#and not to mention every single part of me is in excruciating pain. including my chest.

[mosspapi]

I need to get over myself and accept the fact that just because I Technically am capable of doing something, does not mean it's reasonable, realistic, or more importantly SAFE for me to do it.

[amazingdriverfics]

Hello! I have another request in mind: instead of Rey being captured by Kylo like in interrogation scene in the Force Awakens, it's his best friend from when they were training as Jedi with Luke Skywalker. She's with the Resistance and he's with the First Order. They're supposed to be enemies but after all this time, they still love each other. And Kylo, pleads her to join him and she does because she's never felt at home with the Resistance even though Poe was her friend. Kylo was her home and she loves him. I hope this is okay!

A/N: hey love, I hope you are doing alright. I’m really sorry that it took me so long to get it done, but I wanted for it to be good even if it meant having to wait a bit longer to post. 

I hope you enjoy it very much, I wrote with love, thank you for your support and request. 

Warnings: mentions of fight and death (they are very short)

My masterlist

Your heart is racing, it almost feels like it is about to explode off of your chest, the anxiety pumping in your veins is enough to distract you from the discomfort your body is experiencing, to forget that you can barely move attached on a metallic surface with your hands and legs restrained, to completely erase from your mind that you are covered in ashes and dried tears from all the chaos you had seen a couple of hours ago. None of that matters when you know you are finally going to meet Kylo Ren and very likely meet your death at the other end of the red lightsaber you watched kill so many not too long ago. 

The man doesn’t come for a long time anyway and you think to yourself that the time he is taking might just be torture itself, you are hyperaware of the enviroment you are in - a dark room with nothing but a lamp and you - as well as the things going outside, every sound makes you want to cry and evey tiny movement you can see through the small space under the door makes your heart skip a beat. You try to calm yourself as Master Luke had thought you many years before, but it was impossible, every time you tried to focus on your breathing patterns some noise got in the way, to make things worse one of the cuffs keeping you on the metallic surface doesn’t allow you to use the force, leaving you defenceless to face Kylo Ren. 

Nonetheless, you decide to give meditation one last try, if the dark knight was such a good force user as the rumours said, you would need all the focus you could possibly find to keep him off of your memories, to protect Poe and the Resistance. You try to focus only on your breathing, inhaling and exhaling loudly so you could hopefully drown the other sounds and you allow yourself for the first time to start accessing your body, imagining the oxygen you inhaled going through your bloodstream and getting to every single cell, filling them with life. 

When you feel like you are finally managing to calm yourself down, you listen to the door opening and you instantly open your eyes. The first thing you see is a tall black figure using a lifeless mask that had been haunting your thoughts ever since you got captured by the stormtroopers, the second thing you see is the lightsaber on his belt and it makes you swallow dry, all the calmness you had been trying to find vanishing and turning into fear. 

You watch as he walks towards you with long and insecure strides and it shocks you. Of everything you imagined Kylo Ren to be like - a monster, a soulless creature, a sadist - insecure definitely wasn’t on the list. His behavior however fills you up with a courage you had left in the spot you were captured. 

As he gets closer you allow your instincts to take control, your mouth moving before you could possibly think that it wasn’t the wisest decision. “You aren’t going to get anything from me, you might as well kill me now, monster”. 

You wait for a answer that doesn’t come, all Kylo Ren does is stop near the surface you are restrained on and all you can hear is the mechanic sound of breathing coming from his stupid mask as you turn your head towards it, ready to challenge the man once again. 

“And take this disgusting thing off your face, I don’t talk to cowards in masks”.

Much to your surprise, you don’t feel excruciating pain, but you watch as his gloved hands travel to the sides of his helmet, the next thing you listen is the sound of pressured air leaving the inside of it. When you finally see his face, your heart beats faster, but, this time, for all the wrong reasons. 

——————————————————————————

“Come y/n, the water is amazing” Ben yells at you, the most perfect smile adorning his features. 

You run towards the lake in your underwear as your eyes focus on Ben, you watch as his soaked dark hair touches his face, and water droplets fall on his face and on his torso, the sight making your heart skip beats, he was truly the most beautiful being you had ever laid eyes on. 

Stars, you loved Ben Solo with every atom in your body.

——————————————————————————

“Ben” you whisper, eyes filling with tears as you remember yourself of all you lived with him. You knew he had disappeared after the Jedi Temple burned, you had even mourned Ben, believing you would never see the man that you loved for so long again, your true home and family, your soulmate. “What happened to you?” you ask trying to reach for him, going against your better judgment. 

He sighs as you look into his dark eyes, trying to figure out the emotion behind it, something you could do so easily when you were younger, but now that barely knew him anymore  it proved to be an incredibly hard task. 

“Luke tried to kill me” he confesses and you don’t know what shocks you the most, hearing the sound of his deep voice years later the last time you saw him or finding out that one of the man you looked up to the most as you grew older tried to murder Ben, his neffew, the sweet boy you fell for and the boy who had gone through hell as he tried to discover himself. 

“Oh Ben, why didn’t you tell me? When did it happen?” As you talk to Ben, you forget you are stuck in a table and that you are his prisoner, not his lover.

He closes his eyes and his hands into fists before answering you. 

“That night when I burned the temple” he says before pausing, his eyes watching your every reaction as you assimilate that it was your Ben who burned the temple, not any Sith or Snoke himself, but Ben. “And no matter how much it hurt me to leave you behind, I just couldn’t bring myself to take you with me into the Order, into Snoke’s hand, I needed you to stay alive”. 

His words make you cry, make you sob, all your discoveries becoming overwhelming, seeing Ben alive after mourning him all too much. Before you can even process it, his gloved hand is in your cheek, caressing your skin lightly as a way to soothe your ache and you know you should hate him, you know he was supposed to be your enemy, but as you feel his touch once again, you fell like the little girl who fell for Ben Solo.

“You can’t imagine how much I missed you, little one” he confesses, his hand not leaving your face. All of a sudden you feel as your restraints open, your body almost escaping the surface until Ben holds you with the force, slowly allowing you to get your feet on the ground. “Now that you’re here with me again, I don’t know if I could ever let you go again”. 

As the words leave his mouth, Ben gets up walking towards you, his hand that just left your face travels to your waist, his eyes filled with so much emotion looking directly into your teary ones. You know you should say no, that you should say that your home is with the Resistance, that you could never be with an Order so evil and destructive, but it would be all a lie. Your home was with Ben, it always had been and it always would be, you always loved him and you were sure that you would never ever stop loving him, no matter how much Poe tried to make you feel included at the Resistance, there was nothing in the Galaxy that could make you feel like Ben.

“Join me” he pleads and it doesn’t take you two seconds before whispering a ‘yes’ and nod, your face leaning towards his, your lips searching for his. 

When your lips meet his and your tongues finally touch his, it feels like fireworks explode in your body, almost like time stands still, like the whole Universe was watching as two soulmates find their way back to each other again. 

As the two of you part and you look into your eyes you whisper: “You’ll always be my home, Ben”.

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 15

I can’t think of anything to say about this one haha, other than it has a good ending and was an interesting change of pace for me to write.  Make sure you check the warnings, as always!

