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lilousmustaches · 3 years

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Work this out

Jake Peralta x Reader

Warnings: Ladies stuff, i won't say anything else to avoid spoilers.

Notes: Here i am writing again after 3 years.... a total new fandom. I am watching b99 and i'm so addicted, Jake is the only thing in my mind right now and i had to do this. It didn't go as i planned, but i hope it's ok. It's small and english is not my first language. Expect more of Jake x Reader here, it's my first try and voilá.

Summary: Jake and the reader have a friends with benefits relationship and suddenly she starts to act strange.

Another work day in NYPD's 99 precinct. It had everything to be another normal day. Well... normal as it can get down there. But it wasn't.

Immediately when you entered the precinct, Jake turned his head up from his computer to give you a smile and probably a silly joke provoking you. But his smile vanished as soon as he saw you pass everyone with your head down, no good mornings and going somewhere down the hall.

"Hey" Rosa called looking between Jake and the hall you just disappeared. "What's up with (Y/N)?"

"I don't know." Jake responded confused as everybody else in the room. You were a joyful person, always smiling and greeting every single person that worked there.

"What have you done Jake?" Amy asked angry assuming it was his fault since everyone knew about yours friends with benefits relationship that has been going on for a while now.

"What? Nothing" Jake answered quickly indignant with the assumption.

"No, Amy is right Jake." Boyle said getting up of his desk and coming closer. "(Y/N) is acting weird this days, yesterday she didn't even wanted to eat some of my salmon cookies. She loves that. And coming here and not giving my good morning hug? Definitely something's strange."

"Boyle is right on that one." Rosa agreed with her arms crossed.

"I don't know ok?" Jake answered frustrated with your strange behavior rising his hands in surrender. "(Y/N) didn't went to my place this last weekend, in fact I had barely seen her for the past days. I really have no idea... maybe she's just trying to dump me and trying to make it easier."

"Or maybe she's tired of waiting for you to ask her out on a real date and assume her as your girlfriend!" Boyle pointed raising an eyebrow to his friend. "You should tell her how you really feel."

"Yeah, haven't you kept her waiting long enough?" Amy agreed. Everybody that met you and Jake knew eventually you were going to stay together. You had the same kind of humor and the same sassy tone. So it wasn't exactly a surprise when in one of the squad's reunions at the bar, you and Jake got hammered and started to talk and laugh closer to each other. Not a long time after that, you both disappeared going straight to his house. "It's has been months since this 'friends with benefits' thing started."

"Look guys." Jake said with a frustrated sigh rolling his eyes. "(Y/N) and I have talked about this. She's not ready yet for a relationship, she passed a hard time with that son of a bitch ex of hers. She needs time and I respect that."

"Oh here she comes." Rosa alerted and quickly everybody went back to their places and pretended to be working. You came out of the files room discussing something with Terry.

"Okay (Y/N), we can work on that. Good job." Terry said with a sweet smile going back to his desk, and you to yours. You sat down in silence still not looking around organizing your paperwork, but notice everyone quiet and you could literally feel their stares burning on your skin.

"What?" You finally said looking around to your colleagues and everybody tried to disguise murmuring a lot of 'nothing' 'just working'. Everybody unless Jake. He was watching you intensely trying to figure out what was wrong.

Your eyes locked for a second and you could see that he was worried, and that broke your heart even more. This wasn't supposed to happen right now. Your heart was beating fast and nervousness took over your body. You quickly turned your attention to your desk again and took your purse pretending to organize something there.

"Good morning squad, today..." Captain Holt started to say walking out of his office but stopped in his tracks when looked over your desk and catch the sight of something inside your purse. He looked back and forth you and Jake. "Oh..."

"Oh what? What oh?" Jake asked fast doing his classic bite lip when he was anxious, trying to figure out what Holt saw that he didn't.

"Hmm" Holt said looking at Jake like he didn't know what to do now. "(Y/N) please come to my office."

Jake watched you get up and follow Holt into his office, closing the door behind you and closing the shutters. He strained his eyes shaking his head in denial. Ok, this was how things was going to go? Fine! He was a detective and he was so on for this investigation.

xXxXxXxXx

Jake wanted to stay and see your expression when you got out of Holt's office, but duty called and he had to be on the streets all day. He put everyone on the precinct working on the case '(Y/N)'s secret 0.1', and every minimum suspicious movement, they were oriented to send him a message.

Charles really took it seriously.

Nothing useful thought. Man he was frustrated, he solves all type of cases everyday but he couldn't figure out what was wrong with the women he liked? It was driving him crazy!

It has just grown dark when Jake entered back the 99, some people from the night shift was already there and he could only spot Boyle from his friends.

"Hey Jake! Did you read my messages? Did you find them useful?"

"Hmmm... Yeah Charles, of course, thank you." Jake said after pondering the answer in his head although It was no useful at all. Charles told him every single one of your steps through the day, Jake wanted to know if you did something strange not your constant need to pee on that day. "(Y/N) already went home?"

"Actually no, I just send you a text, didn't you read it?" He asked feeling insulted but continued when saw Jake's face. "Ok, she and Terry are still working on that case but (Y/N) got hot, she said she needed some air. She's on the roof."

"Hot? (Y/N) is always cold." He said confused but suddenly something clicked and everything started to fall into place inside his head. "I got go."

His steps were fast to open the door for the roof and he immediately spotted you looking at the city view. You didn't turn but he knew that you knew it was him.

"Hey you." He said softly slowly approaching you until he was by your side. "I was worried today, you know?"

"I kind of got that.... Charles followed me into the ladies bathroom three times." You said making you both laugh. "So what it was? Like a secret case that everybody worked? How was it called? '(Y/N)'s secret 0.1?'"

"What? No. I wouldn't go that obvious." Jake answered laughing nervously. Oh man, you knew him too damn well. "But yeah, was definitely working on that case. I worry about (Y/N). You were pushing me away, you didn't even answered my calls this last weekend. Sure, you could be done with our casual thing or whatever, but I know you. I knew it was not it."

"Jake, look..." You said with a sigh but he interrupted you.

"I was confused as hell this morning, but suddenly everything clicked. Yesterday you didn't want that weird salmon cookies Charles brings. I adore you but those are nasty as fuck, by the way. You didn't drink coffee when you got here today, you always do that. And not greeting anyone? That means something happened yesterday night that got you worried." Jake said and paused waiting for a reaction, but he took your silence a sign to continue his deduction. "Of course you could be suspecting for a while now, and that's why you have been avoiding me. Captain saw your purse when he got out of his office. He saw your tampons, am I right? Untouched. Your usual period date has already passed, and everybody knows when it is because of how much pain you feel. Usually stays only in paper work those days. Constantly needing to pee. But none of it hit me until Charles said you were feeling hot. You're always cold and asks for my jackets. Those are all symptoms of...."

"Hit me Sherlock." You said and waited for his right answer.

"You're pregnant." Jake said finally, his face softening. "It is mine?" He asks feeling insecure but he changed his mind when saw your face. "Dumb question. Shouldn't say that. Of course it's mine."

"I'm so sorry Jake, I just didn't know how to say it. You're right in everything, I started suspecting since last Friday but only took the test yesterday." You said starting to feel tears in your eyes. "And yes, Captain Holt found out in seconds. I just begged him not to tell you."

"Traitor" Jake said furrowing his eyebrows. "I'm just confused on how that happened? We always use condoms."

"I was thinking that too, until I remembered that night on Gina's birthday that we got really drunk and had sex on the bar's bathroom." You said and he agreed, both smiling at the memory quickly coming back to the moment. "I am so scared. We're not even together and I..."

"Wait, that's what is troubling you?" Jake said feeling his hands shaking and his heart beating incredibly fast. "(Y/N) I like you ok? For a long time now. I just didn't think you were ready yet for a relationship, I was respecting your time. But oh god, I'm so in love with you it hurts. Of course it's not the perfect scenario, but we gonna make this work, I won't leave you to take care of this baby alone."

He said sincerely looking in your eyes and you nodded feeling some tears starting to fall down, you hugged him tight feeling his strong grip on you. Jake kissed your forehead, rubbing your back to calm you down.

"I'm in love with you too Jake, so much, I want this to work out." You said softly into his neck.

"It will." He said giving a slow chaste kiss. You stayed hugged for a few minutes but suddenly he gasped and started to hyperventilate. "Holy shit! I'm going to be a dad. What if i can not be a good dad because mine abandoned me when I was little? I'm going to be a dad."

"Hey" You said to drag his attention back to you, watching his wide eyes staring at the horizon. You knew it was your time to calm him down. "You're going to be a great dad. You are already proving this to me by not letting me be alone. We will work this out remember?"

"Yeah..." He sighed feeling calmer looking into your eyes. "We will work this out."

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angst-art-writing · 3 years

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Burn it Down- Sinners and Saints(4)

TW: Abusive father, addictive substances(drinking, smoking.), fire, brief mention of suicidal thoughts, reference to abuse/torture.

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"I mean exactly what I said! She's gone! Vanished! Out of sight! Do you need more synonyms, dumbass?"

Artemis listened to the voices from below the window she had just slipped out of, recognizing only Tobias's. The other was unfamiliar, but male it sounded. He had been the one to call Tobias a dumbass; Dude must have some big balls.

Artemis set her bow over her shoulder as she began to walk, all while trying to control the shakiness of her hands. She still listened to the two’s conversation.

"How long ago did she leave?" Tobias was asking.

"I don't know, hours? She's long gone-"

Nope, ten minutes.

"Did you check the cameras?"

"We don't HAVE cameras!"

"We should really.."

Their voices faded away completely as Artemis headed away from the large building. She found that the room she had been in was underground, an abandoned lab from who knows how long ago.

She exhaled slowly and turned, sticking to the shadows. If anyone asked her about her outfit she could just play it off as a crummy costume from some convention. No one outside of the Reapers would recognize it anyways. Besides, only people who absolutely had to be out were out at night in this city. It was a strict rule to keep your eyes ahead and away from others if you wanted to avoid trouble.

With every step she made down the route to her house, her feet felt heavier and chills shook her whole body, despite the night hardly being cold. She flexed her fingers anxiously. The sun had risen already; She was way past curfew. She tried not to think about the consequences she’d be forced to face.

Artemis exited out of the main part of the city, dwelling into the darker parts of it. Shiny windows decorated with plants became guarded with wood and tattered curtains, green lawns turning yellow and shiny toys outside turning into broken ones. There were not many people outside, just people smoking and drinking out in their porches as usual.

Artemis turned on her street, pausing in front of her house. It was old, two-story and decaying. Old broken toys and tools were to one side in a pile, the grass yellowing and dry.

Artemis dug her nails into her palms, sighing shakily as she stepped over the peeling painted gate and headed up to the door, stepping on the old cigarettes littered on the porch. She frowned, pushing away memories of being used as an ashtray, pushed away the faint sting of the burns. She still had the little scars.

The door opened with a squeak as she slipped in, shutting the door as quietly as possible. If she was lucky, her father would be asleep still-

"Artemis."

Nope. No luck. There never was good luck, but one could only hope.

The gruff voice came from the living room. Artemis turned and walked over, standing in the doorway. Jair, her father, sat on the couch- staring at the TV. Artemis didn't look at him either and instead focused on the bottles and cans around, amongst other trash. Her foot tapped quietly on the sticky wood tiles.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" He sounded calm. However, Artemis had grown to interpret that as anger. He was never calm, she figured out. Never.

Artemis struggled to answer. She just stared down- staring without really seeing.

"Well?"

A rise in his tone.

"I.." She swallowed and forced the words out, making sure not to stutter. "I got caught. They tampered with my list, and I was caught in a trap."

"Who is this 'they'?"

"They're.. Pa..Peter Fredrick. Peter Fredrick." The lie rolled off her tongue before she could even stop it. She could feel her ears heat up underneath her hair- A dead giveaway that she was lying. Why was she even protecting Paige? She didn't have an answer for herself, just that it felt...

"'Peter Fredrick'," Jair repeated. He finally looked at her, dark eyes glaring. Artemis glanced up and merely nodded. He got to his feet slowly, shaking his head. "You're still late. You missed curfew. We sent people out to look for you. And you made me, and Vincent, look bad."

Artemis looked down at the floor, frozen to the spot. She could hear him moving closer.

"I'm sorry-"

"Sorry doesn’t cut it!" He shouted. And right at the end of that sentence a bottle came down upon Artemis's head, shattering. She yelped and crumpled right to the floor, a hand moving her head before a boot slammed into her side- Sending her back into the hallway.

The floor darkened as Jair's shadow loomed over Artemis. Artemis sat there and took it. It was better than trying to reason.

