#and my seizures started acting up which caused injuries

[spooky-scary-virgil]

ok i'm like 99% sure my next drawing will be finished by the end of the week :D

[kandyshoppe]

Hey, uh, I have an Oc that is a vet (surgeon more specifically) but I don’t really know about how they should act about it or the experiences so, do you have any advice on that front?

Like, I just take more example from doctors, my mother and brother are and they are both very, uh, (￣︿￣) about it.

Like they tell stories and experiences constantly when we are eating, like how my mother saved a kid that got shot point blank in the head (kids are very resilient like holy fuck), my brother is studying still but he already has a few experiences and such. So I take more note that those in medicine are just very not overreactive to emergency situations.

But that is just human vets, which humans can be very crazy but it’s very different from animals.

So I would like to know if vets are also like that? Just “Emergency? Okay let’s start” and have many things under control.

Also what are your crazy vet student experiences?

Also your job is very cool.

Alright! So! First! I mainly did paperwork while interning. I only went with boss a few times as an extra set of hands for graphing, and I am not interning anymore because of summer vacation (I only actually interned last semester to be honest, cause I needed to focus on class work this last semester)

Never take a vet to polite dinner, we WILL just start talking about the grossest things while casually eating. Being in the medical field, you need a strong stomach, so sometimes we forget not everyone wants to hear about us looking through poop to find worms or giving a cow an enema. We’re DISGUSTING. We regularly deal with being covered in fluids all day cause we don’t have time for a shower! Got another appointment in ten minutes!

Vets also have STRONG opinions on different animals, though they don’t all match up. I would rather shoot myself in the leg than deal with another racehorse again, but my boss adores horses! That being said, dogs tend to fall in similar categories on breeds, every husky I’ve ever met has ripped their catheter out, and every pug has been a screaming diva.

Some of the shared opinions are cats have the best names, bird owners are their own breed, no dog owner truly knows how much of a devil their dog is, cows are inherently stupid, and horses would murder you for one corn chip.

Now, I am not interning right now as summer has started, and it was for a class, but vets are very busy during spring, fall, and every single full moon. Nobody knows what happens but animals get weird every full moon! Summer tends to fluctuate depending on the type of vet you are. Surgeons probably wouldn’t see as much of a increase vs farm vet (which is what I’m going for). Most surgery’s are scheduled, but there are emergency surgeries sometimes needed. Which leads to my next point.

I was never apart of any emergency situations since I’m still learning, but I have seen my boss just FULL SPRINT across the clinic, and I was told to take care of the front. (The dog was okay for anyone wondering, she had an emergency c section and all puppies were okay!) the only close to an emergency was a sudden seizure someone’s goat had, not a fainting goat, she had milk fever. That was very much « work mode » while also trying to stay compassionate to the owner and animal. I bet working in back with an emergency would be similar to how medical professionals might feel, but if the owner is there you have to make sure to put up a brave front.

It’s different from being a medical doctor as owners are such a big part of the job, your bedside manner has to be amazing! I’ve wanted to strangle owners for neglect, hug them during last visits, or just stare confused at them for saying the DUMBEST things (DOGS AND CATS A CARNIVORES I SWEAR TO HIGH HEAVEN!) and find a balance between brutal honesty, and softness during rough times. If your dog will probably die, I’m gonna tell you that, but I’ll give options.

Another thing is while many animals COULD live through last injuries, such as broken jaws, rarely do owners have the time or resources to heal their pet to a point of actually living vs surviving. Is it possible? Yes. But rarely feasible. Sometimes it’s better to let your pet go, take a few days if you can to give them the best time ever, feed them chocolate before the visit, and give lots of good boy/girl kisses.

Lastly, farm vets look less at keeping animals super comfortable vs fixing the problem as fast as possible. Obviously we do avoid putting animals in pain, but sometimes you have to yank a tooth, or disinfect a wound right then and there. It’s a delicate balance of caring for the animal, and understanding that farmers need cheap but long term results for their own livelihood.

Look up vetblr here as that has a lot more, actually trained, graduated and qualified individuals than me. The biggest thing is for vets, you live and breathe animals. You aren’t paid that well, school is expensive, it is taxing on your body, and mentally and emotionally exhausting. Hell, half the vets I know will take money out of their own pockets to lower costs for surgeries needed for pets! It’s HARD, and I personally suggest looking at other animal based careers for something to fall back on. (Also, I hate petstores! May they all burn!)

[ecobud]

Everything You Need to Know About Water Balance in Your Body

"Water balance" refers to the body's regulation of fluid levels. This is a crucial process, as even a small change in fluid levels can have a big impact on how the body functions. For athletes, proper water balance is especially important, as it can help to improve performance and prevent dehydration.

So, are you interested to learn more about water balance? If so, keep on reading:

Why Is Water Balance So Important?

Water balance is the process of ensuring that the body has enough water to function properly. The body is made up of approximately 60% water, so it is essential that we maintain a healthy water balance.

There are a number of reasons why water balance is so important. However, the biggest reason for this is the fact that water plays a role in almost every bodily function, from digestion and metabolism to temperature regulation and detoxification. Even small changes in our body's water levels can have a big impact on our health.

Dehydration can lead to a number of problems, including headaches, fatigue, dizziness, and an increased risk of injuries. In extreme cases, it can even lead to death. On the other hand, too much water can also be dangerous. Overhydration can cause problems such as water intoxication, which can lead to vomiting, diarrhoea, and seizures.

What Factors Affect Water Balance?

There are a number of different factors that can affect water balance. One of the most important is the environment. Different environments can have a big impact on how much water the body loses or retains. For example, in a hot environment, the body will sweat more in order to cool down, which can lead to dehydration. On the other hand, in a cold environment, the body may not sweat as much, but it will still lose water through respiration.

It's important to be aware of how different environments can affect water balance and to take steps to stay properly hydrated in all conditions. This can mean drinking more water than usual in hot weather or carrying a water bottle with you when you're exercising in the cold.

Overall, proper hydration is essential for athletes of all levels. By paying attention to water balance and taking steps to stay properly hydrated, athletes can improve their performance and avoid dehydration.

How Do I Regulate Water Balance in My Body?

So, how do you make sure you are getting enough water? And, how do you know if you are drinking too much water?

The best way to gauge your hydration levels is to pay attention to your thirst. When you feel thirsty, that is a signal that your body is already starting to become dehydrated. Try to drink small sips of water throughout the day rather than large gulps.

For most people, drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day is a good goal. However, your needs may be different depending on your activity level, the climate you live in, and your overall health.

If you are sweating a lot or spending time in a hot climate, you will need to drink more water to replace the fluids you are losing through sweating. If you are sick or have a fever, you may also need to drink more water.

On the other hand, if you have kidney problems or are taking certain medications, you may need to limit your fluid intake. Check with your doctor to see if you have any special hydration needs.

Overall, stay tuned to your thirst, and drink plenty of water throughout the day to keep your body properly hydrated. Avoid drinking any sugary drinks and the like as well, as those can actually make you dehydrated.

Conclusion

As you can see, water balance is vital to our health. Not only does it ensure that every part of the body gets the water it needs to function, but it also ensures that you won't run into health issues. That said, if you find yourself thirsty during your activities, why not bring along a water bottle? This simple act can ensure you stay hydrated at all times, keeping your body in tip-top condition and your mind at ease.

Ecobud focuses on health and the environment, offering a variety of water-related products, from water filter jugs to stainless steel bottles and more. If you are looking for eco-friendly bottles and more in Australia, check out what we offer!

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[dylinski]

Come Back Home

Warnings: angst with happy ending, smut (vanilla), language, vomiting, seizure, lots of kissing, fighting

Relationships: Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale

Word Count: 10465

Author: @dylinski​

A/N: so, i spent six months on this lol. i also haven't written anything in three months so yay! let’s just hope i can stay in the groove and keep my muse. ☺️ this is also a submission for sterek bingo 2020

Derek walked into the seedy motel room, the sound of panging rain echoing through the small space. He collapsed on the bed exhaustedly, not bothered to remove his soused clothes. He let out a distressing grunt and winced in pain from shifting in bed, forgetting he had been wounded. There wasn’t much concern for it since abnormally rapid healing was expected, so he let sleep take him willingly despite his discomfort.

It had been like this for months now, the endless cycle of wasting his day away chasing his demons and passing out in a shady rented room to do it all again the next. He found comfort in this, or at least a numbness from all the memories he was hopelessly trying to suppress. It kept his thoughts occupied and he was always too engrossed or depleted to allow his mind to wander without his consent. Unfortunately, he had even less control over the slumberous plane versus his conscious one.

Dreams were never a relative concept to Derek since they customarily failed to linger after he opened his eyes. He could always feel the essence of the illusions of sleep, but that would soon dissipate as well. There was always that one nagging feeling in his abdomen that he could faintly feel albeit his attempts to choke it down. Always there, always lingering, to the point that he thought he might feel empty without it.

Typically, when suffering from a nightmare, Derek would wake suddenly and still as if he were petrified. No screaming, no cold sweats, no rapid heartbeat. As if he had been given a dose of kanima venom, his body found no reaction to the terrors that absconded once his lids flew open. So what made tonight different? What suddenly changed in him, allowing everything he had spent months taking apart to force itself back together, pulling like a magnetic field until it was recognizable?

Derek sat up violently in bed, his eyes flashing blue in the stark black of the room as it was riddled with the sounds of panting and a rapid heartbeat. Being a werewolf meant the muscle in his chest was already accelerated, with the rate at which it thumped now could end in sudden cardiac failure for anyone without supernatural aptitudes. He sucked air through his teeth at the sudden jerky motion upwards, instinctively bringing a hand to his stomach. Through the darkness, he could see his fingers laced with blood. Temporarily sidetracked, he jumped from the bed and flicked on the light switch, shielding his eyes at the abrupt flooding of brightness.

Derek lifted his shirt up while standing in front of the rancid sink and mirror to reveal the bullet wound that had befallen him earlier that night. He peeled off his shirt, raising his arms slowly as the pain began to radiate through his body in hopes to examine the spot more easily. Pulling the skin back, it appeared that his injury had not only failed to improve but began to deteriorate. A rush of horror made his stomach jump, nausea overcame him, knocking him to his knees as he emptied his belly into the toilet. Leaning back, he wiped the corner of his mouth and rested his head against the cold linoleum walls of the bathroom.

With his eyes closed, all the images he suffered during his slumber came rushing back, and a sting like being stabbed repeatedly manifested where he was starting to bleed again. Sitting on the floor, distraught and terrified, he let a single tear cascade down his cheek as he clasped at the lesion in his side. What was happening? The inability to recover physically was pushing his body to its barriers mentally, assuming that was what was happening here. He took in a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly, preparing to shut his lids and face what was haunting his mind. There were flashes of memories and voices, but nothing concrete, like a puzzle that was still trying to piece itself back together.

Derek knew exactly what his subconscious was trying to communicate, exactly what recollection he had thoroughly stored away in the recesses of his mind. Regardless, he was able to call upon the record of his life. He drew in deeply as the breath hitched in his lungs, holding back the hot tears that were brimming in his eyes. It probably should have been archived as a happy memory, that moment in someone's life that alters their course and turns their world on its head, which it was, but being Derek wasn’t an exact science.

***

The large metal door flew open with a loud clang, reverberating through the large loft, as Derek swung it open. His arms were full, carrying the lanky boy, hooking his legs over his arm while wrapping his other around his back and under his shoulders. “Derek! I said I’m fine, okay? Just put me down!”

“No.”

The freckle-faced boy slacked his jaw and glinted in distaste while Derek avoided eye contact, focused on the task at hand. The boy grunted in defiance and tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Derek tightened his grip making it almost impossible without supernatural strength of his own. “Jesus, Derek. Why are you acting like a crazy person?”

Derek only responded with a grunt as he approached his bed, laying Stiles down gently. He disappeared into the bathroom as Stiles leaned back on his elbows, rolling his eyes and throwing his head back as he shouted, “Seriously dude, I'm fine!”

Derek started back towards Stiles with a first-aid box in hand and a brooding mug. Stiles scoffed when he thought about the idea of a werewolf keeping a first-aid kit around, but then it occurred to him and his face went flush. Derek scurried to his side and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Do you need me to take the pain?” Derek grabbed Stiles’ limp hand and anchored him back to the moment.

“Huh? What? Oh, no. No, I’m fine.” Stiles was easily distracted.

Derek rolled his eyes as he let Stiles’ hand go reluctantly and turned to get a better view of his ankle. 

“You keep saying that.” Derek’s voice was gruff and annoyed. He pulled off Stiles’s shoe and the boy winced as he pulled in air sharply. “And as usual, you are not fine.” Stiles rolled his honey eyes and let his head roll between his shoulders mockingly. 

Derek peeled off the brunette’s sock and turned up the hem of his pants the best he could without causing discomfort.

Stiles was trying to hold his breath to hide the pain that radiated from his ankle up to his thigh as Derek worked on him, but the rhythm of his heart betrayed him. His eyes were screwed shut and the pain started to fade, allowing him to relax, but when he realized what was happening, his eyes flew open.

“Hey! I said don’t do that!” He swatted Derek’s hand away, the black veins in his arm paling. Derek grunted and put his hand back on his skin, the charcoal lines pulling the ache from him. There was no point in fighting Derek because Stiles had no doubt that if he kept it up Derek would have him tied down so that he couldn’t push his hand away. If there was anyone to rival the stubbornness of Stiles Stilinski, it was Derek Hale.

The pain dispersed and he could only feel a slight tingly sensation along with the impression of the swelling. Stiles sat up to bring Derek and his foot into view. The ankle was roughly the size of a tennis ball and he had had enough broken bones and injuries in his life to know that wasn’t a good sign. “How bad is it? Is it broken?” Stiles coiled back, preparing for the answer. Derek didn’t respond so he wiggled his leg to get his attention. “Do I need to go see Melissa?”

“No.”

“No, what? I asked three questions.” Stiles squinted and pursed his lips.

“I know.” Derek kept his focus on Stiles’ ankle, continuing to care for the injury.

“Okay, grumpy-pants, that still doesn’t clarify anything,” Stiles said as he waved his hand and rolled his eyes.

Stiles seemed more easy-going since Derek took the pain and the wolf found comfort in that. From the angle he was to the boy, Stiles couldn’t see the small uptick on the corner of his mouth.

“No, it’s not bad. No, it’s not broken. And no, you don’t need to see Melissa.”

Stiles unknowingly let out a long sigh of relief as he let his head fall back. Stikes took a deep inhale before he looked back up and Derek was finishing up wrapping the white compression gauze around his foot. He couldn’t help the smile that graced his lips as he watched the man care for him, a side Derek tried to keep buried down but Stiles had seen break through the surface many times.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Derek hadn’t removed his eyes from Stiles’ injury, so the brunette shook his head in awe, startled that he was able to notice. Damn werewolf senses.

“Looking at you like what?” Stiles didn’t even try to hide the sass in his tone.

Derek sighed and pulled in his lips as he turned his head towards Stiles. He tilted his head and knitted his brows together.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak eyebrows,” Stiles mocked.

Derek rolled his eyes at Stiles and picked up the items he had littered around the foot of the bed while nursing the boy's ankle. He placed them all back into the kit and stood up, walking over to the center of the room. He placed it on the table in front of the couch as he sunk into its cushions. Leaning back, Derek rubbed the place between his eyebrows and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was so exhausted. Letting out a long sigh, he straightened his back by sitting up, knowing he couldn't rest yet.

He looked over to Stiles who was still examining him adamantly. “You need to rest, Stiles.”

“Apparently, so do you.” He threw an arm up at the man as he shifted in the bed, pulling himself up to lean against the headboard.

Derek sighed and let his head fall into his hands, digging his elbows into his thighs as he leaned forward.

Stiles scooted over to the side of the bed as best he could without twisting or moving his ankle then cleared his throat. Derek looked up hazily and saw Stiles pat the spot on the mattress next to him.

Quizzically, Derek looked the scene over and drew lines into his forehead. Stiles tried to offer him assurance with the softest of smiles.

Nervously gulping, Derek let his thoughts run rampant. It’s not that the idea repulsed him, but that fact that it didn’t. He’s known Stiles for a few years now and he has successfully drowned his feelings for him in that time frame. Stiles wasn’t very subtle and he could tell that the brunette felt...something too, whatever that may be.

No matter what he did, Stiles seemed to weave himself into the structure of Derek’s existence and there was no denying it, so he ignored it. Giving in to his weariness, he stood up and walked over to the bed, falling into its embrace. He edged the side, trying to put as much space between him and Stiles as he could.

“Look, I know you bite, but I don’t.” Derek rolled over to face the boy and glared at him with tired eyes. 

Shrugging his shoulders, Stiles slid down onto his back and let his fingers tap restlessly on his belly. Derek drowned out the noise by honing in on the boy’s rhythmic breathing. In...out. In...out. In...out.

***

A surging pain woke Derek on the bathroom floor, wrenching his intestines as he leaned over to puke again. He opened his wet eyes and saw that everything in the toilet was black. A cold chill ran down his spine and his body started to tremble as he leaned against the wall again.

With his mind spinning, he couldn’t focus on anything around him let alone a coherent thought. He pressed his palms to the cold floor, pushing up to attempt bringing himself to his feet. Before he could raise himself higher than three inches, his arms gave way and he settled back onto the ground.

If he wanted to live through the night, he was going to need help from someone...anyone. He was desperate and his instinct was taking hold, his need to survive no matter what. His wolf howled as his fragile body was decaying from the inside out.

Derek’s eyes flew open, their brilliant cyan shining in the dimness of the small space as he let out a pained shout. He needed to call for help before he passed out again fearing he wouldn’t wake up next time. He reached into his pocket, pulling his phone out and agonizingly typed in a number. His fingers were weak, along with the rest of him, struggling to enter the digits with one hand. He left black blood on the screen as he tapped, there was black blood everywhere.

His lids grew heavy and his hand went limp just as he managed to send the call. He listened to the shrilling ring on the line as he faded into the absence of reality. The last thing he heard was the familiar voice calling his name with panic. He wanted to say something back, he wanted to comfort them and convince them he was okay, to take the worry from their mind but he couldn’t.

***

Derek awoke to the feeling of fingers tracing the lines of his face. Without opening his eyes, he smiled and grabbed the hand, pulling the person it belonged to into his chest. They shifted and turned, placing the curve of their back into Derek, slotting them together perfectly. His arm was draped over them and placed over their heart, feeling the rapid pumping of blood. He nuzzled his face into the crevice of their neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply and feeling tingly at the scent he loved. 

The scent.

That Scent.

Fuck.

Startled with reality finally catching up to him, Derek jumped up from the bed, and Stiles fell off the other side in response. Derek ran over to him and kneeled down next to the boy as he groaned. “Oh shit, sorry... I didn’t...I just...sorry.” Stiles was rubbing the back of his head and sitting up while Derek looked him over frantically, terrified he had broken him.

“It’s fine, sourwolf. I’m still relatively in one piece.” Stiles leaned back on his hands, giving him a content smile and Derek let his features wash over him. Like a crashing wave, everything hit him all at once. All the emotions and thoughts he had built a barrier to hold back. The dam had cracked and the pressure became too heavy. For the briefest of seconds, he lost all control and brain function, purely acting out of instinct.

He frantically grabbed Stiles’s face with both hands and pulled him to his lips, kissing him as if his life depended on it. There wasn’t any tongue or sexualization to it, but a hunger and desire to be closer, to be one.

Every movement of their lips clashing together felt like breath was being drawn out of his chest, pulling him in like a mist into the other man’s lungs. He was so enamored by the feeling of Stiles’ mouth that he failed to realize the fingers weaving into his hair, pulling so tight that it stung his scalp. He needed Stiles so fervently that searing tears welled in his eyes and leaked past their closed hoods.

