#they probably got some sort of vaccine eventually though

[laughinggrass444]

Feitan just kind of seems unvaccinated. Not like he’s an anti-vaxer or anything, and it’s not that he’s missing the covid shot specifically, but like he didn’t get those rabies shots you’re supposed to have when you go into kindergarten.

[geeky-politics-46]

COVID Cuddles

Pairing: Doctor Stephen Strange x Reader

Summary: It finally got you! You are sick with COVID-19 and missing Stephen's cuddles

Warnings: reader has COVID, pandemic references, slight angst with fluffy happy ending, language

This fic is totally self-indulgent as i am sick with COVID right now & my Doctor Strange teddy bear is one of the things keeping me company. So I made it into a story. Probably lots of errors as I'm sick & drugged

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

You looked up at him in the doorway, masked fave peeking through, from where you sat on the bathroom floor. Tissues shoved up both nostrils as you waited for the bathroom to fill with steam from the shower before you tossed a Vicks vapor shower bomb under the water. Hoping that it would make it easier to breathe. Or at least make it sound like you didn't smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day.

You had made it 3 years without getting COVID-19, but finally it got you. Despite the 2 original vaccines and 2 boosters. Your number eventually came up. You knew it would eventually. You just hoped the vaccines would make the illness shorter still.

"Well, I feel like I swallowed broken bits of light bulb, and I had a coughing fit so bad earlier I nearly puked. So I'm fucking fabulous."

They never mentioned a side effect of COVID was that it made you mean. Of course, maybe that was just you. You knew with your asthma you had to throw everything at this now just in case. So that was what you were doing. Currently waiting for your 6 hours between NyQuil shots with an ibuprofen chaser to elapse so you could top yourself up and get a good 3 hour nap before starting the waiting process all over again.

It made matters even worse that the moment you tested positive you basically became a leper. Stephen, Wong, and America banished you to the bedroom and adjoining bathroom. Wong even put up a quarantine spell that would alert them if you tried to leave the room.

You understood why. The Sorcerer Supreme and one of the Avengers getting severely ill probably wouldn't be a good thing. Much too tempting for the forces of evil. No one really knew if America could get COVID, having traveled the multiverse she probably had antibodies to things that didn't even exist in your world, but it was better safe than sorry.

Still though, a cuddle sounded really good right about now, and that was one thing Stephen couldn't give you. At least not until you were no longer contagious. You still had a couple days to go before that was even a possibility.

He was doing his absolute best to give you anything he thought you might need. Leaving trays and bags of food and medicine. Occasionally throwing in some candy or a random little treat he thought would cheer you up. He was trying so hard. Especially when you knew he wasn't exactly known for his bedside manner as a Doctor.

You hated snapping at him. You just felt genuinely terrible, and you knew that you just had to ride it out. For the most part, by yourself. It almost felt worse when he would check on you, knowing that you couldn't go hug him or even hold his hand without exposing him even more than you already had.

"I know you are miserable right now, and I know I don't have to keep bringing you all sorts of stuff beyond food and drugs. However, America showed me something that we both decided you needed. It's a friend to keep you company."

He reached inside and set down a large plain white paper gift bag. Stepping back and closing the door so you could move to get the bag, taking it back to your spot by the tub before looking in the bag.

As you peeked in the bag, you were immediately about to burst into tears. Inside was a fairly large brown teddy bear. What made it special though was that it was styled to look like Stephen.

It had blue eyes and a very dark brown goatee on its face. That alone was enough to make you giggle. The fact that it was wearing a version of Stephen's blue sorcerer's robes and it's own little Cloak Of Levitation attached to it's shoulders with velcro was just icing on the cake.

It was perfect. Soft and perfect size to snuggle while still being well formed enough that stayed looking like Stephen. Just Stephen in teddy bear form.

"Stephen, it's perfect! I love him so much! This is exactly what I needed. Thank you"

He peeked back through the door to see you already snuggling the bear tight to your chest. Happy tears on your cheeks and for the first time in days a smile on your face.

You couldn't see it behind his mask, but he was smiling too. So relieved that he could make you feel better even for just a little but. He figured you missed cuddling. He knew that he missed it. He had stolen one of your sweatshirts to snuggle, so he thought it was perfect when America showed him the bear.

Now once you were better, he might have a problem with the bear if he was there for you to cuddle instead. He would deal with that when the time came though. For now, he would share you.

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

Back to main masterlist

Stephen Strange Taglist: @starkiller-queen @glitterylokislut @verycollectivecreator @chatampr @maskmare931 @lovecleastrange @wheredafandomat @mkixx @evelynrosestuff @katefullerrr @littlepinknightmare @foofarny @stygianoir @moonroyalt @saturnsbabe69 @blaxdet @blackrose-92 @ironstrange1991 @rindulacre @nancy-thompsons @wolfatheartandsoul @dangerouslittlefairy @n0obmaster-69 @oliveoilthoughts @onebatch--twobatch @yourmajesty13 @blondekel77 @lil-sweater-slut @gwephen @taramaria @sinceimetyou @slashersrus @coeurgrenaty @cc13723things @just--a-magpie @supervengerslock @strangelockd @dont-feel-so-good-peter @kingsmanperfecthartwin @ghost-lantern @inlovewithloki16 @thefalconandthewinterwidowshield @itssmaugtheterrible @katherinemaximoff @veryfancydoilies @cute-angi @mochacake2016 @prix19 @alexfanficnook @anotheroddfish @mando-is-the-way @xourownsidee @baes-x @dreamingsmile @negar77rd @imaginesfreetotake @ppatricia34me @rougepetale @tis-vereon @divinearchangel @sherlux @hiddlechive @ginnykate @thatesqcrush @friendofplenti @yuugenmomo @holdmyowos @the-royal-petals @lokislov3 @captaincarmel164 @lucimorningst4r @mydearalmira @petalcranberry @singhfae @emotionsareforuglypeople @trappedinlimbo15 @veryladyqueen @icytrickster17 @kentucky-criedfricken @briefhandsstudenttoad @calamityismyspecialty @sinisterstrange616 @patbrdac @trojanaurora @azu21 @massivehahaao3tree @strangesgirl

[xxxcertifiednerdxxx]

my tinder date wants to know why you’re banned from tinder

Ask and ye shall receive!

Gather round, folks, and lend an ear as I tell you about Arnold.

No, he’s not a first date gone wrong, nor is he a scorned ex-lover who came up as a potential match. He isn’t a rival to whom I am bitterly attracted, and he isn’t an unrequited crush.

Arnold is my son.

He is also a rubber chicken.

[image description: a white hand holds a blue rubber chicken against a white wall. The rubber chicken has a red beak, comb, wattles, and feet, as well as a gold collar that’s says “SQUEEZE ME!”]

Let me set the scene.

A couple years ago, on a cold night in late autumn, I went to a grocery store with some friends. We all separated to get what we needed.

I don’t remember if I actually got anything for myself in that trip, but I do remember wandering around, only to come across a giant bin of rubber chickens.

Immediately thinking of the vine where that person presses a bunch of rubber chickens (geese? some sort of fowl) to make a loud noise, I did the same thing, probably to the chagrin of fellow shoppers.

Some of my friends joined me in my shenanigans, and we left the store in a jolly mood.

Days later, one of my roommates, who was one of the friends from the first grocery trip, came back from another grocery trip with a gift for me.

It was a blue and red rubber chicken.

I looked on my new child with complete adoration and named him Arnold. I thanked my roommate with all my heart and left to plan the many hijinks I would get up to with Arnold. (He has admittedly been through a lot, but the wear and tear mostly comes from love.)

One day, i had the bright idea to make Arnold a Tinder account.

I did not give myself much time to consider the idea before diving in. Arnold had a photo shoot, and I uploaded as many photos as Tinder would allow for his profile. I believe I put his age somewhere in the 20s. I picked the option for any gender to match so as many people as possible would see him. According to what I put in his bio, he got the Covid vaccine, has a natural talent for singing, lives with his mom, and likes Kpop.

Then I published his account.

While matching with people amused me at first, keeping Arnold’s Tinder account active eventually became a chore. Every so often, Tinder would email me and say my his account would be hidden if I didn’t open the app and use it.

I swiped through people, and whenever i matched with people, i would just shoot them a simple “yo.” I tried not to carry on any conversations, though, because I myself was not interested in going on any dates. This was just to entertain me and maybe some other people who came across Arnold.

One day, I got an email saying Arnold’s account was reported and I was no longer welcome on Tinder. I assume someone reported Arnold bc he isn’t an actual person, so I was technically breaking the laws of Tinder or whatever. It was honestly a relief; no more swiping through profiles just to keep the account alive.

I still have Arnold, and I still love him. But you will never see him, or me, on a dating app again.

TL/DR: I made a Tinder Account for Arnold, my rubber chicken. It took over half a year, but Arnold’s account was eventually reported for not being a real person, and I was banned from Tinder.

[animeyanderelover]

Hello 🎈How would Hashirama,Tobirama,Madara,Itachi,Pein,Sasuke,Naruto,Obito and shisui react to them body switching with their darling for a month?Thank you 🪄

I had my third vaccination today, wish me that it won’t knock me out for a bit.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, delusions, paranoia, manipulation, stalking

Switching bodies for a month

Madara Uchiha

🌑His reaction is honestly everything except amused, he’s actually quite pissed about this whole situation. And the embarrassment, oh the goddamn and burning embarrassment. Especially if it is a special type of jutsu he would be so much more ashamed because he couldn’t dodge in time and somehow his s/o got involved as well so here and there his anger sips out of him and he lets it out on them. The thing now is just…he feels so awkward scolding himself and under all means necessary will he keep this whole accident a secret from the village and he has the full support of his clan. They’re far too prideful to risk such a scratch on their pride, though to Madara’s huge disapproval Hashirama obviously finds out and being with him now in his darling’s body causes high embarrassment.

🌑One wrong look at this temporary state of his and Madara feels automatically ridiculed, but worse is by far that people lack now some sort of respect since his powers are in his body which you currently own and with that you do not have any reason to fear him really anymore, even you find this situation amusing. The elders do make sure that nothing happens to the bodies of you two whilst the hosts are so inexperienced, but it’s gonna be a long and dragging month for Madara. Darling can see this probably more positively, but they should still be aware that Madara will remember things that ticked him especially off.

Hashirama Senju

🌳He’s more flabbergasted and confused than he is frustrated with all of this at first, even if it comes to hit him eventually quickly what troubles this sudden event will cause. His clan is far more in a sudden alert and even if they already know that this is supposed to be the norm for the whole next month, they run left and right to undo this body switch as fast as possible. Madara as head of the clan is already burdened with duties, but Hashi is a goddamn Kage who must take care of the whole village and if word gets out in what state he currently is, a village might try to attack whilst he can’t use his kekkai genkai. Worst of all is that he is a popular guy and it might be a bit too suspicious if he would disappear for a whole month.

🌳It’s still crystal clear that you can’t act like him for a whole month either so an excuse will be found to why he has to isolate himself a bit for the next month. If his darling is a responsible person they might be allowed to do a bit of the Kage work, Hashirama probably even let them do it in the past a few times so they’re not a complete amateur, Tobirama helps more now as well and Hashirama still does his part as well. Hashi tries to stay positive and in a good mood the whole time to erase the awkwardness, it’s only a month after all. As long as nothing happens, you shouldn’t be so down because you’re in this man’s body and he’s in yours. Though even he has troubles how to exactly handle body hygiene in a body that doesn’t belong to him.

Tobirama Senju

🌊Listen, he really does do his best to stay as calm as possible and to solve this all as fast as he can. But the moment his brother and his clan find out, he still feels like wanting to hide in a corner and stay there for the following few weeks. Tobirama has his pride as well and there is a small crack upon this somewhat humiliating experience. Tobi handles it far better than Madara though and he can grip his mind enough until it has cooled down enough. He has to make some plans quickly since he is the Hokage as well and so he is all too informed about the dangers that can come flying to this village if everyone finds out that the current body of the Hokage is possessed by someone who doesn’t know how to fully use his power and that he is in darling’s body. Just like with Madara and Hashirama, Tobirama can also fully rely on his clan to assist him and make sure that word doesn’t get out.

🌊He doesn’t quite trust you with his body, not as terrible as Madara, but he still would want someone to watch over you if he isn’t with you. He won’t take a break from work though, only that now he works somewhere differently on all his paper work, you’re free to assist him if you possess enough knowledge though. Being stuck in your body and having to talk to his own face turns him maybe for a short while the tiniest bit more humble. It’s not totally obvious, but over time it’s clear that he just wants this all to end, he wants his body back. It’s impossible to talk seriously to you with this body switch and it’s uncomfortable and awkward on top of that.

Pain

🌧Pain is in a way more of an additional personality to Nagato and someone he controls so him and Konan are slightly confused to how Pain and the darling could switch bodies if Yahiko’s body is more of an empty shell. It leads to a huge chaos in regards of the Akatsuki plans since this Pain is a extremely important factor in it all, but Nagato simply is far too paranoid to send him out whilst your soul is inside of it. That isn’t even the main problem in here because if he suddenly isn’t able to control this body anymore because you switched bodies with it, that means you have enough power to escape this place, even if after one month everything would be over.

🌧On further expansion this could only mean that Nagato on the other hand would be able to control his darling’s body now and he will use this out of fear of them running away against them, not to mention that his s/o should know that he’ll take down entire villages if it helps him finding you. That is only if he loses control over this body since he has embedded receivers into Yahiko’s body after all and is able to control the body with the chakra he channels inside the body. If that is the case, you’ll be more of a puppet he keeps close until everything is over. Now if Nagato is the one switching bodies with his s/o, that will at the very last bring a true storm, leaving Konan and a slightly unnerved Nagato, who is living in your body for now, left to try what they possibly can to keep the organization intact and at the same time trying to guarantee that you don’t accidentally or in purpose try to use the Six Paths of Pain.

Obito Uchiha

🔥He has his part to play in the Akatsuki as well as their secret leader so all of this already might get difficult yet that isn’t the part Obito worries that much about. Not even partially enough as about the fact that a sudden body switch happened which has to lead to the instant assumption that it was a jutsu, someone’s attack. That is what freaks him out and it’s the major reason for his frenzy behavior afterwards. It’s by now hopefully known that Obito will gladly see the world in flames if it’s just to assure that you are safe and without any knowledge what happened and if something else will come, he feels the instant threat of that precious safety that is worth any blood and death.

🔥It is less about a fear that you’ll run away or awkwardness that he is now in your body and you in his, it’s just good and old paranoia, a sheer one on that topic, that he won’t be able to protect you like this if someone would choose to attack. Since he is in your body he also has to be so careful with everything since he has to watch out that he won’t put a single minor injury on it whilst his soul is living inside of it. The thing with Obito is that he breaks his darling’s mindset at one point as well and forces them to see the world in the way he does. It’s terrible to drown under such paranoid pressure, but it’ll come quite handy for the Uchiha as well since they obviously are far too frightened to even try to escape or leave Obito who they believe to be the only one who can keep them save.

Shisui Uchiha

🍂Given the fact that Shisui works for the Anbu and gets quite the dangerous and risky missions, he has to inform the Hokage about this unexpected incident. His clan discovers the truth one way or another as well, even if obvious not all of them will be aware. Shisui might not even know what exactly happened in here as well and that unnerves him which is why he will investigate in this case a bit further to know what was the cause of this sudden body switch. Especially if it’s unclear how long his darling and him will be affected by this thing. If informations come out that the effect starts weakening and turning things back to normal after one month and there is no chance to shorten that time, all he can really do is wait together with his s/o.

