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saltyladynightmare · 3 years

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Jiliu AU Part 6.2

Beginning, Previous, Next, Masterlist

A/N:

I am back with the next part. there is more to follow.

Warnings:

Unreliable Narrator (Anakin doesn’t have all the facts, he is going off of what he does know, and what he thinks he knows), low self esteem, lots of insecurity, and whatever else I've got Anakin dealing with, Jedi Critical, panic attacks (I think. That is what I was trying to write anyway. maybe it is mild? or anxiety?), fake medical practices, fake science, creative liberty taken with how the Force works (don't tell me you didn't see that one coming)

~~~~~~

Three hours later, found Anakin sitting at the table, fiddling with yet another mouse droid's insides. He had already finished the one for Heartattack and sent it on its way. Maybe this new one could be for Kix...or maybe Risk. Risk would probably like it better.

As Anakin contemplated which Medic would like to have a tiny assistant more—it could hunt down rebellious recruits, it would be amazing—he felt Master Che enter the hall. He began putting his handful of tools away, and swept up all the odds and ends he was hoping to use for this particular project into a couple neat piles between a few datapad stacks, ruining his precise rows, but hopefully saving him a scolding for daring to use his assigned space to work on droids the Temple didn't need. Never mind that these droids weren't for the Temple.

He had just finished when his door slid open, allowing Master Che inside.

He turned to look at her, as was respectful, and felt his eyebrows fly up to his hairline.

Master Che was wearing her usual brown healer robes, and matching lekku covering. In her hands was a basket likely with his new IV bags. On top of the basket was a tray filled with several neatly stacked holocrons. Why...?

Anakin murmured a polite greeting mostly on reflex, rolling his sleeve up the way she wanted when checking his IV connections as he eyed the tray.

"Good afternoon, Skywalker," Master Che said. She rounded the table to his spot on the far side, and set the basket on the floor before transferring the holocron tray to the table. She bent again to remove one of the bags and handed it to him, then reached for the nearly empty bags attached to his arm.

"The results have come in on what may have happened," she disconnected one bag, and quickly swapped it out with the one she had handed to him. They did, did they? It had been two and half days, what took so long? "The good news is that as far as we can tell, you aren't about to kneel over." Well, that was nice to know. Anakin didn't want to die. He had plans that involve breathing. Dying would be extremely inconvenient.

Master Che bent, dropped the spent bag into the basket and pulled out the next replacement, then straightened. "Your DNA has changed from your last set of tests four years ago—" Ah, yes. That time when they doubted his identity. That had been an interesting experience. "—in that, as far as your results stand, you are your own over powered son." Anakin blinked down at his elbow, where he was watching her fiddle with how the needles laid in his veins. What? "The other half of your new genetic code comes from the clones the blood transfusions had come from. This explains the more visible changes we have discovered since your arrival—" What, like his Medics hadn't pick up on some of these changes? There is no way the four of them hadn't picked up on at least some of the things, lack of tools or no. "—like your darker skin."

So...Anakin was half Vod now?

He was so going to hold this over Fox's head. There will be no escape. Thorn would help him.

Master Che continued, "As far as we can tell, your various sore areas are from your hardening bones trying to broaden across the shoulders like the clones', and your muscles seem to be in the process of being cannibalized then replaced with the genetically enhanced muscle fiber variant that they had been engineered with by the Kaminoans." Her tone curled in the faintly disapproving way all Jedi Masters' did. What she was disapproving in that moment, Anakin didn't know. He couldn't help but turn stunned eyes on her.

Muscles like the men? Why would that be bad? Has she never seen how they move? How long they can keep going? This was an upgrade, and a welcome one. Maybe he'll be able to keep up with them more easily now.

You know. If he ever got to leave this blasted room.

She seemed to decide his tubes and needles didn't need to be replaced at this time, and removed her hands from him. She propped a hip against the table, and folded her arms across her stomach, lekku curling over her shoulders.

Anakin dropped his gaze back to her collar. Disgust leaked through her shields before it vanished again.

"Your various organs are also changing," she said, "so we are going to need to keep an eye on how that progresses. Do you have a headache?"

"Uh," Anakin thought about it, then shrugged. "Maybe? It's fairly mild, if I do." He definitely had a headache. He was pretty sure it was stress.

Master Che nodded, lek tips flicking in a pleased way. "That is because your brain chemistry is changing."

Or not.

It was a good thing he wasn't on the medication Madam Rishè wanted him to be on, then. Not only would getting the amount of meds he would need on the daily be more than a little difficult to get, even if he did have reliable access to a high end pharmacy at least once a week, on the front lines? Forget it. Also, if his body was changing that much, which he was pretty sure was true, Anakin's metabolism was probably going to go up again. Which of course would expound the difficulty of getting enough of the mood medications Madam Richè kept trying to prescribe him. Especially right now. During the War. While he can't leave this very small room.

It would all be really hard to explain now.

And—his emotional control? That has to do with brain chemistry, it's part of why he has so many issues. If that is changing even more, what is that going to be like? Was he going to have to relearn his coping mechanisms? Were his various triggers going to change?

A shiver raked down his spine at that thought. He shoved it into his current don't think about it box, and dropped it into a convenient hole in the recesses of his mind. His subconscious obligingly whisked it away to a place where it would only haunt his dreams, not his every waking thought.

Don't think about it. Having a meltdown in front of a Master is the worse thing you can do.

Master Che continued, ignoring Anakin's turmoil expertly. Which was impressive, since he was apparently deafening in the Force even with his freshly build shields. Or, it would have been, if he couldn't feel the current she was making in the Force to pour her frustration into. It bled into the air and dispersed like an oppressive fog. "We don't know how much change you are likely to experience, only that you are not done yet." Well, obviously. "You will likely need to remain on your current diet until the changes slow, or even stop."

Anakin couldn't say he hadn't seen that one coming from the outer atmosphere. He started unrolling his sleeve so he didn't start fidgeting. "Will the changes stop?"

The Force around Master Che's mental shields twitched like the beginnings of an on coming sandstorm. "Change like this can only be temporary, Skywalker. DNA can only change so much. Before today, I would have said it cannot be changed like this at all, beyond in the embryonic stage as the clones were. You did finish your biology courses, didn't you?" Anakin nodded. She eyed him dubiously.

Okay, so Anakin hadn't attended all of the classes— he had better things to do with his time— but he had passed all of the tests. It wasn't like he didn't know the material.

"Scans of your blood donors—" Anakin went still. They had taken scans of the Vod'e? "—don't show anything amiss, as far as clone standards go. Of the three other Jedi who have received blood transfusions from the men have reacted as you have."

"You have no idea why this is happening." Anakin summarized.

"No." Master Che's lekku flexed.

Great. "What about my Sensitivity? Why is it going nuts? And why did it fry my prosthetic when the Resolute dropped out of hyperspace?" He waved the shameful excuse for engineering currently attached to his stump arm.

Master Che sighed deeply. "As you are aware, your midichlorian count is going up, which likely had something to do with it. It still hasn't leveled off. Beyond that...well." Her mouth twists in amusement. "No one has actually been able to define what Force Sensitivity is, so I cannot say for a fact."

Thank you for you enlightening words, Master. Excuse me while I go bask in the weight of your knowledge, Anakin drawled in the safety of his shields. The clarification is appreciated.

"However," Master Che flicked her left lek, "I would point out that it is likely not a coincidence that at the same time half of your genetic code has changed, your Sensitivity has also increased."

Ah.

If Anakin had been using his energy to keep himself alive from something, and the blood transfusion had offered a solution to the issue, he would no longer need to use that energy to keep himself from dying. The freed energy was added to his usual reserves, increasing it by something like a factor of three and climbing.

As it had taken an entire genetic change to do this, it had to have been a pretty serious thing, right?

Anakin turned away to stare into the Aether. The Force. Whatever it was.

Maybe...maybe his mother had been literal when she told him he didn't have a Father, instead of what he had assumed. She had been a pretty, young woman in the hands of a Hutt at the time, so it wasn't as if rape had been an incorrect assumption to make, he admitted to himself. Then again, Shmi Skywalker had never been one to dance around the Truth with him, either. She had been one of the very few people in his life to do that.

Anakin set that aside. It was hardly the time to think about that.

It wasn't like he could ask her anymore, anyway.

The pain that was quickly growing to be like an old skin flared up again, and he gave himself a second to breath through it. Then he moved forward as his mother would have wanted him to.

"I understand where you are coming from," Anakin said, reaching for the nearest datapad he was pretty sure was mostly blank, "but what do I do to fix it?" He turned it on, and quickly navigated to the note application.

Master Che flicked a lek at the holocron tray. "I have come up with only one option so far. It is more than a little heretical according to our current teachings, but I don't believe that will be a problem for you."

Probably not. There were very few Jedi teachings Anakin followed when he was alone in public as a Jedi, and even fewer he agreed with wholeheartedly.

"You will need to form Force Bonds with the men in Torrent. Theoretically, those bonds would act something like canals, alleviating pressure in a reservoir. The energy required to maintain a bond with individuals lacking in Force Sensitivity, such as the clones, should assist in lessening the strain you are experiencing under your excess of psychic energy.

"I had...encouraged the Council to consider my proposal." She reached out to tweak the alignment of one of the holocrons with the tips of her fingertips. "They accepted. These will assist you in your endeavor." She swept the same hand over them, as if she hadn't just blown Anakin's mind. "They are holocrons of pre-Ruusan Reformation healers, who specialized in the healing of the mind. Specifically, they were primarily created in the era of the Army of Light, though some came from before." Master Che's mouth curls in amusement. The superior kind that twisted Anakin's stomach. "They call themselves Mind Healers."

Anakin's eyes snapped up to hers, shocked. She raised an eyebrow, and he dropped them just as quickly. He stared down at the floor, eyes wide. His fingers only kept typing on hard-won habit.

Jedi had Mind Healers?

The Order had had therapists in the past? When and why had that stopped?

"They will be able to walk you through forming a bond with a Force Null." Both lek tips flicked this time. "If, of course, you can convince your men to agree to it."

Anakin needed answers. All of them.

But. First; what does this mean for him?

"Force bonds..." Anakin echoed. He weighed what he understood of Force Bonds from all of his teachers, against what he understood of the Jedi's view of such things. There was only one answer. Ignoring how his chest constricted in a foreign, fragile hope, Anakin stated, "You are speaking of attachments."

Master Che inclined her head regally. "I am. Specifically, Force Bonds with Torrent. It would take a massive amount of your...overabundance of energy, allowing your senses to reach more manageable levels. I will make note of your need for it in your medical files; it will be added to your Jedi profile, and those who must be informed of it, will be." She flicked one of her lekku over her shoulder with a twitch of her mouth. This time, her shields gave nothing away. "Beyond that, those who will be 'in the know' will be up to you and the rumor mill. This method will allow you to leave this room without risking brain damage.

"That can hardly be the only reason why the Council agreed to this," Anakin said flatly.

Sniffing disdainfully, Master Che agreed, "Perhaps not, but it is the only reasoning I am aware of." The only reasoning she cared about, Anakin heard. "It is the only treatment option currently available that ensures your continued health." She unfolded her hands from her middle. "I will leave you to your thoughts. Comm me if you have questions." With that, Master Che swept up the basket, then around the table again. The door slid shut behind her with a strange sense of finality.

Rex wasn't here. None of his me—the Vod'e were there.

Anakin's first impulse was to comm Rex and tell him about the bonding, let him have a night to think about it. He stomped on it ruthlessly. Anakin had no idea what...all of that meant. Or why it was actually being allowed to happen.

Alright, so that was a lie. Oh, Master Che had probably actually demanded he be allowed to do this for the reasons she said she had. She took her role as a Healer very seriously. Anakin simply doubted the Council agreed for the same reasons.

More likely, the Council had signed off on it because they couldn't afford to keep Torrent Company, one of their most effective suicide squads in reserve, in addition to the fact that without a way to reduce Anakin's Sensitivity, he was useless as a General. Useless in a time where the entire Order was stretched beyond thin. Useless in general too.

Anakin cringed away from the thought.

It's fine. He's fine.

On the bright spot, the various Jedi who whispered about preferential treatment will actually have some form of truth in their words now, so they won't grate against his ears so painfully anymore. Not that he had been spending a whole lot of time in the Temple lately, but that was besides the point.

It also, he admitted, didn't matter why the Council decided to okay him forming bonds with his men. The Vod'e of Torrent. Why didn't matter, only that it was now an option for Anakin to consider.

First, how does Anakin feel about this? The answer came immediately.

Ecstatic.

Is Anakin willing to go through with having bonds with so many men who were at risk of dying in a moment's notice? Having connections that would be torn from his mind with every mission, every accident?

Ignoring how this would be the fastest way, if not the only way, that he would ever be able to leave this room again...Anakin had payed a higher price for less in return from those who let him care for them.

Who else will this effect?

This took longer to answer. Torrent, mostly, of course. If they accept. Maybe the Guard? Anakin would definitely want to introduce the two groups of Vod'e if he stayed with Torrent. That would impact how Fox did things, so bonding with Torrent would effect the Guard for sure, if only on the very rare times they were on leave...anyone else?

Anakin thought about Obi-Wan. Held what he knew of his relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi in his mind, and considered it.

Bonding with anyone for any reason would do change his relationship with Obi-Wan. Negatively. If only because Obi-Wan has not wanted anything more for Anakin than for him to be a good Jedi. Good Jedi do not get attached.

A Force bond is a connection between two minds; two minds bound together with threads of their very own sense of self. Tied, bound, connected, bonded. Two made closer to one.

In no galaxy would that ever be anything less than attachment to Anakin. Even Master Che had agreed with him on that.

Anakin dropped his head to his hands. His mech hand jammed just a little too hard into the bones of his face, but it barely registered. White noise blared in his ears, drowning out all else.

He was going to loose Obi-Wan in one of the worst ways possible—it would have happened eventually, if only because he was going to leave the Order the moment he didn't have any responsibilities tying him to it. But that would have been because he would be leaving the Order. It was traditional to have no contact with those who leave, and Obi-Wan was nothing, if not a rule follower.

What was he going to do?

He couldn't even leave the Order! He was trapped in this room, for all that the door didn't even have a lock to lock him in. Even if he could withstand the sheer enormity of the Force itself for longer than twenty seconds without blowing the blood vessels in his brain, he couldn't run either. Every time he so much as breathed, he felt every strand of muscle, every pulse of blood in his veins. His joints creaked and popped and protested like straining leatheris in an old ship.

Anakin was chained by circumstances, and his only way out was through men he was supposed to take care of.

The flimsy durasteel of his temporary mech hand creaked ominously.

That knocked him out of his tail spin. Well enough to mentally grab himself in a strangle hold, in any case.

Information. All he needed to do was get the information on what is going on, what it would entail, and give it to the men. Then they can decide if they want anything to do with Anakin's mess.

Yeah.

If they decide to go through with it, Anakin would loose Obi-Wan in any way that mattered slightly sooner than originally estimated post-Geonosis. And in a messier manner.

If they decided they wouldn't, well. Anakin had been chained before. He survived then, he would survive now.

It would be just like making a report. Once he did that, it would be out of his hands.

Anakin slowly pulled himself fully upright in his chair and took a deep shaky breath. He let it out slowly through his mouth, ignoring the pressure starting to pulse in his skull, the weight twisting in his gut, and looked at the holorcrons. He can start there. He reached for the closest one. It was easy to ignore how his fingers trembled.

Anakin spent most of night eyeball deep in a string of...gently worded interrogations with the holocrons.

He would not do anything at all, if it meant hurting even a single person. He would sooner tear himself to pieces than do causing harm to anyone knowingly. To do so to someone who was meant to be under his protection? A far worse crime.

Healthy thoughts? Madam Rishe would say no, and Anakin did see her point, but he was okay with disagreeing on this front. She wasn't the one who woke up from his worst nightmares, the ones he couldn't remember more than burning and the hazy image of small lumps on the floor, certain he had done something horrible.

The holocron Mind Healers all said the same things.

Force Bonds have downsides, no matter how Sensitive the participants are. The sharing of dreams or nightmares, emotions and stray thoughts leaking across even carefully shielded bonds, a perpetual awareness of where the other is, and so much more. All things every Sensitive was accustomed to—many, many things Nulls were not. There would be an adjustment period, to say the least.

The Nulls may also experience headaches for a few weeks as the bond settled on their end. How long exactly that particular side effect lasted depended on how much energy he, as the Force Sensitive initiating the bond, extended both in forming the bond, and then in maintaining the bond, as well as their own personal hardiness.

Some non-Sensitives, the Mind Healers warned, could not handle any sort of bond. Or, more often, the Sensitive and the non-Sensitive are simply not compatible in the Force. The bond would never settle fully, or well, and it was no one's fault, simply the will of the Force. In such cases, rare though they might be, it was best to simply allow the bond to dissolve naturally, as bonds do when not maintained. Long term effects on these individuals have never been observed before, so there is no need for concern once the bond had withered away beyond perhaps some consoling to ensure both sides handled the failed attempt in a healthy way.

Somehow, despite these things, impossibly—amazingly, the positives far out weighed the negatives. It was easier to type up a comprehensive, and entirely honest report on what he had found than Anakin had thought it might be.

Anakin didn't sleep much that night, but he did manage some eventually. If only so Kix didn't scowl too hard.

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whump-town · 3 years

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Lie to Me

Chapter Two

Warnings:

Chapter One

It’s not as bad as it looks.

Derek Morgan stands in place, his right hand coated in a drying layer of the foaming pink blood Hotch had choked up. He’s staring ahead, eyes growing an unfocused haze as his body and mind struggle to keep pace with all that’s just happened. No nurse has stepped in to remove him, medical staff simply navigate around him. It’s violating, it feels like he’s being given a front-row seat to a trauma no one’s supposed to witness. Unmoving, he’s unable to look away. Tears start to cloud his vision but someone has to stay. Someone has to see.

