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narrativestringtheory · 1 year

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On Comics: Growing Old with the X-Men

by Noah Berlatsky

[ed. note: a prior iteration of this article appeared as “Growing Old With the X-Men” on Patreon in 2022]

A friend lent me The Uncanny X-Men #160 (Marvel, August 1982) when I was at summer camp in the early 1980s. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly haunted me ever since. But it disturbed me at the time, and it stuck with me as a confusingly nightmarish story—a gratuitous exercise in disempowerment and decay.

Reading it again some forty years later through the power of digitization, I’m more aware of its weaknesses. Writer Chris Claremont’s endless exposition eats up text bubble after text bubble. Penciller Brent Anderson struggles with pacing the convoluted script—moments of grotesque horror (like Kitty Pride’s skeleton literally being removed from her body) are weirdly shrunken into a series of smaller panels so you can barely see them. I’d thought some of my fuzzy memories of the comic were a result of time and distance. But it turns out that a lot of scenes just aren’t drawn in a way designed to stick in memory.

At the same time, it’s, clearer to me now why I found the comic so unsettling then, and why, as an adult, it still retains some power. Claremont, in his clumsy, gauche way wrote a comic about the clumsy, gauche process of getting old. The innocuously named “Chutes and Ladders” turns out to be a story about decay, death, and failure. When I read it as a twelve-year-old, I was looking through a dimensional portal to the more jaded, (somewhat) hideously transformed me reading it now.

The plot starts out on the X-Men’s new island base. Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Kitty, and Colossus are participating in one of those Danger Room training battles with which Claremont was endlessly fascinated. Illyana, Colossus’ six-year-old sister is fascinated too; she’s watching eagerly, which positions her as a stand in for the audience. At the same time, she herself is being watched through a kind of interdimensional television by a mysterious figure with ominously long fingernails.

That obscured figure is a Satanic stand-in named Belasco, and his realm is Limbo. He’s a devilish demiurge for Claremont himself, setting the story in motion and summoning the reader deeper. He reaches into Illyana’s mind, whispering, “Tell no one, Illyana. Just follow my voice…to paradise.” The creepy child abduction connotations foreshadow the story’s obsessions with corruption, as Ilyana wanders off (clutching a Fozzie Bear doll). Kitty—the youngest member of the X-Men—notices Illyana’s gone and heads after her.

Illyana seems to vanish, and then Kitty is also zapped away. This sequence is presented as unpleasant in a way that is far out of proportion to what we see or what actually seems to be happening. Kitty is frozen in a circle of light and completely panics: “What’s happening?! I feel—No! Oh no!” She doesn’t sound like a superhero, but like a child facing her worst fear.

The older heroes figure out the kids are gone eventually; they follow and inevitably vanish. They all find themselves, or lose themselves, in an ill-defined gothic cavern-like realm—again, called Limbo, though it looks more like Hell.

The real horror here isn’t the décor, nor even the monstrous Sy’m, who talks incongruously like a 1920s gangland thug. (“So tell me boss—who do you want killed?”) The real horror is age.

The X-Men aren’t just visiting a different realm, but their future selves. Thanks to time displacement and cosmic comic book woo, our heroes learn that they were already in Belasco’s realm years or decades past, when they had been easily and gruesomely defeated. Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton lies in Belasco’s throne-room. Colossus apparently lived for some time, but he too was eventually killed; his aged corpse hangs on a wall. Or at least, Claremont says Colossus was an old man when he died. Anderson’s art doesn’t really show it, which is no doubt in part simply technical insufficiency, but which also suggests that age can’t be imagined; it’s a horror beyond visualization, even when it’s hanging there in front of you.

Worst of all is Nightcrawler. Our gallant, high-spirited Kurt didn’t die. He was instead turned into a corrupted parody of himself, a lecherous giggling monster matching his demonic appearance. When Kitty meets old, gross Kurt he gropes her, in an extremely unpleasant sequence. (Anderson’s pencils again don’t let you see clearly what’s going on, though this time it’s obviously intentional; Kurt’s hands when he gropes Kitty are off panel.) The sexual implications echo Belasco’s quasi-seduction of Ilyana at the comic’s opening; growing up here is shadowed with violence.

Elder Ororo’s fate is less grim than death or corruption. But time has still taken her on. After watching her friends die horribly, she reached some sort of détente with Belasco. As she aged, she lost her elemental powers, but studied sorcery instead. She uses her latter-day magic and her knowledge of the workings of the teleport circles to help the younger X-Men avoid the mistakes of the dead by urging them to run away.

They do so, but Belasco manages to grab Illyana’s hand. Kitty loses her grip on the girl for a second, but then gets hold of her again and pulls her back to our world—only to discover that in that blink of an eye when their hands were separated, Ilyana aged seven years, and is now thirteen.

That lost moment, in which a whole life happens between panels, is the part of the comic I remembered best. I’d sometimes over the years wonder what happened to Illyana, that same impenetrable gap fixed there as I got older, doing whatever I was doing. Time passed for me around that panel as it passed for Illyana inside it. You’re always getting older in that white gutter between then (further and further ago) and an ever more decrepit now.

The jump disturbed Colossus too. “How can I face our parents?” he wonders, and in a further internal monologue he muses on his sister’s tragic fate. “Childhood should be the happiest of times—and in a stroke, Illyana has lost that forever. Worse she has now spent half her life in Limbo […] should I welcome her, comfort her, love her…or fear her?” Belasco, though, gets the last word, cackling about Illyana’s glorious destiny while clutching her Fozzie Bear doll, a symbol of youthful innocence lost.

Contra Colossus, childhood isn’t always a happy time, as “Chutes and Ladders” is aware. Kitty’s outsized fear upon being transported into limbo, coupled with Nightcrawler’s advances, suggest that the comic is in part about sexual abuse. Belasco is grooming Illyana for his own purposes (further explicated in a Magik mini-series, which I still haven’t read). He’s an evil father, with elder Ororo, who dabbles in dark magic, as a compromised, also-abused mother figure. Colossus is grappling with the fact that aging can be imposed by adults in ugly ways; the comic is in part about how children like Kitty may be forced to contemplate their own skulls before they should have to.

The comic isn’t just about children though, which is part of what made it memorable for me when I was a child. To some degree, Claremont was writing for twelve-year-olds. But he was writing for those twelve-year-olds about what it’s like to grow up. Part of the superhero empowerment fantasy is that the characters never grow old; Colossus is still in his prime now, in 2023, just as he was in 1982. But also somehow in 1982, in that one comic, he was vaguely old, in a way difficult to visualize, and defeated and dead.

Belasco is evil, but he’s also age personified, and evil and age, intertwined, beat the X-Men, not once, but twice. They grow weak, they die. They are frozen and terrified. They betray themselves in grotesque ways and in smaller ones. They harm their friends (Sy’m uses Wolverines severed claw to pierce Colossus’ armor.) They fail to protect their loved ones. They run away. But wherever they run, time comes after them.

I vaguely understood when I was a kid that—through Anderson’s vague outlines and Claremont’s endless text—the comic was speaking to me about my own future. It was teleporting me forward in time to an older, tireder, heavier, more defeated me. And here I am, looking back. I could tell my 12-year-old self to run, I suppose, but it wouldn’t do much good. Back there, somewhere, I put the comic down and went off to swim more efficaciously than I can now. When, like Kitty recapturing Illyana’s hand, I picked the book up again, I liked it less, and, alas, understood it better.

#Noah Berlatsky #On Comics #comics #X-Men

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translucentenvelope · 4 months

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Fatigue Can Shatter a Person

Everyday tiredness is nothing like the depleting symptom that people with long COVID and ME/CFS experience.

By Ed Yong

Alexis Misko’s health has improved enough that, once a month, she can leave her house for a few hours. First, she needs to build up her energy by lying in a dark room for the better part of two days, doing little more than listening to audiobooks. Then she needs a driver, a quiet destination where she can lie down, and days of rest to recover afterward. The brief outdoor joy “never quite feels like enough,” she told me, but it’s so much more than what she managed in her first year of long COVID, when she couldn’t sit upright for more than an hour or stand for more than 10 minutes. Now, at least, she can watch TV on the same day she takes a shower.

In her previous life, she pulled all-nighters in graduate school and rough shifts at her hospital as an occupational therapist; she went for long runs and sagged after long flights. None of that compares with what she has endured since getting COVID-19 almost three years ago. The fatigue she now feels is “like a complete depletion of the essence of who you are, of your life force,” she told me in an email.

Fatigue is among the most common and most disabling of long COVID’s symptoms, and a signature of similar chronic illnesses such as myalgic encephalomyelitis (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS). But in these diseases, fatigue is so distinct from everyday weariness that most of the people I have talked with were unprepared for how severe, multifaceted, and persistent it can be.

For a start, this fatigue isn’t really a single symptom; it has many faces. It can weigh the body down: Lisa Geiszler likens it to “wearing a lead exoskeleton on a planet with extremely high gravity, while being riddled with severe arthritis.” It can rev the body up: Many fatigued people feel “wired and tired,” paradoxically in fight-or-flight mode despite being utterly depleted. It can be cognitive: Thoughts become sluggish, incoherent, and sometimes painful—like “there’s steel wool stuck in my frontal lobe,” Gwynn Dujardin, a literary historian with ME, told me.

Fatigue turns the most mundane of tasks into an “agonizing cost-benefit analysis,” Misko said. If you do laundry, how long will you need to rest to later make a meal? If you drink water, will you be able to reach the toilet? Only a quarter of long-haulers have symptoms that severely limit their daily activities, but even those with “moderate” cases are profoundly limited. Julia Moore Vogel, a program director at Scripps Research, still works, but washing her hair, she told me, leaves her as exhausted as the long-distance runs she used to do.

And though normal fatigue is temporary and amenable to agency—even after a marathon, you can will yourself into a shower, and you’ll feel better after sleeping—rest often fails to cure the fatigue of long COVID or ME/CFS. “I wake up fatigued,” Letícia Soares, who has long COVID, told me.

Between long COVID, ME/CFS, and other energy-limiting chronic illnesses, millions of people in the U.S. alone experience debilitating fatigue. But American society tends to equate inactivity with immorality, and productivity with worth. Faced with a condition that simply doesn’t allow people to move—even one whose deficits can be measured and explained—many doctors and loved ones default to disbelief. When Soares tells others about her illness, they usually say, “Oh, yeah, I’m tired too.” When she was bedbound for days, people told her, “I need a weekend like that.” Soares’s problems are very real, and although researchers have started to figure out why so many people like her are suffering, they don’t yet know how to stop it.

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Fatigue creates a background hum of disability, but it can be punctuated by worse percussive episodes that strip long-haulers of even the small amounts of energy they normally have.

Daria Oller is a physiotherapist and athletic trainer, so when she got COVID in March 2020, she naturally tried exercising her way to better health. And she couldn’t understand why, after just short runs, her fatigue, brain fog, chest pain, and other symptoms would flare up dramatically—to the point where she could barely move or speak. These crashes contradicted everything she had learned during her training. Only after talking with physiotherapists with ME/CFS did she realize that this phenomenon has a name: post-exertional malaise.

Post-exertional malaise, or PEM, is the defining trait of ME/CFS and a common feature of long COVID. It is often portrayed as an extreme form of fatigue, but it is more correctly understood as a physiological state in which all existing symptoms burn more fiercely and new ones ignite. Beyond fatigue, people who get PEM might also feel intense radiant pain, an inflammatory burning feeling, or gastrointestinal and cognitive problems: “You feel poisoned, flu-ish, concussed,” Misko said. And where fatigue usually sets in right after exertion, PEM might strike hours or days later, and with disproportionate ferocity. Even gentle physical or mental effort might lay people out for days, weeks, months. Visiting a doctor can precipitate a crash, and so can filling out applications for disability benefits—or sensing bright lights and loud sounds, regulating body temperature on hot days, or coping with stress. And if in fatigue your batteries feel drained, in PEM they’re missing entirely. It’s the annihilation of possibility: Most people experience the desperation of being unable to move only in nightmares, Dujardin told me. “PEM is like that, but much more painful.”

Medical professionals generally don’t learn about PEM during their training. Many people doubt its existence because it is so unlike anything that healthy people endure. Mary Dimmock told me that she understood what it meant only when she saw her son, Matthew, who has ME/CFS, crash in front of her eyes. “He just melted,” Dimmock said. But most people never see such damage because PEM hides those in the midst of it from public view. And because it usually occurs after a delay, people who experience PEM might appear well to friends and colleagues who then don’t witness the exorbitant price they later pay.

That price is both real and measurable. In cardiopulmonary exercise tests, or CPETs, patients use treadmills or exercise bikes while doctors record their oxygen consumption, blood pressure, and heart rate. Betsy Keller, an exercise physiologist at Ithaca College, told me that most people can repeat their performance if retested one day later, even if they have heart disease or are deconditioned by inactivity. People who get PEM cannot. Their results are so different the second time around that when Keller first tested someone with ME/CFS in 2003, “I told my colleagues that our equipment was out of calibration,” she said. But she and others have seen the same pattern in hundreds of ME/CFS and long-COVID patients—“objective findings that can’t be explained by anything psychological,” David Systrom, a pulmonologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told me. “Many patients are told it’s all in their head, but this belies that in spades.” Still, many insurers refuse to pay for a second test, and many patients cannot do two CPETs (or even one) without seriously risking their health. And “20 years later, I still have physicians who refute and ignore the objective data,” Keller said. (Some long-COVID studies have ignored PEM entirely or bundled it together with fatigue.)

Oller thinks this dismissal arises because PEM inverts the dogma that exercise is good for you—an adage that, for most other illnesses, is correct. “It’s not easy to change what you’ve been doing your whole career, even when I tell someone that they might be harming their patients,” she said. Indeed, many long-haulers get worse because they don’t get enough rest in their first weeks of illness, or try to exercise through their symptoms on doctors’ orders.

People with PEM are also frequently misdiagnosed. They’re told that they’re deconditioned from being too sedentary, when their inactivity is the result of frequent crashes, not the cause. They’re told that they’re depressed and unmotivated, when they are usually desperate to move and either physically incapable of doing so or using restraint to avoid crashing. Oller is part of a support group of 1,500 endurance athletes with long COVID who are well used to running, swimming, and biking through pain and tiredness. “Why would we all just stop?” she asked.

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Some patients with energy-limiting illnesses argue that the names of their diseases and symptoms make them easier to discredit. Fatigue invites people to minimize severe depletion as everyday tiredness. Chronic fatigue syndromecollapses a wide-ranging disabling condition into a single symptom that is easy to trivialize. These complaints are valid, but the problem runs deeper than any name.

Dujardin, the English professor who is (very slowly) writing a cultural history of fatigue, thinks that our concept of it has been impoverished by centuries of reductionism. As the study of medicine slowly fractured into anatomical specialties, it lost an overarching sense of the systems that contribute to human energy, or its absence. The concept of energy was (and still is) central to animistic philosophies, and though once core to the Western world too, it is now culturally associated with quackery and pseudoscience. “There are vials of ‘energy boosters’ by every cash register in the U.S.,” Dujardin said, but when the NIH convened a conference on the biology of fatigue in 2021, “specialists kept observing that no standard definition exists for fatigue, and everyone was working from different ideas of human energy.” These terms have become so unhelpfully unspecific that our concept of “fatigue” can encompass a wide array of states including PEM and idleness, and can be heavily influenced by social forces—in particular the desire to exploit the energy of others.

As the historian Emily K. Abel notes in Sick and Tired: An Intimate History of Fatigue, many studies of everyday fatigue at the turn of the 20th century focused on the weariness of manual laborers, and were done to find ways to make those workers more productive. During this period, fatigue was recast from a physiological limit that employers must work around into a psychological failure that individuals must work against. “Present-day society stigmatizes those who don’t Push through; keep at it; show grit,” Dujardin said, and for the sin of subverting those norms, long-haulers “are not just disbelieved but treated openly with contempt.” Fatigue is “profoundly anti-capitalistic,” Jaime Seltzer, the director of scientific and medical outreach at the advocacy group MEAction, told me.

Energy-limiting illnesses also disproportionately affect women, who have long been portrayed as prone to idleness. Dujardin notes that in Western epics, women such as Circe and Dido were perceived harshly for averting questing heroes such as Odysseus and Aeneas with the temptation of rest. Later, the onset of industrialization turned women instead into emblems of homebound idleness while men labored in public. As shirking work became a moral failure, it also remained a feminine one.

These attitudes were evident in the ways in which two successive U.S. presidents dealt with COVID. Donald Trump, who always evinced a caricature of masculine strength and chastised rivals for being “low energy,” framed his recovery from the coronavirus as an act of domination. Joe Biden was less bombastic, but he still conspicuously assured the public that he was working through his COVID infection while his administration prioritized policies that got people back to work. Neither man spoke of the possibility of disabling fatigue or the need for rest.

Medicine, too, absorbs society’s stigmas around fatigue, even in selecting those who get to join its ranks. Its famously grueling training programs exclude (among others) most people with energy-limiting illnesses, while valorizing the ability to function when severely depleted. This, together with the tendency to psychologize women’s pain, helps to explain why so many long-haulers—even those with medical qualifications, like Misko and Oller—are treated so badly by the professionals they see for care. When Dujardin first sought medical help for her ME/CFS symptoms, the same doctor who had treated her well for a decade suddenly became stiff and suspicious, she told me, reduced all of her detailed descriptions to “tiredness,” and left the room without offering diagnosis or treatment. There is so much cultural pressure to never stop that many people can’t accept that their patients or peers might be biologically forced to do so.

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No grand unified theory explains everything about long COVID and ME/CFS, but neither are these diseases total mysteries. In fact, plenty of evidence exists for at least two pathways that explain why people with these conditions could be so limited in energy.

First, most people with energy-limiting chronic illnesses have problems with their autonomic nervous system, which governs heartbeat, breathing, sleep, hormone release, and other bodily functions that we don’t consciously control. When this system is disrupted—a condition called “dysautonomia”—hormones such as adrenaline might be released at inappropriate moments, leading to the wired-but-tired feeling. People might suddenly feel sleepy, as if they’re shutting down. Blood vessels might not expand in moments of need, depriving active muscles and organs of oxygen and fuel; those organs might include the brain, leading to cognitive dysfunction such as brain fog.

Second, many people with long COVID and ME/CFS have problems generating energy. When viruses invade the body, the immune system counterattacks, triggering a state of inflammation. Both infection and inflammation can damage the mitochondria—the bean-shaped batteries that power our cells. Malfunctioning mitochondria produce violent chemicals called “reactive oxygen species” (ROS) that inflict even more cellular damage. Inflammation also triggers a metabolic switch toward fast but inefficient ways of making energy, depleting cells of fuel and riddling them with lactic acid. These changes collectively explain the pervasive, dead-battery flavor of fatigue, as “the body struggles to generate energy,” Bindu Paul, a pharmacologist and neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins, told me. They might also explain the burning, poisoned feelings that patients experience as their cells fill with lactic acid and ROS.

These two pathways—autonomic and metabolic—might also account for PEM. Normally, the autonomic nervous system smoothly dials up to an intense fight-and-flight mode and down to a calmer rest-and-digest one. But “in dysautonomia, the dial becomes a switch,” David Putrino, a neuroscientist and rehabilitation specialist at Mount Sinai, told me. “You go from sitting to standing, and your body thinks, Oh, are we going hunting? You stop, and your body shuts down.” The exhaustion of these dramatic, unstable flip-flops is made worse by the ongoing metabolic maelstrom. Damaged mitochondria, destructive ROS, inefficient metabolism, and chronic inflammation all compound one another in a vicious cycle that, if it becomes sufficiently intense, could manifest as a PEM crash. “No one is absolutely certain about what causes PEM,” Seltzer told me, but it makes sense that “you have this big metabolic shift and your nervous system can’t get back on an even keel.” And if people push through, deepening the metabolic demands on a body that already can’t meet them, the cycle can spin even faster, “leading to progressive disability,” Putrino said.

Other factors might also be at play. Compared with healthy people, those with long COVID and ME/CFS have differences in the size, structure, or function of brain regions including the thalamus, which relays motor signals and regulates consciousness, and the basal ganglia, which controls movement and has been implicated in fatigue. Long-haulers also have problems with blood vessels, red blood cells, and clotting, all of which might further stanch their flows of blood, oxygen, and nutrients. “I’ve tested so many of these people over the years, and we see over and over again that when the systems start to fail, they all fail in the same way,” Keller said. Together, these woes explain why long COVID and ME/CFS have such bewilderingly varied symptoms. That diversity fuels disbelief—how could one disease cause all of this?—but it’s exactly what you’d expect if things as fundamental as metabolism go awry.

Long-haulers might not know the biochemical specifics of their symptoms, but they are uncannily good at capturing those underpinnings through metaphor. People experiencing autonomic blood-flow problems might complain about feeling “drained,” and that’s literally happening: In POTS, a form of dysautonomia, blood pools in the lower body when people stand. People experiencing metabolic problems often use dead-battery analogies, and indeed, their cellular batteries—the mitochondria—are being damaged: “It really feels like something is going wrong at the cellular level,” Oller told me. Attentive doctors can find important clues about the basis of their patients’ illness hiding amid descriptions that are often billed as “exaggerated or melodramatic,” Dujardin said.

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Some COVID long-haulers do recover. But several studies have found that, so far, most don’t fully return to their previous baseline, and many who become severely ill stay that way. This pool of persistently sick people is now mired in the same neglect that has long plagued those who suffer from illnesses such as ME/CFS. Research into such conditions is grossly underfunded, so no cures exist. Very few doctors in the U.S. know how to treat these conditions, and many are nearing retirement, so patients struggle to find care. Long-COVID clinics exist but vary in quality: Some know nothing about other energy-limiting illnesses, and still prescribe potentially harmful and officially discouraged treatments such as exercise. Clinicians who better understand these illnesses know that caution is crucial. When Putrino works with long-haulers to recondition their autonomic nervous system, he always starts as gently as possible to avoid triggering PEM. Such work “isn’t easy and isn’t fast,” he said, and it usually means stabilizing people instead of curing them.

Stability can be life-changing, especially when it involves changes that patients can keep up at home. Over-the-counter supplements such as coenzyme Q10, which is used by mitochondria to generate energy and is depleted in ME/CFS patients, can reduce fatigue. Anti-inflammatory medications such as low-dose naltrexone may have some promise. Sleep hygiene may not cure fatigue, but it certainly makes it less debilitating. Dietary changes can help, but the right ones might be counterintuitive: High-fiber foods take more energy to digest, and some long-haulers get PEM episodes after eating meals that seem healthy. And the most important part of this portfolio is “pacing”—a strategy for carefully keeping your activity levels beneath the threshold that causes debilitating crashes.

Pacing is more challenging than it sounds. Practitioners can’t rely on fixed routines; instead, they must learn to gauge their fluctuating energy levels in real time while becoming acutely aware of their PEM triggers. Some turn to wearable technology such as heart-rate monitors, and more than 30,000 are testing a patient-designed app called Visible to help spot patterns in their illness. Such data are useful, but the difference between rest and PEM might be just 10 or 20 extra heartbeats a minute—a narrow crevice into which long-haulers must squeeze their life. Doing so can be frustrating, because pacing isn’t a recovery tactic; it’s mostly a way of not getting worse, which makes its value harder to appreciate. Its physical benefits come at mental costs: Walks, workouts, socializing, and “all the things I’d do for mental health before were huge energy sinks,” Vogel told me. And without financial stability or social support, many long-haulers must work, parent, and care for themselves even knowing that they’ll suffer later. “It’s impossible not to overdo it, because life is life,” Vogel said.

“Our society is not set up for pacing,” Oller added. Long-haulers must resist the enormous cultural pressure to prove their worth by pushing as hard as they can. They must tolerate being chastised for trying to avert a crash, and being disbelieved if they fail. “One of the most insulting things people can say is ‘Fight your illness,’” Misko said. That would be much easier for her: “It takes so much self-control and strength to do less, to be less, to shrink your life down to one or two small things from which you try to extract joy in order to survive.” For her and many others, rest has become both a medical necessity and a radical act of defiance—one that, in itself, is exhausting.

Ed Yong is a former staff writer at The Atlantic. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

#words #articles #mecfs

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96percentdone · 3 years

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You're Wrong About Justice for All

So, recently I replayed the Ace Attorney trilogy, including the oft maligned Justice for All, and realized a few things. The first is that Justice for All slaps so fucking hard, and the second is that most people do not understand the overarching plot of Justice for All, and so they don't get why it's the best actually.

It's a common belief that Justice for All is the game where Miles Edgeworth faked his own death, and in grief from his loss, Franziska von Karma goes on a revenge quest against Phoenix Wright for soiling Edgeworth's perfect trial record and thus causing his demise, all while Wright himself mourns the loss of his friend. Which is a spicy narrative, I'll give you that, it's just not true.

My opening statement is as follows: While Justice for All does use language of death and grief in this storyline, the actual events are not about a man who literally faked his death, but about how two people who have placed impossible expectations on one man contend with when he fails them, and how when said man returned changed once more he forces them to confront this fact and become better people. Furthermore, I maintain that this storyline is fucking baller as hell and works better with the message and themes of JFA than the common belief.

Let's put Justice for All on trial, shall we? Under the cut!

Part One: "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death"

Now, since you're still here and haven't just clicked off under the assumption I'm a disconnected weirdo who doesn't know how to read, you're probably thinking "uh, what about Edgeworth's note? What about 'Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death?' Isn't that pretty good evidence for faking his death?" To which I say... yeah, I guess if you ignore the weirdly specific phrasing and also everything else that happens. Like. I'm sorry, this is a note that specifically mentions his job? He leaves the note in his office too (or at least the anime indicates as much), and doesn't that look more like a weirdly dramatic resignation letter?

But okay none of that probably sounds very convincing right now. After all, Miles had just gone through some of the most harrowing trials in his life. He was put on trial twice, had his entire worldview and belief about himself upended, and then just to hammer it in was confronted by a murderer who believes Edgeworth will one day be like him. It would be completely understandable for him to be in utter emotional turmoil. Indeed, Nick alludes to as much when he finally talks about what happens in Turnabout Big Top, more on that later. Furthermore, in Farewell My Turnabout, he uses the specific phrase "choosing death" when confronting Adrian Andrews on the witness stand about her history of mental illness as a euphemism for suicide, so it's not out of the question he was suicidal. I'm not going to argue he was or wasn't. Frankly, there’s a few hints to suggest he was, but it’s hard to wholly prove because you don't see him during the time he wrote it, or what he's thinking.

