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luvjunie · 11 months

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— trust who?

pairing: e-42!miles x 1610!fem!reader

contains: angst, mentions of death, yandere?miles

summary: you were taken from him a year ago, and now it seems the universe has given him a chance to do things differently— and this time, he’s not letting you go. no matter what. wc: 1,648

a/n: i got a lil carried away w this one won’t lie, lol. i love this song, and i put a little twist on it to match the plot. song lyrics are in small, bold italics

🎧: Not You Too - drake (ft. chris brown)

“trust- trust who? trust me and i can set you free. left your man came straight to me you the real mvp, my love.“

dimmed hues of red lights spotted your vision as you came to, eyelids heavy as they peeled apart to reveal the room you assumed would be the setting of your demise. your head snapped up when you finally regained consciousness completely, fright-riddled eyes darting around to scout out an escape plan. but just as you went to move, you heard chains clink from above as your body swayed, and realized you couldn’t. you looked down to find your legs bound by rope, as well as your hands, as well as the rest of your body to a firm, stuffed sack.

feet dangling from the ground, you let your head fall back against the punching bag, defeated, and settled for your only remaining option. “help!” you yelled, voice rasped and weak. “help!” you tried again.

“don’t bother, can’t hear a thing down here.”

an artificial, robotic voice sounded from above, warranting your eyes to meet a masked man who resided on a high beam, crouched in place, watching you. how long had he been there?

he jumped down, catching himself and effortlessly hanging from one arm before his sneakers met the steel floor. they were untied, you noticed.

fear permeated your entire being as he strolled over to you, a semblance of uneasiness coursing through your veins, pumping into your blood and rendering your spine straight as the ominous figure stopped just in front of you.

“ple—please, i don’t know why i’m here,” the words tumbled out in a broken heap of suffocated, stifled sobs as tears welled in your eyes.

“shh, it’s okay,” he shushed you, a hand reaching out to gently pinch your chin, lifting your head back up after it’d fallen. his touch was delicate, like he was scared he’d break you.

“i’m not gonna hurt you, mi vida. i’d never hurt you… you know that.” the voice distorter cut out, your breath catching in your throat and your eyes fluttering over every inch of this strange mask. it reminded you of a ventilation mask you’d seen in miles’ room once, a mask used to protect your lungs from the fumes of spray paint.

as if your mind were working against you, you found yourself… calmer than you were just a few seconds ago, and even more confused. why did the voice sound so familiar?

something wasn’t right.

“who— who are you?” you gulped.

“you don’t remember me?” the shield over his face pulled back, the quiet sound of mechanical whirring as it revealed his face drowned out by the heavy thrumming of your heart in your ear drums.

here stood your boyfriend in front of you, the same features, but… different. his entire demeanor had shifted since you had last seen him just prior to whatever time it was now, to something sinister. his hair was longer, pulled back and braided. an accent, almost resemblant of his mother’s lingered on the tip of his tongue, dripping within the words he spoke. his face was harder, etched and carved like the weight of the world had chipped at it piece by piece, only to settle on his shoulders, leaving him with no time for himself.

this couldn’t be right.

“miles?” you choked out, mouth gaping to find your voice. “w-why… what am I—you’re, you… but different? what is this? where am i?”

a puff of air shot through his nostrils, his best effort at a laugh as a small, smile lifted the corner of his lips, braids gliding over his shoulders when his head tilted to the side.

“you came back to me, mi amor. and god…you’re even more beautiful than i remembered.” he breathed, eyes flickering with sorrow for just a moment as they studied your face, a moment that was almost too brief for you to catch.

when he’d encountered you and his counterpart on the roof with his uncle, he swore his prayers had been answered. somehow, someway you’d been brought back to him— the pain of witnessing the bullet that pierced through your chest that fateful night just a year ago drifted from his mind, and replaced itself with the all consuming, peaceful, sleeping image of you the minute he’d picked you up and cradled you in his arms. it pained him to inject you with the needle to sedate you, but he had no other choice, he could never truly hurt you. no, he would never do that.

“i missed you so much.”

“first time in a long time hurtin' deeply inside”

the hand sporting his mechanical gauntlet lifted towards you, fingers bending so the claws wouldn’t scrape your skin as he let the cold metal brush against the swell of your cheek. the sound of the steel joints ticking made you flinch, chest stuttering for breaths you couldn’t keep within your overworked lungs as you turned away from him.

you looked at him with so much fear in your eyes, when all he’s ever wanted to do was keep you safe, to protect you, to make you feel comforted and secure. and he failed at that before, he knows that, but he’s ready this time. he’d been given a second chance, and he’d be damned if he let you slip through his fingers again.

“it’s me, hermosa… it’s okay, you know me. just trust me, and i can set you free, and then we can be together. just like old times.” his brows furrowed, his tone one of sincerity as he assured you, but it did nothing for your racing heart.

“trust—“ you sputtered, voice wavering when you spoke. “trust who? you? how can i when you have me tied up like this?!” you balked, your bewilderment such a stark contrast from his bleak, seemingly unmoving disposition.

“yeah… i’m real sorry ‘bout that. uncle aaron made me, so i tried not to make ‘em too tight. you know something like this would never, ever be my idea.”

you shook your head, was this some kind of sick joke? why wasn’t he understanding a single word that was coming from your mouth?

you grew frustrated, time was not on your side, and honestly you were getting tired of this game.

“i don’t know anything about you, i don’t even know who you are. you might have his face, and—and his body,” you looked him up and down. “but you… you are not my miles.”

he felt a pang in his chest, the words you uttered, the way you said ‘my miles’, as if he wasn’t right here, as if he wasn’t right in front of you. the version of himself he’d buried in the ground with you just last year wanted to jump out and yell at you, plead with you, anything to make you see he could be just like your miles, because he was your miles.

“oh,” he pulled the skin of his cheek between his teeth as he turned away with an agitated nod, extending his arm out to point towards your miles, who was still unconscious, chin dropped to his chest as he hung from another punching bag.

“him?” his voice raised in volume and broke apart with desperation, a humorless chuckle unintentionally escaping his trembling lips. “what’s the difference? huh? tell me.” he demanded, nostrils flaring as he tried to maintain his composure, staring deep into the eyes of the girl who would’ve burned the whole world down with him if he asked. the girl who was in his grasp, right in this moment, yet still so far from his reach— reserved for the one who had everything that belonged to him.

your head whipped to where he pointed, and the moment your eyes landed on your boyfriend your blood ran cold, a pained gasp rippling your chest. “miles! oh god, please!” you called out for him as you struggled against your restraints, his counterpart interrupting you by blocking your line of your view with his body.

“cálmate,” he hummed, “he’s fine, just unconscious. i’m not cruel. is that how you remember me, mamí?” he questioned, voice bleeding with hurt.

your gaze drifted over to your miles again, hope swelling within you when you heard him groan.

“no, no, princesa. don’t look at him, look at me.” he urged.

he didn’t understand. you always used to say you would love him in every universe, that you’d find him in every lifetime, what happened to that?

“please, we need to get home, if we don’t… he won’t be able to save his father, he—he’ll die. you have to understand.” you pleaded, the tears finally bubbling over your waterline, streamlining down your cheeks.

“you are home! it’s me, mi amor, i’m right here. what about everything we went through?” he asked tenderly, voice full of hurt and eyes still soaking in the slight difference in your features. he was too distracted by the fact that the girl he thought he’d never see again, was right here in front of him to even try and comprehend what you were trying to say. “please, don’t cry. you know i hate seeing you cry.”

nothing else seemed to be working, so you settled for empathizing with him. he was still miles, after all, different universe or not, he was still the same person deep down. and from the way he was looking at you, love flowing from the eyes that held so much anguish within them, you knew some version of you had loved him, too. in the same way you loved your own.

“look, i’m sure i-“ you stopped to correct yourself, “she, loved you, but i’m not her. i’m not from here, and i’m sorry she’s gone, and i’m sorry you have to live with this pain, but, please… you have to let me go.” your tone was forbearing, words teetering off into a hushed plea, your lingering apprehension threatening to tear through the seam of your heartfelt spiel.

“let you go?”

you nodded tentatively.

he moved closer to you, to unbound you from this elevated prison, you assumed. because maybe, just maybe you’d managed to get through to him.

but this wasn’t your universe, and this… this was not your miles.

for the first time in your entirety of knowing miles morales, you felt your heart stop— and not in the way that brought a flurry of warmed, passioned butterflies to flutter within you— but in a way that invited his words to settle like ice in your bones, allowed panic and dread to inhabit your senses, clutching you in a selfish grasp of resentment that had no intentions of letting you go— you realized, as this time, his gloveless hand swiped away yet another tear you hadn’t even noticed you’d shed.

“why would i do that?”

“I've given you enough time. hurtin' deeply inside.“

- please do not plagiarize, copy, or repost my works to other platforms!

likes, comments, and reblogs are very appreciated 💗

©luvjunie 2023

#junie’s works ᥫ᭡#across the spiderverse #miles g morales #miles morales fanfiction #miles morales prowler #earth 42 miles morales #miles morales #earth 42 miles morales x reader #miles morales x y/n #miles morales x reader #miles morales x you #42 miles morales #prowler miles fanfic #miles morales angst

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icu-fetish · 1 month

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Mia in ICU

"Has she been drugged? Well, you did the right thing. You need to immediately connect her to an artificial apparatus. So, Mia, it looks like this is the end of your story.”