The catheter that they use to suction his mouth is clear. The tubing long and spirally, the room’s occupants able to see the sea foam blood leaving Hotch’s lungs. He’s sat up on the stretcher, shirt cut-off in a long simple swipe. Left to be packed into a bag, the once white fabric speckled in pink. There’s a cloth against the upper section of his chest, catching drool and blood that the doctors miss with the tube hunting the corners of his mouth. Hotch heaves, producing nothing from his empty stomach than acid and thin, soft pink spit. He twists away from the catheter, sucking in wet wheezing breathes. Sounds like he’s breathing through a straw, waterlogged and thick.

A nurse directs Derek closer to the bed with a hand on his bicep, her kind words of encouragement going over his head as he pulls his shell-shocked body closer to Hotch’s. That whispered, useless comment bursting through the space between them. It’s not as bad as it looks. Derek finds that incredibly hard to believe, no matter how neatly they wipe Hotch’s mouth and rid the space of blood-tinged rags.

He’d sat in the ambulance for ten minutes listening to Hotch choke on blood. Heard the EMTs warning the hospital about a pulmonary aspiration, watched them debate intubating Hotch while he was still conscious enough to writhe on the stretcher. Trying to pull his body away from the steady hands placing an IV, to sit up and get away from them. Derek could do nothing, had been forced to

It’s not as bad as it looks. He’s assured, taking the thin, uncushioned chair at Hotch’s side. Close enough now to see the pink of Hotch’s dried blood on the side of his cheek. To hear the wheezing breathes he’s taking, quick and shallow. His eyes dart underneath his eyelids, fingers jerking as he struggles to find comfort trapped between awareness and the bliss of unconsciousness.

One week after his diagnosis he had a panic attack. Not the sort he could hide, as he’d hidden many, but suddenly just the full force of his life hitting him centerfold and buckling his knees from underneath him. Jessica had Jack in the kitchen, the two of them laughing as she made fun of his inability to cook. Jack eagerly agreeing, lacing light accommodations in their mix to make him the butt of their joke. Thoughtful and grounding. He listened to his son try and recount at least one meal he hadn’t ruined by burning it. He’s gotten way better at cooking but for a few months, they survived off of chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese (that he could never get the shells to soften entirely), and frozen vegetables. Off of the kindness (and off fear) of Dave and Penelope bringing pre-cooked meals over. Things he could keep in the freezer and just stick in the over.

He’d tilted his head back against the wall, laced his fingers through the strands of the carpet, and held on. Tried to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. Listened to Jack sticking up for him, “it wasn’t that bad” Jack pouts. And he’d managed a shallow smile, still choking on punched breathes leaving his parted lips. He’s Haley’s son, through and through. The only people who have ever stuck up for him -- even in the face of his awful cooking. Jessica found him on the floor twenty minutes later. Old tears drying on his face and new ones still dripping down from his eyelashes. He told her the truth when she asked what was wrong, took his burden, and brought her down with him. He held her as she cried into his shoulder and then he cried when she asked him to stay, not to leave her. She’s so tired of losing her family and he cracks a smile, thinks an awful little stabbing joke about how he’s the reason she’s lost her family. Haley. Her mother to a heart attack three months after Haley died. Now him, his own body betraying him.

It’s not that bad, he promises but all he can think about is his father. Lung cancer at fifty-three and dead by fifty-four. He’s only fifty but he’s still repeating the story.

We’ll do it together, she assures him but he’s already made sure that’s not an option.

“He’s so cold,” JJ whispers. She’s the only person who can stand to get close enough, who can penetrate the heavy sickness in the room to take his hand. To hold his stiff, cold fingers between her own. She looks over her shoulder, expecting someone to say something but finds them all in the distance. Unable to fully enter the room. Pressed to the walls. Eyes counting the tiles on the floor and making up the ceiling. JJ frowns sadly at them, not surprised but disheartened. She warms his hand between her own, trying to rub warmth back into the cold digits.

Jessica comes into the room, a storm of movement and noise that throws the silent contemplation of the room off. She looks around herself, frowning at the collection of them before rolling her eyes. She knows of the team intimately. For years she’s been listening to Aaron come home and talk about them and she’s grown to know them by means of her own exchanges as Jack gets older. They’re Aaron’s family and Jack’s other aunts and uncles, naturally she’s interested in them. That isn’t to say she isn’t annoyed with them. For the willing ignorance in Aaron’s rapid health decline. In the ways that they chose to appease Aaron rather than help him, can’t they see how much it is to make him happy with their ignorance rather than annoyed with their care?

“Derek,” she’s moving things around the room. They’ll be here for a while. His oxygen saturation is too low and his breathing is causing some mild concern that he might develop aspiration pneumonia. With his temperature still low he might be safe but even then they’re things are not magically better. “Will you please get his heated blanket out of that--” she points to the bag and nods when he goes to the right one. “Thank you.”

She takes control of the room, of the movements they make. Who stays when and who goes where.

He’s sleeping, probably will be for a while.

Around the third week of chemo, he started to understand the doctor’s warnings about fatigue. That, yeah, he might feel okay now and maybe he will continue to feel good for several more weeks but it’s going to catch up, and when it does he needs to be ready to ask for help. His current workload is by no means healthy and hardly sustainable for a healthy person, he’s going to have to make adjustments.

He’d started to feel the fatigue but not creeping in as he’d thought. One Wednesday morning he woke up feeling like he’d gone out drinking the night before. The sort of night Emily’s in charge of, where he wakes up in weird clothes with a haircut Emily gave him in the bathroom. It’s Wednesday, though, and his hair is intact. An awful headache and no amount of sleep were able to bring him to life.

His hours at the office got smaller, falling asleep at the desk and on the couch. He leaned to the explanation that he was just getting older. One sly comment about the grey creeping into his hairline spread unevenly and no longer contained to his temples, and he knew they were using the same safe answer. Making the journey from his office for coffee became a mental battle. He needed twenty minutes to prepare himself. Standing too quickly makes him nauseous. The chemo seemed to make every moment of the day, every complex thought, and all foods cause his stomach to twist threateningly.

Saline dripping above his head, oxygen hissing around his ears, and the warmth of overlapped conversations around him. He feels vacantly removed, left out of a loop that he can’t even tell what’s happening. Prying his eyelids open his hard, resolve weak and body too heavy. Weighed down, rocks tied to his hands. He can feel himself being pulled down through the stretcher. He can’t make his mouth work properly, lips parted in a hoarse groan. “W’as wrong?”

Jessica hears him, sees him waking up. His fingers twitching on the bed and his head lifting up off the pillows, searching for something without opening his eyes. Jessica decides to let someone else handle it, looks over the top of her book, and makes it clear.

Dave moves first, pen sliding into the pages of his book as he sits it down. He squeezes Aaron’s hand, smiling at the groan that leaves his mouth. “Shh, now,” Dave encourages. “It’s alright. It’s nothing, go back to sleep. You’re okay.” His response is another groan, slivers of brown iris’ finding him. “Back to sleep, Aaron.”

Hotch turns his head, “don’.” He pulls his hand back, agitated. He rubs the back of his hand against his nose, “not tired.”

Dave rolls his eyes, Jessica scoffs.

“Aaron,” Jessica, mercifully, leans forward to take the situation into her own hands. “Sleep.”

He groans eyes weighed down, body betraying his rebellion. “Bossy,” he rasps and Jessica just hums. She stands, smirking, and pulls his blanket back up to his neck. He does fall back to sleep, lulled under by the fingers Jessica passes across his hairline. Comforted by how tightly Dave holds his hand.

The medical staff advises and predicts a stay of about a week. They need to closely monitor his breathing for a little longer, prevent another episode from occurring. He spikes a fever and that gets him a few more days, his combative behavior doesn’t help. He’s resistant to the idea that anyone helps him and as his fever spikes it’s hard to comply to his request.

Here Garcia and Reid step back. They’re not… as prepared.

Emily doesn’t even ask when she walks into the bathroom where he’s trying to shower, talking to him about Stephanie from the third floor who was totally hitting on her. He’s shaking by the time the shower’s done, exhausted from lifting his hands up and down and from standing so long. Emily keeps talking, towel drying his hair roughly until he grumbles and then they laugh at the oddness of the situation. His hair is untamable and she gets a kick out of standing the ends up, spiking his hair into a mohawk.

Derek falls into step with him when the nurses come in to remind him of the three daily walks he’s supposed to take up and down the hall. He’s a person to lean into when Hotch starts coughing, an arm around his hips so that he doesn’t fall over. And when they wrap a fall risk bracelet around his hand Derek winces and Dave supplies “yellow isn’t your color”. Some days Derek is met with intense distance and other days they walk close, Derek’s arm already around his back, and talk about nothing, anything.

Dave brings dinner, not that Hotch is eager to eat it, but also popsicles of whatever flavor he could possibly want. He’s partial to Outshine, especially the strawberry ones, and it might not be food but it feels nearly right again to see him eating at least something. It’s a sensitive barrier, a hard line to play with knowing when Hotch just needs a little encouragement and when he just really can’t.

JJ brings movies. Her speed is action movies and Hotch is more into anything but that. So they take turns picking and usually pull punches so that the movie is something they’ll both like but when he’s feeling particularly ill, she’ll pick something awful. Give him an excuse to fall asleep during the movie and she enjoys as much, if not more than he does. An excuse to invade his personal space, cut the lights off, and lay beside him on the bed. She’ll paperwork up there, so relaxed she can zone in and out of what she’s supposed to be doing. He’ll look over her shoulder, reading case reports until he falls asleep or until she shuts the file and tosses it to the side.

These habits, these formations, do not stop when he leaves the hospital. Early. He leaves the hospital, too. Reid comes to visit on Thursday when the others are simply too busy doing other things. Resolve weakened and still shaken, Reid doesn’t last even phase one of Hotch’s plan to bust himself out of the hospital.

Derek is already at Hotch’s house, fighting Jack in the kitchen as they search through the fridge that Garcia’s just packed full of food. She feels ill-equipped to deal with everything, despite having known the longest. She feels guilty. She should have said something long before he got this bad, to the other’s so that they’d know, or to Hotch so at least he could ask her for help.

“Daddy!” Jack jumps up from the floor, running straight to his father before anyone can advise against it but Hotch withstands the collision, beaming down at his son. “I missed you.” Jack wraps his arms around Hotch’s hips, face pressed into his stomach. “Do you wanna help me put my puzzle together?”

They’re livid that he left but they don’t take it out on Reid. Emily won’t speak to either of them but she’s just too mad to hold a conversation. Derek helps him back to his room, Jack hot on their heels. It actually makes Hotch feel worse, being home and still unable to do things the way he wants. They get out of his hair a little more, there isn’t the same guilt associated with his home as the hospital.

It gives him a lot of time to think.

And he finds himself thinking about his father.

No one but Jessica knows the full story of his childhood but they’ve seen him shirtless too many times, know him too well not to have pieced at least most of it together. It’s not his best-kept secret.

He had been the kid that sat in the back of the class. Who never raised his hand, eagerly dancing in his chair, jumping at the chance to prove himself by means of validation from his teachers praising his correct answers. If they were reading aloud, rest assured he’d never have his name spoken by another classmate -- no one ever called his name and giggled in glee at his shocked and annoyed face like they did with one another. He couldn’t be certain they even knew it.

Logged with secrets of his short life, managing only the barest glimpses of life behind his dark eyes, he’d lurched and crawled his way to graduation. No more than a lifeless corpse dragging its reanimated form up and down the halls in its familiar pattern. Showing no signs of spontaneity, neither pain nor joy. Grey and slow.

It hadn’t mattered the silent prayers Hotch sent by way of hushed whispers just under his breath, Haley’s head tucked just under his chin, and the soft wisps of her hair moving with each puff of his breath. No matter how Hotch worked at integrating Jack quickly into as many social situations as possible, he had raised his son to be just a little bit too much like him. There are glimpses of Haley in the things that Jack does. Befriending Paul was leaps out of Hotch’s introverted ways and, more surprisingly, Jack’s.

Jessica’s sage words of frequently repeated wisdom disagree -- “he’s exactly like you, Aaron. The messy hair, that look he makes when he’s doing his homework… that’s all you”.

The little cowlick at the back of Jack’s blonde hair hardly speaks of anything more than Hotch forgetting to run a comb through it in the morning. Perhaps some validity points in favor of his paternity, after all it’s nearly the same cowlick he has. Neither one has tameable hair once it gets longer than an inch. Which does not leave a lot of stylistic options.

“Do you like the dinosaurs with the -- with the spiney -- What are they called?” As carefully as Derek had instructed him to be, Jack sits up by his father’s head. He’d crawled into the bed without invitation, he gets by with a lot these days, and Hotch can’t find it within himself to put those boundaries up between them right now. Jack curls up on his side, head on his father’s chest and a Triceratops staring at Hotch.

It had taken a year for cancer to kill his father and he knows that they’re right, he’s not the same as his father. His father smoked, heavily. Drank frequently and always too much. Didn’t have any friends -- and he finds himself snagged on this difference. Even as Derek throws his son up in the air, hauling Jack over his shoulder and making him shriek with laughter. As Penelope tries new recipe after new recipe of his favorite foods in the hopes that he manages to eat at least one. Not angry, not once, when he picks at the food the others shovel into their mouths. Singing her praises. Emily dragging him around on walks, slowly her pace to accommodate him. She never asks if he needs to stop, just does.

He has friends but sometimes he forgets.

“Daddy,” Jack pulls him back into the conversation. “Can we go to the museum? Uncle Spencer said there are dinosaurs everywhere.”

Hotch nods, “I can ask Uncle Spencer to take you.”

Jack shakes his head, sitting up, “I want you to take me.” He would have never demanded a thing from his father. Never once considered asking for something. Sean was allowed these luxuries, begging to be taken to a game or to the park. Jack pouts, leaning forward and tucking himself up against his father. “We can go Saturday? I’ll take a shower the night before, I promise.”

He’s been hospitalized for four days and Saturday is only two days away, it’s not enough time to recuperate. Not enough time to feel like himself but he can do it. He’ll invite Reid, it’ll provide a great distraction for them both, and that way there’s someone else to focus on. It’s just the museum.

“Okay,” he caves. “On Saturday.”

He’s got a family, people who can trust and who need him just as much as he needs them. He’s going to be okay.

#tw cancer #lie to me #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #emily prentiss #david rossi #jennifer jareau #spencer reid #penelope garcia #jessica brooks

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heyyy-hey-babyyy · 4 years

Text

When We Were Young (part VII)

Dean x Fem!Reader; Sam x Fem!Reader (platonic)

Read part I here ; Read part II here ; Read part III here ;

Read part IV here ; Read part V here ; Read part VI here

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of trauma/abuse, brief moments of self-harm, mentions of anxiety attack, *moments of assault*

**This chapter contains images of assault. Please be aware if this is trigging for you!

B/N: I’m getting a little lost in my own timeline, so apologies for any inaccuracies... All mistakes I claim as my own.

2164 words

Summary: Dean, Sam, and Y/N grew up together, but when she’s taken away for over 10 years, the boys have no idea what she’s been through. Will asking her to move into the bunker with them reveal more than she’s ready for?

You could feel Dean crouched in front of you, and could see his lips moving as he spoke, but everything was moving in slow motion and the words weren’t reaching your ears. Standing quickly, Dean didn’t have time to reach for you as you excited the house as fast as you could. You needed air.

Dean stood again, wearing the same shocked look as Sam and Bobby. But he didn’t follow you, giving you space for a moment.

“Did she just say that was Greg?” Sam asked quietly, moving to stand next to his brother. You had just exited the house, the screen door slamming shut behind you. “The same Greg she emptied a gun into almost fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah,” Dean grunted out, weighing his options. He knew you were upset with him for his outburst back at the bunker and he didn’t want to push you away further, so instead he turned toward Bobby trying to figure out their next move.

“One of you boys gonna fill me in on what all that was?” Sam scrubbed a hand down his face, knowing this wasn’t his or Dean’s story to tell, but he definitely was not about to dive into the specifics of Y/N’s life in foster care. Especially not when Bobby was glaring at both him and Dean like he was. Like a protective father.

Dean cleared his throat loudly, before speaking. “Something bad happened to her, Bobby, when she was in foster care...” Dean trailed off, measuring his words. “And the guy that did it is supposed to be dead. I guess he isn’t as human as she initially thought...” He trailed off again, glancing toward the front of the house. He squeezed Sam’s arm once, knowing he would speak more with Bobby, before heading outside with a quick, “she shouldn’t be alone.” The two men nodded in agreement and Dean headed toward the front door, intent on keeping you close to him from here on out.

-----------

You weren’t planning on going anywhere after rushing out of the house. You just needed some quick air, and plopped yourself down on the hood of the Impala once you were out the door. Dean would be pissed that you were scuffing up baby’s hood, but you didn’t care at the moment, and he’d forgive you.

You laid back against the cool hood, losing yourself in your thoughts. How could he possibly be alive? And why come after you now?

You didn’t want to think too far into the situation, afraid you would have to live through those long nights shaking in your bed again, so you tried your best to separate that life from the one you were trying to lead now, the biggest different of course being Dean. It didn’t seem to be a huge coincidence that the darkest moments of your life were when you were miles away from Dean and Sam Winchester. The thought made you smile to yourself despite what was going on.

You were so caught in your own head that you didn’t feel the hand grasp tightly around your ankle and drag you from the Impala’s smooth hood, slamming your head on the bumper on the way down, making your world go black.

-----------

“Y/N, listen,” Dean started walking across the patio toward the Impala figuring you would be close by. He glanced around quickly when he didn’t see you leaning up against the car’s smooth hood like he expected.

“Y/N” He called loudly, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. Maybe you had walked down the aisle of cars. You couldn’t have gone too far, he thought to himself, it had only been minutes since you walked through the front door.

Dean walked swiftly down the first row of immovable cars, turning the corner to glance down the next, and the next, and the next, not seeing any sign of you.

“Y/N!” Dean shouted again, running down the last few rows and back up toward the house, beginning to panic.

Sam and Bobby heard his last shout and were clamoring out the door toward him, fear written across their faces.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked anxiously. Dean shook his head, running his fingers through his short hair in frustration.

“She’s not out here!” He finally called out at the two men, who swiftly turned and rushed back into the office, preparing to pull up the security footage again. Dean followed, pacing the floor anxiously while Bobby slowly pulled up the salvage yard’s security tapes.

Sam was trying to calm his brother with constant mantra’s of ‘it’s gonna be okay’ and ‘we’ll find her,’ but Dean wasn’t having any of it, swiping Sam’s hand away when he placed it on his shoulder.

