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alittlebitmaybe · 4 years ago

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i’ll stay warm

for @sugar-and-spice-witcher-bingo!

Prompt: ice skating

Relationship: Geraskier

Rating: G (with very mild language and a tiny bit of blood)

Warnings: None

Other Tags: Fluff, Companionable Snark, Already Dating But Too Dumb To Notice, First Kiss

“Let me get this straight,” Geralt says.

Jaskier waves him on.

“You’re going to tie those—,” he gestures to the slim planks of iron on Jaskier’s kitchen table that have leather cords threaded through holes bored into either end, “—to your shoes, and you’re going to go down to the river and stand on it.”

Jaskier, unperturbed, says brightly, “Uh-huh!”

Read more on ao3 or below the cut!

“Let me get this straight,” Geralt says.

Jaskier waves him on.

Jaskier, unperturbed, says brightly, “Uh-huh!”

Geralt says, “Why?”

“Because Priscilla asked me along, and it’s good fun, and you can do all sorts of loop-de-loops and swirlies and spinnies and whozits and, uh, whatzits. I dunno, Pris knows all the tricks, I never got the hang of it. But, Geralt, people have been doing this in Oxenfurt for years. It’s the only way fashionable and exciting persons such as I pass the winter these days, gliding as an angel over the ice, cheeks chapped fetchingly pink, you know, it’s all very attractive, one may say winsome—”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Geralt crosses his arms over his chest as he leans back in the small chair and tucks his shoulders in. He takes up too much space in Jaskier’s quarters, and already he rues the day he agreed, in a fit of insanity, to pass the season in the city instead of trekking up to Kaer Morhen as usual. “You’re going to die.”

Jaskier hacks a laugh into his steaming mug and nearly spills tea all down his robed front.

“Nonsense!” he cries, once he has recovered himself. “We go every year once the freeze is hard enough, me and Pris and all my many other dazzling friends, which I absolutely have.”

“And if Priscilla told you it was fashionably good fun to walk yourself off a cliff…”

“I’d do it, obviously,” says Jaskier, not missing a beat. “Haven’t you ever had to cross a frozen river on your travels, Witcher? How’d you go about it then, if not on skates?”

Geralt levels him an incredulous look. “How would I get a horse across a frozen river?” he asks, and Jaskier frowns in thought as he takes another sip.

“I mean, you could just—,” he mimes pushing outward with one palm, “—give ‘er a good shove and see how far she gets.”

“Could give you a good shove. Bet you wouldn’t make it far.”

“I’ll have you know, I have the grace of a, a, er…elk? Are elk graceful?”

Geralt nods and says seriously, “Especially the newborns.”

“There you have it. Graceful as a tiny baby elk with those on my feet, I am.”

“Maybe you should wear them all the time.”

“What good would that…” he starts, and then comes, “Hey. Rude. Remind me why I wanted you here?”

Geralt grins and shrugs. His own mug is on the small table, and he sniffs the steam coming off of it. Floral. He takes a sip. Carefully does not spit it back out. Sets the mug back down farther away.

When he has successfully resisted the urge to spit on the floor to clear out his mouth and looks back up, Jaskier is still holding his own mug gently in the curl of his long fingers, and a lock of rumpled hair has fallen into his eyes. His robe hangs open at his collarbone, down the line of his chest. He wears a strange expression that lies between the exasperation Geralt expected and something startlingly softer.

“So you’ll come with us,” he states.

“Someone has to take your body back to your mother when you break your neck,” Geralt says.

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “You jest, but Mum would be thrilled to see you. Likes you better than me, I think. Her only son! But you’ll come, eh?”

Geralt ducks his head quickly to hide the smile creeping across his face, grabbing his boots and yanking at the laces before acquiescing, “Yeah, I’ll come.”

“There now,” Jaskier says, appeased, “that wasn’t so hard, was it.” He knocks back the dregs of his tea, then stands and pads to the sink, talking on. “You should’ve known I wouldn’t let you stay cooped up in here all winter. I’ll have to see if I can dig out my spare pair of skates, they’re older—animal bone, not iron—but they might be big enough for your witcher feet, and it really works just as well. Or maybe Pris knows someone…I even heard they’re renting the things out down at the river now. Industrious, isn’t it, the ways people come up with to make some coin?…”

Geralt half-listens as he ties neat knots, lost somewhere in the midst of mulling over what Jaskier has described, trying to give it the benefit of the doubt despite its obvious frivolity. Based on the day’s weather it will be a clear night with a brisk breeze, a bright moon. The wind chill will have them each bundled up in furs, and the tip of Jaskier’s nose will go pink as he rubs his gloved hands together for warmth and glances happily over at Geralt. The river ice will be torchlit and smooth as glass, and they’ll strap on their skates and step out onto it. They’ll have a good hold on each others arms, for balance, but then as they gain their footing they’ll find their fingers threaded together and neither will let go. Geralt will listen to the quickened beat of Jaskier’s heart as they pick up the pace, and eventually Jaskier will break their hold to skate backward and taunt Geralt with a small twirl that ends only a little unsteadily. Geralt will smirk and give chase, chuckling when Jaskier squawks and takes off at speed. It’s no use, of course, even with Geralt’s inexperience; Geralt will anticipate his movements, head him off, catch him by the wrist, by the shoulder, and they will collide chest to chest with a huff, the momentum from the chase sliding them a few more feet across the ice before they come to a halt. Their cold noses will almost be touching, there will be frost on the riverbank, there will be a distant owl hooting its nighttime song. Jaskier will quirk his lips and say, “Gotcha, Witcher,” and Geralt will lean in, feel his hot breath, press their lips together—

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, tapping him on the shoulder. A hand waves in front of his face. Geralt keeps his expression carefully neutral as he comes out of his sudden reverie, though he’s been caught red handed. “Are you meditating? We’ve got to be off to the market. Have you even been listening to me?”

“Never,” says Geralt, and Jaskier scoffs and whacks him gently upside the head.

The riverbank smells like dead fish.

Geralt knew this. He doesn’t know what he expected. He doesn’t know where the pine-scented idyllic winter wonderland from his earlier distraction even came from, because it couldn’t be farther from reality.

Besides the fish stink, his boots squish and stick unpleasantly in the muddy ground, and the place is teeming with cityfolk, the crowd so thick that you can’t see the opposite bank even despite the abundant torchlight.

“Are you sure it’s frozen solid enough for this?” Geralt asks sourly.

“Of course,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt’s frown deepens. “Couldn’t we go around the bend where there’s not so many people?”

“And where’s the fun in that?”

“Breathing room.”

“I asked about the fun, Geralt. Ah, there’s my girl!”

Priscilla pushes through a group of loitering teenagers and throws her arms around Jaskier’s neck, only her toes left on the mud. “Jask! I see you got your…friend to join us.”

She pauses before friend, eyeing him overtly, but Geralt doesn’t notice because one of the teenagers has been shoved, giggling, into him by another of the group. He steadies her, and does not react when she turns to apologize, catches his unnatural gaze, and stifles her laughter. He doesn’t see Jaskier watching him past Priscilla’s ear, the fond crinkling around his eyes when Geralt gently straightens her and returns her to her place in the circle, which subsequently puts a few feet between itself and the newly-noticed witcher.

“It was either this or die of boredom in the dark, wasn’t it, Geralt?” Jaskier says finally as he releases Priscilla.

“I chose the dark,” Geralt lies, and Jaskier sticks out his tongue.

“Well,” Priscilla says, straightening her skirts, “shall we?”

Geralt pulls both sets of skates from his deep cloak pockets and passes the iron pair to Jaskier, who hops around indelicately while securing them over his boots, rather than plop himself on the soft ground—which is, of course, what Geralt does to put on his own. Priscilla and Jaskier waste a few minutes on a tiff over whether it is polite or belittling for Jaskier to insist on helping her with her own skates whether she wants it or not, but eventually they are all ready to go.

Geralt is the first to the ice. He tests the toe of his bone skate against it, judging the friction of it, deciding if it is likely to hold his weight even with the evidence of the dozens of people currently gliding and spinning past him. It seems stable. Stepping out, he finds it surprisingly easy to get a feel for balance, the minute shifts of weight that send him one direction or the other. He swings himself wide and turns around to see Priscilla and Jaskier also stepping out onto the river, Jaskier clutching tightly to Priscilla’s sleeve, face white and eyes trained on his feet.

“It’s okay, darling, you’ve got this. You made such good progress last time, come on now,” Geralt can hear Priscilla murmuring under the loud chatter of nearby skaters.

When Jaskier sees Geralt watching them, he bodily removes Priscilla’s hands from his person and says, “Please, Pris, I’m a capable man.”

She bristles immediately, leaving him to stand on his own. “And I wasn’t a capable woman when I was putting on my skates?”

Jaskier ignores her to begin shuffling awkwardly across the ice, his knees locked straight.

“Jaskier?” Geralt says apprehensively.

“Doing peachy, thanks, it’ll come back to me, just need to recall how to, um—oh no—” Jaskier starts with a strained voice before he promptly stops, because he has begun to slide inexorably forward. Priscilla and Geralt both reach toward him, but they’re too late; Jaskier’s arms wheel wildly, he tilts on wobbly ankles, and he faceplants onto the ice.

“Ow,” squeaks the Jaskier-shaped lump.

“I think your nose is broken,” says Geralt. He dabs at the blood on Jaskier’s top lip with the edge of his own cloak. They are safely back on the bank, and Jaskier is, this time, sitting in the mud. “I guess you were right,” he goes on wryly. “You’re exactly as graceful as a baby elk.”

“I knew you were making fun of me,” Jaskier says thickly, due to the nose injury. “I also knew you’d be a natural. Bastard. I could never get the hang of this stupid bullshit.”

Geralt hums and wipes off the last of the blood. At least it’s clotted quickly. Maybe it’s not a break.

“You didn’t need to lie about your abilities. Who are you trying to impress?”

Jaskier snorts, then winces in pain. His fingers twist in his lap. “Oh, that’s funny.”

Now, Geralt is often joking, but he’s fairly certain that that wasn’t one. Did Jaskier also hit his head? He pushes back Jaskier’s fringe to check his forehead for signs of bruising and doesn’t find any. “Um,” he says, “what is?”

Priscilla skates past holding hands with a woman that Geralt thinks she met approximately three minutes ago. She calls, “All right, Jask?” and in reply, Jaskier gives her a bitter thumbs up. She winks and swoops away as quickly as she came.

“Because I was trying to impress you, obviously,” he answers, gazing after her, before he turns his eyes back to Geralt.

Geralt pauses. “Why?”

“Because I’m actually always trying to impress you. And everyone else, constantly, but…mostly you.”

“You don’t do a very good job of it,” he says, and regrets it when he hears how it sounds coming out of his mouth.

Jaskier smiles. It’s genuine, if a little wistful, like Geralt has amused but not surprised him. “I am well aware, thanks.”

He reaches for the words that will take that edge of resignation off Jaskier’s face, feeling like a fumbling fool. “That’s not what I meant. I meant you don’t need to try to impress me.”

“Yes, I know it doesn’t matter, but I can’t help—”

“No,” Geralt interrupts, “I mean you don’t need to try because you do.” He clears his throat. “Impress me.”

“Oh,” says Jaskier, and then nothing more. “That’s. Okay.”

“Yeah,” says Geralt. He has never been so exposed in his life. He thinks that’s probably a bad thing. “How’s your nose? We could try again, if you want.”

Jaskier looks around at the laughing crowds and shrugs. “Came all this way, got all bundled up. Might as well! I’m sticking with you this time, though.”

They find a spot at the farthest reach of the torchlight where the ice is less populated to step out. Geralt goes first, as before, and finds his footing even faster this time. He returns to Jaskier’s side after a moment of testing the reliability of his newfound skills, and presents his forearm as a handhold. Jaskier does not protest about his capability this time and takes the offering. With a long preparatory exhale, he puts one foot and then the other onto the ice.

“I’ve got you,” Geralt says quietly.

Jaskier replies, “I know you do.”

“Can’t let more harm come to the money maker. I’ve gotten used to staying in inns.”

“Good gods,” says Jaskier, “I’ve broken him.”

They gradually move farther from the bank. “Loosen up,” Geralt tells him. “Don’t lock your knees. It’s like you’re trying to fall over.”

Jaskier grumbles but takes the advice, and eventually he gains the confidence to move a little faster, though not to stop hanging on to Geralt. They stay on the fringes where they are less likely to be run into by a distracted stranger, gliding along at pace, with Jaskier remarking on the who’s-who of Oxenfurt society who are also out tonight. Geralt recognizes some of the more powerful names, but mostly he lets Jaskier chatter on so he doesn’t think too hard about his feet.

Priscilla passes by and greets them a few more times with her new companion, who at one point proclaims, “You two are so cute together!” before Priscilla drags her back into the mob. Geralt glances over and thinks Jaskier might be blushing, but that might also be due to the swelling around his nose.

“Should ice your face,” says Geralt.

“Sure, later. Hey!” He swings around to face Geralt, stopping their progress. “Spin me!” At Geralt’s no doubt dubious expression, he pouts. “Geralt, I demand to be spun. It’ll be fun!”

“Fine,” Geralt sighs.

He takes Jaskier’s hand, and has a flash of his daydream. There’s too many people, and it does still smell like fish, but this isn’t too far off—

He collects himself, holds their joined hands over Jaskier’s head, and gives him a little push to start him spinning, not too quick, but Jaskier takes it upon himself to propel himself a little faster. Jaskier laughs and maintains his balance remarkably well, until he exclaims “Oops—dizzy—!” and topples directly into Geralt, succeeding in knocking them both down, Geralt on his own back, Jaskier flat on his chest.

Geralt, trapped between the frigid ice and Jaskier’s weight, looks up as Jaskier starts to laugh. The steam of his breath hits Geralt’s cheek, and his knitted hat has gone askew, and his nose is turning purple, and Geralt puts his hand around the back of Jaskier’s neck and pulls him down and kisses him.

Jaskier leans away. “What?” he asks, eyes wide, then continues, “oh, who cares,” and leans back down.

Later, with an ice pack pressed to Jaskier’s face and two more hot mugs at the kitchen table, Geralt watches Jaskier rummage through his cupboards. He comes back with two packets, one matching the floral tea from earlier and a different one. He hands the latter to Geralt.

“Black tea,” he says, “for you. Noticed you didn’t like my herbal stuff. I don’t either, to be honest, but I already spent the coin on it.”

“Thanks,” Geralt replies, oddly touched.

As Jaskier passes Geralt to take his seat, he leans down and pecks him on the cheek. Smiling faintly beneath the ice pack, he says, “You know, Witcher, I’m glad you’re here and not up in some weird lonely castle,” and Geralt finds that he is, too.

#my fic #the witcher #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geraskier fic #it's fluff time friends!

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jasontoddiefor · 3 years ago

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nobody's keeping score

Ship: HideKane

Summary: In a world where ink stains the white papers of constitutions, damning the lives of ghouls, their existence is no secret or rumor, but a topic of heated debate, protests, and anonymous organ donations in shady alleys. No matter how bright the CCG appears in their white coats, their light cannot reach the dark tunnels where ghouls and sympathizers alike are plotting. And when Hide, after hours of sitting at his best friend’s hospital bed, sees him wake with one eye black and red, the difficult question is not how to get him help, but how to avoid him becoming the figurehead of a conflict threatening to turn into a bloody revolution.

AN: Notes: You ever just take a 4-year break from a fandom and return with spite fic because you remembered how much you hated canon? Yeah. This fanfic is my attempt at corralling the TG worldbuilding into something coherent that makes sense. I will keep some elements of canon, others I will throw out of the window straight away. This is utterly self-indulgent.

“And with the developments in synthetic meat production—”

Hide wanted to groan. They’d been discussing the same question for the last three hours of class and he was, frankly speaking, done with it. People were running out of arguments and circling back to topics that didn’t contribute anything to the conversation they were supposed to be having. From the way their lecturer was glaring at the latest speaker, Hide would say that she was also very done.

“Yoshimura, as stated before, we are not discussing possibilities for ghoul integration, but the mere premise of whether they even deserve the rights needed to legalize their status as citizens. The right of existence of an individual should not be dependent on what modifications would have to be made to accommodate them, but whether they deserve to live regardless.”

Hide had zoned out about an hour ago. His opinion on ghouls had always felt rather clinical, mathematically detached, despite Hide’s history. Maybe too much time had passed since he’d looked at the bloody remains of his father to really hammer home the fear-motivated rejection so many people fell to. Perhaps the CCG investigators, who had dragged him away from his father’s corpse, should have allowed him to get a little more traumatized before the kindness of his new parents had become enough to dull those painful memories.

Some ghouls were no different than brutal serial killers, and they had to be taken down, but the rest seemed to be getting by just fine. If a new legislation would make it even easier for them to go about their everyday lives, perhaps the number of violent ghoul attacks would go down as well. Hide was well aware that this was the view of a privileged person. Growing up in the 20th ward meant that you needn’t be scared of leaving your house when it was already dark. Kamii University prided itself on the fact that it could safely offer evening classes such as the one Hide was attending now. The same certainly couldn’t be said for the other wards. Any citizen between the 9th and 13th wards would probably advocate vocally for the extermination of ghouls. The 11th especially resembled a warzone even during the daylight. Ghoul sightings were nothing unusual there, and investigators’ mutilated bodies were displayed as trophies and warnings alike. Meanwhile, nobody had died in the 20th war for something like ten odd years. Sometimes it felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but most of the time, Hide didn’t even think about ghouls.

By the time class was finally over, Hide had taken only one or two more bullet points. They hadn’t really said anything of interest and it reflected in his writing. Usually, Hide would be sending rapid-fire texts to Kaneki now, but his friend was still on his date and Hide didn’t want to bother him. It had taken more than just a bit of teasing and probing to get Kaneki to ask that girl out and he wouldn’t self-sabotage his hard work.

It was good that Kaneki was connecting to people that weren’t just Hide.

And it would be awesome if Hide could do the same.

Codependence needed two people to work and Kaneki was definitely not the only one struggling with independence. Hide had yet to figure out how to let go of Kaneki when his relationship to the other boy had been the only stable thing in his world for the longest time. Nothing said mental health like latching onto an abused child to escape the stifling air of his brand-new foster fathers’ home.

The next time he visited his parents, he’d bring them some flowers to make up for how troublesome he’d been as a child.

Glancing at his phone again, Hide realized he had to hurry if he wanted to take the early bus home. He was just about to plug in his headphones when an unknown number flashed up on the display. Who would call him at this time? Hide was definitely someone who preferred texting. Even his parents knew better than to call unless it was serious. The only person he ever actually called was Kaneki, and that was only because his friend sometimes got so lost in a book, he forgot to text back or didn’t even hear the phone buzz. Hide contemplated picking up for another ring, then gave in and accepted. “Nagachika Hideyoshi speaking, who’s calling?”

“Hello, I am Tanaka Akako, a nurse of the Kanou General Hospital. You are Nagachika Hideyoshi, Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact?”

The blood in Hide’s veins froze.

“Yes, I am. Has— has anything happened? Is Kaneki alright!?”

The nurse’s voice was so calm, steady, and pleasant as if this was a chat between friends. Somewhere Hide knew that it probably helped most people, but it just put him on edge. “Nagachika-san, your friend and another young woman were involved in an accident. Dr. Kanou is preparing him for surgery, but as his emergency contact, we have to discuss the possible options before we can proceed.”

Hide didn’t want to discuss any options. There shouldn’t be any besides Kaneki’s survival. Hide wanted to rush into the operation hall and hold Kaneki’s hand, wishing he could turn back time, tell his friend to remain at his side and consider that girl out of his league so he’d spent the evening with him and not getting sent to ER. This couldn’t be real; he was sick to his stomach.

“What are the options?” Hide asked, panic threatening to strangle him as he rushed to the street, trying to find a taxi to take him to Kanou General straightaway.

“Kaneki-san sustained serious injuries. Dr. Kanou is willing to transplant the deceased Kamishiro-san’s organs into your friend to save his life even if her family hasn’t consented yet. The only consent we can ask for in Kaneki-san’s case is yours and—”

“Do it,” Hide replied immediately. He didn’t know Kaneki’s date, and as much as Hide loved people, argued for a baseline acceptance every day in class, he couldn’t bring himself to care about the wishes of a family whose daughter was already dead. The only thing they were still good for once their hearts stopped beating was serving the living with their remains.

Kaneki might survive because of her; what else could matter? “Do it, whatever you need to save him— you have my full permission.”

Finally, a taxi approached and stopped right when Hide waved for it. He quickly climbed inside and, paying no attention to the driver, told him to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

“And in case he doesn’t survive, may his organs—”

“He will survive,” Hide pressed because he didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he were to lose Kaneki. He’d built a life around his best friend and how much they meant to one another. Hide couldn’t give up on that, couldn’t let it slip past his fingers. “He’ll survive. I know it.”

Organ transplants took place every day without any complications—

Hide’s eyes widened. “Kaneki has recessive ROS!” he all but shouted at the nurse, startling the taxi driver.

Kaneki’s father had died because of it. If Kaneki got the wrong blood transfusions or anything, his RC cells were suddenly pushed to start acting up, the dormant sickness could turn on and what if Hide had just damned him to a life of wasting away—

No.

Stay positive. Don’t freak out even more. They hadn’t done anything yet, merely asked for Hide’s permission to help Kaneki at all. He was saving his friend’s life; he wasn’t cursing him.

“Thank you for telling me, Nagachika-san. I will pass that on to Dr. Kanou. You have just contributed immensely to the safety of the procedure.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Hide said. “Just— he has to hold on. Tell Kaneki he has to hold on until I’m there.”

“We will, Nagachika-san, don’t worry. Dr. Kanou will do his best.”

His best.

The words echoed in Hide’s mind. How was he ever supposed to know if Kanou’s best would be enough for his friend? Hide excelled at being optimistic, could see the positive side of most things in life, had learned how to be hopeful at the funerals of people he’d loathed. He just couldn’t allow himself to drown in any negative possibilities.

The rest of the drive passed in the blur, either because the driver had known to speed up after listening in on the phone call, or because Hide was so out of it that he didn’t really register the streetlamps flickering by until the taxi had reached its destination. Hide passed the driver a couple bills, probably more than the transport had actually cost, but he didn’t care. What were one or two skipped meals compared to being there before it was too late? Hide rushed inside the sterile white hospital, eyes immediately set on the front desk.

“My friend,” Hide stuttered as he clung to the counter, holding it as if it were his lifeline. “He was brought in— an accident. He was on a date and there was an accident. Dr. Kanou is operating him?”

The receptionist seemed confused, needing a moment to make something coherent out of Hide’s rambles. “I need your identification before I can tell you anything about our patients.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Hide fumbled for his student ID card and put it on the counter with shaky hands. “Nagachika Hideyoshi, I’m Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact.”

“Of course, your friend is still in the operating room. You can wait here.”

Hide didn’t want to wait, but what else was there he could do? He hated feeling useless like this, unable to contribute anything productive. The receptionist sent him a kind look and, defeated, Hide crossed the entrance hall to the waiting room where he remained together with other worried family members and patients, clutching his phone so he wouldn’t start screaming. He couldn’t stop moving his legs, stress keeping him wide awake even as the hospital emptied and less and less people sat around him. How long did such an operation take? An hour? Two? Hide had absolutely no idea. He didn’t study anything like this. His major was English literature, which was about as helpful as hot air at this moment.

He could quote enough books concerned with some medical drama and family members in the hospital, but none of them brought him any comfort.

“Nagachika-san?”

Hide looked up into the kind face of an elderly man wearing a pristine white coat.

“Y- yes?” Hide replied and quickly stood up, brushing imaginary dust from his pants. “Are you Dr. Kanou? Is my friend alright? Can I see him?”

“I am sorry to have caused you such worries. The operation went well. Your friend is resting in intensive care right now. He is still asleep, but you may visit him. The presence of loved ones is often very beneficial to the healing process.”

Healing.

A sob shook Hide’s shoulders. Kaneki was alive. He hadn’t died.

“Thank you,” he managed to say in between his sobs. “Thank you, thank you for saving his life.”

The doctor only kept on smiling and kindly put his hand on Hide’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly in what was meant to be comforting. “It is my job, young man. You don’t have to thank me. Nothing is more important to me than saving innocent lives. If you follow one of the nurses, you can see your friend immediately.”

Hide thanked the doctor once more, relief slowly filling the pits anxiety had hollowed out. He followed the nurse through the labyrinth of death, decay, healing, and salvation up to the intensive care station. Quietly, he was led to a room. The door opened, revealing one lone figure on a bed.

From a distance, hooked up with so many tubes and wires, Kaneki was nothing like the person who took up half of Hide’s life. He seemed so much smaller and looked like just one push could snap his connection to life.

“Please remain quiet,” the nurse told him. “And don’t move him.” Glancing at his still trembling fingers, she added, “but you may hold his hand.”

Hide nodded, then quickly crossed the room to Kaneki’s bed and sat down on the chair next to it. Kaneki didn’t move at all; not even a single muscle twitched. Hide would assume they had led him to view his friend’s corpse if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, Hide took Kaneki’s hand in his own.

“Hey, Ken,” he muttered, pressing his eye close so no tears would escape them. “You scared me there. Don’t ever do that again.”

Predictably, Kaneki didn’t reply. Nevertheless, Hide imagined that just for a moment, he squeezed Hide’s hand back. Slowly, the tension bled from Hides’s shoulders and he made himself comfortable in the hard plastic chair. This was bound to be a long night and he was starting to feel his exhaustion catch up to him. He tried to keep his eyes trained on his friend for as long as possible, remaining alert for a change to his condition, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep them open.

Eventually, the darkness caught him as he fell. Hide knew he stirred a couple more times during the night, likely when the nurses came to check on Kaneki. Nobody asked him to move and leave, something he was immensely thankful for. He wouldn’t have been able to let go. By the time the sun began to chase away the shadows again, Hide wasn’t sure how much he had slept, only that it had definitely not been enough. But that was alright, he could catch up on sleep sometime later. It was far more important that Kaneki was going to be alright.

Hide turned to look at Kaneki’s face and found his friend awake, staring back at him.

One eye gray like a stormy cloud before the morning rainfall.

The other was blood-red against the night sky.

#tokyo ghoul #hideyoshi nagachika #kaneki ken #tg #hidekane #fanfic #what UP i'm back with spite fic #also on ao3 #but i will add the link later bc tumblr likes to mess up

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disasterfandoms · 4 years ago

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You Shouldn’t Be Alone || A Seal Team Story

(this is a horrible gif as this has nothing to do with Ray)

Summary: Amelia has a no good, terrible, very bad day; with heartbreaking results.

