#But I have a sever phobia to syringes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

windwardstar · 2 years ago

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that one t post

Since there's some of y'all who showed interested, here's the big rundown of my experiences with T. This covers being on T for 3 month at 26, stopping it for a few years, then the first 9 months of being on T at 28. Contains the changes that have happened while I’ve been on T + the interactions with my other health conditions + the process of accessing care. It’s safe for work/reading in public as far as any puberty/medical body talk is. Word count is ~8k.

T round 1 (2019 - I was 26)

If you followed me back in 2019, you might recall me getting on T at the end of that year.

I didn’t have a PCP and was in a very conservative state which made me concerned about finding a trans friendly provider, so I decided to go through Planned Parenthood knowing it was informed consent. The PP that had a gender clinic and was open on my day off was on the other side of the state/2 hour drive one way. But also, when I went to book an appointment they had one for the same week/the next day so I didn’t have to wait. I had insurance through my work that partially covered the visit, the lab work, and the prescriptions. This was out of network for my insurance so I paid more than if it was in network. My local pharmacy was the Sam’s Club which has $4 prescriptions for members- which is what I ended up paying as it was significantly cheaper than my insurance co-pay. (I did not get a prescription for a sharps container and bought one from the local store.) I got my supplies in 3 month batches and didn’t have any issues with the pharmacy.

At the appointment, I was given a big packet of “side effects” (aka the desired results) it included a handy chart of when certain changes would likely happen. My provider went over it with me to make sure I knew what to expect, and asked me a couple questions about my gender identity and transition goals to get a feel for me and make sure this was what I wanted. I was completely out at work and socially. I had very recently moved out of an abusive homelife and was catching my feet mental health wise, but I was in therapy at the time and on medications that had been as a consistent dose for about a year (aka: mental health problems were well controlled), so the doctor was comfortable prescribing me T. We decided to try weekly injections first to limit potential high/lows on a longer dose cycle.

The Labs for this provider were Initial Labs, 3 Months, 6 Months, Then Yearly. My 3 Month Labs hit right at the start of Covid Lockdown, I wasn’t able to get in for them (perpetually overlapping quarantines at work yo), the shift to telehealth hadn’t happened, and then I ran out of my psych meds (antidepressant and an antipsychotic/mood stabilizer) so my executive functioning skills went bye-bye for a while. So I couldn’t get my prescription renewed and had to stop T after like 3 months.

I took Testosterone Cypionate (0.25 ML, 0.50 MG) by Intramuscular (IM) Injections in my thigh once a week. The syringes had a twist on/off for the needles themselves (bigger one for the drawing up, smaller for the injection). They hurt a lot for me. I’d get a bruise around the injection site and the muscle would be very sore for 2-3 days after and hurt when I walked or used the muscle. It wasn’t enough to make me want to stop, but it wasn’t pleasant.

(Because of the long drive, the doctor didn’t have me come back for the first shot, just confirmed I was comfortable administering it myself and knew the process. She said if I ran into problems there were youtube videos I could look at or I could call.)

I did have issues with my needle phobia, but before getting to the part of actually seeking out access to T, I’d done a lot of work to manage it. The few years prior to starting T, I’d had to get a lot of blood drawn for lab work, several IVs, and quite a few vaccines which had helped me calm down so I was no longer having panic attacks around needles. The biggest thing that helped though was mental work and visualization. I started out just contemplating the concept of T injections in the abstract, then read posts with people talking about injections, looked at visuals of needles/syringes and people administering them. The last step was then thinking about giving myself injections and visualizing it. The whole time I tried to associate it with all the positive things I’d hoped to get from T and reminding myself the injections/ivs/blood draws of the previous years had all been perfectly fine and my anxiety was not reflecting what actually happened. (I also got a tattoo a month or so before I started T and after the initial anxiety I was mostly just fascinated by watching the tattoo gun, which was what really made me think I could do the T injections.) It took a long time to get to that point. When I started, I was only able to think about needles for a few seconds at a time. But I was able to give myself my first T shot with only a little anxiety (my hands shook a lot). And with each successful injection, the anxiety went down.

The Changes on T (1-3 Months):

Increased body hair. I noticed the hair on my thighs thickening and darkening around the injection sites, but not really much else. The peach fuzz on my face increased and I got a few dark hairs but there wasn’t really anything to shave. I think I shaved my face once because I wanted to not because there was anything to really shave…

Voice Changes: I sang quite a bit so I noticed that my lower register got fuller and the lowest end of my range got easier to access, but other than that there weren’t any vocal changes that I noticed. I didn’t get any voice breaking or cracking.

Bottom Growth: Yeah, there was some of that. Enough I noticed. Things also got very very sensitive and painful. OTC pain meds and ice packs helped. Loose clothes. Also manspreading.

Periods: They got lighter and less painful almost immediately, and I skipped one 3 months in. Then I ran out of T and got my period back the next month.

Acne: I didn’t get acne until the 3 month mark or so, but that also coincided with the start of wearing masks. It got really painful so I started using the OTC acne cream I used in high school, and it cleared up to something manageable once I was off T. (My teenage acne hit HARD at 13 and didn’t clear up until I was 24.)

Nightmares: The first month I started getting a significant increase in nightmares/remembering them upon waking up. This may have been because I had just moved into my own place and escaped an abusive environment, but my therapist at the time mentioned that nightmares were a common thing for people starting T (it is a big hormone change so y’know).

Other Changes: there may have been some, but it’s been a few years so I don’t really remember.

T round 2: 9 Months (2022 started at 28)

The goal was always to get back on T. It just took a while. Cross country move (liberal state now yo), new job, getting new insurance. Once I did, I had to figure out where to get T again. The planned parenthoods were all booked months out and none open for gender clinic stuff on my days off.

I went through my doctor’s office, found out they have a special gender health program for trans people and transferred care to them. I had to wait like a month to get an appointment, but it means my PCP/GP is versed in trans care and does all my hormones. The experience is fantastic. The whole office used my chosen name and pronouns before they got legally changed and had the ability to change the display name on my chart so everyone would use the correct one.

The initial visit was via phone. It was a lot of the same causal “tell me about yourself and your transition goals” as the last time. We skipped a lot of the “this is what t will do” since I already knew it, and folded it in with talking about my experience being on T previously, what I liked, what I hoped for, what I found difficult, etc. I was off the psych medications I had been on the last time, but since I’d been off for two-ish years and was stable, I was ok to restart T. We started me off on the same dose and frequency I had been on previously, but because the IM had been painful, we switched to SubQ.

I didn’t need any initial lab work done, but I’ve done them every 3 months after starting. I had to go in person to pick up my prescription (which I did the next morning after my initial telehealth visit, the pharmacist called the insurance to get the authorization & everyone there was super great) and meet with the nurse to administer my first shot. The doctor poked her head in to say hi in person.

My insurance covers the visits, lab work, and prescriptions. I did have to get prior authorization and have a letter from the insurance company stating my T prescription is approved for a year. I got a prescription for a sharps container this time since the stores did not have any on the shelves. (The pharmacy was out of the small ones too, so I ended up with the big gallon size. It takes up a ton of space under the sink, but it should last me several more years before I have to dispose of it.) My needles also just have a smooth pop on/off to attach to the syringe.

For the first six months, the depo was a 0.25ML/0.50 MG SubQ injection once a week. Because there were certain changes I wasn’t seeing, at 6 months my dose was increased to 0.40ML/0.80MG SubQ once a week.

The SubQ injections basically don’t hurt after I’ve injected them. A couple times I injected them too quickly (just sticking the needle in and pressing down on the plunger too hard and forcing the liquid in, then pulling the needle out immediately) and those are when I’ve noticed redness, swelling, and soreness around the injection site. So my process for minimal pain and bleeding: wait until I’ve got cool skin (not right after a shower), inject slowly, count to 10 before pulling out the needle. Warming up the vial in my hands so the T isn’t cold and making sure everything is dry from the alcohol swabs before injecting also helps with the initial injection pain.

The anxiety around needles has basically all disappeared so I have no issue giving myself injections.

(I have a problem with my T vials crystallizing. I’ve found they take ages to dissolve, so I stick them in a pocket/waistband to keep them warm against my skin for an hour or so as I go about my morning, shaking it every now and then to see how it’s doing. I do my shot on my day off when I generally have time to do that. This time it’s Fridays. Last time it was Wednesdays.)

I started T (again) in April 2022 at 28

(Idk how the math works on these changes when you start/stop/restart on T. I wasn’t able to find anything. Probably because there’s not enough data on it. Given the length of the break, the T levels in my system had definitely reset, and I hadn’t been on T very long previously. Some of my changes went faster than the expected timeline, some slower, some about the same. So know there’s a parenthetical +3 months to all of this.)

Voice Changes: I noticed a continuation of the pattern from the last time. My lower register got much fuller and easier. My upper range started getting harder to reach. Nothing cracking or breaking, but there were some notes I was struggling to reach by the time the choir concert rolled around in mid-May. I started off bordering soprano/alto and was clinging to the alto range before we broke for summer (1-2 months)

I caught COVID from work over Memorial day (~2 months in) and my voice cracked a bit. I went into COVID being able to talk, was sick for a week, and then when the Covid cleared my voice was fried. I sounded terrible talking. Singing wise, my lower range had extended and my upper had come down, but I was still easily able to slip into my head voice.

Started Summer Choir at the end of June. I spent the first few weeks feeling like the songs were a little low for my range. Then things shifted again (~3months) and my singing range shrank to about 3 notes, I could not reliably open my mouth and make a sound, my breath control disappeared. I had one volume I could sing in, no going louder or softer or the sound would disappear. I sounded like a squeaky clarinet. (I did a very good seagull impression.) It was terrible and I loved every minute of it because it was so euphoric. I didn’t sound like a girl. I was firmly in the Tenor range. I was experiencing the puberty I’d always wanted to. (It was hard to tell with the first drop since it happened while I had COVID, but the second time my voice really cracked, I also had a really dry and sore throat.)

Enter August (~4 Months) my range was starting to re-expand. The low notes/chest voice coming back first. I was also figuring out how to make noise with the new instrument, because speaking and singing is all muscle memory. Which meant everything I knew previously was basically irrelevant at best and counter productive at worst. My brain would know how to produce a note on my pre-t vocal chords, so it would try to do what it had done before and either a) nothing would come out because my vocal chords are no longer capable of producing those notes or b) it would come out but be much lower. (I’m still working on retraining this 9 months in. My mental voice and physical voice do not match. I still think I sound like my pre-t self. Like, the thinking voice in my head sounds like my pre-T voice, it hasn’t dropped yet. Which makes singing difficult because I don’t know intuitively how I sound now. I have to adjust once I start making noise.) I was able to make my way through the concert at the end of August, but there were things too high for me since I wasn’t able to access that part of my range yet.

September/October/November/December (month 5-8) my singing range continued to expand and stabilize, the lower notes got much easier, volume control came back, my breath control returned with practice, and some access to my head range. My voice fatigues easily, but that’s getting better too. The vocal fry/clarity of my voice is getting better as well. I had to stop multiple times per rehearsal over the summer, but by December I was able to make it almost the whole rehearsal before reaching my limit. I do not have a smooth transition between notes and get stuck in low gear so to speak. Pre-t my favorite things to sing were songs where I jumped around my entire range. I miss that flexibility, but there are new things to enjoy singing now. I’m also only 9 (+3) months in, and my voice is going to continue to develop. My goals right now are just to continue exploring my singing voice as things change, and to try and get my brain to match what the new pipes can do.

(January 1st, Month 9 (aka today while I was waiting to do a final round of edits on this post) I had a moment where things finally clicked into place for my singing voice. I was singing while doing the laundry, and I was just able to actually sing without feeling any strain. It felt easy and natural coming out. I had to focus on what I was singing to a degree, but not to the exclusion of doing other activities. The sound didn’t crack or disappear on me, and I didn’t run out of breath mid phrase. I was able to actually sing. It was also a moment where I was able to hear my voice and think “this is what I sound like, this is my voice” as opposed to the transitory state it’s existed in since I first started noticing changes. It’s also just a sense of feeling completed and right. I cried, and there was joy, but the predominant emotion was just feeling that things had finally aligned into where they were meant to be and an overwhelming settling peace.)

My biggest thing right now is just how much more air it takes to make sound, speaking or singing. My laugh has turned from a giggle to just blowing air out through my teeth or a bunch of kekekekeke where the sound is from my tongue stopping the air rather than my vocal chords making noise. Singing, I am having to breathe much more frequently than before. Speaking, I sometimes don’t do enough air and sound doesn’t come out. I go nonverbal A LOT more than before because the physical act of speaking has become harder. That initial start up to making noise is sometimes more than my brain can figure out in the moment.