🍂He tries to be a sweetheart by doing whatever he can think about to cheer his darling a bit up and lessen the thick and extremely uncomfortable tension that has wrapped itself around them like a cloak. Hey, it isn’t like he doesn’t struggle with this peculiar month himself, he just doesn’t pounder about it too much so he can keep sight on important things. He worries too, you know? Not being able to fight as effectively as before and not being able to risk your body for a bloody battle if one should occur, he has to ask Itachi for some assistance. The people of his clan who are aware are bound to watch over his s/o anyways since they can’t be careless and risk an intruder taking advantage of this situation and chase after the Sharingan.

Itachi Uchiha

🍡I have to say, for Itachi this is probably the most difficult to handle since various factors play against him right now. As a criminal who is written down in every bingo book and wanted in several nations, kidnapping his darling and guaranteeing their stay and their safety is already a task not that easy. But with both him and you suddenly being pulled out of your body and placed into the other one, life only seems to want to complicate things further for him. He can’t possibly let his s/o go on his missions like this and get involved with his business, even if they would be not inexperienced with fighting. Controlling and mastering the Sharingan isn’t something they can just learn in one month and all the taijutsu, genjutsu and ninjutsu adds hundred other reasons to the list to why he can’t let them go.

🍡With no one else to turn to, Itachi ends up having to tell his partner Kisame about it so he can hopefully speak up for him if during the month any missions should come in for the two of them or possible meetings. The Kirigakure rouge is…something in between confused as hell and lightly amused when confronted with this scene for the first time, but he respects the Uchiha so he’ll agree most likely to think of something. The following month can really only be spent waiting until everything returns to normal, that doesn’t make it less embarrassing and awkward though. Even Itachi has his struggles here and there and on top of that he is most of the time concerned what he should do if someone finds you two.

Naruto Uzumaki

🍜Naruto is a paranoid and protective Yandere as well so he naturally throws a tantrum if anything happened to his s/o, only that this time it wasn’t an attack he expected. He doesn’t even grasp the full meaning of this situation for a whole while before someone explains it to him and that is when his mind goes a bit blank, the gears in his head turning as if still not fully understanding all of this. News end up spreading faster than wanted, though at the very last it is kept somewhat under control. The majority of his friends and other shinobi do know and since Naruto is so popular and adored by the citizens, it is extremely hard to let nothing seep through. The council pressures to find out what exactly happened and they obviously want their Kage as fast as possible back in his body, even if this all supposedly only stops after one month.

🍜People like Kakashi, Sai and Sakura will lend their help wherever they can as well, be it discovering how to undo the jutsu, helping with the Kage work or simply taking care of two people who have no idea what to do in the body of their partner. Just try to imagine how frustrating this can be sometimes for Naruto, imagining that he wouldn’t be able to do much if someone would plan to murder you in this moment with your body that he can’t risk being majorly ruffled up either. To ease his overprotective paranoia a bit, someone from his best friends will have to look out for you a bit. Kurama is not exactly thrilled about this development either, though he attempts to take it with a dry humor.

Sasuke Uchiha

💙With Sasuke the time where it happens determines how he will act and react to it all. If it’s during the time of his teenage years, it is totally safe to assume that he’s pissed, oh so pissed, about this all and since he can’t quite handle his emotions, he lets his moods out on his s/o. As long as he isn’t proven differently, he will always see his s/o weaker than him and being stuck in their body with his mindset means that he feels like he won’t be able to accomplish anything, blaming along with this his darling for being so weak. Waiting a whole month won’t cut it for him either, he doesn’t have time for this. If Orochimaru is still alive at that point, he will help Sasuke since despite his interest to this phenomenon, he wants Sasuke back in his body as well, Sasuke will force him anyways even if his threats might be in this current body not as affective. If we’re talking about him being already an adult, he won’t act quite as rash.

💙He’s far from having achieved inner peace with this situation, but he thinks it through more carefully and schemes everything out as good and as fast as he can. He wanders around with his darling until he decides to finally settle down which means that he will try at first to handle everything on his own. He has collected some knowledge throughout his journeys and has been gifted new skills and abilities so he will try to find a way to return your souls to the right body instead of sitting around for one month. It’s not only that he worries about bumping into the wrong kind of people, he becomes a bit warily whether or not his s/o will attempt to do something with this temporarily borrowed body.

[theyoutubedork]

“I’m always gonna worry about you, I love you too much not too,”

Masterlist

The one where you get the vaccine, and boyfriend!Harry comforts you when you get really bad side effects.

Trigger warning: COVID times, pain, mentions of needles, and LOTS AND LOTS OF FLUFF

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

A/N: ok, so I haven’t written anything for tumblr in a while, I’ve been writing on wattpad a little, but I’m lacking inspiration on that front, so I’ve been flocking to Tumblr once again. Instead of finding inspiration for the story I’m writing on wattpad, I’m gonna just completely procrastinate and write something entirely new instead. Obviously my brain has the best ideas so here we are.

WARNING: (PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING)

this is based off of my personal experience with getting the jenssen (Johnson and Johnson) vaccine, which is what inspired me to write this story. I had a very tough go with the side effects of the vaccine. I’m fine now and I am not saying that you shouldn’t get this vaccine. Obviously this is a slightly dramatized version so that it is easier for you guys to understand. These side effects only lasted for a few hours within the first 24 hour period of getting this vaccine, which is very common and likely to happen. It just knocked me for a bit of a loop, that’s all. The amount of pain I experienced was something that I was willing to go through so I can get vaccinated. It is was very much worth it. Please get vaccinated, and please be safe.

——————————————————————————

As soon as you walk through the door, you see Harry’s head spring up from behind the couch. His hair is slightly messy, evidence of one of his random, mid-day naps. His eyes immediately soften, looking at your face, which is twisted from the small discomfort you felt in your arm. You had to go alone because the vaccination site had told you so, and you didn’t want Harry to wait for you in the heat for god knows how long. Harry immediately gets up and gives you a tight embrace as soon as you put your belongings onto the kitchen counter. He lets out a quick sigh of content, being a bit more touch-starved lately, which he doesn’t really know the reason for. He finally brings his head from the crook of your neck, and melts at the sight of your adorable puppy-eyed stare.

“How did it go? I was so worried about you love, wish I could’ve been there to hold your hand,” he coos. His hand pets your head, trying to soothe you from any remaining nervousness, which admittedly, you still were. He knew that you severely disliked needles, especially when getting shots. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a flu shot or blood work, you always had to have your head turned away. Thankfully you aren’t nearly as bad as you used to be. When your were younger, you would scream and cry. There was even one time when you were super young, that an extra nurse had to hold you down like a stereotypical psycho-medical horror film. Screaming bloody murder just for protection against measles. Eventually you grew out of that phase, only having to have your mother rub her hand on your back to try and distract you.

Your mother did that a lot actually. Whenever you were upset, she would always give some sort of physical contact to remind you that she was there. Her most common ways of this type of affection was either rubbing your back or circling her thumb on the back of your palm. However, if you would get hysterical, she would even put her hand on your head and scratch your scalp or even run her finger along the bridge of your nose. She learned this from one of you day-care teachers, who used this tactic to make you finally fall sleep during nap time. Upon reflection, it definitely could seem strange to others, but for some reason your mother always calmed you down with these methods, even when you became an adult. Obviously she doesn’t do this nearly as often, given that you can control your emotions better than you could when you were a kid, and the fact you didn’t live with her anymore.

You are pulled out of your thoughts when Harry wraps his arm around your side to bring you closer. You immediately wince as his arm wrapped around your left arm, squeezing it tightly, making the arm already more sore.

“Harry, my arm,” you mutter, and he quickly lets go, scanning over your features quickly to make sure you weren’t in pain. After you give him a goofy smile, he chuckles and gives you a small peck on the lips.

“Sorry love, didn’t mean to hurt you.” He murmurs, pinching your cheek before grabbing your hand.

“Well now that you’re home, we can finally start that show you wanted to watch. I already went to the store and got you some stuff, just in case you get any side effects.” He rambles excitedly, plopping onto the couch before dragging you down towards him, your limbs already entangled with his. He adjusts slowly, making sure your left arm isn’t pressing up against anything too harshly. He pulls a blanket hanging on the backside of the couch over the two of you. You don’t let this distract you from giving him a narrow-eyed look due to his last statement. He sighs, noticing this,

“I know-“ he starts but you interrupt him,

“It’s very sweet that you went out and got stuff for me, but you know I don’t like if when you go out by yourself.” You say, tracing your fingers over his anchor tattoo as you continue, “But, you are an independent young man, who can do whatever he wants, so just text me before you go out and do that stuff ok? Don’t want anything bad happening to you,” you say softly, looking up at him with a worried look. He lets out a small “aww” as he grabs your hand, bringing it up to his lips, peppering small kisses on your knuckles before he looks at you with loving eyes.

“I know, you’re right, but you don’t have to worry about me love,” he says, wrapping his hand lightly around your neck, pulling your head closer so he could give you a small kiss on the forehead. You rest your head on his chest, facing towards the tv. You pick up the remote off the coffee table, turning on the TV to start scrolling though Netflix.

“I’m always gonna worry about you, I love you too much not to,” you say somewhat absentmindedly, since this was something you say to Harry all the time. He constantly begged you not to worry about him, and you always say there is no possible way you could not worry about him. Not just because he’s your celebrity boyfriend, but because obviously you will always worry about the people you love. People may see that as a bad thing, but it just means that you always want the best for the people you care about, and that you wouldn’t let anything bad happen to them.

You feel Harry’s ring-less hand, (he must’ve taken them off when he went out so he wouldn’t face any more risk of recognition; people are way too observant for their own good) find it’s way into your hair, lightly sifting through it.

‘Harry’s hands are surprisingly soft for someone who plays instruments as often as he does,’ you thought.

Ever since he found out about your mom playing with your hair, and other types of physical affection whenever you got upset, which he found adorable by the way, he had started to do the same, except at any given moment, not just when you got upset. You didn’t comment on it, but you secretly revel in it. He always was touchy-feely, but this was much more personal and intimate, and the way he pays extra attention to you makes you feel like nothing in the world could hurt you.

“You still shouldn’t worry about me so much,” he says, knowing full well that he will never be able to stop you. He knows that you worry about him for the obvious reasons, and that you would honestly be a bad girlfriend if you didn’t. He is one of the most famous people in the world, at least according to famousbirthdays.com.

After a few minutes of silence you hear Harry speak again,

“You know you’re the best girlfriend in the world right?” Harry says cutely, curling a strand of your hair around his fingers.

You let out a small laugh. He asked you this all the time, as if he never asked you the question before. You always brush off this comment, and this time is no different.

“No I am not,” you scoff, selecting play on the screen, the Netflix logo filling the screen. You feel Harry tug on your hair enough so he could make you look at him. This action makes your face heat up like the surface of the sun, making you try to look away from him.

“Look at me, love,” he whispers and you reluctantly comply. You see him with a tight lipped smile that rested below the apples in his cheeks. His eyes were slightly closed from how much he was smiling.

“I mean it, I know I tell you all the time, but you really are the best girlfriend in the world, you’re always so worried about me, making sure I’m ok,” he firmly states, scooping your stray baby hairs out of your face, “you’re like my bodyguard,” he chuckles. You raise a teasing eyebrow and he begins to laugh a little harder at your expression.

“Hey! You are like, the cutest bodyguard I’ve ever had,” you let out a small giggle at this, making Harry smile even wider.

“Damn right, I’ll kick everybody’s ass just for you babe,” you chuckle, air-punching the air aimlessly. Harry laughs loudly at this, giving you a peck on the head.

“I know you will, lovie,”

*

*

*

Later on in the evening, Harry had finished making dinner, and you were sprawled out on the couch. You usually would be in the kitchen with him, but for some reason you just didn’t want to move. Harry didn’t pay any mind, knowing that the vaccine you got was a single shot, meaning it was going to be a more potent dose. This also meant that you would probably be experiencing more severe symptoms than he did when he had gotten his two shot vaccine. He wanted you to get the same one as him, but he knew that the place you were setting up your appointment only had the single shot doses, and that you didn’t want to have to go through two rounds of needles.

He was only away for 25 minutes, so when he rounded the corner to enter the living room, to say that he was concerned was an understatement. He saw you, sprawled on the couch, your face scrunched together in pain as you tried to get comfortable. Your chest was heaving up and down at a not so steady pace. He set the plates in his hands on the coffee table before crouching down to make his face level with yours.

“You ok lovie? Dinner’s ready,” he said in a hushed tone, placing his hand on your forehead to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. However, when his hand reached your forehead, he noticed that the hair was glued to it, your forehead slightly slick with sweat. You let out a small groan of pain as your response. He immediately placed the back of his palm against your skin, not caring about your sweat. Not a fever, but not too far from one.

“Baby why didn’t you change into something a bit lighter?”

“I was going to but then I just didn’t want to get up. Or...move.” You whined. Harry’s face softened when he saw your cute little pout that you do whenever you get lazy or tired. Or both.

“Okay well do you wanna have dinner then get changed, or get changed and then have dinner?” He says.

“I wanna move as little as possible, so let’s eat dinner and then I’ll change.”

“Ok lovie...now eat before it gets cold.”

*

You were barely able to keep yourself up by the time you finished eating, and Harry immediately sprung into action. He quickly cleaned up the kitchen and put everything somewhat away before he rushed back to you. He had to catch you slightly since you were trying to make it to the bedroom before he came back.

He gingerly helped you out of your clothes and tucked you into your bed. Quickly shedding his clothes, and slowly getting into bed, trying not to dip the bed drastically. You immediately curled into his arms after he turn out the lights, and you let out small groans every once and a while.

“It’s alright angel, you probably won’t sleep super well tonight but I’ll be right next to you if you need anything. Okay lovie?” He murmurs, bringing his left arm around your waist to slowly trace circles at the bottom of your spine, soothing you greatly. You let out a small hum of understanding before nuzzling into his chest more, letting out a small sigh.

“You know you’re the best boyfriend in the world right?”

[nerdzzone]

Only For A Moment: December

Summary: A series of shorter one shots from Chris and Whitney’s life together throughout the pandemic. Some happy times, some harder times, some fluff and some things a little more sexy - they work through it all as they try to get settled in their new and blossoming relationship.

Chris Evans x OFC

18+

Part of the Once Bitten/More Hearts series

Only For A Moment: November [part two]

Note: This is the last part of this section of the series! Thank you to everyone who has read, liked, reblogged and commented so far, I really appreciate your support and love reading all your thoughts! There will be more, focusing on their lives as the world starts opening up again, but I’m not sure when it will be posted.

-----

December 2020

December was a somewhat bittersweet month.

There were quite a few positives as Christmas always brought plenty of joy - and it brought Scott back from L.A. which was a nice treat for everyone - and there was also the big announcement of an approved vaccine. The roll out wouldn't be immediate, of course, but there was hope on the horizon and a clear sense of relief.

However, there were some negatives as well. I still had my concerns about how well we'd adapt our relationship to the realities of real life and, as excited as I was about Christmas, the holiday season was making me miss my family more than ever.

