#related to his head injury and once they learned about the cameras he set up they would confront him and reveal to the audience

[vicsuragi]

okay i finally watched an episode from the correct season of ordinary lies and i am so fucking confused that was such a 90 degree turn they took in the last 10 minutes.

[eryiss]

Prompt: Chendy; Chelia performing CPR on Wendy to restart her heart

Hi. This is my first time writing for this ship, so I hope it’s okay. I hope you enjoy it.

You can also read it on Fanfiction or Archive of our Own.

As Her Heart Skips

No. No this couldn't be happening.

It was- It was meant to be an exhibition fight. They were just there to fill the Grand Magic Game's schedule while the events were being set up, and to allow members of participating guilds not in the teams to show off their abilities. It wasn't meant to be anything special, or important, and they definitely weren't meant to be dangerous.

And Chelia didn't mean for this to happen. She didn't! It was just that she'd been practicing her magic a lot of late, she'd been learning some spells that weren't as stable as she thought, and she'd put more magical energy into one of them.

Now Wendy was… She was…

Why was nobody helping. There was an entire colosseum of people watching this, why were none of them helping? There had to be medics or people with healing magic who could help. And why had nobody from Fairy Tail come down to see if Wendy was okay, they were some of the most protective people Chelia had ever seen. They should be here, doing something – anything – that could help Wendy recover from the injury.

Chelia couldn't think straight, she just couldn't. She looked around for help, because surely it would come, and her eyes landed on Fairy Tail's private viewing area. They were – oh no – beating against walls of runes. The runes that the GMG put up to stop fight interference. They couldn't get into the arena.

Mind still spinning, Chelia looked towards the entrance tunnels where she and Wendy had entered from. The runes were covering them, and the officials couldn't get through them.

No. Nobody could get in! It was just her and Wendy now.

She had to do something. Wendy was lying unconscious, partially covered in the dust that Chelia's spells had whisked up. And if nobody else could get towards her, then it would have to be Chelia. But she wasn't qualified to do anything, nor did she know any first aid techniques- no. Wait. She did!

Her and Wendy had gotten close since they first met, and formed the 'Sky Sisters.' The time they could spend together was limited with the missions they both went on, so they had to find the time whenever they could. One way they'd been able to do that was having Chelia tag along to Wendy's medical lessons with Porlyusica. She had been taught how to perform first aid in case her healing magic had failed her, and Chelia had been to quite a few of lessons. She didn't pay as much attention as Wendy did, but she'd picked up a few things.

If there was anything she could do, then she would. But what if she got it wrong-

No. She had to be calm. That's what Porlyusica always made clear.

Chelia charged forward towards Wendy, looking the girl over with still panicking eyes. She wasn't bleeding – oh thank goodness – and that meant Chelia could turn her over, so she was facing up rather than at the ground. She didn't have any obvious injuries.

Oh no. No. Her chest wasn't moving. Was she not…?

Chelia leant down, placing her ear to Wendy's mouth to see if she could feel or hear any breath. She couldn't. Wendy wasn't breathing. She wasn't breathing!

No. Okay. This was something that Chelia knew how to deal with. It was CPR, wasn't it? When you didn't have anyone with healing magic or anything that could jump start the heart, then you had to perform CPR. It was a simple one to do, she was pretty sure. She forced herself to think back to the lessons – silently angry at herself for being distracted for most of the lessons – until a rush of memories came back to her.

30 chest compressions.

She places her hands onto Wendy's chest in the formation she remembered Porlyusica telling Wendy to, and started to push down in sharp compressions. She hummed a small tune that Wendy had made up to keep the compression in time.

The sounds of the worried crowd fell to the background, a muffled mess of unimportant noises. Her entire focus was forcing her hands down onto Wendy's chest in short bursts of strength in time with the small tune that she was humming. Her eyes were burning slightly, but she shook her head to stop the tears from distracting her. Because she didn't ned to cry, because this was going to be fine. Wendy was going to wake up and she would be okay, and this would all be a bad memory.

Why wasn't there anybody here yet? Surely they'd opened the runes by now!

She was getting to the end of the thirty compressions, and thought back to the first aid lessons to remember what she needed to do next. She thought back to the memory of watching Wendy give compressions to the doll, and once she'd done that she'd… she'd…

Emergency breaths. That's what they were called.

Pinch the nose tightly, lift the chin up to clear the airways, and give two strong breaths.

Chelia did the steps needed of her, and her eyes flickered to the left as she glances Wendy's chest rise slightly before falling slightly. It was working. Oh good it was working.

She returned to her kneeling position over Wendy, placing her hands on her chest and giving them sharp compressions. It was all she could do to focus on the situation, trying to ignore both the crowd of people watching them and the burning in her arms as each compression further tired her out. It didn't matter that she was hurting, or that almost everyone in the country could be watching her, she just needed to focus on this. On helping Wendy.

It was at the third round of compressions that a hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see an unfamiliar mage with a firm expression on her face. She looked over her shoulder towards him, still compressing Wendy's chest.

"We can take it from here, young lady," He said, softly. "But we need some space."

Chelia fell back, allowing the man to kneel before Wendy and start casting a soft beige spell on her. A group of nurse and doctor mages surrounded her, meaning Chelia could no longer look after her. She was left in the middle of the arena, the exhaustion of the situation overtaking her. She breathed heavily, closing her eyes, and panting quietly.

"Hey," A woman's voice said. "She's awake."

Chelia blinked as she woke up, head shooting up and banging against the wall. She had been sleeping in the waiting room from the GMG medical bay, and had woken up to see Lucy smiling at her softly.

After the runes had been broken and medical mages had been able to access the fighting arena, they had taken Wendy to the medical bay to both bring her back to consciousness and to check her over for any further injuries. Many of her guild members had demanded entrance to the First Aid bay, none more loudly than her team. Chelia had arrived in time to hear that nobody would be allowed in until she was in a safe place.

By the lack of any noise from the louder members of Wendy's team, it was likely that they'd already seen her and gone by now. Chelia didn't mind that she hadn't been woken up the moment she could see Wendy, she was just glad to hear that Wendy was awake and able to see visitors again.

"Is she okay?" Chelia asked urgently.

"She seems fine," Lucy smiled, stepping back as Chelia stood up. "She seemed more worried about you than herself though."

"Can I- do you mind if I see her?" Chelia asked, glancing at the door.

"Of course," Lucy grinned. "She'll be happy to see you."

It wasn't the most polite thing to do, but she walked past Lucy without saying anything and into the medical bay. A torrent of worrying thoughts hit her as she saw the curtain around Wendy's bed, all of them possibilities as to how bad Wendy might be looking. With panic flooding her, she pulled open the curtain to see…

Wendy was eating ice cream.

"Chelia," She exclaimed, placing her bowl of ice cream on the bed. "I'm glad you're here. Are you okay?"

"I- what," Chelia spluttered slightly, before shaking her head to refocus her attention. "I should be asking if you're okay. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Wendy assured her, patting the side of the bed for Chelia to sit on. "Would you like some ice cream?"

"You were- I mean you- you were unconscious!" She exclaimed, looking around in almost disbelief. "You shouldn't be offering me ice cream, you should be… I don't know exactly what you should be doing but I should be the one worrying about you. I mean I should be buying you ice cream. It was me that knocked you out."

"You also kept me stable for about five minutes," Wendy smiled, shrugging and then lifting her bowl of ice cream. "There's chocolate, banana and raspberry. They even gave me a wafer and chocolate sauce."

"How do you know I did that?"

Wendy pointed towards the wall, where a lacrima was mounted showing the days news. On the screen there was a slightly flickering image surmising the days events in relation to Grand Magic Games. Chelia watched in horror as she saw images of her compressing Wendy's chest, and the leaning down to give her-

Oh dear.

"Oh no," Chelia mumbled, placing her head in her hands. "I forgot there was cameras."

It wasn't a kiss. It wasn't. It was a way to keep her heart going, and was a necessary medical action. But that didn't mean the reality of the situation was lost on Chelia. She had placed her lips on Wendy's lips. Her lips had touched her crush's clips. And not only that, but most people in the country would have seen it, and it was being repeated on the news all throughout the day. How was she meant to deal with that?

"I could probably ask for you to get your own bowl, if you want a bigger portion," Wendy said from behind her, as if this wasn't a ridiculous situation. "And I didn't know that you paid that much attention to those lessons you sat in on."

"Why are you not angry at me?" Chelia asked, tearing her eyes away from the screen. "I put you in here."

"Not on purpose," Wendy shrugged. "And then you saved me. It evens out. Do you not like ice cream?"

"What if you didn't come back. Or I did something to your insides or something?"

Wendy sighed, placed her bowl of ice cream onto the bed again. She patted the place in the bed next to her, looking at Chelia with a bit of a firm expression. Following the silent instruction, Chelia sat beside her crush and looked at her with worry in her eyes. She fidgeted slightly, trying to ignore the flushing feeling overtaking her at the soft expression Wendy was giving her.

"You saved me, that's what you need to think about," Wendy said firmly. "Accidents happen, and that's okay. You didn't do it on purpose, and I don't blame you," She shrugged, picking up the remote and flicking the channel to a TV movie. "Oh, I've been wanting to watch this."

"I-I can leave you then, if you want," Chelia suggested, with a level of whiplash for how openly Wendy had forgiven her.

"Watch it with me," Wendy asked, smiling at Chelia softly. "Please."

And, well, who was Chelia to deny her crush after a request like that? She placed her feet on the bed beside Wendy, wondering why Wendy didn't blame her for any of this. But when a head rested softly against her side, Chelia decided it didn't matter. This was more important.

[storiesforallfandoms]

remember me ~ machine gun kelly

word count: 2174

request?: yes

@xxkellsvixen19xx “A request for Colson Baker x Reader fic where shortly after they are married (few months) she’s in a car accident with amnesia and he helps her remember that plus that she’s pregnant (which is shortly before that happens but she had forgotten) please and thank you”

description: in which colson must help his wife remember who he is

pairing: machine gun kelly x female!reader

warnings: swearing, some sadness

Colson raced down the hallway of the hospital. His shoes weren’t even properly tied, his coat was half off, and he realized upon getting out of the car he realized he hadn’t even taken his wallet. When he received the call, he raced out of the house in a flash and got to the hospital so fast that the car ride was all a blur.

He walked up to the first desk he could find, trying to find his voice.

“I-I need to-to know where (Y/N) Baker is,” he stuttered.

“What’s your relation to Mrs. Baker?” the woman at the desk asked.

“I’m her husband,” Colson responded, flashing his ring as if that were the evidence the woman needed. “I’m Colson Baker, I was talking to someone like 20 minutes ago. He said my wife was brought in after a bad car accident, but he wouldn’t give me any more details over the phone. Please, I need to see her.”

The woman pointed Colson to where (Y/N)’s room was. He mumbled a quick thank you and raced down the hallway. As he approached the door, a doctor was walking out. The doctor put his hands out to stop Colson.

“Are you Mr. Baker?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fucking Mr. Baker. Can I see my goddamn wife?” Colson snapped.

“Mr. Baker, I understand that this is a very emotional time, but I need to give tell you what happened to your wife before you go in there,” the doctor explained. Tears were pricking Colson’s eyes. He wiped them away and nodded, not trusting his own voice to speak. “Your wife was in a serious car accident, Mr. Baker. A driver blew a stop sign as she was driving through and t-boned her on the driver’s side. The impact was pretty severe, she hit her head off the window and was rendered unconscious at the scene. Luckily, the paramedics got to the scene very quickly and managed to get to her before any permanent damage could be done...however...”

“However?” Colson prompted.

“She may have some brain damage,” the doctor finished. “Her brain has some swelling, however that should go down by the time she wakes up but we can’t promise that there won’t be any side effects to that.”

“Side effects like what?” Colson asked.

“She may have some speech problems, she may have to learn basic motor functions again, and she may have some memory loss. We cannot tell you how far back the memory loss could effect, but I wanted to warn you in case it’s as far back as your wedding. I’ve seen many a brain damage victims wake up and not remember their loved ones and how hard that is for the loved ones. I try to give a warning in case.”

Colson nodded, although the thought of his loving wife waking up and forgetting him tore his heart out.

“We just found out she was pregnant,” Colson said. “Like just found out maybe a week ago. Do you guys know if the baby is okay?”

“We can do some testing to make sure,” the doctor said. “We’ll let you know as soon as the results came back.” The doctor stepped aside. “You may go see her, but please try to keep as calm as you can. Even unconscious she’ll be able to sense your presence and it’s best for her recovering to remain as calm as you can.”

Colson nodded again. He tried to take a deep breath and pull himself together, but he found it incredibly hard. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he walked through the door, but he knew he wanted to see her. He knew he had to.

When he opened the door he couldn’t help but suck in a breath. Laying there on the hospital bed was his beautiful wife, so pale he was afraid she was lifeless, with a large scar on the side of her head, where she had hit the window and needed to be stitched back up. Colson crossed the room to sit at the chair next to her bed. He reached out and took one of her cold hands in his and squeezed it slightly.

“I’m right here, baby,” he whispered. “I’m gonna stay here till you wake up.”

~~~~~~

One painful week later, things were starting to look up. (Y/N)’s injuries were starting to heal and she was beginning to look like herself again. But she was still asleep. The doctor assured Colson that that was a good thing as it gave her body time to rest and recuperate.

Colson kept true to his word and stayed right in the chair next to her bed, waiting patiently for her to wake up. He cancelled any interviews and shows he had and had to tell Cassie, who was in a frenzy of her own, that he would come to get her as soon as (Y/N) woke up. The only times he moved from the chair were to get a shower, and even then he only went as far as the bathroom attached to (Y/N)’s hospital room.

He stepped out of the bathroom one day, fresh from a shower wearing clean clothes that Rook had brought for him, his hair still dripping wet, to find his wife lying in the hospital bed with her eyes open.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to do. He wanted to rush to her and hug her tightly, to kiss her and tell her how happy he was that she was awake, but he knew that he still couldn’t overwhelm her too much. He wasn’t sure how much her brain still needed to heal, plus he didn’t want to overwhelm her too much when she was just awake.

“(Y/N),” he finally said, as calmly as he could. “You’re awake.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in a hospital,” Colson explained, sitting himself down next to her again. “You were in a serious accident about a week ago. You had a bit of brain damage and you were bleeding a lot, you’ve been recovering very quickly though, and the doctors say that’s great.”

She nodded, although she still looks lost. “And...and who are you?”

The words he had been dreading all week. Hearing them felt like a knife through his heart. He tried to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall down his face. “I’m - uh - I’m your husband, Colson.”

Her eyes widened and she looked down at the ring on her left ring finger. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I...I don’t remember...oh God I feel awful.”

“No, don't apologize,” Colson said, taking her hand in his. “I was warned that a bit of memory loss was a possibility. It’s okay, I’m willing to try and help you remember.”

(Y/N) nodded. She opened her mouth to say something else when a knock came at the door and the doctor came in. He smiled at (Y/N). “Well, look who’s awake. How do you feel, Mrs. Baker?”

“Confused,” she responded, causing Colson to chuckle.

“That was a possibility,” the doctor said with a nod. “Listen, we can do this in your own time, but we did tell your husband that once you were awake and ready that we needed to do another test on you to check on the health of your baby.”

(Y/N)’s eyes widened as she looked back at Colson. “I’m pregnant? I’ve always wanted to be a mom.”

Colson smiled. “We only found out a week ago. You found out then you planned out this elaborate way to tell me, you even set up a camera to film it, but you were so excited that you just blurted it out the minute I walked through the door. I have the video still if you want to see it.”

Tears were starting to form in (Y/N)’s eyes and Colson could see the sadness and frustration starting to grow in her face. “Yeah, yeah I’d love to see it. But I um...I think I should do this testing first. Even if I don’t remember it, I want this baby to be okay.”

~~~~~~

Another week later, (Y/N) was discharged to go home on the condition that she continued to get a lot of bed rest. After a few tests at the hospital, the doctors confirmed that the baby was okay and was still very healthy, but advised her to get regular monthly check ups in order to make sure the baby remained healthy.

On the drive home, she watched the video on Colson’s phone of her telling him that she was pregnant. She kept replaying the video, as if hoping that re-watching it would jog her memories of the event. But Colson could tell that the video was just making her more sad that she forgot it.

“Who’s Cassie?” she asked as she listened to the old her on the video announce, “Cassie’s gonna be a big sister!”

“That’s my daughter,” Colson responded. “Your step-daughter. She adores you, and you her. You guys are basically inseparable. She’s been worried sick about you.”

(Y/N) finally locked the phone and passed it back to Colson. “I don’t even remember who she is.”

“I know,” Colson sighed. “But I’ll help you to remember. The doctor said pictures and videos should help jog your memory, and we have plenty of those.”

Upon stepping into the house, (Y/N) was met with dozens of memories of herself and Colson and Cassie. There were pictures on the wall of Colson and (Y/N) on their wedding day, pictures lining the tables of different memories; their first date, their first award show red carpet, pictures of the three of them at Disney together. (Y/N) walked through the house, taking in every piece of it in hopes it would jog her memory of something.

“What are these awards?” she questioned, pointing some of Colson’s music awards that he had on display. “You’re famous?”

“Don’t tell me you forget that far back,” Colson said with a teasing smile. “I’m a rapper and an actor. That’s how we met, you got tickets to an award show and we got to talking on the red carpet. You gave me your number.”

(Y/N)’s eyes lit up. “Wait, yes! Okay, that sounds familiar. I saved up for months to try and get to this award show that was being held in my hometown. I went with my best friend, she freaked out when you walked down the red carpet because she was such a fan. She was so jealous when you flirted with me, even more so when I gave you my number and you actually responded.”

Colson chuckled. “Yeah, she won’t let either of us live that down. She even made it a whole story in her Maid of Honor speech.”

“That makes sense,” (Y/N) said, nodding. “I...I kind of remember some of these things. I have some blurs of the scenery around the picture, but I can’t see any faces or remember exactly where or what happened.”

“That’s okay,” Colson told her. “The doctors said it’ll take some time, but don’t strain yourself or you could really hurt your head more.”

(Y/N) nodded. Tears started to form in her eyes again as she sat down on her and Colson’s shared bed, another place she couldn’t even remember. Colson was quick to sit by her side as she began to sob into her hands. He rubbed her back soothingly, assuring her everything would be okay.

“I’m sorry,” she said through tears. “I’m really sorry for all of this. I feel awful, we have all these memories and we’re married and we’re having a fucking baby! And I can’t remember any of it! I feel so awful.”

“Hey, stop that,” Colson told her. “None of this is your fault, it’s the fault of the asshole who decided they wanted to run a stop sign. We’re going to get your memories back, I promise. No matter how long it takes, I’ll be here through every step of the process, as long as you want me here.”

(Y/N) looked at Colson. He took her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, taking him by surprise. Despite not remembering any of their past kisses, (Y/N) kissed him so naturally. He expected it to be a while before she felt comfortable enough to even want to stay in the same bed as him.

When she pulled away, she smiled at Colson. “I may not remember much of our relationship, but I do know that I love you. I know that you’re the father of my child, and you’re the love of my life. If there’s anyone I want to be by my side while I regain my memories, it’s definitely you.”

Colson smiled back at her. “Well then I promise to stay forever.”

I hope you enjoyed your imagine! For anyone who is also reading my “Not So Bad” series (not the official title just yet, I don’t really have one right now) and you want to be tagged in it, just let me know in the notes of that imagine and I’ll tag you in part two! (Which hopefully will be up by Saturday at the latest)

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

Mantle Nights

a bit of bonus material related to my fic, Dead Souls Living.  This scene takes place concurrently to the events that’ll happen in Ch12, tho it will not appear in the fic itself.  It was written as a sketch to get an idea of what information every set of characters is working with and overall dynamics.

To recap, Ruby and Penny have just escaped from Atlas to Mantle (via crash-landing).

