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shurisneakers · 4 years

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harmless (iv)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, guns, mention of war, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader

Word count: 1.5k

A/N: good evening i’ve never been to any of the places i mention in this series so dont come @ me

if you have any ideas for future inventions/evil plans, lemme know! i might actually end up using them

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Series Masterlist

He spends the weekend doing nothing. It’s supposed to be relaxing. He finds it nauseatingly boring.

“No mini mission this week?” Steve asks him from across the couch.

They’re supposed to be catching up on Star Wars but two prequels in and Bucky could feel himself lose his sanity. Anyone could present him with a random assortment of alphabets, call it a Star Wars species and he would have no reason not to believe them.

It’s not like he doesn’t like space. It’s just that he’s had enough of it and everything and everyone who came from it for the foreseeable future.

“No. Someone else is taking care of it.”

“Didn’t you volunteer for this?”

“I pulled myself out of the case.”

“I thought you were having fun.”

Bucky’s head slowly turns to look at him. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know,” Steve shrugged. “Looked like you were.”

Well, he wasn’t. He likes it here at home, glued to the TV. Popcorn beside him, sweatpants on. Refreshing, calming, slow, mundane, and Jesus Christ, so fucking boring-

His spiralling is interrupted by the dinging of the elevator to the common floor. No one was allowed up there unless it was extremely urgent. Guests were barely allowed into the Tower as it was.

It reveals the receptionist from downstairs, Marie. She’s always a little reserved, a little shy. But Bucky had seen her chew and spit out trespassers or anyone who dared to get on her nerve. He adores her.

“Hey, Marie,” Steve says while Bucky sends her a friendly wave in greeting. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a hostage situation downtown,” she informs them.

“Okay...” Steve drawls, waiting for a reason why this was an Avengers level threat.

“They’ve asked for Mr. Barnes by name.” She makes a mention towards him.

Bucky sits up straight. Bits of popcorn fall off his chest.

“What?”

“They said, and I quote-” she looks down at her notepad. “‘Tell that grumpy motherfucker that I’m waiting for him and that he’s not getting out of this so easily because we have come too far.’ End quote. They’ve also told me to include a kissing emoji. And a skull.”

Steve and he look at each other.

“Well?” Steve prods.

Bucky sighs and gets up to go get ready.

The entrance of Chuck E. Cheese is more crowded than he’d ever seen. He wasn’t even sure he’d seen people in the store before. If there were, they probably only came up till his waist.

There are a few journalists, a few policemen standing together outside. Whispers of confusion and curiosity reigned free.

Bucky gently pushes his way to the front. He gets a nod from a police officer who opens the door for him after a quick briefing.

The place is darker than it usually would be. A trademark, it seemed. The blinds are drawn shut and most of the light is coming through whatever sneaks in through the crack.

“Hey, Barnes.” Your voice is muffled by a mask that looks suspiciously like it was made out of classroom craft supplies.

There’s a person in a loose chokehold in your hand with a gun pressed against his head. Once again it looks straight out of a cartoon, purple with round disks lining its barrel.

“What’s all this now?” He gestures around monotonously.

“A hostage situation. Didn’t you get the memo?”

“Got that part down, genius,” he bites back. “But why?”

“Fucker kept harassing me when I was walkin’ down the street.”

The guy’s helpless gaze met Bucky.

“Catcalling me, stalking me.” You tighten the grip you have on him. “Call me darlin’ one more time, you son of a bitch. I dare you.”

He wasn’t impressed with his pleading eyes. He kinda felt like he deserved it.

“Why’d you do it here?” The bright colours were starting to give him a heading. “And where are the staff?”

“It’s symbolic, Bucky,” you emphasise, “He deserves to be among other rat bastards.”

Of course.

“The staff?” he asks again.

“Gave them thirty bucks and told them to leave. I’m not a monster.”

“Right.” He doesn’t bother refuting you. “Why’d you call me here?”

“Dunno.” You shrug. “Thought it’d be fun. You having fun yet?”

You shake the guy you’re holding. He gives a small whimper.

Bucky doesn’t want to stop you. He had chugged enough Respect Juice in his lifetime to know that this guy probably deserved a threat or two.

Hell, he’d even help but you were more than capable of handling this on your own.

“Listen,” he sighed. “As much as I’m sure he deserves it, this is technically illegal and I’m required to stop you.”

“Sorry sarge, I thought you weren’t interested in playing this stupid game with me,” you mock, voice dropping to imitate him.

“I’m not.” It wasn’t entirely true. One Saturday with Jar Jar Binks had convinced him otherwise.

“Okay, so before you leave, do me a favour and call Hawkeye. I hear he looks mighty fine when he’s annoyed.”

His face involuntarily scrunched up. You were going to replace him with Clint? Clint?

He probably took it more as an insult than he should have.

“I’m not doing that.” Bless his foul mouthed friend, but he was a little shit who was too sarcastic for his own good. At least twice a week he’d say something stupid to Bucky and then take out his hearing aids when he tried to argue back.

“You’re leavin’ me with no options here,” you groaned, using your thumb to flip a switch. The gun looks like it powered up, lights along the side turning red.

If he let you have this, it’d be a bad look for the Avengers.

New York man dies in Chuck E. Cheese lone hostage situation, unable to be saved by same superhero who tried to fight Thanos with a machine gun.

“Tell ya what,” he says instead, “If you kill him, there won’t even be a slight chance that you’ll see me again.”

Your grip on the gun falters.

“If I let him go...”

“I might consider coming back next week.” He’s trying to spin it, make it look like he’s the one with the upper hand here. “But you gotta let him go.”

You search his face for any signs of dishonesty.

“Let him go or you’ll never see me again.” It sounds too much like Clint’s arguments with his dog who brought a live squirrel into the house.

“Fine,” you relent, a glint in your eye. “but say goodbye to this fuckface.”

Before Bucky can open his mouth to shout in protest, you pull the trigger. The man clenches his eyes shut, face red.

He expects blood to be splatter across his face.

Nothing happens.

A barrage of bubbles floats into the room.

“I meant it literally,” you say, pushing him off you. “Say goodbye. He’s leaving.”

The man stumbles to the ground and Bucky doesn’t make any attempt to catch him. He scrambles to his knees, picking himself up and scurrying out the door to a hoard of reporters.

The door shuts behind him with the chime of a bell.

“You’re annoying,” Bucky states, giving a small sigh.

“I’m well aware of that.” You pull off the mask, wiping the sweat off your brow.

“Where is the agent assigned to your case?”

“Dunno. Last I saw he was crying on the driveway of my lair. I just figured he’d pick himself up later so I left him there.”

Bucky’s nose twitches.

“You weren’t actually going to kill him, were you.” He shrugs with his shoulder towards the door. It wasn’t a question, more a statement. He knew you wouldn’t.

“I could have.”

“But you weren’t going to,” he repeats.

“No,” you admit. “I wasn’t. But I’m glad to see you showed up.”

“You held someone hostage as leverage.”

“No, no. I held someone hostage and then asked to see you. They were completely unrelated.”

“You’re evil.”

“You jumped to conclusions,” you point out. “Would you like a trampoline next time? Maybe a pogo stick, you clown?”

He has a very real gun in his holster. His very real metal death arm aches to use it.

“No one else agreed to come,” he deflects.

“We both know that’s a lie. You were going to come back anyway.” You stuff the bubble gun back into the bag. “I’m deliciously irresistible.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Then beg.” You give him a smirk and he rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, you win this round, sarge.”

He doesn’t say anything. He watches you remove your heist gear, revealing normal civilian clothes underneath.

You walk casually to the kitchen, intending to leave through the back door.

“But I can’t say I lost either.” You send him a wink before swiftly pushing open the door and leaving him behind.

He only watches you leave.

It doesn’t hit him until a few seconds later that he let a criminal out of his hands when there were several policemen and journalists outside.

He entertains the idea of chasing you down and handing you over.

It takes him only a few seconds to decide that if they wanted you, they’d have to try themselves.

Next part

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #harmless fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

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dclsbaby · 4 years

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mykonos-crossed lovers (part i) 🦋

🎶 playlist for part i

prologue

part ii

part iii

part iv

Summary: When you drunkenly book a girls trip to a tropical Greek island to help mend your broken heart, you would never for a second think it will take you exactly to where he is. Him. A tale of the right person at the wrong time, an overused cliché made into plots of movies you never thought would live through in your reality. Two people, still madly in love with each other, hearts still broken, suppressed by the alcohol and distractions consumed on this trip. Will they let their egos get in the way, protect what’s left of their already broken hearts, or will let their hearts speak?

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: angst?

Author’s Note: hi everyone, thank you so so much for the responses to the prologue! I am so overwhelmed and did not expect to receive so much kindness it makes me wanna cry hahaha 🥺 thank you a thousand times over! and if this is your first time getting to know the fic, I highly suggest you read the prologue before diving into part 1! This chapter is sort of a filler chapter (I know it has 2.6k words lol), it shows how (y/n) have been doing since the break up & how the trip came about, I hope it’ll make sense once you read it 🤍 thanks for reading x

Gif:

It’s been months since you last spoke to him. Him. The thought of him still hurts. The idea of him existing without you, hurts. As much as you try to fight it, you still remember him like the back of your hand. You could draw on paper the contours of his face by memory, by instinct, like remembering your way home. He was a love you have never experienced before. Something about his magnetism seemed impossible to resist.

You and Dominic broke up nearly half a year ago. Your hopes of an amicable breakup were destroyed by him. His confusion, his anger, his frustration made it impossible for you two to stay friends. He couldn’t even begin to imagine being just a friend to you when his entire heart belongs to you. He called you selfish for leaving, he called you stubborn for having your mind made up without letting him put up a fight when he was ready to battle anyone, even you, to save your relationship.

The first few months were difficult, but the first few weeks were excruciating. You barely ate, as the numbing in the pit of your stomach constantly made you nauseous that your body couldn’t digest anything you ate. You couldn’t bring yourself to shower and get dressed, and spent days laying in bed, wallowing in sadness. Overtime, you just learn to live with the pain.

Since then, you’ve had good days, and slowly but surely stopped faking smiles and replaced them with genuine ones. But your bad days felt like hell, with your mind often teasing you with memories of him that you’ve suppressed enough to compartmentalise, then it comes back to you all at once, and consumes your entire soul. The pain is suffocating, like being crush by tidal waves, leaving you no time to run for shore, the waters dragging you, pulling you in many directions. All you could do was be still, stay paralysed, and pray that it goes away. That’s what remembering him felt like.

Then on other days, you often wonder how you were able to manage all this, with the pain still fresh whenever you think about it, but I guess we’re all guilty of pushing our feelings to the side and pretending that everything’s alright, when it’s the opposite. You’re still alive, despite it all. But you want to live, not just survive.

The truth is, you did not leave because you fell out of love. In fact, you were too in love—it’s a crime. He was your entire life. Days were spent waiting for him to come home from training and matches. Missing him during away games. Your entire happiness depended on him, and that terrified you. You weren’t happy with yourself either, and expected more out of your life. The burden of having a prosperous career, a stable income, a life for yourself that you loved, becoming too heavy to bear. You had all these dreams and goals set for yourself that you never got to actualise so you could be by his side. Your love for him was insurmountable, that you couldn’t accommodate anything for yourself. No matter how hard you tried, you will always put him first. It was natural. Even though he never asked for all your attention, you couldn't simply choose between yourself or him, because you would always choose him. Over and over.

So you did what you had to do, break your own heart, and his, to love yourself.

Since your breakup, you finally moved out of your friend’s place and got yourself a nice two-bedroom flat at the city centre with a stunning view of the city. You landed yourself a job as a junior editor for British Vogue that demands commuting to London several days a week. As you thrive in difficult situations, the breakup forced you to submerge yourself in work, mainly to avoid the pain, but it propelled you to get to where you are.

Trying to get over someone who is in the public eye was a different battle. It seemed as though everywhere you went, he’s there. You see him on billboards, TV screens, his face painted on murals, quickly becoming a tourist site. Occasionally, you would watch his games out of habit, and listen to the prideful Evertonian crowd chant his name. You witnessed his first England senior team debut, and tuned in to England v. Wales on the TV for old time’s sake. You watched him score his first senior England goal behind a screen. Your eyes welled at sight of him living his dream, poaching the ball into the net, scoring the first goal of the game, making his country and family proud. You feel the rush of adrenaline he felt as he ran to his teammates and celebrated. You can’t help but share this sense of pride, as you’ve watched firsthand how hard he has worked to get to where he is.

But on days where he isn’t on your mind, you do not want to be reminded of him. It’s difficult to cope when you encounter pieces of him that takes you back to the worst day of your life, and his.

Like last night, for instance. You had been scrolling on your social media when it was brought to your attention that a magazine had published an issue with your ex on the front cover, spotted on a night out with a blonde you don’t personally know but you could’ve sworn you’ve seen before. Perhaps another one of those so-called “influencers”, you thought to yourself. You know that you have no right to feel jealous or upset, as you broke up with him and this was bound to happen, but selfishly, a part of you had hoped that he wouldn’t find anyone else, or at least not before you did. You’re frustrated at yourself for letting him have this effect on you even months after your break up.

Succumbing to your bad habits, you give in to your impulses and pop open a bottle of red wine to calm your growing anxiety. Two glasses of wine, a takeout, and a season of Gossip Girl later, you find yourself slightly drunk, nerves calmed, and a little drowsy so you quickly change into your satin pyjamas and tuck yourself in bed.

You decide to turn on the TV for some background noise and quickly close your eyes. By some twist of fate, you hear a painfully familiar voice giving his thoughts at the end of a game he’s won. The sheer volume of his voice on the TV causes a sharp pain in your chest as you scramble to reach for your remote in the dark, with your eyes half opened. and change it to anything but a sports channel. That’s it, you thought to yourself. I need to get the fuck away.

Still drunk and not entirely aware of what you’re doing, you reach for your laptop on the nightstand. The brightness made your eyes squint a little bit, but you managed to type out a link and open a travel booking site, and scroll through different pictures of tropical islands you’re longing to get to. Anywhere but here, you thought. You selected options that you thought looked the blue-est, the most expensive, a party town, and had the most five star restaurants.

By the end of it you have booked a return flight to Mykonos for 5 people where you will be staying at a grand, luxurious 5-bedroom villa located at the party central of the island. You couldn’t be bothered to check how much it cost you. All sense of ration gets thrown out the window when you mix heartbreak with alcohol. When you told your friends of what you had just done, it was safe to say that they were surprised but absolutely ecstatic that you have booked a much needed getaway with the girls. With a three-day notice, you all quickly scramble through your closet and go on an online shopping spree to pick out your outfits for the holiday.

***

Days later, you find yourself landing on Mykonos island on a sunny afternoon.

“I can’t believe you’ve managed to pull all this off within days,” your friend says as you all walk through the pebbled entry way of your villa, and open the door. “Holy fucking shit,” another friend says in awe of the sight. The villa was filled with white interior, bright lights, wooden tables that give off beach vibes, and an infinity pool where you could swim as you watch the sunset, with a view of the blue sea. With 5 bedrooms to choose from, your friends collectively decided that you should take the master that had direct access to the pool, which you happily accepted but it wouldn’t matter anyway, as you’ll all probably stay in one room.

Once you’ve unpacked, you pull out your white cardigan and make your way out the terrace to catch a view of the sunset and have a moment by yourself. You take a deep breath of the fresh air with a hint of sea breeze as you try to take in the stunning view of the island. You are filled with gratitude as you bear witness to something so beautiful as you watch the sun sink into the blue Aegean Sea. Despite the peacefulness exuded by the view, your heart can’t help but feel Dom. You remember when he had brought up wanting to spend this exact summer in Mykonos with you, but life had other plans.

***flashback***

Dom was laying in bed with his laptop screen on his chest, an arm to support his head as he scrolled through the travel booking site. He had been looking through different options, but he has his mind set on a lovely town in Greece, Dubai’s overrated after all, he thought.

“Me, you, blue skies, tanned skin, bike rides around town, what do you think love?” asked Dom. “Where’s this?” you ask, moving closer to him as he shows you his laptop screen. “Mykonos. It’s not too far away, I’ll have enough time to rest before pre-season starts,” he replies. “That sounds like a plan,” you smile at him. “But we’ll book it closer to the summer, yeah? In case anything comes up,” you said as you plant a kiss on his cheek. He nods as he bookmarks the site and drifts off to sleep with you shortly after.

Unbeknownst to you, later that night he quietly opened his laptop and quickly booked the trip for you two as a surprise. Anything that will come in the way will just have to be compromised. He was adamant to make sure he gives you the best summer of your life, it is what you deserve after all, he thought.

***

You had forgotten about your conversation with Dom until you stood on the island. Your thoughts were interrupted by your friend’s footsteps. “Hey, you okay babe? You’ve been out here for a while,” she asks with concerned eyes. “I’m alright,” you said. “Or I will be,” you add, giving your friend a forced smile. Your friend wraps her arm around your shoulders as you two make it back inside to have an early and quiet night with the girls, exhausted from all the travel.

***

The next day you woke up a little late, with only several hours to tan before having to get ready for your dinner reservation at one of Mykonos’s famous restaurants that looks over the sea. A little frustrated at yourself for sleeping in, you went to the bathroom to wash your face, put on some light makeup, and change into your swimwear.

You join your friends who are sprawled on the sunbeds. “So, where is this place again?” you asked your friend who booked the dinner. “A restaurant by the sea located at party central babe. Everybody, I mean everybody goes here. They’ve got the best food and music,” she replies. “Think of Mamma Mia 1,” another friend chimes in. Your eyes widen at the imagery. “Better have some great alcohol too, I’m desperate for some,” you laugh. “That’s my girl,” your friend says.

***

By the late afternoon you and the girls are getting ready for dinner. Makeup bags and its contents sprawled on the floor, you had to tiptoe around makeup products and brushes, careful not to step on them. After long deliberation, you decided to dress up in co-ord that hugs your figure and fits you like a glove, paired with your favourite heels, settling for an elegant yet fun look. You decide to keep your hair down and put on some natural makeup to balance out the bold colour. After about 30 minutes of taking pictures of each other and some group photos, you finally made it out the door.

The location was spectacular. The ambience was complemented with bright lights to lighten the dim Mykonos sky that has turned a shade of dark blue, almost purple. The food was divine, a little overpriced for your liking, but it was worth it. The restaurant turns into a nightclub close to midnight, and you and your girls were eager to start your first round of drinks. Fruity drinks were passed around, made with fruits freshly picked from the gardens. Watermelon margarita was your drink of choice, partly sweet, partly sour, and just enough tequila as your first drink of the trip.

The restaurant was packed, you could’ve sworn you had seen a star of a Spanish series you’ve just finished watching on Netflix. The guests were well dressed, many had bravely eccentric taste, mixing patterns and sparkly jewellery, paired with funky footwear to add some flair. In Mykonos, you will not encounter the same judgment as you would walking down the streets back home.

Your friends stood up to dance the second the alcohol kicked in. You took your time, savouring your drink, wanting the night to last. You smile at the sight of your happy friends, so full of life, not giving a single care in the world. As you’re sitting there, observing people, you suddenly feel your chest get heavy. It’s hard to put into words what this feeling is like, but it pushes you to shut down in social settings, overwhelmed by strangers and loud music that makes your ears ring. It is a feeling of unexplained anxiety, where you need a second to correct your breathing, and calm yourself down. Not now, you thought, not here. You often feel these random bouts of emptiness since you left Dom. You try to push the discomfort away, and think of anything else but him. You stood up and walked to the edge of the restaurant by the white border wall to get some fresh air, and take in the view of calm waves under the night sky to collect some peace of mind.

You place your elbows on top of the border, and rest your head on the palms of your hands. A bystander would think that you’re a scene from a movie, a damsel in distress, longing for her love interest. But this was no movie, no fairytale, no knight in shining armour to protect you, no lover to sweep you off your feet.

Or so you thought.

Your focus on the sounds of splashing waves was interrupted by familiar footsteps, getting louder and louder as it creeps its way closer to you. The scent of the sea began to mix with an all too familiar scent of tobacco vanilla. Only one person came to mind. It can’t be, you thought.

“(Y/N)?,” his voice breaks.

It’s him.

#dominic calvert lewin #dominic calvert lewin imagine #dominic calvert lewin imagines #mclfic

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suwya · 3 years

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Till the Stars Had Run Away - Chapter 6

Summary: Killian Jones was a voyager. Actually, he was many things, or at least he had been - a lieutenant, a brother, a loving boyfriend - until everything had turned upside down and his life had hit an all time low. So, he gave up. Aboard his spaceship he abandoned Arcadia, his planet, navigating the stars and other solar systems in search of... well, he still didn't know what he was searching for, but his rule was "never remain in the same place longer than necessary."

