#if you can take a painkiller before it starts itll do way more for you

[savetheghost]

save do you have any tips for managing migraines

uhhhhhh lessee

personally i have prescriptions for it cause mine screwed my brain up but obvious ones like proper rest + maybe log what you eat and see if theres any correlation + general put nutrients in your body stuff which is actually kind of hard to keep track of

i have some REALLY WEIRD scent based triggers so i have to stay away from ammonia-like scents and eucalyptus cause those will put my ass out flat IMMEDIATELY, thats not an everyone thing but maybe note if theres sensory stuff around you that might be a trigger

for me warm toned lights and screen tints are way better than cool tones/white light and if youve got light colored eyes wear amber tinted sunglasses outdoors

water + salty snack > pedialite > gatorade and depending on caffeine sensitivity maybe moderate that cause it can either help or hurt, kinda depends on the person, but water and saltines will get you electrolytes and its cheap as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck even if it doesnt taste as great as gatorade

sunlight on your skin and not in your eyeballs

also vitamin d just in general helps but its way better to actually use the sun for that than trying to digest it so like just 10ish minutes in the sun is what my neurologist recommended on top of taking 2000mg tablets

thats what ive got off the top of my head

[opal-owl-flight]

Please please what are your thoughts on the final boss of the epilogue, I got spoiled on day one and have been waiting for you to see it in game before I asked because it's just so cool and your stuff is all so cool and I want to know your thoughts and potential lore

SO this is quite a lot! My method for handling new info is to take what works and leave what doesnt. Canon is a suggestion, not a rule.

About the Crown:

Mistellin was originally made to seal away Termina (the dark heart pf which was rampaging around the galaxy) and use its power to fight against it, but only a shard of It was captured. Seeing that the shard still held incredible power, the Ancients decided to use It's power for good instead of destruction.

Monarchs have worn the Crown, but several of the weak willed fell to Its influence and used it for their nefarious ends ("It strengthens the darkness in the wearer's heart..." so its Power at a price. The reason why the Crown's claws constrict corrupted souls like Magolor Soul is for damage control). Why the Halcandrans continued to use this Crown I can only assume to be survivorship bias/majority chosen did not fall...until the last king of Yore, who was possessed by Termina midfight in the war to seal It away. (The magitech civil war happened a little after this, as the loss of the monarch due to misunderstood Dark Matter magic research/practice raised tensions between magic practitioners and the tech faction.)

How the lore changes affect my telling:

Why the past monarch chose Mags as successor then (a story beat in my interp of things) -- well he didnt have much of a choice at first. The shards of the damn relic rooted itself on Mags' head. Literally. (Thanks Termina.) The dark entity did nothing but send waves of searing energy through the Crown shards to cripple him, to prevent him from stealing the Rejuvenating Crystal Fruit that It plans to use for Itself. (Dunno what this fruit is in canon, but judging from what the fragments of it do to Mags -- I assume its an Ancient artifact that holds an insane amount of energy. Gem apples exploding is a convertion of his high energy supposedly used to heal, to fuel a more destructive outcome. What can heal/restore can also destroy.)

*What Mags does in Epilogue is what I can simply say as "gathering painkillers". The magic energy he stores up allows him to block out/create a dam against Termina's crippling energy waves, and also allows him to do more powerful, complicated spells in the process. (No wonder one of his emotes is him crying.)

After Magolor Disrespects the Lorax by slicing a tree in two, the voice goes MUCH quieter. The tree (and the Doomer) held majority of the Crown shards -- by destroying them, Termina's way of communicating with him grows weaker. But not fully gone. (He cries in the end bc its sweet, sweet, relative silence...)

Did Mags learn his lesson? Not yet. If anything, his ego is the size of a galaxy now, bc he killed an eldritch god on his own. Without Kirby's help.

Im going to set Clash aside bc jfc that looks complicated as hell. The only thing Im taking here is the fact that he set up a Shoppe in Dreamland (no alternate realities here either -- itll complicate things)...but its not exactly a fresh new start just yet. Hes doing this to gather Nova parts easily. What better way to get parts and artifacts without raising too much suspicion than by trade? (His full redemption happens after Robobot, in the Nova Incident. Which is another thing I wrote)

Back to the previous monarch choosing him as a successor. Termina kept It's clutches on Mags. The Crown has rooted itself deep into his soul enough that hes still at risk for easy possession. SA rolls around, and Termina is supposedly at It's strongest.

Mags doesnt get possessed. Out of sheer spite and will alone he keeps the gate on the Crown's power and influence shut. Hes not going to fall, not again, not when he finally has something, and (several) someone(s), to care about. At the end, its him who deals the final blow on Termina in his mindscape, as he is yhe one who holds the last fragments of It's consciousness.

Free at last.

This is what makes the King of Yore choose him as an heir. He couldve decided to trap the dark entity in the Crown, like intended, and kept it fed so the Crown's power will never run out. But he chose not to...not wanting to suffer any longer nor make anyone else potentially suffer what he had.

He freed both himself and the Crown. Now the power that sleeps within is clean, with no Dark Matter almost guaranteeing a corruption.

* If anyone falls with this version of the Crown, it is not bc of any Dark Matter. Thats on the bearer's character/lack of control. Mags still losing it in Overlord form time and again shows that....

[uwuowotf2waslife]

👉👈 May I request an nsfw with a Virgin S/O whos ready to do the nasties with the Mercs? I love how In character they all are ;; ♥︎♥︎♥︎

( put on your good clothes and get ready to roll in the nasty with our darling barbie men)

Scout: he has some experience, he knows what he is doing but he isn’t the master. He is somewhat nervous, his first time wasnt the best and he really doesnt want to screw it up for you. Probably gets you to a simple movie date to ease his nerves and a small walk to get the anxiety out of you (mostly him again). Goes back to his room at the base and makes sure the door is locked before he gets into the roast. He lowkey asks for your consent and once he has the signal he gets into the nasty-smashy mode.He makes out with you and pratically throws you into the bed while trying to take of your shirt and his in the same time, he is an amateur but he has all the passion of a professional. Gives you time and goes slower the more things get heated, but hes riled up. Starts fingering you sloppily and makes you climax before he starts anything that requires insertion. Starts very gently but quickly looses his patience and just pounds straight away ( but will stop cold dead if he even catches a string of pain, uncomfort in your eyes). Can hit multiple home runs but wont last long

Soldier: has quite the experience. He will be way more gentle at the begining, giving you time to relax and get into the mood. He will let you decide the pace, but he will make you climax firstly so you are good and lubed up so he can insert his johnson without making you uncomfortable. Won’t break you, but is a bit rougher and more creative in ( he is a beefcake and likes to fuck while standing up, your legs being hoilsted up on his waist and your back on a wall or your butt barely touching a table). Not a silent man but he will do his darnest to make you moan and scream his name.

