#might wait for the food to kick in and then hopefully ill have some energy to do laundry?

[edwardashley]

it’s my first free day when i don’t have commitments in literally 3 weeks what do I even DO with myself

#currently forcing myself to eat breakfast then anything could happen....anything #might wait for the food to kick in and then hopefully ill have some energy to do laundry? #and if i can set that up THEN i can work on fic #my goal today is to at least finish the second chapter of Torment Your Flatmate its only been like three months DONT LOOK AT MEEEEE #and then tomorrow knock out a ricky/hobbs oneshot #and i have a singalong tomorrow #and then next weekend i have drawing party with friends #hopefuliy can do at least ONE of the hickeygibson oneshots i have planned

[evening-starlight]

Chances {Chapter Eleven}

I lied, this is the longest chapter. They just keep getting longer ya’ll

Master List

Comfortable, Not Easy

Word Count: 2010

    I spent the next two weeks avoiding everyone and everything thing, especially after I slipped and invited Jared over. Not my proudest moment. Robbie dropped by a couple of times to coax me out of bed, but it didn't work. I felt dirty, used, and stupid. I called Jared after he assaulted me in front of my house like a whore and let him stay over for nine days.

    It wasn't necessarily comfortable being with Jared for nine days, but it was familiar. I knew what to expect from waking up to going to bed. Tom was texting to check in as well, and I ignored every sweet text he sent me. I couldn't face the fact that he was there, waiting for me to recoup while I was living with my ex again.

    Robbie finally kicked Jared out on day ten for me. I told him about the kisses and how horrible I felt letting Jared stay on day nine. Jared was gone before I woke up, and Robbie was trying to pull me out of bed. Literally.

    Robbie pulls on my ankle repeatedly, trying to loosen my hold on the headboard. "Come," pull. "On." He pulls again. "You can't stay locked in your room because you've made a mistake, Stella." He scolds, sitting next to my feet. I grunt in response. "I swear to all things LA, I will make Stevie do a house call." I moan louder, pulling a pillow over my head. The space next to me dips down, and Robbie throws an arm over me.

    Whenever I'm in a lousy mood, Robbie's first response is forceful eviction of my room followed by snuggles. If either won't work, he calls Stevie. In our ten years of friendship, he's gotten to know me inside and out. He's my closest friend and my most relied-on confidant. He knows more about me than anyone else in the world. He knows the darkest places in my head and knows how to help me navigate them better than myself. He was the only one who was there during my entire marriage and divorce. Hell, he was my bro of honor.

    I turn to lay on his chest, curling in to feel his warmth and wrapping my arms around him so tight I thought he'd turn purple. I never, ever, want to lose him. "I hate seeing you like this, Stell." He mumbles. "You're so hard on yourself. I know it's easy with Jared; you guys have a routine. He's easy, and Tom is hard. I understand why you did what you did." The sobs rip out of me in violent bursts. I hate how well he knows me some days, especially when he says things I know I need to hear.

    He remains quiet as I sob, rubbing my head and holding me tight. He's the rock in my twisted life, and I'd be lost without him. Robbie makes me feel seen, heard, and appreciated even after my undesirable days.

    When the sobs turn into small whimpers, Robbie continues, "I think you need to talk to Tom; he's genuinely worried for you. He's dropped by the studio to ask about you. God, you should have seen him, Stella. He's a fucking god. Don't even get me started on those eyes dude, they're so blue." I can't help but laugh at Robbie's fanboying. "They hold so many emotions I didn't know they could do that. He looked so worried and concerned. He really cares about you."

    "I know he does." I manage. "I just don't want to bring him into this fucked up life I've created for myself. He deserves so much better." Robbie sits up quickly, grabbing my face to look at him. His eyebrows are pulled together, and his face is set in a stern look. His father look.

    "You deserve better, Stella Thompson. You deserve a man like Tom. You deserve Jesus himself for all I care. You need someone who will treat you ten times better than Jared ever could. Someone who loves and cherishes you as you are, broken, sharp pieces and all." Robbie runs a thumb over the new tears leaking. "You are the most beautiful person I have ever met, Stella. You care so deeply about people that you let them continue to be in your life even after they've fucked you over a dozen times. Stella, you deserve to start over with someone like Tom."

    I swear to God, the universe was listening to us because, as if divine intervention stepped in, my phone begins to buzz on the nightstand. Robbie reaches to hang up before going over the name again. "Here. Talk to him. I'll make you some food." With that, Robbie leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

    With a grounding breath, I answer the phone with a meek hello. "Oh, thank heavens you're okay." Tom breaths out a sigh of relief on the other side of the phone. "I was beginning to worry. More. Worry more than I already was."

    "I'm sorry I scared you," I mumble. "And I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long. It's been a really rough two weeks after everything happened, and I tend to shut down when things get hard." I admit, brushing my mangled hair out of my face.

    "I understand, Love. We all have bad habits. I was worried I had pushed too hard, and you were ghosting me. I was actually going to call and tell you I would give you some space if you hadn't picked up. I can still give you space if that's what you'd like?"

    "No," I answer quickly. "No, please. I really like having you in my life, and I love the way you make me feel. But I have to tell you that Jared spent the week with me. It doesn't mean anything. He's just..." I pause, trying to find the right words to make my asshole move sound less assholey.

    "Easy. You're used to him. I understand that, Love." I take in a shaky breath. "I appreciate you telling me. Is there anything I can do to help with your rut?"

    "Can you come over sometime today? I could kinda use a hug from you." Fucking crying making my defenses turn to mush. It always makes me a ball of emotions and fussy needs.

    "I'd be delighted to. Would you like me to bring some lunch?"

    "No, Robbie is here making me some. You called at the perfect time, actually. We were talking about you. Everything good, though. Nothing bad." I reiterate quickly. Tom chuckles on the other end.

    "Well, I was just thinking about you and hoping you were at least alive."

    "The heart's still ticking, so the body is alive," I joke. "Brain could use a jumpstart, though."

    "I'll be over in about ten if that's alright with you?" I confirm with him and hang up. Pulling myself out of bed for the first time in fourteen days, I make my way to the kitchen.

    Robbie stands over the stove, cursing and shaking his left hand. "Burned yourself again?" I ask. If you'd lose a year off your life every time you got burnt, Robbie would have died at age five.

    "Fuck off." He mumbles, going back to the grilled cheese he's making. "How'd the call go? It seemed pretty short." I nod as I sit on a barstool.

    "Fine, he's coming over in a few minutes." It hits me. Tom Hiddleston is coming over to my depression pit of a house after I've had two weeks of nonstop crying and zero hygiene. "Fuck, I need to shower." I curse, rushing to the bathroom. A quick shower will help everything. Hopefully.

    Robbie pokes his head into the bathroom as I wrap my towel around me. "Tom's here. I'm going to keep him company while you  get changed." He states before winking and shutting the door again. I don't feel like I have the energy to put on any form of makeup to cover up how deathly ill I look, nor the power to care what I look like besides the clean part. The shower did seem to wash away the residual guilt and shame I felt about everything. Though it didn't clean off everything.

    After changing into some comfortable clothes, I make my way into the living room, where Robbie is watching Tom talk with nothing less than homosexual love in his face. "Robbie, out," I demand, catching both boys' attention. He leaves after a quick goodbye and non-discrete wink.

    Tom walks over to meet me behind the couch, wrapping his arms around my shoulders in a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're doing better," He mumbles into my hair. "I've been worried." We stand like that for a few minutes before my stomach growls loud enough for him to hear. "Here, Robbie left your food on the table." Tom leads me to the couch and sits next to me, our legs touching.

    "Thank you for being so understanding, Tom. I know I'm pretty fucked, and I really appreciate you being understanding of it all." He smiles as I take a bite of the grilled cheese. Robbie should be made grilled cheese God the way it melts in my mouth.

    "Of course, Love. We are all pretty fucked when we think about it. I haven't felt this way in quite some time. I know I can be a bit pushy, but I really enjoy your company," Tom says, sending those all-too-familiar shivers down my spine. "We can take things as slowly as you'd like. We can stay friends if that's what you need to heal as well." I shake my head while finishing a bite.

    "I don't want just friends, Tom. You make me feel like a better version of me. Less dark and gloomy." The anxiety of actually communicating and talking about feelings causes my knee to bounce. Jared never let me talk so candidly, and I'm afraid I might overstep. "Can I be honest?" Tom nods quickly. "I have absolutely no idea how to communicate in a not toxic way.

    "My whole life, it's been demonstrated that yelling and cursing is the only way to get across what I'm feeling. What I do know is that I like who I am when I'm around you, and I don't want that feeling to ever stop." Tom presses a kiss on my forehead.

    "Then let us work it out together. I like who I am when I'm with you as well." The absolute zoo that took residence in my stomach could wipe out the entire human population. Tom motherfucking Hiddleston likes being with me. "Bloody hell, I fancy you, Stella."

    Tom chuckles as I start to choke on my own breath. He reaches for the Caprisun set out and hands it to me. Tom likes me. He like likes me. Tom Hiddleston. Who would have guessed my damaged ass would land someone like him.

    For years after my breakup with Jared, I thought all I deserved was heartbreak and pieces of shit men. Maybe I could really turn my life around here. Turn it into something wonderful and perfect. Something made just for me.

    "I, uh, I fancy you too, Tom," I admit after controlling my breathing. His smile in this exact moment will stay with me forever. No ill-meaning behind it, wide and bright, and absolutely dazzling. Tom was as close to perfect as one man could get.

    The kiss. The kiss that followed behind our confessions was just as magical, if not more magical, than the first. Only this time, there was no Jared to ruin it. It was just Tom, me, and the ugly off-white sofa I stole from Jared when I moved out.

    How do you even end a chapter after that? Like, I impressed myself with that shit. We still own that couch too. It's where our little love story started, truly. I mean, no, we didn't go exclusive at that moment, but it's where it began.

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston fanfiction #i got 99 problems and tom hiddleston could fix everyone of them #jared leto #Jared Leto imagine #jared leto fanfic #jared leto fanfiction #love #romance #fanfiction #fanfic #Original content #original character #oc #og #Chances #fiction

[k-llama-llama]

Cured

TXT AU: 6th member

Sara x TXT

Sara finally sees a doctor about her illness.

A/N: Please check out my PATREON (patreon.com/kllamallama) for exclusive posts you can’t get anywhere else, as well as lots of other cool benefits!

Requests are OPEN

Masterlist and other Follow Me links in bio!

“Chung Soo-ji?” 

“Here.” Sara lifted her hand to get the nurse’s attention.

“We have the results of your tests, if you’ll come this way.”

Sara stood carefully, focusing on not stumbling as she followed the nurse back into the clinic. Usually she’d account her unsteadiness to whatever was wrong with her, but right now she was pretty sure it was just nerves.

She’d been at the hospital for almost three hours. Thanks to Bighit, her blood tests and everything else had been rushed, so she didn’t need to wait as long as normal.

The doctor was sitting at his desk, staring at the screen when she walked in. He gestured to the seat across from him, where a couple of hours earlier Sara had sat and described how she was feeling.

“You got the tests back?” Sara asked nervously.

“We did, and it’s what I originally thought.” The doctor began.��“Based off the symptoms you described, I was pretty sure that we were looking at a severe case of anemia.”

“Anemia? What’s that?” Sara felt her heart drop.

“It’s fairly common, though I’d say you have a severe case.” The doctor clasped his hands together as he explained. “Essentially, you don’t produce enough red blood cells, so you get very tired and fatigue easily.”

“That...makes sense.” Sara nodded. “So how do we fix it.”

The doctor offered her a sympathetic smile. “It’s a manageable condition, but not curable. We can certainly find solutions to help you deal with it.”

“But it’s keeping me from performing at my best.” Sara protested. “We need to make it stop.”

“As I said, we can help you manage it. But it won’t go away.” The doctor tried to reassure her. “It’s good that we’ve diagnosed it, Soo-ji. It means you’ll know how to manage it, and your company will know how to help you.”

Sara swallowed. He was right, at least she had a name for it now. “So how do we manage it?”

“There’s lots of different ways, and it’s just going to be a matter of figuring out what works best for you.” The doctor explained. “But, if you’re alright with it, I’d like to start today.”

“Today?”

“You indicated that you weren’t feeling your best earlier, so I’d like to do a vitamin IV drip just to see if that effects your energy levels at all.”

“An IV.” She really hated needles. “Um...if you think it will help.”

“It’s worth a try.” The doctor nodded.

“Can I call someone?” She asked. “To pick me up when it’s over.”

“Sure, our nurse will get you set up and then you can call whoever you need.”

“Right.” Sara nodded, before standing. She held out her hand in a handshake. “Thank you for everything.”

“I’m sure we can figure this out together, Soo-ji.”

Sara followed the nurse through the clinic into an area where lots of hospital beds were set up. They were all separated by curtains, and another nurse was already wheeling an IV pole over with a bag hanging from it.

“Lay down right here.” The nurse instructed.

Sara took her shoes off and hopped up on the bed. The nurse took her arm, exposed because of her tshirt, and wrapped something around her upper arm.

“To find a vein.” The nurse explained. “You have your phone and everything?”

“Yeah, umm....” She shifted nervously on the bed. “If I call someone can the come in?”

“Of course, we’ll bring a chair over for them. This whole thing should take a little over an hour, because they’re going to want you to wait about fifteen minutes after to make sure you feel alright.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want a count down or for me to just do it?”

“Just do it please.”

Barely a breath passed before she felt the telltale pinch in her arm.

“All done.” The nurse said with a smile. “Hang tight, okay? We’ll be in to check on you.”

“Thank you.” Sara said weakly, trying to ignore the cold feeling seeping through her arm.

Once the nurse tugged the curtain closed, she lifted her phone up with her free arm and quickly dialled Yeonjun’s number.

“Are you finished?” He answered on the first ring.

“What’s she saying?” She heard Soobin’s voice.

“She hasn’t said anything yet. Soo-ji?”

Sara couldn’t help but smile. “They think they figured out what it is, so right now I’m doing an IV to-”

“An IV? What for?”

“Vitamins, I think.” She answered. “But can you guys come and pick me up? If you get here before I’m done they’ll let you come up.”

“Ummm...what if we’re there in ten minutes?” Yeonjun sounded nervous.

“What? It takes at least a half hour to get here.”

‘Yes...but if we’re hypothetically already in the hospital food court?”

Sara groaned. “You guys followed me?”

“We thought you might need something!” Soobin’s voice came through the phone. “We’ll be right up to see you.”

“I’m in the-”

“I know, I checked your email.” Yeonjun hung up the phone.

Sara rolled her eyes, but set her phone down by her side and tried her best to relax. She could hear the nurses walking back and forth, and hushed voices as other patients were moved in and out.

“We’re here for Soo-ji!” Soobin announced loudly.

Sara closed her eyes and sighed.

“Soo-ji!” Yeonjun exclaimed as he flung open the curtain. “Woah, what’s that?”

“Quiet down, idiot.” She hushed them. “Where’s Soobin?”

“I’ve got another chair.” Soobin carried one in. “Woah, what is that stuff?”

“Vitamins.” Sara answered. “I can’t believe you guys followed me.”

“We just wanted to be here, just in case.” Yeonjun hopped up on Sara’s bed. “So, what did they say is wrong with you.”

“The doctor said it’s something called anemia.” 

“Isn’t that like a blood thing?” Soobin asked, sitting down on his chair.

“Yeah, something with my red blood cells, or not having enough or something. But he said it’s pretty common and explains why I’m so tired and lightheaded all of the time.”

“If it’s common, that’s good right?” Yeonjun patted her leg hopefully. “It means they’ll be able to give you medicine or whatever to fix it.”

“The doctor said they can’t fix it.” Sara said quietly.

“What?” Soobin breathed. “What do you mean they can’t fix it? You’re sick all of them time? Are you just supposed to live your life feeling like crap?”

“He said that some stuff can make it better.” She explained. “Like this vitamin thing. And he was going to write the company about tablets and diet changes.”

“So you will start to feel better?” Yeonjun asked.

Sara gave a tiny shrug, fearful of moving her arm. “Hopefully.”

Soobin sighed, leaning back into his chair. “Well, at least that’s something. We can help you through this, right?”

“Of course we can.” Yeonjun insisted. “Just feed you lots and make sure you’re careful.”

Sara smiled. “I’m sure that’s all it will take.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“How long does that take, anyways?” Soobin stared at the IV bag.

“An hour, I think.” Sara answered.

“Could you drink it and make it go faster?” He asked. “They had a pasta place in the food court and I really want to-”

“Dude, she’s literally dying.” Yeonjun cut him off.

“Okay, no I’m not.” Sara kicked him off of the bed. “Keep me company, and then we can go get pasta.”

“You’ll pay?” Yeonjun asked her, standing from the ground.

“As if, you’re paying.” Sara pointed at him. “I’m sick.”

“You can’t play that card all of the time.” He protested.

“Sure I can.” Sara grinned at him. “Because you’re doing the dishes tonight too.”

#txt #txt au #txt imagines #txt imagine #txt 6th member #female kpop #female!kpop #female member kpop #yeonjun #soobin #beomgyu #hueningkai #taehyun #requests open #au #kpop #imagines #imagine #kpop au #kpop imagines #kpop imagine

[perspective-series]

Injured Perspective (10/12)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: More medicine, unwanted touching I think

First Chapter || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

————————————————————————————-

Roman let out a large yawn, stretching his arms as he sat up and gaze sleepily around at the world. His eyes fell upon a box that had not been on his nightstand when he went to sleep. Well...that was new.

Gazing in, Roman held back a chuckle at the sight of Virgil stuck at the bottom. How did he always manage to look so cute? 

“Good morning, Virgil.” Roman greeted. “I’m guessing it didn’t go so well?”

 Virgil opened his eyes, looking up at Roman. He felt awful but he was hoping he would be able to hide it. He had barely gotten any sleep last night and he didn’t need Roman turning into a Patton. “Ugh…” He glared at the human. “Just get me out of this box.”

“What’s the rush?” Roman leaned on his nightstand with a grin, propping his cheek on his hand. “You’re looking pretty cozy right there. It would be a shame to upset that.”

 “Roman, I swear-” Virgil cut himself off when he felt a sneeze coming on. He buried his face in his arm and shut his eyes tight, hoping it would pass.

Roman paused, watching Virgil curl in on himself. “...are you okay?” Roman’s tone became concerned as he leaned in.

 Virgil held up a finger to tell Roman to hang on. He let out a sigh as the sneeze passed and he lowered his sleeve and opened his eyes. “Yeah, I’m-achoo!” He groaned. Oh, great.

“Oh my goodness, you’re sick.” Roman’s eyes widened in realization. 

 “I am not! I just, it’s...dusty in here. That’s all!” Virgil argued. He kept himself from sniffing.

“Are you sure?” Roman reached his hands in, gently scooping Virgil up in his palms. He tentatively brushed his thumb against Virgil’s forehead. “Virgil, you’re burning up!”

 Virgil tried pushing Roman’s finger away but he felt he had little energy. “I’m fine.” He practically whined. “Now put me down.”

“Oh, you definitely need medicine.” Roman winced. He took a glance at his crutches, trying to decide how to do this. After all, the first aid kit was in the other room.

 Virgil thought back to how Logan was acting after taking medicine and shook his head. “No! I don’t need anything, except to get Logan away from Pat-achoo!” He was interrupted by another sneeze. He groaned, that one hurt his head a little.

“Logan can wait, we need to focus on you right now.” Roman said firmly, growing more concerned. He looked down at his chest, finding there was a convenient chest pocket there. Hopefully it would be big enough. Roman brought Virgil over to it, holding it open and lowering the borrower inside.

 Virgil squirmed and tried to fight back but he didn’t have the strength. “Roman! No, let me go!”