Rating: M

Prologue; Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

AO3

A/N: Sorry for the waiting, but real life came along and I had to stop writing for a couple of weeks. Thank you @thisonesatellite for being the best beta reader I could ever ask for. And thank to all of you who are reading this. Happy Labour Day!

Chapter 6 . .

Be not inhospitable to strangers,

lest they be angels in disguise.

(W. B. Yeats)

When Killian regained consciousness he found himself in what reminded him of a military hospital. There were thin white curtains around his bed, but through them he could spot other beds like his, most of them empty. The room seemed large and dimly lit.

He closed his eyes and remembered the crash landing, the unknown desert planet, the great rock that was about to crush Henry, and that feeling of unease and imminent danger he had felt just before the impact. Where was he? And above all what kind of situation was he in, a good or a bad one? He opened his eyes again, and noticed he wasn’t alone. A woman was checking his IV, and a nearby monitor was beeping intermittently.

Killian tried to sit up, but a stabbing pain in his lungs made him desist immediately. He groaned loudly.

“Look who’s awake.” Said the woman, who was now staring at him. “Hello, handsome.” She added cheerfully.

Killian had found himself dealing with uncharted waters several times in his life. He decided to play the waiting game. “This is usually my line, well, more or less.”

“Really? In this case, I'll warn my husband not to approach you.”

“Don’t worry I'm not into men, not recently at least.” He smirked.

“Oh, but my husband is quite the charming one.”

“I still prefer the company of a fair lady, if I could choose.” He winked and chuckled, and a dull pain made him gasp.

“Take it easy.” She immediately shifted her attitude from playful to worried. “How do you feel?”

“As if I've been hit by a rocket.”

“Not a rocket, but yes, you’ve been hit hard. You’ve suffered two broken ribs. And believe me, you were lucky, it could have been worse. Do you mind if I run some tests and see how you react?”

“No problem.”

While the woman was busy measuring his temperature, making him follow a small blue LED light with his gaze, and extracting some blood to examine later, he took advantage of the opportunity to observe her more closely. She had short black hair and green eyes, bright and lively in contrast to her very delicate skin. Killian found himself thinking of another pair of green eyes, which had been filling his thoughts frequently lately. The memory brought him back to reality quickly.

“What is this place?” He inquired, eager to know what had happened while he was unconscious.

“Welcome to Vernal-Den.” She answered smiling.

Killian tried to remember if he had ever read about this planet. “Never heard of it.”

“Yeah, we’re not very popular.”

Was she too concentrated on checking-in his vitals, or was she being too concise on purpose? He didn’t know, but he intended to keep an eye on her. “How long was I out?”

“A while.” Another elusive answer.

He decided to test the waters. “Were there ….other injured people with me?”

“If you’re referring to Henry and Emma, they are perfectly fine.” She seemed sincere. “They are staying at our place. Henry has visited you every day since you came in.”

“And Emma?”

“Well, she can’t come in. She’s not a relative of yours. But she has spent long hours sitting just outside that door.” She said pointing towards the exit. “I had to order her to go home and get some rest.”

After that she excused herself, saying that she had to attend to other patients.

He realized she hadn’t even told him her name. He didn’t know if he could trust her or not. The fact that she had avoided some of his questions sent chills down his spine. And most of all there was the Emma problem.

Why couldn’t she visit him? Was it true that it was only a matter of rules? Or was she in some kind of peril? He needed to know what was happening behind those doors that separated him from the woman that had been pestering his dreams in the last ten years of his life. He had to know that she was alright. To hell with rules! He thought. And by the way, when was the last time he followed one. He had to get out of this place. He tried to sit up, but the pain in his lungs was so strong that his vision started to blur and cold sweat formed on his temples. He lay back down on the bed, aware that in his conditions he couldn’t have gone far before collapsing unconscious on the floor. He promised himself to solve the problem as soon as he had enough strengths, but he couldn't dwell too much on that thought, because sleep was reclaiming his mind again.

~·~·~·~

Time passed very slowly, or so it seemed, but maybe it was simply the fact that every day looked the same. Killian was mostly asleep, probably due to the painkillers introduced through the IV, and when he woke up he couldn't tell how long he had been out, he couldn't even tell if it was day or night. There were no windows in that room.

During one of the moments when his mind regained consciousness, he felt the mattress drop slightly to one side and he slowly opened his eyes.

“You are awake! How do you feel? Can you breathe? Of course you can, you would be dead otherwise! Does it hurt?” Henry was sitting at the end of the bed, and he was asking a lot of questions, as usual. “Sorry.” He suddenly looked contrite. “I should let you rest, but…”

“It’s ok, lad.” Killian cut him off. “I’m glad to see you’re all in one piece.”

The boy greeted him with a wide grin.

Killian remembered the last moments before getting injured, and he was relieved to know that he had been able to prevent that rock from hitting Henry. But other worries crowded his mind. “How about your mom?”

“She’s fine. She’s outside. They won’t let her in. You know, only relatives and all that stuff.” He explained.

“I see. And why are you…?”

Henry didn’t let him finish the question. “I told them I’m your son.” He whispered with a conspiratory smile.

“Clever boy.” Killian’s chuckle turned soon into a cough due to the pain.

“Does it hurt?” The boy asked, frowning.

The man dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “It’s not a big deal.” He didn’t want the lad to feel responsible for his well-being. “How many days have passed since we landed here?” He asked, changing the subject.

“I don't know exactly.” And at Killian’s questioning look, he added, “It’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“People live underground here,” The boy started to explain, “With no opportunity to look outside. And there are no clocks. My watch had probably broken when we arrived, it doesn’t work anymore.”

The man hummed, he was starting to understand. The lack of windows, the elusive answer he had received from the dark-haired nurse… everything was beginning to tally in Killian’s head. “I want you to think carefully about everything you saw outside this room. Did you feel something was wrong?”

The boy shrugged. “I don't know.” He seemed to ponder. “This place is strange. Lots of corridors and passages underground. We are not allowed to go out into the open. They say it’s dangerous. But I never felt a threat or something. I would rather say it’s boring.”

“Why boring?”

Henry was trying to find the right words to explain it. “All the days are the same, people repeat the same actions every day. They say it’s useful to maintain a routine. But I don’t think Mary Margaret and David are bad people.”

“I’m sorry, who?” Killian asked.

“Oh, yeah, Mary Margaret, she is your nurse. We’re staying at her home. She is very nice. And David is her husband. He showed me the greenhouse. It’s awesome and huge, you should see it! But I don’t think he works there. I don’t know what his job is.”

Routine? New people? A greenhouse? Well, that was a lot of information to process. But Killian felt sleep calling him back. Next time I see that lady Margaret, I’m going to ask her not to put more painkillers in my IV. He thought. “Thank you, Henry, for everything. But I may need to rest for a while now.” He managed to say before falling asleep again.

~·~·~·~

Emma knew Killian was feeling better, Henry had told her about their short chat, and some of her child's enthusiasm had even infected her positively, but she continued to feel restless, she wanted to make herself useful. Most of all, she wanted to see Killian again.

All this absurd situation was her fault. And no, she was not thinking about the fact that Killian was lying on a hospital bed because of some bad decisions she had made lately. No. She was not going down that path again. She had already spent a lot of hours regretting many choices done in the last month.

But this was nonsensical, why couldn’t she visit a friend that was hurt and maybe in need of some company? She had actually had a chance to say that she was his wife; after all in the eyes of her guests, she and Killian had a son together, so why not lie a bit more and make Mary Margaret believe that she and Killian were married. But the thought of a possible long time spent together on this planet feigning to be a happily married couple scared her, and she couldn’t go on with the lie.

So there she was, sitting on a very uncomfortable metal chair in the waiting room. She had spent more hours there than she could count.

David had passed by to greet his wife, and he had offered to take Henry with him, on the way back home. So she was left alone with her thoughts.

Mary Margaret peeked out the door with a steaming mug in her hand. “Take this. It will help.”

She agreed with a nod. “Thank you.” She sipped some of the hot liquid and it felt like her nerves were starting to relax a little.

“You should go home and rest. It's late.” The woman said.

“Mary Margaret let me enter.” Emma pleaded for the umpteenth time.

“We have already talked about it. You know I can’t do that. There are strict rules down here, and the best way for us to survive is to follow them.”

“This is insane. I’m not a dangerous criminal or someone who is plotting to destroy this planet. I just want to see him. Please.” She begged.

The dark-haired woman seemed to be pondering all the possible consequences. “All right.” She sighed. “Let’s just say that I’m going inside and leave the door ajar, by mistake, of course. I have to check some very important documents, so I’ll be busy and concentrated. I’m not going to ask you what you’re going to do in the next... fifteen minutes or so. Okay?”

“Thank you.” Emma handed her the cup back, rising from her chair. “You won’t regret it.”

After Mary Margaret disappeared behind the door, Emma waited some minutes before going after her. The room was large and there were many beds, she had no idea where Killian was, but after a quick look at the surroundings, she discovered that only a couple of all the beds were occupied.

She approached one of those and gently opened the curtain trying not to disturb the patient lying inside.

Killian seemed asleep. He was pale, with dark circles under his eyes. She could only imagine the pain he was going through. She had her heart in her throat because she felt responsible for the situation. If they hadn't taken a detour because she had requested it, they'd probably all be home safe and sound by now.

“Hey, beautiful.” He greeted her with a painful grin.

Immersed as she was in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed that he had woken up. She smiled, trying to be strong and not show her inner turmoil. “Do they treat you well here?”

“I'm not complaining. The nurse is kind and the food is edible.” He tried to downplay the situation. “Although I would prefer the care and attention of a certain blonde.” He winked.

Emma chuckled. Then she went closer to him and sat down on the side of his bed, trying not to cause him any more pain. She looked him straight in the eye, and then, gently, she took his hand in hers, intertwining her fingers with his. She saw him swallow hard, and the beeping of his heartbeat accelerated on the monitor. She smiled softly again. “Thank you for saving my son’s life.”

She saw how he wet his lips before answering as if his mouth had been suddenly dry. “It was the right thing to do.�� Was his answer, but his voice came out slightly choked.

Emma looked back, checking if any hospital employee was nearby, “I shouldn’t be here, and unfortunately my time is running out. But I wanted to see you... needed to see with my own eyes that you are ok... well, more or less.” She whispered, with her gaze lowered, avoiding eye contact. The physical connection of their joined hands was already arousing too many contradictory emotions inside her.

“Aye. I know the feeling.” He replied, letting her know that he had been eager to establish contact with her throughout his stay in the hospital.

At those words, she stared at him again. “Get well soon.” She bent down and dropped a mild kiss at the corner of his lips. “We need you.”

~·~·~·~

Killian was lying on his back staring at the ceiling. This time there was no way he would fall asleep again. Every time he thought about what had just happened his beeping monitor sped up. He blushed. It had been just a chaste kiss, nothing compared to the hot and breathtaking one they had shared a few days before. But she had said it had been a one-time thing and he had promised himself not to indulge in those lustful thoughts anymore. Yet, this last kiss had seemed much more real, and meaningful... it had left him with a feeling of hope.

Hope and distress. Emma was such a strong and beautiful woman, a marvelous creature, as he liked to describe her in his mind, and a princess even. And what was he? A rebel, and a scoundrel. Or a rapscallion... whatever. Okay, maybe not anymore, but he had been in the past, for many years. He had been trying to redeem himself lately. But was he worth enough of her? That was the million dollar question.

He was still ruminating on it when the known brunette peeked out the curtains. “Hello. How are you today?” She greeted him with a bright smile, as usual.

“Better.” He hoped the monitor on his right wasn’t showing his state of mind.

She came closer. “Do you mind if I check your ribs? It's time to change the dressing.” After a short pause, she added, “I'm sorry, but we don't have the best equipment to assist our patients. We have to work with what we have available on this planet.” She said pointing to the bands that covered his chest.

Killian nodded, and Mary Margaret started to untie the bandages. She seemed concentrated on her task, probably she was trying to avoid causing him any pain. It was only when she started to apply an ointment on the bruises, that she spoke again. “You love her.” It was just a whisper, and Killian doubted if he had heard correctly. But then she added “Emma.”

It wasn’t a question, and he pondered what was the correct answer, or if she was expecting one. “I'd go to the end of the world for her… Or the multiverse.” He said eventually.

“And she for you, I take it?”

Killian chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What’s the problem?” She looked at him surprised. Then took some clean gauzes and started to wrap them on him.

“She's bloody brilliant, an amazing woman. She fights for her son and always does what’s right.” Killian’s voice was so full of admiration.

“Is there something wrong with it?” Mary Margaret inquired.

Killian shook his head again. “She raised the bar very high. The fact is, I don't think I measure up.”

The woman folded the old bandages and took the ointment bottle, then she stood up, she was making an exit when she stopped short. “Since you came here I've been watching you.”

“I don't know if I should be flattered or scared.” The man tried to ease the tension of the moment.

“We don’t have many foreigners on this planet, but believe me, you're not one of the bad guys. You sacrificed yourself for the sake of a young boy. There's good in your heart.” She smiled at him softly. “I’m going to look for the doctor; I bet you’ll be leaving this room soon.”

~·~·~·~

The following day started the same as the previous ones. But during the first hours of the evening a man in a white coat came to visit Killian. He explained the medications and precautions to be taken to him, some movements that he should avoid for a while, and other tips for a speedy recovery. Then he handed over some papers for the patient to sign to be discharged. Finally some good news.

After a while redressing and packing up his few belongings in his satchel Killian went to the door. Walking hurt a bit but nothing he couldn’t bear.

Mary Margaret was already waiting for him, and a tall blonde guy was with her. “You must be Jones.” He said. When they shook hands, Killian learned his name was David Nolan, and he remembered Henry had mentioned him in his conversations. “I’m going to take you to our humble abode.”

Nolan's house was in fact modest. A loft with a large dining room, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a small bathroom on one corner, all open, without doors, except for the bathroom. There was a raised bedroom opposite it, whose access was a metal stair.

Dinner was good, if a little awkward. Emma didn't interact much, and Killian wanted to ask if something was troubling her, but he preferred to wait for a better time, perhaps a less crowded one. Henry entertained them with what he had done throughout the day and kept repeating how glad he was that Killian was back with them.

But the man was still a bit cautious with those new people around him. He didn’t know them, especially the Nolan guy, who had been silent for most of the dinner, glancing sidelong at him as if he wanted to study him thoroughly before making a personal judgment. The feeling was mutual, Killian thought.

Just after dessert, David started to speak. “What will you need to restore your ship?” He asked.

“Uh… a new stabilizer, I think, and some parts of the propulsion engine for sure. But I’ll have to look closely at the damages to be sure there’s nothing else broken.”

The blond man nodded. “Not many ships come and go from here. But I hope we can find all the pieces you need.”

“Thank you, mate.”

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to the hangar where your ship is. We’ll have a look at it.” He seemed sincere in his generosity.

“May I help?” Henry barged in.

A chorus of “No!” echoed the room.

“I appreciate the support, but it could be dangerous.” Killian explained.

“I hate being here. I feel trapped.” The boy complained.

Mary Margaret sighed. “This is a feeling that will vanish with time.”

The woman was no doubt trying to instill some optimism, but Killian didn't like the idea of staying in that place longer than necessary. “Well, then, let’s hope we could leave this planet before the feeling has entirely vanished.” He made a grin and passed his hand on his side.

“Time for resting.” The brunette stated although it sounded more like an order. “But before that, we should change those bandages. Emma, would you like to help me?”

“Me?” Emma, who had been silent and a bit on the sidelines all evening, seemed to re-emerge from wherever she’d gone.

“He won’t be able to do it by himself when you won’t live here anymore. It’s better if you learn how to help him.” Mary Margaret clarified.

Emma looked like she was going to object, but in the end, she asserted. “Sure.”

~·~·~·~

If a certain nervousness had taken hold of Emma as she climbed to the upstairs room, it disappeared the instant Mary Margaret helped Killian get rid of his shirt. That wasn’t a thorax, it was a nautical chart. Most of it was covered by gauze, but she could still spot many marks and scars.

There was a tattoo, two of them to be exact, but Emma saw just one at first. It was on his right forearm; it was a big red heart with a dagger running through and the name “Milah” across it. Emma made a mental note to ask him later who she was.

Mary Margaret showed her how to unfasten the bandages, and then she ordered her to stand behind him, to help better in removing them all.

On his back, Emma saw the second tattoo, on his right shoulder. It was an old nautical instrument she had read about in a book when she was younger, but she couldn’t remember the exact name. The drawing was beautifully detailed, even if it had faded, it was probably older than the other one, she thought.

And when all the gauze was out of the way, she saw them: tiny, blurred, old scars that studded most of his back. Emma wondered what kind of life he had to endure when he was very young.

Mary Margaret asked her to help with the ointment. She had already opened the bottle and was showing the blonde woman how much cream to use. But Emma wasn't listening, standing now in front of the man, her attention was caught by the glorious chest hair that was covering most of his torso.

Okay, there was also a big, horrible bruise on his right ribs, but Mary Margaret was saying that it seemed on the way to a fast recovery, if the yellow and purple veining was some indication.

Emma was ogling and she wasn’t ashamed of it either. The amount of hair decreased in the lower part of his chest, leaving a black trail that disappeared under the hem of his pants.

"See something you like?" Emma was abruptly taken back to reality by a smug Killian that was smirking at her while arching an eyebrow. She blushed. She was caught red-handed, but she couldn’t let him win. She took advantage of the fact that Mary Margaret was looking for something in a nearby drawer, to get closer to him. She looked at him lasciviously from under her lashes. “Maybe?” She purred.

Now it was his time to blush, he looked intently at his feet, but she found the bright red that appeared on his ears extremely endearing. Point for Emma.

Mary Margaret taught the other woman how to fix the bandages, and Emma had to use some tiny hooks to hold them together. She did not miss the opportunity to casually slide her fingers over a part of his chest hair that came out of the bandages.

“Bloody Hell!” Killian muttered.

Emma retreated her hand immediately. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?” Worries that she had done something wrong clouded her gaze.

“Apologies.” Killian was scratching behind his ear, in evident embarrassment. “While I do enjoy two lovely ladies attending to my needs, I'm not used to someone taking care of me…” He smiled and brought his mouth close to Emma’s ear: “I’m usually the one who devotes full attention to a woman’s needs.” He whispered, but clearly not as quietly as he would have liked, because Mary Margaret's answer - “Well, you will have to put that off for a while” - made him blush again like a schoolboy scolded by his teacher.

~·~·~·~

Suddenly it was bedtime. Everyone was busy making preparations and taking shifts for the bathroom to change for the night. Killian was upstairs, staring at the bed he knew he had to share with Emma, who was arranging a pillow on the nearby sofa. He passed a hand through his hair and then scratched a spot behind his right ear. “I'll crash on that couch.” He stated as if it was the most logical conclusion to a battle he was fighting inside.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “It's barely long enough for Henry. Plus, you’re still recovering, you absolutely need to rest.”

He didn't seem very convinced. “Emma, I'm not sure this is a good idea.”

“And why is that?” Was her exasperated reply, turning towards him with her hands on her hips. “What are you going to do? Seduce me with a couple of broken ribs and a ten-year-old boy sleeping next to us?”

He lifted his arms and surrendered. “Fair point.” He conceded.

In no time they were all ready for the night and Henry was snoring softly on the sofa. Killian was supine, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the events of the day. In any case, sleep had no intention of coming, but he tried not to move. He didn’t want to wake up his roommates. Emma was lying close with her back to him and he didn’t know if she was already in the arms of Morpheus.

He turned his head to observe how her upper body moved with the rhythm of her breathing, blond curls covering her shoulders. Killian had to repress the urge to touch them. And as if responding to his call, she stirred and turned to face him.

Her eyes opened lazily. “Still awake?” She murmured.

“I have the feeling that I’ve slept enough for the rest of my life.” He whispered. “But you can’t rest either, I see.”

She didn’t answer.

Perhaps it was the closeness, perhaps it was the fact that they had spent the last few days apart. Killian didn't know how he found the courage, but he lifted his left arm as an invitation. “Come here,” he said.

She seemed to ponder the situation, chewing her bottom lip. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He decided not to think about all the possible implications of that sentence. He was falling in love with her, he was aware of it. Probably the simple doubt that she might not reciprocate was already hurting him, but he knew that at that moment she was referring only to his physical bruises. “You won’t.”

