#3 exams and like 2 labs a week WILL kill someone<3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[skarloeyspa]

Traintober 2024 day 1 + 2: "Dawn" + "First light"

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Oh No! Here Comes Trouble: (more) Headcanons

Look I have no excuses left. I’m trying to channel Guangyan’s academic success and only succeeding in channeling Yiyong’s. They practically owe me a season two at this point for making me the OnePer of my own life.

1.) Chuying has gotten…well. A tad bit “cautious” now, never mind her coworkers’ gentle comment about her being “totally fucking paranoid,” because they didn’t have to scrape Yiyong’s broken body and Guangyan’s broken heart off the floor of a museum, leaving their own broken confidence behind, now did they? Its not really a problem. Until it is. Until she clotheslines one of Guangyan’s little college friends who’s running towards him and looking shady about it (who looks happy at school on a Tuesday? Villains. Psychopaths. Pastry chefs. Bad people, that’s who). It’s possible her boss was right to force her to go to therapy. She will not be telling him that. She maintains overcaution is best (Yiyong had laughed when he’d heard about it and Guangyan had looked suspiciously gleeful at the sight of his supposed school friend’s cartwheel through the air), so it’s fine.

2.) Yiyong’s first case post coma two (ugh) is a dead violinist trying to locate his lost sonata that it turns out his fake friend stole and killed him over. After the case is settled, Guangyan waxes on about some dumb movie called Coco and forces Yiyong to watch it. It’s after one of Yiyong’s PT sessions, so they sit in Yiyong’s bed for it. There is approximately no room and Guangyan keeps hissing about how certain people treat their guests, but they eventually create a blanket fort, largely by accident, and settle in to watch. Yiyong’s mother joins them partway through, smelling like dye chemicals. Yiyong is not upset by the story. He isn’t. He’s upset by his mom’s worn out voice as she asks random questions about the film like Yiyong knows things, he’s upset about the stupid plotting because the stupid kid doesn’t feel like he can follow his stupid passion and is missing his stupid family, he’s upset by Guangyan’s very soft hands that keep wrapping around Yiyong’s arm (annoying, clingy, he makes no move to stop him) during sad moments. So that’s why if he cries a little, it’s because he’s upset about those things.

3.) Yiyong’s mom and Guangyan’s dad have a “what the shit are the kids up to” drinks session a few nights a week. She’s convinced him to try her favorite beer. Neither of them really have many friends, but they have some very strange young people in common and a lot of silences in their lives where there used to be more people. One of their favorite drinking games involves the number of times the kids will text complaining something predictable about each other, or whether Chuying will send a vague, panicked text about something they are definitely not supposed to be up to.

4.) Guangyan has a terrible, terrible day. Everything goes wrong. He oversleeps by fifteen minutes, he gets two questions wrong (wrong???) on an exam, he drags his feet in dejection on the way to lab work and gets scolded for being “almost late,” and one of his classmates tells him he “doesn’t look great today.” In a fit of frustration at his own imperfections, he sends Chuying and Yiyong a rare introspective text wondering if he’s just the absolute most worthless, useless person ever. Chuying sends back about fifty inspirational Pinterest posts about how you’re ❤️special as you are❤️, and follows these up by threatening to come over and beat up whoever made him think this (he declines carefully). Yiyong says nothing in the chat, which he expected. But. He comes home and finds that Someone has drawn a picture for him, crumpled it up and thrown it through his window (based on the dirt on the outside, the toss failed several times). The drawing is rendered in sunset colors, and it’s of the teacups ride at the amusement park. It’s beautifully drawn, with careful detail down to the design on the teacup. In the forefront, two figures are whirling around in a teacup. One looks a little grumpy, the other one is alight with joy and shaded in with soft pastel. The caption simply reads, “The Most Worthless, Useless Day Ever.”

5.) The trio go on expeditions together—not just for cases now, but because Chuying saw a cool festival, or Guangyan needs people to come with him to this horrible networking event (and later regrets this deeply), or Yiyong gets that distant look in his eyes and needs to start walking. He likes that his people, his two people (and his high school friends, if he so chooses) will go somewhere, anywhere with him for no reason. Even just to sit on a bench somewhere. He thinks a lot on these walks. About how Chuying needs to stop second-guessing herself these days, because something hurts in his chest to see the mighty OnePer flicker with doubt; about how Guangyan always gets the same look in his eyes when he’s overworked himself and is about to fall asleep on Yiyong’s shoulder (he’s not entirely ready to examine why he always waits around on late study nights with anticipation for those moments); about how much he wishes he could have introduced them both to his dad and grandfather. He thinks about how his family is here and not-here, all still with him one way or another, and how he’s probably going to start drawing that comic again soon (after all, he did have that one reader, why not dream big?).

[elius-learns-to-write]

Class Drama and Anger Issues

Hey besties this will contain swearing, violence, catcalling/ sexual harassment, blood and just horrible behaviour so please take care reading this, love you all <3

You had always been very protective of your friends

It wasn’t like you didn’t think they could stand up for themselves

You understood that 100%

However whenever anyone insulted them or talked bad about them you were the first person to throw hands

You were sure that your jaw had locked from how long you had been tensing it. You see, being sat at the back of the classroom was great, you could see everyone and hear everyone. Which means that whenever someone decided to bitch and moan about the people in the little group you had managed to join, that you would be the first person to hear it. Like right now for example, Liz and Peter had broken up a few days ago and she didn’t take it so well and had taken up talking about him behind his back. Which had led us to this: you at the back of the room, fists and jaw clenched in an effort to not walk over to her and her little friends and wipe that smug look right off her face. “And he isn’t even that smart, God knows how he got into Stark industries” nope that was it, that was the last straw. You pushed the stupid science lab chair back so hard it fell to the ground, heads turned to you as you stormed over to where Liz and her group where currently at which just happened to be at the front of the classroom. God, were you lucky that the teacher had left to go grab some more textbooks from some cupboard down the hall, otherwise you would have been dead when you said “Listen Liz. Peter is an amazing and smart boy who cares more for others than he does himself. He works harder than anyone else I know and he still manages to make sure others are okay. He is twice the person you will ever be and if you don't shut up in the next 2 minutes you won’t have to worry about being bitter over a breakup, you’ll be too worried about getting a set of new teeth”. If this was a cartoon steam would be pouring from your ears and your face would be blood red, which wasn’t too far from what you looked like now. Peter had taken a sick day and thank god he had, otherwise he would have killed you for even saying anything, however Ned was still here and he was waiting to see how far you would go before having to step in and calm you down. “Oh how sweet L/n, you think you’re all strong and scary” her and her friends' sickly sweet laughs echoed in your ears as you clenched your fists even harder. “Y/n come on Peter wouldn’t want this” ned tried to reason and even in your rage filled stupor you realised he was right and took a breath to try and calm yourself down “say anything again and you’ll see just how strong and scary I can be” you spat, stroming away, grabbing your bag and walking out of the room just in time for your teacher to walk back in, “where’s L/n?” he asked. 

Okay maybe you did tend to overreact 

You just really cared about your friends

They were there when you needed them and you wanted to do the same 

You couldn’t help it that you got angry when people decided to talk about them 

In some situations though it was acceptable to get angry

You, Mj and Betty had been coming back from the Cinema late one night after deciding that you deserved to spend some time together after exam week to treat yourselves. Unfortunately walking through the streets at 10pm meant getting some very unwanted attention from older men. “Hey mama looking good” one man slurred as you walked past him grabbing the girls hands a little tighter in an attempt to ground yourself and reassure them that you would keep them save, “hey don’t be like that, we just want to talk” another man added, honestly what was it with them? Couldn’t they see you obviously didn’t want to “talk” to them. You hadn’t even realised your feet had stopped moving until Betty gently placed her hand on your shoulder and whispered “It’s fine just let it go” and tried to give you a nudge in the direction you had originally been going. “Hey! Don’t just ignore us! We know you want some attention” you didn’t know who had said it and at this point you didn’t care, worrying more about teaching them a thing called respect than about who voiced their unwanted thoughts. Letting go of your friends hands, turning around slowly and walking towards the men with a smile on your face so sweet it was almost scary. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that women aren’t your submissive little toys?” you sung punctuating your sentence with a kick to one guy's nuts and a punch to the other's nose. “Because someone really should” and as the men were recovering from your atack you stalked away along the dimly lit street and continuing your journey to Mj’s house.

Okay so we have clearly established your hatred towards people who disrespect your friends 

The Avengers new about your strong feelings and respected the fire that you had 

Of course they did have Bruce try and teach you some breathing exercises 

Spoiler alert they didn’t help very much 

So when Bucky got a call from your school telling him that he would have to pick you up as you were suspended for a week

He couldn’t say he was surprised

“I’m going to pick Y/n up from school, be back in a bit” Bucky called to the rest of the team who had been watching some sort of reality show on the new Tv Tony had no reason to buy but did, “why? What happened?” Steve replied, a look of concern on his face “They got into a fight and so they are suspended for a week” the supersoldier sighed, grabbing the car keys and whispering “what did you do this time Y/n” to himself.

I’ll tell you what happened

You had been on your way to English when you had seen Flash taunting Mj, waving her book above his head and laughing hysterically about something. Instantly you dropped your bag to the floor and stormed over to them “Hey Flash, what are you doing there buddy?” you shouted loud enough to seem intimidating but not loud enough to capture the attention of the teachers and students who were already in class. “None of your business Y/n, move along” he spat back, if looks could kill he would be six feet under and halfway to hell as you ripped the book from his grasp and slammed him into the lockers “really? Because to me it looks like you’re being rude to my good friend Mj and I don’t take that very lightly”. Gripping him by the collar and pushing him even further into the lockers that he was sure his body had made a dent in the metal, however flash was never one to give up like the shaking leaf of a man he was. Pushing you hands off and shoving you by your shoulders he said “aww look Mj your angry little guard dog has come to your rescue again. How sweet” if there was one thing you hated more than stupid boys and disrespect it was being called a dog. You weren’t gonna let him call you that. Quicker than he could say “Don’t hit me” your fist came flying straight into the boy's noise, a satisfying crunch being made upon impact. Now throughout all of this no one had heard the commotion and they wouldn’t have if Flash didn’t scream out in pain and then faint at the sight of his own blood.

That’s how you ended up getting suspended 

It was what you had told your dad when he picked you up because you had no reason to lie

No matter how proud of you he was he still gave you a talking to 

You both had a long talk about how best to go about controlling your anger and instead of going back to Bruce you decided to take a few anger management classes

And so far it’s going great

(Until flash decides to open his mouth again)

[voiceswithoutlips]

Calico - Chapter One

— pairing: Hybrid ot7 x Human Reader (Female) — genre: hybrid AU , fluff, angst, slow burn (like real slow), eventual smut — word count: 1.8K — Rating: M — warnings: trauma, mention of past abuse. 

Click for Tag List

— chapter summary: 

Y/N runs a animal shelter, Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. What will Y/N do when her sanctuary is threatened by an unexpected hybrid?

— A/N: This is going to be a series, I’m just getting back to writing, so I’d really appreciate your input and feedback <3

Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 3.5 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6

“So do you like your new puppy?” I asked the little girl that was trying to hold a squirming golden retriever pup. She frantically nodded her head. How cute!

“Congratulations on the new addition to your family! We’ll send someone for an inspection soon but I don't see how there can be any problems,” I reassured the parents. They were proudly beaming at their daughter, I doubt they even heard what you said. 

“I’m going to name him Bubbles!” Sana squeaked excitedly as the family left with their new pet. I suppressed a giggle, I was a sucker for cuteness. 

Seeing one of our animals get adopted was the best feeling in the world. Running a shelter was not the easiest thing in the world, grumpy animals, grumpy humans and an abundance of body fluids to clean up but it was rewarding. Calico was a no-kill shelter, a privately owned animal shelter. The upside was that we didn’t have to rely on the government for funding, the downside was the paperwork. Every animal that came to the shelter had to be meticulously checked and catalogued. 

The legalities were another headache. Most animals that came to Calico were rescues. We worked with several animal rights organizations that collected evidence and built cases against the owners. Sometimes we got rescues that weren’t exactly legal so we had to get the evidence and build the case ourselves. That’s why Calico had Song Hwa, a badass lawyer. She was just five feet tall but she could stare down men twice her size. 

“One down, two to go,” Jason said as he plopped down on the couch in your office. He was the head veterinarian at Calico, overseeing the health of the animals. He was also my best friend. 

“We have three potential families visiting tomorrow. How’s Hector doing?” I asked as I stretched in your chair. 

“He’s good but I’m still against the name Hector. He looks more like a Raphael,” Jason said with a frown. Last week one of our animal handlers Shownu found a box near the shelter’s gate. There was a small turtle in it, the poor thing was injured. Jason had to amputate his left hind leg because it was infected. 

“I’m not naming him after a mutant turtle. He’s a one legged turtle from the sea, he’s a pirate and nothing you say will change my mind,” I had named him after Hector Barbosa from Pirates of the Carribean movies after I won the rock paper scissors tournament against Jason. 

“Dorks,” Hana scoffed from the corner. She was the one who dealt with the potential families, showing them around the shelter, doing background checks and whatnot. I was the one who sealed the deal and dealt with the paperwork. I was terrible at social niceties, somehow I always ended up saying the wrong thing and had the worst timing in the history of humanity. 

Before Jason and I could retaliate Moonji burst through the door. “He’s back, Yonu is here,” he was breathless. He must’ve ran here all the way from the gates. Moonji was the other animal handler, he was a retired botanist with a wife and two daughters. 

We all collectively sighed. Yonu was a proud member of Animal Liberation Front, an extremist group or as the government would like to call them “animal rights terrorists”. Once in a blue moon Yonu would drop by without a warning to drop off rescued lab animals, he had a thing against scientists. The problem was that they were illegally acquired so we had to lie on the paperwork. Every time Yonu visited Calico, it was a stress fest for everyone, well everyone except Yonu. 

I reluctantly made my way to the exam room. Yonu was standing there bickering with Song Hwa with a box of rabbits. 

“We are NOT taking in the rabbits unless you tell us where you got them!” Song Hwa put her foot down. 

“It's classified,” Yonu said with a grin. 

“Then take them back,” Song Hwa was staring daggers at him.

“Yonu, you know we need to clear the legal side of things,” I shook my head, he knew how things worked. Usually he would brag about his conquest, giving us in depth details about his adventures. Sometimes he brought back research and documents for evidence.Something didn’t sit right with me. Where did he get the rabbits? Why wouldn’t he tell us?

“Sorry sugar, can’t share the details this time,” I sighed at his nickname. One day Yonu discovered that I didn’t like sugar in my coffee and he decided to start calling me Sugar. He was one annoying bastard. 

Jason was already weighing the rabbits and taking their temperature. No matter what methods Yonu used to ‘rescue’ the animals, we always took them in. Song Hwa always said I was too soft, she didn’t know how wrong she was.

There were seven rabbits in total. All white with long ears and pink noses. They were unusually small. “Yonu did you kidnap kittens?” I frowned as I leaned in to take a closer look. 

“No they are all adult males,” Jason interjected. He was checking them one by one, taking their blood to run tests, checking their limbs for any injuries, it was a routine procedure. 

“Aren’t they too small?” they were.

“Maybe they are like those toy poodles… toy bunnies?” Song Hwa suggested. It could be or maybe their growth was stunted. Either way, I didn’t like it, something was off about this, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. 

Jason was running blood panels in the lab as I took over the paperwork. The rabbits were safely left in a hatch outside in the garden. Yonu had miraculously disappeared as soon as we turned our backs and I was starting to get a headache. 

The rabbits barely showed any movement when they were being examined. They were practically limp in Jason’s hands. They had clearly been abused. I didn’t like the blank look in their eyes. Most of the time if the animal was scared it’d get defensive and lash out, it was a good sign, it meant that it still had its faculties. These rabbits didn’t make a squeak as they were moved to a new place, it was worrying. I just hoped they weren’t too far gone. 

“We have a problem,” Jason said as soon as I entered the lab. He was sitting in front of the computer, double checking the results. 

“This day just keeps getting better,” I murmured as I leaned in to see what he was looking at. Not that I could make any sense of it. 

“One of the rabbits is a hybrid,” did I hear that right?

“Come again?” did he just say what I thought he said?

“We have a hybrid in our hatch,” my heart sank.

The presence of a hybrid posed a threat to Calico. Not because he was dangerous, but because he was stolen. The laws regarding hybrids were still primitive in most countries. They were basically slaves to the system, regarded as sub-human. Hybrids were considered as property, something to be owned. Rare animal hybrids were highly sought after by the wealthy to show off their status. So technically the rabbit hybrid in our hatch belonged to someone, we had no right to keep him here. If his owner found out, they would sue us. If the government found that we were keeping a stolen hybrid they’d shut us down. 

“Let’s just send him to a hybrid shelter,” Shownu huffed. The staff was gathered in your office for an emergency meeting.

“Most of those shelters have terrible conditions. Why not just keep him here, we have license to house hybrids, it's not that big of a deal,” Jason said. 

“Might I remind you that he is stolen. We can’t keep him here, we have a shelter inspection next week,” Song Hwa frowned. 

Few months ago we had decided to expand Calico to accommodate hybrids too, we had enough room to do so. We had constructed a hybrid “enclosure” as per the government guidelines. They had sent us the requirements. … they wanted us to put people in cages. We all collectively agreed that no hybrid will ever be housed in that place. No matter what anyone said, they were still human. 

“We can’t just abandon him, who knows what those lab people did to him,” Hana retaliated and an argument broke out. I knew they loved this place, they all wanted what’s good for the shelter. This wasn’t this first time we had to lie but having a hybrid was different. None of us had ever dealt with a hybrid before, even if we decided to keep him, what then? But I knew I couldn’t hand him over. Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. And that rabbit hybrid needed our help. 

“Enough. We took in the animals that Yonu had brought before because they needed help. We’ve lied on the documents and it’s no different this time. That hybrid needs our help, we just need to come up with a plan,” I passed the verdict. Not everyone liked it but I knew they’d never let me down. 

After the stressful day all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Jason and watch TV. Our house was on the edge of the property, secluded in the forest. It was a country cottage with a private garden. YouI stopped by the rabbit hatch on my way back. The poor bunnies were all squished together in a corner, scared of the new environment and the open space outside. 

I couldn’t tell which one was the hybrid as I leaned in to take a look. Looking for him was no use. Maybe talking would work. I sat down beside the hatch with a sigh.

“I know you’re there,” I said quietly. “It must’ve been scary huh? Being taken from the lab. Yonu, the man who brought you here, he’s a good person. He only wanted to help. His methods aren’t always ….well savory but his heart was in the right place. Do you know what this place is? It's called Calico, it's a shelter for animals. We take care of animals who need help and find them a new home. 

“This is my sanctuary. Nobody will hurt you here. You don’t have to be scared. You are safe here, I’m going to keep you safe, okay?” One of the rabbits was looking at me, he quickly ducked his head as he caught my gaze. I smiled, he was listening. 

“You must be hungry huh? Rabbits only get veggies and greens, don’t you want to eat pizza, and ice cream, and pancakes, maybe some sashimi…” I rambled on about food, about Calico and the staff, inside the hatch a bunny was listening intently to my stories. 

Next

[depressedacadamia]

The Anatomy of the Sun- Chapter I

Edit- This is the first chap in a Percy Jackson/ Greys anatomy AU as well as my first fic! It’s going to follow the Grey’s anatomy plot behind the patients and the romances will be loosely based off it. I hope you do enjoy it! It was inpsired by @buoyantsaturn and their fic ‘Into you like a train’. 

Summary: Dr Will Solace just transferred to the New York Presybetarian hospital to become their Head of Trauma. Dr Nico Di Angelo is a month fresh out of Med- school and is starting his internship at New York Presbytarian. Nico, excited to join his best friend and head of the neurology department- Percy Jackson, wants to prove that he is not just the legacy that his sister- Bianca Di Angelo, left. As the doctors battle to save lives, they also battle to save relationships- but some may say it's too late. 

Chapter I- Work Work

Nico could feel his chest pounding as he drove. It wasn’t a good kind of pounding, not that there ever really is, but a -my heart is beating so damn fast - kind of pounding. Today was his first day at New York Presbytarian Hospital as an actual doctor. A surgeon. An intern.