Engie: has experience, hes a well , soft spoken blond cinamon roll, what do you expect? but he really wants to make it special for you. Goes out of his way to do a romantic evening just for you two, playing all the romantic songs he knows on his guitar and having tidied up his room so much his mama would be proud. Insist on using lube and fingers you until you are begging and physically trying to loosen up his belt. He is pretty tame for now, and tries to suck your collarbone or nipples to enhance the experience, big cuddles afterwards.

Demo: not really phaced, he has done his share of nasty in his life and has confidence that he is pretty good at what he does ,so hes up for the challenge. He asks for consent many times and asks you how would you like the event to be. Big on foreplay and likes to perform oral sex, so youll have a good start. Not That Big ( i know the stereotype is somewhat true but he isnt a horse, calm down) but he has g i r t h, so youll have to cum at least twice before he even puts the tip near the clit. Prefers the Loveseat or the cowgirl so he can enjoy the show and you to have a better time adjustanding to him.

Heavy: (i think is pretty much canon in the fandom that this boy has a magnum dong * inster iasip meme here*) ooof he is scared. Hes a big, very big fella. He has dad some experience, but he is terrified. He really, really doesnt want to hurt you. He needs constant reasurance to even start get started making out. He will lift you up and grop you like he has never felt a woman before.He will give you an idea how big he is by letting you pet his erection through his pants, ( spoiler alert its fatter than a kielbasar sausage) . He will finger you throughly with his fingers before even removing his boxers and will spend a ungodly time into slidying  into and use galons of lube. Ngl you will waddle for 2 days and hell hit that g -spot  hard and fast. Growls like all slavic guys in porns and but muffles you with kisses and words of adoration in russian and english, lowkey climaxes in russian after you.

Medic: he has hit a jackpot, lowkey has a virgin fetish, mostly due to the blood ngl. Bu he is a doctor and a surgeon so dont worry schwatz he has you covered. Starts by a nice oil massage to get you all nice and loose and then he fingers you for an hour and edges you relentesly, this man has no mercy. Only when you are basically a heartbeat before losing your shit, he gets the condoms and slams you harder than a bitch in heat.Big dom vibes, he will edge you for all night so you can scream his name when you cum loud and clear for all of New Mexico to hear. Won’t cum inside you or before you have cummed at least twice, just switches and lets you tit-fuck him until he cums all over your face.Big on aftercare and has the medigun on in any case something happens plus he kisses every time he withdraws .

Sniper: not a big lover, but he has plowed here and there. Won’t make a big deal out of it, but he ain’t relaxed, he really wants to make you feel everything. Lowkey trembles with his nerves, even has masturbate before you two meet so he last longer and has showered. Starts out shy, licking your tits and leaving bitemarks here and there. Then he starts the nasty( my mans has a long tongue so itll be fun), doesnt make you cum, nah he likes torturing his victims for a bit and he has the patience of a saint. Prefers doggy style ( big ass man)and gets a little gross and uses spit as lube, but hey its natural. Starts shy, rubbing your sides and gives your ass nice pats and slaps, then looses all control and smashes hard but slowly, you will beg for him to go harder but he loves hearing you tremble just about to cum yet not that close. Beg him, call him daddy, sir,master whatever you want that has some power and hell screw you harder than life. Wants  you to cum together and leaves hickeys on your shoulders while he cums. Cuddles and is very doting afterwards.

Spy: Monsier Cassanova here has deflowered enough virgins inhis life to say he is the pro in that field. Makes a sublte note of every little thing you like and makes a plan in his head. Firstly, he gets you some nice lingerie and ( for all safety reasons) gives you the strongest anti-contraceptive he can find ( he has enough kids to create two football teams and have spares for referees and replacements).Then he picks a fancy wine and gets all suave and romantic, yes he wants to fuck but in his mind he is more of a quantity is much better than quality type of guy. Gets started very slowly, french kisses here and there, some good gropes. The secret to make this old man to get riled up really fast is to grope his ass and whisper really nasty styff in his ear ( doesnt matter if english, but itll be a bonus if its french). Hes a suave soft lover in his work, but in reality he is much more like Scout (like son, like father oof). If you do that hell throw you on the couch and get rough and nasty really fast , licks you untill you are about to choke him with your thighs.He will get all ready (special designed condoms by medic) and use special fancy lube to make it as painfull as he can ( not as big as heavy, but he has that mushroom head). Can go for hours, has a lot of stamina and by the end youll be drenched and having a spiritual exerience. Doesn’t expect to cum butif you allow him, oof boy hell have a field day. Once you both have finished he picks you up and runs a hot bath for the both of you, will cuddle later and give you massages and painkillers if he went too far.