A/N: My brain wouldn’t shut up last night so it finished this story part of the story. This is a three parter, and it’s part of the ao3 series myself amd @bravo-four-seal-team created. This is set early season 1, before Clay joins the team. It’s mostly Naima, Amelia, and Ashley this chapter, with Trent coming in later.

TW: injuries, hospitals, mention of death, mention of people coding, mentions of health spiraling, implication of miscarriage, mention of grief, mention of pain meds

Taglist: @twentydavid @bravo-four-seal-team @a-kate3 @rebelwrites @chibsytelford @supervalcsi @jayhalsteadfan-2417 @thegirlwhoisalwayswriting @mrsmarvelous1995 @velvetcardiganbucky @itsonautopilot @pinkrockstar19 @galaxysanduniversesinmymind @abby-splace

Amelia was just so, so tired of today.

Everything that could go wrong, did. The morning started with a minor argument with Trent, nothing they couldn’t handle, but still annoying. Then, a rude stranger ran into her, causing their coffee to spill all over her scrubs, resulting in her having to change into surgery scrubs when she got to work.

Work was an absolute nightmare: back-to-back-to-back codes, rapids, anything that could go wrong did go wrong. She had a patient die, got another, then they died.

And now she’s a patient in the ER.

Every breath she took included a sharp pain from her broken ribs resisting. Her left arm is in a sling, broken collarbone, apparently; her body littered with massive bruising. Swollen lip, stitches on her right cheek. Massive black eyes, a broken nose that was corrected a few minutes ago. Grade I concussion, so while the best-case scenario, still annoying. Her throat was sore from the hands trying to end her; that’s going to bruise badly later, she noted. The bruises, scratches on her arms will heal; they might be the least irritating injuries she sustained today. Her sore back and bruised pelvis from being slammed against the wall may be the most annoying. Her legs are in surprisingly good shape, a dislocated knee being the only injury that’s worth noting. Nothing came as close as devastating as to why she was bleeding, though.

She shook her head, wincing as she did. She won’t go there; no one is to know about that one except for her, her medical team, and Trent. Fuck, Trent. He’s going to be devastated, or relieved; she honestly still can’t tell how he felt.

That injury in itself would garner a lot of pity. She despises pity. Everyone around her was trying to do it, though, from her nurse, Naima, to her coworkers who keep coming down to check on her. She appreciates the concern, she does, but she’s okay; it could have been a lot worse.

Needs a new chain for her locket, once again, stupidly annoying. It’s her comfort blanket; it lets her have what’s special to her near her heart at all times. Again, nothing that can’t be fixed, but also stupidly annoying.

Naima threw the curtain back, came into her space, and then closed them to give the two nurses some privacy.

“Dr. Mann would rather you stay overnight to make sure you’re stable, and that way Dr, Leigh can do the procedure in the morning.”

Amelia shook her head, then winced again. She really, really needs to stop doing that! “No way in hell, Naima. I’m fine; I just got a little banged up! And I’ll come back in the morning for the procedure.”

Naima sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. God, her friend was stubborn. “Who’ll drive you? That sling stops you from even considering driving yourself.”

“So, you mean to tell me that I can’t drive home?”

“Amelia Rose Carter! You know better than that. I’ll try to convince Mann to let you go, see if we can arrange a follow-up visit or something in the morning. I’ll call your emergency contact on file, see if they can come to pick you up.”

“No!” Amelia attempted to scream, but her voice still sounds strangled and barely came out above a whisper, “Please don’t call him. He doesn’t need to know, not yet.” Amelia, begging? This is something Naima hasn’t seen from the young nurse. She could swear she saw tears starting to form in the young woman’s eyes, whether from pain or the thoughts racing in her head.

Naima crossed her arms, walking over to lean on the stretcher beside Amelia. “Amelia, is your emergency contact someone you’re afraid of?”

Amelia would have smiled, laughed at the thought, even, had her lip not be swollen, and her throat didn’t feel like fire. “No, Naima. If you looked in my file, you’d see why. He’s just very protective of me, and while I love him more than I thought I could love anyone, his care will feel like suffocation. And now I sadly know what that feels like,” she paused and listened to Naima chuckle. The older nurse then apologized, but Amelia made a motion to stop that; she’s glad someone could laugh at her dark humor. “He’s going to be so pissed about in the morning, though. We were so close to telling everyone that we were-” she stopped, tears welling up in her blackened eyes again, but Naima got the point. She grabbed the battered woman’s uninjured hand and squeezed it in reassurance.

“Okay. So if not him, then who do you want to be called? I know you mentioned a brother?”

“Scott, yeah. He’s out in the field, I think. You wouldn’t want him here. He’d take one look at me and then want the name of the patient who did this and probably threatens to kill them.”

“Okay, so boyfriend and brother are off the list. Anyone else you can think of?”

“Boyfriend’s sister? I don’t know her that well, except for the times I helped take care of her last fall. She’d be able to drive me home, though, at the very least.”

“What’s her name, and do you have her number?”

“Ashley Sawyer, and her number is in my phone,” Amelia pulls up the number and continues to speak while Naima copies it down, “Be warned, she told me she doesn’t like hospitals. You may have to break HIPAA and mention my name for her to answer the second time.”

“Second time?”

“She’ll hang up once you get out that you’re a nurse at St. Samuel’s.” This made both women chuckle.

“Okay, I’ll go try her cell, just rest for a while, okay? Need some more pain meds before I leave?”

“You know I hate pain medicine, especially morphine. Makes my head fuzzy,” Amelia declined, she definitely didn’t need that if she had to go home to her apartment.

“Okay. I’m gonna go call her, okay?”

“Good luck.”

Little did Naima know, she was going to need it.

Getting back to the nurses’ station, she talked to the doctor, who agreed to discharge the stubborn nurse as long as Amelia came back to the ER if she was having any complications. While the Dr. worked on getting the discharge ready, Naima called the number she received and waited for a voice on the other end.

“What do you want?” The voice said snappily, clearly irritated by someone calling her.

“Ashley, this is Naima, I am a nurse at St. Samuel’s Ho-“

Click.

Naima sighed, preparing to call the number again. Amelia at least warned her of this happening. She picked up the phone, dialed the number, and waited for a response. This time, the number went straight to voicemail. “Ms. Sawyer, this is Naima, a nurse at St. Samuel’s Hospital. A significant other of a family member has asked that we call you to come to pick them up when they’re discharged. Please call back at this number, thank you.”

She hung up the phone and hoped that Ashley would hear the message before too long.

Within half an hour, the same phone rang again, Naima picked up the phone and answered, “St. Samuel’s ER this Naima speaking, how can I help you?”

“You called this number a half-hour ago?” “Is this Ms. Sawyer?” “Who else would it be?” “Ms. Sawyer, this is a hospital and this isn’t my personal phone here. I’m asking for clarification, as there are about 10 phone calls per hour on this phone alone.” “You called me for a reason, snap to it.” “Yes, your brother’s girlfriend, Amelia, has asked me to call on her behalf for you to come to pick her up upon discharge,” “Shit. Is she okay, and why me?” “She’s been injured fairly well, with several bruises, several broken bones, and a dislocated knee. The doctor asked she stay for tonight, but Ms. Carter is refusing. She requested you, claiming your brother would be ‘too suffocating’”

Naima heard the woman laugh on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing since it’s clear she’s banged up pretty well. Not wrong about Trent, though.”

Wait. No, that can’t be. Well, shit. Naima pieces together what she knows about her friend’s boyfriend. Oh, she’s so telling her husband about this.

“If you agree to pick her up and take her home, you can come at any time and I’ll come out to the waiting room and bring you back. I must warn you, though, she looks rough and shouldn’t be left alone tonight. She’ll probably ask you to take her apartment to leave her be. Don’t.”

“Shit, is it that bad?” “It’s not great. The concussion she sustained would be the main worry. That and god forbid she fell and no one was there to help her. She’ll need someone to bring her back in the morning, as well, and she’s incredibly stubborn about being able to drive herself,” “She got injured, and you all are going to make her come back to work the next day?” “What? No, ma’am, she has a procedure unrelated to her injury in the morning, and claims she’ll come in and do it outpatient instead of staying,” “She’s as stubborn as the rest of us, damn,” she paused, sighing into the phone, “I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”

“Okay. Let the front desk know to alert me when you’ve arrived and I’ll bring you to her. Thank you, Ms. Sawyer.”

Click.

Sighing, Naima went back to filling out the paperwork, figuring out how or when she’ll confront her friend about dating someone on her husband’s team. For now, she’ll finish the paperwork on another patient, waiting for Trent’s sister to arrive.

#naima perry #oc: amelia carter #oc: ashley sawyer #ao3 series #trent sawyer mentioned #full metal mentioned #seal team fic #will go to ao3 later

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heartofsnark · 3 years ago

Text

This Is Love (Chapter Twelve): Evil Comes In Disguise

Notes: This one is shorter than others but it felt like it took me so much longer, I blame Cyberpunk 2077 for stealing my one braincell for a while. Also, I have a tendency that the longer it takes me to write something, the more insecure I feel about it, so I ended up cutting this chapter a bit shorter than I originally intended. But I think it works and I hope you enjoy!~

Word Count: 8686

Chapter Warnings: Talk of physical assault, hospitals, POV switches, Joseph visions, me trying to write police investigations/interrogations to minimal success and struggling to write Jerome for the first time properly.

For chapter one and the warnings about this fic’s overarching themes, please click here!

For the previous chapter; click here!

And the clock ticks and ticks and ticks and ticks. Every second feels like an eternity. Every moment of silence seeming to stretch on for hours. Her nerves fray with each one, worry blooming like a flower in her chest. The tension palpable as the three deputies and Sheriff wait to hear what will become of the town pastor. Dahlia’s mouth starts running before she can stop it; to distract herself or her distraught friends, she doesn’t know.

“How long have you all known Pastor Jerome?”

“Oh, Jerome’s been in Hope for…fifteen years or so,” Whitehorse tells her, thinking a minute over the exact timeline.

“He took over the Falls End church when I was thirteen,” Hudson adds, “so yeah, fifteen years.”

“Wow,” Dahlia can’t help but exclaim, astounded by just how long they’ve all known the pastor, he’s been with the county for more than half of Hudson and Pratt’s lives.

“St-,” Pratt swallows his words then starts again, stuttering, “still remember my mom making me give my first confession to him…I was terrified I was gonna go to hell, get kicked out of church, break my mom’s heart.”

“What did you do?”

“His mom caught him looking at porno mags,” Hudson rats him out, laughing. Whitehorse cracking a smile and Dahlia snickering.

“I was eleven, shut up,” he tries to defend himself through his own laughter, “yeah, Jerome thought it was funny too, told me everything was okay and then it was.”

Rook can just imagine it, Pratt as a kid, terrified that god’s going to smote him for looking at a tit. There’s a bittersweet quality to the four smiling and laughing at the memory; the anxiety and fear still looming but it’s a little easier to breathe. The weight crushing down on them is a little lighter than it was before.

“If he makes it out of this, we need to go back to church,” Hudson tells Pratt after a beat of silence.

“We do, don’t we?”

“Officers?” A man in a doctor’s coat calls out to them, the same one who stitched her head back together before.

“Is he okay?”

“We stabilized him; we got the bleeding under control and it looks like we won’t have to transfer him after all, he should be fine to recover here. We’re still monitoring him, but things are looking up.”

There’s a sigh of relief; maybe just from Whitehorse, maybe from all of them. She can’t even tell. Things are looking up, Jerome is likely to live and none of them will lose someone who clearly means so much to them.

“What exactly is it that happened, doctor?”

“Someone out in the valley called 911; the heard scratching at the door and when they looked he was collapsed on their front step. That’s all we know at this point, but as I told you, this was clearly an assault. The bruises, the bleeding, it all matches with brute force assault and with the severity we do believe it was multiple people who attacked him.”

“Who the fuck would wanna hurt Jerome?” Hudson asks, more to herself than anyone else.

“You’re all free to stay in his room, so you can question him when he wakes up, but I don’t know how reliable his memory will be with what he’s been through.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

The four go into the hospital room and Dahlia clenches her jaw when she sees him. Bruises mottle and color the friendly face she’s seen around the county; a myriad of red and purples across him. One eye swollen, stitches and bandages in places where the skin broke. They were trying to kill him; that’s all Dahlia can think. This was an attempted murder, his body is hidden under a hospital gown and blankets, but she can see from his arms that the damage extends over his body. A IV gives him a steady drip of fluids to keep him stable, a heart and oxygen monitor letting the staff know he’s staying that way.

“Jesus fuck…” Pratt whispers under his breath.

Hospital coffee and more stories of the pastor pass the time as the four settle in; the time Jerome comforted an emotional fourteen year old Hudson when she spilled communion grape juice on her white dress. Whitehorse talks about how often he’s visited the church to talk with Jerome.

Hours pass of the four talking, Dahlia downing five or more paper cups of coffee across the time. And then a cough sound rings out, a shift of fabric, the pastor slowly waking up. Whitehorse calls out for the nurses; the deputies shifting in their seats as he comes to.

The nurses flood in, checking on Jerome’s vitals, ensuring he can comfortably sit up in his bed. He’s an older man, not as old as Whitehorse, but probably as old as Jacob or Joseph. Mid to late forties. With short dark textured hair and a dark beard.

“What the hell happened?” Whitehorse asks when the nurses are done checking on the Pastor.

“John Seed,” The pastor begins, and Dahlia clenches her jaw, “he and members of Eden’s Gate kidnapped me, he tried to force a confession from me and when I didn’t comply; they beat me and left me in the woods. I tried to get help the best way I knew how, but I passed out before I could speak to anyone.”

Dahlia doesn’t have time to think, to ruminate on what this means, what might be going on; Whitehorse telling her to grab the evidence collection kit he brought in. There’s not much to be collected, but their best bet of getting any conclusive evidence is swabbing Jerome’s fingernails. There’s nothing to get fingerprints off of, no weapon, no duct tape, no bindings. No bodily fluids exchanged, thankfully for Jerome’s sake. But, if he fought back, grabbed at his attackers, there’s a chance the blood under his fingernails could belong to them. That he managed to gouge their skin deep enough to leave a trace.

“Sorry, this might hurt a bit,” Dahlia gives a gentle warning when she sees the broken and bloodied state of his nails, gently swabbing blood from under them, making sure to collect from each finger before dropping it into a vile.

“I think I’ll make it,” he manages to say, a slightly dry laugh, his voice deep and resonant.

“I know you will, but still don’t wanna add to it.”

“Jerome, you said John Seed, did you recognize anyone else?”

“Lonny, Theodore, and Patrick were the only ones I know I saw…The way John talked he was doing it because of Joseph, that he ordered it… Eden’s Gate is getting worse every day.”

“Don’t worry, Jerome, we’re gonna do everything we can, Hudson, take the sample back to the station to see if we can match it to anything already in our database. Pratt, Rook, want you to start pulling the peggies in for questioning and getting DNA. Start with Lonny Stevenson, Theodore Rossi, and Patrick Michaelson. No arrests, not yet, just questioning. We’ll handle the Seeds later, alright?”

“Understood.”

There’s a heavy tension in the cruiser as Pratt and Dahlia climb into it. Jerome is alive, there’s a weight to what he’s told them and to their duty to get justice for him. Pratt’s knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel, jaw clenched, and shoulders wrought with tension. Pastor Jerome has been an important figure in his life. She can’t imagine how hard this must be for him. She thinks of how much worse she might feel if it were Lloyd or Whitehorse in that hospital bed, someone she were close to. Dahlia squeezes Pratt’s shoulder as they drive, hoping her empathy shows through the touch. Even as strangers, her stomach is in knots, though it may be because of her…connection to the accused.

Despite their constant encroachment on boundaries, stepping on the line but never quite over it, Dahlia had maintained her hope that the Seeds and their flock were good at their core. That’s why she turned Cassie into their hands, but everyday there’s something new. And this is the worst yet. If they’ve truly done this, if they’re ordering full out assaults on people, that does a lot more than just cross the line.

One of their three main suspects, outside of the two youngest Seed brothers, works at the Green-Busch Fertilizer Plant, an Eden’s Gate owned business. And for possibly the first time since she began working in Hope County, Dahlia is the one leading the charge as they get out of the cruiser, Pratt not trusting his own voice.

“Patrick Michaelson,” she calls out and a man steps out, “we need to have a word with you down at the station.”

He’s generic by Eden’s Gate standards, too long hair and a scraggly beard. His arms are covered, so she can’t check for scratches or bruises along them.

“I in any trouble, deputies?”

“Just need to ask some questions; Theodore Rossi or Lonny Stevenson here? We need a word with them as well.”

“No, but I could ring ‘em for you?”

“We’ll chat first, then you can call them from the station, alright?”

“Whatever you say, officers.”

The last thing she wants is for them to have a chance to put together a story and alibi before they start questioning them. They allow Patrick into the back of the cruiser, he seems to be maintaining his cool. And the tension in the car only strengthens as they take him back to the station. Dahlia watches him in the mirror along the way, waiting for some sign of anything to peek through, for a sleeve to ride up and to see scratches from Jerome’s nails, something. But nothing of the sort happens.

Dahlia has never actually had to interrogate or question anyone, she realizes once they’re at the station and having Patrick take a seat. She doubts he’ll give them much information. If he’s innocent, he won’t have anything of interest to tell. If he’s guilty, he won’t want to tell them much of anything. Getting a DNA sample is what’s going to be the most important thing, if they get some conclusive evidence, something that links one of the Eden’s Gate members to Jerome’s assault the rest will come much easier.

“Coffee?” She offers, as she pours black coffee into three paper cups.

Patrick murmurs a small thanks before he drinks from the cup before they start asking him questions. Hours pass of trying to ask the same questions in slightly different ways or tones. Dahlia trying to stay friendlier in her tone while Pratt is terser, due to his personal connection. But getting more than a ‘I was at home, last night,’ is like trying to get blood from a turnip. He refuses to give a DNA sample as well.

“We about done here?” Patrick asks with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Fine,” Pratt grumbles, “I’ll walk you out and you can ring Lonny and Theodore for us.”

Dahlia taps her fingers against the table as the two men walk out, breathing a sigh of relief when Patrick leaves his coffee cup. It takes a few minutes and then Pratt comes back, he collapses into his chair and groans, she can feel the stress radiating off of him.

“Well, that was a waste of fucking time,” he grumbles.

“How you figure?”

“How you figure anything else?’ He looks at her incredulously, like she’s grown a second head and breathed fire.

“Left his cup,” Dahlia pokes at the little Styrofoam cup, “our property, we wanna swab it for DNA, our business and don’t need anyone’s consent for it.”

“I’ll run it down to evidence, you brew another pot for the next two.”

“On it.”

Pratt runs that down, the cup bagged and labeled with Patrick’s name, she’s sure. Lonny and Theodore aren’t far behind. And their questioning goes much the same. They don’t give particularly direct answers and refuse to give DNA samples. Theodore avoids talking as much as he can, mostly opting to glare at the deputies after his first insistence that he has no idea why he’s here and has no obligation or desire to talk. But, he does at some point break his sourpuss expression to take a drink of coffee. Lonny is cockier, more aggressive, making snide comments but he drinks coffee at some point too; so that’s all that matters.

By the end of it all, three cups are sent down to evidence to be swabbed for DNA to be tested against the DNA found under Jerome’s fingernails. If it’s from any of them, they’ll know by hopefully the end of the day. Evidence based cases are rare around here, so the forensic team stated they can fast track it, hopefully

Pratt and Dahlia rest in the bullpen office, Hudson joining them. There’s a somber air to the entire office. Hudson’s leg bounces with nervous or angry energy, Dahlia isn’t sure which. Meanwhile, Pratt is wringing his hands until the skin rubs raw. Their worry is palpable as they wait for either more information or direction. The oppressive silence has started to weigh on Dahlia’s shoulders, she’s tapping her fingers against a table.

“You know,” Dahlia says after too long, “you guys can go see Jerome if you want, I’ll call if any info comes in.”

She knows they’re worried about him and want to be there to check on him. There’s no reason for them to sit here and suffer when she can just let them know when the analysis comes in.

“We’re not gonna leave you to man the station by yourself,” Pratt dismisses her out of hand, as if the idea that she can be left alone is ridiculous.

“I think I can manage for an evening, anything happens, I know how to reach you all.”

“I’m going,” Hudson declares, “I trust Rook and I’m driving myself crazy here.”

“Thank you, Hudson…” Dahlia says with soft smile, Hudson actually trusts her and isn’t acting like she’s a child.

“You coming?” Hudson asks Pratt, looking at him expectantly.

“I’m not leaving Rook here alone.”

“I’m an adult, you know that, right?”

“If Eden’s Gate was willing to attack Jerome, who knows what else they’ll do. And you’re already on their radar, were before this.”

“What, you think they’re gonna storm the station?”

“Who knows anymore.”

“I don’t have time to listen to you two bicker, I’m leaving,” Hudson tells them before walking out of the station.

Dahlia chews her lip once she’s left with Pratt. This is already a stressful day and not the time to let her wounded ego guide her behavior. But it is wounded. She’s not a child, young sure, but not a child and by no means incapable. Pratt has been coddling her and trying to limit what she does since the beginning of her job, she thought it was lessening, but… Does Pratt seriously not think she’s competent enough to be left alone for a few hours? Is she that unreliable? Incapable? Does he think that little of her?

She doesn’t lend a voice to these insecurities or anger; not the time or place.

“Don’t pout,” Pratt says after a few minutes.

“I’m not.”

“You are, I can physically see you pouting.”

“Even if I was, it’s not important.”

“Seriously, Rook? You wanna be a brat right now?”

“Seriously, Pratt? You wanna be a patronizing dick right now!?” Her voice is harsher than she intended.

“Deputies?” A voice calls out, one of the workers in their piddly little forensic department poking their head into the open office.

“Yeah?”

“We got a match for the DNA found under Jerome’s fingernails.”

“Who’s our guy?”

“Patrick’s matched, we couldn’t find any traces of Lonny or Theodore’s.”

“I’ll call Whitehorse,” Pratt says before getting out his cellphone, “figure out what we’re doing next.”

Dahlia only nods, not trusting herself after her outburst. Her fingers still tap tapping against a desk as Pratt speaks to the sheriff. She can only hear Pratt’s side of the conversation as he explains what they were just told and agrees to whatever Whitehorse is telling him, before he hangs up.

“So, what’s our next move?” Dahlia asks, voice cracking more than she’d like.

“Arresting Patrick and questioning the Seeds. He wants a lighter touch with John and Joseph, his words, not mine.”

“Lighter touch meaning…?”

“They can be questioned together if they want, given a day and the chance to come in on their own terms. Whitehorse doesn’t want us ruffling their feathers unless we get something conclusive on them.’

“I’ll never get why he wants to walk on eggshells around them.”

“Because they’re nuts and got a good hundred or more people who’ll fight for them.”

Dahlia shrugs, she gets that, she guesses. But its still hard for her to wrap her head around that the men she’s met could order an assault on someone else. A part of her is still holding onto the hope that Patrick just acted on his own, that John and Joseph had no idea. But, Jerome says John was there. And John’s not exactly a face he could confuse with someone else…

“C’mon, let's go get Patrick.”

He’s at his house at this late hour, knocking in the door of his little farmhouse. Patrick answers the door, face souring the moment he sees the officer. His lips are sealed, not speaking a word to the deputies as they read him his rights and bring him into the station. He refuses to speak for a long while, even as they book him and try to ask him a few more questions.

“I wanna call my lawyer.” Is all he says after an entirely too long drag of silence.

“John, your lawyer?” Pratt asks.

“What of it?’

“We need to have a chat with him too,” Dahlia informs him, “so we’ll be happy to call him for you.”

“Fine.”

Dahlia stretches out her back as her and Pratt leave the interrogation room, this day has been her longest yet, but they seem to be getting somewhere. She looks over to Pratt.

“Want me to call up John or you wanna do the honor?”

“I will, they like you too much.”

“Have zero idea what you mean by that, but alright.”

Pratt grabs the station phone and rings up John’s number. Dahlia chews her fingernails as she waits, biting away at them and chipping her nail polish in the process. When she runs out of nail that goes past her fingertips, she chews at the skin. Mind racing as Pratt talks to John, she feels like her thoughts and feelings are tearing into two directions. What she wants to be true and what evidence supports. The older deputy hangs up the phone and Dahlia looks up at Pratt expectantly.

“John says him and Joseph can be here in a few hours, chances are Jacob will be with them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Anytime either of them have been questioned, Jacob’s there, just to look mean I guess.”

She nods, thinking of what she read so far in the Book of Joseph, of the abuse in the Seed family. It doesn’t shock her at all that Jacob has a protective streak, that he wouldn’t want his younger brother’s far out of sight. She does find herself wondering why Faith isn’t following alongside her siblings as well. Her fellow deputies didn’t seem to know much of her at all, Hudson not even knowing what she looks like. Hell, the youngest sister hasn’t even been mentioned yet in the Book of Joseph. Though given the hefty age difference, perhaps she wasn’t born yet during the memory Joseph chose to open it with?

Dahlia takes a seat while they wait for the Seed brothers, graciously accepting the cup of coffee that Pratt offers her. Her leg taps as she drinks at it, listening to the clock tick away as she waits for the Seeds. Her fellow deputy sits next to her and she can tell the day has been wearing on him. She doesn’t know why, what it is that pushes the impulse forward, but she thumps her head onto his shoulder. A soft form of contact, comfort, whether it’s an offering to him or a selfish desire of her own, she isn’t sure.

But Pratt responds by leaning his head towards her, over top of her own. His hair tickling at her skin and his scruff scratching at her skin. She can’t help but smile and press in a little closer, just appreciating his presence in this quiet moment after such a drawn-out day.

“Shit!”

Pratt’s sudden yell jolts Dahlia awake, her skull knocking against his. She blinks sleep from her eyes, when did she even drift off? How long was she sleeping against his shoulder? Her hands and the bottom of her jeans are wet; the cup of coffee and it’s contents now on the floor as well as her shoes.

“Fuck,” she curses under her breath, she must have dropped it when she fell asleep, “sorry.”

Dahlia goes and gathers up paper towels, cleaning up the mess. She didn’t even realize she was that tired.

“Don’t sweat it, shit has been crazy around here lately, I nearly dozed off myself.”

“You telling me this ain’t typical.”

“God, no, county’s usually more boring than watching paint dry. Lately, feels like county’s gone nuts.”

“Eh, I prefer the crazy, keeps things interesting at least.”

“Deputies,” the on shift desk worker pops their head into the room, “the Seed brothers are here.”

“We’ll be there in a second.”

