#like even the one doctor stone one is still somehow related to one piece

[pseudopigeons]

WIP Ask Game!

got tagged by @orange-artist

The rules:

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as your have WIPs.

A lot of my drawing wips are just pages in my sketchbook that I need to digitise so theres no silly file names but Drawing wips: interchanged AU luffy interchanged AU zoro interchanged AU nami interchanged AU Usopp interchanged AU Sanji zolu ricky montgomery comic dr stone one piece crossover redraw Writing wips: acesan one shot interchanged au syrup village zolu fic

10 wips so 10 tags @yellowistheraddest @eustasskiddbf @munidraws @hackedmotionsensors @beatrizshy @largerfries @charliethechandelure @nosongunsung11 @i-bez-togo-toshno @onepiecebrained no pressure to do the challenge/game I just thought it was neat if I didnt tag you and you still wanna ask about one please go ahead!

[siyabongazulukamaisela]

It's been a while since I was last captivated by a book as much as this one has me. Almost missed my stop on the bus the other day. The book is so relatable, even though it's nothing familiar to me. But it somehow feels relatable. And it has me bad.

I've not been able to put it down since I got it and dove into it. Herman (friend&co-worker), took me to this pawn shop in town. I'd actually been there before but didn't realise, when he initially told. We found some really cool things amongst type writers, which I'd been thinking of getting for my writing and also frames for pictures and books.

Went to check out the books, there's was a lot of Afrikaans. But I ended up finding English ones and upon further investigation. Law and behold, The reincarnation of Peter Proud" by one Max Ehrlich.

I also found a book I had up until recently when I lost a number of books during my relocation from Joburg back to KZN. But that's behind us now. But. I asked myself this question. Knowing I've had it before. Why am I buying it again. The reason I came up with was this, "when I read it back in England, early 2007, Alice had given it to me (considering she is an ethiest) to read.) But the concept for me at that age, maybe 17. We're just too much and flew over my head. I know at this time I was into Dan Brown. I'd already read all his top selling books: (Davinci Code. Angles and Demons) and the rest. The book I'm talking about here is, Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion).

During my chat with Raphala about the God Delusion. After he saw me posting it on WhatsApp status, said, he'd like for us to chat about it once I was done. I then narrated the above story of my first attempt at reading it. He then expressed the same. He expressed the same sentiment about concepts within the book going over his head. But. We concluded on one crucial point: the fact that we are living in times when we can openly share such thoughts and question them without being stoned to death or becoming an outcast. I remember is school (high school). I used to question everything and as a matter of fact, I still very much do. My English teacher, ended up placing a sign in the classroom which said "If you dont belong in God. You better hope you are right", I found this strange. In a multiracial school, one of the vest in the province, qiestionning, being different radical if you may, was not encouraged. Instead it was frowned up. So, by default I became the black sheep. I revelled in it. Cause deep down I loved the fact that i knew where I stand with each person I had to deal with on a regular.

Max's, the reincarnation of Peter Proud, comes n my life where I am fed up with reading self help book, which have featured heavily in my life over the past 7 years or so. And I just needed a break. The main character has a somewhat of an identity crises. He remembers his last previous life, when he lived before his current life. Through vivid dreams, nightmares you can say. A sensory overload during his dream. Speaking out in a different voice entirely. Doctors can't help him. No one can.

He has to remember who he is again. All by himself. Piece together the dreams and make them make sense. Until he maps out how to get to that previous life and accomplish what he didn't do.

I feel this mirrors my life currently. I used to be a beast. Actually, I am a best. But I've forgotten who I was before the world told me who I should be. I think it was Charles Bukowksi who said these words. And to me too it applies. I need to fetch my life. Regain the glory. Get up,dust myself up. Get back all that was taken from me. And some.

If you've read this far. Thank you. Please kindly leave a comment or suggestion. Or a message via WhatsApp (South Africa: 068 406 8212). Thank you.

[dzpenumbra]

12/22/22

That's a lot of two's.

Today was pretty good. I woke up early because the upstairs neighbors were like right above me, I'm pretty sure they have a couch or a table there or something, I hear them clear as day right there most days. To be fair, it's usually like 11AM or later when I hear them, and they have to listen to my shower music probably, so whatever. It wasn't them that woke me up, actually, they just kept me from going back to sleep. Vivid dreams woke me up. Not bad ones either. But I haven't been logging them.

I miss logging my dreams, and I've had vivid dreams like every night since I've been here. Hmm... Maybe that's a new project I can jump into. Like I need a new project, I have like 20.

Hung out with kitty, started the day. I spent a good chunk of the day sanding stones, that was pretty cool. There was a sandstone-ish kinda piece, got that basically shaped... somewhat. And I found a rough piece of amethyst which I got started on, I'm really excited to finalize these amethysts, it's one of my favorites.

I made cinnamon rolls. Good call.

I called the doctors to get set up with a Primary Care. While eating an apple. And I'm blaming my long on-hold times on that, because it's funny. The soonest I could get an intake appointment was February 6th at 8:15AM. And that was a month and a half earlier than the branch a few blocks from my house. So... my plan is likely gonna be to pull an all-nighter and do that. After the intake appointment, she said I can transfer doctors over to the branch by my place. Gotta weed out the drug seekers somehow, I guess? I don't know, maybe they're short-staffed or something.

So yeah, once that's up and running and I have a doctor, I can talk to someone about this bacterial infection that I've had for over a year that didn't go away when I took two kinds of antibiotics. And request my ADHD screening, which is the primary reason why I'm doing all this. But I mean, it's good to have a Primary Care anyway, right? I haven't had one in... like 8 years or something? My Primary Care decided to move to upper management and literally just fucking dumped me. Like... no setting me up with another doctor, nothing. Just... swingin in the breeze. So... I've just... not had a doctor for almost 10 years. So, this is a change.

So yeah, good progress on work and life stuff. Did yoga, it was good again, becoming very routine. Gave myself a haircut. The person on r/ptsd thanked me for my comment yesterday and said they could really relate to what I was saying and they were really frustrated that they couldn't just smoke to relax and get away from their bullshit like apparently a lot of people can. I unloaded a few suggestions for them. That journaling pairs really well with weed (for me at least) as far as like... doing self-care work goes. Doing therapy work. But if you're looking to chill... well... doing that work can help you get more chillness in the future. But in the moment, it can be super intense. So... I recommended a few remedies to find chill now, while the weed/journaling combo goes to work trying to unravel those anxieties and bring a more general sense of ease.

It sucks, because I completely know why people fall into addiction coping mechanisms and all that. Distractions. Escapes. Like... good lord, in a lot of ways I'm jealous of people who can come home and just drink and their brain just turns off and they just... evade their demons. I know, I get there's a massive price to pay for it, which is the biggest reason why I can't really bring myself to even try anymore. But like... I don't think I can even get close to turning my feelings off. Even on herculean doses of prescribed Xanax I had emotional overwhelm. I remember pain pills came close when I experimented in college. Like I would feel super warm and cozy and curl up on the floor on pillows with a comforter over me and play Xbox, and the only emotion was like... stillness and relaxed. And that was nice, I can see why people would want that. But... like... you know you gotta go back, right? Right, addicts? You know you gotta go back sometime... You know you gotta leave the bar eventually. You know you're gonna come down. And I learned that shit super fucking young. Like 20. I was like... "oh this is a really nice vacation, but like... I gotta work on making my default setting closer to this." I wish it were that simple, but I really hope more people can get there in time, myself included obviously.

How the fuck did I get on drug addiction? Oh, the r/ptsd thing. Yeah, so it's weird... when a "drug" doesn't do for you what it does for people on TV. When it doesn't make you just get squinty eyed and giggly and wolfing down Cheetos. When it actually unlocks all your shit and makes you run through a 4 hour emotional/anxious obstacle course. Like a fucking Ayahuasca spirit journey. It makes other drugs start to look more appealing. But really, I think the big problem there is like... what the person needs is a good social network to work through those. The catharsis after the freakout can be phenomenally refreshing, especially when it's not a long freakout. It can be healing. I don't know, I don't feel really qualified to speak on this too deep, though I've done a great job breaking addictions and dependencies alone. But I let this person know that there's sort of a two pronged approach to dealing with trauma - in my current practices - engaging it with therapeutic work in a deliberate environment, and making time to take care of yourself and recover from emotional overwhelm and stuff. Self-work and self-care. Technically they're both self-care, but like... yeah. You kind have to use them at different times, in different mindsets. I have trouble articulating this kinda stuff without using examples, but I hope the gist is getting across. If you've had a shit day and are recovering from a flashback or something, go take a bath, go pamper yourself. If you're having a freakout and you don't know why, and have some extra emotional bandwidth to work with, give journaling a shot to try to unravel that a bit, make sense of it.

I'm done talking about that, I feel myself repeating over and over. I skipped skating today. I... went back and forth on it for a while. I'm not really sure why I tapped out. I just did. Maybe I'm feeling anxious, maybe I don't want to push myself too hard. I don't know. But I skipped. The rest of the night was a late shower, dinner, laundry and just watching Twitch. Which often feels like it's more stressful to watch than anything, I say that literally every time I get back into it. But it simulates social interaction, so it's a really alluring substitute for being around people. And coming to terms with not having social contact until like... the 28th I think? 29th maybe? That's a tough pill to swallow. Especially during the holidays. So. Yeah. Maybe I'll stream or something, I'll see, I've been tossing the idea around.

So yeah, I got some shit done which was cool. Now I'm gonna try to get to bed before 2:30, which would be cool. Let's see what tomorrow has in store, shall we?

[page-doctor-bekker]

Human Error (transfemme!sarah)

(A/N) this really doesn’t actually have anything to do with sarah being trans, it just takes place in the same universe. this is literally just an event that happened in this au written out so i can write about effects surrounding it without people being confused lol.

-

-

“Reese, we’re slammed, any chance you can take treatment four?” Maggie pointed at Sarah Reese, and then at the fourth treatment room. Sarah looked up from the computer, before grabbing her tablet and heading to the treatment room.

“Hi, Mr. Nearling? I’m Dr. Reese, what seems to be the issue today?” Sarah pushed for hand sanitizer, rubbing her already-dry hands together until the gel had absorbed.

“Trouble breathing…” The man took a few labored breaths, “Cold sweat… I’m shaking, I can’t breathe-”

“Okay, I see, when did this start? Does your chest hurt at all?”

“I… I had a big meeting today and it just happened suddenly. I guess it hurts a little bit.”

“Can I take a listen to your heart?” Sarah asked, already taking her stethoscope off of her neck. The man nodded, and she pressed the drum to his chest. His heart was racing.

He started talking fast, “Are you going to be able to give me a doctor’s note? I’m going to lose my job…” He started breathing faster.

“Has this ever happened before?” Sarah asked, lifting the stethoscope from the man’s chest, “Any history of anxiety or panic disorders?”

“Never like this,” He choked up and coughed a bit, “But, I had social anxiety as a kid.”

“Do you have any family history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure? Do you smoke, drink?”

“No, none of that,” The man waved his hands, “I’m a healthy guy. A vegetarian, everything- everything is fine! I’m perfect, I can’t-”

“Mr. Nearling-” He was hyperventilating, and Sarah grabbed one of his hands, “Mr. Nearling, I think you’re having an anxiety attack,” Dr. Reese let go of his hand, and hung her stethoscope back around her neck, and tapped on her iPad, “I’m going to give you something to calm you down, then we can talk about coping strategies and I will refer you to outpatient psychiatry to continue care. April, push 1.5 milligrams of Ativan.”

April pushed the medication through the patient’s IV line, and Dr. Reese pulled up a round, spinning stool to the bed and sat down. April nodded at the doctor, and left the room, pulling the curtain shut.

Mr. Nearling calmed down noticeably, which Dr. Reese took as a success - Panic attack subsided. Dr. Reese smiled, “It’s normal to have some residual physical symptoms, mild tightness, shortness of breath, but as the medication works you’ll calm down more and more. Have you ever had a panic attack before?”

Mr. Nearling shrugged, “Maybe? I’ve never gone to the hospital for it.”

“After a severe panic attack you may have more panic attacks in the coming days or weeks, so I’m going to call in a mild benzodiazepine in case you need a bit of help,” Dr. Reese typed that into the tablet, “When you feel the anxiety and panic start up, you definitely want to try coping mechanisms before you take medication for it. The medication is just for if those coping mechanisms don’t work, which sometimes happens and is to be expected every once in a while.”

Mr. Nearling nodded, taking a deep breath. It was shaky going out, but residual anxiety can do that.

“So, a good first step, whenever you’re having a panic attack, is to recognize that you’re having a panic attack. If it doesn’t work to say it in your head, say it out loud,” Dr. Reese tapped the tablet against her leg with each coming syllable for emphasis, “I am having a panic attack.”

“I am having a panic attack.”

And just like that, it was no longer a panic attack. Mr. Nearling went limp, and the monitors started going crazy. Dr. Reese held two fingers to the man’s neck, and yelled out, “I need a crash cart!”

Everything moved fast after that. Sarah was pushed out of the way by two ED doctors, who started barking out orders.

“He’s in cardiac arrest, page CT. Reese, get on his chest-”

Sarah could feel blood pounding in her ears, and she clasped one hand over the other and started humming. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive… No matter how much CPR she performed, she still needed the song to keep her on beat.

“-Milligram of Epi.”

Ah, ha, ha, ha…

“Hold compressions,” Dr. Choi barked, holding two fingers to the man’s neck, “Clear!”

The man’s chest lurched as he was shocked, and Sarah’s heart jumped into her throat. Dr. Choi held his fingers back to the man’s neck, “Another milligram of Epi. Charge to 200.”

Sarah resumed compressions. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’...

“Clear!”

Sarah held her hands up, shaking. This never got easier.

“Asystole,” April sighed out, preparing another milligram of Epi. She knew exactly what Dr. Choi was going to ask for next.

“Another milligram of Epi.”

Sarah reached to resume compressions, but Dr. Choi swatted her hands out of the way and did CPR himself. Dr. Choi did it slightly faster than Sarah did. He knew the man was dead.

Sarah squeezed her clammy hands together, shaking like a leaf.

Dr. Bekker rushed in almost immediately after Dr. Choi stopped compressions, and was floored when Choi called time of death.

“Alright, why wasn’t this patient taken to the cath lab as soon as his heart attack was diagnosed?” Ava’s tone was stone cold.

Everyone looked at Sarah.

“He uh… He presented with…” She cleared her throat, “With shortness of breath, mild chest pain, cold sweat, shakiness, and extreme anxiety as well as a positive history for social anxiety. He did not-” She cracked her knuckles, “Um… He also displayed signs of work-related stress and no- Uh, no risk factors for heart attack. I determined he was having a panic attack and ordered 1.5 milligrams of Ativan and started talking about coping strategies with him.”

