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corazondebeskar-reads · 13 days

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of rage and ruin - chapter one

of rage and ruin series

chapter one

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werewolf!alpha!Joel Miller x f!omega!reader

word count: 3.1k

summary: Joel Miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. He turns into a much different kind of monster than he expected, though.

chapter warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, a/b/o, alpha/omega dynamics, omegaverse, captivity, torture, canon-typical violence, genre-typical violence, horror themes, graphic violence, suicidal ideation, gore, abuse by captors (not by either joel or reader), death, murder of innocent people, typical raider/hunter behavior, mention of cordyceps, angst, no y/n, reader is able-bodied and afab with no specific descriptions, viewer discretion is advised

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

This is a werewolf omegaverse fic that uses traditional and non-traditional elements of the genres. It largely ignores TLOU canon.

DISCLAIMER: A plotline of this story involves unethical medical care and human experimentation re: vaccines. It may give anti-vax vibes. This is NOT an anti-vax story and I do not want any related discourse please and thank you. This is about FEDRA being the absolute worst, not about the real world in any way.

In a rare moment of lucidity, he thinks he used to be human, once.

He’s partially transformed more often than not. Almost never fully, unless he’s under the sway of the moon. His real keeper.

These raiders may think they own him, but he knows the truth.

But lucidity is rare, and most of the time, Joel Miller is more beast than man.

Most of the time, he doesn’t even know he’s Joel Miller.

No matter what, though, he’s a nearly uncontrollable force of nature.

That’s why they keep a shock collar around his neck and tasers at their waists. That’s why they never turn their backs or leave him unrestrained. He fought like hell for a long time until he broke.

No shame in it, he knows. Everyone breaks eventually.

As the years have gone on, though, he’s been getting restless and snippy, less cooperative. And the pain doesn’t really matter anymore.

Nothin’ really does when you’ve given up.

On the last new moon, when the wolf was quiet and the man was loud, he’d tried to refuse. He sat, buck-ass naked, on the gritty wood floor of the house they were raiding.

He did not sniff out treasure like some fucking metal detector. He did not tear the humans limb from limb. He did not feast.

He paid for that night and had the receipts to prove it, laid into his back from the silver-tipped whip.

He should have tried harder to die at the start.

He hadn’t understood right away, when they took him. It, frankly, didn’t even cross his mind that they’d know. Laura, the woman in the woods, had been so sure it was secret.

He got it when they shot him in the leg with a BB gun, though, and the silver shrapnel burned. They were prepared. Silver-coated chains and cuffs, silver-tipped batons and whips and knives. Cattle prods and electric collars.

They’d been hunting him.

They tried to break him easy, first. They were looking for a wolf; didn’t know they’d find Joel Miller. They left him chained in an abandoned suburb, giving him just the minimum food and water to keep him alive.

It worked to weaken him, but they didn’t want him weak forever. Not a very good guard dog or weapon if he can’t lift his head. So when that didn’t work, when he didn’t beg and plead or bend the knee, they gave up and bulked him back up slowly.

So they tried pain next.

He came to know the healing as a curse. They avoided the silver, at least at first, since it’d leave damage. But when they found out they could break his bones over and over and over?

That’s when he started to wish he was dead. What was the point, anyway? He couldn’t go back to Boston. Couldn’t risk himself around Tommy and Tess.

Couldn’t kill himself if he tried, but they could, with their arsenal.

Didn’t matter what he wanted in the end; his brain wouldn’t give in. It overrode his silent pleas, and it fought and fought and fought.

So they took him on a raid. Starving, chained under the full moon, and they waited. He couldn’t go far, but he didn’t have to.

They brought the food to him.

“You’ve no control over it, huh?” Cheryl said after, leering into his “room.” They send her to play nice, but he knows she’s the worst of them all. They just think he’ll smell pussy and roll over. “We didn’t need you to kill them. You just need to scare them and help us find what we’re lookin’ for.”

They had him. He knows, he knows, he knows. He’d have done anything to stop it from happening again. From devouring tied-up families who dared to say “no” to Jim and his crew. From throwing up blood and bones and bows.

He can’t kill himself. They won’t kill him. He had no choice.

He broke.

This new moon, they don’t take him out to scavenge. No, instead, they drag him outside and spray him down with the hose. This, in itself, is not unusual. But when they force the muzzle over his snapping teeth to scrub at his skin with precious lye soap and a rag, he starts to get concerned.

His suspicions are confirmed when they take him back inside.

The only time he’s left unbound is here, in his room. Well. It meets the vague requirements for a room, but it’s also reinforced with silver-plated steel and concrete. Cheaply so, but enough to mute his senses and hopes.

Usually, they wait until the grate is shut to unclip the lead. They wait until he kneels and offers his hands to unlock the shackles. When he’s been good, of course.

But not today. Today, they chain him tight to the wall at the far end of the room.

They’ve had this theory that he hates to admit is not without merit. Looking for another way to control him, they’ve tried to find him an omega.

The first few times, they just forced him on them out wherever they’ve raided. Usually, he’s too out of control, and they don’t survive the encounter.

The most recent time, they dumped one in his cell. But the poor thing still smelled of his alpha, having only lost them hours earlier.

Joel didn’t react well.

They’re trying something new, now.

That he’s here while they clean his room is deliberate. He knows this. They’re purging all his scent from it, and they want him to watch, want him unsettled.

He growls when they remove his mattress completely. It’s a pathetically small, thin, hole-ridden thing, but it’s his.

Before they drag in a new one, a flat pack of grated metal is tossed in the corner. Two of his captors go to work on assembling the contraption, and another leaves for a while, only to return with a sawed-off portion of his mattress.

It fits neatly inside the cage. For that’s what they’ve constructed. It’s silver-coated, of course, but pathetically weak otherwise. If he truly desired, he could snap the bars as easily as bone.

He’s not keen on having burnt hands, though.

Just inside the front of the cage, they clip up a bit of cloth. He doesn’t need to be told what it is, knowing immediately after it’s extracted from the airtight glass Tupperware.

They tell him anyway. “Got a new toy for you to try, if you’re good. For now, this is all you get.”

The heady scent of omega soaked into the panties permeates his room.

He’s salivating a little by the time they finally release him, but he waits until the heavy footfalls echo from down the hall to give in.

They smell divine. He can’t resist tasting, lapping at the tiniest hint of musk and omega under his elongated tongue.

“Told ya he would have shredded her,” Jim says to Cheryl when they come in the morning with his breakfast. Joel’s in his mind enough to feel a little shame, back of his neck burning, when they see the tattered fabric.

It’s clear they anticipated it because, along with his tray, he’s given a new pair.

They’re not so appealing this time. The sweet scent is cut by acidic fear like vinegar through molasses. He ignores them in favor of his meal.

He eats better here than he ever did out there. He’s worth more rations to the raiders than to FEDRA. Robust meals full of meat and eggs and potatoes.

They need him strong, after all.

It’s not until a few hours later that he’s drawn back in by the underwear. It’s not so acrid anymore. Or maybe it is, and he’s just in the mood. Either way, he buries his face in them while he strokes his cock and uses them to catch his cum when he finishes.

There. That’s better. The mix of him with… whoever you are.

When they bring him lunch, they make him put the panties on his old tray before pushing it out to them. He doesn’t burn with shame this time; no, he almost feels proud. Like a peacock fluffing out its feathers. They know now. They must.

Whoever you are, you’re his.

The next day, they bring back the same pair. He wolfs out a little at the fresh layer of you over his cum. It’s all fear and tears and disgust, but it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all, not to him, not to the wolf.

All that matters is how his head fills with static when he licks across the gusset and howls.

Cheryl’s looking pretty smug on the other side of the door, but for all that she’s pleased with the results; they still threaten to turn on the collar if he doesn’t eat quickly.

He’s nearly fully wolf, gobbling down the food and returning to his treasure. He snarls as he strokes his cock, the head angry and purple as he tugs. He doesn’t spill onto the panties this time, not wanting to cover up the perfect combination of your scents. In the end, they’re shredded anyway, as his fingers stretch and break into claws.

In his full glory, his senses are even sharper. Sharp enough that he can hear a faint sobbing across the building and Cheryl’s sharp laughter.

“I don’t know,” she’s drawling when he tunes in. “He sounds pretty excited to meet you.”

The soft sobbing turns raw and cracked. He can smell the salt and phlegm, can practically taste it in the air. He’s aware of Cheryl, but nothing is louder than the way your heart is tripping over itself.

When Cheryl’s words sink in, when he realizes he might actually get to have whatever delicious creature they’ve gotten him, he howls again, a long, aching sound that creeps down your bones like frost.

Later, when he’s a little more present, he realizes they didn’t shock him either time he howled. It’s usually a guarantee.

Whatever game they’re playing, it doesn’t bode well for you.

Joel Miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. He wasn’t even worried when it happened. They’d been heading back to the QZ, him and Tommy and Tess, when a wild dog attacked them.

Or, well. A wolf.