----

"Tomorrow morning we're going to the base,” Jair had told her. Then he sat his ass back on the couch and stared blankly at the Tv again, as if nothing had ever happened.

Artemis had snuck out. It was risky, of course. Very risky- especially when he was pissed at her. But she just wanted to clear her head. Desperately, she wanted to return back to the warehouse but Paige was going to be there. Not worth getting caught again.

She dreaded going to the base tomorrow. Jair was bad, yes. But Vincent wasn't drunk and he didn't swallow all his anger away with a bottle and then explode, no. Vincent let it sit, took it out on her and what was worse? He grew to know her. He knew exactly how to get to her, exactly what made her shake and cower. He was so unpredictable.

Artemis had ended up a few blocks away with the hoodie of her jacket pulled over her head. She was sitting on someone else's roof, her back turned to where her house was. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she only saw Vincent’s pale eyes. She wrapped her arms around her torso, barely even noticing her nails digging into herself. Her eyes opened after a second and she saw the ground. She was right on the edge.

What would happen if she...Accidentally slipped? Hit her head a little too hard..?

She shook her head. She wasn't going to let a rich man outlive her- And she wasn't going to be a reaper forever. The image of Vincent's blue eyes were replaced by Paige's. She pursed her lips and then hugged her knees to her chest. What would've happened if she had accepted their offer..? But also, what if it was merely a trick?

"Woah, do you see that?"

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voices down below. She looked to the side and saw two teenagers on a sidewalk, pointing in the direction her back faced.

"Holy shit, is that a fire?"

Fire?

Artemis turned and looked. Her blood seemed to freeze inside her.

She got to her feet quickly, her eyes locked on the growing orange glow-her house- Burning in the middle of the night. She then turned and jumped down the roof carefully, sprinting towards the house. She was ten minutes away, but every second counted right now. Dad’s in there.

How did I not notice? How did I miss the smoke? How could I have been so stupid, so fucking stupid- To leave Jair ALONE-

Her boots pounded against the sidewalk as she ran towards her house. In no time, she was there. People were gathered around, peering from their porches and behind their fences. She heard someone say they had called an ambulance, but they'd never be here in time. Her neighborhood was never a priority, no matter what.

She turned to someone nearby, a neighbor. "Is he still in there? My dad?" She questioned, voice high with fear and uncertainty.

"Yeah-"

Once it was confirmed Artemis ran past their gate and directly into her house before anyone could say anything, directly into the flaming house. She had felt someone grab her arm but she tugged away harshly and went in.

Immediately she was greeted with a powerful wave of heat and smoke, making her eyes water and her nose scrunch. She moved her elbow over her nose, the orange flames licking at her and her vision as she quickly moved through. She took big steps quickly.

"Dad!" She called, her voice muffled by the crackling noise and her own elbow. She shot a glance towards the living room. Nothing. The kitchen- Nothing.

Lungs starting to ache and stomach twisting she made her way up the stairs. She went quickly, and she could hear the ceiling falling apart behind her, coming down with sparks and cracks, the flames growing hotter and stinging her skin the longer she stayed- But she herself could barely notice. She barely cared.

"Dad!"

She wondered if he could even hear her, or maybe he had ran off already and no one had seen. Her vision was blurred with her own tears as she went for the first door upstairs, his room. She reached for the handle and turned it; Not even minding the sting it sent shooting up her fingers.

"Dad! What're you-" There he was, just in the room. His figure was wavy and danced with the flames, his back facing her. He looked lifeless amongst the live flames. Artemis went forward and then grabbed his arm. No use in asking now, she just needed to get out. Fast.

She heard him tell her something but the roar of the flames grew louder and turned his voice into nothing more than a muffle sound as she hurriedly pulled him out, heading back down the stairs with him. There was the splintering noise of wood as she took another step and she shrieked, her foot sinking down and scraping against the sharp pieces of wood.

Surprisingly, she felt Jair grab her arm and pull her up, skin scraping against the wood yet again. Clenching her jaw and holding her father's arm tighter, she jumped down and began to head back the way she came, but it was hardly recognizable. It was all orange and bright.

All that she could see were big pieces of wood hugged by flames, spiraling and twisting. It was a walk straight into an oven.

Back door.

Turning she led her father through the kitchen quickly, forcing open the back door and into the backyard. She ran through, past the gate and didn't stop until she no longer felt the intense heat. They paused at a corner of a sidewalk, catching their breath and coughing.

Artemis cast a glance to her father. His arm was red, burned. He moved closer, and she didn't move away. He hugged her, but Artemis still felt nothing. She couldn't. She could hear blood rushing in her ears and her heart pounding rapidly still. The fire still cracked behind them and the smell of smoke wouldn’t leave her nose. She fell to her knees and rubbed her eyes.

Jair stepped closer and she sensed him kneeling down with her. She felt his arms wrap around her then, pulling her into an embrace. She wanted to lean into him, relieved they had gotten out. But still, she couldn’t find it in her to do so. So she just sat there.

"I'm sorry," he said, and all she could smell was the sour alcohol on his breath.

#sinners and saints #writing #whump writing #oc whump #whump series #whump #fire whumo #fire whump #original writing

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obxparadise · 4 years

Text

Habits

Rafe Cameron

Word count: 2,670

~Rafe Cameron’s drug addiction becomes too much for him to handle~

Song: Habits by Machine Gun Kelly

Warning: This is a pretty deep fic. It includes drug use and death by overdose/heart attack. It’s not too graphic, but a warning was needed.

A/N: Drop a comment if you enjoyed and reblog :)

*GIF is NOT mine, found on Google. Creds to the owner*

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

Complicated

Frustrated

Underestimated

Can’t sleep, mind racing

Hard to stay concentrated

2017: Alcohol dependence.

2018: Cocaine addiction.

2019: Spiraling into insanity.

Hair follicles flutter to the floor, lying beside sharp shards of glass hiding in the bedroom rug. Rafe’s hands tangle in his hair, tugging, tugging. Eyes flicker between a bottle of bourbon and three perfectly measured white lines on the windowsill. Black Veil Brides blares through the speakers at full volume, but he can’t focus on the lyrics as his father’s words are loud in his brain.

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

Addict.

The veins in his neck are throbbing, working in overdrive to pump blood through his body. His hands find the sides of his neck, squeezing, head falling back, eyes concentrating on the spinning fan hanging from the ceiling.

Round and round and round it goes. His eyes follow, blinking rapidly, until he tears them away, unable to focus for another second longer. Open palms drag down his face and he lets out a heavy breath that morphs into a dark laugh.

He isn’t a fucking disappointment.

He isn’t worthless.

He isn’t a good for nothing.

And he certainly isn’t an addict.

And if he was, that was the result of an overbearing, abusive father.

It all came down to pressure.

Pressure to be perfect.

Pressure to fit in.

Pressure to please his dad.

Rafe needed an escape from his father. From reality. Everything became too overwhelming. He couldn’t sit back and press pause or rewind or do over. But when the liquor flooded his veins and his nostrils absorbed the cocaine, time stopped. His responsibilities, his life outside of the drugs, ceased to exist.

Sweat drips down his body as he rubs his hands together. A cold shower would fix that no problem, but it would wake him up. Sober him up. He doesn’t fucking want to be sober.

He laughs at the bottle of bourbon that’s dying to be used. It sits there, teasing him. And Rafe gives in, flicking off the cap, downing a quarter of the liquid. It used to burn, but he’s immune to any sort of pain.

He eyes the three white lines next, licking his lips, craving another high. His heart races as he kneels in front of the windowsill. Rolled up beside the lines is a dollar bill and he grabs it, making each line disappear after it. He snorts, snorts, snorts, until there’s not a trace left behind.

The effects don’t happen immediately, but when they hit, they crash hard. His pupils dilate. Blood pressure rises alarmingly. He giggles one minute, and is irritable the next. And as the high wears off, he takes another long swig of bourbon. Over and over. A repeat of a vicious never ending cycle.

Rafe barely hears the pounding on his bedroom door over the music. Ward Cameron lets himself in, face twisting with rage. “Rafe. Rafe!”

He spins around, blood rushing to his ears, baring his teeth as venom drips from his voice. Is this a hallucination? Or is Ward really there?

The bottle is clutched between his fingers and his palm, suffocating in his grip. The mere sight of his father changes his mood instantly. Once pleasant, now violent. “Get out!”

The bottle barely sails over Ward’s head, crashing into the door behind him, shattering to the floor. Rafe’s hands are balled at his side, sucking in sharp breaths as Ward watches his son in disgust, horror, a combination of the two.

When the door closes, the tears fall. Rafe’s body warms, clenching and unclenching his fists. Frustration boils in his blood. His brain is racing, all with thoughts of pure hatred for his father.

Calm. He needs to be calm.

He stalks toward his bed, and as his head hits the pillow, his body relaxes.

Rafe closes his eyes, but he knows he won’t sleep.

He never does.

I fell in love with a very bad habit

But I feel alive for the very first time

“You have a problem.”

“Yeah, and it’s you. Now get the fuck out of my room.”

It was in Sarah’s nature to care, even about her brother, but Rafe wished she wouldn’t.

He kneels beside his bed, emptying the bag of cocaine on a silver platter resting on the night stand. The sight makes Rafe’s mouth water and he fishes inside his wallet for his debit card, splitting the powder into even lines.

“Nineteen years old and addicted to cocaine. You’re going places, Rafe.” Sarah taunts, slouching against the window as she watches her older brother’s descent into darkness. She has no idea just how bad her brother’s addiction is.

He ignores her, fidgeting with the rolled-up bill between his thumb and forefinger. The first line disappears from the plate, and he wipes the excess from his nose with the back of his wrist.

“So that’s it? You’re just gonna sit there and snort coke in front of your little sister? What the hell is wrong with you, Rafe?”

“Sarah, until you experience the kind of pressure I’ve been under for the last three years, you don’t get to judge how I handle it.”

Another line disappears.

“Have you ever thought of something rational? Like I don’t know, maybe therapy?” Sarah suggests in a sarcastic tone.

He chuckles darkly. “I don’t fucking need therapy. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You know, we used to talk about things,” Sarah whispers, doing her best to try and distract her brother. But the only thing on Rafe’s mind is how badly he wants to be high. “I looked up to you. Now I don’t even know you.”

Another line vanishes.

“Rafe, please just stop.”

One more fades.

“Rafe, stop.”

Another one.

“Rafe, stop!”

And then he collapses.

Three sets of eyes stare down at him, one of which belongs to Sarah, but the other two he doesn’t recognize until someone speaks to him. “Young man, we’d like to take you to the hospital.”

Paramedics.

Fuck.

He blinks once, twice, eyes darting from his panicked sister to the stone-faced EMTs who probably had better things to do than to tend to a nineteen-year-old addict who shouldn’t be doing drugs in the first place.

“Is he going to be okay?” Sarah questions, tears welling up in her eyes as she grabs Rafe’s hand, clutching it to her chest. “Rafe, can you hear me? They want to take you to the hospital.”

“No.” A chill shoots up his spine as he opens his mouth, voice hoarse. His answer requires no hesitation. “I’m not going. Help me sit up.”

“Rafe-“

But his body falls back against the floor as he begins to shudder violently. Rafe’s eyes flit around the room, inhaling deep breaths as he tries to find something to focus his attention on, but his brain is screaming for him to find his next fix. Words from Sarah and the EMTs go in and out of his hearing, and he flinches as two sets of hands hold down his arms and legs. The tremors explode through his body and Sarah covers her face, crying frantically into her palms.

“It’s alright ma’am. He’s just experiencing withdrawal symptoms. This usually happens after someone is given Narcan. He’ll be okay in a minute.” The male EMT informs, hoping to put Sarah at ease.

When the tremors dissipate, the paramedics assist Rafe to a sitting position. He’s weak, he’s tired, his throat is scratchy, and blood trickles from his nose. Rafe glances up at his sister, and his heart squeezes in his chest as he watches her cry. For the first time in his life, he feels guilty.

“We cannot take you to the hospital without your consent. So, if you’d like to go, it’s best we take you now.”

Rafe shakes his head and looks toward Sarah, but his words are directed to the EMTs. “No, I’m-I’m fine. I’d like to be alone with my sister.”

Rafe’s shoulders fall dejectedly as he huffs out a breath, watching as Sarah flushes the rest of the cocaine down the toilet. He’s seen his sister sad, angry, hurt, but never in full blown panic mode. Her cheeks are stained by old waterworks, and her eyes shine bright with unshed tears. Sarah’s lip trembles as she tries to keep from losing her cool, and Rafe worries if he’s made a huge mistake.

They sit across from each other on the bed, Sarah playing with her fingers as Rafe stares at his sister. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” his voice leaves in a whisper, and he reaches out to touch his sister’s arm, but she pulls away. “Sarah, please.”

