#and I don’t know if the brain fog is from my meds

[neon-danger]

How’s your day going?

Currently stressed at work cuz my coworker told them I didn’t want to do the mandatory training and management reprimanded me about it, but I already understand the training is important and required by law, the only thing I didn’t want to do was stay after my shift to work on it just to clock out just before my 6th hour so they wouldn’t have to give me a lunch.

[fingertipsmp3]

Can’t tell if I actually genuinely think this job interview tomorrow is a bad idea, or I’m just trying to convince myself it is because I don’t want to do it

[1800kfics]

so let's go see the stars

wk: 3k

TW: mental illness, manic episode, use of medication. might be hard to read for some, pls make sure you're in the right headspace before proceeding :)

song: plug me in - lil soda boi

Kim Donghyun. Your sky blue, your peach pink, your crimson purple.

You pull your knees to your chest to make room for Leehan in the windowsill nook. The two of you loved people watching from your apartment window. It was your favorite activity to do together.

“My new medication has been making me nauseous and giving me the worst headaches. Doctor said this one wouldn’t do that.” You complain with a huff. Leehan has always been an amazing listener. He always heard you out and never complained about his own problems. Everyone needs someone like him in their life, you think to yourself.

“It must be too strong. Tearing up your body from the inside. Stop taking it, missing one here and there won’t hurt.” He offers.

You sigh and bore a hole into the empty bench across the street. “I know it won’t, but the doctors lectured me when they found out I had started skipping. They were real serious – I hated it. They always try to make me feel like there’s something - something wrong with me.” You say. “How come you haven’t been coming around lately?” You add.

He looks at you and responds, “I don’t know. You just haven’t needed me lately.” He grabs the top of one of your knees and says, “Hot chocolate?”. Smiling, you simultaneously get up to make your way over to the kitchen.

You had known Leehan for what felt like forever. It might have been forever. You must’ve given him your apartment key ages ago, because you don’t even remember doing it. He’s been by your side through thick and thin.

Sometimes you wonder how he hasn’t gotten sick of you yet. He stays until you fall asleep, then quietly lets himself out. Sometimes you’ll wake up and see he’s already come back – like he never left. Sometimes, though, he’ll go MIA. No text or calls back, completely off the map. You’ve learned not to take it personally, and figure he needs his alone time as much as everyone else.

He doesn’t seem to have any other friends, which he doesn’t seem to mind. You don’t have that many friends either. You don’t think your parents like him though. Everytime you brought him up in your formative years you saw their eyebrows furrow, like they were holding something back. You wondered what rubbed them the wrong way about him, he’s never done anything to offend.

Leehan always has your back. He’ll hype you up when you need motivation and comfort you when all you need is a shoulder to cry on. But most importantly, he understands you. He made you realize that it’s okay not to be okay. When the meds fogged up your brain, he helped you work up the courage to stop taking them. When you couldn’t manage to go outside, he kept you company inside. He helped you wash your hair in the sink when getting in the shower seemed like an impossible task. Leehan has and will always be there for you.

Leehan made you think deeper about things. One night, he and you lay in bed together, enveloped in a comfortable silence. He sat up and scooted closer to you. You noticed and diverted your attention to him. He stared at you for a few seconds, then put his hand over your lower left rib cage. "Fear," he said. Confused, you cock your eyebrow but let him continue. He moves his hand up to your heart and makes eye contact with you, "joy." As he moves a little to the left to your sternum he scrunches his face and says "anger." He then trails his hand up to your jaw, lingering on your neck for a few seconds, causing goosebumps to rise on your skin. "Sadness" he says. After this, he retracted his hand all together and let himself fall onto the pillow next to you.

After coming home from a doctor’s appointment in one day, Leehan ran up to greet you. “How did it go?” He asked.

“Not the best.” You respond, setting your bags down on the kitchen counter. He picks up a small paper bag and shakes it. It lets out a rattle. “More pills?” He assumes disapprovingly. You nod your head. 

“What, you’re just going to let them control you like this? You said it yourself, you can’t get anything done on these stupid pills. And the side effects – I can’t bear to see you in pain. They’re not worth it.” He reproaches.

“I know. I agree. But you know it… it gets bad when I’m not on something. I have to keep trying until one of them works.” You counter.

He huffs and puts the bag back on the counter. “Not with this bullshit. Find another solution. Truthfully, I don’t come around that often when you’re on meds because I can’t stand being around someone I don’t know. You change when you’re under their spell.” With that, he storms off.

You’re surprised and a little upset at the very least. He never gets mad at you. The last thing you want is to drive away the only person who’s stuck around. You stand with a hand on the counter for a moment to compose yourself.

When you finally gather up the courage to go speak to him, you find him at the window nook. You stand in front of him and he looks up at you. You start, “I’m sorry. I know it’s annoying and unfair for you to have to keep up with all my mood swings and problems. I’m sorry you have to deal with me at all. That being said, you’re all I have. I’d rather spend time with you than have you not recognize me when I’m taking some medication. I choose you.”

Not knowing what to do after that declaration, you looked to the side sheepishly. Silently, he wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed his head against your stomach, pulling you closer in the process. You wrapped your hands gently around his head, fiddling with his long hair in the process. You loved this. You loved him, and wouldn’t trade him for the world.

A few days and an annoying phone call later, you sigh and leave the comfort of your bed to go find Leehan. You see him on the couch, reading the book he had most recently brought home.

“I just got off the phone with Sophia, you remember I told you about her? My friend from high school.” You start. He nods, and you continue. “She’s asking why she hasn’t met you yet.” He shifts uncomfortably. “What did you tell her?” He asks.

“I just told her because you’re busy and a bit introverted. She doesn’t need to know that you basically live here.” You say, making your way over to the couch and plopping next to him.

“Good, thanks.” He says. “As we both know, I’m not really a people person. Besides you, of course.” He says, face illuminated with a smile. You immediately felt warmth grow in your chest. Seeing him smile felt like winning a prize at an arcade, like the smell of jasmine. You never wanted to lose him.

One night, it got particularly bad. You had been up for at least 24 hours, full of energy. You paced back and forth behind the couch where Leehan was sitting, thoughts racing 100mph. Leehan notices how antsy you are, and intervenes, “What’s wrong?”

Heart pounding, you try to respond. “I don’t know, I just, I feel so helpless. I have so many ideas but I’m too useless to do any of them. Why don’t I always have this sort of motivation? It’s burning inside of me.” You grab a fistful of your oversized shirt and pull it out and in to fan yourself lightly.

“Do you want some water? I can grab you a glass.” He asks, feet already moving towards the fridge.

Unable to properly respond, you just let your feet guide you over to the kitchen. Bouncing on the balls of your feet, you decide that you need to shower instead. “Shower!” You yell over your shoulder, already halfway to the bathroom by the time Leehan registers where you’re going.

The shower is refreshing, but mid-shampoo, the buzzing feeling in your heart seems to shift. It feels heavier, uglier. You slowly drop your hands, letting them swing to a still at your sides. You don’t feel so good anymore, about anything. Everything felt a horrible shade of brownish green and the taste of lemon lime gatorade.

20 minutes pass, and Leehan decides to check up on you. With a soft knock on the door, he says, “Hey, you alright in there?”. Ear pressed against the door but still not hearing any response but the running water, he knocks again, calling your name.

Now it’s his turn to pace. Finally deciding, he turns back towards the door and says a bit louder this time, “I’m coming in!” Hand shaking a bit, he grabs the door handle firmly and opens it.

When he gets inside he sees you curled up on the floor of the shower. He grabs a towel and rushes to open the door. You don’t seem to mind – or even fully acknowledge his presence. He tries his best to wrap you in the towel and slumps on the wet ground next to you. The last thing he’s worried about is his clothes.

He grabs the bottom of his face and guides it to face his own. “Breath, breath. What’s happening?” He asks.

Sobs racking your body and hot tears streaming down your face, you (unsuccessfully) try to pull yourself together. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know why everything is so hard. Why is everything so hard? Why can I not fucking do anything? What’s wrong with me?” You babble.

He quickly pulls you impossibly closer to him, legs clanging against each other and your head on his chest, his chin resting atop it. He tries his best to sooth you, hands stroking your wet hair.

“You’ll get through this. I won’t leave until you do. I promise.” He says assuringly.

All you could do was sob into his chest for what felt like hours.

He didn’t leave.

You slept for most of the day, woken only by the ring of your phone. You both woke up in a haze, stiff from sleeping upright on the bathroom floor. You reach to the counter to grab your phone. It’s Sophia. You call her back.

“Hey! Where have you been?” Her voice stings your ear. “I, uh, I slept in.” You reply. “Until 4pm? God, okay, well, have you read any of my texts? I’m in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop by. I’ll be there in 5.” She says all at once. “Okay, I – okay. See you then.” Instead of arguing, you decide you’d use the few minutes to make yourself look presentable.

Once you hang up, you tell Leehan about Sophia. “She’s coming over in a few minutes. I didn’t really have a choice, believe me.” You say, going to your room to get changed.

When she arrives, you let her in with a fake smile. She wraps you in a half-returned hug. “Didn’t you say you just woke up? You look exhausted.” She says with a grimace.

Did she come here just to insult me? You wonder, annoyed by her blunt comment. Brushing it off, you retort, “I didn’t sleep very well to be honest. Can I get you anything to drink?”

After a somewhat pleasant visit surrounding small talk of where Sophia’s moved since high school and what your lives have been like the past few years, it seems like she’s finally finished with her stop by. Walking to the door, Sophia quips, “You know, I was sure I was going to catch that Leehan boy here. You always mention him but never offer to introduce us. Is he really that shy?”

Thinking that this might be the right time for Leehan to meet someone else from your life, meaningful or not, you respond. “Actually he is here! Let me go get him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” As you go to find him, she mumbles under her breath. “He’s here and he didn’t even come out? How rude. I don’t know why she hangs around that guy.”

Oddly enough, you search all the rooms in the apartment to no avail. Leehan isn’t there. With a frown on your face, you go back to the entrance of the apartment to try to explain yourself.

“He actually um, he must’ve left while I was changing. He really is that shy.” You say with a light chuckle, in an attempt to make the situation less weird.

Sophia nervously laughs. “Okay, okay. Maybe another time then. Also, are you taking your meds?”

Your heart jumps at her question. “How… How do you know I’m on meds?” You inquire.

She shifts her weight a bit with a pause, looking as if she’s carefully choosing her words. “I bumped into your parents recently when visiting home and, you know how your mom is…” She says.

A sting of betrayal sparks in your heart. “Did she ask you to ask me about the meds? Does she not think I’m taking them? Actually no, I’m not going to discuss this with you.” You extend your arm past her to open the door, insinuating that she needs to take her leave.

All of a sudden, Sophia grabs your shoulder. “Please, your mom is worried about you. Both of them are. I am. Can you just take your medication for us?” You screw your face up at her sudden request.

“Sophia, I’m really fine. I can manage without them. They don’t make me feel good, do you understand? Plus, I have Leehan-” You begin to express, being cut off abruptly.

“That’s just it though! You’re not! You sleep all day, don’t respond for days, and your only friend is someone no one else has ever met! You’re not fine! There is something wrong and you are scaring us.” She outbursts.

You’re in shock for a moment. “You don’t care about me. You never did. You’re just a henchman for my parents.” You shake her hand off your shoulder and it falls back to her side, defeated. The look in her eye turns from concerned to blank. Her fallen hand goes to clutch the strap of her bag. “Okay. Good luck then.” She says, turning and opening the door in one motion. She leaves without another word.

Even though you didn’t appreciate Sophia’s visit, it held a little more weight to know that your parents were involved. They were concerned, scared for you?

That evening, you thought about this standing by the kitchen counter with the new medication in front of you. 

All of a sudden, Leehan walks in. He sees you and walks over to you, patting your head like a puppy. You beam up at him, the first time you’ve smiled all day. “How are you feeling?” He says, taking off his jacket and draping it over the closest chair. “Utterly and completely exhausted.” You respond honestly.

You turn to face him directly. “Hey, I think I might give this new medication a chance.” You say. His eyebrows knit almost immediately. “After everything they’ve done to you so far? Really? They practically make you a zombie.” He says.

You move to grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it halfway with water. “Yes, after everything. I can’t afford to go through last night over and over again. I can’t handle it.” You say.

He goes silent. Too silent. “What are you thinking?” You ask. It takes him a few heartbeats to respond, but when he does, you wish you never asked.

“How do you think I feel?” “What?” “How do you think I feel? I’m by your side through all of this. You don’t think I’m sick of it too? This is just as much my battle as it is yours. You… you couldn’t do any of it without me. You need me. These pills, they just make you some brainless loser. Those ideas and dreams you have sometimes? You won’t be able to achieve any of them on those damn pills, I can guarantee you that.” He says.

Your jaw tightens at the shocking and harsh comments he just made. It turns to anger in your heart. “What, are you trying to control me too? Is that it? If you feel so burdened by me then why don’t you go and leave me too? You are by no means obligated to stay here with some brainless loser.” You angrily swipe the pill bottle from the counter and shake out a pill. You toss it in your mouth without and drink from your glass without hesitation, looking him in the eye while you do it. You felt like you could see his resolve break through his eyes, and your jaw tightened with sadness again.

You left for your room. You got in bed and immediately burst out in tears. You left the door open, though. With Leehan, an open door meant the other could come in, even if you weren’t in the best of moods.

After a minute, Leehan slinked in. He silently climbed into bed with you. Instinctively, you put your head against his chest and continued to cry. What you didn’t expect was for him to start shuddering. You open your eyes to see tears coming out of Leehan’s eyes. The look on his face brought you so much anguish. His shade wilted to a dull ash and it broke your heart.

You sit up and try to wrap your hands around him for once. Still crying, he says, “I just… I don’t want to lose what I have. Don’t let them take you away from me. Please. I need you in my life. I can’t live without you. Please let me stay.”

You hold him close until you both fall asleep, just like he’s done for you time after time. When you wake, you see that Leehan has already woken up. After you fully wake up, you return to your room. You sit on the window nook, legs to your chest to make room for Leehan out of habit. He’ll turn up soon, you think to yourself.

He never does.

hi guys! this is unedited so i apologize for any mistakes :,) wrote it in the spur of the moment, i hope u enjoy! also i realized how little works there are for the bonedo community to i'm officially joining the forces 🫡

p.s. i got inspo from the forest fic…

[danny-pino-group-therapy]

AN: This fic is purely self-indulgent! I needed it at this time Sorry for my grammar and poorly written story. It was off the cuff.

TW’s: If any of the following are likely or even remotely possible to trigger you PLEASE DO NOT READ BELOW! Depression; Mania; Manic Depressive; Bipolar disorder; Self Harm Scars; Self Harm Thoughts; Suicidal Thoughts; Mental Illness.

