#(also coming off of a horrendous period and haven’t slept well in days)

[61below]

Brain: oh this weighted blanket? That’s niiiice.

Also brain: PT homework = compression socks? I’m mean ok I guess, I can tell it’s helping.

*three days of compression socks later* I CAN HEAR THE ELECTRICITY IN THE WALLS AND FEEL EVERY SPECK OF CLOTHING, THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE GOOD LUCK REMEMBERING ANYTHING ELSE BC WE ARE SHUTTING D O W N

[fulfillinglife2021]

My Full Truth

I’m sorry that I have always been such a lousy partner in my relationships.

Carissa, we were together from 2003 to 2008.  I cheated on you 3 times.  Once with Collette in 2006, once with Linda in 2007, and once with Crystal in 2008. I am remarkably sorry for my behavior.  I was a dumb, young, cheating asshole.  I lacked maturity in every sense of the word.  I didn’t understand what true loyalty meant in a relationship.  Although I kept my actions a secret, I know that I hurt you.  I deserve your ire, even though you never knew to express it.  I regret my actions, and one day, I hope to have he courage to tell you, and ask for your forgiveness.

—- Crystal, we met in late 2008 and I was infatuated with you from that very first moment.  I never cheated on you, but I was still inexperienced when it came to understanding, and expressing my love, and my sexuality.  I am sorry that I came on so strong, and scared you away.  you left me in early 2009, and I made it so much worse after the fact.  I dragged your name through the mud in a form of petty revenge for the heartache you caused me.  I am so sorry if that had long-standing effects on your life. —- Alexis, we weren’t together for a particularly long time, from May 2009 till August 2009.  I knew from our 2nd date that you and I werent going to mesh well.  But I decided to play along, and make you believe we were an element.  You had gotten me a job when I needed one, and I was afraid that if I broke up with you, I’d lose my job as well.  So I knowingly led you on for a few months before I had to break it off.  In that time, I met someone, and started dating them without your knowing.  It was a month into dating the both of you that I decided to break it off with you.  All of this was in extremely poor taste on my part.  You were a good, decent, love struck person, and I took advantage of you to keep my job.  I am eternally sorry for what I’ve done.  We haven’t spoken since 2009, I don’t know where you are or what you are doing, but I do want you to know, that I apologize for my actions. —- Lori J when I met you, and started dating you, it was under false pretenses.  I was dating Alexis at the time, but wasn’t interested in her.  I met you in June of 2009, and we stared dating in July of that same year.  I was honest about Alexis with you after about a week into our relationship.  The whole time we were together, I was immensely attracted to you, but felt that we didn’t click on any other level than sexually.  We broke up in Sept of 2009, and I can say that I never cheated on you, despite the fact that you accused me of it repeatedly.  Never the less, I did enjoy my time with you, and was sorry to see that ending our relationship was so hard on you. —- Lori F, the woman who would become my wife.  We met in November of 2009 in person.  For over 11 years I have loved you, and would have done nearly anything for you.  But I regret to admit, I treated our relationship worst of all when it came to my philandering.  

I cheated on you, a lot.  I slept with Carissa when you and I were first dating.  I also slept with Jenny, and Niki one night stands at separate times.  I was also openly flirting with 3 other women from work, Cheryl, Marissa, and Kira.  This was all in the period when I was referring  to us as casual dating.  When we finally took the step to being in a committed relationship, I stopped sleeping around, for a few years.   3 years later, I had become a real flirt again with the same 3 women from my job. I also began to steadily flirt with our friend Kim.  The two of us had arranged to meet privately, but in the last moment, I called it off because I didn’t want her to cheat on her boyfriend as well.  At the same time, Flirting had gotten so intense between me and Kira, we wound up sleeping together.  

You and I got married in July of 2013, but I had actively made it a point to sleep with one last person before we got married.  3 days before our wedding, I met Jennifer in Las Vegas.  I had been chatting and flirting with her for months before hand, and convinced her to meet me there to have a fling before I was married.   After that, I remained loyal to our marriage for 4 years till 2017, when we had built up a fair bit of resentment towards one another.  I went looking online to start flirting again.  At the same time, I had just been urged to start talking and patch things up with Crystal.  The opportunity was there, and I took it.  Crystal and I began flirting.  At the same time, I reached out to Carissa, and slept with her again, while you were out of town at a show.  

In 2018, flirting with Crystal became an almost daily thing.  By the fall of 2018, I took several jobs in the midwest that would take me closer to her for a short time, and for a single night, I met her in a hotel in Michigan, and we slept together.  