When Stiles felt the warm moisture between their cheeks, he broke the kiss and ran his fingers through the wolf’s hair, then bringing his palm to cup his cheek. He brushed away a stray tear as the raven-haired man leaned into it, eyes still refusing to crack. He inclined forward and kissed Derek’s damp cheek where the tear had been wiped away. They sat there in silence, taking in the presence of the other.

They didn’t need words to communicate, they never did. Words were pointless between them, unable to bring light and understanding to what the other was truly experiencing. If you took a look back in their history, you could catch the longing gazes that failed to hide their affection while the other wasn’t looking. The ability to connect and comprehend one another without even speaking. Conversations of the eyes that allowed them to converse with their souls rather than their words.

Possibly, they weren’t entirely aware of it themselves, but it was there nonetheless. When they did become vocal, it was banter and words of indifference, contrasting everything their bodies spoke truth to. Their subconscious’ blatantly aware of what was happening between them, but their primitive brains just needing to catch up.

“Derek…” Stiles’ voice was barely above a whisper and it made the wolf knead deeper into his hand. The way he said his name, it was dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that it was raw and desperate.

Derek’s eyes finally opened and they were the piercing cobalt that bore into Stiles’s whiskey ones.

Gnawing on his lip, Stiles leaned back in slowly and searched for some kind of rejection in the cerulean orbs, but found none. He kissed Derek so gently that the brush of their lips was almost non-existent. He kissed again, somewhat harder. He repeated the action, each kiss becoming more and more demanding.

They made their way back up to the bed, refusing to break their lips and found themselves with Derek stradling Stiles’s legs. Their pelvis’ clinging together like magnets as they deepened their kisses. Derek licked across Stiles’s bottom lip as he pushed his hips hard against the boy.

Stiles moaned and the wolf took advantage, agonizingly pushing his tongue into the other’s mouth. He searched the open space, exploring its crevices and swirling around against the opposing muscle. Stiles let small keening sounds move past their locked lips and met Derek's crotch with his own small rolls of his hips.

Derek let his hands grip Stiles’ shoulders and brush down his arms until he intertwined their fingers, bringing his arms up and over their heads.

Their bodies rubbing together caused both their shirts to ride up and Stiles whined at the lack of skin. He pulled back and tugged at the hem of Derek's black shirt, prompting him to remove the item.

Derek reached behind the brunette, gripping at the end of Stiles’s shirt and bringing it over his head. He then sat up tall after he tossed the garment on the floor, then stilled, taking the boy in for all of his worth. His fingers brushed his collarbone and made their way down, ghosting his skin. He let the pad of his thumb sweep over his nipple, causing Stiles to shudder at the contact, then down over each bump of his ribs that protruded through his flesh. Over the line that formed half of the infamous “V” on his hip and to the patch of hair below his belly button, leading down past the waistband of his chinos.

“God, you’re beautiful.” Stiles’ cheeks flushed pink at the compliment and he gulped, the bump in his throat shifting slightly as he swallowed. Derek leaned down and kissed it, leaving a trail of wet kisses around his neck, up under his jaw, and around the base of his skull until he reached behind his ear.

Stiles was absolutely blanched, his breaths thready and mouth dry.

“I need you, Stiles.” Derek’s words weren’t desperate or pathetic, but whole-hearted and demanding. A simple statement of truth.

Derek sat up again, causing Stiles’s hand that was resting on his shoulder to drag down his chest. Stiles kept it there, against the defined abs of Derek’s stomach.

Derek was waiting for any sort of response from the brunette, but Stiles was unbelievably silent in all manner of the word. Derek Hale had managed to leave Stiles Stilinski speechless. He searched the younger man’s face and found a hint of awe, making him smile.

In return, Stiles broke his lack of reaction with a toothy grin that was comically large, but utterly pure. Derek’s smile grew even wider and he let out a small chuckle, leaning in for another chaste kiss.

Derek couldn’t wait anymore, he had to have Stiles now. He hovered over him, tugging on his bottom lip with question and the brunette turned his head minimally, mimicking the uncertainty. Derek pulled away a bit more and curled his fingers into the top of the Stiles's pants.

Stiles’s eyes grew wide and he gave a weak nod. The ebony-haired man unbuttoned the pants and pulled them off, leaving behind the plaid boxers. The hardness beneath them was undeniably visible as the head of Stiles’s pink cock peeked out at the top.

Derek swung his leg over Stiles and got off the bed, the boy whining in protest at the absence of his weight on him. He pulled off his own pants and briefs, leaving himself on display for the brunette to ogle.

He was large and thick, his cock not entirely up despite its hardness. The weight of it caused him to hang slightly. Stiles’s breath hitched as he looked at the man before him.

Derek looked to be carved from stone, a masterpiece by Michelangelo himself. His eyes seared into the flesh as he examined him, the bits of his hair sticking up from where his own fingers ran through, thick brows that rested above his kaleidoscope eyes. Lips that were pink and soft as clouds, his tongue running across them with desire.

Stiles followed the line of his jaw, littered with scruff down his neck that was thick and strong, shoulders that too often bore the weight of the world and arms that showed muscle without flexing. He looked at his hands that were deftly underrated, strong rough hands that he didn’t see as weapons the way Derek did, but as gentle tools. He remembered how those very hands had been used to take care of his injury and take away the agony that came with it.

Stiles’s eyes drifted to the surprisingly boney hips next to where his hands were hanging. Lines shot downwards from his hips into his pelvis but were cut off by dark hairs on his crotch. The hair extended up and onto his stomach which was hard and toned. A red blush covered his face as he looked back down to his thick cock, now being pumped by those full hands. Derek’s head was pink and swollen, liquid leaking from the slit at the top. Stiles could feel his own precome pooling on his stomach from the tip that poked above his underwear.

Stiles swore he was close to coming just from the sight of the man alone. His mouth was a contrast of watering with desire and dry from astonishment. It matched the oxymoron of his body, now breaking out into a cold sweat. His jaw was slack and he took in a shaky breath. “Fuck.”

Stiles had imagined Derek before when he let his mind wander, he even had seen him shirtless countless times, leaving little to the imagination, but seeing him fully, and in this way, wanting Stiles, was like gazing upon him in a new light. It felt like he was seeing him for the first time.

“Don’t just fucking stand there,” Stiles threw up a noodle of an arm, and Derek wasted no time to climb back on top of him. He wiggled his way between the brunette’s legs, letting their cocks rest next to each other. 

He went in for a kiss, this one more sloppy and heated than the others, different and less sensual. Derek involuntarily began to buck his hips down, rubbing his cock alongside Stiles’s, only the thin fabric of the boxers between them. Stiles let out a moan from the friction against Derek and resented the barrier between them. He wiggled his pelvis up and Derek hissed with the unexpected pleasure. 

“Off,” was all Stiles could manage as his heart pounded in his chest, and Derek complied. He sat up, pulling the waistband down and bringing Stiles’ legs in front of him and straight up. He tossed the item and brought his legs back down slowly, but Stiles was impatient and sat up to meet his lips. He made his way onto Derek’s lap, straddling him.

Derek would roll his hips up into Stiles and keening sounds escaped with each brush. Their cocks caught between their stomachs and mixing the precome into their flesh. Stiles wrapped his legs around the wolf’s back as he was lowered back down. “Derek, please. I need you inside me.”

The beta reached over to the table next to the bed and opened the drawer. He pulled out a bottle of lube and spread it across his fingers. Stiles looked on in anticipation and couldn't help but to gnaw on his lips.

Derek traced the ring to Stiles’s entrance and the boy shuddered at the touch. The lube made Derek’s fingers cold at first, contrasted to the heat irradiated off Stiles’s body. 

“You gotta talk to me, okay?” Stiles nodded at Derek’s words with his eyes closed, basking in the pleasures he was feeling. “No, talk.” Derek wasn’t demanding, but still adamant.

“Okay.” Stiles breathed out hard, his voice almost nonexistent. He realized Derek was waiting on him. “More.” He could hardly keep his eyes open, his head back and neck exposed as he wiggled beneath his lover.

Derek pushed in a single finger and Stiles let out a harsh breath that turned into a moan. The sensation was strange but felt amazing. When he adjusted, he looked up at Derek and let him know he was okay. The man slowly inserted a second digit, stretching Stiles out. Stiles’s cock twitched, a steady stream of clear liquid leaking from his slit and onto his belly. He bucked his hips, begging for movement, and Derek started to incite his fingers, pulling them out and pushing them back in.

As Stiles relaxed and loosened around him, Derek’s movements were faster and stronger, pulling elicit moans and whines from Stiles.

“Der-” Stiles couldn’t manage to say his whole name between his hitched cries of pleasure.

“What do you need? Talk to me, remember?” Derek kept the rhythm of his fingers, twisting and scissoring inside Stiles.

Stiles let out a grunt of frustration, unable to form words. He wasn’t sure why Derek kept wanting him to speak, but he’d comply as best he could. “You.” He let out another groan of satisfaction. “I need you.”

Derek halted his hand and tilted his head at the boy. He watched as Stiles let out a whine of protest and looked up at him pitifully. Derek offered him a small smile and leaned over the brunette to get more lube, placing a small kiss on his lips. Derek poured some in his hand and then applied it to his enlarged member, flinching at the sudden chill the liquid brought.

Stiles watched over his belly and through his legs in awe as Derek pumped his cock in his hand. Stiles found himself bringing a hand to his own dick and wrapping his fingers around it as he pleasured himself. 

Derek looked up and noticed, pushing Stiles’ hand away. He leaned down, still stroking himself with one hand and enveloping Stiles in the other.

Derek made a long stripe from the base of Stiles’s cock to the swollen head with his tongue and took him into his mouth, tasting the salty-sweet precome. Stiles let out a loud gasp and tensed slightly from the surprise as he bucked his hips up into the back of Derek’s throat and wrung his fingers into the man’s black locks. Realizing how close he was to finishing, he stilled Derek’s bobbing head, “Wait. Derek, just wait.” His words were strained.

Derek stopped and let Stiles’s throbbing cock fall from his mouth with a pop and hit his stomach where the patch of hair was thick on his belly. He raised an eyebrow with concern that Stiles wasn’t happy. Sitting up, he separated himself from the mole-speckled man slightly, in fear he was changing his mind.

“No! No, come back. I just…” Stiles looked to the side and bit his lip. Derek couldn’t help but let out a needy noise at the sight. “I was close and didn’t want to finish in your mouth.” Stiles sat up and placed his hand at the back of Derek’s head, locking their eyes. “I want to finish with you inside me. I want to feel you fill me up, coming on your cock.”

A thundering growl escaped Derek’s lips as he crashed them onto Stiles’s, knocking them both back down into the bed. His wolf took hold, no longer buried beneath the surface. His eyes flashed blue as he pushed himself up to look at Stiles and the young man gawked in amazement. Stiles brushed Derek’s cheek with his thumb and worried his bottom lip, gazing deeply into Derek’s sapphire eyes.

They met in another deep kiss, inhaling the moans the other made as their cocks rubbed together between their stomachs, slick from the lube. Derek lifted his hips and reached down, refusing to break their liplock. He positioned himself against Stiles’s hole and felt him flinch at the touch. He looked down to make sure the position was right and looked back to Stiles for affirmation one last time.

Stiles nodded with begging eyes and Derek pressed into him with dragging speed. Stiles let his head fall back and his jaw went slack as he felt Derek’s head slip into him. It was a mix of pain and pleasure, something words couldn’t define. He felt himself fluttering around Derek, adjusting to the protrusion and relaxing as his body became attuned with it. He closed his mouth and looked back to Derek who had stilled and Stiles frowned, whimpering and in need of more than he was given. “Derek…” His voice was hoarse and crackly, barely making a sound.

Derek offered sympathy and responded by slowly sliding in deeper. He was met with some friction as he felt Stiles clench. “Relax,” he whispered as he leaned down and kissed Stiles easily with nothing less than love. That’s what this was. They weren’t fucking or hooking up, they were making love and it scared Derek shitless but that was the last thing on his mind as he looked down at the man lying before him, offering himself wholly and completely.

Stiles felt relief at the reassurance of his lover and relaxed as best he could, his heart beating rapidly against his chest. His mind and pulse were racing at inhuman speeds, relentless, but everything around him stilled. Derek’s lips stuck to his, making a small noise when they separated from one another. God he loved Derek, he loved him with every atom of his being and had for so long, even if he hadn’t known it.

Feeling Derek rolling his hips, his cock moving in and out at an agonizingly slow pace, it forced Stiles to close his eyes despite his desire to stay locked on Derek. The room was filled with his wanton moans and gasps met with Derek’s grunts and shallow whimpers. The sounds rang like music to Stiles’s ears, listening to his lover as he began to thrust at a more unrelenting pace.

“Oh fuck,” Stiles breathed and flew his lids open to see Derek’s wolf eyes beating down at him. They had both acquired a sheen of sweat, causing their chests to glisten in the light.

“Stiles,” Derek grunted, screwing up his features trying to hold back his release. His stamina was higher than this, but with Stiles it was different. He could look at the boy naked and come, his body begging and screaming for liberation.

The way Derek said his name told Stiles he was close. “Touch me,” he demanded frantically and Derek complied, reaching for Stiles throbbing dick, a constant stream of cloudy precome escaping his slit and pooling on his stomach.

Stroking Stiles’s cock was easy with the mix of sweat, precome, and lube that had accumulated between them. He kneaded the slit with the pad of his thumb then started to stroke again, Stiles’ breath hitching in his throat, something blocking his airway. 

“God, Stiles. I- I love-” Derek faltered for a split second but managed to recover. “Fuck, you’re amazing.” He placed kisses along the man’s spotted jaw and whispered so softly that even a wolf would have trouble hearing. “Come for me.”

Stiles let out a bellowing cry and for the briefest of seconds, Stiles felt his stomach lurch—the feeling you get when you hover in the air right before you come down on a swing. In that moment, everything made sense and the whole world was crystal clear. He looked at Derek for what felt like hours and saw him shining like a star; his beacon of light that would always guide him home—Derek was home.

Stiles’s whole body shuddered violently as he came over Derek’s hand, his body tensing and tightening just before all his limbs went limp. Derek felt the brunette beneath him and around his cock, straining him and pulling his own orgasm with the pressure, having seen the man he loved come because of him. He could watch Stiles come over and over again.

Stiles’ face contorted in the most beautiful of ways, like an angel that wasn’t worthy of his gaze. He emptied himself into Stiles, coating him with his seed and a roar escaped his chest as he collapsed onto Stiles, panting and huffing in sync with the body under him.

They laid there for an unnamed measure of time, Derek now flaccid inside Stiles, both of them too exhausted to move or clean themselves up. After what felt like an eternity, Derek managed to regain some strength and got up to grab a wet cloth. He cleaned Stiles and then himself and after he proceeded to climb back into bed. He pulled Stiles into his side, holding him close and tight, never wanting to let him go again. 

They dozed off effortlessly in each other's arms and under the covers, breathing in each other and living in that moment where the world outside the loft didn’t exist. Just two men deeply and madly in love and they didn’t need another damn thing, this was enough.

***

Derek felt hands on his face, a familiar and longed for touch. His eyes opened but his vision was dark and blurred. “S’iles?” He slurred and felt his head roll as the bathroom swirled around him. “S’you?”

“Derek!? Derek, what happened?” The panic was blatant in Stiles’s voice as he coerced Derek to wake. “DEREK!?” He tapped the man's cheek as Derek’s head started falling.

Derek shook his head and opened his eyes, flashing between their beta color and his natural blues and greens. He groaned and tried to sit up, but had no control over any part of his body.

“Derek...” Stiles searched the man as best he could for the source of the black blood under the fluorescent lights. He pulled up the shirt Derek was wearing and discovered the open and festering wound on his side. “Oh my God. Derek, oh my God. What happened? Shit. Shit shit shit shit.”

Stiles grabbed the hand towel from the wall, which he was certain was less than clean in a place like this, and used it to apply pressure with both hands. A cocktail of curses and prayers escaped Stiles’s lips as his eyes began to well. “Derek, I swear to God…”

Stiles grunted as Derek shifted and contorted his face in pain. That was better than seeing his limp body laying on the floor. “I swear to God if you fucking die I will kill you.”

Derek’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell, laying on the ground. His body went rigid and began convulsing.

“FUCK.” Stiles threw the towel down and turned Derek onto his side as best he could. Stiles sat behind him, Derek’s back leaning against his chest as Stiles used his whole body to keep him in that position.

Tears streaked Stiles’s cheeks and he gritted his teeth, a bottomless terror tearing its way through his chest down into his stomach. He was beyond his depth and felt helpless. He needed to get Derek stable so he could piece together what was happening to him.

Stiles held onto Derek like the man would evaporate if he let go. Screwing his eyes shut he clung so hard his fingers were going numb and his knuckles turning whiter than bone. After finally finding Derek, he wasn’t about to lose him again; he couldn’t. If Derek died, he would die on the floor right next to him.

The seizure lasted less than a minute, but it felt like hours. After Derek finally stilled, Stiles let his head fall onto Derek’s shoulder and he could hear shallow breaths. He relaxed into the unconscious body on the floor and let out a choking sob. He sat there a minute, whimpering and soaked in the black blood that was seeping out of Derek.

Stiles couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, finding peace in Derek’s breathing. In...out. In...out. In...out.

***

“How’s your ankle?” Derek spoke softly as he let his fingers trace the side of Stiles’s arm. He was curled into the older man’s side, a smile on both their faces and eyes closed with contentment. Every once in a while, the brunette’s body would mildly shudder from the sensation of Derek’s touch, it wasn’t his fault he was ticklish. 

“It’s fine.” Stiles hummed and nuzzled closer into Derek’s side.

“I don’t like that.”

Stiles sat up and looked down at his wolf with confusion. “Don’t like what?”

Derek pushed himself up onto his elbows and showed a sympathetic smile. “When you say ‘I’m fine’. You say it too often and I can always tell that you’re not.”

“Well, I am now. More than fine actually.” Stiles was starting to feel marginally defensive. “What about you? You say it too.”

“I do not,” Derek grumbled and laid his head back down, dismissing the discussion, but Stiles wasn’t finished.

“You do so! All the time actually.” Stiles sat straight up and picked up an accusatory tone.

Derek opened a single eye and glared at the boy who was now speaking with his hands.

“Hey Derek, how are you?” Stiles comically deepened his voice, “Fine.” Speaking normally again, “Yo, Derbear, how’s it hanging?” In a mocking timbre, “Fine.”

Derek was not appreciating the antics Stiles was executing.

“Oh my God, Derek! You’re bleeding from everywhere!” In his Derek voice, “I’m fine.”

Derek growled and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He got up and pulled on his briefs, then walked over to the couch to get some space.

“Oh! Real mature. So it’s okay for you to have a problem with something that I do, but the second I have an issue with you, you turn into a toddler.”

“I’m not a toddler.” Derek’s words were hard and gruff, spoken through gritted teeth. He crossed his arms over his chest and refused to look in Stiles’s direction. 

Obviously, that wasn’t going to work, so Stiles leaned over the edge of the bed to find his boxers, then limped his way to sit on the table across from the grumpy wolf. “Really? Because it sure looks like you are to me.” 

Derek looked at Stiles fleetingly and huffed in defiance. 

“Seriously, why do you put these walls up around me? We just had the most...mind-blowing sex, and you opened up to me in ways I didn’t think possible, but you’re still doing this shit.” Stiles hesitated for a moment, pondering the idea of mentioning what he heard in the throes of it all, unsure if it was something that just slipped out or intentionally said. Shit, he didn’t even know if Derek knew he said it. “For fuck’s sake Derek, you told me you fucking love me! Why are you still keeping up these walls?” 

Derek threw up a horrified stare like someone just told him he could never wear a black t-shirt again. Stiles drew into himself, feeling like he shrunk in size, immediately regretting everything that just came out of his mouth. “You need to leave.” Derek looked straight into Stiles’s eyes, bare of any emotion.

“Excuse me?” Stiles widened his eyes and watched Derek stand up and storm off to the other side of the room, his back facing him.

“I said go!” Derek shouted over his shoulder, standing there like an immovable object.