[painfog]

Hey so I saw you mention top surgery and was curious. I was supposed to be having top surgery this summer but that’s postponed. I was curious how that went with chronic pain? I’m scared about the surgical binder with my fibro and back pain. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated!! (You can answer privately if you prefer)

ive actually been meaning to write up a big post on this pretty much since i had top surgery but still haven't got around to it yet so I'm happy to talk about it lol. ill go over stuff now n still aim to do a more in depth post later when im on my laptop (but writing this now bc i tend to forget everything haha). ill stick to the more fibro / chronic illness specific stuff & stuff i wasnt expecting rather than rehashing everything. apologies im on mobile so i cant put this under a cut

firstly, im sorry ur surgery got postponed! i know that must be gutting, so i hope it gets rescheduled asap & the time until then passes easily for u ❤️

I had double incision with free nipple grafts on the 4th of september 2019 with Mr Miles Berry at the london wellbeck hospital. i think he did an amazing job and can't recommend him enough for his work! i think the last pics i took of my chest were for tdov, and ill rb them after i post this for reference. i didnt have drains at any point of the surgery

for ppl with fibro, i was told that the pain after surgery either tends to trigger a flareup, or be really easily manageable, and it's hard to predict which it will be beforehand. its best to prepare for a flareup and be pleasently surprised if u dont get one. for me, i had a flareup that sucked but wasnt too bad as far as flareups go

you'll probably get given painkillers. take them regularly. it's easier to treat pain preemptively. if u don't get given them (no idea how it works outside of the uk) id say def get codine and paracetamol. u can't take ibuprofen for a while

i woke up from aneasthetic freezing cold + in a lot of pain. apparently most ppl dont need the full dose of morphine, but i did. after that it was a bit better. i was just So Goddamn Hungry literally it's all i was talking about

that night in hospital was probably one of the most uncomfortable in my life. you have to sleep sitting up for like blood reasons, so my back pain was quite bad bc of it. moving around a bit and adjusting pillows helped. if u have anything that normally helps ur back pain bring it with u to the hospital, & dont be afraid to ask the nurses for help with it (even if they can just adjust ur pillows for u). i couldnt rly sleep much but distraction helps. bring ur phone + headphones. i did a few ask memes when i couldnt sleep

the first week from surgery was rly tough, the first few days especially. this was bc i still had to sleep elevated for a few days and i couldnt get comfortable. i was too exhausted to do anything but couldn't sleep and it rly started to get me down. then i got some sleeping tablets (just nytol) and that helped so much. i literally cannot recommend it enough bc the not sleeping properly made everything hard (and like esp because with fibro the whole pain/fatigue/depression cycle is so real). once i started sleeping better recovery became a lot easier, and the tablets made the awkward sleeping positions more manageable. if i had to give only one bit of advice this would be it

on that note, ik everyone says this but do get a V pillow. it helps u adjust to sleeping on ur back and if u sleep on ur side normally it means u can like lean slightly sideways on it which makes it sm easier. also this isn't even top related but they make good back pillows when ur watching stuff in bed even now

get urself some video games (if ur into them) and easy entertainment shows lined up for when u wanna have them. recovering from major surgery makes ur fatigue even more pronounced so ur not going to be able to do all that much, but having light entertainment ready to go stops u getting as bored. its also a good excuse to finally play/watch the things you've been meaning to for a while

go outside when u can. if u have a garden just walk around it. it helps with a lot of stuff, and idk about u but i always forget how much it does. even just helping u sleep better if u get trapped in a fibro fatigued-but-can't-sleep cycle. and it goes so far helping u feel human in the first week

the first week is rly hard for a lot of ppl - its frustrating to have all that pain and exhaustion and not being able to wash or change the binder, and with the swelling and bandages under the binder it doesn't really feel like there's much change, which all sort of adds together. i keep going on about this week bc it helps to mentally prepare for it - there's no need to dread it, you just need to remind urself how worth it itll all be and that the rest of recovery is a lot better than the first part, and in time it won't have seemed that bad. big picture stuff

when u get the chest reveal, everything's better. i didnt stop smiling. and when u put the post op binder on afterwards, without all the bandaging, u like feel for the first time how much flatter u are??? and its amazing. even with the swelling. and then u get to shower and u feel human again and its great. (ik some ppl have their post ops/chest reveals much earlier than a week, but 5 days to a week is pretty standard in the uk. mine was 6 days i think)

more post op binder stuff: i got given 2. the first one i woke up in after the surgery and wasn't allowed to take off until my post op, and the second one i got given at my post op to change into after i showered. After that i alternated every few days. whatever u get given, if u get less than 2 i recommend getting another one so u can alternate them (if u want help sourcing them hmu. ive also still got mine i need to give away)

the post op binders were actually a lot easier to wear full time than normal binders. they were like more stretchy, and stretchy the full way round (bc they dont have the compression bit at the front). i used to sleep in my normal binder every time i slept with my ex, and that hurt like a motherfuck sometimes. the post op binder was much kinder to my ribs

i had to wear the post op binder full time, taking it off like once a day to shower n let my chest breathe (and massage my scars once i started that). some surgeons arent that strict abt wearing it that long, but it really helps swelling, & bc i didnt have drains it was rly important to stop fluid buildup. ik quite a few guys in my trans groups who stopped wearing their binder fairly early and then got quite a lot of swelling so i didn't want to risk it & i wore it for the full 6 weeks. at some point (icr when but maybe at 6 weeks? bc my post op was at 8 weeks bc he was on holiday) i didnt wear it during the day and only wore it at night

all in all the binder didnt bother me that much. it was more comfortable than my regular binders and i just kinda got on with it. it was annoying tho and i was glad when i could stop wearing it. for me the most annoying part was that it was a full length binder (i always wore half length before) and the riding up at the hips was rly irritating. i actually quite liked sleeping with it tho it was a pretty nice pressure stim ahah

some post op binders r more comfortable than others. if u have to buy ur own, i rly suggest going with a proper surgical one (they arent too hard to find second hand for free or cheap, again im happy to help here) bc they're kinder to chronic pain. i know that having a comfortable post op binder made it all a lot easier for me. there are also lots of alternatives w lots of price ranges tho, so that's not ur only option

ok i think thats everything right now! sorry its so long, but let me know if u have any questions!!

finally: before i got top ppl told me that its honestly life changing, and i didnt realise how true that would be. literally every single aspect of my life is at least partially better because of it, and most of them drastically so. I'm really excited for you to get that for yourself, and im wishing u all the best for it 💕

[if-the-crown-fits-translate-it]

Discord pt 91

[Date: 17/03, 07:20 PM GMT - 17/03, 07:41 PM GMT]

[CW for self-harm, gore]

Little-K1ng: “hello everyone i just woke up”

Maxwell: “eyyyyyyy

so....

things have gotten worse”

Little-K1ng: “oh?

at least my migraine subsided a little (for now)”

fetch: “...hey.”