“Come on, Bobby, we don’t have all day!”

Bobby glared at Dean again, hard, reminding the older Winchester of his place. Dean shut his mouth but continued pacing, avoiding his brother’s gaze.

“Alright,” Bobby started, snapping Dean to attention. “it’s starting. Looks like Y/N was just sitting on the hood of the Impala after she walked out.” Dean rushed to Bobby’s side and glanced down at the security footage, hiding a small smile when he saw you sprawled out on the hood, exactly like he knew you would be. He kept watching when suddenly the footage went all garbled and they couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. The tape fixed itself and Y/N was gone, the Impala’s hood barren.

“Dammit!” Dean roared, knowing that Greg must have messed with the security tapes. Bobby slammed the laptop closed, muttering to himself, while Sam went back to mother-hening Dean.

“Sam!” Dean shouted, warning his brother. “Get. away. from me.” Sam huffed out a sigh in response, knowing nothing was going to get through to his brother until Y/N was back by his side safe. The three men did nothing for a few seconds but stare blankly around the room, desperate for any answer to appear out of thin air. Dean startled them all when he screamed out, “where is she!?”

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

When you woke you, the lingering smell of rain and dead bodies hit you like a freight train, and you decided to try to trigger your hunter senses before you opened your eyes and gave away your present status. You hadn’t hunted in over a year, promising Sam and Dean that you were more comfortable with research, when in reality you didn’t trust your own abilities anymore. You didn’t trust yourself with many things lately.

You started your investigation with your own body. You didn’t feel drugged or anything, just tired from the fall, and your back ached a little. Attempting to move your arms you realized they were chained above your head and you were on your knees, jeans soaking up the horrible smelling water beneath you. Wincing you decided to open your eyes, hoping that whoever this was wasn’t around at the present moment. You weren’t delusional enough to think that this could be anything other than Greg, but you hoped that perhaps some sort of monster followed you and the Winchesters to Bobby’s. But your hoping was in vain, as you slowly opened your eyes and came face to face with a larger and older version of the kid who ruined your life.

When he saw you open your eyes and look into his, he offered you his wolf grin, before you avoided his gaze quickly.

“Y/N.” His tone was even and you could tell he was still smiling. Though his voice had dropped an octave or so, it sent a chill through your body. You weren’t the most skilled hunter, but in your current predicament, even the newest hunters would be jumping into some kind of game plan and playing off of their adrenaline and anger. You felt yourself shrinking into yourself, hoping you could simply disappear. As always, Greg never sensed any discomfort from you, and continued talking like nothing was wrong.

“It’s so good to see you!” He didn’t touch you, but the way he was coming toward you had you cowering back into the corner as far away from him as the chains would allow.

He clicked his tongue at your movement, “Ah. I see.” You glanced up at him as he spoke, following his movements. He knelt down in front of you, and you couldn’t lower your head any further to get away from him. “I’m not mad, Y/N.” He said simply, using a gentle tone, one that you recognized. Long ago you stopped falling for the gentleness knowing that what was to follow wasn’t going to be nice and gentle.

He stood suddenly making you jump, walking slowly around the room as he thought. “I know you did what you needed to do, and I’m not mad... I just wish you would have stuck around a bit for the real fun.” The wolf smile was back and you shuddered, imagining his bloody body rising before your eyes after you thought you had killed him.

He was turned toward you, and clicked his tongue again when you refused to look at him. Kneeling down he snaked a finger toward you, smiling when he reached your chin and was able to tilt your head back so that you were forced to look into his eyes.

“It’s okay, hunny...” You shuddered when he used the nickname he used to use for you, often referring to you as his little ‘hunny-bear.’ The foster agency and your foster parents thought it was so cute.

“We have plenty of time for you to make it up to me.”

Quickly the single finger under your chin, became his entire hand gripping the back of your neck, and he pulled your forward, the chains attached to your arms clinking behind you. He held you steady in front of him, while he roughly pushed his lips to yours. You kept your face stoic, refusing to react to his assault of your lips, and you felt a growl building deep in his chest. When your lips didn’t react against his, he pressed his hand against your cheek, pressing down on the sensitive skin and forcing your mouth to open. He took your bottom lip between his teeth biting hard enough to draw blood. You tasted the salt on your tongue, wincing as the blood seeped into your mouth.

Greg pulled back, releasing your face, his wolf smile revealing dark crimson teeth, your own blood staining his lips. He stood to his full height and raked his eyes up and down your body.

“Oh hunny-bear, you have definitely filled out. Damn!” You flinched at the volume of his words, but he ignored you. “You turned into quite a looker.” He tsked his tongue continuing to look you up and down. “But why do you hide behind all of these baggy clothes!?” He suddenly sounded angry, and you realized you were wearing one of Dean’s flannels, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and buttoned all the way to the top.

“That definitely won’t do.” He spit out, walking toward you again, and beginning to undo the buttons, slowly, as if he were trying to ‘set the mood.’ As each button brought him closer to your chest and stomach, you felt your abs clenching, feeling like you might vomit on him at any moment.

Once he finished the buttons, you heard him wolf-whistle realizing you were only wearing a plain black bralette underneath the heavy material, the lace and fabric not leaving much to the imagination. You felt tears sting your eyes, imagining happier times on your way to South Dakota when you simply threw on one of Dean’s flannels to be more comfortable on the drive, while the boys were inside at the gas station. The fabric was soft and long and smelled like Dean, so you didn’t bother putting anything under it. You never imagined you’d be in this situation.

Greg continued to look you up and down and you let the tears fall freely. Someone please save me!

----------

The Winchesters and Bobby had been sitting at their individual laptops looking for any clues of where you might be. They figured the shifter was probably moving on foot, so he couldn’t have gone too far in the time that Y/N went outside and they tore apart the salvage yard looking for you. Dean jumped into the Impala after the security footage turned out to be a bust, and drove damn near across South Dakota looking for any sign of you.

Sam sighed loudly, taking a huge drink from the crappy gas station coffee, Dean grabbed before heading back to the house, knowing they needed be alert.

“Dean, I think it’s time you called Cas...” Dean nodded once. It had been almost 6 hours since you were taken and every minute that passed had Dean screaming on the inside, desperate to find you.

Taking a deep breath, he put his hands together in prayer, muttering for Castiel, angel of the Lord, to get his feathery ass down here. That they needed him. Throwing in a ‘please’ for good measure.

Dean opened his eyes when he heard the rustling that could only be the blue-eyed, trenchcoat clad Angel.

“Hello, Dean.”

When We Were Young Tag List: @vicmc624 @woundedxsmile @akshi8278

Read part VIII here

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cerastes · 4 years

Note

Drimo, what IS the Centipede VTuber lore? Reveal it... Reveal it!

I was waiting to have an overlay and a few other things ready before dropping it, but you know what, Centipede VTuber lore, here it is.

The first step is posture.

The second step, strong eye contact.

And the third? You guessed it: A signature move that can annihilate them in a split second.

If you ask anybody, it is clear as morning dew that these are the building blocks to make a good first impression at a job interview. But see, a good and lasting first impression is not essential only to land that job or snatch that internship, it is fundamental for a variety of things, like marriage, seminars, and dungeon keeping.

And it is that solitary shining element in a bucket of otherwise drab boring everythings that matters here. But, ah, let us not get ahead of ourselves, yes? In media res is delightful, but today, this humble narrator wishes to relinquish unto you, without mirrors and smoke but definitely with bells and whistles, The Story of the Centipede of Want.

Once upon a time, within the ruined walls of a famously affluent cathedral’s brick and silver walls, there lived the Centipede, as he was known back then. As attentive ace detectives among readers might be able to discern, the Centipede was a centipede, long and eerie, body of man and beast alike everywhere it mattered, famished for as much sustenance as his forcipules could catch first, and as many things that he could get his numerous hands on a very close second. Warm in winter and cool in summer, the ruined cathedral was a comfortable place to live in, where a spring feast on autumn was common occurrence for the Centipede. Insects, such as scavengers and looters, from hereon morsels, habitually wandered in, looking for the old relics of silver and amethyst ripe for plundering in the ruins of the withered house of worship, becoming sustenance for its longest-lived predator, the four-armed, hundred-legged menace that prowled its once decadent halls, filled with the stagnant air of the hunt. Truth be told, the cathedral had long been looted for most of its relics and arcane implements, its silver goblets and amethyst utensils of all sizes and shapes, so the only ones that wandered in were fools and lesser beasts looking for refuge. It was a peaceful, easy life for the Centipede.

But at the same time, something like throbbing roots thrashed in the back of the Centipede’s head, something that tasted of cyan and grey and had no name, as far as the menace knew. Initially, it was merely a light jostle, but as time passed, the thrashing intensified like a landslide, eating away at his every thought, crunching harder and louder than his mandibles did the carapaces and cheap iron armor of the unfortunate interlopers caught in his granite and silver hunting grounds:

Complacence.

Cyan and grey and rancid and bitter. The Centipede’s mind was impregnated by throbbing unease, its quaking manic, its incisors sharp, its vice grip tight. During the day, it was common for the Centipede to mock the bishop and the priests of the once opulent church, begging day after day for tithe and tribute, only to feast behind closed doors of oak and silver. And yet, he himself was much the same: Preying on weak interlopers during the day, pretending to be a grandiose warlord among what little silver and amethyst decadence was left in the ruins during the night, devoid of any real strength and riches he could call his own.

In his ideal world, for each leg he had, he’d wear a different, uniquely etched and engraved silver band. In three hands, he’d hold silver goblets filled with the world’s finest wine, mead, and rum, aged in mahogany casks, with touches of juniper berries, and on his last hand, he’d hold an oversized goat leg, from which he’d munch on in between rounds of ambrosia. Ah, to be the Centipede! Or rather, the powerful entity in his wildest dreams!

Realization is the sharpest blade of them all. No matter how much you temper your carapace, that which is crafted from denial can’t ever hope to stop such a spearhead. Thus, the Centipede came upon an epiphany: He simply had to get that which he desired with his own hands, and that cyan and grey pulsating cluster of fangs would be gone! And so, he got to work: He’d go to one of the silver mines the town was famous for and become its biggest, meanest threat! The head honcho of harm! The throbbing titan of threat! The punishing pimple of pain! The alliterative administrator of annihilation! Oh, with mandible and might, he’d deliver the most poignant of Rectal Ragnaroks and Colon Crucifixions to any who’d dare wander into his domain!

He’d be the most feared Boss Fight of all!

The Centipede rushed out of the church, his two rows of endless legs clacking a demented tarantella as he headed right towards the hill, his putrid eyes fixed on the silver mine. It was time to begin his reign of rambunctious terror!

Or so was the plan. The plan that was supposed to work. Do you think the plan worked?

It didn’t. It really, really didn’t.

To say the Centipede feasted upon manure would be an understatement. Here’s some statements from adventurers that fought him:

“There’s definitely the intimidating factor of something with more legs than a ballroom, but his moveset was predictable. Kinda easy experience and silver, not gonna lie.” -- Anonymous Rogue, Adept Adventurer.

“Well, how to say this... His boss music could use some work, and only two life bars? I just got done fighting something with four phases, so this was... Well, anyways, at least he dropped a nice skill book.” -- Anonymous Mage, Adept Adventurer.

“I cheesed the dumbass with 100% physical damage resistance because he doesn’t have any elemental damage, lmao get bopped idiot, I kept using my overhead helmsplitter and he kept crouching and blocking in panic, you love to see it.” -- Anonymous Samurai, Adept Adventurer.

“He’s kind of a Stage 3 boss, nothing special, he’ll never make it big.” -- Anonymous White Mage, Adept Adventurer.

“mfer wont drop the damn skill book whats the drop rate on that shit i bet the skill sucks anyways, ive kicked his ass like 14 times now orz” -- Anonymous Warrior, Novice Adventurer.

Alas, it turns out that outside his domain of brick and silver, the Centipede wasn’t so big and mean, after all.

And that’s where most stories end: The monster gets conquered by adventurers, and everyone learns how to cheese it. A nice The End in fancy font then drops in front of you and you go to bed.

But you’re not going to bed today, shitlips.

Because this story is not over.

No.

He wasn’t going to take it.

He didn’t have to take it.

The Centipede rose back to its many feet and decided that he’d start from square one: He’d learn what makes a good boss fight no matter what! Then and there, the Centipede vowed to accrue a staggering amount of health bars, to have as many phases as he had legs, to have a moveset so diverse and foul that adventurers would get acid reflux merely by hearing about the shocking amount of tricky delays and annoying status effects his attacks entailed, to have the single most facemelting ultrabanger of a boss theme, and to never, ever again crouch against an overhead.

That day, the Centipede became The Centipede of Want, and what is it that he want? To be the biggest, meanest Final Boss ever!

...But that requires training! A lot of it! How did he decide to go at it? Why, by streaming a veritable variety of video games, of course! By learning from the boss fights of a deluge of games, he’d be able to craft new strategies most rancid and concoct novel attacks most putrid. Plus, what a better way to learn of the adventurers’ way of fighting than by being the adventurers in games? Not to mention that he could naturally engage with humans in conversation and have them unwittingly reveal their weaknesses to him! It was genius! The Centipede of Want headed to the cathedral’s ruins one last time, grabbed every last piece of silver and amethyst not yet plundered in there, and traded it for a streaming set-up in town. Using the last of the silver, he fashioned a mask for himself to signify that he was done being the complacent bully that roamed the walls of that decadent cathedral.

It was time to begin training.

He’d feast on weaklings no more.

He’d eat gods from now on. He’d seek adversity. He’d seek strength.

And the rest would naturally follow.

#dreamerwave #dreamlore #centipede

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broomballkraken · 5 years

Link

Title: Excuses, Excuses, Chapter 5: Inexcusable Love

Fandom: Pokemon Sword/Shield

Pairing: Milo/Nessa

Word count: 4348

Warnings: None

Summary: Excuse #5: Error 404: Excuse Not Found. In the chaos of the Dynamax disaster in Hammerlock, Nessa and Milo are assisting in keeping the giant, out-of-control Pokemon at bay. However, when Milo is in danger, Nessa makes a rash decision to save him, and the reason she did so is, well, pretty much inexcusable at this point.

The Champion Tournament was an event that everyone looked forward too, and the people that were most excited were the Gym Leaders, and the Gym Challengers who had managed to obtain all the eight of the Galar gym badges. This year’s tournament was no different, and even though Nessa had been knocked out in the first round, it had been an incredible battle with the top Gym Challenger. She knew that this trainer was a special one, and she couldn’t wait to see their match against Leon, as they had proceeded to breeze through the rest of their battles.

Unfortunately, Nessa would have to wait longer than she had anticipated for that match, due to the fact that she was currently trying to help stop three rampaging Dynamax Pokemon from completely destroying Hammerlock.

“Drednaw! Use Liquidation!” Nessa yelled up to her Gigantamax partner. The giant turtle let out a bellow before a wall of water formed in front of him, and he charged at a Dynamax Ninetales, while carefully avoiding hitting any buildings in his vicinity. The Ninetales shrieked when Drednaw hit it dead on, and it staggered backwards.

“Go now!” Nessa yelled to the group of civilians behind her. They quickly thanked her and raced down the street, which had been cleared of the Ninetales that had been blocking it, to get out of the city. Nessa sighed with relief. She had been lucky that she had managed to contain the out-of-control Dynamax Pokemon in Hulbury inside of the Gym, because that had allowed her to race to Hammerlock to help with the more serious situation here.

“Dragon Pulse!” Nessa turned to see Milo directing his Gigantamax Appletun to attack a Dynamax Duraludon, who was getting dangerously close to a row of houses. Milo had also gotten lucky in Turffield and subdued the rampaging Pokemon there without much trouble, and was able to meet Nessa in Hammerlock to help Raihan defend his home. It seemed that the source of the rampaging Dynamax Pokemon was somewhere in the city, as the amount and ferocity of the out-of-control Pokemon were much higher than the other cities with Gyms around Galar.

“You alright, Ness?” Milo called out as he looked over at her, and Nessa nodded.

“Yeah, I’m good! You?”

“Yep. Good job getting those people out of harm’s way!” Milo smiled at her before turning his attention back to his Appletun, who had just taken a rough hit from the Duraludon’s Dragon Claw. Nessa turned back to Drednaw, who was still locked in an intense fight with the Ninetales, but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned around.

Nessa’s eyes went wide when she saw the Dynamax Gyarados rise up from behind a row of tall buildings, it’s glowing red eyes locked onto Milo. It’s jaw opened and the glowing white light forming inside its mouth prompted Nessa to yell a warning to Milo, but he was too busy shouting out orders to Appletun to hear her. Without giving herself time to think, Nessa sprinted as fast as she could towards him. The telltale high-pitched screech of a Hyper Beam being shot off hit her ears, just as she slammed herself into Milo as hard as she could, knocking him off of his feet.

Nessa glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the Hyper Beam luckily miss her and hit the ground at her feet. The pavement exploded below her, and she screamed as she was launched from her feet and slammed hard into the side of a building. She slid to the ground and cried out again, a white-hot pain shooting through her torso. Dizziness filled her head as she tried to push herself up, and she felt a sticky wet sensation falling down the side of her face.

“Nessa!” she heard Milo scream, but it sounded distant, and she raised a shaky hand to her wet face, pulling it away to find it stained dark red: blood. She was bleeding pretty badly from her head somewhere, and a wave of panic coursed through her as she inhaled sharply. She quickly realized that was a mistake, for an unbearable pain shot through her rib cage. She let out a wet cough, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth as she groaned in agony.

She tried again to push herself up, in spite of the painful protests from her body, but she heard a loud cracking noise in front of her. Nessa managed to lift her head enough to see that the building she had hit was starting to crumble, the wall leaning precariously in her direction. The color drained from her face as she watched the building slowly start to fall, and her broken body would not respond to her brain screaming for her to move out of the way. Nessa squeezed her eyes shut as she braced herself for the crushing impact…

...But it never came.

Cracking open one eye, Nessa saw Milo standing before her in her dizzy haze. He had his arms over his head, and the fallen wall was braced against his hands. His arm muscles strained with the effort of holding the rubble up, and Nessa blinked slowly, trying to clear the fog from her mind. He...He was okay…She was so grateful for that...

“M-Milo…” Nessa choked out, spitting blood onto the ground as more ran down her face from the wound on her head and into her eyes. She reached a trembling hand out towards him, but what little strength she had left quickly faded and she collapsed to the ground. The last thing she heard was Milo screaming her name before everything went black and she lost consciousness.