Dahlia finishes cleaning up the mess and sighs, that weight back on her shoulders. It’s way past their usual shift hours and the day as a whole has been a lot. But they may finally be getting to the root of what happened. They’re getting some justice for Jerome, Patrick is a damn near guaranteed arrest. They just need to get to the bottom of John and Joseph’s involvement. She took this job to help people and that’s what she’s doing, Jerome has a right to feel safe in this county and as much as she hopes the Seeds are good, if they’re hurting others, it needs to be shut down and now.

Mess cleaned; Dahlia and Pratt go out to the waiting room to greet the Seeds. John and Joseph look relatively cleaned up. Though John always looks some version of prim and proper. She’s positive she’s never seen the youngest sibling in a shirt that wasn’t a collard button up and she’s certainly never seen his hair in any state other than slicked back. His shirt of choice today is purple, no vest or trench coat, just the buttons left undone to show the sin marked across his chest and the sleeves rolled up to show the tattoos across his forearms.

Joseph is wearing a shirt which is an accomplishment for him, a stiff white button up done up to his throat and a black blazer over it, nearly overkill in the heat of August. Perhaps he only wears clothing in extremes, either half naked or completely covered. His greasy dark hair is pulled back as usual and despite the late hour, his yellow aviators are on.

And then there’s Jacob, black tee and jeans with his typical camo shirt tied around his waist. Dog tags, key, and rabbit’s foot hanging from a chain around his neck as they always do.

They’re superficial observations, what the brothers wear, but she can’t help but take in the stark contrasts of the brothers. Joseph trying to look more put together and less crazy, John in that same state but every day, and Jacob genuinely not seeming to give any sort of a fuck.

“Deputies,” John is the one to greet them, grinning and Dahlia folds her hands behind her back, trying to still her body and straighten her back to present a confident front.

“John,” Pratt returns the acknowledgement with a nod, “I-“

“It seems you have one of our flock members contained on the bas-“ John cuts off Pratt.

“We actually would rather speak with you and Joseph before we discuss that case,” Dahlia cuts the youngest brother off in turn, not letting him dominate the conversation or set the tone for this.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, I assume, you’re both comfortable with answering some questions for us?” She cocks her head to the side, trying to stay nonthreatening, not that her five feet of being could ever be threatening.

“Of course, that would be no problem at all,” Joseph is the one to speak next, giving her a smile, eyes soft despite the circumstances.

“Actually,” Pratt cuts in, a twitch in his jaw, “I’ll be asking those questions alone.”

“You’ll what?” Dahlia levels a glare at her partner, ready to throw him through a window, but unable to do so. He’s pushing it, he keeps pushing it.

“I think it’ll be best if I conduct the interrogation alone.”

“Oh, do you?”

“You girls need a minute, or can we get this shitshow on the road,” Jacob says, the deep rasp of his voice cutting through the spat. And she doesn’t miss the clench in Pratt’s jaw at the emasculating choice of words.

“Come on back; sorry for the trouble,” Dahlia says, a tight lipped smile as she leads the Seed brothers to the interrogation room. She’ll deal with Pratt and his overprotective bullshit later. It’s a quick walk down the hall and she politely opens the doors for them, she thinks she sees Jacob rolling his eyes.

“Go ahead and take a seat, we’ll be just a moment,” Dahlia tells them, giving a small nod when Joseph thanks her. She lets the door shut behind the Seeds and turns her gaze back on Pratt.

“Rook-”

“What the actual fuck, Pratt?” She keeps her voice low, but her tone is terse, how could he try to strong arm her out of the interrogation.

“Look, you’ve spent a lot of time with them, regardless of if you’ve wanted too or not. They’re fixated on you and you’re just too close to them to be interrogating them.”

“You’ve known them longer than me! You’ve known them for years! This is a rural county, it’d take me longer to meet all the cows here than it would the people!”

She wants to wring his neck, he’s entirely too protective of her and for no real reason. More now than ever she realizes she made the right call not telling anyone about the mute “angel” Eden’s Gate member who swung on her or the vandalism of her trailer. Pratt already barely wants to let her handle ticketing people and now he doesn’t want her interrogating suspects. It’s ridiculous. She’s a grown adult woman, she needs to be allowed to do her fucking job.

Dahlia is done listening to this nonsense, she decides, and makes a beeline back to the interrogation room. Pratt isn’t going to stop her from doing her damn job. She opens the door, her coworker trailing behind her, as she steps into the interrogation room.

The Seed brothers are sat at the table. Jacob’s legs open wide, sat relaxed in his chair, completely disinterested by most appearances but he still watches the deputies from the corner of his eye. She’s reminded of a predator lulling prey into a false sense of security before it strikes.

Joseph sits between his elder and younger sibling. His elbows on the table, hands politely folded, not a hint of anxiety in him either. Seemingly calm, but his gaze is intense on the young deputy as she enters, never straying away from her. He never looks over at Pratt, the other deputy’s warning that they’re fixated on her ring through her mind.

John is sitting back in his chair and his gaze is just as intense, but there’s more manic energy behind it. In him in general. Perhaps he’d look calmer, more serene like his brothers, if not for the constant bouncing of his leg, the movement starting to shake the rickety table.

“Sorry about that,” Dahlia starts before Pratt can find a way to force her out of the room, “would either of you like any coffee or anything before we chat?”

“No, thank you. We’ve done this song and dance before, deputy, you can’t sneak dna off of us,” John dismisses her off with a sneer.

“Okay then, no coffee, understood,” she rescinds her off as she sits down at the table across from them, Pratt sitting next to her.

“Look, let's cut the bullshit,” Pratt speaks up, “a person was attacked, beaten badly. We got evidence, won’t say what, that connects one of your church members to the attack. And its being alleged that he did so on Joseph’s order with John supervising the whole thing, and...you’re just hear for window dressing I guess.” He gives a dismissive look to Jacob at that last part, no doubt his attempt to give a little revenge jab for his comment earlier.

“Why I’m here ain’t any of your concern, princess.” Jacob says, voice low and the threat within it not subtle.

“Okay…” Dahlia cuts in with a clap of her hands when she sees the way Jacob and Pratt are glaring at each other, this is an interrogation not a pissing contest, the last thing they need is Pratt trying to fight Jacob and getting his ass kicked, “this is already going off the rails, good job everyone. Now, while his wording was...abrupt, uh that is the reality of the situation. There are some heavy accusations being levied at you two, so we were hoping to ask you a few questions.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” John responds, rolling his eyes, “these are completely baseless accusations.”

“We do have evidence linking one of the men, a member of your church, to the assault. Our witness and survivor is credible. At this point we have no reason to believe they’d lie about what occurred.”

“They persecute us the same as they did the prophets before us, the faithful handed over to courts and councils, sheep sent out amongst wolves,” Joseph speaks sudden, voice intense as he stares into Dahlia’s eyes, a chill rolls up her spine, a tension pulling in her shoulders that she can’t quite shake.

“Seriously,” Pratt scoffs and for the first time Joseph’s eyes leave Dahlia, harsher and colder at the older officer, “you really think this is about your church, that someone would make this shit up just to get at you, think they beat the shit out of themselves too just to spite you?”

“Of course not,” John speaks next and she can’t help but notice the jolt in his body language, “I’ve yet to speak to our flock member you’ve find evidence of. But even if he’s done what he’s accused of, surely, you can’t expect us to be held responsible for the actions of every member of our church. We have hundreds of followers, you cannot reasonably expect us to be accountable for any of them who may stray from our ways.”

“The witness specified you were there, John. Not just accountable, but physically present for assault.”

“And there’s no evidence of that, you said so yourself, and as I’ve told you before, there are many in this county who aren’t above taking any chance to sully mine and my family’s name. Who’s to say, they didn’t see their assault as an opportunity to bring down our entire church.”

“May I ask where you were last night?”

“Had dinner with my family, as I always do, and stayed in for the night. Rather boring, I’m afraid.”

“Anyone who can confirm this story?” Pratt asks and Dahlia tries not to roll her eyes; his family would be the ones who can confirm it and ...they’re mostly here and biased.

“My brothers who are sitting right here, my sister if you feel the need to ruin her night as well.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“Then are we done here?”

“This isn’t a formal arrest or detainment,” they don’t have anywhere near the evidence or that, “so, you’re free to leave if you so please. Though, there’s still the issue of Patrick who requested counsel with you.”

The brothers have made it clear they want to leave and that the deputies won’t be prying any more information from them. So, Dahlia escorts them out.

“You two can go on home,” John tells his brothers, “I’ll call someone to get me once I’ve sorted this out.”

“We couldn’t possibly leave you behind, we’ll wait,” Joseph squeezes John’s shoulder than looks to Dahlia, “assuming that would be okay.”

“Of course, don’t expect you to ditch your brother.”

“It is tempting sometimes,” Jacob mumbles under his breath, a smirk pulling at his lips when John glares at him. Rook has to press her hand to her mouth to avoid laughing at the brotherly teasing.

“Jacob…” Joseph gently chides.

“Regardless, you two are welcome to sit out in the waiting room, there's a vending machine if you need anything or if you’re not interested in that I’m sure Nancy can get you set up with coffee or food from our break room.”

“Thank you, deputy.”

“I’ll be out, shortly,” John says the final word pointedly as his brothers go to the waiting room, then turns to the deputies, “which room is my client in?”

“Room 103, I’ll be right in, go on and get settled,” Pratt tells him and John leaves down to the room where Patrick is being held. Dahlia holds her tongue until the youngest Seed brother is out of hearing range.

“Think we can get anything else out of them?”

“Fuck no, he’s going to tell Patrick to keep his mouth shut, insist that there’s another explanation. Like getting blood from a turnip, we’re just going to have to deal with what we have. DNA should be enough to convict Patrick, as for the rest, we’ll have to see if Whitehorse feels we got enough to do a full investigation. But, we don’t have much.”

“The evidence against Patrick might be enough to subpoena Joseph’s sermons, get warrants to search the church and houses?”

“Maybe,fuck,” Pratt rubs a hand down his face, he looks exhausted and she’s sure she’s not much better, “what time is it?”

“Nearly four in the morning.”

“Fucks sake, okay, their foul mood makes a bit more sense.”

“Yeah, I can take care of the talk with John and Patrick, like you said won’t be getting much from them, so you can head home or check on Jerome.”

“No, no, absolutely not. I’ll take care of this, you go home and get some sleep.”

“Pratt-”

“Rook, you were the one passing out on top of me. Go home and sleep.”

“I-”

“Please, for once in your life, just listen to me.”

“Okay, just this once,” she bows her head, feeling like a scolded child, “but we do need to have a serious conversation about you babying me, you know that right?”

“I don’t baby you.”

She blinks and widens her eyes, has he heard a single word he’s said to her all day. Refusing to let her stay at the station alone, not wanting her to call John, and not even wanting her to be involved in the interrogation. And that today alone, she can’t count the amount of times he’s told her not to be the one to issue tickets, to stay in the car during calls. She knows they’ve lost an officer in the line of duty. And she knows she’s a lot younger than Pratt or Hudson. But this is her job as much as it is theirs.

“Okay,” Pratt scratches at the back of his neck at the incredulous look, then gently puts his hands on Dahlia’s shoulders, “serious conversations can wait until we’ve both slept, alright?”

“Fine, I’ll go home and crash, get yourself some sleep when you finish up here, okay?”

“Okay, will do.”

He drops his hands from her shoulders and gives a small pat to her arm as she turns to leave. As much as she’d rather Pratt be the one going home to get some much needed sleep, she can’t say she won’t be thankful for a chance to crash.

“And Rook,” Pratt calls out before she can get through to the waiting room, she turns to look at him, “stay away from the Seeds, please.”

“Don’t push it.” She rolls her eyes, overprotective ass, she pushes through the doors to the waiting room.

Dahlia gives a friendly nod of acknowledgement to Joseph and Jacob as she moves past them, looking towards Nancy.

“I’m gonna go home and crash for the night, any news comes in, don’t hesitate to call me, alright?” She explains to dispatch, not fully trusting Pratt to let her know if it’s up to him, throwing on her leather jacket and already searching for her pack of cigarettes. She’ll catch a smoke break before she rides home, her nerves needing the nicotine fix.

“Alright, dear. Drive safe.”

Dahlia waves a quick bye to both Nancy and the Seed brothers before she leaves the building. The air is cold, temperatures drop quick at night out here, a start contrast to the hot muggy days. A dark sky hangs above her except where stars breach the abyss. Goosebumps prickle up along her neck where the air hits, she put a cigarette between her lips and lights it, breathing nicotine deep into her lungs. She tilts her head back, blowing smoke from her mouth, white billowing around her.

“Deputy,” Joseph’s voice calls out and chills run along her spine, “you know, smoking is really a terrible habit.”

“We all got our vices,” she says, shrugging her shoulders, making sure to blow the smoke away from Joseph.

“That is true, I know that better than most…”

She nods when he trails off a bit, his church seems to focus a lot on sins and vices, overcoming them she assumes. Sins marked across the skin of so many of its members. Silence falls across the two, for once Joseph breaking eye contact, a rare moment for him.

“Is there something you wanted…? Can’t imagine you’d rather wait out here in the cold.”

“Yes, actually, I think there’s a lot we need to discuss. Faith told me you have concerns about your friend, Cassandra.”

“Cassie, yeah,” she corrects, not sure why it bugs her so much to hear them using Cassie’s full name.

“Yes, John always was wishing to speak with you regarding the orchard and… I’d hate for this… incident to color your opinion of me and my family.”

“I understand and I’d love to talk all this out with you, but-”

“It’s four in the morning.”

“Yeah, sorry,” she frowns, feeling bad about it, “its been a rough day and I just am ready to crash, I’m sure you must be exhausted too.”

“Of course, I understand, which is why I’d like to invite you to have dinner with me and my family.”

“Uh, what?”

Dahlia blinks and coughs on cigarette smoke, taken aback by the sudden invitation. He’s here for an investigation, she just interrogated him, and he’s concerned with inviting her to dinner to… preserve some sort of good image? While a formal investigation isn’t opened on him or John yet, needing warrants and authority to do anything more, but one is right around the corner.

“We try to have dinner as a family, my brothers, sister, and I, as often as possible. A luxury we couldn’t indulge in for so much of our lives, I think it’d be a wonderful opportunity for us all to speak and for you to know my family separate from church or police interrogations. So, would you like to join us for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Uh…”

This could be her only chance to talk to him about Cassie before a formal investigation is launched and it becomes a conflict.

But it could already be a conflict, since they are hopefully not far away from launching that investigating.

But, she could use it as a chance to probe around, see if she can unearth anymore evidence in the Jerome case.

But, anything procured without a warrant wouldn’t be admittable, so the most she could do is see it and then know what to go back for once they secure a warrant.

But, even just getting a chance to ask questions without the environment of an interrogation room, might get some truths out. As well a chance to ask about some of the other strange things going on in the county. From roadblocks to the issue of the weird “angel” that assaulted her.

But, they could be dangerous, if they do have anything to do with Jerome’s injuries…

But, she’s not weak and it’s not like she's looking to antagonize them. She can ask her questions and be polite.

But, Pratt would kill her. He literally warned her to stay away from the Seed family five fucking seconds ago.

“Sure, I’d love to,” she tells him, ultimately unable to say no to his earnest little smile.

“That’s wonderful, our dinners are at John’s ranch house, I’m not sure I have anything to write the number down on…”

“I can use the memo app on my phone, what is it?”

“Oh.” He seems taken aback for a moment when she gets out her phone, but recovers to prattle off the address, Dahlia typing it in.

“Did I get it right?” She asks, moving to stand closer to Joseph’s side, so he can see the phone screen.

“Uh, yes, that’s,” he reaches out to touch her phone and accidentally closes the memo app, pulling his hand away like it burned him, “oh.”

Dahlia can’t help but laugh, watching the older man fumble to deal with tech. He’s older, sure, but he’s not pushing his sixties or anything. He ducks his head and she can see a very subtle flush of red flare up his cheekbones. Its the most human he’s ever seemed to her, just an older man who hates phones, embarrassed that he has no idea how to use one.

“Don’t worry, it saved,” she explains, pulling it back up.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Alright, see you and your family tomorrow.”

She tucks her phone back in her pocket and waves bye again, getting on her motorcycle. Dahlia slides her helmet on and starts the journey back home, mind racing and heart heavy with the events of the day.

Joseph sits in the passenger side of the truck, Jacob driving and John sitting in the back, as they leave the police station. It's late, nearly early enough for him to be waking up. John made a grave mistake, trying to punish Pastor Jerome for leading people astray, away from Eden. A noble intention, but he did it out of wrath and anger, letting someone else’s sin fuel his own. His impulses placed them back in the sight line of the police. They can recover from this easily enough, as frustrating as it is. The bigger issue is once again working to reign John in and working to change the junior deputy’s view of them.

The Lamb plays a vital role in the collapse, she was chosen to be the one who brings about the end, how exactly she will do so remains to be seen. But, he’d rather she do it alongside them stepping into New Eden by their side after she helped cleanse the world, rather than doing so in spite of them with no understanding of the gift she was given.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Jacob scolds their younger brother, always protective of the project and them being found out by law enforcement, he’s more than a little irate about John’s mistake.

“Jacob…” Joseph still chides him for cursing, a nasty habit his eldest brother struggles most to break. If Joseph’s being completely honest, he’s not certain Jacob is trying to break it all.

“Pastor Jerome is a fraud, he is leading people astray and spreading lies about The Project, he had to be taught a lesson.”

“Who cares? His people abandoned him for us, John. He can talk all he wants, no ones fuckin’ listening.”

“Oh, so suddenly you’re above corporal punishment, are you going soft on me, Jacob? Do you allow your soldiers to say whatever they please, reward them for their insolence?”

“Jerome’s not a soldier and unlike you, when I teach outsiders a lesson, I’m not dumb enough to let them walk away from it.”

“Brothers, stop,” Joseph speaks over them, not yelling, but his tone stern enough to end their incessant arguing, he makes eye contact with his youngest brother through the rearview mirror “Jacob is right, John.”

“But Joseph-”

“You endangered The Project, our mission, our family; for the sake of satisfying your own wrath. You put all of us at risk and for what? So, you could indulge in your sins?”

“He was spreading lies, telling people you were dangerous-”

“And that made you angry, it made you wrathful. And so you lashed out to make yourself feel better, instead of speaking to me, instead of seeking out the word and confronting the sin inside of yourself, you sought to quell your anger through violence.”

“I’m sorry, Joseph.”

“I know. Righteous anger and swift justice has its place. There will be times to cut off the hands that wrong us, but this was not one of them.”

“I understand… I already spoke with our flock members in the station, they’ll dispose of the evidence and secure Patrick’s freedom. Without it, the investigation will end and he won’t be punished for my mistakes.”

“I knew you’d take care of it in the end,” he tells him, watching the relief flood John with the smallest amount of praise after being scolded, “I invited the junior deputy to dinner.”

Jacob slams on the brakes on a thankfully deserted back road, causing Joseph to jerk against the seatbelt and John to slam his face against the seat in front of him. John yells out from the sudden impact and Joseph turns to look at his eldest brother in confusion.

“God damn it, Jacob!”

“John!” Joseph scolds when his baby brother takes the lords name in vain, he can see a bruise forming on John’s forehead already.

“He tried to kill me!”

“Am I the only one who understands that we’re criminals?!”

“In the eyes of man, perhaps, but in the eye of -”

“Eyes of man are the ones that matter, right now, Joseph! You’re inviting a fuckin’ cop into our lives, into John’s house. A cop who just interrogated us less than a fucking hour ago and you want to feed her for her trouble.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were scared, brother. Jacob Seed, scared of a little girl.”

“Well, its a damn good thing you know better, or that shiner would be the least of your problems, brother,” Jacob nearly spits the word brother, glaring daggers at John.

“Jacob,” Joseph gets his older brother’s attention, Jacob has always been the strongest willed, has always asserted his opinions even if he’d do anything for the family, “are you doubting me?”

“No, of course not, I just don’t understand why you’re doing this?”

“We have cops within our flock, Jacob.”

“Yes, converted cops who benefit us. This deputy can’t walk into a church without puking her guts up, she’s a problem waiting to happen.”

“She has been making a problem out of herself, trying to keep me from purchasing the orchard, enabling the greed of this county.”

“Look, I know it can be difficult to understand, you’ve not heard what I’ve heard. The Voice hasn’t spoken to you, as it has to me, my decisions are not without reason. Reasons that will be revealed in time, the junior deputy is important, bringing her into our flock is a priority. Understood?”

“Of course, understood, Father,” John concedes, using Joseph’s formal title. Joseph looks to his eldest brother, who’s scarred jaw is still clenched tight.

“Understood?” He repeats himself, he knows Jacob wouldn’t go against him, but his willful nature… something Joseph was envious of in childhood now leads to the occasional butting of heads.

“Understood.”

Jacob starts the car back up, driving Joseph and John back to their homes. John to his ranch house and Joseph up to his church, where he has a cot in the back of it. The sun is starting to come up when Jacob drops him off at the church compound, before driving back to Saint Francis.

Eyelids heavy with exhaustion, Joseph is quick to return to his quarters, a headache starting to creep up along his temples. He changes for bed, then kneels before his bed, bowing his head for prayer and folding his hands together. Hands pressed together tightly, his rosary pressing into his skin.

And he prays.

He prays for John to find his way, to battle his sin and win the fight.

He prays for Jacob to one day fully let go and accept the word.

He prays for Faith not to stray from the path.

He prays for his flock and family, he prays for their faith not to wane, he prays for them to be strong enough to weather the collapse, he prays for the persecution of his family to end, and he prays that he can save more souls; specifically the junior deputy. That he can find a way to reach her heart, help her see her gift, and learn the importance of her role before it’s too late.

Then a sharp pain shoots from his temple across the rest of his head, like lightning shooting through his skull. The darkness of his closed eyes fades away into a new world, a vision of New Eden, a paradise he’s been shown and promised so many times he knows the sight of it by heart. The bright blooming pink flowers and modest homemade homes of a commune, a return to nature, to innocence.

His family and flock there, older versions of themselves, dressed in more rustic handmade clothes. Less clear and less certain than last time. But he sees John, Jacob, and Faith with children clinging and playing around them. And he can’t explain the feeling, that they’re all his children but his siblings as well.

The five year old boy with a head of dark curls and blue eyes that looks so much like Joseph as a child, the boy who called him papa.

A girl around three with bright ginger hair, a face covered in freckles. She grins and blinks, sun in her eyes. She reminds him so much of Jacob, head held high with a crown of red.

Maybe a year younger, another girl has straight dark brown hair and big wide blue eyes. Eyes that remind him so entirely of the young baby brother he cooed at as a child.

The oldest of them, clings to an older Faith’s skirt. A young boy of ten maybe tweleve, so much older than the smaller children. Hair dark as pitch, olive skin, and green eyes setting him apart. He looks different from the others, perhaps his family tie not one forged by blood.

His family, those he has now and those he will gain, the family he will be gifted. But, there’s something missing…. Pieces of the puzzle not yet in place.

Weak clumsy fingers grab onto his bed as his vision subsides, the reality of the world he’s still in returning to him. His head pounds and throbs, agony radiating throughout it, as the collapse draws closer his visions are getting more and more frequent. He can only hope as he falls into bed that he’s keeping himself and his family on the right path to find paradise.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #joseph seed #john seed #jacob seed #this is love

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angelicjadamv · 4 years ago

Text

The story so far

One month after graduating high school in 2015 I was finally able to move away from my family. I was 18 and moved to California for college. Fortunately one of the scholarships I earned was accompanied by a summer program that started in the middle of the summer before fall semester. Shortly after settling in a safe, stable environment for the first time in my life I started to get better. A lot better at first. Then life happened, as it does, and 18 years of repressed trauma and abuse broke me. My nervous breakdown ruined my fall semester, I couldn't go to classes or take exams or function as a student anymore. Until this point, being an exceptional student was all I had and basically how I survived. My safe and stable environment now was dependant on maintaining a certain GPA, among other requirements I could no longer meet. I failed one of my main courses because I had a 0 on 2 exams, including the final. When I went home I was put on antipsychotics. Returning to campus for the 2016 spring semester, I attempted to seek more therapy. I wasn't successful in finding a good therapist (for me, therapy is a personal thing. Just because someone isn't a good therapist for me doesn't necessarily mean they are a bad therapist). I did continue to see my 2 psychiatrists (emergency and regular) often as they attempted to adjust my medication to find something that work. My agoraphobia worsened, I stopped sleeping, I could barely eat, I was manic one moment and dissociative the next, SH and suicidal ideation worsened. I was a burden to my friends and loved ones. I made it through this because I had a beautiful support system that I will forever be grateful for, but I ended up taking a leave of absence academically for my second semester, earning no credits and putting my scholarships at further jeopardy. I was allowed to stay on campus because it was clear I was dangerously unstable with no safe environment to return to and because I had incredible advocates looking out for me. I had realized that I wasn't going to get better in time to salvage my academic career and my life, and was mostly clueless as to how I would survive. I had had an internship in my field since I started college, but I earned basically no money. STEM internships aren't really made to be livable for undergrads, so I had mostly been working for experience in a field I would no longer be able to progress in. Bummer. My physical health had taken a huge dive for all of 2016. I basically always knew I was chronically ill, but I had been abused and gaslit my entire life to believe and act like I was fine, I was just a weak baby, I didn't know what real pain or suffering was, seizures were to be ignored, no I didn't have migraines or pinched nerves (um hello SCOLIOSIS), etc etc. And 2016 was the year my body finally started to break, so I knew "regular" jobs weren't going to be a viable option for me, at least not for long.

And thus I became a survival SW. I stayed in college for a final semester, because I didn't want to miss my friends, I loved my campus and didn't know where else to live, I still needed a lot of campus resources. I also kept my internship as long as I could, because I knew I would miss it for the rest of my life. I didn't really go to classes, again, because as much as a desperately wanted to and as much as my advisors moved heaven and earth to try to make it work for me, I couldn't handle it. I was finally able to find 2 great therapists who I started seeing regularly who actually knew how to diagnose and treat me, one at school and one outside. This is also when I met Daddy (Jace) online. After talking for what is probably a stupidly short time, we fell in love and started dating. This is honestly my first real relationship and time actually catching genuine feelings for someone, something that I hadn't thought I was capable of. Despite being happier than I had ever been in so many ways, my mental and physical health was still steadily declining. My migraines and pain were getting worse, I hadn't been able to eat normally in months and relied entirely on medication to eat or sleep at all. Many people recommended mmj at this point in my life, but I was afraid of how it would interact with my other meds. I only smoked occasionally at parties at this point (because no way was I spending my super duper limited money on weed). I wonder if medicating with something that actually worked well for me, like weed, would have allowed me to finish college. Oh well I guess. Because of my inability to attend classes, I had to take another leave for the fall semester 2016. I worked at a strip club briefly, but my health couldn't handle it for long.