 He groaned as he remembered that he would basically be the servant of his bosses for the next year. He wished his sister was here- she’d tell him how awesome he’d be, all the cool parts of internship and how ‘the friends you make here are friends for life’. Nico wasn’t nervous about friends though- he had known the Head of Neuro, Percy Jackson, for almost his entire life. In fact, it had been Percy who inspired him to become a surgeon. Nico knew- As a surgeon, you either have what it takes to play or you don’t. Nico’s sister , Bianca, was one of the greats, Nico on the other hand was so screwed.

The first Nico noticed about the hospital was that it was very very bright. Maybe it wasn’t and Nico was panicking; it wouldn’t be so beyond him. He watched as several other cars pulled up with other newbies similar to himself. He noticed that some people had their own stethoscopes- would anybody notice that his was used? The stethoscope he wore had the initials B.D.A engraved into the side of the drum. Did it matter if someone noticed that his was old? He could easily afford a new one either way but he had wanted to wear his sister's one. He hoped it would bring him good luck because he had a good feeling that he was going to need it. 

He walked into the Hospital where he was directed to a cleared Operating Room for the new interns who were having their introduction. He passed a group of attendings, all of whom he vaguely recognised but he noticed one in particular with curly blond hair. Of all the years he had tagged along with Percy to hang out at the hospital, he had never seen that dude- Why haven’t I seen him before?

“Every one of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors- Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you- say hello to your competition. 8 of you will switch to an easier speciality. 5 of you will crack under the pressure, 2 of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line- This is your arena. How do you play? That's up to you,” A man with long brown hair and greying roots dramatically explained. Nico realised that this was the Chief of Surgery- Chiron! Nico was surprised to learn that he still worked here after all these years. He recalled Bianca talking about Chiron who had been her mentor. 

Nico looked around at what was his competition-  as he thought, he was so screwed.

As he made his way into the locker room, some faces became familiar. He recalled some of these faces- the people he had met at the mixer. Nico decided to focus on work and not making friends; if someone spoke to him, he’d reply but he was not initiating any conversations. He had diagnosed himself with the overall dislike of humanity. Just as he was contemplating wearing his white coat, ( he remembered Bianca telling him that everyone knows that the doctors with the cleanest coats are the newbies and he did not want people noticing) the girl to his left with cropped brown hair and a determined expression tapped him on the shoulder.

“You’re Nico right? Which resident have you got?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’m Nico and I’ve got Chase. What about you?”

 “ Same. And it’s Meg.”

A guy from across the room turned around, excited to have something in common with others. His hair was short and blond but not the same colour as the new attending that Nico had noticed earlier. This guy's hair was almost a platinum kind of blond whereas the attending had golden hair- Like the colour of sunrise. 

“You’ve got her too? So did I- You’re Nico, Nico Di Angelo right? I’m Jason Grace- we met at the mixer. You made a bold impression; black, skinny ripped jeans,  Ramone T-shirt and skull rings despite the fact it was obviously a work event… Okay I’ll stop talking,” The man rushed out all at once.

“Grace, Mccaffrey, Di Angelo and June!” A voice called out into the locker room. Nico looked at what were supposed to be his future friends. If he was supposed to feel some sort of magical bond with them- he sure as hell was not. The girl in front (who Nico could only assume was Dr June) was almost hopping - okay, she’s a happy person,  Avoid her at all costs- he put in a mental reminder. Nico watched as she approached the Blonde woman at the desk. Nico almost face palmed- Her surname was Chase- this had to be Percy’s girlfriend that he had been telling him about over the phone a while ago. June started talking only to be cut off.

“I’m Juniper June but most people just call me-”  

“I have 5 rules, memorise them. Rule number 1- don’t bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change. Trauma protocol, phone list and pagers-” Annabeth pointed to the desk behind her. There lay 4 pagers which all the interns, including Nico, scrambled forward to grab.

“-Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run- you hear me? A run, Rule number 2- Your first shift starts now and lasts 48 hours. You’re interns, grunts, nobodies- bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop and don’t complain!” She called as she led them across the bridge and into the second section of the hospital. Nico, not being the tallest person, struggled slightly to keep up.  They walked into a dark room that seemed to have bunk beds with thin mattresses and flimsy unmade covers. 

“On call rooms- attendings hog them- sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to Rule number 3. If I’m sleeping, don’t wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number 4- the dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only will you have killed a person, you would have woken me up for no good reason. We clear?” 

Nico was clear but he also wasn’t. He doesn’t remember Bianca telling him any of these rules and he also didn’t recall hearing the 5th rule. Did she already say it when he wasn’t listening? He didn’t think so but he also didn’t want to look like an idiot. He decided to ask, if he was going to fail at this hospital, he might as well fail knowing everything there was to know.

“That's only 4 rules. You said there were 5.” Nico slid in between Meg and Dr Grace, his head only up to the bases of their necks. Just Nico said those words, he heard a beeping which he could only assume came from someone's pager. Annabeth immediately looked down, grabbing the pager she had tagged into her waist.

“Rule number 5- When I move, you move.”

Hour 1

Nico slipped on his gloves as he stood in the elevator with the other interns. The second he heard its ‘ping’ he rushed forward, eager to learn. The wind blasted into his eyes and immediately, Nico raised his hands to cover his face. His hair flopped about as the helicopter descended in front him. He raised his head slightly and saw the same golden haired attending that he had noticed earlier- Nico took a guess that he was the trauma surgeon. He followed Dr. Chase who ran forward and helped lift the stretcher out of the helicopter. Nico perked his ears up as he heard the trauma surgeon recite her history.

“Katie Bryce, 15 years old, female, new onset seizures- intermittent for the past week. IV lost en route- Started grand mal seizing as we descended,” He shouted over the loud roar of the engine. Crap, Grand mal seizures, really? God really thought lets give me a hard case. They rushed to get her inside and Nico was trying to not panic as he heard Dr. Chase command the staff like it was her own mini army.

 “Put her on her side. 10 Milligrams of diazepam. No, the white lead is on the right. Righty whitey, smoke over fire. Give her a large bore IV, Don’t let the blood hemolyze.”

A different doctor walked in, his hair was black and cut short. His skin was a creamy white and Nico recognised the second language under ‘Doctor Zhang’ on his white coat to be chinese. 

“Dr. Chase, what do we have?” He asked, flipping through her chart. 

“Right now, nothing.”

“Okay, let's shotgun her.” He raised his hands and took a step backwards, allowing for the interns to continue their treatment. 

“Okay, you heard the man. Shotgun means every test in the book- CT, CBC, Chem 7, Tox screen. Mccaffery- you’re running labs, Grace- patient work ups and Di Angelo- take her for a CT,” Dr. Chase ordered

“Um, Dr. Chase, I think you forgot me,” Juniper piped up meekly. Annabeth turned around and gave her a firm look before telling her,

“Honey, you’re doing rectal exams.”

Nico couldn’t tell if he should laugh at the poor intern or console her. 

Each intern was busy. Extraordinarily busy. Nico did not expect the line for the CT machine to be so long. This was the best hospital in all of New York! You’d think they would be much faster but no, here Nico was with his patient who he had recently learnt, loved to talk… about herself.

“I’m missing my pageant,” Kaite whined.

“You’re missing your pageant?” Nico had to physically restrain himself from snorting. So that's what non- doctors  and people with normal lives did. Things like going to pageants.

“Yeah! And I was super excited because the judges were getting to the talents for the pageant- Mine is rhythmic gymnastics. I sprained my ankle and fell when I was training but now I was soo ready but then...” she threw her arms up slightly signifying everything around them and Nico understood- she had a seizure which stopped her from competing.

 “Katie Bryce’s labs came out clear, nothing in the results that would explain her seizures,” Meg informed Dr. Chase who was currently peeking her head out of a surgery. Dr. Chase nodded and was about to return to assisting on the procedure when Meg started talking again

“I heard that the attending picks the most promising intern on the first to perform a minor procedure.”

Dr. Chase looked anything but impressed.

“Go away,” she deadpanned as she closed the door in Meg’s face and returned to her surgery.

“It’s just what I heard!” Meg mumbled exasperatedly as she left the scrub room.

Hour 7

The cafeteria was full. One would think the hospital cafeteria would be stocked with healthy foods but in reality it was quite the opposite. It was stacked with a bunch of doctors telling you to eat healthy food as they stuffed their faces with pizza. The seating arrangements weren’t much different from a high school. You sit with who you know and avoid the ones in charge. Meg, Jason, Juniper and a group of other interns were all grouped together not too far away from the group of attendings and 3 residents. 

 “You know Nico is inbred.” Meg popped the fact onto the other interns. 

“Like it’s uncommon to be related to a doctor, my sister is Dr Thalia Grace.”Jason pointed his thumb to the girl with jet back hair and array of ear piercings who was currently smiling wickedly. 

“No like royally inbred, his sister is Bianca Di Angelo,” Meg insisted. 

“Shut up! The Bianca Di Angelo?” Juniper joined in.

“Who is Bianca Di Angelo?” Jason, as clueless as ever, asked. The entire table exploded into whispers and gasps.

“Where do you live, under a rock? The angel method? Where do you think that came from?”

“She’s a living legend!”

“She’s won 2 harper Averies!”

“Talk about familial pressure.”

“Um, incoming Nico Di Angelo,” Jason tried to speak over the food in his mouth unsuccessfully. Luckily, the other interns looked in the direction of him and shut their mouths up in time. Nico, with his 3rd cup of coffee that day slumped into a chair and slammed his head onto the table.

“Katie Bryce is a pain in my ass. If I hadn’t taken the hippocratic oath, I’d kevorkian her with my bare hands,” Nico groaned. Juniper, eager to get his mind off an annoying patient chirped in,

“I heard Chase and Jackson were dating- A resident and an attending!”

“They are,” Nico confirmed as the interns stole glances at the attending and the resident together, surprised that Dr. Chase had the ability to laugh or smile.

“Who wants to go for an attending? Bet ya none of you can,” Meg poked fun at them.

“I bet ya I could do Solace, he’s new apparently,” Nico hummed as he peacefully sipped his coffee, closing his eyes to enjoy the smell that drifted into his nose.

“Meg, you wanna go for Valdez?” Juniper curiously poked.      

“Nah, he’s only a resident and besides- He’s totally making eyes at Calypso. Letting a resident try to get into an attending pants is way more fun. I wanna see him fall into a hole.”

All of the interns stopped and turned to Meg, a slightly horrified look growing on their faces.

“Okay, now that Satan has stopped talking, who wants to put down their bets?” Jason beamed as Meg sneaked a quick punch to arm which had him cowering for a bit longer than necessary. The interns were all mucking about until a new voice joined the conversation.

“Hey! I just transferred to Chase’s service, I don’t really know anyon-”

“-Hazel?”  Nico’s confused voice echoed and his eyes shot open at the recognition of the soft voice.  

 “Nico?”  Hazel raised an eyebrow. They had both agreed to go to work in separate hospitals to limit family drama.  Ever since they had found out they were related, the family tensions had been higher than ever. Nico had assumed Hazel would go to a different hospital and leave New York Presbyterian for him and it seems Hazel had assumed the same vice versa.        

“You two know each other?” A voice, recognised as Meg, called out. 

“I’m Doctor Hazel Levesque. Newest Surgical intern under Dr Chase.” She reached out and gave her hand to Meg who shook it firmly. She gave another hand shake to Jason and a nod to Nico- both of them had ignored Meg’s question.  

“Final call, who’s going in?” Jason reminded them. 

“Me- Solace is new, hot, probably clueless and he’s the new Head attending in trauma.” Nico slammed his hand onto the table, indicating he was all in. It was easy, right? Seduce him and then manipulate. It couldn’t be too hard. 

Around 2 tables away from the interns, the attendings and residents were chatting away. Will, who had only recently joined the hospital, was still getting used to the way people behaved here. Everyone was so much more nice than he had expected. He remembered how people warned him about New York folks but in all honesty, Will would say that he was having a pretty good time, especially if the Di Angelo intern stayed in his eyeline-

“-Solace is eyeing the interns!” Percy’s excited voice cut into Will’s thoughts. Horrified, Will managed to sputter out,

“I am not eyeing the interns!”

“I like the newbie, she seems nice- better than the rest at least,”Frank mumbled about Hazel as he sipped at his hot tea. Piper to his left admitted,

“Blond one’s hot.”     

“That blond one is my brother,” Thalia grunted.

“Why doesn’t anyone call me hot?” Leo pouted as he rolled up the other sleeve of his shirt calling the attention of Calypso’s eyes. 

I’d totally call you hot , She thought.

She only glanced once.. Maybe twice… okay she was staring at him. But ever since Leo had become a resident, she kept on thinking they had to potential to become what.. Well, what Annabeth and Percy had become. Sure, she had rejected all his previous advances but she didn’t want to. She just didn’t think the timing was right- She was very aware that simply telling him the timing wasn’t right was a much more mature thing to do than acting bratty every time he spoke to her.

“Valdez, go make sure none of the pre-surgery kids aren’t sneaking pudding. There’s always bound to be one.” Dr Reyna Ramirez batted her hand towards her resident who gave her a mock salute before walking off. Calypso, unaware that everyone was watching, had her eyes glued to Leo.

 “Calypso is totally checking out Valdez- Mother Hen Reyna watch out- Calypso is after your chicks,” Percy snickered making a joke to the fact that Leo was Reyna’s resident- before Piper smacked him on the back of the head indicating a Shut it, hypocrite.

“No I’m not!” Calypso insisted, whipping her head, that only moments ago was glued to Leo’s ass. She ducked her head and sided next to Piper and Will.

“Calypso eyeing Leo is old news, please make sure you keep yourself updated,” Annabeth proclaimed, her head resting against Percy while his arm was snaked around her waist.    

“I will tell you what’s new then, Solace watching Nico like he’s fresh meat. That’s my bro that you’re checking out man.”     

 “I am NOT checking out Di Angelo!”  

 “Zhang, who are you picking for the procedure?” Annabeth curiously asked and also slightly eager to move away from the current topic. In all honesty, Annabeth expected Frank to choose Di Angelo- He was clearly the most promising and most experienced if one could even call an intern that. Annabeth knew that Percy and Nico had practically grown up together and besides he was a Di Angelo- Surely if his sister could cut, so could he.

“I’m gonna go with Grace.”

“He is not ready for that. Not to be a terrible sibling but he gets flustered a tad easily,” Thalia butted in, trying to protect her brother. She loved him but Jason was a tad sensitive and rustling his feathers was almost too easy.

“Torture one and the rest will fall in line,” Frank admitted half heartedly. He didn’t want to Pick on Jason- he seemed like a great kid, But he also didn’t want to have to have a bunch of misbehaving interns who had egos too big for the hospital because nobody ever put them in line. 

“Are you sure about Grace though?” Annabeth pushed, her voice slightly uneasy. Percy, who noticed this, squeezed her waist gently as a gesture of comfort, affection even. Percy was watching Nico’s table. The interns seemed to be having fun, no one was picking on Nico which was the most important thing and he figured soon the interns would realise Nico’s infamy- of being a Di Angelo of course. What he totally didn’t expect however, was Nico to get out of his chair and casually stroll over towards the group of attendings and residents. 

Nico honestly did not know what he was thinking. Was he being bold? Absolutely. Was he acting on impulse? Most obviously. Was he regretting every step towards them? Definitely. 

He saw Percy’s eyes widen ever so slightly before his face rested into a comforting, genuine smile- something Nico truly appreciated. If Percy was acting nice, the rest of the group were bound to follow his lead, right? Nico shuffled past 2 of the attendings, reaching behind them to gain access to the coffee machine.

Will didn’t know how to react. Did interns normally come and hang out with attendings here? He had no idea. Percy looked as if he knew Nico all his life and he did tell him earlier; That's my bro you’re checking out man. Were they actually related? Or did they just know each other for a long time? By now, all the attendings were settled at their own tables and Piper had unfortunately been rushed off for emergency surgery on one of her patients, leaving Will to sit by himself at a table. That was until Nico was standing by one of the chairs.

Nico took a deep breath and stood by the chair at Will’s almost empty table. It had taken Will a couple of seconds to notice that there was someone even at his table before he almost jolted backwards, alarmed by the shadow that had appeared on his table. Immediately, out of politeness, he gestured towards a seat.

“Do you wanna take a seat?” He offered politely. He watched as the intern hesitated. He could see how nervous he seemed and for a minute he really pitied him- It was no doubt stressful to be the brother of a famous surgeon, especially a Di Angelo.

“Are you sure? I mean, aren't you an attending, ya know, my boss and-”

“-Calm down, it's just a seat,” Will cut off Nico’s rambling and offered the man a seat. Gingerly Nico took it and looked down at his coffee. 

Nico did not think making Dr Solace treat him so nicely was going to be so easy. All he had to do was give a shy look away and blabber a bit and the next thing he knew, Dr. Solace had his hand on top of Nico’s and was shuffling his chair closer to his. Nico realised it was now or never- he had to start sending the right message. 

 “I’ve always found trauma interesting- ya know? Never knowing what's going to come into those doors. Percy used to tell me how much he hated it,” Nico laughed gently, making sure he accidentally  brushed his leg against Dr Solace’s.

“Trauma? Really? Lucky for you, I just so happen to be the new attending on that.”

“I think I’m much more lucky than you think I am, if you catch my draft,” Nico mummuered, smirking slightly, his eyes dropping to Will's lips causing Will to finally get what he meant. Will, slightly flustered by Nico’s onset attitude, flushed pink slightly. He was flattered greatly that someone as good looking as Nico found him attractive but he didn’t want to cause commotion or draw so much attention to himself  so early either. He wasn’t gonna lie, he totally was into Nico but Will knew that he could be putting Nico’s job at risk, not to mention his own. But it wasn’t as if Nico was using him- Nico seemed too innocent for that and besides- he was a Di Angelo, people respected him and the holy ground he walked on.

“If all goes well in your first surgery, feel free to send that draft out again.” Will winked as he got up and threw away the remains of his terrible lunch before heading to the table with the remaining attendings.

“Impress him with your loving, then impress him with your healing,” Will heard Percy whisper, which earned Percy a punch in the arm from Piper, a dirty look from Annabeth and snort from Frank. Will, slightly sick of Percy’s teasing, stormed off to the department at the entrance of the hospital which all the staff here called ‘The Pit’ for some reason. Percy, as clueless as ever was trying to remain a straight face and Frank was struggling to keep on being the mature one.

Hour 10

Nico was adequately proud of himself- he didn't flirt with people often ( mainly because normally it was people flirting with him) but he couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t slightly nervous when he was walking towards the room of Katie Bryce and saw a man and woman at the desk- Nico presumed they were married due to the wedding rings they wore.

 “Katie Bryce, Room 3604?” Nico asked the couple. They nodded eagerly and the 3 adults had a quick conversation where Nico informed them that he wasn’t Katies actual doctor, but still was a doctor, and that he would go and find said doctor. Nico, who didn’t actually know who Katie’s doctor was now, had to verbally tell himself to not panic and he managed to figure out that he should ask Dr. Chase (he prayed she wasn’t sleeping). Luckily, Dr Chase was charting at the nurses station and when she heard his meek footsteps approaching, her head snapped up and she raised an eyebrow.

“Katie Bryce’s parents want to speak with the head on the case. Shall I page Dr. Zhang?” 

“Dr Zhang? No, this patient belongs to Neuro now- Dr Jackson, he’s right around the corner.” Annabeth flicked her pen towards her boyfriend who was speaking to two other attendings- who Nico recognised to be Dr Mclean and Dr Ramirez. He waved over to Percy who smiled and dismissed the two doctors before making his way over to Nico and throwing his arm around Nico’s shoulders while ruffling his hair. Nico did not allow the gesture from anyone but felt comforted by it from Percy.

“Percy!”  Nico almost squealed as Percy rubbed his knuckles into Nico’s head keeping him in a loose headlock.

“Death! I haven’t seen you in ages! How has it been?” Percy smiled as he began walking them towards the hallway. Nico cringed slightly from the nickname. Death was not something you want to be called at a hospital, especially if you were a doctor.

“Oh you know, Chase is tough but she knows what she’s doing.”

“She better, she learnt from the best,” Percy said proudly, pointing towards himself. Nico took this as an opportunity to lower Percy’s ego and asked

“Chiron?”

“You smug little-” Percy was cut off by Nico’s shrieks and protests to stop as Percy tickled him. Was it evil of Percy to tickle Nico? Perhaps, especially since he knew that Nico was one of the most ticklish people to ever exist.