Read on AO3

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Day 15 - Magical Healing/Science Gone Wrong

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: claustrophobia, blood, broken bones, mild body horror, mild gore, mild eye trauma (super mild, because eye trauma is a personal squick)

Keith had never had to go into a pod before. He had gotten plenty of bumps and bruises during his time in space, and even a few more serious wounds, but never anything bad enough that he couldn’t patch it up himself. He had gotten pretty good at self first aid over the course of his life, especially while living in the desert. 

And he was pretty happy about that. The thought of being locked in a pod, unconscious, completely helpless and unaware of what was happening to him and around him, made his stomach roll a bit. Obviously he’d never tell anybody that he was...not scared, definitely not scared, but...nervous about using a pod. That was something he’d just keep to himself.

But now...now he had no choice. And honestly, he didn’t care. He was in so much pain, so disoriented, that he just let everybody strip off his clothes, wrestle him into a pod suit, and usher him straight to the pod without even a word of protest.

He had taken on a Galra commander by himself. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he had lost miserably. The commander was huge, and he had managed to get a hold of Keith, wrapping one of his ginormous hands around his entire waist, before slamming him into a nearby wall. Repeatedly. 

Pretty much everything on the right side of his body was broken and/or bleeding. Including his poor, cracked armor. His helmet had been knocked off, so his skull had taken plenty of damage, with blood still pouring down and sticking his eye shut even while the pod was prepped. He was pretty sure something in his face was broken, too. Maybe more than one something. It was difficult to separate one pain from another.

“Alright, lad, in you go.” 

Keith barely held in a yell as he was lifted in, managing to stifle it to a strangled groan. 

“I know bud, I know.” Shiro gave him a tight, worried smile. “You’ll just go right to sleep now, and next thing you know you’ll feel all better. Promise.” 

There was a momentary flutter in his stomach at the thought, but the idea of sleeping and no longer being in pain won out over his apprehension. As the glass slid shut, his other eye did, too.

He felt the blast of cold that filled the chamber. 

He felt his body succumb to the gas that froze him in place. 

He didn’t fall asleep.

Any second now, he kept thinking. It’ll happen soon. There’s just a little delay that no one mentioned. Maybe they didn’t remember. I probably won’t remember any of this later, either.

But the longer his body remained paralyzed and his brain aware, the more panicked he became. And then the healing began.

You’d think that would be a good thing. Healing takes away the pain, right? 

The first thing to start was his head. He hadn’t been aware that the pain there could get any more intense until it did. Bone fragments started shifting, locking themselves back into place, and he could feel every little bit of it. He could feel the broken skin beginning to knit itself together, millimeter by millimeter.

He wanted to throw up. He couldn’t. His body remained passive and completely out of his control, not responding in the least to his racing thoughts.

Why why why why why why why why why why why why why is this happening why did no one say this would happen this isn’t supposed to happen is it this doesn’t make any sense it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts make it stop please make it stop Shiro help me get me out of here make it stop make it stop

But his body remained still through it all. He couldn’t twitch a finger, couldn’t open his eyes so that the others would know he was still awake. Were they still watching? Did they have any idea that something was wrong? For all he knew, he was alone, and he wouldn’t be released from this nightmare until everything was healed.

Ribs were next. They slid slowly back into place, grinding against each other, slicing through muscle and tissue on their way. It hurt worse than anything he could have imagined. 

His arm and shoulder healed simultaneously, but still took an eternity. That was the worst part, how agonizingly slowly everything went. A doctor setting a bone worked quickly. There was pain, yes, but it was a sharp spike followed by relief. This went on for ages, healing every little crack and tear along the way as each bone was dragged back to where it belonged.

The only thing worse than that was not even being able to scream.

He hadn’t even realized anything was wrong with his knee until that got twisted and pulled straight again. The very last thing to heal was his face, starting with the bones in his cheek and around his eye, and ending with the eye itself, which was less excruciating in the pain sense and more in the fact that it felt like something was in his eye, pulling and probing and scratching, and he couldn’t even lift his hand to rub at it.

The good news about the whole process was that once something was healed, the pain did ease, leaving him with less areas hurting than before.

But rather than feeling like a mere tick had gone by, he was aware of every single tick that passed for the entire two quintants that he was in the pod.

When the glass finally, finally opened and he stumbled out into Shiro’s waiting arms, the first thing he did was open his eyes as wide as they could go, and open his mouth to suck in a lungful of fresh air. His body was his again. He could move. 

The second thing he did was slump boneless to the floor, not even Shiro able to keep him upright. He buried his face into his arms to hide the tears that spilled over without his permission, but that did nothing for the way his entire body trembled and for the gasping sobs that escaped.

“Whoa, Keith! What’s the matter? Are you still hurt?” Shiro’s hands grasped his arms gently. “Talk to me, bud, what is it?”

He tried his best to get himself under control, hating the fact that he was breaking apart in front of everybody. The others probably didn’t even think he was capable of crying before then. Lifting his head slightly, he wiped his face with the sleeve of the pod suit, then dropped his forehead back down onto his arms. 

“I-it…” He swallowed. “It was awful.”

“What do you mean?” He could hear the frown in Shiro’s voice. “What was awful?”

“The p-pod.”

A hand slid into his hair, cupping the back of his head. “I don’t understand, bud.”

“I was awake. The whole time.” 

Silence. Then, “What?”

Coran’s voice broke into the conversation. “That’s not possible. The first thing a healing pod does is to cryo-freeze its occupant. We saw it working ourselves!”

“It did freeze my body.” Keith looked up finally, but couldn’t quite bring himself to meet any of the several gazes that were on him. “Otherwise I would have been banging on the glass for someone to get me out of there. I couldn’t...I couldn’t move. But I was awake.” For a while he had wondered if it was the same for everyone, if Shiro and Lance had refrained from telling him, knowing that he wouldn’t want to go in. But eventually he had convinced himself that Shiro wouldn’t do that to him, and it seemed he was right.

“You’re telling us,” Shiro began slowly, “that you’ve been completely awake and aware for two days, unable to move, while the pod healed all of those broken bones and everything?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“That shouldn’t be possible!” Coran repeated. “I’ve never heard of anything like it before! I can’t imagine...unless…” He broke off into unintelligible mumbling, crossing to the pod’s data screen and poking at it.

Hunk was next to speak up. “Keith...that sounds...terrifying.”

Gritting his teeth, he tried for a small smile. “Yeah, it...it was.” His brows pulled down. “I could feel all of it. All the bones moving, the skin and muscles and whatever going back together…” He shuddered, and if he wasn’t mistaken, nearly everyone else in the room did, too. “I don’t ever want to go back in a pod again.”

Coran cleared his throat. “My boy, I’m afraid I have quite an apology to make.” Keith looked up to see the advisor facing him again, but staring down at his feet. “It’s, uh...well, we’ve never had someone of...mixed species use the healing pods before.”

Keith shut his eyes. Of course. Of course it would come back to his Galra heritage.

“The data here indicates that the pod recognized you only as human, since it appears that most of your anatomy is, in fact, human. But the failure to account for the rest of your DNA is apparently where things went wrong. It obviously caused you great distress, and probably great pain, and...I’m terribly sorry, my boy. I should have taken more time to ensure that everything was set correctly at the beginning.”

