#after everything ive done why do you persist. because i promised you....

[cherwich]

Why do you persist? After everything Ive done.

Because I promised you.

[anx-box]

VİKTOR FANS HOW ARE WE FEELİNG RN

[cinebration]

It Isn’t Enough (Captain Syverson x Reader) [Request]

Thank you for opening requests, i love your writing!

If you feel up for it: I like fics where one is an complete asshole in the beginning but notices it after some time and tries to make it better/apologizes.

So maybe a Captain Syverson fic where you are an soldier that comes new to his troop and he for whatever reason starts to humiliate her/has her do drills that would be extreme even for men and does that for days. And reader never complains because she hates beeing seen as less for being a woman, but is completely exhausted.

And idk either she collapses and some point or for extra drama gets wounded in a fight because she cant defend herself because she is so weak from his treatment. And he notices what a asshole he was.

Idk something like that would be awesome but I love all your fics, write whatever you like 😄 — Requested by anon

Hooo boy, anon, this was fun to write. Not sure you’ll like the ending, though.

Warnings: gunshot

Gif Source: calebduume

You wanted to punch Syverson in his goddamn face and make him bleed. Perhaps that was a byproduct of growing up with two older brothers, of having to fight and scrape your way to be “valued,” but the urge to beat Syverson into submission was strong.

It was bad enough you were the only woman assigned to his unit. It was worse still that he was holding it against you.

When the orders had come in that you were being assigned to his unit, you had balked. Bunch of grunts like that were guaranteed to make hell for you—even more so because you were being sent to them to help deal with the female population. The men intimidated the women and therefore were missing out on vital intelligence.

It chafed you that you were solely being selected based on your sex. You had gone out of your way to distinguish yourself in the hopes that you wouldn’t be seen only as a female soldier. You had performed comparably with the men in most categories and had exhibited great improvement in the ones you were lacking. Your old CO had lauded you for your diligence and determination.

Only now you were back at square one, dealing with a captain who clearly did not want a woman on his team of brutes.

You refused to let him see it, but you were suffering. As part of his campaign to scrub you out of the unit, he had you working unpredictable hours. He had you running the perimeter at two in the morning after only an hour of sleep, then made you clean the toilets. The other men noticed but didn’t quite say anything. Only one dared to offer you sympathetic glances and tried to shoulder some of the excessive responsibilities being heaped on you. When Syverson caught on, however, the man was punished alongside you.

When the summer arrived, some four months after you had been assigned, Syverson had you running suicides at high noon. You nearly collapsed from heat stroke, but you persisted, aware he and the others were watching you. After, you shambled into the building, clothes soaked with sweat, and made it to your room before passing out.

An hour later, Syverson all but kicked down the door. “Get up, we’re rolling out.”

Flushed and still shaky, you glared up at him. “Yessir.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched, but he stormed out, leaving you to suit up.

You knew something was wrong when you had trouble getting into your gear. Your fingers fumbled, and you felt dizzy, the floor rocking beneath you. You struggled to think straight, everything fuzzy inside your head and out.

Get it together, you hissed inwardly, and then you were out the door.

The merciless sun beat down on you, cooking you in your fatigues and body armor as you moved with the others through the empty square. Everything baked in the heat, waves shimmering off the streets and buildings. Your vision wavered as you scanned through the haze.

The silence stretching over the market square should have set your nerves jangling, but your unsteadiness countered that, making you trudge after the others without a word. Something fluttered in the corner of your eye. Squinting, you turned sluggishly toward it, saw a figure leaning against a building.

Why are they doing that, your addled mind asked.

Pain exploded through your chest, knocking you down. You didn’t so much as cry out, the breath in your lungs gone. The dirt pressed into your face, shoving your sunglasses against your temple. Gunfire cracked around you. Heavy hands yanked you back, dragging you across the dirt with ease. You faded in and out, hearing shouts as you were flung to safety behind the Humvee.

~~

You woke slowly, grainy eyes peeling open unpleasantly, as though every grain of dirt and sand had worked their way under the lids. Mouth gummy, you swallowed thickly and tried to get your bearings, your head pounding. The room around you resolved into the medic tent.

A light breeze toyed with the flap of the tent, making the harsh sunlight play in jagged lines across everything.

Voices cut through the fog in your head.

“You almost killed her!”

“It’s not my fault she didn’t see—”

“She should never have been out there! Thanks to your drills, she was suffering from heat stroke!”

Silence.

You tried to elbow up into a sitting position. Pain flared through your chest, another wave through your skull. You groaned despite yourself.

The flap smacked open as the medic stormed back into the tent, rushing to your side. “Whoa there, take it easy.” He eased you back down onto the bed. “You took a bullet to the chest on top of the heat stroke.”

You glanced at the IV stuck in your arm and the saline drip attached to it above you. “Everyone…okay?”

The medic arched his eyebrows.

“Yes.”

Captain Syverson’s voice sent a jolt of surprise through you. He stood at the foot of the cot, arms folded over his broad chest. He didn’t quite meet your eyes, his brow creased deeply. Dirt clung to his features, plastered there with sweat.

The medic fussed over you for a few minutes, checking vitals and talking to soothe you. You ignored him, painfully aware of Syverson’s presence and resenting it.

“I want to speak to her alone.”

The medic shook his head. “I don’t think that—”

“That’s an order.”

The medic glared at him for a long moment before relenting, backing out of the tent. You shifted uneasily on the cot, tensing as you felt Syverson shift his attention back to you.

“You’re a stubborn fuck,” he growled.

Your mouth curled into a snarl. “Save it for when I’m back on my feet.”

The muscle in his jaw clenched. “You should have said something about the heat stroke.”

“Why? To give you the satisfaction of having ‘beaten’ me?”

He glanced away, making you frown. The man usually stared you down, not flinched. “I’m sorry.”

The words took the breath out of you. “You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke. I shouldn’t have run you so hard.”

Shaking your head, you leaned back against the pillow. “Well, it worked. You’ve successfully driven me out.”

“What?”

“I’m requesting a transfer.”

The statement hung in the air between you both, stifling. You heard Syverson shift on his feet. Good, you thought. Leave.

“You should stay.”

You blinked, glanced at you him. Had you heard him correctly? “Excuse me?”

“Don’t make me repeat it.”

“Why should I stay? You did everything you could to make my life a living hell.”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

You couldn’t tell if he was being genuine. You scrutinized his face, the way he couldn’t meet your eyes, as though terribly uncomfortable. “Why did you do it? Because I’m a woman?”

The words seemed to be yanked from him. “I didn’t think you could manage it out here. I didn’t think you should.”

It was exactly what you thought, but it still stung. Hand curling into a fist, your bruised chest aching, you said, “I guess you were right.”

“I’m trying to say I wasn’t,” he growled.

“Just promise me the next woman sent to this unit doesn’t suffer the same treatment.”

His lips pressed into a thin line. “So you won’t stay?”

“No.” You let your gaze drift up to the tent’s canopy. “I’m done. With all of it.”

Syverson moved to the tent flap. He paused, his shadow stretching across your feet. “I am sorry.”

“It isn’t enough.”

[alovher]

hi! im kind of new to law of assumption and old to law of attraction. law of assumption is not a hard concept but im a bit confused. i find myself reacting to the 3D too much and like i find it hard to persist? what do i do to make persisting easier? i think it’s because i don’t know much about what im getting into?? all i know is affirm and persist and etc. i hear things like time is an illusion, the 3D is an illusion, circumstances don’t matter, we are all gods of our reality. but WHERES the proof?? i can’t blindly follow people’s success stories because im not them and if we are truly the gods of our realities, doesn’t that mean someone else can manifest failure in mine? like i want to use law of assumption and i want to believe to get what I want fast and easily BUT i want to know how it works and that im not following a delusion to make myself feel better and in the end, I am just left with disappointment and failed attempts at manifesting that left me with the consequences of my actions. ive been in the community for almost 2 years and i don’t think ive ever gotten results. i am not usually agitated but it’s exhausting. i affirm and persist and nothing shows up and im worried im doing it all wrong so i ask and now I’m even affirming wrong?? I know manifestation is supposed to be easy and not feel like a chore but how can it not when everything I desire is of so much importance to me. I can even dm you, just please help me so I can actually manifest what I want. I’ve done self concept but I keep breaking. I don’t even know what affirmations to use to combat my limiting beliefs. Tbh I’m tired. I feel like if someone explained to me how this works and how to do it with no mistakes and how to keep faith in the unseen, I could actually get what I want. I keep failing and failing because I affirm and persist but I affirm wrong or I have a limiting belief that hasn’t been uncovered yet. I’m so exhausted and I just want to get what I want.

hi! you say you don’t know much about what you’re getting to, that’s an easy fix. there are many coaches and advisors and blogs all over but i feel the best person to go to, to learn about loa is neville goddard. you can listen to his lectures (most videos are less than twenty minutes) on youtube and/or read his books (divineangelbee has the links pinned) for free.

i can feel the desperation you have for wanting to get this right, and i deeply empathize with you. you say everything you desire is important to you, ofc it is lol all of our desires are meaningful to us! but the degree of importance you assign your individual desires does not determine how hard or easy it is to manifest.

you say you’ve tried working on your self concept - why do you feel like the work you’ve done is seemingly not enough? or as you’ve put it ‘you keep breaking’? in what way do you break, what is the cause, what are the beliefs you hold about yourself and those around you that facilitate such breakage?

you say you don’t know what affirmations to use to combat your limiting beliefs - another easy fix! there are plenty of affirmations available for you to use that my peers and i post everyday! you can also come up with your own affirmations that are tailored to your specific situation, it is not complicated. for example, let’s say you have the limiting belief that you have to be in a good mood in order to manifest, or otherwise you will not receive your desire. you could affirm to yourself, “i am a limitless creator! no matter what i do or how i feel, my desires always come into fruition easily and quickly!” thats it :)

lastly, let’s talk about faith. you want proof that manifestation is real and yet you struggle to find the value in your fellow man’s success. if it is possible for them, why can’t it be possible for you? you have been manifesting your entire life, even before you knew what the law was. nothing has changed and there is nothing to change but yourself. it can be hard to believe in the impossible, and even harder to believe that you can manifest the impossible. but faith is the loyalty to what is not seen. faith is believing in yourself. your comment about “blindly following” other people is so interesting to me because 1. this journey has nothing to do with other people, 2. are you really blind? or is something blocking your vision? are you that something?, and 3. refer back to number 1…why are you following others, why not follow yourself?

all in all, i am available to talk anytime. 💓 i hope i’ve helped reassure you in some way. coming into loa after living a life of lack, things can feel confusing. but i promise, keep persisting and you will realize it’s not as complicated as you thought. you’re not a failure and you are capable of doing incredible things. the law is only as hard as you make it. you are not “affirming wrong”! this is your reality, your world, you’re the main character, the director, and you write the fucking script… act like it

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Her Brother's Blood is on His Hands

(Originally written for @heart-pirates-week for Ikkaku’s day with the prompt “Family” but ended up being delayed until now. Inspired by discussions with @shambledsurgeon and @medicus-mortem)

Ikkaku awoke slowly, the persistent beeping of a heart monitor resembling that of a particularly slow but annoying alarm clock. She tried to sit up but a sharp pain in her side dissuaded her, so she was forced to remain on her back, looking around at the sterile walls of the infirmary. She was hooked up to an IV, there were several machines monitoring her vitals, and she could feel the pressure of tightly-wound bandages around her torso and arms.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Law said from the chair at her bedside, putting down the medical book he’d been reading. The circles under his eyes appeared darker than usual, but his grin was comforting and sure. “I was beginning to wonder if we’d have to resort to drastic measures to wake Sleeping Beauty.”

“Law?” she asked weakly, grimacing at how hoarse she sounded due to the dryness of her throat. “The fuck happened?”

“Gonna have to be more specific,” he stated as he carefully helped prop her up enough that she could safely drink some water. “Do you mean how did you end up here? Maybe the extent of your wounds? Or how about what, exactly, I did to the fucker who hurt you?”

Her eyes widened as she recalled what had happened. She’d been taking a walk with Jean Bart, venting about how much she hated that they were now government dogs because Law’d insisted on handing the Navy one hundred hearts. They’d run into a squad of Marines. Her brother’s squad, to be exact. Ushi had decided it was pointless trying to climb the Navy ranks the normal way, and thus had come up with the idea of sucking up to the Celestial Dragons. And what better way to do so than to return to Saint Rosward his wayward slave?

Heart clenching at the thought of her shipmate being handed back over to those bastards, she asked, “Is Jean—”

“He’s fine. Discharged yesterday,” Law promised, nodding towards the empty bed on the other side of the room. He picked up a chart, studying it as he continued, “Needed a lot of stitches for the lacerations across his back and arms, but nothing life-threatening.”

“Good,” she sighed in relief. He hadn’t been killed or taken. Jean Bart would continue to live as a free man for a while longer. He deserved that much.

“Was quite the sight, seeing him charging towards the ship, covered in blood, carrying you like a baby while you bled out from a stab wound,” he commented, voice even, though there was an unmistakable tightness in his jaw. “I’m just glad he managed to tell me who’d done this to you two before he passed out.”

White teeth sank into her bottom lip, guilt pulsing through her. That’s right. It hadn’t exactly been a victory. They’d managed to take down most of the Marines, but Ushi had managed to get behind her, and then there’d been excruciating pain as he’d driven a knife deep into her side…

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she whispered, black curls hiding her face as she hung her head in shame.

“The hell are you apologizing for?” he asked, gold eyes flicking up from the clipboard and narrowing in displeasure.

She wrung her hands, anxious and guilty. “Jean Bart got hurt because of my family baggage.”

“He got hurt because of an opportunistic asshole who decided that Jean being under the protection of a shichibukai didn’t matter,” he snapped. Pausing, he took a deep breath to compose himself. “The fact that said asshole came out of the same uterus as you is irrelevant.”

“We both know that’s not true,” she countered, refusing to look at him. “He targeted the Hearts because of me. He always has. And he wouldn’t have been able to go after Jean Bart if I’d let you kill him years ago. Or killed him myself. You deserve a subordinate with the stones to kill her own brother.”

Internally, she berated herself for that last part. None of this would be a problem if she’d just toughened up and put an end to that bastard. Why did she always seem to stop herself? Morality? Because she knew how heartbroken her parents would be? Because even years later, she was still scared of her childhood boogeyman?

Her thoughts were disturbed by the clipboard lightly smacking her on the head in reproach. It didn’t hurt, but Ikkaku rubbed her head anyway, frowning up at her captain. “You trying to knock me unconscious again?”

“If that’s what it takes to get you to stop talking bullshit,” he retorted. He glared at her for a moment before letting out a sigh, a tattooed hand falling heavily on her shoulder. “Ikkaku,” Law stated, tone brokering no argument, “what I deserve is a subordinate with the stones to stand up to a power-hungry bastard looking to sell her nakama to a bunch of delusional inbred freaks, which that’s exactly what I’ve got. And what you deserve is to not get stabbed in the spleen by your own blood.”

Well. It was hard to argue that logic. “I guess. But next time—”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“You don’t know that.”

The hand on her shoulder fell away to flip through the pages of her chart. “Ikkaku, you nearly bled out before you even got to the sub. You’re lucky Shachi and Penguin share your blood type and were basically tripping over themselves to donate. I had to replace your spleen and left kidney, and if that knife had gone in at a slightly different angle, he could have punctured your stomach or lung. In other words, this bastard nearly cost me my engineer. You’ve known me for goin’ on five years now; do you really think that once you were stable I just sat around twiddling my thumbs while I waited for you to wake up?”

Dark eyes widened in realization. “Did you kill him?”

“Would you be mad if I said I had?”

No. Not at him at least, but she still felt like she’d let him down by not being able to do it herself. “He shouldn’t have been your problem to solve.”

“You’re right. He shouldn’t have been a problem,” he replied harshly. Before Ikkaku could internally berate herself further, though, Law ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and there was a spark of guilt in his eyes. “No Marine should have even touched you guys. That’s supposed to be one of the fucking perks of being a shichibukai. I told you when I took this damn title that you be safe and look how that turned out.”

Yes, that had been a major argument between them, hadn’t it? For Ikkaku, not wanting to be affiliated with the World Government hadn’t just been a matter of pride or general hatred for the bastards who ran the world – she’d been afraid. Terrified that her brother would be waiting for her around every corner. That he’d find a way to get her alone, to finish the job he’d started when she was seven, to finally get her out of his hair. Law had promised she’d be safe, that he wouldn’t let him so much as breath near her. Eventually, she’d come to believe him, but things hadn’t gone to plan.

“You can’t blame yourself for Ushi not following the rules, Law,” she insisted. Yeah, she could have berated him for not listening to her, but in reality, Law’s logic had been sound; Ushi shouldn’t have dared to try anything. Ikkaku didn’t just have the Hearts protecting her anymore – the Navy itself had become another obstacle in his way. She should have been safe.

However, even she hadn’t fully considered why Ushi would go this far, but in hindsight, it made sense. Last she’d checked, he hadn’t been promoted in a while. Hadn’t advanced as quickly as he wanted or earned any accolades for heroism like everyone back home had been expecting. He was a commodore still – not even a rear-admiral, and his name didn’t strike fear into the hearts of pirates like Smoker’s did.

Because he’d been put on a pedestal, her brother had always gotten away with everything, which had only enforced his cruel and abusive nature. The whole island had believed that he’d become a famous Marine and boost their reputation, which was why they’d been willing to overlook the bruises that littered his sister’s arms, or the fact that she’d gone missing for three days while under his care.

If he’d come home a failure, everyone would have to finally admit he was nothing but a twisted, cruel bully. And instead of accepting the blame for enabling, they’d likely make him answer for his crimes.

But more than that, he’d be forced to accept that he was never that special to begin with, and she knew a man as arrogant as him wouldn’t be able to bear that.

Shaking her head, she almost felt pity for him. “Ushi was desperate, and desperate men are unpredictable as fuck. You couldn’t have known he’d be crazy enough to try to suck up to the Celestial Dragons.”

“Neither of us could have known, but I still could have protected you better,” Law retorted, crossing his arms. He still didn’t look fully convinced of his own absolution, but he declared quite plainly, “The fact is, brothers shouldn’t murder their younger siblings, or even try to.”

Well, not even Ikkaku could argue that.

But actions had consequences, and there was still a strong chance Law’s retaliation, justified or not, would bite him in the ass.

“Ushi might have been no one special, but the Navy’s not going to be happy about you killing one of their own,” she said, genuinely worried. Even if Ushi had been going against orders, shichibukai weren’t supposed to attack their Marine allies. What if they decided to strip Law of his new title? Sure, she hated that he was a government dog, but it was a vital part of his plan to take down Joker, and if that had been stripped away because he’d recklessly pursued revenge on her behalf…

The way he smirked at her belied that he didn’t share even a fraction of her concern. “The Navy’ll have a hell of a time pinning a murder on me when there’s no evidence. It’s unlikely he was ordered to attack you and Jean Bart, so there’s no paper trail. The man was obsessed with advancing up the ladder, so likely only a select few are even aware you’re related, thus no one knows of his unfortunate connection to the Heart Pirates. And unless they plan on gutting a bunch of Sea Kings and piecing together chunks of half-digested flesh, I doubt they’ll find enough of his body to even determine his cause of death.”

“You fed him to Sea Kings?”

“His remains, at least. As for how I killed him…well, I won’t bore you with the details.”

It was highly doubtful what he’d done could be described as boring, but Ikkaku decided not to press him. Knowing Law, it had been slow, painful, and had probably involved dissection. “You didn’t have to do all that for me, Captain.”

He dismissed her concerns with a casual wave of his hand. “Of course I did. You’re family. Besides, if I hadn’t, the rest of the crew would have gone after him themselves, and they wouldn’t have done as good a job covering their tracks. Or made him scream quite as loud. No offense to them, but conventional torture methods just can’t match the agony of having your heart slowly crushed to a pulp.”

Was she a bad person for not feeling sick at the thought of her oldest brother—her own blood—being subjected to the Surgeon of Death’s sadism? That instead of anger or disgust, she felt relieved? Sure, he was a massive piece of shit who deserved to die for everything he’d done to her, her other brothers, and who knows what else, but he was still family, wasn’t he?