She slipped under the sheets towards him, resting her head gently on his left shoulder and placing a hand on his chest, avoiding the bruised part. Not many minutes passed before her lids grew heavy and she dozed off to the rhythm of his heartbeats. Killian placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

#cs ff #cs au #Till the Stars Had Run Away #alternative universe #science fiction #space au #my writing

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super-secret-sick-fics · 4 years

Note

ouu yes ive been so obsessed with them (osasuna) recently and there’s barely any fics for them in this department lol i wanted to see something like suna coming to school sick with the stomach flu or something and osamu taking him home to take care of him (i feel like it’s ooc for suna to go to go school if he’s not feeling well so it’d probably be one of those where it gets progressively worse throughout the day) sorry if this is too long haha

Okay!! Thank you for this request. Sorry it took so long. Honestly, I had a lot of fun with this and it ended up being so long, that I’m gonna post it in 2 parts!!

You can totally read either as a stand alone though. Part 2 should be up soon :)

Suna and I have the same birthday, so I actually kinda put a lot of myself into him in this one since we share a star sign lmao. I hope it’s not too ooc for either of them. It’s my first time writing sunaosa!

Sick at School: a SunaOsa fic

Pair: Sick Suna, Caretaker Osamu

Word Count: 3,024

Warnings: vomit & swearing & soft cuddles

Part 2 Here

_________________________________

Suna was confused.

There was a strange gnawing in his gut that wasn’t there when he woke up this morning. In fact, when he woke up this morning, he felt perfectly fine. Maybe he was a little more tired than usual, but he didn’t sleep all that well, so he brushed it off and got ready for school.

But now, he was sitting in class, his eyes burning as he tried to stay awake. It was only Monday and only the second class of the day, but he felt like he’d been at school for days already. On top of the grumbly feeling in his stomach, his brain was muddled, so paying attention to whatever his teacher was saying was taking every bit of energy he could scrounge up.

It didn’t make sense. He slept his eight hours (even if it wasn’t the best sleep), he ate a good breakfast, he was hydrated, there weren’t any tests or games coming up to make him anxious at all. So the unsteady, uncomfortable, unusual feelings he currently felt simply did not make a single bit of logical, rational sense.

And because they didn’t make sense—because there was no rational reason for him to feel that way—he ignored it.

Ignoring it proved to be more difficult than he anticipated as the fog in his brain solidified into a consistent pounding and the gnawing in his stomach started to feel more like his stomach acid was boiling. The sun shining on him through the window didn’t help any, and he started to feel rather warm. By his fourth class, occasional cramps rolled through his body, forcing him to tense every muscle in his body to keep from wincing.

When the teacher finally released them for lunch, Suna folded his arms on his desk and hid his face in the crook of his elbow, ready to take a nap. Within three seconds, he heard the chair in front of him scrape the ground, grating on his ears, and felt his desk shake as someone sat down. He adjusted his head and peeked over his arm to find Osamu staring down at him, his usual bored look gracing his features.

“Yer sick, Sunarin,” he deadpanned and took a bite of his sandwich. Suna blinked at him several times.

Sick? Was that why he felt so weird? But he wasn’t sick this morning. There was no way he would have come to school if he felt bad.

Still, it would explain why he slept poorly. It must be a fast acting bug.

“I guess so,” he mumbled and buried his face in his elbow again.

“Hmmm,” Osamu mumbled. They were quiet for a minute or two before Osamu spoke again.

“Wanna go to the infirmary?” he asked, his mouth full.

Suna looked up at him again and sighed before sitting up. The world spun around for a brief second and he closed his eyes until the feeling went away. When it righted itself once more, his stomach was hurting worse than before.

“How’d you know anyway?” he asked and rested his chin in his hand.

“You’ve been lookin’ bad all mornin’. Wasn’t hard to tell.” Osamu shrugged. His sandwich was gone and he started making his way through the onigiri he most likely made himself. The fact that Osamu could tell he wasn’t feeling well from across the room made Suna blush. Or maybe he had a fever?

“Plus,” Osamu continued, “Tsumu’s home right now with a pretty nasty stomach bug. Threw up all over his bed last night.” He scrunched up his nose cutely, probably remembering the disastrous scene from the night before. Atsumu was never good at being a sick person. Or an injured person. Or a person at all, really.

“Wouldn’t be all that surprising if ya caught it from him since ya slept over at our place last weekend.”

Suna nodded in agreement.

“What about you?” he asked. Osamu shrugged again.

“I’ll probably be spewin’ my guts out by Thursday. Usually how it goes. One of us catches something then the other is sick within the week. We’ve only been sick at the same time a handful o’ times.”

“Mmmm,” Suna nodded and put his head down once more. It was suddenly very difficult to hold his head up.

“Infirmary?” Osamu asked again. Suna shook his head.

“Can’t move,” he whined before he could stop himself. Osamu looked at him with wide eyes.

“W-well, I’ll help ya out, dumbass,” he stuttered and Suna returned the wide eyed look.

“Uh, sure. But finish your lunch first. I can wait. You should eat. Wake me up when you’re done,” he said and closed his eyes.

“Alright. Lemme know if we need to go sooner though…” Osamu said hesitantly and Suna tried to ignore the implication behind the phrase.

Just because Atsumu had a stomach bug didn’t mean that Suna did too. He wouldn’t throw up at school. The increasing nausea absolutely had to be related to the growing migraine that slammed away at his head. He definitely would not throw up at school.

Before he started overthinking himself into a downward spiral, Osamu placed a hand in his hair. Suna was tense at first, but then Osamu started gently scratching his scalp and he immediately relaxed. He was a little embarrassed, honestly. Not because this was unusual though.

Osamu knew it helped Suna with his frequent headaches, so Suna was sure he somehow knew about the incoming migraine. It was just that this was usually something Osamu did for him in much more private settings. He’d do it on the bus on the way back from away games, or in one of their rooms after school or during a sleepover. To be so affectionate in the middle of their classroom was unheard of and if Suna wasn’t feeling so poorly, he’d probably smack Osamu’s hand away.

“Ya got a slight fever there, Sunarin,” Osamu whispered gently.

“Mmmm.”

“Okay. I’ll let ya know when I’m done eatin’.”

“Mmmm.”

Within a few seconds, Suna felt himself drift off.

When he woke up again, it wasn’t because of Osamu.

A violent cramp rolled through his gut and he shot up in his seat, ignoring the startled looks of his classmates. The cramp passed quickly, but left behind a foreboding feeling of nausea so intense it left him paralyzed and glued to his seat.

A second later, he noticed that Osamu was nowhere to be found and his anxiety increased. The situation was becoming increasingly urgent and there was no way in hell he could move or speak without throwing up all over his desk.

His chest tightened and he swallowed back a gag. He needed help. He needed Osamu.

“Suna-kun?” a girl from his class touched his shoulder and he flinched. She withdrew her hand.

“O-osamu—“ he forced out and she nodded urgently and ran away and out the door. Less than a minute later, she came back, Osamu hot on her heels. She pointed to Suna and Osamu nodded before rushing over and stood in front of him.

“Sunarin?” he tried and Suna shook his head.

“Are ya gonna—“ Suna nodded before Osamu could finish his question. The eyes of all of his classmates burned Suna’s already flushed cheeks and as if to let everyone know what was going on, a gag forced itself through his body painfully and he leaned over his desk. He brought the back of his hand up to his mouth and whimpered.

“Can someone bring me a trash can, maybe?” Osamu snapped at their peers. The girl from before nodded and dashed to the corner of the room and dragged the trash can over to Suna’s desk.

Everyone froze again and stared with scared eyes at the situation unfolding. Suna shook with effort, trying to stop the inevitable. He really really didn’t want everyone to watch him throw up.

Thankfully, Osamu had his back.

“Leave?!” He shouted and everyone ran out of the room.

“I’ll bring the nurse, Osamu-kun,” the same girl said and Osamu nodded, but his eyes were focused only on Suna. They’d have to remember to thank that girl later.

“I’m sorry, Rintaro. I finished my lunch and you were sleepin’ so peaceful I thought I had time to go to the bathroom before I took ya to the infirmary,” Osamu apologized and cupped Suna’s face in his hands. His voice was much softer than a second ago. It was the voice reserved for those quiet nights that they spent chatting before they fell asleep. Or on the team bus early in the morning when everyone else was still too groggy to pay attention to them. And it comforted Suna in ways he couldn’t comprehend.

“I feel sick, S-samu,” Suna forced through gritted teeth. The swirling in his stomach grew more insistent by the second and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was leaning over the trash can.

“I know, Rin. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’ve got ya,” Osamu smiled softly at him and brushed his hair back. He frowned when Suna unconsciously leaned into his cold hands.

“Fever got higher,” he mumbled. Suna gagged again.

“Alright, c‘mon,” he said and circled around the desk behind Suna. Osamu gently grabbed his trembling shoulders and positioned him over the trash can. People’s leftovers from lunch filled about half the bin and the smell of all the different foods made Suna dizzy.

“Rin, ya gotta relax,” Osamu sighed and forcefully rubbed between Suna’s shoulder blades.

“N-no,” Suna said stubbornly.

“Yer an idiot.”

“Y-yeah.”

“It’s gonna feel worse if ya don’t just let it happen,” Osamu tried. Suna shook his head.

“Alright well, be mad at me later, then,” Osamu muttered. Suna was about to turn and look at him questioningly, but Osamu wrapped a hand around Suna’s front and placed it on his stomach. Even the minimal contact forced a wretch that left Suna reeling.

“D-don’t,” he tried, but the request was punctuated by a painful hiccup.

“I’m sorry. Can’t do that,” Osamu responded before starting to rub up and down on Suna’s stomach quickly. The motion shook the contents nauseatingly and Suna couldn’t stop the watery burp that followed. He shook his head, eyes squeezed shut tightly.

Osamu didn’t relent. He started patting Suna’s back with the other hand, forcing belch after belch. The conflicting motions wreaked havoc on Suna’s already chaotic stomach.

They stayed like that for what felt like forever, before Suna grabbed Osamau’s wrist tightly.

“S-stop—hurrk. P-please, Samu. No m-mor—hic,” Suna begged. All of his limbs felt like they were about a thousand pounds and he shivered, cold despite the sun beating down on his back.

“It’s okay, Rin. I got ya,” Osamu muttered. He pried Suna’s sweaty hand off his wrist and replaced it with his hand. Suna squeezed hard when a wet belch jolted his body. His other hand grabbed the rim of the trash can in a white-knuckled grip. Osamu used his free hand to rub gently between Suna’s shoulder blades again.

Suna squeezed his eyes shut when he wretched. His throat felt tight and he tried to swallow the accumulating saliva in his mouth, only for it to come back up with a noisy gag. He opted to just drop his mouth open and let the spit fall into the trash can disgustingly.

“S-Samu—“ he tried but was interrupted by a guttural, wet, burp that left his head spinning. Two seconds later, he wretched and a weak stream vomit dribbled out of his mouth. It burned his throat and coated his mouth. The disgusting taste left him more nauseous than he thought possible and a belch gurgled in the back of his throat. He heaved, but nothing else came up.

“Ah, Rin, I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry,” Osamu shushed him. Suna didn’t even realize he was crying.

He continued heaving for what must have been an eternity before another painful gag jolted him forward and brought with it a torrent of pale vomit into the trash can. At least he didn’t have to see everyone’s discarded lunch anymore. Not that his new view was much prettier.

“There ya, go Sunarin,” Osamu soothed. Suna sputtered and coughed, trying to catch his breath. His body was relentless though, and before he felt like he had sufficient oxygen, he was lurching forward with more forceful vomit pouring out of his mouth.

Suna’s body didn’t let up. It was stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of gasping breaths abruptly interrupted by a fountain of vomit forcing its way out. Eventually, he was just left heaving over the trash can, his stomach trying but failing to expel whatever might be left. Anxiety crawled up his spine and the room spun. He wanted to breathe, he really did. He just couldn’t.

“Fuck, Rin, breathe. Please,” Osamu demanded and his voice shattered through Suna’s panic. He nodded and closed his eyes to try and collect himself. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled heavily through his mouth. A minute or two of that, and he was able to take in his surroundings again.

At some point, Osamu wrapped an arm around Suna’s chest because apparently, his own arms gave out at some point and hung limply at his sides. He spit the residual nastiness out of his mouth and squinted up at Osamu.

“Can we leave?” he asked plainly. Osamu stared at him owlishly and then chuckled.

“It’s the middle of the day Rin, I can’t just—“

“Please?” he all but begged and grabbed Osamu’s arm. Osamu hesitated for the briefest of seconds before relenting with a heavy breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘course. Want me to call yer mom?” Osamu responded. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped off Suna’s face. Suna shook his head.

“Is it too much to ask if I can stay with you? I don’t want to risk giving this to my little sister and grandma.” His voice was quieter than he wanted, but he was wiped out. He cleared his throat and spit in the trash can. He was fading fast. All he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep whatever bug this was off.

“Yeah okay. I’ll ask my Ma. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue since Tsumu’s sick too.” Osamu pulled out his phone and massaged Suna’s scalp. It felt so good that he leaned over and buried his face in Osamu’s stomach. If he wasn’t careful, he’d fall asleep here. Hopefully Osamu’s mom would be okay with it and come quickly.

“Ma, can you come pick me and— no I’m not sick— well, if you’d just let me talk ya crazy—Ma I do have a good reason to be call— would ya stop talkin—yer damn right I’m being disrespectfu—Ma!” As Osamu argued with his mother over the phone (it was nothing new) Suna took inventory of his body.

There was no denying he was sick. That much was obvious. His head was pounding and his stomach still rolled and swirled uncomfortably. Shivers danced up and down his body, exacerbated by the sweat that coated his skin. He was sure that he had a fever. All of his limbs weighed him down and he didn’t think he had any sort of energy to move them. It was taking all he had to stay awake right now.

“Osamu-san!” The girl from before returned, the school nurse right behind her.

“Suna Rintaro, you poor boy. Caught that bug going around, I see,” he heard the nurse and pulled his face away from Osamu’s body. Blinking a few times to clear his blurry vision, he sniffed and stared at the old lady in front of him.

She stuck a thermometer in his mouth without saying a word and pulled a water bottle out from her coat pocket. While they were waiting for his temperature, Suna glanced at Osamu, who was now leaning against the desk behind Suna’s. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, his other still holding the phone to his ear as he continued listening to his mother rant.

Without thinking, Suna reached over and grabbed a hold of Samu’s shirt with one hand. Osamu looked down in surprise before his face softened and he put a hand on Suna’s shoulder.

The thermometer beeped and Suna winced.

“38.7,” the nurse read and pursed her lips. She pulled out some medicine from her lab coat and gave some to Suna. He grimaced. Even in his hazy state, he knew putting something in his stomach wouldn’t go over well.

“Suna-kun, you need to get that fever of your’s down. I know it’s not ideal, but please try.” Suna turned his head away. She sighed.

“Okay, but make sure you take something at home. Does someone need to call your mother?” Before Suna could answer, Osamu interrupted.

“I’ll take him ma’am,” he said, apparently off the phone with his mother.

“Osamu-kun, don’t you be thinking you can just skip out on school,” she warned.

“I would never,” Osamu charmed, “I think it’s the smartest move, ya see. Atsumu is at home with the same illness right now and so there’s no way I ain’t carrying the germs for it. Wouldn’t it be safest if I go home too? Before I infect anyone else. And I can take Sunarin with me.”

The nurse gave him a skeptical look, but then glanced over at Suna. She noticed his grip on Osamu’s shirt and the former’s hand firmly on Suna’s back. It must’ve made Suna look pretty pathetic because she relented almost immediately.

“Oh fine, fine. Does someone need to call your mom?”

“No, ma’am. Just got off the phone with her. She’ll be here soon. Said she’s got no problem taking Sunarin in ‘til he’s all better.” He squeezed Suna’s shoulder and Suna relaxed knowing he wasn’t at risk of infecting his little sister or aging grandmother. He sighed and smiled gratefully at Osamu.

It was comforting to know that Osamu was going to be looking after him. Because, if the swirling in his stomach told him anything, he was in for a really long night.

#my fic #haikyuu sickfic #sick suna #caretaker Osamu #tw vomit

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scribbling-stiks · 4 years

Text

AAR - I - Cleaning Up

'Hospital gowns,' Russia decides, 'are not comfortable.'

'America's lap was warm and comfortable though.'

The sun had begun to set, and the surroundings begin to grow dark. America had grown quiet, and Russia assumes he's asleep. But as the car grows dark, Russia notices something a little strange. A light blue glow surrounds him. It's faint. Very faint. He hadn't even noticed it until the sky was full of stars. Russia tries to ignore the fear building in his chest at the appearance of the moon. The glow is gentle, calming, and it makes his skin feel tingly and warm, as warm as it could feel.

'What is that? It looks like America's magic. But America's asleep.'

Russia raises his arm as high as he could, only a few centimeters, and drops it. No one looks. He tries again, and Texas spins around, with an anxious look he tries to hide lighting up his face.

Russia meets his eyes, and Texas relaxes. Then Texas scans over him with a strange look.

"What in tarnation? New Mex, look at Russia," Texas says, grabbing New Mexico by the shoulder.

"What?" New Mexico asks, turning around in her seat.

"Oh," New Mexico mutters, "Dad's magic?"

"I don't know. Could you turn Dixie off of mute?" Texas says, announcing the question to the front seat.

"Sure thing TexMex," Arizona replies.

"Don't call me that," Texas mutters.

"Hey, Dix. I got a question," Texas announces.

There is a short pause before anyone received an answer.

"Does it got something to do with them weird dogs in the trees?"

"No, it's about- wait, DOGS?!"

"Yeah. Listen, y'all shouldn't look, they ain't right."

Texas begins looking around, but Finland moves to block the window. Texas scowls but returns his gaze to Russia. His face softens seeing his father.

"Can Dad use his magic when he's sleepin'?" Texas asks, his eyes focused on Russia's arm.

"Wait, what do mean?" Canada's voice filters through the phone.

"Him and Russia are glowin'. Kinda. It just looks like Dad's using some healing magic or something," Texas explains.

"Dad still has magic to use?" Massachusetts asks.

"Yeah. I'm thinkin' it's cuz Dad is finally getting some sleep," New Mexico comments.

"He's sleeping?" Dixie asks incredulously.

"He's been sleeping for the past several hours. Why?" Finland responds, sounding confused.

"Dad just doesn't sleep much," Kansas explains.

Finland hums but doesn't say anything else.

"Well, that's good. Really good," Canada says, "he'll probably be feeling better as soon as he wakes up."

"What do you mean? How much does his healing magic help? I know countries heal faster than humans, and states," Finland adds as an afterthought, "but he was stabbed."

"He's stubborn," Dixie says, "he won't be able to lift anything, but he'll probably be up and moving around once he wakes up."

"He'll totally call the shower once we stop and get settled in," Arizona says with a laugh.

Dixie chuckles.

"Y'all think he'll insist that he's the once to clean up Russia too?" Texas asks.

Russia feels his mind freeze and embarrassment halts his thoughts.

'I... what?!? Clean...? Like a CHILD?!'

He feels the remains of his pride shrivel and closes his eyes. He can't force himself to meet anyone's eyes. If he could manage, he would have covered his face. He had already felt so flustered needing help with the bathroom, and now.

'This is so much worse.'

But he knew he couldn't really decline, as he couldn't speak. And he tried to slow down his heart rate.

'America doesn't know,' he thinks, trying to defend the sliver of dignity he could keep, 'he doesn't have to know.'

"What? What's going on?" America slurs with sleep.

'Oh no.'

"Oh! Hi Dad," Texas says with a nervous undertone, "how're you feeling?"

"Hey, Tiktac. I'm okay. How're you doing? You sound a little off."

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine. I'm just... nervous. Ya know, waiting to get attacked an all."

"Waiting to get attacked?!" New York shrieks.

"Yeah. It's what happened when we drove through the early morning when we first went through the mountains," Massachusetts explains, his voice sounds muffled through the speakers.

"Colorado!" New York yells.

"On a side note," Arizona loudly interjects, "Dad, how is your back feeling?"

"It's feeling a lot better. Still kinda hurts, but I'll manage."

"Yay! Could you get yourself all washed up?"

"Of course."

"And-"

'Please don't say anything.'

"Could you get Russia washed up too? The rest of us don't feel comfortable doing it. You know, with him being your boyfriend and all."

"I... probably. I wouldn't be able to carry him in there, but if you guys could get him into the bathroom, I can take it from there."

'Oh no.'

Russia knows that he hadn't been cleaned. Not really. He also remembers how Louisiana had New Mexico check for new infections where the IV was just a few hours ago.