“It’s not your fault, Coran,” Pidge interrupted before Keith could open his mouth to say the same exact thing. She had shimmied her way between the advisor and the screen and was bending over it, the light reflecting off of her glasses. “This thing literally has no clue how to deal with mixed species.” Looking over her shoulder at Keith, she smiled. “We’ll work on that, starting right now.”

“Well, still.” Coran twiddled with his moustache nervously. “I should have known that already. I should have had it ready for Number Four before he needed it.”

“It’s alright. I forgive you.” Keith mustered a smile, and Coran returned it brightly.

“Thank you, lad. Well, Number Five, are you ready to get tinkering?”

Pidge immediately launched into a longwinded explanation of her thoughts for the project, and Hunk quickly joined in. Shiro wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulders and pulled him in close. 

“I’m really sorry you had to go through that. Looks like these three will have it all fixed for you if you ever need to go in again, though.”

Keith tensed, glancing up at the still looming pod and swallowing hard. “Yeah. Well...I’m gonna...try really hard to not need it again.”

Shiro squeezed him tighter. “That’s a good idea, regardless.”

[angrylizardjacket]

only fools {Dominique Beyrand}

Summary: You’re in love with Roger’s new girlfriend. Is it easier to pretend you don’t have feelings or come clean? You say both, eventually! The truth is bittersweet.

A/N: 4331 words. ANGST!! I don’t know much abt Dominique so this is based 100% on borhap, tho there’s a few bits abt the band from real life, but its borhap based for the most part. i hope you like it!! i’m pretty sure the reader is gender neutral, but there may be 1 or 2 female pronouns accidentally. there’s mentions of cheating.

----

You’ve been friends with Queen for arguably too long, know them now in excruciating and almost intimate detail, and are absolutely immune to their various charms and stardom. It started in university, with you as a popular radio jockey on campus, and living in a flat around the corner from Freddie and Roger’s little market stall in Kensington. 

You know of their band, of course, you’ve always got your ear to the ground for local talent, and you jokingly tell them that if they ever get an album together, you’d be the the first to play it. A year and a half later, they hold you to that. 

When they’re making it big in the mid-70s, and you’ve scored your own show on an actual radio station, they start turning to you when they want to release a single, or give an interview, and people start asking why. You simply shrug and smile, which is easier than explaining that you’d spent a good deal of your second year of uni bothering Freddie and Roger at their stall instead of doing your homework, and somehow that became a friendship, and now you and John have tea every Monday afternoon, and Brian tried to teach you guitar once, but ended up waxing poetic about his thesis when you noted that his desk was rather messy.

So yes, you know them rather well, since the start of the band’s musical career, in fact, and have witness, and occasional party to, some of their dumber, post-gig antics, which has given you both regrets, and immunity to their antics. Never again will you be Roger’s look out when he climbs to a third story balcony for a girl - he lost a shoe on the second floor and it hit you in the back of the head. Prick. 

Which makes it rather unfortunate that you’ve taken such a liking to his latest girlfriend. At first you tell yourself that it’s simple and platonic appreciation for another individual with a head on their shoulders, that you liked her in the same way that you like John or Brian when they were being sensible. When you go out with the band, which isn’t a lot these days, but still it’s enough, she seems to make a point of including you, of smiling at you like a friend though you barely know each other. 

Always, she is by Roger’s side, and you think this is the first time you’ve seen him properly smitten, which makes it ache, in such a strange way, when she smiles back at him. You’ve never felt like this over Chrissie, or Veronica, or Mary. But you push it down, and when they invite you to go to their concerts, you find yourself in the wings by her side, and you dance with her at the afterparties when she offers her hand, and she invites you to lunch to catch up every few weeks.

It’s perfectly harmless, you tell yourself as you actively repress the strange sort of desire she unknowingly elicits from you. 

There’s something about her, beyond a pretty face, and a vicious smile, more than her sharp wit and dangerously intoxicating perfume, like she could ask you to walk over hot coals and you’d crawl to make her happy.

When she laughs over lunch, like actually laughs, full-bellied, head thrown back, glowing in the afternoon sunshine at something you’d said, you suddenly remember every stupid and horny antic Roger has ever been party to, often at the expense of whatever girl he was meant to be seeing at the time, and you want to tell Dominique to run fast and far, to try and protect her. But Roger’s told you he’s changed, that he’s in love, and you grit your teeth.

You’re kind of fucked.

And there’s no-one in your life who you can talk to without being judged for feeling like this. 

So you take what you can get. 

You go out with the band when they invite you, you catch up with Dom often when they go on tour, and you realise, with a strange and painful clarity, that she’s become your best friend.

“How come you’ll agree to help Dom with shenanigans, but not me?” Roger plays at being jealous of your not-so-secret favoritism, his arm around Dominique in a hotel bar that had been closed for a private, Queen function, currently buzzing with the band members, their various significant others, members of the press, members of their tour group, and management team. And you. 

You and Dominique share an amused, almost conspiratorial look. 

“Because I actually like her,” you tell Roger, flatly, and he raises is eyebrows when you look back at him. You don’t miss Dominique’s pleased little smile that she hides in her glass.

“That’s just about the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he shakes his head, clearly not actually taking your words to heart, but you huff a laugh.

“And her shenanigans never landed me in the emergency room -”

“Hey, I was the one with the sprained ankle -”

“You acted like you were dying, Rog,” you sighed deeply, “you tried to bribe me to run a red light,” and Dominique gives her boyfriend a surprised, vaguely judgmental look as Roger quickly turned pink.

“I was in grave pain.”

“Darling, you are a grave pain,” Dominique told him sweetly, and Roger pressed his hand to his chest, scandalised. 

“Et tu, my love?” 

But Dominique’s looking at him all fond and sappy when she tells him that you’ve got a point; you excuse yourself right as Roger lowers his voice and reminds her that there’s times she seems to think he’s pretty great, voice laced with heavy innuendo. 

You’re discussing the band’s latest album with their sound tech when Dominique finds you again, looking recently debauched, lips all kiss-bruised despite her fresh coat of lipstick. You quietly and desperately wish you would have been the cause of her unkempt state, the sight alone making you want to do unseemly things to her. 

“Sorry about that, Roger had a point to prove,” she says lightly, as if nothing had happened, and she snakes her arm through yours as she joins the conversation.

“Did he prove it?” You asked flatly, if only to play along for her benefit. Her cheeks flushed for a moment as she cleared her throat, looking over her shoulder.

“Twice,” she had to try and hide her grin from the scandalized sound tech. When you followed her gaze, your eyes met Roger’s; he’s so damn smug. You felt like you were going to put your fist through a wall.

The next time you caught up with Dom, however, a few days later, she apologises again, looking guilty for reasons you can’t quite understand.

“Why are you apologising? You didn’t do anything wrong,” you assured her, gently putting your hands on hers over the table; when she meets your gaze over the table, she blinks quickly, processing the information. 

“I just felt like I should,” even she doesn’t know why she’s apologising again, “it wasn’t... it was inappropriate.” She finally settles on, and you give a fond, if longsuffering smile.

“When’s Roger ever appropriate at a party?”

