#Nursing Training Equipment

[medical-shipment-llc]

Introduction to the Pyxis MedStation ES for Nursing Schools

[studiesmediain]

Operation Theatre Technician books pdf download 2023

This book focuses on the areas that come up most frequently in pre-PG exams. Anesthetists in training, postgraduate students, and professional anesthetists will benefit the most from this course. For MD/DA/DNB students, this book might be used as a last-minute revision guide. To make reading easier, the text is divided into nine pieces. Italics are used to highlight the most significant elements. Each chapter concludes with a summary of key ideas. An overview of subjects has been offered in a tabular format whenever possible. Disputes that arise often have been attempted to be settled as much as feasible. The most recent pharmacological, equipment, and procedure advancements have been included. The American Heart Association (AHA) updated its cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) recommendations in 2015.

BSc operation theatre & anesthesia technology

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originally published at https://www.studiesmedia.in 

[alastor-x-reader-stories]

Selfish - Alastor x Reader Oneshot

You face-planted on your bed, what semblance of energy you had left disintegrating and blowing away in the wind.

Today was too long a day.

Charlie needed some comfort after seeing the news roast the hotel again.

Vaggie needed to be calmed down because everyone got on her nerves.

Angel Dust needed a good hug and reassurance that he was worth something.

Husk had drank too much and threw the empty bottle at you when said as much. (He apologized afterward and the guilt made it easier for you to usher him to bed)

Lucifer was disassociating hardcore and you had to walk him through basic selfcare.

Nifty....Was Nifty.

Not that you minded that they needed different help here and there. Everyone needed a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to. And as far as you were concerned, it really was the least you can do. You couldn't fix their problems, but you can carry some of the load for them. That was...something, right?

A knock on the door made you grimace. Masking your agitation with a neutral expression, you opened your door to see none other than the Radio Demon himself.

He grinned down at you, his arms crossed behind his back, his posture straight, his clothes smooth and unwrinkled.

But...his grin seemed a bit strained, at the corners.

Alastor was difficult to comfort as he insisted he didn't have emotions anyway. And he hated to be touched. And his favorite food was raw venison or demon meat. So most of your techniques didn't have much ground.

However, he did love to laugh. So when he needed it, you would often play the role of a clown.

You leaned against the doorframe, crossing your arms across your chest and looked up at him with an exaggerated grin.

"Whazzzzah?" You said, intentionally making your voice nasally and high pitched.

Alastor picked you up like a suitcase and carried you back to your bed, sitting you down on the edge of it and kneeling in front of you. His expression didn't change as his eyes flicked over you.

You swallowed thickly. "Er...What bees the ups my dudes?"

No change in expression. No confusion, no mild irritation.

You started to get fidgety. Maybe you needed some new material? You like doing the funny voices and the purposely incorrect grammar, but if he was sick of it it'd be-

You train of through abruptly derailed as Alastor's hand came up to cradle your face. The other one brushing some of your hair out of your eyes. One claw lightly grazed your skin and you winced.

"So Husker's little fit did hurt you, hm?" He said, pressing the pad of his thumb against a spot typically hidden by your bangs - now adorned with a partially scabbed-over cut.

You winced again "What're you talking about?"

"Oh, my dear. I heard what happened between the two of you. The drunkard got a bit too brash and ended up hurting you."

You sighed "It was an accident."

Alastor's eyes narrowed "Ah yes, it's always an accident with you."

You met his glare "What do you mean by that?"

The Radio Demon waved his hand, materializing some first-aid equipment. He didn't even let you know when he applied some antiseptic to your cut making you hiss through gritted teeth.

"A little heads up would've been nice!"

"An accident, my dear."

You deflated immediately "Ah. Okay, sorry-"

"Thank you for proving my point." He cut you off, a slight growl to his voice. Alastor slapped a bandage over your wound and pulled back, glaring at you intently.

"Huh?"

He rolled his eyes "Everything everyone ever hurts you with is an 'accident' to you. No one ever means to hurt you."

You scowled "Husk didn't mean to hurt me!"

"You're allowed to be mad you know." He huffed "Even if it was an 'accident', you could be mad he threw a fucking glass bottle at you!"

"He didn't mean to." You insisted.

"And Charlie didn't mean to dump all her woes on you, and Vaggie didn't mean to make you play peacemaker, and Angel Dust didn't need you to be a therapist. And Lucifer didn't need you to play nurse. And nifty...." he trailed off, unsure how to categorize your helping Nifty today. He shook it off and met your eyes. You glared back at him and pushed him away.

"No! None of them meant to! I chose to-"

"Would it really kill you to be selfish once in a while?" He said, tilting his head. Red eyes narrowed as his ears pinned back on his head.

"Firstly, i'm already dead. Secondly, I'm always selfish!"

"Give me an example."

"WELL, Mister Everything-Is-My-Business, I slept in to like, noon, yesterday-!"

"Because you spent all night listening to Vagatha."

"-and yesterday I ate the last of the spaghetti-!"

"From the meal you skipped while you helped Nifty hunt bugs."

"I hid in my room all day-!"

"Due to everyone not paying any attention to your immense discomfort at their ruckus."

"...You're dumb." You said, crossing your arms across your chest. Alastor rolled his eyes and pushed you down so you were lying on your bed. His hands were on either side of your head as he leered over you.

"Despite doing nothing but listening to everyone's endless ramblings all day, you're immediate reaction upon seeing me is to play jester and make me feel better."

"You looked upset." You said.

Alastor sighed "Exactly your problem, my dear." He moved away so he wasn't pinning you to your bed, calmly removing his monocle to clean it before gingerly placing it back onto his face.

You rolled onto your side to watched him. "...I don't think it's a problem to care."

"It is a problem to care too much."

"Well, you don't care enough so I guess we even eachother out."

Alastor hummed, looking away from you. You bit your lip. Maybe...you pushed that too far? You never really held back the sass with Alastor, but he was already irritated....

"Ask me for something." He said.

"Eh?"

He snorted, ears flopping in agitation "As you said, you care too much, i care too little. So now we'll do this: you care less about what I want and you care more about what you want."

You blinked, confused "....That's. Oddly sweet of you?"

Alastor snorted in response, still locked in a staring contest with the opposite wall. There seemed to be a bit of red creeping up the sides of his face.... Now was he turning red because he was mad or because he was....flustered?

"So. Can i ask you for anything?"

"Within reason."

"....Can I get a hug?"

The record scratch was audible.

"You have the Radio Demon offering you to do a favor for nothing in return, and you ask for a hug?"

"That's what I want?" You said, snuggling underneath your duvet. "Don't worry about it if you don't wanna-"

"Oh for the LOVE OF!" Alastor cut himself off, grumbling something under his breath that did not sound as jovial as his permanent grin may imply.

The man briefly disappeared into a puff of shadows before reappearing under the duvet with you, wrapping his arms around you and pressing your head into his chest.

You laughed. "Was it that hard to just lift the blanket?"

"Quiet, you." Alastor muttered into your hair. You sighed contently, snuggling closer to him.

"Can I hug you back?"

He tensed up next to you, so you dropped it. Despite his insistence on you being selfish, he didn't push you any further. Instead relaxing more as you made no move to hold him.

"Thanks, Alastor. I'm gonna drift off, so you can head out if ya want." You mumbled into his shirt.

"We'll see."

You didn't bother trying to fight sleep, letting the exhaustion of the day catch up with you and your troubles drift away as you listened to the Radio Demon's heart.

Alastor was still there when you woke up, but don't you dare mention it.

[cyborg-franky]

Playing with their hair.

SFW GN Reader Chars include: Killer, Marco, Ace, Corazon/Rosinante

Killer

Moments like this with Killer were some of your favorites. Just laying together in his hammock, his strong arms around you. He wore his sleep mask and just rested with you while you read a book. It was nice, a calm that you longed for more of. 

Being a pirate, especially a Kidd pirate, didn’t often afford you moments like this. You sighed and turned the page as you felt him shift to get comfortable. You felt something tickle you, a strand of his long cascading hair.

You couldn't help yourself, playing with it, wrapping it around your finger, and watching how it shone in the light. He had lovely hair, so long and full and it made you jealous. You started to gather up his hair and run your fingers through it. 

He made a noise and you blinked, looking up at him. The sleep mask was pushed up on his forehead so he could watch you. “Sorry, is that annoying?” you asked about to withdraw.

“No,I like it,” he said with a thoughtful hum. He turned his head and let you run fingers through the entire length. It took you a moment to run fingers from the top of his head all the way down to the end of his hair.

“Good, I like playing with it.” You said with a smile.

Marco

He’s working, reading over the papers scattered in front of him, he’s hunched over his desk. Marco worked late into the night and as much as you admired him and knew he didn’t need to get as much sleep as everyone else, you still worried about him.

Getting up from the chair you were sitting in, nursing a cup of tea he’d made you a while ago you furrowed your brows, it had gone cold, you’d neglected it too long. You stretched and walked over to the sink, tipping it out. “Want another tea Marco?” you called and he didn’t answer..

So lost in his own little world until he finally noticed you, looking over his shoulder as you walked over. You stood behind him and started to play with his tuft of hair, pulling it up into a pineapple do before letting it flop back on his head.

You could tell he’d closed his eyes now, leaning into your touch, enjoying the feeling of you running gentle fingers over his scalp, lightly brushing his hair back each time, letting out a happy little hmmm before you kissed the side of his head.

“Another tea?” you repeated.

Ace

Sitting on your shared bed, muscles aching after a long day of work you needed to feel the pillows on your back as you sank into them. You watched as Ace stumbled into the room. Limbs heavy from his duties, his day was even longer, the curse of being a commander you guessed.

He dragged his feet, his boots clomping on the floor before he kicked them off. You could see the bags under his eyes, the tired look on his face, you glanced at the clock. Well, it was close to when Ace would consider retiring for the night.

You watched as Ace managed to remove his belt, the buckle making a clank as it hit the floor. Tossing his hat on the desk, missing with a grumble as he collapsed onto the bed with you, his head on your lap as he sighed into your thighs and mumbled something,

Chuckling at his half-asleep mutter of I love you you started to run your fingers through his wavy hair, enjoying how they ran through, careful of any knots that had formed during the day. You heard him make a happy sound, his body going limp against you, and his breathing slowed down.

You watched him adjust, turning his head to one side and letting you brush the hair off his freckled cheeks, behind his ear. Your loving touches started to send Ace to sleep. You smiled when you heard his soft snores.

Rosinante/Corazon

He’d just come out of the shower, training had been hard work, and he’d had to stay behind longer after because he had knocked over a bunch of equipment. You sniffed the air when the door opened, letting out the smell of his shampoo. 

You watched as he sat on the edge of the bed, a towel around his shoulders which seemed tense, you knew he felt bad when he had caused an inconvenience due to his clumsy nature. You crawled over to him, kneeling behind him and grabbing the towel. 

He made a confused noise before you started to dry his hair, firm but gentle. His shoulders relaxed as he leaned into what you were doing. You smiled when he closed his eyes and let out a happy sigh, just basking in the attention.

Once you’d towel-dried his hair you leaned in, taking a big whiff of his hair and making a happy noise. “I love it when you’ve just washed your hair, it always smells amazing.” You commented and heard the low rumble of his chuckle.

“I never change it because of that,” Rosinante replied, feeling fingers run through his damp hair, enjoying how you played with it.

He always felt happy and relaxed when with you.

[fatphobiabusters]

Hey, sorry if this is a weird question but I'm trying to learn more since I honestly wasn't educated about fatphobia before and I'm trying to fix that (especially now that I won't be a teen in a few months and my mom could be considered fat and I love food so like we all know the body type I'll have in a few years). I often see people say that being fat is bad because people like firefighters and nurses get injured when saving/caring for them and I'd like to know if there's any way to like.. fix that? I obviously don't want very poorly compensated people risking their lives to get injured more than they have to but I also don't think policing people's bodies is right...

Hmmm where to start. The thing is nurses are understaffed, often asked to move patients by themselves when they shouldn't be. It's not just fat people that can injure a nurse, anyone who can't assist on their own lifting can. Lifting say, 180 pounds from the floor is risky, Hospital beds are closer to the average person waist plus there are handles and bars for the patient to assist. Rolling a patient in bed is difficult, again if the patient can't assist. Making sure staff is getting help is crucial. They wouldn't let me move myself from the bed I was on, onto the surgery table but it was quick and took three people to properly nest me and slide me over. (I was going in for gallbladder surgery) there were multiple people who could have assisted in the room if they needed more. So really, fighting under staffing and over working in the medical field is key.

Im not as familiar with fire fighting techniques however I know that there's an issue of businesses not having Evac Chairs or sleds for the physically disabled. I'm thinking of the brand Evac Chairs but ANY such device is useful.

Im looking at the sleds:

This goes up to 440

This one goes up to 500 carrying capacity!

These should be part of fire and rescue training and provided to the rescuers for public safety. Any business that sees a large amount of foot traffic should have these on site. (I don't expect a small mom and pop shop to have one, but Walmart should. Hospitals should.)

So basically: proper training, the right equipment and proper staff. These all play a role in how to circumvent awful situations.

Also take the consideration of what these people say "it's bad to be fat because nurses and fire fighters" these types of people are one bad turn from saying "it's bad to be in a wheelchair because it's too hard for fire rescue" or "it's bad to need nurses to turn you to prevent bed sores" they think, fundamentally, that fat people choose to be fat so we deserve less empathy. And even if it was 100% a choice for every person, it doesn't mean we don't deserve care and common sense accomedations. You can't say you respect bodily autonomy and support disability rights if your support is conditional. Only supporting "the good ones" is a policy in futility.

As an aside: check your smoke detectors and reduce fire hazards. Know your exits and keep low to the floor if there's smoke. Regardless of size people get real relaxed with fire safety because it's rare it's an issue. Some basic things is all you can do so please do them or have someone your trust to do them.

-mod squirrel

[historicalbeauties]

Amy Appelhans Gubser could see the Farallon Islands from her house on clear days, and would always joke with her husband that she could swim there.

5 years ago, the nurse and grandmother who lives in Pacifica started to work on this crazy idea. Gubser sought out open-water swimming mentors for guidance and even got resources through the Marathon Swimming Federation, yet things never lined up until this year.

On May 11, in 17 hours, 3 minutes, she finally made her vision come true and completed the 29.6-mile swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands.

Gubser has been around the ocean since she was 10 years old. She became an ocean lifeguard in high school and college, and also swam at the University of Michigan, yet after graduation didn’t get back into the water for 24 years.

When Gubser finally did return, she was doing more open-water swimming, for instance, swims across Lake Tahoe and Monterey Bay. The woman would always see the Farallon Islands from her house and would dream about one day swimming there.

The outbound route to the Farallon Islands is known for going against the currents, and only 5 people had previously completed the trek in the inbound direction, from the Farallons to the Golden Gate. According to the Marathon Swimmers Foundation, Gubser is the only one to complete that specific route without a wetsuit. Before her, two men successfully completed the swim in 2014, and there were also 3 recorded failures between 2012 and 2015.

The location is also known for white sharks. “The elephant in the room is white sharks, and they were in the back of my mind at all times during the swim. We didn’t take the shark thing lightly – I had a savvy crew that kept watch for them from a boat and kayak. They were ready to jump into the water to help me if I needed, but we had no shark sightings the whole time,” said Gubser. Fortunately, during the journey, she encountered several seals yet no sharks.

Another obstacle was the water temperature. She had trained to swim in cold water, but the water got as cold as 46 degrees Fahrenheit that day and it was something the woman didn’t expect and wasn’t ready for. A wetsuit probably would have helped here, but no matter the warmth and added buoyancy, she wasn’t wearing it.

“Wetsuits are a great piece of equipment, especially for people that are starting out in open water. But I follow the Marathon Swim Federation rules and the open water swim world rules that, for the last 150 years, have been the same. Which is a swimsuit, a cap, some form of goggles, earplugs and a nose clip,” explained Gubser. “When you wear a wetsuit your skin rubs against the material, and the last thing that I really wanted was for my skin to bleed near a shark island.”

The 55-year-old grandmother of two with a third on the way was very happy about her accomplishment when, no matter all the challenges, including intense fog in the Pacific Ocean all along the way, she finally reached the Farallon Islands at around 8:30 p.m. that night.

“For 17 hours, I had no idea where I was, what was going on. I had a thought bubble around me that only allowed us to see 100 meters in any direction. I went into a meditative state. There were some 30-minute time intervals that passed very quickly. Others seemed like they were 300 hours,” she explained.

“My whole family is so relieved, because I have been talking about this thing for five years, and my husband will be the first to tell you he’s just grateful it’s done,” shared Gubser. “I hope this story inspires somebody to not be challenged by a number [like] their age or their weight. I mean, all of my body got me across that. That’s pretty impressive.”

[phoneuserhana333]

.°˖✧ part 2/3: neighbor!doctor!abby / neighbor!producer!reader headcanons .°˖✧

tags: NSFW!!!, sick!reader, mention of nausea and illness, hand on throat, cliffhanger, ellie appears.

i acc hate how this part turned out :( i hope it’s somewhat enjoyable, barely proofread</3 sorry :((((

PART1 — PART2 — NSFWHC — N(SFW)HC

• you successfully forced abby into a temporary truce. sort of. falling sick and losing your voice, motivation and strength left you low on groceries and medication. so you opted to sleep through the nauseating headaches and eat oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. it was bad bad.

• so bad, in fact, that you sought out abby’s help. sure, she was a seemingly pretentious, stuck up ER nurse with a mean streak and a hatred for anything fun, but she had the medical knowledge you desperately needed to get back on your feet. plus, she definitely had pain relief medication lying around her house.

• this lead to a strange deal to form between abby and you; nurse anderson agreed to get food and medicine and deliver it to you until you got better, in exchange for three weeks of peace and quiet. hesitant, but desperate, you agreed. this was a huge win for abby. all she wanted was you to be quiet, after all.

• on the first day of your deal, you didn’t let abby come inside, claiming that you were quarantining and demanding she leaves the tote bags full of groceries outside. you barely managed to pull them into your home and the heaviness made you break a sweat, causing your fever to worsen. you texted abby that you were feeling worse and she managed to convice you to come over tomorrow after work for a check up.

• the day after, a defeated patient greeted abby at the door, avoiding her questioning gaze. she sighed and entered your home with a smaller bag filled with medicine and her briefcase with equipment that her dad gifted her. abby was a keeping her side of the deal to a t, she was determined to get on your good side, hoping you’d tune your partying and constant noisiness down for good.

• upon entering your home, the blonde was stunned. bookshelves, a grand piano, papers everywhere, even a chess board. you were smarter than she gave you credit for. the woman let you lead her to your bedroom where the air was thicker and the blinds were pulled down, hiding a bed full of tissues and forgotten mugs in the dark. fuck, her condition might be worse than i thought, abby thought to herself as she stared at your messy floral sheets, or she’s lazy, which might be even worse.