Chris' family was a great substitute - especially as the case numbers were low enough that we were allowed to have small family gatherings which meant they could all to stay over at our house on Christmas Eve as they had the year before - but I hadn't seen any of my own family in over a year and I missed them terribly. It made me so sad to think of how much Grayson had grown since they last saw him and knowing that I had a little nephew that I'd never even met was starting to break my heart.

In an attempt to ease the ache caused by the distance, we had a video call on Christmas Eve since my family were all together too and I was relieved that our friendly, confident three year old had no problem making conversation with the grandparents and uncle that he could barely remember. It was heart-warming and refreshing to have that time with them even through a screen, but it wasn’t the same and it left me wanting more. I wanted to see them, to hug them, to help my mom make Christmas dinner and beat my brother at the card games we always used to play. I wanted to be less than three thousand miles away and it was starting to weigh on me.

I held it together pretty well, not wanting to put a damper on the happy festivities we were having, but later that evening, when I was alone with my thoughts as I finished tidying up the dishes from dinner, it was suddenly overwhelming. I leaned on the counter as my chin dropped to my chest and the tears finally came. I wasn’t going to let myself have more than a few minutes to wallow in my sadness, but almost as soon as the tears started, a voice from behind me interrupted.

"Whitney?" Lisa quietly announced her presence. "Are you okay?"

I sniffled and quickly wiped my eyes before turning around to see her standing in the doorway with Scott, concern on both of their faces.

"I'm fine," I smiled weakly, but Scott wasn't going to let it go that easy.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "Why are you crying?"

"I just miss my family. It's hard not getting to see them at Christmas," I admitted. "I know I didn't get to see them last year either, but it's been so long now since I've seen them at all. I guess that's just made it harder."

"Oh, honey, that's understandable," Lisa assured me. "I can't imagine how I'd feel if we hadn't been able to be together at all for as long as you've been away from your family."

"Usually I'm fine," I insisted. "I think just seeing them all together and not being there got to me a little bit."

"Well their loss is our gain," Scott informed me. "Because we're really happy to have you here. I know it's not the same, but you're part of our family too."

"I know and I'm so grateful that I have all of you," I rushed to assure them, not wanting anyone to think I wasn't happy to be spending the holidays with them. "It's been so amazing how you've all taken me in and let me be a part of your family. I know things were complicated with Chris and I, but you've always been so good to me."

"You've been a part of this family from the moment we found out about Grayson," Lisa said firmly. "Whatever happened between you and Chris never mattered to us. We're glad you've sorted yourselves out now, but we've always thought of you as family."

Scott nodded in agreement and their kind words brought more tears to my eyes.

"That really means a lot," I choked out, blinking frantically to stop myself from crying anymore. It took a moment to compose myself, but eventually I let out a laugh and wiped my eyes again. "Sorry, I'll stop blubbering soon. I don't think I realized how much I missed them until now and once I get all weepy, it's hard for me to stop."

Lisa crossed the kitchen quickly and pulled me into a hug.

"If you need to let it out, then you go right ahead."

I returned her hug and was about to inform her that it wasn't necessary when Chris - who had been upstairs putting Grayson to bed - appeared in the doorway and interrupted our little moment.

"What are we letting out? Why is Whitney crying?" he asked. "What did you two do to her?"

"We were just letting her know that none of us would judge her if she wants to dump your ass," Scott lied, a smirk on his face. "And now she's crying tears of joy."

"Scott!" Lisa scolded despite the laugh that fell from her lips as she let me slip out of her arms. "That's a horrible thing to say."

"It's not true," I assured Chris even though I was sure he'd figured that out. "I just had a little sad moment. I miss my family so your lovely family members were reassuring me that I'm part of yours."

"You absolutely are," he agreed, coming over and slipping his arm around my waist before pressing a kiss to the side of my head. "I'm sorry that you're sad, but do you remember what I told you last year?"

I'd spent a lot of time trying to block out the memory of last Christmas in the months after it happened and apparently I'd done a good enough job to not know what he was talking about.

"No," I shook my head. "What?"

"There's no time for worryin' at Christmas!" He reminded me. "Let's get you a drink and turn that frown around!"

"Alright, that sounds good," I laughed as I slid out of his grasp. "Lisa, can I get you another glass of wine?"

"Oh, yes, that's actually why we came in here," she smiled. "We were sent to get everyone another round."

"Perfect," Chris grinned as he opened the fridge and started pulling out supplies.

He poured drinks for everyone, but held me back as his brother and mother left the room with as many drinks as they could carry. He pulled me into his arms again before I could pick my drink up off the counter.

"Are you good?" He asked, rubbing his thumb on the exposed skin just above my jeans. "I'm sorry that you miss your family."

"I'm fine," I smiled up at him. "It was just hard seeing them all together tonight and not being there. I do miss them, but I'm okay. I'm happy to be here with you and your family."

"As soon as things get better, we can go and visit," he promised. "I think I'll have to head to L.A. in the near future anyway. Now there's a vaccine and things might start to improve, there's more talk of starting The Grey Man."

While the thought of a trip to L.A. was encouraging in theory, it made my stomach turn. Travelling while the pandemic was still around seemed very stressful - if Scott's journey home for the holidays was anything to go by - and the thought of Chris returning to work was something I wasn’t eager to think about. I knew he was trying to make me feel better though so I stretched up and placed a kiss on his lips.

"That would be nice," I smiled. "I'd like you to get to know my family a bit more."

"I'd like that too," he nodded. "As soon as we can, I promise."

As I slipped out of his grasp, I tried to focus on that hopeful promise and push any sad feelings from my mind.

-

The rest of that evening was pretty lowkey. We knew that the kids would be up at the crack of dawn as they were the year before and went to bed early in preparation for that. It was a decision that I was very grateful for at six thirty the next morning when Grayson woke us up by launching himself onto our bed.

“Merry Christmas!”

His little voice cut through the silence of the room, ruining any possibility that we might have been able to sleep a little longer.

“Merry Christmas, Gray,” I heard Chris answer as I rolled over. Just as I turned to face him, Chris dragged him down from where he was bouncing on the bed and pulled him against his chest. “Let’s go back to sleep. Okay, buddy?”

We all knew that wasn’t going to happen and Grayson proved it as he giggled and wiggled around, squealing loud enough to ensure that no one in the house could possibly still be asleep.

“Gray! Shhh,” I laughed, pulling him out of Chris’ arms and into my own. “Merry Christmas.”

I kissed the top of his head and he pulled back, grinning up at me.

“Santa came, Mama!”

“Did he?” I gasped. “That’s so exciting!”

“There’s so much presents!”

“Wow, I guess we should go see who they’re for!”

“Probably me,” Chris teased Gray. “I bet they’re all for me and maybe one for your mom.”

“And for me?”

The hope in Grayson’s voice had me interjecting before Chris could tease him any more.

“I’m sure there are some for you,” I assured him. “I bet there’s some for everyone.”

“Even Uncle Scott?”

That question earned a howl of laughter from Chris, but I nodded.

“Even Uncle Scott,” I smiled. “He’s been pretty good this year, hasn’t he?”

“No!” Grayson giggled. “He scared Daddy! And me!”

I laughed, thinking back to the incident he was referencing. Ever since Scott returned from L.A., he and Chris had created some kind of ‘scare war’ where they were competing to see who could scare the other in the best way. They posted the videos on Instagram and their fans loved it, but it had gotten a little out of hand. Scott caught Chris off guard when he came home from a walk with Dodger the day before and got an excellent reaction from him, but he didn’t realize that Grayson was with him too. The poor kid was terrified and cried for almost fifteen minutes afterwards. Scott had been incredibly apologetic and tried to make it up to him, but apparently Gray wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving.

“He did scare us and that wasn’t very nice,” Chris agreed. “He’s probably on the naughty list!”

“Yeah!” Grayson grinned at his dad. “Let’s go see!”

He scrambled off the bed almost as quickly as he’d climbed up in the first place. Once the sound of his heavy footsteps faded as he ran down the hall, Chris pulled me into his arms.

“Merry Christmas, Win.”

“Merry Christmas,” I smiled up at him. “Crazy to think that we woke up like this a year ago too.”

“Almost exactly like this,” Chris smirked. “Until you snuck out of bed as if I wouldn’t know we’d been cuddling all night.”

My jaw dropped slightly.

“You knew?”

“Of course, I knew!” Chris chuckled. “I’d been awake for almost half an hour before you woke up, but it felt so nice cuddlin’ you that I didn’t wanna move.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” I laughed, burying my head in his chest as he assured me that it wasn’t. “But it’s so strange to think that if there hadn’t been that snow storm and I hadn’t stayed over that night, maybe we wouldn’t even be here now.”

“Do you really think that?”

“It’s hard to say,” I admitted. “I think we would have ended up quarantining together, but if we hadn’t had that slip up at Christmas, we wouldn’t have had the same incentive to talk about things during lockdown.”

“But that slip up showed that the feelings were there,” Chris pointed out. “So, maybe it would have happened while we were locked in this big ol’ house anyway.”

“I like to think so,” I smiled. “Either way, I’m happy it did.”

“Me too,” Chris placed a kiss on the top of my head as the sounds of excited children floated down the hall towards us. “I guess we should get up before they come looking for us.”

I reluctantly agreed and we dragged ourselves out of bed to join the festivities.

-

Christmas morning was much the same as the year before. The kids were overwhelmed with excitement at all the gifts, but very grateful and appreciative of everything they received. Chris bought me some new cameras that I’d mentioned wanting to buy before my work picked up again, but it was my gift to him that I was really excited about.

I watched as he opened the box that I’d carefully wrapped and pulled out the photo album that I’d put inside.

“Wow,” Chris murmured as he flipped through the pages with a soft smile on his face. “Are these all of me and Gray?”

“There’s some of Dodger too, but yeah, mostly it’s you and Gray,” I informed him. “I just thought, it’s been such a crazy year and there’s been a lot of stress, but there were some good moments too and I wanted you to have some memories of those.”

“This is amazing…”

He flipped through the pages that I’d filled - in order by month - of all the pictures that I’d taken since the start of the pandemic. There were some of him helping Grayson ride his bike, some of them reading together and doing puzzles, some of them playing in the pool, some of them raking leaves in the fall, carving pumpkins at Halloween, cooking dinner together, curled up on the couch watching movies and pretty much every other day to day activity that they did together through the lockdown. I was amazed by how many pictures I’d taken when I started compiling them, but I knew it was a gift that he would appreciate.

“That’s one of my favourites,” I giggled, pointing to a picture of bath time one night when Chris had fashioned them both beards made out of bubbles.

“I love them all,” he smiled, looking up at me with glassy eyes. “Thank you, Winnie. Thank you so much.”

I leaned in to place a soft kiss on his lips as Lisa moved to stand behind her son and sneak a peek at the album.

“That’s such a wonderful gift, Whitney,” she gushed. “Those pictures are beautiful.”

“Thank you. If you look through it later and pick out your favourites, I can make you some copies.”

“That would be great!” She grinned. “I would love that, if you don’t mind.”

I assured her that it would be no trouble and made notes of a few that I thought she might want as Chris and I spent the next half an hour flipping through the album and reminiscing on the happy moments we shared as a family during a very dark year. It was a rather odd feeling that such a bleak time had also been such a happy one for us. I was beyond grateful that our families had been relatively untouched by the virus plaguing the world and was more than happy to join Scott in his toast to all our continued good health when he brought out the mimosas as soon as all the presents were unwrapped.

-

The rest of the day was filled with plenty of love and appreciation of our little family and the opportunity to be together. As we had the year before, we called all the relatives who lived too far away to join us before spending most of the day playing games, drinking fancy Christmas cocktails and eating delicious food. We had learned something from the previous years celebrations though and didn’t let ourselves get quite as intoxicated as we had back then.

All in all it was a lovely day and my heart was feeling very full by the time we said our goodnights and headed to our room that evening. I was refreshed by the opportunity for such prolonged socialization and had a little extra pep in my step as I pranced off to the ensuite bathroom to brush my teeth.

However, when I came back out, I was surprised to find Chris sitting on the edge of our bed. He glanced up when I walked in, a soft smile on his face, but there was an air of nervousness around him that immediately put me on edge.

"You okay?"

My question was simply met with a nod as he beckoned me over. He grabbed my hand as soon as I was close enough and kept me standing in front of him.

"I have one more present for you," he informed me after a moment of quiet. "But I want to preface it with an explanation so you don't freak out."

I laughed nervously at that statement, wondering what kind of gift could possibly make me freak out. A car? A new house? A puppy? My mind was instantly running wild.

"Okay..."

"I know you're still nervous about things going back to normal and how we'll handle it - I can see it on your face every time it gets mentioned," he started, his words so far offering no explanation. "I've been trying to think of something that I can do to reassure you, something to prove just how committed I am to you because I am all in here, Winnie. From the moment I met you, I knew you were something special and it sounds a little cheesy and over the top, but you really are the love of my life. It took a little soul-searching and some brainstorming, but I eventually came up with something I think might help us both..."

He paused then and reached behind his back, pulling out a little box that made my heart start pounding in my chest.

"Oh my god," I gasped out as he slid from the bed to kneel on one knee in front of me.

He opened the box and looked up at me with hope written all over his face.

"Will you marry me, Winnie?" He asked, the question bringing tears to my eyes. I was biting my lip to hold myself together and didn't realize that I hadn't answered until he launched into some further reassurances. "We don't have to get married right away - we can wait as long as you want - but taking this step, making this extra promise and commitment, I thought it might give us both some comfort."

I was still stunned, completely blindsided by his proposal, but I took in his words and appreciated his reasoning as a grin slid onto my face.

"Yes, Chris! Yes, I will marry you."

Chris visibly relaxed at my acceptance and, with noticeably shaky hands, he took the ring from the box and slid it on my finger. As soon as it was safely in place, he sprung to his feet and pulled me into a breathtaking kiss.

"Holy shit," he let out a deep breath, moments later when we finally parted. "That was terrifying. I thought for sure you were going to turn me down and tell me that I'm insane."

"You kinda are," I smiled. "And everyone else is definitely going to think we've lost our minds."

"Well, we've never done things the traditional way and it just makes sense, doesn't it?" It was a question, but he didn't wait for an answer. "It hit me when we were talking in New York and you made a joke about me proposing, that it wasn't a bad idea, that it was something I wanted to do. I know we've technically been together for less than a year, but I haven't wanted anyone else since the day I met you so what's the point in waiting? I'm not gonna make decisions based on what everyone else thinks we should do - that would be crazy."

I smiled at his anxious rambling and stretched up to place another kiss on his lips.

"That would be crazy," I agreed. "And I don't care what they think. I don't want to be with anyone else either."

He matched my smile as he squeezed me even closer.

"And I mean it, we don't have to rush into anything or start planning a wedding right away," he assured me. "But I thought this extra step might make you feel better about things changing. I'm in this one hundred percent and I'll do whatever it takes to make this work for us."

I didn't need a ring to know that Chris loved me and wanted to make this work and being engaged wouldn't make any of the challenges that were ahead of us any less difficult to face. But there was something about how fearless he was in making such a commitment to me and something about the way he was so determined to reassure me of just how invested he was in our relationship that did put me at ease and fill me with confidence.

The fact that despite all the things we'd been through and all the things we still needed to work on - including my own insecurities - Chris was willing to marry me and make that lifelong commitment had my heart about ready to burst in my chest.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes too," I assured him. "I love you so much, Chris."

"I love you too," he grinned. "And god, I'm so relieved you said yes."