The Atlesian perspective (Ironwood, AceOps, etc.) knows a lot about the situation (Ruby and Penny’s identities, why they’re fleeing, why it’s important to get them back (Silver Eyes/Winter Maiden Powers), etc).

The Happy Huntresses know Ruby and Penny are kids who’ve run away from Atlas and don’t want to go back, but Atlas is very keen on getting them back.  They’ve been able to guess Penny’s identity (since she did have a rather public, onscreen death at the Fall), but they don’t know who Ruby is.

the rumor going through Mantle is that there’re some high profile Atlas Academy runaways being hidden and the general feeling is sympathetic toward them.

(for the record, Souls Ch12 will be mostly focused on Penny’s POV and what’s happening in her immediate vicinity.  With this oneshot, I wanted to get a feel for the wider scope of effects the escape has set into motion.)

.

You wouldn’t know it’s usually the quietest time of a Mantle night just by looking, Robyn muses.  For the first part of their walk, she kept a running tally of how many Atlesian Knight patrols she and Joanna passed.  She got to fifty or sixty, and then gave up.  Between the knights and the swarms of drones buzzing about, it’s more than clear Atlas’s fury has been invoked, and come down on Mantle.

They’ve been given no explanation as to why the military suddenly cares about the security of their streets, but no one’s fooled themselves that it’s out of actual concern for them.  Atlas wants something, and isn’t going to stop until it gets it.

Robyn frowns.  She’s been running through scenarios of what will happen when Atlas doesn’t get what it wants.  None of them are remotely good.  It would be so easy, she knows, to just let them have what it is they’re after.  Robyn has a fairly good idea what that is, and, more importantly, where to find them.

She won’t.  Of course, she won’t.  She has morals.  Even if Robyn doesn’t know all the specifics of the situation, she knows enough.

Robyn and Joanna stop across the street from the Mantle Police Department.  Joanna looks to Robyn and raises an eyebrow in a silent question.  Robyn nods once, curtly, and then advances toward the municipal building alone.  It shouldn’t come to bailing her out (or, at worst, a prison break), but it’s safer to have backup at the ready.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary when Robyn walks through the doors into the department’s lobby.  The woman who works the front desk, a reindeer Faunus named Gwen, looks up when Robyn enters.  She opens her mouth to say something, but a man walks through the door leading into the back of the PD, beats her to it, and makes Robyn’s night infinitely worse.

Clover Ebi smiles at Robyn.  “Ms. Hill, it’s nice to see you.”  He holds out his hand.  Robyn doesn’t take it.  Briefly, Clover grimaces, but he conceals it under another a smile a second later.  “We just have a few questions.  I’m sure you understand.”  He gestures for her to follow him into the back.

“Care to tell me what’s got the military so riled up?”  Robyn asks as she follow him.  They stop at a conference room.

Clover gestures for Robyn to sit down on one side of the table.  He goes to a small counter off to the side and prepares two cups of coffee.  Robyn doesn’t take the one he offers to her.  If they want her fingerprints or DNA, they’re going to have to ask.  Nicely.

“Alright.  I’ll get straight to the point.”  Clover sits down across from Robyn.  He pointedly sips his own coffee.  “Do you know the current whereabouts of May Marigold?”

Robyn sits back in her seat and crosses her arms.  “Can I see the arrest warrant?”

Clover purses his lips.  “I can assure you, no one is under arrest.  We just need to know where Ms. Marigold is.”

“Why’s that?”  Robyn asks, considers for a moment, and then adds, “This wouldn’t be the first time her ‘family’ has decided they don’t approve of her occupation.”  Sure, the Marigolds don’t care about May as a person, but when they found out she still goes by their name.  Yeah, they’re not exactly thrilled with that.

“The Marigolds aren’t involved in this particular situation.”  Clover gives Robyn what she supposes he thinks a pleading look must be.  He places his scroll down on the table and opens a video file.  “Earlier tonight, Mantle street security footage captured Ms. Marigold at a scene the Atlas Military has under open investigation.  We need to know where she went afterward.”  Clover plays the video.

The staticky recording shows what appears to be a random Mantle street.  Something bright green hurdles down from the sky and crashes.  A blurry, blue-haired figure that could be identified as May approaches and disappears into the impact crater.  The camera isn’t angled right to see what happens in the crater.  Minutes later, Atlas Military personnel appear at the scene.

“What am I looking at here?”  Robyn asks, genuinely.  Yes, she knew there was a ‘situation’, but this is the first she’s learned exactly what went down.

“Like I said, it is a matter under open investigation by the Atlas Military.  I cannot share the details, but we believe Ms. Marigold walked away with crucial evidence before we could examine it.”

“Based on your video.”  Robyn gestures.  “It doesn’t appear that whoever that was walked away at all.”

“We both know what Ms. Marigold’s semblance is, Robyn.  She has the capacity to move freely, undetected.”  Clover takes a breath.  “Please.  As a potential future member of the Atlas Council, citizen safety should be one of your highest priorities.  We believe what was taken from the scene poses a high-level security threat.  We need to know their current location.”

“Right.  I don’t have that information, Clover.  I barely know what’s going on.”  Robyn shrugs.  “All I know is one minute I’m going about my business, the next, the sky is swarming with Atlas ships and I’m being called here to answer questions.”

Clover looks at Robyn critically.  She meets his gaze.  Nothing is said.

Then, Clover states, “It would be in your best interest to help us, Robyn.”

“Like I said, I don’t know what’s going on,” she responds.  “Is that all?”

“For now.”  Clover exhales a long sigh.  “We’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sure you will.”

On her way out, Robyn is stopped by Gwen from the front desk.  “For the girls.”  The Faunus woman thrusts a plate of cookies covered over with plastic wrap at Robyn.  Once Robyn takes it, she hands her a carrying tray with two hot chocolates.  “It’s been a long night,” Gwen explains, and then hurries off without explanation.

Robyn looks down at the offerings, allows herself a small smile, and then heads off into the night.  She collects Joanna, who acquired an armload of thick blankets, coats, and at least one pair of sturdy, weather resistant boots while she waited.

Together, they take a meandering path to the drop point and only arrive at their destination when they’re sure they’ve shaken off the last of the drones.  They leave their bundles of clothing and food, and head off to rendezvous with Fiona, who’s been following up a theory at Dr. Polendina’s pharmacy (the military had indeed shut the place down and maintains a presence there.  In all likeliness, Pietro is being held up in Atlas, most likely under some kind of house arrest.)

Some time later, a person, who cannot be seen due to her invisibility semblance, comes for the supplies.  Even though seeing the abundance of Mantle’s offerings warms her heart, May curses at just how many there are and doubles back for Maria to help her carry everything.

They get the lot sorted, check for hidden tracking devices (there are none), and take everything to the safehouse (actually just Maria’s house, but now that it technically houses fugitives, a name change seemed appropriate).

They arrive as the doctor they called, Klein Sieben, is returning down the stairs, trailed by not-actually-dead Penny Polendina.

“The girl is sleeping,” Klein informs May and Maria without prompting.  “Her injuries weren’t severe, but her general health condition leaves much to be desired.  I shall return in the morning to check up on her.  Until then, I suggest you let her be.”  He turns and gives Penny a pointed look.  “And rest up yourselves.  Your friend wasn’t the only one who fell from the sky, my dear.”

Penny nods, but doesn’t say anything.  Whatever’s going through her head, she’s careful not to let any hint of it show on her face.

“Don’t worry.”  May approaches Penny, plate of cookies in hand.  “Mantle always provides for its adopted runaways.”

[mrwinterr]

Follow You

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: A song fic inspired by the song “Follow You” - Night Riots

Warnings: Fluff. Stalking? Mentions of sex and maybe masturbation (but only if that’s how you judge the actions in this story, nothing graphic). Reader is also not related to anyone in this story, just in case that question should arise in one’s mind.

A/N: This is a repost as I’m getting settled on this new blog. This was and still stands as of right now, my only Bucky Barnes fanfic. I swear the song isn’t as creepy as it sounds. It’s nonetheless a jam, so if you need music recommendation, check the band out! 

It’s not usual for the common area to be empty, especially in the morning as almost everyone in the building is an early riser. Bucky’s eyes gloss over the span of the room, not seeing any sign of his teammates, until they caught onto an image printed on the front page of today’s newspaper.

He recognizes your face on the print as part of the medical team within the building. He’s seen you a few times in passing or attending to any injuries and the occasional company events, but nothing more. He didn’t even know your name. He studied your features carefully. Your hair was all over the place, you had a small cut on your cheek, and you were clutching your left hand, which was visibly wounded. What kind of tussle did you get yourself into?

The full story revealed you helping fight off an assailant targeting his teammate Sam Wilson, who’s slowly being recognized as the new Captain America. This would explain where everyone might be. Taking place at night, you weren’t too far from the compound with Sam, but the person was clearly on a mission. It was a surprise attack. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The appeal of the story was how a civilian was able to hold her weight against someone who was trained to and purposely cause harm. Much like the paper, Bucky was enamored by the act of bravery. He read the story over and over, stared at every photo you were in, but he wanted to know so much more. He was captivated.

I saw your face inside the newspaper You saved your brother but your hand got burned

The training room was usually empty when he visited it, except that day he found Sam sparing with you. Unfortunately, your courageous story created unwanted attention. Secret intel revealed there was a threat by the previous attacker’s organization. It changed your life. You were forced to take extra steps in precaution, so he was helping you strengthen your defensive skills. The moment Bucky stepped in and looked at you, his breath got caught in his throat.

You turned your head in his direction as Sam called out his name. Bucky stood there unmoved, eyes only trained on you, and Sam took this as an opportunity to crack a joke. Bucky slightly shook his head and mouthed a quick comeback to which earned him a laugh from you. His body loosened up at the sound of your voice and he managed to give you a small smile. He found that laugh to be one of the sweetest things he’s ever heard, and it led his mind to wonder what else he could do to be able to find out how other noises would sound like coming out of your mouth.

Your hair was wild just like a lion’s fur I wanna laugh with you and make you purr

Your image never left his mind. He finally learned your name and your role on the medical team. He saw firsthand and already had a general sense that you could take care of yourself, but the attacks opened a can of worms. It could only get worse. In fact, within a few months, the next several attempts at your own life and anyone that seemed suspicious, Bucky would be there to divert danger away from you. He took them all out. He discovered you lived alone a couple of miles away from the compound. He felt a need to keep you safe, so using his stealth techniques he commits to your routine and remembering the route to your home. He was following you.

I will follow you home Cause I know where you live You’ll never be alone Cause I know where you live

It becomes more than that for Bucky. He takes a new course in the compound ensuring that he passes by the big glass window that separates him and the medical team just to see if you’ve made it to work alright. Sometimes he lingers a little longer than usual and catches your gaze through and between every staff member walking about doing their respective jobs, each time causing him to almost lose his composure and knocking the wind out of him, like a head-on-collision. He was wrecked.

I drive by your work almost every day That big old window shows me everything I saw you look at me through the glass Your eagle vision almost made me crash

He’s almost sure you don’t notice his close eye. If you did, you don’t act any different from the first encounter with him. For all you knew, no one was threatening your life anymore and they’d forgotten all about your story. He finds you just as friendly and caring, and it all just digs deeper into him. He had progressively initiated conversation with you given the opportunity. You’ve taken on to attending any discomfort Bucky has brought by missions or his arm and in return he helps you train when you have the time or keep you company during breaks. You were perfect to him. Everything you said or did, never elicited a painful memory caused by his past.

By now he’s discovered the perfect spot across your apartment to continue his watch. One night he slipped. You had returned from a night out with friends. He could tell you were slightly intoxicated as you carelessly slipped out of your dress with the curtains still drawn open, a bad habit of yours. Bucky couldn’t bring himself to look away. He knew it was wrong and extremely invasive. His bottom lip trapped itself between his teeth as his eyes scanned your mostly naked body. You casually stretched and he could sense you letting out a sound of pleasurable relief. His gaze never tore from your figure until you finally had the sense to close your curtains. He should’ve felt great shame. He tried to hold back but he was far too gone and could only imagine how you would look and sound like reacting to him worshiping you. He was weak.

No shame, I will follow you home No shame, you’ll never be alone

Things almost fall back into routine for Bucky even with the added task of ensuring your safety. He’s suddenly frantic as you weren’t where he expects you to always be. You’re not standing at your usual post in the medical lab, your curtains don’t open again, and you’re barely seen throughout the compound. He double checks his research and doesn’t see any sign of suspicious activity or you resigning and departing from the city. The attacks have actually lessened since they’ve become futile with him in the way and you never once mentioned leaving. He inquiries about you from your colleagues, who insist they don’t know of your whereabouts. He was scared.

He thought about how he wouldn’t see you flash him that smile, the way one side of your lips slanted upwards and eyes shined, just for him. He thought about the sound of your voice, especially your laugh. It made him melt. He thought about things he wished he could have made you feel. He thought about how he wouldn’t be able to do any of that if you weren’t around. You really had a huge affect and it dawned on him. He was in love.

No shame, I believe I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you

You weren’t in danger at all. You recently took up following Bucky, observing him as he tried to observe you even in your absence. You couldn’t believe it. You didn’t when Sam told you what Bucky had been up to. He noticed his new behavior before anyone else and took it upon himself to figure out what or who changed him. He was actually relieved to find out that he wasn’t doing something self-destructive but instead he was harboring a crush and was protecting you this whole time. Granted what he was doing involved an invasion of privacy, but surprisingly you weren’t angry, and you didn’t understand why you weren’t. Any normal person would feel some sort of animosity, but you didn’t. You liked Bucky and his company. You knew of him before working in the compound but you were enthralled by Bucky since you officially met him in the training room and continued to be the more you interacted. You were hooked.

You felt bad watching Bucky pull at his hair, frustrated as he thought you were in any kind of crisis, but you couldn’t wrap your mind around how he would want to willingly go through all this trouble to keep you safe. What made you special? You were just like every other person in the world that needed to be protected by Earth’s heroes. Yet you were still here, and it was because of him. You had to make sure it wasn’t just a phase. Why did he feel the need to protect you? If he had no one to look after, would he still care? You found out a lot about Bucky by observing him. Bucky’s watch was no joke, that much you learned. It took a real toll on your body and mind. It was harder on your end because you were making sure your absence was solid, full-proof, and at first you thought who were you to believe you could successfully spy on a former assassin? Luckily, Sam aided you on that one for a while. He just didn’t know you were still following Bucky and you didn’t either the longer it played out. You were falling.

Following you home, I’ll follow you home

It was time. You couldn’t stand to watch the look of defeat on Bucky any longer. He continued to stop by your apartment, cameras revealed he was still walking through the medical floor at the compound and asking if you’d return. You knew Bucky’s routine now and when you found the right moment, you set it up. You opened your curtains, left the lights on, and the door open just in time for his next stakeout.

As expected, Bucky walks right into it. He didn’t even think much about it but the last few weeks had him on edge and he almost immediately sprang into action when he saw any sign of life. He entered your apartment and looked around to find it seemingly empty, until you closed the door behind initiating confrontation. He turns around and he looks almost paralyzed. You knew he could tell that this was it. You caught him. You knew and you let him know. You cried because no one’s ever gone through that much for you. You told him you weren’t angry and he didn’t have to worry anymore because you weren’t ever in harm’s way. Not now and not then because of him. Bucky’s not much for words but he knows, unlike any normal person, he felt no shame for what he did. He knows you weren’t ashamed of what you did either. What he was doing couldn’t have gone as long as it had, but he’d try. He did and would do everything to protect you. He knows he’s in love with you and you knew you were in love with him too.

No shame, I believe I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you

A couple of nights after the revelation, the relationship has definitely progressed, he’s no longer watching you from across your apartment building, instead he’s inside watching you. He stands frozen, eyes locked as if he’s hypnotized by you. You’re shedding your clothing one by one and slowly walking up to him, almost with a predatory gaze. Bucky doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath as you lean up and kiss him. The both of you have grown increasingly close and the idea of taking things slow fly right out of the window. Bucky knew that idea was pointless the moment he first laid eyes on you.

I like to sneak around and hold my breath I lie awake just to watch you undress

The contact breaks the hypnotic spell bound on Bucky as he quickly reacts by applying more pressure to the kiss, losing control. He helps you rid of the remainder of your clothes, running his hands up your arms, collarbone and neck until they cup your face, making sure you don’t pull away soon, afraid this will just be all a dream, and you don’t. Not even when your back hits your mattress and more skin is revealed. When his shirt came off, he didn’t feel ashamed of you seeing his scars, he never felt any shame with you.

Your bodies seemingly both on autopilot as you lose yourselves in the throes of passion. You were giving him everything he wanted. He reveled in the sounds he used to imagine would come out of you. He took pride in watching as your body moved against his and your grabby hands because it let him know you wanted him just as much and that he was the one to make you feel that good. You only ever made him feel immense and genuine happiness. He was committed to making you only feel the same and more, a lot more. He wanted to make sure you knew how much he loved you. The emotion that radiated throughout the room was something he knew he wanted to keep with him for the rest of his life. He was devoted to you.

Tip-toe to our bed like an animal You let me kiss you till I lose control

It’s late one night and he’s just outside the compound staring at the open field thinking about you. He’s hesitant at first but he’s starting to feel better about letting you go home alone. The both of you have been taking the relationship at your own pace, learning more about each other and trust. He’s about to get up and head inside when he doesn’t catch an attack on him, but it’s soon thwarted off when he notices a second movement from a few feet away. It’s you. You saved him this time. He looked at you mesmerized because at that moment you resembled the same look you wore when he first saw you in the newspaper.

The scene around you both became nothing but background noise as the rest of the team and your other colleagues gathered around. You caught up to Bucky and he welcomed you with sore but open arms. He asks why you’re out this late and you, without any shame, tell him you wanted to make sure he was ok. You followed him here, unannounced and unashamed. If he ever had any doubts to if you really loved him in return, you always reminded him how much you did. You were both prepared to follow each other forever. The look of admiration never fades from his eyes. He was always in love with you.

No shame well I believe I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you

A/N: I kind of cringe at this now, but I still want to share and keep it. Let me know what y’all think! Thank you for reading! 

[mikeconphoto]

"FIT FEATURE: ALLYSON FRANCO" #WEARORANGE -BY MIKECON PHOTOGRAPHY

This is dedicated to Evan, all of the survivors and the victims of senseless gun violence.

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a while about this phenomenal athlete, wife and mother named Allyson Franco. With current events in play, I figured that today’s that day. Before I share the interview with Allyson, let me tell you a bit about her.

Allyson and I met in 2016 at a gym in Castle Rock, Colorado. She was working there as a Personal Trainer, and I hired her to help me get back into better shape. As she trained me, we began to talk and get to know one another, and eventually became really great friends. Coincidentally, we’re both from Georgia, close in age, and appreciate family, food, and running. After some major convincing between myself and her husband we FINALLY got her to do a photo shoot with me. Allyson is a natural in front of the camera!! Not once did she ever tense up, or give up on the all day marathon shoot we did.