Tommy had gotten a bullet in its head, but it had Joel’s arm in its jaw at the time. Its teeth had rent through his jacket like a spoon in a banana split.

FEDRA would shoot him without a second thought, so they doubled back to the little cabin and hunkered down. Figured they’d lay low long enough for it to be hideable before sneaking back in.

Tommy went out at daybreak for the carcass—it’d be leagues better than what they had in their bags. When he came back, he was faint and empty-handed.

“...don’t make any sense,” he kept muttering, pacing the tiny kitchenette.

Joel and Tess exchanged a glance.

“Probably a bear took it,” she suggested.

Tommy ran his hand through his hair, shook his head, and did it again. When he looked up at them, it was through wild, unpredictable eyes. “Wasn’t a wolf. It was a man.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Joel said.

“C’mon.”

They followed him through the thicket, and sure as shit, in the same place the wolf’s corpse had lain was a man with a bullet through his skull. He was completely nude.

“Gotta be a coincidence,” Joel muttered.

Tommy turned to him, eyes wide and hands shaking. “What kind of fucking coincidence is this?”

There was a rustle, and they all turned, guns raised, as a woman peeked from behind a tree.

She put her hands up and waited. Tess jerked her head to one side, and they lowered but did not stow their weapons.

The woman was in a ratty cotton dress with no shoes; autumn leaves crunching underfoot.

“That’s, um. That’s my husband,” she said softly.

“Apologies, ma’am,” Tommy said, his face soft and sad. “But—I think he attacked us.”

Her green eyes grew wide, pupils dilating and breath catching in her chest. “Did you get bit?”

Tommy and Tess instinctually looked at Joel.

“What’s it to ya?” he said.

“Did you get bit?” she repeated.

“Was he Infected?”

“Not with cordyceps, no,” she says. She avoids looking at the body but flinches when she brushes a foot against a blood-soaked leaf.

“What does that mean?” Tommy said.

“I think it’s best we go someplace and talk.”

Against better judgment, they follow her through the words to her home. She claims to have two kids alone there, four years and six months.

It turns out to be true. She gets them both down for a nap and serves hot stew. They try to refuse, but she insists.

Tommy feels a little sick eating the food of a man he killed. They all listen, rapt, as she begins to speak.

“It happened a year ago. But it wasn’t an accident.”

When the full moon is two days away, Joel is nearing the furthest from himself. Same shit, different month, but his reactions to your scent are getting, well, feral.

They’re bringing him strips of cloth, now. He gets a new one with each meal. He doesn’t destroy them anymore. Oh, no. When he’s clearer, he wishes he did.

But no. He smells and licks and then jerks off with them. If only that were the worst of it. He’ll come to be mortified during the waning, but he starts to add them to the cage. It’s fairly saturated with the smell of him from his old mattress, but it pleases the beast within to line it with the sweet mixture soaked into the torn sheets.

You’ll understand, then, the wolf thinks. You’ll know it’s safe for you. Somewhere he’s made, a den all your own where he can keep you.

But you won’t know, because what you know is very little.

When FEDRA started asking for volunteers to test vaccines, you didn’t hesitate. You knew the risks. And the rewards—room and rations for the length of the observation period, anywhere up to a year in length. You knew there would be a catch—probably many, but given that you rarely had a room or rations, it wasn’t a hard choice.

But this was the end of the world, and “informed consent” was not something that survived the outbreak.

They worked in batches. A truckload of live bodies at a time. Sterilizing showers with the barest trace of privacy, dressed in stiff starchy scrubs, and led into little cubicles where nurses with needles sat in wait.

A quick jab to the upper arm, and then you were off. The hospital was an old correctional facility, but again, for someone who hadn’t had a bed on a reliable basis, you felt only relief.

Until the deaths started.

They didn’t even try to hide it. Within 24 hours of arrival, a fourth of your group was gone. Carted out in black bags marked with β and nothing more said. You watched through your window like everyone else.

Someone came around the next day and drew blood from every remaining subject, and the tagging began after that. You could see the symbols on other’s doors, but not your own. α or Ω. What they meant, you couldn’t begin to guess.

It started not long after.

The changes.

At first it was so subtle, you may not have noticed, but a nurse came by each day to ask you a series of increasingly embarrassing questions.

What do you smell? What do I smell like? What does your sweat smell like? How sensitive are your breasts? Describe your vaginal discharge. How aroused are you on a scale of 1-10?

They began weekly tests. Blood draws once a week and daily urine samples, of course, but also hearing and vision. They made you run on a treadmill hooked up to wires.

And then, one day, after six months of intensive observation, they moved you.

Or. They tried to.

You were exhibiting a specific set of side effects, they said. You were to be transferred to another facility for subjects with the same side effects for further observation.

Raiders took out the truck halfway through the ten-hour journey. It was… it was a bloodbath, actually. For the FEDRA officers, anyway.

When they had you all lined up, grippy socks soaking in the ankle-deep mud, well, that was when you all learned which symbol was on your door. They couldn’t keep the word out of their mouths. Omega.

Not that it fucking explained anything.

One by one, a short blonde with a bob went down the line of you and shoved something up to each omega’s face. That’s it. It seemed to have no greater purpose.

But for some reason, when she pressed the cloth against your nose and mouth, she smiled. And they separated you.

Whatever that was had a deep, oaky musk, like the illicit brewery operating out of the warehouse you often slept in before the trials.

They tell you nothing.

They make you sleep on strips of cloth, so you roll around in the pile as you toss and turn, rubbing your sweat and slick and pheromones all over.

They don’t bring you anything of his, but you catch faint whiffs of him (him, always him, they never call him by a name), of those aged, liquor-soaked barrels, but all it does is make you nauseous. You don’t understand how you know it’s him; you still don’t understand any of it.

You learn very quickly not to ask questions.

They take him out on the night the moon is full and bloated, hanging over him like a searchlight. See, it whispers, I can find you anywhere. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. If it didn’t, the wolf would find it anyway.

He is not himself.

He is his truest self.

He is two or one; neither yet both. A monster movie mashup of fur and teeth and roughshod science experiments conducted by a doctor who wasn’t a doctor at all. He’s the monster’s victim. He’s the monsters’ monster.

He’s the wolf and the wolf is him.

He’s The Wolf and he’s swallowed Joel down.

He’s the man, the weak link, buried so deep he can’t see the light of his celestial mistress

He’s Joel Miller. Sometimes, sometimes.

Tonight, he is gone. There is only the Wolf.

And the Wolf knows. As soon as they cross the threshold, he knows.

Dawn is rising, the hunt is over, but he’ll be the wolf for a while longer. And he knows that fuckin’ smell.

It’s the saccharine sour mix of you. Heavy on your sweet apple undertones, and oh, he knows.

You’re in the cage.

next chapter

*title from "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

😬 I've been working on this baby for a long, long time, so I will be drinking your likes and comments desperately. thank you for reading and i love you.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #alpha!joel miller x omega!reader #alpha!joel miller #werewolf joel miller #the last of us fic #joel miller fic #dark fic #dead dove fic #a/b/o verse #fic: of rage and ruin #a/b/o au

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chrliekclly · 15 days

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if you ever want to talk about your thoughts on joyce .. Peeks over the corner of your blog. i love talking and hearing ppls thoughts on joyce sooo much even if they're different from my own!! and your analysis and stuff is always so well thought out

i hope u dont mind if i answer this publicly to take advantage of th request nd get my ideas out ther (also tyvm im happy u like my insane takes on these idiots, iv ben thinking abt them for almost 10 years)

i said a lot here so gnna 'read more' it

iv ben building trans charlie n my head fr, like i said, nearly 10 years. i used to view him as cis bcuz i always try to take as much frm th source material as i can wen i craft my HCs nd i had v personal (stupid) hangups insofar as him explicitly referring to his junk multiple times nd bottom surgery simply not being on my radar as a naive littl trans idiot deep in th sauce tht transmen oftn fall into w phallo being viewed so so poorly

evn still i leaned towards transmasc charlie nd always lovd moments tht let me imagine, for a moment, it being true, like his discomfort w taking off his shirt [hundred dollar baby, charlie kelly: king of the rats, the gang exploits the mortgage crisis, young charlie and mac deleted scenes, etc etc etc], or bonnie yelling abt ppl stealing her "charlie-girl" [the waitress is getting married] which i lovd to see as her accidentally misgendering him while drunk off her ass.

having grown out of my phallo issues (nd if ur reading this and u still view phallo super poorly, please do some research and grow too), ive in recent years fully subscribed to transmasc/nb charlie, and view his timeline something like this:

baby -> elementary: charlie refers to himself as a boy, doesnt "come out," simply has no idea he's afab. bonnie lets him dress however he wants and refers to him as asked. when charlie gets confused about his genitals, bonnie says his dick will grow in later lol, makes charlie wear a dress in public restrooms and tells him its just a game

middle: puberty hits and charlie gets confused and scared. bonnie puts him on blockers w.o explaining them ("my mom used to vaccinate me like every month" [the gang gets quarantined]) charlie goes on content and oblivious. STP acquired because hes "a late bloomer" and his dicks still not growing in?? weird. confides this in mac once, but he doesn't understand.