"Of course I'd say yes," I insisted. "You know I love you."

"I do, but I also know you're worried," he reminded me. "And I didn't want you to think I was using a proposal as a band-aid or something. I know that it won't always be easy and we'll have to work hard."

"We will," I agreed. "But now, at least when you're away, I'll have this pretty ring to remember you by."

I pulled my arm back from around his waist to look down at my finger. I was grateful that it wasn't a massive, showy ring, but it was beautiful and seemed fairly unique.

"It's alexandrite," he informed me. "It's one of the birthstones for June which I thought was fitting for both of us. I was gonna use Gray's birthstone, but apparently April is diamond and I wanted something different. There's diamonds on either side of the big stone though so he's in there too."

"It's beautiful," I smiled as he grinned proudly.

"I didn't think you'd want something too over the top, but I wanted it to be something nice."

"Well, you nailed it," I assured him. "I couldn't have picked a nicer ring myself."

He captured my lips in another kiss and I leaned into it, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.

"Have you told anyone?" I asked once he pulled away. "Does my family know?"

"I told them last night," he nodded. "I called them back after I tucked Grayson in to let them know. And my whole family knows because I was stressed about the whole thing and couldn't keep it to myself. Oh, and Hannah because she scares me and I thought she'd be mad if she didn't know."

I laughed, letting my head rest against his chest.

"She would have been mad," I agreed. "But I can't believe she scares you, she's like a little chihuahua. She's all bark, no bite."

"She cried on the phone when I told her," he admitted, earning another bubble of laughter from me. "She assured me they were tears of joy, but swore me to secrecy about it so let's keep that between us."

"Oh, no way!" I giggled. "That is too good not to tease her about."

"Well, it'll be your loss if she kills me."

"Again, all bark and no bite," I reminded him. "Did your family know you were going to ask me tonight?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking a bit sheepish. "I think they're all waiting in the living room to see what you said.”

“Then let’s go share the good news,” I smiled, moving to link my arm with his. “Then we can come back in here and celebrate properly.”

I shot him a wink to emphasize what I meant and he let out a low growl of approval before dragging me out of our bedroom.

-

Of course, his family were thrilled that I’d said yes, even though it didn’t seem like any of them were particularly surprised. I called my family and Hannah as well before sharing a celebratory drink with my soon to be in-laws.

But it wasn’t until we laid, curled up in bed after our more private celebrations that it really started to hit me.

Sure, some people would think we were moving a bit too fast and they might have been right, if we had any intention of actually getting married right away. But for us, it was just another layer of reassurance. The ring on my finger was like a little security blanket, a memento of support for when things got hard and our schedules grew busier. It was a reminder that we were determined to make this work no matter what happened and it had me feeling much more hopeful about the new year ahead of us.

Things would change, there was no doubt about that, but we could get through it and come out stronger in the end. I knew it wouldn’t always be easy and there would be times when we felt like giving up, but with a little love and perseverance, I knew our relationship - and eventually our marriage - would only benefit and grow from our efforts.

-

Tags:  @maggotzombie @moonlacebeam @mizzzpink @zaylaugh @flowery-mess @flowerjewels @njrronaldo7 @hockeychick10 @partypoison00 @theladybiers @sidepieces @firoozehmoon @patzammit @sparkledfirecracker @mytbel0st @chvntelle-99 @mjey12

[set-phasers-to-whump]

something like family

prompt: drugging (from day 26)

whumpee: neal caffrey

fandom: white collar

hi! i’m gonna be honest the last few fics i’ve written have felt super hard to write and i haven’t loved them but this fic was so enjoyable and easy to write and i am very happy with it! these characters are just my absolute faves and i love writing them so much :) i hope you like this! (also this fic is set well into the show, probably some point in s5).

Before Neal even has time to process what’s happening, let alone fight back, he’s being dragged off of the sidewalk and into an alley and someone is pinning him against a brick wall and then stabbing a needle into his arm, right through his suit coat and shirt, and a few seconds pass and then they drop him and he sinks to the ground, less because he can’t hold himself up and more because he hadn’t expected this to be over so quickly. 

The person is already gone. His arm hurts, and he briefly entertains the idea that someone had grabbed him off of the street to give him some sort of forcible vaccination, because to be honest, that’s what this feels like. A quick poke in the upper arm, exactly the same as a flu shot or something similar. He doubts that this is the case, but he has no idea what in the hell he has been injected with. 

He thinks for a moment. If he’s been drugged (which seems like the most likely option), he has a very limited amount of time to do something before the drug starts to take effect. Now, the most logical thing to do is call 911 and tell them what’s happened. But then they’ll take him outside of his radius and he’ll have to explain to Peter and everybody that no, he hadn’t tried to run away, but rather had been on his way to the hospital because he’d been drugged. That seems like a lot of work, not to mention a lot of stress to put everyone through. 

So 911 is out. But there’s always Peter. It’s late evening, which means he’s at home, probably relaxing and enjoying a peaceful night with El. Neal hates the thought of interrupting them, but he’s also starting to feel...something, so he decides to just get going. 

Luckily, he knows how to get to the Burkes’ from just about anywhere in the city. A few seconds of orienting himself in his surroundings and he’s got the route completely down in his rapidly-fogging brain. 

The walk to their house takes much longer than it usually would. Neal has definitely been drugged. He’s tired and can barely remember what it is he’s supposed to be doing. He can’t focus on anything and he feels kind of detached from the world. Not to mention every other step he’s tripping over something, stumbling all over the sidewalk. 

“Hey, mister, you okay?” someone asks, and Neal makes out the blurry shape of a person in front of him. 

“‘M good,” he mutters, pushing past them. He just has to get to the Burkes’ house. That’s his goal, and he intends on fulfilling it. He can’t stop and talk to some random stranger on the street about whether or not he’s okay!

The person says something else to him, which Neal can’t understand, and then he’s past them, and the lights from cars and street lamps and houses are blurring and swirling together around him, and it’s kind of nice. Very pretty, he thinks. He feels oddly calm about all this, despite the fact that he is tired and confused and disconnected from just about everything, kind of like he’s floating. Maybe he is, he figures. But he looks down at his feet and sees that they are still on the ground. 

And then he’s walking into a newspaper box, too distracted by staring at his feet to notice himself drifting across the pavement. The metal clangs when he hits it, and the sharp edge of the box digs into his skin. He kicks the offending box, mutters that it better watch where it’s going, then continues along his route.

After an eternity of walking, Neal’s blurry eyes land on the familiar shape of the Burkes’ house. It’s almost completely dark outside now, but the house is illuminated by street lamps, and there are lights on inside. It looks warm and inviting, and for the first time that night, Neal hurries up. 

Going up the first few stairs feels like it takes no time at all, and then he reaches the top step and catches his foot on the bricks and then he’s falling onto the front stoop, awkwardly sticking out his arms to catch his fall. 

His palms sting and his chin hurts and feels damp and he just lies there for a moment, trying to work out what exactly had happened. He can’t remember, but he knows he’s not supposed to be lying face down outside the Burkes’ door, so he staggers to his feet, nearly stumbles backwards down the stairs, catches himself on the railing, and finally reaches out to knock on the door. 

--

Peter and El are settling down on the couch, about to watch a movie, when there’s a knock at the door. They share a glance. It’s 8:30, which isn’t an unreasonable time for someone to stop by, but they’re not expecting any visitors or deliveries. 

Peter gets up to answer the knock. The door swings open, revealing none other than Neal Caffrey, eyes unfocused, chin bleeding, clothes rumpled, and generally a mess. 

“Hi,” Neal says, with a soft smile. “C’n I come in?” The way he’s speaking is awkward, like he’s having to concentrate very hard to work out what to say and how to say it, and his words are slurring together. Taking this into account, along with his appearance, Peter’d say that his CI has probably been drugged. A thousand questions run through his mind, but Neal is looking at him expectantly, so Peter gestures for him to come inside. 

“Who is it, honey?” El asks from the living room. Neal’s face lights up at the sound of her voice, and before Peter can stop him, he’s stumbling (rather quickly, considering his current state) in her direction. 

“El! Hi,” Neal greets her, and Peter comes into the room behind him. El stands up from the couch and turns to face the two of them. The smile on her face quickly fades when she takes in Neal’s appearance, and then she’s walking up to him, placing a hand on his cheek, and asking him if he’s okay.

“Now that ‘m here,” is Neal’s reply. 

El gives Peter a look. “What happened?” she whispers, and he shrugs. 

“I think he’s been drugged,” he whispers back. 

Neal looks between the two of them, confusion evident on his face. “What’re you talkin’ about?” he asks, stumbling towards the couch and sinking heavily down onto it. 

Peter and El follow him, standing in front of him. “Do you remember what happened before you came here?” Peter asks. Neal’s face scrunches up in concentration, but eventually he shakes his head. “Dunno,” he says. “Walked.”

“Do you remember if someone gave you something? If someone might have drugged you?”

Neal shrugs. “Feel funny,” he replies, and then he doesn’t say anything more. His eyes roam around the living room like he’s taking it in for the very first time, and Peter gets the sense that he’s not going to be getting anything more out of him. 

He and El share another look. “We should take him to the hospital, right?” El whispers. “We don’t know what he’s been given, or why.”

Peter nods in agreement. “We’ll take him. Let me call a couple people and let them know where we’re going first.”

--

Peter steps to the side, phone to his ear, and El crouches down in front of Neal. His hazy-looking eyes find her face, and he smiles at her. At least he’s not scared or upset, El thinks. Whatever drug he’s been given seems to be relaxing him, which she’s grateful for. He’s already clearly confused and disoriented, and he doesn’t need to add fear to the mix. 

She gives him a good once-over as Peter explains their current situation to whoever’s on the other end of the phone. The palms of his hands are red and scraped, the toes of his shoes are scuffed, his jacket and shirt are rumpled, and blood is dripping from his chin down his neck and under his collar, staining the fabric red. His expression is unfocused and spacey, but it’s lighter than normal, like a weight has been lifted off of him. That’ll be the drugs, too, El figures, though she wishes that lightness would remain on Neal’s face forever (minus, of course, the confusion and the spaciness). 

Peter finishes his call and walks back over to the two of them, placing a hand on El’s shoulder. She looks up at him, getting to her feet. 

“We’re good to go,” Peter says quietly. To Neal, he says, “hey, buddy, we’re going to take you to the hospital, okay? We need to make sure you’re not in any kind of danger.”

El expects Neal to resist, to insist that he is staying right here, and she’s more than a little surprised when all he says is, “okay.”

Peter’s surprised, too, because he repeats himself: “we’re going to the hospital, Neal.”

“Okay,” Neal agrees again, and the briefest look of irritation crosses his face, like he can’t believe Peter thinks he hadn’t understood. He staggers to his feet, and would fall forwards onto the coffee table, but El catches him under the elbows and holds him up until he gets reasonably balanced. 

Once Neal is no longer in immediate danger of collapsing in the middle of their living room, the three of them slowly and carefully make their way out the front door and to the car. After a brief discussion, Peter takes the driver’s seat, and El and Neal sit in the back, so she can keep an eye on him and Peter can keep both eyes on the road. 

Neal sits with his head pressed against the window, watching the lights of the city flash by. His breath is fogging up the glass and one of his hands taps an uneven and uncoordinated rhythm against it. That soft smile is back on his face and the lights bounce off of his skin and he looks completely peaceful, the most relaxed El’s ever seen him while awake. It makes her heart hurt that he has to be drugged to be like this, but she can’t help smiling at him. 

They come to a stop at a red light and Peter half-turns in his seat to look into the backseat. His eyes are concerned but gentle, and they meet El’s gaze, and his expression softens - not quite a smile, but almost. “How’s he doing?” he whispers, and El looks to her right and realizes that Neal has fallen asleep, still leaning against the window. 

“He’s okay,” she whispers back, and this time Peter does smile, quickly and softly. 

The light turns green, then, and they both share another quick look at the sleeping young conman, who, at some point, has stopped being Peter’s CI and become something like family. A second smile passes between them, and doesn’t fade away this time. Someone behind them honks, and they start moving again, making their way steadily towards the hospital.

aaaa thanks so much for reading this! in case you’re curious, neal has been drugged with rohypnol, which apparently can be injected, according to the department of justice. you learn something new every day apparently. anyways i hope you liked this!!!

[whumpmatsus]

Do they have to be whump related? Also Ichimatsu getting a shot pls

wasn't sure if you wanted a draw or a fic, so I did both!

and yeah, any draw or fic requests you send here should probably be whump-related since this is a whump-focused blog

though if you wanna send any draw or fic/scenario/reaction/etc. requests that AREN'T whump, you can send them to my general Osomatsu-san blog at @kisskissmatsu!

enjoooooy <3

-

-

Usually Ichimatsu is the sextuplet who’s fine being left all by himself.

Being in the hospital without his family, though, is a much different story.

It started innocently enough ― with a persistent cough that was almost certainly the herald of a cold or sore throat on the horizon. As much as he hates being sick, he sort of resigned himself to it. He’s the one among his brothers who’s forever catching what happens to be going around, despite the fact that he doesn’t spend a lot of time around other people. That’s why he started wearing a face mask when he does leave the house.

It was about a week or so of sneezing, coughing, and sniffling his way through various attempts to rest. His throat felt worse than it usually did with a cold, and even more alarming was that his chest felt like it was on fire, especially when he started coughing. Even though he started having trouble breathing, he thought maybe this was just something that would linger for a bit, something that needed more sleep to recover from.

When things didn’t taper off after that, since a week was typically all it took for him to start feeling better, the others started commenting on it.

When Ichimatsu started to spend more time in the bathroom with a sink full of hot water in the hopes that the steam would help him breathe easier, and it didn’t seem to be having any effect, they all got worried.

When Karamatsu blurted out, “I secretly took Ichimatsu’s temperature with a forehead thermometer while he was sleeping and it read 39.4!”, Mom and Dad immediately carted their fourth son off to the hospital.

It figures Shittymatsu would get him into this mess, but Ichimatsu supposes that the sneaky gesture was only out of care, otherwise Karamatsu wouldn’t have spoken up about a number that concerned him.

That doesn’t mean he has to like it. After a distressing, panic-inducing few hours of waiting and a date with the X-ray machine, the doctor diagnosed him with bacterial pneumonia. That particular diagnosis ensured that he had to be admitted into the hospital under quarantine, because as the doctor explained, bacterial pneumonia is extremely contagious and potentially life-threatening, particularly to someone with a fragile immune system like Ichimatsu. They can’t send him home to infect his brothers or the rest of the community, and even though he isn’t technically immuno-compromised, his tendency to get sick easily means that it’s better for him to be here in the hospital in case things suddenly take a bad turn.

Being in here is like he’s trapped in hell and can’t get out. Because he’s in quarantine, he never sees anybody. Which would be fine normally. Feeling so poorly is a significant reason for wanting his family nearby, though… and he can’t have them.

The most they can do is visit outside his room and talk to him through the speaker system. That’s even worse, seeing them all and not being able to have any real contact with him. Right now more than anything, what he wants is a hug from his mom. God, he wants a hug from his brothers.

It’s hard to even get any rest like he’s supposed to be doing. Most of his time is spent sitting up, trying to get a sufficient breath in while he listens to various TV channels. The idol news reminds him of Choromatsu, sports statistics remind him of Jyushimatsu, game shows remind him of Osomatsu, American dramas remind him of Karamatsu, and fashion shows remind him of Totty.