On May 7th 2019, the Highlands Ranch, Colorado community was forever changed when a shooting occurred at the Highlands Rance STEM School. There were 8 students hurt and 1 was killed. For me this hit pretty personal because Allyson’s one and only son is currently a student there. Living here in Germany, I rarely see the news going on in the U.S., however Allyson made this post on social media that she shared with me, and has allowed me to share with you all:

“I rarely post very personal things on Facebook, but what happened today is bigger than just my family unit. There was a shooting at Evan’s school today, STEM. He was in the classroom next door to where one of the shooters opened fired. At least 3 bullets came through the wall into his room and one grazed a boy in his class on the leg. His soccer coach was the teacher leading class at that time. One of his teammates was actually in the room where it happened (his teammate is physically ok). He knew the student that did not survive his injuries and, though not very well, he knew the 18 yr old shooter. This is a small school, everybody knows everybody on some level. Our son heard and saw things today that nobody should ever be exposed to, least of all someone his age whose biggest concern should be his upcoming game and what he’s going to do on Friday night. He heard all of the gunshots that happened in that room. He heard a student yell “He has a gun!” He heard the confrontation that happened between a shooter and an officer. He heard the confrontation stop after more gunfire. He helped gather his classmates into the area where they were supposed to be during a lockdown, including collecting two classmates who were hiding together in a deemed unsafe spot, which left him positioned on the floor in the middle of the room instead of up against the wall where, he was supposed to be because he was one of the last two people to take cover. He saw blood pools on the floor and blood on the wall as he was evacuated from the school by armed officers. To the depths of my soul I mourn what happened today. I mourn the loss of life, I mourn for those that suffered injuries, I mourn the lives of the shooters and I mourn for their parents, and I mourn for the rest of these kids that should never have been exposed to everything that happened today. I am immensely proud of how our son handled himself today. Yet I am devastated at his loss of innocence. I am an adult, yet I am unsure of how to deal with the feelings I have. How do we as parents help our kids through this who, at this age, struggle with simply processing their regular daily emotional load? 

I worry every time this boy gets in his car and leaves my sight. So much so that I make fun of myself in my head for being such a ‘mom’. Every fear came to life today when I got the text that said “don’t call me because my phone can’t ring...there is an active shooter...which is where I am...” I’m surely going to freak the eff out when he leaves home now. 

I’m not looking to be political. That’s not what this post is about. I’m heartbroken. So many children are hurting. I cannot thank God enough for the moment when I was able to hug my son after hours of  standing in a gymnasium with hundreds of other scared parents. Honestly, I don’t really know why I’m posting this other than I need a place to ‘put’ what I’m feeling (imagine how all of these students feel). And that feelings about what happened today should not be kept inside. 

Hug your kids for me. I love them all. “

As a Marine that has experience in combat zones I hate the fact that this happened to these kids, or anyone that has had to deal with this when they’re supposed to be safe on our own soil. I’m not here to politicize this, however I will bring awareness to this as the rest of the world has by wearing orange today to honor gun violence victims and survivors. Now, here’s more about Allyson. #wearorange

Describe your life before you started training. I grew up being uncomfortable in my skin. I was always the “skinny girl”. In fact, the mom of my best friend while I was growing up used to say I looked like a “refugee from Guam”. She didn’t mean any harm behind it, she loved me almost like a daughter, but it still stung and it definitely stuck. I spent some time trying out different types of dancing in my youth, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t my “thing” so I didn’t stay with it as I got older. I spent my high school years trying to come to terms with myself as a whole, just like everybody else did. I feel like I didn’t really start coming into my own until after I graduated. I’d have to say that the best I’ve ever felt about myself was in my early to mid twenties. Whether it’s related or not, that’s when I began to dabble in the gym. My then fiancée and I joined Lifetime Fitness and started working out to get ready for our wedding. I wasn’t nearly at the level physically that I’ve since become, and there have been many evolutions in my fitness journey since then, but after I started that one gym membership, I haven’t stopped.

How different do you feel now compared to then? Night and day. But sprinklings of that very insecure girl still show up more often than I’d like. There are moments when being a 45 year old, pre-menopausal mom and wife catch up with me. But my time that I spend training is what helps to keep those demons at bay. I’ve learned to appreciate my strength and the feats my body has been able to accomplish over the years.

Was there is pivotal moment that motivated you to start training? If so, what was it? Not really. At the time, John and I joined a gym in preparation for our upcoming wedding. It just seemed like the thing to do. We didn’t realize that we had begun what was to become one of the biggest parts of our daily lives.

Do you remember your first training session? How different is your training today? I remember when I first joined a gym after having my son. That was more significant to me than my first time ever training in a gym was. I was a new mom and needed to get out of the house and find a community. I found it when I came back to the gym. (I’d had to give up the gym during my pregnancy due to complications.)

What has been the most rewarding aspect of training for you? Why? By far, my sense of self. I feel more confident and secure in my station when I have my outlet. I am a better wife and mother when I’m able to get my training in. My personal fitness evolution also lead me to becoming a personal trainer, which became my career passion the minute I started.

What has continued to motivate you throughout your training? Why? Setting a good example for my son is a huge motivation. I want to show him that just because we have to age, it doesn’t mean we have to get old. And also to show him that taking care of yourself is a foundation to leading a good life. Training is also my outlet. I’m a better version of myself when my training is on point. My family and my clients deserve my best.

What are your qualifications - why did you set out to achieve these? Professionally, my personal training certifications are through NASM - National Academy of Sports Medicine. I have my Certified Personal Trainer certification, Corrective Exercise Specialist certification, Fitness Nutrition Specialist certification, Weight Loss Specialist certification, Women’s Fitness Specialist certification, and Youth Exercise Specialist certification. NASM is one of the most highly regarded institutions from which to become certified. I figured that I’d be wasting my time, and my clients’ time, if I didn’t set high standards for myself from the beginning. Each new certification I acquire makes me a more effective and  well rounded personal trainer. My clients deserve my best effort, and that includes not only my attitude, but also my knowledge. Beyond my professional certifications, I try to practice what I preach. I have tried to be accomplished both professionally and personally. I have finished multiple 30 hour adventure races, completed multiple marathons, completed a 50k ultramarathon, finished two 70.3 distance triathlons, and also crossed the finish line at the inaugural Chattanooga Ironman 140.6 triathlon.

What have you had to overcome to get to where you are today? Did that change you in any way? If so, describe how. I’ve been blessed that my road to becoming a personal trainer has been a fairly smooth one. My husband has supported me 100% since day 1, and he’s my biggest fan. He has trained along my side and in many of my personal endeavors too. We trained together and held hands as we both crossed the finish line in the Chattanooga Ironman. My son has also been consistently positive about everything I’ve done. My support system is strong.

What is the number one lesson you have learned about health and fitness through your training? Sustainability is key. Each person has to find a nutrition and training regimen that they can stick with long term. Health and fitness should be a lifelong endeavor.

What do you wish you had known when you were 16? That great things happen when I push myself outside of my comfort zone, both mentally and physically.

Describe how training makes you feel. Strong. Capable. Beautiful. Centered.

Do you have a quote that you live by? If so, why this one? “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” We all can become complacent in a blink if we aren’t paying attention. This applies to all areas of life - physical,  mental, social, professional....Nothing progresses if we are stagnant and comfortable.

What was your reason for taking health and fitness to the level you have? Why is it so important to you? It’s been an evolution for me. As I gained more confidence in what my body could do, I kept pushing my limits. Every time I completed a race, even though I was beat down and exhausted, I felt strong and accomplished. I also want to be strong and healthy for my family. I try to lead by example so they will be encouraged to be strong and healthy as well.

What advice would you give to women wanting to get into the best shape of their life? Don’t get discouraged. No one thing works for every person. Don’t be afraid to try different avenues of exercise.

What is the most important thing women need to remember when training? Why?   That it’s ok to take that time for yourself. We tend to feel that by doing something that seems like it is for us alone, we are taking away from the people that we love. That’s not the case. The truth is, this small amount of time that we take, makes us better for the people that count on us.

We all have days where motivation is low – how do you overcome these? Have you always been able to do this? I am a “doer.” I’m very task oriented. If something needs to be done, and I’m the one that is supposed to do it, I complete the task regardless of how I feel about doing it. The same principle applies for me with regard to my training. If it’s on the schedule for the day, I do it. That said, there are occasional days where I might be particularly low energy or run down. Perhaps those will turn into unscheduled rest days. I’m trying to listen to my body more. I was not very good at doing so a few years ago. My last line of defense, though, is my husband. If I’m really failing to get myself moving, he’s very good about stepping in. He’s been known to create a butt-kicking workout for me so that I don’t  have to think about it. I just show up.

Do you enjoy training alone or with a partner? Why? Really, it depends on the day and what I’m doing. There is something great about being in my fitness studio alone, my music turned up loud, and doing my thing. But I also have fun when my friend comes to join me and we help push each other. I love the times when my husband and I can get in the gym together too. My son will come workout with me sometimes as well, especially during summer vacation. Those are great opportunities for us to spend time together.

What would you like to see change in the health and fitness industry? I’d like to see some regulation on vitamins, proteins, and supplements. So many people think that all supplements are created equal. They’re under the impression that these products are all safe because they’re sold over the counter. That’s not true and it makes it difficult for the average person to make informed decisions about what they are putting in their bodies.

What would a perfect Sunday involve for you? A perfect Sunday would come at the end of a successful training week. There would be snow on the ground, I’d sleep in with my husband, stay in sweats all day, there would be a big pot of homemade spaghetti gravy on the stove, and I’d finish off my evening with a couple of glasses of red wine.

Contest history - do you have a highlight? Why? I’ve completed multiple 30-hour adventure races, several marathons, a 50k ultra marathon, two 70.3 distance Ironman Triathlons, and the Inaugural Chattanooga 140.6 Ironman Triathlon. The highlight would have to be the Chattanooga Ironman. My training had been sidelined by a few unexpected surgeries I’d had at the beginning of that year. I had come to terms with not being able to participate in this race that coming September as I hadn’t been able to train at all for the first 6 months of the year. But at the last minute, I decided to go for it. I trained hard for two months and, while my time wasn’t as good as it would have been if I’d been able to train properly, I crossed the finish line next to my husband. Running down that finisher’s chute was one of the highlights of my entire life.

Diet/Workout week:

[Please outline a typical day’s meals and your workout]

Monday

Breakfast - Isagenix IsaLean Strawberry shake, coffee

Snack - small handful of raw almonds and an apple

Later lunch/ post workout - 2 Mediterranean grilled chicken skewers, 2 tbsp hummus, cucumber slices

Dinner - roasted chicken, roasted red potatoes, and a salad

Tuesday

Breakfast - Isa shake, coffee

Snack - 2 slices sharp cheddar cheese and an apple

Later lunch / post workout - Just Shredded Chicken from Sprouts, 2 tbsp Frank’s Red Hot wing sauce, and baby carrots

Dinner - baked salmon, brown rice pilaf (made from scratch), steamed asparagus

Wednesday

Breakfast - Isa shake, coffee

Snack - beef jerky

Late lunch / post workout - one of the two lunches described above

Dinner - chicken stir fry with carrots, baby bok choy, and bell peppers, served over brown rice

Thursday

Breakfast - same

Snack - same

Lunch / post workout - same

Dinner - baked chicken breasts, roasted potatoes, baked Parmesan squash and zucchini “chips” (dipped in Greek yogurt ranch dressing)

Friday

Brakfast - same

Snack - same

Lunch / post workout - same

Dinner - chicken tinga tacos from Yolanda’s

Saturday

Breakfast - avocado toast on Ezekiel bread with 2 eggs and a sliced tomato, coffee

Lunch - 5 marinated mozzarella balls and a chopped tomato with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Snack - almonds or beef jerky and an apple

Dinner - sweet and spicy honey-sriracha chicken thighs with honey-soy glazed carrots served over brown rice

Sunday

Breakfast - scrambled eggs (made by my husband), Ezekiel toast, coffee

Lunch - turkey and cheddar flat sandwich from Pot Belly with all the toppings except mayo and oil

Dinner - either some form of leftovers from previous dinners, or homemade spaghetti gravy over whole wheat pasta

QUICK QUESTIONS:

Describe yourself in three words. Stubborn, dependable, feisty (Editor’s note: Allyson is half Italian and Puerto Rican, so those three words might make better sense!)

What is your favorite food to indulge on? How often do you treat yourself? I love cheese! I don’t think I’ve ever met a cheese that I didn’t like. I don’t eat it as often as I’d like. Maybe once a month I’ll put together a big tray of cheese and charcuterie and my husband and I will have that for dinner with a couple of glasses of wine.

What is your favorite non-cheat food? Tomatoes. I’ve had an obsession with them the last few months.

What is your favorite home-cooked meal? Who cooks it? Homemade spaghetti gravy with handmade ravioli. We make the ravioli by hand as a family, but I make the gravy. This is what we have for Christmas dinner every year.

What are the staples in your fridge? Just shredded chicken from Sprouts, sliced cucumbers, romaine letuce, we always have lots of veggies, Perfect Bars, Organic Valley 2% milk, Silk soy creamer, eggs.

What is your favorite body part to train? Why? Legs, because I’ve always felt that they require the most work for me. If I’m not training them hard, then they become too skinny.

What is your least favorite body part to train? Why? Chest, because I hate push-ups.

Do you prefer to train outdoors or indoors? Why? Indoors, but my training studio is in my garage so I love to have the big bay door open. I get the best of both worlds that way.

Describe the atmosphere in your favorite place to train – what can you see/feel/hear etc.? The lights are low and the rock music is loud. The vibe is strong and positive. I must have some personal space too, and be able to see outside.

Do you prefer cardio or weights? Why? I used to be a cardio junkie. I’m not like that now though, At this point, I’d have to say that I prefer weight training. I think I burned myself out running 10 miles a day, several days a week for such a long period of time. I just don’t have it in me to do that anymore. I also discovered that I prefer the way my body looks when I’m doing more lifting and HIIT training than the way it looked when I was running so much.

Do you have a favorite book? Why this one? ‘The Outlander’ series by Diana Gabaldon, because I’m a sucker for a good romance and strong lead characters.

What is your favorite feature? Why? My skin. I try very hard to take good care of it and keep it healthy and youthful looking. I was blessed with good genes. My mother and my grandmother both have beautiful skin. I have big shoes to fill in that regard.

Name five (5) things you can't live without. Other than my guys (John & Evan)? Blue jeans, boots, wine, my pets, and my workouts.

Name three (3) things most people don’t know about you. I don’t like crowds, I sang in the chorus in high school, and I love to cook.

What is on your bedside table? Water, hand lotion, Burt’s Bees lip treatment, 2 pictures of my son as a baby, and a lamp.

What is your best beauty secret? Eye cream! I’ve been using it since I was in my 20s. And serious sunscreen on my face.

Who inspires you? Why? My son. He exudes a quiet, but fierce confidence that I wish I’d had at his age. Or that I wish I had even now! The intelligence and maturity that he possesses is inspiring to watch grow.

Who is your fitness and body role model? Why? I can’t actually say that I have one. I just try to be the best version of myself that I can put out there. I spent too many years dangerously comparing myself to other people out there. I try not to do that anymore.

What do you have in store for the future? What do you want to improve on? Looking towards the future I’ll be focusing on expanding my business model and figuring out how to do that while not falling short on the daily running my household. I want to improve upon my ability to do both.

I'm currently preparing for: Nothing physical. I am working on building my brand professionally, while keeping my own training consistent.

Website? www.afitlifeforyou.com

[connywrites]

quicksands of the mind

and the sinkholes you may find

-

content warnings for suicidal ideation, self-harm

He hadn’t wanted to kill himself in a long time. Even on a bad day, he’d tell himself he didn’t want to attempt suicide at all, but the deeper scars in jagged horizontal lines down his forearms reminded him otherwise. There wasn’t much memory with them aside from waking up in the hospital with blurry vision, unable to hear properly while the nurses asked questions, watching him jitter and shake. Watching him dig and pull at his own skin and having to pull him away, just short of restraining him as he wasn’t actually violent and didn’t have enough strength to do any real damage, but having to make sure he’d keep his hands to himself for the rest of the night.

Death, itself, was a far-fetched concept for someone who had always avoided it by the skin of his teeth. Leo had gotten in fights, been mugged, stabbed, smacked, punched, hit, crashed his motorcycle and wound up in the hospital with grave injuries and a permanent limp, taken bullets, and while a fair collection of his scars were self-induced, they were never quite so severe as to what others had done to him. It fed into the idea that he was a coward if he wasn’t brave enough to take it to the next level, but the thought that maybe it was because he simply didn’t want to die had revisited him more than once.

Thus it left him in a battle against himself, in a dark room, surrounded by comfortable blankets, a warm meal and some candles, as Markus made a habit of setting up. His old friends would be jealous; he knew they would because he experienced that exact envy ever since Markus came to be. To be birthed into a perfect world, to live with wealth and gratitude, to want to give and to be given back to, to live with someone that gave and gave and gave so much; the person that was his own father, in a home that could have been his own, with kindness and empathy that he could have had. Love was theoretically a natural deterrence against misery; why would you make the ones that cared about you suffer by letting yourself go, giving yourself the freedom of nonexistent peace while they were left to pick up the ugly pieces? Suicide was the coward’s way out, yet it somehow felt more embarrassing to try and get someone else to do the job, whether they knew your intentions or not.

Carl gave and gave, and he took and took, and Leo had the audacity to be angry when his gentle-hearted father stopped giving, trying to pull it to a full stop 28 years into his life. Well overdue, in his mind. The tears stung his eyes and the knot swelled in his throat, and the nausea welled in his stomach as he remembered everything he’d done. The way he’d spoken to him, the way he torn him and his life down with all of the 5 swear words he seemed to hold in his very limited vocabulary.

You won’t help me, so I’ll just help myself.

A vile, evil person, he’d convinced himself he was long before he could differentiate himself from the drugs. Feeling like a shitty person before he ever hit puberty and long after he’d left his teenage years behind, it took multiple hospital visits, near-death experiences and long nights doing things he’d regret with worse emotions than he’d convinced himself the rage ever was; it took multiple attempts to sober up to differentiate that it wasn’t him at all.

Red ice made him angry, and withdrawals from red ice made him angry. Sobriety left him miserable, and since he’d convinced himself he’d be miserable no matter what, he could certainly allow the excuse to do drugs. To get into fights, to stare down the barrel of a gun while he challenged the trigger finger until it blew, to antagonize and steal and lie and believe that it was all worthwhile in the favor of why wouldn’t I do it, anyway? And life doesn’t mean anything in the end or if I’m going to die young, I might as well make it fun.

None of it was fun. Nothing was worthwhile and it never lasted longer than a burnt soda can with singed ashes resting in the bottomside curve, dripping into the container that’d been full of cola he’d poured down the drain after jabbing the holes, too nauseous to ever consider taking a drink.

Seeing red.

All his life. His mother, his father, his lack of any sort of care-giving whatsoever made it all too obvious that nobody was going to care and subsequently, why should he? His birth was an accident. His mother was paid to raise him, and when the money was gone, so were her patience.

He knew what that was like. Maybe he got it from her. Carl was such a saint with seemingly eternal intelligence and wisdom, he could barely believe they were related by blood. So lead to the delusion between years ten and twenty-two that he might have been – probably was – adopted until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and had to look up the family history.

He was never in the old photographs, his mother too embarrassed to include him in such a thing.

Then again, she didn’t have any pictures of Carl either. He wondered who were in all those photos on her walls were supposed to be, let alone if they ever really meant anything to her.

Photos were artificial, mirrored captures of the past, and why would you hold onto that? He couldn’t think of a moment he’d want to take a picture of, that he was happy about or proud of. He never smiled in the camera – sometimes he glowered into to lens from afar when he was in group photos at the parties, tagged for some kind of crazy escapades he’d taken part in on the social media platforms until those people, too, grew tired of him. Stupid, boring, violent. What’s your problem? What the fuck is wrong with you?

‘What is wrong with me?’ There was a suffocating discomfort as he took in his surroundings, the disassociation spell abruptly ending as he realized where he was again.

Everything. Everything was wrong.

Nothing. The drugs were wrong.

When nothing felt right, he did what he’d always done; left the area to go on a long walk until his legs hurt and he’d exhausted himself, physically and eventually mentally, awake on days-long insomnia binges until his brain couldn’t function. Time wasn’t a fathomable concept to him at the moment so he didn’t bother checking the clock or otherwise identify the surroundings for indications, staggering in a tired daze as he’d walked towards the door.

Leo knew he would be there as soon as he opened it, as Markus had a nature to do – particularly when he was in a bad place. He had no idea if he’d been there the whole time, nearby, or somehow heard his thoughts from across the mansion with his super-sonic bat hearing, but either way, he’d always come even when he wasn’t summoned.