WC: 1,808

“Have you ever felt so alone even when you’re surrounded by people?” You looked up at Nick, thick tears gathering in your eyes at the admission of how you were handling life and all its highs and lows currently.

Nick felt his heart break as he looked down at you, curled up on your oversized comfy sofa. As he had come into the apartment an hour ago after not hearing from you all day and not seeing you at work, he noticed your place was eerily quiet save for a few sniffles coming from the living room. The place seemed almost untouched, with no dishes in the sink, no drinking glasses anywhere, or the water bottle you carried around faithfully. The only place that seemed lived in at all was the living room, where it appeared you had camped out the last couple of days at least. A blanket tossed haphazardly over the back of the couch, takeout boxes on the coffee table, and a couple of plastic water bottles on the floor. It was very apparent to Nick you weren’t feeling well mentally and in a dark place.

Nick exhaled a shaky breath before taking a tentative seat on the sofa beside you. He knew you well enough to know that when in a state like this you wanted your space but you needed him close by too.

“Yeah…yeah Hermosa I have.” He sighed. “I don’t know how you’re currently feeling or what you’re dealing with baby but I’ve felt that way. Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours.” The handsome hazelnut-eyed detective let his hand reach out towards you, holding it over your thigh. “When did you first start feeling this way? Hmm?” He spoke softly, his voice full of concern.

“I don’t know. Everything just snowballed.” You sniffled and looked up to the ceiling as tears welled even further in your eyes while you tried not to cry openly, always wanting to remain strong on the outside for everyone else. Nick though…Nick saw right through it all. He always had and always would and as he did he pulled you to him, into his chest as he wrapped his arms around you; his large hand on your head soothing down your hair before pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

Nick had been in your life for nearly five years now, at first only a partner at work but now your boyfriend for nearly a year after you both confessed your feelings after an argument after a frustrating week and a huge disagreement. You had yelled at him your feelings and he stared at you dumbfounded, never believing anything so good could happen to him, so good as to have you have the same feelings he felt for you, that is. That was Nick though, Nick Amaro who never thought he deserved the best in life which you always felt he did, knew he did. Then again you felt the same way toward yourself. Never believing you deserved anything good or anyone good in your life and that anything or anyone good had to have an alterer motive. Perhaps that’s why you were kindred spirits, you both knew how the other felt in some similar sort of way all the while knowing it was completely different sets of situations that led you to the place you were in life now.

Nick looked over to the table behind the couch seeing your medicine containers filled still from the last week. You hadn’t taken them then, a reckless decision in a moment of mania or brain fog, maybe both, he couldn’t be sure until asking further. While at work the detective was one of the best at interrogations he was careful when it came to you, he knew you hated feeling like you were being interrogated like one of his perps. It always ended up in you pulling even further away and shutting everyone, including him, out. “You didn't take your meds this week?” He questioned softly as he caressed your hair and back.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember when.” You muttered.

“Baby…you had an alarm set. What happened? I wanted to be here but I was undercover. I’m so sorry mi amor. I can’t always be here to remind you, you know that right? I worry. You have to take your meds so you feel better; so you feel okay.” Nick urged, feeling himself worry even more now at your words.

“Nick…Nick I don’t need you to babysit me. I know what I did was reckless. I know I skipped. One day I got up late, and I missed my alarm, and cut it off. The next day I said I didn’t have time, so I skipped it. The next, the same. The following I forgot, the same with the next and the next, and then I got to the point where I felt amazing I didn’t need it I thought. I was stupid and things spiraled. It felt great for a while! Boy did it feel fucking great. Now…now I just feel empty, and alone. Alone when I’m at work. Alone here. Alone with you. It doesn’t matter, I’m alone.” You started to feel yourself get carried away trying to explain what your mind felt like right now.

The detective listened, his heart clutching at your words and the pain and conflicting thoughts you had to be having right now.

“It’s not normal and it’s not okay. I just. I want to feel okay. I don’t want to have to live life on meds and still battle my thoughts, my mind saying awful things. I’m filled with rage and with hate and I’m not…I’m not hateful, I’m not vengeful, I’m not like this Nick. You know I’m not! I’m empathetic, I’m kind, I feel other people’s emotions and pain so deep inside myself that I carry it wherever I go and I try to make it better. I’m not this person my mind makes me believe I am.” You pushed off of Nick’s chest, or tried I should say but he held you tight to him knowing in a moment you’d break, the flood of tears would form and you’d not be able to stop it. Knowing you you probably hadn’t cried in a long time and needed it. Needed to feel healthy and not with the methods you used to use. Nick’s mind flashed with the memories of new scratches and new cuts and new bruises before you and he had gotten together and you had started an intensive therapy course and continued with therapy and treatment since. You had relapses of course but it hadn’t been as frequent and he had made it his life mission that no one, not even yourself, would harm you again. The squad and so many others, including yourself told him that it wasn’t his fault if you had faltered or slipped again, that it wasn’t his duty to make sure you were okay 24/7 but he still took it seriously and it made you feel even more guilty you had hurt him so bad by hurting yourself.

“Baby… Hermosa, you…you haven’t hurt yourself again have you?” He was afraid to ask…afraid of what the answer might be. He had been gone away without contact all week and had no idea if you were okay or not even if you assured him you were a big girl. Even the squad had said they’d check on you, which they did until you stopped letting anyone in yesterday morning.

“No…no, I haven’t. I’ve had thoughts but I haven’t.” You choked up and the man looked over your hands that had clutched his shirt desperately then down to your wrists and arms seeing no signs of new red angry skin. “It’s like a fucked up addiction. I did it to feel. I did it to make sure I was alive and all the while forget that I was and attempt not to have to deal with it at all anymore. I hate it. I hate I started it but I did now I have to live with it all because I started and my fucked up bipolar.” You cried.

“How…how can you even stand me?? Why do you want to be with me? Why? I’m so fucked up Nick! I’m screwed up! Why would YOU want ME? Me of all the women you could have, you chose the girl with a brain so messed up as mine.” You broke down as the handsome raven-haired detective held you tighter, tears gathering in his own eyes as you soaked his shirt with your own.

“Because I’ve never seen someone so compassionate. Someone so filled with life when you’re interested in something you can’t stop talking about it. Your eyes light up, your smile is huge and you can go on for ages until you realize I’m staring at you with my stupid big grin. Because of your smile, your spirit lights up even the darkest of moments, of days, the darkest corners of my mind. When I think of having you as my work partner and my girlfriend I ask how fucking lucky am I to have you by my side to confide in, to hold, and to love. How lucky am I that Zara and Gil have another amazing woman in their life who can teach them compassion for others and empathy and set a good example. Baby love you so much. I know we’re both fucked up but you are the light in the center of my heart that keeps it beating. That keeps me going. I don’t care that you have times when your life feels a mess, mine feels like a shit show most of the time too but when I hold you, or you hold me, I feel I’m sane. I’m okay. I’ll be okay because you’re here now. You’re going to be okay? Alright? I’m here. I’m going to love you through this and beyond. We’ll get you back on track and get you feeling better. I love you, please…try never to forget, even if you do, I’m going to remind you every day for the rest of eternity that you’re loved and cherished not just by me but by family and our squad and friends. Always.” Nick held your face in his large calloused hands gently as he spoke before kissing your tear-stained face and lips. “I love you. Please rest here, okay? When you get up I’ll be right here. We’ll start new. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.” He cooed and rocked slowly side to side hoping to soothe you as you cried yourself to sleep knowing Nick was right, he would be there for you and help you till you saw the daylight again.

Author’s Note: Please if you feel hopeless, empty, sad, or alone or are having any thoughts of SH, Suicide, or even just a feeling of helplessness and depression, call or text your local hotline (FOUND HERE). I have used the Crisis text line (text HOME to 741741 in the USA) several times and it helps to have someone to listen when you hate or are anxious about talking on the phone! If not these lines, please friends/family for support or someone who will listen to you. I’m here to speak to you and try to understand even in your darkest time you aren’t alone even if you feel you are. You are enough and you are loved. I love you. ❤️

[scarabsinthestardust]

Better in the Morning // Ch. 15.1

MASTERLIST

CHAPTER WARNINGS: mentions of hospitalizations; injuries including but not limited to a broken leg, head trauma; medications; headaches; nosebleeds; nightmares; slight mentions of suicide/overdose; arguments; angst (but I promise there's some fluff, just bear with me!) Again, I am not a medical professional and have no formal medical training.

word count: 2600+

DANIEL'S POV

Sam stayed in the hospital for another week and a half after he woke up. He was out of the woods, but they wanted to monitor him in case there were any lasting effects of his head trauma. No matter how many times we were reassured that he would be okay, I couldn’t rid myself of the fear that I had when I thought I might lose him.

Our fight was still fresh in my mind, and I’d beat myself up over it and all the things I said to him for a long time. I don’t know if he remembered any of it, though. Granted, we didn’t have any time alone while surrounded by the Kiszka family at the hospital. But he didn’t seem angry at me. Not once did he show any signs of resentment towards me. That almost made me feel worse. He should’ve been angry. He should’ve been blaming me. But he held my hand and shared soft smiles with me, and it gave me some hope that everything would be alright.

He was finally discharged from the hospital and was more than ready to be out of there. His parents and sister had gotten a hotel to be close by, but made a point to not crowd him. I assumed Josh or Jake would want to stay with him, but when he asked me to, my heart swelled. He still wanted me there.

Sam was trying so hard to feel normal again, but it seemed like an uphill battle. He was frustrated about the difficulty he had moving around, wanting so badly to do things on his own and hating to ask for the help he desperately needed. I didn’t mind, of course. I wanted to take care of him, for as long as he’d let me.

He was struggling with brain fog and drowsiness, but he’d been assured that was normal during his recovery. He slept a lot and wasn’t eating as much as I would’ve liked; he was constantly nauseous as a result of the cocktail of meds he was on. He was resistant to the pills, refusing to take them until he couldn’t bear the physical pain anymore. I always offered them on the allowed schedule, though, just in case. The headaches were the worst. They were often accompanied by nosebleeds, and the pain he felt was so excruciating he could do nothing but lay down and cry. And I could do nothing but lay there and hold him.

He'd have nightmares about the accident sometimes. He’d wake up drenched in sweat and out of breath. At first, he never wanted to talk about them, but he eventually caved. He dreamt about what he remembered, which wasn’t much – the oncoming headlights, the smell of gasoline, and the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach when he thought he might not make it out alive. I didn’t tell him I was having nightmares, too.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask, but I didn’t think he remembered calling me. On some nights after Sam was asleep, I’d listen to the voicemail again. I don’t know why I insisted on doing it to myself, but I couldn’t stop, much less make myself delete it. The message is fuzzy, broken apart by static and peppered with the pinging of whichever of the car’s warning notifications were going off. Some kind of hissing can be heard, like the sound of a busted hose, intermingled with Sam’s heavy breaths. His voice follows, cracked and fearful. He coughs in between words, and it’s clear that it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

Hey, Danny boy. I think… I messed up a little… I don’t know what’s… gonna happen. So just know… I’m not mad anymore. I’m scared, Daniel, I’m really scared. I wish I was home with you, sn- snuggled up watching some dumb movie. I love you. I love you. I love you so fucking much, since forever, for always. I love you. Don’t forget about me. Take care of Rose, take care of everyone. Promise…

I think he lost consciousness then. His voice trailed off and all I could hear was static and the incessant dinging. Hearing his voice like that, imagining how terrified he must have been, made my heart feel like it was being ripped into a thousand little pieces. It made me want to vomit. But still, I couldn’t stop listening to it.

He sat on the floor of the living room, leaned against the front of the couch. It was a mystery to me why he kept doing it, as getting back up with a broken leg and a sprained hand was difficult to say the least. But no matter how comfortable I tried to make the couch for him, he always ended up moving himself down to the floor. “Don’t like the altitude,” he joked.

I tried to remind him when he asked me to hand him a guitar that his hand needed time to heal. He would have none of it. But when he tried to play, everything started barreling downhill again. First, he couldn’t get comfortable, and the joints in his hand complained with every movement. Next came the fumbling when switching strings or frets, and the frequent dead notes that reached my ears. He cursed and muttered under his breath but refused to stop trying. He swapped the acoustic for his seafoam bass; maybe he thought it’d be more reliable. He started strumming the first few notes of ‘Caravel,’ then abruptly stopped. He furrowed his brows and tried again with the same result. After a few more attempts, he squeezed his eyes shut and groaned loudly, bowing his head over the instrument, his messy hair hiding his face. “Fuck!”

“Sam? Is it your head? Maybe you should take a break-“

“I can’t remember,” he said, his voice cracking. He looked up at me, his eyes filling with tears. “I can’t remember how to play.”

Fuck. A million and one thoughts raced through my head. What would that mean for Sam? Would he have to relearn everything? Would he even try? And what would that mean for the band? I couldn’t imagine continuing it without him, and I knew his brothers wouldn’t just replace him. But even though it crossed my mind, Greta wasn’t my first priority. Greta Van Fleet didn’t matter without Sam in it. I worried that he wouldn’t be able to cope if he couldn’t play; he worked so hard to get as far as he did. He gave up college and astronomy to play music. If he couldn’t play… what happens next?

I tried to comfort him as he cried and as he hyperventilated through a panic attack. Rose nudged him, laying her head in his lap. I held him as close to me as I physically could and smoothed down his hair. “Sammy, baby, it’ll be okay. You’re still healing from a traumatic brain injury, and I’m sure all the meds are making you feel a little off. There’s probably a lot you won’t be able to do right away, but you’ll get there. You need time to heal, so focus on that for now, and let the music come after.”

“What if it doesn’t come?”

“Then we’ll figure it out. But it will, and you’ll be back to feeling like yourself again before you know it.”

He cried so much that night, which triggered another headache. After some convincing, he took a dose of pain pills. Right before he fell asleep, he mumbled something, so low that it was almost inaudible. But I heard him. “Will you still love me if I’m broken forever?”

My breath caught in my throat and my eyes filled to the brim with tears. I tightened my arms around him as much as I could without hurting him. “I’ll always love you, Sammy. No matter what. I promise.” He didn’t say anything else, and when I heard a light snore, I knew he was asleep.

~

Sam’s slow, clumsy movements as he tried to get up out of bed woke me up. “You okay?”

“Gotta pee.”

I started to sit up and rubbed my eyes. “Here, let me help-“

“No,” he cut me off. “I can do it on my own, I need to.” I could hear the plea in his voice to let him try. He needed to feel some semblance of independence where he could get it.