“Whenever a patient shows up with chest pains they should receive a FULL cardiac workup REGARDLESS of history and risk factors,” Dr. Bekker took a step towards Sarah, and grew louder, “If YOU were in the emergency room with CHEST PAIN, would you be anxious?!”

“I- uh-”

“You did NOTHING you should have. ANXIETY is NOT a contraindication for a heart attack, and now this man is dead. Leaving him to die in the waiting room would be more effective,” She spat out, her tone venomous, “Psych residents, I swear. God, isn’t anyone in this hospital competent?”

Sarah was out of the room before she even knew she was moving. Her feet dragged her away and her heart was practically leaping out of her chest. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she started chewing on her tongue to avoid letting them go. She clenched her fists as Dr. Charles called her name.

“Dr. Reese! I was paged to the ED, something about you?”

“I need to use the bathroom,” She pushed past him, and he grabbed her arm.

“Sarah,” He whispered, “Go sit in my office when you’re done. I’m going to finish rounds. We’ll talk when I’m done,” He started to walk away, before turning around, “You’re not in trouble, Sarah, I just want to understand what happened.”

Sarah pushed open the swinging door to the women’s bathroom, bolted into the nearest stall and slammed the door shut. She sat down and started sobbing.

I’m in love with her.

She choked on her own snot, and ripped off a piece of toilet paper to blow her nose.

I’m in love with her, and she hates me.

She let out a wail.

i’m in love with her, she hates me, and I failed her.

The bathroom door opened.

“Sarah?”

Sarah held her breath, pulled her knees up to her chest to avoid making any noise.

“I don’t think she’s in here,” Sarah heard April, a gentle voice amongst the madness.

Sarah heard a pager beep.

“Ugh, I have a heart transplant. Whatever, send a note to Dr. Charles and let him know I was looking for her.”

She wants to yell at me some more. She wants to hurt me. She somehow knows about me and I’m going to get fired. I’m going to get fired and be all alone. She knows about me and she’s going to hurt me and I’m going to get fired.

They left, and Sarah let out her breath and let her feet fall to the floor. She blew her nose again, and took a deep, shaking breath. She stood up, and leaned her forehead against the stall door. She took her hair down from it’s low ponytail, and shook it out. She grabbed a piece of her hair and started absentmindedly braiding it - an old anxious habit.

A few minutes and three braids later, she opened the stall door and stared into the mirror in front of her. She wiped away her tears, approached the sink, and splashed water on her face, soaking one of her messy braids in the process. She dried with a thin paper towel, took another shaky, deep breath. She grabbed a helping of hand sanitizer on her way out of the bathroom. Force of habit. Even leaving her bedroom at home she sometimes tries to push the sanitizer button, even though it isn’t there.

Sarah practically ran to Dr. Charles’s office, hurriedly taking her braids out and running her hands through her tangled hair.

She unlocked Dr. Charles’s office door with her key, and closed the door behind her. She did not turn the lights on. Instead, she made a beeline for the couch. There was a throw blanket stored under one of the cushions, and she pulled it over her after grabbing it. She covered her face with a pillow, and screamed into it.

“Sarah?”

She forcefully uncovered her face, before relaxing once she saw it was just Daniel.

“Sarah,” He inquired, sitting down at his desk, “What happened today?”

Sarah sniffled, “I misdiagnosed a heart attack as a panic attack,” She choked out, “Mid-30s male presenting with shortness of breath, mild chest pain, cold sweat, anxiety, healthy weight, vegetarian, panicking with a history of social anxiety, currently experiencing work-related stress, no family history of heart disease, nothing.”

Dr. Charles sighed, “Common mistake. Hardly something to have a-”

“He died, Dr. Charles,” She cried, “He’s dead.”

Dr. Charles’s face hardened, “I see,” He faltered.

“And- And Ava, God, Ava…” She pressed her hand to her forehead, “She yelled at me in the middle of the ED, and she said I was incompetent and-” She choked out a sob, “She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Sarah,” Dr. Charles’s tone softened, “She’s just… She’s just angry. She won’t be angry forever.”

“I just really messed up today,” Sarah swiped her tears away with trembling hands.

“You did,” Dr. Charles agreed, “You did mess up today, but-”

“I’m going to get sued-”

“Sarah.”

“I’m going to lose my residency and I don’t have a fallback plan, I’m in so much debt and so much trouble-”

“Sarah, you’re not going to lose your residency,” Dr. Charles yelled, and Sarah fell silent. He took a deep breath, “I’m sorry for yelling at you, but you’re not going to lose your residency. Every single doctor has a misdiagnosis in their career, it’s just part of the job.”

“But he died. And it’s my fault.”

“Sarah, you are going to lose patients. And sometimes it’s going to be your fault,” He reasoned, “You’re a good doctor, Sarah, you’re a good doctor who made a mistake. You want to know what happened during my residency? I diagnosed a teenage girl experiencing vomiting and lack of appetite with bulimia,” He raised his eyebrows at Sarah, “She died of malnutrition. Autopsy showed she had ulcers all along her digestive tract,” He shrugged, “She was in too much pain to eat! But all I saw was a sickly thin teenage girl that was vomiting and couldn’t eat.”

Sarah stayed quiet.

“The point is, things happen. Death happens. Sometimes, conditions disguise as one another. Medicine is hardly ever an exact science,” Dr. Charles pointed out, “Human error is expected, you’re not going to get fired, and you’re probably not going to get sued. Mr. Nearling presented with no typical risk factors of a heart attack, and all the typical risk factors and symptoms of a panic attack. Did you purposefully ignore Mr. Nearling’s heart attack?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Boom,” Dr. Charles threw his hands up in front of him, “You had no malicious intent. You made a mistake, a common mistake, on a patient that didn’t present typically, and it had consequences.”

Sarah nodded.

Dr. Charles sighed, and looked at Sarah with a look of sympathy, “And now it will never happen again, right?”

She nodded.

“You’re going to take complaints with these symptoms more seriously?”

She nodded.

“You’re not a bad doctor, Sarah, you’re just a human,” He said, “In med school they always teach you what someone who has a heart attack looks like, just like they taught me what someone who has an eating disorder looks like. You just have to learn to get past that phenotype and look deeper.”

Sarah stayed quiet.

“Look... This is hard. I get it,” Dr. Charles sighed, “Just... go home, Sarah. Take a breather.”

“What?”

“Go home. Come back in a few days. Take a break.”

“Yes sir,” She said, quietly, before standing up to leave.

-

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(A/N) thanks for reading :) i’m going to build on this at some point and write a follow-up to this one shot. hope you enjoyed! this is a foundation for the parts i want to write, so it doesn’t have too much about sarah’s actual transition. i am so sorry for making ava be mean :(( EDIT: If you liked this, check this out bc I am continuing it!

[astraeagreengrass]

this is me trying [the woods 3/4]

You make a decision and Steve takes a chance

Word Count: 4.848

Warnings: angst, mentions of sickness, mentions of death and death-related themes, alcohol, curse words

A/N: This chapter is filled with Taylor Swift references - I would love to know which ones you guys find and what are your expectations for the final part of this story! Many thanks to the beautiful @xbuchananbarnes​ for your help with this one. The banner picture was found here. Dividers are from @writeyourmindaway​. I hope you like it ♡

pulled the car off the road to the lookout could've followed my fears all the way down and maybe i don't quite know what to say but i'm here in your doorway i just wanted you to know that this is me trying

There is a place in Pennsylvania, a few miles past the old Swift Christmas Tree Farm, where a careful rider might notice a path off the side of the highway. If he chooses to follow this gravel road, he’ll find himself flanked by Eastern Hemlocks and Red Cedars, whose branches tangle together and the leaves whisper secrets like sisters do. “She’s here”, they’ll say. “She’s home”. At the end of this lane, the rider will encounter a house, and a gale will blow in the heart of the woods, announcing the good news to all of the forest: their child was home.

Steve turned off his motorcycle. When the rumble quieted, you heard some Blue Jays singing in the distance. Your lower back complained when you stretched, yet your boyfriend appeared completely unperturbed by the long ride.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, gaze circling the clearing, going from the house made of stone and wood to the trees surrounding it.

The door opened and an older woman skipped down the porch steps. You’d seen her a mere three weeks ago, yet your grandmother somehow looked older, more fragile. The disease was taking its toll on her body, causing her to be out of breath when she hugged you.

“You’re not supposed to run, grandma,” you chidded. She was shorter than you, shoulders slumped by age and illness, but you still hid your face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the gentle scent of home and family.

“Can you at least say hello before you start scolding me?” she replied, wrinkled hands grabbing each side of your face, as if to assess any damage. “Being in love suits you, darling. You look beautiful!”

You flustered, lips opening up in a perfect, embarrassed pout, but she was unfazed, shifting her attention to the other guest.

“You must be Steve!”, she beamed. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

Your grandmother kissed both of Steve’s cheeks, leaving him stunned.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Y/L/N,” he cleared his throat, a soft pink blush crawling up his cheeks.

“Oh, no!” she dismissed him. “Please call me Meredith. Now, come inside. You must be tired from the journey.”

She waved you into the house, up the rickety wooden stairs and past the veranda whose railings you used to perch on to catch raindrops with your tongue.

“I’m so happy you could join us for Thanksgiving, Steve,” Meredith said as the three of you crossed the threshold. “Did you know it’s Y/N’s favorite holiday?”

“Grandma!” you reprimanded.

“What?” she raised her eyebrows, feigning innocence.

You raised your own, a silent warning for her not to at least wait until dinner to start with the embarrassing stories. Thankfully, he was oblivious to the quiet exchange.

The house reminded Steve of a cabin he stayed with his ma in upstate New York for a few months when he was eight, after a doctor suggested that the mountain air might be good for his lungs. He remembered the whistle of a train, it's red wagons gleaming brightly under the spring light, and the way it sped through fields and forests, almost to the beat of his racing heart. He remembered the smell of grass and the buzz of the cicadas singing in the late afternoon. He remembered going back to the city after his birthday and telling Bucky that the woods were magical.

The memories flowed through his bloodstream as he entered your home. The front door revealed a small living room that someone - that undoubtedly looked a lot like Tony Stark - might call cramped, but Steve thought it was cozy. Knit blankets were thrown over a cream-colored couch sitting opposite a built-in-the-wall fireplace. Across from the entrance, a large window overlooked a glittering pond and, behind the couch, there was a bookshelf overflowing with volumes, portraits and trinkets. A staircase, which he supposed was as rickety as the one outside, led to the second floor.

"You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Y/L/N," he complimented, in a voice that sounded somewhat distant to his ears, as though muffled by nostalgia.

"Meredith!" your grandmother corrected him, clearly pleased by the compliment. "And thank you! My husband and I moved here in the 1990's after he retired from the Military. We did some renovations back then, and I suppose it's time I do it again, but oh well..."

She trailed off, fast feet scurrying to the kitchen in a silent order for you to follow her, yet Steve turned to you:

"Your grandfather was in the Army?"

"Yep. My dad, too," you said, avoiding his gaze.

"You never told me that," he pointed out.

You sighed: "I know."

"Why?"

His hands went to his waist, in that defensive stance you knew all too well, and his jawline clenched in frustration.

Your phone buzzed in your back pocket, saving you from answering - at least for now.

"It's Fury," you showed him the screen. "I have to take this."

You turned, bolting outside before Steve could protest.

He exhaled, rubbing his eyes furiously. Hearing the soft tinkling of glasses coming from the kitchen, he trailed your grandmother's footsteps.

"Would you like some sweet tea, Steve?" she smiled.

He nodded, thanking her as he took the glass. Meredith groaned as she sat at the dinner table and Steve's heart squeezed in his chest. Theoretically, the woman was younger than he was, yet their bodies - and their lives - were many decades apart.

"She didn't tell you about them, did she?" Meredith asked, contemplating him with eyes just like yours.

Steve shook his head.

"Please, don't be mad at her. It's a hard subject for Y/N," the woman said. "Would you get that picture frame for me, please?"

With a bony finger, Meredith pointed at a double portrait sitting at the countertop: Both pictures showed young men in military garb, but one was noticeably older than the other, in black and white with sepia coloring the edges.

"John and Michael," she said, cradling the portrait as one would an infant. "John and I met in Japan. My father was a veteran from the Pacific, and in the late 50’s the Navy stationed him in Okinawa. So, long story short, I was this rebellious daughter of a high-ranking officer who wanted nothing to do with wars and the military and John was a good boy from Pensylvannia drafted to fight in Vietnam. Still, we fell in love, eloped and I moved to Philly while pregnant with Michael, but John only joined us in 1972.”

“Wow,” Steve smiled genuinely. “That’s incredible.”

“It is,” Meredith nodded. “And he was an incredible man. Earned all the medals he was honored with. He made it to Sergeant Major, you know? But when Michael made the decision to join S.H.I.E.L.D, John retired.”

"Y/N’s father was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent?" Steve gaped.

Meredith pursed her lips.

"My husband was a righteous man. He believed his institutions and he loved them. And Michael, like everyone that knew John, admired his father and his career. So, like any boy in his position, Michael enlisted. But he was different… I think he liked the thrill, the adrenaline rush that came with the danger.

"I'm not entirely sure how or when he joined S.H.I.E.L.D., but one evening he left Y/N on our doorstep, saying that it would be best for her if she stayed with us from then on," she continued. "He visited very little after that."

Despite the brisk autumn weather, Steve's glass of sweet tea was wet with perspiration, as if the tales he'd just heard were so alive in this house they could manifest themselves in the air, in an introduction to the absent characters.

"What happened then?" he asked, unsure if he wanted an answer.

“Well," Meredith sighed. "The official report said an IED hit his convoy in Iraq, but shortly before he left Michael said he was going to Northern Europe, so…”

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered.

"I know," your grandmother said, and she meant it. If anyone could share her pain of losing too much to the military, it was Steve Rogers. "I know you do."

She slid her forearm across the table and squeezed his hand gently. There was so much kindness in her gaze that Steve nearly cried.

"It's not my place to meddle in your relationship," she said. "You're both adults. But please be careful with my granddaughter, Steve. She has a lot of love to give, she just doesn't know that."

Behind Meredith's frame, her bright yellow headscarf catching the light coming through the open window, Steve could see you pacing back and forth in the lawn with your phone in your ear. Tiny specks of dust glinted where the luminesce was brighter and in his mind they were the pieces of your puzzle, coming together for him like a gift from the extraordinary place you called home. He always thought you belonged at the Triskelion, sitting behind a computer or looking down at a tablet, cracking digital enigmas as fast as he could draw his next breath, but what a lovely mistake this was.

Maybe he was high on the sugar from the sweet tea, or maybe he just desperately wanted a piece of the love your grandmother told him about, but Steve thought about black holes - those wondrous forces of nature he learned about on TV a few weeks ago while cuddling you on the couch. Like a black hole, your gravity was so strong that nothing - not the grass, not the leaves, not a single fiber of Steve Roger's being - could escape your hold.