No. The Hearts were family. Law was family. He was right – Ushi was blood, but he wasn’t her brother.

Law’s brow furrowed with concern and he reached forward, cupping her cheeks and wiping tears away with his thumbs. Ikkaku hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely guilty. “I shouldn’t have overstepped like that. I should have at least waited until you were awake and asked—”

Though she was tired and weak and it took far more effort than she’d like, Ikkaku lifted her arm and flicked Law squarely in the forehead. He didn’t quite flinch back, but he did give her an annoyed grunt, but his brow did smooth out when he saw her bright smile.

“Thank you,” she said, cheeks streaked with tears but voice warm with love and affection and gratitude. It might take a while for her to fully accept that Ushi was no longer laying in wait at every Marine base, but for now, she could breath a little easier. The monster from her childhood had finally been vanquished.

Trafalgar Law might not have been a knight in shining armor, but he was something better. He was the big brother she’d always wished for.

Relieved that she wasn’t angry, Law gave her a tiny but sincere grin back. His engineer was alive, safe, and giving him that sunny smile that could light up a room. Well worth the blood on his hands, and quietly, he vowed to keep her, and the rest of his Hearts, safe from whatever hell might come their way.

They were a loyal bunch of fools, but they were his family. He’d set the world on fire before allowing anything to happen to them.

A hand adorned with the word DEATH retreated from Ikkaku’s cheek to ruffle her hair. “Don’t mention it.”

[writing-reading-inspiring]

Matter Of The Heart (Tom Holland X Reader) - Chapter One

Summary: (y/n) doesn’t expect much more out of her life, mostly because it’s ending. However, she definitely didn’t expect to catch the eye of a famous actor who likes to visit the kids on her floor.

Warnings: diseases and medical issues are talked about, mentions of death, curse words

I woke up to the shining sun beaming in from the windows to the right of me, illuminating the entire room in a golden light. I could hear birds chirping as they welcomed the new day with gratitude and grace. Ugh, what show offs.

I grumpily pulled my personal duvet over my head, trying to block out the streams of light long enough to fall back to sleep. 

I knew I was supposed to be awake and that I would probably get shit about this from my doctor, but I really wanted to sleep. I mean, come on, who else doesn’t want to sleep in a few hours more than they’re supposed to.

I sighed in contentment when I was finally able to make it dark enough for me to drift back into sleep. Unfortunately, I was stirred again by a persistent knocking at my door. Damn it, Jade.

“Go away,” I gracefully responded with hair stuck in my mouth.

“You need to be up, (y/n). You have scheduled equipment today,” Jade replied, opening the door as she spoke.

Jade is one of my favorite nurses that works at the hospital. I, of course, would never tell her that, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“But, it’s so early. Why can’t I ever just rest peacefully and undisturbed. You know medical professionals say to get eight hours of sleep, yet it’s the medical professionals that wake me up before I can get that.”

Jade rolled her eyes at me, “First of all, it’s 10:30 in the morning, so you should have gotten well past eight hours of sleep if you weren’t binge watching an entire season of Supernatural. Second of all, if we left you undisturbed, you would sleep till 5:00 at night and then the night crew would be very upset about having to take care of you on top of their patients who need 24/7 surveillance. So, stop being dramatic and get out of bed.”

I couldn’t help the small grimace that grew on my face as she spoke. We both knew she was right and I had no choice but to get up for the day.

“Fine, but only if I get at least an hour to myself today. I want the promise of not being watched every 10 minutes.”

Jade gave me a look of understanding while she set up her cart. Every morning, she would take my vitals to make sure everything was working right.

“I know it’s difficult, sweetie. You’re an 18 year old girl who doesn’t even get to step outside of the hospital without a nurse with you. It’s tough, but you have to understand that we’re only here to make sure you can live as long as you can. We need to watch you every 10 minutes to make sure that the world can have it’s beautiful (y/n) for as long as it can.”

Jade stopped prepping her needles and came to give me a hug. I sat up and held her back tightly, knowing that she spoke from her heart. That’s one of the things I loved about her and all of the other staff members at the hospital, they genuinely cared about the patients here.

She pulled back from me, giving me a smile as she went back to her cart. “Now then, let’s get you checked up so you can get dressed.”

I nodded at her and crawled to the end of the bed, putting out my arm for her to take my blood pressure. 

I knew by now what the routine was for the mornings. Blood pressure, temperature, heart beat, and blood samples. 

Every morning a nurse would come in and do these tests without fail. At night it’s similar, but I don’t get any blood work done. It’s then that they reconnect me to the heart monitor and put the IV back in me. The doctors want me to be hydrated as much as I can be, so they slowly have me receive saline when I’m sleeping.

Once Jade was done, she left me on my own to get changed, promising that she would be back in 10 minutes to make sure I got some food in me.

I looked through my suitcase, trying to find something comfortable for the day. I was very limited in what I could wear because of testing and the fact that I only can wear what fits in the suitcase. That’s why Aunt Avery exchanges my clothes every two weeks, so I can have different styles.

I grabbed a cute pair of black sweatpants and a white top to go along with it. I didn’t feel like having shoes on today, so I just put on a pair of socks.

Once I was done, I grabbed my phone from the bedside table. 

“Guys, please. I can’t answer all zero of my notifications at once.”

“That’s kinda sad, you realize that.”

I jumped at the sound of Jade’s voice from behind me. I turned around to face her only to see her silently laughing at me.

“Hey, I need to keep myself entertained. The best way to do that is to always keep up my amazing sense of humor, even when I’m alone. Besides, are you surprised I don’t have any texts? I live in the pediatric ward of a hospital.”

She only shook her head at me before placing a tray of food on the table.

“It’s still sad. Anyway, you need to eat before your echocardiogram.”

I sighed before complying. I’m so tired of laying down while doctors poke and prod me for answers. I mean come on, is it really that bad if I go outside just for a walk?

Jade left me to eat my eggs alone as she went to see another patient. 

“Well then, I guess it’s just you and me Mr. Goldberg,” I pitifully said while putting on You.

Every day at the hospital is just like the last. I do testing, then eat, do more testing, take a walk, maybe go to the day room, do even more testing, sleep, and repeat. I swear one day they’ll transfer me to the mental ward if they keep this up. 

I had just finished my eggs and episode six of season two when Jade came back in to see me.

“So, how was your breakfast? Are you still hungry?”

“I’m always hungry, you should know that by now. I’m satiated for now, but give it an hour or so. The food was good though.”

Jade gave me a smile and a small laugh before putting the food tray in a bin in the hallway for the janitors to take back to the cafeteria. 

“I know, I know, I’m such a comedian. Maybe I can do that for a living. You think the hospital would employ me?”

She laughed louder this time, putting her hands on my shoulder, prompting me to stand up.

“Come on, sweetie. It’s time for your echocardiogram. Maybe you can come up with new material while they do it.”

I put my hands over my heart in mock defense. “That hurts. That truly wounded me, Jade. I may need to request a new nurse.”

We continued to joke around as we made our way to the fourth floor where they have a cardiologist office.

“Ah, Miss (y/l/n), you’re here, finally,” Mrs. Denver told me as I walked through the door. I gave her a fake smile and rolled my eyes as she turned her back. She’s a very condescending woman.

Jade gave me a pointed look before squeezing my shoulder and leaving me to fend for myself. By now I know the routine. I do whatever tests Doctor Hasting wants me to do and then I’m free to roam the hospital until 1:30 when a nurse meets me in the cafeteria.

“Okay, here’s the dressing gown I need you to change into. You can wait in the last room on your left. The Doctor will meet you there in a minute, but you know that with all the times you’ve come here.”

I gave her another fake smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Denver.”

I made my way to the room she told me to go to and changed quickly. Ugh, this hospital gown does nothing for my figure. 

I sat down on the examining table and waited for about five minutes before Doctor Hasting arrived. 

“Hello, (y/n), are you ready for your echocardiogram?”

I nodded in response to her words, just wanting to get this over with quickly.

“That’s great and I have some good news for you. We only need to do one other test today, you’ll be done here in about an hour. So let's get started then.”

I sighed in relief before laying on my back as she started to prepare the machines. 

True to her word, I was able to leave after about an hour went by. She told me that she would give the information she gathered from my results to one of my nurses once all of the charts are printed. 

Smiling, I changed back into my sweatpants and t-shirt and said goodbye to the staff in the clinic. 

I made my way to the first level of the building, planning on walking in the garden. I was just about to reach the garden doors when I heard my name being called behind me. Shit.

“(y/n)! (y/n)! I know you can hear me.”

I turned around to face Jade. “Bro, this is some of my only alone time. I’m supposed to meet you in the cafeteria at 1:30.”

She gave me a pointed look, “Well, I’m sorry that I thought you might want to know that you’ve been cleared to visit other patients.”

My eyes widened at her news, “I can go see the kids? Are you being serious?”

She smiled brightly back at me while nodding her head, “You sure can, sweetheart. I know there’s some little patients that have been wanting to see you for the last three weeks.”

For the past month, I’ve been quarantined from the other patients. The doctors have had me pumped with medication that lowers my white blood count and makes it hard for my immune system to fight back any diseases. They figured that the best course of action would be to keep me away from other sick patients. 

I know it’s not cool to be excited to hang out with a bunch of kids in a pediatric ward, but I can't help it. They’re amazing kids who are insanely strong considering everything what they are being put through.

I also know that they absolutely love to see me. I mean, who can blame them though. They think it’s cool to be around an older girl and I get some hope back being around them.

“When can I see them?”

“Right now is preferred. There’s actually a very special guest arriving today, so you may not want to miss that.”

I kind of stopped paying attention after Jade told me that I could see the kids right now. 

I started walking towards the activity room, “Come on, what are you waiting for?”

Jade laughed at me before meeting me at my side, “You really love those kids don’t you?”

I scoffed, trying to act cool, “They’re okay. I mean okay for a bunch of snot ridden children.”

She rolled her eyes at me, bumping my shoulder. “I don’t blame you for caring about them. They’re good kids. They’re also very brave for facing their illnesses like they do. Kind of reminds me of a certain someone when they were younger.”

I lightly smile while looking away. I don’t remember much of my first hospital visit, but I was told I was unaffected by everything. I didn’t really understand my condition when I was 6, I only knew that I had lost my mom and brother. I do remember my second visit though. I was diagnosed then. It was hard for me to deal with, but I never let anyone know that. 

It’s still scary sometimes, knowing that I can die at any time. 

We had finally reached the activity room after a couple of minutes. 

The room was arranged strangely. All of the chairs and the couches were facing a huge open space at the front. I barely remember Jade mentioning a guest, but even when people do visit, they don’t usually rearrange the room. It takes too much time out of the faculties day. 

“(y/n)! You’re here!”

I quickly changed my focus to a little girl in a pink long-sleeved shirt, tutu, and crown.

“Luna! Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of royalty. Hello, you’re majesty,” I finished with a curtsy and a wide smile on my face.

“You may stand,” Luna told me while I chuckled under my breath. She really is something else.

“How are you, princess?”

“I’m great. The doctor told me that the bad thing in my brain is going to go away soon.”

I couldn’t help the tears that began to pool in my eyes as I hugged her. “That’s amazing, Luna. That means you’re going to be all better,” I said, truly happy for her.

“Why were you gone so long?” 

She pulled away from my hug as she looked up at me. “I had to do a lot of tests and procedures for the doctors. The medicine they gave me made me really weak and made my monster protection kind of low. That’s why I couldn’t come see any of you.”

Luna jumped up and down, “That means you’re going to be all better too. My mommy always tells me when I have to meet with my doctors that the more I do it, the more I get better. You were gone a long time, so that must mean you’re close to being better too.”

I really didn’t know what to tell her. I know I wasn’t going to get better, but I couldn’t tell her that. She needs to have hope in all aspects of her life. 

I turned my head up to meet Jade’s eyes. She held so much sadness in them knowing that the only way I was getting out of the hospital was in a hearse. 

I quickly turned back to Luna, “That’s right, honey. But that doesn’t really matter right now. What’s important is that you’re going to be all better really soon.”

She smiled back at me, “You’re going to be healed soon too. James, Elena, William, Quinton! Did you hear (y/n)? She’s going to be better soon.”

I didn’t notice that some of the other kids gathered around Luna and I during our conversation.

I looked back at Jade, not knowing what to do.

Luckily, she saved me, “Come one kids. Our special guest is almost here. Lets get some seats in the front row, yeah?”

I nodded at her in gratitude as she lead the small group to some chairs.

“(y/n), are you coming?” Luna asked me.

“I’m actually going to stand in the back, okay? That way I don’t block any of your guy’s views.”

“Okay!”

I watched as Luna skipped to the front to meet with the rest of her friends. I really do love those kids.

I made my way to the back of the room as some more patients from the pediatric ward came in.

I’ve never seen this big of a turn out for one of these things. It’s kind of weird to be in a room of this many people.

I watched as the last of the kids arrived and took their seats.

Jade surveyed the room before standing in the open space at the front of the room. 

“Hello everybody. So, today we have a very special guest. Now, he’s going to be here any second so I want to say a few things. He came all the way from Queens to see all of you so I expect you all to be very nice and pay attention to our guest. Can you all do that?”

A chorus of ‘yes’s rang through the room.

I zoned out after Jade started to talk again. I knew I should probably listen to her, but I honestly didn’t care enough.

The guest speaker was probably some clown or mime coming to cheer up the kids. Then again, she did say the guest came all the way from queens. Maybe, it was some inspirational speaker.

A round of applause and the sound of excited cheers drew me out of my thoughts. I looked back at the front of the room to see what all of the commotion was about.

Is that … Spider-Man?

[damn-stark]

Maybe I was wrong about you - Kai Parker imagine

Kai Parker x Vampire reader

A/N- Finally managed to post this! I hope you like it :)

Warning- mentions of alcohol and just fluff

Summary- After putting Kai Parker in yet another prison world it was time to get him out in order for him to help out with the twins. You had known him before and he was psychopath but now he says that he wants to change...again. And he plans on making you see that change and see that he can care for people espically you. Will he do that? Will he make you see change? Will he win you over?

—

Dear diary,

Theirs a person getting out of a prison world that I thought I would never see again. We have to get him out to see if he can help the twins avoid the merge. It’s been years since I last saw him, I wanted it to keep it that way but it’s unavoidable. He caused a lot of pain to all the people I cared about so the sooner he helps the sooner he leaves. I hope.

-

Are people capable of change? Yes. But not him.

But you needed him, he was the only person that can help the Saltzman twins avoid the merge. And even if you didn’t want to see him ever again Alaric was right we needed him.

“I still don’t like this idea.” You say to Alaric as you both wait for the twins to pull their crazy uncle out of his prison world.

“Yeah me neither but we need him.” Alaric told you sharing the same worry.

Their was a flash of light and the chanting stopped, the spot across from you that was empty now was occupied by none other than Kai Parker. He stood their confused at first, he was quiet as his eyes searched the room until he landed on you. When he saw you standing across from him he smirked. You rolled your eyes as you crossed your arms on your chest.

“Why hello there.” Kai said breaking his silence. You sighed and stepped away.

Alaric and you explained to him everything that he needed to know and nothing more, it was hard not tear his heart out of his chest as he sat across from you. With his smug smile and his wandering stares but you knew you needed to resist. For the twins. You explained that you needed his help and that if he did then their was a chance that he would be able to live in the real world. As much as you hated it, he just wanted to make sure that after he helped he wouldn’t be placed back or killed.

“What?” You asked him in an annoyed tone as you felt him look at you.

“Oh nothing just you know getting used to seeing other people.” You rolled your eyes and continued reading the books from his family coven. As you couldn’t stand his close presence you stood up and sat further away from him. But even still you could feel and see his wondering gaze. “Kai I will rip your eyes out of their sockets if you don’t stop looking at me. Because either way you don’t need your eyes to help with what we need.” He laughed at your comment and walked to sit closer to you.

“You making threats? I like it. You’ve changed from the last time I saw you. Theirs more of a fire to you.” He said only making you more annoyed. You set the book down and finally met his gaze and his very taunting grin.

“Yeah well stuff has happened I had to change so now please be quiet and help.” You say as you picked up the book again. It was quiet for a moment but as you saw from the corner of your eye Kai put his book down you knew he was going to open his mouth.

“Let’s say if I know a way to help I want you to promise me that you won’t place me back in that prison world.” Kai said making you place the book down once again.

“If you help then maybe just maybe I’ll tell Ric not to place you back...but then again you’re crazy so I can’t promise you anything.” His smile fell completely and his face turned into a serious one.

“Believe me or not y/n I changed, after being stuck in their ive had time to think and think and change.” He said only making you scoff.

“Really? Because you said that last time and you murdered your sister and your entire coven so sorry if I don’t believe you.” You told him as you stood up to leave but as you did he vamped to stand in your way.

“You know I’ve always had this little crush on you, ever since I saw you for the first time when I got out of my first prison world. And I know that you’re nicer then your other friends were.”

“So?” You interrupted him.

“So I know you have a kind heart and see the good in people and I’ll show you that I changed I’ll prove it to you... you’ll see.” He said with once again his signature smirk.

“Oh please you’re not capable of change or for me to see good in you. I once tried and you proved me wrong so no Kai theirs no good in you or second chances.” You pushed past him but he once again got in your way.

“You know Damon was a bad person and he did a lot of awful things and yet you and all of your friends forgave that...and don’t make any excuses because I know what’s he done.” You stood in silence not being able to find words to even defend Damon. Because you knew that what Kai said was true. “I’ll prove it to you.” He said with a wink before he left the room, leaving you with nothing to say in return.

-

Weeks had passed and their was an answer thanks to....Kai, but their was still things you needed to avoid the merge.

In the time that had passed it was unmistakable to see how Kai was different. It made you more cautious and even a little paranoid, he did say that he wanted to change and maybe he was doing that but it was just hard to believe that. Mainly because him being nice is rare and something you’re not used to seeing....But maybe just maybe he was trying...maybe.

“In order to find this very old powerful object I need more power.” Kai said as he walked over to you.

“You’re a vampire now you have all the power you need.” He chuckled at your response and you just looked at him confused.

“Yes but my coven is dead along with their power so I need more power and the older the vampire the more powerful, so give me your hand.” He outstretched his hand so you could place yours on top, but you didn’t do as he said because you didn’t know if you wanted to believe him. Yes he hasn’t done anything to prove you wrong as of now, but you still had a hard time believing what he said. “Come on this thing is going to be hidden under hundreds of cloaks so I need more power.” You hesitated but you placed your hand on top of his.

You ignored his smile and the way his thumb brushed against your knuckles. Even if the pain was minimal you could still feel it as he siphoned your power. And yet even if their was slight pain you couldn’t stop thinking of his hand on yours, you didn’t want to think about it but you did as much as you tried to push it away.

“Found it.” He said as he let your hand go.

“Where?” You asked as you tried to put some distance between the two of you, but he still got closer. He smiled and then reached for your jacket pocket, your nose scrucnched up in confusion but you didn’t move. He looked at you and you met his gaze for a second before turning away. He then reached inside and pulled out what he was looking for. He smiled and threw it up to only catch it.

“Really Kai?”

“I just needed an excuse.” He said as he put it on the table.

“Whatever.”

-

Dear diary,

Today...today is my birthday, the big 500. I thought I stopped celebrating birthdays centuries ago but no. Lizzie persists on throwing a party because as she says it’s not everyday someone turns 500. So we’re having a party and well I was never one to say no to the twins. But that’s beside the point Kai says he’s close to getting what he needs and I really hope he’s saying the truth....I see change in him..but I won’t tell him I see it...atleast not yet.

“I still think this is ridiculous but thank you girls I appreciate you guys doing this.” You say as you turn away from the mirror and looked over at the girls. They both had big smiles on their faces.

“You look so beautiful!” Josie said as she clasped her hands together.

“I did do a great didn’t I?” Lizzie said, right after they both ran to give you a hug.

“Thank you girls for helping me get ready and this party.” You said to them and they both smiled sweetly in return.

“You know I think our uncle Kai is definitely going to be swooning over you.” Josie said making Lizzies face scrunch up in disgust.