My speaking voice has also changed a lot. The pitch has dropped, it’s gotten much rougher, but I tend to speak in a very femme manner. People have definitely noticed it’s dropped, but it sounds more “cold/laryngitis” than “guy.” People have definitely started reacting differently when they hear me speak over the phone, but I’ve yet to get any comments and it’s not been enough to keep strangers from misgendering me. I have the ability to sound like a guy, there are times when I am relaxed and can hear it come out. The bulk of how my speaking voice sounds is from how I’m using it. I sound like a girl to others because of all those aspects of speech that have nothing to do with how high or low it is. (Aka sounding like a guy at this point for me is about technique not physical ability. This is where speech therapists would be useful.) My dysphoria over my voice has essentially disappeared. I love my voice now, and I’m filled with so much excitement over seeing what else unfolds with it as I get used to it and how to use it.

Acne/Skin Stuff: First off, Puberty 1.0 gave me terrible acne. It set in at like 13. Regardless of what I did as a teenager, I was unable to really control it. I had products but they didn’t really work and my mother wouldn’t get me to a dr for it. My skin was dry and oily. It would crack and peel and bleed and had reactions to every product I put on it. It got better in my twenties and was mostly gone by the time I was 24. It came back when I started T the first time + Covid Masking at 26. But by that point I’d found an acne cream + lotion combination of products that kept things almost clear.

I expected to have acne bad again on T because that’s just what my body does with hormones. By the end of the first month the acne was back. It progressed to being painful cystic acne by 3 months. I told my doctor and got a prescription cream. I’m meant to use it twice a day, I did at first, but it made my skin too dry, so I use it mostly once a day (generally after I’ve showered). I use it + a plain lotion for moisturizing/keeping things from getting too dry. I still have pretty bad acne, my face is red and skin is perpetually breaking out. But it’s not painful, and that’s my biggest goal with controlling acne. Especially because I react very strongly to products on my skin.

My acne still gets worse around my periods, so I know a lot of it is hormonal stuff going on. There’s some slight increase in body acne, but nothing that I even have to put cream on as it’s not painful and goes away on its own. The acne usually appeared in spots where hair was growing in for like a week or so while the hair started growing in thicker/darker.

The rest of my skin also got super oily. And I got super sweaty. And smelled funky for a little while. Previously I showered and washed my hair every other day because that was the balance of keeping my scalp happy. My skin also couldn’t handle more than that as it would get too dry and crack even with lotion. 1-2 months in, I was showering every day, over the summer (~3-6 months) I was showering once in the morning and once at night (mostly because sweat, but also smell) and washing my hair every day. I did not really experience any dry skin. Somewhere around the 7 month mark, that all decreased. 9 months in, I’m showering every day (with an extra shower if I get gross) and still have no problems with dry skin on my body.

The T has affected my scalp*. I started reacting to the shampoo I’d been using for years about a month or so into starting T. I switched to a different shampoo that worked for the most part, but then started causing problems about 7-8 months in. I’m currently trying a new shampoo + washing every other day or so, and hoping it works. This is getting brought up at my next appointment either for medicated shampoo or a referral to the derm if the current shampoo doesn’t work. *I don’t know if it’s causing a reaction to the products, or if there’s some interplay of the increased oils + increased sweat + my hair being wet for longer + more washings causing more dryness and more irritation + the hair dryer causing more irritation. All I know is my scalp is hurting and I am trying to figure out why + what I can do to make it stop.

Aka: I had terrible acne during puberty 1.0. Puberty T.0 is running about the same in terms of getting acne, but I’m able to manage it so much better because I’ve a) found a lotion I can apply to my face to help with the dryness and b) got a doctor to prescribe acne cream that actually helps. I’m having worse scalp problems now though, but working to manage them.

Facial Hair/Body Hair/Head Hair:

I started getting dark hairs on my chin first. It was within the first 3 months. It also coincided with the acne. Because my skin is so sensitive and the acne was so bad, I decided to use an electric razor since it doesn’t cut as close and tends to result in fewer nicks and cuts and ingrown hairs. I would not have been able to use a razor without cutting myself at the start. I also tend to react to shaving cream so the electric razor allowed me to not have to figure that aspect out too. I started off every few days, then every other day. Somewhere around 6 months I started needing to shave every day to keep the stubble away. If I have a few days off in a row I’ll skip the shaving so I can see what it looks like, but I shave clean if I have to work.

I’m not really sure when the body hair started growing. I noticed the leg hair on my thighs started growing in a little thicker and there was a bit more hair on my belly 4-5 months in (mostly because the bandaids from my shots started hurting when I pulled them off lol.) At 9 months I’ve noticed the hair on my arms and thighs has gotten darker and a little thicker, and my belly has gotten a lot more dark and thick hair, and there��s some chest hair appearing. I want to say somewhere around 6-7 months, I really started noticing the body hair and getting euphoric and happy about getting fuzzy. (Idk about lower leg hair since I frequently shave it due to wearing compression socks and finding them sensory hell and painful with leg hair.)

(Also got more hair on the butt and the butt crack, which was making getting clean after pooping during colitis flares difficult. Solution I’ve found is shaving/trimming that area (you know how it works with long-haired cats and dogs?) and using wet wipes if needed.)

One thing I did notice for both my facial hair and body hair, is that my skin would get mildly itchy the week or so before I started noticing more hair growing, and would continue for that first week or so + there tended to be some ingrown hairs during that stage. It was rather similar in feeling to what my underarms or legs feel like when I shave them and the hair starts to regrow. The itchiness is pretty mild for me so I didn’t really do anything about it.

The spot I inject the T got darker thicker hair first. And by spots I mean like the circle immediately around the injection sites was noticeably darker and hairier than the surrounding body part. It’s evened out on my thighs since my SubQ are in my belly, and the belly is starting to even out 9 months in.

Head hair. It’s started thinning up top right around my part, and on the sides of my temple. Really only noticed it starting at the 8 month mark. I’m currently in the process of trying to figure out if this is related to the scalp issues (since they can cause hair loss) and reversible, or the permanent slow march of time kind of balding. I really like having long hair. It’s fun. I haven’t cut my hair (which would improve my chances of passing as a guy or at least not getting consistently gendered as a girl) because I like my hair. I want to keep it.

I know finasteride and minoxidil are both things that can be used to treat it. I’m hesitant to use finasteride since it blocks DHT and I want the effects of that more than I want to keep my long hair. I’m worried about minoxidil exacerbating my scalp problems and causing more hair loss.

I’m contacting family to find out more information about family history of hair loss (including the ones where there were auto-immune skin conditions that caused it) and will talk with the doctors to figure out what the best option for me is.

I was a lot more anxious about the potential balding when I first noticed, but after a couple months to process it I’m not as alarmed as I was. If I do go bald though, I like the idea of getting tattoos. It’s also something that hopefully will be slow enough that I’m not gonna lose everything right away and can still enjoy having long hair for a while. But also you know the meme, if you can’t produce your own, store bought is fine. Wigs do exist.

Muscles, Fat, and the whole Musculoskeletal Shit

My timeline on this is a little blurry. Mostly because I’ve always built muscle easily and been rather buff just through having jobs that require some level of physical labor. I’ve also got hypermobile joints + low back pain from falling down stairs in 2019 + chest, rib, & shoulder pain from binder (haven’t been able to bind since pre-pandemic) and bra. So my focus on/awareness of physical ability was less on ease of strength and more on whether or not I had pain that made breathing/movement difficult. I’m going to guess it was easier to build muscle fairly early since I did notice some other changes that would track with things being affected.

So first thing I noticed was that my hips weren’t as prone to slipping out of place as usual and the days where they were painful decreased as well as the level of pain. It got to a point where I basically wasn’t having hip pain except around my period (pre-T the pain would get worse around my period, this is a continuation of the existing pattern). I’m not sure if I noticed this by 3 months, but I did by 6 Months. My guess is that the T strengthened the connective tissues and helped build muscle to hold everything in place. When I did a lot of walking and fatigued my leg muscles, the hip pain would get worse pre-T, but now I don’t really notice that at all 9 months in. If I get sore after movement, it doesn’t knock me out for several days. I still have to be careful about how I’m sitting and sleeping as the joints can still get knocked out of place that way. But also, the threshold for pain happening is much higher and I have fewer days of it. I’ve also only had to use my cane a handful of times since starting T.

My rib/chest pain got less severe at some point… I know I’m able to tolerate wearing my bra all day without feeling pain most of the time. That shift happened some time over the summer. So 3-6 months. (This was because my body finally managed to heal from the injuries from binding and the stress injury from using the deli slicer 2-4 hours a day at work in 2018.)

My back pain has kind of been figuring out what makes it worse and better. It’s gotten better overall over the past 9 months, but idk how much I can attribute that to T and how much is just figuring out what makes it worse and not doing that.

I’ve also noticed a significant decrease in flexibility. To the point I can stretch muscles I’ve never been able to stretch before. I can stretch my muscles without hyperextending joints. I started to resume a lot of the stretching I stopped in 2018 because whatever support my joints now have is enough that I don’t risk being too bendy to hold them all in place. My hands basically don’t dislocate/sublux any more, and the pain in them is gone. My grip strength has never been better. I can open water bottles without fucking up my fingers. (Aka T has definitely helped with the hEDS.)

My skin has also gotten thicker and less prone to getting cuts. If you follow me, you probably saw the post I made about the changes on that, but basically, my skin is tougher. It doesn’t get cut up as easily and I don’t bleed as easily. My mouth doesn’t get cut up as much by rough foods like toast and cereal and brushing and flossing doesn’t cause bleeding and tearing (no gum health issues this is just hEDS stuff, although I also notice the sensitivity of my gums fluctuate with my period), I don’t get papercuts as easily, sewing is a lot less bloody. This has made it slightly harder to put the needle through my skin for the T injections, it used to go in completely painlessly but somewhere around 6 months it started pinching a bit.

I also have a little adam’s apple now! Which I wasn’t expecting since I’m nearly 30 and I figured things wouldn’t shift too much. I started noticing it grow 3 months in or so when I would touch my throat and it slowly got just a bit bigger. 9 months in there’s something visible in my throat when I talk or swallow, just a tiny visible bump but it’s more than it was before! It also tends to sit REALLY high in my throat, which I know is also part of the problem I have with my voice being high and strained. I have a couple vocal exercises that lower it and my voice and reduce strain. But also this was one of the things I wanted but was realistically not expecting to get so !!!

As far as muscle and fat (re)distribution and such, I noticed somewhere around 4-5 months that when I looked in the mirror after showering so a) i didn’t have my glasses on and things were hella blurry and b) the mirror was somewhat fogged, I had a more masculine look. When my hair covered my chest (it was waist length at that point) there was just enough shifting of things to look masc. (My boobs have gotten somewhat flatter/deflated. Around my period I definitely get a feeling that they’ve gotten bigger/swelled back up.)

Body wise, my shoulders have always been broad, and the ratio of tiny waist to huge hips has always been a source of dysphoria for me. There’s nothing T is gonna do about the underlying bones, but I have noticed my hips and thighs slimming down somewhat / my waist filling out. It’s changed my silhouette away from the hourglass and into something more masculine. It’s helped greatly with my dysphoria when I see myself in the above sink/counter level mirrors. (Full body mirrors/reflections are still hello dysphoria hips.)

My shoulders also got slightly broader, my neck thicker, and my feet got slightly larger. I know for sure around 5-6 months, as I pulled out my long-sleeves for winter and the ones that had been tight and with no stretch the previous year were too tight to wear comfortably. I also pulled out my performance clothes which I hadn’t worn since month 2 on T, and had to let out the collar on my bowtie by a solid inch and get new shoes as the previous ones were too tight (again I’m almost 30, my feet bones didn’t grow but I did have to go up a shoe size). I had thought around 4-5 months that my neck was getting thicker since it didn’t look quite as stick-like. Around that time my face also started looking a little swollen around the jawline. It may have been puffiness or just things shifting around. I’m faceblind so I don’t know if my face has changed, just around that time looking at my face made me think the jaws looked a bit like my sister’s did a week after getting her wisdom teeth removed. Whatever puffiness I saw then, I don’t notice now though.

Idk if I’ve gained or lost weight since I don’t own a scale and don’t actually pay attention to that because it’s not actually important. Shrug emoji.

Periods & Bottom Growth:

If you’ve read this far you’ve probably guessed my periods didn’t stop early this time. As I stated, the first attempt at T, they stopped three months in. My third period came two weeks early this time when I caught COVID. We increased my dose at 6 months because my periods hadn’t stopped. My 8th period happened a week late. This month for the 9th I’ve gotten some light cramping and joint pain (but another week or two will tell if it’s stopped).

I did notice by 6 months the pain/cramping and other things associated with my period were less. (The flow decreased somewhat and the cramps were less severe. I was able to still walk and function with the OTC pain meds, and I had to take fewer for a shorter time frame to get relief. My blood pressure didn’t tank as drastically, so I wasn’t at risk of passing out every time I stood up on the first few days of my cycle each month. I didn’t get chills and shaking. I still get increased acne, bloated, migraines, and my joints all get loose and painful.)