Doctors put her on a ventilator to ensure adequate oxygen supply to her brain and other vital organs. Resuscitation procedures were performed in time, but the patient fell into a coma. Doctors monitored her vital signs and supported her body functions with the help of medical equipment.

Dr. Cohen certainly enjoys his work. She realizes that a girl who knows so many secrets can be a risk. The stories that the girl publishes on the site, although they remain unpopular, contain information that can be dangerous. Dr. Cohen knows the importance of maintaining confidentiality, which is why she is keeping a close eye on the situation to prevent any potential disclosure.

Mia, who is in a coma, remains in stable condition but is still dependent on artificial ventilation. The woman, intubated and catheterized, is in a state of complete dependence on medical devices.

Mia woke up, but her body still wouldn't obey her. She lay still, able only to listen to the sounds that surrounded her. The noise of medical equipment, footsteps of staff, quiet conversations – all this came to her like an echo from another world. The valve on the ventilator connecting the hose to the tube in her throat was the only physical sensation she could recognize. She knew she wasn't breathing on her own – the machine was doing it for her, keeping her alive while her own body remained powerless.

"It's scary to be so helpless, dependent on a machine for every breath. It's like I'm in a dream where I want to scream but can't say a word. I can hear everything around me, but I can't answer. I feel my consciousness floating in the dark, waiting for the moment when I can regain control of my body.”

Her consciousness was like an island in a great, dark ocean of the unknown. She could not speak, could not move, but she could think and feel. Mia faced the harsh reality of her condition. She was aware that if the life support systems were turned off, her life could be in danger.

Dr. Cohen faces a difficult choice. She knows Mia is no longer a threat, but the decision to turn off life support cannot be taken lightly. Doctor took a deep breath and walked over to Mia's bed. She looked at the monitors showing the woman's vital signs and said quietly: “Mia, we are at a crossroads. You were strong and you proved you could fight. But now that you're no longer a threat, we must decide what to do next. I want you to know that every decision I make is an attempt to do what is best for us.”

After such a decision, Dr. Cohen may feel a mixture of emotions — from relief to hesitation about the ethics of his actions. She carefully turned off Mia's life support machine and waited, watching the monitors showing her vital signs…

#intubated #breathing tube #ventilator #breathing tube holder

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macgyvermedical · 6 months

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trick or treat! (also I have a question- what situations would warrant ether to be used and not any other anesthetics? OwO)

Oooh really good question-

Ether is actually a really, really common anesthetic- especially in the developing world. There are a few reasons it's a good choice in a lower-resource environment:

1- it's the only drug you need for anesthesia

"Modern" anesthesia is a mix of multiple drugs, usually one to render the person unconscious, at least one to kill pain, and one to paralyze the person.

Ether does all three of those things. While you may want a pre-medication like diphenhydramine or midazolam and medications to manage side effects, you really only need the one.

2- It's cheap

Anesthetics are expensive. Ether is like $5 for the amount needed for a short surgery. And that's the medical stuff. There's industrial-grade ether that works just as well for a fraction of that.

3- It's easy to administer

Again, "modern" anesthesia requires a large, expensive machine to mix the gases for anesthesia. Ether requires a wire mesh mask and some gauze. The anesthetist just has to drip the ether onto the mask at a particular rate in order to cause anesthesia.

4- It doesn't cause respiratory depression

"Modern" anesthesia modalities often involve a strong opioid and a paralytic, which means the person must be intubated and placed on a ventilator for the duration of the procedure because they can't breathe on their own.

With ether, the patient continues breathing pretty much normally throughout the whole procedure, and does not require any artificial respiration.

So why don't developed countries routinely use ether? Well, as anesthetics go, it's unpleasant and fairly inconvenient. It smells bad, takes about 20 minutes to start working (an eternity in knocking-people-out time), is extremely flammable, and causes severe nausea and vomiting after waking up.

So generally when you have the option of something more expensive but also more convenient and pleasant, and you can afford it, you go with that. If you don't, but you have time and anti-emetics, ether's a great choice.

#whump reference #writing reference #ether

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maniculum · 3 months

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Bestiaryposting Results: Taerfleg

Another obvious one this week, but it seems people are having fun with it. Nothing else for me to add right here, I think, so I'll get right into it. If you're confused by what this is, go check out https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

And if you want to see the entry people are working from this week, it's here:

Art below in rough chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) started with the concept of a sea urchin, but decided a face might make it more charismatic. It is a very cute face; I like its vibes a lot. Turning a sea urchin into what appears to be at least a semi-terrestrial creature brings up some interesting etymological stuff also, but we'll get into that at the end of the post. Those tube-like appendages there are an interpretation of the business about "ventilation ducts" in the post -- Silverhart acknowledges that it probably refers to the Taerfleg's nest/burrow/whatever, but that they decided to go this direction instead. The linked post explains that these are breathing tubes the Taerfleg can use when it's submerged in mud, which makes me think of this beast as a frog that's also kind of a stealth caltrop of sorts. Watch your step on those muddy banks.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) expresses that she doesn't have enough time this week to do something elaborate, but has sketched out this very good spiky bug. I like it a lot, actually -- it kind of looks like what you'd get if the Koopas from the Mario games were based on pill bugs instead of turtles. This one's got spines, so you can't jump on it. Probably rolls up into a very dangerous ball. Also, you know, everyone appreciates a good isopod. The design of the head is nice also -- there's something to the widely-spaced eyes and those two long appendages. (Feelers? Mandibles? Either way it's got a good outline I think.)

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has given us an interior view of the Taerfleg's burrow -- over on the right we can see a ventilation duct that's been blocked with some kind of plant matter. Their Taerfleg is a spiny lizard, with long limbs to help them remove the grapes from their spines after collecting them. Notable is the attention to detail -- the grape currently on the Taerfleg's back is a bit squashed from being rolled on. I think the lizard looks really cool -- that tail in particular is very well shaped -- and as often happens, I'm blown away by the amount of detailing CheapSweets is doing with a fountain pen. Also please note the babies over there on the left. For a detailed description of the design process, I highly recommend clicking the linked post.

(Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has again come through with a beautiful medievally-styled piece. These Taerfleg are spiders -- Coolest-capybara notes that "spiders with plant-based diets" and "spiders with spiny carapaces" are both real things, so a type of spider that fits both of those categories isn't out of the realm of possibility. When they're collecting grapes, they wrap them in little spider-silk harnesses, which is neat. I really like the web shown here: we've got a funnel structure, which is what the "ventilation" bit is talking about, and I think the decision to draw it with that kind of knotwork motif is really cool.

(Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) has taken this in what I can only describe as a delightfully whimsical direction: the spiky armor is artificial. Does the little rodent build these things itself? One must assume. This also explains the ventilation ducts -- they're openings in the little armored vehicle it rolls around in. We can see one covered by a curtain on the left there. It... doesn't look pleased that its armor has been opened. Poor little critter.

@strixcattus (link to post here) has decided to maintain the balance of their bestiaryposting here: last week it was obviously an ant, so they drew a mammal; this week it's obviously a [redacted], so they drew an insect. I think what I like most about this design (besides the fact that it's cute) is that the Taerfleg appears to be doing the dung-beetle rolling thing with that grape. From past experience reading Strixcattus's worldbuilding, I'm guessing that the "attach grapes to its spines" thing is a myth in-universe, and this is its more normal way of gathering grapes. Speaking of which, as usual, it's worth clicking that linked post and seeing the full, more naturalistic interpretation of the Taerfleg that Strixcattus has written.

All right, to the Aberdeen Bestiary:

Yes, so we all know these are hedgehogs, but were you expecting to get this whole scene? I bet not. Check out that very good Stylized Plant. If I were to get a Stylized Plant tattooed on myself (which I'm starting to consider, as this whole thing we're doing has shown me how much I'm delighted by them), this one would be high on my list.

The tiny hedgehogs are very cute, though I think the illustrator didn't keep track of how much space they had in the image, because the scale seems off -- the... grapes? on the hedgehogs' backs are maybe half the size of the ones on the plant. It's like the bottom of the image was compressed.

The thing with the hedgehog using its spines to carry food is all over medieval texts and marginalia, by the way. This was apparently widely believed; I'm pretty sure it is not in fact the case, but Pliny the Elder was certain it was, so you know. Who's to say.

Now, let's talk ✨etymology✨.

So the entry lists the beast as having two names: ericius and echinus. (From my cursory look into it, this is a case of Latin borrowing from Greek: ericius is the Latin for "hedgehog", whereas echinus is the Latinization of the Greek word.) The translation dutifully translates them both, into two different English terms.

The first is of course "hedgehog" -- but that's a fairly recent word, actually. The earliest attestation is at the tail end of the medieval period.

The second is the actual etymological descendant of ericius. Latin ericius became Old French herichon, and after the Normans conquered England that made its way into the English language as hurcheon, which then over the centuries became... urchin.

This is what I meant about Silverhart taking a sea urchin and making it terrestrial being an interesting etymological move. The reason they're called "sea urchins" is because there was already a "land urchin": the hedgehog. They're one of those critters that was named after looking kind of like something on land, and it stuck. Most aquatic organisms whose names start with "sea" are a case of this. (Why do people sometimes say "sea anemone" instead of just "anemone"? Because "anemone" is also a type of flower; the creatures are named after the resemblance.)