high: charlie finally registers that he's trans after forgetting theres a health class 1 day and not being able to skip it. throws him for a loop a bit but he becomes actively invested in his goals. he gets to start T and wants to have surgeries. "what guy hasnt done some extensive research on his own genitalia?" [mac is a serial killer]

college (aged): able to surgically transition (ty medicare) and continues on with life as we kno him now

joyce, imo, fits neatly into these views.

as a transmasc nb who came out young nd prefers to be seen as just A Guy by strangers, i grew up v vehemently against anything girly that might get me misgendered, but th more i began to 'pass,' th more @ home n my body i felt, th more and more comfortable i am w femininity, th more i wdnt mind putting on a dress, as long as th general public wd see me as "a man in women's clothes." n my mind, i prescribe something not exactly th same but v similar to charlie.

i see charlie "i dont really identify" kelly as afab and nb. i see joyce as a "character" he originally created to distance himself from the dysphoria of putting on a dress as a young trans boy, but that became part of him as the hard lines he drew in the sand as a child became blurry with age and self acceptance. charlie's comfort with himself allows joyce to evolve into a more solid persona, one he enjoys embodying and allowing to become a permanent facet of who he is. he's ok with being referred to as either. they're both him.

so maybe joyce comes out a bit more outside of the bathroom now.

#ask #pariskim #charlie kelly #joyce kelly #ramblings #i hav lots of thoughts nd feelings nd smday ill draw out charlie's whole timeline th way iv ben meaning to #th same way charlie holds th gang togethr charlie holds my whole viewpoint of iasip togethr #i gave myself a headache writing this post i spent more time xplaining my years of tboy charlie thinking than joyce im sry lmao #but i do lov her

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theghoulgirl · 3 months

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Adoration (Keith Kogane/Reader)

A 1,300 word oneshot that takes place after the war in which Keith and the reader both live together. Pretty much a slice-of-life in which they both get ready for bed on a cold winter night. (18+)

I also know I am writing for a pretty lifeless fandom, but alas, I wrote this because I wanted to. Not because I expect much traffic to come across it. If you do happen to stubble upon it, then I hope you enjoy!

As the sun wore down on the horizon, it covered the small town in a frigid chill. Luckily the two lovers were tucked away indoors in a desperate attempt to fend off the cold that crept outdoors. But despite their attempt, the youngest of the love birds could not effectively beat the freezing temperatures that had washed over the country.

“Keith, my dearest?”

“Yes hon?”

“I actually cannot feel my hands anymore.” Keith and (y/n) were snuggled up on the leather loveseat that sat in the living room of their house, with the memories of war behind them in the not-so-distant past. To further prove her point, she decided to stick an ice-cold hand under his shirt and rest it on his stomach.

Keith let out a surprised gasp and gently shoved her away with a bellowing cackle. “Dear god, go take a hot shower or something! What the actual hell, how is that human? Are you human? That’s not human. ”

(Y/n) let out a giggle at his rapid fire comments. “I’m not so sure I am anymore. Or maybe you’re not human, especially considering you are still as fiery as a furnace.”

“Yes. I am not fully human, we know this.” Keith waved his hand in a small circle.

“But that?” He pointed down at her hands “That is not human. I know human, and this ain’t it.” (Y/n) rolled her eyes at his antics and sat crossed legged next to him with her arms stretched above her head.

“Well it’s nearly a blizzard out there! You also won’t let me turn the temperature up, so I’m cold!” Although he is right about taking a shower. It’s nearly time for bed and my face feels incredibly gross. (Y/n) stared at Keith’s face in contemplation.

In a moment of courage, she whispered “Take a shower with me?”Keith shot her a gleeful smirk.

“There wouldn’t be any actual bathing if I joined. So, unfortunately, I am going to have to pass on your tempting offer.”

“But it would be fun and then I’d get to have, not one, but two different heat sources.” A crimson heat spread across her cheeks at the suggestiveness of her first comment. The corner of Keith’s eyes crinkled as his grin widened, and he patted her on as a sign to get up.

“Now. Go get a shower. You’re an ice cube and I do not have a nuclear core to keep you warm.”

“Fine. Fine. I’m going.”

After her vision cleared from standing up too quickly, (y/n) wrapped her jacket closer to her and waddled to the shared bathroom. She turned the shower nozzle to the highest setting, which could be equated to the surface temperature of the sun. While waiting for the water to warm, she removed her makeup that has been resting on her skin for far too long. Keith decided at the moment the mascara was being removed, to walk in and lean against the door frame with an adoring expression.

“Your eyes look like a raccoon.”

“Fuck off Kogane.” He let out a playful ‘no’ in response and squeezed her waist with one hand as he passed by to grab his toothbrush and toothpaste. Keith nudged her hip with his to get her to scoot over so he had access to the sink. During the time that Keith began to brush his teeth, (y/n) had removed the rest of her make-up, racoon eyes included. She then began to notice the toothpaste foaming around Keith’s mouth.

“Keith, my love, have you been out in the woods recently?” He cocked his head to the side in confusion at the strange question and spit a wad of toothpaste into the sink.

“Not recently, but I did go this past weekend. Why?”

“Because you look like you caught rabies. Think we may need to get the vaccine for it.” (Y/n) smiled mischievously at her punch line and started to undress. Keith rolled his eyes at the joke and rinsed out his mouth. He grabbed the edge of his shirt and wiped off the excess water from his face.

“Ha-ha.” Keith sarcastically replied. “Very funny. Truly, a master comedian. Seriously, we should sign you up for the giggle hut.”

Now in the steaming hot water, (y/n) replied. “Oh yeah? Well I think you and I should do a dou act. We could call ourselves ‘The Racoon and the Rabies Virus’! Our entire act is just Steven King’s Cujo, but with a rabid raccoon instead.” Keith let out a genuine laugh at the comment and began to exit the room.

“Well, while you’re in there, I’ll be sure to send an email about our inquiry.” He shut the bathroom door with a soft ‘click’.

After the shower, (y/n) emerged into the bedroom with two towels wrapped around her hair and body. She began to rifle through her closet looking for pajamas, but also kept an eye on Keith’s side of the closet.

Keith sat on the bed with his legs bent and a tablet resting on his thighs, but his attention was solely on his partner the moment she waltzed in. A bright blush unfurled across his face as (y/n) tossed clothes onto the bed. With the last throw of a shirt, that does indeed belong to him, he snapped his attention back to the tablet and cleared his throat.

“I-um.” Keith bit his lip and began to fidget with his hands. “You know you’re indescribably beautiful, right?”

A wide smile bloomed across (y/n) face at the compliment, which normally is not verbally expressed by Keith since he uses physical touch or action as a medium of love. Though, along with the smile, her face also began to flush and she vocalized “I know my love. But it will always mean a lot coming from you.”

The two lovers gazed into each other as they got lost in the wonderment and adoration of the other.

What have I done to deserve someone as wonderful as her?

How in the world did I find someone like him?

As the sweet moment passed, a slow awkwardness began to settle in the air. (Y/n) started giggling. “It’s going to be very weird now when I take off my towels to put on my clothes.”

Keith laughed along at her comment as a playful look shot across his eyes. “No, it’s only weird if we make it weird. And my dear, this is not the first time you’ve gotten dressed in front of me, let alone have been nude.” He let out a sound of surprise as he dodged the towel that came flying at his head as (y/n) took off her hair towel.

“Put that over your head. I do not want you to look at me while I get dressed.” Keith, while laughing, obliged her request and draped the towel over his head. (Y/n) swiftly got dressed.

Keith looks like a sheet ghost.

“Okay, you’re in the clear.” Keith pulled off the towel and chucked it into the hamper. He picked up his tablet and put it on the side table before he opened up his arms as an invitation. (Y/n) approached the bed with a shy composure and lifted the duvet to crawl in and cuddle into his arms. She turned and rested her cheek against his shoulder and pressed a small kiss to his collarbone. Keith in response pressed a lingering kiss atop the crown of her head. They both took an individual inhale and exhaled as they sunk into the soft comfort of each other. Keith rubbed his hand up and down her shoulder as he said “Want me to turn off the lights?”

(Y/n) nodded in reply. Keith slapped the switch that was above the headboard and settled deeper into the pillows.

Despite the frost that was forming spirals on the window, the cold that was seeping through the floorboards, and the radiator rumbling in the basement, the lovers were both toasty between the heat that had formed between them. As the night wore and the wind grew colder, they dozed off into a dreamless slumber.

#Keith Kogane #Keith Kogane x Reader #Keith Kogane/Reader #Keith x Reader #Keith/Reader #Voltron Fanfic #voltron legendary defender

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pandemic-info · 8 months

Photo

Long-Term Long Covid - by Eric Topol

Unfortunately, what was seen at 6 months largely continues out to 2 years.