Little-K1ng: “so i can handle Problems and possible Consider Solutions

...hey”

Maxwell: “we had about uh two arguments”

Little-K1ng: “oh ffs

between who”

Maxwell: “uh fetch and jack then a small problem with prince”

fetch: “and since everyone's yanking my collar here i figure I should tell you.”

Jack the Observer: “Fetch and I”

Maxwell: “or rather asher”

fetch: “i... have a circlet growing too.”

Little-K1ng: “ah..... of course you do

somehow that doesnt upset me as much as knowing you felt the need to lie to me about it”

Jack the Observer: “...”

Maxwell: “and then uh prince saw fetch and jack were arguing over whether or not to tell us when prince appeared....”

jayyyyyyyy: “hey mona, check behind your ears? considering youre the fourth”

Little-K1ng: “am i?

did one of them say that?”

jayyyyyyyy: “well, crown did say all the four were together when you were with fetch, marcus and max

it was heavily implied..?”

Maxwell: “we tried to tell faem not to look in here but fae did and prince read back a lot of stuff”

fetch: “there's nothing official. if you aren't growing one then we don't have to worry.”

Maxwell: “and found out me and fetch were knight and page—”

Little-K1ng: “i cant feel anything, but as long as fetch has figured out the difference between knotting hair and gold, i will take a second opinion”

Maxwell: “i then told prince faer name before fae became prince and uh didnt go well

fae panicked and were confused and then more arguing started”

Little-K1ng: “what did you think was going to happen when you did that?

i mean that in a very kind way, of course.”

Maxwell: “i dont kow the others brought it up but i didnt think it would cause such a bad reaction to faem”

Jack the Observer: “And you’ve been getting migraines, Mona.

Better be safe than sorry.”

Maxwell: “fae....fae ended up scartching their arms really bad”

[Jack the Observer: “And you’ve been getting migraines, Mona.]

Little-K1ng: “thats my secret, jack. i always get migraines”

Jack the Observer: “But.

Little-K1ng: “its alright, max. you didnt know”

Jack the Observer: “Make sure.”

Maxwell: “oh and uh...theres more buds

and theyve started blooming....”

Little-K1ng: “oh? let me see

hm, yeah... thats some buds, bud”

Jack the Observer: “Remember someone to check Marcus as well.”

Maxwell: “heh

he feel asleep earlier but said we could check

hes got nothing as far as we saw”

Little-K1ng: “ill check him later”

jayyyyyyyy: “thats kinda making me wonder. why are flowers only blooming on max and fetch, but not marcus?

marcus is arguably a more important asset to crown. hes been there since the beginning”

fetch: “they aren't flowers on mine. they're just seeds.”

jayyyyyyyy: “you know what i mean”

Maxwell: “honeslty im fine with them not appearing on marcus it hurt so fucking much man”

Jack the Observer: “Marcus seems... historically immune to Crown’s abilities though.”

Maxwell: “my head felt horrid this morning”

Little-K1ng: “here, i have some ointment stuff thats like a local anesthetic, itll dull the pain”

Maxwell: “thank you”

Little-K1ng: “then we can see about the headache”

jayyyyyyyy: “yeah i was just about to say

painkillers are a good idea too

this may seem kinda gorey, but, uh..

(tw)

you think maybe the circlets you had on, uh.. planted something? in your heads?”

Marcus: “...”

Little-K1ng: “oh hi marcus”

Marcus: “Good...morning?

What time is it?”

Little-K1ng: “i havent even looked, im just up as well”

Marcus: “Oh”

Little-K1ng: “mid afternoon, almost definitely”

Marcus: “oh”

jayyyyyyyy: “hi marcus”

Marcus: “Wait when did I.. how long was I asleep?”

Maxwell: “yeah im surprised you didnt wake up from our arguing”

Marcus: “Hi jeight”

fetch: “you've been out for a while. was starting to get worried.”

jayyyyyyyy: “really pulling a gnf huh”

Little-K1ng: “marcus and fetch, you both have been sleeping almost more than i do”

Marcus: “I would back read but....judging from the recent stuff I see, I’d rather not”

Little-K1ng: “yeah...

would you two like to update him a little?”

Marcus: “We’re checking laurels?”

jayyyyyyyy: “want a summary?”

Maxwell: “ive been tired but trying to keep from sleeping, ive been falling asleep at school though...”

Little-K1ng: “im just putting some stuff behind max's ears to help the pain

if you start getting pain there too, let me know and ill do the same”

fetch: “max's laurel is growing, prince remembered faer real name and disappeared.”

jayyyyyyyy: “falling asleep at home is better than during class, max :(”

[fetch: “max's laurel is growing, prince remembered faer real name and disappeared.”]

Marcus: “fuck”

Maxwell: “fetch has seeds on his head now too”

fetch: “...yeah. that too.”

Marcus: “Guys...come on

There’s a reason..

guys”

jayyyyyyyy: “you good?”

fetch: “its whatever. max is the one who's hurting, we should help him first.”

Marcus: “Before you two, people went to crown willingly”

[fetch: “its whatever. max is the one who's hurting, we should help him first.”]

Little-K1ng: “dont lie to me. if you're in pain, you had better tell me. we talked about this...”

Maxwell: “yeah prince found out me and fetch were page and knight and it did not end well

fae thought we left because of faem”

[Little-K1ng: “dont lie to me. if you're in pain, you had better tell me. we talked about this...”]

fetch: “I'm fine.”

Marcus: “Fetch.

Come on”

fetch: “im telling you guys im fine I promise.”

jayyyyyyyy: “being all humble n shit isnt gonna help anyone, fetch”

Marcus: “Don’t start arguing Fetch

seriously

Who does that help in the end

Who”

fetch: “for fucks sake why does nobody ever let me do things myself. everyone always has to get involved in my own problems.”

jayyyyyyyy: “this isnt just your problem”

Marcus: “Fetch, your problems are very quickly becoming everyones problems”

[fetch: “for fucks sake why does nobody ever let me do things myself. everyone always has to get involved in my own problems.”]