(Outside of my period, my POTS has also drastically improved. Around 7-8 months, all I really started to notice is the tachycardia. The blood pressure problems aren’t forcing me to sit down to avoid passing out, my low blood pressure migraines have mostly disappeared, and my heat intolerance has drastically decreased. The heatwave in 2018 is what ended up with me in the hospital. I made it through the heatwave this year without too much difficulty. I still get migraines when I get too hot, and get weak and exhausted, but I recover within a day rather than a week. My migraines have tons of triggers, but overall I’ve gotten fewer of them since starting T. The only trigger that’s increased in causing them is my low blood sugar.)

Bottom growth has happened!!! I was ambivalent to slightly apprehensive about this part prior to starting the last time, but discovered pretty quickly I was actually really on board with it. For a while this time I was worried starting/stopping/restarting T meant I wasn’t getting any this time around. But the past month or so (month 9) has given me indications it was just taking a while to happen (like my periods not stopping 3 months as previously). This time, I haven’t experienced much in the way of pain + too much sensitivity, but the sensitivity has really increased in the past couple weeks so that may start again as well.

Appetite & blood sugar :

The increased appetite has probably been my biggest most noticeable thing in my day to day life and the only thing that has actually caused me distress (as opposed to annoyance and irritation with the acne). I noticed pretty quickly an increase in my appetite. This brought back problems with my blood sugar just crashing (and tanking my blood pressure with it) that I’d had while growing up. I would also wake up hungry in the middle of the night. 3 Months in it was the biggest change I noticed.

6 months in I was up to eating every two hours, waking up twice at night, and if I skipped one my body would get ravenously hungry and would have headache and shaking. But I was also getting more used to the routine so I got better about keeping food on me and my blood sugar didn’t crash as often/as severely. My grocery budget effectively doubled so that was yikes to my bank account. I also couldn’t get full or stay full. I was constantly hungry. Since I had a history of food insecurity as a kid, the constant feeling of hunger was distressing and started making my anxiety and ptsd get worse.

(There is a link between testosterone levels and blood sugar. Most of the data is on cis men. But the little information packet that comes in the box of my testosterone vial includes: In diabetic patients, the metabolic effects of androgens may decrease blood glucose and therefore, insulin requirements. Presumably, the doctors know to monitor this with diabetic patients and to mention it to them. But also, a reminder to read all the paperwork you’re given because neither of my prescribers mentioned this aspect to me, even when I mentioned having problems with my blood sugar dropping.)

9 months in, my appetite has decreased to pre-T levels which also coincided with getting heart burn/acid reflux for a solid week and a half. I’d never had a problem with that before, but I was also eating/drinking and then immediately laying down (aka eating right before bed and a midnight snack) for like six solid months, which is a big clue to the cause. The biggest surprise there is that it took six months to become a problem. I’ve been mindful of staying upright after eating and after a few days the problem went away.

Dysphoria, Mental Health, Mood and Energy;

T has been fucking amazing. Like. It’s fantastic and I’m thriving and have never felt so stable and capable of handling life. I can’t attribute everything to T because I’ve done a lot of work on my own mental health and my living situation improving (moving away from abusive family, getting engaged with friends and community, fulfilling job) but its positive impact on my mental health and general mood is undeniable.

My dysphoria is so much less than it was before. I love my voice now, I am starting to remember what it feels like to be comfortable in my body. There’re still a bunch of things that are dysphoria inducing that will take more time or surgery (top, hysto, bottom) to change and relieve, (and when I am reminded about the dysphoria inducing things like boobs and people misgendering me as a girl, it feels terrible and I want to crawl out of my skin). But the entire experience of being on T has been a daily blessing of euphoria as everything happens.

I used to joke that you knew trans people were really trans because who else would willingly go through puberty a second time. Puberty 1.0 had been soul destroying terrible. I hadn’t had a single positive experience from it. Everything about puberty 1.0 had made me hate my body more and the changes just kept getting worse. I couldn’t imagine anyone willingly going through that a second time. Somehow despite knowing I wanted all the changes T would cause, my brain didn’t make the connection that I’d like the process aka puberty 2.0. I’d figured I’d suffer through puberty again and in the end I’d have a body I liked and was comfortable in, so it’d be worth all the suffering of puberty.

I was terribly wonderfully wrong. The first time I was on T, I didn’t really notice a ton of changes, but even the small ones I did I liked. It wasn’t terrible. And then, I was off T and the strength of my desire to get back on T and go through those changes was a physical ache. The past 9 months have been full of joy and excitement. Every little change I’ve noticed has made me happy and been something I loved to find. (Barring the acne, and hunger, and potential hair loss.)

Puberty 2.0 is so powerfully positive for me. I love it, and it’s letting me love my body.

My mood is a lot more stable than it was. With my dysphoria lessened, I’m not constantly feeling shitty about that which overall helped my mood. I’m not as depressed (and when I am, it’s so much more mild than before). My mood tends to be either in a stable state or hypo/manic. But there’s no irritability or violence or any of those fear mongering things. T didn’t suddenly change me into the TERF and bio essentialist’s boogey man. T doesn’t change your personality. If you have anger issues on T, you likely had them before. (Also I really want to stress this because I saw warnings about T and bipolar disorder for years: T did not make me irritable or angry or violent. It hasn’t changed the profile of my mood disorder to include symptoms that were never present.)

(As for crying. I don’t cry out of frustration or anxiety as much--which is likely because my mental health has improved and I’m not pushed into those strong negative emotions as often. But I tear up just as easily when I see heartwarming news stories or videos of puppies or see something heartbreaking on the news. I haven’t been cut off from health emotion, or healthy crying.)

Energy wise, I have so much more energy than I did before. I’ve managed to wake up easily all winter rather than take an hour to drag myself out of bed every day. I can work a 12 hour shift, and/or not take a nap and be fine with 8 hours of sleep (or less) at night. I can run around and do things on my days off. I have enough energy to function. I don’t have to have an entire day off just to sleep (although I still enjoy a good afternoon nap and sleeping in).

I don’t notice my energy level fluctuating with my shot (I do weekly injections to avoid my levels fluctuating and causing other things to do so as well), but I did notice my energy levels increased within the first month. But! There’s also a lot of other things going on that are affecting my improved energy levels. Some of this might be because I actually started taking a vitamin d supplement (and I definitely notice less energy when I forget it). The lessening of my dysphoria has freed up a lot of mental energy for other things, the lessening of my dysphoria has lessened my depression* which gives me more energy, the reduction in joint pain + other chronic pain means I’m not constantly having that low drain on my energy and resting better at night, and the reduction in POTS symptoms means I’m not having that massive daily drain on energy reserves.

(*I’ve noticed an increase in energy at my stable baseline, and an increase in the sustained energy while hypo/manic from my pre-T mood cycles without an associated increase in the severity of other symptoms. My depressive moods have reduced in length and severity because there aren’t as many things fucking triggering me during them (which can also be attributed to the better living conditions and social connections, since I noticed this prior to restarting T), but I also have an increased energy during them as well. Which all tracks with the physical conditions improving and no longer draining my energy as much.)

(I still notice when my blood sugar drops, I get my period, or I have an anxiety attack that my energy levels for the day drop accordingly. But I’m also quicker to bounce back to my new baseline. My anxiety has more or less stayed the same. Also randomly feeling tired has become a much more reliable migraine aura because now being tired tends to have an easily identifiable cause.)

As I mentioned in the appetite section, there has been some downsides to my mental health while on T. The constant hunger was triggering for me, but since I'm in a stable environment and have money for food, it’s something I’ve been able to work through. I’ve also experienced more nightmares since being on T, especially around when I first started and when my dose was increased (biggest changes in hormone levels). But the nightmares also increased in general, which I also want to attribute to having more energy while on T. Before T I had a tendency to be so utterly exhausted I didn’t dream and/or I woke up too frequently during the night due to joint pain/needing to reposition that I didn’t complete sleep cycles and wasn’t dreaming/having nightmares. (The biggest argument for this is also that I’m straight up actually having non-nightmare dreams now too. I rarely had dreams and/or remembered them before. I get them decently often now. Which is nice! Dreams can be fun! And weird. Dream logic does not make sense upon waking up.)

“Passing” / How people perceive my gender / General Reception

Gender is a party and transitioning is the grab bag. I’m basically completely on board all the physical changes T is making to my body (bar the acne and the balding). Presentation wise, I lean heavier into the men’s clothing than the women’s and would prefer to be read as a guy rather than a girl if people gotta gender me, but I’m not a guy and not actually interested in passing as a guy. So I don’t put any effort into passing as a guy. Being my authentic self and transitioning into my nonbinary genderqueer gender basically means I do what I’m comfortable with and just vibe (until someone misgenders me and then I dark side dysphoria vibe).

Basically for those keeping track: I have long hair, I shave clean (and wear a mask anyway), my boobs are still visible (can’t bind), my hips are still a thing, and my voice sounds mostly like I have a cold (lower but with girly customer service inflections). My chosen/legal name is still femme. I’m also 5ft/160cm and relatively small. I dress in men’s clothes for the most part. Strangers still assume I’m a girl. Even in trans friendly spaces I get she/her’ed by default.

(I’m out to management at work but very few others. There’s been maybe one person who might have noticed something. Most people I interact with through work--if they notice anything-- notice my voice change. But all the comments I’ve gotten indicate they think I’ve strained my voice from singing, have a cold, or it’s related to my breathing problems. (I had to wear a mask/scarf outdoors before covid due to the cold making it impossible to breathe, same with smoke. Also I caught COVID right before my voice cracked so…))

As I said, I don’t bind and my hair is long and don’t try to pass as a guy, so it makes sense I won’t. I’m sure if I had short hair and didn’t have visible boobs the default gendering by strangers would shift to a different percentage of girl vs guy vs awkward pause as they guess. So if you’re wondering how long it’ll take you to pass as a guy or confuse everyone, I’m not gonna be too helpful. But if you were concerned about being able to hide being on T/keep your transition on the DL until you’re ready to come out, you can definitely do it, just come up with some excuse for your voice because people will notice that.

Congrats I guess if you’ve read this far. Hopefully this was helpful and/or informative. The TL;DR of it is that the bulk of the changes kicked in somewhere between 3-6 months and are gonna continue for another good while. It’s having a lot of positive effects on my various health conditions (POTS, hEDS, migraines). I’m having a blast with everything that’s happening and am delighted by puberty 2.0. The drawbacks are just kind of inconveniences (and aside from potential balding, seem entirely temporary) and are nothing compared to the overwhelming joy and euphoria of slowly getting to exist more comfortably in my skin.

if you've got questions, feel free to ask. Just know depending on the question and whether or not I even know who you are will influence if I answer it or block you.

tagging myself so i can reblog if i need to @owlsofstarlight

#tag for me #also wow this post got long #and took forever to write and edit up #i apologize if it's hard to follow #but also don't complain if its too long i'm not forcing you to read it #the big t post #t timeline

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foxsoulart · 11 months ago

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*Beep new oc alert* cause I can't freaking stop!

-currently unnamed

-can and does wear clothes

-has some sort of ADHD

-"is like human jukebox, you put a dime in you gotta let the whole song play"

-likes to talk, alot. Mostly rambling nonsense

-at home with a little chaos going on

-wears compression/brace gloves(when she remembers them) cause she tends to overdue it

-very expressive (go crazy with the cartoony and excessive emotes)

-surprisingly in tune with how her body is feeling, when she stops bouncing off the walls to notice

-Love language is quality time

-phobia of syringes/ medical needles, this includes ivs and finger pricks

-major energy, doesn't like to sit still, can but doesn't like it.

-enjoys bright flashy stuff: bright colors, glitter, neon lights. Those kinds of things

-has odd mental lists she can't seem to turn off: 'mistakes I've made this week' 'red cars I've seen today' 'words that begin with the letter y today' stuff like that

-her brain remembers and files the oddest things, chaotic organization in her brain, but doesn't remember where alot of it is

-all people are her friend, except for that guy and that one over there, not really that person either

-about 15

-enjoys making things. Several at once

-a rottmnt oc I guess?

She spawned from the thought 'what if Mikey not only saved Leo at the end of the movie but opened a double portal and pulled someone else out of another dimension aswell' and I pursued that thought and here we are, I'll have more context for that at some point.

Choosing her marking color was a pain, she looked good in every color I tried, like how the heck did I do this do myself?! Stop being so matchy!

