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onetoomanyfilms · 2 years

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Stay Alive - Part I

Steve Harrington x gn!maxfield!reader

Hello gorgeous humans! It’s that time of year again where I write whatever rubbish my brain conjures up. And this time round, Stranger Things is where I’m at! So here you go, a Steve Harrington imagine that is angsty, fluffy and all the bits inbetween. Enjoy!!

Summary: you’re in the gang during the events of Season 4 when you are captured by Jason and the Jocks. As you’re awaiting whatever hell they are going to put you through, you remember back to different moments with Steve. (2,276 words)

warnings: SEASON 4 SPOILERS, angst, injuries, lil doses of fluff, violence, hints/nods to torture, not proof read so continues at your own peril

links: masterlist part two

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Your feet scuffled along the floor as you wriggled in their grip. You shouldn’t, couldn’t be here. They were risking their lives by being in the Upside Down, by fighting Vecna and all you had to do was guard the front porch of Victor Creel’s house whilst Max and Lucas were the bait. But they leaped out from the bushes before you could even scream for help. You were powerless against them. Hell, it was weird to think you were able to fight inter-dimensional monsters better than bloody high school bullies. But here you were.

‘Well, well. Thank you boys.’ Jason’s voice echoes through what seems to be an abandoned diner. The one just on the edge of Hawkins near the woods.

‘I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re…’ you pant out.

‘Oh no,’ he stalks forward, hand reaching behind into his back pocket revealing a gun, ‘you don’t get to talk.’

You feel you body tense up, the other boys’ grips still firmly on your arms. You could feel bruises already rising all over your body, your ankle yelling in agony from the boys resisting your struggle. Knowing your luck you’ve probably broken it.

As you survey the room looking for any sign of an exit point, you recognise the seats and interior. This is where you first met Steve. Summer of ‘82.

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You didn’t live here at the time. Didn’t even really know the name Hawkins. But it was summer and your mom wanted to come down for a surprise trip, just the three of you. Max being the preteen she was, completely loved to annoy your mother to the ends of the earth. That left mom chasing her around the town a lot of the time. So one night, you took yourself to the nearest place for food you could find. That was the diner.

It wasn’t much but it was somewhere to sit and eat some pretty decent diner food. It would’ve been an unremarkable night, if it wasn’t for the swoopy haired boy who walked through the door.

You could say now that it made your heart skip a beat or that you were mesmerised by him. But honestly, you took no notice. Sure, you could appreciate he wasn’t a bad looking guy, but he was a stranger, just another person coming into the diner for some peaceful food. So as you heard the little bell chime at the door, you glanced up for a moment before turning back to your food.

It wasn’t until later, when you were heading up to grab a milkshake, that anything happened. You stopped to look at the jukebox, wondering if they had ‘Only You’ by Yazoo on there. Yes. They had it. Reaching into your pocket, you scrounged for some change to get this machine working. All you could find were some notes. As you began searching for a second time, you started to realise you used all your change up at the arcade. Dig Dug ate those coins but it was worth it, Max’s face always lit up.

Just as you’re about to give up, change is placed onto the glass top of the jukebox. As you looked up the arm placing them, there he was. Goofy smile, beautiful hair and ridiculously kind eyes. Steve Harrington.

You knew nothing about him, not his name nor his age, but there he was. Coming with a handful of change and leaving with a piece of your heart.

‘Here.’

He kept his voice light, kind. Not wanting to startle you too much but still wanting to help. ‘Which song was it that you wanted?’

‘Oh umm,’ you stutter, unsure what to say,’I… umm I don’t mind really. Just anything but this.’ Currently ‘You Make My Dreams’ by Hall and Oates was playing.

‘Excuse me,’ he grinned with a breathy laugh,’but this song is an instant classic.’

‘I’m sorry.’ You hold your hands up in surrender. ‘I guess the classics just aren’t my style.’ He laughed, a glint in his eye. But as you stared at each other the cheesy pop song still played through the tinny speakers of the diner. And part of you knew then that this boy was going to mess your life right up.

DING. The diner bell snapped you both out of it. ‘I was actually just going to go grab a milkshake-’ You began to back away, thumb pointing towards the counter. When out of the blue, your heart swelled, your stomach tightened and with an overwhelming sense of bravery you uttered the words: ‘Would you like one?’

It took him by surprise, as least that’s what he told you afterward. At the time, he kept his cool, face of steel but a smile tracing his features, a glimpse of red washing over his cheeks. ‘I’d love one please.’

‘Sure.’ And for a moment you stood there, both of you giggling under your breath. You waited for his choice of flavour but he was too preoccupied. I was just lost in your eyes is how he would describe it.

‘Oh, vanilla please.’

‘On it.’ You saluted as you fully turned toward the counter. Ordering two milkshakes, one vanilla and one strawberry. Passing over a few notes to the guy across the counter. And that’s when you heard it.

‘Looking through a window above, it’s like a story of love. Can you hear me?’

Twirling around, eyes bright, you saw Steve leaning against the jukebox queueing up whatever song he wanted next. You wondered if he knew, or if he just guessed but there it was playing over those crappy speakers. And for a second, you couldn’t help the little warmth that spread thorugh your cheeks.

‘Here you go hun.’

You mumbled out a thank you before grabbing the glasses. A ridiculous grin covered your face as you walked towards Steve, that goofy smile you’d grow to love plastered all over his face.

‘This better?’

‘Perfect.’

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Little did you know you’d have moved to this exact town two years later and now be here again. This time in a very different situation.

‘You know what,’ Jason starts, a grin spreading across his face as he twirls the gun in his hand, ‘Harrington’s gonna love it when he finds you here.’ He places the gun down gently on the side. ‘Unfortunately, we’ll knock him and the little shits out before they can even hear you breathe.’

‘You son of a bitch.’ You scream as you pull out of Andy’s grip, reaching for the gun. But all you can manage is one step away from the jock before they’re all on you. They were expecting that, that’s what they wanted. Which is why three of the boys jump and pin you to the floor so quickly you could’ve never gotten away. Jason’s on your back, one hand wrapped tightly around your wrists whilst the other is strangling the back of your neck. Your face grating against the concrete, a harsh warmth spreading through your cheekbone. That one’s gonna bruise. Suddenly, your head is being lifted off the ground and the sounds of footsteps coming slowly closer pulls you to attention. They stop just in front of you face, the dirty gym trainers close enough you could count the stiches on the seams. They bend down and a long piece of material, you can’t imagine what, comes down and is wrapped around your mouth. ‘Stop!’ You move as much as you can, writhing in pain as your whole body is trapped. ‘NO! Please don’t…’ It covers your mouth, quickly becoming damp with the tears and blood that is streaming down your face.

‘I thought I told you that you don’t get to talk. You can blame your boyfriend of yours for dragging you into this whole mess.’ You sucked in a breath, even if you could try and tell these idiots the truth but they would never believe it, wouldn’t understand any of it. But Steve’s words echoed through your mind.

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You finished redressing his wounds. ‘I’m sorry, it’s almost over.’ You bite your bottom lip. ‘I’m almost done, just a few more seconds I promise.’ As he was sat on the bathroom counter, he leaned his head into the crook of you neck and elbow with one hadn holding onto your waist to help him balance. The first aid kit was strewn all over the side as you had dug through trying to find anything that could help. Anything that could keep him going for just a bit longer.

With the last piece of tape, you secured the bandage and he let out a whimpered breath.

‘Are you ok?’

He looked up at you, droppy-eyed. ‘Of course.’

The look on your face changed from fear to playful annoyance. ‘Come on,’ you put your hands on either side of his face,’it’s me. You don’t have to play strong anymore.’

You’d spoken about it before: the responsibilty of the babysitter. And you’d told him that with you, he never had to fake strength when all he needed to do was rant, scream, cry. So to you, he never hid or pretended. He just was.

‘I’ll be ok.’ He hesitated, manoveouring himself so both his hands encased your waist, pulling you closer to him. ‘I guess I’m just realising that this is it. This is the final round and I’m scared that the second we walk out that door, I’m going to have to let you go when all I want is to go back to two days ago. Driving down the highway, speakers blaring out your crappy music and you there, holding my hand whilst singing so loudly and so ridiculously out of tune-’

You pushed against his grip in protest, giggling lightly, ‘I wasn’t that bad.’

‘But I didn’t care,’ he shook his head as he leaned it against your forehead,’I only cared about being with you and being alive. And I guess I just wished it could’ve been that way forever, you know?’

You pause, a weighted silence letting him know you understand.‘You’re cheesy, you know that?’

‘I know.’ And for a few seconds you stayed there, breathing in each other. Putting off the inevitable.

‘Stay alive, ok?’ He nudged you with his nose, a lone tear falling down his cheek.

You took your thumb and wiped it away. ‘As long as you do to.’

‘Always.’

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Stay alive.

Those were the words that rang through your head. And you were darn right gonna do so.

‘Chance, I always forget… how many bones in the human body?’

You can hear the poison on his lips: He was out for blood.

‘I don’t know,’ a breath, ‘let’s count.’

Your screams are muffled by the fabric over your mouth. Chance slowly walks towards you, clicking his knuckles. What a douchebag. Whilst being tortured wasn’t on your to-do list, if it stops them from going after Eddie, from ruining the plan to save the freaking world: you’d suffer. Besides, you were the co-babysitter, it’s what you do.

Stay alive.

You close your eyes, nose heavily breathing against the fabric. He inches his way towards you, each of his footsteps echoing in the abandoned diner.

Stay alive.

You can smell the sweaty fabric of the shoes now, they’re right under your nose.

Stay alive.

Suddenly, there’s a gust of wind, a loud thump and a crash onto the floor.

‘That’s one.’

The voice makes you open your eyes anxiously. And there he is. Steve. Dirty-as-heck, cuts-and-bruises-all-over, hair-the-messiest-it’s-ever-been Steve. But your Steve. And nothing and no one could ever change that.

Robin and Nancy are quick to follow behind, the three of them looking like some sort of off-brand ‘Powerpuff Girls’. Looking around for a moment, you notice that Chance is blacked out. Steve knocked him out cold. That’s my captian. With a grin he takes a breath.

‘You think I can count a few more?’

The group of jocks pounce, leaving you restraint free on the floor. Jason lunges for Steve but he’s quick to dodge out of the way. You try to regain sense of your body and work to push life back into your joints, wiggling your fingers and toes. Gently, you peel yourself off the floor, using the table nearest to you as leverage to lift yourself up. Just as you see Andy stalking towards you. You’ve got nothing left in you but as you look around, everyone’s fighting their own battles and this one, you’ve gotta deal with yourself.

You look around you for something, anything to use. Just as you manage to focus your eyes, Andy begins sprinting towards you. You re-place your hands on the table, hoping the stability will allow you take whatever is coming. Then you feel it. The slick cold metal, the weighted handle. The gun.

You grasp it in your hand for dear life, hoping your muscles get the message. Don’t. Let. Go. And as Andy swings for you, you whack to cold weapon against his head.

Putting in all the might you have left, all the willpower you can muster with a ferocious scream. It meets his cheek, knocking him to the ground. A few teeth joining him. He’s unconcious.

As the thud of his body hitting the floor echoes through the room, you look around. The others have turned to see what was happening. Just like that, the other jocks run. Out of the doors they’d once so victoriously brought you in through. You turn to Steve, looking for confirmation that they were done, that it worked.

But all you can comprehend is the overwhelming fear and panic in his eyes before the world goes black.

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links: masterlist part two

ask box and requests are always open <3

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glygriffe · 1 year

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The Road to the Good Place

Fandom: Dark Angel Character: Ben | x5-493 Word count: 1414 Warning: Angst, broken promises, talk of death and violence A note: From the Fanfic Lounge weekly challenge prompt: Your character gets to heaven only to find that the judgment is entirely based on how many promises they've broken.

Ben remembers hearing the Manticore guards closing in on them in the forest while he was fighting with Max. He threw some mean blows, but he didn’t really want to hurt her; he just wanted to be done. With everything. He barely registered the hurt when his knee snapped backward. He didn’t really care about living in the outside world. He tried to fit in. For years he tried, though nothing was as he had imagined. Life in the real world was hard for everyone, especially for an awkward and isolated child. But Manticore was worse.

The roar of the helicopter in his ears, as loud and clear as his heartbeat, meant the end for him. He asked his sister to not let them take him back and he's quite sure she did that last favor for him, even if he probably didn't deserve it.

He cannot see Max at his side anymore or hear the helicopter, but he swears he hears her cry softly in the distance, the sound fading. She made him talk about the Good Place just before the world disappeared. Maybe that’s where he is right now.

In the Good Place, nobody gets yelled at, and you can stay in bed as long as you want in the morning. Even if you are a child soldier turned serial killer.

The morning sun shines brightly, almost blinding him. He rubs his eyes with his fists, as he did as a child, then blinks to focus on the scenery around him. He is not in a bed, yet he is lying on his back on something soft. The undergrowth of a different forest cushions his frame and no part of his body aches. Max did it; she stopped him from spiraling further down the rabbit hole of insanity and prevented Manticore from capturing him.

Ben arches his neck back to drop his head to the ground, smiling at the bright sky and the nature around him. This must be the Good Place, where all sins are washed away and the Blue Lady provides for those who believe in her.

He can see a stream flowing gently a few steps away and on the surface of the lazy water he sees the reflection of a bright blue light. Could it be Her?

He swiftly rolls into a sitting position to catch a glimpse of the Blue Lady. But he sees nothing except a handkerchief with a medallion of the Virgin Mary placed neatly on the soft dirt near him.

”Funny how the Styx and the Pishon are two of the great rivers known to men, and yet for you, a genetically enhanced human, they merge and show up as a mere trickle of muddy water. Your road to Heaven is kind of pathetic, to be honest.”

When Ben turns, as quick as lightning, there’s a man in a suit standing behind him. Or something that looks like a man but surely isn’t. The thing smiles at him with a certain amount of contempt, gesturing to its physical form:

“You see this humanoid shape because your imagination is crippled. It’s a shame because I’m told you were a delightful storyteller a mere 10 years ago, which requires a healthy dose of creativity and intuition. As a child, you might have perceived my true form, my six wings and four faces.”

Ben never really paid much attention to organized religion. Even if he found statues of the Blue Lady in some Catholic churches, when priests talk of Her, they get it all wrong. But his eidetic memory caught on to the concept of angels in western religions and his instinct tells him that the thing that looks like a bald and bold man in his late fifties is one of those mythic creatures. They were messengers or warriors, but this angel, although definitely powerful, doesn’t look like he was built to fight. So it must be one of the former kind, here to tell him about Her.

“When will I see the Blue Lady?”

The angel scuffed: “Did you really think you could ask someone to snap your neck and, Voilà! your biggest wish would be granted? Tsk, tsk. And I thought you had superior intelligence as well as speed and strength.”

Ben can feel his forehead crinkle. An uneasy feeling creeps into his stomach; maybe he’s not exactly where he thought he was. If only because the creature in front of him is pretty close to yelling.

Without even realizing it, he slowly backs away from the angel. His foot shifts the medallion of the Virgin he left on the ground. When his eye catches the reflection of the metal in the sun, he has the compulsion to pick it up. Clenching the medallion in his fist makes him feel better and reassures him a little. Even if he is now confronted with someone who cannot hide his disgust of him:

“In the end, you’re just another ignorant hairless ape, aren’t you? You really know nothing of Osiris and Anubis, or Minos and…”

The angel sighs as if burdened with the worst task in the world.

“I guess I’ll make it simple for you: you’re not in Heaven yet. You have to follow the stream to get there. But before that, you have to be judged. On all the promises you broke. From what I know… Good luck passing the Pearly Gates.”

Ben hasn't heard any of his biological functions since Max disappeared - he is now dead after all - but it's as if his heart has stopped for a second time. His eyes close as he bows his head.

How many promises has he broken in his miserable life?

His pledge to Manticore to be a good little soldier; his promises to Max and the rest of his family of a better life; his solemn vow to the Blue Lady that he would do better.

He didn’t keep any of those.

Even his offerings to the Blue Lady and the discipline he has imposed on himself in recent years could not make up for all his transgressions.

A great sorrow fills his entire being at the thought of never reaching the Good Place, of never seeing the benevolent Blue Lady. His eyes sting and get misty, so he purses his lips and sniffs to make the tears go away. To hide that little part of him that still believed he could be saved, that part that is now bloody and raw.

Instinctively, he clutches the medallion to his heart and averts his eyes from the smug smile of the angel. He turns his gaze to the stream, catching a glimpse of the smoky wings of the angel in the water's reflection. Funny that his imagination starts working at full power again at the exact moment the rest of him seems to shut down.

Behind the supernatural being, Ben sees a bluish-white light shaping itself into a vaguely human form. Startled, he quickly snaps his head up. It isn’t just his imagination: there is a young woman glowing blue walking towards them. As she comes closer, the angel stutters and steps back. Ben can see his head getting blurry as if it wants to morph into somebody else’s face, and the shadow of a lion’s mane obscures his bald scalp. He can see this transformation, but his attention is mainly on Her.

She looks younger than he expected, with long dark hair not at all covered by a veil. In fact, she looks a little like Max, and she has a beautiful runic pattern tattooed on her bare arms. Her smile is kind yet somewhat sad when she looks at him.

As she nears the forest patch where he is rooted, transfixed by her mere presence, she gently speaks to him:

“Follow the stream, Ben. Your road is still long and meandering, but if you promise to follow it to the end, the water will lead you where you want to go. The Styx will find you if you are true to your word. When she does, bathe in her waters: it can ensure the sanctity of an oath. Thus, making you worthy of the peace you crave.”