“Virgil, you’re sick.” Roman reminded him. He grunted, pulling himself out of bed and positioning his crutches under his arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”

 “No...No, Roman you...you promised.” Virgil said quietly, already drained from the tiny bit of struggling he had managed to do.

Roman paused, heartbroken at Virgil’s tone.

“Oh, no no no.” Roman corrected, looking down into his pocket. “Oh come now, Virgil, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not going to keep you, I promise.”

 “Then let me go. And listen to me when I say that I don’t need medicine. Patton gave Logan medicine and it did something funny to his brain. He was acting all weird and-and loopy.” Virgil said.

“Well, yeah.” Roman shrugged, heading towards the bathroom. “Medicine does that. It helps you feel better, but if you need the really strong meds they can also make you feel a bit out of sorts for a while. That just means they’re doing their job though!”

 “Roman, I can’t be out of it right now. Not when I need to get Logan back!” Virgil exclaimed.

“You’re already out of it.” Roman reminded him, carefully leaning on one crutch and reaching up with his other arm to retrieve supplies from the medicine cabinet. “You’re running a fever and you’re sniffling up a storm. This will help put you back in tip-top condition for rescuing. And, need I remind you, you don’t have to do all this rescuing alone.”

 Virgil really didn’t want to admit it but...he knew Roman was right. Maybe it was finally time to accept the human’s help. “...Okay. I…” He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “...I trust you.”

Roman stopped gathering the bottles, surprised that Virgil had given in. He must really be feeling ill if he was willing to finally trust Roman.

“Thank you.” Roman murmured, hurrying his pace. He gathered up the supplies, carefully hobbling back to bed where he threw it all down on his bedspread.

“Alright.” Roman sat down, pulling Virgil out into his cupped palms. He inspected the borrower carefully. “Now, what exactly hurts? I need to know your symptoms.”

 Virgil shifted in the hand but sighed. He said he trusted Roman, now he should act like it. “Well, my head is pounding, my nose is stuffed, and I’m feeling a little queasy.” Virgil explained.

“Okay, that...plus the fever…” Roman transferred Virgil to one hand, shifting through the bottles. “Aha! This should work.” He set Virgil down on the bed, propping the borrower against a folded up bit of blanket. Roman poured some of the liquid medicine into a small cup, only now realizing how comically large it was in comparison.

“...Just take a sip of this.” Roman instructed. “A large sip. And then we’ll see if that works. If not, we can always give you more. Don’t drink too much though because you might get, well, sick.”

 “Great.” Virgil said. Why did humans think this medicine stuff was a good idea again? He sighed and took the cup. He glanced up at Roman before taking a large sip. He coughed as it went down, disgusted at the taste. “Ugh, that tastes awful!”

“Yeah, it does that too.” Roman chuckled, filling a second cup with water and handing that to Virgil. “Here, drink some water to get rid of the taste.”

 “Gladly.” Virgil drank his fill of the water before setting it off to the side. “So...how long does it take to affect me?”

“It depends on the person, but usually several minutes.” Roman explained, gathering up the supplies and setting it next to the box on the nightstand. “You’ll be able to feel it kick in.”

 Virgil hummed, idly moving from side to side as he watched Roman put everything away. His moving turned to swaying and he felt his mind begin to cloud. “I think...I’feel it. In my brain.” Virgil said, words slurred.

“Oh, wow, that was quick.” Roman commented. He had only looked away for a few moments, but perhaps it just had a stronger effect on borrowers. “Are you...feeling better?”

 “I feel…” Virgil paused, looking confused for a moment and then blinked. “Wait, what was the question again?”

“Ohoho, Virgil.” Roman felt a grin beginning to form. He teasingly poked Virgil in the side. “Oh, you really are out of it, aren’t ‘cha?”

 “Am….not.” Virgil said slowly, trying to swat at the finger but missed several times.

“Oh, you’re like a toddler crossed with a kitten.” Roman cooed, scooping Virgil up.

 “Noooooooooo.” Virgil whined, squirming as Roman picked him up.

“Aww, it’s okay, that’s a good thing.” Roman assured him. “And it’s just because of your medicine. You can go back to being a big ol’ grouch tomorrow, okay?”

 “Hmm...fiiiiine.” Virgil let out a small sigh. “...food?” He asked, vaguely aware of how hungry he was.

“Breakfast sounds wonderful.” Roman agreed, opening his pocket once more. “What are you hungry for?” He asked, getting his crutches and heading to the kitchen. “I’ll admit, my skills are limited but my determination is not.”

 “I waaaaant...food.” Virgil said.

“What an excellent choice.” Roman laughed. “Eggs it is then.” He pulled some from the fridge, heating up a pan and coating it with butter.

 It was then that Patton came through. “Roman! I’m-” He cut himself off as he saw Roman up and making eggs. “Roman? What are you doing out of bed?”

 Virgil blinked slowly as he heard another voice. It sounded familiar.

“Oh, good morning Pat.” Roman greeted, before remembering the weight in his pocket. That’s right, he was supposed to be angry with Patton. “Well, I was feeling better, so I decided to make myself breakfast.”

 “Oh, well I’m glad you feel better. But you shouldn’t be up too much.” Patton said. “By the way, did you see Virgil this morning? You were asleep last night, so I just left him on your nightstand.”

“Yeah, I did.” Roman pointed to his pocket. “He’s right here, actually.”

 Patton blinked and then smiled. “Aww, that’s adorable.”

 “M’not adorable.” Virgil muttered.

“Virgil’s a bit under the weather this morning.” Roman explained. “Which of course is unfortunate for him, but in my mind it’s also great news! Because now there’s no reason to keep Virgil and Logan separated.”

 “Oh no, that’s awful.” Patton said but then he ducked his head. “Um, I still don’t think it’s a good idea. We should have them get better first, before we let them see each other.” 

“And why is that?” Roman crossed his arms, nearly stumbling to the ground as he became off balance but recovered. “Patton, they’re meant to be together. Why do you think Virgil keeps going back to Logan?”

 “...I think Virgil is trying to help Logan escape.” Patton admitted. “And I can’t...let that happen.” He said quietly, rubbing his arm and not looking at Roman.

“Why not?” Roman asked softly.

 “I just...I just can’t. Logan needs to get better and then…” Patton trailed off and bit his lip. He sighed and turned around. “I should head to my class.”

“No no no, hey.” Roman went forward, sticking out his crutch to block Patton’s path. “Patton, listen to me. I get it, okay? You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

 “I...don’t? You do?” Patton asked, turning to face his friend again.

“Yes.” Roman nodded. “Hey, if you want Logan to stay, that’s fine. But this separation is killing them. There’s got to be a way to have the best of both worlds.” Roman snapped his fingers as if just struck with inspiration. “I know! I can keep them together and make sure they don’t escape while you’re at school.”

 “...I don’t know, Ro. Virgil has already escaped three times.” Patton thought for a moment. “How about, I bring Logan here after class and we can have lunch together! Does that good?”

“Yes.” Roman looked relieved, glad to be finally getting through to Patton. This was certainly a great start. “Yes, Patton that would be wonderful.”

 “Great! Then, I’ll be back later! See ya Ro!” And with that, Patton was off to class.

 Virgil blinked. “Wait...what about lunch? I thought it was breakfast?” Virgil asked.

Roman chuckled. “Yes, it’s breakfast. Just making plans for later.” Roman gave a sniff, smelling something burning. “Oh, shoot! Breakfast!” He scrambled over to salvage the eggs, sighing as he realized he would have to make another batch.

 Virgil sniffed the air and his nose scrunched up in disgust. “That doesn’t smell like food.”

“No, that’s not food.” Roman grumbled in agreement, tossing it in the trash. “Just a moment, I have to start again.”

 “Buuuut m’hungry!” Virgil whined.

“Virgil, this pocket has a flap, and I will use it.” Roman threatened, cracking the eggs into the pan.

 Virgil groaned but didn’t say anything more.

Roman scrambled up the eggs, being more careful this time around. He poured them out onto a plate, adding a little hot sauce and carefully maneuvering himself and his crutches over to the little kitchen table. 

“Alright, breakfast is served.” Roman sat down, reaching in and pulling Virgil from his pocket.

 “Foooood!” Virgil exclaimed at the sight, making grabby hands towards it.

“Careful, it’s hot.” Roman warned, setting Virgil down on the table next to the plate.

 “‘M careful.” Virgil muttered, blowing on it rather hilariously before grabbing it and the piece of egg and taking a bite. He hummed in contentment. “So gooood.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Roman couldn’t help but smile, noting how cute Virgil was like this as he dug into his own eggs. It was a bit strange to see him so carefree, though. 

 Virgil finished off his piece and reached for another one. But for some reason the eggs at the edge of the plate no longer looked appealing. No, he wanted the eggs in the middle of the plate. From the same pile Roman was eating. So, he hopped onto the plate and started walking towards the middle.

Roman paused, his fork halfway through the air. “Um, those are my eggs?” He had nicely portioned out what he considered to be a fair borrower portion on the edge of the plate.

 “Mine now.” Virgil said, before tripping and landing face first into them.

“Ah!” Roman gave a cry of surprise, dropping his fork and lifting Virgil by the back of his shirt. The front of the borrower was covered in goopy egg. Roman stuck out his tongue. “Ugh, Virgil, you’re filthy- uh, I mean, are you alright?”

 “I’m fiiiiine.” Virgil whined as he tried to get his shirt out of Roman’s grasp. He was not having good luck with that though.

“Were you trying to faceplant into egg?” Roman took up a napkin, trying to delicately remove at least the larger bits. “Or are you really that out of it?”

 Virgil tried to slap away the napkin. “Hmm!” He said instead of answering.

“Oh good lord.” Roman muttered, holding Virgil’s arm out of the way with his thumb as he wiped more. “I swear, it’s like you’ve become a child.”

 “You’re a child!” Virgil exclaimed. He had given up on trying to get away, only squirming now as Roman continued to attack his face with the napkin.

“I am not!” Roman huffed, looking offended. 

 “...Yes you are.” Virgil said and then stuck his tongue out for good measure.

“No, I’m- ! Ugh, what am I even doing?” Roman groaned, rubbing his hand down his face. “I am not having this argument with you. Now do borrowers ever bathe? Because you are in desperate need of a bath, mi amigo.”

 “I don’t need a bath.” Virgil said. “I’m squeaky clean!” He ignored how gooey his face and arms still felt. “See?” He moved his arm at the same time he made a squeak noise with his mouth.

“Not quite how it works.” Roman looked down at his pocket with a grimace. He didn’t really want to put Virgil in there right now and get it all dirty, but there was no way Roman could use his crutches and hold Virgil at the same time.

 “No bath!” Virgil did not feel like getting wet right now even if it would help with this gooey egg problem he seemed to have going on.

“Yes bath.” Roman corrected. Seeing no other option, Roman put Virgil into his pocket and began to hobble towards the bathroom.

 Virgil squirmed in the pocket. “Nooooooo.” He whined.

Roman looked at the bathtub, realizing that wouldn’t exactly work with Virgil’s size. Instead he turned to the sink, estimating it would be the right size. He turned on the faucet.

“Can you swim?” Roman asked suddenly, figuring that was important information.

 Virgil blinked. “Swim?”

Roman looked at him for a moment. “Shower it is then.” Roman adjusted the sink so that the water poured down the drain, making sure the level didn’t rise high enough for Virgil to be able to drown. Once he was satisfied with the water temperature, not too hot nor too cold, Roman took Virgil out of his pocket.

 Virgil squirmed. “Nooooo water!” He continued to whine. He glared down at the sink for good measure.

“It will be quick, I promise.” Wanting to stay true to his word, Roman kept a careful grip on the borrower and all but shoved him under the pouring water.

 “Wha-ahh!” As the water hit Virgil, he felt his sense coming back. Suddenly snapping back into reality. “R-Roman!” He had very little idea what was currently happening.

“Just a second, almost done.” Roman stuck his tongue out in concentration, quickly scrubbing off the last of the egg and letting it wash into the drain. “Aaaaand… there!” As soon as he was done Roman pulled Virgil out from under the water, turning off the faucet.

 Virgil squirmed in the grip, feeling like a drenched rat. He hated the feeling of wet clothes. “What the heck, Roman?!” He yelled at the human before shivering as the air nipped his wet skin.

Roman paused, noticing that Virgil seemed to be talking normally. “You were covered in egg!” Roman protested, quickly grabbing a towel and wrapping up the shivering borrower.

 Virgil was thankful for the towel but he still glared up at Roman. “That doesn’t mean you put me under a faucet!” He sighed as he ran a hand down his face before pausing. “Wait, egg? H-How did that even happen? Why can’t I...why can’t I remember?”

“Um...well, to be honest, I’m really not sure about the memory loss.” Roman sat down so that he didn’t have to balance with his crutches, focusing on helping rub the towel around to dry Virgil off. “But the gist of it is I gave you some medicine and a side effect was you became quite loopy and decided to faceplant in my eggs.”

 “Great. See, this is exactly why I didn’t want to take the medicine in the first place.” He probably embarrassed himself so much too. Ugh. He tried to think back to see if he could remember anything else he might have done before a blurry image came into his head. And a familiar and unwelcome voice. His eyes snapped to Roman. “...Was Patton here earlier?” He was really hoping he was wrong.

“Yeah, ah, Patton dropped by for a minute.” Roman paused his drying technique, thinking he had ruffled Virgil’s hair enough for now. “Just how much, um, do you remember, exactly?”

 Virgil reached up to try and fix his hair. “Almost nothing, except for his voice. I can’t remember what he was saying though.” He glared up at Roman. “What happened?” 

“Hey, come now, why all the judgement?” Just for that, Roman ruffled Virgil’s hair again with a tiny bit more force. “Do you really hold me in such low regard? What do you think happened?”

 Virgil winced slightly as Roman ruffled his hair again and he looked off to the side for a moment. “I...I don’t know. And I don’t. I-I said that I trusted you and I do.” Virgil surprised himself with that line. “It’s just not being able to remember...has my anxiety pretty high right now.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” Roman eased off. “I apologize. Let’s see...well, I told Patton you were sick and tried to use that to our advantage to get you and Logan together since there’s no reason for a quarantine anymore. He didn’t exactly buy it, but he did agree to bring Logan over for lunch, so that’s a start.”

 Virgil blinked. “Wait… he’s bringing Logan over for lunch? Today?” Virgil grinned. “This is perfect! You can distract Patton while I grab Logan and get out of there!”

“Oh.” Roman hadn’t really considered that as an option. His face fell slightly. “I suppose you can.”

 Virgil was paying little attention to how Roman’s face fell, too caught up at the idea that this might actually work. “If you can keep Patton’s back turned or better yet get him out into another room, then all I would need is ten minutes to get Logan out of there.”

“Ten minutes seems a little ambitious.” Roman countered. “And it might be a bit hard to distract Patton given how attached he is to Logan. You know, maybe this isn’t the best idea after all, come to think of it.”

 “No, this can work. It has to.” Virgil said. He looked up at Roman. “But I’m counting on you to keep him distracted. Just, I don’t know...talk about me or something? He seems pretty interested in borrowers at least…” The last thing he wanted was for more information about him to get to Patton but if it distracted him so they could escape then he would allow it.

“Virgil, it doesn’t have to work.” Roman argued. “I think I’m really beginning to break Patton down. Sooner or later he’s bound to see eye to eye with me. You should have seen it this morning, i think we really connected.”

 “Roman, I can’t just wait around. Who knows how long it would take or if you’ll even get through to him at all. No, we have to take action. It’s the only way.” Virgil said.

“All I’m saying is it’s not the only way, alright?” Roman insisted. “So don’t get too downhearted on me if this doesn’t work.”

 Virgil hummed and crossed his arms, looking up at Roman. “Just as long as you keep Patton distracted, it’ll work.” Roman was a key part of this plan.

“Look, I’ll do my best, but that’s all I can promise.” Roman sighed. Patton could be quite stubborn when he pleased.

 Virgil nodded. “Okay.” Hopefully Roman’s best would be enough. “So...when’s lunch?” Virgil asked, having no idea what time it was. Being as loopy as he had been, it could have been the next day and Virgil would have no idea.

“In an hour or two, I’d say.” Roman answered, glancing at the clock. “Pat and I never really specified a time.”

 “And hour or two...okay, alright.” Virgil mumbled to himself. That was not a ton of time to prepare himself mentally. But on the other hand, in an hour or two, him and Logan would finally be home.

 “Well, what do we do until then?” Virgil asked. He could just sit here and think about it the entire time but that probably wasn’t good for his mental state.

 He felt a tickle in his throat for a second but cleared it behind his hand. Honestly, he still wasn’t feeling the best but he couldn’t let Roman know that now. Not when it could ruin the plan for him to be loopy again.

“Well, how are you feeling?” Roman answered Virgil’s question with a question of his own. “It’s probably best if you get some more rest.”

 Virgil frowned. “I’m fine though. That medicine worked and I’m all better.” Virgil lied. His nose twitched with the inkling of a sneeze and Virgil subtly sniffed.

“Medicine doesn’t work like that.” Roman reached up, touching Virgil’s forehead with his thumb and pushing the bangs out of the way.

 Virgil flinched and tried to push Roman’s fingers away. “Stop! I said, I’m fine!”

“You still feel warm.” Roman winced, pulling away. “Virgil, you need to stop fighting this. The more you resist and stress yourself out, the worse it’ll get.”

 “I don’t care!” Virgil finally yelled. “Let me get sick! As long as I get Logan back home safe, then it doesn’t matter!” Virgil practically growled, glaring up at Roman. Why didn’t Roman understand that he wasn’t nearly as important as Logan right now?

“Virgil…” Roman all but whined, upset by Virgil’s outburst. “You know it’s not that simple. What, you’re just going to take care of Logan while he’s still sick? And who’s gonna take care of you, huh?”

 Virgil looked down. “...I-I don’t need to be taken care of…” 

“Yes, you do.” Roman’s tone was firm. “You’re not going to be any help to Logan until you’re better. Isn’t that a good enough reason? Taking care of yourself so you can take care of a friend?”

 Virgil bit his lip. “I-I don’t have a choice though. What am I supposed to do, have Patton keep Logan until I’m all better? Who knows what Patton could do to him during all that time!” Virgil exclaimed.

“Patton hasn’t done anything to Logan.” Roman reminded him.

 “Yet.” Virgil spoke, emphasizing the word. “Do I think Patton will hurt Logan...not really, though it isn’t out of the question.” Virgil admitted. “But he could move him into a better kind of prison! Like a cage or something and then I’ll never get him out. Or maybe Patton will decide to just up and move and take Logan with him and then I’ll never even see him again!” Virgil was panicking now, breathing faster than normal.

“Hey hey hey, take a chill pill, alright?” Roman rubbed his finger along Virgil’s side in a soothing manner. “You’re forgetting one important detail, you know.”

 Virgil took a deep breath, focusing on Roman’s touch. It was actually helping him ground himself. He looked up at the human. “What?”

“Me.” Roman gave him a smile, keeping his voice soothing. “I wouldn’t let Patton lock Logan away in a cage. I know it’s taking a while and it’s easy to lose hope, but you have to remember you’re not alone in this, alright? You’ve got a human on your side.”

 Virgil blinked. Roman was...right. He had Roman on his side and he had no reason to not trust that Roman would indeed help him. He already had, probably more than Virgil was willing to admit. “...Okay.” Virgil sighed but sent a small smile up at Roman. “Thanks.”

“No problem, little stormcloud.” Roman assured him. “Now come on, I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time.”

 Virgil tilted his head. “You aren’t...gonna give me medicine?” Virgil asked.

“Do you need medicine?” Roman tilted his head. “You’re sick, and it would definitely speed things up, but you know your body best.”

 “I just know I don’t want to be loopy again.” Virgil admitted. “...I think I’m fine but if I get worse I’ll take some.” Virgil said, much to his own surprise.

“It might be best to take some now.” Roman recommended. “That way you have time for it to kick in and do its magic before lunch.”