... [New paper at] Nature Medicine addresses what happened 2 years later to nearly 140,000 people who had Covid, compared with almost 6 million people non-infected controls.

... in the non-hospitalized group a substantial proportion— about 30%— of the 80 sequelae, including GI and neurologic, remained significantly elevated.

... I’d like to point out the data analyzed in this study was enormous, as I tried to capture with one of the supplemental tables below, representative of many others. The authors took on many advanced analytic approaches with weighting, conditional modeling, and sensitivity analyses that I’m not going to review here.

... While this is the first comprehensive and systematic study of Covid at 2 years, it unfortunately is within a highly skewed population. The demographics of nearly 90% men, with a mean age 61 years, is far different than the prototypic person with Long Covid who is more apt to be female and age 30-39 years. Furthermore, to get 2 year follow-up it meant studying a population who had Covid early in the pandemic, before vaccines or the marked evolution of the virus with new variants, including Delta, which was more virulent that the ancestral or Alpha strains that preceded it. So please keep this in mind—the results are important but they may well not be representative of the real world, broader population, of Covid and Long Covid. That’s already a major hole in our knowledge base since there is no other report yet to systematically address a more representative population.

...

Summary

At two years after Covid, there’s a persistent and considerable burden of symptoms and multi-system organ involvement in an important subgroup of people. It’s also unpredictable who will be afflicted with protracted symptoms and new medical diagnoses. While there still is no validated treatment (the Big Miss, as recently reviewed), Long Covid marches on, not just over time for most of those already suffering, but also among newly infected or re-infected individuals — like we are seeing now with increase in cases in the United States and many other countries. The main emphasis here, beyond the enduring and very concerning symptoms and organ dysfunction, is that we are still in the dark. It will take many years to fully know the sequelae of Covid, be it from unforeseen, delayed adverse outcomes like what occurred many years after influenza or polio, or the secondary outcomes of organ systems that are clearly affected, or via promotion of autoimmune conditions or pro-inflammatory pathways, potentially exacerbating risk of atherosclerosis. We’re going to need many more years of careful follow-up to fully understand the ways and extent Covid has hurt us. Meanwhile, beyond the known strategies for prevention of infection, we must consider finding effective ways to treat people who suffer from Long Covid as an urgent and foremost priority.

#long covid #research #data #eric topol #covid #summer 2023 #Ziyad Al-Aly #VA study #nature medicine #sequelae

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vague-humanoid · 11 months

Text

Just a few days before our interview, Jill’s (Ed: not her real name) immunologist sent her to the hospital to rule out pulmonary embolism, which happens when a blood clot gets stuck in an artery of the lung. In Jill’s case it would be a Long COVID symptom amongst many others she had been battling over the last year: including swelling around the tissue of her heart, memory deficits, sudden heart-rate surges, fatigue and abnormal kidney test results.

By that point, she’d had COVID four times, despite taking stringent precautions. She was born with a primary immune deficiency. And, without a fully functioning immune system she needs weekly injections of human immunoglobulins from plasma donations. A very small viral load can make her sick and she’s at a much higher risk of severe outcomes from COVID than most people.

“Every time I catch it, it adds new layers to my disabilities,” she says. “COVID is slowly killing me.” Her haematologist believes the past COVID infections have further damaged her immune system. She is looking at a possible lupus diagnosis.

Her voice is raspy and soft over the phone. She pauses when I ask how she is doing.

“Well, I got COVID,” she says. “Again.”

At the hospital appointment several nurses were not wearing their masks properly, and one kept pulling it down to talk with Jill, who had to remove hers to get her lungs checked. As someone who is very isolated with her family — everyone works and goes to school from home — Jill believes that the appointment led to her most recent infection.

She’s always been careful with her health but in the past, she worked in the school system. By 2020 she moved to a remote position and at that time still had many options for safely connecting with those around her and she could attend health-care appointments without concern. About a year ago, nearly all restrictions were lifted in Alberta and that’s when she got her first COVID infection.

Three years in, nearly everyone she knows has moved on including — most bafflingly to her — many of the medical professionals she sees. But, Jill says, moving on is not a privilege afforded to people like her.

Recently, PCR testing became inaccessible to health-care providers, who, in the past, were able to test regularly. And while Alberta Health Services (AHS) still requires masks, any health-care settings outside AHS can make their own rules. So, once masking was no longer mandated in public settings, many dropped requirements — this includes many of the specialists seeing immunocompromised people, including those Jill now sees due to Long COVID.

“The variants have been left to run rampant and I have really become more and more scared,” she says.

“Governments are saying: Oh we can re-open because we have all these tools. But they are not available to the immunocompromised population. So, the monoclonal antibodies are no longer effective against the current variants. Because the variants are so immune-based, the vaccines were never particularly effective for immunocompromised people because of the nature of our immune systems.”

As well, Jill says that there are many contraindicated drugs that cannot be taken with Paxlovid, the drug which is used to treat COVID patients in specific circumstances. According to Health Canada, Paxlovid “is used in adults to treat mild to moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients who have a positive result from a severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 viral test and who have a high risk of getting severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.”

She still takes the vaccines with hopes they will help, and while she believes Paxlovid is saving her life with this current infection, she says it is not a guarantee against more Long COVID symptoms. And, for the infection prior to the current one, the drug was not available due to a kidney infection caused by the virus.

“I have to access my medication, my health care. And by people not masking around me, I have no way to protect myself,” she says. “If you don’t want to wear masks as a society then you are going to leave the immunocompromised people behind.” And she says many high risk people are not able to work from home, or have their kids in online classes or maybe struggle to afford masks or air purifiers — many social and financial issues make individual protections far more challenging or impossible. She is currently in a court battle with her ex.

“He wants increased access, in-person school and group extracurricular activities. All things that put me at higher risk of infection,” says Jill.

Recently, she went to her cardiologist to find that no patients or staff were masking.

“I really realize now I have to be my own advocate,” she says.

She has to constantly think ahead. So, she now calls beforehand to see if the appointment can be done remotely or if the staff can mask. She’s also decided to start carrying around a laminated sheet that explains her medical condition as it is often something she needs to repeat at each appointment or in the emergency room.   Like many others, she’s found ways to navigate her way around a harrowing array of risks. And yet, even with all these precautions, she can not control the actions of others which can directly affect her health.

Holly (Ed: not her real name), is retired and lives in a small community just outside Edmonton. She’s currently thinking about her next visit to her doctor, who hasn’t been taking precautions from the beginning.

“It’s exhausting always trying to get around how there is no protection for us anymore,” she says. “I’m thinking why am I made to feel crazy when my own doctor won’t wear a mask? Won’t acknowledge that it’s airborne?”

But the worst part, she claims, was that he minimized the effects of COVID, saying it was rarely an issue and only affects a certain demographic. Holly does not believe that is true, but regardless it is of little comfort when her husband, who’s in his 70s, has chronic health complications.

“I think patients are rightfully concerned, particularly when they go in for health care,” says physician Neeja Bakshi. “I think the medical community should be doing whatever we can to protect those who are coming in.”

It’s true, she says, that hospitals are no longer overwhelmed, and fewer people are dying; there is less of an acute emergency. But COVID is still circulating, people are still dying, and Long COVID (aka post COVID-19 condition) should be on everyone’s radar.

Recently, the World Health Organization announced an end to the global health emergency. But it also said earlier that “one in 10 infections result in post COVID-19 condition suggesting that hundreds of millions of people will need longer term care.”

COVID can cause organ damage — particularly affecting the heart, kidneys, skin. Plus, there’s risk of brain and immune damage, along with increased risks for cancer and autoimmune disease.

And, while no one knows yet how long that damage could persist, a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says 59 per cent of Long COVID patients had organ damage a year later.

In 2022, Bakshi started a Long COVID clinic at her health facility Park Integrative Health, treating patients from across Canada. Every week she completes upwards of 20 disability forms for people who need to take time off work due to the debilitating effects of Long COVID.

While certain health complications make Long COVID more likely, anyone can be affected regardless of the severity of their infection or the state of their health. The indiscriminate nature of COVID is one of the things that’s been most shocking to Bakshi. She’s treated a number of elite athletes who went from performing at a professional level to struggling to have enough energy to brush their teeth.

Many patients struggle with stigma not just from medical professionals but from family, friends and employers. It’s an invisible illness, says Bakshi, so patients may look fine and are often misdiagnosed as something psychosomatic.

“I’m immersed in the world. But I don’t feel like you can deny it exists. And I think it’s a bit of ignorance on the medical community’s part if they say they don’t know anything about Long COVID. There are very specific disease patterns and symptoms,” says Bakshi.

There is also a lack of support. The most proven management strategy for Long COVID or even any COVID infection is recovery and rest, says Bakshi. But that’s not possible for many people. Initially, in 2020, there was forced rest through quarantine periods, but that time off has become shorter, as employers don’t have to pay for employees to be off at all.