• abby checked you with the care of someone who has been in the medical field for decades, taking her time with you. your temperature was high and you were shivering, claiming to be cold while burning up. abby telling you to pull your shirt up wasn’t helping your trembling state either.

“take me on a date first, w-why dontcha?”

“sorry, y/n. i don’t date neighborhood brats.”

• you pout, too tired to argue, jumping when you feel the freezing stethoscope abby placed against your bare back.

“ow, ow, ow- abby what the hell?! s’cold!”

“god, you’re such a crybaby! here-“

• abby pulled away and warmed the metal with her hot breath, rolling her eyes as she did. your pitiful appearance was only surface level, a cruel reminder to abby that you weren’t a doe-eyed, helpless girl next door she got to take care of and feed soup, much to her disappointment. her cute little face is hiding a literal devil, abby muses, listening to your irregular heartbeat.

• what abby wasn’t aware of however, was how often she thought of you as cute. it was always- “that cute brat”, “…kind of endearing if she wasn’t so annoying” or even “a handful”, complaining to manny on the phone with her darkened eyes glued to your ass, watching as you rushed past her home to catch a train. abby was getting lost in thought, her brain full of aforementioned handfulls and soft plump skin and maybe even her landing a rough spank on- fuck. no. that was wrong.

• … right?

• you, on the other hand, were wide eyed and choking on words. abby placed her warm hand on the small of your back, forcing you to straighten up. she was moving the chest piece around, occasionally telling you to breathe deeper, in a voice that your hazy mind registered as surprisingly hot.

• what really made your heartbeat skip, was her thumb rubbing your back, tracing the elastic waistband of your pajama pants and then slipping underneath to explore the hidden skin. was abby aware she was doing this?! why weren’t you saying anything?!

• … why did it feel so good?

• abby pulled your shirt down, packing away her equipment as she started to speak, offering you a final diagnosis (“you’re so dramatic, it’s just a cold”). the blonde was peeking at your shaking form from the corner of her eye, watching you pick up your tissues and mugs, trembling with barely open eyes. it may be just a cold, but you were obviously drained.

“… ugh. lay down, okay? i’ll take these downstairs.”

• abby rolled her eyes and took over cleaning up your cups. she ignored your protests as she walked downstairs to your kitchen to rinse your dirty dishes in the sink and get your dishwasher started. when she looked up, she saw a few photos on the cupboard above the sink, memories of you and your friends.

• on the one in the middle, you were hugging two girls, playfully kissing one on the cheek, caught mid laugh. her gaze softens. you were a good friend. but a horrible neighbor. for a second, abby lets herself get lost in her head, her eyes staring at the polaroids, unblinking.

• the next few days went by quickly with daily visits from abby. you started to get better, taking it easy and trying to cough quietly as to not bother your neighbor. abby was tired; december was coming up and she was unsure of her plans for the holidays. work was becoming more stressful and the ER was full of people- well, more than usual.

• abby stopped visiting as frequently when she noticed you were getting better, instead sending you wave and tell you off for not cleaning snow off your doorway or wearing a jacket she deemed to be too thin.

• until she stopped acknowledging you altogether. abby was purposefully ignoring you and you just couldn’t find out why. you were used to her eyes following you around, guarding you in some way, like some weird nurse-angel. why was she slowly becoming a ghost you could barely catch a glimpse of? had you done something wrong?

• instead of simply confronting abby, you chose to ignore her back, sending cold looks towards her whenever you crossed paths on the sidewalk. abby, on the other hand, would blush, thinking about how she saw you in only your tiny maroon panties a week ago, naked and on display in your window. since then, she couldn’t look at you, scared that you’d somehow find out that you were the reason she’s been moaning at night the past few days. seeing you on the street would make abby shut eyes shut tightly, fighting her mind as it conjured the image of your pussy and your hard nipples hidden by lacy curtains on a cold december night.

• one thing lead to another, and both of you ended up alone on christmas eve. abby swore she was just going to check on you, see if you were alright. the sight of you with puffy eyes and pouty lips, wrapped in a festive blanket made abby feel fuzzy. before she knew it, she invited you over.

• emotions running high and a somewhat romantic candlelit dinner resulted in you falling into abigail anderson’s bed. she fucked you until morning came, overstimulating you into oblivion and not letting you go until she was satisfied. and after that, she made you hot cocoa.

• despite pretending to be nonchalant, you were a goner. abby had wrapped her hand around your neck and reached down your throat to squeeze your heart. you wanted abby to be yours so bad.

• abby, however, was still hesitant to commit to you. you were the best sex she’s ever had in her life, your hot mouth and tight cunt left her aching for days after, running home to you every night after work, but did she like-like you? what if you didn’t like her back? abby was used to being non-committal, so why was she so enamored with the idea of sharing her life with you?

• this inner turmoil didn’t stop abby from eating you out on your counter top, fingerfucking you while taking a bath together, letting you grind against her thigh in her bedroom.

• god, why was everything so intimate all of a sudden? abby ground you harshly on her chiseled leg, moving your hips with force and pulling a nipple, anything just to hear you whine. with your forehead pressed against hers, you whispered “please, abby. need you-“ and she was gone. her pace quickened as she moaned “good girl, goooood girl…” over and over again. you truly were the best girl ever, abby thought, as you rode out your high on her, now wet, leg.

• sex this heavenly landed abby in your house on new years eve, attending one of your infamous (and unexpectedly fun) parties. she met your friends, dina and jesse. and… ellie. she recognized the two women- they were on one of the polaroids in your kitchen, ellie was the girl who’s cheek you were kissing.

• ellie was too close to you for abby’s liking, touching your back and brushing a finger against your lips after you took a shot of tequila. why was she telling you to “take it easy, babe”, why was she calling you babe? abby felt her blood boil as she rolled her eyes at the overly flirty tone ellie used, taking a sip of her favorite wine you made sure to get just for her.

• just when abby thought that it couldn’t get worse, ellie tried to make a move on you.

“so, y/n. any-uh, plans on who you’ll kiss tonight?”

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Outbreak Pt 2 (LU in Healthcare)

Legend slurped on his energy drink, anxious to get to work. He and the entire night shift had been called in early to attend some training for this new virus that was potentially a problem. Administration mandated everyone attend to see how to don and doff personal protective equipment.

It was mildly exasperating, as it had cut into his sleep and he'd run out of time to really grab an actual breakfast. But whatever. He paid attention as best he could, leg starting to bounce with nervous energy. When his phone buzzed, he glance down, distracted.

The name Zelda was on the screen, and he immediately tuned out everything around him.

They hardly messaged each other, really. Birthday wishes, the occasional "are you alive" text, that was about it. It was hard to maintain much of a good relationship sometimes, given... well, everything.

Hey. So. I have this patient. Heart attack, CABG, pathway, blah. But he's got family who knows you?? I just want to make sure??? Like he seemed legit but still. Says he goes by Wild.

He... the heart attack patient from yesterday...

Shit.

Legend texted quickly, gaze flicking between his phone and the person wearing a gown in the front. Yeah, I know a few people named Link, so we go by nicknames.

His sister's reply was practically instantaneous. Still not over the fact that you call yourself Legend LOL you're so lame

Legend huffed, feeling his cheeks flush. THERE'S A REASON OK

Uh huh. Sure. So this Wild dude is legit then? I didn't let some random stranger into my pt's room yest right?

Sighing, Legend replied, Nah he's legit. Good guy. Wish he could've told me his dad was here.

Because it had to be his father, right? The more Legend thought about it, the more it made sense. The man looked just like Wild, except for being older and more worn out. He'd been reaching out to Wild, calling out his name, in a frenzy. Wild had been acting strange. The long drawn out gaze with Time. All of it.

"Legend."

Glancing up, the travel nurse saw Warriors standing over him, looking grim. "Uh... Wars, you good?"

"Hope you paid attention to the training," Warriors said. "That patient who got diagnosed with Arfy at the urgent care is here. You're taking him."

Legend blinked. "He's--he's here? Did he get worse?"

"Yeah. They're intubating him now."

Great. As if his stomach wasn't in knots already. Warriors gave Legend the room and said that would be his only patient to try and decrease cross contamination with other rooms. Legend ran the training demonstration in his head, now mildly panicked that he'd ignored some of it in lieu of talking to his sister, but it was fairly straightforward. Everyone was already masking as a precaution, he just needed to start wearing gowns and goggles and face shields too.

Time to get to work.

XXX

Wild paced in his bedroom, simultaneously annoyed and thankful that he had tonight off. Everyone had texted him by this point asking if he was alright, and while he appreciated the sentiment, he really had no way of conveying that he desperately wanted and needed to keep his past separate from his present.

He hardly knew his life before Castle Town. But what he did remember was enough. He couldn't--he couldn't go back to that life. He'd lost everyone, and it had been his fault. As his memories had come back, he'd doubled down on avoiding his past, including his family.

How could he possibly reconcile the old him with who he was now, after all? He just wanted to close that chapter of his life. He just wanted closure, period. He was terrified of seeing his family again. What would they think of him? How could he have left them like he had? How could he ever return to them?

He... he wanted to check on his father. But he knew by now the rest of his family was likely at the hospital, and he did not need to see them. Guilt twisted his gut as he stared out the window, watching the cows graze in the pasture.

Sighing, he went downstairs, catching sight of Malon watching the news. He distracted himself with asking her what was up, and she said, "There's ten more cases of Arfy in town."

Wild blinked. Ten? Hadn't there just been one yesterday?

That... didn't bode well.

Before Wild could comment, Wind skipped in, having mentioned he was dropping by for dinner. "Yo, you guys should see the picture Legend just sent me of this guy's chest x-ray!"

Wild and Malon both crowded around Wind's phone to look at th eimage, and Wild asked, "So what am I looking at?"

Malon hissed, staring at the image. "Those lungs look awful."

"Right?" Wind glanced up at the OR nurse. "I'm surprised they have any compliance."

Wild stared at the pair dully. "I take it it's bad."

"His lungs are shot," Wind emphasized. "Like... they look like they're rocks. Legend said they can barely get the guy to oxygenate."

Wild felt a new twinge of anxiety in his chest. This new illness had been tearing through some cities in the Gerudo Desert, and now that it was in Castle Town...

As if he didn't have enough to worry about. He sighed. Hopefully his father would get better quickly and his family would leave before anything truly terrible happened.

Hopefully nothing terrible would happen at all.

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Friends in the Crucible

MOTA PACIFIC THEATRE || FLIGHT SURGERY AU

1: Welcome to Hell Island

Requested by the sweet @forsythiagalt

AU NOTE: due to a long-standing crush on real life heroine Ensign Jane Kendeigh and her work on Iwo Jima, the current ongoing anniversary of the battle and a hope to not step on the toes of any existing Nurse!xBuck pairings -I’ve gone with what excited my imagination the most and created an entire Pacific AU with our MOTA boys. If this AU ends up being as interesting and stimulating to y’all as it was for me in writing it, I’d be terribly down for exploring more scenarios with everyone in their new and varied roles.

Main paring: Gale Cleven and OC Flight Nurse Ensign Maureen Kendeigh…cameos by “Doc” Egan, John Brady, Ken Lemmons, Harry Crosby and Benny Demarco…and maybe a nod to a certain Marine Captain named “Andy” who I refused to let die, even though he was never on this island. You neither need to have seen HBO’s Pacific or know about the history for this to make sense, in fact it might help my ignorant writing go down better without it 😏

Warnings: WAR?! Graphic descriptions of wounds, battlefields, gore, foul language, period typical language: use of the word “Jap” and a joking insult of “fish eater” for a Catholic. Hints that John Egan is a terror to his nurses, Cleven having to take his pants off for a wound to be examined, brief mentions and emphasis on his never having been touched by a woman intimately, a nurse positioning a man’s member out of the way to his surprise, strictly professional tho. No joke, really. But they’re having a bit of a moment.

Only proof read once. So many thanks to Bee, Christi and Ashley who all enabled me into going this rogue with a simple request and for giving edits and assurances. Hope y’all enjoy!

There were a whole lotta jolts in the descent. Of course there were. Why, there were jolts and bumps even coming down to the runway at Pearl or San Diego, and there had been far more than jolts on the training tarmacs in Kentucky. She had been in enough planes, experienced enough banging about, and had enough wheels up landings that Maureen felt somewhat entitled to her opinion on the necessity of jolts or none.

So far, Major Gale Cleven had piloted this monstrous tin can like a limo, smooth, steady and with full warning for each bank and turn. Maureen had not even had to catch a single falling bottle so far and the rows of empty bunks lining each side of the plane had hardly rattled except in the same low humming frequency of the ever thrumming engine.

But now there were jolts. And of course there were, they were flying straight into a warzone. Cleven had gotten them to Iwo Jima two hours ago, and since that time he’d been circling the island in a wide arc, casually waiting for a pesky air battle between fighters to calm down enough for him to land. Sure, the beaches had been wiped clean and a landing strip had been carved out of volcanic ash and marine corps blood -cleared for their use. But still, there were Jap bunkers, Jap planes, Japs themselves and Jap equipment in that smoldering mountain and so far, no word had come down definitely as to when the island might be considered secure.

It was all very historic, Maureen has been assured -allowing a woman into a combat zone. First time ever, so they kept erroneously insisting. That’s why there was a man armed with a camera and not plasma sitting a few lines down from her on the cold metal bench. Maureen had once had plenty of time to ponder the historicity of her mission and that of her fellow nurses back in Guam, right now she wished she could focus solely on her training and ignore the ominous crack-pop of something hazardous in the air and the resulting wobble of Major Cleven’s steering.

Stupidly she wished the Major’s low voice would come back on through the near radio system and soothe them all back down like frightened livestock. Gale Cleven had a way of managing that even with his face obscured, and while it made Maureen blush to admit she needed any calming, the facts were she was 24 years old, practically untried and desperate to be brave enough to be of use. Rattling on the bench seat between equally nervous girls and a hawk-eyed journalist was no match for the cuticle picking anxiety.

Maureen chose to forcefully look up from said bloody cuticles and was met by Major Egan’s gum smacking grin across from her. How many carriers had he been on when they went down? Kamikaze planes jutting out the side of them, ocean water pouring in, sharks abounding and hundreds of patients under his care, in his charge to tow to shore?

Mild, scattered, poor-man’s flack wasn’t remotely disturbing to their flight surgeon. “He’s great, isn’t he?” Egan yelled to her cheerfully, the jerk of his head suggested his praise was directed towards someone in the cockpit.

Maureen knew well enough that much as Egan respected the co-pilot Demarco, it was no match for the love affair between him and Cleven, an appreciation that had Egan’s special request yanking his friend from Air Force to Navy to Transit. Such a series of bounces in a man’s otherwise distinguished career, all to chauffeur one charmingly entitled flight surgeon, was enough to put anyone into a bad mood -it would explain Major Cleven’s initial coolness on meeting them all at the departure tarmac.

Or maybe he was just businesslike. Maureen couldn’t fault anyone for that. He had been prepped, perhaps not as much as she had, but he didn’t act entitled in any way, and he kept the plane steady. Except for this mounting series of jolts.

“Yes,” she had chosen to holler back to Doctor -Lieutenant Commander? Bucky No Shits? Johnny? Doc “Smirky”?- Egan, knowing he’d want a favorable report on his friend, “it’s been remarkably smooth.”

Maureen was glad truth aligned with diplomacy in this instant. Although if any man could handle the outright truth it was John Egan, no matter what they all said. And “they” said a lot, he had once had two marine squadrons under his care and to them he was a Marine, simultaneously he’d had three navy squadrons to take care of and to them he was a Navy man. He’d even switched uniforms thrice in a day before. And now he was being flown about by his best friend to tend carcasses on a foreign strand, oddly suited to terrible conditions and bad scenarios, offering medical aviation expertise and poorly timed jokes wherever he went.

He’d trained her group of specialized Evacuation Flight Nurses the last three weeks of aquatic conditioning in the states, and he’d culled eighteen out of the group for getting winded after towing full grown men seven laps in the San Diego surf -all while puffing on a cigarette himself, seated with sunglasses on in an motorized dinghy. Maureen had come to hate him that day, and every day after she’d come to want to be like him. Kathleen Martin got her wings pinned first and Maureen right after, “well done, Candy!” Egan had praised while his fist drove in the tack.

“It’s Kendeigh, sir.” Maureen had dared correct for the hundredth time that training week, “Pronounced like: Ken-Day.”

“Cand-ay. Got it!” he repeated with jovial affirmation and that was that.

Major Cleven had given her the respect of calling her ‘Ensign’ as he shook her hand, a quick and firm squeeze and on to her next companion, she’d have judged him as too pristine in everything from mannerisms to features were his war record not ample justification for his bearing. The low cadence of his voice over the coms came in as a slight pitch to the plane and a swoop of decline in altitude became apparent under her—

“All personnel prepare for landing.”

Cleven was nothing like those pilots during training, barking orders laced with frantic warning in their voices. It was a cow pasture back in Kentucky and there they’d had no good reason for alarm. Here where there was real reason, Gale Cleven crooned to them and John Egan smiled opposite her as he took in the effect his chosen pilot had on his nurses.

“Like soothin’ a baby,” Egan sighed as he lounged a little deeper on his bench, long legs deceptively braced for impact, Maureen had long ago learned the man was nothing but smoke and mirrors of his actual intentions, “isn’t he great? In danger of fallin’ asleep with that guy at the wheel.”

To emphasize his point -or more likely to distract “his girls” from the imminent prospect of landing on a battleground, Egan leaned back all the way and tipped his cover over his eyes, pretending to fall asleep. Maureen caught him as he cocked one sharp eye open to see if she was still watching. She gave him a hopeless smile of recognition of his disguised kindness before forcefully suppressing a gasp of shock as the plane hit Amtrak smoothed gravel and ground its way down the beach. Egan hadn't budged by the time the momentum ceased and the plane became bizarrely still after hours of vibrating travel.

“Right. That’s us.” He straightened up, his cover and his posture, rising up in his seat and slapping at the metal ceiling of the plane, “Good job Buck.” he hollered and got no reply. “He’s still crabby about flying a C-47.” he divulged to no one in particular as they all rose and prepared to disembark, drilled for ages in this routine and finally let loose to practice it. Egan’s nonchalance was almost disorienting for such a momentous occasion.

The large cargo door was opened and a irreverently pleasant tropical breeze funneled through the plane, bearing with it the sounds of crashing waves and popping, far off gunnery. There was also a smell that came with it, sulfur and sweet. It was sickening from the first, and Maureen dreadedly wondered if it was from volcanic fumes and rotting vegetation or something more heartbreaking. With her kit on her back she followed her companions out the cargo door, finding Major Cleven blank faced and unphased on the tarmac beside it. Nothing but a smidge of sweat around his hairline to suggest the hours of flight he’d just clocked and the wacky landing he’d managed so well.

“Welcome to hell island, ladies.” he greeted in a droll monotone and Maureen’s gait stiffened without her permission.

