#i have not ever performed or practiced doing sutures

[topsyturvy-turtely]

OTP challenge - day 15

here it is! part 2/2! (because i simply suck at keeping myself short) -> link to part 1

[link to day 14]

TW: detailed description of needles and stitches. knife wound.

15: teaching each other how to do something

(pt. 2/2)

[Last sentence from part 1: But soon this something, that danced in the room to the tone they had played together, was interrupted by the thunder of upstairs-running kid's feet.]

***

That was last week. Tonight John had invited Sherlock over for dinner with him. Rosie had a movies night with her aunt Harry. (John seriously wasn't sure who whorshipped whom more. These two were soulmates, no joking.)

The doctor was determined to make Sherlock a nice proper meal. He didn't cook often, but he ought to get better at it, he can't keep ordering takeout with a kid at home. What if Rosie will never eat anything homemade?! That could end up into an embarrassing situation at a friend's house...

Lost in his thoughts he prepared his 'easy but fancy meal' (no, he hasn't googled this). He had ended up with Lasagna. The bechamél sauce was the difficult part about it, but he was confident it would work out. He heard the bell ring and - wiping his hands on the ridiculous apron Harry got him (it says 'BAMF' in pink, purple and blue colors on it. According to her that means 'bad ass motherfucker', which he thought was absurd, but, well, he didn't wanna get his shirt dirty) - he went to open the door for a very early Sherlock. Who has apparently just been in a massive fight.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock! What happened to you?"

"Idiot brought a knife to a gun fight. Still managed to cut me however, that imbecile."

"They cut you? How deep? Where? Let me see.", John Watson was in immediate doctor mode.

"Not that deep.", Sherlock said waving his hnd dismissively.

"Oh no! We are not doing this! Go sit down somewhere, I'll get my doctor's kit.", John commanded and went into the bathroom to wash his hands and get the kit.

When he came back, Sherlock was sitting on the couch, no coat and jacket on, limps spread out around him, right hand to his side, the blood running through his fingers.

"Jesus. Sherlock.", John was frozen for a second, anxiously staring at his friend, regretting he couldn't protect him anymore whenever he decided to run after a serial killer.

Then the feeling faded and with his usual professional tone he told Sherlock to take his shirt off. The great idiot detective sighed but obeyed. Meanwhile John put on surgical gloves and poured disinfectant onto a cotton ball. When he looked up and stared at his friend's freed stomach he gulped. Not because he hasn't seen worse, but because it was Sherlock who was the injured. What if he wouldn't get away so easily next time? John wasn't sure how he would take another one of Sherlock's funerals. A real one this time. Internally John shook himself and focused on his task.

"I'm gonna clean the wound and see if it needs stitches now.", John told his patient. When he started disinfecting, he heard Sherlock take in a sharp breath. That, and a few seconds of cleaning, made him realize, "Sorry, mate, but the wound is deep enough for sutures. I'm gonna call an amb-"

"No!", Sherlock immediately protested and his face was a mask of pain. "It's you or nothing at all."

John stared at him, he had done that often before, back in the days, but how could Sherlock still insist on John stitching him up? With a resigned sigh, because he knew there was no reason in arguing, he took off his gloves. "Alright, I'll get you some ice. It will help with the pain and the swelling."

When he came back, he sat back down and put on a fresh pair of gloves. "Listen. I hate you getting injured, and I am honored you let me have you stitch up but you will have to learn to do this yourself. I am not available 24/7 and I can't risk you passing out while having a fever dream from the blood loss, simply because you refuse to seek medical attention like a child. So you gonna watch, listen, hell- observe while I am doing this. You got me?"

Sherlock had a neutral facial expression, but stared deep into John's eyes. "Yes, sir."

"You already know who is in charge here, that's a good start.", John smirked. Then their eyes met and just how it always has been, there was a connection between the two men which took actual willpower to break. When they did, John started explaining, "Step one: sanitize and examine the wound. Deeper than half an inch? Sutures are needed.

"Step two: if the wound is swollen, ice it.", John nodded at the ice on Sherlock's stomach, while he disinfected the needle and thread.

"This will provide a numbness as well. Helpful, when there's no local anasthetics available."

"Step three, actually- step zero: wash hands, and wear gloves to prevent infection. Always wash your hands and wear gloves, hear me?", John fixed his gaze on Sherlock. The detective was determined to show no pain but he couldn't fool John. A simple nod satisfied John.

"Good. Step three: Disinfect needle and thread and the rest of the equipment. I use a needle holder, to ensure no infections will occur. Holding it with your hand may easily cause them." John was glad Sherlock had his voice to focus on. That he had given that genius brain something to fixate on, to save into a room or a file or whatever in his mind palace with every little detail. Because the stitches - even with the ice - are gonna add another pain level.

"Step four: with your forceps" - John grabbed them - "check the skin and determine what needs to be done.", John did as he was explaining, wishing he had a mask to further protect Sherlock from a possible infection.

"Step five: punctuate the skin and make sure the needle penetrates the skin up to 0.5cm, exit on the other side of the wound. The needle needs to be held perpendicular to the skin and you rotate your hands clockwise.", when the needle sank into Sherlock's skin, his patient groaned in pain. "For this you'll need to release the needle holder by pulling it right with your ring finger-", John did as he was explainig. "-and pushing it left with your thumb.

"Step six: hold the needle holder and pull the thread. Leave 3-5cm on the side of the wound. Step seven: hold the thread with your right - in your case left - hand and wrap it around the tip of the needle holder. Catch hold of the thread on the left of the wound using the needle holder. Make the wrapped thread pass out of the needle holder and tie it around the loose thread and then cut the excess thread.", John was glad Sherlock was a genius because when he had first learned this, he still had had a million questions.

Satisfied John looked at his work. "This was it - you had made a secure knot. Now, step eight: repeat this process by moving up the wound about 0.6cm to perform the next suture."

Sherlock was making pained noises while John performed step eight. "Do you think you can focus on my hands and describe what I am doing? Might be a good distraction.", the doctor suggested.

Sherlock gritted his teeth, nodded and did as he was told. Indeed, his pained sounds decreased and his observation-mode was turned on.

After a while John said, "There. Sutures are done. Now the final step is putting a sterilized pad and bandage on. Here, sit up."

Sherlock did and John wrapped the bandage around Sherlocks rib cage; tight but not too tight. His breath gave Sherlock's skin, that had broken out into a sweat during the suturing process, goosebumps. John followed them up... over side, arm, chest, nipple. John licked his lips. Then he cleared his throat and stood up. "I'll look for a shirt that will fit you. You hardly can wear that one over there." John pointed at the ripped and blood covered dressing shirt on the ground.

"Your clothing choice is a rather interesting one, too.", Sherlock countered, a hint of a raised eyebrow visible on his carefully controlled face.

For a second John was confused, but when he looked down at himself he remembered his 'BAMF' apron... John's eyes widened.

"Fucking hell!", he swore. John ran into a kitchen and already saw smoke coming through the oven. "THE LASAGNA!"

A bunch of further curses escaped John's mouth while he took the burnt piece of pasta out. Sherlock followed him into the kitchen. He leaned on the door frame crossing his arms over his bare chest. "Apparently bisexual Badass Motherfuckers can't cook.", he stated.

Waving around with a kitchen towel and opening a window to get rid of the smoke, John was busy with other things. But when Sherlock's words sank in he slowly turned around. "I'm sorry- what?", he asked incredulously.

Sherlock nodded at John's garment. "Your apron. It's in the bisexual pride colors."

With oven mittens on, palms up, John stared down at his apron. "Oh. Oh, Harry that absolute-"

"-genius lesbian with her evidently accurate observations regarding sexuality?", Sherlock finished, pushing himself off the wall. He slowly walked over to John.

"Hold on one second! How many times did i say I am not-"

"-Gay? No, but bisexual you are, my dear Watson.", with that Shelock stood in front of him, his upper body only wearing a bandage John had put on him only a moment ago.

The blogger shook his hands in denial. "I- I am not..."

But he didn't get further because Sherlock pressed his lips against his and John forgot what he wanted to say. Soft, cupid bowed lips, rested against chapped, thin lips. Until John pulled back and stared at a rather precarious Sherlock. And without another thought he ripped his oven mittens off and clasped his hands around this face, this familiar beautiful face and kissed Sherlock again. He was moving on pure instinct, none of this was his brain's doing, it was all his body's. It knew what it had wanted for years and now wouldn't let the opportunity slip. They kissed and gasped and pulled and moaned. Until Sherlock hissed in pain, because John had eagerly pulled him close and it hurt his freshly sutured wound.

John loosened his grip and they let air drift between their bodies again. "I- you-", John tried.

"Harry and I might have a point?", Sherlock said with cocky grin.

John sighed, laughed, and let his forehead drop into his hand. "Yeah. I suppose you might."

They caught their eyes and then started giggling, like they did after their first case.

Sherlock's gaze fell on the burnt lasagna behind John. "Takeout?"

"Starving", John replied with a soft but genuine smile on his face.

---

this time i have to thank my lovely friend (lol are we even friends?!) @safedistancefrombeingsmart for 1. telling me that John can't cook and should teach Sherlock how to make proper stitches instead. And 2. for her genius photoshopoed bi-colored BAMF sweatshirt. This oneshot would have been a lot less fun without you. Thank you, smartin'! ;)

this part required a lot of research (as i am an absolute no-hoper at anything medical). i must admit i partly directly quoted from the site. check it out if you're interested!

tag list! (tell me if you wanna be added or removed 💚) @catlock-holmes @justanobsessedpan @helloliriels @boredsushi @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @hisfavouritejumper @rhasima @forfucksakejohn @ohlooktheresabee @turbulenttrouble @7arantellgrrl @ssmeowl123 @so-youre-unattached-like-me @totallysilvergirl @peanitbear @train-mossman @loki-lock @smulderscobie @timberva @grace-in-the-wilderness @chinike @pansherlock @the-smol-bean-libby-blog @jawnn-watson @whatnext2020 @escapingthereality @missdeliadili @kettykika78 @musingsofmyown @7-percent @speedymoviesbyscience @astudyin221b @francj15 @almosttinycowboy @ladylindaaa @we-r-loonies @mxster-jocale @sherlockcorner @noahspector @our-stars-graveside @jobooksncoffee

[faelliely]

Relationship: Gabriel Soma/Renato Lyra

Rating: T

Thalita knows without a doubt that Renato is the smartest person she knows and, social butterfly she is, Thalita knows a lot of people. She also knows that Renato is also the stupidest person she’s ever met.

He’s hardly a social creature, even with how much he’s grown over the years. But she thought he’d have at least some awareness of his own feelings.

When Gabriel Soma entered The Fog, she saw her brother’s brilliant intelligence and casual sharpness in the newcomer. She was certain they’d become fast friends, had hope that her brother might finally click with someone that wasn’t herself. And she wasn’t wrong, exactly. She just hadn’t expected her brother to revert to nothing short of a quiet and shy mess, losing his usual quickness and intellect as he was blindsided by what she’s reasonably confident is his first ever crush.

And she gets it. Gabriel is quick-witted, skilled, well-spoken, easy to get along with, handsome. She couldn’t pick a better match for her brother if she’s honest.

During their first Trial together Thalita stumbled across Gabriel patching up Renato in a stolen moment of reprieve. While Gabriel concentrated dutifully on some tricky stitching, she noticed Renato glance down at the blonde, only to quickly avert his gaze, blush high on his cheeks. Once the sutures were in place, her brother muttered a quiet thanks before running as fast as she’s ever seen him in the opposite direction. If Gabriel found this exchange strange, he was a master of not showing it. But nothing escaped Thalita’s keen eye.

Their next interaction she witnessed was around the campfire during what little downtime they were gifted. Renato had been goaded into joining Kate on guitar and vocals and, never one to back down from a challenge, he had thrown himself into the music. Distracted, he hadn’t noticed Gabriel returning from a recent Trial. As the survivors joined the rest of the group by the fire, the blonde took the spot next to her brother. Gabriel was a difficult read for Thalita, but any questions she had had as to whether the engineer had any interest in her brother were answered by the way he looked at Renato.

It was as if he’d hung the stars.

When the song ended and many of the group applauded, Gabriel elbowed Renato and she caught the words, “You have a beautiful voice.”. She’d never seen her brother turn so red, his smattering of freckles practically glowing by the fireside as he stammered his appreciation.

Days passed, or was it weeks? Time didn’t seem to move predictably in this realm, and it was hard to keep track when you were constantly fighting for your life. Despite his shyness around the engineer, Renato did not let his pining compromise his performance in Trials. Thalita found that in trials where both Gabriel and Renato were present, the outcome was overwhelmingly positive. They were both highly intelligent and tactical, teaming an engineer’s technical proficiency with a kite fighter’s strategic adeptness. They worked together with an unspoken efficiency, a well-oiled machine, complimenting one another.

Renato’s inherent altruism naturally began to extend from herself to Gabriel, and many of their matches would end in Renato sacrificing himself for his sake, much to the blonde’s exasperation. On one such occasion they were summoned back to the fireside at the conclusion of the Trial, Gabriel wheeling in frustration to confront Renato, who they’d all seen graphically bludgeoned into lifelessness by The Wraith’s Wailing Bell only moments prior.

“Do you think I couldn’t handle it myself?” He jabs one slender forefinger into Renato’s chest, leveling his gaze angrily.

“There was no way all four of us could leave that trial, you know that as well as I do.” Renato mutters, shifting his gaze nervously aside.

“It doesn’t always have to be you, though. Why do you always put yourself last?”

Renato is silent, eyes downcast and foot tapping anxiously.

Gabriel grits his teeth in frustration, eyes blazing as he roughly grabs Renato by the shoulders. “Do you think it doesn’t kill me every time I see you die?”

It takes a moment for those words to sink in, Renato’s jaw dropping to a silent ‘o’ as he blinks stupidly at the other man. Gabriel is breathing hard, though his grip loosens and his gaze softens.

Thalita knows what she has to do. Placing a friendly hand on Gabriel’s back and grabbing her blushing brother by the wrist she steers the two idiots towards a more private area of the forest. “I think you two have some talking to do.”

As she turns to follow Felix towards the fireside, she can’t help but risk a sneaky glance back. She’s unsurprised to see Gabriel’s hand cupping the side of Renato’s face, her brother’s eyes widening in shock as his face is tilted to the side and their lips meet. Renato quickly melts into the embrace, curling his fingers into the front of Gabriel’s jacket to pull him closer into what she’d put money on is Renato’s first kiss.

Maybe it wasn’t talking, but if it made her brother less of an idiot, she was all for it.

I haven't written in over 10 years so I'm crazy rusty but I'm in deep with these two and now I'm here, please help.

[magmacannon]

odds 20-30 and 42 for yarrow? :]

oOO thank you sm!!!

21. What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

Yarrow isn't a staunch supporter of any cultural norms that would limit the expression of someone's appearance to maintain 'proper' form, thinking (correctly for sure, given the city he's currently living in) that this is a way to 'other' people who do not fit within a narrow range of arbitrary categories of dress/mannerisms/etc. He's also incredibly versed at navigating appropriate dresswear for all types of events and while he can blend in with proper clothing for different situations, he tends to knowingly dress Up.

23. What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Yarrow is 243 years old and remembers (/regrets) things he's done with other people that have since died of old age. The biggest of those that the least people likely remembered when they were alive is saying "I love you" sincerely in situations where it wasn't returned. However, Yarrow tries to live with as few regrets as possible day-to-day now that he's gotten better at handling his emotions, meaning the number of things that dwell in his mind (of late) has gone down. For sure he'll get too pissed off and put his foot in his mouth sometime soon though! He'll likely think about it extensively even if the person he snapped at has moved on (and try to fix it if he's able to do so, or eventually move on with his life if not)

25. What subject / topic do they know a lot about that’s completely useless to the direct plot?

Yarrow knows a WHOLE lot about the cultivation and crossbreeding of apple trees! It bears no merit to his current life in any possible way but he genuinely could start an orchard if the fancy ever took him! He also has extensive knowledge about how to braid flower crowns together in very complex ways, knows the inner workings of worship of the Seldarine, knows mid-tier medical knowledge (he can absolutely perform effective sutures with a bit of practice beforehand), and a variety of other things that don't come up in his day-to-day life.

27. What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

I had to think about this one for a quite a bit but the three worst gifts (for different reasons) that Yarrow ever received were a well-made but lacey blouse from his father when he was young (extremely not Yarrow's style and not the first lace-based gift his dad had given him), a locket containing crystallized blood in the shape of a heart and a braid of (his and the gift-giver's) hair serving as the lines for said heart (from someone he was having a short fling with, WAY too soon to give a gift like this), and a dildo that was of such bad quality that he was genuinely hurt by it. In all three cases he got extremely angry and vicious for a while, vowed never to speak to that person again (in his father's case, this was temporary), and then made a deliberate attempt to not be in that position again. (In the case of the dildo, he started making sex toys.... origin story)

29. How do they respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

Yarrow believes himself to be extremely knowledgeable about a whole lot of shit (he is, but he can also be really annoying about it - or seems to be above it just with how he looks/acts which is really infuriating) and gives advice nearly at the drop of a hat, so this happens a lot lol. If it's a serious issue he'll try to appeal to emotions to help whoever he's trying to advise, but if it's lower-stakes stuff or someone he's annoyed with he'll scoff at them for not listening/believing that he has useful info about whatever it may be. Yarrow is also really good at lying so if he is fibbing, his acted-out Hurt is nearly indistinguishable from genuine disappointment.