In the past, it was unnerving. Sometimes it was scary. Usually it was annoying.

Tonight, it was nothing short of appreciated.

“Bro,” he murmured with a strain in his voice, something like an agitated whine as he acted outright bothered by his presence.

“Brother,” Markus replied with only slight mock-disdain wrapped within his sincere concern, as he didn’t feel so much like reciprocating whatever deflection Leo was trying to give in regard to his bad mood. Leo may have tried to be secretive about his depression, but the signs were there; from skipping meals, isolation, and losing sleep to the fatigue, lack of ability to focus or concentrate, the way he moved slower on his feet and seemed to be in a daze, how his limp got worse as the aches in his joints increased. How long had Leo showed symptoms that he’d felt this way? Two weeks ongoing. Why? Markus wasn’t sure, only able to shuffle through his library of estimated guesses, and even then, he preferred not to in favor of avoiding the mistake of making assumptions. Leo’s business was his own, and by now, he knew he could share it if he so felt the need.

The tears wasted no time returning to Leo’s swollen, baggy eyes, sclera reddened from the strain of lacking what he physically needed and feeling too many emotions that he didn’t.

Markus opened his arms and he was all too eager to fall into them, letting his body grow weak. Not unlike the way he did the boy’s father, Markus shifted to kneel and prompted Leo to do similarly, curling his arms around the back of his legs while he let his body grow lax, finally able to trust as Markus scooped him up in his arms. Fingers curling into the fabrics of the soft, white cotton sweater, he hid his face into his chest as he let himself be carried away from the room.

For a long time, Leo refused to be looked after, and for a short time, Markus refused to pamper him. Eventually, they’d learned to meld Markus’ natural design as a caretaker, as well as Leo’s neglected internal need to be taken care of. Now, it had nearly come naturally for both of them.

Markus knew the signal for the routine, wandering to the bathroom, ensuring he was gentle as he settled Leo on the stool that he’d returned to the area – it was Carl’s to use when he was brought in for the oral hygiene routine, now left by the bathtub rather than the sink so Leo could sit down without being on the floor as Markus was aware of his exhaustion, always present and ever-increasing. The less energy he used, the better. While Leo settled in the space he was given, Markus leaned to turn on the faucet, adjusting it to a warm temperature but avoiding the hotter end in case of inducing a fever.

“Arms up.” With his head down as he was already half dozing off in his seat, Leo straightened up to look at him through squinted eyes, taking a few seconds to understand the command before doing as he was asked. Careful not to further alarm or hurt him, Markus took the shirt by the hem and pulled it up over his shoulders, then along his arms until it was peeled off.

“Would you like me to?” The subject was touchy, so he never finished the sentence. Leo responded with an awkward nod, crooked as his body swayed. Reaching for the waistband of Leo’s pants to tuck his fingers beneath the rim the same way he had with the sweater, it took a bit of nudging to peel them down and away, his attention focused on Leo’s face for the sake of the man’s own dignity even if he wasn’t entirely coherently aware of the situation. Once the clothes were folded and put to the side, he rose to his feet to reach under Leo’s arms in the proper, harmless way so as to lift him and bring him to the bath.

It was personal, and some might consider it intimate; now, it had become nothing more than natural.

“S’this what it was like with dad?” Feeling the warmth of the bath warm his feet, then his ankles, up to his legs, Leo roused, feeling another bout of tears roll down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure why, losing track of the reason for his despair hours, days, weeks ago.

“Somewhat,” Markus replied simply. Leo was in no condition to make conversation, but he also respected the fact it seemed to help him to speak. With his hands making way to the water, Leo watched the flow of transparent liquid, feeling a bit more awake from the sensations and temperature change.

“I loved him. I really did.” That was why he was crying, and the waterworks were only encouraged by his increasing depression. Settling on the floor next to the tub in a comfortable position, Markus reached forward to thumb the tears from his cheeks – an impractical gesture as he knew they wouldn’t stop, but a useful one as Leo would appreciate the heartfelt action.

“I know.”

No, you don’t, his mind argued, but his mouth was too tired and his head was too sore. Markus caught on.

“There is more to you than what you did in the past,” Markus reminded him, neglecting the use of who you were as he was well aware that Leo’s negative personality aspects were stirred up for good reason, but most of which was external from parental neglect and the incessant substance abuse.

“Remember that.”

Leo felt the lump in his throat again as he turned his head to glance at Markus, unable to put together an entire meaning to the words he said, but trying to register them nonetheless.

“Will it ever stop hurting? His death.” This time, Leo wiped at his own tears, too tired to acknowledge that it was a waste as his hands were wet from the water anyway.

“I want the caramel one.”

“Got it,” Markus responded to the request first, opening the cupboard under the sink to grab the requested bath soap, squeezing a generous amount into the pouring water before putting it away again.

“I can’t answer that for you, Leo.” Leo cringed from hearing his name, as if it had somehow hurt him.

“Tch, who named me that, anyway? I bet mom flipped over one of those stupid baby books and pointed with her eyes closed. Probably was drunk, too.” Bitterness dripped from his words, and Markus neglected them; responding to Leo in this state in any way, bad or good, would only encourage the negative thoughts and he’d quickly learned not to do so.

“Pillow?” Eyes now closed with the tears slowing, Leo nodded. Repeating the action as with the bubble bath, he retrieved the item from the closet, setting it against the porcelain rim and ensuring it was firmly set in place before he put an arm around Leo’s upper back, supporting him from behind the shoulders as he slowly leaned him back.

Leo had learned to appreciate the care, but it had taken him a long time, and for the most part, he didn’t accept it – the usual exception being nights like this, when he’d given up every last desire to fight. When he was too tired to remember being so vulnerable, when he’d let Markus touch and hold without his internal defiance telling him to refuse, to feel invaded like he’d been so many times before. When he’d needed so badly to be looked after and wanted so simply to be loved that the idea of a machine replicating such a thing was dissipated from his mind, and Markus was no longer cold metal and plastic; only warm hands and soft words.

“Did dad want to die?” Markus stiffened in place, frozen by the unexpected question.

“He loathed the probability of it, but he tried to live his life to the fullest, even if he didn’t feel like he was.” Was that too many words? Markus wasn’t sure, toying with the idea he might have been saying it just as much for himself.

“What do you mean?” It was too many words.

“Carl knew it was coming. I would not say he craved death, but over the time I spent with him, he focused on it more.” It was strange to Markus, the way Carl had spent his last days griping over the people around him, the artificial art industry, his own body’s faults and the fact his age was catching up to him. It made Markus feel no better, but it didn’t hit home so much until after it was much too late.

“Why are you asking?” It was dangerous territory, and generally Markus knew better than to ask, but the worry began to overcome his consideration for Leo’s personal boundaries.

Leo’s eyes opened and he turned his head to look at Markus, somehow looking even more exhausted than he was moments ago. Markus turned off the faucet, dipping a hand into the bath water to ensure its temperature was still ideal.

“I never thought I’d grow old. I still don’t think I will. But he had so much to live for.” Markus’ eyebrows lowered slightly as he didn’t fully understand the sentiment.

“You have plenty of years ahead of you. Whether you have anything to live for is a matter of opinion, and therefor up to you.” Pausing, Markus decided it was finally time to ask.

“What’s the matter?”

The tears came again and Leo closed his eyes, sighing.

“I don’t know.” Slightly stunned, Markus didn’t expect the answer, as Leo almost always had a reason to be upset, even if it seemed minor or nonsensical to anyone around him, sometimes even himself.

“I just… I don’t feel so good.” Markus tilted his head, feeling an urge to reach forward and pet his brother’s hair back in a show of consideration, but that was too close, he knew too well after months of experiencing and discovering Leo’s own personal space and when, where or why he wanted to be touched.

“Elaborate?” He paused, catching the fact he hadn’t watched his vocabulary.

“Explain, please.” Leo was too tired to snarl at his own stupidity, rolling onto his side to face Markus, though his eyes remained closed.

“I don’t feel well and I don’t know why. And it won’t stop.”

Then it clicked.

“If you would like, I can book you an appointment to see someone. I know you do not trust therapists, but there’s a walk-in clinic. You fill out some paperwork, tell them your problems and they suggest some medication.” Leo immediately furrowed his eyebrows at the idea of pills, scowling.

“I know you don’t like them,” Markus added wittingly.

“But they might help you feel better, even just a little.”

“Okay.” He didn’t feel like arguing. Markus was aware he’d likely forget his agreement tomorrow, but they could discuss that when the next day came.

“We should get you back to bed.” Leo didn’t say anything, reaching for the side of the tub as if to go and pull himself out. Markus couldn’t help but smile at his stubborn insistence for something like that, in a state like this, patting him on the hand in a faux mocking gesture that was playful in its motion. Leo opened his eyes with more alertness than he’d felt before he started crying in the first place – catching the smile, the restlessness in his mind settled again.

“I take that back. I should get you back to bed.” Looking lost, as if he didn’t remember how he got here, Leo’s eyes widened as he recoiled on himself, closing his legs and bringing them close to his body in a moment of recognized embarrassment.

“Oh, really? Now?” This time, Markus couldn’t help his own sarcasm, even if it was in jest.

“Come on, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Markus’ extent of maturity was elusive to Leo, and it still showed every day as he didn’t understand, only felt his metaphysical boundaries being penetrated as he was aware of his aches, pains, scars and natural bodily anatomy all over again, cheeks reddening when he looked off to the side. Shifting to sit up, he lowered his legs and held up his arms as he’d done when he’d went to forego his shirt, cuing Markus to lift him up from underneath them just as he had done before.

“I don’t want to go to bed.” Realizing that wasn’t exactly what he meant, Leo reconsidered his thoughts.

“I don’t want to be in that bed.” With a moment of understanding, Markus repeated the actions he’d done when he picked Leo up from the doorway but with more ease as he was already sitting down in the tub, scooping his other arm up underneath the back of his legs to lift and carry him.

“I’ll take you to the guest room, then.”

Leo was asleep in his arms before he reached the door.

[segwaytoursofseattle-blog]

How hard is it to ride a Segway?

Until last week, when a humble, trundling scooter took out the fastest man in the world. At the World Athletic Championships in Beijing, cameraman Song Tao interrupted Usain Bolt’s 200m victory lap, knocking the world’s greatest sprinter clean off his speedy feet with a misjudged lean against an unseen barrier. The Segway was everywhere, again, for the wrong reasons, again. It looked as if Tao’s battery-run vehicle had careered out of control. It looked painful. But how hard can it be to learn to ride the world’s most talked-about gyroscopic balancing machine? I went to Segway Unleashed to find out.

It’s hard to say Segway Unleashed without sounding like you’re doing the voiceover for a disaster movie trailer. On the way to one of its two centres – where we are promised “the most exciting Segway experience in the south east and Milton Keynes” – I asked my friend what she thought of when I said “Segway”. She thought about it for a minute, then said, with certainty: “fleece”. To Segway is to trundle, in a fleece. Clearly we have preconceptions.

The branch of Segway Unleashed that I visit is just off the M25, in the grounds of a beautiful farm near Godstone in Surrey. I stick my head into the workshop and say hello to Ben Morling, founder and MD of both branches, who got into the Segway business after some success with a sphering, or zorbing, company. (You’re strapped into a giant, inflatable ball and rolled down a hill. Ben shows me the shape of his broken fingers, all sphering-related injuries, and I can see why he got into Segway instead.) Ben is reassembling a Segway, which came back from the repair shop this weekend, with a £1,000 bill.

I thought they might cost around £1,000, which is twice as much as the car I arrived in, so I ask him exactly how much a Segway would set me back. Six thousand pounds, he tells me, immediately dashing my dreams of zipping around Guardian HQ using only my natural balancing skills and the scientific might of gyroscopic sensors. Can’t you get one cheaper? “That’s why a Ferrari is a Ferrari,” he tells me. “It’s not the cheap, plastic crap. I went to the Gadget Show and I tried them, and nah.” He shakes his head. There will be no cheap, plastic crap at Segway Unleashed. “We’ve never taken out an Olympic runner on one of these. We’ve taken each other out, but not a runner!”

Ben is pretty sure it wasn’t a Segway that took out Usain Bolt. Not an official one, anyway. He shows me a still from the incident on his phone, and zooms in for forensic analysis. The rubber footplates that distribute the rider’s weight were absent. He thinks the mudguards were too small. The charge port is the wrong colour. There is no red line on the battery. It just wouldn’t happen at Segway Unleashed.

The price tag is one of the reasons people think Segways haven’t really taken off – even though other companies have brought out cheaper versions costing a few hundred pounds. That, and the fact that in many places, you can’t just jump on one and use it to nip to the shops, or for your daily commute. In the UK, they are banned from pavements (though only one man has ever been prosecuted – Philip Coates, from South Yorkshire, who was fined £75 under Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835). In Germany, they must be licensed. In Canada, they are banned from public roads and sidewalks. Legislatively, they are confusing, at best.

But here, on private land, seven of us are ready to learn exactly how far these two-wheeled mean machines will take us. We have signed to accept that there is some risk of a broken bone. I agree that I am not under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, and do not have any medical conditions that might impact my ability to control the unit. I am given a red motorcycle helmet that I decide makes me look like a Power Ranger, though when I say this to my friend, she has a look that suggests she is thinking, “Power Plonker, more like”.

We are ready. To be. Unleashed!

The Segways are in beginner’s “turtle mode” and will go at a maximum speed of 4.5mph.

Our group – me, my friend, a couple in their 20s, and a father and his two kids – begin the session in Zone One: a field in which we learn how to balance and lean. Our instructor, Kieran Richards, is on his third season at Segway Unleashed. He got into Segway after a couple of seasons of sphering, where he met Ben, who introduced him to the harder stuff. Confounding my notions of fleece, Kieran is a laidback skater who says he falls off the Segways all the time, but only because he’s trying to do tricks on them, which even he admits can be foolish. Leaning, he says to the group, is the key to everything. “Be consistent with your leaning,” he tells us. “Don’t be too aggressive with your leaning.” Usain Bolt has made his life a whole lot easier, because people didn’t really think you could fall off a Segway, and then suddenly, a video went around the world proving that you could, and how. Poor Song Tao, I think. Once a noble cameraman, now a “how not to” punchline in an off-road Segway experience on a farm in Surrey. Kieran says that people only fall off when they catch their wheels, like Tao did, or when they get too cocky.

I resolve not to get too cocky. 4.5mph sounds pretty slow, until you’re standing on a self-balancing scooter controlled by a gyroscope that relies solely on your ability to lean forwards and backwards with just enough oomph to make sure it moves.

It’s a bit like stepping onto solid ground if you’ve been on water for hours. It should be the easiest thing in the world to stand still and upright, but suddenly my legs are untrustworthy, and I rock back and forth. The trick is to relax, apparently. I am glad I don’t have a chest full of camera equipment to carry with me. Once balance is established, it’s fairly easy: forward to go, back to stop. Don’t be aggressive with your leaning. The seven of us zip around the training field, at 4.5mph. I avoid the bumps. After five minutes, I seek out the bumps. I wonder how hard it would be to do Segway tricks.

Zone Two: the woods. In the woods, we learn to use our knees as shock absorbers, and Joe Hammond, another skater-turned-instructor, starts “catching air” from a tree root that acts as a launching ramp. “You will not catch air,” he reassures us, though I start to think I would like to catch air. The woods are fun. They’re muddy and bumpy and even though the Segway is still going at 4.5mph (maximum), it no longer seems like a trundle. This is what extreme sports must feel like! If you’re doing them very slowly! I go over a root and feel my Segway lifting at least 2mm off the ground. I wonder if I could get sponsorship. Perhaps Nike would like to see their logo on my raincoat as I amble around a track in a wood. Maybe Vans would pay me to wear their trainers, as I lean forward into the unknown. An Adidas helmet. A Red Bull jumper. Perhaps, perhaps. I am ready for the final step. Zone Three: the time trials.

The time trials are the most dangerous part of the session. “This is where the psychology kicks in,” Ben tells me. Simply, he says, people are desperate to be the fastest, even though “there’s no prize or anything.” I am desperate to be the fastest. We get a practice run around the track, after a final lesson in leaning. Here, Kieran explains, you can actually put your weight on the sideplates, like a parallel turn if you’re skiiing, or like taking a corner on a motorbike. Joe does some leans that say: I mean business. None of us quite pull it off, but it’s getting serious.

Turtle mode is switched off. We are about to enter maximum Segway speed: 12.5mph. “I’ve come off at that before,” says Joe, like a man who has known trauma. We line up for the time trial. I lean forward as hard as I’ve ever leaned, except on the corners, which are muddy, and look as if they could be slippy. Then I lean some more. I whizz – no more trundling – across the finish line, and wait for our times to come in. I am not seventh! Applause. I am not sixth! More applause, this time for my friend, who fell off taking the corner a little bit too keenly, proving that I was right not to go feral. I am not … hold on. I am fifth. I am only marginally faster than someone who stacked it and had to get back on before she could continue the time trial. I get my applause. The sponsorship dream dies. We were all beaten by an 11-year-old, who managed the track “with a very quick time indeed, very fast”, according to an impressed-looking Kieran. Kids are fearless, we agree.

It does not look like Segways are going to take the UK by storm, but Joe thinks a version of them may become mainstream yet. The “new, smaller, cheaper things” he refers to have yet to adopt a common name, but are called swegways by some, hover boards by others. They are, essentially, Segways without handles, made more cheaply. Segway Unleashed has had people bringing their swegways to the farm, to see if they can be repaired. “I tell them, send it back to who made it,” says Ben. They are more of the “cheap, plastic crap” of which he does not approve. “You’re saying it’s a Segway like you’d say Hoover for a vacuum,” he says. His Segways are metal, not plastic. They are built to last.

Down and out: Segway’s other celebrity victims George Bush: Of course George Bush has had a Segway fail. The former president could no more stay away from a two-wheeled transporter than a Thanksgiving turkey could keep out of his trousers. In 2003, while visiting the family house in Maine, the then president stepped on to a Segway and went down instantly. Being Dubya, he got back up and proceeded to cruise up the driveway with his father, George Bush Sr, bringing up the rear on, yep, another Segway. One wonders if the company slogan – “simply moving” – was inspired by this very scene.

Piers Morgan: After Bush’s fall from grace, Piers Morgan’s Daily Mirror ran the gleeful headline: “You’d have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn’t you Mr President,” adding that “if anyone can make a pig’s ear of riding a sophisticated, self-balancing machine like this, Dubya can.” However, Segways have their own way of redressing the gyroscopic balance of power and soon enough the another powerful white man was beckoned on to the bucking bronco. Four years later Morgan had an epic fall off a Segway while cruising along the promenade at Santa Monica beach, breaking three ribs. “Since only [Bush] and I appear to have ever fallen off one,” he later said, “I think the makers of the Segway can probably still justifiably claim the machines are ‘idiot-proof.’”

Joe Previtera: Aussie cameraman Joe Previtera provided a foreshadowing of Usain Bolt’s fate when he catapulted off his Segway during the 2011 Australia v India Test match in Melbourne. The culprit this time was a helmet on the ground, which Previtera drove over. The commentators burst into laughter and Previtera, who was helped to his feet by the wicketkeeper, confessed he had earlier bragged: “No way, I will never crash this thing ever.” Fact: sports cameramen cannot shoot and Segway at the same time. They would be safer, cooler (and possibly faster) gliding about the pitch in kids’ roller shoes.

Ellie Goulding: It’s not just world leaders and cameramen who are cocky enough to think they can tame the 12.5mph Segway. Pop star Ellie Goulding hopped on one on holiday in Miami, at first “taking off effortlessly along the pavement by the beach”, according to the tabloid who captured the tumble frame by mind-numbing frame. Disaster (OK, sand) struck, Goulding went flying, then got up and took a bow. In beachwear. You can see why this made the news.