There was no true tarmac, as they had been warned, just a strip of cleared back sand churned up by Cleven’s wheels. Lapping waves were on the left side and then a field of sheets to the right. It was the oddest sight. Rows and rows of camo tarp and white sheets blotted pink, hardly a spot of sand to be seen between. They’d been warned it was havoc here, the situation so bad that they’d finally allowed for this exception, allowed the sending in of specialized units to evacuate by air as the boats could hardly ferry enough of the wounded out in time to save them. But this -this beach of corpses was so daunting a task it seemed impossible to choose where to start.

“John,” she heard Major Cleven address Lieutenant Commander Egan as he dropped down beside her, “you’ve only got so many births, do what ya need to do to fill them, but I’ve got my orders. You’re not settin’ up a hospital. When we get the supplies off, get this plane full -we’re takin’ off. Full stop. I’m not gonna have us here like sittin’ ducks for the mortars while you fuss.”

“I hear ya.” Egan assured him in that remarkably unassuring way of his and lit a cigarette. “Alright nurses, gather round.”

Triage was crucial for such a mission, the prioritizing of wounds and necessary services essential for prolonging the lives of those in imminent peril, versus those with the likelihood of surviving on only the essentials found in a corpsman or medic’s arsenal. They’d be back tomorrow with another flight, and the day after that. Cleven was right that they weren’t here to establish a hospital, yet still the idea of how many would perish from being left behind, even by this first flight, was a sickening probability Maureen has been trained to ignore.

“Where are all the corpsmen?” Egan asked one pharmacist's mate who came to greet them, picking his way through the rows of groaning men. The boy couldn’t have been a day over seventeen.

“Up there,” the kid had nodded up to Mount Suribachi and its ominous veil of smoke, “or dead. Lost so many in the first week they started sending us in to substitute. We’ve done what we can. Sure glad to see you guys.”

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Lemons, sir.”

“Hell I can’t call someone a lemon, now can I?” Egan’s grin was infectious and the boy grinned back like he was seeing his first friend in ages.

“Then it’s Kenny. Sir.”

“Yeah alright Kenny, let’s get to it.” Egan had drilled you all so thoroughly you could have performed even without the aid of the grounded pharmacists and their mates, yet still it was odd to see such a mass of wounded and so few to tend them. The desperation and chaos was tangible.

Maureen had barely set off out from under the plane wing when Gale Cleven’s brusque reprimand arrested her steps as forcefully as a tug to her flight suit would have, “That bunch don’t need your help.”

The terse judgment in his tone gave her sharper eyes to notice that the particular section she was headed towards all had sheets pulled over their faces. Her own face blanched at both the misstep and the sensory overload of so much sorting to do. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself, not here, not when faced with the easy part of all this, and she wasn’t going to be crippled by criticism while enduring her first trial by fire. “Right, thank you, Major.” she agreed with him as stoically as possible and ground her heel back around on the sand and tromped off towards the direction of sheets that were visibly alive and writhing in misery.

That changed as soon as they saw her girlish form walking amongst them. Sounds of dying anguish changed to cheerful wolf whistles and happy greetings. It made Maureen’s heart swell with pride at the unbreakable spirit in each of them.

She spent the next hour and a half amongst those men.

Gruesome was a word that Maureen swore to herself that she would never use lightly again. She wasn’t one given to hyperbole anyway, and her years apprenticing in the hospital in Manilla and her most recent training for exactly such wounds as these, understandably led her to believe she knew the mettle of such a word.

But no.

Gruesome, she decided as she began her task again and again, applied only to this: the way the tiniest slip of her hand on any part of this poor boy took skin with it, charred and soupy flesh squishing off meat and sinew like the flaky crust on a prime bit of brisket. It was the only comparison fitting. His own flamethrower had bitten him as he tried to take a countless next pillbox. He’d said it like a joke even as his teeth chattered too hard from pain to deliver the punchline.

Maureen wasn’t here to contemplate ironies, or the unfairness of war, she was here to find some intact vein through which to stab her needle and begin giving him back the blood that was slowly leaching into the black sand beneath him. Ensign Smith was holding up the bottle, throwing a shadow over his charred form that helped Maureen discern a bit better, giving the boy a kind word or ten of reassurance about home and pain relief. Maureen bit through her own tongue when she finally slid the needle home, deep and pulpy, she could only pray it would hold the blood they gave back.

“Alright, bandages, Smith.” Maureen decided and did her best not to jump as a mortar thumped on the sand, hundreds of yards away, but still, they were getting ever closer, proving Major Cleven’s grim prognostication to not be unfounded. He was confirmed that the Japanese didn’t give two shits about red crosses, much less cargo planes carrying in supplies and taking away wounded. Maureen tried not to dwell on it as she and Smith began cutting away filthy uniforms and wrapping their patients' flesh in the Vaseline soaked bandages. It was a terrible business for the first few minutes before the interlaced numbing agents in the gauze took affect and made their care something less like torture for the poor men.

Some of them could walk, a missing leg being a mild injury comparatively, they just needed the helpful shoulder of a technician and off they went to amble into Cleven’s plane. There the Major met them despite it being beyond his purview, handing out cigarettes even though he himself abstained and kept an eye on the Navy mechanic refueling his plane from a bullet riddled jeep. When he wasn’t doing that he was scanning the sky, aviators turned up and reflecting a cloudless sky. Maureen’s mouth grew chalky at the thought of what he was looking out for.

Once wrapped and tended, the men were ready to be hoisted on stretchers and taken to the plane. But those men were select ones, ones that Egan had decided upon. He had a particularly odd way of triaging, one that upon initial observation appeared rather callous and aloof to his nurses who had been trained as much in medical practice as in solicitous decorum.

Doc Egan moseyed through the ranks of wounded, keenly aware he was not as popular as his pretty faced nurses, but making up for it with such easy-going banter that chuckles followed him wherever he went, making the men forget that he was deciding who got relief and who did not. Who were to be permitted the cooling sheets of Elysium by nightfall and who were to be left burning on the sand. Puffing a cigarette and making small talk, he clocked each injury and each likelihood of recovery without giving a bit of it away.

Nearing Maureen’s own patient of the moment, she felt him crouch down beside her and take in the hopeless gut wound she was ineffectually trying to stuff with bandages. A sturner superior would tell her not to bother, to move on, save such determination for someone with a longer life expectancy than five minutes. Maureen found it hard to make that call herself when met with the pleading eyes of someone’s dying son.

“C’mon Candy, move over, lemme try.” Egan murmured and his hip knocked hers gently as he crouched over the boy, perfectly aware of the futility. “Hey bud, breathe for me, breathe. You wanna smoke?”

Egan’s now bloody fingers reached up to his own lips and plucked his fresh and third cigarette of the hour and brought it down to the boy’s chapped mouth, shifting until he was fully seated on the sand, arms around the kid’s shoulders, gently taking the refreshment away when he puffed out, then replacing it for another inhale.

Maureen knew better than to linger. Beside this scene of brotherly last rites was another dying man and a hundred more beside him, so she moved on, seeing only vaguely the way the kid coughed blood as he laughed at Egan’s conversation. The topic seemed to be on the boy’s dog back home. The Sergeant she was tending added in a bit of teasing over the name -who names their dog “puppy”?!

Maureen had barely managed a tourniquet on the sergeant's arm before she could suddenly hear Egan’s gentle chatter turn to low shushing.

The sergeant looked away to the other side.

Maureen noticed the discarded cigarette laying on the sand, it had been smoked to a stub.

The heaving rattle of panicked breath beside them stopped.

Egan shifted onto his knees again and his long, bloody fingers dragged those sightless eyes closed. There was the brittle clink of dog tags being checked.

The sheet was tugged up all the way.

That triage was over.

Maureen politely ignored Doc Egan’s harsh sniff beside her -it was dusty here- but clocked the way he rose to his feet, a rough brushing off of his flight suit and his brusque inquiry regarding her morphine distribution in sector 2.

“All tended-“ she had begun when a shout from the far off plane rang out-

“-JOHN!” That was Cleven’s unmistakable bellow and Egan, despite being in a human sea of potential Johns- responded like he’d been made to hear that one voice alone. “Incoming, west!”

“Shit.” Egan spun westward and sure enough there were fighters with a blazing red sun, rushing straight down at them.

They were such a distance away still, Maureen doubted Cleven’s sight for all of fifteen seconds before horror set in. “They wouldn’t-?” she looked up at Egan whose bitten lip suggested that they would indeed strafe these poor men given the chance.

“Stretchers!” Cleven yelled again, “Get ‘em under the wings!”

There was a callous logic to it. Those men already prepped to be saved might as well be prioritized this much more. Fairness wasn’t something promised in war and Maureen chose to hate Gale Cleven instead of some ephemeral “war” for verbalizing the awfulness of that necessary.

“Do it.” came Egan’s agreeing order and Maureen and Smith took their respective sergeant down near the waterline at a run, fifteen other nurses and the various techs mimicking them. They deposited their men under the relative safety of the flimsy wings and dashed back out for more, leaving two techs behind to hoist the poor fellas into the cargo hold and deposit them in their respective bunks.

“Come onnnnn.” Cleven’s warning yell was drowned by the commencement of allied anti aircraft higher up the beach, trying to pick off the fighters before they reached the landing strip.

Maureen hardly noticed the closing drone of the fighter’s approach, nothing but her heart beat and memorized lines of her training on repeat in her ears. She’d been trained to fight hand to hand if necessary, her folks knew the risks of their daughter volunteering for such service but there was a sour dampening of resolve at the idea of being picked off from the air, not even allowed a bit of struggle to go out with.

All she could do was lift, hoist, run, deposit, do it all again.

They were getting near to full. On one pass through she saw Cleven counting berths and scolding poor Ensign Courter for her rushed method of securing her charge- “five feet drop to the floor on my first bank, oughta be just what that chest wound needs. For God’s sake, I’ll do it!”

He had a cold sort of fury to him Maureen found obnoxiously potent, and she felt a judgment rise in her for his obvious haste in wanting to get out of there. To his credit, when the planes did go by and everyone hit the ground, he was still standing yanking on the straps to secure the top bunk. Bullets punctured the side of the plane and riddled it, tiny specks of light flooding into the dark hold. One man was grazed as he lay in there.

“John!” Cleven warned again after they’d gone by.

“I know, I know damnit.” Egan snapped back from yards away, “There’s just not enough corpsmen -let me finish my damn job.”

“By the time you finish yours I won’t be able to finish mine.” Cleven retorted and the obvious finally occurred to Maureen -perhaps it was not his own safety that preoccupied him but the fragile capability of his riddled plane being able to evacuate once full. That, was indeed, his job. Still, such sentiments expressed as they were from the shelter of the cockpit and from a man who favored a silk blue neck scarf identical to the shade of his eyes, rankled Maureen.

The returning buzz of the Japanese fighters coming back around only cemented her futile rage. Her arms were aching and the sand caught at her boots and her mouth was dry with dust and there were so many, so, so many more left to help. Ensign Smith had been called away to assist with lifting another, and Maureen was knelt beside the man they’d managed onto a stretcher, doing her damndest to find how many bullets were embedded in his left leg and how deep the shrapnel was on his right. There was so much blood and filth it was impossible to tell and Andy, as his name was, couldn’t give her much help besides informing her it hurt like hell and she sure was a sight for sore eyes.

“Egan! At your three o’clock!” There was Cleven again.

Maureen grinned back at Andy and forced it to stay on her face as the buzz of the approaching fighters grew imminent and the dreadful thwump of machine gun fire thudded into the earth yards up the beach. It hit the section of the dead first, a further injury and dishonor. Maureen felt a lump in her throat at the realization she had no one near to help her lift this stretcher and that Andy himself hadn’t a usable leg to spare.

“Go.” her patient told her with a clear look of realization on his face as the leaden spatter of strafing began to elicit responses from those wounded men still alive enough to react.

“No.” The refusal came out of her mouth about as naturally as taking the next breath.

A shadow threw over them for a second and Andy’s facial expression grew surprised, but, stubbornly focused on her patient’s face, Maureen assumed it was the plane passing by at last and chose not to spend her last seconds watching what was going to kill her. “Ensign Kendeigh, lift.” Major Cleven’s voice was so close so suddenly it spooked her flat on her backside until she saw him, squatting down and casting a shadow at the head of the stretcher, poles gripped in both hands, ready to hoist. She scrambled to the foot and took the wood in hand, lifting for the twentieth time that day and running towards the plane.

Time was slow and fast all at once. Cleven’s shadow had come before even the first fighter. But as they ran it zipped by, bullets flinging up sand into their eyes, a near miss. The second one was close behind and as they ran near to the wings, they saw no room was left under them, as crowded as an awning at Coney Island during the height of summer.

Maureen squatted fast and lowered the foot of the stretcher, feeling Cleven mimick her movements behind her. Before she could turn ‘round and enact her training, there their pilot was, body draped over the battered Marine captain, his back as stalwart and protective as the wings of his plane. Maureen threw herself to the ground as well, propping herself over Andy’s battered legs. Together they made a turtle shell of sorts and, damned to be caught cringing when death took her, Maureen kept her eyes open and stared back at Gale Cleven’s gentle face as the -thud-thud-thud- passed them, a micro expression of assurance twitching his mouth and eyes as death passed over.

Who needed to look at the sky when you could find God in those eyes his mother gave him?

For as long as she lived, Maureen would never forget the gust of his spearmint scented breath on her face, the first sensation she registered as soon as the planes were past and they yet remained, alive, locked together above a man they’d both risked dying for.

“Major, you shouldn’t’ve.” Andy’s rough voice spoke Maureen’s own dazed sentiments as they straightened up, Cleven picking up his fallen aviators from the sand, “You gotta fly us outta here, you die an’we’re all sitting ducks.”

“Eh, that’s why we have co-pilots, Skipper.” Cleven grinned before glancing back at the sky, his face morphing into anything but carefree.

“Is that how Lt. DeMarco feels?” Maureen teased wearily.

“I’d never presume to know how Benny Demarco feels.” Cleven replied levelly but the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement, “Ensign Kendeigh, give me a task.” he demanded.

“Sir-“

“I want us outta here in ten.” His tone held no room for argument, “What’s somethin’ even a dumb pilot can manage? Egan!” He yelled as the Lieutenant Commander approached them at a jog, his dark face the picture of rage for the men in his care being further hurt. “Out in ten.”

“Not gonna happen, still got supplies to distribute-“ Egan was visibly inscenced.

“-one more pass on my plane and we’re not gettin’ up. Look at that back wheel” Cleven replied, nodding at the deflating tire. “Hand me your shit, what’re we supplyin?”

“Aren’t you queasy for needles?” Egan balked, finding time for teasing despite himself.

“Hand me the damn syrettes.” Cleven stuck his hand out.

“You're under Candy’s orders.” Egan stipulated, pointing to Maureen and Cleven nodded.

“Yup, and we leave in ten.”

“Okey Buck, go, go, go.”

The nurses that had gone before them had tagged and labeled each, making it easy for Maureen and Major Cleven to squat along the rows and complete what help could be given. Her other companions were doing the same, each staggered at a few yards and assisted by Corpsmen and pharmacists. And despite the tension from the strafing and the dismal prospect of having to leave so many behind, the hum of chatter soon picked up again on the beach.

“Shit, shit, shit, no-I hate needles!” Marty, eighteen years old but with eyes that had seen a little too much, bore his dressing with tired stoicism until Cleven pulled out the morphine syrette.

“Son,” Gale murmured with barely concealed amusement, “your side looks like a bear cub teethed on it, you’ll be fine. And this’ll help.”

“Don’t ‘son me’ you baby faced glamor boy.” Marty spat back, marine corps superiority coursing through his admittedly impressive veins.

Gale was midway through a good natured snicker at Marty’s venom when the heavy shock of lobbed mortars began to thud the beach again. “Jesus.” the Major sounded more annoyed than surprised and had the wherewithal to place a restraining hand on Marty’s chest as the kid began to scramble up in panic, displacing Maureen’s dressing on his ribs.

“Cleven, they’re chewin’ up our strip!” Demarco yelled to them from the cockpit and sure enough, craters were beginning to form at the end of their taxi-able stretch of beach.

“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave Major!” Marty suddenly clutched at Cleven and the Major had to wrench his arm free. “Calm down, private, you’re on a stretcher.” he then ducked his head as he moved round to seize the poles, “And if there’s one thing you should know,” he went on in a low murmur just for Marty’s benefit, “it’s that Doc Egan doesn’t waste his stretchers on dead men.”

Carrying Marty’s stretcher to the plane was Maureen’s last jog down the beach. She ran up the cargo ramp and Cleven was after her, handing over the task of racking the private into a bunk to one of the nurses before sternly ordering a path for himself through the crowded belly up to his cockpit. Demarco had the full radio system on, the better to communicate with the nursing personnel as they prepared for take off, and everyone aboard could hear his exasperated greeting as his reckless officer took his seat.

“You really game enough to try to get this Goony off the ground with less than a thousand feet of strip?” Benny’s broadcasted doubt made most nurses pause in their work and Maureen met Andy’s eye from the third bunk halfway along the plane wall.

“I thought he said that’s why they have co-pilots.” Andy joked to her quietly.

“Mm,” she agreed mischievously, “I guess co-pilots are one thing, co-Clevens are another.”

“Should find a way to mass produce.” Andy sighed, “War would be over in five seconds.”

Gale Cleven hadn’t even refuted Demarco’s concern verbally and already the crew shrugged it off, if Major Cleven couldn’t get them off Hell Island then no one could, and that was that.

“John Egan, get your ass onboard, it’s wheels up.” Cleven’s yell out the window blasted through the radio, too, and the girls grinned at each other -Major Egan wasn’t one to get bossed about. But, as if to challenge everything they knew about life and their own superior, mere seconds later, John Egan was hopping up into the belly of Cleven’s plane with his empty sack dangling and sweaty hair in disarray. “We’ll be back Kenny!” he yelled to the young pharmacist’s mate left on the sand as the cargo door was hastily wrenched shut by Brady.

“Honey I’m home.” Egan yelled up to the front and Demarco’s snicker echoed along the walls of the tin belly.

“Everybody stow your gear,” Cleven’s order came through, the pounding vibration of nearby mortars shuddering the plane even more than the engine’s revving, “we’re gettin’ outta here now. S’gonna be bumpy.”

“That’ll be one word for it.” Demarco snarked, “Death by bumps.”

The human cargo in the plane, those not groaning or insensible, let up a unanimous chuckle. It helped to have been to hell and back, a quick death as a plane failed to get air and plowed instead into a sand bank was hardly the worst prospect these men had faced.

“Believe, Benny, believe.” Maureen could hear Cleven’s soft smile in his voice as the wheels began to roll.

Brady, their engineer, navigator and the lone crewman besides the pilots aboard this transport, kindly manhandled Maureen to a seat between his legs on the rattling floor beside Egan’s built-in desk, his hand fisted in the back of her jumpsuit collar like she was a kitten. They kicked their legs out together and braced as they gained speed and the plane began to jostle into the milder craters at an ever more intense pace.