And 42. If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

There are... literally so many options but I'll go with "How to survive falling in love ten thousand times" as a title and the topic is how to navigate into higher emotional maturity, how not to get consumed by heartbreak and despair at relationships/the world, and how to find as much joy as possible in every day of life pff

[deancaskiss]

had the most intense day on shift today on my rotation. it was surgery day and we had 4 surgeries that were performed. the first was a spay on a 6 month old female dog, and I asked the doctor if I could do the procedure and if he could watch me and be my assistant and he said absolutely. so i got to do the spay surgery today. unfortunately there was a lot of complications  (including a nicked spleen and a lot of pooling blood throughout the entire surgery) that we had to figure out (none of them my fault) and the doctor taught me how to calmly handle all the difficult complications, and despite it being really stressful the doctor said i did everything right and that none of the complications were directly my fault and he thought i handled myself really well and he was really proud of me. he’s even letting me do one of the surgeries on friday (which will be a neuter on a dog). considering this was my 5th time ever being a surgeon (and my first official surgery outside of school), i was really proud of how i handled everything and the doctor was really proud of my suturing. the second surgery of the day was a dental (which i just watched because i don’t have an experience with that) and the doctor had to extract 33 teeth on the dog and then had to remove a mass on the dogs back too and that was really intense and time consuming. then the third surgery was an orthopedic surgery and it was basically the human equivalent of an ACL tear (in dogs its called a CCL) and the doctor performed a procedure where he cleaned up the knee joint and then cut into the bone to place a device to help stabilize the leg, and he let me scrub in and place some of the pins and i got to get my hands dirty (which was super fun and fascinating to see the whole procedure). and then the 4th surgery was a last minute one that got added on and it was fixing a practice that had previously been done (it was actually the surgery i got to see on my first day rotating at the clinic) and the dog had torn open the incision so i got to watch the doctor clean the wound and then re-suture everything close. i ended up staying an hour longer than my shift was supposed to be so that i could stay and learn from that 4th surgery. overall there was a lot of learning today. a lot of stress. a lot of complications. but i’m proud of how everything turned out and the fact i got to scrub in and perform a surgery myself today and i cant wait to be able to do my 6th surgery on friday!

[iamtrebleclefstories]

oh it’s true, that I was made for you

- or -

a fic where jo is a fellow and alex is chief

Hi guys! I hope you enjoy this fluffy s15 AU that I wrote bc I just miss the days when Jo was still a Karev

Rating: G

Word Count: 2778

———

“Dr. Bailey! Oh thank God, I need your help!” Jo squeaked as she came to a halt in front of the woman in question.

“What did you do, Wilson?” Bailey sighed and looked up from the tablet in her hand.

“Karev.” Jo stated, eliciting a confused expression from the woman in front of her. “It’s Karev now.”

“Oh yes. Karev.” Bailey rolled her eyes. “What can I do for you, Karev?”

“I need someone to take my two o’clock surgery.” Jo grimaced. “I wouldn’t ask you unless I absolutely had to. I tried to get Meredith to take it but she’s in the OR doing a transplant that is going to last another four hours. It’s an ex-lap.”

“And why is it that you can’t perform your own surgery? You’re a fellow now Wilson—I mean Karev. You shouldn’t be carting off a simple ex-lap to another surgeon. You’ve done plenty of them before.” Bailey’s frown made it known that she was unimpressed with Jo’s request. “So you better have a pretty damn good reason why you need me to do it.”

“I—uh,” Jo paused and considered whether she should tell Bailey the truth. She had tried keeping her suspicions to herself for the past few days, but Jo was practically bursting to tell someone. “I have an appointment to see Carina DeLuca.”

Jo watched as Bailey’s eyes grew wide.

“Wilson, are you pregnant?”

“Karev. And could you keep your voice down?” Jo shushed her superior and looked around to make sure no one was listening. “I haven’t told anyone. Not even Alex. I took a test this morning because I had been feeling strange and the line was really light but it was there so I just made an appointment to be sure. I don’t want to say anything until after the appointment. I mean, we just got married and he’s interim chief and I just started a fellowship, so this just might be the worst, most stressful time to make a baby, but of course, this is when he decides to knock me up!”

Bailey stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds before speaking. “Alex Karev is having a baby?”

“Maybe?” Jo shrugged. “I don’t know. You see. This is why I really need you to take my ex-lap so that I can make my 1:45 appointment and find out if my entire life is about to change.”

“Um… yes of course.” Bailey nodded. “Just let me rearrange some things. I can get one of the senior residents to take my appy.”

“Thank you so much Bailey. You’re amazing!” Jo clapped her hands together in gratitude.

“Yeah, uh huh…” Bailey waved her hand as Jo skittered away. “You better tell me as soon as you find out.”

“Yes ma’am!”

The next few hours seemed to drag on as Jo waited for 1:45 to roll around. She spent the entirety of the lumpectomy she was performing mulling over the faintest little line that had showed up on the stick that morning.

“Dr. Karev? Dr. Karev? Jo?”

Jo looked up to see Andrew trying to capture her attention.

“Jo. Are you okay? You froze for a second there.” Andrew asked, concerned. “Did you feel like you missed something? Because, you already finished the hardest part of the procedure and you did it flawlessly. All that’s left is to close.”

“Thanks. And no it’s not that.” Jo shook her head. “Sorry, I just got a lot on my mind right now. Do you think you can close?”

“Uh, yeah of course!” Andrew’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it?”

“I trust you. You have great suturing technique. You barely leave a scar. Go ahead. Finish.” Jo insisted. “I’m going to head out. I have an appointment to get to. When you’re done, make sure to talk to the family and assure them that everything went smoothly. I’ll come back to check on her as soon as I'm done.”

“Okay…” Andrew grinned under his mask. “I won’t let you down!”

As soon as Jo stepped out of the OR, she braced herself against the nearest wall. She took some slow deep breaths to help keep the ever present nausea and dizziness at bay. Come on, Karev. Get yourself together. You don’t even know for sure yet. That line was so light it was basically nonexistent. Your results could come back negative. Yes. They could be negative. That’s what Jo needed to remind herself of. They could also be positive, though. That would mean you’re having a baby. That would mean that you’re growing a human, right now, at this very moment.

Jo’s heart pounded the entire way down to the OBGYN clinic offices. When she finally rounded the corner, she was surprised to see Carina waiting for her already.

“Jo. I was surprised to see your name added last minute to my schedule. Let’s get you into the room quickly.” Carina led her past the front desk as discreetly as possible and into an exam. “I’m assuming you want to keep this from as many people as possible since your husband is the chief, no?”

“You would be correct.” Jo nodded.

“I figured that was the case.” Carina smiled. “I normally wouldn’t do these things myself but I had a nurse come set up everything for me so I could do all of your examinations myself. I promise everything will be done with the utmost discretion.”

“Thank you so much Carina.”

“So you said that you think you might be pregnant? Tell me, have you taken a test yet?” Carina washed her hands and donned some gloves.

“I took one this morning because I had been having some of the same symptoms as last time and wanted to check. So, I took the the test, but the line was really light so I’m not sure if it was a false positive or if it’s just too early.”

“You said you’re having the same symptoms as last time. I thought you and Dr. Karev didn’t have any children. Have you been pregnant in the past?”

Jo cursed herself for the slip. She’d never had this conversation out loud with another soul and was terrified to do it now, but it seemed as good a time as any. “I was pregnant about ten years ago. It was during a very difficult time in my life. I was in an abusive relationship, so… I had an abortion.”

“I’m sorry about your situation.” Carina placed a sympathetic hand on Jo’s shoulder. “But these circumstances are very different from the last one. So, no matter what your results say and what you decide to do going forward, it will not be like the last time.”

“You’re right.” Jo took a deep breath. “My life is different now. It’s good. I'm happy. I’m in a loving relationship with a man who would die before ever laying a hand on me. That won’t change depending on if I’m pregnant or not.”

“Well, we are still going to find out. I don’t need you running around stressed out about whether or not you’re pregnant.” Carina took the needle in her hand and began to draw some blood. “I'm going to do this first and run the labs so that hopefully it’ll be in soon.”

“Do you think I’m pregnant? They say OB’s have like a sixth sense about these kinds of things. Well, they also say that about peds surgeons and Alex hasn’t said anything to me so maybe they’re wrong. Maybe a special pregnancy sixth sense doesn’t exist.” Jo rambled as Carina put a bandaid on Jo’s arm.

“Oh, it exists. Trust me.” Carina’s eyes glimmered as she dropped a couple vials of blood into a specimen bag. “But, I will not tell you what I suspect until the results come in.”

“Come on, that’s no fun.” Jo pouted.

Carina walked over to the door and opened it slightly, blocking Jo from view. She motioned to one of the nurses to come over.

“Hi, Vivi. Could you run these labs for me? I need them back as soon as possible.” Carina smiled and handed them over to the nurse.

“Yes, of course.” Vivi reached for the bag and took a look at the vials. “There’s no name on these.”

“Yes. I know.” Carina nodded. “Just put it down as Jane Doe or something like that. Remember to tell them that it is urgent!”

As soon as she closed the door, Carina turned back towards Jo. “Okay, I am going to go check on some of my other patients while we wait for those results to come. I will be back soon and then we will know if we’re going to have a little bambino to care for.”

“Sounds good.”

Minutes never felt this long in the past. The ticking of the clock seemed exponentially louder than it ever had before. The last time she’d been pregnant, Jo never gave herself the time to think of whether she could be a mom. She never allowed herself to picture her pregnancy as more than just another thing that Paul could beat her for. She refused to allow herself those thoughts in the past out of fear of getting attached to something that could never happen. Now that she was no longer in the same position, Jo couldn’t help but think of everything. The passing minutes were full of countless thoughts ranging from fear and anxiety inducing ones, to happiness and excitement, to uncertainty and trying to calm herself down.

By the time Carina returned, Jo was sure of one thing and one thing only. She needed to know the results.

“Okay, Jo. Let’s see what this says.” Carina clicked on the screen of the iPad in her hands and waited for the results to load. When they showed up on the screen, she gave an almost imperceptible nod. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“You’re pregnant.” Carina beamed. “Most likely very early on based on your hCG levels. I’d estimate somewhere around five weeks. Two of those weeks are counted from your last period which means you conceived approximately three weeks ago… So right around the second week of June.”

As she did the mental math, Jo burst out into laughter. “Oh my God.”

“What’s going on?” Carina asked, a confused expression making its way on her face.

“I know when I got pregnant.”

“You do?” Carina’s eyebrows raised. “Well, if you can remember the exact date, that would be very helpful in tracking the development of your baby.”

“It was on my wedding day, June ninth.” Jo laughed again. “Alex and I snuck away and had sex in a shed before the ceremony. I forgot to take my pill the night before and didn’t bring them with me to the venue. I thought I’d be okay because I had Meredith bring them to me so I could double up the next day.”

“It must’ve been enough to cause you to ovulate.” Carina chuckled. “But besides the nausea and dizziness, how do you feel? Do we need to talk about options or have you decided?”

“I’m keeping it.” Jo said without hesitation. She gasped immediately after. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m going to have a baby. I’m going to be a mom.”

“Yes, you are.” Carina laughed. “My sixth sense never fails me.”

The remainder of the appointment went smoothly. When Jo and Carina finally parted ways, Jo took a second to gather herself before walking back over towards the surgical wing. She entered the gallery of OR 4 and waited for Bailey to notice her presence.

After a few minutes, Bailey’s head turned in Jo’s direction. “Well, Wilson? Sorry, I mean Karev. What’s the verdict?”

Sure that no one would understand the context of their conversation, Jo smiled. “Yes.”

“Ah!” Bailey let out a little shout of excitement. “Okay, we’ll talk as soon as I get out of here. For now though, I’d appreciate it if you popped in on Baldwin in OR 6. Make sure that he isn’t screwing up my appy.”

After checking in on the residents, a consult in the pit, and a quick hernia repair, Jo was back in the lab with Bailey. She was grateful for the older woman’s care and support. Bailey had been so helpful and understanding as soon as she learned about Jo’s pregnancy.

“I’m really happy for you, Jo. I think this is going to be wonderful.” Bailey squeezed Jo’s hand lightly. “Can you believe how far you’ve come?”

“It’s still surreal.” Jo confessed. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to wake up as Brooke, living in Paul’s prison of a townhouse hoping that he’ll be in a good mood today and decide not to hit me… But then I realize that this is my life. I’m Jo Karev now. I have a loving husband. I’m a doctor. I have friends who care about me. And I’m going to be a mother.”

“Alex Karev is going to be a father.” Bailey snorted. “I never thought I would live to see the day.” She shook her head. “Is it selfish of me to hope that the baby is a girl? You know, as payback for all of the headaches he gave me with every one of his indiscretions?”

“Not at all.”

————

“Hey. You’re home.” Jo said as Alex walked in the door.

“Yes, finally.” Alex sighed as he put his stuff down. He walked over to where Jo was seated on the couch and kissed her. “I missed you today. I usually see you at least once but I didn’t see you at all today.”

“I was uh, busy.”

Yeah, real busy avoiding him to avoid slipping up and revealing their baby news.

“I got something for you.” Alex pulled away to retrieve something from his bag. He handed her a small box.

Jo looked at the box and her eyes widened. “Is this a pregnancy test?”

Alex shrugged. “Look, call me crazy, but I’m a peds surgeon. I’ve been enough pregnant ladies that I can practically sniff it out. I’m not saying you look different or anything, I don’t know… I just have a feeling.”

“And you want me to take this?” Jo stared at him in shock.

“I know it’s ridiculous and it’ll probably be negative, but I don't know. Humor me.” Alex cracked a grin.

“I don’t need to take this test.” Jo shook her head.

“Come on, Jo. It’s not that hard. All you gotta do is pee on the stick and give me a little peace of mind.”

“No, you don’t get it.” Jo put the box down beside her. “I don’t need to take this test because I already took one.” She inhaled deeply as if trying to muster up the courage to say it. “Alex, I’m pregnant.”

“Hold on, what?”

“I’m pregnant.” Jo beamed. “We’re gonna have a baby.”

“We’re having a baby?” Alex’s jaw dropped. “You’re pregnant? Like, right now?”

“Yes.” Jo laughed as Alex swept her into his arms.

“Holy crap. We’re going to be parents.” Alex’s eyes widened in shock and excitement.

“Yeah, we are.” Jo felt a couple tears prickle at her eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Alex kissed her. “I love you so much, Jo. More than you could comprehend.”

After a few tender moments just reveling in their joy and impending parenthood, Jo sat up. “So, I figured out when we conceived this baby.”

“When? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out myself. We haven’t exactly had a ton of sex since I got this job.”

“We made a baby in that shed next to that corpse on our wedding day.”

Alex stared at Jo in disbelief and laughed. “You’re joking right?”

“I wish I was.” Jo giggled softly.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Jo, I—” Alex's laughs filled the room. “Well, you have to admit that was some of my best work.”

“Yeah it was.” Jo joined his laughter.

“You’re happy about this right? I know it’s not ideal and I certainly didn’t mean to knock you up right at the beginning of your fellowship, but you’re okay with it, right?” Alex asked quietly.

“Alex, I don’t care if it isn’t ideal. I love you so much and I already love this kid so much and they’re nowhere close to being here yet. I’m happier than I’ve ever been and that’s thanks to you.” Jo pressed her forehead against his. “You’re giving me everything I thought I’d never have.”

“You’re everything to me.” Alex kissed her again. “I can’t wait to experience this with you.”

“Me neither.”

[foryourinformationmd]

Advice from a Professional Doctor, Asher Nitin.

Ignore all the portrayals of life in medical school by your pre-med lecturers. If they begin a med school narrative with, “My nephew is a doctor and he told me…,” instantly disregard it. His nephew did not tell him that. He told him much more. Those are merely the parts he wants to remember. If it isn’t a recently-graduated doctor telling you what life in med school is like, it isn’t going to be anything like what they will tell you. So what is it like instead? Grey’s anatomy? House, M.D.?

Neither. Med school is more like Scrubs and The Knick than it is like Grey’s Anatomy and House, M.D. Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, you and your fellow medical students will not be that good looking. You will not sleep with each other as much. You will not cry over your patients (you’ll have a hard time remembering their full name). And you will not monkey around with barely-tested experimental procedures. Ever. If you do, it’ll probably be the last thing you do because good-bye medical school. Unlike House, all medicine will be diagnostic. Your professors will only appear to be brilliant (it’s really just decades of specialized knowledge and experience; with their subject and with your type). Diagnosis will be algorithmic, and even that algorithm won’t be your own. But you will still get a kick out of it. Like Scrubs and The Knick, your medical school will be your life. You will eat, sleep and dream medicine. Your entire social circle will consist of your colleagues. Your family will be the one stable point in your life. You’ll date your colleagues.

Speaking of dating, your sexy does not go up when you become a doctor. I mean this practically. Theoretically, I’m told doctors are hot. I can see why. They undeniably have inherent value: social standing, (the promise of) money, proof of intelligence (actually, no) and actual power over life (more than you know). But practically speaking (especially if you’re male) your dating life will not get better as a medical student. That is because the demands of medical school will swamp you. You will come home tired. Your pool of prospective partners will mostly consist of your medical colleagues. So while your newfound status as a doctor might have value in non-medical circles, it will mean nothing because you will almost never frequent those circles. But within the circle you’re in, your status as a medical student means nothing, because so what? Everyone is one too. “But Asher!” you say, frantically gesturing at me to pause, “I’ll be smart and date outside of medical school.” No, dummy. You’ll be a dummy if you do that because…

The more friends you have outside of med school the harder it is to excel. Med school is about an ethos. You’re not just part of a course. You’re part of a community. This is now your primary identity. All your self worth are now belong with us, bi*ch. There is this neurological phenomenon seen in people trying to study. When you’re focused on something, if you break off and engage with something unrelated, your brain takes up to twenty minutes to fully refocus on the original task once you return to it. In life as well, broadly speaking, I’ve observed a similar phenomenon. I’ve known three students in med school whose circle of friends mostly lay outside of med school. One hung out with mostly dancers and choreographers. One was a socialite. One hung out with the sons of politicians. They all were (and still are as of now) the worst doctors I have ever seen. This is because they constantly take breaks from the ethos of medical life. They miss out on the rhythm of life in the world of medicine. So you should know that…

You will leave most of your old friends behind, and you won’t even mind. Of all the various professions, I’m told, physicians tend to default the most on school reunions. That is partly because they don’t have the time, but also because they don’t care. It isn’t that we become arrogant or unsocial. It is that the act of medical education deeply changes you. It makes you more functionally intelligent. It makes you less prone to fake drama. It makes you calmer in crisis. All these after-effects will permanently drive a wedge between you and many of the people you used to know. This is a surprising side-effect no one anticipates; least of all your elders. And that is an amusing paradox. They anticipate your becoming a doctor because they know medical school is elevation. They don’t realize the side effect of this elevation is you will now talk down to them.

