#Doc Does Christmas

[docholligay]

What was your favorite thing you did in the UK/Germany?

That's such a hard thing for me to say on these sorts of trips, because there are so many things that go into "favorite." Apologies that this won’t be very poetically written, I’m sitll musing on my thoughts about it. 

The event I loved the most: Dickens Christmas Feast

We all know I love Charles Dickens, and even more so, we all know I love A Christmas Carol. I have seen so many versions of it, I will continue to watch versions of it, it is the best thing about Christmas, I think. So, on the one hand, very low bar to entry foe me.

On the other hand, I cannot recommend it enough to people. I would see anything this theater company did. They did such a wonderful job of building tone as you walked to where the theater was, you get this sense that you’ve about to hear something no one has ever heard before, even though this is probably one of the best known stories in the Western world. They even had a map of London from the late 1800s. I genuinely told people to just go past us in line (We had Royal Circle tickets--everything else had been sold out--so it didn’t matter if we were first or last) because they had a magnifying glass to look at the city map. It was so interesting to me to see the ways its different, but also the way its the same. What parts of the city cropped up, where were the nice areas, all of that. 

I loved dressing up. I love dressing up anyhow, but it was so much fun to do it for a Victorian themed event, and people reacted so positively to the handful of us who dressed up. There was one gal who stood by us in line, turned to her mom, and said, “I told you people would dress up! We could have dressed up! I love your costumes.” and then when we thanked her and said we loved to take an opportunity, she said, “Did you bring all that from America?” and upon confirmation, she turned to her mom again and said, “They brought it from America!” I loved her, I hope next time she dresses up. 

The food was shockingly good. I don’t put a lot of faith in dinner theater, foodwise, but the duck was well cooked, I love the potted cheese, and the cocktails were flat out incredible. I had smoking bishop, which I liked so much I think I’m going to try and make it at home this winter. Also, in the Royal Circle the service was incredible. Our gal Lily was so very attentive and wonderful, and she let us know that she couldn’t come out during the three acts, but in the meal breaks, she would. I let her know I was going to want to put a cocktail order in about ten minutes before each act began, and she was SO on it, like CLOCKWORK, asking me what I’d like for the next act and having hit the table RIGHT before the lights dimmed again. She was amazing. 

And the play. Again, I love A Christmas Carol and I acknowledge that fully, but I never imagined that one of my favorite reworkings of it would be a one man show that is represented as Charles Dickens acting it all out of you in his deeply involved, hyperactive, scattered way. I ADORED IT. I cannot express to you how well the guy did, and how much, in moments, it really felt to me like the feeling of being a writer--especially in the earlier parts of the play--with him saying a line “wrong” and then going, “No, I don’t like that” taking up the exact same position, and redoing it. It was very much the feeling of me pacing around the office in the old days writing something. At the end of the second act, when they had this huge clap of thunder roll, lights flashing, the actor as Scrooge in this moment crying out in fear over the approach of the third ghost, and then the whole room goes pitch black and silent. It’s SO tense. The lights come up, he smiles and goes, “Pretty good, right?” ANd it just captured, for me, that feeling of knowing you’ver written something that’s going to get to your reader, and it is this MOMENT in the writing, but you’re sitting there grinning like an idiot over your desk, chuckling. 

The only other players in the work, actually, were the musicians, who were live, and walked around playing the violin and little drums and other instruments, it was such an excellent way to really loop in the music aspect and give this so much more of a live feel. 

The whole thing is done as a theater in the round style, and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. I was in the royal circle, but mostly what we had was more attentive service and much more comfortable seating (They were these sumptuous plush banquettes. So nice. Everyone else was on a regular chair) because the seating was so good for the play itself. And because of how it was done, it had to have sparse staging, but what they did have was wonderful. In the center stage, especially, they had a doorframe that popped up, and when they lowered it, they couldn’t do it without a light slam, so they worked it into the play SO WELL, at one point one of the musicians was holding it for the perfect dramatic moment to hear that slam, and it was such a clever way to work in something that could have been annoying into being absolutely perfect. 

It was so cleverly done, I would go see it again despite the cost of it, absolutely, if I were in London at the time. 

Thing I think everyone should go see in London: Westminster Abbey. 

A lot of the things I recommend are ‘use cases’ because there’s very little int his world that is uniformly bad or uniformly good, there are just good and bad use cases. I think the London Eye would be a fucking horrfying waste of time and money, but if I were bringing beeb, she might love it, as she loves to be up high. When i went with my wife one of my favorite days was when i took the train out to the shitty OW office and walked back to Mile End at the route I think Lena would take, and basically just bopped around the East End.  Many people would find that boring or too much walking. I thought the British Museum was an annoying waste of my life. Many of you are audibly gasping at that statement. Use cases. 

ANYHOW, Westminster Abbey is one of the only things I can think of in London that everyone she go see. I am not a big historic church person, so please trust me when I say its a very beautiful church, but it’s much more than that. I’m not sure if I just wrote this in my diary or said it here, but it feels like the collective hopes of a nation, and what it makes itself to be. What do we hold dear? What do we call ours? This is even more striking with seeing the scientists, and poets’ corner, the RAF chapel. It’s about what the UK thinks of itself as, what it hopes it is, as much as it is anything else, and I think you get a fantastic sense of that HOPE going through there. There’s a reason Oliver Crowmwell was there, and then wasn’t. Its striking for me in a way churches rarely are. I love that aspect of it, my wife loved the straight history aspects of it, the craftsmanship of the building itself and the graves are absolutely worth study, if you’re a royals person, that’s where the coronation is, if you just want to hit the tourist highlights, it is a major one. I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

Thing I didn’t expect to love: The Christmas Garden Path at Blenheim Palace. 

I cannot express to you what a tonally bizarre journey the Blenheim path was. It was as if they asked several different people to come together and make this, but refused to allow them to speak to each other, so you jump from moment to moment and it has absolutely no unity whatsoever. You begin in a very boring “Nice lights set to Pentatonix” Christmas display that in no way prespares you for what is about to happen. At one point, in what I called, “The Annual Tory Salute to the Blitz” it is literally the glowering face of Winston Churchill, illuminated, against a backdrop of flames. If you do not believe me ask @morkaischosen who was there with me. Then we went into the “Christmas Rave” where there was, I am not joking, pulsing lights as you walk in a circle around them to techno music. Is this related to Christmas? Who knows? WHo cares! There are dancing fountains! There’s a love tunnel! One of the areas I just called “A Eurovision entry from Eastern Europe” and I was completely right. It was bonkers. It was jarring. I loved it. 10/10. Also, whoever planned it out had amazing wisdom with the drink stops, I am so serious. I never had to chug nor wait, they were spaced PERFECTLY for finishing one drink and wanting another. 

But one of my actual favorite times, that I will look on with extreme fondness, is something that I think most people would have found boring to hear about: Sitting on the living room floor with @verbforverb while @tallangrycockatiel sat there and knitted, sampling whiskeys. It was not anything you’d find in a travel guide but in many ways was what I came there to do and will be one of my favorite memories (also verb trying to fucking murder me during a monring run)

[sillydeimos]

Okay I'm more awake now. I still think the dissonant bolt marks look like hickeys though, that thought hasn't left

Consider: Jeb "accidentally" throwing dissonant bolts at the enemies very close to Hank so the small explosions would catch him methinks. I don't think Jeb would leave actual hickeys, not without permission, but he would do whatever the hell this is. Gives plausible deniability. Hank is just pissed off about him killstealing

Okay vanishing for the rest of the day goodbye

-💻🌌

this is so true he does get mad about killstealing, you never killsteal from hank. that's like taking the last donut man you just don't do it

i think dissonance bolts probably leave a lot more stains then jeb realizes/cares, its my favorite headcanon. i remember i played interactive mode recently and i spawned in christoff and i stood a short distance from him and let him shoot bolts at me so i could take screenies but he...like. just missed every single shot.

like. come on man. try harder. i'm RIGHT here.

[skid-the-mighty-poet]

[mummer]

a good man goes to war probably the Most doc who episode of all time. The epic highs and lows of moffat. it’s possible that trying to combine your screwball high flying funky star wars homage episode with your self serious very important character and plot development episode is stupid and does not work… or maybe it does? But of course combined with one of the most insanely dumb plot reveals of all time, to have ever happened on this earth. But also karen gillan acting down. But also… flesh baby. Look how they impregnated my girl literally probably the most fucked up and evil thing to happen to a companion like whatttt is this? BUT ALSO THE INTRO OF VASTRA AND JENNY AND STRAX. But also flesh baby…..Unless flesh baby is secretly awesome? im coming around to flesh baby. But also amy trapped in a well george lucas gave his girls more agency in the 70s moffat you freak. Is this episode legendarically terrible is it Really cool and awesome and ambitious and doing the most all the time are there themes. Can we unpack this. No. Like it’s literally all in service of some stupid bullshit really.. But what if it wasnt

[that-sounds-mighty-oof-to-me]

nothing quite as annoying as watching the word count steadily climb past all markers you've set for yourself, fully knowing that, like, max 3/5ths of the chapter are done. i bear the curse of the yapper in every facet of my life it seems.

[500-moths-in-a-trenchcoat]

i'm expecting a tiktok exodus since this seems to be the bomb shelter of the internet. have another update/repost. NOW WITH HIGHLIGHTED MAJOR HOLIDAYS!

IT JUST HAPPENS

DAY 15 GIVE IT UP FOR DAY 15

Thursday the 20th

The Fifth of Wednesday

Second Week of May: Eurovision

Sometime in June: That One Halloween Post Starts Circulating

Sometime in July: Dancing Pumpkin Man Video/Gif

First Monday In September: Todaybor Day Is Labor Day

WEEKLY EVENTS (at least the ones i celebrate)

Every Monday: Garfield Hates Mondays

Every Tuesday: Tuck Him In Tuesday

Every Wednesday: It Is Wednesday My Dudes

Every Thursday: Out of Touch Thursday

Every Friday: Thank Gnome It's Friday

Every Saturday: Caturday

Every Sunday: Energy Sword Sunday

YEARLY EVENTS

January 1: Copyright Expiration Day

January 2: New Years, New Tears

January 8: Spiders Georg Day

January 16: Appreciate a Dragon Day

January 18: Bug Race

January 29: Threshold Day

All of February: Funguary

ALSO All of February: Femslash February

February 3: WOE, VANILLA EXTRACT BE UPON YE

February 8: King Taejong Fell Off His Horse

February 13: Galentines Day

February 14: Aromantic/Asexual Day

February 15: Annoy Squidward Day

February 18: Perserverance Rover's Birthday

March 9: Miku Day

March 10: Mario Day

March 14: Pi Day

March 15: Ides of March

March 23: Ever Given Got Stuck Today

April 1: Mishapocalypse

ALSO April 1: Staff Does Something Fun On The Dashboard

April 2: Dashcon Announcement Anniversary

April 3: Dannypocalypse

April 5: First Contact Day

April 8: Rex Manning Day

ALSO April 8: MARGARET THATCHER IS DEAD

April 13: Neil Banging Out The Tunes

ALSO April 13: Homestuck Day

April 19: Some Roman Made Bread Today

April 20: haha 420 blaze it

April 24: Josh Fight

April 25: The Perfect Date

April 28: Ed Balls Day

April 29: 94 Meetings Day

April 30: It's Gonna Be May

All of May: Mermay

May 3: Beginning of Dracula Daily

May 4: May the 4th Be With You

May 5: Revenge of the Fifth

May 6: Revenge Of The Sixth

May 7: World Language Day

May 25: The Glorious 25th of May

ALSO May 25: Towel Day

All of June: Pride Month

ALSO All of June: IT'S HALLOWEEN TIME TO GET SPOOKY

June 5: Barricade Day

ALSO June 5: RONALD REAGAN IS DEAD

June 12: Another Homestuck Day

June 16: Let Papyrus Say Fuck

June 22: Summerween

June 23: FUCK This Post And Happy Birthday Sonic

All of July: Disability Pride Month

July 11-13: Dashcon Anniversary

July 20: Moon Landing

August 5: Curiosity Rover's Birthday

August 30: Frankenstein Day

September 8: The Queen Is Dead and Sans Undertale Killed Her

September 11: Mole Interest Monday

September 19: Talk Like A Pirate Day

September 21: DO YOU REMEMBER-

All of October: SKELETON WAR

ALSO All of October: People Draw A Lot Month? (so many names)

October 3: Mean Girls Day

ALSO October 3: Fullmetal Alchemist Day

October 13: Treat Yo' Self

October 18: None Pizza Left Beef

October 20: Unnecessary Feelings Day

October 25: Homestuck Day The Third??

October 31: HALLOWEEN

November 5: Destiel Nevada Putin Elec'tion Covid Way

ALSO November 5: Doc Brown Invents Time Travel

November 19: Goncharov

November 29: HENRY KISSINGER IS DEAD

All of December: Will the Gävle Goat Get Destroyed Again?

ALSO All of December: WHY WEREN'T YOU AT ELF PRACTICE

ALSO All of December: Season's Greason's

December 4: Deny Defend Depose Day

December 10: Please, It's Christmas

December 12: Hawaii Part 2

December 23: Christmas Adam

ALSO December 23: Festivus

December 24: ALMOST CHRISTMAS MEANS IT WASN'T CHRISTMAS

ALSO December 24: Cabinet Man Day

December 25: happy chrismum

December 27: Porn Ban Effective Today

[tsukimirecs]

ghost // fic recs

paralyzer

come with me to a place i've been

saltwater

who has a voice like smarty does?

listening in

smoldering butterflies

cards and communication

let's get in the back of your cop car, officer

subtle

shut up and drive

get closer

hate

rest, rose

we have an appointment

fever pitch

survival huddle (and only for survival)

23:20

in stasis

crossfaded

when you held hope in your arms

houston, we have a problem

so fucked

what's up, doc?

older

interesting specimens

heat advisory

christmas present

till the end of the line

note: remember to read the tags! + i do not own any of these works

[foxtrology]

saturated (1)

dr!joel x resident!reader

inspired by the pitt on hbo | series | ao3 link

notes: this took me way too long to write. but i had to. couldn't stop watching the pitt and thinking about our old man. joel is basically if dr robby and dr abbot had a morally complicated, emotionally constipated lovechild. also abby does not kill joel in this, everyone is friends! god bless america.

warnings: this contains intense and graphic deceptions of medical trauma, emergency room scenarios, death (including children), physical violence, workplace assault, substance use, bodily fluids, mass casualty events, and realistic portrayals of burnout, grief and PTSD in a high stakes-medical environment.

it also includes themes of misogyny, harassment, and implicit threats of sexual violence. reader discretion is strongly advised. please take care while reading--especially if you are sensitive to medical distress, depictions of pediatric injury or real-time crisis response.

word count: 15.k

─────

The morning of the Fourth of July in Austin, Texas, feels like a moment held in the lung, right before the exhale.

That breathless pause before fireworks, before the sirens scream and the ER radios stuttering with trauma codes and stroke alerts and the endless crush of the heat-baked, alcohol-soaked chaos that follows any major American holiday. It’s always the calm before the storm—if you could even call it calm.

You pull into the staff garage at 5:52 a.m. and sit in the car for a moment longer, letting the silence stretch. Black scrubs still freshly laundered, badge clipped, hair pulled back, and your shoes already forming to your feet like muscle memory. You reach for your tumbler, still warm from the coffee Joel handed you in the kitchen an hour ago, already half-drunk.

There’s that brief moment you consider calling out. Just for today. Just to stay in that house, in that bed with him, where he kisses your bare shoulder before telling you to be safe.

But you won’t. You never do.

Because no matter how bad the ER gets—and it always gets bad—this is the only place that makes any kind of sense to you.

Inside, the air conditioning hits like a slap, and you walk past the security station where Bill gives you a small nod, already sipping from his thermos like a man bracing for war.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says. His voice is gravel, his beard immaculate. “You ready for the circus?”

You offer a tired smile. “You know we don't get clowns. We get drunk uncles with bottle rockets.”

He chuckles, shaking his head as he scans another nurse’s badge behind you. “Same difference.”

The ER already smells like overcooked coffee and sterile gauze, and the waiting room—visible through the thick glass partition—looks like an airport at Christmas. People slumped against the wall, some pale, some bleeding, some just desperate for help they’re not sure they need. A woman with a crying toddler in one arm and a vomit bag in the other is standing at the triage desk. Behind her, a man in a tank top clutches his ribs and moans like he’s in labor.

Inside the main ER pod, the low hum of monitors, pagers, and movement never really stops. Maria Miller stands at the hub, perfectly composed, her hands wrapped around a travel mug and a tablet tucked in the crook of her arm. 

“Six a.m. and already short three nurses,” she mutters as you step up beside her. Her eyes flick to you. “Happy Fourth. You look like hell.”

You arch a brow. “Why thank you, Maria.”

She smirks, amused. “I saw your name on the schedule and bumped Henry’s start time earlier. Figured you’d need someone to boss around.”

“Nice. Nothing says holiday spirit like free labor.”

Her mouth twitches into a smile before she heads off toward the trauma bay. You breathe in the scent of antiseptic and coffee. Your shift hasn’t even started, and already you can feel the heat pressing behind your eyes.

“Doc!” Jesse calls out, sliding past with an IV pole in one hand, his badge swinging. “Your favorite guy’s back. Bed three.”

“Which one?”

“Golf cart DUI. Same guy from last month. Says he’s got chest pain.”

You groan, snagging your stethoscope from your pocket and making your way toward the row of curtained bays.

“Hey, doc,” Marlene calls, intercepting you with a chart. “You’ve got a belly pain in seven. NPO since last night, vitals stable, but she’s already mad she’s waited an hour.”

“Great,” you sigh. “Let me guess—says she’s dying?”

“Says she wants to die,” Marlene says dryly. “Progress.”

Inside Bed 3, the familiar face of Mr. Golf Cart is flushed and sweaty, his eyes darting from you to the EKG leads on his chest. He tries to smile through chapped lips. 

“Hey there, doc. Long time no see.”

“It’s been three weeks,” you reply, glancing at the monitor. “You said chest pain?”

“Felt like a raccoon sittin’ on my sternum.”

You don’t bother asking how he knows what that feels like.

“I’ll get your labs and a troponin. Don’t eat or drink anything, and don’t try to leave AMA again.”

“Cross my heart,” he grins.

“You did that last time too.”

Outside the room, Tommy is coming in from the ambulance bay, gloved hands smudged with dried blood, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He spots you and tips his chin up.

“You get the kid with the fireworks burn?”

You didn't fucking get the people who lit up fireworks before the actual holiday.

“Not yet.”

He shrugs. “He’s all yours. Level 2, maybe deeper dermal. Holding it together, though.”

“Great,” you say, and Tommy claps you on the shoulder as he moves past, already shouting something to Frank who’s restocking their rig with trauma dressings.

Frank pauses to shoot you a quick smile. “Morning, doc.”

“You ready for hell?” you ask.

“Born in it,” he replies with a wink, disappearing into the supply closet.

By 6:40, the line to triage has doubled. You slip into Exam 7 where Abby and Mel are squinting at a portable chest X-ray.

“I think it’s a widened mediastinum,” Abby says, uncertain.

Mel frowns. “I think it’s a terrible film.”

You glance between them and sigh. “You’re both right. Let’s get a CT angio. Rule out dissection.”