Shell fragments made a series of charming bangs off the side of the wing nearest her and Maureen could hear Brady whispering behind her in repetition “God spare the oxygen, God spare the oxygen, God spare-“

“50-“ Demarco’s countdown was unfortunately broadcasting like some morbid game announcer and Maureen could see Egan’s jaw ticking in stress under the harsh overhead lights.

There was a terrible blast in front, the sound of shattering glass or metal and a jarring shudder went through the plane, “Damnnit.” Cleven hissed but the acceleration remained.

“You hit?”

“No. Read me, Benny-“

“80-“ Demarco obligingly resumed counting.

“C’mon Buck.” breath gusting on Maureen’s neck behind her, as Brady had begun to direct his prayers to the Major now and as if in answer, the stomach swooping feeling of flight took over them seconds later as the cargo plane let out a mighty roar of strained endurance and lifted with a wobble that had more than a few bunks puking their guts out. There’d be over five hours to clean the plane floor and attend to housekeeping if they could just level out and stay up long enough to get out of range.

Down the way from them Egan was still seated, one hand holding aloft a not yet hung plasma bottle and the other gripping a support bar. But his head was starting to nod like a dancer keeping pace with the band’s ever growing tempo. The engines had a beat, if you’d been personal with a plane long enough to pick it up, and Maureen paid attention to Egan’s stippling fingers on the cross bar as they mounted and mounted, little bursts of enemy gunnery causing a comparatively mild wobble to the plane body every few seconds. She figured a veteran like Brady would know when it was safe to let her go; judging by the grip on her collar he was still highly dubious of their lasting success.

“Fighters, -everyone brace.” Cleven’s voice warned about as cooly as if he was pointing out the drip of ice cream slipping down a cone.

“Ice man.” Andy praised from his bunk to the agreement of his companions as the fighter zipped by without so much as a shudder from Cleven’s steering.

Plenty of the passing bullets had punctured the belly and one man got a direct hit. “Candy!” Egan commanded from his place checking the unfortunate man’s pulse, “Go remind Buck that we haven’t got the oxygen to go full bomber, he’s gotta keep low and -Candy! When ya come back, time to start throwin’ on blankets. Brady, get our pumps going. This is as steady as it’ll get.”

“You got it, commander.”

More than a little sure her mission was more provoking than necessary, Maureen still obeyed and followed Brady up the length of the plane and towards his electrical station, then past it to poke her head between the pilot’s seats.

“Well, well, this is a pleasant surprise, getting car sick, kiddo?” Demarco joked, “Hey, I get it, I’d find it hell back there with no windows to look out.”

Their front window was partially shattered and the metal on Cleven’s side was gnarled.

“Those mortars obligingly made a few.” Maureen joked back.

“Anybody hurt?” Cleven asked, and to her surprise, he turned from his panel to look at her with unmasked concern.

A joke was ready made there about everyone quite literally being shot to hell but she sensed he’d not appreciate it and following some uninterpreted impulse of desiring his good opinion, she hardly wished to repay his earnestness with flippancy. “Only one.”

“How bad?”

“He looked -dead.” Maureen admitted. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man moving past him but she’d seen Egan’s treatment of the body and it wasn’t promising.

Cleven’s jaw worked overtime at the news and something snapped in his mouth, followed by a soft curse from lips too full and soft to always be so stern. Maureen thought he may have broken a tooth with all that tension but he spit out two halves of a blooded toothpick instead. It fell to his pant leg.

“Major Cleven, sir, you’re bleeding.” It had drawn Maureen’s attention to his wet lap.

“That’s what I said.” Demarco agreed.

“It’s somebody else’s.” Cleven shook his head.

“You know if you pass out on me-“ Demarco warned, completely ignoring Cleven’s denial.

“-that’s why we’ve got co-pilots.” Cleven finished for him with a maddening smirk that made Benny Demarco throw his hands up.

“Can you check him?” he asked, “I mean -you are a nurse!”

“What? Hell no!” Major Cleven spooked for the first time all day at the suggestion, glancing quickly from his reddened trousers, behind him to Maureen Kendeigh, and back again. “I’m fine.” he declared in a firm tone that dettered her almost as much as the challenge of getting over the instruments and a steering column to pull down his pants and look. “Ensign Kendeigh, was there a purpose to your visit?” He redirected, resolutely ignoring Demarco’s unabated concerns.

“Yes sir,” she replied, meekly as she could, “Doc Egan asked me to remind you that you’re not flying a bomber. To mind the oxygen, sir. And that it’s cold.”

Cleven let out a mirthless little laugh. “We’re full of holes Ensign, of course it’s cold.”

“I know sir.”

“Yeah, ‘course you know,” his eyes lightened for a moment and Maureen almost deluded herself he was being chummy when he murmured next, “you’re smart like that. Tell the Lieutenant Commander I’ll keep her nice and low, so low the Jap navy gunners can blow the floor out without a sweat.”

“Much obliged, Major.” Maureen chirped, pleased to have been trusted with a bit of morbid humor -it was the truest test of being taken seriously a woman could hope for in the service.

“Thank you, Ensign.” And with that she was dismissed.

By the time she got to the belly again her assigned job of doling out blankets had long been accomplished by her fellows. Brady had the place lit up like an operating theater and there was the added drone of medical equipment added to Cleven’s engines. She liked to think of them as his now, Maureen realized, a tiredness seeping in now that the rush was over, now there was just six hours of the same until they touched down again in safety. His engines stayed with them, consistent, steady, dependable yet a little absent, just like the man himself.

“Major Cleven said he’ll keep her low, Doc.” Maureen reported dutifully but whatever humor Egan once held when sending her to the cockpit was now gone, a bloody mess on his hands as he and Ensign Dormer worked over a head wound.

“Good.” Egan gritted out, “I need a monitor on vitals and I need new gloves, c’mon Candy, c’mon!”

The hours passed like this, no way of telling time in the artificially lit tube of metal. Some men needed a cup of water and a kind smile, others required every bit of grit and intelligence to keep even the faintest pulse discernible above the hum. When one of them passed away in the anonymity of the top bunk, Egan didn’t bother to cover his face, the man looked to be sleeping and it suited the morale better if his fellows were not disillusioned on that score.

It was impossible not to think for a split second on the unfairness of it all -live to be finally evacuated and only die before getting safe. To think how someone else less tore up might’ve been given that bunk and survived the trip.

“Can’t dwell on it.” Ida Brady, their headmistress back in Manila, had said -and she had been right. But seeing her brother Lt. Brady cross himself now in recognition of a soul passed did something to Maureen’s own spirit, a grieving sort of fury possessed her which matched Egan’s own as they worked on the next unsalvageable man until he became a likely contender for seeing his wife and kids again.

She had been up for nineteen hours, flying for ten of those, nursing for four. She was bone tired and yet there was always someone to be tended and the thought of leaving one of these poor men without even the slightest of their needs met felt impossible. Maureen didn’t even think to pause or lag in her expertise, neither did the nurses around her and up there at the front somewhere, Cleven’s eyes were sharp and focused as ever, she knew it, and knowing it brought a calm over her that made her sympathize with Egan’s own superstitious preference for the man.

Brady came through with coffee, an abnormal duty he picked up as a result of trusting no one else with the process or the electrical requirements to make it. “Figured our pilots could use it.” he explained before passing out a passel of paper cups to the girls filled with the peppy stuff, belying his practical excuse, before taking two to the cockpit.

He came back out with a funny look on his face- “Benny says he needs a pan.”

“What the hell for?” Egan balked.

“Or a condom.” Brady dutifully amended the petition.

“I repeat -what the hell for?”

“They’ve drank a lotta coffee sir.”

“Any of you fellas got condoms?” Egan asked his patients with a laugh and got a series of predictable replies. “Gale Cleven sure as hell don’t.”

There were light hearted moments like that, many of them in fact, but six hours of flying with wounds as bad as the ones they were tending was no joke, there were bits of laughter and there were times of quiet and there were restless sleepers whose terrors not even morphine could dim.

“Forty minutes out.” Major Cleven had gone quiet over the coms for so long it was like hearing from God again when he came on, gentle and steady.

Those they couldn’t get comfortable were at the height of their groaning as the cold and the endless buzz got to them. Helplessly the nurses offered pillows and water and irrigated the burns with saline and checked needle positioning. Maureen had taken to charting, something too often neglected in high stress environments but something that proved terribly crucial as soon as they landed and handed over their charges to a new set of professionals. On the left side of the plane she held one man’s wrist after another and noted their pulse. On the right side she did the same, one man’s left hand after another, wedding band or sans wedding band, in her notes it was only ever:

“94, 57, 88, 91, 63, 82”

The lights had been dimmed, hopes were some rest could be gotten by those in any shape to manage sleep. It made for a drowsy atmosphere, only the flashlight in her teeth illuminating the veins under her fingers and her co-workers faces, Egan’s face was a shiny mess of freckles in the torch light despite the chill, exhaustion seeping out of him but not a hint shown in his workmanship. It made the dull chorus of groans in the dark all the more ominous and Brady remarked to Smith on one pass that maybe they should have brought a record player.

“Twenty minutes out.” Maureen and every other soul on board was living for those little updates from Cleven.

Men told to hang in there and not die before they could be gotten to surgery suddenly had a goal in mind and the suspense was growing brutal. Stashed and stowed, secured and checked, landing preparations were already done and it was last minute tending before taking seats. Maureen found herself nearly piddling by one young private, trying to soothe him with a washcloth as sepsis fever wracked him when over the intercom came the oddest lulling hum, like a far off jazz intro.

It was too soft initially to be recognized but the surety picked up, something about the tone unmistakably belonging to their pilot, his hums about as characteristic of him as his laconic speech.

“Is that whadda friend we have in Jesus?” Demarco’s voice overtopped the gentle melody.

John Egan was wheezing in a chuckle beside her as Maureen shook her own head in disbelief.

“No,” Gale murmured, humming paused only briefly, “it’s ‘Leaning on the everlasting arms’ -you fish eater.”

“You gotta be jokin’.” Benny was wheezing too but Cleven was back to his gentle humming, words actually forming this time and filling the tired plane with a timbre that could put Bing Crosby out of a job.

“What have I to dread, what have I to fear

Leaning on the everlasting arms?

I have blessed peace with my Lord so near

Leaning on the everlasting arms”

It worked, the sickening drop in elevation was -if not noticed- bravely pushed aside for a hymn sing, Brady leading from the back and Cleven from the front. And for a brief moment, men from Kansas to Florida, Oregan to Rhode Island, strapped in a flying coffin of flickering souls, were seated back in the pews of their childhood, trusting something larger than themselves. Even if that something was Gale Cleven’s steady hands or the justness of a cause worth dying for or God Almighty, it was something big and above the pain of right now.

“Leaning, leaning

Safe and secure from all alarms

Leaning, leaning

Leaning on the everlasting arms”

The Navy station at Gaum had a runway, in fact there were five Cleven could have picked at whim, and there was no feeling so beautifully civilized and sure as the smooth roll of plane tires on asphalt after what they’d just left. “Flaps at quarter!” and they were slowing, the deflated back wheel only causing some slight disturbance, and then they were stopped.

That bizarre stillness settled again as the engines were cut. Egan gave Maureen a smile so soft and telling that her heart about seized in realization -they’d managed it. “Well that’s us.” he repeated for the second time that day, voice gone raspy with cigarettes and fatigue. “Welcome to American soil, boys.”

There were so many lights outside the cargo door, searing white flashes in the nighttime, jeeps and ambulances and all manner of medical personnel at the ready, it was overwhelming in the exact opposite way the beach at Iwo had been. Maureen hopped down onto the tarmac with Ensign Mann, ready and prepared to stay with her charges until the transition could be made. Clipboard in hand and kit on her back, she’d go in with her select five until they’d been admitted and charted meticulously in the various wards.

“How’s it feel to make history, Miss?!” -some of those lights, Maureen realized with a dull throb behind her eyes, were flashbulbs. Journalists were thick as thieves, snapping and hollering, others respectfully keeping a distance, “You're the first woman to step foot in a combat zone-“ Maureen kept her hand on her stretcher even as she watched Cleven limping over to a jeep and piling in after Demarco. Her mouth set in a sour line of suspicion regarding his claims of being unscathed. He’d be in interrogation and she in the wards for the next hour, she’d have to find out later.

A couple of hours later John Egan was sat with Captain Crosby in the administration office, nothing but a small alcove at the front of the ward, his legs spread wide in his chair and good scotch whisky being slurped from a cleverly injected orange while reviewing the charts. Croz was a whizz at this, meticulous and careful to a fault and John adored him for it because men who gave a damn were scarce after this many years of grueling loss and, also, because it allowed himself to wind down sooner than he was technically free to do so.

“Two men lost, that’s -that’s still good odds.” Crosby couldn’t manage an upbeat tone, he felt those two lives as deeply as Egan did, but facts were facts and over all, this experimental mission had proven beyond successful. Now to tell that to the families of the two men now being carted to the morgue instead of surgery and salt baths.

“Yeah, my girls were Trojans out there.” Bucky sucked his teeth, the squint in his eyes beginning to relax with a boozy sort of calmness. “Speakin’ of Trojans! —Candy!”

Maureen approached the little alcove at a tired gait, not above reprimanding Egan for his loud voice with all those occupied beds just feet away. “It’s late, Commander.” she reminded with hinting softness that only made him crane his head back and grin sloppily at her.

“It is, it is.” he agreed, reaching up to pat her arm and she squinted at the smell of whiskey, Crosby’s sudden and transparent busyness with the charts confirmed her suspicions. “You should get some shut eye, Candy! Back at it tomorrow.”

“So should you.” she hinted kindly.

“Mm,” he hummed in negative, “apparently my ‘specialty’ is needed elsewhere before then.”

“And so the booze?” she struck back and Crosby’s pen briefly dragged along his tidy line in shock at her daring.

“Steady hands, Candy darlin.” Egan responded, lifting two sticky palms up and showing, indeed, not a tremor. “I’ve got a surgery in less than an hour -working with Brady’s old sister, of all people, the one who snuck out of Manila after?- anyways, she’s 90 pounds of spit and vinegar. Starved for two years, but she takes three weeks off and a round of anti-parasitics and she’s all ‘let me back at ‘em.’ Hell of a dame. Anyway, surgery with her. I need this.”

“Well,” Maureen Kendeigh knew when to let go of a fight with a man who’d as yet never failed her or anyone else, despite his habits, “I can confirm it does nothing for your eyes bags.”

“Kiss ‘em better?”

“Not in my purview, sir.” she couldn’t help but smile, “Perhaps lieutenant Brady will be obliging?”

“She scares me.” he objected.

“And I don’t?”

“Only in the ways I like, Candy Darlin’.” he insited.

“Ah Major!” Crosby’s strained greeting drew their attention away from this over rehearsed banter and Egan straightened up fast upon sight of his friend.

“Buck!”

“John.” Gale Cleven was in the same uniform he’d been in for hours, flight jacket undone and scarf hanging loose. He must have come straight from interrogation and standing in front of the administrator's desk he was turning his cover over and over in his hands. Maureen was certain that were she to devote two hours a day to brushing her hair she could never bernish it to the golden brilliance that twelve hours of flight-sweat gave his. On a more concerning note, his was pale as death except for those lips. “I came to check in on everybody. Load of journalists out there.” He thumbed back behind him at the public area, “Mostly curious about you, Ensign.”

“Historical.” Egan affirmed and sent Maureen a sly look as she sighed over the fuss being made of her mission.

“I’m one of twenty.” she reminded.

“I hope you were nice about her.” Egan goaded his buddy and to her confusion, Gale flinched as if that were a remarkably successful mode of attack.

“O-of course.” he frowned severely and Maureen had a desperate urge to thumb those lines away. “I told them the truth.” he defended, mildly heated.

“Which is?” Egan was enjoying this and neither Maureen nor Harry Crosby could seem to puzzle out why.

“They did remarkably.” Cleven didn’t budge.

“Better than you thought.” Egan prodded.

“Yeah. Admittedly, far better than I thought. Jeeze, John.”

“But were you nice about her?” Egan insisted.

“What?”

“You said they were particular about Candy.” Egan said, “So what did you say?”

Maureen grew concerned that with such a level of fluster in the Major’s face not a stitch of blood seemed able to raise a blush.

“How ‘bout you read it in the paper.” Gale replied, coolly mean before clearing his throat and straightening up, back in possession of himself. “I came to see how many -how’d we do?”

“Twenty eight.” Egan confirmed.

“Outta thirty?” Cleven asked for confirmation.

“Yes sir.” Crosby answered him.

“Alright.” The Major accepted that, hat still whirling in his hands, a strange contrast to his perfectly contained posture. It drew Maureen’s eye to his hips and that deep red stain running down his pant leg.

“How’s your hip Major?” she asked, seeking to break the silence before Egan did so with some new and regrettable subject.

That did bring a flush and a sheen of sweat broke out on a face Maureen knew would be feverishly hot were she to touch it. He looked peeky, truth be told. “It’s fine, ma’am.”

“Hold up,” Egan stood from his chair and leaned over the desk to glare blearily at Gale’s trousers. “You're hit.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“Scratches don’t keep bleedin’ like that.“

“Well, mine do.”

“Hey, I don’t go tellin’ you how to fly your planes-“

“-you do though.”

“-so you don’t go tellin’ me what’s a scratch and what’s a wound. It’s still drippin’, that makes it a wound.”

Cleven moved his boot to the side impatiently and only succeeded in proving his friend’s point as a line of fresh blood smeared the white tile. “I was gonna just -“

“-What?”

“-Clean it in the shower.” Cleven sighed, defeated but with an edge that suggested he might yet do it .

“Oh, just gonna rinse mortar fragments outta of your thigh, yeah?”

“It’s not that bad. Dunno if it really got hit.” He protested, “Might be scratched.”

“Or you might have a piece of your instrument panel snuggled up to an artery.” John affirmed sarcastically. “We’re goin’ up again tomorrow. I need you fit, I need you good.”

“I am.”

“You’re gonna get checked.” Egan commanded and Gale looked back at the double doors leading to freedom and a pack of journalists and sighed. “You’re on the ground now, flyboy, I call the shots.”

“Ok.” Cleven mumbled, “If you’re so goddamn eager to pants me, do it.”

“I am, I am but I’ve got even better things to do.” Egan rounded the desk and flung an arm around Gale in parting, bringing him in close despite Cleven’s stiff necked antipathy that hid only the deepest seated endearment, “Like putting a left lung back where it should be and trying to get Lt. Brady to smile at me.” Egan expounded, letting go and beginning to actually leave, much to Cleven's sudden concern, “Which is, naturally, on the left -the left lung, that’s where it goes.” Egan went on.

“Wait, aren’t you gonna-?” Cleven called after him.

“Pantsing is more of Ensign Kendeigh’s purview.” John replied cheerfully. “Don’t look so appalled, I'm sure she’s seen smaller.”

“John!” Major Cleven and Maureen both inflected his name like twin, scandalized parrots.

“You deserve each other.” John laughed, “Ensign, do your duty.”

