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anystalker707 · 3 years

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Cold springs and warm falls

Pairing: Gerard x Reader Word count: ~ 3 200 Genre: Vent writing / comfort Warning: Depression mention / extremely minor OD hint Summary: Gerard has been a little down lately, so (y/n) has a cute idea to help him cheer up.

a/n: Probably written a year ago. One of my favorites.

Some time has passed by since anyone last saw Gerard – we only have news of him through Mikey, but sometimes it’s the same as nothing because his descriptions seldom hold details, being very vague before he quickly changes the subject. Of course, Mikey’s an asshole, but I guess it’s not always just because of it.

We went through similar situations in the past.

My heart still heaves the same way it did in the past whenever I think further about what happened or what is happening. He went through quite a lot, so it’s natural for us to get worried.

It was spring when it first happened. I remember the warm breeze hitting my face while I laughed at something Frank had said, but turned around to a panicked Mikey urgently telling us about Gerard getting sick again, another time his body had apparently hit the limit of alcohol and drugs. Suddenly the rest of the season wasn’t so warm anymore. With all the visits to the cold hospital.

Maybe that’s why Mikey avoids the subject. Or it’s this same hesitance we carry whenever touching the subject of what caused the series of unfortunate events or whatever that happened around it.

Taking this into consideration, I can’t avoid the panic bubbling in my stomach and slowly making it difficult to breathe whenever I think about the situation. Filling me with the awful feeling of something slowly escaping my grasp. It’s like if I’m going to lose Gerard and I just can’t. Even if it sounds stupid, it’s always him who motivates me into doing something. Wanting to see how excited he gets whenever he likes something – the way his eyes lighten up as he gasps softly, his eyebrows raising lightly as he slowly cracks a wide smile.

Thinking about it makes me instantly want to do something to help him through this situation. And that’s what brings me to now – standing out the Ways’ house with a glass box under my arm and a bag across my torso.

“(Y/n)?” Mikey asks, surprised to see me there once he opens the door. “Why…” He trails off, thinking for a moment, but seems to reach a conclusion about my presence there quickly. “Well, you know where he is.” He steps aside to let me in, pressing his lips together in a smile and looking at me in a wordless good luck. I nod in response before proceeding to walk to the basement.

“Gerard?” I call softly as I knock on the door before slowly opening it. Honestly, the room doesn’t really smell good and I don’t even need to take a close look at the mess it’s in to know there’s probably some old leftover in a plate of food Gerard didn’t take upstairs and cans of energy drink and alcohol scattered around. Not to mention the smell of the smoke impregnated in everything.

No kind of response comes from Gerard, but it isn’t really a problem.

A pressure takes over my chest in the moment my eyes land on him. He lays on the messy bed, on his side. Disorganized dark hair strands almost covering his eyes completely, contrasting with the skin that’s paler than normal. He’s got his Batman boxers on and a Metallica shirt he’s often wearing. There’s a small change in his eyes the moment he sees me, so I smile, not giving in to the tendency of the moment to get awkward.

“Hey, Gee,” I greet him softly, closing the door behind me before moving closer. I sit down on the edge of the bed, beside him, the glass carefully set on the bedside table and the bag on the floor. “It’s been some time.” My voice is quiet, matching the silence the room is in. Seeing him again after so long makes me feel warm.

I move a few strands away from his face before leaning down, pressing a soft kiss to the skin – it’s soft as always. Gerard seems to appreciate the touch himself, visibly relaxing with it; his features hold a more comfortable feeling after I move away, almost as if my presence makes him calmer. Or maybe I just really want to be important to him.

There is something going on between Gerard and I for a long time. We’re not dating, but this thing started in the moment we first kissed, about a year ago, when I’d taken him somewhere while he was recovering, wanting to help him – what worked. We never talked about it, nonetheless, we’re always there when the other needs the most, lazy kisses shared now and then, holding hands and so on.

“I saw something earlier and remembered you,” I say with a grin, happy with the curiosity slowly sparkling in his eyes, growing more excited. “So, I had an idea. We’re doing something and I’m sure you’ll like it, hm?” My knuckles graze his cheek, caressing the skin. “Put on something warm. We’re going over to the woods later.”

His eyebrows furrow a bit, the corner of his mouth twitching; he whines quietly. “I don’t wanna go outside,” his voice is even quieter than mine, followed by a sigh.

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be good,” I mirror his expression, raising my eyebrows in a pleading manner. “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

No word is said while we look at each other in a silent debate. I win.

Gerard sighs, curling up more, shifting around until his head rests on my lap. A smile makes its way to my lips as I run my fingers through the greasy strands of hair, untangling them while he buries his face in my stomach. His chest moves slowly as he breathes, getting calmer, like comforting himself with my presence, which makes me glad for having showed up here, but also regretting not having done it earlier.

“Where are we going? What are we doing?” Gerard asks, voice muffled.

“I prefer to tell you about everything later. But you already know we’ll be going to the woods, so you know what to change into,” I tell him with a smile, playing with the hair on the back of his neck – it makes him throw his head back lightly, leaning into the touch. All the time alone must’ve left him touch starved. “Go change, go, the earlier we do it, the better.” I nudge him lightly, knowing Gerard simply won’t even move if I don’t make him do it.

Gerard groans, almost whining, but eventually moves away and stands up. He seeks for clothes in a small pile on his desk’s chair, changing into a pair of jeans and he’s about to just put on a hoodie when I stop him, telling Gerard to at least change his shirt. Even sighing like it took him a lot of effort, he puts on a black Slayer shirt then the old worn-out Motörhead hoodie over it.

His skin seems a lot paler than when I last saw him. He’s barely leaving the basement.

I’m pushed back to reality when he cleans his throat – Gerard stands in the middle of the bedroom, looking at me in a search for approval. There’s something different about him that goes further than his appearance – he’s starting to dive in the indifferent state he’d reached during that spring. It brings me memories I didn’t wish to remember, bringing feelings up my throat, but I swallow the lump and eventually nod with a small smile.

“Let’s go?” I stand up, taking my bag again, adjusting it across my body before stepping closer to him. He nods, about to start walking, but gets surprised with me suddenly reaching to touch his hair – he flinches lightly, leaning back. Wide eyes observe my hands until he calms down, though still tense while I fix his messy strands properly, pulling them away from his eyes and stopping them from sticking out in all directions.

Once I’m done, I smile softly at him, cupping his face to bring his face closer and press my lips to his. His lips are warm and chapped and dry under mine, kissing me back almost hesitant at first, but eventually melting into the kiss, his hands finding my wrists.

With a last peck pressed to the corner of his lips, I take Gerard’s hand and start pulling him along with me upstairs.

The cold air embraces us once we step outside, though it’s sunny, but it’s the same as nothing since the sunlight isn’t strong enough. It’s been like this for the past few days, the weather gradually growing colder according to the rains. This week has been drier, thankfully.

The coldness makes Gerard’s hand feel even warmer around mine, a pleasing sensation of comfort coming from the simple contact. It feels like forever since I’ve last touched him. I intertwine our fingers, squeezing his hand lightly as wondering if he felt the same thing. Something tells me he does.

Soon, we’re walking down a path to the woods after having crossed the park. There’re not many people around the streets since they’re probably enjoying the break from the cloudy weather, hanging out in the few other parks and squares downtown. A casual atmosphere hovers in the streets, with the sound of light chatter of the few people who walk by and the eventual sound of a vehicle driving down the streets. We’re immersed in a peaceful silence when walking in the woods, the sound of the dry leaves and branches cracking muffled under the sound of the wind going through the trees’ leaves.

Slowly, a clearing comes into our vision – our final destination.

Gerard seems to finally come back to reality when we stop to walk, seeming to have been submersed in thoughts during the whole way here. He blinks a few times, half-lidded eyes observing our surroundings.

“Why are we here?” He asks, looking at me once I let go of his hand to reach inside my bag, pulling out a couple of plastic containers, a knife, a spoon and a plastic bottle.

“I needed a better place to steal your organs,” I say playfully as I hold the items up to him, chuckling at his reaction. Gerard doesn’t smile, just scoffing lightly and shaking his head, but I can tell he does find it funny; he’s just not used to the change of setting yet.

My bag is placed somewhere dry before I sit down, pulling on Gerard with me for him to do the same.

The clearing is wide, with a few plants which flower every autumn, small orange flowers which give the place a nice atmosphere. A warm and comfortable one. Sunlight falls directly into the space, bathing it with a yellow tone and warming our backs as we sit down on the grass, legs crossed.

“Okay, so,” I tell him, placing the items neatly on the ground before grabbing one of the containers and the spoon. “We’re making a terrarium. I thought you’d like one. It’s very you, y’know? And I figured out it’d really help you.” I pause. There’s no response from him. “It’s okay if you don’t want it, I can keep it instead, I just want to do this with you,” a smile pulls on my lips as I turn to him.

“Oh-“ Gerard stutters, a pink tone dusting his cheeks. “I, um, I appreciate it a lot.” It’s all that he says. I don’t mind, it’s all happening out of sudden.

Nodding, I turn back to the items, slowly filling the container with dirt and using the spoon I brought, actually the best tool I could find in the rush. “Can you get some moss and other plants in that one, please?” I nod towards the other container and glance up at Gerard, who seems to have been looking around until now. He comes back to reality a bit startled, humming questioningly, but soon nodding in agreement before moving to do as said, carefully grabbing the knife and the container.

It takes a few minutes until I’m looking at my container thoughtfully and trying to compare it to the mental image of the glass box to know if it’s enough. I guess it is. If not, some rocks will do the work.

My eyes avert to Gerard to see how he’s doing. The sight of the items actually abandoned on the grass makes me a bit frustrated, but just until I notice the small smile on his face and the lost eyes observing the flowers while careful fingers touch them as if they were made of glass. So sweet and adorable and gracious and lovely. My heart tightens.

If I were to say the truth, the thing is that Gerard isn’t much of a good help when it comes to working with me. And I’ve never seen any problem with it – having him around itself actually makes the work much more pleasing than anything else ever would. He’ll actually just sit in the corner and lick the cake batter off the bowl while I decorate it and later do the same to the icing instead of helping me with preparing a cake or just lay across the bed and play with random things he finds around and not help me at all with organizing my room.

He’s got such a power on me.

Making sure of not disturbing him – not like he would mind about it if seeing me taking over his job anyways –, I get the objects myself, taking the moss off a rock as carefully as possible and placing it inside the plastic recipient with the same care, doing the same with some of the fern because I know Gerard just wouldn’t let me touch his. It’s not like I need to take a lot of plants, I bought these cheap succulents on my way to his place.

I could’ve also gotten all we need in his backyard, too, but it certainly wouldn’t be as fun as it’s been now.

I look at Gerard now that I’ve closed both containers, observing him from the corner of my eyes at first. He seems content. Gerard occasionally looks around and plucks a flower, then his hand disappears again to behind the plants’ leaves, which prevents me from seeing whatever he’s doing.

He’s too focused to notice my glare, sitting a few feet away. His tongue pokes out to wet his bottom lip when he pauses, his smile widening. One of his strands of hair ended up falling on his face with the breeze, sending it falling across his face, but he quickly pulls it to behind his ear, eyes never moving away from what he is doing. He almost seems to be a completely different person from the one who was in that basement nearly a couple of hours ago.

A few minutes probably go by as I’m immersed in thoughts while observing Gerard, following every gentle movement and soft expression he pulls on. His cheeks grow red at the same time his eyes land on mine, eyebrows raising lightly in surprise with finding me already looking at him. It looked like he was going to say something, but found himself lost in words as soon as finding my gaze. I smile.

Gerard’s lips twitch, like if he’s going to say something. The red dusting his cheeks intensifies and it’s clear he’s not going to say it, the nervousness or whatever it is getting the best of him.

I observe Gerard for a few moments longer, smiling reassuringly at him, then decide to get my attention to placing everything in the bag again, sighing contentedly. It’s when I’m closing the bag that I feel something being placed around my head, ever so gently, and there’s Gerard sitting beside me. I just move again when feeling the hands moving away, raising an eyebrow, looking up as if I’d be able to see whatever’s there.

The puzzled look remains on my face until I look at Gerard himself. A neatly made flower crown is set on his head, its tones contrasting nicely with both his dark hair and pale skin.

I bite down on my bottom lip, holding back a grin as I admire him for a moment. Exhaling, I shake my head to myself and move to place a hand on the back of his neck, bringing him closer. My gaze goes from his shy eyes to his lips a few moments before I finally kiss him.

“You’re beautiful.”

“This- Looks better there,” Gerard grabs the fern and replaces it to the corner of the glass box, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration as planting it there. A satisfied air falls over his features as he finishes adjusting the dirt around it and looks at me in a seek for approval – nodding, I press kiss to his cheek.

“Did you rinse the moss?” I ask him, finishing take care of a succulent on the side opposite to the fern.

“Of course,” he nods as he pulls the container between us.

Nodding, I watch him starting to get it off the recipient and starting to place it in the glass box, around the other plants, like a small grass over all the dirt. By the corner of my eye, I can notice Mikey standing against the doorway – he smiles once finding my gaze, nodding in a wordless expression of appreciation towards what I did, how I’m helping Gerard. I offer Mikey a side smile, glancing at Gerard, thankful he didn’t notice it.

Mikey saw us walking in the house, but had remained away so far, as if afraid his presence would ruin anything and Gerard’s good mood is as fragile as thin glass. The sight of the flower crows certainly gave Mikey a notion of how helpful this was to Gerard before he listens to Gerard’s rants about our day. He watched it curiously from the corner, watching Gerard whining about wanting to work on the terrarium in his room, defeated when I told him it would probably get his room dirtier than it was already. He sulkily brought the glass box upstairs, along with one of his flasks of rain water, while I got everything set on the wide table of the dining room.

The sulk disappeared from his face as soon as I carefully opened the glass box and started placing the small succulents aside. Gerard had made a comment about the box being beautiful – it looks like a miniature of a simple glass house, having about five for eleven inches, one of the sides of the ‘ceiling’ being the lid.

Gerard actually offered himself to help once I started setting a few rocks for the base, seeming excited with everything.

A pleased hum comes from me as I take a look at everything after Gerard accommodates the last part of moss and moves away, seeming proud of his word – and with fair reason since it looks pretty adorable.

“Now, I brought a few crystals we can decorate it with,” I mutter, getting all the small crystals off the small fabric bag and leaving them in a pile in one of the circles of the table cloth’s neat pattern. Most of them have a long prism shape, though not longer than an inch, going from light purple to milky white colors.

Gerard arranges the crystals neatly inside the terrarium, meticulously, eyes narrowed as he seems to have his whole attention on decorating it neatly without touching the plants. Meanwhile, I quickly cleaned everything, throwing what doesn’t have any use anymore inside the plastic bag that once held the succulents in the small colorful plastic vases.

“What do you think?” Gerard smiles as stepping back, taking a good look at the terrarium.

“Pretty good, Gee,” I say with a grin, pulling him closer with an arm around his waist, and kissing his cheek, his red face making my heart flutter. “Now…” I mutter as I move to spray the rain water inside it then close the lid, making sure it’s properly sealed. “There may be a few insects and you can trim them if they overgrow, just water once in a few months or if it really needs it…” I tell him, carefully remembering everything I’ve read earlier. “And it needs indirect sunlight. So, you need to keep it here, upstairs.”

He frowns at the words, pouting as his disappointed eyes avert to the glass box again. “But…”

“Aw, c’mon,” I smile hopelessly, pecking his pout and continuing to speak against his lips. “It can stay on the buffet table, no chances of some insect suddenly finding its way to some forgotten food in your room or anything,” I try to convince him, but end up getting lost in the soft touch. Humming lightly, I brush my nose lightly against his, affectionately.

“Sounds fine,” Gerard says in certain defeat, eyes shyly averting to my lips a few times before he hesitantly leans in and presses a short kiss to my lips. He smiles, seeming proud again. A happy sigh goes past his nose as he wraps his arms around my neck, practically melting against me, letting our foreheads touch. “Will you stay the night? Please stay the night,” he pleads without giving me a chance to answer, clutching onto the back of my shirt as if to prevent me from moving away.

“If you want me to, it’s fine,” I say softly, squeezing his hip lightly in a reassuring manner.

And this fall was warm, for once. Unlike that one cold spring, this fall was warmer than any summer.

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Tagging list: @lubbockshusband

#my post #x reader #gerard way x reader #mcr x reader #imagine #oneshot #fan fic #fan fiction #my chemical romance #writing #writer

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whatgaviiformes · 3 years

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10. Music Makers - Part 1 / Scenes from Gordon’s Bedside

Chapter A/N: In honor of 10 chapters of this concept, the plan is to give you a hell of a chapter 10 with a few moments in time strung together. I decided to go ahead and share what I have with you instead of waiting. Once the chapter has been shared in full over tumblr, I will post the full piece at Ao3 and FF.net. It may or may not make sense to remain as chapter 10 or be it’s own thing. Do share if you have an opinion. :-)

The title Music Makers comes from “Ode” by Arthur O'Shaughnessy, and it is very lovely. Part 1 A/N: Music Referenced: Einaudi’s “Primavera” Spotify | Youtube

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Music Makers - Part 1/6

“You missed the cherry blossoms.”

San Francisco wasn’t too unlike Denver in Spring, but while Denver had some beautiful display of cherry blossom trees over in Cherry Creek, the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was an event, the second largest outside of Japan coming in right behind the one in the nation’s Capital. Virgil remembered the trip they’d taken to Washington DC as a family, the spring he caught flowers buds in his hair. The festival had seemed bigger than the one that took place in San Francisco the past two weekends, but then again, he had been just a small child at the time.

This time, his heart hadn’t been in it with John leaving and Gordon still not awake. The slow rain of pink through his fingertips made him think his brother. Drifting. And he would not have gone in the first place if John hadn’t dragged him out of the hospital for a bit of fresh air…for his last few days on terra firma - John’s words, not Virgil’s.

“I don’t really want to leave right now,” John had said, silhouetted against the line of pink trees, stormy emerald eyes blinking against the glare of the sun.

“John,” Virgil had whispered, “you have to.” It wasn’t because John had no choice. There was always a choice, but the ISS was John’s dream, a once in a lifetime opportunity that he could only take up while under NASA’s employment. Once their project got off the ground, John Tracy would no longer be an astronaut. His work would be anonymous; he’d be invisible. They all would be.

Gordon would hate if he took that opportunity away. John needed to go to space.