Little-K1ng: “because i care, fetch. ive had to go through the grief of losing you too many times. the least i could do is dull some of the pain”

Marcus

We’re not trying to get everyone involved

We’re telling you that if you’re in pain, we can help

fetch: “im not in pain jesus fucking christ.”

Maxwell: “....”

fetch: “it doesn't hurt.”

Marcus: “Fetch.”

fetch: “max's does.”

Little-K1ng: “it wont in a while, ive done what i can to treat it”

Marcus: “it doesn’t matter if Max’s hurts, you can both be hurting at the same time”

Little-K1ng: “its your turn. sit down and let me help”

jayyyyyyyy: “fetch, tell the truth. does it hurt?”

Marcus: “Tell the fucking truth”

fetch: “no it doesn't hurt how many times do i have to tell you.”

Marcus: “Don’t hide shit away in a document and then delete it when you get called out”

Maxwell: “IT DOES”

fetch: “i can barely fucking feel it.”

Maxwell: “I KNOW IT DOES

SYD SCREAMED IN PAIN WHEN IT HAPPENED AND IM IN PAIN

It hurts and you know it”

[kristie-rp]

Promise

Triggers: Suicide mention, drug mention, overdose mention, prostitution, gun mention, kidnapping

“I’ll take care of you,” she had promised. She can’t regret the oath, but she does regret what it drove her to, the desperate need to prove she could keep the promise.

Kara gets into prostitution because her little brother is eleven when the last of their parents vanish. She is seventeen, and she knows enough to be aware that the big motivator in Blacklight is money, and when her dad ran out, this is what happens: there’s no point trying to force a payment from a man with his head barely above water. She knows without a body being found that he is dead. Kara has her savings, her college fund, and that’s it. It’s not enough for two kids to live off, and her part-time job at a clothing store isn’t going to keep them afloat, and no one she wants her brother anywhere near is going to hire an eleven year old.

So – so she starts to prostitute herself, an amateur working cheap by Blacklight standards. She learns how much to charge without drawing complaints, she learns how to balance senior year and ‘work’, and she learns that many clients will pay more for the thrill of her being so much younger than the average whore. Enable a fetish and the cash goes up, enough to pay for school, for food, for a roof. At eighteen she gets sole custody of Lionel, legally, without complaint. She fucks the judge to get it through quick, once they get caught by the system.

She spends too long in the bathroom, driving the water bill up and up and scrubbing her skin raw in an attempt to get clean. Lionel is twelve, and she’s learned enough now to know how to draw lines, how to enforce them without losing clients. He knows what she does, he knows how much she hates it, but she doesn’t bring her work home and he can’t complain, however much he might want to.

Eighteen is when the pimp for her district finds out about her working solo, cutting into his profits. Eighteen is when  Craig gets his hands on her, and really, he’s not so bad, except taking off some of her profits. She explains to him her situation, barely thinking it’ll work but convinced it’s worth a try – and he listens. He gives her specific times to work, promises he’ll take only ten percent, a fixed rate. It’s – it’s not good, but it’s not bad, she’s got repeat clients who are sleazier than Craig.

And then Faust finds out about her.

“So you’re the infamous Caramel,” are his first words to her.

She’s standing as still as she knows how, wearing something revealing beneath a heavy, cheap coat. She’s going for allure, even though she’s just a little too far from curvy for the effect to work as she intends; this is her ‘uniform’, what she wears when she’s out during the hours Craig assigns.

“I’m whoever you need me to be, baby,” she says. Her voice is a rasp, quiet, but not subdued. There is a confidence in her tone that many whores have lost by the end of their first year – but she cannot afford to become less of a person, not with Lionel at home depending on her, not with so many people willing to take advantage of her.

Faust circles like a vulture, and she knows she is being judged. She keeps her eyes partially shut, as though heavily lidded, and watches him with pursed lips painted  in a discounted dark pink. He’s not actually that old at this point, though definitely older than her – she guesses him to be around thirty, much younger than her year-dead father. He’s not bad looking, either. It won’t be a struggle to act like she likes it when he inevitably goes down on her, even if what follows is her usual routine of scathing hot water and too-long in the shower, worrying a brother who is getting more and more withdrawn in turn.

“I’ll pay you triple,” he says at last, “to stay overnight. I get twenty-five percent of your cut from clients who aren’t me.”

Kara raises a brow at him. “Craig might have something to say about that.” She doesn’t say that this is a rip off, that she’s not going to jump ship from her fantastic deal just because he offers better pay to start

Faust’s smile is soft, but there’s something in his eyes that stands out to her – something dangerous. Something that tells her this man is not a nice man, as if she hadn’t guessed from an awareness of who he is. “Craig can’t say much once he’s dead.”

Her blood runs cold, but she steps closer to him. He doesn’t back down; she runs a hand up his chest and grips the gaudy tie he is wearing, something only a Blacklight local would like. She doesn’t smile, but she peers at him from beneath the fake eyelashes she is wearing only for this meeting. The effect is that she is playing coy, with any luck. “Whatever you say, boss,” she breathes, and drags him down to kiss her.

She can never pick out individual moments of her time with Faust, not in hindsight. It’s either a self-defence mechanism or a consequence of everything blurring together.

After that first meeting with her, he puts a pimp, loyal to him and more obedient than Craig proved to be, in charge of the whores. The new pimp is an asshole in every way except physically; he does not do anything that might bruise. But the verbal and psychological, the demeaning, the ripping off all of them – Kara is the only one whose cut never changes, because she is not afraid to talk money with Faust, and she talked him into writing up a contract that means he takes a profit from her, not the new pimp, and only a set amount. It’s not good, and for the first time she wonders if maybe things with Craig were better than she thought – and those drained her of everything she had.

If she believed in gods, this would be about where she’d start praying.

She comes home the day of her brothers fourteenth birthday with a little cake and a spring in her step, for once. Faust has promised her the weekend off, written it into another contract in what she knows is both a power play and a source of amusement for him; his little whore with her obsession with promises being kept. She doesn’t care that he mocks her for this, because promises are the only thing she can keep.