“We are not a society that is built on support. We’ve already set ourselves up to fail from a recovery perspective,” says Bakshi.

Jill has found validation in Bakshi’s clinic as one of her patients. But that experience stands out amongst a sea of specialists who have given up on precautions.

“Instead of recommending upgraded masks, air cleaners and UV, or working from home, immunologists that manage my condition recommend wearing a mask if you want and enjoying your life—as short as that may be. I am not sure if this is complacency, or giving up… Either way, education and change need to happen or far too many valuable lives will be lost and disabled unnecessarily,” says Jill.

Savvy AF. Blunt AF. Edmonton AF.

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 8 months

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AITA for not wanting to move back in with my family?

The lead up to this is a bit long, but I feel like the context is necessary. After my first year of college, my (then20, FTM) father (40s, M) was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and could not work anymore. He also could not be left to his own devices, so I had to take time off school and come home to watch him and my younger sibling (then 11NB) while my mother (40s F) would work. That sucked for multiple reasons, including being responsible for all the asshole bullshit he’s pulled (when I say asshole, I mean it. He used to fake - by his own admission - epileptic seizures to get out of doing the most minor chores or exercises recommended by his doctors), my mothers violent transphobia (to the point of driving me to a mental breakdown when I asked about starting HRT) and emotional abuse towards myself and my sib. She never believed my complaints about my father and was convinced I was being lazy and irresponsible with his care. In addition to that, they moved to this area after I started college, so I was in a completely unfamiliar (and not particularly queer friendly) place, socially isolated, and so on and so forth. This shit sucked. I was promised I’d be able to go back after one semester, but after a few months it has been made painfully clear to me that this is not an option. Then COVID happened, and next year my college was fully remote. This way I was able to complete my sophomore year online. I was finally released for junior year and have not come back home since with the exception of one short-term visit, when my mother went abroad to visit our extended family. (We’re immigrants.)

I graduated this year. When I started my job search, I was planning to stay in the area and applied to jobs accordingly, with the exception of one position advertised by my college. This one would be in a major city very close to my family, so I’d be able to live with them. I was idiot enough to mention that to my mother. The gig didn’t pan out, so I settled on staying where I am and continued to search for a job, a place to live, and so on. I secured a place to live recently and was again dumb enough to share that with my mother. (Yes, I have a pattern. I’m working on it. ) The next day, my sib contacts me and asks if I could come live with them. Sib got into a really good high school with a focus on a field of study they want to go into for a career and have a real knack for. It’s kinda far from where they live right now, but they found an apartment much closer to it. Rent is a lot higher than they can afford, though. My mother lost her job when she refused to get vaccinated nearly a year ago (she used to work in healthcare), and since then she hasn’t been officially employed. She’s been getting by with instacart and my father’s disability payments.

If I lived with them and found a job there, they’d definitely be able to afford rent. Moving there, while undesirable, is not out of the realm of possibility, and my mother has been a lot better about treating me like a person and not being transphobic. Not perfect, but better. They also would not be living with dad because mom is at the end of her rope with him and is looking into a nursing home his insurance would cover. I would also be saving up money by living with them, I’d definitely have reliable health insurance, a roof over my head and so on and so forth. My personal autonomy, personal space, and most likely mental health would be absolutely out the window. I’m still traumatized by these 2 years I spent with them. Not to mention nearly complete social isolation. I wouldn’t even be able to see my boyfriend properly, there would be about 8 hrs’ worth of a drive between us.

So. Will I be the asshole if I leave my family to struggle on their own? I already sacrificed a lot for their sake. I don’t know that I can keep doing that to myself.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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beardedmrbean · 11 months

Text

Who knew? Nearly three and a half years after Covid-19 first appeared on the scene, the World Health Organisation has declared the pandemic officially over.

And there we all were thinking it had ended more than a year ago, when the UK and much of the rest of Europe abandoned the last of their Covid restrictions.

Late to recognise Covid as a pandemic, the WHO has also been late to acknowledge that thanks in large measure to Western medicines and vaccines, it is also now essentially part of history.

Perhaps that's because of the continued influence of China, which only very recently abandoned its zero-Covid policy.

As long as a major economy was still imprisoning its citizens at the slightest sign of infection, then I suppose it was indeed hard to declare the disease no longer a public health emergency.

For most of us, the pandemic has nevertheless been over for a long time now.

The grimly dispiriting legacy is, however, still very much with us.

In the UK, the national debt is a fifth of GDP higher than it was, inflation has soared to double digits, economically sub-optimal work from home remains deeply entrenched, labour shortages abide, and many people still complain of long term sickness – much of it unrelated to Covid as such but seemingly triggered by the pandemic's deprivations – with record numbers claiming out of work benefits.

The Government's response to Covid always looked to me like a ruinous over-reaction, and I became something of a lockdown sceptic.

I say “something of” because in the initial stages of the pandemic – call it the “we're all going to die” phase – something fairly dramatic was obviously called for, watching the TV images of emergency hospitals being built in Wuhan and overwhelmed ICU units in Northern Italy.

Politically, it would have been virtually impossible for the UK to have stood alone in remaining open even as virtually the whole of the rest of Europe was closing down.

The Government would have fallen within weeks if it had stood by and done nothing.

Even Sweden, which seems to have got its approach about right, eventually implemented a watered down version of the restrictions imposed elsewhere.

Instinctively, Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister, was against lockdown, preferring instead the idea of “herd immunity”, but then he became seriously ill himself, and ended up fully embracing the made-in-China response.

For some, such as the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption – who would regularly warn of police state authoritarianism – the objection was on principled libertarian grounds.

This was, however, very much a minority position. One of the most remarkable things about the whole sorry affair is quite how compliant the country proved, and how quickly we succumbed to instruction.

Somewhat alarmingly, it turned out that supposedly freedom loving societies are remarkably willing to submit to authoritarian rule, especially if paid to stay at home, as was the case with furlough in the UK.

Even the Government was surprised by the obedience.

Yet it was always abundantly clear that these were essentially temporary, wartime measures that would be lifted once the emergency was over, so on those grounds at least, most of us were initially willing to go along with the heavy handed approach imposed.

No, what worried me was not so much the loss of liberty as the economic impact, and once the case mortality rate was confirmed at less than 1 percent for advanced economies, the lack of proportionality and cost benefit consideration.

I could never quite accept the argument that what was being done was similar to putting the economy into a medically induced coma, with the patient reawoken as if nothing had happened once the pandemic was over.

As we can now see, the lasting damage was monumental.

It would no doubt have been disastrous had the health service been overwhelmed, but when the main justification for lockdown becomes the rallying call of “protect the NHS” you have to ask yourself what the whole thing was really all about.

Insulating the health service from a sickness it is there to treat?

You cannot put a price on life, it can be argued, and therefore almost any cost is justified. It is also true that in the fog of war, mistakes are bound to be made; over-reaction is possibly better than under-reaction.

All the same, it now seems abundantly clear that the treatment was in many ways worse than the disease itself. We'll never know the counterfactual, or just how many lives were saved by imposing a strict series of lockdowns.

Most epidemiologists will tell you that it was a lot.

But they are not paid to think about the wider consequences, and it is now patently clear that the lasting damage to education, the economy and to wider public health was off the scale.

What are the lessons? We don't need to wait for the results of the official inquiry, still years away, to know some of the answers.

Let's make a start by examining the death toll, reported on a daily basis during the pandemic as if in some kind of international competition for how effectively each country was dealing with the crisis.

For a long time, Britain seemed to be bottom of the class, which in turn instructed the severity of the counter measures thought necessary.

The worse the numbers looked relative to others, the more draconian and prolonged the restrictions became.

Given differing methodologies and reporting systems, the best way of measuring the impact is not through recorded deaths from Covid, but via the excess death rate over and above what would normally be expected.

On this measure, most major advanced economies ended up in much the same place.

Britain was slightly worse than Germany and France, but not significantly so, and actually quite a bit better than Italy and Spain, according to estimates published in the Lancet.

This was not the impression you got at the time, when the British response was widely viewed as uniquely incompetent.

What is more, Scotland did worse than England, notwithstanding the plaudits the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, received for outbidding Westminster on the countermeasures needed.

The same is true of Wales, whose first minister, Mark Drakeford, was similarly lauded for a more restrictive and therefore seemingly capable approach.

Well, not according to the numbers.

Culture wars, I'm afraid to say, are as likely to determine your view of the efficacy of lockdown as the underlying facts of the matter.

What we now know, however, is that lockdown is an extraordinarily costly way of dealing with a pandemic.

It is to be hoped that this lesson at least has been learned, and that the response to future pandemics will therefore be better calibrated to the severity of the disease.

A 1pc case mortality rate scarcely seems to justify what was done, even if it was admittedly much higher in older age cohorts.

A more consensual approach that keeps people properly informed but allows them to make their own choices on the degree of risk they are prepared to run must be the way forward.

#nunyas news #who knew?#lots of people did and you censored them #anyone that spoke out was ejected from the room

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reimeichan · 4 months

Note

How did you all figure out you were a system? -🪭

It depends on who you're asking.