I nodded and laid back down, watching him closely for any sign he might fall as he grabbed the crutches and hoisted himself up. I relaxed when he made it to the bathroom okay, although I listened out in case he needed any help. I heard the toilet flush, but while waiting for him to finish up, I must have fallen back asleep. I don’t know how long I was out before I woke back up. The room was still dark, but Sam wasn’t in bed, and everything was quiet. I could see light seeping from under the bathroom door, and Rose lying in front of it. “Sammy, you okay?” My heart started pounding with anxiety when he didn’t answer. I slowly pushed the door open and called his name again. It felt like a punch in the gut when I saw him on the floor, eyes closed, leaned up against the bathtub.

I rushed to him, probably bruising my own knees as I hit the cold tile and placed my hands on his cheeks. “Sam? What happened? Are you hurt?”

His eyes fluttered open and he smiled. “I’m okay, Danny boy. Just tired.”

A sense of relief washed over me, and I adjusted myself to sit with him, just until he was ready to go back to bed. But the relief was quickly replaced with dread when my knee touched something on the ground. An empty pill bottle. I snatched it up, now noticing a second one. “Sam, what the fuck… please tell me you didn’t.” He was slow to respond; my blood ran cold, and my breathing quickened. “Sam?! Fuck!” Call 911. I scrambled off the floor and rushed back to the bedroom to find my phone. I grabbed it off the charger but fumbled and dropped it. Sam called my name as I finally had it back in my hand and was running back to him. My hands shook as I started to dial the numbers, and he called my name again.

“Daniel, it’s okay! I flushed ‘em.”

My movements halted and I stared at him for a moment, trying to register his words. “You… you didn’t take them?”

He shook his head. “I don’t wanna take ‘em anymore. They make my brain fuzzy and I don’t feel like me. So I flushed them.”

“Jesus, Sammy.” I scrubbed my hand over my face and lowered myself back to the floor. I willed my heart rate to even out. This was fixable; we could get refills for the pain meds. If he would even take them. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea to him in the moment, but he might regret it next time he got a severe migraine. I didn’t see the point in giving him shit about it at this point. It was already done and there wasn’t anything that could be done about it right now. “Do you want to go back to bed?”

“Not yet.” He leaned his head back carefully on the edge of the tub. “S’ cold. Feels nice.” We sat in silence for a while until he said, “I’m sorry.”

I thought he was apologizing for tonight, for making me think he overdosed. “It’s okay, you just scared me is all.”

“No. Well… that, too. But I meant for what happened before… before I left.”

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about, and I couldn’t hide my surprise when I did. “Oh. I didn’t know if you remembered that.” I kept my eyes trained on the ground as I thought about what I said to him that night, afraid of what I might find in his. If he remembered the fight, he might resent me for it.

“Are you still mad about it?”

“No,” I answered immediately.

“Would you be if all this shit didn’t happen?” He gestured to the cast on his leg. “It’s okay if you’re still mad at me. I deserve it.”

“No, you don’t, Sam. It was stupid and I acted like an asshole. I’m the one that overreacted-“

“Uh uh.” He lifted and shook his head. “I just wanted attention. And I was mad ‘cause I wanted it from you. I wasn’t flirting with that guy because I actually liked him or anything. I didn’t wanna hurt you, I just wanted to make you jealous.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I probably should have been pissed at his confession. Seeing him fawn over some tool at the bar and follow him around like a lovesick puppy had me livid. If all he wanted to do was make me jealous, it certainly worked. When I confronted him after the fact, it escalated into a full-blown screaming match. We both said so many awful things to each other that I know neither of us meant. But his honesty tonight was refreshing. So instead of being angry, I just laughed, earning a confused look from him.

“You know,” I started, “I love you, but you are such a fucking brat.”

It wasn’t long before he joined in, falling into a fit of giggles. “At least I’m your brat.”

Later on, once we were back in bed, snuggled up under the covers, he grabbed my hand that was wrapped around him and held it tightly to his chest. “Daniel?”

“Hm?” I fought to stay awake, tiredness threatening to take me under.

“I wanna tell them about us.”

I opened my eyes and stared towards him in the dark. We’d kept our relationship a secret for so long, and I couldn’t even remember why. I’m sure we had our reasons, but it all seemed so stupid now. A part of me sort of liked having it to myself, like what we had was just for us and wasn’t anyone else’s business. But the other part of me wanted to take this super important piece of my life and share it with the people closest to us. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised, as if he expected me to say no.

“I don’t want to hide it anymore.”

“Okay, good.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Do you think they’re really gonna be surprised?”

“Nah. If I had to guess, they probably already know and made bets against each other.”

“Hmph. Fuckers,” he snorted.

I chuckled, and I was so happy that he seemed to be getting back to his old self already.

~

It took three more days before he was willing to pick up an instrument again. He was anxious to even try, but with the right amount of encouragement from me and his brothers, he was back in the saddle. It wasn’t perfect, as he was still working on getting full range of motion in his hand back, but it was promising. After successfully hitting most of the notes in ‘Caravel’ and a few others, he was beaming.

“I told you it would come back to you.”

I was wrong to assume that the twins would have any inkling of my relationship with their younger brother. With eyes wide and jaws dropped, they bombarded us with questions. They were mostly baffled how we had managed to keep it a secret for so long, and right under their noses. I did notice that Kya didn’t seem shocked in the slightest; Sam would tell me later that Kya probably knew before we did. When the initial shock wore off, we received nothing but happy sentiments.

“If there’s anyone I trust to take care of my baby brother, it’s you,” Josh said as he hugged me tightly, and I was so grateful to be lucky enough to be a part of this family.

TAGLIST Let me know if you want to be added!

@hollyco @fleetingjake @musicislove3389

[o-wild-west-wind]

It is the 1 year anniversary of the OFMD finale, and also the 5 year anniversary of my uncle’s death. For no particular reason, I’m feeling compelled to write something about it, so…here goes. This is more for myself than anyone else, but I guess I wanted to put it out there in case it resonates with anyone. I know a lot of us have found healing through this show 💛

When I first found OFMD, I was still in a state of mourning. The loss of my uncle hit me hard; I had been living with him on my breaks during college, and with no kids of his own, I was also his primary caretaker when he was ill. He took me in when my MAGA dad—his brother—couldn’t look at me without starting a fight. In many ways, he was the dad I wished I had.

And then, before he was ready to go, he was gone.

It wasn’t until after I started going through his things that I finally confirmed that he was gay (a copy of an application to be a mentor for the Trevor Project, and a sizable collection of gay erotica LOL). As nice as it felt to know, it also gutted me—because we had both feared backlash from my homophobic dad, neither of us had ever come out to the other. I felt an overwhelming amount of regret for never having talked about it with him, and I especially regretted that he’d lived alone, aside from me. I regretted that I’d never know if he had had the chance at love.

His death snapped something in my brain; I lost my spirituality, became obsessive about death, and was convinced that I was on my deathbed myself. I tried multiple different therapists, but nothing worked. And as years went by, I still felt the fog of grief, depression, and paranoia. The bitterness that my uncle could never be himself to his own family compounded on my bitterness that I had to hide myself in the same way, and I resigned myself to a life I felt almost to be condemned.

When OFMD started, my partner (a longtime Taika Waititi fan) suggested it to me, knowing how much I was looking for a distraction (and a laugh). I’d just been diagnosed with an alphabet soup of neurodivergencies, and told myself to hang onto the world at least until I could get my meds sorted out; but I had months to wait for my appointment, and I needed something, anything, to get me by until then.

So this silly little show came around, and it genuinely felt like the first seedling of spring after a long winter. It was fun, and funny, and just the world I wanted to escape to—but it was also about self-acceptance, love, queer joy, and—in its surprisingly understated way—death. It was a space to explore the themes that had haunted my own life, but in an overwhelmingly uplifting vessel. And it finally hit me that my uncle had never really been alone, like I’d assumed; there was and had always been a whole world of people out there, young and old, like us. We’d carved a space for ourselves, despite. It was the first time I really started feeling that it was okay to just…be.

I got onto an upward trajectory from there—I finally got on meds, came out to my close friends (half of which came out to me in turn lmao), and—thanks to Stede—found the courage to quit the job I hated and go back to grad school. But when S2 dropped, it really felt like the closure I didn’t even realize I needed. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that Ed’s arc basically cured my death anxiety—and the closure of his issues with his own father figures really helped me find a closure with mine.

I guess I say all this as a reflection of what this show gave me, and also in gratitude that a year later, I’m still in awe at the lasting power of its healing medicine. I still have my shit, and I’m working through more loss and grief I experienced during this span of time, but I’m honestly feeling…okay. Like I can breathe again, for once—no longer like I’m just waiting to drown.

I know that this piece of art just managed to be exactly what I needed at exactly the right point in time, but FUCK, am I glad it was. I’m devastated we don’t have more, but I’m so, SO grateful for what we ended up with, because it was exactly what I needed.

And while I wish I could’ve watched it with my uncle—he would’ve loved this show—I’m so grateful that it has turned his memory from something of deep pain to that of humor and joy. Like so many of the characters, he was funny, and brash, and caring beyond belief; he gave me my love of sailing, and taught me to treasure fine things, laugh in the face of hate, and never to give up on what I loved.

So cheers to you, Uncle R. Cheers to the renegades. And cheers to queer joy—because it feels good for the flag that once meant death to me to finally have a new meaning 🏳️‍🌈

[ronsenburg]

sorry for posting about such tiny writing victories on here all the time. I get that the things that I’m celebrating are minuscule compared with the volume that a lot of other writers (or even myself, three years ago) regularly produce and that the content overall is pretty trivial. but, at this point, it isn’t really even about writing anymore.

it’s so crazy (sarcasm) but having a kid is really hard! not even the physical elements of gestating a human being or dealing with the way life changes after you become a parent. I really didn’t expect the psychological side of it, I guess? I got pregnant in 2021, had a miscarriage, and then got pregnant again right away after and the hormonal changes from all that fucked me up. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that one day, 18 months after my baby was born, I stepped out of a mental fog deep enough that I couldn’t recognize the person I’d been for that last year and a half. that chunk of time is just amorphous in my brain. between the lack of sleep, continued hormone fluctuation insanity, and inability to take some of my meds, I was like a shell of the person I’d been at the beginning of 2021. I literally had no space in my brain for anything other than taking care of that baby. anything that brought me joy before, any hobbies I had, just… hadn’t mattered. if it was postpartum depression, it was a really weird kind that allowed me to feel happy and optimistic about the future and very much in love with the tiny human I’d brought into the world. I just wasn’t me anymore. the craziest part was that it wasn’t an experience unique to me? a lot of the other moms I talked to about it on the other side were like ‘haha, yeah, that got me too!’ even my therapist kind of hand waved it off as normal. and??? why isn’t this something we talk about???

anyway, last october, I finally snapped out of it and started to try and chisel out some space in my new life for the person I’d been before the baby. it’s been really difficult—I don’t get much time for myself and when I do, if I don’t spend it cleaning or prepping activities and play dates, I end up feeling really guilty. I can’t stress enough how much I genuinely enjoy being a mom and how fortunate I feel to spend as much time as I do with my kid, I just also feel like there needs to be room for me to be something outside of that as well, you know?

now it feels like every time I’m able to write anything, I’m getting to step a little further back into the things that made me happy before. even if it’s not very good or not very much, it’s progress towards finding balance. so I’m probably going to keep posting about it here and celebrating all those little things. thanks for putting up with me while I do ❤️

[your-queer-dad]

Hi dad,

Today I had a panic attack.

I was overwhelmed, because my mom so sick, my migraines and dizziness and other stuff have been getting worse, algebra 2 is overwhelming sometimes, and I just feel drained because of it.

I didn’t lash out or anything, but I kinda just cried quietly and tried to eat dinner. I ate half of it, which was hard, but I threw the rest away.

I wanted to sh so bad, and the urges have been getting worse.

I’ve been finding new coping mechanisms, so that’s good, and they’ve been working.

I was able to lock myself in the bathroom and calm down, but I kinda just feel drained and somehow still anxious from it. I don’t know what to do. I have an awesome mom and older sister I can talk to, but it’s really hard to talk about stuff sometimes, and I really don’t want to bother anyone. I’m in therapy and on meds, but it’s just so hard sometimes, and everything just feels like to much sometimes. And I always feel like I’m faking it. Like my stimming is fakes. Like my interests are fake. Like my emotions are fake. Like my whole sense of self is fake. And like, I know it’s not true. I know I am autistic (diagnosed when I was 8), I know I’m passionate about infectious pathology, I know I feel stuff, I know I’m a guy, and that living as a girl was hell for me, but my emotions always feel fake and distant and numb, and I always doubt myself. I need to cry a lot, like breakdown and sob and scream, but I can’t, and it just feels so frustrating.

And I’ve just been having so many memories come up from my childhood, and it just makes me so sad.

I had a dream last night that I was shopping with my cousin (who helped me through a lot, and was my best friend during tough situations. I haven’t seen her in 5 years), and I just miss her so much. It made me so sad and happy at the same time, and I just wish I could see her again.

I miss my older brother (I haven’t seen him in 5 years either), and I just want to make sure he’s ok, and give him a hug.

I keep getting random memories of an old neighbor we used to live by, who was so seeet and kind. We trusted him a lot, and played in his backyard and porch area frequently. He always had those little popsicles that are in the plastic tube thingy, and he always gave me the blue ones cause he knew they were my favorite. And though we haven’t seen him in years (we moved a lot), I miss him, and hope he’s doing ok.

I always want to help out more, and feel like I’m not doing enough. I just want to be more useful and see people smile. I like being helpful, and it hurts when I can’t do something on my own.

I feel stupid and lazy all the time. I suck at math, and can’t focus. It’s just so hard to focus, and my brain has been fogging more often in the past few years, and I just want to do something right for once.

I don’t know how to tell my mom about this, but I know that I really need to, because I don’t want to relapse again, and I don’t want to scare anyone.

Do you have any advice?

Also, I hope this ask finds you well.

Please make sure to drink some water, eat something, shower/bathe, and get some rest

Thanks for reading this :)

Hey kiddo! That sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself bud. Im so proud of you for resisting the urge to self harm. I know personally how hard that is but I'm so proud of you. No matter how fake it feels, it isn't. It sounds to me like you're invalidating your own feelings there bud. However you're feeling is true. You aren't stupid or lazy, you have so much going on right now and it's okay to be overwhelmed sometimes. Life is crazy and loud and a whirlwind and calm and warm and painful- it's so many things, it's natural to be overwhelmed by it sometimes. I would really really recommend talking to someone if you feel like you're gonna self harm. It isn't a burden to them, they care about you as much as you care about them.

- dad x

[artsy0wl]

Don’t You Ever Think You Are a Burden (Logurt/WolverinexNightcrawler)

So I thought I’d share a few of my X-Men AO3 fics on here. Some gen fics, some ship fic. All X-Men that are usually Kurt focused.