“Eww Josie please never saying swooning or ever mention what you just did that’s gross.” Lizzie said and you couldn’t help but laugh not at what she said but the way she said it.

“Why? It’s obvious that he has a thing for y/n.” Josie responded back only making Lizzies face scrunch up more.

“Because Josie! If you didn’t know our uncle is a psycho!” You wanted to comment that he want the same as he once was but you didn’t want to end up falling in argument that could last hours.

“Okay girls lets go they’re waiting for us downstairs.”

As you got closer to where the party was being held you could already hear the booming of the music and thanks to your vamp hearing you could hear some conversations and laughter all from the students you taught and some you didn’t. Either way the party was nice but you couldn’t drink since their was students in the room and well your drinking buddies were human now and Caroline was miles away. The party was also just a distraction for what the twins to get their minds off the solution to avoid the merge which we got closer to everyday. It’s a supposed to be a good thing but we’re all scared that anything could go wrong at any minute.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” A wide and happy smile grew on your face as you heard everyone shout. Your happiness only grew as you saw the faces of Caroline and Bonnie the people who you thought you wouldn’t see. You also saw Elena and Damon. But even still with all your friends here your eyes locked with someone else’s in the room.Kai’s. He was standing not that far away from Damon. You smiled softly at him and before you could read more of his reaction you were being pulled by the twins.

The evening went on with students saying happy birthday to you, you caught up with your friends who were more like family but a little distant since now everyone lives their own life some here or some traveling the world.

Even with the party going great you still found yourself alone outside with tears and a sad smile as you held onto a photo of you and your husband...Tyler Lockwood, who had left you with a gap in your heart.

“Hey.” You heard Kai say behind you, you didn’t have to see who it was to recognize who the voice belonged to, you turned nonetheless.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” You asked as you made room for him to sit.

“I could ask you the same thing, I’m out here because I noticed that the guest of honor was missing from her party.” You smiled at his comment only making him smile more. “You shouldn’t be out here crying on your 500th birthday.”

“Theirs a song that says the opposite.” You joked making him chuckle in response.

“I did bring this.” He said as he pulled out a bourbon bottle that he had hidden. The sadness you felt was gone without even knowing and without knowing the little time he was here he was already filling the gap Tyler had left. “Okay I took it from Damon but it doesn’t really matter.”

“My hero.” You say as you grab the bottle from his hand. The next few minutes it was quiet but it wasn’t an awkward silence. You felt him look at you and when you turned to meet his gaze it was soft something rare for him but it was the way he only looked at you.

“I just want to say that you...you look uhh very....” you completely turned your attention to him as you noticed he was struggling with what he wanted to say. You weren’t the only one who noticed though, hidden in the distance was all of your friends who were watching and listening carefully at your interaction.

“What’s he saying Caroline?!”

“Damon be quiet or shes going to hear us!” Caroline whispered shouted. But even she couldn’t keep to herself as she tried not laugh. “He’s trying to give her a compliment.” As soon as Damon heard that, he was the one who burst out laughing but was quickly pulled away by Elena.

“Very.... beautiful.” The last bit he had said in almost a whisper. You smiled sweetly at him and noticed how flustered he was. Again a rare sight for him but one you liked. It showed that he wasn’t the man from before he was actually changing.

“Thank you.” You said as you reached for his hand that was resting on the bench. He was surprised by the interaction but he didn’t take long to return the gesture. “Thank you for everything, for what you’re doing for the twins.. thank you” you rested your hand on his shoulder only making him feel more nervous as he never got this kind of interaction from anyone until now with you. And he didn’t plan to lose that feeling. “Maybe I was wrong about you...no I was, you did change..thank you.”

“I told you.”

.

.

.

[scoundrels-in-love]

Before you leave, Remember I was with you (You must know you are beloved)

Cassian Andor doesn’t believe in soulmates, despite words on his wrist. Jyn Erso thinks of them as symbol of death. Baze Malbus swears he’ll never say the words so they can’t take Chirrut from him. Chirrut knows all is as Force wills it. Bodhi Rook will never meet his soulmate, but he can see these bonds and he hopes his actions means one day, fewer will end in death and tears. Canon Compliant Soulmate AU.

Also on AO3.

I

There are surprisingly many things Cassian Andor believes in;

Steady blaster hand. His gut instinct. K-2SO. That every deed that keeps replaying behind weary eyelids in the dead of night was worth it, if it brings ends of Empire closer.

But the concept of Soulmates isn't one of them.

In a sense, he even resents the thought - his parents who died for one another, eyes on each other as eternal stillness settled in them, met and lived with no involvement of the great and mysterious Force.

No mark adorned their wrists, but was their love for each other, for him less because of that? There will be no memorial with their names (nor with his, he suspects) and yet they were a world, a home destroyed, too.

And, yet, there are lines on his wrist as if mocking his belief.

Having a Soulmate is asking for heartbreak. Loving anything is asking for one, in fact. That is why he loves nothing but memories - those have broken him already, there is no more to be lost or gained.

And for all that, the words on his wrist are simply a threat, even to his identity as a spy. And mockery, when he is tired and his grasp on hope is slipping, with his hands so slick with blood. No one is out there, they are on their own. A handful of desperate rebels against a galaxy on its knees and the laser rifle pressed to its temple. 

Yet, when he was still young, fifteen or sixteen, he used to lay awake and tried to imagine it, if only so he wouldn’t have to think about the things he had done that day. 

Maybe they are in a bunker, waiting for order to move or an extraction that will never come in time. Maybe they’re deep undercover. Someone's out there , someone tells him. And he strains his hearing, hears the shuffle of boots. Stands up and says something brave, no, maybe he presses a kiss that is more than duty to their lips first. Fights. Dies.

There would be no glory in it, but it could be a good death. No Imperial torture or taking a lullaby. 

In a few years, it felt childish and dangerous to dream of something so lofty and painted with softest hues of love.

So he stopped.

II

When Jyn thinks of Soulmates, she thinks of death.

She recalls the way she would trace the beautifully carved word Lyra! across her mama's wrist with her childishly chubby fingers again and again through the years, each time a new and persistent question on her mind.

What she never understood (still does not, her nails digging into the thin lines on her hand unconsciously) why would it tell you the very last thing your Soulmate will tell you.

"It is a promise, Stardust. Promise you will meet them, talk with them and spend a lifetime with them." Papa had told her with a smile as serene as first autumn's rain and somehow, just as sad.

He had lied. As he always did.

Mama never saw soft snow of age settling in her hair, the defiance imprinted on his wrist coming much sooner.  And his scream is embedded so deep into Jyn's soul it does not have to be visible on scarred skin to haunt her.

But she has a mark nonetheless, a frustrating inevitably she loathes and rejects. Why would she want someone to ‘complete’ her, when no one in her life has stayed or been truthful? 

This Soulmate of hers obviously doesn’t even know her. Jyn doesn’t want her father to be proud of her - his pride, his feelings matter not to her. He is dead. If not to the world, then at least to her. Even more so if he is actually out there somewhere, doing Force knows what. Never seeking her out, never looking back. 

So she hides the mark beneath gloves and wraps, curses it for its recognizability and even tries to cut it out once, just after Tamsye Prime.

And doesn’t think of it as almost lullaby when she wonders if survival is worth all this, if this can even be called surviving. 

Not at all.

III

Bodhi Rook will not meet his Soulmate in this life. Three inky teardrops his fate has cried on his wrist tell him that.

Instead, he sees the ones who are bound by Force's thread. And more often than not, it is a cursed chain, wrapping around his neck and pulling him under even though it is not for him to bear.

He remembers vividly one day when Empire's cargo for him to deliver were stormtroopers seeking out Force sensitive children to take with them.

He sees it still, imprinted on his soul; there is a mother, a dirty handed child pulled out of his imagery battle and now clinging to her skirt. His eyes sparkle green in curiosity, hers in defiant fear.

Bodhi does not see the trooper's eyes, but the faint glow around them has more color than Jedha has ever had. I found you. Finally, the ends of thread seem to whisper as they entwine.

"Not my Aslik, please!" she begs the trooper who is yanking at the boy's arm.

Something sputters in the man, he freezes like a droid that's been shut down, before everything shifts into new, painfully sharp focus.

"Run!" he tells her suddenly, the recognition flaring a sense of urgency in him like an all-consuming pyre. And as the trooper spins, his blaster rifle already trained on his comrades, she flees with Aslik on her arms.

It takes twenty direct shots to take him down and only three to mow down the woman. They never even knew each other's names.

Just one of many stories Bodhi could tell, just one of many pairs torn apart before they meet, passing by in corridor before one dies on another patrol in NiJedha, the other forever surrounded by weeping cloud of longing.

Perhaps it is the first thing he sees about Galen Erso - the dimmed colors of a broken bond, the hollowness of a man that has lost too much. (He does not understand how much until much later, when he stares at Jyn whose eyes burn with fire that will carry them all forward, or consume them.)

He has seen it often and yet, there are echoes, too, of such love and determination it almost knocks him down when he witnesses it in Galen’s eyes. It must be what draws him to the scientist, reverberating through Bodhi’s soul and guiding him out of the cave he has retreated to, hiding from everything. Everyone. Including himself. 

Funny, he thinks, just before Bor Gullet consumes him, that I came into the light, only to lose myself again.

When he, much later, comes to in his cell on Jedha, one of the first things he thinks, really thinks, is that he doesn’t remember ever witnessing an acknowledged, still living bond like the one that weaves around and between the two Guardians. It blooms so vividly he gets lost in it, as if it is living, breathing painting. 

He follows it, in dull-edged awe, through the dust that will someday softly cover the weeping wound on Jedha’s surface, follows through the rubble and rumbling whispers of death as horizon tries to swallow them.

And Bodhi doesn’t even need to look at them directly to know , when the Captain and the woman stumble in. In fact, he tries not to glance their way all the way until they are on Yavin IV. Or else he will say something, like don’t shoot him, Cassian . It is not his part. And yet, relief fills his chest like an emergency flare when they are back in the ship, his hands clean of Erso’s blood. 

They argue and yet, what had been clash of colors on Jedha becomes so bright and unified it almost hurts his eyes when he stumbles up the stolen ship’s ramp as it fills with more people and sees the two of them leaning in close. He cannot discern the words, but it doesn’t matter. They know.

And when he looks at his new friends (can he call them friends or would they recoil in disgust that an ex-imp would consider them as such?), once they’re aboard, he thinks - it was worth it, all of it. If he has to pay with his life just so that one other Soulmate story can have a happy ending in the future, it is a price well worth paying. 

Even in his last moment, he hopes it will be the stories of his friends, even without him and his ship.

IV

In some way, Chirrut knew. Knew from the day he met Baze, felt it like a soft tremor of a bell rung far far away. Knew it when he traced the lines on the other man’s wrist. Baze never told him what was written there, as if he could outwit Force itself.  

But the echo had been just that - an impression he couldn’t quite grasp, make sense of its texture or shape. Now, it stands before him, clear and simple in its monumental form, like the crumbling statues on Jedha. A few must have survived, the ones far from NiJedha. The thought comforts him.

So much has been lost. So much has been gained. Saved. 

In the Force, he will be with it all again. And that is what he tells Baze: “Look for the Force and you will always find me” . Smiles (tries to) as he hears his stubborn husband say the prayer he cannot chant anymore. 

Their vows are complete once more and all is as the Force wills it.

V

He does not think about the day he renounced his faith, turned his back to the Guardians. (But never Chirrut.)

Lies. He thinks about it when masses of people pass by them, Imperial forces peppered among them. He thinks about it at night when he wonders how many dawns they have until---

Chirrut knows, as he always does, but only smiles and tells him 'All is as Force wills it'.

Kriffin Force can will it anyway it likes, Baze isn't giving his soulmate up to it so easily.

And yet, each time Chirrut chants 'The Force is with me and I am one with the Force', something twitches in his Guardian's chest. What if this is the last time, the one imprinted on his left wrist?

So, he does not respond anymore, the line to draw a full circle of prayer stopping midway. If he does not say it, then it does not matter what any mark says.

Yet, when Chirrut's eyes are losing their indescribable light (light of galaxy's patterned chaos and faith in its order) in his arms, Baze knows. Knows he cannot deny his husband one final comfort of hearing the chant completed and perfect, as their lives, their love.

And as mere minutes later, he marches forward with gun blazing, straight into the embrace of death, he also knows that none of it matters - for he is one with the Force and the Force is with him.

VI

He doesn’t know how there is so much fight left in her still, that he can barely keep her from launching at the Imp, that she can hold him up still. That he can actually lean on Jyn, though Cassian tries not to put his full weight on her. 

He doesn’t know if there is any ship above the shield to even receive the transmission. Maybe it went directly into the hands of the Empire. His entire life has been built around knowing and knowing who to ask if he doesn’t.

Now he can only ask Jyn. And somehow, it’s enough.

“Do you think anybody’s listening?” 

She smiles, hauls him forward another step. “I do. Somebody’s out there.”

He crumples a little then, draws a breath that transforms into a bolt of pain. This is it, Cassian realizes. Not that he thought there was a way they could get off Scarif. But none of it fills him with fear or anger. Instead, he feels calm and straightens back up so they can limp into the elevator.

Maybe it’s because he’s spent so long with death’s hand guiding his own. Maybe it’s because of Jyn. Her faith, which had grown before his eyes, from a dormant seed into a jungle without an end in sight, shields him with its canopy. 

Cassian smiles just a little at her, in the fluttering light as they move toward the surface. Where the rest of his team fought and died. He only regrets K2-SO will be so far away, but soon they all will be nothing more than stardust, so does it really matter?

In the end, he had been right - it will be a good death. With more unsung glory than he ever thought. With more love than he could’ve imagined.

VII

They crumble on the beach and watch. She doesn’t remember much of those moments on Jedha, everything had been too much of a rush, too much of her father’s words breaking into the bunker she had hid herself away into. Here, the distance between them and the approaching horizon marks all the time in the world, infinite and a grain of sand all at once.

Jyn thinks of the others, wonders if there is even a single person who made it off in time. Doubts it. Thinks of Bodhi’s dark eyes and the determined light in them when he had said Rogue One , of the solid warmth of Baze’s hand and voice, of Chirrut’s chant. Somehow, in this moment, she believes it more than ever. 

She doesn’t have to think of Cassian, because he’s filling the rest of the space around them. In her. She feels his smile more than she can see it.

“Your father would be proud of you,” he tells her and oh.

Oh.

There is an odd sort of relief in her, so bright she can almost imagine the greedy green glow  is overshadowed by it. 

She had never thought much of fulfilling destinies in a good way, but it is somehow comforting to know this is where it’s supposed to end, that these are the calloused hands meant to save her, hold onto her. That Soulmates means warmth and home , and trust so warm it doesn’t matter she has had days in its shine. That her convictions have not been thrown in her face in the very last moment. 

They found each other and she thinks it means that the plans found their way into the right hands, too.

He really would be proud of me , she realizes and calm, content pride in herself, in Cassian and her Rogue team, washes over her. 

This peace carries her into the Force when it all ends, the words a sort of lullaby once again.

[septic-dr-schneep]

JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Need (Part 14: Aftershock)

Summary: As he and the others recover in the hospital, Marvin becomes increasingly restless and uneasy, for reasons he can’t understand. He seeks the truth...no matter how horrifying it may be.

Coming out of sedation would probably be a surreal, altogether painless experience for anyone else, but for Marvin the burn that made his entire body seize up crashed in as soon as he opened his eyes. The lights were bright enough that it felt like they seared his retinas and every inch of his crawling skin was raw, as if someone had sent hours dragging sandpaper over it. The hospital gown clung too close to him, weighing him down on the bed. With every breath there was a sting in his sinuses and he had a distinct, raw pressure digging into his eyes, a headache coming on strong.

Biting back a moan, he leaned his head back against the starch-stiff pillows and breathed deeply despite the pressure in his sinuses. He had experienced all of this before; this was magical withdrawal. Every time it happened, it only seemed to get worse.

These symptoms distracted him from forming any full thoughts about the circumstances of his visit—not to mention that he was forced to adjust to the stripe of stitches that had appeared across his abdomen, which strained and stretched every time he shifted in bed. He had always hated hospital visits, not because of the atmosphere or anyone in particular who worked there but because of his own sense of helplessness. When he was confined to his bed, he couldn’t intervene for anyone.

The nurses did their best to reassure him each time they woke him to take his blood pressure, but since he’d only just fallen asleep in time for them to jostle him awake again, he wasn’t in a particularly receptive mood.

“I need to know how Chase and Schneep are doing,” he insisted, his voice cracking from thirst and sleep deprivation as they squeezed the cuff around his arm. “When can I go and see them?”

“Both of them are still under sedation,” they would patiently reply, to which he simply huffed, shook his head and wordlessly simmered.

After getting through the night with very little sleep and more than his fair share of staring up with jaded resignation at the ceiling, Marvin couldn’t help but be immensely relieved upon seeing the door crack open just enough for Jameson to poke his head through. As soon as they locked eyes, Jameson’s face lit up with that same relief and he hurried in toward him.

“Marvin! Oh, bless you, you’re awake!” he exclaimed, reaching out to pat his arm and then withdrawing the hand when Marvin shook his head against it. “Are you quite alright, my fine chap?”

“Yeah, just…skin’s a bit sensitive,” Marvin replied, tucking his arms in close to his body and wincing as the movement pulled on his IV lead. As his magic recovered, it always settled in the pit of his stomach, clawing its way up into his chest and then spreading through his veins from there; it wasn’t a particularly soothing experience. It made him feel as if he were being sunburned from the inside out. He couldn’t focus on it for too long. “Tell me about Chase and Schneep. How’re they doing?”

“The doc’s going to be taken off sedation soon. I hear he needed quite the lot of stitches for his various ailments. Chase’s surgery was performed swimmingly, though they did say it took him longer than usual to fall asleep for it, so it’s taken him longer than usual to come back out. I believe I understand it, though…He wasn’t particularly in high snuff about needing the surgery in the first place.” Sighing faintly, Jameson rubbed his hands over his arms, moustache twitching in reflective worry. It was only then that Marvin noticed the bandages peeking out from under his sleeves. Perking up, he gestured to them warily.

“What happened there?”

“This? Oh, this—this was just the result of a—a little tiff Robbie and I had over how to best t-take care of all of you,” Jameson brushed it off hurriedly, not quite looking him in the face. His nervousness only brought Marvin up further from the pillows.

“Jameson…” As realization seeped in, his voice fell to hushed disbelief. “Did Robbie attack you?”

“He’d taken leave of his proper senses,” was all Jameson would say. “It’s been sorted now…It’s best if I don’t dwell on it.” With that he changed the subject. “I’ve not been allowed to visit Dr. Schneeplestein yet, but I’ve done what I can for Chase. Some of the other doctors helped me give blood to him just after his surgery. Apparently we share a type!”

“That’s right, you’re both A-positive,” Marvin concurred.

“Then I’m pleased I could make A-positive difference!” Jameson announced with a wink as he rose and tugged smartly on his vest. Marvin simply rolled his eyes in response but both of them softened after a few moments as Jameson laid a hand on the blankets, not far from his hand but not close enough to make him uncomfortable. “Get well soon, master magician. I’m sure the others will want to see you when they come around.”

It was those words that motivated Marvin to gather his strength and tell the nurses quite clearly that he was ready to be up and about. He needed to see his family.

“We’ll get you a wheelchair,” one of them replied, looking him up and down skeptically, and while Marvin had been prepared to protest that too, as soon as his feet hit the cold floor he was forced to latch onto the side of the bed for balance as his legs buckled, muscles crying out against the movement. Apparently standing wasn’t an option, he conceded, mumbling self-conscious thanks as he fairly collapsed into the chair they provided and one of the porters only gave him a knowing smile.

The trip to Chase’s room was a long and bumpy one, given that Marvin’s stomach turned the opposite direction of the wheelchair as the porter was forced to guide him around various obstacles. As soon as the door swung open and he was able to lay eyes on Chase, however, all of his own discomfort melted away. Emotion swept over him.

Chase looked…young, too young to be here in this situation, and yet it was far too familiar. The last time Marvin had seen Chase like this, it was just after…

After.

Taking a deep breath to push away those thoughts, he scooted his chair in far enough to catch the doctor’s attention.