Those are just distractions, because it’s still hard to breathe. He’s struggling for most of his breaths, but too deep a breath will trigger a coughing fit. Which, in turn, makes it more difficult to breathe.

It’s barely been a day since he was admitted and already he wants out of here.

His brothers visit sometime after lunch, and they spend a few hours. Eventually the nurse gently chases them out, telling them that Ichimatsu needs to try to get some rest. Shortly after that she comes into the room, rolling her little cart with the tray on it.

“How do you feel today, Ichimatsu?” she hums, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Any better than when we admitted you?”

He shakes his head and tries to answer when another series of coughs interrupts him. Although it’s hard to cover his mouth when his whole body is aching, he does his best. After all, he doesn’t want to get anyone else sick. He’s already in quarantine, so all the doctors and nurses are taking their own precautions; still, he shouldn’t just give up and spread his germs carelessly. “N-not really.”

She nods and picks up a wrapped packet from the tray. “Well, to be honest, that’s understandable. It hasn’t been very long.” The packet is ripped open, and the distinct smell of alcohol fills the air as she carefully pushes his sleeve up. “The lack of improvement does concern us, though. So I just have to give you an injection of some medicine, okay?”

Shit. He thought that might be what was going on here. He knows he’s too exhausted to fight it, and yet, his brain evidently isn’t too exhausted to not be fucking anxious about it. “I… I have to get a shot?”

The cold wipe is rubbed against the top part of his arm. “Yeahhh… I’m sorry. This is penicillin, and it’s one of our standard treatments for pneumonia. The doctor thinks you’ll have better luck sitting still for one shot than for a whole pill-and-water deal, since you’re coughing a lot. I kind of have to agree, since you might accidentally inhale some water if you cough while trying to take the pills.”

Immediately he starts to panic. Most of the time the idea of a shot doesn’t bother him more than it might the average person ― he gets the yearly flu vaccine without any problems. Right now, however… the idea of a shot while he’s already feeling so terrible, the initial pinch and the ache that might happen afterwards and being alone, it just feels scary.

The nurse must hear the way his breathing starts to quicken, or maybe the way his hands start shaking. She gives his shoulder a little pat. “Ah, I know on your chart it says you suffer from some anxiety. Are you a bit anxious right now?”

“Y… yeah…”

“Okay. That’s totally fine, you know? Different people get anxious about different things. Would it help if I distracted you, or if I gave you a countdown so you know when it’s coming? Sometimes that helps so it’s not a surprise… or, sometimes people prefer it to be a surprise. Which one do you think would be best for you?”

… Oh. He wasn’t expecting something like that. It almost feels like he has a little control over this, despite the fact that he has to get the injection either way. “C… can you… count down?”

“Sure, of course. No problem.” Then she reaches over with one hand, grabbing the syringe with the other. “Would you like to hold my hand?”

That’s kind of… babyish, isn’t it? “I-I’m not a kid… I don’t wanna…”

She chuckles. “Well, you know, earlier today I held the hand of an elderly lady who was getting a shot. It’s not just a kid thing. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”

He takes a moment to consider that, then silently slips his hand into hers.

“Alright, just squeeze if you feel like you need to. I’m all set, are you?”

“I… I think so…”

“Okay, I’m gonna give you the countdown then. Here we go. Three ― two ― one.”

As soon as she says the last number, he feels the needle pierce his skin. It’s uncomfortable, a sharp kind of pinprick pain. There’s a slight feeling of tightness and soreness as the medicine is emptied into his muscle, and a brief jolt when the nurse pulls the needle out.

All in all, even though it isn’t a pleasant experience, it’s not as bad as it could have been. It’s certainly better than choking on a pill and a glass of water if he had to try to swallow the medication.

And, at least, it’s over now.

“There. You did great, Ichimatsu. Probably my best patient of the day!” With that, she sets the syringe back down on the tray and gingerly smooths a bandage with a cotton ball over the injection site. “That should keep you clean just in case any blood trickles out from the shot, and someone will come take it off later if the adhesive starts to make your skin itch.”

He nods and coughs into his arm again, giving a soft groan. He’s just so tired, from the fever, from the coughing, from not being home. “Is it gonna m… khh… make me tired?”

“Haha, it shouldn’t, no. You might feel a little nauseous, or you might have to go to the bathroom more, or you might get a small itchy rash… just press the call button if any of that happens or if you feel strange otherwise, okay?” Her cart is all packed up already, and she’s heading out of the room. “If you get tired, it’s probably because you’re sick and need rest. So, try to sleep as much as you can.”

“’Kay.” He just feels like this illness has drained everything out of him, and there’s a little throbbing where he got the injection. But, the more he sleeps, hopefully the sooner he can recover and go home.

On her way out, the nurse dims the lights. Practically as soon as she does, Ichimatsu’s eyes start to drift closed. God, he’s so tired.

He lies down, though the bed is still a little elevated since sleeping flat will just make him cough more. Sleep tugs at him, and he has to move a little bit so he’s not putting any pressure on the area where he got the shot.

Soon. Soon he can go home.

Just as soon as he gets better.

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world—hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

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

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

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

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

[songofsaraneth]

Ok now that I have time/space to breathe again, I wanted to do a writeup on the unusual reaction I had to the second Covid vaccine dose. I debated posting this, because I don't want to go against the "I was vaccinated and it's fine!" encouragement train. And I 1000% encourage EVERYONE to get vaccinated if possible. But I have not seen much documentation of the averse symptom I got, except in some case studies I specifically looked up so details below. Big TMI/gross warning however. 

Mostly I'm posting this because I had to do SO much self-advocating/arguing with the Dr at my urgent care clinic, and if you're not as read up on weird medical issues as I am, you might not be comfortable doing that. But IANAD, just describing my experience and what I read, which ended up being very long because it was awful and I have a lot to complain about I guess, sorry.

Basically: for me the vaccine triggered an inflammation response, which in itself is normal. The usual muscle aches/joint pain/slight fever. It also triggered an outbreak of ulcers in my soft tissues. Basically, a bunch of canker sores in my mouth/throat. I am already prone to getting these when I get sick or stressed out, so no biggie, annoying and painful but I could handle them. Canker sores are distinct from cold sores in that they form inside the mouth as crater spots, usually around the size of a pencil eraser (though can be bigger or smaller), and will develop a white film across the crater as they develop and start to heal.

An unfortunate fact I have learned: the mouth is not the only exposed “soft tissue” of the body. this group also includes genitals.

So 2 days after the vaccine I noticed a "burning sensation"/rawness downstairs, which turned into a sharp pain, especially when going to the bathroom. I obviously knew this was abnormal and because of what was happening in my mouth, had a pretty firm idea of what was happening, but was ready to brace myself through the healing process. However by day 5 I had 8 red, crater-like sores on the tissue of my vulva. Essentially they are open wounds, and urine is an acid, so you can imagine the hell that using the bathroom had become. Even just sitting hurt.

As someone healthcare-averse, even I knew this was untenable, and went to Urgent Care for the first time in my adult life. I told the NP what was going on, how they matched the canker sores (NOT cold sores) in my mouth in onset/form--and she immediately, without even looking, diagnosed me with herpes.

Lots of people have herpes or other STIs, and that's fine. I know I do not have any, and wanted to pursue treatment for what I was sure they were--Non-sexually acquired genital ulceration (NSGU). I had even found three case studies of COVID patients who had developed them. I had spent several harrowing hours on google images making sure that the sores I had did not match any STI I may have magically acquired during a year of social distancing. I even brought up multiple case studies, including a woman who had them as a Covid reaction in a neighboring state. Didn’t matter. She looked at them and went “Yikes! Herpes!” and prescribed me: 

1) an antiviral, which I said I did not think would do anything because the trigger for this was a vaccine not an illness. She said it was probably a herpes flare up already in my system. I reiterated that I have had similar sores in my mouth since childhood and that all my past doctors and dentists agreed it was not viral but something related to an immune response. She said the antivirals should clear them up in a few days.

2) a topical 5% lidocaine ointment, aka an oral grade numbing gel, which was essentially what I was after anyway.

I would have preferred a steroid course to the antiviral, but agreed to start taking them until she got the results of the bloodwork I needed to come in the next day for. I asked how many days after taking them I would expect to see a difference/if she would reevaluate treatment if they didn’t have an effect in a certain amount of time, and she said if they hadn’t cleared up by Monday then she’d look into other causes (spoiler, they did nothing in that 4 day span). to her credit, when she saw me pick up my bike helmet (because my car had been at the mechanic for a month by then), she was properly horrified that i was having to bike everywhere with this situation and printed off some coupons/called all the prescriptions into the grocery store pharmacy next door instead of the CVS my insurance likes a mile away.

So eventually I got home and took my pill & went to put on the ointment so I could use the bathroom for the first time in 8 hours. I’ll spare you the details but suffice to say I had an extremely, overwhelmingly painful 10 minutes of application. Like absolutely awful burning feeling. However once that faded, I was indeed actually numb, and so I figured it was worth it. Got my bloodwork done on Friday (biking there & home again). On Saturday, I thought that you know, maybe a prescription anesthetic shouldn’t be doing that or at least have some sort of warning? And read the details on the jar.

Good things about lidocaine: it is a powerful numbing agent and lasts pretty well for an hour or two.

Bad things about lidocaine: you cannot get oral grade lidocaine without added mint flavoring.

I happen to be EXTREMELY sensitive to mint. Like I still can’t handle breath mints or mouthwash, and used bubblegum flavored toothpaste until I was 14 and found a brand with half as much mint flavoring as is typical. Even if you’re not, mint has no business being anywhere near genital tissue. Even on an average person that could cause awful burning. to make a long saga shorter I had a very frustrating back-and-forth with urgent care involving many rerouted phone trees, visit in person, unhelpful receptionists, and attempts to find over-the-counter alternatives. All were fruitless so I just  suffered all weekend until the urgent care Nurse Practitioner called me back on Monday and was suitably apologetic/outraged about the mint thing, and looked up every OTC product that might work as a substitute, since she couldn’t find any prescription level without mint. On Tuesday she called back again having found this:

It’s 4%, so just below prescription strength, while not oral grade, it’s actually fine for soft tissues as long as not fully ingested/internally applied. And most importantly, ABSOLUTELY NO ADDED FLAVORINGS. there is also a spray version that comes in a bottle, which under no circumstances should you try because it uses alcohol as a propellant and I had a very bad 5 minutes after testing that one. But the cream one is fine and brings blessed numbness in around 5 minutes with only minimal contact pain--they are still open wounds after all. 

I use this for the next 7 days. By this point the sores have gotten worse and larger, and then started to heal and shrink again. Mouth canker sores go through a similar ~2 week process, so this is about what I expected.

Finally the results of my bloodwork came back, and I was negative for all STIs. The NP was dumbfounded and apologized, and agreed to look up more information/treatment options for cases like this in the future. I’m not surprised her reaction was to assume herpes as it IS very common, but I’m sure other women experience NSGU’s and receive improper treatment. If you look them up, they’re even mentioned as being predominantly a problem for “young or prepubescent women” which, reading between the lines--it’s not that these become less likely if you’re older or sexually active. Doctors just make assumptions and don’t always look past the easy answers.

So if you or someone you know ends up with these--from the Covid vaccine or as a complication of upper respiratory infections in general (as they ARE an immune response and can just Happen to you)--here is what works as treatment. If you can see a doctor you trust, still do that. But if they don’t listen or if for some reason you can’t seek treatment, here is the course of action I recommend: 

Pick up that over-the-counter Pain Relief+Lidocaine NON MINTY numbing cream ASAP. Sores go from “annoying” to “excruciating” in only 3 days, so it’s best to get in person or with rush shipping. Sit in front of a mirror and gently apply with a q-tip, and wait 5 minutes for the medicine to take effect.

Pat gently dry with toilet paper, don’t make wiping motions. If you don’t feel clean enough, pat more with a wet washcloth and rinse it out, or hope in the shoer for 5 min just to rinse.

There may be pus or reside from the ointment that doesn’t go away with just rinsing. Every 2 days I made a half-strength bath of epsom salts, NUMBED FULLY, and then took a 10 minute bath to fully cleanse the area. the salt will sting terribly if you wait any longer, so I recommend standing and rinsing after this time.

The vulva is more exposed to air than the mouth. this may cause the sores to crack/bleed as they dry out. to avoid this, after using the restroom and cleaning yourself, you can apply a thick coating of Aquaphor on top of the sores. It will need to be rinsed off before you apply more numbing cream however, so if that is too many steps I recommend just using the Aquaphor overnight.

You may think its ok to get up in the middle of the night to pee without the numbing cream bc you have to go really bad and just once will be fine but it is NOT you will REGRET IT.

Unfortunately if you have sores on both sides you may develop what is known as “kissing sores”, aka sores directly opposite each other that touch when the area is not spread open. this means that after an extended period of time (overnight), the sores will try to heal into each other and opening the area back up painfully rips the tissue apart. INStEAD of ripping them apart, take a washclosh, run it under warm water, and do a hot/warm compress on the area. this will loosen the sores back up and separate them painlessly.

This is not exclusive to people with a vulva, they can also happen on scrotal/anal tissue. However it does seem to much more frequently affect people with typical XX sex organs. 

If you develop these, PLEASE fill out an averse reaction form or your country’s equivalent. Also, I’m so sorry and if you need emotional support or have questions please feel free to get in touch.

Most likely, these will not happen to you--the vast majority of vaccinated people have not had this as a side effect. But it IS popping up more and more, and it is good to know about it in advance so you can be prepared to deal with and treat it without as much anxiety and all the hoops I had to jump through to get good care. Overall I’m still glad to be vaccinated, but if I had known this was a side effect, as someone already prone to canker sores I would have waited to vaccinate until my car was fixed a week later a the very least :|

[thesconesyard]

Ok, rant time.

If you are not in a mindset to deal with that at this point, please scroll past. I appreciate if you do read and I appreciate if you opt out. You don’t have to deal with my crap if you choose not to.

Yesterday, partner, little and I had planned to go to Canada to see her grandparents (whose home we haven’t been to since Feb. 2020.) We had our vax cards, our negative test results, our Nexus, and our ArriveCAN all sorted and ready.

We got to the border and were turned back. This is because it is not clear in their website language that the 72 hour window for COVID testing and crossing starts from collection time, not from when you get your results. According to them our tests were expired, even though my results had come in that morning.

We got little some ice cream to help that we wouldn’t be seeing Nana and Papa. She took it mostly well, but sad.

We made new testing appointments and went to a better drive thru clinic (previous we went to the local pharmacy.) We got swabbed and on our way. We readjusted our packing and waited.

My negative results came in this morning and we have just been sitting and waiting for partner’s. They came back positive. 🤬

So, now our Canada weekend is completely off. Ok, oh well. We’ll FaceTime with them later. We will get there eventually.

Now the next frustrating part. Partner calls our doctor to find out what our next steps need to be. Partner gets to go with the assumption of positive and that the cold earlier this week was that. Doctor wants me to get tested again at the local lab in charge of everything, because partner is positive and because I have a slightly sore throat.

The next available appointment is Wednesday morning. You may remember I’m an educator. School starts Wednesday morning 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I haven’t yet talked to my principal to find out what all I need to do about what a pain in the ass this is going to be. I can already feel this school year slipping away from me and how lost I’m going to feel when I finally get to start in probably week two.