Your most important subject in pre-med is physics. Look, pre-med isn’t really about information continuity. The organisms you will dissect in pre-med will be phylogenetically disconnected from med school. You dissect a plant stem, a plant root, an earthworm, a cockroach, a frog, and then… a human being? See? You won’t be seamlessly connecting domains of knowledge. Pre-med isn’t even about building a conceptual base. Many things you learn in pre-med biology will be repeated in so much greater detail in med school that your prior knowledge will only partially help. Pre-med is about picking up mental skills you will need. Let’s talk about those.

You need to learn to form a train of thought fast. The great thing about learning to solve problems in physics is that you learn to solve problems in general. You learn to quickly identify variables and constants. Sometimes there will be constants in the problem that would normally be variables in real life. You learn to work with those too. Physics allows you to become mentally agile with concepts. If you get fluid mechanics, you can handle the physiology of hypovolemic shock. If you get lever mechanisms (in different orders), you can handle applied anatomy in orthopedics. If you get optics, you can handle a lot of neurology and ophthalmology. In my experience, the students who have the hardest time in med school are the ones who didn’t learn to think on their feet within a fixed framework of time.

You hate memorizing? Actually, you don’t. It’s all about the context. Literally none of us salivated at the prospect of memorizing taxonomies. We hated it and struggled over it and were glad when we were done with it. That was because it was something we knew we would never use. In med school, you will do a lot of memorizing. But you will enjoy it (or at least you can, if you choose; I’m a huge nerd). Many doctors will tell you how easily drug classifications embed themselves in their brains. This is despite the fact that the latter are more complex than zoology taxonomy charts or botanical floral formulas. The difference is that your knowledge of drug classification will impact what you will say to your aunt when she confronts you over her persistent back pain over Christmas dinner (poor posture, it’s always poor posture; she sits like a potato). So you will memorize a lot. It won’t be anything like memorizing was before. Rest easy. You will find it easy to like it.

Your persona does not matter. Caring for people and being compassionate and wanting to cure disease are the least important things in medicine. You need to be able to meaningfully link vast amounts of information to come to a correct diagnosis as per established algorithms. You need to perform surgical procedures within a reasonable amount of time with a decent degree of success. All else is secondary. When most of your non-doctor relatives tell you that a doctor’s personality matters, they’re doing something called argument from ignorance. You see, the world of medicine is so big and so complex that most of it is technically incomprehensible to the general public. So they latch on to the few aspects of a doctor’s life they are mentally capable of understanding (and commenting upon; remember their first reaction to meeting someone with an education superior to theirs is to give them tips). So they will talk about a doctor’s personality because it is the only part they can presume to have some expertise on. Even that they do not. Don’t ever do stupid things like falling in love with your patients or building deep and personal relationships with your patients. You will never last in medicine. This is not because the emotional trauma of losing them will wreck you. This is because you will go bankrupt fighting lawsuits accusing you of patient preference. You will feel the pressure in the things non-doctors will say behind a good doctors back. “He’s so boring at parties, he can only talk work stuff.” If that is your destiny, so be it. Own it. They find you boring? So what? You were not put on this earth to entertain the illiterate at parties. You were sent here to be a lifesaver; not to have a personality that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

I’m telling you it does not matter. The practice of medicine is life on the edge of reality. All personalities are welcome because medical school is a personality in itself.

The materialists among us are taught the value of wisdom and the ascetics among us learn to knot a Double-Windsor.

The atheists among us will pray frantically and the religious among us will find no time for church on Sunday.

The loudmouthed learn to whisper in the NICU and the soft-spoken learn to yell, “Stat!” in the ER.

The type-A personalities among us learn to break the news of a patient’s passing to his relatives and the type-B personalities among us learn to argue medico-legal cases.

The clumsy among us learn to suture wounds and the nimble learn to administer CPR.

Materialists. Ascetics. Atheists. Theists. Loudmouthed. Soft-spoken. Type-A. Type-B. Clumsy. Nimble.

In medical school, we all meet in the middle.

PS: Photo not mine. Credits to the rightfully owner. 

[writingblock101]

Are You Fucking Kidding Me? (Jason Todd x Reader)

What is a short Jason Todd fic? I don’t know her, so I broke this into two parts, again. Also, you can pry italics from my cold, dead hands. I had so much fun writing this, I really enjoy this debate. After this, I have a Harley Quinn!daughter request to write, so keep an eye out for that one. 

Summary: As an ER nurse, you deal with a lot of shit, but Red Hood is not one of those things. 

Warnings: Injuries are mentioned? It’s not very gory, this is very dialog heavy 

Word Count: 4,000

You’ve seen a lot of shit working as a nurse in the emergency room. Last week, an eight-year-old who still wore pulls ups came in, despite being physically and mentally capable of learning how to use a toilet at an earlier age. Three nights ago, you watched a mother hug her teenage son and sob with relief after the doctor stitched his wrists up after a suicide attempt.  Yesterday, you performed CPR on a three-week-old only for the infant to die. Some nights were better than others. 

Then the Red Hood shows up in Gotham. 

He’s fighting crime, you guess, but geez, is killing people really necessary? You might understand if it was someone like Joker or a serial killer or something, but this guy isn’t even going after the masked psychopaths that run around Gotham. He’s going after drug dealers. And not just throwing them in prison, no, he’s murdering them. 

Seriously? Gotham is practically a superheroes’ playground, but this guy, this Red Hood is running around murdering drug dealers? Yeah, you understand what they’re doing is illegal, but come on, rape is also illegal and you don’t see rapists showing up dead on the news. Instead, you see some dude who was selling crack on the corner, dead. 

And yeah, you might be slightly biased against using death to solve problems as someone who entered a field dedicated to saving lives, but this Red Hood dude? He’s kind of an idiot. 

. . . 

After a twelve-hour shift ending at 6 AM, you head to your apartment, hoping to relax, but that plan is promptly thrown out the door when you open your apartment door to see no one other than the Red Hood sitting on your couch, pointing a gun at you, and holding his side. 

Are you fucking kidding me? 

“Shut the door,” He orders quietly, his voice sounding just as gravely and deep as you figured it would. 

You sigh, flick the lights on, and shut the door. 

“Pretty convenient for you to break into a nurse’s apartment when you’re bleeding out,” You state boredly, setting your things on the counter. “I have a feeling that wasn’t luck.” 

“You’re going to help me,” He threatens, cocking the gun. 

You roll your eyes. 

“Or what? You’re gonna shoot me and bleed out on my couch? Stellar plan.” 

He slowly lowers his gun, probably hoping for more fear to be struck in your heart as opposed to sass. 

“Will you please help me?” He asks quietly. 

You huff to yourself and shake your head. Unbelievable. But, you go to your bedroom and dig out the trauma kit gifted to you by your sister’s military medic husband. Stupid murdering criminal or not, he’s trying to do some good in the city, you guess, so you’re not going to let this dumbass bleed out on your couch.

“Scoot over,” You command as you walk back into the living room then sit down next to Red Hood and snap on a pair of gloves. 

He shifts and removes his hand, letting you look at the deep stab wound which is oozing yellowish discharge and has scabbing gathered around the edges. It seems to be an old wound that got infected then reopened. A ripped Kevlar vest is discarded on the couch. How the fuck? 

“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” He mutters. 

“Really?” You retort sarcastically, digging for disinfectant in your bag. “You know, I was always taught that you only point a gun at someone you have the intention of shooting,” You glare at him, but he looks away sheepishly. 

“It was supposed to be extra motivation. It’s hard to tell who hates me and I’m kind of desperate.” 

“I wonder why," You mutter sarcastically.

You grab a pair of scissors from your bag and cut a bigger hole in his shirt to expose more of the wound then begin cleaning out the infection.  

“I’m guessing you’re not my biggest fan.” 

“Wow, you’d really give Batman a run for his money with that whole “world’s greatest detective” status,” You remark dryly. 

“Well, do I even get to hear your gripes against me?” 

You sit up and stare at him. 

“Why bother asking? I know you don’t give a shit,” You continue cleaning the wound, your teeth grinding against each other. 

He shrugs. 

“Yeah, not really,” Red Hood admits. “But you’re keeping me from dying so I could at least listen.” 

“How the hell did you do this?” You demand, ignoring his last question. “It looks like you got stabbed, but you were wearing Kevlar. Who gets stabbed in a gunfight?” 

“Someone that isn’t expecting the other guy to be carrying a knife sharp enough to cut through Kevlar,” He snaps. 

“It’s almost like people have started picking up on your M.O. and are arming themselves,” You roll your eyes. “Crazy.” 

“Seriously, what is your issue with me?!” 

You pause to put away the disinfectant and pull out a suture kit, but before you thread the needle, you stop to look Red Hood in the eye through his stupid helmet. 

“I’m in a field dedicated to saving lives. What do you think my issue with you is?” 

He scoffs. 

“Great, another person with the morals of Batman. Should I also toss down some pillows before they hit the ground? They’re drug-dealing pimps!” 

“Yeah, they’re pieces of shit, but out of all the shitbags in this city, you’ve decided that drug dealers are the ones worth killing?! I’d understand having them arrested, but murder? It’s overkill,” You grumble, beginning to stitch up his side.  

“You underestimate how much of the crime in Gotham is controlled by the drug trade.” 

You roll your eyes again. 

“Yeah, maybe I do, but who died and gave you the power to be the judge, jury, and executioner?”

“I’m cleaning up Gotham! I’m doing what Batman won’t do!” 

“Have you ever considered that the ideas of good and evil are subjective?” You snap. “It’s not always so black and white. Sometimes people make mistakes or get desperate and they’re scared. They think this is their only out and they’re too wrapped up in their own lives to consider the consequences. They don’t deserve to die! Send them to prison!” 

“You haven’t seen the type of evil that plagues Gotham,” Red Hood responds darkly. 

“Oh bullshit! I see the worst side of humanity every fucking night! Three hours ago, I helped a doctor stitch up a two-year-olds head because her mom’s shitty boyfriend grabbed her by the legs and slammed her into a wall because she was crying. Even I know that this shit isn’t black and white.” 

“Yeah, you’re right, send them to prison, then five months later they’re walking the streets again, doing the same shit! People don’t change.” 

“You don’t give them the chance to change.” 

“They’ve already proven they don’t deserve that chance!” 

“For dealing drugs? Come on, you gotta see that killing them is kind of extreme!” 

“I don’t.” 

You groan, shaking your head. 

“This is why I didn’t even want to bother to have this conversation. I know I’m not going to change your mind.” 

“I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I’m going after drug dealers right now to get someone else’s attention.” 

“So, what about all these people you’re killing to “get someone’s attention”? What are they? Means to an end?” 

“I don’t see one less drug-dealing pimp on the street being a bad thing.” 

“I don’t see one more drug-dealing pimp in prison being a bad thing. You murdered five people last night--”

Red Hood scoffs. 

“That they know about.” 

You roll your eyes and tie off the last stitch then prepare the bandages to cover the fresh stitches. 

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” You growl, wrapping up his side with gauze and tape. “You murdered five people, all under the age of twenty-two last night.”

“Your point?” 

“My point is they’re stupid kids who don’t deserve to die!” You snap. “They’re young and stupid and unaware! Let them go to prison! They don’t deserve to die!” 

“Like I said, all of this is to take out someone bigger.” 

“Really?” You raise an eyebrow. “And who’s this “bigger” person?” 

“You’ll see soon enough, and you’ll thank me,” He hisses. 

“Right,” You nod, placing the last piece of tape. “I’m sure I will.” 

As you pack up your supplies and gather any bloodied material, you walk Red Hood through the aftercare for his stitches. 

“Keep them covered for forty-eight hours and try not to reopen them. You really don’t want to stretch the skin too much. Don’t shower for twenty-four hours, then you can start washing them with soap and water. Rest and laying down will help with pain and swelling,” You glance over at him, slowly nodding along with what you’re saying. “If it gets infected again… Go to the hospital or something.”

Red Hood nods then slowly stands up, carefully puts his jacket on, and heads to your window. He slides the window open and rests a foot on your window sill. 

“Hey!” You protest. “What did I just say about not stretching the skin?!” 

“I don’t think your neighbors would be pleased to see me roaming the hallways,” He remarks dryly. “Besides, I don’t need some drug lord to know I have a loose end in this apartment complex.”

“Whatever,” You groan.

Rip your stitches out, see if I care, dumbass. 

“Thanks for the stitches,” He fully steps out the window then pauses and pops his head back inside. “Oh, and those five dudes you saw on the news? The ones under twenty-two or whatever? Yeah, they were dealing to twelve-year-olds,” Then he disappears with the last word. 

Twelve-year-olds? Even you will admit, that’s pretty despicable, but still. 

“Good riddance,” You mutter to yourself, going back to your bedroom for a shower. 

Red Hood is an asshole. 

. . .

Two weeks passed and as you hoped and expected, you didn’t open your apartment door to a gun being pointed at you. You figured that night was the last night you’d see the Red Hood unless he was on the news, and you were very content with that. While the news of killing the dealers who dealt to kids was surprising and slightly admirable, you had no desire to see him again. 

So, you can imagine your annoyance when you open your apartment door to see a familiar figure sitting on your couch. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” You groan. “What, no gun this time?” 

Red Hood chuckles. 

“Well, I would just because, but I don’t have the means to hold my arms up right now.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed together and you drop your stuff on the counter before walking over to him. 

“What the hell did you do this time?” 

“I uh… Dislocated one shoulder, which I would put back in place myself, but my other elbow and wrist are broken, so I kind of… can’t.” 

“Uh-huh…” You say slowly then eye his leather jacket, hiding his arms and shoulders. “Hopefully we don’t need to cut this off, because I’m not sure I have scissors strong enough to get through leather on hand.” 

“You better not cut my fucking jacket,” He grumbles. 

“Well, you should’ve thought about that before dislocating your shoulder and breaking your elbow and wrist!”

“Right, because I definitely left my apartment thinking you know what would be fun tonight? Getting my ass kicked!” Red Hood retorts sarcastically. 

“Who did you lose to?” 

“Nobody,” He snaps. 

“Really? Because this doesn’t look like a victory to me,” You gesture at his arms. 

“The other guys look worse,” He responds smugly. 

You roll your eyes. 

“Yeah, I’m sure they do,” You mutter digging two splints, tape, and gauze out of your expansive first aid kit. “You bleeding anywhere?” You ask, sitting down on the couch next to him. 

“Not this time,” He grumbles. 

“How are your stitches healing?” You ask, unraveling the gauze. 

“Fine.” 

“Alright, let’s try to get your jacket off,” You focus on his right arm first, the one with the dislocated shoulder, and carefully push the jacket off his arm. 

He winces, barely audible, but you manage to get the jacket off his right arm. 

“Now this side will be fun,” You groan, moving over to Red Hood’s left side. 

You easily pull his jacket off his left shoulder, but once you reach the elbow, the jacket gets stuck. Understandably, his elbow has swelled so pushing the jacket down isn’t an option. 

“You really don’t want me to cut this?” You ask, frowning at the leather. 

“If it’s avoidable,” He responds in a pained voice. 

Although he’s been fairly quiet, you know he’s in a lot of pain. 

“Okay,” You sigh, thinking over your options. “Well, we’re not going to be able to push it off. Your elbow is too swollen… But, I could grab the cuff and carefully pull it off. It’s going to hurt really bad though--”

“Do you think you could get it in one yank?” 

“Um… Maybe? But that might mess your elb--”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to sit here for twenty minutes while you try to be gentle. Just yank the damn thing off.” 

“...Okay,” You blink. “Um… let’s see… How much can you straighten your arm?” 

He pulls his arm out at a slightly awkward angle.

“That’s the best I got,” He says through gritted teeth. “And I can’t hold it for long.” 

“Right,” You quickly stand up to get the best leverage, then grab the cuff with both hands. “Okay, ready?” Then you yank as hard as you can and the jacket comes off. 

Red Hood yells then doubles over in pain, his head against your coffee table. He continues cursing, banging on the table before finally sitting up, breathing heavily through his helmet. 

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding about it hurting.” 

“Yeah,” You nod. “But it’s off and your jacket isn’t cut, so the next question is what do you want to be done first-- your arm splinted or for me to relocate your shoulder?” 

He groans. 

“Wow, they both sound like so much fun.” 

“Splinting probably won’t be that bad after pulling the jacket off,” You note. “I found an old wrist brace in my stuff so I’ll use that on your wrist then the splint for your elbow.” 

He nods along, probably still recovering from the force it took for you to yank his jacket off so you start splinting his elbow and wrist. 

“You’re actually going to have to rest,” You tell him, finishing up the tight wrappings. “Broken bones are no joke, you’re actually going to have to rest if you want to heal.” 

“Yeah, yeah I know,” He grumbles. 

You move to his shoulder and maneuver his arm into place. 

“Alright, you ready?” 

He nods. 

“Okay, I’m going to count to three. One, two--” Then you shift his shoulder into place, rolling the ball back into his socket. 