“I suppose,” she still looks unsure, however, but the waiter comes over and the ordeal is forgotten. 

Except that it’s not. There’s something new in the way she looks at you, almost hesitant, faintly apologetic, and even a little confused. It’s not something you’re used to, Dominique’s always been endlessly confident and forthright, she’s never been cautious in the history of your friendship.

“I’m worried you think less of me,” she says, blunt as always, when you finally ask what’s wrong.

“Dom, nothing you could do would ever make me think less of you,” you tell her with probably too much honesty. After a moment spent mulling your words over, she moves closer on your plush little sofa, until her leg pressed flush against yours.

“I care about you a great deal,” she tells you, with her own sudden burst of honesty, “and it’s been rough with Roger on tour; I don’t think I could have gotten through it half as well without you,” and she’s looking at you, almost nothing in her expression, like she’s gauging your reaction to let her know how to feel about all of this. 

You’re absolutely terrified she can read every feeling and emotion as it passes through you at her words, and the I want to kiss you to make you shut up about your stupid boyfriend that’s flashing like a neon sign at the front of your brain. 

“I care about you too,” is what you manage after a beat of panicked hesitation, trying not to act as flustered as you feel. Her smile is warm and confident, however, and she thanks you gently, turning back to the TV that had become white noise in your ears. You spend a good few moments more just watching her, wondering what that was all about, before she leans against you, and you just kind of have to accept it.

But there’s something different now, a new energy between you both when you spend time together; she’s more tactile, more prone to staying with you at events, more likely to pick you, you realise.

“Are you trying to steal my girlfriend?” Roger once jokes, and you try not to let your panic show.

“If I was, you’d deserve it,” you laugh, but his expression scrunches up, reading the insult and implications in your words. You get the feeling Roger doesn’t much like you anymore.

But Dominique’s skin is always warm against yours, her hand in yours when strolling about the city, and you get lost in her perfume and her laughter, and some nights she comes over while Roger’s away, and you get tipsy together while watching TV or listening to music, and she’ll curl into your touch and whisper you’re too good to me like it’s a guilty secret the rest of the world can’t hear. She sleeps on your sofa rather than going home to the luxurious, empty bed she shares with Roger, and in the morning you wake to her humming and making breakfast. 

There’s something so domestic about it, and she’ll smile at you, sipping tea in the kitchen, and your heart will melt. 

You want to be allowed to love her, but Roger will always come home. 

Once, twice, a slow song will play on the radio, and she’ll ask you to dance, wrapping herself up in you as you sway in your living room, both of you drunk on a Sunday evening, her breathing slow and even, her eyes closed, and you wonder what she’s picturing. Maybe her boyfriend. Fiancé. Fuck.

You’re so caught up in your thoughts that it takes her hands holding your face to register that you’d both stopped moving. Her smile is soft, eyes warm.

“You’d look beautiful in a ball gown,” she says with quiet adoration, and before you can process that that was what she was thinking, your body’s moved of it’s own accord, and you’re kissing her. 

And she’s kissing you back, tasting like wine and fruit, lips soft and gentle, fitting against yours perfectly. She sighs softly against your lips, hands coming to fist in the collar of your shirt as she pulls you closer and I love you tumbles involuntarily from your lips. She pauses.

“I know,” her voice is gently apologetic, barely more than a whisper, “I’m sorry.” You can see she wants to say more, wants to kiss you again, like she wants to live in this moment before it had suddenly turned sour. Her I love you too goes unspoken, but she cups your face in her hands again, thumbs running across your cheeks, across the sudden, faint shock and sorrow written in your expression. She doesn’t step back, she doesn’t even try. 

“I should go.”

“Do you want to go?” You ask, voice soft, the words barely registering to your own ears. There’s a long moment of silence as she considers, weighs her options, hesitates before kissing you again. It hurts, it’s a uniquely masochistic form of torture you’re putting yourself through, but she stays, and the next day you both act like nothing happened.

She’ll make breakfast, smile at you over tea, and in a few months, she’ll marry Roger. 

You’re not invited to the wedding, and part of you is grateful. 

“Aren’t you going to tell me not to go through with it?” She half jokes over coffee a few days before, which shocks you.

“Why?” You’re concerned rather than amused, and she looks a little guilty when she meets your gaze.

“I- do you... still have feelings for me?” She asks, uncertain, and you sigh deeply, sitting back in your chair.

“Do you love Roger, Dom?”

“Of course,” she answers immediately, a little defensive, which seems strange given the situation, but she thaws and takes a long sip of her drink, “I do, I really do.” She admits, sounding almost disappointed in herself.

“Then it doesn’t matter what I feel; do what makes you happy.” You’ve come to terms with the fact that you’d lost to Roger a long time ago; brief affair aside, you don’t want to make Dominique question her world so close to her happy ending. 

So you pointedly don’t ask how she feels about you.

According to the photos in the tabloid, it’s a beautiful wedding, and Dominique and Roger make a picture perfect couple. You spend three days in your house, wrapped in a blanket in front of your TV; you don’t take the phone off the hook in case work calls, but Dom’s on her honeymoon, so you’re not expecting to get any calls from her. 

There’s a full month of radio silence while she’s being whisked off to somewhere romantic, and it’s the longest the two of you have gone without talking since you’d met. The minute she gets back, however, she calls and asks you to lunch, but hesitates, adding that if you didn’t want to -

“Of course I want to!” You’re delighted to hear from her, and only realise once you hang up how much it’s going to hurt. 

Her wedding ring catches the light and you want to immediately flee to the Scottish highlands and become a goat farmer and never talk to another living person again at the sight of it. You smile, and hug her in greeting.

You talk about work, both yours and hers, and about how Freddie’s buying a mansion in London, and how cute John’s kids are, and about everything but the very recent wedding she’d gone through, or the husband she now has.

This time, when you take her hand to traverse the city together, you feel the cold metal of her wedding ring, and something inside you dies, just a little. It’s like she can tell, however, because she immediately skirts around you to take your other hand, tucking you close. And you let her. Every time, you let her. 

Nothing happens between you both, nothing like before, but she still comes over when Roger’s on tour, still sleeps on your sofa, still spends time with you around her busy work schedule, and it hurts to see her hurting, when she gets tired and lets slip about the rumours she’s heard. Apart from one night, she’s practically been a saint to the drummer; his record, however does not appear to be so clean. But she puts on a brave face, and he always comes home.

Freddie throws a party in the early eighties, dressed in a crown and cape, he’s invited everyone remotely outlandish in London, so it seems, and of course his band, and you. You find them all on a cluster of gilded sofas, looking already worn out by the whole affair, despite everyone partying around them. But Dominique brightens when she sees you, and pulls you in to the conversation. Roger, already in a mood, does not even look at you as the rest of the band greets you warmly where you’ve perched on the arm of the sofa by Dominique, her free hand coming up to rest on your thigh. 

They’re teasing Roger about his car song again, which you refrain from, not that you don’t love teasing him about that ridiculous song, but you’re also pretty sure that if you speak to him, he’ll throw his drink at you. 

But Freddie joins them, too exuberant by half for the muted mood of the band amidst the partygoers, and Roger’s ready to leave when Freddie makes a comment that turns your blood to ice.