The two of us continued our flirting over the next year, and we would meet up again a couple more times in fall of 2019.  After which she begged me to come back in December of that year for a full week, and I did.  It was at this point I had my car accident, and knew I couldn’t hide my behavior anymore.   Although I knew I had done wrong, I chose not to own up to what I had done, and lied about it to you.  At the same time, I also chose not to stop talking to Crystal.  I did try on and off throughout 2020 to cut things off, but I found myself growing very lonely in your absence, and kept seeking Crystal out to fill that void.  It wasn’t till Jan of 2021 that I finally did cut off communication with Crystal, we haven’t spoken at length since the 3rd week of Jan 2021.

In early 2020, I discovered you were having your own affair, and after doing some digging, saw that you were partaking in the exact same behaviors I was and you had been for years.  For the first time, I felt the actions of what I had been doing, from the other side of the experience.  For the first time, I really saw how badly my actions were hurting the people around me.  And for the first time, I felt real, deep remorse for what I had done.  I felt it so badly that I could not fully put it to words, I knew then that I was being punished for my years of horrendous behavior.  That I would feel every ounce of grief I had inflicted on the people I had hurt.  These were the consequences of my actions.  I deserved what I got.

That all being said, I never expected you to fully leave me.  I never thought you’d dive full in to an extra marital affair, and maintain it for over a year.  Something beyond sex.  Something beyond physical attraction.  You found love in someone else, and ran away to pursue it.  I know you are chasing your happiness.  I don’t want to stand in your way.  You deserve to be happy.  You deserve to be in a better relationship than the one I’d be able to offer you.  I am a liar, and a cheater, and I have been since the early parts of our relationship.  You should leave me behind.  I just wish you’d gone about this in a very different way.

My bad behavior doesn’t excuse your bad behavior.  Likewise, your bad behavior doesn’t excuse mine.  I don’t want you to lie to me, I don’t want you to cheat on me.  I want you to be better than me. Now, because of what I’ve felt and the intense emotions and ramifications of my actions I’ve needed to face, I don’t want to lie or cheat anymore either.  

I want to be a better person.  I need to be a better person.  Whether our futures have us staying together or not, I swear I will be the best person I can be going forward no matter what relationship I am in.  I have felt the pain, and I know that it has changed me for the better. I’m sorry for what I did to you.  I’m sorry for every single second of my deplorable actions.  I’m sorry for choosing to be my worst self, when I had so many opportunities not to be.  Where we are now, is my fault.  I started us down this path and invited this bad karma and bad energy into our lives.  I ruined our marriage long before you started flirting with others as well.  I wish we could both come back to the table acknowledging our faults and pledging to be better people, but in truth, you deserve better than me.  You deserve to be happy, and I pray that you do find your happiness. Lori, I am sorry.  I am so very sorry.  Please forgive me.

[smoresmoresmore]

Will edit later

I just have to say

I was possibly exposed to Rabies and came to Tumblr for help and advice and was THOROUGHLY AND DISTURBINGLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THE RABIES TAG.

Omg

I was convinced I was going to die and searching anything Rabies related was UNHELPFUL AF. Not judging but y'all did not help lol.

Very long explanation of why I thought I was going to die:

Waking up to a bat (2 nights in a row) is not automatic cause to assume you will die but it is, I found out after talking to the Dept. Of Agriculture and their Epidemiologist, an immediate cause to go straight to the ER and get shot up with the vaccine and immunoglobulin so you DON'T POTENTIALLY DIE. It is not something the doctors can argue against and it is not something you should postpone. Especially since I was "under the influence" (Nyquil) at the time and even less likely to notice if I had gotten scratched or bitten. My being unaware was the key point in the urgency of going to the ER.

The ER doc was highly annoyed I knew just what to say ("I woke up with a bat in my face") and he grumpily admitted he was bound to follow CDC protocol. His annoyance was so obvious he repeatedly told me how unlikely it was I was bit and explained how "intense" the shots would be. I assume he felt the medicine could be put to better use on someone who was 100% sure and/or was injured. When I asked him what would happen to me if I WAS bitten and didn't get the shot like he wanted, he sighed and admitted "Well, you die."

"Well, shoot me up, doc!"

That night I got 7 shots. One in my arm, which hurt so bad--I guess because my nurse was new and may habe gone too deep because the subsequent shots I have gotten in the same arm haven't been anywhere near as painful-- and 6 in my buttcheeks. 3 in each.