Virgil knew his brother belonged above the mesosphere, that John’s veins were made of a particular brand of stardust that was quite potent in its call towards home. But it was to be John’s first time beyond the skies, and Virgil would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little fearful for his little brother rocketing through the atmosphere into the vacuum of space.

“Are you frightened?”

“Of what’s out there? No,” John had explained, a crushed petal falling from his grasp. “Of what I’m leaving down here – I’m terrified.”

April had turned into May all too quickly, yet ever so slowly at the same time. Scott had been called back to duty, and Alan back to school. John had returned to Houston for his last trainings before take-off. Virgil had missed his graduation ceremony.

Gordon remained motionless, and the cherry blossom trees had lost their vibrant colors.

“You would’ve liked them,” Virgil says, but there’s no response from the figure on the bed. “John would’ve been able to give you the scientific name. Uhh… here, let me try to find…” He slips his hand out from under Gordon’s to type the search in his phone.

“Oh, gee, there’s a lot. Prune-us Sair-ah-sus,” he says finally, pocketing the device. “I probably butchered that. I was never good at Latin.”

He picks up the hand again.

“Do you remember when Mom dragged you along to my first piano recital? Probably not. You would’ve been just three or four at the time, and Alan wasn’t born yet. I had never played in front of an audience before and so I practiced for months beforehand. It was Einaudi’s Primavera.”

He hums a portion of the tune, sinking back into the memory of being eight.

“Mom probably hated hearing it after the first week.” For just a beat, he lets himself chuckle thinking of their mother dealing with his earnest younger self. “Dad had gotten me my first suit for the recital, and Mom helped me with my hair so I could look like a professional. I’m sure we have pictures somewhere.”

Virgil pauses a moment, smiling as he remembers the rest of the story.

“You always said you liked my playing, but you wouldn’t know it from that day! You screamed and screamed, and Dad had to take you out of the auditorium while you fussed. I remember trying to look out into the audience, but I couldn’t see through the lights. But it was just Scotty, John, and Mom who met me after my performance, and I just knew that you’d ruined my big day.”

Virgil notices that a small sliver of light shines through the windowpanes to dance along a strand of red in Gordon’s hair.

Gordon in his purest form was joy – a laugh to accompany a joke, a sparkle in the eye with a mischievous glint, an open ease in the way he walked and spoke, a smile when you need it most. Gordon’s soul was a reservoir of light that he could never quite fill to full. Because just as quickly as he soaked the rays of the sun into his being, he released them to share with the world around him.

When Gordon was born his hair had been an almost white blond– Alan’s had been the same way. But as Gordon grew, the blond darkened into gold the color of sunflowers in fall. In winter, when Gordon wasn’t spending 90% outside, hints of auburn would poke through.

He wonders if the auburn has the same sun soaking powers as the blond around it or if auburn is what happens when you make a ray of light sad.

“Apparently you told Dad that my song made you cry,” Virgil continues. “And that you needed to give me a hug so I would stop being sad.”

He sighs wistfully.

“It’s how I felt watching the cherry blossoms, Gordon. It was like seeing spring and knowing the beauty is still there, but not being able to reach it, like watching through frosted glass, and I understood why you cried.”

This time when he hums the melody his fingers flutter in movement and intermittently Virgil sings the melody, replacing notes with “da” before falling back into hums.

Virgil loses himself in the lonely music, in cherry blossoms through frosted glass, in green eyes looking longingly to the stars, in the flickering of a sun ray desperate to find a path to his brother’s light.

He knows how his piano reacts to his hands, the exact distance from the keys to his fingertips as they descend.

As the music ascends, his keys rise to meet him.

A twitch.

Tap.

Virgil’s music falters.

Tap… tap…

“Gordon?” Like a dream, he watches fingers nudge his hand. His heart races as he meets his brother’s gaze. Honey eyes tell a story of confusion, blinking, searching. “Gordon!”

Tap.

“…ug.” The word is intelligible, but Virgil knows what it is by Gordon’s eyes.

Hug.

Virgil reacts.

#Gavii Scribit #Thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #thunderbirds angst #hydrofoil accident fic #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #scenes from gordon's bedside #chapter 10 music makers

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brucewayneargento-moved · 3 years

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To All My Fathers (Chapter 1)

Summary: Damian Wayne, a fourteen year old with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, goes onto a road trip with the four men who shaped him as a person before his bone marrow transplant.

Fic also avaliable on FF.net

Damian had definitely decided he would not wear a fanny pack.

It didn't matter that it was the most convenient and comfortable way to take a chemo pump iv from place to place. He'll much rather attract attention with a backpack connected to a pump than to regress back to the eighties in the most horrendous fashion. Sure he might pick up unwanted attention from strangers but A) He could always stare at them back; B) He was past the time to care and C) He already didn't have eyebrows so that was kind of a moot point.

The boy was currently seated at the med bed of the 666 room. (Drake had made several jokes about it, which Damian didn't mind and in fact encouraged, because with his diagnosis came a morbid sense of humor and he was also glad at least one person still treated him like a human being). He was practicing violin while he could still hold it and also enjoying the fact that he was wearing actual comfortable clothes and not a paper robe that made his autism completely and utterly fucking lose it.

Some kids from the other rooms had come to see him perform and Damian loved to have an audience. Because he had an ego, not as much and not as evil as people usually thought, but still. Most of them were children younger than ten who just needed some entertainment that wasn't a superhero.

"This was Ode To Joy by Bethoveen," Damian explained. The three children around him applauded. When they stopped he could still hear hands clapping, he looked up and his eyes met his father's.

Bruce came closer to him and the kids left after being called by a nurse. Boy and man looked at each other for a few seconds.

"Are you ready?" Bruce finally asked

Damian might have sounded insane if he said it outloud, but his father and Jon were very similar.

The blue eyes, the black hair and the fact that they both cried before or after entering a room with Damian in it, bonus points if he was being stabbed with a needle right at that moment, then you could see their eyes getting crystalized almost in slow motion.

And it's not like Damian was annoyed by their emotions as one might have thought, it was more of a...sting, (man being stabbed with a needle on a daily basis was really taking a toll on him, wasn't it?) like, something that hurt but it wasn't enough for him to do anything about it more than to grit his teeth and power through it.

Numbness was apparently a common thing among patients. But Damian thought of himself as many stuff, but common wasn't one of them

And perhaps his ego was the only thing keeping him optimistic, perhaps thinking that he was too special to die alone in a hospital room was what made him stronger against the whole GvHD thing.

Leslie had told him that he was lucky to find a donor that was relatively near, in Kansas nonetheless, home of Superman and. So now he had just to keep up with the program: L-asparaginase,dexamethasone and vincristine several times a day and wait.

Or at least that was the original plan.

"Yes." he finally answered, standing up.

When all you receive in your life is gaslighting, you don't even notice the medical gaslighting.

Maybe it was the whole "being indoctrinated since birth by an ecoterrorist death cult" thing but his ability to exercise his free will hadn't been particularly developed.

The bruises? Vigilante stuff. The fever? Probably the flu. Weight loss? Maybe he had gotten a growth spurt that just made him seem thinner…He had to throw up blood to even be admitted into a hospital.

The Wayne-Head name allowed him the finest care probably ever known to man. "Nepotism: where you can die comfortably" that was an actual thing he had said while high on sedatives. He could only imagine his mother's face upon hearing it.

When he woke up both his parents were there. Damian could immediately tell something was wrong. His father was crying and his mother was stoic.

"Oh, ok, so I'm dying" He said, grabbing their attention. Both Talia and Bruce turn to look at him. Damian tried to sit and noticed his arm was cranked to an IV. "Oh, I'm actually dying."

"Do not speak like that." His mother warned him with a threatening voice. Bruce kept quiet but still with a face wet with tears.

Next to them there was a third person. She was an older woman with gray hair and glasses. Doctor Thompkins, his father's godmother. She went over to the medbed and sat on the foot. Damian crossed his arms. She was a smart woman but had the annoying habit of treating him like a perpetual child. Probably the closest thing he had to an actual grandmother.

"Damian," she fixed her glasses and looked at the clipboard she was holding. "Your blood count is in the 200.000 white cells."

Damian's eyes slightly widened, which covertly hid how much of a gut punch he just received.

"I can't have leukemia," he simply stated. There was a slight pained sound coming from his father's mouth which made Damian look him in the eye…that's how he knew it was true.

He started to grin which turned into a giggle which turned into a laugh.

Bruce and Talia looked at him with worry.

"Denial is very common," Leslie stated, trying to remain calm and also sooth Damian up. The teen kept laughing and then stopped to talk.

He had tears in his eyes. "I mean... so much for being an eugenics frankenstein monster, I've failed at even that."

The rest of that afternoon was a blur for him. Except for the being stabbed with needles on his spine parts, that one he remembered very well. Since he had such a high tolerance for pain, the fact that he was casually hurt was news to him.

Of course Dick had been the first one to enter the room.

Damian had hoped that he wasn't but after all it made sense that he did, he was his Robin. He could imagine him punching a wall and screaming when he heard the news. That mental image didn't upset him at all, clearly.

Damian was pretending to watch TV where his oldest brother entered the scene. He had prepared what he was going to say. How he was okay and how he was too stubborn to die anyways. But all of that went to hell when Dick entered the room and immediately ran up to hug him.

All of the walls he had been building up until now feel down hard. Damian just had to press his head against Dick's shoulder for the tears to start running.

"I want a falafel."

They were in the hospital room after a particularly hard session of chemo. His brother was on a chair in front of him reading a book and not looking at him.

"You just threw up on my shoe," he reminded Damian.

"I'm here for a good time, not a long time"

Dick rolled his eyes, now accustomed to the fact that his sibling had developed a morbid sense of humor because of his condition. Right at that moment the door opened and Doctor Thompkins entered the room.

"How are we?" She asked.

"Great." Both responded almost robotically. Damian gagged.

"I wanted to talk to you, Dick, about the bone marrow transplant."

"Why not talk to me?" Damian intervened. "I'm the one whose blood isn't working."

"Because you're still a child," Dick answered as a matter of fact. And despite everything he was glad his older brother at least now had the courtesy of treating him like he had always done. "What's the prognosis, doc?"

"We're considering the umbilical cord transfusion." Leslie explained. "But you will have to ask my godson first.

"Why would he need to...wait...Selina's pregnant?!" Damian asked but then he threw up again. "That wasn't meant to signify my feelings on the matter."

Leslie continued. "But that will still take a few months and...I'm afraid we don't have that much time."

Damian pretended to gag and looked down at the bucket, all to avoid looking at Dick's face.

"But the good news is that we found a match."

Damian hadn't even had time to think about that sentence before he blurted it out, but now it was there, out in the open. For everyone to hear.

"I want to have children."

Everyone being an hyperbole since Alfred was the one who was actually there. His father had to go to patrol so the butler had the night shift to take care of Damian while at the hospital to which the boy was appreciative of. Except for this moment when he was mentally slapping himself for letting on too much. Side effects of being raised to be a killing machine.

"I...did not know that." Alfred admitted. Up to twelve seconds ago he had been standing up listing the symptoms of chemo at Damian's request since he didn't trust Leslie to do it without sugarcoating it and his father might burst into tears in an attempt to do so. Damian had been listening attentively before Alfred mentioned that it was possible that he might wind up being infertile.

The boy simply turned around to the other side of the bed and sighed as tears left his eyes.

Dear Damian

I could not be more content that you are receiving the transplant that you so much need. I wish I could accompany you on the journey to Kansas, but sadly Lady Talia needs me to look out after Bialya...I wish you nothing but a rapid recovery. I implore you to remember that you are not alone in this, to remember that there is a plethora of people that adore you with all of their souls and that you will always have their help. Even when you do not want it.

Best Wishes

Ravi.

Damian looked at Alfred who glanced at him for a nanosecond in the mirror of the car. He knew he was the most active ally he had in this game. Since he not only advocated to his father for this trip to be possible but he also was the only person to always show his compassion in spite of if he actually deserved it or not. Bruce was next to him while Richard sat next to Damian and assesed his condition.

They stayed in comfortable silence in the car with only the sound of "dad music" on the radio for background noise. Damian allowed himself to close his eyes and to feel the soothing bounce of the car against the pavement on his skin...

They stopped suddenly after a while and Damian opened his eyes, he frowned in confusion as Alfred parked the car in front of the airport.

"What are we doing here?" he asked curiously.

Alfred turned around to look at him. "Your father , Master Richard and I thought It'll be a good idea to fly in a friend of yours."

Damian's frown deepened. "A friend?"

Suddenly a tap was heard on the window. They both turned around to look at the front window. It was being slightly knocked on it by a man with a white cane and a bald head who was smiling at them.

"Ravi?" Damian rubbed his eyes and felt them watering up.

Damian knew that he could never make up to Ravi for being responsible for losing his vision. And he also knew that in spite of that the man would still love him unconditionally.

That could be proven easily by the letters that he had written to him when he found out about his diagnosis…

All his father figures were here, suddenly he felt an internal strength he hadn't felt in a while.

#tw: cancer #tw // cancer #tw cancer #damian wayne #bruce wayne #dick grayson #alfred pennyworth #ravi #robin #batman #nightwing

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mrsalwayswrite · 4 years

Text

Say You’ll Stay- Chapter 2

Fury/Band of Brothers Crossover Fic

Here is the next chapter! Yay!

Warnings: Swearing, attempted sexual assault

Tag List: @happyveday @evelynshelby @god-of-dramatic-death-scenes @alwaysindecemberfeels

Series Masterlist // Next Chapter

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Dusk had fallen over the small town. A few stars peered down from the heavens already. Only a few clouds obstructed the moon and starlight. Thankfully the sounds of artillery fire had ceased. At least for now. There were no bird songs though, only the crickets that hid in the tall grass. Their symphony was better than gunfire though.

Carrying the heavy, water-laden wooden bucket, Anna carefully walked back up the dirt path from the river towards the building being used as a field hospital. The walk only took ten minutes but she was exhausted. Both from the unrelenting hours of work and lack of sleep. Not that this was unusual. Over the past year her body seemed to have adjusted to minimal sleep and excessive stress. It was her night off to actually sleep more than four hours, and her body practically screamed for her to hurry up and find her bed.

So focused on watching her footing along the muddy ground and trying to keep the water in the bucket, she failed to notice the soldier blocking the small path. It was only when his boots came into her view did she gasp and look up.

"Oh! You gave me such a fright." Her heart raced in her chest at the surprise. Soldiers did not normally come this way. The small creek was not worthy of note besides gathering water and washing things, if need be. It had been too cold for bathing or swimming, not that there was much time for either. She knew of a few that came down to try and find peace in the stillness of the smooth creek.

Yet there was something in the way the soldier stood looking at her, that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

"Apologies, Nurse Cooper. I saw you out here and it looked like you could use some help."

It took her a moment to recognize the soldier in the dimming light. It was a Private she had bandaged up from a gunshot wound, having only grazed his shoulder. A lucky shot for him. He had been trying to flirt with her as he sat bare chested before her, her hands cleaning his wound and wrapping a bandage around it. It was not until his free hand started tracing patterns down her back that she became wary of him. When she finished and stood up to leave, his hand slid down and cupped her ass momentarily. A sleazy wink was all the reaction he gave when she turned to look at him in surprise. She tried to avoid him after.

"Oh, I’m just fine. Thank you though." She tried to move around him, even stepping off the path into the tall, frost-covered grass.

His hands shot out, one to grab the handle of the bucket and the other to wrap around her small waist. "Come on, baby. Don't be like that. Let me help you."

"Let go of me, Private. I don’t need your help."

"You sure? I promise to take good care of you."

"Let. Go." She tried to step away but his grip on her only tightened.

He chuckled at her demand, trying to tug her closer. His thin lips, accentuated by the patchy beard on his face, curved up in a small smile like her resistance amused him. His ODs were even more filthy than her nurse’s uniform and she wondered when they last had been cleaned.

He was several inches taller than her, since she only reached about five feet and three inches...but she did not care. Her father had taught her to defend herself. Just as she reached for his hand, prepared to dislocate or break a finger clutching her waist, a voice called out.

"Anna?"

Looking up the path, she noticed Boyd standing there watching her with his hands in the pockets of his tan jacket and eyes narrowed at the soldier holding her. Beside him stood a young man, most likely someone from his crew.

"You alright, Anna?"

Before she could open her mouth, the Private still holding her spoke up.

"She's fine. Now fuck off."

Boyd shifted his eyes to stare at the Private, his jaw clenched. A long moment later his gaze locked back on hers. Hands in his pockets, he slowly started walking closer down the path, his companion trailing hesitantly but obediently. "Anna, we were waiting on you. Don sent me out to find you cause we promised to wait to eat till you came. If we don't hurry on, pretty sure Grady is gonna to start without us and Lord knows there won't be any food left then."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she played along, putting both hands back on the handle of the bucket, "I had to help sew up someone's hand."

Boyd smirked then pointedly looked at the Private with a dead glare. "Somewhere you supposed to be?"

The Private's hand tightened painfully on her waist, clutching her in an almost possessive way. She winced, wondering if it would bruise. The two men glared at one another, the tension in the air palpable. Anna could not help but hold her breath, hoping a fight was not about to break out. That would just be the icing on the cake for how her day had been going.

Finally, he pulled his arm back from around her and let go of the bucket's handle. All the while, his eyes met Boyd's head-on, ignoring her as if she was only a piece of scenery. "She ain't worth it." He spat out.

He started to move away but at the last minute, he knocked the wooden bucket so it sloshed the water, spilling at least half down the front of her thin coat and dress. Without looking back, he continued back up the path, ignoring both Boyd and his companion.

"Shit." She mumbled, staring down at her wet clothes. The worst part was she would have to drudge back to the river to fill the bucket back up again. The first hint of tears filling her eyes came, and she covered her face with one hand, willing the tears to vanish. There was no time for that. She was fine. She had to be. She was just so damn tired.

"Give'er here." Boyd gently took the bucket from her hand and handed it to his young brunet companion. A slight nod and the younger man hurried down the path, disappearing through the tall bushes. "You alright? Did he hurt you?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I had it handled." She snapped, the residual fear and anger getting the best of her. All she wanted to do was rest but now, she wondered if her mind would even let her.

His eyebrows rose, thick moustache twitching. "Really? My apologies for interferin’ then. Norman and I will just be on our way."

