#I talked with my colleague earlier today and verbalized some frustrations

[terresdebrume]

Oh hello 11pm anxiety attack, I didn't miss you

[in-class-daydreams]

The Splash Zone - Tsukishima x Reader (Oneshot)

Jurassic World! AUPairing: Son of Park CEO!Tsukishima Kei x Mosasaur Trainer!Reader

- Word Count: ~9,000

- Genres: Fluff, angst

- CW: Mentions of death, objectification of main character, sexual harassment-

Mango’s Introduction: Tsukishima the younger is a bit… prickly. Don’t say that to his face, obviously, because he’s technically your boss, but for all his personality flaws, he’s definitely excellent at his job and he cares more about the people around him than he lets on. He’s snarky with that mosasaur trainer more than anyone else, but you can tell he’s sweet on her. I guess you could call it the adult equivalent of pulling a girl’s pigtails on the playground. Uh, don’t tell him I said that, he’s my boss too.

(A/N: For all of you who were interested in this series, y'all waited nearly a year for less than 10,000 words, and I apologize, haha. It's been sitting 95% finished all that time, but I moved onto some other projects because I wasn't confident in my writing abilities. After a year's worth of writing exercises via different projects, I'm now okay with putting this out for all of you. I hope my next few projects (AoT and KnY) knock your socks off, but for now, here's a little journey about following your own convictions, featuring our favorite salty blonde.)

Tsukishima had it all. Money, looks, brains, and sure, his personality could use a little work, but he wasn’t completely insufferable. Most of the time. But if you asked him, his sour attitude was hardly his fault. After all, he was the heir to a multi-trillion dollar theme park, so it’s not like there were any consequences for him talking to people the way he does. For all he cared, he could be as snarky as he liked, considering he didn’t work with many people that were willing to speak their mind to him.

“Bite me, Tsukki.”

Well, except for a certain mosasaur trainer that was really grating on his nerves. Said trainer sat across from him from her seat in his office, arms crossed and jaw tense. Tsukishima tapped his fingers on his desk.

“Are you done throwing a tantrum like a six-year-old?” he asked. (Y/N)’s hands balled in her lap. She kept her mouth shut, glowering at the desk in front of her to keep her temper under wraps.

The blonde rolled his eyes. About fifteen minutes ago, he watched her kick in the door to the employee lounge and make her way over to the mosasaur staff supervisor. All eyes were on her as she moved towards him with murderous intent rolling off of her in waves. While (Y/N) was the one with the most control over the aquatic dinosaur itself, the supervisor was the one who hired staff, had them trained, made their schedules, and completed the other overall administrative duties. Their position was a catch-all and they were meant to do the primary inspections that made the mosasaur shows run properly.

Company policy encouraged open communication between colleagues, of course. Jurassic World Theme Park prided itself on proficient employee cooperation, as per the employee handbook and what the marketing team insists they say. Tsukishima just wished (Y/N) had opened her statement with something a smidge more polite than, “Are there any grooves in your fucking brain or is it all just smooth in there?”

After that hell of a conversation starter, she and the supervisor verbally ripped into each other. If Kei hadn’t grabbed (Y/N) by the windbreaker and dragged her into his office, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they ended up ripping into each other physically, too. To her credit, (Y/N) most definitely won, but that would have been a bigger pain in his ass.

“(Y/N), you can’t speak like that to people you work with. I heard what you said about him keeping an eye on his interns, and that’s his business, not yours,” he sighed. It was too early for this crap, especially since his assistant called in sick and hadn’t made him his morning coffee, and there were a million things to do in preparation for the board meeting today. He had better things to do than settle this stupid argument.

(Y/N) looked at him with disbelief, “You think I went in there to yell at him for fun? You have no idea what happened, Kei, how are you already taking his side?”

Tsukishima looked into her fiery gaze for a moment. He leaned back, brushing down the front of his navy blue button-down.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you said,” she shot back.

He pursed his lips. “Alright, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

(Y/N)’s mouth dropped for a moment, then the corner quirked up ever-so-slightly, “What was that, Tsukki?”

“Just explain before I lose my patience,” he snapped. His ears felt hot.

She laughed, “Because you’re the picture of patience right now.”

“(Y/N).”

Although the anger in her posture returned, she was able to remain more composed than she had earlier.

“One of the interns came up to me about an hour ago to ask me about the coding for the hydraulic lift.” (Y/N) threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair, as if that was the answer to everything.

“I’ll need some more details than that.”

She groaned in frustration, “There’s the mosasaur tank and the stadium

surrounding it, yeah? And partway through the show, the hydraulic lift lowers the stadium to the underground viewing area, right? Well, for all that to happen, the codes on the control panel have to be specific,” her hands moved fervently as she got deeper into her explanation. “The codes never change, but every morning, the supervisor makes sure they’re correct and I double check before the show. If the codes are incorrect, the stadium might lift too fast, too slow, too much, or not at all.”

Kei nodded for her to continue, to which she gave a grateful nod before going back into rant mode.

“Interns don’t have clearance into that area. He gave her his fucking badge so she could go in and do the checks without him. She shouldn’t have been down there and she definitely shouldn’t have been checking the control panel. Look,” she ran a hand through her hair, “I don’t want to tell the guy how to do his job. If he wants to train the interns how to run the control panel, then fine, it’s not in my job description to police that. But that brand-new, inexperienced, fresh-out-of-college kid was all by herself down there doing that idiot’s job. She could have gotten hurt. She could have gotten other people hurt. It was her supervisor’s job to train her better and to take better care of his interns and if I don’t raise hell about this kind of stuff now, then who will? So fuck that guy, he deserved to get yelled at.”

(Y/N) heaved herself out of her chair, “And now that everyone thinks I’m a raving lunatic, I’m going back to my office to change. Try not to need me.”

~~

As the son of the owner of Jurassic World Theme Park, Tsukishima Kei was raised to do two things: work with dinosaurs and obey his father. When he was younger, he thought he would get to work with the dinosaurs as a trainer, regulate their feeding schedules, train them, and educate the masses about the wonders of science. But he was wrong. The future his father had in store for him involved dinosaurs, yes, but more along the lines of determining the cost of developing a new dinosaur or what characteristics are interesting to the general public so that the park can turn a profit.

Several years ago, when his father originally had her brought to the island, Kei had been skeptical. Out of all the candidates for the mosasaur trainer, (Y/N) had been particularly young, but for some reason, his father was insistent that the new mosasaur trainer be her. (Y/N) later proved and continued to prove that she wasn’t just qualified, but born to work with the mosasaur, Dolly, she called her. She cared for her with a deep passion that transcended interspecies boundaries.

(Y/N) was amazing at her job, and it was unfair of Tsukishima not to hear her out initially. There was a fine line between teasing as a result of mutual pining and just being a dick, and it seemed like Kei had crossed that line.

(Y/N) knew he was coming. That was one of the things she really appreciated about Tsukishima. He was a snarky asshole who liked to rile her up, and in the beginning, he was garbage at apologies, but over time, they’d apologized to each other so often that he no longer dragged ass over it. Once he realized he was in the wrong, he would find her immediately.

Tsukishima let himself into (Y/N)’s office, where he found her and the raptor trainer in deep conversation.

“Kei! Seriously, I could’ve been changing!” she yelled. She’d told him a million times to knock before coming in, but he rarely listened.

“Don’t worry, even if you were, there’s nothing to see,” he said teasingly.

(Y/N) scowled, “You wouldn’t know.”

Tsukishima scoffed.

“Anyway, Hajime, what else did that guy say?” (Y/N) said.

Kei frowned at the two cups from Tiki Smoothie in front of them. He wondered if Iwaizumi had brought her one as a surprise or if she’d asked him to bring her one. Both possibilities put him in a bad mood. Supposedly, they were just close friends, but (Y/N) forced him to watch enough Hallmark movies for him to know the friends-to-lovers trope quite well. It ranked just below childhood friends-to-lovers and just above enemies-to-lovers. He must have been staring at those cups for some time, because by the time he zoned back in, Iwaizumi had already finished his explanation.

“--train the raptors for the battlefield,” Iwaizumi finished.

(Y/N) raised an irritated brow, “Like dogs?”

The raptor trainer shrugged, “Apparently.”

“Did you tell him that’s not how raptors work?” she asked.

“I didn’t bother. He-- Sorry,” Iwaizumi fished his ringing flip phone from his vest pocket. “I gotta go, (Y/N), I’ll tell you more at dinner later,” he said on his way out the door.

“Okay, but I wanna hear about your thing with that pretty P.O. Manager later!”

The taller man stopped and gripped the door frame in surprise.

“Wha-- There’s no ‘thing’!” Iwaizumi sputtered.

“Whatever keeps your blood pressure normal."

As (Y/N) waved her friend off, Tsukishima rested his weight on the back of the vacated chair.

“What was that all about?”

(Y/N) sighed, making her way over to the wardrobe next to the door.

“Some military guy had a talk with Hajime about using the raptors for war. He said they’re better than drones because they’re not hackable and blah blah blah.”

“Does he realize that-- what are you doing?!” Tsukishima choked when (Y/N) dropped her loose gym shorts. Underneath, she wore plain navy blue bikini bottoms.

“Relax, Kei, you’re the one who invited yourself into my office. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen a girl’s bare legs, right?” she teased as she stepped into her dive skin. The tall young man moved to sit behind the desk. Forcing down his blush, he took on a snarky tone once again.

“Obviously. I didn’t think you had time for that kind of thing, since you’ve been cooped up with Darby for the last few years.”

(Y/N) shook her wetsuit at him, “Her name is Dolly! It’s always been Dolly and you know it, you little shit!”

“Language, (Y/N),” he smirked. What would my father say if he knew you spoke to me like that?”

“Oh, trust me, Malfoy, your father knows exactly how I speak to you, and he couldn't care less,” she snarked, looking pleased with herself..

The teasing glint in Tsukishima’s eyes wavered at the comment, though he knew they shouldn’t have. ‘Don’t dish it if you can’t take it’ he always said. He knew his father loved him the way any man loves his son, but Kei’s rank in his father’s heart in relation to money had always been questionable.

“Sorry. Too much,” (Y/N) said quietly. She pulled up her dive skin and removed her windbreaker, revealing a matching bikini top.

“It’s not your fault,” the blonde mumbled back. (Y/N) made her way around the desk. Leaning her weight on the edge facing him, she said, “Really, I’m sorry. That was in bad taste.”

Tsukishima waved dismissively, “It’s fine, you didn’t mean it. Just caught me off guard… Actually, I came to apologize to you for earlier.”

She grimaced, “I’m sorry for freaking out so hard. I didn’t mean to make trouble for you the same day as a shareholders’ meeting.”

“You’d be okay with making trouble for me normally?”

“That a serious question?”

With a light chuckle he said, “Right, right. It’s fine... I’m sorry for not

hearing you out. For what it’s worth, that guy is as good as fired.”

“Fired!?” she yelped, making him jump. “Wait, you can’t fire him!”

“Actually, I can--”

“Fine. As his boss, you legally could fire him, but I’m saying don’t. One, we can easily get him to clean up his act. Two, his wife is preggers. Gregnant. Pregante.”

“I got it the first time.”

“Just making sure.”

Tsukishima huffed, holding back a smile, “Worrying about someone whose head you were about to bite off two hours ago. That’s just like you.”

There was a gentle knock at the door and Yamaguchi, a paleo-veterinary intern, poked his head through the doorway.

“(Y/N), are you ready for the show? We have 20 minutes until start time,” he informed her with a sweet smile.

“Yup!” She stuffed her arms through the tight neoprene sleeves, “Are you the specialist on standby this time, Yama?”

The shorter girl turned around and moved her hair to the side in a silent request. Standing to his full height, Tsukishima pinched the sides of her zipper with one hand and pulled the tab up with.

Yamaguchi couldn’t help but laugh. His two friends stopped, (Y/N) with her hands holding up her hair, Tsukishima with his hands tugging on her suit zipper.

“What’s so funny?” his childhood friend asked. Yamaguchi just shook his head and confirmed that, yes, he would be on medical standby for the upcoming show.

“Close the door when you leave, okay, Tsukki?” (Y/N) shot over her shoulder on the way out.

“Good luck with your show,” he said simply. She frowned in confusion. Before she could comment, Yamaguchi rushed her out the door.

~~

“--near the surface of the water, where it preyed on anything it could sink its teeth into, including turtles, small fish, even smaller mosasaurs, but don’t worry, that’s not why Dolly here doesn’t have any siblings.”

The crowd chuckled. Tsukishima always enjoyed when (Y/N) did the demonstrations herself. The guides did the jobs they were contracted to do, and maybe it was that he already knew how much she loved Dolly, but whenever (Y/N) did it, it always felt less like a show and more like the introduction of a close friend of hers. That was the truth, after all.

“You see, when Dolly was born, I was the first thing she saw. This caused something called imprinting, and if I just made you think about that freaky Twilight baby, I’m so sorry.”

Another wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. “And what that means is, Dolly and I share a special bond. She feels a special connection to me that she doesn’t feel for any other creature on this planet. When she was growing up, we communicated with this,” she held up a silver whistle.

“You can’t hear these sounds, but Dolly can. She knows the sound of the whistle, and that makes her think, ‘Oh, that’s my handler! Yay, she’s gonna feed me!’ Which is something I thought whenever my mom called my name during my teenage years.”

“She’s entertaining, isn’t she?” one of his father’s associates commented. Rather than sitting in the wide open arena seats under the beating sun, Kei’s father, the elder Tsukishima, sat up in an air-conditioned glass box high above the regular seats. Today, a group of shareholders and potential investors were performing their monthly assessment of the park’s assets. After going to every single one of these meetings since he was twelve, Tsukishima was more or less used to these meetings, but he was getting irked by the way a particularly sweaty, sleazy-looking businessman two and a half times his age was staring not at the tank itself, but at the trainer on the platform above it. If it weren’t for his father, he would have nastily told all of them to never take even a single breath in her direction.

“The girl’s gotten real grown up since we first saw her,” the man said, rubbing his chin.

‘Don’t look at her like that,’ Kei growled internally.

“Good eye, Yamada-san. She just turned twenty-one,” his father replied.

‘But that doesn’t concern you,’ Kei thought.

“Really? She looks young, but she seems so mature for her age,” another dirty businessman observed.