Some wip pics for you guys aswell

Figuring out her head and eye shape, and an alternate outfit I tested but decided against being her main items

And a speedpaint clip, cause I love sharing stuff

#tmnt #tmnt oc #oc #i like turtles mkay #mutant turtles #rottmnt #infodump #i feel like i shouldn't make any #rottmnt movie au s #cause I haven't seen it yet #but I know things #so its fine

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butwhyduh · 4 years ago

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Out of the darkness

Damian Wayne x reader

Part 2 of In the Darkness

Warning: a bunch of different phobias explored. Like a bunch. It’s fear toxin and things are bad. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Damian Wayne was practical, classic, precise. He could tell you the time within 20 minutes of the actual time and the direction you were facing no matter where you were. He didn’t believe in getting lost. He mastered Bartok - Violin Concerto No. 2 on the violin at 11. He could identify the origin and use every weapon in the bat cave and many others as well. He many martial arts as well as having a impeccable eye for important details. Damian excelled at many things due to his training from birth to be the best he could.

Poison training and identifying was something that started early. His mother would slip tiny amounts of different chemicals in his food and drinks for him to build up a tolerance. Fear toxin was one of many that he’d developed a fairly high tolerance to. It was a deeply unpleasant experience and the training stopped immediately when Bruce took Damian in. Bruce had been completely horrified.

Currently Damian was half cognizant. He slipped between nightmares and the reality of the situation that wasn’t much better. He was strapped on a table in a cold concrete room. His head hurt and his feet were ungodly cold.

Damian attempted to focus. This is fake. The monsters are fake. I am in this room, he forced. He controlled his breathing as he was taught. His mind cleared long enough to slip from the ties. They were amateur at best. Damian pulled his legs free and he tried to stand.

The room spun and the ground grew heavy. Damian slipped to the ground with a groan. This particular batch of fear toxin was potent. Or was continuously streaming in. He searched for a vent. Top right corner. There wasn’t any green mist falling from it but it could be invisible. Damian steeled himself and stood up to walk to the door.

He tried the knob but it melted apart in his hand like sticky honey on a hot day. Damian gagged a little before trying to push the door open. No luck. The walls began to move inward. He was going to be crushed in the tiny space as it grew smaller.

No.

It was fake.

He tried the knob again and it didn’t turn but it didn’t turn into goo. The wall wasn’t collapsing inward. He could escape. He just needed to work on it.

Your scream pierced his ears and he gasped. He had to save you now. He could hear you through the vent. He could use the vent.

Was it really you, his mind questioned as he shoved the old metal hospital bed towards the wall. The metal groaned before scraping the floor. Damian had no way of knowing if it was really you or his mind.

Damian climbed on the bed and grasped at the grate. The old metal bolts bit into his fingers as he twisted them out. Finally the grate fell on the bed. If Damian did a little jump, he could probably pull himself upwards. It was a blessing and a curse that he had grown so much in a relatively short time. He was pushing 6 foot tall and could reach the grate but weighing 180 lbs, could it hold him?

A menacing laugh filled the air and Damian froze in fear.

He turned to look around and was still alone.

But you might not be.

He jumped up and slid in the air conditioner duct. It was a tight fit. Damian was still smaller than his dad and at the moment was grateful. Bruce would have never fit. Of course, Drake could have slipped through easily. He pushed those thoughts aside.

Damian had no phone. No flash light. Complete darkness. He couldn’t turn around. He was just snaking his way towards the sound he heard of your voice. If it was even you.

It was you.

You were strapped to a hospital bed with leather belts. The material chafed your skin as you tried to yank away. You screamed for Damian. His name fell pitifully from your lips. You’d have no previous experience with any fear toxin and your first instinct was to scream. You could feel the way each scream ripped at your throat.

Damian had told you about his older brother, Father’s ward as he would say when mad. An old warehouse, murdered by the joker but punished with fear toxin first. Jason Todd talked in a smoker’s rasp. He didn’t smoke but the constant screaming had ruined his throat. You could feel the pain in your vocal cords but couldn’t stop.

The Manor was fake. The family there was fake. The room you currently lay in was real. Far too real. The damp musty air and bone trembling cold felt perfectly real.

The spiders crawling on your skin felt real too. You shrieked and tremors shook your body as you tried to throw them off. Tiny hairy legs brushed against your arms. Your face. You clamped your mouth and eyes closed.

If they climbed in your mouth... if they bit you... if they were poisonous. If the manor was fake and this room was real.... the spiders were real.

Damian cursed when you went silent. What direction was he traveling. How far was it till your room? Were you even here? No. He couldn’t think like that. He was already barely above a panic as the vent felt way too small, too tight.

Your violent struggles had one good side effect. The badly placed straps came loose. One hand yanked free and you scrubbed at your face, feeling no real spiders. You untied yourself other hand and tried to get up.

The bed shook and you panicked as you tried to pull your feet free. Cold icy laughter filled your ears and you clenched at your head to keep them out. You pulled free and fell to the floor. Icy water soaked through the knees of your pants and you shivered.

The room was so dim that you could barely see anything as you crawled on the floor. There was no way you could handle standing up. You slid your hands along the ground, touching bits of broken glass and small rocks. They bit into your palm and knees as you moved along. You felt along before feeling nothing. A drop.

You yanked your body back. The floor fell out smoothly. There was nothing in front of you. You grabbed a small stone and tossed it to hear the depth. You concentrated on listening and heard nothing. No sound? You tossed another to hear a similar lack of sound. The hole must be incredible deep.

You slowly slid backwards and turned to your right. Perhaps the hole wasn’t everywhere. You had to get out. You took about 10 paces forward? Maybe. It’s hard to tell when you keep hearing wings fluttering. The ground also stopped with an abrupt fall. The hole must be massive. You crawled back to the bed. It was the only thing visible in the dim light from a high dirty window.

The flapping sounds grew louder and you could almost hearing the fluttering of birds, no bats, right near your ears. You shrieked and swung your arms out to stop them. You could imagine little teeth and claws tearing at your skin. This seemed to make them furious and they hit and nipped your skin. You covered your head with your hands and cried out for Damian.

He heard your pitiful cry. He was going in the right direction. He hurried along the vent. He had no weapon. He was poisoned with fear toxin. And he had no idea what the location looked like. He was also completely blind in the dark vent. Father would have called this unfavorable odds indeed.

The vent took a slight turn and Damian gasped as something dug into his hand. He felt at it with his other hand. A thin metal cylinder connected to a large plastic cylinder that flared out. A syringe. He had a syringe in his hand. Ignoring the disease potential, it really showed how little he could see.

Damian’s hands shook as he pulled the needle from his flesh and he stifled a groan. He had no way of wrapping his hand. He also had another problem: feel for more syringes or turn around and go back to the room where he would be trapped once again. He grimaced before reaching his hand out slowly. There were more syringes. This time he didn’t get stabbed. He grabbed them and pushed them behind his body before slowly pushing forward. This was taking too long.

If you fell in the pit, not even Damian could save you. You felt like you were on a ledge. The world was pushing you to the hole. You grasped the frame of the bed tightly. Your grip on sanity was getting looser and you clung to the idea that Damian had to rescue you. He would fix things.

Damian could no longer slowly feel his way through. The vent felt tighter and hotter and harder to breath in. He was panting and he began crawling faster. You were definitely in trouble the way you were practically crying for him. Syringes bit at his skin in little nicks before one sunk into the flesh of his thigh right above his knee. Damian groaned and yanked it out.

But luck was in his side as he started to see light. The vent opened to another room. Barely visible was a bed and a figure on it. It had to be you crying. Your body shook as you bent over your legs, your head in your hands.

Damian pushed open the vent roughly and jumped in the room.

He was with the League of Assassins. Damian was a small boy again. He fell to his knees as his grandfather held a sword under his throat. Damian was powerless. Tears streamed down his face despite himself.

“You are only alive at my leisure,” Ra’s told him. Damian held back tears as he stared at the older man. “You are a disgrace and I intend to beat it out of you.”

The blade was removed and a boot replaced it. Damian was kicked to the ground and the older man kicked him in the ribs and stomach. He cried out involuntarily. His nose was broken. Sticky warm blood flowed into his open mouth as he sucked in a breath. Damian’s mother stood to the side, watching passively.

This isn’t real. It isn’t real. It’s a bad memory. Fear toxin just fear toxin.

Damian took several deep breaths; quite difficult when he felt the breaking of his ribs. He opened his eyes to see the room. And you crying in the bed. He moved on the bed to grab you.

“Don’t,” you cried as you pulled away. Your pupils were blown and he could see your chest rise and fall heavily.

“It’s me. Damian. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to save you,” he said trying to be gentle. His own heartbeat was flying and he kept hearing the laughter of the Joker that he was 80% sure was fake.

You looked at him warily. Once sure that it was Damian, you flung your arms around him.

“There’s a hole. In the middle of the room. It has to be huge,” you said quickly. You shook like a leaf.

“A pit. Smart,” Damian commented. He really wished he had his night vision goggles. He couldn’t see anything more than a foot from the bed.

There was the sounds of screaming and fighting outside the door. A door. He could finally see a door. It must skirt right next to the edge of this damn pit. How could he get you to carefully walk around it when you were so lost in the toxin?

“I found a door. We have to go. I’ll help you. I’ll help,” he said trying to stand. You grasped at him tighter.

“No! The pit. The pit. You’ll fall. Don’t,” you pleaded, shaking your head side to side violently.

“It’s okay. We’ll be careful. We’ll be okay,” he said before pulling you up. Damian bent to the ground and started crawling. You grasped at the back of his shirt tightly. “We’ll go slow.”

Damian tried to ignore the feeling that he was on a ledge about to fall. Which was weird since he literally jumped from rooftops all the time. He never had fear of heights. You shivered and clung to him. The gaping hole seemed to want to swallow you whole. What was at the bottom? Would you fall forever, scraping at the slick walls until you lost your mind? Would you die quickly? Or was it a slow death as your broken body fell apart?

Damian edged you to the door and prayed that it was unlocked. It wasn’t but the knob was loose. He rolled his eyes and easily pulled it apart. He tossed it in the hole and couldn’t help but listen for the sound of it crashing. It never came. Was it a hole to infinity? He couldn’t think that way. He pulled you into the hallway. It was dimly lit but enough to stand up.

He was back at the League. He was not a little boy any more. His grandfather was on his deathbed. He grabbed Damian’s hand unnaturally tightly. Damian could see the gold and green clothing on his own arm.

“I knew you couldn’t leave. You were always my flesh and blood. Now you will lead the assassins. Your time with your father couldn’t break you from your true self. You’re an assassin. Why try to pretend to be something else? You will always be a killer,” the old man chuckled.

Damian yanked his hand free. “You’re wrong. I’m nothing like you,” he growled and wrapped his fingers around his grandfather’s throat. The old man held Damian’s wrists and pushed his hand harder against his windpipe. He had an awful grin on his face despite being choked.

Suddenly smaller softer hands gripped Damian’s wrists and tried to pull back. Tried to pull him off. Damian saw your lips make a small o as you tried to breathe. He dropped his hands instantly and you gasped in a breath. Damian’s hands ran along your face worried he had killed you.

No...Just a bruise. He could have.

He could have killed you.

He had to get you out. Was this real? Was anything real? Damian felt his grip on reality loosen. He grabbed your hand to pull you along but you almost fell over. Damian put his arm around your waist and half carried you along.

It wasn’t long until his legs began to shake from your extra weight and Damian was panting. Normally he could carry you around with no problem but hours? Days? of fear toxin had him absolutely exhausted. The only thing he was certain of was that it was night. Was it the same night as the movie? That felt weeks ago.

He powered through to a set of double doors. He was almost gasping for breath. Damian kicked them open with his foot and he was blinded by light.

It wasn’t night.

It was a well lit warehouse and there was a battle being fought. Batman kicked a guy in a ski mask to the ground and he didn’t get up. Nightwing swooped in and wrapped a rope around a guy who ended up hanging from the ceiling by his leg before he could react. Damian couldn’t see but hear Red Hood kick someone off the second floor delivery dock before the sound of gunshot.

He almost dropped you as he slid down the wall to the floor. You fell against him and gasped. Your eyes showed that you weren’t really there. You were still fighting the poison that threatened to pull Damian back under. You both were so vulnerable just sitting there. He knew he should move but his body just couldn’t.

Red Robin jumped down from a box with his staff in hand. He walked close and Damian looked away when his face split into a gaping blackness. It was fake. It was fake. It was only Drake.

“Hey buddy,” Red Robin said gingerly, walking slowly towards you both. He pulled out a small black leather bag. He pulled out a syringe and Damian wrapped an arm around your shoulder. He couldn’t get up but he tried to shield you.

“Don’t,” Damian tried to say with authority but it came out so softly. He couldn’t protect you. He failed.

“It’s okay. You just need to sleep. You’ll be okay,” Drake said. He popped off the syringe cover and grabbed Damian’s waving arm and gave him the shot despite his groans. Drake pulled out another syringe and gave one to you. You shrieked as you imagined a poison was being shoved into your skin. A green mark spread like tree branches beneath your skin and you clawed at your skin. In just a minute your hands dropped and you both fell asleep.

——————————

You woke in a med bay. A plain hospital bed in a cave. Damian was in the bed next to you and you quickly sat up.

