#and it all belongs to me. it is my trauma and that's all there is to it

[cawyden-gaming]

In ur opinion which is the best heinrix ending? :0

Hi! Thank you so much for your question!

It is rather simple - the one that fits to your Rogue Trader 😉

For my Venria it depends - if I go with the ending slides from the game I would say the Master of Whispers ending with merciful Heinrix. Important here is that there is no mentioning in the ending slides that Heinrix gets indeed assassinated by his former colleagues. Otherwise I think I would not have it as my preferred ending because that would be too heart breaking.

I like with the Master of Whispers ending that Heinrix and RT can stay together, seeing each other every day.

Sorry - I know what I am going to write will some people make feel like they want to throw up - I apologize, but this is my head canon (and yes, I am totally aware that I don't really belong in the Warhammer fandom with my happy non grim dark thoughts):

For him and Venria I don't see it as toxic relationship - they are partners, they support each other and in my head canon Venria will also try to find possibilities to make Heinrix less dependent on her. They trust each other and Venria is also not the type to flirt with other men so I don't see any jealousy drama there for them too. Sounds pretty boring, I know, but for me that is just a healthy relationship that I think they can have - that also helps them heal from all the trauma they had to endure.

While duty is important for Heinrix, he can also do good and help the Expanse and the Imperium by staying with Venria. And seeing how he himself tells RT how staying with the Inquisition leads "to one place only" and we see how Emelina and he nearly too falls to chaos, I rather have him not staying with the Inquisition (at least without RT to have his back).

For me as MoW he would also not interrogate any longer people - he doesn't have to any longer and I don't think he enjoys it personally (aside from xenos, apparently - I wonder if something happened before that made him so hateful towards them or if it is just the dogmatic brainwashing especially since he is from Ordo Xenos).

The LI ending where he stays in the Inquisition is also quite nice - but since the ending implies they keep that long distance relationship up until they die - I am not a fan of that. Temporarily fine but not forever.

What I also like a lot is the prospect of RT joining Heinrix in the Inquisition - although then no longer being a Rogue Trader. But Heinrix (maybe as "simple" Inquisitor) with Venria together on missions with a smaller retinue sounds awesome to me. They can both keep each other in check (or fall both to chaos - that would be the more darker turn) and protect each other while staying together. Sadly, we don't really have much for this on the ending slides - just that RT can join the Inquisition (and Heinrix then acting like a dick).

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[writtenbyplato]

uhhhjjhjhhhhhhhh suck my titty. how abt that man

[fumifooms]

Laios and Marcille queer platonic pairing of all time

Studio Ghibli-ass I don't care whether we get wedding rings and/or matching BFF necklaces I just want you in my life and even more than that your happiness trope my beloved

Your Marcille smile post is so good got me thinking bout that Miyazaki quote about improving and caring for each other

YEEEEESSSSS I love that so so much... The more time passes the more I see the Falin & Marcille & Laios trio as a queerplatonic type situation. It's so so dear to me.... I have an analysis planned about that I'd like to get to sooner rather than later, but I've been rather focused on art lately (Almost finished doing the last few tweaks before posting my graduate comic I made 2 years ago oof)... Right now my vague lineup is: Laios & Falin's differences, Laios analysis through enneagrams tritype, then this one— Laios and touch & the importance of Marcille: queerness in Dungeon Meshi

To spoil it a fair amount, something something Marcille is Laios' comfort zone in humans and she pushes him to grow more hopeful with friendships and connection, notably as seen through their relationship with touch both separate and together, how freely she gives it and how uncomfortable he was receiving it at first. Something something Dungeon Meshi is a lot about being a misfit and going against norms, and trying to understand each other both when labels are pushed onto you and overly define you and when you don't have any, showing understanding and being understood in turn, even when you're an inbetween, when you're abstract or hard to get and define. Something something Izutsumi actually plays a huge role in this too! And yk, something something platonic intimacy is lovely, casual physical affection is nice, monkeys pluck bugs off of each other and cats love to get scritches, shed the human principles that make you fear eating monsters or plainly seek out affection. Humans need hugs :) In a time and place where there are no labels available, for what you are or what your relationship is, you can still find love and understanding <33

Ambiguity in storytelling can often be a feature and not a bug. Ambiguous relationships can be thematic!! Queerplatonic relationships I love youuuu!!!!!!!!