Ellen DeGeneres: At the start of 2010 the US talkshow host did a monologue on the Segway X2 that Portia de Rossi had just bought her for Christmas. During the skit she rode the machine around the studio, then admitted: “I’ve already hurt myself on it twice.” The first time was on Christmas morning when, heading for a flowerbed, she threw herself off and split her shin open. The second was rehearsing the monologue and falling off while demonstrating her ability to go backwards. Cut to a clip of the fall and DeGeneres shouting: “Did we get it on tape because that’s the most important thing?” What a pro (or ego).

Jimi Heselden: The Segway falls into the tragic category of inventions that have killed its inventors or owners. In 2010, less than a year after taking over the company, millionaire businessman Jimi Heselden was driving his off-road Segway X2 when he fell off a cliff and into a river near his West Yorkshire estate and died. The coroner later said the 62-year-old reversed the machine to make way for a dog walker and died as a result of this ‘act of courtesy’. Less than 48 hours after Heselden’s death, research was published indicating that accidents involving Segways are on the rise. Chitra Ramaswamy

Find Original Post Here

[septic-dr-schneep]

Ahhh I love Chase and Jameson!! What would happen if Jameson had to take care of Chase for a change? Like if Chase got sick at work and JJ had to help him?

Well, now, that’s a way to switch things up!

JSE Fanfiction - Not Going Anywhere

Summary: Chase overworks himself and manages to make himself sick. To make matters worse, the text he sends asking for someone to pick him up goes to the wrong person.

“Hey, hey…take it easy. You just passed out.”

Blinking blearily against the fluorescent lights that swam overhead,Chase lifted an arm that felt heavier than the entirety of his weight to shieldhis eyes. As he peeked between his fingers, he could make out the face of hiscameraman, Stanley, hovering over him. “Dude…” Memory poured back in all atonce and he stiffened, blurting out, “We’re—we’re gonna have to retake thatshot—You turned the camera off before I bombed it, right?”

“Honestly I think that’s the least important thing to worry about rightnow,” Stanley remarked. “Whoa, don’t try to sit up! You’re white as a sheet andI think you got a fever. You need—”

“All I need is to make sure my viewers aren’t freaking out; there’snothin’—I—I’m fine,” Chase stammered hurriedly, pushing himself up on hiselbows and then rolling sideways onto hands and knees. His breath stuttered atthe rolling nausea that plummeted into his stomach at the sudden motion. “I’mfine,” he muttered as he let his head hang a little lower, waiting for thedizziness to settle.

“Bro, you really should call in,” Stanley insisted, fishing Chase’s phoneout of his pocket and sliding it over the carpet next to his hand. “C’mon.”

“Not a chance,” Chase huffed shakily, ignoring how his arms ached andtrembled as he pushed off his hands to rise. He was expecting to at least makeit to the door before he needed to grab something, but he only managed tostumble a yard or two before the floor dipped underneath him, a dark mistcascaded over his eyes and his body listed in the wrong direction. Distantly heheard Stanley yelp in alarm before he crumpled sideways over the conferencetable, gasping for breath. For a moment or two he simply stayed where he was,turning his cheek into the cool comfort of the tabletop before Stanley draggedhim upright and steered him into the nearest chair.

“Chase, you’re not going anywhere except home, to bed,” hesnapped, snatching up his phone and pressing it firmly into the vlogger’s hand,wrapping his fingers around it with a finalizing squeeze. “Call or text someone.”

“…M’kay. M’kay.” Panting as he abruptly found himself out of breath,Chase fumbled shaking fingers over his cell screen in clumsy swipes, the rightnumbers eluding him for three or four tries before it finally unlocked.

The text he sent was more or less nothing but a jumbled mess; hopefullyit would make enough sense for Marvin to know he needed to pick him up. Withthat out of the way, Chase let his phone drop into his lap and leaned his headback against the chair’s padding, inhaling deeply and listening to his heartrace.

“Thanks, Stan,” he mumbled, to which the cameraman said something oranother about putting out a tweet to reassure fans of the channel beforepatting his shoulder and heading out of the room. Now that he was alone withthe silence, Chase let his eyes slip closed.

Cool, calloused hands touching his face made him startle slightly,lifting his aching head with a deep grimace. “Marv?”

“Oh, my, you’rescalding!”

As Chase’s dazed eyes landed on the speech slide hovering in front ofhim, they widened. “Jameson? What…what’re you doin’ here?”

“You sent for me!” the younger Ego protested worriedly. “I received amessage from the device you bought for me, saying you’d fallen ill and youneeded help!”

As he sat up straighter in the chair, Chase leaned too far forward andhad to set his elbows on his knees to keep from pitching onto the floor as hegroaned out a curse. “That was meant for Marvin…”

“TheMagnificent had a meeting with his stage manager this afternoon; he’s alreadygone,” Jameson reminded him, wringing his hands fretfully as he watched Chasemassage his forehead. After another minute, he huffed determinedly and squaredhis shoulders. “Well, you needn’t worry. I’ll get you home and taken care of.”

“Aw, Jem, you don’t have to bother…I can…”

“Absolutelynot, sir! I may not be able to magically heal you but I have no intention ofstanding idly by. Speaking of which, give me your arm.”

Judging by how he was already pocketing Chase’s phone and reaching tograsp his hand, it didn’t seem like he going to take no for an answer, so Chaseallowed it, remarking wryly, “I don’t think Marv would be able to magicallyheal me either—or maybe he’s holdin’ out on me.” Once their fingers wereentwined, he was a little startled at the strength behind Jameson’s heave. Itwas undermined by the gentleness of the arm wrapping around his waist thatfollowed, though.

“Lean on meif you feel the need,” Jameson urged kindly as they shuffled toward thedoor.  

“S’okay,” Chase assured him again. Jameson didn’t respond, so he couldn’tbe sure whether or not he believed him.

The need to lean on him really didn’t surface until they made it into thetaxi and the drive home started. The sudden stops and starts at the lights andthe swerving turns were butchering his stomach; the longer it went on, theharder Chase found it to swallow—the more he needed to swallow. Jameson’s arm remained firmly around his back,his hand squeezing his side.

“Easy now,” he soothed,brows knitting in understated worry. “Deep breaths, Chase, deep breaths. We’realmost there, it won’t be long…”

Even with JJ’s reassurances, Chase was quite seriously consideringthrowing himself out of the taxi by the time Egos Incorporated appeared beforethem. Somehow or another they made it down the hall to his bedroom before his weakenedlegs gave out under the dizziness; as they did, Jameson jumped and twisted in away his body probably wasn’t meant to as he tried to steer Chase onto the bedinstead of the floor.

He landed face first in the sheets, moaning something unintelligible inmingled relief and discomfort. In his peripheral vision, he saw Jamesonspeaking but he couldn’t find the strength to lift his head and look. If hemade a guess, the younger Ego was probably asking if he needed anything else.

“Got a headache,” he mumbled, sliding a hand up over his head and gropinginelegantly around for the bedside table. When that proved ineffective, he gaveup, letting his arm fall limply over the side of the bed. “Jays, there’s…whiskeythere somewhere…”

“Absolutelynot!” Jameson exclaimed indignantly, his words going unseen. “Whiskey isnot a substitute for proper medicines! I’ll go fetch something more fitting.”As he turned away, he gave his vest an agitated tug, shaking his head. “I’llneed to send a message to the doctor and ask what may be suitable…The names onthose bottles are far beyond me!”

When Chase waited and heard JJ’s footsteps retreating instead of thefamiliar, comforting sloshes of whiskey dancing in its bottle, he sighedgroggily. “Okay. Guess I’ll just sleep it off then…” Kicking off his shoes witha bit of a struggle, he took a breath and held it, hoping that the nausea wouldbe suppressed with it as he eased himself over onto his back.

His body pillow was there at his side by the wall, soft and inviting, butit took only a minute after he hugged it against his chest for its case toabsorb his feverish heat and become uncomfortable. Fine, he mused grudgingly ashe shoved it away. He was already exhausted enough that he had a feeling hecould fall asleep without it.

On the other side of the house, Jameson rifled haphazardly through thedoctor’s cabinets, glancing every so often at the message Schneeplestein hadsent in reply to his question. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too angry at how untidythe various medical bottles were becoming under Jameson’s probing hands; he wasin a hurry to get back to Chase before Chase tried again to reach for thatwhiskey. The anxiety churning in his gut didn’t particularly help him keepeverything straight either.

By all of the others’ accounts, it was rare for Chase to fall ill.Jackieboy and the doctor himself seemed to have the weaker immune systems inthe group, while Jameson had yet to see Marvin even break a sweat that wasn’trelated to a true injury. Chase, however—Chase was meant to remain untouchable.The lingering sensation of the heat in his palms as he’d cupped his face andhugged his back was alarming.

Even more alarming was the fact that by the time he got back, Chase wasalready dead asleep, his breathing slow and heavy. The man had the energy anddrive of one of those electric batteries Jameson had learned of! He wasn’tmeant to fall asleep so quickly…He wasn’t meant be so pallid…He wasn’t meant tohave those dark rings underneath his eyes…He just wasn’t.

Pursing his lips tightly, Jameson set the pain medication on the bedsidetable. “I ought not to expect so much of you,” he murmured. “But whenyou’re out of sorts, you have me out of sorts, my fine fellow.”

Beyond that, he didn’t know what to say. He knew Chase wasn’t hearinghim, so what was the point? He didn’t have any intention of leaving either. Exhalingshortly, he leaned to his left and took up the whiskey bottle on instinct,examining how much of it was left. Not much, but Chase wouldn’t notice if hehad a sip, would he?

The sip became two or three sips, which became a hasty hand on top of hishat so he could tilt his head back for a swig. He was a gentleman, however; he wouldn’t take all of another man’swhiskey! What he had was just enough to bolster him, help him find it inhimself to take off his hat, crawl up onto the bed next to the older Ego andcurl into the crook of his arm.

As the bedsprings creaked, Chase twitched and shivered faintly, ahalf-formed murmur leaving his lips as he turned his head away, and Jamesonpromptly stilled, making himself as small as possible so he wouldn’t disturbhim any further. Only once the vlogger’s higher, shorter gasps eased back intodeeper breathing did Jameson release his own, swallowing hard.

It occurred to him then that such close proximity may very well get himsick as well, but now Chase was shivering steadily and his hand was instinctivelytightening on the fabric of Jameson’s vest.

“I’m notgoing anywhere,” the younger Ego concluded, peeking pensively up atChase’s pale, clammy features. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The second time, it was a promise.

[wazafam]

Filmmaker Mel Brooks has had a long career in the movie industry. He became well known for producing and directing comedy movies that parodied famous stories or characters. Fans will recall a more famous movie titled Robin Hood: Men in Tights from 1993. The movie is a hidden gem when it comes to spoof movies.

RELATED: Every Major Robin Hood Movie, Ranked According To IMDb

The storyline for the movie mimicked and made fun of the Robin Hood story, as well as other famous movies like Disney's Robin Hood and Prince of Thieves. The movie gives fans a good laugh but there are some questionable scenarios. Many scenes don't make much sense and are a bit of a head-scratcher.

10 The 'Life Saver'

Throughout the movie, there isn't any real magic to be seen. The only hint of magic is when Latrine (Tracey Ullman) uses a 'lifesaver' on Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Reese). The scene itself doesn't make much sense. The scenario is making fun of the famous mint candy and using it as a magical remedy.

Robin Hood (Cary Elwes) accidentally missed his sword sheath and impales Sheriff all the way through. For many, that type of injury would prove fatal. Latrine promises to save him with a 'lifesaver' that when ingested caused little spark-like magic as she removes the sword. But was it really magic?

9 Robin Never Opened The Box

When Robin returns from the Crusades, his family's trusted servant, Blinkin (Mark Blankfield) hands him a gift. Robin had just learned that his family had died while he was away and his father left him something valuable. The gift is a small metal box said to hold "the greatest treasure in all the land."

Fans of the movie will understand by the end what the greatest treasure was. The perplexing aspect of it all is, Robin never thinks to open the box, not once. The box never makes another appearance in the whole storyline until the very end. What also never made sense is how Robin's father came into possession of the key.

8 The Chasity Belt Debacle

Probably the most confusing yet comical plot element of the movie is Maid Marian's (Amy Yasbeck) chastity belt. Fans are introduced to it when she gets up from her bath. Looking beyond the fact that the belt is made by Everlast, the functionality of the belt is confusing. It seems as though Maid Marian never takes it off.

The chastity belt is an obvious metaphor for Maid Marian's virginity. It does raise the question of how Maid Marian went to the bathroom or bathed. It also implies that sleeping at night wasn't so comfortable. Absolutely no one had a key and by the end of the movie, Robin's key doesn't even open the lock.

7 Physical Events That Can't Actually Happen

Seeing as the movie is a parody, there obviously would be some scenarios that are impossible to see happen in real life. Seeing these scenarios on screen raises some questions. When Robin is imprisoned in Jerusalem, the torturers get a pair of pliers and literally pull out his tongue until it resembles Laffy Taffy.

RELATED: Why Blazing Saddles Is Mel Brooks' Best Spoof (& Why Young Frankenstein Is Second)

The most bizarre and questionable moment is when he actually escapes and must return to England. Robin is in a hurry to get there and his comrade tells him he must catch the tide. Instead of taking a boat, Robin physically swims from Jerusalem to England. The trip is quite literally impossible without suffering hypothermia or dying. The same goes when Little John (Eric Allan Kramer) is scared of drowning in a two-foot-high river.

6 They Moved An Entire Castle

Moving property has never been easier when it can be hitched to a horse and rolled away. After Robin returns to England, he discovers his family's land to have been taken into the possession of Prince John (Richard Lewis). The part that had fans laughing and perplexed is how they take the castle.

The workers hitch the castle foundation to horse and roll it away. They leave behind the inner walls and fans can see the infrastructure of what the castle used to be. The move resembles taking away a TV show set that needs to be changed for a new scenario. Knowing the physical dynamics of moving an entire castle, this doesn't make sense.

5 Lend Me Your Ears!

Robin and his comrades realize that they need to stop Prince John and Rottingham from abusing their power. They band together the best men from various towns to become the Merry Men. At the recruitment meeting, Robin shouts "Lend me your ears!"

Audiences didn't expect the group of men to take off their ears and throw them at Robin. The men took Robin's phrase too literally. The scene also raises the question of how all the men can take off their ears as if it were a piece of jewelry.

4 How Did They Free The Other Prisoners?

When Robin is held prisoner, he gets help from his fellow inmate, Asneeze (Isaac Hayes). Together they use their feet to breaks the metal bar structure that holds their chains. Robin and Asneeze then help free the other prisoners. The fact that they can free the others doesn't make much sense.

Looking carefully at the scene, Robin and Asneeze can open their wrist cuffs with no key and so could the other prisoners. Robin and Asneeze then pull a chain on each side that frees the others. This seems impossible as each pair of prisoners is confined to their own barricade.

3 Prince John's Mole

Prince John isn't the scariest villain to exist. He's actually quite a dud and has no backbone. The movie played a fun gag on the character that doesn't make much sense in reality. Every time Prince John is introduced in a scene, the mole on his face changes location.

RELATED: The 10 Best Sci-Fi Spoof Movies

The mole is one day on his cheek, the next day it's in the middle of his forehead. The idea of a mole moving is plain bizarre. What's even more bizarre is that no one points it out except Rottingham. It gets more kooky as Prince John is shocked to discover he even has a mole. Pricing John must not like mirrors.

2 The Green Tights In Plastic Eggs

In the scene where the Merry Men are gathering their new gear, Ahchoo (Dave Chappelle) is taking green tights out of a white plastic egg. For the newer generations of audience members, this doesn't make much sense. What purpose do green tights have with a plastic egg?

The scene is making fun of the L'eggs Pantyhose & Hosiery company. Back in the '70s, the company had a fun packaging idea seeing as their company name has 'eggs' in it. They would sell their consumers their famous pantyhose in plastic eggs, like the ones used for Easter. The movie parodied the concept and had the Merry Men's tights in a much more exaggerated plastic egg.

1 The Characters Are Aware They're In A Movie

The movie raises some questions on whether or not the characters are 100% aware they're in a movie. Throughout the story, there are fourth-wall breaks addressing the audience or scenarios of movie production. Latrine turns to the audience stating she almost touched Rottingham's package.

When Maiden Marian is bathing, a camera guy accidentally breaks through her window. The most memorable scene is where Robin loses in the archery contest. Perplexed that he actually lost, he whips out his script to double-check. The rest of the characters also check their scripts.

NEXT: Groundhog Day: 10 Things That Don't Make Sense About The Iconic Comedy

10 Things That Make No Sense in Robin Hood: Men In Tights from https://ift.tt/3dLIxHw

[jae-bummer]

My Idol 2: Part Three

My Idol From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Idol is a South Korean competitive reality dating game show. It currently airs on Wednesday nights on Jae-bummer’s blog. First broadcast in 2016, the show offers the opportunity for a lucky fan to go on seven blind dates with seven idols. The idol plans the date with the show throwing in specific missions to complete during the day. At the end of the initial dates, the show opens up an audience vote to decide what three idols will move on to the second date.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

You crossed your arms and set your jaw as you stared up at yet another tall, intimidating building. Your tongue clicked behind your teeth as you unintentionally began to tap your foot, feeling a ripple of annoyance surface through your senses. You glanced up and down at your reflection in the mirrored windows and spun to face the two cameramen you had grown familiar with. 

“I’m sorry, is this a joke?” you croaked, lifting your brows. 

“Is that a rhetorical question, or-” one of them chuckled as he shifted his boom stick. 

“No, it is very much a viable question I’m directing to you two,” you grumbled, spinning back around. “Call me crazy, but this looks like an entertainment building.” 

“Wonderful assessment,” the other muttered. “These kids just get smarter and smarter every season.” 

You rolled your eyes, gently reminding yourself that they were your elders. You had intentions of respecting them, but they could make following through with those intentions incredibly difficult at times. 

Plus, you were on national television. 

Having the world watch as you struggled to participate in a dating reality show was definitely a fast track method to keep you kind. 

“Why do they cover up their stupid signs?” you muttered, stepping forward in an attempt at glancing into the lobby of the building. “It’s not like I would pinpoint what idol I was going on a date with if there were a few SM or YG signs hanging around...” 

You uncrossed your arms and took a deep breath, urging yourself to take the first few steps forward. You were unsure if you were ready to have a repeat of the last date you had gone on. 

Yoongi had been a particularly confusing beginning to your My Idol experience. You weren’t sure if you thanked him or despised him for introducing you into the series the way he did, but he was definitely correct in his original assessment, the date was memorable. 

Whether that was in a good or bad way, you were still deliberating on. 

Granted, he finished strong. You were able to really get to know him as you worked through your second mission, sharing intimate secrets with a simple “yes” or “no.” The rooftop cafe he had chosen was the ideal spot for any romantic evening, but was that enough to completely overlook the fact that in essence, he had trolled you? 

Hard. 

You felt like a fool when you learned that the man during the first half of your date was nothing like the Yoongi you would be introduced to. In hindsight, you were unsure if he found joy in his initial interactions, or if he was annoyed by his own performance. Either way, the words you shared would stay with you for some time, but you weren’t exactly sure for how long. 

It was up to the other six dates to determine that. 

You nodded to yourself as an internal attempt of reassurance. Stepping forward, you placed your hand lightly on the handle that would grant you entrance into the building. You pulled lightly before realizing it was in fact a “Push” door and sighed. 

What a wonderful start. 

You glanced over your shoulder, silently confirming your small blunder was caught on camera. 

Hey, at least you were relatable-

**SLAM**

You fell to the concrete with a thud as the door was yanked open by a boy barreling out. With another gasp and a short groan, whoever had burst from the building was now laying on top of you, a tangle of limbs above the cement. 