~~~

“Milo!”

Nessa’s eyes shot open as she flung herself upright, but she realized that was a mistake rather quickly as a sharp pain shot through her, forcing her to fall backwards with a groan. She cringed as the pain slowly faded away, and she managed to prop herself up on her elbows as she blinked slowly and looked around.

She appeared to be in a hospital room, the white, sterile-looking furniture and the IV stuck into her arm being dead giveaways. She laid back onto her pillow and stared up at the ceiling, her memories slowly returning to her.

“Milo…” she said again, a wave of relief washing over her. Ah right, they had been fighting the Dynamax Pokemon together, when she pushed him out of the way of the Hyper Beam...and she had almost been crushed by a building...and that was all that she could recall. She must have been hurt pretty badly to have ended up in the hospital, and the dull pains that shot through her whenever she moved told her as much. She was glad that she was alive...but she was more so that Milo was safe...or at least she hoped that he was…

“Ah, you’re finally awake.”

Nessa sat up when a voice hit her ears, and she smiled when Kabu entered her room and made his way to her bedside. Nessa sighed with relief at the sight of him looking unharmed. Kabu had also been helping out with the Dynamax situation, and although she knew that the old man could handle himself well enough, she had still worried for him. He was pretty much like a second father to her, and to Milo as well. They two of them could contribute much of their success as Gym Leaders to Kabu’s patient yet strict training regimens.

“Kabu! What happened? Is Hammerlock okay? What about the Dynamax Pokemon? And Milo-”

“Slow down,” Kabu said, cutting off her rambling as he chuckled and sat down in the chair next to her bed. “I’ll tell you everything.” Nessa nodded and leaned back against her pillows, trying to get comfortable without jolting her wounds.

“Now then,” Kabu began as he crossed his arms over his chest, “Hammerlock is fine, no casualties. The source of the out of control Dynamax Pokemon was stopped by Leon, his brother, and the new Champion.”

“Ugh, no way! Did I miss the match? What rubbish luck!” Nessa complained, groaning as she dragged her hands over her face.

“Unfortunately, yes. It was held yesterday. You’ve been out for three days.”

“T-Three days?!?” Nessa gasped. She was out cold for three days? What happened to her?

“Yes. You sustained a rather nasty gash to your head, and you had three broken ribs. You are very lucky that Hyper Beam did not hit you head on, or you’d be dead right now.” Kabu said, his gaze turning serious. “That was risky, what you did.”

Nessa clenched her jaw, one of her hands reaching up to brush at the bandage wrapped around her head, while the other balled into a fist in her lap. She had almost died, but if she had done nothing, Milo would have been obliterated by that Hyper Beam for sure. The very thought of that made her sick to her stomach. She...could not imagine her life without him, and that’s why she acted so rashly. She just...didn’t know exactly why.

“Ah, but that’s how it is sometimes,” Kabu continued, a sly grin crossing his face. “When you love someone, all rational thought seems to elude you, especially when that someone is in danger.”

“L-Love?” Nessa said, her face heating up considerably as she stared blankly at Kabu. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yes, love. You’re smart, Nessa, but so, so dense.” Kabu said, chuckling when Nessa’s face scrunched up with annoyance. “It’s quite obvious to everyone around you that you love Milo...Well, to everyone except for you and him, it seems.”

Nessa didn’t respond, opting instead to try and focus on regulating her breathing to calm her rapidly-beating heart. Love...She...was she in love with Milo? Her brow furrowed and lips pursed as she thought hard about it. Milo was a treasured friend, her best friend. They had been through so much together since they met, paying visits to each other’s cities, watching each other’s gym matches, cheering each other on. The bond that they shared was something that Nessa had never expected she’d ever have with someone else. He was really the most wonderful person she had ever met. The fact of the matter was undeniable and inexcusable at this point.

“Oh...oh my god, Kabu...I’m in love with Milo.” Nessa said, her jaw dropping as she turned to Kabu with a horrified look on her face, which caused him to laugh.

“Well, it’s about time you realized it,” he teased, “but you don’t look happy about it.”

“Uh, well, it’s just…” Nessa mumbled, her face flushing a bright red as she looked down at her lap, “I...don’t know what to do now.”

“You should tell him.”

“But, what if he doesn’t feel the same way about me? I don’t want to make things weird between us…” Nessa said, swallowing thickly as her stomach dropped. He was her best friend, but if she did tell him about her feelings and he rejected her, could their relationship still remain the same? Kabu erupted into a fit of laughter, which surprised Nessa enough to pull her from her negative thoughts.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” he said, “As soon as you were out of surgery, Milo didn’t leave your bedside or let go of your hand for two days straight. He’s not here now only because I told Raihan, Leon, and Piers to drag him out of here for a proper meal and a nap.” A surge of happiness coursed through Nessa’s chest, making her feel a warmth that she hadn’t felt before. Milo really was worried for her, wasn’t he? Maybe there really was a chance that he felt the same about her…

“Well,” Kabu said as he stood up, “Milo will certainly want to know that you finally woke up. I’ll go grab him for you. The boys probably have him tied down in the cafeteria.”

“Alright, see you later.” Nessa said, “And, thanks Kabu. For everything.” Kabu looked over his shoulder as he grabbed the door handle.

“You’re welcome. Good luck.” Kabu said, smiling softly as he opened the door and left the room. Nessa took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm the nervous churning of her stomach. She’d need all the luck she could get if she was going to tell Milo how she felt without bumbling through the confession like a giant goober. Ugh...How was she going to do this?

She didn’t have much time to think about it, because in no time at all the door to her room was suddenly being flung open. Milo rushed into the room, panting hard as if he had sprinted here at full speed from the cafeteria. His eyes went wide as the biggest smile she’d ever seen (and she’d seen some pretty big ones from him) crossed his face.

“Nessa!” he said, rushing to her bedside and immediately taking one of her hands in his. Nessa felt her cheeks heat up as his larger hand engulfed hers, something that had happened before but took on an entirely new meaning for her now. “I’m so glad you’re awake!”

“Hey, Milo.” Nessa said, hoping that she was doing a good job of masking the nervousness in her voice. Milo continued to smile at her as he sat down in the chair and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Are you feeling okay? Do you need any more pain medication? I can call the nurse if you do? Oh! And if you’re hungry I can go and get-”

“Whoa, slow down there big guy.” Nessa said, giggling as a dusting of pink covered Milo’s freckled cheeks and he scratched at his chin.

“Er, sorry. I was just...so worried about you, Ness.” Milo said, his voice dropping in volume as the smile fell from his face. “I’d...well, I’d never been that scared in my life, when I saw you hit that wall...and when that building was about to fall on you I was just so...terrified that I wouldn’t make it in time to save you.”

“Oh, Milo…” Nessa said, guilt bubbling up inside of her as she averted her gaze, “I’m sorry for worrying you, but when that Gyarados was aiming that Hyper Beam at you, I just had to do something.”

“But Ness...You could have really been hurt so much worse than you were, and you were hurt pretty bad already. Why...why would you put yourself in that kind of danger for me?” Milo said, and her gaze lifted back to his, the sad look in his eyes making her feel even more guilty. Why indeed? She knew the answer now, but would she be able to tell him that? Nessa took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she steeled herself for what was to come. She exhaled as she opened her eyes, the fiery look of determination in them causing Milo to raise a confused eyebrow.

“I did it because...I’m in love with you, Milo.” Nessa said, the confession finally spilling from her lips as her intense gaze locked with his. Milo blinked at her a few times, his expression blank, before his face flushed a deep red and he jerked backwards, almost falling out of his chair.

“Y-You...I don’t think I heard you right.” Milo said after he had steadied himself, and he laughed sheepishly as he rubbed at his neck, “‘Cause I could’ve sworn that you just said that you loved me.”

Nessa giggled and rolled her eyes, reaching over to take his large hands in hers. “Well, I’m glad that your ears seem to be working properly, because that’s exactly what I said.” Milo continued to stare at her, his jaw dropping as a completely dumbfounded look crossed his face. Nessa couldn’t stop herself from bursting out laughing, and she immediately winced as her injured ribs screamed in protest.

“A-Are you...serious?” Milo finally managed to squeak out, his face somehow flushing an even deeper red when Nessa smiled at him and nodded, her fingers entwining with his.

“Yes, of course. I definitely wouldn’t lie about something like this.” Nessa said, “Is that...um, a good thing?” She swallowed thickly as she waited for him to say something. Milo stared down at their hands for the longest five seconds of Nessa’s life, before he suddenly looked back up at her with the most ecstatic smile on his face. Nessa’s heart leapt into her throat at the beautiful sight.

“Oh, yes!” Milo almost yelled, his hands squeezing hers as he tried to contain his giddy excitement, and a huge smile slowly spread across Nessa’s face. “Wow! I just never thought that you’d ever feel the same way about me as I do about you!”

“What?” Nessa breathed, happiness surging within her chest has tears of joy threatened to spill down her face. She hoped that she wasn’t in a coma still, because damn this was going so much better than she should have ever hoped for.

“I love you too, Nessa!”

The words that she wanted to hear the most spilled out of Milo, and the tears Nessa was trying to hold back fell down her face. She wiped at her cheeks as she tried to stop them, and one of Milo’s hands came up to cup her face, his thumb brushing away her tears.

“Er, Ness? I don’t think you’re supposed to cry when someone tells you they love you…” Milo said, grinning when Nessa laughed and playfully slapped his shoulder.

“Shut up...These are happy tears.” Nessa said, a blush rising on her cheeks when Milo’s hand lingered against her face. “I was...worried that you wouldn’t feel the same and I’d make our friendship really weird…”

“Oh, no way! How could I not fall for you, Nessa?” Milo gushed, beaming as he brought his free hand up to cup her other cheek. “You’re the most amazing person that I’ve ever met. I’ve loved you for a while now!”

“Really? Since when?” Nessa asked, her eyes widening with shock. She couldn’t believe that he’d really been in love with her and she hadn’t noticed. Maybe Kabu was right about her being dense…

“Um, remember that time when I saved you from that Wooloo stampede?” Milo said as he averted his gaze, embarrassed, “It hit me then that I like you so much more than a friend, because the thought of you getting hurt just made me feel so scared. I’d do anything to protect you.”

“Aw, Milo, that’s so cute.” Nessa said, laughing as she placed a hand over one of his that still cupped her face. “I feel the same. That’s why I couldn’t stand by and watch you possibly get hurt, or worse…” The thought of how close either of them came to death made a chill run up Nessa’s spine, but Milo placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and the warmth of his touch seemed to spread throughout Nessa’s body.

“Well, thank you for saving me, Ness. But please don’t do that again. I don’t think my heart could handle that kind of worry a second time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I should be thanking you too. You kept that building from falling on me. So, thanks.”

They both laughed, and when Nessa’s eyes met Milo’s again, she grew shy at the look of absolute adoration that he was giving her. A happiness that she had never felt before swelled within her. She loved Milo, and by some miracle he loved her too. What an amazing end to a rather hellish situation.