“Hey, Li? You home?”

The front door is locked, but not deadlocked; she knows he is. He’s good at keeping safe, good at following rules a lot of people in Blacklight take for granted or ignore. Kara smiles to herself: it’s a Friday, and she doesn’t have to do any work until Monday, and this is going to be a weekend just for her and Lionel. She’s got some money stowed away, enough that they can rent a car – dads being long since gone – and get out of Blacklight, just for the weekend. Never has she been happier her brother is a summer born child; they can go somewhere with a pool, or somewhere on the sea. They haven’t seen it since the summer before their dad was killed, and it’s finally time – in her opinion – to move on.

The house is quiet, though. She figures Lionel has earphones in, because the budget ones that came with his phone are the best sound system they have. He saved for ages to get that thing, scrounging together the change from Kara sending him grocery shopping and the neighbours paying him to pay the lawn until he could afford a Nokia and a memory card, the better to store music on. He loves his music, and his dream is to go to a concert; there aren’t any on this year that he’s interested in, or she would be taking him to it. “Boys and their toys,” she murmurs to herself, fond. She’s been busy, forced to work more lately by Faust and the twenty-five percent, and she’s been looking forward to this for ages, both for the company of Lionel, and for herself. Too much Blacklight breaks people, after all.

She sticks some candles in the little cake, lights them and heads into the further reaches of the apartment. It’s a shoebox, but she can make rent more often than not, and they each have their own rooms, for better or worse. She starts humming the timeless classic in her usual almost-croak, long since over how a husky voice does not lend itself well to singing. Still, she sings anyway, a loud “Happy birthday to you,” that cuts off as she drops the cake in the doorway.

Lionel is collapsed on the floor, and she only prevents a fire because her bare foot stamps out the candles before the ancient carpet can catch fire. Her panic blocks out the stab of pain, and she dives to her knees beside her little brother, feeling for a pulse before grasping for his phone, dropped on a stack of pamphlets, dialling emergency services because it’s that or nothing, and she can’t handle doing nothing.

The paramedics ask her more questions than she can answer. Oh, she can answer the standard lot – medical insurance, none; patients name, Lionel Darcy St Claire; patients age, fourteen; patients date of birth, today; emergency contact, Kara St Claire – but when they ask her if he’s been showing symptoms of anything, she cannot answer. “I work a lot,” she explains, but it feels feeble to her ears, and she feels judged for this more than anything else.

Their weekend away turns into a weekend in the hospital, and the money she has saved to make the weekend worth more than most is set aside for hospital bills. Kara spends Friday night sitting vigil at his bedside, Saturday with her head in her hands and shoulders hunched, and Sunday is when someone finally decides to tell her what’s going on. There’s an excess of something in his system – something that usually results from an overdose of opioids , of painkillers.

“There weren’t any pills anywhere near him,” she says, something nagging at the back of her mind.

The doctor gives a tight smile, sympathy heavy in his eyes. “It can take a week or longer for the overdose to show any observable effects to others, especially if he’s trying to hide them,” he informs her. “This isn’t your fault,” he says, “but his liver is shutting down. Chances are that there’s nothing you could’ve done – we’ve had a lot of suicides lately. It’s unlikely that he will last out the week.”

It’s not reassuring, not at all. She gives the doctor a look that says as much, then closes her eyes. She wants to cry, but she hasn’t done that, not in years, teardrops burning away from the inside out under scalding hot water. She hears the doctor leave, but she stays there, still, with her brother and the beeping of the machines that are, apparently, doing nothing but delaying the inevitable.

She falls asleep in the armchair beside the bed, curled in on herself as though having any more warmth will make this all go away. When her phone winks onto standby after she has fallen asleep, it closes on a Google search result, the top few links showing they’ve been clicked.

is cremation cheaper than burial blacklight usa

Lionel, it turns out, has been having a much harder time than she has been aware. She reaches out to the boy she remembers as his best friend, and it is only herself, him, his sister, and two former classmates who liked having Lionel paired with them for group work come to the pathetic service she holds. She doesn’t believe in god or gods, never has, and while Lionel liked the idea of the comfort divine answers might bring, he didn’t believe either. So she can’t bring herself to hire some religious man to preach something she doesn’t believe, even if it might make the sting any less painful.

She leads the lot of them to the roof of the shoebox apartment she doesn’t need any longer but can’t bring herself to leave, high above the second-storey place she manages to afford. It’s a hideous rooftop, but the building itself is nine storeys, and the view isn’t awful. There’s a barbecue and some cushions discarded up here, an esky that’s more often empty than not, and on afternoons when Kara didn’t have to work and he found himself in the mood, they would sit up here and talk about nothing and everything.

It’s the place most attached to him that brings the least amount of pain, now.

“Don’t you want to say something? In his memory, or something?” the friend asks, when they’re standing there with the urn that holds all that remains of her brothers body. His name is Alex; he’s the most harmless person Kara knows, now. Certainly the most naive and the most delusional. His parents are moving the family to New Brightside, on the other side of Port Lyndon to Blacklight, before the end of the year, chasing job opportunities they’re lucky to have been offered. Kara cannot resent them for their escape, because she hates this city, this city that breaks the people who least deserve it; but she can add them leaving to the list of reasons she has started to write up about

Everything Kara wants to say has been said already, to a brother trapped in a medically induced coma until his liver finally gave out, because Blacklight is no different to America and doesn’t allow euthanasia.

“I remember,” she says quietly, “the summer before mom died. Li – Lionel was four. He was turning four, four years old, can you imagine? And he was – he was so damn happy. I was ten, I thought I was so damn cool, and I really, really wasn’t.

“We went to the coast for a long weekend, I think Independence Day fell on a Monday that year. And there were these teenagers there, probably – probably as old as you guys are now. Thirteen, fourteen, not old at all. I thought they were the most amazing people I’d ever met, and I was such a jackass to Li on the first day, wanting to impress them. Then, on that night, we had this little family campfire, just the four of us, and dad gave me this lecture about not being mean to my brother, about how it was my responsibility to look after him. About how I’d regret not being nice, sooner or later.