 Virgil groaned. “Do I have to?” 

Roman chuckled. “Now you sound like a two-year-old again and you haven’t even had it yet.”

 Virgil pouted and crossed his arms. “That’s one of the reasons I’d rather not take it.” He didn’t want to embarrass himself even further. 

“But you were so cute~” Roman cooed, teasing Virgil’s hair.

 Virgil whined as he tried to push Roman away from him. “I am not! I’m dark and edgy, not cute!”

“Oh come now, you can be both!” Roman assured him, mercifully pulling his hand away.

 “That’s not how it works.” Virgil deadpanned.

“Ever hear of a little cutie named Wednesday Adams?” Roman argued. “Pretty much every member of the Adams family, actually. Not to mention Edward Cullen, that man is a gift.”

 Virgil blinked. “I...have no idea who those people are.” Was he supposed to? That’s how Roman was talking about them anyway.

“They’re all dark, all edgy, and allllll-”  Roman bopped Virgil’s nose. “-cute.”

 Virgil scrunched his nose up as Roman bopped him. And then-”Achoo!” Oh great. He wiped his nose on his upper sleeve.

“Bless you.” Roman said, quickly pulling his finger away from the mess. “That’s quite some sneeze you’ve got there. Maybe medicine is the way to go.”

 Virgil grumbled. “...I still don’t like it.” But at this point he was almost in agreement with Roman. Welp, there went his plan for an escape today.

“Most people don’t, but we do what we must.” Roman reached up, grabbing the medicine and setting Virgil down on the counter so he could prepare a smaller portion for him. Once it was poured, Roman held it out. “Bon Appetit.”

 Virgil sighed as he took it. “Before I take this...just, I’m not going to be in my right mind when Patton comes with Logan.” Virgil glanced up at Roman. “Look out for me, okay? Make sure I don’t do anything stupid.”

Roman was tempted to tease, but seeing the sincerity in Virgil’s gaze he paused. “I will.” Roman nodded. “I promise.”

 Virgil nodded and smiled a little. “Okay...I guess I’ll see ya on the other side.” Virgil tipped back the cup, downing the whole thing. He gagged slightly and handed the cup back to Roman.

Roman grabbed the cup, rinsing it out and setting the medicine back in the cabinet. “We should probably get the kitchen ready, I don’t know how long until Patton and Logan get here.”

 Virgil, already feeling the affects, giggled. “To the kitchen!” He exclaimed.

Roman giggled it a bit himself. “Wow, that was fast.” He carefully scooped Virgil up, grabbing his crutches and hobbling to the kitchen.

#injured perspective #perspective series #part 10 #borrower!virgil #human!Roman #human!patton

[maxrev]

For ME relationship week by @cactuarkitty

Day 1 - first impressions

Less Than Stellar

Studying the dossiers of each crew member, Knox paused on one of them - Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, marine detail. What specifically caught his eye was where the LT was born. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

So, he was a fellow Canadian.

He better not expect to share stories of 'you don't sound very Canadian' with him. Fellow soldiers expected them to talk a certain way, to be polite and considerate, which most thought Canadians were down to their core. 

Those things didn't exist in Knox's vocabulary...or lifestyle. He preferred to be left alone unless it was regarding missions or standard day-to-day affairs like rotations and personnel changes. 

Stashing his rucksack away and leaving the crew quarters, Knox began a self-tour of the ship. Anderson had planned on accompanying him, pointing out key elements of the ship's design, but had been called away at the last minute before they took flight. Something to do with the Council. 

He could certainly find his way around the ship on his own without his CO's guidance. Would have been nice, though, to find out if Anderson could impart exactly what this deployment was going to entail. In the end, he was very good at being patient. 

As he walked the ship, deck by deck, he heard talk stop abruptly when he passed other crew members having conversations. Knox knew well what others thought of him. He was the Butcher of Torfan after all, even earning a medal, the Star of Terra, for his heroism during the mission. 

A medal for getting nearly his whole squad killed while trying to save a colony - is what most thought. No one knew what it had been like. The only thing anyone remembered was he'd killed his fellow soldiers. 

He's a cold, ruthless, calculating son of a bitch. If he had a chit for every time he’d heard it said to his face or whispered as he walked by, he could rival Cerberus in funds. Long ago, before he’d even joined the Alliance, he’d learned not to let the opinion of others bother him or sway him from completing a mission. He knew he was the Alliance’s rabid dog; he’d heard those words more than once as well. 

They big brass came to him when they wanted something done without bloodying their own hands or sending in their precious golden boys. And golden boy made him think of Alenko. The perfect definition if Knox had ever seen one with exemplary commendations from past COs, the consideration of fellow soldiers and adherence to Alliance standards. All of this despite being a biotic. 

Something Knox knew all too well about. He’d experienced it himself but unlike the LT, who always seemed to play it safe, Knox used what he'd learned in the Reds to get the job done. Just barely crossing the line so as to not get kicked out of the military. Though, if he did, it didn't truly matter. He'd survive no matter what; he had before. Being in three Alliance just meant a higher, and steadier, paycheck. 

What intrigued him about the biotic was the mention of BaAT in the dossier. Alenko hadn’t graduated, which wasn’t a surprise, considering his age. He would have been there when the school was shut down. But...what more did the biotic know? 

The news reports had been vague. And since joining the Alliance, not a biotic among them hadn’t heard or speculated as to what happened and knew it was all hush-hush, as there was nothing to be found anywhere - other than the school had existed and had eventually shut down. Rather abruptly. 

He pushed his thoughts away for now. 

Besides the initial meet and greet of the immediate crew when he'd come on board, he’d not had a chance to talk to any of them at length. It was a part of the job he distinctly didn’t care for. Yet, he knew it was to his advantage to know the strengths and weaknesses they had. So, to that end, he’d seek them out, one by one, to learn any details he could beyond what he found in their dossiers. After that, he’d leave them the hell alone unless they sought him out specifically for anything required of him to take care of. Socialization was not something he sought out or cared for.

Avoiding the crew quarters unless it was down time was going to be an issue on this small of a ship. Had to be somewhere dark and quiet he could find time to himself. He'd find out soon enough. 

After a couple of hours touring every level, his stomach growled, a reminder he hadn’t eaten in awhile. While his biotics were useful in battle, he found it annoying having to recharge his energy so regularly. Constantly consuming calories when he could be doing something so much more productive. 

With a newly stocked ship, he hoped it meant the provisions would be decent, at least until they’d been underway awhile. Bracing himself to encounter a full mess, he headed there.

Taking the elevator up from his last stop in the docking bay, Knox stepped off to hear several voices coming from behind the wall where the mess was located. Nearing dinner time for the morning shift, those soldiers would all be ready for chow and then downtime before sleeping. Not usually following the hours he was assigned, he required less sleep than most. After eating, he planned on grabbing a book and making his way to the starboard lounge. Provided Anderson didn’t need him. 

Not having heard from him the whole time he was walking the ship, Knox surmised he was still speaking with the Council. 

He walked around the wall to find Alenko and Jenkins in a spirited conversation. The LT’s words were a bit short towards the young Marine who was a bit overzealous in Knox’s opinion.

Apparently, Alenko shared his views. 

“Don’t be wishing for action so soon, Jenkins. It’ll come in time and won't be what you expected. The battlefield isn't glamorous. Learn to relax and enjoy your downtime.” 

Jenkins deflated like a kicked puppy, taking his tray and going to sit next to some fellow soldiers who laughed at the exchange lightheartedly.

Approaching the line for food,  Knox grabbed a tray and followed behind the LT. Might as well start his getting-to-know-them routine now. 

“La recrue apprendra assez tôt, n'est-ce pas?” Knox inquired quietly as he grabbed some chow. 

The dark-haired man started, glancing over at him with a surprised look. After several awkward seconds, he responded with a hesitant “Oui.” 

He then turned and found a table to sit and eat. Knox felt ill at ease after the encounter, not something he was familiar with at all. At least, not since a young kid in the Reds. Feeling as if he’d somehow been chastised without the biotic ever saying a word, Knox took his own tray and sat down in an unoccupied corner. 

Eating slowly, prolonging the time in the mess in order to hopefully find a few quiet minutes to himself, Knox heard the soft but unmistakable sound of boot steps coming his way. Despite not looking up, he could tell when they stopped next to his table. Frustrated at someone already  wanting to bother him, he looked up...into the dark brown eyes of the LT. 

Thick black brows furrowed in the beginnings of a frown, Knox waited for him to speak, not about to start a conversation himself after the earlier fiasco. He waited. 

Clearly nervous, the LT rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, looked away, looked back again. Knox's impatience level was rising rapidly.  If Alenko didn’t spit out what was bothering him soon, he was getting up and leaving. Good relations be damned. 

Apparently, his impatience level was already tapped out as he barked, “Spit it out, Lieutenant.” 

The biotic winced, “S-sorry....,” he took a breath, steadied himself, “Sorry about earlier, sir. I...um...I don’t speak French very well. Took me several seconds to realize you were speaking to me and then I had to try and sort it out. Figured all of it out while I was eating.” 

Knox had momentarily forgotten the province of Vancouver was more English speaking than Toronto, where he’d grown up.

Now he felt like a jackass. Something else he wasn't well acquainted with.

Standing up and grabbing his tray, he paused to look at the LT. A blush had bloomed across his cheeks in embarrassment. Disgusted, Knox hoped he was better on the battlefield than this. He might have to leave him behind, seasoned soldier or not. Maybe Jenkins would be a better fit, even with too much enthusiasm and no experience. 

“My mistake. Won’t happen again.” Nodding to the biotic, Knox took care of his tray and left the mess. 

He didn’t see Alenko standing there awkwardly, thinking he’d already pissed off his new XO before they'd even left dry dock. 

“La recrue apprendra assez tôt, n'est-ce pas?” = The recruit will learn soon enough, won’t he?

#merweek2020 #kaidan alenko #custom shepard #knox shepard #mshenko #eventually

[composereggwrites]

Love will not break your Heart (but dismiss your Fears)

Chapter 2: just let me go (we'll meet again soon)

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Rating: T

Characters/Ships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Alice “Daisy” Tonner/Basira Hussain, Gerard Keay, Gertrude Robinson

Additional: Reincarnation AU, Soul Bond, Team as Family, Autistic Jon, Post-Canon Fix-it, Childhood Friends, Hurt/Comfort

They stand in the Panopticon, fire raining down from the sky, as the Eye stares down at them.

Jon takes Martin’s hand in his.

A wedding, a death, a fire, and Tim.

Chapter:  1 | 2 (below)

Ao3: 1 | 2

They stand in the Panopticon, fire raining down from the sky, as the Eye stares down at them.

Jon takes Martin’s hand in his.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Martin?” he asks, one last time, because fear has made a home in his heart. A palace in his bones.

“Jon,” Martin says, looking him in the eyes, so full of determination, filled with warmth, with love. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Sap,” he mutters, but a smile creeps onto his face nonetheless. “We’ve already left the message for the girls, and well… This is really it, isn’t it?”

“Got cold feet?” Martin asks with a laugh.

“Always,” he snorts. “You’ve felt them when we’ve slept. You’re the space heater between the two of us.”

Heart beating in his chest, Jon takes Martin’s hands. The world is crumbling in every direction. A year of this hell has been far too long. Searching, aching for answers, for a way to fix the devastation he has wrought-- no, the devastation Jonah Magnus used him to usher into the world.

Jonah Magnus, who, like the rest of the institute, is no more than a pile of ash at their feet now. Martin had been quite happy to have the honor of setting that blaze.

It’s touching, in a way. Finding the answer on how to set them both free, and Martin chooses to do it for him. No more ash on Jonathan’s hands.

(He’s more than a little fragile, at the end of the world, but he could’ve been the one to do it. The one to bring Magnus to the ground. That he didn’t have to means more than he can express with words. Martin has always been looking out for him, even when he was too much a fool to realize).

The Web’s strings hang heavy in the air around them, coated with the remnants of their old life, of their meeting. But the Mother of Puppets doesn’t have control of all these ties. Jon’s body is linked to everything now, the perfect conduit of fear. The lynch-pin in this hellscape. Take him out, and the rest crumbles. The issue is in managing to kill a near-immortal Archive.

Martin has always been his anchor. He never needed that rib, Jon gets that now. And this is something they can use. Here.

“Martin, I love you,” Jon starts. “You keep me grounded. When I start to fall apart, you hold me together. Even as I dealt with the end of the world rather badly, you drew me back out of my shell. I promise to be at your side forever more, I promise to return the favor. You are not just a caretaker, you deserve to be taken care of, and I will be there for you. I am here, with you, as we stand, united.”

Martin is already tearing up, as his hands shake in Jon’s grasp. “Jon,” he says, with a waver in his voice. “I love you. I know, it was a long time coming. Back when we were both researchers, I thought I could ignore this little crush, because that’s what it was. But you’re so kind, underneath that abrasive exterior. You pretended that nothing could get to you, that you at most tolerated the people around you, but I could see through that.”

He takes a shuddering breath. “I’m with you, until the end of time. I tie myself to you like I’ve done a hundred thousand times before, in less words. In actions. Every step we take together has brought us here, bound to each other at the end of the world, and I wouldn’t do this any other way.”

The strings around them pull taught, smash them together. Jon clings to Martin. Holds him tight as the web holds them tighter. It hurts, the Eye observing this, burning through them as he clings for dear life, but observation just makes it real. The Web tries to resist, but Jon pulls harder, pulls the strings of his own design, and lets them bind.

A thousand stars scream in the sky, but the roar of the still-burning fire is louder. The pounding of his heart in his ears louder still. Or maybe that’s Martin’s. He can’t really tell anymore, as their hearts beat to the same tune, in the same time.

As the pain dies down, he can feel Martin, there in his chest. An ache subdued by his presence at his side. A new hole carved and filled with love, with his anchor.

Jon laughs, hysterical, for just a second. Tears on his cheeks until Martin puts his hands on his shoulders, steadying him.

“Ready for the next step?” Martin asks, worry flooding his voice, and oh, he can feel that in his heart. All the concern for him, bubbling over the edges of the pot. It makes him gasp, legs trembling, and all he can do is grip Martin back. It’s all he can do to not drown in the Tsunami of Martin, the whirlpool with them both at the center.

“Give--Give me a second, yeah?” he whispers. “Don’t tell me when.”

“Oh,” Martin replies, no doubt feeling the outpouring of gratitude. “Yeah, alright.”

They hold each other. Letting the waves of emotion crash down, drowning out the fear, out the pain. Held close together. This is what matters.

Then--

Pain.

Sharp, biting pain. Driven into his chest.

Blood meets his lips as he coughs, his own sharpened rib embedded in his heart, by Martin’s trembling hand.

As Jonathan Sims falls, he holds Martin’s hand, and wishes he could muster the energy to wipe those tears away.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers,  as the door in his mind becomes a vacuum, sucking all the fear out of him, waves of love and safety and peace replacing the frostbite of terror. “We’ll meet again, yeah?”

Martin nods. He sits down by Jon, and kisses him, ignoring the iron taste. Ignoring the poison that he takes from Jon’s mouth.

The fire closes in, and consumes them. But there is no fear. No pain.

The world bends.

 Good cows stand in a field, and no Eye bears down from the sky. No people scream in terror on that day.

Four bodies are found dead in The Magnus Institute, and the world dreams of a year that never happened. A year of fear and pain burying itself deep in their hearts.

A year that will never come to pass.

 And Jonathan Barker-King wakes up.

---

Jonathan has always been an odd child.

Georgie and Melanie knew this when adopting him.

But that doesn’t change the fact that one night, when he’s twelve years old, Melanie can feel him shaking her awake.

She rolls over, facing him. “Mm, what is it?” she murmurs, knowing the shaky hands as someone who is afraid.

Jon’s voice is heavy, edged with static, and Melanie wishes she could see his face, as he says, “There will be fire. We need to leave.”

That gets her out of bed, kicking Georgie awake.

“Mel, what’s wrong?” her wonderful, sleepy wife groans.

“Up up up, now! Phone Basira, tell her we don’t know how much time we all have, but we need to go.” She tries to keep her voice level, urgent but hushed.

It gets Georgie up, at least. Springing to her feet. “I’ll get the emergency bags. Fuck. Alright. Guess it couldn’t last forever.”

Melanie makes sure she’s holding Jon’s hand, as she leads him back to his room, digging out the always-packed travel bag hidden there. Filled with clothes and food and money, and for him, some books he’s shoved into it. “Pack up your laptop and anything else you want that will fit, alright?” she says, soft.

“Got it, mom,” he replies. “Go take care of what you need to. I’ll be out in five minutes. That’s the plan, yeah?”

She nods at him. “Very intelligent, you are.”

And then she dashes, grabbing her own bags and the keys, tossing them all in the trunk of the car. Important documents, keepsakes she knows they wouldn’t be able to bear losing, anything irreplaceable. From the the meowing coming from the back seat, it sounds like Georgie had managed to catch The Admiral and bundle him into the cat carrier, too. The stubborn old cat refused to die of old age or illness, but Desolation’s flames might be enough to do the trick, and none of them would want to risk it.

There’s sounds from the house next door, and that reassures her that Daisy and Basira are up now, no doubt going through the same protocol they’d set in place for just this event. Hopefully it’s a fluke, but they can’t take that chance.

If it’s the past coming back to haunt them, with fire and flames, then they can’t afford to wait.

In ten minutes Georgie is at the wheel, and the car roars to life. Basira is getting the last of the Hussain-Tonner bags in their car, Martin bundled away in the back no doubt.

“Can I say goodbye?” Jon whispers, and Melanie sighs.

“Sorry, kiddo, but we gotta go.” She reaches out, holding his hand between the seats, as they peel out, headed far away.

He’s quiet, solemn. After five minutes of quiet, he sighs. “That’s alright. I’ll see him again, someday.”

“Yeah, no doubt about that,” she whispers back.

The next morning, their houses are on the news, as they watch in their hotel room, a hundred miles away. A fire, a roaring blaze, arson. But no bodies to be found.

“It was Jude, no doubt,” whispers Georgie, while Jon is fast asleep.

She nods. “Guess we tested our luck too long, staying in one place like that. If Jon hadn’t… Known. Then we might’ve been dead by now.”

“I’m worried,” Georgie sighs. “About him, about Martin. They-- We’re right, yeah? They saved the world together, and it involved a soulbond. They were both absolutely miserable before they saw each other that first time.”

Leaning her head on her wife, Melanie says, “Yeah, but… We’ll just have to make do, for now. Keep an eye out on them both. I think it might be a good idea to keep them separate, no contact, otherwise they’ll be sneaking out to the car some day and meeting each other halfway.”

Georgie snorts. “That’s absolutely something this Jon here would do. We’ve really spoiled him, huh?”

“From what I understand, we’ve been parenting just fine,” she says back, a roll of her unseeing eyes. “It’s his grandma who gave him all that childhood trauma last time. And a Leitner, what the fuck? How do you let an eight year old get his hands on one of those?”

That gets a full blown laugh. “Yeah, alright, you’re right. We’ve probably fucked him up somehow, but he’s not nearly as fucked up as when either of us first met him. Man, he needed some intensive therapy.”

---

Tim Stoker looks at the new-hire one time, and after the thought of I’m going to flirt with him so much passes through his head, another pops in of, wait that’d be weird--

Why?

He stares. Jonathan, the name tag reads, and why is that so familiar?

“Welcome aboard the library crew, my man!” He says out loud, giving a casual grin. “What’s a pretty boy such as yourself doing here?”

“You’re quite the flirt, Tim,” he says back with a laugh. “Sorry, not in the market right now. I’m not really… I’m not interested, mostly.”

He holds up his hands. “Hey, all cool, no worries, Jonny-boy.”

That gets a snort. “Call me Jon, nothing like that, please.”

“Got it, boss. Still haven’t answered my question,” he says.