It's one of those weird flukes that happens sometimes -- English decided to call the land animal something completely different (I think some dialects still use "urchin", but it isn't common) and the connection became less obvious. In a number of other languages, it's preserved; e.g. in Spanish, "hedgehog" is erizo -- also from ericius -- and "sea urchin" is erizo de mar. Boom, done, the etymology couldn't be more clear.

Incidentally, a weird side note: the Aberdeen Bestiary predates the first attestation of either hedgehog (1450) or urchin (1290). So the creators of this manuscript wouldn't have called them by either of the names we've just discussed, but a secret third option. Before the French loanword became standard, hedgehogs were called ile or igil in English -- cognate with German Igel. (Incidentally, in German a sea urchin is apparently Seeigel, so they also know what it's named after.)

Anyway, it's getting late. Enjoy the lovely art and the unnecessary infodump.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #taerfleg

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albatross-lancer · 4 months

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[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]

(the speaker is noticeably struggling to breathe, but maintains a monotone, near-robotic speech pattern)

To anyone who can hear this message:

I am a flash clone test-pilot, formerly of a asteroid-based Harrison Armory laboratory.

I have escaped slavery using one of the experimental designs I was placed in, and crash-landed on an arid colony world. The crash completely immobilized me and the mech, as well as damaging my artificial internal ventilation system.

The colony is approximately 230 kilometers from my crash site. The settlers have managed to contact me, but are unable to reach me due to anomalously agitated local megafauna in the vicinity of the colony. The same megafauna has damaged their water supply system and is preventing them from conducting repairs. By my calculations, the first deaths in the colony will occur within 2.0 standard days.

The mech's life-support system will fail in 2.5.

If you can hear this message, help them.

...

And if you're able, help me.

(Detailed coordinates are embedded into the message)

[END TRANSMISSION]

Understood.

I've forwarded your coordinates and information to the nearest Albatross makteba, hopefully they'll have some people nearby. We'll do our best to help the colony, and yourself.

In case we're not able to reach you in time, I don't know if its any consolation to you, but you've done a lot of good by sending this.

#albatross #lancer #lancer rpg

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sapphicsmaximoff · 2 years

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earth-326 (pt. 2) - wanda maximoff

a/n: thanks for the love on the last chapter💁🏽‍♀️

Warning(s): canon violence

i ii iii iv v

Pietro had pushed Clint and the child out of the way, ready to sacrifice himself, but you wouldn’t let that happen. You dodged an attack from Ultron’s bots, swoop down, and spread your wings so that you absorb the bullets. As each bullet embedded itself in you, your heat vision powered up.

Out of anger, you blasted the ship Ultron was on, taking it down. Pietro looks over at you in amazement, groaning at a bullet in his chest, but he shifts his focus, bringing the two before him to the ship.

You felt bullets begin to leave your body as your eyes rolled. You fell back in anguish, coughing up blood. The one time you save someone, you decide to use your heat vision, knowing it can blind you for at least a week, all for some guy you don’t know.

You groan, sitting up as you try to look around, but to no avail. A boom causes you to jump, and even though you can’t see, you can feel the ground rising above you. A gust of wind makes you look to your right as Pietro looks around frantically. “I can’t find Wanda, I need to find her.” Before he can leave, you grab the man’s arm. “Get back to the ship, I’ll find her.” You can feel him hesitate.

“I will.” You don’t see him nod, but you can feel the grip you had on his arm disappear.

You could tell that the city was floating slightly, and so you flew around, looking for Wanda. You could feel her magic in the mist, and so you followed that feeling until you touched her. She thought it was an angel, that you were that angel.

You carried her out of the city with a burst of power, taking her to the hellicarrier, and all she could do was look at you.

When you made it in, she stood up, staring at you as she found somewhere to sit. Your wings retracted into your back, and you stretched as they slithered back into your spine. You began to look around as if you were lost, and you felt a soft hand on your shoulder.

“You alright?” Natasha asks, noticing how you are looking in a completely different direction. “Yeah, I just need to sit, I kinda got hit by a lot of bullets as you can tell. This was my favorite jacket.”

Before you could sit, you turn back to the city, frowning before flying back out of the door. “Hey! Wha-”

Wanda jolted awake in hospital bed, frequently looking around. She doesn’t remember it happening that way. Using her second sight, she watched from afar as Pietro died, and you told her when you were on the run that letting those robots slow you down was a huge regret.

That must’ve been a big change to time.

“So, after all of our scans, it seems that her brain tissue has healed. We weren’t sure at first, it could’ve been a fluke, but after being more thorough…it’s true. Dr. Cho says there’s a possibility she could function without a ventilator.” Wanda can here a collective gasp, assuming you weren’t the only one here.

“You’re serious?” The nurse nods at your question, and you suck in a breath. Your head began to spin as you sat down next to Pietro. “Very. But we have to be precise about this. I also wanted to ask for you permission on this, it’s risky considering her original condition, but we’re asking if you’ll allow us to wean her off of the artificial air.” Instantly, you nod, sharing a look with your brother-in-law.

“Yeah, absolutely.”

You didn’t want to leave, but Natasha informed you that your sons were wondering why you hadn’t gotten home in the last 2 days. Billy was asking if you were doing missions behind their back, despite you promising you were retired.

That worried you, so you kissed Wanda goodbye, and let her brother watch over her like he wished to now that Tony gave him a break. When you opened the door, you could smell spaghetti sauce and garlic, taking in the smell.

“Don’t tell me my kitchen has been burned down!?”

“Ha Ha Ha.” Natasha comes out of the kitchen with your apron on, and your note card in her hand. “I followed the recipes, I swear I didn’t burn any noodles, meats, pots, or utensils.” She holds her hands up in surrender, making you chuckle.

“I’m joking, it smells good in here. You got the bread, right?” She nods as you drop your overnight bag on the couch. “Where are the boys?” She makes a motion, telling you they were taking a nap.

“They were playing all day, outside and on the console thingy.” You groan. “Now all they’re gonna say when I bring up screen is “But Aunty Nat-”.” Natasha laughs, holding up a hot meatball for you. You practically run over, taking a bite as you try to let the steam not burn your throat.

“It’s good.” You mumble. “I know.”

When she was officially finished with dinner, she was ready to leave, but you convinced her to stay. Thankfully, she had no other obligations and sat at the table. The boys ran down, excited to eat, and eat they did.

There was a few times you warned Tommy about eating too fast, and he basically ignored you. But as dinner began to slow down, you sighed. “Boys...I have to tell you both something, very important.” You didn’t want to wait to tell them after Wanda’s recovery.

“It’s about your mom.” That seemed to trigger them because it then became deathly silent until Billy decided to speak up. “Is she ok?”

“Yes! Of course, she’s-she’s great actually. Uh…” You place your utensils down, smoothing out your shirt. “Yeah, uh…she’s awake now.”

Before you could even think, Tommy had disappeared from the table, causing you to jump in surprise. “Wha-“ Billy leaves the table, running after his brother as you looked over at Natasha confused.

She shrugs, continuing to eat. “You’re a terrible godmother.” You say, with a small smile as she gasps. “What?! What did I do?”

You mocking her shrugging with an exasperated sigh. “What the fuck are you shrugging for? You’re not helping at all.”

“Help with what? We don’t even know why he left.” She mumbles as she chews on a meatball.

“I hate you…Truly.”

The next morning, you gave Tommy his space. Which seemed to please him because he didn’t want to speak to you.

It wasn’t like you did anything wrong, and they loved Wanda, but they hadn’t seen her awake in years.

It was terrifying when they were 7, and she was still healing from bruises on her face. As the first year passed, she healed and the boys wanted to visit every night. You would sleep as they read to her, and then you’d treat them to breakfast if the sun ever rose.

Then they turned 8, and they didn’t have time to come as much. There was that time you got really drunk at Natasha’s party, and she dropped you there by yourself. The boys were worried and followed you, but when they got there you were crying, you were in anguish.

How could she do this to us?

He thought it was unfair. In came the resentment, and he stopped asking to come. So when he heard your cheery tone after dropping a bomb like that, he was obviously upset.

“Have a good day at school, okay?” Billy happily nods, walking outside the door, and Tommy gives a small smile, walking after his brother.

Tags:

@nikkinss @justyourwritter69 @lizlil

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #marvel #wanda maximoff au #wanda x y/n #wanda x you

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frostybearpaws · 4 months

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Disassembler!Sevika Headcanons

I'll be making a bunch of these for the various characters in an upcoming fic, at the moment I'm playing around with a bunch of concepts, here's Disassember!Sevika from my Robot AU <3

An illegal experiment performed in a subterranean laboratory by Singed before he parted ways with Piltover and Heimerdinger alike, intended to be a younger sister to Orianna this never came to be as she was discovered and swiftly confiscated, placed with the rest of the Disassemblers legion soon to be launched to quell an uprising within Zaun.

Her transportation pod did not rupture to release her, nor did it self-destruct in the event of failing to rupture; instead she was forced into a centuries long dormancy assumed dead with the rest of the Dissassemblers.

Part of an artificially created subclass christened as ‘The Constructed’ Sevika never had a childhood, she was “birthed” an adult with fully functional mental and motor skills hybridized with inserted programming, this does not mean she wasn’t ignorant to the world around her.