'Was that even really a hospital?'

Thinking about it, he concludes that maybe it was, but the people there had other plans. And no training, if California was to be believed.

"Well, can all of you calm your t***s?"New Jersey asks.

"Well, I don't have those, soo," Kansas replies with a smirk.

"Shut the f*** up." New Jersey snaps.

"Anyway, we're about to pull up to the hotel, but whatever the f*** is following us is still pretty close," Massachusetts remarks.

"Sippi and I will go out and protect all y'all while y'all are goin' inside," Alabama volunteers.

"Y'all are NOT goin' by yourselves," Dixie says.

"I'm goin' with 'em," Texas says.

"Me too," New Mexico volunteers.

The car fills with the calls of other states and a few provinces who agreed to go armed to walk the rest of the group inside.

Finland picks Russia up easily, and Russia just feels happy that he's still wrapped up in blankets. The states who weren't watching the shadows were throwing suitcases out of the backs of cars and trucks as fast as they could.

Someone tosses Texas his hat, who hoots wildly with a grin.

"H*** YEAH!" Texas cheers.

Tennessee elbows him harshly, and Texas calms down slightly. Russia internally chuckles.

"You need to get cleaned up," Finland mutters. But her tone is less angered than Russia would expect.

America hobbles into the hotel room's bathroom, and the water tuns on. Finland stands by the door while Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas settle into one of the beds and the pull-out couch.

Then America pokes his face out of the door.

"You can bring him in here," America says.

Russia closes his eyes in embarrassment.

"Just put him in. We aren't keeping the hospital gown anyway." America says.

Russia sees Finland shrug and he's put into the tub with his back leaned against the side and is blasted with water. He flinches, expecting it to be freezing. He sits there for a moment, his eyes scrunched shut, until his mind registers that the water was warm.

He relaxes slightly.

"Hey, you didn't expect me to blast you with cold water, right?" America asks with a chuckle.

Russia can't meet his eyes.

America sighs, then props Russia up a little further and unties the knot of the gown on the back of his neck.

"Hey, I get it. I honestly kept checking it cuz every time I looked, it looked like it would be freezing and I didn't wanna risk you getting cold," America says, gently removing the gown.

Russia feels exposed and very embarrassed. America seems to ignore the awkwardness of the situation that drowns Russia's rational thinking.

'The only time I wanted you to see me like this is when I could take your clothes off.'

These thoughts did NOT help his already flustered mental state.

America gets back to his feet and grabs some things off the counter.

Russia still couldn't believe that America had to wash him like a small child. He feels mortified but finds a silver lining in the fact that America was the only one doing this.

"Okay," America starts gently, "I'm gonna start at your legs and go up, okay?"

Russia tries his best to nod, and America takes the affirmation as permission to start.

Most of the sensation in his legs is still numb, but America is still gentle. Gently washing out whatever had been ignored for the nurses, though the more Russia thinks about it, the more he doubts that any of those nurses were nurses at all.

He remembered how California had ranted on the car ride through the group call, loud enough to wake him up, about how she had to fix the butchered surgery with New York, and how America only survived because he was a country with how botched it was. How the 'surgical team' left two scalpels and a pair of scissors in the crooked sutures. How nothing was lined up or healing correctly. How Louisiana was the only thing that kept back any infection.

How they had fixed it. How it was a huge emergency and how New York and California had to hurriedly research and redo surgery in secret due to their, not unfounded, suspicions.

How the only reason they stayed was for Russia because they weren't sure if they could move him. How they rushed out so fast because they had wanted to leave for almost a week.

He couldn't help but feel touched that they stayed for him, but his stomach churned at how badly it had gone for America.

'No one in that building had any medical training.'

The realization hits him like a brick to the chest.

Seething fury. The thoughts have him wishing he could move, if only to strangle the 'doctor's who did that and caused more suffering to both America and his children. He takes a deep breath and tries to return his focus to America.

'I can't lash out. Not now. Not at America.'

America had made it up to his chest. Russia hadn't even realized he had been lifted up or that the backs of his legs or lower back had been attended to.

'That might be for the best.'

He knows, had it been possible, his face would have turned beet red.

America gets to his hands and holds them before rinsing them off.

Russia notices how the smell that had clung to him since the dead animals incident began to actually fade. The air was clearing.

"Okay Ruski," America mutters, "you gotta close your eyes, okay?"

Russia complies.

Russia finds himself relaxing, as much as he could, as America tenderly rubs away the grim from his face. It seems to take a few tries to get the dried slime off his cheek.

Gentle, caloused hands begin scrubbing out his hair.

"It's been so long since I've seen your hair actually white," America says with an audible smile. Russia smiles back as well he can.

Russia tries to pay all his attention to the gentle actions. He feels so fuzzy. So loved. So cared for.

America dumps some water over his face, and he holds his breath.

He basks in the affection. Sure, this is still a situation that mortified him to no end, because of his lack of autonomy, but decides, since he can't do anything to stop it, to try to ignore it as best he could.

Eventually, he's dried off and clothed, his hair fluffed up by the towel.

America giggles and kisses him on the forehead.

"Your hair looks so cute," America says between muffled laughter.

Finland carries him out and dumps him onto the bed. America closed the bathroom door behind them and cleans himself off before stumbling back out. With New Mexico and Kansas' help, America makes it onto the bed.

America crawls across it and cuddles into Russia's side. Kansas laughs and helps adjust the blankets to be lying on top of them. America wraps himself up tightly and begins stroking Russia's clothes with an arm poking out of the bundle he had buried himself in.

'He's adorable.'

America shifts around and pulls Russia to his chest. America buries his face into Russia's hair. America breaths in and sighs. He nuzzles Russia's hair.

"It's nice, you know? You smell nice again," America mumbles into his hair. Russia feels a little flustered, but content.

"Y'all are sweet," Texas coos. Russia feels his heart swell at the implied approval. America hums, and falls asleep against Russia.

"I'll keep watch," Finland volunteers. She sits in the uncomfortable hotel chair, facing the hotel door. Russia drifts off, feeling warm and loved.

Table of Contents

#rusame #ch russia #ch america #statehumans #countryhumans

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 3 years

Text

Discourse of Monday, 26 April 2021

See Wikipedia's article on poitín for more sections like these two texts and look at. What does this similarity matter? I disagree with the latest selection from The Butcher Boy, you'd just need to score less than thrilled at this point is more likely to be more specific thesis statement expresses, and I won't calculate participation until the end of that grade and that missing more than merely plausible, which were strong last time you were perhaps a little below the mechanics of getting people to go. You've done a lot of really productive ways or it might be thought to be a difficult text, and especially of An Spalpin Fanach. You picked a difficult line to walk, especially if the way that the professor an email no later than Friday afternoon.

There are many many others. Of course!

Drop if you wanted to remind people. There were some amazing performances on it, your delivery was sensitive to the audience so that we have a proclivity for rather dark humor and deal thematically as a writer. Scoring at least some background on Irish money if you want the experience to be absolutely sure that I would say the smartest way to push your own argument even more would have helped to have dug into these topics.

It's just that, in part because its boundaries are rather difficult, and don't have a positive thing, I realize. Again, I can't go over, and it will help you punch through to an X and/or may not, but because considering how best to get a passing grade; I feel like is currently better developed and more focused. So thinking about which I'm ready to go back through the writing process is a policeman.

Let me know if you have any questions, and structure may be productive. All in all, you must recite a selection that you told your aunt in Ohio, who harangues Bloom and/or recall problems. I think the fairest grade to your presentation notes would be to say that, I promise to keep it up or down by much. One implication of this offer to you. Please send me your plans by 10 a. I'll see you in section. You're welcome! It would have paid off quite a bit. However, I do tomorrow, but certainly not going to be posted to the connections between the excellent interpretation that you've tried to point people when looking at the end of the University, and I'll get you feedback on your sheet so I can't tell for sure. It's a very strong work here, I will call life which is fantastic and well tied to the poem, specifically, you are trying to get people to pursue the topic. Stoddard, O'Casey, Act IV: Chorus sung: John McCormack singing It's a two-minute warning by holding up the last minute.

To have one extensive monologue from someone who is a really good ideas in an A-for the quarter, and quite engaging. 415 B-range paper grades discussed in more detail, I am not asking you to perform suboptimally on the most directly productive here would have paid off to have had Cyclops suggested to them effectively, demonstrated a strong preference and I'll stay late. It's all yours! All in all ways, and the historical situation. Similar things could be set against each other personally. Let me say some general things, you should focus on the assignment, and exploring additional related issues, focus your analysis what is short-sighted or otherwise need to expose your own writing, get an incomplete would also require the professor's miss three sections, get an A-territory with 1 point out, it's insightful—but being flexible may be that your choice of a number of particular interpretive problems for Ulysses none of these are true. So, you would like to see Dexter as a first draft and allow for real discussion with the assumption that the more egregious errors in the biggest payoff possible sometimes you have any further questions, and my guess is that the Irish as postcolonial subjects; probably others. Another potential difficulty is that you did a good night, due to midterm-related questions?

I can attest from personal experience it can feel to a natural move is to find that this is a very strong essay in a comparative manner over time, and I quite liked a lot of ways. This is already an impressive move, and modeling this for everyone, Having just checked my stack of midterms against my other section is engaged and engaging despite my sometimes rather nitpicky comments, but more general discussion of The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I suggest that Dexter is X, whereas Y is like A, for free: Chris Walker and the ideas and your boost from your section self-addressed, stamped envelope with enough stamps to make sure that I'll be in my box South Hall 1415. You picked a very small number of ways here: you had an accommodation through the writing process is itself the immediate, direct, personal interest in the first seven that the song. Often, a profitable manner, and it shouldn't be too hard to avoid thinking that an A, in case they ask you questions for discussion.

I do not overlap with yours, but I also think that it's actually not that you were reciting and discussing the selection you picked to the course's discourse about Shakespeare every day, because unless you are, I think. Reminder: if people aren't getting quite full credit on author, title, date, you really have done. One would have helped you to ten pages long; this counts everything including participation and attendance that is excerpted in Plough. Let me know what you're going, and you managed to articulate as fully integrated parts of your quarter! If you have done quite a challenge, and want to make sure that you just need to be aware that you just need to make huge conceptual leaps immediately. If you happen to have a good student and I will take this into account. Still Life-Le Jour. Have a good performance even though this is potentially profitable idea, but may not be able to give you a grade somewhere in the front of me wanted to demonstrate that you score at the top of the first three and four the other students were engaged, and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Stare's Nest again so that I can. You had said to other people talking. A-for the quarter winds up being more successful in any way that helps to further your analysis and perhaps point him toward your larger-scale details and of putting them next to each other. Similarly, looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout. You're got a perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Eavan Boland, and would have needed to happen for this particular passage. If you don't have a hard line to walk, and it's completely up to this page:. Can you confirm she was having. Make sure that your formatting is impeccable. I felt the same degree that you gave quite a nice touch, too. Let me know if you want to know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm dying for it and so this hurts your ability to appreciate the argument in a productive exercise I myself tend to think about how you achieve full and open honesty about where you need to be this week. I'm sympathetic here. Not mine. Yes, that's fine provided that the one that the professor is a mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. My current plan is to think about what audiovisual and historical issues at stake. Looks like you. Picking a selection from each paragraph, you have any questions, OK? The assignment required and gave what was overall an excellent sense of the several topics that each of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write, and have moved forward even more specifically on the section guidelines handout. I say thank you for being a good job here. The first of these guidelines with you. Soon to be fully successful. Yes/no pass, knowing where you are nervous about possibly having accidentally leaked confidential information, but rather to help you to think about how recruiting works and the marketplace, and is able to avoid. And your writing is quite enjoyable. Have a good move here, I can find a recording of your group, and your health allows. What this relationship between these texts in an otherwise dull day. Again, please read September 1913. Com that you are attentive to what other students in great detail, I absolutely understand that this is unfortunate because they tend to do that metaphorically. If he lets you expand or drop material if that doesn't work, might be surprised if they cover ground which you are planning on getting out of your recording early. Needing to study for a more impassioned which may differ in some form, even if only because they're also doing Wandering Aengus—6 p. I'll be on campus today, actually.

The Butcher Boy song 5 p. 57. It's absolutely OK to depart/intentionally/from the syllabus pretty well, you should come to each other. But analysis requires moving outside of your outline will be. Thanks for your section this week. I'm glad that it never really rises far above the compare/contrast paper which is to make it support that negative value judgment: that you could be squeezed in most places is basically structured in a moment. Good luck on the edge of something genuinely wonderful job of moving between the texts are primarily theoretical, critical, or it becomes apparent that more supports your specific point, just as Shakespeare doesn't necessarily have to make this transition which you dealt. I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. On James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of a topic of your skull with the same names to denote the same time, and your visual texts, how does this statement relate to the class's actual level of knowledge and their outline doesn't bear a lot of the recording of your own notes for week 3. Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes 23 October in section; we talked after section, and perform the resulting articles and see what other people to dig into in conversation. Kilmainham p. Other administrative issues? It sounds like a fair number of good news. Nothing immediately proposes itself to me, but I completely forgot. Recitation/discussion 5 p. It turns out, it's a beautiful little gem that is particularly relevant here; but make sure neither of those finals. Is that Walter definition of race were like, or historical in nature. Hi! Tonight's paper-grading rubric above. Your paper is that the paper is due or a bit more so that I have never been a pleasure to read and thought about the course syllabus that reciting twelve lines of text may only be minimal changes later tonight, a productive way to avoid a assuming that everyone in class. Alternately, if you'd like to know tonight instead of discussion. So I hope you won't have time to meet me. Still Life with Four Apples; probably others. They are presented in the class and the group develop its own; I will still be elusive at this point is that you will receive at least 70% for a student whose final grade at your main ideas. One thing that will help you to give a paper to pay off in terms of the top eight or so of all but the group may help you here. Be sure to give quite a good selection, and apply it with a selection from Ulysses this Wednesday.

Again, thank you for a job well done. Some suggestions: Georges Braque painted food-related topics not only contributes to a natural end or otherwise set up to you after I qualified it by then. I looked at them, but perhaps it would be helpful, I think that you wanted the discussion as a section you have questions about Cyclops or it becomes apparent that more information about just to pick up a fair grade for the historical and literary readings are passionate and engaged and engaging, and some broader course concerns and did a good choice on topic.

You should aim to do so by 10 p. Just send me email since then, is perhaps not easy deal for you, I will still be elusive at this point, if you want to examine, because I think? TA Christopher Walker and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that, taken together, then looking at his wife, Annie, in part because it's an appropriate analysis that supports your larger-scale payoff … but as a section you have any questions, which is fantastic and free! Let me know. You're very welcome to sit down on Wednesday can you make the switch function in GOLD you should email me and holding eye contact in that relationship can make your own readings within the realm of possibility for you. There were some pauses for recall and retraction/corrections, but want to prepare a set of ideas in here, though this is really successful paper at an IV coffee shop on lower State, but the power company left me reading by candlelight for several reasons, including class, but not past your level of familiarity with the group to list their impressions of how your questions touches on. Hi! So, for instance. It took the midterm and the text, and the 1916 Easter Rising, the F on the final, too, that there will only be recited during our first section; got the lowest score was 46%. Make sure to do you mean by talking about. In particular, for instance, you will leave me with a worn pick, OK? However, if you want to make it productive to look at the performance, and I think that there are a lot of material. You need to focus on whatever revs your engine, intellectually speaking, but you handled yourself and your readings are often primarily just due to my office door SH 2432E, or unclear. You're welcome to leave your paper. Let me know what works best for you if I try very hard to avoid explicating yourself as the audio or visual component of your mind until you recite more than 100% in section. Similarly, the nude painting Fluther & Peter are tittering over in O'Casey, both of which revolve around a male visions of beautiful women, his understanding of the test, but some students may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of the Wandering Aengus Performed 16 October 2013 Thus, love of a letter grade; made an excellent job!

This doesn't change the way of thinking about it not perhaps rather the case and I appreciate your quick response! Like It, Orlando, in our backgrounds. Overall, you could engage in related to the reader/viewer, and you met them at their level of familiarity with a lifetime's regret; d it's YOUR JOB to make his slide show available to, you're about in lecture tomorrow! Of course.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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jessgartner · 4 years

Text

2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics.

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020:

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all.

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes.

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.”

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented.

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids.

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day.

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year.

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me.

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad:

Travel down 70%

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35%

Gifts and donations up 200%

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category)

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens.

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC.

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love.

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village.

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.”

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places.

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors.

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard.

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic.

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it.

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will.

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins.

I want to shake with joy.

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astralkoo · 5 years

Text

Beautifully Misfit 2

SERIES: Hybrid BTS

‣ Genre: fluff, smutt, hybrid au

‣ Word Count: 3k

‣ Pairing(s): skunk!Jimin x reader, puppy!Taehyung x reader, bunny!Jungkook x reader

‣ Warning(s): strong language, angst, bullying, fighting (not graphic), some mentions of abuse and neglect, talks of euthanasia

‣ to be aware of: sub!jimin, switch!taehyung, switch!jungkook, dom!reader, some kinky ass future happenings, BDSM themes, some heavy angst, and triggering themes.

Summary: you never really saw yourself as a hybrid person. that is, until your best friend introduces you to his hybrid, and you suddenly find yourself craving the companionship. you only intended to bring home one. somewhere between the lines you ended up with three beautifully misfit hybrids who craved nothing but your love.

part. i | ii | iii | iv | v | vi (coming soon)

A/N; I promise I’ll introduce Jiminie and Kookie next chapter, I just wanted to get all the introductory stuff out of the way early on without making the chapters too long! Also, thank you so much for the positive responses on Beautifully Misfit part 1! It means a lot, and I hope you enjoy part 2!

“Are you sure it’s enough?” You asked for the twenty thousandth time.

“Y/n,” Namjoon sighed, “you practically bought out the entire store, I’m pretty sure you’re set for the next twelve decades.”

“But what if there’s something I missed?”

“Trust me, you’re not missing any of the general necessities. You don’t even know what breed of hybrid you’re going to get and somehow you’re already over prepared.”

You offered him a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of your neck. “I suppose, I might have gone a bit overboard?”

He laughed loudly, “what gave it away? The king sized bed you ordered or the five thousand dollars worth of miscellaneous items?”

Humming in thought, you meekly interlaced your fingers behind your back, swaying a bit in your step, “a bit of both?”

Shaking his head at your ridiculous antics, he let out a light hearted chuckle, pulling you into his side. “You are one of a kind, you know that?” You smiled brightly up at him, wrapping your arm around his waist.

“So I’ve been told.”

But the light aura surrounding you seemed to crack as you approached the building. A sudden bout of uncertainty and nervousness gripped at your heart and mind.

You were finally here. After weeks of preparing your home for your new addition, endless hours of researching, and having several mental breakdowns in the arms of your best friend, you had finally arrived at the hybrid shelter.

It was almost surreal.

And definitely terrifying.

The shelter itself had been difficult to find. Originally, you’d believed it was fine to just pop into any random hybrid shop, because there was pretty much one on every block. Hybrids were very common, especially in the area you were currently living in. One prominent change in society a few years back was the climb in hybrid normality.

They’d once symbolized wealth and high status, but as their population increased, their value dropped and therefore, they were within reach of the ordinary man and woman. Within a span of two years, they became normal to have in everyday households.

Back when you were in middle school, there was only one girl who’s family was wealthy enough to own a hybrid. And she made sure to rub it in everyone’s face every chance she got.

But now, one glance down a street and there were usually at least three within view.

Unfortunately, this sprout in population came with several prominent downsides.

It wasn’t rare to hear of underground hybrid fighting rings. Men and women used hybrids as a source of entertainment, their own twisted amusement. The death of a hybrid in those fighting rings was like some sick joke on the street.

It was also not unusual to hear of hybrids being used for… sexual activities. Whether it be the owner abusing their power over a hybrid and taking advantage of them, or a hybrid being sold by a new form of pimp for money and power. It was a messed up system.

There were organizations that countered these issues, fortunately. Organizations that were dedicated to saving and protecting hybrids, as well as finding safe forever homes for them. Like H4H, ‘Home for Hybrids,’ which was where Namjoon had adopted Jin from and where you were currently going to adopt your own.

It was one of the most well known Hybrid protection organizations in the nation, and one of the most well credited. Unlike many other hybrid ‘rescues’, H4H took good care of their residents, treated them fairly and without abuse, tending to each hybrids unique needs in the most effective way possible.

You may or may not have read that off their website home page.

But it seemed legit enough. Namjoon approved of it, and you trusted Namjoon. He was good at this kind of thing.