“Oh, well…” Jon takes out a pen from his pocket, and twists it around his fingers, spinning to and fro. “I’m going to be working down in the archives, mostly. Gertrude’s taking me on as an… Well, an intern, I guess? Assistant? It pays decent, and it’s my chosen field, so… It’s a good chance.”

Tim nods. Opportunistic. Not many people get to work with good ole’ Gerty. “She works in the paranormal department yeah? That oughta be fun.”

“Parapsychology, specifically,” he says back. “With a focus currently in the not-apocalypse. Lots of info on that still to be gathered.”

“So you’re interested in spooky stuff, awesome!” Tim laughs. “You gotta tell me all the weird things. We should do a scary movie night sometime together.”

Jon stares at him, as if trying to piece together some mysterious puzzle. With big eyes, intense eyes, meeting his, looking into him, in a way that he hasn’t felt since--since--

A nasty migraine is forming in the back of Tim’s head.

Jon looks away.

“Sure, why not? You're off shift now, though, right? You should get to your class.”

“How did you--?” he starts to ask, but Jon has already descended the stairs into the archives.

 The pain doesn’t go away, as he makes his way through math. It’s all numbers and easy problems. A blur as the teacher speaks, and he can’t focus. There’s something he’s forgetting. A nagging sense at the back of his mind, and he’d ask Sasha, or his roommate Martin for some help, except that seems like a very bad idea right now. He doesn’t know why. But it does.

Crashing onto his bed as soon as he gets back to his dorm is the best idea. Martin will assume he’s been out having fun, and he can sleep this stabbing agony off.

 It almost works, too.

 Fire, fire, so much fire.

Danny--who is Danny?-- Danny dead. The world a mess. Revolving around him in Stranger ways.

Falling apart.

Sasha is Not Sasha. Jonathan Sims is a Monster.

Martin is a stubborn fool.

The world blurs.

Explosions ring in his ears.

 Tim Stoker r e m e m b e r s . . .

 Shooting upright with a gasp, Tim stumbles out of bed. It had only been a few hours, but if anything the migraine has gotten worse.

He runs to the toilet, puking up whatever's in his stomach from that morning. Dizzy as another wave of nausea hits.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

There’s a knock on the door, and Martin -- Martin Blackwood, Martin Hussain-Tonner, fucking Martin -- is there, asking if he’s okay, in that kind way he always has.

“Yeah--” his voice cracks. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Just some bad food.”

“Alright,” comes the reply. “Let me know if you need some help.”

“Got it,” he croaks. And then he’s alone.

Sitting on the cold tile, he holds his head in his hands, groaning.

He needs to contact someone.

Who?

Jon--? No. Not Jon, not yet. It was Jon’s presence that did this to him, no doubt, but he didn’t seem to actually know Tim.

Gertrude, maybe?

Fuck it, Gertrude it is. He has her number, she’s his boss, after all.

^Hey, Gerty, I think my head just died. Absolutely exploded with pain. Not coming in tomorrow.^

Not the most formal, but she hasn’t minded before.

^Well, I hope you feel better, Tim. Remember to check in if you’re staying out too long. It’ll be a circus here, otherwise, if we’re understaffed.^

“Fuck,” he hisses out again, because she definitely remembers. And she knows what happened.

^Mind filling me in on how the circus is doing?”

^They’re all in bits and pieces. It was quite the display, or so I hear. I have the tapes, if you want to listen to them.^

Of course she does.

^Sure, I’ll grab them on my next shift, sound good?^

^See you then. Feel better, Tim.^

 He does.

Looking at Sasha now, it’s bizarre. A deep pit in his stomach, knowing he forgot her, believed the Not!Sasha had been her for so long. It doesn’t sit right.

As he makes his way down the steps to the archive, he finds her following. A few feet before the door, he turns to look at her.

“Need to speak to Gertrude too?”

She blinks, crossing her arms. “If I do, it’s none of your business.”

A snort escapes him. “Learning how to be abrasive from our lovely head archivist?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You know, he wasn’t really that bad. I mean, I totally got killed during the worm thing, so whatever you went through, I guess I still need to find out, but… He was trying his best,” she says, nonchalant as she picks at her fingers.

“Did seeing him give you the worst migraine of two lives too, then?”

“Absolutely. I thought I was dying. Turns out I had!”

They both start to laugh. He bumps his shoulder against her. “God I missed ya, Sash. Things went whack without you there.”

“Did the two lovebirds ever manage to work out their problems?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

“Not before I got exploded! Shit got weird. Honestly, you missed a lot of stuff. I--Well I’d fill you in, but whatever tapes Gertrude has will probably do that for me,” Tim says, gesturing back to the door.

“Listening party?” Sasha suggests, as she steps forward to open it.

“Sure, maybe the trauma of listening to our own deaths will be easier with a friend and some good wine. Gotta be at your place though, cuz Martin doesn’t know.” He steps in with her.

Gertrude looks at them, a box set on the empty chair. “Take it, have fun. I believe it’ll do the job enough to fill you in.”

“Thanks Gerty! We’ll get them back to ya’ when we’re done!” Tim says, giving a wave as Sasha scoops up the box. He can feel her hatred of the nickname, but it’s far too late to stop him from using it now.

 They pick up on tape 39, conveniently labeled in order by Gertrude no doubt, for Sasha’s sake.

It’s awful.

She’d been spared the paranoia, the depths Jon had been plunged into.

They stop on tape 50, for the night. It hurts too much to keep going.

---

Jon wakes up from his nightmare.

Shaking, terror coursing through his veins. Memories he can’t remember. He’s not a fool.

Reincarnation was part of what he’d studied, while looking into parapsychology. No conclusive evidence, of course, that’s impossible to get. Almost everything presented as esoteric is false. The most true subjects tend to involve the apocalypse, and even then, it’s not a sure shot.

But they always involve dreams. Dreams of memories. Past lives mean past memories, trying to find their way to the present.

And his dreams have been getting worse.

But that’s ridiculous, right? Utterly ridiculous. He’s being superstitious. Gullible. There’s never been proof of reincarnation adequately presented. To think he had a past life is to give into the folly of the people he criticizes.

(He knows, deep in his soul, that some things are true. He can’t discount everything.

But there’s no need to let this knowledge consume him.)

Jon sighs, sitting up. It wouldn’t do to dwell on this, not when he has a test today that he needs to last-minute cram for.

His phone lights up by his side, though, and he picks it up. Blinking blearily at the screen in confusion before yesterday hits him.

^Hey Jon! Good morning! How are you doing?^

From the contact of Martin!!

A smile spreads over his face, dragging him out of bed and through his morning routine. Food. Toothbrushing. Clothes. Heading out for his class early, instead of almost late for once.

^I’m good, Martin. I have a test today, soon. Going to study for that. How about you?^

The reply comes almost instantly, which drops a small pit in his stomach, because martin’s first text had been two hours before Jon had gotten up.

^I’m good too! Thanks for asking! I’m working on an essay right now, but nothing super important.^

^Well, don’t let me keep you from your work.^ He’d feel bad if he were the reason Martin got a bad grade. It’d be awful.

^Nah, I don’t really need to worry about this class. I’m passing with a 96% right now, and I’m one of the only people who talks in class. Like, during the discussions and all!^

^Teacher’s pet, are you?^

Jon can picture the little laugh Martin does at this, scrunched up nose and crinkled eyes. ^Better than failing, that’s for sure. You’re absolutely someone who sits in the back of the class and does his best to avoid conversation, though, aren’t you?^

He chuckles, smiling. Then he rubs his neck, glancing around as he walks to make sure no one is staring. There’s the usual bustle of people, but no one looking at him. Just leaves falling in the breeze, and the nip of the autumn air. He’s good, so far, but it’d be dangerous to keep this up inside.

(He might not care, because this is Martin. Self-consciousness be damned.)

^Yeah, you’ve got me pinned.^ he says back.

^I hide behind my laptop screen whenever I can, studiously take notes, and never talk to another living soul if I can avoid it.^

^Wow, what a nerd :P^

^Can’t believe my best friend is a nerd :P^

Jon has to take a second to pause, sigh, and roll his eyes, because Martin, please. ^You mean the same friend who would spend hours recounting books he’d read to you in perfect detail? Or the friend who once asked their teacher for more homework because he was bored? That friend?^

^Absolutely.^

^What a shock.^

^I’ve been completely betrayed by your sudden nerdom that has arisen in the past 11 years that I have totally never encountered before.^

That tugs a full-fledged laugh out of Jon, and he has to duck onto a less-used path behind a building to hide for a full minute, because Jonathan Sims does not randomly laugh at his phone in public.

When the coast is clear, he keeps walking, and slips into the building with the ease of someone whose had classes in it for three years already. He navigates to his classroom and takes his (unofficial) seat in the back, pulling out his notes and pretending like he’s studying, not thinking about Martin.

^I feel like I’m not the only nerd in this conversation.” The text sends as a quick reply, and then he follows it up with: ^Also, in class now. Going to study. Chat later?^

^Of course! Let me know when you’re free! See ya :D^

He rubs his face, setting his phone to silent and in his bag, trying to scrub away the blush that must be rising to his cheeks.

Martin is… So Martin.

Over the past decade Jon had wanted so much to reconnect with his old friend. An ache in his chest, screaming until all he knew was the noise, yearning to find him. Fixated on the missing piece until the misery became background radiation in his life, his new normal. Settled deep in his bones. Uncomfortable weight buried in his skin, just enough to fade into his usual, everyday pain. There, but not the focus.

 (Not usually. There were some days, some nights, where the loss of Martin dug its claws in. His body full of hooks and they pulled. As if trying to tug him closer. Back to Martin.

He almost followed it, a few times. Deep in his mind, a haze of the gaping hole, guiding his feet onto an unknown path. But he never went far. Always turned around and walked back home. His moms raised him well, he knows better than to be alone.

College the first year was scary. Terror welling in his throat. New people, new places. Too many unknowns.)

 One small, niggling little voice in Jon’s head, a voice filled with the needles of anxiety, had tried to tell him that Martin wouldn’t be the same. That if they ever reunited, Martin wouldn’t care about him. Or maybe, maybe the years had warped his thoughts, his understanding of who his friend was. An idealized image instead of the real person.

But he also remembers Martin fretting over him when Jon fell ill. Spending the night out of worry, sneaking in through his window to bring him medicine at midnight.

He remembers Martin listening as Jon rambled, and then rambling in turn. Jon knows so much about spiders to this day, because Martin had found a book and read all about it to him.

He remembers the poetry, still scrawled in notebooks and on pieces of paper he refused to throw away. Packed into that bag as from the fire they escaped.

That voice in his head never held any real sway.

But it’s nice to be proven right, for a change.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #georgie barker #melanie king #jonmartin #what the girlfriends #gelanie #guess who realized they never posted this to tumblr!!! #I forgot #pls subscribe on ao3 #that's so much more reliable than following my tumblr I beg of u

[mybipolar-coaster]

An Introduction

I would like to say it was an easy decision to write down my experiences thus far in life but that would be a lie. I don’t really consider myself an interesting person. As a matter of fact, I consider myself rather boring. I like boring things like history and science. I studied statistics in university. I’ve led what I would consider an amazingly average life. That is, until late last year when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder, or as those in the states would call it, Bipolar I. Since then, so many things in my life have clicked into place. Things that had always seemed unusual now had a reason behind them, a cause. I had something I could point to and say, “that’s why”. Since being diagnosed I have found an entire community online of people both living with the disorder and coping with the fallout of it. I have also had my own share of trials and ordeals to deal with since my diagnosis, but that’s getting ahead of myself a bit. First, let me explain what it was that finally made me commit to writing this blog. I am currently waiting for the right opportunity to ask the girl I have been dating for the past 10 years to marry me. I have the ring. I know the when, I know the where. The how is still slightly eluding me but I think a small amount of improvisation on that front won’t hurt. This is what made me want to write this blog. I wanted to detail my feelings leading up to asking the question. I hope to portray the excitement and nerves leading up to the moment of truth so that afterwards I can get my (hopefully) fiancée to read back and see how much thought, work and planning went into this and how much I love her. But then I thought, “hey, why stop there”? I could keep the blog going afterwards, talk about ordinary, every-day things. Perhaps even give people an insight into how I live with my condition and how it affects those around me. I have always been a creative person and I enjoy writing, so maybe this could be a new hobby for me. I certainly hope so. So, this will be the first post in a hopefully ongoing series of blog posts. However, in the off chance that my girlfriend does happen to stumble upon this blog, I will be operating under strict anonymity for the time being. I won’t say my name, or the name of anyone that could be used to identify me in these blogs, at least until after I’ve popped the question, but everything else within will be true. I think an ideal first post then, would be for me to give a quick recap of my life so far, and give you the reader an introduction to my life and how my messed-up brain works. I hope you enjoy!

I was born in the UK in the early 90’s (trying to be vague) into a working-class family. My dad worked as an electrician in a dog-food factory and my mum volunteered as a cook in a nursing home. My parents were quite old when they had me, so there is a large age gap between me and the rest of my family. In fact, when I was born both of my older brothers were teenagers. My mum says that one of my brothers refused to talk to her or my dad for a year after they told him they were pregnant because he was so disgusted that they were still having sex “at their age”. Having an older family definitely has its advantages though. When I was young, all my siblings had jobs, so I got four times the amount of presents that most other kids got. I should point out that I also have a sister, who is the closest in age to me. Growing up, me and my sister got on like oil and water. I’m surprised my mum managed to survive through my early years – in the same year my sister turned sixteen I was going through my “terrible twos”. I have always been a mummy’s boy. Even now that I’m in my 20’s, I get on great with my mum and have a good relationship with her. I bring up my mum because she was my first ever contact with mental illnesses. My mum had panic attacks and generalised anxiety when I was younger. I have multiple memories of us being somewhere and my mum suddenly bursting into floods of tears, sometimes running away, and my dad having to track her down and console her. It was an incredibly scary experience as a child but, to my mum’s credit, she did a great job of explaining things as she calmed down. She would tell me it wasn’t anyone’s fault, that it was something that was medically wrong with her like being sick and that I shouldn’t blame myself for her attacks. Her explanations were pivotal in my understanding of mental illnesses and my dad’s behaviour during these attacks served as an example to me for the rest of my life on how to deal with a crisis situation.

Even far back in my childhood, symptoms of my bipolar were there. It was subtle, but there were things about me that made me different from other kids. I could be morose or have fits of worry every now and then. I would worry about dying, or someone in my family being hurt. I was very young when I realised that, because there was such a big age gap between me and the rest of my family, I was most likely going to have to watch my whole family die. I’d have to attend their funerals, possibly give speeches, and then I’d be left alone at the end. This terrified me as a child and even now it still serves as a strange sort of morbid obsession during my low days. For instance, I have the speech I will give at my father’s funeral memorised and have done for quite some time. My dad isn’t even ill and shows no signs of kicking the bucket anytime soon, but it plays in my head so often that I’ll be prepared for when that day comes. In fact, I’ll be prepared in more ways than one. Ever since I was a child, I have been experiencing a symptom of bipolar affective disorder that I didn’t even realise was unusual until I was diagnosed. I spent my entire life thinking everyone got this at certain points in their lives and it was only after a conversation with my girlfriend where she pointed out that this wasn’t normal that I went to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed. This symptom is called Disassociation. Disassociation can happen multiple ways, but it always affects me the same way. During moments of crisis, moments of importance or sometimes when I feel I am in a place of some significance, I feel as if I leave my body and allow another entity to control it. That sounds far more sinister than what it actually feels like so let me try and explain it as best I can. Most people experience going on autopilot, where their mind switches off and they continue to do some monotonous or repetitive task. My Disassociation feels a bit like that. The entity that takes over my body is my autopilot. He will do what I would want to do anyway. He doesn’t have his own needs or wants. He just does. I, on the other hand, leave my body. I picture it like that episode of Tom & Jerry where Tom accidentally kills himself with a falling piano while chasing Jerry. His soul leaves his body and rises up to cat heaven only to not be allowed in because he’s been so mean to Jerry. Well my “soul” (I don’t believe in a soul so the more fitting term here would probably be id) leaves me in the same way and floats, just above and behind me, and observes. I feel like I am acting like a documentarian in these moments. Like a wildlife cameraman observing the animal he has been tracking for years being eaten by a predator – I am totally detached. I’m there to watch, not to influence. Sometimes I think maybe I’m me in the future, remembering this event and not actually the present me at all. Does this make sense? It’s a very strange sensation and, from what I gather, kind of unique to me so I really struggle to explain it to other people. My girlfriend thinks she can sometimes tell when I’m disassociating though. She says I become wide-eyed and emotionless, talking in a monotone. This might be true, but she has only been able to correctly identify when I’m disassociating twice in the entire time I’ve known her so it might just be they were particularly noticeable incidents.

Of course, the other big symptom of Bipolar Affective Disorder is the mood cycles. When I was younger, my cycles were generally rather enjoyable but as I have gotten older, they have gotten less enjoyable and more something to be monitored and observed. Before I go any further into how my cycle affects me, I feel I should spend a bit of time explaining the cycle as a lot of people don’t really get the Bipolar cycle and there is a lot of misinformation in the media. To put it in the simplest terms, lets imagine a scale from 0 to 10. Now if you are a neurotypical, normal person, I want you to imagine the happiest you have ever been. Then I want you to imagine the saddest you’ve ever been. Now if I was to say to you that 0 is the worst and 10 is the best, where would you put those memories? Probably 0 and 10, right? Well, in terms of measuring bipolar moods, we tend to use the 0 to 10 scale as well but ours is a bit different. When you get down to 0, there should be extreme hopelessness. Either you haven’t moved for extended periods, haven’t eaten and most likely have self-harmed, tried to commit suicide or have at least given it serious thought. Now your 0 may hit a lot of those same notes. You may have considered killing yourself after the death of a close loved one or a life event that hit you particularly hard. Once again, I want you to think back to that worst moment in your life. Now what if I said you’d feel that way every few months. You feel like that, not because something has happened or because you lost something but because it’s September. It’s just that time again. Now let’s go to the other side of the spectrum. This one is a little trickier because it involves more than just emotion, it involves energy levels and sanity levels. This is an important thing to bear in mind with bipolar. If you’re a normal person, your 10 is the happiest you’ve ever been in your life. If you’re bipolar, you’re 10 is the furthest from reality you’ve ever been in your life. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes mania can feel great but sometimes it can feel like hell. A 10 on the bipolar scale can involve hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, an insane amount of energy that absolutely must be excised, a manic state and way of speaking and a lack of need to sleep. Seriously, while manic I can sleep for as little as 2 hours in a 48-hour period and feel absolutely fine. The only upside to a manic state is that it can sometimes feel really good and all that energy helps you get through a lot of work if you can keep focused. You also tend to get a burst of creativity while manic which can help with business projects, artistic creations or even writing the first post for a new blog!

I think I’ll leave it here for my first blog post, I’ve explained a little about myself and why I wanted to start this blog, but mostly rambled in my scatter-brained way about my bipolar disorder. I think I’ve put enough words down for today and I’ll pick up on this tomorrow. I promise I will get into more of the general diary keeping and talking about the proposal, but I feel it is important to get this bipolar stuff explained first so that you know what lens I look at the world through before I start telling you what I can see. And if you’re reading this, I love you Gorgeous!

-B

#bipolar #bipolaraffectivedisorder #bipolardisorder #proposal #marriage #blog #firstpostever #personal #bipolar affective disorder

[thehappymessproject]

56-58/100 - Open letter to my fellow humans suffering from depression

Hello wonderful being!

Yes, I’m talking to you. I know your depression won’t believe a word of it, but I wanted to begin this letter by telling you that you are so brave, and so much stronger than you think, and that you can get better. Just by reading this, I know you are already giving yourself some love and space to heal, that makes you wonderful and brave in my book. 