If you did read this, thank you. I feel better for getting it out. Please wear your masks and get vaccinated if you can.

Regularly scheduled Scones this afternoon.

[rayfollowsfromhere]

In Pursuit of a Beeping Noise

First posted on my Patreon. You can read more of my short stories at https://www.patreon.com/RachelMarieWriting

-.-.-

…beep…beep...beep...

What in the hell?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Hospital?

Her eyes fluttered open. There was a hazy red glow.

Not a hospital.

...beep…beep…beep…

Telestra sat up. Her hand pressed against cold metal as she shoved herself into the upright position. Her back ached from the solid surface below. Her damn butt was numb.

Definitely not a hospital.

The red glow appeared to be the only source of light because she couldn't see a damn thing either.

Where the hell was she?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

And what the hell was beeping!

She pushed down against the floor to haul herself onto her feet. Telestra considered herself many things, tall was not one of them. When she stood up straight her head immediately collided with something.

Something that made a metallic 'tink!' when it came in contact with her forehead. She immediately reeled back.

"What in the ever loving fuck!"

Because low light wasn't enough of an obstacle…

Telestra put her hands out, miming herself into some situational awareness. Her head ached. Her body ached.

…beep…beep…beep…

And there was beeping.

The day was officially on her top twenty. It hadn't beat her twelfth birthday yet though, so there was still a chance at recovery.

Her fingers ran down one wall that arched downward into a console. Her knee collided with the edge of it a moment later.

She'd take it.

Running her hand along the surface, Telestra could make out buttons. Analog. They were raised above and making cheerful 'clack-clack' noises as her hand compressed them down. One was significantly larger than the rest.

Her twelve years of primary school and six years of additional training told her that was significant.

"You either turn something on. Or you launch something." She was hoping for on.

Screens behind her came to life as soon as she pushed it.

On.

Yay!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Shut up! I hear you!"

…beep…beep…beep…

Telestra moved to the screens. There were more consoles, more buttons. More distressingly… there were screensavers.

Anatomically impossible screensavers.

"Fucking disgusting..." Telestra growled as she looked over the buttons - searching for familiar characters.

Lines. Just. Lines.

Not even raised lines.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

No dots. Couldn't be morse code.

"Couldn't use even a single number, had to be difficult."

Telestra did what her six years of training told her to do. She whacked the console. A couple times.

The screensaver blinked out.

An overhead light buzzed on.

Progress. Sorta.

…beep...beep…beep...

"I will kill you." Telestra narrowed her eyes. "As soon as I find you."

The light illuminated the room - what appeared to be a spherically shaped box. Made of metal. With tiny consoles around the two long walls. There was a door with a pressured lock on both ends of the room.

The red glow was coming from a bulb that jutted out of the wall above the one to her left. Upon close inspection - a quick shuffle towards the door - Telestra was able to determine the beep was not coming from that region.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Boy howdy, if you don't shut up…"

It was coming from a screen. It wasn't lit up like the others - no blue screen or horrible screensaver. She knelt down in front of it.

...beep...beep…beep…

"I heard you!"

The screen was horizontally inlayed into a console. Not quite flat. Spherical. She looked underneath. Panel.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Telestra yanked open the panel. It didn't require that much effort. She fell backwards as it came loose in her hands. She caught herself before she hit the floor.

…beep…beep…beep…

"...bastard."

Wires. And more wires. All of them black. Most of them taped in one section or another. It really inspired confidence in whoever had last touched it. Electrocution: Party of One!

She shoved her hands in, fiddling and twiddling until the damned screen lit up green. It was a dark green. But color was color and Telestra didn't much care.

There were markings on the glass and a bright line spinning around inside. Dots all around the center point lit up as it came around.

Well, her studies hadn't covered this, but her last binge watch did.

"Am I in a fucking ship?!”

Should have taken swim lessons!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The beeps did not match up with the dots or the light. Great. Telestra sat down. The metal floor wasn't quite flat and she fell backwards a bit. Arms flailing as she caught herself on the minuscule slope.

Spherical box. A tube.

…beep…beep…beep...

Submarine.

Why did Grena let her watch Shark Week? She couldn't swim. She'd never even seen a pool!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"I am calm!" Telestra snapped. She crossed her arms.

Grena would know what to do. Grena would know where the beeping was coming from. Grena would know what it meant. Grena probably even knew what the dots stood for!

…beep…beep…beep…

"Fuck Grena."

Telestra got up, kneeling back over the wires that now protruded from the opened panel. She looked down at her hand.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She bit the tip of her smallest finger, slicing through the synthetic skin with her teeth until she got resistance. She spit the scrap of skin out and wiggled her finger. Aluminum and zinc plating.

...beep...beep…beep…

For once, buying the cheap shit for her external wasn't biting her in the ass.

She stripped off the tape from a wire at random. With a deep breath, Telestra pressed her little finger against the exposed wiring. She felt a jolt. It was live.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Nothing exploded. Telestra counted that in the win column and stripped another piece of tape from a wire. She repeated the process. Another jolt. Also live.

It was another four wires before she got anything more than electric shock as feedback. And it was a damn screensaver.

…beep…beep…beep…

"Well screw you too!"

Another wire down. Nothing. Another. Shock. And another. Screensaver.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"I know you're doing this on purpose!"

…beep…beep…beep…

Another wire. Another…oh.

Code scrolled on for an obscene amount of time. Telestra didn't bother trying to read it. Her tertiary processor was already parsing the code for useful bits.

It was the home screen she found herself puzzling over. Primary processor, secondary processor, and her frontal lobe.

"What in the hell is a Windows?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Very helpful."

Some searching - and three failed minesweeper games - revealed to Telestra that she was dealing with an operating system. Great. Might as well hand her a rotary phone!

Not that she knew what that was. It was the name of a stock photo she'd opened in paint. The analogy still stood, of course, just with the bulk of it flying over Telestra's head.

What else was new?

Operating systems predated AIs and Telestra had spent all of two weeks in sixth form pretending to listen to what those were.

"Little help?"

…beep…beep…beep…

"I thought not."

Telestra dove deeper, finding all sorts of useless applications she couldn't make heads or tails of. Eventually, her tertiary processor took pity and spat out some administrative passwords that accessed the base code.

Hooking into that at least made her search quicker.

"Global satellite positioning system?"

…

"No."

…

"Sonar diagnostic program?"

…

"No."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Airlock pressurization sequence start up it is!"

She activated the program. It had the most interesting file type - .exe. Telestra had never heard of it.

…beep…beep.

"Success!"

The overhead light went out.

"Too soon?" Telestra unhooked from the wire. She stood up just in time for the sub to jostle her straight into the console opposite.

Story of her life.

She double over after colliding with the blunt edge. Her spleen was none too happy with her. And her temperature modulator reported a dent.

"Fucking hell."

Telestra glared at the ceiling, for lack of a better target. The red light above the one pressure seal went off. Another light appeared on the opposite side. She turned her head just in time for the green light to flicker.

Grena had told her to invest in a night vision upgrade. Telestra had bought an extended streaming package for her memory drive. Example #3479 of why Telestra should just fucking do what Grena fucking says.

Over her dead body.

A squeak and a hiss later and her spherical hell was illuminated in light. Most of it directly into her eye.

This day…

"Identify yourself?" A voice called out - deep and rhythmic. Telestra winced.

"Telestra Zeta," her voice modulator whirred. It was harsh and rattling. The owner of the well-maintained modulator did not respond.

Great. Just what she needed. A classist.

"Who are you?" Telestra yelled out, still squinting into the light, "And could you maybe turn that down a little! It's worse than the damn beeping!"

If they thought not responding would keep her from speaking, well, they obviously hadn't spent much time outside the databanks.

The light dimmed. She blinked. There were three figures - short, stocky, and all wearing the same ugly brown jumpsuit. Telestra's cheep rubberized skin looked better than the odd material hanging loosely from their bodies.

"Thanks," Telestra took a step towards them. They still didn't speak. When she got closer she realized there were more saggy skinned figures behind the first three.

One of them. Not the one with the rhythmic modulator stuck out his right hand, "Jimmy Bairn." His speech stuttered. Telestra smiled. A fellow non maintained.

Weird name though. But the higher up the alphabet you go the weirder the names. Or so Grena had told her. Not that Telestra believed her or anything.

"Why are we on a ship?" Telestra took another step. One of the loose skins took a step back. She tilted her head, "I'm not infected."

She may not maintain her parts as well as some, but her software was regularly debugged. And she kept up on her vaccines! No tetanus!

It was Jimmy who spoke again, "We work here. The question we have is how you got here?"

That. That was. Good question.

"But...we're not actually in the ocean are we? With salt and sharks and..." Telestra shuddered, "Orcas."

A noise blared from behind Jimmy. Quick. Like a shout. But lighter.

"What was that?"

Jimmy took another step closer. She could see him clearly now. She really should upgrade her eyes. The organics just weren't doing it.

He looked like he had…fur…? On his face?

"That was a laugh. Henry’s a bit of an arse."

Telestra blinked. Who… were these people?

"What in hell is a laugh?"

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper (Chapter 2: Green Light)[Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, eventual Logan/Virgil (maybe more)

Characters:

Main: Janus, Patton, Remus

Appear: Remy, Emile, Virgil, Logan, Roman

Summary: Janus, a disillusioned senior agent working for the Time Preservation Initiative, struggles to find meaning in a world where time travel could change everything about your life’s history in less than a moment. When time distortions start popping up, threatening the timeline and the fabric of reality as he knows it, it becomes a race against the clock to fix the damage before everything unravels. And the problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12 and your time is up.

With a partner who has more mysteries in his past than Janus had anticipated and an enigmatic free agent time traveler mucking about time always with a clever pun or a time appropriate pet name on his lips, Janus will need to figure out what went wrong with time, and more importantly, how to fix it.

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – to-morrow we will run farther, stretch out our arms farther…” (F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gastby)

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1

The morning was just as torturous as Janus had expected it would be. He chewed through another pop-tart, this time bothering to actually check and see that it was a cinnamon-sugar one and drank three cups of caffeinated orange juice. Then, he waved his hand through the air and selected the first saved location on his device. He popped up directly behind his desk where he’d been standing the night morning before.

Someone, probably Remus, had shut his integrator down. He swiped a finger across the power button, and it flickered back on, scrolling through its morning start up routine.

The machine scanned through all of the data in the three main system it was connected to and sorted all information into things that concerned him, could concern him, and did not before then sorting the first two categories into order of importance. As it did, he set up his screen reader so he would hopefully not start the day with more of a migraine than he already had. It took about 3 seconds for everything to turn on and settle.

Sitting down in his desk, he dismissed the notification that Remus had finished and submitted the report from their mission the day before, before looking through the next things on his list. A mission had been scheduled for him today, and the details were in his inbox. A piece of time travel technology had been accidently dropped by an archology student in the 1890s during a trip. It was an earlier model of emergency time travel given to time travelers that would dump them back into the Registration Office in the year they originated. It wasn’t extremely dangerous, but could pose some problems, especially if someone who didn’t know what it was activated it.

Surveillance agents had tracked it down and found that it had been picked up by a local and sold. Though no one from that time had known what it was, they had identified that it was made out of a precious metal and it had been crafted into an expensive necklace. Janus and Remus were supposed to retrieve it today. It had been pinpointed that the most opportune time for the extraction was 1923 during a masquerade ball held by those who had bought the necklace. It was a fairly low stakes mission.

He wasn’t set to leave for another couple of hours, so he clicked through the rest of the important notifications and then set off to meet his missions coordinator, Rhi, in her office.

Rhi and Janus got along fairly well. She was a well put together woman who took her job incredibly seriously. It was fair as her job was to organize all information and materials from every other department and make sure the agents she was assigned to got and understood all of it. A mistake from her could lead to an agent’s death or something far worse.

This, of course, made her relationship with Remus… interesting to say the least. Janus could never place whether they were nemesis, frenemies, or mortal enemies, and he doubted he would ever know.

“Okay, but it’s the 1920s America,” Remus was already in her office arguing when Janus arrived. “There were so many gangsters! I could be a gangster. I would make a fantastic gangster! Just give me a gun, a snazzy suit with a white hat, and a buttload of alcohol. I will be running Chicago with Al Capone in five minutes.”

“Al Capone didn’t become a crime boss until 1925 and you are going to 1923,” Rhi said, sounding bored, “you aren’t going to Chicago, and as I have already stated, your cover is already decided.”

“But-”

“It is nonnegotiable, Agent Clockson,” she said firmly. Remus pouted, but seemingly accepted his fate.

“May I come in?” Janus asked.

“Please do,” Rhi said. “You have been to the 1920s before, correct?” she asked Janus.

“Yes ma’am.”

She tapped the screen on her desk in response. “In the last two years?”

“About two months ago,” he responded. She tapped something else.

“Any blacks, reds, or yellows?” she asked.

“All green.”

“Great. Do you need a refresher course on basic cultural or linguistic procedures?”

“No.”

She pushed one more thing and then swiped the check-in document over to him. He glanced at the report stating he’d had no incidents of any level the last time he visited the 1920s and had opted out of the optional refresher course, and then pressed his finger against the screen to sign it with his fingerprint.

The document returned to her side of the desk automatically. “Okay,” she said swiping another document from her left over to be in front of her. She twisted her wrist to copy it and slid copies to Janus and Remus. “Here are exact details on the time, place, and event you are going to, as well as details about your cover.” Janus scrolled through his quickly. It wasn’t as detailed as some he’d had considering this was a brief in-and-out mission, but he still took care to memorize everything on the page.

As he and Remus read through their things, Rhi got to her feet and turned to the storage compartments behind her desk.

She grabbed out two packages and when they’d both signed that they’d read and understood the paperwork, she slid them across the desk to them. “These have everything you need,” she said. “Clothes, money, and an invitation to the party you’re off to attend. You are to get changed now, have a last check in with costuming to make sure everything is in order, and then report to decontamination in 23 minutes. You’re set to leave in 38 minutes. Any questions?”

“How much-?” Remus started.

“None, agent,” Rhi said.

“But-”

“No alcohol,” Rhi said. “It is the prohibition era in the United States anyway.”

“Like there’s not going to be alcohol at the rich people party,” Remus said sullenly.

She pressed her lips together. “It is an in-and-out mission,” she said to both of them, and then turned to glare at Remus. “Do not get arrested.”

“I don’t know,” Remus said joyfully. “I think I still have room for a 1920s mug shot on my wall.”

“Behave,” she said, “or I’ll report you for the cat you smuggled in from the 1800s.”

“You’d never,” Remus said. “You enjoy the cute pictures of Diesel Fuel I send you every day too much, and you know it!”

“Just… don’t get arrested.” She turned to Janus. “Don’t let him get arrested.”

“I’ll do my best,” Janus promised, standing. “Now come on, Remus, we need to get changed.”

“You just want to see me naked,” Remus replied with a wink, but he did stand.

“If I see you naked one more time in my life Remus, my eyeballs will fall out of their sockets,” Janus said, waving to Rhi as he pulled Remus out of the door.

“Kinky.”

Janus’s eyeballs almost did fall out right then and there with how hard he rolled them.

They got changed quickly, Remus complaining and saying if he couldn’t dress like a gangster, he should at least be allowed to wear a flapper dress. Janus had long ago learned to ignore his ramblings. He did seem enthused about the included mask for the masquerade. It was a silver fox shaped mask with green accents that reminded Janus of the Egyptian God Anubis.