"Wait, no. I'm sorry. That was rude. I just…and then he...I…" Embarrassed, she covered her face with her hands, taking a few, deep breaths. Her emotions felt like a tornado threatening to overtake her. Anger, frustration, exhaustion, hopelessness and fear swirled within; tears gathered in the corners of her eyes but she quickly wiped them away. She crossed her arms over her chest, the cold from the water soaking her coat beginning to slip under her skin.

Boyd faced her, one hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. Did he hurt you though?"

"No. He...um, he had just approached me."

He seemed to weigh her words before grunting an affirmative, his head swiveling back up to look down the path towards the river. "When did you last eat?"

"What?" She looked up at him in confusion, a shiver rattling her. If it was from the cold or adrenaline, she was unsure.

He smirked, looking back at her, with kind brown eyes. "When did you eat?"

"Um…" It was embarrassing how she had to rack her brain for that answer. Apparently she took too long because Boyd shook his head and interrupted her thoughts.

"That settles it. You're coming with us."

"Wait, what?"

The younger man appeared, carrying her bucket, a shy smile on his boyish face.

"Norman, this is Nurse Anna Cooper. Anna, this is Norman." Boyd quickly introduced, hands back in his jacket pockets. "She's gonna eat with us."

"Oh, ok. What about…?" Norman glanced down at the full bucket.

Anna answered, holding back tears once more that she did not have to trek back down to the creek. "I have to take it back... to the hospital."

"Right. Let's go." Boyd walked beside her; Norman followed, still carrying the bucket.

Her mind struggled to understand what all had just transpired in the last few minutes but if war had taught her anything, it was to roll with the punches and keep moving.

Anna pushed open the back door to the make-shift hospital, the immediate warmth bringing a small smile to her face. Nurse Falk stood in the back room, tending to the fireplace.

"What took ya so long, girl, I almost sent Evelyn to find ya…" Nurse Falk began when she heard the door open, but when she turned around to see Anna standing inside with the two soldiers escorting her, her mouth snapped shut. Immediately, her piercing gaze pinned Anna to her spot, making her shift uncomfortably.

"Ah, they… um, they helped me." Anna started, unsure what she wanted to say.

"Evenin', ma'am." Boyd took over, giving the middle-aged woman a respectful nod. "I met Anna earlier today and when I saw her gathering the water, I offered to help."

"That's mighty kind of ya, sir." Nurse Falk stated, though her tone only held a smidgen of actual appreciation. The head nurse was harsh and ran her hospital with a firm whip but she looked out for her girls, especially when it came to men sniffing around them.

"It's no problem. We'll get outta your hair. If s'alright, Anna is gonna come eat with me and my crew. Said she couldn't remember when she last ate."

Anna averted her eyes, picking at her nails as she could feel the anger in the head nurse's gaze.

"Mmm...that's kind again of ya to offer but…"

"I swear on the Lord's holy book, I won't let nothin' happen to her. We're just going to eat. I'll make sure she's back in an hour."

Nurse Falk pursed her lips, swiping her graying hair off her forehead. "Anna?"

The redhead glanced at her matron and silently nodded.

"Alright. One hour." Nurse Falk held up one finger to emphasize. Then her eyes seemed to take in Anna's mess. "Christ, girl. Why in the blue blazes are ya wet?"

"I spilled the bucket."

"Mmm, well take ya coat off. Ain't doing no good now. Hang it near the fire, then off with ya. One hour, ya hear me."

Anna followed her instructions, hanging her thin coat on a peg near the fireplace, having formed a small puddle where she had been standing. As she finished that, she could see the younger man- Norman- handing the bucket to the head nurse.

Next thing she knew, she was walking through the devastated town, Boyd on her left and Norman on her right. A chill swept through on the evening breeze, raising goosebumps on her exposed skin. She wrapped her arms around herself, her damp dress seeming to hold onto the cold air greedily. She wondered if the two would have waited for her to change clothes, but it was too late now. She had not realized how much water soaked into her dress until she took her coat off.

"Here." Norman shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over her shoulders.

"Oh no, it's …"

Boyd interrupted her. "I was 'bout to give you mine if he didn't. Can't have you catching a chill out here."

"But…"

"Just say thank you."

She shot a glare at Boyd who smirked, keeping his gaze forward. Rolling her eyes, she quietly thanked Norman, who smiled shyly. Honestly, the extra layer felt heavenly, it was just enough to keep the chill out and she hoped to help dry her dress out. Norman was only three or four inches taller than herself so his jacket was not too huge on her shorter frame. Arms in the sleeves, she wrapped her arms in front of her to keep the jacket somewhat closed. It smelled of sweat, gunpowder and gasoline. Nothing too unusual from the rest of the war. At least it did not smell like blood. She was thankful for that.

As they walked, Boyd talked about how they were a tank crew and briefly mentioned each of its members. His voice became a background noise amidst the sounds of renewed artillery fire, shouting orders, and vehicles moved around. A few times they had to stop to wait for a truck to pass or a squad of soldiers. Twice catcalls followed as they passed, not that she really paid attention to that anymore but after what just happened with the Private, it made her tense.

"Don't you pay any attention to them." Boyd commented quietly, moving slightly closer nonetheless.

Finally, they arrived at a brick building, a large chunk missing out of one of its corners. It looked like a giant had taken a swing at the building and clipped its corner causing a hole. A few soldiers relaxed on the main floor, smoking or sleeping. A couple of them turned to watch the three enter but no one said anything. Boyd quickly ushered her up the stairs to the second floor and an adjacent room from the creaky, wooden stairs.

"Bible, where the fuck you…"

A man's harsh voice abruptly ceased after Boyd pulled her through the door behind him.

A single lamp was alight in the corner, casting shadows over the abandoned bedroom and its three occupants, waiting for their companions' return. A small gasp escaped her but before she could turn around and run out the door, questioning the wisdom of her blindly following someone she met once, Boyd gripped her upper arm.

"This here is Nurse Anna Cooper. I invited her to eat with us, so you heathens show some respect."

Silence hung heavy in the room. She wondered if she should back out, if this was a mistake. Why did she come here? Scanning the room, she realized the silence lingered because everyone was staring at one of the occupants in particular. Almost as if waiting for his permission. When she looked his way, she noticed him staring at her, eyes slightly squinted. Something within her rose up and she met his gaze without wavering. She was exhausted, honestly the thought of food had made her realize how ravenous she was and she liked Boyd, his presence was comforting and peaceful. So far, he had not given her any creepy vibes. If this...man who clearly was in charge wanted her to leave, he was going to have to say it. She was just too damn tired to care for pleasantries. A shudder shot through her as her body attempted to absorb the warmth in the room, making her tremble slightly. She tugged Norman’s jacket tighter around herself.

The man looked just as weary as she felt. A scar on his cheek along with dirt and grime scattered across his handsome face made her wonder when he last enjoyed the luxury of bathing. His hair cut was odd, with it practically shaved on the sides and long on top. His eyes held an intelligence and determination she had rarely seen before. As his sky-blue eyes met hers, a slight shiver went down her spine. Not from fear, but attraction and a strange desire for his approval, surprising her through the haze of exhaustion. Which later she really should reprimand herself for. This was war, there was no time for attraction and romance. Wait, when did she start thinking about romance? A slight blush rose to her cheeks. She barely knew this man. Her friend back home would be laughing at her if she could read her mind right now. Christ, she must be more exhausted than she thought.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he gave a brief nod then looked over to only non-white man in the room. "We got extra?"

The stout man's eyes bounced back and forth between her and the other man- obviously their commander- before smiling. "Yeah, yeah. We got enough for la mamacita."

The commander met her gaze once more with a tight-lipped smile.

What had she gotten herself into? Who was this man?

*****

What in the fuck was Boyd thinking bringing a girl like her here?

Don watched as she sat between Boyd and Norman on the ground, head bowed and eyes closed as Bible led them in a quick prayer over their dinner.

She certainly was a pretty little thing. Auburn hair that was tied in a bun on the nape of her neck, a few strands hanging out around her face. Rich blue eyes like sapphires that seemed to take in everything at once when she entered the room. A button nose over soft lips, the bottom lip slightly fuller. What caught him was how tiny she was. Yes, she was certainly on the shorter end, but from what he could tell how Norman's jacket hung off her and her dress, she would normally be slender but now she looked far too skinny. He wondered if this was why Boyd brought her. It seemed meals were not a regular occurrence for her. Nor rest, if the dark circles under her eyes were any indicator.

Everyone quickly began to dig into the food they had managed to scavenge. Gordo and Norman had found some unspoiled apples, making sure everyone had at least one. They split the better parts of the C rations and two cans of beans they also found. Don knew he should inquire as to where Gordo and Norman found the food but with the pleased looks of his crew, he chose not to. Plausible deniability and all that.

"So, you're a nurse, huh?" Gordo broke the ice, munching on his third apple.

She jumped slightly as if surprised someone had spoken to her or had been lost in thought. "Yes."

"That how you met Boyd, huh? You at the hospital?"

"I cleaned up his hand."

"Uh huh...so how you end up here? That was hours ago that he went to get his hand fixed."

Don knew Gordo was searching for something, even if his question and tone seemed casual. Not that his own mind had not been repeatedly asking the same question. He had sent out Boyd and Norman to check on Fury one last time and had returned with this girl.

Fucking hell.

She tugged Norman's jacket tighter around herself almost subconsciously but before she could open her mouth, Boyd answered.

"Ran into her outside the hospital and asked her to join us. It's nice to be around pleasant company every once and awhile instead of you complainers."

That got Gordo jokingly riled up, even Grady threw out a comment.

Don just smiled, taking a bite out of his apple, sitting between Boyd and Gordo. This crew, he considered family. They were his brothers. He glanced over at Anna and noticed her suddenly tensed, tucking her legs beneath her. Norman and Gordo were arguing over what tasted the worst in their C rations. Boyd just laughed along. It was then he noticed what was making her so uncomfortable. Grady was leering at her, a dopey smirk on his face.

"Grady, knock it off."

Coon-Ass looked up at him, not in the least bit phased at being caught. "What?"

"I said, knock it off."

"Shit. Ain't hurting no one."

Don just glared at him until he huffed and muttered something under his breath, suddenly finding the can of beans extremely interesting in his lap.

Whatever food was placed in front of her, she quickly ate. Although if it was due to nerves or actually hunger, that was still up in the air. Don caught Boyd a few times sliding some of his own food her way. She would give him a look but he just ignored her, nudging her until she ate it. The whole time she kept herself wrapped up in Norman's jacket tighter than a ball of yarn.

Don had a few questions for his gunner once she left.

As the food disappeared amongst the group, he watched her eyes grow more and more heavy. A couple times, unsuccessfully, trying to hide a yawn.

"I should get going." She mumbled out, unsteadily getting to her feet. Slipping off the jacket, she gave it back to Norman with a quiet thanks.

Boyd jumped to his feet. "I'll walk you back."

"No, it's ok."

"Anna…"

"I'm fine." She snapped then winced. "I'm sorry, I just...if Doctor Erickson thinks I'm fraternizing…"

"It's alright."

"I'll see you tomorrow morning." Her gaze skimmed over the group quickly. "Thank y’all for letting me join you. It was a pleasure to meet y’all."

Before she could walk out, Boyd stopped her, his hand on her arm, voice low but not enough for the others to not catch his words. "You go down to the river again; you find one of us. Or for anything, yeah?"

She nodded then ducked out, leaving silence in her wake.

"Care to explain what that was about?"

Boyd ran a hand over his mustache before speaking. "Nothing, Don."

"Didn't seem like nothing." Gordo stated, already laying on the floor with his eyes closed. "She's pretty. Real pretty. I think Bible was thinking with his…"

"Gordo, you say another word and I'm going to shut your mouth for you." Boyd threatened, glaring at his crew mate. Grady and Gordo just laughed.

Don watched on silently. A picture of what happened formed in his mind. It was obvious Boyd was protecting her from something. "Norman," he looked over at the kid who he considered a younger brother, "what happened?"

The kid glanced from Don to Boyd and back, clearly hesitant to share whatever it was Boyd was hiding.

"Go on, Norm. S'alright." Boyd slid down the wall to take a seat.

"Well, we are walking, see, Bible and I heard a commotion. There was this Private who had her…" His voice dropped off.

"It's alright, son." Don turned from Norman to Boyd. "And the eating?"

"She couldn't remember when she last ate."

"Fuck." Don whispered; he could already see the determined look in Boyd's eyes. He had found a stray he planned on taking care of while here. Don sometimes wished Boyd relaxed like the other soldiers- drinking, smoking and women. Boyd "Bible" Swan was a good man, too good for those around him. Instead, he would find something usually to nurture, a stray dog or cat, and while they were in whatever hell hole they were in, until the next orders came, he would take care of his stray. This time...it seemed to be this nurse.

"Get some sleep. We'll be getting our orders tomorrow." Don said, moving to lay on his back. He could hear the others moving around, getting settled on the hard, wooden floor. His hopes of finding beds for his crew came to naught but at least they had a roof over their heads and floor space to stretch out. Though he did have to commandeer the space from a couple of Privates who were all but almost asleep. A sharp remark and a couple kicks to get them on their feet and out the door did the trick though.

Closing his eyes, he hoped sleep would find him quickly and without dreams or nightmares. His mind though kept revisiting a pair of sapphire eyes that met his own in such silent strength, he had almost chuckled at the time.

#Fury movie #fury 2014 #fury fanfic #band of brothers #Band of Brothers fandom #band of brothers fanfic #Don Collier #Don Wardaddy Collier #don collier x OFC #boyd bible swan #boyd swan #Trini Gordo Garcia #Grady Coon-Ass Travis #Norman Machine Ellison #mzwrites

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angrylizardjacket · 4 years

Text

Run to Paradise {Nikki Sixx} Part 33

33. it is the nature of dreams to end

Summary: nikki goes to tommy’s wedding and doesn’t come home, and lola’s left waiting, waiting, waiting.

Warnings: heroin use, overdose, angst, hospitals, ANGST

ragtag bunch of misfits: @starlalove @toofasttofallinlove @xrosegoldwolfx @obsessivesky @lovehelpmewrite @marvelismylifffe @lilytalebi @glitterdreamsz @freddiessmallnipples @crazysaladchopshop @dramatique-moi @calspixie @aryssav @catsoo12 @sweetshutter @silvertonguedserpent @shamelessobsessions @lavenderbones22 @keepcalm-and-beyou @scarecrowmax @nicholeh7 @unknownoblivion @sighsophiia @fruitinthebottom @misscharlottelee @local-troubled-writer @redlipscrystalskies14 @kaitieskidmore1 @the-specific-oceans

{ MASTERLIST }

"Why do we even have to go?" Nikki asked, a week before Tommy's wedding, sounding altogether petulant. He's on the floor of the bedroom, propped up against the bed with his bass in hand, despite one of it's strings being snapped, and Lola's reading through a stack of tabloids, looking a little like death warmed up, a bucket beside her.

"You're his best man, baby," Lola says gently, awkwardly trying to slump across the bed and pet Nikki's hair without making herself more nauseous, "and he's still our best friend." She reminds him.

This moment, in hindsight, will stand out; Nikki unable to stand, on the brink of what they both fear, losing Tommy forever. Nikki's hoping to all but black out for the entire ceremony and make an Irish exit, and Lola's more likely to be carted to the hospital than make to the venue with the state she's in. But Lola will remember this moment, like a freeze frame when she's laying catatonic on the bed a week later, and Nikki's shaking her, telling her to get up, that the car's waiting for them, but Lola can barely blink, can only remember 'and he's still our best friend'.

Letting Nikki go alone was cruel, she realises too late. Yelling at him when he's trying to drag him out of bed and her limbs aren't cooperating was childish, she's aware. The words spilling from her, the fears, the honesty, it's too raw by half, selfish in the face of Nikki's obvious aching, but she can't help herself now.

"Will you be here when I get back?" Nikki asks, voice rough and raw, and tears spring to Lola's eyes when she realises what he's asking. She's laughing, laying on the floor, limbs akimbo from where he's tried to drag her, sounding almost crazed, feeling nauseous.

"You're all I need, right?" She said, struggling to prop herself up on her elbows.

"Lo," Nikki's voice is painfully gentle, and Lola feels the nausea rise beginning to bubble up in her stomach, blanching. "Lola," Nikki sinks to his knees, trying to scoop Lola up, but too weak to pick her up; instead, he pulls her to her feet.

"I'll be here, Niks, I promise," Lola murmurs, voice weak as he lowers her back onto the bed. The car outside honks again.

"You and me against the world, right?" Nikki presses his nose to her cheek in a familiar gesture, kissing her temple after a beat. Lola's voice is a reassuring murmur, stronger than it had been a moment ago. Nikki sways when he leaves, but he's managing a smile. Lola passes out.

She doesn't notice time passing.

She doesn't notice the dates changing.

She doesn't notice Nikki's missing, because for her, it feels like just this morning that she'd seen him. She's waiting for him to get home, wasting away, on a day that actually lasts almost a week, dry heaving when there's nothing else to throw up, living her life in limbo, never quite awake, never quite asleep.

The phone rings for eighteen minutes straight, the same caller over and over again, the night Nikki dies, and Lola doesn't pick up. Curled up on the floor, shivering, delirious, dehydrated, having all but starved herself from inactivity, Lola looks as though she's on death's door, and when Vince bursts in, he almost collapses at the sight.

"Lo, baby, please, Lola, Lola," he begs, crawling to her, already crying from the news of Nikki, "please, Lo, please I can't lose you too, fuck." Her pulse is weak, but he's alive, and the EMTs are on their way as he cradles her to his chest.

"Nikki," her voice is hoarse, her eyes cloudy; all she can see is the warmth of someone by her side, and Vince's sobbing stops dead at her words, "I'm sorry for... for what I said. I'm sorry I made you go," She asks, head fuzzy, all she can remember, "he's still our best friend, but I know it's hard." She says gently, and Vince holds her tighter, the realization crashing down around him as he cries loud and unashamed.

The EMTs take Lola to hospital, and Vince is by her side the entire way, in the back of the ambulance, holding her hand as the confusion starts to bring her back to reality.

Nikki's dead and Lola's dying and Vince is desperately trying to hold himself together.

"Sweetheart, you're gonna be okay," Vince tells her, running his fingers through her knotty, greasy hair, her eyes trained on her face, trying to see her as he remembers her, but only seeing the shell of who she used to be, hollowed out and confused.

"Vinny?" She finally recognizes him as they're pulling into the emergency room entrance, and then, as the EMTs are unloading her on the gurney, she's torn away from Vince, fear gripping her as she finds herself surrounded by unfamiliar people, "Vinny, am I dying?! Vinny! Vinny don't let me die again!" And she's suddenly struggling enough that she has to be sedated, and Vince is being made to wait in the waiting room, crying his eyes out.