“No! Derek, no. I’m not go-”

“Jesus Christ, Stiles. Just give me some fucking peace!”

Stiles sat frozen, just blinking here and there, not entirely sure if any of this was real. For what was only a minute, in reality, felt like an eternity, but he refused to move and finally spoke up when he processed what the fuck was going on. He didn’t understand it, but he processed it nonetheless.

“Derek…” He heard a grunt from the man. “Please, just listen to me…” He heard no protests, so he continued. “I...I don’t know if you meant it, but…” Stiles paused when he thought he heard a diminutive whine. “...but I do. I get why you do this, I do, but I wish you didn’t keep building yourself up and breaking it all back down in this repetitive and arduous cycle. You show me things, tell me things, that I’m pretty confident you hide from everyone else, but then whenever I try to talk about them with you, you close off and shut down. What are you afraid of? I know you’re scared, I know you’re always scared. You think I don’t see you, but I do. After everything we’ve been through, all the shit we’ve faced...even after this!!”

Stiles took a deep breath and sighed in an attempt to relax and not shout again. That wasn’t his intention, he doesn’t want to make Derek any more defensive. “Even after this, you still can’t trust me.”

Stiles’s words hurt, and Derek wanted to tell him none of that was true, he did trust him, he trusted him with every atom of his being, but something in him, something deep in his gut made him still as stone. Stiles was right about one thing, he was scared, terrified to the point of petrification.

Everyone in his life has left him, whether it be by choice or circumstance, but they left him behind all the same. It became second nature for him to close off, shut people out. Why should he let someone in when they were just going to leave too? Everyone he ever loved or that meant something to him had gone, leaving him alone in this world, taking a piece of him with them when they walked away.

His father, who left him and his mother when he was too young to remember, just the stench of stale cigarettes and smoke. Paige, the first girl he ever loved. Kate, the first woman he loved. His mother, whose death he blames himself for. Cora, finding another pack in South America. Isaac, leaving him to join Scott’s pack. Peter, choosing power over family. So much pain in his memories, the belief he wasn’t good enough and no one wanted him.

“Fine, if you won’t talk to me, I’ll go, but just know…” Stiles felt moisture in his eyes and couldn't hold back the silent tears, burning. Trying not to whimper, he could only manage a whisper. “Just know that I love you. I don’t care about everything else, okay? I’ll never forget the day we met. It was like something clicked, but I didn’t know, not until the pool.” 

Stiles didn’t need to elaborate, because Derek knew the exact moment he was talking about.

“I still hated you, oh yeah, but I loved you too. I hated who you were trying to be, the mask you wore, but I loved the man underneath. That’s all I want Derek, I want you.” Stiles pulled on his pants as best he could with his injury, slipped on his shoes and shirt, and headed for the large metal door. He slid it open and stopped to look at the man he so unashamedly was in love with who hadn’t moved a muscle, then regrettably left.

***

Derek woke to the sensation of a numbing pain throughout his body and loneliness in his stomach. Everything was too sore to move, even the strain of opening his eyes. The early morning light shined through his lids, so he raised an arm over his head and laid it on his face. His mind was slowly catching up and the heavy weight pulled down on his heart when he remembered imaging Stiles amid his delusional state.

Shifting in the bed, Derek became aware that the last time he was conscious, he was on the floor in the bathroom. Derek’s lids flew open and he managed to sit up minimally with his sudden rush of adrenaline. His eyes scanned the bright room, adjusting to the light, and found the familiar speckled face asleep in a chair in the corner. Stiles’s mouth was somewhat open and tiny snores escaped as his chest rose and fell.

Derek attempted to pull himself up in the bed and winced in agony, clutching his side. He leaned back against the headboard, gasping for breaths and closed his eyes to even his breathing. When the pain became manageable again, he opened his eyes to see the boy unmoved.

“Stiles,” Derek spoke softly as to not startle him, but he was unphased. He spoke his name again with more vigor and Stiles almost fell out of the chair with alarm.

“Huh!? What!? Who’s dead!?” Stiles rapidly blinked his eyes, adapting from the darkness to daylight, and pulled himself up in the chair.

“Stiles…” Derek wasn’t impressed with his antics. Maybe he would be if he wasn’t consumed by the torment of his wound, but it was difficult for him to focus on anything else.

Stiles saw the strain on Derek’s face and stood up quickly, racing to the bed and kneeling on the edge. “Derek? Are you okay? Shit. No. I know you’re not okay. What can I do? What happened?”

Stiles continued to spit out question after question until Derek interrupted by repeating his name for a fourth time.

“Oh god, I’m sorry.” Stiles shied with embarrassment, knowing the last thing Derek wanted to handle was Stiles’s slew of inquiries. “I’m going to check your side, okay?”

Derek only managed a barely audible grunt and small nod before Stiles began to lift up his shirt. Looking down, Derek realized he wasn’t covered in black blood, and clean clothes had been put on him. “Did you…”

Stiles was focused on the injury and looked up slightly dazed, “What?” His voice was soft and distant.

Derek nodded down towards his body.

Stiles shyly responded, “Oh. Uhm, yeah. It’s no big deal.” He shrugged and pulled Derek’s shirt back down, then got up from the bed. He went back to the chair, slumping down into it. “So what happened? It looks like a bullet wound.”

Derek couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that Stiles managed to drag him from the bathroom into the bed, clean him, and change him. Speaking of which, he began to ponder the idea of how he even knew he was here and needed help in the first place.

“It is. How did you find me?” Derek’s throat was raw and dry, along with his lips. He licked them and longed for some water.

Stiles sat forward in his seat, “Doesn’t matter. How did you get shot? Was it laced with wolf’s bane? That could be why you’re not healing. And it explains all the black blood.” Stiles scrunched up his nose at the memory of almost having to cut off Derek’s arm. “I’m not going to have to amputate you from the sternum down, am I?”

Derek growled and rolled his eyes. The sound tore at his throat. “Water.”

“Oh!” Stiles jumped up and found a glass on the table and filled it at the sink. He noticed a bullet laying inside and picked it up. He mindlessly offered the cup to Derek as he inspected the piece of metal in his other hand.

“Stiles…”

“Hmm?” Stiles turned back to Derek and it occurred to him he needed help with the drink. “Oh. Yeah, shit. My bad.” He sat down next to Derek and helped him take some sips. Stiles placed the glass next to the bed on a side table and looked at the bullet again. “It doesn’t look like it’s laced.”

“Because it’s not. Wasn’t hunters.” Derek slouched some, lessening the pressure on his open wound.

Stiles stared at him quizzically, “What were you doing to get shot at by non-hunters? Who even-” Stiles’s eyes widened and he stood up forcefully, “COPS!? Were you being shot at by cops!?”

“No.” Derek was beginning to feel his body worsen and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“Who was it then?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m dying anyway.”

Stiles shot daggers at Derek, “You’re not allowed to.”

Derek glared and shook his head, of course, Stiles would be the one to challenge death. He turned in bed, closing his eyes.

Stiles sat down hard on the bed and shook Derek until he opened his eyes and groaned. “Listen, asswolf, we’re gonna figure this out. You were pretty bad before. I didn’t…” Stiles looked down at his hands on Derek’s arm for a moment then raised his eyes back up. “Thing is, you got better, but you’re starting to get shitty again. If it gets as bad as before, I don’t think you’ll come back from that.”

Fear was evident in Stiles’s eyes and Derek wanted nothing more than to reach out and kiss him, tell him it was all going to be okay, but he couldn’t and it destroyed him. A surge of pain ran through Derek’s body and he tensed, letting out a seething breath through his teeth.

“Derek! Fuck!” Stiles reached out again, touching Derek’s arm, and his body instantly relaxed. “Oh my God…” The boy grabbed Derek’s shirt and pulled it up, almost off him completely.

Derek was confused and his lack of clarity and consciousness wasn’t helpful. “What…”

“Shh.” Stiles shushed him sternly and traced his fingers over the black veins from the wound and up Derek’s chest.

Derek shivered at the contact, warm fingers against his cold skin, fingers he felt before and a touch he had ingrained in his memory. Something in him pulsed--his heart, his mind, his blood--he didn’t know but it pushed him and for a fleeting moment he could breathe. Stiles’s fingers left his skin but the feeling of his touch lingered.

Stiles looked at Derek and his eyes appeared more wet than normal, “They’re almost to your heart.”

Derek pulled down his shirt, “I know.”

Stiles pursed his lips and furrowed his brow deep in thought. Derek examined him, scanning his face, every mole, freckle, and shape. He always loved the way his nose was slightly upturned, making it easier to kiss his soft pink lips. God, he desperately wanted to kiss him one last time before he died.

“Stop that!” Stiles lightly punched Derek’s arm but it was still enough to make him recoil in his vulnerable state. “I know that look and I hate it. You’ve given up. You’ve decided that this is it and you’re dying. I’m not turning my back on you this time!”

Tears begged to leave Derek’s eyes and he managed a sad smile. He had forgotten just how relentless Stiles was and how much he loved him for it, even admired it. He was right though, Derek was content with this ending, Stiles with him. Although it wasn’t how he thought he would die, it would be enough--Stiles was enough.

“I said stop it!” Stiles hit Derek again and served him a hard scowl.

“I’m sorry.” Derek closed his eyes in shame and let out a heavy sigh.

Inhaling deep with frustration, Stiles took Derek’s hand into his own. He knew those two words intimately, the same way Derek did. Derek wasn’t apologizing for what he did, but what he didn’t do, or what he felt was not enough.

Stiles took his free hand and brought it to Derek’s face, cupping his cheek and running his thumb under his eye, wiping away the tear before it had a chance to fall. “You still got me.”

Derek’s eyes opened and he tilted his head, gears turning in his mind.

Silence took over as they embraced one another with their glances until Stiles’s eyes widened and he knitted all the pieces together. “Scott!”

“What?” Derek was beyond confused now, certain he was hallucinating.

Hurdling a leg over Derek, Stiles straddled his calves and pushed the shirt up again. “Scott!” He shouted with excitement like it was the answer to all their problems. Engrossed by his own mind and thoughts, he was oblivious to the fact that Derek had no clue what he was referring to.

Shock took over Derek as he was being topped, “Scott?”

Touching the decaying flesh on Derek’s stomach, Stiles pressed gently and looked up to Derek’s eyes. “Yes, Scott. This happened to Scott. I know what’s wrong and I can fix it. Well...I can’t, but I know how. You have to fix it.”

Understanding Stiles was an art, and Derek had mastered it long ago, but it was doing him no good right now. His eyes searched for answers, yet found nothing but joy and hope in Stiles’s eyes. He didn’t comprehend it or know why he was so filled with optimism, but it was enough. “Tell me.”

Stiles settled onto his knees, wiggling into Derek unintentionally. Had this been any other time, Derek would have growled and flipped them over. “Okay. When the alpha pack attacked you and we thought you died, the second time,” Stiles squinted and realized they thought he died four times and was going to bring it back up later because that was unacceptable, “Scott blamed himself. He had been hurt too but he wasn’t healing and it kept getting worse. His blame and guilt prevented his ability to recover and did the opposite. He believed he deserved it, the pain and suffering.” Stiles tilted his head innocently and sighed.

Knowing Derek carried the weight of the world, there was an endless list of things that Derek felt unnecessary guilt for. He had found himself in a vicious self-deprecating cycle and it needed to end. “Why do you feel guilty?”

Derek shied away, hiding his conviction, but Stiles took his chin and turned him back to face him. Stiles wore a sad smile that begged for Derek to open up, he always wanted him to open up, but Derek had always been so frightened. That’s what fucked everything up in the first place. Looking deep into Stiles’s eyes, Derek replied, “You.”

Sitting up straight, Stiles donned confusion. “You feel guilty because of me?” Stiles seemed broken and distressed, leaning back subtly, “I...did I do something wrong?”

Derek sat up quickly, ignoring the surging pain and cupped Stiles’s face, “No! No, no, no. You didn’t do anything. It was me, it was my fault. I did this.” Derek searched Stiles’s eyes and tried to offer a sense of solace but he had nothing to give; at least nothing but the truth.

He pressed his forehead to Stiles’s and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this. I was so terrified of you. You tangled yourself into me, I didn’t know how to handle that, so I ran. I wanted to tell you everything that day in the loft, I begged myself to, but I was paralyzed. My greatest regret was hurting you after we...and then letting you walk out that door. I didn’t want you to blame yourself or think you did anything wrong. I pushed you away, I made that choice for us. As soon as you left, I packed a bag and just drove as far as I could. I’ve been numbing myself ever since, searching for Kate and helping Chris, that’s how I got shot, one of Kate’s goons.”

Stiles pushed their foreheads apart and glowered at Derek, but kept quiet as to not interrupt.

Tracing his thumb across Stiles’s cheekbone, he continued, “Stiles, you were right. I was beyond afraid of you, of us. Everyone who has ever meant something to me left me alone and took a piece of me with them, I couldn’t open myself back up to that, I couldn’t lose you, so I left before you even had the chance.”

“I would never leave you.” Stiles waited for Derek to keep going, but he kept quiet. Stiles could see in Derek’s eyes that he wanted to believe his words, but couldn’t because of the ghosts in his past, haunting, and lingering. “Derek, I could never leave you. I looked, you know. I searched for you after you left, every day. You’re not easy to find.” Stiles let out a sad laugh. “When you called me last night, I didn’t know who it was, but I heard you say my name. I called out but you didn’t answer. I knew something was wrong, so I may have committed a few felonies by tracing your number. That’s how I found you. I’ll always find you.”

Derek licked his lips, feeling warmth return to them and the rest of his body. He leaned in and tilted his head until they were sharing the same breath. He wanted to kiss Stiles fervently but hesitated for an unknown reason. Something in the back of his mind still holding him back like an invisible chain. He told Stiles everything and knew what Stiles said was true, but he couldn’t feel it.

Stiles sensed Derek’s tentativeness and waited for him to close the gap. His heart was pounding against his ribs and his blood was boiling. He missed Derek desperately and finally found him, he was in his arms but knew he had to let Derek make the move. He laid everything out on the table and knew the only way Derek would start to heal was if he accepted the past and forgive himself.

Derek inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. The final link in the chain, holding him back had to be broken. He couldn’t hide behind his fear anymore because it was killing him, quite literally. He had no reason to keep it inside, and why would he want to. It was time to open up, so what if things didn’t turn out okay? Living a life paralyzed by all the “what if��s” was no way to live. He needed to let go of the past and look to the future, look to what was sitting right in front of him, who was sitting right in front of him.

Leaning in, Derek whispered against Stiles’s lips like a prayer, “I love you too.” That was the final piece, to say out loud what he felt so profoundly in his bones. Stiles had been his guiding light since the day they met. They always seemed to find their way back to each other, meeting in the middle and being what the other needed or was missing. Derek loved him so deeply and wholeheartedly that it was painful, but the pain that lets you know you’re alive. Stiles set a fire in his bones and sparks in his veins, reminding him that it’s okay to live, okay to feel, and okay to be human.

Derek kissed Stiles hard and deep, neither of them noticing the black lines on his arms receding. He wove his fingers into Stiles’s hair and gripped tight, trying to get closer to him, his breathing heavy and deep. He pulled back Stiles’s head and kissed down his neck and over his Adam’s apple down to his clavicle, sucking small purple marks along the way.

Stiles moaned and his open mouth gasped for a breath he couldn’t catch. Derek made his way back to his lips and pulled them down to the bed. Stiles slid his hands up Derek’s sides and across his stomach. He stopped abruptly and stilled, then sat up. Stiles pulled up Derek’s shirt and ran his hand across the place the wound used to reside. “It’s gone.” He looked up to Derek, beaming like the sun itself, “It worked!”

Derek laughed and Stiles grabbed Derek’s face, crashing into his lips. Derek couldn’t help but smile and chuckle between each kiss. Derek flipped them over and rolled his hips between Stiles’s legs, pulling a soft moan from him.

They fit perfectly together, like two halves of a whole. The way their lips slotted together, forming the perfect seal. Derek trailed his hand up Stiles’s arm above his head and slid his fingers into his, fitting together seamlessly.

Derek could lie here with Stiles forever, just kissing him, his lips, neck, collarbone, shoulders. The taste of him lingered on his tongue and it was a flavour he never wanted to wash out. He exhaled and fell into the crevice of Stiles’s neck, scenting him and nestling in.

Stiles ran his hands over Derek’s back, tracing patterns unknown to him and inhaling the scent of Derek. They laid there holding each other, consumed by their love and passion. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for them.

Derek rolled off of Stiles and curled in next to him, Stiles playing with Derek’s fingers as he put the other behind his head for support.

“Come back home.” It wasn’t a question or a demand, but a request. Stiles missed Derek and couldn’t imagine spending another minute without him.

Letting go of Stiles’s hand, Derek raised it to the boy’s face and pecked his lips, “You are my home.”

Forever Taglist: @stiles-o-dylan24​

[hiswordsarekisses]

I have a small testimony of how God has shown me the light in this verse. It’s been a long journey, and one that I can only attribute to Him showing me light. I prayed that He would always show me the truth even if it’s not what I want to hear - because what does it even matter if it’s not HIS truth?! Loving the truth saves us from deception. (2thess 2)

About 10 or so years ago I began having severe peripheral neuropathy in my feet from an injury to my lower back. The burning sensation - which feels like a severe sunburn - later spread up my legs to my thighs and in my hands. I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia at that time. Over the next 8 years I was put on every drug you can probably name trying to fix me. By the end of all those years I was on 2 different antidepressants, 3 very strong opiates and the max dose of a popular seizure medication and blood pressure medication as well - all of these at one time. In spite of all of that I was still experiencing a level of pain that is outside of my comprehension and with each medication it seemed to grow worse. It became so bad at night that I did not sleep for 3 days at a time sometimes, and once I passed out from sheer exhaustion I would only sleep for a few hours before the pain would wake me up and the cycle would begin over again.

It was 8 years of constantly analyzing what I ate last, and what I did last, and every detail of my life was consumed in trying to figure out what was causing it and how to make it stop. I was driving myself crazy, along with everyone around me.

Then my life took a drastic turn and I suddenly found myself without insurance or income and I quickly had to ween myself off of all those medications. Those were some rough times, but when I think of it - it wasn’t much different than the torment I had already been through!!! I was just trading torment for torment.

I started trying to eat healthy, cutting out a lot of sugar and things like that and the next few years were a lot like the ones before. There were never any answers or relief. Eventually I discovered a perfect combination of suppliments, vitamins, and herbal help that gave me way more relief than the pharmaceutical drugs ever even came close to, and those are still helping.

Over a period of 3 years I really began to heal. The 3rd year my concoction, along with eating better and figuring out which foods seemed to help and which ones flared me up, along with daily exercise and lots of fresh air and sunshine - and just so much joy that came from feeling so much better and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, brought me to a new level of healing I never dreamed possible.

Then my life took another turn when I hurt my foot and stopped exercising. I became depressed and eating badly as well, and I ended up back on blood pressure medicine and an anxiety medication. I began to sleep a lot and stay inside, and even gained 1/2 the weight I had lost back again. Notice the pattern?

I was still keeping with my suppliment/herbal/vitamin regiment which kept me from spiraling completely, but then I was facing getting my act back together again to get off of these pharmaceutical drugs so that my body can heal itself again before I end up in as bad of shape as I began in.

See, over the years, every new drug brought with it damage and a need for another new drug. I have now learned that lesson with all my heart - so I was able to recognize what began happening when I allowed myself to start taking only these two medications again!

The results/consequences were almost immediate. It was even obviously spiritual. Pharmaceuticals have a spiritual side, just like God’s healing. Only it’s dark.

Then I came across this verse and it all came together. So I don’t care what kind of illness comes on me, I’m actually afraid to ever put another pharmaceutical product in my body again. They all come with consequences, even if they are only mild ones. And the mild ones will never remain mild. They bypass your God given system, which was actually created to run in a certain and particular way. So when we start interring by eating wrong, not taking care of ourselves, putting chemicals in, etc., bad things happen.