Janus’s own mask, on the other hand, was only designed to take up the left half of his face. It was mostly golden with a black swirled design. Attached to the side, there was a plume of golden tipped white feathers. He had to give it to the costuming department, they did have good taste.

Once they were both dressed, they were poked and prodded by one of the costumers to make sure everything was accurate, fit right, and had been put on correctly.

After that, they went to the decontamination area to have themselves and everything they were taking with them sterilized so they didn’t accidently take any pathogens to the 1920s. They also received an oral vaccination to be sure they didn’t pick up anything from the 1920s and bring it back.

Then they were ready to go. The correct time-space coordinates had already been sent to their timepieces. With a push of a button, they were off.

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

[sullustangin]

Satele and Theron: "Not Mother” and Son

Note:  As always, fan fiction is everyone’s sandbox. I may disagree or critique them, but it’s not personal.  I’ve been through ship wars, characterization debates, and ‘author intent’ arguments since the days before AOL and IRC chatrooms. I’ve seen a lot, and I tend to take a detached view toward fandom.  It’s not my intent to kill anyone’s joy. 

**

Sometimes, when I think about SWTOR fandom and pro/anti Satele factions, I can’t help but remember this reddit thread:

I got a girl pregnant and she wanted to get an abortion but I didn't want that. She ended up not getting one but now she is not involved at all

Shorter version on upworthy for TL;DR.

Basically, Dad is resentful of child he wanted because, after requesting that the mother not get an abortion, she gave up all custodial and parenting rights to him.  Now he doesn’t like being a single parent and refers to her as a “deadbeat mom” because she’s not involved with the kid....even though she told him up front she wasn’t going to be involved and didn’t wish to be involved. Satele is sometimes villainized because she made this decision -- and stuck with it.  

I don’t think Satele is a good mother or a bad mother.  She didn’t want to be a mother at all, so I won’t label her that way.  Biological fact: yes, she is a mother.  However, that’s not the role she has chosen to fulfill for Theron; she opted out on Day 1. 

Based on what we read in Annihilation, Satele gave up Theron at birth.  Zho became his father.  She never had any intent of raising this kid.  Satele did not wish to become a mother, but as a Jedi, from the second she felt his presence in the Force (because all life has a Force, whether or not they can sense it or use it), she felt obligated to have him.  I don’t know what, if any, canon references are made about voluntary termination of pregnancies in the SWTOR universe.  Maybe more people  than just the Jedi hold the belief that termination is unacceptable, maybe not.  I don’t know.  That said, Satele made her choice at Theron’s birth not to be a mother.  She did visit him until he was six months old (Lost Suns comic), which might be interpreted in a few different ways.

Is it regret? Thinking about changing her mind?  Or is it that continued obligation?  I might speculate that she was sending/bringing breast milk, since for the first six months, children rely on their mothers’ immunities until they can get vaccinated; it’s part of why it’s recommended to try to breastfeed if it’s possible for the mother.  This is SWTOR so for all we know, sci fi space magic means that babies can be vaccinated once they pop out.  Then again, maybe it is like it is in our world.  Still, Satele can be a decent human being and not want to be a mother at all. 

Also, just because she wasn’t pregnant anymore doesn’t mean that the symptoms magically disappeared; even if a child is a stillbirth, the mother still produces milk.  Often, they are suppliers for hospital milk banks because they still have milk production even if they don’t have a baby.  Satele likely had to cope with this and avoid being detected by the Jedi Order; it had to go somewhere!  Satele was ultimately unwavering in her belief that giving up Theron was the best decision for him and her.

Remember too that Satele’s mother Tarsiele got pregnant with no publicly known father.  There are good odds that Satele doesn’t know who her father is, and it didn’t bother her.  So she didn’t tell Theron or Zho who Theron’s father is, because she assumed Theron would be Force-sensitive and join the Jedi order.  Satele wouldn’t have wanted him to have the connections to Jace since that would complicate his Jedi training; it’s ok to know who your Jedi parent is, since you both exist in the Jedi order with limited attachments -- you’re both on the same page.  Adding a non-Jedi father to the mix complicates things and feelings, especially given Satele’s concerns about Jace falling to the Dark Side -- and potentially dragging a Force-Sensitive child with him.

The only thing I think I can fault Satele for is not informing him or Jace, after finding out Theron was not Force-sensitive (which she knew after the kid was left at Haashimut).  Theron totally struggled with his identities when younger: he was raised to be a Jedi like his mother before him, but it turns out he’s like that nameless Force-null father.  Whoops.

But Satele made her choice not to parent this child.  She may have felt that coming back to tell him about Jace would be meddling or giving Theron false hope that one or both parents would swoop in and save him.  We’ll get back to that in a second.

Cut here so it doesn’t eat a dashboard: below is some critique/analysis about the padawan system and how it may have fed into Theron’s expectations of a relationship with his mother before he was found to be not Force-sensitive and after.

As for Satele and her padawans, I’ve never been a huge fan of her being a “surrogate mother” or “cool aunt” in fan fic. It’s not my cup of tea, personally.  In part, it’s because I stick to the idea that Jedi don’t want people getting attached and hesitating about doing the right thing; that includes masters and padawans.  Masters don’t raise padawans like children. Based on what we see in the films, they’re raised in the creche with other younglings. It’s like boarding school or an orphanage in the sense that there are staff and people who care for the kids, but they are not parents; they don’t form those connections.  The Master then picks the padawan when they’re ready.  We don’t have apprenticeships in the modern world like we did in the pre-modern world, but when someone was apprenticed to someone else as a blacksmith or a tailor, they knew they weren’t their kids.  There was a relationship there.  There was a care system there.  But that didn’t replace a parent-child relationship, nor did it supply the attachments in such a relationship. In terms of masters and padawans, sometimes attachments and relationships happen, and we hear about a Master falling to the Dark Side and taking all their students with them.  Ideally, attachments and inappropriate relationships do not happen.

This ties back to Theron’s hopes for a relationship with Satele and what they were/are/will be.  Theron probably hoped to become her padawan one day or encounter her as a fellow Jedi; not being Force-sensitive killed that dream.  If Satele had gone to him after Haashimut, she would be adding insult to injury by meeting him or writing a letter to him, telling him about Jace... and then walking back out and going radio silent, not taking him home with her. 

If she had told him, that might lead to Jace being the dorky dad we all love to imagine, but what if he didn’t?  I love Jace!Dad headcanon, but that’s all it is -- headcanon.  He might have ‘noped’ out of the situation.  He might have said “Here’s a trust fund, I’m busy.”  I want Jace to be Super!Dad and I’ll write him that way when it comes to grandkids and stuff....but I won’t ignore the other possibilities that exist (and may exist in fics that are not mine!).  Given Satele’s original thoughts about telling Jace about Theron and vice versa, she may have considered this too. Also, telling Theron about Jace may have been the equivalent of dumping a baby on his doorstep with no escape route -- that’s not fair to Jace, no matter how much we like to believe Jace would have been “w00t!!” over it.

Theron and Satele worked together several times.  Theron told Satele and Jace and the Pub player in SWTOR that he understands her choice, and he’s not angry.  He’s dedicated his life to SIS and the people of the Republic; personal stuff comes second (which is why he’s the emotional disaster we know and love, but also one of the best agents the Republic has).

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t worry about her or care about her.  Feelings are hard to deal with for Theron, but he still has them. That was evident from his reaction to the Tython raid (because he did not know that she was not on Tython at the time).  Also, his first impulse thereafter was to give her a Holo call; the player walked in on the end of that on Pub side Forged Alliances.  Theron Shan cares about people; he’ll do a lot for them even if they don’t like him back, as we see with Teff’ith and (pending game choices) the player character. However, that doesn’t mean that he’s clamoring for a full-fledged relationship with Satele as mother and son.

Rather, Theron is bothered by the fact that Satele never acknowledges him; we saw that on Rishi and Yavin, especially on Imp side.  He’s "her agent.”  Even Jace acknowledged Theron on Iokath, as unhappy as Theron was about the staging of that proclamation. He does seem bothered by Satele’s disappearing act after Eternal Fleet with no notice to him (and still no word nearly 10 years after that event in-game). 

I don’t think Theron, who is now approaching 40, wants a parent-child relationship with Satele; that ship sailed.  He just wants to be acknowledged as meaning something -anything - to her. It’s not unlike adult adopted children finding their birth parents and wanting some acknowledgement of existence and connection, even if they had the best adoptive parents in the world and neither party wants to be besties. That sort of acknowledgement would have eventually come if he had been her coworker as a Jedi or padawan...if he was Force-sensitive.  

That twist of fate affects Theron more than his lack of relationship with either parent; he got dumped by “his father” Zho for that.  His bio parents didn’t do anything to “punish” him for turning out the way he was -- Jace didn’t know, and Satele already made her choice, regardless of how Theron was going to turn out.  She hoped and predicted he’d be a Jedi.  She didn’t change course, because she accepted the consequences of her decisions made 14 years before.

As a result of this, I don’t write Satele  as a cold or cruel human being. I’m more inclined to go on a “wtf Master Zho” crusade; Theron calls him his father and hopes he would be proud of him, but I blame Zho for Theron’s attachment and emotional issues (whatever labels you assign him; I go for avoidant). Satele made her choice and stuck to her guns.  She never wanted to be a mother, and she’s never pretended to be otherwise.  Satele never offered Theron false hope about their relationship.  She can’t be a deadbeat mom if she never committed to being a mother at all; she gave him up.  She gave up the relationship.  That did not exclude the possibility of becoming colleagues or friends as adults, which we saw progress toward.  The relationship between a mother and child compared to that of colleagues/friends is not the same. 

Satele’s departure after Eternal Fleet hurt Theron, because as adults, they did have a relationship, as professional as it might have been.  People feel awful when they get ghosted, no matter how brief or deep the relationship was; from what we can tell from his mail,  Theron referred to it as caf and lunch a few times. Theron still experienced a feeling of loss when she was gone, evidenced by the cantina scene on Odessen, and concern for her well-being after that camping trip in KotFE Ch. 12.

That did not mean Theron mourned her like a child who lost his mother; it may have simply been the death of another dream of a relationship, not unlike the alienation from Jace and (pending headcanon and in-game choices) the loss of the player’s character after Eternal Fleet.  We’ll see how Bioware continues/finishes that relationship between Theron and his “not mother”, likely at the player’s choice (just like the relationship with Jace on Iokath and with the player).

[omgyouatetheprincess]

Janus’ Playlist

AHH JANUS' PLAYLIST LETS GOO

Not that anyone asked for my opinions

Okay so I'd like to start by saying that Thomas, Joan and Talyn did an amazing job on this playlist because every song fits Janus so perfectly.

Here are some of my thoughts on the songs and some interpretations I came up with or found on the internet.

Trigger Warnings - abortion. Mocking of religion.

Black Hole Sun - okay at first I was like 'wow this is really smooth and nice and the vocals are so sweet.' Then I heard the lyrics. "In disguises no one knows,

Hides the face, lies the snake". It's such a Deceit song and I imagine him dancing to it (with or without a partner).

Black Hole Sun by Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox, Haley Reinhart

It Seemed That Better Way - holy heck, can I point out that this song is such a bop? Leonard Cohen has such a soothing voice and it reminds me of Patrick Page (aha Hadestown) and if Janus wasn't played by Thomas, I could imagine this as his voice. The song is about not knowing what the truth is and what to believe, and has religious meanings which could be countering Patton and his Catholic beliefs.

It Seemed The Better Way by Leonard Cohen

Anywhere - I feel like Patton would hate this because the first line is "It's a beautiful world if you've been lied to by parents and priests". Anywhere describes how the world isn't a beautiful as it may seem, and that people lie to make you see it.

Anywhere by The Scarring Party

Talking At The Same Time - it is immediately dark and that everything seems fake and a... Lie. A lot of Deceit's songs are about the truth or that everything is a lie and I have to give massive kudos to Thomas, Joan and Talyn because they did an excellent job portraying Janus through his music taste. The song describes how everyone talks at the same time, and what I interpret that as is that everyone says the same thing over and over. It's hard to explain so I'll let you make your own interpretations of it.

Talking At The Same Time by Tom Waits

all the good girls go to hell - I'm not going to lie (ha) but I don't like Billie Eyelash, but I'll see past the artist. My first thought when I saw the song without hearing it is that it's a good choice and Janus probably loves Billie Eilish. Spotify has meanings of songs so I'm going to go off there: "This song is in the perspective of the Devil / no matter how good you are, desperate measures will eventually break you / turn you into bad." I feel like Deceit would sing this around the house. This song is twisting Christian symbolism and the lyrics can be interpreted as Eilish praising people who go to hell as it's better than being morally good. (Also, just switch Peter with Patton)

all the bad girls go to hell by Billie Eilish

Denial - KDJIEKAKSNDENIAL? In Putting Others First, Janus is referred to as Denial and now this song? Everyone start clapping for Thomas and his team. Anyway, the song discusses themes of conflict within a relationship, and the denial and insecurity of being in a relationship near it’s end (source: Genius). Also, Roceit vibes?

Denial by The Vaccines

Trust In Me - first of all, heck yeah! I predicted this song to be on his playlist because it's a slimy snake song from Disney? Hello this is Thomas? I think it's a great song and Johansson's voice is angelic. Kaa is manipulating and hypnotizing Mowgli, and if Deceit could do the same you can bet your bottom dollar he would sing this. We love our not-evil snake boi.

Trust In Me by Scarlett Johansson

Razzle Dazzle - Janus singing this with Roman? Yes please? Okay so I get that this is a villian song, and I love that, but imagine Deceit in a shiny sequenced dress? I also haven't seen Chicago yet so I'm going off what I've heard - this song describes how it is too easy to put on a show and make the audience happy. Basically, acting is just professional lying. The line "Though you are stiffer than a girder they'll let you get away with murder" is so clever (no spoilers but he had it coming)

Razzle Dazzle by Richard Gere

[SLIGHT HADESTOWN SPOILERS]

When The Chips Are Down - I hecking love Hadestown so you can bet I squealed when I saw this song. This song is sung by the fates, who are portrayed at untrustworthy. The title of this song is derived from the idiom “when the chips are down”, meaning “when a very serious and difficult situation arises”. Eurydice is in potentially one of the most serious and difficult situations she could be in: her life is at stake. After Hades invites Eurydice to come with him to Hadestown, the Fates appear and encourage her to consider his offer. They tell her that she should look after herself now that she is starving and the “chips are down”. (Source: Genius). In my own words, the fates are convincing (or manipulating if you will) a poor helpless girl to put herself first and save herself. It also mentions how if you be good to get into heaven,you get a knife in the back.

Go listen to Hadestown, it's an incredible soundtrack.

When The Chips Are Down by Anaïs Mitchell, The Haden Triplets

[TW! Abortion]

Mandy Goes to Med School - okay so this song is about abortion, so we'll have to go off context. Mandy (or Amanda Palmer) has to pay for Medical School by giving abortions in an alleyway with a coat hanger, so I interpret this as having to do shady stuff to get what you want. I think him and Remus would enjoy this song together. I'd also like to note that Logan had a song by Amanda Palmer in his playlist... That isn't relevant but I wanted to note that.