“Don’t.”

He throws his head back. “That’s the first and only time I’ve ever OD’ed. It happens.”

Sarah’s face twists in disgust, mouthing hanging open. “What you should’ve said is that will be the last time you overdose, Rafe, as in you’re going to fucking quit.”

“Come on, Sarah-.”

“Why did you even start?” Sarah queries, hugging her arms. Her voice is small, timid, and she avoids looking at her brother. “Help me understand why people like you, who have everything they could possibly want, resort to drugs and throw their lives away.”

The question stuns him, but he won’t hide the truth. He owes it to her, even if it sounds pathetic. “Because of dad.”

“Oh, no,” Sarah breathes, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare blame your damn problems on dad.”

“It’s true!” He reaches over and grabs Sarah’s arms, holding her in place. “You don’t hear the shit he says to me when you’re not around. Worthless. Disappointment. Useless. Good for nothing. I walk on eggshells around him, Sarah. I can’t do anything or say anything without sparking some sort of argument. For the last three years, I have felt nothing. But now,” his laugh is deflated, shoulders slumped forward. “Now I feel alive.”

“Yeah, well guess what?” Sarah fires back, sliding off the bed. She glances back at her brother sadly. She doesn’t even know him anymore. “Tomorrow you might not be.”

I don’t wanna die

But I don’t, I don’t wanna hide

Or keep shit inside

Rafe finds himself barging into the worn out trailer, ignoring Barry’s protests for him to get the fuck out of his home. He beelines for Barry’s bedroom, tossing pillows, opening drawers and closets, until he finally spots the handgun poking out from underneath the bed.

It’s been two days since his overdose and Sarah’s words have been at the forefront of his brain.

Tomorrow you might not be.

All of the emotions he felt the previous two nights come rushing back, hitting him square in the chest, leaving him breathless. He was so close to death, so close. The cocaine had almost taken his life. He wouldn’t let it, though. Rafe would not let the thing he loved most be the cause of his death. He loved the drug, and the drug loved him back. It wouldn’t hurt him. Not again.

“Bro, what the fuck?” Barry’s voice rings out in his room, jolting Rafe from his thoughts. He grabs the gun from beneath the bed, eyes rushing from Barry to the weapon. “Bro put that shit back. That ain’t something to play with.”

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

Angry tears fall from his eyes as he clutches the gun tight in his hand. His body begins to tremble. From rage? From withdrawal? Fuck. He hasn’t had coke in two days. Barry swallows nervously, afraid of what contemplations are going through Rafe’s head.

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

The words are loud in his head, deafening, and for a second, just a second, Rafe believes them. He thrusts the gun into Barry’s hands and surrenders. “Kill me.”

Barry blinks. “Are you fucking with me, country club?”

“I said kill me!” His voice is piercing, laced with rage, hurt, despair, hopelessness. “I can’t-I won’t-I’m just a fuck up-He’ll never love me-I can’t-I just want-.”

Rafe sputters as he tumbles to the ground on his knees, body deflating. His sobs echo through the trailer, full of pain and devastation. No, he doesn’t want to die. He just wants the pain to end. “I just want it to go away, man,” he cries, hugging his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth. “I just want it to go away.”

“A’ight bro, I get that. You good, you good.” Barry coaxes, setting the gun aside. He lowers himself to the floor, a good distance away from Rafe, but close enough to grab the gun in case he has any irrational spilt second choices. “You gave me a heart attack though, bro. Shit.”

Licking his dry lips, Rafe runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, man. I just-fuck. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“What’s going on?” Barry asks, rolling his neck, cracking his knuckles.

Rafe releases a strangled breath. “I OD’ed man. I fucking OD’ed.”

“Shit,” Barry groans, hanging his head. “Look man, you gotta watch yourself. I ain’t tryin’ to be responsible for your death, you got me?”

Rafe nods. “I fucked up, bro. I’ve been fucking up for years.”

“Is this ‘bout your dad again? Bro, how many times I gotta say it? Fuck him. He ain’t worth getting this messed up about.” Barry answers, nudging Rafe’s leg with his foot. “He gets to you ‘cause you let ‘em. You’ll be free once you stop giving a fuck about him, what he thinks, what he wants you to be.”

And that’s all Rafe wanted.

To be free.

I wanna run away, yeah

I don’t wanna stay here

Rafe finds himself back in his room, head resting against the door as Ward bangs his fist on the other side. He’s persistent, pounding and pounding and pounding.

“I want you out of this house, Rafe!” Ward yells. “You hear me? Out!”

If only Sarah had kept her mouth shut about the overdose.

Rafe listens as his father’s footsteps disappear down the hall, and he puffs out a strangled breath. He’s entirely defeated. He feels nothing. Not pain. Not rage. He’s fully numb.

He wants to run, but where to? He can’t just disappear, no matter how much he wants to. There’s nowhere to go, but Rafe knows one thing. He can’t stay here.

His eyes flicker to the untouched vial of powder on his nightstand. It calls to him and he responds, heading in the direction of the stand. He kneels, opens the vial, and empties it onto the wood, dividing it evenly.

Rafe takes one look at the drug, the source of his happiness, the love of his life, and sighs. “I can’t stay here. There’s nothing left for me.”

And he doesn’t mean in his home.

No, he means on Earth.

For the last time, Rafe grabs the dollar bill, a single tear slipping down his cheeks. Bending down closer to the stand, he snorts a line, savoring in the instant high. He’d miss the feeling. Feeling happy. Feeling important. Feeling on top of the world.

He snorts three more lines easily.

But the last two he struggles.

The sensation overwhelms him and he pulls away from the nightstand.

Something drips from his nose.

Blood.

It slides down his lips, his chin, and he doesn’t bother wiping it away.

He can’t breathe.

He tries to swallow, but his throat is closing and his nostrils are clogged.

He’s dizzy, vision blurring.

He panics.

And then he cries.

But his cries are cut short as his chest constricts.

Rafe’s hand flies to his chest, attempting to clutch his heart through his sweat-stained polo, now gasping for air.

He collapses.

He tries to call out for help, but his voice is barely a whisper.

His back hits the floor and he lies there, helpless, crying, in pain, and alone.

Time passes.

The pressure in his chest surges.

But then it stops.

And just like that, he’s free.

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bipolarandocd · 4 years

Text

Here I have wrote an insight on my own experience with obsessions and OCD

I once was told by my therapist that you can be addicted to anything such as drugs,alcohol,ciggerettes and believe it or not sex!

In the past years i have had many different obsessions/addictions that i didnt know how to control and i didnt realise i was addicted to certain things including becomming obsessed with one hobby then losing intrested after a certain time and then another different hobby comes along and i obsess about that.

When i have this main addiction at the time, i can not stop thinking of the subject. for example i suddenly had high intrest in baking cupcakes! i hate cooking and i never thought id become intrested in baking cakes at all. I researched from how to bake to what ingrediants i needed and apliances to be able to bake. everytime i was googling and researching and watching youtube videos on baking cakes i was feeling a high energetic feeling, like i was buzzing and i couldnt stop thinking of what i want to do with this hobby. i was up till late at night losing sleep constantly obsessing over baking cakes. Pay day come and that was it, all my money went on what i needed to buy to bake, and i started to bake for couple weeks and spending money on this intrest without thinking of the consequenses of having to pay bills ect.

I was feeling good i had adrenaline and was happy but the same time if i didnt act on this urge to spend on this hobby and act on it id feel aggitated and restless! i had no control how to stop the urge! i was ADDICTED.

After a little while maybe a month later I lost all intrest in baking! id wasted time and much money on something i no longer had intrest in. the high feeling the buzz and adrenaline had gone.

Another day comes and again another addiction/obsession comes along!

this time its art and crafts, im definatly not creative and never had intrest before but once again this pattern like the baking comes along and the high feeling buzzing and adrenaline is back for the arts and crafts, money wasted and time because again after a while the intrest goes.

Iv had many obsessions such as joing the gym, learning to play piano and then guitar. wanting to become a councillor/mentor even studyed at home and passed the course for councilling yet again after time i didnt want to become this!

Items iv also obsessed about and had strong intense urges to buy whatever it was i had to buy to keep the feeling i had inside to make me feel good. its like a drug, something i obsess about was keeping me high and excited and i had to act on this to keep the good feeling.

I was even once addicted to dating sites! i was getting adrenaline from joining up and making profiles to searching people and messaging. i couldnt come off the applications and i could not stop the urge to search the profiles and messages, this took over alot of my time and i didnt understand why this was happening and why i was feeling a good adrenaline over dating applications. This addiction took a long time for me to stop and realise it was the longest obsession i had. i still dont understand how this become an addiction.

I now somehow understand how people who are gambelers feel and have no control how to fight the urge to not step foot in the bookies.

When you dont act on the compulsion towards the obsession then your going to feel awful, aggitated, restless, angry and feel your going to lose your mind. its all you think about, theres nothing else you want to do and its impossible to concerntrate on anything else other than wanting to go into the bookies and gamble! its not just the feeling you believe you will win, its the feelings of adrenaline and intense high feelings of happy and excitement from walking thru that door to placing the bet and waiting for the outcome, but when you lose of course you are down, you lose money and are overwhelmed with guilt! the same feelings i get when i dont act on something i obsess over or addicted to.

Paranoia become a problem for me and its an uncontrollable and disturbing thought I have that is intrusive and I know I wont act on this thought but the feeling I get is intense and impossible to stop the thought and I start to avoid doing things to stop being scared. Standing at the train station waiting for my train to arrive and I see ahead its arriving and my mind instantly pictures myself jumping in front of this train and I'm confused and petrified of this thought and scared but also distressed because I know I wont act on this and I'm scared to look at the train coming towards me so I look away until its stopped! have a fear of sleeping because if I do I believe someone will come into my home to come upstairs to my bedroom and attack me, the longer my eyes are closed my mind visions someone getting closer and closer to me, once I open my eyes this vision is gone and I'm safe.

I have a son aged 14 also with ocd and paranoia and his feeling controlled by his thoughts to do actions he never did before. At at young age around 4years old he would ask for help to put his shoes on and I'd attend and grab the right shoe to put on for him and in a sudden moment he would scream, beg and beg for me to put the left shoe on first, I never understood why. I'd ask why and what's wrong and ask him to calm down because he was extremely aggitated and stressed but, once I changed the right shoe for the left his response stopped and was calm and I could see the change how relaxed he was. This went on for months and I thought 1st he was just trying to control me and want to get attention when in fact he didnt have control of himself for this and it was a behaviour from his OCD that took me a while to realise!. After maybe one year this shoe problem having to be the left put on first stopped but, then come another pattern and thought in his mind that again took over not just him but took me in too.

Night time was bedtime story, we sit together in my sons bed and I'd open the first page and start to read aloud to him. A few pages in I'd start to read the page for my son to suddenly become very aggressive and tell me to read that sentence again because it's wrong, I re read the sentence in the same tone I did before. Again with aggression and crying he beg me to repeat and said it's wrong how I said it. After having this problem many times eventually i said the sentence in a way that calmed him down and made him relax and i could continue the book. It wasnt until after researching and seeing his doctors this was all OCD behaviour in which if I didnt say the sentence in a certain tone then he would feel uncomfortable and have to force me to re read it for him to feel safe!. Never did I think this would be an OCD problem but it was. Night time bedtime stories was very difficult for us.

After sometime this OCD pattern with my son vanished but, another appeared. Once I tuck my son to bed and kiss him good night I would walk away but then he would suddenly shout to me to touch the top of his duvet! Now bare in mind on this time I thought OCD was about cleaning hands or things in order so when I'm having all these orders from a 4 or 5 year old this is looking like he wants control over me and to do what he wants and if I dont do it he will go crazy!

To keep him from being angry and crying fter refusing to do what I'm ordered to, I'd do what he wanted so I'd turn back towards him in bed and i would do what he ordered to tap the top of his duvet. Would you believe just by doing this demand he stopped suddenly crying and being angry to being able to lay down and relax.

Can you see here theres a pattern of not just my son being distressed but I am too because I didnt know what this was about and I'm told by others his trying to control me but as a mum I had something telling me it's something more but what?!

Il never forget the time my son would arrive in the evenings from being with his dad the weekend friday to sunday. Around 7pm sunday evenings every week my son would arrive back home in his dads car straight to the front door.

I'd hear the car arrive and I'd open my house front door before my son got out the car. Well this started to become a problem for my son because he wanted to knock on the door before I opened it! Why? I asked him and my son couldn't explain the reason but again become angry, hitting me, shouting, crying and begging me to shut the front door and let him knock. In this time I refuse to feel controlled and said "no". But there was no calming my child at all. He was going red in the face, shaking, and very very aggitated. What else can I do but to now let him take control and I now close the door and let him knock first and I open the door after? Can you see the controll this OCD had not just over my son but now I'm involved and controlled by it.