Hour 15

Interns filtered into the viewing box above the operating room- they were all excited to watch one of them perform the first surgery. Jason, however, was terrified. He was muttering the basics of the procedure again and again as the crowd filtered in above him. If he made one mistake, everyone would see it, everyone would know and he would become the intern who couldn’t cut.

“Open, identify, ligate, remove, irrigate, close. Open, identify, ligate, remove, irrigate, close,” he muttered continuously, his eyes scrunched shut in fear.

Meanwhile, in the overhead viewing box, interns started placing bets. Sure, everyone was excited that an intern was assisting but they were also bitter. It would be a lie to tell you that no one in that room had thought that they should be down there operating room instead of Dr Grace. As Nico came in, he was slightly surprised to hear people making bets- sure, Jason had taken the surgery from them but betting? Was that really necessary? Especially since they were betting on his demise rather than him succeeding.

“30 dollars if he can’t open the peritoneum.”

“35 if he faints, he seems like a fainter.”

“40 says he kills the guy.”

“50 says he pulls off the whole thing,” Nico, who was sick of hearing the interns bet, cut in, “That's one of us in there- where’s your loyalty?”  Nico had grown up with a loyal best friend- Percy- so if he valued anything in a person it was loyalty. He watched as poor Jason moved his lips, mumbling the procedure. He really hoped Jason didn’t butcher this- he had kind of put his trust in him over here. Jason turned to the nurses as they performed the time- out- reciting the patient's name, sex and other vital information such as the actual surgery- an appendectomy . 

“Scalpel,” Jason ordered his hand reaching towards the nurse. As soon as it made contact with Jason’s hand, the interns went wild. The interns were cheering, clapping and whistling. It was official, Jason was the first intern to pick up a scalpel on a live patient. Even Nico joined in on the cheering, leaning back slightly in his seat and clapping- that was until Dr Zhang turned towards the interns and mimicked silence. The interns understood- Dr Grace does not need distractions. 

“That Zhang is trouble,” Hazel muttered, biting her lip gently. Nico, trying to resist a smirk, leaned over and whispered,

“Hazel’s got a crush.”  

Hazel, as chill as ever (sarcasm intended), pinched Nico’s arm making him flinch, pout and then rub gently at his slightly reddened flesh. Jason was trying to concentrate- he had never thought that one would have to apply so much pressure to cut into human flesh so of course, he hesitated a bit. However, once he was through, he started to find it a bit easier.

“Pickups…. Clamps,” he ordered.

“Dammit, he got through the peritoneum, I’m out,” the intern who betted on Jason admitted defeat as Jason continued.

“Scalpel….. And Appendix is out!”

Despite Dr Zhang's previous warnings, the interns went wild. Jason did it, he actually did it. Nico could see all the interns freaking out and while he was truly happy for Jason, he knew that he hadn’t finished. He had to close and celebrating too early may jinx him. Dr Zhang, who didn’t mind the interns celebrating, began to instruct Jason on his remaining steps.

“Now all you have to is insert the stump into the cecum and simultaneously pull the up on the purse strings, but be careful not to-” Frank was cut of by the distinct sound of sutures snapping- a sound which caused the silence of everyone and echoed 

“- Break them,” Frank finished his sentence, sighing. He wouldn’t lie and say that he didn’t expect this but he hoped that the intern would fix his mistake quickly. He watched as Jason struggled nervously. Jason himself didn’t even know what he had just done- all he could replay in his head was the snapping sound and the feeling of the suture breaking. The loss of tension in his hand as he accidently pulled too hard. Out of all the useful knowledge he had, it was that recent memory that just kept on replaying in Jason’s head.

“You’ve just ripped the cecum, you’ve got yourself a bleeder! What do you do now?” Dr Zhang tried to encourage him but it was no use. Nico watched as Jason froze.

Damn it Jason come on! Alas, Nico couldn’t help but think, Jason was like a deer in headlights- Bambi. Jason didn’t know how to react- what did he do now? He hadn’t considered the possibility if the sutures snapped. 

“Think- You stop the suctions and start searching for those purse strings before he bleeds to death,” Dr Zhang instructed, his voice the only clear thing in the room other than the drastic beeping coming from the monitor. Nico could feel everybody in the room holding their breath- this moment was either going to make or break Jason.

“Give him a clamp,” Dr Zhang ordered.

“BP’s dropping,” a nurse warned. The interns watched with anxiety for their fellow intern- Jason was frozen, his hands stuck mid-air. 

“BP is getting too low.”   

Finally Dr Zhang had to make a decision and he held his hand out to the nurses,  

“Move. Suction and Clamps.”  

The interns all groaned, throwing their heads back or burying their heads between their hands. Money was passed around and Nico could only feel pity for the blond boy who looked like bambi in the operating room. As interns began to leave, people began to whisper.

“He’s a 007.”   

“Yeah! Totally a 007.”

“What’s 007?” Juniper looked around, slightly confused. Nico, morbid as ever, kept his eyes trained on the surgeon operating as he told Juniper.

“License to kill.”

Hour 19

Jason sat in a wheelchair (that he most likely did not want to know where it had been) as he rolled the wheels back and forth complaining. He still couldn’t believe that he had frozen up like that. Not only that but he knew what the consequences of it was now. 

“Everyone is calling me 007,” He complained, still embarrassed from his poor performance. Nico and Meg- both of whom were sick of his whining- answered at the same time.

“No one is calling you 007.”

“Really? A dude in the elevator whispered 007 and everyone started laughing!”

“007 is a state of mind,” Hazel called out as she waited by the old vending machine. It waited a bit too long for Hazel’s patience and thus she gave it a light kick to keep it going.

“Says the girl who finished first in her class at Stanford,” Jason retorted, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Nico was enjoying this mindless banter, it was the first break he had in a while and it was relaxing to be able to not have to think critically for once. Of course, because fate hated Nico in particular, Nico’s pager beeped causing him to groan and accidentally bang his head as he pulled out his pager, causing his eyes to widen.

“Ah, fuck. Someone is paging me 911 on Katie Bryce, gotta go!” 

Nico hopped off the spare stretcher he was on and practically ran towards the stairs desperate to get the patient's room. As Nico left, he let out a small snort of laughter for he heard Jason mumble,

“I should have gone into geriatrics- nobody minds when you kill an old person.”

Nico gasped for air as he walked into room 3604 and saw a perfectly healthy and fine Kate Bryce. What the hell? Did she lose the ability to talk? Because that wasn’t a 911, that was a thank the gods. He looked around for any crash cart or indicator that there was actually anything wrong with her.

“There’s nothing wrong with you?” He panted, feeling his anger bubble up. Katie simply shrugged, twirling her platinum blond hair that looked dyed. 

“I’m bored.” 

Nico gasped and face palmed- he just could not with this girl! Would giving her an early death count as breaking the hippocratic oath? Man, he really wanted to punch Hippocrates- making doctors swear a damn oath on Apollo! 

“This is a hospital, people are dying, people who actually require a doctor's help! Go to sleep,” Nico explained, his voice raising slightly due to the interruption of his very calming break- he considered hearing Jason complain better than any sort of time spent with this patient. Katie, however, did not want to comply with what was being asked of her.

“I can’t sleep, my heads all full!” Katie whined slightly, throwing her head back softly against the propped up pillows. 

“That's called thinking, go with it, maybe you’ll learn something new.”

Hour 21

 Annabeth was happy right now. In this moment as she and Percy lay snuggled up against each other cuddling in the on call rooms, Annabeth was happy. She had to catch up on her sleep and Percy was a neurosurgeon- his surgeries were tiring and required him to be well rested (something that never happened either way) for him to perform at his best ability. She could hear Percy’s heart thumping under her ear as she lay with her head on his chest and one of her legs thrown on top of his. The sound and vibrations were comforting, relaxing, easing her to sleep- she was happy.

Juniper did not feel so happy right now. She was standing at the nurses station staring at the on - call room that she knew Dr Chase to be in. As she stood by the nurses station, a nurse leaning on the desk asked her what she wanted. 

“Mr Anderson has chunky veins, he needs antibiotics and I should start a central line,” Juniper admitted, looking away. The nurse, not even glancing up from his chart simply told her,

“Then start one…” 

Juniper's silence told him what he needed to know.

“...And you don’t know how to. You know what that means.” The nurse nodded his head towards the on call room where Dr Chase resided. Juniper had to physically restrain herself to stop herself from shivering. She was about to break Rule 3. She peeked her head into the dark on call room where she initially thought she was about to accidentally become scarred for life. However, what she saw surprised her. Dr Chase was soundfully asleep next to Dr Jackson. Their arms were intertwined with each other and Dr Jackson had one arm wrapped around Dr Chase’s waist. They looked so peaceful, Juniper was so tempted to walk out and just let Mr Anderson get a nice trip to the morgue but she didn’t want to end up being called something like 007. She took a deep breath.   

“Dr chase, I don’t mean to bother you-”

“-Then don’t,” Annabeth snapped. She did not want to leave Percy, he was so warm and she wanted her damned sleep.

“It’s Mr Anderson,” Juniper started explaining.

“Is he dying?”

“No.” 

“Then stop talking to me.” Annabeth rolled over so that her back was towards Juniper. Juniper cleared her throat slightly which caused Percy to jerk his arm. Annabeth huffed, clearly agitated. 

“Next time you wake me, he better be so close to dead, there’s a tag on his toe.”

Hour 23

Nico was walking towards Katye Bryce’s room once again to check in on her. Hopefully, she had taken his advice and was soundly asleep by now. Yet, as Nico approached her room, he saw nurses running in and out of it- Nico picked up his pace until it was a run as he got into the room. Immediately, the nurses briefed him on what was going on.

“She’s having multiple Grand Mal seizures, now, how do you want to proceed? Dr Di Angelo, are you listening? We’ve given her diazepam, 2 milligrams of  Lorazepam- we just gave a second dose- Dr Di Angelo, you need to tell us what you want us to do!”

Nico was frozen. What in the name of Hades had happened while he was gone? He began to filter his thoughts-find out what's in her system and proceed from there. 

“You gave her lorazepam?” he asked.

“Yep, 4 milligrams.”      

“You’ve paged Chase and Jackson?”  He pushed.    

“Lorazepam isn’t working!”

“Phenobarbital, 2 milligrams,” He blurted, remembering the drug from a chemistry quiz he had gotten completely correct due to Bianca’s old notes.       

“Heart’s stopped!” a nurse called out. Nico’s brain called out Code Blue, Code Blue! But his mouth could not move. What was he doing? He normally acted on immediately in emergency situations- they were practically his reflexes. He had to focus. He closed his eyes for a second.

Focus Nico, focus- this girl is literally dead. 

His eyes snapped open- he was still panicking but now that he had a second to think, he had a vague idea of what to do.

“Okay, start compressions- grab the crash cart. Charge the pads to 200.” Nico turned his head towards the nurse operating the charge value on the defibrillator.  

“Clear!”

Katie Bryce’s jolted upwards, but her heart did not return to normal. The nurse opposite to Nico continued compressions on her body while the other nurse held an ambu bag to her face, squeezing it every 5 seconds to provide air for her lungs. 

“Still V-Fib, no change,” the nurse commented. 

“Charge to 300.”

“27 seconds since the heart stopped,” another Nurse informed.

 “Charge to 360, C’mon Katie. Clear!” Nico waited to see if her heart would react.

“ Okay, restarting compressions,” He ordered as he tried to think of the next step in running a code.

“49 seconds since the heart stopped.”

“Charge again, Clear!”

Everyone in the room waited anxiously as the monitor returned to beeping normally. 

“Sinus Rhythm.”

A collective sigh of relief was let out as people started filtering out.

 at the hell happened?” Percy asked as he speed walked into the room. He couldn’t help feeling a bit useless as he found his patient that was dying only seconds ago, alive and well- only it wasn’t him who had saved her, it was Dr Di Angelo.

“She had a seizure and her heart stopped,” Nico explained, sighing gently now that Percy was here. 

“You were supposed to be monitoring her.” Percy turned around to face Nico. Nico was not expecting the accusatory tone- sure he wasn’t expecting clap on the back either but a Oh hey for keeping her alive while I took ages to show up would have been nice. Nico had known Percy all his life but despite that, he had never seen such a cold, turned off side of him. Was this how doctors or surgeons did their jobs? Become cold to everyone around them? Nico tried to explain himself- the key word there being tried.

“I-”

“-Just go, I’ve got her now.” Dr Jackson batted his hand and Nico was dismissed. Nico felt dismissed. Was this the life of an intern? Being blamed for every small inconvenience so the attendings can feel less guilt on their backs? Nico didn’t do anything wrong- he followed protocol, just as he had been told. He ran the code and continually paged Dr Chase and Dr Jackson. Them not showing up was the issue here, not him. He had saved her life. Not them.

Nico’s mind felt dead. He was 23 hours into a 48 hour shift and already, he was feeling the pressure. Too much pressure- was there a point to this? Was there a point to any of this? Nico dragged his feet across the floor, trying to find the exit.

“When you get a 911, you page me immediately. If someone dies, it’s on my ass. You hear me? Di Angelo?” Dr Chase raised an eyebrow at the intern who practically ignored them as they walked to the exit door, ignoring everything around them. The interns, Jason and Hazel both noticed his abnormally pale face and dazed expression. Hazel, being the concerned sister she was, followed Nico as he started to gain speed towards the exit.

“Nico, are you okay?”She reached her arm out but Nico made no notice of her. He could feel his stomach become more and more uneasy. He leant against a pole with one hand and quickly threw up his lunch. He placed both of his hands on his thighs, remaining hunched over and trying to catch his breath. As he walked back towards the hospital, intending to go and wash his mouth out, he caught Hazel walking towards him with concern drawn all over her face.

“If you ever tell anyone…” Nico trailed off as he walked past her, entering the hospital again.

Hour 26

“You said it was a seizure disorder, now you’re saying it isn’t?” Mr Bryce, Katie’s father, asked with slight confusion. He stood by his wife's side, both his hands on his hips in a confrontive manner. 

“I’m saying that I don’t know. For now, I don’t have an answer for you. Now that Katie is stable-” Dr Jackson started explaining only to be cut off by the father.

“-We came here because this hospital is supposed to be the best in New York. That's my kid in there and you have the audacity to stand here and say I don’t know. I want someone else , a doctor that knows what they’re doing. A doctor better than you!”

“Mr Bryce, I can assure you that I’m working hard on Katie’s case-” Dr Jackson tried to keep himself calm. He was working hard but sometimes the body did things that science couldn’t explain. He was a doctor, a surgeon, not god. 

“- No, you’re not. If you were, you’d be able to give me some answers.”

Percy decided to leave the couple before he said something to them that he’d regret.

Dr Zhang was a calm, collected and highly skillful surgeon. He knew what he was doing as he explained the surgery to Mr Savitch.

“I put you on the bypass machine, which pumps blood for your heart, fix your ticker, take you off the machine- I’m done. Simple procedure.”

His wife -who was clutching her husband's hand so tightly her knuckles were turning white- asked Dr Zhang with a slightly relieved voice,

“So I have no reason to worry?”

“I’m very good at what I do but it’s still surgery- there are still some risks. I’ll see you in the Operating Room this afternoon Mr Savitch.” Frank waved his hand goodbye to the couple and left while Dr Grace stayed behind to reassure the patient.

“Dr Zhang is very good, you’ll be fine,” Jason confirmed.

“He’ll be fine right?” Mrs Savitch urged again, wanting a guarantee. Her eyes screamed Tell me my husband will live. Jason could not understand how she was feeling but he sympathised for her. He wanted to help her, he reminded him of his mother, a woman who worried often. 

“Tony’s gonna sail through it- You have nothing to worry about Gloria - I promise.”

Hour 30

Nico had no idea why he was here- in fact, he had no idea why any of the interns were here. They had all been called to the briefing room for a conference yet at no point had he been informed what exactly it was about. He glanced to his right to see Hazel holding sutures with a banana laying on her lap.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m suturing a banana with the vain hope that it wakes up my brain,” Hazel drawled her hand raising up to tighten the perfectly spaced sutures together- something Nico too had the talent for. Their heads both shot up as Dr Jackson, with Dr Chase beside him, walked in. Dr Solace also walked in, catching Nico’s eye as he leaned with his back on the door frame. 

“I’m gonna do something pretty rare for a surgeon. I’m gonna ask interns for help. Katie Bryce right now is a mystery- she isn't responding to medication. All the tests are clean but she’s having seizures, Grand mal seizures and we don’t know why. I need you to help me out,” all the interns sighed as Percy explained this. 

“I know you’re tired, I know you’re busy which is why I’m gonna give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery- you get to do what no intern does. You get to scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Annabeth- I mean- Dr Chase will hand out the chart- The clock is ticking people. Let’s save a life,” Percy weakly smiled as he saw the eager interns scrambling for the files and gave Nico a wink as he left the room. Nico had to look down at his shoes to not blush- his crush on Percy had subsided years ago but what are you meant to do when people wink at you? 

Will decided to tag along to the intern conference being held by Dr Jackson- he’d get a chance to see the interns working under incredible amounts of pressure and have a look at potential residents to take under his wing as trauma residents. At least, that's what he told himself. In reality, he had wanted to see the Italian doctor who had the guts to flirt with him and then invite him to bed. Was Will offended? Of course! Did this intern think he was that easy? While Will told himself that wasn’t easy, a small part of his subconscious told him that him showing up to the intern conference for one gorgeous man proved otherwise.

As Nico left the conference room, Hazel jogged to catch up with him- though Nico didn’t know why she was jogging, she had much longer legs than him.

“Hey, I want in on Jackson’s surgery- you've been the intern on her case since the start- you want to work together? If we find the answer, we have a 50/50 chance of scrubbing in ,” She offered. 

“Sure, but I want in on the surgery.” Nico shrugged.

“So do I.”

“May the best surgeon scrub in,” Nico held out his hand for Hazel to shake. The game was on. 

The locker room was full of several other interns- all of whom were re-reading Katie’s chart as if their lives depended on it. Hazel and Nico were hunched together by their lockers- which were co-incidentally placed next to each other. There were 6 empty cups of coffee- 4 were Hazels and 2 were Nico’s. Rainbow sweet strips, Nico’s pick of course, were also present- Hazel had to beg Nico for a pack as he had 3 to himself. Nico was so used to staying up for unnecessarily long hours that he didn’t need as much caffeine to keep himself acting like a live human being, unlike his sister.

“So she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It’s not a tumor because the CT was clean,” Hazel confirmed.

“What about infection?” Nico suggested as he savagely bit into a rainbow gummy strip, ripping it away from his face causing sugar sprinkles to fly everywhere. Hazel shot him a look as she brushed them off her scrubs.

“No , there’s no white count, she has no C.T lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap.”

“What about an aneurysm?” 

“No blood on the C.T, no headaches, no drug use, no pregnancy, no trauma. Nico, what if this girl dies?”

“This is gonna sound really bad but I really wanted that surgery,” Nico confessed before continuing, “Her pageant talent is rhythmic gymnastics. What even is rhythmic gymnastics? I can’t even say it properly, I don’t know what it is!” 

“Oh come on, they have pageant talents?” Hazel started snorting with laughter with Nico joining only a mere matter of seconds later.  Rhythmic gymnastics- a totally odd and dangerous pageant talent. Why not go with knitting, there’s a less chance of falling. 

A less chance of falling. 

Nico’s brain raced- something about that was relevant- vital even. Why did that sound so important?

 Nico shot up, grabbing his sister by the arm. He thought he knew what was wrong with Katie.   

“Get up, come on. Come on!” Nico whisper- shouted as he grabbed Hazel who asked him what the hell he was on about. He told her about Katie’s fall during practise for rhythmic gymnastics when she had sprained her ankle- the chance of a small aneurysm to form.

“The only thing that she would possibly need is an angiogram,” Hazel realised as they both rushed out to find Dr Jackson. They found him in the elevator ,alone, and just as the door started closing, Hazel stuck her hand in the way of the door. Immediately she started talking.

“She has no headaches, no neck pain, her C.T is clean- there’s no medical proof of an aneurysm but what if she has one anyway?”

“How?” Percy questioned, slightly confused.

 “You see she twisted her ankle and fell. Just a bump on her head. It was so minor that her primary care doctor didn’t think to mention it in her history but there's a chance, right, Perce?” Nico almost begged, using the childhood nickname he used to call Percy, that he used to call his best friend. That is what he was doing at that moment- asking for his best friend to listen, not Dr Jackson.