Mandy Goes to Med School by The Dresden Dolls

I Put A Spell On You - 50SOG vibes? I really like this song, it has a nice rhythm and the lyrics are so creepy. This gives me vibes of Deceit cornering/pining another side/love interest because if our baby boy wants to be happy, he should. This is similar to Trust In Me because it talks about enchanting someone to get what you want. "I don't care if you don't want me, I'm yours right now." Chills. Janus singing this song would complete my life.

Also the singer calls the love interest daddy but we ain't shaming

I Put A Spell On You by Nina Simone

Evil Night Together - well the title has evil in it so... Perfect for our Evil Snake Boi. This song gives me huge Demus/Receit vibes because it's basically like "let's go on a date in the creepiest place."

What if we drank a drink in the torture chambers... Haha jk ...unless 🥺

Evil Night Together by Jill Tracy

Don't Tell Mama - another musical song? Roman would be impressed. This song is about an English singer, who's mother thinks she's in a convent (a nun), when really she's in a German s3x club. You can really tell why it would be so bad if her secret got out.

Don't Tell Mama by John Kander, Joel Grey, Jill Hawarth, Cabaret Ensemble, Harold Hastings

You're A Cad - definition of a cad: a man who behaves dishonourably, especially towards a woman... This song has a nice beat and gives me TikTok vibes, but it also gives me Moceit vibes (I say vibes too much) because the singer is saying "you're a villain, a cad, a rascal... But I'm like a fish on a hook for you and I still want you." Also, she has a sweet tooth?

You're A Cad by the bird and the bee

As Far As I Can See - all aboard the angst train, CHOO-CHOO "As far as I can see, nobody loves me. As far as I can tell, nobody loves you either" this song gives me such Roceit vibes because the meaning is pretty simple: if nobody loves Janus, then he'll take everyone down with him. I knew there would be that one song that tries to make me cry for our poor baby.

As Far As I Can See by Phantogram

Criminal - first of all, the cover is beautiful. Apple describes the song as “a description of feeling bad for getting something so easily by using your sexuality.” She also told in an interview: "One of my friends said to me, “Oh yeah, of course you aren’t writing.” So I was like, “The next time you see me, I’m gonna have a new song.” I wrote “Criminal” in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me." Which is the level of pettiness I see in Deceit and I am here for it. The context of the song is seduction and manipulation, so Janus using his sexuality to manipulate the other Sides is a cursed thought.

Criminal by Fiona Apple

Change - if any of them listened to Lana Del Rey, I sort of expected it to be Virgil. Change shows how Del Rey has matured, and I feel like it also portrays Janus' ability to adapt. "Change is a powerful thing... I'll be able to be honest..." Does this mean he's trying to change? Will we get more character development? LIGHT SIDE JANUS?

Change by Lana Del Rey

Devil In The Details - this song is about trusting the wrong person and taking advantage of something. "I am the first one I deceive if I can make myself believe the rest is easy.". More angst, yay.

Devil In The Details by Bright Eyes

Come Little Children - if you had a My Little Pony phase, you probably know this song. Come Little Children, also known as "Sarah's Theme" and "Garden of Magic," is a song sung by Sarah Sanderson in the film, Hocus Pocus to hypnotize children to lure them. Manipulation: a common theme.

Come Little Children by Erutan

Into The Unknown - I was really shocked to see this song until I realized, no, it wasn't the same iconic theme from Frozen 2. This short song is from Over The Garden Wall, a show Thomas watches but I have not. "If dreams can't come true, then why not pretend?" The show plays heavily on the battle between dreams and reality (source: Genius). The way I see this, Janus is convincing the Light Sides to do something, or specifically Roman to make his dreams come true through selfish means.

Into The Unknown by The Blasting Company

This playlist is one of the best because every song had me saying “Janus would so sing this". If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment!

As always, take it easy guys gals and non-binary pals peace out

[doof-doofblog]

"Can You Get A Message To Her?"

Monday 22nd March 2021

Hello again folks! Hope you're all doing well! We're back with a start of a new week, I'm intrigued what's going to happen with this week's episode's, Friday's episode ended on such an emotional note, I'm intrigued to see how Chelsea is going to cope knowing her Dad is in prison because of her, maybe it's something that she'll get over gradually. I'd be shocked if she was just to get over it over night, it wouldn't be realistic to me. But we shall see!

Now lets focus on the episode at hand, I'm going to start with Vinny. I guess it's fair to say that for a long while now Vinny hasn't really been agreeing with the way his family handle situations regarding the police. So when the police arrive at their front door wanting Vinny to make a statement regarding the youths that almost attacked him, he is more than willing to help cooperate with the police. But as soon as Suki and Kheerat hear about what's happening they are furious with Vinny and instruct him not to go the police and refuse to help them with their investigation. The thing that really grasped my attention was when Suki stated "We don't help the police, and you know why!" - Oooo there are so many questions resolving around the Panesar's past. What happened before they arrived in Walford? They clearly have some bad history with the police, but what?! I'm so intrigued and the more time goes on, I'm eager to find out their back story!

Later on in the episode, Vinny appears to be minding the shop as Callum enters following a discussion with Ben about guests and flower arrangements for their wedding. However as Ben makes a quick exit, Callum begins to make friendly conversation with Vinny about the police visiting him and asking him for a statement regarding the night he was almost attacked by youths. But when Vinny reveals that he's decided not to go to the police, mainly down to brother (as far as I heard), Callum seems really disappointed. But interestingly gives Vinny some wise words, he's not the only who has family on his back every day, Vinny needs to find the courage and strength to make his own decisions, regardless whether his family like it or not, if he either doesn't feel comfortable or disapproves with the way his family do things, maybe he's better off standing on his own two feet, instead of following rules, make his own rules and lead life the way he wants. Callum's life lesson to Vinny seems to really hit home for him and sink in, as eventually as he's walking alone in the Square, Vinny eventually finds himself outside the police station. Will he take Callum's advice?!

--

The next thing I want to mention is Tiffany and Keegan. Early on in the episode, Keegan is seen to be in deep concentration as he's sat alone punching numbers, as it were. As they joke about the first change they get to visit Florida will be in 17 years time, Keegan reveals to his wife that he has a meeting with the bank next week, however he seems a little bit negative about the whole thing. (Once again!) Keegan has it in his mind that the bank will instantly refuse to give him a loan, due to the colour of his skin. I don't know why this is dragging on for so long, but Keegan seems to have it bedded in his mind that the police force and possibly people in high roles than him are possibly racist? I cannot stress enough that that isn't the case!

Even Tiffany tries to reassure her husband and informs him that he can't go to the bank requesting a loan with that kind of attitude. But then Keegan seems to have an idea and asks his wife to join him at the meeting. Suggesting that if he had his wife there with him, they could take them seriously about having a loan. Plus if they're successful, it would mean that Tiffany wouldn't have to do her hostessing job anymore. Tiffany at first seems really nervous and claims that she'd probably ruin everything, but to give her husband her full support, she eventually agrees.

Later on at the club, Tiffany seems to be serving a woman who happens to work in a bank and seems to be at the top of her game regarding her job role. Tiffany takes this chance to ask her for some advice about herself and her husband seeking a loan, but instead of giving her a genuine answer, I kind of thought this lady insulted Tiffany by instructing her to get rid of her husband! I mean, how bloody rude! Although, she does get karma coming to her as Tiffany realises she's been overcharged by £50! But Dotty seems to have overheard the commotion and suggests that they keep the £50 tip as it'll give Tiffany a chance to find something decent to wear when she goes to this bank meeting. It's then that Dotty also has another idea, with the clientele that they're serving at the club, maybe they could simply start overcharging people by a couple of pounds, with the amount of money that they have and spend, none of them would probably notice. As much as Tiffany knows it's wrong, she eventually agrees to the idea, on the condition that they don't go too overboard with the overcharging. Even though this could help Tiffany and Keegan's money problems, I do think that maybe this could put Tiffany in big trouble if she was to get caught?!

--

One thing I have to briefly mention also, I absolutely loved how they included a conversation between Suki, Patrick and Karen regarding the Covid-19 vaccination. After suffering from Covid himself, Patrick revealed to Suki that he had already had his two doses of the vaccine, to which Suki responds that she has her first one booked later in the week. However, the interesting thing is when Karen overhears the conversation, she seems to a bit suspicious about the whole, claiming her concerns about what the vaccine could do to us in about 5 or 10 years time, which I get is probably most people's concern. I have to say though, I've seen a few headlines about this small scene claiming that people are shocked to hear that Karen is an "Anti-Vaxxer!" - I guess you could say that script writers are only trying to portray it from different people's point of view, unfortunately there are people out there who are anti-vaxxers and believe all sorts of conspiracy theories about Covid-19, but I think that this scene they're trying to maybe make people change their mind about having the vaccine, and I mean that in a positive way. Maybe it'll change those anti-vaxxers minds and convince them to have vaccine, instead of promoting it, if you get what I mean?! After the way both Patrick and Suki spoke about their disappointment and concerns to Karen, Karen mind seemed to change almost instantly! On a personal level, I have luckily had my first dose of the vaccine, so happy days! We are slowly on our way to getting back to some form of normality, let's keep our fingers crossed!

--

The next thing I have to mention is Stacey and Jean. It seems that Stacey has been told by some solicitor that she could be facing up to a year in prison for the alleged assault on Ruby. We all know that Stacey is innocent, even though Stacey seems to have come to terms with the fact that there is simply no evidence to back her side of the story (which we all know is the truth) - the main person who seems to be fretting about Stacey's future is Jean. Poor Jean simply can't fathom the thought of her daughter being back in prison, after everything she's been through. Plus considering the very important fact that Jean could be facing more time alone dealing with her illness. I'm assuming that she's still keeping it a secret from her family that she found another lump a while back? As far as my knowledge goes, Jean hasn't mentioned it since, she decided not to have treatment this time around if it did turn out to be cancer. I feel that that is what on Jean's mind more than anything, she's just got her daughter back after having lost Daniel and having to deal with her illness all on her own, and with the possibility of Stacey being thrown in jail again, Jean unfortunately faces having to deal with her illness all alone for a second time.

While on a cleaning job with Mo, I have to be honest - I have no idea who's house they're cleaning. To me, it looked like Gray's but I have no memory of them ever cleaning for Gray? Or was it the Mitchell's? Either way, Jean happens to mention that if she was to have a huge sum of money she would put all the money towards helping Stacey, which of course any Mum would do the same for their daughter. It's then that Jean happens to stumble upon a box of some kind left on the living room table, taking a sneaky looking inside she finds a huge sparkly necklace, who does it belong to? I'm not so sure. But Jean seems to think back to her words of getting money for her daughter, in a desperate state of mind, she quickly stuffs the necklace into her pocket.

Later on, as we see Jean leaving a pawn shop it's clear that she has sold the necklace she nicked. Will she end up in trouble for stealing a necklace and pawning it? Eventually she ends up bumping into Martin and Ruby on the Square. From a distance they seem to be smiling and giggling, this seems to be completely enrage Jean, she can simply not stand there and watch them laughing while they tear Stacey's life apart. She decides to confront them, mainly Ruby - claiming that now Ruby has everything she's wanted, she's willing to ruin Stacey's life. Even though it's sad and tragic that Ruby lost her baby, the worst thing she can do is blame her accident on someone else and throw false accusations around. Jean is more disappointed in Martin, would he really let the Mother of his children go to prison? Surely there must be some kind of doubt in his mind that Stacey would do something as horrendous as what Ruby is claiming?! Jean stands her ground, stating that she's not going to let things lie as they continue to ruin Stacey's life. As devastating as it seems, with Lacey Turner going on Maternity Leave, it's looking like Stacey will go to prison for something she didn't do!

--

Now the main focus of the episode is Mick! He and Linda have now fully moved back into the Vic. As much as they seem happy to be back where they belong, I guess there is a kind of sadness surrounding them that they don't have their children with them. They happen to mention Johnny and Nancy, am I right in thinking that they went away to visit their children and tell them face-to-face about their Dad's abuse?! They happen to mention Johnny and Nancy crying at the news about their Dad and how Lee will deal with the news in his own way. We know that Nancy is going to be returning to the Square some time soon, will knowing what's happened to her Dad be the main reason for her return?

As the locals begin to welcome back Linda and Mick to their pub, Rainie and Stuart seem to be on their own investigation. As they discuss how convenient it is for Max to leave and then they return to be back behind the pub, in Rainie's mind, something doesn't seem right. Almost like on a mission, she informs her husband to question Mick while she works her way on Linda as they fish for information. Only in their own comical ways, they seem to get nowhere with them. Suddenly a detective of some kind enters asking to speak to Mick in private, this seems to grab the attention of both Stuart and Rainie and they begin to ponder what could be going on.

As they continue their discussion privately upstairs, it's here that the detective reveals to Mick that Katy has been arrested for her crimes. As much as this is good news for Mick, he does also have concerns about Frankie and how her Mum's arrest might affect her. As he questions about the possible DNA sample they've had from them both, the detective reveals that their DNA test does match, hearing this confirmation completely overwhelms Mick, Frankie is his daughter! The next thing that the detective mentions though does concern him that little bit more, he suggests reaching out to more witnesses and possible more victims of Katy's crimes, to which Mick realises his story might become public. I think more than anything, Mick is more worried about going public as he fears people will see him differently, not as the local pub landlord, but as the man who was sexually abused as a child.

As the detective leaves Mick to his thoughts, Frankie makes a drastic entrance. She appears to be absolutely frantic that her Mum has been arrested in front of her, without any warning. Of course this would be terrifying for Frankie but the thing that upset her the most was that all the time she begged Mick not to report her Mum, but now her Mum has been arrested, she feels betrayed by him. Mick then decides to share the news to hear that their DNA test was a match, she is his daughter after all. This does give Frankie some kind of closure but in her mind, she's gained a Dad and now lost a Mum. Linda tries to console her husband's daughter, informing her that if she needs anywhere to stay then they have bedrooms to spare and she can stay with them, however this is followed by an awkward silence and Frankie can see that Mick maybe doesn't think it's a good idea, she decides to leave before anything else can be said between them.

As Mick chases his daughter down the stairs, unbeknown to them, Stuart happens to hear their conversation as he hides underneath the stairs. Mick apologises to Frankie for reporting her Mum but makes the valid point that she has to understand why he had to, what if there were other people she had done it to?! Stuart then realises what's going on. After being sent a link informing him about an arrest that has occurred regarding someone who he knew in care as a kid, he reveals to Rainie that he's figured out exactly what's happened. Knowing the full details now, he reveals to his wife that Mick has actually been the one who has been sexually abused. He recalls to his wife how he used to catch paedophiles, knowing that his best mate has gone through something like that, he needs to act now before it's too late.

Even though Rainie tells him it is not his battle, Stuart decides to call his brother and asking whether he can get a message to Frankie. The only thing is, what is this message going to be?! The one thing that is making me think is, is Stuart also a victim of Katy also but has never ever said anything? Is that the reason why he used track down attackers and bring them to justice? He even voices his concern that Mick's abuse happened over 20 years ago, without any evidence or proof or witnesses, Katy won't be charged with her crimes! Is Stuart actually going to come forward, informing Frankie that he too is one of her Mum's victims? What do you guys think? There are quite a few different ways this story could go and honestly, I'm really looking forward to seeing what's going to happen next!

Thank you all so much for reading, it really does mean the world and I can't thank you enough for your ongoing support! Please feel free to leave me a message or comment regarding anything currently happening in EastEnders, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you again everyone, enjoy the rest of your day and I'll be back very soon! xXx