“You always did like the young-looking ones, you creepy old man!” laughed Yamada. Tsukishima bit down on his tongue so hard he had to remind himself not to bite it off.

“Ah, yes, I took her age into account from the get-go,” Tsukishima-san said. “By nature, the mosasaurus would only accept one trainer, and I brought her to the island at such a young and impressionable age that she would only listen to me.”

“And then you have a safe way to control the dinosaur,” one of the shareholders concluded.

“Exactly. And you’re right, Yamada-san, she’s grown up to be quite attractive. Shame she ended up so strong-willed, else she might have made a quality match for my son. Perhaps if Kei here can reel her in, he’ll make a wife out of her yet, right, son?”

The younger Tsukishima’s skin crawled as every pair of eyes in the room landed on him. He could just imagine opening his mouth and ripping them all a new one. What would Yamada say if he called him out on his predatory behavior? Or he could say, ‘Ah, Mr. Kawasaki, how’s that custody battle with your wife going? I hear she’s winning because the kids would rather live with her. Oh, Chairman Yang, I didn’t see you there! Have you beaten that nasty gambling addiction of yours? Goodness, from the looks of those eye bags and how badly your ‘designer’ suit is frayed, my guess is no.”

But Kei can’t say any of those things. He has too much to lose, should he compromise his position as his father’s heir and future CEO. The blonde glanced briefly out the window at the smiling girl talking animatedly about her most treasured friend. He mentally sends her an apology for being unable to defend her yet again.

Kei grit his teeth and finally replies.

“Yes, father.”

If he were born as anyone else, he could romance her properly, instead of passing glances, not-so-subtle flirting, and raging sexual tension. They wouldn’t have had to play the whole ‘will we or won’t we?’ schtick. But he was still Tsukishima Kei. He was destined to take over his father’s company, and by design, his partner would have to attend board meetings and brunches and wine and cheese parties. Kei had no desire to drag (Y/N) into that kind of life, but what’s more, (Y/N) would never agree to it. At one time, he considered asking her about it. Ask her to consider making that sacrifice for him. But at the end of the day, he never did bring it up to her because he was scared of the answer he’d receive.

Her enthusiastic voice faded back into his consciousness, “Enough of me talking. Is everyone ready to meet Dolly?”

They all turned back to the window at the sound of (Y/N)’s voice.

The crowd cheered in affirmation.

“What was that? I can’t hear you?”

The cheers transitioned into a deafening roar.

“Alright, for those of you in the splash zone, expect to get soaked in about ten seconds and counting.”

(Y/N) pressed a button, and the feeder crane slowly moved to dangle a heavy shark over the mosasaurus tank. The trainer leaned against her platform’s railing. She put the whistle to her lips, but no one heard any sound.

“You hungry, girl?” she asked the tank. There was no prior indication of any movement before the leviathan reptilian dinosaur leapt out of the water and easily snatched up its prey with its rows of hundreds of teeth. Its great mass seemed to linger midair for what felt like forever before sliding back into the water with a giant splash that had the crowd squealing with delight.

“Hold on tight,” (Y/N) spoke up as the stands started lowering under the stadium, “We’re gonna get to take a little closer look at our girl, Dolly the Mosasaurus.”

~~

“How was your meeting?” (Y/N) asked upon her arrival in Tsukishima’s own office, finally free of her restricting wetsuit and hair still wet from her shower. Not looking up from his paperwork, the blonde grunted, “Fine.”

(Y/N) smiled and sat on the edge of the desk beside him. Both hands came up to zip her windbreaker.

“That bad, huh?”

“You sit in a glass box for 45 minutes with a group of men over fifty, and tell me you had fun,” he grumbled. Giving him a sympathetic look, she slid off the desk to place her hands on his shoulders. She gently massaged the tension from them. Lately, Tsukishima Senior had been giving his son more responsibility to “prepare him to take over the company,” which would have been a more believable excuse if the older man wasn’t relaxing by the pool and golfing with his friends 4 days a week. Kei leaned into her touch.

‘You are nothing like your father, though, Kei,’ she internally mused. Dragging her hands down from his shoulders to clasp in front of him, she hugged him from behind. Soothed by her presence, he wondered if he even needed to tell her how he felt about her. It seemed like she already suspected. Though, if she already knew and wasn’t saying anything, what exactly were her feelings on the matter?

“Today was so tiring, Tsukki,” she rested her chin on top of his blonde head. “This family was asking me questions, but their two irritating ass kids kept climbing on the primary railings, and the mom got mad at me when I told them to knock it off! Like, do you want your kids to get chomped by a genetically engineered dinosaur, Brenda? Then, she asked for my manager, and I’m like, ‘Bitch, I will literally throw you in the damn tank! There, that’s my manager, you entitled piece of-- ughhh!!” (Y/N) buried her face in Tsukishima’s shoulder in frustration. “I hate customer service! Fuck her! Fuck them kids!”

“You said that to her?” he teased. Secretly, he was happy that she was tired today. A Tired (Y/N) meant a Sweet (Y/N), and after those creeps were leering at her in the box today, he was just glad she was somewhere he could keep an eye on her.

“Suck my dick, Kei, you know I wouldn’t actually say that. I still enjoy getting paychecks,” her words were muffled by his shoulder. ‘Sweet’ is a relative term for her.

“I’d pay good money to see you cuss someone out.”

“You would, wouldn’t you,” she replied.

Tsukishima desperately wanted to tell her how he felt. It was getting really irritating that they could do stuff like this, but he couldn’t tell those sweaty old men in the box today to keep their perverted stares off of her.

Tentatively, he turned his head towards her, lips ghosting along her jawline. His heart sped up as her fingers tightened into his dress shirt.

When his arm slid around her waist, she was like putty in his hands.

“You-- You’re kinda giving me mixed signals here, Kei,” she said breathlessly. The taller male placed his forehead against hers. His eyes stared down at her lips as he debated the long-term consequences of giving into his desires.

“I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

(Y/N) brought her hand up to cup his face. They both leaned in slowly, as if moving any faster would ruin the tension.

“Don’t be…” she whispered.

The office door slammed open with a bang.

“Sir?” (Y/N) jumped back from him like she’d been burned.

“What?” he snapped at the intruder.

“Your father wants you and Miss (L/N) in a meeting right away.”

~~

“Tsukishima-san, I don’t see why--”

“Of course you don’t, (Y/N),” Kei’s father cut her off, “You have a personal connection with the animal. That was the one oversight I made when I brought you to the island as a trainer.”

They sat in a boardroom, surrounding a large table with Tsukishima senior at one end, (Y/N) at the other, and the board members on either side. The blazing sunlight of Isla Nublar that shone in through the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room contrasted heavily with the dark tension permeating throughout the room. Kei tapped his fingers against the table from his spot on his father’s right side.

Of all the ‘strategic investments’ his father made, this was definitely not one Kei could have predicted.

The girl took a deep breath, “With all due respect, sir, it can’t be a good idea to reinvent a new species of mosasaur. I think--”

“See, that’s the problem, sweetheart,” the sweaty man from before chimed in. “You’re not here to think, you’re here to look pretty, and to tell the dinosaur what to do.”

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Yamada.”

“I don’t appreciate your attitude, little girl,” he shot back.

Tsukishima Senior cut in, “Try to understand, (Y/N). The Indominus Rex has been a huge hit. The numbers say that these new hybrid dinosaurs are the next big thing. We can’t pass up an astronomical amount of money just so you can keep your pet.”

“My pet?” (Y/N) spat.

“Now, (Y/N), there’s no need to get hysterical.”

“Hysterical? My reaction is perfectly reasonable considering you want to euthanize the creature I’ve raised since birth, which, may I remind you, is something you people wanted me to do.”

“Doctor Wu and the rest of the genetics team is already engineering the genetics for a new mosasaur. Bigger, more teeth--”

“But they couldn’t engineer any more brain cells for all of you?!” she interjected.

“That’s enough!” CEO Tsukishima slammed his hand on the meeting table. “You’re like a daughter to me, (Y/N), but I won’t take this level of disrespect from you.”

(Y/N) rested her hands atop the table and leaned in, meeting his glare head-on.

“If you want to do anything to Dolly, you’ll need my help, and I will not do anything that can compromise her.”

“What a mouthy little thing,” one of the shareholders muttered.

“Give her to me, I’ll shut her up,” another said loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Tsukishima took a deep, stabilizing breath from beside his father.

“I chose you because I saw something in you. I never expected you to be this selfish,” the elder snapped, “You’re being unreasonable. Kei is barely older than you, and he understands that there’s profit to be made by replacing the damn dinosaur. Tell her, Kei.”

The room went silent. (Y/N) stared deeply into her friend’s golden brown eyes.

‘Don’t do this, Kei. They want you to become your father, but you are not your father. You are so much more.’

The younger Tsukishima felt like he was being crushed by an incredible weight. Whatever he did now, it would be nearly impossible to take back. If he chose her, his father may never forgive him. The problem was: If he chose his place as his father’s heir, would he ruin his relationship with (Y/N) forever? Which one of them could he live without? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. His steady gaze met with (Y/N)’s intense stare. He hoped he sounded more sure than he felt.

“Yes, (Y/N). My father’s right.”

(Y/N) first looked surprised, then immensely disappointed. Realizing there was no one on her side, she sighed.

“I came to this island because I thought this company might be different. When you asked me to train the mosasaurus from birth, I was overjoyed at how much you cared for her development,” she made sure to stare into the soul of each and every dirty scoundrel in the room. “But I made a mistake, too. All of you are cowards. Selfish, soulless, money-grubbing cowards.” Blazing eyes finally landed on Kei’s wide golden brown ones. She aimed her final statement at him.

“Every last one of you.”

Kei’s heart squeezed so hard he thought his chest would collapse.

“Tsukishima-san!” a mousey-looking secretary burst into the boardroom. CEO Tsukishima clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“What is it now?” he snapped.

“It’s the Indominus! She’s escaped!”

Deafening alarms and flashing red lights resounded throughout the control room. Kei could barely hear his father barking orders to the security team. One of the technicians pulled up a giant map of the park on the main screen.

“She’s still on the outer edges of the park, but she’s moving fast, sir,” they said.

“Have the Asset Containment Unit get this thing under control. Make sure they use non-lethals.”

“Non-lethals!” (Y/N) yelled, outraged.

“We have 26 million dollars invested in that asset,” the elder Tsukishima growled.

Exasperated, (Y/N) threw her hands in the air. She avoided Kei’s eyes as she

turned and sprinted out of the control room.

Kei hesitated. Before he could chase after her, his father ordered him to stay put to help in the control room. Though it made him feel like he wanted to vomit, he obeyed.

Several hours passed and Tsukishima’s mind felt like it was at its breaking point. The monitors flashing red in the dimly lit control room strained his eyes to the point where he was convinced he’d need a stronger prescription after this. The beeping of the ACU team’s EKG monitors flatlining rang in his ears so loud he wished he would just go deaf. The Indominus was picking off their security team with ease, sometimes several members at a time. The young man rubbed at his temples.

“Tsukishima, we’re evacuating the rides on the outer edges at the park,” the lead Park Operations Assistant slid a map over to him. Taking a red marker, she circled a few attractions directly in the escaped dinosaur’s projected path.

“But I think these preparations insufficient,” she said, nervously twisting

the pen in her grip.

“We’d evacuate the whole park if it were up to me,” Tsukishima said under

his breath.

The assistant pursed her lips, “It’s a shame we’ll definitely be shut down

after this. You would have made a great CEO.”

“Are you flirting with me?” the blonde joked.

“Please, you’re so whipped for (Y/N) it hurts to look at you,” the assistant snorted in reply.

Before Tsukishima could make a snarky retort, both of their attentions were drawn to CEO Tsukishima, who had a large, middle aged man at his side.

“Kei, come over here!” the older man called.

Tsukishima handed the map back over to the assistant, “This is fine for now. If the situation escalates or if it doesn’t improve in an hour or so, close all the attractions on the west side of the park. I’ll be right back.”

The assistant grabbed his arm, “Tsukishima, that’s Vic Hoskins, the head of the private security force.”

“My father introduced us not long ago. What about him?”

“Commander Hoskins isn’t just a brute, he’s an ignorant one, and that makes him dangerous. If your father is listening to him, be careful.”

Tsukishima nodded gratefully.

“I will. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait for the assistant’s reply before making his way to his father’s side, who pulled him off to the side. Hoskins had apparently taken his leave.

“The helicopter will be here in 10 minutes, make sure you’re at the helipad by then,” he told his son.

The younger Tsukishima’s eyes widened.

“What? Where are we going?” he asked.

His father turned to him, “Commander Hoskins has strongly advised us to get off the island. We can do our part in containing this crisis remotely.”

The younger man blanched, “We’re just going to leave? We still have people to evacuate, not to mention medical teams to coordinate, personnel to--”

CEO Tsukishima placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, “We can do all of these things remotely. Our first priority is maintaining our safety, and besides, the situation is in good hands with our employees here. It’s as good as contained.”

The CEO smiled and turned to leave. Kei didn’t move.

“Come on, Kei,” the older man urged.

Tsukishima took a deep breath.

“If the situation is ‘as good as contained,’ then why are we leaving the island?” he asked.

His father sighed, “I understand your concern, Kei, this is a safety issue--”

“So, you agree? You do think that evacuation is the correct safety measure?” Kei looked his father directly in his familiar amber eyes.

The elder shifted, “What are you implying, Kei?”

“I’m saying as long as we choose not to actively evacuate the island, we have a responsibility to our employees and to our guests to stay and control the situation the best we can.”

The flatlining EKG monitors were still ringing in his ears. If he left the island now, he’d never stop hearing the beeping of those monitors. They’d exist in his nightmares forever.

“Stay here, then, Kei,” his father’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.

He raised a brow, “Just me?”

“There’s no point to being in power if you refuse to reap the benefits of it. The helicopter is leaving soon. Join me, Kei. Don’t try to play hero when you’re not.”

(Y/N)’s face flashed in his mind. He couldn’t be sure where she ran off to after she left, but if he had to guess, it would have been to the main hall or to the infirmary to care for guests. Either way, she’d never dream of leaving the island with so much at stake. Neither could he, and the thought of leaving her behind made his answer clear.