“Golly, I’m just so happy!” Milo finally said, his arms wrapping gently around Nessa, and he was careful not to move her too much. “I really want to just pick you up and twirl you around, but I don’t think that’d be too good for your injuries…” Nessa smirked as she snaked her arms around his neck, pulling him close enough that their foreheads touched.

“Well...how about you just kiss me instead?” Nessa whispered, her nose brushing against his ever-so-slightly. Milo gawked at her for a moment, causing Nessa to giggle, but he recovered quickly as he eagerly pressed his lips to hers. Nessa giggling ceased as she returned the kiss, her lips curving into a smile against his own. Milo pressed a bit harder, but stopped, and Nessa snorted when she saw the look of uncertainty and hesitation in his eyes. She pulled away slightly, tilting Milo’s head up before brushing her lips against his again, and they seemed to fit together better at this angle. Milo sighed and Nessa could practically feel the tension leave him as he embraced her tighter, while one of Nessa’s hands moved to his neck and the other buried itself into the soft hair at the back of his head. Nessa felt like she was floating on air, and as the kiss deepened, she found herself wishing that this moment would never end.

“Ha! It’s about time, you two!”

“Jeez, get a room already!”

“...They are in a room, you dolt.”

Milo jerked away from Nessa so abruptly that he did fall out of his chair this time, while Nessa covered her face with embarrassment. She peaked through her fingers to find Leon, Raihan, and Piers standing in the doorway, and she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted at them.

“Don’t you guys know how to knock? Barging into a woman’s room is just asking for an ass-kicking.” Nessa said, the venom in her tone causing Raihan and Leon to share a worried glance.

“I tried to stop them, but these two idiots couldn’t wait any longer to come see you.” Piers said with an exasperated sigh. Nessa couldn’t help but smile, and she wondered how he managed to put up with his two doofus boyfriends all the time. Piers then smiled as he continued, “Glad to see you’re doing well, though.”

“Hehe, well enough to be sucking-face with Milo-” Raihan said, but was cut off when Leon jabbed him in the side with his elbow.

“That’s too far.” Leon scolded, and Raihan laughed nervously as he looked over at Nessa and Milo.

“Er, right, sorry guys.” Raihan said, and a big toothy grin crossed his face, “But really, congrats on the new relationship. We were all wondering when it was finally gonna happen.”

“Ugh, did everyone know except for us?” Nessa groaned, smacking a hand over her face. Milo just laughed and took one of her hands in his, smiling fondly as he entwined their fingers together. A smile made its way back to Nessa’s face as she looked back at the trio of men. “But thank you guys for worrying about me. I appreciate it.”

“Of course. That’s what friends are for.” Leon said, and Piers nodded. Raihan also gave an enthusiastic nod, before rushing over to the side of the bed and pulling out his Rotom phone.

“Yeah, yeah, enough of that! It’s time to take your first pic as a couple!” Raihan said excitedly, and Nessa glowered at him.

“I don’t exactly look picture ready, Rai.” Nessa mumbled, running a hand through her messy hair as she glanced down at the unflattering hospital gown that she wore. Milo just blushed and averted his gaze, and Nessa couldn’t help but think that he looked cute.

“Ah, don’t worry about that! This one is just for you two, and it won’t see any social media unless you guys are the ones to post it. I promise!” Raihan said, winking as his Rotom buzzed around him. Nessa glanced back at Piers, who mouthed ‘I will kill him for you if he breaks that promise’ and she knew that he meant it.

“...Alright, but if you break that promise, I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.” Nessa warned as she wrapped her arm around Milo’s back and pulled him closer to her.

“Oh yeah, she’s a keeper, Milo.” Raihan said with a laugh, and Milo grinned as he moved his arm behind Nessa’s back to place his hand on Nessa’s waist.

“I already know that.” Milo said, beaming at Nessa as she giggled. They smiled as Raihan’s Rotom snapped a few pics, and before the last one was taken, Milo turned and kissed Nessa’s cheek.

“Aw man, you guys take such cute pics! Teach those two dorks over there how it’s done, please.” Raihan said, earning a glare from Piers and a pout from Leon. Raihan walked back over to his boyfriends as they bickered with him, and Nessa rolled her eyes at their antics, but smiled nonetheless. She was glad that she had such wonderful friends.

“Hey, Ness?” Milo whispered, dragging her attention away from the loud, bantering trio. She blushed when Milo pressed his lips to hers briefly, before pulling away to look deep into her eyes. “I love you. I’m gonna take you on the best dinner date when you get out of here, okay?” Nessa’s eyes lit up as a bright smile crossed her face, and she nodded.

“I’d really like that. I love you too, Milo.” Nessa whispered back, she cupped his face to pull him in for another kiss. It seemed that she had no excuses left to explain away her feelings, feelings that she knew now had been lying dormant inside of her for quite some time now. She was grateful for that, because she loved Milo, and he loved her just as much, and neither of them would have it any other way.

#pokemon swsh #waterlilyshipping #waterlillyshipping #milo/nessa #pokemon milo #pokemon nessa #fanfiction #jade writes fanfiction

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liesyousoldme · 5 years

Note

reddie + zombies/apocalypse/etc

warning for blood/gore

It has become difficult,over the last ten years, to shock Eddie Kaspbrak.

He doesn’t remember thelast time he was shocked by something. He can think of things that shocked him,sure. His mother lasting 76 days After, which was 16 more than he’d expected ofher. Finding a boy bleeding in an alley on a supply run, tears on his face andbegging for help, swearing it wasn’t a bite, he’d been attacked, it was a knifewound. Stanley and Patty announcing a pregnancy. But none of those things hadhappened within the last eight years.

After a while, in theAfter, things like bloody injuries, death, and violence lose their shockfactor. When something happens so often, it’s hard to find the energy to evenfeel surprised, to feel scared. It’s just another day. And in the past few years,things have gotten better. Eddie’s heard whispers that this might be a new eraentirely. After the After. He tries not to get his hopes up, but living in acommunity filled with people, with a small but sufficient system of government,has led him to believe that their may just be an after the After, after all.

His house has twobedrooms. One is his own, one is Richie’s. They have a small kitchen, abathroom, a living space, and a garden in the front. It’s all they need. Eddieis a medic, working in the infirmary and helping Mike, the closest thing theircommunity has to a real doctor. He had been a veterinarian, or at least on theway to becoming one, and he knew what to do to treat serious injuries. Nowadaysthe wounds tend to be much tamer than they had been in years past, but thereare still the occasional bites. He doesn’t know that the bites will ever goaway.

Richie is a scavenger, andEddie hates it. Hates sleeping in the house by himself for two or three nightsin a row every month when Richie is out. Hates that he doesn’t really sleep,not at all, because he’s too busy worrying his best friend is out there, dead,or injured, or bitten. He spends some of those nights with Mike and Bill,playing board games in their living room. Others he spends with Stan and Patty,playing with their daughter to give his mind a break from the overwhelmingconcern for Richie’s wellbeing.

Sometimes he visits Bev,who is also worrying, because Ben is a scavenger, too. And even though Beverlyand Ben are together, their house only needing one bedroom for the two of them,Bev never questions why Eddie is just as upset about Richie’s absence as she isabout Ben’s.

Richie is due hometomorrow and Eddie is running on little sleep, patching up a scraped knee on atoddler while Mike is doing a check-up on Stan and Patty’s daughter. Eddiejolts when the door is thrown open and slams into the wall. The little girl he’dbeen patching up screams and runs, and when Eddie turns to the door he doesn’tblame her. His eyes are wide as Ben and Bill carry Richie into the building,his lower left leg covered in blood.

“Rich?” He whispers, tooquiet for anyone to hear. Mike has already sprung into motion, giving everyoneorders and setting up a table for Richie. Eddie can’t move, only stares asRichie is placed on the table and the leg of his pants is cut away.

It’s a bite.

Eddie’s hands fly up tohis mouth, trying to hold back a sob. It’s then Stan notices him and rushesover. Patty has their daughter in her arms, heading for the door.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Stansays calmly, but Eddie can see the panic in his eyes, too. They’ve been bestfriends their entire lives, the three of them. They’d survived so muchtogether.

“It’s not,” he cries. “It’sa bite, Stan!”

“Mike can amputate,” he answers.“It’s at his ankle, he can salvage a lot of the leg, I bet. Come on, let’s –let’s grab the night shift medic to come help Mike, and we’ll head to yourhouse to wait.”

Eddie lets Stan lead him,head swimming. This is what shock feels like. This is fear.

Mike works on Richie’s legfor seven hours. Richie takes another two to wake up. When he does, it’s the middle of the night and Eddie isthere, sitting on the floor next to the couch in their living room where Richiehas been set up. His eyes open blearily and he leans up before gasping and thenyelling out in fear.

“Hey, Rich, it’s okay,” hesays, grabbing at his shoulders, stopping him from moving too much. There’s anIV in his arm and Eddie checks to make sure it hasn’t been jostled. Richie iswide eyed, looking around nervously, glancing at the IV. Before he can ask,Eddie tells him. “You got bit on your leg. Mike had to – to amputate. But it’snot bad! Just the lower part, it’s –“

Richie is breathingheavily, shaking his head. Eddie cups his face in his hands, his own eyes tearingup.

“Please calm down,” hesays softly, looking into Richie’s eyes. “Everything’s going to be okay. Mikedid a great job and you know Ben will build you a great prosthetic –“

“My leg?” He whispers,horrified. Eddie chokes on a sob, nods his head. He pulls at the blanketcovering him and cries when his bandaged stump is revealed. “Eddie? Eddie, howam I – how can I –“

“We’ll figure it out,”Eddie promises, pulling the blanket back over the leg. He runs a hand throughRichie’s hair.

“My job is – I can’t – I can’trun, Eddie, Eds, Eddie, please, I can’t do this, I can’t –“

“Yes, you can,” he saysfirmly, taking Richie’s face in his hands until their eyes meet. He leans up tosit on the edge of the couch next to Richie’s torso. “You will find somethingnew to do once you’re healed up. You’re going to learn to run again, okay? Iknow you can.”

“Eddie, please,” he says,tears falling down his pale cheeks. “Please, I can’t. My leg.”

“I know,” Eddie murmurs,pushing their foreheads together. He runs his hands through Richie’s hair andfeels him shiver. “Are you cold?”

Richie’s quiet for amoment. “No.”

Eddie bites his lip. Hebrushes his fingers through curls again.

“Eddie, what am I supposedto do?”

Eddie closes his eyes. “Idon’t know,” he admits. “But I’ll be here with you the whole time.”

“Eds?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry,” Richiewhispers into the small space between them.

Eddie frowns. “For what?”

“I’m – I got bit. I don’thave – I can’t – I’m useless now. How am I supposed to – We protect each other,that’s what we’ve done for ten years, but I can’t – I can’t protect youanymore, Eds, you need someone –“

“Shut up,” Eddie stops him. “Shutup, okay? I don’t need anyone but you. You’re not useless, you’re the sameexact person, and I’m a medic and I’m going to take care of you. And you won’tbe scavenging anymore so you’ll be taking care of me, too.”

“What?”

“You’ll be home so I won’tbe – you know, anxious and… sleep deprived, and stuff.”

“Eddie, I can’t, I can’thelp you,” Richie says brokenly.

“I don’t care,” Eddie saysstubbornly, tears clinging to his lashes. “I don’t care what you can and can’tdo, okay? We have tons of friends to help us both. We’re not – I’m not – Richie–“

“You should move in withsomeone else,” Richie says, looking away from Eddie’s eyes. “Maybe Bill andMike’s. If something happens I can’t –“

“No,” Eddie cries, hishands finding their way to the back of Richie’s neck. He hears Richie’s breathhitch. “I’m not going to let you… devalue yourself just because you – because youlost your leg, okay? I’m not leaving, and you’re not leaving. Just you and me,okay?”

“And Stan?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No,just you and me, Richie.” He rubs his hands down the back of Richie’s neck tohis shoulders. He realizes Richie’s hand is clutching his shirt and he pressescloser. “You and me. Right?”

Richie nods slightly.Eddie hears his sharp intake of breath when their noses brush.

“Holy fuck,” Richiemumbles, awed. “What does Mike have me on?”

The words take a moment toprocess for Eddie. “What?”

“I think I’mhallucinating. Or like, what’s that dreaming thing where you control yourdreams?”

Eddie can feel each puffof breath from Richie’s lips hit his own. “Richie, what are you talking about?”

“I’m – I’m dreaming, that’sthe only time you love me back, this is –“

Eddie presses their lipstogether, tears falling down his cheeks and whimpers escaping Richie’s throat.

When their lips part,Eddie doesn’t go far.

“I always love you back,stupid,” Eddie tells him quietly.

“I still can’t take careof you,” Richie says.

“I still love you,” Eddieresponds, kissing him again. “And I’ll love you no matter what happens toeither of us.”

“Okay,” Richie whispers,leaning back into the pillow behind his head. “Will you lay with me? I’m tired.”

Eddie watches him pull apouty face, the most pathetic he can manage, and laughs softly. He climbs ontothe couch next to Richie, careful not to jostle his IV and making sure Richieis still comfortable. They wiggle around until Richie’s head is on Eddie’schest, and within minutes he’s asleep. He wipes the remnants of tears fromunder his own eyes and shifts until his own head is against the arm of thecouch. Richie mumbles in his sleep but doesn’t wake, and Eddie sighs softly. Everythingis only going to get harder, he knows it. Richie won’t be able to do his normaljob, probably won’t be able to do much of anything while recovering. So much ofthis life is being able to up and run at a moment’s notice. What are they goingto do, if Richie can’t run?

He falls into a fitfulsleep, Richie curled up next to him, and hopes he has more answers in the morning.

(He doesn’t.)

#my fic #zombie apocalypse reddie au #Anonymous

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disabled-queen-hc-blog · 5 years

Note

hi! i read Your rules and i just want to say it's definitely disco deacy. deacy and Not deaky!! also i Wanted to ask - could you Do something with joger and ocd? (as you Can obviously see i have ocd myself and ive been feeling extra shitty about it lately) i love Your writing and please keep writing its really great! have a Great day!

“One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three,” Roger mumbled to himself as he flicked the light switch off and on. He had to do it three times and in three sets. Three, six, nine, twelve were the numbers that kept everyone safe. If he did it four times or in four sets, John would die. If he did it twice in two sets, Queen would fail.

The lights were finally off and he exited the bathroom. He opened and closed the door three times before it was officially shut. He counted the steps he took to the bed. It had to be an odd number or he’d have to start all over. Even numbers meant he would choke to death.

He was lucky tonight he made it to the bed in seven steps. He crawled into bed where John was already tucked in, sleepy eyed. He finished his bed time routine faster than Roger’s for obvious reasons.

Roger scooted his way closer to John, dragging to bassist closer to him. “Have you already gone to sleep?” Roger asked. John groaned, wriggling up to Roger, seconds away from succumbing to slumber. Roger took that as a yes.

“Well, goodnight then, love,” Roger said, pressing his lips to John’s. And then again. And again. John wasn’t even conscious for the last one.

Roger got himself comfortable, listening to John’s soft breathing. For most people, this should be a relaxing part of the day. It wasn’t for Roger. His body might start to relax, but his brain only gained more speed. There was so much to worry about.

What if John died in his sleep?

What if Roger had a heart attack?

What if he got a call at 3am that Freddie got killed in a car accident?

What if John could read his mind and was pretending to sleep, judging him for all these thoughts?

What if he accidentally smothered John somehow?

What if he died?

What if John died?

His heart was pounding in his chest, a sure sign of a heart attack, right? But it happened every night...no this was the night it’d end. He had to do something about it.

Roger got up, padding his way to the kitchen. He closed the bedroom door nine times because nine was better than three and six but not excessive like twelve or fifteen. Nine was also the square root of three unli-

He was in the kitchen, rummaging through the medicine cabinets. He needed aspirin for the heart attack he was definitely having and some melatonin so he could sleep.

He took one aspirin pill even though he’d prefer to take three. He took three melatonin capsules. He touched the water faucet seven times.

Roger was able to slink back into bed, only closing the door three times. He curled up against John and prayed for unconsciousness. It was the fifth day in a row he did this exact routine. He was scared it’d become permanent.

♚

Roger was up early, whistling as he cooked breakfast for the two of them. Toast and bacon. Nothing too heavy. Neither of them cared for heavy meals.

