you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.
(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)
but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.
(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)
there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.
(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)
you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.
(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)
you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.
in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.
but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.
they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.
it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.
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A request for the prompt "Stolen kisses" + Zayne!! Thank you so much :D
also I love your writing SOO much <3
prompt list reqs are: temporarily closed
49. stolen kisses
zayne; 1,720 words; fluff, fem!reader, no "y/n", whipped!zayne, implied sex, but still very saucy, zayne is hornee 24/7 and hes not afraid to show it
summary: 3 kisses, some stolen, others willingly given
a/n: i believe in my heart of hearts that zayne is barely keeping it together around the mc
one. After dinner, when the pair of you are cleaning up and your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, his arms snaking around your waist to pull you back into him as he presses a kiss to your neck before trailing his lips up to your cheek. Your laughter rings through the kitchen, folding around the pair of you like wings. His smile is soft, is radiant, is tender and absolute as he pulls back to regard you with his searching eyes.
“Good dinner?” he asks.
“The best,” you answer, grinning as you trail a finger along his jaw to tangle your fingers in his hair.
“Good…” he breathes the word against your cheek, leaning in, the ends of his bangs tickling the skin of your face. You make to pull back, but his arms loop tighter around your waist, pressing you close, holding you against the solid cool of the marble countertop.
“But we haven’t yet had dessert.”
Heat flushes up your neck and up, up, up till you can feel your face burning, as you blink up at him from beneath your lashes, feigning innocence.
“I didn’t know we had dessert planned on the menu.”
His grin goes sideways, his eyes taking on a darker, more dangerous light.
“It’s not always planned but…” his voice trails off as a tingling shiver races up your spine, “It is always… considered.”
And then, he leans in to kiss you — and he kisses you with a hunger that has nothing to do with the scrumptious meal you’ve just shared and everything to do with the pulsing heat coalescing between your bodies as he lifts you up onto the counter.
He kisses you like he wants to ruin your mouth for all other tastes but him; he kisses you as if he’s already been ruined by the taste of you.
two. It is unprofessional; you know — and so does he — to do this here, with your back pressed against the wood of his office door, his white coat slipping off his shoulders, his glasses nearly knocked askance by the force of this kiss.
You’d always known that just beneath his smooth, tempered glass facade is the kind of roiling heat that makes up the heart of the earth, the kind of passion that licked at the mouths of volcanoes and rends the sky into nothing but a devastation of ashes.
But here, now, the only rending is his fingers pressing into the dip of your waist, the only devastation his tongue as it traces along the inside of your teeth. You hear yourself make a low, wanton noise and feel him react, his fingers tightening impossibly, his mouth ever and ever more demanding.
“Z-Zayne… we —” but the words die on your lips as he drops his to the bare skin of your neck. You can’t help the gasp that tumbles from your mouth, nor the sudden flash of memory — crystal clear and sharp, as if carved from ice — of the night before, when he had sunk his teeth into your bare shoulder and twisted your hair with trembling fists. It had been pain and impossible, improbable passion. All urge and fire, desperation and need.
“Shhh…” Zayne murmurs against your skin, groaning softly as he finds your lips with his own again. And you are helpless all over again. Weak against the burning need of his embrace.
A soft knock shocks both of you from the frenzied passion soaking through your bones, threatening to blot out your good sense entirely. You pull apart, gasping. From the other side of the door comes the muffled voice of a nurse -
“Dr. Zayne? Your next patient is here. Shall I let him in?”
Zayne hisses out another breath before pulling away.
“Yes, just give me five minutes - finishing a report.”
You can't help the amused grin that tugs across your lips as the both of you make to tidy the slight mess you've made.
“So… I'm a report now, am I?”
But Zayne only regards you with a light, challenging look, quirking his brows.
“No.”
You blink, confused. Then Zayne smiles.
“We’re nowhere near finished.”
A fresh wave of heat crests up into your cheeks as you purse your lips, casting your eyes anywhere but Zayne's pleased face.
“Unprofessional,” you accuse, through the word lacks any vehemence, marred by the extensive blush still coloring your cheeks.
Zayne straightens his impeccably pressed white doctor's coat before taking three swift steps into your space, his chest nearly pushing against yours. He reaches out to tilt your chin up towards him and you feel a hitched breath caught like an insect in amber, suspended perfectly between your lungs and your throat.