“This is the kinda behavior that has you gettin’ write ups for bein’ a terror to your nurses!” Gale growled after him in remonstrance but it did nothing to slow Egan’s tactical withdrawal.

“Bulshit, everybody on this ward loves me!” John dared to claim even as he was berated on his way out by more than a few wounded marines for being a little too jovial at two in the morning.

Cleven didn’t wait for the doors to fully close on Egan or for Maureen to collect her professional demeanor and clipboard before he was leaning over Captain Crosby at his desk, large hands splayed on the fresh paperwork, assuming the pose of a supplicant before a lawyer. “Harry, Captain, do me a favor this once and take a look fo-“

“-Major Cleven sir,” Harry Crosby interjected levelly and with the utmost respect, “I’m an administrator.”

Maureen composed herself, the sight of this stoic man losing a grip on himself due to the prospect of lost modesty was surprising, it was also motivating to find her own professionalism and put him at ease. “Major, if you’d follow me?” she nodded her head towards the ward and started clopping down the dim aisle toward one of the last empty beds. He didn’t need to lay down for it but she needed her instrument tray, an isolated light and, if his shyness was so severe, drawing the sectioned curtains would hardly be amiss.

When she arrived and turned round to instruct him, he was obediently there to obey. Something about that dogged respect for authority he possessed and his compliance with her own profession filled her with an odd protectiveness and she motioned him into the space gently, tugging the curtain closed behind him. He was taller than she realized, made more apparent as he took the initiative and tugged off the bulky weight of his flight jacket, methodically laying it out in a half fold on the bed, nothing but a lean line of him left in olive green.

Lanky, her mother would call him, a long drink of water. He looked all of twenty four, suddenly, soft and in need of a meal. “Your leg, yes?” she reaffirmed, jotting it down in the chart. She had found that men found it easier to talk of injuries when she wasn’t making eye contact.

“Yes.” His voice was low as the grave and hushed too, “And -I think maybe my hip.”

Maureen’s eyes flicked to the place in question, recalling how she had suspected his lap in general on the plane. “Right.” she made the customary jot down of the detail and then an arguably unnecessary note beside it, the longer to give him a chance to cool himself. “Your pants Major, if you would.” she filled in the date and the time, cursory information so as not to be idle while he undid his belt, the clank of the flat uniform clasp deafening in the space where he seemed to hold his breath.

She was used to discerning the moment when it was safe to look up. Often there was a brief period after the sound of pants hitting the floor where one might have the misfortune of catching a man adjusting himself to a preferred side. She was prepared to give him that moment in peace but his voice called her to attention.

“Is this?-“ he didn’t finish his sentence and she looked up to see his vague gesture as he stood in briefs and boots, jacket hung open, too.

“Yes I think we can manage with those on.” she smiled reassuringly, discerning his query. His skivvies were blood stained on the right and clinging to him but the wounds appeared to be above and below their coverage, “I’ve always got scissors if need be.”

“Scissors.” He repeated with a nod, teeth savagely dug into his lip.

“Jacket off, this could get messy.” She ordered and something about her decisiveness seemed to soothe him like she knew it would, he shrugged it off gracefully and laid it beside the sheepskin, and yanked at his tie to relive his bobbing throat. “Please, sit Major.”

He sat down on the bed, a little stiffly, and she reached above her to turn on the large overhead lamp, shining it down on them both and in the harsh glow of it she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen something so beautiful as Gale Cleven’s blushing face fixed upturned towards her own.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, looks like.” she attempted to make conversation and got a mere nod instead, once she stepped nearer, his eyes devoutly focused themselves somewhere to the right of them, on the floor.

She rinsed the area first, wiping away the crusted blood until his smooth, lightly haired skin came into view, little jagged tears visible in it with small fragments embedded. It wasn’t bad at all, but deep enough to keep it bleeding.

The touch of cool water made him jolt in surprise. What it didn’t do was make him shrink. She saw his hands curl, white knuckled around the mattress pad beside him as she gently dug out the metal, and she had a suspicion it wasn’t from the pain.

As unabashedly as her profession had taught her, Maureen tugged up his boxer leg until she was satisfied she’d uncovered the last little shard and did what was necessary, reaching atop the wet fabric and moving his heavy member up and away. He about bucked off the table at that mere touch of positioning and Maureen backed away out of pure animal instinct to avoid getting reflexively kneed.

“I'm sorry!“ he rushed out, his chest suddenly tight like an elephant were sat on it and his blood thudded in his ears, “Ensign, I apologize, I don’t know why-“

“It’s fine.” she insisted, stunned and pitying at the realization she probably was the first woman to touch him this way. To touch him at all. “I’m sorry this requires it.” she admitted.

“Please don’t -“ he took a large breath and began again, actually managing to meet her eyes out of sheer willpower, “-I’m the one who’s sorry. You’re doing your job, i don’t know why I get- it’s unprofessional of me, I'm sorry.” he repeated firmly and straightened his spine as if he could discipline a most human reaction away.

“It’s not at all uncommon.” She whispered, feeling compelled to be unprofessional herself if only to make him stop berating himself, “We nurses deal with this all the time, quite normal after combat, particularly.” Maureen paused for a moment and weighed the joke on the tip of her tongue as she dabbed iodine on a cotton ball and prepared to go back into the dreaded zone of his thigh crease, “It’s to be expected, the manual says; your blood is quite literally UP.”

Stood there in suspense between his legs with the iodine swab waiting mid air, Maureen waited until she saw a flicker of amusement twinkle his sad expression and a snicker escape that sober mouth. “Tell me about it.” he rasped, exasperated at his own body. “Every damn time.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” she teased, bringing the swab down and ignoring the sizable jolt his whole body and appendage gave at this dab to his thigh or the way his belly caved in with his deep intake of breath, “I’m telling you it’s normal.”

“Damn, you are sweet.” He declared suddenly with gut wrenching emphaticism that finally broke Mauren’s own precarious composure. “Not just to me,” he hastened to add in response to her melting expression so close to him, “to everybody out there. You were incredible today.” He paused and Maureen swallowed hard and tried with great difficulty to find the capability to thank him for the compliment. Before she could, he added with youthful honesty, “But you are -sweet to me.”

“Right back at you. Major.” she insisted, daring to stay that close and look back into those eyes she thought would be her last sight on earth for a second there on the beach earlier. His shuddering breath suggested he was recalling it, too.

“It’s nice to have friends in the crucible with ya.” he explained and Maureen felt her heart glow.

“Your poor hands.” she whispered, dropping her swab to gather his shaky hands in hers, the large palms engulfed her own even as she tried to cradle them. Never a hint of this anxiety while flying them, yet here he was shivering with it afterwards. “Probably blood loss.” she gave him an out, some men weren’t ready for talk of flight exhaustion or strained nerves.

“Then why’s it wasting all I’ve got to spare on…that?” He actually managed to joke back and Maureen actually allowed herself to laugh -god help her, she laughed at a man’s joke about an ill timed erection.

“John would say something about hope springing eternal, right about now.” she wheezed even as he groaned, his hands still placidly jittering in her grip, “I enjoyed your singing, by the way.”

“Mm, yeah, well,” he cleared his throat, “you didn’t see the hole in the wing or the busted flaps all the way home. That landing didn’t promise to be as pretty as it was.”

“But it was pretty.”

“Yeah. Not too bad.”

“A gorgeous landing.” she insisted and his eyes started to water under the harsh light. Impulsively, and in an act of unprofessionalism she would have never recognized before today, Maureen Kendeigh drew his hands close to her chest and pressed a kiss to his lined forehead. The way he sagged against her in a shuddering lunge suggested her impulse was a good one. “Doc Egan insists whiskey is good for this.” she whispered into hair that smelled so strongly of his musk and the wool of his cap she about buckled from it.

“Mm, but is it g—good for him?” he responded rhetorically, a gust of moist breath against the open throat of her flight jacket, his usual irony still remained with only a hiccup of nerves interrupting his speech. Maureen wasn’t sure anymore, what saved a life, well, it had saved a life, so why demonize it? She was here to force things to keep living in environments so hostile wildflowers gave up. Some men needed their booze and some men needed to be held in the hospital ward at two in the morning until their shakes calmed. As if he could read her mind, she felt Gale turn his head to the side a little for breath, face still pressed to her chest as he uttered quietly, “This is working. For me.”

“Good.” Nose buried in his hair she took a few measured breaths herself, feeling that odd calm still radiating off him, even as his body was shot to hell and giving off the overtaxed jitters. “You bring people calm, you know that, Major? It’s why Egan picked you for this, deep down, you make a plane load of dying men hang in there. That’s a gift. But when you’ve got a cup you keep pouring out of, it’s bound to go empty. Gotta refill yourself, sometimes, yes?”

“I thought this was blood loss.” Gale replied softly and it took Maureen a beat to recognize the sad mischief in his blue eyes.

“Alright. I’ll speak for myself.”She conceded with a huff.

“You must be exhausted.” he noted, suddenly as sober as they come.

“A little tired.” she admitted, questioning the way she instinctively tightened her hold on the back of his neck as he stiffened to pull away. Entirely unprofessional, she wasn’t a medicine spoon or a needle, he had every right to pull away.

“So what would fill your cup back up?” he asked in that low voice that sent a million varied undertones crashing through her, whether he intended it or not.

Too tired to be much more than plainly honest, or as honest as a woman should be with a half undressed patient cradled to her chest, Maureen admitted the half of it, which in many ways was the whole, “This is working for me.”she repeated his own words to him and watched them take effect.

Like a sudden reanimation had occurred, Gale Cleven untangled their hands with emphatic surety and then, in an act of kindness Maureen never expected, brought them to her shoulders and tugged her down for a solid embrace. “A hug and a nap then.” He prescribed, his solid shoulder beneath her cheek and his legs parted for her to step between. Only the bandages kept him from bleeding further on her.

“Not a nap,” she smiled, an inexplicable warmth and calmness flooding through her in his hold, his back was broad and lean under her hands, “we should go to sleep.”

“No such thing as going to sleep in the military, Ensign.” Gale murmured, “Sleep -that’s what happens when your mama tucks you in and you’ve got a whole night to waste. Naps. That’s what we take.”

“Alright, a nap, and a hug.”

“Alright.”

“You know,” Maureen dared with a little smile as some part of her slotted back in place and gave her the boldness to be a little too much, “there’s this thing people came up with ages ago where you hug and take naps at the same time.”

Pink cheeked but with a jaw clench that had defeated warzones, Gale Cleven pulled his head away and gave her a heavy look of admonishment, “Marriage.” he stated unamused.

Well, she had meant sex, and she wanted it, always had after danger -but Cleven had a point too.

“Uh, yes, that’s the most common-“

“-If I were to marry you, Maureen Kendeigh,” his voice took on a teasing lilt that was somehow more devastating than all his commanding earnestness, “there’d be no nap taking.”

“Oh.” A single utterance was about all she could articulate in the face of that smirk and gentle refusal. Both flattering and painful all at once. “Well, that’s not for us then.”

“No.” he pondered, full lips twitching downwards in disappointment, “At least, sounds like a decidedly post-war endeavor. No naps.” he clarified.

“Oh -yes.” she caught on, well used to the code of superstition all around her that didn’t allow men to spell out any sort of lasting, long term hope. “A postwar endeavor.” she agreed, never having heard marriage so smartly categorized.

“Uhuh,” his hands trailed up from her ribs to squeeze the sore muscles of her deltoid, “for now -naps. Back up tomorrow.”

“Alright.” she agreed, stepping a small distance back and looking him over, this time his presence didn’t shrink, in fact if anything he expended in the small room and it made her chest ache, “You're alright?” she made sure one last time.

He held his palms flat up and Maureen could attest they were indeed steady, terribly large, too, and his watch on his wrist was careening towards three o’clock. “Looks like it.” he rasped. “But you’re in charge here. Can I go, Ensign?”

Regretfully Maureen nodded, “You’re dismissed, Major.”

When he stood up from the bed he was by necessity in her space, looking down at her rather fearlessly as he yanked up the waist of his trousers and gathered the belt closed around his lean waist. Maureen felt her cheeks burn but couldn’t look away, if she were to glance away from those eyes she might see something even more tempting before he’d secured the fabric.

“Got any more duties after this?” he asked, breaking the moment as he bent to arrange his trouser hems over his boots.

“No.”

“Then I’ll walk you to your billet.”

“For naps.” she clarified cheekily.

“For naps.” he agreed with mirthful vehemence, finger pointed at her with almost paternal caution to not push his patience.

“Do you want your shell fragments?” she rattled them in their dish, the pieces she'd pried from the shallow muscle of his hip.

Cleven paused with his hand on the dividing curtain, shaking his head in amusement, “Give ‘em to Egan,” he suggested with a wicked little smirk, “knowing him he’ll make a talisman out of them or something equally useful.”

Hope y’all enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s life blood, lemme head your thots or screams! Xoxo

Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added for my MOTA fics)

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[whumpy-daydreams]

A (not so) brief guide to surgery

This is what the people want so this is what they'll get.

For reference, I spent 3 years training to be a surgical nurse (im not registered yet for Reasons). This is going to be UK-centric, and every hospital is slightly different, so if some things are different that's why.

Also this is not medical advice or anything I shouldn't have to clarify that. Ask your doctor about it if you're getting surgery.

Anyway this is getting long so here's a masterlist of posts

Types of surgery

Patient journey and staff roles

Anaesthesia basic equipment

General Anaesthesia

General Anaesthesia pt 2.

Local and regional anaesthesia

The operation

Surgical kit

Waking up and recovery

Drug list

Emergencies during surgery

Cardiac surgery

Hope this is vaguely useful, my asks are open if you have any questions

[pokemonshelterstories]

What is the function of the different machines in Pokémon centers?

it really depends on what kind of pokemon center you go to and in what region! center tech develops at a pretty fast rate, and not every pokemon center is equipped with the same stuff. here's a list of some of the more common things you might find!

healing machine: every pokemon center has this one! this machine is used to speed up the recovery rate of pokemon who are tired from battle or who have minor injuries. they're operated by a nurse with the medical training to input what each pokemon needs or refer the trainer to a vet.

tm machine: these are all over our express centers in paldea. put in materials and pay a small fee, and the machine spits out a tm for you!

pc system: these are getting to be less common, but in regions with less intense electronic infrastructure, pc systems give you access to pokemon and item storage. they're integrated with the new wireless system a lot of regions are using, so you can still log into your account if you find one!

cable club machine: back when trading was more energy intensive and many people didn't have great internet connections, these machines could be used to trade pokemon with other trainers or do simulation battles on programs like showdown. most of these have gone obsolete, but if you find a center with one, you can do some sim matches.

union circle rooms: these rooms were lined with VR sensors and could be used to talk to and play games with trainers across the world...but they were expensive to maintain and didn't see a ton of use after they were first implemented. kind of sad because they sound fun! some of them still have local use i think?

berry crush machine: crush berry. get powder. i think these only saw any real use in hoenn. they aren't around much anymore.

[nahoney22]

Some fluff/comfort with Crosshair? Where m!reader had a tough mission and was having an overall bad day? Also congrats on 4000!! :D

Certainty

M!Reader X Crosshair

word count: 1k

After a mission went sour, you’re left feeling deflated. So when Crosshair finds you training by yourself, he’s there to offer you a piece of advice.

warnings: fluff/comfort fic, can be read as romantic or platonic, reader has bad day, hugs, target practice, male reader.

authors note: sorry for the wait and thank you for the request! Enjoy 🩵

You gazed out into the endless expanse of hyperspace from the confines of the Marauder, the events of the mission replaying incessantly in your mind, particularly your own costly mistake. What should have been a routine shot spiraled into a domino of problems, turning what was supposed to be a simple mission into a desperate struggle. The weight of responsibility weighed heavily on you, and you couldn't shake the feeling of self-blame.

Already in a foul mood, the day had started with a spill of caf on your equipment, followed by Hunter's impatient reminders to hurry up cleaning your things as the rendezvous loomed closer.

“How long until we touch down?” you inquired, turning to Tech who manned the ship.

“I would estimate around 1 hour and 27 minutes. Why do you ask?” he replied, seemingly oblivious to your tense demeanor.

“Could you wake me when we're about to land? I need to focus on some training,” you requested, receiving a simple nod in response. With that, you made your way to your bunk, passing by Crosshair who stood against the ship's wall. Though he glanced up as you approached, you chose to bypass him without a word.

His frown followed you as you exited, prompting him to eventually make his way to Tech in the cockpit. “What's his issue?”

Tech turned to face his brother, a knowing expression etched on his features. “It seems he's frustrated with how today's mission unfolded. Your decision to let him take the shot likely added to his distress.”

Crosshair shrugged nonchalantly. “He wanted to. I trust his abilities. Besides, we've faced tougher challenges before.”

“True,” Tech agreed, recalling a particularly harrowing mission on Kashyyyk that ended in disaster before refocusing on the current issue. “But he has not been with us long enough to experience setbacks like this one.”

Crosshair sighed, crossing his arms. “I'll talk to him once we land.”

“That's a good plan, especially since he's planning on training,” Tech suggested, returning his attention to the ship's controls. With a deft press of a button, he guided the Marauder out of hyperspace. “Perhaps you should help him.”

As instructed, Tech had roused you from your brief nap, prompting you to gather your rifle, gear, and a few props before venturing out of the ship and into a remote area. Unbeknownst to you, someone trailed closely behind.

Upon reaching a clearing devoid of civilisation, you arranged some old canteens on a fallen log for target practice. After positioning yourself at what you deemed an optimal distance and crouching behind a sizable boulder for cover, you took aim and fired, only to miss. Frowning at the initial failure, you attempted another shot, only to repeat the same outcome. Your frustration mounted with each subsequent miss, leading to a barrage of shots that seemed to hit everything except the intended targets.

Cursing aloud, you impulsively kicked the boulder, immediately regretting the action as pain shot through your toes. "What did that boulder ever do to you?" remarked Crosshair, his familiar voice breaking the tense silence as he entered the clearing, observing your outburst and string of missed shots.

"Hi Crosshair," you grumbled, earning a low chuckle from him as you settled atop the boulder, nursing your injured toes.

Crosshair stood before you, tilting his head curiously as he watched your frustration. "How are your toes?" he inquired.

"Sore," you replied, wincing at the discomfort before meeting his gaze. "And my aim? Terrible. I don't understand. I'm usually a good shot. You've seen me shoot, but I've never missed this much before."

Crosshair remained silent for a moment before retrieving a toothpick from a pouch and casually placing it in his mouth. "Are you stressed?" he asked simply.

You pondered his question briefly before shaking your head. While it had been a rough day, you couldn't fathom how it would affect your performance to this extent. "Not that I'm aware of," you admitted, absently brushing dust off your knee. "Though today's mission was a disaster."

Crosshair shrugged nonchalantly. "It's not uncommon for missions to go awry. Your body can move and your brain is working so I’d consider that a win."

You chuckled softly, feeling a fondness for Crosshair as his presence always seemed to complement yours perfectly. "I guess. I just can't shake the feeling that I could've accidentally hurt someone."

"But you didn't," he countered, seizing your rifle. "So try again."