“Loyalty’s so important, don’t you think Dominique?” 

The world around you fades away to her reaction. No-one’s looking at you, they’re all looking to Roger, because it’s an implicit confirmation of the hoards of rumours Dominique’s been trying to live in denial regarding. 

“Watch it,” Roger warns his bandmate, and Dominique looks pissed, but for the barest moment, she casts her gaze over her shoulder, to you, and you can read the heartbreak in her eyes. 

You wish you’d told her to run years ago after all. 

You wish you’d never believed that Roger had changed.

You wish you’d told her not to go through with the wedding.

You wish a lot of things in that moment. 

But there’s no time, and she’s gone with Roger, both of them furious for different reasons, while your heart lays beating in the seat she’d just left. Looking around, your head is full of a fog in the wake of Freddie’s words, and their departure, and it’s like no-one else can see that your whole world has gone to Hell.

“I need to stay with you,” Dominique calls you the next day, sniffling, and you’re agreeing readily, asking if she needs a lift over. 

She brings a suitcase, and a tearful apology for barging in like this. You wrap her up in a hug, telling her not to worry, that it’s not a bother and she bursts into tears. You order food and wrap her up in a blanket, and stay by her side until she falls asleep against your shoulder. You carry her into bed, tuck her in, and then grab your jacket and go out.

“I should kick your ass,” you snarl after Roger finally lets you in where you’d been kicking at his front door. He looks disheveled, but not like he’d been sleeping, like he’d been crying.

“Are you here for the rest of her things?” He asks flatly, and you do actually shove him, hard enough that he hits the ground and slides against the tiles.

“You stupid, insensitive fucking asshole!” You yell, fuming, “get up, Roger, get up!” You demand, and he does, slowly.

“I’m not going to fight you; you won, okay? She hates me -”

“And she has every right to, don’t play the fucking victim here, don’t try and act like you weren’t the one to sleep your way across the world while you knew she was waiting for you!” Your lip trembled at the thought of all the late nights you’d spent comforting her, reassuring her that it was just the tabloids taking things out of context, “she loved you so fucking much, you stupid fucking slut!” He laughed humorlessly at that, sitting back down on the ground, knees drawn up to his chest.

“We haven’t loved each other for a long time now.”

“That’s not true.”

“She loves you.” 

“That’s not true.” There’s a wobble to your voice, your fraught emotions turning quickly to desperation. 

“I know you slept together,” he says, finally looking at you, and your mouth snaps shut. He doesn’t seem mad, he doesn’t seem... anything. It’s just a fact, no malice behind it. “She told me the day after it happened,” he paused, “and I told her it was okay, told her I did similar stuff in my youth, but if we loved each other, we’d have to be better people, for each other.”

“And she loved you,” you said with dawning despair, realising what he was implying. He nods, gaze drifting, as if not quite registering everything that was happening, “but you...”

“By my own logic, I was already falling out of love; I was a hypocrite. I am a hypocrite.”

“You’re self aware,” you said, sitting down as the fight left you.

“Not really, she yelled it a good deal at me yesterday. She’s right, though.” He takes a deep breath, resting his chin on his knees as he stares at the other wall. “We used to be friends,” he muses and you hum in response, “we used to be a lot of things; young, broke, nobodies, friends.” He lists, and you agree quietly, “I think I knew you would be better for her, even from the start.”

“You knew I loved her from the start?” You ask, not even trying to deny it, and Roger looks at you out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m not blind,” he tells you with surprising bitterness, and you clam up at that, “but she loves you because you’re still here, even though she loved me too.”

“Because I’m an idiot,” you mutter, shaking your head.

“Probably,” he agrees, and when you make an indignant noise, he gives a flat look, “you didn’t talk her out of marrying me even though you’re in love with her.” He reminds.

“I never want to be the cause of her unhappiness,” you explain softly, mirroring his sitting position, your chin on your knees. Roger nods, “but you hurt her, and I came here to kick your ass.”

“Will you love her like she deserves?” He asks softly.

“If she wants to come back to you, I won’t stop her.”

“You love her better than I ever could,” Roger says with realisation. You’re not going to disagree with him.

When you get home, she’s still asleep in your bed, and you curl up on the sofa, restless all through the night. Dominique wakes in the morning, and comes out, sees your eyes open, rough from sleeplessness, and tears well in her own as all the memories from yesterday come flooding back. 

“Do you want breakfast?” You ask, voice rough, and she nods. You stand, and head to the kitchen, moving automatically around the little space. She watches, quiet eyes, unsmiling, contemplative, but she’s not crying. 

“What do you want to do today?” You hear yourself asking, voice carefully neutral. 

“Do you... do you still love me?”

You freeze. It takes a moment, but you finally look at her, expression blank. 

“I don’t think this is the time-”

“You’re always telling me to do what makes me happy, asking me what I want, what do you want?”

“I want you to be happy,” you tell her softly; her eyes are getting misty, but she’s still not satisfied with that answer.

“I want you to think about yourself for once; what do you want?”

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes for a moment as you try to organise your thoughts. 

“I want to be able to tell you I love you, and not have you hesitate to say it back -” you admit, but she cuts you off, words quick.

“I love you.”

“I -”

“I love you.”

“Dominique -”

“I love you, and I have for years. I love you.”

“Then why did you marry Roger?!” You finally explode, and her eyes go wide, before he gaze drops to the counter with shame.

“Because I thought it was what I was meant to do; I cared about him a great deal, but we- we weren’t meant for each other. I don’t love him like I love you and I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”

“I don’t want you to be saying this just because you just broke up with him and you’re looking for a rebound or a safety net,” you admit, and she looks at you with a calculating gaze, understanding your hesitation, “I do love you, Dom, and you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but I don’t want to be with you until you’ve had time to process everything that’s happening. You need time. You’re not in your right mind.”

Dominique swallows hard, nodding very seriously. Her gaze is intense as she watches you get back to making breakfast. Silence hangs in the air, strange, undefinable silence laced with emotions like static electricity. 

“Can I kiss you? Just once?” She asks, and you look at her over your shoulder, spatula in one hand, a warning in your voice when you say her name, “just once.” She promises, eyes wide and the barest of smiles on her lips. You could never say no to that smile. You turn down the stove for just a moment, and step up to the counter, leaning over it to meet her. 

Kissing her feels like coming home and freedom at the same time, and she’s warm when she brings her hand up to your cheek, humming with tentative joy against your lips. When you pull back, you let yourself linger, just inches from her, getting lost in her eyes, in her smile for the barest moment.

“Would you like me to make tea?” She asks, soft, grinning.

“Would love that,” you agree, a little breathless, stepping back to the stove. 

“I don’t...” she paused by the refrigerator, “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to make sense of this, my whole life, I...”

“That’s why we’re waiting; if I’m not what you want, if you go a different direction, if you just wanna be single for a few years and end up meeting someone else, I’ll respect that,” you assure her, “but if I am what you want, Dom I’d wait forever for you.”

[whump-tr0pes]

Honor Bound 2 - 33

This is a series. Start here, continued from here. 

This is a sequel to Honor Bound. 