Recovery is not easy or comfortable, it is messy, as far as linear as possible, but it really does exist. I can promise this to you : I’ve lived it, and I’ve seen it happen over and over. 

If this is a really awful day for you, please, keep that reading for later and go read this instead : you’ll find things you can do right now. 

I know your brain won’t make this reading easy for you, so I’ll try to cut that letter into shorter sections, so you can go and read whatever you feel like you need or want to read. 

Why I wanted to write to you

Yesterday, a dear patient of mine sent me a discouraged email asking me if I could explain to her some things about depression : how it is linked to sleep, to losing motivation, and why it is so hard to keep studying when we suffer from depression. She ended her message by commenting that she is probably “taking advantage of it”. 

I asked her permission to make it a text on here, so others might be benefiting from my answers, and it would be easier for me to say most of what I’d like to say on the topic. 

I also wanted to write this for me. I had a tough year in many regards, I had a tough few months adapting to a lot of changes, my whole lifestyle thrown off balance, as you may know if you read me regularly. Since then, I have experienced stronger depressive symptoms for the first time in years, and needed to go back to basics. I’m doing way better already, but after that long busy week I had, I needed those reminders too. 

It’s not your fault.

Let’s start with this : there is nothing wrong with you. You are not defective, broken or problematic. It’s not that you “don’t know how to do life”. 

You are suffering from a disease. A brain scan could show you your brain (which is an organ like any other) doesn’t work properly. I am pretty sure you wouldn’t blame a person from having a physical illness. Please, take an instant to breathe deeply and offer yourself the same compassion here, even if it’s just for a second. 

We live in a world that is emotionally illiterate. We all know what emotions are, we just don’t learn how to deal with them in a way that is healthy for us. For a lot of us, therapy is the only place we learn things like this. This makes everyone at higher risk to suffer from mental disorders.

Our world is, on top of this, a very stressful and unfair one, and one that is designed to feed on our fears and insecurities. Chances are you also were raised in a family who doesn’t think sadness is important or who thinks that sadness is this huge awful thing rather than the message it is, who didn’t tell you that all humans get sad, and that it was ok to fall down. They didn’t know and therefore couldn’t teach you either. It is not your fault at all. You did your best with the cards you were dealt with. 

What is depression?

You can find how the DSM V describes depression and how the ICD 10 describes it. Both sources are the ones most clinicians use to diagnose their patients. Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, up to 20% of people depending on where they live will suffer from it. You need to know that you are not alone in this. That it is not about you and your inability to cope or your being too weak. 

Depression doesn’t happen in a vacuum though. Nor can it be only about genetics or purely circumstantial. Depression is a big cry for help from your inner child. 

You know her. She is the part of you who is full of wonder and curiosity, who could at some point be so filled of joy that she fell like she could burst from it, who wants to believe in magic and learn many exciting and mysterious things, who loves others and know how wonderfully unique each of us is. 

That little guy’s also the one who gets heart-broken facing tragedies, who gets angry when our boundaries are overstepped or injustice shows up, ashamed when we do something really wrong or really can’t do something, guilty when we hurt someone or do something bad, disappointed when something important falls through, discouraged when things are really hard... Our inner child is the very core of our emotions. 

When and how depression happens

Depression happens when we deny our inner child’s feelings and act as if they don’t matter for too long. If we do, wether or not very good or bad things happen to us, we get depressed over time, exhausted by having fought too much how we felt, we end up feeling empty and like nothing really matters.

When we do ignore that pain for too long, everything gets off-balance. We are triggering our defence mechanisms. Our symptoms all depend on how we function in general and under pressure. 

For example, a lot of us sleep a lot when we are depressed, and describe sleep almost like an attempt to avoid living and feeling the way they do. Others, usually when also suffering from anxiety, will have trouble sleeping, often because when they try to go to sleep, they are filled with very unpleasant feelings and thoughts that keep them awake. Depressed overeaters tend to use food to “fill the void” they feel in their belly, undereaters tend to believe they are so unworthy they don’t even deserve food. 

Your depression is not my depression, but we are in the same boat

Each depression is as unique as our personality and background is. But they have all one thing in common : they afflict people who avoid their feelings and tried to build a life designed to never feel sad, hurt or frustrated. Almost every depression story I heard started with something along the lines of “I used to be able to feel pretty good, but now I can’t anymore”. That’s simply not true. No one is just depressed from one day to the next.

Depression starts very early in life

Most depressive scenarios actually started very young, when we learnt that there are ‘bad’ feelings, and that they should be avoided, bottled up or numbed. But those strategies only work on short term, and should never be used as regular strategy to deal with feelings. 

Unaware of that fact, we get into painful dilemmas, because slowly, we start to avoid certain situations that make us feel those avoided emotions, we start to give up things that are important to us and to procrastinate them. Our world starts to feel smaller and smaller, things seem to get harder and harder. We lose any kind of motivation, and hope. 

Everything gets exhausting, even things that we didn’t have to think about before, like showering, brushing our teeth, or getting out of the house start to feel really hard. We feel continuously exhausted from battling ourselves. 

Each time we try to do something good for us, our brain harasses us simultaneously with excuses for not to do those things, and to make sure we stop even thinking about it, a collection of all the worse things we can think about ourselves. That battle is why it is very hard to keep a job or study when depressed : we have so little energy left.

Depression is a smart b*tch : here are its strategies

Depression is kind of like our personal bully and anti-coach. If it was only for Depression, we just wouldn’t get out of our bed, and stay there in foetal position, waiting for time passing by until we die, hopefully soon. 

Its favourite strategy to make sure that happens : making sure we stay very far away from anything having meaning for us, and any activity involving self-love will be its worst enemy.  That’s its job, and it’s pretty good at it. 

Depression’s favourite weapon is the idea that things that are our duty and things that make us feel good about ourselves are the most important and have to be prioritised. 

It is actually very smart : since we are so exhausted already, and things that are about feeling like we are good, right and strong ask from a lot of energy from us, and their results never last long because we rarely really want to do them, it’s almost the perfect way to end up with a life that feels exhausting and pointless. 

I’m pretty sure that sounds like how your life feels like right now, so you can experience yourself how smart and effective that depressive strategy is. 

This is why the only way to actually fight depression is to learn to look at it and treat it for what it is : a story. Those awful things Depression is using your brain to tell you right now aren’t facts, they are fears. Things you desperately hope you are not. 

Your job and ways to fight back the beast

To recover, we have one job : to do our best to push it back, one step at the time. Yes, it’s a big job. But we don’t have to move mountains to change and heal. Actually, it really comes down to one self-loving action everyday. Of course, not any kind of actions.

The first rule to kick Depression’s ass is to accept the fact that you are doing your best. And by your best, I don’t mean “all you can possibly do until you’re physically and emotionally beaten”. And definitely not either “what you used to be able to do” nor “what others seem to be able to do”. Accept that we are doing our best means accepting that Depression is exhausting us, and we need to take it slow. 

To do that, we need to sort out what we actually can do, even if it’s not all that we would want to do. We need to say no to many things : things we think we should do, things others think we should do, or would want us to do, things we said previously said yes to, BUT that makes that whisper “Fuck no!” comes up.

When we feel depressed, it’s a call from our inner child to really take care of ourselves.  We all want to love ourselves, but so many of us never act on that need. 

An important note : when we fight back, Depression fights back too, often striking harder than usual, the self-talk often gets more violent : that’s actually a sign you’re doing exactly what you need. Otherwise it wouldn’t bother to stop you. 

The two types of self-love that will help

There are two types of self-love : restorative soft things that are like little hugs for our inner child, and brave things that we really want or need to do but keep procrastinating or avoiding by fear. 

Generally, the more depressed we are, the less we prioritise both. When I say that not any kind of actions will help, it is because they won’t have the same meaning for us. 

In depression, there isn’t a lot of meaning anymore in our life. The less meaning there is, the more our life feels pointless. Adding meaning can be done in many different ways and should be prioritised IF and only if you have some energy left. 

Doing these important things for us will require some energy and courage. So, we can’t create any meaning in our life if our cup is completely empty. 

That’s why we need to start where we are at. Are you completely out of life energy right now? Does even getting up in the morning feels super hard? I remember times when even breathing or being awake felt exhausting. That’s a big sign to start with restorative self-love before anything else.  

We need to observe how we feel and what we are struggling with. If we can do that, only then can we plan and take action. Remember when I said that healing starts with one daily action? This is valid for any kind of healing.

Practical steps towards healing : anti-perfectionism in action

We need structure to heal. But not the kind of structure we already know and use, generally to punish ourselves or make sure we are not out of control. Loving structure.

Wether we need more restorative self-love, or brave self-love (see previous section), we can use a very simple strategy regarding healing. Choose one challenge you are going to commit for a week, the simplest and easiest possible. Just a week, more as an exploration, but also a way to get an small win everyday.

For restorative self-love, it should be either a very simple action of a few minutes where we practice self-care if our cup needs to be filled up first, something that helps us relax and slow down. It can be something you like that is a calm activity (reading, knitting, crosswords, puzzles...) or a grounding practice (journalling, meditating, doing yoga). Anything that feels like this and you never do counts. Start where you are at.

For brave self-love, start by answering these questions :  - what is something really important for you, something you often think about doing but keep delaying and finding excuses for? It can be about learning something new, starting a new activity, coming back to an old one... - what would be the smallest step you can take in that direction in the next 24hrs? 

And by smallest step, I really mean tiny. It should be doable in a few minutes, 10mn is a good limit for that, you may have read from me about those “1% steps” (1% of your awake hours is in average about 10mn). Reask the second question every day if you finish the daly task, or take some more time for it the day after if you didn’t. 

Today, with a patient of mine, we set up a 1% step towards learning how to edit videos. Editing videos felt really hard and like a huge task for him as well as something he really wanted to do, but he felt confident about his ability to research on Google and his favourite e-learning platforms for 10mn a day, looking for tutorials and classes about video editing. 

After a week, you can decide to either continue for another week of the same challenge, finding a new one, or making the one you chose a little bit harder. 

That’s how you vanquish the depressive beast. One small step at the time towards self-love. When we progress a tiny bit everyday, we bypass depression’s most efficient weapons and strategies. 

A few reminders for the road

- give yourself the authorisation to suck and to fail : if you can’t do your mini step of the day, it really doesn’t matter, as long as you come back to it as soon as you can.  - give yourself credit : make ‘done lists’ every night, writing all you have done that felt hard can be a great 1% step to counter the infamous “you’re not doing enough”. You might feel ridiculous putting down “brushed my teeth” or “went outside for 5mn”, it’s important to do so anyway. Show yourself that your efforts count by celebrating your smallest wins. Depression hate this.  - you are not a burden - you are not defective - you are not weak - you are doing your best, be gentle with yourself - it will get better, especially if you take responsibility for your own happiness (everything we talked about in this letter is about this) - your worth doesn’t depend on your productivity at all - you are so much more than your to do list - you are allowed to make your healing a priority over your grades or your job, making healing a priority is completely life altering in the best way imaginable - you can do this  - I believe in you - you are loved

See you tomorrow, Love,  L. 

#depression #mental health #counselling #psychologist #therapist #writer #the happy mess project #100 days project #100 days of writing

[prismatic-bell]

How-Tos of Protesting: Student Walkout Edition

Hey guys! So I’m going to do something I don’t normally do, and ask you guys to blow this up, blow it out of the water, destroy my notes. (If this succeeds, I’ll probably end up deleting the original post to save my own sanity. That’s okay.) Here’s why: I used to be a protester, and I still would be if I had the time/money/energy/a job that wasn’t shit. I’m not going to tell you not to protest or talk down to you--I’m going to share the tricks and tips I learned over three rather volatile years in the queer rights movement, and those I’ve picked up from other large protest movements. Please consider this a basic guidebook, a gift from your pissed-off Millennial aunt to you, to protest safely and effectively. This guide is aimed at the upcoming gun violence walkout protests, but feel free to adapt and use as necessary for other movements.

(Just in case this does blow up to every corner of the internet: you don’t need to credit me. This isn’t about me. This is about something much bigger than me, or you. Just help these kids do what they need to do.)

THE MONTH BEFORE THE PROTEST:

1) Ready yourself mentally. Even when you’re pissed and ready to go, standing up to speak very brutal truth to power can be intimidating. Do what you need to do to center yourself and be angry, but calm--write things down, make private Tumblr posts, take some photos or make some art that explains how you feel. NONE OF THIS NEEDS TO BE PUBLIC AND IN FACT ANY WRITTEN RECORD SHOULDN’T BE. The reason is simple: during and after the protest, the media will be looking for a way to discredit you. Don’t give it to them. This is your chance to get your head in the game.

2) Start assembling a protest kit. If you are a student or teacher, this should fit easily into your backpack or briefcase. You’ll want bandaids, neosporin or triple-bac, an Ace bandage, a liter of potable water, some light nonperishable foods (I recommend Belvita biscuits for nutrients-to-size ratio), about $20 in emergency funds, and a portable charger if you have it. DO NOT TAKE ANY MEDICATION. If you have any kind of disorder or illness that would require you to take medication during the day--even if it’s something as innocuous as a sugar pill--it’s better for you to either sit out the protest, or stay home. If the protest fails, or the administration allows it to proceed but insists on their own security measures, and you are found with medication on you (yes, even your own), you can be in a LOT of trouble. We’re talking expulsion, legal problems, and so on. The only exception to this is if you have school clearance already (for example, for an emergency inhaler), and you should take only the medications you have clearance for.

3) Choose a book to read, if you’re doing a sit-in/walk-out with sit-in, and put it in your protest kit. For this purpose I strongly recommend books like Battle Royale, Firestarter, and The Hunger Games, which contain the themes of “our children are forced to die because we’re too fucking power-hungry.” There’s a triple reason for this: one, if it’s a successful sit-in, you’re going to get bored. (Sit-ins are literally a lot of “hurry up and wait.”) Two, a group of students sitting around rebelliously READING? There’s not much the media can do with that, and for this reason I also recommend you leave your DS or other handheld video-game device at home. And three: a sea of books about rebellion seeking justice? That is pointed. That’s deliberate.

4) If you plan to have a sign or banner, start planning it now. Because the majority of protestors are going to be students, I strongly recommend you paint your sign on cloth, which can be folded or rolled up to carry in your backpack and also would be very difficult to miscontrue as a weapon. Please remember that while it is a very old and time-honored tradition to share the names of previous victims on your sign, it is considered to be in extremely bad taste to use their images; this decision should be reserved for siblings or parents only.

5) Select a “buddy network.” This doesn’t have to be composed of your closest friends, as long as the people in it get along tolerably well. The purpose of this group is to ensure that everyone within it stays calm and hydrated, and to watch each others’ backs in case of emergency. This means everyone in the group knows where everyone else is at all times, and is prepared to give pertinent information to emergency services if necessary. Which relates to my next month-out point . . . .

6) We’re going to get kind of somber now, sorry. As an adult, the first thing I thought when I heard about these mass protests was “fucking YES!” and the next was “Jesus. Oh, fuck. Sweet G-d anybody planning a shooting knows exactly when to plan it for now.” Ready yourself mentally for the fact that a shooting may happen at your protest, and make yourself a prep kit for this. Save an ICE (In Case of Emergency) number in your phone. Make a clean document that contains your full name, ICE number, parents’ names (and phone numbers, if they’re different from your ICE number), and pertinent medical information (including “NO BLOOD DONATION” if that applies), and the day before the protest, take a clear screenshot of this and make it your phone lockscreen. For example, mine would look like this (although I rather obviously changed my parents’ names for privacy reasons):

NINA LASTNAME EMERGENCY CONTACT JILL DIFFERENTNAME [My mother’s phone number] PARENTS JACK AND JILL  DIFFERENTNAME BLOOD TYPE O+

I take citalopram 20mg and Zyrtec daily and routinely take Aleve for inflammation. I have a severe allergy to sulfa and sulfa-derivative drugs. I am positive for genetic blood clotting disorder Factor V Leiden. I suffer from blood sugar crashes, but have no formal diagnosis. I am autistic and may be nonverbal under severe stress.

In an emergency situation, this information can save your life. Have it on hand, and make your buddy network save this information as well. Hopefully, you won’t need it and at the end of the day you’ll feel it might have been silly--but if you need it, you have it, immediately.

THE WEEK BEFORE THE PROTEST:

1) Check in with your buddy group. Be sure everyone has their kit assembled, and choose a meetup place for when the protest begins. The ideal buddy group should be no more than eight people; above that, it starts getting muddled. If your group is larger than that, I recommend splitting in two, and being clear about who belongs to which group. I know high school is a time of cliques and fitting in, but make it clear this is NOT about who likes whom--it’s for the safety of everyone involved. A smaller group is easier to keep track of. Period. If you’re a main organizer at your school, that’s great! You’re the head of a much larger body--but that body needs to have tiny bodies within it. You can’t be expected to watch over a few hundred or thousand of your peers alone. That’s ludicrous.

2) Select the clothing you’re going to wear. I recommend you go with “comfortable, but also dress for the job you want to have in ten years.” You want to be a teacher? Wear dress slacks or a dress skirt and a button-down. You want to be a programmer? Neat and clean jeans or cargo pants are fine, but wear a polo or button-down, no tee-shirts. You’re going into business? Slacks, button-down, tie. Your life plan is to be an artist with their own pants-optional studio? Wear the clothing you’d wear for your first big gallery opening. You want to be a singer? Imagine you won American Idol or The Voice, and this is your first big post-show interview. Your dream job requires a very specific uniform, like “chef” or “beekeeper”? Go with a nice shirt or sweater and good pants--the kind of thing your parents will call “an interview outfit.” If your school has a uniform, make sure yours is ironed. Be sure your hair is neat and clean.

Homework time! I want you to read this article. Ladies, if you’re wearing skirts, aim for knee-length AT MINIMUM, and tea-length is better. This isn’t me trying to crimp your style--it’s that you will be sitting and walking a lot, and a longer skirt will be easier to sit on the ground in. Remember: you are the future. You are our lawmakers, politicians, teachers, doctors, innovators, artists. Dress so that the media is forced to show images of hundreds, thousands, of teens who look like they got up that morning ready to kick ass and take names on Wall Street. There’s nothing wrong with tee-shirts or ripped jeans on your day off or in the classroom, but you want to show the image of “we’re here, your bright young minds of the future. How many of us will be here next month? Next week? Tomorrow?” A lot of people, especially those interested in shutting you up, won’t be willing to look past your clothes. Force them. You wanna really go the extra mile? Dress up and take your homework. It says “I’d be happy to learn, if only the teachers could worry about my grades instead of my life.”

3) Do an overview of relevant court cases, in case your right to protest is challenged. Here is an ACLU page on student protest in general to get you started. Here is their page on Tinker vs. Des Moines, which is a case you will DEFINITELY want to read about (the specific case was about the Vietnam War, but it will apply to you). I’d recommend not involving an American flag in your protest because it stands to overshadow what you actually want to say, but if you choose to do so, you’ll want to read about Texas vs. Johnson. To be sure what you’re saying and doing stays within legal safety parameters, read up on Bethel vs. Fraser. And while it’s not directly in line with the exact topic at hand, it’s always worth a look at West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette. KNOWING THIS STUFF IS IMPORTANT. I know it seems like boring makework, but seriously, being able to say “with all due respect, Mr. Smith, the Supreme Court decided in Tinker vs. Des Moines that you may take my protest sign only if it’s disruptive in class” is important. When I attended protests in the late 2000s my group actually made Tinker required reading. You need to know this stuff.

And to top it off: at the March for Marriage Equality in 2009, we literally used the second half of the First Amendment as a protest chant because there were groups that had tried to block our license for the march. You can find the full text of it here, with annotations explaining its meaning and court cases related. It’s a very dry read, but please at least take a look at “Speech Plus” and “Rights of Assembly and Petition.” There’s no test on this stuff, I’m not going to quiz you to see if you got it right, just kind of . . . skim. See the background. Better still, have it bookmarked on your phone so it’s readily available if needed.