Ambiguity is if nothing else fascinating to analyze. This one's gonna be a monster since it tackles many scenes, arcs and characters (2024 Jan me noted that she wanted to put in a huge Thistle & Falin section too?? Need to follow the scribbles I left here and there like a paper trail to put it all together again...) but I reallyyyy wanna get it out

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

I want to be one of those girls who come up online and tell you they left their family and country and found happiness at some other place in the world and made a new family of their own, no kids included, a found family that is healthy and wholesome. I want to be able to never have to look back with any guilt and shit, I really do. I know I got pluto in my 4th house but pluto i don't want to renew shit. I just want to renew myself by leaving. I don't want the cycle, fuck you. And every place I wanna go saturn sits in my 4th, instead, like am I cursed to have no happy home and family anywhere I want?

[beneviento-dolls]

Oh Donna is so algamatum coded

She has close familial and platonic relationships with her dolls, and I think she at the very least has a crush on Angie

[stabyou]

i feel very unloved and left out. i wish i had a big friend group like everyone else... but i always stick out like a sore thumb whenever im amongst a group. if only the antipsychotics could make my weird, unlikeable aura go away

[joskippy]

CARLOS DAVE ROBLES I AM DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH YOU

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

Anyway I think the twist being the main character was what they despised all along fucks actually

[why-fucking-bother-anymore]

I swear I've gone through every emotion known to man.... (And then some) today...

[willowfey]

i turn 25 in 5 days. does anyone have any advice on how to be normal about that

[autisticlee]

no one else I ever talk to seems to understand how hard it is to not have at least one reliable person in your life that's always there for you when you need someone. they all have someone to turn to at all times. even if they don't want to bother that person and don't use it to their advantage, they still have someone who will run to their side as soon as they're needed. they have someone that will drop everything to come help them. they have someone that's always with them. they have someone to talk to. they have someone that will always do things with them. they have someone that exists near them enough to know they arent completely alone. they have someone that's always there. they don't live in a world where they feel alone and ignored 99% of their entire existence, physically alone and isolated, but also spending every day chasing after people trying to get at least one person to agree to acknowledge they exist. they don't have to waste their little energy to do all the work because not one person will do any work or reach out first. they don't get how that feels.

it's so hard to find someone who understands not having any of that???? I will have people try to pretend they get it. but then they always talk about their friends and best friends and partners and all the things they do together or talk about. so then I know they dont know how I feel. they're having a hard time so their partner made then food, their best friend watched a movie with them, their group chat talked with them about their favorite things, their sibling went shipping with them, etc. no one can seem to imagine not having at least one of those. and if I do find someone who really doesn't have those, then it's always an independent and/or abled person who doesn't need help or want companionship and they tell me to do things by myself and stop expecting to have positive human interactions or bonds because they dont need it and get by fine so i shouldn't. or they simply push me away/ghost me suddenly (which explains WHY they're alone. it's their own doing)

i'm so tired and from being forced to do everything alone when i'm not able, and failing my way through life because of it. sighs. everyone loves to underestimate how lonely and isolated being autistic in this world really is....if it's not me being an annoying and unlikable person that's isolating me, then it HAS to be because i'm autistic and everyone hates autistic people right? (even other autistics in my experience) or I simply have a curse and only meet "the wrong people" and cant meet "the right people" because how can I have tried talking to at least 300 people last year and not a SINGLE ONE WAS THE """"RIGHT"""" PERSON?! IM SO TIRED.