He poured oil into the skillet, turning on the stove to mid-high. That setting made the knob perfectly vertical.

He knew they’d only eat four strips of bacon between them, but that’d mean he’d have to fry three in one batch and one in the other, which wouldn’t work. He feared he’d kill John if he did. So he did six. But he couldn’t do two batches of three because he’d end up killing John that way too. So he crammed 6 strips into the frying pan that could accommodate three at most.

He hummed a song he heard on the radio the other day as he prepared the bread. Six slices again. But he hit a dilemma. There was only two slots in the toaster. He counted. He recounted it too, just in case. He’d have to do three batches of two and two wasn’t a good number. Maybe Brian would stub his toe or drown in his bath tub and he couldn’t be sure which.

He could ask John to do the toast, but what if it still had the same effect? Roger chewed his lip as the bacon crackled and popped, six slices of bread before him. He could figure this out by himself. He was grown. He could do this. He could do this without killing anyone. Without giving anyone cancer.

The bacon started to smoke.

Roger would find a way because everyone depended on him to find a way.

The oil was sizzling, the bacon turning black.

Roger had this under control, he just-

“R-Roger, baby, please,” John choked out from the kitchen doorway, eye’s welled with tears.

Roger looked back from the mess in front of him, breathing hard, his own eyes red and glossy.

“I have this,” he said, even though smoke was filling up the room.

John shook his head, having watched the whole thing. “No you don’t” he said, voice cracking.

John entered the kitchen, pushing Roger aside. He turned off the stove and opened a window. He opened up Roger’s hand, him unknowingly squishing the bread in a horrible mix of fear and frustration. He threw out the ruined bread before standing by the window, the morning sun making his tears glitter.

“I’m sorry,” John mumbled, trying to compose himself. Roger just stood frozen, not knowing what was happening. What had he done? Was this his fault? Of course it was. It was always his fault. He had one job and he always messed it up. He was supposed to keep everyone safe but he always fucked it up. He miscounted or didn’t do enough sets to-

“You deserve so much better, Rog,” John said after taking a deep breath. He turned to face his boyfriend, stepping closer to him.

“What are you talking about?” Roger said, eyebrows furrowing.

“Baby, the pan was seconds away from starting a grease fire. And you didn’t notice. Too busy with the counting,” John’s head tilted.

“No, no, I was just trying to think of a way to toast everything in three’s so you’d be alright. I would have noticed,” Roger nodded fast, not self aware to how ridiculous he sounded.

John smiled, but it was sad, his eyes tearing up again. He’d let this go one for far too long. He thought it was a quirk at first. A silly little thing Roger did for whatever reason. But the more time they spent together, especially after moving in, he began to realize how toxic these rituals were. The way Roger blabbered about numbers and how he was the only one in the way of all danger.

It was obvious Roger was suffering. He might not have been aware of it, but he wasn’t in a good place.

Roger took the weight of the world onto his shoulders, trying to protect the ones he loved from death and injury. It was John’s turn to do the protecting, the rescuing.

John pulled a confused Roger into a hug, squeezing him tight. “How about I make some phone calls and then I take you to a diner for breakfast instead?” he whispered, relaxing a little when Roger agreed.

♚

“Breathe, Rog. You have this. I’m here, alive and safe. You can do this,” John said as he stood just outside the bathroom. Roger was shaking, eyes flowing. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t have this. He wanted to do what he always did. He wanted John to live.

“Turn off the light once, like the therapist said and then you can check me from head to toe. I’ll be alright,” he continued to coach, a hand reaching out to rub Roger’s shoulder.

Roger’s finger trembled as it reached for the light switch. This was his first task. Turning on and off the lights just once. It was only one thing, and yet he wanted to throw up at the thought of it. His mind kept racing with all the what if’s.

“What if I get hurt?” he said shakily.

“I’ll patch you up,” John said immediately and assuredly.

“And if you get hurt?”

“Then you’ll patch me up,”

Roger sniffled, staring at the stupid light switch. Just once. Just once can’t kill someone, right? Can’t make Queen fall off the charts? It can’t, can it?

“C-Count me down,” Roger said, steeling his nerves.

John opened his mouth to start the count down, but stammered before starting again. “Four, three, two one,”

Roger flicked the switch, a sob coming from his chest. He ran out the bathroom and into John’s arms, shaking like a leaf. John held onto him, rubbing his back, congratulating him for his first step.

“You did so good, Rog. Brilliant. And look, everyone is alright. Nobody is hurt. You see? You don’t have to be so tense. Everything is perfect,”

It took Roger an hour to calm down, John ushering him to bed. Maybe after that good cry, he could sleep at a proper time and without the aid of medicine.

Roger preferred to be the big spoon most nights, since that’s what protectors did, but tonight, John was able to wrangle him into being the little spoon.

John snuggled into Roger’s neck, rubbing his chest, cooing soothing words into his ears. Until he fell asleep. Without a fight or struggle. He fell asleep for the first time in months without panic, without intrusive thoughts, without worry.

“You’re so strong, so brave. Roger, I love you to bits. I’ve got you, alright? You’re never gonna be alone. We’ll get through this,”

It was only the first step, the first night. There’d be many other challenges to face. But Roger felt ready to tackle them. He had John by his side keeping him afloat. Not the number three. Just John.

#i used to have ocd (don't ask how i got it treated) and this was me brain all day #i'd count my heart beats instead of things tho #roger #ocd!roger #joger #dealor #Anonymous

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fanfic-from-a-67-impala · 5 years

Text

Safe

Characters: Alex x Patience, Jody

Word Count: 1193

Summary: Patience as damsel in distress. Alex as knight in shining armor.

Warnings: angst, injury

A/N: This is for @kaianieves because it’s her birthday.

Also, M, you can consider this an armed attack as part of our angst war. Your move.

Patience opens her eyes, her hands and feet absently pulling against their binds. The back of her skull throbs, and her throat is parched. She doesn't panic anymore when she sees she's been tied to a chair in a dark warehouse.

She's lost count of how many times in a row she's woken up like this.

“Oh, good.” The grating voice of her captor sends a pounding through her head, making her wince. “I was afraid I'd have to find a new psychic soon, but it looks you've still got a little bit of life left in you.”

He approaches Patience, stroking her cheek.

She wants to flinch away, to bite his hand, something, but her muscles feel like jelly, so weak she thinks she might pass out if she so much as turns her neck.

He raises his hand, a thin spike protruding from his wrist.

Patience hasn't spoken a word in days, and her voice comes out raspy and broken.

“Please,” she begs. “Just kill me already.”

The wraith clicks his tongue. “Now, why would I do that?”

He jabs the spike behind her ear.

Patience screams.

Alex has never been more sure of anything. She's done the math. She remembers Jody telling her about the last wraith who hunted Patience, how he discovered that psychic brains made a five-star meal.

This is the break in the case. After hours without eating, nights without sleeping, nine days searching for the thing that took Patience, she finally caught a break. She had heard whispers of a strange guy in town. She dug deeper, like she had with every hint of a lead, until she traced the guy from a town — then two, then three — where mysterious deaths had occurred and all the victims had deep puncture wounds at the bases of their skulls. Alex knew, and she knows now.

“You sure this is the place?” Jody glances between her and the road.

Alex is loading their guns with silver bullets in the passenger seat.

“I asked around,” she explains. “People said they saw the guy ducking into the old warehouse on 12th.”

Jody takes a breath like she might say something, but she stays silent.

“What is it?” Alex prods.

“It’s nothing. Just…” Jody glances at her again. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up again.”

Alex pauses her work for a moment. “You mean, like the other times?”

It’s not a question, but Jody shrugs and nods.

“The other times didn’t feel like this,” Alex says, sliding the clip into place. “She’s there. I know it.”

Jody keeps her eyes trained on the road, silent.

“And, uh, Jody?” Alex tries. “I’m sorry.”

Jody raises her questioning eyes.

Alex continues. “About… you know. I shouldn’t have said the things I said. I know you care about Patience, and I know you were just looking out for me, like you always do. For all of us. I just think about her being out there…”

“I know, sweetheart.” Jody places a hand on Alex’s knee. “And even if we’re wrong about this one, everything is going to be okay. We’ll bring her home.”

Alex nods. “I know.”

But she doesn’t know. Neither of them can.

The old warehouse feels ominous under the blanket of nighttime. Alex can feel the tension in her bones, can see every rock on the ground, can hear every waft of the breeze.

She and Jody creep through the building, scanning the room for movement. They reach the corner of the room, finding nothing.

Alex turns around. She would have missed it if it weren’t illuminated by a square of moonlight pouring through a small window.

“Patience.”

In the middle of the hall, Patience’s limp figure slumps forward in a chair, her eyes closed, her wrists and ankles bound with rope to the rusty piece of furniture.

Alex barely hears Jody shout her name in warning before she runs to Patience’s form. She slides on her knees to meet her chair.

“Patience?” She cups Patience’s cheek, jostling it when the touch yields no response. “Patience, baby, please. Please wake up.”

Jody circles the girls, her gun still raised, although they seem to be alone.

“Patience!” Alex yells now, her chest growing tight.

She brushes Patience’s hair from her neck. Dried blood stains her skin around a gaping wound at the base of her skull.

Alex’s blood runs cold.

“J— Jody?” she calls.

She tears her eyes away from Patience to find Jody watching them with wide, horrified eyes.

Movement from behind Jody catches Alex’s eyes.

Before she can warn her, Jody whips around and shoots the wraith twice in the chest. It falls to the ground.

Patience can't move when she first regains consciousness, can't even open her eyes. She knows she's not in that warehouse anymore. She can feel a bed underneath her.

There's something draped over her forehead. A wet towel, warm now.

She feels a pair of hands squeezing one of hers. They're Alex’s. She would know them anywhere. She's been craving their touch for days. She's missed everything about Alex, really — her laugh, her arms wrapped around Patience, her lips pressed against hers.

Alex’s hands leave hers. The towel lifts from her head and returns seconds later, cooler now. It feels good.

Alex holds her hand again, and Patience hears her sniffling. It’s enough to snap her out of her dreamy state.

She can barely open her eyes, but Alex’s hands tense, picking up on it.

“Patience?” she whispers.

Dark clouds dot Patience’s vision through half-opened eyes. When they clear, she can see Alex’s glistening grey ones peering into them.

Alex swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand quickly, but not quickly enough. The whites of her eyes are still tinged pink, and so are her cheeks.

“Hey.” Alex’s voice cracks on the word. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Patience looks around. She’s home at Jody’s, in the bedroom she and Alex share. There’s a new map and a some newspaper clippings pinned to one wall above a desk. Next the the bed, there’s an IV pole holding a bag of something clear hooked up to Patience’s arm.

“It’s just so we could get some fluids in you,” Alex explains. “I’ll take it out.”

She removes the tape, pinches Patience’s arm, and slides the needle out. Her touch is gentle. It barely stings.

“How you feeling?” Alex asks.

Patience tries to speak, but only a moan comes out. She tries again.

“Better,” she says.

Alex bites her lip. It's a vague response, but she doesn't ask for more.

“Don’t cry,” Patience says. The words are strangled in her throat, but Alex seems to understand.

“I’m not crying,” she insists.

Patience smiles. She feels too tired to say much more, but she tugs on Alex’s hand with all the strength she has.

Alex takes the hint, crawling into the bed next to her.

Patience falls asleep, safe for the first time in a long time, with Alex’s arms wrapped around her.

Tags: @ellie-andthemachine @gaybrieljax @emerald-watermelon-199 @mersuperwholocked-lowlife

#Supernatural #Alex x Patience #femslash #Supernatural femslash #Supernatural oneshot #Alex Jones #Patience Turner #Jody Mills #angst #oneshot #crimson and clover #writing is hard

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 6 years

Text

Tearing Down Sandcastles Part 20

Summary: Sofia feels stuck in life and has for the better part of two decades. Now she’s nearing her 30th birthday and her luck begins to change when a handsome actor accidentally destroys her niece’s sandcastle.

Chapter Summary: The last two weeks of Sofia and Sebastian being apart.

Warnings: Anxiety, accidental injuries

A/N: Thank you to @what-the-buckybarnes for continuing to help me through my writers blocks. You’re the true mutual

Gif @ bluesteelstan in case you can’t read the watermark

After the little argument, we did our best to make the last two weeks apart work. Sebastian called and texted regularly and I was honest with my feelings. I told him how lots to people were trying to invade my privacy and it wasn’t doing anything to help my anxiety. Since Erica was my sister, it seemed easier for people to get information about men. I shockingly found my name in an online article listing celebrities who were dating ‘normal’ people.

=============

“’Marvel actor Sebastian Stan has been in the business for years, appearing alongside other notable stars like Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon, Margot Robbie, and Meryl Streep. The Romanian native recently announced his engagement to the sister of acclaimed director, Erica Valdez. Sofia Valdez now lives with Stan in New York but has remained out of the public eye despite her fiancée’s career.’ I mean do they want me to just suddenly become an actress because I’m going to marry you?” I huffed over the phone after reading the article excerpt.

“It’s just a trashy gossip site. They want drama.” Sebastian assured me.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d love to hear that you’ve run off with my sister and in revenge, I got with Noah,” I replied sarcastically.

“A scandal for sure.” He chuckled and sighed. “Just try to take it as a grain of salt. No one else has a say in our relationship.”

“They feel like they do,” I mumbled and finished folding a load of laundry. Setting each neat pile on the bed.

“How’s everything else going?” He gently steered me away from the article.

“Busy, which is good. Just trying to juggle it all but I’m glad to be doing something. I sort of felt useless before when I wasn’t working.” I clamped the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could begin sorting the laundry away.

“Sofia, you’re never useless. I want you to do what makes you feel best. So if you feel good about work and classes, then I’ll support you every step of the way. But don’t think you’re useless.”

“You don’t make me feel useless.” I murmured. “You act like I’m the center of the universe.” I teased.

“Because you are.” He insisted lovingly. “You’re the center of my universe and that hasn’t changed since the day I met you.”

I stopped in the closet with a smile on my face. I touched one of his shirts and my heart ached for him. “I can’t wait for you to come home,” I said wistfully.

“I know, babe, but I’ll be home before you know it. I have an early morning though, so I have to let you go now. You have a lecture at four tomorrow right?”

“Yeah, I’m working in the morning.”

“So if I call you at seven, it’ll be noon there…” He thought through the time difference out loud. “Noon work?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Okay, I love you. I’ll text you when I get up.”

“Love you too.”

==========

But the morning text wouldn’t come. Instead, I was woken up at one in the morning from a call. My sister’s name was on the screen and I knew it was urgent. She was aware of our own time difference and was mindful of the hour she called.

Disoriented, I sat up in bed and turned on the speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Sof, are you up?” My sister’s voice was tense and alarmed me.

“Well, I am now. What’s wrong?”

“Sebastian was in an accident.”

“What?” I bolted up in a panic and threw the sheets aside. “What accident? Is he okay?”

“His agent got in contact with mine because she couldn’t track down your number. She thinks it was a car crash but she’s trying to get more information from the film crew.”

“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth and worst-case scenarios caused an instant panic attack. I sunk to my knees and hyperventilated into my thighs.

“Sof, Sofia, please just breathe with me, okay?”

“I need to get over there!” I exclaimed breathlessly. Frantic tears stained my cheeks and I felt so hopeless. He was on another continent, what if something really bad happened and I couldn’t be there for him?

“You have to get yourself calm first.” Erica did her best on dealing with my panic but Sebastian was much better at settling me.

“Erica, please. What if he’s dying?” I cried hysterically.

“Okay, let me just…” She sounded unnerved, probably because she couldn’t assure me that he wasn’t dying. There was a lack of information because of the disconnected trail of communication. “I will see what’s available for flights. I’m going to have to hang up though. Can you try to go through some breathing until I call you back?”

“Y-yes, yes, I will.”

When she hung up, I tried to calm my trembling body and close my eyes. It was nearly impossible to focus on my breathing because I was too scared. I ended up crumbled on the floor, shaking and begging God to keep my Sebastian alive.

=============

Erica came through and pulled out some big connections to get me on a flight as soon as possible.

No news came through and I was forced to keep my composure through the airport and on the long flight to Germany.

Then I waited in Frankfurt, on my layover, desperately trying to get news from Sebastian’s agent. Before boarding, my second flight to Greece, a text came through. She told me that last she’d heard he was still in surgery. She also explained that a member of the film crew would meet me at the airport to escort me to the hospital.