For Purple, she was always open to the idea that the world had a lot of unexplainable phenomena that our current knowledge of science and stuff may not be able to address. When we were 12, she was looking online for ways to flesh out OCs, and one of the suggestions was to talk to said OC as if you were giving them an interview. So she asked said "OC" some questions and had him answer them. "What's your favorite color?" she asked. "Gray," I said. "No, that's wrong! I made you, I know your favorite color is green! I put it down on your character sheet!" she said back. I shrugged, and, confused, replied back, "It's definitely gray, I don't know what to tell you." And in that moment she knew she shared a brain with another entity, though she dared not label her experiences as DID at the time.

For Green, in high school he had joined a new online community who noted how his personality would occasionally just *drastically* shift. This personality shift was due to him and Purple switching at the time, and Purple, already in the know, would end up telling this new community how they likely had some sort of "multiple personality" thing going on but would never presume for it to be DID without a proper diagnosis. Those words alone were enough for Green to realize that Purple truly was a separate identity from him, and though he was shocked at first, he and Purple really leaned into the "multiple personalities", even giving themselves different halves of our online username at the time.

For me... well, I'm a fusion of a few parts. One part of me, the Gray that Purple met and mistook for an OC, knew around the same time as her. I was in denial for much longer, but constant pestering from her made me finally accept that she and I were at least separate consciousnesses within the same brain.

Another part of me was blissfully unaware until we nearly died in 2020. I won't go into detail how it happened, but it was sudden and out of nowhere, and though nobody was too greatly injured, the shock was enough for me to fully dissociate away from the situation. However, we still needed someone to actually be in the body and move it around, so out of desperation our gatekeeper (the "mistaken for OC Gray") pushed out the first alter he could find... and that happened to be Rouge, our sexual alter. Let me just paint the picture here real quick: I've told everyone around me that I'm asexual, somewhat sex-repulsed, and had no plans to ever be sexual with anyone. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm on Tinder witht the sluttiest profile I can muster up, swiping right on anyone and everyone who I even remotely may be interested in a one-night hookup. All because I nearly died. I woke up in the morning to hundreds of matches and even a planned fuckdate. All of this, might I remind you all of the timing, in the middle of a pandemic that we at the time did not have a vaccine for yet. Horrified by what I found in the morning, I canceled the fuckdate, deleted my account, and uninstalled the app.

And though that was still not enough for me to accept I have DID, that sure did open some doors.

Then, in 2022, my then-partner and I had a long talk. They were getting tired of my memory issues and no amount of writing things down seemed to be enough for them. I seemed to have incredibly inconsistent and even contradictory boundaries that they couldn't keep track of. I blamed everything on my ADHD, of course. I didn't have amnesia, other than what I assumed were short term memory issues to the point I may have missed something they said 5 minutes ago. "Oh, sorry, I was spacing out," I would say. Eventually she got so fed up that she said, "you never space out when we're having fun conversations! it's only when you're stressed out because I'm pointing out things you've done badly that you tend to space out!"

And I went. Oh. Fuck.

That's not spacing out.

Slapped in the face with the reality that I wasn't simply "spacing out" from ADHD unfocus but due to some kind of dissociation, and given the ultimatum that if I didn't change then they would break up with me, I was forced to sit on those feelings and really dig into why I was so dissociative, so forgetful, and so inconsistent. And I knew the reason, I did, but I couldn't get myself to admit to it. God, it couldn't be me. I tried so hard to convince myself that the disorder I had on-and-off considered my entire life didn't apply to me, that maybe I was misunderstanding the diagnostic criteria, or I was misinterpreting my symptoms, or that I somehow had convinced myself I had these symptoms because I wanted them to feel... special? Validated? I don't know.

I found myself a therapist who had a long history of working with dissociative and trauma clients. She helped me unravel a lot of those feelings of shame and denial. She used a few different tools to eventually diagnose me with DID. She validated my experiences, and helped me through so much initial stabilization that I'm so very grateful for her help those first 10 months.

So, yeah. That's how we found out we have DID.

#did #dissociative identity disorder #actually did #actuallydid #did osdd #osddid #cdd #personal #by gray #about green #about purple #we've been meaning to write this for a long time #so thank you for the ask #the-bumblebee-system #the bumblebee system

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mysisypheannightmare · 9 months

Text

Just Another Day (Chapter Two)

Word Count: 4,860

Warnings: Logan Angst, Sickfic, Fever, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort (with actual comfort this time), Stream of Consciousness mixed with actual fully-written scenes, and All sides are present in this fic

Read Chapter One First

AO3 Link

He kept flinching away, Virgil noticed.

A part of him wanted to be grateful that it wasn't just him now, but all the other sides, too, that Logan was avoiding every time he was awake enough to recognize they were there with him. But, given Logan's last little freakout, it probably meant that something about the other sides was unsettling him so badly that he didn't want them there.

Well, maybe if he'd actually eat on his own or just get some actual sleep, then he'd stop having a stupid fever and feel better already…

Virgil felt a bit guilty for wanting Logan to just hurry up and get better already, but he couldn't help it. He had to hear Janus explain that Thomas was better from his fever the other day but was still dealing with a mental fog, likely thanks to whatever Logan was dealing with now. It's like the two were linked in some crazy way and managed to get each other sick.

If Thomas ever gets sick again after this, Virgil wasn't going to let there be an argument about it ever again. The man's going straight to bed, or better yet, a hospital! He should also probably make sure he's up to date on all his vaccines, too, just to be sure. This can't ever happen again. Not to Thomas and not to Logan.

"His fever has finally gone down a bit," Janus was telling Patton, who still looked distraught since the moment he even found out that Logan didn't seem to be doing too well. That hadn't been a fun conversation.

"He'll probably be back to himself in no time, alright?" Janus, of all sides, was trying to reassure Patton. Virgil hated that he couldn't tell if he was lying, even if it was only to make Patton feel better, but he certainly wouldn't put it past him. It was kind of his thing, after all.

Patton seemed to be cheered up ever so slightly by the news, however, so at least there was that.

He really hoped Logan was actually getting better.

"How's he doing?"

Roman turned to see Patton peek his head in, concern deep in his expression.

It was now the second day of them keeping a watchful eye over Logan. Roman was sitting in the chair they'd moved next to Logan's bed. He was keeping himself occupied with a coloring book and a box of crayons. It didn't take too much to keep him entertained while letting Logan sleep.

Speaking of…

"He keeps tossing and turning, but it's still better than yesterday," he informed Patton.

Patton stepped into the room and walked over, patting Logan on the head, only for him to shift away, turning on his side.

Roman sighed.

"I don't know what else we can do. I tried adding those pillows yesterday, but …well, you saw what happened. I guess he just can't get comfortable."

Patton gasped and then smiled wide.

"I may have just the thing!"

Roman watched, confused, as Patton ran off, ducking back out to the hallway in a hurry. He had no idea what he could possibly have planned, and he certainly didn't expect to see Patton return a minute later with an enormous stuffed animal in his arms.

It was a big white unicorn, nearly three feet tall, with bright, neon pink tufts of hair for a mane and a shiny rainbow horn sticking out of its head. The way its pink-colored hooves bounced as Patton walked back in, it was clear the unicorn's legs have more weight to them than the rest of the stuffed animal. Optimal for hugging, in fact.

Patton strode right up to Logan's bed and set the large plushie next to Logan with a triumphant grin. "That should do the trick!"

And somehow, he was right.

Roman watched as Logan turned over again on his other side again, almost instantly pulling the unicorn to his chest like it was meant to be there. He seemed to calm down right away, relaxing his shoulders and everything.

Finally.

It may have looked ridiculous for Logan to do such a thing, but if it got him to sleep more soundly, Roman would leave it be. He could just tease him about it later when he was no longer sick.

Logan woke up again, holding something soft to his chest. He tiredly opened his eyes, seeing only white fur with pink tufts sticking out… Oh! Palindrome, his stuffed unicorn! He hadn’t seen it in so long.

He squeezed it tighter to his chest, only to remember…he’d gotten rid of Palindrome over a year ago. So why was it here?

He glanced around to see he was still in his room. His mind seemed far clearer as he looked around some more and recognized everything was in its place, save for a new chair set next to his nightstand with a very bored-looking Janus sitting in it, flipping quietly through a book that Logan was fairly certain was from his own collection.

“…Janus?” he tried to say, but his voice came out exceptionally raspy. Wow, his throat really hurt, actually. Like he’d somehow managed to swallow barbed wire, the prickling sensation worsening as he tried to adjust to sit up on his elbows.

What on earth happened?

Janus looked over at him and quietly shut the book in his lap and set it aside.

"Hey, how are you feeling?” he asked him, an odd expression on his face. He seemed to be looking Logan over instead of just looking at his face. “Still tired?”

Logan narrowed his gaze at him, trying to decide what he meant by that. His mind seemed to be slow to give him his usual deductive reasoning, but was he implying Logan was tired earlier? Why would he ask that?