Sometimes we get to a point where those bad things get so bad that we get desperate and grab for any relief we can get. But truly the only thing we can do is repent, and ask God to undo what we have done and ask Him to lead us in such a way that we can heal and remove all of this from our body and spirit.

That healing will look different for different people. Some of us can jump cold Turkey from pharmaceuticals and bad eating to an all natural and healthy life - when some of us may be led in a more round about way of gradually getting there - but He has a perfect plan that we can all trust Him with. Some things need medical attention for some people in some circumstances, and if we ask God to lead us in the best way - and ask Him to protect us from deception - He will. He gave us His Word to protect us, but when we have not listened and we end up in a mess, He is still loving us and waiting to show us the way that He intended.

In the book of revelations God is warning us about pharmaceuticals when He is speaking about Babylon and those who took part in her sorcery (Rev 18:23), which is where my eyes first began to be opened. I began to pray about that verse because the word that “sorcery” comes from is the same word as pharmaceutical. I personally cannot say whether this means that taking medication is a sin - that is between each individual and God and not for me to judge. All I know is that for Him to bring me this far, to turn back now - for me it would be. It would be sin for me to turn back because He has given me light on it. (Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James‬ ‭4:17‬)

So I’m going to continue going in the opposite direction of man-made solutions and chemicals with God’s help forevermore. Amen.

I am sharing this in hopes that it we’ll help someone - even one person - to avoid the pain and suffering I have endured.

[liamrysandme]

Hurt

Part One

(I broke this up into a couple parts because I didn’t want this to be too long) 

A/N #1: I’m participating in @julychoiceschallenge. The prompt is: Hurt 

A/N #2: This is my first fic for Open Heart and just my second fic so far! 

A/N #3: I’m currently doing my second year of residency so I really wanted to write a medical oriented fic! 

All characters belong to Pixelberry 

Book: Open Heart 

Paring: Ethan x F!MC 

Word count: 1624 

Warnings: Head injury.

It was safe to say that the day had started off a little unusually. Casey had just needed to assist in sedating a patient who had become extremely violent, who was not only a danger to himself but the staff around him. Somewhere during the madness, he had managed to rip Casey’s badge off, and now she was currently searching for it.

“Something wrong?” Danny asked as he removed the pair of purple gloves and disposed of them in the trash. 

“My badge,” She explained, continuing to glance around the room but not seeing it anywhere. 

Danny quickly survived the room then pointed to it under the bed. “There. It’s under the bed. Do you see it?” 

“Yep,” She nodded. Danny hurriedly scurried out of the room when someone yelled for him. 

Casey walked over to the bed and got down onto her knees. She tried to reach her badge by it was too far under the bed and her arms were just too short. She got down onto her stomach and slid under the bed until she could grab hold of her ID. As she was sliding out Casey misjudged how far under the bed she had actually gone, thinking she was out she tried to get up and ended up banging her head on metal like bar under the bed. Casey grabbed hold of the back of her neck, cursing and groaning. 

“Ow! You little S-” 

“What are you doing?” Jackie interrupted. 

“Nothing,” Casey insisted as she slid out from under the back and back up to her feet. 

Jackie stepped forward as Casey stumbled slightly. She caught her balance by placing on hand on the bed the other over the sore spot on the back of her head- no doubt where a bruise was starting to form.

 “Are you okay?” 

Casey nodded, “Yep, I just stood up too quickly.” Casey let her hand back from her head back down to her side and gave Jackie a not so convincing smile. 

Jackie nodded and soon the two doctors went their own way. She felt fine, her head was still a little painful but that was it. It was just a little bump. 

For sometime after, Casey continued to treat patients and in that time met up with the rest of the diagnostic team to discuss a patient who was exhibiting some strange and unusual symptoms.

Soon Casey’s  break rolled round. She had noticed over the hours that she had started to have a headache. The fluorescent lights above her seemed blinding. It almost hurt her to look up as she made her way through the hospital corridors. 

She was just about to pass a storage closet when she felt like she was going to puke. She pushed the door open and slipped in, dropping down into her knees in front of a bucket just by the door.  She grabbed hold of the bucket to pull it closer as she emptied her stomach. Craning her neck over the bucket made her realise just how stiff it was. Maybe she somehow pulled a muscle. She put a hand to her neck to see if rubbing it would get rid of some of the resistance but it didn’t. She moved her hand up to the back of her head where she had bumped it earlier. She winced when her fingers made contact with the goose-egg shaped hematoma. 

Casey started thinking over her symptoms and anxiety pulsed through her veins. 

Vomiting. 

Headache. 

Sensitivity to light. 

Maybe, It’s a concussion, she thought to herself. Casey’s never felt this way before. The whole array of diagnoses definitely wasn't helping her building anxiety. 

The pain was getting worse and the almost pressure like feeling in her head was getting stronger. 

She wanted Ethan. 

Casey reached into her pocket in her scrubs and pulled out her phone. The light stung her eyes and made the aching feeling in her head worse. She turned the brightness down and searched through her contacts. Her finger hovered over her Ethan- her boyfriend's contact but she decided against it. He’s already stressed out and she didn’t want to cause any more unnecessary stress for him. Not trusting herself to speak and fearing that she’d puke again, Casey typed out a quick text to Bryce instead.

++

Bryce was standing by the nurse’s station taking with Sienna when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took his phone out, eyebrows creasing in concern, and confused at the text from Casey asking him to go to a storage closet.

"Something serious?" Sienna inquired as she noted the change in Bryce’s demeanour.

"Uh, it's Case," he replied hesitantly. 

This was out of the ordinary behaviour for their friend which had them both on high alert. They were both able to sense each other’s worry. Without either of them needing to say another word, they took off to find their friend. Something is wrong- they both just knew it. 

++

Casey leaned back against a wall, sitting in pure darkness. The light hurt too much. The pain wasn’t relenting. It hurt so badly that she wanted to cry. 

She couldn't think of anything besides the deafening pain and  that she still felt sick. Casey scooted back toward the bucket and threw up. 

Just outside, Bryce and Sienna were able to her Casey gagging and retching and pushed the door open- the light that poured in only making her headache worsen. 

“Casey!” Sienna called. The pair come in, Sienna standing by the door to hold it open and Bryce kneeling in front of Casey as she stopped being sick. 

“Case?” Bryce asked. 

Casey’s hands came to rest on her head. Messaging her temple as an attempt to get the debilitating pain to go away but nothing helped. “M-my head...I-” 

Sienna and Bryce both took notice of the faraway look in her eyes and her slurring words. They were right- something is very, very wrong. 

Bryce turned to Sienna, “We need to get her to the ER.” Sienna nodded, “Can you go and grab a wheelchair?” 

Sienna nodded again. She used the puke filled bucket to prop the door open and took off in search of a wheelchair. 

"Case, we're gonna get you to the ER, okay?" Bryce explained. He got to his feet then helped Casey up. He could see how unsteady she is on her feet by how much she stumbled as they take a couple of steps. They just get into the doorway when she stops. “What’s wrong?” 

Her gaze looked distant and panicked. “Bry-” She tried but finding and forming words seemed more difficult than it used to be. “S-something’s wrong.” 

The way she was acting. The way she was slowly starting to grow less responsive and confused had Bryce panicking. He just didn’t understand what was going on and Casey was too out of it to explain to him that she’d hit her head, felt dizzy, and really weird. 

“Case, talk to me. How are you feeling?” 

"I hi-" Case started but suddenly stopped, her eyes wandering away from Bryce. Casey’s muscles tensed up and she started to fall. 

“Whoa! Whoa!” Bryce called as he leaped forward to grab her before she could fall. Just then, Sienna arrived back pushing a wheelchair that she quickly abandoned to rush to Casey’s side. Together, they slowly lowered her onto the floor. As they got her to the floor, laying down Casey started to jerk.

"She's seizing!" Sienna said in shock, pulling her onto her side with Bryce’s help. Bryce requested Sienna go and get some help and to page Ethan, so she dashed out of the room, leaving Bryce alone with his seizing friend.

What is going on? He thought to himself.  He wracked his brain. Come on, Bryce what are her symptoms? What have we got- Headaches, Vomiting, Confusion, Seizures, and an otherwise completely healthy young woman...

Bryce was now in full blown panic mode. He now understands why doctors aren’t allowed to treat friends and family- his judgement is clouded. 

Headache 

Confusion 

Vomiting 

Seizures 

Meningitis? 

Just then Sienna arrived back, a syringe in hand, a small group of nurses and a gurney behind her. She got back down onto her knees beside them both.“Can you hold her arm?” Sienna requested. Bryce gently held her arm in place, careful not to hurt her. “Okay, five of diazepam going in.” Sienna quickly administered the drug and within seconds, Casey’s body started to relax. 

Bryce, Sienna, and the band of nurses all made quick work of getting Casey on the gurney and toward the elevator. 

“Casey? Case?” Bryce called, trying to wake her. “Casey, can you hear me?” He gave her sternum a quick rub with his knuckles. She weakly tried to get away from him, confused, scared, and too out of it to understand what was happening. 

“She post-ictal,” Sienna mentioned once they entered the elevator. 

“Yeah,” Bryce agreed. He placed what was supposed to be a comforting hand on her shoulder but she took it a different way and tried to squirm away. Still not aware enough to understand what’s happening and who the person touching her is. “Casey, it's okay," Bryce comforted her quickly. "You're okay.”  

Casey grew drowsier and her eyes fluttered shut again. Bryce immediately took notice of her lack of consciousness. He shook her shoulder by got no response. “Casey?” Again, no response. 

Bryce turned to Sienna with a panicked filled gaze. “She’s not waking up,” he panicked.

 They both turn to the opening doors when the elevator dinged. They quickly push the gurney out of the elevator and into the emergency room. 

______________

Here’s a medical lowdown! I used a few different terms in this fic and I don’t wanna confuse anyone. 

Hematoma, aka bruise- Usually when some say  ‘hematoma’ instead of a bruise is because Hematomas are commonly associated with being a 3D bump- like an egg shape kinda thing. Hematomas appear frequently on the head because of the many, many blood vessels your brain has. All in all, it’s just a fancy way of saying a 3D bruise. 

The fluorescent lights above her seemed blinding. It hurt her to look up.  Sensitivity to light, (Photophobia)  is common after a head injury! 

Casey’s muscles tensed up and she started to fall. When someone has a syncopal episode (when someone faints) They fall with their eyes shut but that’s not what’s happening here. Casey’s body stiffens with her eyes open. That’s because she’s not having a syncopal episode but rather this is the first stage of a tonic-clonic seizure. Tonic- meaning stiffening and Clonic meaning jerking or shaking. 

Five of diazepam going in- Dizapam or lorazepam are commonly used to stop a seizure in high doses although sometimes Benzo’s are prescribed in lower doses for anxiety. 

Maybe meningitis? Bryce and Sienna suspect meningitis because of her worrying symptoms when combined together. 

Vomiting. 

Headache 

Seizures 

Confusion 

And others are symptoms of meningitis and because neither of them know that Casey has suffered a head injury it’s a logical, educated assumption. I’m sure I’d come to the same possible conclusion.

Sternum rub (sometimes referred to as a sternal rub) - If someone is unconscious painful stimuli can wake the person. A sternal rub really hurts and sometimes leaves a bruise. It just means rubbing your breastbone. 

Post-ictal- This is just the period after a seizure when the brain is trying to recover. People react very differently. In this case, Casey tries to fight against Bryce which is definitely normal. People are often combative during this period. 

[eds-zebra-warrior]

2021 Ehlers Danlos Society Awareness Month (Day 3 Prompt: Symptoms)

Unbeknownst to most people in the community and even many in the medical community as most medical personnel never learned about EDS in school or if they have were only taught the very most basic information about it but Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is a systemic condition and predisposes those with it to over 250 other conditions so it's not unusual for someone with EDS to have 20, 30 or even more other conditions caused by it which are called comorbid conditions or comorbidities.

EDS is a genetic condition that affects the structure of connective tissue. There are multiple types of connective tissue but there are also multiple types of EDS so one or more types of connective tissue can be impacted. Connective tissue also makes up at least part of every part of the body so when your connective tissue is faulty and prone to damage that also means so is everywhere connective tissue is located including but not limited to the skin, cartilage, the brain, heart, lungs, GI system, liver, kidneys, bladder, Mesentery system which is the stringy organ that is around your abdominal organs that eases then and holds them in place, lymph nodes, lymph ducts, nerves, blood vessels, blood cells, nerves, bones, bone marrow, joints, tendons, ligaments, muscle sheathing, eyes, ears, nails, hair follicles, spinal cord, sweat glands, respiratory system etc. You name it, it contains connective tissue so anything can go wrong with any part of the body leaving many patients diagnosed with conditions such as conversion disorder, meaning that all of your symptoms are in your head and you're fine for years and more often, decades because we usually get diagnosed with a lot of these comorbidities before we finally find that one doctor who can put the pieces together and say, this isn't in your head, you have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and those other conditions are very real because EDS is what caused all of them.

Now that we have discussed comorbidities I have dealt with countless symptoms over my life. As a kid it started with chronic pain, migraine headaches, and issues resulting from a compromised immune system because I caught everything going around and usually more than once. I don't remember a holiday as a kid where I wasn't sick or hurt. I was extremely clumsy, unable to run correctly until high-school with the very extensive help of my gym teacher. I was always falling, rolling my ankle, and just in general looking awkward with my body movements. I had multiple gym teachers who would agree that there was something physically wrong with me long before I could get any doctors to listen to my mom or as an adult, myself. I had to take special reading and writing classes because even to this day I cannot hold a pencil well or write with control because my fingers are too hypermobile to control a pencil so my writing is often illegible. I had a very severe failure to thrive, also called juvenile dwarfism, not even growing an inch between the ages of 2 and 12. My parents were told when I was 2 years old that I would be 6’4’’because I was so tall as at one and two years old that people would criticize my mom for carrying me out in public thinking I was 4 or 5 years old when I was only a year or two years old. I was 3’2” from the age of 2 to the age of 12 and of course when I was 12 I was extremely short and was bullied for my size as well as my weight which increased due to inflammation from undiagnosed celiac disease. There were multiple incidences with medical personnel and social workers as a kid because I always had such severe bruising all over my body and they believed I was abused. I didn't lose my teeth, losing only one on my own and at the age of 8 my dentist began pulling out my teeth which left me with dental crowding and requiring braces which were removed prematurely. I dealt with Learning disabilities and have been in glasses since age 4. I would pass out all the time as a kid, starting at 8 years old.

Bullying was a huge issue for me as a kid because I was socially awkward showing signs of OCD as well as being more mature than my peers due to my medical experiences and history with my siblings that forced me to grow up more quickly. That combined with issues such as my clumsiness and height made me the perfect target for bullying. I got what I believe was my first Traumatic Brain Injury when I was 9 years old while hanging upside down on the monkey bars. My bully had another student who had Down Syndrome, climb to the top of the monkey bars and lift my legs so I fell off onto my head.

My second was in the 6th grade. The same bully would bully other kids to help her bully a bigger target of hers which was me. One day I was at my locker between classes. Our lockers were assigned in alphabetical order by last name, of course my bully's last name came right before mine so her locker was directly to the left of mine. My mom tried to get it changed but the school refused. She shoved me down between classes while I was exchanging my books and the two kids with the locker to the right of mine she had help her roll me onto my stomach on the ground, one sat on my butt and held my feet down, the other sat on my back and held my arms down under her feet. my bully yanked my head up so my forehead was on the floor of my locker and I was trying to get out so she had the girl on my back use one of her hands to hold my head down. My bully then kicked my locker door shut on my head over and over again and I went unconscious. There were two teachers in the hall at the time but they just waked into the classroom when it started. I woke up and the hall was empty. I went to the office and told them I needed them to call my mom, I needed to go home and explained what happened. They called my mom and instead of telling her the truth they told her she needed to pick me up because I was acting strange. She came and got me and found out what happened getting me treatment.

She then took me to the school a few days later since the doctor didn't want me to return for so long (I apologize I don't remember a lot from the two weeks following this so I'm going off what I was told so the exact time I was out of school, I believe was around two weeks but I'm not sure. Anyhow at the school, we met with the principal and office staff who denied any teachers were in the hall or that any of this happened. My mom demanded to see the recordings on the cameras as a hall came in at a T right behind my locker so that camera faced my locker as well as one at each end of the hall my locker was in. They tried to tell her all three cameras were broken. My mom wasn't buying it so they tried then saying the recordings were gone. they went round and round and the school flat out refused to show her the video. My mom demanded that the girl who did this be punished because she has been asking for the school to help me since I was in the first grade and this girl started bullying me but they always fail to do anything.

They tried to then give me an in school suspension which my mom refused to let them do. They still went behind her back when I returned and made me take peanut butter sandwiches to the kids in detention during my lunch as punishment because they were mad my mom came in to question the incident. They refused to punish my bully in any way and when my mom demanded to know why, they said her mom and grandmother graduated from the school so she has a lot of history with the school which years later we found out after me and 9 other kids that I know of and who knows how many others, ended up being pulled out of the same school because of her bullying that having history at the school actually turned out to mean, she was black and they would not punish her because of her color. At the end of the school year my mom pulled me out of the school not sure what to do since back then they didn't have any kind of free online schooling so pretty much everything costed money which is when my grandma stepped up and told my mom she would help because there was no way I would be going back to deal with more bullying.

I had a ton of intestinal issues having to start colonics at around 10 years old and get my first colonoscopy around the same time. As a teen I really went down hill, struggling to eat because I had very severe nausea and cramping pain upon eating which made many of my friends believe I was anorexic but I went years without being diagnosed with gastroparesis. I started having thyroid issues and finally diagnosed with food allergies at age 14, Chest pain, palpitations, arrhythmias and trouble breathing around age 15 and seizures and cardiac arrest events at age 17.

At age 19, right before starting college I lost the ability to walk with no reason why and was sent to physical therapy to learn to walk again. The hospital visits continued in college from the seizures, emergencies from my thyroid levels going sky high or bottoming out, I started having issues with low sugar, rectal bleeding and more GI and Muscular Skeletal issues that again came to the attention of a physical education professor I had in college. The cardiac arrests continued to happen and I got an emergency pacemaker put in at age 23. Also lost the ability to walk a second time and re learned during this time.

After graduating and starting working I really went down hill. My nerve pain got so bad I could hardly tolerate it and had a lot of issues with muscle spasticity. Passing out and dizzy spells got worse, seizure meds aren't working muscle weakness got again worse in my legs and I started literally wondering if I was dying, I had such severe fatigue that I slept every moment I wasn't working, bleed very badly during my period or with just mild trauma worrying my dentist so badly that he sent a letter to my doctor suggesting a possible bleeding disorder. I was going into shakes from low sugar and low sodium frequently but at the time had no idea why I would start shaking multiple times a day. Myoclonic epilepsy started and has progressively gotten worse, Dystonia started up, I started getting intestinal obstructions more often and more gastroparesis symptoms with the nausea and vomiting, sometimes cyclic vomiting. I developed a limp and went onto forearm crutches which eventually progressed to paralysis.

I have always had issues with dislocations of joints and spinal manifestations like scoliosis, Craniocervical and Atlantoaxial instability. I’m prone to non cancerous masses that could be cancerous one day including masses in my breasts, heals and between the vertebrates in my spine. My memory has deteriorated and I now have issues which I call temporary blindness when I turn my head a certain way which pinches my already compressed brainstem kinking it off so my vision is interrupted. With Systemic Mastocitosis I deal with allergic reaction type symptoms such as anaphylaxis, overproduction of mucus, coughing, hives, swelling, rashes, itching, hot flashes, flushing and more. I overheat and have hyperhidrosis. I have muscle spasms from the paralysis, dry mouth from the meds, in addition to the heart arrhythmias and trouble controlling my body temperature from the damage to my autonomic nervous system failure I have swelling of my abdomen, extreme thirst, bladder retention, abdominal cramping and more.