You blinked at the command in his gaze before reluctantly rising to your feet, bracing yourself for another potential failure.

As you lined up your shot, Crosshair subtly adjusted your position, his touch both unfamiliar and strangely comforting. "Relax. Only shoot when you're certain. Don't hesitate," he advised, his words echoing in your mind as you prepared to take aim once more.

Despite feeling the weight of his expertise bearing down on you, you focused on his guidance. But just as you were about to pull the trigger, Crosshair whispered in your ear, "Breathe," before stepping back and watching.

You blocked out the distractions, following his advice. Breathe. Relax. Wait for certainty. And when you finally took the shot, the satisfying clang of a canteen being hit filled the clearing.

"I did it!" you exclaimed triumphantly.

Crosshair smirked, twirling his toothpick between his fingers. "Told you so. You just need to shoot when you know it's right. Don't freeze up. Wait until you're certain."

His lesson resonated with you, and with newfound confidence, you lined up your shots again, hitting each target with precision.

Grinning, you leaned your rifle against the boulder and approached Crosshair. "Thank you, Crosshair."

"No need," he replied dismissively, but you couldn't resist wrapping your arms around his slender frame, surprising him momentarily before he reciprocated with a gentle hand on your back, offering a small smile. "If you ever need more practice, you know where to find me."

More Crosshair Works

Masterlist

Tags: @littlefeatherr @kaitou2417 @eyecandyeoz @captxin-rex @jesseeka @theroguesully @ladykatakuri @arctrooper69 @padawancat97 @staycalmandhugaclone @ko-neko-san @echos-girlfriend @fiveshelmet t @dangraccoon @plushymiku-blog @chrissywakingup @pb-jellybeans @nunanuggets @sleepycreativewriter @erellenora @zippingstars87 7 @ezras-left-thumb @the-rain-on-kamino @lulalovez @green-alm0nd @kryptoknight123

[haveatthee83]

Mr. Greatness (Gojo Satoru/Reader) Oneshot

Inspo: I just wanna hug this poor mary sue.

ONESHOT 1/1

Word Count: ~10k

Warnings/notes: Angst, fluff, smut, sad Gojo, no one is dead, fuck you Gege you damned sadist, biting, love at first bite (of food, I swear), face sitting, funny Nanami.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Gojo Satoru was bored. He was so bored he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Hell, he’d started to think about messing around with infinity and seeing what happened. That’s when you appeared.

When you first came around, Gojo didn’t think much of it. In fact, he all but ignored you the first two weeks you were at Tokyo Jujutsu High. When you two were introduced, all he gave out was a “hiya!” and a joke about you being a fan-you weren’t. You were hired to help teach the first years when Gojo was out on business, and act as a school nurse of sorts, being very well versed in healing with your cursed energy as well as fighting. You were there to help them on missions and keep up their training in his absence. Afterall-as much as Gojo would like to think it does-the world doesn’t revolve around him. So started a little game of hearing all these tales of the wonderful new teacher and how powerful she was, even how much better than Gojo she was from the first years-more than once. No matter how little he cared about how they were delusional enough to think anyone was better than him, Gojo’s curiosity peaked.

One day, all three first years came to a mission with Gojo all equipped with large, fancy bento boxes. All filled to the nines with homemade food with cute designs throughout. They even had personalized notes in each. It was enough food for two meals plus dessert EACH! How was Gojo not supposed to be confused, intrigued, anything?!

“Isn’t Nurse-sensei just the best?!” Kugisaki exclaimed to the other first years, giddy as she fawned over the fresh sushi and homemade strawberry cream cake.

“Put that food away, and let me explain the mission,” Gojo sulked, jealous. ‘I wish someone would make me homemade bento…’

Itadori perked up and smiled, “You have one to, Gojo-sensei!” he said, presenting the intricate, stacked bento. Gojo was taken aback, staring at the bento as Yuji handed it to him, noting the blue fabric wrapping it, and the sleek, navy chopsticks on top.

He gently grabbed the note on top, “I hope we can be friends, Mr. Greatness <3 -Nurse-Sensei” Gojo stared at the note longer than he probably should have, a weird feeling in his gut.

Itadori nudged him with his foot, “Hey, you in there?” Gojo looked back up at the boy, nodding before shoving the note in his pocket, and swinging the bento box over his shoulder.

“About those cursed spirits, eh?” he smiled.

It was an abandoned building next to a hospital. A serial killer had come through and systematically tortured and killed multiple homeless people, so it was a breeding ground for cursed spirits, one of which sat gluttonous on the top floor, growing rounder and larger by the day by eating the lower spirits around it, and becoming more powerful.

Gojo and the kids were fanned out in front of the cursed spirit, its gaping maw almost bigger than its head. What it lacked in mobility, it made up for in brute strength. Itadori proved that by taking a hit to the back and practically bouncing like a basketball before scrambling back to formation with the others. Megumi summoned his dog to attack, going for the thing’s limbs to distract it, while Kugisaki and Itadori attacked its flanks. Gojo came in for the final blow. Nothing too hard, but the three students had their fair share of wounds at the end. So, they waited for Ijichi to take them back to the school.

As they sat on the curb, awaiting their great chariot, Gojo couldn’t help but fiddle with the note in his pocket.

“What’d Nurse-sensei make you, Gojo-sensei?” Yuji muttered through a mouth full of noodles. Gojo’s eyebrows furrowed, but as he looked at the three first years and noticed that all three had different foods in their lunches, all customized to their tastes.

Megumi swallowed a bite of shogayaki, “I wonder if she made something you actually like. I don’t think you’ve talked that much.”

Gojo wondered too, so despite himself, he opened the bento only to find it full of a variety of sweets and rice balls of different flavors and combinations topped with teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds. The bottom layer was full of sweet mochi and macarons of all different colors. Gojo’s eyes practically sparkled behind his blindfold as he took in the beautiful food laid out before him. Taped to the bottom of the lid was another note “The kids told me you have quite the sweet tooth, so I made some guesses. I hope you like it! <3 -Nurse-Sensei”

Kugisaki laughed into her hand before putting another piece of sushi in her mouth, readying a piece of watermelon. “I think you’re in love, Gojo-sensei!” She sing-songed. Gojo waved her off, his ears getting warm, before diving into the rice balls. The savory-sweet flavor with the flaky fish and the delicious sauce could bring tears to a man’s eye.

“You might be right, Nobara,” giggled Yuji. Megumi even cracked a smile. Gojo gave a quick thwack to Yuji’s head as Ijichi’s black car turned the corner.

In the passenger seat of the car, Gojo once again found himself messing with the now two notes in his pocket as he antsily waited to get back to the school and finish his meal.

Megumi stretched uncomfortably in the back seat, “I think I should pay Nurse-sensei a visit. That big curse snagged me good on my side back there.” The other two students quietly agreed, Kugisaki getting a mischievous grin.

“Gojo-sensei?” she asked, leaning up in between the two front seats.

“You should really sit back, Miss Ku-“

“Shut it, Ijichi. Why don’t you come to her office with us? Make sure we get there safe?”

“But we all know-“ The girl shut Itadori up with a jab to his bruised side.

“Please?” she begged, puppy dog eyes in full effect.

Gojo was suspicious but agreed. It gives him a chance to say thank you for the delicious lunch.

When they all got back to the school, Gojo felt ridiculous when he realized that your office was just down the hall of what was supposed to be his. As the motley crew approached your door, a small bundle of nerves spawned in Gojo’s chest and it took him a moment to think of the last time he’d truly felt nervous like this, nevertheless here he was two steps away from hyperventilating if he wasn’t careful.

“Nurse-sensei!” The three first years chimed, squeezing into your room. Gojo could hear you before he could see you. Your laugh chimed around the frame of the door, and he could feel his ear twitch and a smile creep onto his face. But the gulp of nerves bit through it a bit. As he turned the corner and stood in the doorway, he caught view of you beginning to dote on the high schoolers already. When you glanced up at him, your eyes stuttered a moment, flicking to scan him.

You gave him a bright smile, “You must be Gojo Satoru, huh?”

He gave you an ear-splitting grin back, “What happened to Mr. Greatness?” your ears went a little hot, and you let out a little chuckle. “Thanks for the food, it’s really tasty.” He said, holding up the bento box and bouncing off the door frame.

You patted the medical bed and told the three first years to hop up, “How was my guess-Yuji stop touching that.” You said, smacking his hand away from a slash that started to scab around the edges.

“Spot on,”

“The kids helped a bit.”

“We’re not kids, Nurse-sensei!” the three muttered. You rolled your eyes and continued cleaning their wounds, making quick work of them. Before Gojo even had a chance to notice, their wounds were all three completely gone. And they all looked reenergized to boot.

“That’s really something,” Gojo mumbled, sitting backwards in your unattended rolling chair. He put his elbow on its backrest and set his chin on his fist. He lightly licked his bottom lip as he analyzed your cursed energy. It flowed in a way that intrigued him, it loved to concentrate in your hands, and it moved smoothly, avoiding the rapid fiery flow of most energy. It seemed that everything about you was piquing his interest. He had to know more, he had to get you on his side. Surely you have reservations with the old man higher ups, and he could see you being an asset to his cause.

“Thank you, Nurse-sensei!” the highschoolers chimed, getting up and giving you a brief hug, Megumi staying back and merely patting your shoulder.

“Why don’t you three get on back and rest up. I have a pretty intense training session lined up for tomorrow” you said, laughing at their appalled faces. “Besides, I’ve been meaning to get to know your Gojo-sensei!” The three got up and sulked out of the room towards their living quarters, and you turned, hopping up onto the medical bed, looking down on Gojo who was still sat with his chin in his hand, admiring you a bit.

“So, this is who’s been taking care of my little protégés when I’m gone, huh?” Gojo said, “I guess they’ve been in good hands.” You scoffed playfully, grabbing your tea from the side table you laid it on before he’d come in.

“You could say that again,” you said before sipping from your now lukewarm tea. You made a face before smirking at Gojo and wrapping both hands around your mug and slowly a wisp of steam started to pour from the top of the liquid. “Never liked my hot tea cold.” You almost on reflex offered Gojo a sip of the tea.

He almost refused out of habit, but the thought popped into his head ‘Did the cursed energy affect the taste?’ so he nodded slowly and reached out a hand for the mug, rolling a bit closer so he could reach it. He grabbed the top of the mug, the tips of his fingers brushing your hand, a spark of static spooking you. He just laughed and took a sip.

“When I use my cursed energy like that, I can get a little static-y” you said, rubbing your neck and pulling at your skirt’s hem. The tea tasted good, great even. The sugar adding to the full, bitter flavor of the black tea, and the touch of milk made it creamy and smooth. The tea filled him with warmth from the inside out, and he felt a tingle in his fingertips, from the tea or touching you-he couldn’t tell.

“Hm! Still tastes good,” he said, almost to himself.

You nodded enthusiastically, “I’ve been experimenting with infusing my cursed energy into food, especially to heal people in battle when I can’t be there!”

“You could use that as a weapon too, couldn’t you?” You nodded again, leaning down almost eye to eye with Gojo.

“It would be perfect for covert missions, assassinations, anything like that! With those cursed spirits getting smarter, if we were able to use this while suppressing my soul signature we could do so much!” you had wide, thrilling eyes glimmering with ideas.

“Always loved a mad scientist,” Gojo joked.

You blushed a bit and waved him off, sitting up straight. “Not crazy, not a scientist.”

He sat up, pushing himself even closer to you in the chair, handing you your tea back, “You gotta be a little crazy to be in this line of work.”

You nodded, taking a sip of your tea and setting it back down. “Not crazy enough, sometimes.” You crossed your legs, and leant your chin on your hand, resting your elbow on your knee and looking at Gojo at eye level again. “I’ll protect those kids with my life. Those crusty old men won’t touch Yuji if I’m alive-got it Satoru?”

Gojo’s eyes widened, nodding in understanding. “Yes ma’am.”

You suddenly slid off the bed, gently taking Gojo’s face in your hands at your middle, “Let me check you out, Mr. Greatness.”

Gojo’s ears turned red at the tips, and he choked up. “I-I don’t get hurt, I’m okay,” You smiled and rolled your eyes, patting the bed anyway.

“Now,” you lightly demanded. He got up and switched places with you, sitting on the paper covered bed, “We all have scars, little wounds that never healed right.” You worked quickly and nimbly, working your fingers over the crevices of his face and torso, your eyes glowing slightly as your cursed energy flowed. Gojo could feel your energy flowing through his body-a foreign but not unwelcome feeling. It felt like a rush of cold water over his muscles and in his bloodstream, rinsing his systems and refreshing him from the inside. You moved to flutter over his legs starting over his strong thighs and over his lithe calves and he could feel his muscles relax, and the mild joint pain of a long day fade away. “See? We all could use a little refresh once in a while.”

Gojo smiled for the umpteenth time since he’d met you, “You really are something.”

And you smiled too, biting your lip and smacking his arm.

That’s how it started, you two made a little routine. You’d make Gojo and the kids bento boxes that they’d take on missions, Gojo’s you’d begun to infuse with your cursed energy to experiment with its healing properties. He’d come back with the first years, you’d heal them up, and you two would talk about the merits of the food and would talk for a while.

---

One day the pattern of course had to shift. One day Gojo was called on a mission. No kids. Just him and Nanami Kento. Clearly whatever it was, was powerful. It was going to be intense. And intense it was. Gojo came out fine, as expected, but lugged Nanami into your office with heaving breaths and his eyes uncovered, full of tears.

“Help him!” he begged, shoving Nanami onto the medical bed, not even giving you a chance to stand from your desk. In desperation, Gojo grabbed you by the arm, slamming your hand onto an uninjured part of the blond’s body. He was bleeding from multiple gashes and was fading in and out of consciousness.

You shook off the shock and got to work, letting your cursed energy flow into Kento’s body. You felt the energy move through his veins, finding all the gouges, cuts, bruises and began closing the blood vessels and redirecting it where it belonged. His wounds were severe, so it took longer than it usually did when you were just healing up one of the kids after a run-of-the-mill mission.

“What’s taking so long,” Gojo shakily asked, gripping your medical coat, and shoving his head in your shoulder.

“He’s coming along, Satoru,” You muttered, leaning your head back into his. “Sit down, your tea is on my desk on the warmer.” After this became routine you bought a tea warmer for Gojo and a mug for him to keep in your office so you could share a cup while discussing your students. Gojo just gripped your coat harder and dug his head in your shoulder, wrapping his other arm around your waist and shoving his head in the crook of your shoulder. “Please, hon. I promise I’ll tell you the second I’m done.” You felt a rush of cold against your neck as he got up, his tears cooling your skin.

Gojo sat in your chair and grabbed the tea off the warmer and shakily took a sip. The warm, sweet liquid flowed down his throat and almost made him take a deep breath, his hands steadying just that little bit more.

You were hard at work for what felt like hours still, and if he wasn’t so wrecked by nerves, Gojo would have probably fallen asleep.

“He just needs to sleep now,” you said, slumping against your desk next to where Gojo had laid his head. You gently threaded your fingers through his stark white hair, quietly sighing as you took a sip from Gojo’s tea-yours long gone cold.

“I wish you could heal my brain,” Gojo whispered.

You took a start, looking down at the invincible man under your fingers. You thought for a moment, chewing on your lip before shaking your head and sinking down to the floor, able to see Gojo’s eyes clearly, now dry but hollow almost. “Beautiful…” you whispered, it was practically ripped from your lips, while placing your hand on his cheek. His eyes flicked to yours, taking you in again. “I can’t heal your brain the way you want. You know that, but I hope my being here for you helps…whatever little it does.” Suddenly he could really take in your paled face and your dark circles under your eyes that weren��t that way this morning.

His jaw clenched, and suddenly he felt selfish. Gojo Satoru felt selfish. Here you were, tired after constantly waiting up for him, helping him, healing everyone else, and here he was again-crying, drinking your tea, and making you sit on the fucking floor. But still, he couldn’t help but be a little more selfish. “Stay with me tonight?” the words spilling out before his brain could stop them.

Your eyebrows raised, but that was the extent of your shock or rejection, because before he could even try to backtrack, you were rubbing his cheek with your thumb and nodding with a soft smile. ‘Of course, you said yes.’ He thought. He shouldn’t expect any different at this point, that’s just who you are.

“Your place or mine?” You asked with a chuckle. His eyes squeezed shut with a pained grin at the innuendo. He’d love that, but that’s not what tonight is. That’s not what tonight should be either.

“Mine?”

“Nanami will be okay through the night. He’s just exhausted now and needs to reenergize himself. He’s been through the wringer, poor guy.” You said, grabbing Gojo’s hand and leading him towards the door. You stopped in the doorway only to take off your medical coat and hang it and other equipment on pegs next to it. You turned off the lights with one last look at Nanami and padded down the hall with Gojo in tow, still holding tightly to the tall man’s hand. He couldn’t help but stare down at your conjoined limbs, and he subconsciously reached into his pocket with his free hand, gently rubbing the edge of today’s note. “Come home safe, Mr. Greatness <3-Nurse-sensei” you had stuck to the sign-off even though you’re on a first-name basis, saying it’s just something you’d gotten used to, with signing the kid’s notes the same way. Gojo kept reassuring you he wouldn’t be hurt and not to worry, but you couldn’t help but wait with bated breath for the day he gets rolled into your office and you’re pouring all your energy into healing him until the sun rises. It was comforting sometimes, someone not thinking Gojo was immortal. Even if it meant you were worried about him.

When the two of you reached his door, you looked back at him expectantly, seeing as he would have the key, and he stumbled with the ring, almost missing the lock. You chuckled and pushed the door open as he turned on the light. You whistled softly, looking around the room.

“So, this is where the great Gojo Satoru lives?” you scanned the space, taking note of the offshoot bedroom and the small-spotless-kitchen. “Looks an awful lot like mine. Except I actually cook in my kitchen,” you teased.

Gojo closed the door behind you, heat creeping up his neck, both of you kicking off your shoes.

“Guess you don’t have to do much of that with me around, huh?” The white-haired man started to grumble about how he shouldn’t have invited you over when you whirled around with a smile and asked what he needed right now, “Sleep, food, rom coms and ice cream?”

He shook his head and started to feel how deeply sleep was settling into his bones, “As tempting as that last one is, I really want to go to sleep,” he watched you smile, like you always did, and reach behind him, turning off the light, and grab his hand again, leading him towards his bedroom. When inside you went over to the lamp, tuned it on, and made Gojo sit on the mattress.

“Where are your pajamas, Satoru?” You said as you began to head towards his dresser like a woman on a mission, he panicked but wasn’t fast enough, you opened his top left drawer and inside you saw a small basket full of all the notes you had written Gojo. No matter how torn up they’d gotten in the heat of battle, or food stained by his own mistake, he kept them. He had every single one. He’d look at them, read them on rough nights alone, and they helped him through a lot. More than you’d ever know. You slowly turned to him, a soft gasp on your face, and a note in your hand. “You kept them all?”