Lola's alternating between begging the nurses not to let her die, and demanding to see Nikki. They all give her pitying looks, but won't tell her the truth; the don't know who she is, no-one recognises her anymore.

They're detoxing her, rehydrating her where her kidneys had shut down, and yet, have her under more sedatives than any person should reasonably have. It's enough to keep her quiet, to add cannulas to her arms and hands for various medications, and for Vince to sit by and watch in despair as Lola clings with desperately trembling fingers, to life.

"And you are?" The nurse who comes in is frowning at him, and Vince, who'd been staring at Lola with faint tear tracks on his cheeks, steels himself, wipes his eyes, and stands to greet her.

"Her, uh, I'm her -" he hesitates for a moment, glancing briefly at the clipboard she was holding firmly to her chest, "fiancé," he tries not to make it sound like a question, but the nurse nods and seems to accept it easily, "is she gonna be okay?"

"You're the one who made the call, aren't you? Mister Neil, correct?" The nurse's smile widens a fraction, the frown adorned on her brow smoothing slightly. Vince nods, and the nurse looks back at her clipboard, "it's good you called us when you did; she was a bit touch and go for a moment there, but she's pulling through."

A pause.

"This is her second OD in the past six months," the nurse adds, flipping through her notes, but Vince's mouth goes dry, "but -" the nurse adds with what's meant to be a reassuring smile, "by some absolute miracle, there's so far no signs of complications with the baby." And it occurs to her, right around the next moment when Vince goes crashing to the ground in a dead faint, that he didn't even realise she was pregnant to begin with.

When Lola stirs during the night, Vince is there, his hand in her's, offering her reassurances as often as he can, begging her to pull through.

"Please, for my sake, for all of our sake, we need you to get through this," his voice in her ear keeps her grounded as she wades through the fog in her mind.

"Vinny," her feeble answer comes as only his name, before she's asking for Nikki, voice pitiful. Vince gives her hand a squeeze, and presses his face to her hip so she can't see him crying. After a moment, she groans in pain, and has already faded out of consciousness. the nurses have already figured out that Vince is lying about being her fiancé since Sharise shows up the next day, but they let him stay for a small bribe.

News of Nikki's recovery passes around quickly in the following few days, though since he's not about to leave Lola's side, it takes a while to reach Vince. News of Lola's own near-death experience, on the very same day, passes much slower. She's under longer, needs to be kept sedated because she's crying and screaming when Vince finally tells her about Nikki, and they need to make sure the baby's okay.

A Pair of Star-Crossed Lovers Almost Take Their Lives one tabloid reads, and so the idea that Nikki and Lola almost died together becomes the story that everyone knows. It becomes romanticised, to live and die the glam rock lifestyle together, it almost becomes something to aspire to.

But Nikki doesn't know.

He's released, and goes home to an empty house, to the sight of the bedroom empty and messy from where the EMTs had rushed her away. He calls Tommy first, who just about has a heart attack to hear Nikki's voice, before tentatively asking 'you don't know?'

So he goes back to the hospital.

It's been three days.

Mick is in the waiting room, arms crossed, wearing sunglasses, everyone else giving him a wide berth. Apart from Sharise, who sits one seat away, playing with Skylar, trying to keep her spirits up. Mick nods towards the front desk.

"Lola Gone?" Nikki asks her name tentatively, voice hoarse. The nurse looks at him like she's seen a ghost, but directs him to Lola's room.

Through the window to the private room, he sees Vince holding Lola's hand, looking unkempt and exhausted, speaking quietly to her while she lays unconscious in the bed. After a moment, his gaze flicks to the door, and he does a double take seeing Nikki staring at him, at Lola, looking like death warmed up.

Vince stands, lets Lola's hand fall to the bed, walking towards the door with an unreadably shocked expression. Opening the door, it's immediately apparent that he hasn't showered in three days, but it doesn't matter.

"What happened?" Nikki croaked as Vince took in his appearance. After a beat, he lashes out, punching Nikki square in the jaw, before wrapping him in a hug, all the anger and fear and tension from the past three days manifesting in the simple contact.

"You fucking asshole," Vince sniffs quietly, "you fucking asshole, don't ever fucking die like that again."

"I'm sorry," comes Nikki's startled response, still not hugging Vince back.

"She waited for you, you bastard, you absolute fucking bastard, she waited for you and it almost killed her."

"What- what do you mean?" Nikki stepped back, pushing Vince gently from him. The singer wiped at his eyes, trying to keep his thinly veiled rage in check.

"She still thinks it's the day of Tommy's wedding," he said flatly, turning back to watch her through the door, "something's wrong in her mind, man, she didn't eat or drink anything, just..." he swallowed hard, "just shot up and waited for you to come home. Now she's all doped up on pain meds and shit; you're fucking lucky."

"Is she okay?" Nikki asks, stumbling to the door.

"Yeah," Vince tells him, arms crossed, scowling at Nikki, "and so's the kid."

Nikki's mind short-circuits at that, and he pushes open the door to see Lola's body prone, quiet apart from the beeping of her heart monitor. Tears well in his eyes as he steps forwards and Vince's words hit him. Touch gentle, his fingertips brush her ankle, up her leg, coming to rest on her stomach. He can feel the ache of death in his bones still, but the ice-cold fear of Lola's catatonic state overrides everything else.

"Lo?" His voice cracks a little as his other hand comes up to rest on the top of her head, "Lola?" He asks, lip trembling. He moves his hand to brush her cheek, and he hears the faintest groan. Lola's eyes open, just a crack, and he sees her lips stretch into the faintest smile.

"Home," she whispers, voice dry, "you're home." All she sees is him. "I told you I'd be here." She licks her lips, though her tongue is still dry. Nikki can't form words, just rest his forehead against Lola's as he tries to hold back his tears. With a gentle hum, Lola leaned into the contact, "knew Vince was a fuckin' liar; told me you'd- you'd-" her words failed her, and Nikki pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Right here, Lo, I promise," he couldn't keep the wobble from his voice, "sorry I took so long." He tried, and Lola laughed softly.

"Felt like no time at all," she told him honestly, and Nikki clenched his teeth so hard they almost cracked as he held her close.

"Lo, Vince is saying you're having a kid," Nikki says quietly, and Lola laughs, loud and bright, the first strong sound he'd heard since arriving.

"That's news to me," she snorted, and oh, Nikki realized, it really was news to her. He keeps his mouth shut, trying to figure out his thoughts before he breaks down from relief.

Lola scoots over. An invitation. Nikki joins her, still wearing his shoes, carefully navigating her various IVs, and wraps his arm around her shoulders to pull her wiry, malnourished frame to his. She's not right in her current state, won't remember anything he's saying, won't remember herself, will doze off and probably be a blank slate, but he can't help himself.

"It hurts to die, Lo," he admits, feeling the ache in his bones, in every fiber of his being.

"I know," Lola tells him, eyes closed, leaning against him, "I hope you never have to go through it." She tells him, far too knowingly, and gingerly wraps an arm around him. "How was the wedding?"

"I don't remember," Nikki swallows, parsing all the new information she'd just given him.

Very suddenly, and with a painfully sober mind for the first time in years, Nikki sees Lola for who she is, brittle and fragile, clinging to him for safety in a sea of uncertainty; their fears and feelings had fed into each other, and they'd dragged each other down... He'd dragged her down; she'd been doing well, had been managing the band with a surprising amount of success, taking care of business and herself in the wake of the revelations about her family, she'd been trying.

"I did this to you," he whispered in horror; he could feel the bones of her shoulder where there had always been hard muscle for as long as he'd known her. How long had he stopped paying attention that that had changed? "I broke you, didn't I?"

"No," she yawns, voice calm and dreamy as she's nestling against him, "'s my fault, baby." She tells him almost reflexively, like she hadn't even had to think about the words she so clearly believed. Somewhere in the back of her drugged up mind, her mother's poisonous rhetoric still plays loudly it seemed.

"I'm sorry -"

"Don't be."

"We're gonna get help, Lo; all of us, we're gonna get help," Nikki gives her a squeeze, "we're gonna at least fuckin' try. I can't believe I did this to you, I'm so-"

"Don't say it," Lola tells him, before yawning. Nikki keeps his mouth shut. Sharise, Mick, and Vince all peer through the window at them, wearing identical concerned looks on their faces. Nikki gives a nod. A confirmation.

"I miss..." Lola whispers quietly, much later that night, her mind substantially clearer and calmer, and Nikki takes a deep breath, trying to stave off his exhaustion, "I miss who I was before," Lola considers for a moment, her head on Nikki's shoulder, "before Nicole. Before Heather." She paused, "I miss that shithole we used to live in, just the two of us."

"Just the two of us? Not even Vince and Tommy?"

"They're not... I love them, but... I don't think I ever said it, but I never loved anyone back then half as much as I loved you; you know I tried dating so many people, but... but I liked just being around you more than anything else, you know? Us fucking around, I miss us. I miss how we used to be." She paused, "I don't feel anything anymore, not really, just... sad, I guess, sad when I think too hard about everything. I don't know who I am anymore."

"I know," Nikki finally muttered back, "at least when I was angry and scared I was feeling something; some sick part of me is glad I died, 'cos at least then I... I felt something. I'm just hollow now, Lo, just going through the motions... maybe that's why I like Tommy, 'cos he's genuine, still cares about shit."

"Still genuine," Lola agreed quietly, before adding, "I'm sorry I made you go to the wedding."

"I'm sorry I didn't come back for so long."

"Mom always said if I did what I was told, if I was good, dad wouldn't leave," Lola told Nikki, they both know he knew this already, "and I think... I think with Tommy getting married, and Doc leaving - sort of - if I just... if I just did as I was told, you wouldn't leave."

"I didn't."

"I wasn't in my right mind... I haven't been in my right mind for a while." Lola took a deep, shaky breath, "we really do need help, don't we?"

#nikki sixx #nikki sixx imagine #nikki sixx x oc #Vince Neil #vince neil imagine #the dirt #the dirt imagine #motley crue #motley crue imagine #mick mars #the angry lizard writes

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very-grownup · 3 years

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THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 12

Episode 24.

It seems very unfair of us to watch Dorohedoro after Evangelion, because each episode of the former concludes by telling us things we've learned. I feel like all I've learned from Evangelion is "fuck the colour orange".

This is also the episode where I cursed that the episode length of Devilman Crybaby and Madoka didn't sync up with Evangelion so we never got the power trifecta of 'my first homoerotic teenage nihilist crush'.

The actual episode report under the cut.

So, so, so after last week's upsetting underground tang aquarium of Reis adventure the series remembers to check in on the super-traumatized Asuka (which is more than the adults within the series do). We get a greyscale small child Asuka running down an orange (bad) corridor. She's excitedly telling her mother about how she's been chosen to pilot a giant robot and protect humanity and it'll be with other kids and she won't be alone and won't need to depend on her father or anyone else and the excited child shots keep cutting to an ominous door. Eventually the door opens enough to show the red behind it and, knowing what we know from the Asuka episode a few weeks back, you can interpolate pretty easily and upsettingly what opening door onto solid red means.

There's a fight between Shinji and Asuka that we're catching the climax of, with thrown and shattered mugs, and Asuka calling Shinji a liar and Shinji apparently reiterating that fuckin' Kaji is gone (I can't tell if he's trying to tell her Kaji is dead or just that he’s bailed on them).

Misato's gotten notice from Seele, the obelisk council, that the Fifth Child is being sent to replace Asuka and Misato recognizes something hinky is going on and senses conspiracy which is ... pretty reasonable at this point. I'd also be seeing conspiracies everywhere. I wouldn't know what they meant or even whose conspiracies they were, but I'd definitely suspect multiple conspiracies going on if literally anything new happened.

Asuka, naked, maybe bloody? in a bathtub in a destroyed apartment with the ceiling crumbling down. Her eyes are vacant and her cheeks are hollow and she's mumbling about her sync rates falling. It's weird and haunting and the building is as destroyed and non-functional as Asuka. Someone from NERV finds her and it turns out Asuka's been missing for a fucking /week/ in this destroyed city and they've only just found her since I guess she ran away after her fight with Shinji and you know it's at least partially because they don't care about finding her. NERV barely cared about Asuka back when she could get in the robot, they absolutely don't care about her now and it's unclear who, if anyone, is responsible for her since fuckin' Kaji's death. Is there even law in Tokyo 3?

My point is, everything is falling apart in the structure of the show and the world within it and the first ball to truly get dropped and broken is the used up and now valueless teenage girl and it's heartbreaking.

Things are getting so real that Misato is /sending Penpen away/ for his own safety and I'm glad Misato cares about Penpen but I wish Misato could find it in her to care about, say, Asuka (Misato is a fuck up and trying her best, but at the end of the day she's still a fuck up). Is Misato the best adult in the series or is she actually the worst adult in the series because she recognizes how she is failing but fails to take action to correct her failures? As a viewer I can't be disappointed in Gendo because he's shit and I have no expectations of him. But I love Misato and so it hurts more when she lets me down and by this point she is letting me down HARD (but I suppose Misato disappoints herself).

Shinji is also in a bad place and he's contemplating the orange tang wreckage of the city and how the small thread of normalcy has gone now that everyone's evacuated. Shinji misses his friends who ... hoo boy.

The one Shinji last saw in the hospital after nearly killing him via giant robot and the other he last heard calling him to tell him how much he sucked for not wanting to pilot a giant robot. It's sad that those two are as close to friends as Shinji has had.

Shinji desperately wants to talk to someone right now about, you know, the /underground tang aquarium full of Reis/ which it seems to be implied is a result of forbidden science experiments combining Adam Trevor flesh with the remains of Shinji's mother? No one SAYS it but yes?

So Shinji can't talk to Rei about this because he feels weird about the whole thing. Asuka's missing. His friends, such as they were, are gone. The poor kid just needs someone to talk to, to confide in, and he asks Asuka, Misato, and his mother, in that order, for help. Are all women ultimately mother for him? Rei, Misato, and Asuka all got conflated when he was absorbed into the EVA which were all part of an ur-mother thing so ... maybe? I don't know. Probably nobody knows. Shinji certainly doesn't know.

Then Shinji's thoughts are interrupted by Akira Ishida humming "Ode to Joy" (gorgeous piece of music, loved it since I was a little girl) and Akira Ishida is here! Things are not going to get more sensical when Akira Ishida just appears in your anime.

So this is Kaworu, who is sitting on some picturesque rubble jutting out from the orange tang, and he's the replacement EVA pilot. His hobbies are having mysteriously deleted records, perching on things, knowing about Shinji, and talking deep and cryptic, but in a friendly way.

AT SOME POINT IN THIS EPISODE Gendo talks to Shinji's EVA and refers to it by his dead wife's name and is glad the spear of Longinus is on the moon, actually, because with it on the moon it can't stand in the way of their plans and Gendo has an eyeball in his palm.

The obelisk council have a meeting where they are once again berating and complaining about Gendo and it is unclear if they realize that Gendo's not there.

Misato is pretty sure Kaworu is a spy or agent of some sort sent by the obelisk council and she and the dude NERV subordinate who's always around are trying to do some side snooping to figure out what his deal is.

Hey where's Ritsuko? Sitting on a chair in a black void telling Gendo about how her cat died and she didn't think about it at all for years until her grandmother called to tell her it was dead and now she's having feelings about it and Gendo doesn't care about symbolism. Gendo wants to know why Ritsuko destroyed the dummy plugs and Ritsuko is like, I didn't destroy the dummy plugs, I destroyed Rei which ... I don't know, I don't know, are we all operating at cross-purposes here Ritsuko? Are you and Gendo even having the same conversation?

Gendo's like ... is this because I stopped having sex with you? And ... maybe that conversation went further but I think my brain strangled itself rather than contemplate Gendo viewing sex with anyone as a favour he's doing them and one Gendo finds inconvenient (and gross at that).

Rei's having a time and as is often the case with Rei it's unclear what she thinks about what she's thinking? Rei seems like she's a cypher to herself more than she is to anyone else. Rei's maybe trying to figure out what her purpose in life is or who she's alive for? She thinks about Gendo's glasses and something's different with this Rei, I guess, compared to the other Reis. I think something's breaking down, like maybe each new Rei is less and less connected to Gendo? I don't know.

At some point, Rei encounters Kaworu and he's like oh hey, you're like me, I thought so! Maybe they're at NERV or on their way to NERV? Look, the budget ball got dropped with Asuka, this shit is getting impressionistic. So maybe Kaworu doesn't have any background for Misato to dig up because, like Rei, he's a construct from some weird genetic fuckery (I think Misato even compares his lack of background to Rei at one point) anyway he's like it's episode 24 time to drop Lilith references!

Why are you doing this to me, Akira Ishida? If I had one of those murder evidence string boards it would be such a mess right now as I tried to find room for /Lilith/.

Misato's reached the point of fuck it, let's just throw all the kids into the robots for tests and Kaworu is /suspiciously good at robot numbers/.

After robots, Shinji is just sort of hanging around when Kaworu exits ... something NERV-y and Shinji is awkward and shy and doesn't want to go home and needs to take a shower and Kaworu is ... intense and suggestive and friendly. So they shower together and then bathe together and there's, like, an entire wall in the baths that's dedicated to a screensaver slideshow of NERV propaganda and Kaworu just wants to talk to Shinji and get to know him and hold hands in the bath and it's obviously weird.

Shinji is so desperate for friendship and someone to talk to and you don't want to see conspiracy or shady shit here because at this point I just want something /good/ to happen to Shinji for once in this constant tragedy train of a show. Just let him have this weird friend who wants to talk to Shinji about his intimacy issues and how his fear of being alone makes him keep to himself and causes the aloneness because chosen aloneness is better than risking connection and getting rejection. So probably the biggest red flag about Kaworu is that he's talking to Shinji about the things Shinji is concerned about without any overt robot-centric motives.

Then Kaworu invites himself over for a sleepover. Shinji takes the floor because of course he does and they talk more philosophy and fate and destiny and depression and Kaworu is intense and tells Shinji he likes him and no one has given Shinji even this crumb before.

The obelisk council has a meeting that isn't in the void but is over the tang craters of the ruined city and they're meeting with Kaworu because of course Kaworu is their construct of some sort being sent to ... something ... Gendo ... moons ... Lilith ... Adam ...