The woods were a small universe, and you were it's center.

The last of the boxes was emptied on Christmas Day.

It had snowed in the evening, leaving a light dust of white covering the grounds outside. If the temperature kept on lowering, the pond might freeze by January. When you opened the final cardboard package and found your old ice skates, you thought you should fix the rusted blades in case that happened. Or perhaps not. You were never the most skilled skater and there was no else here to drive you to the ER in case you broke your arm - it wouldn't be the first time.

For years, the house in the woods sat quiet - some during which the three-hour journey proved perfect for your grief to turn the car around and give up visiting and others when you were declared as dead as your ancestors. It was in urgent need of repairs, filled with the belongings you packed after your grandmother’s passing, but never found the courage to give away. But the heat was working. That would be enough for now.

"Are you sure you're going back there?" your cousin asked as you finished loading the car with your things. There wasn't much - your furniture was sold with the apartment and most of your clothes were moth-eaten and frayed from their long stint at a cramped storage unit.

"I've taken up your space for too long," you said. Olivia was your cousin from your mother's side, and like everyone from that part of your family, you shared little to none connection. You'd gone to her out of desperation, because you'd rather stay with your far-flung cousin after returning from the dead than with your not-so-ex-boyfriend who left you two - or was it seven? - years prior and you were extraordinarily glad she took you in. But like it always happened with your mother's family, it became too much, too soon. "Besides, it's time for me to move on."

Olivia hugged you before you drove away and it was stiff and awkward. You wouldn't miss her and you were sure she wouldn't either.

You programmed the GPS on your phone, but somewhere past Newark, you realized with a start that you were always one step ahead of it. It was like the way home was ingrained in your heart, despite the new buildings and the fresh pavement. It went beyond street lights and stop signs, following a map made of veins and arteries, rather than just paper and ink.

Rain started pouring heavily when you reached Reading and you nearly missed the gravel road off the side of the highway, but it was there, as unperturbed as the forest encircling it. As a child, you'd give them names and personalities, and dream up conversations they'd have with each other - Betty and Inez, the Hemlock twins; James, the Red Cedar; sweet Rebekah, the Sugar Maple. It felt stupid, but you wondered if they'd left too, like you did. If when the snap came, their soul was dusted from the bark, leaving nothing but trunk and root.

"No," you muttered to yourself. They'd stayed. They'd stayed and guarded the woods.

The first three days were daunting. You'd sleep until noon and spend the rest of the afternoon trying to book tickets to wherever in the world you thought would be the perfect place to start over, but something invisible always held you back from actually buying. On the fourth day, you emailed the lawyer, asking about the possibility of putting the house for sale. On the fifth day, while rearranging the boxes, you tripped and they fell, spilling hundreds of pictures on the timbered floor.

When you bent down to collect them, the first face you noticed was your father. He had a wide, carefree smile as he gently held you standing on a chair. You were looking down at a cake, where a big candle shaped like a "3" was lit up. You tiny hands were clapping, and your father looked at you with all the love in the world.

You never doubted his love as a child. You just didn't understand why he wouldn't visit often or why he couldn't have a job like the other kids' dads - a job that kept him close so he could tell you that he loved you, instead of whispering it in a forehead kiss every few months. As an adult, you still didn't doubt it - but you knew that he loved his job more. Still, seeing the affection so clear on his face was comforting.

An older, gray-haired, version of your father smiled in another picture - your grandfather. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a blue cap, and he held you on your shoulders. You remembered that it terrified you to swing in the air as he lifted you, but the moment he placed you on his back, you relaxed.

“Don’t ever let me fall, grandpa,” you’d beg, little hand clasped tightly around his.

"Never, sweet pea," he'd promise.

Behind the photograph, your grandmother had written: "John and Y/N. Summer, 1994".

She was notably absent from most of the pictures, you noticed. They must’ve been taken around the time she became interested in photography, and would spend hours experimenting with a Kodak she got at the flea market. You, on the other hand, was the perfect model - posing at the swing, by the pond, with your legs crossed in the big armchair, always smiling, always happy.

You didn’t remember this particular box from when you organized the house after her death. The photographs must’ve been stored away for nearly a decade, judging by the dust that covered them. There were albums, as well - Y/N’s first birthday, Y/N’s first school day, Y/N’s first trip to the beach - but the amount of pictures was so abundant that most were kept loose.

Dusk came and went, and, on the dawn of the sixth day, you made the decision to unpack the house.

You started with the kitchen - crystal glasses, the porcelain dish set your grandparents got as a marriage present and the beautiful Portuguese pottery. The living room came next with the books, portraits and an elaborate scheme to clean the hearth of the fireplace that you immediately regretted. You moved the furniture around the upper floor to the point you thought the ceiling might collapse, but eventually you managed to turn the mattress and push the queen bed to the window side of the master bedroom.

And when you found your old ice skates, tangled with an ancient string of Christmas light, you decided to hang them in the mantelpiece. Some of the tiny light bulbs were burnt or broken, bathing the room in a messy, uneven golden glow.

Like you, you thought. Damaged, but perhaps you could still shine again.

During the time you spent tidying up the house, you tried your best to ignore the nagging sensation that maybe this was a mistake. That wistfulness shouldn’t grow roots and boxes should stay closed, just like the dead stay dead. But you hadn’t. And when your fists crushed the last piece of cardboard, you wept. Not because you were haunted, but because you were wrong. You thought returning home would be haunting, that you would see your grandparents at every nook and corner, but you were mistaken. The creak of the wooden steps, the marks on the door frame for every inch you grew, the soft slope of the book bindings in the shelf - all of it brought back only the most generous memories of your childhood, and you basked in the newfound revelation that they were filled with a love so strong and abundant that it drowned even loud noise of absence.

You missed your grandparents, almost to the point of desperation, but there was a fondness in your grief now, because you were finally safe, in the home they built for you.

With the realization, came the decision. So in the space between Christmas and the New Years, you made three phone calls:

One for a therapist’s office in Reading, scheduling an appointment for the second week of January.

One for the bank in Switzerland where you'd wired all the money you made in your profitable years at S.H.I.E.L.D.

And one for a contractor, who, after much cajoling and the promise of advanced payment, agreed to start your renovations in early 2024.

Despite the state-of-the-art acoustics of Stark Tower, Tony’s buoyant countdown to the New Year was drowned out by the large crowd gathered outside, waiting for the Times Square’s ball drop.

The excited cheers rattled the bullet proof glass of the windows and the comforting press of Steve’s palm on your lower back tightened as the seconds closed in on midnight. Gentle finger - too gentle for a soldier - took your chin, angling your head towards his. Your hands wrapped around his shoulder, mindful of the crystal flute halfway filled with bubbly champagne.

“Happy New Year, sweetheart,” he whispered right before he kissed you. It was slow, just the calm press of his lips and easy flicks of his tongue, the sweet lingering taste of Asgardian mead. A hand cradled the back of your head and you sighed, pushing your body further into his.

And like a firework show, it burned too fast, too brightly - sparkling in the starless night before fading away in thunderous applause.

“For a man who saved the world, you look awfully glum.”

Steve let out a dry laugh.

“How should I look, then?” he asked before taking a swig of his beer. He was well into his fourth bottle, but it wasn’t like the alcohol had any effect on him.

“Less miserable, maybe?” Bucky shrugged, plopping down next to Steve on the couch. He raised his own beer bottle: “I can’t believe how fast the refrigerator worked!”

“You spent two years in Wakanda, Buck. Modern technology shouldn't surprise you as much."

“I spent two years in Wakanda in a hut," Bucky retorted. "Besides, for all the greatness of hovercrafts and magnetic shields, there's just something so fantastic about chilling a beer in half an hour..."

“I can’t wait for when you finally master the art of the microwave,” Steve snickered.

“They’re confusing, ok?” Bucky grumbled.

They settled in comfortable silence, watching a blonde popstar perform at the New Year's Eve concert in Times Square. She was halfway through a beautiful rendition of Robbie Williams’ Angels when Bucky spoke again.

"Did you call her?" he asked. "Your girl?"

Steve hadn't told Bucky about you, but he knew. He'd seen you at Natasha's memorial service and he noticed the way his best friend got home afterwards, as well as his sullen mood in the weeks that followed.

In their youth, Steve always mocked Bucky's easy infatuations. "You can't live out of love affairs, Buck," he'd say and Bucky would roll his eyes. He lived for the hot rush of blood flushing his skin in the dark, hot corners of a speakeasy as lips trickled his ear or fingernails scratched his scalp. He longed for the soft brush of fingers circling a wrist or the bump of noses before hungry mouths met. And in his juvenile ignorance, Bucky thought his life would be too short to just no have them all - so he had them.

When the war came, Bucky believed Steve had found his match with Peggy. They were complimentary in every way - both righteous, stubborn, never backing down from a fight. And what a fight it was - so grand, so terrible, so cold. There was no room for love or heartbreak those days, only combat. Steve and Peggy's courtship was a promise, meant for better times - but they never really came.

The friend Bucky encountered in 2016 was different - still tenacious and daring, but almost to the point of recklessness. Steve wasn't satisfied in snuffing out the fires, he ignited them now. Their experiences awakening in this new world were much different, but Bucky supposed they were the same kind of nearly maddening decipherment. Besides, he may have his doubts about himself, but not about Steve Rogers.

Bucky Barnes knew a broken heart when he saw one.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about her," Steve muttered.

"You don't have to apologize," Bucky said. "I am curious, though. Sam wouldn't tell me anything."

Steve chuckled.

"Of course not. Her name is Y/N,," he started. "We met when I went to work at S.H.I.E.L.D. She was an intelligence agent, so we were always working together and… She is so smart, funny, kind and beautiful, Buck. Everyone was walking on eggshells around me, meanwhile she was giving me shit for not knowing who Beyoncé was."

"Who's Beyoncé?" Bucky asked.

"The greatest performer in the world," Steve stated. "Anyway, we became friends and after a few months, I asked her if she wanted to go on a date."

"You did?" Bucky gasped.

"I was a mess," Steve groaned. "You would've given me so much shit about it. But she said yes! And then we had a second date, a third date, a fourth date… She was the one that found out about you."

"She did?"

Steve nodded, tearing the wet label of his beer.

"She uncovered Hydra's plot inside S.H.I.E.L.D. - Pierce, Project Insight, you. After the fallout, Fury managed to take most of the blame, if you can even call it that, but she still had to testify before Congress. They treated her like some kind of criminal. By then I was already back in New York, living in the Tower, working with the Avengers again. Tony was really impressed with her work so we offered her a job."

"And did she say yes?" Bucky asked.

"She wanted to go to school, learn something new. Find another trade, any trade that didn't involve secrets and conspiracies, but I begged her to accept the position. And not for the right reasons."

"What do you mean?"

"Y/N was - is - incredibly resourceful. And I wanted to find you, find Loki's scepter, punch bad guys, save the world. I wanted to be a superhero and I knew that with her I could. I felt secure in her abilities and secure in her affections. She was my safe zone, but I don’t think I was hers - or at least I don’t think I let her know that. We weren't perfect but we were fine, I think, until the Accords happened. She wasn’t a signatary, but she agreed with Tony and Natasha and that felt like the worst kind of betrayal. The night before Peggy’s funeral we had a massive fight. I called her a coward, said…” Steve hesitated.

“Said what?” Bucky coaxed.

Steve exhaled heavily. “I said that Peggy would’ve never done that to me.”

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky sighed, running a hand through his newly cut hair. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” Steve said, but acknowledging it after all was said and done was useless. “I left for London that night without saying goodbye. And then… Everything happened.”

“Did you contact her at all while you were away?” Bucky asked.

Steve didn’t reply, but the answer was clear in his quietude. "Sometimes silence is louder than sound," you used to say. He finished off his beer, dropping the empty bottles on the coffee table with a thud.

“When Vision was attacked in Edinburgh and we brought him to the Compound I actually thought I’d see her there, you know?” he confessed. “Like it was all a bad dream and I’d find her waiting for me like she always did. But the computers were turned off, the jacked she kept on the back of her chair was gone. It was like she was never there.”

He continued: “So I went to her apartment - our apartment - and I couldn’t even look her in the eye. I was the coward, not her, never her. I was the worst kind of bastard, showing up unannounced after vanishing for years, as if I had a right to any of her answers…”

His breath hitched and Steve rubbed his eyes furiously. Bucky put his own beer down and pat his friend on the back.

“You couldn’t have known what would happen next, Steve,” he said. “That is not a guilt you should carry.”

“I can’t erase the image of her sitting in that hospital bed, Buck,” Steve croaked. “She was so lost and scared. I keep thinking that, even if everything was the same - Thanos, the snap, those five fucking pathetic years - if I’d just been braver, we’d be together now. The worst part of everything is that I let her think she meant nothing to me.”

“Where is she now?”

“At her childhood home in Pennsylvania. After Nat's funeral, she told me she needed to figure out what to do with her life, but she'd let me know once she decided,” Steve said. “Somehow I don’t think her plans include me.”

Bucky sighed.

“So you’re just going to quit?”

Steve frowned. “Quit?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “After everything, is this how the two of you will end?"

Steve opened his mouth, then paused. Bucky thought he looked like a big blonde dumb fish flapping in the wooden Red Hook docs he used to work at.

"I don't… Know?," he muttered hesitatingly.

"Clearly," Bucky snorted. "Pal, the guy I used to be is long gone. Hell, I might be the worst person to give out advice, but if you ask me, it sounds pretty stupid to sit here sulking while the only girl who's ever loved you for who you are is out there making plans that may or may not include you."

Steve perked up.

"You think I should go after her?"

"I think you should try," Bucky said. "First you left her, and then she Snapped. Her mind must be a mess! She has every reason to be confused, sad and especially angry, but you need to let her know that she's not alone."

Steve understood then: why it took so long for you to share your secrets and open your heart. Why you hated when he left for missions and the smallest of his wounds made you cry. Why you'd sometimes cling to him in the middle of the night.

"Don't leave me alone, Stevie," you begged once after your screams startled him conscious and he had to shake you awake from your nightmare.

"Never, sweetheart," he promised. But he failed you.

He craned his head, gaze finding his motorcycle keys hanging next to the door. If the snow wasn't too heavy, he could be in Pennsylvania in less than three hours.

"Please be careful with my granddaughter, Steve."

"Maybe wait until morning?" Bucky suggested, noticing where Steve's eyes had landed. "I'm presuming girls still like their beauty sleep, so maybe show up at her door at a reasonable hour?"

Steve laughed then, a real laugh.

"How did I spend eighty years without you, Buck?"

Bucky smiled.

"Trust me, pal. I have no idea."