Abby lets out a breath. Mel nods, jotting it into the chart.

You turn to leave, only to be stopped by Henry in the hallway.

“I finished my charting on the chest pain in four,” he says. “Do you want me to see the laceration in bed nine?”

You nod. “It’s a head lac. Two-centimeter frontal scalp. Walk-in. You can staple it.”

Henry brightens just slightly before hurrying off, excited to staple someone's scalp.

Kathleen stands at the nurse’s station, arms crossed, lips pressed into a line as she watches three nurses hustle to cover six rooms. She barely glances at you, but when she does, her voice is velvet over steel.

“You better love this job, sweetheart. Because it sure as hell doesn’t love us back.”

You offer her a tired grin. “I’m in a toxic relationship with medicine.”

“I’d say get out,” she murmurs, tapping something into the computer, “but I’ve been saying that for twenty years.”

You’re interrupted by Ellie appearing behind you like a caffeinated ghost, her voice quick and panicked. “I just had a guy vomit blood on my shoes and I don’t think that was in the orientation packet.”

You blink. “Was it a large volume?”

“Like a tarantula of blood exploded out of his mouth.”

“Sounds like a GI bleed. Grab Marlene and get him on O2, two large bore IVs, and get a CBC, type and screen, and a bolus of saline.”

Ellie stares at you, eyes wide. “...I love you.”

“You’ll hate me in two hours.”

Dina slides past a moment later, rolling her eyes as she scribbles a note onto a file. “You need me for the kid from the group home?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Bed twelve.”

“I’ll bring stickers,” she mutters, already moving.

You turn a corner to find Riley standing outside a room, fidgeting with her stethoscope.

“I tried to get a BP but the patient wouldn’t stop yelling at me.”

“Welcome to emergency medicine,” you say, opening the curtain.

The hours between 7 and 9 blur into a tangle of trauma activations, overdoses, and one elderly woman who insists she’s seeing angels. Joel appears somewhere around 7:30, silent and gruff, already charting by the trauma desk. His sleeves are rolled up, hair still damp from the shower both of you shared early this morning. He looks at you like he’s already tired for both of you.

You pass behind him and your hand grazes the small of his back, just enough for him to shift his weight and glance at you from the corner of his eye. That’s all. That’s enough.

He doesn’t need to say anything. Nobody talks about it, but everyone knows.

By 9 a.m., you’ve had three traumas, two psych consults, and a toddler with a swallowed battery. A man in a star-spangled bikini was just escorted to the waiting room by Bill, Ellie and Abby giggling in each other's arms watching the scene.

You think you might be sweating through your scrubs.

You duck into the breakroom, finally, and find Tess already in there, sleeves rolled, sipping black coffee and glaring at the microwave like it owes her money.

“Fourth of July,” she says without looking at you. “God bless America.”

You groan and collapse into the chair next to her. “How many stabbings so far?”

“Three. One with a fork. Guy said he was trying to get the last sausage off the grill.”

You snort, leaning back and letting the moment hold. Outside, another ambulance pulls into the bay. The day is only just beginning. And no one’s getting out early.

Just as you sat down, Ellie burst into the break room like her body was still moving faster than her brain could catch up. Her face was flushed with adrenaline, lips parted, hands trembling just enough to tell you this wasn’t a drill.

“Hey—hey—uh—can you—can you come? Right now. It’s that guy in Bay Two. He—he fucking lunged at me.”

Tess straightened up immediately, coffee forgotten. You were already on your feet, coffee sloshing onto the table as you moved past Ellie, her hand catching your elbow.

“I didn’t even touch him. I was just checking his vitals and he went off. Said women shouldn’t be in medicine, shouldn’t ‘touch him,’ called me a goddamn slut, and then he lunged. I didn’t—I mean I moved back—he didn’t land it, but—”

“I’ve got it,” you said, your voice already lowering, the calm hard edge setting in. “You’re okay. You did everything right.”

Tess looked like she wanted to follow, to keep an eye on things, but you shook your head. “Stay here. I got this.”

You headed for Bay Two with a kind of purposeful gait that had nurses flattening themselves against the wall. Marlene caught your eye from the main desk and gave you a look, sharp and knowing. She didn’t need an explanation.

The man in Bay Two was middle-aged, built like someone who spent more time drinking beer than going to the gym, his hands cuffed to the rails, red-faced and sneering. A big, mean, fleshy kind of guy with the kind of grin that made your stomach twist—not in fear, but in a deep, guttural revulsion.

“Here she is,” he crowed when he saw you enter. “Another whore with a stethoscope. They just handing out medical degrees to anyone with a pussy now, huh?”

Your heart didn’t even skip. You had heard worse. But not recently. Not in Joel's ER.

You approached, eyes flicking to the security strap readouts, the monitor, the vitals. Elevated BP, slightly tachycardic, but stable. You stood just out of reach, arms crossed, voice perfectly even.

“Sir, you’re in the emergency department of Austin General. My name is Dr. —”

“Don’t want your fucking name. Don’t want your hands on me either,” he snarled. “Get me a real doctor.”

“That would be me,” you said, unfazed. “You assaulted a medical student. You will now deal with me.”

“You little bitch. You think you got any right to—”

He spat. At you.

The glob landed on your scrub top just left of your collar, thick and glistening.

You didn’t flinch. You refused to give him that.

But when he jerked forward against the cuffs—catching you off guard with a sudden surge of movement—his nail scratched across the base of your neck. Not deep, but enough to burn. Enough to make Marlene, who had followed you at a distance, shout for security.

Enough for Joel, who’d been passing by and caught the tail end of that violent motion, to come to a dead stop at the doorway like a goddamn thundercloud.

“What the fuck did he just do?” Joel’s voice was low, calm. Terrifying.

You blinked, your hand gently coming up to feel the small scratch. Warmth there. Nothing that needed more than a Tegaderm. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

You turned to him, quiet, eyes locking. It was one of those moments where a single breath passed and everything unsaid between you stood on the edge of a blade.

“Let me treat him,” Joel said, stepping closer. His voice wasn’t a request.

“Joel.”

He turned to you—deliberate, slow. “You got a goddamn cut on your neck. You’re not treating him. You treat the people who deserve you.”

And then, to your absolute surprise, Joel stepped in.

The patient was smirking again. “Oh, now we got a real man in here,” he said, a mocking grin. “What are you, her boyfriend? Fucking lucky bastard.”

Joel didn’t say a word. He just walked over, gloved up in one fluid motion, and began to examine the man with a detached, surgical coldness that sent chills down your spine.

“What, she send you in ‘cause she can’t handle me? Tch. Figures. You look like the type to put a leash on your bitch, huh?”

Joel wrapped the BP cuff tight—too tight.

“You son of a—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Joel said evenly.

The man froze.

Joel leaned over the bed, voice low and sharp as a scalpel. “You don’t talk to my staff that way. You sure as hell don’t touch anyone. And if you so much as blink wrong again, you’re not gonna like how I handle it. You understand me?”

“You can’t talk to me like—”

Joel pressed the cuff bulb once more. The man hissed in pain.

“I asked if you understood.”

The man’s breath was shallow, face flushing again. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Jesus. Fine.”

You stood just outside the curtain, your jaw tight, watching Joel work with a professionalism sharpened by fury. You’d seen him rough before—on the job, during trauma—but never like this. Never with his jaw clenched like that. Never with his hands steady as stone but his body bristling with quiet rage.

Kathleen appeared beside you at some point, arms crossed.

“Jesus,” she muttered, watching through the curtain. “What happened?”

“He assaulted Ellie,” you said. “Tried to hit me.”

Kathleen’s eyes flicked to the small scratch at your collar. Her mouth went tight. “Should’ve let Bill loose on him.”

Joel finished dressing the man’s wound with the grace of a wolf playing surgeon. Then he turned, gloves off, and met your gaze. His face was unreadable. But his eyes told you everything.

He was done being polite. For the rest of the shift—and likely the day—he’d be wound tight. He would do his job. But that thin line he normally walked between professionalism and unfiltered rage? It was gone.

You met him halfway in the hall, his hand brushing yours for a second, a brief, nearly invisible contact.

“You okay?” he asked, low, barely audible.

“I’m fine.”

“He hurt you.”

“Barely. Joel—don’t do something that’ll get you written up.”

He exhaled slowly, jaw ticking. “Let ‘em write me up.”

You stared at each other in that fluorescent hallway, footsteps pounding, phones ringing, voices shouting. But all you heard was him.

Behind you, Ellie reappeared, her face tight and pale but determined.

“I’m okay,” she said quietly, more to Joel than you. “He didn’t land it.”

Joel nodded once. “You handled yourself.”

Ellie smiled, just barely. “You going to tell HR about your bedside manner back there?”

He didn’t even look at her. “HR can kiss my ass.”

The ER didn’t slow. The next wave of traumas rolled in before you could even sit. A car crash. A fireworks explosion that nearly cost a teenager his hand. Jesse passed you gauze with one hand and held pressure on a neck wound with the other. Frank and Tommy burst through the ambulance bay doors with another critical, blood on their uniforms, sweat streaking their faces.

The air smelled like burnt flesh and Betadine. The walls were closing in with noise and heat and the never-ending, never fucking ending churn of human pain.

You didn’t stop. You didn’t flinch. Joel didn’t leave your side for more than five minutes at a time. And no one said a word about it. But they all saw. They always did. Even when they pretended they didn’t.

Especially when it came to you and Joel. The glances in the hall, the stillness that took over his body when your name was called out overhead, the way his eyes always found you first, scanning for blood, for bruises, for the smallest fucking thing that might’ve happened in the last ten minutes he hadn’t been watching.

Everyone saw it.

And no one said a goddamn word.

Because Joel Miller didn’t take kindly to anyone prying. And more importantly—he was a better doctor when you were around. They all knew it. It made them like you more. It made them protect you, in a way. Quietly. Stealthily. With a kind of respect that was hard-earned in a place like this.

But respect didn’t stop the world from burning. The ER was a fucking pressure cooker by the time the sun hit its apex. And even though you couldn’t see it from inside—no windows, no light except the harsh fluorescents—the shift in the air was tangible. It was the crescendo. The peak.

The waiting room had filled an hour ago. Now it was bursting. You heard the shouting first. Low and muffled from behind the secured double doors, the ones that kept the main ED from descending into chaos every time someone with a sprained ankle thought they were dying. Then the angry thuds—boots on linoleum, chairs scraping, someone pounding their fist on the glass partition near triage.

You caught the tail end of it from the nurse’s station. Kathleen had her jaw set, arms crossed, standing like a statue of stone as she radioed for Bill. She didn’t flinch as someone outside yelled about waiting four fucking hours with a sick kid. About how the government should burn for the state of the American healthcare system. About how their taxes should be buying better care.

How fucking ironic telling a healthcare worker that.

Jesse muttered under his breath as he wiped his hands on a towel, “People think ERs are fucking drive-thrus now.”

“They’ve always thought that,” Kathleen snapped.

You heard the buzz of the security door unlocking and then saw Bill stride out into the storm, calm as a mountain, broad-shouldered and stone-eyed. The crowd parted enough for him to speak in that deep, measured voice of his. You didn’t hear the words, but the tone was clear—this isn’t a negotiation.

Someone pushed. Big mistake.

Bill moved faster than anyone expected, crowding the man backward with one hand braced on his chest, steering him toward the wall. “Don’t. Touch. My. Staff,” you heard him growl.

The man’s arms lifted—weak, blustering, drunk or angry or both—but Bill wasn’t even winded. He radioed for APD, kept himself between the chaos and the front desk, and when the doors buzzed shut again ten seconds later, the noise behind them didn’t stop—but it dulled.

“Fourth of fucking July,” Marlene muttered as she walked by. “Every goddamn year.”

The real storm, though—the one that mattered—was what came through the ambulance bay.

The first call came at 10:41. Child. Near-drowning. Backyard pool. No adult supervision. ETA: two minutes.

Then another. And another. And another.

You stood in Trauma One as Maria directed the incoming flow like a symphony conductor, her tablet clenched in her hand like a sword. “Put the six-year-old in Trauma Two. Get Pediatrics paged down here. Respiratory on standby. Tell CT we need head and C-spine for all drownings, intubate as needed.”

“Where the fuck are we supposed to put them?” Jesse asked, not even trying to hide his frustration. “We’re at max capacity!”

Maria’s voice sliced through the noise. “Make room. Stack if you have to. Double rooms. Trauma hall overflow. I don’t give a shit. We are not turning away pediatric codes.”

And you were moving before you even processed it. Pulling on gloves, snapping goggles over your eyes, shoving trauma shears into your pocket.

The first kid—boy, seven or eight—was cyanotic, limp, his chest rising only slightly under bag ventilation. Joel took point, barking orders with brutal precision.

“1 mg epinephrine IV push. Get ready to tube. Peds crash cart now. We need a line—Jesse, get that line. You, get that IO if you have to.”

“Got it.”

“Push faster.”

The parents were in the hallway screaming. You didn’t stop. There was no room for that. You could fall apart later.

The second kid—blonde, five, blue lips, vomit around her mouth—was rushed into your room. You caught her from the gurney mid-transfer, nearly dropping to your knees with the dead weight.

“Started CPR on scene,” Tommy said breathlessly. “No pulse for four minutes. They pulled her from the shallow end.”

You moved on instinct. “Start compressions. Get the crash cart. I need 0.01 mg/kg epi. Let’s go.”

You worked until your arms felt like jelly. Until sweat was dripping down your spine, soaking through your black scrubs. Until your fingers ached from bagging, from checking pulses, from writing code notes that your brain refused to absorb. You snapped orders, half-yelled at Abby for hesitating too long on a tube size, and didn’t even feel guilty.

These were kids. And they were dying.

By the time you got the third one—a boy, barely three—he was already cold. Tommy handed you the chart with blood on his cheek, his eyes hollow.

“Nothing in the field,” he said.

You stared at the kid. You didn’t say anything. You intubated anyway. You tried.

Joel came in halfway through and didn’t even look at the clock. He just picked up the ambu bag, his face carved from stone.

“Come on, baby boy,” he murmured, almost too quiet to hear. “Come on. Breathe.”

The rhythm of the bagging. The flatline. The futile compressions.

You heard Mel whisper, “He’s gone.”

But you kept going. Just long enough. Just to make sure.

When you finally called it—when the silence came—you felt it ripple through the room like a knife through skin.

Joel didn’t move. He looked down at the boy for a long time. Then up at you. His jaw clenched.

You looked away. You left the room. And still, the day didn’t stop.

Another crash. Fireworks embedded in a thigh. A man who’d tried to jump a fence with sparklers in both hands and shattered his femur on landing. Someone else with a roman candle burn across their cheek and no fucking idea how they got it.

Again. It was daylight. Why the fuck are people doing fireworks already.

You caught a glimpse of Ellie across the trauma hallway, covered in soot, helping Riley wrap a dressing. Her hands were steady. Her mouth was set.

Marlene passed you a water and said, “You need to drink something or you’re going to pass out.”

You didn’t even realize your hands were shaking.

By the time you made it back to Joel, he was standing at the med station with his palms flat on the counter, shoulders hunched, breathing slow and heavy like a man trying not to crack his ribs from the inside out.

You stood behind him. Quiet. Present.

“He was so young,” you said, voice hoarse.

He nodded once. “I know.”

“We did everything.”

“I know.”

You didn’t touch him. You couldn’t. Not here. But his hand brushed yours when you reached for the pen, just the smallest press of his pinky against your skin. It was enough.

You stayed like that for a breath. Then two. Then the radio crackled again. Another code. Another ambulance. No rest. Not today. And not now.

It was barely past eleven and the ER had transformed from a battlefield into something more biblical. Plagues of chaos. Floods of noise. Screams from the trauma bays, sobbing from the waiting room, blood on the linoleum, and no time to wipe it up before someone else was bleeding over it.

You were halfway through stitching up a forehead lac—nine-year-old girl, tripped chasing her older brother with a sparkler—when your pager buzzed again. Rapid succession. Three back-to-back calls.

You looked down at the kid, her tiny legs swinging off the gurney, lips trembling.

“You’re doing amazing,” you told her. “Almost done, sweetheart. Just five more.”

She gave a brave nod, but her chin wobbled anyway. Jesse handed you the next suture without speaking, the tension behind his eyes saying more than words ever could.

The second the stitches were in, you stripped your gloves and tossed them toward the bin, already moving. The noise hit you in waves as you emerged back into the hallway. Another stretcher wheeled past, pushed by Tommy and Frank, both breathless.

“Sparkler injury!” Frank shouted. “We’ve got a foreign object in the left orbit. Firework’s still in the goddamn eye!”

You blinked. “Still in?”

“It’s lodged. Like a fucking spear.”

They wheeled the teen—maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen—into Trauma Four. Blood was pouring from the socket, and he was screaming loud enough to rattle your skull. The jagged metal tip of a bent, burnt-out sparkler jutted from the flesh where his eye should’ve been. His hands were tied down. One eye wide with terror.

“Why the fuck are people lighting fireworks before the sun even sets?” you muttered, pulling on a fresh gown.

“Because Americans are stupid,” Marlene said flatly, handing you saline flushes.

It was chaos in the room. Abby tried to push meds, but the kid kept thrashing.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Abby shouted. “I can’t get the vein!”

“Hold him down,” you snapped. “Get a sedative on board. Joel!”

He was already beside you, steady hands gripping the boy’s shoulders, voice firm and low, “You gotta stay still, kid. We’re gonna fix you up. Just hold still.”

“But my eye! My fucking eye—!”

“We see it,” you said. “You’re not gonna lose more if you let us help. We’ve got you.”

Blood ran down your gloves. The sparkler was still hot when Tommy pulled it from the wound—safely, slowly, with Joel guiding the angle—and the kid passed out from the pain.

You stepped back, adrenaline crashing into your bloodstream. No time to breathe. No time to break. The second you stepped out of Trauma Four, Ellie sprinted up, pale and winded.

“There’s a kid in triage with full-body hives,” she gasped. “Face is like—bad.They think it’s an allergic reaction. Face paint.”

You blinked. “Fucking face paint?”

“Red, white, and blue stripes,” she said, still panting. “Apparently it was ‘organic.’ Mom said he’s never had allergies before.”

“Where is he?”

“Exam 6. Jesse’s already pushing Benadryl but he’s wheezing. He’s scared.Like full-on panicking.”

You followed her down the hall, cutting through noise and stretchers and the rising scent of blood and chlorine and burning hair. The kid was around six, covered in angry red welts, his face ballooning, lips beginning to swell.

His mom was sobbing.

“I didn’t know—oh God, I didn’t know—I thought it was just paint, it was from Whole Foods, it said natural—”

“It’s okay,” you said quickly, crouching down. “Hey buddy, can you take a deep breath for me?”

He tried. It wheezed out in a thin rasp.

“Epi,” you said. “Right now. Auto-injector to the thigh. Push fluids. O2.”

Ellie already had the mask on him. Jesse handed you the pen.You jammed the injector into his leg through his shorts. He jolted, eyes wide, and then started to cry. That was a goodsign.

“Good job,” you said, breathless. “You’re gonna be okay, kid. Just keep breathing for me, alright?”

A nurse from Peds rolled in with an Epi drip and you handed off. Your hands were shaking again. You didn’t even realize it until Jesse brushed his fingers against yours.

“You alright?”