Misato is watching all of this from the highway through highspec binoculars and cursing that she can't read Kaworu's lips. She's looking at the back of his head, mind you. But I heard what Kaworu said and I don't fucking know, Misato, so don't feel bad.

Misato meets Ritsuko in the black void at some point and if I knew why in the moment I have since forgotten. I don't take notes. I just watch. Misato's angry, though and Ritsuko is just ... overcome with a sense of her own failure or maybe grief or anger at her inability to not repeat her mother's mistakes? There's definitely mom-stuff involved.

I'm aware that these reports are becoming longer and less coherent and also probably less interesting for people to read but once I decide to do a thing I do it. There's definitely a loss of narrative cohesion as the series nears its end, probably due to budget stuff.

It's an episode for people to talk to the EVAs in their giant hangers and Kaworu goes to have a chat with Asuka's robot where chat means 'starts floating and establishes some kind of mental link with the EVA and turns it on'.

In the NERV control centre everyone starts freaking out at the sudden activation of the EVA. IS IT ASUKA? they ask (no, she's shown to be barely conscious in a hospital bed, so someone's caring for her to some degree). NO PLUG, NO PILOT, JUST KAWORU'S PSYCHIC MANIPULATION.

Oh, and Kaworu's an Angel which means an Angel is now using an EVA to punch through ... NERV ... ground ... basement ... heading to where Adam Trevor is, the orange tang ocean, and that's really bad. If he/they succeed ... Third Impact?

Shinji's called in (and Misato hasn't talked to Shinji once about Kaworu even though the last time there was a new surprise EVA pilot it went ... poorly and, well, here we are now) and he's angry and sad and disbelieving (echoing Asuka's disbelief at the beginning). Shinji feels so /betrayed/ and he compares what Kaworu has done to his relationship with his father which is ... a lot to unpack. I suppose the friendship Kaworu offered is the most obvious affection Shinji has been offered by anyone. He wants affection and recognition from Gendo. But any affection, any seeing and noticing of him, must be like water in the desert to Shinji at this point, and if Gendo's greatest betrayal of Shinji's hopes was overriding his will to make Shinji nearly kill Tohji I guess Kaworu, the only character who's shown any interest in being Shinji's friend, being revealed to be an Angel, something Shinji /has/ to kill, is comparable. I'm sorry, Shinji.

Shinji fights Asuka's EVA, controlled by Kaworu, as they descend deeper and deeper into the bowels under NERV, the two EVAs locked into a very cool looking combat that Shinji doesn't want to be involved in, and Misato and her underling confirm plan SELF-DESTRUCT NERV.

"Ode to Joy" is playing throughout this. It feels very natural.

Kaworu gets to where Adam Trevor is, weird and white and bulgy, looking very pregnant and Adam Trevor is also Lilith and they are the parent of humanity while the Angels are maybe less tainted children of god and are siblings to the EVAs?

Shinji throws Asuka's destroyed EVA through the ... wall? into the orange tang ocean zone with Kaworu and Adam Trevor Lilith and since Shinji's the victor of that fight, he seizes Kaworu, who he still does not want to fight, let alone kill. Kaworu's calm about all of this, though. He's ready to die. He expects to die. He also is ready to live but he recognizes this is a situation where for one of them to survive, the other one can't, and he smiles and tells Shinji he wants Shinji to live.

There's once again a really excellent use of the budget and animation limitations the show was hitting at this point, as there's a long, still shot of Shinji's EVA holding Kaworu as "Ode to Joy" soars, the music the only sound for the static shot.

Then the screen flashes and a small shadowy shape sinks into the orange.

Gendo and Rei wear raincoats as blood is hosed off Shinji's EVA.

Shinji sits by Misato, devastated, and tries to express his feelings to her, express his grief and regret. Kaworu was a good person. Kaworu was his friend. Kaworu told Shinji he liked him and Shinji confirms that /no one has ever told him that before/. Shinji feels like he should have died instead of Kaworu. He felt awful about Tohji's near-death at his unwilling hands. Tohji wasn't even really his friend. His grief and culpability in his own loss here is ... huge. And all Misato can say is that Shinji did the right thing in killing his friend. She's the only adult who's been sometimes sympathetic to Shinji, who he's been forging a real connection with, but by this point she's had to deal with so much shit of her own that the fragile pseudo-parent-child relationship between them has shattered. Misato is just another adult who isn't hearing Shinji. He doesn't know why it's changed, he just knows she's telling him killing his friend was right. This concludes my report on Episode 24 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Edit: I know there was a lot of discussion and criticism when Netflix released their new dub and sub, particularly with respect to the line "worthy of his grace" and we can all agree, I think, that Netflix's subtitles are sloppy, their localization flawed. But regardless of the words used, it's clear that Kaworu offers Shinji everything he isn't getting from the rest of the world: affection, understanding, intimacy, a sense of being valued, a sense of safety. Love in whatever form, every form Shinji needs and wants.

I guess I wonder how genuine this offer of love is although I suppose it doesn't matter to Shinji because the betrayal happens, the universe punishes him for risking emotional intimacy, and Kaworu's sincerity doesn't change how awful Shinji is left feeling.

#neon genesis evangelion report #fuckin' kaji

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kilyra · 5 years

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Who Are You? (Part 1)

Klaus and Ben Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy) One-Shot **Parts 1-4 ARE AVAILABLE from the masterlist in my bio**

A/N: So, @pegxcarter developed her own OC with some ideas of a story for her, and has graciously let me play with this arc. I’m so, SO happy she approached me. It’s just too fun!

You are one of the other miracle babies and your gift is to heal which led you to a career as a paramedic. Everything went smoothly until you responded to a call for Klaus who was ODing and in rough shape.

Warnings: None. Spoiler-free and a minor swear word.

If you want to be on my tag lists, (all or just a character) just let me know!

Snapping your gloves on, you knelt beside the young man lying on the cold sidewalk. His breathing was shallow and his dark curls were pasted against his sweaty head. “Sir? Sir, my name is Y/n and I'm here to help you.”

He didn't respond and you weren't expecting him to. A small crowd had formed but the officer that first responded to the call already had everyone edged back. Looking up, you nodded at him. “Do we know what happened here?”

Not waiting for a reply, you slid your hands around the back of the man's head, carefully feeling his scalp and checking your hands for blood. Nothing. You continued your initial check down his body.

“No, the caller didn't see anything, but he's apparently around here regularly – usually strung out. She says his name is Klaus.”

His nose appeared to be broken and blood was splattered along his upper lip. Lance, your partner, frowned. "Well, it looks like he got his clock cleaned tonight too."

Prying his eyelids open, you shone your penlight into his eyes. His dilated pupils showed minimal response. Shifting up on one knee, you looked between the officer and your partner. “Looks like OD or possible brain damage. Or both. His vitals are weak, we need to get him to the hospital. We good to take him?”

After giving you the go-ahead, it was mere moments before he was strapped to the stretcher and being loaded into the back of the ambulance. As Lance slid behind the wheel, you braced yourself and continued to monitor Klaus.

He seemed slightly more responsive as his eyes started moving under his lids. Softly groaning between uneven breaths, an aura of pain seemed to settle around him. It tugged at you.

Glancing up, you made sure Lance was focused on driving after sorting out with dispatch which hospital to head to. Since they directed him to one across the city, it was going to be a long ride.

Staring down at Klaus as you checked his pulse again, the tugging at your heart grew more insistent. There was so much hurt and something you couldn't quite put your finger on. He seemed small somehow under the oxygen mask. Feeling the growing pull of your patient, you knew you were going to help him. Really help him.

You didn't do it often because you didn't want to draw too much attention, so if a patient was stable, you held back. But, in truth, you liked it. You liked helping people and getting them back on their feet as soon as you could. Only your version of soon was immediate.

It was a guarded secret in your family that, the morning of the day you were born, your mother wasn't pregnant. You were one of the 43 children born in October of 1989 and at a young age you discovered you could lay your hands on people and pull their injuries from them. It caused you to feel a phantom version of their pain as you healed them, but it passed. In your heart, you knew sharing their injuries was a small price to stop someone's suffering. Although you couldn't stave off death, you could mend broken limbs, close wounds and reverse other various damage to the body. It was definitely a perk for this profession.

Clearing your mind, you let out a long exhale as you gave your hands a quick shake. Taking another steadying breath, you set one hand on Klaus' cheek and the other on the bare skin of his hand. Focusing all your strength on him, you let your energy reach inside and pull his pain as you braced yourself. You were sure he at least had a concussion so this wasn't going to feel great.

A blinding white light of pain exploded as you felt the bridge of your nose crunch. Something was very wrong.

Grunting, you let go and stumbled before a floating feeling lifted you away. You were flying...but were you still in the ambulance? Everything seemed to loosen its grip as it melted away and you drifted.

What's an ambulance? Why did that matter when you just wanted to keep floating?

But you couldn't keep floating. You became aware of a sensation, something was radiating from your face, a warmth. No...no, it was cold. Didn't you hurt your nose? But the cold was above that, from your forehead.

And then the screaming started. But not yours.

People were all around you, insistently shrieking and yelling as they closed in. They blinked in and out, moving between transparency and solid forms, but all shouting at you. Squeezing your eyes closed did nothing to shut them out and your heart was pounding so hard you thought it might seize up. It was deafening...and horrifying.

Slowly, you realized they were all screaming the same thing. Klaus.

“Klaus, Klaus! Breathe. You're in the worst of it now...just try and stay calm.” A kind voice cut through the chaos, freeing you.

Struggling, you fought to open your eyes as the screaming faded. Sinking back into yourself, everything came into sharp focus as you gasped for air.

You were still hanging onto the side of the stretcher with your forehead pressed against its cold framework. Clumsily, you pulled your feet back under you, but everything was so hard. Your limbs were slow to respond. Were you high?

A muffled voice drew your attention. Following the sound, you looked up and saw Klaus staring down at you, wide-eyed. He glanced at the oxygen mask before he slipped his hand from under the strap and pulled the mask off to hang around his neck. “Are you okay?”

As he spoke, he reached for your arm. Watching his hand come closer, panic shot through you.

Throwing yourself back, you crashed against the side of the ambulance, sending supplies tumbling to the floor. “Don't touch me!”

Clutching his hand to his chest, Klaus froze as the ambulance swerved.

“What's going on? You okay, Y/n??” Alarm overtook Lance's tone.

Swallowing heavily, you fought to find your voice. “Y-yeah. W....we're all good back here, just keep driving.”

“You...you did your thing didn't you? But wasn't he stable?” His voice was softer.

“Just...just keep driving,” you said as you carefully used a small shelf to pull yourself to your feet. Everything was trembling so hard you didn't trust yourself to stand without help.

Turning his attention away from you, Klaus hissed. “What's going on? Why am I here?”

“You don't remember?”

Looking towards the new voice, you saw a young man with neatly kept hair, casually lounging at the end of the stretcher.

“I...I mean, do I really need to remember every little thing?” Cocking his head, Klaus scoffed.

“You got knocked out for being an asshole, that's what happened. And you were out so cold they had to call you an ambulance because they thought you might die.” The stranger sounded unimpressed as he tilted his head, mirroring Klaus.

“But why am I sober? I paid a lot of money to not be sober. And what was with...” He let his words dangle as he jerked his head your direction.

“That, I don't know. She just touched you and-”

“Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?” As you cut him off, his eyebrows slowly rose. In almost perfect unison, he and Klaus turned their stunned gazes onto you.

You felt weak, but you forced your confidence. “You can't be in here.”

Leaning forward, he narrowed his soft, brown eyes. “You can...see me?”

Fighting through the receding waves of fog, you realized your face was still throbbing with a dull pain. Reaching up, you pressed against your nose and found it was intact and fine. But as you rubbed your hand under your nostril you saw smeared blood on your fingers. "Yeah..."

“Wait, wait, wait. You can see him? Ben. That guy right there??” Klaus pressed the question, pointing to the stranger.

“The guy I didn't let in here? Of course I can...I...what's going on?” You rubbed the blood between your fingers and thumb. You've never bled from pulling an injury before. And you've never...whatever the hell happened, you'd never been through that before.

“I have no idea. No one else has been able to see me before.” Ben replied with a mix of confusion and excitement as you were looking down.

That voice...it was the same one that pushed all the screams away.

Snapping your gaze back up to him, something felt off. Looked off. Blinking rapidly, you tried to bring your eyes back into focus on Ben but it was like you were looking at him through a dirty window. And then he was gone.

“Where did he go?”

Turning to where you were facing, Klaus muttered under his breath before he shook his head and shrugged. You only caught the last few words. “No...I guess not..alright, alright, I'll ask.”

You rubbed your knuckles into your eyes as though that would somehow help. But it didn't.

“So...you don't see him anymore? But you did see him...right?” Klaus waved his arm, pointing between you and where Ben had been sitting,

Letting out a shuddering breath, you slowly had to force yourself to look back over at your patient still strapped to the stretcher. His eyebrows were pulled together as he openly stared at you, waiting for your reply.

“Who the hell are you?”

Klaus' eyes grew wide as his head bobbed back from your question. His dark-rimmed eyes closed to a hesitant squint as a grin grew. "Klaus, obviously. Better question is...who are you?”

**Parts 1 - 4 are available in the masterlist in my bio**

Taglist: @foreverfaeries @flower-two @getlostinyourparadise @w0nder-marie

This is the Diego list but I may do other TUA stuff, so please let me know if you JUST Diego from here on out so I don’t spam you. Thanks!! @actiongirl2005 @soul-of-a-traveller @blathena

#klaus hargreeves x reader #ben hargreeves x reader #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #who are you

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years

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An Ode to Payphones

“Mommy, what’s that?” I looked. A child was glaring suspiciously at the payphone I’d been using moments before. He looked to be six or seven-years old, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that he’d never seen or noticed a public telephone before, but still. The question, and the palpable disgust in his voice, made me feel old. “That’s a payphone, honey.” “What’s it for?” The mother cast an apprehensive look my way. We were on the platform at Spadina station and she’d seen me on the phone, plugging my ear against the shattering noise of a subway pulling in, making arrangements to meet my heroin dealer John at our usual spot at Main and Danforth. I would have to call him again when I got there, either from one of the four payphones inside Main Street station or on one of the two phones outside the church at Danforth. The phones inside Main Station must have all been routed through one line, because they either all worked, or none did.

As for the two phones outside the church at Main and Danforth, typically one was broken, but they both worked when I went to check them for this article, a miracle perhaps attributable to the Second Coming of Christ on the roof.

There have been long spells throughout my life as an addict during which I’ve had no mobile phone. Every spare cent went to heroin. The longest such spell was nearly a year. Several spanned three or four months. So it’s safe to say I know the payphones of Toronto as well as anybody else. One of my old heroin dealers lived near Roncesvalles and Howard Park, where a non-Bell phone sat outside the Meridian Bank on the northeast corner, crooked and somehow wounded looking.

There’s no trace of it now, but I know there used to be one just north, on the other side of the street where Dundas splits eastward from Roncesvalles. I used to use it all the time. Luckily, there’s another one not twenty steps east, a Bell, just outside the bus stop east of the Starbucks at Dundas and Roncesvalles. I’ve fed that phone a lot of Loonies, cursing its curious inability to recognize nickels or dimes.

My Roncesvalles dealer was notoriously unreliable, so I often found myself having to take the College car all the way across the city to its eastern terminus at Main Station. While waiting on that corner for John I would commiserate with my fellow drug users, many of whom lacked phones themselves. The most popular complaint I heard was how hard it was getting to find a public phone. Apparently some neighbourhoods in Toronto are payphone deserts. You can walk for twenty minutes in any direction and not find one. So I’m going to see how many phones there are within a five minute radius of my apartment. My guess would be at least eight. Maybe ten. I’m about to get evicted, but I’ve lived in Kensington Market at Nassau and Bellevue since February 2017, which is a veritable payphone oasis. It’s too cold to go out tonight, so I’m going to take a virtual tour of my neighbourhood and take screenshots of every phone I find from Google Street View. Yes, the photos look pretty lo-fi but my whole life is lo-fi, so sue me. Here’s a no-name one just north of Dundas on Bathurst:

Here’s one just south of Oxford on Augusta:

There are two Bell phones just outside Nirvana, across from Sneaky Dee’s:

There’s one outside the church one block east of Bathurst at Lippincot and College:

Here’s another no-name phone one block west of Spadina on the south side of College:

And here’s a bank of payphones outside the internet cafe at Spadina and College:

All three of the above phones never work at the same time, and some days you’re lucky to find one operational. (Incidentally, if someone ever reads this post a century from now, or maybe I mean a decade, or maybe I mean reads this post at all, I wonder how quaint the term “payphones outside the internet cafe” will seem.) Here’s one more non-Bell phone, just to the west of the Scotiabank on the northwest corner of Dundas and Spadina. This phone has great personal significance for me, for a reason I can’t get into. Let’s just say I made a phone call on it during a very memorable moment in my life:

For those of you not counting, that’s ten phones all within a five minute walk of my apartment in Kensington. There are another three are in the lobby of Toronto Western Hospital, for thirteen total. Thirteen is a lot more than I expected. Especially in 2020. And I’m sure I’m missing a few. Maybe payphones aren’t as endangered as they seem. In fact, as I was taking the photograph at the top of this post, a woman came over to me and asked, “are you using the phone?” So they definitely still serve a purpose. They wouldn’t still be there if nobody was using them. A capitalist venture like Bell doesn’t keep phones around because the CEO is nostalgic. I’m kind of relieved at how many there still are, and how vital they still seem to be. Still, I have mixed feelings toward payphones. They annoy me, but I also like them for reasons I can’t explain. I like invisible infrastructure. Nobody notices payphones. Ask yourself where the nearest payphone is. Do you even know? They may be forgotten or disliked, but they’re dependable, standing tall at their lonely outposts through sleet and rain, day and night, as we cuddle up with our smartphones in the warmth of our homes. We’ve left payphones out in the cold and most of us don’t even miss them. I have a mobile phone now, but I still miss payphones. Or maybe I miss the days when they were a normal way to communicate, phone books slung around their waists, swinging on a chain. (Some time in the last decade, phone companies must have got tired of replacing the books nobody ever used and just got rid of them entirely. I guess they figured we could look up the numbers we need on...our mobile phones?) Yes, there’s a definite note of nostalgia among people who still use payphones. We’re all bitter about the great price jump of 2007, when calls went from twenty-five cents to fifty, an increase of one-hundred percent. If you’re of my generation, old enough to remember life before the internet, then you know that payphones are sad remainders of the technology we grew up with, a visible reminder of the 90s. It’s my firm belief that everybody suffers from chronic temporal sickness for the decade they grew up in. I can imagine a day when they only exist in museums and photographs. Maybe I’ll go to watch the last phone get decommissioned. Maybe I’ll only love payphones once I can never use one again, like the Once-ler becoming an environmentalist only after hearing the “thwack” that felled the last Truffula tree in Dr. Suess’ The Lorax. I feel this way even though payphones are often more a hassle than a convenience. I once spent half an hour outside the Eaton Centre on Queen Street waiting for a woman to finish her conversation, only to find the phone broken when she finally hung up. Her wild gesticulations should have tipped me off that she’d been screaming at a phantom, but I was too dopesick to notice. There were and are other cons to payphone usage. It wasn’t always easy to come up with the necessary exact change. Or sometimes you’d have exact change but the phone wouldn’t recognize one of your coins. For whatever reason, payphones have a really hard time reading dimes. Many times I’ve had just enough to make one call but the phone won’t cooperate and I’ve had to throw myself at the mercy of a local convenience store owner or random bystander. Maybe “can I use your phone?” was an innocuous question back in the day, but nowadays people immediately suspect you for asking and they really, really do not want to loan you their phone. I don’t blame them. Our phones contain our entire lives. It’s not the same as handing someone a few quarters. Despite all the long list of cons, there remains among my fellow payphone users a keen sense of loss. We’re all grieving something indefinable, something that went away with the advent of mobile phones. And I’m not leading up to a gripe about “kids these days on their phones.” As an avid reader, I usually bury my nose in a book when I’m on transit, so I don’t beseech people to “live in the moment” when they’re sitting on a bus. Being a passenger on the TTC for the thousandth time isn’t something that requires one’s undivided attention. I only get annoyed when I see some guy – and it’s always a guy – staggering down the sidewalk with his eyes glued to his phone, walking into people. Or walking into traffic. The feelings of wistfulness among payphone users grows more acute as the years roll on and more and more public telephones are yanked from their moorings, never to return. The sense of loss sometimes manifests itself in the passing down of legend. When I first heard the story, it was that there exists somewhere in the city of Toronto a payphone that still makes calls for a quarter. I was convinced it was the one just east of University on Dundas, south side of the street, just east of the Royal Bank. It just looks so fucking furtive. Like it’s hiding from the tourist hordes at Yonge and Dundas square, tucked around that corner:

I went to check that phone for this article but it doesn’t work at all, much less for half price. In an apt game of telephone about telephones, the legend grew. Only a few months after I first heard the Legend of the Half-Price Payphone, the story had morphed into a unicorn payphone that makes calls for free. People were arguing over which one it could be, though admittedly nobody had ever found it. It was like the leprechaun’s pot of gold. “It’s the one outside the mall at Kingston and Midland. The one with the Scotiabank!” “Naw it’s the payphone at Warden Station! Next to the donut shop!” “It’s the one at Yonge and Charles!” “What? They took that one out before 9/11.” “It’s the one in Yorkdale near the GO Station!” “Seriously bro. Pre-9/11. You’re memory is fucked, bro.” “My cousin’s in the Hell’s Angels. He can sell you a burner for $5. Why use a payphone when you can get a…” “No one cares about your cousin, Dwight.” “Pre-9/11 bro. Seriously. Yonge and Charles? Christ!” And on and on and on, into the night. I have a mobile phone now and it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever go back. The final straw came when I had to go up to Muskoka one summer for four days to work on a cottage. I missed my partner so much by the third day that I walked up and down the length of the lake, looking for a payphone. I probably had a better chance of spotting a lion, but there was no way I was going back to that cottage without talking to my wife. I missed her too fucking much. At the end of the lake I spotted a house with the garage door wide open. Inside the garage there was a workbench, a fridge, and all sorts of tools. On a hunch, I quietly made my way up the gravel driveway. There wasn’t a human being in sight. Inside the garage, I spotted a wall-mounted phone, and called my wife. She didn’t answer but I left her a message. As I was leaving it I heard footsteps and before I could make myself scarce an elderly lady came around the corner and stared at me. She obviously lived there. “Um. I was just…leaving,” I said, hanging up the phone and sheepishly skipping back to the main road as fast as I could. The woman frowned after me, watching me go. A little further down the road I saw an electrician working on a house and asked to use his phone. He said yes and I finally got through to my wife. But I couldn’t talk long or say what I wanted to say because the electrician was staring at me, so I determined right there and then to get and keep a fucking phone of my own. And that’s what I did. I sometimes pay my bill late and find myself cast backward into the land of payphones and useless dimes, but for the most part I’ve joined the 21st century. As for that mother and her child, the mother did her best, to her credit. “Some people…can’t afford cell phones,” she informed her son, who looked bored already. “Or else they can’t get coverage on the subway, so they use one of these. Or in emergencies, they work for emergencies.” “What kind of person can’t afford a phone?” the child brayed incredulously. The mother looked embarrassed. I wasn’t. Let her stupid kid hate payphones and poor people. Most people do. I rarely use payphones now but I still get a small shiver of curiosity when I pass one I haven’t seen before, wondering if it’s the legendary free one. The unicorn. The white whale of public telephones. So I check. And I hear “please insert fifty cents” from the robotic lady voice that rules payphone land. Then I move on.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #odetopayphones

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lgbtqueeries · 4 years

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A School Project as an Ode to Larry Kramer --32 Million and Counting

TLDR; This speech was a project for a Queer Studies class that I participated in. It is a speech in the form of Larry Kramer’s speech about AIDS activism in 1983 called “1,112 and Counting” I also wanted to bring into awareness what has changed in the 37 years since his original speech. The audience is meant to be the queer community, just like his was, but also to be open to those that would listen. Due to its nature, it encompasses public health, politics, humanity, and activism. I didn’t intend for this to be the case but as the project progressed we were diagnosed to be going through a pandemic much like that of what those in the 80s experienced. To this degree, I didn’t mean to scare but frustrate the reader, much like Larry Kramer. I wanted my speech to be uniquely mine, but be reminiscent of the effect that he garnered. I plan to post this to my Tumblrs LGBTQueeries and the-unending-kerfuffle as well as my Instagram @one_steph_from_death. I want to place this speech out into the world. Please feel free to reblog and share and comment and chat with me in the comments!

Larry Kramer started his count when the number was 1,112 and counting. In 1983. Think about that again. In 1983. Thirty-seven years ago. He screamed for help then, knowing full well we’d be obliterated as a group unless we stood up. He refused to be forced to die.

To frame this, a former entertainment star had been elected to the most powerful political seat in government. His staunch political and religious opinions led to the death of innocent people. He could have saved them by using his voice and asserting a need for research, laws, and education, but instead, let them die impoverished and discriminated against. If the hate and violent crimes didn’t get them, the sickness creeping in would.

Worst of all, as a community, we knew that he didn’t speak for us. We knew that this hate would kill us, yet we still remain silent. We remained silent as the hate trickled into the deepest pores of our community. We let the hate fester, building up and attaching to the difference among us until it finally separated us and dismantled us. We let the bigotry we so desperately try to run from infiltrate our ranks and break us apart into factions.

They were treated like lepers and untouchables (Barker & Cran, 2006). Hospital workers were nearly absent, just present enough to not be liable for neglect. Visitors were few and gay lovers, if they stayed, were sent away. Imagine that, slipping away in pain as you lose your vision and ability to breathe, your body starts deteriorating as it is filled with cancer and opportunistic infections. Alone. All alone.

And when you (inevitably) died your casket wasn’t lined in silk with cushions and roses. Yours was lined with plastic and biohazard material. Your brittle, thin body was crumpled up in the discarded sheets and hospital gowns and thrown into a garbage bag. No one was going to claim you, so no point in going to the morgue. Your toes, if you still had them, weren’t tagged, just set aside with all your other hospital belongings.

But the pain didn’t end there. Like the weekly garbage men, bags were taken to empty spaces and distributed into large, unmarked graves (Kilgannon. 2018). A secluded hole lost to history. A supposed bygone of the middle ages, but here to dispose of Jane and John Does.

If I was to scream like Larry Kramer, to these separated groups, I’d go hoarse within hours. As of 2018, 35 years after his speech, we have lost 32 million people to HIV/AIDS (CDC, 2020). That doesn’t include the people from the last 2 years.

We lost 32 million innocent people.

Yes, we lost gay men and IV drug users but they are still human. They still had the same dreams and aspirations as everyone else. They could have lived to be designers and playwrights just as well as becoming doctors and lawyers. We lost everyone one from, every walk of life. We lost painters, poets, magicians, musicians, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, physicians, firefighters, police officers, farmers, framers, parents, children. Their blood is on the hands of those that slowly took the life from them. The government is not free from their crimes.

But honestly, that’s not where the frustration and anger ends. Our history is being erased. Purposefully and eagerly. This situation that I’ve laid before your eyes seems to be that of 1983 and the pain of Ronald Reagan. The horror sounds painfully identical to what we deal with today.

Our current administration has continued some of these misinformed ideas and hateful actions. The Ryan White Fund, a fund specifically created to create a money source for HIV/AIDS research and treatment have received cutbacks and other plans set in motion like PEPFAR aren’t fairing well either. They are better in this term than in the past, but frankly, that’s not too comforting. This fund was the lifeblood for many organizations and they soon will be bled dry (Forsyth, n.d.). This does not take into account the other actions towards queer people in general. This takes into account only one facet of the government that is working against us. What about the judicial branch and the possibility to be tried for attempted murder for not disclosing your status to your partner (CDC, 2019)? It’s not like you have to do the same for other STIs. “On the count of giving chlamydia to your partner without disclosing your last date of testing, how does the jury find the defendant?” This doesn’t take into account the possibility you didn’t know of your own status.

And what if you wished to give blood? Say you’re gay and we’ll even go so far as saying you’re HIV-. They’d turn you away. They’d send you back for 12 months for not being able to prove you didn’t have sex with your male partner for 12+ months. May I remind you that lesbians and heterosexual men and women have gotten HIV and therefore can pass it along? This is possibly a law of Reagan’s 80s, but it’s still in effect TODAY (“LGBTQ Donors”, n.d.).

But I digress. The government is still not free from their crimes and institutionalized hate. I don’t wish to get too political but it is inevitable with the fact we’re all stuck in the past. Again, it’s not where my frustration lies.

My frustration is formed in the same disappointment that Larry Kramer had. In 37 years not much has changed and that the voice that we have as a community. We gained it with protests through organizations like ACT UP but we’ve apparently been diagnosed with laryngitis because we’ve become oddly silent. HIV/AIDS is not a disease of history. We haven’t cured the earth of this disease. It’s here and stuck to us like your legs to a hot vinyl seat. It affects everyone and intersectionality can increase your risk (CDC, 2019). There’s a reason it’s no longer called “Gay Related Immune Disease”. Yet where the hell are we?

It affects the young and the old. Yet we remain silent, pretending it’s not occurring.

We can blame it on the straight, cis majority but we are complicit in our own erasure, assimilation, and silencing.

We let our history fall by the wayside and be covered up with rainbows and pride flags used by businesses in marketing. We let our history be encapsulated by a month handed to us by the majority.

We let the atrocities that happened be forgotten along with many of the names.

We isolate those now that are HIV+ from queer-friendly functions, both blatantly and subtlely.

But most importantly we lost our gusto to fight for a better future for the generations that come after us. That’s what stings the most.

It’s important to remember that this disease is no longer a death sentence. You no longer have to feel the weight of shackles weighing you down towards the underworld. Provided, that is, you have insurance and can pay for your medications. But that is another government issue for another speech. With one pill a day, just like your Flintstones vitamins, you can live a normal life. You can date and with proper precautions, have sex and not pass it along to your partner. Undetectable = Untransmissable (UNAIDS, 2018).

While this may be a reality for us in our modern-day. I refuse to let those that sacrificed themselves for this cause be forgotten. We lost 32 million people and while I can’t list them all here or scream them to the heavens, I’ll damn well try. Those that came before us, despite their flaws, paved the way for us and I refuse to let them slip away because our government doesn’t like it. Join me in sharing the stories. If you want to see face to face, the humans that we lost, follow accounts like @theaidsmemorial on Instagram. End our silence. If it’s painful for you, imagine how it must feel for the friends and families of those that lost someone of the 32 million. They need your help to speak up.

We started this with 1,112 and counting. Now we’re at 32 million and counting. Let’s end the counting and start the protesting.

Works Cited

Barker, G., & Cran, W. (2006, May 30). Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/aids/

Centers for Disease Control. (2020, January 16). U.S. Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics

Forsyth, A. D. (n.d.). Powerpoint presentation.

HIV and STD Criminal Laws. (2019, July 1). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/states/exposure.html

HIV by Group. (2019, October 25). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/index.html

Kilgannon, C. (2018, July 3). Dead of AIDS and Forgotten in Potter's Field. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/nyregion/hart-island-aids-new-york.html

LGBTQ Donors. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eligibility-requirements/lgbtq-donors.html

UNAIDS Explainer. (2018). UNAIDS Explainer. Retrieved from https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/undetectable-untransmittable_en.pdf

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addadhdmisskittyalana · 6 years

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Ok I just wanted to say something to mystery Skulls animated fandom

I work in a rebiltation hospital kitchen so I get to see a lot of people whom have lost an arm/leg or recovering from a operation and the patients who’ve had to deal with a lost od. A lim always have to deal with trauma because of it and need lots of time to recover

SO with that in mind when you think of the trauma Poor Arthur had to go through of being possessed by a evil spirit/demon and probably waking up to having his arm ripped off and with those teeth Mystery big huge form has those can do some damage that’s gonna be very traumatic for anyone he probably fainted because having an arm ripped off would cause a lot of blood lost and being as he would of been trying to fight a possessing evil spirit/demon he wouldn’t of been able to stayed awake to even see Lewis be dead there probably have no idea he pushed Lewis off that cliff to begin with

The only once who would’ve seen what truly went down are Vivi and Mystery

Lewis only saw himself getting pushed he bearly took note of what was happening to Arthur

And Vivi only just came into seeing Lewis fall and that in itself is traumatic so maybe mystery trying to help her forget Lewis death by memory wipe or as he was dieing Lewis wanted her to forget his death but went to far with the memory wipe and made her forget him all together

So that means Mystery would’ve needed to drag both Vivi and Arthur ro the hospital if Vivi was pasted out due to a memory wipe or Vivi after the memory wipe would’ve had to wonder over looking for mystery and Arthur with head in a fog due to just having her memory wipe and hear mystery barking and probably seen mystery then back in his normal state trying to drag a knocked out Arthur bleeding with one arm less and quickly had to jump into action to try and save Arthur before he died of blood lost not even questioning why they were all in the cave in the 1st place or what happened and then it would be crazy in the hospital because they’ll have to. Answer a crazy amount of questions and call up Arthur’s uncle Lance to let him know what happened and someone maybe Lance would maybe ask what happened to Lewis and we all saw Vivi gets like a purple mist and sorts of conks out whenever Lewis memory is activated so everyone would assume something traumatic went down and Lewis is missing because of it and Arthur has had his arm ripped off so they all have to wait for Arthur to wake up and he’s got no memory of what happened to Lewis because hello he was under possession and only memory he’d have is waking up to having his arm ripped off and would’ve been asking what happened to Lewis assuming he got taken away from Lewis because apparently the team go on other missions together and Arthur ends up getting kidnapped a lot on them so he probably thinks that’s what happened but this time Lewis got kidnapped too

Also he was probably told by the others he shouldn’t go talking about Lewis to Vivi because it makes he past out and so he thinks that maybe he has to while trying to recover from his own trauma and get use to losing an arm that maybe if they find Lewis and Vivi see him she’ll recover her memories of him without conking out because it seems to be no use trying to talk her about him because she just conks out every time

Also keep in mind Arthur has a lot of holes in his memory too because hey the possession and having your arm ripped off is treble to try and remember anything of what went down and will leave it’s own trauma in its wake

So if you’re all thinking Arthur didn’t try hard enough to get Vivi to remember Lewis while he’s trying to deal with the trauma of losing an arm, dealing with being possessed and thus trying to fill in the gaps in his own foggy memory you enther don’t know much about losing arms and what’s it like to not be in control of yourself and suffer memory lost or very very Very crazy to think that’s possible

Heck man hellbent proved that Arthur had no idea what happened to Lewis and Vivi couldn’t tell him and Mystery probably was worried he’d make it worse by all of the sudden start talking about what went down although Mystery should of told them

So if you want to get. Mad at someone (although at this point it’s useless to get mad it’s happened and it’s how the story is going I’d rather spend my time hoping Arthur going to be. Ok then waste time being angry) for not telling everyone what went down be mad at Mystery he seems to be the only one able to tell what went down that night in the cave

#mystery skulls animated #mystery skulls #mystery skulls spoilers #arthur kingsmen #lewis pepper #Vivi #lewvithur #lewthur #lewvivi #mystery skulls hellbent

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shoelace-noose · 5 years

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#078 | Truth

Mike Dodds/Klaus Hargreeves. Mike and Klaus get out of rehab.

Word Count: 1598

When Mike gets out of rehab, he has an apartment to go back to, a friend who’s been watering his plants and picks him up at the front door to say how proud of him he is. In spite of all the fucked up shit he’s gone through, there’s people and a place he can go to. He has a whole network of support for days when the craving hits hard, or his depression feels insurmountable.

But Klaus has nothing and no one. He was homeless before his third OD in a week had him forced into rehab, and his only friend besides Mike is his dead brother Ben, who he claims to still be able to see and talk to. The doctors referred him to a psychiatrist, but Klaus refused to do anything but talk in circles and lies and anything to keep from being forced to confront his issues. He’s like that, a mess and completely resistant to help. And it’s intoxicating enough that when they both hit thirty days at the same time, Mike offers him the couch in his living room.

The two of them walk out together, arm in arm as Klaus twitches with the need for a fix and talks in irritation to someone Mike can’t see, both holding their little plastic hospital bags of belongings that had been confiscated or otherwise stowed while they served their sentences. Peter is standing out front, leaning against his car with a smile on his face. A smile that quickly drops when he sees Klaus.

“You made it,” Peter says, pulling him into a hug, but unable to tear his eyes away from Klaus, who’s still talking to thin air. “And this is…?”