No, in fact, I'm going to argue that nobody else truly thought he killed himself, and thus render it irrelevant whether he was suicidal or not! Let's start with that exchange from Turnabout Big Top with Franziska I just mentioned. This is the first time it is ever explicitly discussed aloud what happened to Miles, taking it out of a vague mystery and bringing it into the spotlight. It goes like this (thank you AA wiki for mostly complete transcripts):

Phoenix: !! Then... Then what's this "revenge" thing you're talking about? von Karma: You wouldn't understand, Mr. Phoenix Wright. I have to see "him" again, one more time. Phoenix: "Him"? von Karma: I'm sure you know to whom I refer... Miles Edgeworth!! Maya: What!? Edgeworth!? Mr... EDGEWORTH!? Phoenix: M-M-Mi-Miles E-Ed-Edg-Edgeworth!! Miles Edgeworth... Why would you even bring him up!? von Karma: You haven't forgotten, have you? Do you know who it was that trained the gifted prosecutor, Miles Edgeworth? Maya: !! Manfred... von... Karma... von Karma: Exactly right. It was my papa. Maya: That means that Edgeworth was... von Karma: Right again. Miles was like a little brother to me. Maya: Huh? Little brother? Edgeworth and Nick are the same age... Phoenix: (Edgeworth... The man who inspired me to become an attorney. I fought against him in a few cases... But after "that" case was over... He "vanished"...) von Karma: It's your fault he is gone. Maya: HUH!? von Karma: It's the truth, isn't it Mr. Phoenix Wright? Phoenix: I... I... Maya: Nick! What does she mean!? Phoenix: After that case, Edgeworth was in a peculiar state, and he got worse everyday. He never set foot into court again... And then one day, he just vanished. All he left was a simple note at the prosecutor's office. von Karma: "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death." Phoenix: That was one year ago. It was right after you left to go back home. Maya: Mr. Edgeworth... He's dead? von Karma: I don't believe it. He's still alive. I'm sure of it... Somewhere in this world, he's still alive. "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death?" Of course he did! You ruined his reputation as a Prosecutor! You effectively killed the Prosecutor in him. Just like your victory muddied the honorable name Von Karma! I'm going to find him... Then I'm going to teach him the difference between right and wrong with my own hands! Maya: N-N-Nick! Umm... About Edgeworth? Phoenix: Maya, I already told you this once. Don't make me do it again. Don't bring up his name in front of me again, OK? Maya: N-Nick...? Phoenix: Von Karma? von Karma: What? Phoenix: I don't know if you are god's gift to prosecutors or not, but I've had about enough of you!! Him too! Maya: Wha... What happened? von Karma: Hmph. This dog is all bark and no bite. He's already been defeated... Regardless, I have nothing to inform you two of today. Tomorrow will be the greatest courtroom battle this country has ever seen!! Maya: Nick? Phoenix: Let's go. We need to talk with the performer on the third floor. Maya: I'm sorry I brought it up, Nick...

Boy that was a long chunk huh? Lot to unpack here, some of which I'll return to more than once, but still it's quite lengthy. Let's start with the obvious: Franziska says point blank she doesn't think Miles died. She believes he is still alive, and that he just left because of his reputation as a perfect prosecutor being completely shattered. Her desire for revenge is, in part, born to crush the man who made him quit, in her view. So okay that's one party easily taken out of the way. I mean ya girl literally says it straight up, but Fran isn't going to be the sticking point. The sticking point is Nick.

To talk about Nick, I also have to talk about Maya, because Maya in this scene, is a stand in for the players. She reacts like we would to this bombshell, in shock that Edgeworth has apparently committed suicide. Up until this point, Nick has been really cagey and unwilling to tell her about Miles, and consistently tells her not to talk about him anymore whenever she tries, and here she's finally told what happened. We as players are inclined to take her perspective since we are as in the dark as she is. So naturally, Maya reads Nick's bitterness and reticence as his grief, and apologizes for treading on his feelings when he's clearly going through loss. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis, because Nick hasn't been forthcoming.

And he still isn't being forthcoming either. You'll notice that in this exchange he never actually confirms that Miles died. He uses words like vanished, and when asked 'He's dead?' doesn't even say a word before Franziska monologues her opinion. His response to that speech isn't to tell her she's wrong; it's to tell Maya not to bring him up again. He is still steadfastly avoiding the subject, unwilling to confront the truth of it.

But is that truth that he believes Miles Edgeworth died? As far as evidence goes, this is pretty circumstantial. With the perspective of an unknowing audience member, it is easy to read that as the truth, but it lacks backing. We need more information. One exchange is not enough to make a case, let's skip ahead to Farewell my Turnabout!

Part Two: "I...I never wanted to see you again!"

These are the words Phoenix Wright utters when Miles Edgeworth shows up in criminal affairs, just to call Fran and Nick lost lambs who need his guidance. Now let's put this quote in context, so that I do not distort the facts. We'll start from after Franziska leaves, after all, I really don't need to prove her thoughts more, right?

Phoenix: I thought you, the Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, had gone and died! Pearl: Mr. Nick! Phoenix: I...I never wanted to see you again! Edgeworth: I think that's enough of a "warm welcome" for someone you haven't seen in a year. Phoenix: Are you going to run tomorrow's trial...? Edgeworth: ...You heard her, right? That wild mare hasn't given in yet, it seems. So, no, I don't think I'll be making an appearance. Pearl: ... Edgeworth: Your hatred for me is quite unhealthy. Not to mention one-sided. But I will say one thing... Phoenix: ... Edgeworth: You can't win on your own at the trial tomorrow. Phoenix: (What is that supposed to mean...?) Edgeworth: I have something definitive that you lack. And working together is the definition of teamwork. It's the power to find the truth. Phoenix: "The truth"...? Edgeworth: In order to understand this case, you have to understand a certain "truth". ...Well if you ever feel the need for my assistance, it is available to you. I'm not in charge of this case, so I can be a bit more generous with information. Phoenix: (Just what is going on inside his head...?) Edgeworth: A lot of things have happened, however Manfred von Karma was still my mentor. And a "perfect win record" is proof of a von Karma. Phoenix: ...One year ago, you could not establish guilt in a few cases...Are those losses the reason you suddenly disappeared from the Prosecutor's Office? Did you leave because you had lost your "perfect win record"...? Edgeworth: ... Phoenix: To think your motivation for prosecuting trials was so selfish...It'd have been better for everyone if you never came back from the dead, Edgeworth! Edgeworth: ... I see. Then let me ask you something. Why do YOU stand in the courtroom? What is your reason? Phoenix: Well, with Franziska, she almost always says, "I will defeat you this time!" the instant she sees me. But...The courtroom is not a personal battlefield for Prosecutor's and lawyers. I stand in the courtroom to defend my client. ...To save their lives. Edgeworth: To save your client, you say? Phoenix: Those who think only of their ego driven goals...Those kind of prosecutors are reprehensible to me. Even if you're a "prodigy"...Or someone like you, Edgeworth... Edgeworth: ...It looks like there is still a lot you have yet to learn.

Another long boi. I'd apologise but some of this also comes back later and I won't have to give you context ever again when it does! You'll thank me for that!

Let's get into it, shall we? Right off the bat Phoenix says point blank he thought the prosecutor Miles Edgeworth had gone and died. He even says "returned from the dead" later So I guess I lose, right? Well, hold off on that for now. There's that weird sticking point with the his title again like there was with the note, but I'm sure some of you are already thinking "he's just throwing his words back at him!" And maybe that's true, I just don't think it's that simple.

"I never wanted to see you again" are not the words of a man who believed up until now that the person he was talking to died. I mean, think about it: if you think someone died, are you going to be thinking about how you don't want to see them anymore? Even if you hate them, even if they're your least favorite person in the whole world, is that what will cross your mind? Sure, you might be relieved, maybe even happy, but you're not going to be thinking in terms of whether you want to see them again or not, because you never will. They're dead. You can't even say he's speaking for how he feels for right now exclusively, because he says never, indicating this was a long term thought he had well before Miles showed his pretty face again. In my view, he’s slipping up here.

But enough semantics, let's talk information. Here we get a lot more insight into what Phoenix Wright thinks about Miles' disappearance, something he refused to speak about in depth before. He states that he believes Miles left because he could not cope with his failure, so he ran, much like Franziska did, but it has a different edge. While Franziska's words are the ones of someone set to avenge his reputation, who clearly placed great stock in it, Phoenix views it with contempt. He sees it as cowardly, and even as a betrayal for what he should be in the courtroom based on his own statement about how a courtroom isn’t for egos. This very clearly explains why he’s been so unwilling to talk about it up until now, because it’s something that makes him angry, something Miles even recognizes as hate before Phoenix explains himself further. It’s valuable perspective, one we’ll have to get into more later, but it’s not quite enough.

Yet again I have to ask a question: does this prove one way or the other that Phoenix Wright believed Miles Edgeworth died? It’s still not looking great for me, to be honest. I feel like Phoenix Wright, scrambling to maintain my argument in the face of mounting suspicion. But like Phoenix, I’ve got my hands on one piece of decisive evidence, one that will turn everything thus far on its head, and prove that I was right!

Part Three: “At least, that’s what I told myself.”

I’ll cut straight to it. No preamble, no excessive length. These are words Nick says after Miles finishes explaining his reason for his journey of self-discovery, what he learned about his role as a prosecutor, and Nick’s importance in helping him understand that role: to find the truth.

Pearl: The "truth"... Edgeworth: Yes. That's the reason why prosecutors and defense lawyers exist. But I'm sure you knew that already, didn't you Wright? Phoenix: ... Edgeworth: That's why you couldn't forgive me; this man who went into hiding. Isn't that right? This man who only had his sights set on "victory", who ran away into the night... Pearl: Ah! Is... Is Mr. Edgeworth right, Mr. Nick...!? Phoenix: (You really let me down...) When you disappeared, I felt... betrayed. The reason I decided to become a lawyer to begin with... Was because I believed in the things you said to me, all those years ago... And you... You betrayed your own words. That's why... one year ago, I made up my mind. I decided that the Miles Edgeworth I knew had died... ...At least, that's what I told myself.

There you have it folks! Here it is! Phoenix Wright has admitted the truth! He decided that Miles Edgeworth had died! The death of Miles Edgeworth has been a false narrative that Phoenix had been telling himself this past year to cope with his feelings of personal betrayal that Miles Edgeworth left. He knew, or at least realized, that Miles was alive somewhere, and actively chose to believe the contrary because he could not accept that Miles had left and betrayed what Phoenix believed him to be.

And this explains so many of the odd points we’ve seen this whole time. For example: why didn’t Maya know anything until Turnabout Big Top? Surely if you believed your friend who you based your whole career on kicked it you would tell the people close to you, right? You wouldn’t choose to actively keep that a secret, right? Why wouldn’t he tell her? Because it wasn’t true. Yet it still obviously bothered him, so much he refused to talk about it, and got testy at even the slightest mention. He refused to frame it as beyond a vanishing, except when it would hurt Miles more (as demonstrated by him throwing his words back at him), but he still was distraught enough to mourn a death that he knew was not real. Phoenix Wright was still hurt by this, he still grieved, but it wasn’t at a real death: it was at the death of his own dream.

But what does this mean for Justice for All? How does the fact that neither Phoenix nor Franziska believe Miles is dead affect the story being told, or the themes? If he is still grieving, and Franziska is still avenging, is it not the same with only a caveat of distinction? Well…no. I would argue that this distinction plays into our themes.

Part Four: "The courtroom is not a personal battlefield for prosecutors and lawyers.”

Or so Phoenix Wright says when he’s dressing down Miles for leaving. Now obviously, this line brings to mind Franziska, a fact that’s extremely obvious when you remember he was talking about her just as he said this, so let’s talk about Franziska von Karma, the rival prosecutor of the game, who plays a pivotal role in the narrative.

As Franziska said back in part one, she did not believe Miles died, and believed that he vanished on her because his record was ruined. She believes this is a source of great shame for him, and she cannot fathom a reason beyond that for his disappearance, and this shame irritates her. Though she would never say so upfront, it’s apparent she cares greatly for her ‘little brother’ if she feels the need to avenge him. However, Franziska hasn’t given us enough information about her motivations in this scene, and to really understand them the final scene of Justice for All must be examined.

Edgeworth: ... What are you going to do now? von Karma: ... That's none of your business. Edgeworth: Are you running away? von Karma: Shut up! You don't understand a thing! You can't possibly understand what it means to be "Manfred von Karma's daughter"! Edgeworth: Franziska... von Karma: So many expectations from everyone around me... Expectations I must fulfill! I'm expected to win no matter what. And failure? Such a thing is not an option for me! My father was a genius. There's no doubt about that! But... But me... I'm no genius. I've always known that. Edgeworth: ... von Karma: But I... I had to be one. I had to. Edgeworth: ... You may not be a genius like your father... But... You are a prosecutor. You have been and always will be. von Karma:...! No, I'm not... Not anymore. I've even thrown my whip away. Edgeworth: Speaking of that... Wright gave me this to hold onto. (Wright... You knew something like this would happen, didn't you...?) von Karma: ... Edgeworth: I'm going to say this again. We prosecutors do not fight for personal honor or pride. I hope you will think deeply... About what you should be striking down with that whip. von Karma: ... You haven't changed a bit... You've always... You've always left me alone and walked on ahead without me. Miles Edgeworth... I've always hated you. Edgeworth: ... von Karma: And then... Finally, my chance to take my revenge on you arrived. If I could win against that man... If I could make Phoenix Wright bow down in defeat... Then this "girl" you left behind would have risen higher than you! That was supposed to be my "revenge"... Edgeworth: I see... von Karma: ... You know, I can't do it... I can't change who I am. I can't throw away everything I've been until today. Edgeworth: I believe you can. Just like how Adrian Andrews did. von Karma: Adrian Andrews...? Edgeworth: You were going to use her during the trial, right? But you... You were "dependant" on your father by using his tactics. Isn't that right? von Karma: Hmph! Edgeworth: Today, you chased after me, after I had left you behind all these years. And that's why we're standing here now, side by side. von Karma: ...! Edgeworth: But I have no intention of stopping. If you say you are going to quit your walk down the prosecutor's path... ... Then, this is where we part ways, Franziska von Karma. von Karma: ... I... I... I am Franziska von Karma. Don't think I'm going to walk in your shadow forever... Our battle... begins now... so you had better prepare yourself, Miles Edgeworth!

There are three key points to this scene, in regards to Franziska’s motivations. The first is as the daughter of Manfred von Karma, she feels as though she must succeed him perfectly whether it is within her capacity or not. The legacy of her family is a burden she is compelled to live up to. Manfred von Karma, shitty scumbag that he was, still has 40 years of perfect trials under his belt, and this is something she would be expected to emulate, baggage of what that entails and all. It is a fair bit of pressure, especially when you remember she became a prosecutor as a middle schooler, and is still only a teenager.

The second, which is informed by the first, is that she believes she has always been inferior to Miles, and thus in order to earn her legacy, she must surpass him. This makes sense if you remember that Manfred von Karma spent 15 years meticulously grooming Miles to be just like him just so he could spite the ghost of Gregory Edgeworth, and act that to a young child can feel like your father believes his adopted son is more capable than you are. As she said, she will not walk in his shadow forever. She will be considered his equal, and worthy.

And the third, which is informed by the second, is that she doesn’t want to be left behind by Miles again. This is both in terms of being in his shadow, like mentioned previously, but also quite literally, when he completely vanished, or even when he left to prosecute in America while she was still in Germany. As she said back in Turnabout Big Top, “I have to see ‘him’ again, one more time.” She wants to understand why he keeps leaving her behind, and thinks she will only ever get that chance if she proves herself to be above him.

And this is something she cannot do. In her own trials, with her own methods, she does not beat Phoenix Wright, and it feels obvious why she can’t, right? Because she’s behaving too much like Miles did, before Phoenix Wright taught him otherwise. She cares too much about a legacy built on perfection, with all the harm it might entail, even if she has other more sympathetic motives for her actions in this game. She’s still dependent on her father’s name, and his ideas. She can’t win if she’s still clinging onto an old, broken story, but it’s one she’s reluctant to let go. As she says, she doesn’t think she can turn from being the person she has been up until now.

It’s a narrative; one she projects onto Miles in an attempt to maintain it, even as it’s falling apart. Miles Edgeworth is not a person so much as an idea she must trounce to assert her own identity and personhood. Before the events of the first game, he represented her own failure, and the pressure to exist as a von Karma. And after it’s events, when Miles leaves to become a different man, Franziska sees this as an opportunity to finally surpass that image of him. She can’t see that maybe he’s outgrown the legacy she clings to, and doesn’t want to, because to confront that would mean having to face truths about herself. No, she must surpass him perfectly, regardless of whether the man himself even cares for perfection anymore, which he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about perfect trials and win records, only the truth, and he challenges her to follow him. Not the ideas about herself she decided he stands for, but the man he is right now, the real Miles Edgeworth.

Do you see how this relates to the thesis? Is it starting to come together? Good. Now let’s talk about Phoenix Wright.

Part Five: "We aren't some sort of heroes.”

I want to open with a short exchange I missed during Farewell my Turnabout, where I got the title quote. It’s important, trust me.

Phoenix: I became a lawyer because I thought... I thought I could save people who were suffering and in pain... Pearl: ... Phoenix: But... When I look at this mess we're in... I can't even protect the person closest to me. Even if I win the case, I still lose in the end... I just don't know what to do! Edgeworth: ... Wright. Would you get a hold of yourself? You have it all wrong. Phoenix: Huh? Edgeworth: We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human, you and I. You want to "save someone"? That's something easier said than done, wouldn't you say? Pearl: Th-That's... Edgeworth: You are a defense lawyer. You can't run away from that. You can only fight. That's all you can do.

I chose this quote from Miles because it highlights the obvious flaw in Nick’s motivations: he’s not a savior, he’s just a man. Phoenix Wright, as noble as it may be, until this point has labored under the conception that it is his job, his moral imperative, to save people, whether that is something he can even manage or not. Like Franziska clinging to perfection, this is an untenable mindset. You cannot save people, certainly not everyone who comes your way needing help. You can try, but it’s not guaranteed, and it’s not your duty to do so.

Farewell my Turnabout is a trial of Nick’s existing motivations, because his client is not someone who should be saved, yet he must succeed in doing so, or else Maya will die, yet of course if he does so, he will be dooming Adrian Andrews to a conviction for a crime she did not commit. By forcing him in this position, his belief about what his role as a defense attorney has been challenged: he cannot save them both. Who is more worthy of saving? How do you decide that? And even if you decide, is your decision the right one? Is that something you have the right to decide?

It’s significant that the only way to get the good, true ending is by prioritizing the truth instead of his savior complex. Yes, by showing de Killer the truth, he is able to save them both, he does not have to give up anything, yet he’s only permitted this if he sticks with what’s true. His failure in pursuing the truth leads to the worst ending, where Engarde gets off, Andrews is convicted, and he never sees Maya again even if she’s alive. He loses everything. The reason why it doesn’t matter whether you say guilty or not guilty, even when saving only one was a serious factor, because who you choose to save matters less in the grand scheme of things than making the truth known. It’s neat.

Okay, but how does this relate to Miles? How does Nick’s savior complex, and learning to prioritize the truth relate to Miles? Well, I have only one thing to say: who is the person Phoenix Wright wanted to save by becoming a lawyer? See, Nick might say he wanted to save ‘people’, and I’m sure that’s true. That class trial in his youth had such a profound impact on him he would never want anyone to feel as lost and alone as he did. But the reason he became a defense attorney is Miles Edgeworth. Because in their youth, Miles saved him from the crushing despair of the class trial by wielding the idea of a defense attorney. Because when they grew up, Phoenix learned that Miles did not become a defense attorney, but a prosecutor, dead set on getting guilty verdicts without caring about who might pay for it. Because when he learned this is what Miles Edgeworth became, he had to meet him and find out why.

What is the plot of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney? Well, it’s about several things, but in this case, I’m referring to the wish to save Edgeworth. They meet again after 15 long years, and though Miles sucks ass especially in Turnabout Sisters, Phoenix manages to pull out signs the old Miles still exists in Turnabout Samurai. Then of course, in Turnabout Goodbyes Nick saves Miles not just from a guilty verdict for the murder of Robert Hammond, but from the belief he murdered his father, clearing up the trauma that plagued and motivated him into becoming what he became after all this time. And if we include Rise from the Ashes, Miles steps up to the plate to find the truth for the first time, if only because it feels personal. In fact, you can say he well surpassed his stated goal of just understanding why Miles became what he did. Phoenix Wright saved Miles Edgeworth; he did the thing he believes he is supposed to do.

Except…he didn’t, because Miles left. Because it turns out people are not so easily saved, and even if you clear up their trauma they still have the aftermath to figure out on their own. They still have to make peace with the life they lead up until that point. Miles left, and as has been well established, Phoenix took that as a personal betrayal. The ideals that Miles taught him as a child were not something Miles could live up to. Nick believed Miles left because he really did become someone wholly invested in perfection and never did see the error of his ways. The boy of his youth doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for many years, and Miles leaving forced him to see that, but it wasn’t something he wanted to accept. If he did not fix Miles, which he took Miles disappearing as proof as that, then Miles might as well be dead.

The idea that Miles killed himself is a falsehood Nick engages in for a year because he is not ready to face the idea that maybe his preconceptions about who Miles Edgeworth is supposed to be right now are wrong. Miles isn’t a man who has to work through some shit, he’s a symbol of the ideals that Nick has striven to embody his entire life, and he left and threw that away despite all of Nick’s efforts. This is not something Phoenix was willing to accept.

He’s so unwilling to accept it that he’s very mad when confronted by anything that might remotely suggest he’s wrong. Franziska is a reminder that Miles left, and of the person Phoenix believed him to be for vanishing, and she stubbornly exists he still exists somewhere, and he is still like her, and that is all far too much for him. It’s too much that Maya innocently wants to know where he is, or what he’s up to, because if he has to think about it he’ll just sit in his anger again about how he feels betrayed that Miles could not live up to the ideal Nick imposed on him. Heck even when faced with the man in question he starts arguing with him about what Miles was trying to accomplish by leaving, and isn’t willing to accept the answer he gets at first. The person in front of him is not someone Phoenix Wright is willing to engage with on his own terms. Nick must be a savior, and if he didn’t save Miles, then that means Miles was beyond saving: Miles was dead all along. He’d rather kill him off than face he’s changed, that those ideals are not infallible.

And Miles Edgeworth did change, and change yet again. Yes, he turned into the demon prosecutor, after the events of AA1, while he was gone, he worked on becoming the man who stands for the truth above all else, one who doesn’t abide by any falsehoods. Whether it’s the lies in someone’s testimony, or the beliefs people project onto him, he cuts them down. He’s not a savior, he says so himself, and some of his actions in pursuit of the truth can be pretty cruel, like how he was going to expose Adrian. This isn’t the person either Nick or Franziska wanted him to be, but he is the one they needed him to be to realize their own faults. He was the one who enabled Nick to fight impossible odds, and encouraged Franziska to find another path. He advocates for the truth, and by asserting himself and what he believes, he puts Nick and Franziska on the right path to understanding the real message of the game.

Edgeworth: I had fun tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me... Phoenix: Wait. Edgeworth: What? Phoenix: ... I just want to say... Thanks, Edgeworth. You really saved me out there. Edgeworth: ...Hmph. If anyone should be saying thanks, it should be me, Wright.

Conclusion: “But we will always eventually reach that one single truth.”

Learning and accepting the truth is the moral of the story, one that permeates all three major characters of the game. Isn’t it cool? That both Nick and Franziska decide to accept Miles Edgeworth on his own terms, and become stronger people as a result? Isn’t it fucking cool how the theme even connects to the main characters’ personal denials and inability to accept how things might change, and how they weren’t willing to confront the truth about it until they were made to? Is it not sick as hell that Nick shows Miles the truth about what his life is and what he’s been doing, thus inspiring Miles to become better, and then Miles comes back and returns the favor to let Nick see that his savior complex is detrimental to his actual work and to his own wellbeing? Does that not fucking slap? Doesn’t Justice for All deserve just extreme respect for this cool ass subtle storytelling?

The single truth of this essay is that Justice for All is really fucking good dude holy shit. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If you still somehow don’t agree with me…I’m sorry you cannot recognize the greatness that is Justice For All get well soon. Thanks for reading.

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #narumitsu #franziska von karma #my meta #this is long overdue #i have so many strong opinions about justice for all and now they're OUT THERE #PRAISE #if you read this you rule even if you still disagree with me and are wrong #thank you #I love Justice for All #honestly if i get any validation for this i will be surprised and awed #hope.txt

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sweet-sammy-kisses · 3 years

Text

Once in a Blue Moon

Written for @tropetember day one: Friends to Lovers Fandom: 911 Pairing: Eddie x Buck Rating: Teen Warnings: Alive Shannon, background Shannon/Taylor Word Count: 1,471 Summary: Love like the one between Eddie and Buck was rare and only came around once in a blue moon. You can also read it on AO3

It was inevitable that the two of them would end up like this. From the moment Evan "Buck" Buckley had laid eyes on Eddie Diaz he knew he was in trouble. The man was handsome and just Buck's type and Buck 1.0 would have been flirting with him in an instance but he was still in love with Abby, she had played a role in changing him into the man he was now, who wanted something more than a fling and one night stand and it scared him that this new man at the 118 could cause such a reaction in him so he fell back on his asshole behaviour and tried to keep Eddie at a distance but that didn't work because Eddie was determined in making friends with him.

Eddie is like a thunderstorm that comes out of nowhere bringing him gusting winds, flashes of lightning that lit up the sky and cool rain that is welcome on a warm day. He also brings with him the son in the form of his son Christopher.

The moment Buck met Christopher he fell in love with the little boy that was pure sunshine and he met dad Eddie and if he wasn't gone on Eddie already watching him be the best dad for his son he whatever fight that was left in him was gone. He was crushing on his best friend and he didn't know what to do about that.

Eddie and Christopher became what Buck had been looking for a family and Buck was so afraid that he might lose him that they would leave him behind. So as his love grew for Eddie his fear of losing them had him staying quiet, he was just happy to be a part of their lives.

+******+

"You are an idiot."

A sigh escaped Eddie at his ex-wife's helpful comment. "Yes, you have told me this several times." He reminded her as he turned to face her.

A sigh escaped Shannon as she crossed her arms over her chest, "Eddie, Buck is in love with you just as you are in love with him, don't you think it is about time that you two did something about it. Hell Christopher is days away from starting to plan your wedding and Athena has agreed to help him."

Eddie could only stare at her in shock, "Athena?" Athena Grant is without a doubt one of the scariest women he has ever met and he knew that she wasn't playing around.

"Yes, Athena who is Buck's mom has decided that she is tired of watching you two pine and mope around one another. Not to mention the rest of us. Christopher wants Buck to be his papa, his second father. He knows that you love his Bucky and that Buck loves you and he can't understand why the two of you are taking forever in getting together. We both know that it is you who is going to have to take the first step because Buck is afraid of losing you and Christopher and he won't tell you how he feels he will put on a smile and pretend that he is happy with the way things are, just like he did when you tried to date Ana."

Eddie winced at the reminder of his ill-fated and thankfully short romance with Chris' former teacher. She was pretty and smart but she saw Christopher's limits and didn't want him to find his own way to do things and she had a deep dislike of Buck, which Eddie couldn't understand Buck is a puppy in human form and he had been nothing but welcoming to Ana, even when Ana started crashing their movie nights and inviting herself on their outings with Christopher.

It had been Christopher who spoke up and said enough was enough, he wanted time with his Buck and his dad not his Buck, his dad and Ana. When Ana had suggested that Buck needed to take a step back and let Christopher get used to her being in Buck's place Eddie had been horrified he couldn't do that, he couldn't picture his life without Buck and he knew that their relationship was going nowhere, that Ana didn't fit with them.

Eddie couldn't deny that he felt happier with Ana gone and he could see that Christopher was and even though he wouldn't say it out loud so was Buck.

"Eddie, you deserve to be happy and so does Buck. Think about it." Shannon told her ex. She had found her second chance of happiness with Taylor Kelly of all people now it was time for Eddie to find his happiness. Love like the one between Eddie and Buck was rare and only came around once in a blue moon she hated for them to miss out on it.

+*****+

The thing is Eddie couldn't remember what it was like not to love Buck. The younger man came into his life when he was struggling to stay afloat being in a new city, starting a new job and being a single father to the world's greatest kid he was drowning and then along came this ray of sunshine who offered him a life raft, who had supported him since, who told him what an amazing dad he was every time he began to doubt himself, who introduced him to Carla and who loves his son as much as Eddie does.

Buck was everything to Eddie and Christopher. The three of them had made themselves into a family and even his parents approved of Buck, they love and adore him and his dad kept dropping hints of when Buck would become a part of their family.

Eddie will also admit that he is a possessive and jealous man when it comes to Buck. He felt that jealous the first time Buck talked about Abby, he could see how loyal he was to her even though she had left him behind and when she came back with a fiancé after ghosting Buck for so long and used Buck's former feelings for her as a way to guilt him into making him promise to save Sam Eddie had been jealous that Abby still had such a hold on Buck and angry on Buck's behalf because once again Buck had been left behind by someone he loved.