You looked down at your scrubs. More blood. More paint. More fucking sweat.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

You were lying. Your stomach hadn’t stopped twisting since the last code. But you kept going. Because that’s what everyone here did.

You barely made it two steps out of the room before Henry came barreling up the hallway.

“Doctor!” he wheezed. “We’ve got a—uh—a patient from a hot dog eating contest! They—they passed out mid-competition. Obstructed airway, I think. They’re coding in Bay Eight.”

You ran. By the time you got there, Riley and Mel were already doing compressions. A man—mid-thirties, athletic build—was purple-faced and frothing at the mouth. His stomach was distended and there was a faint smear of ketchup across his cheek.

“Hot dog still in there?” you asked, snapping gloves on.

Riley nodded. “We tried Heimlich. Failed. We’re suctioning but it’s not clearing.”

You stepped up. “Forceps. Laryngoscope. Bag valve.”

You shoved the scope into his mouth, peered past the pink folds of tissue. There it was—a slick, greasy chunk of frankfurter lodged in the airway like a cork.

Joel appeared behind you.

“You good?” he asked.

“Hand me the damn forceps.”

He did. You fished for it—deep, too deep—and pulled it free with a sickening squelch. The hot dog thunked to the floor like something cursed. Mel jumped in with the ambu bag.

“Pulse is back,” she confirmed a moment later. “It’s weak. But it’s back.”

“Never,” Riley panted, sweat plastering her baby hairs to her face, “never fucking entering a hot dog contest. Ever.”

You were leaning against the wall now, chest heaving, and your neck throbbed where that earlier patient had scratched you. You’d forgotten about it. The pain was back now, a dull ache that pulsed with your racing heart.

Joel stood in front of you, brow furrowed. “You’re not okay.”

You looked up. “Neither are you.”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m not the one bleeding.”

You glanced down. The scratch had reopened, blood soaking the collar of your scrub top. Not much. Not dangerous. Just another wound in a long, long list.

You swallowed hard. “Just a scratch.”

Joel didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He just stood beside you as the chaos surged around you again.

Because there was no end to it. The doors would keep opening. The stretchers would keep rolling. And you’d keep going. Because no one else could.

That was the brutal, blistering truth of it.

You stood there—goggles tight on your face, blood crusted on your collar, gloves pulled on with a snap and your spine locked straight—not because you had some noble sense of duty or unshakable resolve, but because you couldn’t afford to stop. Because every time you even thought about sitting down, someone coded. Someone crashed. A kid stopped breathing. A man lost an eye. A woman sobbed over her infant’s tiny hand as the nurses tried to get a line in, whispering, “please, please, please” like a rosary.

And now, apparently, someone had blown themselves up in a fucking Porta-Potty.

"Incoming," Tommy said grimly, as the double doors from the bay burst open.

“Trauma One!” Maria barked from across the hub. “Now!”

Frank came in with the gurney, face tight, jaw locked. The smell hit first—burned fabric, scorched hair, shit. Literal human waste, clinging to the burned man’s clothes, his skin. His legs were torn up—open wounds studded with plastic and fragments of shattered porcelain from the toilet itself. One hand was charred black. His skin was red and sloughing, patches of it bubbling.

"Jesus Christ," Jesse muttered, yanking a mask up over his nose.

"Firework in a Porta-John," Tommy said as he wheeled the guy in. "M-80. Don’t ask me how."

"Someone fucking would on the Fourth," you muttered, snapping on another gown. “Where was it placed?”

“In the bowl,” Frank said. “He sat on it.”

“Of course he did.”

Joel was already across from you, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves with a sound that could slice through bone. His jaw was clenched, face unreadable.

"Vitals are trash," Mel said, sliding in with a monitor. "BP’s in the tank. O2 sat’s crashing. We need to intubate now."

You grabbed the laryngoscope while Joel prepped the tube. He was calm—dead calm—the kind of calm that comes before an explosion. His voice cut through the room with that hard, sharp edge.

“Lidocaine in. Cricoid pressure. Bag him.”

Jesse handed you the blade. You guided it into place, careful and precise. The airway was distorted but patent. Joel took over. The tube slid in on the first pass. Of course it did.

You looked down at the man’s legs, charred and littered with embedded shrapnel and what looked like wet confetti.

“Someone tell me that’s not toilet paper in his femoral wound.”

“Oh, it is,” Joel growled.

Marlene gagged.

“Flush the wounds. High-dose antibiotics. He’s septic already, or he’s about to be.”

You cleaned what you could while Kathleen handed you a syringe. “Chemical rash on his back. He landed in the tank.”

“Tank was full,” Tommy added helpfully, stepping out of the way.

“Jesus,” you muttered.

“He’s not gonna make it through the hour,” Joel said, bluntly. “Let’s get plastics and trauma surgery down here. He needs a burn unit bed but I’m betting San Antonio’s full.”

You didn’t ask how he knew that. You just nodded.

“Let’s call it in anyway.”

There wasn’t a single clear patch of this man’s skin left untouched. He looked like the Fourth of July had tried to swallow him whole and shit him back out.

You worked fast, coordinating with a speed that could only be honed by months—years—in this warzone of a hospital. Joel didn’t look at you once, not directly, but he moved around you like gravity, always one step ahead, always covering your blind side. He handled the patient with a kind of ruthless efficiency that others might’ve called cold.

You knew better. Joel wasn’t cold. Joel was focused. He didn’t waste softness on the people who didn’t deserve it. That man on the table? He might have deserved pity. He sure as fuck wasn’t getting it.

Joel tore his gloves off once the patient was stabilized enough for surgery and tossed them in the bin like they’d personally offended him. His hands shook once—barely noticeable—before he shoved them into his pockets.

“Fucking idiot,” he muttered.

You didn’t disagree.

And you didn’t stop moving.

Because the very next second, Ellie poked her head in.

“Uh, we’ve got a kid in Exam 3? Swallowed a toothpick? Like…a flag one. From a cupcake.”

You blinked. “A flag?”

“Yeah, like the American flag. From the dollar store. She’s five.”

“Is she choking?”

“No, but the family’s…a lot.”

“How a lot?”

“You’ll see.”

You left Joel in Trauma One and headed toward Exam 3. You could hear them before you opened the door.

The mother was sobbing. Loudly. Hiccuping breaths and wailing cries like she was auditioning for a soap opera. The father was yelling—at the kid, at the mother, at the air. Clearly drunk already, beer-breath sharp in the room.

“She’s gonna die,” the mom wailed. “My baby’s gonna die from a cupcake!”

“She ain’t fuckin’ dyin’,” the dad snapped, swaying slightly. “Y’all makin’ a big deal about nothin’!”

“Why did you even let her have the cupcake? You always do this—you don’t watch her!”

“She’s five, she can eat a goddamn cupcake! We all did when we were kids!”

“She swallowed a fucking flag, Kyle!”

In the corner, Grandma was sitting in a plastic chair, swaying gently and singing America the Beautiful off-key and with unnerving enthusiasm.

“O beautiful… for spacious skies…”

The child—the only reasonable person in the room—sat on the bed kicking her heels, totally unbothered.

“I feel fine,” she said. “Can I have another cupcake?”

Dina was already in the room, crouched next to the mother, talking in that soft, steady voice she used when everything was teetering on collapse.

“She’s okay,” Dina said. “She’s alert, she’s talking, she’s not choking. Let’s just take a breath, alright?”

The mom sobbed harder. You stepped in, hands in the air like you were entering a hostage negotiation.

“Hi, I’m one of the doctors. I hear we had a little cupcake situation.”

“She swallowed a flag,” the dad said proudly. “America!”

“She’s fine,” the mom cried. “But what if she’s not? What if it cuts her up on the inside?”

“Ma’am,” you said gently, approaching the little girl. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Kaylee.”

“Hi, Kaylee. Can I press on your tummy a little?”

She nodded solemnly. “You’re pretty.”

You smiled. “So are you.”

You examined her—no abdominal tenderness, no signs of perforation, vitals stable. You made a note to get an abdominal X-ray, just to make sure the damn flag wasn’t sharp enough to do damage. But this wasn’t a code. This was a circus.

Dina stood up slowly, easing the mom back onto the chair.

“She’s gonna be fine,” she said firmly. “We’re gonna monitor her and make sure everything passes okay. But you need to breathe.”

The grandma took that moment to hit a high note.

“...for purple mountain majesty…”

You looked at Dina. Dina looked at you.

“I’ll give them some water,” she muttered. “And maybe a Valium.”

You squeezed her arm gently. “You’re a national treasure.”

Dina smirked. “Someone has to be.”

You stepped out of the room and leaned your head against the cool wall for just a moment. Just a moment of silence. Of stillness. But there was no such thing today.

There were voices shouting again. Footsteps pounding. Another trauma called overhead. And Joel’s voice, snapping sharp in the distance—

“Get me a fucking gurney now or I’ll throw this guy over my shoulder myself!”

You straightened your spine. Wiped your hands. And ran toward it.

You didn’t know what room it was yet. You didn’t know who was bleeding, coding, or screaming—but the air in the ER had changed again, like it had decided to climb one more goddamn rung on the ladder to hell.

By now it had bled into noon, and that meant it wasn’t just a peak anymore. This was the full boil. No more build-up. No more lulls. Just the ER at its most unhinged, bloated with bodies and chaos and pain, stinking of chlorine and antiseptic and sunburned skin.

You rounded the corner, expecting another trauma code, expecting the worst—and instead, you got two teenage boys, one on a wheelchair, the other pushing him with the nonchalant energy of a kid who thought his own mortality was at least a decade away.

“We tried to do a Slip ’n Slide,” said the one in the chair, grinning despite the fact that his wrist was visibly fractured and his shoulder was dislocated at an angle that made Jesse wince. “It was sick.”

“We used trash bags and Dawn,” his friend said, absolutely proud of the decision. “It’s, like, eco-friendly, right?”

“Yeah,” the injured one added. “Until he slipped and hit the sprinkler head buried in the lawn. I thought his bone came out of his arm, but it was just soap and panic.”

“Yo, are you my doctor?” the boy said, eyes dropping to your badge, then slowly crawling back up to your eyes. “Because like…you’re so hot.”

You blinked. Behind you, Jesse choked on his laugh.

“Yeah,” the boy continued, winking despite his very obvious pain. “I think I just dislocated my heart.”

“Okay,” you said, stepping in. “We’re going to get your vitals, your arm back in its socket, and absolutely never talk like that to a medical professional again.”

“But if I die—”

“You won’t.”

“—will you come to my funeral?”

“I’ll resuscitate you just to kill you again.”

Jesse wheeled the kid into Exam 5, cackling.

“I love this job sometimes,” he muttered. “Teens flirting with trauma. Classic.”

You didn’t get far before Joel appeared. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to.

Just looked at the kid, then looked at you, and that single blink—slow and pointed—said all of it.

Joel was not the jealous type.

Joel was the territorial type. Like a wolf. Like a loaded weapon just waiting to be cocked.

“Relax,” you muttered under your breath as you passed him, shoulder brushing his. “He’s seventeen and concussed.”

Joel growled low in his throat. Actually growled. “Little bastard keeps looking at your ass, he’ll leave here with more than a cast.”

You fought back a smirk. “He’s barely out of diapers.”

Joel shot you a look like that wasn’t the goddamn point.

But then Tess was suddenly at your side, moving at speed, hair half-falling from her bun, eyes wild and voice sharp.

“Hey—Miller. You. Room 12. Right now. I don’t have time for this.”

“What is it?” you asked, already falling into step beside her.

She didn’t break stride. “Geriatric. Took too much THC lemonade. She thinks she’s ascending. I need backup before she climbs the fucking bed rails.”

You and Joel both followed.

Inside Room 12 was an elderly woman in a red-white-and-blue shawl, lying in a hospital gown with her arms stretched out like she was ready to be crucified.

“I hear the trumpets,” she whispered, eyes glassy. “They’re calling me home.”

Ellie stood nearby holding an EKG lead in one hand and what looked like an empty bottle of artisanal lemonade in the other. “Her granddaughter brought this,” she said. “She thought it was regular lemonade.”

“I thought it was an Arnold Palmer,” the woman corrected, voice dreamy. “It tasted like freedom.”

“She chugged half the bottle in the sun,” Tess explained. “Heart rate’s 140 and rising.”

Joel moved to the monitor, eyes flicking over the numbers. “BP’s shit too. You got a line?”

“Yeah,” said Mel, double-checking the drip. “But she keeps pulling at it.”

“Ma’am,” you said gently, approaching the bedside. “You’re not dying. You just had too much cannabis.”

Her eyes found Joel. They widened. “Saint Peter?”

Joel stared. “No.”

“Have you come to escort me?” she whispered, reaching out a hand.

Joel took a single step back. 

“I’m ready,” she continued, eyes glistening. “Take me into the light.”

“She needs Ativan,” Abby said, handing it off. “And maybe like…a priest.”

“Just keep her in the bed,” Tess said. “She keeps trying to crawl toward the halogen light in the ceiling.”

Joel turned away, muttering, “I fucking hate this holiday.”

You looked at him, lifting a brow. “You hate every holiday.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And this one’s the worst.”

It would’ve been funny, if the ER hadn’t chosen that exact moment to go off the rails again.

Marlene poked her head in. “You guys got a throat bleeder in Exam 2. Woman swallowed a metal bristle from a grill brush. Says she noticed halfway through her hot dog but didn’t wanna be rude.”

“What the fuck,” you muttered.

“She’s stable,” Marlene added. “But her sister’s already yelling.”

You and Joel exchanged a look. Of course.

You followed Marlene down the hall, Ellie falling in behind you with Riley trailing behind her, both clutching their tablets and trying to finish charting from the last five traumas. Henry passed you in the other direction, visibly sweating, muttering something about a broken ankle in the hallway again.

Inside Exam 2, the patient sat clutching her throat, blood on her napkin. Next to her stood a woman in her fifties with perfectly curled hair, a clipboard, and the righteous fury of a suburban mom who read one article once.

“She swallowed what?” Joel asked, arms folded.

“A grill bristle,” you said, eyeing the bleeding. “Probably from one of those wire brushes. They snap off sometimes. I read about this.”

The sister stepped in front of the bed like a lawyer at a press conference.

“This is why I tell everyone not to use metal tools when cooking. There are non-toxic options. Bamboo. Silicone. But nobody listens to me. And now this happens!”

“Ma’am,” Joel said flatly. “I don’t give a shit about your non toxic options right now. Your sister is bleeding.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused,” he said, walking past her to check the monitor. “Let the doctors work.”

You fought a smile and grabbed gloves. The woman on the bed gave you a tired, slightly woozy grin.

“I mean, it was a good hot dog,” she rasped. “Didn’t wanna ruin the vibe.”

“Next time,” you said, gently tilting her head, “ruin the vibe.”

She chuckled. Then winced.

Dina appeared at the doorway, her voice a breathless sigh. “There’s a baby on the floor in the waiting room trying to eat a Pop-It firework. No parents in sight.”

“I’m gonna commit a felony,” Joel muttered.

“I’ll hold your pager,” you said.

Everyone laughed. For half a second, it felt like the room wasn’t collapsing. Then the lights flickered. The power hiccupped. And another trauma was called over the PA.

You looked at Joel. He was already moving. And you followed him. Because no one else could.

That sentence followed you like a goddamn shadow.

It echoed in your head as you and Joel passed through the final security doors into the waiting room—a wall of sweaty, shouting, sunburned humanity. It was packed to the gills. Coughing kids, cranky geriatrics, one guy snoring against the vending machine, another pacing the floor in flip-flops and nothing else but an American flag wrapped around his waist like a towel.

The Fourth of July in Texas. The absolute worst kind of magic.

And right in the middle of all of it—by the edge of the grimy tiled floor, next to an overflowing trash can—was a baby. A real-ass baby.

Maybe nine months old. Crawling across the fucking floor with a soggy diaper and an open Pop-It firework gripped in his drool-slick hand like it was a holy relic.

“God damn it,” Joel muttered, and you were already moving.

You scooped the baby up before he could slam the firework into the floor. He shrieked in protest, flailed in your arms, and then—somehow—managed to sneeze directly into your mouth.

You froze.

“Did he just—?”

“He fucking did,” Joel confirmed.

Your jaw clenched.

Joel took the firework from the kid’s hand and hurled it into the nearest trash bin like it had personally offended him. Then he looked around the room with all the tenderness of a hunting dog tracking a wounded deer.

“Whose kid is this?!” he bellowed.

Silence. No one moved. No one looked up.

“I said—whose fucking kid?!”

You rocked the baby gently on your hip. “He doesn’t have a wristband. He’s not registered.”

Joel scanned the crowd, eyes narrowing. “We’re calling CPS.”

“I’ll call 'em,” Dina said, appearing from nowhere, eyes exhausted and jaw tight. “Jesus fucking Christ. This is the third abandoned kid today. Do people think this is a goddamn daycare?”

“Apparently,” Joel growled.

The baby cooed in your arms and drooled on your scrub top.

You sighed. “Okay. This one’s mine now. I’ll call him July.”

Joel looked at the baby. The baby blinked at him, completely unbothered.

Joel didn’t smile. But you could tell he wanted to. He just touched the baby's foot making him giggle.

Then the screaming started. Not from the baby. From the ambulance bay.

You both turned just in time to see Tommy and Frank wheel in a gurney that looked…wrong. The patient wasn’t lying flat. She was…angled? Propped up in some kind of twisted plastic hellscape. And she was howling.

“I’m stuck!” she screeched. “I cannot feel my ass!”

“She got melted into the chair,” Frank explained as they wheeled her past the desk. “Aluminum frame, plastic seat. Left it out in the sun too long. She sat down and… boom. Cheeks fused.”

“She tried to stand up and the chair came with her,” Tommy added, still holding the IV bag. “Had to cut the lawn hose to fit her through the door.”

You blinked. Marlene blinked. Joel’s eye twitched.

“Get her into Procedure Three,” Maria barked from behind the main hub. “And prep a burn tray. This is gonna be a surgical extraction.”

You followed the gurney in, July passed off to Dina, as Joel grabbed the trauma shears. Dina disappeared down the hall to hand the baby off to Social Work. Jesse, Tess, and Riley were already in the room. Henry stood against the wall, pale as a sheet, staring at the patient like she was some rare museum exhibit.

“Don’t just stand there,” Joel snapped at him. “You’ve seen an ass before.”

“Not like this,” Henry whispered.

The patient was red in the face, gripping the sides of the chair like it was a ride at an amusement park. 

“She’s got second-degree burns on the posterior,” Mel said, pulling on gloves. “We’re gonna have to cut the chair off in sections.”

“She’s got third-degree pride damage,” Abby muttered.

“I heard that!” the woman yelled.

“We’ll get you out, ma’am,” Tess said, rolling up her sleeves. “But you need to hold still. If you twist, you’ll rip skin.”

“I’ve been twisted since brunch,” the woman moaned. “Do it fast!”

You stepped in with trauma scissors and started cutting the straps of her sundress where it had fused to the chair legs. Joel knelt at the base, prying at melted plastic.

“Jesse, saline. And get me lidocaine. Abby—scalpel. Riley—monitor. Now.”

They moved. You moved. The chair creaked as Joel wedged the blunt scissors into the side and began to snip.

“You’re gonna feel pressure,” you warned.

“I feel humiliation!” the woman shouted.