This one is a Logurt (LoganxKurt Wagner, WoverinexNightcrawler) where one near drowning causes Logan to contemplate his feelings for Kurt and why this instance pulled at his heartstrings more.

A harsh, water filled cough escaped Kurt as he gagged out water. Rolling onto his hands and knees, he continued to hack away in an attempt to empty out his lungs. Breathes took several deep inhales in an attempt to calm down as Kurt's body strained and shook. Fear, panic, and confusion made a mess of Kurt's brain, refusing to let him process what happened.

A strong hand gently sat on his back running around in circles to comfort him. It gave Kurt something to focus on. Even if it was just barely. Kurt leaned into the contact, feeling a bit more at ease. Unfortunately, not for long.

Kurt's body gave out, too stressed by the abrupt awakening. He could feel himself being rolled around onto his back as yellow eyes started getting foggy. The last thing Kurt would remember before losing consciousness was being lifted up bridal style as Logan looked at him with anxious blue eyes. And though his hearing was muffled, he could have sworn that he heard Logan telling him that everything was going to be okay.

~

Logan refused to leave Kurt's side. He was instantly brought to the med bay for observation. And though he was expected to make a speedy recovery, Kurt was bedbound until further notice. He needed the rest. Having nearly drowned thanks to his foot getting tangled in seaweed while saving a young scuba diver, getting oxygen and rest was the best medicine.

Listening to the small beeps of Kurt's machinery, Logan watched as Kurt breathed. Cold hands firmly held onto a three digited hand, periodically feeling veins thumping along to Kurt's heart rhythm.

"You don't have to be attached to his hip." Hank noted. "He's going to be okay."

Silence was all the medically proficient mutant got as Logan's hold tightened. Scanning the Canadian, Hank noted the dark circles starting to form under Logan's eyes. And from what he recalled, he hadn't seen Logan eat much since they got back.

"You need sleep." Hank advised. "He's not going anywhere."

"He nearly drowned Hank." Logan coldly reminded.

"I know."

"He could have died."

"But he didn't. And let's not forget, he saved that young boy's life."

Logan said nothing. Not because he thought that Hank was wrong, or that saving the scuba diver should have died, but because of the man in front of them. An aching feeling sank Logan's heart and a dark cloud fogged his mind.

"At least try to eat." Hank advised, noting that he wasn't going to change the man's mind anytime soon as he excused himself.

In the silent wake of Hank's exit, Logan felt lost. He always worried about Kurt. As his friend, and knowing what the blue mutant had gone through, Logan always looked out for him. People could be cruel, yet Logan never wanted him to hide his true self. He knew Kurt had troubles with family, but wanted him to know that he didn't need blood to have it when he had the X-Men. As his friend, Logan wanted what was best for him and couldn't help but worry about the external forces out to get him.

But now, Logan's worries felt like more than just friendly concerns. It fell deeper now. Watching Kurt dive down and not resurface for several minutes after the Scuba diver did brought out the worse case of panic in Logan. And seeing him almost frozen in place like a corpse on ice scared Logan.

Kurt was strong. Heroic to a fault. Logan never wanted to strip Kurt of that, but seeing him almost die was horrifying. It didn't just terrify him that he almost lost a friend. It felt like a part of his heart was almost ripped out of his chest, and he couldn't quite grasp why. Locking onto Kurt, one of Logan's hands brushed through blackish indigo hair. It caused an unconscious reaction as Kurt's face melted into the hand, causing Logan's heart to skip a beat.

Logan's mind fell onto one question: Out of all the times he had seen Kurt hurt, why was he feeling so strange about it now?

~

Kurt was released two days after his hospitalization. As such, he was allowed to freely roam the halls of the school. Provided he took it easy for a few more days.

The only problem was Logan. The once bedside latched Canadian had all but disappeared. It felt odd. Sure, Logan was distant with most people on most days, but he alway liked to check in with Kurt. Maybe go to the bar, which Kurt hs presently been barred from while he recuperates, or train in the danger room.

The distance had gotten so apparent that Kurt could have swore he was avoiding him. One of the few times Kurt spotted him, he noted Logan distancing himself from the fuzzy blue mutant. It made Kurt wonder if he had done something wrong.

~

He knew he shouldn’t be avoiding Kurt, but he felt like he had to in order to collect himself. He wanted to know why he was feeling so peculiar towards the elf. He needed time to process it and try to find out what he was feeling.

But now, his guilt for abandoning Kurt was high, and he knew he shouldn’t avoid him any longer. As he travelled down the halls, Logan caught a glimpse of a conversation. Upon further observation, it was Kurt and Kitty. Logan stood by the wall’s edge, not wanting to interrupt the conversation.

”What was it like?” Kitty inquired. “Was it like in the movies where air bubbles are all over the place and your panicking?”

”Sort of.” Kurt awkwardly confirmed. “I was certainly panicking, but I don’t think there were that many air bubbles.”

”Why didn’t you teleport?” Her question was a reasonable one. “Surely that would have saved you.”

There was a stagnant pause. Logan was curious as well. Surely Kurt would have ‘ported to safety.

“I was in such a panic that I couldn’t focus on it. My leg was caught and that’s all I could think about. I was already losing oxygen, so even if I did teleport, I could have risked uncertain amounts of damage.”

His reasoning also made sense. If someone is in a panic, the mind may become burry and scared.

”You know, Logan was relly worried about you.” Kitty stated. “He didn’t leave your side once during your stay in the medical bay.”

Another stagnant pause. Though he wasn’t looking directly at the duo, Logan could sense a subtle change in the air. Limbs shifted, crossing as one hand covered Kurt’s mouth. His eyes seemed thankful, but the were sad.

”That’s why he’s avoiding me, isn’t it?” Kurt sighed. “I must have been such a burden to him that he cant stand to be near me.”

Logan swore he heard a saddened sigh escape Kurt. Guilt sank into the Canadian like hot coal on ice. He knew his avoidance might not have been wise, but he didn’t want Kurt thinking he was a burden.

”No.” Kitty gasped. “He’s your friend.”

“Then why does he run from me?” Kurt asked, letting out a whimper.

There was no time to react before Kurt found himself thrown over a shoulder. And it wasn’t until he felt movement that he realized who grabbed him. Logan shot Kitty a glance confirming that he had this handled, to which she nodded, a little concerned, but understood that he needed to talk to Kurt.

~

Kurt was tossed on the bed unceremoniously as Logan shut the door. The blue mutant flopped around for a moment before sitting up. Once he did, Logan was leaning over him, hands clamping to the sides of his face.

”Logan, what are you doing?” Kurt shakily asked, not knowing if he should be afraid or not.

There was no time to get an answer before warm, smoke scented lips collided with Kurt’s. Golden eyes widened in shock and a deep purple tint heated Kurt’s cheeks. Nothing and no one moved, as passion absorbed the duo.

Upon release, Kurt took a deep breathe. His once alarmed expression now one of unexpected awe. Golden eyes locked with blue ones as callous hands continued to hold onto Kurt’s face.

”Don’t you ever think you’re a burden, Elf.” Logan requested. “You never were one, and I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.” A softer kiss landed on Kurt’s forehead. “I was just so scared after you nearly drowned. More so than I have ever been since the day we met. You’re strong, saintly, and smart, but when I saw you limp, it felt like I was hit by a train. I was so confused and worried, and I didn’t know why.” Hands moved to Kurt’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug. “I love you Kurt Wagner. I love you, you fuzzy elf.”

Speechless, Kurt processed everything Logan just told him. It was a relief to know that he wasn’t a burden to Logan, but he hadn’t expected the confession. It certainly put things into perspective for Kurt. Not only that, but it got him to realize something himself. In all of the years that they knew each other, Kurt would be lying if he said he wasn’t fond of Logan. Fondness that, as of late, felt less platonic, and more affectionate. Shuffling back slightly, he looked at Logan.

”I love you too, you oversized teddy bear.” Kurt replied.

This time, it was Logan who was speechless, giving Kurt just enough time to steal a soft kiss of his own. When Logan relaxed, he returned it with a subtle amount of passion. Breaking apart felt lonesome, but both needed to breathe. Logan finally got himself situated, sitting next to Kurt.

“It feels nice.” Logan mused, holding Kurt’s hand. “Knowing what I’m feeling and that it’s mutual. I’d never want you to force you.”

”I know.” Kurt figured, resting his head on Logan’s shoulder. “And you’re not. We’ve always been the odd couple. In friendship and now in romance. Not that I’m complaining. It’s… nice.”

Though putting it mildly, nice summed it up perfectly. That said, without uttering a word, they both knew it would take time to get used to this new chapter in their story, and they knew it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows. However, neither regret it in this moment, and both knew this was only the beginning.

[clonerightsagenda]

Sick

We're most of the way through disability pride month and I'm not sure if I'll ever finish this WIP because I'm stuck over how literal to make some of the elements. So, I am posting it because I am curious if any of the weirdness resonates with other people. Enjoy my magical disability cure codependent haunting thing, and also I am going to post a rambling author's note about it.

The morning after the surgery, your Sick is sitting at the kitchen table. It looks good, for a corpse. It’s wearing the ‘I love dying and being dead’ t-shirt you joked about buying two diagnoses ago, pulled over a laced-shut hospital gown.

“What?” it asks. “You had more of a sense of humor when you were sick.”

The doctors warned you that your neurochemistry might be out of balance. You’re adjusting to the sudden lifting of brain fog after moving through the world in a protective cocoon of pharmaceuticals. They didn’t mention hallucinations.

“Think of me like a phantom limb.” Your Sick sips one of those awful plant-based protein drinks that still lurk in the back of your pantry. “Why did you do it?”

Talking to hallucinations probably makes them worse. You do it anyway. “You were killing me.”

“This world is killing you. But you finished yourself off first.”

You sit down across from it in one effortless motion. “That’s not what happened.”

“Right. I’m the enemy. So it doesn’t matter if I’m rotting at the bottom of a biohazard bin.” It considers you. “What’s it like not to hurt?”

What is it like? You’d woken up and lain there for a while, waiting. “Like holding my breath.”

“You’re in charge of all that now.” It nods, the motion referencing the length of your body. “Need to stay on top of it.”

“Like I need advice from you,” you say, but you blink, and the phantom’s gone.

60,000 pieces of microplastic. 7.2 micrograms per liter of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. 1:640 antinuclear antibody titer.

That's what they peel you out of. A second nervous system of petroleum products and misfiring T cells, the stuff that's been running your life via mob rule for a decade. They tell you that you weigh five grams less now.

They tell you, don't be surprised if at first it feels like something is missing.

I thought that was just for rich people, your friend says. She messaged you to remind you to take your meds, and you told her that you would never have to take your meds again. Celebrities and politicians.

Work decided it was cheaper to fix me than replace me, you message back. Score one for being essential.

Perks of your top-secret job.

I promise it's boring. Critical infrastructure usually is.

Did you look?

Some people share post-op pictures. They’re usually underwhelming if you don’t know what to look for - the subtle swelling over an aggravated nerve, hints of boniness in the knuckles. Shadows of bruises that never go away. No. I should’ve, though. I asked for hospital socks when they were prepping me but then obviously after I didn’t have them anymore. Who knows if I’ll get another chance.

You might be finished with surgeries forever and you’re disappointed because you can’t get any more grippy socks.

I'll miss the warm blankets too.

Your Sick crawled inside you when you were nineteen years old. It wouldn’t let you get out of bed.

“Help,” it croaked.

Your roommate (only your roommate then) came the second time it called. She was in her pajamas, her hair a dark tangle. You never asked for her help, even when your hands got so sore you couldn’t open jars without five minutes of struggle. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel right,” it said.

Her face softened. “I thought you looked rough yesterday. I don’t have class this morning; do you want me to make something? Call anybody?”

No, you tried to say. I can handle it.

“I think I need to go to the doctor,” your Sick said instead.

You had been putting it off. The doctor meant admitting something was wrong, meant – most importantly – a $30 copay. But healthy people never understand when you try to tell them. At a certain point, your body stops being yours.

Your Sick turned up its nose at greasy slices of campus pizza. It politely but firmly refused invitations for a night out. It sanded the branching tree of your life into a wooden sphere it could cup in the palm of its hand.

“You’re ruining my life,” you told the mirror.

It tilted your head. You read your own confusion. “I’m protecting you.”

“Mask,” your Sick says from behind you. It looks worse today – skin gone gray and patchy, with a shimmer of microplastic shards risen to the surface like body glitter. The shine complements the sequined mask secured over its own face.

You scowl, bag swung over one shoulder. You haven’t gone out since the surgery – you can work from home, you haven’t canceled grocery delivery yet – and now that you’re venturing through your front door, the phantom is back. You had reached for one of the masks on the table by the door before dropping it back into the bowl. “I don’t need it now.”

“So respiratory diseases don’t exist anymore? Dumbass.”

The objection reminds you of your own aggrieved complaints: why don’t people plan events with us in mind, don’t they know how many people there are with immune systems one shove away from collapsing, the world’s not getting any safer.

That was your Sick talking. You don’t have to worry anymore.

“You weren’t doing a good job taking care of me before, and you’re not doing a good job of it now.”

Its eyebrows rise. Black liquid has seeped through the cloth of its mask. “And fuck everyone else like you?”

“Like you,” you say, and slam the door in its face.

Outside, the breeze brushes your cheeks. You don’t have to sit down because you miscalculated the balance of meds and breakfast. You start to scan your surroundings for bathrooms, just in case, and then dismiss the impulse because you’re fine.

You’re better than that.

Three hours in, you realize you’ve been curling your fingers into a fist and then opening them again. You only notice because the joints start to ache. It feels familiar.

Nothing else does.

A notification flashes in the corner of your screen. There’s new activity in one of the forum conversations you’ve been following.

It’s rich people doing what they always do. Wreck the planet? It’s fine, we can get a new one! Wreck your body? It’s fine, we can get a new one of that too. There’s no incentive to improve the situation if you can buy your way out of the problem.

I’d buy my way out too, but there’s no way I could afford it

Then you’d eat your first plastic salad and get sick again. See what I mean?

The new ones are supposed to be more resilient

But it’s not yours

Remember any theological debates go in the quarantine thread

I don’t mean it like that. I just think you’re interfering with your relationship with your body, and that’s a fundamental part of who you are, right? Whether or not a s*ul exists

There’s not a bot monitoring this thread. You don’t have to censor it.

Sorry, habit

Mod is human, asterisks don’t stop me. But they are a screenreader issue, so please edit your post.

You used to frequent disability forums. They had useful resources. Jokes, too, like the t-shirt your Sick wears over its hospital gown. But you can’t understand the people who embrace their disfunction. You took a time-honored approach to your medical misfortune. Cancer. Pregnancy. Demonic possession. Petrochemicals. There is something inside me, and I want it out.