AO3

Cw: ex-whumper POV, mention of parental death and abuse, fucky (and wrong) thoughts about parental emotional abuse, self-hatred, self-image issues around scars

When Gavin woke in the morning, he had the oddest feeling someone had just been there in the room with him. He looked around blearily, eyes moving around the room, his skin feeling too-tight and warm. Like someone had just touched him. Like he could still feel their hand on his skin.

He rolled to his side, groaning as the motion stretched the still-healing cane marks on his back, and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He scrubbed his eyes with his fists. He felt heavy and slow, exhausted by his night of terrible sleep. Unsettled about the nightmare. Even more so by Isaac’s presence after it.

He didn’t know what to feel about Isaac. What was there to feel about someone good, someone so strong and honest, someone Gavin had hurt so deeply? He still didn��t think he’d broken Isaac. How could he, when he’d seen over and over since he’d found the team how strong Isaac still was? How devoted to his family? To keeping them safe? Broken would have meant Isaac betraying them. Broken would have meant Isaac caring more about keeping himself safe than about his loyalty to them.

Broken couldn’t mean anything else.

But that wasn’t all that Isaac was. He was more than his devotion to his family. So much more than that.

No, Isaac was an entire lifetime of being hurt by the people who should have kept him safe. Isaac was death, and abuse, and pain. Isaac was being trained to be a weapon by the first people to care about him after his dad died. Isaac was desperation. Isaac was protection. Isaac was survival.

Under all that, Isaac was kind. 

After everything I’ve done to him, after everything I’ve done to his family, he still sat with me last night. He still came to me when I woke him up with my screaming, and stayed. 

I’ve been a fucking monster to him and he still at least acted like he cared.

Gavin rolled his neck, blowing out a slow breath. Isaac could have been faking it. Could have been pretending, putting up with Gavin until he thought he could leave without Gavin waking him up again. He could have been coddling Gavin because he thought Gavin needed that now. 

Maybe he thought Gavin was broken now, too. Maybe he thought Gavin was weak.

I mean, shit, I am. 

Despite everything he’d been fucking handed in his life, he couldn’t do what Isaac could do. He couldn’t prioritize other people. He couldn’t push through crazy amounts of pain. He couldn’t single-handedly protect an entire family of people, and ask nothing in return. He couldn’t sacrifice himself the way Isaac had. He couldn’t even sacrifice himself for his own mother. Not even to make her happy. Not even after he killed his own dad, or was responsible enough for it that it didn’t matter.

He couldn’t even stop hurting people, even after seeing they were truly fucking good. He couldn’t stop hurting people just because he wanted mommy and daddy to love him. 

No. It was more than that. He couldn’t stop hurting people because he fucking liked it, and needed his brain scrambled to make him stop. 

After everything Isaac had been through, he’d never become a sadist. After losing both his parents, after being fucking abused by his mother, he still prioritized other people. My parents never abused me. They didn’t exactly love me super well, but they never abused me. 

After being handed everything for his entire fucking life, after only giving up torturing people once the pleasure it gave him had been ripped out of his head with Vera’s teeth, Gavin still couldn’t be as good as Isaac. Sometimes he carried around a hate for himself that went so deep it made his bones ache. Sometimes – like now, his hands pressed to his face, his skin aching in all the places he had hurt and battered and broken Isaac – he felt like nothing. 

But Isaac?

Isaac was everything.

He shook his head to clear that thought. 

Isaac isn’t everything. He’s just one of the first people who’s ever stood up to my bullshit before.

He pushed himself out of bed and stood, swaying for a moment as his head went fuzzy. Ugh. That nightmare fucked me up worse than I thought.

As he crossed to the chest of drawers against the wall, he passed in front of the mirror hanging on the wall. He kept his eyes down like he always seemed to these days. The scars on his face didn’t bother him, he told himself, over and over and over since Isaac had put him in the hospital. Why would they bother him? They made him look sexy. Dangerous. Right?

He ran his hand over his face, his fingers lingering on the slight indentation of a scar across his cheekbone. Across the bridge of his nose. Stretching from the corner of his eye out to his temple. They were so much better than they had been months ago, before the purely cosmetic surgeries had smoothed them out, rearranged his face a little, so it was closer to how it had been before Isaac had fractured Gavin’s skull with his fist. 

He lifted his chin and forced himself to look into the mirror. He forced his eyes to move over the lines on his face, the slightest way his left eye pulled a tiny bit higher than the right at the corner, the scar there puckering his skin. He forced himself to look carefully at the damage Isaac had done so he could save Sam. At the damage he’d been forced to do. At the damage he would never have done, otherwise.

That’s because Isaac doesn’t damage people on purpose.

He pulled his sleeping shirt off over his head and turned away from the mirror, averting his eyes from his body. His body that was completely clear of scars. God dammit. God fucking dammit. Why am I so fucking stuck on this this morning?

He pulled a drawer open and reached for the first thing he saw. He pulled the shirt on over his head. He quickly changed his underwear, and his pants. He turned and put his hand on the doorknob. 

He took a deep breath. He always needed to steel himself before seeing the others. Whether it was Ellis’s glares or Vera’s snarl whenever she talked to him or Isaac’s fucking fear, he always hated the reactions he caused in the others. He wondered, briefly, how long it would take for them to stop seeing the sadist in him, the torturer. How long it would take for them to start seeing the broken fucking idiot he knew he was now. He stood at the door, wearing clothes the others had bartered for from the people who lived in this little town. Even after everything, they were still clothing him. Feeding him. For the most part, including him. He squeezed his eyes shut. Took another deep breath. Pulled the door open.

Immediately the smell of frying bacon and eggs wafted over him. His stomach growled and he licked his lips, head turning in the direction of the kitchen. He closed his door and padded out into the hall. 

As he walked into the kitchen he nearly collided with Edrissa. She squeaked and leaped away from him, all but hiding behind Vera. Vera smirked a little as he walked in and tried to push down her smile. 

The whole family was either packed into the kitchen or seated at the barstools that lined the counter looking in, talking gently and laughing. Isaac and Sam were busy at the stove, cooking breakfast like an industrial machine. Tori was toasting an entire loaf of bread in their small toaster, adding the slices to a plate that was already stacked high. Finn and Ellis were squeezing oranges – real oranges, for Christ’s sake – into a massive pitcher on the counter, a slice in each of their mouths, their lips pulled back over them in giant orange grins. Their faces fell for a moment when Gavin walked in.

He ducked his head. “Um. Good… good morning.”

There was a moment of excruciating silence, the only sound coming from the sizzling food on the stove. The toaster popped up, making all of them jump.

“Morning, Gavin,” Gray said gently from their barstool.

Gavin glanced at them, his eyes jerking back down to the floor as he met their eyes. Every time he looked at them, every fucking time, he felt a sharp lance of guilt, worse almost than when he looked at anyone else. He had shot Gray. With his own hand. With his own gun. And Gray had been the first one to pull Isaac off of him when Isaac had nearly killed him at the safehouse. Gray had been the one to let him grieve his father at the funeral. Gray had been the one to kneel next to Sam in the dirt and comfort him with them for everything he’d lost. 

 He swallowed hard. “Um. Good morning.” 