there were times i've had at least one friend I could always reach out to to chat with who would distract me from hard times in life. we just talk about our shared interests or play a game together or hang out. but it's been years since I had that. everyone I know and try to talk to about how difficult it is for me to not have anyone to turn to when I need someone, or everyone I try to reach out to doesnt get how difficult and lonely it is and how much their rejection hurts. because they all have a best friend, or a partner, or a group of close friends, or family they're close with already, they dont need me, and they dont feel the need to share themsleves with me. let's face it. i'm not likeable, not useful, bad at being a person, dokt have a single solid personality, nothing people want in life. so why would they go out of their way to make sure i'm part of their lives? i've been the "helper/fixer/mom/therapist" friend my whole life who was always there to clean up other people's lives. and now i'm the one that needs someone here for me and everyone has evacuated. if I help them they will cling to me. but if I ask for something simple, they dont have time for me.

i've barely talked to anyone for a while now. most of my interactions with others in the last.....months has been me trying to herd them around like cats and do things but failing because cats don't listen. i've spent HOURS googling irl meetings and clubs and stuff. kve tried reaching out to so many people I haven't talked to in a while. no one comes to me first. no one likes me enough. they have their beat friends and partners and groups already. everyone is too busy to make even a small time for me because they must prioritize their favorite people. it's been me doing all the work but mostly failing. IM SO TIRED AND AND ALONE AND ISOLATED AND DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO.

so the only solution is to get used to being alone and make my new year resolute to stop reaching/asking first. maybe i feel so bad from constant rejection and ghosting and wasting of energy I don't even have with no results. learn to like being an isolated loner so I can stop feeling so awful all the time. thats the only solution I cam come up with when i'm unable to keep doing all the work and cant control what other people do/think/feel.....if I can't make people like me and want to be with me, then I need to learn to accept that and embrace loneliness and learn to like it. and learn to give up on SO MANY THINGS I WANT TO DO THAT I CANT DO WITHOUT OTHER PEOPLE. learn to enjoy being confined to my room and stop dreaming and making plans that will never happen....thays the hardest part as someone that wants to have experiences and see the world and do photography and other creative projects like group cosplay photoshoots, make short films, and other stuff. as well a group things like simply play a game like gartic phone. sighs. why's everything I want to do require/is better with other people and I can't do/enjoy alone 😭😭😭 I feel like i'm cursed, genuinely.

[hopeformusab]

**"I am Musab. The war has returned—stronger and more brutal than before. I was injured in the bombing, underwent surgery, and need another… but there is no time to heal. We were forced to flee—my three daughters and I—leaving everything behind. No home, no shelter, no safety. My daughter Lama was also injured, her little hand now trembling from the trauma. We carry fear instead of belongings, searching for a place to hide from this nightmare. The pain in my body is nothing compared to my fear for them. I don’t know where to go or how to protect them. All I have left is my voice… will anyone hear me?

Please, share my story, donate, and help us in any way you can."**

My campaign vatted by @gazavetters in line(#520)

#free palestine

[gor3sigil]

Before starting T, when I socially transitionned, I was surrounded by radical feminists who saw masculinity as gross and inherently evil, something to avoid, something to make fun of, something to destroy. The other transmascs in my friend group, sometimes, told me that they didn’t knew if they really were non-binary or if they just were scared shitless of saying “I am a man”. Because they saw this as a betrayal to their younger self who had been SAd and abused.

I saw many of my masc friends and trans men around me hate themselves, not outing themselves as men because it would imply so so much, it was like opening the Pandora Box. Even when we were just together, talking about our masculinity was always coated with bits like “I know we’re the privileged ones but…”, “I don’t want to sound like I have it bad but…”, “Women obviously have it worse, but last time…” and we were talking about terrible traumas we experienced while taking all the precautions in the world in the case the walls were a crowd of people in disguise waiting to get us if we didn’t downplay the violence we faced, or like crying and being upset and being traumatized and afraid and scared and to say it out loud would make us throw up the needles we were forced to swallow every second of every day living in our skin.

Most of us weren’t on T yet, some of us were catcalled every day and harassed in the streets or in abusive relationships nobody seemed to care to help them get out of because they were “strong enough” to do it by themselves.