It was another three hours or so to Athens and the wait was excruciating. I was terrified to get off the airplane, turn on my phone, and read a text telling me my fiancee had died. When we landed, there wasn’t such a text. But there was another from his agent telling me the name of the man waiting for me, a bodyguard that worked for some of the cast.

============

“Sofia?” A tall man with a distinct Yankees ball cap waved me over.

“Yes, Isaac.” I hurried over to him. “Is he okay?” I could delay the polite introductions.

“He’s out of surgery.” He nodded and offered to take my hastily packed duffle. “He should be awake now. I’m sure there’ll be a doctor there to explain the injuries, I’m not entirely sure what happened yet.” He led me outside where a car was waiting for us.

The ride to the hospital was a little more bearable because I knew Sebastian was at least alive. But I didn’t waste time getting into the hospital and to the room, they directed me to.

=============

“Sofia?” He looked shocked to see me in the doorway, probably still under the impression that I was still in Manhattan.

I burst into tears when I saw the state he was in. Several rows of stitches covered over his eyebrow, down his and his left arm. His right arm was in a sling as well.

“Sebastian.” I rushed to his side and tried to hug him without causing further injury or messing with the IV tubes. “I was so worried. Erica called me and I just assumed the worst. I’m so glad you’re okay. I was terrified I’d lost you.” I rambled incoherently through my tears.

“Sh, draga mea, I’m okay.” He soothed and held me close with his good arm.

“What happened?” I hiccupped.

“We were driving to set and got in a bad crash. I didn’t really see what happened I just felt it…we flipped I guess. I don’t really remember anything after the initial impact. Got a little banged up though.” He kissed my hair. The reunion was a little different than we’d expected.

“Like what? Will you be okay? They said you were in surgery for a long time.” I drew back and tenderly touched his face. His skin was mostly cleaned up of the blood but his stitches were fresh and it made me sick to my stomach to realize how deep the gashes must’ve been.

“They said my lung was punctured.” He admitted. “But they said everything went well in surgery so it shouldn’t be a problem. My shoulder dislocated but it’s fine now and the rest of it was just glass.” He shrugged.

I looked at him. It was as if he were talking about a trip on the sidewalk. “Sebastian, I could’ve lost you.” I couldn’t hold back. There were so many emotions I’d kept pent up while traveling for hours.

“It’s okay, love, it was scary but I’m okay. I’m much better now that you’re here.” He sighed quietly.

“Are you in pain?”

“Nah, just drugged up.” He answered and closed his eyes. “

I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his hair back. “Get some rest. I’ll be here.” After all the times Sebastian had taken care of me I knew it was my turn to step up. It wouldn’t be easy seeing him in pain but I loved him too much not to carry him every step of the way. Metaphorically, of course, I doubted I could carry him.

“Yeah? Even though I probably look like Frankenstein’s monster because of the stitches?” He mumbled playfully.

“You still look handsome, don’t worry.” I kissed his forehead. “You’ll always be gorgeous to me.”

“Hope they don’t scar too much.” He continued rambling on in a quiet, slurred grumble. “More time in the makeup chair. Fucking pain the in ass…” He exhaled and his words faded away before he conked out from the painkillers.

I stayed sitting beside him while he slept. I briefly sent a message to Erica and his agent, telling them everything that I knew. It was a relief to say he would be perfectly fine in the few weeks to come.

Permanent Tags: @what-the-buckybarnes @captainmarmel

Tag list: @tacohead13 @raulesparzalover @lovelybones81

Masterpost

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ashrelfury · 6 years

Note

ive always had this hc that neil is rlly good at parkour bc of his time on the run and hving to get away from cops/his dads men, etc and i imagine tht one day neil wld just. do parkour and andrew wld be like 👀👀👀

(Oh fuck, this is going to be bad. I’ve never written about parkour before. Maybe I’ll do some research later, but for right now, here you go!!)

It’s called Freerunning.

Andrew learns that during Neil’s second year.

He wasn’t really expecting it, he knows Neil can run, the junkie goes out every fucking morning at an unholy hour, waking him up in the process and pissing him off for the rest of the day.

He just didn’t know Neil could do...that.

It’s a Thursday and Andrew is just getting out of his Criminal Analysis class. He knows that Neil has Calculus for another half hour, so he was actually a bit surprised when he spots the familiar runner’s form and dark red hair darting around the Science building.

He’s about to yell out when he sees three of the biggest football players on the team running after Neil, shouting angry slurs and insults, ordering Neil to stop.

Andrew has to pause for a second to process that.

Oh. And Neil is laughing, because of fucking course he is, the idiot has no self-preservation skills on a good day, and today was very clearly not a good day.

Andrew grits his teeth, gripping the backpack over his shoulder and takes off after his run away.

He stops completely when he sees where Neil is headed. The wheelchair ramp to the upper part of the campus is about two rows of declining pavement with iron rod railings dividing them. Just as Andrew opens his mouth to shout a warning, he notices he’s too late, but apparently he had nothing to worry about.

Neil, running full tilt, volts over the first set of railings, landing upright on the second, only to launch off that one into a flip. When Neil lands on his feet and continues to run, Andrew notices his lips are parted in a gasp.

Quickly closing his mouth, he looks for the football players who had been chasing his idiot and finds them all stopped in their tracks, jaws on the floor, staring after the crazily laughing idiot Andrew had attached himself to.

The next time he sees Neil freerunning, he knows that’s what its called, because he looked it up. He looked up Parkour first, thinking he’d find what he was looking for there, but that’s when he got into the difference between ‘Freerunning’ and ‘Parkour’. To anyone who didn’t practice either, it seemed there was no difference at all. Andrew, while he would never ever practice the kind of shit in his life, likes to be right, so he knows the differences.

Parkour is own for its tricks. It is meant to be flashy, with flips and acrobatic artistry. It’s meant to be watched.

Freerunning is a sport. They have specialized gauntlets for Freerunners in every big city across the world, they have competitions and an unbelievable underground following. Freerunning is about flowing past the obstacles in your way in an attempt to keep moving forward. Keep running, there are no limits, only plateaus.

For some reason, he thinks that this sport is perfect for Neil.

That’s why, when he sees Neil running, hair a mess, looking at his phone in worry. Andrew knows that Neil is about to be late to Physics, and he watches, stoically as Neil comes up fast on a group of nine girls spread out on the walk way between the Science and English buildings. He can see by the grit of Neil’s teeth, that the idiot is going to do something stupid.

He almost isn’t surprised when Neil takes two quick steps to the side and then...runs on the fucking wall.

Girls scream as a crazy red-head comes up over their heads and then down right in front of them and keeps running like what he did isn’t fucking amazing in the first place.

Andrew’s eyes narrow, his blood heating up involuntarily as he watches the idiot’s back until he’s completely out of sight.

It basically goes on just like that.

In short bursts, Andrew gets to witness Neil doing these surprising feats of aestheticism and skill like its something he does everyday, when Andrew know for damn certain that he doesn’t.

He never said anything about it. Truth be told, he’s not sure he wants to know why this is a skill Neil possesses.

Instead, he just watches.

When someone says something about it, Andrew shuts it down.

Until one day, he isn’t there in time.

“Dude, Neil! What the fuck was that?!”

Matt’s voice is excited and manic as Andrew makes his way into the changing room.

“What was what?” Neil asks, obviously not paying attention. He, like Andrew, had just gotten out of another class only to have to run to afternoon practice.

“Dude! You fucking- I don’t know what the hell that was but you climbed up the English building at a fucking run! Neil!”

Andrew’s finally through the door and he sees it when Neil looks back at Matt, his eyes filled with panic and a bone deep fear.

Another skill out of the bag, another secret up for grabs, another part of a life he no longer lives but doesn’t know how to let go of.

“Shut up, Boyd.” Andrew finds himself saying, jabbing harshly at the taller man’s back, making Matt stumble forward at the sudden attack.

“Fuck, Minyard!” Matt bellows, but he doesn’t say anything more, because he saw the look on Neil’s face too.

After that, Andrew doesn’t see the Free Running again.

He still spots Neil around campus, running around like he’s late, constantly, but this time he takes the time to go around obstacles, waits for people to move, pushes past with an ‘excuse me’.

Part of Andrew resents Matt for taking this away from him. Neil’s strange control over gravity and his own body had been a treat for Andrew to witness. A physicality that had nothing to do with either sex or fucking exy. Now, it was gone and Andrew fucking hated it.

It was a Saturday when Andrew told Neil to get in the fucking car.

Neil didn’t even bother to ask any question, just got dressed in a pair of his running shorts, a long sleeved thermal clingy top, and one of the damn orange bandanas he’s gotten into the habit of using.

Andrew did some research about Columbia, and he’d found exactly what he was looking for very quickly.

The Columbia Gauntlet, as the internet called it, was an intricate obstacle course spanning about half of Columbia’s downtown, over rooftops, and down on the ground.

Andrew wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up with Neil, so he wasn’t even going to try, but he sure as fuck was going to make Neil do the damn course.

“Andrew?” Neil’s voice was curious and worried all at once as Andrew stopped at a hotel in downtown Columbia.

“There’s a freerunning gauntlet here. It starts on the roof of this hotel. You’re going to run it.” Andrew said plainly.

Neil startled back, confusion clouding his features. “Wha-”

“Don’t argue. Go. There’s a guy named Brandon waiting for you at the roof. He’ll do the run with you at first, show you the route. Go.”

Neil’s confusion began to clear. There was a moment of silence between them, and then Neil smiled.

“Yes or no?”

“No. Now go.”

Neil grinned bright as he pulled the car door open and left.

Andrew watched the roof of the hotel for a good half hour, before he saw two figures fly from one rooftop to the next.

Yeah. He was never going to do that, but he sure as hell doesn’t mind watching Neil do it.

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tryingthisfangirlthing · 6 years

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Love, I’ve Missed You In A Million Different Ways (How Is It We Keep On Writing Tragedies Together?) 3/14-ish

So this is part 3 of my @bering-and-wells-exchange gift for @dapperdorian. This section kept kicking my behind, and I wasn’t happy with it, and I wasn’t happy with it but I had a plan to follow. Then last Friday this idea bowled me over out of left field, and exploded, and, well. It’s not soft longing, more like love-hate if-things-were-different repressed wanting.

And warning for implied major character death.

3. She Would Have Given Everything

“I never want to meet you like this again,” Myka bit out, as she grabbed Helena's hand and jumped them both to the posh downtown lobby.

“Well, don't.” Helena lifted one shoulder. “But I'm not going to aside while this plague wrecks —”

“If you want to help, go back to your lab. You are not Batman! Or — Batwoman, or whoever. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed!” And her concern was very real. “And we need you.”

“That fictional, pouty, playboy Gary Stu? I should hope not!” Helena arched her eyebrows at Myka, and shook her head in disbelief. “Quite frankly, I’m offended that comparison even occurred to you.”

“Helena, you’re not super,” Myka hissed at her. “And you have —”

A loud crash rang out above them. Amanda lost the queen, Steve relayed.

On it. “Get out of here, and stay out,” Myka grit out, and jumped back to the 10th floor to search.

Higher than 10. Lower than 15. Closer to 15 than 10, judging by the volume of the ruckus. Coming higher, the screech of metal giving way under demonic claws. Elevator shaft. To confirm, she jumped several floors below, inside the shaft.

The breathless cold split second of everywhere and nowhere. Steeling herself against the rushing freefall, the crack of instinctual panic. Up, look up.

A forked tail, lashing out, snagged her hair. That was too close. Closing her eyes, she jumped again, without those strands.

Solid ground beneath her feet, no large, otherworldly presence. Definitely in the elevator, and climbing, Steve. Then she fell onto all fours, shaky and ungainly.

“Don't you dare talk to me about risking my life, when they need you just as much.” A fierce murmur in her ear, and a vial was pressed against her hand. “Drink.”

Myka opened her eyes just in time to see the swarm zipping up the avenue, Helena flinging a grenade through the doors into the middle of it. Flame burst through the cloud of insects, licking at wings and silencing snapping mandibles. The drones are here. First wave is dealt with, but I'm sure more are coming.

Copy. She could hear the frown in Steve's thoughts. We need to get these civilians out of here.

Shit. Why here? It wasn't a food source for them (like the nuclear power plant just outside of town) or on the dessert menu (the slaughterhouse just across the county line) or even a good nesting spot (no large, open yet enclosed spaces).

Better here than almost anywhere else.

Office complex on a Saturday afternoon… You have a point.

Helena gave you something. Take it.

You connected her, too? A miserable foreboding rose in Myka's throat. But that was Pete's forte, not hers.

Safer for everyone, was all Steve offered in return.

Myka uncorked the vial and drank. It didn't happen all at once, but her heartbeat slowed, a new energy crackling through her veins.

“What was that stuff?” She called across the lobby, as she straightened, rising, testing her knees.

“Just something I cooked up.” Helena didn't spare her a glance, alternating between eyeing the street outside and a flashing gadget on the marble floor by her feet.

“Yeah, I got that much.” She rolled her shoulders, checking for any aches.

“Well, I don't have the time to explain the various biochemical process involved,” Helena snapped.

“I was pre-med, you know. Before —” She couldn't find the words for — this madness. “Before.”

“I didn't know,” Helena said, softly, and Myka glanced at her to find that this was the thing that got her attention. A kind of sorrow flickered in her dark eyes, and Myka almost wondered if she was thinking, for the first time, about how her screw-up had affected everyone else.

“I was going to switch over to pre-law, though.” She brushed it off. Something wasn't quite right, that last jump... “Just didn't know how to tell my dad. You kind of saved me the trouble.” Because the last thing she needed was pity from Helena fucking Wells.

Helena nodded, slowly, her gaze wandering back to the now-beeping device at her feet. “I was a writer, before.”

“I know. Writer, inventor, physicist, all-around polymath.” Something in Myka's back clicked into place, and all her atoms lined up again — sans that shorn-off hair, she reminded herself, running the flat of her hand over the ragged curls. If she tried to reassemble more matter than was there…

You good to go?

“You did?” There shouldn't be that much surprise in Helena's voice, for someone once heralded as “the next Jules Verne or Anne McCaffrey.”

Yep. Where?

They were all huddled in a storage closet on the 7th floor, eight weekend workaholics, one with a kid. Steve was shielding them all from the creature’s senses for now, but the effort it was taking him slipped over their connection as well.

She jumped.

Her eidetic memory served her unspeakably well, in that she could look at a roomful of people and know exactly how to reassemble them. “Hold hands, please,” as she reached for Steve to one side of her and the nearest civilian on the other. “No disabilities or chronic conditions?”

“Asthma,” one person in the back piped up.

“All right, noted. Shouldn't be a problem.” Where to?

Mall on King and McAllister. It was a good three blocks away, but definitely out of any potential lines of fire. Myka drew on all of her focus, making sure she could feel every one of them, and jumped.

A tug, a weight on her core, as she pulled them all through spacetime. Head throbbing as she stumbled onto the sidewalk, relief flooding her as they all came through all right.

Steve tightened his grip, wrapping his other arm around her to keep her from falling.

“You all right?” It was almost startling to her his voice in her ear, after so often hearing it only in her head.

“I will be,” she muttered.

“Get back to Helena. She'll look after you while you rest up.”

“Where the hell are Amanda and Pete?” Why couldn't one of them babysit me?

Amanda and Pete are doing their damn best to contain that queen.

Fine.

So she sucked in a breath and, for the third time in what felt like as many minutes, she jumped back to that damn lobby.

— Nearly jumped straight into Helena, careened as she shifted her destination at the last moment, Helena's startled “oh!” loud in her ear. Helena's arms wrapped around her, as she came to rest back in reality again.

“We've really got to stop meeting like this.” Low, teasing, warm breath feathering over her ear.

Myka let herself sag forward. “Screw you,” she muttered.

“You're quite welcome to, some other time.”

I just learned way more about you two than I ever wanted to know.

Butt out, Steve! And she could practically feel the same sentiment emanating from Helena, though she couldn't hear her directly.

Kinda hard right now, sorry.

Helena guided her over to a red leather armchair, Myka dragging her feet one after another. At least she shouldn't be crucial to operations now, unless they needed a scout, or bait, or a distraction, or a split-second save. Again.

Myka bent over, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, hair falling in her face. Tried not to feel awkward about how sweaty and gross she was making this nice chair.

She heard Helena make some kind of round of the space, muttering to herself, occasionally British-cursing at some gadget or another. Myka focused on breathing and getting her presence of mind back together. “Do you have another of those pick-me-ups?”

“I wouldn't recommend downing two in a row. Just as a precaution.”