“Well, hello there! Judging by the matching green hair, I expect you’re a friend of the family?” he quipped as greeting. Marvin only spared him a wry smile for a moment before retraining his attention on Chase.

“I am family,” he answered softly as he was driven to the side of the bed. He could understand Jameson’s urge for contact now; it took everything in him to keep his hands wrapped around the arms of the wheelchair and not around Chase’s limp fingers that were curled gently over the sheets laid around him.

“You’ll be happy to know that he’s making a fine recovery,” the doctor promised. “He should be waking up any time now. There are a few more blood transfusions he needs that he’ll have to wait on until later this evening and then—”

“Why does he have to wait?”

The doctor paused, clearly not accustomed to being interrupted. “Well, that’s when our blood bank is going to be restocked.”

“No, he shouldn’t have to wait,” Marvin retorted, lifting his eyes from the younger Ego a second time. “He’s A-positive and I’m O-negative. I’ll give it to him.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you just had a blood transfusion yourself,” the porter protested, to which Marvin gave her a pointed glance.

“Yeah, I did, and now I’m going to make sure Chase gets the same. Jameson just gave him some, didn’t he? So he just needs a top-up until tonight. You have my consent and all, so let me do this for him. I’m gonna do what I can to help.”

The doctor seemed fairly reluctant about it, but Marvin could tell he was breaking and persisted until a nurse finally came in to set up the equipment. The wheelchair turned out to be even better for him than he’d expected; he could just relax while the blood went its way.

“…Marv…?”

Even though he was meant to stay still, Marvin couldn’t help but twist around in his chair at the soft sound of his name. “Chase, are you okay?” he demanded impulsively. It was a stupid question, of course, but Chase didn’t seem to notice, blinking languidly like a cat that had just woken up from a nap in a sunny spot, though he looked decidedly more confused.

“Marv…?” he repeated groggily, staring at him for several seconds before his glazed eyes drifted down to their arms, side by side, and his voice shot skyward in volume. “Marv! You…you have two hands!”

For the first time in what could very well have been weeks, genuine laughter burst out of the magician at that. “That’s right, Chase, I do.”

“No, really, you have two hands!”

“When have I ever had any less?”

“Well, I thought you would have…paws…Four or five of ’em…y’know? So you can be a real kitty!” Biting his lip to hide his grin, Marvin opened his mouth to answer, but Chase went on before he could, gasping in awe. “Lookit, lookit our blood! Are we bein’ harveysted? Harvey…sted. Harvested. Are we bein’ harvested?”

“No, no, sweetheart,” the older nurse who was checking his monitors replied with a light laugh. “You’re getting a blood transfusion.”

“Tell the aliens to take the kidneys last!” he hollered after her as she turned to leave, tipping his head back and cackling for no apparent reason. “I—I need those to breathe!”

“Okay, okay, Chase, you need to settle down,” Marvin soothed kindly, holding out his hand as Chase’s gleeful giggles petered out into large gasps. “You’re going to need lots of rest, okay? You should just close your eyes and—”

“No. No, no…” Chase slurred, his dopey smile lingering as he peeked back up at him. “Better not do that! Then I’ll end up like Jackieboy!”

Marvin faltered at that, his hand falling back to his side. “You mean Jack,” he reminded him, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Him either! I don’t wanna end up like him either!” As he started to calm slightly, Chase’s words became less and less pronounced, but Marvin could still catch what he was saying if he leaned forward in his chair. “Jackieboy’s like…Sleeping Beauty. He’s completely out, just like Jack. Maybe Signe wouldn’t mind kissin’ him awake. Maybe she could do it twice an’ both of ’em could wake up!”

“Chase, what are you saying?” Marvin asked sharply, drawing a slight jump from him.

“Shh, shhh…” Chase hushed him, abruptly serious as he clumsily tried to reach out and cover his mouth. “S’gonna be alright, Marv. We’re gonna get ’em back…I can help. Anti said I could help them.”

“Anti?! Chase, what’re you—?” Marvin’s question never fully made it out of his mouth before Chase heaved a drowsy sigh and slumped back into his pillows, nodding off just as quickly as he’d awoken. Marvin could only gape at him, speechless.

It had to be nothing but drug-induced ramblings. There was no way he would have somehow encountered Anti and found out that Jackieboy was in Jack’s condition. That just wasn’t…possible…

He needed to talk to Schneep about this.

As eager as he had been to give Chase his blood, now that he was armed with these new questions he was even more impatient to be finished with it and order the nurse to wheel him down to Schneep’s room. By the time he got there, he was almost ready to leap out of his wheelchair and crawl his way down the hallway, but that inclination was stifled as soon as he saw a pair of policemen loitering outside Schneep’s room, talking with a nurse.

“He’s only just woken, detectives; he needs to rest before you can submit him to any kind of invasive questions!” she was protesting as Marvin and his porter drew near.

“I’m sorry, what is this?” he asked nervously, leaning forward as they turned to face him. “I’m Marvin, I’m Schneep’s brother…what d’you mean, ‘submit him to questions’?”

“Marvin, I’m Detective Davis and this is my partner, Detective Prescott. We’re currently investigating the murder of a nurse named Rena Hudson, who worked the third floor,” the taller of the detectives explained.

His throat going as dry as cotton, Marvin glanced between them. “You think…Schneep was part of it?”

“Now we’re not saying that. We don’t have anything conclusive at the moment; we’re just performing interviews,” Prescott assured him. “Dr. Schneeplestein was the one who assigned Nurse Hudson to her last patient, Jackieboy Man, and we need to ask him about the circumstances of that—”

“What? D-Did you say Jackieboy Man is a patient here?” the magician snapped, disbelief and fear prickling slowly down each vertebra in his spine.

“Yes, he was admitted about three days ago,” the nurse next to the detectives ventured gingerly. “Dr. Schneeplestein performed his surgery and then set him up for recovery. Everything seemed to be in order.”

“Later that night, Nurse Hudson was discovered dead in the nearby supply closet and Jackieboy Man had lapsed into a coma. Clearly this isn’t a coincidence,” Detective Davis concluded.

Marvin had already started to zone out, taken up with processing his shock as these words sank in. Jackieboy was somewhere in this hospital right now, comatose. He had fallen under Anti’s power. The very thought made his skin crawl and brought a burn to his eyes, but his realizatons were already racing ahead. He’d been helpless, left alone with a clueless nurse who couldn’t have done anything to protect him, and Schneep had come back to the house and hadn’t said a word.

The rational part of his mind tried to pipe up that Schneep had been pulled away from Jackieboy because Chase had called him about Jack—but the rational part of his mind wasn’t in charge right now.

Lunging out of his wheelchair and sweeping a hand out toward the wall as he tilted off balance, Marvin shoved past the startled nurse and the two detectives and slammed the door open, causing Schneep and Dr. Iplier, who was sitting beside him, to jump.

“You left him, Schneep!” he barked, pushing himself off the doorframe toward the edge of the bed. “You operated on him and then you left him and you didn’t even tell us?!”

“What?” Schneep gasped, reeling back in his bed as Marvin leaned on the bed, looming over him. “M-Marv, what are you—?”

“Jackieboy! Did you think that we didn’t need to know? Did you think that he’d heal up before you would ever have to tell us or were you just not thinking at all?! I can’t believe you! How could you do that to him, to us?!”

“Whoa, Marvin, you need to calm it down!” Dr. Iplier warned, rising from his chair and holding out his hands placatingly. “I don’t know what’s happened here, but you can—”

“Shut up! This doesn’t have anything to do with you, so keep out of it!”

Unadulterated horror had struck Schneep’s face and the urgent trilling of his heart monitor was rising with every moment as he clutched at the sheets and stuttered, “I—I didn’t—Marvin, I wasn’t trying to—there wasn’t any time to—”

“Don’t give me that!” Marvin snarled, seizing a fistful of the blankets and tearing them out of his grasp. “There was plenty of time for you to tell me after you checked up on Jack, but it was time you spent crying about how everything was your fault! Well, guess what is your fault?! Jackieboy’s in a coma!”

“What?!”

Panting harshly, Marvin did his best to reel in his rage enough that he could avoid a breakdown. “Yeah,” he spat, squaring his shoulders. “Jackieboy’s in a coma. Anti got to his room, he killed his nurse, and he put him in a coma on your watch!”

“Rena…?” Schneep whispered hoarsely, tears spilling down his ashen face unnoticed as he shook his head violently. “No—no, no, no, no, it’s not—” Choking on air, he buried his face in his hands, trying to make himself as small as possible. “It’s not true, it’s not true, it can’t be—not her, not Jackie—!”

“It’s true! Unlike you, I actually try to face the truth when it matters, but you kept it from us!” the magician shouted, grabbing at his ankles to get his attention. “Look at me! You kept it from us and you abandoned him and now look what Anti’s done—what you let him do!”

“No, no!” Schneep wailed, his monitors screaming at him to no avail. “Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t—!”

“Enough!”

A sudden burst of light forced Marvin to flinch away from Schneep’s bed, stumbling over his own feet and landing hard on the floor. Gasping for breath, he looked up as Dr. Iplier’s calming field of magic cascaded over the room. When it reached him, his breath came a bit easier and the fury in his chest subsided into a hard, grim ache. Schneep’s anguished cries faded to more muffled sobs and his monitors quieted just in time for the nurses to burst into his room and check his vitals.

“Marvin. Calm…down,” Dr. Iplier commanded, his tone and the pressure of his magic leaving no room for argument.

Inhaling deeply, Marvin accepted the hand that one of the nurses offered him, casting a cold look in Schneep’s direction as the doctor lifted his tear-streaked face from his hands, staring at him with grief, pleading—and a touch of fear.

“You better heal up fast,” the magician growled, unrelenting. “For Jackie’s sake.”

[writeyouin]

Hello I was wondering if you could do a tadashi (bh6) x nurse reader fic (or oneshot) and/or a V (V for vendetta) x nurse reader. Merci :)

Tadashi X Reader – Medical Student

A/N – Originally, I had a plot as to why the other students disliked the reader, but I decided not to put it in because this is like… 6 pages long.

Warnings – Minor Swearing.

Rating – T

Tadashi glanced at the first schematics for Baymax. He now had the designs for the skeleton and the data chip that would contain the medical protocols and procedures. Excited to start changing the world, Tadashi begun work on the database that would go on the chip. The work carried on into the night, but he was finally ready to upload it onto the drive.

An error message appeared on the holographic computer screen only six percent into the data transfer. Tadashi frowned tiredly, he’d been ready to finish for the night, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop until he found the source of the problem.

After numerous diagnostics and scans ran on the computer that consumed further hours, Tadashi still hadn’t found a solution.

“Burning the midnight oil, Mr Hamada?” Professor Callaghan entered the lab.

“As always,” Tadashi answered amiably.

Callaghan glanced at the computer screen where the error message stubbornly remained. “It seems that you’ve ran into some programming trouble. May I?”

“Sure,” Tadashi moves aside, letting Callaghan sit at the desk.

Callaghan examined the extensive database, tapping idly at some keys to highlight the problem on screen. “Well Mr Hamada, it’s apparent that the base program on the chip can’t contain the database you’re trying to download because of conflicting information. Take a look at this for example, one treatment for infections is antibacterial spray, another older method suggests leeches. The program doesn’t know which to prioritise. My suggestion is to come back tomorrow and visit the medical students after classes. Try to get their professor’s permission to work with one of the students; maybe they can organise your database.”

“Thanks professor.”

Callaghan nodded and the two walked out together.

Tadashi roamed the halls of the medical building. Although it was much smaller than the tech building he worked in, he’d still managed to get lost.

“Young man!” A squat Korean lady said sternly with her hands on her hips. “As head of the medical department I make it my business to know all the medical students, you are not one of them and have no business being here.”

Professor Callaghan had forewarned Tadashi of Doctor Kirkbride for she was apparently a tough lady to impress.

“Excuse me Doctor Kirkbride, I’m Tadashi Hamada, a technology student and-”

“And you’re making me late for class. Walk and talk, hurry now.”

Tadashi kept up with the brisk pace set by Doctor Kirkbride, explaining his plight all the while. By the time they reached the auditorium Kirkbride stopped Tadashi, “You want one of my students, fine, but if you get in the way of their education, we’ll be using you in class instead of Mr Cadaver. Got it?”

Tadashi nodded nervously.

“Good. You’ll have to find a volunteer yourself. Good luck getting a partner with exams coming up.”

She opened the door, exuding power and silencing the congregation of students talking outside of their designated work areas.

“Class,” she boomed, “This is Tadashi Hamada, one of the technology students. He needs help compiling a medical database for his project. Is anyone willing to volunteer?”

Everyone avoided his gaze.

“No? Then get to your work stations and follow the instructions there. Mr Hamada, you’ll have to present your case yourself.”

Doctor Kirkbride left him alone. He looked around the room uncertainly. Everyone was in a group of three at a work station that had an outdated whiteboard with instructions and dummy patients which seemed to have seen better days; evidently the medical building didn’t get as much funding as the rest of the university.

With his friendliest smile, Tadashi approached the first group with the identical twins Iroh and Kyo as well as a girl named Ivy.

“Hey,” he started confidently, “would you-”

“Busy,” the twins pushed past him, inserting a catheter and IV into the dummy.

He looked to Ivy, “Exams,” she deadpanned, ignoring him.

Tadashi refused to be disappointed, moving onto the next group, then the one after that and the one after that; nobody gave him the time of day. Finally, he got to the last table which had the only person not working in a group; you.

With low expectations he spoke, “Hi, I’m-”

You held up a hand, “Tadashi, yeah. You’re awfully persistent for somebody rejected by twenty-four people. Don’t you get it? Nobody wants to work with you.”

Tadashi slumped slightly, “Yeah, I know, exams.”

“Seriously? You believe that crap? That’s not why they won’t work with you.”

“Then why?”

“‘Cos, you tech types are all the same. You waltz in here, take a procedure that was perfectly fine in the first place and make a make a machine that does it. We’re all afraid that whatever you’re building will make us obsolete before we’ve even finished training.”

Tadashi frowned, his mouth slightly agape, “I never really thought of it that way… I don’t want to make anyone obsolete, I’m just trying to help people.”

You leaned against the operating table, interested in the flurry of emotions showing in Tadashi’s eyes. Before, he had the same hope you had every day on your way to becoming a doctor, now he was displaying a complex mix of sadness, confusion, and guilt.

“Your project,” you said, “how many will it help?”

“When it’s done? Millions.”

You rolled your eyes to the ceiling, muttering, “This better not affect my grades.” Then to Tadashi, “Fine, I’m (Y/N) and I guess I can sort your database.”

Tadashi shook with excitement, making you giggle with his impromptu dance. “Thank you, I promise you won’t regret this.”

“OY!” A red-haired student in the group next to yours called. “You workin’ with ‘im?”

“Yeah,” you answered nonchalantly.

“Fuckin’ sell-out.”

Tadashi deflated, watching you apologetically, “I-”

You shook your head at him, “If you dare apologise I’ll quit.”

“But if this makes you unpopular-”

“Ha! I’m working on my own in a group assignment, you don’t get more unpopular than that. See, you’re already taking credit for what I did all on my own. Give it a week and see if you still want to work with me. Now get out, I finish in an hour, meet me outside then and I’ll see what I’m working with.”

You threw your arms up angrily, reading over the database, “What the hell is this? The sources are totally uncredible, it’s disorganised, it’s… is that a Wikipedia page? Good lord, it is. And on top of all this you want me to write up treatments for everything? EVERYTHING? You’re insane, this is impossible.”

Tadashi got down on his knees, holding his hands together and begging you with huge puppy eyes, “Not even for me?”

You grabbed his cap from the desk, shoving it in his face and pushing him over with the force.

“Huh, a wild (Y/N) attacks when angered,” Tadashi reported, leaning up from the floor.

You struggled to suppress a smile, “Like a viper.”

“Pray tell crazy viper person, how can I get you to do this?”

“Inject caffeine into my blood stream until this is all over.”

“I think I can make that work.”

“Then we better get started, come on puppy dog, coffee, chop chop.”

Tadashi got up and saluted, “Yes Captain.”

You grinned as he left; perhaps working with him wouldn’t be as much of an irritant as you supposed.

Writing treatments to every ailment you could think of was excruciatingly slow work. Two months in and you’d barely made a dent. Yet the work wasn’t as unpleasant as you’d initially thought; your grades had improved considerably and working with Tadashi proved to be fun. He’d told you many of the misadventures of his little brother Hiro, and of his Aunt Cass who owned a café uptown somewhere.

While you enjoyed Tadashi’s company, he felt a lot more strongly towards you. He adored your grumpy humour and the way you were willing to work with him in the face of adversity from your classmates who had since ignored you completely. More than that, he loved that you genuinely wanted to help people even though you didn’t know what he was building. He’d told his family a little of you but kept details light and fleeting, unable to trust himself to speak without revealing too many of his own confused thoughts.

One night, after he’d stayed alone at the university to draw-up further plans for Baymax, he arrived back home to a surprise. You were sat in the café with a notepad and a medical journal. He’d never told you which café he lived at, but coincidence had brought you there. Never before had he cared about looking cool in front of you but before he knew when and where you were going to meet. Suddenly something was different, it may have been the concentrated frown you wore or that you practically glowed under the café’s dim lighting, but he definitely felt something towards you.

Ignoring the onslaught of nerves, he entered, dropping casually into the seat opposite yours in the cosy booth, “You know, café’s are supposed to be for relaxing.”

“’Dashi!” You dropped the book with a surprise then smiled. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, I know the owner.”

As if on cue, Cass dropped by to see her nephew, “Tadashi, you’re home,” she said warmly.

“Hi Aunt Cass,” he got up to hug her.

Cass spotted you, “And you have a friend.”

“I’m (Y/N),” You got up to shake her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tadashi has told me so much about you.”

Tadashi blushed behind you, smiling affectionately at the friendly manner in which you regarded Cass.

Cass hummed knowingly, “Really? He has? Well that’s great. (Y/N), how about you join us for dinner?”

Tadashi swallowed apprehensively, he desperately wanted you to say yes and meet his family officially.

“Are you sure I wouldn’t be intruding?”

“Intruding? Of course not. Tadashi, take (Y/N) upstairs while I close up, oh I am so excited.”

She bounced on the spot and you realised exactly where Tadashi got his own little happy dance from; it had a heart-warming effect, comforting you in an unexpected way.

Over dinner, Cass learnt everything she could about you, leaving no question unasked. Hiro meanwhile, took an interest in you when you asked about the bot he was holding; he used the opportunity to show off until Tadashi started making fun of him for it. Although the family was a small one, the love was overwhelming. Cass clearly adored her two nephews; they were like three pieces of a jigsaw, different shapes but they fit together well. Alas, time flew, and it was time for you to head home yourself.

“It’s been wonderful meeting you,” You beamed at Aunt Cass, sticking your hand out.

Cass ignored the hand, hugging you tightly, “Come back soon.” When she let you go she asked, “How far is the walk home?”

“About forty minutes from here.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

“It’s alright, Tadashi already volunteered for that, he’s taking me back on his moped.”

“Right, drive safe Tadashi, and call me when you get there.”

Tadashi wrapped his arm around you, forgetting himself for a moment but staying when you didn’t protest, “Don’t worry Aunt Cass, we’ll be fine.”

With Cass calling goodbyes, Tadashi led you to the garage and his moped. He threw you a helmet which you caught with ease.

“And with a catch like that, (L/N)’s ready for the rugby team, (s)he could go all the way,” Tadashi cheered.

“And with a throw like that, Tadashi is ready to go back to summer camp, so he can learn from people with actual talent.”

He held his heart, mimicking pain, “It’s a low blow that brings pain with it, and after I was being nice to you.”

“Well yeah but you have to be nice to me because I’m doing your work for you, lazy boy.”

“A second low blow with a staggering effect. I can’t simply like you?”

You grinned, dancing towards him with a singsong voice, “You like me, you love me, you want to hug me.”

Tadashi tried to laugh but with each line you came a little bit closer, mocking him further, “You want to kiss me, you want to marry me…”

You trailed off, suddenly aware of the lack of laughter. At some point, the atmosphere had become heavy with unspoken thoughts on Tadashi’s behalf.