These people helped you, but you don’t need them anymore. So instead of saying anything, you log off the forum for the last time.

You do tell your coworkers, who are excited for you. They pester you with questions over Slack: How long did it take? Did you look? Does it hurt?

Your boss messages you, When can you come back to the office?

You frown at the screen. The work you’ve been doing from home is good – better than what you’ve produced for years now that your head is clear. But your boss has always been old fashioned. Remote work was a concession that there’s no justification for now.

Monday, if you want, you type back.

That gets you an immediate thumbs up reaction, followed by, We’re all so glad you’re ok.

That chafes you in a spot rubbed raw. Everyone assumes once the problem they know about has been addressed, everything else must be resolved too. You must be ok.

Which you are, this time.

Your best friend comes to visit. She brings beers you couldn’t drink with your meds and a greasy pizza that settles in your stomach like a snake planning to strike later. It tastes amazing – you run your tongue over your teeth to capture the last traces of salty richness and tell yourself next time your body will recognize good food.

She’s spent the whole visit on your sofa. You have an air mattress from when she used to sleep on your floor while you were recovering from surgeries. She hasn’t asked you to bring it out, and you’re not sure how to ask if she’s staying. Instead you keep stealing glances at her, the curve of her cheek that’s the first thing you’d see when you looked over the side of your bed in the middle of the night, the hands that have held your hair back from the toilet bowl and now rest on her lap.

She keeps looking at you too. You wonder if she sees a difference.

After the silence and sidelong glances build into an itchy layer on your skin, you lean over, clutch the front of her shirt, and kiss her. She freezes and then kisses you back, gingerly, the way you'd investigate an unexpected bruise. There’s pizza grease on both your lips. Rich and unfamiliar.

You’re the one who pulls away. "I'm sorry," you say. "That's not what I want."

She’s stiff under her softness, like an examination table. "I didn’t think so. I didn't think you did that kind of thing."

You don’t. It’s the silence. Your empty floor. Her hands, resting on her lap. "I just thought…” you try. “That kind of closeness is enough for everyone else."

Your fingers are still clenched in her shirt. She looks at them until you untangle them, one by one. The knuckles don’t ache.

She shakes her head. "It's like you don't want to be better."

“That went well,” your Sick says after the door swings shut.

“It’s your fault.”

It tilts its head on a neck that’s looser than it should be. “I didn’t do anything.”

It’s right. When you were sick you could request a shoulder rub to loosen tight muscles or hike up your shirt, no seduction, no bullshit, to ask if that rash looked bad. You could open your mouth and let the truth of your predicament outweigh prudishness or shame.

You don’t know how to ask people to touch you anymore.

It leans in close. “You need me,” it says. Oil bubbles over its lips and slicks its chin. “I was always your excuse.”

That weekend you watch your phone sit silent on the table, no pings from forum posts or medication reminders. Your Sick drifts over. It’s no longer a rotting corpse leaking garbage. It looks dead in the way you used to whenever you looked in the mirror.

Wherever it is in the real world, it doesn’t look like that anymore. From what you remember from the booklets they gave you, it’s already gone.

“Not going to explain yourself, huh?” asks your hallucination. Your haunting.

You shrug. What would you say to her? I took away the foundation of my life and don’t know what’s underneath. You only started being my friend when I needed help, so what’s left for us? There was always another medication or appointment or symptom but now everything’s fine and I’m still holding my breath.

You’ve gotten used to letting someone else talk for you.

“I was killing you,” it says.

That’s what you said. You look at the lines around its eyes and imagine a billion tiny swords raised against invaders that poured in every time you took a breath to light your joints up with friendly fire. “You were protecting me.”

“I was the worst part of you.”

“You were.” You flex your perfect, painless fingers. “Do I miss it?”

It grins and leans against the back of your chair, wrapping chilly arms around your waist. “I just wanted to make you say it.”

The grip around your belly aches in a way you recognize. Dull pain that makes its home in you. Cozy as curling up in bed with a headache. You look back at your silent phone. “Which one of us did she come here for?”

“Only one way to find out.”

You could reach out, but you don’t move. You have never known how to ask for help.

Your Sick sighs. It loosens its grip and reaches over your shoulder to lace corpse-cool fingers between yours. Then it lifts your combined hands in a swoop like the first dose of anesthesia, when the orderlies wheel you away and everything is out of your control. “Come on,” she says. Her breath is a puff of disinfectant on your cheek. “Let’s do it like we used to.”

After you came out of the anesthesia, the surgeons asked if you wanted to see your old body. You said no. You’d spent long enough inside it – it was something you wanted to leave behind. Besides, even after all the pamphlets and counseling sessions, you worried seeing your vacant face would jar something loose. Convince you like those cranks on the disability forums that you’d severed a connection that was irrevocable.  

If you could do it again, you’d say yes. Step inside the morgue – no, they wouldn’t have moved it to the morgue yet, they’d want you to have a better venue to say goodbye – and catalogue the subtle changes only you could see. The swollen knuckles, flushed cheeks. All the other differences locked inside.

You imagine bending down and lifting the body the way it lifted you once, cradling its head in the crook of your arm. Imagine kissing your Sick and feeling poisonous tendrils creep down your throat to coat your insides with grime.

You imagine saying, welcome home.

(Author's note)

[starlightrows]

15 — Shadow

Hiding In Plain Sight

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Pairing: Commander Wolffe x reader

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Serious illness, discussion of death

Summary: You are happy to be reunited with your team, but begin to struggle with some worrying health concerns

Your relaxing three days of “guard duty” doesn’t last nearly as long as you would have hoped. The moment you return to The Radiant you are caught up in the backlog of work you’ve missed and the current workload that comes your way. Long hours in the med bay, endless paperwork, returning to physical training and going out on assignment with the team whenever called upon.

Each day that passes leaves you feeling like you have less and less energy to start with each morning. Caf feels like it’s becoming less effective, but you still need it just to stay awake during your designated time for your notes and reports. You’re lifting lighter weights during training, physically incapable of making your usual mile time even when you push yourself, and just the other day you noticed after showering that your body is looking slimmer than what is normal for you. But you are not the only one who has begun picking up on these subtle changes.

Wolffe repeats your name for a second time, “Did you hear what I said?”

“Huh?” You snap out of your brain fog and look up from your data pad though you have no idea what you were just looking at on it, or what you and Wolffe had been talking about before you looked down at it.

“I said Ashoka will be joining us for the Uttresh mission” he repeats “Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh yeah, it’ll be nice to see her again” you nod “I’m fine, just tired”

“Just tired huh?” He gives you a stern look “You and I both know that this is more than just a little tired. You haven’t been yourself lately”

“Wolffe, I’m fine, really” you try to assure him, standing from your desk and coming around to stand close to him.

He brushes down the length of your arm and takes your hand, his face is still serious and unconvinced. “I know you don’t want to, but I really think you should take the rest of the day off, and maybe call one of your medic friends for a second opinion. It’s been three months and you’re still struggling. Don’t think I haven’t noticed”

Your face seems to fall when he says that. “I guess I can send my lab work out for a second opinion”

He lifts your chin “You can’t take care of us if you can’t take care of yourself, remember?”

“Yeah” you nod, you preach that to them all of the time. You need to listen to your own advice.

“Go take a nap, I’ll let training out early tonight and come spend time with you” he says, trying to sound positive

“And if I sneak back into the med bay to work?” you grin mischievously

“Then I’m going to sneak lock you in an exam room to rest” he counters “Don’t make me order you to go”

“Order me anyway, just for fun” you grin

He rolls his eyes and leans down to kiss you “Go take a nap. That’s an order, Captain”

“Yes sir” you kiss him back and leave the office.

He’s glad to hear you teasing and joking, but it stings because he knows you’re covering for how miserable you are right now. True to his word, he lets the team out early from physical training and heads off to find you. He finds you laying on your bed, not sleeping just laying on your side and staring off into space. The door closes behind him and begins to take off his kit and boots, leaving it all by the door so he can lay down behind you. He curls himself around your body, snaking an arm around your waist and pulling you in close. He presses his nose into your hair and kisses your head.

“Did you nap?” He asks, lacing his fingers with yours

“Yeah” your voice is soft and relaxed “I sent off the lab work to several of my colleagues. You were right, this is getting out of hand and I can’t afford to ignore it any longer”

His lip twitches, a pulse of frustration comes before the relief that you made the right call. You shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. And the prospect of this mysterious condition being something serious causes a sense of panic in his body that he shuts down and pushes away immediately.

“Whatever this is, we will figure it out together” he says “I promise”

“Thank you” you smile, breathing deeply “I prefer this you know. Being sick and with you, than working in that nightmare med station without you”

He chuckles a little, “I would rather you be safe and healthy, but I agree this is much better than the alternative”

You hum in agreement. A lull falls over you both. Happy to have the time and space to just be near each other, but below the grateful surface is anxiety and dread. The war doesn’t stop and this strange exhaustion and weakness is putting you at risk. There’s no sense in talking about it now when there is nothing to be done. Now you wait. Until the symptoms go away. Until a test comes back conclusive. Until one of your colleagues has a theory. Until the bloody war ends.

Weeks pass and you hear nothing from your friends and colleagues. You continue on as best you can, trying to make time to rest and research the cause of your sudden weakness and fatigue.

One afternoon Wolffe sits with you in your office, drinking caf and completing some joint paperwork.

“No responses from any of your friends yet?” He asks, he’s been trying not to ask every single day.

You shake your head sadly, “No”

“Not even to acknowledge the request or that they received the lab work?” He’s been more frustrated with this whole situation lately.

“A few did, most didn’t” you frown at the document you’re working on “It’s unlike them not to respond at all like that…. It gives me a bad feeling about all of this”

A gentle tap on the door stops him before he can respond, you look past him towards the door “Come in”

General Plo stands on the other side of the door when it slides open. “Good afternoon Captain” he address you “Commander” he nods to Wolffe.

“To what do I owe the pleasure General?” You ask, sitting up straighter and giving him a smile.

“Captain, might I have a word with you?” General Plo asks

“Of course, General” you look to Wolffe

“I’ll see you later” he nods to you “General” he nods, slipping out of your office and disappearing down the hall.

“What can I do for you General?” You ask, gesturing for him to take the seat across from you. He nods graciously and sits down.

“Over the last several weeks since your return I have noticed a difference in you. Forgive me, I do not mean to overstep into your jurisdiction as the team's medical lead, but are you feeling alright?”

“You would have to be blind to not see it” You admit “To be completely honest with you, I have not been feeling myself lately… and it scares me because I can’t determine what’s causing it”

“I assume you have run through an extensive list of conditions and illnesses”

You nod “And sent off my blood work, test results, and symptoms to several colleagues for other opinions. Haven’t gotten any responses yet”

“If you would be open to it, I spent many years in the halls of healing during my time as a Padawan. I am no doctor or medical professional by any means, but I can lead you through a meditation and try to delve deeper into the force to search for a possible cause or solution to your ailment”

“It couldn’t hurt… I would be honored General”

“Come” he rises and extends a hand to you, helping you stand from your chair. He leads you into the training room and uses the force to place mats down on the floor. You take a seat while he dims the lights in the training room. He joins you on the floor and begins to lead you through a breathing exercise to help you relax into a meditative state.

You’ve done meditations with General Plo many times, the breathing exercises and feeling of surrendering your mind to just be in the moment is familiar to you. Your body feels heavy. Like the ends of your extremities are weighed down with lead. It is so much effort to sit with proper posture that it exhausts you even just to sit. You hope that whatever General Plo can see or feel will be insightful or helpful in some way.

Plo senses the profound discomfort in your body, without even needing to delve into the force, he can see it in the way your shoulders sag and your normally bright features have grown dull in the last several months. He closes his eyes and reaches out into the void with his mind, open to whatever insight The Force may offer him.

He tunes himself into the sound of your breathing, the beating of your heart. And suddenly he can hear not just your heartbeat, but many. Hundreds, thousands of heartbeats, but they’re off time and slowing. He can see endless rows of crisp white linen sheets on sick beds. He can feel an acrid layer of sadness, anger, and loss clouding this vision. Death. He senses death, in insurmountable numbers. The future, or a possible future.

He pushes deeper into the vision, embracing its message and seeking answers to questions he has not yet formed. He knows you are sick, and now he knows that you are not the only one. He sees you collapse and Wolffe at your side to catch you. His heart clenches at the pulsing anger, frustration and pain he senses from Wolffe in this vision. He feels your fear, your sadness and regret. He watches the light fade from your eyes and suffering snap its jaws around Wolffe and the rest of the team.

Plo turns his focus away from that future and sees another path. He looks into this alternate vision, and feels the same anger, frustrations and pain, but instead of staying to the bitter end he senses something else. A choice. One that leads to a departure, separation, but not loss. Not yet. The choice to hold on or let go. But it is not you who has to make this terrible choice. It is not in your hands anymore. Your fate is in the hands of those who love you most.

As Plo relinquishes his concentration and comes back to the present moment, he takes an extra moment to look at you and acknowledge his own feelings on the situation. You have always been a good soldier, a good doctor, a good team member. General Plo cares about every one of his soldiers under his command, appreciates them for who they are, and cares about their well being. And there is nothing he can do to save you from what you are already enduring or what is coming. There is just as much chance that you will live and there is that you will die. What a painful truth to reckon with.

He opens his eyes and severs the connection, “You are not alone Captain” General Plo says

“I know” you sigh “I appreciate the support”

“No, I mean to say that you are not the only one suffering from this mysterious illness. Thousands are beginning to realize it, more will follow” he explains

“What?” Your heart drops into your stomach

“I believe that this is not a singular case. I believe something has caused this illness and has already affected more people across the galaxy. I must return to Coruscant and speak to the council. Together we may be able to learn more through group meditation” he says, getting to his feet and extending his hand in offerance to help you stand as well. You take it and slowly get yourself up right.

“General, thank you for doing this with me… but I have to ask, did you see something you aren’t telling me?”

Plo had no intention of telling you the specifics of what he saw, he has learned better than to rely on the certainty of visions.

You take his beat of silence as a ‘yes’ “Listen, if I’m going to die I would so much rather know”

“I do not know the answer to that” he squeezes your hand “But may I ask, if I knew for certain that you would die, what would you do differently than if you knew for certain that you would live?”

“I would go into my final moments with my friends knowing just that. That it was the end. I would savor it and make sure the memories were happy and fun, so they would remember me that way” you say “I would make sure the people I care about know that I love them”

“Have no fear on that Captain” he pats your hand “Your love for those who are dear to you is unmistakable”

He departs within the hour, taking a shuttle cruiser to Coruscant having already notified the council of his visions and concerns. To his surprise, he is not the only Jedi that has suspected something was amiss.