He opened his mouth to ask for clarification but somehow managed to choke on air, and let out a pathetic cough into the side of Palindrome’s head.

He frowned. Oh, he really hadn’t meant to do that.

“Thirsty?” Janus asked, and as Logan looked up again, he noticed a water bottle being held out to him.

He took it, aware that his arms felt very weak. He tried to sit up just enough so he could take a quick sip of the water, and then he finally asked the burning question…

“What… Uhm, what happened?”

Janus stared at him for a moment, that same unreadable expression on his face.

“It seems you had a fever, Logan,” he finally answered, leaning back in his chair again.

Logan waited, but Janus didn’t continue.

“Care to elaborate?” Logan asked, now trying to sit up properly and lean back against his headboard. It was more of a struggle than he expected, but he managed it regardless. He set Palindrome at his side, trying to resist the urge to hug the stuffed animal for comfort that he knew he didn’t need.

“Depends,” Janus responded, almost cryptically. “What do you remember?”

Logan sighed. He sure didn’t remember having a fever, but unless Janus was lying – which was extremely likely – then he couldn’t really be sure of anything that happened after Thomas had started feeling off and had thrown up yesterday…

“Oh,” he realized, “Thomas was sick."

Janus nodded. “Yep, had a fever, and then you managed to catch one, too.”

Ah, a fever probably wasn’t good, now that he thought about it. Though, Logan wasn’t even sure the sides could become ill. Patton and Roman had claimed to be sick a few times over the years, but they seemed to always be fine after having one of the others take care of them for a couple hours. He’d honestly thought they were just in need of some relaxation and special attention, not actually sick in the way a human could be, but maybe he’d been wrong.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time…

“Is he doing better now?” Logan couldn’t help but ask.

Thomas’ health was definitely the priority here, so he ought to make sure.

“Considering it’s been about three days since his fever broke and he’s gone right back to normal? Yes, I’d say he’s doing much better.”

Janus looked over at him then, as though waiting for something.

Logan blinked, glancing away. Wait…three days? “Did you say three…? But wasn’t that just…”

How could that have been three days ago? Thomas had only gotten sick just yesterday! How long had Logan been sick then?

How long had they had to put up with him being out of it, especially if he couldn’t even recall a single moment from the whole ordeal? Hopefully he hadn’t completely inconvenienced everyone or kept Thomas from any important activities. Three days was such a large amount of time.

He sat up some more. He looked across the room to his desk, where his laptop sat open and ready for work.

Maybe he should check his schedule, just to see how far behind he had gotten…

"You really don’t remember then? Any of it?” Janus asked, some sort of emotion lacing his words. But what emotion was there, Logan couldn’t be sure.

He looked over at Janus. He seemed bothered.

Oh, no.

Had Logan done something burdensome? He didn’t know what it was, but he hoped he could make it up to him and the others. There were far too many possibilities if it occurred due to illness. Maybe it wasn’t anything too awful and a quick apology and some acts of kindness would suffice?

"I’m sorry if I bothered you in any way,” he told Janus right away, trying to adjust and move the blankets off so he could stand. His arms were still shaking a bit, but he needed to get back to work quickly if things had really been that bad. “I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

Janus eyed him as he tried to stand on wobbly legs. He rolled his eyes before sighing heavily and reaching over to push Logan back down onto the bed.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Janus told him flatly. "You're probably not fully well just yet."

Logan wanted to disagree, but he couldn't be sure. He looked over at his nightstand, seeing his glasses lying there, so he picked them up and put them on. His eyes adjusted slowly and with his vision clearing, he felt confident he was probably fine after all.

"If you don't remember, perhaps I should fill you in," Janus offered.

Logan glanced over at him, and Janus took the opportunity to explain in vague detail that Logan hadn't been seen by the other sides most of the day after Thomas had initially gotten his fever.

Once Thomas was better, they'd all assumed everything was fine…until they realized Logan was missing, so they'd gone looking for him. Apparently he was in his room, dazed out of his mind, sitting at his desk for some reason. Virgil and Remus got him to bed, but when they came back to check on him, he'd gotten up again and each time was either wandering around aimlessly in his room or sitting at his desk again, doing nothing.

"It was frustrating how many times we had to redirect you because you wouldn't sleep, for whatever reason," Janus said with a laugh.

Logan grimaced. That sounded very annoying for them.

"Apologies. I hope it wasn't too much of a problem."

Janus looked at him.

"It wasn't a problem."

Again, Logan wasn't sure what emotion was there in Janus' words, but there was definitely something. He felt awful not being able to assign it, but that had never been his forte, after all. He couldn't be expected to understand something that he wasn't meant to, even if he kept trying and failing for years at this point to do just that.

Janus sighed, continuing his explanation,

“By the next day, things got… well, they got a bit intense there for a while.”

Logan wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. He found out anyway.

“You seemed terrified any time you were awake and one of us tried to help you with anything. A single touch had you backing away, even if we were just trying to get you to drink some water..”

Oh. Logan tried to remember why that might be, but his mind didn’t supply him a reason. He didn't find himself typically afraid of the others, so there was no reasonable explanation for him to do such a thing.

“And when you slept, you seemed to have nightmares. Painful ones, from the looks of it.”

Well, that probably wasn’t fun to deal with, either. No wonder Janus seemed bothered.

"Around the height of your fever, you had somehow managed to get out of bed and run across the room, tried to grab…I think it was a letter opener? Who knows what you were planning to do exactly, but when we finally stopped you, you…said you were trying to die for us.”

Janus stared at him, willing him to remember. But Logan didn’t remember anything like that at all.

Why would he have done something like that?

Perhaps his mind believed he was in danger or maybe they misunderstood the situation? That's such an odd response, though, even for someone who's ill.

“That…sounds burdensome,” Logan stated, in lieu of having anything else to say. “I’m sorry.”

Janus sighed, leaning back again.

"You really don’t remember? At all?" he asked again.

Logan shook his head.

“Well, there goes my hope of getting some answers at least,” Janus responded. “And what about all the mumbling you made in your sleep about Thomas replacing you?”

Logan froze. Well, that he remembered, but not from his time being sick. He’d been sure for quite a long time now that Thomas ought to replace him, find a suitable Logic that functioned and performed adequately, who didn’t constantly cause problems and instead fixed them like he was meant to. Had he mentioned that out loud?

“Uhh…”

“And something about not being productive enough? Being useless?” Janus added.

Logan swallowed, a pain in his chest rapidly starting to ache. Had he really said that? He was hoping none of them would find out how badly behind he'd been on his work.

He was able to get most of Thomas’ necessary tasks taken care of every day, but as time went on, his energy always seemed to dwindle, and lately, he’d been downright terrible about keeping proper tabs on everything. He had been covering it up well enough so that it wouldn't bother anyone or cause further problems, but that clearly wasn’t the case anymore if they knew.

How was he going to fix this? Did this mean they would replace him, after all? They would have to, right?

His breath felt shallow. But he'd been expecting to be replaced eventually, hadn't he? He was certain this was supposed to happen, just not so soon!

His throat felt tight, and his mind started racing, but it seemed Janus wasn’t finished yet.

“Oh yeah, and then there was a remark in there about how this was supposed to happen. Does that ring any bells to you?”

Logan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe steadily, but absolutely failing.

Yes, of course he had thought about these things for quite a while, but none of the others were ever meant to know about it!

He was supposed to keep existing until the moment he could finally resolve all those problems he'd tallied up over time, even if the biggest problem was himself. He was supposed to stay for as long as he was useful, even if he’d already been found to be useless. He never wanted them to know how pathetic he was and had been all this time. He'd wanted to fix things before Thomas found out, at the very least.

What would he do now? Janus couldn’t have been the only one to know. What would the others do? Did Thomas know already? Were they replacing him already? What was going to happen to him?

He was supposed to have more time to fix everything before it had to end. He'd thought about it so much, but he was only biding his time and getting what little done that he could, then he would address it outright with Thomas, because he deserved to know…just not yet! It was supposed to happen, just not yet!

Was this inevitable? Was this always going to happen, the truth would come out before he had the chance to fix everything, even if he hadn’t somehow fallen ill?

Logan’s mind wouldn’t shut up or let him catch up on everything. He tried not to panic, but none of this could possibly end well.

Would it even end at all?

"Logan, breathe, please!” Janus pleaded next to him.

Oh. He wasn't breathing. That's probably what that pain was. Oh, no.

“You’re going to be okay," Janus told him.

He wasn't going to be okay. He messed everything up and hadn't even figured out a way to fix it!

"I wasn’t trying to confront you about this right now," Janus continued. "I just wanted to see if you had remembered… Perhaps, not my best move, all things considered.”

How could this have happened? What was he supposed to do now? He'd have to change everything, but if they all already knew, what could he possibly do to fix it? He couldn't fix anything! But if he couldn't fix anything, Thomas and the others would still be left with all the problems he'd left unresolved!