Gojo put his head in his hands and nodded, “You weren’t supposed to see that…” You couldn’t drop the massive grin on your face, but you dropped it for now.

“About those pajamas,” you said.

“Second drawer from the top on the left.”

You nodded and opened the drawer, grabbing out a soft shirt and pants set, throwing them at Gojo. “Go get cleaned up and changed. I’m guessing that’s a bathroom?” gesturing to the door attached to the bedroom. Gojo nodded and got up, trudging to the tiled room.

‘Bossy’ he thought, ‘I like it.’ he shook his head and splashed his face with water from the sink. When he was done changing, he looked himself over in the mirror, staring at his own eyes for a moment. Looking at the thing that defined him to so many, ‘but not her.’ He thought. You never were even interested in his power most of the time. He always thought he’d want someone who’d worship him. Someone who would make him feel like the god he is, but then there’s you. Someone who made him feel like…him. Like a regular person, on the same level as each other. He liked feeling equal to you. Could he take you in a fight? Probably, yeah. Did that matter-oddly no. Not with you. He filled his lungs to capacity and threw his soiled uniform in the laundry and turned off the bathroom light.

When he opened the door into his bedroom again, he was confused to find you with a few spare blankets and pillows from the hall closet, setting up on the ground.

“Hurry on to bed, Gojo! I’m almost through setting myself up.”

“Oh no you don’t!” he exclaimed, grabbing you around the middle, and tossing you onto his bed. “You are absolutely not sleeping on the floor! I know how to share, weirdo!”

You squirmed, standing on your knees on the bed, grabbing onto Gojo to steady yourself on the mattress so you could look him in the eye, “I don’t want to intrude on your spa-!“

“I invited you, stupid.”

“Why would I have just assumed that you’d let me sleep in you-“

“Why would you assume I’d make you sleep on the floor?”

You paused, ears running red, but you couldn’t resist the joke, “Are you trying to get in bed with me, Satoru?” he sighed in exasperation, shoving you backwards onto your back.

“Will you get ready for bed already?” he muttered as he moved over to find a t-shirt and gym shorts for you to wear. “Here,” he tossed the set at you over his shoulder, them landing on your head.

“Jeez, now you’re trying to get me out of my pants!” Gojo whirled, exasperated and shoved your laughing frame into the bathroom and shut the door. When he was alone, he ran a hand through his hair and decidedly flopped onto the bed over the blankets. Finally, after muffled yelling into the covers, he brought himself up to sit against the headboard. ‘Why did I do this to myself?’ he thought.

“Ta da!” You sarcastically sang, posing in the door, wearing Gojo’s clothes. You’d even stolen one of Gojo’s pairs of sunglasses he had left in the bathroom to complete the look. They didn’t exactly fit, but Gojo couldn’t help but stare with a smile. He loved the sight of you in them.

You chuckled your way over to the bed, hopping up next to Gojo, and dropping your clothes folded onto the ground. He took in the sight of you, right next to him, your scent mixing with his cologne-his new favorite smell, your eyes hidden by his sunglasses, and your hair haphazardly put out of your face from your day’s work. And while he stared, he could feel his heart skip a beat. You were staring back-inches from his own gaze.

“Let’s get some sleep, Satoru,” you whispered, sliding his sunglasses off your nose and gently shoving them onto his head. He nodded, putting the glasses onto his side table and turning off his lamp. They both slid under his blankets, laying on their backs.

“Thank you,” Gojo whispered, grabbing for your hand. You brought it up to his and turned on your side, facing him. “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met- “

“-and I’ve met me.” You both chimed, you mimicking Gojo with a grin he could just feel.

“I’m serious.” He said, bring your hand up to his face and placing it against his chin, now grabbing it with both of his hands, “I think I’d do anything for you,” he mumbled, gently pressing his lips to your knuckles-not quite a kiss, but not not one either. He’d leave that up to you.

You reached up with your free hand and stroked his cheekbone with your knuckles, brushing his fluttering eyelashes with your pointer finger. “I’d burn the world for you, Gojo Satoru. And I’d bring it back if you just asked.” You whispered, resting your forehead against his hands holding yours, and curling your body into him, tangling your legs together. He responded by wrapping his arms around your neck and pulling you ever closer, half onto his chest, stroking your hair.

---

And that’s how you woke up, wrapped in Gojo’s arms, tangled beneath the sheets as the sun shone through the curtains. You glanced at the man’s alarm clock and a jolt of panic shot through you when you read the time. You were both late for training the kids. And you knew it was only a matter of time before they came looking. It was one of their favorite days, after all. A training day with “mom and dad” as they’d dubbed the two of you.

“Gojo!” You whisper yelled, tapping his chest rapidly, “Satoru!” you whined. He didn’t budge, his eyes closed tight. You felt horrible disturbing his peaceful sleep, but you really didn’t want to explain to the first years that no, you and Gojo weren’t sleeping together, you just slept together. “Satoru-kun! Baby, come on!” Still, the man was like stone!

Finally, you gave up, gently banging your head against the man’s chest. You tried gentler methods, you really did! “Here goes,” you rested your pointer finger on his nose and channeled a strong static shock to his unsuspecting face.

His eyes shot open, and his hand practically slammed into his face to get rid of the sensation. “The hell-“

“GOJO-SENSEI! NURSE-SENSEI IS MISSING!” Itadori’s brash yelling could be heard from far down the hall. You and Gojo shared a wide-eyed look of panic as you both scrambled to look presentable.

“Bathroom!” Gojo whispered, violently gesturing you to hide in the bathroom, unceremoniously throwing you your clothes from your side of the bed. You caught them as best you could and rushed into the bathroom, locking the door. Gojo whipped the sunglasses from his bedside table onto his face and rushed to his dresser to grab out his normal training attire, shoving off his night clothes. He could hear the kids banging on his front door, scared for their precious Nurse-sensei. Just as Gojo shoved his pants button in place and zipped up, the three broke through his front door.

“Gojo-sensei!” the first years were shocked to find their sensei in a state of disarray. Huffing breath, wrinkled clothes, no shoes, and instead of his usual blindfold, he had on one of his pairs of civilian wear sunglasses.

“Kids!” he welcomed, shoving his bedroom door closed. The three eyed him with obvious suspicion. Itadori in particular kept a wide berth from the tall man, but inched closer to the door Gojo was clearly trying to protect.

The first years shared a shifty look and a nod before jumping to action. Kugisaki and Megumi jumped to grab Gojo’s arms and hold him down as Yuji ran and burst open the bedroom door, frantically looking around every surface before resorting to opening the dreaded bathroom door.

“Itadori-no!” Gojo yelled, tempted to use cursed energy on the kids, but last minute decided against eviscerating the brats. Unfortunately, that meant that Itadori opened the door.

“Nurse-sensei!” Yuji yelled, appalled. He had caught you, still in Gojo’s clothes, trying to sneak out the bathroom window.

“Hi, Yuji…” you muttered, trying to cover up the obvious fact of your bra not being on you, and still on Gojo’s floor with your clothes from yesterday.

“Explain!” Kugisaki exclaimed, following Itadori into Gojo’s bedroom. That’s when she saw your bra. Because of course she did. She let out a squeal at the sight, “You two had sex!” she yelled.

“No!” You and Gojo yelled, you trudging in to stand by the man who had recovered physically from the kids’ tackle but not emotionally and gently pat his shoulder.

“Then explain this!” Kugisaki exclaimed, holding up your bra for all three males to see. You flushed red, snatching it from her.

Gojo’s cheeks also began to flush, “You weren’t wearing a bra last night?”

“No! They’re uncomfortable to sleep in!” you swatted Gojo’s arm with just enough cursed energy to sting.

“You’re that cruel, Gojo-sensei!” Yuji shook his head, ashamed of his mentor.

“Why would she even be with such a guy,” Kugisaki joined the head shaking.

“Such a selfish lover,” Megumi agreed.

Gojo was confused, hopelessly. So, you had to clear the fog in his poor little brain, you took a deep breath as you leaned up to quietly state, “Satoru, they think you don’t…you don’t um…”do foreplay”.” You explained with quotes around some of your words. “They think you don’t give head.” You giggled out, whispering in his ear.

Gojo’s jaw dropped lower than you thought it could, and his face got redder than you’d ever seen, “I’ll have you children know, I am a very generous lover, and I give excellent he-“you cut him off by slapping his mouth closed, doubled over with laughter.

The three looked grossed out, but still unconvinced.

“We really didn’t do anything like that, we just decided to have a sleepover while Nanami Kento is resting in my office since we were both so stressed. Satoru was kind enough to not make me wear my work clothes to sleep. Really.” You explained, hoping the truth would seep through their thick skulls.

They nodded suspiciously, but allowed the two of you to properly get ready, waiting outside the building Gojo lives in.

“Very generous, huh?” you chuckled with warm cheeks.

Gojo’s face flushed again, the tips of his ears bordering crimson, “You were supposed to find that out on your own, Nurse-sensei,” He purred with an air of comedy, “Guess now you can at least test the theory.”

You rolled your eyes, but never one to back down, you grabbed Gojo’s sunglasses and put them on your own face again and gripped him by the collar and pulled him close, so close your lips brushed his as you spoke, “Why don’t you show me, Mr. Greatness.”

---

Unfortunately for you both, that had to wait until later. Much later. The kids were in for a grueling day of conditioning and combat training, going Justu-less for hand-to-hand combat against you, which proved to be a daunting challenge. While Gojo’s Jutsus were immense and overbearing at how powerful they were, you were a fierce melee combatant who could use any environment to your advantage, your knowledge of the human body an immeasurable asset in disabling the kids, even the formidable Itadori Yuji wasn’t much fuss to defeat for you. In fact, you expected better from the three, which you let them know. In spades. When you two were done with them at sundown, they were exhausted, and ready for you to heal them up and make them feel better.

“No!” you said. The three high schoolers looked at you in horror, “You three were being rude, poking into my, and Satoru’s business! If you wanted nice Nurse-sensei today who’d heal you all up and make sure you didn’t go home sore tonight, you should have been nice this morning! Our business is our business, and if we let you know it, that’s the only time you should become privy to our private information. Got it?” they sluggishly nodded. “May your soreness be a lesson to you!” you exclaimed, ushering them up for the long walk back to their dormitories.

“Look at you, miss mean teacher.” Gojo chuckled.

You made a face, “Leave the nicknames to me, hon.” He nodded, brushing your pinky with his. “Check on Nanami then rom coms and ice cream?” you asked, grasping his hand. He nodded.

---

“Matthew McConaughey is doing Kate Hudson so dirty in this one,” Gojo mumbled through a large bite of the tub of white chocolate raspberry ice cream. He found out when he came to stay the night at your little slice of the world that you also make homemade ice cream! Like who does that? So, when he picked out this flavor out of the mix of options you had on hand, you were ecstatic to share.

“It’ll end well though,” you insist, “always does in these.”

Gojo nodded, noticing you beginning to lean his way a bit. “You can lay on me if you want,” he urged, moving the ice cream off his lap to the coffee table. You looked hesitantly between him and his lap, covered by your plush blanket. He laughed, “here,” he readjusted himself, so he was laying against the corner between the couch arm and the back, his legs sprawling behind you, and gestured you to lay on top of him and cuddle. You bit your lip with a small grin before pulling back his end of the blanket and slotting yourself on top of him, facing the television. He wrapped his arms around you and tangled his long legs with yours. You settled, intertwined with him and began to softly stroke patterns into his wrist and arms.

“You’re pretty comfy.” You muttered, straining your neck to look at Gojo, who’s upside down face gazed onto yours fondly.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm. I slept like a baby last night, and I’m already feeling a bit sleepy now,” you huffed out with a smile.

Gojo gave you that handsome smirk, and urged you to flip over, now laying on him chest to chest. “Want me to keep you up?” he joked, nudging your nose with his.

You again just barely brushed your lips with his as you spoke, “Buy me dinner first, Gojo. Satoru.” You punctuated your words just enough to apply slight pressure to the almost kiss.

He couldn’t take it anymore and ran his hand through the hair at the base of your neck, coaxing you forwards into a tender, brief kiss that felt so not him. So, when he pulled away to gauge your reaction with those big, beautiful eyes, you gave him only a moment to see your wide grin before closing the gap again. You kissed him with a fervor one would expect from himself, but he was so scared of ruining this, he let you take the lead. Your lips slotted against each other like long lost puzzle pieces, and you both could taste the cold, creamy remnants of the ice cream on each other’s tongues as you gained access.

You pulled away for a second, him following your lips, leaning up to chase where you had left. You weren’t going to leave him hanging, though. You pulled away, gesturing for Gojo to readjust to a sitting position so you could straddle him, still resting on his thighs, not broaching too far. But as you kneeled above him, legs on either side of him, holding his face with your soft hands, so close to your breasts, Gojo swore he saw a goddess above him. In that moment he swore he saw heaven, earth, and every realm between. He wasn’t using his cursed energy, but he swore he saw infinity. That’s when you leant down and captured his lips again, and his world came crashing back, here you were, his personal goddess to worship, and he your god. Fuck what he thought about you making him feel normal, you merely made him want to worship the way he knew he should be and that’s all the better. And god was he ready to make an offering.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and fiddled with his hair with a tug that shot a soft moan from his throat. You swallowed the sound with a grin, tickling the roof of his mouth with your tongue, and biting his lip as you pulled back so you could begin kissing his jaw, pulling his head back ever so softly with your grip on his hair. You began to nip on the sorcerer’s taught throat column, feeling the rush of his pulse beneath your lips, kissing over where you might have gotten a bit rough. Gojo moved his hands over your sides towards your hips, beginning to thumb the waistband of his shorts you had put back on for relaxing together tonight.

“God you’re amazing,” he whispered, uttering your name like a prayer. “Better than I ever dreamed,” You nipped his collarbone in response, diving your hands under the hem of his shirt, feeling the nimble muscles beneath his smooth skin. “Yes ma’am,” he muttered, letting you sit back on your haunches so he could rip off his t-shirt, and toss it somewhere towards the kitchen. You devoured him with your eyes and hands, eventually with your tongue as well, tasting your prize. You ran your mouth over his chest and abdomen, sliding lower and lower as you went, kissing every piece of him in your path. When you finally reached your destination, you looked up at Gojo through your lashes, grabbing his waistband in your teeth and snapping it.

“Another time, for now I have a point to prove!” he jokes, using what little leverage he had to grab you and shift his hold to under your thighs and stood. Bringing you with him. “Bedroom?” he asked. You nodded towards the short hallway off the living room, the door on the left. Gojo grinned and started over towards it, carrying you with ease. You busy yourself with leaving a hickey on this one spot of Gojo’s neck that almost made his knees buckle, much to his chagrin, and fuel for your actual grin. When he got into your room, he made quick work of laying you down on your mattress, taking in your appearance under the moonlight that filtered through the window opposite the door. As he took you in, your face flushed, and he began stroking his hands over your legs from knee to hip under those damned gym shorts. It should almost be illegal for you to look that good in his clothes. Almost.

“You always do that, Satoru,” You trail off, averting those pretty eyes from his.

“What?” he teased, leaning down over you, face inches from yours again.

“Stare.” You stated, pecking him before nudging him off with your foot, sitting now, but still in your spot where he laid you. “Makes me feel like you’re…scrutinizing me or something.” You said with a wrinkled nose.

Gojo kneeled on the floor in between your legs, dragging you forward by your hips, “Just looking at how beautiful you are, I mean, I can look all I want now. Can you blame me?” he asked, kissing the inside of your knee, wrapping his arms around your thighs, and resting his head on the plush of one, his big blue eyes filtering through those white lashes, still staring at your godly face.

“Where’d you come from, Gojo Satoru?” You asked, love clear in your gaze, an emotion Gojo only hoped to see from you days ago. “You really were made just for me, weren’t you?” you muttered.

“I was just thinking the same thing about you, love.” He said, beginning to tug on the waistband of those purely criminal shorts. “Now please take these off before I rip em off.” You grinned and lifted your hips so he could take them off and look at your beautiful legs all on their own. He ran his hands up and down the sides, taking in every bump, freckle, and curve. “And the underwear? Or at least the damned shirt.”

“How about both?” Gojo lit up, ready to help, he started pulling down on your waistband with one hand, and the hem of your tank top with the other. “On one condition,” you surmised, placing a finger under his chin. He deflated, resting his head against your leg again. “You’ll like it.”

He perked back up, kissing the inside of your thigh, and giving a gentle bite to the meat there, “Whatcha need, baby?”

You sat back on your hands, arching your back a bit. “You need to show me exactly what that dirty little mind has been dreaming of Satoru. How exactly you want me, okay honey?” you finished by dragging your top town a bit by the top hem, not enough for them to pop out, just enough to show you weren’t wearing a bra again. Gojo could feel his mouth watering at the sight, and lord was he willing to fulfill your request.

“Okay, you have to trust me,” Gojo muttered, rising to his feet again, laying a deep kiss on your lips, all his blood rushing south from his brain. You didn’t help when you broke the embrace to finally take off your tank top, placing his hands just under your breasts, encouraging him to explore as he liked. Explore he did. He mouthed over your chest, his cool hands pebbling your nipples, and grasping the mounds beneath them. “Let me lay down, alright?” he whispered, pecking your lips, before taking off his sweatpants and hopping on top of your mattress, head resting on your plush pillows. He settled down, gesturing for you to straddle him again. You obliged, and he rested his hands on your hips again, grinding your core on his length, concentrating along your clit, dragging as many huffs of air and low whines he could from you until he could feel a wet patch forming on his crotch from your arousal.

You moaned, and nipped under his ear when he made you stop, trying to let you continue the delicious friction. “Please, Satoru. Don’t be mean.” You muttered.

“How I want you, remember?” he trilled, nipping you back on the base of your neck. You nodded and stilled your squirming. Ready for his next request. “Now come on up. Take a seat, love.” He chuckled, gently trying to coax you to hover above his face so he could devour you from beneath your comforting weight.

Your ears burned red hot, “I’ve never done that before. You sure you’ll like it?” you asked, looking down to his smooth chest, hands still on his shoulders.

He squeezed your hips reassuringly, “Oh yeah, baby.” He said, taking your left hand in his right and leading it to his mouth and leaving a kiss on your palm. “Been wanting to since I saw you in that damned nurse’s skirt.” He kissed your thumb and gently nipped the tip of it between his teeth.

You raised yourself up and off him, he was scared he’d messed everything up, scared you off, but that’s when he saw you were maneuvering your underwear off your legs. As you were about to toss them in the dirty laundry in the dark, Gojo grabbed your wrist, “Since we’re getting risky with these requests on my part, what’s one more? Can I keep those?” he laughed at the ludicrous question, but the glint in your eye told him you were by no means turned off by it. You agreed and while holding his gaze, you hung the pair on the side of your headboard, so he knew exactly where they were tomorrow morning. His face hurt he was smiling so much, “You’re heaven-sent,” he assured, gripping a handful of the dough of your ass as you straddled his chest, knees on either side of his head.