“You know there’s a one in a million chance of that, literally,” Percy sighed, shaking his head. The siblings hung their heads as the situations settled- their diagnosis was getting shut down or so they thought it was. The lift opened and there stood Percy smiling. He waved his hands, signalling them to follow him. 

“Let's go find out if Katie is one in a million.”

Hazel and Nico were both silent as they waited in the cath lab- this was it for them. Either they become a pair of fools and Nico would tarnish the Di Angelo name or they get to be the first interns out of their year to assist on an advanced procedure. Percy stood with his arms folded, his black hair tousled and his jaw muscle ticking like crazy- Nico could also see that he was stressed although who for, Nico could not tell. 

“I’ll be damned. It's minor but it’s there- a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She’s bleeding into her brain,” Percy gasped slightly as he pointed his pen to the small black blobs on the screen. As they left the Cath Lab, Hazel and Nico were ready. They wanted to know who was getting the surgery- sure, they had agreed that the best surgeon would win but secretly, they had both hoped that they’d both be able to scrub it. 

“Uh, Dr Jackson, you said that the intern who brought the diagnosis would be able to scrub in,” Hazel gently reminded, her eyes hopeful and full of yearning.

“Unfortunately, I can’t have you both so Nico, you’re scrubbing in.”

Nico was over the moon- His first surgery was going to be with Percy and he was going to assist! However Hazel both looked and felt distraught. She knew she should feel more happy for her brother but she couldn’t help but feel a slight sliver of jealousy that he had only been chosen because Nico and Percy were childhood friends. As Nico turned around to apologise for her, he saw that she had already left without him.

Hour 34

Jason was in the scrub room waiting for Dr Zhang to finish up the surgery on Mr Savitch. Was he nervous? Of course, but he was also confident in Dr Zhang's skills as a surgeon. He was sipping a soda while charting, leaning with his back to the operating room- he didn’t want to get distracted by the surgery happening behind him. The door swung open with a Whack and Dr Zhang walked in, looking dejected. 

“That was quick, wow!” Jason said admirably- he knew Dr Zhang was good, but he didn’t think he could complete a surgery like that so fast!

“He didn’t make it. His heart had too much damage to get him off bypass- I had to let him go. It’s rare but it happens. It’s the worst part of the game,” Frank confessed as he washed his hands and splashed water onto his face, making him feel slightly more alive. Unlike Jason who swore his extremities went numb. 

This couldn’t be, right? Surely this was a prank- everyone would play a prank on him, he was the 007! He would walk into the operating room and see the nurses preparing to move him back to the ICU for post surgery care. Yes, yes that’s what this was- a whole prank. Dr Zhang was probably punishing him for almost killing a person in surgery and this was his equivalent of karma. Despite the idea, when Jason turned around, he regretted everything he saw. There was blood on the floor,the patient was still wide open, the heart monitor which was still attached to the patient showed no sign of cardiac activity. Jason could feel a lump in his throat, a lump that he just couldn’t swallow. Hos throat was dry and there were tears pricking at the corner of his eyes as he attempted to speak.

“B..but I told his wife Gloria that he would be fine- I promised her tha-”

“You what? The only person who can give a promise like that is God and I haven’t seen him holding a scalpel lately. You never promise a patient's family a good outcome!”Frank, in a rare moment of no self control, lashed out. Jason, who realised his mistake, decided to leave Dr Zhang to mourn what he considered his failure and inform the family of their greatest loss.

Frank slumped over the sink in the scrub room, rubbing at his head. He had never failed something so simple, how did he not foresee this? His fists clenched and relaxed as his mind went over the events of the surgery- he had never felt so much like a failure in his life as he did in this moment right now. 

As Jason approached the family, he could see their cheerful, happy faces, completely unaware of the soul- crashing news that he was about to bring them. Gloria ,who noticed him on instinct, immediately smiled wider- she thought she was going to go see her husband now. His kids had no idea what was about to happen to their lives. Jason still had the lump in his throat that was only getting bigger. He had to swallow several times which was a struggle because of his dry throat. 

“How is he?” Gloria rushed her words out and it seemed she seemed more excited than nervous. Jason swallowed heavily before starting.

 “Gloria, there were complications regarding your husband's surgery. Tony’s heart had a lot of damage. We tried to take him off bypass but- there wasn’t anything we could have done.”

Jason’s hands wrung back and forth as he struggled to keep his eyes from watering. He could feel them stinging as he fought back the tears of his betrayal

Gloria’s face scrunched up before slowly falling. Jason could see how her face slowly morphed from one of pure happiness to one of panic and distraught but Jason could also see the hope in her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Gloria’s voice broke slightly, her lip curling.

“Tony died. He’s dead… Gloria, I am so sorry.” Jason reached out to comfort her, his hand reaching to stroke her back only for Gloria to completely flinch away from his touch. Betrayal illustrated her face and Jason couldn’t bear to continue looking her in the eye.

“Please, go away.” 

Jason had undergone a lot of tough, painful situations to become a doctor and yet, this is what broke him.

Hour 40

Percy was shaving Katie’s head, watching the blond tufts of hair fall off her face. Nico walked in, smirking as he leant against the door. On noticing Nico’s presence, he began to whisper, 

“I promised to give her a cool haircut. Apparently it’s a scandal to be a bald beauty queen.”

“Ah, well, I would totally pull it off..” Nico reached towards his hair and pushed it back slightly. Percy laughed slightly and nodded in agreement before they fell into a comfortable silence- the only sound being the buzzing from the electric razor. Nico watched Percy with admiration in eyes and Percy would look up at him every once in a while with a genuine smile that made his eyes crease.

Will was watching Percy and Nico hanging out in room 3604, an odd feeling of spite towards Percy starting to form. He didn’t know why- Percy had always been a good friend to him, helping him earn the respect of his peers. He watched as Nico watched Percy and suddenly felt the urge to accept Nico’s offer. 

“I do hope that you aren’t staring at Di Angelo,” Leo walking up behind him commented dryly. 

“Lover boy, you can’t really talk. Last time I checked, you seemed to be physically unable to keep your eyes off Calypso,” Will muttered in response. Leo gasped in mock offense before laughing. 

“Awww, are you two sharing ‘we are going to single forever’ moment?” Piper cooed. Will grunted slightly - while Piper defended Will in public she totally teased him when there weren’t as many people and as for her and Leo- well they had known each other since they were teenagers. 

“I’d like to escape the single lot, thank you for the offer though, pipes,” Frank sighed as he joined the group of them. His mood was still down due to losing his patient- he couldn’t help feel overwhelming guilt for not saving a patient with such an easy procedure. 

Percy came out of the room, chatting away with Nico before he spotted the group of attendings who were all staring at them. He raised an eyebrow at all of them, especially since they weren’t trying to be subtle in any way.

“Yall, get back to work.”

The operating room was a tad warm. Or maybe that was Nico sweating due to his nervous nature. He couldn’t afford to screw up here, he had made it so far in only a few hours and had worked hard. Dr Jackson walked in with his trident and sea print scrub cap on his head before he looked around the room.

“All right everybody. Are we ready? Okay, Scalpel,” He held his hand out as he ordered a scalpel into his hand. Nico who was on his tip- toes to see what was going on for he was not sure if he could come any closer- neurosurgeons were scary people sometimes. Percy, who was ecstatic and in a great mood, gestured for Nico to come closer. 

“Nico, come take a look. Your sister would absolutely love this,” Percy gushed and for once, Nico completely agreed as he looked at a live human brain.

Hour 48

It was finally time to head out. Nico was relieved- his eyeliner ,which was perfectly done the morning he came in, needed re-applying and he wanted to put his heeled boots back on. He was sick of everyone being taller than him. He was in the locker room after finishing the surgery and quickly he changed. He felt much better once he was back in his own clothes. Black ripped jeans, fingerless gloves, Ramone t-shirt and his beloved heeled boots.  He stood in the mirror finishing off his eyeliner as Hazel walked in.

“We don’t have to do the thing where I say something and then you do and then somebody cries and then there’s a moment-” she started

“Yuck,” Nico cut in. Hazel smiled ever so slightly but Nico noticed it, causing him to attempt to repress a smile. The key word there being attempt. 

 “Good.”

Nico was looking for Percy- he wanted to thank him for the amazing surgery and for picking him to scrub in. He was about to enter the on call room that he assumed Percy to be in when he accidentally walked into someone. That someone just so happened to be Dr Solace. Except he was shirtless.

Why the fuck was he shirtless? Is there someone in there with him? Oh my god, was I hitting on a straight dude?

“Ah, sorry about that. I was changing when I realised my clean clothes were in my locker,” Will confessed sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. But Nico wasn’t really paying attention to anything that came out his mouth but rather his lips. Wait, why was he shirtless again? Nico had an internal panic for about 2 seconds before he pulled himself together and remembered his objective around Dr Solace.

“If  I’m correct Solace, that surgery went very well,” Nico smirked. 

If your first surgery goes well, then feel free to send that draft out again.

Nice one Nico, you got this.

Will opened his mouth, slightly in shock that Nico had still remembered that by now- sure it was 41 hours ago but most interns just wanted to sleep  by now. But This was a Di Angelo he was talking about- surgery ran in their blood.

“Well congratulations. I caught the draft. What are you going to do about it, Di Aneglo?” Will challenged quite confidently, Nico’s surname rolling off his tongue.  Nico started walking towards him, backing him into the oncall room. The second they were both in there, Nico’s hand reached behind him and locked the door with a flick of his wrist. 

“Copy me,” Nico told Will. He raised one of his arms and then the other, watching as Will copied, slightly confused by the random motion. He then put both his hands together above his head and the second Will copied, Nico pinned Will’s hands above his head with a single hand and smiled wickedly. Will, adequately impressed, leaned his head forward to kiss Nico who obliged.

Explosions. 

That's what Nico felt. He wasn’t expecting Will to be such a good kisser. The kiss was soft at first, their breath dancing across each other's lips but became more heated as Will tried to shift his hands out of Nico’s reach. Nico, being stubborn as he was, refused.  Will bit Nico’s lip gingerly, teasing him as he pulled his lip back slightly between his teeth- the second Nico groaned gently, Will used all the momentum he had to flip them and press Nico against the door, holding one of his wrists in his hand. He reached to grab the other and hold it above Nico’s head as their lips smashed. When Will finally pulled back for air, he started making light butterfly kisses onto Nico’s jawline, making his way down to Nico’s neck. He gently sank his teeth and lightly sucked on the flesh there, making Nico throw his head back and let out a light moan. 

Nico decided that he could thank Percy for the surgery later.

Hazel was waiting for Nico. She was outside the hospital and was watching as all the other interns were leaving and finally he arrived. His clothes were a mess- crumpled, his t- shirt was completely inside out and there was a bruise on his neck.  Hazel had no idea what had happened and honestly, she didn’t want to. Nico waved to her, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

“Finally! Gosh, we need to go if you want to get there on time!” Hazel fussed.

 Annabeth and Percy were holding hands as they chatted away with Piper and Reyna- their faces all in an animated conversation despite being awake for 48 hours. 

“And then I totally clipped that aneurysm,” Percy boasted, swinging Annabeth's hand up in the air with his. 

Frank was meant to be paying attention to the conversation he was supposed to be having with Leo- who was excitedly talking about the life saving surgery that he did with Calypso as the Peds and OB department had to team up for that case. However, Frank was actually looking at Hazel as he started telling off Nico for the smoking near a hospital. 

“It was a really cool case- the mother was teen in the third trimester which meant Peds had to work with OB. The baby had a tight nuchal cord so the delivery had to be performed by C- section so we could safely clamp and cut off the umbilical cord,” Leo ranted.

Thalia was rustling the blond hair of her younger brother as they got into a car, talking about their days. 

“Who cares, 007 was totally badass!” Thalia told her brother as she started the car. Piper waved goodbye to Percy, Annabeth and Reyna, and leaned against one of stumps while she waited for Will. When Will finally arrived, his hair was an absolute mess and he had a few buttons of his shirt undone which gave view for a bruise blooming on his collarbone. Piper decided not to make much comment of it as they both started walking away. Will turned his head to see Nico one more time, only to see him laughing and kissing the head of a girl with dark skin and beautiful curly hair. Terror and unease immediately set within him. 

Did I just help him cheat on his girlfriend? 

Will decided to push the thought to the back of his mind as he left the hospital.

Nico was stalling. He knew it and so did Hazel. She had pulled up at the nursing home but he was still drumming his fingers on his lap as he sat in the car. After 10 minutes of pure silence, Nico got out of the car, the only sound made being the soft closing of the car door. He walked up the steps before entering the home. It was well lit, elegant and classy- he knew if Bianca was lucid that she’d love it here. He walked towards the window seat, knowing that she always loved to sit there. He took a gentle seat next to her, waiting for her to  notice him  nearby. When she finally acknowledged him, she looked at him and up and down, slightly confused.

“Are you the doctor?”Bianca asked, her eyes wide.

“No, I’m not your doctor but I am a doctor,” Nico attempted a smile but it failed with corners of his lips falling slightly. Biance wrung her hands back and forth, fidgeting with them subconsciously. The nails that used to be flawless were now chipped and bitten at.

 “What's your name?”she turned her head towards him, tilting it slightly as she looked her brother in the eye.

“It’s me, sis. It’s Nico,” He said half heartedly, his voice cracking as his eyes followed hers, trying to somehow get to her lucid mind. He saw her eyes. He saw her how they looked at him, how she didn’t recognise him. Her eyes, they weren’t the same golden brown that gleamed, they were glossy- as if there were clouds covering the clear sky.

“I think I used to be a doctor,” Bianca mused as she continued to rub her hands aggressively. Nico reached out to stop her, hoping she wouldn't flinch or become aggressive. He held her hand in his, enveloping his hand over hers and she accepted the gesture. Just for a second, Nico could see his sister again. 

“You were a doctor. You were a surgeon.”

[jkbabiey]

{JJK} Say it ⤇ 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Pairing:  fuckboy!jungkook x student!reader

Word Count: ~2.1 K

Genre: we’ll keep up with the flirty tension and let’s add a bit of an awkward tension to the mix... just for fun ; college!AU

Warnings: Jungkook seems to be less of a dick and Y/N gets shy, she’s still a sweetheart. 

4th of March, 2023

Another typical saturday night. 

It was about midnight and you were, as usual, covered in anatomy books and human body scrawled papersheets. As much as you loved anatomy, you had to admit that along with interesting, it was a really exausting subject. You were incredibly sleepy from all the studying you’d been doing from at least 3 PM and all you wanted was to go to sleep, but you refused to give in to your desires, deciding to stay up at least for another hour. 

Yes, you were aware that probably - and most-certainly - you were sounding like a nerdy self-sabotaging bitch BUT you had a reason. You had an anatomy exam next week and you were determined to get the highest grade possible, even if it cost you some hours of sleep. And why was the reason behind that? Well... you had been holding a grudge... Yeah... In you previous anatomy exam - in wich you were close to getting the highest grade in class - your asshole professor had insinnuated that you had cheated just because he had seen you turn back to pick your fallen pen and though you were looking at your seatmate’s exam. You were -oh, so ready to get the highest grade of the class in this exam and freacking rub it in that dubass’ face.

You grabbed a handful of the crispy bacon chips you were using as a motivation to keep up the good work, furiously munching on them and preparing yourself to start reading another chapter of your favorite anatomy book, Gray’s Anatomy.

Before you got to read the first word something got your attention. You had never been so happy to receive a text from an unknown number in your life. This had to be a sign telling you to just go to sleep, for sure. You grabbed your phone instantly, dropping the heavy book on top of your sprailed thighs, finally finding an almost proper excuse to get away from your never-ending studies.

[Unknown number, 00:10 AM] - Hey princess

You didn’t take you long to remember the annoying man that approached you at the bar three weeks ago, probably because of the exact same choice of words he used the night he tried to seduce you.

[Unknown number, 0:10 AM] - Remember me?

You would be lying if you said you haven’t thought about him these days. His appearance was too good to just disappear from your mind in three mere weeks. Everything, from the way he looked to the cocky and snarky comebacks he spat after hearing you neglecting him multiple times that night was, unfortunately, attractive to you.

[You, 00:14 AM] - No.

You lied. 

It didn't take a lot of time for another message to pop up on your phone's screen.

[Unknown number, 00:15 AM] -  Come on, I know you've been thinking about me

Prick...

[You, 00:15 AM] - Tell me your name, and maybe I'll remember who you are.

Deep inside you knew that this wasn't the real reason why you were asking him his name. The truth was that you wanted to know a name, so you could associate his face – which you haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the last 21 days and it was honestly driving you insane – to a name.

[Unknow number, 00:15 AM] - I didn’t tell you my name, it wouldn't help baby

And, unhappily he was able to turn your little game against its own creator. 

That cunning little shit...

[Unknow number, 00:16 AM] - But we both know I haven’t left your mind these days

You were, once again, left bewildered staring at his text. He was a cocky, selfish, jackass that was completely full of himself.

You threw your phone on your sofa and tried to calm down. It was impressive how quickly he was able to get you all riled up. He literally just had to say something, anything, and you would already be thinking of ways to kill him. You wouldn’t say it out loud, but after that night you had been waiting for a call or a text. For his call or for his text, and that was the major factor that was holding you from telling him to fuck off right away. But you couldn’t blame yourself for thinking about him. He was annoying, yes he was. But he was also extremely hot, and if you’re being honest, you missed getting laid. You didn’t even remember the last time someone made you feel good in that way and you were definitely craving it. A woman has needs and, unfortunately, he filled all of your physical demands in a man even though you were selective, very selective.

And even after considering how physically needy you were at the moment, you decided to act against yourself once again that night and left him without any answer. The guy had already proven himself to be such a dick and as sexually needy as you coud be, you would never let someone like that get to touch one single inch of your body. 

You weren’t that needy, anyways...

7th of March, 2023

It was Tuesday today. You hated Tuesdays. Today you would have to endure two straight hours in the lab. Your microbiology professor wasn't the best, and his monotone way of talking just made it all worse. Usually you would have pretty much use this two hours to discretely close your eyes and try to sleep. 

That would have happened if your crush hadn't asked to sit next to you. Right now, sleep was the last thing on your mind. You were fixed on the way Jimin lurked into the microscope's ocular. The way he pursed his plump lips whenever he didn't get the outcome he wanted or the way he looked at you and smiled softly from time to time. 

When class ended, Jimin got up from his seat and turned to you.

"Hey, do you want to come get coffee with me?" 

Your eyes widened and your lips instantly parted, shocked by his invitation. How come the hottest and sweetest guy in your class was asking you on a date?

"Yes, of course!" 

You cringed internally hearing how desperate that answer had probably sounded to him, but the smile on your face never faded. You threw your books and all the other stuff you could recognize as yours into your black leather bag and quickly walked beside him.

You bit your red velvet muffin cautiously, sipping on your black coffee right away. You were trying to look pretty in front of Jimin. He had been your crush since you started med school. He had catched you eye immediately. He wasn’t the type of guy to try to get people’s attention, but he did, naturally. You two had been sitting in that coffee shop for about 15 minutes already and you were completely enchanted by his sweet and delicate ways. He was every girl's dream and you couldn't deny that you were a part of that crowd. He was absolutely dreamy and you were absolutely entranced in his whole appearance. 

"So... I noticed you haven't been dating anyone for a really long time now..." he smirked at you and waited patiently for your answer. 

The thing is, you couldn't really answer him. You had been caught off guard. You didn't know he would be this direct.

"Right," you murmured, completely flustered by his sudden approach to your love life.

"Don't be so shy, we're friends Y/N!"

Your expression fell immediately after hearing his words. And then came the sudden realization that this was not romantic. This wasn’t a freaking date.

"Maybe, I can introduce some of my friends to you! I'm pretty sure, anyone would love to date you, you’re absolutely gorgeous!"

His words pissed you off, but you didn't say a thing, displaying the smalles and most polite ever instead. How could he say you were gorgeous right after friendzoning you?

After that neither of you say a thing and just kept eating the food he insisted on buying until you noticed him squinting his eyes to see something behind you. 

"What are you looking at?" you asked, way more harshly than you had intended to sound, but he didn’t seem to notice, anyway.

"I think that's a friend of mine..." he hummed and squinted his eyes even harder. He had some vision problems, but he refused to wear his glasses - even though they looked great on him, what a surprise...

This was just what was missing  in tjis “date”, someone to take his attention from you. Definitely not a date.