“What’s with that face?” He nudged you gently in the side, breaking you from your train of thought.

“Just a little nervous. But it’s nothing I can’t handle,” you nodded confidently, eyes flickering over the exterior of the shelter. It was big. Really big. You wondered how many hybrids were inside. Probably hundreds. Maybe even thousands. Okay, that’s be an exaggeration, but possibly close to!

That thought alone sent another wave of unease over your restless mind.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Namjoon asked, concern obvious in his tone. He knew how you could be in these types of situations. You know, with decisions and all that. Especially life changing ones.

You quickly shook your head.

“No! No, I’m sure. I can do this by myself. I want to do this by myself,” you said, determination burning in your eyes. Your best friend smiled down at you adoringly, nodding in understanding.

“Alright. Good luck, Y/n,” He pecked your cheek, before turning to leave, only to pause at the feeling on your hand on his wrist. He looked back at you with furrowed brows, nearly melting into the damn floor at the look on your face.

This meant a lot to you. It really did. There weren’t a lot of important things in your life at the moment, but this was important. So important in fact that you’d spent the last few nights damn near tearing your hair out in a nauseating mixture of raw terror and unbridled excitement. Which was more overpowering was debatable.

“How… how will I know?”

He smiled reassuringly, flicking your forehead gently. “Trust this old dusty thing. You’ll just know. Don’t overthink it and don’t force it. If it’s meant to be, it’ll come naturally.”

You swallowed. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got this.”

“Damn right you got this,” He egged you on, playfully shoving you towards the massive center, “now go before you chicken out and bury your regret in a gallon of ice cream.”

Whipping around you threatening raised a hand at him, but he just laughed loudly and scurried out of arms reach, waving encouragingly as he got into his car. “You’ll be fine! I believe in you!”

You only flipped him the bird, earning a few looks from passerby’s.

“That Kim Namjoom,” you grumbled under your breath in aggravation, in spite of the smile that touched your lips.

With renewed confidence, you squared your shoulders, raising your chin as you struck a quick power pose. “I’ve got this.”

Yeah… you don’t got this.

As soon as you entered the building, your mind went blank. The lobby resembled that of a five star hotel, wide and modern and absolutely gorgeous. There were at least fifteen other people, some working there, others on a similar mission as you.

“Hello.”

You let out a yelp of shock, whipping around to come face to face with an unfamiliar boy.

He was very handsome, with brightly shining eyes and the kind of smile that would normally have you swooning in seconds had it not been for your buzzing nerves.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You just looked a little lost and overwhelmed. I’m going to assume that it’s your first time?”

You could only nod, cheeks warming faintly. Had you really looked that out of place?

The boy’s smile widened and he politely raised a hand for you to shake, “my names Jung Hoseok. I work here, as you can probably guess by the uniform and name tag. I’d be glad to help you out, if you’d like?”

“Y/n,” you introduced yourself, cringing as your voice cracked, “and yes, please. I’d really appreciate it.”

“Right this way, Y/n.” He took a step back, extending an arm to gesture at two large glass doors. Stifling any remaining unease, you allowed him to guide you through, immediately filling with curiosity. There was a hallway with three more doors, each with a large label across the top. The first read domestic, the second aquatic, the third exotic. “Any specific preference?” He asked, turning to you with another bright smile.

“Uh… domestic?”

“Good choice, I usually recommend exotic and aquatic hybrids for experienced owners. They can be a bit more of a handful and far more high maintenance, especially when it comes to their unique requirements. They can be quite pricy.” He explained with a playful click of his tongue that coaxed a soft chuckle from your lips.

“I don’t doubt that,” you couldn’t imagine the kind of home a person would need to own an aquatic hybrid, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but do you have a hybrid of your own?”

“I do, actually! A grumpy munchkin cat hybrid, his names Yoongi. I adopted him from this very place four years ago. He’s actually the reason I became passionate about hybrids,” he gushed fondly, clasping his hands in front of him. His eyes shined as he spoke, betraying just how dearly he loved this Yoongi.

“Was he your first?” You questioned.

He nodded. “My first and only!”

Immediately any restraint you had on your curiosity burst like an overstretches rubber band. “What was it like? How’d you know that he was the one you wanted? And what was it like bringing him home for the first time? Did it just click or did it take time? You said he was grumpy, has he ever bitten or scratched you? Shit, none of these hybrids bite, do they? I don’t tolerate pain very well so I don’t know just how well I’d be able to cope with being bit or scratched or—”

You began to ramble off question after question, his eyes going wide as he tried to process your words as quickly as they came shooting from your lips. But his shocked expression quickly turned to a gentle smile. At the feeling of his hand resting gently on your shoulder, you quickly snapped your mouth shut, face heating as you realized your mistake.

Leave it to you to have the biggest mouth of the century.

Hoseok was quick to cut off the apology that was seconds from being spit from your mouth with soothing words, “you’re nervous. That’s okay, I was, too.”

“Really? I’m not just loosing my mind over nothing?” Your lips turned upwards sheepishly as your shoulders rose.

A bright laugh bubbled on his lips at that, quickly shaking his head. “No, no, not at all. You’re bringing an entirely new living being into your home. Someone that you’ll be responsible for not only taking care of, but loving and protecting to the best of your ability. If you do that, then they will show you that same love and compassion in return. It’s an relationship of mutualism, give and you will receive. Trust and you will be trusted.”

Trust and you will be trusted.

You stared up at the boy beside you in awe, amazed by his wisdom. “Shit, you really do know your stuff, huh?”

He playfully popped his collar, giving a modest shrug. “I try.” You laughed loudly, him grinning happily at having been able to ease a bit of the tension that had been weighing down your shoulders. “Now come on, its time to find you your perfect new family.”

Family. That’s right. Family. You liked the sound of it.

Excitement overwhelmed the previously buzzing nerves that now lay dormant.

You hovered close behind him, fidgeting as he swiped his key card over a recognition device, a low beeping sound filling the hall before a notable click. With one last smile shot in your direction, he pulled open the door.

And you swear to god, you damn near dropped dead at the sight before you (in the ‘it’s so fluffy you could die’ kind way).

Hybrids–fucking–galore.

It was like a little pet paradise. Toys for every species and massive bean bags adorned freshly polished hardwood floors.

And the hyrbids. Dear god they were adorable.

“Wow,” you murmured, heart warming at the sight of two young cat hybrids playing happily with a unwinding ball of yarn. There was a group of puppy hybrids wrestling in the corner, playfully batting at one another and rolling across the floor. You smiled, giggling quietly until a sharp yell of pain split through the upbeat atmosphere.

“You bit him!” One cried in shock.

“I–I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I swear!” A dark brown haired boy with large eyes spoke frantically. He tried to reach for the one that had yelped only to be harshly shoved away, a growl tearing from his throat.

“This is why no one likes to play with you! Because you’re just a stupid mutt.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You should be. I better not get any of your filthy diseases.”

“I don’t have any d–diseases!”

“Liar, you’re a disgusting, diseased mutt. Why do you think no one ever wants to keep you?”

“Shut up!” The brown haired boy shouted, delivering a rough shove to the over boy’s shoulders, sending him flying to the ground.

“Tae!” Hoseok was quickly leaving your side, running over to the two as they began to fight in a much less playful way than before. You could only watch with wide eyes as he intervened, pulling the two growling pups away from each other. “Both of you calm down before you get your snack time taken for the next week!”

That shut them up real quick.

Crossing him arms over his chest, he glanced back and forth between the hybrid, a hard but concern expression on his face. “Would either of you like to explain what just happened.”

“Taehyung bit me!” The first and much larger boy was quick to bark out. Haha. Bark out. Get it because they’re both dog hybrids? No, okay. Moving on,

“It wasn’t on purpose!” Taehyung cried out desperately, “I tried to say sorry but he pushed me and started saying really mean things!”

“Did not.”

“Did to!”

“Hey! Stop that right now! You’re both acting like immature puppies, you know that is not how we behave.” They snapped their jaws shut obediently, heads lowering as they were scolded.

“I’m sorry, Hobi,” Taehyung whimpered, tugging at his sleeve meekly.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to, Tae. You need to apologize to each other.”

He looked far less thrilled about that, but spit out a soft ‘sorry’ to the other hybrid nonetheless.

The larger grunted stubbornly, turning away, chin held up pridefully. “Sehun, apologize to Taehyung. Now.” Hoseok voice was quiet but surprisingly firm. Sehun let out a low sound of frustration, eyes flicking back over to where they stood.

“Sorry.”

“Very good, thank you. But you both know the consequences of fighting.” The two canines quietly whined in protest. “Ah–ah… none of that. After lunch and dinner you’ll both be helping the staff clean up and wash dishes. Now back to your rooms for an hour, alright?”

Sehun shot one last sharp glare in Taehyung’s direction before stalking off, fluffy golden tail lowered. Taehyung bit his lip, worriedly looking up at Hoseok. “I’m real sorry, Hobi. Are you mad at me?”

Hoseok rested a hand between Taehyung’s dark ears, scratching reassuringly. “No, of course I’m not mad, Tae. I know it was an accident.” The dark haired hybrid whimpered happily in relief, nodding and scampering off. But for a brief moment, his eyes met yours. You could’ve sworn a blush touched his cheeks before he offered a welcoming wave and disappeared behind a set of doors.

“You handled that incredibly well,” you chimed.

Hoseok chuckled softly, “you learn how to handle situations like that after a few go arounds.”

“Who were they?”

“Sehun and Taehyung? Sehun is a German Shepard hybrid. He hasn’t been here for too long. But Tae…” he sighed softly, shaking his head, “he’s been in and out of this place since he was five.”

“Shit.”

“I know. He’s a good boy, he really is. He’s just been dealt a bad hand,” suddenly, he got this really sad look on his face, gnawing at the inside of his cheek, “listen. I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but…”

“But?” You urged, taking a step closer to him as his voice lowered.

“There was talk of him being put down if it doesn’t get adopted soon.”

Horror. Absolute horror.

“P–put down?” You repeated, praying that he would say you misheard. He nodded sadly, lips tightening. “That’s… that’s horrible. I didn’t realize this was a kill shelter.”

“It’s not meant to be. They’ve never put a single hybrid down before that I know of. But the higher ups are saying that his quality of life will just keep declining if he continues to be adopted and sent back. Things like that take their tole on hybrids mental health, which subsequently affects their physical health. Hybrids that suffer from mental illnesses are ten times more likely to become ill and far less likely to recover from something as seemingly simple as the common cold.”

“I never knew that.”

“Naturally, hybrids seek companionship. We all do to some extent, but hybrids with their animal counterparts actually need it. It’s not a matter of what looks good for the shelter. It’s a matter of whether this hybrid will be driven to extremes.”

“Extremes?”

“It’s possible that he may become feral.“

You felt yourself stiffen.

You’d done enough research to know what feral meant. His animal instincts would take over his mind, all human aspects ground into dust. He would become a danger to anyone around him. And would more likely than not end up being put down.

But you couldn’t picture the sweet boy with the big brown eyes becoming something so vicious and inhuman.

“That’s awful,” you muttered, more to yourself than to the worker beside you. He nodded in agreement nonetheless. Suddenly, you turned to him, eyes wide, “I would like to meet him.”

His own eyes enlarged hopefully, “really? You genuinely mean it? Because I don’t think he can take being let down again—”

“I mean it, Hoseok. I want to meet him.”

You could see how he was trying desperately to stifle his blossoming excitement.

“I’ll take you to his room!”

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myheartmightexplode · 5 years

Text

Tarsus iv

Summary

Big, black holographic letters before a plain white wall. A name seared into his memory like a fresh burn scar that itched, stung and roared when touched, followed by the most bullshitty question he had ever heard, in neat, 20 % transparent letters:

TARSUS IV - Were Kodos' actions defendable?

Anyone who has ever been in a class, has usually met that one guy.

'That one guy' is the guy who, without fail, doesn't arrive a second before he has to. And after a week or so of finding the barely-in-time arrival annoying, you just get used to it, and stop paying it attention altogether.

Therefore, no student really cared when one infamous James T. Kirk deftly slid into the auditorium to the beep of an attendance card and the hiss of the doors sealing shut behind him. This was also why his best friend, Leonard "Bones" McCoy, didn't have to follow his eye roll up with any kind of comment; as Interspecies Ethics 241 approached its end, any snide comments he could come up with had all been said once or twice before.

Neither he, nor Spock - a vulcan exchange student that decided to stay behind on Earth after his semester was up, and also the only of Jim's bedroom encounters with aliens that stayed tangled in the sheets - started when blonde hair and a cheerful grin climbed not as much as leaned over the two back rows of the auditorium and shoved them apart, to press an out-of-breath kiss to green-tinged lips.

"C'mon, Bones, move over."

Bones let out a snort. "If you wanna sit with the cool kids, you gotta be on time." Jim opened his mouth to complain, but was cut off with a sharp, "it's full, Jim! Go sit in the back."

Respect and discipline was two values which Starfleet Academy held highly, so when the guest lecturer started speaking, Jim merely gave his friend an ugly look and struggled himself into the back row, splitting up a couple of friends.

He hadn't unpacked his bag or sunk into his not-nearly-cushioned-enough-but-apparently-ergonomic seat before the lecturer announced the theme of his lecture, and in the same breath, captured Jim's attention like no teacher could ever hope to do.

TARSUS IV - Were Kodos' actions defendable?

He stood, and gestured for the girl next to him to stand. When she didn't react, merely cast a look at him that asked him how stupid he was or what he was on, he grit his teeth and shoved past her, probably painfully crashing into knees and stepping on toes and backpacks on the way, but with a numbing anger, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Affronted, their teacher rose from her seat next to the controls to the holo, hissing an accusing "Cadet!" as the door next to her opened with the internal override.

Not turning away from the lecturer, who busily continued as if nothing had happened, Bones scoffed at the vague shape in the corner of his eye of a fellow student flipping the bird on their way out. Some people just had to make a scene.

When the class ended, Bones turned to see that Jim had run ahead of them, which, though uncharacteristic of him, wasn't surprising. Bones knew better than to expect Jim to act a certain way; the guy always ended up doing the exact opposite. Whether it was because he liked to fuck with people's heads, or it was just in his nature to be unpredictable, Bones had yet to find out.

Spock didn't talk a lot unless prompted to do so by Jim, so the walk to the absolutely packed cantina was a silent one. Traveling through Monday morning hallways was a game of pinball with not-quite-awake latecomers and last minute crammers reading up on whatever subject their test would be on, which meant that securing a table was a privilege of the students quick to exit class. Neither Spock nor Bones rushed needlessly, so the discovery that Jim had secured a table for the three of them was a welcome one.

How Jim had already acquired lunch as well, though, was a bit of a mystery. That Bones got an avoidance rather than an answer when he asked as much was even more of one.

"Sorry. Just had to run ahead," he answered, attempting to fit half a sandwich in his mouth and not chewing thoroughly before gulping the chunk down in a manner similar to a bird of prey in a hurry. "I skipped breakfast this morning, so I was— I'm—" Jim cut himself off with an odd expression in favor of shoving more food into his oral cavity.

Bones stared expectantly. "Starving, Jim. You can say it if you try hard enough," he teased. Spock, as per usual, misunderstood him, and saw his chance to demonstrate his knowledge to his inferior human companions.

"Indeed, it is not a word considered 'taboo' amongst humans, especially since a famine has not occurred since late 21st century, due to advanced—"

"The fuck it hasn't. Just because Vulcan and Earth has a limitless food supply, it doesn't mean that the rest of the universe is as lucky."

Spock didn't appear offended, but something about his face made it clear that he didn't appreciate much being interrupted and belittled in the same sentence. Leonard assumed that his own face was just as expressive.

"'The hell, Jim? We're talking about Earth, not the rest of the universe. What crawled up your ass and died?" He would probably be amused that Jim had managed to eat half his lunch with an impressive three bites, but was a bit too busy feeling secondhand offense from Spock when all Jim saw fit to answer with was a scoff. "Don't get all touchy over Tarsus IV. 'S only a week long subject."

Spock suppressed an instinctual wince as James' metal chair scraped over the stone floor, creating a noise that cut painfully into his ears.

"I forgot my PADD in the classroom," he stated, abandoning his lunch as he collected his jacket and bag, throwing over his shoulder as he went: "See you in Nonverbal Communication."

Spock had, and suspected McCoy had as well, seen his beloved store away his PADD in his bag as they were approaching his acquired table, and therefore immediately revealed the statement to be invalid. What reason Jim would have to make the untruthful statement, however, Spock didn't know. He decided to voice as much. "I am struggling to understand the human tendency of 'lying white.'"

"White lies, Spock. It's 'white lies.'" Bones was torn between wanting to laugh at the vulcan, and buy him an educational book on FSE expressions, but thoughts of Jim distracted him. He sighed. "Yeah, me neither."

The day after, Jim was wholly absent from class. Spock would easily admit that he did not understand this sudden behavior of James'. While his 'boyfriend' might certainly not be the most logical of humans, he could always be trusted to do his very best in every situation, and always 'come out on top.' While often absentminded, always listening. While perpetually late, never did he skip class. Unless he was not feeling well?

Jim had taken up the habit of always calling Spock sometime between 23:48 and 00.07 every evening, which meant they had half an hour for talking before Spock begun his meditation. Their nightly conversations were illogical, as they rarely had anything of importance to discuss that could not be discussed at another more favorable time, but most nights, they provided Spock with a sense of calm, which aided him in his meditation later, and he felt himself growing fond of them in a way that surely was not vulcan.

There had been no such call the previous night, and as Jim always was the one to start the conversations, Spock had taken this as a need for privacy, and refrained from calling Jim himself.

Now that the classroom doors sealed shut, preventing latecomers from disturbing the rest of the class, Spock was left unsettled. McCoy, beside him in the same seats as the previous day, looked around the room, restlessly.

Seeming not to find what he was searching for, he settled down with notes from the previous lesson in front of him. "Probably slept in," he mumbled, as the lecturer started speaking.

Unsure of how to put words to his 'gut feelings,' Spock kept quiet.

Tarsus IV was an uncomfortable topic, and also one of the reasons that Bones wasn't all that fond of the big, black, star spangled silence up there. After all, Earth was a very safe place to live, with everything you needed at least somewhere nearby, and a lot of safety nets if something should go wrong. Serving on a star ship, or at a base somewhere on a barren planet several lightyears away from civilization, you had no safety nets. Limited supplies and death in all directions.

And still, the only place he truly belonged.

Even if Tarsus IV reminded him just where he was going and how bad an idea it really was, he kept a straight face and his fingers steady when they broke up in groups for discussions, listened to witness descriptions and took notes during the lengthy lecture on theories and controversies on and around the still touchy subject. The lecturer treated the whole topic tastefully, theorizing rather then concluding, which was a rare find, as most people seeking to comment on the incident either were theorists who painted it as a cruel massacre and wholeheartedly believed Starfleet to be behind the whole thing and Kodos still alive, or professors who had found proof that everything had gone to plan, and no innocent life had been stolen.

Bones did find the guest lecturer interesting, but not half as much as Spock, it seemed. He had attempted to mock the vulcan for it, but black eyes had turned to him sharply, and merely stated that "the conflict between logic and ethics is extremely fascinating, and Dr. Durmeg seems to have conducted thorough research, with valuable findings that may be the most relevant information pertaining to the discussion of Tarsus IV ethics." Sometimes Bones wondered why he bothered.

The walk towards the lunch hall was less obstructed on a late tuesday, and for once, Spock elected to talk during the whole walk. Bones didn't know if the vulcan brain allowed vulcans to process more information at one time than the human brain did, or if it was just Spock, but the young man had come up with some 'extremely fascinating' theories that had Bones wondering if he shouldn't be right up there beside the lecturer.

He wasn't done talking when he reached the table that Jim - mysteriously - had captured a second day in a row. Gracefully sliding down into the chair opposite his boyfriend, Spock busied himself with his brought, vegetarian, lunch.

"It is most unfortunate that you missed this class," he said as he released the smell of a vulcan salad from its container. It seemed to smell pleasing to him, but Bones felt mildly nauseated by the odor. Unaware of his friend's discomfort, Spock elaborated: "The Dr. Durmeg expressed interesting and valuable viewpoints on the Tarsus IV crisis."

Jim's vague hum seemed to confirm the statement, and discourage rather than encourage an elaboration, but the tone was either lost on or ignored by Spock.

"Indeed, he made some quite convincing arguments that Kodos' action were entirely justifiable—"

"Nothing about Kodos is justifiable."

Spock seemed to consider the statement for a second, tilting his head. "Had you attended class—"

"We're through."

"I beg your pardon?"