I was using the gender swap face app and cried for ours when I saw my father looking back at me through the screen. The idea of transforming, of shedding into a body that would deprive me of love, tenderness, and safety, was absolutely terrifying. I knew I couldn’t stay in this body any longer because it wasn’t mine, but I also knew that if I was going to look like my dad, my brother, my abusers, it would be so much worse.

5 years later and I’m almost 2 years on T, and almost 2 months post top surgery.

I ditched my previous group of friends. I was bullied out of my local trans community. But let me tell you how free I am.

I was scared that T would break my singing voice: it made it sound more alive than ever.

I was scared that T would make me less attractive: it made me find myself hot for the first time in my life.

I was scared that T would make me gain weight: it did. But the weight I put on is not the weight I used to put on by binging and eating my body until I forgot that it even existed. It’s the weight of my body belonging to me, little by little. The wolf hunger for life.

I won’t tell you the same story I see everywhere, the one that goes “I started going to the gym 8 times a week, I put on some muscles, I started a diet and now I look like an action film actor”, in fact if you took pictures of me from 5 years ago vs now I’d just have more acne, I’d have longer hair and still look like I don’t know what to do with myself when I take selfies.

But the sparkle in my eyes, my smile, tell the whole story way better than this long ass stream of words could ever.

I want to say some things that I wish someone told me before starting medically transitionning.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s your body, it’s your journey, if you don’t feel comfortable taking full doses and want to go slow, the only voice you need to listen to is your own. Do what feels right.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to ask for support.

Trans people are holy. Everyone is. You didn’t lose your angel wings when you came out because you want to be masculine. You are not excluded from the joy of existence, from being proud of yourself, from being sad, from being scared, from being angry. The emotions and feelings you allowed yourself to feel while processing what you experienced when you grew up as a girl and was seen as a woman are still as valid as before. Nobody can take that from you. If someone tries to, don’t let them.

It’s perfectly normal to grieve some things you were and had before you started to transition, like your high soprano voice or even your chest. Hatching is painful. You can find comfort in things that don’t feel right, so making the decision to change can be incredibly scary and weird and you deserve to be heard and supported through this. Wanting top surgery doesn’t make the surgery less intense, less terrifying, less painful to recover from. When it becomes too much you have the right to take a break and take some deep breaths before going on.

You don’t have to have a radical, 180° change for your transition to be acceptable or valid or worthy of praise. Look at how far you’ve come already. It doesn’t have to show, you’re not made to be a spectacle, you’re human and it is your journey.

Oh, and last thing, you know when some people say “Oh this trans person has to grow out of the cringy phase where you think that you can write essays about being trans or transitionning or just their experience because it’s weird” ? If you ever hear this or see this online, remember all the people whose writing you read and, even if they were not professional writers, helped you more than any theorists did ? If you want to write, do it. It won’t be a waste. It can help people. Or it won’t, and even then, if it helped you, that’s enough.

Love every of my trans siblings, take care of yourselves. You deserve the world.

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[mercvry-glow]

All that glitters

parings. jack abbot x nurse!reader

summary. jack isn't a materialistic man, and you try your best not to be spoiled—but when your man gets flirted with, maybe it's time to flaunt the rings?

warnings. typical pitt setting, hospital drama, age gap bc i make the rules in this house (Jack late 40s, reader late 20s early 30s), secret marriage trope but the don't really try very hard to hide it, jack gets flirted with, sassy jack, reader that has hair long enough to be in a ponytail, other pitt characters, let me know if there's anything else!

notes. love love love jack and younger reader who he loves to spoil—i'll make them my mark sloan/lexie grey dream. sorta follows the stereotype of nurses getting married young with a big phat rock on their finger and reader is living her best life fr, today she's giving health icon realness! like always feedback is very much appreciated and i love all of you!

wc. 1500+

all that gleams (18+)

There were very few perks to working night shift in the ER, but your coworkers were definitely one of them. The vibe was calmer, looser. You could play music low, crack jokes in between traumas, and snack on protein bars and green juice in peace without an intern hovering at your elbow asking if this was the “bad kind of blood.”