“And Lionel, he just – he got up and he sat next to me and he interrupted dad, this four year old, and he says, dead serious, ‘Kara just wanted new friends’. He didn’t hold a grudge at all, it hadn’t even upset him that I was such a – a selfish person. And I know, I know kids don’t understand that at all, they’d never see it as selfish, but usually, you know, the fact that they’re four gets to them first, and they’re all ‘my way is the only way’. But Lionel,” and she laughs faintly, bitterly, fondly; “Lionel just – skipped that stage. And it didn’t change. It never started.

“Blacklight needs more people like that,” she finished, swallowing, choking on the emotion welling up in her throat.

The service ends with everyone sad, the only dry eye Kara’s, and only because she forces it. She’s still clutching the urn, though she plans on emptying it. It’s useless to her, just another thing to decorate the apartment, but it feels more important than that. After all, it’s her little brother in her arms. So she shuts down the thoughts that have been driving her crazy, the ones insisting a pot of ash shouldn’t mean anything, that an unmarked grave would be worth more to her.

But it’s Lionel. He’s all she’s had for three years now, he’s the reason she’s a lower class citizen, and she promised she’d take care of him. She swore.

I’ve never broken a promise before, she thinks, and then flinches from the thought, closes her eyes to it, refuses to acknowledge it again.

She’s got work, anyway. This – this debate can wait.

Kara is three months from her twenty-first birthday when she finds out she’s pregnant.

It isn’t much of a discovery, really. It’s actually impressive it hasn’t happened sooner – she’s heard horror stories of clients and pimps sabotaging others’ birth control, which is why she takes her prescribed pills meticulously, always made sure she has a supply even when money gets tight. That’s something that doesn’t happen much, not anymore, she’s even got savings.

And, apparently, a child on the way.

Maybe I should consider those god things again, she thinks as she wraps and dumps the test. It’d certainly explain the number of things that are fucking with me.

Still – still. She’s been alone for long enough that a bastard child sounds like a good idea, or at least one she doesn’t want to dismiss out of hand. She puts a lot of thought into the technicalities, makes lists and checks them twice.

In reality, her mind is made up the second that little plus sign shows up – the planning comes with the knowledge that a whore isn’t going to make the kind of mother she wants to be.

“You have a daughter,” is what the midwife says, smiling warmly at Kara. Kara is exhausted, feels sweat soaked and disgusting, and there are textbooks at home she is supposed to be revising, unable to take time off even for this – she’s taken advantage of the break from whoring (“Can’t very well have you giving birth in the middle of a good fuck,” he had insisted, which was crass but meant she got time off from wor) to pick up the business course she found in the pamphlets in her brothers’ room, all those years ago. “Would you like to hold her?”

“Please,” Kara says immediately, tired and almost pleading, reaching for the infant. The midwife laughs, more open and affectionate than anyone Kara has spent time with in a long time, and gently arranges the baby in her arms.

“Have you decided on a name for her, yet?”

Kara hums. She’s staring at her new child, at her family, wonder in her wide green eyes. The baby has blonde hair on her head, like Kara’s, and her eyes, for the moment, are shut as she doses. She’s a beautiful little girl, bundled into the blanket and onesie the maternity ward provides. Kara is absolutely certain she’s never going to make anything this perfect again, and immediately feels immensely guilty that she’s stuck picking up on the whoring again just as soon as Faust tires of her sabbatical. All the more reason to finish this business course, to pick up on dreams she had back in high school, that, apparently, Lionel remembered in the week before he succumbed to his suicide attempt.

(She still doesn’t know what caused it, or what she missed, if she could have stopped it. She constantly faces what-ifs and dreams and nightmares of possibilities, subconscious images so realistic she wakes up waiting to tell Lionel about it – and then the memories hit and she curls back up, chokes back the emotion, refuses the tears she still hasn’t shed. But what-ifs are useless and the past cannot be changed: Blacklight breaks people. She has known this all her life.)

“Darcy Artemis St Claire,” she answers the midwife at last, leaning down to kiss her little girls forehead. Darcy feels right, which she didn’t expect, but it just – it suits the person in her arms, belongs to her in a way Kara has heard some mothers’ say is possible, but didn’t believe. The midwife says something about paperwork and vanishes to find it, pulling the crib over so Kara can put her baby to bed, if she chooses.

When she’s alone with Darcy, Kara presses her lips to the top of her babies’ head yet again. “You’re going to be brilliant,” she murmurs, almost silent. “You’re not going to have a life like mine. I’ll never let you feel alone, I promise. You’re never going to have to swear yourself to – to someone like Faust or Craig or anyone else. I swear, Darcy. We don’t know each other well yet, but we will, and it is going to be fantastic. I promise you.”

She should learn to keep her mouth shut.

Darcy opens her eyes more and more, and there’s something familiar in them. It’s only once Kara is forced to go back to work, cajoling the elderly neighbour into caring for Darcy for the few hours she has to be gone, that she figures it out.

She’s lying in bed with Faust, waiting for him to tell her she can get out, go home, collect her pay direct to a bank account she always transfers the money straight out of, when it comes to her. Darcy doesn’t have her eyes, but they’ve always been familiar. Kara has a lot of regulars, people she’s seen since coming back to work.

“She’s got your eyes,” she blurts without thinking, and immediately starts cursing herself out internally, more than she usually does. She promised Darcy she’d never owe herself to someone like Faust, and here she is, piquing his curiosity.

“I’m not giving you alimony. Keep your bastard child away from me,” he instructs.

She immediately wants to leap to her daughters defence, but she stops herself. She doesn’t want him in Darcy’s life, after all – she promised Darcy, and she’s never going to know that this one time, Kara didn’t defend her. “I don’t want your hush money,” she snaps, getting out from the bed he fucked her in.

She feels dirty, but that’s normal, after any time spent with Faust at all – any time spent working at all. She’s almost finished her course, though, and then she can work on starting a store, the way she wanted to as a teen.  She’s almost out. Finally.

Kara isn’t exactly counting down the days, but she is closer to relieved than she’s felt for a long time.