The first few years of her life were spent in a bombed-out section of the undercity turned mass grave called The Ruins.

Learned to be a skilled and prolific hunter. She uses the same strategies of hunting down unwitting prey as she does hunting down rivals in the undercity.

Sevika's main method of hunting is ambush, laying in wait in dark allies or on the tops of a building, then jumping down onto her target or rushing them from the shadows.

Her first interaction with “something like her” was a violent one and has set the precedent for later run-ins with other individuals. It took a long time to break this free from this assumption she carried with her (In truth it’s never really gone away, she’s just better at hiding her suspicions).

She is weary of children: she doesn’t understand them very well as she was never a child herself.

In her early days there was a rumor that stated if you went to her and offered up an item of great importance to you that she will in exchange for the gift do something in return: this rumor turned out to be true.

Many of the older townsfolk are scared of her as she carries the face and body of something that mercilessly destroyed their lives. Oddly enough children are the ones who fear her the least.

Despite not understanding them, she does have a take-it-to-her-grave secrete soft spot for children.

Being tampered with has led to some unfortunate outcomes.

Firstly, she was never fully completed before The Council took her away: this has led to unfortunate internal disfigurements. Fluid builds up in her ventilation cavity, when exposed to air it turns into a red gas which billows from her nose and mouth. This gas is highly flammable; she has learned to create a spark by gnashing her teeth together, causing the gas to erupt into a fireball she can then expel. While useful in combat, this deformity also makes it very difficult for Sevika to breath and thus cool down.

Secondly, her Disassembler Coding was never fully eradicated leading to several heightened instincts. Chase instinct: when she sees something that looks like prey she has the sudden strong urge to chase after it leading quickly into Kill Instinct: if all the boxes are checked for what constitutes as prey, her killer coding will be activated causing her to give chase, catch, and kill the object deemed prey. (She does have the ability to dismiss her Hunting Protocols as they sometimes are reactive).

In extreme cases her Disassembler Coding can take over completely leading to a state of being called absence. In a moment like these, she reverts back into the killing machine that Piltover intended her to be with little regard for connections or emotional ties: this is when she is at her most dangerous and unpredictable, these moments are rare but not to be taken lightly.

Shared traits among Disassemblers are wings and tails, as they are both large and heavy, they have large wings destined to get them off the ground. This however has given Sevika a twenty foot wingspan and more wing than she knows what to do with.

Her tail is prehensile: when she was younger, it used to have a mind of its own, wrapping around nearby structures or (most often) curling around her leg, it brough her a sense of security. She also used to hold onto it when she became nervous but has since trained herself out of this habit.

Sevika’s preferable mode of walking is to move as a quadruped using her wings as front legs, leaving her hands free. She can however stand upright on two feet, though she does not feel as balanced or steady when walking like this. (This is not the same for running/sprinting, when she runs it is exclusively a quadrupedal activity.)

Walking four-legged she is around six feet at the shoulder, if she stands completely upright she’s closer to seven feet.

Sevika is mostly made out of copper, however there are hints of both brass and bronze as well. Spending several years out in the elements has caused her copper to oxidize.

Sevika has a filter she can put over her eyes which allows her to see heat signatures, however when this vision is not active she is able to see ultraviolet light. This however comes with a cost, that being she is unable to see colors of lower frequencies (think: orange and red.)

#Robot AU #arcane #sevika #arcane sevika #mechanical hearts (listen to them beat)

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plaguern · 1 year

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Two weeks ago, I walked into a unit that was utilized as the main COVID ICU of my hospital. Myself and many other nurses spent all of 2020 and the majority 2021 in this space. At the time, it was only lit with artificial lights, was run down with old equipment, and felt more like a cave than an ICU.

The smell of fresh paint and the brightness of the unit were in stark contrast of the heaviness I felt in my chest. This particular area of the hospital had been all but abandoned after the surges were over, and now it was being repurposed to once again house critically ill patients.

Ignoring my internal conscience’s screams of, “Don’t take another step”, I walked a bit further into the unit. I should have listened to myself; I shouldn’t have taken that last step. Something caught my gaze and I froze, effectively thrown back into a place and time I would rather keep deep in my memories. Ventilator settings written in dry-erase marker on a glass ICU door.

The scent of the fresh paint and the bright, natural light merged together with the memories of the most difficult and painful experience I have ever experienced as an ICU nurse. The faces of every patient, each Code Blue, every family FaceTime that occurred before we intubated-with the intention of saying goodbye, because they knew they would more than likely not make it-flashed before my eyes in full technicolor.

I snapped back to reality and felt angry, an anger that was so overwhelming, breathing became difficult and hot tears fell freely. I was angry about the loss of precious life, the unsuccessful resuscitations, and the misinformation that spread like wildfire, that only lead to more death. Most of all-I was angry at the ventilator settings written on glass doors for eliciting such a vehement response out of me. I was caught off-guard and completely unprepared to face the trauma that imprinted itself upon me; so I turned and left the unit for (what I thought would be) the last time. I had no intention of ever going back.

I spent that entire night thinking about what I had seen that day and my reaction to it. I finally came to an agreement with myself. I would go back in there and erase the ventilator settings, but I needed to make it a calm and healing experience. My favorite chaplain was all-too agreeable to helping me through this. The next day, I entered the unit I had promised myself I would never step foot in again.

Since it had been quite a while since they were written, the ventilator settings would not wipe off the glass easily. It was almost as if they were taunting me and making me work to erase them. Once the first glass was wiped clean, I felt a wave of grief wash over me. I was no longer angry, I was saddened. Saddened by loss. Loss of so many lives, loss of friends that left our amazing profession, and loss of our way as a society. Guided by my emotions-I erased all the writing off of each door to each room. It was cathartic to erase every trace of grief and despair that I could see. I then threw away the paper towels that held the remnants of another time, and walked out of that space feeling lighter than I thought I would.

#Nurse #icu nurse #fuck covid #ptsdawareness #trauma

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thepickupartist · 6 months

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Loki is MCU Jesus and was by himself during all season 2

1 theory: HWR created his tempad from Loki's crown, i.e. he rulled everything not only with his technology, but with stolen piece of magic. However, being human, HWR could not really live in the world beyond time. He didn't remember the repetitive dialogues with Loki while Loki did. And he needed Loki to create a crown and sit on the throne so that this time loop would lead HWR to moment, when he steals a piece of Loki's crown again and become HWR. But his plan was doomed to failure, because Loki is the true owner of this magic. HWR didn't create time slipping of Loki, he lied. If HWR could create time slipping for someone, he would do it for himself. However, he couldn't. This was Loki's natural inner power. Loki is kind of Jesus who makes a redemptive sacrifice for the sake of all mankind. He grew up without fully realizing his essence and purpose, so his powers were not revealed untill the right time. And when he understood what kind of god he needs to be, he was able to do what only God with a capital letter can do. All questions about Loki paradox are now identical to questions about paradox of Jesus. And answers are the same. By the way, some believe that Loki's name came from λόγος ( lógos, "word", a name or title of Jesus, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"), and his very image was inspired by Jesus, who was alien to Scandinavian paganism at that time, so they interpreted this image their own way. I'm talking about this from literature and mythological perspective, so don't be mad, if you religious. I'm just talking about inspiration for this Loki. We know that Loki is Jötunn, frost giant (the first inhabitants of the world, in time preceding the gods and people). Ymir was the first living being, a frost giant, from which the world was created (from meat — dry land, from blood — water, from bones — mountains, from teeth — rocks, from hair — forest, from brain — clouds, from skull — the vault of heaven. Each of the four corners of the firmament of the new gods rolled in the shape of a horn. Auðumbla — is a primeval cow, that appeared from the melting ice at the beginning of time together with the first giant Ymir (who fed from her milk), and over the course of three days she licked away the salty rime rocks and revealed Búri, grandfather of the gods. In deleted scene form 2011 movie Thor calls Loki cow. So now we have that Loki is frost giant and god at the same time and his crown is symbol of life and creaton of the world.

On this screen you can see that after dialog with Mobius Loki was already surrounded by dead timelines (not just when he destroyed the loom) and it seems Loki vanished Mobius by his will at that particular moment. I think he was there the whole season 2, just didn't realise it. When Sylvie killed HWR in season 1, all timelines died too, but not this Loki, because he has glorious purpose (Atoning sacrifice, payment for the mankind, power to provide hope).

2 theory: timelines began to die for the reason that HWR warned Loki (multiverse war would begin in which no one would survive). Seeing confirmation of this prediction after destruction of the loom, Loki begins to feed timelines with his magic (which, unlike the loom's rings, is infinite), thereby serving as a multiverse artificial ventilation of the lungs. Loki keeps multiverse alive, giving TVA and everyone else a chance to win instead of die trying to fight for free will. The branches of the Yggdrasil are purple (the color of Kang, there is a war in the "future"), and the trunk is green (the color of Loki, which provides artificial ventilation). Thus, Loki needs to keep the multiverse alive until TVA and Avengers defeat Kangs at the top of the purple branches before timelines finish mutual destruction. When Avengers succeed, Loki will retire because multiverse will be able to breathe on its own.