You let out a soft whimper as you opened your eyes, instinctively having shut them as you prepared for impact. Trying to remain calm, your sight attempted to focus on the face that had landed ridiculously close to yours. You inspected the tanned skin, only inches away from every pore. Whoever he was, he smelled like vanilla and oranges, a strange combination you weren’t sure if you liked or not. 

But you could definitely learn to live with it. 

His chest was flush against yours with his hands placed on either side of your body, attempting to catch himself from putting his full weight on top of you. His dark hair was styled with product, pushed back from his face so you could get a clear view of his features. 

“Oh my g- I’m so sorry,” he stuttered out. Rolling over, he separated his body from yours as he plopped beside you. “That was completely my bad. I was running late for a - crap.” 

You looked over, your jaw immediately dropping as the realization struck.

“Johnny?” you whispered, tilting your head. 

“You know who I am?” he asked, a small smirk of amazement finding his face. 

“Of course I know who you are,” you muttered, slowly beginning to sit up. “You were my favorite SM rookie.” 

“I was your favorite?” he grinned, his cheeks beginning to turn even more red than they had already been. He sat up as well, placing his hand on your lower back to help guide you into a seated position. You shivered at his touch and winced as you attempted to push off the ground with your hand. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, furrowing his brows as he switched gears. “Let me see.”

You squeaked in pain as he took your hand into his and began to press lightly against your wrist. You pulled it from his fingers with immense speed and held it protectively against your chest. “Maybe.” 

“We have to get you to the doctor,” Johnny clucked, launching from the ground, and towering over you. “I’m so sorry. Oh my gosh.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” you sighed, allowing him to take your free hand. He slowly eased you up from the concrete and kept his hand hovering over your lower back as you stood. “I have to go on a date. I obviously realize I’m at the SM building now that I’ve seen you, but do you know which of your label mates actually signed up for this disaster?” 

Johnny winced as he began to laugh. “I’m honestly hoping your asking this question because you think I’m too wonderful to go on a date with...

But I realize you’re probably asking because you’re already done with me. Tough luck though...I’m the idol of the hour.” 

You cringed as his words struck you, causing immediate embaressment to create heatwaves across your skin. “I..well...I didn’t mean-”

“I get it,” he chuckled. “You didn’t think your first date would involve an assault, but girl, I’m not your average idol. I aim to please.” 

“Evidently,” you smiled, happy he didn’t take offense with your assumption. “So you were saying...you were late?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, sticking his hands deep within his pockets. “My intentions were to meet you on the outside of the building. It can look kind of ominous when you’re dropped off here all by yourself.” 

“No kidding,” you muttered. “I guess you didn’t watch the first episode.” 

“Oh, I definitely did watch the first episode,” he hummed. He began to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet as he spoke. “And I just want to say, I did not fall into you to make my date memorable.” 

“You sure about that?” you asked. 

“Well, I mean, I saw how well the “memorable approach” went the first time, so I just had to try,” he grinned, shaking his head. “But really, are you okay?” 

“I think so,” you whispered, straightening out each leg to look more thoroughly at your limbs. There was a small scrape on your knee, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired. You looked up and nodded happily to your date who still wore a sad smile. “What’s wrong?” 

“Your hand is what’s wrong,” he sighed. “We should really get you to a doctor.” 

“Right, my hand,” you sighed, pulling it away from your chest and looking it over. It was a little swollen, but in your book, if no bones were sticking out, you’d be fine. “I just need an ace bandage.” 

“Got it,” Johnny nodded. He sprinted back toward the building, only slowing once he had pushed the door with a slight bit of hesitation. You supposed it would be the last time he would be running out as if the place was on fire. 

It only took a few moments for Johnny to reemerge with several items in his hands. He looked at you helplessly as he took a visual inventory of the bandages in his arms. Chewing on his lip, he leaned over, and placed the first aid materials back on the cement where you had originally fallen. 

“Come here,” he hummed, plopping on the ground beside his collection. 

“No, I think you’re confused,” you sighed. “We just got up from there.” 

“No, I’m not confused,” he muttered. “And although I’ve just met you, I would appreciate it if you calmed the sass.” 

“Impossibility,” you groaned, sitting on the ground before him. He wiggled his body forward so his legs were pushed against yours, causing you to hiss as his denim hit the scrape on your knee. 

“Right!” he gasped. “Give me this!” 

Your jaw fell open as Johnny grasped your thigh, tugging on it until your knee fell over his. Without looking up, he reached over and grabbed a bottle of antiseptic before splashing a bit on your exposed skin. You let out a sharp cry and attempted to yank your leg away as the liquid stung the injury. Johnny kept a firm grasp on your calf as you tried to shimmy away from his touch. He leaned down further, puckering as he blew lightly onto the cuts and soothed the burning sensation. He looked up through his lashes, a smile tugging slightly at the corners of his lips. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how k-drama is this moment?” he chuckled, reaching over to grab a bandage. 

“Honestly?” you hummed. “Probably an eight.” 

“Are you into that kind of thing?” he continued, methodically placing the bandaids on your skin. “Is this scoring me any points?” 

“Considering you started at an unbiased zero,” you nodded. “And the whole tackling thing took you into the negatives, your numbers are starting to look a little better.” 

“Good,” he grinned. “I wanted to make sure before I probably hurt your hand even more.” 

He reached up and took your fingers softly into his, furrowing his brows as he tilted them back and forth. You hissed with every small movement. 

“Is this necessary? Last time I checked, you weren’t a doctor AND an idol,” you muttered through barred teeth. 

“I’ll have you know,” he laughed, picking up the ace wrap. “That I have my Google medical degree. My concentration of study was in WebMD.” 

“How prestigious,” you smiled. “So what’s my diagnosis doc?” 

“Well,” he nodded, finishing up the wrap on your hand. “If my WebMD experience tells me anything...you’re probably gonna to die.” 

You snorted as you leaned back, letting laughter rip through your sore chest. In your short time together, you had grown to enjoy your back and forth banter and attempts at flirting. Johnny was slowly evolving your date into something you had expected from My Idol. You felt the butterflies growing larger and more ravenous in your stomach as he spoke to you, a nervous fluttering filling your abdomen. 

Maybe this date wouldn’t be a disaster after all. 

“So, I had this planned before I set out to kill you,” Johnny sighed, crossing his arms outside of the building you had just arrived at. “And I don’t know how well this is going to go now that you’re injured.” 

“I’m fine,” you insisted. “And if I’m not, I’ll see a doctor later. For now, continue as planned.” 

“If you say so,” he sighed. He stepped to the side, allowing for his tall frame to uncover the signage in the window. 

“A...dance school?” you croaked. “Please tell me you didn’t plan to take me b-boying.” 

“Close,” he chuckled. “We’re going salsa dancing.” 

“How is that close?” you gasped. “That is no where near close, Johnny.” 

“I know, but I figured it was more polite than telling you you were wrong,” he muttered. “We just met. Let me at least try to make a good impression.” 

“Okay,” you sighed. “So we’re going salsa dancing?” 

“If you feel up to it,” he nodded. 

“Are you going to push me down again?” you chuckled. 

“For the record, I did not push you down,” he argued. “Really I should be commended for trying to get to our date as quickly as possible.” 

“Commended, right, that’s what I should do,” you smiled. “Good job, Johnny.”

“Well, now you’re just making me feel bad,” he muttered. “Please don’t feel inclined to humor me when I say something stupid.”  

“Noted,” you laughed. “So what made you decide...this?” you asked, lifting your brows. You weren’t necessarily disappointed with the idea of salsa dancing, in all actuality, you were almost fearful of the unknown. You had never actually participated in a salsa dance, let alone dance class, with someone you were on a date with. 

Especially not someone as attractive and entertaining as Johnny. 

“It’s been awhile since I’ve taken someone out,” he sighed. “But I think everyone should go dancing on their first date.” 

“What if your date has two left feet?” you asked. Not that you actually did. But you know, it was always good to ask for scientific purposes. 

“Everything can be sorted out with a little time and patience,” he chuckled. “And ice can heal most dance induced injuries.” 

“So why is it a good first date?” you questioned. 

“Dancing is a unique way of communication,” Johnny nodded. “Obviously as an idol, I’m a bit biased. Dance is a part of my profession, but when you dance with someone in a relaxed atmosphere like this...it says a lot about that person. You get to see their confidence, their ability to express themselves. I want to date someone who has an appreciation of the art form...and well, I’ll be honest, I may not be the best Korean speaker at all times...but body language is universal.” 

Your eyes grew wide with his blunt explanation, causing you to shake your head. You admired his honesty and found his answer to be refreshing. 

This is how dates should feel from inception. 

“So are you ready?” he grinned, leaning against the door and shaking you from your thoughts. 

“I-” you began, but your words were instantly cut short. 

“MISSION!” 

To Be Continued...

[narrans]

One Shot | September Prompts

NINETEEN | Murder

Ali elected to rest in the living room that night. She didn’t feel like going back to her room and they would need to leave in a few hours anyway. After her conversation with Thomas, Roman, Remus, and Logan about the events that transpired after she left, she was exhausted but also excited. Thomas informed her that the grand rescue in the apartments was the next morning, just hours away. Too exhausted and too excited to sleep, Ali simply closed her eyes while laying on the couch. Logan offered to stay with her, on the nearby coffee table of course, but Ali assured him she was all right and that Logan would need more rest than her to help the children once they were in the Shelter’s custody.

Logan, Roman, and Remus spent a considerable amount of time requesting help from the other residents. If they were proficient in first aid or could even wait around and offer comforting words, every little bit would help. Nearly a dozen borrowers came forward after several group meetings to offer their assistance tending to injuries. One of them, much to Patton’s insistence, was Virgil. Though Virgil hadn’t been back personally to see Ali, Patton would stop in from time to time and bring back pamphlets and with illustrated pictures which Ali made. A fair amount of trial and error went into the craft, but Ali found the perfect font size and spacing in Word to craft homemade books. There were only a dozen or so books, as the process was quite time consuming, and all related to medicine and first-aid. Still, it was the thought that counted. Logan further refined the art once he and Ali began talking more frequently. Virgil had become quite proficient in first aid medicine and, in a way, became next in line for instant care. The attention wasn’t always welcome, but it was worth being bothered to see the way Patton beamed with each healed injury.

These thoughts swirled through Ali’s mind as she mentally prepared a list of potential supplies the borrowers would need. She knew she would be needed to provide instruction, but it would be more comforting to a child to have someone their own size handling their injuries. Bandages, gauze, sterile wipes, Neosporin, even small doses of medication were set aside. Ali knew all of the supplies were in a crate in the kitchen. She didn’t need to check. Everything was organized as it should be. She didn’t need to check. Yet, that nagging voice asked her once again to make sure everything was perfect and in order. Ali turned onto her side and stared at the window. It was still snowing large, peaceful flakes. Frost lined the window in intricate patterns, designs so precise they looked hand drawn. Watching the snow seemed to do the trick to sooth her mind. She yawned and stretched, drifting like the snow into a restful sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleep, though dreamless, worked wonders. Ali learned later she was only asleep for two hours or so before the team arrived to get set up. The borrowers waited both eagerly and anxiously on the counter in the front room as the team loaded out all of the equipment they might need. Roman and Remus offered to go with Thomas, who declined diplomatically. The situation was going to be hectic, emotional, and possibly dangerous. Thomas urged that they prepare for long hours once they returned and that the rules of borrower freedom still only applied in the house. Valid points which Roman and Remus did not argue with. Instead, they bid them fond farewells and safe returns. Not surprisingly, Hickory did not make an appearance.

The house, bustling with excitement and nervous tension an hour ago, was now still with bated breath and anticipation. Roman spent his time sharpening the pin he kept at his side and pre-cutting pieces of tape for bandages they would unfortunately need. Remus spent time stretching. Even though Roman was the faster climber, Remus was the faster runner. If their fears were correct, he would need to run supplies from one end of the room to the other in a hurry. Logan paced along the counter until delegating himself to laying out the supplies in neat piles based on potential injuries. Having supplies pre-assembled seemed logical to him. Virgil and Patton arrived some time later with the other volunteers. Patton began encouraging and quizzing Virgil on what to do in different situations after hearing the team had already gone. The others simply paced silently.

They didn’t know what to expect, and yet they did at the same time. There was a silent understanding that whatever they were about to encounter would be unpleasant, scarring even. Yet, even now, they knew they were needed and accepted their partnership with the humans. This wasn’t for the humans. This wasn’t even for them. This was to prove they could come together, even for a moment, and fix something together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ali could only hear her heart pounding in her ears. They decided to break up into two groups, one in the van and one in Thomas’s car. Ali was in neither. She made it a point that they needed the room and having her on her motorcycle would let her take anyone needing emergency medical attention back to the Shelter much faster. Also, she couldn’t stand Joan’s driving. The ride gave her clarity and focus. She had seen hundreds of gnarly accidents, but only now felt uneasy and sickened as to what she and the others might find. The apartments were in sight just down the road. She took in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. She could do this. The others could do this. Now was not the time to begin doubting the road ahead. They pulled into the lot next to the side door where the emergency exit was located.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything happened fast. Too fast, yet not fast enough. They prepped their body cameras and packed lite, only bringing the essentials. Each step made their feet heavier than the last. It was not going to be pleasant. They entered the apartment with the accompanying officers. They managed to get into all of the rooms without issue Each member of the team felt the same, twisted pit knotting their insides as they surveyed the scene. Ali had seen rough scenes from accidents and crashes, ODs and savage attacks. This was worse. She thanked the Lord Almighty she had the experience to push her feelings out of her head. Instinctual training seized control and let her work without the slightest hesitation. Joan and Talyn, on the other hand, had to step out once or twice while they gathered themselves and more supplies. The same phrase echoed distantly in the air, barely registering as intelligible language.

“You’re going to be okay. It’s alright. I am so sorry. You’re going to be okay.”

The officers kept the perpetrators restrained and out of the area, but not before one of them managed to shove Thomas. They all did what they could in the moment to stabilize the children, but there was so much more that needed to be done. All in all, there were 37 of them, far more than they originally estimated. The team quickly, but carefully, brought everyone back to the vehicles.

Ali stayed behind for a moment and sifted through everything one last time. Had they missed anything? Anyone? She checked the closets, floorboards, and even a few drawers. She was about to leave when she thought she heard a sob by the table, which was covered in cigarette butts and cluttered papers nearly four inches thick, most likely overdue bills and spam. Ali approached cautiously and shifted some of the scraps of paper aside. Just underneath was an older money box made of metal. It was slightly rusted on one side and, as Ali listened, was the source of the sob. She also noticed what looked like a fresh bloodstain near the lock. She gently lifted the lid and saw one final child. The child, a young girl, was clutching at her elbow where the rest of her arm should have been. She was paling fast and, at the sight of Ali, wavered and fainted.

Ali scooped up the child, feeling her resolve beginning to break. The others were already heading back. She would have to get her kit from her motorcycle. She began applying pressure to the wound and rushed past the officers and the scum they took the children from.

“Proud of what you’ve done?” Ali growled under her breath as she cupped the girl in her palm. She could have sworn she heard the officers gasp as they glimpsed at what – who – she held in her hands. Ali bounded down the stairs toward her bike. Once there, she ripped open her satchel and wrapped the girl’s stump with gauze as tightly as she dared. The team was probably no more than five minutes ahead of her. Much to her relief, she still had her other spare glove in the side pouch. She slipped the girl into the glove, ensuring her head was above the wrist hem but that her legs were elevated, and placed her by her collar before zipping up her coat. [The glove should function as a blanket. Hang on. You’re safe. Just hang on.] Ali thought desperately as she sped away onto the road back to the Shelter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took some speeding, but Ali managed to arrive as the team loaded the final kids into the Shelter. Ali was amazed, but not surprised, at the efficiency of the borrowers who agreed to help. Remus was darting back and forth with supplies Logan and Patton pulled together. Many others, such as Roman, were talking with the kids, encouraging them and ensuring they were safe now. The vast majority of them refused to leave the safety of the bags, it being the only safe place they had been in a long time. Virgil and two others were moving from bag to bag, performing triage as to who needed help first. Thankfully, Joan and Talyn were busy in the kitchen fixing food which would help the kids regain their strength but not hurt them as they did not know how much the children had eaten recently. Cups of water and orange juice were distributed along with dozens of bottle caps. The flow of efficiency could not have gone smoother.

Ali took the time to set up at a separate area nearby. Based on what she remembered, none of the other children possessed life threatening injuries and, if the others needed her, they could get her attention. Ali gingerly lifted the glove from inside her jacket and set it on the table before removing the girl. Her chest rose and fell, but barely. The bandages were already soaked through and needed to be changed. Priority one was to stop the bleeding. Ali went to work, stanching the wound and keeping the girl’s legs elevated. It took some time, but the bleeding did stop. The girl’s breath was ragged and labored, but she was breathing.

“Ali?” her attention was snapped from her work to the voice on the counter just to her left. It was Patton. He seemed a bit frazzled and tired, but a pleased and hopeful gleam remained in his eyes.

“Yes?” Ali hadn’t realized how tired she sounded. She smiled lightly to compensate.

“Uh… Virgil has a couple of questions, and some of the others wanted you to look over what they’ve done so far. Are you at a point where you can come over?” asked Patton. Ali nodded and delicately place the girl she was working with onto her glove. Patton’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as he received his first glimpse of what Ali had been doing so silently for so long. Ali only now realized the blood smears on her hands. “What happened?” He asked, his knees and voice shaking. He stumbled over and brushed a few strands of long, matted hair from the girl’s face. Ali shook her head briskly. She couldn’t think about everything now. She could break alone later.

“I don’t know. I can venture a guess though,” Ali muttered. Tears gathered in Patton’s eyes as he placed the back of his hand on her forehead.

“She’s covered in a cold sweat, but she’s burning up,” he said frantically. Ali nodded.

“She lost a lot of blood because of her injury. She needs to stay hydrated.” Ali glanced over at the rest of the table. “Patton, I know you’re tired and I hate to ask this, but would you stay with her while I see what the others need? Maybe try and give her something to drink?” At Patton’s nod of agreement, Ali retrieved one of the cups of water along with a few paper towel shreds. “Just squeeze the water in her mouth. Not too much. I know you’ve got this.” They exchanged wary smiles as Ali maneuvered to the opposite side of the table while wiping her hands clean with a baby wipe. None of the children elected to leave the bags just yet and, at the moment, Ali could only see a few shadows near the entrance. Thankfully, the borrowers thought of this scenario and created portable light sources to better illuminate the interior.

“Virgil?” called Ali. After a moment, Virgil stepped out and glanced up at Ali. He was still a little apprehensive, even after all of this time, but was taking a leap of trust.

“Yeah, I’m here. Did Patton fill you in?” asked Virgil. Ali shook her head.

“He only said you and some of the others had some questions and wanted me to check some of the work. That’s all,” replied Ali, giving him a slight smile. “How are you holding up?” Virgil folded his arms under his poncho and shrugged half-heartedly.

“Barely,” he grumbled. “Patton is going to be a wreck later. I’m okay, for now.” Virgil turned back to the bag and the shadows. “Hey Roman. Could I get you to help me for a sec?” Virgil disappeared back into the bag for a moment until he and Roman returned carrying out a kid whose leg looked slightly twisted and discolored. His cheeks were tear stained and his face was plastered with terror. Still, Ali could hear Roman muttering something to him which seemed to be keeping the kid calm. Roman’s charm had the power to sooth the most frayed nerves.

“Ali, this is Oaklan. Oaklan, this is our friend Ali. She’s going to help us out with your leg, okay?” Ali nodded, careful to be even slower in her movements. Virgil explained that he was having trouble setting the child’s leg and there was some strange swelling in the area. Ali examined it, without touching of course, and felt torn. The leg seemed to be broken and compartment syndrome had set in. If winning over her audience was her job, Ali would be failing miserably. Her job was to save their lives. She couldn’t worry about being liked in the moment.