Then there was Ali and she had been sweet and even though it burned him up to see Buck moving on with someone other than him he kept quiet as he was dealing with Shannon being back and them divorcing and figuring out how to be co-parents to their amazing son and making sure that Christopher knew that while they were no longer married they will always love him.

Then the bombing and Buck's leg being crushed and Eddie could see nothing else but Buck in pain and him unable to help him. Eddie remembers holding Buck's hand as the truck was lifted off of him, he remembers wanting to take the pain away from Buck.

He remembers Buck calling him and telling him that Ali had broken up with him because she couldn't handle it. Eddie had hated her for hurting her friend, in some ways Ana reminded him of Ali they both wanted the hot fireman boyfriend, the hero they could brag about but had no understanding about the danger they went into every day.

"Eds? What has gotten you thinking so hard?" Buck was looking at him, they were on truck cleaning duty and the sun was hitting Buck just right that made him glow and Eddie felt his heart skip a beat, Buck was like his own personal sunshine.

"I'm in love with you." Eddie couldn't control the words that escaped him.

Buck blinked at him as if he was taking in the words before a shy smile appeared on his face, "I'm in love with you too."

"Great now kiss." Hen shouted from above where she, Bobby and Chimney were watching and listening with interest.

"Come on Eddie we know you want to," Chimney added, a grin on his face.

"I will allow it this one time," Bobby added.

"Well, how can we say no to that?" Having Bobby's permission Eddie moved and pulled Buck into his arms, the other man melted into him as if he was made to fit in Eddie's arms. The kiss was soft and sweet but full of emotions.

"Later when we are alone I will give you kisses that will make your toes curl," Eddie whispered in Buck's ears as their teammates cheered above them.

Buck's smile was soft and sweet, "Does that mean I should tell Athena and Maddie to hold off planning our wedding?"

A teasing grin appeared on Eddie's face, "At least for a few more months."

#buddie #buck x eddie #tropetember #sherri writes #my fics #otp: you can have my back anytime

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mirismuffins-ovo · 3 years

Text

Plant Palace Pt1.

Original Character story. [Warning ⚠️ Mpreg]

Purple-Eddie

Black-John

John had woken up feeling sick again,it’d been like this for a while. He’d been waking up sick each morning but it's not been as bad as before. He packed his bag for the day after getting dressed in his sweater vest and button up and grabbed his phone heading out his small townhome on his bike. His stomach had been feeling tight the past few days but he figured he was overwatered or bloated from being sick. John made his way through the town and pulled up to the garden parking his bike in the back;he’d come in a bit late so some of the employees were there already. He hoped Eddie was here early,it's been a few days. Grabbing his apron on the hook and gingerly tying it around his waist not noticing the small bump of his tummy barely showing through his clothes. He’d gone to storage to pick up a box of flower bulbs and take it to the front of the store.

Eddie thought he was going to be late. He had slept in a little too long, but it was worth it coming up with new music. The singer was on an inspiration kick and it was all thanks to his part time job. For money on the side he worked at the town’s local garden shop, Plant Palace, working with flowers and people alike. It had taken a while to get used to working in the shop, learning about all kinds of things and it was all thanks to his mentor/boss, John.

At first, Eddie never thought of himself as a flower guy, but once he stopped by the shop to get his mother something for mother’s day, he kept going back. The air was always sweet and he was fascinated by the botanist’s work. His hands were so quick and gentle at the same time. Eddie had chosen that he wanted to work here. Sure enough the shop was hiring so he took it, submitting a resume.

It had been 4 months since then and things had gotten a little crazy for Eddie. Not only had the workplace been a dream, but the botanist, John, had been amazing. The two quickly hit it off and it was like he was floating on cloud 9. Every shift he looked forward to working with the red-haired man and his adoration of flowers.

Double checking to make sure he was looking good and attractive before seeing his boss turning lover, he opened the door, ringing the little bell. Sure enough he saw the younger male already starting on today’s orders. Eddie headed to the back to grab his apron and clocked in, getting the day ready by setting up the displays.

“Good morning John!.” He happily greeted.

John had jumped slightly as he’d been engrossed in ordering the small flowers bulbs in the boxes to send out for delivery for some local parks,he’d quickly turned around. “Oh! hey” He gave a warm smile and took a few steps closer to Eddie. “mind giving me a hand with taking these to the front?” he took a deep breath and huffed as he lifted another box up that was slightly heavier. “Greenland Park made a big order this time.” he gave a light chuckle as he carried the box passed Eddie.

He’d begun to feel slightly off as he headed to the front of the shop. His mouth felt dry and a sudden case of dizziness hitting him. John shook it off as he set the box on the counter,kneeling down to grab a water bottle out of the mini fridge hiding beneath it.He cracked it open and easily downed half of it as he opened the shop by officially turning the sign.

“I don’t mind.” Eddie smiled, taking a box and helping him set up. “I’m glad to be back though. Missed being in this place. It always makes my head clear. Like the air is just so fresh! The plants are a wonderful thing for us to have. They support us and in return we care for them.” Eddie chuckled. “They’re kinda like babies if you think about it. They make us smile and bring out joy in life and we care for them like a parent.”

He looked over, noticing John guzzling down water like he was almost desperate for it.

“Woah there, if you drink too much you could drown.” He warned. “I saw it on a tv show once.”

Eddie walked over to his boss to make sure he was alright.

John felt anxious at his words for a moment and realized what he was talking about,he gave a nervous laugh and nodded.

“I suppose you're right about plants,I suppose they rlly are like babies.” He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled as he kneeled down to fix a bouquet that was in a bucket by the windows.John didn’t notice the small leafy buds that had began to sprout in his hair

He took a deep breath as he stood up and stretched his tender feeling tummy and gave it a pat as he turned around and gave an adoring look at Eddie. “sooo...I was thinking maybe we could go out later tonight or whenever you're free?” He blushed embarrassed and moved his focus to the floor.

Eddie was glad John was alright and continued to help set up. John started to get to work on the potted plants while Eddie trimmed the hanging ones. He was asked for the opportunity to hang out.

“Sounds great! I’ll just have to let the band know it's a relaxing night. Helps get a break from the writing room too.” Eddie smiled.

He looked over at John, watching him work, admiring the man who knew his job well. He smiled a little, feeling a blush on his cheeks. He paused though. Silly John, the man worked hard that he forgets that the higher up flowers shed petals. They were falling into his hair.

“John, watch out for the upper pots, they’re starting to wilt petals. You got some in your hair.” He laughed, pointing to his own dark blue locks.

John felt confused at the observation and he gently touched his hair running his fingers through. He felt the small breaks of the buds getting mangled and combed out with his fingers. He felt like his heart was in his stomach,he was budding pretty early,he laughed it off and just dropped the petals onto the ground.

“Looks like I gotta be more careful” He glanced at the floor as he drank the rest of the bottle of water and he picked up a vase.

John shivered as a tingle ran through him,still oblivious to the seemingly swelling tummy pressed against his apron. He held the empty bottle while he rubbed his head. A stroke of dizziness hit him once more.

Eddie noticed something was off with his boss as he picked up the vase. The man began to sway, shaking his head as if to shake off something. Eddie watched as John tried to regain his balance, dropping the pot before getting ready to drop to his knees. The pot shattered and Eddie rushed forward to catch the botanist before his head hit the floor.

“Woah there, uh. I think you could be a bit dehydrated. Let’s ease you down.”

The singer helped the man sit on the floor not minding the dirt. He grabbed another water bottle and handed it over. “Take small sips. Too much at once could give you a stomach ache.”

He moved around his boss, grabbing a broom and a new pot, trying to save the flowers before cleaning up the rest. Thankfully it was still early morning and there were no customers yet so they could deal with this calmly. He observed John sip the bottle carefully, his eyes focused in thought.

John felt weak as he sat on the floor,he took small sips from the bottle. There was something wrong with him,maybe it was the illness he’d been experiencing for a while that was picking up again. He took deep breaths and was embarrassed by his sudden accident,sipping the water slowly. Maybe he needed glucose and his blood sugar was low. “I’m sorry about that..”

He groaned softly as he pushed himself up. “poor flowers” He frowned slightly,and steadied himself for balance on the counter. “My blood sugars are low..I’ll be back Eds..” He gave an anxious laugh as he made his way into the greenhouse,and made his way to one of the apple trees. He raised his hand to one of the blooms, an apple quickly growing and he pulled it off the branch.

John weakly sat down in a sun touched spot of the greenhouse,biting down into the sweet apple unable to keep the small buds in his hair from blooming. He tried his best to gently tug them out of his hair,leaving them in bunches on the ground. Feeling a tingling sensation as he absorbed the light,the soft pudge of his stomach squished down by his tied apron. He closed his eyes tiredly munching on his apple.

It had been a good thirty minutes and John still hadn’t returned from going to the greenhouse. A few early customers came in to pick up their orders that were prepared the night before but other than that, the store was pretty calm. Eddie took the chance to check up on his boss before another rush came through.

Heading to the greenhouse, he carefully opened the door, to not startle the shyer man. He looked through the rows until spotting a patch of sunlight near the back with the young fruit trees and saplings. John was resting, actually he was sleeping a little. The sun made the man glow and his hair was decorated in beautiful flowers that were almost taking the shape of a flower crown. Eddie was captured by the sheer beauty that the younger man was radiating. The Singer looked around to make sure that no one else was around. He wanted this sight all to himself.

The way John’s skin absorbed the light and created the most wonderful natural shading. He took out his phone, lining it up just right. It looked like the man was glowing like a god and was at peace. Pressing the button, Eddie heard the shutter on the camera, the noise loud enough to wake the sleeping botanist. Eddie’s face lit up red, feeling horrible now to be caught. But the shot was worth it.

John opened his eyes from his peaceful state of photosynthesis at the sound of the shutter. Quickly snapping his attention to the sound and he felt his heart drop. Eddie was standing there phone in hand looking over at John,he stared back going through a swirl of emotions as he realized the sound was a camera shutter.

He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. John had quickly stood up the buds in his hair shutting,he felt sick pausing before he brushed his way past Eddie. On the brink of tears he shut himself in the storage room where all the young sprouts were. He felt like he couldn’t breathe as he hyperventilated, tearing the buds and blooms out of his hair and off his skin. He whimpered suddenly when he felt a sharp pain in his stomach;cradling his stomach and kneeling down sitting himself up against one of the shelves. Just his touch starting to make the small sprouts grow.He could hear Eddie on the other side of the door.

“Ah!” Eddie exclaimed as he watched John go into the storage room.

He walked up to the door to follow only to have the door slammed in his face.

“John, I’m sorry!” He called. “I know I should’ve asked for permission, I can delete it right now…” He sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, but what I saw… it wasn’t anything I’ve seen before. You were… you were glowing and the sunlight… I’m serious. I can delete it. Just open the door and I’ll show you.”

But John never replied. Eddie knew he crossed a line, but the photo was so freaking beautiful. He almost wanted it for an album cover. He sighed, deleting the photo anyway and heard the bell to the entrance ring. He cursed under his breath and went to go handle the customer. He figured he’d talk with John later.

John calmed down and took a few deep breaths,he thought about what Eddie had said. He shouldn’t have reacted the way he did,he stood up and sighed as he wiped his face and opened the door. John looked back at the storage room,the entire room was glowing green foliage. He went up to the front,he went about business as usual,some of his other employees were in the garden tending to the plants. John felt his face hot when he saw Eddie walking up front,taking a big gulp from his third water bottle today.

“Hey...I’m sorry about..you know?” He spoke softly in a fragile tone,not loud enough for others to hear but so Eddie could. The pudge of John's stomach was now more visible than before. John had somewhat become aware but he thought he was probably overwatered from how much water he’d been taking in.

Eddie finished with his customer before replying to John. He let out a sigh.

“I deleted it. I said I would. I-I’m sorry for doing something without permission. The photographer in me took over. It was a rare shot. My bad. Are you feeling okay though? You’ve been drinking a lot. I really don’t want you to over do it. You should let it rest in between.”

“I’m sorry still..I just wasn’t expecting to have a photo taken of me” He sighed and turned to look up at Eddie. “I have been dehydrated,but I suppose you're right about laying off the water” He patted his tummy and noticed itd felt much softer than before. “getting overwatered isn’t good like you said” He smiled at Eddie and he went on about the day finishing his work.

Sending out the orders all day and when it hit five o’clock he began to close shop. The other workers had clocked out already and John and Eddie were the only ones left. John took off his apron and gave a sigh of relief as he hung it up. Eddie was standing next to him clocking off and taking up his apron too. He’d hoped he hadn’t ruined things with Eddie with his reaction earlier that day.He couldn’t help but be unable to shake off this sick feeling that’d been growing since this morning.

Eddie looked over at John who seemed to be lost in his head as he pushed his bike. A little worry settled over the older man, wondering what had been up with the botanist today. It was probably rude to ask, but even knowing him for a few short months, something didn’t feel right.

“Hey, are you alright? You’re not still upset about the picture are you?”

He nodded and gave a forced smile. “I’m fine,you're not bothered knowing...that I’m a-“ He sighed and glanced at Eddie,while he guided his bike closely by. John felt the sickness hitting him again and he took a shaky breath,his stomach was beginning to cramp and it started to hurt to walk a bit. He stopped walking for a moment. “Maybe we can go out later..I’m actually not feeling too great” Taking a deep breath to steady himself he continued walking. He thought to himself, “I’m not gonna be able to ride my bike like this” He felt the cramping again as he continued to shakily walk only a bit behind Eddie.

Eddie could see the change in how John was acting. He was glad things were good between them, but he still didn’t feel right. He could see John looking worse as they walked. He slowed to match the pace, staying with him until they walked.

“If you’re not up for hanging out tonight, we can chill at my place. It’s a bit of a mess though. I’ve got music sheets thrown about.” Eddie suggested, hoping John would agree. The man was looking pale with a hint of green. Although he said he shouldn’t drink more, he could offer tea to help settle whatever might be ailing the younger man.

“Yeah,that sounds good,your house is much closer than mine” John followed alongside Eddie. “I don’t really mind if your place is messy” He gave a small laugh.

After walking a little ways to Eddie's house he gave a relieved sigh when they walked up to his house.They put their bikes in the small garage that belonged to Eddie,John impressed by the nice looking truck in the garage “nice car Eds” he said in a surprised tone.They walked into Eddie's house definitely smelt like a bachelor lived here and a singer at that.

“Thanks, it’s my Old man’s. It’s always a piece to work on, never fixed. One day I’ll drive it. I’m just glad he kept it in good condition.” Eddie shrugged.

Eddie unlocked the door and led the two inside, turning on a few lights. The place was mostly picked up, but scattered papers were on the tables, a few dirty dishes in the sink, a guitar left on the couch.

“Go ahead, make yourself at home. I’ll pick up here a bit. Anything you’d like me to get? Snacks? Something to drink?”

He started to pick up his papers, moving his guitar off the couch and back on the stand. Putting a few succulents back in their places. He was nervous that John was in his house. He didn’t invite people often, sometimes one of his band buddies would crash on the couch and be gone by sunrise. But to have someone visit, it was a rare interaction.

John nervously did so,he was curious about the house and he stood there a bit dumbfounded. He felt the nausea hit him again. “Some water or Juice would be great, do you have a bathroom?”He said in a shaky tone. When Eddie told him where it was he sped walked down the hall into the bathroom,shutting the door not meaning to slam it but he couldn’t help it when he threw the toilet open and fell to his knees. His head stuck in the toilet as he emptied the contents of his stomach. He huffed tiredly as he rested against the tub and his stomach felt like it was throbbing. Pressure seemingly built up and pressed against the buttons of his collared shirt. Uncomfortably swollen and seemed like he was overwatered he figured that Eddie was right about him and the amount of water he’d been drinking.

When he heard the door slam, he paused in his cleaning. The sounds of vomiting followed. His stomach dropped. He stopped cleaning up and went to his cabinet to grab some crackers, and a glass of water. Eddie carefully opened the door to see his friend resting against the toilet, breathing heavy. He set the crackers aside and got down on his knees to get closer to the man.

He could see him shaking, flushed, and a little green. Carefully he placed a hand on John’s forehead to see if there was a temperature and didn’t feel any fluctuation in heat. It stumped him on why the man would be so sick.

“It’ll be okay.” Eddie whispered in a comforting voice. He reached over to grab a few crackers. “Take small bites. It’ll help absorb the water and let your stomach settle. I’ll go make some ginger tea.”

Eddie started to get up, but something was telling him to stay. He hesitated before staying put, feeling that he was needed instead of leaving.

John couldn’t help but feel embarrassed,sitting helpless on the floor. “Thanks..Eddie” He paused before speaking again looking up at Eddie,taking a small sip and finishing a cracker in his hand.

“I shouldn’t have come to work today…” Sighing before weakly standing up. “I’ve been sick constantly like this since our new shipment of plants..” John's flowers started to peak out again,and he gave off a strong flowery aroma. Taking a step closer and gently wrapping his arms around Eddie in a comforting hug. Letting out a small gasp as he felt the throbbing again in his small bloating tummy. “I’m sorry to put this on you”

Eddie didn’t say a word as John stood up. He stood up too. But definitely something was off. John looked as if he gained a little weight. He chalked it up to water weight and let it slide, but when he was hugged, something he never thought would happen in a while, and John let out a small gasp, the worry returned.

He wrapped his arms back to accept the hug. “John, are you really alright. If you were sick I could’ve opened up shop. Also, could I get you a heat pack for your stomach? You seem to be bothered by it. You should relax, the work was probably too much for you today.”

“I know..I just wasn’t feeling as bad this morning” He mumbled as he steadily took a step back. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me Eds...but for now let’s just go relax together” The thought of the warm pack on his hurting belly sounded delightful. “a heat pack sounds really nice” John was tiredly guided out by Eddie to the couch while Eddie warmed up a heated pack. John looked over at Eddie to make sure he wasn’t looking in his direction. Seeing that Eddie was making tea John untucked his buttoned shirt and slipped a hand up his shirt feeling his tender stomach,something was definitely different from normal. Adjusting his shirt to normal he brushed down his shirt,wincing when he felt his suddenly sore chest.He took a deep breath and combed his fingers through his hair, some leaves falling out. John couldn’t help but feel more anxious than ever.

Eddie returned with a heated towel. It was kind of pathetic, but it’s all he could think of. He wasn’t good at medical or healing, only knew neosporin and a band-aid. He handed it over to John who spread it over his bloated stomach. Eddie could see the man sigh in relief.

“I don’t have much to watch. Just a few streaming things. Cheaper than cable. Anything you prefer to watch? I was even thinking about ordering some food since it’s dinner time anyways. Are you up for something or are you good with crackers?”

He felt a bit more content now,gently rubbing his tummy pressing on the warm towel. “I think I should eat,or atleast try” Rubbing the back of his neck he remembered his wallet in his pocket. “ oh I’ll repay you for the food!” He stammered embarrassed at how rude he’d been. John could feel his stomach growling as he placed another cracker in his mouth. He normally wasn’t one to eat that much,but he figured throwing up prolly emptied his stomach.

“I’m sorry about you having to take me in..if I’m quite honest I don’t think I’d make it to my own place” John watched as Eddie searched on his phone for a place to get take out,his attention flicking between Eddie and the channel the tv had started to play.

“Oh it’s no trouble at all, I invited you over. You can rest up here. Doesn’t bother me.” Eddie shrugged, looking for some food. “What do you think about asian food? I could go for some yakisoba.”

“I never really tried it,but I’m open to new things.” He shrugged,as he got comfortable inching closer to Eddie. They’d eaten dinner later on after spending time on the couch. John and Eddie had spent the night together and John had stayed over for a few days. He'd been sick almost every morning but eventually he was able to make it back to his house,going about his but still missing a few days of work. He'd been spending more time with Eddie and it was at least two weeks later and John’s stomach only continued to swell. He worried about it but did his best to hide it not wanting a cause for concern. His main embarrassment was that his clothes had started to struggle to fit,not only his growing waistline but it seemed like his normally flat bust was gaining of bit mass too. His need for water and sunlight became more necessary. It was the weekend and he had planned to go out with Eddie today to go clothes shopping.

Eddie was excited to go out shopping. He had been looking to get some clothes for his gigs and to toss out some old ratty ones. John was happy to join too, the both of them able to spend some actual time together. The singer stayed by his friend’s side while he battled his small flu. John seemed to be looking better despite the slight exhaustion.

John was looking a little bit concerned for his own clothes since he was borrowing some of his as well as not fitting too well into his own so when Eddie had offered for a shopping trip, John agreed. Eddie was actually hoping to spoil him a little bit, offer lunch and possibly a movie.

His heart started to race anytime he was near the younger man. He was always glowing and always so, so beautiful. His red hair was like the sunset sky or an orange poppy. His cheeks were filled and when he smiled the older man felt like he was being hit with a ray of literal sunshine. He wanted the man all to himself forever.

The shop was closed for the day so the two started to head out. Eddie got close to John, letting his hand slip into his, a light dust of pink covering his cheeks. John was a little surprised too, holding the hand back, his cheeks were pink too.

They eventually neared the shopping center, seeing it lively with people but not the big crowds. It was early in the day, but not super late in the morning. Eddie gripped John’s hand a little more firmly, dragging him along for the fun they were about to have.

John felt a rush of excitement as they entered the shopping center. It’d been a long time since he’d gone to a Mall. Eddie seemed excited too gently pulling John along with him. They entered into a store with all kinds of alternative aesthetics and clothes that appeared in shows. John was fascinated by the amount of clothes that were all different styles.

“Wow I don’t think I’ve ever been in here” He looked up at Eddie and saw him staring at some distressed clothes and pretty punk accessories. John let go of Eddie's hand and he watched as Eddie went over to the clothes he was eyeing. He smiled amused at Eddie's excitement while he walked around a lil bit finding some comfortable looking sweaters,pulling a maroon one off the rack,it had a small flower sewn into it. Walking up to Eddie,who was ruffling through a clothes rack full of flannel and band names,he held out the sweater “what d’ya think about this?” John was also holding onto some pants,he was hoping he’d find some sweater vest and a larger button up shirt. The need for stretchy clothing,more necessary though.

Eddie picked out a few punk type shirts and a pair of pants, turning around to see John also browsing for his taste. It was adorable to see the other shopping around for comfy clothes. John held up a few things and Eddie knew the items would make John look good. He put a thumbs up.

“Looks great! Darker and warmer colors suit you.” He complimented, seeing John’s face turn red.

The two looked around some more before going up to the counter to purchase. They had agreed to pay for their own things then move on. Eddie wanted to still do a bit of shopping before going to lunch. He was having a fun time seeing his boyfriend light up at all the different stores.

John normally feared going out in public places alone at least. But he found this wasn’t so bad he happily walked with Eddie,them entering stores and shopping around. John had found some bigger sweater vests and larger more stretchy button ups,he couldn’t help

but be in love with some of the clothes he’d found. He placed his hand on his swollen stomach and sighed. John still didnt know why his stomach had continued to grow,he’d been cautious with water and had been hiding the fact that the swelling had increased as much as it did, he hid it from Eddie the best he could.

He snapped out of his train of thought when his boyfriend came up to him “I’m starting to get hungry,maybe we should go take a break and get lunch together?” He gave a warm smile and fidgeted with his bags. Opening his now free hand up for Eddie to grab.

Eddie took his hand and walked them to a nearby sandwich shop. The older man was hungry for a sub. But then he paused. What did John actually like to eat? He looked at his boyfriend, looking a little nervous.

“I never bothered to ask, but are you vegetarian?”

“I am.” John smiled.

“Cool. Uh, I think this place has salad. I’ve seen them serve it before. Order any type you want I’m paying.”

After their food was ordered and they took a seat in one of the booths, munching away. Once again the sunlight from the late summer sun was shining in the window, illuminating the red-head. Eddie felt a blush creeping along.

“Y’know… I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but you look super pretty in the sunlight.”

John couldn’t help but blush while chewing a mouthful of salad.

“Thanks..I probably shouldn’t sit in the sun for too long” He gave a nervous laugh and pursed his lips while he looked over at Eddie. “You're not so bad looking yourself.” He sat back in his chair after quickly finishing his plate,and rested his hands on his stomach.

“So you're not against Abnormals?” His tone became more hushed,so others wouldn’t hear him clearly. John's focus changed again when he felt an odd sensation come from his tummy. He looked slightly paler after feeling the squirming,shaking it off and turned his attention back to Eddie.

Abnormals, an odd change in subject Eddie thought.

“Well, it all depends…” He started off, looking at his empty dish. “I think it depends on the person themselves. The government is just scared of this new hybrid of humans, they just want to eradicate them for power. What they need to look out for are the sick ones. I’m sure Abbies got themselves under control, it's how they were made, born. But those who are mentally sick, then there should be places for them to get help. Same thing with disabled Abbies. They could be good people but need that help to control themselves.” He let out a sigh. “Those who use their Abnormal gain for power or danger should be taken care of. Much like any other human being. People kill people and harm others and are sent to jail. So if an Abbie goes out to kill someone, then yeah, I’m against it.”

He took a sip of his soda.

“But if the Abnormal is good and just wants to live a normal life like a human then they should.” He shook his head. “Basically what I’m saying is, why treat them differently than we treat humans, our own kind?”

He looked over at John to see an unreadable expression.

John silently nodded “you do have a point” He took a small sip of his water and looked around. Anxious if anyone was looking at him,he cleared his throat and shifted around awkwardly “so if you met one would you call the hotline?”

John was always afraid to come out as an Abnormal,he just wasn’t sure about who to trust with that information. He stood up and picked up his bags “you wanna keep shopping around or would you like to go home?” He stretched and gently tugged his shirt back down when it rolled up a bit. His back had begun to hurt from walking around and he wanted to relax a bit. John's stomach began to feel off again and he still tried ignoring the discomfort in his body.Eddie stood up and took Johns’s hand again and they’d begun to walk a bit aimlessly.

Eddie stood up with John and noticed the struggle he was having. He wished he could do something, but it might’ve been a private matter. He dumped their trays and held his hand as they walked out, taking the extra shopping bags.

“Like I said before. It depends. If one was coming to attack me or I see them attacking someone, then I’d call for the safety of the people around. But if they aren’t doing anything and just living, then there’s no reason to. They are a new species of human. So I'll treat them as such.”

He wondered why John had brought up the subject of Abnormals. It was another touchy subject like politics, religion and a*ortion. People had their opinions and it would always end up in some argument or that rare agreement. Maybe John was trying to research them? Testing out if he was one.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not an Abbie. I’m human so I won’t go attacking you. If I was an Abbie, I’d be a little nervous to speak about it, but I’d still inform you. That way you have the option to leave or if you don’t agree with them call the hotline.”

John became silent as the two walked the rest of the mall. At the end they both were surprisingly exhausted. Eddie took hold of the bags.

“Want me to drop you off or do you want to return to my place?”

John thought for a moment and briefly sighed “we could hang out in my place if you’d like” He shrugged and knew he had never really taken Eddie to his house. But the company could be nice and John always felt more comfortable in his own place. “I could cook dinner and stuff” John hoped that Eddie would accept so when Eddie gave a nod he couldn’t help but smile. “I warn you,I have a lot of plants” He had a dorky grin as they walked out of the mall together to Eddie's truck. John got in the passenger seat while Eddie was packing the bags in the back. Eddie started the car and began to drive up the road and John made small talk. “you're not allergic to cats are you?” John forgot to mention that he had a small well behaved cat that kept him company in his townhouse. They’d just pulled into Johns house complex when he spoke.

Eddie shook his head. “Not not allergic.”