“Klaus. I offered him a place to stay while he gets back on his feet, he doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

Of anyone Mike has ever met, Peter is the most patient and understanding when it comes to mental illness, especially the scary ones. It’s probably because of his sister, and the way she went through life. Does Peter ever wonder if she would have turned to substance abuse, had she not gotten the help she needed early on? Would she have turned out like Klaus, drowning in drugs or hallucinations or both?

“Peter,” Peter says, holding a hand out for Klaus to shake.

For a long moment, Klaus just looks between him and the same empty spot he’s been speaking to all morning beside him. “Was she your sister?”

“Excuse me?”

“The woman beside you. Blonde. Looks like you. Covered in blood. Was she your sister?”

All the color drains from Peter’s face. He then silently gets into the driver’s seat, and does not respond. Klaus has a tendency to figure out how to hurt people, but it’s always general insecurities, stuff Mike picks up on from body language once Klaus points it out. This is too specific. It sets off alarm bells in Mike’s mind, the way they go when a suspect knows just a little too much about the case at hand. But obviously Klaus had nothing to do with Pam’s death, so what the fuck?

When the two of them slip into the backseat, Klaus choosing the middle because he insists his brother is sitting with him but he wanted to sit next to Mike as well, it’s time to ask questions. Mike hasn’t missed it, but something deep down says he has to.

“What were you talking about?” He hisses through his teeth.

Klaus laughs a little and plays with the medical bracelet curled around his wrist. “I told you, I talk to the dead. Apparently your boyfriend’s dead sister is still following him around, so.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Mike argues, as if that’s the important part of this. “And Klaus, you know that’s impossible-”

“Did you ever read ‘Extra Ordinary’ by Vanya Hargreeves? Her sweet little biography of the Umbrella Academy.”

No, he hasn’t, but it was big news when the previously unknown Number Seven spilled all the dirty little secrets the Hargreeves children underwent. There were sections about the family as a whole, and about each individual child. Number Four, Klaus, was the academy disgrace even before the book was published. Tabloids ran articles about him getting high during missions, and getting drunk on the streets as a teenager. Rumor has it that Four did it to suppress his powers because of how overwhelming they were, that Six joined him too for the same reasons before his death.

The dots connect. Four. Klaus. And his dead brother. Ben. Six. Holy shit. No wonder Klaus is so distrustful and constantly chasing after any high to get rid of the voices in his head, the voices that must be so much worse if they’re real and not a hallucination he can learn to deal with. Guilt at not believing Klaus the first time washes over him, but comforting Klaus is more important.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. At least I’ve got Ben to keep me company when everyone screams! Fun fact, a lot of people off themselves in rehab, did you know that?”

“Jesus-”

“No, I said it was Ben. Oh, by the way, Ben likes you. He thinks you’re very dependable and nice and…” Klaus squints and looks at the empty seat he insisted had to be left for Ben. “Oh, Benny, that’s so dirty-”

“Klaus,” Mike says gently, the way he always does when Klaus gets caught up talking to himself.

“Okay, fine, he didn’t say anything dirty. He just wanted me to tell you he thinks your eyes are pretty.”

Funny that Klaus blames that particular phrase on Ben, when he’s said it to Mike in the middle of the night when the nightmares are keeping them from sleep many a time. He’s always too tired to remember the conversations in the morning, but he says the company help. Once he admitted that people only pay attention to him when they want something for him, accompanied by a very lewd gesture. It set off alarm bells too, but a different kind. Mike hasn’t been in the NYPD, in SVU, for a good five years, but he never forgets the kind of pain he saw. Pain no one, especially not Klaus, deserves.

“Do any of your family know you were there?” Peter asks, suddenly reminding Mike that he’s in the car. “Or that you’re homeless?”

Klaus laughs, but it’s wrong. Broken. “No, of course not. Except for Ben, I don’t see them, like, ever. They all pretend I don’t exist. Oh, oh, except for Diego. We run into each other every now and then. He beats up my dealer, tells me to get sober. Yanno, real fun family bonding time. Fun fact, he usually picks me up when I leave rehab to try and keep me from getting high right away, but this last time when I OD’d and he drove me to the ER, right? He found me in the alley, it was this whole thing- but I expected him to be there when I woke up, and he wasn’t. The nurses said he wanted ‘em to tell me he wasn’t gonna come back.”

At the very end, his voice goes small and fragile. All he wants to do is hold him, comfort him, make it all better. Some very protective part of Mike in the back of his head says to start a fight with Diego, but he’s working on controlling those sort of impulses so he doesn’t act on them. That’s something else he started working through at rehab. He doesn’t need the high to control himself, he can do that on his own, all that stuff. And he’s got a couple shiny new prescriptions for bipolar with depressive tendencies- which he’s trying to remember to take even though they remind him a lot of obsessively popping xanax to make it go away.

“I’m sorry.”

“I deserve it.”

“No one deserves that,” Peter adds from the front seat. “They’re family, they’re supposed to love you no matter what.”

“Bold of you to assume they loved me in the first place. Honestly, I don’t even think any of us are capable of it, Daddy really fucked us up with the whole ‘torture and isolation and perving’ thing he had going on.”

The car jerks suddenly, swerving off to the shoulder and stopping too fast. Peter turns in his seat to look at Klaus with the same intensity he looks at case files with. Even knowing it comes from a place of concern, it’s enough to make Mike shrink back in his seat. But Klaus just stares at him with mild curiosity.

“What?”

“‘Perving?’ What did your father do?”

Klaus seems stricken by his own words and turns to the seat beside him again, listening to Ben’s input on the whole thing. As far as Mike has seen, Ben is usually the voice of reason for him.

“Calm down, he just had these freaky cameras everywhere, always watching. There was one in the bathroom, even. Five found it when we were like, twelve, and broke it. It never got replaced, or at least, not that I know. And to think, all this time the great Reginald Hargreeves acted like I was the slut who couldn’t control myself.”

“Klaus, that’s not okay,” Mike says in the calmest voice he can muster.

“Nothing in my life ever has been, so there.”

The car starts again, and they continue the drive back to Mike’s apartment, Klaus carrying on a one sided conversation- argument really- the whole way.

#klaus hargreeves #mike dodds #peter stone #tua #svu

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lorirwritesfanfic · 6 years

Text

To Know You

Author’s note: My little obsession with the hot tub scene at Lythikos (TRR - Book 1) made me write this. [All characters are owned by Pixelberry studios]

Book: The Royal Romance Pairing: Liam x MC (Jade) Rating: M Word count: 976 Summary: At the Crown Prince's suite in Lythikos, Jade and Liam contemplate the cold night together as they get know each other.

He invited me to his room, he lit candles, he wanted me to join him in the hot tub, he’s talking about love but he doesn't want to take things further? Am I missing any signs here? "Should I leave?"

His eyes widen when I asked. "No, I wan... I mean... I'm glad you're here." He took my hands in his, a yearning emotion in his gaze. I'm pretty sure I just made him uncomfortable, even though he wants me. His eyes swept me from head to toe. When I straddled him, I could feel his member getting harder. But he also wants to wait. Maybe I should try to ease out the tension.

"How old were you when you started to learn the waltz?"

"I think I was six. Though I just learned Cordonian Waltz when I was twelve."

"It makes sense. It wasn't meant to be danced by kids. Though I don't think any six-year-old kid would like to learn a choreographed ballroom dance."

He chuckled. "I agree. What were you learning when you were six?"

"I had my first lessons in French and Portuguese with my dad. He loved traveling and learning new things, so he was fluent in five different languages besides his native one. He also was a very good teacher."

"I can see where your adventurous spirit comes from. But you’re talking about him in past tense."

"Yeah, he passed away a few months after my sixth birthday."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Jay."

"It was a long time ago-- Wait, did you just called me Jay?"

"I did, didn’t I?” he blushed slightly. “I'm sorry. If you don't like it..."

"No, I love it. It's just... It's been a while since the last time anyone called me like that. I think my mom was the last person who called me Jay."

"Hmm... So it's a family pet name."

"Sorta... My closest friends called me Jay too, but probably because she started it. But since she was gone, I don't think anyone has called me that."

"Oh. I didn't know... I shouldn't have..." he apologized.

"It's okay. I love that nickname. It makes me feel like I'm home." I don't know why I said that. But it was true. It made me feel like I was back in New York, having a picnic in the park with mom and grandma. He smiled at me, squeezing my hand gently.

"So should I keep calling you Jay?" a soft smile appeared on his lips.

"Only if you tell me a nickname of yours."

"Drake and Maxwell call me Li. It was Maxwell's idea. Drake actually thought it was unnecessary at first and it may have involved some acid comments for a few weeks, but it kinda stuck." Liam grinned as if he remembered something funny.

"Of course Drake would have to share his sarcastic thoughts about it. But I like it. I feel closer to you already," I beamed at him. He smiled and wrapped his arm around me, his hand over my shoulder and I entwined his fingers with mine. "This is a beautiful ring. The gemstone is a jade, am I right?." He said, toying with it.

"Yes, it was my mom's engagement ring. My dad wanted to give her an untraditional and unique ring. She loved green, so my grandmother gave him the jade gemstone she inherited from my great grandmother and they designed this ring for her."

"So I take your name wasn't chosen randomly."

"It kinda was..."

"Really?"

"My parents made a list of names for me and they would only choose it after I was born. But apparently none of those names were fitted for me and they spent hours thinking of different ones. Then, my mother saw her engagement ring on the hospital nightstand along with her other pieces of jewelry and suggested it. And here I am."

He laughed. "You are untraditional and unique, so I believe it's a perfect fit."

"Thank you. I take your name was chosen as an ode to one of your ancestors."

"That was my father's idea. But it sort of changed along the way. My brother was fascinated by the Adventures of William Tell, but he didn't enunciate William properly at the time and only called Liam. My mother thought it was lovely and convinced my father to name me Liam."

"Aww... This is adorable. Your brother nailed it."

"I agree, but don't ever tell him I said that. He's already too cocky without any compliments," he grimaced a little and I couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm sensing a little competitivity there..."

"It was worse when we were kids. Not that he got less annoying as he grew older. He's a child trapped in a thirty-year-old man’s body," he rolled his eyes. "But now that he left Cordonia and I haven't seen him a while, I miss his immature behavior." He looked deep in thought, sighing a little.

"Must be nice to have siblings."

"It has its pros and cons.” His thumb caressed my hand making small circles. When I rested my head against his shoulder, I could feel his chest relaxing a little and we stayed in a comfortable silence for a while. “It’s getting late,” he frowned a little.

“Yeah...”

“We should head in.”

“You’re right. But I enjoyed while it lasted.” I beamed at him and he responded with a blissful smile.

“Me too.”

We got out of the tub and he offered me a towel before we got dressed. “I’ll see you soon?”

“You know I can only stay away from you for so long.”

#trr fanfic #liam x mc #prince liam #jade x liam #the royal romance fanfiction #lorirwritesfanfic #lorircreates

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brucewayneargento-moved · 3 years

Text

To All My Fathers (Chapter 1)

Fic also avaliable on Ao3

TW: EXPLICIT DEPICTIONS OF LIFE OF A LEUKEMIA/CANCER PATIENT

Damian had definitely decided he would not wear a fanny pack.

It didn’t matter that it was the most convenient and comfortable way to take a chemo pump iv from place to place. He’ll much rather attract attention with a backpack connected to a pump than to regress back to the eighties in the most horrendous fashion. Sure he might pick up unwanted attention from strangers but A) He could always stare at them back; B) He was past the time to care and C) He already didn’t have eyebrows so that was kind of a moot point.

The boy was currently seated at the med bed of the 666 room. (Drake had made several jokes about it, which Damian didn’t mind and in fact encouraged, because with his diagnosis came a morbid sense of humor and he was also glad at least one person still treated him like a human being). He was practicing violin while he could still hold it and also enjoying the fact that he was wearing actual comfortable clothes and not a paper robe that made his autism completely and utterly fucking lose it.

“This was Ode To Joy by Bethoveen,” Damian explained. The three children around him applauded. When they stopped he could still hear hands clapping, he looked up and his eyes met his father’s.

Bruce came closer to him and the kids left after being called by a nurse. Boy and man looked at each other for a few seconds.

“Are you ready?” Bruce finally asked

Damian might have sounded insane if he said it outloud, but his father and Jon were very similar.

And it’s not like Damian was annoyed by their emotions as one might have thought, it was more of a...sting, (man being stabbed with a needle on a daily basis was really taking a toll on him, wasn’t it?) like, something that hurt but it wasn’t enough for him to do anything about it more than to grit his teeth and power through it.

Numbness was apparently a common thing among patients. But Damian thought of himself as many stuff, but common wasn’t one of them

And perhaps his ego was the only thing keeping him optimistic, perhaps thinking that he was too special to die alone in a hospital room was what made him stronger against the whole GvHD thing.

Or at least that was the original plan.

“Yes.” he finally answered, standing up.

When all you receive in your life is gaslighting, you don’t even notice the medical gaslighting.

Maybe it was the whole “being indoctrinated since birth by an ecoterrorist death cult” thing but his ability to exercise his free will hadn’t been particularly developed.

When he woke up both his parents were there. Damian could immediately tell something was wrong. His father was crying and his mother was stoic.

"Oh, ok, so I'm dying" He said, grabbing their attention. Both Talia and Bruce turn to look at him. Damian tried to sit and noticed his arm was cranked to an IV. "Oh, I'm actually dying."

"Do not speak like that." His mother warned him with a threatening voice. Bruce kept quiet but still with a face wet with tears.

"Damian," she fixed her glasses and looked at the clipboard she was holding. "Your blood count is in the 200.000 white cells."

Damian's eyes slightly widened, which covertly hid how much of a gut punch he just received.

"I can't have leukemia," he simply stated. There was a slight pained sound coming from his father's mouth which made Damian look him in the eye…that's how he knew it was true.

He started to grin which turned into a giggle which turned into a laugh.

Bruce and Talia looked at him with worry.

"Denial is very common," Leslie stated, trying to remain calm and also sooth Damian up. The teen kept laughing and then stopped to talk.

He had tears in his eyes. "I mean... so much for being an eugenics frankenstein monster, I've failed at even that."

Of course Dick had been the first one to enter the room.

Damian had hoped that he wasn’t but after all it made sense that he did, he was his Robin. He could imagine him punching a wall and screaming when he heard the news. That mental image didn’t upset him at all, clearly.

All of the walls he had been building up until now feel down hard. Damian just had to press his head against Dick’s shoulder for the tears to start running.

"I want a falafel."

They were in the hospital room after a particularly hard session of chemo. His brother was on a chair in front of him reading a book and not looking at him.

"You just threw up on my shoe," he reminded Damian.

"I'm here for a good time, not a long time"

"How are we?" She asked.

"Great." Both responded almost robotically. Damian gagged.

"I wanted to talk to you, Dick, about the bone marrow transplant."

"Why not talk to me?" Damian intervened. "I'm the one whose blood isn't working."

"We're considering the umbilical cord transfusion." Leslie explained. "But you will have to ask my godson first.

"Why would he need to...wait...Selina's pregnant?!" Damian asked but then he threw up again. "That wasn't meant to signify my feelings on the matter."

Leslie continued. “But that will still take a few months and...I’m afraid we don’t have that much time.”

Damian pretended to gag and looked down at the bucket, all to avoid looking at Dick’s face.

“But the good news is that we found a match.”

Damian hadn’t even had time to think about that sentence before he blurted it out, but now it was there, out in the open. For everyone to hear.

“I want to have children.”

“I...did not know that.” Alfred admitted. Up to twelve seconds ago he had been standing up listing the symptoms of chemo at Damian’s request since he didn’t trust Leslie to do it without sugarcoating it and his father might burst into tears in an attempt to do so. Damian had been listening attentively before Alfred mentioned that it was possible that he might wind up being infertile.

The boy simply turned around to the other side of the bed and sighed as tears left his eyes.

Dear Damian

Best Wishes

Ravi.

They stayed in comfortable silence in the car with only the sound of “dad music” on the radio for background noise. Damian allowed himself to close his eyes and to feel the soothing bounce of the car against the pavement on his skin...

They stopped suddenly after a while and Damian opened his eyes, he frowned in confusion as Alfred parked the car in front of the airport.

“What are we doing here?” he asked curiously.

Alfred turned around to look at him. “Your father , Master Richard and I thought It’ll be a good idea to fly in a friend of yours.”

Damian’s frown deepened. “A friend?”

Suddenly a tap was heard on the window. They both turned around to look at the front window. It was being slightly knocked on it by a man with a white cane and a bald head who was smiling at them.

“Ravi?” Damian rubbed his eyes and felt them watering up.

Damian knew that he could never make up to Ravi for being responsible for losing his vision. And he also knew that in spite of that the man would still love him unconditionally.

That could be proven easily by the letters that he had written to him when he found out about his diagnosis…

All his father figures were here, suddenly he felt an internal strength he hadn’t felt in a while.

#tw // cancer #tw cancer #tw: cancer #terminal illness #damian wayne #dick grayson #ravi #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #dc comics #batman #robin #nightwing #my post #my fic

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alexguerinss · 6 years

Text

Cold Feet and Broken Ankles

(crossposted to ao3)

Summary: David realizes his feelings for Patrick and runs.

David was nervous.

He hadn’t been this nervous since he crushed on a girl in 7th grade and made a fool of himself in front of her when he asked her out in front of his entire grade at one of the many private schools he attended. She had started laughing and walked away without even giving him a response, leaving him with an empty feeling in his chest and a bitterness towards the world.

Until Patrick.

Patrick was not like anyone he ever met before. He was sweet, kind and didn’t look at David like he had grown two heads. He also didn’t want to just hop into bed with him, which was refreshing and new.

A little too new for David, who didn’t know how to handle a real relationship. He’d ignore how sad that fact was later.

When he first met Patrick, he felt an instant attraction, which scared him. How the hell would he be able to handle working with this man when all he wanted to do was kiss his face?

Lucky for him, after embarrassing phone messages and working together to make the store a semi-success, he kissed him and Patrick didn’t run away screaming.

Which did happen once when he was 21 and at a bar. He didn’t like to relive that experience.

But he would love to relive this one.

“David?”

Oh god.

David looked up, shaking away his thoughts to focus on the man in front of him.

Patrick.

He let a smile come across his face and he felt Patrick’s eyes on him, confused and slightly worried. The other man smiled as David kept looking at him in adoration.

David really needed to calm down. He felt Alexis’ nagging voice in the back of his mind telling him to relax and not overthink anything. He let out a breath and opened his mouth to reply when the door opened and a customer came in.