[nakediconoclast]

Rolling Stone 'Horse Dewormer' Hit-Piece Debunked After Hospital Says No Ivermectin Overdoses

After Joe Rogan announced that he'd kicked Covid in just a few days using a cocktail of drugs, including Ivermectin - an anti-parasitic prescribed for humans for over 35 years, with over 4 billion doses administered (and most recently as a Covid-19 treatment), the left quickly started mocking Rogan for having taken a 'horse dewormer' due to its dual use in livestock.

Rolling Stone's Jon Blistein led the charge:

On Friday, Rolling Stone's Peter Wade took another stab - publishing a hit piece claiming that Oklahoma ERs were overflowing with people 'overdosing on horse dewormer.'

It was suspect from the beginning.

The report, sourced to local Oaklahoma outlet KFOR's Katelyn Ogle, cites Oklahoma ER doctor Dr. Jason McElyea - who claimed that people overdosing on ivermectin horse dewormer are causing emergency rooms to be "so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting" access to health facilities.

As people take the drug, McElyea said patients have arrived at hospitals with negative reactions like nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, and cramping — or even loss of sight.“The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss,” the doctor said. -Rolling Stone

Except, the article provided zero evidence for McElyea's claims, causing people to start asking questions.

Good stock photo though: gun shot victims standing in line at the hospital while wearing winter coates in August. Total horse shit.

And while neither KFOR or Rolling Stone mention the hospital McElyea worked for, NHS Sequoyah, located in Sallisaw, Oklahoma - just issued a statement disavowing McElyea's claims, which pops up when you visit their website.

It reads:

Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room.

With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months.

NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose.

All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care.

We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.

What about the rest of the state?

According to Scott Schaeffer, managing director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information, "Since the beginning of May, we’ve received reports of 11 people being exposed to ivermectin," he told the NY Daily News (which still pushed the 'ivermectin overdoses' story despite this fact).

Meanwhile, this horseshit story has also been picked up by the far-left Business Insider and The Independent, as well as The Guardian, among other notable outlets.

Nobody even bothered to call the hospital where this guy claims to work. https://t.co/rCbgcvOoOa pic.twitter.com/wXjncinhQX

If Rolling Stone had only called the hospital to verify. Shocking.

And of course, the story was breathlessly parroted

McElyea is also listed as working at Integris Grove Hospital in Grove, OK as a general family practitioner - not in the ER. A phone call to them provided no insight as to any ivermectin overdoses, however the gentleman who answered the phone sounded quite amused. What's more, Grove, OK - with a population of 7,129, had just 14 aggravated assaults in all of 2019 according to the FBI's latest data. We somehow doubt that 'gunshot victims were lining up outside the ER,' while just 11 ivermectin related hospital cases have been reported in the entire state since the beginning of May

[mngjstj]

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[loudsuitlover]

Hii hope you are doing good could you write a thing about harry proposing to indie?

Hi! Thank you to this lovely anon for sending this. Today was the second worst day of my life and this was the only thing that kept me from goind absolutely crazy. I hope it’s not terrible. 

He had known way before he had said anything to her and he had never thought about marriage before meeting her. As a matter of fact, if he had thought of anything related to marriage, he had just thought about how he did not want to marry for all he knew about marriage was how wrong it could go and he did not want that. But then…

He would say it was that day he stared at her as she stood on the seashore on her bikini watching the waves and this little, tiny toddler mistook her for his mother and he held her hand and she looked down at him and he panicked and removed his hand immediately but Blue laughed and then she said “I’m pretty sure your mommy’s there” as she pointed at a woman that was chuckling and staring at the little boy. And then she had come back to their towel where Harry was sitting down and she had asked “did you see that?” and he said “yeah” and in that moment he knew she wasn’t a mommy then but she’d be one day and that little toddler would be his too then.

So ever since then, whenever she brought him a cup of coffee to the office or whenever he told anyone at work that doctor Anderson was his girlfriend, he thought to himself that she was so much more than that and ever since then too, the word wife had a different meaning entirely. For his wife would be her and his wife would make custard for family dinners because she didn’t like flour she’d say, and his wife would devour pancakes anyway. And his wife would like white flowers like daisies but she would grow roses on the garden and she would listen to Spanish rock and drink her tea with a bit of milk. And she would get him way too many presents for Christmas and she would think of his as too many too and she would do all the things she did then- like never being late to work and never doing the dishes right after eating like he liked to- only being his wife.

And he would be her husband and people would ask him where’s Blue? Is she coming? Because they would know he knows because he would be her husband and he would know those things. And he will always be allowed in her room without further questioning and he had seen that- people in the hospital crying at someone’s door and swearing they’re the boyfriend or the girlfriend of the patient from the car crash- but that won’t be his case because he never wanted this to happen but if fate was to bring that upon him and the flame of her would be at risk, then he would say I’m her husband and he would get in, wherever she is, whenever that is. And she would told the new surgical interns “that’s doctor Styles, my husband” and she would wear a white gown as she made her way to him.

But he didn’t tell her anything, because by the time he had realized all those things, she was twenty-five years old and he knew she was a keeper and he knew she loved him but her parents had gotten a divorce, just like his, and she thought marriage was just a piece of paper- she had told him that. He also knew that was what she said so she didn’t have to tell him that she always thought she was going to marry someone that existed no more.

And it wasn’t until a little over a year later at their 5th anniversary when he had gotten her a necklace out of the blue. They had never gifted each other anything for their anniversary after the first year when he told her it sort of felt as if giving each other a present, they were congratulating the other on holding on and he didn’t like that and she had just laughed it off and said she didn’t want any presents anyway; but that year, she had lost her necklace two weeks prior. She had worn that necklace every day ever since he met her and she had told him it had been a casual present from her mother- they were having a walk at an arts and crafts market years prior and she saw it and liked it and her mum got it for her- and even if it was a mindless act of her, it meant all the more to her for she just bought it because she liked it and she thought that was endearing and she thought it held the meaning of a mum-daughter relationship because it meant getting stuff or being there every single day, every single minute, not for anything in particular, but just because she was her mum and she was her daughter. And so when she lost it- she had lost it in a park because Gemma’s son had pulled from it and the pendant had landed on the floor and she never saw it again- even though she said it was okay, he knew it mattered. And so that year he got her a gift, just a little necklace with a little blue stone and she had loved it and her eyes had gotten teary because she knew what he had done and it wasn’t until hours afterwards, when they were lying in bed naked that she, playing with the stone between her fingers, had let him know.

“Wanna hear something funny?” She had started.

“Sure.”

“When I saw the little velvety box, I thought it was something else.”

He gave her a look then and she let out a nervous giggle but the pink on her cheeks gave her away.

“What?” He smirked.

She knew he knew so she shrugged and the smirk on his lips brought one to hers and she spoke.

“Thought it was a ring.”

He nodded.

“You thought I was proposing, hey?”

“I did, yeah.” She chuckled. “It’s silly.”

“Well, what would you have said?”

It was her then who gave him a look and it was in that moment that he knew she was ready. He could read her emotions like an opened book, although he was never able to tell what she was thinking; but what she was feeling was a different thing and it was out there for him to behold. But he still waited for her answer.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She laughed. “That would be cheating. If you ever ask me, I want you to take the risk.”

“Baby, I don’t think anyone really takes a risk.” He laughed. “I think when someone proposes, they’re pretty sure the other person is going to say yes. Otherwise they would save themselves the embarrassment.”

“There goes Mr Romantic ruining every proposition ever made.” She rolled her eyes but he laughed.

“Oh, no, please don’t tell me you’re one of those girls! You want it to be big? You want me to like hire a ride on a hot-air balloon or some cheesy thing like that?”

“What? No!” She laughed along. “If you do that, I’m jumping from the hot-air balloon.”

“Plus, there has to be someone else on the hot-air balloon, you know? That’s awkward and you know I’m not that tacky.”

She shook her head but deep down she was wondering if he had really considered that and she also wondered if he had ever thought about marrying her because she had never really thought about it until that evening but the second he handed her the velvety box her heart started pounding and her mind was going yes, yes, yes even before she knew what there was inside.

“So you’re gonna ask?” She smirked and then it was her smirk that was contagious and so he hovered her and he leaned in closer and closer until he was whispering against her lips.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

And she laughed before he kissed her.

Yet he still waited for another five months and eighteen months after he first realized he wanted to marry her, the ring had been burning on his pocket for a week. They had taken a trip to Spain to visit her family and he had tried to propose, about fifty times, but his own words came biting back at his own ass, when he said nobody really took the risk… Then why was he feeling so nervous? She was going to say yes.

But what if she didn’t?

What if she thought it was a joke?

Or worse, what if she panicked and left?

“Cariño, ¿me pasas el azúcar, por favor?” (Baby, can I have the sugar, please?)

He looked up at her and he handed her the sugar for her coffee and she still took a second to stare at her. She had recently donated her hair so it was very short then, over her shoulders, and she hadn’t particularly liked it but he thought she looked somehow even prettier and he wanted to ask her, he wanted to ask her so bad, but he was never brave enough.

“¿Qué pasa?” (What’s wrong?) She smirked.

“¿Qué pasa?”

“¿Por qué me miras así?” (Why are you looking at me like that?)

He smirked and shrugged- telling her implied admitting he wanted to marry her so bad- so she just shook her head and chuckled but her laughter died sooner than usual because really she had been a little freaked out by him the last few days.

“You really have been acting weird lately.” She noticed as she stirred her coffee. “I’ve been… I’ve been meaning to ask you… Is there something wrong?”

“Something wrong?” He frowned. “How do you mean?”

Her hazel eyes looked up at his and only then he found out she was actually worried so his frown only grew harder. He couldn’t believe he was so stupid. He could ask her at the beach in Spain, or he could have asked her on her grandad’s garden, or he could ask her that one time they went one to dinner to this nice restaurant near the sea; but instead he had her worrying that there was something wrong.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure you out but I really don’t know what can possibly be going on, love. I’m sorry but… If you want me to do something, you’re gonna have to tell me.”

“Marry me.” He blurted out.

He froze. So did she. Her hazel eyes opened wide as she stared at him and she was almost shaking. Why would he say it like that? That was possibly the opposite of a romantic proposal. He wasn’t on his knee and he wasn’t wearing a shirt and the ring was up in their room but she was doubting herself and she was about to doubt him and he wasn’t controlling his tongue when it said that.

“What?” She giggled.

“I… I love you, Blue; like I’ve never loved anyone before and… I look at you and I just wish I can see you grow old, you know? That’s… That’s what I want because I look up to you and I am just at awe at the person that you are and the things that you do and the things that you say and I just want you to be my wife. And I’ve been trying to ask you all week, I was carrying the ring and all, but nothing seemed good enough, I was so nervous, it’s ridiculous, I-“

But she had let the coffee cup on the counter and she had walked around the kitchen island between them and she had threw her arms around his neck and had silent him pressing her lips against his. And even though he was still in shock, he had held her waist and was kissing her back and he could feel her teeth for she wouldn’t stop smiling but she couldn’t stop kissing him either.

“Is this a yes?” He still timidly asked. “Or are these consolation kisses?”

“¡Pues claro que es a yes!” (Of course it is a yes!) “Te quiero.” And she pecked his lips again. “Mucho.” And again. “Muchísimo.”

And then he was the one smiling and so she pecked his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and his temples and he giggled like a kid.

“You’re marrying me.”

“Yes, I am. You’re gonna be my husband.”

“Fuck, yes.” 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #436

from a couple days ago again; still don’t feel like rewriting any answers.