Either way I had no choice but to re do the task by closing the door and letting him knock for me to then open again. Instantly he again was calm and able to walk into the home! Again I'm shocked how quickly just doing that demand would make him change so fast and change.

Now by my own experience and understanding through research too after many years and I had little knowledge of OCD but these behaviours from myself and my son wasnt what I expected and have learnt that this was OCD.

We see the behaviour first and our compulsion to act on what we feel at the time of what our thoughts are telling us and having to have no control over this and noone to understand what was going on inside our minds but, noone knows or understands the feelings what we have and the intense anger inside ourselves and as much was keeping our attention and distract us from other things to have no choice but to act on this feeling and do the compulsive behaviour to make one feel safe and secure and comfortable in ourselves.

Not only was my son being controlled but so was I

OCD has come to us both in diffrent forms and mostly in times of stress or anxiety. Also it manages to change from one obsession to another. And the compulsions change .

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rinusagitora · 5 years

Text

The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Vicky Schmidt, Damien LaVey, Brian Yu, Oz, Zoe

Pairings: Brian/Damien/Vicky, Oz/Zoe, platonic Brian/Oz/Zoe

Words: 3.9k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 2/?. WARNINGS— smut, alcoholism, depression, mentions of csa, childhood abuse, medical horror; After Damien and Vicky share a night of passion, trouble brews.

Home was supposed to feel cozy and lived-in.

Vicky vaguely remembered her childhood with her mom and sisters. That was home. She remembered her biweekly visitation with her dad too. His home was cold and smelled like dog urine and beer. His car smelled like cold metal, and then it smelled like a gas fire after he wrapped it around a pole. She remembered the smell of her dad's breath as he screamed at her to buckle up, like putrefaction. She remembered what her blood smelled like when her head collided with the dashboard.

Since the accident, she hadn't felt at home. Gary was the man who reanimated Vicky. His lab was hard and cold. He was never really affectionate towards her. Once Gary died of mercury poisoning, his brother Eugene took her in, and that was never home, not after the things he did to her. Even Vicky’s apartment wasn't home.

She wasn't ready to stay in a place so hollow.

"Can you stay the night?" Vicky asked. Damien walked her home after they loitered on campus several hours after the school day ended.

"Yeah. My dads won't mind."

Vicky guided Damien inside and he kicked off his shoes by the door. "This is cute," he complimented.

"Do you want something to drink?"

"Booze?"

"Wassail?"

"Is… is that booze?"

Vicky forgot he didn't celebrate Christmas. "I'll get you some whiskey."

"Thanks, babe."

Vicky returned with two glasses of single malt whiskey. When she sat next to Damien, he crossed his legs and gazed upon her. "So, bank robbery. What got you into that?"

"I like being independent. It'd hard juggling school and my social life when I need to pay rent. Robbery is a huge payout every couple of weeks, so I can cover my bills and have plenty extra to play around with," she explained. "Vera is a fantastic partner as well. I wouldn't get half as much as I do without her."

"Are you guys, like, friends? Does Vera even have friends?"

"I feel like she’s my friend," she said. "If we’re asking questions, though, why are you going to a public school? You're the motherfucking prince of Hell. I'm sure there are a plethora of academics at your dads’ disposal that could instruct you better than any of our teachers. You’d probably learn stuff that would be more relevant to ruling over Hell.”

"I wanted to go to school up here. It's not that I feel out of place, but it's refreshing not constantly feeling like people are sucking up to me up here for their own benefit. I prefer being sucked up to for being feared."

"I'm sure you'd rather be sucked off."

His face darkened with his blush. "Well, yes, but… God, you are forward."

Vicky was pretty forward. As curious as she was about Damien's other love interest, she hoped to avoid those heavy topics so soon. But she was bored, and she was a whore, so the obvious solution was to fuck.

She set her whiskey aside, and Damien downed the remainder of his. She crawled on top of him. She kissed him, kissed across his jaw, and scraped her teeth against his earlobe. Damien purred. With one hand, he pulled her back to his lips. He licked her lips with his broad tongue. When he slipped inside, he massaged the roof of her mouth. He pulled her shirt up to her shoulders and she pulled away from him to undress and discard her clothing.

"You're gorgeous," he said. He stroked the underside of her breasts. Vicky bit her lip and smiled down at him. "These are amazing. No wonder you're so popular," he told her with a fistful of her breasts in hand.

Vicky pried Damien's hands off her chest and kissed his neck. She kissed down his neck, his collarbone, his chest, his belly. His hips bucked when she licked his erection through his pants.

"Fuck," he groaned. He unbuttoned his pants, and then lifted his hips so Vicky easily slipped his pants off. She held his erection in one hand as she languidly licked up his shaft. She tasted his precum on his head. When she slipped it into her mouth and lapped at the opening, his fingers combed through her hair. She swallowed him down to his base, where she smelled his sweat on his bladder. His breath rattled in his lungs. She only bobbed a handful of times before he grasped her chin and the back of her head, which effectively pinned her in place, and fucked her face. It touched her voice box, she gurgled, and it was delightful. She held his thighs to prevent from touching herself.

His thigh muscles quivered as he pulled out. Saliva and precum dripped onto Vicky’s chin. She smiled up at him. “You’re a freak, babe,” he hoarsed.

“Fuck me,” Vicky mewled. Damien vanished her pants and underwear like a magician. He dropped her legs over his shoulders, and held one of her quads as he positioned himself. Vicky’s moan echoed through her apartment. He was so long, he continuously massaged the nerve endings inside of her, and it made her legs spasm around his neck.

“God,” he groaned, “you’re amazing. I’m gonna fuck you into oblivion.”

“Like a toy?” she whined. Like a pretty doll he took everywhere. She wanted to be wanted by him so badly.

“Like a toy,” he concurred. He grabbed the arm of her sofa and pounded her unmercifully. It was like he hammered heat and bliss into her gut and it crept up to her chest and face. Her chest heaved. She ran her fingers through Damien’s silky hair. He kissed her palm, and when her hand drifted down his jaw, he caught two of her fingers in his mouth. He parted her pointer and middle fingers with his tongue and licked the webbing between them like he did when he wanted to be a crass, nasty bastard. As juvenile and stupid as it was, it pushed Vicky closer to the edge, like all he wanted was to lay between her legs and eat her like a lollipop.

Damien grunted. His thrusts became sloppy. With his eyes glued to her, he pumped her full of his seed. She watched him finish with a patient smile. He was so cute when he climaxed.

“Holy shit,” he breathed as he pulled his flaccid cock out of her. His cum coated him. It oozed onto her thighs. He pulled her lips open and watched it flow. When he looked back up at her, he had that awful, shit-eating grin that always went straight to her groin, and then said, “I’m gonna clean you up, baby.”

Vicky was helpless against his whims. She only whimpered as he scooted down to her pussy like a dream come true.

First, Damien licked up her. She covered her warm face. Already, he was so wonderful, overwhelming, fantastical. Three licks into his prize, a prize because Vicky felt as golden as a trophy, his pointed tongue pressed on. He lapped up his cum like a hungry cat, he even plunged inside and sucked it out. When he finished, he did a slow, torturous victory lap up to her clitoris that made her beg.

She grabbed his horn and pulled him against her crotch as hard as she possibly could have. He seemed to enjoy it. Damien pushed his fingers into her, and then he hooked them against the roof of her canal, and in conjunction with his oral treatment, it made her squirm and press herself against him, unable to conjure the means to tell him to go harder, faster.

“I love you, Damien,” Vicky finally gasped as her fingers ran through his silky hair, “please keep going!”

Damien picked up the pace. Her legs clenched around his impish ears. Vicky was helpless, because Damien was a fucking expert and her own whorishness worked against her. Her chest locked up. It was like she was overcome with a tidal wave of heat and loveliness.

Vicky helplessly laid as her chest heaved. Down and down she went, until she finally rolled her eyes forward to meet Damien's face on her chest. He wiped cum off his chin and then kissed her. "You're pretty metal, babe,” he said, “you held out for awhile."

"I have experience," she said. "Can we go lay down? This isn't the best place for post-coital snuggling."

Damien pulled Vicky to her feet. Inside her bedroom, she fell onto her bed, blissful and sated, secure in Damien's arms. Vera told her time and time that her relationship with men wasn't healthy, and Vicky knew her self-esteem was fueled by whoever her partner happened to be. But Vicky was an addict. She couldn't help herself.

"I love you, Vicky," Damien told her, as his fingertips traced her side.

She smiled. "I love you too, Damien," and all was well with the world.

---

Vicky and Damien went to school together, hand-in-hand, until Vera and Liam caught them together, and whisked her away to gossip.

“Sweet mother of god,” Liam said as they power walked to the back of campus, “did you guys spend the night together?"

“Yes,” Vicky replied.

“Like, in your bed?”

“... yeah. He’s my boyfriend. The loveseat isn’t long enough for him to sleep on to begin with. That’d be like stuffing a banana into a really tiny tupperware container, or a croc in a storm drain.”

“Where the hell do you come up with these comparisons? You know what? Never mind, I don’t want to know,” Liam said. “Let’s rewind. First of all, I wanna know how all this happened. I’ve known Damien for a couple of years now and I don’t think he’s been with anyone who he’s come to school with.”

“Oh boy. I’ve been trying to get this to happen for awhile now, so I’ll give you the condensed version. Apparently, we liked each other, and were just too stubborn to talk about it until Vera made us talk about it yesterday.”

Vera sighed. “You know that’s not it.”

“Well, we did it last night,” Vicky replied.

"Wait, what? Mother of God, you two work fast. Was it any good?"

"It was fantastic," Vicky sighed wistfully. "He lasted forever, first of all. But he was so good. He finished in me, and then he got in there and cleaned it up with his mouth."

"Oh. Oh wow, that's hot," Liam mumbled.

"That… that is actually really hot, but that wasn't what I meant."

“Vera, are you talking about Damien’s polyamory?” Liam asked.

Apparently everyone but Vicky knew about it. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. "When we talked about it yesterday, it really stressed him out."

"Vicky…" Vera sighed, "I understand you don't want to make him uncomfortable, but you need to ask him about this. You deserve to know."

The way Vera talked about it, like Damien was a diseased whore and Vicky needed his bill of health, put her on edge. "We can talk about it when he's ready. I don't mind sharing Damien, and if it's someone likable enough, I might even partake myself. But this is something that really upsets him when he has to talk about it."

Vera stopped in front of Vicky, arms crossed over her chest and a look as stony as her victims. "You're his fucking girlfriend," Vera said. "I don't care if it makes him uncomfortable. You deserve his honesty. He doesn't get to pull the mysterious boyfriend shit like he's the love interest from a young adult novel, you two are partners, and he has to behave as such. No secrets. No beating around the bush."

"You're not being fair to Damien. He's not trying to hide things from Vicky. He's not the brightest, most socially skilled guy, but he's a good friend," Liam said.

"Is it fair to Vicky that she has to wonder who this other guy is?"

"That's enough," Vicky snapped. "I see your point Vera. I'll ask him about who else he's interested in, but I'm not gonna push. I know you're implying he might be keeping other partners a secret. But I trust Damien. He hasn't given me a reason to distrust him in the last year I've known him. He's sweet, he's just more awkward than he likes to let on, like Liam said. But I know you guys are just looking out for me, so I'll keep you guys in the loop. We'll talk about it if there's something that's setting off alarm bells for you."

Vera gritted her teeth. "Fine. Out of respect for you, I'll stand down. Just remember you deserve only the best."

"Thank you," Vicky replied with a grateful smile.

---

Oz’s goo churned. He wondered what made him so nervous. Everything was so peaceful, and Zoe hummed atonally as she scribbled in her notebook.

“Zoe,” Oz whispered, “do you feel like something terrible is going to happen?”

“I don’t feel like much of anything right now,” she replied. “Are you okay? Oz?”

He exhaled. His eyes went dark.

And then Oz was in a lab. Rather, it was like he watched through a fisheye lens from his chest. He folded saran wrap around kilos of cocaine. He didn’t care much for coke, he certainly wanted nowhere near a coke house to begin with.

“Put your fucking hands up!”

His head whipped up. Oz saw the spiral of the rifle’s barrel and then a flash.

He trembled. He tasted cotton candy and he was fucking exhausted.

“Oz!” Zoe bled into his vision like water color. “Oh my god, Oz, are you okay? You started convulsing and speaking in tongues, and as hot as that was---”

“Stop, Zoe,” Oz groaned. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Fuck, my head hurts.”

“Oz, what the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said as he massaged between his eyes. “I was… I was in this lab wrapping drugs, and then I think I was shot point blank.”