Patrick looked at him briefly, before turning to help the woman who came in and David cursed quietly to himself.

He hated feeling like this. He really liked Patrick, but he also didn’t know how to handle the feeling that everything was going to fall apart and Patrick would leave him in the dust, ripping the gift he gave him off the wall with no thought.

He suddenly couldn’t breathe and the sweater he had on felt really tight around him, suffocating him.

He remembered this feeling. He felt it a while back and Ted explained that it was a panic attack.

Oh god he was panicking.

“David?” The older man suddenly realized Patrick was in front of him, concern his eyes as he took in his boyfriend’s state and before he could think about it, David ran out of the store.

Without a sense of direction of where he would be going, he didn’t take notice of the fallen tree branch in front of him and he fell down. Hard.

He heard his ankle snap as he went down and he cried out in pain.

“David?” A familiar voice spoke up nearby and he winced through the pain and looked up to see Stevie kneeling down by him.

“Yeah?” He responded, nonchalantly, ignoring the blinding pain in his ankle. His best friend rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. David watched as she sent a text to someone and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe.

“Jesus David,” Patrick’s voice filled the air a minute later, and he opened his eyes to see his boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend at the rate this relationship was going. He was pretty sure Patrick would break up with him after his panic attack and sprint out of the store.

“Hi,” he spoke meekly, trying not to move his ankle. Patrick rolled his eyes, before lifting David into his arms, much to the shock of the older man.

Patrick was stronger than he thought.

He cried out in pain from the movement and Patrick muttered an apology, before he carried David over to his car. Much to Patrick’s surprise, David barely made a scene at him getting carried. The pain from his ankle must have overpowered any feelings of David being embarrassed about looking like a damsel in distress.

Stevie was right beside them, David noticed. She opened the door to the backseat and he felt himself being placed down on the seat and Patrick elevated his leg so it wouldn’t cause him so much pain. He suddenly felt really tired and he heard the two front doors of the door opened and close and he fell asleep before they even made it out of Schitt’s Creek towards to the hospital in Elmsdale.

“David?” A voice whispered in his ear and David tried to swat at the person. He just wanted to sleep.

“David, come on. You have to get your ankle looked at. It’s the size of a balloon,” Patrick stated, knowing that the comparison would wake up his boyfriend.

Suddenly alert, David opened his eyes and looked down at his ankle.

He glared at Patrick, seeing that it was not the size of a balloon.

Maybe the size of a golf ball and he was in a great amount of pain again.

He really needed painkillers for this.

Stevie had rushed inside the hospital to get help and David found himself being pushed up gently into a sitting position and helped out of the car by his boyfriend and a nurse.

Suddenly, the embarrassment he hadn’t felt before came back full force and he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

“David Rose?” An unfamiliar voice called out to him and he opened one eye to see the nurse next to him. He realized he had been placed on a gurney and was being taken further and further away from Patrick into the hospital.

“Yeah?” He asked, suddenly wanting a familiar face near him. He felt a prick in his arm and suddenly everything fell away.

“He needed surgery?” Alexis asked Patrick about an four hours later, watching as her older brother slept away in the hospital bed. The entire family was there, along with Stevie and the Schitts. Even Ted was there, for reasons Patrick didn’t really know, but he wasn’t going to question it.

A nurse appeared in the doorway and smiled gently, taking in the scene of all the people in the room.

“I’m sorry folks, but only three people can be in the room as one time.” She looked apologetic, Patrick took note, but the glare that Moira sent her, had her practically running out of the room.

“Apparently his ankle was severely broken and they needed to add screws into the bone to keep it in place.” The entire room shuddered at the explanation.

“My poor boy,” Moira dramatically sat down in the seat next to his bed, putting her hand out to reach her son before she pulled away. Johnny laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder, contemplating reaching out to his son as well.

Patrick looked at the family, taking note that they were definitely not a touchy feely family.

There was an awkward silence filling the room, the only noise coming from the machines attached to David.

“I think we should head out,” Jocelyn stated, looking at her husband who shrugged and bid them all goodbye.

“Oh thank go-od they left,” Moira said. She felt all eyes on her and sighed. “I can only take so much of Jocelyn looking like she was about to cry. David has a broken ankle. He isn’t dying.”

“I think I should go too,” Ted said, noting that he wasn’t particularly close to David and felt incredibly out of place. He wasn’t even dating Alexis anymore, but she insisted he come with her for emotional support.

“I’ll walk you out,” Alexis spoke up, grabbing Ted’s hand and practically dragging him out of the room.

“Dear, why don’t we go to the cafeteria and leave Patrick and Stevie with David,” Johnny suggested to his wife, who looked put out before sighing and grabbing her bag.

“If we must,” she got up and followed her husband out of the room.

“That was incredibly awkward,” Patrick stated bluntly and Stevie let out a laugh.

“You get used to it.”

Patrick sat down, looking over at his boyfriend who somehow looked smaller in the hospital bed. He bit his lip, before grabbing David’s hand, careful of the IV sticking out of it.

“So what happened exactly?” Stevie and Patrick both asked each other, before chuckling at the well timed question.

“I saw him running down the sidewalk and was too far away to call out to him before I saw that tree branch he tripped over,” Stevie explained, concerned as to why she saw David running like he was being chased.

Patrick frowned, “He looked like he was having a panic attack at the store and I didn’t want to spook him, but before I could get another word into our very limited conversation, he ran out of the store. He looked like he was going to run through the door if he wasn’t careful.”

Stevie was about to speak up again, but they heard a groan from the bed.

“David?” Patrick whispered, putting his hand on his boyfriend’s head, trying to soothe him.

“Wha?” The older man mumbled, confused. He blearily opened his eyes and winced against the light.

“Hey there friend,” Stevie said from where she was standing at the end of the bed.

“Ugh, my ankle.” David whimpered, trying not ignore the pain.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Patrick tried to ease his worries. He grabbed a button and handed it to David, “You can press this to get the pain meds.”

David quickly pressed it and in 15 seconds, felt the pain go away.

“What happened exactly?” He asked warily, looking between his best friend and boyfriend.

“You kind of had a panic attack, ran out of the store...and tripped over a branch,” Patrick explained, “only you would break your ankle to the point where you actually needed surgery,” he chuckled.

“Oh my god I’m such an idiot,” David grumbled, pouting.

Patrick smirked lightly and caressed David’s cheek, pulling David’s focus on him and away from his mortification.

“You have to tell me if you’re hurting David. That’s how relationships work,” he reminded his boyfriend, who tried to look away.

Stevie coughed, breaking the awkward moment. “I’m gonna go. I’ll see you both later. The doctor said you could leave in a few hours. So you won’t be stuck here for much longer.”

“Thank god.” David mumbled, earning him a kiss on the forehead from Stevie.

She bid them both goodbye and walked out and David was left with only Patrick.

The reason for all of this mess was Patrick.

Well not really. The reason for all of this was David’s feelings for Patrick and not knowing what to do with those feelings to start a healthy and stable relationship.

“David?” Patrick asked, letting his fingers card through David’s hair.

The action soothed his boyfriend, who looked like he was going to fall asleep again.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“This?” Patrick asked confused, before realization hit him in the face. “You mean...us?”

“Yeah…” David responded quietly, grabbing the blanket and fooling around with the thread of it.

“Do you want to...break up?” Patrick asked, pulling his hand away.

David felt his eyes tear up, not knowing what to do.

“No. I don’t,” he responded. Patrick quirked an eyebrow at him, lost as to why David suddenly felt this way.

“Then what David?”

“I’ve never been in a relationship with someone for more than three months. I’ve never felt this way about someone before and I don’t know how to make it stick,” he let out a breath before continuing, “Alexis tells me I overthink everything which is why my anxiety spikes and why I ran out of the store today.”

“David…” the younger man started, but David wasn’t finished.

“The last relationship I had was unknowingly with two other people. My relationships end in disaster, but I’m hoping ours doesn’t. I just don’t know how I can make sure that ours will last because I love you.”

Patrick’s mouth fell open at the proclamation and David’s eyes widened at what he just confessed.

Patrick cleared his throat, grabbed David’s face and kissed him. David fell into the kiss and returned it happily, before Patrick separated their lips. The older man felt his boyfriend kiss him on the forehead and Patrick finally pulled away.

“I love you too,” Patrick proclaimed before grabbing David’s hand and squeezing it.

Unbeknownst to them, Johnny and Moira had been standing outside the door to the room and heard the entire conversation.

“Oh my son is in love!” Moira cried out dramatically and David groaned from inside the room.

“Mom!” “Moira!” The two Rose men exclaimed at once, leaving Patrick to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but knowing he would gladly take this eccentric family any day if it meant he would be with David.

#so i had started watching schitt's creek 6 days ago #and finished catching up yesterday #i love this show so much #everyone should watch it #and i looooove david and patrick #and there's like...no fic except for one really good one #so i was like damn it i need to write my own #and i haven't written anything in like a year #so enjoy #schitt's creek #david x patrick #david rose #patrick brewer #schitt's creek fic #my fic

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nosleepemily · 3 years

Text

Flew too close to the sun...

Dream Dec 23, 2020

A young woman was recruited from a college campus through an internship program. It’s still COVID19, which is understood but seems to not exist in this casino/resort. She starts working as a greeter at in the front entrance of the resort. It looks like a ski lodge from the 1980s with floor to ceiling green carpeting. During her break she goes to the service halls near one of the kitchens to eat her sandwich. It almost looks like the hallways where the interns in Grey’s Anatomy would eat and take their breaks. It was stark, with stacks of broken chairs and other neglected furniture. A pretty standard hotel service hall. At the end of it, there was a group of three or four beautiful girls in robes. They were chit chatting and snacking on things left over on a room service cart. She was curious, but didn’t approach them or ask anyone. She wasn’t really interested in knowing anything about her coworkers, if that’s what they were.

She finishes her break and goes back to the front. At this point she is wearing a badge that has a red lanyard.

The next day, she comes to work and a manager type approaches her and tells her to head to a different entrance. She notices when she gets to the entrance that it is mostly men and presumably their bodyguards. At this point it’s understood that questions would be unwelcomed at this point. Her boss tells her to let them in through a velvet rope set across the doorway. The bodyguards don’t follow. After some time another person comes to relieve hre from that post and she goes back to the break hallway to find the gaggle of body guards candidly speaking about their bosses. Overhearing a lot of seemingly private details, one standing out about a man who was already in the building and has been for a few days and a wife getting suspicious. Her boss finds her and says she is done for the day and thanks her for filling in. The young lady’s pay check arrives and it has nearly doubled for the day that she filled in on this post.

Now I become the young lady. I take an active role in trying to get that gig back. I find the boss who has now materialized in a power suit accompanied by a jet-black power bob. I pass by a mirror while I approach her and catch a glance at what I look like, and it seems I have imagined this girl to look like a 2020 version of Melissa Joan Heart, with a hearty silver blonde ponytail and a blazer covering a relatively humble t-shirt and jeans. My red lanyard foolishly still worn around my neck while my boss’ light blue lanyard was neatly twisted around her wrist hidden by the sleeve of her suit jacket. After passing the mirror, my boss sees me and meets me half way. We’re in that green carpeted resort room entrance again.

When we join each other, she let’s me know that I’m done with work for that day and I will be paid despite spending merely 20 minutes there. Before I’m able to ask why, she tells me to return the next evening at 5pm and to expect to stay until 1 am, and to report to the post where the velvet rope was located. I didn’t think that I did anything remarkable to expect to be put back in this position, I was simply interested in the pay check it yielded. It became apparent that my silence, won the favor of one of the bodyguards who encouraged my presence. I assume it was the bodyguard who took an active role in one of the conversations I pretended not to hear. Maybe it was a test, but either way I passed.

Before I left, my boss replaced my red lanyard with a light blue one. With the new badge, I walked through the corridor and saw some of the girls I saw earlier. As I walked past the group, a girl asked me my name and I gave it. That was the extent of the interaction.

I showed up the next night and was pulled into the room behind the velvet rope. It was a huge ballroom with no one really there but a few disheveled yet well dressed men at a corner couch area near a bar with cigarette smoke billowing around them. My boss tells me some sort of orientation of the room and handed me a clipboard. She advised me that I was to take patron inventory at each location in the ballroom over the course of the night. The whole room was red carpeting with velvet red walls and a wall of huge windows looking directly at another snowy mountain. I guess we were on a mountain too. I understood what my task was and did it diligently, identifying patrons by their membership types and where they were spending their time.

Truly not thinking beyond the paycheck, I handed in my clipboard after my shift was up. I didn’t even realize I didn’t take a break, I must have been enamored by the lavishness of the night and all of the people enjoying their night.

When I came in through the corridor for my next shift, there were some tired bodyguards and ones who may have just arrived. Some of the girls were chatting again, and when I entered, they all dulled down their conversations to a whisper. I must have taken an inventory of some members who weren’t supposed to be where they were when I took their account. I then understood that it had been some time since consequences were applied to the elite members of this resort.

After a few nights like this, it was clear that there was an area where there were couches set in a sort of waiting room style near another curtained door. Here is where the patronage from previous nights, had declined significantly. Not recalling any member of particular note, the gentlemen sat at these couches now were clearly regarded highly. As waitresses surrounded the couches and the employees monitoring the curtained door casually conversed with the members, the vibrancy of the situation increased. I also noticed that in other parts of the room, when I would walk by the members shifted. I was no longer unnoticed.

Following this, my boss moved me again behind the curtain between those couches. Going through the curtain, it was another massive room lined with hallways with closed doors on either side. A bar to the left of the entrance and a massive hostess style desk on the right. This is where I was put, and told to direct a plethora of deliveries to different wings of this part of our resort.

On breaks, I would converse with some of the girls and the body guards I had previously avoided. After building a rapport I got the nerve to ask them what exactly I was doing here, and why nothing was ever really explained in full to me. The girls were more aloof in their answers before returning to work, but one of the bodyguards told me I was the assistant gatekeeper to the services these girls provided. And though I wasn’t in charge of the appointments, they alluded to the fact that I was a part of the management of a high-end brothel.

At a local watering hole after work, a body guard friend and I were talking and he let it slip that some of those deliveries we were receiving weren’t just food or toiletries. Sometimes we were pumping party drugs through there to the rest of the resort. Some of the harder drugs stayed in the brothel. At the time I didn’t think much of it, none of it was my business really.

It was about to become my business, because my boss told me that I was about to take over her account here. This meant I was going to be placing the orders and sitting monitoring each of these rooms through surveillance in an office. She showed me around a really 1980s looking office with tons of tv’s every angle of the floor. The office was stocked with a lot of booze and seemed like a really nice gig. I knew all the ins and outs that my boss did and had a really good rapport with everyone now. I guess I had their respect.

I spent a few months with no issue and I was getting to know the high end members. They were slime balls, but their general lack or morals was somewhat entertaining. A lot of members came with their wives? It wasn’t like a swinger club or anything there was just a lot of freedom to make unconventional choices. I was just there to let them do it.

Cut to my first guest overdose. This never happened under my boss, so I had no idea how to react to it. I asked the man’s bouncer to get him the fuck out of here and take him to the hospital. Either way he couldn’t be here anymore. Then I remembered we had a card for an MD in my office. I gave it to the bouncer and sent them away. Then I shut down the rooms for the night.

That’s when I first felt a shift like I had done something wrong. I invited my friends into my office during the next night while their bosses enjoyed their night, this time with the floor “dealers” heavily monitoring how much they were giving everyone. I asked for their insight and what happens when this type of incident occurs. Fundamentally they said that there is always an event when what we are being delivered isn’t the highest quality. I asked how I check this and they all just sort of looked at each other. One of the newer bodyguards said that it may be a supplier issue and gave me the card of someone he knew who may be able to help.

I guess I called this person and found him really charming and attractive. So, I made them my new supplier, and I put in contingencies so that the quality was checked and assured every night. We spent months with no issue, no OD’s everything was fine. As I walked into my office one night, my old boss was already there. No pleasantries were exchanged before she grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me behind one of the curtains near a side door to exit my office. She whispered, “leave.” As in hide or literally leave? I was confused.

While I was behind the curtain, a man sauntered in with four or five body guards around him. I watched my boss scramble and snap for some of the girls to come in. Clearly she wanted to distract him from looking for me. A lot of girls walked in and he exclaimed that he wanted to see the Asian girl make out with an inanimate object while a blond girl suck his dick. I knew what was happening in those rooms, in theory, but I had never seen it in action and I cringed at how degrading this seemed.

While they were getting in position for the act, the man very calmly asked my boss where I was. She answered that I hadn’t come in yet today. He nodded. While the girls started in on him, his body guard handed him a gun, and he looked back at my boss and shot her right in the face. The girls screamed and shuddered, and he yelled and asked why they stopped and told them forcefully to keep going. They did so, while quietly crying.

I winced, and quietly opened the door, quivering. I started walking down the familiar corridor taking off my blazer and slipping off my badge. I made my way to the exit and threw my work phone in the snow. I pulled out my personal phone, and called that hot guy dealer and asked him where the fuck he was and told him he needs to help me. I hopped in my car and drove to the pin he dropped.

It was a run down stand alone white row home with a small shitty fenced in yard. I got there and quietly or calmly or not in noticeable shock asked him who this guy was and why he was looking for me. Turns out, hot guy is scary guy’s brother. When the OD happened and I gave him a call, and switched suppliers, scary guy took that as a play against him. He thought I was trying to take over that branch of his business.

This is when I freak out. I am yelling at this guy saying that I barely knew the ins an outs of something like this. I just didn’t want drama on my floor and for people to get hurt. Why did no one tell me that this was one of this man’s mafia’s biggest money makers?! How could I have no idea about this?! In the middle of my freak out, the hot guy clasps his hand on my mouth and we both hear someone breaking in. He shoves me in a disgusting bathroom and shuts the door. I start climbing out the window of this second store bathroom and get onto the roof. I scurry around to the drain pipe to climb down to the street and get my car. As I climb down, I fall a lot farther than I meant to. I’m now bloody and injured and I hear a gun shot. I take a huge shocked gasp, and start walking through the back of the yard to the other street to get into my tiny blue car.

I’m now on a concrete street lined with warehouses. In the corner of one of the warehouses, I see that there is a pub open. I quickly pull over. Limping and crazed I walk into the bar. I begged for any of these old timers to let me borrow their phone. Before any of them answers a voice behind me says “of course, you can borrow mine.” I wake up.

#dream dreamblog whatgoesoninmymindwhenisleep knockoffjessicachastainmovie

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