Do you own many pairs of shorts? I don't own any. Have you ever taken a close up shot of a flower? A hell of a lot; I love doing that. Have you ever wanted to get drunk and get your mind off everything? Yup. But I don't like hard alcohol and only really drink light fruity stuff, and I'm apparently no lightweight, so I got to the point I just really didn't want to drink anymore. Anything you might be giving up on soon? I have felt very, very hopeless with photography lately that sometimes I'm tempted. I don't think I will, but... it's hard. When was the last time you changed your picture on Facebook? It's been months. Have you ever painted a piece of furniture? Yes, actually. I helped Jason paint his shelf black. Do you have a favorite quote? No. Have you ever made a business card for yourself? No, but I have thought about it. I just really don't have nearly enough popularity among the local photographers to feel like I really need to design one. Did you love playing hide and seek as a kid? YES. I loved it. Are there any recipes you have memorized? No. Do you know your multiplication times tables? ... no lmao Have you ever been severely burned? Not severely, no. Did you ever dream that you had a baby? I actually have more than once. What was the weirdest thing you ever saw cross the road? I think a turkey? Are you good at coming up with jokes? God no. Where do you prefer to sit when you catch the bus? When I used to ride home with Jason from school, we always sat way in the back. Do you ever listen to music to fall asleep to? No. I did when I was younger, though. I went through a loooong phase of sleeping with my iPod. If your parents... or anybody else... found your cell phone, would they be horrified at any of the messages in your inbox/outbox? No. Do you get offended if someone repeatedly checks their mobile phone when you’re out for lunch or dinner? That's very rude. What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard somebody say recently? Anti-vaccination bullshit from my stepmother. :^) Think about the last person you kissed - was it the very first time that you kissed them? No. When you drink alcohol with friends, do you play drinking games? We never did. Do you believe that there are certain circumstances where cheating is okay? Nope. Who was the last person to call you? My psychiatrist. What food disgusts you the most? Things like sashimi and caviar. I also think rare meat like steak, especially when it's still bloody, is absolutely disgusting. I could go on and on about this, 'cuz I think a lot of food is really gross. One place you would never want to get lost in in the dark? The jungle. Yikes. So many dangerous creatures, so claustrophobic, and with the canopy, I'd assume it'd be EXTREMELY dark. And it rains so much in the jungle, so it'd be hard to hear danger approaching. One thing that always creeps you out? Perhaps #1 is seeing an unborn baby move from outside their mother's stomach. I will fucking scream and want to puke. If you could be roommates with anyone of your choice, who would you pick? SARA!!!!!!!!! Omfg I'd LOVE to have her as my roommate. We've actually talked about the possibility, but that's nowhere near set in stone. What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? In light of recent events, a high contender is shit like "vaccines cause autism." Would you rather be buried or cremated when you die? I'd strongly prefer to be cremated. What is your favorite food around the holidays? Spiral honey ham, for one. I love Christmas treats like chocolate-covered peanuts, fudge, cookies, etc. etc... Tell me about the greatest prank you’ve ever pulled? I don't pull pranks. If you could have the power to cast any kind of spell, what kind of spell would you cast? Maybe enchanting the human population to not be such violent and hateful fucks??? Have you ever gotten a flu vaccination? Only for Covid. Double dates: a do or don’t? They are SO fun, but I do feel like it's good to have individual ones, too. Do you know any guitarists? Yes. My old friend Tommy actually plays the electric guitar in a band, and Juan was really good at it, too. How do you feel about full-length beards? They look good on some people. It varies with everyone. Do you have any relatives that have shunned you, or vice versa? Not currently. My half-sister stopped talking to me many years ago when I was a homophobic fuck, and I don't blame her. We're perfectly cool now! Has anyone ever posted a HORRIBLE picture of you for everyone to see? omg no Does/did your high school have pop machines? Yes. Have you ever gambled? Nah. If you could work at any retail store, which one would it be? I am NEVER working retail again. I can't handle it. What’s the name of the last cat you pet? Roman. :') Have you ever stringed green beans before? Yes, actually, with Colleen's in-laws. They had a big garden that I helped tend to sometimes. I absolutely hated it with how sweaty I got even then, it was WAY too hot, and my body was also weak back then to where bending down was extremely painful. I just never wanted to say no. Have you ever had any painful dental work done? If so, what? No. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re bored? It really depends on what I feel like doing, but I think playing World of Warcraft tempts me most often when I'm unbearably bored. What did you watch today? I've just been rewatching Mortem3r play Monster Hunter World. That game looks soooo fun, I wanna try it. ;-; True or False: Yoshi is the cutest dinosaur ever? No. I adore dinosaurs and dinosaur media, so I could name a lot if I thought long enough. Who is the last person you spent money on? My niece. I still feel awful I didn't buy Ryder a gift by myself; I just could NOT decide what to get him. I'm very thankful that Mom let me use one she got him as "mine." They were bright, light-up golf balls, and he loooooved them. What is your relationship like with various members of your family? I have a biiig extended family, man, so I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. I am EXTREMELY close to my mom, like there is no way I'd be alive without her, and her support for me seems endless somehow. I love my dad very much too, but I don't see him nearly as much as I wish I did. He tries to support me however he's capable, and he always lets me know that he's there if I need him for anything. I love, am very proud of, and look up to my two sisters, but I'm also very envious of them and how they are successful adults with direction and big accomplishments. We are very different, so we have difficulty with really bonding and talking about things regularly, and it really makes me feel like a terrible sister. My nieces and nephew are absolute diamonds to me, and I'm especially close to Ash's oldest daughter Aubree. She and I are very similar in a lot of areas, so I really relate to her, even in her young age. Ryder really seems to like me, and I love that little rascal, too. :') My youngest niece Emerson is still only a baby, so she can't really communicate in words yet, but she is still a beautiful darling that I'd protect with my life in not even a blink. That covers who I consider my "immediate" family, really, at least that I see regularly. What’s something you disagree with about the way you were raised? I am very firmly against spanking, but my parents did it. I think since Ash's kids were born though, Mom's opinion changed on it. It was around that time, I know. She won't lay a hand on them. Who was the last person to add you as a friend on Facebook? I have no clue, actually. Who was the last person that asked if you were okay? *shrug* The last time you were in a car, who was driving? My mom. Did you ever get into a bar and drink before you were 21? Never tried. What countries have you been to? I've never left the U.S. Honestly, is that car insured? I don't have my own car. What do you think about gay marriage? I vigorously support it. Do you like Carrie Underwood? I actually do. She has a beautiful voice. How far away do you live from your parents? I live with my mom. Idk how far I am from Dad, really... but not THAT far. How do you like your steak cooked? Medium well. Have you ever been to Mount Rushmore? No, and I don't want to. It is absolute vandalism. Where is your favorite place (that you have actually been to)? Chicago blew me away, but I think it's just because it was SO foreign to me. I actually don't like cities very much, but for a brief visit, I thought it was very cool. Do you believe places can really be haunted? Yes. Do you take anti-depressants? Sleeping pills? No. I took anti-depressants for I think most of my life, and they did nothing for me. Come to learn from the doctor who actually set my meds straight that anti-depressants for people with bipolarity do nothing but aggravate the symptoms of bipolarity, and I was living evidence. I take mood stabilizers for said disorder instead. I don't take sleeping pills; none seem to work for me. What’s your favourite brand of peanut butter? Maybe Skippy? Idk, I'm not very picky with pb. What’s your favourite Lunchables meal? The nachos one. How many languages can you recite the alphabet in? Two. Do you like Bob Marley? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I can't stand his voice. Have you ever eaten at Golden Corral? Yeah, but I'm not a fan. Buffets gross me out. Do you sit and eat dinner at the same table with your family? We very rarely sit at the table. Have you been working hard to achieve something lately? If not, what was the last thing you worked hard to achieve? Losing weight, yes. I am honestly trying so hard at the gym, like to the point I've almost fallen many times as well as been overtaken by incredible nausea a lot. I don't feel like I'm over-working, necessarily, just working my ass off. Do you use ice cubes in your fountain drinks? No, because it waters the drink down and I hate it. Would you ever want your very own library, or do you not read enough for it to be worth it? No. I don't read nearly enough, and besides, can you imagine all the dust? What site did you originally start doing surveys on? I actually don't know... Have you ever used something other than water to make ice cubes? What did you do with them? I've actually never thought to do that. Would you ever willingly experience life temporarily without sight, hearing, or any of your other senses, simply to know what it is like? Fuck no. I would go insane. In what ways are you very judgmental? I'll judge the fuck out of rapists, child molesters, pedophiles, people like that with no goddamn shame. But your average person, I try not to judge very much. What is your main problem in life right now? It's hard to determine my main problem, honestly. There are a lot of issues going on in my life that've just piled up into one big tangled mess. Do your “favourites” change often? Definitely not. I've had the same favorites in so many topics for forever. Have you ever read a biography on someone? I've read Ozzy's autobiography, and I also read the Some Kind of Monster Metallica book, which was written by I want to say St. Anger's musical director? This was a very long time ago, and honestly, I thought it was pretty boring, so my memory is faint. You learned quite a bit about the band in his time with them, but damn, I don't care about the musical director al;skdfal;we. Do you know anyone who has ever been in a movie? Who and what movie were they in? What was their part? Not to my knowledge. I have an acquaintance who's had minor acting roles, but I don't believe she's ever been in a film. When was the last time you brought a pet to the vet? What was wrong with it? I want to say around two years ago (probably less) when we got my cat neutered. Have you ever made your way through a corn maze? No.

[hopeatermeetsgodzilla]

Chapter 18

Mothra softly landed in front of the temple, Battra not too far in front of her. She raised her head, a pang of nostalgia hitting her at the sight of Styx’s statue. “Sister?” Battra called, turning toward her.

Mothra shook her head, bringing a hand to her eyes. “Sorry... coming here always reminds me of mother.”

Battra frowned sadly, walking to his sister and putting his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. Take a moment to steady yourself.” Mothra nodded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

She opened her eyes. “Alright, let’s go.” Battra nodded, taking her hand and escorting her to the inside of the temple, approaching the basin of water in the small room before the main area. “Remember to wash up.”

Mothra nodded, soaking her hands in the basin as Battra moved on into the main area, which was hidden from view by a silk curtain she had helped him make. She turned back toward the basin, watching water droplets fall from her hands.

She knew what Battra wanted to show her. The flowers from the Tapestry were no doubt wilted, dried up from how much the planet had warmed. The yellow flowers representing deserts had probably spread, and the amount of white flowers for the poles shrunk. And where humans had built major settlement, flowers would’ve fallen.

She just hoped she’d be able to convince Battra to not go on a rampage.

Mothra dried her hands off, entering the main area of the temple. Battra was kneeling in front of the Tapestry, looking at the flowers that had fallen off. She approached him. “How many of us died?”

He looked up at her. “There’s only one monkey, one spider and one beetle left. Varan is dead, his island sunk. Titanos is dead, wound compliction. Bagan is dead, I have no idea what happened. Dogora is dead, starvation. Camazotz is dead, old age. Caesar is still alive, but I don’t like his chances. Same for Megalon, and it’s looking even worse for him due to having been asleep for so long. Your mate’s sister is not only also still alive, but she’s also not at risk, somehow.”

“Then why would you mention her-”

“Because if there’s one of us who was mostly guaranteed to die during hibernation, it’s her.” Battra explained as he got back up, hands full of dead flowers. “She bleeds too easily.”

“And she’s aware of how easily she bleeds. She wouldn’t have learned how to dodge so well if she didn’t.” Mothra reminded him, before taking a closer look at the mural. All of the changes she had predicted where there, so she wasn’t too surprised by that. So she directed her attention to Rodan’s flower. Indeed, it was closed, with the three, strange golden flowers representing Ghidorah close to it and also closed. Out of the way of reality. She smiled. “Rodan’s really starting to come into his role as a Guardian.”

Battra raised an unconvinced eyebrow. “Please take a good look at what his flower is surrounded by. Or rather, what it’s not surrounded by.”

Mothra frowned, before bringing her attention to it. Her frown deepened as she noticed the lack of other flowers, and her eyes widened when she brought her fingers to it, the stone crumbling to dust under her fingers. Dead. “Wh- what happened!?”

“Humanity happened.” Battra hissed. “By now, you should know that their arrogance will lead to the destruction of us all.”

-

“So, what was, like, the initial ‘worst case scenario’ Monarch envisioned?”  Florès asked, sipping from his cup of coffee. He and quite a few other Monarch scientists were currently in the break room, having lunch. Normally, the younger man would stay in his office, but the doctor had told him to take regular breaks where he wouldn’t be tempted to work to keep his stress levels low. “Before the whole Ghidorah thing, I mean.” Obviously, it wasn’t working as well as intended.

“It was generally agreed that the Titans sending us back to the Stone Age was the worst case scenario...” Coleman informed him. “Personally, however? We all personally have things we’d rather not see captured on camera.”

Florès tilted his head at that. “Like what?”

“... for me, it’s the inside of their mouths.” Coleman admitted, sounding queasy. “It’s just... urgh. Look up animal mouths, it’s disgusting.”

“We’re talking ‘Godzilla slaps is own eyeballs with his tongue to blink’ disgusting or ‘Rodan has fucked up goose teeth’ disgusting?” Florès asked, a smile forming on his face when he saw the disgust and fear form on Coleman’s.

“‘Rodan has fucked up goose teeth’ disgusting, and Godzilla had working eyelids.” Emma deadpanned from where she was sitting. “And anyway, the inside of a Titan’s mouth is preferable to understanding how their... powers... work.”

Florès tilted his head in curiosity. “I thought you’d like to know how all of that would work?”

“I do, but... if that information got out, who knows what people would do with it.” Emma muttered, shaking her head. “So, as much as I’d like to know how it works, I fear the worst-case scenario of it being used as weapons.”

“Oh, come on!” Florès whined. “I was expecting something stupid, not something straight from your heart! Dr Chen,” The mythologist turned toward the mechanic “Do you have any fucked up, but not sad Titan things you don’t want so see captured on camera?”

Chen seemed to think for a moment, before her face brightened in realization. “Oh! There’s multiple instances in mythology of Titans eating other Titan’s carcasses, especially their heart. While that kind of thing isn’t unheard of in both the animal kingdom and ancient civilizations, it is pretty gruesome, and could be used by anti-Titans group to showcase that they’re mindless beasts.”

“... Uh.” The mechanic took a sip of his coffee. “Hostia. Kind of surprised no one mentioned courting rituals and everything related to them.” Florès pulled a face. “Like, if there’s one thing I don’t want to see, it’s that.”

“... What do you mean?”

Florès gave a sharp smile to Coleman. “Look up animal genitalia.”

-

“... I’m sure it’s not arrogance.” Mothra started, trying to ignore how she felt she had been stabbed. “Humans probably don’t realize the full consequences of their spreading. As for Mara, I’m certain you’re doing what you did with Mu’s weather control machine: you’re blaming a whole for the actions of a few!”

Battra groaned, visibly exasperated. “You still insist on defending humans? After everything they’ve done!? Are you so blinded by your love of them that you can’t uphold your duty of protecting our planet’s life?”

“I am focused on my duty of preserving life, brother.” Mothra hissed. “Including the one of humans! You’re the one who’s blinded, by your anger. You keep letting the crimes of a few human warp your perception, and hurt innocents in the process! Poor Manda was crushed by your rampage in Mu!”

“My perception of humans is not warped! In fact, I see them for who they are more clearly than you ever will! They’ve hurt the planet and other Titans before, and they’ll do it again! In fact, they already have!”

Mothra blinked. She had seen the patch of death, but Rodan’s flower seemed healthy... “What do you mean by that?”

Battra said nothing, simply pointing to one of the larger flowers. A very much wilted, but still attached to the Tapestry, flower with large bright blue petals. Godzilla.

Mothra could feel her heart shattering in a million pieces. What in Terra’s name had happened on Mara!?

[deadpan-snarker]

notes in a bottle (open heart, male!mc/rafael fic)

I channeled my Raf-related angst into a fluffy getting-back-together fic. Read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/23578240 or here below the cut!

It had been a week since he had heard from Rafael, and Casey was getting increasingly worried. Clearly being suspended from work had no impact on his tendency toward self-sacrifice, and the longer the radio silence continued, the more concerned Casey became that Rafael had bravely, stupidly, thrown himself head-first into another life-or-death situation. His only comfort came from the fact that Danny claimed to have seen him walking through the hospital a few days prior, presumably for another meeting with his supervisor. But it wasn’t like Rafael to ignore Casey’s texts, or anyone’s, for that matter. Bryce and Ethan said he hadn’t shown up for their morning workouts recently, and they had only received a message from Rafael after the first missed session, which said that he was sorry but he was too busy to attend.

Today was their day off, and Casey and his roommates were sprawled on the living room furniture, playing video games and chatting, the windows open to let in a light breeze. Though nothing could fully distract from his concern over Rafael, Casey was enjoying the mindless chitchat and relentless button-mashing, and the comfort of his roommates’ presence.

He was in the kitchen keeping an eye on some microwave popcorn when the doorbell rang, and he heard Sienna call “I’ll get it!” Expecting Bryce, Casey was surprised when Sienna let out an “Oh!” immediately followed by a scoff from Jackie.

“Hey, man!” Elijah was greeting the visitor as Casey poured the popcorn into a bowl. He stepped around the corner into the living room and nearly dropped the bowl at the sight of a sheepish-looking Rafael at the door. The relief that flooded through him nearly made his knees buckle, and he set the popcorn down before it could make a mess. “Rafael! You’re okay!”

“Yeah, umm…” His gaze flitted around the room. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on him, awaiting an explanation. In the end, he looked to Casey when he spoke. “I’m sorry for worrying you. All of you,” he added, shooting a quick glance at Casey’s roommates before turning back to him. “It was wrong of me not to reply to you guys, but I was…uhh…” he seemed to falter under the intensity of everyone’s stares. “Casey, can we talk? In private?”

“Yeah,” Casey said quickly, catching Aurora putting her hand over Jackie’s mouth in the corner of his vision. “Yeah, let’s go outside.”

They walked out of the apartment and around the corner of the building in silence. A low stone wall ran along one side of the complex, and Casey sat down on it. Rafael followed suit, leaving a few feet of space between them.