“I think he has compartment syndrome,” she said finally. Neither Virgil nor Roman had heard of it. “It sometimes happens after a break or a fracture. Without getting too technical, it’s going to keep getting more painful if we don’t do something.” The child, Oaklan, whimpered and shoved his face into Virgil’s shoulder, as if refusing to make eye-contact would make Ali go away.

“Okay. So, let’s do something!” urged Virgil. Ali inhaled sharply, a reaction which the borrowers noticed. “What?”

“The solution is slightly less painful.” She steadied herself with a breath as she reached into the box of supplies for some lidocaine cream. “To relieve the pressure, we need to make an incision in the affected area. If we don’t, pain is our last concern.” Oaklan whimpered again and started to shake.

“Is there an alternative?” asked Roman. His voice sounded strained between being positive and worried. Ali stared into Roman’s eyes for a moment.

“If we wait, it could get a lot worse,” said Ali.

“How much worse?” Virgil said, his tone bordering demanding. Ali force herself to separate emotions from the situation.

“Worse could be loss of limb or a fatal infection.” At this, Oaklan began sobbing. Ali could barely make out his muffled words.

“Don’t take my leg. Please don’t let her take my leg.” Virgil and Roman soothed the child as best as they could, reassuring him they wouldn’t let that happen. Roman’s jaw clenched and storm clouds formed over Virgil. They knew what they needed to do. Ali explained the procedure, pausing when necessary to not alarm Oaklan, and assured them the lidocaine would help with the pain and it would be over before he knew it. They brought him over to the side and braced themselves. Roman volunteered to make the cut Ali indicated. Three. Two. One. With a quick and careful flash of Roman’s pin, it was done. Oaklan, even with the pain relief, screamed and passed out, but he was out of immediate danger. Virgil began stitching and bandaging the wound while Ali attended to the other questions. Thankfully, the other injuries were not as severe.

Once the questions were answered, one of the borrowers, Persi, asked for warm water and washcloths so they could wash off the children. Ali, grateful for the mental break, retrieved the items and cut up several washcloths into varying lengths and sizes and placed the supplies outside of each bag. Thomas and the others were also retrieving supplies and necessary items when Thomas’s phone began to ring. He hurriedly wiped his hands clean and stepped aside to answer. There was a pause and a couple of short replies. Ali found it hard to process words at the moment. His tired eyes suddenly brightened. His jaw slackened in surprise. This was enough to gain the team’s attention.

“You’re kidding,” said Thomas disbelievingly. “Yes… Yes… I’ll be sure to let them know. Thank you.” Hearing only one side of a phone conversation was one of the most frustrating encounters, at least it was in Ali’s opinion. Thomas turned, completely bewildered and elated at the same time.

“What’s up?” asked Joan.

“Yeah, did something happen?” chimed in the others. Thomas steadied himself, his breath hitching in his chest with excitement. A cautious smile spread across his face.

“The humans we rescued the kids from are being charged with murder.” The team fell completely silent while their brains processed the information. Everyone filled in the same moment with excitement.

“Are you joking? Please tell me you’re not joking,” stammered Talyn. Thomas shook his head vigorously.

“Not joking. All of them. Every single one. That was Amy-Leigh Hoover, one of our attorneys. The police chief came in, saw the scene and some of our video clips, and had them all arrested.” Thomas’s voice was trembling with excitement. Everyone was torn between shouting in elation and keeping their voices down to not alarm the children or the other borrowers. The compromise was a rapid group hug, everyone jumping and laughing as they collided and clung to one another. Ali could hardly believe it. This was their chance! She joined in the fray after exhaustedly stumbling to her feet. Tired tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

Logan, taking notice of the humans’ reaction of something after talking into that phone device, set down the strips of tape he prepared and walked to the edge of the table. For the moment, he seemed to be the only one who noticed. He watched the excitement die down as the other members of the team hurried to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. Ali, on the other hand, came back, tears in her eyes and a heartwarming smile on her face. Logan felt slightly confused, given what they had been dealing with for the entire day.

“What is going on?” he asked. Ali knelt, now at perfect eye-level with him. Roman, Remus, and a few others gathered near the entrances of the bags where the children were recovering. Many of them looked both curious and skeptical but listened into the conversation.

“Great news Logan! Those monsters, the ones who did all of this to the kids, are being charged with murder.” Logan stared at her, perplexed for a moment, as did the other borrowers. At their confused silence, Ali continued. “Don’t you see what this means?”

“Not… exactly,” muttered Roman. Logan, however, seemed to catch on.

“Murder, in both the first and second degree, is applied when one human kills another human.” Logan’s wheels were turning faster and faster. Logan found his excitement raising with every moment, making his words come to him faster and faster. “If the perpetrators are being charged with murder, it means that the children are being treated as human. At the very least, they are being treated like sentient beings. This case could set precedent and overturn a lot of regulations about borrowers currently in effect.”

“Wait,” Roman shook his head as though her were being pelted with Logan’s words. “You’re saying that the laws and rules will be lifted? The humans can’t experiment or keeps us as pets anymore?”

“If we win the case, yes. This could very well be the beginning of borrower freedom.” The silence among them was quickly overridden by sheer excitement. Though hopeful and excited, there were still hints of hesitancy in each of their hearts; but now, right now, they let their excitement seize them. Virgil, hearing this, ran to Patton’s side, nearly tackling him where he worked. Roman and Remus clasped arms which quickly turned into a mock battle. There were cheers and shouts, some of them alarming the children, which quickly quieted the adults. At any rate, a spark of hope was on the horizon.

Ali returned to Patton’s side where the girl appeared to be in a deep sleep. Patton had cleaned some of the blood from her face and remaining arm but focused his efforts in giving her water and keeping her forehead cool. He had pulled a blanket over the rest of her torso and legs to keep her from shivering. Ali relieved Patton so he could return with Virgil. At any rate, she needed to check the child for any other injuries. The prospects of what was to come excited Ali, yet there was a pang of sadness tugging in the back of her mind. She wished, in that moment, that she could share the news with Hickory – who hadn’t been seen or heard from since the day before. Ali hoped Hickory was alright and knew, deep down, that conversation was also on the horizon.

[onceuponaprincessworld]

CaptainSwan WIP Fanfiction RECS

Hello Beautiful Fandom, thanks to CSBB and to the talended writers of our fandom we have some amazing new stories to read. So, I present to you a list of some great work in progress fanfictions that I am currently reading, including CSBB stories but not limited to them. Tell me what you think.  Hope you enjoy!

In case you are intrested here is my previous lists. 

Echoing Souls, @like-waves-on-the-beach

Young Professor Swan leads a quiet but hectic life as the newest member of the Anthropology Department at University of Maine at Storybrooke, as well as being head curator for the University’s brand new museum. Killian Jones is a hardened detective who forms one half of the best homicide team in the small city of Storybrooke. When tragedy strikes, Emma and Killian find themselves thrust together, each feeling an inexplicable and frustrating attraction to the other. As the young couple works to find answers to the mystery that will take them on a journey together, they will also explore their undeniable chemistry and connection. Sometimes the universe has plans wherein the past, present, and future converge to assure that destiny is reached in every life.

Nuuk, @wellhellotragic

When a chance encounter with a blue-eyed mystery man on an ill-fated flight turns Emma Nolan’s life upside down, she has a choice to make: Continue with her arranged marriage to Senator Gold's son to save her parent's company, or turn her back on everything she's ever worked towards for a chance at happiness.

Tripping Over the Blue Line, @welllpthisishappening

It's a transition. That's what Emma's calling it. She's transitioning from one team to another, from one coast to another and she's definitely not worried. Nope. She's fine. Really. She's promised Mary Margaret ten times already. So she got fired. Whatever. She's fine, ready to settle into life with the New York Rangers. She's got a job to do. And she doesn't care about Killian Jones, captain of the New York Rangers. At all.

He's done. One more season and he's a free agent and he's out. It's win or nothing for Killian. He's going to win a Stanley Cup and then he's going to stop being the face of the franchise and he's going to go play for some other garbage team where his name won't be used as puns in New York Post headlines. That's the plan. And Emma Swan, director of New York Rangers community relations isn't going to change that. At all.

They are both horrible liars.

MissMatched.com, @lenfaz

In a world where every dating site swears by their algorithms and databases to find the most accurate match with a high percentage of compatibility, a new site is giving them all a run for their money. Missmatched.com promises no data or algorithm, just a few people that *know* how to find your best match based on their instincts and their vibes. Emma Swan is hired to investigate if there's a fraud involved with the site’s claim of not using any type of statistics. That path leads her right into the hands of Missmatched.com founder, Killian Jones, who promises her that he'll prove he's worth his salt by finding Emma her perfect match without any data or algorithms involved.

Harder than Easy, highest_water

Emma Swan meets Killian Jones when she finds herself hiding with him in the bushes from an overzealous admirer. Turns out he works with David. Turns out he can read her pretty damn well. Turns out Emma Swan has no idea what she’s letting herself in for. CS AU

When The Tide Turns, @trueloveseyeroll

The plan was to go to England, finish the case and head back home in a matter of days. Of course, nothing in Emma’s life ever goes according to plan. Not only does she end up travelling across Europe, looking for a Liam Jones in order to finish her case, she ends up travelling with Liam’s brother - an annoyingly handsome Killian Jones. And she doesn’t trust him one bit.

I'll Drop Anchor in Your Heart, @cutieodonoghue

Single father Captain Hook and his daughter are whisked into a new kind of adventure when land calls to them in the form of the Princess of Misthaven and her son Henry.

To Build a Home, @cutieodonoghue

Lifelong orphan and wanderer Emma Swan moves to Storybrooke, Maine in search for a home. Content with a new job as deputy, she meets Killian Jones, director of an orphanage. It doesn't take long for sparks to fly, but will Emma finally be able to settle down and find a home here?

Dark Gray, @cutieodonoghue

Killian operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

To Every Thing a Season, @icecubelotr44

After witnessing the tragic murder of his brother Liam, Killian Jones is more determined than ever to discover the secrets of time travel. Fast-tracking his education at Storybrooke University, Killian is assigned a lab assistant, one Emma Swan. Together, they find a way to break through the veil of time so Killian can set things right. But what will be the price for changing the past, and is it one they're willing to pay?

Not In The Game Plan, @onthecyberseas

Emma Nolan moves back home to Tampa and goes back to work for her parents, the owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Helping star quarterback Killian Jones lead the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title proves to be a challenge, especially as their relationship grows on and off the field.

Your Case or Mine, @blowmiakisscolin

Detective Emma Swan is one of Boston Homicide's finest. Killian Jones is head of the FBI team who swoops in to take jurisdiction when multiple homicides sharing similarities with her current case pop up out of state. But they'll have to learn to work together to lure out their killer when they're required to go undercover. As a married couple. CS Cops/Undercover/Fake Marriage AU.

Part of the Narrative, @emmaswanchoosesyou

Emma Swan just wants to write the follow-up to her bestselling debut novel, that’s all. But when she gets off to a rough start with her new editor, Killian Jones, she knows it’s not going according to plan. Then, an unexpected figure from Emma’s past reappears and life begins to mirror the crime thriller she’s penning. Suspicion and secrets abound–but love might too. Writer/editor AU with a thriller twist.

Drowning is Too Late to Learn, @accio-ambition

Bouncing around with her son for the majority of her life, Emma Swan has told herself she's happy in the city. It's where the most camera operating jobs are, and that's how she makes her money. But when an old friend calls her and asks for her help on a new project in small town Maine, Emma finds herself in a place she's never been with people she doesn't know filming a profession she knows nothing about. But with the captain of the ship she's filming begins taking a keen interest in her and her life, she finds herself wondering whether she might just catch something other than fish. Deadliest Catch AU

A Wing and a Prayer, @xhookswenchx

Killian has searched all corners of the realm for centuries looking for the magical object that will end the curse placed on his kingdom. What he finds is a reluctant ally in the form of a fiery Princess Emma. He quickly discovers that Emma has an agenda of her own, and the two strike a deal that they hope will save both their kingdoms.

Wait for the Moonrise, @lifeinahole27

Emma doesn’t remember who she was before she was found in the woods, but she knows that she has a few close friends, a good job, and a loyal cat that greets her every day when she gets home from work. What she doesn’t know, however, is that her past is about to catch up to her in the strangest of ways. She learns quickly that not everything is as it seems, not even her cat.

Walk Beside Me, @beardetective

When Emma Swan's friend group gets a new addition, Emma's not sure what to think about the smooth-talking, dog-loving Killian Jones. Especially when he's funny and nice and determined to spend time with her.

I Thee Wed, @justanotherwannabeclassic

Once upon a time, Princess Emma and Lieutenant Killian Jones stole away into the dark of the night to elope. In the morning light, however, they must face the repercussions of their actions before they can live their "happily ever after." This is where their story begins...

Arrangements, @a-fictional-life

A princess needs a husband, even in a land where suitors are scarce.

If One Only Remembers to Turn on the Light, @this-too-too-sullied-flesh 

Every week, Killian sells his wares at the farmer's market, and every week, he sees Her. One day they meet--through well-meant, meddling matchmakers, of course--and Killian realizes that there is much more to the beautiful Emma Swan than he'd first thought. Alternate Universe.

Fix you, @1handedpiratewithadrinkingprob

Emma is a nurse on the med surg floor of her hospital when she meets Killian, a patient recovering from surgery following a traumatic hand injury. With a long road to recovery and a few too many over time shifts, Emma and Killian learn to heal together. Modern/ hospital AU.

If the Stars Align, @swanslieutenant

Danger lurks around every corner in the French court and as a Musketeer in service of the royal family, Killian’s duty is to protect them from any and all threats. As his relationship with Queen Emma develops into something more than just friendship, threats against the queen escalate and place everything they both hold dear into jeopardy.

Fish out of Water,  Sassysazzles

Modern!AU Captain Swan. Hiding from her past, Emma finds a job working for a simple Fishmonger in a small town in Maine. Running away leads Emma to right where she belongs…even if it's a little fishy.

Something like you love me, @kittennharington

Emma decides the best way to get Mary Margaret off her back about Walsh is to say she already has a boyfriend. Except she doesn't. That's where Killian comes in. Fake!Engagement fic.

Fairytale of New York,  @artistic-writer

An AU elsewhere fic based in New York. Emma Swan and her best friend Mary Margaret "Snow" Blanchard are ready for a change. After Mary Margaret gets offered a new job at a school in Manhatten, Emma decides to go with her. She takes a job in a traditional, mom and pop diner called Granny's and soon both of them are finding love in the most unlikely of places.

The Promise, @flslp87

Killian and Emma, two souls destined to be one. Come along on their journey of True Love, filled with romance, passion, and challenges as they fight for their Happy Beginning in The Promise.

[wanderingcas]

Week 9: Slow Burn

[Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful submissions to Week 9 of Spn Fanfic Submission Thursday! There’s some absolutely quality fics in this list, so check them out. If you want to participate in next week’s fic submissions, check out the schedule.

If you read a fic, make sure to leave a comment and make an author’s day!]

Moonlight Dancing by @wearingmywings

Set during season 12. Cas comes home after looking for Kelly, without success. Dean awaits him, but when Sam comes home old fights start back up again. Will the brothers be able to sort everything out? And what about that night in the barn? Were they ever gonna talk about it?

Explicit. 14.5k words (WIP)

[angst, angst with a happy ending, fluff, kidnapping, slow burn]

warnings: graphic depictions of violence (if you also meant general warning stuff, “implied/ referenced torture” is in there too along with graphic description of injuries)

The One with the Fanfic Competition by @tenoko1

In which friends and family of the Winchesters have gotten into a secret weekly fanfiction battle for best scenario of Dean and Cas finally getting together. That is, until Castiel finds out.

What follows is a journey of friendship and personal growth for all, filled with all the ups and downs that make and bind a family.

Teen and Up. 87.8k words. (WIP)

[Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Accidental Plot, Personal Growth, Found Family]

Howling The Moondogs by @cuddlemonsterdean

Canon divergent from 08x23: Sacrifice. Fallen and slowly being eaten up by guilt for having helped Metatron empty out the skies, Castiel seeks refuge at the bunker and tries to find a way to set everything right. He clings to the one connection that he has always trusted to anchor him over the years, until it starts to crumble under the weight of all their combined responsibilities and finally disappears into the dark without a trace.

Mature. 41k words. (Complete)

[Angst with a good ending, Human Castiel, Castiel in the bunker]

Warnings: Hurt!Dean, Sick!Dean, Hurt!Castiel, PTSD, Canon-typical violence

Young Volcanoes Series by @someoneworthfinding

After a sudden tragedy, Castiel Milton and Dean Winchester reflect back on their youth in the beachside town of Sileas, Oregon, and all the lessons they learned on the path that led them to each other.

This is a Destiel love story, in seven parts

Explicit. 238k words. (WIP)

[High School/Teen/College AU, Artist!Dean, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers]

Warnings: Character Death (not Dean or Cas), Implied Drug Use, Underage, Depictions of Depression and Anxiety

For What We Are by @hekate1308

Castiel Novak was one of the best agents the FBI had ever had. His new case, however, was almost too much to handle even for him. With the arrival of Dean Winchester, a demon, he realized that his world wasn’t as black and white as he had thought. Destiel. AU. FBI agent!Castiel, demon!Dean Winchester.

Teen and Up. 134k words. (Complete)

[Alternate Universe, FBI Agent Castiel, Demon Dean Winchester, destiel au]

About angels, humans, and everything in between by @nera-solani

When a girl randomly shows up at the bunker, claiming she knew Charlie, tells them about having visions, Dean and Sam struggle, trying to figure things out. Meanwhile, Castiel is still possessed by Lucifer and Amara is doing God only knows what. Things keep getting stranger, as Crowley develops a really weird relationship with the newcomer and God decides to be creative by creating a new creature.

Mature. 108k words. (WIP)

[Work in progress, already completely written, updated twice a week (on Fridays and Tuesdays)]

Return to the Sea by @casanddeanwinchester

Swimming too far is dangerous, despite being one of the royal families, one of those who governed the ocean, his home as a whole, the ocean itself, wasn’t safe. Some places were more dangerous than the land. The land. The land was off-limit. It was forbidden to go up to the dry soil. The land is dry and desolate. Was written everywhere. Men are creatures of wrath and envy and greed. Of hate and hypocrisy. Mankind is dangerous. They’re killers who kill for pleasure. Who take pleasure in polluting their given land. They live in so much filth, they started using the waters as a place for their waste.

But Castiel is curious. He wants to see.

There’s nothing he wants more than be up there, to feel it with all his senses, to see if the stories are all true… He didn’t know what to expect, but what happened, was certainly not even on the list.

Teen and Up. 1.4k words. (WIP)

[angels are merpeople, merman!Cas, slow updates, minor background relationships]

A Priori by @whelvenwings and @thebloggerbloggerfun

Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak are headed to Hogwarts.

Castiel, as a member of the old Novak wizarding family, is fully expected to be sorted into Ravenclaw, like all of his ancestors before him. Dean, as a Muggle-born, has no idea what the Houses even are. With a surprise sorting and classes starting soon afterwards, they’re both pitched headfirst into the unknown - and they find themselves in competition with each other almost at once, both of them needing to prove themselves to the people they left at home, and the people with them at Hogwarts.

Over the course of their seven years at Hogwarts, Dean and Cas learn what it means to prove yourself, what it takes to discover who you are, what it feels like to fall in love, and what it is they’ll fight for - what matters most of all.

General Audiences. 146k words. (WIP)

[Hogwarts AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn]

Borrowing Sugar by @blissfulcastiel

It’s the moment every neighbor should have - the ‘Borrow Sugar’ moment. Dean would very much like to have that moment with his new neighbor, Castiel - if only he could ever get up to even speak a full sentence without freezing up and fleeing the scene. He just didn’t picture it playing out the way it actually did.