I didn't want to go home for the first winter break in 2015, but campus closed and I had nowhere else to go. It was turbulent. When summer 2016 came, I still didn't go home despite having no place to stay. Until a month or so later, it was revealed to me a relative had terminal cancer. I had to go home again. It was worse than turbulent. When winter 2016 came, my relative was in much worse condition. They only had a few months left, and this was probably my last chance to say goodbye. This visit was by far the most traumatic, and more because of my parents than watching a loved one die. At least Jace was able to come meet me for the first time in person. He also got to meet my relative before they passed 🖤

Freshly fucked up by family, I retuned to California at the beginning of 2017. I was mostly taking a break from SW because of my health and was working vanilla jobs as I could (so not much). I had a pretty decent job that I was really good at and had been promoted, but then my relative passed. I started losing consciousness again ( I had many seizures and fainting spells in my childhood and during high school) and had to quit my job. the funeral was in spring 2017, I flew to Jersey to be with Daddy for a few days and then he drove me several states over for the memorial. That was the last time I saw my family. I wanted to transition to online/content creating, but I had no tech knowledge or equipment (even my phone was a potato). In high school I wasn't allowed to have a smartphone, most social media other than what was heavily monitored (and still had 0 experience with platforms sw is popular on besides Tumblr I guess), I didn't really know much about cameras. Way too sheltered and broken to feel like I could start anything. I was now seeing my outside, or I guess regular and only, therapist twice a week and doing treatments that while working for me were insanely (literally) hard. I had been able to get an apartment with roommates at a super discount in return for taking care of their crazy dog, which was a win win for me (he was a good boi just crazy from a bad past and had the worst separation anxiety). The agreement was that I would live with them until the lease was up in September, and then we would reevaluate the situation. Then they both got promoted at their mega corporation jobs. And after their wedding found a really gorgeous apartment in a much fancier part of the city, and paid to break our lease early in June leaving me homeless. I had been fired from my last 2 jobs (probably for being disabled because California is at will employment but who knows I might have been fired from the nanny job because the husband wanted to fuck me). I had no money or anywhere to go. All of my friends were almost as broke as me, so while I had offers to couchsurf at a few of their places they had other roommates who would have been pissed and in a few months they would be going back to school anyways. Daddy and I had been trying to save up to move in together for months, but he was going to move to California. We didn't have any money for that, so instead he asked me to move in with him in New Jersey. Leaving meant I lost my health insurance and my therapist. It was supposed to be much more temporary and we were supposed to move back to California much sooner than we were able to. I try not to be mad at those roommates because being angry doesn't change anything, but it really sucked.

Moving in with Daddy meant we could start our blog! And I was super happy at first, the happiest I could ever remember. But the years had been too hard and my health started to get worse than ever before. Without treatment and so traumatized, my brain and body were constantly at war. I would wake with splitting migraines, throwing up, my chronic pain became completely unmanageable. I started to need weed all the time because it was the only thing that stopped my cyclical vomiting episodes and kept me out of the hospital. My antipsychotics and other meds had been high-key fucking me up (probably shouldn't have been on them in the first place, thank you doctor who also ignored my seizures even when I had one in front of you) and were almost impossible to come off of because the withdrawals. (Seriously, kicking xanax was easier for me than my antipsychotics.) I'm not anti medication or anything, I just know the ones I was on were not good for me anymore. I'd actually like to be on something again, I just need a doctor who actually understands PTSD and DID.

My health continued to be shit for most of 2018, with several ER visits for severe dehydration from vomiting for days on end. We started to make videos and do snapchat and online sessions to be able to make ends meet. Despite being in the worst situation and thus everything being a trizillion times harder, we really loved (and still love 😇) doing SW and creating content. Our fans and clients have been there in some of our darkest moments, just being lovely or pulling through for us when we needed it most. During 2018 and 2019 I became actively suicidal for the first time since I was 13. I struggled with self harm again. I have gotten worse than I ever thought possible. But I wouldn't have made it at all if it wasn't for SW, this community and our supporters.

At the beginning of 2020 we were finally able to move back to California. Obviously, the pandemic severely disrupted many of our plans, especially regarding my recovery. Despite things being delayed or shifted, we are in a much better place currently. I have what I need to get better and I can build a support system again. I will get better.

Talking about things is hard for me. Being open and honest is hard for me. For 18 years I was trained and abused to not be sad or show negative feelings, or talk about upsetting things, and it has been killing me slowly my entire life. I genuinely don't want pity or to make others feel bad, but I do want to give you the chance to get to know me. I don't always talk about things so much. But I'm trying to get better at it.

#angelicjada #oc #about jada

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dalamjisung · 5 years ago

Text

it’s an emergency! ❊ mark tuan

word count: 5147

genre: hospital!au, fluff

member: ER doctor!mark x clumsy!reader

description: what happens when a clumsy artist (literally) falls for the handsome ER doctor?

“We have three from a car crash coming in!”

“Help! Someone help my husband please!”

“He’s crashing!”

The voices screaming around you mashed into one loud noise and you can’t help but flinch, holding your friend’s hand as tight as possible. You didn’t quite understand why you were at the Emergency Care Unit, but your friend insisted– you had taken quite a fall at your building’s stairs and although your felt fine, you hit your head hard enough to worry her. You also think this is her using you as an excuse to meet the people she refers to as her “future bosses.” As a med student, her dream was to work with the Emergency Surgical Team, and this might just be her chance to put her name out there.

“I don’t need to be here,” You whisper, flinching when someone else shouts. “Look at these people, Sora, they really need help! I’m fine! I can just sleep it off–”

“You’re not fine,” She says calmly, looking straight into your eyes, and you know she’s examining you. “You are dizzy and you vomited on your way over here. Chances are you have a concussion; and if I’m correct, which I always am, the last thing you can do is sleep.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Someone calls from behind you and you try to move fast enough to the nearest wall, but your body feels heavy and you are pretty sure you are sweating. You kind of walk, kind of fall on the wall and smile to the doctor that rushes past you, offering you a nod and nothing else.

“This is ridiculous,” Sora mutters. “We’ve been here for hours! Excuse me, my friend needs medical attention!”

“Everyone here needs medical attention, babes,” You chuckle and you start feeling sick with the atmosphere. The noise, the lights, the people; you just wanted to leave. You look at the old lady behind you, and she is oddly quiet for someone who looks like they’ve been crying. “Are you alright, ma’am?”

She shakes her head and points to her shoulder. “I fell.”

You nod, and you wait. It takes another thirty minutes until someone finally walks to you, clipboard and gauze in their arms.

“Hi, how can I help you?” The nurse asks, already pulling out her pen to start taking notes.

“Can I you check on that woman first?” You choke out. “I just heave a headache, but I think she’s in a lot of pain. I can wait.”

“Ma’am,” The nurse looks at you surprised. “I don’t–"

“I’m fine, really,” You mutter. “I can wait ten more minutes, it’s not a pro–“

Just as you are about to finish your sentence, a wave of nausea hits you and you have just enough time to lean over to the trash can, emptying anything you had left on you.

“She hit her head,” You friend states firmly. “She needs help.”

“Nurse, go check on the other patient– I’ll take care of this one.”

You look up to see the same doctor as before. Blue scrubs, white coat, dark hair. He nods at you again, and proceeds to shine a light on your eyes.

“What happened?” He asks, and as your vision returns to normal you look at the embroidery on his coat pocket. Mark Tuan.

“She fell down the stairs,” Your friend says. “She seems to be okay besides the hit she took to the head.”

“How hard?”

“Hard enough that I could hear it.”

Dr. Tuan nods once again and you feel yourself getting anxious. Your breathing picks up and he notices it, but still no smile. No reassuring words. No nothing.

“We’ll have to get a CT scan,” He says to a nurse passing by. “Prep her and send her to me after you’re done.”

It all happens a little too fast for you and the cold and dark imaging room freaks you out enough that you have a mild panic attack. You don’t know what is happening and no explained it to you, simply throwing you around as if you were nothing much, an object. The nurse can’t calm you down and when she offers you a sedative, you hold it in– the panic, the helplessness, the fear, everything. Scared that she’d refer you to the Psychiatric department, you comply silently to everything she says. You know you are not being rational; you know she’d never forcibly drug you unless you are a danger to yourself or others, but they have things to do and you feel incredibly intimidated and alone and you think that cooperating will make everything go faster.

“It’s only a concussion, Y/N,” You whisper to yourself as you wait in another cold and dark room, your friend somewhere around the hospital looking for some food. “Stop being a goddamned coward.”

“Miss Y/L/N?”

Your turn your head too fast and it hurts, but you push it down too. “Yes?”

“Follow me,” Dr. Tuan squints at you and, as he notices your struggle to get yourself moving, offers your his arm as support. You walk to a nearby office, where a nurse and another doctor wait inside. “This is Nurse Han and Dr. Park. He is from the Psychiatric department, and I called him here because there are some things I needed to clarify before proceeding with the diagnosis.”

“S-Sure,” You gulp. “What’s up?”

“It shows here,” Dr. Tuan says pointing to your file. “That this is the fourth time you’ve been here. This month.”

“That is correct,” You offer him a small smile. “Sorry about that– I know they are all minor injuries but–“

“No need to apologize,” And for the first time, you feel at ease, mainly because Dr. Tuan widens his eyes and something about it just makes him look soft. “No need to apologize at all. We just wanted to make sure that these injuries happened... naturally.”

“Uh, what do you mean?” You frown, confused.

“What Dr. Tuan is trying to ask,” Dr. Park steps in, eyes piercing into your soul, looking for the slightest falter in your body language. “Is if you are having some trouble at home– with whomever you live with. We have resources at the hospital to help in cases of abuse and–“

“Abuse?!” You shriek. “No, no no no, not at all! I live by myself, I don’t even have a boyfriend! I’m just really clumsy.”

They all just stare at you, surprised with your outburst.

“I swear I’m okay,” You smile. “I promise. It makes me really happy that the hospital cares for its patients like this, but I’m not suffering from any kind of abuse. I just can’t seem to be able to get the hang of basic human functions like walking down the stairs.”

“Well, in that case,” Dr. Park smiles and he looks relieved. “I’ll get back to my patients. See you later Mark. Miss.”

“Now that we got that cleared out,” Dr. Tuan coughs uncomfortably, his cheeks slightly blushed and you giggle a bit. “You’ll have to stay here for a few hours, Miss Y/L/N. We need to check on you from time to time just to be sure that your condition is stable. During that period, we’ll just ask that you stay awake and in case of pain we’ll give you some Ibuprofen. Thankfully, this is your first concussion and it was a mild hit, so you should be fine in a couple of hours. Nurse Han will take you to a a resting room, and we’ll let your friend know where you are. Any questions?”

“No, thank you,” You sound calmer and more relaxed now that you understand your situation. “Thank you Dr. Tuan.”

“Just doing my job,” He nods, and you nod too, understanding that you won’t get anything other than this. “I’ll check on you soon.”

—————————

The resting room has many beds and you feel slightly uncomfortable in there, trying your best to not make any noise so that you wouldn’t disturb other people. Your friend, on the other hand, chats the time away with some of the other patients, making them laugh their worries away.

“You’ll be a great doctor one day,” You tell her once she’s done her round of jokes and is back by your side. “I am sure of it.”

“I hope so,” She smiles.

“You calm people down,” You tell her. “I really wish someone would’ve calmed me down earlier.”

“I still can’t believe that nurse didn’t help you,” She grumbles. “She’d bad at her job.”

“Don’t say that,” You chastise. “She’s probably tired and overwhelmed with patients.”

“Everyone is, but that doesn’t mean you can slack on the job,” You find gives you a pointed look. “Dr. Tuan seems great though, even if he’s a bit too serious for my liking.”

“He is, isn’t her?” You giggle. “But that’s okay, he’s been really good to me.”

“Oh, I’m sure he has,” Sora wiggles her brows and you slap her shoulder playfully. “What? You can’t deny he’s handsome.”

“Never said he wasn’t,” Now you’re the one wiggling your brows. “But let’s all be professionals here. He is your future boss, after all.”

This leads Sora to talk about medial school and the hospital for a couple of hours, and she barely notices Dr. Tuan coming to check on you a few times. As time passed, you found yourself drawing on the back paper your found next to your bed. As an artist, this is a habit you developed during your college days, when you had to practice still life and movement for drawing class. Doodling makes the time pass faster and before you know it, you are being released. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t dying to get some sleep, but you were glad that you had proper medical attention, or else you’re not sure what would’ve happened.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Dr. Tuan calls as you as putting your shoes. “Here; these for your headaches. You can’t take anything that contains Aspirin, but you should be good with just Ibuprofen. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to contact the hospital.”

“Thank you so much, Doctor,” You smile at him as your friend made sure to listen to every word carefully.

“No problem,” He nods and looks at the bed you just got up from. “Wait, is that your chart?”

“My chart?!” You look back at the paper sheet you left on the bed, completely unaware of the similarities in between the man and the drawing. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even realize it was something important!”

And you finally hear it– a laugh. Dr. Tuan’s eyes shine as he looks at the drawing, laughing in the process.

“This is certainly something I want on file,” He smiles and you finally understand why he didn’t do it before.

Mark Tuan just has one of those smiles that when it’s directed towards you, it makes you feel special. One smile from him and you already felt invincible.

“Can I keep this?” He asks, giggling and oh my god you giggling too. You nod, smiling wide. “Can you sign it?”

You laugh at this and you feel as if the room stops, everyone looking at you guys’ interaction. Nurse Han has surprise written all over her face, and so does your friend. You give him the paper back and thank him once again.

“Well, goodbye then,” You mumble. “I’ll make sure to contact the hospital in case I feel sick.”

“Please do,” He breathes out and is that a blush? “Goodbye.”

The drive home is ridiculously silent and it’s only after you enter your apartment, with your friend in tow, that she starts.

“What the fuck was that?!” She laughs out loud. “There was so much tension in that room, what the actual fuck?”

“You think so?” You ask nervously.

“I know so!” Sora smiles, pointing at you. “You like that, huh? You have a crush on the doctor!”

“I mean…” You try to come up with an excuse but you know that there is no lying to her. “I mean, who doesn’t?! Have you seen him? He is so beautiful– and his smile! Oh my god, his smile, Sora–“

“Ha!” She exclaims. “I knew it! He is totally your type…”

“But am I his type?” You bite your lip, frowning over your childlike behavior. You just met him and you already have a crush on the cute doctor.

“Why don’t you call him and ask?” Sora winks and runs away before you can hit her with a pillow.

Laughing, you go to your room to rest and finish some work.

That wouldn’t be such a bad idea, though…

—————————

You call him three days later but not for the reason he thinks you are calling. Nurse Han runs around the Emergency Unit after him but what she doesn’t know is that Mark is running late because his alarm broke. So you sit in the waiting room, your friend panicking and it all feels weirdly familiar.

“I am so sorry, but I think he’s not here yet,” She says looking around the empty room. Today is a very mellow day at the ER and it feels much better than the last time. “Ah, what should I do?”

“Uh, I am sure any doctor could help us,” You smile tightly, feeling your hands being crushed by your friend. “She’s in a lot of pain.”

“Where is the pain?” Nurse Han asks already testing for head injuries and finding none. “What happened?”

“Goddamned biker,” Sora says through gritted teeth. “Hit me.”

“She was crossing the road and a person riding a bicycle wasn’t paying attention and hit her,” You explain better. “I think she messed up her shoulder when she fell, so I brought her here.”

“Oh my,” Nurse Han inspects the bruises forming on Sora’s skin already and frowns. “Yeah, I think I can call our Physician if you’d like…”

“Nurse Han, what’s going on?”

You turn around in time to see Doctor Tuan walking in the room and there is something about seeing him in casual clothing that made you want him even more. His blue sweater made his hair even darker and you don’t think you’ve ever been this attracted to someone before.

“Y/N?” His shock is visible– and audible, since he doesn’t call you by your first name out of politeness. “Is everything okay? Are you experiencing any side effects? Headache? Dizziness? Let me take a look at you–“

“Wrong patient,” You smile, chuckling. “This time I’m here with my friend, she’s the one hurt.”

“Oh, thank god,” You hear him muttering before he’s composed again. He nods at her and you hold in your laughter. “I mean, not thank god, but I’m glad you’re not hurt... you get me. What’s wrong?”

“She had a collision with a biker and her shoulder seems to have been dislocated,” Nurse Han says and it takes him only some prodding and poking to nod in that familiar way. “Should I call Dr. Wang?”

“Please do,” Dr. Tuan says and then looks back at Sora. “I’ll pop your shoulder back, but you will need physical therapy after. Our attending physician is really good, so I’ll redirect you to him.”

“Oh my god this will hurt so fucki-“ Before she can finish her sentence, the shoulder is back in its place and you think she might have broken your hand. “Shit!”

“I’ll take you to Dr. Wang,” Nurse Han says and looks at you. “Would you like to accompany her?”

“Yes, please,” You smile and get up. Before leaving, you turn back to Dr. Tuan. “Excuse me, doctor?”

“Yes?” He asks eagerly.

“Technically speaking,” You mutter, too embarrassed to look him in the face. “I’m not your patient anymore, right?”

“Uh, n-no,” He says, eyes wide. “Technically speaking, you’re not.”

“Oh, good,” You feel your palms starting to get sweaty and you rub them on your jeans. “Then–“

“GODDAMN IT!” You hear your friend screaming in pain and you jump from the scare, sighing in defeat.

“Then I’ll see you later,” You smile tightly, knowing that you missed your chance.

“Wait, Y/N,” He extends his hand, stopping you before you can turn around. “My lunch time is in a couple of hours, and I know that Jackson– I mean, Dr. Wang– takes his time examining his patients, so would you like to grab something to eat? I know the food here isn’t the best, but it’s better than not eating at all, y-you know? And as a recovering past patient, nutrition is very important so that you can maintain a healthy condition and have a smooth rest… and I could also check for any remaining side effects! I think–“

“I’ll see you then,” You laugh, winking at him as you leave to find your friend. “Dr. Tuan.”

Turns out Dr. Wang not only is best friends with Dr. Tuan, but he is also extremely attractive, and you wonder is it’s something about this hospital specifically– if you remember correctly, Dr. Park was also someone you’d call “attractive.”

“Okay, so this is not as good as it could be,” He smiles widely and you think you are blinded by his light. The contrasting personalities are crazy, considering how shy Mark’s smile is. Mark, you think, getting all giddy inside. I like calling him Mark. “But it’s also not as bad as it could be. We’ll have to work on it for about a month, twice a week, but you’ll be good as new once you’re done.”

“Sounds good, Doctor,” Sora smiles.

“Just to be sure, I’d like to get an X-Ray,” You nod, listening carefully. “It’s already lunch time, so I’m sure it’ll be quick. Nurse Kim can help you and bring you back.”

Then he looks at you.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Dr. Wang asks in a teasing tone, and smiles. “Dr. Tuan asked me take you to his office first, he wants to make sure you are well recovered.”

“Oh, you don’t have to, I’m sure I can find my way,” He nods and you wave goodbye. “I’ll be back to pick her up after.”

“I promise that I’ll take good care of your friend,” He laughs. “Now go.”

Finding Mark’s office was a little too easy and you blush a little as you enter, seeing him behind his desk, immersed on something on his computer.

“Ah, Y/N,” He smiles that shy smile and you are so happy that he’s now comfortable enough to do that. “Come in, I’m just finishing some work.”

“I can come back if you want?” You hope you didn’t sound as disappointed as you feel.

“Not at all, just give me a minute,” He motions to the chair and you sit in comfortable silence. “Okay, let’s take a look at that head.”

You recognize the procedures from before and he nods approvingly, tongue peeking out from his lips and you almost coo at how adorable he looked.

“Everything looks great!” His eyes smile with him, this time, and you smile back. “You are officially recovered.”

You chatter animatedly in his office and lunch hour flies by. You feel a little guilty once you realize that you’ve taken all of his time to eat, knowing that hospital shifts are usually hectic and they don’t have much personal time, if any, so you insist you two walk to the vending machine where he can at least grab a snack.

“I’m really sorry, Mark,” You say for what feels like the millionth time. “I really don’t know what happened and–“

“Time flies by when you’re having a good time,” He says. “I’d say we were having a good time, Y/N.”

You are shocked with his boldness, but you nod, nonetheless. Just as you reach the machine, you see Sora and Dr. Wang talking and you wave them over.

“Y/N,” Dr. Wang says excitedly. “Sora just told me about Saturday! You must be excited!”

“Uh,” You are taken aback with how friendly this man already was with you, but you smile anyways, enjoying the casualty of it all. “Yeah, I’m really excited…”

“What’s happening this Saturday?” Mark asks confused.

“You guys talked all this time and you didn’t mention?” At that, you look at Sora with eyes that promised a lecture after. “It’s her art expo, dude. Sora invited us.”

“Did she, now, Dr. Wang?” You smile dangerously.

“Oh, please, call me Jackson,” He laughs. “You’re not my patient.”

“You’re an artist?” Mark asks and you see the wheels turning in his head. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense… that drawing you made is really good.”

“The one on your desk?” Jackson asks with innocent eyes and mischievous smile.

“That one,” Mark deadpans.

��I’m glad you like it,” You chuckle. “And yeah, I’m an artist. I hope you guys can make it to the exhibition, if you are not too busy with medical things…”

“We’ll be there!” Jackson promises and Mark nods. “Even if we’re late.”

“Promise?” You joke.

“Promise,” Mark says, and you know there and then, that he has no intention in breaking that promise.

—————————

The week passes without you seeing or even hearing from the handsome doctor. Sora, on the other hand, would see him every week, whenever he walked by to say hi during her therapy sessions or when Dr. Wang– Jackson– would talk about him. How those two think they are smooth goes beyond you, but with the exhibit coming up you couldn’t really accompany Sora to the hospital like she wanted you to, and you had to focus on the upcoming event.

“Are you nervous?” Sora asks as you two arrive at the gallery. This isn’t your first exhibit and she knows, having been there for all of them– you know what she’s talking about.

“Yes,” You laugh, looking at around to see your work in every wall. It filled you with pride, to this day, every time you successfully finished a collection. “Oh my, I never felt this nervous before.”

“He’ll love it,” She whispers in your ear.

“How’d you know?” You ask, freaking out. “What if he’s not into art?”

“I doubt that,” Sora laughs and turns you around, to where Mark is standing with Jackson, pointing at the large painting. With them, two other men stand to the side, observing one of your few drawings. “Hey guys!”

You shush her as people start looking at you, them included. Their smiles could light up the room, and you think you might just tell your single friends to attend that hospital.

“Y/N, congratulations!” Jackson shouts excitedly, hugging you tight. His friend, taller than the rest, face palms himself, pulling the doctor away from you.

“I’m sorry for him– sometimes he gets too excited and forgets about personal space,” His friend laughs. “Nice to meet you, I’m Yugyeom. I work with these idiots.”

“Oh, so both of you are doctors, too?” You ask impressed.

“Yeah,” His friend nods. “I’m Jaebeom. I work in the Neurosurgery department, and this big baby here is with Pediatrics.”

“I’m Y/N, and this is Sora,” You shake their hands. “I hope you enjoy the exhibit!”

“Everything is beautiful, Y/N,” Mark finally speaks up. “Thank you for having us.”

“Thank you for coming,” You smile, inching closer. “It means a lot.”

Everything works out wonderfully; you sell a few paintings, the boys stay until the end, and you all end up in a bar nearby, celebrating a successful night. After a few drinks, you and Mark were flirting shamelessly. You both sat in front of each other and, ignoring everyone else, you two talked as if there wasn’t other four people in the table; and they also let you be, poking fun in between them, but never interrupting your chat.

“You know,” Mark says taking a sip of his beer. “There was this one painting I saw tonight, and I was wondering if it had been sold.”

You laugh. “You want to buy my painting?”

“I do!” He defends himself, chuckling a bit. “It was colorful and peaceful at the same time; I loved it. Working in the Emergency Room can be, and usually is, a lot… you lose your faith in the world a bit. I think that if I have that painting in my office, it can help me relax and remember that there is a lot of good out there, too. You know which one I’m talking about? The one with light pink and dark blue and–”

“When’s your birthday?” You ask, suddenly.

“In a couple of weeks, actually,” He squints at you. “Why?”

“Nothing,” You shrug, already texting the gallery’s manager to take that painting off the wall. She tells you she reserved it for you and you relax, knowing you can do something for this man that’s done a lot for you.

“Did you just–“

“We gotta go,” Jaebeom calls. “There was a crash nearby and they need everyone on shift. Did everyone drink?”

They all nod, but get up anyways.

“I drank a third of a beer, I’m good,” Mark says and his face is hard as stone. You sigh, knowing he’s back at doctor mode. “Were there kids involved?”

Jaebeom nods and Yugyeom pushes his cup away, putting his jacket in record time.

“I’m really sorry,” Mark whispers to you as you all rush to pay the bill. “I wish I could drop you home but…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” You promise. “I completely understand; here, give me your phone.”

He does and you give him yours.

“Text me when you get home,” He begs, eyes sad.

“I will,” You smile, hoping to lighten the mood before he has to face more tragedies. “And you text me when you’re done, Doctor.”

“Will do,” He kisses your cheek and winks before running after his friends.

Sora walks with you and promises to let you know once she’s home. Disappointed but overall happy, you change out of your fancy outfit in favor of your oversized sweatpants and sweatshirt. The TV is on but you can’t seem to focus on anything, always glancing at your phone in hopes of receiving a text. You understand that he’s probably really busy, being the head of the ER, so you try to not expect much, deciding that it’s better to not hope for anything then to get disappointed in the end.

It’s around midnight that your phone shines, illuminating the dark room. Luckily, your insomnia kicked in and you were wide awake, replaying the events of the night over and over again, sometimes cringing at something you remember having said, or giggling at a face Mark made. Once the light of your phone washes the room, though, you forget all about the past hours and focus on the present, quickly unlocking your phone.

Mark: you promised you’d let me know once you were home >.<

He used an emoji. You couldn’t believe Mark Tuan, the stone faced doctor of the ER, used an emoji.

You: I’m sorry! I completely forgot!

You: Did you get off of work just now?

Mark: Yeah… I’m sorry if I woke you up

You: It’s okay, I wasn’t asleep

You: You must be really tired right now…

Mark: Not at all! We can talk more

Mark: If you’re not tired, that is!