“So,” Casey said. “I’m really glad to see you’re in one piece. I thought maybe…something had happened to you.”

“I’m so sorry, Casey. I didn’t mean for you to worry about me. I just needed some time to myself. I…” He looked down at the weathered grass, scuffing his shoe against it before returning his gaze to meet Casey’s. “I broke up with Sora.”

Casey blinked, taken aback. “You did?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

Rafael hesitated, and Casey backpedaled. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. You don’t owe me an explanation—"

“No, Casey, I want to tell you. But before I do, I need you to know that I don’t expect anything from you, okay? I’m so glad we’re still friends. I don’t want anything to change that.”

Casey shook his head, not at all daring to hope, even though his heart was racing in his chest. “Me either.”

Rafael smiled, but it was tight, almost pained. “Sora was my first love. When he left—it tore me apart. At home, at work, I was always surrounded by people, and they were wonderful, but somehow, without him, I was still lonely. My work was fulfilling, my family was supportive, but there was something missing. And then I met this doctor, and I saw the way he truly cared about his patients, and his friends, and making everyone feel comfortable and welcome, even though he was putting in 80-hour weeks and competing for this prestigious fellowship.” His expression softened. “And I didn’t feel lonely anymore.”

Casey swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Raf…what are you trying to say?”

“Casey, my feelings for you never went away. I just—when Sora moved back, and we started talking again, it seemed like everything could go back to the way it was when we were young, almost like nothing had changed. And for a while, it was good. It felt right, in a…I don’t know, a cosmic sort of way. Like it was fate, or something. But…” he trailed off.

“But what?” Casey prompted gently.

Rafael met his eyes. He looked as determined as he did when he was on the job, and Casey was almost taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. “But I realized that it was impossible for our relationship to be the same as it had been. Because things had changed. I…meeting you changed me, Casey. And it wasn’t fair to Sora or to myself to pretend like it hadn’t.” He took a deep breath, then released it in a long sigh. “Whew. I’m glad that’s out there.”

Casey opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. There were so many things he wanted to say, and he didn’t know where to start.

Rafael seemed to take his hesitance as a dismissal, and cleared his throat before beginning to stand up. “Well, thanks for—”

“Raf, wait.” Casey grabbed his hand and pulled him back down to sit on the wall again. Neither of them made any move to let go of the other’s hand. “This is a lot to take in; just give me a second to collect my thoughts.”

Rafael nodded and stayed silent, chewing on his bottom lip. Casey closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to three, just as one of his favorite patients had taught him. When he opened his eyes, Rafael was still there, wearing a soft, hopeful expression and holding his hand. Casey smiled at him. He knew what he wanted to say.

“I won’t lie: watching you with Sora was painful for me. And then seeing you all the time at work, having you over our apartment…it was tough. But I can understand why you thought you should try again. And I can definitely understand why Sora did.” Casey grinned as Rafael blushed and shook his head. “But Raf, meeting you changed me, too. You made me a better doctor and a better person. And if you want to try this—us—again…that’s what I want, too.”

“Thank you,” Rafael said softly. He squeezed Casey’s hand and Casey squeezed back, both of them smiling wide. Rafael brought his other hand up to run his thumb gently over Casey’s jawline, and Casey leaned into the touch, closing his eyes.

“Casey?” Rafael asked softly after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“Please tell me I can kiss you.”

Casey opened his eyes and reached forward, tangling his fingers in Rafael’s hair. “Please do.”

(Inside the apartment, Sienna held her hand out, palm-up, to Aurora. “It’s before the 10th. Pay up.”

“Goddammit,” Aurora grumbled, and shoved her hand in her pocket.)

[grandtheftstarship]

Way Out There (Leonard McCoy x Reader) [Songfic]

A/n: So this started off really small for the song and then it ended up going nearly 1000 words on after the song ends... oops. You don’t really need to listen, the lyrics just relate to the idea of the fic and are written in, but Lord Huron is a bop and I really recommend it :) If you want to play the song, start the music at the bolded sentence. 

Summary: [y/n] finds out that the Enterprise crashed on Altimid and rushes to save Leonard, her boyfriend.

Word Count: 2226 Warnings: none :) Posted: Tumblr, Wattpad Requested: no

Link to Way out there by Lord Huron.

U.S.S Enterprise Missing.

The headline mocked you, grinning evilly from the page. Your eyes brimmed with tears, one person on your mind.

Leonard.

He was on the damn ship, and if you weren't recovering from Andorian Fever you would be too. Your chest tightened with grief at first, then loneliness then anger.

You readjusted your heading, now walking briskly towards Starfleet headquarters instead of the local Starfleet medical center. You knew Commodore Paris personally, she was a family friend, so hopefully, you could get in quickly and easily.

"Lieutenant {y/f/n] to see Commodore Paris," you told the receptionist, rapping your fingernails on the marble countertop.

"She's in a briefing, but they will be on break in a few minutes," she nodded at you, returning to her computer.

You thanked her and paced lightly in the adjacent waiting room. Five agonizing minutes later, the Commodore and several other Starfleet officials left the room, heading for the small cafe across the street. You rushed to her side, greeting her quickly.

"Do you have any information regarding the Enterprise?" you asked hastily. "Do you know who attacked them?"

"Nothing yet," she replied. "Do you have someone out there?"

You sighed looking down. "Yes. My boyfriend, Doctor Leonard McCoy."

"I see," she patted your shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," you returned, fire burning in your eyes. "Commodore, I'm requesting a ship to go after them."

"Are you crazy?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "I'm not letting anyone out there until we can confirm a safe way through the nebula."

"But Ma'am-"

"No, [y/n]," she said firmly. "Your request is denied. It's not safe."

The commanding officers returning to the briefing room caught her attention.

"I have to go now," sympathy softened her face. "I'm sorry."

She removed her hand and walked back towards the open door. You looked on after her, the heavy feeling of defeat settling in your chest.

Then a crazy idea hit you. An idea so insane, it fell into Jim Kirk crazy. And it could 100% get you fired.

I'm a long way from the land that I left

I've been running through life and cruising toward death  

If you think that I'm scared you've got me wrong

If you don't know my name, you'll know it now

I belong bodily to the earth

I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first

There are many more flames when mine is gone

They will build me no shrines and sing me no songs

Upon leaving the now empty waiting room, you made your way hastily towards the shipyard. You knew that there were a few small scout ships that were manned by one pilot. Filled with a newfound determination, you knew you would do anything to save your boyfriend. You swiped your keycard at the entrance. It was late and you didn't have much time before officers working there noticed a stray engineer attempting a case of "Grand Theft Starship". You tiptoed on board one of the survey vessels, shutting the door and getting straight to it.

I'm a long way from the one that I love

I've been tending old flames, lamenting what was

Drifting in a land time forgot

If you think that I've changed, you know me not

I belong bodily to the earth

I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first

I been unraveling since my birth

Gonna wander out there and see what I'm worth

Find me way out there

There's no road that will lead us back

When you follow the strange trails

They will take you who knows where

If I found a way to stay with you tonight

It would only make me late, for a date I can't escape

The vessel hummed to life, panic spiking through your core. You worked quickly, getting systems online like there was no tomorrow. As you engaged the thrusters, you began hearing the confused shouts of Starfleet officers trying to get you to land. Once you finally left the atmosphere, you cursed Bones and his stupid job. Rescuing his ass was so going to get you fired, and when you found him you were going to give him a piece of your mind. You were able to reprogram the maneuvering capabilities of the small vessel so you could get through the nebula unscathed. At warp three, you carried on.

Navigating through the nebula was one of the hardest things you had ever done. You managed to get through with only small damage to the hull, but your victory was short-lived. You eased the craft out of the cloud, jaw hitting the floor.

Find me way out there

There's no road that will lead us back

When you follow the strange trails

They will take you who knows where

If I found a way to stay with you tonight

It would only make me late, for a date I can't escape

Two nessels were floating aimlessly in front of you, the destroyed body of the ship not far from them. Tears brimmed your eyes as the saucer was nowhere to be found. You were distracted from your astonishment by the small beep of your sensor.

You couldn't believe your eyes. Your scan of the planet below showed you three groups of life forms. One was large, seventy-five to one-hundred or so life signs, while the other two were much smaller. You decided on landing near the group of four, praying the small dots on the screen were your friends and crewmembers.

"Keptin!" Chekov shouted, scrambling over the rocks towards Jim, Scotty, and Jaylah. "There's a scout ship heading straight for us."

He slowed down to catch his breath, having caught the captain's attention. "It's federation, sir."

"Are you sure?" he asked, moving towards Chekov and his tricorder.

"Yes sir," he replied, pointing to the small figure on his tricorder. "I am picking up Starfleet frequencies."

The low hum of your thrusters and the low crackle of you entering the atmosphere drew the group's attention from the small device. You maneuvered the stout vessel to a bare plot of land not far from them, landing softly on the patch of rock. Jim led his miniature crew towards your stolen ship, all anxiously waiting for the metal hatch to open and reveal who was behind the sudden change in dynamics.

The door thudded open whilst you finished shutting down the power to save the small amount of fuel you had left in case you needed it. You nearly threw yourself out of your chair when you finished, anxious to see who was outside.

"[y/f/n]?" Chekov gasped, rushing to the front of the small pack. "Боже мой, это действительно ты!" (Oh my god, it's really you!)

He rushed forward, nearly tripping on loose stones, and tackled you in a hug. Pavel was your best friend, besides Bones of course.

"How are you doing? How did you get here? Are you okay- are you still sick? You should be recovering-"

"Slow down!" you laughed, nudging his shoulder slightly. "I'll explain everything, but you have some things to tell me too, mister."

"Okay, so here's what went down," he began, already waving his arms around enthusiastically. "Basically, I was expertly navigating through this nebula when these teeny little ships caught my attention-"

You smiled at the captain, waving slightly as Pavel babbled on about the attack while leading you across the jagged terrain.

"That would explain the torn up ship floating about up there," you nodded towards the sky. "Thank god this planet is class M. I can't even think about how horribly worse this could have gone if you had crashed on a planet full of toxic gas or something."

"It is already quite a terrible situation," he followed your eyes up into the wispy clouds. They reminded you of those on Earth. "I mean, the attackers took all the crew members that managed to get into their Kelvin Pods. If I had used mine any earlier, I would have been taken as well."

You shuddered at the thought.

"Who are you?" an unknown voice spat from behind you, the hostility dripping from the spoken words catching you off guard.

"This right here is [y/f/n] [y/l/n]," Scotty clapped you on the shoulder. "The best assistant chief engineer one could ask for."

"Aw, shucks," you punched him lightly on the shoulder. "I try."

"[y/n], this is Jaylah," Scotty gestured to the white-faced alien, looking a little ruffled. You waved.

"Is this another one of your mates?" she asked, a little less harshly. Scotty nodded.

"You betcha."

By now, your little group had reached Jaylah's house. They explained to you how it got there, how Jaylah found it, and why nobody else had stumbled across it.

You brushed your fingers over the ancient technology. "Wow."

"There's not even a sickbay?"

Jim shook his head. "Nope. Bones would be pissed."

You giggled. "Speaking of, where is he?"

You knew instantly something was wrong.

"Jim," panic rose in your chest. "Where is he?"

He avoided your eyes.

"H-He's fine, right?"

"We don't know where Bones or Spock are," Jim said finally. "They were in the turbolift when the saucer was separated."

"We will find him, [y/n/n]," Chekov patted you on the shoulder. "Somehow, one way or another, we will find him."

You, Chekov, and Scotty worked for the next several hours to reprogram the transporter modules to allow a person to be beamed aboard.

"Done!" you called from underneath the transporter pad, a low hum of electricity proving your statement.

"Ура!"(Hooray!) Pavel cheered.

"Well done, lass," Scotty congratulated you as he helped pull you out.

"It was nothing," you replied, brushing yourself off. "I mean, you guys helped too."

Pavel interjected before Scotty could respond. "Hold on, I'm reading some... life signs?"

You and Scotty hurried to the panel he was looking at, and sure enough, two life signs blinked back at you.

"Beam them," Scotty muttered.

You turned to him. "What?"

"We can beam them here!"

"But what if they're hostile?" Chekov asked, fear flashing through his eyes.

"Then we'll... beam them back?"

"Wait, there are more coming!" you pointed back to the screen.

"What if they're crew members?"

"That wouldn't make sense, lad!"

When the two of them started arguing, more signs of life began appearing.

"What the hell," you murmured, locking on to one of the signals. The transport sounded a bit more static-y than you were used to but as you and the boys turned towards the pad, a familiar face greeted you.

"Lieutenant [y/l/n]?"

"Spock?"

Before you could hug him (even if he protested), he hobbled off the pad as urgently as he could.

"You must beam the doctor out of there."

Without missing a beat, you thrust yourself back at the panel and locked on.

Once the strange noise faded, you felt your stomach drop in relief.

"It feels like my innards have been to a barn dance," Leonard said, looking a bit green.

"These old transporters were mainly used for cargo, but a bit of maintenance did the trick," Scotty explained, slapping him on the shoulder. "Sorry, we had to beam you one at a time, to avoid being... misplaced."

"I couldn't imagine a worse scenario," Bones looked around the room before letting his eyes fall on your worried-slash-relieved complexion.

Your legs moved on their own accord, propelling you into Leonard's waiting arms. He held you so tight you weren't sure how much longer you could breathe.

Suddenly, he pushed you out of his arms, brows furrowed in a grimace.

"What the hell, [y/n], you're supposed to be recovering!"

His face melted back into worry and he pulled you back into his embrace.

"I'm so happy to see you, love."

You giggled. "I'm so happy you're safe."

He then, more gently this time, released you from the hug and grabbed your hands.

"I'm still mad at you for trekking all the way to this goddamn planet," he scolded, wearing worried and frustrated expressions simultaneously. "Thank god you weren't on the ship or I'm pretty sure I would have died from a damn heart attack."

"I'm fine, you big silly," you reassured him. "But, I'm pretty sure Spock isn't."

His face paled. "Shit."

He placed a quick, chaste kiss on your lips before rushing off to treat his patient.

You smiled sweetly as he rushed off, simply ecstatic he was alive and well.