John nodded as he directed Eddie to his place. The older man parked in the driveway and helped John get out to unlock the door while he got the bags out of the truck. He followed up the stairs and could already see the potted plants sitting outside the door. John opened the door and Eddie was surprised at how many plants the man had. There were plants everywhere and the air was so fresh! He couldn’t help but inhale the air and aroma from the sweet flowers. It was almost like a mini greenhouse.

He stepped in further, setting the bags by the door and taking his shoes off. The place was beautiful. He could see so many images that he could take. Any one of them could be used for an album or EP cover. He was getting excited! Eddie pushed it down, knowing how upset the last time he took a photo that John was not pleased.

John was pretty pleased at Eddie seeming to love the inside of his house. He helped Eddie unpack the car and bring the bags in. “Feel free to get relaxed,Bitty is pretty shy but she might come up to you” Going into the kitchen and grabbing a bag of cat food. Pouring out a bowl of food for her and shaking it to let her know.

John had noticed Bittys sudden magnetism lying on his stomach since he’d been sick.

“Hey what do you wanna do for dinner,it’s gonna be vegetarian you know” Laughing softly as he went and sat down on the couch,pretty exhausted from the day. The small cat had scampered down from Johns loft bedroom and only made a sound when chomping down on the kibble. John had tiredly rested on Eddie's side letting Eddie wrap his arm around him. He couldn’t help but give off a flowery aroma as a form of adoration for his boyfriend.

Eddie smiled a little when he saw the cat go eat. His heart rate picked up again when John moved closer to him so he wrapped an arm around him. He didn’t mind anything to eat since he could eat anything. He shrugged.

“Anything sounds good to me. I’ll eat anything.”

The air started to become clearer and sweeter as the two cuddled on the couch, the only sound was the cat munching on her food.

John felt better lying on Eddie. “I can’t guarantee I’m the best cook but I’ll try” He gave a soft laugh and looked over at the cat and made small sounds to call her over to meet Eddie. A small chirp came from the cat as she shyly went over to them,jumping on the couch and cautiously stepping onto John's lap to sniff at Eddie. John looked down at her lovingly as she brushed against Eddie welcomingly.

“Looks like she likes you Eds” Smiling up at him as she settled in Johns laps purring softly resting herself against Johns slightly bulging tummy. “She’s been oddly cuddly towards me lately” He looked down at her confused and placed a gentle hand on her. “ever since I got sick” He whispered before sighing thinking about it in frustration and concern.

Eddie pet the kitty back, thanking her for the cuddles. She then twirled around and cuddled into John’s lap, purring and falling asleep.

He noticed the mood drop around the both of them. John was in deep concentration, a hand on his cat and a hand on his belly. Worry clouded Eddie’s mind as well.

“John, is everything okay? If you’re that worried about your weight, it really doesn’t bother me.”

“Y-yeah I’m alright” He huffed and looked at Eddie “my..my stomach had been swollen..” John felt embarrassed and looked away. “It’s not super serious..but it’s just gotten bigger since a few weeks ago” He hoped Eddie wouldn’t assume it was a medical issue and a cause for a doctor's visit. He rubbed the small cat who vibrated his baby bump,only glancing over at Eddie who he knew was looking at him. “I guess I might’ve just gained some weight” He laughed fakely and gave a half smile but his worry didn’t go away.

Eddie frowned a bit, still concerned over his boyfriend’s own worries. He moved closer, wrapping his arms around him again and kissing his cheek affectionately.

“If it gets to be more of a problem, then let me know. If it were me, I’d go see a doctor, catch whatever it is before it gets too serious. But it’s your body. If you feel something isn’t right, tell me. I’ll be with you through this.” He snaked his hands around to carefully place on the bump. “You do look cute with it too. A little chub doesn’t hurt anything if that’s what it is.”

He removed his hands and stood up, helping John to his feet. “So, dinner, what do you have in mind? I’d like to help.” He gave off a cheesy grin.

#chub art #chub kink #mpreg belly #mpreg art #mpreg story

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builder051 · 3 years

Text

The talk

Chasing Ghosts

(I generally do not play in this arena; DO NOT ask for other stories with PMS, etc., as illness features. I do loosely plan to continue this thread, though. Or @mohini-musing might pick up for me.)

Warnings: weight (though not ED context), SA inc. prostitution, blood, emeto

____________________________

Tasha comes down the hall and stands like a ghost behind the sofa.

James is in the recliner across the living room, and he barely looks up from the textbook he's pretending to peruse. The quiet music he's had playing in one ear has long since captured his attention more than the multiplication of matrices. He's fairly sure he'll never use the skill lest he become a software engineer post-graduation, and the prospect of that's looking pretty slim.

He sees Tasha out of his peripheral vision, but doesn't move his head or lift his eyes for acknowledgment. She's probably drifted down from her weekend high, realized it's Sunday night, and gotten up for a Gatorade and maybe a glance at her homework.

Steve, though, who's lying on his stomach and taking up the whole of the couch, practically jumps to attention. He stands, scoots, and sits again in the amount of time it takes James to blink and make the first inhalation of a laugh.

"Sorry," Steve says, as if he's personally offended Tasha and just been called out. "I didn't mean... I was just, like, studying..."

Tasha shrugs. "Didn't come to sit with you," she says, in a voice that recalls the 'boys are gross' tone of young teenagerhood.

"What's up, then?" James asks, trying to bring back the balance of the room's atmosphere.

Tasha makes an ugly face. She opens her mouth, then shuts it. "Can I talk to you alone?"

James scoffs. "You think there's privacy in this apartment?"

"I can go, I don't know--" Steve looks around.

"Just talk," James says. He almost rolls his eyes, but the undercurrent of Tasha's affect seems to hold an air of seriousness. If there's something she needs to confess or ask for help with, he doesn't want her to feel less than secure.

Tasha lets out a breathy sort of sigh. "Blood," she says. "There's blood."

"Huh?" Steve responds first. "Where?"

James takes a little longer to contemplate the admission. Has she cut herself? There's no visible damage; Tasha's not holding an injury or howling in pain. Bloody vomit? That's nothing new, really, and even with vampire-red teeth, which she doesn't have, Tasha probably wouldn't come crying to him.

James is still thinking when Tasha points vaguely down the hall and to the left, which is, technically speaking, her side of the apartment. Or at least the bedroom and bathroom they'd parceled out for her when they'd unofficially moved her out of her dreary campus housing.

"What, in your room?" Steve asks.

"No." Tasha screws up her eyes. "I mean... I'm bleeding."

The cogs continue to turn in James's head, and just as he lands on an answer, Steve gives up, shaking his head and saying, "I don't get it."

"Fuck you," Tasha mumbles. "Both of you." She turns and starts to head back down the hallway.

"Tash." James jumps to his feet, his algebra book falling to the floor.

"You guys are fucking gay..."

"Hey!" Steve interjects.

James flaps his hand at Steve to shut him up. "Maybe we're gay, but I'm your big brother." He shoots a quick glance at Steve, hoping this won't surpass his no privacy promise. They've done some pretty wild stuff together: partying, puking, cleaning the carpet... Period talk shouldn't be too far out of their wheelhouse. At least, not if Tasha wants to talk about it.

Tasha huffs and rounds the edge of the sofa. She stands beside the arm, leaning her hip against it for a moment, before finally deciding to sit down, as far away from Steve as possible.

"I..." James starts, assuming it's his responsibility to keep the conversation going. "I assumed you hadn't been, um. You know."

Tasha's 100 pounds soaking wet. In her usual cutoff shorts and tank tops, he'd give her 95. Maybe 92 if she's detoxing. James assumes she has something like female athlete triad going on, except without the athlete. He doesn't like to think she's just too skinny to go through... normal biological processes. If he blames the drugs, sees them as wrecking her body instead of bringing her solace, then he'll have to turn eyes on himself, and there's no way in hell he wants to do that.

"Smart one," Tasha says. "And exactly how much thought do you give to the functioning of my uterus?"

Steve gives an 'oh shit' face, looking from James to Tasha and back again as if wondering how he's been so thick headed. James agrees, but is also relieved, in a way, that his boyfriend hasn't been thinking about his sister in, well, that way.

"Seeing as I have, more than once, pulled you out of an R-rated situation with iffy consent, and you have yet to become pregnant--" James starts.

"Yeah, ok, you don't have to..." Tasha shakes her head.

James decides not to stop his momentum. "Do you know how much sex you're having? How often you're using protection?"

"I said, you don't have to." Tasha glares at him. "I don't have one. A cycle, or whatever. I can't get knocked up."

"Well, I figured that, but you can still get an STD--

"I don't think you're hearing me," Tasha says. "I don't have one. I haven't. Like, ever."

"But--what?" James squints and cocks his head. "What about, what was it? Cheerleading camp?"

"That stupid summer program when I was 16?" Tasha bites her lip. "Yeah, that was a lie."

"You're losing me." Steve reminds them he's part of the conversation as well.

"What, didn't your mom send you to cheerleading camp when you were a sullen teen?" Tasha asks him, seemingly in all seriousness.

"Um. No." Steve withers a little under her stare. "There was a threat to beat it out of me with a bible when I was that age, but that never came to fruition."

"Mm. Fun times." Tasha scrubs her hair back from her face. "I told mom of the moment I started at camp, so then she couldn't go nuts about the moment I 'became a woman,' or whatever."

Tasha has always seemed like a little kid to James. Her stint at camp had only taken place... he quickly calculates... 3ish years ago. Tasha is a kid. She hasn't busted 20 years old yet. But, for the first time James wonders if other, more metaphorical factors are at play.

The idea quickly fades, though, when he remembers the actual topic at hand. "Ok, but Tash," James says. "What's actually going on right now?"

Tasha practically sinks into the couch cushions. She wraps both arms around her abdomen. "Blood," she says. "Kinda...everywhere."

"We'll clean the bathroom later," James says dismissively.

"And I'll do laundry," Steve offers. "I used to be the scrawny kid who got beat up a lot. I can do bloodstains."

"Not helping, babe," James tells him before Tasha can get a word in.

"Feel sick," Tasha admits, rather suddenly.

"Bathroom it is, then," James decides. "But, let's use mine."

Tasha seems to have turned into a shapeless blob on the corner of the couch, her chest meeting her thighs with her arms still wrapped around her stomach. Her face is in her knees, which James has to admit, would be easier to clean than the carpet.

"Come on," he says gently, taking Tasha's shoulder. "If you're gonna puke, don't do it here, please."

"But I already diiiiid," Tasha complains, drawing out the last word and adding the hiccup of a fake crying fit.

"Sorry." James hooks his flesh arm across Tasha's chest and lets her cling to him down the hall. He takes her into his and Steve's disorganized yet bleach-shined bathroom. Cleaning was practically Steve's hobby. Yet keeping down the clutter? Not his strong suit.

Unsure of exactly what kind of sick his sister intends to be, he sets her down, fully clothed, on the toilet, which, of course, has the seat up. Then he dives for the trash can and shoves it into Tasha's chest.

She gives James an appreciative glare, then sets her chin on the edge of the trash can, ostensibly to wait for an upcoming retch. James can practically see it, rising from the bottom of her spine, up her back, to her neck and throat before finally pushing a pitiful amount of spit and bile out of her mouth.

"Ok..." James sighs. If she's down to just that, she's been at it a while. Lost a lot of fluids already.

"Gatorade?" Steve asks in a chipper tone, putting voice to what James is thinking without a trace of delicacy.

"Hmph." Tasha spits. "If it'll... make it stop burning..."

"Lemme guess, vodka last night?" James tries to make her laugh. Maybe cough.

"Fuck you."

"Eh, we'll talk about that later," James says, hoping he doesn't sound threatening. "For now, how about I go with you?" James pulls on Steve's arm and heads for the bathroom door.

"Hey, you said no privacy here..." Tasha's irritated and sickly voice trails after them.

"Yeah, well, puking people aren't allowed to leave the bathroom," James says. "That's the house rule that trumps all the others."

"But I puke on the couch all the time--"

"That's because it's too hard to get your fucking limp-ass octopus body into the bathroom in the first place." James rolls his eyes. "Just sit tight."

He quickly drags Steve into the kitchen. "Ok," he says. "You have to know about this stuff. You took health class in high school, right?"

"I've lived with a woman," Steve reminds James, a little shamefully. "But Peggy was super private. You know, like inhibited, about, like, um..."

"Yeah, I get it." James shrugs. Then, "Did you know you can stem a nosebleed with a tampon?"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know..." James shakes his head.

"Why do you?" Steve looks a little take aback now.

"The field. Desert air's pretty damn dry."

"Ah. Ok."

"We'd get donations of shit from the states. Care packages, Costco overstock, you know. Just, whatever. When we got pads and stuff, whoever was unloading the box would just hold them over their head and yell 'who needs them?'"

"And I'm assuming people would just raise their hands?" Steve postulates.

"Yup." James pops the P. "No privacy. Everyone knows everyone else's bathroom habits. When you're deep in the field, there's no men's and women's facilities. Half the time the privies don't even have doors."

"Ok." Steve nods. "Experience, then. You have lots of experience."

James shrugs again. "You have to be chill, ok?" He opens the fridge and pulls out two bottles of Gatorade. He holds one to either side of Steve's neck, as if to physically cool him. "This is, like, super weird and awkward for her. She's really scared, I think, and her brave face just looks...jerk-ish."

"Yeah." Steve takes the Gatorade. "I can be good with this. I really care about her, even if she doesn't think I do."

"I know you do," James says. "It's all in the presentation right now, though. She's skittish. But, also, for some reason, willing to talk. We have to tease it out. And you can't ruin it, ok?"

"Ok, ok." Steve seems to understand, even if he doesn't appreciate the words.

They head back to the bathroom, where Tasha has, for whatever reason, decided to heave into the toilet instead of the trash. She squats awkwardly, sitting on one heel. From the angle he's at, James can see a spreading stain on the back of Tasha's shorts, which has made an imprint on her ankle and the bottom of her foot.

"Don't move," James says, reaching for a towel.

"The fuck would I?" Tasha coughs, holding her stomach and moaning.

"Well, when you're done, stand up slowly and wipe your feet."

"...Shit..." Tasha spits. "Like I said. It's fucking everywhere."

"Yeah..." Menstrual blood, James has no experience with. But blood in general, yeah. It does get fucking everywhere. There's that first moment when the entire body and all its systems are still in shock, like when the arm is first blown off, and then all he can see is red. Even the bone that was white just a second ago is lost in a sea of scarlet--

"Well, I suppose congratulations are in order," Steve says with a grin, clearly trying to be friendly, but missing out on one, or more, of the points. "You're not pregnant."

"Well, of course I'm not, you dingbat," Tasha replies, rolling her eyes so hard that James is sure it must give her a headache. If she doesn't already have one. "And besides. He used a condom."

"Wait," James says. He's been preoccupied by not looking at Steve. "You know that?" he pokes cautiously. "For sure?"

"...Yeah..."

"Every time?"

"To be honest," Tasha starts, spitting and pushing herself away from the toilet. She crab-walks to the towel, wipes her feet, then sits on it, criss-cross like a little kid. "I don't know if he actually gets off every time." She draws her mouth into a straight, defensive line.

"The fuck does that have to do with anything?" James asks.

Steve looks very much like he wants to get the bleach from the cabinet under the sink, pour it into one ear, tip his head, and see if it comes out the other.

"He pulls out," Tasha says bluntly. "And there's never any, you know. Gunk."

"Wait, he does both?" Steve's eyebrows disappear into his hair. "A condom and--"

"Ok, ok." James puts up his hands to shush them both. "And this is, what, this is your dealer we're talking about?"

"Yeah, I guess, if you want to call him that," Tasha says with a shrug.

"What else would we call him?" Steve now looks disgusted. "That'd be stupid to let him just, like, defile you every week."

"He doesn't--" Tasha starts, but then she hiccups, and maybe thinks better of what she was going to say. She still stares Steve down, though, then looks to James as if grasping at straws of support.

"He's, like, a manufacturer?" Tasha turns her gaze sideways.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." James puts his hand over his face. He'd assumed Tasha was getting her stuff on the street, through a framework of various interlopers. Now he's getting news that his kid sister is taking substances thrown together in some coed's bathtub? This is too much.

"Tash--" James starts, trying hard to keep his bubbling anger and concern from spilling over.

"He's a PhD candidate," Tasha says defensively. In Chemistry. And--" her eyes flicker from side to side as she seems to wonder what's appropriate to spill. "I won't tell you his name. But... I'll tell you that he got kicked off the football team for being too violent, but he still wears his green jersey all the time to prove how much better and calmer he's become since that happened, which was only in the freshman year of his undergrad..." Tasha babbles on.

The more she defends the guy, the more James hates him. He feels bad for him a little, slinging synthesized crack to get by. He feels better for Tasha, knowing that what she's taking is most probably pure. But the sex thing is--

"It's kinda creepy," Steve says, taking the words right from James's mouth. "Like, how much older than you is he?"

"I don't know." Tasha shrugs. "Not that much, I don't think. Started school early, finished fast. And I'm not sure this is his first post-graduate program..."

"Maybe shouldn't've added that last part," James says, screwing up his eyes. "So he's had, like, however long to prey on girls who are barely legal. Who might not even be legal..."

"Well, I'm legal, and I can do what I want." Tasha crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"Yeah," James sighs. "Unfortunately."

"But what about the thing with the handcuffs? The gang rape? Losing your bra?" Steve blurts out.

"Wait, you..." Tasha's eyes flash with anger. "You told him?"

"What did I say about privacy?" James quickly reminds her. "The non-puking kind? And, um," He looks to Steve. "Maybe a little respect?"

"Sorry," Steve mutters. "But--I really do--"

"I don't really remember that stuff," Tasha says.

James studies her face, but he can't tell if she's lying.

"Probably just party stuff that got out of hand."

'You mean you were too stoned to know the difference between your regular and some random dude off the street,' James thinks. 'What do you do at parties? And how the fuck do you slip past me?'

"He's your pimp, too, isn't he?" Steve asks, pointing at Tasha rather accusatorially, in James's opinion.

"No!" Tasha leans forward and brings her arms down to cover her clearly still sore abdomen. "Bruce wouldn't--" She swallows. "I didn't-- You didn't hear--"

James hasn't been a student long enough to know who was on the football team 4, 5, 6-odd years ago. He supposes he could look it up, crossing the name with accounts of any violent incident that amount of time ago. He's not sure he wants to, though he'll probably wind up looking it up later. Either that, or Steve will. James still has his ex-mil connections, a few of which were absorbed into the local police force. Steve, on the other hand, is better with social media and navigating the niceties of such mysteries as SnapChat and TikTok.

"Ok, fine," James says, just ameliorate his sister's panic.

"He doesn't even drug me at parties," Tasha goes on, probably unaware of how terribly young and desperate she sounds, making lame-ass excuses so she can keep her boy toy.

"And you've had other guys who did?" Steve asks incredulously, even though James shakes his head frantically at him to try to get him to shut up.

"You know Rumlow?" Tasha asks, since apparently she's now all about spilling names.

James shakes his head, but Steve screws up his eyes and says in a disgusted voice, "him?"

"Yeah..." Tasha sighs and looks down at her fingernails, which are stained rust-red at the root. "Remember the night I didn't come home?"

"Yeah, and scared the living shit out of us because your phone was off," James fills in the blanks.

"Well, I didn't turn it off."

"You mean that asshole kept you overnight without any means of getting yourself out of there?" Steve looks downright sick. "I mean, I know he looks slimy, but that?"

"I think Maria accidentally slept on the couch and found me at, like, 6am trying to stick my head in the linen closet because I couldn't find the bathroom." Tasha laughs, though the situation is anything bur funny.

"And I was so pissed at her for having you out all night..." James trails off.

"Yeah, maybe respect my choices a little more?" Tasha glares at him. "I mean, Maria's studying to become an EMT now. You can't think that badly of her."

'Great,' James thinks. 'Someone who'll drug Tasha to the gills every weekend.' She'll be less likely to overdose, but James has seen it all too often in the field. Newly minted medical personnel eager to sow off their skills and rushing into action.

"Yeah," James says, trying not to smirk. "So you got a girlfriend and a boyfriend now?"

"Ew, no," Tasha replies. "Friends with...benefits, I guess. If you even want to call it that. Folks who look out for each other, using a barter system?"

"Did you recently take World History?" James can't help but poking at her vocabulary.

"Fucking-a, I don't know. Once I pass, it's in my past."

"That's actually a good motto," Steve points out.

"Anyway," James says, bringing the conversation back to topic. "None of your...friends... are invited to this house."

"It's not like I want to bring them over for dinner," Tasha replies. "I guess drop off and pickup might happen, since, well, you know now, and I don't have a car." She shrugs. "Cool?"

James hates the idea of someone inebriated driving a car in which his sister is a passenger, despite the fact that he's done it before. Regularly, actually. Maybe he just hates the idea of the driver being someone who Tasha just fucked. The air might be heavy between them. They might smell like each other's deodorant and musk. They might kiss each other good bye. The thought makes James's stomach turn.

But, "sure," he says. "That's fine.” At least she'll come home.

James shares a glance with Steve, which seems to confirm the same sentiments, "Yeah," Steve echoes, as if his opinion counts for anything. "Fine."

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tomtenadia · 3 years

Text

Island dream - chapter 24

Chapter 24 has finally landed. It took me a while but it's here. Sorry it took me ages, life happens.

but now it's here and something big happens.

Have fun and enjoy <3

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The holidays had passed and Aedion and Lysandra had gone back to London but Aelin knew this time it was not for long. Her friends were coming back for good and that had been the most perfect present, Rowan’s proposal aside. That had been her most treasured memory of the holidays and probably of her entire life. Malcolm had thrown a Hogmanay party and the four of them had all been invited and they had great fun and welcomed the new year together knowing it was going to be a new year full of future great moments.

It was now January and life had slowly gone back to normality. That morning Aelin woke up and again she felt like death. She had been feeling like that for a while now and she just blamed it to work. She rolled over in bed and slammed the alarm off, then realised that Rowan’s side was empty. He was probably up already as his usual. Slowly she forced herself to roll out of bed and walked to the kitchen in nothing but one of his t-shirts. Rowan was preparing breakfast and packing her lunch as well. He had decided that cafeteria food was not healthy so he had taken upon himself to pack her some Rowan approved lunch. She complained for the first two days then she gave up. The food had been amazing and he actually loved doing it, so she let him fuss. She hugged him from behind and leaned her head against his back and groaned. She would have gladly slept for another week. “You look terrible again. Are you sure you should go to work?” He turned in her arms and faced her. Aelin let out another savage groan “I feel like I was at a party and I got pished pretty hard last night.” Rowan roared with laughter “That’s a very Scottish word.” “Aye, I am surrounded, of course I pick up things. And Malcolm is a bad influence.” She tried to smile but noticed his worried expression “I’ll get better in a few days. Stop being a worrywart.” “You have been saying that for a while now.” He pressed his hand on her forehead followed by his lips “you definitely are not running a fever.” He passed her a mug of coffee and a plate with bacon and eggs, their Saturday treat. Aelin took a bite of bacon but put the fork down when her stomach protested quite aggressively and she ran for the toilet where she felt sick. Rowan was behind her a moment later. Worry deep in his features. Aelin managed to get up and went to brush her teeth “It’s just a stomach bug. I will be fine.” “You should not go to work.” She ignored him and went back to the bedroom to grab some clean clothes “I am going for a shower and I am going to work wether you approve or not.” Rowan sighed “At least have one of your colleagues have a look at you. This is not normal.” “Fine.” She brushed him off irritated “As long as you shut up about it.” And she slammed the bathroom door in his face. Rowan sighed and went back to the kitchen. She had been very irritable as well during the last week and they fought more than they normally did and she had been constantly exhausted for a while now. He had bought her vitamins hoping it would help but it did not. And now she was sick as well. There was something going on and he was really getting worried. But she was not listening to him and kept telling him that it was just an innocent bug. Half an hour later Aelin reappeared again all ready to go. Rowan handed her the thermos bag with her lunch. Her arms went around his neck “I am sorry.” She said, burying her face in his neck “I didn’t mean to…” she sniffled. “Shh… I know, mo chridhe, we are good.” He kissed her head in reassurance “Just get checked, please.” Aelin nodded and lifted her head to kiss him. He pretended to refuse the kiss for a moment then lifted her in his arms and his mouth crushed on hers. “I love you.” “Go, I’ll se you tonight.” She left and he sighed.

It was an half hour later when she reached the hospital and went quickly to her office. She was in charge of the A&E and she went to get the roster for the day and started making plans where to place the two new intern who joined the team two days before. She loved her job. The pace was different from London but it allowed her to actually have a life outside work and she was happy for that. She was flipping through her diary looking for something else, when she noticed something amiss and everything all of a sudden made sense. She flipped a bit more pages and panic rose swiftly in her. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” She ran out of the office and back into the pit where she saw Malcolm, grabbed him and pulled him to an empty bed, then closed the curtains. “What’s happening?” Aelin grabbed one of the carts in the corridor and took out a syringe and a vial and homeostatic elastic “Fill this up for me, please.” “Are you okay?” He asked while donning his gloves before proceeding to draw blood from her. Once he was done Aelin looked at him “No. Yes. Maybe.” She needed to calm down “I was flipping through my diary to look for something when I noticed something peculiar.” “How peculiar are we talking about?” “I missed my period. Then I went back another month and I realised I missed two.” “Oh.” Was Malcolm first reaction “Not to be judgmental, but how can you miss it? I have a sister and I am told it’s quite difficult to miss.” Aelin sighed “I was on the pill. Then I stopped because it was giving me issues. After quitting the pill it goes off kilter for a while so I was not too bothered about not having it.” she explained “Then once I saw the diary it all clicked. All of it. I have been moody. I have been constantly tired and now sick as well and my boobs are killing me. I did not miss my period because I got off the pill.” She explained frantically. “You and that man you yours have been naughty?” His smile was wicked. Aelin folder her arms at her chest and stared at him sideways. “I am just saying…Now, do you need a sex-ed lesson?” He joked, while sealing the vial with her blood. Aelin blushed savagely “a few times Rowan and I might not have been… careful.” “Oh, the savage passion… I hope the wall is still standing.” She and Malcolm had developed a wonderful relationship and they could talk about anything “The house is still standing.” “Good,” he gave her a wide smile and his dimple made an appearance. Malcolm was good looking. There was a high number of nurses who were crazy about him. He was tall, blonde and with beautiful grey eyes. A heart attack on two legs. The first time she saw him she was the one who had almost smashed into the glass door. “I guess you want me to take this to the lab and check for the p word?” Aelin sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder and his hand was on her hair “You are panicking.” “I will be fine.” She took a deep breath and jumped off the bed. “I will take this to the lab and I will let you know as soon as I know something.” She kissed him on the cheek and disappeared back to work.

Aelin tried to go back to her job to keep her mind occupied. She knew the answer already but she had to wait for the test. All the signs had been there for a while now. She was just worried how Rowan would react to the news. She knew he wanted kids, but perhaps this was a bit too early. She sighed and responded to the page and went to help her intern.