“Shit!” Red Hood doubles over. “I thought you were going to count to three!” 

“It’s a trick for putting stuff back in place,” You explain, putting away any extra supplies. “If I had put your shoulder back when I said I was going to, your body would tense up in preparation and make it harder to put it back.” 

“Right,” He grumbles, rolling his shoulder then stands up to leave. “Thanks for the help.” 

“Wait,” You call to him as he reaches the window. “Why did you wait so long to tell me that the dealers you killed were dealing to kids?” 

He shrugs with one shoulder.

“Does it really matter to you?” 

“Kind of! I’m not on board with killing people,” You remind him. “But at least it makes slightly more sense.” 

“I don’t go around justifying myself to people. You rather agree or get the hell out of my way.” 

“What a motto,” You roll your eyes. “Do you kill everyone you don’t agree with?” 

“You’re still alive,” He points out. 

“How reassuring. What, do you have only child syndrome or something?”

“Stop trying to guess shit about me, you suck at it,” He snaps. “See you next time, doc.'' 

“I guess I don’t get any say in that matter, do I?” 

“As long as I’m the one holding the gun, nope,” He winks, stepping out of your window. 

“Guess I’ll just have to invest in a gun then,” You retort. 

Red Hood snorts and fully steps onto the fire escape outside your window. 

“You won’t shoot me.” 

“You don’t know that!” You protest. 

“Yeah, I do,” Then he hops off the railing, already ignoring your advice to rest his injuries. 

“I might,” You mutter to yourself. “Go break your arms again, see if I give a fuck,” You mumble angrily, walking to your bedroom. 

Red Hood still an asshole. 

. . . 

Two months later, you open your apartment door to be greeted by a familiar gun. You sigh, locking the door behind you. 

“I thought we moved past the whole “threatening me with a gun” thing?” You roll your eyes. 

“Last time doesn’t count,” Red Hood reasons through a pained voice. You notice he’s laying down this time instead of sitting up. “I couldn’t hold up a gun.” 

“What did you do this time?” You ask boredly. 

“Got blown up,” He responds casually. “I think I got some stuff stuck in my chest.” 

“If you stain my couch, being blown up won’t be your biggest problem tonight,” You growl at him. 

“Love it when you threaten me,” Red Hood remarks with an eye roll. 

“Shut up,” You mutter, grabbing your trauma kit. “I don’t know how I became your personal “doc in the box”,” You grumble, sitting down next to him. 

“Because you keep helping me.” 

“I don’t know why I keep doing that either.” 

“Probably morals or some shit.” 

“How ironic of me,” You remark. 

Red rolls his eyes. 

“I have morals.” 

“Would’ve fooled me,” You retort, looking over the shrapnel lodged in his chest. 

“Last time I talked to you, you seemed impressed I actually killed people doing really shitty things.” 

“I know every drug dealer you kill isn’t dealing to kids. It doesn’t cancel each other out.” 

“They all have the potential to,” He points out. 

“Yeah, and every person has the potential to be a serial killer, but you don’t see me going around murdering every person I can find,” You snap on a pair of gloves then use a pair of tweezers to begin picking out shrapnel. 

“No, but you certainly wouldn’t let the ones holding a knife to people’s throats go free.”

You clench your jaw, already annoyed. 

“Who tried to blow you up?” 

“Batman.” 

“Nice,” You nod. “And somehow, you still think you’re in the right.” 

“You don’t know shit about Batman or the things he’s done.” 

“You sound like every other masked psychopath in this city with a vendetta against Batman.” 

Red snatches your wrist, squeezing tightly. 

“I am nothing like them,” He growls out. 

“Really?” You ask, unphased by his grip on you. “And what makes you different?” 

“I’m being what Gotham needs.” 

“That’s a pretty subjective answer, if you ask me. You don’t think someone like Two-Face at one point thought he was being what Gotham needed? Or what about Catwoman and Poison Ivy? They seem to be a lot like you.” 

“The villains that run around Gotham, they don’t fear Batman,” Red releases your wrist. “You wanna know why? Because they know he won’t kill them. But they’re scared of me because they’ll know I’ll finish the job. Gotham doesn’t need justice. She can’t even carry out justice. She needs an iron fist, vengeance.” 

“Gotham needs a lot of things, someone else going around killing people is not one of those things,” You mutter, dropping the last piece of shrapnel on a paper towel you laid out. 

“You’re right, we don’t need anyone else going around killing innocent people, so it’s a good thing I’m not killing innocent people.” 

“So, what happens when that line becomes blurred?” You ask, sitting up for a moment to look at Red Hood. “What happens when your judgment becomes clouded and it turns out the people you thought were evil aren’t actually evil? What happens when you start killing innocent people?” 

“I won’t let it get to that point.” 

“Nobody thinks it’ll get to that point,” You point out, beginning to clean out the cuts. 

“Yeah, well, I have certain… past experiences that set me apart.” 

“Really?” You raise your eyebrows. “And what’s your tragic backstory that sets you apart?”

“None of your business,” He snaps. “And also not what I am referring too. Didn’t anyone tell you about what happens when you make assumptions?” 

You roll your eyes then grab a pair of scissors and cut a small section of Red Hood’s shirt only to be met with the strangest thing you’ve ever seen in all your years of practicing medicine.

“Is this…” You stare at the scar longer, just to be sure. “Is this an autopsy scar?!” 

“Don’t worry about it,” He brushes you off quickly. 

“Holy fuck it totally is,” You curse. “Who are you?!” 

“You know, the whole point of the helmet is for you to not know the answer to that.” 

“You literally have an autopsy scar! And you’re not going to give me any explanation for that?” 

“Nope. It’s none of your business, sweetheart.” 

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” You growl. 

“Then stay out of my business.” 

“You brought your business to my apartment when you broke in and threatened me with a gun!” 

“And?” 

“What do you mean “and”?!” 

“And none of what you just said makes me obligated to tell you shit!” 

“I’ve kept you from dying, multiple times!” 

“So? You’re not the only one.” 

“Are you fucking serious?! Dude, you have an autopsy scar! Do you know what that means?!” 

“I would love to hear your thoughts.”

“You rather got tortured by someone who is seriously twisted, or you straight up died and were dead long enough for an autopsy to be performed and are now somehow alive.” 

He pauses then slowly nods. 

“Yeah, that actually just about sums up what happened.” 

“Which one?” 

“Both.”

“...What?!” 

“I gave you an explanation! Can you just finish?!” 

“None of your explanation makes sense! How are you alive?!”  

“I don’t know!” He snaps. “And I’ve had a shitty night so I’d really like to leave so can you please finish?!” His voice cracks on the last word. 

You frown but know you’re not getting any further explanation. Instead, you finish stitching Red up without another word. He stands up and carefully puts his jacket back on and walks toward the window. Before opening it, he stops and glances back at you. 

“I’m… I’m not fully sure how I am alive. All I know is I woke up in my coffin. I died a few years back and a lot of shit happened and now I’m here, for better or for worse.” 

You stare at him for a moment then frown. 

“Are you… okay? Not physically, but mentally?” 

He chuckles humorlessly. 

“Not really. Dying kind of fucks you up. Coming here is fun though. You don’t take any of my shit and it… It makes me feel like myself again. Thanks for the stitches, Doc,” Then he opens the window and disappears into the night. 

You stare dumbfounded at the window. Red Hood is still an asshole, but he just got a whole lot more complicated.

Part two is soon! Wow, I went from never writing multiple parts to needing to split them up because I really love writing for Jason. I’ve also been so blown away by all the love I’ve received on White Flag. Thank you guys so much! 

Part 2

[drlahlahroo]

A Rare Case

( SNK / Rivetra / Veterinarian AU )

Chapter 1

/////////////////

She first saw him 2 years ago. Back then, she was on her 4th month as an intern in Trost Veterinary Teaching Hospital and had been assigned in the O.R., where she became one of the lucky few from her university to see him in action.

“They say he’s the best veterinary surgeon in Paradis.”

“But I heard he doesn’t do a lot of surgeries anymore, at least not as regular as most surgeons.” 

“I heard it’s because he only takes up rare cases. None of those regular neutering and stuff. He’s just that great!”

“Well he did graduate top of his class back then. So he probably does more than just surgeries.”

“He’s pretty short though. I thought the Doctor Levi Ackerman would be some tall, beefy guy or something after I heard he performed a delicate cesarean on a Chianina cow by himself. Those things are massive, you know!”

“Petra, what do you think?”

Petra had hushed her fellow interns, opting to focus her attention on the ongoing surgery. She recalled looking down at the surgical theatre in wonder as he made one last clamp on a rather large vessel, before he raised a scalpel to make a long cut. Then he and the assistant across from him lifted the basketball-sized tumor from within the abdominal cavity of a Jack Russel Terrier.

No sooner after that, he was closing the dog up. He sutured very quickly – something her professor in surgery would surely argue against, as impatience would lead to ugly stitches and, therefore, ugly scars. But she had attended to that patient post-operation and found his stitches to be so precise and so perfect that it would heal as if nothing ever happened.

It was the fastest splenectomy Petra has ever witnessed in her entire life, especially on a high-risk patient. She never met another veterinarian who could beat his 2 hour and 32 minutes record.

She did come close though. 3 hours and 16 minutes on an almost similar case. Not that time should matter, as surgical success should not be solely based on speed, but it did catch the attention of her dean.

Less than a year after passing the board exam, she received an email from Doctor Erwin Smith, the dean of Veterinary Medicine from her alma mater, allowing her an opportunity to be part of the surgical department in Trost Veterinary Teaching Hospital, one of the top veterinary hospitals in the country. It was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

So here she is now in Doctor Smith’s office in her freshly pressed white-coat, with the name Petra Ral, DVM embroidered on the left breast pocket. They were going through some minor details about her employment when the door burst open and a rather short, dark-haired man stepped in with a scowl on his face.

“Erwin.” It was the first time she heard his voice. It was low and laced with irritation. “What’s with this new team your making that I have to lead and shit.”

“Impeccable timing, Levi. I’d like to introduce you to Doctor Petra Ral” Dr. Smith said with a smile, seemingly unaffected by the other male’s glare. “Doctor Ral, I’m sure you’ve heard about Doctor Levi Ackerman.”

Petra stood and turned fully to face Doctor Ackerman, smiling despite the intimidating stare he gave her. “Um…yes. I’ve heard many great things about you, doctor.” His scowl only seemed to deepen at that.

“Doctor Ral will be a new member of the surgical department. She graduated top of her class and is one of the best veterinary surgical interns I ever met. Quick, but precise.” At Doctor Smith’s praise, Petra dipped her head to hide a blush. She didn’t exactly think she was that great.

The blond veterinarian turned his attention back to the shorter male, who had crossed his arms over his chest. “Her skills almost remind me of yours, Doctor Ackerman. I was hoping that you’d handpick her to join your special team –”

“I don’t need a team.” Levi snapped back, cutting him off.

“A special team?” Petra asked, turning back to the dean. 

“Yes. I wanted to form a special diagnostics and surgical team that would focus on high-risk and unusual cases. Something more in Doctor Ackerman line of interest.”

“And something I don’t need a team for. I’ll be fine by myself.”

Levi had walked closer to Doctor Smith’s table until he stood next to her, allowing Petra an up-close inspection of the well-renowned veterinary surgeon. She always thought he would be around her height based on when she first saw him, but it seemed that she was still a little shorter. He looked quite youthful for a man in his thirties, the only indicator of his age evident in the lines under his eyes. Either that or he just didn’t sleep a lot.

It was at this point that Erwin’s smile dropped. “You need a team, Levi. You can’t keep doing things by yourself.” He then reached for a folder on his desk and raised it for him to see. “I got you a case. It’s a referral from Doc Pixis. The patient and the owner are already waiting in Exam Room 8.” He then glanced at her. “I would like you and Doctor Ral to handle this one.”

Petra blinked in surprise. If this was a case meant for the Levi Ackerman, then surely it must be a difficult one. Something a fresh graduate like her would not be able to handle. “Doctor Smith, are you sure about this? I mean, I just started and I don’t think I have the experience to tackle such a case.”

“I trust in your capabilities, Doctor Ral,” he smiled at her, “I know you’ll do just fine. Hopefully, Doctor Ackerman will appreciate your skill sets as well, at least enough for him to be convinced that he needs a team.”

“There’s no need to tag her along, or anyone else for that matter. If I need someone, I’ll just call one of the brats.” Levi complained once again.

At that, Erwin stood, and he stood tall. Practically towering everyone else in the room. It rendered the other male into silence. Petra could tell that this was a topic the two have probably argued about for a long time now. However, she could understand why someone like Doctor Levi would be against the idea of putting up another team. It wasn’t exactly needed, and it was just going to be an extra expense in the hospital’s part. But it was always hard to say no to the orders of their dean. Besides, it was under his leadership that Trost VTH became the success that it is today.

The dean raised his arm, stretching out the folder in his hand towards the other male. “At least assess her competence, Levi. I’m sure you’ll see how she could be a great asset to this hospital.”

From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him inspect her from head to toe with a grimace. He eventually clicked his tongue before snatching the case file from the dean’s hand. Petra watched as he flipped it open, then skimmed through the contents of the first 2 pages, before shutting the folder again. Then he all but shoved the case file in her arms, much to her surprise, before he turned to the door and exited without a word.

Confused, Petra looked down at the folder in her hands before turning back to the dean, who let out a sigh of exasperation.

She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking her words thoroughly before speaking. “Uh…Is he always this…”

“Rude? Stubborn?” Erwin completed her sentence for her with an apologetic smile tugging his lips. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it quickly the more you work with him.”

Her smile dropped, “I don’t think he’s even interested in –” 

“Oi.”

Petra quickly turned back to the door, where the dark-haired veterinarian was suddenly standing again. He nodded off to the direction of the hallway impatiently. “What the hell are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

 /////////////////

Levi halted in front of Exam Room 8, holding back a grumble in his throat. From the corner of his eye, he watched the ginger-haired vet halt a meter away from him, the case file held over her chest. He turned to look at her and he thought he saw her flinch a bit. She was short, shorter than him, and for once he was glad to find another doctor in this damn hospital that he didn’t have to crane his neck up just to look at. Still, he wasn’t impressed. She looked young and inexperienced – the kind of girl who would rather hug and comfort a horse than drain the abscess from its infected neck. She could be the smartest student in her class but may lack grit in the field. Levi has seen so many veterinarians like her.

Turning away from her for a bit, he called out down the other side of the hall where 3 interns in scrubs were busy mopping near the lobby. “Hey brat.”

A dark-haired male looked up. His green eyes widened at the sight of the doctor and he almost dropped the mop. Petra watched curiously as Levi called him over and the intern stiffly stood between the two of them, his visibly taller height apparent. On his left breast, the name Eren Yeager is embroidered in striking white against his forest green scrubs, which were slightly wrinkled at the edges. She could see the slight apprehension in his features as he waited for the older vet to speak.

“This is Doctor Ral. She’s new. Assist her.”

“Y-yes, Doc.”

Levi handed him the clipboard that hung from the side of the exam room door. “Get the initial signalment,” he said, eyes narrowing, “Don’t fuck it up, Yeager.”

The boy nodded, nervously taking the clipboard before opening the sliding door enough for him to step in.

“Do you always intimidate interns like that?”

Levi turned back to the ginger. She had her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised at him, with a look of annoyance. He clicked his tongue, shooting back a scowl. “His handwriting is shit and he always make a mess in the workroom.” He then crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring her pose. For a while, they exchanged glares.

Then he nodded his head to the direction of the door. “Well, get in.”

Petra blinked. “What?”

“I said get in. You don’t want to keep them waiting.”

She pursed her lips in annoyance before turning to open the sliding door. She steps in just enough to notice the young male intern lift a golden retriever off the weighing scale, when she realized that Levi did not follow her into the room. She turned back to the open door to find him still outside, leaning on the door frame with arms still crossed and eyes closed.

Petra stepped back out the door and faced him. Levi noticed her presence enough to bat one eye open.

“Are you not coming in?”

“No.”

“You’re letting me do this on my own?”

He shrugged. “You interned here, didn’t you? You already know where all tools and the important stuff is. Besides that, you got your license now. Surely you know what to say and do.”

“Doctor Smith said we have to handle this together.”

“Erwin wanted me to assess you,” He uncrossed his arms, opting to slip them into the side pockets of his white coat, “So I’m going to assess you from out here. Now get in.”

She stared up at him with an incredulous expression, mouth slightly ajar. She eventually resigned herself to do the examination on her own, turning back into the room, but not before shoving the folder back at him in almost the same manner he did back in Doctor Smith’s office. She then raised her chin and entered the room, hoping the dog’s owner wouldn’t see the stress behind her smile.

The intern handed her the clipboard, and she gave a glance at the patient’s name in the file before she offered a hand to the older woman in the room. “Good morning, ma’am! My name’s Doctor Petra Ral, and I’ll be Sparks attending veterinarian.”

From his spot outside, Levi watched as the ginger vet performed the basics of physical examination: taking the dog’s temperature, checking the skin, eyes, and ears, running her hands through the fine golden fur and palpating for lymph nodes. All the while, talking animated with the owner, asking the necessary questions while the green-eyed intern wrote as fast as he could.

She had giggled along with everyone else in the room when the Retriever licked her cheeks in affection while she held the bell of her stethoscope to its chest. Levi then saw her squeeze the dog’s face, squishing it. The odd and funny face made everyone laugh. The dog seemed to enjoy the attention (as most dogs do), scooting closer to the female vet and laying its large head on the crook of her arm. The air in the room was calm as she continued with her ministrations. Even the intern, who normally stood stiff and awkward when he was around, visibly relaxed in her presence.