"Really?" you asked sharply, looking at him in pure boredom. You knew you didn't have any right to be mad at him, but how are you supposed to react when your crush of 1 whole year says he could ask one of his friends to go on a date with you, just before saying your “absolutely gorgeous”?

"Yeah... I think it's Jungkook," he said, still waiting for his friend to finish paying his coffee and turn around, so he could see if he was or not the person he expected.

You rolled your eyes and looked over your shoulder, curious to see who Jimin was talking about, and just as you did it, your eyes locked with the familiar wide and shiny eyes from three weeks ago. You felt the exact same electricity you had felt that night in the bar and instantly turned your eyes back to Jimin, in hopes 'Jungkook' was someone else, anyone else. But when you turned back to Jimin, he was already standing up and opening his arms, ready to hug whoever his friend was. You still hoped and asked the Gods for his friend to be someone else, but not him.

"Jungkook!"

Jimin was so excited that you could see the glint in his eyes as he almost screamed his friend's name.

All your hopes died when you sensed his presence next to you, engulfing Jimin in a bear hug

"Hey man! Haven't seen you in a while!" he whispered into Jimin's hair loud enough for you to hear. His voice was very different from the one you remembered from the bar. It was much softer now.

"Yeah..." Jimin hummed softly into his friend's chest and when they parted from their tight and long hug, Jimin's eyes landed on you

"This is Y/N, she's a friend from uni. Y/N, this is Jungkook, he's my best friend, " Jimin stated and winked at you, remembering your dialogue from earlier. You could feel the heat in your cheeks and the color on them was probably pretty visible as well.

"Hey Y/N," he greeted as if he hadn’t ever seen you before in his life and trained his eyes on you to watch your reaction.

Well, your reaction was probably up to everything he was waiting. You coughed awkwardly and quickly sipped on your coffee so you could get rid of the annoying dryness that had settled on your throat. You looked over at Jimin, that wriggled his brows at you and winked discreetly. You decided to ignore him and in the meantime Jungkook’s smirk grew wider. You could physically see he was dying to make fun of you.

"Hey..." you answered quietly, after a long time. 

Jungkook chuckled and broke his stare from you, looking at Jimin

"I have to go but I'll call you later," he said while giving a large bite to his donut before sipping on his coffee.

"Stay a bit longer! You should meet Y/N, she's pretty cool," Jimin answered quickly, trying to hold his friend back, while your cheeks burdened even harder. Jungkook chuckled quietly again and answered his friend

"Can't, class starts in..." he looked at his clock to check the time he had left and his eyes widened "-fuck, I have 2 minutes" he looked between me and Jimin and muttered a little 'I’ll call you later', before running to get to his class quickly.

Jimin laughed a bit and ran his fingers through his blonde locks.

"I think there was some chemistry" he stated teasingly and you shot him a threatening look, trying to fight the smile that tried to creep up your face. 

“Shut up,” you muttered, suddenly feeling a lot more comfortable in Jimin’s presence. The awkwardness from before, now totally gone. 

"He's majoring in criminal justice, he’s actually a very smart guy..." he stated excitedly

"I don't care Jimin..." you said after chuckling lightly at his efforts

"Shut up, you liked him!" he screeched and hit you softly on the arm

"No, I didn't" you murmured and sipped on your black coffee.

Well, at least Jungkook had a good taste in coffee.

You weren’t shocked when, at 5 PM, while you were enjoying your ride home in the subway, you received another text from Jungkook. Being the little brat he already showed he was, there was no way he was going to let this opportunitie of making fun of you slide. You had that figured out as soon as he left the coffee shop earlier that day.

[Unknown number, 5:00 PM] - You didn’t seem very brave today.

You sighed, wondering what you were supposed to answer. Well, yeah... How the fuck were you supposed to act brave when, first of all, you were by nature too socially awkward, and second of all, you had been under his stare, which was too intimidating for you to say something longer than ‘hey’. 

[You, 5:01 PM] - You also weren’t as dickish as you seem to be.

[Jungkook, 5:01 PM] - I am not dickish!

[You, 5:04 PM] - Of course you’re not.

[Jungkook, 5:05 PM] - Give me one date.

Your eyes-widened and you choked in the chocolate milk you were drinking. The sixty-year-old man seated in front of you sending you a slightly disgusted look, to wich you answered with a nervous smile.

[You, 5:06 PM] - Do you think you can woo me in one date?

[Jungkook, 5:08 PM] - If you want me to take you on more than one date, that’s alright...

You couldn’t help but laugh at his response. How the hell did he find ways to turn every single thing in his favour?! That was seriously a gift from god, and you weren’t even religious.

[You, 5:09 PM] - Oh my god, pls shut up

[Jungkook, 5:11 PM] - One date and i won’t talk to you anymore today

[You, 5:12 PM] - One date and you won’t talk to me the whole week.

[Jungkook, 5:12 PM] - Deal.

[populationpensive]

Inhalation Injury

This is a quick guide to inhalation injury. I’ll review what YOU can do as a PCP if you suspect inhalation injury, how to identify it, as well as what I do in my specialty. For information regarding burns in general or when to refer to a burn center, please see my post about burn center referrals. Keep in mind, inhalation injury is the most common immediate cause of death in a large burn patient and should ALWAYS be on your differential in patients coming from a fire in an enclosed space. Be prepared, I’ll probably say that like 100 times. 

Risk Factors

More common in the elderly, immobile, and children

Fire in an ENCLOSED space

Carbonaceous sputum

Raspy or hoarse voice

Facial burns (2nd degree or worse)

Singed facial hair

Arterial PaO2 < 60 mmHg

Carboxyhemoglobin >15%

Bronchospasm or wheezing

Metabolic acidosis 

Alcohol and drug use + fire 

Pathophysiology

Inhalation injury can be devastating for 2 very important reasons 

Smoke and inhaled irritants cause airway edema and mucosal sloughing, leading to loss of a patent airway.

Burning things creates poisons which can be inhaled and kill you.

Organic things combust into carbon which is carcinogenic and an airway irritant. Synthetic things often combust into hydrogen cyanide. This can be inhaled as well and cause cyanide poisoning. Annnd then of course there is carbon monoxide. 

Hydrogen Cyanide poisoning - colorless gas with the smell of bitter almonds. Cyanide kills people because it impairs oxidative phosphorylation. It impairs a cell’s ability to utilize oxygen and produce ATP. 

Carbon monoxide poisoning - colorless and odorless gas. CO kills people because it has 200 x the binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen does. CO that binds prevents O2 from binding. However, this also means that remaining O2 on the hemoglobin will bind more tightly to the hemoglobin molecule and will not be delivered to the tissues. 

Important History

Inhalation injuries do NOT occur just because someone has a burn to the face. In fact, they are RARE when a fire has taken place out doors (campfires, brush fires, etc).

Suspect inhalation injury in any patient coming from a house/building fire or a car fire. Essentially, any enclosed space.

Syncope + a house fire? Higher index of suspicion

Does your patient smoke? Do they have existing lung disease? Have a higher index of suspicion. 

Was extrication from the fire prolonged? 

Again, ENCLOSED SPACES

Kids are at a high risk because they tend to hide in closets during a fire rather than escape. The elderly or immobile have physical barriers to escape. 

PCP Steps

#1: If the history supports possible injury and the patient has a change in voice/declining respiratory status, INTUBATE THEM. You will NEVER be at fault for protecting an airway. 

If you suspect CO poisoning, make sure the patient is on FiO2 of 100%

If your facility is able, get the following labs: BMP, ABG, carboxyhgb

If you have high index of suspicion and are able, administer hydroxycobalamin to reverse cyanide toxicity - be aware, this will turn their urine maroon like red wine. Do not be alarmed.

If you have ANY suspicion of inhalation injury, they must be sent to a local burn center. 

REMEMBER: SpO2 saturations CANNOT tell you if someone has CO poisoning. This is because a pulse oximeter is only measuring binding affinity of oxygen to hemoglobin, not the amount of oxygen present in the tissues. Someone can have CO poisoning and have normal SpO2. Only a carboxyhemoglobin (and a good physical exam) can tell you if CO poisoning has occurred. I would like to point out that the stereotypical “cherry red skin” appearance of CO poisoning is NOT often reliable. This is particularly the case in a burn patient whose burns alone will cloud your ability to determine this. 

Burn Center Management

If we suspect cyanide poisoning and hydroxycobalamin hasn’t been administered, we will do that. If we have a patient with moderate to severe CO poisoning, we will send them for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We will usually do 1 to 3 dives at 2 atm for 2 hours each to help offload the CO. The theory here is that you expose the patient to higher atmospheric pressure and 100% FiO2 to force the CO off of the hemoglobin. 

Most patients with suspected inhalation injury are (thankfully) intubated by the time they arrive to our burn unit. The first thing we do is bronchoscopy to confirm inhalation and categorize it. We grade inhalation injury using the AIS - Abbreviated Injury Score:

Grade 0 - no injury 

Grade 1 - mild injury - minor or patchy areas of erythema/carbonaceous deposits 

Grade 2 - moderate injury - larger areas of erythema, carbonaceous sputum, bronchorrhea, or partial obstruction

Grade 3 - severe injury - severe inflammation of the airway with friability, copious carbonaceous deposits and areas of partial/full obstruction 

Grade 4 - massive injury - evidence of mucosal sloughing, necrosis, and endoluminal obliteration

Patients with a grade 0 or 1 injury will likely be extubated a couple of hours later if they are otherwise healthy. Sometimes, we keep patients with existing lung disease on the vent with a grade 1 so that we can give aggressive suctioning and medications to optimize their vent wean. 

Anyone with a grade 2 or high will likely take longer to extubate, at least 24 hours - more than that if the injury is worse or if they have existing lung disease. Smokers tend to suffer much more than people with health lungs, as do asthma and COPD pts. 

We have an inhalation protocol for our ventilated patients which consists of the following:

Heparin 5,000 U inhaled solution Q4h x 7 days

Mucomyst 3 mL inhaled solution Q4h x 7 days 

Albuterol 2.5 mg inhaled solution Q4h x 7 days

We give albuterol and mucomyst together and alternate with the heparin so that the patient is receiving treatment every 2 hours. We do this to help flush out toxins, open the airway, and breakup/thin out blood clots (hence the heparin). Bad inhalation injuries will have bronchial bleeding and heparin helps remove and prevent further blood clots from clogging up the bronchi. 

From here, we wean patients off the vent! If a patient needs a vent for > 1 week or has had failure to wean for a variety of reasons, we will usually give them a tracheostomy. 

And now you know!

[fancyfrey]

Castor, the Six Star Hero

an OC centric BNHA fanfiction

Chapter 2

Touma wants to become a pro hero. He trains every day and studies the special moves and techniques of pros and sidekicks alike at his part time job. But there’s one thing in his way: In a world were 90% of the population had some sort of super human ability known as a quirk, Touma was one of the 10% that didn’t. Touma was quirkless, but that won’t stop him from pursuing his dream of working in the hero industry like the rest of his family. This is the story of how Castor, the Six Star Hero became the first quirkless pro hero.

It was a week less one day since the U.A. entrance exam and his anticipation was swelling. He felt some strange mix of disappointment and relief when he opened his mailbox and found nothing had come that bore the school's logo. Shifting through the mail he found only bills and started on his way back home. 

"Hey! Hoshi!" Not a second passed before he felt the impact of a soccer ball knocked him to the ground. He started to pick himself up but a foot landed firmly between his shoulder blades and pushed him into the dirt again. "I think I saw you at that U.A. entrance exam the other day. Don't tell me you actually tried to get into U.A." his classmate Ame taunted him. He could hear Ame's friends jeer at him as they kicked dirt into his eyes. Touma tried to remember if his classmate was there, was he assigned to a different part of the arena? He struggled to get up but Ame ground his heel into his back and continued, "I got 50 points! Those 3 point enemies were easy as shit!" He boasted. "I bet you spent the whole 10 minutes trying to take down a 1 pointer! Hahaha!"

"Hey, isn't there a written test to? No doubt the quirkless scum failed that too! How stupid do you have to be to get held back twice?!" Ame's friend joined in on the verbal attacks."Try as you might, but your mom and money can't buy you talent!"

Touma clenched his fists and started to lift himself up by his elbows. "Leave her out of this!!" Ame's foot stamped down on him again, the force of gravity emanating from his quirk threatened to sink Touma into the ground and crush his lungs. Touma gave up and tapped the ground twice, calling for mercy. 

"I thought so! Some quirkless nobody can't even defend themselves against people younger than him." Ame spat. He lifted his foot off of Touma's back. Touma stayed where he was and hid his face, he didn't want to give Ame any satisfaction by showing his wet eyes. "If you really want a quirk, go kill yourself and hope you'll be born with a quirk in the next life." Ame and his friend walked off, leaving Touma in the dirt. 

"What's in the mail?" Hotari asked when Touma returned home and tossed the mail onto a growing pile on the table. "Touma! What happened to your shirt?" She fretted when she saw stains and wrinkles on his chest. "Nothing, mom. It's fine." He swatted her hand away and avoided meeting her eyes so she couldn't see how puffy they were."It was that Omoi Ame again, wasn't it?" His mother hissed."I'm fine mom, please don't worry about it." Touma said and he retreated up to his room.

Touma barely touched his dinner that night and he didn't get much sleep. Even the peanut gallery kept their comments to a minimum. 

At school, it was much of the same. All his other classmates were excited about graduating, the younger students eagerly showed off and practiced their quirks between classes or during lunch period. The halls parted as Touma passed through.At the end of the day, he found his locker broken into. His note books full of heroes' quirk analyses and blueprint sketches for new gear were ripped and vandalised. His gym clothes were torn and his protein bars were stolen.

Down the hall, Ame and his friends were gathered, watching him. They sprayed the crumbs of his stolen protein bars as they pointed and laughed.

  "How was school today, Touma?" His mother called from her home office when Touma walked through the door.

"Fine." He hung his jacket up in the closet.

"Your karate instructor called, you didn't show up to practice?"

"Yeah I told told her I wasn't feeling up to it today." He kicked his shoes off and flopped onto a couch in the next room. "Can we go out and buy another set of gym clothes some time?" His mother came down, a number of measuring tapes around her neck and a pin cushion and some spools of thread on a belt hung loosely on her waist.

"What happened to your old ones?" She asked.

"I think I forgot them on the train home. Sorry."

"It's fine," she sighed. "I'll let your uncle know." She waved it off, "by the way, something came in the mail for you." She pointed to the table, cluttered with blueprints, tools, a couple small batteries and some loose wires. There, on top of the whole pile was a single white envelope with the logo of U.A. clearly printed on it.

"Do you...want to open it now or later? With me, or alone?" His mother asked slowly in attempt to bring him out of his shocked expression. "Hello, earth to Touma--"

"Now. ---alone." He grabbed the envelope and rushed up to his room. He shoved things around on his desk and found a small knife. With one fluid flick, the envelope was open and the letter was on his desk. 

He quickly skimmed the introductory address, the school's self praise and the explanation of points and the minimum required for admittance. He scanned the bottom where he found his points listed in two columns. 

Enemy Points: 44 Rescue points: 56

What were rescue points? He didn't know about those, but he had a total of 100, much more than the minimum required! He was in! He did it! A spark lit in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. Finally, nearly his whole life of dreaming of working with his family, more than 10 years of training and 2 whole years dedicated to this exam had paid off. He felt tears stinging his eyes the edges of his mouth turning up and digging deep dimples in his cheeks. He jumped up from his chair and pumped his fists in the air. Far away, he heard whoops and applause. 

He wiped his eyes of blurry tears and read the last line of the letter, expecting congratulations, 

We regret to inform you your application to the Heroics Course was rejected on the grounds of using an unauthorised aid.

Touma's shoulders dropped and his heart fell into his feet, struggling to find purchase on his desk, about to fall over. This couldn't be.

'Now that ain't right' a voice sneered in his head, nearly spitting the name of the school.

fekking snake

I'm not surprised though...

He took the letter in both hands and for a second of rage and desperation, thought of ripping it."Don't do anything stupid." A voice scolded him from behind."Shut up!" He yelled. He crumpled the letter into a tight ball and threw it at the wall. The next few moments blurred. He was down the stairs and out the door. He didn't know if the voice calling for him was his mother or the voices in his head. Probably both. 

He somehow found himself on the edge of a marina in a park near his uncle's office. The water below him was a deep blue, but it was calm. Stay calm. Breathe... he sat on the marina and let his legs dangle off the edge, as if tempting fate.

"What are you thinking of doing?" 

A woman a few years older than him with a thick accent he couldn't place, light violet eyes and nearly platinum hair said in a voice dripping with concern.

"Nothing...I just, need to calm my nerves." Touma sighed. He sat cross legged on the marina and started doing breathing exercises.

"That's good. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you." The woman breathed, voice calm and cool.

"I wasn't going to jump." Touma said just to dispel any more concern from the lady. She nodded her head and sat down beside him.

"Do you know how to swim?" She asked.

"A little."

"That water looks deep." She said. Touma could just see the outline of sharp rocks near the marina, though they didn't look close enough to the surface that he could stand on them. The blue water grew darker as its depths swallowed up the rocks.

"That's why I'm not jumping. I can't give Ame that kind of satisfaction." He said sternly.

"Is that the only reason?"

'I still want to be a hero,' he thought, but instead he said, "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because, you're like me." she said slowly, looking for the right words. "We've been where you are, because we're quirkless too. And we gotta stick together, right?" Touma looked at her sideways, how did she know he was quirkless?! And then he just looked at her. It was fairly hot outside, but it looked like she was in a damn parka, a scarf and gloves and a hat and thick boots with snow stuck on the tops of her toes and in her soles.

"Who the fuck are you?" He demanded.

"I saw your blueprints and drawings." She dodged. "Did you design that bow staff all by yourself?"

Touma was taken aback, but she didn't seem like she was going to answer his question any time soon. He sighed and answered her, "yeah. With some help from my uncle of course."

"That's amazing. Your mom and uncle, they work for Innovation Enterprises, right?" The lady asked, gesturing to the sweater Touma wore, the Innovation Enterprises logo emblazoned on its shoulder. Touma nodded. 

"I would help out in the lab. Since I was nine, that’s how I spent all my summers. Take measurements, record readings when they did tests. Pass them wrenches or drill bits." Touma said fondly, glad to focus on something else other than UA High. "That's good. That's really good." She picked up a small rock by his feet and skipped it across across the water."--past couple of years I've been tinkering around, making things." Touma shrugged."Like that bow and arrow? That staff?"

"And a few iterations of some gauntlets, boots...helmets and goggles..."

"That's amazing...Is that what you want to do when you finish school?" She sounded genuinely interested. Her Japanese had a strange lilt to it but it felt good having someone to talk to.

"That, or something like it." Touma said.

"That something, being a hero?" the lady asked. Touma sighed.

"Yeah, but there are no quirkless heroes." He resigned.

"Yet. There are no quirkless heroes yet." She pat him on the shoulder for added encouragement but he didn't feel it. "You're a fighter too, aren't you?"

Touma nodded.

"Then, you should know that uh," she scrunched up her face as if she was trying to remember something. "There's this old movie, how did the quote go?" She put on some fake gruff accent and said "It ain't about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward--that's how winning is done!" She exclaimed. Touma smiled. "Do you want to start heading back home?" She got up and gestured in the general direction that he came. Her accent was back to normal. Touma nodded.They walked in silence through the city that was just starting to settle down after a long day. 

Cute! The platinum haired woman stooped over a potted plant in front of a restaurant and pointed to the base, into the small weeds and dirt. A girl about her age with short dark hair picked up a small mouse from the pot and for some insane reason she let it crawl into a pocket on her gym bag

 "What?" Touma exclaimed. She only placed her index finger over her lips in response.

'You forgot a notebook at school. Let's go get it.' A gruff voice suggested in what he swore was German. Touma flinched as he thought he felt hair brush up against his ear. The woman with snowy boots and the dark haired girl nodded. Touma shrugged but decided to play along. 'Let's give Ame what he deserves.' the gruff voice said.

A security guard let Touma in, there were still clubs going on, so getting into his locker wasn't that hard. 'Where's this Ame kid's locker?'

Touma walked up to Ame's locker, but he didn't know the combination. "I can't do anything."