Ben can do nothing but stare at the Blue Lady. As she starts to fade away in a resurgence of bluish-white light, taking the angel with her, he is left with nothing but Hope. And that is more than he ever had in most of his life.

#Dark Angel #fanfic #writing prompt

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danielxricciardo · 3 years

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Hi love the writing! Could you do something angsty around 26 or 35 with max??

Summary: You found out Max cheated on you

Warnings: angst, swearing

Word count: 2.5k

26. “Those things you said yesterday, did you mean them?”

35. “What will you do if we break up?”

'Max is looking at you' you read what your best friend Anthony, an engineer at Red Bull Racing, wrote.

And you worked at Red Bull Racing too, you decided with Max Verstappen, your boyfriend, that this is the best way for you to travel with him. You didn't have a complicated job. You dealt with filtering the negative ad on the team and then you gave it to Victoria to deal with the articles as she knew.

'Okay, let him look,' you write on the piece of paper that Anthony wrote quickly on.

You were at a meeting with all the Red Bull Racing employees, to your bad luck. Being in the same room with Max Verstappen was the last thing you wanted at the time.

Sure, your relationship was beautiful, or it had been anyway. He was whatever you wished from a man and more. He looked like a bad boy but he was the cutest and most thoughtful man you knew and he made you feel safe even when you couldn't see him.

His words still resonate in your mind and you had to make a supernatural effort not to cry.

You knew Max Verstappen loved you. He told you that every day and showed you through the gestures he made. He never gave you a reason to doubt him, and you didn't look for scandal either.

But every time you saw her, a lump appeared in your stomach. Without wanting to, you became careful around you, looking for her or Max. When you saw them talking, you looked for any excuse to go near them.

But your fear was unfounded, wasn't it? Max loved you, you were together for two years and you were fine.

But you also looked at her. She had also had a long-term relationship with Daniil Kvyat, a relationship of almost three years and they have a little girl together. There can be nothing between them.

Anthony has told you several times that Max and Kelly have been spending a lot of time together, at least lately, and you said you weren't worried. Why would you be?

But last night all your worries and fears came upon you at once. Anthony told you he saw Max leave the paddock with Kelly and didn't come back for about three hours. He didn't want to pay attention to this thing but when Anthony went to the driver to show him some sketches he noticed a small bruise on the backside of his neck.

"Really?" he tells you laughing. "How old are you to leave hickeys on your skin? Only teenagers still do that."

You felt all the color drained from your face. Hickey? You never left anything like that on his skin.

Anthony probably realized that what he said was not about you.

"Y/N... I'm so sorry..."

"It's ok," you say and smile at him even though you wanted to die at that moment. "I need a little bath, I'll be right back," you say and get up from the chair.

You started crying in the bathroom. You were disappointed, scared, disgusted, and shocked. To learn that someone you trusted unconditionally had been lying, cheating, and had developed an emotional bond with another woman behind your back was not registering in your brain.

Yes, you weren't a model, you didn't look like one, but Max always told you that you were perfect and that no other woman compares to you.

You literally could not wrap your head around what was happening...

You hoped that your darkest thoughts would never come true, but they did. Max and Kelly. Together. Behind your back.

It feels like every nerve in your body has either frozen or left your vessel completely. Your body literally enters a state of shock; adrenaline. You are absolutely stripped. Vulnerability. Disbelief. Disgust. Horror. Anger. Confusion. Shattering, crippling, traumatizing heartbreak.

Trust, honesty, and respect are necessary for a relationship, and Max just shattered all three at once. You have been the victim of an emotional crime. You ask yourself, how could this person fuck me over like this?

I trusted them.

I loved them.

I was loyal to them.

I kept my end of the fucking bargain.

How could you emotionally manipulate me?

What was I lacking?

Am I the problem?

Truly sickening, reality-twisting, mind-fucking stuff. You just couldn't believe that this was happening to you. Infidelity is something you hear about quite often, in books, movies, the media, or to other people, but not to you. This was somebody you loved with all of your heart, who told you he loved you, who had never shown the slightest inclination of dishonesty or moral transgression or disloyalty.

"Y/N, are you okay?" you heard Anthony behind the door, the fear and worry present in his voice.

"I'm fine," you say, though no one would have believed you. "I'll be there in a moment."

You splashed some water on your face, looked in the mirror, and bit your lip. You looked like hell. The eyes were red, the small veins that irrigated the eyeballs were broken, the face was red, in a combination between the violent crying crisis and the anger you had.

What were you going to do? Will you pretend you didn't know anything? Will you tell him you knew? Were you going to break up with him or were you going to wait for him to break up with you to be with Kelly?

You finally came out of the bathroom and Anthony was waiting for you at the door. He hugged you tight and assured you that everything would be fine. But he had no way of knowing that. It was nothing more than his simple hope that his best friend would not lose her fucking mind.

The phone starts ringing. Anthony lets you go and he goes to see who's calling you. He gives you a worried look. You immediately realized that it was Max who was calling you. Tears began to flow down your cheeks again and Anthony took your reaction as an invitation for him to answer the phone.

"Hey, man," he replies, and you don't hear what Max is saying. "No, she went for a coffee and left her phone on the table. Okay, I'll tell her. Okay, bye."

You approach him after he's finished the call to make sure you don't hear Max's voice.

"He said to go to his room."

"I don't want to see him."

"I realized that. Let's go, we'll deal with this problem later."

You went for a walk. The fresh air calmed you down a bit, but you had all kinds of thoughts in your mind.

How many times has this happened? Did you really want to know that? You really wanted to know how many times he kissed her and then he would come to you and tell you that he loves you.

If Anthony hadn't seen the hickey, how many more times did he planned to cheat on you?

Did he love her? That would have hurt you the most, knowing that you failed to give Max the love he needed and had to look for it in the arms and bed of another woman.

"Just know that I understand your feelings. I've been through this myself." Anthony breaks the silence and you look at him. "To be cheated on, it's a feeling of helplessness and zero self-worth. You feel as if you didn't do enough for that person which is why they reached out for someone else sexually or romantically. You blame it on yourself half the time. You dig for answers in your memories to try to figure out where you went wrong, where things started to go in a different direction. You hope that it won't happen again. You hope that the saying "once a cheater, always a cheater" it's just a myth. They broke your trust, how could you ever trust them again, right? You become paranoid when they go out at night or they don't answer your phone calls by the first ring. You find yourself having more down and depressed days than happy days. And a lot of questions will always replay in the back of your mind. Why? Why now? Why with them? How could this be happening to you? No matter how many times you get an answer, it won't be enough. Day after day, it'll get better but worse at the same time."

After two hours you returned to the paddock. You were immediately notified that Max was looking for you everywhere and he was worried he couldn't find you. Ironic, isn't it?

"Y/N!" you hear Max's voice.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" Anthony asks, standing in front of you to block your image of Max.

"No, it's okay. I'll handle it somehow..."

Anthony nods and leaves, staring angrily at Max.

"Hey, I was looking for you everywhere. Are you okay? Your eyes are a little red." he asks and if you didn't know better you'd think he cared.

"Let's go somewhere private."

You went to his room. You sat on his bed and thought about what you could say. You were thinking about what Anthony told you when you walked together.

Max hands you a dose of Red Bull and you take it, feeling your throat very dry.

"We need to talk," you tell him and you feel your eyes start to sting. It was not yet time to start crying.

"Okay? Is something wrong?"

"Is it true what Anthony told me?" you ask and you see that Max doesn't know what you mean; how would he know? "Is it true that you and Kelly spent some time together?"

His face went blank for a moment as he tried to understand.

"What you mean?"

You reach out your trembling hand to the collar of his polo shirt to lower it where Anthony told you it was the mark.

And Anthony was right. There was, in front of you, the hickey Kelly made on him.

Max didn't expect that. He looks at you with wide eyes and you hear his heart start beating harder. Sweat dripped down his forehead.

He looked away from you, numb. You discovered his secret. You didn't know if he was afraid of your reaction or sorry you found out his little secret.

"I didn't intend to hurt you," he says, and you realize he's telling the truth.

He had a guttural voice.

You smile at them. A broken smile that hid the primordial desire to cry and hit him with all your best.

"I don't care about your intentions. They're irrelevant. You didn't intend to hurt me? Well, you didn't intentionally try to keep me from harm either."

You don't know where you had the strength to look into his eyes and not cry. Max looks crushed. Because you found out? Because you're breaking up? Because he has to put an end to the affair with Kelly?

"How long was it actually going on before I found out?"

You see Max trying to think of an answer that doesn't affect you so much or destroy you at all.

"For less than a month," he answers.

One month? Where were you a month ago? In Spain. Did something happen there? Did you notice anything strange about him? To his behavior? No. You didn't notice anything.

Was he really that good at hiding his mistakes?

That, of course, if he considers the relationship with Kelly a mistake.

"Did you ever think of me when you were with her?"

He did not answer. You didn't even know if you wanted to know the answer to that. What would it be like to answer that he never thought of you and that his mind was soaked in serotonin that only Kelly could think of those moments?

"I never stopped loving you."

"I don't believe you loved me while you were cheating on me. Love and betrayal are incompatible. I don't feel safe with that kind of 'love.'"

"So? You're breaking up with me?" Max asks.

Although you still had so much to say, you no longer had the power. You were so mentally and physically exhausted that you just wanted to be alone and cry.

"There's nothing else to do, is there?" you say and leave his room.

Anthony was waiting for you. He noticed that you had no tears on your face and frowned.

"What happened? Did you guys make up?"

You hug Anthony hard and cry. At that moment you gave up being strong. You gave up pretending, even in front of you, that you were fine.

Fuck it, you weren't fine. You were far from fine.

You looked back at Christian Horner, who was presenting something on the video projector. You lost the whole meeting with the crew. You had no idea what was being said.

Honestly, you don't even care what they said. You only worked there because you were Max Verstappen's girlfriend. But for eighteen hours, this was no longer true. So what's stopping you from going to Christian and telling him you're resigning? What keeps you from going home and forgetting about Max, forgetting the last two years of your life and starting over?

"That's it for today, thank you very much, friends, and let's get back to work, yeah?"

Everyone gets up from their seats. Anthony draws your attention and beckons you to look at the garage door.

You could faint then and there. No one and nothing ever prepared you for the emotions you were experiencing then. Kelly Piquet was at the garage door, waiting for the meeting to end. She was staring at Max, but he was just looking at you.

"Can we talk a little?"

You nod to Anthony that you're fine and he can leave. You look at Max and you see that he doesn't look very good. He had dark circles and you're sure he didn't sleep last night either, just like you.

“Those things you said yesterday, did you mean them?” he asks, looking down at his shoes.

"Yes," you answer categorically, looking at his face, waiting for him to raise his head so you can look him in the eye.

“What will you do if we break up? You will leave here or-” you interrupt him.

"Not 'if I break up with you,' we've already gotten over it," you say and Max looks at you with wide eyes. "We already broke up last night. I'm still here because I haven't had a chance to talk to Christian yet to tell him I'm resigning."

"Are you leaving?"

"I have nothing to do here. I came to Red Bull Racing for you."

A tear runs down Max's cheek.

"What can I tell you to stay?"

"There's nothing left to say. Now go," you say and you feel a lump in your throat. "She's waiting for you."

Max turns to the garage door to see who you're talking about.

"I gave her a text message last night and told her it was all a mistake between us."

You smile at him. "Goodbye, Max," you say then you shout for Christian.

#max verstappen imagine #max verstappen oneshot #max verstappen #f1 fanfiction #f1 oneshot #f1 one shot #formula 1 oneshot #f1 fandom #f1 2021 #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #red bull racing #formula one oneshot #formula one imagine #forumula one #formula one #formula 1

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weclassybouquetfun · 3 years

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Just as the philosophical question asks, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”; if a series is on and no one watches it, does it exists?” This is my question about HBO Max’s GENERA+ION.

Seven out of eight episodes have aired and hardly anyone talks about this show. Is it because GENERATION is stylized as “Genera+ion” so people assumed it would be obnoxious? Is it because it’s executive produced by Lena Dunham? Is it because it’s perceived as the poor cousin of EUPHORIA? Okay, there’s something to that, actually. But I really have enjoyed GENERA+ION.

It was sold as an edgy drama but it’s more like SKINS with a heavy dose of DEGRASSI. The teens (Justice Smith, Lukita Maxwell, Hayley Sanchez, Chloe East, Nathanya Alexander, Chase Sui Wonders, Sydney Mae Diaz and Uly Schlesinger) of HBO’s EUPHORIA and WE ARE WHO WE ARE are world-weary and angst ridden while the teens on this show have their fair share of teen angst, but more than anything they’re - for the most part - joy-filled knuckledheads as they navigate life.

- Another group of teens dealing with mad drama are the teens of Netflix’s THE IRREGULARS.

If you ever thought, “Know what’s missing from the Sherlock Holmes universe? Orphans.” - then this show is for you. Set in Victorian London, THE IRREGULARS focuses on four orphans: Bea (Thaddea Graham), her younger sister Jessie (Darci Shaw) and their friends Spike (McKell Davis) and Bill (Jojo Mancari) as they live a hard-scrabbled life with nothing but each other....that is until John Watson (Royce Pierreson) seeks out Bea’s help on a case. Bea and her friends, with an assist from the mysterious Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), The Irregulars realize there are dark forces at play and a growing threat to London.

I liked the show but the last three hours were a chore to get through. It became truly ponderous, but I stuck with it because the back half of the series is where they get more into the Sherlock Holmes’ bits (played here by Henry Lloyd-Hughes as a Holmes who is decidely *not* a functional drug addict.)

(Lloyd-Hughes has a Sherlock connection: his grandmother’s godfather was Peter Cushing who played Sherlock in the Sixties’ series)

Very strong cast and I liked the characterizations of John Watson who has - at least in the incarnations I’ve seen - been the genteel sidekick with a bit of bite, whereas Watson in THE IRREGULARS is a rude, opportunistic bastard whose genius is a near match to Holmes.

And it’s nice seeing Tom Holland’s former man-servant best friend with a starring role.

Good on ya, Harrison.

I’m sure a quick Google search can find the answer, but I am sure the same casting director/s behind Epix’s PENNYWORTH is behind this series. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that it has two of Pennyworth’s villains playing characters of dubious natures (Alfred Hogg who is the S2 baddie of PENNYWORTH features of Osterfield’s valet; and Jonjo O’Neill plays devious occultist Aleister Crowley in S1 & S2 of PENNYWORTH and plays a slightly less egotistical Mycroft Holmes in this).

O’Neill is no stranger to Sherlock Holmes. He recently ended his four-year relationship with Amanda Abbington, former partner of Martin Freeman and SHERLOCK’S Mary.

It’s a good watch - a tad dense towards the end, but I would just zone out thinking that somewhere in the UK is a lab where someone mixed a bit of Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Rhys-Harries and Jamie Campbell Bower to make Jojo Mancari.

Who I remember from being the guy who gave Agyness Deyn that work on HARD SUN

Speaking of HARD SUN, Deyn’s costar Jim Sturgess can be soon seen in series 2 of Apple+’s HOME BEFORE DARK which bows June 11th.

If you’ve not watched this great show, it’s inspired by the real life youngest investigative journalist Hilde Lysiak. Brooklynn Prince (THE FLORIDA PROJECT) plays Hilde, an investigative journalist who learned the trade at the knee of her father Matthew (Sturgess). When Matthew is let go from the paper he was employed by, he moves his family to his hometown. Quickly Hilde discovers a decades long mystery and sets to solve it. Series two will further explore the mystery and the ramifications of what Hilde uncovers.

I love this father/daughter duo.

- Unlike the three above series, APPLE+’s CALLS did not have to shut down production due to Covid-19.

Based on Canal+’s series based on the same name and created by Timothée Hochet, the U.S. version is from Hochet and writer/director Fede Alvarez (DON’T BREATHE, THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB) and features a bevy of actors (Pedro Pascal, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Karen Gillian, Nicholas Braun, Aubrey Plaza, Lily Collins, Jaeden Martell and more) lending their voices to stories of the paranormal.

I thought this would be a perfect show for me because it’s all voice-work so I could do other things, but no, I sat there staring at the screen reading the captions atop Windows Media visualizer background of the series.

#generation #genera+ion #HBO Max #the irregulars #harrison osterfield #henry lloyd-hughes #jonjo o'neill #home before dark #apple+#jojo macari #brooklynn prince #jim sturgess #calls #fede alvarez #justice smith #uk actors

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sapphicsandscience · 3 years

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Growing Pains - Susan & Kerry ER fanfiction (1/1)

When Susan needs a little help, Kerry is the unlikely one who steps up. However, the two women struggle to get past their fractious relationship.

(read below the cut or on AO3)

Patients filled the hospital corridors from top to bottom. A group of intoxicated wedding goers from the previous night and the sweltering temperatures had blessed County with a dose of chaos. No one seemed to be moving anywhere apart from into each other, including Kerry who had returned from examining a patient to find it somehow worse than fifteen minutes previously.

“Sir, take a seat. Someone will see you when it’s your turn,” she said, strategically maneuvering her crutch between herself and a man in a fancy suit drunkenly stumbling around. The last thing she wanted was his bloody nose spilling all over her clothes.

Her white coat was an object of desire to the frustrated and uncomfortable patients as she attempted to move through the hoards of people. Her petite frame made it impossible to see the admit desk, her target destination, over what seemed like hundreds of heads. However, the sound of an infant crying from that direction managed to pierce through all the noise. Using the cries as a guide and her crutch to give some individuals a ‘gentle nudge’, Kerry finally managed to break through to the admit desk.