The room was chaos. Screams. Grunts. Sweat. Abby nearly slipped in a puddle of saline. Jesse started humming The Star Spangled Banner under his breath like it was going to save his soul.

“Pressure coming,” Joel warned.

“Now,” you said. “Mel—on the back panel.”

One final snap—and the chair split. The woman yelped. Joel caught her before she could slide off the gurney. Burns covered the backs of her thighs and ass. Angry red welts. Plastic still clinging to the skin.

“Get burn cream,” Joel barked. “And wrap it. We’ll get plastics to consult. If this gets infected—”

“It won’t,” you said quickly. “We won’t let it.”

The woman sniffled. “Do I… still have an ass?”

You nodded solemnly. “It’s just less optimistic now.”

Joel gave you a look. But it was almost—almost—amused.

Jesse gently covered her with a sheet. “You’ll be fine, ma’am. But maybe next time, check the chair temperature before you park it.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

Tess wiped her forehead. “Somebody better bring me a margarita after this.”

“I got a jug of hospital juice,” Riley offered.

“Go to hell.”

Ellie leaned in through the curtain, tablet clutched in one hand. “Someone just walked in with a buncha sparklers taped to their chest.”

You stared. She stared. You sighed. Then reached for your stethoscope.

You didn’t even get the damn thing around your neck before it happened. The world cracked in half.

A boom, deep and cavernous, roared through the hospital like a goddamn earthquake. The lights flickered. The floor shook. Somewhere far off, car alarms screamed to life. You had just turned to Joel, mouth open to ask what the fuck was that, when the second explosion hit.

It was louder. Closer.

You staggered, caught the edge of the stretcher to steady yourself. From down the hall came the sound of shattering glass. An IV pole tipped, clattered to the floor. Somewhere, someone screamed. The lights dimmed, buzzed, then held steady, flickering like they were considering going out entirely.

Joel was already moving. You didn’t even see him react—just felt it. A hand on your arm. Hard. Gripping. Yanking you in, fast.

He pulled you to him, one arm curling instinctively around your back, his chest flush to yours as the wall behind you both trembled under the blast’s echo.

You could feel his heart racing through his scrubs. His breath was sharp, tight, furious.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was low and sharp, a breath away from a growl.

“No,” you panted. “I’m—what the fuck just happened?”

Across the ER, controlled chaos exploded.

Maria’s voice bellowed from the central hub, clear and commanding, her voice slicing through the panic. “Mass casualty protocol! All trauma bays cleared now. Abby, Mel, start staging the clean beds! Riley, Henry, grab gurneys and start lining the main hallway. Jesse, Marlene, alert radiology and prep the portable X-ray machines—now!”

Joel looked out the window. Smoke. Billowing, black smoke rising from the supermarket lot across the street. People running. Screaming.

“Oh, fuck me,” Kathleen said from the nurse’s desk, eyes wide. “It’s the firework truck.”

“The illegal one,” Marlene added, her voice flat with horror. “That vendor with the fucking tent full of black market shit—it’s gone.”

“Exploded,” said Ellie, appearing at your side, breathless and pale. “It just—exploded. Twice. We felt it inside.”

You looked toward the windows. The supermarket parking lot was chaos. Fireworks still going off mid-air—rockets bursting into reds and greens like it was New Year’s instead of noon. People were running toward the hospital, some limping, some screaming.

A kid was carried by a man soaked in blood.

A woman fell into the bushes near the entrance.

The hospital doors hadn’t even fully opened before Bill was there, already barking into his radio, hand on his hip, stance like a fucking soldier. “We’ve got multiple casualties inbound. Lock this place down, route ‘em to emergency access. Tell APD we need crowd control now. No civilians inside the ER.”

“Tell Fire they’re still igniting,” Tommy shouted as he hauled a backboard off a gurney. “Shit’s not out yet. We’re gonna have more.”

Maria turned to you and Joel. “You two. Trauma Three. First waves’ll be here in thirty seconds.”

The doors burst open again. Sirens now. So many sirens.

Then they came.

The first patient—dragged in by two strangers, clothes still smoking—was screaming, half his face red and blistering, the skin peeling off his arm like plastic wrap. “It was in my goddamn truck!” he yelled. “I told him not to park it next to the propane—”

“Vitals tanking,” Mel called, rushing up with the monitor. “BP 84 over 40!”

“Get fluids. We’re intubating now,” Joel barked. “You—” he pointed at Henry, who flinched— “cut that shirt off and watch for chest expansion.”

“I’ve got an O2 mask!” Ellie shouted, barreling in behind him.

Abby was already trying to start a line, fumbling.

“Abby—center that angle or you’re gonna blow it,” Joel snapped. “Get out of the way. I’ll do it.”

You slipped in with the burn kit, pushing the cart to the side of the bed. “We need lidocaine, silvadene, morphine. He’s gonna crash.”

Second patient came in a minute later.

Woman. Late twenties. Not screaming.

Because she couldn’t breathe.

A rocket had shot straight through the windshield of her car. Glass shredded her chest. One rib cracked. The pressure had collapsed her lung.

“She’s hypoxic,” Jesse called, wheeling her into Trauma Two. “Sat’s in the fifties. Trachea’s shifting. We’ve got a tension pneumo.”

“I’m needling her now!” you said, already gloved up.

Joel moved to your side without hesitation.

“Three fingers below the clavicle. Do it fast or she’s gone,” he said, voice calm, commanding. Like the world wasn’t on fire.

You pierced the chest wall with the needle, felt the rush of air, watched her chest rise.

“She’s stabilizing,” Riley said, breath catching.

Another one.

A child.

Carried in by a stranger, his leg soaked in blood, a metal shard sticking out just above the knee. Screaming. Wailing.

“Shrapnel,” Marlene said. “Straight from the explosion.”

Dina rushed in behind them, voice shaking. “Mom’s not with him. Said she ran off looking for his little brother—he’s alone.”

You pushed the adult crash cart aside, swapping in peds trauma.

“Stay with me, kiddo,” you whispered, eyes locking with his. “You’re not alone anymore.”

Joel appeared beside you, hands already working to stabilize the limb. “Get that pressure dressing on. Marlene—lidocaine local. I’m not cutting metal until he’s numb.”

“Roger that.”

“We can’t pull it here,” you said. “Not without imaging. We don’t know what it’s resting against.”

Joel’s jaw clenched. “Then we work around it. Until radiology’s ready.”

The ER was vibrating with sound. The doors slammed open again, and Frank came in pushing another gurney.

“Burns and lacerations,” he said. “Lost a shoe, still has a firework tube in his hand.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Tess muttered, meeting him at the door with a splint and gauze. “Get me a tray. And a scalpel. I think we’re cutting around this one.”

“Where’s Ortho?” Maria asked, hands on her hips. “Someone page Ortho, I want consults in fifteen minutes or I’m dragging them down here myself!”

“Dr. Gail is in surgery!” Riley shouted back. “I’ll grab second call!”

Kathleen blew past the hub with four gurneys trailing behind her like a train, three med techs jogging to keep up. Her face was stone.

“Ten more ambulances on the way,” she called. “The parking lot’s a war zone.They’re staging by triage. We need everyone outside of Trauma Hall to prep overflow.”

You grabbed a portable monitor and a trauma checklist, snapped at Henry to follow.

He hesitated.

Joel barked—“Go.”

Henry went.

You didn’t see where Joel ended up for the next ten minutes. You were too busy. You were stitching, packing wounds, answering rapid-fire questions from Ellie, who was practically vibrating from adrenaline. You passed Jesse in the hallway, sweat pouring down his face, three soaked gowns already in the trash. You heard Abby shouting for a bolus in Room Seven, saw Mel carrying a tray of wrapped scalpels like her life depended on it.

And then—

Joel was beside you again.

You didn’t know how long it had been.

His eyes scanned you fast, checking every inch of you in a breathless beat.

“You okay?”

You nodded.

“You?”

He didn’t answer.

But his fingers brushed your hand for just a second. Just long enough to say still here.

And then more patients poured in.

And you both ran toward it.

There wasn’t even time to think about how long it had been since you’d eaten, or went to the bathroom, or even blinked without your eyeballs stinging. The air in the ER had thickened—hot, metallic, sour with sweat and sterilized burn dressings. Every inch of your black scrubs was soaked in blood, saline, and god knew what else. You couldn’t tell where your pulse stopped and the noise around you began.

There was no clock anymore. Just waves of patients. Gurneys rolling in, IV poles clattering against corners, bloody towels slapping the linoleum. You moved through it like muscle memory—stitching, bagging, ordering scans, barking instructions to interns who hadn’t even hit their first bowel movement on the job.

Joel was a few paces ahead, pulling a C-collar from a wall mount, jaw tight as iron, barking over his shoulder to Riley, who was jogging to keep up with a trauma sheet.

“Have the trauma room ready before I get there, or I’m working on this guy on the floor. Got it?”

“Got it, Dr. Miller,” she said breathlessly, already sprinting down the hall.

You saw Henry leaning into a hallway crash cart, face pale and shiny. He’d just finished assisting with a child whose femur had shattered clean through the skin. His gloved hands were still shaking, and you wanted to say something—something decent—but the next gurney was already coming in, and someone was shouting for an airway and suction, and the moment was gone.

Then the doors opened again.

You heard the change in the room before you saw who it was.

There was a shift—like the sound dropped an octave. Like gravity changed hands.

A firefighter came in.

He wasn’t screaming.

He wasn’t saying anything.

That was worse.

Frank was wheeling him, and the medic at his side looked fucking wrecked.

“Flash burns,” Frank shouted. “Second and third degree, neck down to his hip. Helmet took most of the blast. He was on top of the truck when it popped the second time.”

“Vitals?” Joel asked, already snapping on gloves.

“Dropping. BP’s shit, O2 sat’s low 90s. He needs fluids, airway’s tightening.”

The man’s skin was cracked, dark, curled. Parts of it bubbled, weeping plasma.

“Get him to Trauma One,” Joel barked. “You—” He pointed to Ellie, who was two steps away. “Get Respiratory down here right now.”

“He’s trying to talk,” you said, leaning in.

You crouched beside the gurney as Frank slowed it beside the trauma bay. The firefighter’s lips were blistered. His voice was gravel.

“My…my wife’s here…”

“We’ll find her,” you said. “But you need to stay with us, alright? You’re at Austin General. You’re safe.”

He blinked slowly. “It hurts.”

“I know. I know it does.”

“Push fentanyl, IV,” Joel said, already cutting away what was left of the turnout gear. The skin underneath peeled off with the fabric.

“Motherfucker,” he growled, tossing the gauze aside. “This is third-degree over at least thirty percent. Get the burn team on standby.”

Tess appeared at your side with two nurses and a trauma surgeon. “Ortho’s full upstairs. Trauma Two is open but we’ve got a bleeding scalp lac in there. I’ll switch ‘em if we stabilize him in the next ten.”

You nodded. “I’ll start cooling compresses now.”

You grabbed a silver-coated burn dressing, opened it, and started gently laying it over the exposed tissue. The firefighter didn’t even flinch.

That was the worst part.

The not flinching.

Then came the second shift in the air. The kind you only felt a few times a year.

The doors opened again.

A uniform came through.

Police.

Dragging another.

The cop on the gurney was groaning, blood pouring from a shoulder wound, his vest soaked through, cheek torn open. One of his boots was missing. There was soot on his face.

Joel looked up. Groaned. Loudly.

“Fucking great,” he muttered, wiping his hands on a towel. “Just what we fucking need.”

You barely caught your laugh before it escaped. It wasn’t funny. But it was also so goddamn Joel.

Because whenever a cop rolled through the trauma bay, it meant one thing, the rest of the department was about to show up.

And they’d be in the ER. Hovering. Pacing. Armed.

It turned your trauma bay into a political minefield.

And Joel? Joel didn’t play that game.

“Officer was helping crowd control during the blast,” Tommy reported, voice clipped, wheeling the officer in beside Tess. “Got hit with some shrapnel and then trampled.”

“Vitals?” Joel asked, walking over.

“Stable. But barely. Pressure’s borderline. Laceration on the scalp, and that shoulder’s fucked.”

The officer groaned. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Joel said. “You’ve got a puncture wound half an inch from your subclavian artery, and you’re actively bleeding onto my floor. Shut up and let me work.”

You stepped in behind him, grabbing gauze, gloves already on. “Do you want me to start a second line?”

“Yes. Left AC. Jesse—clamp this.”

“I’m clamping, I’m clamping,” Jesse muttered, hands bloody.

And right on cue, the cavalry came.

Five more officers entered the ER like they owned the place, guns holstered, expressions hard. They didn’t say a word, just hovered outside Trauma Three like sentries.

Dina appeared at your side with an exhausted expression. “I’m going to need a Xanax just from looking at this testosterone.”

“They’re gonna breathe down our necks until this guy’s transferred upstairs,” you muttered, snapping the catheter into place.

Joel didn’t even look up.

“Hey,” he barked, without turning. “One of you pacing jackasses wanna be useful? Go get your boy’s blood type from dispatch and stop fucking crowding my hallway.”

A few of them stiffened.

One opened his mouth.

Joel glared.

The cop closed it again.

Marlene slid in beside you with an extra tray. “You want me to log this guy’s injury for the report?”

“Document it for surgical,” you said. “He’s not going to need an incident report if he bleeds out on the floor.”

“I heard that,” the officer mumbled.

Joel leaned over him. “Good. Maybe you’ll listen better now.”

And then, somehow, like some cruel joke from above, a sixth cop walked in carrying a teenage girl with a bruised face.

“Hit by a rocket while filming a TikTok,” he said. “She’s got glass in her cheek and maybe a concussion.”

Joel blinked.

“Riley. That one’s yours,” he said.

“Me? I—I've never done this before—”

“You’ve got me,” Joel barked. “She’s stable. Triage her. I’ll double-check your assessment before discharge.”

You caught his eye.

You didn’t say anything.

You didn’t have to.

You could see it in him—the storm building behind his ribs. The fire that never quite went out. Joel wasn’t just in charge. He was containing the whole fucking hospital with the force of his will.

And still—when his eyes met yours, something shifted.

His jaw relaxed. Just a fraction.

You wiped sweat off your brow and nodded.

He didn’t nod. He just looked at you.

You pressed your glove to the officer’s wound and let yourself feel his gaze for one more second before the chaos swallowed you whole again.

It was four-thirty p.m. now. Or close to it.

The firework truck disaster had slowed—not ended, not resolved, but dulled just enough that you could hear your own breathing again. Maybe even someone else's. EMS was still ferrying in stragglers from the blast radius, but the heavy flow was stemmed. Controlled. Stitched and stapled back into some semblance of order by a crew of exhausted, bloodstained healthcare workers who hadn’t took a break since sunrise.

The ER was open again. Technically.

The triage desk was back on, the phones buzzing, the automatic doors kissing open with every new patient. The city hadn’t paused just because a truck of illegal fireworks blew up across the street. This was Austin. People still choked on hot dogs, burned their hands on grills, took edibles they didn’t understand and panic-texted their exes from Exam room 2.

And every. Single. Fucking. Room was full.

Overflow was full.

Trauma bays were full.

Peds, Ortho, Neuro, Med-Surg, Hall Beds 1 through 5, and the goddamn family bereavement room were full.

You were treading water, heart beating in your ears, sweat soaking your scrubs. There were two paper cups of coffee you hadn’t finished and three patients you hadn’t followed up on yet. Ellie was at the nurse’s station reviewing a chart with one hand and eating a banana with the other, eyes glassy from too much input. Riley had just returned from the stairwell, where she admitted to crying for two minutes, washing her face, and then saying I can do hard things.

That was you during your first year too. 

You hadn’t even taken your gloves off for the last hour. At some point, they just fused to your skin.

But then it happened.

The way it always does.

Sudden.

Loud.

Violent.

The radio crackled in from EMS. The voice was fast, panicked.

“Male, mid-thirties, penetrating chest trauma, left thoracic cavity—multiple stab wounds—no pulse for the last thirty seconds. We’re two minutes out—we’re performing compressions en route but he’s—he’s tanking.”

There was silence for one breath.

Just one.

Then Joel’s voice, low and lethal from the trauma bay, “Clear Trauma One. Now.”

You dropped the file in your hands onto the desk.

Tore off your gloves.

And you ran.

By the time you got to Trauma One, Joel was already there—mask on, arms scrubbed to the elbow, gown halfway tied. His jaw was clenched, eyes scanning the crash cart like he was inventorying a fucking battlefield. The room smelled like sweat and sterile burn cream, and still, something in the air cracked open, the second you stepped in.

Not panic. Not fear.

Something heavier.

Something that whispered this one’s gonna be different.

“Get them all in here,” Joel snapped to Marlene, who stood at the door. “Everyone. Jesse, Abby, Mel, Riley, Henry. Ellie too.”

“They’re not all on rotation for—”

“I don’t give a fuck,” he barked. “They want to work in the field? They want to become doctors? They watch. They help. They need to see this.”

You stepped in beside him, already pulling on a new pair of gloves. “Is it…?”

Joel looked at you. Really looked.

And when he nodded, your pulse jumped.

“Emergency thoracotomy,” he said. “If he arrests, we crack the chest.”

Your heart stuttered.

This was it.

This was the thing you’d been obsessing over for months—talking Joel’s ear off about it over half-empty glasses of whiskey at his kitchen counter, watching old procedural videos while curled up next to him in bed, asking him over and over what was it like the first time you did one? Did it work? Did it feel real? He never answered in full. He just grunted, or said “bloody,” or told you to go the fuck to sleep while he digs his head back into your warm neck.

And now it was happening.

And he was here.

And you were ready.

The doors burst open.

The paramedics wheeled him in at a dead sprint. Literally. Because the man on the gurney was dead.

Pulseless.

Agonal.

The first medic was shouting, “We lost him for thirty—make that forty seconds now. GSW to the chest, left thorax, suspect a knife. Maybe a piece of pipe. Whatever it was—punched straight through.”

Joel was already at the bedside, yanking off the sheet.

You followed without needing to be asked.

“Jesse, get vitals on monitor. Abby, you’re on line. Riley, grab the thoracotomy tray. Henry—”

Henry paled. “Yeah?”

“Don’t fucking faint again.”

“I won’t.”

“You faint, I leave you there.”

He nodded. Swallowed. Backed up.

The man’s skin was waxy. Blue around the lips. The gaping chest wound glistened and bubbled with thick, frothy blood—the worst kind. Pulmonary. Wet. Final.

���We’re cracking,” Joel said to the room. “Now. He’s not coming back with compressions. We open.”

Ellie blinked. “You mean like—like open open?”

“Like ribs-on-display open,” Joel snapped. “Don’t move unless you want your shoes soaked.”

And then—Joel turned to you.

Paused.

Looked at you with that sharp, knowing edge that said this is the moment you've been waiting for.

“Do it,” he said.

You blinked. “Me?”

“You’ve been begging for this for six fucking months. Talking my ear off. You want it—take it.”

The room froze.

Everyone stared at you.

“No pressure,” Mel whispered. “Just someone’s life on the line.”

You didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

You stepped forward, and you cracked his fucking chest.

Joel guided, hands over yours, voice low but never soft. “Midline. Left thoracotomy. Rib spreader. Go now.”

Riley handed it over with trembling hands. Abby dropped suction tubing on the floor and didn’t even pick it up.