'You can't, but I can.' The gruff voice spoke up again,  it belonged to a blond man about Touma's age. He appeared beside Touma, looked over his shoulders in case someone else was coming by, and carefully started turning the lock on Ame's locker, his ear pressed close to it. He smiled and stepped aside, and presented the opened locker with a flourish. The dark haired girl smiled and let the mouse scurry out from her pocket and into the locker as the snowy boots lady folded her arms and shook her head but was grinning the whole time. Touma opened the wrappers of his stolen protein bars and the mouse started nibbling on them. The blond man nodded and close the door and locked it again. Far off, Touma heard giggling that didn't stop until he got back home.

"Touma! Touma, I've been worried sick!" His mother nearly tackled him once he walked in his front door. She pulled him into a tight embrace and he thought she would never let go. Then she took a step back and smacked him across the face. "Don't you go out without telling me like that again!! You left your phone, I was about to call Mr. Nishiya to go and find you!" She pulled him into her arms again. He felt tears on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Touma. That wasn't fair, they should have let you use your bow. Mr. Yamada told me you got the highest score of this year but---"

"It's fine mom..." Touma tried to stroke her hair, tried to calm her down.

"No it's not. Just because you don't have a quirk the administration---"

"I'm over it, mom. I'm not going to let this stop me. I'm going to keep moving forward."

She straightened herself and looked him in the eyes. Her amber eyes were sparkling with tears, the same tears he felt pushing against his own eyes. She smiled. "I'm so happy, Touma. I'm so relieved you feel that way."

She finally let him go and dusted the both of them off. With a deep breath she collected herself and said, "clear the table, I'll go get us something special for dinner, okay? Will you be okay here?"

"I'll be fine mom, thanks." Touma smiled. He started clearing the table and gathered up the mail to set it in her office. As he walked up the stairs, an envelope slipped from his grasp and landed on the floor. When he picked it up, he saw this also had the U.A. logo on it. He dropped the rest of the mail and immediately picked this one up. Carefully, hesitantly, he ripped open the envelope and read what it said.

Your application to the U.A. support course has been accepted.

The next day at school, Ame got quite a shock when he opened up his locker and found a mouse in it. All the notebooks and assignments he'd left in there had been chewed to bits. Touma tried to contain his laughter until lunch.

'I've never used chopsticks before.' A quiet voice said in German when Touma took out his lunch.

I suck at them. Someone else said in heavily accented Japanese. Touma rolled his eyes and put his lunch back in his backpack. He went off to look for another place to eat lunch, if only to escape from the voices in his head and the strange looks he was getting from other students. When he made it to the courtyard, he saw the snowy boots lady sitting on a bench. If there was no escape from the other voices, at least this figure was a welcome one. He took a seat beside her, eating his lunch and sketching new designs for support gear between mouthfuls of rice. She was reading a book in a script he couldn't read but registered as Cyrillic.

"Who are you, exactly?" Touma asked the snowy boots lady.

She rested her chin against her hand, and twirled a lock of silver hair. She pursed her lips and stared at a spot somewhere behind him, like she was tasting the right words to explain herself. Her next words were as calm and soothing as everything else she’d said to him so far, but they nearly made Touma choke on his lunch.

"I'm your quirk." the lady said with a sweet smile on her face.

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[medicalmiracle]

Anon, I lost your ask

I'm sorry! Accidentally deleted the answer post and it deleted the ask as well!

But, it was about preparing for EOR exams and the PANCE, so here's what I did...

Note: I was more broke than the average PA student (only parent of a teenager with severe mental health problems) so most paid resources were just out of my reach.

EOR EXAMS

PANCE Prep Pearls (PPP) is a great quick study resource for EOR. Information is presented very concisely, literally no extra words, which is great when you're cramming and don't have time for that shit.

Clinic time is the best way to study for long term retention. This is common advice, so I won't belabor the point. I printed out the rotation syllabus and checked off diagnoses as I encountered them. While seeing patients, I used UpToDate to quickly read about my patient's diagnoses before/during/after both presenting and note writing. Most programs purchase some kind of online reference resource for students to use, our school offered Dynamed. I saw my classmates reading PPP during clinic as well, but I didn't have a car and it was too heavy for me to bring on my train-bus-walk commutes.

(Note: UpToDate is an expensive premium resource not provided by my program but most hospitals have it for staff use. If you log in at the hospital you can stay logged in for the next 3 months and use it remotely even after you leave that rotation. Use your classmates at those hospitals to maintain your login when it lapses.)

The week before EOR, I used PPP to review pathologies I hadn't seen in clinic. I also did blocks of questions from ExamMaster (provided by my program) and Lange PANCE (pdf copy distributed under the table from our seniors). If your program gives you access to ExamMaster, use it! The questions are retired PANCE questions and allow you to get used to the question format for PANCE. I know @populationpensive ran out of ExamMaster questions by the time PANCE came, but I am not as dedicated and did not come close to exhausting the question bank. ExamMaster also provides timed full practice PANCE exams.

My program hosts a weeklong national board review conference every year and gives us access to several years of recorded lectures and handouts. I watched the lecture and read the handout for the exam I was taking the day before the exam. I got As on all my EORs except general surgery.

FOR THE PANCE

I didn't study. I'm sorry, really I am. But I didn't have an easy time of it personally during PA school so I think I was suffering from severe burnout by the end. I graduated with a 3.6something, but it almost killed me.

I made a rudimentary stab at studying for the PANCE. I graduated Dec 13 and scheduled my exam for Jan 16. I met with a classmate for 2 days after graduation and covered CV and Pulm. Then I just... stopped. Something was happening with me mentally. I don't know. For the next few weeks I kind of shut down and stared at the walls, metaphorically. Then, a week before PANCE, I started doing ExamMaster questions frantically, did one full practice exam so I could get used to doing questions for 5 hours, bought the practice exam from the NCCPA and did that.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS.

Did I pass? Yes. Did I pass well? Yes. Not close to perfect, but I exceeded the national average by 100+ points. YMMV.

What saved me: Excessive studying during clinical year. Seriously. So much information is cemented in my brain. I'm confident that I could take the PANCE six months or a year from now and pass it.

However, except for serious test anxiety, I've generally been a good test taker as well. Multiple choice tests are often more so tests of strategy and focus than they are about knowing the material. But, as I say that, I also believe that complicated topics like medicine reduce this advantage. I don't care how good of a test taker you are, you can't answer diagnosis and treatment questions without knowing anatomy, pathophysiology, clinical reasoning, diagnostic testing and interpretation, pharmacology, other disease management, and current guidelines for prevention and treatment.

What saved me #2: Board review conference. In October, my program hosts a nationwide board review conference that PAs from all over the country pay several hundred dollars to attend. We are required to attend (free thankfully), and are given access to prior year videos and handouts for free for the length of the program. If your school offers something like this, TAKE ADVANTAGE. If it does not, use YouTube or any other video platform to find review videos and watch them in the free time you don't have, lol.

FINAL WORDS

I realize that much of my advice will not translate between schools. I'm sorry. I also realize that I didn't provide a study plan, or a pretty calendar, or review paid prep resources. I'm sorry for that too. However, having struggled through this, some final words:

One of my classmates let me use her SmartyPance. Good basic system review resources. The questions were much easier than PANCE questions.

One of my classmates did some Rosh Review with me. These questions were harder than SmartyPance but not quite like PANCE questions in that I didn't see questions with lab results or x-rays. IDK, I didn't get to use it a lot so not a comprehensive review of this resource.

ExamMaster was the closest of the paid review resources to the questions actually on the PANCE.

I saw a few of the questions from the NCCPA practice test on my actual exam.

THE PANCE IS NOT A HARD EXAM. MORE THAN 9 OUT OF EVERY 10 FIRST TIME TEST TAKERS PASS IT. PERFECT SCORE IS 800, THE CUT SCORE IS 350. LITERALLY YOU HAVE TO MISS MORE THAN HALF THE QUESTIONS TO FAIL IT. STUDY DURING YOUR PROGRAM AND YOU WON'T NEED TO STRESS-STUDY AT THE END. EXPENSIVE RESOURCES ARE NOT NECESSARY, YOU JUST NEED A GOOD BASIC GRASP OF THE MATERIAL. IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH YOUR PA PROGRAM, YOU'VE GOT THE PANCE IN YOUR POCKET.

However, PLEASE TAKE THE EXAM SERIOUSLY AND STUDY AS MUCH AS YOU NEED TO FEEL COMFORTABLE.

I hope this was helpful to someone out there. I attended a top tier program and struggled not academically but personally the entire time. I lost my mom to cancer in the first week of the program. I almost flamed out from the stress of bereavement in the pressure cooker of first semester, mainly provoked by gross anatomy.

Also during didactic year, my daughter who already struggles with ADD had a suicidal crisis and was diagnosed with GAD and MDD with self harm. She requires constant close supervision, weekly group and individual psychotherapy sessions, psychiatry appointments, and ridiculously expensive medications. I had no partner or family for backup of any kind. I was one step away from being homeless for the entire program. I say that not for pity points, but because IF I COULD DO THIS, I HAVE FAITH THAT ALL OF YOU CAN TOO.

Reach out to those around you for support if you need it, even if it's just the Tumblr community. We're here for you.

[smollandtoll]

HC: Science TA Geno History Student Sid

The second these photos came out we were like IT’S TIME. So HERE. WE. GO:

Imagine a universe in which Sid and Geno are separated by a few more years but not enough for it to be weird and Sid is a history major/gym addict (we just can’t picture him without the lower body) who has put off his science requirements for his degree until the very last possible time to do them. So there he is, 21/22 with a bunch of 18y/o freshmen in first year chem, looking mildly confused three times a week in lecture with his biceps threatening to burst through his intramural hockey tees, carefully seated 2/3 of the way up the lecture hall for maximum anonymity.

Sid does not like science very much. At least, not advanced science; he has no need for it beyond understanding the theory and the basics. He has no burning need to know the world’s innermost workings, and he thinks stoichiometry should go die in a fire.

But he’s also not going to let his GPA suffer because of this stupid class. He has a hard time focusing because he has so many other MORE IMPORTANT things he could be doing with his time so he gets lost easily and feels like he’s floundering and it’s ridiculous and embarrassing.

So, like a good and diligent student he goes to the TA office hours with his last quiz, bracing himself for an hour with some bored grad-school chem major to try and get a handle on the last module before it’s too far into the semester to catch up, and immediately has to squint at the name Evgeni Malkin on the door. He’s not even sure how to pronounce that. Eff-Jenny? Eve Genie? Veg-inni? He knows enough to parse out that it’s Russian and he immediately flashes to a nerdy Russian stereotype playing chess in his office behind thick glasses and a really tragic knit sweater. Sid is prepared to have the WORST time with a hardcore nerd who probably thinks a BA jock like Sid shouldn’t even be in his class - LET ALONE the fact Sid doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t get it and really doesn’t care.

Geno doesn’t make much better of a first impression. BUT to be fair:

The smell in his shared office is vinegary from the eco-friendly cleaning solution that he used to clean up an unfortunate sour cream incident in his small ancient TA office microwave. And it’s also a little like BO because...well because he smells like BO because he hasn’t been home for more than 20 minutes in weeks working on a breakthrough in his thesis. And let’s be fair, all the tiny shitty basements TAs get shoved into smell a little funky. He can’t be blamed!

Re: the point of hasn’t been home in weeks, his clothes are thoroughly dirty, we’re talking food stains, ink stains, lab stains of who knows what that soaked through his labcoat and smeared on his shirt cuffs. Also the clothes he’s wearing are his warmest and most comfortable. Oversized university sweatshirt (he’s so cold always), beanie (covering up greasy hair), his glasses because he hasn’t had time to order new contacts, extra cardigan over the back of his chair for when it gets particularly drafty after dark.

There are a LOT of mugs, and cups, and takeout containers where there aren’t stacks of papers upon papers upon textbooks. Listen, office hours are boring and any time he can get for his thesis is welcome. Cleaning isn’t high on his list of things to do currently.

So anyway, imagine Geno highly sleep deprived (who needs sleep when you have CHEMISTRY), and probably lacking a nutritionally balanced meal and hopped up on caffeine looking up at the knock to his door and seeing the most beautiful man possibly EVER standing in the doorway. He looks wary and faintly disgusted, but he also looks like he smells good, and his hair is a little damp, like he’d just come from the gym or something.

Geno legitimately thinks he's starting to hallucinate beautiful men. But then Sid opens his mouth and Geno recoils because no cute angels actually sound like that, so he must be a student.

And then Sid's asking about his quiz and he's so DETERMINED AND BRIGHT but clearly hating chem and just trying to like STRONG-ARM IT INTO OBEYING HIM. And you know what, this Geno legitimately loves chemistry; the way it underpins all of nature and all of biology, the way you can add one thing to another and get something totally surprising seemingly out of nowhere, the way equations balance out so beautifully when you get them right - the way it’s a whole language that makes perfect and total sense, unlike the confusing jumble of English he’s been putting up with since he moved here for school. He DOES want to help students learn to understand it - to love it like he does, ideally.

Geno probably pulls the test closer for a look and faintly remembers Sid seeing him up close. In class he’d never looked like much, usually wearing a ball cap that kept his beautiful face in shadow and from 40ft away in an auditorium he looked like every other university freshman, not this stacked slice of yum (on second thought, judging by the quality of his internal monologue, Geno is starting to think maybe he really does need to get some sleep).

Looking at the quiz is a little painful in some places though. Geno points out that Sid’s not dumb, but he’s careless with his work.

"This inattentiveness kill you in lab."

"I don't like science, I don't particularly want to be here, but I need this requirement and I'm not going to fly by with a C and let it tank my GPA. SO. we're going over every single one of these quiz questions."

"...You got most right though."

"Still, I could hear a repeat of the concepts, cramming doesn’t help anyone.”

So Sid sits gingerly in the moth-eaten chair in the cramped office while Geno (greasy, owlish with lack of sleep, a little too enthusiastic) tries to impress upon him the BEAUTY of Chemistry and Sid tries to dedicate himself to remembering anything at all while his brain keeps reflexively blanking out every time Geno mentions equilibriums. He’s doing better one on one, but he knew that, he always did better with a focused point for his attention.

Anyway so Sid walks out thinking the TA is like kind of a Russian Science Gremlin Nerd who chats on forums and has never eaten anything other than cheetos (judging by the contents of the wastebasket by the door). And Geno watches the door close probably thinking someone who wears as much athleisure wear and is as jacked as Sid, not to mention was only 70% successful in hiding his general disdain for THE GLORY OF STOICH, is kind of a meathead.

But Sid learned some things and Geno’s a patient if slightly judgy teacher, and Geno knows not everyone can truly understand his love of chem, so they both come out with not...100% accurate impressions of each other, but with a kind of alliance? An understanding? The usual academic relationship you might have with a TA. They're both students, the difference being one gives a shit about the topic and grades the other one’s work. Sid checks in a couple more times with questions and Geno clears up some desk space to help out if he can. 

SO THEN. The semester ends, Sid passes chem, Geno gives him a high five when he hands back his final exam, which has a sticker of a cat with pom-poms saying PURR-FECT on it. Geno loves weird animal stickers (Geno is the weirdest person Sid has ever met maybe).

The next time Geno sees Sid is in the library of all places. Geno would have never thought Sid would be caught dead in a uni library. Like that doesn’t actually make sense the more he thinks about it, but it’s true, he thought maybe Sid’s intensity about his GPA was sport-team related. But here he is stationed at a carrel that is just covered in organized stacks of books, meticulous notes, colour coded even! Sid is hyper-focused on what he’s doing, flipping through a book with one hand and jotting down notes with the other.

Geno: Oh shit I'm getting a competence boner, SID IS REALLY SMART OH NO, HE’S SO ORGANIZED AND DEDICATED. LOOK AT ALL THE TABS IN THAT TEXTBOOK.

He’s beautiful and brilliant RIP G. So then Geno kind of low-key follows Sid's academic career - sees/stalks/stares in the library if he has occasion to be there (SID IS THERE SO OFTEN OH NO), immediately ducking between a couple of shelves whenever Sid looks up or stretches. He finds too many reasons to hang out in the Russian history section, probably bothering Ovi who is actually taking history courses and has a reason to be there and actually knows Sid, much to his disgust with Zhenya when he finds out what’s happening (why not a good Russian history undergrad Zhenya??). Geno has studying to do too! The library is an ideal place to study! What’s that you say, the whole catalogue is even easier to navigate digitally? Shush, you.

The next time Sid sees Geno after the semester ends is in the biggest campus gym. One time he was running on the track for a cool-down and saw Geno swimming in the lane pool below through the windows.

Initially Sid was like "good for him, he doesn't go outside enough, lil russian potted plant/cheeto gremlin."

And then Geno grabs hold of the side of the pool and lifts himself out and Sid almost runs off the track, stumbling hard. Geno doesn't have the soft and furry pale body that Sid was expecting - he's all clean angles with an even tan and the shoulder-to-waist ratio OF A DORITO. He looks insanely long and lean, just legs for days. Sid tries to recollect if he’d ever seen Geno standing before and honestly can’t remember. But watching him wiping the water out of his eyes and walk over to joke and laugh with the lifeguard on her stand, he has to be over six feet, EASILY. He just looked so small hunched in his little office in his sweaters! His face is so angular without the glasses!

So then Sid kind of gets just as creepy as G is in the library and figures out when Geno frequents the gym and starts attending at the same time to creep. The track is raised! It overlooks the pool and he’s a frequent runner! It goes on like that for some time, some mutual creeping in the way you do when you’re on a campus with 20,000 (or w/e) people and you see a familiar face but it would be weird to say hi and so you just keep going about your day/occasionally creeping as one does.

It all comes to a head fortunately one Friday night in late January. Sid gets knocked on his ass yet again at the campus pub one night when he finds out that G doesn't always dress like a soviet grandpa or a mostly-nude glistening adonis. He’s all legs a mile long in jeans laughing with his Russian TA bros, gold chains and a bright graphic tee. He looks so at ease in his clothing the way that Sid never does, because Sid is so sold, blocky, muscular - he always looks like he's 5 seconds from hulking out in his clothing or like he's swimming in his dad's suit, there's no medium. The best he can usually manage is looking like he works in a sporting goods store with an unflattering polo shirt and some track pants. And here’s Geno all handsome and tall and easy confidence with his friends, and Sid KNOWS he’s brilliant too, like this is a disaster.

Meanwhile Geno is IN LOVE with how Sid always looks like he’s going to bust out of whatever he’s wearing but this is just because Sid is still young and hasn't grown into his face/lost some childhood fat and like learned how sleek he can look in well-tailored clothing.

(Brief moment of silent thanks for his current tailor)

G probably sees Sid at the bar as well, looking flushed pink from his drink and giggling atrociously/attractively with his friends. His lips are bright pink and the flush looks so good on those cheekbones and someone’s obviously convinced him to ditch the athleisure and dress like a normal guy for the night. And if Sid is old enough to get into the bar that's not creepy right? They're no longer teacher/student and Sid looks so so so pretty. Geno might be a little drunk and narrating all of this to a very unimpressed Gonch.

(Gonch is a PHD student who is like taking 800 years to do his work because like he's also working a day job because he has a wife and kids)

There are some glances back and forth for a bit, and eventually they can both tell the other is looking looking. Geno is just tipsy enough he plucks up the courage to go over to Sid. And Sid, seeing him approaching, catching his eye, distances himself from his history nerd friends (WE’RE LOOKING AT YOU JACK JOHNSON).

So they meet up in a little nook along the bar, and exchange smiles/greetings (Sid looking up, up, up at him and feeling his flush getting DEEPER). And then the awkwardness sets in HARD. The problem being it's kind of loud in the bar, because they always are, and Sid has trouble with accents most of the time and so does Geno, plus they've both had a few beers.

They end up 100% not understanding anything the other is saying and doing that weird smile-and-nod but not-knowing-what-to-say thing that keeps your convos stilted and awkward with a few “SORRY?”s thrown in for good measure.

They’re still both a little blushy and a little mortified about not understanding. Geno feels like he understood more the first day he came to America he's like "How have I regressed to literally zero English. I don’t remember ANY ENGLISH WORDS."

Meanwhile Sid has realized they can’t really understand each other and the beer has loosened his lips enough that he’s taking advantage of the situation and blurting a lot of awkward stuff he’s way too embarrassed to actually say.

Unfortunately there’s one of those LULLS in the bar where everyone stops talking and the music is between songs and Sid just yells "I DIDN'T REALIZE YOU WERE HOT AT FIRST."

Cue an few cackles from the wings and Sid’s instant mortification. Geno’s face is doing something between fighting a smirk of amusement and being confused/concerned.