“What’s this I hear,” Faust says, speaking very slowly, “about you studying?”

He says it like it’s a dirty word, but it’s Kara who is alarmed. She’s got a contract with him that doesn’t say it, but everyone knows that once Faust has you, you don’t get out. The contract doesn’t say it, but everyone knows the rules: no studying, no betterment of yourself, no terminating your employment. Whores get out only once they’re too old to be appealing, businesspeople get out when they can payout more than Faust thinks they are worth, mercs don’t get out.

The exception is when they get dead.

Who told you, is the first question on her tongue, but she doesn’t ask. Even if he answers, it won’t do her any good. “It doesn’t say anything in my contract about me not being allowed to pursue other uses of my time, as long as it doesn’t impact my earnings. It hasn’t, therefore, you have no reason to be like this.” She folds her arms over her chest, the better to hide her fisted hands.

He laughs, long and loud and cruel. “Your contract means nothing. I maintain the terms because it amuses me, but if you are betraying me, Caramel, then you need to be punished. You’re nothing more than a particularly pretty slut, spreading your legs for whatever cash you can get your hands on.”

Kara hates that name, but she freezes, and cannot move. He raises a hand and two men come in, along with a woman she’s barely aware of, some other whore, one of the older ones – one of the broken ones.

“Do it,” he instructs.

The men get between the two women, but it’s the woman who catches Kara’s attention. She’s tiny and hunched and doesn’t have an ounce of confidence in her movements – and she’s walking right for the room where Darcy is sleeping.

“What are you doing?” Kara exclaims, lunging forward. One of the men grab her wrist, the better to prevent her from moving.

“You want to take one of my toys away?” Faust sneers. Kara has never wanted to attack him as much as she does now. “I will take yours. After all, she’s half mine, isn’t she? What was it you said – she has my eyes.”

In the other room, the woman must have picked up Darcy; the baby starts to cry. There are quiet shushing sounds, but they don’t work – Kara and the neighbour are the only people who can get her to be quiet, once she starts crying. Kara doesn’t know if it’s a temperament thing or what, but she doesn’t mind, not as long as she can get there to stop it. “No,” she gasps, then repeats it louder, wrenching out of the grip of the lackey, “No! Don’t you dare, don’t even think about it, I’ll – I’ll go to the police, or I’ll hire someone to get you, Faust, just watch me – get off me – don’t touch her!”

The last shout comes from the older whore showing the wailing infant to Faust. And – yes, okay, he’s the source of the sperm that made Darcy possible, but he’s not her father, and he looks at the baby as though she is some new plaything. Figures, Kara will think later, but for now, she is too panicked, too defensive, too amped up to do anything. “Stop that,” he tells Darcy, but if anything it only makes her cry louder. He rolls his eyes and dismisses both the whore and the baby with a wave of his hand, and Kara is reminded again of how offended she was, when she realised who made her daughter possible. “You, too. Stop it,” he orders, not even looking at the crying child. “The police won’t act against me, and no one you could find would dare go against me. I own this city, I own you, and now, I own your daughter.”

“Fuck you, Faust,” she spits, tugging ineffectually against the grip of the merc. One of them shifts behind her, not that she can see it, and lifts something. Faust nods in front of her, and she opens her mouth to keep protesting, to keep yelling, to talk sense into the man who is kidnapping a baby he wanted nothing to do with less than a year ago.

Only something soft goes over her mouth and nose, muffling her shouts, and when she inhales the air is sickly sweet. Her eyes go wider, and she’s at once disgusted and horrified and incensed, but it doesn’t mean anything. After all – she isn’t immune to chloroform.

His words are a premonition:

The police do nothing. He has half a claim on a child, and if she can’t keep it safe from one little home invader, clearly she isn’t fit for custody, and less than a tenth of the police force in Blacklight aren’t in Faust’s pocket –

She can’t hire anyone to help. She doesn’t have the money, and she doesn’t trust the sort of people she could hire, and one in maybe every two hundred residents of Blacklight would maybe consider doing something that will piss off Faust –

There’s no one who will volunteer to help. She knows people who might not like Faust’s methods, but they are quiet and constrained and won’t act against him, and she couldn’t ask them to anyway, not without becoming as bad as him (which, honestly, wouldn’t be that bad, if she got her baby back) –

His words are a challenge:

He says he owns her, but she refuses to be owned by someone who no longer has anything over her. He took her daughter, and she’s not powerful enough to right the wrong, not yet –

But he can’t do anything worse to her now, so why should she listen to a word he says?

“Y’know,” X says. He’s a hulking figure, leaning against the glass cabinet she’s  fixing the display of, completely at home in the meticulously kept almost-open store. “when we met, I didn’t think you’d end up at this point.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, common whore – no offence – to the owner of a gun store? It’s almost a 180.”

Kara snorts, because that’s the best she can offer while she’s got her hands on an engraved Colt. She rests it gently on the cushion and slides the drawer shut, locking it tight before she looks up at him. “Says the guy who gave me the idea in the first place.”

“You were at a gun show, of course that’s why I thought you were there. It’s that or you’re a gun bunny.”

“That’s not a thing,” she says drily, because he’s been trying to make it a thing at least as long as she’s known him. He hasn’t succeeded, not yet. She’s not going to let him – at least, not around her. Not on her corner of this cesspool.

“It’s totally a thing.”

She scoffs hard enough that her throat feels raw, and almost chokes on nothing. He pushes the bottle of water on the counter towards her, raises a brow at her. “Thanks,” she says, once she’s got it down without coughing anything up.

“Don’t mention it,” he says. Then it’s his turn to laugh, and roll his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re thanking me for.”

There are a lot of things. She met X at a dark point in her life, and while things haven’t gotten any lighter, she still constantly feels as though she owes him. “Closing your shop to come help me open, obviously,” she says, but it’s only one of a much longer list.

He knows. The smile he gives her is soft, and he leans across the counter to tap her nose. “You’re going to figure it all out,” he says, “I know it.”

She manages a smile back at him. It’s hard to believe – but it means the world that he does already. Apparently, it’s just what friends do – and she’s been missing out.