She was greeted by an upset-looking little Susie in the hands of a wired-looking Randi. The baby girl was all but being thrown around reception in the clerk’s arms as she answered phones and Susie evidently was no longer enjoying the ride.

“Where are all our doctors?” Kerry said with a brash tone. She immediately switched her demeanor as she leaned in closer to little Susie and stroked her damp cheek, which momentarily distracted Susie from her wailing. “There is no room to swing a cat out there.”

Randi stopped searching through the pile of charts in front of her and looked at Kerry. “That would be animal abuse,” she deadpanned.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

Randi tried to contain her smirk. “Mark is in CT with a patient and I don’t know where Doug is.”

“It’s unprofessional for an ER to be in such a state, never mind dangerous.” Kerry increased the volume of her voice as Susie began to cry again. “What about Susan? I’ve barely seen her all morning.”

“She had to take a phone call,” Randi said, preoccupied trying to soothe Susie by dangling around a small blanket in her face, the only thing she had been able to pull out of the diaper bag quickly. “Something about some lawyer I think.”

“No, I just saw her going to take a nap in exam four,” Connie interrupted as she walked over to the admit desk. “What are you doing to the poor girl?” Her brows raised as she watched Randi’s method of comforting the baby.

“You’re kidding! I can’t look after her all day!” Randi threw the blanket onto the desk in frustration. “She said she would be back in ten minutes.”

Kerry sighed. As much as it displeased her to see a doctor's personal life interfering with their work (and the running of the department), she couldn't help but have some sympathy for Susan. It hadn’t exactly been her choice to wind up looking after her sister's child. The majority of Kerry’s frustration with Susan came from the fact that Kerry hated seeing a doctor with such talent and potential distracted by things out of her control.

But it wasn’t just a distraction. It was a baby. Little Susie was her family.

Family. Something Kerry did have much left of anymore.

Deciding not to go and wake Susan up, Kerry glanced up at the clock. It was nearing twelve and the morning hadn’t made much of a dent in the crowd that was in chairs. However, she was due a break and none of the cases appeared particularly emergent. Mark and Doug could take care of it when they decided to return to the trenches she thought.

“I’ll take her for a bit,” Kerry offered, reaching out her arm towards Susie.

Randi and Connie simultaneously looked up at Kerry, disbelief written on their faces.

Kerry rolled her eyes back. “What? I don’t bite, no matter what rumors you have heard.”

The phone began to ring and Randi gratefully passed Susie to Kerry, ignoring the fact that Susan probably wasn’t going to like this. “Just take her, please. I'm pretty sure she needs to be changed.”

Kerry expertly maneuvered the infant up against her chest with one arm, so the girl's rosy cheeks gently rested on her shoulder. “I think Randi is right, isn't she little Susie?” Kerry felt the heavy diaper as she rested Susie on her arm.

“You look like you have done that before.” Connie pried not so subtly, watching as the young girl almost immediately calmed against Kerry’s touch, Susie’s wet eyes wide as she gauged this new person holding her.

The personal life of Kerry Weaver was, of course, under the scrutiny of the gossip mill. And while none exactly saw her as the maternal type, Connie wanted to see her reaction.

But she got none.

“Is this her diaper bag?” Kerry indicated to the bag on the desk.

“Yep, all her stuff is in there.”

Kerry scooped up the various baby paraphernalia into the bag and hung it over the handle of her crutch for the short journey. “Connie, I’ll be in one of the exam rooms if anyone needs me,” she called back as she walked away.

Avoiding the crowds, Kerry carried Susie into a nearby exam room. She switched on the overhead lights but Susie brought her little fists up to her face in discomfort. Apologizing to her, Kerry quickly turned them off again and instead turned on a less intense lamp that provided enough light for her to do the job.

“It’s okay, here we are. Nice and quiet here,” she rocked the girl on her hip. “Away from all those yucky sick people.”

Kerry walked over to the bed, collecting a sterile sheet before placing Susie down on her back. Susie was sporting a cute one-piece ensemble, with a matching sun hat and socks. The diaper was very full and wet and Kerry checked for any leakages before sliding the girl’s clothes off. Satisfied that there were none, Kerry opened the bag that was sitting beside Susie with her free hand and collected the required items to change her.

“I can see why Susan is so attached to you,” Kerry patted Susie's little stomach as the baby happily squirmed on her back, enjoying her new clean diaper. “You’re a gorgeous girl aren’t you? You must have your aunt’s genes hey,” she said and Susie babbled back in agreement, a cheeky smile falling on her face. Kerry leaned down closer and shook her head excitedly. “Yes, you are.”

It took a while for Susan to regain full control of her limbs as she clawed herself out of the sleep-deprived coma that she had entered in exam four. Her call with her now ex-lawyer had left her wishing she could just disappear from existence for a bit.

Not quite ready to lift herself up, Susan stretched out with a yawn as she studied the ceiling. Little Susie had been up every couple of hours the last few nights, the young girl perhaps feeling the unrest that was in her aunt's life at the moment. Between that, work, and the amount of stress she was under, Susan couldn't remember the last time she had a moment to herself.

Though this moment to her herself had not left her feeling particularly rested or rejuvenated. Instead, she awoke from her ‘short nap’ uncomfortable. Everything was hot and cloudy and she felt like she had awfully overslept.

Which was odd, considering Susan could swear she had only been in here for 10 minutes. 20 Max.

Reaching over to the side table she picked up her watch and squinted.

“Crap,” she muttered. It had been at least an hour.

The realization that she had left Susie with Randi along with a certain chief resident's voice in the back of her head berating her for missing work, sprung Susan into action and she quickly collected her stethoscope and pager before running out of the exam room.

“Randi, I’m so sorry!” she called out, fixing her hair and clipping on her pager to her lab coat as she made her way towards the admin desk. “I just thought I’d close my eyes for a few minutes and then -” her apology ended abruptly as she looked up and noticed something was wrong. “Where’s Susie?” her voice went cold.

Randi frowned in confusion as she tried to decipher Susan’s questions while simultaneously trying to control the rowdy crowd that had somehow spilled into the admit area. “Oh the baby, Dr. Weaver took her,” she replied.

“Took her?” Susan tried to quell any panic and come to a logical conclusion. “Like to the daycare?”

She struggled to fathom any reason as to why Kerry had taken Susie. But perhaps Kerry had grown tired of Susie’s cries and shipped her upstairs to prevent any further distraction in the department.

But why had no one come to wake her first?

“I’m not sure...” Preoccupied, Randi brushed her off and resumed yelling at the man that was opposite the desk. “Sir, you need to sit down. Otherwise, I’ll turf you out of here myself!”

“Lady, you can’t talk to me like that!”

“I’ll talk how I like,” Randi spat out and smiled as she watched the man retreat back. “I think she is still down here though. She said something about an exam room,” Randi focused her attention back on Susan and answered calmly.

But Susan was gone before Randi had even finished her sentence.

“Move please!” Susan pushed herself through the crowded ER corridors, not bothering with any pleasantries.

It had been over an hour since she had left Susie to go and make her phone call. Over an hour that little Susie had been left alone with a stranger. Left alone with Kerry Weaver of all people. Randi would have been better passing her off to the LOL in curtain three, Susan thought.

With every empty exam room she found, Susan’s heart rate climbed. And with every extra beat, Susan’s mind became less sound.

What if they had left the hospital? Susie could be anywhere.

“Mark! Thank god,” Susan burst into the suture room.

“I’m a little busy right now,” he replied, getting ready to begin a suture on a passed-out patient, presumably another victim of last night's wedding party.

“No, it’s Weaver you have to -” she continued breathlessly.

Mark let out an exasperated sigh and swung around on his stool. “Susan, I thought we had been through this. You two need to learn how -”

“Weaver has abducted little Susie!”

Bewildered, Mark and Malik stared at Susan.

“Umm...Malik, wash this wound out again, will you? I’ll be back shortly,” he took off his gloves and stood up, leaving a curious-looking Malik behind him.

“What on earth are you talking about?” he ushered Susan into the corridor.

Susan raised her hands to her forehead. “I went to take a break...Susie...she was with Randi and then she wasn’t...I -” she rambled, running her shaking fingers through her hair.

“Slow down. What does Kerry have to do with any of this?”

“Randi said that Kerry took her and I can’t find them anywhere.”

Mark frowned. “I’m sure there is an explanation,” he comforted, as the pair walked to somewhere more private where they could talk.

“Mark, I don’t care if there is an explanation,” she said, as they entered the doctor’s lounge. “I don’t want her near little Susie!”

Susan’s words ricocheted through the doctor’s lounge, clearly making themselves heard to the occupants. Kerry and Connie were both seated on the couch along with Susie who was happily perched upon Kerry’s lap. The young girl smiled as she stole both of the women’s complete attention. That was until Mark and Susan had arrived. An awkward air swept through the room as they all stared at each other.

“Good Susan, you’re here.” Kerry was the first to break the silence and she stood up, ready to pass the baby over to Susan. “I think she is getting a little hungry, but I wasn’t sure what formula she takes.”

Kerry quickly gave the baby to Susan, which was slightly hindered by the fact that Susie had a firm fist wrapped around one of Kerry’s fingers. Kerry managed to pry her tiny fingers from her own and Susie was then in her aunt's arms, which immediately allowed Susan to breathe again.

“There is already some made up in the fridge,” Susan said offhandedly, the events of the last fifteen or so minutes washing over her as she stroked her niece's cheek. Susie was fine. “The formula.”

Kerry shuffled on her feet for a few seconds before committing and turning around to go and collect the bottle. Susan sighed as she took a seat at the table. She hadn’t meant for Kerry to go and get the formula. Truly she wished they all would leave. Kerry especially. Only so she didn’t have to look at her in the face after what she had just said.

Mark laid a hand on her shoulder. “If everything is alright here, I have to get back,”

“I should be getting back to work as well,” Connie lifted herself up from the couch. “Bye-bye, little Susie,”

Further tension spilled into the lounge as the two buffers departed. Susan glanced over to Kerry who had located the bottle and was warming it up. Kerry’s movements were deliberate and slow as if she was trying to extend the time she could have her back to the other woman in the room.

Susan swallowed. “Kerry I-”

“Randi was getting swept under, so I offered to take her for a bit.” the redhead interjected. Her voice was shrill, though not in its usual acerbic manner. More as if the voice was hitched in the chest and its owner was desperately trying to mask it.

Susan nodded, watching as Kerry collected the bottle from the microwave and tested the temperature of the milk on the inside of her wrist.

“I should have said something. Left a note.” Kerry continued as she turned back around. “Here,” she smiled, placing the bottle on the table.

Susie’s eyes immediately lit up and she reached out for her meal. She couldn’t quite hold her own bottle up yet, but that wasn’t going to deter her from trying.

“Thanks,” Susan replied and picked up the bottle. Susie grumbled as her milk was delayed when Susan splashed some of the milk onto her own wrist.

“Oh, I already did that,” Kerry pointed out, the intonation falling at the end of her sentence as she realized Susan wanted to check for herself. “Nevermind.”

Kerry uncuffed her crutch from her arm and gently rested it against the table before sitting down. Both women smiled as Susie latched on to her bottle and drank feverishly. Susie was something for them to focus on rather than themselves. And it was working. The mood lifted.

“She is a good little drinker,” Kerry commented.

“Kerry...I’m sorry,” Susan said.

Kerry stretched her neck from side to side as Susan waited for a response. Apologizing to Kerry Weaver was not something Susan had ever planned to do. Yet, here she was. Apologizing. Giving Kerry the upper hand.

However, the chief resident was as good at accepting apologies as she was offering them and she ignored the crumb of a peace offering that had been placed in front of her.

Susan pressed her lips together and looked down at little Susie, who was contently enjoying her milk, to quench the anger she could feel rising inside.

Kerry couldn’t even acknowledge it. Which made apologizing in the first place feel even worse.

Despite her apparent inability to make things easier for herself and Susan, Kerry didn’t show any signs of leaving and leaned forward. “I think you are doing a very admirable thing. Looking after your niece,” she said softly, but Susan couldn’t help but hear it in a condescending tone.

“It probably won’t be for much longer,” she replied bitterly.

Susie chose this moment to start making some ominous gurgling sounds and Susan reached towards the bag to find a blanket. The last thing she needed today was another shirt decorated with baby spit-up. Her laundry pile was growing and little Susie was ‘customizing’ them faster than she could wash them.

Kerry quickly went to help her, unzipping the bag further and making it easier for Susan to pull the blanket out with her free hand. “Randi said you were speaking to a lawyer?”

“Chloe wants to play mom again and apparently me being the only constant fixture in this girl's life for the last few months means nothing,” Susan lifted the girl up onto her blanket-covered shoulder and gently burped the baby. “I have a meeting with another one tonight. But I can’t bring Susie along.”

“Can’t your parents help?”

“They don’t want to get involved,” Susan replied, eyes downcast. “And maybe, I shouldn’t either. Just let Chloe get what she wants. She is her real mother after all.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Biology doesn’t dictate love, Susan. Not like that.”

Susan shook her head. “I’m no better than Chloe. My first response was to get rid of her. Adopt her out. You don’t do that if you love someone. You don’t do that to your child.” her words were less of a statement and more of a sad pleading question. She knew the answers. That nothing was as black and white as that. That people give away children they love all the time. She knew she was holding herself to a higher standard than she would anyone else.

But she just wanted someone to tell her what to do. Tell her what was the right thing.

And deep down. Tell her she could be a mother.

A good mother.

She wanted it so badly that she’d even take it from Kerry Weaver.

Or maybe Kerry Weaver’s opinion meant more to her than she was willing to accept.

Kerry remained silent for a few moments, fiddling with a ring on her finger. Susan furrowed her brows, she could see the light reflecting in Kerry’s damp eyes. Her words had evidently had some sort of emotional effect on Kerry.

Since when was Kerry Weaver so invested in my personal life?

Kerry cleared her throat. “Susan, I’m sure, whatever happens, it will work out,” she sat up straighter, regaining an air of authority. “But still, I think you should go tonight.”

“How?”

Kerry looked down nervously. “I...I can be with her,” she offered quietly.

“Kerry-“

“I’m serious. I’ll watch over her for an hour or so, while you go and meet this new lawyer,” she said. “It will be fine, me and Susie have already gotten to know each other haven’t we?” Kerry lent forward and rubbed Susie's back.

“Kerry,” Susan sighed, leaning back further against the chair and away from Kerry. “It’s nothing personal, but I don’t like the idea of leaving her with someone we don’t know.”

“It’s okay Susan, I understand.” she nodded with a pained smile and Susan could see how her face had fallen ever so slightly. “It was just a suggestion.” Kerry stood up and collected her crutch. No further words were exchanged between the pair as Kerry walked to the door.

“Wait Kerry,” Susan called out with a regretful grimace. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She picked up a stray piece of paper from the table and started writing. “Umm...this is my apartment address, come by at 6:30 and I’ll go through what she needs?”

Susan gently inserted her key into the lock and turned the mechanism, careful to make as little noise as possible. With Susie being so difficult to settle these past few weeks, she doubted that Kerry would have had much success putting her down for the night. But on the off chance that she had, Susan didn’t want to wake her as she arrived home.

She was eager to get inside and see Susie, still not entirely comfortable with the idea of Kerry in her apartment and taking care of her. Logically she knew she didn’t have many reasons to be overly concerned. Kerry was a responsible adult and a doctor. And much to her shock, quite good at dealing with young children. However, the difficult relationship between them didn’t do a lot to settle her nerves.

She wasn’t exactly sure what she expected when she walked into her apartment, but to her surprise, everything felt overwhelmingly normal. The sheer presence of Kerry Weaver hadn’t turned the place into a cold and disturbed environment.

Not that Susan thought that of course.

It still felt like home.

She found herself smiling as she closed the door behind her and unwrapped the scarf around her neck. There wasn’t much to smile about, she thought; her life was still in shambles and she was going to have to deal with what was likely going to be another awkward Weaver interaction before she could even think about her head hitting the pillow. However, the day hadn’t been a total disaster.

There was a light on in the kitchen but the lounge area was dimly lit. A single lamp illuminated Kerry who was seated on the couch and absorbed in the book she was reading. Susan bounced up onto her tiptoes as she hung her scarf up. Raising her chin up she could just make out a peaceful Susie sleeping in her bassinet over the other side of the room and she let out a breath of air.

“Susan,” Kerry stirred and placed her book onto the coffee table. “How was it?”

“It was good,” She replied.

In fact, the meeting with this lawyer had gone far better than expected. Though Susan wasn’t keen to elaborate further right now. She had opened up herself enough to Kerry for one day. Arguably enough for a lifetime.

But this lawyer was ready to fight. The only question left was, if she was.

“I’m glad,” Kerry smiled.

Susan wandered over to the bassinet, the innate need to see her niece overpowering the fact that the girl was already settled and asleep. She placed a gentle hand on Susie’s front and stroked her cheek lightly with a finger. Susan had grown to hate missing bedtimes with Susie. The girl moved on her back ever so slightly, a little hand coming up to Susan’s that was now resting on her cheek. Susan stilled as her breath hitched in her throat.

Of course, she was going to come home and wake the baby in front of Kerry.

But Susie’s face remained content as she continued to sleep and her arm fell back down.

“She had been like that for the past hour or so,”

Susan jumped as she heard Kerry’s voice over her shoulder, not having noticed the redhead come up behind her. The women had a way of creeping up on you. Figuratively and literally.

“Took me long enough,” Kerry continued with a smile. “But she hasn’t woken since, so fingers crossed, she might sleep through for you.”

“I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is,” Susan let herself relax. “Thank you, Kerry.”