“Oh my god, that’s horrible,” Zoe said. “That’s so vivid…. I thought you were just having a seizure because of my awesome fic. I think you had a premonition, though. At least that's how my premonitions have been happening since I've inhabited this form. Our friends could be in danger, we have to investigate this.”

Oz held his head. Zoe was right, but he was scared. What if they were too late? As old as Oz was, he wasn’t omnipotent.

---

For hours, Vicky pondered Vera’s argument. Vera, of course, was right. She didn’t know much about Damien’s love life to begin with. The more Vicky thought about it, the more it seemed like something that they should have discussed from the get-go.

Still, she was nervous. She picked at her dinner. Damien had already gone through three servings and the only thing Vicky had done with her food is turned it into a weird, macerated pile of pasta and beef.

"Are you gonna eat that?" he asked.

Vicky pushed her plate towards Damien. "No. You're welcome to it."

"This stroganoff is fucking awesome. Why don't you bring your own lunch? Fuck, I'd stab a dozen of our classmates for this shit. This is almost as good as my dad's cooking."

"Really?" she said. Damien nodded as he shovelled more pasta down the hatch. "Y'know, I'd like some help with the dishes."

"Sure thing."

They stood next to each other, and Damien happily whistled an army cadence. "You know," Damien began, "I never really thought I'd like this domestic shit. I know my dads defrag at home, where everything is simpler than impending war. I just didn't think I'd be like them."

"I assume you're a lot like your dads. You got your sweetness from somewhere," Vicky said.

"Same goes for my violent streak." They wrapped up. Damien flicked his wet fingers into the sink. "Y'know, I've been wondering how you died for awhile now. You're so… I don't know, homely, I guess? But you're stitched to shit. It's like someone popped your head into another body."

"That's pretty much exactly how that happened. My dad drank heavily. He got into a car accident and I wasn't wearing a seatbelt. I don't remember much after that until my dad's great uncle, who was a… geneticist, I think, reanimated me."

"How come we've never met him? Actually, why do you even live alone? You're only in high school."

"Gary, the man who reanimated me, died six years ago."

"So you've been living on your own for six years?"

"No." Vicky's talons sunk into her wash cloth. "Gary's brother Eugene took me in. I moved out two years ago."

Two years too little. Eugene still felt close by. She still felt his hands on her shoulders and his cum on her clothes. Her backside stung. She wanted to throw up.

"Vicky?" Damien's voice sounded distant. She rocked in place, the entire world oscillated. She wobbled over to the couch and laid down.

Vicky was still dead in a lot of ways. She had a home, and was still homeless. She had friends, yet she had no family. Vicky was happy, on the outside. On the inside was a violent maelstrom of taint and cum and self-loathing that violently pummeled her.

"Vera, I don't know what to do. Vicky and I were talking about this Eugene guy and she completely checked out. I-I don't think she can even hear me right now…. Yeah, I'll pass you over. I just need a second."

Damien clasped Vicky's shoulder. "Babe?" he said, "Vera wants to talk to you."

Vicky gingerly held his phone against her ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, sweetie. Are you safe?"

"No."

"Who hurt you?"

"Eugene is still here," Vicky said. "He never left. He recycles everything in my dreams. I wish I had died that day."

"Where is Eugene now? Is he still at your place?"

"I don't think so."

"Did Damien help him hurt you?"

"I don't know who Damien is."

"He's a friend, okay? You can trust him. I need your help, though. Can you breathe with me for a minute?"

"Okay."

"I'm going to count to seven. Inhale for me." Vera counted. Vicky breathed in. "Hold it… now exhale until I count to seven." Vicky exhaled. "Now, rub your arms, Vicky. Rub the couch. What does the couch feel like?"

"It's kinda coarse. But not in an itchy way."

"Okay. What color are Damien's eyes?"

Vicky's eyes met with Damien's. They were gold, in a sad way. He looked worried. "They're yellow," she said.

"What else is yellow there?"

"The throw pillow. The one that's got braids on it. The kitchen has a yellow ladle. Well, the handle is yellow, the bowl is stained since I didn't rinse it off when I had tomato soup a couple months ago."

"Gross," Vera laughed. "Okay. One more thing. What do you hear?"

"I think my ears are ringing. No, that's an ambulance. Did you call an ambulance?"

"No. They're just passing by. How do you feel?"

Vicky sat up. "Present," she said.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

She looked into Damien's eyes. He seemed reserved. Vicky got the feeling he was conflicted. She hadn't had an episode like that in months, and Damien deserved an explanation.

"I do, but I'll fill you in later," Vicky said.

"Okay. I'll talk to you later."

Vicky returned Damien's phone. "What the fuck was that?" Damien asked.

"Look… I have issues left over from the accident. Sometimes, I think back to it and I completely implode."

"Implode is about right. Is all that really from your accident?"

Vicky frowned. Why did her issues have to be so apparent that she had to bare her soul to everyone? All Vicky wanted was peace. But no, Damien had to pick and pry and fucking prod.

"It's in the past. I don't have to talk about it."

"You don't--- fuck, it's clearly not in the motherfucking past if you're still freaking out about it!"

"Fine!" Vicky snapped, "you want to know the truth? My dad beat the living shit out of me. I got three broken ribs, a broken finger, and a concussion before they divorced. Despite all this evidence, my dad managed to bail himself out and get weekend visitations un-fucking-supervised. He drank like a fucking racoon, and when he got drunk, he got madder! He unbuckled me and threw me against the dash when I was giving him lip. When I struggling to get away, he swerved into a fucking pole and I went through the windshield!"

"And of course, his damn uncle is a freak and had to bring me back for his precious research. I was tied to a table for years before he died. I was gonna starve on that table. But then Eugene saved me. But everything comes at a motherfucking price. I had to make sure his house was clean and he was jerked off. Day after day, and nobody helped me! No, you all just think this is an amazing survival story. I'm dying inside, and you all get to sit down and forget about it the second you leave my company. So I don't want to fucking talk about it anymore."

Vicky was so mad, her vision blurred. Her hair stood on end, and she shook like she clung to the ceiling of a steep fall. Damien was taken aback. He was probably mad. Vicky just wanted him gone, though. He was like everyone else. He picked at her wounds.

"Vicky," he whispered.

"Leave!" she boomed. "You're like everyone else. You don't care about me."

"Don't you ever say that!" he screamed. "I love you so much, it hurts, and it hurts even more knowing the pain you've been through." He grabbed her by her shoulders and threw her into his embrace. "I would kill hundreds of people if it made you happy," he said.

Vicky tried to shove him off her. "Let go of me," she barked, "get the hell out of my house!"

"No. I'm staying here."

Vicky hit his kidney. Damien's hold loosened as he crumpled to the floor. "No! You don't get to pick at my wounds and keep your own damn secrets. Get out of my house, you edgy, self-absorbed bastard!"

"Fuck!" Damien cursed. "It's Brian, okay? But that doesn't fucking matter to me right now. You're hurting and it's at least partially my fault. You're fucking right. I'm not the most sensitive guy, but I love you so much, I would do anything for you, absolutely anything. I'm going to fix what I did wrong. I'm going to stay with you, even after you move past this."

Vicky was at a loss for words. She began to cry. She joined Damien on the floor, and then she lifted his shirt to look where she hit him. There was a fist-sized bruise there, the color of blueberries. "I'm sorry," she wept. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Damien sighed. "I'm okay." Damien sat up a grunt, exhaled harshly, and then hugged her like she was tiny and fragile. "It's okay. We're okay, baby."

She held him so tightly. He was slender. He was sturdy. "It's not okay. I said terrible things. I hit you."

"It's fine. It gave me wood, so we're even."

Vicky laughed. "Okay." She wiped her eyes. "I love you. I was just scared. And it hurts. It always hurts."

"I want to make your hurt go away. I know that I can't though. I'm here to comfort you, though. I'll always protect you."

Damien held the back of her neck. It seemed like forever that she stared into his eyes. Time was weird for Vicky. But she didn't particularly care, because Damien kissed her like she was sweet and fragile and priceless.

#monster prom #vicky schmidt #damien lavey #brian yu #oz monster prom #zoe monster prom #brian/damien/vicky #oz/zoe #platonic brian/oz/zoe #this is twice now I've posted this fic to the wrong blog

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literallyjustanerd · 5 years

Text

Hurts to Try, Hurts to Stop - Chapter 2

Writing angst and fluff to distract from your own steadily building anxiety and sense of impending doom is the biggest mood. What can I say? Nightangel comforts me.

Kurt’s tail twitches restlessly over the bedroom carpet as he checks his phone for the third time in ten minutes. The screen is clear of any new messages, and he can see his wallpaper in full: his bright grin as Warren kisses his cheek, both of them bathed in the bright neon of the lights in their favourite restaurant. There is a sharp hiss as he sucks a breath in through his teeth, foot tapping in disquiet against the floor. Three text messages now, and two calls, all unanswered. He’d woken up alone, his back cold and missing the press of Warren’s chest against it. He knows what this means, exactly why Warren hasn’t answered.

First, the unassuming ‘good morning xx’ text, then the less optimistic ‘where did you go?’ ending in a final, resigned, ‘please don’t see him today.’He isn’t surprised that Warren has gone back to see his father, to endure another day of abuse, but the lack of surprise doesn’t come with a lack of disappointment. There is even a slight twinge of frustration bubbling deep in the pit of his stomach—the faintest rumble of thunder from an incoming storm.

He jumps when Scott appears next to him, asking what Kurt’s frown is for. Kurt, as ever, dismisses it with a shake of his head, shoulders shifting with his sigh.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing,” he says. But Scott has had years to get to know Kurt, to come to recognise the slight shake in his voice and the quirk in his lips. Not to mention he has come to feel somewhat protective of Kurt, especially since he knows just the kind of grief Warren is capable of giving. He says nothing, but keeps his gaze through his glasses trained intently on Kurt. The lie withers under this scrutiny, and Kurt cracks easily with it.

“Warren’s gone back to see his dad,” he begins, voice like that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Their family has this… this big fancy lunch once a week, and Warren always goes, and it always ends in an argument and him feeling miserable.”

“And you’ve told him he shouldn’t be going?”

“Every time! And every time, he ends up back there.”

Scott sighs, leans back against the doorframe, and balls his hands in his pockets.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. Aside from, you know, what I’ve already told you before.”

Kurt dredges up a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and forces himself to stand, patting Scott’s shoulder as he passes by into the hallway.

“I know, Scott. But he’s my boyfriend. We love each other, and we’re not breaking up.”

There comes an unconvinced shrug from behind him.

“Just saying. Still think you could do better than that hot mess.”

“Scott.” There is a chuckle in Kurt’s voice, letting Scott know he has done his job. The pair together leave the bedroom behind, beginning the day a little late, but much better than if Kurt had been left to start it himself.

“Sehr gut, jeder! That’s enough for today. You did wonderfully, I hope you had as much fun as I did!”

That is a lie. Kurt, in fact, hopes his students have had much more fun than he has. As the dozen or so young mutants he’d taken charge of that afternoon pass him towards the Danger Room’s exit, he once again is lost to his own thoughts, the unending debate that tugs at his mind.

It has been three months since he had put his name forward to handle a weekly Danger Room, and, overall, he has relished the experience. The students had taken a shine to him straight away, and the chance to share and teach his skills had proven both heartening and cathartic. Today, however, not even the bright, fresh young faces of his newest pupils are enough to dissuade him from obsessing over Warren, who has still not made an appearance despite the day being all but over.

Once the students have drained from the hall completely, he follows them up from the basement levels of the school and begins towards the living room, hoping to find some conversation to smother his sorrows with. He passes by the window, the last dregs of twilight bleeding into night, the trees an inky black tide lapping at the horizon. Another silhouette catches his attention, this one wheeling high above the treeline. Though barely visible in the dim, Kurt knows the arc of those wings too well, in too much excruciating detail to mistake the shape for anything else. Anyone else. Warren is out there, and he is agitated. His movements lack their usual grace and fluidity. He flies with the air of a man being pursued, and this observation drives a deep unease into Kurt’s chest, like a splinter worming its way beneath its skin that he has no hope of removing. For a moment, all frustration about Warren’s disappearance and foolishness vanishes, replaced only by dread of what horrors the man has endured today at the hands of his parents. The thought stays with him for the rest of the evening, along with the question of when Warren will choose to end his self-inflicted purgatory in the skies and return to Kurt’s waiting arms.