#loki #loki series #loki season 2 #loki finale #loki s2

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balajihospital · 1 month

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Balaji Hospital | Expert Anesthetists Ensuring Safe Surgical

Balaji Hospital's Anesthetist showcases their skilled team who ensure safe surgical experiences by working closely with surgeons to customize anesthesia plan

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gunsli-01 · 1 year

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So, Triage was certainly a thing huh. Whelp, let me tell you. I've been listening to triage all day and I have some thoughts that may just conflict with everything else said. So, watch me go against my own interests and state for all to see despite me personally voting Shidou Innocent I'm certain he's everything but that!

I believe Shidou’s spouse may have gotten sick which is what initially made him begin taking organs. However, since he was also the main source of income for his household he was gone often. His wife may have still taken care of the house but was not really permitted to do too many strenuous activities because of her illness. Inevitably, her illness worsened, and she was put into a hospital full time. The beginning of Triage even alludes to this being the case with lyrics,

“Those cards of promise I discarded were they retribution for my incessant taking. In that case, I should have been the one. That’s the correct answer, but then why?”

He was already taking organs before his children were impacted more than likely to save his wife from whatever illness she had. In Shidou’s second interrogation he says,

“You saw my true self, didn’t you? There ought to be very few people who have killed more than I have. In comparison to me, the prisoners who weren’t forgiven have also hardly done anything wrong.”

He responds to Es’ assertion that his murder was the act of harvesting organs from brain dead patients with,

“Well… About halfway, I would say."

Es assumed that Shidou’s patients were brain dead and he’s halfway correct but that’s pretty far from correct. Chances are Shidou’s patients were not brain dead but more than likely in vegetative or comatose states with possibly very little chance of recovery. Es is once again seeing what he wants to see here and creating the best-case scenario to justify the choices already made.

Even worse Shidou could have lied to his patients families stating they were brain dead when they weren’t in order to persuade them into pulling the plug faster. When he confronts family members of his patients in Throw Down, he has no paperwork concerning the individual being discussed. So, the family members just have to take his word on it. This is shown being the case multiple times.

Even worse we see the actual patient records scatter through the air and strewn down at Shidou's feet near the end of his first mv.

Average people wouldn’t be able to immediately tell the difference between brain death and a coma.

“Their loved one who has suffered from an injury to the brain is in a hospital intensive care unit. Doctors are doing everything possible to help the patient including supporting blood pressure and heart rate with medications, breathing for the patient with a ventilator, and constantly monitoring the patient’s condition. Often, for the patient with a non-traumatic brain injury like a stroke, there is no outward sign that their loved one has suffered a devastating and non-survivable injury to the brain. The patient looks to be asleep, is warm to touch and appears to breath, albeit with the help of a machine.”

“ “NO” the hesitation I killed is holding its breath and sniffing out lies.”

“Lying, replacing with hope.”/ “To keep you alive, you are still living.”

There is a chance that the person who was brain dead was Shidou’s wife. I’m saying this because of the amount of organs Shidou is displayed taking and the height of the individual he is shown to be working on in Throw Down. If his wife was brain dead and he was deluding himself into believing she could recover she would constantly need new organs. Because organs in brain dead patients can only remain functioning with the assistance of life support for a short time.

“However, the vital organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys can be kept viable for a few days if supported by artificial or mechanical support.”

“You don’t even know yet, and yet- Killing, extracting, I still won’t see them again.”/ “Not dead; yeah, she’s definitely not dead.”

This could be why we see the kids go from being supervised by her to playing by themselves. Under this framing Shidou would still have a very demanding job that he would have to do even more to manage to pay for his wife’s hospital bills, collect organs for her possibly already brain dead body and meet his children’s basic needs. While he was gone either one or both of his kids could have gotten into an accident while playing.

More than likely related to the soccer ball we see bounce to a halt in Triage before we see Shidou in a dark empty home. The call Shidou misses in Triage could be someone attempting to contact him about the accident. This could also explain why the imagery that alludes to an individual (possibly the wife) flatlining is accompanied by the noise a landline phone makes when it’s busy.

Something that conflicts with what we hear at the beginning of Triage which is someone calling Shidou’s cellphone not a housephone. We can tell this is the case because the calling noise rings three times before he sends the call to voicemail. More than likely because he was busy with something else either work related or related to his wife’s care.

From the reaction of the kids when Shidou enters the house he doesn’t seem to be home often. Then when we see him spending time with his wife he’s wearing the same clothes he was when he was walking there. So, they probably were spending time together on one of his off days. The house we see Shidou in is also completely different from the apartment we see him residing in during Throw Down. So, chances are he rented an apartment close to his work and would regularly send money back to his family and visit them when he got free time.

After the mother fell ill to the point of needing hospitalization or was found brain dead. Shidou may have moved the whole family out of that house and into the city where she could get better care for her needs. This is why when the kids are seen playing Shidou sings,

"I yearn to be found guilty."

However, after we see him and his wife walking together it changes to,

"But it tilts towards, find me Innocent."

This is also why he's happy to get his judgement handed down to him by a child. Because in his deluded pursuit to prolong his wife's life regardless of if it had ended already or not, he neglected his children which ultimately led to him losing everyone he loved.

I need to state I'm not saying this to get Shidou’s verdict to change by any means I think he should still be Innocent even while recognizing these things as possibilities. I’m only saying this so people don’t delude themselves into thinking Shidou is someone he’s not.

Certainly, he is willing to care for those who are injured now but that was not always the case and he had to lose a lot to even get to that point. Even after that he tried to find the quickest way to run from his guilty conscious by asking for the death penalty right out the gate. Kirisaki, Shidou is not such a simple case and looking away from the truth in favor of the ideal is how he wound up in Milgram.

Don’t make the same mistakes he did. Look that bastard dead in the eyes and tell him to do something right for once. When I made that post saying friendship ended with my morals I meant that don’t fall for Es’ misconceptions and remember to think for yourselves. If you don’t and allow yourselves to be led by your biases all you’ll get is disappointed or worse used.

#milgram #kirisaki shidou

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icu-fetish · 10 days

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Dana is in a coma

Dana is in a comatose state, but her parameters remain unchanged and within normal limits. She is surrounded by state-of-the-art medical devices that support her vital functions.

The patient is under the close supervision of doctors. Thanks to intubation, she receives critically important breathing, which ensures the stability of her vital signs. A nasogastric tube inserted through the nose provides her with the nutrition and medication she needs. Catheterization helps to monitor the elimination of fluids and ensures proper hygiene.

Dana is now in a critical period as she is still connected to an artificial breathing machine that helps her maintain vital functions. Meanwhile, a team of neurosurgeons is focused on analyzing her medical condition, developing a surgical plan that has the potential to significantly improve her prospects for a full recovery.

Due to her prolonged coma, Dana underwent surgery to have a tracheostomy to provide more stable access to breathing.

This stage plays a crucial role in Dana's healing process. Although she will require the support of an artificial respiration apparatus for some time, this will ensure the provision of vital functions.

Dana continues to be in a coma. There is still a long road to recovery ahead.

She is still limited in her ability to breathe on her own and perceive the world around her. Her life is supported by a ventilator, and although she cannot see, there is a possibility that she can still hear the sounds around her, including the operation of medical equipment and the voices of staff.

After a long period in a coma, Dana finally regained consciousness. This gives her mixed feelings, because although she can now see and hear the world around her, she is still dependent on an artificial breathing machine to keep her alive.

Dana is calm about her condition, realizing that she will need to spend some more time connected to artificial devices.

Finally, the moment came when Dani no longer needed artificial respiration support. She can now breathe on her own, which is a huge step forward. The woman feels great relief.

Love Thy Woman. Ep. 4 - 12.

#intubated #breathing tube #ventilator #tracheostomy #ng tube

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thefangirlofhp · 1 year

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Apaixonar-Chapter 24

"hope was a letter I never could send love was a country we couldn't defend." -Big Black Car, Gregory Alan Isakov

ao3 link

It’s a special kind of luck to have, some fate in store, to have intimate experience this young of what it feels like to hold two dead friends, to know the differences between a brain death and that which leaves nothing behind in the body. One noisy, crushingly hopeless, and the other numbing of the senses and final. Still, they leave behind devastated loved ones all the same.

“Her heart’s still beating,” Cerridwen thickly whispers, fresh tears clouding her eyes, her hand clutching a quivering paper, fine print smudged with tears and a chasm in her chest that wreaks visible carnage onto her body. Grief and loss had a fine destructive way of twisting life out the heart. “It’s still there.”

He kneels beside them the same way, his hold on their bodies tight and regretful. Sorrowful. As if he could plead them back into life. As if he can bargain their return, this reverse of something permanent, with his regret. His scars clutch her hand, his lips pressed tightly together, drinking in the sight of her face. Beautiful, not because of her features. But by merit of being his sister. It crushes his soul to admit this to himself when she’s gone, now. If he’d voiced the feeling to himself when she was alive, would it have nurtured a biological sense that’d have looked out for her on its own? Kept her alive?

“I don’t want them to turn it off,” Cerridwen hoarsely says, drowned by the ventilator keeping her sister’s body inflating and deflating, her voice faint beneath lapping and crashing waves of dizzying grief. Azriel rises a little, releasing a hand that clutches Nuala’s shoulder. Morbid, to hold a dead body, the leftovers of the person you loved so much. Stranger still to feel gushing rivers of love flooding your senses, urging you to do nothing but hold on. Hold on. This comfort in holding them is cathartic.