Waking up from my Nyquil coma to a bat in my face was not fun. I had never related to those movie scenes of people screaming and running around afraid if bats. But jessuz. They are fast. And this one was swooping around my living room and deliberately getting super close to me. I had to hide under my blanket and in my fevered state this made me sweat. Trying to herd it to my now opened windows did not help. I tried to call police, fireman andnanimal control; the 1st two were useless and the 3rd was not open at 1am.

Eventually I reached out to my townie facebook group and got advice. White towels attract them. Or make it dark and quiet and hide--I did this as I was not going to run around with a towel in my undies like that video--which worked. 2 very concerned people urged me to go to a doctor.

"You say you have flu-like symptoms and a constant fever and you sleep in that room a lot. You really need to go to the ER. Rabies is so dangerous."

And after 2 nights of dealing with bats and my fever spiking right around the time they show up, I existed in a dark hole of stress. So much so that the second morning I woke up to my hand twitching erratically and my thumb muscle spasming and I started bawling. I had already gotten the shots the day before so I knew if I encountered anything rabid I should be okish (I still had 3 more to go before I was fully protected) but now, with my glitchy hand, I was panicking about "WHAT IF I ALREADY HAD IT?!"

Urgent Care had ruled out Strep twice for my odd sickness and had assured me I have a random virus and to just stay in bed for a few days. Which I had been doing faithfully, before getting bored and moving to my livingroom nest. I like to sleep in there a lot and often do when the weather is nice. I just made sure to drink water and tea and get sunlight and all the things. Including Nyquil. But my fevers were getting worse. I was feeling like crap. And now what we all assumed to be A Normal Virus was morphing into my worst nightmare.

Probably egged on by 101 temperatures, I called around until someone was willing to explaon to me whether I was dying or not. Getting told "You'll be fine. It is SO RARE," did not calm me down. I needed someone to explain how the long incubation period (months to a year) and symptoms (flu like, emotional, twitchy) did not match me.

I slept in that room on accident and on purpose since moving in almost 9 months ago. I'm a heavy sleeper and don't wake up easily. Iffff I had been bitten during one of my all-nighters doing math homework or essay writing, it makes sense I would suddenly get a random "virus" that isn't going away. I had it all worked out in my head. I was getting headaches in the sun and stores. I forced myself outside and out and about when I felt ok because fuck it if I was going to let this be a symptom I had. I was getting anxious in the shower but, knowing fear of water was a symptom, I forced myself to stay in it. (Turns out my paranoia was right. The water was starting to be hard and my skin was breaking out. It is very annoying. The timing was just horrendous)

All the doctors and nurses kindly told me I was safe since I had started the shots but no one had an answer for me when I asked if they helped if I hadddd it already. They weren't sure. The amount of information they have or are willing to share is astonishingly low.

After 2 hours of phone tag I was finallly able to get an appointment with an Infectious Disease Doctor. She told me that if I did have it there was no real evidence about the vaccine helping, especially since I had only had the first dose at that point. She told me it would be fast though and they couldn't tell until "you're foaming at the mouth." She asked to look in my mouth and when I told her about my drooliness she said to let her know if it got worse. She asked about my hand. I told her. She asked about numbness and I freaked cuz my arm did go numb at one point.

I askwd her about tests. I had read that there were a few--spinal fluid, spit, blood--that were not really reliable. She said since I had the vaccine and immunoglobulin in my system already they would show up and it would be pointless.

My only option was to wait. And chill. And try not to dwell on the fact that there is no answer or cure or way to find out if I should plan my trip to Oregon and die or if I should allow my boyfriend to visit me.

He was firmly in the You Don't Have Rabies camp and came over anyway to feed me soup and hang out. But I refused to kiss him. It made him very sad and probably extremely exasperated.

My boss was so done with me when he asked if I could come in the next day. "Sasha. You cannot have Rabies. Just come to work. You'll be fine." And I realized how crazy I sounded but I still warned all my coworkers.

Anyway, my lowgrade fever continued, my twitchiness stopped, my drooling stopped, my water was hard so I avoided the shower but cleaned my good bits, and once I doubled up my water intake my headaches disappeared. I went into a mini death spiral for a day but decided to force myself into believing I was fine.

When I started getting confused and fainty, I bought Iron supplements. When I started getting angry and anxious, I called my friends and got distracted. When it was time to get another shot, I made sure to update everyone of the weirdness Just In Case.