“Slow,” said a woman. She offered a hand and you pulled away. “Don’t fall.”

Damian stirred and sat up too. He took a look at you and the woman and relaxed. His eyes closed and he took a deep breath. You looked at them warily. You’d thought you’d gotten out once.

“It’s done,” he said.

“Yes. You are safe,” she said.

“Cass, where is everyone? What happened?”

“Hold on,” she said motioning for you both to sit. She came back with none other than Bruce Wayne. Normally you would very nervous but you were too tired to care.

“How are you feeling?” He asked walking in to sit on the single chair in the room. Cass left the room. After he was sure that you were physically fine, he explained what happened.

“Scarecrow attacked Wayne tower. Luckily Batman was able to help find you both. It was fear toxin. It can make you see some really nasty things. I have a psychologist that specializes in childhood trauma in retainer. I’d highly suggest you both visit them. But you are safe. You’ve been given antitoxin. Do you have any questions?” He asked. His voice was even and purposefully soft. You shook your head. You were too overwhelmed to consider a single question.

“Did Batman catch Scarecrow?” Damian asked leaning his body over his bent knees. His face had one of his murderous looks. You noticed bandages on his fingers and across one palm. He had a thigh wrapped in gauze.

“No. Not yet.”

Damian’s hands curled into fists. “I hope he does.”

“Of course. Relax. Watch some television. I’ve already contacted your parents that you will be staying here for a few days. I’ll let you take the lead on what to tell them when you go home and I’ll help with any conversation,” Bruce said standing up. He stood by the doorway before leaving. “I’m glad you are both back home safe.”

Damian turned on something on the television mindlessly and sat stiffly in his bed. There was too much space and you felt alone. After a few minutes, you couldn’t help it but climb in his bed and slide into his arms. You hugged him tightly and he slung an arm over you. His eyes never left the show but you could feel him relax. You relaxed a little more. His hand ran across your back soothingly. For you or him, you couldn’t know. After a while you fell asleep on him. His heartbeat soothed the nightmares running through your mind.

Robin was gone for all of 3 days before being seen on the streets of Gotham. He hit harder and was more vicious. He found Scarecrow within 12 hours and almost beat him to death. The villain laid in Arkham in a coma for over a month.

#Damian Wayne #Damian Wayne x reader #Damian Wayne angst #batboys #Robin x reader #Robin

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nimmy22 · 3 years ago

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A Mistake: Chapter 11

Breaking the group apart, several guards escorted each participant to their rooms. Cara lost the comfort of being in a crowd, feeling exposed like a specimen on a microscope slide being scrutinized. The white sterilized hallways were suffocating, leaving a bad taste in the mouth. The people around her stopped talking to her. Now they talked about her as if she wasn't there, not a human being glaring at them and their fancy clipboards.

She lost track of the many security doors they passed, each one requiring a key card for access. Her eyes kept darting back to the door they came through, painfully aware of how much farther away it shrunk with the growing distance. Her gut screamed. Any further, and she felt she may never see the exit again.

"Boy, this was a bad idea," Cara mumbled under her breath, fidgeting with the loose seams of her collar. Of all the times she was stupidly impulsive, this was the worst. She should have never trusted a shady advert at a bus stop.

Cara never spent much time in hospitals. She was never sick enough for her parents to even consider taking her. God knows she needed it in the past. The point is, maybe this was simply a phobia of the white coats. Fear of the unfamiliar triggering all these emotions and the bad taste in her mouth.

This situation reminded her of when her parents left her five-year-old self in a car on a record-breaking heatwave. She was stuck with the windows closed for over an hour, delirious from the heat and struggling to breathe. Her trip in the oven ended when her parent came finally came, casually going about their business without a look at the back seat. At least her torture ended then when her parents returned. But here, there was no one to help her. She neglected to tell Claire and all her friends what she was up to. Looks like all the lies are catching up to her.

Cara had no idea where her worry came from. She came here by free will and had yet to see anything illegal. The money was within reach, but the nerves couldn't be soothed.

Cara started walking slower than the guards, hoping to give them the slip. Of course, they noticed, grabbing her arm tightly. She was shoved forward hard and almost stumbled face-first onto the white tiles. The hair on her nape stiffened, and she raked her fingers through her hair, clenching her jaw.

"Hey, what's your problem? I was trying to follow you. It's not my fault you were walking too damn fast," Cara snapped, scowling at the men. She didn't like how they manhandled her, throwing her around like an object, physically steering her this way and that like an infant who couldn't take direction. Three grand wasn't worth this treatment, or so she told herself. She was, Afterall, very, very desperate for money.

"Don't you want the money, little girl? It's super easy paper. In fact, the checks are already signed and ready, sitting in a drawer somewhere. They just need to be distributed by the good doctor," Tilting her head, Cara watched the knowing look shared among the three guards. Their smiles were anything but friendly, looking more like a wolf than a human.

Crossing her arms, Cara narrowed her eyes. " If the money was so good, why don't you join the study?"

"Why would I do that when I could be helping poor, unfortunate, folks just like you get themselves out of poverty. I'm all about the charitable work."

"Oh, of course. Thank you so much, sir. I was so desperate for help. I'd be homeless if it wasn't for your generosity." Cara patted her eyelashes, grabbing onto the front of a guard's bullet vest. "It's getting cold again, and I only have the clothes on my back. How could I live-"

"Shut the fuck up and keep walking. Don't even think of causing trouble. We have a special place for such folks." shoving Cara away, the guard placed his hand on his gun holster. She received the message loud and clear.

So much for the charity work.

"I wouldn't dream of it, sir," her smile turned into a scowl as soon as the men's backs were turned. She dragged her feet as she followed them, racking her brain for some sort of plan, mentally willing time to move slower. She needed time to think.

The alarms in her head rang louder. Beads of sweat collected on her forehead despite the frigid air of the hospital. She needed to get out immediately. But how?

She was shoved into a room and forced into what resembled a dentist's chair. With one final warning look from the guards, they exited the room through the automatic sliding doors. She sprang out of the chair as if it burned her. She felt even more trapped, her eyes darting around for an exit. The door was the only way out, and she didn't have the key card. She was utterly fucked.

A woman's voice sounded over the speaker system sending Cara sprinting to the corner of the room, her back pressed to the wall. Heart hammering against her ribcage, it threatened to jump out of her throat. Realizing the voice was recorded, she still couldn't relax even as the standard messages about handwashing and proper coughing etiquette played.

If only washing hands could get her out of this situation, she'd scrub her skin raw.

Two researchers, a man and a woman in white hazmat suits, walked into the room. Cara inhaled sharply when she noticed the syringe filled with a neon green fluid. It was carefully contained in a glass case held by the woman. Cara's eyes stayed glued to the syringe as they came closer, barely listening to what was said about her and to her. Their questions fell on deaf ears. In a trance, all she saw was neon green.

She absolutely knew that the contents could end everything as she knew it. Death in a bottle, or in this case, a syringe no wider than her pinky.

"It's easy money, kid. Relax, it'll be over before you know it." the woman holding the syringe said, slowly approaching Cara as if she were a cornered animal.

Cara's preparedness to fight for dear life disappeared when a taser struck her in the stomach. Waves of pain shot through her body as her muscles turned to jelly (the liquid kind). She was on the ground, and they were on her before she even realized what happened. she couldn't lift even a finger.

Her mouth refused to work, and all she could do was whimper pathetically. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her eyes pleaded with whatever tiny speck of humanity the two had left. All she saw was desperation for results at all costs, greed, and over-ambition for recognition, a cold and calculating look.

Cara thought it was all over, or maybe it was simply her fear of needles blowing all her emotions out of proportion. Either way, she will find out very soon.

Shutting her eyes, she tried to relax, hoping for a quick end. She tried to imagine herself back at school getting a vaccine like all the other kids in her grade. She was usually called to the nurse last due to her last name. It always left her waiting and dreading until every last kid received the shot before it was her turn. By then, many kids would make up stories about the pain and how they found needles stuck in their bones, inflating her terror.

Cara hissed as the needle broke through the skin of her neck, clenching her eyes even tighter. She refused to look, scared of what she might see. The woman's finger moved over the plunger, ready to apply firm pressure.

A pager went off, screeching. It startled everyone, and the woman holding the needle suddenly jerked her hand. "Shit! The needle broke," she snapped, examining the shortened tip. She not so gently forced the broken tip from Cara's neck, squeezing and pinching until it emerged.

Boiling over, the woman yanked out her pager. She was going to make whoever interrupted her experiment pay very dearly. As she read the message, her face paled, and she stood abruptly.

"Who paged?" the man asked, quickly glancing between Cara and the woman.

"you 'know who', wants to see me, something about a possible security breach." the woman answered with a warning look after giving Cara a once-over. She understood why. Names implicate people, and whoever is on the other end of the pager does not want their name casually used.

"Fine, for now, take the girl to her room until I deal with this. They are too damn paranoid around here."

Only then did he remove the taser, and Cara inhaled with greed. Finally able to use her muscles for more than gasping for breath.

---------------

Seeing her body quivering as she walked, he didn't see a need to call for escort guards. He didn't see the kid as a threat and was sure he could handle her on his own. He never knew anyone get so lucky, but it won't happen again. The inevitable was temporarily delayed. Pretty soon, her heart will pump not only blood but a very valuable virus. Dying for umbrellas ambitious is an honor.

Taken to another room, Cara struggled to keep up, her body exhausted from the endless shocks she had endured. The room was tiny, barely big enough for the bare twin-size bed and metallic toilet. Cara knew she had to do something quickly. A chance like this won't come again.

With an idea forming, Cara hoped she still had a dab of luck because what she was about to do was incredibly stupid. Leaning against the wall, she clenched her stomach and cried in pain.

"The fuck's wrong with you? The man approached her cautiously, and her eyes flickered to her target.

Once he was close enough, Cara grabbed the taser clasped to his belt and jabbed him in the neck with the highest voltage. His body went slack, and she grabbed his head, smashing it against the metallic toilet with a loud crunch. She repeated it for good measure, watching as the body lay limp on the floor.

She wasn't sure if it was the adrenalin, but she barely remembers donning his biohazard suit and pocketing his key card before rushing out of the room. Cara had to remind herself to behave normally, to slow her breathing to avoid inciting suspicion.

The suit fit her poorly, hanging on her frame awkwardly, clearly meant for someone taller. But the headpiece helped conceal her face a little. If anyone looked at her from behind, they wouldn't immediately think it's a run-away test subject. It was a tiny bit of comfort.

Surprisingly, no one stopped her. The researchers, assistants, and guards ignored her. If they gave her a second glance, she wouldn't know because of the helmet. They were each in their own world, fussing over clipboards and busy yelling at assistants for every little thing. The air was thick of tension, putting everyone on edge.

The place was a maze, full of endless hallways of white. She thought she would fuse with the white walls in her white suit before she was ever found.

"Cara," someone behind her growled her name, and she froze, holding her breath. The voice was thunderous, and she couldn't focus enough to hear their next words.

She didn't need to turn around to know Wesker stood less than two meters away.

The voice was unmistakable. She'd know it anywhere. But how did Wesker recognize her from behind? The suit left only her face visible. She had no idea why he was here and why he was angry. Well, she did steal a biohazard suit and injured a researcher. It wasn't hard to connect his overtime activities to a hospital run by Umbrella. Now he really might kill her, clean up a mess long overdue. Especially now that she likely pissed off his employers.

Cara pretended not to have heard him, attempting to casually walk away with her head down. Hearing his thunderous footsteps behind her, she broke out into a sprint.

She sprinted into a crowd of researchers, taking random turns in hopes of losing him. She ran until she no longer heard his steps and became even more lost in the maze-like building.

The room she ducked into contained several workbenches lining the walls, complete with microscopes and other high-tech appliances. Thankfully, no one was in the lab.

A jar caught her attention containing something between a cross of a human baby and a lizard. It neither moved nor breathed, and Cara concluded it must be a dead experimental specimen. Things like this must be illegal.

Approaching a workbench, Cara peered into a microscope. While she found the cells colorful and interesting, biology was not her strong point. She had no idea what she was looking at. But it definitely wasn't a plant cell. There were too many tentacles. Maybe it was-

Grabbed from behind, Cara screamed as she was yanked hard by her arm. She kicked and pushed but could free herself. Her voice died in her throat when the headpiece of the suit was yanked off her head. She was left gaping at Wesker, barely noticing when the headpiece was thrown across the room, taking down an office lamp with it.

"I knew it was you," Wesker spoke in a carefully controlled tone, but the edges were jagged.

"I-I can explain!" Cara stammered, feeling the edge of the desk cut into the back of her legs as Wesker cornered her, their chests touching.

with a curl of his lips over his teeth, his smile did not match his eyes. "Oh, please do go on. Explain what you're doing here." He seemed like a different person; eyes warped into a miserable pit of ice.