You made the incision.

Deep.

Fast.

Confident.

The blood poured.

Joel caught it.

Jesse cursed under his breath. Ellie made a sound like she was swallowing vomit. Henry straight-up whimpered.

You cut through the muscle.

Joel barked again. “Keep going. Don’t stop until you see the goddamn heart.”

You spread the ribs. The crack was wet and obscene and louder than you expected.

It wasn’t like TV.

It was real.

Inside, the left lung was collapsed, the pericardium filling with blood.

You could see the heart.

And it was still.

Joel didn’t say anything.

You didn’t need him to.

You reached in.

Your gloved hand slid into the cavity like a blade. Warm. Tight. Full of potential.

And you found it.

The heart.

“Massage it,” Joel said. “Rhythm. Controlled. You’ve got this.”

You started compressions—internal. Thumb and fingers. Slow, then faster.

Riley was in the corner, trying to stand tall. 

Abby whispered something that sounded like a prayer.

Mel had gone quiet, which was somehow worse.

Henry was gripping the counter, white-knuckled.

Jesse stood frozen until Joel barked at him to bag the fucking patient.

And you—you were the one keeping the man alive.

For ten seconds.

Then twenty.

Then thirty.

Then—

Beep.

Faint.

Then stronger.

Joel leaned over the monitor.

“Sinus rhythm,” he said, eyes flicking to you. “Goddamn. You got him back.”

A gasp filled the room.

Abby nearly dropped her syringe.

Mel exhaled like she hadn’t breathed in minutes.

Jesse muttered “holy shit.”

Ellie said, “you just—he was dead. And now he’s not.”

Joel looked at you.

Just for a second.

And his face didn’t soften.

Not quite.

But his jaw relaxed. His eyes cooled.

“Good work,” he said, voice like gravel. “Now close him up.”

You did.

You fucking did.

You closed him. The room moved around you—cleaning, charting, reeling—but you stayed still. Hands deep in blood. Covered in it. Gowned and soaked and shaking just a little.

Joel stepped up beside you.

“Looks good,” he said.

You turned.

“Did I do it right?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

He just nodded once.

A single, hard nod that meant more than words ever could.

Everyone else eventually left. One by one. Except Joel.

When it was just the two of you, he reached out and wiped a streak of blood from your cheek with his gloved thumb.

“You’re disgusting,” he said.

You grinned, breathless. “So are you.”

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“Too late.”

He rolled his eyes.

But then, under his breath, like it wasn’t meant for anyone else,

“Proud of you.”

You almost missed it.

But you didn’t.

You never did.

Because it was Fourth of July, and the world outside was still burning.

But inside this room, for just one breathless moment—

You had brought someone back to life.

And Joel fucking Miller had watched you do it.

And he wasn’t going to forget it.

Joel Miller didn’t say things twice. If he was proud of you, that meant something. That meant everything.

You peeled off your gloves and stepped out of Trauma One with the sting of adrenaline still buzzing under your skin. Your hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but from the absolute goddamn power of that moment. You’d cracked a chest. You.

And Joel let you. Trusted you.

That kind of trust didn’t come easy from a man like him.

It was 5:00 p.m.

One hour left.

You told yourself you’d make it. You could do another hour. You’d get through whatever the Fourth of July still had left to vomit into your ER. You’d go home, peel off your scrubs, crawl into Joel’s bed, and maybe—maybe—you’d even get to fall asleep with your face buried in his neck before another fucking Code Blue ripped through your subconscious.

You turned the corner and nearly ran into Kathleen, who stood like a weathered pillar of war-torn exhaustion at the nurse’s station. Her face was flushed, arms crossed, brows pulled into a flat, unimpressed line.

“There’s a call for you,” she said. “Line two. Marlene has it.”

You blinked. “Someone called me?”

Kathleen didn’t blink. “Apparently it’s urgent.”

You stared.

She didn’t explain.

Marlene handed you the receiver with the grace of someone physically holding back a cackle.

You pressed it to your ear. “This is—”

“Thank fuck.”

Owen’s voice. Too loud. Too fast.

“Owen?”

“Hey. Yeah. Hi. Listen—I need a huge favor. Massive. I’ll owe you a kidney or three consults, I don’t care, just—please, can you cover the first three hours of my shift?”

You glanced at the clock.

5:01 p.m.

“I’ve been here since five this morning.”

“I know. I know. You’re a goddamn hero. Literally Jesus in black scrubs. Just—three hours. Please. Just until nine. I’ll come in at nine. Nine sharp. Not even a minute late.”

“Why?”

There was a pause.

And then, “I wanna have dinner with Mel.”

You inhaled slowly.

“Seriously?”

“I made a reservation,” Owen said, like that was somehow a valid excuse. “At the fancy new restaurant, the one Joel took you to. I bought cologne. I haven’t eaten real food in two weeks.”

You turned to look behind you.

Abby was standing by the vitals board, arms crossed, trying not to look like she was listening.

But she was.

And her face had gone tight in that way you recognized—the jaw-clench of someone pretending they don’t care.

Shit.

“Owen,” you said carefully. “This is your shift. You’re scheduled. You’re—”

“I’ll trade you! Anything. I’ll do your whole weekend. I’ll take all your psych evals for a month.”

“That’s a bold offer.”

“I’ll clean the vomit buckets in the peds trauma room!”

“You should already be doing that.”

“I will now.”

You sighed. Rubbed your forehead. Glanced at Abby again. She was now fake-charting on a blank clipboard. Poorly.

You shouldn’t do it.

You knew you shouldn’t.

But then Marlene handed you a new chart—incoming trauma. Level 1. ETA five minutes.

“Goddammit,” you muttered. “Fine. Three hours. But you owe me your soul.”

Owen cheered on the other end.

You hung up and looked over at Abby.

She didn’t look up.

You stepped closer. “Hey.”

“I’m fine,” she said. Immediately. Too quickly. “Totally fine. Not my business. Not even my night. Just…you know. Cool. Love that for them.”

“Abby.”

“I said I’m fine.” She slammed the clipboard on the desk and walked off, her ears visibly red.

You sighed again.

Before you could process any of it, a stretcher screamed into the trauma bay.

Tommy was at the head, barking orders, and Frank had blood on his shirt again—big surprise.

Teenager. Male. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Slumped over. Screaming.

“Lawnmower accident,” Frank snapped, pushing hard. “Fucking dad didn’t check his blade height—hit a rock, launched it like a missile.”

“Penetrating orbital trauma,” Tommy added. “It hit the kid in the eye. He’s bleeding like hell. Not responsive.”

Jesse was already snapping gloves on beside you. “Tell me that rock didn’t puncture the fucking globe.”

You moved to the side of the bed as the kid’s head rolled. His left eye—Jesus fuck—his left eye was gone. Or at least it looked like it. Crushed inward, blood and viscous fluid pouring down his cheek.

Riley gagged.

Mel paled.

Abby reappeared beside you, full fury now replaced by full panic.

“What the fuck,” she muttered. “People should need a fucking license to own a lawn.”

“Vitals?” Joel’s voice cut through the trauma room as he entered, already gloved, already dark-eyed and tense.

“BP dropping,” Jesse said. “Heart rate climbing. He’s crashing.”

“Jesse, get a line,” Joel barked. “You—” he pointed at you. “Ocular tray, now. I want that eye covered. He so much as twitches and the optic nerve’s gonna shear.”

You grabbed the tray from Riley’s shaking hands. “We’re sedating?”

“If I don’t, he’s gonna start fucking thrashing and drive that rock deeper into his skull.”

The father—still in a goddamn polo shirt and sandals—stood at the door, blood on his arms, face pale.

“I just wanted to mow the yard before the guests came,” he kept whispering. “We were gonna grill—he was helping—I just—”

“Sir,” Joel said coldly, without turning, “if you don’t shut up, I’m going to have you dragged back into the waiting room.”

The dad shut up.

You placed the rigid eye shield over the wound. Blood pooled around the edges. It was already soaking the pillow. The kid groaned, twitching.

“Don’t move,” Joel growled. “Do not fucking move.”

“He’s coding,” Mel snapped. “BP’s bottoming out—seventy over thirty.”

“We need a cric tray ready,” Jesse said. “I can’t get the O2 past the swelling.”

You were moving, hands slick, adrenaline high and sharp.

Joel grabbed the ultrasound probe. “FAST scan. I want to rule out abdominal trauma while we stabilize the head. If that rock skipped through—”

“It didn’t,” Tommy said grimly. “We found the fucking thing in the driveway. Looks like a meteor.”

Joel’s hands moved fast. Surgical. Terrifying.

You mirrored him. Fast. Exact. No room for error.

This wasn’t like the thoracotomy. This was slower. Messier. No clean incisions here. Just trauma. Raw and violent. The kind that steals things. Childhood. Sight. Fucking Fourth of July barbecues.

Abby pressed gauze to the kid’s neck. “He’s tachycardic. We need to intubate.”

“I’ll do it,” Joel said, snapping his fingers. “Get the tube. Bag him. Suction ready.”

“You want me on airway?” you asked, stepping in.

He looked at you. That same look from earlier.

“I trust you.” he said.

So you did it.

You took the tube. You got the line. You shoved the fucking endotracheal tube into a kid who just lost his eye and might still lose his life. You did it because you had to. Because no one else could.

And because Joel trusted you.

You bagged until the O2 sats climbed back out of hell.

Mel ran labs.

Riley got a chest film.

Abby called Ophthalmology.

Jesse finally got the dad escorted to the waiting room by Bill before Joel could murder him with his stare alone.

Joel stood at the foot of the gurney, arms folded, eyes dark and burning.

“He’s stable,” Jesse said, breathless.

“For now,” Joel muttered. “Get imaging. Stat.”

You leaned over the bed, wiped some of the blood from the kid’s temple.

And then you felt Joel behind you.

Close. Not touching. Just there.

“You did good,” he said, low, just for you. “Again.”

You turned slightly, eyes meeting his.

“You keep saying that,” you murmured.

“That’s because it keeps being true.”

And then he was gone.

The kid was wheeled to CT.

You turned to the trauma team, who were collapsing one by one against the wall, soaked in blood and sweat and the sheer weight of almost.

Ellie looked ready to cry. Riley was holding a juice box. Jesse was on his second bottle of water and muttering something about moving to Canada. Abby was pacing, muttering Owen’s name under her breath.

And you?

You checked the clock.

5:43 p.m.

You still had two hours and seventeen minutes left in the shift you weren’tsupposed to work.

And already, it felt like a whole new fucking war had begun.

You cracked your neck. Wiped your forehead. Took a deep breath. And turned toward the doors.

Another stretcher was rolling in. Because of course it was.

Happy Fucking Fourth of July.

It was six when the first wave of soldiers walked off the battlefield.

The day shift clocked out like they were fleeing a warzone—scrubs stained, hair plastered to their foreheads, eyes too wide and hollow to belong to people under thirty. The fluorescent lights had aged them by decades. Some had blood on their shoes. Some had blood in their hair. Some weren’t sure whose blood it was.

Kathleen passed by the desk with her bag over her shoulder, muttering, “If they page me before five tomorrow, I’ll set this place on fire.”

Jesse was limping, dragging one foot behind him like a wounded animal, sipping a smoothie someone handed him two hours ago that had fully liquified into soup. He waved weakly in your direction, eyes dead. "Don't let anyone else swallow a flag," he said. "Just… don’t."

Ellie was practically vibrating on her way out, holding a foil-wrapped bundle that had been a brownie Dina was eyeing earlier. “I’m gonna eat this and then sleep for six days,” she told Riley, who was chewing on ice like it was a coping strategy.

Dina had her phone pressed to her ear, her free hand gesturing wildly as she talked to some poor soul on the other end. “No, I can’t go out tonight, I literally watched a baby eat gunpowder. Yes, literal gunpowder. Like from a firework. I don’t care if it’s rooftop karaoke, I’m not fucking going.”

Mel, fresh scrubs on now but still blotchy from everything, lingered at the front with her bag slung low and her hair half-down. She spotted Dina and beamed like the sun hadn’t just tried to kill everyone inside the ER.

“I’m serious,” Mel gushed, linking her arm with Dina’s as they walked. “Owen made reservations. He was so sweet. I think he even bought a new shirt. He didn’t say it, but it wasn’t wrinkled, so that has to mean something.”

Dina snorted. “Wow. A man wearing a clean shirt. You better marry him.”

You weren’t listening on purpose.

You just…couldn’t not hear it.

Because Abby was two steps behind them, standing by the elevator bank, still in her half-zipped hoodie and Crocs, staring at the tiled floor like she could melt through it.

You stood near her.

Close but not close.

She noticed you before you said anything.

“I’m not gonna cry,” she said flatly. “So don’t say something nice.”

You shrugged. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good.”

She paused.

Then, quietly, “Did you know?”

You didn’t answer. Because you had. Of course you had. The way Owen had started standing closer to Mel. The way he’d brushed Abby off the past two weeks with half-assed excuses.

“I’m not mad at her,” she said, still staring forward. “I mean…maybe I am. But it’s not like she knew.”

You leaned next to her against the wall. “You don’t have to be fine.”

“I know.”

“I’m not fine either.”

She nodded.

And that was enough.

The elevator dinged.

She got in.

Didn’t look back.

You stayed in the hallway for a beat longer, the hum of overhead lights buzzing in your teeth. Your eyes were dry and scratchy. Your hands smelled like latex. There was blood on the cuff of your sleeve again, and you didn’t even remember who it belonged to.

The night shift was officially here now.

Soon the night staff began pooling into the ER.

They shuffled in with the kind of dead-eyed resignation of people who knew exactly what they were walking into. They looked at you with curiosity, confusion.

“You're still here,” one said.

You just nodded. “Still am.”

The ER had quieted in the way a battlefield does after the airstrikes stop—still full of smoke, rubble, and bodies, just… quieter. The screams were fewer. The alarms less frequent. But the stench of bleach and burnt flesh still clung to the walls.

You were working a bay in the corner, checking on a man who’d driven straight into a ditch after swerving to avoid a firework that had launched into the road.

“Wasn’t even my firework,” he mumbled, a gash splitting across his temple, blood matting his hair. “Some asshole two blocks over. Guess they didn’t like my truck.”

You were scanning for signs of concussion, clicking the penlight, asking about nausea, when he squinted at you.

“You’re cute,” he slurred. “Like real cute. Do you—uh—do you always look this good when you save lives?”

You didn’t answer.

He tried again.

“You got a boyfriend?”

You snapped the light off and looked him dead in the eye.

“I’ve got a scalpel,” you said.

He laughed.

You didn’t.

Across the ER, you heard a sharp voice bark, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Your heart skipped.

Joel.

He was back.

Fully suited in trauma gear again, hair still damp with sweat, scrub top stretched over tense muscle. His eyes were already narrowed, fixed on you.

You didn’t even see him walk over—he was just suddenly there, all heat and static and restrained violence. He looked down at the chart in your hand, then up at your face, then over at the patient who still hadn’t stopped smiling.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Joel said, voice low and lethal.

“I’m working,” you said, frowning. “Owen called and asked me to cover—”

“Owen’s a fucking idiot,” Joel snapped. “This isn’t your shift.”

“He begged. He wanted to—”

“See Mel. Yeah, I fucking heard.”

Joel looked down at the driver again, eyes narrowing. The man blinked at him like he wasn’t sure if he was about to be murdered or offered another morphine drip.

“Go,” Joel growled. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m almost done.”

“No. You’re not.”

He stepped forward, crowding your space. Not touching, but too close. His presence filled your lungs like smoke.

“I didn’t let you walk out of that trauma room with your hands inside someone’s goddamn chest just to have you stay late because some piece of shit didn’t want to miss his fucking dinner reservation.”

“I said I’m fine—”

“You’re not. Your face is pale. Your knees are shaking. You’re bleeding from your neck again—”

You touched your collar.

Shit.

The scratch had reopened.

Again.

You hadn’t even noticed.

Joel’s voice dropped lower. Quieter. More dangerous.

“You stay here another hour, I’m not gonna be able to stop myself from saying and doing something that gets me fired.”

You swallowed.

“You need someone to finish the chart.”

“I don’t need anything but you out of this hospital and in my bed before I fucking lose it.”

You blinked.

His eyes locked on yours.

“This isn’t up for debate.”

He turned to the driver without breaking eye contact.

“She’s off,” Joel told him. “She doesn’t work for you. You want someone to hold your hand and stroke your ego, call your fucking wife.”

The man gaped.

Joel turned back to you.

And this time—softer, just slightly—he added, “Go home.”

You didn’t argue.

Because he wasn’t asking.

You peeled your gloves off. Dropped them into the bin.

Your scrubs were soaked. Your throat burned.

And for the first time in hours, you realized how goddamn tired you were.

Joel’s eyes followed you until you reached the staff hallway.

And you could feel the heat of them still burning between your shoulder blades as you stepped into the elevator—

Finally, finally—

Done.

[leighsartworks216]

Christmas Suprises

Zayne x AFAB!Reader

When I say I don't enjoy pregnancy fics or proposal fics, I NEED you to believe me cuz WHY did this fester in my brain until I put it down in a doc

Warnings: Christmas, fluff, domestic fluff, unplanned pregnancy, marriage proposal, crying, literal sleeping together, cuddling, anxiety

Word Count: 2,514

Main Masterlist

First Love and Deepspace Masterlist

Second Love and Deepspace Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

You stare down at the little white stick, mouth falling open in shock. You can’t even hear the grating alarm of your phone going off anymore, or the eager knocking on the bathroom door. It’s like your mind hasn’t caught up to your body yet. You don’t think about reaching out and opening the door; your body just does it.

“Well?” Tara asks excitedly. “Yes or no?”

The world around you comes back into focus. You blindly paw at your phone screen to hit the button to shut up its alarm. You think your hand is shaking when you look up at your friend.

“It says… I’m pregnant.”

She squeals and throws her arms around your neck, bouncing on her feet, bursting with joy. “Congratulations! Oh, I’m so happy for you!”

You cling onto her. She doesn’t seem to mind, even as you wipe your eyes over her shoulder and sniffle by her ear.

You can’t believe it. You’re actually pregnant. You really, really are. You’re going to have a baby. You’re going to have a baby.

Tara pulls away with a gasp. “How are you gonna tell him?” she asks conspiratorially.

“God, I have no idea.” You stare at the two pink lines on the stick. Pregnant. “He doesn’t even know I’m late for my period, Tara. How am I-?”

“Oh, oh, I know! Tell him on Christmas!”

“On Christmas? Are you sure? I mean, what if he doesn’t want kids? We’ve never talked about it before.” You scoff, rubbing your eyes at the mounting worry welling up within you. It swirls around in your stomach, growing larger and larger as your panic bleeds into it. “We’re not even married! What’re his parents going to think? Shit, what about his career?!” You grab Tara’s shoulders, jostling her slightly with the force. “What if his reputation is ruined because he had a kid without being married?!”

Tara grabs your shoulders in turn, rubbing them sympathetically. “Calm down first, okay? You don’t have to do my idea, but I think you’re overthinking this.”

You sigh. Slowly, you let go of her. “No, no, you’re right. I- I’ll think about it. Thank you for helping me out, Tara.”

“Of course! Just keep me updated, okay?” She giggles. “I need to know how he reacts!”

Even as you’re led to her couch and offered a soothing cup of tea, the panic doesn’t untwist from your guts.