It was in the afternoon when Malcolm pushed her into her office and closed the door. He waved a piece of paper in front of her. “Is that it?” The man nodded and Aelin sat on the edge of the desk, her heart hammering “It’s positive, isn’t it?” “It is.” Malcolm gave her the paper with the results and then studied her “You don’t seem happy, I thought you and Rowan wanted a family.” He sat beside her. Aelin started pacing “We do. I do. Mal, we got engaged two weeks ago, we have been together less than a year. I just wan’t expecting it this soon.” “Are you afraid he will be mad?” Aelin scoffed “No. No, knowing him, he will be ecstatic and then probably put me under house arrest to prevent me to overwork myself.” “If he is a bit overprotective it’s just because he loves you and wants to look after you.” She turned to him. His gaze had gone sad all of a sudden “You are quite the protective type as well.” His face went dark and she felt as if she had said something wrong. Shit. “Mal…” “It’s okay.” He said, placing a hand on her knee “you could not know.” Mal took a deep sigh “He was a pilot. I was on an aircraft carrier. I was the medical officer. He was the commander of the air group. We started it off a bit rocky but then we began to get along quite well. Later on in our deployment, I realised I had feelings for him. Then I discovered he felt the same. After a while we got together and we were an item for a while.” He explained “I knew he was good at his job, but as a doctor, well, I had seen my share of accidents and I used to worry about him every time he would go out with his squadron. If I had an empty med bay I would go on deck and wait until he landed back. He would joke saying that I fussed too much.” He tries to laugh a bit “Things got serious between us. Sometimes we were lucky to be together but quite a lot we were posted in different locations. We always worried when one of us would go on tour without the other. Eventually we had decided to deploy one more and then both retire. He never made it back. After his death I went on one last deployment. ” he sighed heavily. Aelin gasped “Mal, I am so, so, so sorry.” “What I wanted to say is let him fuss over you. That man is madly in love with you. I wish Matthew was still here for me to fuss over him for being late or being ill. I miss it. And I miss him.” She turned and hugged him fiercely and he hugged her back. “Nurse Helen and I will look after you. We will find you a hot sexy man.” Malcolm laughed “Yeah she has been trying to set me up on dates for a while.” Then turned to her “No one knows about Matthew, a part from some of my ex Navy colleagues. I don’t want anyone’s pity. You can set me up on all the dates you want not because I am alone but because I am still here, still alive and I can’t waste such gift by wallowing forever, he would not want that. I will always remember him but life goes on.” Aelin nodded “So tall and dark-haired? Muscles? Rowan might have some swimming buddies available.” Malcolm stood “I am very picky.” “I will keep that in mind.” “Good. Now I best go back to my patients before they start to feel abandoned.” He took a step to the door the turned to her “Aelin, thank you for being my friend” and he left.

A few hours later Aelin was on her way to Yrene for her ob/gyn appointment. After the results she had phoned the ward and asked to book an appointment. She had been feeling nervous all day and still coming to terms with the fact that she and Rowan were going to have a kid. She had no idea if she felt ready or not. Once at the reception she told the secretary she was there for her appointment and she was invited to take a seat. She lasted five minutes before she had to dash to the bathroom and be sick. She felt like death. It took her ten minutes to get out of the toilet. When she got back Yrene was waiting for her “You look terrible.” “And I feel even worse.” Yrene invited her in in her office and told Aelin to lie down on the bed. Yrene smiled and pulled the ultrasound machine closer. Aelin lifted the bottom of her scrubs exposing her belly and Yrene spread gel on it. “Take a deep breath.” Aelin was getting more nervous by the minute which was not working well for her already upset stomach. “Let’s see…” Yrene placed the scanning wand on her tummy and looked at the screen. A very strange sound came from the machine. “That is not a regular heartbeat.” Said Aelin terrified, but Yrene smiled. “It’s not because it’s two heartbeats.” “Twins.” Yrene nodded. Aelin let out a ragged breath. “Are they okay?” “Both foetuses look fine and the right size for now. You are about eight weeks pregnant.” Aelin did the math. The getaway. She laughed. “Something funny?” “Yes,” Aelin said brushing her hand in her hair again, she was so nervous “I did the math and it was the first time Rowan and I had sex. And considering the amount of times, well… I am not surprised.” Yrene grinned. “We got… carried away.” Yrene’s hand was on her shoulder “I have seen him. It’s perfectly understandable.” The Yrene’s tone changed “You know the risks with multiple pregnancies.” Aelin nodded . “Hypertension, Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, intense sickness.” “Definitely the last one is starting to appear.” Said Aelin leaning back on the bed. “I want to follow you.” Aelin nodded. She had worked with Yrene and really liked the woman and had discovered she had an amazing experience. “Good.” She cleaned Aelin’s belly and covered her back. “I will see you in three weeks. I want to run some tests. Just to check how you are doing.” “Thank you.” Said Aelin getting up and then she felt sick again and ran for the bathroom.

Going back to work had been tragic. She had spent a good twenty minutes in Yrene’s office bathroom. And left on very shaky legs. “What did Yrene do to you? You look like death.” Malcolm’s voice welcomed her back to the A&E. He gave her a ginger biscuit “This should help.” “Thank you.” Thanks to Malcolm’s ginger biscuits she did manage to finish her shift and she was now on her way home. Her mind kept thinking about ways to tell Rowan. Then an idea hit her. Before heading home she took a detour to the bookshop. Luckily it was closed already and she could get in and grab the book she needed for her surprise to Rowan. She would pay for it but she had to acquire it first without him knowing. Once she was done she drove home and a sense of happiness finally settled in her. The panic had finally dissolved. It would be okay. They would be okay. When she got home she noticed Rowan was not in the living room, and when she heard the shower, Aelin smiled. Perfect timing for her to quickly wrap the book and prepare the present. Ten minutes later he emerged with just a towel around his waist and she almost fainted. No matter how many times she had seen him like that, the vision had the power to kill her every single time. “You should stop showing off.” “Says the one who wanders around the house in super tiny nightgowns.” She grinned and closed the distance to him. Her arms went around his waist and pinched his butt in reply. “Come and sit.” “I should go and change.” “No way…” he sat on the sofa and she straddled him and kissed him, brushing her hands in his wet hair. She could not get distracted. She had to tell him first, then they could indulge in other activities. She pulled back a bit and grabbed the wrapped gift on the table “Very late Yule present.” She joked. “You already gave me my present.” He told her while grabbing the packet. “Just open it and shush.” Rowan did that and his face was puzzled when he noticed the book “What to expect when you are expecting…” Aelin grinned savagely when his smile morphed into understanding. “We are pregnant.” She whispered placing a gentle kiss on his mouth then she opened the book and showed him the picture of her ultrasound “Baby A and baby B.” She explained pointing at the two blobs. “Twins? We are having twins?” There was utter joy in his voice and her heart seemed to finally relax. “Is that why you were not well?” His arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Aelin nodded. He pulled her close to him “I love you so much.” “You are not scared or worried?” He kissed her “not in the least. I…” he took a breath “I want kids in my life, Aelin. I never brought up the subject because I wanted to give you the time to make up your mind on the topic and enjoy your career.” He looked her in the eyes “Truth is… I have been brooding for a while now.” Her hands were in his hair again “I was terrified when I realised I was pregnant.” Her forehead leaned against “Until I saw the ultrasound and I saw the twins on the screen I was panicking. Then something clicked in me and I stopped being nervous.” “We’ll do this together. I will be at your side, I will support you and do all I could for the three of you.” Aelin leaned forward and kissed Rowan’s head. She knew he was going to be the most amazing dad ever. “Guess when it happened?” “I don’t know, considering how active we have been…” Aelin smiled. That they had. After they got back from the getaway, they had troubles keeping their hands off each other. They had tried every possible surface in their house that could hold them. And she discovered that Rowan was creative too. She kissed his nose “The getaway.” Rowan laughed “we are going to have a big family,” he leaned against her, their foreheads touching. And for a while they just hugged in silence and all the fears Aelin had during the day had melted away once and for all. “I got the book from our shop. I will pay for it. I swear.” She broke the silence. Rowan laughed “It’s okay, Fireheart, for such an amazing gift, I will forgive you.” He grabbed the book and pushed her off her lap and started reading but Aelin had another idea in mind. The book disappeared form his hands and ended up back on the table and she straddled him again. Then she grabbed the hem of her scrubs and remained in her bra in front of him. “We’ll read later, Buzzard.” she kissed him while her hand travelled south. “We shouldn’t” he said pulling back from her. Aelin rolled her eyes “we have been doing it for two months now. No issues. It won’t hurt the babies. Believe me.” And went back kissing him to try and convince him. His hands trailed up her sides, brushing the band of her bra. Aelin’s arms went behind her back and freed herself. She felt his hands palm her breasts and leaned into the touch. With a swift motion she pulled away his towel, leaving him naked and a smile appeared on her face when she noticed him ready for her. His mouth locked on hers and her hand trailed south, grabbing him. Rowan gasped against her lips. “I thought—“ he stopped after her hand did something wicked to him “You feeling better, I reckon?” “I have to apologise for the past few days.” She breathed against his lips. “Do you?” “Stop talking Buzzard and use your mouth in the wicked way of yours.” Rowan did not complain. He lifted her in his arms as he stood. Her hand reached for him again and this time he moaned as his lips met hers again. “I can’t deny a pregnant woman her wish, can I?”

The next morning Aelin had started the day with her head in the toilet. She had been there for a good twenty minutes when Rowan finally walked in and sat beside her. She leaned against him exhausted. “Are you sure you have to go to work?” “Yeah,” she breathed getting up. His arms went around her to help her stand. “There are loads of ginger biscuits ready. I have packed some in your lunch. A very light one with vegetables and other ingredients that should not make you sick. There are a couple of bits of fresh ginger that you can use for your tea. Apparently it works. I read it in the book you gave me.” She leaned against him. “How did I end up with such an amazing man?” “You came into my shop and stole my heart.” He kissed her head. “Gee, Whitethorn, you can be so damn cheesy sometimes.” His nose scrunched up “All your fault. I was leading the charts for most unpleasant man in Stornoway and then you came along.” They reached the breakfast table and they sat down. Rowan had prepared a strawberry milkshake for her. He was planning on keeping track of all the food she did manage to eat and the one that caused discomfort. “Let’s try with toast with jam this morning and see if you can keep it down.” He offered her the food and Aelin made an attempt at eating. “You should discuss with Malcolm the possibility of him having to take most of your night shifts.” Aelin stopped eating and stared at him in disbelief “I can’t do that.” “You are pregnant.” “So what? It does not mean I can’t do my job. I sleep during the day like I usually do and do it. We have on-call rooms. I can still sleep and rest.” He was not convinced and glared at her. “Eventually you will have to go on maternity leave. Someone will have to cover for you. They can easily start doing it now.” His tone had turned to annoyance and Aelin braced for a fight. “That is months away. I can work now.” She shouted “Being pregnant does not mean I can’t do my job.” “If you can keep your head out of the toilet long enough.” He fired back “and if you can manage to reach the patient while your big bump is in the way. Or spend the entire day running around the A&E while your ankles double in size. Sure, go ahead. Be my guest.” Aelin scoffed “I can do all those things.” She snarled back. “You are carrying twins.” He added through gritted teeth “Do you have any idea of all the possible issues you might encounter?” He crossed his arms at his chest in defiance. “I am a doctor, of course I know.” She shouted back not willing to lose that battle. He grabbed the plates and started washing them ignoring her on purpose. She stood and slammed her fork on the table “This is why…” she shouted, but then she stopped. No, she could not say what she had just thought aloud. Rowan was not Chaol. She could not go down that road of hate and resentment again. Not with him. “I need to go to work.” She said much more calmly. She gathered the food containers he had prepared for her and all the biscuits. Then took a step to him and kissed him “Thank you.” She was a weakling but she could not stand the idea of fighting with him, of being mad at him. He grabbed her arm gently “Take it easy, please.” Aelin rolled her eyes and left the kitchen in silence. Rowan sighed and went back washing all the dishes.

Rowan had a quiet morning in the shop. He had changed the main display in the window and had gone for a winter theme and had selected books that had a wintery theme or were set in that season. He had added a few props and he was quite satisfied. Then he had taken some pictures and shared them as Aelin had showed him. His social media accounts were working and, especially on Facebook, people were engaging with him. Aelin was still the admin of the page and she would still manage most of the content for him. He browsed through the page and marvelled at the amazing job she had done. Then he looked at his followers and found her, Lysandra and Aedion and smiled. Out of curiosity he clicked on her profile and studied it a bit and the first imagine that appeared made him smile. It was a picture of her holding her ultrasound scan of their babies. He read the comments and laughed, although he assumed Lysandra had found out a moment later after he did. Scrolling a bit more he saw a picture of her bragging about her engagement ring and her upcoming pagan wedding. She was always smiling in her photos and he could not keep his eyes off her. Her smile was the first thing that had floored him the day she walked into the shop. He sighed. It felt such a long time ago and he could not believe how much it had happened already. He kept scrolling through her profile and noticed she had been sharing a lot of her life in the islands and also a lot of the posts he had made from the bookshop profile. And then a wild idea hit him. His hand clicked on create profile and step by step he created his profile. As a photo he used the one of a buzzard he found online. A joke that only Aelin would get. Then he went on her profile and added her, Lysandra and Aedion as friends. And that was it for him. He was not interested in more. A moment later a notification appeared saying that Aelin had accepted his friendship and at the same time his phone went off. “Hey.” “Did you just joined Facebook? Did I create a monster?” On the other side Aelin sounded shocked. “I was posting my new display on the bookshop page. Then I saw that you follow the page and had a nosey at your profile and got curious and created one myself. But I am only having you three as friends. I am not sure I will like it.” “I love the profile photo by the way. You two look very alike.” “How are you feeling?” He changed the subject. “Your biscuits are helping a lot and I made the tea as well. I haven’t had nausea since. And don’t worry. Malcolm has been fussing like a mother hen.” Rowan laughed and decided to thank the man next time he saw him. “I got to go. Sorry. Love you.” Rowan hang up and went back playing with Facebook. The store was quiet and all the paperwork was done. He could indulge in a bit of silliness. He had noticed that both Lysandra and Aedion had accepted his friendship and Aedion had also messaged him. They had started chatting and found out that he and Lysandra were working hard on their plan to move to the islands. He had applied to some jobs and was waiting for a reply. He did not realise how much he had spent talking to Aedion until the door opened and Aelin appeared. “Hello you.” He said, coming out from behind the counter. She slammed into him for a hug with just one arm. The other one was holding a bag full of food. He frowned. He took the bag and placed it on the counter and went back to Aelin. “Hi you.” His voice was soft as he cupped her face with one hand. “I brought cake as a peace offering.” “Why?” Aelin sighed “I was not nice this morning. You were just looking after me and I shouted and I almost said things that I would have regretted forever. It’s just…” she looked away for a moment “The hormones. I realise I have been moody lately. We haven’t fought as much as in the past few weeks. But I still need to apologise.” “We are fine.” Rowan kissed her “I am not worried about our fights. They are more spats because we are both stubborn. They are not out of hate and we are not trying to hurt each other with words.” Aelin looked down “I almost did this morning.” Her hands gripped his t-shirt and tears started to flow “I thought something horrible but I stopped because I can’t hurt you.” Her tears became sobs and Rowan’s arms tightened. “I had enough of those fights with Chaol.” “Shhh… “ Aelin kept crying and he rocked her gently. “I am a mess. A patient gave me a hug because I helped her dad and I cried. I am happy, then sad then angry, then back to sad. I am going insane.” Rowan held her tight “then I hid in my office sobbing when I realised we can’t get married on Beltaine.” He looked down at her “Why?” “Have you ever seen a woman pregnant with twins at five months? I’ll get huge. I will not fit in the dress and will not be able to dance with you at the ceilidh.” Her sobs intensified “And I want to do all those things.” “Hey, we can wait.” His hand caressed her head “we’ll get married whenever you feel ready.” She finally stopped crying and looked up at him “but our kids will be there too.” Finally a smile. “We are a scandalous couple.” He joked and she looked at him puzzled “kids out of wedlock? You ruined me miss Galathynius.”

***

Slowly the winter months had passed and spring knocked at the door and March arrived. Rowan was on its way to the hospital to meet Aelin. On that day they had and appointment with Yrene and they hoped to be able to find out the sex of their kids. They had tried on a few previous appointments but the babies were never in a favourable positions. He hoped this time was the right time. Especially because they had a bet going on. Rowan was sure it was one of each, Aelin was positive it was two girls. If Rowan won, he would eat two slices of one of Aelin’s favourite super sugary cakes, whether if Aelin was the winner he had promised a sexy massage with oils. Aelin really wanted to win. He got to Yrene’s office and noticed the woman was alone. “Hi Rowan, Aelin has been held up. She will be here soon.” Rowan sighed and used that occasion to talk with Yrene. “I have some questions.” “Absolutely. Ask away.” Rowan nodded “I have been reading some books on childbirth and I read that multi pregnancies can be a bit more challenging, which makes sense. But I am worried about some of the things I read.” “That is normal. And I know it can be scary. I am planning on testing Aelin today for pre-eclampsia. Aelin’s babies share a single placenta, so you will have identical twins. This means her scans will be more frequent as there are other issues that might arise.” Yrene explained “Chances are they will be premature, but we can discuss a planned delivery as well when Aelin comes back.” “Is that the safest options?” “Yes. It’s the one I’d recommend.”Yrene suggested “but if she doesn’t want she can try and deliver naturally. I will try to get her as close as possible to term, but her body will decided when it’s time. There is a possibility that she will be confined to bed rest.” “She will not like that.” Added Rowan, worried “Is there anything I can do to help?” “Be supportive. Make sure she doesn’t tire too much and that she eats healthy. She is her second trimester so her hormones are probably running wild. Just don’t take it personally if she shouts at you. The more the pregnancy progress the more uncomfortable she will be.” Another question popped in his head and he felt embarrassment rise “Aelin wants to… do stuff. I am just nervous that it might not be a good idea.” Yrene nodded and smiled “that is up to you two. Right now it is still possible but soon it will be quite difficult for Aelin. There are no risks for now but I will not exclude a no sex policy later on, it all depends on her health. Always let her decide, see what she is comfortable with.” “But it’s not dangerous for the babies… I mean my…” he was now red with embarrassment. Yrene laughed out loud “I will be frank, Rowan. Now matter how well equipped you are, there is no chance you’ll get that far up.” His blush was now savage. “Just wanted to be sure.” “Of course.” In that moment Aelin joined them and laughed at Rowan’s state “why is Rowan blushing?” Yrene laughed “he asked if his downstairs friend can hurt the babies during sex.” Aelin roared in laughter “You are perfect, but let’s be realistic.” And the two women laughed. “So, are you ready for the big reveal?” Yrene announced changing the subject and giving a chance to Rowan to recover. Aelin smiled and slowly dragged herself to the bed, and Rowan helped her when he saw her struggle. “Hopefully they are in a good position.” “I hope so, I have a bet to win.” Aelin grinned laying down and exposing her swollen stomach. Yrene spread the gel and began her job. Aelin stared at the screen and tried to brush up her skill from her ob/gyn rotation to remember how to spot the sex. She sat on her elbows and gasped “Is that a girl?” “Well spotted. She is very clear.” Rowan stared at the screen and felt stupid when all he could see were blobs. He trusted them. “The second is hiding,” said Aelin caressing one side of her belly “come on darling, mama wants to know.” Rowan moved at her side and placed a hand on hers on her stomach “dad too.” They waited for a while but it looked like the second baby had no intention of moving. Yrene was about to call it quits when Aelin shifted and the baby shifted as well and in that second it revealed itself. Aelin screamed in delight “Two girls! I win.” “Yrene hasn’t confirmed it yet.” Said Rowan. The doctor laughed “It’s two girls, Rowan.” He had a massive grin. He lowered and kissed Aelin. “I want my prize tonight.” “Yes, my Queen.”

“Twin girls,” said Aelin dreamingly while they were both walking back to the A&E. “And Yrene said they are identical as well.” Aelin nodded “I knew that.” She turned to him and smiled “we’ll have to find a way to tell them apart.” He kissed her head. They reached the pit and Malcolm was walking to them “so, who won the bet?” “This girl here is having a sexy massage tonight.” Malcolm smiled “so it’s two girls.” Rowan and Aelin nodded proudly. “Congratulations, guys.” And he hugged them both. “Aelin, patient in bed 4 needs your care again.” Aelin swore and turned to Rowan “I have to go.” She kissed him and Rowan placed a hand on her belly. “I love you. And I’ll see you three tonight.” She waved at him and left, leaving Rowan with Malcolm. “Look after my girls, please.” Rowan asked to the man “Asking Aelin to slow down seem to be an impossible challenge.” Malcolm patted his shoulder “I have a plan. I will keep an eye on her while she is here.” “Thank you.” Then Rowan said goodbye and went back to work at the bookshop.

Aelin came home at a decent time and Rowan was in the living room reading a book while waiting for her. Aelin noticed his wicked smile and walked to him. “Someone looks naughty.” He kissed her in response and she straddled him. His hands went on the bump and lifted her scrub to reveal the swollen belly. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the side. Aelin had felt the girls move but he hand’t been able yet and he was dying to feel them kick for the first time. “My three girls are finally home.” And kissed the belly. Aelin stood and smiled at him and then disappeared in their room. A moment later she called him and he followed. Once in the room he noticed she was wearing a long blue gown. She took a step to him “I am very tired.” She undid the sash of the gown “I won a massage…”slowly she lowered one side of the gown, exposing her right shoulder and the top of her breast “A sexy one if I remember correctly.” Another step and now the gown was low on her arms, exposing her upper body “I am so very tired.” She repeated letting the gown pool at her feet standing in front of him naked. Rowan went to his drawer and took out something, then pointed to Aelin to get on the bed. She sat on her knees and he took position behind her. He undid her braid and took in her scent of jasmine and lavender. He pushed the hair on one side and kissed her neck and she leaned back into him. “You are gorgeous.” “I am a whale.” She replied stretching her hands behind her to touch him. “You are stunning.” His hands traced her arms up and down, then took her hands and placed them on her bump with his, his mouth kept tormenting her neck. Then he removed the hands and grabbed the small bottle at his side. He dropped some of the liquid in his hands and began his massage from her shoulders. “Is that pine scent I smell?” Rowan nibbled her ear “correct.” “Are you marking the territory?” She joked. “Of course.” He licked her neck “you are my woman and now carry my offspring. It’s my role as alpha male to mark what is mine,” he laughed. “Territorial bastard.” Rowan kept massaging her shoulders and back kneading the sore spots and Aelin moaned “oh yes,” she exclaimed when he hit a spot on her lower back “your hands are amazing.” “I was thinking…” he said while his hands moved lower “what about names?” Aelin’s eyes were closed and she was enjoying his treatment “Do you have ideas?” His mouth was on her neck again “I thought about it, today at work.” He grabbed a bit more oil and moved to her arms and her sides, with fingers brushing her breasts. “Tell me,” she sounded breathless. “Freyja.” “The goddess of love and fertility. She is quite badass.” His hands finally found their target on her breasts and Aelin moaned. She was hypersensitive and his touch sent her reeling “I love it.” She managed in the end. He continued his massage. “What’s the second?” He palmed her breasts one more time and Aelin moaned throwing her head back on his shoulder. “Don’t get mad. I just really adore the name.” “What is it?” “Morrigan.” Aelin chuckled “the goddess of war.” Her hands covered his “big expectations for our daughters, I see?” “I just like the names very much, but we will look for others if you don’t like them. They are just ideas.” “I love them.” She half turned her head to meet his eyes “They are epic. I adore them.” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” “Sit against the head of the bed.” She did that and he stood on his knees between her legs. He smiled tenderly at the image in front of him. To him it did not matter if Aelin called herself ugly because of her big bump, she was beautiful in his eyes. He grabbed a bit more oil and continued his massage at her sides down to her hips and then back up moving then on her bump. He concentrated on the bump for a while. “The girls are loving it.” “Are they moving?” Aelin nodded. He touched the bump but felt nothing. He continued his work along her legs, brushing gently her inner thighs and Aelin’s legs jerked at the touch. “I think you missed a spot.” She laughed and a wicked smile appeared on Rowan’s face. “Saving the best for last.” He leaned forward and kissed her. In that instant his hand went between her legs and Aelin moaned “about friggin time.” He was busy teasing her when Aelin stiffened and he stopped. “What?” She grabbed his hands and placed them on one side of her belly. Rowan waited for a moment and then he felt it. A kick. A powerful kick against his hand. “Guess our girls approve of their dad giving their mum a good time.” Rowan glared at her, then lowered on the bump, his hands still on the spot where the kicks were and he kissed it as well “Your mum is very naughty.” “And you haven’t finished worshipping me,” and Aelin spread her legs but Rowan was far too busy feeling his daughters. “This is amazing.” He whispered, caressing the bump. Aelin’s hand twined in his hair “Come here.” Rowan leaned forward to her while his hand was firmly on the bump. Feeling his girls kick was an incredible feeling and he didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. He kissed her deeply “Did I tell you how happy am I?’ She shook her head and he kissed her again. Then he moved at her side and leaned against her shoulder, with his hand still on the bump “A part of me was for a moment terrified when you told me we were having twins. I was elated at first but the next day all the panic started to hit me. What if I was not ready? what if it was too soon? What if I was not going to be a good dad?” He let his feelings go “And I am terrified. I read all about how multiple pregnancies can be dangerous. That’s why I am fussing. I want to make sure you three are okay. I can’t wait to meet our girls but I am terrified at the same time.” He looked up at her. “I am scared too.” She admitted brushing his hair “I spoke to one of the nurses who had twins a year ago and now I am just as terrified as you are.” She kissed his forehead “and we will be fine and I know you will be the most amazing, most caring dad our girls could have.” He kissed her shoulder “I have an idea to run past you.” He confessed and she nodded. “I was thinking about our housing situation.” He started and grabbed her hand “As soon as the twins arrive, the house might become a bit too small. We can use your old room for them until they are little and sleep in a crib but after that, the room might be a bit too small for two people.” He explained “So I did some research and I found a great place. A lovely croft in great conditions just outside Stornoway. It has four bedrooms, a kitchen that is huge, two floors and a bathroom on each level, and on the ground floor there is a massive room that can easily become our own library. It comes with a nice whack of land that we can use for planting veggies and fruits or for animals if we want a wee farm.” He told her and saw Aelin’s face lit up in joy “There is plenty of space and nature.” Aelin was now in tears which he hoped were tears of joy “I love it.” She whispered. “I can sell my house and I have savings too. We can buy it and renovate it to our liking.” Aelin nodded “I have saving too and I can help. This is something we do together. It’s not all on you.” “I went to see the other day while you were at work and I took some pictures” and he took his phone from his pocket and began showing her the images of the place. “It’s perfect.” “Are you sure? We can look for something else. I went to see it because I was curious. It seemed like a good deal. I didn’t tell you anything because I wanted it to be a surprise.” She brushed his hair again “It’s perfect. And I love the idea of having a library.” “Oh yeah.” He kissed her “we have a book problem and when I saw the gigantic room on the ground floor I knew it was the perfect place.” “Can you take me there?” Rowan nodded “Next time you have a day off we’ll go and see it.” “Good.” And she kissed him “now go back to your job, Buzzard. You haven’t finished your massage and definitely missed a spot.” And Rowan eventually finished his massage leaving Aelin very happy she had won the bet.

Tag:

@rowaelinismyotp sorry it’s a day late. I forgot.

#rowaelin #rowan x aelin #rowan whitethorn #aelin galythinius #fanfic #Throne of Glass series #fluff

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dieclownschaft · 3 years

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This was an endless handshake, too https://leongoretzkanews.tumblr.com/post/111580757083/february-6-leon-during-the-halftime-with Yes, they've been besties since Bochum. At ChriKra's official goodbye, Leon lay on the grass, crying, and Chris joined him after a bit. (Leon left the club that summer as well, but that wasn't clear at that point).