"Why are you so mad?" her voice quivered under his piercing scrutiny. Cara knew she fucked up but didn't want to admit this to him. "They said the drugs should be-"

"Safe?" Wesker said with an ominous smile and threw his head back, laughing without humor. "Half the participant won't make it out of this experiment alive. Even if they survived, there is no way they would be allowed to leave."

"What?" Cara shook her head vigorously. "If they knew it'll kill people from the start. Why the hell are they going through with it? Why? This is a hospital for god's sack."

"Simply because Umbrella can. They do what they want, and the locations of the experiments are irrelevant. It could be in an orphanage or a sewer, and they will still get their results."

"They are fucking monsters. How could someone so evil run a fucking hospital?" Cara swallowed, thinking about how she almost became an experiment. How many of the participants were already injected? Were they already dead? How important were the drugs for someone to be willing to kill unsuspecting people for data? The cure for cancer? What a fucking joke.

Her questions were endless, but Wesker had his own.

"It's called business, sweetheart. Now, why are you here?" He asked again, but she knew he already had an idea. What was the point of putting her stupidity into words?

"I... got evicted. They were offering money and-"

"Why didn't you tell me? you could have come to me,"

Cara gapped at him with wide eyes, feeling a loss for words. "Why would you help me? wouldn't this help you get a problem off your hands?"

"Sherry cares for you." she didn't know if she had imagined it but, something flickered in the depths of his icy blues.

"Sherry, right? Is this really about her? are you sure it's not you feeling something in your cold dead heart? But how could you feel anything? you're a monster covering up the work of other monsters."

"Watch yourself, Cara. I make one phone call, and you'll be the next body piled on the others sent for incineration after the good doctor gets what he wants from you. This could all happen in less than an hour." He hissed

Something snapped inside of Cara, letting loose a current of emotions too fast to control. She was too tired, exhausted from clutching the bar with all the weight dragging her down constantly. No matter how much she had told herself to hold on a little longer, she didn't see an end to the stress. Her problems only seemed to grow heavier. Her blistered hands and broken arms couldn't hold on for another second. she let

"How long are you going to threaten me for? You know what? I am sick of it. I'm done! I'm done!" Cara shoved at his chest, her voice rising in octaves. "I'm here! Come, and get me motherfuckers!" she screamed, Choking on her sobs. She didn't care what happens next. All she wanted was for the stress and the fear to end.

Spreading his fingers through her hair, Wesker pulled hard. He tilted her head up, his eyes setting her ablaze. Cara swallowed, running her tongue over her chapped, dry lips. She felt as if she was looking down a cliff. One step forward, and the jagged rocks below would greet her.

Cara's eyes widened as his chin tilted towards hers in one fluid motion. Her words were lost the moment his mouth came down, claiming hers. Her gasp was stolen, along with her ability to breathe.

In moments of confusion, she would lean into his touch, remembers who he worked to protect, and she would rack her nails over the skin of his arms. He let her hurt him, pulling her even closer, and she would let him.

This was so wrong. So very wrong and so was how much she wanted him to continue. Her lips moved on their own accord, responding to his touch. Her fingers slid over his chest, feeling the engraving of his badge. The moment she kissed him back, Wesker pushed harder into her.

She tried to focus as Wesker's lips brushed her own, hungrily devouring everything. His hand left her hair, sliding down her neck while his other hand snaked around her waist, fisting into up the material of the biohazard suit. She let him lay her back on the desk, his body quick to cover hers like a warm blanket. She anchored a hand into his belt, tugging blindly. She wanted- no needed too many things and didn't know where to begin. She wanted the suit off her scorching body and his damn belt undone, but her shaking hands could do neither.

Shoving her away, Wesker abruptly turned around.

In a moment of clarity, Cara could finally think clearly without the cloud of haze Wesker brings. She couldn't believe what had just happened, staring at his back, dazed and speechless. She touched her swollen lips, feeling them tingle.

Wesker's jaw was tense, and it took him extra moments to steady his breathing. While Cara still sat flustered on the table, Wesker had recovered his well-kempt appearance just as three guards burst into the room, guns raised.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" He answered in his usual tone, completely unaffected, and Cara hated him. He was quick to wear the mask, too damn good.

A look of recognition crossed their faces, and they immediately lowered their guns, taking cautious steps back. "Captain Wesker, what business do you have here? Dr. Stanford was not notified about you taking a tour of the wing."

"I sent one of my employees to test the security, and she made it all the way in here and escaped the test room. Let the head of security know that I would like a word with him...soon." Wesker said before grabbing Cara's arm. "Have a good day, Gentlemen. You may go now. There is no threat to Umbrella in this room. Go spend your efforts where they are needed."

Reluctantly, the men followed each other out of the room, leaving Cara alone with him. Her heart pounded in her chest, feeling the room shrink. She couldn't look him in the eye. Instead, busying herself with unzipping the biohazard suit. The clasps and zipper kept slipping away from her clammy fingers, refusing to open. After multiple failures, she aggressively tugged on the plastic material to rip it off, but its thickness taunted her. Of course, these scientists only worked with high-grade materials.

Feeling long fingers slid up her back, Cara's hands froze. She held her breath, every muscle tense. Warm hands covered her cold ones, dropping them to her side as they took over the task. With a few clasps undone, her neck was exposed. The hair on the back of her rose as the cool nipped at her skin. Something soft touched the base of her neck, and she gasped, realizing they were a pair of lips. Slowly, they spread featherlight kisses towards her throat, then her chin. Her face was on fire, steadily gaining degrees.

"Relax, I'm not going to eat you, dearheart," Wesker whispered against her skin.

Cara pushed him away, desperate for some distance. "We shouldn't be doing this. This was a mistake. I-"

"I don't make mistakes," with one firm tug, the suit dropped to the ground, pooling at her feet. Cara felt all the warmth migrate downwards and shivered, feeling her stomach play host to angry butterflies. She still had her clothes on, but she felt naked in front of him and yearned for the scorching suit to cover her again.

"Come, it's time to go," Wesker turned to leave, and she exhaled, her body losing its tension. She couldn't bring herself to move, glaring at his back. She chewed her lips and sighed at the confusing thoughts now occupying her mind. There was enough stress in her life, and this was the ripe cherry on top.

Noticing her lack of movement, Wesker paused at the door, "I know you want to continue, but this is not the place nor time. wouldn't want anyone thinking they could join in,"

when she thought her face couldn't glow any hotter, it proved her dead wrong. "You go ahead. I'll take the bus. It's safer." Cara rushed to the door, but he hooked a finger in the back of her shirt, pulling her back.

"Nonsense. a young lady like you shouldn't take the bus this late at night. wouldn't want you falling into the wrong hands."

"Like there are worse hands than yours." Cara retorted, slapping his hand away, but they just went on to wrap around her waist. She was ready to munch on some fingers when the hand suddenly disappeared just as a couple of researchers passed them in the hallway. They all greeted him as 'Captain Wesker' before making quick strides out of sight.

"Oh yes, there are. Ones holding scalpels over your skin as you lay paralyzed,"

"Have you... have you dissected before?" Cara swallowed, glaring at his hands as they continued stealing touches. Those hands hurt and killed innocent people, yet she couldn’t fully say they were unwelcome.

"I was a scientist before I was ever a cop." she hated people who dodged questions, skirting around the sinkhole but never falling to the bottom.

"So... you did? Or not?" she frowned, failing to read him. his long strides made it harder for her to keep up, forcing her to almost jog after him.

"Give me the badge you stole from the researcher. I don't want it leaving the building."

"Come on, it's a simple yes or no,"

Stopping suddenly, Wesker extended his hand, palms up. " The badge, now." The order was clear, and she struggled to do the opposite.

Huffing loudly, Cara ignored his outstretched hand and shoved the key card beneath his bullet vest before walking away.

"Cara," He called out to her, and she couldn't help but pause. His voice had a way with people, lulling them to do his bidding.

With arms crossed, Cara glared at Wesker. "What is it? I already gave it back. It's not broken. I just used it."

"Since you know your way around the hospital so well, why don't you give me a tour?" He smirked, leaning against the wall, his eyes following her movements.

"I'm your employee, right? I Gotta do my job properly. I was checking for security threats over there, but it looks like the hallway is clear. I'll be checking this way next" Cara turned around and began walking down another hallway, her hands over her eyes like binoculars.

"you're still going the wrong way dearheart, it's this way. I ought to demote you for your lack of direction," Wesker smirked, nodding in the opposite direction she was going.

Cara followed, admitting that she had no clue where she was going. She pretended he wasn't walking ahead of her trying to focus on everything but him. it was hard, given how she nearly let him have everything. No matter how many times she forced her eyes away, they kept soaking in the way his muscles moved beneath his uniform as he walked. How was she supposed to behave around him now? Pretend it didn't happen?

With his words fresh on her mind, Cara nibbled on her nails. ' I don't make mistakes.'

What was she supposed to do now?

#claire redfield #resident evil #albert wesker x oc #albert wesker #oc

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

Text

Spotlight: Hoist - This One’s About the Guy I Keep Mistaking for Hound.

It’s time to focus on the straight man. Not, like, straight as in hetero. Don’t get it twisted, Hoist is queer by default just like every Cybertronian in IDW, not that that’s been established in-canon just yet. No, Hoist is the straight man because he’s the grounding line in this issue.

Hoist, as established during Spotlight: Trailcutter, is off the Lost Light currently on a mission. At this exact moment, he’s running from something.

Well, it was nice knowing you, Hoist!

No, he manages to escape Tarn’s grasp by doing some sweet grappling hook drifting using his tow line, and books it for the crashed shuttle that all his fellow mission-goers are hiding out in. Missionaries, if you will. Looks like Swerve left right after Trailcutter hung up on him, so it’s probably for the best that he didn’t get that forcefield around his voice box. Can’t imagine it working at that long a range. Sunstreaker’s here, along with his pet, Bob. Sunstreaker’s feeling a little salty right now, probably because he’s supposed to be the handsome one, and instead he’s got some sort of face thing going on in this issue.

Yeah, nobody looks quite right in Spotlight: Hoist. Then again, maybe I just don’t get Cybertronian beauty standards.

On that note, let’s take a real quick look at our interior artist for this issue, Agustin Padilla. Padilla doesn’t have a ton of work within the Transformers franchise, but he’s worked on some iconic pieces- specifically, MTMTE #16, The Gloaming.

Yeah, THAT one. We’ll get more into his work when we hit that issue, I promise.

Back to the story at hand: Hoist puts on the cloaking device for the ship, hiding them from Tarn, then gripes to Swerve about the scanner scope being a huge friggin’ liar, because it said that there wasn’t a gotdang thing out there, because there clearly is. Swerve is less than thrilled by the prospect of having Tarn in the general vicinity, to the point that he forgets how to talk for a solid .5 seconds. Swerve’s seen the DJD in action, and it’s not pretty.

They’ve got six hours before the cloaking shields drain the power, then it’s goodbye Safetytown, hello Murderville. So, what better way to spend their final hours than by sniping at one another over things like fault and who’s gotten the shortest end of the stick here?

Looks like Perceptor has a pretty strong lead on all the other guys, seeing as his legs have become one with the ship. Hoist’s busy trying to get in touch with the Lost Light, though no one’s picking up. Gee, wonder why.

Swerve is really in a needling mood, as he asks Sunstreaker where his apology is, seeing as he was the one piloting the ship when they crashed. Sunstreaker blows a gasket for a second over the fact that all he seems to do these days is apologize. Hoist manages to calm the situation and change the topic pretty smoothly, as he fiddles around with the internals of the shuttle to try and get the Lost Light’s attention.

Good at multitasking, Hoist is.

We get the backstory on Bob, who Sunstreaker found after Metroplex woke up and decimated the local Insecticon population on Cybertron, almost certainly upsetting the balance of the ecosystem and traumatizing poor Bob. Yes, even our dog stand-ins have trauma in MTMTE. Sunstreaker, in true pet-owner fashion, baby-talks Bob, saying that he’ll bite that big, nasty Tarn if he gets near them, won’t he? Oh yes he will! Yes he will! What a good boy, yes you are!

Swerve isn’t so optimistic.

Well, that’s certainly a sentence I just read with my own two eyes. Really hoping this is a bit of hyperbole, because I’d hate to think just what sort of life Swerve’s led that resulted in him watching a guy triple his size give himself an enema.

Sunstreaker, who knows that Swerve is kind of a massive baby, isn’t terribly impressed with how scared the DJD made Swerve, accidentally strokes the guy’s ego for a moment.

Swerve, completely on the defensive now, lists off the five things he’s afraid of. Hoist butts in to point out the implausibility of Swerve’s fears.

Smash cut to four hours later, and Swerve hasn’t slowed down a bit, having talked to the point that he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore. Sunstreaker’s about had it with this marathon bashing he’s receiving, and suggests that Swerve pick on Hoist for a change. Swerve declines, saying that there just isn’t enough material to work with, because Hoist is boring.