You frowned uncertainly, “Tadashi? What’s wrong?”

“I uh… You’re really great with my family,” he murmured. “Actually, you’re really great altogether.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Tadashi leaned forward, brushing his lips lightly against your cheek. Your heart raced; everything had been so normal only minutes ago but now things were different, evolved somehow.

He pulled away, not daring to ask if you felt the same way about him, “That’s enough for tonight, come on, I’ll take you home.”

He got on the moped. Although you had a million questions for him, time seemed to stop when you sat behind him and held onto him tightly. He was right, for now it was enough.

[takebackthetreasure92]

Making myself clear to my ex-stalkers

This is an email I sent my former staff worker from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in February 2018. Apparently, InterVarsity remains under the impression that I won't speak out about the fact that they gang-stalked me and encouraged my abuser to harass me--even strangle me. And spread slander about me that they knew was false, just because my would-be murderer was a model student leader and it was my reputation or his. Are they really foolish enough to think I will back down? #InterVarsity #metoo

"Hi Jordan,

This is just to set you straight on a few things and make sure you understand what I hope for and don't hope for with you in future. The reason for using the pseudonymous email address is just a precaution against a certain ex at the moment because my legal name change is not information he needs right now, but I think you know who this is ;). (It's Julian, who has ditched their birth name for good.)

So I know that you, at the very least, had the decency to recognize the low and utterly puerile nature of your betrayal of me. You even almost got yourself to believe your own lies sometimes. I say almost because you had your somewhat squeamish moments, like when you used Gregor's last abusive accusation of non-forgiveness as a way to try to shut me up about every way our former cult had fucked up. (Honey, you realize your willful blindness to InterVarsity's more dangerous qualities and failure to watch Gregor's paranoia and rage, both of which escalated almost no matter what I did (keeping my mouth shut not being something I owed him or that he deserved), could have resulted in me getting literally strangled to death at Rockbridge, right? If you honestly don't--well, that ought to at least explain quite a lot about my continued hypervigilance around IV that led to some perfectly understandable PTSD paranoia. Google around and inform yourself on what that looks like. For your love of God, please recognize the signs in the students that come your way in future at Needle's Eye or anywhere else.)

Jordan, I feel like if you had paid closer attention to the things I was trying to tell you every time I brought it up or a PTSD flashback brought it to mind, which I unabashedly recall was often because...your cult was (and is) dangerous, you might have picked up on the fact that I was hoping to wake you up to what was going on in the ministry. And you used both my persistence and my PTSD to stab me in the back in what was the most manipulative way possible (no matter what prettier half-truth you told the self-righteous and naive Halen about it). Your smile at me when you knew Josh's confusion at that ridiculous gossip situation (your poisonous cult was the problem there, dear, not me) gave you a way to fuck me over, and to let your own childish ass off the hook for having an openly pro-gay transgender member, recalled a seven-year-old boy who had just told a perfect fib to the teacher on someone else and thought he was going to keep the candy he stole from that other person after all. You were a child, to be blunt, Jordan, just an immature, accountability-shirking little boy who threw his more Christ-like morals completely out the window--and all in the name of covering up every disgusting arm-twist (all failed arm-twists in my case, hee hee hee) and mind game and coercive (and often abusive) move InterVarsity had ever pulled to keep its attendees in line. Speaking of which, your expression when you thought I was about to blurt out the words "I was gay" at one event might have led someone else to think I was about to forcibly break someone else's arm, at the very least. Jordan, becoming disappointed when people who say something controversial on Facebook and then have the temerity to show up at your event--that is a fifteen-year-old thing to do. Admittedly it's better than seven, but *really?*

You know, what I give myself a pat on the back for is not giving in to your or Gregor's immature insistence that I keep my mouth shut. What you did there was wrong, Jordan, not least because you knew perfectly well Gregor was a very, *very* dangerous person when his narcissism was threatened. The only thing I caved on with him was the fact that during our casual relationship he monopolized my time romantically, literally stalked me, and acted very petulant and possessive when other men's names came up--and in the later stages of that contemporaneously cheated on me with my roommate and later went out of his way to paint me as a complete ninny for getting offended by that, as if nonconsensually holding someone to romantic double standards does not count as cheating, which of course anyone without pathological narcissism and over the age of 18 or so knows it does. Just because I gave him my silence on just that one at the time for Brooke (who truly had no clue because she had taken his fibs hook, line and sinker, to the point where he would have had no problem still messing with her mind by smearing his way out of further accountability, just like you did with me later in the game) did not mean that I was going to even begin to overlook my conviction that InterVarsity classmates needed to be told what the ministry was capable of, under the wrong circumstances and with the promise of seizing more and more control over the lives of its members. That I never ceded that control to you all--for which again, I feel extremely blessed and grateful, but to God goes that glory--is of course the real reason you gave me the boot and then tried so hard to mindfuck me into thinking I had no one but my own sorry, selfish, deep-in-sin self to blame.

LOL! Grow up, Jordan. That is the kind of silly lie a fourteen-year-old boy tells his partner (especially if his partner is female-identified and he therefore feels entitled to say it to "his girl") when he's trying to get a get-out-of-jail-free card for screwing her over by making her believe it's because of something she's done. Spiritually, you are the one who needs to get your shit together. You and InterVarsity fucked our friendship over, and you delivered the coup de gras for an incredibly selfish, inappropriately domineering, and silly reason. Emma may have been able to behave like a manipulative, completely brainwashed fool on the matter most of the time (which of course, to a degree, she was), but your own acting and/or (more likely) self-deception skills left just a bit more to be desired. I mean, I get that the staff routinely throw both themselves and their dogma at people to earn their allegiance (in many ways it was like dealing with very persistent pimps, especially when you were trying to shut me up, just to be brutally honest there), but still. And for the record, I have called Gregor out on everything (partly to cleanse my own mind of any toxic remnants of his brainwashing and mainly to secure my safety and my partner's, now that Gregor lives just over in Nashville) and threatened him with a restraining order based on both his abuse and threats and his (actual) stalking behavior if he *ever* resumes any of that again--and pointed out to him that pointing those projections of his back at him where they belong would be a cakewalk in any "court of law," should it come to that. Which of course praise God it almost certainly won't, now that I've made it clear I don't trust him to behave in the event of reconciliation, not in this life. For the last seven years all I've wanted for him was for him to be free of all the poison in his soul--that is a wish extremely near and dear to my own heart and soul--which is why your disgusting use of the ammo he gave you in telling you of his self-exculpatory-nine-year-old accusation of non-forgiveness (no, child, the reason it so visibly hit home was not actually being guilty of that; I've given you the real reason) was so, so, SO low. And I did not give a fuck about what Mary and the other brainwashed, narrow, and foolish girls thought, just to be radically honest about them.

Again, for your own sake, for the sakes of your students in Needle's Eye, and literally for God's sake, you have got to get your spiritual shit together. For years I thought you were one of the ones who also remembered to hold onto principle and, more importantly, a sense of principle *that originates within the self,* not the cult. I was very, very wrong about that. As advice, I'll let you know that I often felt like one of the few people in the cult who hung on to their adulthood in that sense, mainly *because* I would not relinquish control over my life, let alone my mind. You almost got me with the implied lie about everything being just "benevolent misunderstandings," but in my heart and in the hearts of others who would have been vilified and dismissed right and left, had they voiced those opinions to the overenmeshed majority, all those childish fibs never quite held water. Your crimson-faced mortification when I cunningly ratted your bullshit out to Josh--that was a very adult high five on your part, so I sincerely high-five you in return for all that--said it all.

I need scarcely say that I make no apologies at all for exposing all of your evil as a ministry to the university's first-years. They were the ones who needed to be warned in light of all your intrusive, sneaky, manipulative, and just plain disrespectful rubbish in infiltrating the move-in volunteer staff and pulling out all the shots in your usual WAY-too-manipulative ploys to lure new people over. There is a world of difference between wanting a person to be Saved--God has a myriad of tools suited to that purpose, as you well know, for which good old-fashioned prayer will suffice if it's meant to be--and wanting to be the saving force and guide. And there certainly is a difference, a very consequential AND spiritually essential difference, in wanting it so intensely that you will stoop to ANYTHING to pull people into your ministry, not RUF or Cornerstone, and to make sure they join, stay, and follow YOU. The real kicker here is that their definition of "follow" is for their members ENTIRELY too invasive, inappropriately domineering, manipulative, unhealthy (the DEFINITION of unhealthy, dear, so it's small wonder your staff used that buzzword fairly frequently with folks, in the pot calling any criticizing kettle black), and just plain psychologically abusive in a much-too-frequent pattern.

So I beg of you. BEG of you. If you have not already, get your shit together. I intend to just let you be in future, and I would appreciate it if you would extend me the same courtesy, starting with not responding to this email. Even though you're out of IV now (for your sake I sincerely thank God for that), I don't need to tell you outright that you had your chance with my friendship; you blew it when you irrevocably broke my trust. Forgiveness always came easy for me, but almost no matter what comes up down the road I will never fully trust you again in this life. The same goes for Gregor and Emma. And there is nothing you can say to me that you can get inside my head ever again. I'm just being honest.

Please, just work on healing any remaining crippling and lies in your mind and soul.

In Christ,

Julian"

[theseviolentdelightss]

Counting Paths IV

Series Summary: After a lifetime on the run from the Empire, Reader makes a move that could have drastic impacts for both friend and foe. A Reader insert/fanfic. Gifs belong to their respective owners.

Word Count:2342

Author’s Note: Again, thank you all so much for reading and taking the time to like and reblog. I’m really enjoying writing this story and once work slows down I will be updating more frequently. 

Part I Part II Part III 

The sound of screaming was what woke you. Frantic, and unnerving as if someone somewhere was being ripped apart slowly. It wasn't until your eyes adjusted to the bright lights surrounding you that you realized the screams had come from yourself. Goosebumps covered every inch of your body, blanketed in cold sweat. You had been dreaming again, as you always did, the same terrible nightmare. Instinctively you found yourself staring at your own hands, they were trembling but were blessedly free of blood. Slowly you began to regain your composure, focusing on your breathing. In an out. You couldn't remember where you were. The ceiling tiles above you looked nothing like the inside of your ship. The feeling of relief quickly dissipated with the understanding that you had not merely dozed off at the controls again or passed out in your cabin after yet another exhausting job. All around you machines beeped loudly, the sound of feet hurrying across tile floor, none of which you were expecting.

You hadn't expected to see him either. You weren't sure how it was that you hadn't noticed him leaning over you or the feeling of his warm hands pushing you back into the unfamiliar bed. His mouth was moving but it was as if you were trapped under leagues of water. None of what he said reached your ears. Instead you read the expression on his face. The concern in his eyes. You weren't sure what you had done to deserve such tender kindness. The confusion must have been apparent on your face as his hands began to move up and down your arms. A simple gesture that succeeded in bringing you back to reality. Piece by piece the memories fell into place.

The blood you spilled on cold sand, the wounds you had treated, landing on Yavin 4.

“Cassian?” You muttered, your voice sounding far weaker than you preferred.  A small smile pulled at the corner of his thin lips, relieved that at last you had recognized him. Nodding he took a hold of your wrist as you reached for the injury you had received. It was a poor payment for bringing him back safely.

“Don't, don't touch it.” He spoke gently. It had taken two nurses to stem the flow of blood long enough to stitch the gash in your head. For such a small woman you sure could take a hit. Granted you had passed out shortly after.

“Where the hell are we?” You asked, looking around and trying to assess your location. Everything was white, almost blinding, nothing seemed willing to stay in focus. With every blink your vision blurred.

“We're in the med bay on Yavin.” He replied, letting go of his hold on you as he settled back into the chair he had pulled closer to your bedside.

“How long have I been out?” You voice slurred slightly as you spoke. They must have given you something for the pain. Most often you didn't care for such medical implements but today you would make an exception. After the welcome you received you were due a few reparations. It was the least the Rebellion could do.

“A few hours.” He replied, crossing his left leg over his knee. This was the most relaxed you had seen him since the two of you met.

“You look better.” You stated rather simply. It was true, he had obviously cleaned up while you slept. Trading in his stained and dirty clothing for a his usual rebel attire. Still, the tired in his eyes persisted and you wondered if it had anything to do with the state you were in.

“You look worse.” He smirked. You wished you had something to throw at him but settled for a cold glare. It mustn't have been too terribly intimidating because he simply chuckled in return.

“You can thank that asshole comrade of yours.” You grumbled, pushing yourself up in your bed. “Bastard hits like a newborn. He's lucky I don't have a thicker skull.”

“Well he's been assigned mess hall detail for the next month if it helps.” Cassian added, hoping it would be of some comfort.

“Good.” You replied, the edge returning to your voice. “Where's Theodren?”

“He's in a council meeting with Mon Mothma and Draven.” He answered, watching as you did your best to adjust to your newest circumstance. Cassian had known Theodren for awhile now. It wasn't until a year or so ago that he actually met the dwarf everyone spoke of and he did not disappoint. For everything the man lacked in height he made up for with extraordinary intelligence and a razor sharp wit. It was that very combination that had allowed him to climb the ranks so quickly. “You must mean a lot to him. I don't think I've ever seen him so livid.”

“Please tell me he didn't do anything foolish on my behalf.” You groaned, hoping that your old friend hadn't put himself in a compromising situation for your sake.

“You don't need to worry about him. Mothma and Draven know better than to put themselves on his bad side. “

“You admire him, don't you?” You couldn't help but smile.

The last time you had seen Theodren he was still struggling to gain the respect he so rightly deserved. To see Cassian speak highly of him reminded you as to why you had put your neck out for the dark haired rebel. It also made you swell with pride that Theodren had come so far in just a handful of years. You had always known he was destined for great things. Even if he never saw it in himself.

“I do.” Cassian replied, and as if on cue the white curtain surrounding your bed was pulled open and in hurried the very subject of your conversation.

“Theo!” You exclaimed as he rushed to your side. You gripped his hand tightly for the second time that day and allowed all of your worries to slip away for a moment. The small man smiled up at you, retaining his grip on your hand.

“Are you feeling alright?” He asked, the worry from before still illuminated in his eyes.

“Just a flesh wound.” You answered, doing your best to ignore the pain.

At that he smiled, happy to see that your sense of sarcasm was still very much intact. It was one of the main attributes that had drawn him to you years ago when you were each still green and untouched by the darker aspects of the rebellion. Time had changed you both though, rather drastically it would seem. A truth that neither one of you wished to voice out loud but were more than aware of.

“You know they're going to ask questions.” He admitted. You weren't surprised, particularly considering the manner of your return. It was to be expected. Still, you hadn't anticipated to be accused of deserting a cause you had dedicated years of your life to.

“I know.” Your voice was steady as you spoke. “That's why I'm here.”

Both Theodren and Cassian shared a glance as they leaned closer. You had caught their interest.  A part of you just wanted to admit it all, lay everything out on the table, but there was too much at stake. Plus, you could never be sure of who was listening. The Empire has ears everywhere.

“Well.” Theodren began, straightening himself and giving your hand another squeeze before pulling away. If it had been anyone else you might have been slightly offended but it was simply his way. For as long as you can remember Theodren had never been much for human contact. You suspected it was his old insecurities rearing their ugly head but you respected him enough not to address it. Everyone has their demons. “Mothma wants to meet with you at noon tomorrow. It will be a small deposition, a chance for you to tell your side of the story. She's rather curious as to what took place on Ryloth and most importantly where you've been the last five years.”

“Is that all?” You asked. “Or would she also like to know when I lost my virginity as well?”

Both Cassian and Theodren struggled to contain the laughter that crept up inside their throats. Each had become accustomed to having to inform the Alliance of nearly every detail in their lives. Even the most mundane of things. Secrets were not to be kept from those in charge.

“I can't imagine it would come up but on the off chance do try and remember.” Theodren did his best to sound serious but it only made you laugh. Even if doing so made your head throb it was a welcome change. You could hardly remember the last time you truly had. “In the mean time you'll be under Captain Andor's supervision.”

“So he's my warden is what your saying?” You sighed, settling back into the stark white blankets of the hard medical bed. Five years, and the rebellion still had yet to upgrade to something a bit more comfortable.

“No, he is simply responsible for making sure you don't do anything reckless until this mess is sorted out.” He was all business as he spoke and again you were reminded of how far he had come since you had seen him last. Rolling your eyes you turned your attention to Cassian as he remained silent in his seat.

“Well can I at least get out of this damn bed?” You grumbled, moving around in an attempt to get comfortable. “I've slept on ground softer than this.”

“You'll be discharged within the hour. Just promise me something.” Again Theodren took your hand in his own. “Don't do anything stupid.”

“You know me too well.” You smirked.

With one last squeeze of your hand he let go and promised to check in on you again later that night. Sighing you watched him walk away, leaving you again with the man you had just met, who was now responsible for your safe keeping until the Alliance decided what to do with you.

An hour and a half later and you were following Cassian through the various hallways that led to the officers quarters. With every step you took you could feel eyes following you. The endless stream of rebels passing by that had witnessed what had taken place on the hangar floor. They looked at you as if you had dragon snakes crawling out of your ears. Ignoring them the best you could you kept your head down until you at last found yourself standing in front of Cassian's room. After entering a series of numbers into the doors keypad it slid open in front of him. Stepping in behind him the light shining through the high and narrow windows revealed a rather neat cabin.

“I didn't peg you for a neat freak.” You chuckled lightly, trying to keep the knots swelling in your stomach at bay.

“Well I'm not usually here long enough for things to get messy.” Cassian replied as he pealed off his jacket and tossed it atop his bed. Moving slowly into the room you suppressed the want to turn and run, choosing instead to settle at the edge of the small bed that you assumed was meant for you. A tense silence hung in the air and for once you weren't sure how to break it. “Are you alright?”

Cassian's voice pulled you from your daze as you found him now standing in front of you. Brow furrowed, dark eyes set on you. For a moment you closed your own and tried calm your nerves. Clasping your hands together to keep them from trembling. After everything you had been through, after everything you lost, you weren't sure what it is you expected to happen. It seemed as if every time you thought you had a grasp on your circumstances they had already changed. The rug ripped out from under your feet.

“It's just...” You began, still unsure as to what compelled you to continue opening up to someone you had met only the night before. “I've always believed that there were many paths for everyone. Hanging in the air like ghosts. That all that was left to us was the choosing and; yet, out of the all the endless possibilities, all the infinite outcomes I keep finding myself going down the same path again and again.”

For a moment neither of you spoke, unsure of what to say. Moving closer Cassian placed a hand on your shoulder, causing you to raise your eyes to meet his own. Inside them you found a sense of understanding and felt as if the same thought had run through his own mind many times.

“Look you made the choice to come back here.” He began, knelling down until he was at eye level. “Just as you made a choice to put yourself at risk to save me. The way I see it, your path is what you make it.”

Sighing you merely nodded, watching as he turned away slowly and settled into the chair at his desk. It was the only bit of clutter inside the otherwise clean room. You could still feel the pain meds effecting you, causing your head to spin. Fighting the urge to settle into the soft mattress beneath you was hopeless. Giving in, you allowed yourself to rest your head against the smooth fabric. It smelled of clove aftershave, a welcome change from the chemical scent that had permeated through the med bay.

Perhaps Cassian was right. Maybe there wasn't some grand cycle set in motion for your life. No wheel of blood spinning round and round crushing any hope for a life beyond it. Yet, if there were, you were going to everything in your power to break it.

[pen-masta]

Malicious Mental Part 4

1   2   3   4   5

Her dad brings back everything on Joy’s list. Several changes of clothes and bathroom products she’ll be needing, a bunch of dvds, her laptop, her paints, stickers, snacks, her sketch book, yarn, her knitting needles, and some books. After cleaning herself off and changing into some clothes that are not covered in Castel blood she sets to work.

Although the nurses try hard to persuade Joy to leave the room alone, Joy is very persistent. She covers the room in paint and stickers. She paints things from their adventures together: the hummingbird they took pictures of, the blue newt that perched itself on Castel’s cap when they were camping, the sunrise they watched from the top branch in a tree. She painted flowers and things they’ve shared in their lives--milkshakes at the diner, late night movies, snowball fights, anything they’ve ever done together she has a piece of it painted around the room.