Soon enough, she began asking the more serious questions, and he could see the exchange of worried faces as the owner began to point out her complaints. Levi drowned most of it out. It wasn’t anything different from what he saw in the file from the referring vet: Malaise, continued loss of weight despite normal appetite, and abdominal enlargement with no apparent pain that was first noticed 2 months ago. He was more interested in hearing the tests she’d want to be performed.

“All right,” He heard her say after all questions were asked. He watched her hang the stethoscope around her neck and turn to the male intern, “Eren, let's draw some blood for CBC, creatinine, BUN, TP, and ALT. Then kindly get him to radiology for some abdominal x-rays in left and right laterals and dorsoventral views.”

The intern nodded and began to assist her in drawing the dog’s blood into a few tubes. It didn’t take her long to do the procedure. Levi has encountered many fresh graduates draw blood with shaky hands, but Petra was quick – not a twitch on her wrist.

Soon enough, Eren was leading the dog towards the door and he had to step out of the way as they exited the exam room and continue off towards the radiology department.

Petra made one last conversation with the owner, asking her to wait inside until the intern return with her dog, before she left the room with the tray of test tubes containing the dog’s blood samples.

Just as she slid the door close, she heard him speak, “Why ask for ALT?”

He was still leaning on the wall next to the door, scrutinizing her. She turned to him fully, one hand on her hip and that same exasperated expression on her face. “Well, if only you 'personally' examined the patient, then maybe you would have noticed the abdominal enlargement.”

“Then surely a simple radiograph would have sufficed, don’t you think?”

He saw her roll her eyes at him, which slightly pissed him off, because nobody rolls their eyes at him.

“Well, if only you 'personally' examined the patient,” she repeated with more emphasis, “then maybe you would have noticed that the abdominal enlargement is more prominent on the right side.”

“And you’re suspecting it’s the liver.”

“The liver’s in the cranial right quadrant of the abdomen, is it not?” She stepped forward towards him and, as if trying to match his intimidating air, looked up to see him eye to eye. Petra noticed his irises were an icy blue-grey, almost like steel. “Or do you need help in reviewing your anatomy?”

If he was upset at that, he didn’t show it. Instead he tilted his head to one side, eyeing her back. Levi finally got a good look at her eyes, which were a vibrant but fiery amber.

“There’s no jaundice.” He stated.

She raised an eyebrow. “How would you know that?”

He raised the folder. “It’s stated here. This is a referral remember? Maybe you should opt to read the case files beforehand to avoid wasting time repeating the questions the owner already heard from the last vet.”

Petra glanced up at the folder in his hand, biting her lower lip in annoyance at being bested and for actually forgetting to take a look at the file in the first place. But she still had one counter to his argument.

“Hepatomegaly doesn’t always present with jaundice.”

Levi didn’t change his expression, nor move at all. He did make a low hum, as if in thought. Petra took this opportunity to lightly snatch the folder from his raised hand. She tucked it under her arm and then turned away to the other side of the hall.

“I’m taking the samples to the lab.”

Levi lowered his arm and watched her go. Then he slipped his hands back inside the pockets of his white coat while the corners of his lips tugged upward slightly.

End of Chapter 1 

(read Chapter 2 here)

Medical terminologies:

Signalment: the complete description of a patient, like species, breed, age, date of birth, sex, etc.

CBC (Complete blood count): a test to check for the number of red blood cell and white blood cell and other important blood values

CREA (Creatinine): A test that measures the levels of creatinine in the blood, which is a waste product when muscles breakdown. The test determines if the kidneys are functional and has the capacity to excrete the creatinine.

BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen): a test that measures the amount of nitrogen in the blood, which is another waste product. The test also determines if the kidney is functional enough to excrete the nitrogen.

TP (Total Protein): a test that measure the total amount of albumin and globulin (both are 2 types of proteins) present in blood. It is checked when a patient has unexpected weight loss.

ALT (Alanine aminotransferase): a test that checks for liver damage.

Cranial Right Quadrant: The upper right side of the abdomen.

Jaundice: a medical condition that causes yellowing of the skin, whites of the eyes, gums and tongue, due to excess of a pigment released by a diseased liver.

Hepatomegaly: a medical condition of having an enlarged liver, which often presents as an abdominal mass.

A/N: This was the result of a request by @mare-dogs. And since I am an actual veterinarian, it was something I couldn’t refuse to do. So, I incorporated my professional knowledge and experience into this Rivetra two-shot. I’m also a big fan of House, M.D., so If you’re a fan as well, then maybe the flow of the story might seem familiar to you.

But damn, a medical themed story is really hard to write! Took me a while plotting how this would go, and I had to draw out old files of interesting cases I actually handled to make this feel more realistic. I also needed to review my books to maintain accuracy, especially with medical facts. I might make a few slip-ups here and there, but I’ll try to make it work.

There is no definitive schedule when the next part of the story will be published, but I’m already on it. So let’s hope I managed to get this done soon. So stay tuned. Until then, spay and neuter your pets!

[sorrowmarked-a]

send me five times kissed for a drabble about five times our muses kissed || not accepting -- @swimmingbxrd

1.  When she was eight her mother had bought her a practice suture kit. She’d had to practice at it, and practice at it. Proof that one day she’d be the doctor her mother always wanted. When she was twelve, she’d performed her first sutures herself. A terrible cut on a man’s leg. The blood, and the screaming hadn’t frightened her. By this point she was used to it. When she was fourteen, she was good enough at stitches to perform them without her mother. She may not be the doctor her parents had hoped for, but she made a fine medic in a pinch. When Spike had collapsed outside her door it was the first time she was grateful to be so well trained in medicine.

Sing for me. 

He’d almost died, out there on her sidewalk. She had almost lost him, and it was when she had realized she couldn’t loose him. Live without him. She had grown so attached to his easy lopsided grins, his warm eyes, to lending him Whitman, and Hemingway, and Plath.

Just like that. Sing for me. 

Everything was changing between them. Had changed.

She took his sutures out, his injuries were healing, open flesh turning to shiny pink scars.

“Looks like you survived this one, lucky I was home,” she said, her fingers brushing over one of the scars, tracing the raised edges, leaning over she brushed her lips against the fresh scar. “I’m glad I was.”

2. It was pouring outside, her hair was wet, the golden waves wild as the humidity caused her hair to curl tighter. This time she had sought him out. Coming across the city to his apartment, she felt like it must be safer here, he would be less like to find them here. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her body close to his as her heart thundered in her chest. She felt warm, as her lips were on his, hungry, ready to consume. She felt like some burning thing. 

Had she ever known passion like this? Hunger like this? Every night with Spike it felt as if she might die from the want of him. So she sought him out. Came to him. As soon as the door closed behind them she stepped into his arms. Into the fire. Her lips are on his, and all she wants to do is burn. 

3. No one could desire that which they already had. For as long as she could remember she wanted freedom. Because she never had it. Her prison was too comfortable, too gilded for her to complain about it, but she couldn’t ever help feeling like she had been born into a trap. Into a cage. She wanted to be free. She felt free with him. 

The first choice she had ever made for herself, and herself alone. No other reason than she wanted him. Wanted to be with him. Julia watched him for a moment, the light of the room low. The two moons, and the city lights filtered in from outside. Leaning in she pressed her lips to his shoulder, a grin pulling at her lips. “You know, I think you might be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” she said, her smile soft. “You even look good with the neon lights pouring in from outside, it’s really impressive,” she murmured, before she leaned in, and brushed her lips against his. The same spot Phobos (or was it Deimos shining in her bedroom window?) had been kissing before. She plucked the light of the moons of mars right from his lips and swallowed it whole. 

4. It was too sudden. It was all rushing by her so fast she couldn’t keep track of it. Couldn’t see it. It was the wind in her face, in her eyes, she couldn’t catch her breath. They were going to leave. Going to make a run for it. He was all easy smiles, and deep promises, and she was ... scared. Scared of what could happen to him. Scared of the syndicate finding out. But fear didn’t make her choices for her. They’d leave, and then ... and then they’d be together, and they’d live. She had to believe that. Had to believe him. 

Reaching forward she caught his hand, lifting the back of it to her lips, as she pressed a kiss there, before she leaned in and kissed him. Kissed him before he could walk out of the apartment. A kiss at the threshold. A kiss for luck. A kiss goodbye she didn’t know which. 

She wouldn’t find out until later which it had been. 

5. Ceramic scrapped against the little table in what accounted for the ship’s living room. A casserole made of eggplant, and tomatoes and zucchini occupied half the plate. A seared chicken breast sat next to it. Savory and sweet, the smells of roasting vegetables and frying oil still hung in the air. Warm in ways that the smell of cooking could only be. 

Leaning over she pressed her lips against his cheek, a soft, brief kiss before she sat down next to him to have her own dinner. How easy it could be to take this moment for granted. It wasn’t a kiss unlike the one she had given him that morning as she passed off a cup of coffee so black it looked like color could get lost in it. Or the other day when he’d gone off to look for information on a bounty. Or last week before she had gone to take a bath. 

Each of those small moments, the brief tender affection that accompanied them had been hard fought for. They had both come a breath away from dying, all for the ability to press a kiss against the other’s cheek. It could be easy to take it for granted, this kiss, the ones before it, the ones after -- if only those kisses weren’t their prize. Their victory, over Vicious, over death. No, she didn’t think she’d ever take a single kiss for granted. 

[interrogatormentors]

Event Eleven: Natural

They dissected Ualona in their anatomy class the following day. Sollux knew he should’ve been ready. All of the other subjects in the dissection videos to learn about the inner workings of the body, were young and fit, and more than a few showed signs of distress and torture when they were working on the cadavers. Sollux knew they were working on other trainees, but still they all stopped and stared at the body on the table waiting for them with the exception of Rosmer and Zesaim. Those two remained as placid as ever as of late, eerily so as they took their seats.

A new instructor waited for them, a goldblood with a horrific burn across one side of her face and a bright red eye. “Welcome, recruits,” she said, stretching on some gloves as she spoke, “to the next stage of your anatomy schoolfeeding. As you are well aware, this specimen hasn’t been dead long and I wish to make efficient use of it while it is here. Please take up your tablets-- You will be answering questions as I perform this dissection, so no need for gloves just yet. Once I have been satisfied with your performance, you will be tasked with practicing cuts and sutures on the specimen, as in the field you may have to patch up both yourself and your interrogation subject at any time. Do keep in mind that dead flesh is very different from the living, and respond accordingly. Be very grateful one of your own perished at such a convenient time, as knowing the subject in this unit is optimal. We would hate to have to give you a frozen subject.”

Sollux sat down in his usual seat, and despite his best attempts to remain impartial to avoid punishment he couldn’t help speaking up. His tablet zapped him as he did so, but he continued on without so much as flinching. “I’m not saying I won’t do this, because I know that isn’t an option,” he said. He kept his expression passive, and managed to avoid any further electrocution. “But I’d just like to know what’s accomplished by knowing.. The specimen.” He narrowly avoided grimacing then. He hated speaking as though Ualona was just a piece of meat, but that too had to be buried. Emotions were weakness.

Rosmer scoffed beside him, but the instructor lifted a hand. “Calm yourself, Leywet. Captor here has asked an excellent question.” She began to pace, arms folded behind her back. “Why indeed? The answer is simple-- there is no greater weakness than close relationships. Alliances are useful to use and exploit, but sentimental clinging will always serve as a detriment. If your closest friend is a traitor to the empire, you must be able to detach yourself and do what is done.” Sollux stiffened by a millimeter, and immediately the instructor’s good eye fixed upon him as she continued speaking. “We are the sharpest knives of the empire, recruits. Do not forget that.”

Trisia averted her eyes as the instructor went back to the table and picked up a scalpel, but Sollux forced himself to watch. He could feel something in him slipping away, giving up as the instructor put the knife to Ualona’s chest. “You are all familiar with the first cut to start with, yes? Do tell me my predecessor did not fail you in that regard.”

Sollux glanced over at Mercuo, who shrugged a shoulder, but they all answered correctly: a Y-cut, to access the chest and organs within for an autopsy-style investigation. Ophlia refused to answer, hands flat on her desk in front of her, and didn’t move as her tablet zapped out at her.

“Please be mature about this, Miss Davrot,” the instructor said. She made the initial cut, exposing the abdominal and thoracic cavities with a clean Y-cut. “When performing your own dissections, remember to start at the corner of the pectorals and go diagonally until they meet at the midline. Do not make the mistake of starting with the vertical cut down the middle. Cherry picking will get you nowhere. Trolls will, on occasion, hide valuable information in any and all bodily cavities and if they are former helmsmen such as Captor, their brain will have been modified with a partially electronic sector. Never forget to check that area when working with a lowblood. If you have enough adrenaline to mitigate shock, you can even do as much while the subject is awake. That way, you immediately know when you have made a mistake in their pan rather than being surprised by their later incoherence when they come to consciousness.”

The instructor peeled the skin and muscle back, revealing Ualona’s internal cavity. Considering how long he had been dead he did not bleed, but Sollux swallowed back a retch at the foul smell. “Next question, what tool is used to open the ribcage?” Mercuo wobbled in his seat, looking queasy, but answered with the rest.

Sollux got the answer wrong, as did Ophlia by virtue of once again refusing not to answer. Sollux readjusted his grip on his tablet, and took the incorrect answer in stride. He filed the answer away in his notes, color-coded and neat. The sane part of him asked why, why bother considering how he still yearned to escape, but the other half of him reminded him of the futility of the attempt. He had already experienced the helm. Wouldn’t it be better to have a semblance of agency, to walk and eat and sleep like a normal troll? Better trolls had sacrificed more for such a life.

The instructor sliced open the digestive sac then, interrupting Sollux’s thoughts. Mercuo actually threw up then, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as he lifted his head. Rosmer’s eyebrows twitched, but he leaned in all the same as the instructor started going on about how fast to move to recover objects before stomach acid could damage them if the troll hadn’t taken precautionary measures against it.

The rest of the lesson passed just as unpleasantly as the beginning, and the whirring of the bonesaw at Ualona’s skull continued to echo through Sollux’s pan as they filed from the block. Another new instructor awaited them at physical endurance training, a teal with blind eyes, sickly black cracks shattering his skin, and a shadow that seemed too long and too solid as he paced the room.

Sollux went about coding a new, private chatroom for them all, barring Rosmer and Zesaim seeing as the two both seemed compromised now. He pinged the others, one by one over the next hour so as to not arouse suspicion.

[twinArmaggedons [TA] has opened up the memo porndonotopen]

glorifiedCorpsification [GC] has entered the chat!

cavortingGratuity [CG] has entered the chat!

accentuatedAntimony [AA] has entered the chat!

AA: 7his isnt porn is i7

TA: not iin the mood funniily enough TA: anyone know what wa2 up wiith the two new iin2tructor2?

GC: *No.* GC: *Don’t care.*

CG: i actually Heard oTHers Talking CG: pozoia and juyere were parTners and THeir sHip was aTTacked.

TA: let me check the helmiing channel2.

Sollux opened up the helming channels, plugging in his well-worn code string to bypass the firewalls. A quick scan had his pusher skipping a few beats, and he rolled over on his reclining platform onto his stomach as he scrolled through the data.

TA: the rebelliion got them. TA: they managed two get iin the 2hiip, extract the iinterrogatormentor2, and get out. AA: 7ha7 sounds bull to me. AA: 7hey never would ge7 7aken alive.

TA: word iin the helm ii2 that poiizoiia’2 old mate2priit wa2 iinvolved.

AA: wai7 AA: so i7 wasn7 an a77ack?

AA: i7 was a rescue?

GC: *So our quads weren’t culled.* GC: *Someone misses us.*

AA: oh god did you have a quad.

GC: *Pale*

GC: *My diamond, lime bright and secret.*

GC: *My soul traded for hers. They stated her death was a quick one. Do not know what to believe now.*

TA: okay. TA: okay you know what you diidn’t make a trade.

TA: we’re gettiing out of here.

TA: ii 2ay we try and move wiithiin the periigee before anythiing wor2e happen2 two one of u2. 

Sollux turned off his tablet then, putting it under his pillow and flipping back onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He dared to imagine his friends’ faces then, the friends he’d tried to force himself to forget in an attempt to minimize what the interrogatormentors could use against him. Was Karkat actually looking for him? Was he somewhere out in the stars with the others, tearing ships apart and searching them for a helmsman or a mangled corpse within?

The weeks passed. The escape plan took shape, pupating into something actionable as each day passed. Mercuo had the advantage of his blood, and along with Ophlia’s intimidating bulk he managed to procure escape pod codes from the docking bay. Trisia, already a favorite amongst the guard, managed to get a shift shadowing another while Sollux worked on adjusting the cameras just enough to create blind spots in their vision without arousing suspicion. Another night, another millimeter, until there was a foot of space the cameras couldn’t see leading down the corridor to freedom.

Despite his efforts Sollux found his motivation draining from him with each passing night. He voiced none of his doubts in the chat, but what was even the point of escaping? Interrogatormentor training haunted his every moment, but at least it was better than running from the Empire. Just like rebels, they would be hunted down and given no quarter for abandoning their posts. They’d signed away their lives. Ophlia seemed more outwardly hesitant than he was, but he wasn’t sure how much of that was just her brusque manner of speaking and general stoic demeanor.

After dinner one night, Sollux decided to turn in early. He felt off, a headache building up behind his eyes, and Trisia just about booted him down the hall to sleep. The training that night with Rapard had worn him down to the bone, and he fell asleep the moment his head hit the reclining platform. Only much later would he make the connection between the taste of the food that morning and Rosmer’s bright, eager eyes watching him across the table to how deeply he slept.