The mansion is dark for the most part when Warren touches down on the front steps. As usual, the heavy, ancient oak door creaks maddeningly loud as he opens it, drawing a wince from the man as he slips inside and locks it behind him. There are people still awake, almost certainly, but the mansion is big enough, its halls long and winding enough that he is able to take himself to his room unseen with ease. But as he nears the door to his refuge, his dull footfalls are cut off. There is a soft, yellow light streaming through the crack underneath the door. Shit. He had been hoping to forgo this confrontation, stayed out until the cold turned his wingtips numb to avoid it. And, of course, with the heightened sense of hearing that comes with his boyfriend’s (frankly adorable) pointed blue ears, he has almost definitely already heard Warren approaching. Dread building to a crescendo in his stomach, Warren makes the final few strides to their bedroom and opens the door.

If it hadn’t been for the situation they were in, the sight of Kurt before him would have filled Warren with warmth, with the addictive calmness and security that Kurt usually provides him with, tense disagreements about family notwithstanding. He is sitting up in bed, curled up against the night’s chill with a book in his lap, rich blue fur bathed in the incandescent light of a bedside lamp. He looks to Warren expectantly when he enters the room, lips parting slightly and then pressing back together as if he had begun to speak and thought better of it. He has grown more adamant lately, more determined not to enable Warren’s more avoidant and self-destructive behaviours. The silence stretches on, fraying and thinning like an overtaxed rope until Warren finally gives in, words leaving his lips with such force that he almost lurches forward.

“It’s not that fucking easy, okay?” he blurts. “I can’t just cut him off whenever I feel like it. That’s not how it works.”

“I didn’t say it was,” replies Kurt, his tone earnest if somewhat dry, with just enough force in it to spark a fresh wave of frustration in Warren.

“But you think it, don’t you? You think I should be able to just snap my fingers and be totally done with him!”

An exasperated sigh from Kurt has Warren feeling like a child again, scolded by a parent, a relative, a teacher, and infuriated by their condescension.

“You do!” he snaps before Kurt has gotten a single word out. The interruption causes Kurt to frown deeply, peeling back the covers and standing up with as much composure as he could muster.

“Is it so bad that I want you to get rid of the single worst influence in your life?”

“He’s my dad.”

“He’s said horrible things to you! He says them every time you see him! Homophobic things, mutophobic things. The number of times you’ve come home in tears because of him… He’s an awful, bigoted, ignorant man and you don’t deserve to have that in your life!”

“It’s more complicated than that! He’s really shitty to me, yeah, I’ll give you that. But he’s my dad. He’s family. And I keep thinking, I don’t know, maybe if I give him enough time... Look, I can’t just— If I tried to—” The words dry up in his mouth as quickly as they had come rushing to his mind, his building agitation tearing an animalistic growl from deep within his throat.

“I know how impossible it seems to give up on the idea of things getting better.” Kurt’s voice is a warning, stepping closer to Warren like a lion tamer, fighting his own anger as it tries to leap up in response to his partner’s. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been through it before. Which means I also know what I’m talking about when I say that taking the plunge and making the tough choices makes everything easier in the long run.”

The words make sense. They sound perfectly reasonable. And this, more than anything, is what angers Warren the most. These perfect, reasonable words coming from a perfectly reasonable man, so well-adjusted and put-together and so fucking adult. The affront of having his own misjudgements and insecurities laid out for him is almost too much for him to bear, and it only hurts more that despite knowing deep down that Kurt is right, he cannot stop his own feelings. Even with full awareness of the problem, he is powerless to unravel it.

“He’s my dad,” he snarls, gaze affixed firmly to the floor, hot, shameful tears pricking the backs of his eyes.

“And? My father is a literal biblical demon! And my mother is… well, my mother.” “That’s different. You had Margali. You had your family in the circus.” “Until I came here. Then, I had a mother who couldn’t figure out whether she was evil or not and a father who wanted to use me and all my other half-demon siblings to tear a hole in the underworld.”

His breath trembles as he steps forward, catching Warren’s chin under one finger and raising it to meet his eyes. Through all his pent-up frustration, the anger and grief, he smiles. Meekly, faintly, but with enough tenderness to melt through all of Warren’s pride. In an instant, he is putty in Kurt’s hands once more, hanging precariously on the silence between them, desperate for shelter from the storm raging within him.

“But I also had the other X-Men. I had you. And whenever Mystique shows up, or I want to feel sorry for myself because of who my father is, I just remind myself that you guys are enough.” The tears are streaming freely down Kurt’s cheeks now, collecting in shivering droplets at his chin and falling onto Warren’s fingers, numb with the weight of all the emotions warring in his mind.

Gradually, and then all at once, Warren is hit with an astounding exhaustion, one that reaches right to his bones. He gives in, gives up the reins he has clung so desperately to, and collapses into Kurt’s waiting arms. They catch him with all the strength in the world, holding his entire life afloat in their firm yet gentle grasp. Warren feels lips pressed against his ear, exults in the hot breath against his skin. The lips and the breath are accompanied by whispered words of comfort, reassurances and promises that everything would be okay. He loses himself to the simple, euphoric feeling—of being safe, of being loved, so absorbed in it that he cannot tell how much time has passed when Kurt lifts those wonderful lips from his ear, pressing them instead against Warren’s for just a moment before pulling back to gaze at Warren with searching eyes.

“I’m sorry I got so worked up,” he murmurs. “I just hate seeing you like this.” Warren nods, slow and short.

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. I’m sorry, too.”

Wordlessly, the two of them climb under the covers, retreating all too readily into a world much smaller than the one that had sparked the argument between them. Warren hesitates when he tries to speak, throat catching involuntarily, a remnant of his pride, though the night’s events have left it weakened enough that he can easily push past it.

“I’ll… I’ll work on talking to dad less,” he says, and Kurt can tell that the words are a promise. “I can stop going to so many family things, stop answering all his stupid invasive questions.”

Kurt nods, pausing reverently before he replies.

“I think that’s a good idea. Take it at your own pace. We’ll see how things go.”

Warren can’t do a thing to help the great swell of adoration he feels at seeing those big, thoughtful yellow eyes, the crease of his brow. He presses his head to Kurt’s chest, and even then he feels he cannot get close enough to the man he has fallen so achingly hard for. His wings sweep up and out, blanketing Kurt on both sides, movements as careful and covetous as if he were handling a rare and precious gem.

“Kurt?”

The blue mutant is almost dreaming when the voice stirs him, the rumble of the chest atop his rousing him back to consciousness.

“Mm?”

“Thank you. For sticking with me. Putting up with me.”

“I don’t put up with anything, mein Engel. I love you. I’ll always want to help you when you’re struggling.”

Warren inhales sharply, lips pressed tightly together.

“If either of us is anything close to an angel, it’s definitely you,” he says with the softest hint of a laugh, winding his arms tighter around the warmth of the body he has positioned himself against. Kurt says nothing, heart suddenly bounding with something unplaceable. The feeling stays with him until he loses himself to sleep, lulled into a deep, peaceful rest by the rhythm of Warren’s breaths against his fur.

#nightangel #nightcrawler #angel #kurt wagner #warren worthington iii #warren worthington #nightcrawler x angel #x men #x men apocalypse #uncanny x men #marvel #marvel comics #fanfiction #drabble #hurts to try hurts to stop

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redditnosleep · 6 years

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Q is for Quota

by professionalsuccubus

The following letter was left on the counter of Penny’s Diner in Dunsmuir, California.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Maniaci,

I’m sorry to do this so suddenly and through a letter, but I have no choice. I have to quit. By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. Something happened and I don’t think it’s safe for me here anymore. Don’t worry, I’ll be OK, and all of you will be OK too, as long as you aren’t around me.

Something I didn’t put on my resume was that I was a cop in my previous life. My real name is Sarah Verborden. Another thing I left out was that I’ve killed 26 people. Not in the line of duty, and not to protect anyone (although you could argue it was a form of self-preservation).

I’ve done awful things. I’ve done things that keep me awake at night. Sometimes it’s the only consolation I have for my crimes, that I continue to suffer because of them.

I haven’t been a cop or a murderer in ten years. I left my last job, moved across the country, and changed my identity (the same night that I killed my 26th). But now I have to run again. When I came home from my jog this morning, there was an envelope on my front stoop containing a flash drive. The flash drive contained one thirty-minute video. The first fifteen minutes was footage of my final murder, but it’s the last ten minutes that is motivating me to leave.

I know it’s corny and I’m sorry but you guys are the closest thing I’ve had to real family in a long, long time. Thank you for treating me so well. I wanted to write you this letter because, first and foremost, I think you’re one of the few people who deserve a full explanation. The other reason is an egotistical one. My entire life has been a secret, which means when I’m gone, what happened to me and my family will be forgotten. Even though my life is littered with death, dishonesty, and selfishness, I can’t stand the thought of that vanishing….like a cloud of black smoke.

It’s hard to make friends when you never put roots down. My dad was the only one who really understood, and he’s been gone for years. I just….I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it’s bigger than I thought. And I’m pretty sure it’s bad.

Take care of yourselves. Don’t trust outsiders. If you meet a man wearing a clergy shirt with a black collar, get away from him. Don’t answer his questions. Don’t talk to him any more than you have to. Downplay that you knew me. Trust me, you don’t want to be a part of it, whatever it is.

Again, I’m sorry for all of this. I wish you both the best. My keys and uniform are in my cubbyhole in the break room. You can keep my last paycheck. Thank you for hiring me.

Sincerely,

Sarah Verborden

Every time I moved to a new town or city, people always asked the same general thing: “Need a change?” And I’d smile and say yes.

The cynical thing that I never tell people is that really - very little changes, no matter how much you move around. Work as a cop long enough, and all the things you see and stories you hear blend together in a tapestry of life at its most violent and mundane. Old ladies dying alone in their apartments. A group of teenagers drowned at a lake. A young man, disappeared into thin air off his college campus. Drug addicts dying in droves – heroin, methamphetamines, a weird new one called Scopo-something.

And then there’s all the human monsters. Take myself, for example.

But I digress. For this to make sense, I have to start in grade school and tell you about the time I caught my father with a dead body in the garage.

I was waiting up, pissed and hungry, because he was late again and there wasn’t any food in the house (the short version: my dad skipped out on my mom while she was pregnant with me. My mom raised me until I was twelve, when she died, and my dad re-emerged and took custody). When I heard the humming of the garage door opening, followed by all the familiar thuds of doors opening and closing, I marched my fourteen-year-old self down the stairs, arms crossed, ready to emulate my dead mother’s sternness.

Ever have the wind completely taken out of your sails? That’s what happened to me when I opened the garage door and saw my father hauling the limp form of Mr. Lakeland, our elderly neighbor, out of his trunk.

I remember running upstairs while he ran after me, yelling “Sarah, wait”, locking the door. Crying a little. Partially out of fear and partially because I was so sure that my anger and his tardiness was going to be the Big Event of the night, and I was wrong, so deeply fucking wrong.

Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl.

Eventually, though, I had to come out. My father planted himself outside my room and wouldn’t stop cajoling and reassuring me everything was OK; there was no need to be afraid. And the emptiness in my belly roared, demanding to be filled.

He took me to the backyard, where he laid Mr. Lakeland’s frail little body in the small bonfire pit we had - the kind that was dug into the ground and lined with flat stones. I flinched and clutched at my sweater when he swung a shovel up and brought it down on Mr. Lakeland’s skull. He stepped back, and said into the night air, “Seventeen. Take him.”

And the sound of whispers came, and the whispering tendrils came, and they surrounded Mr. Lakeland, and even though I was furious at (and, now, scared of) my father, I still clung to him and buried my face in his side as the body was ravaged.

Ten minutes later, all that was left of Mr. Lakeland was a dark stain on the rock. My father got out the hose.

After the rocks were mostly clean of carnage, my father took us inside. There was a pointed moment of uncertainty, and then he sat me at the table and gave me a Twinkie. He went to heat up some water. The water turned into hot chocolate, also for me. It was a little infantilizing, but I didn’t mind. It was the most tender he’d been towards me since the day I moved in.

He talked, more earnestly than we’d ever talked. He talked about his eighteenth birthday when his mother (my Grandmother Sylvia) died, when he’d been sat down and told about the family curse. One person from every generation in their family must make 26 sacrifices to the beast. He didn’t believe it at first. He turned eighteen. He started having sudden and unexplainable pains - pains that incapacitated him to the point that he dropped out of school and had to start taking painkillers daily just to function. He ate his pills and suffered until he couldn’t anymore, and then one night he strangled his coworker as they were closing up the restaurant where they worked. He sat on the ground and waited, and after some time passed…black smoke consumed the body, leaving just a stain. And his pains went away, and for the first time in months, relief.

I asked what the thing’s name was. He said it didn’t have one, but they just called it ‘the black smoke’ or ‘the curse’. I asked him how they knew it was 26 sacrifices. He said he couldn’t talk for previous family members, but that was how many people grandma had killed before the pains went away for good.

