gargle with salt water

Do this as soon as you start feeling sick! Not only can it help relieve a sore, scratchy throat, but if you go back to your middle school science days, water follows salt (#osmosis) so the idea is that gargling salt water actually pulls viral fluids out from the throat area. 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt dissolved in an 8-ounce glass of warm water and gargle it all 1-2x a day.

2. Honey

Honey not only helps soothe a sore throat it also works as a cough suppressant. Honey can soothe irritated mucous membranes which helps remove the irritation that is fuelling the cough reflex. CVS’s Live Better Cough Syrup is a great drug-free remedy, which uses a blend of dark honeys, vitamin C and zinc. Both vitamin c and zinc have been shown to help support your immune system so that’s a triple whammy! There’s also no artificial ingredients or added dyes or flavors so it’s a great natural solution for your cold and cough symptoms. Don’t forget to reach for the Children’s Cough Syrup for children over 12 months.

3. Take a Ginger Shot 

Ginger is anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial. It has been known to help with congestion, nausea, colds, and fevers. Either pick one up from a local juice store or juice a knob of ginger yourself. Eating ginger can also help but for the best bang for your buck, go for the juice shot.

4. Elderberry syrup

Elderberry is a fruit grown from the elder tree that has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties making it a powerhouse when it comes to fighting colds. Studies have shown taking elderberry syrup can shorten colds and flus and also relieve sinus infections. Triple threat.

5. Propolis

Did you know that bees produce more than just honey? Yep, they make propolis too. Propolis is the substance bees use to seal in their hives so it’s super anti-viral and anti-bacterial. It’s great at fighting the common cold or sore throats.

6. Essential oils

Power to the plants! There are many powerful essential oils for cold and flus but here are a few that are easily accessible: Eucalyptus oil has antiviral and antimicrobial properties which have historically been used to treat the common cold. Peppermint oil is used as a natural decongestant and fever-reducer. It’s like a natural VapoRub. Just make sure when applying topically that you mix with a carrier oil!

7. Garlic

Garlic is a powerful antioxidant with antimicrobial, antiviral and antibiotic properties. Garlic is packed with minerals, enzymes, vitamin C, sulphur, and selenium which all help bust colds and flus. Enjoy garlic in your meals or eat a clove whole if you’re seriously brave.

8. Probiotics 

This one is a little tricky. If you read my SIBO post, you might remember that when my gut wasn’t healthy, probiotics did me no good (in fact, they made things worse) HOWEVER if you have a healthy gut, probiotics can help give your immune system a boost. Whether through a probiotic pill or probiotic rich foods like yogurt and sauerkraut, it all starts in your gut!

9. Bone Broth 

Bone broth, or that chicken soup Jewish grandmothers have been making for centuries, actually isn’t just a tall tale. A bowl of chicken soup, or homemade bone broth can be effective in helping to fight colds and flus. Bone broth contains anti-inflammatory amino acids and is packed full of immune supporting vitamins and minerals that are extra easy for your body to digest.. Don’t reach for those bouillon cubes though – you gotta use the real stuff to get the benefits!

10. Epsom salt bath

Add epsom salt to a hot bath along with some essential oils if you’d like to have a relaxing, detoxifying evening. Again with the osmosis thing, the minerals in the bath cause the toxins in your body to be released in the bath so not only is it relaxing, but it’s good for you too.

BONUS: Sleep! Give your body the rest it needs. I’ve learned this lesson many times over, but to really help your body heal you need to sleep as much as your body needs. Don’t just try to push through illness. Your body is working extra hard to fight something so rest and allow it to recover. If you’re having trouble sleeping, check out Live Better’s Immunity + Melatonin, which is a mixture of immune-boosting vitamins + minerals plus melatonin to help you sleep.

* * * * *

Huge thank you to CVS for partnering with me on this post and offering natural solutions for helping our bodies fight common illnesses. I’m excited to see what products you come out with next! In the meantime, I’m super excited that they are offering one lucky THM reader and awesome prize pack full of Live Better products + a $25 CVS gift card! All you have to do is share your favorite natural cold and flu remedy below. Giveaway is open to US residents and runs until 12/22 at 12:00 PM PST. Good luck!

Disclaimer: I’m proud to be working with CVS Pharmacy to help spread the word about #BetterHealthMadeEasy and how to #FindYourHealthy. All opinions expressed are my own, and all product claims or program details shared should be verified at CVS.com or with the appropriate manufacturers. Thank you for supporting the brands that help make THM possible!

What are your go-to natural cold and flu remedies? Did I miss anything?

The post 10 Natural Cold and Flu Remedies That Work + A Giveaway! appeared first on The Healthy Maven.

from News About Health https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2017/12/10-natural-cold-and-flu-remedies-that-work.html

[hellsbellsellesbelles]

December – January

Caribbean season

So that’s that, I’ve not long got home from the most amazing venture in my life. I am completely heartbroken to have said goodbye to Wind Surf, and once again extend my thanks to everyone on board, each one taught me something. I really did not want to leave, the crew, the ship, and the Caribbean as England is too cold. What’s that I hear you ask, what was it like spending 5 weeks in the Caribbean around Christmas? Well, I’ll tell you, hot.