When Sollux awoke the next night, Trisia and Mercuo had gone. Sollux met Ophlia’s eyes across the room, and while she betrayed nothing he could tell she was thinking the same as him. They abandoned us. Sollux got dressed in silence with the three others, and out of the corner of his eye saw Ophlia pick up her tub of face paint to apply it for the night, before putting it down again without a word. She walked out of the room, blank faced as the rest of them to meet their usual instructors for training

One by one as they walked, an instructor pulled them away. Sollux followed Rapard in silence, and came to a stop with him outside an unfamiliar block. “Your final exam, recruit,” Rapard said. “Congratulations on making it to the live interrogation. You will be tested on your ability to extract information from the subject and to resist emotional attachments.” Rapard opened the door, revealing Mercuo stripped down to his shorts and strapped to a chair with his head slumped forward to his chest. “You are tasked with interrogating Mercuo Trevan for his attachments to the rebellion, and discovering the location of Trisia Avarae. Culling the subject before you are given the clear will result in immediate failure and your termination. Is this clear, recruit?”

Sollux nodded, a faint pang in his gut as he entered the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and Mercuo’s closed eyes screwed themselves shut a little tighter. Sollux took stock of the situation, seeing a rolling table to the side of the room, equipped with various tools that he’d become well acquainted with in the gruelling time that they’d been in training. Scalpels, knives, scissors. Bundles of wire. Bottles of different types of fluid, one of which was labeled as liquid nitrogen. A styrofoam container that no doubt contained dry ice. Then there was a kettle, a hairdryer, pliers. Each item, regardless of how innocuous they seemed, all had a grim purpose in this room.

Sollux closed his eyes and inhaled, gathering himself. While Rapard had forbidden immediately culling Mercuo, Sollux doubted that Mercuo would walk out of this one alive. Maybe he could try to give Mercuo a quick death anyway. He’d prefer Mercuo lived, because a distant part of him longed for all of this to end and for everything to be okay again. He missed Ualona. He missed Mercuo swearing at him and Zesaim and Rosmer being normal. He missed Trisia managing to make Ophlia laugh. He missed Karkat, accessible now only to Sollux on the culling block should they meet again.

Sollux opened his eyes, rolling his shoulders before raising his hand to the thermostat on the wall. He cranked the temperature up, and braced as a wave of hot air blasted through the vents. Mercuo stirred then, lifting his head and jerking at his bonds.

“Captor? What… What’s going on?”

Sollux almost gritted his teeth, but the ghostly chill of his memories in the freezer helped tame him back. “I think you know what’s going on. You failed. I’m going to pass.”

Mercuo swallowed hard, running his tongue over his lips as the heat in the room rose. “...Sparks. Fuck, what-- I talked to you yesterday.” His eyes fell on something behind Sollux, and Sollux glanced back to spot a blinking red light in the corner. They were being watched. Sollux wondered how soon they would edit down the footage, how long until they released this as just another schoolfeeding supplemental. 

Mercuo recovered first, fins flaring out in a clear signal of aggression as Sollux approached him. Other than that, his face fell into a familiar blank mask of indifference all interrogatormentors wore. “I don’t know what exactly you want, dude, but you’ll have to try harder.” He laughed, thin and mirthless while not a single muscle in his face twitched. “The temperature trials don’t work so much on me anymore. We both went through them.”

Sollux smacked Mercuo in the face, watching a drop of sweat fly off the seadweller’s nose and across the room. “Then you know how this works. I’m asking the questions.” With the addition of the camera in the room Sollux worked harder to maintain a cold mask of control, killing any last remnant of resistance to his training. He had to pass. He had to live. Mercuo had proven his weakness. “I know you went through the training, I’m not a wiggler.” He picked up the bundle of wires from the table, pushing the operculum back and hooking the metal ends to the seadweller’s delicate torso gills with little clamps. “I don’t care if your pan isn’t scrambled, it’s your body I need weak.”

Sollux clutched the wires then, using them as a conduit to direct psionics through all of Mercuo’s gills at once. Mercuo held himself together for a whole thirty seconds before he lost his nerve and screeched, little trickles of blood bursting from the gills’ fillaments from the shock. He bent as much as he could in his restraints, rasping with his eyes wide as Sollux watched him. “Why did Trisia leave you behind? I thought she cared about you.”

“They shot my ankle out,” Mercuo said, wheezing and wincing. A quick glance down confirmed this-- the seadweller’s whole foot and ankle up to the shin were swathed in bandages. The wound still looked fresh. “I threw her into a pod and made her go.” He lifted his head, baring a shark-toothed grin even as his breathing hitched from the pain. “Anything else, Sparks?”

Sollux clenched his fist around the wires, and he caught the tiniest flick of Mercuo’s fin at the motion. Good, he’d managed to already get a panic response. Still he had to remind himself to keep going, to get the answers. He had to cover the bases. He already knew Mercuo’s name. That was always the first step. He had to make sure the subject was uncomfortable, and the blazing hot room accomplished that.

He cocked back his free hand, punching Mercuo right in the face. Mercuo gagged around blood as the punch to the face caused him to cut his inner cheek on his teeth, and Sollux turned as he recovered to turn the heat up even more with his psionics. “I’m asking the questions. You’re just making this difficult, you know it. This could be over now. Where were you planning to go? You never told the rest of us.” He sent out another wave of psionics at Mercuo’s gills, eyes narrowed. “She had to go somewhere. Where is she?”

Mercuo bit his lip hard enough to bleed even more with the second surge of psionics, eyes watering as his gills started to tear under the psionic pressure. Sweat dripped down his face. “No. Try something else. Fffffuck you, Captor. C’mon. This cheesy villain shtick doesn’t fit you. Like I knew you were compromised, man, but you can still bounce back.”

Sollux wrenched Mercuo’s head back, forcing him to stare up at the bright bulb above them. “You know where she went. But take your time. I’m here all night.” He dropped Mercuo’s head, removing the wires and starting to tape them shut instead with some medical tape provided to him. His fingers slipped a little in the violet blood, but he pressed on and moved up to Mercuo’s neck gills until the seadweller was, for the first time in his life, watertight. He covered Mercuo’s face with a cloth, grabbing a pitcher from the table and pouring it onto Mercuo’s face to simulate drowning for a troll that never should have the context for such a situation. Mercuo yelled and trilled under the cloth, his legs jerking in their bonds as Sollux waterboarded him. He repeated his question, firm and unflinching as the seadweller gurgled.

It took an hour for Mercuo to stop choking and to begin crying instead, and Sollux pulled back when the desperation reached its peak. Mercuo coughed, head lolling back before he caught himself. “No. Fuck you. I’m not budging. Ask something else.”

Sollux grabbed Mercuo’s face, forcing eye contact. “I think you know I won’t budge either. I don’t care if you give me an answer now or after hours of me tearing your guts out through your nostrils.”

He raised the temperature again, and grabbed himself a sip of water after doing so. Mercuo watched him with hungry eyes, actively panting now. Sollux grabbed another towel, a dry one this time, scrubbing away the sweat and water on Mercuo’s face to rob him of the chance to cool himself down. He put the towel down, placing the heel of his hand over one of Mercuo’s eyes. “But if you’re still going to be stubborn, eyes are a pretty quick route to the pan.” Mercuo writhed. “No, Captor, wait-- I’m sorry, we’re sorry! We tried to wake you up, you weren’t moving, it was just like Ualona-- oh god, no no no no oh god Sollux please--”

The seadweller screamed as Sollux turned his psionics on him, burning his eye beyond repair. Blood and fluid bubbled up around Sollux’s hand and Mercuo’s screeching rose in pitch, body jerking as he tried to back away. He screamed himself hoarse for what seemed like hours as Sollux held him there with a single hand, the blood pooling down his face while his other eye glazed over from the pain.

Sollux pulled his hand away, wiping his hand clean on Mercuo’s face. Part of him ached as he saw Mercuo sobbing before him, hated himself and the situation he’d been forced into. That part of him grew quieter as he swiped a smear of violet blood from his cheek and flicked it onto the floor. “You have no right to call me by name.” He placed his hand on Mercuo’s other eye, ignoring the wail that resulted. “You were dead to me the moment you tried to escape.”

“You came up with the idea!”

Sollux glanced back at the camera at the other side of the room. “It never would’ve worked. When you two left without us I realized something.” He leaned in, his face an inch from Mercuo’s. He could smell the sweat and the panicked pheromones whirling around his head. “I’m better off here. They take trolls that are weak and turn them into something stronger. I don’t need to run for the rest of my life.”

“They broke you, Captor, and that’s the point.” Mercuo wheezed, flinching as Sollux pressed down on his eye. “They’ll break you so you can’t feel anything and what’s the point in calling yourself a troll anymore?”

Sollux snorted, and silently berated himself for betraying that emotional response. “They broke me down and built me up again and turned me into a weapon. I’m the one walking out of here alive today. If you give Trisia up, maybe she won’t suffer the same fate as you. I’ll give you one more chance before I take your other eye.”

Mercuo sniffled, starting to hiccup in terror. “Please, Sollux. Please.”

“You have two seconds.”

“I can’t I can’t, I’m so fucking pale for her, I can’t.” He spat then, purposeful and directly onto Sollux’s free hand.

That spelled the beginning of the end for Mercuo. Sollux blinded his other eye then, and after that Sollux tortured the seadweller for hours. They instructors had provided adrenaline, and Sollux forced Mercuo back from the brink more than a few times. He didn’t take a break, not even to grab a bite of the food that a wordless instructor brought in for him.

The process took a total of six hours. Six hours of hell, pushing this person-- who in another life, Sollux could have considered being actual friends with --to just shy of death. Every tool on that table ended up in use. Gills were dried with the blistering heat of the hair dryer. Mercuo’s wounded leg, torn free of its bandages, dunked into the vat of liquid nitrogen and then shattered off like glass. His fins, cut off and then cauterized with the blistering heat of Sollux’s psionics. The delicate filaments of his gills cut by a scalpel with precision, where the nerve bundles were greatest. Dry ice forced down his throat with no reprieve or water in sight. Every little bit of interrogation tricks he’d learned through the course shone through, applied meticulously to ensure that not only would Mercuo still be alive, but he would sorely regret that fact.

Clearly, it was all too much to bear. Mercuo sagged back against his chair, ruined eyes dripping blood onto the floor as his head lolled to the side, making him seem more of a corpse or a daywalker at best. “Kill me, please.” He took in a deep breath, coughing. “She entered in Alternian coords. Shhhekfk- gkgg- Found forums… They have a base down there. New heiress… she’s.. She’s coming. Feferi Peixes.”

Sollux’s ears flicked as he heard a soft beep, and looking to the camera he saw the light had gone green. Any residual guilt had leaked out of him at this point, and he felt nothing upon being given the implicit order to kill one of his dear friends.

No. Allowed. He was allowed the privilege of culling a traitor. 

Sollux put a hand to Mercuo’s chest, powering his psionics up to deadly levels and letting out a shock directly to the seadweller’s bloodpusher. Mercuo smiled right before he did so, croaking a ragged thanks before jerking once. Then he died, breath rattling and rasping to a stop.

Sollux felt nothing at all.

Sollux stepped out of the interrogation room, covered in violet blood and with his back straight. Rapard awaited him, arms folded behind him. He stopped Sollux dead in his tracks by smiling, honestly smiling, reaching out to grab Sollux by the shoulders.

“Nice work, recruit. You’re a natural.”

[marcosbtvc462]

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[phalloplastytime]

Phalloplasty Consultation with Dr. Chen & Dr. Watt

Here is what I remember from my experience going through my consultation with Dr. Chen from GU Recon (his private practice) and Dr. Watt from the Buncke clinic in San Francisco, CA, USA. My apologies for the length, I wanted this to feel kind of immersive for those of us still in the waiting process because stuff like this helped me. Also - small content warning I do use a couple anatomical terms.

For those of you unfamiliar, Dr. Chen is a urologist and Dr. Watt is a microsurgeon.

My partner and I traveled down to San Francisco to stay for two nights. We flew in on Thursday evening and flew out on Saturday evening, not wanting to be gone for too long and rack up even more expense on the hotel bill. If I had planned ahead several months ago, I would have tried to stay at the Quest House during this time but I didn’t realize a short stay was potentially possible. 

We are fortunate to be able to use the public transit system offered in SF, which is pretty good in my opinion. They have buses, trolleys (cable cars?), and an underground/train system. We utilized this to make our way over to Castro street, where the medical office building and also the hospital are located. 

Without any plans for the day we went ahead and headed over about 3 hours early because I had seen that there was a dog park right nearby. We sat and watched local dogs come and play and have a break in the middle of the day and we ended up meeting an older gentleman whose dog wouldn’t leave us alone asking for pets. It was pretty great, and nicely calming as I was pretty nervous before the consultation. We then got some food at the local cafe on the corner. It was actually pretty good. 

We realized we still had time to kill so we decided to hike up the hill to the Buena Vista park where we looked out over the city and rested for a bit. There’s a path that has some disturbingly friendly squirrels on it.

About 30 minutes before my appointment headed over. Inside the medical office building, Dr. Chen’s suite is right across the hall from the Buncke clinic. I wasn’t sure where to go to check in, so we walked all the way down to the entrance of GU Recon and saw the door was open. Inside the waiting room was fairly spacious with comfy seating and plenty of random coffee table books to peruse. There was nobody else there at the time. At the receptionist window was a sign indicating to check in over at the Buncke clinic, so we quickly hopped across the hall. 

The Buncke clinic waiting room was much smaller and was actually quite crowded for a Friday afternoon. I checked in and they asked for my ID and insurance card (even though I had sent in pictures), and they didn’t ask for any kind of copay or payment. I suspect I will receive a bill at some point for the specialist copay from my insurance which is $30. Hopefully.

They instructed us to head back over to Dr. Chen’s office to wait, so we went back over and started looking through a photography book. At this point I was still about 25 minutes early to the appointment so I was ready to wait however long it would take. 

About 5 minutes later, Dr. Chen himself appeared behind the reception area with pizza and Starbucks in hand, apparently not expecting anyone to be in the waiting room. He noticed us right away and began apologizing for the wait. He explained the schedule didn’t indicate whether or not we were having a phone consultation, so he just assumed it was going to be over the phone based on my address. 

This whole interaction solidified every good thing I had heard about Dr. Chen, and I immediately felt so… normal. That’s the best way I can describe what I felt. I felt like I had known Dr. Chen for years and that he was.. reachable. Human. 

He told us it would be a few minutes, and sure enough a few minutes later Dr. Chen and Dr. Watt appeared at the door and we made introductions. My partner came with me because I wanted her to hear what the doctors had to say and I wanted another pair of ears listening, and also because I wanted the doctors to see that I had support. 

We went down a narrow hallway and went into Dr. Chen’s office, which hosted another comfy couch which he had us sit on while he and Dr. Watt sat across on office chairs. They each had some papers (my medical information). The room was somewhat dimly lit, but calming and comfortable. 

The consult started with Dr. Chen confirming my reason for the visit (seeking phalloplasty), and he asked me how important it was to me to stand to pee. I explained that my personal goals were 1 - Sensation, 2 - Stand to pee, 3 - Aesthetics, and 4 - Sexual function. Which, again, are personal goals and it is completely valid to have other priorities with lower surgery. This is my own journey. 

We then went over my medical history, which is fairly short, but Dr. Chen was thorough and asked me about my minor eczema, asthma, and migraines. Dr. Watt was quietly taking notes and listening during this time. Next, they asked about any trauma to either arm and I basically explained how my right arm is essentially immediately disqualified from being a donor arm. In my specific case, I broke my right arm when I was 18 months old and had to have a surgical repair. This repair didn’t heal correctly and now my arm when extended is quite crooked. 

This has put some strain on my ulnar nerve and gives me hypersensitivity in my palm.  Further, I had a different surgery on my forearm which involved an incision and left me with a scar right in the middle of the graft area. This could compromise the blood supply, so we pretty much immediately dismissed my right arm as an option. To top it off, it is my dominant arm for most activities. I kind of would have preferred to keep my left arm nice and clear of any scars, but I think having 1.75 properly functioning arms is preferable to only 1 functioning arm in case my right side nerves ever gave out. 

Next, Dr. Chen went on to explain his portion of the surgery - he starts with the vaginectomy and then relocates the end of the urethra to the natal phallus using labia minora tissue. He then mobilizes this and relocates it to the other side of the pubic bone to come out to the site of where the neophallus will be placed. At some point during this discussion, Dr. Chen explained the complication rate and he was both realistic and optimistic about it. He said the vast majority of complications that happen are fixable. Further, the most common complications often heal on their own. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but he said of the patients that do have fistulas, only around 20% of them end up needing a surgical fix. Strictures don’t show up right away, and usually occur within the first year. 

While Dr. Chen does the work down below, Dr. Watt explained his team mobilizes the RFF and prepares it for the new location, using the tube-in-tube method to create the urethra and phallus. Dr. Chen places a foley catheter through the neophallus and into the relocated urethra to line everything up, and he sutures everything together once the microsurgeons connect the blood supply and nerves. Dr. Chen then places the suprapubic catheter and the RFF site is covered with the split-thickness graft from the leg.  If requested, Dr. Watt would place integra on the RFF donor site before the split thickness graft (not staged like other teams).

They then explained what recovery typically looks like - 5 nights in the hospital, including 4 days of strict bed rest and then up and walking on day 5.  If you’re able to walk well enough, you get to leave to recover elsewhere. They then check up every week for four weeks before sending you home. During your 1 week post-op visit, Dr. Chen removes the foley catheter from the neourethra complex. You start your peeing trials just before the 3 week checkup, and if you’re able to empty enough of your bladder the SP catheter can be removed. If you have significant fistula(s), an additional week for healing may be allotted and the SP catheter retained for that time. 

Dr. Watt then did an exam of my arm, performing the Allen’s test to see if my hand receives enough blood if the artery they harvest for the RFF is removed. The test seemed really quick, but I guess with how fast my hand refilled with blood he was very confident I was a candidate for RFF. He indicated that no further testing of my forearm blood supply was needed. 