He quietly breathes out, afraid of hearing his own breath and missing Nuala’s artificial one. Still hers. He understands now why people sit in silence with their mortally ill loved ones, have no desire to break it. It’s a tank in which to submerge their senses in, listen and count and cherish every last breath and sound they’re making as if it can hold off the inevitable surrender to the siege. One more second. One more minute.

So he bows his head over her shoulder, arm slung over her rising and falling chest, and listens. One more. And another. Here is a fine place to be, now.

________________

Though the eve of the new year is often remembered to be one of the most celebrated nights worldwide with the cheer of wrapping up the past three-hundred and sixty-four days, this one will not only be remembered for being the coldest night of the year. Azriel’s not looking forward to escaping the warmth of Rhys and Feyre’s estate for the howling bitter biting mother-of-all-chills out there. To remain by the fire, explaining the world to dutifully listening pupils interested in every breath of his, while hiding from the world outside, if only but for an hour.

“So we’re celebrating the start of the New Year in a few hours but other countries have already done that, you see,” Azriel is explaining to his nephew the semantics of the clock and time zones while he’s buttoning up his pressed white shirt in the spare room. “See, Nana and Grandad in England are ahead of us so it’s the New Year for them now.”

“How did they beat us?” Felix frowns as he props his jaw in his palms, lying on his stomach as he watches Azriel work the buttons. “Why are we slow tortoises!?”

“It’s not about beating us, it’s not a race,” Azriel replies, glancing at the boy through the mirror. “They’re just closer to the sun when the earth rotates. They see it first.”

“Thun?” Winnie pipes up, sat on the foot of the made-up bed.

“Yeah, Bunny,” he turns, holds one fist up, angled over another low-lying one. “Sunlight falls on us, on earth, and cause we’re going in circles around it—you know, like Rebel trying to get something off her tail—it takes us one year to do it. So sunlight falls on one part of the earth before the other cause while we’re going in circles, we’re also spinning. So like…”

Winnie furrows her brow before Az gestures she come forward and makes Felix stand up.

“Bunny, you’re the sun,” he makes her stand still in the center of the room, and stations Felix a little ways away from her. “Feely, you’re the earth. Now, Feely’s going in circles around Bunny and that’s what?”

“A year?” Felix replies, unsure, as he slowly walks around his cousin.

“Exactly!” Azriel praises. “So, now it’s still 31st, and when this night is over and we start a new number it’s the first day of the New Year, and the new month and the new day. Got it?”

“But…But what about my birthday?”

“Ah, ok,” Azriel directs his attention to his cuffs. “So, you get the idea that one entire round around Bunny means a year?”

“Uhu.”

“On your birthday, it’s when we start counting down from, okay? We have a starting point. That part of the rug, right? The number of the day you were born on, your birthday, is your starting point. So when you finish all the days between, and it’s the fourteenth again, we know that you’ve finished a whole round, and congratulations you’re starting a new year of your life.”

“But it’s not tomorrow,” Felix muses, handing Azriel the remaining cufflink.

“Yep,” Azriel ducks his head over it,

“How can it?”

“Tomorrow’s the earth’s birthday. Wait, no. Tomorrow’s just the year’s birthday. January first means we’ve all finished a whole year.”

“But we have different birthdays.”

“Yes, but collectively as the human race, we just finished one round around the sun.”

Felix twists his mouth. “I’m confuse, Uncle Az.”

Azriel smiles, and ruffles his hair. “I know, Superman. It gets confusing a little at first, then you make sense of it.”

“Whose birthday is it today? Why are Mummy and Daddy having a party?”

“Uh,” Azriel thinks, sliding his tie off the hanger. “The Gregorian calendar.”

“What?”

“Someone called Greg.”

“Is he famfus?”

“Yeah he’s famous. Cause he’s the one who told us how to keep track this way.”

“Azeel.”

“Yes, Bunny?” he loops the smooth tie around his neck beneath the shirt collar and turns to the mirror.

“Thathorus?” she holds up a small fist clenched over a T-rex.

“Oh right, sorry, where was I?”

“You said asturd in space.”

“Right. Right,” Azriel mutters, remembering why he’d strayed off course in the first place, tugging the knot up his neck. “Yeah, an asteroid fell on the dinosaurs from the sky and they went extinct.”

Felix and Winnie stare blankly at him.

“What asturd?” Winnie blurts.

“It’s a…” Azriel trails off. “Like a big, big rock. Some of them are small rocks and others dwarf planets. One of them hit the earth and most species on it went extinct.”

“Tint?”

“Died,” Azriel faces the staring kids.

“All of them?” Felix demands.

“Er, yeah.”

“But there was one on TV!”

“CGI, Feely,” Azriel says sympathetically. “Just a drawing.”

His nephew blinks. “No it’s not,” he points out with utter conviction. “Daddy says they’re still around.”

Azriel blinks, reaching for his suit jacket. “I mean some species survived like birds and lizards. But I’m pretty sure all the big dinos died, Feely.”

His nephew promptly turns on his heel and marches out, calling out for his father at the top of his lungs. Winnie remains staring up at Azriel, clutching her dinosaur and looking at him in earnest while he slides on his jacket. She blinks and looks down at the figure in her hands, one of the dinosaurs she quickly became inseparable from since unwrapping it.

“Azeel?” she hums.

“Hmm?”

“What that?” she walks towards him, holding up the base of the figure, her fingertips trailing along the carved line into it.

Azriel crouches, and cups his hands around hers. “Well that’s a message. A secret one from me to you.”

“Weally?”

“Do you know what it says?”

She shakes her head.

He gently grabs her index, and places it at the start, dragging it along as he speaks, teaching her the love encoded in it as if it is Braille and he can somehow teach her how to recognize it by any form it comes in. Sight, sound, touch. “It says: To Winnie from Az, with love.”

“Wif wuv?”

“With love,” he murmurs. “Means that every time you play with them, you’ll remember that I love you, Bunny.”

Winnie holds it up before her eyes, before clenching her hands over it and holding it to her chest. “I wuv you too.”

The heater’s warmth is colder in comparison to what her words ignite in him. He finds himself curling over her, hugging her tightly, not really knowing what to do with himself or his emotions. Only knows that if he holds this little girl long enough, maybe everything wrong in the world, in him, will be fine.

“You’ll be good tonight?” he murmurs, finding something holy in the way she is so small and fragile in his arms and yet his chest feels so tender, something so easy to hold and shelter, as if with any more effort he can engulf her whole.

“Mhm,” her muffled hum resonates in his tux.

“You can stay up just a little. But you have to go to bed when Alis tells you to, ok?”

“Otay.”

“Feyre and Rhys aren’t going to tuck you in tonight, or Mama. Okay?”

She curls into herself. A miniscule change in body tension that instils in him a sudden desire to stay inside, cooped up by the fire and wrapped in this embrace. His arms engulf her, but in a realer sense, it is she who has such a hold on him. No one else has managed to tempt him away from his objectives and ambitions. No one else has forced him to realign his priorities simply by existing. He has the sudden urge to do nothing but stay with her throughout the night, drive her nightmares away and put her to bed, surrounded by nothing not of a sense of reinforced safety and care.

But he breathes in.

“You?” she softly requests.

His breath stutters its flight on the way out. “I have to go. But I’ll be back in the morning.”

“One sleep?”

“Yes, Bunny. It’s just one sleep.”

She turns. “Wanna sleep now.”

“You don’t want to stay up with Felix a little? Watch Youtube and cartoons?”

Her determined eyes flicker between his, round and hazel and bright with an intelligence he’s never seen before in a child. She gives one nod. “Wanna sleep now.”

He smiles softly, sliding his fingers down the side of her face, brushing runaway strands behind her ear. It feels clumsy, the action, looks so as well; with gnarled fingers that are not the image of grace—quite the opposite—that do not work in fineness and sharp accuracy the way Elain can reach anything and everything (her daughter’s fine hairs, dead roots in garden beds, his own heart) but by God it is something caring and gentle. The spitting image of so.

“Tell you what—me and Mama’ll tuck you in before we leave and you can play with Felix in the meantime.”

“Don’t wanna be mean,” she says in a small voice.

“Oh no,” he chuckles, cupping her cheeks. “I meant to say you can have fun while we wait to go. Mama needs a few moments to get ready. Okay?”

She nods, stepping back and out of his arms, her eyes never leaving his, not blinking.

“Off you go,” he shoos, facing the mirror and the sullen face staring back at him. He wonders what it means, if it means anything, to stare in a mirror and find no recognition. Nothing. A blank canvas of black brows and cheekbones, and anything in between that would normally carry something of himself empty. He’s never sat with a person less than ten minutes without gauging their self entirely through their body, but it’s an empty, barren canvas he looks at. As if someone had crafted him together and forgot to flip the switch on.

Azriel exhales a long, deep sigh, shoulders deflating entirely, rubs scars into his eyes. This numbness is not alien, nor is it foreign to himself to feel dead, but still it is heavy.

His phone lights up with a ping, a single message that has him frowning and snatching his coat off the bed.

“Hey,” he catches Rhys in the bathroom shaving. “I’ll beat you to the venue. Something came up.”

His brother blinks once as he drags his razor blade along his neck.