Fun fact, this is his character quote for his introductory paragraph on the Wiki article. He had so little characterization up to this point, this is what they went with. Such is the fate of many of the Transformers who didn’t enter the original 80s cartoon until the second season. Roberts decided to run with it and take the rare opportunity to NOT give someone mental illness so severe and unchecked it’s simultaneously sad and hilarious. Hoist is probably the only dude in the entirety of the IDW run to just be a regular person.

After Swerve confirms that he does in fact know his colors, we blow past another hour, to find Hoist hard at work cutting Perceptor off of the ceiling/floor- Hoist, like most everyone on the Lost Light, is a doctor- as Sunstreaker and Swerve discuss previous scrapes they’ve gotten through. Apparently Sunstreaker fell off a bridge forever ago that was named after a biblical reference, because it doesn’t matter how little you believe in a higher power, you CANNOT escape the pull of the 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜.

Swerve asks Hoist if he has anything to contribute to the discussion, and while Hoist does have experience in near-death situations, he’d really rather not talk about it. Swerve respects his privacy.

Well, he tries.

Hoist indulges our little red and white idiot, because it’ll get everyone the Swerve-equivalent of peace and quiet, and begins his tale.

Long story short, it looks like another hotshot pilot had the same idea as Hoist’s, and things got a little crashy-explodey-everyone’s-deady. Hoist was the only survivor, and had to walk his sorry butt back to civilization. Then the exhaustion set in, and he was forced to sit there, fully convinced that he would die alone in the middle of nowhere.

Once he’s finished with his story, Hoist makes the horrific discovery that Swerve’s been bleeding to death over the last five hours, and failed to mention it.

No, Sunstreaker, he’s honestly just like that all the time.

Swerve’s spark casing has ruptured, which I can only imagine is somewhat similar to having a hole poked in your heart. A problem, to put it lightly. Sunstreaker and Hoist decide that, to keep Swerve from biting it, they’ll take the fight to the DJD, in an attempt to get some sort of transport back to the Lost Light and all the tasty medical equipment on board.

Man, it really is unfortunate that Rung’s still not got a head at this point in the timeline, because Swerve is like a jelly donut filled with self-loathing. God just took a jumbo-sized bakery syringe and jammed it right in there.

Hoist and Sunstreaker ignore Swerve’s protests/pained screaming, and gear up for a fight with what they can find. Hoist manages to make two working crossbows and a butt-ton of arrows, not to mention a couple bowie knives in about five minutes, and they head out to kick some tushie.

The lads split up, keeping in touch via communicators, and Sunstreaker manages to get found by Tarn. He gets his ass kicked, because of course he does- the DJD aren’t famous for their macramé and pies, they’re famous for super-murder and being horny for the Decepticause. As Sunstreaker has the realization that he’s leaving his beloved Bob behind, Hoist finds him. Sunstreaker’s in quite the pickle, because he’s had his chest blown in, and Tarn’s been replaced by Shockwave, Megatron, Sixshot, and Overlord.

This just gets better and better doesn’t it?

Then this happens:

Welp.

Swerve’s theory may hold some water, but we can’t worry about that right now, because Hoist is going to try and fight this bastard. Good luck with that, Hoist.

Yeah, that went about as well as it could have.

Hoist is about to get stomped like a bug, when the Con-biner suddenly phases out of existence. Weird.

Hoist runs back to the shuttle, I guess just leaving Sunstreaker in the middle of that clearing, even though he literally is a tow truck. He returns to find that Swerve’s passed out from blood loss, but Perceptor’s still awake, which is good, because there’s some grade-A bullshit going on on this planet, and we need the smart guy to info-dump for the sake of the plot.

Man, this is such a cool plot device, and I’m so mad it never comes up again after this Spotlight.

So, Tarn and all the big bads that Hoist ran into weren’t real, but projections of his and his team’s worst fears. It was feeding off of Swerve, but now that he’s down for the count, it’ll probably go for either Hoist or Perceptor next.

Then there’s what feels like an earthquake, one so powerful it finally removes Perceptor from the ceiling, letting what’s left of his body fall. Hoist runs outside to see just what the hell’s happening now, only to find Metroplex outside and closing in.

The phobia shields work on sub-sentient creatures too? Good lord, this thing just never stops, does it?

Thinking quickly, Hoist scoops up Swerve and the upper half of Perceptor and bolts for the edge of the cliff their ship is sitting next to. He must have been training for the Robot Olympics or something, because he makes the leap by a large margin, even when weighed down by two limp bodies.

Then he punches Perceptor in the face, knocking him out cold.

Then he commits an act of animal abuse as he knocks Bob out with his tow hook.

Our hero, folks! Let’s give him a hand!

As Metroplex fades out of existence, Hoist remembers that he is not immune to trauma, as he’s forced to sit there, completely alone, until help arrives.

No wonder he got that massive Rodimus Star. What a trooper.

Thus ends Spotlight: Hoist, as well as the Spotlight series as a whole.

So, Swerve may not have much of a read on Hoist, but I figure I can try and take a stab at it. Hoist is… helpful. The entire issue, he’s the one who never stops doing things. If he’s not trying to repair the shuttle, he’s cutting Perceptor out of the floor, or he’s patrolling the perimeter, or trying to defuse the tension between his crewmates, or building weaponry, or punching people in the face for the greater good.

The folks he’s surrounded with for his Spotlight accent the characteristics he lacks- he’s not insanely smart like Perceptor, or strikingly handsome like Sunstreaker is intended to be, or capable of holding a conversation like Swerve. He blends into the background, always has and always will, both within canon and as a character.

He’s just a guy. He’s the guy, a jack of all trades, master of none. And that’s okay.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #spotlight #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing #overthinking about robots

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bluesakura007 · 4 years ago

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A Case of an Ailment - TF2 Medic x OC

Summary: When the Hacker is suffering from hellish cramps and pains, Medic is brought to help - however, what they first need to get around in order to treat her is her phobia of needles.

Warnings: Only the use of syringes for medical purposes, but apart from that it’s just pure fluff. 💕