There are endless symptoms associated with EDS and it’s comorbidities which has a huge impact on your social life. You can't do the things you used to do and may come up with new hobbies and later deal with the grief associated with losing the ability to do those hobbies, in turn having to find new hobbies. You lose all or almost all of your friends because they don't like what you have become, the things you used to be able to do with them and no longer can, they don't understand if you need to cancel plans, when you lose the ability to drive they drop you cold because they don't want to pick you up many of us deal with the realization of how badly we wanted friends growing up due to our social awkwardness that resulted from our illness, time spent in the hospital, maturing more quickly, as well as the result of decades of medical abuse and neglect which in most of us has resulted in complex PTSD.

Almost all EDS patients are either on the Autism Spectrum, diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which some associate with social awkwardness and also the intense need for us to please people meaning many EDS patients were known as extremely hard and dedicated workers when working or in school as well as very dedicated to friends and families. We basically give our friends the clothes off of our backs meaning that most of us unknowingly befriend people who use us and are in take take take relationships where we give everything we have into a friendship or relationship while the other person gives little back resulting in most of us losing all or almost every friend we had when we get sick and no longer have anything to give. When we are no longer able to do for others those people quickly jump ship leaving us with no friends. Most of us have this very similar personality type due to our history of growing up quickly along with the shared comorbidity of Autism, OCD, and Complex PTSD.

There are countless symptoms associated with EDS and they are different for each individual. Even in my case alone these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to symptoms I have experienced alone so EDS isn't an easy condition to live with physically or emotionally and the diagnosis can be quite the pill to swallow with little understanding from friends, sometimes family or even the medical community.

[nancythedrew]

Nancy Drew Lawyer Time: Renee’s Culpability

Some people expressed interest in me using my almost 1 full year of law school knowledge to try to analyze some ND game things from a legal perspective. Obviously, take everything I say with a grain of salt because I am not a lawyer and this is addressing a not real set of facts. This is also for my own benefit because it is much more fun to write about ND games when prepping for an exam than it is using facts from law school study materials. 

So without further ado, I attempt to answer the question: Was Nancy correct in saying “While [Renee] may not have meant to cause Bruno’s death, she certainly meant to cause mine when she sealed me up in that crypt”?

OK just some ground rules here: I’m gonna be addressing this based on the Model Penal Code(MPC) which is basically like an advisory text for lawmakers to follow when it comes to creating criminal codes by state. Most states have adopted the MPC in some fashion; I have no idea if Louisiana has or to what degree but for the sake of argument let’s just address this based on the MPC/common law(case rulings)/federal law.

In general, to show that someone is guilty of a crime it must be demonstrated that they possessed both actus reus(action or conduct) and mens rea(guilty mind). Here, we’re looking at two different actions that Renee engaged in: giving Bruno the fake letter saying the crystal skull was a fake and leaving Nancy in the crypt. We’ll address the mens rea for each of those separately as well.

Bruno’s Death - Actus reus

Actus reus is usually broken down into four main elements: voluntary act, social harm, factual causation, and legal causation.

Voluntary act: This threshold is pretty easy to meet. This basically asks whether what the person did was actually something within their control. MPC § 2.01(1) In other words, you’re only gonna not meet this standard if you like had a convulsion or seizure and literally could not control your body’s actions. Here, there is no indication that Renee did not actually will herself to write up the fake letter and give it to Bruno, so she meets the voluntary act requirement.

Social harm: The social harm element looks to the negative consequences that the law is intending to prevent. In this case, we’re talking about the death of a human which laws against homicide are intended to prevent. Here, someone died so the social harm component of a homicide charge has been met.

Factual causation: Under factual causation, we use what is called the “But-For Test” which asks “But for X conduct, would this social harm have come about when it did?” MPC § 2.03(1)(a-b).  Essentially, if the defendant hadn’t done what they did, would we still have the same end result? Here, but for Renee creating the fake letter and giving it to Bruno he probably would not have died when he did. Renee could maybe try to argue that at his age a heart attack was likely to happen at pretty much anytime in his life and the timing of the letter and subsequence heart attack were mere coincidence, but I think it would be pretty hard to prove that Renee’s letter didn’t at least somewhat contribute to the heart attack that killed him. Therefore, there is likely factual causation between Renee’s conduct and the social harm.

Legal causation: Legal causation asks whether actual result is not too remote or accidental to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability or on the gravity of the offense. Basically, even if someone technically was a link in the chain that “caused” a social harm, is what they did socially abhorrent enough that we actually want to punish them for it? In this case, Renee could -try- to argue that Bruno’s medical conditions and psychological dependence on the perceived protection he got from the skull were an intervening force that broke the chain of legal causation enough that Renee shouldn’t be held responsible for his death. However, criminal law applies what we also have in tort(personal injury) law which is known as the “Eggshell Plaintiff Rule” or “You take the plaintiff as you find him.” If a plaintiff/victim has a pre-existing medical condition that makes them more sensitive or susceptible to injury, even if the defendant could not have foreseen the condition, the existence of such a condition is not enough to break the chain of causation and absolve the defendant of liability. Therefore, Renee’s conduct will still likely be a legal cause of Bruno’s death.

Bruno’s Death - Mens rea

Mmkay here is where things get dicey. The MPC has four main mental state categories to determine how culpable someone’s mental state is. From most culpable to least culpable: Purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently. Based on what your mental state was when you killed someone will determine the level of homicide you committed. I will address each accordingly.

Purposely - Intentional homicide:

A person is guilty of committing a crime knowingly if “the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result.” MPC § 2.02(2)(a). Basically, was Bruno’s death(the result) Renee’s conscious object to cause such a result? Probably not. Assuming we take her at her word that she truly just hoped he’d give her the skull after reading the letter, she probably did not meet the requirement for a purposeful homicide.

Knowingly - Intentional homicide 

A person is guilty of committing a crime purposely “if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.” MPC § 2.02(b), For pretty much the same reasons as above, it’s gonna be pretty hard to show that Renee was practically certain that Bruno would literally die as a result of the letter, so her conduct probably does not fall within what is required for a knowing homicide. 

Recklessly - Involuntary Manslaughter 

A person is guilty of committing a crime recklessly if “he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.”  MPC § 2.02(2)(c). Again, here, if we take Renee at her word that she truly did not think her conduct posed a risk to Bruno’s life, it’s gonna be fairly difficult to prove a reckless homicide unless there’s maybe facts that suggest Renee knew about Bruno’s health conditions and knew how the letter would affect those. But given the information we have, she probably did not commit reckless homicide.

Negligently - Negligent homicide

A person is guilty of committing a crime negligently if “he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” This is where things could go either way. As distinguished from a reckless mental state where the defendant must have actually disregarded a risk, here it just needs to be demonstrated that Renee should have been aware of the risk giving the fake letter to Bruno posed. The state could probably argue that Renee, being his housekeeper, should have been aware of his medical condition and his emotional dependence on the skull and known that the letter would really mess him up. On the other hand, Renee could probably easily argue that at most she would have anticipated that Bruno would’ve been emotionally distraught but that there was not a substantial risk of him literally having a heart attack and dying.

On balance, the issue of Bruno’s death is likely going to hinge on how much the jury believes the resulting heart attack from the letter was a high enough risk that Renee should have been aware of it. My guess is if the state couples both the Bruno and Nancy(we’ll get to that in a second) situations into one case, the jury will likely be sympathetic to Nancy’s testimony and therefore be more willing to find Renee guilty of other crimes.

Nancy’s Almost-Death

Woo hoo let’s talk about inchoate crimes, or essentially crimes that have not fully been realized. In this case, the state will probably argue that Renee attempted a homicide by leaving Nancy locked up in that crypt. Demonstrating an “attempt” has a slightly different mental state and action requirement, since it isn’t a fully completed crime. Here’s the full MPC definition of it and I’ll go through each possible element accordingly:

MPC § 5.01 “(1) Definition of Attempt 

A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime if, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime, he:

(a) purposely engages in conduct which would constitute the crime if the attendant circumstances were as he believes them to be; or

(b) when causing a particular result is an element of the crime, does or omits to do anything with

the purpose of causing or with the belief that it will cause such result without further conduct on his part; or

(c) purposely does or omits to do anything which, under the circumstances as he believes them to be, is an act or omission constituting a substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in his commission of the crime.”

Let’s start with that first mental state requirement: “acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime.” Here, we need to specify exactly what kind of homicide we’re seeing if Renee attempted. The MPC does not allow people to be held liable for attempted negligent or reckless mens rea crimes(which makes sense. How do you “attempt to” be negligent at something), so it’s gonna have to fall into purposeful or knowing. Here, it seems like it was Renee’s conscious object to cause the result of Nancy sitting in that crypt until she died. Therefore, we’re gonna be looking to see if Renee attempted to commit intentional homicide aka murder. 

I was going to address the actus reus elements individually, but the core question all three of them pretty must ask is had the circumstances been as the defendant believed would the social harm have occured? In this case, Nancy was able to escape from the crypt, but Renee did not have knowledge that there was a way to get out of the crypt. Therefore, had the facts been as Renee believed, with Nancy having no way to escape, Renee would have been able to bring about the result(Nancy’s death) that she wanted. Thus, Renee likely met the actus reus requirements of attempted murder.

A quick note on omission: It’s worth nothing that Renee didn’t technically “do” anything. She caught the skull like Nancy wanted her too and then just left; it’s not like she actively poisoned or stabbed someone. But, if you’ll notice, in § 5.01(b-c) it mentions both purposely doing an action as well as “omits to do anything with the purpose of….” Because Renee failed to help Nancy out of the crypt with the purpose of leaving Nancy there to die, she would have still met the actus reus requirement even without “doing” something. Generally, criminal law doesn’t like to hold people criminally responsible for not doing things(though there are some situations where a duty arises and an omission could make you liable), but here the elements requirement the mental state of “purposely” engaging in an omission to lead to a certain result. In other words, you’re only going to be liable for an omission if it was your conscious object that such an omission would lead to a social harm.

So, to wrap up, Renee will probably be found guilty of attempted murder for leaving Nancy in that crypt because her actions and comments (“Bye now, Nancy”) suggest it was her concious object to leave Nancy there to die. Bruno’s death might leave Renee liable for negligent homicide, but it’s going to really depend on how much the jury thinks it would have been reasonable for Renee to have thought Bruno could’ve died based on the letter.

In summary, was Nancy correct in saying, “While [Renee] may not have meant to cause Bruno’s death, she certainly meant to cause mine when she sealed me up in that crypt”? As the Mythbusters would say….plausible. 

That was super long, but was actually very helpful for me prepping for my finals. If ya’ll have any other ND-related law analyses you’d be interest in me trying to do(if they relate to Criminal or Property law even better for my sake, but I also could do Contracts or Torts) please shoot them my way! Again, I am not a lawyer, but I have learned some things about the law and thought it’d be interesting to apply them to a medium I love. 

[mikhalsarah]

The Emperor’s New Gender

How can you help a 3-year-old to stop misgendering family friends who are transwomen? She isn't trying to insult them deliberately, but just doesn't perceive them as women and won't remember being corrected the next time she sees them. -Quora

First of all, as per further information in the comments, this is not your child and it is NOT your place to be interfering in how this family handles the issue unless they have specifically ASKED for your advice. This is something for the offended friends and the parents to work out, and if you value your friendships you will back out of what isn’t your problem. The entire fact that you feel entitled to force your personal beliefs on other people’s children and intervene in their parenting and other social relationships is extremely disturbing. I suggest you get a good book on Co-dependence recovery.

Secondly, this is an “Emperor’s New Clothes” problem. There is NOTHING “wrong” with this toddler (who at 3 is actually a preschooler), so there is nothing the parents can do about it. You can’t fix what isn’t broken. This reminds me of medieval parents getting the idea in their heads that crawling was too animalistic and ungodly, and strapping their children to little roundabouts to force them to skip crawling and go right to “proper human” walking. Crawling is developmentally necessary for most children and they rarely skip over it, and their lower leg bones and muscles are not yet ready to bear their full weight, leading to possible bow-leggedness. You cannot force children to skip developmental stages because it offends people based on some ideology they have. It has consequences. It is grown-ups here who must accept the natural development of children however inconvenient it is. This is called ACTING LIKE AN ADULT.

This is a normal stage of neurological development. At a certain point in the developing brain it starts to categorize things as a means to understand them. The ability to understand who is biologically male and producing sperm and who is biologically female and producing ova is self-evidently crucial to the survival of every species on the planet that has sexual reproduction. Even for species that can literally morph from one sex to the other, it is still crucial to recognize which members of their species are in which sexual form, and to have that skill locked well down before puberty hits. Therefore that ability is hard-wired into us, just like our ability to acquire language is. This child has reached a stage where they can now identify key markers of biological sex in people’s body shapes (hip to waist ratio, shoulder to hip ratio) and faces (relative size and placement of eyes, nose and philtrum lengths, chin length and width etc) but they have no idea yet what “gender” is as a concept because their brain is not mature enough to entertain a concept that still confuses many adults, apparently.

Children are notorious for mis-gendering everyone, not just trans people. I was mis-gendered by two preschoolers yesterday when I appeared at work in a skirt instead of my typical jeans. There was even a story decades back in Reader’s Digest illustrating how they mix up and conflate sex and gender roles. It was submitted by a parent who allowed their 4 year old to go to JK wearing his sister’s barrettes, only to have the teacher overhear him arguing with another boy about whether he was a boy or a girl. The boy eventually became exasperated and pulled down his pants to show the other boy his penis to prove he was a boy, to which the other boy dismissively said, “Everyone has a penis, only girls wear barrettes.”

Here I will suggest that you also need some good books on child development and evolutionary biology.

This situation would not have been a problem even a few years ago, before “transsexual” was turned into a dirty word and transgender was foisted on us, instead. Once upon a time you could just tell a child that:

A) not everyone who is male or female fits neatly into the typical or average appearance for their sex (or behaviour, for that matter)

B) some people who are born into one sex are unhappy about it for reasons we don’t yet understand. They feel strongly that they are the other sex internally (in their mind/brain) and are much happier if everyone just lets them live as the sex they feel inside as much as possible, and they can have hormones and surgery to help them do so. Since most of those people don’t fully understand themselves until past puberty, they develop outwardly like their biological sex and it can take a lot of time and money to change that.

and

C) It’s impolite and unkind to make personal remarks, or to draw attention to physical features or other differences which people have no control over.

We don’t yet fully understand the biological working of things like gender development, gender identity, or sexual orientations, but there is more than enough evidence that they are “real” events with correlates in the material world. We know that people with conditions that are known to affect the structure and function of their temporal lobes are much more likely to be GLB (including sudden shifts in their sexual orientation after events like head injuries, strokes and seizures) and much more likely to identify as trans or otherwise not conforming to the gender binary (including again, sudden changes to their sense of self-identity in the wake of neurological events). Obviously the majority of people who are LGBT haven’t had a head injury, stroke or seizure, so being LGBT is not “caused by” those things, they’re just some of many things that can “flip the switch”; genetics, pre-natal hormone exposure, birth order, and developmental life experiences have all been tentatively cited as having a role to play.

*People on both the Right and Woke Left will be determined to misunderstand me here as saying that being GLB or T is evidence of a “sickness” of some sort…either agreeing and using this information as “proof” that it’s so or becoming angry at me for equating the two. So let’s just head off that nonsense at Go. ALL MANNER of changes can happen in the wake of neurological events in the temporal lobe or elsewhere. One man who had a head injury suddenly became a mathematical genius…do you think that’s evidence that being good at math is a “sickness”? One person finds they become more emotional, another less so (neither is a pathology unless taken to extremes that prevent the person functioning). Some people who develop Temporal Lobe Epilepsy suddenly take up writing or (less often) the visual arts. Is being a writer or artist a biological flaw? Obviously not. The linkage of any trait with an area of the brain is not evidence that the trait is pathological (it might be, it might not), it is merely evidence that one or more neurological substrates that control that trait resides in that particular part of the brain. As regards gender identity, it tells us that there is some part of our brains where sexual self-identity arises and therefore the person’s experience may be subjective (only they experience it, others cannot perceive it unless told of it) but is not imaginary.

In the past children gradually acquired the ability for more complex categorization and learned to differentiate between someone’s biological sex, their gender presentation (how closely they match others of their sex), and societal gender roles. Children are remarkably accepting of diversity and exceptions to rules when they are presented matter-of-factly. More so than adults who apparently can’t accept facts which don’t fit with their ideologies on the Left, any more than Evangelical Young-Earth Creationists on the Right can, and feel the need to tie themselves into mindless, slogan-droning intellectual pretzels as a result.

The fact that we now view even toddlers with suspicion of “transphobia” and seek to indoctrinate their natural neurological development out of them should be a GIANT F*ING RED FLAG that we are NOT becoming more aware of diversity and more accepting, we are becoming LESS able to see the full extent of how diverse humans really are and are being forced to pigeonhole them into categories that the average five year old is supposed to be outgrowing. What we are seeing is an extremely judgmental, rigid and abusive cult that denies an obvious reality that even a child can see, that biological sex is real and important, and cannot be replaced by or conflated with gender identity or roles, even if we also agree that gender presentation and gender identity are also important biological realities. It used to be only children who foolishly did so, but now we have adults telling children that everyone can have a penis and only girls wear barrettes.

In the original story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, the child’s lack of indoctrination into social hierarchies left them nonconformist, and free to state what they saw with their own eyes with impunity. The child was not punished because children are not expected to be politically correct. In fact, it led the adults to realize that they had let fear and desire to conform and be thought clever blind them to obvious reality. It is the adults in the end who feel foolish and ashamed, and change their ways. We’re not yet at the end of the story of The Emperor’s New Gender, but based on the current trajectory the “adults” are going to double-down and I will soon be looking for a new career, as I will be expected to throw away everything I know about child development so that daycares can be run like Orwellian indoctrination camps. I will not participate in the ideological and developmental abuse of children so that a tiny minority of adults can live in a fantasy world in which they deny an aspect of reality when it has the temerity not to give a shit about their ideology.

[satansamwriting]

I Can't Stop Thinking About You

Hey! I’m back with more Trapped one-shot!

Will I ever get over Trapped I don’t think so, so enjoy my ones-shots because there’s more to come!!

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Drama : Trapped

Pairing : Shao Fei x Tang Yi

Words : 2285

Synopsis: Shao Fei becomes a hostage after being at the wrong place at the wrong time.Tang Yi is worried.

I just realized that Tang Yi isn’t much there in this one-shot I’m sorry. I’ll try to make a better one-shot next time!

Warnings : description of an epileptic seizure, bref mention of sex.

As always I’m sorry if there’s any mistakes English is not my native language

Hope you enjoy!

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Scraping noises could be heard in the apartment building as two men walked down the hallway. A man in his thirty marched, with an imposing posture, behind a smaller one. Silence welcomed them as they turned into a new hallway, barely lit. Hands rose up in the air, the smaller man walked calmly not minding the cold steel of the gun placed against his nape.Arrived at a door, most likely to be the older man apartment keys were thrown on the carpet floor for the smaller man to pick up. As the man knelt to take possession of the keys, the pressure of the muzzle on his nape increase, probably to remind him not to try something. Once the “click” sound of the door unlocking was heard, the man holding the gun pushed is victim inside and violently closed the door behind. Forced to sit on the rusty-looking couch, Meng Shao Fei started to wonder if what he did was really the best thing.

Meng Shao Fei, a senior police officer who works alongside his best friend Zhao Li An, was everything but stupid. He knew perfectly well what he was doing and not once was he intimidated by the gun pointed toward his head. Impulsive, sure, in most cases Shao Fei acted according to the situation. In this case, his priority was to save the hostages and thus he made a move without thinking. Stubborn, damn right he was. No matter what his captain told him not to do if he had his mind set on doing it he would do it. He’ll keep fighting for justice. Destructive, not that he actually realized he was destructive over his own body. With complete disregard for his own safety, Meng Shao Fei would frequently end up in a dangerous situation and ,most of the time, with injuries. His co-worker tried hard to make him more cautious, to no avail. His job was to catch criminals along with saving normal citizens, placing his safety at the bottom of his list of importance.