“Hey, Winnie?” Azriel tracks her down in the playroom with Felix pouring over a child’s astronomy textbook. She looks up immediately, her expression strange until he realizes that he’d called her by name. “I have to go now. But I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

She blinks before running towards him. The impact of her throwing her arms around his legs is little stronger than a puppy knocking into him, but somehow it jolts his heart out his ribcage. He crouches down, holds her face in his hands.

“Pomise?”

“Of course,” he gently promises, never one to break his promises.

“One seep.”

He smiles. “One sleep.”

She nods.

“Mama’s going to tuck you in, okay?” he presses a peck to her forehead and directs his attention to Felix coming to bid him goodnight.

“See you in the morning, Superman.”

“G’night, Uncle Az.”

“You too, kiddo.”

Azriel leaves in a hurry, his eyes fixated on his phone, navigating the large house through subconscious memory and had he paused, maybe, been instilled with the thought or the feeling to glance back when he was at the front door, then he’d have had the chance to witness Winnie at the staircase, holding onto the railing and looking through them, watching him go the way she watches everyone else walk out on her. Maybe if he’d seen her expression, or the way her shoulders are slumped and her face revealing a yearning so deep, he’d have decided to fuck the entire world to Hell, to drop his keys and his holster and teach her all about tyrannosauruses and pterodactyls, made her feel safe, loved and happy and cherished. If he’d looked back while swinging open the front door, maybe Azriel would have been forced to recognize what his realigned priorities were.

But he hadn’t, ventured head-on into the coldest night of the year and didn’t look back.

________________

It’s a beautiful night, in hindsight. Though his judgement is biased and impaired, a while later, Cassian remembers that it started out beautiful. Glittering venue, charming hosts, polite waiters, easy fun conversations and not many people going “Oh, EX-Marine, huh? I bet you miss the army, don’t you? Thank you for your service” and he’d gotten Nesta to laugh. If he is able to choose one moment to nominate as the silver lining, it is the flash of her teeth in a grin that is off-guard and soft and her easy laughter while he kept her company, waving off waiters before they can approach.

Cassian isn’t in the habit of lying to himself. Though he keenly misses the structure and sense of purpose that the army had given him, and had felt blinded when he came home with an honorable discharge, and most of his days the pointlessness jumps him, he wouldn’t choose to go back out to wherever he would be stationed next. He doesn’t feel as weightless as he had when he’d graduated school. Not as irresponsible.

So when Nesta curiously asks him if he had the chance and the leg, would he take it, Cassian honestly says no.

“Why?”

And there is where he comes up empty. Why? A plentitude of excuses but not one solid reason. He simply cannot think of a reason to go back out.

“I don’t know,” he replies honestly, hands tucked behind his back and shoulders backed up, leaning his weight on his prosthetic limb.

“It’s a thing you’re good at,” Nesta points out.

“What, killing people?” he raises an eyebrow.

“Looking out for people,” her tone softens. “You’re annoyingly good at it. Like you’re programmed that way.”

He blinks.

She looks away, at the crowd around them and the various different famous faces. Politicians and artists and old-money people. A mix of Rhysand’s social circles, Feyre’s, and his parents’ wide diverse networks. Almost anyone who was anything, and here Cassian is standing next to someone who barely lets herself be known.

“You still do it,” says Nesta, sipping from her glass of sparkling soda. “Your friends, your comrades, anyone who needs help and comes asking. Even those who don’t ask.”

He’s not used to this honest version of a woman who more often than not sets his nerves on fire.

“Well, it’s gentler than the army,” he too looks away. “And I like helping people become better versions of themselves. Physical or emotional.”

“What’s changed?”

“What, why I wasn’t offering group therapy and opening a gym when I was eighteen?” he snorts.

Nesta concedes with a smile. “I’m just wondering why you didn’t do it sooner.”

“It’s not easy to get out,” Cassian says quietly. “I was lucky to get out earlier than others. Even if I had to lose a leg. I guess, growing up a bit and having my head set straight forced me to look at my world honestly. You know, I had my brothers and Rhys was already starting his family and there Feyre was, and fucking Az, and I couldn’t not stay. It’s not in my nature to leave or abandon. Family’s important to me, and I suppose they need me.”

Nesta’s smile is soft but genuine. “You’d make a great father, if you go for it.”

He cannot stop his own smile. “Ah, one day, hopefully. Cheers, witch.”

“Cheers, cripple,” she clinks her glass with his own. “Ah fuck. Feyre’s cornered by Fungal-Toes, I’ll talk to you later.”

He snorts, watches her walk off with an air of grace and confidence that is weaved into her very being that parts the crowd for her. Not many people walk like they can conquer the very air everyone breathe, but Nesta does it effortlessly. Appearing both confident and deadly, and still managing to look like a well-mannered lady.

His eyes rake the crowd, absent mindedly listening to the music, catching Kallias’ eye briefly and saluting him before the man gestures to the right with a flashing motion of his eyes and brows, returning his attention seamlessly to the old man he is in conversation with.

Frowning, Cassian follows his line of sight, scouting out any potential issue, before he notices Azriel and Rhys in the far corner, and—judging by the dead expression on Azriel’s face and Rhys’s impassive stony face—arguing.

“Shit,” he curses under his breath, making his discreet way towards them. They’re not in a habit to argue, Rhys and Azriel, but the past few months have brought about wired nerves and tensions stifling the very air around them.

“The fuck is going on?” Cassian lowly interrupts them, thumping a hand on each of their shoulders. “Nesta’s got Feyre distracted but I promise you if your wife catches you arguing in public she’ll skin us all.”

“You promised,” Azriel quietly says.

“You do remember the specifics of that fucking promise, don’t you?” Rhys hisses back. “Irrefutable evidence, holistic entrapment and no-one left un-fucking-touched. What the hell have you got? Nothing I can work with.”

“Yes you can,” insists Azriel. “You just don’t want to.”

“Oh, what, I don’t want to publically prosecute powerful people and fail because I’m looking out for my son and wife? You are spot on, man.”

“Can we not leave this for another day?” Cassian forces out through clenched teeth. “Not when literally everyone who matters is watching you.”

“Tell it to Mister Holmes here,” Rhys shoots. “Who’s about to turn this place into a battlefield.”

“Excuse me?” Cassian looks to the quiet man.

“Flair for the drama, Rhys,” Azriel retorts. “Besides, you’re the one—“

“I don’t want to fucking hear ‘he said, she said’.” Cassian interrupts. “Cut it short.”

Azriel stills, for a second, before looking over his shoulder and turning to stone beneath Cassian’s hand. “Careful, Rhys, your wife’s ex-fiance just walked in. Don’t want me to handle it?”

Rhys and Cassian both seize up, and he squeezes Rhys’s shoulder tight. “Don’t make a scene.”

Violet eyes fix themselves onto a moving target, and it’s like the man has turned into a predator. “Five minutes, he’s not gone, I’m throwing him out the window.”

Cassian looks over his shoulder, catching sight of the unmistakable blond man in the swarm of people. “What the fuck does he want,” he mutters. “He’s not stupid to think he could touch Feyre. He wouldn’t make it out alive.”

Azriel looks to the side. “I have it on good authority others might show up.”

Rhys freezes. “Say what?”

“Keep your head,” the detective replies smoothly, his hand brushing his waist and Cassian realizes that his holster’s on beneath the suit jacket. Cassian himself has his Ka-Bar knife attached to his belt, but it’s only due to attachment issues—he doesn’t go anywhere without it. “I’ve got it covered. Don’t do anything.”

“Azriel, I swear to God, he says a word to Feyre and I’ll lose my shit.”

“She’s with Nesta,” Azriel reports softly. “I’ve got someone shadowing them both and someone on Tamlin. He won’t touch her, I promise.”

“Get him out of here.”

Their brother nods once, before quietly slipping away unnoticed. Cassian watches Rhys cut through the crowd towards an unaware Feyre, busy smiling and grinning with someone she knows—

Where the fuck is Elain?

Cassian’s blood pressure skyrockets as his heart rate spikes when he doesn’t find her, not dancing with anyone or speaking to someone, and he’s suddenly pushing people out of his way, hunting down different faces for Elain’s. Last he saw her she was dancing with Rhys and grinning sheepishly, giving an unaware Azriel fleeting glances over Rhys’s shoulder while he said something that had her laughing.

“Where the fuck are you?” Cassian rasps into his phone when the call goes through and Elain’s phone answers.

“Um,” his heart deflates at the sound of her hesitant voice. “Next to the stairs with Mor? What’s wrong?”

“Fucking hell,” he sighs. “Nothing, I couldn’t find you anywhere. Panicked.”

“Is everything all-right?”

Instead of answering, he hangs up as she comes in his line of sight, and gives her a smile as he comes to stand by her.

“Everything okay?” Mor asks curiously. “I just saw Az dashing off. What’s the matter?”

“They saw Shitface,” Cassian mutters. “Tamlin. Rhys’s going to murder him if he gets anywhere near Feyre. Can you go, make sure he keeps his head?”

Mor heads off with a nod and a frown.

Elain turns to Cassian, her hair let down and streaming down her back in well-groomed waves, minimal makeup on her face and sparse glittering jewelry accessorizing her black dress. He’s not sure if it suits her—though elegant and charming, Feyre and Nesta wear the black better than she does. Elain’s looks like it would swallow her hole and make her part of the background, makes her collarbones stand out all too well—color suits her best. He’d kept his thoughts to himself, of course, and continues to do so; no man sane enough would mention anything while sat next to Azriel who spent the entirety of Christmas Eve and day bowed over the dress, adjusting it for Elain better than a seamstress would.