Kerry nodded stiffly before turning back and using the various pieces of furniture to balance as she returned to her crutch that had been resting against the back of the couch. Susan instinctively looked away, not having realized until that point that she wasn’t using her crutch. She never really thought about it, Kerry’s leg, but seeing her grimace as she walked across the apartment made her internally cringe as she remembered the incident in the lounge.

How she had managed to create such a complex relationship with Kerry she didn’t know.

Never in her life had Susan had so many painful interactions with the same person. And the worst of it all was that she didn’t actually dislike Kerry. Sure, the woman could drive her up the wall on a daily basis but she didn’t hate her. There had been far worse bosses in her life. And yet, the two could never seem to have a normal conversation. Sometimes they’d laugh together, Kerry would feel like one of them, one of the team. And then it was like she was an alien from another planet, sent here to obsessively pick over their every move.

And Susan let Kerry get to her, more than anyone else.

“I guess I better be going then,” Kerry fluffed up the cushions where she had been sitting and picked up her bag. “Umm...there is also some takeout for you in the fridge.”

Susan looked over surprised and walked into the kitchen. Though before she made it into the fridge, she noticed that the kitchen had obviously been cleaned and she immediately felt embarrassed. She had made sure that the apartment was in somewhat of a presentable state before Kerry arrived. However, it was now clear that Kerry hadn’t thought so.

But still, Susan tried to focus on how it was nice of her.

“It’s Chinese. I’ve seen you eat it at work. Not that I watch you eat or anything. I just knew that it was something you liked. Anyway...” she stammered.

“Kerry, you shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, it was nothing really.”

Susan was about to thank her again when something caught her eye in her bedroom. There were three freshly washed and folded piles of clothing sitting at the end of her bed.

“You...you washed my clothes?”

There it was, Susan thought. Kerry Weaver could not help herself. Had to go and interfere in her life once again. And now she was micromanaging her in her own home. The thought of Kerry seeing her baby vomit-covered shirts and god knows what else sent Susan into overdrive. This was too much of a personal infringement for her.

Not picking up on the sudden change in Susan’s mood, Kerry continued as she put on her coat. “Susie was a bit grizzly and I thought a trip to the laundry room may help. She surprisingly likes it down there.”

“I didn’t say you could do my laundry!”

Kerry stilled, her face palling at the sudden acidity in Susan’s voice. “I just thought you might appreciate the extra help.”

“I don't want your help, Kerry! Not at work and definitely not in my own home.” she spat out. “I’m not useless you know?”

Susan lent heavily against the kitchen counter with her arms forward and closed her eyes. She needed Kerry to leave now.

Kerry, however, walked over to her with a look of concern in her eyes.

“Susan, I don’t think you are useless.” She reached out to place a hand on Susan’s forearm. But, Susan dramatically flinched away from her and Kerry stumbled back.

The redhead visibly tensed and straightened into her usual demanding posture. “I overstepped. It won’t happen again.”

“Kerry-” Susan began as Kerry began to walk to the door but she was distracted by the sudden cries from Susie who had awoken with the commotion. Quickly she rushed over to her, picking her up and rocking her against her chest. “Shhh, I’m sorry, it’s okay Susie.”

But Susie continued to cry.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Don’t be late,” Kerry said as she was leaving. “It..it has been happening far too frequently of late. It doesn’t look good for your application for Chief Resident.”

Susan’s apartment did feel cold that night.

#been working on this for a little while #something a little new from me #hope you enjoy #kerry weaver #susan lewis #kerry x susan #er fanfic #er fanfiction #my writing #I may make this a series in the future #also sorry for any grammar mistakes this was written after a couple of migraines lol

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lovecolibri · 3 years

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Things that did NOT Spark Joy-3x06

So there was SO MUCH about this episode that DID spark joy (found here), but there are still a few things I’m 😒😒😒 about. I know this looks long but it’s only a couple of bullet points and just me not being able to shut up. But overall I really did love this episode! Most of this is just some overarching issues with the show with 3x06-specific examples. So join me in the salt mine!

Soooo there has been an on-going issue this season where things are not being explained and leaving everyone confused, but not in a fun way like “oooh, let’s speculate on what’s happening!” and more in an “I can’t even speculate because I don’t know what’s happening” way. So we know by the end of the episode that Jones!Max was lying about what happened when he arrived home, but we still have no real idea what happened specifically to Kyle. We think he was kidnapped, but there’s a bloody shovel that everyone is assuming Kyle was wielding but we have no proof of that. m*ria says he wasn’t breathing, but she didn’t do CPR though she apparently had time to go to his bag, search to see if he was carrying any adrenaline with him, pull up a dose (does she even know how much to safely give someone?!) and carefully inject him with it, all while some creepy dude (possibly more than one?) were still hanging around waiting for her to do this? It’s not like Kyle had a quick-stab EpiPen or anything, what he gave her earlier in the season came from a vial and syringe that he’s still just...carrying around? Then Kyle tried to use the radio to call for help I guess (how did he switch it from “receiving” to “transmitting”? Hopefully we’ll find out when Kyle is around to tell us!) but it flew out the window and across the desert until it crashed into a tower? I think? I still have no clear idea on what happened there. And we know Kyle is missing, but it doesn’t look like the regiment dudes have him, but they DO have the alien sword that they pulled from that box. But who found the box or knew it was there besides Max and probably Jones if he pulled the info from Max’s head? We saw him driving at the time of the explosion and the men were gone when he got back to Max’s house so I’m guessing it wasn’t Jones!Max? And now apparently Eduardo got the signal to his radio that’s hidden in a cabinet even though he was with Alex when it went off and affected the bats, and then he went all the way out to Max’s too? And got there in time to run into Kyle? Was Kyle digging up the box? There was just SO much going on there, and without the audience SEEING what really happened and then getting several different and conflicting accounts, and weird pieces of information that don’t fit anywhere, it’s just a jumbled mess. I’m hoping when we find Kyle we will get to see or at least hear what really happened but right now I’m just scratching my head about that whole plot point.

Another on-going issue is how the narrative keeps centering itself and other characters around m*ria who is...NOT the lead for the show. Kyle is legitimately MISSING with no idea where he is, who took him (or even IF someone took him), or if he’s safe. They were just flaunting Kyle in Jordan’s face a few hours after Jordan thought he killed him or at the very least seriously injured him, enough for a hospital say. You think he didn’t mention that to any of his buddies? And they still think the vision is about Kyle’s death and yet for some reason, no one is frantic or freaking out about Kyle (MY MANS DESERVES BETTER!) not even Rosa, because they are all too busy reminding the audience they are so concerned about m*ria. Who may be in a coma, but is safe in a hospital under constant monitoring while Kyle is lord knows where, with lord knows who, and in lord even knows what condition. Why is Rosa not freaking out about Kyle, but she is freaking out about m*ria? Who we still have hardly seen anywhere near Rosa her supposed BFF whose grave she visited all the time, but can’t seem to be bothered with her now that she’s alive? And if they are trying to set up Kybel, they’re not doing it well because Isobel couldn’t seem to care less the Kyle is missing, because she’s too busy trying to find m*ria. Liz and Alex talk about how great Kyle is and they are looking into the blood samples, but the urgency isn’t quite there like I thought it would be, especially for those two, the closest to Kyle aside from Rosa. It just seemed like so much of the plot was around m*ria (who is oh so lonely, apparently even though everyone has been bending over backwards for her all season), and the rest of the people are looking into bats, or blood samples, or radio signals but it felt like they were more focused on those pieces as research, and not as much about getting to Kyle.

Speaking of centering things around m*ria when they shouldn’t be, this whole vision quest thing has taken up so much time when, as I said before, it could have been an email. They could have had ONE (1) vision with conflicting character reactions like we got and maybe with Liz still missing for added flavor and had everyone working on theories for that while exploring more about Deep Sky and Jones, and Kyle’s radio, and whatever Heath’s tie is to everything because I’m sure he fits in with that plot but they haven’t even given us a good hint about that yet and we are halfway through the season! There are so many things I want to see or that we could have gotten, and while the slower timeline is good, we should have gotten a jump between 3x04 and 3x05 where maybe Kyle was healing a little after Max mostly saved him so they don’t spark Jordan and his cronies curiosity, and we could have gotten Alex’s reaction to Kyle’s near death experience and allowed Malex some time to marinate after that 3x03 conversation and maybe start moving forward. There are a lot of really cool things happening that I want to see, and things I’m really confused about because the show didn’t take the time to explain them well, which maybe if we weren’t wasting so much time on Liz driving back and forth from CA, and all these side plots with m*ria and her vision quest, and then Isobel and m*ria’s “trip” that was a waste of time because we didn’t learn anything in that leadup to them seeing the “full” vision, and now with Isobel and Rosa trying to find m*ria in her mind, it’s all just focusing on the least interesting part of the season and not leaving time for the other, far more fascinating storylines that are centered around the actual main character, to breathe. Also I’m so fucking sick of m*ria. I did not start this season to watch the m*ria d*luca show, I came here to watch Liz be the lead, to see Alex and Michael grow and become friends and something more, alien shenanigans, and literally every other character BUT her. This episode was a step in the right direction though with Liz getting the bulk of the screen time but GOD am I tired.

Okay, last little bit of salt! Sooo, I’m a little confused on Alex’s short-tempered "I'm not doing this with you" when the last words we saw him share with Michael were "I would burn the world down first." This feels like such a big step backwards with again, NO information on when or if they are talking or have been over the past year or anything, especially from Alex to let us know where he’s at in regards to Michael. Alex being short or mean to Michael while Michael makes puppy eyes is just reverting back to their early season 1 dynamic and I’m soooo tired. And also, I'm just side-eyeing the writers SO HARD over this because after forcing Alex to be the biggest cheerleader for m*ria this season (while she's actively being awful to people and risking her life and the lives of others and risks exposing the alien’s powers), he's ONLY allowed to be angry and short with Michael. Like??? *screams into pillow* Alex not being Michael’s biggest fan right now is absolutely understandable and I could live with it if we were allowed to see anything from Alex’s perspective about what his feeling are. But all we gotten is a grand declaration, which Michael takes as a good sign, he calls up Alex, and now suddenly Alex doesn’t want to deal with him or work with him and he’s left feeling off-kilter and I’m SO TIRED of that. So tired. But on top of that, if Alex is going to be holding a bit of a grudge with Michael, why in the absolute fuck is he not allowed to hold one with m*ria?! Last season made it clear Alex just wanted Michael to be happy and he recognized that Michael was grieving and struggling and maybe coping in no so great ways, but m*ria had zero excuses to be going after Michael after she promised she wouldn’t, and then proceeding to rub that relationship in Alex’s face, and pull manipulative shit to prove that Michael was going to choose her over Alex. So please explain to me why Alex is calling m*ria his dr**m g*rl, but being snappy with Michael, because I just cannot. At this point, we will be lucky to see them even starting to build a friendship by the end of the season and anything more will feel “too soon” for that kind of growth if only a couple weeks ends up passing in show time, but also it’s already been 84 years! We have been dying of thirst since 1x03 back in 2019!! Enough is enough already. I can live with them being not quite in a relationship at the end of the season (I say that now but watch me have a meltdown about it anyway), as long as we get to see that friendship and growth and foundation being built so they can start something healthy that will last. That’s all Malex fans want and we are now halfway through yet another season where we were told that Malex would be “friends” and we haven’t even gotten to the friends part yet! And in fact, have only gotten 2 scenes of them together, and only 2 of Michael talking to anyone else about Alex, and one grand declaration from Alex but nothing else even giving us any clue that he has thought about Michael at all. Thank goodness for Vlamis and Tyler giving interviews and confirming Malex are still in love even if they aren’t together right now because the show sure AF doesn’t want to give us any information about them at all. I’m still hopeful and holding out for a Malex heavy back-half of the season but it’s getting a little hard to stay positive when we are right back into doing season 1 over again with them.

#roswell nm #season 3 spoilers #things that did not spark joy #3x06 #anti maria deluca #i'm just a salt gremlin

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tunedtostatic · 2 years

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Dear Yuletide Author,

Thank you for writing a fic for me! This letter is basically just what I wrote for sign-ups, but all in one place with a few added notes. I hope something I’ve come up with provides inspiration if you’re looking for ideas, but all prompts are definitely optional! I’m sure I’ll love whatever you create.

General Likes: Angst, competence, backstory moments, outsider POV, grief, loyalty, AUs like college or mermaid or &c that aren’t specific fandoms, introspection, missionfic, fight sequences, characters doing their jobs or using their skills (if you have random knowledge of someone’s specific skill or job field, please, go for it.)

General things I would rather not be a main focus (okay in small doses): Pining or early stages of getting together, fake dating, jealousy

General DNW: Crossovers, fusions/AUs with specific fandoms (i.e. Regency AU is fine, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen AU is not) (exception: I guess fairy tale AUs are technically fandoms but they’re cool), explicit smut (non-explicit or fade to black is fine), pregnancy, reader inserts, BDSM, omegaverse, underage, bestiality, incest, fluid related kinks

Old Kingdom: Lirael, The Disreputable Dog

This duo is amazing, and I would love more of their adventures, whether as canon missing scenes or as an AU. Here are some ideas for prompts, but please don’t feel constrained to these. I would love to read anything, especially in the vicinity of my general likes, that you’ve had an idea for.

AU settings! I feel like AUs with some form of magic lend themselves more easily to this duo so that the Dog can still be Not Quite An Ordinary Dog (or Not Quite An Ordinary Creature, depending on the AU). But I’m also good with mundane AUs where the Dog is simply A Very Clever Dog. Plot ideas: • Lirael’s story seems to lend itself to magical creature AUs where she’s a child of two different magical creatures or types of magic users. • If you like writing fluff or humor, any AU plot that is basically a side quest style silly adventure would be very fun. • Angst is good too if you have an AU setting that you think would be a nice way to explore some of the angstier sides of canon. Missing scenes! This canon is kind of an exception to my more angst-heavy General Likes in that for these two, I’d love fluffy stuff, hurt/comfort, and hijinks just as much as I would love angst. But angst or the sadder side of hurt/comfort are certainly good too. • A few missing scene ideas: reading, stargazing, snuggling, talking about swords or gear, exploring plants and botany of the Old Kingdom

DNW specific to Old Kingdom: Noncanonical character death I would prefer no canon-atypical heavy angst (torture, dubcon, noncon, or similar) for this canon, though canon-typical angst is fine I would prefer nothing focusing on Lirael/Nick (no offense intended if you like it, it’s just not my thing)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris:

For this canon, I’m more interested in character and or plot than worldbuilding. (Please don’t psych yourself out over how much worldbuilding is too much, though… The vast majority of fanfics out there wouldn’t fall under “too much,” so as long as you’re not actively trying write something worldbuilding-heavy, it’s all good).

Here are some ideas for prompts, but please don’t feel constrained to these. I would love to read anything, especially in the vicinity of my general likes, that you’ve had an idea for (or modified takes on any of these prompts, for that matter).

• Did Krejjh and Thasia ever make good on the pen pals idea from 1.09 Plan B? • Other Violet or Thasia dies; how does the other mourn? (Near-death angst with a happy ending is also good.) • The audience gets to know Krejjh’s love of flying, but Sana, Arkady, and later Park also fly the Rumor/Iris. What does one of them (or all of them, or all of them + Krejjh) feel about flying? • Max Gavins is my favorite side character and I’d love to read him interact with anyone in the main cast, whether as the main focus of a fic or as a brief appearance. • I almost didn’t include this explicitly since there’s already a lot of Vikady fic out there, but I very ship them and think there can never be too much Vikady content, whether as a focus or in the background. • If you’re looking for character combination ideas, some non-romantic relationships I would love to read more about are Sana & Krejjh, Arkady & Park, and Krejjh & Thasia, whether focus or background.

Three Turtle Doves Yuletide Challenge reminded me I’d love any reference to Sana being canon polyam! Ships I like are Sana/Campbell/Park (this art by nanoeggroll got me very onboard), and Sana/Other Violet (ship uh manifesto here) alongside canon Sana/Campbell, but general references to this part of her identity are also fun. (I’m interested in the tension between Sana maybe being polyam in an identity way but Campbell seeming to interpret it as a stopgap measure for her dangerous life, though fair warning that I might finish the fic I’m writing about this in the meantime and steal your thunder. ;)

DNW specific to Starship Iris: Don’t want character death in Iris 2 crew (central seven characters) Don’t want dubcon or noncon Don’t want fic with a central focus on disability/mental illness. For background content, don’t want any disability/mental illness content that isn’t averted from how it is handled in canon. • I find the way this canon handles disability disturbing (I wrote a big wordy essay about it a while ago, which I’ll Iink in my letter in case it’s useful, but it includes personal stuff and by definition crosses “Don’t overexplain DNWs,” and of course you don’t need to read it | essay link). I assume most people don’t have time to navigate a canon’s controversial issues for Yuletide, which is why my starting point is just DNW, but since characters’ disabilities are a significant part of canon I wanted to leave them open for background inclusion if you’re familiar with the issues and feel comfortable averting canon ableist stuff. • I realize there’s a grey area when writing characters like Thasia for whom trauma would be a significant part of almost any fic about them, and that’s okay too.

The Pasithea Powder:

For this canon, I don’t not ship Sophie/Jane and I’d be very happy with background content about the ship, but I’d be more interested in a focus on other characters or the other relationships in either of their lives. With all the canon A plot going on, the audience doesn’t get to spend too much time with most of the side characters, but the side characters and their relationships with the leads are still nuanced and interesting! I would love to read more about them.