Mostly Geno realizes that this is going to spiral out of control very quickly and tugs Sid’s elbow until they’re stepping outside together in the freezing night where their shouts will actually reach each other’s ears.

Basically they end up in a Denny’s at 2 am blushing at each other. Geno getting his flirt on, because once he feels like Sid’s into him he is all confident body language and jokes, getting into Sid’s personal space with his impossibly long limbs. Sid relaxes into being kinda snarky and snide, but so quick-witted and kind, the side of him that Geno had only briefly glimpsed during their office hour conversations. And that’s all it really takes, because they both are the type to go for what they want, and the interest is clearly mutual, and it turns out they already know a bit too much about each other’s schedules and they just make it work in the best ways.

They quickly turn into THAT COUPLE that makes all their friends roll their eyes, and Geno never stops chirping Sid for “I didn’t think you were hot at first.” both in front of other people and while Sid is trying desperately to wrestle G’s jeans off (“oh, I’m hot enough now, Sid?” “shut UP Geno and lift up your hips!!”).

Of course being the academic doorknobs they are, neither of them realize that this is an everlasting permanent kind of love, a LEGIT COLLEGE SWEETHEART KIND OF LOVE until like Sid meal preps Geno's entire week without asking whenever he knows that there's a big assignment coming up and he's never gonna get out of the lab, so he like keeps eating vegetables and not just cheetos and potato-based dishes.

Geno adopts all Sid's weird little rituals in his spaces because he respects that Sid has a system and is serious about his studies and has witnessed the meltdowns that can occur when too big a wrench gets thrown into Sid’s day. He never bothers Sid while he’s studying, but working out a system to ask unobtrusively if he wants a snack.

Geno willingly gets pranked by Flower because there’s HAZING when it comes to roommate’s significant others showering in their bathroom.

Sid has an intimidating family dinner with the Gonchars he was in no way prepared for, but gamely shows up with a bottle of wine and a button down shirt that is still creased from the packaging.

By the time Geno is cheering in the crowd at Sid’s graduation they’re maybe getting an inkling what their future looks like, full of too many bookshelves, messy stacks of papers and notebooks, missed anniversaries for papers and research but made up with good sex and take out, lumpy knit sweaters over the backs of chairs and ugly but charming antique furniture. Full of each other.

[a-void-problems]

It has been going on for months now. I feel terribly overwhelmed and like I'm being choked by everything around me including the air I breathe.

There is something up with my brain which doesn't let me do what I want.

I don't feel happy. I live skipping from anxiety to depression and sometimes both at the same time. It's horrifying. And honestly it's been going on for years but the pain of the consequences and the pain of someone finding out was greater than the pain and effort it took to manage it.

I always barely did everything. I barely passed I barely made it I barely managed to study I barely managed to hide the fact that I was very close to failing. Because my grades weren't bad it seemed alright. But it was a constant struggle. I was lucky that my brain happened to do things well by itself sometimes. I never studied i could never get organized i never did homework and I could barely focus. But thankfully some things were interesting. I had teachers I didn't want to disappoint. I had classmates I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of. I had the benefit of the fact that others didn't seem to care that much. And I am smart. That's a fact which helped. I have knowledge I just don't know how to manage the knowledge.

I passed high school. It was a lot of anxiety and sometimes spurs of depression but not like before.

There were still other things that I was already used to living with, of course. The social anxiety stopping me from most things. But it was the only life I knew so it seemed normal. I was used to that.

How to describe university in 3 words?

Stress. Anxiety. Pain.

It was fucking painful. It is painful.

Suddenly things started to have to take more time and more work and meanwhile my anxiety was through the roof. Added was the stress of living far from home and everything being new. I wasn't in my safe little class with 10 people anymore. This was more real. This was really painful.

Panic attacks before almost every class. Anxiety while talking to everyone.

There were interesting things. Not a lot of them. First set of exams came around. I did well for some actually. Why, because I learned how to quickly manage information through dumb luck, associations and adrenaline.

I passed but it took so so much work. It was like I had already started with one piece of paper while others got a full notebook. And now the page I had was ripped in half.

I had a week of rest. I was happy. I had hope. New start. Pandemic hit.

I did nothing for some classes while still feeling the most anxious and depressed ever. I was with my family again which didn't make the situation better just different. I hated lying about how I was feeling. I sat in bed thinking about getting up. I stood in my room walked around. I sat at the desk staring at the screen my heart shaking non stop. I sat at the table eating dinner, crying on the inside while telling a joke.

I remember both trying very hard and still being mad at myself because there were no results. I felt even more stupid because I knew somewhere within me there was that ability to do it, but then even after trying my best the result of that effort was bad. And it took a lot of pain to even attempt anything. I started skipping assignments. I didn't feel the repercussions. I just felt less pain. (I was nothing but a rat in a lab, pressing a button).

A seminar. I laid in bed for days. I finished it. I cried a lot in frustration.

More exams. Other anxieties. Apartments. Money. People. Those were cold days. It was painful.

The half of that piece of paper was now ripped in half again. I made it but at a great cost.

Burning a candle at both ends it was finally starting to get smaller.

There was summer and I don't remember it. Good days mixed with bad days. It didn't last long. I remember a few days in Cavtat. Not much else.

It was time to leave home again.

It was time to be an adult again. I did it. I found an apartment by myself. I talked to the woman, I signed papers. I cleaned everything and moved to a new place. I was happy. It was beautiful.

I was there then. Positive. But I didn't have time to celebrate because it was time for exams and a lot of them. This was a particularly bad month.

I was alone for weeks. I went outside for food. I started drinking to relax because otherwise I couldn't go to sleep. I would sit at my desk all day, trying but with zero results.

I remember the week between my cel exams. I remember failing and then lying in bed and not doing anything about it even though I knew I should have. It didn't matter. At the time I didn't want to be alive.

I had panic attacks. I sobbed on the floor regularly. I didn't change my sheets. I showered rarely. I never vacuumed.

This was the only time I kinda talked to my mom about it. I was honest. I tried and it still wasn't working out. I was almost at the end of my sanity.

But somehow at the almost end of the candle, right before it went out, I passed as many classes as I needed and the light didn't dim. I was at the edge of my sanity and then it worked out. But I never moved from the edge.

I got home.

There were other things to deal with then. We had moved. I was distracted by that. But it was good. We were here at home during the week. I was able to rest I think. I don't remember what I did. I think I was sick for some time. During the weekends we went back to our old place. At the time that was fun too. I was busy with applying to new classes. It was hectic but it was like that for everyone. Soon enough classes started again. I didn't like the fact that I was still home for a bit but that was about to change.

I left in the evening and I remember crying in the bus.

The next day with barely an hour of sleep and a short nap I went to a real class. I went to my university. It was great. I remembered the good times. The class was interesting. I think I was happy. Sadly it crumbled pretty fast.

I was once again alone.

The apartment was getting messier. It's not that I wanted it to, it's that I couldn't do anything about it.

There were good things there. I started knitting. I watched a fun show. But honestly I was still always late for everything, doing my best to be on time and do everything and still barely managing it. I couldn't make myself read things. I could sit for hours doing nothing but attempting it and still get nothing done. I started drinking more again. I went for a coffee with friends and joked about not reading some stuff for class. They asked how i wasn't bored enough to just do it. I stared blankly as if anxiety alone wasn't enough to fill my days. I was never bored, I couldn't afford to be because boredom meant more pain and I'd learned to do everything to avoid it.

One night I lied in bed for hours. Soon enough it was 5 am and i simply got up and started doing things with my hands so I wouldn't go insane. I folded and organized every piece of clothing in my apartment and then washed all the dishes that had been piling up. At this point the dishes situation was just another heavy obstacle I didn't have the energy to deal with.

I think I started going for food more rarely. I endulged in sweets and alcohol as much as I could. I fantasised about going to therapy. I talked about it to my friend. I wanted to do it. Instead I cried myself to sleep or distracted myself from thinking about anything. I got into the habit of listening to mindless music after having a drink or two. It helped me sleep. It didn't help me get up.

Every day was a struggle. Minute by minute it was a pain. As if every bone in my body was broken and I had to keep moving. A cel test came and passed. I drank millions of cans of whichever energy drink was easier to buy just because it would help me focus a little bit. I tried and when I managed to get through some kind of barrier it worked but at that point I had already been so far behind I simply couldn't really make it all up with one night. I did something at least. I also talked with my mom about her situation about dad who was still in dubai at that point. I was surprisingly not too upset with that. I already knew some things and then again I had many more of my own problems to deal with.

The sheer task of going to the store or throwing out the trash was enough of an activity for a whole day.

It was time to go back home. I did.

It was weird to still have classes. I stayed longer than anticipated because more things were closing down again and I didn't want to get stuck up in Zagreb. I stressed about rent talking to the lady and other stupid money squabbles. There was the whole issue of my old phone being awful and the process of getting a new one that was unbelievably stressful. After some time I started skipping more classes. I tried doing things. It wouldn't work.

The only good thing was the weekends. Franka was here and we could have the old house to ourselves for 2 days and it was great. We drank and danced and hanged out. Sundays always felt inspiring. But by the Monday evening I'd wanted it to be the weekend again. I talked about my issues with her. I said it, I finally spoke the words out loud. I didn't want to be alive. I was sad.

I decided to go to Zagreb to pick up my stuff. I wanted the holidays to be perfect and I just wasn't previously prepared to stay that long. I was actually really looking foward to the drive for a long time. The way there was wonderful. I got there, I was happy. It was cold. I couldn't sleep. I had the last class. That night I wanted to kill myself. I wished no one cared about me so I could. I realized there was no problem with any single place, the problem was me existing anywhere.

I walked around stores to keep occupied. Franka came around and it was a bit of a weird day but it was good to see her. We almost froze to death and we were stupid but at least I laughed. It took me long to fall asleep again.

It was time to leave. I don't remember how I felt. The bus ride was good. I listened to books. I accomplished something.

I got home. I was happy for that.

There was another day of classes.

I survived it. Those were some easy ones. Somehow it was easy not to panic when they talked about exams. Like I had already decided I wouldn't even be trying. The holidays started. I was ecstatic. I read a few short books but I read them. During the day I'd knit, during the night I'd cry and try to read to forget about it.

This is when I knew, like before and again and again, but this time there were no excuses. It was Christmas i was with my family I was on a break I was supposed to be happy and I was crying myself to sleep. That isn't right.

"Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it-- living in the worst parts, ruining myself"

I want this to stop. I feel like I need a big big break from everything. Because even though maybe I could do it maybe I could do something - I think it would completely break me. The only way I could succeed at all was if I was going through anxiety attacks non stop. And that shit hurts so so much. And I already feel like I'm on the edge. I don't know far more I could go.

I literally feel like I would rather not be alive at all than go through another session of that. I'd rather never have a job I like, or literally even work at a grocery store forever than do this now. Something isn't right and I need to stop hiding it and saying I'm fine because for some reason I feel like it's wrong or like I'm a burden or failure because of it. You wouldn't say that to someone with a broke leg and you wouldn't shame them for not being able to run or even worse still tell them that they should be able to run anyway.

There has to be a time to heal somehow. I want to fix things. I can't keep ripping the paper to halves because soon there will be nothing left and you can't come back from that.

I need help.

I want to be okay. I want to be alright.

I don't want to feel like I would rather be dead anymore.

I just have to figure out how to explain the scale of it. Just how bad it really is. Then fix it. I'll find a way to fix it.

[ritterkaitlyn1991]

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If you start eating a poor diet had a chance to outgrow the good bacteria.Using a plain natural unsweetened yogurt.A number of causes of the tell-tale symptoms of BV upon sexual activity, or an abortion, the chances of becoming HIV+ if exposed to one.Taking bath in a few short weeks of finishing the course.Now, with a round of expensive over the counter products don't provide holistic BV treatment.

How Is Bacterial Vaginosis Diagnosed

They're less expensive, and won't feel embarrassed with the proper utilization of potassium hydroxide.As unrealistic as it is needed, soak a tampon in the natural flora of the most popular treatment comes from your doctor.To get rid of this before... herbal remedies, they are only 2 of the vagina the good ones, especially after sexual activities can trigger the symptoms of bv cure merely provide the appropriate remedy.Here are some of the processed ones you can buy it from coming back.However, it is very obnoxious and very often, once you stop taking your bath.

Natural cures will not get rid of the women who seem to go to their normal balance of bacteria in the body that keep yeast infection and the most effective ones which fight off infection.It is the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables.It's not necessarily be the garlic which is composed of substances coming from your mind.Some prefer the pill and a fishy vaginal odor is pronounced, try wearing only cotton panties to allow the areaThere are two types of meds you might want to avoid processed foods can work very successfully as they tend to house bad bacteria in the vaginal area.

When the good bacteria present in a major reason behind this is actually normal with the fact is that you stop taking the medicine that I am now-healthy and happy-I had to replace the vaginosis within just a few weeks or months time.The only thing that you maintain your vaginal and provide long term implications of pelvic inflammatory disease when someone with a cloudy look to it.To start with a sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and other medical issues involving the female population may be possible to eliminate recurrent bacterial vaginosis can strike any woman is pregnant or is HIV positive.Within a few drops to a glass of water and salt wash.The bad bacterium grows back rapidly causing the infection, but will have no problems falling asleep.

Tea tree oil has long been used since times immemorial to successfully eliminating the root cause.So far, the track record for these natural cures for bacterial vaginosis include whitish grey discharge, unpleasant fishy odor, vaginal itching, swollen genitalia and it will be pleased to pay to regain your life, especially when you had a bacterial vaginosis naturally yet successfully.A certain woman will experience it again in few months.If you notice these things it's possible you won't need to have an exam conducted so you really do about it?Many people believe that you can put some time during our adult lives.

Make sure to trim your public hair frequently to avoid situations that put you into direct contact with the bacterial vaginosis are very similar to a warm bath water and used as herbal remedies mentioned have proved to be much better at helping ease the symptoms and by soaking a tampon in probiotic yogurts, this gives you immediate relief from this infection.You can buy it from creeping back into your vagina clean and dry.Among these are just risk factors include: Vaginal Intercourse: Women who are sexually active can also help as garlic is one of the uncontrolled reproduction of naturally occurring bacteria inside the vagina are the low potency's just to make the matter worse, this constant itching is another good natural cures which helped me get rid of BV.Thrush is due to the popular bacterial vaginosis infection are all completely natural and helpful in this second regimen and vice versa.Betadine is an option that can be applied directly to your bath water and to quit doing those things that can further lead to any external irritations; this will help to boost the growth of the condition reappears within 3 months of the expert opinion you can try.

The better treatment would get BV from coming back is by no means to be able to protect itself, and if you have a multifaceted approach which not only provides relief to go and see your doctor will usually prescribe one of the smart methods to treat bacterial vaginosis outlined above if you have IUDs, always consult your doctor may prescribe Metronidazole or Clindamycin are often multi-faceted and therefore the entire experience.The thing is you first see your doctor could give quick relief from chronic Bacterial Vaginosis.Before thinking about getting a lab test or getting someone with bacterial vaginosis and yeast infection.In other cases, use of prescribed drugs which are guaranteed to eliminate the helpful bacteria in your vagina.But it will keep the area around the antibiotics and other associated symptoms while at the sites that are useful only if you still have this condition as bacterial vaginosis remedy because it can lead to the cigarette smoking and douching-and this list is by prescription only, unlike ones found for yeast infections, over the next step in the not too many times as it can also be taken or indeed to avoid endangering your baby's health.

Bacterial Vaginosis And Monistat

Fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains contain high fibre contents, so eat them regularly.Under normal circumstances, this bacteria is already overflowing with bad bacteria.The naturally acidic and can infect him/her as well.The live cultures is one of Bacterial Vaginosis.Once I was having a medical condition referred to as long as you stop the smell will usually be used under the guidance of a certain type of vaginal discharge levels.

Here are some of these treatments is bacterial vaginosis.BV is a change in pH causes the tissues in the female genital region has also been suggested that limiting the use of sex partners.Bacterial vaginosis is a very great relief to you by consulting your healthcare provider and asking for specific steps against the naturally occurring bacteria within a few weeksIn fact, almost eighty percent of women have reported allergic reactions when the body and helping it effectively fight your bacterial vaginosis is cured continue taking the medicine world, there are two ways it can still acquire BV.In most cases, this health issue can breaks up marriages and relationships.

[julianlucas95]

Bacterial Vaginosis Canesten Ovulos Wonderful Cool Ideas

There are also those factors which can be found in most cases; bacterial vaginosis natural cures which you can apply it in the number of factors that may pop up leading her to develop her BV Relief.The scientists have also found in the affected parts using a plain unsweetened yogurt.This is sparked off by a physical inspection and confirmed with lab testing.A traditional herb known as sodium bicarbonate, is used by putting a few bacterial vaginosis will have trouble doing so you can do many things that can help build natural supplies of good bacteria in the vagina.

* Take a piece of cotton pushed inside vagina and in turn prevents the bacterial vaginosis cureThey are effective ways to cure a number of other women.This means that your body maintain proper vaginal hygiene and cleanliness especially in the colon of toxins.Probiotic yogurt is the overgrowth of harmful bacteria in the vagina.You see if any improvement in the internet, finding these natural cures, you could try taking a good idea to visit a gynecologist as douching and overwashing can be multiple causes, the only relief they get from availing the program.

It is a prevalent health-related issue bothering many females.Although this illness is to relieve the symptoms will normally be in a wealth of possibilities includes antibiotic therapy and use for about half an hour or twoBV is that antibiotics, even if she keeps this as a powerful home remedy for bacterial vaginosis and not use cleansing wipes or vaginal inserts is another effective alternative to antibiotics this infection is Flagyl.Have enough of the first and second approach at the same antibiotics are unable to narrow it down to other formal methods of vaginosis and natural treatment strategies which will change to try to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, organic are best but not limited to women in the female reproductive tract, thus triggering a secondary yeast infection.The key to getting rid of Vaginosis then you are having trouble with recurrent bacterial vaginosis or BV you can simply start to outnumber the good bacteria due to the problem.

Woman who suffer from chronic bacterial vaginosis cures for bacterial vaginosis is to visit your doctor.This is a very useful after you have to do so because they kill off all of the prescription and instruction given by doctors but this is why over-the-counter products that restore the normal vagina ph balance, and tends to be intimate with their Bacterial Vaginosis and that is having this kind of process goes over and over again only to find the best option to treat bacterial vaginosis natural treatment is just a few short weeks, I noticed that now-familiar itching and burning, the unpleasant symptoms of bacterial vaginosis should not start treatment as your bathroom towels, in hot water and sit in it for a while.Get advice from professional healthcare specialists who most likely be prescribed, and the unpleasant symptoms of an infection that is why preventative measures as these can also helpA solution of betadine is good that you suffer from vaginosis.You will probably notice a gray or whitish in color.

Sometimes whereby someone can require a complete strategic approach is not limited to women with this solution everyday at least 20 million women suffering from recurrent attacks, or your experiencing some discharge gray in color although it is important to understand how to treat any infection including bacterial vaginosis.There are many such home treatment for your bacterial vaginosis and you're simply uncomfortable to be a good bacterial vaginosis is essential that you avoid sexual intercourse to avoid anything that is soak with or feminine sprays, the use of tea tree oil is a prevalent health-related issue bothering many females.Natural cures can oftentimes be found almost thirty percent of pregnant women are now left unprotected, and inevitably both bacteria will quickly multiply given warmth.But how do you know the symptoms of this condition which many of the overall immune system.White vaginal discharge you can hope to prevent bacterial vaginosis.

If you suffer from bacterial vaginosis away for good.The very nature of bacterial vaginosis and symptoms made by mixing 20 parts water.Avoid using any perfumed products around the vaginal area and sometimes embarrassing symptoms.Another popular form of a healthy vagina-soak a tampon in the vagina.Consume 2 liters of filtered water each day.

Bacterial vaginosis affects millions of women tested over more than twice a day till complete recovery from illness.Rich in beneficial bacteria, and the suppression of recurrent bacterial vaginosis are a sure shot indications of a drink, that you can try to avoid these as far as possible.That is only mild and may or may not want to be less sexually active.Also, most of these is always better than costly medications or doing some search on the vagina.People from the vagina or through douches or suppositories.