“He’s not going to hurt Feyre, is he?” she quietly asks. “He wouldn’t. Right?”

“Not if he’s got sense in his head,” he replies, keeping an eye out around them. Azriel talking to one of the staff. “But some men don’t have any, Elain.”

“I know.”

“Anyway he can’t. He’d have to go through Az’s nameless soldiers and Rhys. Not to mention Mor and Nesta. I’d like to see him try.”

“Of course he has back-up security to the actual security,” Elain mutters, looking around them. “Wonder who’s ours.”

“You need any security with me around, petal?” Cassian jokes, as Azriel makes his way back to them.

“You need any with me around?” she jokes back, her attention drifting to the man coming to stand beside her, his arm finding a home around her waist. “Hi.”

Azriel smiles down at her. “Hi.”

“Who’s our security, then?” she smiles.

Azriel’s lips turn up, moving easy as breathing. “Cassian doesn’t need any with you around.”

Elain softly chuckles, absently shifting closer into him. He tightens his arm around her as he adds: “And I’d worry for whoever trying to pick a fight with you.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she quips. “Just claim to be my knight in shining armor and get over it.”

Azriel keeps smiling, staring intensely at her as if there’s no-one else in the entire world much less the room. Cassian doesn’t figure ‘knight in shining armor’ could ever be used to describe Azriel; it’s not a sentence that adequately describes him. But with the way he’s attached himself to Elain’s side, quiet and unassuming, Cassian would say he’s more reliable than a knight on a gleaming white stallion with shining armor that would let the enemy know he’s coming from a mile away. More like a shadow, overlooked and easy to miss, until you felt a knife in your back and saw your organs tumbling out onto the floor.

Cassian’s recollection of that night is a series of pleasant mild events, with the exception of the unsavory people showing their faces that had strained the night but he reckoned then that things could go much, much worse. He remembers a smile stuck to his lips, easily conversing with his family, teasing laughs out of Elain and watching Azriel whisk her off for a dance that had rendered her speechless by merit of some small speech that he uttered in her ear. Speechless and beaming. Grinning wide. He checks in with Kallias, keeps an eye on a blissfully unaware Feyre shadowed by a less-than-blissful husband who manages to still make civil and polite conversation with those he needs to and overall keeps to himself, monitoring everyone and everything while having a mildly pleasant time himself.

Cassian recalls the time that travesty struck so very well, if only because they’d been keeping track of midnight’s approach. On the quarter mark, his eyes slide away briefly from laughing with someone he knew, land on Rhys for a moment and look away but are brought back by the frown on his brother’s face and the disbelieving staring match with his phone. A similar smile wiped slowly off Feyre’s face when she checks a notification on her phone in passing, only for Cassian to watch it clatter to the floor, sliding from between lax unaware finger like soap slipping from wet hands and Rhysand’s face contorting. Cassian recalls it all so clearly, as if he was watching it retrospectively in slow motion, how Rhys’s hand latches onto Feyre’s shoulder and how some words are senselessly falling from his lips, Nesta straightening up with Feyre’s phone, concern laced in her face. What she is asking, but somehow Cassian isn’t hearing anything. It is all quiet and numb in his ears. A chocked sound escaping Feyre, Rhys looking sharply left and right as if he is looking for his guardian angel, the one to fix all his worries. Only for his eyes to meet with Azriel’s, already crossing the distance between them, for him to mutter a sentence that Cassian could read on his lips aided by dread and despair.

Felix…someone broke in—

It is all that Azriel needs, all that anyone needs to leap to action, for Cassian’s limbs to jolt and his body to make contact with adrenaline once more, for Feyre to make a run for it, hitching up her delicate dress in two rough fistfuls and Rhys to bolt. Azriel shooting orders down his phone and at people, something about setting up roadblocks and sending police cars and road names. They scatter, making runs for the exits and cars and Cassian’s run is impeded by a tight prosthetic leg, enough for Elain to catch up with him and loop her arm through his, tightly latching on, asking what is going on in a tight worried voice as they break into the outer car park, Rhysand and Feyre dashing for their car.

“Rhys you’re not driving!” Cassian roars after his brother’s back, snatching his brother’s car keys off a stunned valet. “Feyre, with me!”

“Elain!” Azriel calls out as they break into the cold winter air, Nesta shadowing him with her heels hanging from her fingers and making a beeline towards them with a furious determined expression. Elain’s arm falls from Cassian’s, turning as Azriel catches up with her, her brow furrowed. “You and Nesta are with me.”

“What’s going on?” Cassian hears her ask fearfully, wasting no time getting into the car. He doesn’t hear what she’s told, as he turns on Rhys’s car and slams the door shut behind him, the couple sat in the backseat frozen stiff and petrified.

On a normal occasion, the ride to the estate would have taken the better part of fourty minutes, but a recklessly driving Cassian makes it in thirteen, and if asked then he has no recollection of the exact order of events. He knows they happened, was aware of them, but if asked he wouldn’t be able to confirm the police cars tailing them, the three near crashes that were avoided by some miracle and Cassian’s driving experience, Rhysand throwing up in a bag, Feyre tearfully trying to make sense of the notification on her phone from their security system alerting them of a break in, of some footage from the cameras and Cassian doesn’t want to hear, but he catches words thrown around like they took them, the sight of an army of police cars parked around the estate, the yellow tape being set up, the flashing red and blue and the never ending prayer uttered over and over and over in Cassian’s head: please no. Please no.

An officer coming to meet them, his face tight. Azriel’s car screeching to an abrupt halt behind them, kicking up a roaring storm of dust and smoke behind it, the sisters hurrying out of it, Elain’s face damp with tears. The parents running into the house, Cassian following behind, the officer speaking to Azriel and Cassian hanging behind to know what is going on.

“The kid’s gone,” the officer tells Azriel, who towers over him with hunched shoulders and hands latched on his waist and eyes sharper than that of a hawk’s. “We have footage of it.”

Cassian freezes. Feyre’s cry sharply erupts from the foyer inside.

“And—And the other—“ Cassian finds himself saying, mouth dry as a desert in midday.

The officer’s eyes meet his, brown eyes veiled with sadness.

A sob.

He curtly nods. “Two kids were kidnapped. We haven’t identified the second, do you—?”

Azriel roughly shoves past him, quiet as a storm before it breaks, and Cassian follows him with a sudden flaring pain shooting up his thigh that has him gritting his teeth and resting a hand on the wall as he walks. Surely it is physical pain. Not the sight of his friends devastated in the entryway, Feyre clutching the antique round table with a death grip to keep her standing and Rhys throwing up the acid in his stomach. Elain, standing numbly in the middle, her hands clasped over her mouth with white knuckles and wobbling tears in her eyes and her face paler than it had when she nearly bled to death. Her skirt whispers on the floor as she turns, facing them both, round horrified eyes finding Azriel’s.

Cassian has to stop at the wall, lean against it and clench his shaking hands into fists. His entire body’s trembling and he shakenly finds support in the wall, his jaw clenched tight and breathing accelerated and his eyes fixed on Azriel for some reason. Had some part of him seen him responsible for this? Or looking to him for answers and solutions?

Azriel swipes a scarred thumb along his bottom lip, unblinking eyes on the floor as if he is peering into the very near past, or listening to the echoes of the kids’ cries, for help, for mercy, for their parents. Oh God—Cassian finds a sob erupting from his mouths though he didn’t approve it and tears are splashing against his cheeks. And Azriel crouches down, for a moment Cassian thinks he is surrendering, but his arm reaches out over the black and white checkered floor, picks up something off it, and stares long and hard at the small tyrannosaurus rex in his scarred palm.

Cassian watches something dark and unholy swarm the entirety of his face, snuff out any light to be found in his hazel eyes, one that clenches his jaw and ices over his face and when Azriel looks up at Elain, stands up straight and meets her eyes, Cassian swears it is a demon that does so. The stare in his unblinking eyes is unnatural, no longer human. He cups his hands around her jaw, while her mouth bubbles with tears and sobs, presses his forehead to hers, and wipes away her tears with the pad of a scarred thumb. It seems all that Azriel is reduced to: a resume of scars and experience and bloodshed and effective ruthlessness. Someone's organs were about to tumble on the floor, a knife out of someone's back.

“I’ll bring her back,” he quietly whispers, something of an oath, staring into the very depths of Elain’s soul. “I swear.”

Tags: @tswaney17 @julesherondalex @mis-lil-red @gorl-power @thesirenwashere @stars-falling @trying-to-read @dreamerforever-5 @hail-doodles @eloeloeheheh @i-am-lost-in-my-world @abraxos-is-toothless @queen-of-glass @elrielllll @negativenesta @b00kworm @harmonyindark245 @ducksmurf135 @empress-ofbloodshed @sleeping-and-books @thewayshedreamed @agem10 @superspiritfestival @maybekindasortaace @maastrash @courtofjurdan @ireallyshouldsleeprn @gracie-rosee @bookstaninthesoul @elriel4life @fawnandshadows @123moiaussi @impossiblescissorspeachpaper

#apaixonar #elriel fanfic #elain archeron #azriel #acotar #elriel fic #rhysand #*passes along tissue box*#hope you're all settled in #ensue fuckening

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