—

Meanwhile, Wolffe retreated to his office. He didn’t really have any work to do there, he just needed to be alone for a little while. He’s glad General Plo has stepped in, maybe now you would get some answers or at least have a place to start looking for answers as to why you’ve been feeling so weak and sick lately. He absent mindedly starts sketching shapes and shading while he mulls over his heavy feelings. He’d picked up the habit while you were gone.

He realized he had no holo images of you. As the days bled into weeks, and further into months he had longed to see your face. He spent many hours laying up at night thinking about the shape of your lips, the bridge of your nose, the line of your jaw. He agonized over the shape of your eyebrows. Eventually he started putting lines on paper, continuing in spare moments of time until he realized that he had essentially been unconsciously making portraits of you. Now he does it all the time, especially when he’s stressed. Like right now.

It’s been torture for him to watch. He thought being separated was the hardest thing he’s ever gone through, but this is so much worse. You’re here with him, but each day you seem to be less and less of yourself. He’s watching you waste away and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s not a doctor or a Jedi, he’s not a General with authority to relieve you of military service so you can fully rest and recover. He would do anything to fix this, to save you.

A knock at the door breaks him out of this spiral, he quickly slips the notepad into the drawer of his desk and beckons the apparent intruder to come in. Instantly he regrets making his presence in his office known, because Roy strolls in with a smug look at a pile of paperwork.

“Ah, Commander Wolffe. I have a few matters I need to discuss with you” Roy closes the door behind him and sits down without invitation.

“Can it wait?” Wolffe glares at him as he sits

“No Commander, I believe that these matters are of the utmost importance and should be resolved immediately” Roy rifles through the papers, and places them on the desk in front of him.

Wolffe checks his chronometer, as if he actually had an appointment or somewhere to be, “You have three minutes” he relents.

Roy looks miffed at the minuscule time window he’s been given to make his case, but proceeds nonetheless “I have noticed that the Captain has been neglecting certain duties. Namely the reports pertaining to the annual health checks for all personnel in the legion, her obligations to be available for questions and contact as the senior medical officer. In addition to this she has made no effort to take on new mentorship opportunities or put in any recognition to the rest of medical staff's achievements. All of this leads me to believe that she has either grown lazy in her duties or become unfit to serve as lead medic. I insist that she be placed on probation until she can prove herself worthy of her station or removed from service altogether if she is truly incapable of doing her job.”

Wolffe sets his jaw and forces himself to hold his tongue, “Are you finished?”

“Yes, I think so” Roy says with a self satisfied look, and presses the stack of paperwork towards Wolffe

“Good. Listen very carefully” Wolffe says, standing up and leaning forward over the desk “She is your superior officer. Because she has put in the work and earned her place in the military and on this team. You are a spineless, selfish, arrogant worm and I have had enough of your self righteous demands for respect and valor you have not earned. Unfortunately, it is not within my power to have your transferred or discharged from the service, but I will be speaking to the Captain and General Plo about your insubordination”

Roy’s jaw hangs open and he blinks in surprise. Wolffe looks him up and down with a disdainful glare “If there’s nothing else, get back to work” Wolffe hisses, lowering himself back into his seat.

Roy’s shock evaporates and he returns the glare. The two of them sit in silence for a few moments, staring each other down. Finally Roy stands and exits the room. Wolffe shakes his head and scrubs a hand down his face in exasperation.

This can not continue. He knows there is almost no chance of getting him discharged or even reassigned, especially with you being unwell. He won’t say it. He can’t even think about it. If you have to be placed on leave because of this sickness… no. He will not let it come to that. He won’t lose you again. He holds you a little tighter while you sleep that night, no sense in telling you about the interaction with Roy, but still he held you close for his own sake. As if his mere presence could ward off all that seems to be plaguing you.

You didn’t hear from General Plo after he left for Coruscant. Irrationally you had hoped he could com within a day or two with news that he and the other Jedi used The Force and determined a cause that could be corrected. But no word came.

With each passing day the fog clouding you mind grew more dense, your energy sapped by the effort it took to move, to walk, to breathe, and then it all came to ahead. You were working in the med bay, no one was there who needed treatment, and you were on shift on your own with just a medical assistant droid.

One moment you were walking to put away some equipment and the next you were waking up on the floor. The medical droid trying to speak to you and some kind of alarm hazily blaring. It’s too much. The lights are too bright, the sound is too sharp, and you can’t find the strength to stand.

Wolffe drops everything when he receives the com that you’ve collapsed in the med bay. He drops everything and takes off sprinting down the halls with no regard for who sees or what they may think. Slush and Boost are right on his heels.

One look at you and Wolffe knows, this ship does not have the equipment or the staff to help you right now. Wolffe swallows hard and forces himself to breathe and stay calm.

“Boost, make contact with the nearest medical frigate and tell them we’re transferring a patient that needs intensive care” Wolffe orders

“Yes sir” Boost turns quickly and runs out of the med bay to make contact with the frigate

“Slush, prep the ship” Wolffe yanks Slush up by the arm and shoved him towards the door

“Yes sir” Slush backs out of the room, turns and runs too.

Wolffe is starting to feel bile creeping up into the back of his throat, like he wants to wretch. Panic. He can not panic. He turns to the droid

“Get her on the gurney, you will accompany us to the frigate” he says

“But sir, I am a —“ the droid begins to protest

“You are a medical droid. Your primary function is to treat wounded and sick soldiers. She is sick. Help me get her onto a gurney, now!” He snaps. The droid complies and helps move your comatose form onto a gurney. The droid puts you on oxygen and monitors your vitals.

Wolffe feels like he’s in a dream or a simulation. He walks with heavy and haunted steps as he guides the gurney down the halls and helps to load the ship. He barely recognizes his own voice when he tells Sinker

“You have command of the 104th until our return”

He doesn’t register anything Slush says to him, he just sits beside you as the ship takes off, and holds your limp hand.

It’s not until he realizes his com is buzzing from an incoming transmission that he is able to tear his focus away from you and the ringing in his ears. He takes a few steps away from you and answers the com. A holo image appears, of someone he did not expect.

“Rex?”

“Commander, where is she? Is she alright?” Rex asks, sounding frantic.

“She’s being transported to a medical frigate and we— hang on? How did you know something was wrong?” His mind is reeling

“They all are” Rex says gravely

“They? They who?”

“The doctors. The medics. The surgeons and nurses. Everyone that was reassigned to aid the wounded on Atraken” Rex explains

“What? What are you talking about?” Wolffe has to sit down. None of this is making any sense.

“All that left the base to go back to their normal assignments. They’re dropping like flies”

“Fuck….” At a loss for words “Fuck…. What-what’s wrong with them?”

“From what I’ve been hearing…. Organ failure… almost a hundred confirmed dead already” Rex can see Wolffe’s image on the holo, and sees his own fear and confusion reflected back at him.

“So…is it contagious? Is anyone else at risk?” Wolffe asks

“Not as far as we can tell. Just those directly exposed”

“What do we do? What can we do? We have to do something!” Wolffe’s heart is thundering in his chest, adrenaline with nowhere to go or do

“For now… get her to the frigate. And do not let the doctors give her any bacta. It’s accelerating the processes and killing them faster…” Rex says “General Skywalker is working on a plan, I’ll let you know when I have more information”

Wolffe nods vacantly. There is nothing he can do.

Tag List:

@maulslittlemeowmeow @lucyysthings @justanothersadperson93 @lackofhonor @paige6768 @thefact0rygirl @ttzamara @nekotaetae @jennrosefx @kashasenpai @littledragonlady @love-space-nerd

[mylifeisactuallyamess]

Chapter 5: The Risk

A/N: Happy Tech Tuesday!

Warnings: Erm…not much except I may be doing a Filoni with the whole calm before the storm? No it’s not that bad….oh yeah alcohol mention!

Word Count: 5.6k+

Masterlist

The squad spent days helping you set up. Tech’s knowledge was invaluable, alongside Omega’s, as they put together your equipment. The droid, Beetoo had been reprogrammed, her memories wiped and new information downloaded making her an efficient companion for you.

Today, Echo, Hunter and Omega were off doing a mission for Cid, Wrecker was lazing on one of your gurneys while Tech was syncing up your new datapad and computer system.

In truth, you had gotten used to having them all around, not wanting these days to draw to a close. When it was all over you were faced with the unknown; were they going to be off world more? Leaving you behind? When they came back would they even want to visit you?

Your gaze was dragged to the armour you’d worn on the med station. You could still feel the pull of Crosshair’s hand, the tightness of the binders, the way he looked at you with so much hatred because you were in his old squad's spare armour plates.

Hunter had tried to explain it all to you, to apologise for you being caught in the crossfire but you knew sometimes, these things couldn’t be helped. He looked so sad when he spoke, his deep brown eyes casting to the side as he tried to find the words about his brother. It was clear they all missed him. They don’t hand this out to nobodies….

Your front door slid open and Cid walked in leaning on her stick, yellow eyes immediately taking in the changes that had been made to the space she’d let you stay in.

“Looking good, Needles.” You gave a tight smile in response, still not comfortable with the way the squat Trandoshan made you feel. “I thought I’d find you boys lazing around here,” she growled, stomping towards Tech and Wrecker.

“Far from it,” Tech started. “In order for this venture to generate any profit that does not alert the Empire to you, or us, it needs to be set up properly.” He adjusted his goggles as he peered at her. “Which I have done.”

“What about you, Muscles?” Cid cast an accusatory glance at Wrecker.

“Ah, I’ve been liftin’ all the heavy stuff,” he told her while sitting up.

“He’s my first patient,” you said suddenly so all eyes fell on you.

“But—there is nothing wrong with Wrecker,” Tech instantly replied in a knowing tone.

“Take off this,” you gently tapped the larger clone’s upper armour plates. “I want to show you something.”

“Er…” he glanced at Tech, who just shrugged. “Ok.”

Patiently you waited, watching the way he gently rolled his shoulders when he shed the armour. His muscles bunched thickly and didn’t look diminished at all without his armour, he really was quite impressive.

Lowering the gurney until he was the right height, you felt your way down his neck and along his shoulders, gently massaging the tightness. “Relax,” you murmured.

“Oh…that feels good,” he rumbled. Putting your fingers in place you felt for the misalignment, carefully manipulating his head until he was completely mailable in your hands.

Cid let out an irritated sigh, “As fascinating as this is, Needles…”

CRACK!

Wrecker let out a surprised howl, his hands flying to his neck and sliding out from under your grip. Tech flinched, his hand instantly going for his blaster just on reflex from the sudden noise. You waited, watching the way Wrecker moved, realisation dawning in his eyes.

“Oh…” he let out a gravelly laugh, a wide smile spreading over his face. “That feels great!” Before you could react Wrecker charged forward, enveloping you in a gentle but strong hug that made your feet leave the floor. Age old panic threatened to fog your brain even though you knew he wasn’t going to hurt you.

“Wrecker, put her down. She doesn’t like to be touched,” Tech sighed.

“Oh, oh sorry.” It was a relief to feel the floor under your feet again and you stumbled slightly, finding Tech was there to briefly lean against until you’d regained your balance. “Can you do it again?” Wrecker asked gleefully.

“When you need it, and don’t attempt it yourself!” You warned him.

“He won’t,” Cid glowered at the clone as he put back on his armour. “Just so happens I’ve got a mission for all of you. One last thing to do before this place is open for business.”

“All of us?” Tech asked, eyes searching the floor as he ran through every possibility that Cid could mean. “You are implying Stitch is to accompany us?”

“I am. This job requires a pretty girl and he will deal with her better than he would with your ugly faces.”

“That isn’t her agreed purpose,” Tech argued, a little frown appearing on his brow.

“Her agreed purpose is whatever I say it is, Goggles. When the others get back, my parlour for a debriefing. No complaints!” She jabbed a clawed finger at them before stomping her way back out the medcentre, leaving you reeling slightly. Tech sighed wearily, going back to finishing his task on the datapad.

“Hunter will not like this,” he muttered.

“But if the client won’t deal with us, Stitch has to come,” Wrecker said as he shrugged his armour back into place.

“There is always another way,” Tech said with a note of finality.

You walked over with Tech and Wrecker flanking you, both of them letting you go first down the stairs. Pushing open the door you were greeting by the soft sounds of the slot machines, the delicate hum of the dejarik table and the noise of AZI’s repulsers as he bopped about the space collecting glasses.

“Good day! It is I, AZI-3452…”

“We know!” Wrecker grumbled and swept past.

“Mistress Cid has requested your presence in the back room,” the little droid said. Tech followed Wrecker, pulling off his helmet as he disappeared through the doorway. Gathering a breath in your chest you made yourself walk forward trying to tell yourself you were ready to face whatever the Trandoshan was going to throw at you.

“At last,” she crowed. “Thought you’d forgotten the way. Now, down to business.” Hunter shifted aside so you could fill the gap between him and Tech. His arms were crossed and already he had an unhappy look on his face. “I’m sending you to Kafrene to collect something of value.”

“The Ring of Kafrene,” straight away Tech was on his datapad. “A retired mining colony, currently a trading post in the Thand sector. Recently succumbed to Imperial occupation.”

“It’s too risky,” Hunter said.

“I’ll decide that,” Cid told him. “This information is too good to pass up.”

“I’m not taking my squad into Imperial controlled space,” he retorted hotly. “Especially after our last encounter.”

“Then your flying days are over and you’re of no use to me, Bandana. Are you not paying attention? Soon you won’t be able to set foot on a world without coming across the Empire.” They stared at each other for a moment, making the atmosphere tense and frosty.

“If I may,” Tech nudged his goggles, waiting for someone to tell him not to continue. “I do believe the Imperial occupation is new, they have minimal personnel covering the entire structure. It would be easy enough for us to slip in and out undetected, with the right planning.”

“I don’t like it,” interjected Echo.

“You wouldn’t, would you, Killjoy?”

“Fine,” Hunter spat. “But Stitch and Omega aren’t coming.” Immediately Omega voiced a protest but Cid spoke over her.

“Tiny can stay but this entire deal won’t go through without Needles. She has to go.”

“I don’t wanna stay!” Omega cried out, her little hands balling into fists.

“I’m sorry kid, but Kafrene is no place for you,” the regret was evident on Hunter’s face as he spoke to her.

“Oh yeah, Hunter has a point,” Wrecker said, earning himself a nudge from Echo.

“What do you want me to do?” Silence fell over the group when you spoke and Cid eyed you for a moment.

“Everybody out, Needles and I have some details to go over.” Slowly the squad filtered out, Hunter lingered until everyone else had gone, his deep honey gaze never leaving Cid.