He examined the hair on my forearm, which turned out to be really funny because while he was looking at it he guessed that I had undergone electrolysis up to about 6 inches down my forearm. I laughed a little and explained nope, I just haven’t grown hair there in my ~5 years on testosterone. He gently pinched/grabbed the skin to see the thickness and said they’ll likely delay my glansplasty, and when he looked at the underside of my arm where the urethra graft would be taken he said I was basically hairless there and that any electrolysis at this point would just to be to remove hair from what will be the outside of my phallus, which is optional and he said I can always shave or use something like Nair. 

I then had a chance to quickly look over my questions to try to find any that hadn’t been answered. They were pretty thorough so the most I asked about was about Integra because I was most curious about it. Dr. Chen then explained that he needed to do a quick visual exam of the genital/mons region and we walked across the hall to an exam room.

He apologized for the discomfort and had me just quickly drop my shorts while standing. All in all I think it took about 5 seconds of exposure. When we got back into the other room he reported to Dr. Watt something along the lines of “minor prominence” of the mons. I checked my questions one more time and asked if they had any testicular implants that I could feel, but Dr. Chen explained that he had a patient waiting that was somewhat urgent and he promised that he would show me next time. He was very polite about it and I understood, and all in all I think the consultation took about 30 minutes. 

We said our nice to meet yous and goodbyes and Dr. Chen showed us out the shortcut out of the clinic and boom it was over. Despite the quick ending, I still didn’t feel rushed out of there and felt like they really took the time to make sure I understood the surgery and that my possible concerns were heard. 

All in all I left feeling really good, which for me was everything. I was actually excited about the future. Also, they said they would be forwarding my information to the phalloplasty team about our consultation, and that they should be reaching out to schedule with me. What ended up happening was I emailed Logan with a follow-up question and after we emailed back a forth a couple times, Logan asked me if I wanted to set my date. So now I am officially on the books for Left RFF Phalloplasty and words cannot describe how much joy/relief/excitement I feel about it. 

Like, I still can’t believe I get to do this and I don’t know when reality will set in. But for the first time in months, I am hopeful and optimistic about the future. 

Edit: I forgot to mention that Dr. Chen also will perform a scrotoplasty during his part of the procedure.

[banshee1013]

How To Train Your Hunter(s)

Well, here it is, finally - the continuation to the Looking Glass series, in which I and my friends formulate a plan to convince the Winchesters to allow us to help them defeat God and save their world.

This one ended up being a BEAST, so I’ve split it into three parts. This is Part The First.

Enjoy!

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

"OK, ladies… this is it. Are you ready?" 

Speaking directly into my computer's microphone, to the Discord voice channel set up for this purpose.

Things this complex require voice communication, and being scattered over the country (and South Africa for Mags), long-distance charges would have been a nightmare. 

Thank the stars for Discord. 

A nervous titter from Cori over the channel.

"I think I'm ready… I'm so excited I can barely breathe!" 

Mags: "I was born ready…"

Ella: "As ready as I'm gonna be…" 

I felt a flutter of nerves in my gut, a moment of doubt. Not in my friends - I knew they were ready - but in me.

Could I keep them safe? 

And just how quickly - or worse, slowly - will Dean kill me for this? 

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

I hadn't told anyone else about the Looking Glass - not until I had, with Sam and Cas' help, performed many more experiments.

Bringing something other than myself through - weapons (my sword, a machete) and even one of my cats - CHECK. This was good news - it meant I could defend myself over there, and other living things could pass through as well. 

Bringing something from the "Mirror Universe" or MU as I jokingly referred to it (shoutout to my Star Trek nerd roots) - other weapons (returned before Dean noticed), a stray cat hanging around the Bunker (using gloves as to not shock the poor thing). CHECK (although I now have another feline mouth to feed…).

Jack will be pleased. This was Step One toward the Disneyland trip. 

I still zapped everyone I touched over there - well, by *everyone* I mean Sam, Dean, Jack, and Cas because I obviously hadn't interacted with anyone else - how do you explain to a stranger you're from another universe? But as suspected, the effect didn't happen at home. The Grace was dormant here. 

And then, like a dummy - I slipped. 

Mags was the one that caught it - an innocent comment between Dean and me regarding a pool game - how he cheated by distracting me (he may be like a brother to me, but still - DISTRACTING when he focuses his efforts on it). Thankfully pulling me into a DM rather than confronting me in public,  she pried at me. I tried to play it off as one of our usual GIF games, but she was having none of it. 

So I came clean. And of course, I then had to explain it - impossible over text alone. 

That's when I set up the Discord channel and turned on the voice feature. Once I explained the process, Mags was completely on-board with going over herself. 

"You know they need our help. They're fighting GOD, for Go… for shit's sake." 

"Mags, we have NO training. Have you *ever* used a machete?” 

"No, but I can learn," she asserted. "You learned how to fight with a sword, didn't you?" 

Well, she had me there. 

"OK. Let me do some… creative questioning of Sam. Come up with a training plan or whatever." 

"That sounds reasonable," she agreed, followed by a pregnant pause. "But we have to get Cori and Ella in on this action. Remember 'Dean's Angels'?" 

I groaned, eyes trailing skyward. "That was a joke!" 

"Was it though?" she countered, the mirth plain in her voice, before sobering. "C'mon. The more, the merrier, right? Besides, they would be so pissed if we went without them." 

She had a point. And training for two could easily be expanded into training for four. 

I invited Cori and Ella to the Discord channel and caught them up.

To no one's surprise, they were gung-ho on the idea. 

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

The following Saturday, I paid a visit to the Bunker and surreptitiously questioned Sam on the nature of decapitating vampires and other monsters.

He probably would have thought I was nuts if he hadn't been distracted by his research trying to find Donatello. 

Finding Donatello was important to me as well, so I limited the questioning to times when I could coerce Sam into taking a break, tempting him with sandwiches and smoothies. 

I sat at the kitchen table across from Sam during one of these breaks as he sampled the smoothie, sliding the plate with the sandwich across to him.

"So y'know, I was wondering - how much pressure would you say you have to exert to chop off a vamp's head?" 

Sam paused mid-slurp and gave me a puzzled look. "Uh, I dunno, really - I never stopped to think about it…" 

"Well, would you say it's more like - chopping through a cabbage, or chopping through a pumpkin?" 

Ever the intellectual, he seriously contemplated the question. "I would say at least a pumpkin, a big one." Picking up the sandwich, he took a bite and considered the question more while chewing. Swallowing, he added, "But really, probably more like a ham. A good, 15lb bone-in ham." 

"Did someone say 'ham'?" Dean inquired, on a break from the Star Wars marathon in the Dean Cave with Jack, popping into the kitchen to fetch another beer and a soda for Jack. 

The next day, I brought through a 15lb ham and cooked it up for dinner - one of two I had purchased.

Theirs was to distract them from yesterday's discussion - and because Dean looked so crestfallen when no ham was on offer. They had ham sandwiches, and ham and cheese omelets, and ham and potatoes au gratin for a good week after. 

The other, of course, was for me to chop with a machete.

After trying it and finding it suitably difficult, I recommended the idea to the others. 

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

We studied fight techniques.

I filmed my sword training classes for the "classical" techniques - entering the fight, counters to attacks, and grappling.

Cori found some excellent videos on actual machete fighting.

And we all studied every Monster of the Week episode of The Show, breaking down Sam, Dean, and Cas' knife-fighting skills and techniques. Ella became a master at the ‘Angel Blade Flip', using a Bowie knife borrowed from a friend. 

We all ended up eating a lot of ham, and when we got sick of it, the local shelters reaped the benefit.

We were always sure to carefully clean our blades before and after every training session, both for the protection of the blade and to keep the ham clean enough for eating, and would lay down fresh tarp to catch the falling pieces. 

If anyone at the shelters wondered about the nature of the donations - thick, somewhat uneven slices of bone-in ham - it was never voiced out loud.

Gift horses (pigs?), I suppose. 

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

We also studied basic first aid and field medicine. 

Mags worked at a hospital and became our go-to for all things medical. She was able to convince one of the ER docs and several of his patients to allow her to film suturing and wound treatment. "Research for a book" she claimed, promising credit and mentions in said book.

Yeah, she'll write that. Some day. 

The ham suffered more abuse as we gashed into them to practice sewing them back up with dental floss.

Unscented. I didn't want to find out if the mint stuff burned on contact. 

Cori gathered the necessary items and packaged small medical kits for us. 

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

"We're almost ready, ladies," I said to the others in the Discord voice channel.

We had been training for a couple of months, and sliced many hams.

We felt ready for the next step. 

"Just gotta find the right case for us." 

"So I assume Plan A was a bust, then?" Mags sighed.

"Yeah, well we kinda knew it would be, didn't we?" I said, resigned. 

'Plan A' was to film our training and present it to Sam and Dean as proof of our prowess and ability to protect ourselves, in order to gain their trust and allow us to accompany them on a hunt. 

I didn't tell the girls this - but I never had high confidence in Plan A. Sam could possibly be reasoned with, but Dean?

Not with that mile-wide protective streak of his. 

So I worked on 'Plan B' - finding a vamp nest for us to tackle on our own.

To do so, I would go through the Looking Glass to past hunt locations in the MU.

I figured a done deed would be far more convincing of our abilities than videos of murdered ham. 

For research, I once again turned to the 'tale of the tape' - The Show.

One of the "benefits" (for lack of a better word) of Chuck's little Greatest Hits Tour - reviewing the Show, and following the boy's hunts on Twitter, I had a decent idea of all their cases from the past and which of those past cases had been resurrected and already dealt with. With this knowledge, I believed I could find something suitable. 

I knew, however, that scouting locations was a not going to be an easy task. Remember that Grace? It was a beacon to Cas and Jack every time I set foot in the MU. 

So, I took Jack into my confidence. Sorta.

I didn't tell him the exact reason *why* I needed him to ignore my visits and keep Cas from noticing. I told him I was working on a surprise for Sam, Dean, and Cas, and asked for his help. 

It wasn't *really* a lie.

This would certainly be a surprise. 

For the first experiment, I picked a place well-documented on The Show but with no known monster visitations - Donna's cabin.

I researched the location, gathering information on temperature, sounds, and smells. Google Earth was my friend.

I paused the scene to study the cabin and surrounding area, memorizing visual cues. Studied the ground cover to determine what it would feel like as I stepped on it. 

I wasn't planning on being there long - just long enough to verify I was in the right place.

I figured I wouldn't be there long enough for Jack or Cas to detect my presence through the Grace, so I didn't tell him. 

I stood in front of the doorway of my spare bedroom and focused.

Closing my eyes, I envisioned every detail. Every sight, sound, feeling.

I stepped through the doorway - and my feet crunched on the leaves scattered on the ground outside what definitely appeared to be Donna's cabin. 

My time was limited so I confirmed the location in the quickest way possible - I searched for, and found, the garden gnome with the key hidden underneath, exactly as she had described in the episode. 

I couldn't stop the giddy feeling bubbling up in my chest. 

Step 1 of Plan B was a success. 

************************************ 

Over the next week, I watched every vampire episode, looking for one small enough for us to handle but big enough to be, well, impressive. Challenging.

I considered Alex's old nest - but there were only three of them. Mags could probably wipe out the nest all by herself.

I thought about Benny's old nest - but didn't want to run the risk of running into Benny. Chuck would be asshole enough to bring him back if just to torment Dean.

I went all the way back to the first season and found what could be the perfect case - Luther's nest, the first case the boys worked after the return of their father, John. The nest only consisted of about 10 vampires - just over two each. Doable. 

That is, if Chuck had returned them. I had to perform some reconnaissance to see. 

To do this, I needed to be there much longer than I was at Donna's cabin.

I was going to need Jack's help for this one.

I opened Twitter and a DM to Jack. 

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

@redbanshee: Hey Jack, are you there?

@IAmCalledJack: Hello! Were you at Donna's cabin last week? I thought I felt Castiel's Grace there but he was right here in the Bunker with me. 

Oh shit. I guess even the few minutes I was there was enough to trigger the alarm… 

@redbanshee: Uh, yeah… part of the surprise for Sam, Dean, and Cas - I needed something from her cabin.

@redbanshee: Did, uh, Cas notice?

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, but he figured he must be mistaken because it only appeared for a few minutes. 

Whew… dodged that bullet. I wouldn't get that lucky this time, though. 

@redbanshee: So, Jack, I need to go somewhere else today to get something else for their surprise - do you think you could distract Cas or something so he doesn't notice? I really don't want to spoil the surprise…

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, I am happy to help. I can actually block him from noticing you're here.

@redbanshee: Oh, that's very helpful! Thank you!

@redbanshee: I should be less than an hour, can you block him for that long?

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, I believe so.

@IAmCalledJack: Are you sure you'll be safe? You're not going anywhere dangerous, are you?

@redbanshee: No, of course not! Perfectly mundane. :)

@IAmCalledJack: OK :) But you'll pray to me if you get into trouble?

@redbanshee: Of course I will, sweetie. But I promise, I'll be just fine. 

I closed the DM and tried not to feel awful about it. 

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

I stepped through the doorway into a copse of trees overlooking the barn housing Luther's nest.

Or at least what I hoped was still - again - their nest.

It was late afternoon San Diego time, but just sliding into dusk in Colorado. Unlike what the myths would have you believe, vampires are capable of moving about in the day - it's just painful for them, so they don't unless they have to. I'll have a much better chance of seeing them after the sun goes down.

Taking out a pair of binoculars, I scanned the grounds. Nothing yet, so I waited. 

I didn't have to wait long. In the gathering gloom of dusk, the barn door opened and three figures emerged. A dim glow from inside the barn backlit several more inside, including a couple still asleep in hammocks. 

It was fairly obvious the nest had returned.

I felt the grin spreading across my face. We had our case.

But I had to be sure. 

I followed the three figures to a small bar about a mile down the road from the barn.

Followed them inside and picked a table in a dark corner to observe.

Watched as one, a female, singled out a loner sitting at the bar, sidled up to him to whisper in his ear.

Watched as he flushed, a tentative tongue flicking to lick lips gone suddenly dry.

Watched as the eyes glazed over, and followed her as she led him out the back door of the bar. 

I knew the hour I told Jack was almost up - I needed to get back in case he couldn’t block Cas for longer than that.

But I needed to *know* if these were really vampires. Could be just a commune, or a bunch of grifters.

I needed to make sure.

I waited a few minutes, took a deep breath, then followed them out the back door. 

And got there just in time to see the vamp drop the mark to the ground, drained. She turned toward me and hissed, blood dripping from ruby lips.

I froze, shocked and sickened.

Then jumped as a growling voice echoed from behind me. 

"Looking for something?" 

My breath stopped in my throat. I had no weapons.

I. HAD. NO. WEAPONS. 

I closed my eyes and forced down the panic. Turned to face the voice behind me.

"Uh, nope. Just came out for some air, y'know… I'll just be getting back inside, my friend is waiting for me… "

Steps echoing in the alley behind me as the female vampire approached, blocking that exit.

I sidestepped to move around him and dash for the back door of the bar, but he stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

He smiled a toothy grin.

A second set of very pointy teeth descended over the first. 

OK, then. No more proof necessary.

Now I just had to live long enough to bring the girls back and handle it. 

"Sorry, sis. Your friend is just gonna have to wait…" he smirked, reaching for me with lightning speed and grasping my arms just above the elbow.

On the bare skin just below the edge of my t-shirt sleeves. 

A blue-white flash of static discharge flared from the touch and sent the vampire sprawling.

I leaped over him and headed for the back door at a dead run.

Envisioning carpet under my feet, the hue of the overhead LED lights…

I plunged through the back doorway of the bar, and yelped as I stumbled and fell face-first… onto the carpet in my spare bedroom. 

I flipped and scrambled backward away from the doorway of the bedroom, waiting…

Wondering if something would follow me back through.

Scrambled until my back slammed against the wall, and I pulled my knees to my chest, breaths coming in wheezing gasps. 

The doorway remained empty.

I was safe. 

And I had found our case. 

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

"OK ladies, let's go over the plan one more time…" 

I could hear the groans from the others over the Discord voice channel.

I didn't care.

I would go over this plan again and again, if necessary - until *I* was sure we were prepared and it would go off without a hitch.

I would not… COULD NOT… put my friends in unnecessary jeopardy. 

Dean is gonna kill me for this, anyway… and I'm ok with that as long as everyone else gets home safely. 

"FINE," Cori grumbled. "We step through the mirror and meet outside the bar…" 

" I'll pass around the dead man's blood and bullets…" Mags added. 

Working in a hospital has other advantages besides providing our medical training.

Mags was able to sneak into the morgue and grab several syringes worth of dead man’s blood, enough for two each.

She also painted several clips of bullets with it.

Neither would kill the vamps but would sure as shit slow them down. 

"I've got the medical kits." Cori chimed in. 

"I have the burner phones." I confirmed.

I had picked these up during my previous visit since our phones won't have service in the MU. 

"And then weapons check…," Ella added eagerly. The metallic clink and soft chime of silver meeting silver rings over the channel. Playing with her silver daggers again. 

"But bring your machete," I cautioned. "Those are sweet daggers and you're amazing with them, but silver doesn't affect vamps." 

"Maybe not, but will sure slow them down!" Ella chuckled gleefully. 

I sighed. The girl was gonna be the death of me. 

"Oh, and you all have something to carry this stuff in?" I asked. 

This had been a source of discussion for many days. We needed something big enough to carry a twenty-inch machete, medical kit, and dead man's blood, but not big enough to attract attention from any civilians who happened to be in the bar. 

We may be going to a world full of monsters, but if years of The Show had taught us anything, it was that most people there were oblivious and perfectly content to stay that way. 

Eventually, we decided on backpacks to reinforce our cover as a group of hikers on a trek through the local woods. Ease of access was not a concern with our plan – we would simply arm up before storming the barn. And anyway, should the machetes be spotted or questioned - we needed them to hack through the underbrush. 