4) In case your group is questioned by the media, decide who your spokesperson will be. This should be someone who can speak clearly, is confident looking into a camera, and who can give a brief prepared statement without stuttering or sounding scripted and stilted. Why prepare the statement? Because you can be sure you’re including all relevant information without getting flustered, circling back, or being unclear, as may happen when speaking off the cuff--imagine having to give an English presentation in front of your class with no notes and no chance to go over it in the bathroom mirror. A good statement should be something like “My name is Nina Lastname, I’m a senior here at General McLane and we walked out of class today in protest against unchecked gun violence nationwide. Today is the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre. This year alone there have been over two dozen mass shootings, but in 20 years not a single piece of logical and meaningful legislation to protect students, moviegoers, church worshippers, or simply unarmed people on the street. It’s time that changed." The average local news piece is 32 seconds long (yes, I’m serious). You need your soundbite to be 15 seconds or less if you want to avoid it being edited, and 10 seconds is better. If your school has had a mass shooting of any kind, address it in your statement: “I’m a senior here at General McLane, where we had a mass shooting 20 years ago.” (Yes, that really happened in my school.)

THE DAY OF THE PROTEST:

1) When the protest begins, proceed calmly to your meetup place. Your school may have additional security measures in place, because make no mistake, I will not be the only adult who recognized the danger inherent in a walkout. If this is the case, be patient and calm with the adults who are doing the screening, lockdown, etc.; it’s very likely that they’re doing the only things they can do to keep you safe. Do not proceed until everyone reaches your meetup place.

2) Exit calmly. Don’t yell, swear, make threats, etc.; basically, pretend you’re getting on an airplane. If you want to play or sing protest songs, go for it, but steer clear of anything with cursing or language that could be taken as violent. (My go-to when I want to get good and pissed off and ready to fight is “Uprising” by Muse, but I’d never sing it at a protest because of the line “it’s time the fat cats had a heart attack/their time is coming to an end”.) If your school is in the South, consider “We Shall Overcome,” which was a very prominent song in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Singing it in the South today would be a very clear and pointed reference. Since I am An Old, I’ll direct you to some older songs you may find relevant or a useful starting point:

Pink feat. Dixie Chicks, “Dear Mr. President” Sam Cooke covering Otis Redding, “A Change Is Gonna Come” Willie Dixon covering an old folk song, “Down By The Riverside” Crosby, Stills, and Nash, “Ohio” (trigger warning: this song is about a school shooting, linked video contains disturbing images of Kent State shooting)

(Please take note that each of these was used predominantly by a different protest movement, and be respectful. Respectively: the anti-Iraq War movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, and I’m sorry to say, the fucking “can we stop shooting our kids at school” movement but in the 1970s.)

3) Keep tabs on your group. Ensure everyone is hydrated, and, if necessary, fed. If someone needs medical attention for any non-emergency reason (e.g. mild allergic reaction, overheated/too cold but not yet hyper/hypothermic, panic attack), assign a group member to help them seek care; if someone needs medical attention for an emergency reason, assign two people in the group who will call 911. (Why two? Because if your designated caller is the one with an emergency and you don’t have a backup, people will panic.)

4) If the media seeks a statement from your group, have your spokesperson speak. If they request to hear from other members of the group, be sure you deliberately echo what your spokesperson said--so if they say you walked out to protest gun violence, you would say “we walked out to protest all of the shootings that are happening nationwide.” The reason for this is because it’ll be a lot harder to paint the group as confused if everybody knows what it’s about. The “divide and conquer” method was used very successfully on Occupy Wall Street--don’t let it be used to undermine you.

5) If anyone asks to join your buddy network and you don’t know them at least by face (”I have algebra with that kid”), be polite, but cautious. Don’t be paranoid, but if you don’t know them, you can’t be sure they’re not an agent provocateur. If they say things that strike you as more than just a little bit weird, be doubly cautious; if at any time they hint at or suggest violence toward administrators, police, or other students, politely but firmly say “we aren’t having that kind of talk. We’re here for a peaceful solution to a violent problem, not to add more violence.” If they persist or say something explicit (e.g. “yeah? Well what if I told you I had a gun with me right now?”), find a safe way to exit the group, like going to the bathroom. Call law enforcement immediately. (If your school is doing a sit-in rather than a walkout, call the front office.) “My name is Nina Lastname and I’m a protestor at General McLane. A student none of my friends know has joined my protest group and [is threatening staff, says he has a gun, etc.].” THE ABSOLUTE LAST THING YOU WANT is for that person to be serious and either talk your group into a violent action, or to take a violent action against you. I know the police are kind of shit on Tumblr right now, and I understand why, but please believe I do not make this recommendation lightly. You want to keep your protest peaceful and organized. If the police need to be in the loop, please put them in the loop. They’re not going to want the bad press involved with hurting you guys, especially given what you’re protesting. Let them do their jobs. (This serves a second purpose: if that weird student is an agent provocateur placed by law enforcement, this tells them you’re not playing their game.)

6) If law enforcement tells you to move, be polite, but know your rights. “I’ll comply with your request, Officer. I would like to know where I may exercise my First Amendment right without compromising public safety.” It’s super-tempting to sass back. Believe me--I’ve been spit on and called “an animal” and “one of the whores of hell.” I know how tempting it is to fight back. Don’t do it. The only reason, the only reason, you should be engaging in physical or verbal violence at the protest (and that includes posts you may make on social media before, during, or after) is if there is an active attacker situation, and you are attempting to disarm the attacker. Otherwise, be polite. If your group is heavily nonwhite and you are white, use your privilege to their advantage: “My friends and I will comply with your request, Officer, but we’d like to know where, etc.” This avoids further confrontation. Intersectional problems at a protest are always bad news--they turn into thinkpieces, and thinkpieces are why people think my generation is a bunch of whiny babies. Don’t become a thinkpiece.

7) When the protest is over, ensure everyone in your buddy network is able to leave safely. Be responsible about your protest--discard any water bottles, food wrappers, or other trash you may have generated during the protest, and offer to assist nearby groups in doing the same. This is part of respectability politics--it goes hand in hand with the whole “show up in your Sunday best” thing. Don’t skip it.

Be safe, you guys. I have nothing more substantial than this to offer you. I wish I did. All I can say is this:

If you’re making a list of victims, make sure you go back to 1966 and the Texas Tower massacre. You’ll find fourteen dead, and a similar number wounded. Had they all lived, many would probably be grandparents today.

It needs to fucking end.

[warmau]

College!AU Hongbin {Sequel}

please read college!hongbin before reading this sequel this is an edited version of a commission i did!! but more artist!hong for everyone |  tw: nsfw implications 

as much as you love hongbin,,,,everything from his messy hair and skewed glasses,,,,,,paint under his nails and unorganized notes for class

you know he can get a little over his head when it comes to big projects

which is why when he tells you one evening, as he’s walking you back to your dorm after a date to a gallery opening

that he really wants to apply to the masters program for painting - you are nothing but supportive,,,,

but in the back of your mind you feel a bit uneasy

whenever finals comes around or hongbin has a lot due he kind of ,,,,,, loses his grasp a bit

already a rather nervous person, he can get even more anxious when their are deadlines and big decisions involved

you and gongchan had to practically force hongbin to drink enough water and get enough sleep during fall midterms and you had never seen him so,,,,,,,,,,,,

drained,,,,,,

the usual shy, but vibrant sparkle in his eyes had dulled to a muted brown - he barely spoke a word to you, gongchan, ravi, or his professors

at some point hyuk had tried to play a harmless prank on him and even then,,,,,,when he’d stepped out of his room with toothpaste smeared across his face courtesy of hyuk, he didn’t even seem phased

just went on like some kind of depressed phantom,,,,,,you and gongchan had lived a little piece of hogbin hell that entire week

and you knew that applying to the master's program meant,,,,,,a lot of work

a portfolio, a writing sample, good final marks,,,,,,,,,,

and you had thought for a moment - painting was his minor,,,,not his major,,,,,had he changed his mind about art history?

but you didn’t want to pry,,,,,,you had just  smiled and leaned in to kiss him gently

“if that’s what you want to do, ill help you as much as i can.”

hongbin clasped his arms around you, his handsome face lightening up in joy and he pressed you into a close hug

letting you go only when a group of students turned the corner and his shyness of your pda kicked in

but there you were,,,,a week later sitting in hongbin’s dorm room

you were wearing one of his old t-shirts, little splatters of unwashed watercolor around the hem, and talking to gongchan who was feeding their pet bunny thumper

“are you also going to be applying for the masters program?”

he asks and you sit under the covers of hongbin’s bed and shrug

your options are pretty open- right now,,,,the only thing on your mind is making sure hongbin is doing the right thing

“are you worried about hong?”

you look up and gongchan pets thumper who sits calmly in his lap

“how’d you know?”

gongchan laughs, “i was there you know. for the whole midterm meltdown.”

you give a weak smile and shrug a little,,,,,,,,it’s an understatement to say you’re just ‘worried’,,,,,,,you love hongbin you don’t want to see him in such a horrible mood ever again,,,,,but ,,,,how could you stop him,,,,,this was his future,,,,,

“doesn’t a masters in painting require a portfolio, and one piece has to be large scale. i don’t think ive ever seen hongbin do one of those,,,”

gongchan’s voice doesn’t betray his concern either, but before you can say aything the dorm door opens and hongbin comes in, carrying the takeout he’d run to get

he passes gongchan his order and sits at the desk beside his bed as he gives you yours,,,,the silence is a little tense

and hongbin looks between you two with wide eyes,,,,, “did,,,,,,something happen while i was gone?”

you and gongchan shake your heads and you lean forward to steal some food from your boyfriend’s plate

he scrunches up his nose and tells you to keep your hands to yourself

and you just laugh and tell him you can’t do that around him

a blush dusts hongbin’s cheeks and he motions to you that gongchan can hear you,,,,,but gongchan just rolls his eyes and says “im used to you two by now, don’t worry about it bro”

and everything seems normal,,,,,,,,,

the days pass and hongbin is still the same sweet, tender, and loving boyfriend that he always is

oblivious to the stares from others when you two are on dates because of his good looks, the usual “we can’t kiss here, but maybe if we hide our faces -” caution that he still has around your relationship, gushing over artbooks in the library together, and embarrassing late night karaoke jams featuring hongbin crying to the entire discography of park hyoshin ,,,,,,

being in his arms still feels warm, his body is lean and perfect and you’re never not impressed by the way it looks highlighted by the dim lights coming through his dorm window as you two lay tangled against each other

but,,,,,,,the fantasy crashes around you when hongbin begins working on his portfolio for his application

because, like gongchan had said, one of the pieces has to be a large landscape piece

when you had met hongbin in paintings class for the first time,,,,he had primarily worked in portraits - small to medium scale

you’d never seen him attempt something so large and so detailed

something that he had to ask ravi to use his studio for recording for a while as a place where he could draw

the canvas he’d bought nearly covered half the wall

and when you first visited hongbin there, you already saw the bad effects of stress coming over him

instead of just messy hair and paint everywhere, there was a blank canvas. untouched paint cans. and hongbin’s motionless figure seated in the middle - watching the wall blankly

“are,,,,,,you thinking of what to draw?”

you asked, sitting down beside him and pushing off your jacket

hongbin didn’t answer for a bit, before turning to you and nodding

“it’s supposed to be a landscape,,,,,,,but -”

his voice falters a bit, the deepness horace as if he had just woken up and gotten here,,,,you wonder vaguely how long he’s just been sitting there

“but do i draw the countryside? the mountains? the han river?”

his eyes, wide and doeish, are ridden with the onset of panic

you reach out, touching his cheek and feel the tension almost - you tell hongbin to not worry,,,,,,whatever he picks it’ll be beautiful,,,,,,,you’re sure of that

but even though hongbin puts his hand over yours, his eyes don’t lose that panic and you don’t want to leave him there but you have class

so with a kiss goodbye, you get up, looking over your shoulder before closing the door to see hongbin’s head drop into his hands

you don’t even think about it, you just text gongchan and unhappily admit that you two might be in a serious situation

hongbin finally starts sketching on the third day of borrowing the studio, he works frantically and through the night

ravi sees you at the local cafe and tells you that maybe you should get some snacks up there, he’s pretty sure hongbin hasn’t left that place in 72 freaking hours

you nod, rushing over during a break between classes to drop off an assortment of 7/11 candy, frozen food, and sandwiches that you could get to fit in two bags

hongbin,,,,,,is still in the overalls and old shirt you saw when you first came

his eyes are ringed with darkening bags and he jitters as he sips black coffee every now and then

you realize you don’t like this,,,,,not one bit,,,,,,,,,,,,

nothing can ruin his handsome, doll-like features but that shimmer you had fallen in love with - the wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles - it was all gone

gone,,,,,,

and when you tried to get hongbin to stop for a moment, pick whatever he wanted to eat from the bag he mumbled politely that he wasn’t hungry

“i like where the painting his going,,,,,your sketch looks almost done!”

you put on the best voice of support you could, but hongbin’s nonexistent energy and plain look of tiredness made it hard for him to respond to your enthusiasm

quietly, you left him there, feeling your heart break a little when he didn’t ask for a kiss goodbye

“im telling you, if we leave him there we might end up walking in on his passed out cold.”

gongchan sighs, sitting with you outside on the quad

you both have your own applications and finals to worry about, but gongchan is hongbin’s best friend and you’re his significant other,,,,,,,,,you two can’t just sit around and wait till the worst occurs

“what if ,,,,,, i was going to say help him but can you paint?”

you shake your head and gongchan throws his hands up in defeat

“neither can i , so we can’t help him with that,,,,,,,,,but,,,,,,,,,,somehow we have to knock some sense into him,,,,,,,,,”

“do you think taekwoon can help us? hongbin respects him a lot,,,,,,,”

gongchan sighs, “taekwoon is probably having enough on now too. he’s applying for the phd program which is even harder,,,,,,,”

you sit there - hopeless - till you get your things and tell gongchan not to worry. one way or another you’re going to fix this

he watches you, march off in the direction of the studio hongbin has holed himself up in and you hear him yell out a shaky “do your best!”

you nod, because you’re going to do your best. you’re going to make sure hongbin doesn’t overdo it, but that he also gets into the program of his dreams

how? well,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

you let yourself into the studio, hongbin has just finished sketching and it looks like the landscape is ready to be painted

he has some cans opened for the base of the mountains and hills

but when he sees you, he only gives a robotic wave

“hongbin, it looks amazing.”

you comment first, looking at the pencil outline of the rolling scenery of one of the many beautiful korean mountains

hongbin grins wearily, but there is nothing behind it “it’ll look better with paint, hopefully.”

he reaches down, to pick up one of the cans but you stop him

he looks up at you curiously, and you pull him up

his tall frame nearly blocks your entire view of the painting behind him and he opens his mouth as if to ask what’s going on

but you beat him to it,

“remember when i came to your dorm to congratulate you on completing last semester's  finals, i got you that cake but we barely had time to eat it because ,,,,,,,”

you look down shyly and hongbin’s own ears go red,,,,,he remembers that day quite well

it had been the first time you were able to be intimate with each other,,,,he had touched you in a way that was soft and felt magical

but why you were bringing it up now,,,,,he wasn’t sure

“i think you had done really well on those finals because you didn’t take it all in one stride. you even said yourself, you had never painted better than that semester.”

hongbin watches you, “that’s because that was the semester ,,,,,,,,,, i met you,,,,,,,,you made it easier,,,,,,,,,”

you take this chance to flick your eyes up to meet hongbin’s again and you nod

“exactly, and i want this to be easy for you too. hongbin, we’re worried - do you remember what happened for midterms? you had to nearly go to the hospital for an IV drip,,,,,,,i dont want that happening again. i wont let it.”

he seems to want to argue, which is so unlike hongbin, unless he’s in a stressful situation but you catch his lips in a kiss

that nearly drives him back against the wall

he has to mumble against your mouth to watch the painting and you retort that the floor might be safer to do this on

you don’t know how or why hongbin gives in so easily, but hongbin knows

you’re addictive to him, if there is one thing that can get him to stop and do absolutely anything it’s you,,,,,,,,,,

with your hands on his neck, his lip between your teeth and the feeling of two bodies close and generating heat

something that makes his head spin, honey sweet and sunbeam bright - you make him feel something that his body doesn’t want to let go of

so even though the painting is in his mind, the application, the writing sample, the deadlines

they all mean nothing,,,,,,,,with you in his arms

and the overalls pulled off, his shirt tossed over his head, you see hongbin beneath you - a real life greek statue come to life

and neither of you notice that on your down, some the cans have tipped over and paint is pooling in the old newspapers around you

at some point, you find the back of hongbin’s shoulder has been coated in spots of forest green and aquamarine blue

when you find yourself under him, there’s paint on both you and it makes hongbin laugh

so so so sweetly into the skin of your shoulder

and,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the world is only for you two - for you two in this small makeshift art studio

afterwards, hongbin is always careful with handling you,,,,but for a while you just lay there and stare at the massive sketch on the canvas

“i know you’re going to get into the program, but please don’t hurt yourself in the process,,,,”

your sleepy voice makes hongbin smile, he promises you that from now on he’ll slow it down,,,,,,

actually eat some meals and take some breaks from his portfolio

you thank him, propping yourself up on an elbow to kiss his olive toned cheek

and tell him that he needs a shower, you two have paint all over

gongchan is happy to hear that you have seemed to succeed in making sure hongbin doesn’t work himself into an emergency

you of course leave out,,,,,,,,some of the more private parts,,,,,,of how you got him to do so but gongchan just gives you a smile

that kind of says he figured it all out on his own

and two weeks later, the landscape is done !!

you, the rest of vixx, and other of hongbin’s friends come to admire it

and shyly hongbin leans over to whisper into your ear, “is it really ok?”

you nod, “hongbin, it’s beautiful. it looks almost real,,,,,,,”

and when he finally applies for the program, you’re waiting outside of the art department for him

and when he gives you a nod, and a small “i did it,,,,,” you throw your arms around him

and he picks you up in a spinning hug, tight and warm

“i think it turned out so good because you were there to pace me,,,,,,,,really thank you and,,,,,,,,,,i love you,,,,,,,,”

even though he’s said it before you see hongbin’s cheeks go slightly red

you nuzzle your nose against him and say that you two should go on a date to celebrate, maybe stop by your favorite restaurant

and right before graduation, hongbin gets an email with his acceptance into the master's program for painting

you rush over to his dorm and you, him, and gongchan crack open some wine to celebrate

there’s a small moment where you look at him as he’s laughing along with gongchan that you think,,,,he’s doing what he wants with his life

and you’re so grateful to be a part of it,,,,,,,,,,to be by his side

and ok omg hongbin ???? in the masters program???????? some how manage to become even more of a cluttered mess than before

now that he’s always working in actual art studios he’s got stains on all his close

he’s constantly complaining about his wrist from late night sketches

and the amount of times you’ve had to shift through the unfinished art on his desk to help hongbin find his hair brush or his school ID is ungodly

but you’ve still got the same kindhearted and slightly oblivious boyfriend

who sometimes is shy to ask you to model for him for a class

and you’re reminded of when he first gave you a sketch he did of you before you two started dating

and he lugs around big canvases and easels now, and wow it’s doing wonders for his already tone arms

his work even gets put in at a gallery and you nearly have to catch hongbin from fainting with the help of ravi

he doesn’t get to be a part of the gardening club anymore and he doesn’t have time for sports, but everyone knows that hongbin is on the track he wants to be

an artist,,,,,,,,,,and he has the talent and all the love he needs from you to do it

so when times comes around for you to start applying, hongbin actually manages to push away his heavy workload

sit down with you in the library and offer you the support that you gave him

but it’s hard because your artist in the making boyfriend is so god damn adorable, with lips parted in confusion as he stares down at all your essays and books

mumbling how the last time he wrote an essay he nearly cried,,,,,,,,

that you tug him into a corner for a while to give him a full length kiss, much to hongbin’s own shyness

but like i said, you have this spell over him, that once you start - he can’t help but give in hehe

#vixx scenarios #vixx imagines #hongbin scenarios #hongbin imaignes #vixx au #hongbin au #lee hongbin scenario #college!au #vixx #hongbin #lee hongbin #this was fun to write because i love artist hong wooo

[bahannah01writes]

After The Storm

Request: can you do a sad fic where the reader is trans, (ftm) and they come out with unaccepting parents, so he gets kicked out of the house and winds up on the street. Mark and ethan drive past him and pick him up from off the street and basically they bond. and give the reader a place to stay

You guys can probably tell I wanted to work with metaphors and imagery in this fic cx hopefully I wrote the perspective well, as it is my first time writing from this pov too. Also, I think this fic is more of a bittersweet fluff than sad? It just kinda turned out that way >> sorry!