You: Can you come over, then?

You: It’s an emergency!

And you are very aware that there are a thousand better words to use rather than “emergency,” especially with a doctor that spends his days performing surgery on emergency patients, but you couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.

Mark: Emergency??? What happened?

Mark: Are you feeling alright?

Mark: Send me your address, please!

Mark: Y/N!

You send him the address and for a second you almost feel guilty for setting him on a panic driven mission, but you console yourself with the hope that he’ll like the reward. It takes him exact seven minutes to make it to your house and you worry about him a little, knowing that on a good traffic day, it usually takes fifteen; however, you forget all about it when you see him at your door, hair messy and eyes wild. He is still wearing the clothes he had at the exhibit and you chastise yourself for changing into your sweats.

“Hey–“ You open the door a little bit but he gently pushes the rest of it open, walking in, and closing it with his feet. His hands are on your head instantly, searching for an injury.

“What happened?” He asks and asks you to follow his finger with your eyes. “Do you feel sick? Did you get hurt again? How are you so clumsy, Y/N?”

Laughing, you hold both his hands and put them down, letting it go only when his arms are limp next to his body.

“I’m okay,” You say taking a step forward. It was now or never; you had to be brave. “It’s another kind of emergency.”

“W-what kind i-is it?” His stutter makes you smile, knowing you can break his stone face down.

“Hm, the urgent kind,” Your lips graze his as you speak, and you think he stopped breathing.

“If it’s that urgent why didn’t you call me before?” You can feel his confidence growing as one of his arms goes around your waist, and the other hand grabs the nape of your neck.

“You were busy,” You know you sound lame but it’s true– you were afraid of messing up his work.

“Never too busy for you,” And then he kisses you.

You think his kisses can be compared to his smiles; they are shy and gentle in the beginning, but once he gets comfortable, they are languid and familiar. They claim you in the most delicious of ways– your body, your mouth, your heart,– and all you can do is give; give everything he wants, even if that means giving your whole self. The things about Mark, though, is that although he takes it all, he gives his all, too; and you feel it, through the kiss, how much he wants to be yours. How much he wants you closer, and closer, and closer, until you’re pressed against your wall, trapped in his body.

You pull away first, laughing as he follows your mouth with his.

“It’s late,” You whisper in between pecks. “Why don’t we go sleep?”

“Sleep?” He asks, blinking as if he never heard those words before.

“Or not,” You wink already walking to the bedroom. “Your choice, though you look like you have… an emergency.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” He groans and runs after you. “Get back here!”

Safe to say, you trip on your way down the hall. But it’s okay; you have your stone faced doctor with you.

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

hello lovelies! This is the first story of the General Hospital Series I’m doing for GOT7! How’d you like it? I have been falling in love with Mark more and more each day ❤️ leave your thoughts in the comment section, it means the world to know what you thin of my story :P love you all and thanks for the support!

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jawritter · 4 years ago

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Broken me...

Ch. 11 1/2.. LOL... The deleted chapter... Because tumblr hates me...

Summery: The Dallas Convention couldn't have come at a worse time for Jensen. His world fell apart earlier that morning, but was expected to just act like everything was normal. You and a friend were at the convention for her birthday. Life hasn't been that great for you either, but a forced meeting on stage changes two worlds. Will you be able to put this broken man back together again...

Series Warings: Cheating, shitty marriage, Danneel is a bitch, I unfortunatly have to put that as a warning because some people tend to get turnt up about it if you don’t... Smut, Crying, Suiside Attempt, brief discription of suicide attempt and recovery, depression, hints of self loathing, language. I think that’s it... Suicide Trigger warnings will be placed over each chapter!

Chapter Warnings: ***SUICIDE ATTEMPT*** If this kind of thing bothers you!! This might trigger you!! Overdose, brief discription of medicial Intervention because of suicide attempt.. language, angst, this is overall a tough one yall..

Word Count: 2117

A/N: BINGE READ TIME!! As always all mistakes are mine! Please do not copy my work! Feedback is gold!! Hope you all enjoy this one!!

Want More? Check out my masterlist!!

****MASTERLIST****

Your POV:

Things had seemingly gone well at Jensen’s parents. His family all seemed nice enough. Jensen seemed to be enjoying himself as well. He acted like he didn’t want to leave, but the two of you were headed back to Austin for one more night before you both had to fly back to Vancouver for Jensen to start filming.

It was a roughly a three hour drive from Dallas to Austin. Depending on the traffic. Jensen’s upbeat mood he’d been in sense we got to Austin had seemed to be gone from the moment he got back behind the wheel of the car.

He was quiet on the ride home.

Which was a little unsettling.

You tried to shove it off…

‘He’s just tired. He will feel better in the morning.'

So you kept quiet. Giving him his space. Even though you couldn’t shake the feeling deep in the pit of your stomach that said something wasn’t right..

When you both finally walked back through the front door it was late, almost one in the morning, and you were so tired from the events of the day, meeting his family, to the six hour drive round trip, to your own worrying which you knew was probably senseless, that you just wanted to do nothing more than to fall face first into the bed..

“I’m gonna go grab a shower, and then I’m headed to bed.” You tell him, giving him a peck on the check. He smiled tiredly at you. Reaching over and grabbing your waist, pulling you between his long bowed legs as he made himself comfortable on the barstool in the kitchen..

“Okay, I’m gonna stay up a little bit. Wind down from the drive.” He said, placing his head against your stomach, holding on to you as if he let you as if it were the last time he’d ever have you in his arms again…

That seemed odd, but again you brushed it off…

“O… Okay..”

Jensen stands up, wrapping you in his arms, pulling you into a deep passionate kiss. Making your knees go weak. His grip on you a little tighter than it usually was..

“I love y/n.” He says when he finally breaks the kiss. A strange look in his eyes. Like something in him was…

Off…

Wrong…

Broken…

Missing…

Something that wasn’t there when you arrived in Austin just a few days ago, but you had noticed a hint of it at the dinner table today at his parents house….

“I love you too.” You tell him as he let go of you. “You okay?”

Jensen nodded his head and gave you a tight smile.

“Yeah baby I’m fine, go on to bed.”

Looking back over your shoulder as you walk away you yell back at him. “Don’t keep me waiting too long, handsome!"

You hear him chuckle lightly as you head quickly to your shower.

He was fine, surely you were just imagining things, making something out of nothing because you were tired… Or at least that’s what you kept telling yourself as you took your shower.. Your nerves seemed to be buzzing, and you couldn’t quite figure out why…

After your shower you changed into a pair of pj pants, and one of Jensen old shirts. Crawling into bed you laid there for a few minutes.

The house was quiet…

Jensen still hasn’t come to bed…

You couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong…

That look, the way he was acting all the way home from Dallas. What he did when you got home…..

Panic rises in your chest like a growing storm…

You’d seen this type of behavior before…

How the hell did you miss it?

Throwing the covers off, and shooting out of the bed, run toward the kitchen where you left Jensen, heart pounding in your ears from panic.

You brother acted this way…The last time you saw him alive…

Right before he took his own life…

No one in your family knows why he did it. He never left a note, but he acted all overly happy two days before the night he left mom’s house. Drunk. Quite. Telling everyone he loved them….

He lost the battle with anxiety and depression that night…

You almost didn’t survive the funeral. The two of you were close. Still you never saw it coming. He never said anything. Depression is a silent killer. You learned that the hard way…

You search the entire bottom floor. Calling his name. He was nowhere to be found. You run out to the pool and backyard. He wasn’t there either. You run back into the house heading to the second floor. You see the light on in JJ’s room. You call his name, but get no answer….

Your heart is beating so fast you think it might explode as you approach the door…

With shaking hands you grab the nob, and open the door, looking around the room at first you think he’s not there either.

Walking around the bed you see a pair of boots and legs sprawled out in an awkward position on the floor. A whiskey bottle and two bottles of pills laying on the floor next to his feet…

………………………………………

Jensen’s POV:

Blackness…

Or at least that’s all that was left, until that annoying beeping started somewhere off in the distance, growing louder and louder with each passing minute..

He could hear voices off in the distance, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying..

Many times he’d acted out "his death”. Having played a character for years on TV that had not only died more times than most people could count, but had also gone to hell…Actually he figured that’s where he’d find himself…

This…. He wasn’t sure what this was…

His throat felt like it had been ripped to pieces from the inside out. He was nauseas as hell. His whole body literally hurt. Every joint. Every muscle.

Maybe I was in hell…

He was afraid to open his eyes. Afraid of where he’d find himself…

The more he came to himself, it felt like someone was holding and rubbing his hand.

‘Y/n?’

‘She’s not dead, this isn’t right, something is wrong?’

Slowly things started coming back to him…

Flashes of what happened after he’d tried to end his own life…

You screaming…

Someone he couldn’t see trying to do CPR on him in what he assumed was an ambulance…

Really bright lights and a searing pain in his chest as they tried to shock him back on an operating table…

A tub being rammed down his throat, pumping a thick black liquid into him… Then the same tub pulling out the contents of his stomach…

His entire body shaking uncontrollably…

People running around the table he was laying on yelling at each other… Trying to save him……

No this can’t be real. This had to be a nightmare……….

Slowly he opened his eyes for the first time in what was probably days. At first all he could see was blinding light, and blur as his eyes adjusted…

“Jensen!! Jensen!! Look at me baby! Can you hear me?!!"

Hearing you call his name Jensen looked blindly towards the sound of your voice.. You sound panicked… This was his fault… This shouldn’t be.. He’d done this.. He caused this…

He felt your hand on the side of his face as his eyes adjusted, and the invisible, black weight that was holding him down to his bed started to slowly lift. Letting his eyes adjust to your face…

‘Why the hell did I do something so stupid?! How could I hurt her like this?!’

"Jared, he’s awake, get the nurse.” She said, looking across the room to his best friend. Who he heard run toward the door.

“He’s awake!”

Your POV:

“Y/n you need to go back to Jensen’s, and get some sleep.” Jared said ,looking at you like you might drop dead from exhaustion at any moment.

“The doctors said he’s stable, and when he’s ready he will wake up. This is just the body’s way of dealing with the trauma he’s put himself through."

Jared meant well, but you weren’t going anywhere.

"There is no way in hell I’m leaving him. I’m going to be here when he wakes up.” You say through your teeth. Lack of sleep makes you easily annoyed.

It had been two days since you found Jensen in his daughter’s room. He still hadn’t woken up. The doctors all swear that he will when he’s ready. Part of you feels guilty that you couldn’t see the signs that were right there in front of you. You were kicking yourself for leaving him and going to bed that night. So you were determined to be there when he finally was ready to wake up again.

That, and everytime you close your eyes you see his body seizing on the ER room gurney…

Doctor holding him down, and shoving tubs filled with charol down his throat…

They had to pump his stomach to make sure all the stuff he’d swallowed was not in him anymore…

Three more minutes, if you had just laid there for three more minutes in bed that night before getting up to go and find him, it would have been too late…

You grabbed his hand like you had done countless times in the past two days. Running small circles across his hand with your thumb.

For just a moment you thought you saw his face twitch, but you were probably just imagining things. The longer you sat there watching him, ignoring Jared complaining something about how you were no good to Jensen if you had to be hospitalized yourself.. The more you thought you could see movement…

All the sudden like you had been praying they’d do for a little over 48 hours now Jensen’s eyes fluttered open and searched around the room blindly.

Shooting to your feet so fast that the chair you were sitting shoved back you placed your hand on the side of his face..

“Jensen! Jensen! Look at me baby can you hear me?!"

His eyes rolled back into his head before refocusing several times, fighting to stay continuous as he searched for you, and when he finally found you tears were already streaming out of his bloodshot eyes. Jared was standing frozen next to the window on the opposite side of the room in just as much shock it seemed as you were..

"Jared, he’s awake! Go get the nurse!” You said, afraid to take your eyes off of Jensen, not knowing if he was in pain or not.

His mouth moved, but no sound came out, and you started to panic.

Finally it hit you.

He’s probably hoarse from the tubes.

You grabbed the glass with a straw in it that was sitting on his tray, and poured it into the cup. Sitting the bed up some you put the straw to his lips, and he turned his head away from it..

“Come on baby please! It will help.” You said, and he looked at you like you’d asked him to walk across hot coals.

Then reluctantly put the straw in his mouth. Taking a small test pull at first. Then taking deep pulls on the straw. Realizing how thirsty he actually was. When it was gone he finally croaked the word “more” out. You quickly refilled the glass, and put it back to his lips. Watching him closely as Jared ran back into the room with about four nurses.

“Good. Your drinking. How are you feeling Mr. Ackles?” The charge nurse asked. Checking his vitals and the monitors that were next to the bed.

He said nothing. Just sat there with a death grip on your hand and staring at his lap.

“Mr. Ackles, do you remember how you got here?” She asked, and he only nodded his head yes.

You’d never seen him so down…

So defeated…

It was heartbreaking…

“Well, because of what you did you are being placed on a 48 hour suicide watch before you are released to your care takers. You will be required by law to see a therapist. Since it’s illegal to kill yourself your also looking at a pretty hefty fine I’m sure.” She went on telling him what he had to face in the next 48 hours.. Once it had been settled that he was no longer with Danneel, and he signed the papers putting you as his support system, and caretaker for the extended future, or at least until he was cleared by the therapist. She finally left the room with the other nurses, leaving the three of you alone..

He just sat there. Still clinging to your hand, and not looking at you or Jared in the eye. No matter what you said or asked him. The hospital staff came every hour to check on him, and there was a nurse sitting at a desk outside his door.

Jared went and got his favorite takeout, and brought it back to Jensen and yourself before leaving for the evening to help Gen and the babysitter in hope that he’d eat, but he wasn’t really all that interested, and after a few bites gave up completely on eating it…

Everytime Jared asked Jensen why he wouldn’t talk he’d just point to his throat. So neither of you wanted to press the matter. Afraid it would hurt him worse than help him…

Once Jared was gone Jensen looked at you sitting in the chair next to his bed. Tears running down his face again. The look of someone that was being torched alive.

“I’m so sorry…” He finally got out. His voice so hoarse it was almost a whisper.

You were on you feet in an instant. Dropping the side rail on the bed. He slid over for you to slide in next to him.

He immediately put his head on your shoulder.

Exhausted, broken, and defeated.

Three things he should have never been.

“There isn’t a damn thing you need to be sorry about.” You tell him. Running your hands through his hair. Grateful that you were still able to do this. That you could still reach up, and run your hands through his hair. Touch his face. Feel his breath on your neck.

"I love you Jensen. I’m gonna be right here with you the whole way through this.” You tell him as he nuzzles himself into the bend of your neck.

“I love you to y/n. Please, please don’t give up on me."

Exhaustion was hitting him. Sleep trying to reclaim him. He’d been awake for a long time. You didn’t realize it was almost midnight until you looked at the TV playing silently in the corner..

"I’m not going anywhere, and there is no way in hell I’ll ever give up on you.”

Jensen’s POV:

The biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life still wasn’t an accurate excuse for what he felt like he’d done.. He’d let hurt feelings, fear, and depression lie to him. Convince him that you’d be better off without him..

He felt like he was Drowning.

The little voice in his head telling him over and over again that you’d be better off if he’d never come into your life.. Never came and knocked on your hotel door.. Never pulled you up on that stage.. .

At least then you’d be able to have a normal life.

A life without people stalking.

Taking pictures of your every move.

Social media attacks.

All those things you never deserved.

He’d never get his kids back from Danneel.

He’d always be broken.

Like a Drowning person with no hope he thought he’d find his relief in death. That way the suffocating pain would stop.

In truth it wouldn’t have stopped. He would have just passed it on to his kids, you, Jared, and everyone else that loves him. The scars inside him are permanently there, but that doesn’t mean he can ever give up again. He can never stop fighting. People he loves counted on him to keep going, even when he didn’t want too…

As he fell asleep in your arms he thanked God for another chance.

He knows this battle within himself isn’t over. It’s just beginning to even surface, but at least he knows for sure now that he’s not alone.

You said you’d never leave him. No one has ever said that before and meant it.

He knows though that you mean it.

He will make it up to you for doing this to you. He felt like he owed you his very life. If you’d just gone to bed, and not come looking for him. He would have lost everything.

The thought of losing you is something he never wants to face again, especially at his own hand…

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Tag List: @screechingartisancashbailiff @thecreatiivecorner @aflamboyanceofgays @deanwanddamons @imabitch4jensen @rvgrsbrns @bi-danvers0 @onethirstyunicorn @i-love-superhero @akshi8278 @alanegaming @magssteenkamp @lemondropirwin @squirrelnotsam @hobby27 @spnbaby-67 @mrsjenniferwinchester @defenderrosetyler

binge tag: @sarahbaker2010 @deans-baby-momma

#jensen ackles #jensen ackles fanfiction #jensen ackles fanfic #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles x you #jensen series #dark fic #jensen ackles dark fic #hurt!jensne #hurt!comfort fic #spn fanfiction #spnfanfic #jawritter

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sparrowwritings · 4 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy 14 Writing Challenge Day Eight: Bells

Day Seven -- Masterpost -- Day Nine

Alisaie stood with her back straight and her hands to her sides as she stared at the retreating forms of the Maelstrom private and the small kobold child that followed in her wake. She stared and she willed him to stop walking and turn around and...and have something of himself in his eyes again. Not the emptiness that stared back from the depths of the helmet he wore. Alisaie stood there and the two figures disappeared into Maelstrom headquarters rather sooner than she wished. Ga Bu was still completely enthralled. Nothing had changed since last she saw him. There was nothing she could do to help him.

It was only when she noticed the ache in her now curled hands that she realized that her nails were a hair’s breadth from puncturing the skin of her palms.

Turning her will inward, Alisaie took several breaths and eased loose her fists. The Warriors of Light were still here. They had graciously accepted her invitation to visit the koboldling. But. She would not allow herself to cry in front of them.

They had helped her and others with a myriad of problems, yes. They had agreed to visit Ga Bu apropo of nothing, also yes. They were the closest she’d ever felt to having proper friends, and ones who could handle Alphinaud as well, yes a third time. However, there were too many things for her to focus on to allow herself to open up like that. Especially when Lara and Roger themselves often had far more to deal with than even she needed to. Crying would make her seem vulnerable, and she could not let them see how hurt she was. They didn’t need to be burdened by her feelings.

The chiming of bells from Maelstrom Command, followed by a series of them going all about the port town pulled Alisaie from her thoughts. She turned to face the Warriors of Light and gave a sharp nod. “Thank you for coming. I’m sure that somewhere in there, Ga Bu is also thankful for your presence. I’m also sure there’s plenty more for you to be doing other than staying here.”

To say that Lara and Roger looked pensive would be an understatement. The two were shifting in place and giving herself and each other looks that she did not care to examine. “If you’ll excuse me,” She made to push past the two and was startled to find that both of her arms had been captured. By the Warriors of Light. She turned a bewildered look from Roger to Lara. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The noon bell just rang out,” Lara explained as if she were speaking to someone new to Limsa Lominsa. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Since we’re here anyway, we might as well visit the Bismarck and have lunch besides.” She turned her dark blue gaze to meet Roger’s eye just barely above Alisaie’s head. “What do you think, Roger?”

“Oh yeah, we should go.” The cheerful way he said it made Alisaie turn to face him with a suspicious glare. He flinched, but refused to release the arm he was holding. “They have tons of good food that don’t even have any meat in it. Not a lot of places do that!”

Just what were they planning? “Seven hells, what are you doing?”

“Inviting you to lunch, of course,” Lara said airily while adjusting her grip so that her right arm was linked in a more casual way around Alisaie’s left. Roger pulled a similar maneuver to her right. “If you don’t want to eat that’s fine, but I insist you come with us.”

Experimentally, Alisaie attempted to pull her arms away. As she suspected, the twin grips only held onto her tighter. With an annoyed sigh, she relented, “I suppose I’m outnumbered in this regard. Is this how you two befriended Alphinaud?”

“No, he fell into that one all on his own.” Roger grinned as the three of them started walking down the walkway. “We weren’t even trying back then.”

------

It took far longer for the three of them to be seated and have their orders taken then expected. This was mostly due to what felt like (and perhaps was) the entirety of the wait and kitchen staff of the Bismarck coming by their table and catching up with what Lara had been up to. Each time that one of her former coworkers left, she apologized profusely. “You come to be like family when you work here. So that means everything is everyone’s business.”

Roger nodded enthusiastically. “It’s kind of like that at the chocobo stables too!” He paused, then amended, “Well, with the birds at least. You get to know their personalities so well, the more lonely people start talking to them like they’re actually responding.”

Alisaie leaned a hand against her chin while her elbow was propped on the table. The complementary bread slices had long been eaten, and with how distracted the wait staff was with talking to Lara no one had thought to refill the basket yet. This left her more time to think on the statements of her current lunchmates. She directed her gaze at Roger and lifted a white eyebrow. “Were you particularly lonely at the stables?”

Pink colored his cheeks while he looked in any direction that wasn’t towards her. “N-no…” His pause lasted a relative eon but must have only taken a few seconds. “...Bell’s always been a great listener and Pepper does chatter back at me, I swear. Or did when I took care of him.”

If she wasn’t so upset at life, Alisaie probably would have laughed. Instead she let the smile tugging at her lips grow a little. Lara at least had the decency to hide her giggles behind a hand, though the sound of them were hardly muffled.

He huffed and pointed back at his best friend. “And that’s rich coming from someone who has about a million older friends.”

Taken aback, Lara retorted, “So do you! Most of the Scions are older than us!”

“You still have a ton more, though.”

“I’d have to agree,” Alisaie turned to face Lara. She looked and acted scandalized, but she was probably playing it up. It was an easy enough lead to follow in this playact. “There’s been a veritable parade of staff here to greet you. Enough so that we’ve spent more time talking than eating. What did you do, reinvent some cooking technique?”

With a snort, Lara folded her arms and leaned back against the chair she sat in. “Hardly. I was apprenticed here when I was 14.”

Alisaie blinked owlishly. “They take apprentices that young?”

“It depends. I was something of a special case.”

“Of course.” Alisaie rolled her eyes. “I forgot, you both are so good at everything you put your hands on.”

“Hardly.” Lara returned the eye roll. “I could barely figure out how to scramble eggs back then. But the family that took me in were about to be out at sea for several months and I needed to be taken care of until then. Once I’d gotten over a few hurdles, I took to being a Culinarian like a fish to water. My schooling and lodging were paid for by my work at the Bismarck and here we are now.”

That second statement gave Alisaie pause. A glance back at Roger made it clear that he was already aware of this story. “‘The family that took care of you,’ you say. Not your parents?”

The other girl’s face was unconcerned as she shrugged. “Couldn’t find them since I couldn’t remember who they were.”

“And why’s that?”

“No one really knows. I was found by a Fisher family at the age of 12. All I could recall from before then was my given name and my nameday. And since no one knew a Lara who looked like me...” She indicated herself, making extra gestures at her wavy blonde hair that had streaks of red throughout and her dark blue eyes. “Well, orphans on Limsa sometimes get taken in by families to teach the trade to. I was horrible at fishing, though Tanion was never upset with me about it.”

“Who is Tanion?”

“Er...I guess you could say he’s my adoptive uncle? He was the main one that took charge of trying to teach me life skills. Venor, his partner, stuck strictly to his thaumaturgy but he could be fun to talk to when he felt like it.”

Alisaie was hooked (to pardon the pun) by this new information. She hadn’t heard any of this from the other Scions. Had Alphinaud even known…? She’d ask him about that later. “He sounds like a total pill.”

Lara laughed. “He is! I don’t see what Tanion sees in him, but apparently it’s something strong enough that they’re still together. He sends me letters every so often.”

“I did not know that.” She genuinely didn’t. “Do they not worry about you enough to send more?”

“Kind of? Venor doesn’t seem to care one way or another and Tanion does have some vague worries in his letters, but they don’t ask if they can help or anything. It’s why I don’t really think of them as parents.” Lara shrugged. “It might be a culture thing or it might be an orphan thing. Limsa Lominsa’s descended from pirates. Independence is something you’re taught pretty young around here so I never felt incapable. Anyway, I still respect that they took care of me when I had nothing but my name, so I’ve kept their family one in return."

The idea left Alisaie’s head spinning. To have grown up with people who were less parents and more babysitters until the time came to work. To have worked until very recently to survive. That Lara could come out of it so cheerful was...extraordinary.

Speaking of cheerful, though.

She turned to Roger, who had been quiet this whole time. “What about yourself? You’ve from the Black Shroud, yes?”

He scratched the back of his head while he came up with an answer. “Actually, I was found me in the Black Shroud.”

“What??” Just like Roger knew her side of things, Lara didn’t seem at all surprised by this statement.

“I know right?? There’s all these stories about people getting lost forever in the woods...a patrol of Twin Adders found me and took me back to Gridania. I was 12 at the time.”

Sensing the pattern, Alisaie finished with, “And you don’t remember anything from before then except for your given name and nameday.”

He looked sheepish as he smiled. “Yep.”

“You two accumulate the oddest of coincidences.”

“So everyone keeps telling us,” Lara commented.

“Don’t tell me you also had caretakers who had no parental skills?”

“Oh no, my mom and dad were really nice,” Alisaie let loose a relieved sigh, then she realized what he’d said just as he added, “They died a couple of years ago, in their sleep. I got to be their kid since their other ones were fully grown and they were too old to fight on the front lines.”

She couldn’t help a wince as she offered, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Roger smiled, as if he hadn’t been talking about the death of his adoptive parents. “Thank you.”

“What were their names?”

“Landaeg and Terama Briden.”

“No wonder you were lonely.” She meant it as a serious statement, but Roger seemed to take it as a joke.

“I told you, I had Bell and Pepper to help me out! And Walker too. He’s the one that taught me what I know about Botany. He wasn’t too happy when I started adventuring, but when he found out I wasn’t actually alone in fighting, he let me keep going.”

Lara leaned both of her elbows onto the table with a wicked grin. “And just how much do you leave out of your letters to him?”

His flushed face was more red than pink this time. “N-not a--hey I don’t need to answer you!”

As the two started to bicker, Alisaie leaned back and took it all in. She only had anecdotes of students and stories of the world outside of the Studium to give her an idea of what “normal” was supposed to look like. Being powerless in the face of things far too vast to fight...she was well aware of this phenomenon. She experienced it constantly. And yet, to confront the Warriors of Light and their common background of being too powerless to prevent the losses they had experienced even before they’d started adventuring…

It really felt like they were still on her level. Not up high in the clouds where she could never reach them. They were...she glanced at Lara then Roger in turn. Literally close enough to touch. She had the power to do just that. Deliberately or no, the Warriors of Light had given her a way to feel like there was something she could do, no matter how little it was.