 More importantly though? You didn’t have to deal with as many junior staff mispronouncing meds or asking you if “NPO” was a hospital in another state.

Not that you were that far off from their age. You were only a few years ahead of most of them, and honestly? You didn’t always look like someone who belonged in the ER. You were the compression jacket-wearing, Pilates-going, smoothie-before-shift, electrolyte-during kind of nurse. Hair always in a claw clip, nails always clean and glossy, scrubs perfectly tailored and paired with a cute fleece half-zip. Your badge reel had glitter. Your tumbler was filled with ice water. You had a favorite lip balm and two glosses.

And somehow, you were married to Jack Abbot.

Not that most people at PTMC knew that.

Jack—hardass, sarcasm-laced, gruff-charm Abbot—wasn't exactly wearing a “taken” sign on his back. And you weren’t shouting it from the rooftops either. You both liked the privacy, liked having something all to yourselves in a place where everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business.

Still, the diamond on your finger didn’t exactly scream subtle. It was flashy. Big, clear, and set in a gold band that sparkled aggressively under the hospital’s harsh fluorescents. People noticed it. You’d caught more than one resident blinking at it mid-sentence.

Jack noticed it too, especially when you wandered over to where he stood, leaning casually against the wall near the trauma bay—arms crossed, mouth in a flat line, giving you that look he always did when you showed up a little too put together for the ER at 2 a.m.

You sipped your icy water and tapped your fingers against your cup. “Slow night.”

He didn’t even glance at you. “You trying to get us all booked?”

“Oh come on, I didn’t say the actual Q-word.”

“You said ‘slow night,’ which is the Q-word’s passive-aggressive cousin. We’re totally fucked now, hope you’re happy.”

You smiled sweetly, resting an elbow on the nearby table. “I brought chia pudding for later. Want one?”

He side-eyed you. “I don’t even know what the hell that is.”

“It’s gut healthy, Jack. There’s fruit in it too,”

“I don’t trust anything that you find on TikTok.”

You giggled, which only made him more suspicious. Jack’s gaze dipped to your hand as you fiddled with the straw in your drink, the ring practically glowing.

“You’re really wearing that thing tonight?”

You blinked innocently. “What, this old thing?”

He snorted. “You know it’s blinding under these lights, right? Someone’s gonna seize just from the glare.”

“Well then I’m technically doing my job,” you said, smiling. “Keeping you on your toes.”

“You’re gonna give the interns a complex. They think you’re single, you know.”

Your eyes widend in fake horror. “You don’t think I’m flirting with anyone, do you? Frank gets really chatty before he leaves for the night,”

He raised an eyebrow. “With how much you like to bug me, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“That’s rich coming from you, you like to hover too.”

“I do not.”

“You do.”

Jack tilted his head. “Okay. A little. I’m just makin’ sure my girl’s all good.”

You gave him a light shove and took another sip of your water, just in time to hear the trauma pager start going off. 

MVC. ETA six minutes.

Jack stood up straighter like someone flipped a switch, already reaching for gloves. You grabbed your own pair from your pocket, gently removing your ring and placing it onto the accompanying chain around your neck. It’s something you and Jack had agreed to when it came to your wedding rings, minimal gore around them—”up or off” he liked to call it. He had his own of course, though most of the time he just kept his ring on the necklace while at work. 

You started bouncing lightly on your toes to get the blood flowing, not having had any action in the time since you had arrived. 

“Try not to trip over your own sparkle out there,” he muttered.

You gave him your sweetest smile. “You love it.”

He looked at you for a beat longer than he needed to. “Unfortunately.”

Unfortunately, your ass—he picked that ring out himself.

As the trauma team assembled, you took your place beside him, the two of you syncing without needing to speak. He passed you a gown without asking. You tied the back of his before he even turned around.

If anyone noticed how in step you were, they didn’t say anything.

 Jack’s hand brushed against yours as you moved into the trauma bay, just long enough for you to know he saw you. Always did.