“No, I’m not going. Have a safe flight.” He turned on his heel and marched back to the central console. To his horror, Asset Containment Unit Alpha had been almost entirely wiped out. Only 4 members of a 12-person team remained.

“They’re not gonna make it, Tsukishima, we need to tell them to pull back,” the P.O. Assistant insisted.

He nodded, “Do it.”

The woman quickly gave the order. “Has your father finally--”

“My father is vacating the island with the board members and other investors as we speak,” Tsukishima said.

“Why am I not--” the assistant’s phone went off. “Hello? ...You what?”

“What happened?”

She snapped her phone shut, “It’s--it’s Takeru, my nephew. He was visiting the park today, but my assistant says he got separated from her, and-- and--”

“Hey,” he grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t freak out. It’s not like you, and it won’t help.”

“You’re right,” she said shakily, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “I know I have work to do here, but I have to go find him, Tsukishima. I can’t--”

“I get it. Just go.”

The assistant nodded gratefully, sprinting out of the board room. As she

left, yet another assistant came for his attention and he was plunged back into the thick of things.

Meanwhile, (Y/N) stood at the doors of the underground lab. Her eyes were wild and her face flushed from exertion. The pristine, white lab was a stark contrast to the sweaty, panicked mob she passed by on her way here. It was as if the panic of the Indominus’s escape had no effect, save for the swarm of people in lab coats quickly packing up their equipment into thick armored suitcases. With the move in full swing, the lab doors were set wide open. In the chaos, she managed to slip into one of the adjoining storage rooms, where she found a large computer monitor. The bright blue screen was blinding in the dimly lit room. A profile displayed on the screen read “Indominus Rex.”

The young woman scrolled down the profile. She had to find out what the dinosaur was made of. The ACU would never survive without that information. They may not even survive with it. Finally, under the section titled “Genetic Makeup”, she found what she’s looking for. Before she could react to her findings, there was a sharp pain in the skill and she dropped to the ground unconscious.

Back in the control room, Kei gripped his cell phone tightly. Eighteen missed calls and (Y/N) still wouldn’t pick up. He couldn’t fight it anymore. He had a tech trace her cellphone and he hastily exited the room.

Once he left the building, Kei was greeted with what he expected hell looked like. There was a swarm of panicked park guests, sweaty and fearful. Several were injured from the sudden panic. Some had a haunted look in their eye that suggested they’d seen something that would haunt their nightmares for years to come. And where was his father? Safe on a helicopter, leaving all these people to fend for themselves simply because he could.

Kei was disgusted with himself. The Indominus had escaped hours ago. All this chaos could have been avoided by simply evacuating the park. But who cared about people’s lives when there was still profit to be made? Sure, he hadn’t actively supported his father’s selfishness, but he definitely didn’t object to it either. In all his indecision, ultimately, he was siding with his father. He was equally to blame for all this.

As Kei entered the underground tunnels, the screaming and cries of the panicked went silent. He realized he could hide away in the tunnels until the situation had blown over. Instead, Kei chose to press forward, knowing it wasn’t fair that he had that luxury.

The Mosasaur Stadium sat in the middle of the underground tunnels. From his view from the glass, Dolly, like her trainer, was nowhere to be found.

By the time Kei made it to the lab, it had been picked clean of equipment and personnel. All that remained were sterilized lab benches and pristine white walls. He found (Y/N) on the floor of an empty storage room. There was a nasty gash in the back of her head.

Kei kneeled and gently put two fingers to her pulse.

“Wake up!” he snapped at her. To his relief, her eyelids fluttered open. “Thank god. What the hell were you doing down here?”

“Ouch, my head,” she moaned. “I thought… the ACU… If they knew what the Indominus was made of…”

Kei nodded in understanding. He removed his tie to apply pressure to her wound.

“And? What is it?”

(Y/N) shook her head.

“I dunno. I think they hit me right as I saw.”

(Y/N) sat up, slowly regaining her strength.

“How much of the park has been evacuated?” she asked.

Kei checked his messages, “Almost everyone has been moved to secure locations or off the island completely.”

“What’s left?”

“The control room.”

She looked at him meaningfully and he nodded in agreement. Quickly dialing a number, he raised the phone to his ear.

“Evacuate the control room,” he said.

“Sir, are you sure?” the voice on the other end replied.

“Positive. I’ll take care of everything when I get there,” Kei reassured.

“...take care, sir,” the voice said reluctantly.

“You too.” Tsukishima ended the call and looked at (Y/N), who was already standing. She steadied herself against a wall, her balance wavered slightly, but her eyes were resolute.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

The underground tunnels were expansive. As the mosasaur trainer stalked down the hall ahead of him, Kei forced himself to speak up.

“I couldn’t, you know,” Tsukishima said.

“If you have to talk to me, say shit that makes sense,” (Y/N) snapped.

“My father. He wanted me to evacuate with him, but--”

“What? You could’ve gotten out of here! Do you have any idea how hard shit’s hit the fan?”

“I needed to know you were okay.”

(Y/N)’s expression softened for just a moment, then she ripped her gaze from his face. She retorted, “Why? You don’t seem to have a problem with hanging me out to dry.”

“(Y/N), I was--”

“Would you have left if not for me?” she demanded, stopping and facing him with her arms crossed.

It took Kei a minute to find an honest answer.

“No. I wouldn’t have. I’m rich, I’m an asshole, but I wouldn’t have left all these people. Not when I have the kind of clearance to help them, and especially not since all this is my fault.”

(Y/N) looked at him, bewildered.

“Your fault? How on Earth is this your fault?”

Kei shrugged, “I knew evacuation was the only safe bet, but I was too much of a coward to tell my father so. At least my father is blinded by money. Me, I don’t have an excuse.”

(Y/N) walked on silently for a while, opening her mouth a few times to speak, but shutting it each time. Eventually, she gave into the silence.

They came to the underground stadium, where the massive fiberglass panes housed the park’s biggest attraction.

(Y/N) placed her hand on the glass.

“Dolly… You okay, girl?”

Something enormous splashed into the water. When the bubbles cleared, there was Dolly, swimming around the bitten carcass of a pterosaur, as if she was celebrating her catch. The reptile’s handler smiled weakly.

“Good girl.”

“(Y/N).”

Tsukishima took her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. His tired eyes met hers. The blonde watched as the only person who really mattered to him glared back with a look of sadness, frustration, and betrayal.

“You would have supported them?” she asked sharply.”

“Look, I’ve been trained to follow orders my whole life--”

“And I’m sorry for that. But you can unlearn what you’ve been taught, Kei. You know how much I love Dolly! You knew, and-- and,” she gripped his shirt. The trainer hung her head in defeat.

“I thought you weren’t like your father.”

“I’m not, I promise. I’m sorry,” he whispered. This was it. He had to tell her. If he didn’t do it now, he never would.

“(Y/N), I lo--”

“No!”

Kei looked stunned, “No?”

“No! Dammit, Kei, I can’t do this with you right now. First, this is not the time. Second, you stabbed me in the back, like, two hours ago!

“I said I was sorry!”

“I get that, Kei, but for important shit like this, sorry just isn’t good enough, okay? Now, let’s get to the control room and get this dinosaur under wraps, then maybe we can have this conversation.”

Tsukishima pursed his lips, “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

(Y/N) kept walking down the corridor, “Don’t be. Let’s just deal with the situation at hand.” The trainer produced a flip phone from her pocket. The person she was calling picked up on the third ring and she put the call on speaker.

“(Y/N)!” the familiar voice called in relief.

“Yama! You’re still doing okay?” she asked. The line went quiet for a while,

“Yams?” Another pause before the intern responded, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She and Tsukishima looked at each other, “Yama, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, I just… Oh god, (Y/N), it’s Hinata,” Yamaguchi’s voice

cracked at the end.

(Y/N)’s breath caught in her throat, “What happened to Hinata?”

On the other end, she could hear Yamaguchi choking back a sob.

“He went to the aviary to check for survivors and I saw his vitals monitor. He’s flatlined, (Y/N), he’s dead.”

Tsukishima closed his eyes. The whole situation was snowballing so damn fast and there was so little anyone could do about it.

“No…” (Y/N) whispered, “Jesus, I’m sorry, Yama.”

“Me too,” he replied. Yamaguchi sniffled, then his voice stabilized, “Anyway, keep making your way to the control room. I’ll get into the database somehow and we’ll figure out how to stop this thing.”

“Got it. Please be-- ...careful,” she said softly.

“(Y/N)?”

She clutched her head, “It’s coming back to me now… Yamaguchi! The Indominus! I saw it on the database, could it be part raptor?”

On the other side, Yamagichi gasped, “They never let me see the file, but now that I think about it, it’s highly likely! I’ll contact Iwaizumi and see if there’s anything he can help with! Let me know if anything changes!”

“I will. Please be careful,” she begged.

“I will, and you, too, (Y/N). Tell Tsukki I love him.”

“I love you, too, Yamaguchi,” Kei replied. With that, the call clicked off.

(Y/N) inhaled deeply, “Hinata’s dead.”

“I heard.”

She shook her head, “Let’s just keep moving. I--”

Her eyes fixed on the tank where Dolly had just leapt out of the water for prey again. Bubbles flooded their view as the massive dinosaur crashed back down into her tank. (Y/N)’s mouth dropped open.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it?”

(Y/N) started sprinting down the corridor towards the control room, “I have an idea!”

~~

‘You better know what you’re doing, (Y/N),’ Tsukishima thought. He paced the floor of the control room nervously as he waited for the signal.

Their plan was well underway, and it had gone surprisingly well, which was all the more reason for him to feel like something was going to go horribly wrong.

When (Y/N) originally told him what the plan was, his response was, “Fuck no,” but after Yamaguchi and Iwaizumi both agreed that it was their best bet, Kei relented, though not without voicing his displeasure extensively.

That girl was really lucky he L-worded her. Through the security monitors, he could see the T-Rex and the Raptors were tag-teaming the Indominus. They seemed to be making progress, but the whole group looked like they were losing steam.

The radio beside him crackled to life, making him jump.

“Kei? Can you hear me?” (Y/N)’s voice came through the machine.

“Loud and clear.”

“Okay, on my signal, cut the power to Security Fence 4.”

The button was red, marked with bold black letters, and had a plexiglass case over it. Kei pressed the “disable” button, making the screen read, ‘UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND: Please enter credentials.’ He typed, ‘Tsukishima Kei,’ placing his hand on the biometric scanner when prompted.

‘MANUAL OVERRIDE: Accepted

All the previously red buttons turned green.

“Okay. Ready when you are.”

“Good. Now, listen to me, Kei,” she said grimly, “You have to cut the power the moment I tell you to. The system has a backup generator that will kick in within 30 seconds. If it's electrified when we hit it, the jeep will explode and our whole plan is shot. That fence can NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT be electrified when I get there, do you understand?”

The male nodded weakly, then, realizing she couldn’t see him, said his affirmation aloud. The radio went quiet. On the screens, the Indominus dug it’s rows of razor sharp teeth into the T-Rex’s neck, throwing the creature as far as it would go. The T-Rex lay there and did not move.

The Indominus Rex roared in victory and went in for the kill. There was a bright flash of red further away as someone offscreen lit a flare. The light became brighter as the person neared (Y/N) and they tossed it into the jeep, catching the Indominus’s attention.

Turning away from it’s prize, the hybrid screeched in rage and took off towards the light. (Y/N) hopped out of the driver’s seat, placing something on the gas pedal and diving away from the vehicle.

‘It might be better if I stay in the jeep and drive it myself,’ he remembered her saying back in the control room.

‘Better for you dying. If the impact with the fence doesn’t kill you, you’ll either drown or Dolly will eat you,’ he’d snapped.

‘But what if--’

He cut her off, ‘But nothing. Put a brick on the gas and move out of the way. There’s no reason to put you in any further danger.’

Amazingly, Kei was the one who won that debate and that’s what brought them to the present moment, with (Y/N) scrambling up off the floor and sprinting out of the Indominus’s path.

The hybrid dinosaur sprinted after the jeep that was speeding towards the mosasaur tank. The distance between the two was closing at an alarming rate.

Just before the vehicle made contact with the security fence, the radio crackled to life, “Now, Kei!”

Tsukishima slammed the button.

‘SECURITY FENCE 4: Disabled’

Just before it made contact with the fence, the jeep’s metal frame crunched under the Indominus’s powerful jaws.

“Fuck!” Kei yelled at the sight. A few seconds later, the buttons turned back to red and the screen read, ‘SECURITY FENCE 4: Enabled.’

“Well, what now?” he yelled into the radio.

“Uh, I don’t--! Fuck-- I don’t know, I’m out of ideas!” she cried in response.

Having been given a break, one of the raptors jumped in, ready to finish the fight. The creature leapt into action to subdue the murderous hybrid, but with that size difference, she wouldn’t last long.

On the verge of panic, (Y/N) said, “If the jeep broke through the fence, Dolly would have noticed the prey, but the Indominus by itself hasn’t gotten her attention! She must be too deep!”

“Well, then, get her attention!” he shot back.

(Y/N) gasped, yanking her whistle out from inside her windbreaker, “Hold me up to the main PA.”

He reached over and jabbed the button.

(Y/N) looked up when she heard his voice over the speakers spread throughout the park, “Whenever you’re ready.”

As Kei keld the radio up to the PA, (Y/N) put her whistle to her lips and blew as hard as she could, the sound undetectable by human ears. They waited with baited breath as the Indominus flung the raptor aside, where the smaller reptile did not get up. The Indominus stopped and let out another bloodcurdling roar.

When nothing more happened, all Kei could think was, ‘We failed.’

Just then, quicker than Kei could comprehend, an incredible volume of water overtook his field of view. Water droplets obscured the CCTV cameras giving him a view of the action, and when they cleared, it took him a moment to register the massive aquatic dinosaur protruding halfway out of its paddock. It held the silver, spiny-backed hybrid in its ginormous maw of thousands of teeth. Crushed by a predator honed by millions of years of evolution, the Indominus writhed in pain and panic, but its struggle only opened more wounds in its flank. It screeched in pain or terror or frustration, Kei wasn’t sure. The only thing that mattered was the slick sound of Dolly sliding backwards into her enclosure, taking her prey with her. All that was left was dark purple blood, soaked pavement, a broken fence still sparking, and a crushed jeep.

“Holy shit,” Tsukishima whispered.