Sam looked over from where they were stirring some scrambled eggs. “Do you, um, want some coffee?”

Gavin’s face flushed with a mix of shame and gratitude. “Um. Yeah. Thank you. Um…” He lifted his eyes to look around the kitchen. “I could have, um. I’m sorry. I would have, uh, helped, with breakfast, I just didn’t…”

“It’s okay,” Isaac said from where he stood over the pan of bacon. “We wanted to let you sleep. You had a rough night.”

Gavin’s face blushed a furious red. He stared down at the floor, his eyes watering with the depth of his embarrassment. “Oh.” He glanced up in time to catch a look between Isaac and Vera, something on both their faces that he couldn’t read. “Um. Thank you.”

“Now that you’re here, though, lazy-ass, you can set the table.” Vera passed Gavin a stack of plates and silverware. 

Gavin’s fingers fumbled and he nearly dropped the stack. Isaac told them all about my fucking nightmare. He told them I have nightmares about Vera. He told them I’m so fucking weak I asked him to stay, I asked him to stay, why the fuck did I do that…?

He swallowed, looking up at Vera with a hint of terror in his eyes. “Okay.” He walked out of the kitchen to the dining room and set the plates in front of each chair around the two long tables the family had pushed together, end to end. His skin prickled with humiliation as he tried desperately not to imagine everyone’s eyes on his back, imagining them smirking about his nightmare and his fear. He straightened the knives and forks until they were perfectly spaced around the plates, dreading every moment before he would have to face them all around the table, their eyes averted from him, their voices hushed around him… 

Ellis walked by him carrying the pitcher of juice in one hand and some cups in the other. Finn carried some more cups in both hands. Gray came after them, carrying only their own cup. I remember where I shot them. Their wound was worse than mine. 

He walked past the steady stream of the whole family as they filed into the dining room, carrying huge plates of eggs and bacon and toast, laughing, making plans for the day. It’s Sunday, Gavin remembered. That’s why they were eating breakfast together like this. They’d done it that way last Sunday, too. And the Sunday before that.

He walked back into the kitchen to get his own cup of coffee. I should just grab my plate and eat in here. They don’t want to fucking see me. They won’t want me around. Jesus fucking Christ, I wouldn’t want me around… He froze when he realized he was alone in the kitchen with Isaac.

Gavin’s throat got tight with panic and shame as he made his way to the coffee maker. For a moment, he considered turning around and going to his room with his coffee, to emerge when everyone was done. He hoped there would be leftovers.

“What?”

Gavin turned and saw Isaac staring right at him.

Fuck.

Isaac cocked his head, a strange look on his face. “What?” he repeated.

What if I just fucking jumped out the window? I wouldn’t have to talk to him then.

“Um…” Gavin’s voice was shaking. The window was sounding like a better and better idea. “Uh…”

“I didn’t tell them,” Isaac said gently.

The mug in Gavin’s hand clattered to the counter.

Isaac’s eyes flicked to Gavin’s hand and back up to his face. 

“Um…” Gavin’s voice broke. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “W-why not?”

Isaac leaned back against the counter, his eyebrows pulling together. “Why would I?”

“Uh…” The window was right there. “Because… um…”

“I told Vera. But only because I thought it would make her feel better around you.”

Gavin’s face fell into his hands. “Oh, fuck. Oh, no.”

A soft laugh. “She’s not mad.”

“She doesn’t have to be mad, now that she knows, she… she…” Gavin heaved a deep breath. “Oh, fuck.” His head snapped up, a sudden question burning on his tongue. “Did you tell them you… um…”

“...stayed?” Isaac’s gaze was steady on Gavin’s face.

Gavin dropped his head forward. “Yeah.”

Isaac was quiet for so long Gavin thought maybe he hadn’t heard him. He looked up and Isaac was looking at the floor, biting his lip. After another moment, he shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.” Vague relief washed through Gavin’s limbs. 

Isaac looked up at him again. He licked his lips. “You know we aren’t all… waiting for a reason to kick you out, right? Or… or kill you, or something?”

Gavin let out a hysterical peal of laughter. “What?”

Isaac rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean… If you betray us, yeah, we’ll kill you, but…” He waved his hand in the general direction of the dining room. “We aren’t… I mean…” He sighed. “We aren’t all… out to get you, Gavin. We’re not…”

...like me.

“Ellis hates me,” Gavin whispered. “And Vera. And Edrissa. And I understand—”

“Vera doesn’t hate you,” Isaac said.

Gavin scoffed. “Yeah she—”

“She’s my best friend,” Isaac said, his eyes back on Gavin’s face. “I know her better than you do. She doesn’t hate you. She’s wary of you, she’s definitely in line to kill you if you betray us, but she doesn’t hate you.” 

“But I—”

“Gavin…” Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose. “Will you stop being a dumbass for all of two fucking seconds and stop trying to convince me we should all want you dead? We have plenty of reason to, okay? We don’t need you to convince us.” 

Gavin’s mouth snapped shut.

Isaac drew in a deep breath. “Look. This is a weird fucking situation, okay? I get it. Probably weirder for us than it is for you.”

I doubt that.

“But after what you said last night…” Gavin’s face flushed red again at Isaac’s words. Isaac leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t...” Isaac shook his head. “I didn’t know all that. About your parents. About the nightmares. I didn’t realize you, um…” Isaac fell silent. “Anyway. It just… gave me a lot to think about.”

“So… what did you tell them?” Gavin’s voice shook.

Isaac shrugged. “I told them you had a rough night, we talked, and I don’t think you’re gonna hurt us.”

Gavin’s eyes went wide. “You told them we talked?”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t you want them to know that?”

Because if they know we talked they’ll think I’m fucking lying to you. That I’ve tricked you somehow. 

Or maybe they’ll think other things. Gavin wasn’t sure exactly he was scared about the team thinking about what he’d said to Isaac, but… His gut burned faintly with dread.

“I just…” Gavin licked his lips. “I’m just… worried… they won’t trust me.”

“Fuck, Gavin, I don’t think I trust you. But… I do a little more. Now. I guess.”

Gavin’s face fell into his hands. “Oh. Fuck, I… Fuck. I don’t know what to think. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Isaac was quiet for a moment. “This… whatever this is…” Gavin’s head snapped up and he saw Isaac gesturing between Gavin and the dining room. His heart stuttered. “...will be a lot easier if I can trust you, Gavin. I don’t know if I can. Or if I… if I should. But I’m glad we talked last night. I’m glad I know all that about your parents.” A grin flashed across his face. “I’m glad I know you’re scared of Vera.”

“Who fucking wouldn’t be?” Gavin muttered under his breath. He sagged back against the counter. 

Isaac chuckled. “Hell, I’m scared of her.” He shrugged. “We should get to the table. They won’t wait for us and I want there to be food left.” He pushed himself away from the counter and left the kitchen.

Gavin groaned and pressed his face into his hands, bracing his elbows up against the counter. 

Isaac wants to trust me.

Gavin’s chest ached. He wanted Isaac to trust him, more than he wanted almost anything else. 