-

You’re awake first. This doesn’t usually happen, but it’s only fitting that the anxiety that kept you from falling asleep easily last night also wakes you up earlier than needed. You study Zayne’s face in the dim moonlight.

He looks utterly at peace. There’s no tension in his brow. His eyes are relaxed, fluttering under his eyelids to watch a dream play out. Lips slightly parted with soft breaths.

His parents called yesterday, wishing they could be here and apologizing for their gifts being sent late due to the inclement weather where they’re stationed. Zayne always got this childlike sweetness to his expression whenever they were involved, smiling without restraint and allowing himself to be more outwardly affectionate. You’d seen it before when you recorded a video of him on his birthday to send to his parents, but seeing it now, picturing that same happiness on his face with his own child… He’d caught you staring at one point. You’d smiled and tried to play it off. You’re not sure he bought it, but he didn’t say anything about it after the call ended.

You really can’t sleep now. Your heart is beating too fast, tight in your chest with worry. You slowly roll onto your back. The white ceiling stares down at you. You stare right back, chewing mindlessly on your bottom lip.

Time passes by in a blur. You’re not sure how much has gone by when a finger carefully frees your lip from your teeth’s assault. You turn your head to see a freshly-woken Zayne. His hand falls to rest on the bed between you.

“What has you so worried?” His voice has a quiet rasp to it in the morning, especially when he whispers. You could listen to it for hours.

You shift to lay on your side, facing him once again. You distract yourself by playing with his fingers. “Nothing,” you lie with a placating smile. “I’m just hoping you’ll like the gifts I got you.”

He hums, but he doesn’t say anything for a minute. Instead, he captures your restless hand and brings it to his lips. Those pretty hazel green eyes of his close with the kiss he places on your knuckles. “I’m sure you chose the best gifts,” he says. “You know me too well to get me something I wouldn’t like.”

“True…”

He guides your hand to rest on his face. He’s warm from sleep, the barest hint of stubble starting to come in along his jaw.

“Can we open the gifts first today?” He opens his eyes to look at you again. You can feel the way he studies you. You try not to falter as you add, “I know we usually have breakfast first, but…”

A flicker of confusion, gone in a flash. “Of course. But it’s still early. You should try to get some more sleep.”

Maybe he can sense the exhaustion underneath your anxiety, or maybe he can see the bags under your eyes in the dim light. Or maybe he just knows you better than you think he does.

He reaches under the blankets to grab your hip, drawing you toward him like he has on so many restless nights before. You’re powerless to refuse the silent request. So you scoot closer, forming yourself to fit perfectly against his chest. He slips his arm under your head, letting you use his bicep as a pillow. You tuck your head under his chin and press your face against his neck.

Arms wrapped around each other, holding one another close before the breaking dawn of Christmas Day. He traces soothing shapes against your spine. You count his heartbeat as it thumbs by your ear. Somehow, you’re able to find sleep again.

-

Wrapping paper - neatly undone or carelessly torn - sit in a pile on the floor. Various gifts sit stacked or folded in neat piles on the coffee table, organized by Zayne. There aren’t many gifts in all. Really, you both had most everything you could ever wish for.

But now it’s time for the final gift. You jump up from the couch with a smile. “I have one more gift. Lemme go grab it.”

He shoots you a look. “And why isn’t it under the tree?” he teases.

You wish that simple question didn’t pour gasoline into the firepit of anxiety in your stomach. You wave him off, covering up your uncertainty with playfulness. “It was too important to go under there. I’ll only be a second.”

He hums, but doesn’t say anything more about it, watching silently as you retreat back into the bedroom. You pull the present out from your nightstand drawer. Is it the most secure place to keep something? Well, there’s nothing else really in there; nothing you’d need on a daily basis, anyway. And Zayne would never go in here without your permission. So, you trusted it more than your other idea of hiding it in your jacket pocket.

You hold the box tightly to your chest. God, please, please, please, let this go well.

You almost want to curse Tara for convincing you to go through with this. If the news ends up ruining Christmas and your relationship with Zayne, you’re going to unleash hellfire down on her.

With one last, steadying breath, you head back out to the living room.

Zayne is still waiting patiently, taking this opportunity to look at the cases of the games you got him. He sets them back down when you round the couch and sit down beside him once more. You hope he doesn’t notice your hands shaking when you pass it over.

The gift is small and thin, rectangular and lightweight, he turns it over to find where you’ve taped the decorative paper down to begin unwrapping it. You readjust to sit on your feet with your knees to your chest. Your body screams for you to hide, to escape all the possible outcomes of this situation you’ve forced yourself into. But you want to watch. You need to see his reaction.

He pauses in his unwrapping to look at you. “Are you alright?” he asks, frowning as he wraps a hand loosely around your ankle to rub soothing circles into the jutting bone there.

You force a smile you hope isn’t as strained as it feels and nod. “I’m okay,” you lie. You nod toward the present. “Open it.”

He doesn’t let go right away. You think for a moment he may not even continue. But, thankfully, he pulls away to finish removing the paper. He drops it onto the pile with the rest.

The box itself is a blank white. There are no marks, no labels, no details of any kind that could give away what lay inside.

You hug your legs to yourself. You can’t bear to look away from his face, not even to watch as he unfolds the tab at one end and slides the little stick out. It’s ultimately more rewarding, you think, to see the way his eyes widen ever so slightly. To see him lean forward as he flips the test over in order to read the results. To see the way his mouth falls open with a quiet breath.

He turns his whole body to face you. “You’re pregnant…?”

You nod shyly. “Are you upset?”

He sets the test on the table quickly, but as if it’s the most fragile thing in the world, before holding your face in both of his hands. “Why would I be upset?”

God, he looks at you so earnestly, so tenderly, you’re tearing up before you can stop yourself. Choking up over words that have suffocated you since you were hiding away in Tara’s bathroom.

“‘Cause we never talked about it before and-” A whimpering sob cuts through your words. You inhale shakily. “And we’re not even married or anything, and your job-”

“Hey, shhh.” He brushes away your tears with his thumbs. He leans forward to brush a soft kiss to your forehead, ducking down to stay close to you as he meets your eyes once more. “I have one last present for you, too,” he whispers. “Can I go get it?”

You sniffle and wipe your face with your sweater sleeve. You probably look like such a mess; you can’t seem to get the tears to stop now that they’ve started. “Why isn’t it under the tree?” you tease.

He smiles. “It was too special. Wait here, okay?”

You nod. He presses another kiss to your head before he gets up and disappears down the hall.

While he’s gone, you try to collect yourself. You lower your knees, wipe your eyes until they burn from the friction, and try to even your breathing. Right now, each breath comes in little hiccups, jittery and broken up and unproductive. You haven’t improved much by the time he gets back.

He sits down close to you, wrapping a warm arm around your shoulders to pull you even closer into his side. A small velveteen box rests in his hand. He offers it to you. “I didn’t expect to be giving it to you today,” he admits bashfully, resting his cheek against your head. “But I can’t think of a better time than right now.”

You don’t have to open it to know what’s inside. All the fear that suffocated you for the last couple weeks goes up in a puff of smoke. Instead, it’s like a soothing orb of light has taken its place, healing the burns left behind and filling you with immense happiness. You turn your body into his and wrap your arms tightly around him. He rubs his thumb methodically over your shoulder.

“Should we start talking about children now?” He kisses your head. “Assuming you agree to my proposal.”

A choked, relieved laugh jostles out from your chest. Your tears get on his shirt as you nod stupidly against him. “Of course I agree!” You pull away just enough to meet his eyes. “You’re really okay with this? You… want kids with me?”

He smiles warmly, openly, as if his parents have just called and he’s already given them the news of your engagement. “I couldn’t imagine a better partner to raise a family with.” He brushes the back of his fingers across your cheek, still holding the ring box. “Are you okay with it?” he asks softly, brows pinching together slightly and eyes sharpening. “We never did talk about it. Are you comfortable with carrying a child to term?”

“It’s scary,” you admit. “But… I want this. I want a family, with you.” Your smile feels sure and solid as you whisper, “I love you.”

The seriousness in his expression fades away, replaced with contented joy. This conversation isn’t over, not by a long shot. You know there are still so many things to ask about. Questions about your future together. But they can wait a few more hours.

He sets the ring aside, right next to the pregnancy test. Both hands free, he pulls you into a secure hug, head lowered to rest on your shoulder, cheek to cheek with you. He absolutely envelops you. All you can see, feel and hear is Zayne.

He presses a kiss to the exposed skin of your neck. It’s not feverish and seeking. It’s soft, reverent, grateful. It pours out every emotion that wells up inside of him that can’t seem to fully escape. “I love you, too,” he whispers back.

You slide a hand along his back until you can tangle your fingers in the soft hair at the back of his head. He releases a shuddering breath, heavy with the relief that this is real.

Struck with an idea, you drag your other hand from his back down his arm, gently coaxing him to let go of you. Even in his confusion, he does what you want, slipping his hand from around your body. You guide it to rest over your belly, holding it there with your own. He buries his face further into your neck with a shaky sigh. “How long have you known?”

“If I tell you, you’re going to go into Dr. Zayne mode,” you tease. You press a sweet kiss beside his ear where you can reach.

You feel the grin that curves his lips. “Alright,” he relents quietly. “I’ll stay in fiancé Zayne mode for a bit longer.”

You release his hair in favor of wrapping your arm around his upper back, squeezing him closer, as if such a thing is even possible with how you’re already holding one another. “I’d like that.”

He squeezes you gently in return. “Me, too.”

---

Tag List:

@the-golden-jhope @deepzombieyouth @huen1ngk41 @armycaratlover @cheesemachine44 @nyx2021 @angel-jupiter @thelittlebutton @pikachuzhc @pomegranatepip @cordidy @an-ever-angry-bi

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

IAN: Just let me get this straight. A thing that looks like a police box, standing in a junkyard, it can move anywhere in time and space? SUSAN: Yes. DOCTOR: Quite so.

doctor who is about a lot of things (which is inevitable, having run for 60 years) but one of its core themes i believe to be the irreconcilable tension between fantasy and reality; between the mythic and the mundane. it’s there in the amy pond storyline loudest of all, but it’s also there in rose’s and donna’s and martha’s and clara’s and yaz’s in different ways. the TARDIS is a gateway. a gaping maw to get swallowed by The Story.

basically, if the ‘inside a TV show’ theory prediction turns out tonight to be correct, then RTD’s writing is in line with what this show is all about, and he’s brought it all to a head in a brilliant postmodernist twist. if not? well, um, i shan’t say. do better

[docholligay]

Transit

“Oh, I mean, last time,” I say with a chuckle of hubris, spitting in the eye of God, “we’d come up around the Strawberry Fest*, and the train was so packed in--you know, it was, everyone was leaving at the same time, so we had to stand--” 

“I think we lost each other.” Bel adds.

“Yeah, I was telling Jill, ‘fuck it, we’ll find them in Ely, it’s not very big.’” I have a broad smile, a fool, an idiot, and I shake my head at my mom, “But it’s not like that, the winter fair.” 

And you what? I was telling the truth. It was not the same as the Strawberry Fair, and the issues we encountered were not the same as the ones from Strawberry Fair, but my grand silliness was in assuming there would be no problem at all. 

Come with me, on a tale of not exactly woe, but perhaps a very exciting 20 minutes in some other nation’s history as we attempted to get back to Ely. 

Background information:

It is COLD. This is coming from me, Lord High Chancellor of “y’all don’t know from cold, I am so very manly tee hee” it was fucking cold, alright? In the realm of 30F/-1C, which, back home, is chilly I’ll say, but not such a huge deal as to attract notice. But. This country is wet**. This country is so fucking wet. This country is a kitchen sponge continually being misted with ice cold water. Stepping outside is the equivalent of being smacked in the face with a damp wool sweater. It takes my hair, my fine, short hair, an hour to dry. And so, we are walking through clouds on the verge of freezing. 

Taking into account the above, and also the fact that I am both proud and an idiot, my feet are completely numb. I’m not saying much, but I’m having trouble keeping my feet under me. Doc, what does this have to do with being proud and an idiot? I chose the cute shoes that day, friends, with naught but a wool sock and a thin leather sole between me and the ground. It was, how do you say, unwise. 

If we miss this train (Read: cluster of trains) we will be trapped in Cambridge for the better part of an hour or so. 

To be perfectly arrogant, in addition to being proud and an idiot, I can bear up under quite a bit, and simply set feeling anything to the side in pursuit of an experience. I forget that other people are not necessarily built that way, and my mother is very tired and a bit dead on her feet. 

In conclusion, we have to get this train back to Ely. 

Dani (cleverly (?--we report you decide)) spots a train going to Birmingham by way of Ely, which’ll take off sooner than the one we were originally planning on taking. Excellent! Brilliant, as they say, even. It also gave me an idea of what a Cross Country train, which I will later be taking to Birmingham, looks like. It seems fine, which is broadly how I would describe most of the trains in the UK that are not EMR, where hope goes to die. We sit, chatting. It’s lovely. We laugh about not wanting to go to Birmingham. What a delightful time. 

And then, that angel’s trumpet of coming destruction: The vioce of a calm British man on a trainline. “This train will be delayed as the driver is stuck in Cambridge traffic.” What can I do but start laughing? As I understand it, the Mill Road Winter Fair is one of two great calamities that befall Cambridge a year, and it dovetails with interview week***. Apparently, this is not largely known to people who presumably should know better, and so here we are, sitting on a train to Birmingham, discussing our options about switching to another, better, perhaps faster train. 

I look at Dani and Bel with the same sort of look, I imagine, that people give me when we’re in the woods and I ask if they want to go along the ridge or if they’d rather drop down into the valley. I understand the words they are saying, but I do not understand the implicatons of them. We’re going to stay on, declares Dani, with a sense of assuredness that comes when you have a train in the hand versus two in the bush, and we all agree that this seems as good an idea as any. 

For a few minutes, at least. 

And then, the voice of the announcing angel comes again, and tells us that anyone going to Ely should really consider getting off the train, as they aren’t sure when the driver will be there and the train the next platform over is terminating at Ely. Oh, by the by, that train leaves in three minutes. 

A wave of humanity rises as if in a Japanese woodcut, all moving in a herd toward the platform across the station. Now, for my American and Canadian readers, at the very least, let me explain how a smaller train station in the UK looks. They aren’t big, particularly, but because of how trains work, to get to another platform, you have to go over or under, generally over, with a set of stairs****. An entire crowd of people is running to the stairs, running up and over the platform in a desperate bid to not be stranded in Cambridge. As we run up the stairs, a voice assures and disappoints, that the train to Ely will be delayed, and, in my extreme foolishness and naive trust of the “National” Rail “””System”””, I think, “Lovely! They’re holding the train for us!” 

OH DOC DOC. 

We make it to the other platform, and the train, my friends, my companions, is not even there. Leaving in three minutes, my god. So now we watch. The train to Birmingham is helpfully being delayed minute by minute, as the second it turns 16:13, the train will be leaving at 16:13, until, of course, it is 16:14, and then the train will be leaving at that time. Our train to Ely, however, exists in that mysterious liminal space of merely ~delayed~, which keeps things fresh and exciting. 

Which will take off first? We eye the Birmingham train across the distance, nearly daring it to leave before thhe train to Ely even arrives, looking at each other on the platform, eyes dashing about like frightened animals. From where will relief come? Is there any escape from Cambridge? 

There are many opportunities to place bets here, as suddenly, a third horse enters the race! 

A train to Norwich, via Ely, pulls into the station next tot he train to Birmingham. Apparently Ely is a good place to go through, if not rest at. We turn to each other. I have not the knowledge to divine the future, and turn thus to my oracles of public transportation, they who dwell in the Fens and hear the whispers of the eels, who follow the rivers of iron on boats run by the capricious gods of Great Northern and CrossCountry. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have any clue what to do either. The delight of the British train system is that it is happy to supplly you with the ability to make many wrong choices. We debate. We watch. 

We crawl BACK across the stairs and platform, and get on the train to Norwich. 

As we sit, the train to Birmingham pulls away. 

*This is the wrong name for it, but it’s also what I said, so, [sic]

**I keep saying this, and Dani keeps saying, “Is it? I think it’s been a bit dry.” and I am mere moments from popping her in the face, wherein water will gush from her like a sodden foam ball. 

***This is, apparently, the one week where they do every single interview for The Smart Youths to see if they’re getting into Cambridge. What a low stress environment. Fantastic idea. 

****I was absolutely unaware of this when I previously went to the UK, and sent an email to Dani trying to ask about how difficult it was to change trains, but my question about what the fuck a train station even looks like was so basic that it took two or three emails before she even understood what I was asking. So I am here for you, my fellow Americans.

[oddly-specific-hermit-headcanons]

Christmas in Hermitcraft, or on any SMP is a little different than what we consider Christmas.

Instead of an old man breaking into your house to give you presents. You have to find the old man and kill him to get your presents.

Grian drives nails into a baseball bat while knitting his Christmas sweater.

Gem sharpens her swords for the occasion as she hums carols.

Doc prepares a rocket launcher and decorates his house.

Scar does some modifications on his off road wheelchair to catch him easier as he finishes a batch of sugar cookies.

Zedaph begins filling syringes with dubious fluids and chemicals while listening to Home Alone.

Mumbo readies a shotgun. That’s it.

Meanwhile, players from the Nether, End, or Aether are just confused about the Overworld’s weird ass customs, but hey, free food and gifts? They’re not complaining.

There's always a competition on who gets to kill the old man first. The winner gets to pick which presents everyone else gets.