[southboundhqarchive]

MEET LUZ,

FULL NAME › Luz Fuentes DeDios AGE › thirty GENDER › Cis female (She/Her/Hers) FROM › Yakima, Washington RESIDENCE › Laguna Street (Midtown) OCCUPATION › Acting Owner of Los Gatos Taqueria NOW PLAYING › Moment Of Truth by Gang Starr

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: cancer, death of a parent, divorce

AEGEAN BRONZE AGE ( 3,000-2,000 BCE )

when luz is small, she hears the story of her birth a thousand times. she can recite it by heart. it is a perfect day in may and her mother dolores has been walking for days, tired of carrying around a belly so swollen with life that she is certain she could fit her own body inside of it. it has been five months since dolores has seen her husband and she does not think he’ll ever come home from some godforsaken war across the sea. the truth is that he never does–not even for his only daughter. donald cameron dies alone on the same day his daughter luz takes her first breath after an arduous labor in the back of an ambulance on the way from pioneer park to saint mary medical center.

dolores tells the story as if she was in both places at once. at her husband’s side as a fatal bullet cut him down like a blade of grass and holding her own hand as she pushed and screamed on the rigid gurney. luz thinks that her mother must see everything. it is that childhood belief that protects her from the troubles that follow her cousins like black cats and shadows. it’s different as an only child, she knows that her mother has only one person in the whole wide world and she must live up to her mother’s need to be whole.

next door, the abandoned house sits behind a chain link fence. dozens of stone animals litter the yard and porch and it becomes young luz’s playground. she digs in the dirt, unburying hidden treasures and her cousins laugh and call her indiana jones. the book of greek myths her father left behind is never far from her mind and even as a small girl, sole knows she will walk in the colosseum and excavate along the mediterranean. the excavations are fun and so is time spent with her cousins, but she can’t help being envious of her cousins’ closeness with one another. without a father, she wonders how she can ever have a sibling when her father is nothing but a cold, marble headstone.

grief waxes and wanes for dolores, who knows as much about suffering as her name might suggest. linda is a salve for old pains as they ease. the two meet when linda begins waitressing at the restaurant dolores cooks at. the love is slow at first–neither woman sure what the other wants–but it is built on a solid foundation. linda has a son, francisco, and soon the fuentes pair become of family of four. francisco and luz are close enough in age that the pair become fast friends–basketball in the driveway, late night action movie binges–they’re inseparable.

school is easy for luz, who is an avid reader and an energetic learner with a solid family to support her. she quickly earns playful jeering from her cousins for being a pocha as she works hard to fit in. despite focusing on student government and basketball, she is well regarded among her peers. she is the kind of girl that makes it hard not to like–an easy going, laid back girl with a jock’s ponytail and a sharp wit. the girl is made for something great and her mother works tirelessly to afford uniforms and ap textbooks. luz fuentes is going somewhere.

MINOAN PALATIAL PERIOD ( 2,600-1,400 BCE )

it’s not the dream she had far away in the esteemed halls of colleges like cambridge, oxford, or harvard. no, whitman college–so named for the whitman incident in which a missionary is forced to pay for his crimes and yet is remembered as the white hero–is just down the street from her modest childhood home. it’s strange, then, how different of a world it seems to her. the liberal arts college is not the place she belongs as she did in high school. it’s an entirely different world. she works in the cafeteria to offset the costs her scholarships don’t cover, plays basketball for the team, and has dinner with her mother every sunday if not more. it’s not a bad life.

the classroom and court are the places where luz feels like she can really be herself. pieces of her are lost in conversations among classmates that she does not relate to and she plunges herself head first into work and family, which is the most she’s ever known. when she finds her true calling, she’s paralyzed–they don’t offer a major in bioarchaeology. with the help of a couple of advisors, she makes her own–blending anthropology, biology, geology, and chemistry together in a blissful salve that mends even the deepest wounds gained in the thirst to prove that she can be everything her mother needs. her sacrifices will not be for nothing.

when she graduates, she feels a whirlwind sense of accomplishment. she is accepted to field school in crete where she can study the minoan and mycenaean cultures to her heart’s content. it is there she develops her fascination with bones and death and focuses her interest on funerary archaeology–a subject she will study at length at the university of tennessee’s bioarchaeology doctoral program. she can sometimes hear her father calling her and she knows that she must reunite the dead with their loved ones.

THE HEROIC AGE ( 1,600-1,100 BCE )

on a quiet, hot summer night she falls in love with another doctoral student a few years her senior. they drink raki and let the waves and sand massage their weary feet. they return to tennessee and luz feels her stomach swelling with the prospect of life. rodrigo is a warm heart and though he is not prepared for fatherhood he takes to it, like he does with most things, with gusto. if there is apprehension in luz’s heart it is quelled by the worry in her mother’s voice through the telephone lines–please tell me you are going to marry him, mija. luz fuentes dedios has never broken her mother’s heart.

nayeli guadalupe esparza is born, much like her mother, on a summer’s day and is named for rodrigo and luz’s grandmothers. she holds her so tight that rodrigo is afraid she might break her. the young parents find that they love nayeli enough that it doesn’t matter if they love each other half as much. it won’t be long before they find out that they don’t love one another at all anymore.

weddings and motherhood do not stop a determined woman. luz knows that women have always persevered more obstacles than their male peers and she is determined to not let her dreams fall by the wayside. their lives are not easy–both spend long hours teaching and learning while preparing their own research. dolores and linda move from walla walla, selling their home by the house with the stone animal statues, the train tracks and the cornfield–which is now a burger king and a dollar tree. she does sewing and odd jobs while she cares for her granddaughter nayeli with her chubby cheeks and bright brown eyes.

in their final years, the couple move to crete to finish their research in the field. both grow tired of working, living, and raising a daughter together and the break-up is messy. nayeli is five years old when they realize they can no longer make their relationship work and when the grant money runs out, luz is forced to return to the united states to finish her doctoral thesis with no funding and no job prospects. rodrigo stays on at the research center and there is no arguing that nayeli is better off living with a parent who can provide for her. luz is crestfallen.

it’s hard to come back home, especially when there is no home to come back to. while things fall apart in crete, mothers dolores and linda have moved to a place called boot hill, arizona to fulfill their dream of opening their first restaurant together. across the ocean and the earth, somehow they’ve all lost touch and even cisco doesn’t hear from them except an ominous, staticky voicemail telling him that linda has gotten sick. there’s nowhere else to go to start over except to search for a new home and pray that her mothers are okay.

THE MYCENAEAN PERIOD ( 1,300-1,000 BCE )

boot hill, arizona isn’t on luz’s gps, but she knows there are small ghost towns scattered throughout the desert and wonders if maybe her mothers found some hole in the wall place in the process of a revitalization movement. the closer she gets to arizona, the clearer it seems in her mind–the more she senses that she must get to her mothers. she drives on instinct. she drives on faith. she drives all night until the rising sun illuminates the sign to boot hill. it seems like the strangest thing in the world to have found a place without a map–to have found the place without a map–but the further she gets into the charming arizona town it seems like fate.

it’s been too long, luz thinks, because her mothers barely recognize her at first and, with linda’s deteriorating condition, the feeling is mutual. there are a lot of tears in the living room of the house on laguna street, but there is even more hope. linda’s fight with breast cancer is not over, but treatment is going well. the difficulty lies in how sick it makes her and how much time has been spent away from their taqueria. happy to reunite with her mothers and help, luz agrees to take over the running of the restaurant and thinks that, maybe, it will help her in the international custody battle with rodrigo. she takes over the day-to-day operations and management of los gatos locos, but continues to work on her thesis in her spare time. slowly, but she remembers how to breathe again it’s hard to wake up everyday without braiding her daughter’s soft curls and listening to a giggling tale of the girl’s dreams from the night before. she misses greece and, on her worst days, she thinks she might even miss rodrigo.

❝ i am still in the labyrinth, and i must be willing to get lost before i am saved. it is only when i abandon myself that i am saved. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Lindsey Morgan AUTHOR › Lucia

[mcarfield]

I sold my soul and signed up for the Glasgow Times for this article and I regret nothing, lol.

Highlights:

* James is a “left-handed only child”

* “A huge Star Wars fan, McArdle lobbied hard to get into” The Force Awakens

* James saying he read James 1 and “opened the window fully” oh my god I cannot

* James supporting #Indyref, you beautiful socialist <3 

* “McArdle is single-minded, singular — but not unpleasantly so.” OH REALLY.

On a short break from the National Theatre’s Platonov, in which he plays the title role, James McArdle toys with a copper ring on his finger. “That’s my wedding ring,” he nods. Hold on, you’re married? “No, it’s Platonov’s!” says the 27-year-old, appalled. “God, no, no. No, no. But look how green it’s left me,” he says in a Glaswegian burr, observing the residue on his hand. “Cheap.”

Common sense should have told me this was Platonov’s ring: McArdle is still in costume for this early Chekhov piece, written when the good doctor was about 20. He also wears a linen smock, linen trousers and stomping knee-high boots; his hair is vigorously decoiffed and, théâtre oblige, he has on a size­able amount of eyeliner. It’s a suitable guise for one of Chekhov’s roughest and readiest creations. Originally, he was the hero of a billowing seven-hour piece, never performed in the writer’s lifetime, but now, here, he’s the star of a streamlined version by David Hare. Along with Hare’s tinkerings with Ivanov and The Seagull, it is part of a Young Chekhov trilogy that won raves in Chichester last autumn and has now been imported, wholesale, to the South Bank.

It’s Platonov who wears a wedding ring, then, but only nominally, as the action revolves around this dissolute, disillusioned schoolteacher and his antics with various women on the estate next door. It requires an actor of particular power to spin all these plates, to seduce and appal us nonstop, and that man is McArdle, whose rather everyday features belie a char­isma most pretty-boy actors can only dream of. (His performance won him the Sunday Times/National Theatre Charleson award last month.)

It is a breakout role, or, rather, a further one after he impressed in the West End hit Chariots of Fire and as James I of Scotland in Rona Munro’s James Plays. Platonov, this “young man’s play”, as he calls it, taps into something deep. “I read it, and I just related to him very much,” he says with an awkward smile. “I felt very close to the part... I say that as though it’s something to be proud of!”

Yes, I say, recalling the four women he snogs in the show, how do you relate to him? He snickers. “Various character­istics.” Any in particular? “Ah, you know...” He laughs, then regroups. “Any young man gets to a certain age in his life when he looks around and thinks, have I done what I set out to do?”

Platonov is 27, like McArdle. That’s apt. “Yes, but people think I’m older.” Why is that? “I don’t know. My maturity or my ­haggard face. One or the other. Jonathan Kent [his director] says I’m the oldest person he’s ever met.” Are you a mature person, then? “I don’t think so. If you mean boring, no.” How about a wise head on young shoulders? He nods his head sagely. “Aye, too wise, too wise. It’s exhausting, you know.”

In Ivanov, McArdle plays the moralising doctor, Lvov. (The three shows are played in rep by a fine company.) It’s a very different role from Platonov, and testament to his range. There is a bit of Lvov in him too, he insists — “I can get on my high horse and be priggish” — but Platonov is the star role. You could almost sell it, following in the line of the Young Vic’s Three Sisters and the Almeida’s Vanya, as part of a general debunking of genteel Chekhov, of that kind of production where people sit around primly and moan in RP. Indeed, the icing on the cake is McArdle’s Glaswegian accent.

“A girl in the cast’s posh friend said, ‘Oh goodness, and is that to show the class difference?’” he recalls. “And I was, like, well, I’m actually doing a posher Glaswegian as Platonov, but I know you wouldn’t really understand what a posher Glaswegian accent is versus a normal Glaswegian accent. I was also, like, you’re aware they’re Russian, aren’t you?”

You may have gathered by now that McArdle is single-minded, singular — but not unpleasantly so. Rather, he is, as he sums it up, “a left-handed only child”, and this somehow explains a great deal. When he was nine, producers came into his school looking to cast actors for a children’s TV production, Stacey Stone. “I think they were just looking for the most obnoxious wee boy they could find,” he laughs.

After that, he only ever wanted to act — apart from wanting to be a vet, or a pilot, or prime minister. (It would be First Minister now.) Actually, it’s quite clear they never stood a chance. He had no background in the arts at all, but his parents were always supportive. “My dad said, ‘Carol, we are going to see everything he is in — even if it is shite.’”

His mates from back home are equally encouraging, though one gig really stood out — McArdle’s appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where he played Niv Lek, a Resistance fighter.

You had one line of dialogue? “I had three, goddammit!” A huge Star Wars fan, McArdle lobbied hard to get into the movie, not caring about being a glorified extra. His friends shared his enthusiasm, going to see it five times. McArdle says he was “mortified”, but not as mortified as when they all came to Edinburgh to see him play James I.

In this vicious slab of medieval history, McArdle’s king has an awkward sex scene. “I could hear my mate — he’s got this really squawkish, high-pitched laugh, and as soon as I took my trousers down, I could just hear it. But you know, it’s so nice.”

James I was, he says, a defining role for him. He cancelled a recall for a role in the film Suffragrette to prepare for the audition, he wanted it so badly. “I will never forget, when I read it, I opened the window fully, I had the doors open and I just lay there, because I was, like, I have to get this part, I have to get it.” Why? It’s just a great play, but also, he says he had never heard “our voice, our Scottish voice, captured in a nonpatronising, universal way before”.

The National Theatre of Scotland performed the play during and after the Scottish referendum, and it was “like doing different plays”. When I ask if he would welcome a second referendum, he winces, but says quietly that he would, and that he would vote to leave the Union. But it would only be to have the majority of Scottish views upheld, he insists, as opposed to any kind of nationalism.

“I find patriotism a little foolish, to be honest. I never say I’m proud to be Scottish. I say I’m lucky to be Scottish, because I think it’s quite foolish to be proud of something that is chance.”

Not that he doesn’t love being Scottish; he’s just not quite sure what it entails. “I always get” — he puts on a posh accent — “‘Oh, you’re sooo Scottish!’ I don’t know what it means.” Never­theless, he also knows that national traits are potent, not least when tackling Chekhov. “Being Glaswegian feels more Russian than being English.”

He stands out in theatreland, though, and he knows it. There is much angst now about acting being a posh kids’ profession: has he felt like a fish out of water? He shrugs, saying it’s all “fashion”; and, although he insists we shouldn’t care, and says it’s “boring”, he then roils around the topic for about 10 minutes. What bothers him is people attending to trends and celebrity and fame, when the only real thing is to do good work.

“Yes, I do think they’ve been favoured,” he says of all those nice young Etonians, “but, actually, I think they’ve been favoured throughout all of time, and will be favoured throughout all of time. And I think, well, I have to carve my own path around that — and I am up for that fight. You know, I’ll come back and back into the room!

I don’t care, I’m not gonna let posh boys stop me!” As though it even needed saying.

The Young Chekhov trilogy is in rep at the National Theatre, London SE1, until Oct 8

[true-halloween-tales]

2018: #7-MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE 8: MONSTERS NEVER ON THE LOOSE

Monsters on the Loose has previously examined unexplained sightings of cryptids, possible animals that have escaped classification. Sometimes there are real sightings of unknown beasties. The rational explanation for those sightings, such as often with chupacabra sightings, is that known animals were spotted who may appear different due to mutation or disease, often having mange. However, many sightings are clearly – if not blatantly – faked. Recovered remains of cryptids have historically been often a creative combination of dead animal parts. That was the fossil game in the early 1900’s. Piece together bones incorrectly and create a monster, then charge admission to see it! As a Boy Scout, it was common for there to be Snipe Hunts (see 2016: #13-SUMMER CAMP). New Boy Scouts, especially first time campers, would be led out to search for those dangerous snipes, completely non-existent creatures. This time the cryptids that shall be focused upon are those that we know never existed, monsters that have never been on the loose. What is simply amazing is that people really believed they existed.