When did you start following the Mannschaft that you don't know about Neumer? Kramer/Neuer was the best thing to come out of the 2014 world cup, better than the trophy even. Manu talked in an interview about how they would always sit next to each other on the bus and share earphones "He made the playlists, because I'm no use at that", which later got confirmed by ChriKra (not Neuer being no use, but them sharing music, saying they immediately got along, and had the same taste in things etc.) More and more was revealed about them becoming close during their time together in Campo Bahia. And there were soooooo many gifs and pictures of the two of them!! When they were walking up to get the medals, Manu walked behind ChriKra, keeping his hand on his shoulder the entire time. When the team was presenting the trophy up in the stands, they kept hugging excitedly and it actually looked like they were snogging. There's a team photo from that same night of everyone except them two, and you can see them sneaking in in the background. Then at the celebrations in Berlin they had that sign for the fans. ChriKra was walking in front of Manu and Manu reached out, sneaked his hand across ChriKra's neck and pulled him to himself, and after that he pretty much had his arm around him for the entire celebrations. At one point you could see Manu whisper sth in Chris' ear followed by Chris kissing Manu on the neck. After that there were sooo many pics of them together. One time in a café in Frankfurt, two fans seeing them and having their pictures taken with them, in which Manu looks soo annoyed, haha. Then all the international breaks after, them talking and laughing together or hugging. There was also Chris' appearance on Aktuelles Sportstudio where they showed a video of Phips, Thomas and Manu talking about Chris, and Manu said, with a distant smile on his face "he's definitely brave, and he's also an adventurer" (fun fact, in an interview long after, a former coach of ChriKra's revealed that when Chris was younger and would meet people going out, he didn't want to admit to them he was a footballer, so when asked what he did, he said he was an adventurer:')) And then, all of a sudden, it was all over. They weren't seen in the same camera frame ever again, as if they were actively avoiding it. Also somebody put links to Neumer fanfiction and fanart as comments on Neuer's instagram, so that's why, it is assumed, they avoided being seen together as much and like *that*. I think the only times were quick fist bumps in the tunnel before games, and now this recent incident at the Gladbach-Bayern game.

(fwiw, during his time at Schalke, Neuer battled a lot against gay rumours. So I think that "we must stop being publicly affectionate!" order must have come from his side, since *clearly* young Mr. Kramer has never ever even heard of the phrase "no homo")

no hold on a minute whAT IS ALL THIS DLKAJSDKJASKL i seriously do not remember every seeing anything about any of that 😭

ive been here since 2010 so thats on kramer being the new guy i didnt pay attention to 🎻

but wait first of all ill go hunting for the pictures of leon dramatically laying down on the grass pl e a seeee dklasjdklasjdk

"He made the playlists, because I'm no use at that" yeah so true he would have just put ed sheeran songs dlaksjds WE HAD TO STAN KRAMER........ but thats really cute :((

i guess i was too busy looking at mesut being a whore during the celebrations to see anything else </3

the adventurer part fucking clowns dlkasjdlas

but that ending is so sad???????? i hope they didnt feel the need to stop interacting bc that and instead they just naturally grew apart ://////// cuz u know sometimes it just be like that

also yea true manu has been going thru that since forever 💀 very iconic of him to not give a fuck and wear the rainbow armband for example 💆‍♀️

#anon u really delivered.. wow .. thank u for catching me up with all this 😔🤙#asks

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 3 years

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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is emerging as the chief obstacle to quick passage of President Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure package that Democrats want to move through Congress sooner rather than later. Manchin is ramping up discussions with Republicans about what a scaled-down infrastructure package should look like, and some GOP senators are even optimistic that the moderate Democrat can be persuaded to block efforts to raise the corporate tax rate.

That means Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will likely have to wait for the negotiations to reach some kind of conclusion before moving ahead with the budget reconciliation process, as Manchin is expected to be the critical 50th Democratic vote needed to avoid a GOP filibuster. Senate Republicans proposed a $568 billion infrastructure counteroffer last week. Now, bipartisan talks on a compromise proposal between $600 billion and $1 trillion are just getting started.

Manchin wants time for the talks to build momentum. "For the sake of our country, we have to show we can work in a bipartisan way," he said Monday evening. "I don't know what the rush is. Stay here a little bit, work a little bit," he advised colleagues. But Democrats are getting nervous about an extended timeline and worry that splitting Biden's infrastructure agenda into two or three pieces of legislation might mean that a substantial part of it gets left behind. "I'm the most anxious member of the Democratic caucus. I want to get it done and done quickly," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Monday when asked how long Democrats are willing to wait on bipartisan infrastructure talks.

Manchin said over the weekend that he wants to focus on "conventional infrastructure" such as roads, bridges, water projects and expanded broadband internet, and he proposed splitting off about $400 billion in funding for home- and community-based caregivers for the elderly and people with disabilities, as well as billions of dollars for child care. While Manchin said such priorities are "needed," he added that doesn't want to lump too many of them in a broad bill because he thinks it would be tougher to sell to the public. His remarks dealt a blow to other Senate Democrats who want to pass as large a package as possible and who called the $568 billion Republican proposal "totally inadequate" and a "slap in the face."

Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, on Monday said he does not support splitting up Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure package into two pieces. "Time is not on our side. We have so many things to do," he said. "Immigration, policing. All of these things are critical elements and we don't have a lot of time on the calendar. The sooner the better to keep everything together and move it in a package that works," he added of Biden's proposal.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he wants to move as quickly as possible, warning that past efforts to negotiate with Republicans, such as on the Affordable Care Act in 2009, ended up wasting time. "We have learned that lesson in the past. I think we should have our ears open, we should listen to any great ideas, any good ideas that Republicans have. But obviously it cannot be an endless process. It has to move very quickly," he said Monday. Sanders balked at Manchin's suggestion of segmenting out the home- and community-based care portions of the package. Manchin, however, is praising the $568 billion framework put together by fellow West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) as "a good start." The blueprint is focused on roads, bridges, transit systems, rail, water infrastructure and airports.

Democrats are also nervous about Manchin's opposition to Biden's proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, saying a 25 percent rate is more reasonable. He met last week with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a staunch ally of former President Trump, to explore ways to fund a compromise infrastructure package without relying heavily on tax increases. "Watch Joe Manchin. Joe's going to be a key player here," Graham told Fox News Sunday. "I think there's a sweet spot on infrastructure where we can find pay-fors that won't hurt the economy. If you raise taxes, you're going to destroy jobs," Graham said.

Many Democrats are skeptical of efforts to pursue GOP proposals. "Take a deep breath and face reality. If we're going to do something big and bold and build the 21st century economy, we're not going to do it with what [Republicans] have suggested: user fees and tolls," Durbin said Monday.

Manchin has urged Schumer and his other Democratic colleagues not to use the budget reconciliation process to pass Biden's agenda, an approach that would shut out Republicans and allow for a simple majority vote in the 50-50 Senate. "I simply do not believe budget reconciliation should replace regular order in the Senate. How is that good for the future of the nation?" he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this month. Manchin disagrees that he's a roadblock to Biden's agenda. "I'm not a roadblock at all. The best politics is good government," he told CNN's "State of the Union" over the weekend. He also reiterated his opposition to changing the Senate's filibuster rule to curtail GOP power to block Biden's priorities, such as police reform and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. "I'm not going to be a part of blowing up this Senate of ours or basically this democracy of ours," he said Sunday.

Senate Democratic sources say they expect the bipartisan infrastructure talks to fizzle and Manchin to vote with them to pass a $2 trillion-plus infrastructure package under budget reconciliation. They argue that West Virginia, which had a 5.9 percent unemployment rate in March and a 14.9 percent poverty rate by last measure, needs its share of the $2.25 trillion plan as much as any state. "He's still trying to find his way as the new most important 'big man on campus,' but I think he'll have a very hard time standing up to the pressure of the administration. I think he'll find his way back home," said a Senate Democratic aide, referring to Manchin's power in an evenly split Senate where Democrats cannot afford a single defection. The aide predicted that if Manchin winds up derailing or excessively delaying Biden's infrastructure package, the backlash from within the party will be swift and damaging. "The more he plays that game, I think the more the pushback becomes significant and starts having legs to it," the aide added.

While Manchin is coming under increasing pressure from fellow Democrats to support passing Biden's full package without splitting it up, his reputation as a bipartisan dealmaker is also at stake. During the negotiation of Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, Manchin played a central role in narrowing the number of Americans eligible for $1,400 stimulus checks by helping to craft a deal to phase out the direct checks for people earning $80,000 or more, instead of the $99,000 cutoff favored by House Democrats. He was also instrumental in shrinking the federal unemployment benefits in that bill from $400 a week to $300 a week and limiting the tax deductibility of unemployment benefits collected in 2020.

Despite Manchin's efforts to address the concerns of GOP colleagues who said the rescue plan needed to be more narrowly targeted, not a single Republican in either chamber voted for the package. If Manchin drags out consideration of the infrastructure package for weeks or months without securing any GOP votes for whatever bill finally gets passed, some Democrats say his reputation as a dealmaker will suffer severely. "That's what's at risk for him. He's going to have to put up or shut up," said the Democratic aide.

A second Senate Democratic aide, however, said Manchin represents a broader group of centrist Democrats who would like to rack up a significant bipartisan accomplishment with Republican votes before trying to move other elements of Biden's agenda under reconciliation. "There are other Democrats who agree with him, but they don't need to go out there and say it and take shit from the left," the aide said. The aide also said the GOP counteroffer unveiled last week "is a lot better" than the $618 billion COVID-19 relief package a group of 10 moderate Republicans floated to Biden earlier in the year. Democrats quickly dismissed the GOP's counteroffer on coronavirus relief and passed Biden's $1.9 trillion plan by a party-line vote. The source predicted that even if Manchin fails to bring about a bipartisan infrastructure deal, he'll remain a powerbroker for the rest of the 117th Congress. "He's still going to be a guy trying to negotiate big bipartisan deals," the aide said.

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anxietysroomsupport · 3 years

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Hypermobile anon here. First, thank you so much. It's just nice to know there's someone here for me. And to give a little more info, I have a serious problem where if I'm not currently in pain. I don't remember how bad it was. I know everybody does this, but my brain literally checked out as I was going to bed recently and I fell on the floor. I nearly forgot to tell my physical therapist.about it because it didn't really hurt. So, I can't do the pain scale very well, and I never remember (1/2)

(2/2) It just makes it sort of hard for pain relief when I don't know I'm going to need it and don't have the energy when I do. Also, on the vitamin subject, I know that I've had vitamin d issues before (bad heat exhaustion and allergy scares = going outside less), bad enough that I was close to being diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I'm not sure about the others, but I do know I'm not amazing healthy, so? I take calcium pills for the vitamin d, though. Again, thank you guys for all your help.

We just got a bill from my PT place that says we owe money that we can't pay. They told us up front how much it would be with our insurance, and my mom's been paying each time, but it says we owe 177 dollars. Sure, it's not a lot, but we're not rich and trying to send a sibling to college. If we can't get this sorted out. I can't just not go. 10 exercises I can do at home and 5 appointments is not enough to help a chronic disorder. I cant focus and I have practice in 30 mins. -Hypermobility anon

Same day but later when I'm feeling a little better (my director was very supportive though so that's nice), I'd seen the letter and heard my parents talking a bit, but my mom told be as we got to school for rehearsal about PT. I got upset, and I felt bad because I could tell she felt bad because she didn't expect me to be upset, and in the heat of the moment I said "chronic illness" in front of my mom for the first time. She loudly (not quite yelling) (1/?) - Hypermobility anon

said to me "That is the most self-pitying thing I've ever heard. Chronic illnesses are like cancer". Sure, I probably should've said disorder and not illness, but I'm scientifically right. Then I said "It is, it's chronic pain, I am always in pain" and she said "Well then clearly PT isn't helping anyway" - I??? When I went in after 15 minutes after another girl, since we were both there for an hour and a half, I decided to stop trying too much to hide my crying (useful masks) (2/?) -HSD anon

since the other girl was in the hall to eat, and when I managed to explain to the director, she was understanding and nice, and when I said chronic, she said that I should never have to live with that, especially at my age. And when I mentioned not being able to sing at that moment from my crying, she pointed out how I was singing an empowering song that was about standing against the bad stuff in life, and I was perfect for it. I know my mom was just mad, but it just drained me.

Sorry I keep sending asks so often, I just feel like telling someone this. I decided to put 'zebra' in my bio. It's a thing that people with EDS and HSD sometimes like to call themselves. I like it, so even though I just have my name and pronouns, plus a random joke, in my bio, I added it. It just feels like a step in the right direction to remembering that I don't need google to tell me I'm dealing with this every 5 minutes. Accepting it, I guess. :) -HSD anon

My sleep schedule just keeps getting worse and I think it's my ADHD combined busy days and pain but I just never want to sleep anymore. I can't, I don't want to, and it hurts physically and mentally to just lie there and see if I can fall asleep. 80% sure my circadian rhythm changed to sleep at about 2 am but I get up at 7 and have a chronic disorder that's getting worse because of this I *need sleep*. And I'm so scared I'll mess up, want to make a side blog for it but want to make one (1/2)

for something happy first because I always figured that if I had side blogs they would be ask blogs or for fandoms or whatever. But I got a little better at not caring what other people think, so I haven't really needed one for fandom. But I looked through the tag and felt so comforted by some of the stuff that I just think it would help me. Maybe I'm just extra bad tonight because I went outside but also talked about it a fair amount with a friend I hadn't seen recently who didn't know. -HSD

I wanna talk to my physical therapist about hip braces because I tried a knee one we have and it honestly helps, but my hips are worst so I wanna see if it would help, but they're pretty expensive. It's hard to find dual hip braces, from what I've seen in my research, and even though one more than the other, both cause me issues. Idk, I'm conflicted, because it could help but is it worth all the effort? Also, even if it's under clothing it's still physical evidence (1/2) -HSD anon

(2/2) of my "invisible" disorder. Also, stopping exercises for a few days because of not feeling well from my covid shot reminded me of just how much time I spend on them, so it's another thing to deal with this. . . Idk, sometimes I just wonder if it would be better to just deal with it. I still have pain anyway, though it might be a little better. Less often, maybe? I don't really remember. It's not stressing at the front of my mind all the time, but the back of it. I'm just conflicted. -HSD

HSD anon here, idk if I mentioned it in an ask already, but recently I had a small breakdown because I was watching something where a character was in a car accident, as was trying to push through having trouble walking even with a hip brace. After a minute, I registered it and just thought "That could be my future". My joints had already been acting up and then they got worse, so I don't know if it was cause and effect? But I don't exactly know what to call it other than a trigger. (1/2)

Physical and emotional effect, at least I'm assuming on physical because I've had a bad reaction to something similar before, but like, I don't have trauma, I think it's more fear of the future. And I don't want to use trigger incorrectly, it's insensitive to those who actually have triggers. I'm just so confused.

Forgot to sign the last ask with 2/2 and HSD, whoops.

Hfnsiwk I'm not ready to walk into PT tomorrow and say that I don't think months of PT have been helping but I have no way to be completely sure because for all I know it's the weather since this is the first year I've known/it's been noticeable. Maybe it's just change, I don't know, but it just feels like such a waste of time if it really didn't help. Plus, I'd stop, and while that'd be great, I do enjoy being stronger, even if it didn't help pain. I have 12 hours and a bad pain day idek. -HSD

Hi Hypermobility Anon,

I think I found all your asks and got them in the correct order. And found your last ask!

I’m so glad you kept writing in. I think you should go ahead and make your side blog - you definitely have enough material for it. Wanting to make a happy side blog also is a great goal to have, but if you don’t know what it will be yet, don’t let that prevent you from doing something you know you want to do and that will probably help you.

You are dealing with So. Much. Your mom especially sounds like she just is not ready to accept the situation. It’s not self-pity to state your actual conditions. It’s just reality.

Forgetting about pain is normal, and really all you can do is try to write it down or make some kind of note about it in the moment or immediately after, so you can refer to it later. Maybe you can track your pain events in your phone notes.

I think your idea to add “zebra” to your bio is a good one, this is part of your life and just something you have to deal with. It sounds like you’re finding a community for this.

Sleep schedules are tricky, and feeling like you desperately need to sleep can make it so stressful that it starts a vicious little cycle. Some strategies to get around this are First, remember that just resting is okay and helpful too, even if you don’t fall asleep. Letting your body lay there to rest is good for you.

Second, if you’ve spent several minutes laying down without falling asleep, its okay to get up and walk around, or any small light exercise that’s comfortable for you. The goal with this one is to get out of the bed for a bit. It will help your brain to re-learn that the bed is for sleeping only, not for laying awake. That association can help signal to your brain to start its sleep-process when you get into bed at night.

Third, it’s really common to have a changing circadian rhythm during your teens and twenties. That’s just a thing that happens and you can’t do much about it, so just try not to worry too much. Sleep when it feels right and when you can, instead of trying to force yourself to sleep when you’re “supposed” to.

If hip braces would help you, you should definitely at least mention it to your physical therapist. You might research online for any used ones as well. A physical sign that you have pain can have good and bad consequences, but I think the good consequence of being in less pain far outweighs any others.

The triggering event you described is not so much a trigger as it is just a genuinely really upsetting situation. You related really strongly to the character you were watching, because they’re dealing with similar problems to you, and to problems you could have in the future. It’s a lot to process. But while you could potentially be in a car accident, remember that television is made to dramatize events and probably made it seem a lot more difficult and scary than it really would be.

Since we know you sometimes forget your pain, it’s safe to say that the exercises are helping you manage it, and you say that they’ve made you stronger in general. Those are good things, and I would recommend you continue the exercises you can do on your own even if you end of ending your physical therapy sessions. We don’t know yet if your pain might have gotten even worse without therapy. You’ll have to find that out on your own if you stop exercising, and then decide whether it’s more worth it to you to continue exercising or to live with the pain. Whichever you choose, it’s Your choice, Your body. Take care of yourself. <3

-bun

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laurelnose · 4 years

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monster! parasites!

you know how a few days ago i said we weren’t going to talk about monster parasites? that was a fucking lie.

the basis of my monster parasite thoughts are: every organism comes with its own internal ecosystem that goes with them everywhere. it’s like having built-in friends! ergo, when monsters crossed over to the witcher dimension during the Conjunction of Spheres they must have brought many new and delightful parasites with them. you know what fiend manes are full of? MITES. you know what drowners got on their skin? COPEPODS. what can we do with this information? anything we want.

i promise there are no pictures below the cut. i have tried to put warnings on all my sources but click any of the links below at your own risk. warning for internal and external parasites of animals, monsters, humans, and witchers; parasites altering the behavior of their hosts; and probably general body horror. if you read the eating-liver-flukes post that’s probably a decent baseline for how revolting you will find this post.

also, super obvious bias towards aquatic parasites as referents. my degree is fisheries science not terrestrial ecology so that’s primarily what i’m drawing on even though nearly all of the witcher monsters are terrestrial. there is a TON i’m missing here bc of that bias! specifically i really wish i could talk about how parasites of invasive species often act as co-invaders with their hosts and monsters definitely count as invasive species and would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent but i don’t know enough about terrestrial ecosystems to speculate properly. (ETA: while i still think monsters would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent, I don’t actually think they’re invasive species anymore!) hopefully you enjoy it anyways!

it is, hilariously, canon that parasites are used for alchemy. according to The Last Wish, the Temple of Melitele’s grotto grows a bunch of different “rare specimens—those which made up the ingredients of a witcher’s medicines and elixirs, magical philters and a sorcerer’s decoctions” and some of those specimens are, uh, “clusters of nematodes.” nematodes being parasitic roundworms. this is really funny because it’s so fucking weird. also everything else in this description is a plant or a fungus and nematodes are definitely animals? i choose to believe the world makes sense and nematodes aren’t plants in the witcherverse. therefore parasites are alchemical ingredients, it’s canon, give me more witchers digging through monster intestines in search of worms and put a nematode colony in the basement of corvo bianco please and thank you

this actually leads right into my personal favorite drowner headcanon (hello yes i’m tumblr user Socks Laurelnose and i am always thinking about drowners)—you know those bits where drowners kind of have red blotches in their skin? those are nematodes, actually, because i said so. the reference is Clavinema mariae, a nematode that infests English sole. the worms are basically harmless but they’re dark red and you can see them through the skin. it freaks people out and makes it hard to sell sole. (IMAGE WARNING: a picture of an infected flatfish. it looks mostly normal but there’s a dark red lesion near the fin.) said lesion is probably a coiled-up Clavinema. sole have so many of these, it’s not even funny (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING for worms visible underneath skin of flatfishes. relevant images pointing out exactly how many worms on page 5). “but the red parts of drowners could just be flushed from blood”—no. worms.

okay that was my main specific-parasite-for-specific-monster headcanon (except also succubi probably have a unique species of lice for their hairy legs. but that’s barely even a headcanon, basically all terrestrial vertebrates have a unique species of lice.) i wanted to start with it because i think that everyone should feel free to arbitrarily assign a totally benign but conceptually gross worm to their favorite monsters. why not, yanno? also it probably sets the tone for the rest of this post.

carrying on: “what monsters might have nematodes, besides drowners,” you may be wondering? probably all of them! all of them are full of nematodes. nematodes are fucking everywhere. allow me to share a deeply unsettling quote from nematologist Nathan Cobb:

“In short, if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable since, for every massing of human beings, there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”

jesus christ! thanks nathan, I hate it. nematodes are usually both benign and microscopic, but we’re talking witchers, we want some parasites we can fuckin get our hands on. sperm whale placentas are sometimes infested with nematodes up to 28 feet long but only a centimeter in diameter (Wikipedia link, no images). like an incredibly awful spaghetti! we don’t really seem to know if this bothers the sperm whales. also, i unfortunately do not know enough about the size of whale organs to tell you how big the placenta is in relation to this worm. the point is: real big monster? REAL BIG NEMATODES.

moving on from nematodes—okay, you know, since i mentioned eating deer liver flukes at the start of this post, let’s just go there. real life flukes max out at about 3 inches long, but hypothetical monster flukes could be much bigger and equally edible if desired. (if you’re wondering what a liver fluke would taste like: the flukes feed on the liver and they have very few organs of their own, so they would taste basically just like liver, just also long and flat like a fruit roll-up. if you’re going there, a witcher should not eat any flatworm live. if they’re digging them out of cockatrice livers or whatnot they should kill them before munching or save to cook later. it would probably be safe to eat one live, but you know that cliche “their tongues battled for dominance”? handling a live flatworm is like a handling very strong and energetic tongue complete with slime, okay, it wouldn’t be nice.)

parasites often need more than one host to complete the life cycle—for instance, Leucochloridium paradoxum (VIDEO WARNING: you may have seen this, it’s the one that makes snail eyes pulsating & green) has a bird stage and a snail stage, and it makes the snails look and act really weird in order to attract the birds. parasites altering host behavior to attract the next host in the life cycle is pretty well-documented; for instance, there’s an eye fluke that can make fish swim near the surface where predators can eat them (New Scientist article link, images of a microscope slide & a normal-looking fish) and a tapeworm that does the same and makes the dark silver fish turn white (JSTOR article, no images). i posit that at least some monsters are accompanied by “ill omens” of animals looking or acting strangely because they become infected with a stage of one of the monster’s parasites—usually, the mechanism is that internal parasites lay eggs that are passed in feces & transmitted that way. witchers who are up on their parasite ecology might be able to identify what monster is hanging around by observing exactly what kind of freaky-looking animals or animal behavior is going on around the area!

(if geralt is involved you may desire to have him explain this totally non-supernatural mechanism for abrupt animal appearance or behavioral changes at excruciating length to the chagrin of all present. or maybe that’s just what i desire. it would be funny okay)

potentially even more hyperspecific application of dual-stage parasites: there’s a dinoflagellate parasite that, when it infects crabs, makes the meat chalky and bitter like aspirin (Smithsonian link, images of healthy crab and microscope slide). geralt hunts down dinner, digs in, and immediately sighs and grabs jaskier’s portion away from him to the poet’s complete bafflement before going to get his swords because judging by the flavor there’s definitely a shishiga nest in this forest.

like. parasites are one of THE most hyperspecific things in biology. the majority of them have very specific hosts and life cycles, many of them are completely unique to a species, if you think a fictional parasite is too specific to be plausible you’re probably wrong, make it even more specific. “the witcher monster lore is so hyperspecific lol” IT AIN’T TRULY HYPERSPECIFIC UNTIL YOU CAN IDENTIFY EACH MONSTER SPECIES BY ITS UNIQUE PARASITIC LOAD, OKAY.

and, with regards to behavior-affecting parasites, before anyone brings up Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps, as of 2008): yeah that sure is a thing! if you weren’t aware, just a couple of years ago we found out it actually is not a mind control fungus!! it bypasses the brain entirely and affects the muscles (Arstechnica article, Atlantic article—photos of fuzzy ants and electron microscope pictures of fungi). or as Ed Yong puts it, “The ant ends its life as a prisoner in its own body. Its brain is still in the driver's seat, but the fungus has the wheel.” which is. significantly worse than the brain thing. awesome!! i bet there would absolutely be similar fungal parasites of endrega and arachasae. real Ophiocordyceps still very much does not affect humans, but you know what, if plants can be cursed into becoming archespores and cultivated by mages i see no reason why mages could not also curse endrega fungus to affect humans, just saying

aaaand quickly back to hyperspecificity: monsters in different geographical areas having different abilities because of their symbionts. forktails in vicovaro acquire a bioluminescent symbiont in their diet that forktails in other parts of the continent can’t get, and they can create flashes of light? that’s sure gonna fuck a witcher on Cat up when he comes in the cave expecting a normal forktail. (geographic location affecting bioluminescence is a thing that actually happens in midshipman fish—Wikipedia link, no parasites.) geographically-dependent symbionts can also produce different toxins and such for their hosts! this isn’t exactly a parasitism thing per se (although parasites are also symbionts because ‘symbiosis’ refers to two organisms in close association not two organisms in positive association) but like. it’s cool okay ecology is so cool

writing fic and tired of all these same-old monsters-of-the-week? quick and easy way to spice up either the horror factor or just make the hunt stand out slightly: just add parasites!! i know i’ve read fics where monsters were described with distinguishing old wounds. you can do the same with parasites! i would fucking swoon over a detail like an ancient water hag’s eyes glowing in the dark, one of them marred by a dangling parasite—geralt notes the blind spot and presses his advantage. (Wikipedia link, no images: this one is referencing an aquatic copepod called Ommatokoita.) also, please put barnacles on skelliger drowners, i want it so badly. just—some percentage of monsters should be Extra Grody on the inside and/or the outside, that’s how nature works. spicing up a mundane hunt by making the monster a little extra gross for its species is Valid, is what I’m saying.

also, every single time frozen specimens with obvious fungal/ectoparasite infections come into the lab we absolutely always take extra close-up pictures of those suckers and make sure everyone else gets to see them. witchers bringing field sketches and notes of the weirdest shit they found on the path back for winter. lambert declares they’ll never know if this alleged fiend tumor was a fungus or mange because geralt sucks at drawing. eskel, the man who hauled a katakan corpse all the way up the mountain so he could dissect it, produces actual skin samples of his own encounters for examination, possibly in the middle of dinner. this elicits mixed reactions.

quick detour into preservation, since I went there—witchers are probably immune to parasites that infect humans by virtue of having pretty different biology to begin with, and probably immune to parasitic infections from other sources by virtue of superhumanly boosted immune systems and all the poison they put into their bodies on a regular basis. picking up a monster parasite would probably not be a big deal for witchers, either in that they have total immunity or that they would only be minimally and briefly affected, but the field of monster biology is likely such that they probably just don’t actually know what would happen to them in the majority of cases. this has potential as a source of battle stories and/or stories intended to freak out trainees, i think. therefore, out of caution, a witcher harvesting/preparing parts for alchemy might want to be sure to treat them first. personally i think all monster parts should be preserved immediately anyways to avoid attracting necrophages, and given that alchemical concoctions in witcherverse are alcohol-based, preservation in strong alcohol is probably the best way to maintain potency and kill basically everything. (cons: alcohol is SUPER heavy and jars are fragile. tissues or organs which are thicker than perhaps half an inch or an inch require additional preparation for the alcohol to penetrate properly. other preservation methods are more efficient for travel. depends on how soon your witcher intends to use or offload their stash.)

also, here’s an absolutely wild marine parasite that would make it worth a witcher’s while to make certain everything was dead! pearlfishes are long eel-like fishes that live inside the anus and respiratory organs (which are attached to the anus) of sea cucumbers, and they have pretty nasty teeth (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING: dissected sea cucumbers literally stuffed to the gills with pearlfish). the highest number of pearlfish discovered in a single sea cucumber was sixteen (ResearchGate article, free PDF; no images). a different fact: we discovered tiger sharks eat each other in the womb because a researcher got bitten by a fetal tiger shark while he was dissecting the mother (NYT link, no images or parasites). what i’m saying is: parasites are often very small relative to the host and usually harmless to things rummaging around inside, but what if the monster’s parasites were also monstrous. give me a monster that has to be very dead or when you start rummaging around for alchemy ingredients the things in its intestines will lunge out and bite you.

what happens if a human becomes infected with a monster parasite? bad things, probably, i mentioned before that parasites in the wrong host, if they don’t just die, often super fuck things up internally (if you get tapeworms outside of the intestine where they’re supposed to be... it’s not good y’all. CDC link, no images). host-jumping for parasites is actually fairly rare since most of them are highly specialized for their hosts, but it does happen. humans are very not my strong suit so i’m not going to dwell on this but it is entirely possible that something like necrophage infestations or monster-contaminated water sources or just being a little too involved on a witcher’s monster hunt could produce strange parasitic diseases in humans. up to you how well-known and/or how clouded in superstition these effects might be! opportunities for hideous whump? gross body horror? messy and horrifying parasite-driven behavioral changes? terrifying and potentially prolonged uncertainty over what the issue actually is because of minimal information about parasites? the decision whether or not to dose with a witcher potion? excellent possibilities.

okay last one, just because i think it would be fun: myxosporeans and sirens. Myxos are a parasitic relative of jellyfish that produce whirling disease in baby salmon. whirling disease causes neurological and skeletal damage and has a pretty high mortality rate, but it also makes infected fish do this, well, whirling behavior and it’s honestly fascinating. (video link: a pretty normal-looking young trout spinning like a fuckin top). imagine a siren doing that in the sky. i just think myxos are neat!

tl;dr: extra grody hyperspecific biology of monsters!!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #fic reference #parasites cw #VERY parasites cw #body horror cw #i have a bunch of new followers who i think came for library content and to you i am so sorry #half the time i am yelling about libraries but the other half of the time i am yelling about the GROSSEST bio shit

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confusion-core · 3 years

Text

Story

Despite the title, this isn't a fictional story. This is a true account of my experience with self harm, because I've heard it can be therapeutic to write about it, plus I want somebody to hear this story, especially if it'll mean somebody else will be discouraged from doing it in the future. Trigger warning for references to mental illness, self harm, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, maybe ED. If you don't wish to read about any of those things, please don't read this. If you know me in real life, please don't read this and just pretend you didn't see it, especially if you're a close friend, because I don't want anybody close to me knowing about these things. Also if anybody tries to reblog this with a joke or make light of it, they will immediately be blocked.