Slowly, Zayne draws his thumb across the plush of your bottom lip. You feel his breath fanning across it like a wave of summer heat, found at the heart of winter itself.
“Only in front of you.”
He pulls away just as another gentle knock comes at the door, the nurse's voice announcing the arrival of Zayne's next patient. Zayne casts you one last lingering, meaningful look before gently nudging you aside to pull open the door, the vision of a young and promising doctor as he greets his patient with a small smile, the other hand guiding you towards the opened door.
"Don't forget to take your supplements,” he chides in a voice just gentle enough to inform polite company of his fondness for you, but nothing in it would hint at the indiscretions that had been committed only minutes prior.
"Okay,” you say, ducking your head as you brush by the middle- aged man blinking at the pair of you.
"And… see you at home.”
You only manage a nod and a squeak as the nurse chuckles behind her hand and the middle- aged man makes a soft noise of understanding.
three. You are both eighteen, and teetering on the edge of adulthood — though he’s already well on his way to stardom.
“Congrats — on the Starcatcher Award —“ you feel your throat catch around the words, and suddenly, your mouth is dry, your cheeks hot, your fingers twisting behind your back as you rock on the balls of your feet.
Zayne watches you, his expression thoughtfully blank, but his eyes — they’ve always been his tell. You meet them and search them and feel the fire caught behind them. His Evol might be ice, but… his soul has always been something that burns.
“Thanks,” he says, and you can almost taste the unsaid words bubbling just at the back of his throat. You wish he would tell you, but there’s a depthless chasm cut into the air between the pair of you, rough and jagged and —
“Do you know what I received the award for?”
You blink, startled. You purse your lips, looking away. It’d been too painful, too much to look into it, the knowledge of his brilliance always nipping at your heels like an unruly dog. It had pushed you forward, yes, but only out of the fear that if you let up even one single step, he’d race too far ahead and… leave you behind.
“N-no — I haven’t —“
“For my research on congenital heart defects in infants.”
The world slows, tunnels, and tilts around you. Your eyes jerk up to meet his and there — you see it, the blistering heart of all his so-called fire — and you remember suddenly that if it’s cold enough, the body starts to process the sensation as heat. That ice and fire are not so different.
That ice can also burn.
You find your own hands clutched just above where your heart beats inside your chest and you see his eyes flicker down towards them.
“Zayne —“
“I start work at a clinic next week.”
A frown creases at your temple.
“Our first appointment is on Tuesday.”
Your frown deepens.
“What do you —“
“To qualify for the Hunter Program, you need a medical verification of fitness. And… a primary care physician.”
At these last words, his eyes finally cut away. And here, in the dying light of his brand new living room, the sunset turns his glasses opaque for just a second. You’re left blinking in the aftermath of that light, the afterimages will be stained behind your eyelids for hours after — just that look, the firm line of his shoulders, the determined set of his mouth, his jaw, the softness in his fingers as he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, his touch lingering against the bend of your cheek.
“L-Lying on reports would be a medical malpractice suit waiting to happen,” you say, your voice shaking with either delirium or emotion, you’re not sure which.
Zayne quirks an eyebrow, “I have no plans on lying.”
“But —“ your fingers clench at your chest.
“I’m just… confident in my own skills, that’s all.”
The shadow of a grin twists his lips and he turns back to you, his eyes cast in threads of molten gold.
“Oh… of course,” you let out a soft breath of laughter, toppling back into the sofa and tossing your arm across your eyes. A moment later, you feel the cushions of the sofa sink beside you.
“Hey, look at me.”
You drop your arm and turn, your head still pillowed against the back of the sofa. Zayne’s gaze flickers over every aspect of your face before he reaches out to take your hand in his. Slowly, he leans down to press his lips to your knuckles, letting his lips linger there till you make a soft, questioning noise at the back of your throat.
He looks back up with a knowing smile.
“Shall we get something to eat?”
You jump to your feet, “Y-yes! My treat — a congratulations gift!”
Zayne considers for a moment before sighing, “Alright, but just this once.”
“What, we’re not allowed to go out to dinner now that you’re a certified doctor?”
Zayne’s mouth twitches with amusement as he reaches for his coat.
“No, we’ll still go out for dinner — you’re just no longer allowed to pay for them.”
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