A thought crossed the senior policeman mind as the criminal, not noticing the lack of attention of his hostage, kept talking about his escape plan all the while pointing the gun in every direction. Shao Fei thought of Tang Yi, the gang leader he “ stalked” for four years and his current boyfriend. He sure the other male would reprimand him for doing this. He just hopes Tang Yi wouldn’t do something dangerous if he hears about him being a hostage.

How did he ended up like this, well it was kind of a funny story. Today was his only day off, so, with a sudden desire to buy something for his boyfriend, the senior policeman went shopping in the nearest mall. The saying “ You were at the wrong place at the wrong time��� could be applied to him as he entered his third shop. A man in his thirty had entered the same shop at the same time. Everything turned bad as the man took his gun out and started yelling and threatening the cashier. Apparently, the woman was the man ex-girlfriend and he didn’t like the idea of her breaking up. Shao Fei had cursed under his breath when he remembered he didn’t have his gun, since it was a day off. The whole situation then turned to a criminal taking hostages and asking for money. The man probably notice how fast the police were on the site and thought of a way of escaping. In another circumstance, seeing the surprised looks on his co-workers face as they laid eyes on him, would have been funny.

For almost an hour, Shao fei along with twelve other people, waited in the shop with a deranged man walking around pointing his gun at whoever would dare to move. He wouldn’t have done anything if everyone in the shop was alright. However, as the minutes passed, a kid sitting next to, what Shao Fei assumed was her mother, started to breathe heavily. Soon enough, the mother gasped and watched as her daughter fell into the floor shaking violently. Shao Fei understood what was happening and moved before the man with the gun could approach the child. He stood in front of the man, the muzzle of the gun was resting on his forehead.

“ She’s having an epileptic seizure she needs medical attention.”

Shao Fei had told the man, his eyes staring at the other’s. He didn’t care about the gun, his preoccupation was on the kid having a seizure. Maybe it was the stress that caused the kid to have an epileptic seizure but one thing was for sure, she needed to go to the hospital. Sometimes, Shao Fei wished he had the innocence of Zhao Zi so he could convince the man to give himself to the police, but Shao Fei was Shao Fei. The man was getting angrier and the kid was still shaking on the ground, her mother making sure she was on the side with no object around. Shao Fei did something is boss really would have killed him for that.

“ Look, let them go, you can keep me as a hostage they’ll let you pass for sure. The little kid needs help if you don’t she might die.”

Movement could be seen outside the shop, from his peripheral vision Shao Fei saw his captain alongside Zhao Zi talking with other police officers, his captain looked angry. After more tries to convince the man from taking only him as a hostage, the man finally obliged. Both of them past by the police outside, his captain yelling at Shao Fei, which made the senior smile. He would be in trouble after this.

The man kept mumbling, pacing around his dusty and gross apartment. Blinking, Shao Fei observed the distracted man, his eyes landing on the keys resting on the small coffee table near the couch. He knew the other police officers would be there soon but he would give a shot at trying to escape. Testing the water, Shao Fei moved slowly on the couch, trying not to alert the distracted man. Sadly, luck wasn’t on his sides that day , once he moved the couch made a protesting noise and caught the man’s attention, who pointed the gun back to Shao Fei.

“Don’t fucking try to move or I’ll put a bullet in your precious skull!”

Yeah maybe it was a bad idea to do what he did. Not that he was afraid of getting a bullet, like he told his boyfriend, only a canon could kill him. What he was more afraid of was worrying Tang Yi. It’s been two hours since he was kidnapped, he was sure that by now the gang leader had heard of it and was trying to find him.Well, more like Jack had the job of finding him and Tang Yi would beat the man who dared touch him. He was wondering who would come here first, Tang Yi’s man or the police. A smile drew on his lips as he thought about his boyfriend being the first to arrive, he trusted his co-worker but sometimes they could be dumb so he bet on the gang leader. His smile was caught by the man and Shao Fei could feel the cold of the muzzle on his temple.

“What are you smiling at?”

Spat the man visibly pissed by the nonchalant attitude of Shao Fei. The lack of reaction toward the threatening gun made the man growled.

“Nothing really, just wondering what’s going to happen next.”

Shao Fei contemplated the front door, the man followed his gaze and growled even more. The senior cop felt the handle of the gun met his temple with force making him lay on the couch, his head in pain. Well, now the man was definitely dead, Sha Fei sighed as he knew he would have to confront Tang Yi and prevent him from killing the man.

“ Those stupid cops won’t find us that easily don’t get your hopes up. You’ll probably be fucking dead when they arrive!”

Shao Fei didn’t bother sitting back up, even if the couch was really disgusting, he was just waiting for a few minutes for the pain to subdue.

“Believe me, I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to you when he finds us.”

The man angrily grabbed his collar and violently forced Shao Fei to look at him. Their faces were almost touching and Meng Shao Fei could smell the horrible breath of the other and forced himself not to make a disgusted face.

“ Who the fuck are you talking about! No one will come to save you !”

It was at that moment a knock was heard on the door. Shao Fei smiled again, chuckling at little. The man didn’t like that and, once again, punched him violently with the gun. The man pushed Shao Fei on the floor, walked to the door with his gun raised up in the air.

“ I wouldn’t answer if I were you.”

Insisted Shao, but the man didn’t bother listening to him.

“Shut the fuck! If it’s the cop, i’ll just shoot them!”

Decidedly, the man was dumb, Shao watched as the man opened the door and wasn’t surprised by the wide smile that was on the other side.Waving, Jack tilted his head to be able to see Shao lying on the floor. The red head man didn’t even acknowledge the gun pointed to his head as his eyes met Shao’s.

“Hey!”

The man charged the gun, making Jack paid attention to him, still smiling like the Cheshire cat.

“Get the fuck away asshole!”

Before the man could shoot, Jack took out his knife and with an incredible speed and plunged it into the man's arm holding the gun. The man screamed and dropped the gun. Jack then pushed him inside and closed the door behind him. Shao Fei watched as Jack and the man fought each other; truly Jack was unsettling as he kept his big smile all the time. It wasn’t long before the man fell to the floor unconscious. His head was still hurting when Shao stood up, under the cheerful smile of the mercenary.

“The boss is looking for you.”

Teased Jack, kneeling in front of the unconscious man.

“Leave him here, the police will come to get him, I’ll send them the location.”

Jack shrugged, he opened the door for Shao Fei and the two of them walked away leaving a beat up unconscious man in his apartment. Sitting in Jack’s car, Shao fei was thinking about what he would say to Tang Yi, the gang leader would surely scold him.

“You didn’t have your phone on your other boss?”

Shao shook his head, his phone was dead so he didn’t bother bringing it with him. In his mind, he would have just been out for shopping, no need for the phone. Eyes on the road ahead, Jack gave his phone to Shao so he could call the police and tell them where the man was. After ending the call, Shao Fei was about to give the phone back to Jack when a LINE message popped up. The cop raised an eyebrow as he noticed the name of the person texting Jack.

“How did you get Zhao Zi’s LINE?”

Jack only answered by smiling even more, leaving a confused Shao Fei beside him. They arrived soon after at Tang Yi enormous house. Jack left him, his eyes glued on the phone as he walked away. Shao Fei would have to question Zhao Zi about that. Entering Tang Yi’s bedroom, the cop met his love, who was sitting on the edge of the bed his hand claps together. Once he heard the sound of the door opening, Tang Yi stood up and closed the gap between him and Shao Fei.The other man didn’t have time to say anytime as strong pairs of arms wrapped themselves around his waist. It was at that moment Shao Fei felt bad for worrying his boyfriend. Breaking the hug, the senior cop starred in the other’s eyes mouthing an “I’m alright” before connecting their lips into a passionate kiss.

Sitting on the bed, Shao Fei winced as Tang Yi’s gentle fingers brushed against the spot where he got hit by the handle of the gun. The gang leader brought his lips to the spot making Shao Fei smile at the loving gesture.

“I was worried about you.”

“I was thinking about you.”

Tang Yi placed his forehead against his boyfriend’s , his hands cupping Shao’s face.

“Hm?”

“When I was there, I kept thinking about you. I knew that no matter what I had to go back to you so I didn’t do anything rash I just waited.”

Well, not exactly, Shao Fei did try to escape by himself but his plan had failed miserably so he didn’t count it.

“What were you doing in the Shopping Mall?”

Shao Fei wasn’t even surprised that the other man knew where he had been. Looking down, the cop felt a little embarrassed about telling his boyfriend he went shopping to find him a gift.

“ I was looking for something to give you.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted! I wanted to give you something that you would love!”

Tang Yi forced Shao Fei to look up, their lips meeting again.

“ The only thing I love is sitting in front of me. I don’t need anything else”

This time, the kiss grew more and more passionate and soon clothes were thrown across the room. Hours later, the couple cuddled in the comfortable bed, their foreheads touching as they fell asleep.

The end

[braincoins]

Okay so, at this point, I have no freaking clue if I’ll get this done by Halloween, esp. since I’ll be in Walt Disney World for a week, BUT just so y’all know what I’m working on.

Take Max Brooks’ World War Z. Take Mira Grant/ @seananmcguire‘s Newsflesh series. Mix them together. That’s the AU I dropped our beloved characters into this creepy season. Possibly best summed up (right now, at least), as:

Lance: YOU WERE A ZOMBIE?!?! Shiro: ... ... I got better.

and of course you know it’ll be shallura ‘cause I continue to have needs

Anyway, I started work on it before Happy Fun Radiation Times began to kick my ass (I still have two more treatments [groan]), came back today, re-read and did a quick editing pass on what I had, and started adding to it. Teaser.. rather long teaser, actually, sorry ‘bout that, below the cut:

           They were devolving into their own squabbles and dirty comments, and she felt herself bristling. She cleared her throat and yelled above the chaos, “INFECTED CAN BE CURED!”

           They all stopped dead and looked at her.

           “Bullshit. Bullshit,” the one-eyed one said again for emphasis. “You can’t cure a zombie with anything ‘cept a bullet.”

           “You can’t cure a zombie,” she agreed, “but you can cure an Infected. They act differently than zombies do AND they are, just barely, still alive. What kills Infected – outside of bullets – is starvation and malnutrition, exposure to the elements, occasionally another illness they  had before being turned that isn’t being treated, or an injury that festers – most often the very bite wound that turned them. Because they mainly bite and tear off a chunk, eat that, and move on. THEIR bite transmits the virus that creates more Infected.

           “Once an Infected dies, they become a true zombie, and true zombies just eat. They don’t care about leaving the target alive to spread the disease, but a virus wants to be spread. That’s what the Infected do: spread the virus.

           “Technically, being bitten by a zombie is only dangerous in the sense of the bacterial transmission from their mouths, same as a normal, living human, only probably much worse due to the lack of oral hygiene and the rather…carnivorous diet.” She cleared her throat. “Only the Infected spread the zombie virus, and if you can find one, they can be cured.”

           Silence reigned until the young girl spoke up again. “You’re saying they can be cured. Are you talking theoretically or…?”

           Allura smiled and raised her voice a little to call, “Captain.”

           The door opened to admit a young man her age in a white t-shirt, gray hoodie & sweatpants, and standard issue shoes. He would have blended into any crowd and disappeared were it not for his handsome good looks and broad shoulders… and the strange shock of white hair, the angry scar over his nose, and the fact that he was missing his right arm. (Though in the aftermath of the Z War, missing a limb wasn’t all that uncommon.) He walked over to stand next to her, door closing behind him, and cleared his throat.

           “My name is Takashi Shirogane,” he said. “I’m… I was a captain in the Air Force. And… I used to be Infected.”

           Everyone in the room jumped up with shouts of “bullshit” and “lies” and “hoax,” save for a young man with dark hair who just stared at him.

           “I TORE A LITTLE GIRL’S LARYNX OUT!” he yelled at them.

           They shut up again, and sat down.

           Allura winced and laid a hand on his arm. “Shiro, you don’t have to…”

           He pulled away from her and continued to glare at them. “WITH MY TEETH. And it felt right, it felt good, it felt like exactly what I should be doing! Do you know what it’s like, to be cured now and to still have the memory of her blood in my mouth? NO, YOU DON’T!”

           The tears ran down his cheeks but he continued, “I was bitten on the right arm. My buddies cut it off to try to save me. It didn’t work. The virus moves fast. Most of the rest of my scars are after I turned. Even some of my hair went white. I don’t know how that happened.

           “I bashed my head through a glass window to try to get at some people. That’s where I got this,” he traced the scar across his nose. “I didn’t care that I was bleeding. I only had one thought: Bite. Bite. It wasn’t even ‘feed,’ it was bite and that was all I cared about. It was the only thing I cared about. To me, humans weren’t human. Or maybe they were, but they weren’t like me. They were things to bite, to feel the tear of skin and the gush of blood. THAT’S ALL.” He hung his head. “That’s all I could think about.”

           Allura pushed herself forward to take over the narrative again. “We found him when he was still recently turned. As you can tell, he hadn’t lost much muscle mass yet. He hadn’t started to deteriorate. There may be a point at which we can’t turn them back, where they’re too far gone physically to survive being cured.”

           “Look, what do you want from us?” the one-eyed man said quietly.

           “I want a few people from your unit to come help us in the field. And I have something to offer in exchange.”

           “What’s that?”

           She held up the small, sleek, thin silver box with a dish antenna the size of a large man’s hand attached to it. “This is…”

           “…an iPod. I haven’t seen one of those in ages,” the young girl said.

           “…a scanner,” she continued as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “And yes, we used iPods; we were able to get our hands on a lot of them, and they were easy to convert.” She cleared her throat. “This can correctly tell you who’s a zombie and who’s Infected, as well as who’s a living breathing human.” She set it down on the desk. “And these,” she picked up what looked like a smoke grenade, “are filled with the cure in gaseous form.”

           “Uhhh,” said a large young man near the back, “doesn’t that just make a bunch of normal humans around a bunch of zombies? I mean, if what you’re saying is true…”

           “Well, yes, but that’s why you use the scanner to find and take out the zombies first. The cure won’t work on them. The cure is nothing but smoke to us – which we will cough and choke on, like any other smoke – and to the zombies, but they don’t breathe, so they won’t care. The Infected will cough and choke and fall to the ground. Then they start having seizures, but once the air clears, they’re mostly cured.”

           “Mostly,” repeated one of them. It was the young dark-haired man who’d been staring at Shiro since he’d walked in.

           “Mostly,” she agreed with a nod. “Shoot them then with this,” she pulled out a small dart, “and they’ll be fully cured. The gaseous form starts the cure, but it’s not enough to cure them usually: it’s too diffuse. This is concentrated, and it’ll finish the work the gas started. It can also work on its own, if you only have a single Infected to deal with, but for large crowds, the cannister will work better.”

           “Do you remember being cured?” the young girl asked Shiro. She seemed very intent upon this and upon him.

           His brow furrowed. “I remember seizing up. I was shot with the tranq dart, not gassed, and as an Infected, you don’t really feel pain. I knew I was bleeding badly when I got this,” he pointed to the scar over his nose again, “but it didn’t hurt, and I didn’t care that I was bleeding. I was just aware of it. So I was aware of a poke, but then when I started seizing that was when things changed. I was… scared. For the first time in a long time, I was scared of what was happening to me, and then there was pain again, and I was screaming.” He closed his eyes. “I thought I was dying, and I was glad. I was glad I was dying and that was when I realized something had changed because I hadn’t felt good about anything except biting people in weeks. Everything went dark, and when I woke up, I was in a bed in a room. I mean, I guess it was technically a cell: I couldn’t open the door from the inside. But there was a window at the top, no glass, just some bars, and I yelled for some water. And food. And that’s when I realized I was… me again. Or at least more me than I had been.”

           Allura broke in again. “We monitored him for weeks. Took samples. He reads fully human, slightly malnourished.”

           “I still think this is all bullshit. How do we know any of this is true?”

           “I was there.”

           Everyone turned to look at dark-haired young man who had spoken.

           “I was there right after he was bit and we had to…”

           “Keith?” Shiro moved around the desk towards him. “Is that really you?”

           “Is that really you?” he shot back at him. “I saw you get bit, I helped hold you down while we cut your arm off... if you’re really Shiro.”

           Shiro stopped and considered that. “Ask.”

           “How old are you?”

           He arched an eyebrow. “Well, I’d say I’m twenty-five; you’d say I’m six and a quarter ‘cause you’re a fucking brat and I’m a leap year baby.” He grinned.

           She thought Keith might have stopped breathing. “How’d you meet me?”

           “They sent me to your school to recruit the kids about to graduate. You gave me a hard time because you hate authority, but you wanted to fly, I could see it in your eyes, I could almost feel it. And the first time you got in the simulator, you blew everyone away. You even beat my top score. You wanted to fly, you wanted the thrill of it, and you had natural goddamn talent. So I convinced you…”

           “…that putting up with the bullshit was worth being able to fly the sort of planes I could only get my hands on in the USAF.”

           Shiro smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Keith.”

           And Keith launched himself out of the old school desk and into a hug that Shiro returned instantly. “You were dead.”

           “I was mostly dead. Turns out mostly dead is slightly alive.”

           “Oh, shut the fuck up with your cheesy movie quotes.”

           “But you caught it.”

           “You made me watch it like a dozen times.” Keith sniffled against Shiro’s chest.

           Allura looked around at them. “Convinced yet?”

[writingwithnarcolepsy]

Narcolepsy: Who? What? When? How?

The most important part of this post is explaining exactly what Narcolepsy is. We’ll cover the basics, but know that I can only personally speak from my experience with my own diagnosis. So this post will cover the generalized symptoms and ins and outs of the diagnosis. Other posts, later on, will cover my experience with narcolepsy. 

What is Narcolepsy?

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that affects the brain’s ability to control sleep-wake cycles.  People with narcolepsy usually feel rested after waking, but then feel very sleepy throughout much of the day.  Many individuals with narcolepsy also experience uneven and interrupted sleep that can involve waking up frequently during the night.    

Narcolepsy can greatly affect daily activities.  People may unwillingly fall asleep even if they are in the middle of an activity like driving, eating, or talking.  Other symptoms may include sudden muscle weakness while awake that makes a person go limp or unable to move (cataplexy), vivid dream-like images or hallucinations, and total paralysis just before falling asleep or just after waking up (sleep paralysis).  

In a normal sleep cycle, a person enters rapid eye movement (REM) sleep after about 60 to 90 minutes.  Dreams occur during REM sleep, and the brain keeps muscles limp during this sleep stage, which prevents people from acting out their dreams.  People with narcolepsy frequently enter REM sleep rapidly, within 15 minutes of falling asleep.  Also, the muscle weakness or dream activity of REM sleep can occur during wakefulness or be absent during sleep.  This helps explain some symptoms of narcolepsy. (Information is taken from the Narcolepsy Fact Sheet) 

Who has Narcolepsy?

It’s estimated that 135,000 to 200,000 people live with Narcolepsy in the United States. Most are diagnosed between the ages of 7-25. I personally received my diagnosis at the age of 17. The numbers are fairly split among men and women, with no favor either way. Many people have narcolepsy that is undiagnosed and is instead misdiagnosed as sleep apnea, mental health issues, or other sleep disorders. 

What causes Narcolepsy? 

Narcolepsy may have several causes.  Nearly all people with narcolepsy who have cataplexy have extremely low levels of the naturally occurring chemical hypocretin, which promotes wakefulness and regulates REM sleep.  Hypocretin levels are usually normal in people who have narcolepsy without cataplexy.