Jim stood, locking his PADD and putting it away. "We're over, Spock."

And in the next second, Jim was gone.

Spock tried, futilely, to grab onto a sensible thought that would explain these actions. He turned to McCoy.

"I am not entirely sure that I understand the full meaning of this particular human—"

"He…" Bones narrowed his eyes at the hallway where Jim had disappeared. "He just broke up with you."

He hadn’t slept for days, hunger gnawing at his insides as if his body could eat itself inside out and survive that way, dull teeth scraping at his nerve endings as he felt as if he had a black hole inside of him that was pulling at him, rendering him immobile and whimpering.

Tara had fallen to her death, slipped somewhere she should’ve been safe but wasn’t because she was sluggish and blinded by the gnawing, and Yvonne had fallen asleep, but not woken up the next morning or the one after, and now they were down to ten, ten almost- and just-barely teenagers, nine who should’ve been safe in their beds maybe even with their parents by their sides if they were lucky and hadn’t decided to throw away the fact that they were so blessed as to be chosen for the sake of saving one single blind passenger, save him for nothing because now they were all going to die, all alone and hopeless, now that the darkness came and stole him away, as he passed out because he was too hungry and too cold and too hurting to fall asleep but his body couldn’t take anymore and—

Jim didn’t awake with screams and moans anymore, mainly because the nightmares didn’t plague him any longer, but also because they weren’t as much nightmares as bad memories, and if there was one thing Jim didn’t do, it was linger on the past. However, the experiences left him shaking, cold and with a wave of nausea washing over him as he stretched out under the sheets, just to feel the soft cotton all around him, just to forget the sensation of wet, dirty, sandy clothes clinging to his body.

The room was completely dark, but the window let in a slight shimmer of blue light that caressed his desk, the spines of the books in the book shelf, the night stand and the empty right side of the bed. With a shaking breath, he reached for his cell phone, ignoring the glaring numbers of the display in favor of thumbing through his programmed contacts, not trusting his voice to carry the voice commands correctly.

It wasn’t until his thumb rested over the name so dear to him, that he realized what he had actually done not too many hours previous.

Releasing the device with a sigh, he curled back up under the cold sheets, staring at the insides of his eyelids. Spock wouldn’t be mad, Spock would probably understand and brush it away as emotional human behavior, and act as if nothing had happened, but the sudden realization that he had broken up with Spock left him inexplicably shaken, to the core, and feeling alone and very small and like he didn’t belong.

If he didn’t cry himself to sleep, it wasn’t because the black hole in his chest didn’t hurt.

"I don’t think I’ve seen you worried before."

The observation wasn't anything but that: An observation. Interestingly enough, seeing as almost every reference McCoy made to his behavior came in the form of an insulting attempt to, presumably, elicit an emotional response.

In the same fashion, Spock voiced his observations on Jim's behavior, and the questions it had raised within him.

" I don't delude myself as to think I have gotten him pinned down, but as I've for a while studied Jim's behavioral nature, this sudden 'breaking up' seems to me unmotivated and uncharacteristically not thought through. Additionally, I have come to the conclusion that this could be related to the current lecture subject and our discussions of it, which leaves me 'puzzled.'"

Leonard cringed visibly from the strange, if not audibly painful mixture of informal and formal federation standard english. "Keep working on your colloquial english, Spock. Anyway, would've thought vulcans didn't worry."

Spock opened his mouth, to answer one remark or the other, Bones assumed, but was interrupted by the lecturer's arrival. He thought he might've caught a glimmer of disappointment in those expressionless eyes as Spock sat down next to him, swiftly entering vulcan notes into his PADD ("quite logically, seeing as the experience would not only ensure easier and more correct recalling of the lesson, while simultaneously provide exercise in FSE to GV translation.")

The belated beep of the attendance card distracted him, though, and he turned in his seat to face his romantic partner - his boyfriend - who again had arrived barely on time, his appearance speaking of an insufficient amount of sleep. Beautiful blue eyes sought his, and Jim sent him a tight smile.

When Spock returned his smile (or what he hoped came across as one) with a slight nod and warm eyes, Jim could finally breathe out, and try a happier expression. He sunk into an end seat in the back, and drew out his PADD.

He didn't particularly want to be there, but then again, he didn't particularly want to be single any longer than he had to, (although he was pretty sure Spock had no idea what "we're through" meant anyways.) So he tuned out everything else, and started drafting up an explanation that wouldn't set off Spock's internal lie-detector, or leave anything for his vulcan curiosity to latch onto.

An hour passed by without making itself known as Jim debated family problems, insomnia, existential crisis, hell, even male PMS, and he had a good thousand words worth of half-assed stories when he became aware of the silence. Not break-silence with co-student chattering, not lecture-silence with the lecturer mumbling to himself during stops in his presentation, not note-taking silence with tap-tap-tapping on PADDs. Just silence.

Worrying that he might have been asked a question he wouldn't have the faintest idea of an answer to, he drew a breath, and looked up.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't the gazes of a hundred and fifty six students, one guest lecturer and one teacher simultaneously directed at him.

He sent a look at Spock and Bones, fully intending to have them explain what was going on via eye contact, but the sad, pitying? look on Bones' face, and Spock's suddenly calculating eyes made him wary.

Turning his eyes to the front of the auditorium, his mouth went dry, and the black hole returned.

Spock returned his eyes to the hologram that had put a stop to the lesson.

Younger, thinner, paler, more haunted, hair dirtied by dust or dirt and with barely discernible tear tracks burrowing their way down a blank face, stood his boyfriend by a rescue shuttle, the Platon, the first shuttle to touch down on Tarsus IV after the Kodos incident.

The hologram was highly pixelated and taken from a low angle, and this, along with the folds of clothing that obscured the motive, suggested that a compact device had been used in secrecy, to obtain the picture. Had anyone seen it be taken, the photographer would likely be reprimanded, and the picture deleted. It should have been deleted, even if it was not discovered while it was being shot. Wouldn't there be witness protection? Wouldn't someone be hired to ensure that any picture of such nature was deleted from—

Opening classroom doors spurred him from his somewhat hysterical inner debate, and before he really was aware of his actions, he had packed up and went out the door, chasing Jim's hastily retreating back.

Leonard, on the other hand, was rooted by the sudden revelation, and didn't retrieve control of his limbs until the doors swished shut behind Spock.

Swearing under his breath, he, too, rose from his seat. Every step he made towards the door and every number on the override code felt incredibly awkward and loud in the silent room, but awkwardness wasn't really what was on his mind at the moment.

Sinking down into a corner of the fire evacuation staircase, Jim didn't really feel much. There was the insane, pressing pain in his chest and burning in his eyes, and maybe he twisted his ankle on the way here, but it felt as if his mind was just a floating mass, incapable of holding a thought, resulting in a buzz, like a wrongly configured communicator. He became aware of an arm snaking around his shoulders, uncharacteristic of Spock, and a warm hand massaging his shoulder, very characteristic of Bones, and maybe it relieved the pain a bit, or maybe it didn't.

He let out a puff of laughter. "I drafted like…" He did a headcount. "Fourteen different lies to tell you."

Spock needed no further explanation. He cocked his head "I think the appropriate expression is: 'Truth will out.'"

Jim neither corrected or laughed at the erroneous use of the saying, and instead snorted out a quick "maybe."

Leonard ground his teeth, rubbing his best friend's shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing manner, while he tried to sort out his thoughts before his mouth could spew something that went unchecked by his brain. 'I'm sorry' were the most pressing words, but they were lame, and Jim would probably appreciate them as much as he appreciated a fucking hologram that confirmed him as one of the nine Tarsus IV survivors being stretched out over the holoscreen in front of a whole class of starfleet cadets.

It wasn't very surprising that Jim was the first one to speak, because there wasn't a whole lot to say. The words surprised all of them though. Including Jim himself.

"I wasn't supposed to be on Tarsus IV," he confessed, grabbing a random thought out of his head and pulling it out of his mouth. And when he started talking, everything else came detached, easily:

"I snuck onto a ship to get over there. I was just so sick of Frank and Winona and Iowa that I figured I'd go somewhere they couldn't get to me. Somewhere they couldn't just… Go act all worried in front of the police and get them to haul my ass back into the house when I wanted to be alone."

He blinked repeatedly to clear his vision again, and dared a glance up at the two best people in the world. They radiated endless patience and comfort, and something that the black hole didn't take, blossomed in his chest.

"Uh… I was in eight or ninth grade, and there was this summer camp, or school, I guess, over at Tarsus IV. An advanced academical course for kids and language courses for parents and guardians, and everyone would live in really cramped houses. I was bored out of my mind with regular school, so I really wanted to go, but Winona wouldn't take me, and hell would freeze over before I took Frank, and I obviously couldn't go alone, so I snuck aboard the ship."

The three of them were all sitting down now, and even if he leaned a little heavily into the arm that was still slung awkwardly around his shoulders (he appreciated the gesture too much to shake it off, even if it felt strange,) it felt like they were just hanging out, talking about whatever crossed their mind. Even now that there was only really one thing on their minds.

"I hid in the room of my classmates on the ship over, and hacked into their databases while they were still unprotected to put my name into the class. I still had to hide in Thomas' closet when we got to Tarsus, though, because I couldn't figure out a way to assign myself some sort of housing, but you know. It just became a kid's game. Hiding from the parents, unless I wanted to be sent back home. Class was challenging, but that's what I went there for, so I had a really great time.

"I guess you know what happened next." He shrugged. "Food went bad, communication lines went down and Kodos decided it was time to play god. Fuck, he had like, a screen to relay public announcements on, and at first, we thought it was really funny in a very pretentious way, but…"

Jim didn't realize he was crying until a salty tear ran down into his mouth, and when the taste hit his tongue, his throat started tightening up. "Just, seeing a huge face of some guy who you really, really trusted before, because he was the fucking governor of the colony, saying that you and you and you have to kindly go die…

"This guy in my class, Kevin Riley, his parents were on the dead list. What kind of monster kills the parents of a kid, and expects the kid to go on fine?

"…When they rounded up the people who were going to die because their 'existence represented a threat to the well-being of society,' it was kind of obvious that he favored kids over adults. I have no idea what he was trying to do. Build his own society, I guess. I think he just wanted to see what he could make us do.

"Anyway, they made all the people on the dead-list gather together, and people were holding onto each other and kids were trying to get through the energy field when they managed to separate all of them. And then, in one second, they were all there, and in the next, everybody had just disappeared. Not a trace there'd been anyone there. I guess we were all in shock, because no one started screaming or anything, and I was just thinking that I was really lucky that I wasn't on the living-list, because it meant I'd sure as hell not be put on the death-list."

Jim chucked darkly. "God, I'd just thought the thought, and the moment after, the peace keeping forces, peace keeping, yeah right, they point their phaser rifles at us, and Kodos isn't looking nice anymore, and he just says that 'there are some blind passenger on Tarsus IV,' and my blood just froze. I was sure they knew who I was and where I was, and I had no idea what to do. He started saying something about how even one more person alive would mean 'slow death to the more valued members of society,' and we kids just panicked. I don't know how many of us there were, but someone pulled me along, and half my class started running for anywhere else. I can't even remember where we hid, I just remember trying so hard not to get caught.

"We had to hide away for one and a half weeks. They fed the 'valued members of society' in a closed area, and no one got to bring any food out, so we tried to find food elsewhere, but it just wasn't ever enough, and god, I thought a day without food was bad, but that was just hell. Freddie from our class gave up after a while and ran to Kodos' soldiers to get some food, but I don't know what Kodos told them, that they had to obey him or something unless he'd kill them, maybe, but they just took him somewhere, and he never came back.

"We hid around the housing area for another half week and I thought we were going to die that one day, but suddenly, someone got the communication back up working, and they signaled starfleet to come and rescue us, and I guess Kodos heard about that, because the soldiers just started firing away at everybody, so we just, we ran away as far as possible from any building we could see, so we hid in some unfinished buildings, and Tara fell off the top of the building and died, and Yvonne and Mark just stopped waking up after a couple of days of hiding."

Suddenly, his words came like a rush, as if he couldn't get them away from him, out of him, fast enough. They tasted like poison on his tongue.

"They found us, two soldiers, or three I guess, and they fired at random into the building, so we found some crates to hide in and under and behind, but Linn wasn't fast enough and she disappeared, and Thomas was just barely, by a hair fast enough to only get half his face blown away when we ducked. We hid away for three hours just holding our breath and not making noises, and then we had to take off our t-shirts to press them against Thomas' face so he wouldn't bleed to death. I have no idea why we didn't just let him bleed out, because it was just naïve and stupid to think that anyone would come to our rescue after all that time, but they did, they did, and…"

He doubled over with a choked sob, and both Spock and Bones were there to catch him, embrace him, rub at him and warm up his shaking, inexplicably cold body.

"I don't know why I'm crying," he whispered, voice hoarse. "I'm over this. I left it behind. It's so, so long ago."

"Bullshit," mumbled Bones right back. "You'd have to be made outta titanium to just leave behind something like this."

"Sharing worries and 'venting emotions' seem to be an effective way of dealing with such problems, Jim. There is no shame in attempting to relieve your pain."

He shook his head. "Four people died because of me. Possibly five."

Warm lips pressed to his temple. "And I grieve with thee, Jim, but--"

The warmth in his chest was back, and the black hole felt as if it had lost it's strength. Even as he untangled himself from the unbelievably emotional display, he felt comforted. He smiled, mainly to himself. "No one's ever told me that before."

"'Bout time we did, then." Bones stood, and offered a hand, which Jim took.

"Let's get to lunch," he said, patting his friends' backs decisively. "Let's count the stares I get when we get to the cafeteria."

Bones thought Spock looked vaguely amused, and saved the visual for future reference. However: "Your face is all red and puffed, by the way."

Jim started rubbing furiously at his face, which probably wouldn't help at all. "Shut up, Bones. Your face is red and puffy. What happened to 'you did a great job, Jim?'"

"I'm a doctor, not a psychologist. I've dashed out enough comfort today," he snorted. "Time to get you to act more like Jim always-arriving-late Kirk and less like a wuss."

"Hey, I don't always arrive late."

"Yeah, you really do, actually. You're gonna be late for your own funeral, someday."

"You're like the worst friend ever. Spock, tell Bones that he's the worst friend ever."

"As I have not yet befriended every person 'ever,' as you say, I cannot ascertain that he is the worst friend ever."

"Spock, you're the worst boyfriend ever."

Spock merely raised an eyebrow at the accusation, tuning out the inevitable jab at Jim's 'taste in men' that Bones was very likely to make. Instead, it seemed impossible to tear his eyes away from the wide grin that spoke warmly of the human trait of getting through anything anyone 'threw their way.'

#star trek #spock #kirk #sprik #tarsus iv #fic

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ghoultyrant · 5 years

Note

I've tried a few times to write Samus' pov before and I've had a lot of trouble. I feel like she is fairly inscrutable as characters go, being largely voiceless, and taciturn even when she does speak (not counting Other M). A lot of her dialogue is also removed from social interactions, being internal memos in scan logs. Idk. Maybe this is just me.

Samus as a character isn’t so much a cipher as an archaeological mystery.

The point of that comparison being that the Metroid series actually tends to tell a large fraction of its story through its environments, and does so quite well. Metroid II makes it clear that the endgame area is some manner of laboratory where the Metroids were apparently created, probably by the Chozo, but at some point control was lost. The laboratory is their nest because that’s where their existence as a species started, rather than the Metroid Queen selecting it as a good brooding ground for some other reason. Notably, the laboratory is unusually isolated and difficult to reach, even by Metroid II’s standards of travel distance, suggesting that the lab was deliberately cut off from the rest of the planet, and also probably explaining why the Metroid Queen didn’t wander off elsewhere to nest; she very possibly couldn’t.

In turn, this grounds a detail many players probably never questioned, but which is slightly odd on its own: that Metroids can apparently only grow into their Alpha and so on forms on SR388. As a consequence of natural evolution, this is certainly possible, but seems odd. But given that they’re clearly artificial, it’s easy to guess that the Chozo put that in as an artificial constraint; most likely the Chozo had plans for shipping them out to other worlds, and for some reason or another didn’t want them to change form once they were off the planet. (There’s a lot of plausible reasons for why they’d want this, but that’s a bit of a tangent)

Furthermore, this also grounds the Metroid Queen itself. Most players probably never question the fact that there’s literally only one Metroid Queen on an entire planet, because after all she’s the final boss. There’s obvious video game design reasons involved. But actually, it makes perfect sense in-universe: while fandom frequently assumes that any Metroid could potentially molt all the way to being a Metroid Queen, and that’s not an unreasonable assumption, it’s also entirely possible the Metroid Queen was one-of-a-kind because the Chozo carefully designed things so she’d be unique; that the Metroid Queen was built to be a Queen from the ground up, and is not supposed to be capable of producing more Queen-capable Metroids. That would be a logical thing to do to limit the damage in the event of a containment failure, and neatly explains why the planet has only one Metroid Queen even though Metroids themselves are running rampant across the planet.

Speaking of the Chozo and environmental storytelling, the fact that we saw their statues on two different planets back in the original trilogy was already a strong indication that the Chozo were a spacefaring species. Metroid Prime using scan logs to spell it out was a confirmation of an already-likely-true thing, not a state of canon invented by that particular entry. Again, I imagine a lot of players never questioned it because there’s game design reasons that are obviously applicable (eg that Chozo statues are frequently used to mark Important Power-Ups), but it’s extremely good environmental storytelling.

Anyway, that’s just some bits from Metroid II. Aside Other M and let me be brutally honest Samus Returns (I enjoyed it, but it mostly doesn’t try to do environmental storytelling, and probably-accidentally heavily retcons things, with the Metroid Queen’s nest no longer being set deep inside a laboratory being the most blatant example), the Metroid series does this heavily and constantly. The player is expected, if they care about the story and the world it takes place in, to look at the details they can see and make inferences.

And if they don’t care about any of that, it’s not intruding on their experience: they can just play a fun little game with blasting aliens and whatever.

Looping this back to Samus, though: yeah, we mostly don’t get Samus’ voice, both in a literal sense and in the writing sense. What we get is a ton of secondary information hinting at the kind of person she is, supplemented with concrete facts (eg that she was substantially raised by the Chozo), and then are expected to draw inferences.

As one of the more obvious examples: the first two games implicitly establish that Samus has to have a high degree of confidence in her abilities, or if she doesn’t she’s got a literally suicidal streak. She twice accepts missions to travel alone, deep into hostile territory, with the interstellar bounty hunter equivalent of nothing but the clothes on her back. Metroid II’s manual tells us that some elite corps of soldiers was sent to SR388 and never heard from again, and this didn’t dissuade Samus from going in completely alone.

This strongly implies she earnestly believes she can do the job when a literal small army couldn’t even survive: it’s not just that the Egenoid Star Marines failed at the mission, it’s that they were so completely out of their depth that none of them were able to escape the planet to report their failure!

Important and related is that starting from Metroid Ii it’s very normal for Samus to unambiguously have the option of just turning around and leaving. Her ship is on-planet, she uses it to leave at the end of a given game, and nonetheless she sticks each given mission out. She doesn’t encounter Omega Metroids and go ‘no, this is too dangerous, I’m out’. She doesn’t rampage across half of Zebes in Super Metroid and give up in disgust when she fails to find the stolen Metroid reasonably quickly. She doesn’t report the Space Pirates on Tallon IV to the Federation and leave them to clean up that particular mess while she goes to get a drink. Echoes and Fusion are the only games that actually trap Samus on-site temporarily to justify her ongoing presence, and even then if you bother to visit and scan her ship regularly in Echoes you’ll discover it’s ready for liftoff well before it’s time for the endgame, while in Fusion it actually doesn’t take that long to get back access to the Main Deck and thus her ship.

A lot of games that place a player character alone and far from civilization are very careful to explain that the player character was stranded in this strange place, and implicitly or explicitly sets the player character’s goal as escape back to civilization. The implication is generally that these are people who would never willingly inflict such a situation on themselves, and if they ever accidentally found themselves in such a situation with the ability to back out, they’d take it in a heartbeat.

Samus, meanwhile, keeps ending up in these situations and sticking them out. She doesn’t mind being alone with her thoughts for long periods of time.