One nurse took the time to sit me down and listwn. That's really all I needed since no one had answers. I just needed my mind soothed and concerns not dismissed. She couldn't explain the muscle spasm but could definitely see why I was freaking out. She was the one who tested me for peace of mind. She looked into Lyme disease. She found my anemia. She explained that the amount of time that had elapsed made her sure I was going to be ok. She had watched people die in Africa from this and shw said it happens So Fast it is tragic. I would not be able to organize a trip to Oregon to die. I would become incoherent and slip away within days.

That was what I needed. A timeframe. A legit explanation of what it looks like and how it happens. And why I don't fit. This whole time I had been wondering how to tell my friends. Whether I could write all their numbers down in case I couldnt function enough to call them or remember my phone password. I was planning on cleaning my apartment so good so the landlord couldn't bash me when I was bouncing off the walls and hissing at him. I was deciding who I really needed to contact and who I could live without wasting breath on. I was planning a goodbye party. I told all 3 of my lovers ("´hey, I have this thing there is no real test for while you're alive but there is once you die so you can't get tested, and you may have it so got get shot up but no one is sure if that will help much," but I did tell them and it was hilarious to them. My favorite response being "RIP" and "F") And this all had put me in such a dark place that, coupled with a few shitty days at work with my bully of a manager, I also asked for a psych person to visit me after the Rabies shot.

After her talk I was like, oh. Thank godddd. And kinda annoyed at having to wait an extra hour in the ER for a talk that could wait til morning. But I chatted with rhem and asked for referral to a shrink since this had just highlighted how much I need help with my anxiety. Especially since the temporary issue of Rabies was being resolved but my cruel manager was still going to exist now that I was going to survive this beef with nature. It was nice to think of that way "my rabies beef is getting cooked" and the pscyh lady got me help. So that was nice. I just mainly needed to get healthy again so I could

I mean. Almostbarelybutnotreally facing a cruel death was a great way to look at life and reflect on some things. There are messes I am not at fault for, messes I avoid that I shouldn't, people and things I value and the objects that matter to me more than others for ridiculous reasons. I was so grateful to the staff for putting up with me. And for you for reading.

All of this just to say

Circle circle dot dot

Soon I get my last Rabies Shot

[haphazardlyparked]

bring the world to heel

a continuation of my fill for the superhero AU prompt: We’ve been reincarnated for centuries to battle it out as hero and villain but someone fucked up and now we’ve swapped 

Richard Keller wakes up to the trill of his alarm, three successive beeps, pause, three more. It is disgustingly mundane. Rolling over onto his side, Keller flicks out his wrist, tugs at the alarm clock on the nightstand, and frowns when nothing happens.

He doesn’t know why he expected otherwise. A bone-deep emptiness in his chest says nothing will ever happen again, even if he doesn’t know what that nothing is, so he gropes blindly for the clock and shuts it down. Then he begins the achingly tedious process of getting ready for the first day of school.

It’s rough, being a high school English teacher, because literally nothing has changed despite the long summer and his life is endlessly normal and thus horrendously boring. His new ninth grade class is full of new chirpy little shits; Gabriela, the Latin teacher and track coach, still fucking hates his guts (honestly, Keller cannot remember for the life of him why – had they slept together and he forgot?); and Headmaster Cormorant is still breathing down his neck because they both know Keller will deviate from the standard reading list sometime this year in a spectacular fashion that will bring angry parents down on Cormorant’s head.

About the only thing that’s changed is how someone replaced his blackboard with some technological monstrosity called a “smart board” over the summer. He ignores the thing entirely and hands out printed syllabi to his first class; Bates will probably bitch him out later for still not being “paperless”, but Keller honestly does not give a shit.

In the first period after lunch, which Keller has free – thank fuck for a double lunch break – Keller calls Jones, who has also been blessed by the scheduling gods, and meets the chemistry/computer science teacher outside the science building. Keller’s been banned from Jones’ labs for a few years now, and he respects the ban because otherwise Jones won’t share the moonshine he brews in his lab, and Thanskgiving break without Jones’ moonshine is just hell on earth.  

“I need help with my smart board,” Keller admits when Jones shows up. He glares down a gaggle of sophomores with a free period, who’ve slowed on their way back to their dorms in an attempt to overhear their teachers’ conversation; they scamper off guiltily.

“I’m a computer science teacher,” Jones snaps. “Not the support for an ass too lazy to attend the media sessions over the summer.”

“They mounted it over my blackboard,” Keller gripes. “Now I have nothing to write on.”

Entirely unsympathetic, Jones dismisses Keller with a, “Go talk to the new librarian.”