“Holy shit,” (Y/N) murmured in agreement before her knees gave out and she fell to the floor unconscious.

~~

With the Indominus gone and the pterosaurs having been hunted down by the military, park guests were being reunited with their friends and family. Rescue teams were sent to canvas the park for survivors, though they were advised not to get too close to the mosasaur tank. Tsukishima shuddered, knowing that the mosasaurus was always fully capable of leaping halfway out of its tank, she simply chose not to, perhaps out of respect for (Y/N). If, by some miracle, the park survived, he’d have to enforce some serious regulations.

“Tsukishima-san?” one of the surviving guards came to collect him. Conveniently, Kei’s general demeanor kept him from flinching at being addressed the way he heard everyone address his father. The guard led him to a private section of the infirmary, where he saw (Y/N) sitting on a cot looking like she’d spent the last 10 hours in a ditch, though her injuries otherwise looked far from anything life threatening.

“Oh, relax, I’m fine,” she said when she saw the look on his face. “I just got myself all scratched up jumping out of the jeep. I’m not even that hurt.”

Kei scooped her up in his arms in relief.

“Okay, owie, owie, I’m not completely unharmed, stop, stop, stop,” she whined.

The tall male pulled back and stared down at her. The left side of her face has several cuts and she held an ice pack to her ribs on the same side. She had heavy bags under her eyes, but those same eyes shone with relief and delight now that the whole ordeal was over.

“I’d ask if you had brain damage, but you must’ve already had some to come up with such a reckless plan,” he scolded.

(Y/N) gaped at him, “Reckless? It worked! Don’t be mean, Kei, I did good today.”

“You would have done great today if you hadn’t come back to me injured.”

“Again, it worked, didn’t it?”

“I suppose,” he rolled his eyes. “But it would really do wonders for my blood pressure if the person I care about most didn’t have such self-destructive tendencies.”

She grinned at his choice of words, “What was that you called me just now?”

“Self-destructive.” Chuckling, he took her hand in his, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of it. “Are we gonna be okay?” he asked, not making eye contact with her.

Content, the girl smiled and nestled against her pillows. Her eyes slowly drifted shut.

“We’re gonna be just fine, Kei,” she replied. For a moment he thought she didn’t quite understand what he meant until she squeezed his hand gently. Tsukishima smiled in relief, squeezing her hand back.

“Kei?”

“Hmm?”

“I feel the same way.”

@delicious-peaches-blog

@unusproomnibusomnesprouno

@mac-the-oregonian

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Elliot, Just a Tech

Summary: Plagued by not having Admin rights on your work computer, you contact the IT department expecting to talk to your usual guy. However, you are greeted by someone new.

A/N: Consider this post-show

WC: 2596

Warnings: None

You looked over the icons on your desktop for the eleventh time, dragging the old version of Adobe into the trash for the tenth time, and growling with frustration as the error message appeared for what felt like the hundredth time.

Please enter an Administrator’s Username and Password.

After the great email phishing scam the month prior, the IT department had been directed to revoke all employee’s Admin rights to their computers. It wasn’t your fault your colleagues were too dumb to realize that you should not click on email that has been flagged as spam, even if it is a version of your boss’s name: Mattthew Whitman has scheduled a meeting with you at 9 pm!

As if Matthew spelled with three ts wasn’t enough to deter someone, scheduling a meeting at 9 at night should have been, not to mention the exclamation point to top it all off—no one ever enthusiastically scheduled a meeting. Ever.

Alas, no less than 13 people had opened the email, severely compromising the integrity of the network.

You needed to get rid of the old version of Adobe in order for your network’s cloud to allow the download of the updated version, so you were left with no choice but to submit a ticket to the IT department.

You and Matt, no relation to Mattthew your boss, had had several Zoom sessions since the start of the quarantine, mostly thanks to your need to actually get some work done. With so many more people on your network, the IT department was doing the best it could to make sure everyone was achieving basic functionality.

Opening a new work order, you quickly filled in your information and snapped a screen shot of the error message. In less than a minute, you had an email inviting you to a Zoom session.

“Matt’s really on it today,” you said while opening the link and waiting for him to start the session.

You had just glanced away to check your To-Do list when someone opened the Zoom session and you paused, staring at the downturned face of someone who was definitely not Matt.

“Hi,” you greeted awkwardly.

“Hi,” he answered, still not looking into the camera.

“Where’s Matt?”

The stranger looked into the camera, clearly caught off-guard.

“Uh, he’s off today.”

“So they finally unchained him from his desk—good for him!”

The stranger’s eyes widened a little in amusement, but he didn’t smile which caused your grin to quickly fade.

“Are you . . .” the stranger trailed off as he glanced at his other desktop monitor. “Y/N?”

“I am. And you are?”

“Elliot.”

“Are you the new Supervisor they were hiring for last week?”

“Nope. Just a Tech.”

“All right. Well, hi, Elliot, just a Tech. I’m in dire need of installing an update, which I cannot do because my colleagues are dumbasses.”

This time Elliot did smile, and you found yourself reaching up to fix the wild bun on the top of your head, wishing you had actually taken some time out not to look like a troll who had crawled out from under its bridge.

“I see that you can’t install Adobe’s update without administrative permission.”

“Yup. That’s my issue, I think.”

“I want to try something first,” Elliot said, concentrating on the task at hand as he looked away from the camera and to his other monitor.

“Can you locate your system preferences? You can find it by clicking on the appl-“

“Done. What do you want me to go into?”

Elliot looked back into the camera, then gave you a series of steps which you quickly followed.

“I am only semi-illiterate when it comes to technology,” you said, trying again to get him to smile and this time it worked.

Elliot adjusted his headset and lowered his eyes as he grinned. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to explain over the past few days.”

“Oh, I would absolutely believe them. I’ve talked three people in my department off a ledge just by explaining the magical powers of “Command + Z.”

Elliot chuckled, and the sound of his laughter filtering through the mic on his headset made you want to stay on the call as long as you could stretch it out.

“It looks like the program is not responding. I’ll need to take remote control of your desktop.”

“Have at it.”

You watched as Elliot worked, waiting for your mouse to start moving across the screen, but nothing happened.

“Uh, do you have any error messages on your end?”

“Nope.”

“Let me try one more thing,” Elliot mumbled, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

You sat quietly, letting him work, which gave you an excuse to just look at him and the more you looked at him, the more attractive you realized he was.

Elliot had a stylish haircut, although it looked like his fade had grown in quite a bit thanks to the lockdown. Tufts of straight black hair stood up on either side of his headset and you wondered if they’d be stiff or soft to the touch. His eyes were large, clearly the most enticing of the features of his face, except for his angular jaw that made you softly smile in appreciation of its masculinity. Elliot may consider himself “just a Tech,” but he was a damn good looking one.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” you blurted out, forgetting all of your manners thanks to the lack of social interaction.

Elliot fumbled as he was typing and looked into the camera, his lips parted.

“Oh, lord. That came out . . . blunt. I asked because Matt’s been loving working from home. His wife just had a baby and even though he’s chained up in his home office at all hours of the day he still gets to spend time with the people he cares about. Which is what I was trying to ask you—if you were enjoying working from home.” You finished with an awkward laugh, and a barrage of mental curses to yourself.

Elliot’s lip turned up with a quirk. “My sister stops by to bring supplies, but I live alone.”

“Oh—well, that’s nice you have someone to interact with. I still see my sister, too.”

“I like this. Not having to interact with people.”

“The only downside is the verbal vomit you spew when talking to someone new because you no longer understand social protocol.”

Elliot laughed again, that same breathy little chuckle that upgraded from drawing your attention to making you shift in your chair.

“I’ve never been particularly adept at social protocol. Hence . . . just a Tech.”

You laughed and Elliot must have liked the sound because he stopped to watch you, his eyes flicking over your face through the camera.

“You need to update the Zoom app for me to take over your desktop. I don’t know why yours seems to have this glitch, but are you ready for the steps?”

You grabbed your pen and a fresh post-it. “Lay it on me, Tech.”

Elliot smirked, then listed the steps. “I’m going to close the call, but as soon as you’ve completed the steps, click on our Zoom link again.”

“Got it!”

Your eyes connected and lingered for just a moment before Elliot closed out the call.

You missed him immediately.

“Oh, Matt. If I had known Zoom calls could be like this, I’d have dumped you long ago.”

You shook your head to clear it and began to go through the steps Elliot had listed for you. You wanted to get this right to prove to him that you weren’t incompetent.

Having successfully, and quickly, completed all of the steps on your Post-it, you reinitiated the Zoom meeting.

“You’re quick.”

“I’m sure you’re much, much faster,” you said.

“I can only go as fast as the web connection, unfortunately,” Elliot replied, staring into his other monitor again.

“Let’s try this again—remember the steps to give me remote access?”

“I think so . . .” you said, trailing off as you began to click.

You paused, then your mouse began to move without you.

“Excellent job,” Elliot praised and you knew you wanted him to praise you again . . . preferably away from a computer, maybe in a bedroom—

“All right. So I need to delete, reinstall, and wait for an error message that’s been popping up making this a little harder for people to do themselves.”

You watched Elliot control your computer, and once he got to a point where the app was updating, he paused and turned back to the camera.

“About that girlfriend thing you asked me earlier. Are you seeing . . . anyone?”

“I was . . . about six months ago. By the time I was ready to get back on the horse, the plague struck.”

Elliot chuckled. “Not exactly the best time to start dating.”

“No,” you said softly laughing, too. “I agree with you, about the whole nice not seeing people thing, though. For me, it’s more about setting my own schedule. I get so much more done without constant interruptions just to chat.”

“Kinda like we are now?”

“Hey! We are waiting on a signal to go to space and come back. It’s only polite to give it some time so it doesn’t feel like it’s being watched—like a watched pot never boils kinda thing.”

Elliot smiled, his eyes meeting yours and lingering as you smiled back.

A new box popped up breaking your eye contact and Elliot went back to work.

“Fixed. You shouldn’t have to worry about the next update. We’ve been reporting this glitch regularly so the developers should have it fixed by then.”

“Thanks, Elliot. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s my job,” he said with a slight shrug.

“Well, enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” you said, wishing you had a reason to stay connected.

“Yeah.” Elliot replied, looking at you again with those hypnotic, grey-blue eyes. If they could impress you through a screen, imagine what they looked like in person. “You too.”

You smiled at each other and when neither of you closed the call, you both laughed, Elliot looking a little shy and you looking a little embarrassed.

“I’ll close it. Don’t forget to fill in your survey so big brother knows I did my job.”

“Five-star service, all the way!”

Elliot chuckled again, and you shivered this time, the sound of his voice working its way through your entire body, filling you with a pleasant warmth.

“Bye,” he said, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth as he ended the meeting.

When the session closed out, you began to think of ways to break your computer so you needed to talk to him again, but before you could pull a purposefully dumbass move like downloading a virus, a sticky note popped up on your desktop.

212 555 0179

Probably breaking work protocol, but text me sometime if you want.

~Elliot, just a Tech

“Oh my god!” you gasped, glancing up at your camera to make sure you really were disconnected, unable to shake that feeling like someone was watching you. You reached for your packet of stickers and placed a fresh one over the camera of your computer—better paranoid than sorry!

“Should I text him now? Is that desperate? Or is it mean to make him wait? Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you said, pacing around your small office space.

“Just a simple hello,” you decided. “First, gotta find my phone.”

After walking through your apartment, you found your phone in the kitchen, unsurprisingly because snacking had become your favorite hobby since the lockdown began. It was a blessing and curse to be able to eat whenever you wanted.

You took your cell back to your computer and smiled again at Elliot’s virtual Post-it note and typed in his number and contact information.

Hi, Elliot ☺️

Hi, Y/N. I hope your emoji means I didn’t creep you out

That’s what this one 😱 is for

Lol. Got it. I don’t really do the emoji thing. They kinda confuse me

Well then! Maybe that’s why we met? You know all the real techy stuff, and I know all the silly techy stuff. I can teach you to emoji like a boss 😎

Sunglasses = boss? Shades? Because bosses are shady?

🤣more like the shades mean you’re just too cool to care. Like a boss attitude. But actually 🤔that’s a really great analysis!

See? Confusing 👽

Confusing as in no one knows what’s really “out there” huh? Wow. I like your way of emojiying (new word, just go with it)

Lol really?

I do!

Can I ask you something?

Sure

Which emoji makes you think of me?

👀🦋💬🧸🧨 😰📱😃  

You stared at Elliot’s text, a goofy grin on your face as you tried to puzzle out his emoji story. The eyes, okay, but the rest was sort of a mystery.

Lol! I need to do this in pieces so you can tell me if I’m right or wrong

Ok

So, you saw me and thought I was nice? Pretty? Delicate?

Lol pretty

Ok. Thanks, btw. We talked and then, oh boy, this is tough. An exploding bear? Talking to me made you feel like you were going to die? This is not good.

🤣 Poor choice of the firecracker, clearly, but take them as two separate things. What do you associate with a teddy bear?

Um, childhood . . . safety? Protection?

Close! Warm, safe. You seem like a warm, safe person to talk to.

I am grinning like an idiot right now. You are so sweet. But on to the firecracker? Wait! Like sassy? Like I have a firecracker personality?

Yes! You’re funny in a forward, witty way. I guess the “She’s a real firecracker” thing might be a bit outdated.

I LOVE IT. I gotta keep going now. This part is easy, I think. Sooo even though you felt nervous, you took a chance and left me your cell, and now you know it was a good choice because you made me happy.

Almost—when you texted, it made ME happy. Hence 😃 and I have big eyes so I used the big eye happy face.

I.am.dying. That’s the cutest thing anyone has ever done over a text in the history of the world!

Lol. Is there a dramatic emoji because I don’t think anything I’ve ever done is that great.

This WAS great. I’m serious

Do you wanna maybe have dinner over Zoom? God how lame is that?

You respect the quarantine—not lame at all. I’d love to!

They let me unchain myself around 6. I’ll send you a link at 7?

Perfect! But what are we going to order? Shouldn’t we order from the same place to make it more authentic?

Do you like Chinese?

Who doesn’t?

You looked at the location Elliot sent and laughed with the irony that it was your favorite take-out spot.

How did you know that was my favorite take-out spot?