She covers his bed and IV pole and all of his medical hook-ups in stickers. When Mrs. Cubs asks why Joy is doing all of this she explains that this way if for any reason she’s not in the room when Castel wakes up, he’ll see the stickers and paintings and know she’s there. The police question her about what happened and she explain what a psycho Hayden is and how he tried to murder her best friend. After all the questioning is over she sits next to his bed and starts to sketch Castel. She sketches him in science class when they were working on their experiment, she sketches him driving as they jam out to their favorite tracks, she sketches him every way she remembers him...not the way he is now. This isn’t Cassie. Cassie isn’t nearly dying, he isn’t struggling to breath, he isn’t full of bullet holes. Cassie is a sweet, kind, caring, awkward, nerdy, intelligent, self-doubting, hilarious, goofy, dork-asaurus-rex. And that’s how she will always remember him as.

She sketches for a long time in the quiet of the room. Her parents went home late last night and his parents went down to the cafeteria to get some food. Mrs. Cubs suggested leaving the room just to clean their heads for a little while, but Joy refused and said she would not be leaving his side at all and she meant her words. She was going to stick to her word, if not for him for herself. She failed him once she won’t do it again.

“Mmngh,” a moan.

She hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours. She hasn’t eaten, she hasn’t had anything to drink. She doesn’t want to miss a single moment that he could be waking up.

“Mhngmm,” a groan hits the air.

This time the sound catches her attention and she stops moving her pencil. She blinks and looks up to see where the sound is coming from. 

It’s Cassie!

She leaps from her seat and is hanging on the railing of the bed. He slowly turns his head from side to side, his eyes scrunched tight as he coughs and whimpers. After a moment his eyes open at a snails pace, only to have his eye lids droop.

Her eyes widen and fill with tears, seeing his brown eyes again causes her heart to swell. She catches a sob in her throat as she watches his eyes drift around the room trying to process where he is. He coughs again and reaches up to the tube in his mouth.

“No, no Cassie,” she says gently and places her hand on his. “Leave it alone, you’ve gotta leave that in.”

He registers her touch and his eyes slide to hers. He coughs and stares at her before his lips twitch trying to smile. She laughs and wipes her eyes.

“Hey Casanova,” she smiles. “Nice to have you awake again.”

He blinks and she sees something trigger behind his eyes. They widen and his body slightly jerks as he quickly scan her over. Her heart breaks, he’s in a hospital bed and he’s worried about her. He’s making sure she’s ok, he’s still putting her first. She doesn’t deserve to be his friend.

“I’m fine Cassie,” she says calmly. “Nothing happened to me...because of you.” Her voice breaks but she manages to hold her smile.

She can see him breath a shaky sigh of relief as he relaxes. She sniffles and wipes her eyes.

“I’m gonna call the nurse and let her know you’re awake. Alright C-bear?”

He slowly nods and smiles as best as he can with a tube stuffed down his throat. She nods and goes to stand up but his hand grabs her arm.

“What’s wrong Cas?” She asks worry dripping from her voice.

He weakly points around the room at the paintings and stickers. She blinks and looks at him.

“Yes I painted them,” she says.

He coughs and smiles weakly with his lips but his eyes shine bright. She smiles herself and he points to her paints on the chair, then to his cheek.

“You want me to paint on you?” She asks with a giggle and he slowly nods.

She smiles and takes her paints into her hand.

“Any requests?” She asks

He shakes his head and she nods. She wants to paint something nice, she wants to paint something about him, she wants to paint something to display how brave he is. She smiles as an idea forms in her brain and she carefully paints the bravest animal she can think of onto his cheek.

A lion.

======================

Nurses, doctors, and his parents fill the room. Joy sits off to the side knitting a sweater for him as they remove the tube and run tests. His voice sounds scratchy and exhausted, but it sounds like Cassie and that’s all she care about. Hearing his voice again has brought her more life than anything.

They have him blow into a tube to see how strong his lungs are. He rates very low and the discouragement is evident on his face--as well as the exhaustion. The doctor reassures him that his lung will get stronger over time if he does some simple breathing exercises. They work on his arm and his leg, moving them around and testing his reflex, reactions, how much he can feel. His face looks pained as they run their tests, but he makes no sound.

“Well you’re arm and leg have suffered a lot of damage,” the doctor says. “But we won’t be needing any amputation.” He smiles jokingly.

Castel chuckles a little, “That’s a relief.”

“You’ll need to do some exercises to build strength in your muscles again. You can still feel everything and your movements are a little delayed, but the exercises will help with getting your limbs back into fully functioning order.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mr. Cubs smiles.

“Yes he’ll be just fine, but there is one downside.” The doctor sighs frowning. “He won’t be able to play any sports at least not in the near future. I hope you were not banking on any sport scholarships.”

Castel smiles, “No sir that’s not an issue.” 

The doctor smiles, “Well that’s good to know. I was worried you were a big football or lacrosse star.”

Joy can’t help it. She snorts before laughing hysterically. Castel a football jock!? Castel as any jock is so hilarious! Cassie is the most nonathletic person ever, he’s not lazy he still takes care of himself...and he really looks good if she’s being honest, he’s really grown since freshman year. But when it comes to any sport at all he becomes the most uncoordinated, stumbling, tripping over his own feet nerdy, dork on the field. The only sports he’s good at are air hockey, and any that are virtual. Even the thought of Cassie being a sporty guy brings tears of hysteria to her eyes.

But no one else in the room is in Joy’s head.

She manages to catch her breath and opens her eyes to see every doctor and nurse in the room glaring at her. His parents look a little surprised by her out burst, and Cassie is smirking a little. But all of his help looks so aggravated by her, their eyes pierce right through her silencing her laughter. The room feels cold and suffocating and she suddenly feels very unwelcome. New tears fill her eyes, they just didn’t know why she was laughing she not a terrible person...well no she is but not because of that! She grips her half sweater tight in her hands, she can feel her cheeks turning bright red as the tears fill her eyes causing her vision to become blurry. She feels small, she feels hated, she feels embarrassed, she feels like she needs to leave.

Throwing her knitting project down onto the chain she bolts out of the room. She runs down the hall and down the steps not wanting to wait for the elevator. She runs through the lobby and outside, across the parking lot and she doesn’t stop until she’s reached the little pond that sits across from the hospital. She stops and falls to her knees sobbing. She feels terrible, she’s miserable. She still can’t shake the fact that she almost lost him and it would have been all her fault. As much as everyone says it’s not that’s just not the truth. And now the nurses and doctors and his parents and probably even Cassie think she’s just mean. They think she’s a horrible person for laughing, they think she’s the worst person ever because she almost killed him.

Hot tears run down her cheeks and plummet to the ground as she grips the grass around her. She sobs until she starts to hiccup and cough. She can’t lose him ever, and she can’t deal with the fact that she almost murdered the one person she can’t live without. And now she’s even broken her promise of not leaving his side. She’s an appalling monster that doesn’t deserve Castel in her life at all. She screams in frustration tugging at her hair before she falls over and curls up on her side, hugging her knees.

She’s not sure how long she cried for. She doesn’t know when she stopped crying. She doesn’t know how long she’s been laying here in the cool grass. But she registers a hand that touches her shoulder. She jumps and whips to a sitting position ready to hit whatever stranger has come up behind her.

“Relax Joy it’s just me,” Mr. Cubs says holding his hands up defensively.

Joy sighs out the breath she didn’t know she was holding as Mr. Cubs sits next to her.

He smiles and puts his arm around her letting her lean into him.

“I’m sorry,” Joy sniffles hugging her knees.

“What for?” He asks taken back

“For all of this.” She hiccups, “For getting Cassie shot, for putting him in the hospital, for being in the way, for laughing.” She sniffles again starting to get worked up again. “It was just cause I couldn’t image Cassie being a jock and it was just funny that the doctor thought he was. I wasn’t trying to be rude or mean or, or,” she hiccups again before coughing.

“Joy slow down sweetheart,” Mr. Cubs chuckles. “You didn’t put Castel in the hospital. Hayden did. You didn’t shoot Cassie. Hayden did. I know you feel responsible, but this isn’t your fault. I’m sure us saying that doesn’t make you feel better, but it’s the truth my dear.” He smiles kindly down at the young girl, “And I have to agree with you I thought it was kind of funny that the doctor thought Cassie was a football star. Between him and his brothers he’s the least athletic,” he chuckles. “I just didn’t process it as fast as you and Cassie did.”

She blinks up at him, “Cassie thought it was funny?” She asks in a small voice.

“Yes he did,” he smiles. “He was yelling after you that it was funny and that it was a good joke.” He hugs her, “He’s really mad that you’re upset.”

She looks down, “Mad huh?”

“Not at you dear,” he shakes his head. “He’s mad at the staff for upsetting you.”

She looks up at him confused.

“He threw quite the fit when you left.” He chuckles, “He yelled at the staff and refused to do any more tests or exercises until you came back and were happy again. And you know Cassie once he’s made up his mind there’s no changing it.” He smiles, “That boy is stubborn.”

Joy blinks, “Why would he do that?”

He smiles sweetly, “He loves you Joy. You’ve been friends since kindergarten, you mean a great deal to him. And how people treat you and how you feel matter to him.”

Joy’s heart swells, he’s still protecting her.

“He told the staff he wouldn’t cooperate with them until you were back and only after you two had at least an hour alone to be together.”

Joy breaks again and starts to cry into her hands. She can feel Mr. Cubs’ arm wrap around her tightly.

“It’s alright Joy,” he says calmly. “You know Cassie isn’t the only victim in this.”

She looks up at his blurry face, the tears messing up her vision.

“You are just as violated as Cassie. Maybe not physically but mentally and emotionally you are both torn up. No one should have to go through what you two have been through...especially not at this young age.” Tears fill his own eyes, “Hayden wanted to get to you and if he had killed Castel who knows what he would have done to you. That boy is not right in the head and he’s tried to take both of your lives from you two.” He smiles weakly, “But he didn’t succeed in taking either, because of your quick thinking. Getting him away from Cassie was a brilliant idea and I’m not sure Cas would have made it if you hadn’t been there. Remove either of you from the equation and somebody would have been hurt or worse.” He hugs her tightly, “I love you like my own daughter Joy and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure Hayden will not come near either of you again.”

Joy sniffles and hugs him back, “Thank you.”

He nods and puts his hand on her cheek, “We’ve been talking to your folks and we all think perhaps some therapy for both you and Castel would be beneficial.”

Joy nods and wipes her eyes, “Can we go together?”

Mr. Cubs smiles, “I’m sure that can be arranged sweetheart.”

She smiles back.

===================

Joy walks down the hall gripping her tray tight in her hands, fearing what she was going to walk into when she went into the room.

When she walks into the room again it’s empty. The only person in the room is Castel and he sits up straight in the bed patiently waiting. His eyes lock with hers as soon as she walks in. His face breaks into a smile causing her nerves to relax. She puts the tray down on the chair and turns to face him. She puts the railing down on one side and sits next to him on the bed.

They both smile at each other in silence for a moment.

“Hey goof,” he says.

“Heya dork,” she says back.

They both giggle for a moment before falling into comfortable silence again. He reaches and takes her hand.

“I’m so happy you’re ok,” he says his words catching in his throat.

Tears fill her eyes instantly and she carefully hugs his neck. She can feel his tears dripping down onto her neck as he holds her tight with his good arm.

“You dork,” she cries and smiles into his shoulder. “I’m the one that’s happy you’re alright.”

He chuckles and nuzzles into her hair.

The two sit like that for almost the whole hour, talking and crying. Neither wanting to let the other go.

“You didn’t have to do that you know,” Joy says after they had been sitting in silence for a while.

Castel’s face hardens, “Yes I did.”

“Cassie,” she pulls back to look at him.

“No Joy,” he says sternly. His eyes are red from the tears and exhaustion which looks kind of weird with the hard look he’s giving her. “I was not going to stand by and let him hurt you.”

“He was coming for you.”

“Neither of us knew that,” he pushes a lock of loose hair behind her ear. “All I knew was he had a gun and he was too close for comfort with said gun. I didn’t know what he was going to do...but I wasn’t gonna let it be hurting you in any way.”

She sniffles, “I’m sorry Cassie.”

“You don’t need to be,” his expression softens.

“Yes I do,” she shakes her head. “You begged me to not put you in the middle of my relationships. But I didn’t listen.”

“If you had I wouldn’t be in the hospital,” he nods.

“I know,” Joy looks down.

“You’d be the one in hospital,” he says tilting her chin up to look at him. “He would have hurt you.” He smirks a little, “And I’d be in jail cause I would have beat him to death.”

She giggles a little and he smiles.

“You don’t need to be sorry for any of this Jo-jo,” he says. “I’m alright, you’re alright.”

“And you’re dad is having a state wide manhunt for Hayden,” Joy giggles causing him to laugh.

“And that’s all that matter,” he chuckles.

She smiles at him still feeling the emotions that just wont let her be.

“Are you alright now?” He asks genuily concerned she’s still blaming herself.

She smiles and nods, “Yes I’m alright. As long as you’re ok I’m ok.”

He smiles and glances to the side. “So what’s with the tray?”

She blinks and looks at the chair. She nearly forgot she brought that up. She smiles slyly.

“Why do you want to know?” She asks teasingly.

He grins, “It’s for me isn’t it.”

“Why do you assume things are for you?”

He pouts as best as he can, “I’m injured people always bring gifts to the injured.”

She laughs and shoves him gently careful to not hurt him.

“You’re such a child.”

He grins, “You say that like you aren’t.”

She sticks her tongue out him and he returns the gesture.

“So come on whatcha bring me?”

She giggles and picks up the tray.

“I was passing the cafeteria and I saw the jello and I  couldn’t resist. I wanted to bring you some, cause I know how much you love jello.” She smiles and places the tray of gelatin in his lap. “I got all the flavors and arranged them in the order they come up on the color spectrum cause I know you’re a nerd.”

He smiles like a little kid, “Really?”

She nods and smiles, “Yeah I think I got it right too.”

He smiles teasingly, “Well actually green comes before yellow but--hey!” He laughs when she pokes his side.

“Can it brainy-ack,” she chides.

He giggles and smiles up at her, “I’m glad you’re here Jo-jo.”

She smiles and sits back down on the bed, “Oh come on. I couldn’t let you be the only one with a hospital story.”

[callonb]

GYBurst of Inspiration/Motivation

Where does inspiration come from? - Snacks I recorded a song with Samuel Hawkins recently and that was the first line of his verse. Lately thats been on my mind more and more. Where does my inspiration come from and why cant I always bask in its motivational energies? Seems that my drive comes and goes with the moon phases or as planets enter and leave our orbit. Could be the skys dictating my moods and movements (which i think it does have an effect) or it could be the mass amount of coffee and tea i drink a day. Definitely important factors but not quite the source. My mom definitely motivates me, she believes in everything Im doing and helps every way that she can. Its not financially but sometimes emotional support is more important. Shouts out to Momma B you the realist. Same for my homies and not homies as in people i force myself to be around, cuz having friends is what you do. Actual family that i grew up with and have developed a relationship with, the GYB family. The ones who sat me down years ago and was like dude...... you need to take this rap shit seriously. The ones who are now getting more and more involved with the movement every day, pushing everything to the side and riding along with my dream and making them their own. Everyday the homies are pushing to help me create this vision for you guys as they've adopted it as their own. Like minds on the prize, Shouts out the Layer homies. That only seems to be half of it tho, and Ive never felt this type of fire burning inside me before so what is it? Magazine drama and BS doesn't motivate me, Music doesn't seem to hit me the same way anymore. I used to listen to music constantly, new rap definitely doesn't do it for me.....makes me feel lower. New tv shows dont do it for me im bored with most of the popular shows out. Same for games or just typical activities that people partake in. Partys, drugs, random hook ups...It all seems so blah to me and im completely uninterested. I learned I have to stop feeding my lower self and focus on my higher self and what that part of my being truly wants and thats to CREATE!!! Whenever im around an environment that drives me to create and push myself i perform better. So i guess i just realized what really inspires me, and thats a creative environment. Who is responsible for this? Well I saw the Rotunda Project last weekend at Maiden Alley, a collaborative piece by Fairseas. The Fairseas are a group of musicians named Jeran Simmons, Bobby Dowell, Codie Franklin and Shanden Simmons. I watched them plant this seed years ago and now its a giant tree that you can sit back and marvel in its greatness. The main theme of the film was collaborating with your community. I cant lie ive had many many thoughts of leaving my community to collaborate elsewhere but ive came to a realization recently that it isnt necessary. To my surprise and probably a lot of people around here, there is a bubbling hip hop scene around here that is about to explode. Ive started to invest my time and efforts into this scene now and received nothing but results. Shanden has been a major influence in my artistry because he is always honest, encouraging and persistent....three very important characteristics to have in a creative environment and on top of that has become one of what i would consider my best friends. I look at him as one of my GYBrothers. On to the hip hop scene around here tho..... mysterious person named "A" aka the Hollow Man and he is one of the most promising producers/writers around. His solo stuff is outstanding and the collaboration effort we are working on "A & B: The Empire" is next level. Its been well over a year in the making and will shock most people when they hear the new styles i bring to the tape compared to my previous work. A always challenges me to be very intelligent when I piece together my verses and I like that. He makes me want to grab a dictionary and start reading so I can match his extensive vocabulary.....and maybe I have done that lol. Im the ONLY artist that the mystery man works with at the moment and that hits me now in a way it never has before. Like why me, do I really have something in my music that would make this beyond talented artist spend his time and efforts to make beats for us to collab on and want to include me in everything he does? His beats are above any producer Ive ever heard even in the big leagues of the rap game its crazy but he will prolly have his own GYBlog entry about him eventually. I have to move on before i make this to long lol. Next is JSkrilla, I have met the Skrilla a few times in passing but i dont think we realized what each other really could offer the other. Until i ran into him at the damn ROTUNDA PROJECT.....back around full circle. After that we decided to get together. We showed each other some of our music. I didnt know he made dope beats as well as spit hot fucking fire but he does. We shared our philosophies for our craft and talked hip hop and all sorts of other randomness. Then we picked a beat and wrote a song on the spot. Bar for bar back and forth. J stressed to me it had been a LONG time since he had been able to just sit down and write with another emcee that wasnt intimidated by his ability to write on the spot, or to match his caliber of wordplay and rhyme schemes. To both mine and his delight I delivered. Skrilla really challenged me tho, most artist get so caught up in the main stream BS or conforming to certain concepts and topics in their verses that it had been a while since I had felt pressure when writing to make sure my bars are up to par. Felt good to feel that energy again i had been missing the want to become better and that leads me to the main cause of my motivation and my improvments or just overall attitude change whatever you want to call it. the TRYBE!!!! Snacks, B. James, and Waun D. are the Cerberus of this rap shit. I have a lot to owe to them. GYB and Trybe share the same values as far as what we hope to contribute to the culture of arts and musics and how we hope to impact the hip hop community as well as the communities we all live in. I have done one show with them and have multiple other ones lined up with them. As a matter a fact i cant see myself doing a show with anyone but them from here on out. Once again them as well as JSkrilla could have their own full length blog entry but i digress for the sake of your attention lol. The Trybe challenges me to be a better emcee by making me freestyle. Which if you have been around me doing music ive never been a good freestyler.....UNTIL NOW!!! They have cracked that shell and brought me out of it. Making me partake in their cyphers everytime we get together. Soon Ill be as smooth off the top as i am with the writtens then its over for everyone! Sharpening my skills is not something that other rappers really push you to do. Rap is very competitive and braggadocios so pushing someone to improve and possible be better than you is unheard of. The Trybe doesnt see it that way though, they want us all to grow together. With a shared love for hip hop and me and Snacks shared love for Anime we can talk for hours and hours before we realize we havent done any music lol. Everytime I hear a new Trybe song i feel my artistry being challenged. The message in their music makes me want to really focus on the concepts i present in my music and start challenging my self to pretty much step my game up. Between Skrilla, "A", and TrYbe, everything new I hear makes me question my latest bars which is exactly what I need. Hip Hop is my life and my love and above any amount of money i can potentially make off this art is the desire to be the best emcee to ever grab a mic and thats the same mindset i had when i originally picked up the pen and decided i would be a rapper. Before i saw 8 mile and realized that being a white rapper wasnt necessarily accepted, before all the laughs, all the hate and just general shade i received for my dreams. Being white in this game is a roadblock but for the first time these guys made me realize that i have overcame that hurdle 100 times over. I had a long talk with the Trybe last night and they gave me a boost of confidence that finally fully ignited that fire i had lit but tried to conceal. Im no longer worried about what is cool or what people want. I just want to create and you will more than likely like it because I do have skills that i myself had been sleeping on. I hear these artist like A, Skrilla, and Trybe and i felt underneath them but now i see my self as an equal. We all have different things we bring to the table that compliment each other and its time to put it all together and make it happen. Plus we all just fucking dope and there is no denying. This is my new goal. No more time wasted on what i "think" is the right move. Im going to follow what i KNOW to be the right path and follow my heart. Thats challenging myself with these artist and like minded individuals to always be better. Also as Snacks has said before "move at LIGHT SPEED" thats just what Ill do with my light brothers here. We like some damn warriors of this rap shit waging war against a evil corrupt entity but thats also for a whole separate entry lol But no war of this caliber is complete without a general so shoutout to SirDuke. Ive also recently became friends with this crazy dude and he has shown me in just the short time ive known him more love and support than some people ive known my whole life. He also inspires me because he has dedicated his life to serve and protect (literally) and most importantly LEAD. He has an army of pretty much every hood and every rapper in each of them just waiting for his call. and he is not leading them astray, Shoutout the Kollektiv. Duke is also a talented singer and emcee. He has a show with me tomorrow at the Hangover in Murray MAKE SURE YOU COME TO THAT AND SEE MY NEW ALBUM CONSCIOUS TRAP PERFORMED LIVE starting at 9pm. but yeah Duke is dope and I can appreciate his leadership skills and what he hopes to accomplish in his community by cleaning it up through music. He is rubbing off on my and motivating me to hold that same position with my Layer army of GYB homies ive assembled. Most of them are clueless about the industry and music so its up to me to guide and lead them so they can be their own selves and make it in this world without the middle man down your neck. Im going to wrap this up because it ended up being way longer than i intended but i wanted to also say to my fellow collaborators and friends above all. Wolf, Golden Wrist Banks, Trevell, Dope, Simple, Benji and Angel Mascato. You guys have MAD SKILLS. You guys inspire me too because I hear something different in your music than i hear from most. I want you all to continue to grow and expand your creativity to new levels. Tell YOUR story. The same story is constantly told but how will you tell YOURS in the true challenge. So i encourage you guys like i have been recently, step outside of the norm and do what you truly feel in your heart that you need to, fuck what everyone else wants from you just create the way you feel appropriate. A lot of you are working with Duke regularly and I think he will tell you the same thing I am now. Even if its certain people in your lives holding you back, they gotta go. Surround yourself with positive people that want to grow with you instead of out grow you and you will see the same results. Probably why you guys were all on my latest album, except Trevell im sorry and you should have been but you know the deal homie its all love. Frank.....dammit man just rap lol but anyways ill end it on this note. Getting in touch with that child like mind state and that pureness of love in my heart again. Losing all my intentions to want to be better and out do someone but rather COLLABORATE with like minds in my community has already in return pushed me forward in a lot of ways. Seems almost as if they had been waiting on me this whole time. Its certain that my actions are now speaking louder than my words and everyone is starting to catch on. including myself finally. If you read this far thank you and I love you. Youre more than likely part of the reason why i typed this or why i even continue to do what i do. I trust you guys just as much as you trust ill deliver. Have a great day, maybe you can draw inspiration from this or some of the same people or things that i do! So put down that magazine full of empty content and read something meaningful that you are interested in, turn off the news and watch some anime, stop playing shooter games and play final fantasy, stop eating out and prepare your own meals, dont listen to music just play instrumentals and freestlye every day or just make your own, quit scrolling on facebook and take a stroll around the block, only spend time with those that help you grow rather than keep you low. So much inspiration out there sometimes we just have to break away from what we are used to in order to pull from the experience. Now im really done. and excuse my poor grammer and probably a shit load of spelling errors. That wont ever change, these blog post are run on sentences of my thoughts that pass through my head every day. Sometimes i just take the time to jot them out as they pass. PEACE LOVE AND GYB!!