"Why – um, Oscar?” Keller can’t remember the new librarian’s name. Frankly, he’s annoyed they have a new one; the old librarian kept gin in her desk and loved to share, and she also never yelled at him when he habitually forgot to return his inter-library loan books.  

“Isaac,” Jones corrects. “And he’s also the new media specialist.”

With that, he disappears back into his safe-haven. Keller heads to the library to hunt down this Isaac person. 

The man is not hard to find; he’s sitting alone at the small circulation desk as soon as Keller steps through the door. There’s something familiar about the tall, somewhat thin new librarian, or maybe he’s just got one of those forgettable faces framed by forgettable glasses and forgettable dark hair.

“Can I help you, Mr. Keller?” Isaac the librarian asks, barely looking up from his computer when Keller leans across the circulation desk to get a better look at him.

“So this is how you’ve brought the world to heel?” Keller says. The words are out of his mouth before he can even think about them, and when he hears what he says, he wants to think what the hell? but instead it just sounds like exactly what he’s supposed to say. “Big fucking waste, if you ask me.”

Isaac looks up from his computer. He pushes away from the desk, flips open the hinge on the counter and joins Keller on the other side of the circulation desk, leaning against it by his side like they’re a pair of old friends. “After all the cycles we’ve been through, I did wonder if it was going to work on you,” he says like Keller will understand what he’s talking about. Keller doesn’t. “You’re always ruining things, Kalna.”

And oh – that name sings beneath Keller’s skin, sure and right, and everything clicks into place.

“Iska,” Kalna frowns, glancing around the empty high school library as if seeing it for the first time. 

“Seriously, this is the fucking worst. Ninth grade English teacher? You sure know how to pick your torture.”

Iska shrugs. They’re standing close enough that Kalna feels the motion of it against his side. “I find it rather nice.”

“Of course you do, you get to be a librarian. But that still doesn’t explain all of this.” Kalna waves vaguely at the air. “It’s all disgustingly normal.”

“That’s the point, Kalna,” Iska says sharply. “We’re all normal. We can’t do any harm like this.”

“I dunno about that. Gabriela’ll probably still try to stab me next faculty meeting. Oh god - faculty meeting. Why would you do this to us?”

“We can’t do any harm like this,” Iska repeats flatly, but Kalna fixates on the we. Iska and Kalna. But Iska continues. “Think about it. Whenever any of us superpowered people fight, Kalna, we put thousands of people at risk. Hundreds of thousands. Remember that time you razed an entire city? There were millions of people, then.”

“And you had that – whatsherface, with the containment fields. Captured all of my work in time-containment and unraveled it. Nobody died – well, not those millions, anyway.”

“That was very nearly luck.” Kalna sees Iska’s grimace out of the corner of his eye. “And I can’t always be lucky. Don’t deny it: when we’re pitted against each other, we raise the stakes beyond what’s natural.”

“Ever heard of nuclear weapons?”

“We’re worse. And we get worse every time. Each new cycle we get tangled up in new and ever-more terrible possibilities. One day we’re going to destroy the entire world. We might even – hell, we might even break these cycles. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Kalna kind of sees Iska’s point. It’s funny, because it’s only now that he’s spent years of this cycle trying to stop Iska and then losing so badly that he understands what Iska is so afraid of. And he has thought about it, once or twice or more than that; has thought about how his lives might go a little bit easier if Iska didn’t come back with him. Right now, in this cycle, Kalna’s gut twists painfully with shame and horror at the thought. 

“Okay,” he says, straightening from his slouch against the circulation desk. He turns to stare at Iska, but Iska doesn’t look back at him. Kalna settles for scrutinizing the side of Iska’s face. “So let’s stop.”

“What?”

“Let’s stop,” Kalna says again. “Fighting, or whatever. But god, just don’t make me teach high school.”

“Kalna.” Somehow, Iska manages to pack surprise and doubt and something like hope into Kalna’s name. “You and I could agree to a ceasefire, but there are still other superheroes and super villains out there.”

Iska might be endlessly practical, but Kalna has arrogance enough for the both of them. “Not like us,” he asserts smugly. “There’s no one else like us. We could be like, the superpolice of superpowered people.”

That startles a laugh out of Iska. Then he pauses thoughtfully. “Superpolice sounds ridiculous. But… perhaps we could, ah, monitor the others. ”

When Kalna said it, he’d been joking; when Iska says it, though, Kalna kind of sort of believes that they could do it. Monitor the damage the rest of them do, and everything. And when he gives it moment’s more thought, Kalna decides he likes the idea of Iska, who’s so, so damnably good at following the rules – he likes the idea of Iska making those rules. As long as Kalna doesn’t have to be a fucking ninth grade teacher.