Alisaie could have cried, if not for the sudden arrival of all of the food the three had ordered. She blamed her need to rub at them on how good it smelled and if Roger and Lara suspected anything, they didn’t say.

Bells rang out again as the three ate and continued to talk.

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lifebeginsbyleaving · 5 years ago

Text

Accidental Amnesia Amnesty

Hello, this is for sterek bingo 2020. I have so many other ideas planned and a few other prompts written so I’m excited to finally be posting them!!! I used the tags mistaken identity and full shift werewolves.(I also used fake relationship, but forgot to say.) So this fic changes some of canon, but everything before the cop car scene and everything after the end of the third episode is canon. I tried to make it fit as well as I could, but this is my first time sticking to canon so closely so I might've missed something. Thanks for reading!!!

All he had to do was not run into Melissa. Easy as pie.

"Stiles?"

Shit.

He spun around with a grin as his jacket flapped in his hand. "Hey Mels bells!"

She squinted in confusion at him. "What are you doing here?"

Stiles scratched his arm and scrambled for an answer. "Well as you know, Scott and I are very close. Arguably the closest. Best friends and all. I was just wondering if you've seen him around?"

She looked at him disbelievingly. "You came here, to my work, to ask where Scott is?"

Stiles took a moment to consider. "Yeah. Sure. I mean, absolutely."

"And you didn't think to, I don't know, call first? Or check the house where Scott would most likely be? And last I knew, usually always is right about now?"

"You know, I should've. I guess it just slipped my mind." Stiles tried to look not guilty as he discreetly hid his bloodied hands and jacket behind himself.

She looked at him for a moment. "Right. Okay, you are going to stay right here and I'm going to call your dad."

Stiles startled. "Oh that's not-"

"Save it mister. I don't know what you're up to, but I have patients to deal with so I can't figure it out. Sit down."

Fuck. Stiles went and sat down to await his doom.

His dad was going to be so pissed. Lately Stiles had been butting into cases a lot. Every time he mentioned something he figured out he saw how much stress he was causing his father by him not staying out of it, but there was this buzzing. This feeling that never left him, not even in sleep, that something was coming. Something big and changing. Something that would hurt the ones he loved if he didn't figure it out. With his very recently widened world view to involve the supernatural, it added even more weight to the feeling. It was this indescribable itch at the back of his mind that only seemed scratched when he was figuring out his father's cases before he could get hurt. But he couldn't explain any of that to his father, so he just played it off as the nosey kid.

His father tried multiple times to keep him away from it, and it worked once his father had been reported. Some jackass told his superiors that Stiles was poking around some old files and now he had a lady from the FBI questioning his every move.

Stiles knew he should just let it go, let it all blow over, but there was something about this. This case. This week. This feeling.

This feeling wasn't just him fearing for his life. This feeling wasn't him wondering if he'd make it through his high school years. This feeling wasn't him worrying about his dad getting shot stopping some punk knocking over a liquor store. This feeling he had didn't even go away once Scott was bit, it wasn't that simple. This feeling wasn't just about his best friend suddenly becoming a creature of the night. This feeling wasn't just one simple thing. This feeling was everything.

This feeling told him that everything before now was what was leading up to something, and everything after would never be the same again. This was Scott and werewolves and there was something about Derek. Something he couldn't figure out. This feeling told him that it was important, it was all important. This feeling told him no matter what, he had to figure it out.

Stiles didn't like not knowing, not being able to trust what he saw.

Looking down at his hands and the blood caked on them he wasn't sure he could trust what he just saw. He didn't know if he could trust the memory because everything just happened so fast.

One moment he was in trouble with his father because he found yet another crime scene, the other half of the body, and the next his father's boss was questioning both of them. Soon enough he slipped away and into the unobserved police car to speak with Derek Hale, well more like accuse. Then he was being pulled back out by his father and getting yelled at while the sheriff looked nervously over at the woman raising an eyebrow and looking more and more sure. His father told Scott to stay so he could talk to him, most likely express disappointment.

He heard chatter as he walked back to his car about how they had a more nailed down date of death, it had been a day earlier than they thought.

Soon enough, he was starting Roscoe and watching the patrol car taking Derek away, along with all the answers. The buzzing, the feeling, was back. The next second he was shifting into gear and following behind the car.

The next hour happened in the blink of an eye.

He was thinking about how the girl/wolf was buried then, there was a big, snarling blur and the patrol car was shoved off the passing bridge.

Stiles swerved to the shoulder before the bridge.

By the time he was looking down to the bottom of the stream, Derek was dragged from the car.

By- by something Stiles couldn't believe. Scott being a werewolf was one thing. That- that hulking scarred beast with hollow red eyes was another.

Stiles stood frozen in the flash of movements as the monster bashed Derek's head against a rock and raked his claws down him as he fought. His hands trembled as the monster's claws dug into the back of Derek's neck and Derek's arms went slack, he stopped grappling with the beast's terrible paws.

It's giant jaws cracked open and it spoke, horrifying Stiles further.

"Forget or you will die like her. You will die like your sister."

Stiles' mind raced to the bat in his Jeep.

He scrambled to get it and in doing so he brushed the string of flowers he had taken from around the body.

A truly stupid idea flashed in his mind as he remembered an article about wolfsbane.

He saw the flower wrapped rock sail and for once his aim was good enough.

It landed with a similar thud as the stone in Stiles' belly as the beast looked down at it then directly into his eyes.

It tilted it's head and sniffed the air, and still he knew this fear, this pants pissing fear, wasn't the feeling he was dreading.

In the blink of an eye he couldn't see the glowing red anymore, but he could still see the stare even as he clamped his eyelids shut.

When he opened them again he saw red, trembling red. The overhead system called out for a doctor of some sort, but all he heard was the sickening crack of skull against rock.

Over- Crack! And over- Crack! And over- Crack! And over- Crack! And over- Cra-

Stiles bolted up and ran.

He threw open the bathroom door and began scrubbing at the blood coloring the swirling cold water. No matter how hard he cleaned his hands it seemed more blood kept pouring onto them.

Two men walked in while talking.

"-Hale is in stable condition."

Stiles was brought out of his thoughts and cycle of seeing himself fail at holding the blood inside Derek's body.

"I don't know how he made it. That kid is a miracle. Some of the injuries weren't as bad as originally thought. Gave the EMTs a real scare with all the blood, I heard. And he's not even in the ER any more, he's in 309. You should see th-"

Stiles was out the door in an instant.

He knew exactly where the room was.

As he went by Melissa, thankfully distracted by an urgent patient, he hid until he could dart around the corner.

He tried to as calmly as possible, run to the room.

Once outside he barged right in. His father wouldn't be here yet, but there wasn't any time to waste. He would be soon.

Looking at the pale man in front of him, everything stood at a stand still. He stared at him and thought for what felt like hours.

What if he woke up? What was he supposed to say? 'Hey, you know I hope you don't hold it against me that I accused you of murder.'

Oh God. Stiles had a fear inducing idea.

If the murdered woman was a werewolf, what if she was murdered by that beast? And Derek was a werewolf too, did that mean- the murdered lady was Derek's sister, and the one the beast was talking about? Stiles accused him of murdering his sister?!

Holy shit.

He so didn't kill his sister. He wasn't the alpha. He wasn't the threat. Or maybe he was. If he was a werewolf he could still be a threat.

Stiles studied him.

Right then he didn't look like a threat. He didn't look scary. Hell, he didn't even look like a werewolf. He looked- broken. And scared, and hurt. And my god Stiles had never seen someone look so sad in the peacefulness of sleep.

It made him wonder if he laid his hand over his if it would comfort him, if he was the type of sad that meant he was just lonely. He looked at Derek and remembered the papers and stories.

His own face twisted in sorrow.

He looked at his prone healing form and knew.

Derek was the type of sad that knew loss. He knew it better than he knew himself to the point that who he was might as well have been added to the body count of people lost to him.

Stiles ached for the man he, up until moments ago, thought and accused of murdering his own sister.

He came closer and stood next to his bed.

The feeling felt wrapped up with Derek some how. Like he was vital to figuring it all out.

He lifted a hand to offer comfort.

The monitors beeped faster and Stiles looked over at them.

When he went to check Derek's face his eyes were open, and glowing electric blue.

"Jesus!" Stiles ripped his hand back.

He looked confused, and alert. "Where am I?"

"Warn a guy!"

"Where am I?"

Stiles huffed. "Where do you think genius? The hospital."

"Why am I here?" He still looked confused, but more calm.

Stiles frowned. "You don't remember the accident? Or the-"

"I was in an accident? Were you there?" Derek's eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "You were there right? You held my head and cried and cursed the ambulance for taking so long."

He paused.

"Who are you?"

Stiles was taken aback. He squinted. "Derek?"

Derek looked at him with a contemplative look, then looked at the tubes going into him with concern. "Who's Derek?"

Stiles didn't have time to process his shock as the door swung open and his father marched in.

"Stiles?!" His father looked furious. "Mieczysław Genim Stilinski!"

Derek's eyes went wide.

Stiles quickly grabbed his hands to cover his claws.

His father took a brief pause at the hand holding, but quickly schooled his face.

Stiles winced. "Hi Dad?" He felt Derek's claws retract.

His dad turned to the woman with him.

"Save it Sheriff. I see the complaints about your gross disregard for procedure by involving your son aren't unfounded. Pray, do tell me there is a reasonable explanation why your own son is in the room with a murder suspect? After the body, the second half that is, I only needed one more reason for your review. It seems now I have one."

Stiles' wide eyes quickly became hard with determination.

Derek looked at him and immediately knew what ever came out of his mouth was going not going to end well, despite knowing him for less than three minutes.

"I have a perfectly reasonable explanation."

His father covered his face with his hand and his shoulders raised to tense against the incoming response.

"Derek is my boyfriend."

Stiles' face was filled with conviction, but the the other three surrounding him went wide with shock.

The sheriff's hand fell from his face as he gaped at his son, but soon enough he turned to Derek. Gone from his gaze was the confusion, now all that was there was a murderous edge as he stared right into Derek's soul.

Derek swallowed and turned to Stiles. "We are?"

The confusion was back ten fold.

"Stiles if this is one of your tricks or schem-"

"Derek doesn't remember anything." Stiles blurted.

All eyes turned to Derek.

That wasn't true. He remembered waking to pain and someone holding him in their lap. Repeating over and over, 'You're going to be okay. We're okay.' He remembered shiny brown eyes and moles. He remembered the hammering of a heart that some how calmed his own as he faded in and out of consciousness. He remembered holding a hand as his body felt like it had been drained of too much to recover from. He remembered thinking he had to hold on, or maybe he was told that.

He remembered having an anchor to reach for.

He remembered all of that but he kept quiet.

The sheriff once again turned to him. "Is that right?"

Derek tried to clear his dry throat. "Which part, sir?"

He fixed him with a hard glare. "Both."

Derek looked to Stiles and considered. He didn't remember anything, so he didn't know if what he said was true. Stiles turned away from his father to look into his eyes and he gave him a very meaningful look as squeezed his hand. Like, 'Hey, agree with everything I say please!'

He looked at him and he couldn't muster up love. When he had looked at the sheriff he felt fear and respect, but looking at Stiles there was no love or even adoration. There was something there though, it felt like he trusted him. He didn't know if it was his face or his eyes, or maybe even that the only memories he had included him.

He turned back to answer honestly. "I don't remember anything before I woke up, and I don't know if we are together. I didn't even know my own name before he told it to me."

The woman spoke up. "I'm sorry wait a second, weren't you the one that found the body. Then you reported Mr. Hale? You reported your own boyfriend?"

Stiles looked at her and narrowed his eyes. "Wouldn't you report your boyfriend if you thought he murdered a lady? I was raised by a cop, not a monster."

His dad came farther into the room and showed obvious unease and pointed looks towards where their hands were still intertwined. "So why are you here now? If Derek really did murder that lady-" He gave Stiles a firm, but consoling look. "I will find out. And he will go to prison."

Stiles felt Derek tense, so Stiles tightened his grip. "He didn't. He didn't kill her."

The FBI agent gave him a cutting look.

His father pushed out a breath as he shook his head. "Kid, you're killin me here. You just told me he did. We literally just came from the crime scene you found and told us he did it."

Stiles set his shoulders. "And now I'm untelling you. Some new information came to light."

Stiles saw the glint of light that every once and awhile reflected off of his father's badge and into his eyes. "New information? Who's your source?"

"I am."

His father gave him a dubious look. "We can hardly take the word of a teenager over evidence. You, yourself found the other half of the body on his property! Stiles you're not dumb, look at the evidence. You might think you care for him and want to protect him, but we can't disregard evidence on the word of a significant other." It looked like every time he had to refer to their relationship, it pained him. "Much less an easily manipulated teenager with an older boyfriend." He gave a pointed, murderous look to Derek. "Which will be dealt with."

Derek turned to Stiles and now that he was more focused he could see the obvious youth that the curiosity in his eyes had hid before.

Stiles stood considering for a moment, then he let go of Derek's hand to face his father. "I know he didn't do it because on the way out I heard Ella say the time of death was a day earlier than you thought."

His father once again looked disappointed. "Stiles what does tha-"

"And he was with me that day."

The FBI agent looked skeptical. "The entire day?"

Stiles addressed her. "I went to school that Thursday, but he saw me right away after. And the medical examiner, Ella, said she didn't die till later at night anyway."

His father once again looked harsh and his face darkened. "How late did he stay?"

Stiles closed his eyes and hoped he wasn't pulling Derek out of the frying pan and into the fire. He looked into his father's eyes. "I knew you'd get off at four, so he left at three. So there was no way he could've killed her."

Derek looked shocked at the new information.

Stiles nervously went to scratch at his head with his still shaking hands and in doing so, brought his flannel away from his body.

The homicidal look his father had melted instantly into one of worry. "Is that blood?!"

Stiles looked down to his t-shirt where a spot of drying blood was causing his shirt to stick to his body. Stiles quickly pulled his hand back down so his flannel would cover it once again.

His father rapidly approached him and ripped his flannel away to inspect the large stain.

Stiles pushed his hands away. "Dad I'm fine."

He quickly grabbed Stiles' hands and looked at the blood still wedged under his nails and he pulled the almost dripping jacket from him.

He looked up with wide frightened teary eyes. "Where? Where does it hurt son?" His voice was commanding despite how it shook.

"I'm fine."

He shook his head and grabbed Stiles' arm.

He looked at the FBI agent as he walked past. "Watch the suspect." He thought to himself, 'So I can murder him later.'

Stiles was protesting being drug behind, but his father simply yelled out a very loud, distraught, "Melissa!"

Stiles saw her look to them right before he was shoved into a different room.

"Sit."

"I'm f-"

His eyes were wild. "If you say you're fine one more God damn time, I'm gonna lose it Stiles! Why the hell are you covered in blood with shaking hands then?"

Melissa came in with a concerned look. "What is it John?"

John just pointed where Stiles was standing near the bed before speaking, "Fix him." He backed away to give her space.

"I'm alright, you don't have to worry."

She turned to Stiles with a puzzling look, but as she scanned him she caught sight of the blood and her eyes went wide just like his father's had. "Oh my god!"

"It's okay."

She ripped his shirt up and away and in her panic she smoothed her bare hand through the blood. She searched for a moment longer and then turned to John. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"I told you I wa-"

His father started to pace and gesture as he talked, "No. No, you fix him! You find what's wrong. He's lying, or hiding it. I don't care if you have to strip him naked like you used to for bath time with Scott! You find what's wrong with my boy! I don't know what's wrong. He hid it from me, I didn't know he was hurting!" He looked at her with a mixture of desperation and concern. "He's covered in blood and he needs to be okay. You need to take my boy and make him okay! My boy is hurt Melissa." His voice broke as he said the last sentence.

Stiles grabbed Melissa's arm and looked into her eyes. "Go back to work, I have to talk with him. I promise you I'm fine."

She nodded, already knowing he was, and left.

"Dad."

His father came near as the door closed and once again his shirt was pulled up.

Stiles placed a hand on top of his. "It's not my blood."

His father looked at him bewildered.

Stiles sighed. "I followed the police car. I was there when the accident happened." He hesitated for a moment. "I didn't see the driver or the truck's plate number, I just saw a big black blur hit the car off the bridge from the side." He took some solace in the fact that at least that part was true. "They drove away as soon as they realized they hit something."

His dad still had a crease of worry in his forehead.

Stiles thought quickly on his feet as he pieced together his story. "I heard Ella on the way out and figured out that it wasn't Derek. So I followed the car to get everything straightened out at the station. But then the accident happened. I went down to check on him and there was just so much. It's not my blood, it's- it's his. I tried- I got there as soon as I could." Stiles thought about the blood pouring and how the only reason Derek was even in that car was because of him and his eyes began to tear up. "There was so much blood dad. It was everywhere. I- I tried- I thought he would die-" His tears started to spill. "God I was so worried he would die in my arms- that he would die and it would be my fault."

His dad shook his head, but he just continued, "I turned him in for something he didn't do. I put him in that car. I-I - I would've been the reason he died." Stiles' words began to blur together as he spoke faster. "I would've been the one that killed him. His blood would've be- God the blood. There was so much blood. It was everywhere. The blood." Stiles' ears started to ring as he looked down at his hands and felt the sticky warmth he had washed off. "The blood dad. The blood dad. The blood. The blood." Stiles couldn't breathe.

His father pulled him into his arms. "Calm down son. Breathe. In and out. He's fine. You hear me? Derek is fine. You're fine too, you're here. With me. It wasn't your fault. You're gonna be okay. Just breathe for me boy."

"I- I can't. T-T-the blood. The b-b-blood dad."

His father pulled back out of the tight hug and gripped his hands. "Look Stiles. Look at your hands. There's no more blood here."

Stiles tried to focus on his hands and his father kissed his knuckles with teary eyes. "There's no blood Stiles. He's okay."

Stiles focused on his father's hands entwined with his and he tried to calm his breaths.

A few moments passed as he struggled with his lungs.

He nodded to his father and they both exhaled loudly.

Stiles crumpled in exhaustion and his father guided him to the floor as he pulled him back into himself. The sheriff rested his back against the nightstand and Stiles settled in between his legs.

The sheriff hooked Stiles' head underneath his chin. "We're going to have to talk about you and Derek, but right now I just want to know you're safe and out of trouble."

His voice was a soft mumble, "You can't protect me forever. I know it's your job, but sometimes I'm going to do things you don't like. That you think are too risky, but it's just me living my life."

The sheriff closed his eyes and felt a bone deep sorrow. "God, your mom would know what to do, because all I want to do is go into that room and shoot him. FBI be damned, he- he touched my boy."

Stiles internally freaked out and shook his head. He couldn't get Derek off a murder charge by setting him up for sexual assault of a minor charge when he hadn't done either. "No. He never- we never- Derek would never do that. We kept in touch long distance and when he came here that night was the only night I was able to see him. We just played video games and talked. I've never even kissed him."

The sheriff let out a relieved breath. "That still doesn't change the fact that he is twenty-three and you are sixteen." He could tell Stiles was about to say something. He thought about how upset Stiles got when he mentioned Derek being hurt. "But, I can tell how much you care about him. I am in no way condoning this. I am not okay with you being together, at all. I want this relationship to stop immediately. But I do see your care, so I won't kill him."

He tried for a joke, but they both knew if he ever found out that anything had happened he wouldn't hesitate.

"Okay."

They sat in silence for a moment longer.

Stiles worried at his lip and curled his fingers into his uniform. "Hey Dad?"

"Yeah?"

He decided not to look up at him. "Do you care? I mean I know you've said- but like sometimes it's different when it happens you know?"

"What are you talking about?" He asked with fondness.

"Do you care that he's..."

The sheriff pulled him tighter to his chest. "No. Don't you ever think that. If Derek was a nice boy your age and not a murder suspect I'd be inviting him to Sunday dinner. I don't care what your sexuality is- hell me and Melissa have a bet going of when you and Scott will get married. I don't care if you date boys instead."

Stiles relaxed slightly. "And if I want to date girls too?"

"I love you Stiles. Who you love won't change that." His father kissed the top of his head.

"I love you too pops."

They both basked in the comfort of the other for a few more moments.

"Alright we should get up. You have a lacrosse game later and I'll have plenty of paperwork I'm sure. Plus we have to take your statement, I don't know if it will clear his name though. His amnesia complicates things. Besides my back is getting sore."

"Will you need help getting up old man?"

His father pinched his side. "Oh it's like that is it?"

"Sorry I couldn't hear you over the creaking of your bones."

Stiles jumped up and away as his father swatted at him. The sheriff held out a hand and Stiles helped him up with a smile.

Stiles went for the door.

"There's still something you're keeping from me."

His heart sank.

"I don't know if it has to do with Derek or his sister or what, but Stiles you don't have to lie to me. No matter how grown you get it will always be my job, and my highest priority to protect you. I could never lose you."

Stiles nodded his head. "Yeah I know that Dad. I could never lose you either."

Stiles turned the knob and they walked out.

With all the questions his father and the FBI agent had for him Stiles was only able to catch back up with Scott right before the game.

He had decided not to tell Scott anything so he could focus on the game more. He decided it was a problem for another time. Now he needed to make sure Scott didn't shift or kill anybody.

The game went smoothly, well as smoothly as it could've. Stiles was just glad everybody was alive and Mr. Argent hadn't shot Scott.

Everything was great till his father got a call. Ella determined that the cause of death for Derek's sister was an animal attack. Stiles was relieved he was let go, but he knew he had to let Scott know. He wasn't looking forward to that.

Stiles didn't have enough information, and he definitely didn't want to get Scott involved in something he didn't know enough about.

He only told Scott that Derek was let go and he tried to push it from his mind.

He felt bad not taking to Derek after he had lost all of his memories and Stiles had claimed to be in a relationship, but his father was serious. If he so much as heard Stiles and Derek were in the same room as each other he would arrest him.

It was as forgotten as it could be, until Scott had a dream about killing Allison.

Scott wondered about maybe having Derek teach him and with his current state Stiles had to shut it down.

It only worked until Scott saw the man from the bus. Stiles tried to convince him to keep on like normal, to not do anything drastic till they could find out more. He convinced him to not cancel his, now group date, with Allison and to act normal.

But Stiles knew his best friend. If there was a chance Scott would hurt Allison and that Derek could help him not, he would take it.

That's why Stiles was disobeying direct orders from his father and parking Roscoe on the abandoned Hale property. He exhaled heavily. Best to get this over with.

The Jeep door creaked and slammed behind himself.

Derek quickly came out of the front door with a small smile already on his face.

"Scott is going to be here after he gets off work and he can't find out that you don't know shit."

Derek's eyebrows fell, but his lips quirked into a small amused smile. "Are you always this blunt and blatantly disrespectful of social decorum?"

He didn't even stop to be offended or consider. "Yes. We need to make a plan. He can under no circumstances know."

Derek easily jumped on board. "What does that mean? What can't he know?"

"He can't know that you don't know stuff. We went over this, keep up. We don't have all night." Stiles fidgeted.

Derek nodded. "Okay." He opened his door more. "Then you better come in and explain some things. Like who Scott is."

Stiles looked distrustful and unease set his shoulders.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just you well, you you is way more grumpy usually."

Derek frowned. "I'm grumpy to my boyfriend?"

Stiles' eyes widened for a second. He had forgotten about that for a moment. "You're grumpy to pretty much everybody, dude." They walked inside the house and he shut the door behind them.

Derek took a second to think as Stiles checked out the house.

Stiles spoke suddenly, "Oh! Yeah, don't forget to do that with Scott. Be grumpy, slightly mean, and entirely intimidating. Like you eat infants for breakfast."

"I act like I eat infants for breakfast?" He looked displeased.

Stiles didn't think before answering consolingly, "But in a hot way."

Derek opened his mouth and then shut it. He avoided eye contact and Stiles swore his cheeks turned light pink.

Stiles realized what he had said and cursed internally for when Derek remembered everything. That reminded him. He should ask how he's been, but first he had to figure everything with Scott out.

He told him everything that had happened so far. The game, Derek trying to help Scott, them accusing him of murdering his sister, assuring him he didn't kill his sister, the hunters, about Allison and her father, why Scott couldn't know about them dating, and especially about Scott's dream. Everything he thought Scott might talk about he covered.

Stiles took a few deep breaths after his info dump. "Any questions?"

Derek looked uncertain. "What happened with the accident?"

Stiles had left that part out, he didn't know if he could talk about it. Derek smelled the fear, and anxiety.

"We don't have to talk about it if you can't."

Stiles took a deep breath. "Nah dude, it's fine. I was following the patrol car when it hit you. This big- well I still don't really know what it was, but it was terrifying. It dragged you out of the car and- and it hit your head." Stiles' face looked confused. "Then it dug it's claws into the back of your neck. It-it looked up at me and-"

As Derek watched Stiles talk he got a distant look in his eyes. Derek reached out a hand and held onto his shoulder.

Stiles' eyes immediately snapped to his and there was a flash of fear before it melted to appreciation. Stiles took in a few breaths and continued more steadily, "It looked up at me after I threw a rock wrapped in wolfsbane at it. It said, 'Forget or you'll die like your sister.' I think it took your memories somehow. Whatever that beast was took them for a reason. You must've known something that it didn't want you too. I think whatever it took will be important. And it will be important to keeping Scott safe, so I'll help you try to remember. I think it had something to do with your sister. I think that thing hurt her and doesn't want you to figure out why. But even that doesn't make complete sense, why not kill you?"

Stiles was looking at the other side of the room with searching eyes that Derek could almost look through to see the cogs moving. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth in consideration and pulled Derek's focus with it.

He released his shiny red lip and Derek looked back to his eyes dazed. "And this thing with Scott. His dream. The person that attacked the bus driver wasn't Scott, no matter what happened to him I know he would never. Well, I hope. I don't think it was you, but I guess I don't know that for sure. However, this beast, the thing from the accident could've done it. It's the most likely suspect, but I still don't see the motive. Or why Scott is involved. Maybe this thing knew he was a werewolf and wanted something. There's just too many blanks right now. We need more evidence. We need to figure out what, or even more terrifying, who the beast is. We need to find out what it wants with your memories and wanted from your sister and what it wants with Scott. All the while keeping the police, namely my dad, oblivious. Also Scott and you both have to stay away from hunters and not provoke them in anyway until we can figure out more. And Allison. We can't let Scott hurt her. I know my best friend, he would never kill her, but he did attack me, so may-"

Derek looked alarmed. "He attacked you?!"

"Yeah. It was soon after he was bitten though. He's gotten a bit better. I don't think he would attack Allison, but I won't bet her life on it. You need to help him."