Characters I’m ridiculously interested in seeing more of include (though are not limited to): Josephine Crooks, Father Schaefer, Lieutenant Salazar, Lieutenant Steptoe, Sophie Green's Mother, Carla DeLuca, Anders Li • I would be happy with almost any content involving anyone on that list...if you’ve got any ideas, especially in the vicinity of my general likes, involving one or more of them I would love to read it • My kneejerk ideas would be them interacting with Sophie or Jane, like we usually see on the podcast, but any of them interacting with each other while Sophie and Jane are off camera would also be Very Good • Father Schaefer seems like a good egg, and I’d love to read more of him interacting with Sophie. Or maybe reflecting to himself about his conversations with her, or just thinking his own thoughts about the war and current interplanetary situation. • I think Josephine and Sophie should hook up • Alternately, I think Josephine and Jane should hook up • A messed up OT3 of Sophie/Jane/Josephine would also be fun • Or OT4 Sophie/Jane/Josephine/Carla, although that hits me in the feelings because I think Carla deserves nice things, and Sophie and Jane deserve nice things, which means the OT4 hits critical mass of people who deserve nice things and I can no longer root as hard for it to be messed up. (I think Josephine mostly deserves to be hot and mildly amoral and look good doing it.) • Salazar and Steptoe seem like a good opportunity to write some offscreen interactions without Sophie around, whether missing scenes from the Tortoise or afterward (did they keep in touch?)

This is a canon where I’d definitely be equally happy to read multiple little vignettes about multiple characters or a deep dive into one character or scenario. There are so many characters I like, but all of them also feel interesting enough to sustain their own fic.

DNW specific to Pasithea: Don’t want character death of Jane or Sophie Don’t want degrading character death (I know this is kind of subjective, but I think it’s one of those things where if you’re trying to avoid it you’re probably fine)

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zaffrenotes · 3 years

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Last Line Tag

I was tagged by @queenrileyrose to share the last line(s) of what I've been working on. After a hefty dose of writer's block and general SAD, I'm slowly - s l o w l y - coming out of a fog and dusting off WIPs.

from Kairos: He was dancing with Olivia when he caught a flash of Max's dress near the edge of the dance floor.

from an untitled Open Heart one shot: Startled, [redacted] jumped where they stood when a convertible screeched to a stop and the driver beeped the horn twice; Bryce popped up from the driver's seat and beckoned at them, flashing a smile.

Tagging anyone that wants to play along, and a few folks who might be interested to see me writing again: @ao719 @the-soot-sprite @burnsoslow @ofpixelsandscribbles @alyssalauren

#last line tag #writing again #fighting the writer's block #kinda sorta back #not sure when i'll finish writing these #making an attempt to write #I have lots and lots of reading to catch up on too

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ennui-gt · 3 years

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Here it is. A Piece Of Borrower Content Written Entirely In Stream Of Consciousness:

AN: so this is incomplete and very…needs revisions to the timeline to incorporate some things I added later! It’s the original universe that Mira’s from! I edited it like Slightly to just change Ross’s name to Ross (if u see Max anywhere that’s his old one I just felt like changing it so that’s just him but different. Anyway) Everything's under the readmore tab, cheers!

The Library Fairy:

Basic Plot (Chrono, comic starts from human perspective abt the ‘legend of the library fairy’ ig maybe. Nothing here is permanent cept the characterization)

Part A

1- Mira is borrower currently chillin in a college library

2- She lives off of the cafe on the second floor nd reads lots and lots of stuff about everything when the upper floors close (lower floor open 24/7 but upper floors r vacant p much after 12:00 AM)

3- she starts getting increasingly curious about human stuff cos she’s literate nd books r pry neat

4- it starts one night when she spots an unattended notebook and a half eaten blueberry muffin, nd it’s 12:30 so nobody’s coming back in atm (it’s the 80s so no laptops for the plebians quite yet)

5- so she goes ‘welp’ nd takes part of the muffin, then sees the work on the page and goes ‘hmmmm this is incorrect’ so she helps our and leaves notes here n there to point the kid in the right direction and puts down some book refs for further study bcos at this point she’s been there for 2 years and she knows where most things are

6- she stays behind to see if the human comes back for it, hidden in a hidey hole near the desk

7- human comes in, sees notebook, practically melts w relief nd stuffs it in his bag

8- next day human comes back nd leaves nother notebook and a cookie, along w a hidden camera

9- Mira goes ‘o boy, this a trap, innit’

10- Mira then decides ‘eh whatever I haven’t had contact w anyone in years now so I might as well’

11- she steals the camera film nd leaves a lil scrap of paper saying ‘nice try ;)’ on it

12- student comes back, sees paper, goes ‘dammit’, then leaves note addressed to the ‘library fairy’ and another cookie, as well as more of their work for her to help with

13- bout a decade goes by and now the “Library Fairy” is an urban myth, it’s currently 2003 so she’s also wound up on the school’s unofficial Wikipedia page under ‘local cryptids’

14- most library employees know of her but they don’t go looking out of fear stemming from superstitions bout her, somehow the legend grew from ‘can’t be photographed’ to ‘a student once saw her and died that day’

15- there’s now a small shrine devoted to her where ppl bring offerings hoping to get good grades in return, sometimes they will leave papers for her to proofread nd stuff

16- new prof (named Alexei) finds online article thinks he Knows What’s Up bcos he had a borrower friend as a kid, but they left when borrower’s fam found out about them knowing each other

17- he leaves note wedged in one of her secret entrances behind outlet, asking if she can meet w him at some point

18- Mira, already In it, goes ‘Okay. Alright. This has gone on for long enough. Time to go and never return’ but ofc she’s curious as all hell and like she decides she will at least honor the guy’s request for a convo b4 she goes, but on her terms and w/o speaking face 2 face

19- they Talk in the library after hours, bcos he paid off the janitor to let him stay after hours nd most of the student employees recognize him as a prof nd leave him alone

20- they talk again for every subsequent night

21- she uhhhh finally decides to reveal herself nd prays that her hunch was right nd he won’t try to grab her or anything

22- he doesn’t but she’s nervous so she winds up gettin caught in her own climbing rope like idiot, is now dangling from ceiling in tangled mess

23- he stifles chuckle nd she says smthn sarcastic

24- he moves closer and offers to untangle her

25- she’s like ‘please’

26- so he do, but her grip on the rope slips nd he has to catch her

26- so now she’s in his hand and he just sets her down and now he’s a bumbling embarrassed mess bcos he said he wasn’t going to hold her and he just did and o dear pls forgib him

28- nd she’s like ‘dude u just saved my life it’s fine ur fine chill’

29- internally she’s going HOLY FUCK AAAAAAA but externally, her human’s already worked up enough as it is so she’s gotta b the level headed one

29.5- after a while they both kinda get used to each other more, he gets tenure, they celebrate, some more stuff happens, Aleksei got married (not to Mira, Mira hasn’t actually rly thought about being in a relationship w anyone cos she’s laser focused on gaining as much knowledge as possible)

30- eventually Alexei’s like ‘hey so I’m dean of faculty for the biotech branch now uhhhh would u like actual job teaching students? Cos, uh, you can do it remotely thru online lectures n stuff, no in person interaction, and I uh was just kinda wondering—‘

31- she’s like ‘yes. Yes!!! LET ME HELP PEOPLE OFFICIALLY KINDA’

32- so now she’s a professor, and has revealed her Secret a few times here n there to a number of the faculty, nd she has recorded her own findings in a personal journal

33- ‘humans will treat u like a human if they think ur human first. The kids call it ‘catfishing’’

34- enter Ross, an mall goth who accidentally tripped headfirst into a premed program

35- Mira’s favorite field of study is bio so naturally she’s his prof for a majority of his classes

36- being the good boy that he is, he now knows Mira’s secret. There is an Entire Chapter on him finding out and legit just continuing their conversation as if everything was normal bcos he thought that was how he was supposed to handle the situation

37- then she says ‘u can ask questions, u know’ he’s like OH THANK FUCK CAUSE I HAVE SEVEN HUNDRED OF THOSE

38- and now he kinda knows what to look for in terms of ‘do borrowers live here check yes or no’

39-in his apartment, the answer is yes and he mistakenly kinda stumbles upon the mom one night when he wakes up in the middle of the night for Snack and opts to pretend like its not happening. Unfortunately the thing she was trying 2 borrow (piece of crumb cake for Son Boy’s birthday) is the thing he wants 2 eat so he’s like “uh. ‘Scuse me, ma’am.” and he peels back the saran wrap on the other side of the plate, takes piece, nd then leaves some there for her

40-so now the woman is like ‘welp guess it time 2 Leave’

.1- she and husband Talk

.2-they decide it best 2 go

.3-theyre Packing

.4-lil bab Ellie confused

.5-hawk attacke

.6-cut to Ross

41- Ross also happens to work at a bar and he goes outside for a break

43- he finds smal child—smol smal—on the sidewalk and said child is missing an arm, nd has lost a lot of blood, so he’s uhhhhh Losing It highkey

43.5-parents r nowhere 2 b seen, but the hawk is nearby and circling. Ross gets an idea of what just happened

44- he up and leaves work, thankfully his apartment is above the shop so he jumps up the fire escape w the child and

45- he make tourniquet

46- he calls Mira nd asks her 2 come over to ASAP. he’s A Mess at this point

47- it is Very touch and go, kid needs blood, Mira is the only viable donor so she’s just gotta pray that the blood type is fine and won’t kill him

48- and then eventually they manage 2 stave infection thru antibiotics properly dosed to his size, Mira does Math and Prays basically

49- ‘bout a month in, kid wakes up

50- kid doesn’t rember much since he’s only 3

51- hes v scared of Ross at first but over time he gets used 2 the human

52- kid (elliot) starts 2 call Ross ‘dad’ after a while

53- Ross: *internal screaming but in a good way*

54- the end kinda for now

Part 2

A- New Borrowers In The Building

—three of em. paranoid dad, mom, nd daughter that’s Elliot’s age so he’s pumped

B- Elliot offers them a place 2 stay briefly

C- he knows by now bout like, how borrowers don’t typically interact w humans and Auntie Mira’s a bit of a weird case so he just doesn’t tell em bout his dad being the human

D- the kid finds out first nd doesn’t tell the parents, but they figure it out later kinda and think that it’s a ‘o god he’s being kept as a pet’ sitch so they’re >:| abt it

E- they move out and try to take Elliot w them (by force bcos they think he’s brainwashed) but he escapes and makes it to Ross, who’s like “uhhhhhh”

F- and the mom come out the hole near the counter n starts yelling at Ross, who is…kinda used to it since Mira brings in ppl who need help from time 2 time and they typically don’t react well when they’re lucid enough to understand what’s going on. He’s just not used to being questioned about his own kid

G- so they’re like “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH HIM”

H- and he’s like “r…raising him???”

I- and Ellie steps up and he’s like “this is my dad. I decided he was my dad when I was three. He’s being a good parent”

J- and Ross is like “yeah what he said. I’m a good parent.”

K- Ross is riding that high til the end of fucking time but like back to the story at hand

L- this is when the husband comes out nd is like “lissen. wifey. ily but that is a very big human and he hasn’t grabbed us yet so let’s count our blessings and gtfo”

M- but she’s like “uh no we stay until I’m sure Elliot is Safe and fucking Sound”

N- so they stay for dinner nd stick around a little longer.

O- Val (the kid) gets closer 2 Elliot and also Ross a bit

P- Mira shows once or twice, first time she shows up they’re like “oh god it’s the crazy doctor lady this all makes sense now” (bcos Mira does check up on as many borrower families as possible in her free time so word has got around by now Of her, and the number by which to contact her in case her services r needed)

Q- After a month or so, then they decide to leave bcos they’re like “look we get that ur son is ur son and he only has one arm and in our profession that is kind of a death sentence but we can’t have our kid getting used to dealing w humans who know about our existence” so they go and leave on a kind of sour note bcos Ellie can do anything he wants to do just as well as any other borrower Thank You Very Much and Ross is ready to fite anyone who thinks otherwise

R- Elliot starts trying 2 b more independent, basically from now on he’s like ‘I can do everything my Damn Self Thanks’

S- but uh he does it to a point where he’s going out of the way to endanger himself

T- so they get into a fite about it and ross Yells and Elliot is like ‘kthxbye’

U- and the boi just. Fuckin bolts. Runs Away. Ross is a Mess, he starts smoking again (he quit cold turkey the day he took Elliot in) to curb the depression, he’s jus. Not doin good, worried that his son is dead and the last time they talked it’d ended badly

V- FREEDOM!!!1! Except Ellie doesn’t kno how to take care of himself so it’s a rough month or so and then he runs into some other borrowers livin in their own town in the wild ig, chillin, being hella independent, and he’s like “uh yes ofc I will join u, I was w my dad for a while but.........” he neither confirms nor denies that his dad’s dead but everyone kinda just assumes.

Part 3

W-anyway a year goes by and then the borrower group gets hit hard w some kind of sickness ig. Elliot gets it too he’s basically incapacitated n drifting in and out of lucidity. So. They contact the weird crazy doctor lady who hangs around humans, a.k.a. Mira, and she’s like “oh. fuck. I know this kid.” bcos she does, u kno, and she jus treats em all for their ailment and shows them how to make antibiotic poultice thing in case smthn like it happens again. Mold. Penicillin is basically what it is

X-she and Elliot hav a Chat (Mira basically yells at him a lot) once he’s fixed up and he decides he’s gonna visit his dad but he makes it very clear that he is a Grown Up (he’s not, he’s literally sixteen), and he is living on his own now

Y- he agrees to stay for a week tho since he misses his home a lot tbh and Ross is just. Over the fucking moon to know he’s ALIVE, he’s not gonna fuck up their relationship by insisting that he stay. Or like, by keeping him ofc he would never

Z- unfortunately the borrower community put two and two together and figured out his dad’s human so they have his stuff packed up when he gets back w mira, who’s ready to go the fuck off on them

End 1:

-Ellie is living at Ross’s place atm and hopeful about the future basically. He eventually will go off on his own but he’ll keep in contact w his dad and stuff

Part C.5

55- few yrs later

56- elliot is Adult now he does adult borrower stuff

57- he moves out

58- finds nice borrower gf (her name’s Tess)

59- doesn’t tell her about his dad being human but talks about his dad a LOT

60- so when she asks to meet said father he’s just like “uh. Maybe we don’t do that actually”

61- and she’s like “y tho”

62- and he’s like “bcos”

63- anyway she decides to look into it cos she knows he goes to see his dad nd keep in touch but his dad is allegedly “a recluse who lives in the big scary human’s walls to avoid other ppl”

64- which is. Not true in the slightest tbqh he’s def not an introvert he’s just a workaholic and he Is the big scary human

65- anywho they run into Val and her wife and she’s like “how’s Ross been?” And Elliot is acting Very Suspish so she, being Smart, calls it immediately and is like “oh shit u haven’t told her yet have u”

66- Tess: “told me what”

67- Val: “El’s dad is a human, bro.”

68- Tess: “I’m sorry?”

69- this results in a Big Fight and they separate for like, a month. Elliot blames Val bcos he’s being irrational and doesn’t wanna admit to the fact that lying to his girlfriend for over a year was Real Bad Actually, but over time he’s like ‘yeah it’s my fault sry for snapping at u’ cos he works thru his emotions n stuff

70- Eventually gf comes back cos she’s like “ok so. I understand why you lied to me about your dad. It was a dick move but I do get it and I still care about you a lot. I would like. To meet him.”

80- this is a lie she does not want to meet him she is doing this bcos she does not want to lose Elliot and that outweighs the fear of his dad

81- so they go to meet him but she’s just kinda. Behind the wall at first like “that’s a crazy big human this is crazy ur crazy it’s time to gO”

82- Val is also there bcos she hasn’t seen Ross in a while

83- they eventually coax her out of hiding

84- and by that I mean Val picks her up and drags her out into the open by force bcos she basically freezes up the second she catches sight of Ross and Val’s like “u didn’t come all this way for nothing, bich”

85- they have a Painfully Awkward First Meeting, Tess is trying her best but oh god he’s just too fucking. Larg. Ellie ur dad too big

86- tbh tho the ice kinda breaks after Ellie and Ross get into a fight over smthn stupid (im thinking Elliot grumbles bout Ross’s hair being unruly and he’s worried that mira’s using it like a personal storage system again and Ross is like “I’ve been keeping better track of that actually” and then like a little line of paper clips and a few hand-bound notebooks tied together w some string fall out of his fucking mane and he’s like “I can explain”

87- “dad you can’t keep letting her use your hair like a fucking NEST”

88- Tess is laughing now cos god damn this was not what she was expecting

89- that’s it the end it ends w Tess laughing at them being idiots good times r had by all

Uhhhh that’s it so far. I have More but it’s kinda jumbled rn and I need to fit stuff in places. Anyway.

#was gonna make this into a comic lawl #if I like actually manage to get off my ass over the coming weeks I probably will be able to do that! but yeah #also this was once posted b4 and I deleted it but it’s back now say hellow #Library Fairy #oc: Mira #oc: Ross #oc: Elliot #oc: Tess #oc: Val #oc: Alexei #anyway yeah here it is behold #the uhhhhh most slice of life thing I have ever created

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spaceskam · 4 years

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prompt from anon: Hi 👋🏻 Could I prompt a fic where Michael and Alex talk about everything that happened this episode? Or just talk about their feelings. I just need them to talk and I love how you write dialogue for them.

ao3

"Long day?"

"Shut up."

Michael smiled at Alex's playful dismissal, lingering in the doorway of his bedroom. The day had been incredibly, incredibly long. Everyone had gotten their hands dirtier than they wanted to. People were hurt–Maria was hurt. Michael had made sure she was stable under Kyle's watchful eye before heading straight to Alex's instead of his own bed.