[kiemiu]

dating skater!chris | ( fem!reader ) fluff + soft hours. established relationship headcanons + scenarios wc 1.1k (library) + (request)

skater!chris who invites you to the skatepark to show off his impressive moves. first thing he wanted to do was show his skills off to you. he wanted you to fawn over how cool he looked and brag to your friends about how awesome he was. his daydream was, sadly, short-lived. his nerves became so shot that he was unable to land any of the tricks he had practiced hours before your date. he was disappointed in himself, not to mention embarrassed. but once you reassured him and called him 'cute' for trying to impress you, he was a goner. in that moment he told himself he'd fail all of his stunts if it meant you'd call him cute again.

skater!chris who ultimately falls trying to impress you by attempting a difficult stunt. after awhile, chris's nerves aren't as shot around you anymore and he's able to land his regular stunts. he still does become a bit too cocky and tries to bite off more than he can chew by doing difficult moves he's only ever seen professionals like tony hawk pull off. after a particularly rough landing, you'll rush to his aid with your book bag that you thankfully had stocked with first aid supplies. disinfecting his cuts, and even giving them a light kiss after applying your disney princess band-aids. he swears that you have magical kisses and sometimes fakes injuries so you'll give him one of your healing kisses. you always give in, even when you don't see any hints of an injury.

skater!chris who teaches you how to skate. he'll stand in front of you and hold a firm grip on your waist as he gently guides you up and down hills and sharp corners. at some point he'll start teaching you to push off on your own without his help and he'll become so proud when you start to skate around comfortably without his help.

skater!chris who has your initials carved into his skate board. when applying his new grip tape to his board, he used a razor blade to carve out your initials including his in a heart that remains in the middle of his board. he actually thought of the idea after your second date together. and now, everytime the grip tape wears off and is no longer of use, he scraps off the old design and replaces it with a new one and repeats the same ritual by carving out your initials into his board.

skater!chris who buys you your own skateboard. after expressing your want to skate with him, chris wastes no time in getting you a board. he goes to a local skate shop and customizes your board himself, picking out all of the tools needed to assemble a skateboard such as the wheels, the board, the grip tape, and even the deck rails. he triple checks the picture he took of your shoes to make sure he gets a skateboard you can ride comfortably on, not too big or too small. and when he gets home, he wraps it up like a christmas gift, giddy at the thought of how surprised you'll be, seeing your own personalized skateboard.

skater!chris who tries to catch you before you fall. after awhile, chris starts to teach you some tricks like simply jumping while being on the board and how not to fall on your face when there's a curb nearby. even with the easy moves you still sometimes have a misstep and come close to face-planting. chris is always close-by to stop that from happening and usually pulls you towards him before you can meet the concrete. but with as clumsy as chris is, he'll still end up falling, but the outcome is worth it to him, as you end up with no scratches or bruises from using him as a cushion.

skater!chris who treats your wounds just like you take care of his. whenever you do have a harsh landing and chris isn't there to protect you, he'll be the one to treat your wounds for you. he'll hum the doc mcstuffins theme song while applying your cute band-aids and even kiss your injury, just like you do with his. most of the time he forgets to disinfect the area though and you'll have to clean your cuts and reapply your band-aids once you get home.

skater!chris who doesn't ride the skateboard you bought him for his birthday. on his 21st birthday, you gifted him a specialized skateboard that took weeks leading up to his special day to customize. it was dosed in his favorite colors, and had graffiti tags all on it that had hints of his brothers as well as a small part of you in it. he cried when he first saw it and immediately took on the responsibility of caring for that skateboard as if it was his one and only child. he doesn't let anyone touch it, not even you despite the fact you gifted it to him. it remains hung up over his bed on his bedroom wall and to this day he still claims it as one of his most prized possessions.

skater!chris who says 'this is for you' before landing a kickflip. he'll point directly at you and make eye contact as he screams that phrase out at the top of his lungs before jumping off of an elevated layer of cement. once he lands, he throws his arms in the air and skates his way over to you, a triumphant smile on his lips as he hears you loudly cheer for him. "where's my celebratory kiss, hm?". other times when he doesn't land it, he'll quickly scramble to his feet before shouting out "uh- it was meant for the ghost behind you, this next one's for you!" and he'll keep attempting the trick again and again until he finally lands it. "first try!" it was his 19th.

skater!chris who likes sitting on his skateboard with you between his legs while you eat snacks. after hours of skating around, and filming him do his tricks, chris will take you to the nearest gas station or fast food place and gather a bunch of your favorite snacks. sitting in front of the establishment but off to the side so you're not in the way of anyone, he'll lean his head down on your shoulder and wrap his unoccupied arm around your waist. you can feel the motion of him softly chewing, and usually the sound of crunching would annoy you, but it does the exact opposite and instead helps you further relax in his embrace as you drink your shared slurpee. "i lohmf ouh" he mutters with a mouthful of french fries, making you laugh incredulously. "i love you too, now chew your food!"

' 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ' 🥡: @emely9274 @ginswife @madifilipowiczslvt @chrisstvrns @conspiracy-ash @sturnina @lovetaylorrussellgrr @nervoussagittarius @sacaydia @chrissturnsss @hearts4werka @oliviagirlsworld @koilaniazul @starsforu

[quintessenceofdust88]

perfect (it's not all it's cracked up to be)

Hello everyone! I promised you guys that the sequel for this prompt would be up by the weekend, right? Turns out I only sorta lied cause it's still Monday hehe. I hope you enjoy it!

You can read it on AO3 if you'd prefer! ❤️

When Tommy wakes up, it’s like his body is on fire and freezing at the same time; half of his body feels numb, and the other half is hurting like never before. Huh, maybe his father had a point and all queer freaks end up in hell. Then again, considering one of his last deeds on Earth was walking out on sunshine itself, maybe it’s not about his queerness after all; it’s about Tommy himself. 

He hears a heart monitor at his side, and that gives him pause; he doesn’t think the afterlife bothers with medical devices, so… So maybe he’s alive? If only opening his eyes didn’t feel like it would hurt so much, Tommy could try and find out (not that he knows what hell looks like; it could be like a hospital room, for all he knows). He tries it anyway, letting out a grunt as it, indeed, hurts like a bitch. 

“Oh my God, you’re awake!” A voice says to his right side, and yeah, now Tommy’s pretty sure he’s not in hell. Evan Buckley doesn’t belong in hell, not even as part of Tommy’s eternal torture. 

As his vision clears, Tommy sees Evan is on a chair by his side, and he looks… Rough. There’s stubble covering his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes. He’s looking at Tommy with despair clearly written in his permanently wet eyes, as if he’s afraid Tommy will disappear if he looks away. And to Tommy, it’s still instinct to comfort Evan, to try and find something to say that’ll make him feel better.

“You found your present” He says dumbly, his eyes not leaving the burgundy hoodie that’s so beautifully wrapped around Evan’s frame, making him look as cozy and adorable as Tommy expected. And, well. It might not have been the smartest thing to say, but he supposes there’s a lot of morphine going through his body right now. 

“Well, yeah, after you told my sister where it was as your helicopter crashed? After you wished me Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as your parting words?! It wasn’t so difficult” He answers with a somewhat hysterical chuckle. “What the hell, Tommy?! You’re too much of a coward to actually let yourself be loved and see a future with me, but not to send a farewell message to me through dispatch?! You’re unbelievable!”

“Buck…” He starts, but it’s clear he won’t get to say anything this time. For one, his brain is still working a little too slow to translate thoughts into words. Evan seems to notice it, and lets out a defeated sigh. 

“We… We’ll talk later, ok? Let’s get a doctor to check on you first. Sorry, that should have been the first thing I did” He says grumpily, and presses the button by Tommy’s bed. 

From them on, it’s a flutter of doctors and nurses, and Tommy learns the extent of the damage: a broken femur, at least five crushed ribs and a small concussion, not to mention the thousand bruises that turned his whole left side black and blue; he hasn’t looked at a mirror yet, but it can’t be pretty. 

“Yeah, well, you should’ve seen the other guy, doc” He attempts to joke, and Evan’s scoff and the doctor’s exasperated look make it clear it wasn’t his best attempt. “So, let’s talk business, doc. Will I fly again?” Tommy asks, because that’s the question that matters the most. 

He realizes with a treacherous skip to his heart that Evan looks as interested in the answer as Tommy himself. During the whole time the doctor is talking to him about treatments and physical therapy and his perspective to get back to work, he stays by his side, nodding attentively at everything the doctor says (as if he’ll be involved in your treatment, a hopeful part of his brain that should have quieted down weeks ago supplies, and Tommy does his best not to listen to it, because it’ll hurt so bad when it’s not the case). 

When the doctor makes it clear that Tommy will not go back to the air for at least six months, Evan squeezes his hand and gives him a look of solidarity that goes a long way to make it not feel like the end of the world. And when the nurse comes to up Tommy’s dosage of morphine and redress his wounds, he doesn’t let go of his hand. Tommy wants to say something, anything, but he’s received a lot of information and the morphine running through his veins makes it difficult to put his thoughts into words. But he doesn’t want to fall asleep; he doesn’t want to let Evan go. 

“Sleep, Tommy” Evan tells him in a firm tone. “I’ll be here when you wake up. Then we’ll talk”

It sounds too good to be true; Tommy refuses to believe it. Evan would have every right to leave him to fend for himself; he wouldn’t blame him in the slightest. He closes his eyes, fully expecting to find an empty room when he wakes up.

But contrary to all expectations, when Tommy opens his eyes again, feeling slightly more like a person and less like a shapeless bruise, is to find Evan in the same chair, only with the black hoodie this time, and a cup of coffee in his hand. 

He’s impossibly handsome in black, Tommy thinks dazedly, taking advantage of the fact Evan’s looking down at his phone to take a good look at him. There are dark circles under his eyes, and Tommy wonders if he’s been home at all. 

His heart does another one of those treacherous leaps, and Tommy is having a hard time keeping the hope from bubbling in his chest. Because if this man saw Tommy at his worst, physically and (especially) emotionally, and was willing to stay this long by his side, who’s to say he won’t stay longer? He was willing to; Tommy was the one who fled, thinking it was about the excitement of a new relationship, but staying by his side after a helicopter crash is something entirely different. Who’s to say he won’t just… stay?

Tommy has to be brave; hell, he’s been brave before, on that glorious night where he took a leap of faith and placed a kiss to the man who had maimed his best friend for Tommy’s attention. Evan had been brave, if a little misguided, when he invited Tommy to move in with him. He owes him some bravery right now. If nothing else, he owes him some honesty after everything.

“You were right” He blurts out, and Evan looks up from his phone, staring at him with widened blue eyes. 

“H-hey, you’re up! Do… Do you need anything? I can call the nurse…” He trails off when Tommy’s hand, the one which is less covered in scrapes and bruises, reaches out to lightly touch his.

“I just need you to listen to me. You… you were right, Evan. I was a coward. I am a coward. I… I don’t know how to be loved. I never was” He admits it, and hates himself for choking up as he says it. This isn’t a pity party; he’s just stating a fact: the sky is blue, alcohol is flammable, Thomas Kinard was never loved. He hates how it makes Evan’s whole demeanor soften, because Tommy doesn’t deserve it. 

“Then let me love you” Evan whispers, taking Tommy’s hand in both of his. “Let me teach you how it feels. It’s… It’s not like I’m an expert at it, ok? I… I haven’t always been loved either. But… but I love you. You broke my fucking heart, Tommy, and I still love you. Do… do you love me?”

“With all of my heart” Tommy whispers back, and he can’t keep a tear from running down his face. Hell, he almost died, he’s allowed to be emotional. “T-that’s why I had to leave, Evan. If… If you didn’t love me back… If you found out I wasn’t perfect…”

“I know you’re not perfect, Tommy. But guess what? I love you anyway, you idiot” He says, pressing a kiss to Tommy’s forehead, another to the tip of his nose, and a very tender one to his lips. “You… You always wanted me to see you as perfect. You barely let me in all the time we were together. But I saw it anyway, Tommy, and I still wanted you. I still want you”

“I… I was so afraid of being hurt that I didn’t think I’d be hurting you” Tommy admits with a sigh. “A-actually I didn’t think you’d be hurt. I… I thought you’d be okay. I’m sorry, Evan”

“Well, I wasn’t okay. Just ask all of my friends and the thousand loaves of bread in their pantries” He says with a chuckle, and then looks Tommy deeply in the eyes. “Next time, talk to me instead of doing a dramatic exit. And don’t wait till you almost die to let me know where my Christmas presents are”

Tommy chuckles, and squeezes Evan’s hand. He wishes he could sit up and kiss him within an inch of his life, but it  sounds a little out of his physical abilities right now. He’ll content himself, with a peck on the lips before Evan sits back down, still holding Tommy’s hand in his. 

“I promise Christmas will be perfect” He says, and Evan shakes his head.

“I don’t need perfect, Tommy. I just need you”

–

And Christmas is not perfect. Tommy’s still mostly on bed rest and his leg’s still in a cast. Buck’s staying at his place for now to help him around, but they decided to leave any serious conversations about moving in to after New Year’s. They haven’t really decorated (Tommy was too depressed to bother, and Buck didn’t really have the time between his shifts and taking care of Tommy) and their plans for the day mostly consist in staying in bed and alternating between cheesy rom-coms and documentaries. 

It’s not perfect. They are not perfect. But they’re together, and Tommy finds himself thanking any deity out there for his accident. That it brought Evan back to him, and more importantly, him back to Evan. 

Buck’s wearing his new burgundy hoodie, and he gives Tommy the airplane model that he stubbornly kept in the hood of the Jeep all this time. They assemble it together, and it’s not the best, because Tommy’s hands are still a little sore and Buck’s not very good at the whole arts and crafts thing, but Tommy puts in his nightstand with adoration anyway. 

And if there’s no tree, no Christmas dinner, no cheesy sweaters, well. They can always make up for it next Christmas.

--

Tag list: (let me know if you’d like to be removed or if I missed anyone! Also if you'd rather only be tagged on Little Blobs' verse, also let me know! ♥)

@bidisasterevankinard @unhingedangstaddict @silversky9 @music-is-the-voice-of-the-soul @asmugfirefighter  @rubydaiquiri @racerchix21 @actuallyitsellie  

[chososdiscordkitten]

Obsessive!Choso♡ pt 5

pt 4 here

content: stalking (duhh) Choso goes home for Christmas, calls u nd texts u the whole time, brief mention of his brothers, mentions of readers lipstick n perfume, no use of y/n or pronouns, cursing (a.n) ahhhhh this one is one of my favorites. made me smile a lot. wrote this listening to 'Sextape- Deftones'

Taglist : @brokenscaredakira @adanfore @emojk777 @waytootiredforthisss @denypipa @broccocrab @sunaumei @morinuu @just-pure-trash @iluvreinah @integers @ziklope @killakungfu-wolfbitch @1arminsimp

Obsessive!Choso who actually enjoyed coming to class, now that you sit next to him. Enjoying it so much that he felt like his grades were somewhat getting better. Now that he actually had to show that he was writing down notes. Having to actually follow the presentations from the professor on his computer, knowing that you were sitting inches away from him. When you sat so far away- he didn't have to worry about taking notes, or even bother opening his computer- because you couldn't see him. ‘You are good for me. You make me want to better myself for you.’ he'd think, looking over at you writing on your computer. 

Obsessive!Choso who had anxiety that once this project was over- you'd run back to the same friends that will never make you smile the way he does. The people who peer pressured you into drinking and doing drugs- just because you wanted to fit in. ‘You'd never have to worry about that with me. I will never pressure you into doing something you don't want to do.’ 

Obsessive!Choso who was scared that once the excuse of being partners for this class was no longer usable. You'd leave him, you'd find someone else to entertain your afternoons, someone who will replace him. So scared that he’d grovel to the professor, asking for an extension. Telling you, “Somethings missing- I'll let you know once I've finished my part.” when you'd ask him if he was finished with it yet. Knowing he did that summary days ago, only having it on another doc so you wouldn't see that he finished it.

Obsessive!Choso who spent the last few classes he had left with you on the verge of tears. His heart was heavy in his chest, pocketing all the notes you had exchanged with him. Running out of space to put them, finding an old converse box and placing them inside. Using so much tape too quickly, trying his best to preserve the pieces of paper. Nights where he'd re-read them, feeling guilt for leaving you. 

Obsessive!Choso who felt like his brain was going to explode, the anxiety of turning in the assignment was too much. Knowing he would have to turn it in before winter break- right before he left you. ‘I want to trust you,’ he thought, your name in his mind as though he was speaking to you. ‘I really do. But it's not that I don't fully trust you. I don't trust the people you’ll be left with. The people without families- like you. Who will prey on you. Who will make you think they're just like you. But they're not, they're just trying to manipulate you-’ You scanned his face, knowing he was thinking of something else while you were talking. “You okay?” You asked, seeing him shake his thoughts away before answering, “Just thinking.” he replied, a pained smile on his face. “About?” You asked, wondering what he could be thinking that was so serious that his face looked almost agonized, while you spoke.

Obsessive!Choso who contemplated lying, but the need to tell the truth was far greater. “I keep thinking about you all alone here. Alone during Christmas.” He confessed, seeing you sigh. “I like being alone. I'll be okay, don't worry.” You assured, almost reaching for his hand to comfort him- but you knew that was too far, and definitely too soon. You didn't want to invade his personal space. Seeing him only return a forced smile to you, knowing he wasn't fully convinced of the idea from his silence. Seeing an opportunity to lift up the mood, you let out a laugh. “I'll call you everyday- Send you pictures every 5 minutes.” You joked, earning a smile from him. “So many pictures that you'll feel like you're still here.” you smiled, seeing him nod his head while smiling. 

Obsessive!Choso who wished you knew how badly he wanted you to actually do those things. Liking the way you tried to ease his worries. Pushing away the anxiety so he could relish the last few times he'd be able to see you. 

Obsessive!Choso who's following habit became worse. Now standing outside your house for what felt like hours. Watching the four walls that kept you from him in the cold wind, standing still when it rained. Even when it started snowing for the first time that season. ‘We’re together for the first snowfall. You know what that means right? True love will blossom between us.’ Seeing you through the curtainless window, watching you close a thin curtain- as though you felt him watching you. Now only letting him see your shadow. Smile on his face when you'd call him- your tone made it clear that you were grinning ear to ear the whole time, oblivious to the fact that he was just a few yards away from you. Seeing you pace in front of the window as he spoke to you. ‘I know you want me to make a move. But I’ll wait. I will wait till the moment you feel the same way I do.’ He'd think, listening to you speak. 

Obsessive!Choso who thanked whatever celestial being that was out there, for making the lights on the sidewalk go out. Watching your house without fear of someone seeing him. ‘For now-I will love you from a distance,’ he professed, a grin on his face when he thought of your name. ‘I will wait for you.’ 

Obsessive!Choso who turned in the assignment a day before he left. He was pushing it- but he did it for a reason. He did it for you, to make sure you wouldn't give up on him.

Obsessive!Choso who was about to leave- but he needed to see you, just one more time. Walking around campus trying to find you. Checking his phone seeing his plane was leaving in an hour and a half. Seeing you inside the campus cafe- book in your hand. Break had already started, the campus was almost empty, but seeing you doing what you told him you'd do. Catching up on the books you started, but never finished. ‘Even if you didn't know I was looking at you- you look effortless.’ he thought, walking towards the doors of the shop. 

Obsessive!Choso who opens the door and sees you look up at him. Smiling and mouthing a ‘hi’ at him. Walking to the small table you sat at. Not knowing what to say, shaking his head, seeing your face turn in confusion. He was just standing there- not pulling out the chair to sit. “I was- I was about to leave.” He smiled, pulling the chair across from you, rings clashing against the wooden back.

Obsessive!Choso who sat down and seemed fidgety, compared to the chivalric aura he usually kept. “And you decided you needed one last shitty coffee before leaving. Smart.” You smiled, joking in hopes he'd loosen up a little. “No-” he smiled, softening his expression. Seeing you place your book down, making sure to remember the title. He wanted to say a million things, tell you how he needed to see you. He needed to say goodbye. As though he was your friend of 10 years leaving to fight in a war, feeling like if he left you; he would never see you again. “I wanted-” He started, closing his eyes and fidgeting with his hands. “I wanted to say ‘goodbye’ to you, before I left.” Seeing you fight off a smile, your eyes blinking rapidly at his words. “That's sweet of you.” You smiled, tilting your head and seeing him look up. 

Obsessive!Choso who felt his cheeks warm at your words. “What time’s your flight?” You asked, picking up your coffee and taking a sip. “In an hour.” He exhaled, seeing you widen your eyes. “What are you still doing here? You're going to be late!” you exclaimed with a smile. ‘I know, I know. I still have to go get my bags, and call an uber to take me across town.’ He thought, hearing you say the same things he was thinking, calling your name in his mind, ‘But I don't care. I will buy another one, I will spend another fortune on a useless ticket home. I needed to see you.’ 