I'm gonna start from when I was very young, so that you have full context, and work my way up from there, because every part of this is important to understand the whole story.

3 years old - I hadn't yet said my first words (I was non verbal until I was 7) but I taken my first steps. This would be a cause for celebration, but honestly I wasn't really in the mood for celebrating. This next bit's kind of shaky because a lot of it is from 2nd hand accounts and I have trouble remembering from around this time, except for the days where I start remembering every detail of it. My mother was just starting to get the full effects of her thyroid problem, but she hadn't yet been diagnosed with it because she didn't trust the doctors apparently. Another thing she didn't trust was me and my one year older brother, and she thought we were out to get her. She'd spend hours alone in the living room crying and hiding from us, one of the few scenes I can regularly remember because I had/have a lot of dreams about how my dad would stand in front of the door, trying to convince us to not go in when all we wanted was to help her. I don't hold this against her, because she wasn't in her right mind at the time, but I do hold it against my father that he didn't send us to stay with somebody else for fear of somebody calling child protection services.

9 years old - My mother told me that I might have a thyroid problem like she and my uncle did, and I couldn't stop thinking about it because I knew that the one reason I didn't resent her was because she had no way of telling in that time with limited information, so if I didn't do my best to figure it out then I'd be doing the same to my kids, but I wouldn't have any excuses. I'd be letting them down, and that idea hurt me on a much deeper level than having been on the receiving end myself.

12 years old - My mother had forgotten about taking me to a doctor over time, and I never brought it up because I knew it'd lead to a conversation with her about how it affected me and I really didn't want to have that talk. Not then, not now, not ever. It's not that I thought she would be offended, but I knew it would break her heart to hear it from her own son. And so, at this point, I couldn't stop spiraling thinking about it, and every time I thought about it I'd get little flashes in my mind's eye of what I was there for, it lead to me laying in bed just shaking thinking of doing that to my children while knowing I could've done something about it and neglected to. One night, I just broke. I wanted to break something but I didn't have anything on hand, so I just picked up something sharp, maybe it was a razer I think, it might have just been a regular blade, and slashed it at my wrist. The first time didn't cut too deep, but after a moment I realised that the pain made everything else seem just a little less high-stakes. I did it again, and again, and again, the whole time still shaking and crying until I was a bloody, snotty mess. I did the same again the next day and the next after that etcetera for the next month or so, but everyday I'd cut just a little deeper. It did make me feel better, temporarily, but the cuts hurt like a bitch, I'd be whimpering from somebody laying their hand on my arm.

13 years old - A year later, I'd almost completely stopped when it came the time of year when I did it the first time, and I started feeling anxious and shaky all over again, and again I did it. At this point, I started feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of food, throwing up and starving myself for days at a time, and other times I wouldn't be able to stop eating. My mother found the scars, I told her it was a one time thing.

... then I did it again, the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Around the 3 year milestone it stopped bringing me that sense of clarity, and just made me feel empty. Pain in general started making me itch for more, I'd fall over and suddenly all I'd want would be to bang my head one more time. I still feel that, and I recently found out that that's because you can become chemically addicted to pain, and I did. It was miserable, I started wishing that it would end. Last year, it almost did when I had my mouth full to bursting with painkillers, ready to swallow when when my mother's dog came into the kitchen. I panicked and spat them into the sink, and sat on the floor and cried. My dog comforted me, usually he's happy and energetic but he has amazing empathy and is seriously good at reading the room when it matters. People keep asking me why he suddenly became my favourite thing in the world overnight, and I just tell them he's cuter but in reality it's because I literally owe him my life. I would actually be dead if it weren't for him, and I love him for that, and the fact that he knew just how to help.

16 years old - New Year's Day, I was helping my family set up for dinner. Everything started looking kind of blue for some reason, I was getting tunnel vision and suddenly I felt dizzy, as if I were drunk. I wanted to mention this but my mother was saying something and I didn't want to interrupt, even though I couldn't understand a word she was saying, and being a pushover became my downfall. My vision went dark, but I could tell I was still standing, and I could see a bunch of shapes and lines in white in the darkness, and what appeared to be the outline of a person facing away from me. I couldn't see anywhere I was going, and I just stumbled blindly. After about 5 seconds, I felt something on the back of my knee and toppled, and as I hit the floor my vision suddenly came back. I was splayed out on the floor, my sister was looking at me and my mother and panicking, asking me what was going on, and I just kept telling her I didn't know. She said she was going to take me to a doctor, but never got round to it, and after a while I realised that it was a hallucination, since I still get them sometimes on much lower levels like hearing slide whistles and circus music. I digress, though, the night of that New Year's, I was still shaken by what happened and when I went to grab a glass in my bedroom I didn't close my hand and it smashed against the floor. I was still shaken, and in kind of a daze, and I took one of the shards and dragged it straight across my arm. Then several more times.

Now - it's been almost half a year since I last did it, and yeah, I still have nightmares about being an infant with a chemically imbalanced mother, and I'm still not sure if I have a thyroid problem or not, and I can't look at shadows without being reminded of New Year's Eve, but this is all shit I could've worked out in therapy. Now, I turn into a sniveling shaking mess acting like a scolded puppy whenever I hear a glass break, I can't listen to my favourite song because I listened to it while doing the deed once, and I literally have a chemical addiction to pain. None of the latter would've been true if I hadn't done it that one very first time, so to anybody who wants to "try it out" or "see what it's like", please, I beg of you, don't do it. It's not worth the youth it'll take away from you.

#tw sh #cw sh #tw ed #cw ed #tw mental illness #cw mental illness #tw suicide

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thewalkingdead-fan101 · 4 years

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In This Hell Daryl Dixon X Reader Part 6/??

Hey guys! I am so sorry for not posting chapter six sooner, I've been working really hard on it for you all and I hope you like it! :) In this part I've tried to give some insight of the readers past. Warnings- General Walking Dead stuff, Blood, Gore, Swearing.

After his confession, Daryl had run off, and decided to sleep in a different tent. Much to my disappointment. The night went by quick, so did the next sunrise. After pulling my boots on, I grabbed my jacket and headed out, running into Carol as I exited the tent. “Morning Carol.” I smiled. “Morning, How’d you sleep?” She responded. “Half decent.” I answered “So about the same as every other night.” She laughed I nodded my head, grabbing one of the baskets with Carol. We washed the groups clothes, putting them back into the baskets. “I wish we could give back to Hershel, and his family. They’ve helped us with so much.” “You’re right. Maybe we could make them a dinner?” “That sounds great.”

“I’ve been thinking about it.” We stopped by our makeshift clothesline, placing the baskets on the picnic bench.

Hanging out the clothes, someone else had joined us. “I can't believe I slept in.”

“You must have needed it. Feeling all right?” Carol asked.

“Next time wake me, all right?” Lori paused. “Especially on laundry day.” She finished, grabbing some clothing.

“We can manage.” I smiled “I had an idea I wanted to run by you.” Carol looked over to me.

“What's that?”

“That big kitchen of theirs got me thinking. I wouldn't mind cooking in a real kitchen again. Maybe we all pitch in and cook dinner for Hershel and his family tonight. Kind of looking for things to keep my mind occupied.”

“After everything they've done for us, seems like the least we could do.”

“You mind extending the invitation? Would just feel more right coming from you.”

“How so?”

“You're Rick's wife. It sort of makes you our unofficial first lady.” Carol smiled as I chuckled. I look aver as the rest of the group make their way over to the Cherokee. “Morning, guys. Let's get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover.” Rick called out. I looked over to Lori, who was staring at her husband. “Hey, are you okay?” I asked, rubbing her shoulder. “Huh? Yeah, im fine, sorry.” She shook her head. “You know where I am if you need anything.” I nodded. She nodded back in response with a small smile. “I’ll be back, im just going to see if they need any help.” I smiled. I walked over to the Cherokee as Shane opened his big mouth. “Nothing about what Daryl found screams Sophia to me. Anyone could have been holed up in that farmhouse.” He commented from the passenger seat. I glare at him, shaking my head at his negativity.

“Anybody includes her, right?” Andrea asked. I looked over to Daryl, who was avoiding eye contact.

“Whoever slept in that cupboard was no bigger than yay-high.” He stated to the group.

“It's a good lead.” Andrea nodded.

“Maybe we'll pick up her trail again.” Rick noted. I look back over to Daryl, who points over onto the map.

“No maybe about it. I'm gonna borrow a horse, head up to this ridge right here, take a bird's-eye view of the whole grid. If she's up there, I'll spot her.”

“Good idea. Maybe you'll see your Chupacabra up there too.” T-dog jested.

“Chupacabra?” Rick asked.

“You never heard this? Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time he went squirrel hunting and he saw a Chupacabra.” Dale finished. Smiling, I reminisced over that night.

Merle and Daryl were sitting on the left hand side of the fire, Morales and his wife on the right, Jacqui and T-dog next to Andrea and Amy. Glenn was sitting with Dale, Carl was sitting with the other kids, Louis, Eliza and Sophia as Shane, Lori and Carol chatted. Ed staring at his wife with a murderous glare in his eye, that we all had noticed. Then there was me, Sitting next to Shane, close enough so he knew where I was. I sat directly across from Daryl, making eye contact every now and then. We were all swapping stories about what we did before the end of the world, who we are.

When Merle noticed me watching Daryl. Thats when he stood up, getting everyones attention. “Come on little brother. You got this in the bag.” “Sit down Merle.” Daryl shook his head. “No, No, No, These people have told their stories, now let's tell them one of yours.” “Nah, they don’t wanna hear it.” He argued. “Come one Daryl, Let's let the people decide.” Merle made his way around the fire, stopping in front of where I was seated.

“How ‘bout you? You seem pretty interested there sweet cheeks.” “Leave her alone Merle.” Daryl softly growled. I looked up at Daryl and smiled softly. “I wouldn’t mind hearing it.” “See little brother? She wouldn’t mind hearing it.” Merle mocked me.

I rolled my eyes as Merle made his way back over to sit next to Daryl. “So what is this story about? You have my sisters attention, must be good.” Shane laughed. Daryl took a deep breath before starting.

“I- uh, I was out hunting, Merle was out doing whatever it was he was doing, our old man was at home passed out.” He began. “I was hunting squirrels, there wasn’t any big game around, it wasn’t the right time of the year. I had been out for a few hours, had about seven squirrels bagged. I was following one, that’s when I saw it.” “Saw what?” Carl asked, leaning on his knees, mirroring myself. “ I saw a chupacabra.” “A chupacabra?” Shane asked. The group all laughed as I watched Daryl, look down. “What did it look like?” I asked. Daryl looked up at me and I smiled. “You don’t believe this. Come on.” Shane scoffed. I ignored Shane, and kept eye contact with Daryl. “It was big, it was on all fours, looked like a cross between a bear and a coyote, Its eyes glowed red and it was hairless, looked as though it was scaly. It had spikes coming from it’s spine, it left as soon as it noticed I was there.” I looked over to see the kids all amazed at the story of the chupacabra. “After it ran off, I went home, told the old man, he didn’t believe me, I told Merle and he didn’t believe me.” “I think the only people buying into this story are the kids.” Andrea laughed.

“I Believe.” I smiled.

“See little brother. She Believes.” Merle laughed.

Daryl looked around the group as they laughed softly.

“I know what I saw, and I ain’t need none of y’all to believe me.” Daryl said, standing up and stalking to his tent.

“That’s it little brother! You only need me. You hear?” Merle called out, smiling as he watched Daryl leave. I look up to see Daryl, wearily watching me. My head snaps in the direction of Jimmy who was laughing at Daryl. “What are you braying at, jackass?” Daryl asked.

“You believe in a blood-sucking dog?” Jimmy sarcastically asked. “Do you believe in dead people walking around?” Daryl fought back. Jimmy looked down, before reaching for the gun.

“Hey hey. Ever fire one before?” Rick asked.

“Well, if I'm going out, I want one.” He stated.

“Yeah, and people in hell want slurpee’s.” Daryl responded, making his exit. I stifled laughter as Jimmy watched him walk away. “Why don't you come train tomorrow? If you're serious, I'm a certified instructor.” Shane called out to Jimmy.

“For now he can come with us.” Andrea smiled.

“He's yours to babysit then.” Shane nodded.

“What can I do?” I asked “You can stay here and out of the way.” Shane answered. “Excuse me? Shane-“ “Im sorry (Y/n), but I agree with your brother. It’s best for you to stay here and make sure that everyone is okay.” Rick nodded. I looked at Rick and nodded. “If that is how I can help find Sophia, fine.” I nodded as I backed away from the Cherokee and over to where Carol was.

“What’s the plan for today?” Carol asked.

“Rick, Shane, Dale, Andrea and T-dog are going out to search the woods, Daryl Is searching along the creeks and some old ridges.”

“I hope they’re all safe… the last thing we need is more people hurt or missing.” She sighed. “Carol-“ “Im starting to lose hope.” She started, looking out over the field that held a few head of cattle. “My little girl is out there, and each day that passes, doesn’t help. Andrea tried to comfort me yesterday… I told her not to, I can’t take anymore thoughts or prayers… It’s exhausting.” She continued. “I get it, I really do Carol. But we can’t give up. We will find her, and I am praying that its under good circumstances, but we will know what happened to your little girl, we will get closure.” Carol looked over and smiled softly. “Im with you, the whole way.” I smiled grabbing her hand.

She squeezed my hand as she let a few tears fall. “Thank you.” I looked up and watched as the others made their way into the cars and driving off to continue the search for Sophia. “If you need me, I’ll be inside, making sure that its clean for when they bring her home.” Carol sniffed. “Okay, ill talk to you later.”

Standing up, I stretch, looking around the farm. On the front porch, Glenn was strumming the guitar that Dale had found on the highway. Maggie coming out of the house, talking to Glenn. I make my way over to where Lori was sitting, staring at her hands, a somber expression. “Hey, are you okay?” I asked, sitting next to her. “Huh? Yeah honey im okay.” She responded. “Lori, I know you… Something is up. Talk to me.” “(Y/n), im fine, im just thinking about this world we are living in now, that poor little girl missing, my boy shot… Maybe this isn’t a world for children.” “I haven’t told anyone this. Before the CDC was destroyed, Jenner did an ultrasound… We found out that I was five weeks along. He tried to tell me that he could get rid of my baby.” “What?” She asked looking at me. “He said all of this stuff that terrified me. Since we left the CDC, I can’t stop thinking about what he said.” I paused. “Maybe you’re right for thinking that way. Maybe this isn’t a world for children anymore, hell I’ve been thinking that lately. But we are survivors, that’s what we do. Your boy, in that house, is a survivor. He pulled through, as for Sophia? I am still praying every night that we find that girl and bring her back.” “Am I a horrible mother for thinking this way?” She asked “Of course not! You’re only human. Lori, we are all going to get through this.” She nodded and smiled softly. “You’re right… That’s rare for a Walsh.” She joked. I laughed along with her. “You have the wrong sibling for that, im right at least 89.5% of the time.” I joked.

“You have a point. Your brother is barely right.”

We laughed for a moment.

I turned my head and I heard the sound of leaves crunching, seeing Glenn make his way over.

“(Y/n/n), can you give us a second?” Lori asked.

“Of course. I’ll talk to you later.” I smiled, getting up, walking toward the house. I turn to see Glenn headed towards Lori and I. “Hey, (Y/n/n)

I knocked on the door and waited for someone to acknowledge my presence.

“You don’t have to knock you know.” Maggie smiled walking up the steps.

“I just wanted to be polite... I didn’t want to just barge in.”

“It’s fine, really. Come on.” She opened the door and led me inside.

“What’s going on with you and Glenn?”

“What are you talking about?” She asked suddenly, a worried glint in her eye.

“You guys look pretty friendly.”

“We’re just friends, acquaintances more so.”

“It’s okay, you are allowed to make friends. We aren’t going to hurt you guys.” I smiled.

“It’s not that, I can promise you it’s not that.” She smiled.

“(Y/n/n)?”

I turn my head to see Carl looking through the crack in the door from his bed.

I look back at Maggie with a small smile.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

“Not at all.” She nodded backing away.

“Hey buddy, can I come in?”

He nodded.

I walked in and sat in the chair next to his bed.

“How are you feeling today mister?”

“I’m okay.” He smiled

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really, not anymore.”

“That’s good, that is really good.”

“I’m like dad now. He was shot, I was shot. He gave me his hat.” He said excitement clear on his face.

“So there is a new sheriff in town?”

He just laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, so I’m the boss now.”

“Alright, do you want me to fluff your pillow there boss?” I joked with him.

He laughed softly, before he sighed and rested his head against the headboard.

“What’s wrong kiddo?”

“I’m stuck in this stupid bed all day.”

“Carl, you need to get your rest, to get better.”

“I just want to be out and help look for Sophia.” He sighed.

“Hey, it won’t be long. You’ll be back on your feet in no time... Have patience.”

“I know. But I know I can help.”

“I know you can help. But right now, you need to help by making sure you get better.”

He nodded, looking around the room.

“I have an idea.”

He looked back to me hopeful.

“Give me a sec.” I smiled, getting up and leaving the room.

I stopped in the dining room where Maggie was seated at the table.

“Hey, sorry to be any trouble, but do you have any cards or games?” I asked.

She looked over and smiled.

“Yeah, I think so.” She answered, getting up and heading towards the living room, opening a small cupboard.

She was down for a moment, before popping back up with a monopoly board and scrabble board.

“We have these.” She smiled, passing me the two.

“It’s perfect, thank you!” I smiled

“You’re welcome.” She called as I left.

I made my way back to Carl’s room, halting as I catch a glimpse of a few of the Greene’s family photos hung on the wall. The biggest photo on the wall was a family portrait. Hershel, with a beautiful woman on his arm. The two were surrounded by three kids, Maggie, Beth and im guessing Shawn. In the portrait, Maggie and Beth were much younger, but there was barely any difference in their appearance. I could feel the presence of eyes, boring into my back. I turn to the side to see Hershel staring, briskly walking away after our eyes met. Left in the hallway, I turn back to the photos, smiling at the photo of of Maggie behind a screaming Beth on a rope swing. The next photo is of who I am assuming is Shawn as a young boy, sitting behind the wheel of a tractor on Hershels knee.

Another picture of the three kids, all with matching outfits, a newborn Beth in a basket, Shawn and Maggie holding the basket.

The photo reminding me of one the photos Shane and I had to endure for our parents when we were kids.

We were young, I was about three, Shane closer to six. Shane and I both sitting in a wheelbarrow, Shane behind me in matching denim overalls, covered in dirt. “Shane, come on buddy, You need to smile!” I heard dad trying to encourage him. “Shane, we’re sending these to your Grandma Jean, and the rest of the family, you need to smile sweetheart.” My mum said trying her best to coerce a smile from a stone faced Shane. “Same goes for you (Y/n). Big Smile angel.” My dad spoke. It didn’t take much to persuade me to do a giant smile. “Thats my girl!” My mother smiled. “Your turn now my boy.” My father started to get stern. “Come on, please smile for mommy and daddy.” Mom tried once more, softly sighing.

The bright sting of the flash had momentarily blinded us as the next picture was taken. Out of no where, both of our parents erupted into massive cheers. “Atta boy Shane!” Dad yelled still ecstatic. “This is it Patrick.” Mom had smiled. “We finally got our boy to smile Marie.” Dad smiled hugging her.

I shake my head and come back to now. The last photo I see is of Hershel and his wife, on their wedding day. Hershel looked much younger, his hair slicked back and his tie tight. I left after examining the photos, smiling over the smallest details. “So, I figured out what we can do to pass time while we’re here.” I smiled entering the room. “You are gonna stay?” He excitedly asked.

“Yeah, until you get tired.” “What are we going to do?” He smiled, slowly sitting up. “Well, Maggie found us Scrabble and Monopoly. What do you want to play?” I asked, placing the two games on the bed next to him.

He looked between the two and smiled. “Can we play monopoly?” “Definitely.” “Dibs on the Race car!” He stated excitedly. “Fine, Only if im banker.” I laughed. His smile became brighter, which I thought was impossible.

We set up the board and started the game.

After an hour or so I look up to see a smug smile on his his face.

At this point Carl had owned a majority of the board, and I was in jail.

“You are pretty good kid, I’ll give you that.” I smiled.

He looked at my piece in jail, and laughed.

“You’re back in there?” He kept laughing. “Okay, I have bad luck today.” “You were on a roll.” “I know!” I laughed with him. “Do you want my Get out of jail free card?” ‘When did you get that?” I asked genuinely intrigued. “When I picked up my chance card earlier.” He laughed.

Soon after the room was full of laughter between the two of us.

“Keep that for yourself, you might need it later.” I smiled. “Okay, don’t cry if I buy the rest of the board.” “Oh so the kids got game.” I play scoffed, causing him to laugh even more. “Okay sheriff, it’s your turn to roll.”

He rolled his eyes as he laughed more.

Picking up the die, he rolled them, getting a double three and moving up six spaces.

“You’re too good at this kid, you’re starting to remind me of Shane.” I chuckled.

I looked up to see a somber expression on his face.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked putting my hand on his shoulder. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” “What do you mean?” “We shouldn’t be playing monopoly.” “We can play scrabble instead?” “No! We shouldn’t be having fun.” He shook his head. “What makes you say that?” “Sophia is still missing. She should be here playing with us.” He sighed, looking down at his hands.

My heart broke for the boy in front of me.

Being the only kid in our group, his friend missing.

I can not even begin to fathom what is going on inside of his mind.

I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t find the words.

He lets out a small sob, places his head in his hands, his shoulders rising and falling with each sob.

I move the portable table aside and sit on the bed, pulling him into a hug, my hand gently rubbing his back.

“Hey, hey, hey... it’s okay.” I tried to calm him down. “It’s not fair! She should be here!” He mumbled against my chest, in between sobs, pulling me closer. “I know it’s not kiddo...” I sighed hugging him tight. “I miss her (Y/n).” “I know... I do too.” I agreed lightly stroking his hair back. “We will find her right?” He asked pulling back and looking up. “I hope so...”

He nodded in response and yawned, now rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

“It’s time for you to get some sleep.” I smiled softly as I stood up, tucking the blanket over him as he laid back down. “Thank you for hanging out with me today.” He whispered. “Hey, you’re family now. You don’t need to thank me for hanging out with you.” I smiled pushing his hair out of his face.

He softly smiled back. As I left the room, I could hear voices talking and laughing from the kitchen. Walking down the hallway, I soon arrive to the kitchen, stopping and leaning against the doorframe. “Well, what’s going on here?” “Do you remember what we spoke about this morning ?” Carol asked.

I nodded. ‘Well, Lori spoke to Patricia, asked if we could use their kitchen to make them a nice meal.” “I take it, that it obviously went well.” I smiled.

“Well, we thought it’d be great.” Beth smiled wide. “In that case, is there any room for an extra pair of hands?” “Hey, there’s always room for you.” Carol chuckled. I entered the kitchen and stood at the sink, next to Lori who was washing some potatoes under the running water. I smiled as I looked at the others, Carol wiping the dishes, Beth and Patricia at the table in the centre of the room, chatting. i grabbed the already washed potatoes and started to peel them. “Potatoes are the best.” I exclaimed. “Seriously, Potatoes could have been used as currency hundreds of years ago!” I laughed.

“Oh yeah? I never thought I'd be so happy to see a potato. I'm just glad we're not roasting squirrels over a fire in the woods.” Lori chuckled. “Thank you, Patricia, so much for letting us into your home.” She finished.

Patricia looked up from her spot at the table and smiled.

As Lori washed the potatoes I peeled them and cut them up for boiling.

We had put a ham into the oven to cook, and stringed beans on the stove ready to boil. Carol decided to wash the dishes as we went along. The next half an hour as we prepared the meal were just full of laughs as we joked and talked to one another.

When I finished the potatoes I walked over and helped Carol with the dishes. I kept my gaze outside of the window.

“Go.”

My head snapped to the right. “What?” “I said go.” “Why?” I chuckled softly wiping the plate in my hand down, and placing it on the counter.

“(Y/n). We have this covered.” Carol smiled. “Carol-“ I was cut off. “Is right. Go. See if he is back yet.”

I turned my head and looked at Lori. Who waved her hands in a shoo motion. I looked around the room to see all of the girls smiling at me. “Are you guys sure?” “Just go.” They all said in unison.

“Okay, okay.” I put my hands up in surrender as Lori lightly snatched the tea towel out of my hand and playfully hitting me with it. I lightly squealed as I jumped away from her.

As I got to the entrance way of the kitchen I look back to see the girls all smiling and giggling again. I smile as I see the normalcy of it, that we all so desperately need. It was Shanes birthday party, all of the men and the boys were outside on the grill, while all of the women were inside making snacks and refreshments. “Pumpkin! Where is my little Pumpkin?” Echoed throughout the house. I giggle softly from my little hiding spot.

“Surely, my little pumpkin isn’t hiding from me!” The same voice called out, legs walking in front of the small end table.

I put my hand over my mouth so she couldn’t hear me. The legs stopped directly in front of the table. “Marie, I can’t find pumpkin anywhere!” I heard my mothers laugh from the kitchen. “She will come out sooner or later Jean!” She called back.