Explicit. 52k words. (WIP)

[mechanic!Dean, phone sex operator!Cas, artist!Cas, neighbors, phone sex, mutual pining]

Warning Siren by @osirisapollo

For Dean Winchester, it’s hard being stuck in the closet. Especially when he didn’t even know he was there in the first place. It gets a lot harder when his new neighbor seems determined to be in there with him. Literally.

Castiel is scared of tornados, and asks if he can take refuge in Dean’s closet during the storms. Of course, Dean can’t say no to that.

Explicit. 37k words. (WIP)

[Neighbors AU, College students, Brother feels, Everyone ships it, Sexual exploration, Texas, Tornados, Slow burn, FLUFF]

The Interview by @spearywritesstuff

It begins at an award show. Dean Winchester is a well-known actor, standing before a crowd with Charlie at his side. The world looks at him and sees someone that has everything. The fame, the fortune, the life. They don’t see the loss or what he refuses to tell. Then Charlie, his manager, sets up an interview with a journalist that seems to know how to get at the truth. It seems to take no time before Dean is sharing more than he intended, and Benny is ready to capture it all on camera. Because some stories just must be told.

Mature. 69k words. (Complete)

[MCD, Suicidal Thoughts, Heavy Angst, Slow Build, AU: 1980s]

The Unclean by @jellyfishfresh

Dean should know by now to expect the worst when his brother calls him in the middle of the night with words like, we have a situation on his tongue. Still, he’s more than a little surprised when Sam asks him to take in a young man recently rescued from a cult. Castiel - malnourished, abused, and afraid - might be more than Dean can handle, but someone’s got to do it. Dean searches and finds a bright, loving man buried under those years of abuse, and he’ll do just about anything to help Castiel feel whole again.

Mature. 53.8k words. (Complete)

[Alternate Universe, fluff, past abuse, healing, slow burn]

What is Hidden, What is Seen by @expatgirl

The Darkness has descended, and Castiel must make a choice. What, in reality, is the nature of Free Will, and where does love end and self-effacement begin? And why didn’t Castiel know about the Mark of Cain and its relation to The Darkness in the first place?

Mature. 83k words. (Complete)

[Post Mark of Cain, Break up, Reconciliation, Angst with a Happy Ending]

Warnings: Canon typical violence, mentions of suicide

 Welcome All Winchesters by @almaasi​

When Dean’s engagement breaks off three days before Christmas, he’s left with nobody to accompany him on a road trip to his family’s mountain log cabin. His best friend Castiel happens to be available, and is willing to help him through a tough time. But when Dean’s mother and brother arrive, expecting to meet the person Dean plans to marry, they understandably assume Castiel is Dean’s fiancé. After a weekend of comfortable domesticity, sharing clothes, intimate conversations, and definitely-one-time-only therapy sex, it feels almost too easy for Dean and Cas to fake a loving, romantic relationship. The hard part is going back to being friends afterwards. They can’t keep their hands off each other, and they’ve discovered some fun things to do together which they’d never tell another soul about. And, oh boy, feelings. Now being ‘just friends’ is so impossible, it seems as if fate had another plan for them all along…

Mature. 60.2k words. (Complete)

[Human AU, Romance, Domestic Fluff and Smut, Christmas Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mistaken For A Couple, Friends to Lovers, Bi-Curious Dean, Bottom Dean, Dean in Panties, Artist Castiel, Virgin Castiel, Dominant Castiel, Switch Castiel, Agender Castiel, Castiel Wearing Dean’s Clothes, Sharing a Bed, First Time, Consensual Somnophilia, Spanking, Biting, Marking, Edging, Rimming, Comeplay, Aftercare, Car Sex, Communication Failure, Marriage Proposal, Snowed In]

Warnings: References to alcoholism, depression, prison, addiction to bidding at auctions, the bad kind of BDSM, and John Winchester’s abusive parenting.

[youveneverbeenalone]

Inktober for Writers/Fictober:

Day 7- Confusion (Darejones)

Wow, this one took on a life of its own (over 2000 words. what?!) but it was fun to bring Danny & Luke into the mix. More under the cut, because it seemed best to add one with it being so long. As always, prompt list here and links to previous days at the bottom. Could be read in relation to pretty much all of my other stuff, but particularly my Start of Something series. Feedback is great if you’re feeling generous. Thanks for reading!

Day 7- Confusion

Really, the whole thing is Matt’s fault. If he wouldn’t have gone and recklessly gotten himself hurt, it never would have come up, and she never would have said anything to the others.

A month or so ago, when she finally decided to give in to her urge to kiss him, they had a conversation and decided that she gets to set the pace and pick labels and all of that, because she is the more reserved of the two. She didn’t want to tell the others yet, with everything between them being fairly new and not official, and he agreed that he’d follow her lead and not say anything that would give them away. So far he hasn’t, but the bastard didn’t say anything about how he’d act. And now she’s regretting making such a vague agreement with a lawyer. She’ll have to rectify that for next time.

Things had started out just fine. She and Matt had showed up at Danny’s request to help take down a drug ring he and Luke had been tracking in Harlem. They’d all four worked together a number of times since taking down the Hand, and they’d all been getting along well. And so far, she was having a fine time keeping her and Murdock’s … whatever from the others. Until tonight.

But then Matt had to go and be “heroic” by needlessly throwing himself headlong into danger. He had taken on the entire upper floor of the warehouse by himself, which put him in the path of entirely too many bullets for her liking. Especially when Luke wasn’t very far behind.

She sighs in relief when they win the fight with relative ease and no major injuries sustained, but that does little to calm the fury raging in her chest. And when she finally gets a look at Matt in the office area, where Danny and Luke are looking for any more clues of other people involved in the drug ring, the fury in her chest ignites into white-hot rage. Because he is holding his side in a way that she doesn’t like at all. And when she looks at his face, he grimaces in a way that is so guilty that it tells her everything she needs to know.

She cocks her head sharply at him. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Her voice is acidic and loud, reverberating off of the hard surfaces of the room. It startles the other two, causing them to jump and spin toward her though Matt simply sighs and hangs his head.

She stomps across the few feet between them and fixes him with a withering stare as she surveys his body for injuries. She catches sight of a wound on his side and huffs.

“What the hell is this?” She digs her fingers into the wound, making him grunt. Some blood remains on her fingertips as she takes them away, and she shoves her hand into his chest for emphasis.

He presses his mouth into a flat line and hesitates a moment before answering her.

“Jess, it’s fine. Just a graze. One of them just happened to get me right at the seam of two plates. But I’m okay, I swear.”

She practically snarls her response to him.

“Goddammit, Murdock! Do you have a fucking death wish? If you are going to continue to work with us as a team, you’re gonna need to act like a team player and accept help from the other ridiculously capable people in this room. Otherwise, don’t pick up the phone when one of these idiots calls you next. Or I’ll take it upon myself to make you regret it.”

She turns on her heel and storms off, out of the room. As she goes, she barely catches Danny’s voice behind her.

“Uh… What’s that about?”

But then she’s far enough away that she can’t hear anything else. That’s better anyway, because it means she can go seethe in peace. And seethe she does.

Because he doesn’t seem to get it. He doesn’t understand his limits and is constantly taking on too much by himself. He doesn’t seem to see the world the way everyone else does, and feels as though he’s the only one who can save it, even when he’s not well-suited to the task compared to the rest of them. But worst of all, he doesn’t seem to understand why it bothers her so much. Why her pulse skyrockets when she loses sight of him during a fight, or why her heart drops through her stomach whenever she sees him hurt. As though he doesn’t understand how important he is to her, how much it hurts her to see him care so little for his own safety.

But, when she really thinks about it, maybe that’s partially her fault. Because she hasn’t, exactly, been able to tell him any of that. But with the way he sometimes looks at her, and the way he says her name when it’s just the two of them, she’s almost sure that he knows. And he has to know. How could he not?

Her thoughts continue to swirl as she body goes on autopilot and takes her to the rooftop. The slight chill to the night air helps to clear her head, and after a few deep, slow breaths, she’s calm enough to go back inside. But the room is almost empty when she returns. She enters to see Danny bent over a desk, looking through a ledger, but she doesn’t see the others.

“Hey, where’d those two idiots go?”

He looks up at the sound of her voice and gestures vaguely to the left. “Luke thought he saw an old first aid station on the first floor of the warehouse, from when it was still a factory. They went to see if there were any supplies left.”

She nods once and heaves a big sigh. “Good. That asshole is gonna get himself killed one of these days.”

Danny huffs a laugh. “I think that’s part of the reason Luke went with him. To give him some advice.”

She raises an eyebrow at this. “What do you mean?”

Danny shrugs. “Well, he just said he needed to give Matt a ‘talking to’ so he didn’t ‘ruin a good thing’. So I assumed he meant telling Matt to be less reckless and helping him learn to rely on the rest of us.”

Jessica closes her eyes in a grimace, cursing under her breath. She could kick herself for losing her temper in front of Luke and blowing her cover. Even if they hadn’t been together for all that long, he got plenty of experience at reading her, and because of that, she’s screwed. Because Luke knows, and she’s sure of it. Because Luke understands that the only reason she would get so upset about Matt getting hurt or putting himself in danger would be because she cares for him. Dammit, Jones. Nice going.

And if Luke knows, it’s only a matter of time until Danny knows. So she might as well rip the band-aid off and tell him now, while it’s just the two of them. Even if she’d rather stand in front of a firing squad.

She gives an exasperated sigh, and rolls her eyes as she walks over to sit on the edge of the table where Danny is looking over the ledger.

“He’s telling him to stop being reckless, alright. Because Luke knows I won’t stick around if he doesn’t quit.”

Danny’s face crumples into a frown. “But why would you need to leave? I’m sure we can convince Matt to change his tactics without you needing to leave the group, Jess.”

“I don’t mean leave the group, dumbass. I mean leave him. Because I don’t have room in my life for that kind of martyr bullshit.”

Danny jerks upright, and gives her the purest, most intense, most hilarious face of confusion that she’s ever seen. And she really wishes she had her camera, because the face that he’s making is a work of art, and she wants to be able to cherish it forever.

She lets a few beats pass, soaking in as much of the moment as she can. In the meantime, she hears Luke and Matt approaching from the opposite hallway. As Luke walks in and takes in the sight of them, he raises an eyebrow.

“Everything okay in here?”

A smirk curls her lips as she responds. “Yeah, fine. I just blew Danny’s mind by telling him that Matt and I are fucking.”

She turns to see a delicious flush rise on the little bit of cheek she can see beneath Matt’s mask. And at the same time, a light blush is forming on Danny’s cheeks as his eyebrows raise high enough to meet with his hairline.

Luke chuckles, low and soft, and shakes his head. “I think you broke him.”

She huffs a laugh as Danny shakes his head and finally finds his ability to speak. “No, I just… wasn’t expecting that.”

With a smirk, she walks over to lean an elbow on Matt’s shoulder. “Yeah, well- you and me both.”

They all share a collective chuckle at that before Luke joins Danny at the desk to continue scanning the ledger. In their relative privacy, Matt turns toward her, a look of concern on his face. He lowers his voice as he mutters an apology.

“I’m sorry. For worrying you and forcing you to tell everyone.”

She rolls her eyes, and sighs in annoyance. “You didn’t force to me do anything. Luke could tell and I knew it was only a matter of time before Danny knew too. But at least I got to watch his head explode as I told him.”

He chuckles and licks his lips. “Jess-”

But she cuts him off, because he’s not getting off that easy.

“You did, however, force me to worry about you for making a stupid and unnecessarily dangerous decision. And I’m getting tired of being mad at you for doing that.”

He frowns and hangs his head, voice low and rough. “I know. And I’m sorry. Really. I won’t do it again, I sw-”

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. That’ll just make things worse. But you better start making an effort to be less reckless.”

He pauses for a moment, then raises his head as if approximating her gaze. “I can do that.”

Good.” She slides her hands into her pockets, suddenly uncomfortable because she wants to kiss him but she doesn’t think she’s ready to do that in front of the others. But, luckily, a thought occurs to her, and she straightens her jacket and tilts her head.

“So, what were you two talking about?”

He shrugs and pursues his lips. “Nothing important.”

But by now, she can read him as well as he can read her. “Want to try that again, ‘cause I don’t buy it.”

With a sigh and a nervous chuckle, he puts his hands on his hips. “He just… gave me some advice. And helped me see things from a different perspective. That’s it.”

She turns to glance briefly at Luke and smirks. She could guess what he said. And later, maybe she will. But for now, she nods at him before Danny calls them over to strategize about the next person to target in the drug ring. And for the rest of the night, when she looks at Matt out of the corner of her eye, she has to actively try not to think about the reason that she got so mad in the first place. Because that’s a thought for another day.

For now, she’s happy to know that he might have finally come to appreciate her desire for him to remain safe and alive. And maybe, eventually, they can talk about the overwhelming feeling she gets in her chest when she’s afraid she’s going to lose him. But she’ll have put a name to that emotion first, and for now, she’s content to feign confusion. After all, ignorance is bliss.

Day 6

Day 8

[everybodyhasabrain]

Why peer support is just so damn useful for recovery from mental illness

We could also call this: Recovery is like rowing. You’ll be bad at both until you’re not. And then you’ll just push harder.

If you’re working with a personal trainer on your physical fitness, it’s not strange if you expect to work with somebody that’s in better shape than you, that practices the skills you want to learn, that’s reached the same goals you want to reach. In the mental health sector, however, involving people with lived experience of recovery from mental illness in providing care is still rare. As a society, we don’t expect mental health professionals to share how they’re implementing the intense exercises they tell patients to do. That’s weird because evidence-based care for mental illness is about you making huge changes every single day. Mental healthcare isn’t all lobotomies and tranquilizers. It’s a big lifestyle change, as complex as pursuing any physical fitness goal. It helps to work with people that know what it’s like to implement, sweat, and sustain those changes.

I’ll offer five ways below you can leverage peer support when you’re working on your mental health, similar to how we tap into peer support when we’re working on our physical fitness. And to do this, I’ll share some insights I learned from working with one of my trainers, John Soco. Let’s row some boats…

1. Work with somebody that does ridiculously tough things you don’t think you can do (but can).

For the last couple of weeks, once each week, I’ve been rowing 250 m x 12, with a 2:30 rest in between each row, trying to maintain the same pace for each set across all 12 sets, improving my time each week. Maintaining the same pace for 6000 meters is not easy. I didn’t come up with this idea. I saw John doing it.

I had noticed I was struggling with rowing and I wanted to work on it but I wasn’t sure how. I was just going to go into the gym and do some extra rowing. But when I saw John doing these rowing exercises, I knew that was exactly like the type of mental health exercise that’s so useful: a very structured, challenging practice focused on a goal.

If we want to improve on a skill, like learning how to cut out compulsions or accept emotions we hate, the exercises to do that aren’t likely to come from the brain causing the problems. If you’re working on improving mental health, you’re innovating, and you need to tap into knowledge outside of your own skull. Otherwise you just end up doing more of the same.

  2. Let peer support challenge your assumptions.

I wasn’t new to rowing when I started doing this 12 rep consistency exercise, but I did start to share about it and John was sharing about it and that immediately helped me spot one of the reasons I was struggling: I wasn’t opening up my hips enough. I thought I was leaning far back until I saw it on video. Check out the image below:

The cameras are in slightly different positions but you can still see how the angle between John’s shoulder and his knee is much more open than the angle between mine. I’m practically sitting straight up. But to me, in my head, I really thought I was tilted as far back as John.

Often, when we’re working on recovery, what we think we’re doing can be so different from what we’re actually doing. Talk with people that work on their mental health. Share about the exercises you’re doing. I get a lot of messages from people saying they’re doing things like ERP or ACT but when they describe what they’re doing, it’s really just a compulsion that’s making things worse. So they’ve been struggling and thinking that therapy doesn’t work, when it’s actually a situation like me on the rower: I thought I was doing the exercise but the way in which I was doing it meant that I would’ve kept struggling.

  3. See what’s possible through structured, intentional failure.

If you’ve ever sent me an email about getting over an anxiety, there’s probably a 90% chance I told you to start by cutting out a different, easier compulsion that’s not even related to the anxiety you asked about. You can’t lift 300 lbs if you can’t lift 50 lbs.

Taking care of your mental health or recovering from mental illness is a practice, like weightlifting. And if you want to improve at something, you’re going to consistently push into failure, again and again. But you can’t just start at your goal. You have to fail your way up to it. The results of that are amazing but it’s so important, in physical fitness or mental health, that you see the practice, grunting, and exhaustion on a structured, progressive plan that leads up to reaching the goal.

Going to the gym regularly has helped with seeing the consistent work that coaches put into their own practice. They aren’t magically in great shape. That helps me see the benefits of consistently practicing technique and I can use their structured approach so I can fail into better. Check out the image below. The number on the left is the most weight I could squat about a year ago: 255 lbs. I could do that once. That was my limit. That felt very heavy. Doing more was impossible. Yesterday I squatted 275 for five sets of four. There’s about a year and a half between those two stats. There was nothing but sweaty failure involved. Your journey with recovery will be very similar. You’ll be able to do way more than you can now by consistently pushing into what challenges you. Connect with people sweating out the same practices.

  4. Share about the journey.

One of the reasons why it’s so important that more mental health professionals talk about their own mental health practices (and that they actually have their own practice), is that you can learn by seeing what they’re doing. When I saw the video of John rowing, it completely changed how I row. That’s significantly improved my times and it could help me prevent injury in the future. If we both hand’t been publicly documenting our practice, I’d still be sitting on the rower like I was playing the piano.

I didn’t wait until I was good at rowing to share about what I was doing. If I had, I never would have gotten to that point because it was only by sharing about what I was doing and seeing what others were sharing that I was able to get better at it. We can share about what we’re working on. We can let people see failure.

One of the things I really like about weightlifting videos John has shared on his Instagram account [you can check that out here] is that he shares about succeeding AND failing. For somebody like me that’s trying to improve, that’s so useful to see and learn from.

When somebody ahead of us on the path shares about their journey, that helps us with our own steps, and when we share about our steps, we help people walking on the path behind us to avoid our mistakes and leverage our knowledge to make their journey better. There’s no bonus for extra suffering because you want to figure it all out on your own. Whether it’s a mental health challenge or a physical fitness challenge, it’s a solved challenge. We know how to get our bodies and our brains into better shape. Tap into that knowledge.

  5. Build support around where you’re going.

One of the major differences between the physical fitness world and the mental health world is that with physical fitness, we focus on the skills you want to learn. You don’t go to a special gym for people that struggle with rowing and spend all of your time talking about the ways you can avoid rowing. For some reason, however, in the mental health world, that’s often what forums or blogs or support groups will focus on–they’re about having the problem, not the skills you’re working on to overcome the problem. That’s messed up.

This may require a shift around how you think of support. I haven’t asked John but I assume that if I went to the gym to get support with having bad form while squatting or struggling to row, he’s probably not going to help me with that. Because that’s not help.

We can absolutely be honest about our challenges. That’s useful and necessary. That’s like when I identified I wanted to work on rowing. That opened up the possibility to learn new skills. Many years ago I had to recognize I was dealing with serious mental health issues–totally useful to see. Any journey of recovery from mental health challenges involves recognizing and being open about where you are. But you do not have to stay where you are. You do not have to make the problem central to who you are. If you notice you almost drowned, so you want to learn how to swim, when you start swimming lessons, you don’t label yourself as a “drowner”. You’re a swimmer. You probably join a group of people who want to learn how to swim and at least one of those people will be really great at swimming.

So whether you’re trying to row through intrusive thoughts or lift the heaviest anxieties or wrap your arms around the most terrifying hallucinations, connect with people that sweat those skills.

[Mark is a mental health peer support coach and this article originally appeared on his site: www.markfreeman.ca]