Derek furrowed his brows. "How? I don't remember anything, much less have any of the answers to things."

Stiles started to pace. "Okay. You have better control than Scott. Even now. How are you doing it? Scott said it's getting more difficult the closer it gets to the full moon so how are you doing it?"

Derek looked down at his fingers. He had noticed that he had been feeling the urge to shift more. "I don't know how to control it really. It just happens. When I feel my claws about to come out I just stop."

Stiles made a frustrated noise. "Yes, but how do you stop?"

Derek thought about it. In the time since the accident whenever he's felt pain or been stressed trying to remember he's felt the urge to lose control, but he didn't. Derek focused trying to figure out what it was. He didn't know it just happened. He would calm down. He looked up to Stiles and opened his mouth to tell him that, but he stopped.

Stiles.

He closed his mouth again. Whenever he was stressed about the accident he thought about Stiles holding him. Whenever he didn't know what to do he wondered about Stiles and what he was doing. Stiles was his anchor.

He didn't know where that word came from, but it was the only one that seemed right. Maybe he was remembering it.

Stiles let out a breath. "Nevermind, I'll try and figure it out. Let's focus on something else. How are you? Have you remembered anything else?"

Stiles was still pacing.

He had tried to remember. To remember about his sister, or who might have hurt her. He tried to remember anything about his life, but when he looked himself up he stared at the picture from the article about the fire and felt nothing personal looking at the happy large family. He felt sorry for them, he felt sad at the injustice of so many dying, but they didn't seem like his family. He couldn't remember any of their names or anything about them. He tried to remember about other things too. Like where he was before he came here. If he had a job that was wondering where he was. He had a phone, but he couldn't remember his password. Thankfully his computer was unlocked, but all he discovered from that was his porn taste and that he watched a sad amount of Netflix.

The more he found out about his past he wondered if he wanted to remember. If he wanted to remember all of that pain, the misery, the loss. Even his own boyfriend said he was grumpy. Maybe this was a chance to start over, to be better. The old Derek didn't seem like he was doing any good for anyone. Maybe he could. He could protect Stiles, he could help Scott.

"Not really. But would that even be so bad?" He tried to joke lightly, but Stiles whirled on him.

If Derek didn't remember he wouldn't be able to teach Scott and that couldn't happen. Not to mention if Derek didn't remember what the beast took it could kill all three of them and the hunters would have even more of a shot at it. Besides, it was Derek's life. He couldn't forget that. "Yes, Derek! Yes it would be! You are the only person that knows anything about this shit! There are multiple people and things out there trying to kill my best friend and I! Scott needs to learn control or he could hurt Allison and that would destroy him! We need you. We need you to remember."

Derek still didn't look convinced and Stiles already felt guilty for what he was about to do. "I need you." Stiles came closer and grabbed his hand. "I need you to come back to me so you can keep me safe. To keep Scott safe." Stiles stressed about using his emotions like this and about when Derek remembered.

Derek's face softened. "You're right. I'll try my best. You don't have to worry." Derek pulled him into his arms. "I'll keep you safe." Derek picked up on the panic from the man. "What's wrong?"

Stiles allowed himself one more moment to freak out before pulling himself together. "Nothing." He relaxed and practically slumped against Derek as strong arms held him. Stiles gripped the man back just as fiercely. He didn't know the last time anyone had hugged him, but Stiles wanted to at least give him this one.

When they finally pulled back Stiles got back on track. "I've been looking up memory information and I found some things we could try. If you're up for it."

"Yeah we can try it." Derek led them to a soot covered green couch, that despite it's ratty appearance, was quite comfortable.

They both sat and faced each other while they went through multiple exercises, but all he got was vague notions or feelings and that he liked vanilla ice cream.

"I don't think this is working." Derek was frustrated. He put a hand to his aching head.

Stiles caught the movement. "Are you still healing?"

"Yeah. Most of the bruising and broken bones from the crash healed, but there are still some slashes and the back of my neck still hurts."

Stiles frowned in concentration. "I'll look into that too. Do you want to try another exercise? We have time for one more before Scott gets off work and I have to leave."

Derek nodded.

Stiles pulled his lip into his mouth again and Derek was so distracted by the spit coated red he almost didn't realize it was moving.

"Oh! I've got one. I think this one might work, but you really have to concentrate."

Derek nodded distractedly.

"We can try and remember your family." Stiles looked around the room and amended. "From before, before everything happened. Focus on the house. On remembering what it looked like before. What it sounded like. It was probably pretty loud with so many people in one house. Maybe the floor boards creaked." Stiles took in his blank expression. "Close your eyes and remember it."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "You really think that will work?"

Stiles looked exasperated.

"I'll look stupid just having my eyes closed."

Stiles rolled his before closing them. "There? Will that work?"

Derek closed his eyes. "Fine."

Stiles continued, "Picture a spring day, like now. The old leaves would've been dull crisp brown on the ground as new ones grew. You could hear the wind blowing through the trees."

Stiles was good at this. Derek could feel the wind on his face almost.

"People moving around in the house. Your mother maybe making something, your favorite cookies. You could feel the cool wooden floor underneath your feet. The house feels pleasantly warm. The sun peeking through the trees and streaming into the windows." Derek gripped the edge of the dirt covered velvety couch and tried to remember while listening to the sound of his voice. Stiles' heartbeat was another soothing sound as he tried to lead him through the scene. "You could smell the cookies baking along with the smell of your house, your home." Derek inhaled trying to get a whiff of it, but all he got was smoke and the enticing scent of Stiles. "Picture your family gathered around the table and eating all of your favorite foods. Tasting them all." Stiles swallowed and licked his lips before continuing. Derek wondered what he tasted like. "Everyone around the table. You're happy and surrounded by your family. Do you see it Derek?"

He didn't. He didn't see any of what Stiles described. He opened his eyes and looked at Stiles' face and closed eyes.

What was going on around him faded out and he got flashes of the woods. He was walking when he saw two people. Stiles. 'This is private property,' he heard his voice say. But that was all, he was already back in front of Stiles. "Yeah I see it."

Stiles' eyes snapped open immediately with glee in them. "Really?! You do? You remembered something?"

Derek nodded at him with a smile. "Thanks."

"Awesome!"

This was the first thing he had fully remembered and he wanted more. "Stiles, how did we meet?"

He was thrown for a second. "What? Why do you want to know that?"

"I just figured, might as well start with some memories that someone else knows."

This was a bad idea. Stiles didn't actually have any memories with him and lying could fuck up him remembering.

"The doc even said to listen to stories to help me remember, and I don't have anyone else that knows me."

Stiles' gut twisted in guilt. "I'm sorry."

Derek just shrugged. "Not your fault. I just want to hear something about myself, something about you. How did we meet?"

Stiles floundered for a moment. He didn't know what to do, but he supposed he better lie. He decided to try to stay close to the truth. "Your sister and you came home to visit. You found me on your property and basically told me to get lost. But I'm persistent and I don't really know, I guess we just kept bumping into each other. And when it was time for you to leave you gave me your phone number. We haven't been dating long. You didn't want to date someone so young, but I wore you down." Stiles winked at him and tried to seem confident.

"Oh." Derek sounded surprised.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just thought it would've been the other way around."

Stiles laughed. "You thought you would've been the one to chase me?"

Derek looked confused. "Yes?"

Stiles stopped laughing. "Wait, really? Why?"

Derek lifted an eyebrow. "I must've told you, you are exactly my type." He looked through his porn, sue him, and put two and two together and figured it was because he pictured Stiles. But then he found some with women and realized that was just what he liked.

Stiles' mouth dropped open. He was, sex on legs leather jacket wearing wet dream of a bad boy, Derek Hale's type?!

"Why do you look so surprised? We must've talked about it. The disheveled hair. The wide brown eyes. The moles. And fuck God, those lips." Derek stared down at his lips and Stiles licked them nervously. "You are beautiful."

Stiles swallowed and Derek lifted a hand to cup his cheek. He brushed a thumb along blushing cheeks. "I don't know how I didn't move back here immediately to be here. With you."

Stiles' heart was hammering. "Beacon Hills is quite boring. You'd get the man of your dreams, but at what cost? We don't even have a hot topic."

Derek laughed deeply and it made Stiles take a deep breath. "See, you're so funny. You're perfect. God, I could stare into your eyes for days."

Stiles tried to joke again. "What? I thought you said my lips were great. If you're so soon to forget all about them I won't believe you."

Derek smiled. He brushed his thumb along his bottom lip and Stiles held his breath. "Oh believe me, I could never forget these."

"Ironic considering you forgot ev-" Derek leaned in and Stiles cut his own words off before Derek even touched his lips.

Fuck. Derek was kissing him. He was kissing Derek. Derek couldn't remember anything and he was kissing him because he thought they were boyfriends. Stiles was kissing an amnesiac that he convinced was dating him. God, this was all so much like Overboard. Stiles tried to focus. Derek was kissing him, yup that was a thing that was still happening. He looked at Derek's face scrunched in concentration. He nipped at Stiles' lip and he realized he wanted him to kiss him back. God he didn't know what to do! It would hurt him if he didn't. But he didn't want to kiss him because he lied. Derek was insistent and as soon as his tongue swiped Stiles' bottom lip he made up his mind.

Stiles relaxed and closed his eyes. He cautiously started to kiss him back. Derek took that as encouragement. He pushed Stiles back to lean against a pillow and put his head on the armrest. The new angle was weird. Stiles lifted an arm to tangle his fingers in the hair on the back of Derek's head to adjust the angle. Stiles used his other hand to grip one of the arms Derek was using to brace himself over Stiles. Derek was kissing messy and clumsily. Stiles had the sudden thought that this was sort of Derek's first kiss. He was far from an expert himself, but this was Derek's first. Well, not really, but kind of. Stiles wanted to make it good for him. Stiles licked his bottom lip and Derek was eager for the change. Derek was one hell of a fast learner, or maybe he had enough muscle memory. Gripping onto his bicep Stiles thought, 'Yeah he sure has enough muscles for all sorts of memories.'

Stiles pulled back and gulped in greedy breaths of air. Derek was on his neck instantly. He licked and lightly nipped till he moved to his collarbones. Stiles felt a dull pain. "Are you leaving marks?"

He pulled his mouth back barely long enough to say, "No one will see."

Derek's hand crept up his shirt and Stiles gasped. Oh shit, this had to stop right now. "Derek."

He heard a hum before more kisses were left on his neck.

"Derek we have to stop."

Derek looked up at him confused. "What? Why?"

Stiles tried to get himself under control and breathing. "Because Scott will be here soon. He can't know about any of this, he has too much going on already. I also promised my dad I wouldn't see you. Hell, if he knew I was here he'd shoot both of us. And you're not you right now."

Derek's frown turned into a soft smile. He put and arm between Stiles and the couch and he pulled Stiles into a tight hug as he buried his head into his neck. "I'm so lucky I have you."

Stiles swallowed. "Why?"

Derek pulled back and stared at him with a look Scott sometimes got when talking about Allison. "Because, you're such a great friend. And you're a good son. You're even so loyal that you don't want anything to happen with me because I'm not the man you are dating. God you're amazing. You're the best thing in my life I can tell." Derek paused for a moment before looking appreciative and grateful. "The only good thing."

Stiles didn't know what to say back to that so he was glad when Derek pressed one final chaste kiss to his lips. "If not for everything else I don't know if I'd want to remember. Before you came, I was thinking of making a new life where I could forget all the pain. But I'll remember for you. Just for you Stiles."

Stiles smiled slightly. "I should go. He'll be off soon and it's not that far of a drive."

Derek nodded at him with happy eyes.

He walked him outside to his Jeep and even opened his door. "When can I see you again?"

He asked it so hopefully that the guilt twisted at Stiles' stomach once again. "I don't know. We'll see."

Derek reached through the open window to brush his wrist against Stiles' neck. "Don't let it be long. Please."

Stiles nodded with a tight smile. "Make sure Scott doesn't find out. Act mean remember." Stiles added something at the last second. "Oh and wear the jacket."

Derek raised an eyebrow.

"It's intimidating. And-" Stiles abruptly stopped.

Derek smirked. "And?"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "And stupidly hot. But I don't think it will have that effect on Scott. Just wear the jacket."

While speaking with Scott Derek tried to do everything Stiles asked. When Scott wanted to know what happened Derek gave him Stiles' tip for remembering and hoped it would work. He didn't want to be so gruff towards his boyfriend's best friend, but Stiles said he had to act normal. And his normal was apparently being an asshole. He wanted to help Scott, but he also wanted to protect him and Stiles both, so if Stiles said this was best for them he would do it. Seeing Scott's defensive posture concerned him. Hopefully he could make that right. Scott needed to like him.

As soon as Stiles left he tried to figure out how to keep them safe. They needed to stick together. He'd read in one of the books in the house that pack was strongest when it was together and omegas were weak. He needed Scott to be in his pack to protect Stiles and himself.

But first he had to send Scott back to the bus. Scott couldn't hurt anyone or Stiles would be hurt. He needed to teach Scott how to control the shift, because Stiles said it was the best thing to do. He hoped Scott would remember something at the bus.

Stiles got home and let out a breath. He sped all the way back home feeling like the person that almost caught them at the bus was still behind him. He closed his bedroom door with a sigh.

Now Scott thought Derek killed the bus driver. Hell, maybe he did. How much did he really know about Derek? Not much. Maybe the amnesia was just some big ploy to get out of custody. But then why would he kiss Stiles? Why would he lie about that? It didn't feel like Derek would do something like that. Stiles still thought it was this beast thing. But if it was that, Stiles needed to explain that to Scott soon. He was keeping him from the worry and stress so he didn't shift before, but now he might not have a choice. Scott would be safer knowing what is after him. But for tonight Scott could go out on a date and enjoy being a teenager. Stiles would stay up and research everything to keep them safe.

Derek's jaw was set as he brushed the glass off his seat to drive his car over to the gas station vacuum cleaner. He almost lost it when the hunter mentioned his family. He didn't feel the love or know them, but that was a low blow. Derek wanted to punch him just on principle, but then he thought of Stiles and what he said about hunters. He had to think about Stiles' lips on his as the man smirked after smashing his window.

He had looked through some more books after Scott had left and found a notebook. It seemed like his sister, the one that came back, wrote it. I was research on hunters. It said something about trying to figure out what hunters started the fire. Derek wondered if the hunters were the ones that had killed his family, or if they had known. If they were the type to bring innocents into it. If they were the type to kill defenseless humans.

Derek put away the vacuum and sped to the hospital. The bus driver might have seen who it was that attacked him. Or at least have more information about what it was, but he just left with more questions.

Like why the bus driver knew his name.

Stiles stared at the picture on his computer screen in shock and fear. The beast was an alpha.

It was Scott's alpha.

Fuck. He had to talk about this with someone. Scott wasn't picking up, probably still on his date. It would be suspicious if Stiles just showed up and dragged him away.

Every time he would blink he'd see those red eyes. Every shadowy corner seemed to reach out with claws. He'd hear a noise outside and feel like it was coming for him. He needed to calm down, he needed to feel safe.

He crept out of the house careful not to wake his sleeping father.

As he was driving it felt like something was chasing after him through the woods beside him. By the time he pulled up in front of the Hale house he could barely breathe. The feeling of someone behind him just kept getting worse. He saw the Camaro with a busted in window and wondered if something happened to Derek. Just as he was opening the Jeep's door Derek came out still dressed despite the late hour even wearing his jacket.

"What? What is is?!"

Stiles got out of the Jeep and ran. He crashed into Derek's chest and tightly grabbed Derek's jacket.

"What is it? Is someone there? Are you hurt?" Derek's arms circled him and crushed him to his chest. Stiles shook his head against his chest and tried not to cry.

This was all so much. Fuck, his best friend was a werewolf now. The person that bit him wants to use him for power and to kill people. There are hunters after him. Scott made first line, but he didn't. Stiles made out with a guy for the first time. He didn't even like guys. Scott could kill Allison on accident. The alpha could show up and kill any of them at any moment.

Stiles could die. Scott could die. Allison could die. Derek could die. His dad could die. Every one he loves cou-

"Hey listen to me, you aren't breathing. You need to breathe. You need to calm down. I don't see anyone. You're safe. Breathe with me."

Stiles listened to Derek's heartbeat and tried to calm his own. "He was- it felt like- like he was there."

"He's not. I promise you he's not. But I am. I am here with you. And I'll protect you."

They stood there holding each other as Stiles slowed his breathing.

"Let's get you inside. It's a cold night."

Stiles smiled up at him. "Derek your house doesn't have heat. It barely has flooring."

Derek smiled. "Look at you, one moment you think you're dying, the next you're ribbing me. You bounce back fast."

"It's a gift. The panic response of a cat in a bathtub, but the elasticity of a rubber ball."

Derek laughed and guided him to the couch once again.

Derek sat down and leaned against the arm rest. He tried to pull Stiles to sit next to him, but he sat with distance between them.

Derek frowned. "Come here."

Stiles scratched the back of his head. "What happened last time, I don't want t-"

"That's okay. We don't have to do any of that now. Or even ever. I just want to touch you."

Stiles' mouth opened.

"Not like that. I just want to hold you. I can sense you are upset. I don't know there's just something that makes me need to make sure you're okay. To have you close."

Stiles nodded. He scooched closer and Derek moved his legs out of the way.

Stiles was hesitant. "Can I- can we, cuddle? I know it sounds stupid, but-"

"Stiles?"

"Yeah?" He tensed for being kicked out.

"Get your ass over here and cuddle me."

Stiles smiled and nestled in between his legs. He rested his head on Derek's shoulder and laid sideways. Derek wrapped his arms around Stiles.

"You're good at this." Stiles sunk into the comfort of his warmth.

"What? Cuddling? Did you think I wouldn't be?"

"No. Well, yes. With the grr I wear leather and the general don't touch me attitude, also I thought the muscles wouldn't be the best pillow. But surprisingly, you're great at this."

"You're great at this too. You're warm and smell amazing."

For some reason that made Stiles blush. "Thanks big guy."

"Do you want to talk about it or to think about something else?"

Stiles did want to think about something else, but he had to talk about this. "The beast. It's a werewolf. That can do the full shift, which is very rare. That's the whole reason we don't know who it is. Werewolves that can do the full shift are more powerful, but can lose control and not shift back easier. I think it's an alpha. The alpha i-"

"Alpha?"

Stiles lifted his head up to look at Derek. "Yeah, why?"

"She, my sister, in her notebook wrote something about finding the alpha. It was very vague and I didn't understand until now, but that's what she came her for. To find the alpha. It's what got her killed."

Stiles smelled stressed again. "And now it wants Scott. No matter what he thinks, you didn't bite him. You're a beta, if what I read is right you couldn't have. The alpha did. And now it wants Scott in its pack." Stiles looked worriedly at Derek's eyes for a second, before thinking about Scott's safety instead.

Derek laced their fingers together after Stiles started to chew on his bottom lip in worry. "We'll deal with it. We'll make our own pack." Derek kissed his knuckles.

"Scott thinks you're a murderer. And that you bit him."

Derek smiled. "Something tells me you can be persuasive when you want to be. Besides, his best friend is the most important person in my life, he's got to come around some time."

Stiles squirmed and looked away. "Don't say stuff like that."

Derek smiled. "Why not? Does it make you uncomfortable? It doesn't for me. I know next to nothing, except how you make me feel. I woke up scared in the hospital with nothing but you. I had the memory of you holding me, taking care of me. I don't see any reason in not loving you with everything in me when there is so many things I'm unsure of, because you are definitely not one of those things."

Stiles looked at him with tears in his eyes. "No one except my family and Scott has ever spoken to me like that."

"Like what? Certain?"

"Like they could spend their whole life loving me and it would never be enough. Like I matter to them."

"It wouldn't." There was so much adoration in his eyes Stiles had to close his before a tear slipped out.

"Don't say that." The guilt and disgust at having lied to him tore at his insides.

Derek brushed the tear from his cheek. "Why? I told you I am not afraid."

"Because you don't mean it." Derek went to open his mouth, but Stiles continued, "You don't know enough to mean it. You hardly know anything about me. You don't know what our real relationship is like. You don't even know what you like to eat for breakfast. I'm taking advantage of you and I feel awful for it."

Derek shrugged. "I'm legally taking advantage of you."

Stiles scoffed. "Just because we're both doing it doesn't make it right."

Derek considered that. "That's true. This is what makes it right." Derek kissed him gently and Stiles was weak against it.

Stiles pulled back. "I should go. My dad could wake up."

"Or we could kiss some more and then you could go home."

That was a terrible idea. "That's a wonderful idea. Thank you for sharing. And like I always say sharing is caring. We should all be more caring. The world re-" Derek cut him off with a press of lips.

"Oh I'm sorry were you saying something?"

Stiles gripped his shirt and pulled him upwards toward himself. He kissed him in a way that made Derek feel like his brain melted while running his hands through his hair.

Stiles pulled back and admired the view. Derek's best look was definitely dazed and disheveled. "We'll have to figure out the Scott thing later. And the alpha thing. And the hunter thing, I'm assuming that's who smashed you window? How rude." Stiles kissed him again.

"And probably have to keep my dad out of it at some point."

Derek vigorously nodded. "Oh definitely, but not right now." Derek kissed him again.

Stiles got lost in it and soon enough he had a hand up Derek's shirt. He ran his hand up and down his muscles before remembering to be careful for the slashes. The ones he couldn't find. Had Derek healed? Stiles moved his other hand down from Derek's hair to brush along the back of his neck. Derek brushed his thumb along Stiles' hip right as Stiles felt the claw marks heal under his fingertips.

Derek pulled back and Stiles knew instantly from looking into his wide unsure eyes.

Derek remembered everything.

He pushed Stiles back harshly and stood up. "Wh-what. We're not- no. We're not." He furrowed his eyebrows at Stiles. "You lied."

"Derek please, just let me explain!" Stiles scrambled to get up and in the motion his shirt moved to show a mark. A mark Derek had left.

Derek's eyes went wide. "I- I kissed you." Flashes of a convincing woman and feelings of uncertainty but gratitude filled him.

Stiles was hurt by his tone. "Please, sound more horrified if you could."

"You need to leave."

Stiles took a step to get closer, but Derek took one back. He could tell he wasn't going to leave without a reason.

"Stiles this isn't some childish game. You tricked me, you lied."

Stiles looked down. "I know and I'm so fucking sorry for that, but I had to. I had to protect my dad. Then I had to make sure you protected Scott, but then I let it go too far. I'm sorry."

This was all wrong. Stiles wasn't the one who did something wrong. Derek was. "You need to leave and I don't ever want to see you again, unless it has to do with Scott." Derek set a look of certainty and anger he didn't feel into his eyes.

Stiles shook his head and reached for his hand. "I can fix this. Scott needs you, I need y-"

Derek couldn't hold back. "You need to leave! You needed to never come here. You needed to have never met me."

"You're not the bad guy here Derek."

Derek needed to push him away to keep him safe. Because if he was with Derek he would get hurt. Everyone Derek cares about gets hurt. "You're right. You are. You're the pathetic little bastard that tricked me into caring about you because it's the only way anyone ever would. I take back what I said, I take it all back. You aren't a good son. You got your father in trouble because you can't keep your nosey ass out of things too big for you. You are the one that got Scott bit. You took him out to those woods. If the alpha kills him, it'll be on your hands."

Derek was grateful he could hold out until he heard the Jeep rattle away before emptying his stomach outside. There had been screaming and tears, but mostly it was the choking sent of Stiles' hurt that Derek would remember. But after he slammed the Jeep door, gone was everything except the emptiness. He just felt hollow and disgusted at himself. Right before he hurled he thought about how now he was just like her.

Stiles drove home through tears. He was just coming up the stairs as his dad came out of his room.

Shit. Now he had to deal with this.

"What are you doing? I put out a curfew, damn it Stiles! Where were you?"

Stiles thought fast and hoped it was too dark and late for his dad to notice his puffy eyes. "Scott had his first date with Allison. He didn't want to wait to tell me tomorrow."

His dad's face softened. "Kid, one of these days you'll be the death of me. Did it go well?"

"Yeah, they're thinkin a spring wedding and six kids will be enough."

"He's that gone on her?" His dad chuckled.

"Worse." Stiles noticed his father's uniform. "Wait, why are you dressed?"

His dad opened his mouth, but Stiles cut him off. "You know I'll just find out."

His father sighed. "The bus driver. He's dead."

"Someone got into the hospital?"

"No. He succumbed to his wounds."

Stiles nodded. "So you have to go in."

His father kissed his forehead on the way out. "Sleep well kid."

He heard his father's patrol car leave and he waited a few moments before rushing to Scott's.

---

They never talked about Derek losing his memory. Derek went back to his asshole self and Stiles tried not to be hurt by it. All the while Derek felt guilty for being like Kate and Stiles was hurt from Derek's harsh words that he tried to remember weren't true. But for some god damn reason they never stopped trusting each other. He helped him with the bullet without talking about it. He held him up in the pool. Derek protected him from Issac. They even helped each other when they figured out it was his uncle, and that it was the reason he had tried to take Derek's memory. So Peter wouldn't have to kill his nephew. Derek was there for the nogitsune. Stiles saved him from Mexico. There were so many things they made it through together, and yet they could never get over it.

Sometimes he would look at Derek and feel like they were just a moment away from taking about it, but then it would pass and they would forget all over again.

Almost like amnesia.

A.N. So thanks for reading!!! It means a lot and I appreciate it. I don't know if I'm too happy with the end right now, but it is completed. I might do a part two idk yet. Have a great day/night!!!

Carter😊

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doc-pickles · 4 years ago

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i won’t hesitate (for you) chapter seven

Jo is happy, at least she feels like she is. When someone from her past shows up, will her and her daughter's world ever go back to normal? Or will things change for good?

(this chapter is dedicated to @odd-birds-and-booksellers because every time i was stuck on a plot point she helped me out and got my brain thinking again. this chapter LITERALLY would not have been finished without her.)

There was an alarm blaring somewhere, loud and annoying and drilling into Alex’s sleep deprived mind. It took him a minute to realize that the alarm was his phone, alerting him to the fact that he needed to get up and round on his patients. He had slept in an on call room, preferring the silence it offered to Izzie yelling at him once again for something he had no control over. He reached for his phone, shutting the alarm off and staring at the screen for a moment.

June 9.

A groan left Alex as he fell back onto the bed, eyes shutting as he attempted to stop his mind from reeling. But he couldn’t, not really. Because no matter how hard he tried, she never left his mind. It had been seven long months without Jo and Alex still couldn’t stop his mind from drifting to his wife. Ex wife.