Lucky guess 🤷🏽‍♂️

Well, lucky Elliot who is just a Tech. I’ll “see” you at 7. If we order the same dinner, I’ll consider it a sign that we are meant to take over the world together by eliminating one dumbass’s access to a computer at a time 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️

Lol except that would leave me out of a job

We will find you something more meaningful, I promise

Make me a list 😃

You got it! Can’t wait for 7 ☺️

Me either

* * * * *

Tags: @ramimedley @clumsybookworm18 @r-ahh-mi @aboutthatmelancholystorm​ @alottanothing​ @sherlollydramoine​ @txmel​ @diasimar​ @hah0106​ @flipper-kisses​ @rami-malek-trash​ @ramisgirl512​ @dancing-disco-deacy​ @just-a-queen-bee​ @eightiesriot​

Maybe a Part II?��

[marginalgloss]

the light of day

‘…The only real social advantages are those that create life, that can disappear without the person who has benefitted by them needing to try to cling on to them or to make them public, because on the same day a hundred others will take their place. Remember as she might the words of the Queen, Mme de Villeparisis would have bartered them gladly for the permanent capacity for being invited everywhere which Mme Leroi possessed, just as, in a restaurant, a great but unknown artist whose genius is written neither in the lines of his shy face nor in the antiquated cut of his threadbare coat, would willingly trade places with the young stock-jobber from the lowest ranks of society, who is sitting with a couple of actresses at a neighbouring table to which in an obsequious and incessant chain come hurrying owner, manager, waiters, bell-hops and even the scullions who file out of the kitchen to salute him, as in the fairy-tales, while the wine waiter advances, as dust-covered as the bottles, limping and dazed as if, on his way up from the cellar, he had twisted his foot before emerging into the light of day…’

I noted some time ago that the second volume of In Search of Lost Time took me a while to finish. The third, The Guermantes Way, seems to have taken me even longer, though in truth I would find it hard to say for certain whether that’s really the case. In recent months I’ve found myself falling out of the habit of obsessively noting the start and end dates of my reading (via goodreads) and though I still write about every book I finish, I have neglected any kind of accurate online record of my current reading. 

Perhaps my heart was never really in that aspect after all. I like recording my thoughts after a fashion but the comparative aspect doesn’t appeal. I find I am like this with other things as well: I like to keep information, but I never know how to organise my life around it. I track my credit card and bank account spending with devotion but I’m not sure I spend less money as a result. 

This is a roundabout way of saying that I’m not usually interested in debating about books with other people. But I’d be lying if I said the urge doesn’t sometimes come upon me. I saw a colleague with A Little Life tucked under her arm going into the lift earlier today and all kinds of half-remembered thoughts about that big, weird, frustrating book swirled through my head; but of course I could never say anything. It was nice to know that I’d captured some of those feelings at the time, even if I’m reluctant to ever refer back to them. I sometimes think: I would like to talk about these feelings, even if I don’t want to argue about them. 

The Guermantes Way is built around something of this same tension. The shape of the book so often puts the individual, the narrator, against various awkward crowds. He is old enough now to enter society, and in his case society means an ever-changing impressionistic backdrop of faded French aristocracy. The question of what he ought to be doing there only resolves itself in terms of whether he should speak up or be silent, and for the most part he is silent; he listens, and for the most part is overlooked entirely. The result is frequently fascinating, but it is also the noisiest, and sometimes the most interminable, of the series so far.

That it is frequently boring (there is no other word) is exactly the point. The narrator will only say this in the most roundabout way possible, but the people for whom he is supposed to nurture an admiration turn out to be dullards. Their shallow preoccupation with heritage is a constant example: whereas the narrator is content to expound for pages on the potency of a few words or a single name, these people will reel off lists of names and places and dates like it was nothing at all, and demand credit for the weight of the words alone. 

Another example: the notorious Dreyfus affair is mentioned throughout, being the chief topic of contemporary controversy. But for the narrator the details of the case are less significant than the way in which it becomes a social battleground for the people around him. While he expresses a certain amount of distate at the explicit anti-semitism, it is hard to imagine the narrator becoming especially animated about anything or anyone in a social situation. On the page — writing for the reader, with the benefit of recollection — he is effusive and fulsome. In person he is entirely unassuming, and easily overlooked. 

Perhaps this novel is an attempt to link those two worlds: the world of individual felt sensation, the feelings of a mind alone and adrift, noticing things, as anyone does, and which contains those moments of startling beauty so frequent in Proust’s writing; and what is commonly called the real world, where all of that is put away and where humans talk and belong together as social creatures, and where those beautiful moments either hang on the air forever as soon as they are put into words memorable and fine, or where they shrivel up and vanish on the breeze. 

For the most part I think The Guermantes Way shows the gap between these worlds can never quite be bridged. But there are exceptions, most frequently where the narrator is alone with one or two other persons. The early sequences with Sainte-Loup are charming for the wide-eyed love and esteem, largely unrequited, with which he regards his friend. Later, Albertine appears again, a strange refugee from the previous novel in a few short scenes, where the narrator’s desires as a young man become much more apparent than they were before. 

And then there is, near the end of the book, a long and fairly bizarre confrontation with M. de Charlus. Earlier in the book, this older and somewhat decadent gentleman effectively propositions the narrator into a relationship — taking him for a sort of up-and-coming ingenue, Charlus seems to want him for a lover, or an apprentice, or both. But over the course of a few hundred pages the narrator effectively ignores his offer, thinking it the best way of evading any responsibility. We think no more of it until he visits Charlus later, and the older man explodes:

‘“…I think you do yourself an injustice when you accuse yourself of having said that we were friends. I do not look for any great verbal accuracy in one who could all too easily mistake a piece of Chippendale for a rococo chair, but I really do not believe,” he went on, with vocal caresses that grew more and more sardonically winning until a charming smile began to play about his lips, “I do not believe that you can ever have said, or thought, that we were friends! As for your having boasted that you had been presented to me, had talked to me, knew me slightly, had obtained, almost without solicitation, the prospect of becoming my protégé, I find it on the contrary very natural and intelligent of you to have done so…I will even go so far as to say,” he went on, switching suddenly and momentarily from haughty anger to a gentleness so tinged with melancholy that I thought he was going to burst into tears, “that when you left unanswered the proposal I made to you here in Paris, it seemed to me so unbelievable on your part, you had who struck me as well brought up and of a good bourgeois family,” (on this adjective alone his voice gave a little hiss of impertinence), “that I was ingenuous enough to imagine all the tall stories that never happen, letters miscarrying, addresses misread…”’

Charlus goes on and on like this, the clauses and sub-clauses piling up, in a sequence which goes on for perhaps fifteen pages. The climax comes with an act of violence: words having failed him, the narrator picks up Charlus’ silk hat and tears it to pieces. It is the only scene of really aggressive confrontation in the whole of Proust’s series thus far, and it is deliberately overwrought (like Charlus himself) to the point of absurdity. It is one of those perfect little set-pieces in this book which we wash up upon, like islands of wonder. 

Today we would probably call Charlus a psychopath. It is as much as the narrator can do to wonder if he would be capable of murder. But for all his instability, in the vivid expression of his manic emotional states he seems more like a human being than many of the strange automata who populate the salons and ballrooms of this novel. And what is he doing if not putting to voice the same kind of incessant, imaginative self-regard that drives the narrator himself? Those lines above, fuelled by doubt, about imagining the tall stories that never happen — letters miscarrying, addresses misread — are the stuff of novels, and the stuff of this novel in particular. Proust is confronting the torrent of his own immense verbosity, and the only recourse is to silence, and a simple act of unswerving defiance. 

[jordan202]

My Boys Drabbles - Thomas (Part One)

Hi Guys!

After such a long hiatus, My Boys is back! And this time around, we are going to explore the only pregnancy I haven't fully written about. Thank you @jia911 for proofreading this so fast!

The Prompt: 

@cizavilation I think was the one who asked me to write about Thomas’s pregnancy.

Timeline:

This one sets just one or two days after The Return (the story when Cristina is back in Seattle). 

My Boys Drabbles – Thomas (Part One) 

Amelia let out a sigh of frustration, watching as a strand of hair was blown from her nose.

She was bored.

It was no secret she considered that mandatory hospital meeting a complete waste of time and judging by the yawns and amount of empty coffee cups around the big round table, her colleagues felt the exact same way.

One by one, Amelia examined the facial expressions of the other heads of department. Alex Karev seemed too entertained playing with a loose thread of his white coat sleeve. Meredith Grey repeatedly twisted the lid of her Starbucks drink, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but there. Jackson Avery was having a hard time keeping his neck straight and not falling asleep. Only Maggie seemed to be paying attention to the words of the seventy-something infectious diseases specialist who gave that exact same lecture on infection control and prevention every trimester at the hospital.

Amelia knew that every hospital had an ICC, or Infection Control Committee, a division that worked both preventing and helping treat hospital related infections. Every three months, the ICC of Greys Sloan mandated that all hospital workers attended lectures on continued education programs. But the heads of each department had to sit through an exhaustive meeting where data was shown and discussed.

Amelia knew that the ICC head treated all health care workers like they were potential threats. But she had a particular despise for surgeons, reason why whenever she hosted the meeting with the surgical department, they were to expect a lot of frowns and criticism.

“So we were able to isolate two different strand of coagulase-negative staphylococci in three of the orthopedic surgery patients who have…”

Amelia rolled her eyes, uninterested in the rest of the talk. She was just considering what she would have for lunch when, across the big table, her eyes met Owen’s.

He was looking at her with a discreet smile on his lips and Amelia instantly smiled back, identifying the loving eyes in his expression. She supposed Owen would shift his attention back to the lecturer after her response, but instead, he kept staring at her, making Amelia feel like he could see through her soul.

Containing a chuckle, she pointed to the ICC speaker with her eyes and then gently moved her head, as if telling Owen to focus his attention back on the woman.

But all her husband did was lean back on his chair and defiantly keep looking at her with his heavy gaze, maintaining a smile on the corner of his lips.

Amelia noticed the amusement in his eyes and couldn’t help feeling her heart flutter. Owen was so silly. Why did he have to look at her with that loving expression, especially in a room full of people? Her husband wasn’t saying a single word, but the message he was communicating was very clear.

It was obvious he was very happy and Amelia knew exactly why.

Taking her hand to her lower abdomen, the neurosurgeon grinned widely. Just two days before, she had informed Owen that she thought she was pregnant. On the following day, Amelia had taken a blood test to confirm it and found out her assumption had been right. She indeed was carrying another child.

It was a crazy notion to think about. They had a seven month old at home and Lucas was still very much dependent on them, Amelia especially. Just a couple of weeks before, Amelia had gone back to work and she knew her baby was really resenting the sudden change. Right now, he was upstairs in daycare and Amelia couldn’t wait for lunchtime to see him.

Some of the caretakers at day care advised parents not to go see the kids during their breaks because it made it harder on them to adapt. Amelia thought it that was complete bullshit. The more she saw Lucas, be it fifteen minutes or an hour, the better for them both. She had to work because it was her job and she loved it. But her baby would always come first and Amelia didn’t want to be one of those parents who only saw their kids briefly at night before putting them to bed.

Her gaze fell back on Owen and she realized he was still staring at her with that same expression on his face. She knew that by now, he was teasing her. But the silly look he had on added to the charming smile on his lips distracted Amelia enough that she forgot all about where she was and couldn’t help letting out a loud chuckle.

“Dr. Shepherd, is there something you want to add?”

Amelia immediately turned her head in the direction of the acid voice that had asked her the angry question.

The ICC senior attending stared at her with a demanding face and a scowl of disapproval. The neurosurgeon knew she should be embarrassed to get called out in the middle of a lecture like a high school kid, but she was so amused by Owen’s now mortified expression that she just couldn’t be bothered.

“No, not all.” Amelia replied with a shameless grin. “I was just making a mental note to stay away from the Ortho wing.” Her voice fooled her forced seriousness as she added. “Don’t wanna catch that strain of Staph.”

A general round of laughter followed and Amelia took her time to try and make eye contact again with her husband, unsuccessfully. The lecturer still seemed displeased, but she resumed her speech as soon as the general uproar died down. Judging by the way his ears had turned red, Owen was extremely embarrassed and Amelia easily guessed why. She had been the one busted but he had been the one pestering her.

It was no wonder why now he was extremely committed to paying attention to what the eldest woman had to say, apparently determined not to cause any more distractions in the meeting.

.

The clock had ticked five in the afternoon when Amelia finished her accumulated charts on that gray Monday. After a quick trip to daycare, the surgeon picked up Lucas and followed to the ER. She and Owen often drove to work together and she didn’t mind waiting a bit for him if he was busy. But it took Amelia quite a while to find her husband and when she did, he looked like something alarming was on his mind.

“Hey,” Amelia caught up with him in a meeting room. “Are you ready to go or do you need a few more minutes?” It was then Amelia noticed her husband wasn’t alone. Two women she recognized from hospital administration were with him, and so was Richard Webber. Sensing something wasn’t adding up, Amelia fired the next question before Owen could reply to her previous one. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Owen tried to sound assuring, getting up at the same time he gave her a smile and proceeded to kiss the top of Lucas’s head affectionately. “I think I’m going to be a while here, do you mind driving home with Luke today? I’ll be a little late.”

Amelia looked into his eyes, quickly catching up on the fact something was wrong but Owen couldn’t tell her about it now. The way he’d blocked her view from the other people in the room and suggestively made eye contact with her while saying she should go home were the cues Amelia needed to know that whatever her husband was up to, it sounded serious.

“I’ll see you later at home, then.” She discreetly nodded, letting him know she’d understood the non-verbal message.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Owen promised, giving her a kiss on the forehead before giving his attention back to the people inside the room.

Lucas fussed in her arms, trying to reach out to his dad, but Amelia left the room before her baby could interrupt the meeting. She had no idea what they’d been discussing there, but judging by the seriousness in her husband’s face and overall thick atmosphere she’d found the men in, the news wasn’t good.

It was past eight in the evening when Owen finally made it home. He unlocked the front door to find Amelia sitting on the couch with their son in her arms, happily talking to the baby while the TV was on in the background.

“Hey guys” Owen smiled widely but the look of exhaustion was clear on his face. Amelia watched as her husband came over and gave her a kiss on the lips before turning his eyes to their boy. “Hey little man… How are you doing?”

After seeing his dad, Lucas’s happy face transformed into a big grin. Owen leaned over and kissed the side of his neck, loving to feel his adorable baby smell. It was a comfort to be welcomed like that by his family after an exhausting day at work.