A chorus of "Yep's" or variants thereof answered my question. 

"So after that, we'll head into the bar," I continued. "It will be late afternoon, and with any luck, happy hour."

Because yes, this was a hunt.

But it was also a meet and greet.

And I didn't know about anyone else, but I knew I was gonna need a shot or two of whiskey to take the edge off. 

"We'll wait there until dusk, then head to the barn." 

"Uh… I have a question, Cee…" Cori spoke up hesitantly. 

"Of course! What's up?" 

"Why are we waiting until dusk?" she queried. "I mean, they usually sleep during the day, right? Wouldn't it be better to attack them then, when they're all asleep?" 

She'd just hit on the heart of the matter. 

"If this were a standard vamp hunt, then yes, you're absolutely correct." I took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

"But it's not. It's an audition." 

"Audition?" Ella queried, puzzled. 

"Yeah… for Dean." Mags huffed. "Plan A didn't convince him, so Plan B has to." 

"Yeah," I sighed. "So here's the play. We head to the barn at dusk and wait for the first hunting party to leave. We meet up with them before they get to wherever they're going, and put an end to them. That does three things - gives us a win, provides positive proof we know what we're doing, and cuts down on the number of vamps we'll all have to take care of later." 

"All?" Cori asked. "Sam and Dean will be there?" 

"Not when we start. We handle the first group on our own." I paused, the nerves starting to creep up.

This was the dicey part.

"Then I call them and… invite them to join." 

Silence on the line. I pushed on. 

"So, remember that Grace Cas gave me? It's like a beacon - he always knows when I'm over there because he can sense the piece of his Grace that isn't with him." 

"So how have you been able to get all this information you've given us - the pictures and descriptions so we can get there through the Looking Glass?" Cori questioned. 

I hesitated. I still harbored feelings of guilt over using Jack as an accomplice.

Dean is going to have my head for that as well.

But would my friends? 

"Jack helped me. He kept Cas from noticing I was here." 

"You used *Jack*?" Mags exclaimed.

"Oh boy…" Ella breathed.

"Dean is going to KILL YOU!" Cori blurted. 

I winced at the outburst, but I knew it was coming. Deservedly so.

But it was necessary. 

"I didn't have much of a choice," I argued. "We all agreed we needed to help them, right? This is the only way we're going to convince them that we *can*." 

I paused. Silence. 

I continued. "Anyway, before we head over, I'm gonna text Jack and let him know I'm heading over. He'll block Cas until I give the signal. Then he'll grab Sam, Dean, and Cas, and teleport them to our location. Once they're there, they'll see we've successfully killed vamps by ourselves. Part 1 successful. Then we'll all go to the barn and wipe out the nest. Part 2 successful, positive impression made." 

"What's the signal?" Cori inquired. 

"Well, here's the tricky part," I sighed. "It's the one part we can't test beforehand." 

"OK, and…" Mags prodded. 

"I'm going to share the Grace with you…" 

A burst of voices from the channel… "What??", "Ohmigod are you sure?", "Huh??" 

"… this has two purposes!" I shouted over their protests. "First - remember the first time I crossed over and it knocked me out so bad I slept for a day and a half? Cas gave me the piece of his Grace to prevent that from happening. However, he gave me SO MUCH that everything that touches me over there gets a big jolt." 

Oh, right.

I hadn't told them about the encounter I had in the bar… zapping the vamp when he grabbed me.

All I had told them was I found the nest and scoped out the bar. I didn't want to scare them about going there.

It would be pure daylight out - no way the vamps would venture out in that.

We'd be perfectly safe. 

I rushed on. "So, when we're done with the first group… I'm gonna put my hand in and you're all gonna grab on, and I'm gonna pass some of this Grace on to you. I'm hoping this will do a few things - one, make it to where you won't be knocked out like I was when this is over. Two, it will decrease the amount of Grace in me, and I'll get to hug my boys again without having to be so damned careful!" 

I stopped for a breath. No one spoke.   

"Third - this will be Jack's signal to bring the A-Team. When he notices Cas' Grace split four ways, that's his cue." 

Silence. Finally, Cori cleared her throat and asked, "What's the plan if you can't transfer the Grace?" 

Another possibility I'd considered and scoped out when I went back for pictures.

Full-length mirror in the lady's room of the bar. 

"Plan GTFO - Get The Fuck Out. We head back to the bar and you guys jump back through the mirror in the lady's room. It's gonna be painful for you guys after you return, and I'm sorry. If that happens, I'll talk to Cas, see what can be done for future visits." 

"Well, you seem to have thought of everything…" Mags offered encouragingly. 

"Jesus, I sure as hell hope so," I breathed. "So, everyone still in?" 

I waited for what seemed like an eternity. 

"HELL YES!"

"What are we waiting for?"

"Let's get this show on the road!"

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

Part The Second Coming Very Soon!

[the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl]

Whumptober Day 11- Stitches

Felicity looked down at the gash on the inside of her forearm, gaping like an open mouth, then at the surgical needle in her opposite hand, and wondered why she was having so much trouble with this. She had watched Oliver do it a hundred thousand times, had done it for Oliver a hundred thousand times, and yet she couldn’t seem to manage to do it herself now. But she knew she would have to. She couldn’t very well continue on as normal with a gaping, untreated wound.

Gathering her resolve, Felicity began the long, slow, laborious process of stitching the gash on her forearm closed. She winced at each pass of the needle through her flesh, and gritted her teeth against the pain of the needle dragging the thread along with it, drawing the edges of her wound together. She remembered watching Oliver tend to a bullet wound on his ankle in exactly this way and barely flinching, and she wondered now, as she had wondered then, how he had managed it. Clearly, his pain tolerance had been higher than hers.

Finally, the work was done. Felicity set down the needle and thread and examined her handiwork while she waited for the adrenaline to wear off and her hands to stop shaking. Her stitches were messy, but that was to be expected. She was still relatively new to being a solo vigilante, and wasn’t particularly practiced at performing this type of operation on herself. Whether due to the quality of her stitches or the severity of the wound itself, it was clear that it would leave behind a scar when the sutures came out, just one more to add to her growing collection. She’d been a vigilante for five years, but now she was really starting to look like one.

With a sigh, Felicity packed up the needle and thread in the first aid kit and stowed it away where she always kept it. Then she made herself a cup of dark, bitter tasting coffee. She’d learned to like it black- cream and sugar could be hard to come by when you were a wanted vigilante hiding out from bounty hunters employed by a mayor who wanted you dead. 

I’m becoming more like Oliver every day, Felicity thought as she took a seat at the table where, in less dark times, Team Arrow had held its group strategy sessions, remembering his collection of scars, the consequence of ten years of hell, and that he used to take his coffee black.

The thought of Oliver sent a pang through her, a reminder that, of all the scars in her growing collection, there was one that would never heal- her heart was a mass of emotional scar tissue, and its every beat was painful. She didn’t know how to do this without Oliver, without her team and her friends. She’d never imagined that she would ever have to learn how. But now, here she was, muddling through her pain and grief, slowly learning how to be Overwatch without a Team Arrow. 

Reaching into the inside pocket of her coat that lay directly over her heart with fumbling fingers, Felicity pulled out the photograph of Oliver that she always kept there, with her always as a reminder of why she was fighting, why she was carrying on this crusade even though she was the only one left to fight it, the only one left who even knew or cared about it in the first place. 

“I wish you were here right now,” she told the photograph, because she couldn’t tell Oliver, staring into his bright blue eyes and picturing their spark in her mind’s eye, the spark that still images could never quite manage to capture. “I wish you could tell me what to do, or insist that I already know what to do and I just need to trust myself enough to do it. I don’t know how to do this without you.”

[drferox]

What would you consider to be warning signs that a vet clinic is kind of shady? Also, can you even get Mexican chocolate in Melbourne? When I lived there, the closest you could get to Mexican anything was Doritos and Taco Bill and it was anyone’s guess which was more authentic...

I’ve never come across Mexican chocolate down here, though there are more decent Mexican food places around now than there were, say, 10 years ago. Plus the LSB really likes the Mexican flavor palate so he’s a bit of a fusspot when it comes to food.

So when writing this list I found it difficult to differentiate between things that really are ‘shady’ and practices that I personally just don’t like, because situations vary a lot, as do available equipment depending on where you are in the world, but there are a couple that would consistently raise my suspicions. I wouldn’t condemn a clinic based on any one of them singularly, but it might cause me to wonder.

Not providing different options for treatment, or making you aware that other options exist.

Not explaining a treatment, or at least why there isn’t another realistic option.

Inability to justify clinical decisions

Lack of diversity within the staff of larger clinics. It can be difficult to have much diversity if your staff consists of three people and two of them are married, but by the time you’ve got 8 staff members I would not be expecting everybody to look the same. The creepiest example of this I have seen was a male vet who only hired tall, blonde nurses/receptionists.

Refusing to write prescriptions when requested.

High staff turnover or inability to hire permanent staff. (Rural, isolated clinics may have more difficulty with this just because of location)

Bashing other vets or standard practices

Massive portraits of the owner in public spaces.

Google reviews that start with “Dear Dr’s name” that have only one review, ever. May well be a thank-you letter than clinic staff have made a fake account for and posted.

5 star google reviews posted by people who work at the clinic.

Soliciting google reviews. 

From a back of house point of view, I also worry about:

Majority of nursing staff being volunteers, in training, or not paid.

Performing multiple surgeries from one sterile kit

Insisting on re-sterilising and reusing small disposable syringes

Limiting the amount of suture permitted per spay or routine desexing.

Only offering referrals to one place, depending on what’s available in that region.

“We do it this way because we’ve always done it this way.”

And of course any clinic that you’re just not comfortable with how the staff handle your animal or your questions is probably not the ideal clinic for you.

[puppyexpressions]

Tongue Talk: Anatomy of a Dog's Tongue

It's a radiator, a water-lapper, a healer of wounds, a food conveyor, a register of tastes, a texture sensor, and a wet equivalent of a dog's handshake. A dog's tongue has more responsibilities than any other part of the dog anatomy -- excluding the brain.  And oddly enough, for all its duties and actions, it is one of the most maintenance free structures of all the dog's body parts!

Let's take a look at this unique structure and see what we can discover.

On a recent photo shoot with one of my dog trainer/hunter friends, I exposed four rolls of film while he put this three black labs through some off-season training. When I placed the slides on the viewer I was curiously struck by how many action shots captured the charging subjects with their long, flexible tongues literally flopping out there in the breeze.  (I'm talking about the dogs here, not the trainer!)

Almost every photo displayed the dog's tongue completely extended with mouth open wide, fully exposing the airway to the onrushing breeze. After seeing these photos, I was amazed that in my busy small animal practice I wasn't seeing more than just occasional tongue injuries.

With that fleshy, vascular flag waving around, frequent injuries should be expected -- but in 25 years of practice in an area pleasantly infested with hunting dogs, tongue problems are just not very common.

Nevertheless, it has happened more than a few times that I would get a frantic call at home from a hunter wanting to rush his gun dog in because "she's bleeding from the mouth like a stuck pig!"  So I'd rush in to the animal hospital expecting to perform some heroic surgery only to find the bleeding had stopped and the owner apologetic about all the fuss. Upon examining the mouth, I'd find one or more lacerations -- sometimes not very substantial at all -- that had clotted and nicely sealed.

"Keep her quiet today - turn her loose again tomorrow," I'd say to the relieved owner.

What has happened in this situation is that at the time of the injury, whether the tongue was traumatized by thorns or accidentally pierced by a tooth, barbed wire or other sharp object, the tongue was expanded and engorged with blood.

A major source of heat loss for the exercising dog, the tongue's rich supply of blood vessels all dilate, causing the tongue to swell and extend.  Even a tiny puncture at this time will reward the insult with a flow of crimson. And a deep cut can produce some truly scary amounts of blood.

When the owner sees blood "all over the place" the hunt stops, the dog cools off, the blood vessels constrict turning down the flow to normal and the tongue shrinks back to a resting state -- perfect condition for clotting to occur.

So, if you find yourself out in the field or marsh and your canine companion cuts his tongue -- stop the activity, cool the dog down with a short swim and allow a few seconds of a cool drink of water; and consider a trip to the vet if your judgment tells you the bleeding is pretty significant. And don't allow the dog to continue to drink!  

All that tongue activity required to lap up the water will only delay the clotting. Plus, if some anesthesia and suturing is required, it is preferable to operate on a patient that has an empty stomach rather than to risk anesthesia-induced vomiting in an unconscious patient.

Essentially the tongue is an elongated muscular organ with the top surface covered with specialized epithelium. Its responsibilities include responding to taste, touch, pain, and aiding in heat dissipation.

When I began researching this article, I quizzed myself and was able to recall only three muscle groups interacting with the tongue. Well, the faithful Miller's Anatomy of the Dog describes no less than eight pairs of muscles whose job it is to control the tongue's activities. They have intimidating Latin names such as genioglossus vertical and oblique, hyoepiglottis, and sternohyoideus.

That band of tissue directly under the tongue holding it down. . . that's called the frenulum; you've got a frenulum too, only not quite so well developed.

And something you don't have that the dog does -- feel just under the tip of the dog's tongue running from front to back along the midline, you'll find a firm cartilaginous, almost bony structure. That's called a lyssa. This little device was considered in ancient times to be a cure for various ailments including rabies!

Gosh, medicine has come a long way, hasn't it?  Modern medicine has progressed to the point where we at this time don't even have a clue as to what the lyssa is for!

TASTE: In addition to directing the dog to eat rotten garbage and to be repulsed at the taste of woodcock, the canine tongue is capable of discerning sensations of salt, sweet and sour. The sensation of sour is dispersed somewhat evenly over the top of the tongue, salt along the lateral edges and rear of the tongue and sweet along the edges and front of the tongue. Dogs have a finely tuned ability to taste water, and that trick is performed only by the tip of the tongue.

PAPILLAE: These odd projections from the surface of the tongue are of five different types. The slightly shredded look to the front and side of the dog's tongue (especially noticeable in newborn pups) are called marginal papillae and those funny bumpy things on the back of the tongue are vallate. Now the next time you see your buddy curiously peering into his dog's mouth and he suddenly exclaims, "Hey, what the heck are these weird doofangles on Cinder's tongue?", you can tell him they're called papillae and there are five kinds of them and casually walk away.

WHAT MAKES THE TONGUE WET? Every dog has four pairs of salivary glands with tiny drainage tubes transporting the saliva into the mouth. One salivary gland is located just beneath and lateral to the eye underneath the "cheekbone". One gland is situated at the base of the ear-canal cartilage; and one just behind the angle of the jaw and the smallest in front of the angle of the jaw. These glands produce the preponderance of moisture in the mouth, secreting a thick (mucoid) saliva and a watery-thin (serous) saliva. Plus, the surface of the tongue itself harbors numerous tiny salivary glands secreting both serous and mucoid fluid. So the dog's tongue doesn't really sweat, but the net effect of the salivary glands of the tongue amounts to the same thing -- cooling by evaporation.

TONGUE COLORS: Have you ever heard some "dog expert" say, "See that black coloring in there on the dog's tongue? Means he's got some wolf blood in 'em." Duh! All dogs, from Chihuahua's to Bernese Mountain Dogs have, through selective breeding over eons, evolved from a wolf-like common ancestor.

Black pigments (technically a result of microscopic melanin granules) in patches on a dog's tongue, gums and inner lips are common and have no medical significance. That is as long as the dark patches are not raised up higher than the surrounding non-pigmented tissue. If you ever see dark, pigmented tissue anywhere on your dog that actually looks like a bump or is raised up above the neighboring tissue, have your veterinarian examine it. It may be a dangerous form of cancer called melanoma. Another nasty form of cancer accounting for about half of all types found in the tongue is called squamous cell carcinoma. Two other types of cancer of the tongue are granularcell tumor and mast cell tumor. If found early, these may be treatable and complete cures are possible, however, plan on surgery and possible radiation therapy.

INFECTIONS: Because it is so richly supplied by nourishing blood vessels, infections of the tongue are not common. Generally, when they do occur, a foreign body such as a fox tail awn, porky quill, thorn or wood splinter is the culprit and can be removed under anesthesia.  (Anyone who lets their dog chew on lumber, please stand up ... uh huh.  Okay, everybody can sit down now.) Split firewood and 2x4's sure can make a dog proud and happy, but those woody splinters can wreak havoc in the dog's mouth and gastrointestinaltract. Wood is indigestible, you know.  Throw them a tennis ball and forget the timber!

It's a good idea to really examine your dog's mouth routinely -- say every Saturday morning just before you start on those chores you've been putting off. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll find something suspicious requiring an immediate trip to the animal hospital and thereby a legitimate postponement of the chores until the following Saturday!

WIRING: The canine tongue is uniquely constructed to do so many things. And to perform all these diverse and intricate functions the tongue requires five separate pairs of nerves coming directly from the brain through tiny openings in the dog's skull. These are called Cranial Nerves since they do not arise from the spinal cord, but directly from the base of the brain itself. In many an idle moment I've pondered what effect on my shooting success there would be if I had a fancy cranial nerve connected to my right forefinger rather than an ordinary spinal nerve ... hmmm.

Remember, the tongue is king. Everything else in the mouth is an assistant. Keep a close watch, though, for ulcers, bruises or bleeding from the tongue, gums or palate. Check for broken teeth that can irritate the tongue or bumps arising anywhere within the oral cavity. Work your finger under each side of the tongue and force it upward so you can inspect the underside of the tongue.  I've found some pretty odd things wedged or otherwise hiding beneath the tongue.

You really should reward that tongue once in while by allowing it a full, wet slap on your face just before its owner bounds off on a walk with you -- just for fun -- no dummies, no whistles, no check cords or leashes. Odds are that the tongue will reward you at the end of your playful excursion.