He was tired, but he couldn't shake the need to see him and make sure he was still within reach.

He stayed there, watching as Alex seemed to pay him no mind. He moved almost in slow motion as he discarded himself of the jeans be wore and sat down on the bed. Michael could hear the heavy, controlled breaths he took as he started to remove his prosthetic.

"Everything okay?" Michael asked. Alex spared him a glance before putting his focus back on his leg.

"Went a week and a half not wearing and then I kinda just threw it on and decided to run around a fucking fair ground, so," Alex said, forcing a dry laugh.

"Can I help?"

Alex sighed slowly and looked up at him, his eyes betraying just a little vulnerability.

"Why are you here?" he asked, "Maria almost died because of that bomb, why aren't you with her? Or at home? Or with your siblings? Or anywhere but here?"

Michael had a billion answer, but none of them felt good enough so he shrugged and took a wobbly step closer. Alex just watched him and said nothing as he deliberately put one foot in front of the other until he sat on Alex's left side.

"I spent days building a bomb for your safety, and I only see you for a couple seconds. For days, you were just on the other side of the door, close enough to touch, and I couldn’t," Michael said, shrugging his shoulders, "Guess I just needed to make sure that you're still here."

"I'm here," Alex said, voice soft because he was honest and Michael could've melted into that tone if he was allowed, "I'm not going anywhere. So go. I’m okay."

Michael, for a moment, wondering if he was giving him an out or if he was genuinely wanting him to leave. Leaving was the last thing he wanted.

“Kyle’s with Maria, Liz is with Max, Isobel is with Rosa... Do you really wanna be alone? I don’t,” Michael admitted, tapping the toe of his boot on the floor. Alex was silent, barely breathing. When Michael dared to look at him, he just looked lost. “I thought you were dead. Then you almost died.”

“You almost died too,” Alex noted, “We both keep almost dying, this isn’t new.”

Michael huffed a laugh, taking in his face. He looked tired and his eyes were sad. He always looked so sad. Michael, fatigued from too many days of stressing over Alex, felt himself sway forward a little and Alex swayed in tandem. Their foreheads met, but Michael’s only stayed for a moment before rolling onto his shoulder. He closed his eyes at the feeling on his soft t-shirt against his cheek.

“I don’t wanna be alone,” he repeated. Alex breathed slowly, moving his arms to fit around him. He hugged him tight and Michael became more certain that he didn’t want to leave.

“You know, for a little while, I didn’t think it was gonna work,” Alex whispered, his thumb rubbing a soft circle against the knot that had formed in his shoulder, “I didn’t... I thought it was gonna take longer for someone to notice I was gone. They wanted you, but...”

“Of course it was gonna work, do you really think I’d let you disappear?” Michael asked. Instinct said to look him in the eye, but his body was dead weight against his shoulder. Alex didn’t seem to mind.

“No. I don’t know,” Alex sighed, stilling his hand and squeezing him a little bit, “I guess I can’t really imagine someone doing that. Thank you, by the way. For... doing that.”

“It was nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t nothing. You were building a bomb designed to kill you and your siblings just at the chance of saving me,” Alex said, “I-I can’t repay you for that.”

Michael sighed and shook his head.

“No, I’m tired of owing people things. I’m tired of owing you things or having you owe me. We’re even,” Michael insisted, turning his head and pressing his face into Alex’s neck. His skin was warm and soft and the smell of his skin clouded Michael’s mind, feeling so close to dosing off.

“What does that mean?” Alex whispered. Michael breathed him in.

“I’m tired of never knowing if what you’re doing is out of duty or because you want to,” Michael admitted, “I’m so tired of being confused. I’m always confused. Maria confuses me too.”

“Maria?”

“She knows I love you,” Michael said, ignoring the way Alex’s body stilled entirely with a soft gasp almost like it was new news, “And she doesn’t mind. She’s gotta mind, right?”

“I-I don’t know,” Alex said, “Haven’t really... had that discussion.”

Michael reached up, his hand sliding over Alex’s chest to fit between the loop of his arms around him. He rested his hand on the other side of Alex’s neck and rubbed his thumb over his jaw. The bandana felt painfully obvious as it prevented him from feeling his skin entirely. He hated the barrier.

“I spent so many days trying to save you and then I just put you at risk again and I still can’t stay away,” Michael said, changing the subject but not really. He could feel and hear Alex swallow. He involuntarily touched his Adam’s apple with his thumb, but he pulled it away when Alex flinched in response. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s just...” Alex said, swallowing again and opening and closing his mouth like he was fumbling for words. This was usually when Michael cut him off. He didn’t. “I’m confused too. ‘Cause... you say you can’t stay away, but you can. You have. I-I’m not mad that you do, I understand, but... You can.”

“I never look away, Alex.”

“But you did.”

“No,” Michael said, shifting slightly so he was fully facing Alex and able to feel him a little more, “Not really.”

“Michael...” he sighed, leaning his head against his and it felt so nice. He couldn’t remember a time he felt so... calm. After all the bullshit that had just happened and all the bullshit that was still happening, he was calm. And it was Alex. “You have a girlfriend. Maybe we should have this conversation... Not now.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Michael told him.

“It’s close enough,” Alex whispered, “Close enough, I don’t wanna... I don’t want to be the cause of fucking it up. I don’t want to take away whatever hope she has about you two.”

“Then I’ll let her know it’s over,” Michael decided.

“What? No, you need to thi--”

Michael reluctantly lifted his head, daring to look him in the eye.

“I don’t need to think anymore, I’m so tired of thinking. I built a murder-suicide bomb for you, Alex, how much more shit do I need to think about before I realize it’s you? It always been you, it’ll always be you. I told you I thought it would be us and that’s ‘cause it will be. I like her and I don’t wanna hurt her, but I-I can’t fucking shake you, Alex, and I don’t want to. Not anymore. I’m tired of being unsure,” he vented, doing his best to cover his bases, “I love you. If I’m gonna keep having these near-death experiences, I would like to do them when neither of us are confused. Things are gonna be clear. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Alex responded, eyes a little teary and he looked so overwhelmed and Michael just wanted him to get some sleep.

“We can talk after I talk to Maria and wait for as long as you need, but... I don’t wanna be alone tonight. I’m asking for what I need for once. And I need you. Is that okay?” Michael wondered. Alex nodded. Michael did the same and leaned against his forehead again for a few seconds.

“I-I need to take my prosthetic off,” Alex said.

“Right, sorry.”

Michael reluctantly moved back, taking off his boots as Alex took off his leg.

The two of them moved into the bed, for once not confused about what it meant or what would happen. They faced each other, not speaking or being awkward. Michael took in every inch of his face and every crease and line and scar. Alex seemed to be doing the same. If this was what it was like to not be confused, he never wanted to go back.

“I love you,” Michael told him, “Present tense. On purpose.”

Alex closed his eyes, pain creasing in his eyebrows as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Michael reached out, smoothing them out until he opened his eyes. Alex smiled and he was beautiful.

He caught Michael’s hand, though, slowly undoing the bandana and placing it for safe keeping on the night stand. Michael watched with a tense stomach as Alex kissed the back of his hand, removing the barrier and making it known.

“And I love you. Present tense. On purpose,” Alex promised him.

And they slept.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #my fic #prompts

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macgyvermedical · 4 years

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A Nurse Wrote This Movie: A Medical Review of Knives Out

Whoa.

Honestly, all I can say, this movie was amazing.

I don’t think I’ve ever been treated to a movie that was both this complex and still this easy to understand. I wasn’t left wondering at the end, and despite the number of times my understanding of the central crime changed, it didn’t ever feel whiplash-y or like anything was played for shock value. It was a journey through the story and it was consistently enjoyable, all 130 minutes of it.

But please, seriously, go see it for yourself before reading this post, there will absolutely be spoilers and this is a movie you don’t want spoiled.

Before I really get into it, I want to tell you that the medicine (though, I suppose, particularly the nursing) in this movie was good. Really good. Much, much, much better than I expected. What I really, really appreciated was that the resolution of the case came from something that only a nurse would know. If i had to guess, not only was there a nurse consulting, but one was part of the central writing team.

There’s really only one scene to talk about, but it spans parts of the whole movie. Here’s my explanation/review of the evening meds scene and how it relates to real life and the rest of the movie. Apologies for the lack of relevant screenshots, once the movie comes out on streaming or DVD I will have more options. Also apologies in that I have only seen this once in theaters and I am working from memory.

PICCs:

One of the main characters, Marta, is a homecare nurse for the wealthy victim Harlan Thrombey. Early in the movie, we are given a scene where she is giving him two medications for a recent shoulder injury- ketorolac and morphine- before bed.

Harlan Thrombey has a PICC in his left arm that Marta uses to administer the medications. PICCs, or Peripherally Inserted Central Catheters, are medical devices that are designed to allow medical professionals to administer IV medications and draw blood without having to start an IV or stick someone with a needle. Once inserted, they can stay in for 6-12 months, and they’re really helpful for patients who either need IV fluids/medications at home (long-term IV antibiotic therapy, for example), or who require repeated doses of medications that could be damaging to the smaller veins that traditional “peripheral” IV catheters sit in (chemotherapy, total parenteral nutrition).

PICCs consist of one or more “ports” that are accessible from the outside (the blue nubs in the pic below, where the medication goes in), and a long, flexible tube that sits in a large, deep vein that ends near the heart.

We don’t know a lot about Harlan’s medical history in the movie other than the injury to his shoulder that causes him to need the pain medication. A shoulder injury alone would not justify the insertion of a PICC, so we have to assume that either he had an existing serious health condition like cancer, or the shoulder injury was really an infection in one of the bones of his shoulder, which would justify a PICC on the basis of needing IV antibiotics multiple times per day. Since they seem to have thought of everything else, I would choose to go with that.

Medications:

The first medication’s generic name is ketorolac. Ketorolac is an NSAID, similar to ibuprofen, and works by blocking some of the chemicals that cause pain and inflammation in the tissue. It’s usually not given long-term, but for short term things like surgery or an injury it works pretty well and decreases the amount of narcotic pain medication needed. For someone over 65, the normal schedule for ketorolac would be 15mg IV every 6 hours. Marta would probably keep him pretty close to this schedule, because it’s his primary pain control beyond heat, ice, elevation, and possibly some form of physical therapy.

Morphine is an opioid. It works by blocking pain signals in the brain. It’s been around for a while, works pretty well and pretty quickly, but it’s not great for long term use either due to the fact that the body builds up a tolerance to it and it has the potential to be addicting.Since Marta seems to offer it to him instead of stating she’s going to give it to him, it looks like it was prescribed for “breakthrough” or as emergency pain relief if the ketorolac wasn’t doing enough, which is a pretty typical way to prescribe pain medication.

Now, you’ll notice that despite it reading “ketorolac” on the vial, the characters refer to the first medication by it’s brand name “Toradol” throughout the movie. This impressed me because in a medical setting, we colloquially refer to some medications by their generic name, while others we refer to by their brand names. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to the colloquial naming (though age of the drug plays in), and you kind of have to work in medicine to know which is which. We typically refer to Toradol by it’s brand name, while we refer to morphine by it’s generic. If you asked me for ketorolac or Astramorph (a brand name of IV morphine) it would just sound... weird. But its something fiction gets wrong all the time and it’s cool they got this right. For consistancy, I’m going to continue using the generic name for both medications throughout this post.

Medication Administration:

Marta goes about injecting the ketorolac first. This was yet another thing that added a little spark of nursing realism to the movie, because while not everything was shown, what was shown was done accurately. Here’s the steps to administering an IV medication through a PICC:

Open syringe package (draw needle is usually already attached)

Draw up air into syringe equal to the amount of volume of medication you want to draw

Clean top of vial with alcohol swab

Insert draw needle into vial and inject air

Flip vial/needle upside down and draw medication into syringe, recap draw needle (label syringe if giving multiple medications/doses)

Unclamp the PICC port you want to use and clean the port cap with an alcohol swab

Twist a prefilled saline syringe onto PICC port cap, and inject 5ml saline into the port

Twist draw needle off of syringe and discard into sharps container

Twist medication syringe onto PICC port cap

Inject medication

Twist off medication syringe and discard

Twist saline syringe back onto cap, inject the remaining 5ml of saline to flush the entire medication dose into the person’s vein

Untwist the saline syringe and reclamp the port

They reference the dose of ketorolac as being 100mg. As I said above, the normal dose of ketorolac is 15-30mg IV, depending on age. For Harlan, being 85, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t have gotten 15mg IV every 6 hours max. I think the mix up was intentional, meant to signal to the audience that she was supposed to give the whole vial of ketorolac with each administration, but only a portion of the vial of morphine per administration. Ketorolac does come in single-dose vials, however in this movie all vials were clearly multi-dose vials (which you can tell because the ketorolac vial says “30mg/mL” on the 10mL vial, meaning there’s 300mg of ketorolac in that vial, which would be about 20x the normal dose).

Medication Errors:

Then she goes back to get the morphine, and realizes that she’s made a mistake. Instead of injecting the vial labelled “ketorolac” she’s administered the entire contents of the vial labelled “morphine”- 100mg, she thinks. That’s a LOT of morphine. Definitely enough for a fatal overdose in someone who’s normal dose is 3mg.

Now, med errors are HUGE FREAKING DEALS in the medical world, and Marta would have faced substantial civil and possibly criminal charges. Assuming she survived this without jail time, she would face an investigation by her visiting nurse agency (if she worked for one, which they establish she doesn’t) and/or the board of nursing in her state, which would seek to determine whether this was negligence that lead to the med error (in which she would probably be fired/have her license suspended/revoked), or a systemic problem (in which case she would be in the clear).

I think Marta actually has a pretty good case for this being a systemic issue rather than a negligence one. The vials look extremely similar, and even if she had done everything she was supposed to do, its plausible this could have happened despite her reasonable efforts to prevent it (she could have put it down last minute and picked up the other vial by accident, and had the label facing the wrong way as she was drawing up the medication). If nothing else, since the morphine vial was not specially identified as a narcotic, it would at least shift some of the blame to the pharmacy that filled the prescription.

In the moment, though, knowing what we know about her mom’s citizenship status, this would have been a terrifying situation for her.

Plus, there’s the overarching possibility that she just killed this very powerful person who she’s been caring for for a long time.

Opioid Overdose:

Opioids bind to certain receptors in the brain, decreasing pain signals. Unfortunately, they also decrease signals in the part of the brain that controls breathing. At small doses this isn’t generally a problem, but in overdose situations it can cause respiratory depression (the person breathing too slowly to meet their needs) or respiratory arrest (the person stops breathing on their own entirely), which can lead to death.

A drug called naloxone (brand name Narcan) can stop an overdose by sitting on all those same receptors that an opioid would without actually blocking any signals, which stops the respiratory depression from the opioid pretty quickly. As mentioned in the movie, most pharmacies dispense a naloxone kit along with opioid pain medication, and was the “antidote” Marta was searching for.

Now, in opioid overdose all is not lost if you don’t happen to have naloxone available. Since the cause of death from overdose is lack of breathing, Marta could have called 911 and provided rescue breaths until EMS showed up with naloxone. Even if EMS were 10 or 15 minutes out, he could have easily survived this. But that wouldn’t have made for nearly the murder mystery.

Ironically, this is exactly what happens in the laundromat scene, when it is revealed that the housekeeper Fran figured out what was happening and was attacked with the real morphine vial. When Marta finds her, she immediately looks in her eyes (a hallmark of opioid overdose is pinpoint pupils) and begins providing CPR.

In some areas, community-level CPR guidelines have simplified to “if you find someone not breathing, start CPR”. This is due to the realization that most lay rescuers have a hard time finding a pulse quickly enough to use it to determine whether to start CPR, leading to fatally wasted time in an emergency. The thinking is that it’s better to have people do unnecessary chest compressions than not do necessary ones.

But healthcare professionals are obviously still taught to differentiate between patients who need full CPR and patients who only need rescue breaths, so assuming Fran didn’t go from talking to cardiac arrest from an opioid overdose in less than a few seconds, I would have expected Marta to give rescue breaths until the ambulance arrived.

The Resolution:

Towards the end of the movie, we find that the vials were switched already, and in subconsciously recognizing the (real) difference in viscosity between ketorolac and morphine, Marta had actually, tragically, saved his life. This was probably the best use of a nursing concept I’ve ever seen in fiction, the entire central point of the plot hinging on nursing intuition.

Kudos, writers, kudos.

#Knives out #poison #whump #murder #drugs #movies #movie review

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thelightofthebane · 4 years

Text

Be a Shadowhunter, Kill All the Demins!

Summary: “You know I’ll have to tell your parents, right?”

“I don’t care. They were wrong,” Max looked defiantly at Ragnor, puffing his cheeks again. “Daddy protects everyone who needs. I protect too. I want to be like daddy.”

OR, 5 times Max wanted to be like Alec + 1 time he was happy to be like Magnus

This work is for two events that have the same goal - spread all the love for Alec Lightwood-Bane on this very special day ❤ For Alec’s Birthday Weekend Celebration organized by the lovelies @chibi-tsukiko and @my-archerboy, and for the Alec Lightwood Birthday Surprise event on Malec Discord.

Happy birthday to our dear Consul/Inquisitor who loved a man so much, he changed the world for him 🥰❤

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

(Read on AO3)

1. Debriefing

Several nests of eidolon demons popped up in the Queens area, and Alec had to call an urgent meeting to explain the situation to his subordinates and distribute their tasks and split them into teams.

Everyone paid unwavering attention to their leader until someone else caught their attention.

A very small and blue someone.