“And how is this little one?” Owen sat on the couch by Amelia’s side, lazily rubbing her lower stomach.

“It’s too early for me to feel anything.” Amelia confessed, delighted by Owen’s obvious expectations. “But we’re both good. What’s up with you?” She asked, showing her concern by gently striking the hair at his nape. “You don’t look well.”

Owen took a deep breath and slowly let it out, grabbing his wife’s hand affectionately before giving it a kiss.

“I am afraid I have some bad news…” Owen’s tone of voice was too serious for Amelia’s taste. “Bailey is on an extended medical leave.”

“Why?” Amelia expressed her concern through a heavy frown. “What’s wrong with her?”

Despite not being personally close to their chief of surgery, Amelia respected and admired the woman.

“She recently found out that she has a mass on her breast. Yesterday they confirmed it is malignant. She starts treatment this week.”

“Oh.” Amelia felt deeply sorry for the woman. The neurosurgeon knew how nasty cancer could be, so she hoped for the best for Bailey. A few seconds went by before Amelia remembered the scene she’d witnessed earlier that day. “Is that why the hospital administration was talking to you today?” She furrowed her brow questioningly. “Wait, they are not allowed to disclose this type of information.”

“They didn’t.” Owen clarified. “Bailey told me herself this morning. And then she warned me they’d come after me.”

“But why?” Amelia couldn’t make any sense of the situation.

“Because Bailey is stepping down for at least a couple of months so she can focus on her treatment,” Owen explained, trying to be reasonable. “And they’ve asked me to fill in for her in the meantime.”

“You mean take care of the paperwork in her absence?” Amelia attempted, seeing the look of guilt on her husband’s face.

“No.” Owen said with serenity. “I am saying they actually want me to be chief again.”

The trauma surgeon had no idea how his wife would react to that, but he expected some sort of heated response.

Instead, silence was all he got.

“Amelia?” Owen tried to reason with her. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Did you take it?” She raised an eyebrow, sounding alarmingly suspicious. “The offer? Did you take it?”

“No.” Owen carefully answered, knowing he was going into dangerous territory. “I was going to talk to you first before considering it. Why are you mad?”

“I am not mad.”

“Well, you sound mad.” Owen refuted her, trying to be as gentle as possible with his choice of words.

Lucas chose that exact moment to play with his spit and reached out to grab Owen’s face with a happy giggle.

“I am not.” Amelia replied with a tone that pointed otherwise. She wasn’t actually sure what she was feeling at that moment. “I’m just… I don’t know. Are you going to take it?” Her voice went from defensive to insecure.

Owen took a deep breath and confessed:

“I don’t know… I mean, I have to be honest and say that despite the annoying bureaucratic part, I did like being chief once.” He cleaned up Lucas’s continuous spit bubbles from the baby’s now wet face. “I guess I just always thought that part of my life was over.” The trauma surgeon explained sincerely. “And at the same time I know this is awful timing, with us just adapting to having a baby and getting ready for a second but I also feel like I should be a team player and help our friends in a time of need. And besides, it’s temporary.”

“But you’re not the only one qualified for the job.” Amelia added, trying to figure out her own feelings. She supposed she didn’t want Owen gone for any time longer. They already worked busy hours. Being chief meant adding more to his workload. Not only would she miss him at home, but there was also Lucas to think about. As if being a parent wasn’t new and scary enough, very soon they’d have a second child and Amelia was terrified of not being able to handle everything. “I mean, why can’t Webber do it? If it’s only temporary.”

“Webber is in over his head with his colorectal fistulae trial.” Owen explained, knowing his wife was aware of what he was talking about. “The board was considering Jackson but he is too naïve and inexperienced to fill in for three without any prior training. I am the only one who knows the job and can perform it with such short notice.”

Amelia let out a heavy sigh. Logically, it made sense that Owen accepted the offer.

“But what would that mean for us?” She asked, hating to feel like she was being selfish.

“That’s exactly my problem with it.” Owen explained with honesty. He already worked long hours and wanted to enjoy the free time he had in company of his family. Every minute he missed with them was a minute he was never getting back and at this point the trauma surgeon already knew too well what his priorities in life were. “I know I’ll be working more hours but I told them the condition to accept this offer is to cut back my ER hours and focus mostly on the bureaucracy.”

“But that’s the part you like the least.” Amelia pointed out. “That arrangement would mean you’d barely operate at all.”

Owen shrugged, conformed.

“It doesn’t matter.” He smiled shyly. “This is the way I won't let down the people who need me both at work and at home. It’s just for a couple of months” Owen smiled, leaning a little closer to nudge his nose to his wife’s face. “And just for your information, I’d much rather be here with you guys than anywhere else.”

Amelia pretended not to be convinced but his charming charisma eventually won her over.

“Alright, fine!” She laughed when Lucas touched the side of her face with his lips on a messy kiss, prompting Owen to do the same on the other side. “Alright, alright, I am convinced…” Her giggles echoed louder in the living room, mixing with Lucas’. “Just promise me we’ll still see you.” Amelia instinctively took her hand to her belly.

“You will always come first.” Owen affirmed with security, giving Amelia one quick kiss before focusing his attention back on their son.

Twenty minutes later, Amelia noticed as Lucas started to get cranky and decided to go put him down while Owen went for a shower. The trauma surgeon also went for a quick meal before heading back to his bedroom, but to his surprise, he found Amelia in their bed with Lucas in it.

“I thought he was tired.” He raised one eyebrow questioningly, well aware of how hard it was for Amelia to let go of their son. He couldn’t blame her, though.

“He is, but he is also hungry.” Amelia justified still having Lucas on their bed.

Owen looked at their healthy seven-month old. Lucas was a big, fairly large baby. His indecently delicious chunky ankles proved to be almost irresistible and the way his blue eyes seemed to stand out on his round face was too much for both parents to bear. Owen had always wanted to be a father, but he had no idea how delightful it really was to get home after a heavy day at work and hear the sound of his baby’s laughter, or to see him throw himself in his dad’s arms, absolutely happy for nothing other than Owen’s presence.

“He is always hungry.” Owen pointed out, getting beneath the covers next to Amelia. He watched as Lucas didn’t let go of his mother’s breast while deeply staring at her the entire time he fed. “I think he is in love with you.” The trauma surgeon pointed out with a chuckle.

“Well, I am in love with him,” Amelia replied, wrapping her arms tighter around her baby. He was the most gorgeous baby in the entire planet and she was absolutely sure of it.

It didn’t take Lucas more than a few minutes after that to fall asleep. Much to her dismay, Amelia let Owen take him to his cradler in the room opposite to them. She had just finished setting up the baby monitor when her husband returned to their bedroom, startling her by unceremoniously pulling her and lying on her top in bed.

“You smell like rash cream.” Owen laughed, on purpose sniffing her hair.

“Someone had to do the dirty work.” Amelia teased.

“No one is complaining…” He smiled, leaning over to steal a kiss. “That being said… I think we’ve made it to the most important question of the night.” He held the suspense, being cute on purpose. “What are we doing for Valentine’s day?”

Amelia was absolutely surprised by the question and realized she had completely forgotten about the date. It seemed like for the past seven months (and even prior to that), she and Owen had been mostly devoted to Lucas. So much that they had spent less and less time alone together. But since their baby was already eating solids and tolerating more hours in the absence of his mother, it was reasonably fair that they asked either Evelyn or Maggie to watch him for a couple of hours just so they could sneak out of the house for a little bit and have some time to be together.

“You want to go out to that little restaurant down the street?” Amelia asked with excitement in her eyes. She and Owen used to go there quite often and they were already familiar with the couple’s personal preferences.

“I guess it makes sense, being so close to home. We won’t waste any time in traffic or anything.” Owen agreed, already looking forward to it.

“I think I am going to order the crab cakes and…”

“You always want the crab cakes.” Owen rolled his eyes playfully, pointing out he wasn’t surprised.

“That’s because they are the most delici-”

Amelia’s sentence was interrupted when her husband stole a kiss.

“You don’t want to talk about the appetizers?” She teased him, biting her lower lip while Owen gently slid a hand on the curve of her thigh, sneakily exploring.

“Not really,” he whispered against her ear before giving Amelia a kiss that would make her forget all about the restaurant menu. “I’d much rather just skip straight to dessert.”

.

Two days later, Amelia was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. After a long day at work, her entire body ached.

“I think my head is going to explode.” She told Owen as he got dressed after showering. “Now I know how Luke was feeling earlier this week.” Just days before, Lucas had come down with a nasty cold he’d caught at daycare. Apparently, Amelia had caught it too. “I can’t believe I am sick. Today of all days.” She complained.

“You don’t look too good.” Owen stopped putting on his shirt and studied Amelia’s expression a little closer. He’d spent the entire day at the hospital catching up with his new position duties, but when he’d left home that morning, Amelia didn’t have the dark circles around her eyes like she did now.

“Why, thank you.” His wife replied sarcastically, unsuccessfully trying to tie the strap of her high heel shoe.

“I mean it.” Owen ignored her willfulness. “Are you sure you’re okay to go out?”

Amelia let out a heavy sigh. For the past months, she had barely seen her husband and even at times when they could be together, she had had a hard time letting go of Lucas because being away from him devastated her. As expected, Owen had been nothing but understanding and hadn’t once complained or demanded more attention. But deep down, she knew he’d been craving for this night when, for at least a couple of hours, they would be able to have a conversation that didn’t involve diapers or spit bubbles. For the first time in a while, Amelia felt fairly comfortable to leave her child at home with his grandmother because the plan was perfect. They would be just a few blocks away, so in case of any eventuality, she could quickly make it back home.

But right now, her head felt like it would burst at any second, her throat was dry and sore and she was having a hard time gathering enough energy to even tie a shoelace.

“I am so sorry…”

Owen’s confusion was clear on his face when he heard Amelia’s sobs.

“Amelia?” He gave up buttoning his shirt and went to sit by her side on the bed, watching with shock as a couple of tears fell from her eyes. “Babe, are you okay?”

“I don’t think I can make it tonight.” Amelia said apologetically, sustaining his look with her bright blue eyes drowning in tears. Owen didn’t have enough time to process that before she buried her face on his neck. “I am sorry…”

He chuckled and surrounded her waist with his arms, pulling her closer. During Lucas’ pregnancy, Amelia had also been emotionally messy. Owen supposed it was the hormones that got the best of her.

“Hey, don’t worry, okay?” The trauma surgeon ran his hand on her back up and down, gently trying to soothe her. “It’s not your fault.”

Her voice sounded muffled against his shirt.

“Of course it is… I know how much you were counting on this and now…” Amelia sniffed, trying to pull herself back together. “It’s my fault that we’re not going on a date.”

“Well, I never wanted to go out on a date.” Owen said convincingly. Amelia was obviously surprised, because she lifted her head and looked into his eyes with a lot of questions on her face. “I wanted to be with you.” He stated, knowing that deep down it was true. Owen had indeed been looking forward to go out with her, but it was okay that they couldn’t go that night. They could do it the following week, or whenever they wanted. All he’d strived for was being with Amelia, and if that meant being at home, so be it. “I’ll tell you what,” Owen smiled, trying to cheer up his wife. “You can’t go on the date, but the date can come to you.”

“Owen, what the…?” Amelia frowned, watching as he got up and picked up one of his coats.

“You stay here and take some aspirin.” He instructed, picking up Lucas from the floor mat and then the baby’s coat and car keys. “We are the men of the house.” Owen said with a smile, giving Lucas a kiss on the cheek before looking back at his wife with his son in his arms. “We’re on it.”

Amelia gave up the dress and the fancy shoes as she spent the next forty minutes emptying a box of Kleenex as her runny nose wouldn’t give her a break. She had just felt the relief of being pain free after the aspirin kicked in when the sound of Owen’s car caught her attention.

To her absolute delight, her husband walked into the house carrying two large bags with take out food from their favorite restaurant. Somewhere along the way, he had called his mother to let her know they weren’t going out to dinner anymore.

“The crab cakes!” Amelia celebrated, picking up the box containing them. She had to dodge Lucas’ attempt to get his hand on the food before looking up at Owen with dreamy eyes. “You remembered!”

Owen smiled, glad to see she seemed a lot happier than before.

“Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” Amelia asked playfully, trying to juggle eating her food and containing Lucas on her lap at the same time.

“I surely hope so.” Owen replied, absolutely relaxed.

He and Amelia were sitting on the floor of their living room with several boxes opened on their coffee table. Lucas repeatedly tried to make moves for the food, even though he had just been fed, entertaining both his parents with his excessive gluttony.

“Do you think the new baby will be like him?” Owen asked, ruffling Lucas’ hair and being rewarded with a wide, toothless smile.

“I hope he or she is more like me.” Amelia chided. Lucas was physically similar to Owen. Only his eyes were like hers. It was only fair the new baby had some of her traits.

“Not gonna happen.” Owen teased her. In reality, he didn’t mind one bit if their next child took after Amelia.

“We’ll see about that.” Amelia replied challengingly. “And don’t say what you’re about to say. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

“What?” Owen asked, genuinely confused.

“You think that just because you’re the boss now you can get away with things, but it’s not happening.” Amelia gave him her best devilish smile.

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Well, I was.”

Owen noticed the spark in her eyes at that moment but soon enough, his son’s happy giggles distracted him and thoughts about work quickly vanished his mind.

That valentine’s date in trio wasn’t exactly what they initially had in mind, but he had enjoyed it so much that he felt happier than he’d felt all day. He wouldn’t mind repeating it year after year. Owen hadn’t expected that they would have another baby so soon but now that he knew for sure his wife was pregnant, he was completely enjoying the idea.

And as he went to bed that night, Owen slept peacefully, without the faintest idea of just how much trouble his wife would cause, turning both his personal and professional lives completely upside down.

--

So Owen is the new chief and Amelia is his pestering pregnant wife. How is that going to work out? :)

[languagethrills]

5 WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION MISTAKES TEACHERS SHOULD AVOID

I am not perfect at communication. I am a teacher, so I am good at delivering classes. But when it comes to communicating marginal issues at work, issues that don't necessarily concern the curriculum, I often fall short. My students are undeniably the center of my attention every day, but they're not the only people at work I interact with on a daily basis. In fact, I would argue that teachers spend almost as much time communicating with each other as with their students, though of course if would differ from school to school. Communication breakdowns between work colleagues can lead to a drop in productivity, feelings of resentment and even resignation. Those are some serious reasons to want to be better at it.