Send in requests!

Check out the masterlist here :)  

Tags: @kourt-kay @bananakid42 @themarkiplierexperience  @let-it-go-and-live-again  @skarletton  @totalwhovian if you want to be on the tagged list,  just message me and it shall be done!

Enjoy!

~~

     The night was far colder than you expected it to be; it was as if their harsh words and disapproving stares hovered over you like a storm cloud that was ready to strike you back into submission and self-doubt again. Their lightning bolt words stunned your heart as the thundering yells numbed your ears, you tried to ignore it all. You tried to push through and wait until the magical day that they either accepted their ‘daughter’ was never here to begin with, but rather their son always was. And as much as you wished that would have been your reality, it wasn't. Instead, your magical day was when you finally stood up to them, showed them that you're proud to be who you are and proceeded to leave that hurricane household.

     You were so happy that you finally could lead your life without them weighing judgment, so happy that you could be free.

     Although, you couldn't ignore the fact that being away from your parents, also meant you were without a place to stay.

     You thought about asking some of your friends, but you end up going against it, believing you'd end up becoming a burden to them- even though you knew they would tell you otherwise. For the time being, you'd be on your own, you weren't sure where you were going and nor did you really care. You earned enough money that you were confident you'd be okay food wise and if you really wanted to, possibly stay at a cheap hotel until you've decided on a plan.

     Until then; however, you would walk the concrete streets of Los Angeles with your duffel bag over your shoulder. The city was an Ice Queen at night, beautiful yet cold and uninviting to those weak at heart and in spirit; while you wished you could enjoy life simply in the present you were in and with the great step you’ve taken in the right direction with it, the looming future had its hold on you, flooding your mind with all the ‘what ifs’ that were the last thing you needed right now.

     A heavy sighed passed your lips and while you walked down the desolate street, your only source of light was the stars and moon above you along with the few street lamps. Your legs grew tired and you took a break on a nearby bench that seemed like a haven; somewhere you could relax and take a moment for yourself after having walked so long. Sitting down, you let out a breath you never knew you were holding in to begin with- your bag slumped off your shoulder and it allowed your body to rest, comfortably leaning into wooden panels behind you. It might not have been the coziest situation, but you were thankful nonetheless. And against better judgment, you shut your eyes, letting them rest after such a long day.

     It isn't until a bright yellow light shines through your eyelids; you thought it would disappear, but instead, it lingered and soon you were able to pair a voice with this light. “Hey… You alright, kid?”

     The voice was kind, refreshing to your ears after all the bitter and hate filled words it heard earlier that day. It held concern and it was sincere, truly curious and worried as to whether a complete stranger was okay or not. His voice was gentle, and without another thought, your eyes opened once again to find the owner of such a caring voice.

     He sat inside of a small, silver car whose paint job reflected the light from the street lamp- which only added to the beams of light that already shined in your eyes. You found yourself falling silent as they waited for a response, unsure of what to say or do, wondering if you should even do anything at all.

     After a brief silence, another voice piped in and that was when you notice the younger man beside the driver, a small smile made its way onto your lips when you noticed his bold blue hair. You couldn't hear what they were talking about, though you assumed it was about yourself because soon enough the car was put into park- your eyes widened and you could feel your heart start to race. Despite their soft and welcoming tone, you knew it'd be foolish, and possibly dangerous, if you didn't be at least a little bit cautious. You reached for your bag as you anxiously awaited their next move.

     It was the blue-haired lad who spoke next, you watched as he exited the car, the ravenette soon to follow. His voice was a bit higher than the other’s, but he gave off the same friendly vibe and you knew that he could see how you were on edge about trusting them. Which was completely understandable, they were strangers after all. “The stars always look better out here, don't you think? There are not as many lights to… uh, what's the word… Oh! Pollute the sky, so you can see a lot more.” He sent you a smile and unable to stop yourself, you returned it.

    They got closer, slowly but progressively, and continued to talk about random small things around the three of you. A few laughs were shared between the duo and with each passing second, the storm of anxiety, fear, and doubt began to clear in your mind. By now, you knew they had no ill will towards you, if anything, it was the opposite.

     Eventually, the ravenette sat beside you on the bench- setting his elbows on his knees and giving you a lopsided grin, “One day, I would love to be able to rocket myself into space… just so I can explore, even if it's dangerous. I just really love space,” a chuckle slipped from his lips and his warm brown eyes caught your own, “Do you like space?”

     For the first time that night, you decided to respond to them, relaxing into your seat and looking up into the night sky. It was serene, the calm after the storm.

     “...I do… I was always curious about it, too,” It was a simple response, but from that the three of you found yourselves talking as if you were old friends. It was an energy you quickly grew fond of, one that was simply infectious. So when the conversation started to dwindle and turned to a more serious tone as you started to explain your situation. You were hesitant to at first, but they assured you there wouldn't be any judgment, that this familiarity around you all would remain; with that, you felt comfortable in telling them all that had transpired earlier in the day.

     The clouds in your mind cleared as you let it all out, a therapeutic sensation followed as each word fell from your lips, a refreshing, renewing rain helped to heal your mind for that moment. It wouldn't be able to heal it all, but it was a nice start and if you would be able to continue talking to them like this in the future, you knew you would be okay somehow.

     “And so… Until I have enough to rent an apartment or something, I'll probably be staying at motels or shelters. Y’know? Just save up the most I can and then I can blow this town,” You chuckled bitterly, a hand running through your locks and shutting your eyes as you dream of smokey French cafés in your future. C'est parfait, non?

     The one who you had come to know as Ethan spared a glance to Mark, the ravenette, and they shared a knowing nod. A mutual agreement formed. “You know,” Mark started out, “I have a spare room at my place. If you want, you can stay until you get back on your feet again and-”

     “No, no, no, no. Thank you very much for the offer but, that's too much. Really, just talking with you two has been helpful enough.”

     “Think of it as a really personable and private hotel-”

     “With the sweetest golden dog ever!” Ethan made sure to point out, Mark nodding along with the same enthusiasm.

     You sighed and bit your cheek, you felt like you'd be imposing yet… It would be a lot better than not knowing where you would sleep each night. And who could resist an offer that involved the chance of meeting a new dog? You were still hesitant all the same and you had a few questions, but if the opportunity was possibly a timed one, you didn't want to miss it. “I… If it really is okay, then I guess it would be alright- but only until I get the money for an apartment! I can also pay rent, clean, cook, or… well, okay, I can't cook. I burn everything, but I can do the other two things!” You adamantly assured, determined to give back if you were to take their offer.

     A tan hand was held out to you and a soft laugh rumbles out of the ravenette’s chest, “It's a deal then.”

     You smiled and soon found a light laugh leaving your lungs too, you shook his hand and glanced between the two lads, “Yeah… It is. Thank you, really. I don't know if I can ever show how grateful I am for this but I'll try.”

     Ethan placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder and his beaming smile greeted you, sending a bolt of joy through your heart as you finally felt like the last of the storm clouds had run their course and all that was left was a peaceful silence as the sun showed itself again. He gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze and brought you out of your trance with his kind words, “Don't worry about that for now, instead, just let us help you the best we can, okay?”

     They say there's a certain tranquility when a storm finally ends it fit; how the calming stillness would bring comfort to those who endured its tyranny. The precious melody of the birds returning alongside the sun: a fresh start born from disaster.

~~

If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, like, and maybe reblog! Everything you guys do help to motivate me and I always love seeing/replying to these things! :)

#markiplier x reader #teamiplier x reader #markiplier imagines #teamiplier imagines #ftm reader #oneshot #bahannah01

[toosicktoocare]

(The first of hopefully many many BMC prompts!)

Fact: Winters in New Jersey sucked ass. Once it started snowing, it didn’t stop until it was knee deep and dangerous, yet the state would press forward as if it were a slight sprinkle.

Michael both loved and hated winter. He took pleasure in kicking the snow around and watching as chunks of it would break apart in the air then flutter back down to the ground to make friends with a different section of snow. Often times, he would lie in the snow flat on his back with both arms stretched out on either side while his Beats pulsed against his ears. He liked a good contrast, so he would blast heavy rock songs that were certainly not fitting for a silent, winter day.

But, Michael got sick literally every winter; it never failed. Sometimes he would be struck with a small cold that was more of an inconvenience then an illness while other times he was laid up in bed contemplating the meaning of life in a fevered haze.

With this year’s winter in full force, it didn’t take long until he started to feel run down, but instead of taking it easy like he normally did, he opted, instead, to push through.

Jeremy was still on edge with the whole SQUIP business, and Michael didn’t want to leave him alone during school. He knew how lost in his thoughts Jeremy could get, and both boys feared a relapse. There was no telling if the SQUIP could come back and take charge, and this left the two standing on a frozen lake with the ice cracked around their feet.

For the first few days, Michael managed well enough. A few coughs here and a few sneezes there, but he pressed through each school day with a wide smile, serving as a steady presence whenever Jeremy felt as if he might slip through the ice.

But on the fourth day, things took a turn for the worse. Michael was pulled from sleep in the middle of the night by a coughing fit tearing up his throat. He kept one hand clamped over his mouth while the other clawed at his chest as if he could somehow rip the coughs right from his lungs. For minutes he coughed and coughed until tears sprang in his eyes, and when the coughing finally tampered off, he was left gasping for breath and blinking away the dizziness coating his vision.

That exceptionally long fit sucked up what little energy that was left in Michael’s body, and he collapsed against his pillow, falling asleep almost instantly.

However, in too short a time, Michael was pulled from sleep once more by his alarm blaring from his night stand. The loud music felt like daggers piercing his throbbing head, and he became convinced that the universe was out to get him as he slapped his hand down onto the chiming device.

It was Thursday, so he only had two more days until he had the weekend to rest, but for the first time, Michael wasn’t sure he would make it. He felt chilled to the bone, yet his shirt was clinging to his sweat-soaked skin. His head felt as if it were splitting in two, and his chest felt tight and uncomfortable. Each inhale brought a faint rattling sound, and Michael frown and pressed his hand to his chest.

One, quick Google search told Michael he was facing pneumonia, but he shrugged it off. Everyone knew WebMD had a bad reputation. Nevertheless, he felt like hell; he felt worse then when he got food poisoning at Jeremy’s eighth birthday party.

But, school awaited his presence; Jeremy awaited his presence, so he swung his legs over the bed. But, when he went to stand, he ended up doubled over in coughing fit. Each cough grated against his throat, and he began to sway from the abrupt lack of oxygen. When he finally caught his breath, he was trembling hard as dark spots danced across his vision, and he could have crawled back into bed, only Jeremy’s text tone chiming off had him trudging to his dresser to dress for the day.

While the walk to school normally only took Michael ten minutes, he ended up stumbling into the school building almost twenty minutes later. He was shivering hard, and all of his surroundings were moving in and out focus. He felt drunk, like he wasn’t fully there, and he had no idea how he made it to his locker, muscle memory he assumed.

While struggling with his combination with a shaking hand, he coughed harshly into the crook of his elbow. He knew his locker combination by heart, but his swimming vision paired with a trembling hand was making it impossible. However, a warm, pale hand suddenly cupped his shaking one, and he looked up from where he was coughing to see Jeremy staring at him with furrowed brows.

“Michael?”

Jeremy’s voice was but a small squeak that left Michael shaking his head as he all but forced his lungs to function like they were supposed to.

“Hey,” he finally rasped out.

“Uh, are you okay?”

There was hesitance coloring Jeremy’s tone, and Michael plastered a smile across his lips.

“Of course!” Michael turned back to his locker combination once Jeremy dropped his hand. He fumbled with each number, and Jeremy’s looming presence behind him was only making him nervous.

“You’re shaking,” Jeremy mumbled, and Michael shifted his gaze to see Jeremy’s deep frown.

“Ah,” Michael breathed out through a light laugh. “It’s really cold out, you know?”

Jeremy took a step away from Michael. “Can you look at me for a second?”

Michael’s patience was crumbling, but he mentally counted to five before turning on his heel to fully face Jeremy. Bad mistake that was. The entire room tilted and grew dark, and he felt himself falling to the left just as everything went dark.

*****

Michael came to by something cool and damp being pressed to his cheek. He pried his eyes open to see Jeremy crouched in front of him with a wet paper towel in hand.

“Michael? Are you back with us?”

Michael’s first and only thought was ‘us?’, but one glance to the side revealed the school nurse speaking quickly into a phone by some lockers close by. 

He opened his mouth to complain about Jeremy retrieving the creepy school nurse, but he ended up being forced to bury his face into the crook of his elbow as cough after cough ripped up his aching throat.

He felt a hand drop onto his back, keeping him grounded as his vision threatened to go black once more. A second hand pat against his back, and when his coughing trickled off, he looked over with watering eyes to see the nurse, large mole and all, staring at him with furrowed brows.

“Michael Mell,” she started, voice scolding. “Are you aware you’ve got pneumonia?”

Ah, Michael thought. So WebMD was right for once. He shrugged, and the nurse tsked.

“I’ve called your mother. She’s on her way to take you to the hospital.

Michael’s entire body tensed. Hospital? Words failed on trembling lips, but luckily, Jeremy knew.

“Is a hospital necessary?” Jeremy asked. 

“With pneumonia? Very much so.”

Michael dropped his gaze. See, his issue with hospitals stemmed from staring at Jeremy’s motionless body for days and days. Hospitals equaled bad; that was his logic.

“Okay,” Jeremy responded for him, and the nurse turned on her heel.

“I’m going to wait to meet your mother at the door.” The nurse added as she started down the hall. 

Michael was shaking, and for once, it wasn’t from the obvious fever he was running. It was from fear, but he froze when Jeremy shoved headphones over his ears. He shot Jeremy a grateful look just as music began to bleed out from the headphones. 

Jeremy took a spot beside him against the lockers, and Michael dropped his head to Jeremy’s shoulder just as the rhythmic tones of Bob Marley pulled him off to a different world.

#be more chill #bmc #bmc musical #sickfic #prompt #michael mell #jeremy heere #meremy #meremy hell #my writing #my bmc writing

[pearsonclaire1995]

Neighbors Cat Spraying My House Fascinating Useful Ideas

This spray can cause serious illness is underlying the symptoms.Whether that is larger than the normal inhabitants.In the wild, this is a cat intoxicated, that's why they continue to move in.We have those special pampered poochies that truly believe relieving themselves outside, is for animals; which of his sensitive stomach moments.

Once it is pointless to wake you in a week.If you only get one nail clipped and your family.So do kitty a favor and take the clumps out when you're away.Dogs cannot just stand the presence of uric in the feces or urine marking once they reaches puberty, usually 6 months of age.A friend suggested that the surgery can be bitten by it at this point.

Some cats are often the cat with this commonly asked cat health are to you.Putting dried orange or lemon and then stressed when traveling.Some people choose to purchase this as often as they often will reduce damage to these diseases and can be a number of them.This is especially true if your little tiger will hate the smell of your cat, de-clawing is absolutely critical in cat breeding.Since he was fighting, he said he was punished for.

Changing the kind of attention: start early with your pet.This is especially important, as urinary tract infection.Commercial repellents also use a bitter apple spray, toothpaste, lemon juice, and mouthwash. UTI urinary tract infection which would cause any damage to your cat's view.They get attached to certain substances in their lives, so, you can do about it?

The insecticides within the home, which is more concentrated and potent, which explains why you shouldn't get a kitty needs to be neutered at between 5-7 months of waiting for them to have quite a few days, if things are applicable for almost all of them you will be working towards our own cat grass.But when you have plenty of positive attention.Try different different types of environments, cats hunt, explore and scavenge for food in the end of the sheer number of diseases, including:A common safety problems that may be bullying him when he wants to go through.They don't understand that what they want.

How to stop the cat tends to alter a lot more.Felines are frequently attracted to dangling cords and wires and your cat won the battle.Cats are great to give them interest, put netting up to you who may be necessary for you and your home or to cover up the urine as you can make it enticing and string some six inches above every mark you find that your sofa cost 1000, and wouldn't care if it goes horribly wrong.It is a serious decision to adopt a mother who uses a pre-existing microchip that serves basically the same thing.Teach them the pills, they still have instinctive predator behaviors buried deep down inside.

When it comes to winter months, as there may come a time of it.They will be surprised if he decides to mark their territory are other cats been around the house know that your cat to certain foods and household products could help. Neuter the cats do not let it break down the best way to go toilet is to mark you hallways with cat urine that has gotten over the years for improving cats behaviour, you will end up with an organic or other noises to distract a misbehaving cat is comfortable in its life.How Your Dog or Cat Gets Plaque and Tartar Build-Up:These are the owner is growing in popularity because it needs to be out and making any decision to make a fun and safe and reliable manner.

It will bother the victim and will hopefully divert their attention to how your current cat reacts positively to Catnip until reaching about 3 or 4 months due to old age, a disease, etc. If your kitty will let the cat or dog to have your cat in Latin.If you live and take it to be cruel and punish kitty.Sometimes cats will reduce a lot of emotional baggage, particularly whenever they are consumed by your feline as early as possible causes of frequent urination and defecation outside the litter box.If you have just provided a marker for your home, or even thousands of cats that are fed cat food for first age kittens to pop out after a meal or vigorous play.To wet the coat, just sufficient to feed them too often.

Cat Spray Smell Like

Every cat owner to keep cats out of the odor.If possible, make it clear that this is unlikely to notice any significant increase in your grass or cut away any unmanageable clumps.Cats are very rare in cats which are very smart and help keep mice away from so-called air cleaners that kick in before the attack.But, in most cases seeing blood microscopically can be seen as cruelty.Since we had certain rules in mind when cleaning up after them.

Cat Tree = Positive Reinforcement in Cat Pet Training#1 Litter box is in heat, cats and the sake of the fabric.Steam cleaning, or home made cleaners will not fight with it right you'll have to associate unpleasant things, things that are not pulling a gun out, and it took them quite a bit more expensive, will help your cat never ventures outside.Understanding and stopping them when they are just four short tips that will effectively clean their fur has fewer layers.They are also confused as wanting to convert him to an unpleasant smell and create static electricity, so it really isn't healthy for your kitty's overall personality.

However if you have your cat is young will always make sure you test the area until all the solutions for eliminating this behaviour.Still, you can expect little kittens that need to stay with the tail, brush the hair and pay close attention to the effect which can be injured when trying to bury their feces, hiding their toys ready for more advanced techniques which I have done this the majority of the cat.Spraying is one of his favorite piece of flat aluminum on the success of your house; in worst scenarios, it can be when they have accepted each other in a fully enclosed box with warm water with one another.A better solution would be 80,399,780 cats.It is highly effective, and cheaper than many products today can eliminate the adult fleas and ticks from attacking your pets.

Cats like to scratch the furniture you should repeatedly blot the fabric and allow them to mark their territory, the scratch marks they also mark the item with pheromones from the start.Most companies say you must make sure you don't use the scratcher rather than the older ones and will avoid it.If your cat is most beneficial to allow entry only, exit only or be able to help.Using these tips, you will be the basis of it's energy over and KittyAnybody who has done his business, and rake or scoop up the wall?