Grandma Jean sighed and turned away slightly and walked towards the kitchen. “Its such a shame. I dont know who can be my taste tester.” She dramatically sighed.

I moved the dangling laced cloth from in front of my eyes and poked my head out from my cover. The coast was clear, so I made my move.

I quietly crept out of my hiding spot, making sure wasn’t seen. My little feet carried me to the kitchen to see mom with all of my aunts and my grandmothers. Aunty Tania, Aunty Ruth and Aunty Sarah were standing along side one another with their ice cold lemonade that Grandma Jean had made. Grandma Paula and her partner Sophia, or Grandma Sophia as we called her, were cutting all different types of sandwiches into triangles and taking the trays outside as mom and Grandma Jean were rolling out cookie dough and making her special ’Triple chocolate, white fudge swirl cookies’ that made her a family favourite on both her side of the family and on moms side of the family.

I watched in awe as the seven women laughed and joked and smiled at one another’s stories and tales.

“Hey Ma, Your pumpkin is in the foyer.” My Auntie Sarah stated as she noticed my presence, exhaling the smoke from her cigarette out of the side window. “I told you that she would come out soon Jean.” Mom jested as Grandma Jean swatted her away. I smiled lovingly at the memory, completely turning to the front door.

As I opened the door, the first thing I see was Dale and Andrea talking to each other.

Dale on the ground looking up at her as she kept watch. Dale had said something else before entering the RV. I smiled, knowing that slowly the two were going to make amends. I start to descend the stairs. “Walker! Walker!” She yelled out, causing the rest of our group to run and grab their melee weaponry. Shane was carrying a short handled hoe/pickaxe. “Best let us handle this!” I heard Shane call out. The guys all ran towards the walker, all but Dale who tried to get Andrea to lower the gun. My stomach was churning, as though something bad was going to happen. “Andrea, don’t shoot, let them handle it.” Dale had half climbed the ladder trying to stop Andrea, as she lined up the shot. “Dale, give me those binoculars please.”

He handed them to me. Looking through the binoculars I see the others in front of the walker. Searching I notice that it isn’t a walker, its Daryl, he looks like one, with Rick pointing a gun to his head. After a second he lowers the gun.

I smile and lower the binoculars. I look up to Dale and Andrea. “Guys, it’s-“ I was cut off by a loud echo, my eardrums ringing from the intruding sound. My heart feels like it’s stopped, everything was in slow motion. I look over the field and see Daryl drop. Tears fill the brim of my eyes. “No, no no no no.” I muttered. I threw the binoculars to the ground and took off in a sprint. “(Y/N)!” Dale called out. I ignored everything, I fought the pain in my chest as I pushed harder and faster to get to him. There was a broken fence ahead, so I sprint toward it and vault myself over it stumbling as I landed, but pushing myself to get back up and get to Daryl.

My cheeks felt cold as the wind harshly blew against the tear soaked skin. “Daryl!” I called as I got closer to the group, watching as Shane and Rick lifted him up.

I started to slow down, the closer I got. “Is he okay? Is he breathing?” I asked frantically as I grabbed his face in-between my hands and searched it for a bullet hole, seeing a harsh line on his scalp on the left side. I could hear footsteps behind me. “oh my god. Oh my god, is he dead?” Andrea asked. “Unconscious. You just grazed him.” “Oh thank god. Im so relieved.” I scoff and push past her.

“Whats that about?” She scoffed. “Andrea, just leave it.” Shane called as we kept walking.

“No Shane, im not going to leave it.” She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. “You could’ve killed him.” I sneered. “What?” “Daryl. You could’ve killed him.” “I didn’t though, I missed.” “You only just missed Andrea! I told you not to shoot! And you didn’t listen.” I snapped.

“(Y/n)-“ she started to talk. “I don’t want to hear it.” I held my hands up and backed away, shaking my head as I turned around.

Behind me, I could hear T-dog start to speak up. “Guys…”

I continued to follow Rick and Shane, not wanting to leave Daryl’s side.

“Guys….” He spoke louder. We all stopped and turned. My eyes landing on the small doll in his hand. “Isn’t this Sophia’s?” He asked, holding it slightly higher in the air. I look at the doll and more tears brimmed my eyes.

Daryl finding Sophia’s doll, meant that we are closer to finding her than we have been before. My head snapped back towards where Daryl was hung between Rick and Shane, after hearing a small groan.

“Lets get him back, get checked out by Hershel, then we can ask him about the doll.” Rick stated as they turned back toward the farm house.

I kept on their heel as we got closer and closer to the house. I looked up and noticed everyone standing outside in front of the house. “What happened?” Hershel asked as soon as we were in earshot. “He was shot, it was an accident.” Rick said glancing at Andrea. “Get him inside. I’ll take care of the wounds.” Hershel nodded. I felt someone pull me into their arms and into a hug, which I return. “He will be okay.” Lori spoke. “I know.” I nodded, slowly stepping back. “Im just going to uh-“ I paused. “Just going to go in and wait.” “I’ll come with you.” She stated, walking behind me.

We followed the others inside, and sat against the wall across from the room the guys were in. I sat my knee’s against my chest and laid my head against them. I felt a hand run across my shoulders and sighed as I turned my head and looked at Lori. “Everything will be okay.” Lori paused. She nodded her head.

“Just you see, everything will be okay.” She sighed.

Series Masterlist Next Part

#daryl dixion imagine #daryl x you #daryl dixon #daryl x reader #daryl fanfiction #The Walking Dead #norman reedus

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forkanna · 3 years

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[AO3] [WATTPAD]

NOTE: The beginning of this chapter hits a little harder than it did when I wrote it, because my own grandparent is in ill health of late. That's partially what's been complicating my life. I promise I will post fanfics other than this one very soon - including a certain one a certain fandom has been clamoring for.

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"Grandma? What do you do when you feel like life is over?"

The elderly proprietor of Marukyu smiled, even if she didn't turn away from the stove. Rise tried not to think too hard about all the new wrinkles that were forming around the corners of her eyes, how much slower she walked than she did before Rise took off for fame and fortune. Those thoughts didn't bring any joy to anyone. Might as well focus on the positives.

"What on Earth are you talking about, Ri-chan? You are still so young. You have many years ahead of you, you should not be thinking about such things yet."

"I… can't help it." She tried to turn her thoughts aside from actual mortality and toward her situation with her classmate. "A friend I really like is fighting with me, and I don't know what to do. I think- no, I know I hurt her feelings on accident. But she's really hurt and she thinks I did it on purpose."

"Hm? What could you have done, dear mago? You are so young, I'm sure it was nothing."

What could she say? How was she supposed to tell her kindly old grandmother that she might not be entirely straight, her friend might not be entirely female, and their relationship might not be entirely platonic? The woman was very traditional, even if she very rarely had an unkind word to say about anyone.

"I told a secret to a friend. Another friend, I mean. And I thought I could trust her with it, but I know now I shouldn't have told her at all… because the whole school found out, and the first friend is embarrassed."

Her grandmother laughed as she lifted a block of silken tofu from the box in which it had been setting, placing it on the counter to be cut into smaller pieces. Rise fell to work right away, since this was her job at the moment as sous-chef. "Ri-chan, it is not something to worry about, I can assure you. These things happen. But if you don't talk to your friend, don't try to work things out, you will regret it later in life. I promise you that, as well."

That, she could absolutely believe. "Yeah. She's just so angry, I don't know what to say to her. Is there anything I can say? Or should I just keep letting her know I want to talk and let her be the one to come to me? I don't know what to do!"

"Ahhhhh, yes, I can understand your concern there. It is like… playing go." They both chuckled, because the raw soybean liquid she was now straining to make the milk base for tofu was also pronounced "go", even though she was referring to the board game. "You are worried what every move you make will be the wrong one. To give up too much territory would be a costly mistake. But to do nothing is the worst move of them all. Then you will have not played, and you have already lost."

"But I…" That was hard to argue with. If she didn't lift a finger at all, she would lose Ai. Sure, if she risked it all she could still lose her, but they were better odds than giving up now. "Y-yeah. Thanks, Grandma."

"Of course. And I know, it must sound silly from an old lady like me, saying your troubles are so small. I know to you, they seem like mountains. But looking back from the mountain I stand on now, they were the foothills. You'll see someday."

Slumping, she set the knife down now that the tofu had been sliced into portions. "If I live that long…"

"RISE!" Suddenly she was being whacked with a spoon, and she ducked and covered her head. "Don't talk like that! You will have a long and healthy life, or I will send you right back to this world to try again! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Grandma," she said with a little bow. Even though she was smiling. So what if her parents were idiots? She had family; she wasn't alone. Sometimes life gives you exactly what you need — no more, no less.

~ o ~

However, what Rise had not been given was a plan of attack. And the longer she tried to think about it, tried to come up with something to put into play the next day, the more she continued to come up blank. So she decided to focus on practicing her vocals. The exercises were second nature by now, but she was still so rusty after only occasionally singing over the past year. Getting back into the game meant all parts of it, not just the "fun" ones.

Nothing happened the next day at school. Literally nothing. She did try to seek out Ai a few times, just in case they could smooth over the unpleasantness after she had her single petty act of revenge. Maybe that was it. Maybe they could be friends again, if she apologised… but Ai was either skipping, or very artfully avoiding her at all turns. She never saw her once, and she wasn't even responding to her texts or voicemails. Ghosted.

That evening, after dinnertime, she came calling around the Ebihara residence. But the woman who answered told her they weren't receiving guests. Probably a maid, but it also could have been a secretary of some sort. It definitely wasn't Ai's mother…

Thursday seemed like it would be much the same as the last. Unfortunately, an incident toward the end of the day interrupted an otherwise dull existence. Rise had been hoping for something like that — until it happened, and made her eat her wish.

"Attention, please!" called Noriko Kashiwagi in her throaty purr, crossing her arms to prop up her breasts and put them even more on display. Rise had long ago become desensitised to her teacher's little inappropriate displays, but that didn't mean she wasn't far more comfortable in Ms. Sofue's classroom, despite her Egyptian headdress. At least she didn't behave as if she were auditioning for a porno. "Mmm, yes, all eyes on me, class! All eyes on me!"

"Ugh," Kanji muttered from behind her. "No thanks, old bag." Rise tried not to snort.

"That's better. Now… would anyone care to explain this?"

She held up a manilla folder. An empty manilla folder. One of the girls in the front row raised her hand, and the teacher pointed to her. "Is… it's a folder, right?"

"It is. And there was supposed to be something in there. Would anyone care to guess what?" Dead silence. "The answers to yesterday's quiz. But it seems they walked off. Now, if some young, strapping boy would like to come forward and… reveal himself, maybe a little detention with me can straighten him right up."

While she was chuckling in way too flirtatious a tone than was appropriate, making most of the class wonder if they should be reporting her, Rise was glancing around the room, trying to see if she could spot the perpetrator. Not that she knew what to look for exactly; Naoto would have been the one with that skill set, and she wasn't in that class. But she couldn't help idly speculating anyway.

"No one? Very well. I will give you until the end of this class, or you will all be serving detention if the culprit doesn't come forward." When the predictable grumbling broke out, she raised her voice a little to say, "But! Confess your sins, and I may be more lenient! Now take out your books, we must get started."

"Shit," Kanji grumbled under his breath as the students rushed to obey. None of them were coming forward, but none of them wanted to get in trouble for something else either. "That gross old lady is gonna find some way to pin this on one of us. I just know it."

"Would you relax?" Rise hissed under her breath, glancing back at him as she opened her book. "She probably just misplaced it while she was too busy thinking about new ways to make the boys in her class feel uncomfor-huh?"

She cut off when she felt a page slide over her fingers in a way that wasn't natural. Looking down, she saw a piece of paper fluttering to the floor. Did somebody toss it onto her desk? No, it was much more likely it had been tucked in the pages of her book and fallen out when she opened it. Brow furrowing, she stooped to pick it up.

And her heart stopped. It didn't take her more than a couple of seconds to figure out what she was looking at.

"What's that?" asked one of the boys. She had barely looked up at him when everybody else was craning their neck, trying to see. Instinctively, she drew away, even though she would later regret doing so.

"Miss Kujikawa, do you have something you care to share with the class?"

"Oh. Well… yes, Miss Kashiwagi, this fell out of my textbook."

The woman slunk through the classroom toward her. Really, she started to think she ought to get a phone set up somewhere to grab video of the audacity of this cougar! She snatched the page out of her hand, stared at it… and her eyebrows shot up.

"This is it. The answer key." A ripple of gasps spread throughout the room, followed by hushed whispering. "Oh… but why would you need this, Kujikawa? Your grades have been consistently splendid."

"I… I didn't take it, I promise! It was just there already — I've never seen that before in my life!"

Noriko shook her head and tsked. "My, my, such acting skills. Not that I'm surprised, Risette. I would say that you must have been stealing the answers all along and that's why your grades are so high, but… this is the first time an answer key has gone missing."

"Miss Kashiwagi," Kanji put in suddenly, "come on, that's crap." Rise saw the teacher flinch at his disrespectful coarseness, and was thankful he pushed ahead immediately afterward. "Why the hell would she put that somewhere as stupid as her book if she was trying to cheat? Nobody's that dumb."

"Or careless," the teacher agreed with a long sigh, staring down at the page thoughtfully. For a long few seconds that had Rise's stomach twisting into knots. "Kujikawa, I'll supervise while you retake the test after school. If you score an above average grade on it, no cheating, I will choose to believe this somehow found its way into your book by mistake and we will forget the whole thing. But I had better not see you pull anything like this again, understand?"

The pop idol deflated somewhat. She had really been hoping the teacher would just believe her outright, and she wasn't thrilled at the idea of having to retake a test for no good reason. But all she said aloud was, "Yes, sensei."

"Mm. Now, if any of you choose to admit to a little prank on Kujikawa, you can raise your hand now, or see me after class. Where I can punish you suitably."

If only she didn't add that sinister chuckle as she walked back to her desk, hips swaying too much to be accidental…

"What the hell?" Kanji hissed to her as the teacher began to give their lesson for the day in earnest. "You didn't do it, right?"

"No, I didn't."

"Then how'd that thing get into your book? It was in your bag before you even walked into class."

Jaw setting as she stared through the blackboard, Rise growled, "Oh… I have a pretty good idea."

~ o ~

This time, Ai was lying in wait like a supervillain in her lair — even if it was just on the roof. Rise was already shaking her head and clapping as she walked up to her.

"Thank you, thank you." She even took a little bow before raising up to smirk devilishly at her. "And I'm sure you're pissed but trying to put on that brave face."

"You think this is tatemae? No, no. You're getting the real Rise, live and in colour."

"Sure, okay, whatever. But you must be here because of my little gift."

Rise leaned her elbows against the ledge, staring out over Inaba through the fence. Just sighing and thinking. Ai regarded her warily; she could see as much out of the corner of her eye. But she didn't say anything further as she waited for the response.

"It didn't feel good."

"That's it?" she snorted. "Wow."

"It didn't. Because you were my friend, and I miss you, and… I don't want to fight. Doesn't matter, though; I know I really messed up, and you're mad. And I can't change that; maybe… I can't ever change it. But does it have to go down like this? Really?"

Ai's tone wasn't as jovial now. She was still ice cold, not betraying any pain or rage. "Yes."

"Fine. But now it's my turn to let you know something."

"And what might that be? Please, Risette, bless me with your tiny little thoughts."

Rise spun to glare at her. "Oh, there it is. You think I'm small-minded, huh? Because I didn't know how to handle this from the beginning. Well I guess I was. But don't you think this is a pretty childish way to react? Trying to embarrass me, get me kicked out of school?"

"You mean the way you almost got me kicked out of school? Which could still happen, you know; I fooled them once, but what if I slip up? Or you slip up again? Could still come crashing down around me. I'm used to shitty rumours circulating about me, y'know; these rumours are just new and unwelcome because they could mean the end of life as I know it. Hell, you could still just out me again more publicly, and then I'd be royally fucked. But I'm going to force your hand." She took a step closer, glowering down into her eyes. "I am going to push, and prod, and ruin, and unravel, until you either have to kick my ass, leave in defeat, or out me on purpose. You could do that, you know; it's always been on the table. But you really think you're a good person under all that fame and stardom and self-involvement."

Rise burst out laughing, biting as the sound was. "Whoa, whoa, amazing! You're sitting there, calling me vain again! YOU! I thought we already did this one."

Ai rolled her eyes. They were both drawn tight as bowstrings as they tried to navigate this situation, being so close to a person that had been everything in their eyes once. Rise knew she still felt that way. She only could guess whether or not her feelings remained requited, despite this feud.

"Fine. Then your days are numbered. I promise I'm going to be so happy when you're dragged off your pedestal, cutie."

"Sure," she snorted. "Because we both know that's not true."

"Oh, it's not?"

"No. You still love me." Even while Ai let out a blast of harsh laughter, Rise pushed ahead. "And I still love you. So you doing this to me? It's only going to be a bad look for one of us."

Ai's dark smile finally faded into a blank look. "I didn't think you would admit it. Wow, I really wrapped you around my finger, didn't I?"

Rise felt that. She saw the glimmer of hope, she knew she had to grasp it. But with Ai dead set on her current path, she didn't know how. So she simply whispered, "I will do whatever you want. Okay? Anything to make it up to you. I already would. But you have to act like I'm not a monster first, just… give me something to grab onto. Tell me how to be better."

Ai frowned, brow creasing the tiniest bit. She leaned closer, and Rise felt her heart leap into her throat — amazed this was going to happen, here, on the school roof where anyone could see them! Her eyes began to slide closed…

But before they were shut, she saw the smirk and her heart was already sinking. The writing was on the wall. Words weren't necessary; all they did was pour salt in the wound Ai had already ripped freshly open.

"You can't be better, because you can't be me."

Then she strutted confidently off toward the stairwell, leaving a bruised and battered survivor on the battlefield. Even if Rise wasn't the victor, nor had she died; it was something of an emotional break-even. But she would need a while to recover from the skirmish regardless. Anyone would have.

~ o ~

It took Rise until she was already walking home from school, a successful retake of a test she hadn't cheated on already under her belt, to realise the silver lining of all these events. The temptation to be so unbelievably furious with Ai was strong, as was the painful longing for release — to give up, to either forget about Ai forever or just retaliate to give her what she seemed to want. The idol didn't know what to do but she felt like doing nothing wasn't acceptable.

But eventually, as she was staring into the rippling water of the Fuefuki, it came to her. Clarity. The realisation that there was a flipside to just how ardently her former friend was pursuing this line of vengeance.

"Ohhh," she breathed softly with a slowly widening smile. Bittersweet though it was. "I get it. That's really sad… but I get it now."

Unfortunately, nobody was around to hear this revelation, so she didn't tell anyone. Not yet. That was something she could keep in her back pocket for a little while longer.

To Be Continued…

#we'll face ourselves #saphir de lune #forkanna writes #rise x ai #persona 4 fanfiction #p4 fanfic #jess the writer

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365days365movies · 3 years

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January 4, 2021: First Blood (1982) (Part II)

Quick Recap before we go on. Oh, and SPOILERS right up top!

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is a Vietnam vet wandering through Washington State, until coming upon the town of Hope, run by the Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy).

Sheriff Will Teasle is an absolute dick who arrests Rambo for no real reason; just for being a “drifter.” His police force, which includes the sadistic Galt (Jack Starrett) and sympathetic Mitch (David Caruso, AKA Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami), beats John Rambo, and post-2020 me is UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!!!

Rambo has Vietnam flashbacks (like you do) and escapes the prison, pursued by the obsessive and dickish Sheriff and his equally dickish men (except for Horatio, maybe).

Galt tries to shoot Rambo, and karma bitch-slaps him RIGHT in the face, holy shit. He dies, and Rambo is blamed and shot at, escaping into the forest.

OK?

OK. On with the recap!

At this point, all of Rambo’s actions are in self-defense. In truth, it’s been self-defense since the beginning. However, he does kill two dogs, so...yeah, can’t really justify that. That sucks. The dog’s handler gets shot by Rambo, who now has a gun, and we also see that Galt’s certified sociopathy has leaked into everybody else but Horatio upon his death, including the dog guy, who tells his dogs to straight up kill Rambo. But, as previously stated...that’s not what happens.

At this point, I should introduce the amemedala.

The amemedala is a portion of the mesencephalon (or midbrain) discovered in the brains of millennials and younger individuals, recently discovered, named, and made up by yours truly. This area, attached to the thalamus, acts as a relay center between the cerebrum and the various sensory receptors of the body, similar to the function of the thalamus. However, while the thalamus governs the broad relay of senses to the appropriate areas of the brain for analysis, the amemedala relays appropriate sensory signals to the frontal lobes, where catalogs of shared sociological trends, or memes, are housed. This relay and association generates connections between extrenal stimuli, and entries in the meme catalog of the frontal lobes. While this is technically an autonomic process, it can be suppressed with enough willpower.

Why am I ringing this up in the middle of First Blood? Because EVERY. SINGLE. CELL of my brain is working to suppress the amemedala right now. Why? BECAUSE OF THE LORAX, AND FOR WHOM HE SPEAKS.

Is it an outdated meme? Very much so. BUT I CANNOT GET IT OUT OF MY GODDAMN HEAD AS I WATCH THIS MOVIE.

OK. That is now out of my system. Anyway, Rambo continues to speak for the trees, which is understandably starting to spook the smalltown cops. This leads to the VERY surprising moment where a camouflaged Rambo appears OUT OF NOWHERE and stabs Horatio in the goddamn leg! Like, wow, he was invisible! I had to rewind the film to see where he was. This is tense...and awesome, not gonna lie. This is awesome.

And then, he gets another cop by JUMPING FROM A TREE. Well, a tree stump, BUT STILL. After he takes him out, he stands in plain sight in front of an approaching cop. That cop, subscribing once again to the shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy, fires. And I SWEAR, Rambo is FASTER THAN THOSE SPEEDING BULLETS, as he dodges out of the way, and the bullets HIT THE COP HE JUST TOOK OUT!

And then, when I didn’t think this could get any more intense, that cop triggers a booby trap, and A STICK WITH WOODEN SPIKES GOES THROUGH THIS MAN’S LEGS, AND HE’S SPEARED LIKE A KEBAB OH MY GOD

The asshole sheriff runs to the NEW set of panicked screams, and his compatriot is just Batman-ed away by Rambo. It’s just the sheriff, now. The storm is building, and the forest is getting darker. The sheriff frees leg-spike cop, and goes to find the other cop, who’s been PINNED TO A TREE LIKE A BUTTERFLY IN A DISPLAY CASE. See, look!

HOLY SHIT IT’S RAMBO WITH A KNIFE IN THE FOREST. He pins the sheriff up to a tree, then with some legitimately badass lines, threatens with the sheriff with “a war [he] wouldn’t believe,” and telling him to make like Elsa and…

I love this sequence. It is the most intense, crazy, holy shit sequence I’ve seen so far this month. Wow. I understand why people talk about this movie. Man, that was a hell of a ride! Good movie, though. All right, so, time for the final sco-

Oh. Oh, my God. I’m only HALFWAY INTO THE MOVIE?

...Wow. OK, then.

We now meet Colonel Sam Trautman, Rambo’s commander in the Green Berets. He’s come to “get his boy.” He says that he came to rescue the Sheriff’s dumb ass from Rambo, rather than the other way around. And the Sheriff is...an idiot. He’s an ass, he’s a maniac, and he’s a stubborn idiot. Even after learning that Rambo is the best, he’s unwilling to back down, the dummkopf.

Rambo kills a wild boar in the woods, which makes no sense for Washington State, but whatever, sure. Anyway, they try to get the colonel to lure Rambo out, even though that’s obviously gonna make his PTSD, just...SO much worse. Especially as he starts using Vietnam parlance in contacting him. Not gonna end well, guys. But it’s then that we learn that Rambo is now the last surviving member of his unit, contributing to his trauma. Rambo’s also been trying to get in contact with the Colonel, winding up here because he has no place to go. He says that there are no friendly civilians, and the trouble’s been caused by that “king-shit” cop. I will be using this term from now on.

Wow. Damn. Hell of a reason for that title. And I think I love this movie. Seriously, I’m having a good time.

King-Shit Cop keeps going ahead with his absolute idiocy, despite all warnings to the contrary. So, a bunch of troops now converge upon Rambo’s place, but he naturally opens fire on them, without killing a single person. In fact, he hasn’t killed anyone this whole movie, and they make a point of saying that he’s been holding back the whole time. So, they decide to use the next, most logical course of action. They FIRE A ROCKET AT HIM.

Afterwards, the Colonel and King Shit Cop catch up at a bar, where the latter exposes his full sociopathy, commenting that he just wanted to kill Rambo. This is opposed to the Colonel, who doesn’t really know what he’d do if Rambo survived.

Which, of course, he did. C’mon, you think a little military-grade propelled explosive is gonna kill John Rambo? Nah. He’s the best there ever was, and he’s gonna prove it now. He jumps into a military vehicle holding an M-60, and hijacks it. Doesn’t take long for the news to break that Rambo’s still kicking, and he’s quickly intercepted by King Shit Cop, who JUST. DOESN’T. KNOW. WHEN. TO QUIT. And I’d admire his tenacity if he wasn’t SUCH AN ASSHOLE.

The cops try to run Rambo and the truck of the road, and he plays the UNO Reverse Card on them instead. And I’m pretty sure at this point…

...that old Johnny boy’s just killed some cops. So, yeah, now there’s a bigger problem. He powers through the State Police blockade like it was a banner blocking a football team, stops at a gas station, grabs the gun from the car, and LIGHTS ALL OF THAT SHIT ON FIRE! Destroying the livelihood of an individual who had nothing to do with this.

Yeah, Rambo’s starting to turn from innocent acting in self-defense to public menace REAL quick. And yeah, it’s King Shit Cop’s fault entirely...but, yeah, Johnny needs some help, because he’s losing the train at this point. But, not to be outdone, King Shit Cop is also beginning to lose it, and it’s definitely beginning to seem like only one of them is going to come out of this alive. And the Colonel tries to give him an out, but King Shit Cop’s prepared to go down with the ship that he blew a hole in in the first place. Like an asshole.

But here we go, the finale. John Rambo vs. King Shit Cop (whose name, by the way, is Will Teasle. I just like Rambo’s name for him better). KSC’s on the roof, Rambo’s on the street. Rambo causes more property damage, possibly because banks also give him PTSD (I joke, but PTSD is no laughing matter, John clearly needs help), and then finds his way to a store that has just all of the ammo a psychologically-damaged Vietnam War veteran on a revenge quest could ever need.

And then he BLOWS. THAT. SHIT. UP.

And he does this...ALL of this...just to lure KSC out of hiding. This man DESTROYS A TOWN because this idiot, sociopathic, unhinged, King Shit Cop, won’t just STAND. THE FUCK. DOWN ALREADY.

Rambo enters the police station, where KSC is on the roof. And, like the Colonel and the rest of us guessed, KSC gets shot in the process. And as Rambo stands over KSC, the Colonel finally shows up and does what literally everybody else should have done.

Talk. He just...talks to Rambo. He talks to this mentally ill man, and that mentally ill man responds, espousing his pure anger at the war, the public, protesters, work, the country, the town, himself...everyone. And goddamn, is that shit palpable.

youtube

This man can no longer fit in the world that he was forced to leave, and forced to return to. This poor, poor, poor man. It hurts. And it sucks. And he pours his heart out to the Colonel, and to us, and...you feel it. You feel his trauma, you feel his pain. You feel the aftermath of war. And it’s been seven years at this point for the Colonel, but no time for John. Not Rambo. John. And it’s just...never over.

Damn. Goddamn.

This...this is one hell of a good movie. And not just a good action movie, either. A damn good movie.

And that’s it. That’s First Blood.

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