Kalna thinks about all the cycles that live under his skin, thinks about the lives upon lives he’s spent spinning his wheels, trying so hard to do this or that only to find sharp-eyed Iska, tirelessly dutiful but always so weary, barring his path. Fuck that.

“Let’s do it,” Kalna says firmly. He grins. “Seriously, Iska, let’s do it.”

Iska looks to the side, drawn by Kalna’s decisiveness and – fuck it, Kalna thinks, and leans forward. When he presses his lips against Iska’s, it’s probably the most chaste kiss Kalna has ever been involved in. Iska’s lips are dry, almost chapped, and part in surprise. And when Iska sighs against Kalna’s mouth – it feels like home.

Slipping an arm around Iska and tugging him closer, Kalna doesn’t notice how the world melts around them.

When she opens her eyes, she’s laid out on the cold concrete floor, no longer bound to the railing – Gazelle, she thinks when her heart leaps into her throat. I’m Gazelle. Not a track coach and Latin teacher mooning after Headmaster Cormorant – oh. Well shit.

But Gazelle doesn’t have time for that now.

Pushing herself to her feet, she staggers slightly, bracing herself against the circular platform in Darkwell’s shitty secret lair. Uncharacteristically slow, she follows the curve of the platform holding the Doomsday Device, heading towards the shift and sighs of someone waking that she hears on the other side. 

When she gets to the other side, she sees that someone is actually two someones, and that they are quite awake.

“What the fuck, Quickdraw,” Gazelle says bitterly, and it feels like an echo from forever ago. He’s stretched beneath Darkwell’s thin form, laying on top of the pieces of a discarded straight jacket, and they’re really going at it when Gazelle interrupts. They jerk away from each other, but they don’t go very far; Darkwell pushes himself back onto his knees, still straddling Quickdraw’s hips.

“You were in league this whole time,” she accuses flatly.

“It’s called seduction, Gazelle,” Quickdraw snaps. He props himself up onto his elbows so he can lock eyes with her and glare. “And I’m saving the goddamn world with it, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Darkwell frowns mildly at Gazelle’s supposed teammate. “Language, Kalna,” he says, then looks over at Gazelle. “But I’m afraid he’s correct,” the supervillain tells her blandly. “The promise of dirty, bed-breaking sex has caused me to reconsider my plans.”

Beneath him, Darkwell twitches and makes a choked sound.

Gazelle feels laughter burbling in her throat. It’s probably hysteria. What the fuck.

“Oh yeah, about those plans,” Quickdraw says, clearing his throat as if he only now remembers the absolute shitstorm Darkwell has brought down on them all. He sits up fully, putting Darkwell off balance and then tugging him into his lap with one arm. Quickdraw stretches out his other arm, and when he curls his fingers into his palms, Gazelle hears the screech of inner wires punching through the dark metal shell of Darkwell’s doomsday device; in mere seconds, the thing is entirely gutted. 

Darkwell winces, but to Gazelle’s surprise, he doesn’t seem otherwise upset by the destruction of his creation. 

“Can you take the open-source whatever off the dark web, or wherever you uploaded them?” Quickdraw asks.

Darkwell suddenly looks sheepish. “I already did–” 

“–You’re a terrible supervillain–” 

”–Though a handful of people managed to download them before I took them offline.“

Gazelle suddenly feels like she’s punched in the gut. She wheezes. Quickdraw glances at her with concern, but the ass knows better than to coddle her. 

"Well, you and I,” and Gazelle is sure Quickdraw means him and Darkwell, not him and Gazelle, "will just have to go visit them. I’ll eviscerate–”

“–their machines,” Darkwell interrupts firmly.

“Sure, Iska.” Quickdraw sounds entirely too cheerful. “I’ll eviscerate their machines.”

Gazelle is having difficulty remembering who’s supposed to be her superhero teammate and who’s supposed to be the world-destroying supervillain. Distracted, she doesn’t notice how Quickdraw has twisted his fingers again until it’s too late. She looks down at the needle she finds buried in her thigh. Where the fuck had he pulled that from?

Wherever it’s from, or whatever it is, it’s quick-acting. The edges of Gazelle’s vision are already going blurry, and Quickdraw’s mocking voice is a little fuzzy when he says, “Tell the headmaster I’m quitting, thanks Gabriela.”

What a dick, Gazelle thinks, and then everything goes dark.