When the door closed Cid slumped into her chair, the tough demeanour dropped for a moment. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, this isn’t going to be easy. It wouldn’t even be happening if they hadn’t lost the data from the last retrieval mission.” A hologram sprang to life showing the picture of an astromech, decked out in Imperial colours. “The target has this droid on his yacht. It holds important, encrypted data from the old Republic Archives. My client wants it but would rather not go head to head with this…person. That’s where you come in.”

“I’m not good at anything like this.” Cid snorted and the hologram diminished.

“You gotta be kidding me. I was all prepared to take no less than 50 percent from the medcentre…you have something about you, Needles. Not the whole I used to be a slave drama either. Something else. Also, none of those bucket heads out there will negotiate well.”

“I don’t…”

“You were someone else before you ended up here,” Cid interrupted. “Do this, get this droid and I will try and find out for you.”

“What if I don’t want it?” You asked, feeling the shot of anger sear through you. “What if, the person I was, wants to stay dead?” Cid shrugged and toyed with the horn on her desk.

“The offer is there, kid. But you will broker this deal for me or steal that info, regardless.”

“And then you’ll let me run the medcentre in peace?” It was such a needy question and you hated asking it, but you wanted stability and safety above all else.

“Suuuuuure. Until you are more useful doing something else for me,” she replied, licking her teeth for a second and you had repress a shudder. “Here,” Cid reached down and threw something to you. An old clone trooper helmet from her shelf landed in your grip and you looked up with a puzzled expression on your face. “I know they gave you their spare armour, take this so you have a complete set. You’re gonna need it.”

The whole squad turned when you exited Cid’s back room the helmet still clutched in your hands.

“Well?” Demanded Hunter. You handed Tech the details and he slipped the chip in a slot at the top of his datapad.

“We are to retrieve an imperial droid from someone called…Dryden Vos.” Echo shook his head, not recognising the name and Hunter let Tech type a bit more into his datapad. “Records show he is the leader of a Crime Syndicate, Crimson Dawn.”

“Of course he is,” Hunter growled into his drink before downing it.

“He has the droid on his ship and I apparently need to try and broker a deal with him,” you informed them. “Or at least retrieve the information in its data banks.”

“Why don’t we just take it?” Wrecker demanded. “We’re good at that.”

“Because then we’d have another Crime Syndicate on our backs for taking something that belongs to them,” Echo explained with an irritated bite to his tone. “Putting all of us in jeopardy.”

“Again,” Tech chimed in.

“Nah! He’d never find us.”

“Wrecker,” Tech looked at his brother with a piercing glare. “You put too much faith in this as an acceptable hiding place. It won’t be sufficient forever.”

“Stow it you two.” Hunter put a hand on Omega’s shoulder and her scowl melted away into a look of sadness.

“You’re leaving now?” She asked quietly.

“Quicker we get this done, the quicker we will be back,” he told her softly. “Try not to get Cid into trouble.”

“I’ll try.”

“Echo, Wrecker get some supplies. Tech ready the ship, Stitch, you’re with me.” You went to follow but a small hand grabbed at yours making you pause.

“Look after them for me,” she said with wide imploring eyes. “Please?”

“I will do my best,” you told her, sucking in a breath when she hugged you round the middle. Glancing up you saw Hunter watching from the bottom of the stairs, a slight smile adorning his marked face. Awkwardly you patted Omega, finally giving in and putting an arm around her until she let you go.

It was weird being on the ship without Omega, Wrecker had taken to sitting in her room with Lula dwarfed in his giant hands. Hunter was brooding in the hold, sitting in the chair with his arms crossed as he used his feet to rock the chair side to side.

You sat on the bottom bunk, legs dangled over the side and you gazed at the helmet in your hands. Turning it over, gently you ran your hand inside it, feeling some soft padding before touching the edge of the inner visor. It flickered to life, the HUD activating only to switch back off when you withdrew your touch.

“Phase 2.” You looked up at the sound of Tech’s voice. “I noticed them on the wall, I assumed they were dormant, I had no idea they were still functional.” He asked for the helmet with his hands and you gave it over, shuffling up at the same time so he could sit next to you. He connected his datapad to a port in the helmet and you watched the screen flicker to life again. “I can modify it so it’s the same standard as ours, linking the com to our channel.”

“Should I wear this when we board Dryden’s ship?” Hunter stirred at your question, his feet planting on the floor and stopping his rhythmic swaying.

“I think so.” Now he looked down at his own armour as though seeing it for the first time. “We should alter our armour, Echo!”

“What?” Came the muted reply from the cockpit. “I’m resting.”

“We’ve got plenty of time to rest. What did Omega do with those airbrushes?”

“These,” your head swung round to see Wrecker holding up a pouch with what looked like tools in it.

“Will these cover our current markings?” Hunter asked Tech who didn’t give a reply. “Tech?”

“Hmm?” He glanced up, pushing at his goggles as he peered at the pouch Hunter had taken off Wrecker. “Omega’s paint? She’s not here to use it.”

“Well, we know that,” rumbled Wrecker, slumping back in the seat and hugging Lula tighter.

“I’m saying,” Hunter started. “Our armour is too recognisable. They think we died on Kamino, assuming Crosshair kept his squad quiet and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“It’s an excellent idea. I was going to suggest painting Stitch’s anyway so at least it matched. The less we give Dryden Vos to question the better.”

Kafrene was in reach of the Marauders long range coms from the surface of Takodana. Hunter and Wrecker had gone to check out the perimeter, leaving Echo and Tech to connect the signal. You hadn’t moved from the lower bunk, now laying on your side as you watched Tech click the buttons on the console. He was conversing with Echo while they searched for the right channel to tap into and you let it all wash over you.

After 24 standard hours of observation you were going to head to Kafrene and put yourself in a situation that could go horribly wrong at any time. You hadn’t spoken to the guys about it, they were just doing, and you didn’t want to voice your concerns and ruin whatever barriers they put up to get through a mission.

The sound of the speeder outside had you sitting up to watch Wrecker barrel in, excitement evident on his face. “We have food!” He announced loudly.

“All right big guy,” Echo said as he danced out of Wrecker’s way. “We’re still setting up the channel.”

“Stitch!” He beckoned you forward and you decided to go, anything was better than sitting there wallowing. Hunter was already setting up a small fire, tenting the sticks to allow good air flow but not too much.

“Hey, Stitch. Come to see the haul?” He asked with an amused twinkle in his eye.

“Look!” Wrecker grabbed the canvas top of the bag and ripped it back to show some bottles.

“That’s not food,” you instantly said, slightly disappointed because you could have done with a decent meal rather than rations: it was pretty much all you’d eaten since leaving the slavers complex.

“The food is underneath,” Wrecker whispered. He lifted one of the bottles and nodded, encouraging you to take it.

“This is…wine?” You looked across at Hunter, frowning as you held out the bottle.

“It’s been a while since we had anything like this, I decided the boys needed a treat.”

“I—.” You drew the bottle back, rubbing a hand over the raised aurebesh and sweeping off some dust from the surface. “I’ve never had wine before, that I remember anyway.”

Hunter huffed slightly and threw another stick on the small fire he’d made. “We had some during the war.”

“Where did you get the food from?” You asked, giving Wrecker the bottle back.

“Kanata’s Castle, just a few klicks east of here. Maz gave us bread and meat from her kitchens,” Wrecker told you as he spread the bag open wider. “She even had cheese!”

“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff Wrecker,” Hunter shook his head and stood up from his crouched position. He pulled his pack off and planted it next to the helmet that was perched on a fallen log.

“More for me,” Wrecker gave you a wink with a nudge to the shoulder and you couldn’t help but smile in the face of his excitement.

“Done,” Tech announced his arrival as he exited the ship, datapad in hand and followed by Echo who looked curiously at the bag Wrecker had his hands in. “The Imperial channel is successfully connected and we can monitor all com chatter. I have a programme running that will trace their movements onto the schematics I downloaded of the trade post…”

“Yada yada yada!” Wrecker burst out making Tech lurch to a stop mid sentence. “Let’s eat?”

“Very well.” You could see Tech was annoyed by the way he narrowed his gaze, pushing the goggles up harder than he needed to and holding a breath in his chest.

Hunter held out a hand and you sat at the spot on the log he gestured to, finding Tech plant himself on the other side. Hunter smirked and settled himself on the ground beside you. Wrecker handed out the food and bottles, making sure everyone had some before diving noisily into his own with satisfied groans.

“What is this?” Echo wrinkled up his nose in disgust at the cheese which was a marbled blue-green colour. “Smells vile.”

“Here!” Wrecker held up his hand and Echo chucked it across the fire only for it to disappear down Wrecker’s throat.

Mostly they ate in silence, drawn into their personal thoughts as they gazed into the flames and darkness began to seep over the planet.

Hunter cracked open his bottle, using his knife to break the wax seal, doing the same to yours before handing it back. “Here’s to not dying tomorrow.”

“Morbid,” Echo stated dryly.

“Maybe we could toast to a successful mission,” Tech suggested.

“If we don’t die tomorrow, I’ll count that as a success,” Hunter muttered.

“To Stitch!” Wrecker said loudly.

“Why me?”

“Lucky charm,” Wrecker answered with a shrug.

“Hardly,” you told him with a stiff smirk.

“Why don’t we toast to our fallen brothers.” Silence fell over the group at Echo’s suggestion and their smiles dropped. You could imagine the scars that each of them carried from the Clone Wars but for Echo, you could see his with your own eyes.

“To the clones,” you said, holding your bottle out for Tech and he clinked his against yours.

“The clones,” he repeated, catching your eye in the firelight and giving you the tiniest smile that if you had blinked you would have missed. You all drank, but you weren’t prepared for the bitterness of the liquid and you chased your gulp up with a sharp breath.

“Got a kick ain’t it?” Wrecker chuckled before chugging some more.

“People drink this willingly?” You gasped, wiping your mouth and looking at the bottle like it had offended you.

“Tech, do you remember that wine Skywalker gave us after Skako Minor?” Hunter suddenly asked.

“Blossom Wine, rare and expensive. Originated from Naboo I believe.”

“That was nice, what I got of it anyway,” Hunter said, shooting a good-natured glare at Wrecker who avoided his brother’s gaze.

“Yeah well, it was nice.��

“Wrecker,” Tech now fixed an exasperated look on his brother. “You downed almost the whole bottle and then slept for an entire rotation.”

“Er, well Crosshair made me do it!”

“Guys,” Echo suddenly stood up, running his hand over his face and not looking at anyone. “I’ll monitor the coms.”

“My programme won’t fail, I wrote the code myself,” Tech called after him. Without thinking you leaned into Tech drawing his attention to you and off Echo.

“He wants to be alone,” you explained softly.

“Oh.”

“Echo suffers more than anyone,” Hunter sighed. “I’ll check on him in a bit.” He went to drink out of his bottle but movement caught his eye. “Wrecker!” He snapped.

“Oooh!! But he left his food!”

“Doesn’t mean you can eat it,” Hunter told him firmly.

“Fine.” Wrecker slumped back to a sitting position, glaring into the fire.

Whether it was the wine or the impending feeling of possibly dying tomorrow, you couldn’t sleep. Constellations of light twinkled above you, stretching as far as the eye could see, trapped in the velvety blackness of the sky. Resting a hand behind your head and dangling one leg off the nose of the Marauder you tried to make shapes within the stars.

You heard a noise, Hunter leapt up easily beside you, sitting with his back to you and joining you in star gazing. “Do you know the names of any constellations?” You asked him quietly, not wanting to wake the others.

“Only some on Kamino and that was because Tech told me about them. You?” To your surprise he settled back against the transparisteel so now you had to look up at him beside you.

“No. I couldn’t even tell you what planet I’m from.” You heard him exhale, a long drawn out sigh from the depths of his soul. He had something in his hands that he kept turning over and it took ages for you to see it was a toothpick. You knew whose it was and you tried not to think about it.

“That would be better sometimes.” Right, the cities on Kamino were destroyed, their home obliterated and now it was like it never existed.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think before I speak.” Hunter huffed out a small chuckle.

“We already have one like that, I’m used to it.” You could tell his curiosity was burning and you patiently waited for him. Sure enough, his gaze finally fell on you and he opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again.

“Ask.”

“All right,” he threw the tooth pick over the side and put his full attention on you. “How long were you a slave?”

“Too long,” you said bitterly. “I don’t know, my childhood is hazy, only snippets remain, mainly of my father but I couldn’t tell you what he looked like. I went to a medical academy, a Republic one but I have no idea where. I was so proud of getting in doing something for myself.” Now you paused, the only memory you hadn’t been able to fully forget was the night you were taken. Hunter saw the change in your face, the way you looked up at the stars as your demons crowded in the dark.

“What happened?” He quietly asked. You debated not saying anything, words made it real, talking about it made you relive that moment again and again. And you already relived it in your sleeping hours.

“They broke in, killed my friends, burned down the Academy all because my father owed them money, I guess.” Your nose scrunched as the bitter taste of that night filled your mouth. “So instead, he gave them, me. I don’t even know how old I am, I’ve forgotten who I am…I have nothing.” Hunter looked down at his hands, he knew that feeling. He was there when Kamino had been wiped out, when everything that was familiar was destroyed before his eyes and he couldn’t do anything about it.

And then to have someone close betray you. His insides still twisted at the regret he felt about Crosshair, the shame of leaving him the first time. If only they’d known. He took a breath, trying to dispel his sense of agitation and concentrate on you.

“Well you’re wrong. You have us, Stitch. Doesn’t matter who or what you used to be,” he shrugged a little and looked back at you. “You can’t change what happened to you no more than we can change what happened to us. You just adapt.”

The pair of you settled into a quiet companionable silence, feeling the gentle breeze on your face and you turned your face to it. “Come on.” He stood up and offered you a hand, at first you just looked at it but then conceded.

His grip was firm and strong, the glove felt warm against your bare skin and it knocked you a little. Knowing that someone was touching you and they wanted nothing from you nor were they going to hurt you, had you inhaling sharply. “You ok?” He was so close but you didn’t move away.

“Yeah, I just…” gazing up at him you couldn’t help but notice the way the moon created a halo of light around him. “Cid offered to find out who I was, I don’t know if I want to find out,” you told him in a rush. “I like who I’m becoming, here, with you guys.” Your gaze lowered and you felt embarrassment curl in your chest. “That was presumptuous, I know I’m not part of the squad I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Hunter reached out and put a hand on your arm, looking for any hesitation from you. “The moment Tech insisted you come with us, I knew you’d be a part of this squad.”

“But…”

“No buts,” he said, drawing to his full height and the hand dropped away. “Tech doesn’t just take to anyone, ever. Not even with Omega, at first.”

“I was just useful. Keeping Roc alive.”

“No. He risked the entire mission to get you free of that place. I think he’d have done it even if we didn’t have the target.” Your heart quickened, remembering that night, the blaster shots, the hounds snarling and Tech, so steadfast as he stood before you.