Do you ever...

...hear "You should have told X about this earlier" from your supervisor?

...find yourself come home from work ranting to your loved ones about something that was said to you by a colleague of yours?

...hear "There's obviously been some kind of misunderstanding here"?

...wonder if you should tell anyone about an ongoing issue in your class or leave it be?

...say something that sounds completely innocuous, get a reaction opposite to what you expected, and realize your intentions were all wrong to start with?

Here are 5 work communication pitfalls that teachers often commit and ideally should replace with better behavioral or thinking patterns.

#1: ASSUMING

I arrive at work assuming that the weekly Monday meeting will take place at a usual time today. Monday is a busy day, and I'm completely immersed in lesson prep and ignore to check my phone. I step out to pop into a shop thinking I'll have plenty of time to come back right before the meeting. I come in only to find the meeting in full swing, and I'm embarrassed -- everyone is looking questioningly. After the meeting is over, I offer my apologies to the management, and check my phone to find a message about the meeting being moved to an earlier time. Assuming is such a common reason for communication breakdown that I could have given you 10+ more examples. A while ago I heard someone on the radio ask: "Are you an assumer or an inquirer?" "I'm an assumer," I was somewhat upset to admit. In my experience, people who would rather ask than assume tend to have fewer communication problems. What to do instead: Be an inquirer, not an assumer

It's very simple: if you don't know the answer -- ask. Assume nothing. Not when it comes to your students. Not when it comes to your workplace. Especially not when it comes to communication. If you can't immediately reach a person who you think will know the answer, plan on asking, and don't assume anything until you do. It is upon you to be the one who asks the right question.

#2: WITHHOLDING

Michael teaches a teenagers class. The majority of the children in class are boys, and there's a lot of horse-playing and friendly banter happening during the lessons. Michael manages to control the situation most of the time, but notices it can sometimes go out of hand when some of the more boisterous children cross the line and get verbally obnoxious. Michael can see that this bothers other children in class who feel they are being picked up on and decides to tackle the problem by addressing the whole class and talk to them about the importance of being friendly and tolerant in any circumstance. He decides not to say anything to the management, fearing of being perceived as being unable to control children in his care. Weeks later he receives a message from his school management that the parents of one of the children being picked up on decided to take him from this school. Michael realizes that the problem ran more deeply that he had assumed. Naturally, the management has questions. Teachers do it for various reasons: Michael's was fearing of being perceived as a lesser teacher. Some people do it our of pride to prove to everyone including themselves that they can do it without anyone's help. What to do I instead: Share with people who are supposed to know

Make sure everyone who is supposed to know about the situation is told about it by you. Perhaps the best advice that I'd ever received when it comes to communication was from my mentor, who said "Never leave the issue lying -- always address it head-on." Issues left unaddressed will almost definitely surface, only this time people involved will have questions about not being informed about it before. It is way better to be forthcoming. A conversation delayed is a problem exacerbated. #3: EXPECTING

Diane is an educated woman working in a small private language school. She likes being appreciated for the work she had put into her training, and expects respect in communication with her colleagues. The company goes through downsizing and Diane is made redundant. She's devastated, and doesn't understand why.

At work, there is really only one rule regarding expectations to live by:

What to do instead: Ask yourself if what you want is in everyone's interests

It is awfully nice to be appreciated, understood, listened to. It is wonderful to work in a place where people fulfill their promises and uphold unspoken agreements. And wouldn't it be glorious if everyone was courteous,  mannerly and genuine with us all the time? In reality, we live in a ever changing world surrounded by people who are having it just as hard as we do -- what makes them any smarter, mentally stronger and kinder than us that we expect this behavior from them, especially when deep down we know that it may not be in their interests? Not expecting doesn't have to make you jaded -- on the contrary, it may add a little more empathy to your life. After all, you are trying to understand whether what you're expecting is realistic from the other person's point of view. And once you do, you can be free of resentment.   #4: POINTING FINGERS Patricia is substituting a teacher who is sick. When taking over the classes, she notices that the teacher had been behind the syllabus for a while. When asked by the management how Patricia is  getting on with her temporary classes, she is quick to point out that the other teacher has been lagging behind, and that is why she is finding it difficult to keep up with the pacing. No one likes a person pointing fingers -- it makes for a situation where all parties will resent each other. What to do instead: Channel the conversation into what you've done

You may say something like "We started with X and are now doing Z, so I think that by the of next week we'll be doing Y." And just leave it at that. In an ideal world, I would make it a rule of thumb not to get into a conversation about people who are not in the room unless you want to evoke confidentiality regarding a conversation at hand. #5: FAULT-FINDING

Ashley is a teacher in a summer language school. She knows she is a good teacher, who is also smart and perceptive. In a meeting with her supervisor, she is quick to point out the issues that need to be addressed, but is unhappy with the solutions her supervisor has to offer. All parties leave the meeting a little frustrated and resenting each other. There is nothing wrong with bringing out the issues that need to be looked at. A good manager will want to surround themselves with people who are willing to work towards improvement. Your intention however should be primarily to work towards the solution of the problem. If it isn't, you will continuously get disappointed, frustrated and resentful. . What to do instead: Have a solution to offer

It is always a good idea to have a possible solution at hand - it will set your expectations  for the communication right, and will likely leave your management pleased with your initiative and willingness to find a solution. We fall victims to communication breakdown from time to time, and we all need to be better at it.  The key is to recognize the mindsets that lead to these or similar situations described above. Every situation described here is personal to me, in one way or another. I have been continuously learning to be a better communicator. I wrote this post in hope you would embark on this journey with me exploring your own communication shortcomings and taking it upon yourself to improve.

www.languagethrills.com

[everettwilkinson]

SCOOP: Freedom Caucus to file petition TODAY to bring up clean Obamacare repeal — RUCKER on Trump, DAWSEY and HULSE on Trump/McConnell — PLAYBOOK ON THE ROAD winners

Happy Friday! FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — SOMETHING PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL LIKE. The conservative House Freedom Caucus will file a petition today to try to force Speaker Paul Ryan to bring up a so-called “clean Obamacare repeal” bill. The legislation passed the House and Senate in the past — it repeals Obamacare after a two-year transition period. (It failed the Senate this year.) If the discharge petition — which will get filed during today’s pro-forma session — gets 218 signatures, it will force a floor vote. The Freedom Caucus and conservative outside groups will try to ramp up lots of pressure to force people to sign on. Expect Trump — itchy for victory, and frustrated with Republican leaders on health care — to weigh in. He’s close with some members of the Freedom Caucus.

US WEEKLY: SPICER WANTS ON SNL — “An insider reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly that the New York-born political aide ‘is angling’ to appear on Saturday Night Live. ‘He is asking people about getting on — it was his idea!’ … But now he’s ready to get in on the joke. ‘He asked someone he knows that is close to a cast member to help him,’ explains the insider. ‘Yes, he criticized SNL before, but he’s changed his tune. He wants to make a cameo!'” http://usm.ag/2uMOMCl

Story Continued Below

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP SAID YESTERDAY …

— HERE’S WHEN WE MAY ASK HIM IF MCCONNELL SHOULD STEP DOWN: “If he doesn’t get repeal and replace done, if he doesn’t get taxes done — meaning cuts and reform — and if he doesn’t get a very easy one to get done, infrastructure — if he doesn’t get them done, then you can ask me that question.” Note from us: None of this is easy. Especially not with the artificial deadlines the administration has put on him.

— OPIOID CRISIS IS A NATIONAL EMERGENCY: “It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had. You know, when I was growing up they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs. There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years.”

— HE’S CLOSE TO A DECISION ON TROOP LEVELS IN AFGHANISTAN: “It’s a very big decision for me. I took over a mess, and we’re going to make it a lot less messy. But that has been a place — 17 years — our longest war, I read in one of your columns. And, frankly, it’s going to be a decision that’s going to be made very soon.”

— BANNING TRANSGENDER SOLDIERS WAS A “FAVOR” TO THE PENTAGON: “As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military. It’s been a very confusing issue for the military. And I think I’m doing the military a great favor.”

— THANK YOU TO PUTIN FOR EXPELLING U.S. DIPLOMATS: “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down on payroll. And as far as I’m concerned, I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There’s no real reason for them to go back.” Note: Putin didn’t fire them from the State Department. He just expelled them from Russia. We imagine the payroll hasn’t really changed.

JOHN HEFFERN, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (@AmbHeffern): “The State and inter-agency community is thinking about our colleagues in Moscow and Consulates as they prepare for difficult weeks ahead.”

NAHAL TOOSI and MADELINE CONWAY: “A senior U.S. diplomat serving overseas called Trump’s remarks ‘outrageous’ and said it could lead more State Department staffers to head for the exits. ‘This is so incredibly demoralizing and disrespectful to people serving their country in harm’s way,’ the diplomat said. … ‘THANK Putin?’ another bewildered State Department official responded. ‘I don’t have words that are printable to describe my reaction.’” http://politi.co/2vVnVbI

— TRUMP’S THINKING ON INFRASTRUCTURE: “I’m not sure that we will bring [Democrats] in. I mean, maybe we’ll bring them in, maybe not. I think the infrastructure bill will be bipartisan. In fact, frankly, it may have more support from the Democrats. I want a very strong infrastructure bill.”

FASCINATING — NOT ONE QUESTION on two major issues Trump will have to confront in the next two months: the looming government shutdown and lifting the nation’s borrowing cap.

— NYT rundown of Trump’s back-and-forth with the press http://nyti.ms/2vsAAQV … Video of his whole 20-minute presser with the pool http://bit.ly/2vLcymI … His other 7-min. press availability yesterday http://bit.ly/2uw3n5R

PHIL RUCKER in Bedminster: “‘When you put this guy in a cage and think you’re controlling him, things like this happen’”: “Midway through President Trump’s second media availability in a single afternoon here Thursday, his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, held up a sign signaling to the boss that it was time to drop the curtain on the show. ‘One more question,’ it read. The president either did not see her plea or opted to disregard it, because he kept answering questions — for 20 minutes straight, after having already fielded them for seven minutes in the earlier session. This was Trump in his element: At his luxurious private golf club here in Bedminster, the cameras trained on him, his vice president and national security advisers looking on admiringly, he parried queries — at times even gleefully — like a tennis player.

“Engaging with people — journalists, advisers, friends and even foes — is Trump’s lifeblood. His Oval Office has felt like a busy train station, with people breezing in and out to share a juicy tidbit or to solicit the president’s opinion on a pressing issue or to chew over something in the news. He likes to watch cable television news shows with other people, sometimes only through the phone. … ‘This is what General Kelly will learn very quickly, which is when you put this guy in a cage and think you’re controlling him, things like this happen,’ said one Trump confidant, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. … Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said Trump in recent days has been restless to share his thoughts on what she termed ‘one of the juiciest, newsiest periods of his presidency.’” http://wapo.st/2vp6mzM

ATTN. TRUMP: Mattis gets a tour of Amazon HQ with Jeff Bezos. http://dailym.ai/2uLVkkP

CARL HULSE on the TRUMP/MCCONNELL feud: “Mr. McConnell’s original point was that the president was still learning how things work in Washington. By publicly berating the man who should be his most indispensable ally on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump may have affirmed Mr. McConnell’s point.” http://nyti.ms/2wOr0au

JOSH DAWSEY, “Behind the Trump-McConnell feud: The president ratcheted up his feud with the Senate majority leader, signaling again that he’s willing to sacrifice the appearance of unity to get what he wants”: “Increasingly, these people say, the president is prepared to cast himself as an outsider — and Congress as an ‘insider’ Washington institution. He has reminded advisers his poll numbers are higher than Congress’ and that he ran against Washington — and wants bills to sign — and will blast his own party if he doesn’t get them. … McConnell’s advisers have been amazed at the president’s unwillingness to sell the health care bill publicly, his lack of policy knowledge, his seemingly unending appetite for chaos and his inability to control warring factions of aides, who complicate delicate negotiations by saying different things to different people.

“The two men have talked from time to time on the phone, but the conversations have often been brief, and Trump often disregards McConnell’s advice. McConnell has told people after meeting with Trump in the White House that it is difficult to keep the president on topic and that he wanders around verbally in a way that McConnell — a man who does not see the purpose in unnecessary words — doesn’t understand.” http://politi.co/2vsrHqM

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): If you know only one fact about rising drug costs, know this one: drug makers set prices for prescription drugs. To help manage nearly double-digit price increases, employers, unions and government programs use PBMs to negotiate lower net prices to help curb costs for employers and patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

PACIFIC DAILY NEWS (Guam newspaper) — “‘Don’t look at the flash or fireball’ — Guam Homeland Security releases fact sheet in light of North Korea threats”: “The advice includes tips such as: ‘Do not look at the flash or fireball — It can blind you’ and ‘Take cover behind anything that might offer protection.’

“‘Lie flat on the ground and cover your head. If the explosion is some distance away, it could take 30 seconds or more for the blast wave to hit,’ the sheet states. Homeland Security says residents should prepare an emergency supply kit and a family emergency plan. During an imminent missile threat, authorities recommend taking cover as quickly as possible under a concrete structure or below ground after an attack warning is issued. People should also avoid going outside for at least 24 hours to avoid any possible radioactive material, unless otherwise told by authorities.” http://bit.ly/2hQCqrS … The fact sheet http://bit.ly/2vVm1Zb

HILL PROBES — “Trump’s longtime secretary scrutinized by Russia investigators,” by ABC’s Benjamin Siegel: “Congressional investigators want to question President Donald Trump’s longtime personal secretary as part of their ongoing probe into a controversial meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, ABC News has learned.