Although the cause of narcolepsy is not completely understood, current research suggests that narcolepsy may be the result of a combination of factors working together to cause a lack of hypocretin. These factors include:

Autoimmune disorders.  When cataplexy is present, the cause is most often the loss of brain cells that produce hypocretin.  Although the reason for this cell loss is unknown, it appears to be linked to abnormalities in the immune system.  Autoimmune disorders occur when the body's immune system turns against itself and mistakenly attacks healthy cells or tissue.  Researchers believe that in individuals with narcolepsy, the body’s immune system selectively attacks the hypocretin-containing brain cells because of a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Family history.  Most cases of narcolepsy are sporadic, meaning the disorder occurs in individuals with no known family history.  However, clusters in families sometimes occur—up to 10 percent of individuals diagnosed with narcolepsy with cataplexy report having a close relative with similar symptoms.

Brain injuries.  Rarely, narcolepsy results from traumatic injury to parts of the brain that regulate wakefulness and REM sleep or from tumors and other diseases in the same regions.

Symptoms: The How of Living with Narcolepsy

EDS or excessive daytime sleepiness is the most obvious symptom of narcolepsy. EDS is described as persistent sleepiness, regardless of the individual's previous sleep or the activity the person is in. Described sometimes as a "sleep attack" the sudden onset of sleepiness is quick and sometimes impossible to ignore. In between these times, individuals can maintain focus and alertness at a normal level.

Cataplexy tends to be the most well-known symptom of Narcolepsy, the "joke" that people assume when they hear the word. However, cataplexy is the sudden muscle tone when a person is awake and their loss of voluntary muscle control. This can often be triggered by sudden, strong emotions, such as laughter, fear, anger, stress, or excitement. Which is why I find it difficult when people find the disorder funny. Sometimes mistaken for a seizure disorder, a person with Type 1 Narcolepsy or Narcolepsy with Cataplexy may only experience one or two attacks in their lifetime or can experience ten in a single day. People with cataplexy tend to remain fully conscious and do not fall faint. And in the most severe attacks, a total body collapse happens where individuals are unable to move, speak, or keep their eyes open. Cataplexy is not dangerous if the individual can find a safe place to collapse, otherwise, the loss of muscle control can lead to injury.

Sleep paralysis is the temporary inability to move or speak when falling asleep or waking up. Lasting only seconds or minutes, it can resemble cataplexy but only occurs at the edges of sleep. Just as with cataplexy individuals are fully conscious, and even with severe cataplexy or sleep paralysis, this does mean permanent dysfunction. When the episode is over, individuals rapidly recover the ability to move and speak.

Hallucinations are common among individuals and can become worse or better depending on the medication used to treat Narcolepsy. They tend to be very vivid and sometimes frightening and just like sleep paralysis they occur when they are falling asleep or waking up. Tending to only be visual they can occasionally involve other symptoms.

Fragmented sleep and insomnia are also possible in individuals with Narcolepsy. This may seem odd, but moving through REM cycles rapidly can cause sleep that is broken up. Also resulting in sleep that isn't as restorative as other's sleep.

Automatic behaviors are commonly misunderstood and hard to isolate, usually lasting only a few seconds at a time. This symptom is when a person with Narcolepsy falls asleep during an activity, like eating or talking, and automatically continues the activity for a few seconds or minutes without conscious awareness of what they are doing. This can happen most often when people are engaged in habitual activities such as driving or typing. During these episodes, they cannot recall their actions, and their performance is almost always impaired. Handwriting may change into an illegible scrawl or if it occurs while driving the individual may get lost or have an accident. After these episodes, the individual might awaken feeling refreshed.

How is Narcolepsy Diagnosed? 

A clinical examination and detailed medical history are essential for diagnosis and treatment of narcolepsy.  Individuals may be asked by their doctor to keep a sleep journal noting the times of sleep and symptoms over a one- to two-week period.  Although none of the major symptoms are exclusive to narcolepsy, cataplexy is the most specific symptom and occurs in almost no other diseases.

A physical exam can rule out or identify other neurological conditions that may be causing the symptoms.  Two specialized tests, which can be performed in a sleep disorders clinic, are required to establish a diagnosis of narcolepsy:

Polysomnogram (PSG or sleep study).  The PSG is an overnight recording of brain and muscle activity, breathing, and eye movements.  A PSG can help reveal whether REM sleep occurs early in the sleep cycle and if an individual's symptoms result from another condition such as sleep apnea.

Multiple sleep latency test (MSLT).  The MSLT assesses daytime sleepiness by measuring how quickly a person falls asleep and whether they enter REM sleep.  On the day after the PSG, an individual is asked to take five short naps separated by two hours over the course of a day.  If an individual falls asleep in less than 8 minutes on average over the five naps, this indicates excessive daytime sleepiness.  However, individuals with narcolepsy also have REM sleep start abnormally quickly.  If REM sleep happens within 15 minutes at least two times out of the five naps and the sleep study the night before, this is likely an abnormality caused by narcolepsy.

Occasionally, it may be helpful to measure the level of hypocretin in the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.  To perform this test, a doctor will withdraw a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid using a lumbar puncture (also called a spinal tap) and measure the level of hypocretin-1.  In the absence of other serious medical conditions, low hypocretin-1 levels almost certainly indicate type 1 narcolepsy.

Treatment for Narcolepsy

The approach to Narcolepsy, will, of course, vary from person to person. 

Medication, a variety of medications can be prescribed including stimulants to maintain daytime awakeness, sleeping medications to help with fragmented sleep at night, antidepressants and other medications to help with cataplexy. 

Frequent naps, hard for individuals who must work, which is why Narcolepsy is on the disabled list for Social Security, frequent naps tend to help those with narcolepsy deal with EDS

Maintaining a regular sleep and wake cycle. 

[jaredhollyheiditruth]

Solicitation of Minors, Part 1 (Chai)

The second issue facing and affecting Jared Knabenbauer (whose name I’m SURE I’ve misspelled elsewhere!) are the accusations against Jared of seeking out minors to “groom” while using his star status and blogs as recruitment tools. While my blog on the Heidi/Jared breakup and fallout was as neutral as I could make it while still addressing the facts, I will be far more aggressive in this post because of the implications herein and the fact that this issue involves serious criminal allegations.

As someone that grew up with a child molester, as someone that was targeted by a rapist, I understand the importance of treating an accuser’s claims seriously.

It is my belief that all accusers should be taken seriously. They should be heard, listened to, and feel valid and safe in making those allegations, and the proper authorities should investigate all claims made to the fullest extent of the law.

However.

The accused has rights, as well, and no accuser is above scrutiny. There is a very bold line between taking an accuser’s claims seriously, and believing them outright without any doubt, question, or expectation of evidence. Our legal system is built upon the Presumption of Innocence, that any accused is presumed innocent of the accusations against them until they are found guilty. It is not Jared Knabenbauer’s responsibility to prove that the allegations against him are false, and his silence is not an indicator of guilt! The first thing a criminal defense lawyer tells you is to keep your mouth shut with regards to any criminal allegations because despite your best intentions, you may inadvertently say things that can be twisted and used against you in court. Sadly, in today’s social media-charged society where people share details about everything from their vacations, to their grocery shopping trips, to the contents of every single meal, being silent is often treated as evidence of guilt.

First, I want to make clear the allegations against Jared. Jared is being accused of swapping nude photos and engaging in sexual conversations with minors. This, in and of itself, is not a crime.

Yes, you read that right.

To elucidate, it is a crime to knowingly transport, ship, receive, distribute, sell, possess, solicit, or access any visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In other words, if someone posing as an 18 or 19 year old sends you nude photos of themselves, but they’re only 16 or 17, you’re not guilty of a crime as the law is written, because you have to knowingly receive images of underage children, simple as that. The reason for this is because our legal system is based upon a concept known as Mens Rea, or “guilty mind.” It means that an individual’s intent has to factor into whether or not they deserve punishment for an act they’ve committed.

This is entirely different from the concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat, more commonly phrased as ���Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Ignorantia juris non excusat applies when you are committing a crime but do not realize it’s a crime.

For example, you cannot fire a handgun at a target in your back yard and avoid legal penalties because you didn’t know it was illegal to discharge a firearm in a residential area. The fact of the matter is you did a thing that the law says you can’t do.

Jared’s situation is different, because the law itself requires the accused to know the age of the person they’re interacting with when they do it, otherwise you cannot prove they knowingly interacted with a minor. This is the reason Chris Hansen’s team on To Catch a Predator take care to explicitly make sure their targets see and acknowledge the “age” of the decoy, because they’re unlikely to get a conviction on the basis of “We thought the decoy’s age was obvious!”

Think about it. If the law didn’t require the recipient to know the images contained minors, a person could easily set up a blog with a bunch of “barely legal 18 year olds,” post pictures of 16 year olds, and then anyone that went to the website would be guilty of accessing child porn. Odds are, if you’ve spent any time at all looking at porn on the internet, you’ve probably stumbled across a picture or two of a late-teens minor that either lied about their age or just uploaded a pic from their phone without even caring about the legality of it. Do you think you should be charged with a crime just because you trusted an adult website to fully and carefully screen every single model and some slipped through the cracks?

And, before I go on to the allegations, I’d like to point out that there have been many people that have confirmed that Jared did, indeed, engage in age checking and state multiple times that he didn’t want kids in his blog.

There’s also the fact that people admitted to having to omit or lie about their ages because Jared was known to boot people that were underage.

At one point, a user by the name Brenn recalls a time where they revealed to Jared that several minors had been posting to his blog, and Jared’s response to finding out about that was to nuke the entire blog.

I should note that, when Jared was informed about minors posting to his blog, he only had two possible options if he wanted to avoid violating federal child protection laws.

1. Report the blog to the FBI and implicate the users as distributors of child pornograpy.

2. Delete the entire blog.

He chose the latter option.

Now, with all of that said, let’s look at the allegations. Rather than do this as a timeline, I will address each accuser one at a time. There are only three, so this won’t be hard.

On April 4th, an individual going by the Twitter name Chai sent an email to NormalBoots, a media company specializing in video game-related content with whom Jared worked, along with many other individuals, including Holly Conrad. In this email, which Chai titled “Regarding ProJared’s Sexual Grooming of Minors,” Chai detailed his interactions with Jared, which he further expanded upon with a full-blown statement to Twitter that reads thusly:

However, as is typical with Twitter, people pressed Chai. They wanted to know more. This was when Chai admitted outright that he had absolutely no evidence to back up his claims.

I apologize for the poor quality of these screenshots, but shortly after posting his statements, Chai went to great lengths to bury his statements, though archived samples and screenshots taken by others still exist.

In addition to admitting he had no evidence to support is claim, Chai took time to answer a few other questions:

Now, the fact that Chai has no evidence of his claims is, itself, no reason to immediately dismiss them. Not everyone keeps extensive screenshots of interactions they make online unless they’re planning on savoring or using them later. In fact, as I said before, the authorities should take those claims with absolute seriousness and investigate them, and we the public should be willing to hear Chai’s words openly. However, further digging has resulted in new information that makes Chai’s claims and testimony a bit harder to swallow...

On November 2017, Chai posted an extensive blog entry detailing a head injury he suffered on November 9th, 2015. This would have been just five days after he turned 16, his date of birth having been confirmed by an archived copy of his old Twitter profile, seen here:

In this blog, posted in 2017, Chai describes suffering a head injury during gym class, and the severe, terrifying symptoms he underwent - symptoms I doubt I would be strong enough to endure - in the months and years that followed. The blog itself is very extensive, taking up several pages, and would be cumbersome to quote or paste here in its entirety. However, the entire blog can be found directly via archive by going here:

https://archive.fo/CEpgE

A full-image snapshot of the blog can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/sIJ7FlY

According to Chai’s own blog entry, the sheer misery of his experiences during those first few months must have been excruciating torture.

It’s probably a blessing he claims he has no proper memory of that period of time.

Now, the experience Chai describes suffering from during that period of time is, without a doubt, something I would never wish on anyone, even my worst enemy. However, if you do the math, that means that Chai cannot properly remember anything that took place between November of 2015 and May of 2016. When did he claim to have sent Jared that first nude along with a tagline of “16 no more?” Oh, that’s right...

So, allegedly, the first nude image Chai claims to have sent to Jared, wherein he states that he’s 16, occurred during a period of time that he can’t properly remember, and what memories he has exist as “snapshots.”

However, let’s continue giving Chai the benefit of the doubt. Let’s speculate in his favor for a moment and say that sometime after he wrote this blog, he started to remember things from that period, and somehow, those memories were clear and unaffected by the significant traumatic brain injury he suffered in late 2015. Chai describes the life he was living between late 2015 and August of 2016.

He was in and out of the hospital, sometimes for days at a time.

He was in constant pain at all times, and would suffer from seizures every few minutes that caused incontinence, falls, and fainting spells.

Such severe fatigue that he was sleeping for 16-18 hours per day.

Such severe depression, pain, and spasms that he was effectively bedridden.

Hallucinations, both auditory and verbal.

Hearing voices telling him to kill people, which got louder and louder each day.

Severely bad short term memory and large gaps in long term memory.

Inability co concentrate

Loss of coordination that prevented writing.

Slurred speech and psychosis.

He states that in August of 2016, he was “somewhat better” and was able to stay awake for 8-10 hours per day, but that the psychosis (that is, the violent thoughts) was getting worse, to the point he told his mother that he’d kill her if she didn’t take him to the hospital. He spent several days in the hospital before having a massive headache that temporarily crippled him, and explains that after this headache, the voices had miraculously disappeared entirely, as had the spasms and headaches. From there, he explains that his life got better and his symptoms rapidly healed over the ensuing year or two that followed.

Now, I don’t tell that story to humiliate or embarrass Chai. If anything, anyone that had lived through these events deserves nothing short of praise for their strength. I tell this story because, when you think about it...something doesn’t add up. Regarding that blog, there are two possibilities:

1. That the blog is truthful, and contains a description that best fits Chai’s recollection of the events surrounding a very unfortunate and painful accident. If this is the case, it means Chai is a strong individual that survived pure hell and came out the other side with a smile.

2. That the blog is a lie, which would imply that Chai invented the entire ordeal in order to garner sympathy from those that read it.

Now, we can’t access medical logs or contact any hospitals due to patient privacy rights, nor would we have any right to pry into Chai’s private life, which is why I’ve limited my digging only to information that has been submitted to the internet by those it concerns. However, no matter which of these two scenarios is the truth, Chai’s testimony hits a brick wall.

If it is true, then it means Chai’s memories of most of the year 2016 cannot be considered reliable. By his own admission, he is only able to recall bits and pieces of events that took place during that time. Furthermore, I think we can all agree that if you were living that sort of life, it would be overwhelmingly difficult to find the mood and motivation to go online and start trading nudes and engaging in sex talk with someone, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding time to do that and study while you’re only awake 6-8 hours per day and spending much of that in and out of the hospital, and even if he did manage it, we can’t rationally place much (if any) faith in the integrity of his recollection of just how those interactions with Jared went, especially in the absence of any corroborating evidence what-so-ever.

If it is false, it means that the story - either in part or in whole - has been falsified for the purpose of garnering sympathy for Chai from those that would read the blog. While this act alone could simply be considered deplorable for the level of deception involved, it would also establish that Chai has a pattern of lying to the public in order to get them to feel sorry for him, meaning it’s not ethical to believe his claims without some evidence to corroborate them.

Either way, the blog does say one thing for certain: Chai’s claims about his encounter with Jared, based on the timeline of his cognitive injuries and the fact that he cannot provide a single shred of evidence to corroborate them, cannot reasonably be accepted as reliable, because either he wasn’t in any condition to participate in nude-swapping and sexting, or he’s remembering events that might not have happened, or he’s lying about the entire thing. We can’t prove which of these possibilities, if any, is the truth, but there’s far too much there to simply dismiss outright.

Update: Direct references to Chai’s surname have been removed from this blog at the request of third parties not directly related to these incidents.

[ask-scarred-hornets]

Introduction to my AU Scarred Hornets (SH)

꧁»°•*}~~★~~{*•°«꧂

»Plot«

Soon after Tim attacked Alex, he moved away to a different town since he believed that all of his friends were dead. A few weeks after finally settling into his apartment and adopting an emotional support dog(Trudy), Tim was finally starting to feel better. That is, until he got a call from an old number, simply labeled as “friend”. He wasn’t really thinking too much about the consequences of answering the call at first, but when he did answer it, he realized, it was Jay. Apparently, the guy wasn’t dead. This made Tim pretty happy so he offered to meet up with Jay since he’d just gotten out of the hospital. Jay agreed and the two ended up meeting at a fast food restaurant. Before Jay even arrived, Tim noticed a familiar car. Alex’s car. And there was someone in the front seat. Skipping about an hour, Jay had arrived and now He and Tim had found out that Alex was trying to change the way he acted. Jay didn’t care and ended up getting angry and shoving Alex. This continued for a while longer until everyone agreed to stop being insane and just have a passive conversation. After that, Alex left and Tim took Jay back to his apartment so that they could catch up on things and so that Tim could explain what happened after Jay was shot.

»Characters«

Alexander(Alex) Kralie

Alex is usually a very unpredictable person, he could either shoot you in the head or hug you. When Tim attacked Alex(Entry #86), he didn’t just stab Alex in the neck, he also stabbed him in the eye, causing him to go permanently blind in his right eye and have trouble breathing due to his neck injury. He is trying to change himself for the better but will still occasionally be an asshole to people. He has an allergy to cats and takes medication to help with his severe allergies. Alex has a pet cat named Mimi, she’s hypoallergenic so she doesn’t trigger his allergies but he still needs to wash his hands after petting her. He will scream/sing in his car even if you tell him to shut up. Alex is the tallest of the group and normally overworks himself. He has Atychiphobia(Fear of failure). He lives with Brian

Jayson(Jay) Merrick

Jay is much more cautious than he was before. He’s still a bit nervous and skeptical about Alex and doesn’t fully trust him. He has two differently colored eyes(Blue&Green), it gives him a small confidence boost since Tim said he liked Jay’s eyes. He is also rather protective over his friends; especially Tim. Jay is the second shortest and has a sewn up part of his hoodie near his waist(where he was shot) and has a scar in that area as well. He has a fear of guns, loud noises and enjoys using his camera for things other than recording demons and has actually started making a documentary on hotels. After Marble Hornets, Jay developed Ligyrophobia(Fear of loud noises), Hoplophobia (Fear of firearms), and Ballistophobia(Fear of missiles or bullets). Jay has rich parents which is literally the only reason he can stay in hotels all the time. He currently lives with Tim.

Timothy(Tim) Wright

Tim is almost always sick due to his very weak immune system(from smoking). Even though he is much more positive about life than before, he can still get very upset and depressed but his dog helps him calm down most of the time. He’s the shortest of the group and still has to take his pills, not for being able to escape the faceless man, but so that he doesn’t have seizures. The scar on his nose is from the fight he had with Alex(Entry #86) where Alex turned the knife on Tim and ended up slicing the bridge of his nose open. He is also very protective over Jay and will defend him in any way that he can. After Marble Hornets, Tim developed Hylophobia(Fear of forests) and Eremophobia (Fear of being oneself or of loneliness). He currently lives with Jay, though it’s Tim’s house.

Brian Thomas

Brian is normally very positive and tries to look on the bright side of things even though his luck isn’t very great. He is rather protective of his friends. He enjoys quiet and has a fear of heights. He is also the second tallest and doesn’t fully trust Alex either but definitely trusts him more than Jay and Tim do. Brian can’t walk since his left leg was amputated after the bones being entirely shattered(from falling) and will normally use a wheelchair or crutches to get around his house if he isn’t using his prosthetic. He takes the same pills as Tim now, but for other reasons [redacted]. After Marble Hornets, Brian developed Acrophobia(Fear of heights). He currently lives with Alex, though it’s Brian’s house.

[hazinhoodies]

Dead Heat (H.O)

FireFighter!Harrison x Paramedic!Reader

A/N: so i saw someone ask for this pairing in @h-osterfield s asks so i wrote it.