“Okay.” She lifted her head, to watch as Helena watched the exterior. A laptop balanced on the narrow reception desk, floor plan of the building on display, surrounded by sporadically flashing indicators of, something, and now Helena paid this more attention than the view through the glass doors. A flash-bang off too their left, building lights flicking off and on again.

“Don’t tell me it wrecked the wiring somewhere.” God, she was getting fucking tired. Both right now, and of everything.

“That was me. Experimental chain-lightning —” she caught Myka's look — “Basically a super-sized swarm taser. Or, attempt at one.” And she frowned at the screen.

“Great. You can knock them out. Now just jump this entire freakshow back off of our plane of existence already.”

“Yes, thank you, I’ve been working on that for the past six months already.” Annoyance crackled through her voice.

“Stopping every time there's even the faintest hint of an attack to go play Batman with us. Or really more Lois Lane.” Myka knew only the vaguest of comic book premises from Pete. “Or whoever the mad scientist is. Harley Quinn, maybe?”

“That is low.” Helena's voice shuddered.

“I Encountered Aliens From Another Dimension,” Claims Sci-Fi Author; The Secret Crackpot Side of Physics’ Once-Rising Star; Local Mother Institutionalized, Daughter Left In Uncle's Care; the headlines flashed across her memory, and she hung her head again. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

Helena hummed vaguely. It wasn't quite acceptance, but Myka would take it.

“Hopper, 10 o'clock.” Myka winced inwardly as its spines shattered window after window on its zigzag path through downtown, thirty feet above ground.

“Yes, I'm aware. How about you do your job and let me do mine?”

“Sorry,” Myka muttered. “Just trying to be helpful.”

“Well, you're not.”

“Besides, I wouldn't exactly call this your job.”

Can you cool it with the negative energies? Really making things difficult right now.

Myka braced herself against the loud crash upstairs, the way the entire building shivered with the massive impact. Then a loud kreee! and the creature fell to the ground outside, writhing on its back, screaming as it melted from its eight feet down.

“What — did you coat the building in something? Or has someone nearby recently discovered the power of carapace-melting acid shields?”

A wicker café chair across the side street burst into flames, and Helena swore.

“Is that going to melt through the cement?” It would be kind of impressive, if this stuff did manage that trick. It almost looked like it might, as the hopper's screams died down to a low gurgle.

“It shouldn't. It should only react with their exoskeletons but —”

“It is.” The last of the creature utterly dissolved, the acidic puddle was now carving itself its own little pondspace, sinking into the middle of the intersection.

A loud sigh. “That's what field tests are for.”

“Really? In the middle of the city?” Myka stood, outrage eating away at her. “You are utterly insane.”

Helena glared at her, and for a split second, Myka was glad those piercing eyes weren't super. “Oh, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to try to lure one out into the middle of bloody nowhere, and try to contain it, just to douse it in deadly acid, and hear from you, ‘Oh, how could you, Helena? Doing something so dangerous on your own! You're too important and we need you working to fix this reality tear you ripped open! Think about others for once!’” Her mimic was mocking, annoyingly accurate for this familiar argument.

Stop it! Fight later!

If Helena heard Steve, she gave no sign. “Myka Bering, my entire life right now is dedicated to mitigating the damage I've caused the best I know how, and I don't need to hear that sort of shite from you!”

She was trembling; they both were. In her peripheral, something burst into flames; a window shattered, smoking shrapnel landing on the entryway carpet.

Myka kicked at it, and found herself swaying on her feet. “You set up a minefield?”

“A perimeter, yes. For the moment.”

“How did you lug all this stuff here on short notice?” She hadn't helped, she knew. She rested her head in her hands again.

(“You're lucky,” she'd told Pete once. “Your powers don't leave you feeling like three-day-old roadkill afterwards.”

“Yeah,” he'd returned, “but I do spend like a billion dollars on tacos now. Besides, your powers are way cooler. I'm just a regular guy who can lift a bunch of stuff.”

Myka had surrendered to eating sugar, in frankly pathetic quantities, to combat the roadkill feeling the day after. But that wasn't something she'd tell anyone, not even her best friend.)

“I didn't.” As nonchalant as you please.

Myka looked up, narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means, I didn't do it on short notice.” Helena glanced at her, assessingly. “It means I set up what I hoped would be a lure for the queen here. And once she's gone, the rest should shut down.”

“And you didn't think to tell us?” Myka was striding across the room, reaching out to — to strangle her, probably.

She told me, Steve interjected, and Myka stilled. The queen showed up sooner than anyone expected.

Pete might as well have punched her in the gut. We're supposed to be a team, Steve.

“Because we all know how much faith you have in my work.” Helena's momentary smile was saccharine, sardonic.

She sucked in a breath, mind reeling like the colors of a kaleidoscope. “I think you're brilliant,” slipped out. “You've got no common sense, but you're a genius. You're, what, five years older than me? And you've found a whole other universe. Like something out of one of your books.” Helena was staring at her, lips parted, that melting gaze soft and shocked. “You're just so stupid, and — and selfish sometimes!”

Incoming! Myka!

She didn't think, just grabbed Helena and jumped.

But she didn't have some destination in mind, not even some instinctive concept of safe harbor. And now Helena was here with her, floating in this strange stillness that was everywhere and nowhere. I'm sorry, she tried to say, but there was no way to hear.

Like being thrown under a waterfall, she had no idea which way was up, air, reality. Stupid stupid, she'd been so tired, she hadn't thought — and wasn't that what she always accused Helena of? The thing she feared most in herself, the not thinking, the reason for rules... So stupid.

She tried to picture the lobby they'd left, tried to reach for any anchor.

There, that stupid blinking laptop, she could almost see it, and the ceiling plaster raining down, the claws and slobbering mandibles and gigantic five-eyed frilled head.

She pushed Helena away, through, pushed her to stumble onto that ragged red lobby carpet, and then Myka met the monster's claws.

It thrashed, resisted, but Myka yanked it with her, and then everything went black.

#bering and wells #dapperdorian #rinari's fic #love i've missed you in a million different ways (how is it we keep on writing tragedies together?)#superhero au #angst #implied character death #love-hate #sci-fi au #this is so not in character #myka is a hot mess #actually they both are #but myka is more of one #so many issues #this just exploded into a whole world and trying to write a short piece for it was just... a little bit magic #i feel bad because it's probably not entirely what you wanted but i love it anyways

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02ofcups-archive · 3 years

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my job has been trying to kill me since i came back from disability leave. i haven’t had 2 days off in a row in three weeks. they’re giving me shifts that are 5 hours and 55 minutes so i don’t get a break. my joints are loose. i feel like there’s barbed electric fencing under my skin 24/7. i’m having panic attacks and spasms and tmi but ive been spotting for like a week and have practically gotten a period despite being on the first week of my birth control pack. i found a white hair yesterday. like pure white. the second i got back they wrote me up for missing a lot of work prior to my disability leave as if it wasn’t . caused by my disability . and i know they’re doing all of this, making the job untenable and physically impossible for a disabled employee so that i quit and can’t apply for unemployment ❤️

#the only person of color at our clinic literally WALKED OUT so i have a feeling i’m not the only one facing discrimination here

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poorlilbeans · 7 years

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Keep FightinG (pARt Sicks!) (see what i did there?)

this fic. is so long. why am i doing this. anywho this part has a whole lot of talking... WE FINALLY HAVE A DIAGNOSIS, Y’ALL. WHOOP WHOOP! but yeah there’s also some fluff in there bc i am hardcore victuuri trash sooooo... yeah i hope you have as much fun reading it as i am having writing it :)

When Victor woke up, Yuuri had still been asleep, and that was weird in itself. Normally, not only did Yuuri suffer from insomnia, but he was an incredibly light sleeper. Someone could sneeze two cities over and somehow, some way, it would wake him up. Today, however, he didn’t stir when Victor got out of the bed and fixed the covers around him, untangling the IV chord that had somehow wrapped around his blanket during the night.

Victor needed to get out of that hospital room. He needed to be doing something other than worrying. It was 6:30 in the morning. He figured he could get about an hour of practice in before the nurses would be waking Yuuri. It was better than nothing.

Yet again, skating proved easier said than done. He was distracted, constantly wondering if Yuuri was awake yet. The English-speaking nurse probably wouldn’t be in for her shift yet, so he’d be alone, unable to understand anyone, missing Victor...

No. He wasn’t awake yet. Obviously. Victor barely stopped for breath for the entire hour, skating as hard as he could through the fog of worry that engulfed him. On the way out, around 8:00, he ran into Yurio.

“What are you doing here?” Yuri asked, like it was completely inconceivable for a professional figure skater to be at an ice rink.

“Skating,” he answered slowly, tentatively. “I was just heading back to the hospital.” Yuri regarded him with an uncharacteristic look of unmasked concern.

“Tell Katsudon I said hi,” he whispered, pushing past Victor.

By the time he got back to the hospital, the male nurse from yesterday had roused Yuuri and appeared to be having language-barrier issues with him.

“You drink water,” the nurse was carefully saying, to a very pale and very confused Yuuri. It was a simple request, but he didn’t seem to understand, and the nurse didn’t have enough English to rephrase. Victor entered, and Yuuri immediately seemed to forget about the nurse, letting out a low whine and reaching out towards him. Taking his hand, Victor turned to the nurse and asked, in Russian,

“Is everything alright?”

“We’re a little feverish right now,” the nurse answered. “He seems to have forgotten that he can’t drink water without moving the oxygen mask, but he won’t let me touch him to move it for him.” Victor turned back to Yuuri, who was gazing at him with bright, unfocused eyes.

“Are you thirsty, love?” Victor said softly, rubbing his knuckles.

“No. Hurts to move.” That made sense. The nurse had removed the blanket and the long pajama pants to keep Yuuri from overheating any more, and it revealed that his elbows, knees, wrists and ankles were flushed red and disturbingly swollen. He lay stiffly, awkwardly, making it clear that his joints were not tolerating any movement.

“That’s okay,” Victor whispered, doing his best to mask his concern. “I’ll do all the moving for you, alright?” Yuuri hummed, either too delirious or too sore to nod, and Victor gently removed the oxygen mask and brought the cup of water to his lips.

Yuuri managed a few sips of water before whining in protest, punctuating it with a little hiccup. Alright then, no more water. Victor put the mask back in place, hoping it would be enough incentive for the delirious man to try and avoid throwing up. Once they were settled, the nurse spoke again.

“We got his results back from the blood lab. They didn’t find any evidence of disease, except that he’s producing auto-antibodies.”

“Which means?”

“Which means it’s safe to assume that whatever’s making him so ill is some kind of autoimmune disorder. His combination of symptoms is pretty unique, but individually, they’re all symptoms of various autoimmune disorders. So that means we don’t have a name for the disease, but we are able to start treating it.” Victor didn’t really understand, but he nodded anyway, squeezing Yuuri’s hand protectively. “For the moment, however,” the nurse continued, “we need to focus on getting that fever down.”

It took hours. Thankfully, Yuuri didn’t seem too uncomfortable, save for his inability to move without aggravating the painful inflammation in his joints. Victor climbed into bed with him again, whispering reassurances in his ear. The sensation of Victor’s breath on his neck tickled, and Yuuri giggled deliriously for several minutes. The nurse elevated his broken ankle, and covered his arms and legs in ice packs to try and bring the swelling down. Every time he added a pack, Yuuri yelped, cursing in Japanese at the cold. Victor just held him, trying not to despair at how... different he looked. How ill. He was so pale. He’d visibly lost weight, too- weight he definitely didn’t need to lose- but the Prednisone being pumped through his IV (to reduce inflammation, ironically enough) caused his face to swell up, so he somehow looked gaunt and puffy at the same time. The worst part, though, was his eyes. Normally, Victor could stare at Yuuri’s eyes for hours and not get bored. They were so expressive; they sparkled, shifted around, widened and narrowed- he could portray emotions with his eyes better than he could with any words. Now, though, they were dull and confused. Victor couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact for more than a few moments, because those weren’t Yuuri’s eyes.

It felt like hours before his temperature began to go down, and when it did, it seemed like a miracle- until Victor looked into Yuuri’s wonderful, expressive eyes, and saw nothing but pain and fear.

“When are they going to let me go home?” he whispered. Victor almost missed the delirium; at least then, Yuuri hadn’t been quite so aware of how miserable he felt.

“I- I don’t know, my love. But they know what’s wrong now. They’re going to make you better.”

A little while later, the English-speaking nurse arrived with Yuuri’s first dose of immunosuppressants.

“You’re going to be on both for a while,” she told him. “Once you go home you can take the Prednisone orally, and you can wean off of it slowly until you’re just on the immunosuppressants.”

“For how long?” was Yuuri’s fearful response.

“Well... forever. You’ll be on the immunosuppressants forever.” Yuuri was visibly holding back tears as he obediently swallowed the pill. The nurse offered him another inhaler, which he took wordlessly. “Since we know the source of your breathing troubles, we’re starting you on a preventative inhaler for a while. Hopefully, once the drugs start working, you won’t need it any more. I thought you could try a few minutes without being on oxygen, and see if your breathing is any better.” Yuuri just nodded, cuddling sadly into Victor’s side. “Do you understand why you’re taking these medications?” He shook his head; Victor felt silent tears soaking his T-shirt. “An autoimmune disease,” the nurse told him, “is when you have an overactive immune system. In most cases, it attacks another part of the body; the digestive system, the skin... but for you, it has attacked multiple parts. It seems to have affected your digestive system, your respiratory system, your nervous system... it’s likely your fever is a defense mechanism; your body is under the attack of your body.” Yuuri didn’t answer, so the nurse kept talking. “Chances are, you were born with the disease, but it was inactive until now. The goal is to make it inactive again with medication, but most people have the occasional flare-up after diagnosis. Usually it’s random, but environmental factors do sometimes play a role in it. Some people have flare-ups after switching to a new medication or eating a new food. Extreme stress is also known to cause flare-ups.” Then, after so much prolonged silence, Yuuri laughed. Hard.

“What’s so funny?” Victor and the nurse asked in unison.

“I am stress,” Yuuri cackled. “I am the human manifestation of stress.”

“It’s entirely possible that’s what brought it out in the first place. Were you particularly stressed out before you got sick?”

“Yeah,” he answered, still giggling. “It was right before a competition. I had panic attacks three days in a row.”

“Panic attacks? Have you been to a doctor about those?”

“Yeah, I’m on medication. The doctor here knows about it.”

“Alright. You have to be diligent about managing that. Autoimmune disorders can be tricky enough without a mental illness to set them off.” Yuuri nodded, but it was clear to Victor that he still found the irony of the situation absolutely hilarious.

Yuuri was cleared to leave two days later. He certainly wasn’t healthy; he had to be taken down to the parking lot in a wheelchair, and Victor carried him to the car, trying not to flinch at how light he had gotten. The instructions were clear and strict: Keep him on the medication. Make sure he drinks water. Don’t touch him when he has seizures, unless he’s at risk of choking. Call the doctor with any questions. Take him back for weekly checkups. If it gets out of control, call an ambulance.

They drove in silence for a while, Yuuri clutching a plastic garbage bag just in case. He’d started solid food that morning, and his stomach didn’t seem too happy about it. Eventually, at a red light, he spoke.

“I’m sorry.” Victor blinked in surprise.

“What for?”

“Just... all of this. For scaring you. For being sick. You didn’t... you... you deserve better.”

“No, don’t do that. I love you. I wish more than anything I could take the pain away from you, but I can’t, so I’m more than happy to be here for you instead.” He held up his hand, the gold engagement ring glinting in the late afternoon sun. “In sickness and in health, remember?” Yuuri’s ears tinted pink.

“I’ll never understand what god I pleased to bring you into my life.”

“Maybe,” Victor breathed, “you were wonderful all by yourself. Maybe you didn’t need to please a god to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe even when you’re sickly and sweaty and swollen you’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Maybe, without divine intervention, I am still more in love with you than I ever imagined was possible. Maybe we’re in love just because we’re in love. Ever think of that?” Yuuri ducked his head, grinning bashfully.

“We should really get around to getting married.”

“Maybe when you can walk again.”

AHHH this fic is already way too long but i keep having ideas >.< w h y am i like this eurgh

regardless, i hope you’re enjoying it so far :)

#yoi #yuri on ice #sick!yuuri #sickfic #illness #autoimmine disease #yuuri katsuki #victor nikiforov #victuuri #this fic is way too long #but it just keeps going #oh well #i try

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