“He’s just one of the good guys,” you mumbled. Hunter registered your twisting hands and lack of eye contact, so he stepped back and jumped down off the side of the ship.

“We should rest before tomorrow,” he called. Giving the sky one last look you wondered if you were ever going to see the night sky again. Sitting down you slipped off the side of the ship, landing squarely on your feet next to Hunter. “We will have your back no matter what,” he reassured you quietly.

“I know,” you replied. You had no doubt about that.

You watched Echo skilfully drift the airbrush over the plates of armour laid out. Every time he finished a piece Tech would set the paint with a blow torch. It was weird seeing them in normal clothes, you had wondered if they owned any. Hunter ran his fingers slowly over the stubble on his jawline, a frown dragging his brows down.

“It feels odd,” he finally confessed.

“You’re becoming your own people,” you told him from where you sat on the Marauder ramp. “Away from the stamp of the Republic.”

“Mmm.” Your stomach cramped slightly but you ignored it, knowing it was just nerves.

“Ooowwwww,” Wrecker moaned from behind you, slumping on the doorframe, his heavy head in his hands as he winced in the daylight.

“Hungover, Wrecker?” Hunter rolled his eyes and recrossed his arms. “Shouldn’t have drunk Stitch’s bottle last night.”

“I can sort it,” you said, dusting off your legs and squeezing past the large clone to find your med kit. Knocking up a concoction of bacta and painkiller in the vial before placing it in the driver. Wrecker was sitting on the top step, barely flinching as you felt for his vessel and injecting the meds into his system. “Just rest for a bit, it will kick in soon.”

“Thanks, Stitch.” Patting him on the shoulder you left him to stand next to Hunter. The sun on Takodana was nice, the greenery was lush and vibrant. It appealed to you; what a nice place to spend your possible last day in the Galaxy.

Soon you would be heading to Kafrene, to meet with Dryden and either buy this droid or steal its data. You knew which course Cid would like you to take but you had a case of credits stashed on the ship anyway.

“The plan,” Hunter started for the fourth time that morning. “You will go in with Wrecker, the credits and the data stick. You need to see the droid, make sure he has what he says he has before you show your hand. Got it?”

“Yes.” No. Maybe? You were so nervous but you were trying not to show it. At least with Wrecker you knew you were well protected.

“His ship is usually open for, guests in the evenings,” Hunter continued. “Don’t talk to anyone else we don’t know who he has invited and what circles he’s moving in.” Now he turned to his brother. “You are to watch her, Wrecker. Do not make hard contact unless there’s no other way.”

“Yeah yeah,” he grunted.

“This isn't a military operation,” Tech spoke up from behind you. “Our usual strategies and plans will not translate well in this sort of situation, the odds would not be in our favour.”

“Tech, Echo and I will be outside. Tech will have a direct feed to your HUD so essentially he’ll be in your head on a different com channel. Any sign of trouble and we will extract you. Understood?” His gaze swept the group and they all nodded. “I am not happy,” Hunter muttered. “Putting you in such a dangerous situation.”

“I’ll be ok. I’ve got you boys.” You hoped the smile you gave Hunter was convincing. His expression softened and he gave you that little smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, you have. Let’s gear up.” Each of them gathered their newly modified plates of armour, slipping them over the pads and folds of the clothing they used instead of their blacks. You donned yours in silence, finally reaching for the helmet that wasn’t white anymore.

The surface was a distressed grey, matching the rest of your gear and nearly the double of Tech’s. It had thin red stripes that matched the boys, streaking down along the line of your spaulders and breastplate. You smiled at the stitch markings Echo had applied to your vambraces, thin red vertical lines marked with a jagged, thicker horizontal line. Your fingers swiped over the small, hidden, raised skull detail on the side of your helmet, noticing the zigzag lightning strike crossing horizontally behind it. The picture looked like Tech’s but from a different angle. It had been painted over like their own marks had, only visible if you knew what you were looking for.

Your chest swelled as tears threatened to fill your eyes. They didn’t have to do this, you were probably going to die today and here they had spent their morning making your armour match theirs. The details didn’t escape you and for the first time in your entire life you felt like you could actually belong. A sense of self settled inside you, the beginnings of a determination you’d never felt before and it made you resolute in the fact you didn’t want to let them down. You can’t change what happened. You just adapt. You weren’t going to die today, not if you could help it.

Slipping the helmet on, you watched the screen come to life in front of your eyes. It picked out their faces, highlighting them, telling you who they were, how far away they were, their current heart rate and health stats. Flicking through the screens you saw them in infrared, night vision which made you squint, and some others you had no idea about. The last one rolled around before you got back to the main screen and you yelped in surprise, drawing their attention to you.

“Ah,” Tech adjusted his specs and looked down at his datapad. “You’ve discovered the x-ray ability I have applied to your helmet.”

“It’s…interesting.” Curiosity overrode your shock and you cast a curious look at Echo.

“Wait, she can see our bones?” He asked in disbelief, his whole arm pointed in your direction, you could even see the individual bones in his finger as he gestured.

“And lack of,” you replied through the helmet only to freeze when you realised that probably wasn’t an appropriate thing to say. “I’m sorry,” you whispered. Flicking it back to the normal screen. “That will be really helpful in the field, thanks Tech.”

“You’re welcome.”

“When you’ve finished talking about things we don’t understand,” Hunter interrupted with a quirked eyebrow. “We have a yacht to infiltrate.”

“Yeah!” Wrecker added throwing a fisted hand in the air. “Let’s go…infiltrate!”

[freneticfloetry]

9 people you want to know better

Thanks to @liminalmemories21 and @theghostofashton for the tags! 😘

current book you’re reading: Fiction: I recently found the most gorgeous edition of Dante & Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe in a bookstore in Asheville, so I’m rereading. Nonfiction: Phoebe Robinson’s Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

last song you listened to: James Arthur’s cover of “A Thousand Years” (which is, just, so good)

currently watching: I literally finished Star Trek: Strange New Worlds at like 2am. But Upload is back, baby! Still need to watch this week’s episode.

current fic you’re reading: It’s all about the Knaveverse. I’m savoring the back half of The Knave of Hearts… brought back the tarts, which is the third installment in @liminalmemories’ enviably lush and utterly delicious Through the Looking Glass series. Now that the cold med brain fog is gone, I need to return to @paperstorm’s fantastic Hockey AU, Magnetic North. I also really need to get back to @three-drink-amy's Teach You How Forever Feels, which has the best Jonah there could ever be. And I’m always ready and waiting for THE FIC, aka You Keep Coming Back With A Bird In Your Teeth.

next on my watch list: Probably Star Trek: Lower Decks. But the BFF is constantly trying to get me to start Letterkenny.

current obsession: I feel like neither Hozier nor Tarlos/911LS even count at this point. Job hunting. I have officially had enough of my company — which, before it was acquired by a holdings company that doesn’t give a shit about people when there is profit to be had, and before our caring, invested owner CEO retired and left us with a vainglorious, overprivileged vulture who has zero idea what the fuck he’s doing, used to be the place I thought I would actually retire from one day — taking wild advantage of me, and it’s time to get the fuck out of dodge. So there’s that. Also, these glazed salted caramel cashews from Meijer. They’re just stupidly delicious.

Tagging @never-blooms, @paperstorm, @catanisspicy, @alrightbuckaroo, @carlos-in-glasses, @lemonlyman-dotcom, @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut, @walkinginland, and @bonheur-cafe!

[detentiontrack]

can u talk a little about what meds you take for your bipolar and if they help/side effects u experience?

Absolutely!!! So I’m currently on 3 medications to manage my bipolar and PTSD

Lithium - started taking in 2022. Honestly this works GREAT. It helps with the depression and the rapid cycling (I used to rapid cycle a lot) and the mood swings. People always talk about how many side effects lithium has, but I honestly don’t really notice any at this point. When I first started taking it, I got SUPER nauseous, but after about a month my body got used to it and I didn’t experience any nausea except for when my dose was changed (which also resolved quickly). The only thing I should warn you about with lithium, is that when you first get on it, you’ll have to do a few blood tests to make sure your lithium levels are in the normal range. I think I got about 4 between 2022 & 2023 when I started getting my dose raised. I started on what I think is 600mg (I got put on it at the mental hospital so I’m not 100% sure if that’s the dose I started at) and now I’m on 1200mg and have been since 2023.

Next up is prozac - this is my newest medication. I started taking it for anxiety/PTSD, but I think it’s also helped with my depression. This med has gotten rid of most of my anxiety and panic attacks, and I also experience very minimal side effects. The only ones I can think of is dry mouth/excessive thirst (I always have to keep a drink with me) and (TMI warning) it’s also decreased my sex drive. The only thing I should warn you about is that if you’re bipolar, you need to be REALLY careful with SSRIs. SSRIs are notorious for causing intense mania (my first true manic episode was brought on by Zoloft) so consult with your doctor and make sure they’re aware of treatments for bipolar. I didn’t get manic from the Prozac, but I also started at a really low dose and we raised it gradually over time. (I’m on 20mg now. Started out on 5mg back in October)

Next up Lybalvi - I’m not even kidding when I say this medication saved my life. The first half of 2023, I was dysphorically manic and experiencing some of the worse psychosis I’ve ever experienced (like. I was locked in delusions and hallucinations 24/7. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I heard voices constantly, I genuinely thought God was targeting me specifically and trying to kill me so I was super paranoid and out of it) and my psychiatrist said that either I go back on an antipsychotic, or he was going to send me to the mental hospital again. Lybalvi is a combination of Olanzapine (Zyprexa) and Samidorphan. This medication got rid of ALL of my psychosis, minimized my depression, stopped me from becoming manic, and made it so I didn’t have the negative symptoms of psychosis. It’s the only antipsychotic that has helped me and not made me worse. The only big side effects I’ve noticed are muscle jerks, brain fog (if I take it too late. I’m usually fine if I take it before 9pm), dry mouth/excessive thirst, and a LOT of weight gain. The samidorphan is supposed to make it so that you don’t gain weight, but I gained around 60lbs from April 2023-January 2024. But even knowing what I know now, I would still choose to take it because it’s really helped so much. It’s because of this med that I’ve been hospital free for almost 2 years and I’m able to have a normal life and balance school and work and all that stuff. Don’t be scared of the med because of the weight gain side effect. It’s better to buy new pants in a few sizes up than it is to be in and out of the mental hospital every few months. I started on 5 or 10mg and now I take 15mg.

[newhologram]

"wow im sowwy i have such low spoons i couldn't possibly put an image ID in my post, can someone else do it for me uwu"

just admit you don't give two shits about people who use screen readers. you wrote up a whole ass text post with an image but your energy magically stops when it's time to be inclusive? lmao no. if you can't spare the energy to add an ID to that then don't post it at all you fucking cunt. and you don't get to act like it's a massive fucking burden on you that you have to shove off to someone else. actually vile behaviour from someone who's literally complaining about ableism. i hate this shit ass community

^ So this is actually ableism. ^ Lots of very nasty ableist projecting here which is disappointing but quite common on this site.

Chronic pain, fatigue, and brain fog are a thing. Limitations are a thing. My pain and meds wrecking my cognitive function, my symptoms demanding I take a break so I don’t go into the red and puke are a thing. My very nerve pain from using my hands is literally why I had to give up so many things, and why I can’t edit or type that much in a given day. It’s called disability for a reason.

(I queue most posts after chipping away at them. Only some posts are spontaneous.)

This is why we even use the concept of spoons. If I need to stop and save spoons to drive an hour to my doctor appt, or even just save them to cook a meal later, then I HAVE to do that. And I’d rather post something and ask for assistance from others who feel up to it than have a post keep sitting in my drafts for months and months. I have 2 year old posts I just can’t get my brain working for.

You’re so close with “energy magically disappeared”—so close. Bc that’s actually how disability and chronic illness is. Moment to moment we don’t know how we’re going to feel or when we’ll need to take a break.

It’s so funny bc the reason my backlog has gotten so much bigger over the past 3 years is bc I take so long to subtitle clips and write ID’s.

I’m not mad at you, but boundary-wise, it isn’t okay for you to take out your frustration with the community on me just bc I’m an easy and accessible target to anon rage at. I would recommend talking about this stuff in your journal or with a trusted friend or mental health professional before running off to say mean things you may later feel bad about.

Thank you to those who have always helped to ID things without judgment or projection. It seriously means so much bc I’ve got a lot on my plate with my health and home and job rn. I’m grateful for your kindness and for you seeing me as human and not just a content creation machine. I’m glad to be part of a community that understands that it’s okay to ask for help and to help each other. I’m glad we don’t have this unhealthy mindset of “I MUST do it myself or I’m a bad person.”

🙏🏻💙🥄♿️✨

[unsustainableeuphoria]

I have never been drunk or gotten high - I have some prescription meds that usually give people a little brain fog, but I get so out of it from those that I always have to take the day off when I use them…so I’ve been reluctant to try any actual intoxicants.

That said…the thought of you switching my gummies with edibles, getting me high, teasing me innocently enough that I don’t question the wet heat in my underwear, convincing me to rub myself off before you pin my hands down and use me as you want? God, I’ve had to focus so I don’t subspace just fantasizing.

And,,,bonus points if there’s a camera quietly recording, catching everything - especially when I look like an eager slut. You wouldn’t want me to forget, would you? Maybe you can bring me to movie night with your friends later~

- 🪴, if it’s not taken! (they/he irl, misgendering in scenes is cool should that be something you’re into!)

(I seem to have a handful of followers with misgender kink, it's not something I personally see the appeal in but I'm not turned away by it and am cool with playing along when it turns on others)

That was so many good things you just said that I don't know where to focus but I'm gonna tell you right now that I am a fucking wreck over the idea of taking you to a "movie night" with a group of friends and then the movie is just videos of you getting railed. And since you were too fucked up to remember it happening, the movie is just as new to you as it is to all the guys! ^_^

You get to experience seeing all the stupid, slutty faces you make when you're too high to hold them back, you get to hear your own voice beg me to take it easy on you because you just came after rubbing yourself and you're too sensitive and easy to overstimulate, and you'll even get to see yourself get fucked when I decide not to listen to your begging and fuck you anyways, not letting go of those skinny little wrists of yours until I know you're too fucked up from orgasms and overstimulation and the gummies finally kicking in all at once to even begin to think about pushing me off

And the whole time you're watching that, watching yourself turn into a blubbering incoherent fuck toy? We'll be watching you, like when you show your friend your favorite movie and you check their reaction to see of they like it. Maybe some of us will even jerk off to it, barely visible by the light of the TV screen, getting nice and hard to the image of you getting railed while we pass around movie snacks, making sure you get the bowl with the special candies in it ;p