“Rhona Graff, a senior vice president at the Trump Organization who has worked at Trump Tower for nearly 30 years, has acted as a gatekeeper to Trump. She remains a point of contact for the sprawling universe of Trump associates, politicians, reporters and others seeking Trump’s time and attention, even now that he’s in the White House.” http://abcn.ws/2vpKtAB

SCOOP — “Manafort switching legal team as feds crank up heat on him,” by Josh Dawsey: “Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is changing his attorneys as a federal investigation heats up into his financial transactions, according to people familiar with the matter. Manafort’s case will now be handled by Miller and Chevalier, a boutique firm in Washington that specializes in complicated financial crimes among other issues, these people said. A spokesman confirmed the change. … Kevin Downing, a former senior Department of Justice official known for his work representing clients and firms facing complex financial investigations, will be working on the case. … Manafort is cutting ties with WilmerHale, the firm that has represented him in the matter so far. His former lawyer there, Reg Brown, led the congressional investigations practice.” http://politi.co/2uMhlQA

BOOMERANG — “Breitbart’s war on McMaster bites Bannon,” by Tara Palmeri: “The attacks on McMaster have put Bannon in an especially awkward position with his new boss, retired Marine general John Kelly, who has been increasingly defensive of McMaster, a longtime friend and fellow general, according to interviews with 10 administration officials and people close to the White House. McMaster, who pushed Bannon off the National Security Council principals’ committee, hasn’t spoken to Bannon in weeks, one senior administration official said.” http://politi.co/2uuRb9q

DEPARTURE LOUNGE — “Four Top Cybersecurity Officials Are Leaving U.S. Government,” by Kevin Collier in his BuzzFeed debut: “Four senior cybersecurity officials are stepping down from their U.S. government positions, raising concerns that an exodus of top leaders may make the federal government more vulnerable to hacking. Two of those resigning – Sean Kelley, the chief information security officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Staropoli, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security – had been in their jobs for just a few months. The other two, Rob Foster, the Navy’s chief information officer, and Dave DeVries, the director of information security and privacy at the Office of Personnel Management, are departing agencies for which computer security is a top priority.” http://bzfd.it/2voYHBu

LATE-NIGHT BEST – “Weekend Update: Anthony Scaramucci FaceTimes the Show (Bill Hader)” — 3-min. video http://bit.ly/2uMqfgL

TRUMP’S FRIDAY — THE PRESIDENT is participating in a workforce and apprenticeship discussion at his country club in New Jersey and he will meet with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence speak with reporters before a security briefing at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on Aug. 10. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

HOT DOC — “Here’s the Memo That Blew Up the NSC: Fired White House staffer argued ‘deep state’ attacked Trump administration because the president represents a threat to cultural Marxist memes, globalists, and bankers,” by Foreign Policy’s Jana Winter and Elias Groll: “The author of the memo, Rich Higgins, who was in the strategic planning office at the NSC, was among those recently pushed out. … In the meantime, however, the memo had been working its way through the Trump White House. Among those who received the memo, according to two sources, was Donald Trump Jr. … [who] gave the memo to his father, who gushed over it, according to sources. In a comedy of errors, Trump later learned from Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and close friend of the president, that the memo’s author had been fired. Trump was ‘furious,’ the senior administration official said. ‘He is still furious.’” http://atfp.co/2uuM6xO

A BREAK IN PRECEDENT — SEUNG MIN KIM: “White House vs. Democrats in tense standoff over judge picks”: “Trump’s judicial nominees are ignoring key Senate Democrats as they vie for lifetime appointments to the bench — a break from longstanding practice that diminishes the minority’s power to provide a check against ideologically extreme judges. The brewing tension between the White House and the Senate over filling an unusually high number of judicial vacancies is impeding the pace at which Trump installs lifetime appointees to the federal bench — so far one of the president’s few major victories, with his legislative agenda largely stymied in Congress.” http://politi.co/2vL6Hhe

ANOTHER VIEW — “Rep. Rohrabacher wades into Google’s firing of controversial memo’s author,” by L.A. Times’ Sarah D. Wire: “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) took Google to task Thursday for firing a male employee, James Demore, who circulated a memo within the company arguing women are biologically incapable of doing a man’s job in Silicon Valley.

“The 3,000-word memo that’s caused a hubbub among one of California’s more prominent industries and across the country contends men fundamentally have a higher drive for status than women and says the company has a bias toward liberal thought over conservative thought. It states that the company’s diversity initiatives should be replaced with ‘ideological diversity’ policies. Rohrabacher joined the conversation, saying on Twitter he’s troubled by the firing. He tweeted: ‘You shouldn’t lose your job for telling the truth!’ and ‘The mistreatment of conservatives and libertarians by tech monopolies is a civil rights issue.’” http://lat.ms/2wOtpSN

IVANKA INC. — “Ivanka Trump Brand to Open NY Store in Second Stab at Retail,” by Bloomberg’s Lindsey Rupp and Taylor Cromwell: “The first daughter’s brand will open a store in Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, according to signage in the building. The location is slated to debut later this year, giving the tourists who throng to the site a chance to buy Ivanka Trump merchandise. It’s unclear what products will be sold at the store or when exactly it will open: A sign promised a fall 2017 debut, but representatives for the brand declined to give specifics. The shop would represent Ivanka Trump’s second foray into branded stores. She previously opened a fine jewelry boutique on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 2007, before moving to the SoHo neighborhood in 2011. That location shut down in 2015.” https://bloom.bg/2uMdAu9

–“Kushner fined for late financial report,” by McClatchy’s Anita Kumar and Ben Wieder: “Jared Kushner, who has spent months divesting pieces of his vast business empire to serve in the White House, was slapped with a fine by the Office of Government Ethics for late reporting of a financial transaction, according to a newly released document. Another 17 White House staffers … filed their required personal financial disclosure statements late, according to data compiled by American Bridge 21st Century … Reince Priebus … was four days late. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was 23 days late. And Omarosa Manigault … received a 32-day extension but still missed her deadline by eight days. … Under federal law, when those who are required to file financial disclosure statements are more than 30 days late doing so they must pay a fine of $200, payable to the U.S. Treasury.” http://bit.ly/2vsrvYA

MARK PRESTON talks to GEORGE SHULTZ — “The wise man Trump should listen to” http://cnn.it/2uvZhL1

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the lowest net price for prescriptions on behalf of employers and other health care purchasers; however, the list price – the important starting point for those negotiations — continues to rise, at a rate of nearly ten percent in 2016 alone. Increased competition, faster reviews of generics and biosimilars and ending anti-competitive practices can also bring down the cost of medications for patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

MEDIAWATCH — “CNN severs ties with Jeffrey Lord,” by CNN’s Brian Stelter: “CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words ‘Sieg Heil!’ at a prominent liberal activist. ‘Nazi salutes are indefensible,’ a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. ‘Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.’ Lord said his tweet was misunderstood. He said he was mocking fascists, not acting like one. ‘I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here,’ he said in a telephone interview shortly after the network’s decision was announced.” http://cnnmon.ie/2voGtQB

FUTURE OF NEWS — FOR BEN SMITH — “BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Live Daily Morning Show to Debut in September,” by Variety’s Todd Spangler: “Here comes a social-media-spiked version of ‘Good Morning America’ for millennials: BuzzFeed News will bow its morning show — live-streamed daily on Twitter — on Sept. 25. The weekday show, ‘AM to DM,’ will run 8-9 a.m. ET on the Twitter account of @BuzzFeedNews. The program will be hosted by Saeed Jones, BuzzFeed News’ executive editor of culture and BuzzFeed Books editor Isaac Fitzgerald. The show will be produced by Cindy Vanegas-Gesuale, a veteran of Fox Business Network, CNN and Huffington Post.

“‘AM to DM’ will follow a traditional morning-show format, delivering the day’s top stories from staff reporters providing news and commentary on politics, social issues, technology, business and entertainment. But it will have some unique twists, given the nature of the medium: The show will feature ‘everyday Twitter heroes’ who have captured the spotlight and focus on what people are saying on Twitter live, as it happens during the broadcast. Also planned are regular segments with guest ‘newsmakers and notables’ discussing current trends, personalities — and the best jokes from the twittersphere.” http://bit.ly/2wOqTMm

PLAYBOOK ON THE ROAD — Thanks to everyone who sent us photos of themselves reading Playbook during your travels this month! Robb Watters: “Reading it in Simi Greece!” Pic http://politi.co/2vLby1X … Steve Clemons of The Atlantic: “Reading Politico Playbook on the aboriginal art floor of the Alice Springs, Australia airport! Alice Springs, of course, is the destination city made famous by the acclaimed film, ‘Priscilla: Queen of the Desert’” http://politi.co/2uwl05y … Robert Allbritton: “From your Publisher – 6 time zones west of you … on The Big Island. Nice and relaxing” http://politi.co/2vV8Ck1 … Ben Chang: “Greetings from Montana! Was able to pull up Playbook at this spot in Glacier National Park…” http://politi.co/2uuAxXJ … Shannon Gacke and Ben Mordechai: “Habari from Zanzibar, Tanzania! We’ve made sure to read Playbook every time we’ve had wifi for our past two months in Tanzania!” http://politi.co/2vsRS0r

—See the whole slideshow with the rest of the entries, including Brian O. Walsh in Venice and other readers in Germany, Vietnam, Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, Paradise Valley, Ariz., on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Island Lake near Duluth, Minn., and Pinconning, Michigan http://politi.co/2vLby1X

–REMINDER: THE GRAND PRIZE: Participating Playbookers will automatically be entered into a drawing to win a signed cartoon by POLITICO’s Pulitzer winning cartoonist Matt Wuerker. Email photos to Daniel at daniel@politico.com. Or, Tweet them to @playbookplus with the hashtag #PlaybookLoyal. We’ll feature the best five pictures every Friday in August.

SPOTTED: Andy Surabian, a deputy to Steve Bannon; Steven Cheung, a former UFC executive and current White House communications aide; and Jack Hunter, editor of Rare.us at the DC Improv yesterday with legendary WWE announcer Jim Ross.

SUNDAY SO FAR — ABC’s “This Week”: Martha Raddatz reports live from the frontlines of the nuclear threat in Seoul … Anthony Scaramucci. Panel: Alex Castellanos, Matthew Dowd, and Cokie Roberts.

— CNN’s “State of the Union”: James Clapper. Panel: Nina Turner … Michael Caputo … Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) … Bill Kristol

— NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Kara Swisher. Panel: Helene Cooper, Rich Lowry, Joy Reid, Amy Walter

— CBS’ “Face the Nation”: Leon Panetta … San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Gary, Indiana Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, and Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu. Political panel: Molly Ball, Mike Duffy, Ed O’Keefe and Ramesh Ponnuru … Discussion on North Korea: David Ignatius and Michael Morell

— “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Panel: Newt Gingrich, Donna Edwards, Tom Rogan, Marie Harf

–CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King: Michael Shear, Margaret Talev, Karoun Demirjian, Manu Raju

TRANSITIONS — Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has been named chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. … The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association has named Ben Jackson as their new COO. He most recently spent eight years at Mercator Advisory Group. … Anna McEntee has left Fox News to join Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-N.C.) office as her communications director. … Tom Strong-Grinsell, formerly of the Clinton campaign, will now be assistant to Fred Hochberg, formerly the chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank.

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Wood Foster, onetime chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association (hat tip: stepdaughter Maggie Severns, who was on time) … Politico’s Farnaz Mansouri … Politico Europe’s Jan Cienski … (was Tuesday): George Paul Tzamaras, senior director of comms for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, turned 57

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: NYT opinion columnist Charles Blow is 47. He’s celebrating “in New Orleans, in my home state of Louisiana, at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention.” A fun fact about Charles: “My tiny hometown, Gibsland, La., is the place where Bonnie and Clyde were killed. Fewer than 1,000 people live there, but they have two Bonnie and Clyde ‘museums’ (I use that there very loosely), and each year on the anniversary of killings, there is a ‘festival’ in the center of town, complete with a mock shootout.” Read his Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2wA4fYM

BIRTHDAYS: David Brooks is 56 … David Rubenstein is 68 … Rob O’Donnell, founder of 38 Paces and Obama WH alum … Politico’s Toby Eckert and Michael Roberts … Bush 43 admin alum Jim Wilkinson, now chairman and CEO of TrailRunner International … Pamela Lynne Sorensen … Chris Berry, SVP at iHeartMedia … CNN WH producer Liz Landers… Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) is 59 … Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) is 62 (h/t Matt Brooks) … Fred Smith, CEO and founder of FedEx, is 73 … DCCC’s Brian Krebs … Mollyann Brodie … Mark Chou … Greg Michaelidis, founder and director of the Security Awareness Lab and a DHS alum (h/t Todd Breasseale) … Ilana Drimmer, booker for “Meet the Press” (h/ts Betsy Fischer Martin and Olivia Petersen) … Marissa Secreto, COS to Steve Case at Revolution … Alex Siciliano, comms director for Sen. Gardner … Meghan Dubyak, Georgetown spox and AVP for comms …. WaPo’s Lyndsey Layton … Alli Adams …

… CNN’s Rachel Smolkin and Waffa Munayyer … Chad VonLuehrte, co-founder and partner at Harbinger, is 38 … Kedrin Simms Brachman is 4-0 … Jackie Norris … Chris Lisi, strategic comms consultant, adjunct at GWU, former Hill staffer, celebrating with Vince and the kids (h/ts Jon Haber) … Emily Akhtarzandi, The Atlantic’s DC head of media and managing director of AtlanticLIVE, celebrating by relaxing on the north coast beaches of Egypt (h/t Patrick Garrigan) … Jamie Bennett is 24 … Philip Scranage … Yelena Shuster … Kimberly Scott … Kimberly Burns … former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) is 68 … Pete Larkin is 54 … Jillian Gates … Drew Trojanowski … Drew Davidsen … Pamitha Weerasinghe … John Kohler … Chris Berry … Shelley Epstein … Thad Huguley … John Files … Sam Myers Jr., senior director for partnerships and development at Huge … Tom Miller … Melissa Silverstein … Albert Morales … Connie Hutchison (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Sara Ginzberg … Kimberly Scott … Hulk Hogan is 64 … Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is 67 … actress Viola Davis is 52 (h/ts AP)

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): The high prices that drug makers set for prescription drugs can put financial strain on patients, employers, unions and others who provide health care coverage to more than 50 percent of Americans. Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the lowest net price for prescriptions on behalf of employers, unions and government programs. But, as list prices – the starting point for those negotiations — continue their nearly double-digit increases, the effects ripple throughout the system. The key to ensuring greater access and affordability lies in fostering greater competition. Facilitating faster reviews of generics and biosimilars, identifying off-patent drugs with little or no generic competition, and ending anti-competitive practices that keep safe, effective alternatives out of the market are also key to abating rising drug costs for patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

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