He reached for his wallet that he had tucked into his lab coat, fingers brushing the worn leather as he opened it up. Alex reached behind his credit cards and drivers license to the worn piece of paper he found himself looking at so often.

She was smiling, that genuine no bullshit smile that he loved to see so much. And her dress, he feels as if he’s memorized the places it clings so easily to her. If he concentrates hard enough, he can almost feel her hands pressing into his shoulders as they shared their first kiss as husband and wife.

How in the hell did they go from that to where they are now in just two short years?

“I have to go back to Kansas.”

The coffee cup in Jo’s hand slips, falling ungracefully into the kitchen sink and shattering as the ceramic meets the metal with a loud thud.

“Jesus Christ, Jo! What the hell,” Alex exclaimed as he moved to clean the mess of the shattered cup. “If you would’ve let me finish, I could’ve told you that it’s not for long and I’m coming right back home.”

Jo can feel her breathing return to normal again, her eyes looking from the sink up to Alex. He stopped what he was doing, hands settling onto Jo’s shoulders as he fixed her with an affectionate stare.

“I have to go back and sort out a bunch of legal things. My name is still on my apartment, my car is out there, and,” Alex sighs, eyes flashing with anger momentarily. “And I’m still on all the paperwork for Izzie’s kids. Plus I kinda just… walked outta my job.”

“I know, I get it, it just makes me nauseous thinking about it,” Jo wasn’t lying, her stomach was violently churning at the thought of Alex leaving her and Harper. So much so that she had to push down the urge to vomit with a heavy gulp. “But, I get that you have to go. As long as you come back home to us then I have zero complaints.”

Leaning down to kiss Jo, Alex realized how incredibly lucky he was to have someone who was so understanding. A part of him ached at that realization, knowing that she would have understood him wanting to go to Kansas three years ago if he had explained the situation to her.

“I’m heading out tomorrow morning and I’ll call you everyday,” Alex pulled Jo into him, one hand rubbing back slowly. “I swear Jo, I’m not leaving you two again. Now you want a parting gift or what?”

Alex raised his eyebrows, his free hand coming down to grab Jo’s ass with a chuckle. Jo leaned into him easily, lips coming up to ghost across his neck momentarily. Harper was at a sleepover with Meredith’s kids, something that her parents were eternally grateful for.

“Mmm I do think we’ve settled into things now,” a devilish grin appeared on Jo’s face as she pulled back from Alex and tugged on the collar of his shirt. “This is our first night alone in the whole two months since you’ve been home. I think that’s a good excuse to celebrate.”

Alex swooped down, lips capturing Jo’s as her hands began to explore his chest, pulling at his shirt desperately. They had both stayed true to Jo’s request and hadn’t had sex since their elevator tryst, but the mounting sexual tension between them had grown increasingly hard to ignore the past week. Jo broke apart from Alex, hands ridding him of his shirt as she pushed him gently towards their bed.

“Oh you have no idea how hard I’m gonna celebrate this,” Alex grinned as Jo sat herself on top of him, hands roaming up his bare chest. “I forgot how much I missed this.”

Jo woke up the next morning to a quiet loft. Harper wasn’t home yet and Alex had left a note and a cup of coffee out for Jo before he left for the airport. She snuggled further down in the blankets of their bed, hands reaching out for Alex’s pillow. She missed him already, her anxieties already taking over her mind as she tried to close her eyes and focus on something else.

Harper… Harper and Alex… Alex and Izzie’s kids… Alex and Izzie… Alex… Alex… Alex…

Jo couldn’t help it, her anxiety overwhelmed her body and she raced to the bathroom, overcome with the urge to vomit. Head leaning against the cool porcelain, Jo let last night’s dinner come up easily.

“Oh god,” Jo groaned, picking her head up from the toilet bowl as she heard an incessant knocking at the loft door. “It’s open!”

Excited giggles and talking could be heard in the living room now, alerting Jo to the fact that Meredith had brought Harper back from her sleepover. Jo threw her head back towards the toilet bowl, groaning as she continued to vomit. A quiet knock sounded on the bathroom door, Meredith’s head peeking in a moment later.

“Wow you look like crap.” “Thank you, just what I wanted to hear,” Jo sighed, flushing the toilet and standing to brush her teeth. “I’m just a little anxious about Alex being in Kansas, that’s all.” Meredith nodded, watching silently as Jo rinsed her mouth out. She had known her friend long enough to realize that something else was going on, something that maybe even Jo didn’t see.

“Hey when you and Alex… you know defiled that elevator, did you use protection,” Meredith mused, watching carefully as Jo paused, then kept moving as if Meredith’s words didn’t affect her. “You dirty whore!” “Meredith! Jeez my kid is out there,” Jo turned to Meredith, hands resting on her hips as she rolled her eyes. “I am absolutely not pregnant if that’s what you’re implying. I think I would know if I was.”

Meredith let her line of questioning fall silent, but Jo’s mind kept reeling. Her and Alex hadn’t used protection when they had hooked up in the elevator… twice… Nevertheless, Jo was confident that she wasn’t pregnant. Her slight weight gain and her anxious vomiting were just normal everyday things she’d deal with at a different time.

( Alex is italics , Jo is normal)

“Hey babe. How’ve my girls been?”

“Stress eating, mostly. And I’ve been stress vomiting too so that’s fun. The tiny human is perfectly fine though, besides standing by the door and yelling ‘Daddy’ at the top of her lungs. Can you tell we’re totally fine with you being gone?”

“Maybe you should take a break, babe. Take the day off and recharge. I don’t want you going crazy.”

“I’m fine, I just wanna make a grilled cheese and then take a three hour nap. Seriously don’t worry about me, you have enough crazy to deal with there.”

“You’re telling me, Izzie is livid that I’m trying to take my name off of the kids' papers. You know, the kids that aren’t mine. My lawyer is not taking any of her shit though, he’s been a godsend. Should have all this wrapped up by Friday afternoon and I’ll be home with you bright and early Saturday morning.”

“Good because I miss you. A lot. More than I probably should for only having you back for two months.”

“I am pretty missable. I was just checking in between meetings, I’ll call you tomorrow okay?”

“And I’m heading into the ER for what should be a fun day. Stay safe out there in the wild west. I love you.”

“I love you too. Give Harps kisses from me.”

Jo hung up with a sigh, storing her phone in her locker and moving towards the ER where she was working for the day. The distraction that the chaotic area of the hospital provided was much needed after the stress she had been under the past few days. Running to the trauma bay, Jo was immediately greeted by Owen and an awaiting ambulance.

“32 year old passenger from a multi car MVC pileup. She’s got deep lacerations on her chest from the seat belt, hypotensive in the field but stable by the time we brought her in. She’s also 28 weeks pregnant.”

“Karev, assess her injuries but don’t do anything until we get OB down here,” Owen directed Jo, who nodded and began to work on the woman in front of her. “Stabilize her, I’m going to check on the other victims.”

“I’m Doctor Karev, I’m gonna take care of you today,” Jo stared down at the woman in front of her, the woman's blue eyes staring up at her in fear. She brushed her hand through the woman’s auburn hair, hoping to comfort her just a little. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Kacey James,” her voice was hoarse, but Kacey was doing her best to communicate with Jo. “Is my son okay? Is Landon okay?”

The woman’s voice was frantic as she looked at Jo, her eyes full of unshed tears that made Jo tear up herself. For an expecting mother, the most terrifying thought was their baby not being okay while sitting inside of them. To think about the fact that their baby might die while they are their responsibility and theirs alone… well Jo had her fair number of moments when she had worried about Harper before she was born.

“I’m waiting for our OB to come down and tell us for sure but,” Jo pulled her stethoscope from around her neck to listen carefully for a fetal heartbeat. “I can hear a steady heartbeat. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a good sign.”

A sigh left Kacey, her uninjured hand coming up to cradle her bump. Jo watched the woman in front of her with a pang of tenderness, understanding exactly how this stranger felt. She thought, for a moment, that any mother could understand what Kacey was feeling.

A stray hand fell to Jo’s stomach, her fingers brushing across her scrub top. Maybe Meredith had some strong points, maybe the reason that Jo felt so strongly for Kacey’s situation was because she too was carrying a child within her. She quickly brushed the feeling away, knowing that if she really was pregnant some higher power within her would know and tell her.

“Kacey, I’m going to make sure that you and Landon are perfectly okay,” Jo moved her hand back up to Kacey’s hair, stroking it with a smile as she leaned down to speak with her patient. “You’re going to be just fine.”

After setting her daughter down in her crib, Jo collapsed on her bed. Yesterday had been long and hard and without Alex by her side she felt helpless to her circumstances. Kacey had made it through the long surgery Jo and Carina had tag teamed to take care of a perfed bowel and some minor lacerations, comforting Jo minorly. Jackson would have to go back in to repair some of the deeper wounds, but they wanted to let Kacey and Landon rest before they put her under again.

As her thoughts began to overwhelm her, Jo’s phone chose that moment to ring, Jo getting up and slipping out onto the balcony as she answered Alex’s phone call with a small smile.

“Hey there stranger. How’s Kansas?” “Dry and boring and lonely. You two doing any better?”

“We’re hanging in. Harper painted a very nice picture yesterday entirely with green paint. Mom on the other hand had a car crash victim who was almost 30 weeks pregnant. That was rough.”

“Are they okay? Mom and baby made it out right?”

“Yeah they’re fine it was just a lot. I have tomorrow off though so we’re going to try and do something fun.”

“Why don’t you go down to Pike’s Place and have lunch at that place you like. You and Harps can go shopping after. You know, a girls day or whatever they call it.”

“You’re making some very good points. Everything with the apartment go okay today?”

“Yeah, the landlord was very understanding and I was able to get rid of all the junk in the apartment pretty easily. I shipped a couple things back home, but the boxes are giant so don’t you dare try and move them yourself.”

“I promise I won’t, I’m too tired to do anything anyways.”

“Yeah what's with that? You said you took a nap today. You never take naps.”

“I’m fine, I just miss you. You’d think after being just Harper and I for so long that I would be used to not having you here. But I don’t think I ever really got used to it.”

“I’ll be home in two days and then you’ll get sick of me. Go on and get in bed, you sound exhausted and I can tell your mind is working harder than it should be. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Did you find out yet?”

“Jesus Christ Link! You can’t sneak up on me like that.”

Jo turned on her heel, hand coming up to smack Link’s chest. He had been her first call after hanging up with Alex four days ago and he had been a pain in her ass ever since.

“I’m asking sensible questions. Alex texted me today, he never does that! He’s worried! Your not-husband comes homes tomorrow morning and you still haven’t peed on a damn stick,” Link raised an eyebrow at Jo, holding his hands out as if to ask what her hold up was. “You two are finally happy, you’ve got a daughter and you’re literally looking at houses to buy. Why won’t you pee, Jo? What are you hiding?”

The reasons that Link laid out were exactly why Jo didn’t want to confirm what she had been thinking. They were the same reasons that she had waited almost two months to take a test when she was pregnant with Harper. She was scared out of her mind, worried that if she took a test now that Alex wouldn’t come home and she’d be in the same position she had been in three years ago.

Deep down she knew, she knew without a doubt that any stick she peed on would turn blue and any blood test she took would show elevated hCG levels. And part of her wanted that, she wanted another baby with Alex so badly.

But with him being gone for the week and her already growing anxiety, Jo’s heart didn’t have it in her to see the results of a pregnancy test. The anxious woman who spent nine months crying over the father of her baby being gone did not want to face a world where that could be a reality again.

Because last time she had taken a pregnancy test, Jo had had to face the reality of her husband leaving her through a damn letter.

Because when she had laid in her hospital bed, staring at her daughter, she was alone and she was scared.

Because for all she had gone through in her life, Jo didn’t think she could survive going through all of that alone again.

“I have my reasons, Atticus ,” Jo’s voice had a bite to it as she began to walk away from her friend. “Goodbye! Give Amelia my love! And thanks for taking my kid tonight, you’re the best!”

Two hours after her run in with Link, Jo found herself lounging across her couch, binging reality TV and eating popcorn. She was dead on her feet, body exhausted after the stressful week she had. She was thankful for the peace and quiet without Harper, but she desperately missed her and Alex. Jo was about to call Link just so she could bring Harper home and cuddle her when her phone rang. A smile lit up Jo’s face as she realized Alex was the one calling her.

“Hello Doctor Karev.”

“Hello to you too Doctor Karev. How are you?”

“I’m okay, just got home. Link and Amelia offered to take Harper for the night which I am super thankful for. I need a break, you were right. But I miss her and you, it’s too quiet here.”

“I’m always right. Hey, I got some bad news. My flights got all switched around so I won’t be home tomorrow morning after all.”

“Oh god, please don’t tell me you’re staying in Kansas, Alex.”

“Jesus Christ no, I’d sooner jump in front of a car.”

“Good good. Okay now that I don’t think I’m going to puke, are you going to tell me when you’re coming back?”

“Right about now,” Jo turned towards the door of the loft, relief coursing through her body as she saw Alex standing in front of her.

“Oh thank god,” Jo breathed out, launching herself up from the couch and into Alex’s arms. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

Alex wrapped his arms around Jo easily, happy to see her given the rocky week they had both had. After having Izzie yell at him, his former boss give him an earful for the way he exited, and seeing the kids he had considered his own used as pawns in his escape from Kansas, he was more than happy to be back in Seattle.

“Probably about as happy as I am to see you,” Alex leaned back and kissed Jo soundly, one hand coming up to stroke her cheek. “You look like hell. I’m only saying it because I care. Which reminds me, I got you something.” Jo watched in confusion as Alex rooted around in his suitcase, finally pulling out a brown bag and handing it to Jo. She opened it curiously, heart beginning to pound again as she looked at what was inside.

“I could tell just from your phone calls, it’s kinda my job,” Alex shrugged, hands slipping into his pockets. “Have you already taken a test?” Looking from Alex down to the bag of pregnancy tests, Jo felt tears welling up in her eyes. The emotions she had been holding back were finally overflowing as Jo shook her head, eyes meeting Alex’s finally.

“I was so scared,” Jo cried as she let her shoulders fall, feeling her anxiety over the situation melt away now that Alex was standing in front of her. “I’m sorry, I just… I was so nervous that things would play out like they did last time and I couldn’t put myself through that this time because I really want this.”

Alex moved forward, bringing Jo back into his embrace. He hated that he was the reason she was feeling this way, that he had made her feel so helpless when he left. More than that though he was relieved to hear that she wanted this just as much as he did because it meant that maybe he hadn’t entirely screwed things up.

“I love you, Jo. I love you so much and I’ve fucked up and I know you told me not to make any promises this time but,” Alex sighed, eyes meeting Jo with sincerity. “I am not leaving you. I’m not leaving Harper. I’m not leaving Seattle ever again unless you’re by my side, I swear on my life. And if you are pregnant, then I’ll be right by your side for the whole damn thing. You’re not getting rid of me Josephine Karev.”

Alex’s words stopped the frantic beating of Jo’s heart and let her relax into his arms, eyes closing as she held him as close as she could. He was right, Jo had told Alex not to make her any more promises because she didn’t want to get hurt again. But after the hell they had been through, after the hell she had walked alone, Jo’s rough heart had grown soft and the words he spoke now comforted her.

“I’m pregnant, I don’t need to take a test to tell me that,” Jo looked up to Alex, a small grin on her face. “But I’ll take one to humor you, since you didn’t get to be here last time.”

Alex pressed a long, sweet kiss on Jo’s lips, one hand gently drifting down to palm her stomach. The tender act made Jo melt, another small reassurance that things were much different than they had been three years ago. A reminder that this time, things would be okay.

#greys anatomy #alex karev #jo karev #jo wilson #jo x alex #jolex #jolex fic #hesitate #nina writes #grey’s anatomy fanfic #jolex fanfic

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legendaryorangeloot · 4 years ago

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This is "The Union Screaming House", a short story I wrote as an alternate-universe American M.R. James story (which is why it's not got fully modern language when describing people's race and ethnicity, and the language/spelling in general is idiosyncratic in the way that letters from the <1900s tend to be.) I wrote it in one huge burst on a road trip with my partner from Milwaukee to St. Louis, and never really edited it, but I think it's true to the style and form of the author I'm trying to pay homage to, so all the weaknesses I can see are present in the source works and serve to make it more accurate (sorry, Monty James. you know I love you.)

Dec 22, 18--

My dearest Daniel - I write to you about events which recently occurred in the small town of Union, Mo., feeling certain that they will prove of interest to you, for your personal collections of curious supernatural tales and revolutionary literature. I suppose, as I shall leave no descendants, you may publish my full confession after all parties involved are deceased - such is the advantage of having much-younger friends, I suppose!

We were traveling across the midwestern states at a leisurely pace, hoping to recuperate my equilibrium after the trial in which I had recently defended Mr. W-- S-- against numerous charges of murder, about which: the less said, the better. It had become our custom over a period of weeks to seek out remote roads and tracks and follow them to their sources, which almost invariably were villages and towns with unusual “claims to fame”, such as one that boasted an underground lake, another with what they claimed as the oldest living tree in the state. This proved a diverting experience, and I greatly enjoyed conversing with many of the “oldsters” I met outside general stores and hearing tales of the War, and of their luck or lack there-of in the agriculture business. The endeavor was beginning to allow me to leave behind the feeling of grave wrong-doing that had dogged me since the verdict of the S-- trial, but what replaced it in Union may yet prove to be worse.

It was on one of these rather aimless treks that we found ourselves in Union, home of some 700 people. It was a chill autumn night, and darkness fell early, no later than 5 o. clock. Bryan, who was acting as driver, refused to travel in such a rural area after dark (wise, owing to his appearance - as you may recall from our last visit, Bryan is light enough to pass for “black Irish” stock, and usually does so successfully, but in the more… concerned areas of the country, he has been sometimes “found out”, with all the concurrent discriminatory rigmarole… sneaking “my servant” into my lodging-house rooms has been quite the risky undertaking in some of these towns.) At any rate, we obtained the name of a local widower who would be willing to rent a room to me for the night, and allow Bryan and our four-horse team to stay in his guest house and lavish stables, respectively.

Mr. R--, a sprightly gentleman of maybe 55 years, proved a quite gracious host, and commenced to give me a tour of the property, which was called Blackwater Woods. We walked around the barn, various outbuildings, and past many pastures and livestock holding-pens, before approaching the enormous main house. It was built in a style quite unlike the modest but modern homes of Union proper, and appeared to be designed in the manner of a frontier cabin, but on a scale so large that it made it seem slightly ridiculous, as though perhaps it had been constructed to display at a Worlds Fair and not for humans to inhabit at all. Mr. R-- was oddly reluctant to show me around much of the house in detail, as he had the farm-buildings, but he invited me to dinner and after-dinner drinks and cigars politely enough after escorting me to my second-floor room, which had clearly been a woman’s “boudoir” prior to being pressed into service as a guest room. I changed clothes and washed up with alacrity, eager to get the dust and grime of the road off my person, and still had ample time left to explore my surroundings. The room was large, and sparsely-furnished, but feminine touches from the prior inhabitant (Mrs. R--, I assumed at the time) still remained in the form of a silver-backed hairbrush near the vanity mirror, a jewelry box which played a tune when opened (I shut it quickly, as the mechanism appeared to be functioning not very well, and the too-slow tune rendered me oddly soporific), and a gauzy canopy hanging from the four posts of the bed, which I imagined was intended to be exotic in the manner of a harem, but was instead exotic in the manner of tropical anti-mosquito netting. I was oddly moved by this nod to concepts of Romance and Beauty in such a rural locale, and smiled to myself in the mirror, only to quickly blanch and whip my head round to look when I saw the form of a woman - a dusky-skinned woman, with high cheekbones and full lips - materialize behind me, visible in the mirror! In retrospect, I believe it was not just my terror at being accompanied at a time I believed myself alone that caused me to react so immediately and physically, but that the woman so obviously required help. She could hardly have communicated it more clearly than her facial expression did, even if she had plainly said “Help me!”. When I turned to look where I had seen her standing, near the enormous limestone fireplace, there was no-one there, and looking back in the mirror, she also did not re-appear. But there lingered in the air a smell - you are the only one I could tell this to - a womanly smell, but one that was attractive to me, in a way, which, I know you know, I have not experienced before (or since).

For all those reasons, I was deeply shaken as I went down to the dining-room to eat with Mr. R--. I thought that perhaps I could ask questions about the room’s former inhabitant, but each time I tried to broach the topic, Mr. R-- cut me off with florid tales of inconsequential things, which would have been greatly entertaining, had they not distracted me from my goal. I learned many interesting tid-bits of the area’s history, but was unable to discern a reason for the visage of the woman to appear, or what help she might require. I did learn that the “guest house” where my beloved Bryan now stayed was, in fact, former slave quarters, and this did not sit well with me. I was also able, by making some off-hand comments about the food, to learn that indeed we were alone in the house entirely, the woman who had cooked the meal being employed only at the dinner-hour and returning to her home in Union after serving. I do not remember what we ate.

After the meal, we retired to Mr. R--’s study, and he poured us generous doses of a bourbon of exceptional quality. The study, unlike the rest of the house, was furnished in an extravagant style that would not have seemed much out of place in the wealthiest salons of London or Vienna. Presumably for this reason, it was kept locked at all times with a latch and bolt-lock on the door, and keyed locks on the single window, to which, Mr. R-- explained, he held the only keys. I sipped at my bourbon as he spoke at length about various topics, and realized soon that he was drinking his as though it were water. I saw my opportunity to perhaps gain more information about the mirror woman, so I surreptitiously poured out the rest of my liquor onto the Turkish carpet, and proposed a refill, then another, then another, which I disposed of in the same way. As Mr. R-- became first tipsy, then outright intoxicated, I steered the conversation to the topic of the room I now stayed in. “Was it your wife’s chambers?” He appeared startled by this question and was quick to say, in a brusque manner, “No. It was used for brief, er, overnight stays only, for no-one in particular.” He attempted to change the subject after this answer, but I could see him beetling his brows at me from time to time as we spoke on less consequential matters. The evening wound down soon after this, and I excused myself to my room.

Upon reaching my room, it was no more than ten minutes before I heard the tip-tap of tiny pebbles being flung at my window, the typical sign from Bryan that he was waiting unseen below and wished entry. Never had I more needed his strong and steady presence, his welcome simple physicality, the comfort of his arms - I hope that you do not mind, and rather believe that you will enjoy this part, as unsatisfying as it ended up in reality - and I began to ready myself even as I quietly opened the window, using the heel of my hand to press against my rapidly-stiffening member in preparation for our reunion. But it was not to be, for the Bryan that hoisted himself through my window after climbing up the ivy and planks on the side of the house was not amorous, but terrified. I immediately asked what the trouble was, and he said that we must go, and that he needed to show me something in the “guest house” - which I shall refer to as the slave quarters from now on, as this is more relevant to its position in the story - after which we must flee this house. He used this exact word, “flee”, and it was one of the ways I knew just how serious this revelation he had for me must be.

We both climbed down the side of the huge house as quickly as we could, and dashed across the moonless dark of the lawn, past the garden and woodpile, to the former slave quarters, a squat building greatly resembling Indian long-houses I have seen, but made of sturdy split logs and patched with something between mud and cement. A fire burned inside and smoke spiraled up from the small chimney, and when we reached it and went indoors, shutting the pine-plank door fast behind us, Bryan first kissed me fiercely and quickly, then went on to say “I found this account written on bark, stripped from the walls of this house, hidden in one of the straw mattresses. But it is more than half in slave pidgin and picto-grams, and what English is used is not very grammatical. Do you trust me to tell you the contents truly?” and by way of reply I kissed him tenderly, pressing my forehead to his, and squeezed his hand, saying “With my very life.” He replied that it hopefully would not come to that. He showed me a long strip of bark with writing on it, and what I could read conformed to his translation, which I will put here in more colloquial ways of speaking, for clarity: “Last winter Margaret was called to visit Mr. R-- after sunset and never did return, and he said that she ran away, but never bothered to tell the lawman, or offer a reward for the return of a servant, and I think sometimes that I see her in the upper window, but never except at night when fires are burning in all the rooms of the house. Now he has arranged for me to come to the big house secretly after dark and I fear that I, too, will never return. If you find this, look for me. Meliora.”

We stared at each other wide-eyed as I put together the pieces in my mind and I said to Bryan “I know what we must do, but if you do not like it - I also do not like it - I understand if you must simply go and ready the horses for our escape.” He said that he would accompany me even to the gates of Hell, and I said that it hopefully would not come to that. We went to the great woodpile beside the house and found an axe and hatchet, and used the latter to break the lock of the front door, and went directly to my room. As quietly as one can accomplish such a thing, we began dismantling the room - we moved the furniture to the center, and started using the tools as pry-bars to remove boards from the wall. It was not long before I heard a stifled cry behind me and saw Bryan kneeling near one wall, pulling forth what was unmistakably a winding-shroud, stained with old blood, containing naught but dark skin, bones, and black hair. As I came over to assist him, I stumbled and fell against the limestone mantel, and broke it away, and the falling rock opened the boards of the floor, where more gauzy shrouds were hidden beneath, and my heavy axe smashed the fire-warmed stone at the back of the fireplace, where a recent, beautiful corpse, matching my mirror apparition exactly, lay in surprisingly dignified repose. This kind of noise would wake anyone, even the bourbon-soaked Mr. R--, who entered the room just at that second, and it is hard to say now which sight shocked him the most greatly. But he had no opportunity to say anything about it, as Bryan fairly flew at him from across the room, holding his hand over Mr. R--’s mouth, and the hatchet’s handle across his throat in preparation to strangle the life from him. “No!” I hissed quickly. And Bryan’s expression in that moment caused me to die inside, seeing how fast he thought I would side with the despicable murderer Mr. R-- over the love of my life, due only to our shared skin color, but I put this aside to say my actual piece, which was “We have to make it look like an accident.”

We frog-marched Mr. R-- downstairs, and forced him to unlock the study, confiscating the keys afterwards. We tied him to the heaviest chair using his own silk smoking-jacket, and I touched a brand from the fire to the Turkish carpet I’d soaked with bourbon earlier in the evening, and we did not spare the struggling, squealing Mr. R-- another look as we walked from the room, hands clasped, to return the axes to the woodpile before driving away.

I trust that, after your actions in Lawrence, this story will please you, rather than shock you. I hope that I have done your revolutionary spirit proud in administering fair and equitable justice. After long discussion, I have decided to prove to Bryan that his assumption in the moment Mr. R-- entered the room was entirely wrong, and we depart for France, together, next week. The keys from Mr. R--’s house, we will throw into the Atlantic Ocean, and never mention the sorry incident again.

With love,

Your friend,

J. Schiffmann

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