[dracox-serdriel]

Supergirl Fic: The Great and Noble House of Gand - Chapter Three: Brink

The Great and Noble House of Gand

Title: The Great and Noble House of Gand Author: Dracox Serdriel Word count: 3,000 Rating: R Spoilers: All episodes of Supergirl through 02x17 Distant Sun Warnings: Isolation, imprisonment, heartbreak, mental and physical abuse, memories of past/childhood abuse, psychological manipulation Summary: Canon-divergent from 02x17 Distant Sun. With no means to rescue Mon-El from the Daxamite battle cruiser, he is stranded on the ship bound on a four-year journey to his home planet.

Read the Great and Noble House of Gand on AO3 or FF.

Chapter  Three: Brink

Mon-El became aware of things in short, tumultuous bursts, as if his life was flickering on and off. Light and sound hit him hard and fast before the pain consumed all his other senses and everything went dark. There was no time to think or reflect, even if he had his faculties at his disposal.

"Mon-El," someone whispered.

No, it can't be.

"Mon-El."

He opened his eyes and emerged from the darkness for what felt like the hundredth time. The voice that called for him was quiet, and he couldn't believe it. Even when his eyes fell upon Kara standing at his bedside, he couldn't believe it.

"I'm dreaming," he muttered.

She smiled but did not correct him, and for a few minutes, all he did was stare at her in wonderment.

Gradually, he became aware of his surroundings. The rumbling and beeping of machines combined with the persistent discomfort of monitoring equipment meant that he was likely in the medical ward. That confused him, for the last thing he recalled was following Raphin into the lift.

"What happened?" he asked Kara.

"You already know," she replied.

"No, I - no, I don't."

This must be a dream.

Kara would've gotten closer after he woke up from a near-miss. She would've held him, kissed him, touched him.

As if the thought commanded it so, she joined him on the bed, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close, gently caressing his head with her hand. He closed his eyes and let the sensation wash over him, no longer caring if he was awake or asleep.

"You're not asleep," she said.

He smiled at that and began walking through the last of his memories. He and Raphin were in the lift when it felt like lightning struck him. Had the DEO managed to acquire a spacecraft? Or maybe Winn had figured out how to resurrect some of the spare alien technology they had lying around. They must've come after him, and somehow, during their rescue attempt, the lift had been damaged. That's why he was in the medical ward.

"You know that's not the truth."

His eyes snapped open, for while Kara had known him very well, she had never been able to read his mind literally. What was happening?

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You can feel it," was all she replied.

Mon-El had been so focused on how good it felt to be held that he ignored the continuous discomfort and constant cold that radiated from his left arm and right leg. He glanced down and saw IV lines running from both. That was odd. Even when he was dying of the Medusa virus, the DEO hadn't done that.

"Because they couldn't," she reminded him gently.

The DEO couldn't puncture his skin, so they had to use the same adaptive technology they used to monitor Kara's vitals. As far as he could recall, it was a kind of visor that went around the crown of the head. He raised his free hand to his forehead to touch it, only to find that it wasn't there.

The confusion persisted until he recalled waking up sore because his powers had faded completely. The DEO must've realized that and taken advantage to treat him more effectively.

"You know that's not true, either."

He looked up at Kara's face hoping to find solace there, but more importantly, to distract himself from the inevitable conclusion that his mind was racing toward. He already knew the truth, but he wanted to pretend a little while longer that he was back on Earth with the woman he loved. He focused on the shape of her lips and the graceful slope of her nose. He stared at those beautiful comets that comprised her eyes.

"You know where you are," she whispered softly.

Mon-El didn't want to think about it. She cupped his cheek and pressed her forehead into his, bringing her eyes impossibly close to him.

"You need to accept it," she said.

He swallowed hard against the bitterness that was swelling in his throat. After she discovered the truth about who he had been on Daxam, he promised that he wouldn't lie to her again. And in this moment, he found that he couldn't even lie to himself when staring into her impossibly blue eyes.

The DEO always employed yellow sun lamps to help Kryptonians and Daxamites recover from serious injuries or power loss, and he had seen Winn, Alex, and other humans treated enough times to know that standard medical practice on Earth was a single IV line to the arm. On Daxam, however, the standard was two lines situated to arm and opposite leg.

All this added up to one simple fact: he was not being treated by the DEO.

Did that mean that the rescue attempt had failed? He choked on the idea of his friends being captured, injured, or killed trying to save him. He wasn't worth that.

"You know what happened," she repeated.

Mon-El remembered standing in the lift, an abrupt increase in pain, and then falling to the floor. Those little moments he recalled between then and waking up to Kara's voice were little more than chaotic movements with so much sound and light that they seemed unreal.

"I collapsed," he said. "But I don't remember why."

Suddenly, he was standing next to her, and he clasped her hand in his, weaving their fingers together as he took in the sight before him.

He - or his body, at any rate - was lying in a hospital cot, unconscious. The layers of blankets made it hard to tell, but it seemed that his clothing had been replaced with a medical gown. Countless monitors surrounded him, presenting constant information on his vitals, all in High Daxamite.

"It can't be that bad," he commented as he looked to her for support. "It's not like they have me on life support."

Kara gave him a look that he had come to know as the "Are you sure about that?" expression. She wore it every time he announced that the movie they were watching must surely end happily. He tended to do this right before everything turned sour, but for some reason, he always expected the next one to have its own happy ending.

He turned back to his body and was shocked by what he saw. They did, in fact, have him on life support, complete with circulatory assistance and a full breathing mask. How had he missed that before?

"You see what you want to see here," she said, as if to answer his question.

"That explains why I see you," he replied with a smile.

"But you need to see more," she explained. "Even if you don't want to."

He nodded his head, yes. It was the only way he would know what had happened and if his friends were still alive, which meant he didn't have the luxury of hemming and hawing over how this couldn't be real. Kara had taught him that he had survived for a reason, that he lived for a reason, so he must be here - wherever here was - for a reason, too. His resolve only faltered upon one consideration.

He asked, "Will you stay with me?"

Her lips formed a smile that shined so brightly that it put the stars to shame.

"Of course I'll stay with you," she replied, squeezing his hand as reassurance.

Mon-El then turned to take in the rest of the room. There were at least a dozen people dressed in medical garb focused on him, or the sleeping version of him, in any case. No one seemed to notice that there was another Mon-El nor Kara, probably because they weren't really here.

So he followed one of the doctors out. No sooner had they stepped outside the room than he wished he hadn't, for his parents were waiting, their faces grim and crestfallen.

"The surgery was completely successful, your Majesties," the doctor said in High Daxamite. "The internal bleeding has stopped now that the blood vessels have been repaired."

"Were your associates able to discover a cause?" the King asked.

"His Highness's injuries are congruent with those sustained from a direct high-energy blast while wearing heavy armor," the doctor replied. "Though a rare occurrence, the injury could have been incurred up to twelve hours before collapse."

"While he was still on Earth," the Queen said, not bothering to hide her distain.

The doctor bowed his head as an indicator of an affirmative answer.

"When will he wake up?" the King asked.

"That... forgive me, your Majesty, I cannot be certain," the doctor replied. "Each patient is different. His Highness is young and healthy. He could be awake in as soon as a few hours."

"Why isn't he breathing on his own?" his mother demanded.

"One of his Highness's internal injuries was very close to the heart, your Majesty," the doctor explained. "By necessity, our repairs caused widespread inflammation in the lungs. But I wish to assure your Majesties that this reaction is entirely normal and expected. That was why we waited for half a day before our first attempt to wean his Highness from the vent. Our tests show that the inflammation has persisted longer than anticipated. With your Majesty's permission, we shall administer additional medicine to reduce the inflammation and try again in a few hours."

Mon-El spotted the fury on his mother's face before she turned away to conceal it. His father laid a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and she immediately tensed under the affection, resistant as always to any sign of weakness shared with those she deemed as lesser than herself. A moment later, however, she relaxed and dropped her head into her hands.

"Continue with your treatment," the King said. "Report to us immediately if anything changes, no matter how unimportant it may seem."

"Yes, your Majesty," the doctor replied.

He bowed deeply before taking his leave, and Mon-El wondered what would happen to the doctor who tried to save his life if he died.

"Rhea," the King said. "Please."

Mon-El suddenly felt like he was spying on his parents, and he felt the urge to leave before he accidentally intruded on them. He decided to leave and see who else was in the medical ward.

When he went for the door, Kara became an immovable force that anchored him to the room. He gave her a confused look, and she answered his question before he had a chance to ask it.

"Listen," she said. "You need to hear."

The only way to escape his parents was to relinquish her hand, and that was far too high a price. So he stayed.

"He will recover, Rhea," the King said.

She turned to face him. She replied, "We left the poison of Earth behind us, yet it still tries to take our son."

Had they not been in a semi-public thoroughfare, Mon-El had no doubt that his father would've embraced his mother. She had always insisted that such things made her appear weak, even though it flew in the face of Daxamite custom. His father had always respected her wish to avoid public displays of affection despite the social expectations to the contrary. It was such a break with tradition that it garnered commentary, and those brave souls who dared whisper a word against the Queen referred to her as the Ice Queen. That nickname melted away after his birth, for she never hesitated to show maternal affection in public.

"You should sleep," his father insisted. "I'll stay with him tonight."

She shook her head, no, but then she relented and left without another word. The King turned to his son with concern etched into his face.

"They think I was injured on Earth?" Mon-El asked. "That's impossible."

"Is it?" Kara asked him.

"Uh, yeah. I was invulnerable there," he replied.

"Not entirely," she said patiently. "And not long before you boarded this ship, you were involved in two fights. You could've been injured in either. Or both."

"Which I wouldn't have noticed if I had stayed on Earth," he said, cottoning on. "Because my powers would've healed me. But instead, I'm over there on machines."

A number of things occurred to him then. Had there been a rescue attempt, they would've assumed he was wounded during the attack. Collapsing from previous injures meant that none of his friends had been captured or killed, but he couldn't help but feel disappointed.

His father's head dropped into his hands suddenly, drawing Mon-El's attention.

"Is it just me, or does he seem a little too concerned?" he asked in jest.

"He can feel it," Kara replied.

"Feel it?" Mon-El repeated skeptically. "You mean us hovering next to him?"

"You're dying," she said bluntly.

He shouldn't have been surprised. At some point he had realized this for himself, but hearing the words fall from her mouth was like a shot to the gut. All the playful commentary fell out of his head, and he was instead left with nothing but fear.

"Right, well," he said. "Maybe it's for the best."

Kara's face fell, but she said nothing.

"Right?" he said, as if he might convince her. "I mean, all I want is to go back to Earth to be with you... to have our life there. But if I do that, my parents... they'd never stop. Living means fighting my parents until I don't have the strength anymore. It means being without you."

"I'm right here," she said.

Her eyes were wide and bereft, and her expression tugged at his heartstrings. With his free hand, he reached up and cupped her cheek to comfort her.

"Hey," he whispered. "Don't be sad. I'm not. I got to meet you. To love you."

"It's your decision," she said as her eyes swelled with tears.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Look at me. What can I do?"

"You can choose to fight."

"I did. I am."

"Are you?" she asked.

He was, of course he was. Maybe not as hard as he could, but he was fighting.

Her worrying crinkle appeared before she closed in for a kiss. It was slow and sweet yet took his breath away.

"It's your decision," she said. "But you know what I would want."

"Even if we never see each other again?"

"So long as you live, there's always the chance," she replied.

He gripped her tightly, desperate to reassure her, but as much as he wanted to promise her he'd live, he couldn't. Fate had set things in motion, and whatever happened next was in the hands of destiny. He could fight harder than he'd ever fought in his life, but that didn't mean he would win.

"When you get the chance, you should tell him what you need," she said. "You'll only get one."

"What?"

Whatever she meant, she didn't elaborate, and moments later, he found himself being pulled back into the darkness. He gripped Kara's hand with all his strength, and it reassured him until he realized that she was just in his head, a projection crafted from his memories of her. Then the sensation of her hand in his vanished, and he choked on the absence.

And he kept choking because something was lodged in his throat. Panic set in immediately as he fought against it, trying desperately to take a deep breath despite the obstruction. He tried to grab whatever it was, but his arms were like lead and wouldn't budge.

Sounds swirled around him as he gagged, and he wondered if this was how his life would end: alone, in a whirl of confusion and darkness. Terrified, he forced his eyes opened, desperate for a glimpse of Kara. He wanted her to be the last thing he saw.

His vision was fuzzy, and there were too many moving bodies around him, all wearing medical garb. One was standing over him, speaking.

"Your Highness, please, if you can, remain calm and cough," the man said.

Mon-El coughed hard and felt the impediment shift inside. He gagged as he realized that the man was attempting to remove a long tube, and he fought every instinct he had to cough again and again, hoping it would expedite the process. When it was finally out of his mouth, he gasped for breath and tried to roll to his side, but he didn't have much control over his body.

"Stand aside for his Majesty," someone said.

He looked up and caught sight of Kara decked out in her Supergirl attire, her crinkle etched deeply into her forehead and her eyes shining with both tears and hope. She looked at him like he was the only thing in the universe.

Then the King was at his side, grasping his hand and drawing his attention.

"Mon-El," he said. "Can you hear me?"

Tell him what you need, Kara's voice rang in his head.

He tried to say something, but his throat felt like he had recently tried to swallow a fireball. He wound up coughing more than speaking.

"It's okay, son," his father said. "Just breath. You're going to be okay."

Mon-El knew that his father wanted that statement to be true, but he still felt a shadow lingering over him that had not lifted during his abrupt thrust into consciousness. He couldn't be sure it would last.

"I... need..." Mon-El gasped. "I..."

"It's all right," his father said. "You should rest."

"No... I need... need..." he stuttered.

He could feel himself falling back into the darkness. Kara had warned him that he would only have one chance, and he feared he was losing it.

"Sun," he forced out. "Yellow sun... to heal... to..."

Mon-El spotted Kara over his father's shoulder, her smile beaming so brightly that it overshadowed his father's confused expression. Her brilliant comets were the last things he saw before he sank back into unconsciousness.

Author’s notes: I hope you’ve enjoyed this latest installment. :) The next one should be posted soon.

Tagging: @emarasmoak

[ryik-the-writer]

Rumbelle Fic: Marinara on Main (5/?)

Prompt: AU! Mr. Gold has a crush on the pizza delivery girl, Belle. Post-car fire and pizza delivery.

A03 link

-.-.-.-.-.-

The first thing Belle noticed when she awoke was the lack of cold and wetness that had seeped into her bones. The next was the nauseating light overhead. She could just feel her skin prickling under the starchy blanket on top of her. She could hear a buzzing sound to her left that soon blended into the scratchy brogue of Mr. Gold.

“And what about the CT? Did it find any damage?”

“She’s going to be fine Mr. Gold. Like you, she needs plenty of rest.”

“Has anyone contacted her family?”

“They can’t because of the storm-”

“Blast the storm! I carried her two miles through that storm and you mean to tell me you can’t pick up a phone and dial a few buttons? Worthless, all of you!”

“Mr. Gold, if you do not calm down right now, I will call a nurse in here to take you back to your room!”

Belle’s head began to ache from the thunderous sounds and decided she needed to break things up before her head exploded. She tried to turn her head but found it encased in something that stalled her movements. She tried to lift her arms next but found them so stiff that she couldn’t even twitch a finger. Luckily, the two men across the room noticed her struggling.

“Belle!” she heard Gold gasp, following a squeaking sound, like wheel’s turning. Then his bruised face was hanging over hers, blocking out the lights overhead. His left eyebrow was stitched and his socket was dark purple.

Belle wanted to cry at the site.

I did this.

“Oh Belle, Sweetheart can you hear me?”

“Y…yeah…” Belle whimpered, trying to wiggle out of the cocoon of blankets wrapped around her.

Gold’s good eye bulged and he shot around to the doctor.

“What’s wrong with her!”

“Mr. Gold, you know I can’t give you that information.”

Gold wheeled himself to the doctor, grabbing the man’s tie and yanking him to eye-level.