They'd all be so disappointed. They probably already were.

His chest ached.

He tried to imagine how the others would have reacted, but all he could think about was how he hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone or make them think they’d done anything wrong. He wasn't supposed to leave them with any burden. But now he’d gone and bothered everyone for no reason!

They all knew he’d been useless to Thomas and believed he deserved whatever fate came of that…

They must have been so upset with him.

“Logan.”

But it wasn’t as though this was the first time, right?

“Keep trying.”

They would never understand. He wouldn’t be able to make them understand. He already knew that from the start.

“Please.”

He really should have expected this.

…something about that thought was far too sobering.

He took in a deep breath and his vision seemed to clear up. Right, breathing is a good thing. Of course.

He managed to get in another deep breath, but it still felt as though his throat was tight and his heart was beating way too fast. What was wrong with him?

"There we go," Janus said in barely a whisper. "Honestly, I thought I was going to have to do it for you again."

"Again?" Logan squeaked out, looking up at him. "What… do what again? What do you mean?"

Janus frowned.

"When you were panicking before, when you were still feverish, you had tried to hurt yourself… You wouldn't calm down, so I…helped," he explained, then looked away. "Or tried to, anyway."

"How?" Logan couldn't help but ask, his breathing finally starting to slow back down. His chest hurt. Everything hurt.

"It's just a trick I know," Janus replied. "I have so very many of them, after all."

Logan watched as Janus leaned back, looking more like the Janus he knew rather than the worried mess he'd awoken to. Maybe that was a good thing?

Janus turned back to him then, squinting as he added, "You know, I haven't used that one on anyone in years. It just makes you calm down really fast, it's better for things like panic attacks. Virgil had gotten so mad the last time that I used it on him, he…" Janus trailed off, covering his mouth. "But it sure seemed like you needed it. I can only hope it actually helped."

Logan blinked.

"If I could remember, I would tell you."

Janus nodded. "I believe you. But I would also rather not have to do it again… which means you'll need to talk to me, or at least someone about what's been going on."

He stared at him intently, and Logan tried not to react, without making it obvious he was pointedly ignoring the suggestion. He let himself breathe, trying to get back to some semblance of normal.

"Those kinds of thoughts rarely spring from nothing, Logan," Janus remarked.

Logan didn't really want to think about it, if he were honest. It was always so much harder to understand if he let himself think about it. There had been so much and he had no desire to see the consequences of these actions anytime soon.

But clearly Janus wanted him to make a decision anyway.

"I'm aware," he responded. "I'll consider it."

Janus just continued to stare.

"Please do."

They, thankfully, didn't discuss it further. Janus let him rest a while longer before insisting he eat something.

Logan tried not to think about everything that was being left unsaid.

It was when Patton visited him again later that day that he decided to address the issue with the stuffed animal. The issue being that it wasn't meant to be in his room anymore.

“Did you bring this here?” Logan asked, holding out the stuffed unicorn plushie so that Patton could take it back. Sure, he could admit that he had missed Palindrome, but it wasn’t as though anyone else would know that.

Patton smiled brightly, taking the stuffed animal into his arms and letting its big hooves wiggle back and forth as he gave it a quick hug.

“Oh, Palindrome had shown up in my room a while back,” he told him, taking a seat in the chair that still sat next to Logan's bed. “I tried to return her when she first appeared, but you said she wasn’t lost. You said… I think you said something about not needing her anymore?”

Logan recalled why he’d willed the stuffed animal away in the first place. He wasn't meant to keep sentimental items in his room anymore, so he put them away in storage and got rid of them entirely. He wasn't sure where Palindrome would end up, but considering Patton seemed to already have an ever-growing collection of stuffed animals in his room, it certainly didn't surprise him that it ended up there.

“That sounds about right," he replied.

Patton continued, “I figured I would let her stay with me until you needed her again, so I gave her as many puzzles I could find to play with, and any time a new book showed up, I’d give it to her to read! She seems to really like them!”

Logan wanted to be grateful, but he didn’t understand why Patton was telling him all of this.

"…this doesn’t really answer my question, Patton. Clearly, you brought her here… I mean… Uhm. You returned this stuffed animal for a reason, right?”

He didn’t like sounding attached to an inanimate object, but that didn’t seem to matter to Patton as he replied with a laugh,

“Well, sure!” Patton pushed the unicorn back into Logan’s lap, tilting the animal’s head up at him. “You needed Palindrome back, didn’t you?”

Logan grimaced. “I don’t think—”

"Whenever I’m sick, my stuffed animals are always the biggest comfort when I’m trying to sleep,” Patton explained. “It only makes sense that Palindrome could help you be comfortable, too. Isn’t that just logic? It has to be.”

Logan wasn’t sure what it was, but it definitely wasn’t logic. Not that explaining that would help matters. He sighed.

“While I appreciate the gesture, Patton—”

“Will you keep her, then?” he asked Logan earnestly.

Logan paused and looked away. He really should just get to the point with this.

He handed the stuffed toy back to Patton yet again.

“Like I said, I don’t need a stuffed animal. And certainly not to sleep comfortably.”

It was the truth. He didn’t require comfort, let alone comfort items. He’d willed the unicorn away last year because it was beyond time for him to stop clinging to a toy so unnecessarily. If anything, Patton seemed the exact type to enjoy having an extra stuffed animal around, so it was best for him to keep her, not Logan.

Logan didn't need it, Patton wanted it, so this just made sense.

He’d made up his mind about this.

Patton leaned forward ever so slightly.

“She misses you.”

…what?

Logan whipped his head back to see Patton staring right into his eyes. He tried not to squirm under such harsh attention but failed as he started to shift uncomfortably.

Patton reached out, setting the unicorn right back on Logan’s lap resolutely, and then continued to look at him with determination.

“I don’t want her to think she’s alone,” he told Logan, his voice and eyes portraying true honesty, “even with all her friends around her. I know she likes to do things by herself, but I think it’s important that she at least have that chance for comfort when she needs it most.”

He gave the smallest smile after that. “Don’t you agree?”

Logan wasn’t sure what to think.

Palindrome was just some stuffed toy. Easy to toss aside and forget. Even easier to replace, with something better, more suitable. It's as though the damn thing was built to be useless, as though it was meant to be tossed aside eventually. Even if he had kept it around for a long time until now, why would Patton or anyone else think anything important could ever come from such a thing?

“What if she doesn’t need it?” Logan asked.

Patton’s smile faded.

“Everyone needs it. Even if it’s in a different way than we expect, but that’s okay. It’s always okay.”

But it’s so excessive. They didn’t need to waste time providing comfort for someone—for something that didn’t deserve it, that didn’t appreciate it! It couldn’t care, it couldn’t reciprocate, it couldn’t do anything that could ever help anyone else! It was useless!

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just get rid of her?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

Why not just remove the problem? Why wouldn’t they just make things easier for themselves instead of trying to cater to something they didn’t even understand? It’s not like he could even begin to tell them--

“I don’t think so. I think she’s right where she belongs.” Patton reached out to pet the fur on top of Palindrome’s head, adding softly, “But it looks like maybe her friends could have done a better job at reminding her of that… but they want to try now. Do you think she’d let them?”

Logan peered down at the unicorn in his lap, trying not to cry. This felt awful, it felt wrong.

"What if she’s scared it will only make things worse?”

Why was he playing along with this? What could this possibly accomplish? Nothing was ever going to change, so why even try?

“I think she deserves the chance to see what it could be like, Logan.”

His breath came out shakily as he tried to hold back the tears building in his eyes. There was so much that didn’t make sense, so much that could go wrong, but they wanted to do this anyway? He didn’t understand why they would bother.

Logan squeezed at Palindrome’s sides, still resisting the urge to hug her. He didn’t deserve that comfort, he knew that. It didn’t stop the thought from invading his mind, though.

Any time these pesky emotions stirred up, he knew all the books and research he’d read claimed he needed to examine them and then feel them and move on, but it was as though a tightly locked door was between him and these feelings, and even if he tried to open it willingly, he couldn’t seem to get inside, even for just a look.

He knew he would never be able to understand himself or what he was feeling. Nothing would ever change that. And it was his own fault. No one else should have to deal with that. It wouldn’t be fair. He was supposedto handle this on his own.

“Logan,” Patton reached out, just barely laying a hand over his arm. “Do you think you could try?”

He wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but he just wasn’t sure. He… he wanted to, but he was terrified to know what would come of it. He wanted to but he didn’t want to bother them with all of this. He wanted to, but he couldn't possibly convince himself he would ever deserve it.

But he wanted to.

And he wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted much of anything before, except for things to finally end.

Maybe this was a different way… a better way.

He held his breath and looked up at Patton.

And nodded.

#logan angst #logan sanders #fanfiction #ts logan #long post #sanders sides #catch me finding an excuse to finally write something involving logan having a giant stuffed unicorn plush #bc i drew him crying and hugging one years ago and im tired od pretending that it's not my favorite headcanon

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