The Hacker was laid out on the top of her bed, slightly curled up. Valeria Weatherford never expected this pain she was experiencing to take place - it was nothing more than an unforeseen event as a result - although she had to admit to herself that she should’ve at least had an idea this would happen. After all, earlier that very same day she’d experienced a tiny twinge of a significantly more dull version of this current sensation, during which it had shown itself on her facial expression and consequently Sniper had enquired as to whether she was alright. ‘You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten something, mate’, was the advice that this Australian had given her, and it had worked, until now, that is. But she’d decided to not go to the man who was responsible for her medical care, as well as that of the other mercs; the reason for this was because she reached the conclusion that everyone had, for lack of a better term, a bit of a funny tum-tum every now and then, so therefore she should stop being a baby and just wait for it to pass. And yet here she was, at roughly about 9:40 PM, writhing around on her bed thanks to the dull, ‘weird’ pain from several hours earlier having escalated to a very sharp and throbbing one which had fully spread throughout her abdomen by now. The time in between the two had only been a temporary reprieve. To put it simply, what she was experiencing right now was pure and utter hell. “What do you want us to do?” Another of the mercs and the only other female one, the Secretary, asked in concern as she and Scout watched their teammate and friend groan weakly every ten seconds while she slithered in place. They’d been walking down the corridor outside Hacker’s room an estimate of a couple of minutes ago when they’d heard her groaning and came in to see what was the matter. “Do you want us to get you anything to help?” “Yeah.” Valeria managed to answer in between a mixture of her cringing and her trying to slow down her breaths as an unsuccessful attempt at dumbing down the pain; her dark brown-red shoulder length hair had become slightly more messy in the last few minutes, and she felt like her temperature was marginally raised right now, making the situation even worse. And then, choosing to go ahead with the plan of action that she’d decided to not use earlier, she added, “Two things: get Medic, and get him quickly!” “Should one of us stay with you here in the meantime?” “No, I’ll be alright alone for a minute or two.” She gave another answer to Francoise. With that, Scout informed her that they’d be back in a minute, and then the pair were off like a shot, making their way out of the room and down the corridor towards the Medic’s infirmary as quickly as possible. Finding no better alternative at this moment in time, Hacker clasped both of her hands over her stomach and tried to gently give it a self massage, and as expected, this was only about 4% effective. “Is zere anysing else I should know?” “She was sayin’ she felt hot, and I think she looked like she was having’ these cramps earlier, a few hours ago.” Replied Scout, him and Secretary now walking in lockstep back towards Hacker’s room on either side of their fellow merc whose presence she’d requested. “I see. Vell zen, it’s good zat you two came to tell me, or else her recovery vould be much more of a slow process.” Jeremy and Francoise would be outright lying if they claimed that Medic’s seriousness didn’t surprise them - usually, when it came to other patients, he would appear excited at the prospect of putting his medical tools to use and his outward behaviour would be described as giddy, but somehow, the incident he was faced with at this moment was making his behaviour instead appear to be that of calmness. It was a rarity that they’d been unfamiliar with until Valeria joined the team. Within another few seconds, meanwhile, Hacker herself finally managed to find at least some relief when the door to her room opened from the outside, and in stepped the doctor. Help had arrived. She rolled over onto her right, having previously been facing the wall next to her bed on her left, in order to look in the direction of the door a few feet in front of her with her head still laid down on the mattress. “Evening, Josef.” She and some of the other mercs sometimes liked to address him by his real name. “Good evening, Frau Hacker.” He returned the greeting at the same time as walking up next to her and temporarily kneeling down so that he could get the tools he needed, which he’d brought with him, together; he put them out of his hands and onto the floor, gathering them together appropriately whilst Secretary closed the door again behind them. “Scout told me zat you vere having zis same problem earlier, but to a much smaller degree. Vhy didn’t you come to see me vhen it happened?” He turned his head to look at her. “It was only by a tiny smidgen at that point in time... so I thought I could just ride it out. I thought that I shouldn’t... need to rely on medication for every little problem like that. It was gone again for a while.” She needed to pause for a couple of moments so as to allow her intervals of cringing. “Ja, but as ve can all see, it made a rather nasty return, so zis just goes to show zat when you’re unwell, you need to come to me, even if it is just ‘by a tiny smidgen’.” Medic said to her in a fractionally scolding manner. “If left untreated, zat smidgen could lead to somezhing bigger, like zis.” “Sorry...” “It’s alright, just always remember to come and see me vhen zhese zings happen, ja?” By now he’d assembled the main component of the method he was going to use for treating her: a thin metal pole. “Okay.” She nodded her head, using her free hand that wasn’t clasped over her abdomen to sweep some stray strands of her hair out of her face, at the same time as wondering to herself what it was that he was planning on doing. Muttering to himself about nothing in particular, the Medic then reached inside one of his coat’s pockets and removed his pair of red gloves, proceeding to pull them onto his hands and feeling pleasurable chills run down his spine when their loud snapping noise was heard a couple of seconds later; Francoise and Jeremy were also wondering what his plan of action was by this point, as the only medical tool they were able to see him carrying a few seconds ago was the parts of the pole, and they were additionally thinking, ‘What type of treatment for this sort of problem needs his gloves to be used?’ The rest was obviously inside the white briefcase he’d been holding that was now on the floor. Their mental queries were soon answered, though, when he opened up the briefcase, and all three of the others could see that inside it was a long, thin plastic wire, a bag currently containing a clear fluid, and an item strongly resembling a small syringe. “This was a bad idea.” They weren’t looking at her, so they couldn’t see her do so, but the other 3 heard Valeria make this comment to herself next to them, and she seemed to have regained some motivation to move, because they did turn their heads to see what was happening when she abruptly pulled herself off of her bed, landing on the floor and creating a noise in the process. The floor was made of wood, and she instantly wished that she’d stayed, because it was cold - she could feel the coldness thanks to its surface making direct contact with her torso’s skin that wasn’t covered up by her crop top. As quickly as she could, she still felt like she couldn’t get up so she tried to pull herself along the floor on her way to where the door was, whilst moving still made the pain intensify and made her keep cringing. Eventually, however, she admitted defeat when she was about halfway across the room, feeling even more tired and groggy now than she did a minute ago, and she rolled onto her back and weakly stared up at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. In this time, Josef had barely moved at all and neither had Scout or Secretary, because there’d been a very good reason for them to not be rushing to catch her. “You okay, Val?” Enquired Scout. “No...” She was then back in the same position on the floor: curled up with one hand on her stomach. “Why can’t you just give me a pill or something like that, Medic?” Josef, remembering that she had trypanophobia and that this was most likely the reason behind what had just happened, got up from where he’d been kneeling and approached her. “Because my IV treatment is a much quicker method; a pill vould take half an hour or a whole hour to put itself into effect, because it needs to travel through zhe digestive tract first and be broken down before zhe liver releases its remnants into zhe bloodstream, but as implied in its name, an intravenous drip takes a shortcut directly to zhe veins and zhe bloodstream vizhout needing to go through zhe process of being broken down.” He stood over her as he said this making himself look like a mostly dark silhouette from her perspective courtesy of the ceiling’s lightbulb, but after he’d finished speaking, he knelt down towards her so that their faces were now only about a foot away from each other. “I chose zis option because I thought you’d vant a more immediate solution.” “I do, I do, it’s just I wish that quicker solution didn’t have to involve things prodding through my skin.” She shook her head and shuddered at the thought of it. Making sure to do it carefully, Medic reached his arms out and used them to pick Valeria up off the floor, during which she groaned again almost silently to herself, and he hoisted her up into a position where her head was over his shoulder and her legs were dangling loosely in front of his chest. “I know, Hacker. I have no intention on forcing you into anysing zat you don’t vant to do, but I’m afraid it’s either zis or sit through zhe pain for anozher hour.” He responded to her in a tone that was dominated by understanding and a gentleness that Scout and Secretary both found to be another occurrence they’d never seen from him before, prompting them to be surprised once again while Josef knelt down again, this time slightly but not fully, so that he could safely sling her off of his shoulder and back onto her bed after he’d walked back up to it. “I... alright then, I suppose I’ll do it...” Hacker chose to swallow her phobia and ride it out, this objective potentially being more successful this time. He nodded in acknowledgement. “Zhank you. A person’s phobia is a difficult thing for zhem to get around, so I think it’s good of you to try and do zhat.” He displayed a small, brief smile as a way to show that he was proud before he turned back around towards his briefcase on the floor. Jeremy and Francoise, during this, both sat down a few feet away in the computer chair and the regular chair in the vicinity of Valeria’s ‘gaming den’ in the corner of the room, watching Medic pull out the liquid-filled plastic bag from the briefcase in one hand and then the thin wire in the other. His patient herself observed what he was doing, her fear currently being one that made the feeling in her stomach feel somewhat more sickening, but it didn’t become more serious until she watched him use the same hand he was utilising for holding the wire also grasp hold of the syringe. Her eyes had grown wider and for a moment she could’ve sworn she could feel her breath catching in her throat, along with her heartbeat racing and with it ringing in her ears. She was completely fine around doctors in general, it was just when they pulled out these dreaded tools that shoved medicines directly into her blood when she experienced the previously described reaction. Oh my god, oh blimey... She watched him hang up the bag on the pole next to her bed and then attach one end of the wire to the bottom of the bag, allowing the fluid to flow through it and to the other end, which was currently closed. Now that this was done, he lifted up the needle to attach it to this other end of the wire, prompting Hacker to instinctively pull her legs in closer to herself because of it being nearer than it was a moment ago. “It’s alright, Val.” Secretary reassured her friend when she witnessed her do this. “Francoise is right, you know.” Added Medic in agreement, neither of these two sentences being completely heard as a result of her accelerated heart rate pounding through her ears. He attached the plunger end, which was open, onto the loose end of the wire, and now the fluid from the bag had pushed itself into the syringe as well. There was a chair next to her bed, as well, so the German pulled this up underneath him and used it to sit on as he brought the needle closer to her bed. “Could you give me your arm please?” She decided that her right arm was closer to him, so she slowly, tentatively, reached this one out, with a small tear each materialising in both of her eyes. With his empty hand, the left one, he grabbed hold of her forearm - she experienced some chills there as well as down her back when she felt that his glove was rubbery and cold, but soothingly so after the split second in which its coldness took her by surprise - in a manner that was mostly gentle. “Hey, look who’s here!” Scout got everyone’s attention, except for Medic’s because of him wanting to focus on what he was doing, and the former seemed to be pointing to the corner of the room opposite him and Francoise; what appeared to be a white dove with some bloodstains populating its feathers poked its head out from behind a pile of books and computer manuals there, emitting a small cooing noise as it looked directly at the pair. “Archimedes!” Hacker, realising that he must’ve been following Medic down the corridor a minute ago and gotten into the room unnoticed before the door was shut again, exclaimed in surprise upon hearing the ‘coo’. Medic also reached his own realisation due to his loyal pet seemingly providing a distraction: it was now or never, and therefore he used his other hand, while she wasn’t looking, to jab the needle into the underside of her right forearm. This made her attention return in an instant as she gasped from the sharp sting there, looking at it with her eyes wide again. “You did it! It’s okay, zhe hard part’s over now.” He told her, the smile returning to his features. “Vell done, Valeria.” However, before she could respond, she noticed straight away that for some reason, she suddenly felt more drowsiness than she did before, her eyelids momentarily closing themselves by a few degrees - a change that had to be connected with the drip that the vein inside her arm had just been connected to. “What exactly... did... you put in that IV, Medic...?” “Zhe main fluid inside zhe bag is ibuprofen in liquid form, which I enhanced a vhile ago to be more effective and vith zhat being vhy it’s clear in colour, but a few minutes ago I also added a small handful of my anaesthetic supply into it as an extra ingredient, so zhat it could help you to sleep better, as well.” He gave his reply at the same time as wrapping a thin bandage he’d removed from one of his coat’s pockets around the area of her wrist where the needle was located, so as to make it more secure. “We saw ‘im putting some other liquid into the bag.” Added Scout in confirmation of his answer. “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, I actually think I like it.” Another thing she noticed was that the pain in her stomach had begun to gradually wash away, piece by piece, after the IV needle had been inserted, and it was being replaced at the same speed with a pleasantly warm wave spreading throughout all of the veins in her body. She’d regained the motivation to move as a result, so she uncurled her body and moved into a position where she was laid out flat on top of her bed’s duvet. “You do look a little bit less pale.” Agreed Secretary, with Scout also nodding his head - whilst his methods, from what she’d seen, were what you’d call ‘unusual’ more often than not, one thing she’d learned was to never underestimate how well he could get the job done. “You’ll start to feel a little bit doolally in a few minutes.” Medic told the shorter-haired one of the females. Whilst he informed her of this, he remembered his left hand was still very near to her right forearm, and he decided to make an attempt at using a technique from the field of medicine that he’d heard of before: holding it next to where the drip was, and moving his thumb slowly and gently, as if he were using it to rub her arm. From what he’d read about this technique, it was a method for doctors to non-verbally let their patient know that they were still there. “Define ‘doolally’ in this case.” She said as a request for clarification. “The type of anaesthetic zhat I put in zhe intravenous bag is a moderate sedative, so you’ll feel as if you’re intoxicated and your speech vill be slurred, but it’s nozhing to be vorried about; zat’s normal for zis level of sedation.” Sure enough, it was about ten minutes or so later when Valeria, who’d now gotten under the duvet and was laid with most of her body underneath it and her head on the pillow, was smiling inanely to herself and gazing up at the ceiling. “How d’you feel?” Jeremy asked his friend, him and Secretary having moved their chairs closer to her bed a couple of minutes ago. Hacker turned her head to the right to look at him, as the pair were sat next to Medic, and her grin grew wider. “The liquid ibuprofen really worked, and that anaesthetic that’s in it’s making me feel good...~” She let out a small chuckle to no one in particular, right before a certain bloodstained dove flapped its way over to her bed through the air and landed to her left, on her pillow. “Hellew.” In response to this, Archimedes ‘coo’ed once again and tilted his head, making her laugh. “You were the perfect diversion earlier, weren’t you?” Secretary addressed the avian creature with her own smile, both at how cute the birb was and at how effective his presence had been in taking Hacker’s mind off of what took place a few minutes ago. “We should probably go now; it’s gettin’ late.” Said Scout, before looking back at Valeria and emitting a small chuckle. “And it looks like Val’s done for the night, too.” She appeared to currently be sound asleep, both of her arms still outside of the duvet while the rest of her body was underneath, with her mouth slightly open. “That must be the sedative.” Commented Francoise in the same manner. “I take it she’ll be okay in the morning?” “Ja, zhe enhanced ibuprofen inside her veins vill have been maintained long enough for its lasting effect to do its job. And she’ll be a little bit tired to start vith but zhe anaesthetic vill feel rejuvenating to her.” Josef replied. “Like coffee?” The female who was still awake also asked. “Precisely.” He nodded his head. “I’ll stay vith her just for anozher minute so zhat I can make sure she’s comfortable, and then I’ll come back here in zhe morning to help her remove zhe drip.” “See you, Doc.” Scout bade him goodnight as he got up from where he was sitting and then, after he’d looked back at his sleeping friend one last time, he and Secretary walked out of the room, closing the door behind them. “So, when are we gonna tell her?” As soon as the door was shut, she addressed Francoise. “Let’s not just yet; let’s see how long it takes her to work it out herself.” She smiled in mostly suppressed laughter. “Although mind you, Medic will probably be a pensioner by the time he gets round to admitting it himself.” “Yeah.” Jeremy joined in with this same type of laughter. “It’s kinda amazing how Val hasn’t noticed something this obvious yet.” As they began to walk away, en route back to their own rooms, he glanced over his shoulder at the door’s window, where he could still see Medic sat next to Hacker’s bed and making sure that the IV wire was straight so that there was absolutely no chance of it getting tangled in the night, doing all this while smiling serenely. “Mornin’ all.” Sniper addressed his fellow mercs about ten hours later as he walked downstairs into the briefing room, rubbing one of his eyes. “Hi Snipes.” Returned Scout, letting out a yawn at the same time as momentarily stretching his arms out behind him. “Did any of you hear the rumour that’s floating around?” Spy, in the middle of lighting one of his cigarettes and placing it into his mouth, asked in his usual clipped voice. As always, the purr of his French accent sent a shiver down Secretary’s neck and the middle of her back. “What rumour’s that?” Queried Engineer. He’d been sat on one side of the room for the last few minutes, in a chair with one leg over the other while playing a couple of quiet notes on his guitar. “From what I’ve heard, apparently last night Medic spent the entire night sleeping in Hacker’s room, right next to her bed.” Replied the masked figure with a tiny chuckle lacing the smile that had just appeared. “What.” Francoise, in curiosity, instantly snapped her head into the direction of the male who’d just spoken. “Demoman claimed a few minutes ago that when he was walking down one of the upstairs corridors late at night, he happened to catch a glimpse through the door’s window of both of them asleep, with him having his head on the top of her bed and with the rest of his body slumped over a chair.” “It’s true, I swear I saw it!” The Scotsman himself confirmed from his own chair a few feet away, and as expected, he was holding a still full cider bottle that he was hoping to open in the next few seconds. “And I also saw the lassie having something attached to her arm, I think it was connected to a bag filled up with some kind o’ liquid.” “One of Doctor’s experimental treatments, maybe...?” Heavy thought out loud. “It could be something new he’s been working on, yes.” Nodded Spy in agreement. “Val told me yesterday evenin’ that she had bellyache, and she looked dreadful as well, so Medic must’ve been tryin’ to help her with that.” Said Sniper. Scout, sat adjacent to the brunette, turned his head and gave her a knowing look about the rumour they’d just been told about, simultaneously trying and partly failing to suppress his own chuckles. “‘I’ll only stay with her for another minute’ he said, ‘I’ll come back in the morning’ he said! Can we go upstairs and tell her now? Pleeease? I bet even the other guys here think it’s obvious, too!” “Not yet, not yet! Sssssshhhh!” Secretary placed a finger over her lips and quietly laughed to herself. Josef, having only awoken roughly thirty seconds ago, was spending some of his time wiping the sand from the corners of his eyes and readjusting his glasses, which had gone slightly askew in the night. After he was done, he took a moment to allow his pupils to adjust to the darkness in the room except for gentle sunlight streaming in through the window on the door and through the white curtains in front of the window placed to the right of the bed, and he put himself back up into a proper seated position in his chair. His red rubber gloves were still covering his hands, his lab coat was still being worn by the rest of his body and, in addition, it seemed that Archimedes, too, was peacefully sleeping at the bottom of the bed. It was a little bit after this same moment when Medic could faintly see Valeria make some tiny movements as she began to stir, starting with her head as she still felt as if her eyelids were heavy and she yawned to herself before, slowly and piece by piece, she managed to roll over onto her right side. It was still mostly dark, but she could partially see the intravenous syringe still attached to her right arm; for a split second she felt a surge of panic, before she remembered the events of the previous night and that she didn’t have to go through the process of it being plunged through her skin again. Her eyes, still resisting the strong urge to drop back off into the land of sleep, flicked upwards when another thing she remembered was that there’d been someone else with her during these events. Medic, delicately placing one of his gloved hands onto her right forearm and making that chill residing in her spine make a reappearance, smiled in the same manner while the light through the curtains touched the left hand side of his glasses’ frames. “Guten morgen, Frau Hacker.” Archimedes emitted a little ‘coo’ as he woke up as well and tilted his head by a few degrees.

#tf2 #medic #tf2 medic #team fortress 2 #tf2 x oc #team fortress 2 x oc #medic x oc #tf2 medic x oc #fluff #comfort

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