I asked him why you couldn’t just dig up a dead body and then summon the thing. He said it didn’t work. He’d tried it.

I asked why he killed Mr. Lakeland. He said he’d stopped by to check in, and found him unresponsive but alive – the victim of a stroke, or a heart attack, or something. His phone was off the hook and my dad said he could hear someone yelling for Mr. Lakeland on the other end.

He said he knew it seemed wrong, but Mr. Lakeland was old and if he was going to die anyway, he might as well make him an offering - it would save someone else from the same fate. But that meant he had to get the body out of there, immediately, before someone called the police, and he couldn’t risk doing it there and leaving evidence behind.

I’ve often thought about whether or not he was telling me the truth about Mr. Lakeland. Dad was a kind guy, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t the Good Samaritan type to just drop in on a neighbor for a home check. I want to believe that was how it really happened, but when I weigh the totality of the circumstances…I think my dad probably lied about how that night went down.

That night marked the start of Dad teaching me how to kill within the parameters of the curse. He taught me to mercy kill whenever possible. If I really had to, I could kill someone and transport them somewhere else, but if I had the time it was best to just do the sacrifice immediately. Mostly, though, he just taught me to hunt. I learned I should swap out my license plates with fakes when hunting. To try and give my sacrifices in abandoned buildings, basements, or the woods. How and where to look for security or trail cameras.

He taught me to target the vulnerable, the forgotten, the powerless, saying it was one of the easiest ways to avoid detection. I’m telling you this because I don’t want to sugar-coat the morality of what we were doing. I won’t make arguments that our killings were somehow justified, or any of that “taking out the trash of the world” or “watching the watchmen” nonsense. I made peace with my choices - and his - long ago. We killed people. Usually innocents. Because it was them or us.

Fast forward to one night in the August of 2007, when I was – coincidentally – unloading a body from my trunk. I had the drifter halfway out of the trunk before a spasm struck my gut, so painful that I shrieked into my dark, empty garage.

It felt like something alive was writhing in my belly, trying to break out of my body’s fleshy prison. I gulped air. I screamed every obscenity I knew and a few I made up. My words echoed through the house, caustic with volume. I waited for the agony to recede, but it burned on as strong as ever. Eventually, I collapsed next to the rear tire, gasping.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the burning started to dissipate. I gritted my teeth and got back to my feet. The corpse wasn’t going to move itself, after all.

I’d stopped the drifter earlier in the night while on patrol, and, feigning sympathy, told him about a spot under an overpass a few miles to the south. “It’s not much, but there aren’t too many critters and it keeps off the worst of the weather,” I’d said. “You can stay there as long as you move on in the morning.” The gratitude in his eyes almost made me feel bad. Later that night, I’d come by and bashed his head in with a rock while he slept. I’d wanted to get rid of him right there, but some teenagers wandered dangerously close to the spot, and I didn’t want to risk attracting attention. So into the trunk he went.

I had dragged the body to the top of the basement stairs when another spasm wracked my midsection. It rippled through my muscles and into my bones, all the way down to my heels. The pain brought me to my knees. My hands made involuntary clawing motions for a few seconds. I tried my best to breathe through it, to ignore it.

I abandoned any plans I had of handling him gently. I kicked the body down the stairs. It took almost a minute to get all the way down, the lifeless arms and legs getting tangled in the narrow space.

Stupid family. Stupid father. Stupid curse that keeps my demons lingering much, much longer than they should. I leaned against the door frame at the top of the stairs, panting.

Clutching my belly, I shouted, “Take him! Take him, goddammit! 24! 24!”

Hushed whispers emanated from the dark. I saw little tendrils of black curl around the drifter, still lying prone at the bottom of the stairs. The tendrils slowly circled around him until his body was almost completely obscured by the smoke. Then the crunching started.

The drifter’s body jerked back and forth as the tendrils played with it. The sounds of twisting, cracking, and churning wet gristle filled the space. Sometimes the whirling lump of black smoke was punctuated with little bright white bits of bone. The muscles in my stomach seized, causing me to keel over onto the kitchen’s linoleum floor with my back arched. When the drifter’s skull popped, it was so loud it felt like a sonic boom. I jump, even though I’ve heard that sound before. But when I see his head start to lose that familiar structure – lower jaw now perpendicular to the top one, one gleaming white eye shifted to the dead center of a face now horribly concave, before being pulverized into chunky jelly – I couldn’t help it, I started to dry heave.

All that was left of that drifter, whoever he was, was a wet red smear on the concrete.

Only two more.

Two months after the drifter, the pains returned. I knew they’d been coming on sooner and sooner the more people I killed, but I wasn’t expecting them that soon. I was forced to scramble and find a new target much earlier than I normally would. This is how I ended up in a bank parking lot on a Wednesday night, talking to my supervising sergeant, and trying to remain casual while there was an unconscious woman in my trunk.

I had - irrationally, I admit – driven three towns over to one of my old beats and visited their equivalent of Skid Row. I only had to circle around a few times before I spotted a small figure hunched up next to a building. It wasn’t difficult to persuade her to come over, and even easier to knock her out and toss her in the trunk. So you can imagine that I was less than thrilled when I passed by the bank - just a few miles from home - and saw a familiar police cruiser flash its hazards at me.

Heart sinking, I turned into the parking lot and pulled up to see Sergeant Belden’s face, blue-lit by the glow of his monitor.

“You all right there, Verborden? You look a little pale.”

I rubbed my forehead bashfully. “Felt a little crappy last night, but better now. Still getting used to midnights. Haven’t done them since I was a rookie up in Pinewood.”

We shot the shit for a few more minutes. Work, holidays, the weather…

Sergeant Belden was a good man.

What I did to him wasn’t fair.

Sometimes when I’m lying awake at night I revisit that moment. I was shaking. I was hesitating. Ten years later, I’m still surprised that I managed to pull the trigger. The fact that the sergeant and I had always gotten along was probably the only thing that stopped him from shooting me first.

My decision happened so fast, so clinically and quick, that sometimes late at night I wonder if it was really me. It felt like someone else; like Soldier Sarah came out brandishing all her training from murder school, ready to get the job done.

I never intended to kill Sergeant Belden, but we all know plans change sometimes. And in the middle of our conversation, the woman I kidnapped woke up and started screaming at the top of her lungs.

The sergeant jumped, startled, and all the years of learning from Dad and hunting in my private time and moving and never getting attached and counting took over. I took out my gun and shot him twice in the temple.

I whispered, “25. Take him.”

I got out of my car, already crying. I opened the trunk and did the same to the woman, tipped her dead weight onto the asphalt, and said in a low voice, “26. Take her.”

The smoke that was absorbing Sergeant Belden split into two, and one of its cyclones descended on the woman. I walked over to the driver’s side of my car and sat on the ground, and let the tears fall down my face.

You have to believe me when I say I didn’t want that to happen. But it was the only way. And that, coincidentally, has been a curse of its own. It hasn’t been the jubilant release that I dreamed it would be. It’s been like emerging from a terminal illness, the kind of perpetual darkness that tests your soul and your being as much as it tests your body.

After the smoke took Belden and the woman, I got in my car and sped home. I had long prepared for the day when this trail of death would be over, and I didn’t care if anybody could link me to the murders. I was leaving the Midwest for good. I would be in the wind. I had everything I needed to disappear, and I did that.

And I thought I’d stay here, in Dunsmuir, until this morning.

The flash drive that someone put on my doorstep contained Sergeant Belden’s dash camera footage from the night of the murders. There isn’t much to see, since most of it happened off-camera, and at times the video completely disintegrates into static. But after that clears, you can see a cloud of smoke edging in the frame. After a few minutes of that, you see my car speed away.

Then, a funnel of smoke can be seen descending from the lower left corner. It whirls and churns, condensing ever downward. When it eventually clears, a small, spindly figure is left lying on the ground. Curled up in the fetal position, it looks like it could be an emaciated person. The picture quality isn’t good, but it looks like a mummified somehow - long, bony and shriveled.

A man wearing a black priest’s cassock and a clerical collar enters from the right frame. He stops short of the creature, and kneels. He kneels for a few minutes without moving at all. He brings his hands to his mouth, as if in awe or fear. Then, he reaches a trembling finger out to the figure.

It reaches a withered hand back up.

#creepy #horror story #author: professionalsuccubus #alphabet stew series

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Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment

New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/keto-diet-weight-loss-and-disease-treatment/

Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment

At first, the cravings were like “a drug withdrawal,” Jay Wortman recalls.

Lying on a hotel bed in Ottawa one night, he’d had to white-knuckle his way out of eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates he’d spirited off a flight. A recent Type 2 diabetes diagnosis had prompted the Vancouver-based family medicine doctor to cut out nearly all carbohydrates — sweets, pasta, bread, even fruit — in an attempt to manage his blood sugar while he waited to start medication. But he couldn’t stop thinking about those chocolates, or his favorite breakfast: waffles doused in syrup. “I think I was a full-fledged sugar addict,” he says.

Four months later, the sugar pangs had eased. He got through the early weeks by stocking up on artificial sweeteners and focusing on how much his 2-year-old son needed a healthy dad. With sugar off the table, he says, all that was left was “the non-carby foods” — bacon, eggs, steak, and vegetables. Soon, he started sleeping better and feeling less fatigued. Weight was coming off at the rate of a pound a day, until he was down 30 pounds and no longer overweight. “I had to get my pants taken in,” Wortman says. “And then I had to get them taken in again.”

More than 16 years later and still following the ultra-high-fat, low-carb regimen that’s become popularized under the name keto, Wortman has never taken a diabetes drug. He hasn’t needed to. He feels stronger and is skiing the most ambitious slopes of his life. “At 68, I’m far fitter than I was at 52 when [my diet] started,” he says.

Transformation stories like his — and the thousands of seemingly hyperbolic claims of dieters losing dozens of pounds, complete with Instagrammed before-and-afters — have made keto the biggest diet phenomenon today. The most Googled diet of 2018, it has eclipsed household names like Weight Watchers (now known as WW) and the other low-carb regimens, Atkins and Paleo.

Keto is a Silicon Valley life-hacking fixation (see author Tim Ferriss’s keto videos), a Hollywood trend (see Kourtney Kardashian’s and Halle Berry’s keto journeys), and fodder for numerous online communities. Devotees can meet at low-carb keto cruises, keto conferences, and keto cafes. While there’s no leading figurehead, a cadre of evangelists sell books and pseudo-medical supplements and devices to help dieters check whether they’re truly in “ketosis,” the holy grail fat-burning state keto dieters are after.

Beyond all the hype, the chance that keto — a minimalist variation on the diet promoted by cardiologist Robert Atkins — can solve the obesity crisis is vanishingly slim. On average, low-carb diets look a lot like others when it comes to long-term weight loss: Most people can’t stick to them. There’s tremendous variation in how humans respond to nutritional and dietary tweaks, and let’s not forget that the promises keto boosters now make are reminiscent of the overhyped claims that fueled the recent gluten-free craze.

But how do you explain results like Wortman’s? He expected that avoiding carbs would help manage his blood sugar in the very short term, not that his other diabetes-related symptoms — thirstiness, frequent urination, and blurred vision — would vanish. And he definitely didn’t anticipate that the diet would allow him to control the disease long-term, without any medication.

Keto might not be an obesity panacea, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the diet as just another fad, in part because of results such as Wortman’s. Along with all the dubious keto supplements and the weight loss books has come a growing body of science exploring keto as a potential foil for Type 2 diabetes and other illnesses. It’s part of a fascinating broader examination of how we might use nutrition to treat disease.

“It’s anti-establishment”

Keto isn’t just low-carb — it is practically no-carb. Its followers avoid ice cream and pizza, as well as whole grains, fruits, and legumes such as brown rice, apples, and lentils. No bakery-fresh bagels, homemade apple pie, birthday cake, or even juicy watermelon.

But what people eat in America — and around the world — is carbohydrates. They account for roughly half the calories on average in the American diet, come highly recommended in national nutrition guidelines, and feature prominently in the traditional diets of everyone from pasta-munching Italians to rice-loving Indonesians.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, of the world’s more than 50,000 edible plants, “Just three of them, rice, maize and wheat, provide 60 percent of the world’s food energy intake.” All three of those staples are carbs.

To follow a keto diet is to reject this culture and history. And while keto forbids processed junk foods — something common to just about every diet — it also severely limits the fruits, grains, and legumes suggested by the US Department of Agriculture as essential parts of a healthy diet. Keto adherents believe the conventional nutrition wisdom is not only wrong but actively harmful.

This rejection of mainstream thinking helps explain why keto went viral at this moment, and why it’s more than just a diet. It’s a cultural identity.