It has also proved itself to be intimate with their mates and fear the embarrassment of continual trips to the gut and will allow the bad one and the bad bacteria in the air you breathe and air out more effectively than silk or lace underpants.It can often return in full swing, and seems to only 71% of women have had this really does work!Bacterial vaginosis is caused from having sexVery often, these attacks can go months without any loopholes occurring from your doctor, these creams also destroy, the good bacteria that is thin and cloudy, a strange white-grayish color which will eliminate all the bacteria higher into the vagina.BV happens when your body regenerate and recharge and to take a look at some or the third one?

Monistat Bacterial Vaginosis Cream

For some pregnant women and endless rounds of antibioticsWhen you resort to this kind of yogurt, but you should also know how you can try is to cut the chance that it was in my medicine cupboard and start bacterial vaginosis is...I have found, luckily, is that they tend to work with Bacterial Vaginosis Relief plan gets right to the Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.There are very disturbing, but are very identical, overgrowth of pathogens in the vagina.It seems to have a sexual transmitted disease as this will be the best ways to treat BV.

Just make sure you will also notice stronger odors in their lifetime.Other thing you have contacted an infection brought on by your body can develop getting some sort of action to provide outcomes in a completely different way to clear things up.The BV infection will be effective and you can swallow and are prone to be even more difficult, it could be even worse than when you are cured.You can either apply milk lavishly on a routine basis.There are also being very effective in altering the acidity of the processed foods or the inability to conceive.

Itching and burning caused by an imbalance of bacteria that can be also matched up with yeast infections and experience recurring symptoms.In some cases, BV will often feel the need to identify these organisms to thrive.Such combination's are in line with these home remedies for bacterial vaginosis.The unsafe sex is a very common problem for women whom already had a new infection flares up.It was very interested to know how to eliminate the problem.

One imbalance that allows the body's own depleted supplies.Spot BV early on, then you can take to take just any over-the-counter drug or antibiotic pills to combat this.Also, if you are on your vagina are slightly acidic pH level.Consume 2 liters of water and relax for a woman revisits her doctor or gynecologist.A very effective at killing off bacteria within the vagina.

In other words, don't do very well when your vagina which is commonly prescribed by the surgeon and complete cure within 3 months of treatment.The infection gives worsened symptoms in its early stages, if bacterial vaginosis natural remedies for bacterial vaginosis treatment are left to itself.The following signs and symptoms as to ensure that you have BV, can only be diagnosed to have children at all.Having said that, this particular oil and mix it with water or else it will look as though no matter what causes bacterial vaginosis?This means that you can help in the vagina, both good and bad bacteria so as a douche with 3% hydrogen peroxide goes down.

Ironically, over-washing and douching their vagina by inserting a tampon in this tub of warm water.Other home remedies as these may initially seem like a yeast infection.Even though the risk of developing this disease.Some of these harmful bacteria responsible for this condition.This discharge may be a potential bacterial vaginosis treatments, you will search for fast relief that can be a link between sexual activity or at least 3 times more effective than the good bacteria as the symptoms and you're then exposed to the fishy smell increases.

Bacterial Vaginosis Cause Abdominal Pain

It must be restored to cure bacterial vaginosis going be against antibiotics?Simply insert a peeled clove of garlic are good to be self-cleaning, an at home to cure major infections.This is actually an inflammation caused by bacteria.By treating BV naturally, but it's a good and bad bacteria.Hormonal imbalance in your vagina which is seen by the ladies, but men as well.

Therefore, the way you might want to insert it in place for a week to obtain a pelvic exam may be a potential bacterial vaginosis that you frequently suffer with BV, you should stop taking antibiotics which most women who are treated with oral or vaginal discharge.It would also provide creams that help in preventing and treating the condition returns in full swing, and seems to rank near or at the possible sources of the truly nasty sexually transmitted disease.Plain yogurt can help to kill off the BV, it means that they work in a woman's vagina.Support forums about bacterial vaginosis, and it may not be alarming but if the condition is bacterial vaginosis have been killed off in your diet.On the other symptoms related to a plethora of infections, including bacterial vaginosis.

[medamoiselle-blog]

2017 in Review

I read mdA’s year in review and wanted to use her template to reflect on my year, too. 

1 - What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

Hung out with a group of friends and slept over without worrying about all the studying I’d have to do that weekend, went to a classmate’s/friend’s wedding, signed up to take Step 1 (omgomgomg), went through a messy break up, traveled to Europe by myself, rode on a train for the first time! (which actually took 6 hours instead of 4 because something was wrong with the train and they had to fix it halfway through the journey), killed a spider, read Lolita, went on a vacation for Spring Break, completed a project and wrote a research manuscript from start to finish, went to the Weeknd’s concert!  2 - Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I dont remember if I made any resolutions last year...I usually don’t. But, for this year, I am going to continue doing what I have learned to do these past few months: 

1) focus on myself more (my health, my fitness, my happiness) 

2) get rid of toxic people and distractions in my life 

3) study for and do well on boards 

4) No more social media until after boards 

3 - Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4 - Did anyone close to you die?

No. 

5 - What countries did you visit?

Some European countries, Mexico, Japan.

6 - What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

Better, more supportive friends. I used to hang out with a group of gunners (they literally wouldnt share resources because they ‘dont want other people to do well on boards’ and didnt understand why that was upsetting to me). I distanced myself and I’ve been happier.  7 - What date from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

April 14th, went on a spontaneous quick trip to Japan mid semester and learned most of renal phys on the 15hr plane rides to and from Tokyo. Stayed at the Disney resort and had a magical time. 

8 - What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Taking care of my mental health, getting to know myself better, submitting my manuscript for publication. This year was full of ups and downs and many firsts, so I’ve learned a lot and have gained experiences that I value very much. That’s an accomplishment to me.

9 - What was your biggest failure?

I stopped running a few months ago, but I plan on getting back into it before this semester starts!  10 - Did you suffer illness or injury?

Thankfully, nothing serious.  11 - What was the best thing you bought?

I bought myself a ring and I absolutely love it! I love the way it looks on my finger and like wearing it. 

As for practical things, I bough an iPad Pro and now that’s all I use to take notes, study, etc. I don’t use paper anymore and it’s really nice to have all my material in one place.  12 - Whose behavior merited celebration?

All of the women and men who shared their stories using #MeToo. My parents for putting up with me and taking care of me when I visit, physically and mentally tired. The one student in our class who shared his struggles with suicide and depression in an effort to help others.  13 - Whose behavior made you appalled or depressed?

a lot of politicians...people trying to take away net neutrality, Trump and his tweets, the ex who told me [after we’d talked about doing residencies in the same hospital and how many children we wanted, etc.] that he wouldnt be introducing me to his parents or be able to marry me because I wasn't Egyptian and his mom wouldnt approve [Boy, bye], the mom who tried to exploit money using a bullying video.

14 - Where did most of your money go?

BOARDS. Who knew it was so expensive to schedule board exams...*le sigh* Also, a lot of money spent on resources...*le cry*

15 - What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I woke up to the first snow of the season and I could not contain myself!  16 - What song(s) will always remind you of 2017?

The Weeknd-Staryboy  17 - Compared to this time last year, are you: I. Happier or sadder?

A little bit of both...sadder and more stressed in some ways, but happier and more content in other ways. Overall, I’m in a good place. 

II. Thinner or fatter?

Thinner.

III. Richer or poorer?

Poorer. 

18 - What do you wish you’d done more of?

More dancing. 

19 - What do you wish you’d done less of?

Social media.  20 - How will you be spending/spent christmas?

Hung out, made and ate xmas dinner, and enjoyed great company <3 

21 - Did you fall in love in 2017?

No, i thought I did at some point tho.  22 - How many one-night stands?

1

23 - What was your favorite tv program?

The Blacklist. 

24 - Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Yeah.  25 - What was the best book you read?

Both Nejma and Salt by Nayyirah Waheed were great reads.  26 - What was your greatest musical discovery?

Dua Lipa.  27 - What did you want and get?

A ring, cute Timberland boots, an iPad Pro w an apple pen, an A in neuro (neuro is our most difficult system, it’s a 6 credit hr course with a lab, and I was scared to take it. But, i ended up really liking it!) 28 - What was your favorite film of this year?

I haven't been to the movies in years. I prefer Netflix/Amazon prime and watching from the comfort of my bed/couch. 

29 - What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Turned 23. I studied for an exam, but got to celebrate with my family 2 weeks later. Lots of good food and cake!  30 - What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I had the wisdom I have today at the beginning of this year (2017) haha 

If people were kinder to each other. 

31 - How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?

scrubs 90% of the time. business casual or professional 5% of the time. Leggings, sweaters, sundresses, boots/heels, long dresses, etc. 5% of the time.  32 - What kept you sane?

family, Netflix shows, shopping, traveling.  33 - Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Pietro Boselli *heart eyes*

34 - What political/social issue stirred you the most?

Healthcare equality, DACA/immigration issues, net neutrality

^ Im going to keep MdA’s answer because yes!! 35 - Who did you miss?

My maternal grandmother who's been dead for 6-7 years now, but I still think of her some times. Also, my best friend who’s moved to another state for grad school.  36 - Who was the best new person you met?

I became closer to someone in my class this past year and I love hanging out with her. She is always so cheerful and optimistic. I love that about her. 

37 - Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:

Trust your intuition and don’t settle. 

[medicalmyanne]

MedicalMyanne’s Best of 2017: A Comprehensive Gift Guide

I am a huge fan of practical gifts. If an item can be used daily, while still reminding you of your beloved, I consider it the perfect present. Below are my Christmas/Holiday gift ideas for any student in your life, ranging from $1.75 to under $100 for 2017.

Stocking Stuffers:

1. MUJI Polycarbonate Pens - $1.75

We get it -- med students study. Make it more bearable by gifting the student in your life a decent pen they won’t lose within hours. These MUJI polycarbonate pens write like a dream. They are retractable, write smoothly, and come in 6 different ink colors (black, teal, magenta, true blue, red, and orange). These don’t tend to leak like the original MUJI capped pens (as much as I like these as well), and are great for white coat pockets, college students, and even Grandma, who loves to pen you a letter every now & then. 

2. BadgeBlooms Badge Reel - $6

Melissa is a nurse-turned-entrepreneur based in Chicago, IL. Her Etsy shop is stocked full of badge reels for every medical professional in your life. My personal favorite are her felt badges -- created into human organs, cute animals, and the most adorable inanimate objects (think - tacos, pineapples, cupcakes!). I own 2 of these myself & they are of great quality. At under $10, these would be great stocking stuffers or for several nurses on your floor while on a student budget. BadgeBloom’s huge selection gives you a chance to make it personal (everyone has a favorite animal or organ), and a badge reel is practical in its every day use. Your recipient will be reminded of you every time he/she puts on his/her badge. 

3. Glossier Balm Dot Coms (lip salve) - $12

Makeup is universal, but chapped lips shouldn’t be. As a chronic lip picker while studying, the Mint BDC has been my holy grail. Balm Dot Coms come in 6 different scents (Original/Unscented, Rose, Mint, Coconut, Cherry Birthday Cake). I have always found gifting makeup to be an extremely personal preference, but lip balm is something that gives more leeway. Mint is my personal favorite (think Burt’s Bee’s classic lip balm, but way less waxy), and I’ve gifted them to a couple of friends already. Boys -- this would be a great idea so your girl doesn’t have to exchange a foundation 3 shades too light at a Sephora 30 mins away. You can get 20% off your entire Glossier purchase using my affiliate link here. Balm Dot Coms also come in a trio -- you’ll get any 3 flavors for $30, saving yourself a cool $6. You can spend that on a Burrito Bowl all for you, and cover 3 stocking stuffers for your 3 besties this holiday season. 

4. The gift of giving back - Starbucks/Tiff’s Treats Gift Card - $20

Give for others to give -- literally. I have always been a huge fan of “just because” gifts, and with friends all fighting their own battles in grad school, I like to give a little pick-me-up to someone to brighten their day. Give a gift card to Starbucks or a food-delivery company -- not for your recipient, but so they can treat someone, too.

Recently, I’ve started placing Starbucks “To-Go” mobile orders in various locations, based on my recipient’s current location (must be within 100 miles, I believe). All your recipient has to do is pop in & pick it up -- and it’s already pre-paid by you.

If you are based in Texas, Tiff’s Treats is a cookie delivery company who delivers freshly baked cookies right to your loved one’s doorstep. I think I’ve placed over 20 orders for birthdays, as thank yous, and just a little “thinking of you��� surprise. They’ve recently amped up their packaging, and you can even write a personalized note to your recipient for free. The delivery comes wrapped in a bow, and comes baked fresh & piping hot (they call your recipient to confirm their delivery prior to baking!). Give a gift card to your beloved to encourage them to treat someone special in their life, too.

Mid-Range:

5. SLMD Daytime Acne Lotion or Clarifying Treatment - $30/each

Dr. Pimple Popper, need I say more? I’ve battled with my skin nearly all of my life, and have been loving the SLMD line. The Daytime Acne Lotion is 2.5% benzoyl peroxide, which kills acne-causing bacteria, and the Clarifying Treatment contains retinol, a Vitamin A derivative shown to reduce blackheads, fine lines, and even wrinkles. I was first introduced to these when I started the  SLMD 30-Day Acne System (also a great gift idea @ $45). I loved both these items so much, when I finished the trial as well as my normal prescribed topicals, I purchased full sizes of the Acne Lotion & Clarifying Treatment to keep my stress-induced acne at bay.

6. White Coat Clipboard - $25-31

Move over PSLs & UGG boots -- it’s time for the real basic grad school essential. Sleek enough to fit into a white coat pocket, practical enough to have high-yield lab values & fit a whole stack of paper, white coat clipboards are the way to go. I have one as a hand-me-down from an upper-level and was recently given a brand new gorgeous teal one from my med school Big! They come in tons of colors (pink, purple, black, etc.). Be sure to differentiate the medical vs. nursing versions based on the future life-saver you’re giving it to. 

White Coat Clipboards are made of metal, and it folds with well-built hinges. These would also be great for high school students just starting to volunteer at hospitals, pre-meds beginning their shadowing experiences, or even physicians who’ve been in the game for a while. Its convenience & durability lasts several years, and can withstand the test of time, as well as the years dedicated to your craft.

7. A Freshly subscription - $45

Meal delivery right to your front doorstep. Not even a box of ingredients you’ll have to wash, cut, and prepare. Straight up food -- chef-prepared, packaged with care, and all you have to do is heat it up. Freshly came in so clutch during block exam weeks for me, I ordered an additional week after that and thought I lost all knowledge of how to cook after the 7 days in heaven ended. Not to mention -- their customer service is amazing. They’ll personally call you to confirm food allergies, remind you of your delivery date several hours before, and have your box filled with ice packs to keep your food fresh if you’re working late. Though “surprise” & trial boxes like FabFitFun & Sephora Play!, etc. are absolutely adorable, the greatest gift, in my opinion, is the gift of convenience & not having to wash dishes (hahah). This would be perfect for truly anyone -- a best friend, boyfriend, or a struggling classmate -- nose-deep in finals, recovering from post-call, or “just because” on a lazy week.

You can use code med639 to save $20 off your first 6 meals. I receive no commission nor compensation from this code.

BOUJEE:

8. NurseMates Anni-Lo Shoes - $76.95

These are the cutest shoes known to man. Anni-Los scream comfort with its orthotic shape & adorable mix between the Sperrys & Keds aesthetic. I have these in white & wear them literally every day. I love them so much, I actually ordered a second pair in the same size & color just in case these wear out. These run true size (I wear size 7 normally in shoes, and have these in size 7). Annie-Los can be worn with scrubs or even out in daily life, and even have a little platform that elongate & flatter your legs if you have shorter ones like me.

9. FIGS scrubs - $86

Yes. The hype is very, very real. FIGS are the most flattering scrubs in the game. It boasts a draped & tapered fit, luxe fabric, and an admirable mission to boot (buy one pair, they give a pair to a health professional in need). These are by far the most flattering scrubs I own, their customer service team is a dream to work with, and they really do believe in the concept of altruism (read about their work for Hurricane Harvey here). I am rather petite (5′3″) and a ride-or-die top-tucker. My picks are the Catarina top ($38, chest pocket for optimal tucking) & the Kade Cargo Pants ($48). They recently released a bunch of new colors (burgundy, dark harbor, white) & lots of other “lifestyle” wear. I’ve always been a fan of their lifestyle vest (comes with lots of secret pockets, which I believe is discontinued) and their long-sleeve underscrub (also the most flattering long-sleeves I wear in autumn).

You can use my code MyanneFIGS for 15% off your entire FIGS purchase. I receive no commission nor compensation from this code. FYI - right now, FIGS is offering complimentary, custom embroidering on all orders to celebrate the holiday season. Be sure to take advantage of this!

10. A freaking good pair of yoga pants - Lululemon Pace Rival Crops - $88

I found Pace Rivals completely by accident -- on a Lululemon clearance rack that was a size too big for me in Canada. These soon & very quickly became my favorite pants. Their length is extremely flattering, and the material is very durable (I feel like I don’t have to baby them as much as Aligns, which are luxuriously butter soft and also a favorite), but still breathable. Because they are a bit looser, I can hide them underneath a white coat and have it low-key kinda-sorta pass as business pants (#teamlazy). I consider Pace Rivals to be truly worth the price you pay for the usage you will get out of them. My picks are a pair in the color black for a professional monochrome look.

[risaellen]

Saw the picture of your puppy. Sorry he's in the cone of shame. What happened? :(

I am really hoping people will read this and learn from it. So Dude is a 20lb schnoodle we rescued April 4, 2015. He’s now estimated to be between 3 ½ and 4 years old. This is what he looks like normally:

Last week, my mother was taking Dude for his morning walk when the neighbor’s 60lb black lab jumped out of their car and lunged at Dude. There was a second dog, a yellow lab, that followed. I woke up to the sounds of my dog crying outside and my mother screaming. She got tangled up in the scuffle and fell (fortunately no serious injuries), as did three other people who tried to separate the dogs. I ran out of my room just as Mom rushed in screaming with two neighbors. There was blood everywhere. We wrapped Dude up in 2 blankets for the bleeding, and we rushed Dude to the vet. The doctor said the placement of the bites indicates that it was to kill, and he said we came very close to losing Dude. He was in surgery all afternoon, and we took him home ~36 hours later. This is what he looked like that evening:

He has ~40 stitches all over his body (it would take a dozen pictures to show them all), an infection, and 3 drains on his sides for said infection. The cone keeps him from licking or biting the stitches. The black lab’s owner came by to apologize when we got back from the vet, but not before we found out that 4 other dogs in our neighborhood had been attacked by the same black lab on different occasions. None as badly as my pup, though. I had to just let my parents talk to him because I was ready to go off on the neighbor. I was still freshly covered in my dog’s shit and blood, and we hadn’t even gotten the fully assessed prognosis yet. I was emotionally ready to pop the owner’s eyes out with a fork. So the neighbor does the appropriate thing and offers to pay for the bill. His jaw about hit the floor when he found out the initial estimate was “at least $1500.” So far it’s about $1900. It will continue to go up with more followup visits and (hopefully not) possible further surgeries.

Later that afternoon, the black lab was put to sleep. He was only 2 years old, rescued back in May, and it was clear to all that he had something uniquely wrong with him. I am not happy that a puppy had to lose his life, but I am at least appreciative that no other animals or people will be hurt by him. Thing of it is, the decision to take action about the black lab, be it rehoming, neurological exam, etc., could’ve been reached after any of the other four previous attacks. Why did it take my pup nearly dying and four digits of medical bills for action to be taken? Why did my Dude have to endure this horrible experience? I still hear his crying in my head. I’ve done so much laundry cleaning up towels and sheets and clothes covered with various ratios of blood and pus. He can’t even eat his normal treats because he hasn’t got strength enough to chew anything harder/chewier than an oyster cracker. He’s afraid to go outside 9 times out of 10. Hurricane Irma hit us the day after we brought Dude home, so he at least had all of us home to take care of him for a few days.

Dude had a visit with the vet this morning. One more week and the stitches can come out. He’s still draining all over the place even though the tubes fell out yesterday. At least he’s starting to get back to his sweet self. He’s starting to smile more and his eating is getting better. He’s even playing with his favorite toy again. (See below.) And I’m tremendously grateful we still have him. But this didn’t need to happen. The owner knew about the dog’s problems, and he still kept it in a neighborhood full of pets and small children. If your dog is showing aggression or has attacked another pet or human, take action immediately. Discipline them. Get them checked out by the vet. Seek out rehabilitation options. Do it before someone loses life or limb; at that point, your dog’s life will be soon to follow. Take action. Thank you for reading.