Warnings: descriptions of injuries

Word Count: 3.4k (longest thing ive written as of now)

Late shifts weren’t too bad. The only calls were normally mundane things, well, mundane for a paramedic at least. The odd heart attack, seizure maybe, things that usually have an underlying medical cause already. Maybe it was anaphylactic shock or a paranoid couple whose newborn wouldn’t calm down. Of course, you can’t blame them for that, anyone would be scared if they didn’t know what was wrong with their two-month-old. For the most part, they were calls that didn’t even need an ambulance. Then there were the more exciting things, they weren’t necessarily good, it was never good when an ambulance gets called. Sometimes they have stories though, like the kid who snuck out to go see a cat, lost said cat, and then broke their arm when they fell off a fence while looking for the cat.

It’s the reason you became a paramedic, to help. Everyone has a story. a when you can’t save someone, their book is closed, no matter how many blank pages had yet to be filled. It hurt knowing that they never would. Some of them stick with you, no matter how much you didn’t want them too.

There was always the odd night shift where everything goes to shit. When the calls won’t stop. The sirens echo in your ears all night.

You sat at a table with the other paramedics, on your third round of poker for the night. Your cards are long forgotten, already folded. Luck wasn’t on your side, your two and seven mocking you of your third bad break of the night.

The alarm went off in the room, everyone immediately kicking into action, pulling their jackets off chairs and over their arms as they rush to the ambulances. You hop into the passenger side of your ambulance, Dylan Arnott already in the drivers' side as Rachel Wolff climbed into the back, slamming the car doors behind her. Arnott sped off, sirens blaring with the other ambulances following behind him. Your radio was going insane with information already.

You caught some of the information. The basic stuff at least. Skyscraper, fire, lot of damage. You took a deep breath to try and calm yourself down.

“Fire?” Rachel spoke from behind you, you nodded in response.

“Huge apparently. Had to evacuate the entire skyscraper” You chewed on the inside of your lip

“Well, in that case, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say its that huge tower of smoke that we’re headed towards” Rachel pointed out the windshield at the smoke that surrounded a tall mostly glass building. The black cloud swirled and billowed around it before thinning out past the roof only to be blown west by the wind. You could see the odd flame lick at the windows but for the most part, the rest of the fire was hidden by the city skyline.

You arrived on scene no more than a minute later, rushing out of the ambulance and pulling on a pair of gloves. You watch as Dylan and Rachal run over to the group of civilians standing off the property, checking if they're okay.

The commotion overwhelms you for a moment. The sirens fall silent in your ears but the lights still blare, blue and red and white flashing over and over and over again. You notice how the emergency service vehicles are gathered, PD and paramedics on one side of the main entrance and FD on the other. They blocked off the road for the most part, but two cop cars blocked it off further down the road. You’d done fire calls before but definitely nothing this big.

“Just gonna stand there or are you gonna help?” You hear over the sirens, your eyes meet familiar blue ones that start to approach you. “I know it’s a lot but you know what you're doing. It’s like every other call. Sure there's more going on but there's also more of us here too”

“Osterfield! What’s the holdup?” The fire chief yells from behind you.

“Nothing sir” Harrison pulls his respirator mask over his face and puts on his helmet as he starts to run into the building, you follow behind him momentarily.

“Thanks” You shout as you turn your attention to the person another firefighter had helped out of the building. You weren’t sure if he heard you but the nod you saw confirmed that he did. His partner ran up next to him before the two of them disappeared into the building

You were handing your fifth patient off to Dylan to handle when Harrison came out of the building, unconscious civilian in tow. You made eye contact with him again but this time you were the one that ran towards him.

“He was unconscious when I found him” Harrison spoke as you helped him lift the older man onto the gurney. “Twenty-ninth floor”

You nodded as you got to work, searching first on his wrists and neck for a medical tag, eventually finding one on his wrists for atrial fibrillation and a pacemaker.

“You doing alright?” You look up at Harrison for a moment as you attach oxygen to the man. You notice how he’d been gripping his left hand with his right and nod towards it. “Burn?”

“What? Oh yeah, it’s fine though. I should go back, Tom is still inside with some of the others” Harrison starts to turn away.

“Let me look at it” you say as you push the gurney away, handing him off to another paramedic. “Afib and a pacemaker, found unconscious”

“No Y/N I’m fine.” Harrison protests. You grab his right wrist, pulling him back.

“Harrison let me take a look. Please”

“Y/N there are still people inside. Firefighters and civilians. Tom is inside. And every second that I’m not in there is another second that I’m not helping put out the fire and doing my job” He was almost yelling. Your grip on his wrist loosens slightly as you sign.

“I’ll take a look after then. But don’t apply pressure. I know it hurts and you want to but if its second degree or worse then its probably leaking plasma, which will dry and act as a glue between your skin and the material of the glove. It probably isn’t third degree though if you can still feel your hand” You catch yourself rambling. “What I’m saying is be careful. Go save some lives” You let go of his wrist and he nods, immediately running off into the building again.

You became distracted again by the numerous people that various firefighters pulled out of the building. Some conscious and some not but the further it got into the night, the more of them were unconscious. Ambulances came and went, bringing people to the hospital with their families. As the group of civilians who had evacuated in the beginning got smaller, they started to worry more, when their respective family members were brought out, you couldn’t tell if they were relieved or more panicked. They aren’t dead at least.

It’d been at least two hours since you’d seen Harrison. Maybe three? You didn’t know. There was too much going on for you to bother checking. It wasn’t until Tom came out with one last civilian, letting the fire chief know that the building was entirely evacuated of civilians, that you even remembered that he was in the building.

Tom ran back in once again. Almost surely to help put out the fire. You looked up, there was less smoke than before, that was good. You would’ve thought that things were nearly finished up if it weren’t for the flames that suddenly burst out the windows on the thirty-third floor and the loud bang that ensued. The fire chief immediately radioed for another fire department. Your hand went to cover your mouth, hiding your gasp. Luckily, no one came down with the shattered glass.

You sat in the back of the ambulance, there wasn’t much you could do from the ground until one of the firefighters brought someone out for you. And in the twenty minutes, it’d been since the explosion, no one had. You weren't sure if the constant radio chatter was a comfort or if it worsened your fears

You’d known Harrison for a while now. You met during FD/EMS training, when you were partnered up, god, he sucked at keeping chest compressions in time. It was an attempt for the separate departments to get to know each other better so when a call actually came, you would know who you were working with and so that you’d learn to trust them and their decisions. As well as so the EMS wouldn’t resent the fire department as much when they took medical calls and solved the issue before medical even got there, but the higher-ups wouldn’t tell you that.

You’d been warned by girls from his station about his flirting. Told that he could be relentless sometimes. And sure it was annoying at first, but you started flirting back eventually. At first, it was just to gauge his reaction but turned to something more lighthearted. It’s been three years since then, and you two only continued to grow closer. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel something for the blond.

A hand on your back pulls you from your thoughts as Rachel hops up onto the ambulance as well.

“What’s on your mind?” She rubs your back soothingly. “Hero-boy?” Racheal uses her nickname for Harrison, one that she created three years ago, at the same training weekend, eliciting a laugh from you in return.

“You know he's not the only firefighter right? And people consider us heroes too” You turn your head to face her.

“No I know, but he sure as hell made you a lot more fun to be around on calls. So he’s my hero“ Rachal paused. “Even if he sucks at CPR. That boy couldn’t keep 100 beats per minute if life depended on it, and it does”

You can’t help but laugh and look up at the thirty-third floor again. The smoke had cleared away for the most part, no longer as thick, dense and dark as it had been before. It’d been another hour since the explosion, you hadn’t seen anyone come down, but there’d been radio communication pretty much non-stop. You heard the muffled voices over the chiefs radio for the billionth time that night.

“Fire’s out” The chief repeated, everyone on the ground erupted in either a cheer or a sigh of relief. It was nearly four in the morning now, your own pain and worry had finally caught up with you as the adrenaline had faded hours ago. You could see silhouettes approach the entrance of the building as a few of the firefighters came out and headed to the nearest ambulances. No Harrison.

Three more small waves of firefighters came, all varying in degrees of injury, and there was still no Harrison. Normally you would’ve waited for him before taking anyone else but with no sign of him, you signalled for one of the other firefighters to take a seat in your ambulance as you hopped down from it, ignoring the brief pain that shot up through your legs. You mindlessly ran through the procedure of giving her oxygen and checking for other injuries as you racked your brain, searching through your memory for any mention of Harrison's name over the radio in the past four hours. You thought you remembered something but you couldn’t be sure. Maybe you were imagining it, trying to justify it somehow.

You sent the firefighter away once she was all cleared. You couldn’t imagine how exhausted she was, running up and down stairs, taking people out of a burning building, in all that heavy gear-

A shout from the entrance grabs your attention, you and Rachel, who had also recently finished up with someone, ran towards the entrance where the shout had come from.

You spot a tired looking, beat up Harrison. Though he wasn’t nearly as bad as Tom, who Harrison supported, his arm wrapped around his back while Toms was thrown over Harrison's shoulder, gripping his shoulder so tight that his knuckles turned white.

The two stop in front of the few steps while you and Rachel sprinted up them. Rachel wrapped Toms empty arm around her shoulder while hers went around his back. You replaced Harrison, letting Tom rely on your shoulder for support.

“Are you alright? Can you walk?” You said, looking over at Harrison.

“Yeah, yeah should be fine to walk” Harrison spoke as he removed his helmet.

“You know the drill. Oxygen and I’ll be over in a sec” You and Rachel slowly started to descend the steps, taking your time so that Tom could keep up. Rachel removed his helmet with her free hand and let it hang around her arm by the chin strap while she started to undo the respirator as you approached a free ambulance. You still kept some of your attention on Harrison though as he walked over to your ambulance, taking a seat and putting the mask over his nose and mouth.

“You good now?” You ask Rachel once the two of you had gotten Tom situated and given him oxygen.

“Yeah, I should be okay here. Go take care of him” Rachel nodded towards your ambulance.

You started to walk over to Harrison. You hadn’t noticed the dwindling number of paramedics until now. There were only three ambulances left and a fourth that was packing up, cleared to leave by the fire chief.

“Any other injuries I should know about?” You spoke once you had reached Harrison and started to pull on new latex gloves. He pulled the mask off his face for a moment to speak.

“Just my hand really” He put the mask back on and lifted up his left hand.

“You know I have to check anyways right?” He nodded “Are you going to take off your jacket or do you want me to” He took the mask off again.

“I’ve got to keep this mask on. Cause you know oxygen and stuff. Besides, have a pretty girl strip me? As if I’d say no” He put the mask back on and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

You rolled your eyes and started to undo the zipper.

Harrison pulled off the mask again. “You know-”

“Keep the mask on or take off your own damn jacket Osterfield” You cut him off with a laugh while gently pressing the mask back against his face.

“Sheesh” Harrison let out a laugh, muffled by the oxygen mask.

You finished unzipping the jacket and pushed it over his shoulders, he pulled out his left arm, then his right, holding the mask to his face with his left hand while his right was preoccupied. He was left in the dark blue Station 38 shirt while you looked over him for other injuries, none to be found much to your delight.

You check his breathing, slipping the stethoscope under the collar of his shirt. He pulled it down, allowing you better access to his chest as he winced at the sudden cold. A small smile flickered across your face in thanks before you looked away to the ground, listening closely as he breathed. You moved to the other side before he finished exhaling.

“Why do you guys always switch sides so fast?” He spoke. You pulled the stethoscope from your ears abruptly

“Harrison, do you know how loud that is to me? Put the mask back on” Harrison laughed and gave you an apologetic smile as he put the mask back on. You finished checking his breathing as well as his blood pressure, all of which were in pretty good condition considering he’d spent the last five hours in a burning building.

“Hand” You placed your hand palm up in front of him and waited for him to place his hand in yours. You started to pull the glove off slowly. “Tell me if it hurts okay?” He only nodded. You got off about an inch and a half before he winced, immediately halting your actions.

“No no. Keep going. It just scraped a sensitive part is all” He had barely removed the mask to speak so his voice came out muffled.

“Okay. If it starts to pull you have to tell me” He nodded. Luckily it didn't. You placed the glove next to his helmet and respirator. You inspected his hand, the back of it was covered in one large deep red mark that had smaller white patches inside of it, some of which had started to blister.

“I’m surprised they didn’t burst honestly. Also, it's going to hurt when I touch it. Letting you know right now.” You kept his hand in yours while you reached into your med bag and pulled out some supplies. You started to clean the burn carefully, getting rid of any plasma that was on the surface before applying the burn cream and wrapping it up. You tried to ignore his winces and grunts as you worked, it was difficult to see him in pain, his adrenaline clearly wearing off by now, but you continued to work anyways. You paused for a moment, still holding his now wrapped hand in your own.

“What’s on your mind darling?” Harrison spoke, switching his left hand with his right, and squeezing your hand gently while his left now held the mask to his face.

You looked up at him. For the first time that night, you truly took in his appearance. His blonde hair was dishevelled, certainly from the respirator and helmet, and it was coloured slightly grey from the smoke. He had ash on his face, you could see the ring around his nose and mouth from where he held the mask, and he just looked exhausted, bags under his eyes, slouched slightly.

“You’re good with that now by the way” You removed it from his face, gently pulling it away from him until he let go and you could hang it up.“It’s just” you sigh and shrug, squeezing his hand in return. “You run into fires for a living. You put yourself in danger to save others. Like that explosion up there? That’s terrifying to me”

“Yeah, it um” Harrison chuckled “it’s scary sometimes. But we aren’t the only ones who save lives. We just get them out and know the basics of first aid. But you know so much stuff Y/N. It blows my mind.” you can’t help but smile. “We're all a team though. I think we are a bloody good team at that” he accents the we, pulling on your hand gently. He was talking about the two of you specifically, not emergency services. 

“What happened with the explosion? Like what caused it?” You ask, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“I’m not entirely sure. Probably some compressed gas is all. I got lucky though. I was behind a wall and barely got hit, gear protected me. Tom was right at the front of the blast though” Harrison trailed off

“Hey. He’ll be alright” You squeezed his hand again, his attention remained on where Tom’s ambulance sat a few minutes ago, it had already rushed off to the hospital. There was another moment of silence between the two of you, both of you just taking in the other's presence.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” You spoke up suddenly.

“Not really”

“I’m going to write you a prescription then” You releases his hand and hopped up into the back of the ambulance searching for the pad of paper in the ambulance.

“Wait you guys can do that?” Harrisons brow furrowed.

“Mhm. As of April” You hopped back down from the ambulance and wrote across the pad, signing it and handing it to him. “Fill it as soon as you can”

“What's it for? And why’d you ask if I wanted to go to the hospital?” He took the paper from you, looking at it.

“One is an antibiotic and the other is an ointment. That burn should take a week or two to heal up but then you should be okay. And because i could either prescribe you that or a doctor at the hospital could.” You had packed up the back of the ambulance and were ready to go now, Dylan had been sat in the drivers side for a while now, he’d helped the fire department with their cleanup which had finished about ten minutes ago, the rest of the damage to be cleaned up at another time, certainly not four in the morning.

“You know I didn’t want to go to the hospital but-” Harrison started.

“Oh please do not tell me that you want to go now”

“No. I don’t” Harrison let out a small laugh Not unless it includes going on a date with you and I don’t think it does so its not worth it” he looked down at his feet

You hopped down from your spot in the back of the ambulance, closing the doors behind you. You walked up to him, stopping about a foot away from him

“I’m off this weekend” And with that you kissed his cheek, and hopped into the passenger side of the ambulance, another page written in your story with hopes of more to be added still. Dylan drove off leaving Harrison to go with the only other firefighter who was left on the scene. Poor guy just wanted to go home.

Taglist: @notimeforthemessenger @starkravingparker

[fanficslutforsmut]

Weak Moments: Nine

My body was hot, my face was wet and dry at the same time. I was rubbing my cheeks raw but the tears kept coming, the snot kept dripping from my nose. I felt horrible, and I probably looked it too.

"I'm a killer Sonny, you have to take me in, take me to jail!" I wailed, throwing my hands in front of me waiting for him to handcuff me. I looked at him but he just shook his head, his own eyes red and heavy with bags.

"You're not a murderer Ross, he died of complications in the hospital, it wasn't your fault." He told me, holding my head in his hands.

"No it was me, I killed him, it was all my fault Sonny!" I screamed, shaking out of his grip and standing. I saw myself in the mirror. Eyes bright red, face red and streaked with tears, my hair was in every different direction and all knotted from my constant tugging.

Sonny stood up walking towards me, his body overshadowing my own.

"Ross, I'm telling you, me, you didn't do this, you didn't kill him." He was whispering now, reaching to hold my face again, and I let him, it was a firm hold, not letting me look away from him. His eyes held all the answers. All of my anxiety, the rush of adrenaline and now the pounding headache that is forming because of my excessive crying, it was all fading away.

I nodded slowly, swallowing the sobs down.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I pulled away now. "Amanda told me, why didn't you?" I choked out, staring him down. He swallowed, closing his eyes for a second. He cleared his throat, straightening out to his full height.

"I wanted you to have a break, just a little bit of freedom." He breathed, eyes still closed. I sucked in a breath wondering if I could even be mad at Sonny. He was just trying to protect me, to let me finally breathe.

"What will happen now?"

"Well now, the doctors will determine whether or not the heart attack was caused by you defending yourself, or if it was just God's way of making things right." He does The sign of the Cross, mumbling something before looking back at me.

"I think I want to be alone right now." I murmured, walking backward, the back of my legs hitting the bed before I collapsed onto it.

"What?" He came closer and I just turned away from him.

"Leave please, I just want to be alone." I cried again.

His phone rang, loud and clear. "Ok." He whispered, looking back at me again before walking quickly out the door, fishing his phone from his pocket and closing the door after himself.

I couldn't do anything except sit there and try to process what this means now.

What is going to happen to me now?

*************************Sonny's POV**********

"Hello?" I answered the phone harshly, lost in my world. Already worried about Ross being alone with this new information.

"This is Doctor Sanders from Bellevue Hospital, I have the finished report for the official COD of Mathew Simmons, you told me to call."

"Alright, yes I'm sorry. I'm on my way." I hung up the phone, jogging down the hallway and to the elevator. My mind somewhere completely away from me as I start the unmarked cruiser, heading down the unbelievably crowded street to the hospital.

"What are you doing here?" I seethed seeing Amanda's blonde ponytail in front of me. I was still mad at her, rightfully so.

"I'm still your partner." She scoffed, rolling her eyes and following me as I walked past her toward the nurse's station.

"NYPD SVU, here to talk to Doctor Sanders." I showed her my badge, she pointed behind me to the same Doctor we had talked to before.

"Doctor Sanders." She turned swiftly, eyeing us before nodding and pulling a file from a cart beside her.

"Cause of Death for Mathew Simmons was a cardiac failure due to convulsive seizure." She told us, I nodded.

"Yeah we know that but we need to know if that was caused by the injuries he had coming in here," I growled, annoyed at the repetitive information.

"Oh no, we checked through all of his medical records, he was in a car crash a few years ago, it formed a tumor on the brains which eventually led to epileptic episodes, he was taking medication for it but unfortunately it's not one hundred percent effective." She closed the file, dropping it back on the cart and looking back to us.

"Anything else I can get you?" She looked between us.

"No that's perfect, thank you," I told her, shaking her hand and leaving Amanda behind as I walked toward the exit.

"Hey, would you wait up!" She exclaimed, she was downright pissed and it showed on her face.

"Why so you can go harass Ross again, tell her she's a murderer, after everything he did to her. You saw it yourself!" I yelled back once we were in the parking lot. The cold air nipped at my cheeps, almost making them burn with how cold they were.

"It wasn't like that, I didn't mean it that way." She scowled, walking to her cruiser.

"It was exactly like that, you need to straighten out before you ever talk to her again or I'll tell Liv." I hissed back, pulling open my car door.

"Ok, you're gonna tattle on me now." She mocked me.

"No, I'll just get a partner that can act decent to human beings." I threw in my final words before getting in and slamming my door shut, speeding off and back to the precinct to inform the rest of the group and close the case.