Without Alec noticing, Max had sneakily gone next to him, and started nodding his head and imitating his daddy’s scowl as if he was the one giving orders to the Shadowhunters. He even moved his hands like Alec and sometimes would put them on his hips with a proud look.

It took some time for him to realize Alec had stopped speaking for a moment and was looking at him with arched eyebrows.

Max giggled and turned to the Shadowhunters again.

“Kill all the demins!”

Alec pressed his lips on a thin line, trying to not laugh, and also turned to everyone in the Ops Center.

“You heard him. Dismissed.”

2. Archery

“What are you doing?”

At the sound of his brother’s voice, Max jumped slightly and accidentally shoot upwards, hitting one of the balcony’s lamps.

“Rafe!” Max whined and pouted. He hasn’t heard Rafe approaching, and it was the same for his daddy. Shadowhunters were good to walk without making a sound, and he hated the fact that he couldn’t do the same. To be a Shadowhunter he had to walk silently!

It was then that Rafael noticed all the toy arrows scattered around the floor – none at the big bullseye target.

“Were you practicing again?”

“Yes! Must be a Shadowhunter like daddy. He loves his bow, so I love too.”

“Your aim is terrible.”

Max pouted again, his lips trembling.

“I be better. Be a Shadowhunter!”

Rafe sighed long and deeply, then nodded.

“I will train with you.”

Max bounced and promptly ran to collect all the arrows on the floor. He was going to be the best archer in the world!

3. Shaving

Alec hated undercover missions. Not only they took days – sometimes even weeks – to get done, but they were also always far away from home. And sweet Raziel, he missed home. He missed his sons, his cats, his bed. More than anything, he missed Magnus.

So, after almost twelve days in a dangerous mission in Cairo, he was finally back in New York. And after a good night's sleep, the first thing he did in the morning while Magnus was still asleep was shaving. His stubble was almost growing into a full beard, and as much as his husband liked his – in Magnus’ own words – caveman look, Alec preferred his face clean shaved.

When he was halfway through it, he noticed Max standing on the bathroom’s threshold, looking at him with big, curious eyes. Alec smiled at his baby, then went back to his task. A minute later, not only Max stood next to him, but also had almost his entire face covered in white cream.

“Daddy, me too!” Max whined, making grabby hands at his razor.

Alec chuckled, fondly shaking his head. Then, he reached for a new razor and took out the blade, proceeding to give only the plastic part to Max.

“Pay attention to how I do and copy, okay?”

The beaming smile Max gave him was answer enough.

4. Cooking

For once, it was afternoon and Alec wasn’t working. However, Magnus was at a warlock meeting in Nevada, and Rafael was at the Institute with Jace and Simon. So, Alec and Max decided to try and make a surprise for Magnus and Rafe.

Baking cupcakes proved to be harder than Alec anticipated.

“Daddy, daddy! Taste this,” Max offered a big spoon with a brownish substance, and being at the receiving end of Izzy’s food for a long time, Alec thought nothing more could surprise him.

Looked like his son went beyond his expectations, and he had to put his better neutral face to not grimace.

“Max, what have you put in this batter?”

“Choco. Coco. Chalk. Nannamon,” Max enumerated with his fingers while Alec had to blink a couple of times, frowning.

“It’s cinna–” He stopped himself, having to make a double-check. “Did you just say chalk?”

“Yeah!” Max pointed to a bowl full of them near a blackboard Magnus liked to use to write ingredients or to give points to Max and Rafe when they completed a task with success. Ten points and they were awarded whatever food they wanted.

“By the Angel…” Alec mumbled “I’ll have to talk to Magnus about that, and you,” he poked Max’s belly, gaining delightful giggles from him. “You can’t have the Lightwood’s bad skills for cooking, or bapa will prohibit us both to be in the kitchen.”

“I’ll be good, I promise!”

“I know, my baby, I know.”

5. Protector

“So…?” Ragnor crossed his arms on his chest and arched an eyebrow, waiting for one of the kids to talk.

This is why he didn’t want to accept the position at this new Downworld-Shadowhunter Academy. Kids were insufferable. One of them being Magnus’ son didn’t help either. It was a double headache.

He had to stop a fight from escalating to bigger proportions – one involving Max Lightwood-Bane, another warlock and one werewolf, both being five years older than Max. And both showing more bruises than Max.

“They were being mean to another boy!” Max puffed his cheeks, also crossing his arms. “I stop bad guys.”

“He was a Shadowhunter,” the werewolf snickered. “You only defended him because your brother and your father are one.”

“You should be ashamed to have a Shadowhunter father. They are disgusting,” the warlock added.

Angry wisps of magic started to circle around Max’s fingers.

“Don’t talk like that about daddy! He is the best. You are the dis… dis…”

“He doesn’t even know how to speak,” the werewolf spatted, clearly wanting to continue the previous fight.

“Enough!” Ragnor’s voice thundered in the small room and the door opened abruptly. “You two go to the Infirmary to treat those wounds. I will talk to you later. Max, you stay.”

The two older kids acquiesced, leaving Ragnor alone with little Max.

“You know I’ll have to tell your parents, right?”

“I don’t care. They were wrong,” Max looked defiantly at Ragnor, puffing his cheeks again. “Daddy protects everyone who needs. I protect too. I want to be like daddy.”

Ragnor let out a heavy sigh.

“Lilith, you are going to be a pain when you get older. You have the same stubbornness and bad attitude of those two idiots.”

“Yes!” Max agreed, even if he didn’t understand why Uncle Ragnor was talking bad things about his parents. But bapa said once that when Uncle Ragnor insulted someone, he was truly praising them, so Max shouldn’t be worried.

It was enough.

+1. Magic

Max heard the opening and closing of the entrance’s door, meaning his daddy finally arrived from his patrol. Excited, he left his room and ran to greet his daddy, when he saw something he wasn’t really expecting.

Alec had face planted on the couch, his clothes stained with ichor and blood.

Max’s heart beat a bit stronger, his face frowning in concern.

“Daddy?”

Alec hummed, but didn’t move. Was he sleeping? Max approached and saw his daddy with closed eyes. Why he wasn’t healing himself? Glancing at the cuts thought Alec’s ripped clothes, Max felt like crying.

His daddy was in pain. He… He had to do something. He had to help. What bapa did when daddy was hurt? He would wave his hands, right?

Frowning even more in concentration while scrunching his nose, Max tried to bring out his magic, only thinking about taking away his daddy’s pain. Some sparks flew to Alec’s skin, but he didn’t know if it was working.

For as much as Max wanted to be a Shadowhunter too, he would be happy to continue being a warlock if he could heal his daddy. And bapa. And Rafe.

“Max?” Alec slurred, blinking his eyes open and looking unfocused at his son.

“Daddy!” Max hugged him, still trying to send magic into his body. “I will heal you, daddy. I promise.”

“I know,” Alec smiled, closing his eyes again. “I’m already much better, my baby.”

“You are?”

Of course Alec knew Max didn’t know any healing spells, and the pain was still there – he drew some Iratzes, but there was a small dose of non-lethal toxin from the demons he fought that was preventing the healing rune to take effect. Magnus would have to help him with that.

“I am. You are amazing, Max. Just like your bapa.”

And although there wasn’t healing in Max’s magic, there was a warmth that only his son could give him. It was different from Magnus, but oh, so good.

It was like knowing that your home grew bigger.

Home was Magnus. Home was Max and Rafe.

Home was where the Lightwood-Banes existed.

#shadowhunters #alecsbdayweekendcelebration #malec discord server #happy birthday Alec!#Alec Lightwood #alec lightwood-bane #my writing #ColorfulWarlock

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blu-archer · 3 years

Text

Somethings Missing

Part 1 of the Flower shop and Bakery AU

Snz [mild sneeze kink implied?]

No warnings. it’s cute.

Main Pairing: Jimin/Yoongi

Yoongi knew the day was going to be long and tiring as soon as he left Hoseok to man the shop so that he could sneak his morning dose of Jimin - unfortunately only to find that his cheerful, gorgeous boyfriend had been replaced by Jungkook. The taller man had greeted Yoongi with a wide grin, turning even more amused at the sight of the pink carnation that Yoongi had snipped before leaving his store.

“I like you Yoongi, but Jimin has martial arts training and I’m not about to stand in the way of that.” Jungkook teased as he restocked the packaging in the shelves behind him for the baked goods and coffees.

Yoongi gave a light chuckle, leaning on the counter as he watched Jungkook work. “Funny. You’re early today, is Jimin in the back?”

Jungkook shook his head. “Just me today, Jin will probably come by at around 2 but other than that, I’m the only front man for the next day or two.” Upon seeing Yoongi’s face morph into one of confusion, Jungkook added. “Jimin called in sick this morning, it was really last minute so Jin wasn’t able to switch his schedule around enough to get here earlier than he can. I tried calling Jimin to see how he was, but he didn’t answer.” He took a big gulp of his coffee once the last of the packaging cups were in place. “I called Tae next and there is a high chance that Jimin is passed out and dosed up on cold medicine. Which is probably for the best. An upside of him getting sick really easily is that he at least knows how to take care of himself.”

At least Yoongi knew where he was, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

He left Jungkook soon after that and tried to bury himself in work, but everything seemed to be small tasks that didn’t fully occupy his time. He sent a message to Jimin that he had worked on for half an hour, writing and then rewriting before he had just sent a simple text.

Y – ‘Heard you were sick, need me to stop by?’

It was annoying how little focus he had throughout the day because of Jimin’s absence. Hoseok even tried to distract him with random ‘Name this flower’ quizzes that he made up when he was bored, but nothing helped. He spent most of his day dragging around a big new load of bagged fertilizer and doing some low maintenance around the shop. That one flickering bulb was getting on his nerves and he was going to fix it whether it risked shocking him or not.

It was close to 4 o’clock when he finally heard a message come through on his private phone. Yoongi didn’t even try to act cool about how he had scrambled for the device. Thankfully the only other person in the store was Hobi, and he seemed to be invested in restocking some gardening supplies.

~Mochi~-‘Hey, Sorry, I only looked at my phone now… It’s really not bad, I’m mostly sleeping it off. Tae should be home soon so you don’t need to stop by, I wouldn’t want to accidently get you sick too.

Without a seconds’ hesitation Yoongi replied.

Y-‘I wouldn’t mind, I missed you this morning. Jungkook thought I was trying to court him.’

He didn’t get an answer straight away and his presence was dragged away momentarily by the entry of a customer needing help with finding the right assortment of flowers for their spouse. Yoongi spent the next twenty minutes discussing flower meanings, arrangements and building a bouquet for the customer, it felt like an eternity before he got the chance to see the reply. And Jimin had sent a few in succession.

~Mochi~-‘He’s just jealous because no one wants to date him.

~Mochi~-‘You should have seen him sulk that first week when we went to the arcades and art museum.

~Mochi~-‘It’s like the ideal date place for him apparently?

~Mochi~-‘But seriously, stopping by wouldn’t be worth your time. I was awake for maybe 2 hours – max, and it was more of a staring into space situation until I just went to sleep. You’d get bored.

~Mochi~-‘sleep is better than having to deal the mess this cold wants to make of me, anyway.’

Yoongi couldn’t help the small smile as he pictured what Jimin must look like right now, probably bundled up in his bed or the couch trying to fall asleep every second he could.

He had seen Jimin with the after math of colds before and had definitely seen him with allergies – he had learnt the hard way that Jimin and roses didn’t mix well, and there was that one time that Hoseok had brought his sisters kitten to work when she was out of town and he had to care for it. Jimin had fallen in love with it despite having spent the rest of the day sneezing and rubbing at his puffy eyes to the point where Jin had had to send him home.

Yoongi loved seeing Jimin a mess, he loved seeing that his perfect, beautiful boyfriend was human and wasn’t in control of everything. Yoongi loved seeing Jimin unravel, and he had to admit – although he’d probably never say it out loud – even before they had gotten to be good friends Yoongi had found his attraction to Jimin’s prone natural loss of control to be over-powering. He had never thought he would see someone trying to catch their breath shakily from sneezing or to have that pink hue to their cheeks and nose, or anything related to that, attractive. Maybe it was because it was Jimin, but Yoongi could never really stop thinking about it.

Y-‘Can I video call you later? I want to make sure you’re still alive…’

Yoongi sat perched behind his front desk watching his phone, waiting for the next message, wondering if that had been the correct thing to type.

On an upside it was nearing the end of the workday and he couldn’t be gladder. While he hadn’t done anything extremely productive, Yoongi felt drained. He often blamed that on Hoseok. That man had the power to absorb the energy source of his surrounding people, and unfortunately Yoongi was the one that spent the most time with him.

Speaking of... Yoongi hadn’t realised how quiet the store was until he could vaguely hear Hoseok’s loud laughter breaching through the walls. He must have gone next door for something while they had no customers. The younger seemed to be making a habit out of it, recently taking to the exchange of Jimin so that he could have sometime alone with Jungkook. Yoongi had tried to speak about what it was that was transpiring between the two, but Hoseok had merely shrugged him off and teased him about whatever recent thing he’d seen his boss do towards Jimin.

The laughter got louder until Hoseok burst through from the back, shaking his head at whatever had been said to him with a wide smile before handing Yoongi one of the large cups of coffee he was carrying.

“Thought you might need it. It’s getting quite chilly now.” Hoseok mused. “I have a feeling winter is going to hit hard.”

Yoongi thanked him, accepting any form of caffeine with gratefulness. Winter was definitely going to be a harsh one, Yoongi had thought it many times before especially in terms of his business, but a new concern had suddenly arisen. He’d have to look out more for Jimin. Maybe he could send him over some warmer jackets or hats to help keep him warm.

“Did anyone else come?”

“Not really, its’ been quiet.” Yoongi murmured, breathing in the warm steam. “We still have to organise that big delivery order for Friday, but we can do that tomorrow afternoon.”

Hoseok nodded, moving to sit down next to Yoongi behind the counter. “Jin said that we are in for a week or so of storms, so I don’t think we’ll have many clients these next couple of days.”

“Probably pick up a bit after wards..”

“Flowers are a good ‘Get Well Soon’ treat and with the weather we’ve been having I won’t be surprised if our sales increase after this next week.” Hoseok rambled. “Probably more deliveries than walk ins though. Are you going to send something to Jimin?”

Yoongi blinked. Should he? Jimin didn’t seem to want him to come by, but maybe if he just had the flowers delivered it may make him feel a bit better.. Yoongi was broken out of thought by the vibration of his phone, alerting him of an incoming call that Hoseok quickly reached over to hand to the older man despite Yoongi being closer to it.

~ Mochi ~

Hoseok looked away to hide his smile as he watched Yoongi’s expression soften. The elder took a breath before he answered hastily, unsure what the call would mean considering how he had thought Jimin had fallen asleep again.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Jimin answered roughly, holding the phone away from him as he tried clearing his throat before speaking again, still sounding quite heavily congested and tired. “I’m sorry it’s not a video call but… I look like shit right now. I haven’t showered and Tae has been sending me zombie emojis randomly all day, so this is the best I’m offering.”

Yoongi chuckled lightly, swirling his drink as if contemplating to drink it but making no moves to. ‘I’m sure you look beautiful, but if this is what you want then we can do this instead. You sound really hoarse, is it your throat that’s bothering you?”

“Throat. Head. Sinuses. Chest. The whole lot.” Jimin broke off to muffle a cough, sniffling miserably before he continued. “It kind of progressed rather quickly through the day, I seem to wake up with a new symptom every time I lie down. At least Tae is at the pharmacy now, so I should be getting something stronger in my system soon.”

“Take as many days as you need.” Yoongi advised softly. “This weather’s only getting worse, and if you have to come into work get Taehyung to drive you. Or call me, I’ll come fetch you.”

Jimin hummed and Yoongi bit his lip as he heard the small sniffles through the line that Jimin was no doubt trying to manage quietly. He didn’t remember Jimin showing any signs of being unwell the day before but from the sounds of it, this cold of his has burrowed in fast and deep. While Yoongi hoped that Jimin felt better in the next few days for his sake, he had a feeling that Jimin wasn’t going to kick it like everyone was planning for.

“And you need to dress warmly too.” Yoongi added, he could hear shuffling on Jimin’s side and another hum of agreement. Yoongi sipped his coffee, letting the caffeine he craved ease through him. “I can drop off-“

“Huh’imphshiew… Hih – Hih’inxgtsh’uh – Eh’INGXtshew! Sor-sorry, snf. Hih’ehNXgtshh!”

“Bless you..” Yoongi said, feeling his cheeks warm a bit at the interruption. Hoseok didn’t seem to be paying him any attention, so he allowed himself to flush lightly as he listened to Jimin succumb to another double- this time a bit further away from the receiver, hearing the desperate thicker sniffles that he could no longer try to hide. “I was saying that I could drop off some warmer winter Jackets, but it really does seem like I was a bit too late to suggest it.”

Jimin tried to give a light laugh but his effort was lacking. Instead he excused himself for a moment and after a few seconds of loud tossing he could distantly hear Jimin blowing his nose.

“Sorry.” Jimin sniffled as he returned. “I left the tissues in the kitchen, just… Snf… Hih’iiTSHhew.. snf snf. Damnit!”

“Bless.” Yoongi’s brows pinched with concern at how thick Jimin’s speech had become. “I wish I could help you.. I know this might make you sneeze more but maybe you should take a shower, or a bath, let yourself soak and breathe in that hot steam.”

Jimin moaned lowly and Yoongi took a big scolding gulp of his coffee.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure how long I’m going to last here. I wanted to call now rather than later since I was awake, but this is just getting embarrassing. Snf.”