Obsessive!Choso who was practically pushed out the doors of the shop, standing in front of him with a look on your face as though you were waiting for something. “I'll call you.” You mumbled, looking into his eyes for the very first time. “I’ll answer.” He replied, hesitating to take a step back before walking away, looking back and seeing you wave goodbye at him through the windows. Closing his eyes, feeling his feet want to turn around, looking back once more. Already sitting back in the chair you were in when he first walked in. ‘Wait for me.’ he thought, speed walking back to his apartment.

Obsessive!Choso ran through the airport, being 15 minutes late- but he made it. Standing in the line to board the plane, looking over to a small gift shop. Seeing the cover of the book you were reading- running over and buying it as the line moved. Almost 30 dollars, but fuck. You were worth it.

Obsessive!Choso who got home to his brothers, he was happy to see them but something was missing. You were missing, spending the first night in his bed picturing you here with him. Being nice to his brothers, joking with them. Waiting for you to call him, or text him. But radio silence. Nothing. It made his head hurt, trying to fight off the thoughts of you being kidnapped. With his luck, the first night he was away from you, you probably would. Knowing how careless you were while walking home, how you didn't take any safety measures like carrying pepper spray or making sure to not take the same route home. ‘I will always make sure you're safe. Make sure you have black out curtains, make sure you don't have to walk home alone.’ Hands behind his head while looking up to the ceiling. ‘And as much as you'd fight me on this- make sure you won't walk around with your earphones in.’ The chances of someone coming up behind you and pressing a chloroform rag to your face were too great. Choso was sure that once he could, he would instill that fear into your head. The fear of someone hurting you, of how dangerous it was being so careless nowadays. The fear of someone taking you away from him.

Obsessive!Choso who opened instagram, clicking your account. His heart shattered. You had privated your account. Almost as though you heard his thoughts of how reckless you were about your privacy. Holding his phone in his hands, staring down at the screen with a mournful look plastered to it. Seeing a notification pop up at the top of his screen, from you. ‘You know me. You know me so well- you know exactly when I need you.’

Obsessive!Choso who screenshotted the notification, opening it and seeing you sent him a photo. Of you with a plate of food in your hand, furrowing your eyebrows playfully. ‘u home yet ?’ he read, closing his eyes and almost reciting a prayer in thanks. Seeing you in a black tank top with his favorite band printed onto it. The first photo you had ever sent him- a photo that only he had. That you took specifically for him. ‘You'd never send this to one of your friends. You showing me your shirt proves it.’ Saving the photo and typing, ‘since like 9pm’ quickly going to his settings and changing his wallpaper to the photo you just sent him. ‘why didnt u tell meeee’ you replied. You didn't give him a whole lot of time to reply before you called him, scolding him playfully. “You didn't want me to call you did you?” you asked, sarcasm making Choso smile. “I know it's late over there- I thought you were asleep.” He replied, doing the same thing he's done every time he's been on the phone with you. Picturing you standing in the same place you were when you took the photo. 

Obsessive!Choso who asked you what you were eating, “Leftover mac n cheese my roommate left.” you replied, almost disappointed with your own answer. ‘Cruel. How cruel of them to leave you with their leftovers. I will always make sure you eat a decent meal- that's right,’ he thought, saying your name. ‘I cook too. Just for you.’ He thought, hearing you let out a laugh when he asked, “Really?” in disappointment. “It was that or frozen pizza that's been there since I moved in.” You smiled. Your cheeks feeling fuzzy at his concern, “How's the reading going?” he asked, trying to ignore the sound of a glass breaking coming from the kitchen. “Meh, boring- the main character in this one I'm reading is annoying.” You shrugged, “As a matter of fact lemme read you one of the stupidest things he's said-” You smiled, opening the book and flipping the pages. “So, anyway, there I go again. Straying away from the point. Where was I?- like who published this? Makes me upset just thinking about how this guy is real.” you spoke, tossing it onto the counter and sighing. “The whole book is like that- it’s all just a mans troubles with women and enjoying hurting them- s’fucking stupid.” You heard him let out a stifled laugh, “It's not funny-” You smiled, hearing him keep laughing, “First book I want to finish and it's bullshit.” you exclaimed, hearing him settle down. “What book is it?” He asked, trying to stop his laugh. ‘I know what book it is. It's the same one you were reading in the cafe. The same one I started reading on the flight.’

Obsessive!Choso who smiled when you said the title. Closing his eyes in triumph. “Why did you get so far reading it?” he asked, knowing that the first page was shocking enough. “I thought- it was a book of someone who gets their karma back- becomes a better person- blah blah blah. But nope, apparently there's 2 more books. Of the same man, with the same troubles.” You replied, taking a bite from your plate and leaning against the counter. Furrowing your eyebrows when you fully processed his question. “How'd you know I was so far into reading it?” you asked, your tone indicated it wasn't a serious question. But it made Choso’s heart drop. “I saw how little pages you had left at the cafe.” He lied. Knowing he had read that page in the book earlier. Not fully read- more skimmed the pages.

Obsessive!Choso who felt relief when he heard you inhale. “I didn't know you noticed such small details like that.” You commented, holding the phone with your shoulder as you took another bite. Choso hummed at your response, “Anyway- don't talk to me about that book.” You grinned, hearing Choso exhale with a smile. You were about to ask him how his brothers were, starting the sentence but hearing a door slam open. “Choso- Yuuji broke moms vase!” You heard a teasing tone through the phone, “I did not!” you heard bickering, Choso mumbled a quick, “I gotta go-” placing his phone on his desk, not hanging up. Hearing Choso scold his younger brother before ending the call. Smiling at how much his tone changed when speaking to his brothers- more authoritative and demanding.

Obsessive!Choso who felt horrible for hanging up the way he did, thinking of how disrespectful it was. The argument that sparked between his brothers ran long, all of them blaming each other for breaking this vase. Which, according to Choso, was priceless. Texting you a quick, ‘sorry i didnt call u back, they just settled down.’ Seeing the message go from delivered to seen. ‘You were waiting for me?’

Obsessive!Choso whose heart felt tight when he read your reply. ‘was just abt to go to bed’ his fingers typing quickly, ‘im sorry, i'll text you in the morning?’ seeing the typing bubble pop up the minute he pressed send. ‘kk talk to u tmmrw. goodnightttt :)’ he smiled at your reply, ‘goodnight :]’ he replied, wanting to send you a <3 heart but he restrained himself.

Obsessive!Choso who texted you every morning, making you smile at his sweet ‘good morning’ texts. Knowing he'd be busy with his brothers so you didn't call him, but your phone was stuck onto your hand, replying to his texts at lightning speed. ‘call me when ur not busy okay?’ you'd ask, making Choso giggle like those words were some kind of great attempt at flirting. And he would- he'd try to. Somehow always being interrupted by his brothers- remembering why he chose a college so far away. But the 2 am calls when he'd hear your voice, quiet and sleepy. They were worth it. Knowing you'd keep yourself awake just to talk to him. The constant pinging from his phone and Choso leaving the room to call you made his brothers suspicious. Even more so when one of them caught a glimpse at his wallpaper, seeing a photo of you- taking his phone and passing it around. Teasing him and asking if he finally found a partner. 

Obsessive!Choso who died of embarrassment when he was talking to you on the phone, one of his brothers knocked loudly at his door. Jumping when he heard the youngest pound at the locked door. “Choso! Open up-” he shouted, twisting the doorknob as he heard you laugh. “Are you talking to your lover?!” he teased through the door, only earning you to laugh louder. Saying ‘Hold on’ Before muting the call, standing up and opening the door to see them huddled to hear what he was saying. A dark aura around him when he saw them, “What is wrong with you.” He stated, rather than asked, seeing them look up at him. “I needed 20 bucks…?” the youngest asked, Choso reaching into his pocket and tossing the money at him. Closing the door and locking it again. Coming back to the phone and pressing the unmute button. 

Obsessive!Choso mumbled, “Sorry.” hoping you didn't hear what just happened. Closing his eyes as you let out a small laugh, “Am i crazy or did your brother just call me your ‘lover’?” you asked, a smile evident in your tone. “You heard that?” he grimaced, hearing you laugh. “Yes. Yes, I did.” You answered, “What are you telling your brothers that they think I'm your ‘lover’, Choso?” You teased, hearing him exhale with a smile. ‘You're teasing me? Bad. This is bad.’ he thought, making his heart beat quickly in a good way, and in a bad way. Knowing that he would have to fight off your attempts at flirting with a stick. ‘So very tempting. Too tempting. But it's too soon. I want us to be good friends before I call you mine. But I am already yours. You don't have to worry about that.’

Obsessive!Choso who shut his eyes tightly, instantly regretting the words that came out of his mouth. “I haven't said a thing, but they noticed the texting. And the secret phone calls.” The silence showed him the disappointment you felt. Knowing you wanted to hear how he told them all about you. “Oh! Well I mean anyone would be suspicious of that!” you exclaimed, it got awkward. You felt embarrassed. Thinking that the attempt to make a move flew over his head, or he didn't feel the same. But all the signs? All the longing looks, all the subtle comments he’d say that made you realize he paid more attention to your words than you thought. To your actions, his eyes scan your face when you’d change the color of your lipstick, or when you'd wear a different perfume. Face full of confusion till he noticed what was different- you thought he was into you. ‘Maybe he is- and he just sucks at seeing when someone is flirting with him.’ You'd assure yourself.

Obsessive!Choso who kept saving the pictures you sent him. Of your coffee, of your poetry, of your outfits for the day, sending him a photo of the snow. Pictures of anything you could find, Choso would always smile at them. The ability of scrolling through your instagram wasn't sorely missed. Now being able to see photos of you that you took just for him. And saving every single one. Smile on your lips whenever you'd see he ‘loved an image’ before replying to your messages. 

Obsessive!Choso who was on his phone, refreshing your instagram page over and over again. Switching to his personal account, an account he made in highschool. Not even posted anything, less than 100 followers. Seeing a small red circle at the top right corner. Someone requested to follow him. Opening the notification and seeing you. Slack jawed when he saw the sight. Screenshotting quickly and accepting it. Requesting you back, seeing an incoming call flash onto the screen. “Hey.” he smiled at your words, gulping his excitement. “I was hoping you'd answer.” You continued, ‘God, you are everything to me.’ he thought.

Obsessive!Choso who felt like you were finally letting him in. “I know I told you I didn't really like social media.” You started, ‘Yes. Tell me the truth.’ he thought, picturing you in your bedroom, closing your eyes in embarrassment. “I lied a little- I just post a lot of bullshit, nd i was embarrassed you'd see that and think ‘Jesus this person is so annoyinnggg’ that's why!” You laughed, making Choso smile. “Well let me see-” he said, putting the phone on speaker and scrolling through your account, like he craved doing for the past few days. Making approving sounds as you told him to look away. 

Obsessive!Choso who called your name, grinning ear to ear, “Yes Choso?” You replied, mimicking the serious tone he called your name in. He felt it again, he felt his mouth speak before his brain could catch up. “Don’t ever worry about me finding you annoying, ever. Okay?” opening his eyes in shock at his own words. Only making you mute yourself to let out an over excited laugh, cheeks in pain from how hard you were smiling. Unmuting yourself and having the courage to say something. “Promise?” You let out, fiddling with the drawstring of your hoodie. “I promise.” He replied, making you exhale harshly. “I want to punch you in the face.” You laughed, making him laugh through his nose. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, knowing the answer. “No. You didn't, and that's why!” You exclaimed. Rolling to lay on your stomach, shoving your face into your pillows. 

Obsessive!Choso knew that his attempts at brushing off your flirting weren't doing anything. He knew that the harder he'd try, the harder it would be to not flirt back. 

Obsessive!Choso who answered your request for a facetime, doing his hair in the bathroom. Seeing you pop up on his phone. “Heyyy” You started, furrowing your eyebrows when you saw him getting ready, “Woahhh, you got a date?” You smiled, seeing him look at you with a grimace. ‘Jealousy. Don't be possessive, I would never commit adultery. I only have eyes for you.’ he thought, scrambling with his hands before answering, “I have family photos with my brothers today. Thus-” He looked at the camera, his hands pointing to the ugly christmas sweater he was wearing. “This monstrosity.” He finished, making you laugh. Taking 3 pictures of him to tease him, but it didn't work. ‘You want pictures of me? Do you use them as your wallpaper too?’ He only smiled at the sudden flashes of white from his phone. “Send me pictures of the photos. I need to see the Kamo family in matching sweaters.” You smiled, picturing them all in the awkward style that was used in the 90’s. He squinted his eyes, already picturing your reaction when you'd see the photos. “I’ll think about it.” sarcasm filled his tone as he fought off a smile. 

Obsessive!Choso who put on his jewelry, all while you were propped up and watching him. “When do you get back again?” You asked, seeing him look at you whilst fixing his rings. “I was planning on getting back on the 6th of January. But I was thinking-” He smiled, “Of coming back on the 29th.” Picking up his phone and seeing you smile. “Good idea. Its been fucking boring out here. I forgot how many unstimulating people there were at this school.” You exhaled. ‘Say you miss me. Say it.’  

Obsessive!Choso who saw you post a photo of a book earlier. “And the reading?” he asked, putting his shoes on. “It's a little better- I picked up Gone Girl.” you exhaled, “Good choice.” He grinned, seeing you exasperate. “Controversial- I know, but I kinda see myself in the main character?” You confessed, making a chill run down his spine. “Not the whole- murdering and framing someone for crimes-” you laughed, hearing his silence. “I mean in the way she thinks, the way she connects things. It's intriguing.” You clarified. Making him smile, “It was a very good book. The movie too.” He smiled, picturing you being as insane as the main character, “God I loved the movie.” You trailed off. ‘This was fate. Are you telling me you feel the same way I do? In your own way- but still.’ 

Obsessive!Choso who saw you started posting two plates on a table in a restaurant. Wondering who you could be with. ‘All your friends are out of town, roommates too. Who are you with?’ wanting to ask you, but that wasn't his place. Not just yet. But that didn't stop him from scouring your following list, going through your tags. Trying to find who this person you were with was. But not even a hint was dropped.

Obsessive!Choso who sent you the photos of his family, as awkward as you pictured them. Noticing there weren't any parents, just him and his younger brothers. Calling him immediately and laughing, “Choso- you all look adorable.” You laughed, making him blush. “This is my new laptop wallpaper, I love these pictures.” You smiled, “Nope, that's not necessary.” Choso smiled, his tone full of embarrassment., But also feeling his chest warm. ‘Making me your screensaver, and telling me you love the pictures I'm in? Can we get married already?’

Obsessive!Choso who received a picture of your laptop, you acted on your words. The photo was your screensaver, not just on your computer- but on your phone as well. Your attempts to tease him only made him think that you love him as much as he did. And that's all you did, feed into his delusions and only fuel the fire that was burning inside of him since the first day he saw you. You felt like this break with him being gone was necessary. Necessary to step back and see how you really feel for him. Remembering you've only been friends with him for- if you were being generous, was a month and a half. True, you found him intriguing before you became friends. But you didn't want to risk it. Ruin a friendship with someone like him. Slowly reeling in the line you had thrown at him, becoming open to the idea of him being just a friend. 

Obsessive!Choso was on the flight home, a week earlier than he had planned- but Christmas was over. And he didn't want to be away from you any longer. Leaving his bags at his apartment before walking onto campus, small piles of snow around the doors of the coffee shop. realizing how much it really snowed. Reaching his hand for the door knob but pulling away when he hears his name being called. Turning around to see you, speed walking to him. The big coat you wore made you look like a walking marshmallow. Smiling when he saw your face, thinking of how much he longed to see you. The pixelated facetimes and photos you sent him not coming close to showing how beautiful you looked face to face. 

Obsessive!Choso who blinked and somehow opened his eyes to see the top of your head, your cheek pressed to his chest. Your arms around him, hands hesitating to hug you back at the shock. Feeling his hands rest on your puffy jacket, almost nervous to touch you. Nestling your face to his chest and murmuring “Missed you.” Pulling away and looking up at him with a smile, cold weather making his nose pinkish. “I missed you too.” He smiled, almost gulping for breath. Seeing you take a step back, smile on your face. Opening your mouth to say something, “There you are, I was wondering where you ran off to.” you were interrupted. A man coming up behind you, hand on your waist- almost pulling you away from Choso. Watching you lean into his touch- 'Um?' calling your name in his head, almost in anger. ‘Who the fuck is this?’ Seeing you smile while looking over at him. 

Obsessive!Choso who hid his irritation well, jaw clenched and eyebrows threatening to furrow. Seeing you scramble for words, “How rude of me- This is my good friend Choso I was telling you about.” You smiled, looking at the man who looked Choso up and down. Just with that, Choso knew this guy was using you. Just by looking at him. ‘I didn't know you were into pretty boys, older too.’ he thought, watching your eyes sparkle when you looked over at him. “And this- This is my… friend, Theo.” You beamed. ‘You didn't wait for me. But you also didn't give up on me completely. The hesitation at calling him your 'friend' tells me that.’ silence filling the air as you smiled, waiting for them to greet each other. “We were about to go to dinner, do you want to join us, Choso?” You asked. Seeing your 'friend' look over to you with a certain look on his face you only see in men who were expecting something more from a person. Sickeningly sweet smile on Choso's face when he heard 'Theo' speak, “He just got off a flight babe-” He started. ‘Babe. Babe? What an uncreative and unimaginative thing to call you, no wonder you invited me. He must not make you laugh, but that's what I'm here for. I'm here to make you see that this 'Theo' is nothing but a place holder. A place holder for me.'

-

pt 6 here

LET ME KNOW IF U WANNA BE TAGGED PLS ITS MY FAVORITE PART ( if u wanna be tagged without commenting pls just say sum like 'tag me continually' i don't wanna @ someone who doesn't wanna be @ ykno?

IM SORRY I ADDED ANOTHER MAN BUT PLS BE PATIENT I HAVE PLANS FOR THIS.......I wrote this today and was blushing and kicking my feet the whole time. Started at 12 pm, and finished at 3 am. I love doing this. alr writing the next part hehe

[nectardaddy]

wild youth

introduction

masterlist

note : ignore timestamps, all dividers are made by me so don't clock me for credit

yn !

self insert atp I don't even care lmao

fifth grade teacher, teaching for four years now

refuses to turn on the big lights, has christmas lights galore

has an ungodly amount of plants in her room that she often forgets about (the students keep them alive at this point)

does not fit the teacher mold, wears a lot of black and religiously wears her docs to school

her classroom is usually the loudest on the hall, but they're actually learning trust

really relaxed teacher - "god please I don't care what you do just get your work done and keep your hands to yourself"

lesson plans for science and math (WOMEN IN STEM LET'S GO)

suga !

fifth grade teacher with yn, they started the same year and are the youngest teachers there

most definitly fits the teacher mold with his little collared shirts and sweaters, dresses it down with sneakers though

a little stricter than yn, tough love king, regular user of "now who's fault is that?" and "why would you do that?"

folds sometimes and let's his students get away with things because he will wholeheartedly join them

lesson plans for history and language

hates the big lights too! it takes him like 5 minutes to turn on all the lamps and fairy lights he has

the sass of this man oh my god, has a comeback for EVERYTHING

taglist (open , send an ASK)

@19calicos @yoshit-he-dinosaur @sandwhitches @bokutoko @wyrcan

@akaakeis @darling-eos @iiwaijime @mitskicain @cherrypieyourface

@yogurtkags @cupidsblonde @honeekyuu