There sure are a lot of fakes, including for dragons (see 2018: #3-DRAGONS). In 1696, Cornelius Meyer claimed to have found the skeleton of a dragon responsible for flooding Rome. An analysis of a sketch of this skeleton indicates that the skull belonged to a dog, the mandible from a second dog, the ribs from a fat fish, the vertebrae from a beaver, and the limbs from a bear. The wings, tail, beak, and horn were handmade. No kitchen sink was apparently included. But there were remnants of “dragon skin,” a tarp-like material used to hide the false connections of the various animal parts. In 1845, Dr. Albert Koch went on tour across the U.S with his huge, one-hundred and fourteen foot long dragon skeleton... and it was really a curious conglomeration of five whale skeletons. Not surprisingly, to this day there are still claims of people finding dragon skeletons – mostly in China. These dragon remains turn out to be fossils or fakes. But there are many non-dragon fossil fakes too…

The Fiji mermaid was first put on display in 1842 by P.T. Barnum in his museum in New York. Shortly later, a merman was found in Banff, Alberta, and was displayed at the Indian Trading Post. There are still locations, such as museums, across the world today with supposed dead merman and mermaids on display. Their bodies are invariably carved out of wood and may be combined with fishy and monkey bodily bits. The Booth Museum in Brighton, England has one such display. Another famous fossil fake was 1912’s Piltdown Man. Charles Dawson claimed the Piltdown Man he found was the Missing Link. The fossil turned out to be an ape’s jawbone that Dawson bleached and weathered before “discovering” it. In 1868 New York, George Hull charged people to see the Cardiff Giant he claimed he found (see image below and see 2016: #5-GIANTS). It was ten feet tall, and Hull had it carved out of gypsum before “discovering” it. The checklist of counterfeit cryptids just keeps on going! But there were some honest mistakes made...

Lack of knowledge is a valid reason why some monsters were incorrectly identified. The 1100’s Latin Book of Beasts is bursting with booboos! Creatures that really existed were rather misunderstood. Ibis – birds – were believed to consume corpses when they were not busily occupied cleaning out their bowels with their beaks. Jaculus were flying snakes who somehow turned into javelins and tossed themselves as weapons at those below them. Syrens were white winged snakes from Arabia that flew faster than horses; their venom killed so fast that their victims never felt their bite. The Seps was a snake that had acid poison which completely dissolved your body and bones. The Salamandar was immune to fire and was highly poisonous. The Cocoddryllus from the River Nile are basically crocodiles except they are thirty feet long and have skin as strong as stone.

Several nonexistent beasts were thought to exist. Griffins were widely believed to exist, quadruped eagle beasts. The Bonnacon from Asia reportedly had the head of a bull and the body of a horse. The Monoceros had a four foot horn, a horrible howl, a horse-like body, but the feet of an elephant and the tail of a stag… and later became known as the unicorn. The Leucrotta is from India and is the fastest animal, the size of a donkey, with stag legs, lion body, and a horse head. The Cerastes were snakes with horns of rams. And the list goes on and on. Therefore, the top three need to be identified, of monsters that were never on the loose.

Sirens were thought to be dangerous creatures that lured sailors to their deaths. They were believed to be a combination of birds and women, with feathers, scaly bird legs and feet. They may or may not have wings. They often play instruments such as harps or lyres. They used their enchanting voices and music to shipwreck passing vessels on the rocks. Then they tear apart the sailors and devour their bloody flesh. Greek mythology traced their lineage to either the primordial sea god, Phorcys, or the river god Achelous (see 2013: #2-MEDUSAS). Roman poets located the sirens on the small Sirenum Scopuli island chain. Sirens sang their songs on Odysseus who tied himself to the mast of his ship to resist their power in The Odyssey. Sirens are related to mermaids of the sea and harpies of the air. In fact, sirenia is a classification of aquatic, mammals that live in rivers and various waters. Over the centuries the image of the siren became less beastly and more beauty. Even Leonardo da Vinci believed in sirens and wrote, "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners."

The phoenix dates back to Ancient Greece or Egypt. They were reported to have a five-hundred year lifespan. They symbolize renewal and the possibility of an afterlife. When the phoenix’s five-hundred year alarm clock goes off, it self-immolates and is regenerated, born again. Phoenix’s therefore have an association with fire and the sun. They are often depicted with clouds or seven rays of light beaming from them. Those rays of light are consistent with imagery for Helios, Greek mythology’s titan of the sun. However, the phoenix may have originated in Egypt from the long-legged bennu bird. Bennu was also believed to be a deity who had connections to the sun and rebirth. But there are versions of the phoenix all over the world in many countries, under so many names like the phoenix is an international spy (see 2017: #4-SPIES). In India the phoenix is known as garuda or gandaberunda, in Russia as the firebird, in Iran as simorgh, in Georgia as paskunji, in Saudi Arabia as anka, in Turkey as zümrüdü anka, in Japan as hō-ō, in China as fenghuang and zhu que, and in Tibet as me byi karmo. It is not surprising that in some ways the symbolism of the phoenix was absorbed into Christianity (see 2011: #6-HALLOWEEN AND RELIGION). The myth of the phoenix really has influenced many cultures and civilizations.

The manticore was reported to have the body of a lion, the tail and stinger of a scorpion, and a nasty head of a man with blazing red eyes and multiple rows of teeth. Manticores are similar to sphinxes but they are monstrous man-eaters known to eat people – bones and all. They were thought to originate from mantygers. Mantygers had the body of a tiger, the head of an old man – also rather nasty, with tusks like a boar and long spiral horns. Some exceedingly wise experts, who were most definitely nasty themselves, thought that the mantyger’s horns were similar to ox horns – and they had monkey feet. Other experts, the nastiest, realized that the mantyger was totally unrelated to the manticore. Manticores were thought to live in Iran and were called mardykhor or merthykhuwar. There are variations of manticores’ tail. It either appears as a large scorpion sting or as having shootable poisonous spines similar to porcupine quills. In Dante’s Inferno, Geryon is depicted as a manticore. Nowadays manticores are a popular monster in fantasy games.

Fantasy films are pretty much your best option for seeing anything close to sirines, the phoenix, or manticores: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, both Clash of the Titans films, Wrath of the Titans, etc. 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts featured harpies taunting a blind Patrick Troughton, Doctor Who #2 (see 2018: #2-GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO). The Dark Shadows tv series included a human phoenix villainess in its first season, before Barnabus the vampire made his appearance (see 2016: #7-GUIDE TO DARK SHADOWS). There is even a 2005 film named, Manticore, about an eternal manticore waking up for big fun.

These creatures have never been on this Earth. They are fakes and mistakes. But who knows, maybe they will appear in the far future. Millions of years in the future, what strange creatures could walk across the surface of this planet? Maybe they are not monsters on the loose now, but they may be monsters on the loose one day (on Friday see 2018: #8-THE DYING EARTH)…

[blessedxblight]

gil, jessie, and todd 

— The hardest part of losing your shit was the look people gave you afterwards. It was like you became a shattered glass ornament where every piece of you was held together with glue. Nobody wanted to test whether that glue was still tacky. And then, a brave soul would inevitably counter the room���s polite, downwards gazes to ask what happened. As if you could explain what it felt like to have the hollows of your bones vibrating. As if you could convey the sensation of your electrified flesh melting peacefully as the springtime thaw. Your body hummed, even if your charming reflection in the mirror and functionality at work masked that. This superhuman energy leeching off your skeleton could still be controlled. One, two, and then three days without sleep could zip by, but you were careful to only tremble in private. No, Norman from the fucking water cooler didn’t need to know your misfiring synapses were stones skipping across the creek. Each slap against the water marked a new, ingenious idea that was somehow cosmically related to the last. The time the stone soared over the water grew longer and longer, and it marked the vast leap in logic between each thought. Soon, the creek was filled with dozens — no, hundreds of rocks flying over to the other side after having only touched water once or twice. Norman, who pushed papers slow enough to be a tortoise reincarnate, wouldn’t know how to respond to that. Instead you told your coworkers it was a stress-related breakdown or you got dumped and cracked from the pain of your broken heart or that you’d taken ecstasy at the club. That was easier to grasp than how your mind first intoxicated you before slipping in the poison. Gone was the light, seductive buzz that won work accolades and recognition. You went from happily balancing on the cusp of euphoria to falling off the ledge. You’re without your mask and to your horror, realize that your rational mind is no longer in the driver’s seat and won’t return until you finally hit the ground.

How could that slack-jawed Norman understand what it was like to lose control? That at the time, cutting your anklet to join an animal right’s adjacent, antigovernment protest at the Franklin Zoo had made perfect, beautiful, simple sense. That the FBI would understand that attempting to free the tigers were part of your master plan. Confidently, you consoled Jessica about your decision and even flashed one of your signature, charming smiles. Despite the plan’s extreme nature, you assured her that it was carefully calculated. It would start a movement: it would spark real change on a government level, news stations would clamor for interviews, it would transform you from conman to national hero.  

Spoiler Alert: It had not started a movement. What it had started was a three day sabbatical in the emergency room.

On the morning of the second day when he’d finally stopped raving about tigers and had awoken from a peaceful, sedated nap, this was precisely how he’d explained it all to Agent Mulder. The humming, the rocks, his infinite dislike of his desk mate Norm  — all of it. Gil had given him permission to relay it to Jessica if asked, but he wasn’t sure how much had reached her.

The doctors had reassured Agent Mulder that Gil’s test results showed he’d been treatment compliant and hadn’t taken any recreational drugs. This had happened despite Gil’s control-freak nature, despite the fact that on paper he’d done everything right to prevent this. But sometimes, doing everything right still wasn’t enough. Gil would understand if the uncertainty that came with the big, almighty b-word was too much for his girlfriend. It had been too much for Raoul. He still had his consulting job, but did he still have his girl?

Gil glanced down, fiddling with the empty, plastic fruit cup in his hands. Contrary to popular belief, not every high was fun. Some people had it in their heads that it couldn’t be hell on earth. Not after Hollywood reassured them it was a quirky plot device that flipped on a magical, manic pixie dream girl switch. It could be a pain that reduced a career criminal, one who’d even gone to federal prison, to tears when he finally felt relief.

“What do you think of the free sock? Sexy, right?” he asked. One sprained foot is hidden inside an ankle boot, while the other wriggles in a yellow gripper sock. Gil cracked a smile despite looking and sounding exhausted. The month without consistent sleep had caught up to him and yet, he still found great humor in the situation. In hindsight, his tiger moment was kinda hilarious. Before the FBI intervened, a lovely video of him as an “impassioned bisexual protestor” wearing a bi flag bandana, limping to the bars with a baseball bat, and going wild had made it to the local news.

“Imagine playing footsie with these grippers,” he teased. Gil was glad to feel like himself again. The frantic energy that’d possessed him was finally exorcised. If that meant being more sleepy and hungry than his baseline, he’d take it. “I’m sorry this won’t help the love potion rumors,” he said. “It’s kind of ridiculous that they think anyone would need a love potion to fall in love with you.”

He looked up at her.

“You know I love you, right?”

Was this his first time saying it? His chest rose and fell with rhythmically slow, steady breaths. As he’d joked with Simon, he was confident that his first night involved agreeing to getting pumped with enough drugs to tranquilize an elephant. He was glad that Jessica had missed the part where a confident, capable international conman was almost reduced to tears because the world was calm at last.

“I love you so much, Jessica,” he said. “And I’m sorry.” That he hadn’t told her sooner? That she was always cleaning up his messes? For everything?

concern was at the forefront of her mind the moment she heard of the news– well really saw the news– or rather heard from the news that her boyfriend, the impassioned bisexual, was the cause of an animal right’s organization mishap. yes, he’d told her plan. his own voice declared and stated exactly what he was going to do, and yet, she didn’t entirely believe him. she giggled at the idea– she thought it was another one of those charms he was speaking, as if they were saving the polar bears one ice cream at a time, once again. she didn’t think to believe him. her giggles felt incredibly ignorant the moment the headline repeated Gil’s words back to her in one of those small television sets in the corner of a convenient store. it didn’t take her long to believe that her Gilbert was the fan in the flames for this incident. he was full of surprises.

of course the pit of her stomach churned at the idea of him landing himself in the emergency room. her worse fear was that he was mauled by one of those tigers– it started churning the opposite way once she realized it was only a matter of an ankle. of course, she wasn’t allowed in– not immediately. she wasn’t his spouse, nor kin. he was sleeping when she did visit–finally to see the cute button nose on his face wrinkle a deep slumber. she found it endearing that he’d laugh in his sleep, tiny little ho, ho, ho’s dancing with sugarplum fairies. she brushed his hair twice during his naps– and upon receiving news that he would be alright, she planned a little gift for him. the giftbag dangled in her hands as she took her steps in.

first she peaked her head in, a smile beaming at Snow White finally awakened by the fruit cup fiddling in his fingers. her giggles danced along the pale white room, attempting to provide a warmth to soothe that stressed out face he tried so hard to hide from her. taking her place by his bed, she slowly nods. “Sexier than a brand new Frosty Gingerbread Yankee candle.” though, the thought fo playing footsie with his grippers continued to squeeze laughter out of her. tiny wheezes soon follow as she shakes her head at him. her hands place themselves on her hips, and the her reads, what are we going to do with you. and despite his assuring words she offers him a sincere smile as he speaks his truth.

“Ya, sugar bear. I know you do,” she takes a long pause, letting the words take their full meaning to strike a heart and light it aflame once more. and though they were words unspoken to each other, she had an inkling that this was something they wrote about in books. and though she’s never believed herself worthy of one of those fairytales. it feels like the right moment.

it also feels like the right time to say it back. “You know I love you too, right? And you don’t gotta go off and try to save every animal for me, you hear?” her tone is solemn, with heavy admonition, but concern in trying to reason why he’d do so. “I know you’re sorry.”

fruit cup be damned, she takes his hand in hers and squeezes lightly. “I think the new boot on your leg might be your karmic punishment.”  she scoots the hospital chair closer to him, and places the giftbag on his food tray. “So I gotcha something to try and help cheer you up.” from the giftshop, she had snagged one of those stuffed animal tigers. it was a silly gift for him to remember his failed rescue attempts. – in it’s hand she’d made use of her sewing kit and stitched on one of those bisexual flags she’d found at the parade. the second gift– well he’d be coming soon. Todd Lupin was waiting for her signal to enter the room.