Take Wortman. He’s been on two of Jimmy Moore’s low-carb cruises, sailing across the Caribbean, downing steak after steak. His wife started keto shortly after he did and remains on the diet. He calls their daughter, who was born seven years into their keto lifestyle, “a product of a keto gestation.”

The diet didn’t just change Wortman’s life; it changed how he thought about medicine and nutrition. He believes there’s a conspiracy by a “matrix of agendas” to promote a plant-based diet. The “whole fiber thing is a myth,” he tells me. He also thinks the concerns about a meat-heavy diet’s impact on the planet — that cows produce too much methane — are hugely overblown (they aren’t), and that the link between cardiovascular disease and saturated fat has been “debunked” (it hasn’t).

In a time when black is white, up is down, and discussions of fake news dominate the news cycle, it’s no accident that keto went viral, says Alan Levinovitz, a James Madison University religion professor who studies diet beliefs. “It’s anti-establishment,” mirroring other strains of rebelliousness in our politics, he says. He experimented with the carnivore diet (a form of keto) and says he experienced no health improvement.

Americans are living in the aftermath of the low-fat experiment — where the public learned about guidelines and studies that have often been muddied by food industry interests. With its emphasis on fat, keto is the antidote to the Snackwell’s era. You can gorge on butter and bacon and stay in ketosis. It’s the perfect fuck-everything-you-know-about-nutrition diet.

A diet to heal disease?

Keto’s potential to heal has captured the imagination of people like Columbia University oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who has been studying the diet’s effects on cancer. “We are trying to steer clear of any diet crazes,” he says. “For me, it’s thinking of the diet as a tool or drug,” one that may work when used in tandem with traditional cancer medicines in “a very particular population of cancer patients.” Keto’s effects on insulin and glucose levels — and how they may interfere with cancer cell growth — are what intrigue Mukherjee and other scientists.

He’s only tested the cancer hypothesis in mice. And he has other concerns, echoed by many in the medical field, including that keto may not be safe for the cardiovascular system since it can drive up cholesterol levels.

Wortman, the keto evangelist, is gratified that other doctors are at least opening their minds to keto as a therapy, something he didn’t expect to happen in his lifetime. After his high-fat and -protein diet controlled his blood sugar, he started reading about keto in Atkins’s books and scientific papers and became convinced of its potency.

The diet’s potential for treating Type 2 diabetes is the aspect of keto that has long obsessed Wortman. More than a decade ago, he started lecturing on the subject at medical conferences, only to be lambasted. Other health professionals believed the high-fat regimen would damage people’s kidneys, arteries, and brains.

Wortman felt vindicated when, this spring, the American Diabetes Association came out with a consensus statement — intended as guidance for doctors across the country — suggesting a very low-carb diet could be a nutritional treatment option for some patients with diabetes.

Today, Wortman prescribes keto to all his patients who have Type 2 diabetes. (The standard medical interventions include weight loss, exercise, medication such as metformin, and insulin therapy, as well as regular blood sugar monitoring.) He’s even experimented with using the diet to treat northern British Columbia’s aboriginal people, who are disproportionately diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Though he never published anything on the experiment in a scholarly journal, it was the subject of a 2008 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary. “People lost weight, improved their diabetes, and got off their medications,” says Wortman, who does not profit from advocating for the keto diet.

“The obvious failure of the conventional approach has also been getting too big to ignore,” he adds. “I often say to my patients and colleagues now, ‘What’s the most important thing you do about your health? It’s your diet.’”

The burning question

The reason for shunning sugars is that eating more than the equivalent of a slice or two of bread each day can knock dieters out of ketosis. Dr. Atkins reportedly liked to say that ketosis is “as delightful as sunshine and sex.” (With his four-phase plan, he promised to help people “stay thin forever” by eating more fat and fewer carbs — the same way the now-popular Keto Reset Diet book promises to “burn fat forever.”)

To understand how ketosis works, consider how the human body uses fuel. On a typical high-carb diet, we’re fueled primarily by glucose (or blood sugar), much of which we derive from carbohydrate-rich foods. When we eat a bagel or a bunch of grapes, for example, the glucose levels in our blood rise, and the pancreas secretes insulin to turn glucose into an energy source, moving it from the blood into our cells.

But the body only evolved to store enough glucose to last a couple of days. So if we forgo eating carbs, it finds other ways to keep going.

One of those ways is a process called ketogenesis. In ketogenesis, the liver starts to break down fat — both from food and from the reserves stored in our fat tissue — into a usable energy source called ketone bodies, or ketones for short. Ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel when there’s a glucose shortage. Once ketogenesis kicks in and ketone levels go up, the body is in ketosis and burning fat instead of the usual glucose. (Whether this actually leads to increased calorie burn or fat loss is a matter of scientific debate.)

There are a couple of avenues into ketosis. One is through fasting: When you stop eating altogether for an extended period of time, the body will ramp up fat burning for fuel and decrease its use of glucose (which is part of the reason people can survive for as long as 73 days without food).

Another way to reach it is by making your body think it’s fasting — by eating only about 20 to 50 grams of total carbs per day. At the low end, that’s equivalent to a slice of bread or a small potato.

People on a keto diet generally aim to get about 5 percent of their calories from carbohydrates in foods such as berries and salad, about 15 percent from proteins like salmon and sardines, and 80 percent from fats including coconut oil and avocado. And ketosis is a quantifiable state. Dieters can measure their ketone levels with blood tests, breathalyzers, and urine strips (with varying degrees of accuracy — blood tests are considered the gold standard for now).

This data-driven aspect is part of what appealed to Ethan Weiss, a University of California San Francisco professor of cardiovascular research. Initially, he was skeptical when he was invited to consult for Virta Health, a company selling lifestyle counseling on ketogenic diets for Type 2 diabetics. A second-generation cardiologist, he says his family had “nothing that resembled fat in the house” when he was growing up.

The more he learned about keto, however, the more intrigued he became. He says he was excited by “the idea that we can give [patients] an option that’s going to get them off medication reliably. The only other intervention that’s done that was bariatric surgery,” he says.

Eventually, Weiss co-developed a breath sensor, called Keyto, to help people track how their diet affects their ketone levels. Playing around with the prototype, he realized he’d made the diet a kind of game. “I was trying to see if I could get my ketone levels to go up. And because I’m naturally competitive and like games, I got obsessed.”

Within two months, he dropped nearly 16 pounds he hadn’t intended to lose and saw his blood sugar levels, which had been high, normalize.

Still, he concedes there’s a lot we don’t know about the effects of the diet. “There are two questions: Is it safe to be in ketosis long-term? And is there something else about this diet that’s potentially dangerous or harmful long-term? We can’t really answer either one in a rigorous way today,” he says.

One concern is that some people on keto will see their cholesterol levels increase, which is linked with a heightened risk of heart disease. In a recent op-ed criticizing low-carb evangelists for their “cheerleading,” Weiss wrote of the cholesterol problem: “It’s a classic issue of balancing benefits and risks, one complicated because it isn’t clear if, how much, or in whom an increase in cholesterol even matters. That’s why there is general consensus that rigorous clinical trials are needed to answer this critical question.”

Other doctors, writing in JAMA Internal Medicine, list “keto flu,” cardiac arrhythmias, constipation, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies among keto’s documented side effects in the pediatric scientific literature. But the diet’s greatest risk, they write, may be the opportunity cost of not eating enough high-fiber, unrefined carbohydrates.

I ask Weiss why he’s so excited about keto, even willing to promote it, given those risks, and the fact that sustained weight loss on keto doesn’t look all that different from other diets. “[We] can’t let perfect be the enemy of great,” he answers. “That is, what we are doing now sucks.”

The frontiers of keto science

Oncologists are also looking past keto’s big unknowns and exploring the potential benefits of the diet as part of cancer therapy. While they warn that it’s far too early to prescribe the diet for any specific cancer type, they’re excited about the possibilities.

For a study published in 2018 in Nature, Mukherjee and his co-authors tested whether PI3-kinase inhibitors — a class of drug used to treat cancers, which has the side effect of driving up blood sugar and insulin levels — would perform better in mice when they also ate a keto diet or took a drug that suppressed insulin levels. The idea they wanted to test, Mukherjee explained on Weiss’s keto podcast, was: What if “the drug causes a physiological side effect — high sugar, high insulin — and that high insulin is now what is bringing the tumors alive again … like a malignant circuit.”

In the study, the combination of the drug and the diet shrank 12 types of tumors in mice — even pancreatic cancer, which is very difficult to treat in humans. But keto caused the leukemia to worsen, meaning researchers still need to work out where the diet is helpful and where it’s harmful.

Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, a co-author on the study and endocrinologist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, says we’ll learn more from a human trial, scheduled to start later this year, that will build on the mouse research.

For now, it’s way too early to know whether this research will translate to humans, despite all the YouTube videos and blogs suggesting that sugar “feeds” cancer. “We are in the Stone Age of understanding which diet is best for each type of cancer site,” Goncalves said.

He’s also concerned about heart health. “We don’t know what it’s doing to cardiovascular risk factors. But cancer’s unique — people are willing to accept a more hazardous condition in order to cure the cancer.”

Much better-established are keto’s effects on epilepsy. For nearly a century, doctors have been prescribing the diet to treat epilepsy, an idea that came about in the 1920s, when researchers observed that people who fasted experienced fewer seizures. Researchers still aren’t sure why the diet can work, but a few mechanisms have been proposed, including making neurons more resilient during seizures. And today, studies have shown that children and adults whose epilepsy doesn’t respond to medications seem to experience a pretty large reduction in seizures when following a ketogenic diet.

That doesn’t, however, mean that the diet works for other conditions. There are still many questions about even the most talked-about keto applications, such as keto for Type 2 diabetes. While researchers have found the diet can reduce people’s hemoglobin A1C (a measure of blood sugar) and their reliance on medication, the effects tend to wane after one year.

Virta Health, the keto counseling company Weiss consults for, recently published data from a two-year evaluation of the Virta program. Through telemedicine, Virta’s clients get nutrition support and health coaching about how to prepare low-carb foods and stick to the diet. In the trial, people’s A1C and weight crept up between one and two years — but 38 percent saw their diabetes reverse and 15 percent were in remission. “Those results are dramatically better than anything else anybody’s published at two years with diet or lifestyle regimen,” Steve Phinney, a founder of Virta who has been studying (and living on) keto for decades, says.

Skeptics, such as the cardiologists turned diet gurus Dean Ornish and Joel Kahn, argue that keto’s potential heart risks are too great. Others note that it’s not clear whether it’s the keto diet itself or the weight loss it can induce that helps control Type 2 diabetes.

To begin to answer the latter question, Phinney and his colleagues ran a study that cycled 16 patients through a low-carb (keto), moderate-carb, and high-carb diet during four-week periods, with two-week reset periods in between. During the diet, the participants were fed enough to keep their weight stable. At the start of the trial, they all met diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome, a constellation of conditions — excess fat in the abdominal area, high blood sugar, low HDL (or “good”) cholesterol, and high blood pressure — that are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes.

The results were just published in the journal JCI Insight. After one month on the high-carb diet, one of the 16 people no longer met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. On the moderate-carb diet, three of the 16 reversed their metabolic syndrome. On keto, that number rose to nine out of 16. This suggests that it’s carbohydrate restriction, not weight loss, that helps control metabolic syndrome, including high blood sugar.

The study will have to be replicated. It’s also worth noting the high-carb group ate a lower-quality diet (with foods such as marshmallow fluff and barbecue sauce) while the lower-carb groups stuck to whole foods, which could have muddied the results. And it was funded by a grant from Dairy Management Inc. and the Dutch Dairy Association, and co-authored by researchers with a financial stake in showing keto’s benefits.

But Phinney believes the work is nothing short of revolutionary. “A guy named Thomas Kuhn pointed out that scientific revolutions don’t happen overnight, they happen over time,” he says. “We’re using a non-pharmaceutical, very powerful tool to hopefully halt and turn back an epidemic that is threatening our ability to provide health care because it’s such a dramatically expensive disease.”

And there are other ways the diet may be used. Researchers are currently exploring the benefits of keto for Type 1 diabetes. There’s preliminary research suggesting an ultra-low-carb diet could have a role in treating neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A lot of the brain research, however, was done in mice or cells, so we still need evidence of human response. When we have better studies, keto might look as ineffectual as gluten-free — or maybe it’ll be the diet miracle we’ve been hoping for. That is, if we can stick to it.

CREDITS Editor: Eliza Barclay Visuals editor: Kainaz Amaria Designers: Amanda Northrop and Christina Animashaun Copy editors: Tanya Pai and Tim Williams Cover designer and graphics: Javier Zarracina Photographer: Scott Suchman for Vox Food stylist: Lisa Cherkasky for Vox

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