After your first success of the night, the adrenaline had faded from the area like mist burning off in Pitsburgh morning light. You were perched back at the nurses' station, sipping from your oversized pink tumbler once again and tapping notes into the EMR system, your high ponytail somehow still intact after the trauma call. You’d already changed into your backup hoodie, the pale blue one that matched your compression socks. 

A little style, a little lip gloss, and a whole lot of not here for nonsense.

Things had quieted enough for Jack to finally emerge from the trauma bay, only for him to be flagged almost immediately by a patient coming in from the waiting room. She was maybe late twenties, long hair, fresh manicure, a barely-there scrape above her brow. Her chart said “fall on concrete.” Her strappy heels said, fall caused by attention-seeking behavior.

You glanced up briefly, watching Jack walk her to a curtained bay. She was smiling too much. Laughing too loud. He was wearing that look—the one he got when he knew a situation would be annoying and had already mentally detached from it.

“I swear,” the patient was saying, voice high and sweet, “every time I wear these I end up in trouble. Guess that teaches me for wanting to be cute on a Wednesday night.”

Jack didn’t even blink. “Sounds like unfortunate planning.”

You tried not to smirk, eyes drifting back to your screen, but your ears stayed tuned.

Inside the curtain bay, the flirting only ramped up.

“You’ve got great hands,” she continued. “Like, really strong—Are you a surgeon or something?”

“Or something,” he muttered, clearly already regretting every life choice that led to this moment.

A moment later, you stood, casually collecting a folder from the rack. You strolled over, your walk unbothered, the slight shimmer of your clear gloss catching in the overhead light. You didn’t need to announce anything. You just stepped in like you belonged there—because in reality you didn’t.

“Oh—sorry, just grabbing this,” you said lightly, nodding toward the folder tucked on the side cart.

Jack’s eyes flicked to you briefly, then away. But that flicker said a lot. You were his safety net, his distraction, his gentle way out.

The patient looked between you and Jack, then caught sight of his chain. His ring where it should be—resting loosely around his neck, the soft shine of the gold band catching the overhead lights like a quiet announcement.

She blinked. “Oh... You’re married?”

Jack didn’t miss a beat. “I am.”

You turned just slightly, giving a small, polite smile. “He’s got great hands, right? They open all my jars and everything." shifting your own necklaces ever so slightly to show off your own ring.

The patient made a noncommittal noise. You gave Jack a subtle tap on the arm—nothing big, nothing dramatic—and slipped out without another word.

Back at the nurses’ station, Dr. Shen had just walked up, sipping his Dunkin’ coffee and looking comfortable as ever. He glanced at you, then at Jack still behind the curtain.

“New patient?” He asked.

“Minor trauma,” you replied, eyes still on your chart. “Potential for eye strain, though. A lot of eyelash batting happening in there.”

Shen raised one brow. “You jealous?”

You gave a soft laugh, sliding your tumbler closer. “Nope. Just observational.”

Jack appeared a second later, walking past with his usual quiet swagger and that look of can everyone please just not say something dumb, but paused near Shen.

“Patient’s stable. Probably fine to discharge with wound care instructions and a lesson on appropriate footwear.”

Shen nodded. “Noted.”

As Jack passed you, he muttered, “You know that folder wasn’t yours, right?”

You didn’t look up. “You’re welcome.”

He leaned in slightly, dropping his voice. “You’re ridiculous.”

You smiled, too sweet. “She was hitting on you.”

“I noticed.”

“She said you have surgeon hands.”

“I noticed.”

You leaned into him just enough for your perfume to tickle his nose. “You do, you know. Big, capable. Very sexy.”

“Don’t weaponize nice compliments.”

You grinned and rested your cheek on his arm for a beat. “You’re just mad you’re the one getting teased.”

He shook his head with a sigh, then mumbled under his breath, “Married a menace in $98 leggings, and I’m the one being told off.”

And you didn’t even argue—because you absolutely are… and you did buy the leggings in two colors.

mercvry-glow 2025