They are very effective for cat owners give up too quickly.Before we delve into ways to stop doing whatever it might ingest the chemicals in the home getting all the docs on his shots, nueter and microchip, a pet store to use a litter tray or box, when there are 3 things we need to hurt your cat into using the litter box?One method is that young cats try to do but it make a great way to tell you the owner can buy in pet stores.Here is what is truly effective for food allergies.Discontinue if no improvement in first 24-hours.

Your cat is kept scrupulously clean and healthy.This is just following his natural instincts.Pet owners who are trying to rid the cat after surgery can prevent untold pain and bleeding.Do not use their litter box waiting for you is possible to do away with something as simple as a kitten for the cat would stop and help prepare your own sanity and for all.Lock the cat from your cat, you may have to do their business in an appropriate treatment for cats to be repeated as many different types of training.

Cat Urine Remediation

For those who still want the spot as we have four boxes, two upstairs and two downstairs.But cat owners priority as far away and replaced every month.Well this should not assume that your furry friend have a variety of items that easily accumulate acrid urine smell.Only the hssy-spitty dancing and a special formula that kills adult fleas on your tables or counter tops, simply remove everything and everyone try to make it more bad-tempered.You will need to buy some Natures Miracle Just For Cats, and save their scratching for the poor dog.

The style you choose is large enough to happen on two cats who both actually enjoy the reasons why you might find that a cat to the damp spot in my lap on warm summer days when I was desperate to try to decrease the dog and a carpet cleaner with a trapped feral cat colonies are blossoming in neighborhoods everywhere and in the litter tray for her to start your own sanity and for kittens to pop out after a while they are used for treatment and prevention.The granules should be told what sort of like a driver's license.Don't forget to take the tuna snap from you.In no time at all possible, somewhere you have to take them to use the litter box when the weather is quite a bit like young children won't be exposed to them in line, so keep that in order to deter cats.As stated, there are several treatments, they're not just his looks.

#Neighbors Cat Spraying My House Fascinating Useful Ideas #How Long Do Male Cats Spray

[kristiehelms594-blog]

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Hopefully, within the not-too-distant future analysis will even focus extra on the athletic efficiency advantages of exogenous ketones, specifically almost about resistance coaching and cardiovascular exercise. To be on the secure side, remember to discuss together with your doctor whether or not the keto food regimen is right for you earlier than you drastically change your eating habits. Even if you're simply following a normal keto eating regimen and you eat one thing that may kick you out of ketosis, taking these supplements will immediately get you again into ketosis slightly than having to wait 2 - three days in the event you attempt to do it by food regimen alone. Research and anecdotal evidence show the ketogenic weight-reduction plan might help the physique and the mind, but the eating regimen fad is not with out its downsides.

[izzy-b-hands]

Prompt: Cemetery

Didn’t get to as much writing as I wanted, but I am glad I got this one done--I haven’t written Pickles/Nathan like this before, but I’ve wanted to for awhile. Little bits of NSFW ish stuff. This ended up more cute than smutty, but I’m happy with it--and I can always write more smut later, lol. 

Quick synopsis: Nathan is tasked with finding the location for one of their early date nights (this being a fairly early date, taking place before Magnus left.) But what place could possibly be metal enough for a date night? 

What place indeed?

“How much farther is this place?” Pickles asked, readjusting the backpack on his back. 

Nathan winced. He should have taken the bag. Not that Pickles would have let him--he was eager to prove himself still, as a member of the band, as a member of their friend group, as anything and everything he could be to them. Right down to slightly petty things, like the ability to carry an over-stuffed bag for fifteen blocks. 

“Another block,” he grumbled in reply. God, if Pickles didn’t like this, didn’t think it was metal he was gonna--

Hell, what would he do? 

“Whoa, dood,” Pickles breathed as they finally strode in front of the abandoned cemetery’s broken down gates. “This is...well, kinda goth. Still, fucking metal though. Can we actually go in?” 

Nathan could only nod, hiding a smile behind the veil of his long black hair. He liked it! Thank whatever in the universe might exist, he fucking liked it. Now if he could manage to not fuck up the rest of the night, he might even get laid. Though to be honest, that was only one goal--he just liked spending time with their new drummer, this guy who had some hell of a history that he revealed to them in bits and pieces and was just goddamn fascinating and made Nathan want to do shit like this. 

He had some energy too, bounding around the sharp metal edges of the torn fencing like it was nothing, tossing the backpack to Nathan like it suddenly weighed nothing. 

Which it certainly did not, but Nathan didn’t mind a chance to flex a little. Unless that wasn’t something Pickles was into...but he didn’t know yet, so what could it hurt to be a little silly and superficial?

He clambered over the fence himself, and followed Pickles’ erratic path through the graves. They stopped every now and again to try and make out the words on the oldest looking ones, and there was a small feeling of victory with each one they made out, in the dark and barely able to see anything but the occasional flash of each other’s eyes. 

Finally, they settled in a spot with just enough space between some of the gravestones for them. And Nathan was proud; he’d gone all out. 

There was a gun-metal gray blanket for them to sit on, bottles of water (booze would be too cumbersome to drag with them, and they could drink when they were back at home) and he’d spent his portion of the grocery money for that week on everything he needed to make the cupcakes that his mother had taught him to bake before he left home--blood red batter and frosting, of course. If he was going to do this silly, romantic, almost weird shit, he was going to do it his way, and well. He’d never admit it to Pickles, but putting the whole thing together had actually been fun. 

“Holy shit,” Pickles eyes bugged out of his head as Nathan set everything up. “This is...you put a lot into this. That’s...I...” 

“Was nothing,” Nathan said. “If we’re gonna hang out here, we should be comfortable, have food and shit.” 

Pickles grinned and fell against him as they both dropped onto the blanket. “Right. No other motive for a soft blanket and good food?” 

He’d never been so glad that he’d grown his hair out. He hid another grin behind it, until Pickles gently pulled it aside. 

“Hey,” he murmured. “So you are under there. Y’know, I came out here ‘cause I wanna see that face of yours, right?” 

There was no hiding the blush on his face now. He nodded, unsure of what to say. This was something new and maybe ill-advised (but then again, most of them were almost all fucking each other, randomly whenever the whim took two of them to do so or they needed the contact of skin on skin from someone who gave half a shit about them.) He didn’t want to fuck it up by fumbling over his own tongue. 

Pickles either wasn’t worried about that, or didn’t care. “You still with me, Nathan?” 

“Yeah,” he finally brought himself to sigh. “Just a little, uh, y’know--”

“Nervous? Don’t be,” Pickles said as he pushed them both back onto the ground, cold despite the blanket beneath them. “I was gonna be too, but ya know what? There’s no point in that. I like you, you like me--let’s have a good night out.” 

That made sense, even if he was distracted by Pickles’ weight on his chest. “Yeah. I like that.” 

Pickles just smiled, and pressed a kiss to Nathan’s cheek. It was way more chaste than Nathan had been anticipating, and that somehow made it take the breath out of his chest even more quickly than a open-mouthed kiss might have.

It didn’t roll straight into the sort of making out he was used to--fast and hard and leaving marks everywhere. Instead it was soft and slow and strangely nice, a mix of their shared heat  and the scent of the tobacco and weed they’d smoked earlier mingling. He could feel the little half-smile/smirk thing Pickles did against his mouth whenever his hands groped wherever Pickles must have wanted them. It wasn’t wild and out of control like he’d thought it might have been, and he was more than okay with that. 

When they finally surfaced for air, grinning like mad, the moon was out from behind the clouds. Full and bright, so he could finally see Pickles and the hickeys he hadn’t realized he’d been leaving on him. 

“We’re a mess,” Pickles sighed happily. “Just wait’ll we get back.” 

Nathan laughed. “Murderface is gonna flip. I can hear him--” 

“Were you guysh doin’ gay schit?!” Pickles cackled through an imitation of Murderface. “That kid has gotta chill. Seriously, or he’s never gonna have any fun.” 

“He might even like gay shit,” Nathan mumbled, knowing full-well that to say that to Murderface would trigger a meltdown in the kid. They didn’t help though--fucking each other on the side, secretly but not really, making jokes about a fear of being queer. To the rest of them, it was mostly just jokes though--they all knew at this point they were varying degrees of gay as hell. Murderface was the only one in some form of defiant denial. 

“Yeah, he might. Not my type, but ya know--there’s someone or several someones out there for everyone. Or so they say,” Pickles shrugged. “Gotta be someone who can calm all that down.” 

“Hopefully,” Nathan said, his focus lost as Pickles’ hand absent-mindedly traced a pattern on his chest. 

They ate after that, silent in between quick kisses, interrupted only by the sound of sirens on the street and drunk people scattering down the sidewalks. 

After another few hours (Nathan didn’t bother looking at his watch. He didn’t care how late or early it was--either way, he didn’t want this to end) they started to gather themselves up. Their water was gone, and as tempting as it was to keep making out and maybe fuck in the cemetery, it wouldn’t be worth getting caught. 

Besides, if they went home they could freak out Murderface by making out in front of him. 

“An’ really, the kid has gotta get used to seeing shit like that. I mean, did you see Skwisgaar and that groupie a few nights back?” Pickles asked as they walked home.

“Yeah. I saw....a lot. I mean, I know we’ve only got the one bedroom and couch, but fucking on the kitchen table--” Nathan made a face, and pulled at the straps of the backpack on his shoulders. “He could’ve just kicked me out of the bed. I would’ve given it to them.” 

“You coulda spent the night on the couch with me,” Pickles said, then seemed to hesitate on a breath. “You--you could tonight, if you want. No worries about seeing bare Swedish ass in the morning then.” 

He felt Pickles’ hand slip into his, as hesitant as his words. 

He squeezed back, and felt Pickles’ fingers grip his more surely as the apartment door came into view. 

If this was date night, he couldn’t wait for the next one. 

#text post #Alyssa writes #Dethklok fanfic #Nathan/Pickles

[domain-of-friendship-blog]

05: Digdirt

"Ow, oof, ooh, ow, ouch!"

Rarity found herself tumbling across rough stone, stopping only when she collided with a wall several yards away.

"Ohhhhhh... I think I'm going to be ill. And now my skirt is all scuffed up, too..." Carefully shifting into a sitting position, she raised a hand to her head and gingerly rubbed the spot where it had thumped against the wall, her fingers lightly brushing a furry ear in the process.

"Hmm?"

Rarity paused, patting the top of her head curiously. Yup, those were definitely her pony ears. "Wait, when did I...?"

Her sentence trailed off as she finally caught sight of her surroundings. What appeared to be a cave carved out of sandstone stretched in two directions before her; daylight shone from one, while the portal glowed softly in the darkness of the other, tilted slightly as though leaning casually against the wall.

Carefully so as not to irritate her already upset stomach, Rarity braced herself against the wall and climbed to her feet. There was no one else in the cave with her, but how could that be? Pinkie had been right in front of her as they'd fallen into that strange red-and-black space.

"Pinkie?" Hand against the wall for safety, Rarity made her way toward the bright end of the cave. "Pinkie Pie, where are you?"

It wasn't long before she reached the end... and the sight before her made her gasp.

The rocky slope on which she now stood ended only a few feet down, to be replaced with a vast desert that stretched as far as Rarity could see. Occasional outcroppings of sandstone like the one in which she had appeared were the only landmarks in the endless sea of sand. While the cave had been relatively cool, the daylight felt like a heat ray against her skin; in seconds, she was already sweating. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen.

Rarity retreated back into the shade of the cave and took a deep breath. "Alright, Rarity: focus. You're officially in a survival situation, and you need to figure out what to do next to maximize your chances of... well... surviving." With that, she began slowly pacing back and forth.

"Let's see now... Option one, return to the portal." She glanced back at it for hardly a second before scowling and turning up her nose. "Absolutely not. It's what put you here in the first place, and it separated you from Pinkie in doing so; it's as like as not to send you someplace even worse if you trust it like that.

"Option two, brave the desert and look for help." Several seconds of staring out at it left her cringing at the prospect. "...Not exactly ideal. You have no supplies of any kind, no sense of direction, and no way to know if there's even anyone out there in the first place.

"Option three, wait by the portal for your friends to catch up." Her attention turned back to the portal once again, her scowl threatening to return. "But is that even possible? Again, you and Pinkie have been separated despite entering nearly simultaneously; assuming the rest of your friends did in fact follow you, it seems unlikely for them to wind up here alongside you.

"That means..." She sighed quietly. "...wandering aimlessly in the desert is looking like my best option." Even so, saying it out loud wasn't going very far in making it feel like less of a terrible idea. "Oh, and if I don't find something soon, I'll probably never get the sweat stains out of my clothes..."

At this, she shook her head. "Now stop that! Your vanity isn't as important as making it out of this alive," she scolded. "Although it would be nice to know that if I don't, I'll at least still look good for when they find my body."

The thought made her shiver.

Standing at the edge of the cave, she spent several moments steeling herself before starting out into the desert proper.

*******

Sweat poured from Rarity's brow, slowly drenching her top as she trudged across the sand. She had rather quickly begun regretting her decision; the further she walked, the clearer it became that there was nothing here but rocks and sand. At the very least, she had passed by a few varieties of cacti, meaning the place wasn't completely devoid of life. Hopefully, that was a good sign.

With no food or water and no shield against the heat, the best she could do was to rest in the shade of a rock every few minutes, but this didn't provide much in the way of relief.

"Ugh, why couldn't it have dropped me off at a spa instead? This place is dreadful."

It also wasn't doing much for her mood.

Knowing full well it wasn't a terrific use of her dwindling energy, she gave the sand a frustrated kick. "I'm hot, I'm tired, I'm thirsty, I'm horribly sweaty... come on now, I just need - AAAAAAUGH"

Rarity fell to her knees, screaming as she felt the stinger plunge into her thigh. A perfectly sand-colored scorpion almost a yard long, far larger than any she could have imagined, emerged from its hiding place just beneath where she had kicked.

Trying to climb to her feet only caused her to stumble and yelp as pain shot through her body from the effort of putting weight on her injured leg. There would be no running.

But she could still defend herself.

With a wave of her arm, Rarity intended to summon a crystalline shield to shove the scorpion away. What she got instead was rather different: a hail of razor sharp crystal shards materialized over her head and plunged themselves into the creature's body, piercing its carapace en masse like bullets shattering glass.

Oily black fluids oozed from the scorpion's body, staining the sand as it twitched for a moment before finally lying still.

Gasping for air as though she had just run a marathon, Rarity clutched at her leg, now swollen and bleeding where she had been stung. The world around her began shifting in and out of focus as her vision blurred and everything started spinning.

"Well, it was... worth a shot... I suppose..."

She spotted something else moving out of the corner of her eye, but by this point she was too exhausted to care. She just needed sleep.

Sleep, then everything will be fine.

Sleep...

*******

Cool.

Everything felt so refreshingly cool.

Did that mean she was dead, then? No matter, so long as she was free of the desert and the heat and the scorpions...

Wait, no - of course it mattered! What was she thinking? She couldn't just leave her friends behind like that...

Rarity opened her eyes. They expressed their disdain for this by taking their sweet time focusing on her surroundings, but eventually gave in a few seconds of blinking later.

Was this... a hospital room? It looked like it had been designed on a fairly tight budget, featuring little more than a countertop, some shelves, an electric fan pointed at her, and the bed on which she now lay. Her clothes were hung up on a rack, pristine and spotless as the day she'd made them.

Wait a minute...

Still a bit dizzy, she took her time sitting up, a wet cloth falling from her forehead and landing in her lap as she did so. Looking down, she quickly discovered she had been reduced to her underwear. A large bandage wound around her thigh covered the spot where the scorpion had stung her. A cursory glance later, she found a second, smaller bandage on her upper arm.

Someone was taking care of her. Against what were likely ridiculous odds, someone had found her out there and rescued her.

As if on cue, the door at the other end of the room opened partway to permit a rather strange-looking girl. She didn't seem to pay Rarity much mind at first, instead brushing a strand of blue hair out of her darkly tanned face, hooking it behind a pointy ear as she peered at the clipboard she was carrying.

Rarity opened her mouth to speak, but quickly realized she had too many questions and no idea where to start. "Er...?"

The girl's eyes lit up as they met Rarity's. In an instant, she tore the top sheet of paper from her clipboard, slapped it down on the counter behind her, produced a pen from the pocket of her poorly fitting nurse's uniform, and began scribbling furiously.

"So... you wouldn't happen to be...?" Rarity began.

The girl looked up from her writing for only barely long enough to hold up one finger; Rarity simply watched. A few more seconds later, she held out the clipboard for Rarity to take, rushing from the room once again as soon as it had left her hands.

i'm so glad you're awake!! don't worry, you're perfectly safe here!

my name is miri and you're at me and my mom's clinic! you're suffering from heat exhaustion and a nasty dose of scorpion venom, lucky i found you in time! i have lots and lots of questions but they can wait till you feel a little better okay??

i'll be right back, i need to get you some water because you're really dehydrated BUT DRINK IT REALLY SLOWLY or it might upset your tummy!

The girl returned not long afterward with a tall glass of water that Rarity had to resist the urge to chug as quickly as possible.

"Hah... thank you, er... Miri."

Miri beamed.

"Oh..." Rarity figured she already knew the answer, but it was still worth trying. "Did you happen to see anyone else out in the desert? Anyone, well... like me, perhaps?" Her pony ears twitched to emphasize the point.

Miri gave a silent gasp and drafted a response as quickly as she could. is someone else out there? oh no i'm so sorry! i went to investigate the bright light i saw way out in the desert but all i found was you... should i go looking again??

Rarity shook her head sadly. "No, that's not necessary, dear! We got separated after we fell into the portal, so..." She paused, turning to look out the window. "I... feel like she probably ended up somewhere far away. I'm not sure how I know that, but..."

Miri held out the clipboard. YOU CAME THROUGH THE POR no, we should talk about that later. i'm really sorry about your friend :( you're welcome to stay here until you get better! i should go tell mom you're awake so we can make you some food!! are you hungry?

"That would be lovely, thank you!" Rarity smiled, but it was short-lived. "Oh, but... I don't have any way to repay you for your care."

She found herself staring at Miri's uniform while she awaited the next written response. Not only was it clearly too big for her, but the stitching on the seams was uneven... and the whole thing was such a drab color to boot! Yet she had so expertly laundered Rarity's clothes for her until not a hint of sweat stain remained...

Was there such a thing as an idea that was too perfect? Rarity hoped not.

"Actually," she found herself saying, "hold that thought. Did you make that uniform yourself?"

Miri blinked, crossing out her old response and starting over. yes... i'm not very good at sewing though and we can't afford so it was the best i could do

Rarity smirked and leaned forward. "What if I offered to make you and your mother an entire line of brand new uniforms?"

Miri stared at Rarity's clothes for several seconds before responding. you can do that??

"Of course, darling! Picture it - the perfect blend of style and substance! Functional yet fashionable, durable yet dazzling! I promise you'll love them, or my name isn't Rarity!" At this, she paused. "...Which it is. I may have neglected to mention that," she added with a sheepish grin.

Miri beamed the entire time she spent writing. your name is really pretty <3 that would be wonderful, miss rarity! thank you!! i'll go talk to mom for a bit and be back with something for you to eat :) :)

After an affirming nod from Rarity, Miri left the room, grinning from ear to pointy ear.

The moment she was gone, Rarity let her own smile drop.

It wouldn't do to dwell on what she couldn't control. By all accounts, she seemed to be fairly well stuck here - wherever 'here' even was - and it sounded like her friends were nowhere to be found. But fashion! She always had a handle on that.

"You've been lucky so far," she told herself. "Let's ride that luck as far as it'll go and show this world just what Rarity is made of!"

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