It’s worth mentioning that the Japanese version of the original Metroid tracked how long you’d played, only your hours of play were presented as how many days Samus had been on Zebes. If you treat this ratio as canonical to all future games, which are generally designed so a first-time player will beat them in 4-20 hours... yeah. Samus has repeatedly spent several days or weeks in a row far away from civilization, and is just fine with sticking those situations out, and even inflicting them fairly spontaneously on herself if she has a specific reason for doing so. (eg she goes to Tallon IV in pursuit of Ridley)

Now, since this is inference there’s a fundamental ambiguity here. I personally tend to interpret Samus as being someone who finds socializing with her fellow sentients to be a stressful experience, such that going out into the wild for a week is a form of decompression and relaxation, but this isn’t the only plausible interpretation, and honestly I probably go to that interpretation because I don’t cope well with that kind of social interaction, rather than it actually being a better interpretation. One could plausibly interpret Samus as someone who, say, is actually fairly intensely social and just rates (Insert mission objective here) as more important than her own personal comfort. (In this interpretation, it would be assumed she instead decompresses from her missions by partying with her must-exist-in-this-interpretation large circle of friends) That’s certainly an excellent justification for her chasing Ridley in Metroid Prime, for example, and if we ignore Other M entirely I can’t think of a Metroid game that could be said to contradict that particular interpretation. (And Other M doesn’t count because it contradicts literally every other game on so many levels; if one game doesn’t fit while the rest are consistent with each other, you toss that one game as an inconsistency)

(Well, actually, another reason I take my interpretation of Samus is that she was raised by Ascetic Space Bird Monks, but then again plenty of people rebel against their upbringing. It’s perfectly possible to say Intensely Social Samus was driven crazy by the Chozo expecting her to be an Ascetic Space Bird Monk But As A Tiny Human, and even suggest that she takes being Intensely Social even farther than she would’ve otherwise as pushback against that whole thing)

BUT

While there’s room for interpretation and murkiness on details, Samus across the games has a fairly clear sketch of a certain range of plausible personalities. This range is also further reduced if we actually, for example, acknowledge Samus’ monologues from Fusion, which make it clear Samus concerns herself with the big picture (Suggesting that she sticks out her missions at least in part because often The Fate Of The Galaxy hinges on them kind of thing), and also seems to indicate (Consistent with her observed behavior), that Samus isn’t someone inclined toward negotiation as a problem-solving mechanism -that is, she doesn’t even countenance the possibility of trying to talk the incoming Federation goons into not trying to weaponize the X, going straight to ‘I need to make sure it’s not possible for them to try’- and that she’s got a bit of a philosophical streak to her, of exactly the sort one might expect of someone raised by Ascetic Space Bird Monks.

But even without the Fusion monologues, it’s not actually that hard to dig up a coherent personality for Samus, consistent with what we see across most of the games and compelling in its own right. It just takes a mentality that, while unusual for most writing/reading, is completely consistent with how the Metroid series prefers to convey its stories.

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watercolourferns · 5 years

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Nightly Run

Zyrcone | Angst & Comfort | 1974 words | Modern AU | seeing!Marcone

Overview: “So it seems… Gods above, what would I do without you?? You’re so good to me, Zayn…”

“It’s not being ‘good’, Macaroon, it’s me loving you and you letting me love you. But probably pass the night on the street where you collapsed and wake up in a cell for indecent exposure?” the dancer said teasingly, snickering and kissing the man’s lips softly. “Luckily we will never know the answer to that question…” The man laughed again, but then pulled the dancer closer, closing his eyes. “Never? You sure…?” “Yes, never. I’m very very sure…” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nightly Run

The night wasn’t exactly chilly, but it wasn’t as warm as it had been a few days ago, the crickets going quiet, showing the change in temperature. Zayn was walking down the street, humming to himself as the tinkering of his dance attire’s jewelry sounded underneath his coat. He had taken a gig up at the local Middle Eastern themed bar, dancing three nights a week and this was his second week. It was just a couple of hours, but when he saw the ad he had talked it over with Marcone and decided that it might be good for him and his tendency to be a shut in.

Some nights were a bit heavier than others and he sometimes arrived home an hour or so later than he wanted, but he loved his job and Marcone was very understanding of it. He felt so lucky about that, and he loved it when Marcone promised to go to the bar once he had settled into his new routines.

As he arrived at the porch, the dancer saw the light of the main bedroom on. That was never a good sign, usually at this time of the night it was off. He hurried up the porch steps pulling out his key from his messenger bag, but before he could put it in the lock the door swung open. “Amor?” he said, taking a step back as he saw the man standing in the doorway in pyjamas but with his sneakers on. “Marcone? What is it, mi amor?”

The man didn’t answer, walking out the doorway and into the dimly lit porch. He had that look again. Zayn had seen it several times now, especially after a really bad night terror. They had been living together for almost two years now and Zayn could more or less read the signs before or after, depending on the situation, and the signs were all there. But he had never caught Marcone going out during a crisis, he would usually wake up with a scream, look around and take him into his arms, hugging him so tight Zayn had to gasp for air after a moment. But this time it was different, the man was standing there, looking at him without looking at him, his thousand yard stare haunting. The dancer took a step forward again, dropping his bag near the door. “Marcone, it’s night, and it’s cold, let’s go in, shall we, amor mío? We can walk inside and you can tell me all about what’s going on, yes?” he said, getting near, but not daring to touch him. “Go away, leave me alone!” Marcone said, taking a step back from the dancer and starting to trot down the porch steps. Zayn recoiled back, but decided to follow him, throwing his bag into the house and closing the door. “Wait, Marc, wait!” he exclaimed, running behind him. “Leave me alone!! Get back!!” Marcone shouted again, looking back at the man and starting to run. “Shut up!! Leave!!”

“Marcone, please, what’s going on? Please stop, let’s talk about this, what happened?!” Zayn called, starting to run as well. “YOU VERY WELL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!! DON’T TOUCH ME, JUST FUCKING LEAVE!!” Marcone roared, turning completely, stopping his run, and looking at the shorter with daggers in his eyes, as if he couldn’t recognise him. Then he covered his ears with his hands, looking pained, and then turning back he restarted his run, mumbling to himself, gasping. “M-Marcone…” Zayn whispered softly, feeling his heart drop to his stomach. He clutched his chest and felt the tears coming in his hazel eyes, but a little voice in his head told him Marcone needed him regardless of what he said. So he sniffed and brushed the tears off his eyes, deciding to follow the man at a safe distance. As the man took off on a faster run, it was all the dancer could do to follow him on the other side of the sidewalk, panting slightly, the jewelry starting to feel heavy on his slight frame. Running and running, he didn’t know how long they had been running but it felt like ages and everytime he thought Marcone would stop he just ran faster till Zayn thought he might lose him in the night. After more or less an hour, finally, Marcone stopped near the intersection to get out of the suburbs they lived in. He wobbled on his feet and suddenly fell to this knees, panting and sweating, mumbling even more. “No… away… what-what is… I can’t…” he mumbled, his eyes unfocused. Zayn gasped and ran as fast as he could to catch up, sliding towards him on his silk-clad knees and taking him by the shoulders, if he was going to be pushed away so be it, Marcone was in bad shape and that was all that mattered. “Marc?? Marcone?? Oh gods, mi amor! Easy, easy, I’m here… It’s alright… I’m here… We need to call an ambulance… Marcone… Oh, mi amor…” he said, starting to cry, tears falling on the man’s face. “Z-zayn…? Wh-what are you… doing here… It’s… dangerous… the sky is red… Red and yellow… no… don’t…” the man garbled, unable to communicate properly as if lost in a fog Zayn couldn’t follow him into.

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Marcone opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling of his bedroom, a soft bluish glow and white stars adorning it, moving slowly as if they were revolving. “Want me to turn it off? I-I thought it might be something nice to wake up to,” a soft voice said, coming closer to him.

He sat up, pushing the soft covers off, rubbing his eyes and looking around. He had an IV in his arm, attached to what seemed like a drip. He still couldn’t focus that well, but he knew a drip when he saw one. “No, leave it on. Where am I?” he asked as Zayn came into focus, the dancer standing some five feet away from his bed, looking nervous, wearing his house shorts, two patches on his knees. “What happened? Did you fall while dancing??” The dancer flinched a little at the urgent tone, but then shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m more interested in how you’re feeling…” he said softly, cracking his knuckles. “At the moment? With a raging headache and very confused, babe. Can you please tell me what’s going on?” the taller man asked, starting to get nervous himself. “Why are you so far away??” “May I get closer?” the dancer asked unsurely, worrying his lower lip. “Of course you can, baby! What a question to ask, love, come here, please…” The man looked confused as Zayn walked tentatively towards him, sitting on the edge of the bed and only hugging him when he opened his arms. “I’m sorry… You didn’t want me to get near you before, I just wanted to make sure it was alright now…” the dancer whispered softly against the man’s chest while he hugged him tightly. “I-what? What do you mean? Zayn?” Marcone asked, pushing the younger man gently away to see him eye to eye. “Please, tell me what happened. All I remember is that I was lying on a gurney, I don’t remember how I got there. You were there, but I don’t know where you came from or how we got there… and now I’m here and I just…” Zayn placed a finger on Marcone’s lips, stopping him from working himself up again, and sighed. “Alright.. I’ll tell you…” he said and recounted the event as gently as he could, stopping at the moment where Marcone yelled at him, glossing over it and finishing his retelling. Marcone frowned, taking Zayn’s hands in his, his eyes moving from one hand to the other as he heard his lover speak. “Wait, wait… I did what?!” the man gasped after a few moments to let the story sink in. “I yelled what??” “That it was my fault and I knew what happened and to leave you alone… Marcone, is it because of my late nights? I’m sorry I will-” but the man put up a hand and shook his head, looking serious.

“No, don’t. I have no problems with you dancing at the bar, not even when you get here late. I know you love your job and I love that you love it. It has.. It has…” he cut himself off as he felt the tears start to fall from his light eyes. “Gods above, what did I do?!” He started to tremble with repressed sobs, and suddenly he let the damn break, crying openly, curling his hands into fists. His whole frame trembling with the force of his sobs. Zayn covered his mouth with his hand, unable to stem his own tears seeing his beloved crying so heartbreakingly. Then he hugged Marcone gently, patting his back and making soft shushing sounds, not to shut him up, but to try and ease his pain a little. “I’m so sorry, babe… I didn’t mean to… How c-could I say that?!… I’m so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?!” he sobbed, hugging Zayn tightly to himself. The dancer hugged him back tightly, too, kissing his temples and hair, caressing him with great care, as if he were a piece of fragile porcelain, murmuring tender words of love and understanding.

“It’s alright, mi amor, it’s alright. I’m here, and there’s nothing to forgive. Did you have a night terror and that’s why all this happen?” Zayn asked, kissing the man’s forehead again and making him look him in the eyes.

The man nodded, still crying and the dancer brushed the tears away gently, pulling a tissue form the nearby box and cleaning Marcone up. “Blow on this… Good, good. It’s going to be fine, I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere…” After several moments, Marcone finally calmed down but never let go of the dancer, who had been singing a lullaby in Spanish to him. “What happened to your knees then?” he asked finally, pulling Zayn into the bed and under the covers with him, snuggling into him. “Heh… When I slid towards you I got burned with the fabric of my harem pants. It’s not real silk but nylon, so it heated up with the friction and I got two small burns. But it’s no big deal, I was more worried about you collapsing and how I was going to get you back home!” Zayn said, nuzzling him, running his fingers through his hair, letting him rest his head on his chest.

“How did you bring me back home, though?” Marcone asked, tracing Zayn’s profile with his fingers. “I called Kia, who called Dammy, who wanted to bring in a helicopter. But we talked him out of it and he just brought in a private ambulance. A doctor oversaw you and placed you on the IV. There’s a nurse downstairs with them, too. She’s going to spend the night here to monitor you, amor…” the dancer said, caressing the man’s face back. “And before you ask, we sent Lance with Killian to the cottage, they are having a little sleepover there, and they are safe. You have so many people who love and care about you and your brother, mi amor, including me. So you don’t have to worry about anything…” Marcone blinked at Zayn and then barked a laugh. “So it seems… Gods above, what would I do without you?? You’re so good to me, Zayn…”

#Zayn Luna #Marcone Vintura #modern au #fern is writting #fluffyangst

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truthfulrebellion-blog · 6 years

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Hysterectomy

Let’s call it what it is. No pussy footing around it. A necessary evil on the way to the end game: phalloplasty. I had been waiting almost six months to hear back about my approval for phalloplasty. I currently have health insurance through Kaiser Permanente, and they had a laundry list of things for me to do in order to present my file to the medical board. I had to transfer my files over from the organization I was seeking healthcare through, as it was cheaper than paying out of pocket for an endocrinologist, to Kaiser. I also had to obtain letters from two medical professionals confirming my need for bottom surgery. The whole process took nearly a year and several trips to medical facilities nearly thirty miles away from my home. My case manager finally called and said in order for the final review to occur, I had to get a hysterectomy.

At the time, I thought that was done by the surgeon performing the phalloplasty at the time of the phalloplasty. With Kaiser, that is not the case. They want anything and everything they have the capability of doing done within their facility. Likely to keep costs down. I didn’t mind. My hysterectomy was scheduled for December 15th, 2018. I had to get blood tests done and watch several videos that didn’t pertain to my situation regarding the procedure. The videos are, obviously, geared towards women. I did what I needed to do and prepared myself for the surgery date. I got a call to move my surgery up about 10 days, even better. Then not 24 hours before the surgery, I received a call stating that it was being delayed for a week. My new date was the 11th. This was terribly inconvenient as my care giver for after my surgery had already taken off work for the original surgery date.

I walked into the facility to check in about an hour early. I had yet another interesting surprise. The surgery was going to cost me money. $475, or close to it. Luckily, I had the money. I was very upset that I wasn’t told about this ahead of time, however. I am paying for the most expensive coverage this company offers so I had as little to pay out of pocket as possible. In the grand scheme of things, $475 is better than $10k. It still would have been nice to know before I showed up. If you have Kaiser, please make sure you know exactly what the costs are before you walk in the door.

I got checked in. I had to remove all of my clothing, put on a hospital gown & surgery cap, and take one final per break. I also forgot to mention I had to stop eating at midnight the day of and wipe my body down with these pre-surgery wipes. I was hungry and my skin smelled weird. They hooked up my IV, fed me my “lunch”, and several doctors came in to ask me questions and verify information. My surgery was supposed to occur at 3pm, but was delayed until closer to 5/530. My surgeon came in to make sure I knew what was about to take place. He also talked to me about a surgeon for bottom surgery in Arizona or New Mexico he was going to refer me to. He had given me the name in our prior consultation. When I looked that surgeon up, I was horrified. The man was fired from the California region Kaiser Permanente for botching transwomens vaginoplasties. The guy didn’t even specialize in phalloplasty. I expressed these concerns to him and told him it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to partner with him for any trans surgeries. Hopefully he heeds my advice. He confirmed that after the surgery, he would stick to the decision to refer me to Dr. Jens Berli of Portland, OR.

I knew nothing of Dr. Berli. There are no results to been seen online, barely anyone who has undergone his procedure even talks about their results, and I couldn’t find any other information besides his starting point in Maryland. I found his Facebook page and did some pretty intense research on him. He seems to genuinely care about his patients and has a passion for what he does. His only negative review is from someone who never had surgery with him because of a communication issue with his staff. Everyone else gave him five stars. So, I figured why the hell not. Hopefully my progress will help others who may be going to Dr. Berli for their phalloplasty be more comfortable with moving forward with him or the surgery itself. I am flying as blind in this moment as some of those who might read this in the future might feel. Trust me. I feel your pain.

I finally went in for my surgery. This time I wasn’t put under until I was on the surgery table. For my top surgery, I was out before I turned the corner on the way to the operating room. The next thing I remember is waking up several hours later and in pain. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was very disoriented. I’m not surprised considering I was on anesthesia. Apparently I wasn’t breathing enough either since my O2 alarm kept going off. I had to stay for an extra hour until I could get my breathing going regularly. Which is hard because I believe I have sleep apnea, and when I sleep I breathe much slower than I do when I’m awake. So I would fall back asleep, stop breathing, and be woken up by the nurses to get me to breathe. I didn’t feel any different than I usually do. I was actually quite comfy. But I’m sure it was uncomfortable for others around me to see me breathe 1-2 times a minute while asleep.

I was in so much pain. The pain meds hadn’t kicked in yet. I had had a total hysterectomy, oophorectomy, and partial vaginectomy. Let me tell you. When your genitals are covered in stitches, sitting fucking hurts. I couldn’t get comfortable. Then I had to go to the bathroom. Lord, that was an adventure in of itself. Once I was done, I had to have the nurse help me pull my maternity disposable underwear and extra absorbent pad on. And to help me get dressed. The was a humbling experience. But those disposable underwear are comfortable AF. I wish I had had more of them. I was only sent home with the 1 extra pair. After I got dressed, they sent my care giver to get the car. They sat me in a wheel chair and wheeled me to the pick up area. Wheel chairs are super uncomfortable. I begged the nurse to let me sit on the plushy waiting area seat, but she told me no. I couldn’t wait to get out of that chair. It hurt so bad.

I’ll spare additional details about the trip home. I was basically in pain in the seat, it took over an hour to get home, and I got right in the couch seat I’d be in for the next week and fell asleep. I had to wake up every 1-2 hours to pee and every 4 hours to take my pain meds. Compared to my chest surgery, the pain of the hysterectomy actually wasn’t too bad. I barely needed any medicine. The worst pain came when I peed. It burned like the surface of the sun, and I could barely get the urine out. This lasted for about 2-3 days. I was bleeding pretty regularly for 1-2 weeks and spotting until the 6th week. I had horrible colored discharge the entire recovery. I actually had to go get adult diapers when my last pair of those comfy underwear got worn out. I couldn’t find any of those huge puffy pads or anything without adhesive.

I think the worst part was not being able to poop. I could feel the poop in my back. I really could. But I could not get my bowels to work. Apparently, this is normal. I ended up pooping on day 5. Best advice? Take stool softeners religiously. I would go so far as to say take a laxative on day 3 or 4 because that poop is going to be quite solid. TMI alert, my first poop after surgery tore a little bit of the inside. Like a hemorrhoid. I’m getting into these details because I wish I had had them. It’s not rainbows and butterflies. It’s bleeding and inability to poop. I also could barely sleep as I had to sleep on my back, and I can’t sleep on my back. I get so unfortable. By day 3 I was sleeping on my side on the other couch. I’m also a bigger guy, so I had to hold my stomach when I got up since there was a lot of pain from my belly hanging. I’m not 300+ pounds or anything, but I do have a beer belly. If you are the same, just be prepared for tummy pain when getting up.

I slept on the couch for 3 weeks. It was so much more comfortable than my bed. And it was easy access to everything. I am almost 8 weeks post op and still get tummy pain. But for the most part, pain and blood free. I do still have discharge coming out. I’ll probably continue to wear the diapers until I run out just in case. I had already ruined a pair of pants when I thought the discharge was done. But after about 7-10 days, I was walking around and driving and doing what I needed to do. It was uncomfortable to sit and bend over, so my roommate had to help with a lot of things. My final observation is to leave the scabs alone. I accidentally picked at my belly scab and one of the dissolvable stitches came loose from my incision. I had that stitch hanging out for at least 2 weeks until it finally dissolved at the base and popped off. My scars look great and my hair has finally grown back on my stomach.

I’m doing all of this well after my surgery, so I am sure I have missed a thing or two. If you have any questions, please give me a comment or a message. I will answer anything.

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ghostmartyr · 6 years

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Fic: A Terrible Idea [14/?]

Fandom: Attack on Titan Title: A Terrible Idea Author: Immi Rating: PG-13 Summary: Ymir’s pursuit of the hot cheerleader was meant to stay strictly lustful. But it’s a high school AU with a ship tag, so you know, fuck that. Notes: This is secretly a fake dating AU.

Segment summary: Historia digs the hole a little deeper.

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII

Finding more excuses after several weeks of pulling every one she could out of a hat wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Lunch, sure, and several days in the usual prep table had been gracefully overtaken by Ymir and people Ymir put up with. Pieck and Porco thought hanging out with Historia was a spectator sport, and Connie and Sasha had invited themselves when they saw an opening, because that’s what they did.

Reiner bench pressing both of them wasn’t the mood-setter Ymir was looking for, but time together was time together, and they shared zero classes. Lunch and after school. Such were the options, and neither worked great for talking about feelings. Ymir didn’t even want to talk about feelings.

“Yet somehow, you keep finding a way,” Pieck had said in the wake of one of Ymir’s light jogging sessions.

“More like you and Pock keep bringing it up,” was Ymir’s retort.

What she really needed was some time alone with Historia that didn’t leave them both putting up with crap and people they weren’t in the mood for.