We arrived at Philipsburg, St. Maaten at the start of December, having stopped off in St. John’s, Antigua to dispose of garbage, pick up some embarking crew, and such. I returned to being on 4-8 full time, however this time with 2/O Sebastian, however after my first week, Alistair disembarked, leaving me as the only deck cadet on board, so did work with each of the navigating officers, if and when required.

I know I mentioned in my post about the med that the days were repetitive, but that was nothing compared to the Caribbean, as we anchored most days, and our arrival and departures we’re mostly the same time each day, not to mention that we visited the same ports, either weekly or every other week. This meant I did find myself getting more tired then what I was in Europe, and lead a less adventurous life, but that does no way mean I wasn’t finding myself feeling amazing about my training.

During watches my 2/O took a step back and it became more like him shadowing me as to oppose to me shadowing him. He was very reassuring that he was there if I had any uncertainties, to ask away, but soon I’ll be qualified and need to be confident having the con, so good to have some practice with someone there. Throughout watches he’d also ask me question such as what action I think we should take when we sighted other vessels, reinforcing my rules of the road practically. Along with often leaving the pre-arrival/pre-departure checks down to me, though doesn’t seem like much, it worked wonders for me feeling confident about being a future officer.

With work being done on the sails infrastructure during wet and dry dock, and Sebastian’s duo-ticket, the maintenance we did on sails was different to what was done with Aline. My last few weeks on sails were spent concentrating on the workings of the system and trying to restore them to a near original condition.

During the Caribbean season I became more aware of other operations that happened around the vessel, each cruise the chief officer, invited me to host tables with him in the guest dining room, I had time and energy to attend the on Deck BBQs & Line Dancing, beach BBQs, I spent a lot of time at the Marina, and I also managed to watch the crew show. I even sang Christmas carols on Christmas eve to our guests, and spent my New Year’s Eve interacting with guests in the Compass Rose bar.

By this time this had come around I was very used to interacting with guests, giving them tours of the bridge, answering any questions, but hosting tables was something different, every time I felt terrified (normally only for the first 10 minutes or so), I really didn’t want to say the wrong with, or worse spill food on my formal whites! Luckily, I got on very well with my chief officer, so my mind was put at rest, and it was very easy to continue a conversation. I genuinely think working with him helped me grow a lot on board, hearing “Lee, you are the best,” (Lee was his name for me, don’t ask I’m not entirely sure why either) multiple times a day was great, I must say.

My first holiday season at sea was one that I won’t forget definitely! As you probably all know I’m not the biggest party animal in the world, which meant I was dreading the Christmas Eve party, instead I spent my evening with some my closest friend I had made listening to musical and having a good laugh in my cabin. Christmas Eve also consisted of buy Christmas crackers, lots of candy, and somehow Waitrose products in Antigua.

Christmas day was definitely one that I don’t think I’ll experience again, due to the fact we spent the day at sea traveling north west, we had the perfect wind for sailing, meaning we turned the engines off around 10am and didn’t turn them on till about 20pm, this was wonderful for me, as my cabin was above the PMs, it was completely silent, ergo I woke up for morning and evening wake, to exchange secret Santa present on the bridge, and have the traditional Christmas burrito lunch, and slept pretty much the rest of the day.

We sailed into the New Year also, but I was not in bed at midnight to make the most of the silent engines. Every New Year people in my village in North West England go for a swim in the sea, this year I decided to uphold this tradition, although I was in Antigua. Though this wasn’t anything out the ordinary as I spent spent the time at the marina, most days swimming, and using the water trampoline, but I also discovered in Roseau, Dominica that I am ace at Stand Up Paddle Boarding, however not that great at doing flips anymore.

DCIM101GOPRO

DCIM101GOPRO

I am aware that there is so so so much more things I can write about, but if I wrote everything I wanted to, a) this would be thousands of words long, and b) I need to keep something back so I can have stories to tell that no one has heard before, so I’ve tried to keep it short and sweet.

I really want to say thank you again to everyone on board, the perfect team. Everybody on board taught me something, and I have made some fantastic friends that I hope I do stay in contact with. I feel completely privileged to work with who I have, if I mention one person I’d have to mention everyone, or at least 95% of the crew. When I said I didn’t want to leave I was completely telling the truth. I’m currently sat at home, feeling homesick (for probably the first time ever) for the ship I called home for the past four months, and the people I’ve called family. A wise woman did tell me though, “It’s never goodbye, just see you later.”

All good things must come to an end – See You Later Windsurf December – January Caribbean season So that’s that, I’ve not long got home from the most amazing venture in my life.