“Listen to me you little rat!” Gold spat. “If anything happens to her I will bury you under this hospital! Hell, I will bury you under this town!”

The doctor shot from Gold’s grip and stuck his head out the doorway.

“Nurse! Take Mr. Gold back to his room!”

A nurse appeared and went straight for Gold, her hard eyes telling him he could not intimidate her so easily. She grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and began to wheel him out of the room. He fought hard, trying to put the breaks down and grab at the walls but the nurse pushed him on.

“Belle! Everything’s going to okay, I promise!”

Belle had never had a panic attack before, but she felt one bubbling as Gold’s yells got further down the hall.

“Wait, no bring him back!”

The doctor stood over her, his eyes filled with pity as he pulled a syringe out of his pocked.

“This is going to help you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep I want to see him!”

She screamed at her limbs to move but they wouldn’t. She was completely helpless to the darkness that clouded her vison.

-,-,-,-

The next time she awoke, things were calmer, quieter. She could hear the beeping of her heart monitor and the sound of people walking back and forth just outside the room. She still couldn’t move her neck and was forced to stare at the ceiling.

“Hello?” she called out, hoping the doctor or a nurse—or better yet, Gold—would hear her.

“Belle!”

Belle sighed in relief at the sound of her father’s familiar brogue. He was standing over her in an instant, his eyes wet from shed tears.

“Oh my girl! My darling girl thank God you’re alright.”

He hugged her from the awkward position and Belle wished more than anything that she could return the affection.

“Papa, what’s going on? Why can’t I move?”

Her father was still for a moment before he smiled gently.

Falsely.

“They’re still running tests. We’ll know something in a few hours.”

Belle forced herself not to cry. She couldn’t cry now. She had too many gaps to fill.

“What about Mr. Gold?”

Moe French’s face turned hard, his jaw setting in a deep frown.

“Don’t worry about him. Just focus on resting and getting better.”

“Is he okay though?” Belle persisted.

“Yes.” Moe answered simply. “Now rest. I’m going to call and tell the guys that you’re okay.”

Belle smiled at the mention of her manly trio. She hoped Jefferson wasn’t blaming himself for the accident. She let her muddled thoughts lull her back to sleep, hoping again that Gold would be there when she awoke.

-,-,-,-,-

Mr. Gold laid in bed of the dingy hospital room, doing a mental checklist of all he had to do and pulling at the restraints on his wrists.

As soon as he awoke from a drug-induced sleep, his first instinct was to pick up the hospital phone and call Dove with orders to tell Bae he was in the hospital and that he was alright (which was only a half-lie) and take him to the Nolan’s immediately.

It was only after he hung up the phone that he noticed that his leg was heavily bandaged and in a sling. He didn’t allow himself to panic, or the fill the lighting-sharp pain that shot through his entire body as he released his leg from the sling, crying out in agony.

If he was in such a shape, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what state Belle was in.

Luckily, there had been a wheelchair right beside his bed, and though his body begged him not to, he edged himself in it. By the time he had his IV pole stable, he felt ready to pass out.

Belle. Stay awake. Find Belle.

He rolled out of his room and began looking into rooms. He discovered from peeking over the circulatory desk that he was in the ICU and that Belle was right down the hall. He wheeled there as fast as his arms would take him but found his mission compromised by Dr. Whale.

After “Nurse Ratchet” as he recalled calling her, slipped a heavy dose of morphine in his IV, he passed out for another unspecified amount of time and found himself restrained to the bed. He was so grateful now that he had called Dove first; Bae did not need to see his father in such a state.

Now, he was alone with his thoughts and fears and self-hatred, not knowing the extent of Belle’s diagnosis. If she didn’t recover from this…

He cursed himself repeatedly. This was all his fault. He knew the storm was coming and that the back roads would flood. He should have gotten their earlier or suggested they stay in town. He should have never let Belle offer to make that delivery. He should have done more to keep her safe.

A knock on the door knocked him from this guilt-trip. He arched his neck up just enough to see Sherriff Graham entered the room.

“Mr. Gold?”

“Sheriff.” Gold gruffed.

“Dr. Whale said you were comprehensive enough to give a statement, what say you?”

“I need to know what’s wrong with Belle.”

“Mr. Gold, you know that-”

“For God’s sake man!” Gold shouted. “I’m the one who pulled her from the car and drug her up a hill and carried her to the hospital with a fucking screw sticking out of my leg! The least you bastards could do is tell me if what I did payed off! Please, is she okay!”

Graham rubbed his temples. When he had arrived at the hospital earlier that day, he had been on his normal rounds, checking that the foundation had power. When he was getting out of his car, he saw Mr. Gold, usually so calm and collected, limping to the hospital with no other than Belle French in his arms, screaming for help.

He signaled for a nurse and then ran to the pair, taking Belle from his arms just in time for the man to pass out at his feet. It had truly been an unbelievable site, the one that the hospital would not stop buzzing about.

The town monster and that sweet girl who works at the pizza parlor. Can you imagine?

Didn’t he lend her his car last month? Unbelievable!

I bet she’s sleeping with him for the use of it.

Do you think he did that to her?

Oh that poor girl…

Graham glanced behind his shoulder before leaning closer to Gold.

“She’s stable and expected to make a full recovery, give or take a few step-backs. Her father’s with her right now.”

Gold nearly cried with relief. Belle would be alright.

“Now, will you please give me your statement?”

Gold nodded, the relief flooding his chest making him more susceptible to cooperation.

“I’ve been lending the French’s my car while their car insurance sorts itself out.”

“So I’ve heard.” Graham commented, remember the first time he had seen the quiet pizza delivery girl behind the wheel of Gold’s signature Cadillac. He wasn’t sure whether to ask her if she had stolen the car or laugh it off, but a quick chat with Merlin had given him all the answers he needed.

“We were going on a date, but someone called in to change their order from a carryout to a delivery. I think his name was Heller, or something.”

Graham nodded, making a note to ask the pizza parlor.

“We were driving and the rain started. It got so bad that I told Belle to pull over and when she did she drove straight off a cliff.”

Graham paused when Gold’s voice broke. “Mr. Gold? Do you need a nurse?”

“I shouldn’t have let her drive!” he sobbed. “I should have never let her get on the rode!”

Graham turned his head. He could stare into a criminal’s eyes all day and not blink, but his resolve always shook when he saw tears. He took a moment to breathe before he grabbed a box of tissues off the night stand, passing them to Gold.

“Please, let me see her.”

“Soon.” Graham promised not quite meeting his eyes. “Now, where did you crash?”

“Um, the road leading to the guest mansions.”

“Madison Lane.” Graham filled in, closing his note pad. “I’ll go talk to Whale about letting you see her, but I can’t make any promises.”

Mr. Gold nodded, grateful for the Sheriff’s assistance and that no threats had to come into play.

Graham paused just outside the door. “And Mr. Gold? It’s not your fault.”

Mr. Gold heard the door close. Despite the Sheriff’s reassurance, he didn’t believe one word of it.

-,-,-,-,-,-,-

A sharp shrill awoke Belle yet again. For one terrifying moment, she truly thought Death was announcing its presence and was about to take her.

“For lamb’s sake Jefferson!” she heard her father roar.

“You didn’t say she was in a damn body cast!” she heard Jefferson cry.

“She’s not in a body cast you bullock!” Will boomed. “It’s just her neck!”

“Would you all shut your yaps before you wake her!’ Moe barked.

Belle’s lip twitched in amusement. “Too late.” Belle yawned.

In an instant, four wide-eyed heads hovered over her.

“Jeez Belle I am so sorry!”

“No Jeff, it’s not your fault. I’m the one who drove off the side of the road.”

Moe’s eyes widened. “You were driving? I was getting ready to go smother that bastard Gold with a pillow for doing this to you!”

“You were? You said Will and I were-”

Will reached over and covered Jefferson’s mouth, smiling very suspiciously at Belle.

Belle rolled her eyes. “Can we get a nurse in here? Looking at all of you like this is giving me a migraine.”

“Looking at them gives me a migraine too.” Merlin commented.

“Ha!” Jefferson exclaimed, picking up a control on the bed-table.

“Jefferson don’t mess with that!” Merlin ordered.

“One of these should help her sit up, right?”

Belle knew in that instant that she was going to die.

The bottom half of the bed began to lift, and Belle could feel a slight tingle in the crook of her legs.

“Jefferson I will fire you!” Moe shouted.

“Wrong button, sorry.” He pressed another and the middle of the bed began to arch. Belle could feel her spine crack. She heard a brief scuffle and everyone yelling at Jefferson to “put the damn remote down” before the top half of the bed lifted, the middle and lower returning to their original setting. Her head spun as she became adjusted to the new setting but she could make out her father and Merlin steadying her and Will snatching the remote from Jefferson’s hand.

“At least I know I have some feeling left.” Belle commented.

“You’re all going to give me an aneurism!” Moe French cried, falling into the chair beside the bed.

Belle smothered her giggle for her father’s sake. Despite the stressful situation, she was thrilled to see her small family together. No matter what the future held, they’d be here for her, or at French Bread’s for the business.

A knock at the door broke the group from the banter and Belle’s throat tightened as Dr. Whale entered the room.

“Good, you’re sitting up.” Dr. Whale commented, missing how Jefferson stepped behind Merlin. “How do you feel?”

“Numb but okay.” Belle stated. “I can feel tingles here and there, but I still can’t move anything.”

Dr. Whale nodded. “That’s expected. You have two bruised vertebra, which is what’s causing the paralysis. As they heal, you should gradually regain movement. Worst case scenario is that you’ll have to go to physical therapy and wear a neck brace.”

The whole room sighed at the proclamation. Though Belle wasn’t looking forward to the therapy and the brace, she was ecstatic that she hadn’t lost her independence.

“Good thing our health insurance is better than our car insurance.” Moe muttered.

“What about Mr. Gold?” Belle asked. “He was here earlier but…is he okay?”

“I can’t give you the details,” the doctor warned. “But I can promise he’s going to make a full recovery. When he agrees to stop cursing my staff, I’ll let him pay a visit.”

Belle nodded gratefully, both excited and nervous about seeing her somewhat-but-not-quite-boyfriend again. She didn’t know what to expect. Would he be angry about the car, about his injuries her reckless driving had caused? Would he even want to speak?

“Alright!” Moe announced when the doctor left. “We have business to take care of! First of all, until further notice, French Bread’s delivery service is canceled.”

“Oh shit.” Jefferson whispered to Will.

“I’m also going to have to cut back the business hours.” Moe said regrefully. “I’ll be taking care of Belle when she comes home, and won’t put the work on you all.”

Belle felt guilt churn in her gut. She knew instantly that Jefferson would suffer the most with a daughter to feed, and Will might have to postpone his wedding.

Merlin stood from his chair. “Sir, we can handle it.”

“Yeah.” Jefferson jumped in. “We’ve been fixing up a bike already, we can deliver off that. And I can bring my daughter to work so that we won’t have to cut hours…”

“Dad.” Belle said quietly. “Let them try. There’s no reason to stop production just because I’m out of commission.”

“I have to my girl.” Moe sighed. “I’m going to have to be at home to help you get up and down the stairs until your paralysis heals.”

“They have assistant living!” Belle protested. “Our insurance should cover it; we’ll find out!”

“Mr. French, we can figure something else out.” Merlin continued to protest.

As the French Bread staff negotiated, Belle wished she had lost her ability to hear in the accident. All of them were standing right in front of her debating what they would do about her family business.

Her legacy.

Her responsibility.

And she couldn’t even add input because she couldn’t move!

Before, she thought she had only ruined Mr. Gold’s life, but apparently, she had ruined four. Her family and closest friends at that.

She wished briefly that her lungs would stop working when she went to bed tonight. That way she wouldn’t have to face the damage she caused.

-,-,-,-,-,-,-,-                                                                                    

The following morning, Belle woke alive and breathing, and honestly, she wasn’t too disappointed. A little sleep had helped clear the dark, negative thoughts from her head and gave her a new outlook on her life. Running away or cowering under the blankets wouldn’t solve anything.

She took a deep breath and began a mental checklist of all that to fix: the schedule for the pizza parlor, paying the hospital bill, apologizing to Gold…

The last one was the one she was looking forward to the least. She decided however, that no matter how he reacted, even if he swore her off completely, she’d stay strong and do what she had to do to fix what she’d done. If that meant using her paycheck to make car payments until dhe was 50, so be it.

A knock on the door broke her from her mental check-listing.

“Um, hi.” She greeted to the air. “There’s a remote beside my bed. The button farthest left sits me up. If you could…”

A squeaking followed. A wheelchair?

Belle felt herself be slowly lifted and Belle pulse stilled as the person at her bedside became clearer.

“Gold.” Belle gasped, tears stinging her eyes at the bruises and stiches across his body.

Mr. Gold’s non-black eye gazed over her. Her neck was in a brace and her right eyebrow was stitched. Her arms were bandaged and one of her fingers was in a splint.

“Oh Belle.” Gold cried, rolling as close to her bedside as he could. “I am so sorry sweetheart.”

Belle focused in on his tear-stained face, tears that, just a moment ago, she thought would be out of rage.

“Why are you sorry, I’m the one that got us into this. You wanted me to pull over.”

“I should have never let us go out into that mess.”

“You were supporting me. This is my fault, not yours. Don’t try to blame yourself.”

Gold shook his head. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to help you. What did Dr. Whale say?”

Tears leaked down Belle’s face before she could stop them. “Temporary paralysis.”

“Oh God.” Gold cried shaking his head.

“It’s okay.” Belle tried to sooth. “I’m going to be okay. What about you? Why is all your hair gone?”

Gold let out a wet laugh, running his fingers over the inch of hair he had left. “I got cut from the glass. They had to cut it all off to stitch me up.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Gold shrugged. “I was due for a cut.”

Belle laughed, her heart less heavy.

“What else?”

He tapped his let. “One of the screws come lose in my leg. It was a simple fix; I should be out of the wheelchair in the next week.”

“We’re a complete mess.” Belle sighed.

“I’m starting to think we’re made for each other.”

Belle managed to arch an eyebrow in curiosity. “Mr. Gold, are you flirting with me? While I’m in a neck brace of all things?”

“Why not?” Mr. Gold inquired. “You’re so beautiful.”

Belle’s cheeks heated with the compliment. They hadn’t had the opportunity to completely develop the teasing, romantic aspect of their relationship (which Belle had planned to fix during their second date). They usually said what they needed to through smiles and small actions, like the pat on his hand she’d give him when he’d hand over the keys for her deliveries. It was simple and uncomplicated but far from the intimacy she wanted with the man who, not only did she have deep-seated desires for, but made her life less-hectic and more fun.

“I…”

“Mr. Gold!”

Gold glanced around to see Moe French’s powerful figure standing in the doorway, his mass barely undermined by the handful of pink peonies he was carrying.

“I…wasn’t expecting you.”

Gold carefully wheeled himself around, staring up at the large man.

Belle noticed that even with her father’s height, Mr. Gold still had an air of superiority and strength, even with a casted leg. She nearly giggled at the contrast, but the look on her father’s face smothered her humor.

“Papa,” Belle stated calmly. “Mr. Gold was just asking me how I was fairing.”

“Of course, of course.” Moe nodded as he arranged the flowers on the bed-table.

Belle noticed the tension in his face. He couldn’t be that nervous about Mr. Gold, could he?

“Everything okay?”

“Of course!” Moe stated instantly, not meeting her eyes. “Everything’s great!”

Belle glanced at Mr. Gold.

“He’s lying!” Gold mouthed, causing Belle’s lip to twitch in amusement. Leave it to a lawyer.

“What is it Papa?” Belle inquired in tone that left no room for more falsities.

Moe sighed, sitting in the chair beside his daughter. “I talked to the insurance company. They said that your hospital stay will be partially covered, but it won’t cover any therapy or assistant living.”

Belle breathed a curse, wishing she could cover her face to hide the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

“Don’t worry my girl,” Moe patted her non-bandaged hand. “we’ll figure it all out.”

“Dad, we can’t just put the business on hold. French Bread needs you. And we can’t just cut the guys hours.”

“I know all that. But I can’t just run a business while my daughter needs me! What if you fall trying to go down the stairs? What if you have a muscle spasm and hit your head?”

Mr. Gold listened as Moe French listed all the possible ends Belle could meet. His heart surged for the family. He knew if anything like this happened to Bae—God forbid—he would never leave the house, even after Bae recovered. Business be damned.

“Perhaps,” he perked up when Moe paused, “I could be of assistance?”

Moe held up a hand, his expression stolid. “Thank you Mr. Gold, but you’ve done enough.”

“Dad,” Belle hissed. “This was not his fault. Let him speak.”

“I won’t have you adding to your debt!”

“Your daughter owes me nothing, Mr. French.” Mr. Gold stated, quickly slipping into business mode. “I have a solution to your dilemma, if you’ll allow me.”

Belle gave her father a hard look and he sighed agitatedly.

“I have a downstairs parlor that, with a few minor adjustments, I could turn into a guest room. It’s right near the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. You’d be set. And considering I’ll probably be needing it too, I can take care of the physical therapy.”

Belle wasn’t sure what to say. He was practically asking her to move in with him. They hadn’t even been on their second date yet!

“I…”

“Absolutely not!” Moe boomed. “I will not have my daughter living in sin!”

“Oh my gods, Papa!” Belle groaned, embarrassed.

“I do have a 15-year-old son, Mr. French. We’ll hardly be unsupervised.”

Belle snorted. Somehow Gold always managed to ease her spirits.

It was a scary thing though. She’d be living with the man who made her heart soar and her womanhood tremble. Strangely enough, being temporarily paralyzed and in a neck-brace hardly stilled those feelings.

“What about your work?” Belle inquired.

“I’m sure the great town of Storybrooke can last a few weeks without their antiques and collectables. And Mr. Dove can handle the rent.”

Belle nodded, somewhat more satisfied that she wouldn’t be a burden. “I’ll do it.” Belle said before her father could protest anymore.

“Belle-”

“It’s my health, dad. And it’s for the good of the business. I’m not going to let it suffer just so I can be taken care of.”

Moe still looked unconvinced, and down-right against it. He looked back and forth between the two and shook his head, stomping out of the room.

Belle sighed. “He’ll come around.”

“I hope so.” Gold said, turning back to Belle. “His visits will be very awkward if he doesn’t.”

Belle chuckled, but then remembered the seriousness of the situation.

“Why are you doing this for me? I’ve been doing nothing but taking advantage of you since we started all of this.”

“You can’t take advantage if a service is offered.” Gold stated in a business-like fashion.

“You do realize what you offered?” Belle scoffed. “I’ll be living in your home, using your…things. Are you sure you want that?”

“We’ve been sharing a car for weeks now and I’ve had no problems, up until yesterday that is.”

“Exactly! I could set your kitchen on fire or flood your bathroom! I’m cursed!”

“You’re not cursed.” Gold  laughed. “You’ve just had a string of undeserved bad luck.” He wheeled himself closer and placed a hand over hers.

Belle wished she could feel it.

“Let me take some of that burden away.”

“It’s not your…”

Belle sighed. She’d said this already, multiple times in fact . It never seemed to get through to him.

“Responsibility, I know. But Belle, you don’t deserve to be weighed down with all that hardship. You’re too kind and giving.”

“So are you. Do you really want to take on another burden?”

“You’re not a burden, Belle. You’re my friend, and I want to help you.”

Belle stared into his brown eye, wincing at the bruised, purple one. If he really wanted to do this for her, what was the harm in humoring him? Maybe if she’d stay put in one place, she wouldn’t cause any more trouble.

“Fine. I’ll stay with you, but just until I can walk again.”

Mr. Gold smiled, looking smugly pleased with himself.

“Looks like we’re going to be roommates.”

The comment filled Belle’s stomach with heat and her mind with very untraditional thoughts.

Gold lifted her hand and laid a gentle peck to the bruised skin. “I have to go make some calls. I’ll come back later, if you’d like.”

“I…would.”  Belle croaked, just barely feeling his lips on her hand. She watched him wheel away, waiting until the door closed before she let out the bubble of nervous laughter expanding in her chest.

Starting Wednesday, she’d be roommates with her somewhat-but-not-quite-boyfriend.

The guys were going to flip!