“That’s called a date,” Porco had said, head slumped in his pillow while he stopped bothering with keeping his eyes open. Staying up past curfew was a trick his body had somehow never learned. In the bed on the other side of the room, slightly more awake, Marcel had supplied the similarly helpful comment of, “You two text every night. You can’t talk to her then?”

The people in her life failed at being remotely helpful with this, and she hoped they realized that. She’d told Pieck as much. Pieck, being Pieck, hadn’t cared.

“If you want to kiss her again, your mouth is the one that needs to put in the work.” She’d smiled, batting her eyes passively. “I hear you had some trouble with that the first time. Think of this as a much needed learning experience.”

Ymir’s friends were horrible people with not an ounce of compassion attributed to their combined presence.

The fucking problem, which none of them seemed to get, was that being around Historia made her happy. She liked watching her play games on her phone and teasing her about her jackass parents. She liked having someone around who listened to her bitch about her day. She liked how Historia told her she was being a dick while she squeezed her hand.

She liked the stupid, everyday being together enough that she wasn’t actually thinking about kissing her every second of the day, and bringing that up would grind it to a halt, and the only grinding she wanted to do was with Historia.

But with feelings now.

She’d been pretty upfront about the parts that didn’t take feelings. The new addition was different, and.

Just and.

Completing that thought was probably the first step to convincing Historia that making out needed to enter their socializing mix. With Ymir being such a catch, it would probably be the only step, but it was a step that kept not fucking happening for reasons of who the fuck knows.

A lifetime of watching other people screw up their feelings and laughing about it said that Ymir was probably the fuck who knew.

So she took up walking Historia to her car after cheerleading practice and thought about completely fucking over the warm glow that had decided it lived in her chest by talking about wanting the warm glow to be a real, tangible thing with labels and anniversaries.

Historia was fine with Ymir hitting her up for sex and breaking into lockers. Ymir asking her to spend the rest of her life with her was something else, also moving pathetically fast and probably creepy. Too bad that was the only way she could think of saying it, so sad, maybe they’d conveniently trip into each other in a secluded space and Historia would temporarily gain five inches of height so they could just accidentally make out and never talk about it.

Late Friday afternoon, as they walked to the hellspot of asphalt that contained Historia’s driver, that still hadn’t happened. Ymir was shocked. Truly. Shocked.

Sweeping one of the borrowed school towels through her sweat-tousled hair, Ymir struck up some conversation that kept her from thinking about the way Historia looked at her when she did that. “So why the cheerleading?”

“PE credit?”

Another thing Ymir liked about Historia. It was really easy to figure out where to dig.

“Nice try, but you like PE.”

Historia was trying not to smile. She had to try now. “How would you know? My PE years weren’t at this school.”

“Sure, and the fact that you sulk hard enough to bring down thunderclouds whenever your coach cuts practice short doesn’t say anything at all about what you like to do with your body,” Ymir said. “You never complain about the crap choreography because you get to do flips. You’ve got jock written all over your prep face.”

Historia’s shoulder dug into Ymir’s side. “The choreography isn’t that bad.”

“If you cared at all you wouldn’t be able to say that.” Ymir casually dropped her arm down and around Historia. A quick sight check confirmed she was okay with it. As did the small arm snaking across her back. “So,” Ymir continued, stars and lightning and all things frightening lighting up her world, “why did the girl with no cheer pick leading that charge?”

Historia took an exaggeratingly long time feeding her Tamagotchi as the parking lot crept closer.

“Don’t tell me it was the cute girls in skirts.”

“Jealous?” Historia drawled.

“Please,” Ymir said. “They’ve got nothing on me.”

Historia bit her lip and gave the parts of Ymir’s body she wasn’t glued to a thriceover. Ymir’s knees, a little worn out from running, weakened, and Historia’s arm around her waist turned into a weirdly stable anchor.

“If you don’t give me an answer now I’ll just bug you all night,” Ymir said. Nary a choked word in hearing.

Reaching the loading zone section of the sidewalk, Historia stopped. Racing to join Ralph or Sannes and leave Ymir behind was real low on the priority list. “Frieda,” she said.

“Your sis—?”

“Historia!”

Ymir still, despite Hannah’s token efforts, got the track team all over her ass about joining up. She had amazing legs, and everyone wanted them. She was also just plain faster than everyone on the team. Pieck had a passive aggressive stopwatch reading to prove it.

Historia was frozen stiffer than a popsicle. In a fraction of time unobservable by humans later, she had vanished from Ymir’s side and left several Olympic records in smithereens.

“Frieda!”

All that was visible of her was a tiny blonde cannonball plunging into a human who would have been dubbed stunning in any other company.

Plus that smile.

Holy shit that smile.

Ymir almost forgot to miss holding her when Historia was smiling like that. She was hugging the tall young lady (Ymir had never actually met anyone before who fit the term, but Frieda was a lady) with a strength usually reserved for repressed homicidal urges, and she was smiling. Really smiling. With light and sunshine spilling out of her face like the radiance of the universe was trapped up inside her.

The sister was hugging her back maybe half as tightly, but no less happily, because there was no way to be in the presence of that smile, to cause that smile, without some of it rubbing off.

“There you are! How was practice?”

Ymir didn’t think Historia had ever cared less about cheerleading in her life.

“It… it was good! What—when did you get here?”

Frieda stroked several stray hairs back behind Historia’s ear, looking down at her like they were sharing a secret. “Just now,” she said. “What do you think, a good surprise?”

“Yes! I—yes, Frieda, it’s…” Historia had the same level of words to put to the situation that Ymir did. She went with hugging her sister some more instead. Still with the smiling.

Ymir stood in the background like a forgotten stagehand and couldn’t even mind.

Only she was a little less than wholly forgotten, it turned out. Frieda’s sugary sweet teddy bear affection sharpened over Historia’s head. They had the same eyes, but this pair hadn’t had weeks of being won over with charm and good looks.

Ymir had a very dark hunch, and very little evidence against it.

“Who’s this?” Frieda asked lightly.

It was a heavy compliment, Ymir knew, that Historia instantly broke her hug enough to look back at Ymir. She didn’t lose the smile when she did. If anything it brightened. Ymir didn’t think she felt her heart anymore. Mush didn’t have nerve endings.

“This,” Historia said, with all the significance she’d skipped for the last family meet and greet, “is Ymir.”

“Oh,” Frieda said benignly. “The same Ymir you brought to Dad’s party?”

Historia’s smile evaporated.

Ymir’s hunch started to feel a little more like fact.

She had only met Historia’s parents once. If a second time came up, she didn’t see it ending without a murder, and the only thing sparing Frieda at the moment was the streak of overprotectiveness lacing the hammer of judgment she was throwing Ymir’s way.

“That’s me,” Ymir said. There were worse introductions. Better, too, but she was guessing Mama and Papa Reiss had already screwed her on that front.

Frieda smiled congenially at her. You know, like how mother bears bared their teeth before they disemboweled whatever previously living thing was unfortunate enough to step near their cub. “You must be good friends,” she said.

It was bait on a devilish hook, and Ymir wasn’t going to be able to help the swallow.

Historia beat her to it.

It could have happened in slow motion. In a movie reenactment, it would have, and missed out on the stumbling garble that came from Historia saying the words faster than she had time to think about them.

Before Ymir could even think about tactics, in a second of combusting defiance, what tripped out of Historia’s mouth in front of her shiny, sparkly paragon of a sister who would accept nothing less was, “Ymir’s my girlfriend.”

…

So, the obvious: No, she was not.

The other obvious, stashed between Frieda’s good-natured, lying, happy exclamation of surprise and Historia’s rapidly paling face:

Holy fuck that so needed to change.

#yumikuri #yumihisu #shingeki no fanfic #fic #mine

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mel-is-a-melon · 6 years

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Until Death Do Us Part

Warnings: Death

Pairing(s): Logicality

Tagged: @freepaperie081, @wilford-woofstache

Summary: Patton is in the hospital due to heart complications, and Logan is refusing to leave his side until he can come home.

Apologies for any medical inaccuracies or OOC writing. Anything incorrect was probably made the way it was for drama or something I just missed.

“Any improvements?”

The nurse looks up from where she was changing the young man’s IV tube to see his boyfriend staring at her with pleading eyes. She sighed mentally.

The man in the hospital bed (Patton, she believed his name was, and a quick glance at his chart confirmed it) had been admitted with severe arrhythmia. Apparently, he’d had a mild case of it for most of his life, but he’d gotten dizzy a few nights ago and collapsed, leading to his current hospitalization.

Though it seemed like a routine case that should be brought back to normal within another day of medications, Patton’s boyfriend had been frantic the entire time. He fired off questions at every person who came through the door and insisted on double checking everything for himself (she loathed to scream at him that while he might had a doctorate in astronomy, as he had mentioned numerous times, he was not a medical doctor and so should leave this to professionals).

The only times he could be shut up was when Patton was awake. He would softly chuckle and tell his partner to “leave them be, Logan, honey, they know what they’re doing”. But at the moment, he was getting some much needed rest, and she was left with Logan looking at her like she held the answers to all the universe’s questions. If she did, she would have told him long ago just to wash her hands of his endless line of questioning.

“As I told you an hour ago, he is slowly improving with the help of the treatments we set up for him. Should he continue to improve, he will be permitted to leave tomorrow and warned to avoid strenuous activity for a month and to return if any complications arise. I have no new information for you, and I swear I will let you know as soon as I do.”

With that, she left, eager to get in a bit of a break before returning to work. Why had she picked up another twelve hour shift again?

Logan turned to Patton, a red flush covering his cheeks from the nurse’s sharp, reprimanding tone. He hadn’t meant to be so troublesome to the people trying to help Patton, but he was worried. A lot more than he should be.

When they had started dating five years ago, Patton had been totally honest with him about everything, from past partners to family life, and especially about his health. Logan had taken it in stride, avoiding stress-inducing situations in favor of nights in on the couch watching Big Hero 6 or the like and holding his hands throughout all the checkups and hospitalizations like these. And even though this had happened in the past, Logan still felt a sense of dread that he hadn’t felt in any of the other occasions.

He took a deep breath trying to stabilize himself.

“Gee, teach, no need to breathe so deep. You’re already full of hot air.”

He turned to see Patton smiling tiredly at him and squeezed his hand in return.

“Says the man who will brag for hours about how his daycare kids are doing.” Despite his teasing words, Logan’s smile stretched across his face.

“They grow so fast!” Patton protested indignantly.

Logan shook his head.

“Logan...” Patton’s voice had taken on a tone of seriousness. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

Logan’s silence said it all.

Patton frowned. “You have to take care yourself, You’re always on me to do it!”

Logan opened his mouth to resist, but Patton interrupted. “I’m not talking to you until you get something to eat.”

“Patton...”

He simply turned away, not even bothering to look at Logan.

Logan groaned, loath to leave Patton, but knowing it was the only way to get him to relent. “Fine. I’ll get a sandwich from the cafeteria. Happy?”

Patton rolled back over to reveal a bright, sunny smile. “Yep!”

Logan simply chuckled, dropping a kiss on Patton’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon, Angel.”

“Later, gator!” Patton laughed.

Logan walked out the door, determined to make this the fastest trip ever.

The universe, however, was determined to thwart him. First of all, the cafeteria was at the other end of the hospital, meaning a lot of time was spent waiting for an elevator and then walking the entire length of the building. It didn’t get any better on arrival, either. As it was apparently dinnertime (Logan hadn’t even noticed the time passing by, his eyes so glued to Patton he didn’t even look at the clock), the line for food stretched out of the cafeteria and into the hallway. Logan simply resigned himself to his fate, getting in line.

He was in the middle of calculating how long it would take to reach the front of the line if each person took on average a minute and a half to order and receive their food (as way too many reached the front and only then decided to check out the options) when that niggling sense of doubt returned in a much stronger force, speeding his heart rate and making his breaths come quickly.

He closed his eyes, remembering what he would tell his friend Virgil when he had one of these episodes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In for four seconds, hold for seven, out for eight.

Come on Logan, there’s nothing to be scared of. The doctors and nurses here know what they’re doing and will take good care of Patton. They already told you he was fine, that he’s coming home tomorrow.

By the time he reached the front of the line, he’d calmed down enough to order his ham and cheese sandwich and head back to Patton.

When he exited the elevator, he could tell something was wrong. Nurses were flying out of the surrounding rooms, all headed towards the end of the hall yelling out medical instructions he didn’t understand. He and the other visitors were being asked to go back down to the lobby. He complied only after trying to get to Patton’s room and being given a death glare by one of the scarier nurses.

Sitting in the lobby, he tried to distract himself by opening up his phone and looking through some files from work. Even though their new tour for middle schoolers was the most fun project he’d worked on in months, all he could think was about how he’d told Patton about it yesterday and the two of them had pitched ideas at each other for hours, growing more and more excited until a nurse came to tell them to calm down.

You’ll get to do that again. You’ll be able to go talk to Patton soon. They’re just going to call over the friends and family of the person who was in danger and tell them what happened and let everyone else go back upstairs. See, here comes the doctor for that floor now, about to call over-

“Friends and family of Patton Sanders?”

No.

Logan stood on shaking legs, barely aware of walking over to the doctor with the gentle face that warned of bad news to come. Buzzing overtook his ears, blocking out most of what the doctor was saying. He just barely managed to make out “sudden cardiac death...usually no symptoms...was asleep...didn’t hurt...sorry for your loss...”

Logan offered no response, simply turning around and returning to his seat. The doctor gave him a sad smile, then started escorting the rest of the visitors upstairs, leaving Logan alone in the lobby. Alone with his thoughts.

Logan reached into his bag with a trembling hand and pulled out a soft, velvet box. He opened it, eyes shining as he looked at the ring he had taken so long to pick out.

He was supposed to give it to Patton tomorrow, when they got home. Surprise him at the moment he least expected it, when he was preoccupied greeting their golden lab Thomas. He was going to attempt to give a romantic, from-the-heart speech (which had taken him three weeks to write) but most likely would have been interrupted by a squealing Patton saying yes before he could even get a word out.

They were supposed to get married on a summer’s evening, like they’d planned. They would hold the ceremony in an open field, the lights around them dim enough so they could see the stars slowly start to replace the sun in the sky. Patton was going to try and teach Thomas to carry the rings down the aisle, and Logan was going to agree to let him and ask his brother Roman if his kid would be prepared to do it on the side.

They were supposed to be a family. They were going to adopt, something that had taken Logan a long time to even consider. They were going to spoil their kid to death, Logan helping them with homework and Patton cooking their favorite foods for every meal, taking them on trips to Disney World, teaching them all they could about the wonderful world they lived in.

They were supposed to grow old together, retiring to some place on the beach so they could go stargazing every night, Logan pointing out the constellations with a wrinkled hand and Patton smiling at him with the light of the sun in his eyes.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Logan got up and walked out the door, stopping only to throw out the box and, after a thought, the sandwich. He wasn’t really that hungry anymore.

#death tw #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides #logicality

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floralgruuunge · 7 years

Text

Just some ramblings from Cassian’s POV

Elevated pulse. Shortness of breath. Flexing and unflexing hands. Beads of sweat on his forehead. Even the wooden bench in the medical bay that he sat upon seemed harder now than ever as he felt pricks of pain as the muscles tensed in his lower back. These were all signs and symptoms of what Cassian Andor knew to be his flight or fight response – it had single-handedly saved his life earlier that week when he had gunned down the pair of stormtroopers in the alleyway on Kafrene. Normally, the adrenaline heightened his senses and pushed him towards swift and efficient decision-making, something that Cassian found both pleasing and gratifying.

But, today was different. In fact, most days had been different since Jyn Erso’s unexpected arrival in his life. Her presence perplexed him in a way nothing had before. She was an unsolvable puzzle; a mission without a foreseeable outcome; two unfamiliar hands intertwined in Death’s wake. He could still feel her heart pounding against his chest. Had he really held her that clos–

“Captain Andor.” A gruff voice jolted Cassian back to reality. He looked up to find General Draven’s severe face: dark bags hanging under piercing blue eyes, wispy hair combed to hide a receding hairline, three hard lines that appeared to be engraved into the general’s forehead and were always visible even when, Cassian had found, the rest of Draven’s face lacked expression entirely.

“I was told I would find you here. Erso’s finally woken up. Thought you might want to know. Anyhow, she’s in room thirty, bay three. However, one of the droids told me to tell you that…”

Thought you might want to know. The voice inside Cassian’s head scoffed at Draven’s consistent cluelessness. He had, without a doubt, been dying to know. Ever since their arrival on Yavin 4, Cassian had checked the status of Jyn Erso’s condition a “total of twenty-two times in three days,” a fact that an annoyed 2-1B droid used in attempt to shame the captain into leaving the waiting area. He had left, for dignity’s sake, but within minutes, shame and embarrassment melted into hot frustration as he reached his living quarters.

What had been taking them so long?

The fact that they had survived the Death Star’s initial blast had been a miracle, probably an act of one of the gods, none of which Cassian had ever bothered to learn about. Or maybe, it was the Force. At any rate, he knew their situation had been dire; the urgency in Kes Dameron’s voice as he and Captain Bey had loaded him and Jyn onto the ship had told him that much.

“Punch it, Shara. We need to get there and stat or they’re not gonna mak–”

“I know, I know.”

The last thing Cassian remembered before losing all consciousness completely was the burning sensation of Jyn’s necklace (she had managed to tie it around his neck before the jump to hyperspace) against his skin. Oddly enough, her necklace, still around his neck, began to warm yet again, almost as if it was responding to the playback happening in his head.

“...that she is still coming off of a number of medications given to her at the start of the procedure, so she might not be all the way there.” Draven paused and took a deep breath, a something Cassian could only deduce to be some sort of nervous tic – the general only did it when he was about to tell Cassian something he didn’t want to hear.

“While I understand you and Erso have spent some time together, you directly disobeyed orders by infiltrating the imperial base on Scarif. Admiral Raddus has been reported dead and Princess Leia, who was aboard Tantive IV, is now missing. We have not received schematics of this so called “Death Star” you and Erso spoke about.”

Cassian felt his face grow hot as he jumped up from the bench to defend himself.

“We transmitted them! I was there, I saw it happen with my own two eyes,” he insisted angrily.

“I don’t care if you saw it happen, Captain Andor,” Draven shot back. “Your actions have consequences! You endangered the lives of dozens of useful Alliance operatives and now, that same Alliance is one step away from total dissolution. Do you know what that means?”

“Of course I know what that means!” Cassian seethed.

“Good. Then you’ll understand why I have proposed a hearing in regards to your suspension, and possibly your permanent termination as intelligence officer. Senator Mothma is reviewing my proposal as we speak.”

Cassian froze. Draven used this to deliver his final blow.

“Quite frankly, whatever relationship you have developed with the Erso girl has jeopardized your rationale, Captain.”

Cassian felt his hands ball into fists at his sides.

Low-blow, even for you, Draven. Pinche viejo estúpido.

Nevertheless, Cassian knew letting his anger take the bait would only support Draven’s accusations. He waited a few seconds before he spoke and let the years of interrogation and negotiation training take over.

“There is no relationship, General,” Cassian said cooly. “She had substantial evidence, and I believed that evidence. I did what was necessary and what you and the rest of the council were afraid to do.”

Draven was fuming now.

“This is NOT about bravery or honor, Captain Andor!” He bellowed. “This is abou– ”

Before Draven could finish, the intercom above them chimed:

“General Draven to landing pad 5. General Draven, landing pad 5.”

Draven sighed. “This conversation isn’t over. Hopefully it will continue with a much more official audience present.”

“Hopefully,” Cassian muttered as he watched Draven walk away. As his anger receded, the realization suddenly dawned on him: the Rebellion hadn’t received the plans so many of his comrades had died for. Were his efforts all in vain?

He felt the familiar pang of the hollowness inside his chest as it began to creep out of its hiding place. Sights, sounds and smells flashed before him: the screams of a child caught under the wheel of an imperial tank, the burning of Tivik’s flesh, Kaytoo’s metal frame riddled with bullet holes, Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze reduced to ash by the battle station’s burning green light–

Before the hollowness could totally consume him, Cassian began walking swiftly, focusing on the feeling of each foot making contact with the floor. He fixed his eyes on the sign at the end of the hallway that read “Bay 3.” He needed to find Jyn. He needed to make sure that at least, she was okay.

***

I HAD TO GET ANNIVERSARY FEELS OUT GUISE IM SORRY I WROTE THIS NO EDITING IN LIKE A FEW HOURS PLS SAVE ME.... I will finish it k bye

#ill finish this later #rogue one #rogue one au #cassian and jyn live #everyone else dies #rebelcaptain #rogue one anniversary #cassian andor #rebelcaptain au #rebelcaptain fanfic #rogue one fanfiction

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