“If you’re having trouble breathing, or you need me off for any reason, tap my leg twice.” You said, “Show me what you’ll do if you need me off, Satoru.” Gojo’s smile softened, tapping your left thigh twice. You took a deep breath and hovered yourself fully over his head, he looped his arms around your legs from below and pulled your core down onto his face, “Holy shit-“ you exclaimed, cut off by a moan as Gojo got right to work, lapping at your little bundle of nerves, making you shutter and you found yourself resisting the urge to ride the man’s face. But like the outrageous man he is, he read your mind. Using the leverage he had from his grip on your hips, you felt yourself being shifted back and forth, he was fucking you on his tongue. The muscle slid over your slit, urging its way inside while your clit continued to run along the length of his nose. You braced yourself against the headboard with one hand, and the other you used to grip Gojo’s hair at the root as a lifeline.

Gojo moaned into your core, and you found yourself throwing your head back, begging for more. He happily obliged, reaching one of his hands around to reach in one of his fingers into you, moving his tongue back to your clit, circling it with precision. ‘Better than the damn ice cream.’ He thought as he continued his torrent on you. Just that thought made the man rut into the air without even realizing. But you did. Next thing Gojo knows, he’s forced to withdraw his tongue in his mouth and come up for air because you reached down one of your lithe hands and grasped him through his boxers. You drew a long groan from the man’s throat, his eyes screwed shut. You shifted your hand under his waistband and began to gently stroke the tip with your thumb before grasping his shaft and pushing his boxers down far enough to give you full access to his length. Gojo pinched your thigh. You almost got off him before you remembered that wasn’t the signal. He doesn’t want you off. “You first, love.”

You pouted, “But you look so pitiful down there like that,” you said, eyeing his weeping tip. “Let me help?” He was tempted to say yes, but merely tempted.

“You put those hands back up here and ride my face like a cowgirl till you’re red in the face. Then, we can solve my little issue, okay?” Gojo demanded, once again pinching your thigh. You reluctantly put him back in his boxers, but that reluctance disappeared when Gojo added another finger and amped up the intensity. You had both hands supporting you from behind as you braced them against his abdomen, your breasts bouncing with the movement of Gojo rotating you along his tongue. You couldn’t help but peer down at Gojo with the new angle and was quickly finding the peak a lot faster than before as you stared into his blue eyes, tears pricking on the edges from denial to himself and yet hazed over from rendering himself pussy drunk under you.

“God, you’re perfect, Satoru.” You babbled, unable to tear your eyes off his, them staring straight back. “Made just for me, all mine.” He barely was able to nod in agreement, adding another finger-three now-into you, stretching you beautifully and bringing you ever closer to jumping off the cliff into the deep waters of pleasure below. Still, he kept up his same speed, his stamina relentless as he continued to fuck your clit against his tongue and pump is fingers in and out of you at a ruthless pace. You grew ever closer to the edge, but not quick enough for Gojo’s liking, so he changed tactics for a moment, maintaining his fingering, but adding suction to your clit, grazing the hood with his teeth, and that did it. You all but screamed, white knuckle gripping Gojo’s hips from above, sure to leave a mark if he’ll let it. And as he continued to finger fuck you through your high, you thought he just might.

When he finally gave you a chance to catch your breath, he took out his fingers and began to slowly lap up the remnants around your core of your orgasm. Only when he was satisfied did you feel two taps on your thigh. You obliged, sliding down Gojo’s torso, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, wrapping your sweat slick arms around his head, again threading your fingers through his hair.

“Point proven,” You muttered, kissing his neck and whispering “Now about your little problem,” in his ear, nuzzling his earlobe and grinding your sensitive core against his clothed length.

He groaned and wrapped his arms around your middle. “Two minutes, baby. Sensitive, keep going and I might jizz in my pants like a highschooler.” Gojo huffed, gnawing his lip. Your eyes sparkled at the assertion, peering in his eyes with mischief.

“You really got off that hard on eating me out?” You asked, sitting up on his waist, ass grazing the tip of his cock through the thin fabric of his boxers.

His cheeks ran red, bleeding blush onto his chest. His pretty blues avoided your hunting gaze. Only when you shifted backwards a bit did he look at you again, and it was brief as he squeezed his eyes shut tight, gripping your shoulders tight. “Please, baby, wanna cum with you, not like this,” He gasped, pawing at your heartstrings. Unfortunately, you’re not heartless so you softened, laying back down and resorting to kissing his neck, leaving marks along his collarbone, and feeling up his sides with featherlight touches. This kept his heartrate up and his lashes fluttering as he kneaded your ass and gave you access to everything you wanted in the meantime.

“Always wanted to make a guy cum in his pants,” You mumble, nipping the shell of his ear.

His grip on you tightened further, as he let out a whine. “Two damned minutes, love, that’s all I ask for!”

You huffed a laugh, “I can’t even talk?” you teased, tracing circles around his pebbled nipples.

“Not like that!” he asserted, throwing his head back in frustration and letting out another whine of denial. “Let me catch my damned breath, you minx!” You giggled, and asked if you should leave the room, which he immediately shot down with a deep, hard kiss to your lips and a grope of your ass.

You pulled away, pecking him on the lips before moving on to pecking him across his face. “How can I when you’re just so perfect and hot, and you’re right here like a big, beautiful present for me?” you queried between your barrage of pecks. You expected a laugh but when you peered into his crystal eyes again, he looked at you like you had hung the moon, like you were the sun itself warming him and giving him life. And in some ways, you were to him. Sometimes he found himself straying from where he should on his path to power, success, and happiness, but ever since he’s had you, he’s found his way back quicker and quicker. You are by far the best thing that has come into his life, and he’ll be damned if you don’t know it.

With that breather, you could feel his drive picking up underneath you, no cursed energy required. So, you tested the waters again, gently grinding your core across his length. His breath hitched but he grinned and nodded ‘Game on.’ You thought, reaching over him to your bedside drawer for the box of condoms you had stashed there. He eyed you when you brought out the wrapper and as you sat up you gulped down your nerves and admitted that “I bought them a little while after we started getting close. I had high hopes, I guess.” He outright belly laughed at that one, nodding and admitting to the same thing. Leading you to do the same, smacking his arm. Regardless, you got your wits about you and moved between the man’s thighs as he still chuckled away, palming him in his boxers to quiet him down. And quiet down he did, his eyes shooting open and rolling back in his head at the feeling. You made quick work of his boxers, freeing his aching cock and marveling the sight. His gaze was piercing as you gently stroked him up and down, spreading his precum along his length and working your nimble fingers over him to roll on the condom.

“How do you want me, Satoru?” you asked, idly stroking him around his shaft, avoiding the tip now. Call him cheesy, but Gojo wanted to go traditional missionary for your first time, maybe put you on top at the end. There’s plenty of time to try new positions and techniques later. Right now, he wants you close and he wants you now. So, he rolled you off him, onto your back, and after making sure you’re comfortable, him insisting on putting a pillow under your hips for your back and him doting on you some more, you grabbed Gojo’s face and shoved your lips against his, your tongues clashing immediately while you reached down and aligned his tip with your entrance.

He took the hint and braced himself above you, one hand next to your head and the other against the headboard for support before pushing in, only making it halfway before you both needed a brief pause, he could feel you clenching around him with the stretch, and it made his hips stutter at the feeling. See, you don’t know this, but it had been a while for Gojo. He was in a dry spell for a good while before you came along, and when he laid eyes on you, he couldn’t look at another girl the same way, even when the opportunity popped up, he couldn’t bring himself to. All he kept wishing was that they were you, so he had to decline, the thought of seeing you the next day too enticing for him to even want to sleep with other women. And anytime he found himself hot below the collar, he could only think of you again, but it felt wrong to touch himself to you, so he resorted to thinking of gross, or simply the least arousing things he could, to cope. So, Gojo was sensitive. And that fact was hitting him like a bag of bricks as he buried himself to the hilt in your heat.

You clenched and fluttered below Gojo as you clawed at his hair and wrapped your legs around his waist, holding him in-bottomed out. You both began to pant as the throbbing heat continued at your join. You bucked your hips on a reflex and both of you moaned out wildly, Gojo gripping the pillow next to your head like his life depended on it. “God, I don’t know how long I’m gonna last,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Just seeing you like this has me close, Satoru,” you muttered, nuzzling his ear, “Just go for it, whatever happens, happens.”

He nodded, and dragged his length out slowly and shoved it in, gasping at the sensation. But he soldiered on, chasing both of your highs as best he could, pistoning into you. You moaned your encouragements, leaving long drags of your nails across his back. Gojo was spurred on further by the sting and he kept on, grabbing your left leg and pinning it up, holding it by the knee. The new angle gave him access to that wonderful spot inside of you, and you cried out, digging your nails deep into his skin.

He let out a deep, guttural groan and kept hitting that spot, over and over like it was all he knew how to do, and sure enough you were running towards that cliff again, this time hand in hand with Gojo Satoru when suddenly you could feel his resolve faltering, and he gripped your hips fiercely, flipping the two of you without losing a beat. The mere action enough to make that run a dead sprint, but the way he helped you bounce on his length, now digging into his abs with those piercing nails, him still reaching all the best parts inside of you, it was divine. You kept pace now, letting the man beneath you almost bliss out as you took the reins. Him merely stroking your thighs as you rode him all the way to the finish line. You looked down at him properly, and again, eye contact with the beautiful man was enough to send you tumbling, along with him. You both cried out, tears pricking the edge of both of your eyes as you came, vigorously riding off your highs. You could feel Gojo filling the condom inside you, sad you couldn’t take the risk to have been completely connected.

When you both caught your breath, you slowly pulled yourself off him, collapsing next to Gojo on your bed. He reached down and took off the condom, tied it off and threw it away in the trash next to your bed.

“Wow,” you muttered.

“Wow,” Gojo agreed.

“The kids are gonna see these marks, aren’t they?” you muttered, looking the man next to you over.

“I’m not letting you heal them, so yes. Absolutely.” He rasped, cuddling you closer to him.

“Not it” You called, raising your hand. Gojo frowned, sticking out his tongue at you, “Now that I know how you can use that thing, you better put it away or be ready for round two Mister.”

Gojo felt a laugh rip from his chest, and he couldn’t help but grab you around the middle and pull you on top of him for another kiss.

---

“A cat attack, Gojo-sensei?” The first years questioned as the group mowed down their bentos for the day.

The man nodded resolutely, “Of course, what other kind of ferocious beasty could have done this?” Gojo chuckled.

Nanami was sat beside the white-haired man, peering over his shoulder at the note that you had left him in his lunch that day, and nodded, “Yeah, some pussy really got him good.” He agreed, a slight smirk on his face. The kids began to realize, noticing the dark hickies under Gojo’s collar. Gojo’s eyes widened behind his glasses, and he thwacked Nanami on the arm. Nanami whispered quieter, “A nursing pussy, has three little kitte-“ Gojo kicked Nanami off of the chair next to him with enough force to send him flying a good ways.

“And I’m not getting you healed this time!” Gojo yelled.

“You owe me a new pair of undies, Mr. Greatness. <3 -Nurse-sensei”

[girlactionfigure]

Simone Segouin, mostly known by her codename, Nicole Minet, was only 18-years-old when the Germans invaded. Her first act of rebellion was to steal a bicycle from a German military administration, and to slice the tires of all of the other bikes and motorcycles so they couldn't pursue her. She found a pocket of the Resistance and joined the fight, using the stolen bike to deliver messages between Resistance groups.

She was an extremely fast learner and quickly became an expert at tactics and explosives. She led teams of Resistance fighters to capture German troops, set traps, and sabotage German equipment. As the war dragged on, her deeds escalated to derailing German trains, blocking roads, blowing up bridges and helping to create a German-free path to help the Allied forces retake France from the inside. She was never caught.

Segouin was present at the liberation of Chartres on August 23, 1944, and then the liberation of Paris two days later. She was promoted to lieutenant and awarded several medals, including the Croix de Guerre. After the war, she studied medicine and became a pediatric nurse. She passed away a few months ago at the age of 98. May her memory be for a blessing.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath 

[songmingisthighs]

Wanbelyn

introduction pt. i | pt. ii | pt. iii

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ch. vi - fire ?

neurosurgeon!hongjoong × reader

buy me coffee ?

tw : medical emergency

where love and peace is held, i never expected for this to happen. i planned and i planned, i expected, and i hoped, but it was never you. you held what i wanted hostage to make room for you, the thing that i needed but has no means of acceptance. deny me, live your best life.

It had been a while since you stepped into a hospital in the hopes of getting a job. Last time you did, you were younger and more naïve, unaware of what the job entails. Unaware of what was waiting for you.

The thought of working as a nurse kind of made your palms sweaty and knees knock slightly. You suddenly wanted to run but you had already told the HR that you were there and Yeonjun had spent a good amount of time prepping you. Not to mention Wooyoung who gave you the opportunity itself. You can't disappoint them and you can't disappoint yourself. You kept repeating the words your dad told you after that morning's call, "Calm down, take a deep breath, hold until 3, then bust a move."

He's dorky but you love him.

So in your attempt to distract yourself from your nerves, you began looking around the hospital, taking note of the things around you and naming them. It was then that a noise caught your attention from the end of the hall, causing you to immediately snap your head towards the direction. You couldn't see it clearly but you saw an abandoned cart rattling and shaking slightly before a tiny figure emerged, going on his tippy toes trying to get something from the top. It worried you to see a kid rummaging through carts like that as in hospitals, there's a chance that the cart could be filled with medical equipment that children shouldn't play with. You would've attended to the boy and brought him back to his parents but you were about to get called in for the interview any time and frankly, you learn to leave things that are not your responsibility alone. As hard as it was. So you looked back to your lap and took a scan through your resume, recalling the things Wooyoung wanted you to mention and the way you should explain things.

As you were deep in your own head, practising answers to potential questions, you heard clattering sounds from the direction where you saw the boy and soon you saw him on his back on the floor. Your eyes squinted in hopes of getting a better view of what was going on, both curious and worried, so you let your legs move on their own, walking closer to the figure only to hear strangled noises coming from the boy who was slowly turning blue.

"Oh my God," you whispered, body freezing in shock. No matter how much you were trained to face emergencies, the sight of the boy convulsing on the floor with his lips turning blue was scary enough to render you useless. Your hands shook and flashes of memories passed in your head, the figure of the boy who was in front of you mixed together with flashes of another child who was lying on his bed with blaring alarms from machines flooding your mind, almost suffocating you as well.

"No, no," You whimpered, bottom lip trembling as your eyes swam with tears, "Not again."

The boy lay not far from you, face red and lips turning blue in a position that made his choking even worse. You knew you had to help, you knew that at that moment, there was no one else but you who could help him and you needed to act fast.

With a bit of struggle, you managed to get your frozen body moving again slowly, step by step. You fell to his side and saw that the boy was clutching an empty jello container. You immediately put the information in your head, slightly relieved that it was a rather softer food instead of literally anything that wasn't food or worse, something sharp.

Though you were practically trembling in a mixture of fear and PTSD, you braced yourself, you grabbed the boy and dragged him to your lap, placing his chest on your thigh as you made sure his mouth was opened. As you manhandled the boy, you could feel how rigid his body was and it did not make you any more relieved/ Heck, it reminded you how you had to move fast or else it was another kid's life in your hands.

For a moment, you hesitated, you didn't want to do something you felt you were not ready for yet. But what were you supposed to do? So after successfully pushing the thought aside, you began striking the boy's back hard, right between his shoulder blades. The first hit made you stiffen, afraid that you might have done more harm than good and slightly hoping that it was all it took. But alas, the boy's face was turning purple and when you saw his eyes rolling back, something took over your whole body, something that was a mixture of determination and fear. You can not lose this boy, not when you can do something about it, you decided. So you sent blow after blow, one by one, and with each one delivered, you felt your mental state slipping slightly to the point that it seemed like you were not in control of your body anymore. You were fully aware that you had been trying to get the boy to cough up the jello he choked on, but you had absolutely no idea how to stop.

You swore you processed what went on, you swore you finally heard the boy's clear, loud cries from his lung that was no longer congested. You realized that you managed to save the boy but your hand wouldn't stop hitting him until you were yanked away and thrown to the other side. With your body slumping, you slowly regained consciousness of what was going on. Your cognition came back like a wave of cold water crashing onto your body. You hadn't had time to fully comprehend at what point of time you were at when you were yanked up to your feet.

"What did you think you were doing!?" you recognized her as the HR personnel who was supposed to interview you. "What?" you gasped out, a little delirious from your dissociated state but she didn't care, "Why were you hitting that boy!?" she yelled out, surprising you. At the mention of the boy, however, your eyes darted around until you fell to his crying figure. He was being held by a nurse who was glaring at you as we wailed loudly, so loud that it caught the attention of the people who were slowly gathering around. It didn't occur to you earlier at all but once reality crashed down on you, you recognized the boy as Kijoong, the boy Wooyoung brought to Yeonjun's cafe a couple days back.

Just as you felt relieve, the HR personnel snapped her fingers in front of your line of sight. "Well?" She asked, seeking an explanation out of you. Dread crawled to your chest and the look of absolute distaste and Kijoong's wails only made you feel worse, it struck a deep sense of fear in you. "I-I was, I saw him there all alone a-and I noticed he was taking, I think it was jellos? He got up and a-and got like a jello from the unattended cart so-," "So you punished- no, ASSAULTED a child you don't know because he was being juvenile?" She snapped, voice loud as she stressed the word 'assaulted'. Your eyes widened and you shook your head quickly and you moved to take a step back only to fail. That moment you realized that you were being held by a security guard who was rather bulky, unable to escape even if it was just to create some distance. "No! I-I, look, I was-" the words were at the tip of your tongue but your brain was muddled, your cognition was not working correctly and maybe it was because you had had what could only be practically described as an out of body experience, but it was also due to the situation you were put in. Who would be able to stay calm in that situation?

Though she could've waited for you to explain, she simply rolled her eyes and told the security guard to escort you out the hospital after making sure that security has your picture and profile.

"P-profile? Wha- Excuse me?" Things weren't making sense and the people who were there did not provide clarity. The HR personnel paused momentarily in front of you, letting out one sharp exhale, "I'm afraid we can't process you in our hospital, Ms. (y/l/n). The behaviour you had just shown in this very unnecessary situation tells a lot about your personality and I do believe with absolute certainty that you would not fit in with this hospital. Frankly, I do not think you are fit to work in this profession whatsoever. The interview is off, you are no longer permitted back into this hospital, effective immediately," she then turned sharply just as you saw Kijoong being put on a gurney and getting strolled out.

"Wait!" You called out, what for? You weren't sure. It didn't matter anyway because just as Kijoong's voice grew further as he got wheeled away, you were dragged with such force by the security, past the group of people who were glaring, leering, and whispering at your expense.

Honestly, you didn't even care about the interview or the job opportunity, you just wanted to make sure that the kid was okay. Sure, his voice was loud and clear, but you wished there was a way for you to be absolutely sure.

One thing is for sure though, you may have lost an opportunity, but you had potentially saved a life.

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