“This isn’t something to be embarrassed over... Now the time you and Jungkook decided to wear matching bunny onesies for Easter… That you should be embarrassed about.” Yoongi teased and Hoseok tried to stifle his laughter as he glanced warmly at his boss, as if thanking him for reminding him of that fashion catastrophe.

“Hey!” The pout could be heard in Jimin’s tone. “Jin made us wear those, and even if I thought I was going to die of heat I made that outfit look cute.”

Yoongi hummed with amusement.

“I did.”

“Of course.” Yoongi agreed playfully. “I’m sure you had a line of suitors handing out their numbers for you.”

“Well, I got you.” Jimin said, coughing briefly away from the receiver.

Yoongi smiled. He had a point there. “Fair enough, glad I was the one to be chosen. It must have been a very difficult choice to sift through the offers.”

“You seem to make all of my choices easier.” Jimin replied softly, then made a disgruntled sound as if rethinking his words. “Forget I said that. This cold is making me loopy.”

Hoseok made a move to switch the open sign to close and gestured to Yoongi that he would start the cash up for the day seeing as they were unlikely to get any more customers in this final half an hour. Yoongi merely moved his chair over to give Hoseok more space to work behind the counter.

“It’s cute.” Yoongi murmured. “So besides sleeping, did you do anything today?”

Jimin sniffed. He had started to breathe heavily and Yoongi could only assume it was because of the youngers inability to breathe through his nose. “I heated some soup and uh… started watching a movie but that only lasted like -snf- fifteen minutes… What about you? Was the shop busy?”

“No, it was uneventful.” Yoongi sighed. “The cute boy next door wasn’t in for some reason.”

“Oh -snf- how boring for you. snf. I’m sure he missed you as much as you missed him.”

“You think?”

“I – Hih’eNGXshh snf.. snf.. ‘EhhiNGXtshew! Ugh… Yeah.” Jimin sighed tiredly, breaking out into harsh cough.

“Bless You.” Yoongi bit his lip. “I hate saying this because I really did miss you and I love speaking to you, but you should probably rest, or take a bath. Maybe a bowl of hot water and a towel over your head if you are too tired to bath. It could help just ease your breathing or something.”

He could barely make out the soft murmur of agreement that came from the younger, directly followed by the distance gurgling sound of nose blowing.

A moment later Jimin replied light heartedly. “Who knew Mr. Min could be so concerned and caring? This is a side I’d love to see more of.”

“Let me come check on you then.” Yoongi insisted.

“Yoongi…” Jimin sniffled and groaned. “I really don’t want to get you sick, Hoseok can’t man the shop alone when you have deliveries. I’ll be fine in a day.”

Yoongi really doubted it, but he would respect Jimin’s plea as far as he saw improvement. He could rely on Taehyung to make sure that his boyfriend didn’t die in a bundle of blankets and tissues, and Jin surely wouldn’t let the man return to work if he wasn’t well enough for it.

“Ah..” Jimin murmured quietly before briefly greeting someone away from the receiver. Yoongi could hear a faint reply but couldn’t make out the actual words.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Tae just got back and I’m already having medicine aggressively pointed at me.”

“Best you go then.” Yoongi laughed lightly. “Rest well, Minnie.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow… love you.”

Jimin hung up and Yoongi felt a warmth rush through his body at the unfamiliar mumbled words.

#bts sickfic #minyoon #jimin is sick #yoongi is whipped #flower shop #phone calls #sneeze kink?#snz #its cute #fanfiction

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bfdreaming · 3 years

Text

So enough time has passed that I feel comfortable talking about my attempt to get disability. I’m going to be vague for privacy reasons but you should be able to get the picture.

So first let’s talk just a little about the psychiatrist I was seeing at the time. I had been seeing her for years and she was not willing to do much at all. She mostly kept telling me to consult other kinds of doctors: like a sleep therapist, who I’d seen before (a different one) and couldn’t help me either time; a particular cbt therapist, who decided she couldn’t help me because my facial expressions were not allistic enough for her comfort (I am not exaggerating); and my primary care doctor, who I’d been seeing for years and frequently ran a bunch of tests without finding anything, and was convinced my symptoms were most likely from the psychiatric conditions we already knew I have.

Despite my consistent claims that I was nowhere near okay or functional, and in fact got progressively worse the entire time I saw her, she was rarely willing to do anything. I did try a handful of medicines, and if the initial dose didn’t work or had bad side effects, she would immediately give up on that medicine. (Recently learned that one of the medicines with side effects was not even close to the lowest dose. I am currently on the second lowest dose, as recommended by a new doctor, and feel way better with no side effects, though still a 2/10.) At the time I was convinced it was simply because nothing could be done. Now I’m pretty sure she just wanted to take my money and not do anything.

I was finally shocked into action when my lawyer (and later the judge) said that she… didn’t write much at all! (And I realized I’d never seen her taking notes.) Apparently she only wrote down what was wrong on the first visit! One of those symptoms waxed and waned a little, while every other symptom consistently got worse! And she did not write it down! (:

So I asked her about it as calmly and politely as I could. She said she DID write things down actually. (Why would both the lawyer and the judge lie outright about that? Especially since if she HAD written things down, it would have helped my case, which would have helped the lawyer get paid?) I said, “Okay, well, it would make me feel a lot better if you could just write my symptoms down right now so they’re on record.” And after listing two of many, many symptoms, she cut me off. She didn’t even want to hear it, let alone write it down. Suffice to say that was my last appointment with her.

Now let’s talk about the lawyer. Here are some things that he did! (:

-did not tell us all the records we would need; we just guessed and he was like, “yeah sure.” Spoiler warning: we needed more. There were gaps that we didn’t recognize as such because we didn’t know what we were doing, which is why we hired a lawyer

-got half the records he said he was going to get

-only informed us of this when it was too late to submit more documents, so we had to change the onset date to much later (we made a few phone calls and very quickly found out how easy it would have been to get the records in question if he had made the slightest bit of effort)

-called a week before the trial to say the psychiatrist didn’t write much, indicating he had not even looked at my case until then. At this point, it is too late to postpone the hearing

But I’m not sure even a competent lawyer would have made much of a difference because I don’t think the judge was even remotely interested in giving disabled people the pittance that is ours by right. Here are some things that she wrote (paraphrased)! (:

-”Primary care doctor says she has [x]. Psychiatrist says she has [extremely common symptoms of x]. So what is the truth?” (basically pretended I was giving my doctors the runaround, either genuinely knowing nothing about a very common disability, or pretending to know nothing, despite this being her job)

-”[obvious display of perhaps best-known symptom of x] shows that actually she is just lazy and wants money” (again, this she could learn in less than three minutes if she were really so unqualified as to know literally nothing about x)

-simply did not acknowledge any claim or evidence that might not support her spin (also did this at the hearing)

-summarizes “cannot leave the house more than once a week max, cannot go shopping more than once a year max” as, verbatim, “She goes out. She goes shopping.” (probably the most egregious indication that she was intentionally being dishonest without technically lying)

So! (: That happened! (: I will not being trying again anytime soon. If this is what the judges are going to be like, and I have no idea if a lawyer is going to be any good ahead of time, it would mean just... applying and reapplying indefinitely. Hoping that eventually, I’ll get either a lawyer that’s willing to do their job, or a judge that hasn’t made it their life’s mission to indirectly kill as many disabled people as possible. And the last lawyer said that once I’ve been denied, I can’t reapply (and expect anything to come of it) unless something has changed. Who knows if that’s true or not, as apparently this guy is unreliable as hell, but it still just doesn’t seem worth the effort when it’s nowhere near enough money to support me anyway. If I’m ever in a situation where I really immediately need it to survive, I’ll be completely fucked even with it, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#blahblahblah #disability #ableism #self reference #guess i'll die #long post

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nowaynoee · 4 years

Text

Somebody but you

The title of this fic is from the song “somebody” by dagny.

Also on AO3.

Placed somewhere in the future where Maya and Lola are a thing, Lamifex are (almost) a second family and they do urbex while it’s raining in Lola’s favourite place.

Outside the abandoned building the rain is pouring and it doesn’t seems like it wants to stop anytime soon. Yes, it was a bad idea to do urbex in this weather condition, but still — The view from the Pleyel tower is beautiful and the grey sky above them surrounds the city in a pale light. A light, cold breeze ruffles Lola’s hair and makes her shiver but she is determined to get a picture of the landscape before going back to the inside of the building, where thankfully everthing is still dry. And there it is, the perfect shot ready to be posted on her instagram. “Still taking pictures?” Maya’s voice behind her makes her snap back into reality. Lola turns around, a little smile on her face, and handles the phone with the picture on the screen to the purple haired girl. “The picture is good, but the reality is definitely better.” Maya brings her attention to the sky - which, by the way, turned even greyer than before - and sighs. Without an umbrella, their walk back home, to Maya’s flat, is going to be a real struggle and catching a cold isn’t exactly something they want. Lola knows what Maya’s thinking but doesn’t say anything. She looks at her, at how her brown eyes turn into two little moons, her lips slightly parted, her hair ruffled by the wind, the little cloud that forms everytime that she breathes. “Let’s go back inside - your children are waiting for you.” Lola teases her a bit, just because she can. She knows that Maya is very fond of Jo, Max and Sekou - obviously not at the poing of taking the mom role - but seeing Maya laugh everytime Lola mentions them like “her children” is enough for her to keep doing so. Maya’s laugh is addicting

On a very old and dusted couch, Sekou and Max are sitting with their legs crossed while Jo tries to light on fire a big pile of cardboard boxes and other things she found around. “Putain! The smell is — ugh.” Jo brings her right arm on her nose, trying to cover it up. The smell is real, but so is the satisfaction in her face when the fire gets bigger and a warm wave hits them, heating up their cold hands and bodies. “From today I want you to call me the FIRE QUEEN! Sounds good right? Yeah.” Jo’s words are muffled against the fabric of her sleeve but she’s basically screaming as always, so they all heard her well, even Maya and Lola that are now approching them. “We aren’t tecnically allowed to light a fire here, even if the tower is abandoned. This building is a private property and was actually bought to build a four tower complex — It’s a pity they didn’t end up doing it, this big thing right here has so much potential!” Nobody is really interested in hearing the Tour Pleyel’s story, yet they let Sekou talk about it. His enthusiasm is perceivable and it kinds of spreads in all of them, even if the rain made their initial excitement drop low. “Well, it’s best for us they ended up doing nothing. This place is incredible like this.” Max turns his gaze to Lola, that now is leaning on the back of the couch, her elbow planted on the used cushions and hands supporting her face. “How did you find it?” he asks, grinning at her. “I was walking around one day and I saw it — finding an open spot to go inside wasn’t exactly easy but I managed it.” Lola is lying, her poor explanation is far from the real reason why she knows that place. She didn’t just saw it one day and went inside out of curiosity. She knew that behind those ruined and moldy walls there was something, or someone, that could give her what she wanted — and she wanted drugs. Over time she eventually stopped going there to get her dose and settled for clubs and parties, but the Pleyel tower remained her safe place. The place she went to when everything became too overwhelming to handle and she needed calm. Maya brings her hand on Lola’s shoulder, caressing it lightly. She knows the truth, the ugly truth and yet never made her feel guilty for it. “This smoke stinks like hell. I’m not sure our lungs will thank us later.” Maya tries, really tries, not to laugh at Jo failed attempts to not cover her nose near the fire. “Oh shut up — It’s not that bad, you’re just overdramatic! Saving the planet by picking up people trash smells worse, ADMIT IT.” At this point, Maya is laughing out loud because Jo fake-angry face is literally the funniest thing. “I’M NOT HEARING YOU.” Jo points at Maya with her index finger and then she brings it at her ear. She doesn’t get the answer she wants but still, she doesn’t needs it to be completely convinced of what she said.

“I heard that on friday there’s going to be another urbex party at the racecourse. We are definitely going, It’s been a while.” It’s Max that changes completely the topic of the discussion. He’s looking at his friends in search of a confirmation and immediately finds it in Sekou. “Of course! I promise this time I’m not to bore you with It’s story — but just so you know, I’m still bitter about that time you interrupted me.” He’s joking, his mouth open in a little laugh, but It’s clear that there’s a little bit of truth behind his words. “WE ARE GOING. You two —“ Jo indicates Maya and Lola, an amused look on their faces. “You better not ditch us this time! It’s my lucky week, I feel it. Maybe this time I will convince Eliott to repaint completely my scooter! I mean, if it lasts until friday...” She sighs, her scooter better last until friday because without it Jo wouldn’t know what to do. It has become a part of her. “You never change, Jocelyne.” Maya puts purposefully a little accent on her name and Jo sighs. “I’m free on friday. I can ask Eliott if he will be there as well — for your scooter.” Lola smiles at Jo and the latter throws her arms around her, holding her in a tight embrace. “I liked you since the first night, you know? Since you brought that bottle of vodka at the party! THANK YOU.” the girl keeps talking, still with her arms around her, but Lola isn’t listening anymore. Maya mouths her something along the lines of let’s get out of here and she’s done — by using a little force, she pulls away from Jo, that immediately takes a place on the couch, between Max and Sekou. “Okay, I think It’s enough for today. We should start going now, before the rain gets worse.” Now It’s Maya’s turn to tell a little lie, It’s for the better. How can you blame her for wanting a little bit of alone time with Lola? She gathers her backpack and pats Max on the shoulder. He will understand. Indeed, two seconds later he’s sitting up trying to get some common sense inside Jo and Sekou heads. “I lost ONE HOUR for this fucking fire and now you’re making me leave it? Seriously?” she snorts but eventually follows Max and Sekou, that in the meantime is collecting their things left on the floor.

The group makes it to the first floor of the building and the almost peaceful silence that surrounded them at the highest floor was completely gone. The sound of the rain seamed lauder, cars were racing in the streets covering poor pedestrians in muddy water. “We have a good 50% of probability of not catching a cold if we run extremely fast. Get ready!” Sekou is talking to Max and Jo. They live pretty near eachother, so they always come back home together. “See you on friday then! Je vous aimes.” Maya likes to remind them sometimes that, in fact, she loves them. They are basically her adopted family. Lola waves them goodbye and grabs Maya’s hand, taking her by surprise. She gives a confused look at the brown haired girl and the latter quickly teases her — again, just because she can now — “I run faster than you. I just want to make sure that you don’t remain too much behind me.” Lola smirks at her, holding her hand tighter. “Oh really? We’re going to my house. Behave or I won’t let you in.” The last words are spoken dangerously near Lola’s ear and she shivers. This time It’s definitely not the cold breeze. She rolls her eyes and without replying she starts running, fast. Maya follows her without hesitation. The rains soaks them entirely but they don’t care, the andrenaline rushes through their bodies as they run with the promise of an hot chocolate and a soft comforter once home.

The warm of Maya’s house envelopes them immediately, making them let out a satisfied sigh. They quickly strip out of their rain soaked clothes and shoes, tip toeing towards the bathroom to dry themselves with a towel. In silence, Maya gives Lola a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, before dressing herself up. They didn’t exchange a word since they stepped into the apartment, but the silence and the lingering stares sit well with them. Maya prepares them hot chocolate, while Lola lays on the soft couch with the comforter wrapped up on her body. She wants this moment to lasts forever. She’s relaxed and her thoughts are not so overwhelming when she’s around. For a bunch of hours, she can just forget everything that still needs to be worked out in her life and concentrate only on feeling good. Maya joins her on the couch, leaving the two hot cups on the little table in front of it. Lola would never admit it, yet being the little spoon when they cuddle is her favourite. That’s why Maya takes place behind her, making her lay on her chest and gently strokes her hair. See? This is peace.

“I knew that the guys would love the tower.” Lola says, directing her eyes to meet Maya’s one. She’s smiling fondly at her, that type of smiles that makes Lola weak. “They liked it because they like you. And also, It’s an amazing spot to do urbex!” She bends a little to kiss Lola’s forehead, which grins at the contact. Maya’s lips are warm and soft on her skin, the light pressure of them is enough to make her want more. Closer, she thinks. She abruptly turns around, straddling Maya, getting into her lap — and just hugs her. She hugs her tight, just like she did the first time she woke up hungover in Maya’s house and cried in her embrace. This time she’s not crying, she’s not even smiling. The expression on her face is soft, grateful, because never in her life she tought she could find a person like Maya. A person that could make her feel all those good things, a person that could make her feel safe, that could bring her to the ground when the bad habits threaten to come back. Of course she goes to her therapist regularly now, but having Maya as a loving support is helping her a lot. As always, Maya brings her arm around Lola’s back and, as she did with her hair, she starts stroking it. When they pull apart, minutes later, their fronts are touching and they can feel eachother breath on their mouth.

“I — Thank you for everything, I...” Lola tries with all her strength to put her feelings into words to let Maya know how much she means to her. The words eventually don’t come and she ends up blabbing some nonsense. Maya doesn’t interrupt her, rather she looks at her and licks her lips. That’s the breaking point for Lola. “Oh putain...” whispers and brings their mouth together in a soft kiss. Maya puts her hands on Lola’s cheeks, holding her, to have more control. It’s not rushed, It’s not full of carnal desire. It’s just full of love and understanding. They lose themselves in kisses and touches for hours, losing also the track of time. Outside is getting dark, until the only source of light It’s the moon shining outside the window. And Lola thinks, again,

this is peace.

#basically lola being a softie for maya #maya wants some alone time with lola #also lamifex are present bc reasons #jo being the chaotic queen we love and need #sekou and max are like bff #rain and rain and rain #cuddles on the couch bc why not #mayla inspired me to write a fic about them #bear with me it's like my first fanfiction since 2014 #sorry for grammar mistakes but english it's not my first language #skam france #mayla #mayla fic #mayla fics

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