Continued here

@untilthepainstarts, @womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insomniacscoprio, @cursedscribbles, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word, @slaintetowhump, @finder-of-rings, @cinnamonflavoredhugs, @thatsthewhump, @im-just-here-for-the-whump, @orchidscript

[redevenir]

living alike (pt. i)

joshua x reader

wc : ~ 3800

a/n : It all started with @tearsofsyrup ‘s suggestion for the made-up title fic game and here i am... So thank you! I took the liberty to use the title again, hopefully it’s ok with you? Otherwise just tell me! I have said it before, but I think  shua and dark au... it is the thing, you know. Which is why I strongly encourage you to read paradigm shift (apocalypse au) as well as you hide; i’ll seek (both sexy titles by the way) and to check on these two writers’ other work because they’re excellent.

« I feel entirely dehumanised by the sun now and wish for fog, snow, rain, humanity. » from a letter to Edward Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf.

The soft clunks of water droping from the leaking sink behind you make your hair stand on end. You should be used to it by now, but you aren’t. Like everything else, it makes you uncomfortable. You wanted nothing more than to be buried deep in the swamps of the Administration. Hidden. Except you were a little frog on a desert, except everyone has seen you, and will remember your face. Hiding is no longer an option for you, the only way out is to disappear.

You take one last look at your ransacked room. You break a window for good measure, and head out, living the door open.

The soft thuds of rain against the cars’ glasses. Tight heart, empty lungs, he is the silent audience of an artificial show. A shadow wandering around the streets, the ghost of a ghost. Counting his footsteps. Counting the people on the sidewalk. Counting the cars. Counting the officials around the Prefecture. Thirty more steps to go. Joshua takes a deep breathe into his scarf. It seems no one is paying attention to him. Grey car, blue car. His hands are soaked, buried deep inside the pockets of his rain coat. Nothing can protect him from the summer rains. He takes a brief look above the ground, checks out the position of the sun, goes back to his feet. He needs to move faster. He cannot afford to be out during office hours. Twenty steps. He spots the door to his place and restrains himself from going faster. One excruciating step at a time. All around him, people move, people go from places to places. They listen to the speeches, they read the speeches, they learn the speeches, they believe the speeches. It is already hard for Joshua to breathe, let alone act. A small field mouse trapped in a gigantic machine. There is no room here for him, he feels it, fears because of it. Knows that in an instant everything could spin around him. Field mice are preys. There are so many predators around him, it is only a matter of time. Light turns green, the cars stop. He goes his way. Unsure, uneasy. Five steps. He reaches his door, doesn’t look back, and goes down the stair to his tiny underground studio.

Once he’s inside, finally, he lets out an exhale he didn’t notice he was holding. Double locks his door, puts the chair against it, and turns the light on. Here, underground, there is no sun light to warm up the air. He crosses the only room as he gets undressed, leaving his soggy coat for the clamminess of his quarter, and rummages through his clothes to find a change, replaying his stroll of the day. Nothing new. They are still agitated. Until they calm down there is no need to contact anyone, he decides. He reheats some unsavory stew for the fifth time this week, cleans up his plate, and crashes on the single bed, hoping for time to pass quickly.

He spends an agitated day, running after sleep, running from his thoughts. Even though he never sleeps well, there is always a part of him which foolishly hopes for a good rest. Remembering the kind of sleep he relished as kid, when he didn’t have to think about falling asleep. When laying down in bed was enough to dive deep in a warm unconsciousness, full of foolproof dreams. No matter where his drowsy mind takes him, he feels overwhelmed, on the edge of being assaulted. Faceless and formless assailants gathering in the dark to slaughter him.

Rising up, he picks a bottle of drinking water, ignores the remnants of the garbage stew, plans his wandering for tonight. He never follows the same path twice, in case someone might notice him. He puts on his parka which hasn’t dried, shivers when it brushes against his neck. There is nothing to do about it. Most of the time, Joshua tries to ignore his apartment. It is a disgusting place, filthy the minute he finishes to clean up. It is never warm, nor dry, nor hot. He never sees the light of day, never feels a breeze, for there are no windows down there. It is the best he can afford this close of the Great Palace. A miserable rat hole, nothing close to a nice burrow. It is the price to pay for a night cashier to get involved in bigger schemes. His eyes are priceless now that he has sold their sight. It is the only comfort he has found in doing so. The thrill of being useful – for whom? He has no right to know. But every morning after his shift, he goes out for his stroll, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and when there is, he reports it. One of them comes to the shop every week. Usually, though, Joshua tells nothing to his contact. Things do not change that often. But recently there has been movement. Why, he does not know, but they’ve been agitated, walking faster. Even though no one, of course, will tell him why, he knows something has happened. Something bad enough to be noticeable, bad enough that there has been no announcement on TV.

This is life now, he knows. Waiting and waiting and waiting for something which might never come. Joshua hesitates, then goes out without looking back. Maybe today, he’ll see something worth reporting. It’s raining as usual, but the sun is still up, somewhere behind the gray sky. The street lamps are not lighten yet. As usual, he goes right, then waits for the traffic lights to let him cross. He could not live closer to the supermarket, yet the path still bothers him – the ugliness of the streets, the noises of the city, the sickening smell of corruption and silent violence. He goes his way to the store, spends his night registering meaningless shop lists for night owls craving sugar or salt. His curved lips draw an empty smile to every customer while his mind goes through various scenarios of what might bother the authorities. He has no clue. What could indeed bother them? He is as ignorant when his shift ends as he was when it began. It is not a life. He could find out more, if he were a bit more audacious. But any step out of his supposed way is a risk he might pay with his life. Maybe, walking around the Palace’s streets is enough for now.

He puts his hands deeper in his pockets and waits for the lights to turn green. From the corner of his eyes, he notices a figure running in his direction. They storm before him, and throw themselves on the road. The sound of the car hitting your body is horrifying.

You spend an eternity drowning. Lungs full of mud, every living minute is a suffocation. The crushing weight of an undisturbed blackwater river is grinding your bones into mush, entangled between the roots of indifferent trees. You barely see the light, on the rare moments you emerge from your drowning, vision blurred by silt burning your eyes. You fight and you fight, and every new moon, every new tide brings you a new death.

In flashes you see faces, and you try to remember who pushed you into the river. A thin string of lost rooms and half forgotten conversations torments you, sending you in every direction. You lose yourself into a labyrinth of bewildered and electrifying memories. You try to scream for help but the dark water suffocates you more.

You cease to fight.

You let yourself flow, descending quietly in the abyss, a faint contentment when you touch the ground. An unusual corpse for shellfish and crustaceans to feast on. The soft pulse of your heart clawing his way out of your defeated chest. Far above you, you feel the lazy current going its way, ignoring you. There, cocooned in a silence older than a lifetime, it is easier for memories to come back to you. Faint lights above the school’s playground, burnt smells from the overcooked plum jam, a terrifying voice on the intercom freezing you to the core. You remember the pointy hat of the master, the piles of administrative sheets in his warm office, its walls painted of a deep, ancient red. You remember his whispers in your ears, which you tried so hard to ignore. His discreet threats disguised as indecent offers. Your remember going for his grocery shopping every four days, in the late hours of the quiet city. You remember knocking one of the piles over, and reading them against your best will. A pale breeze of rage brushes your cheek, unable to harm you.

You remember taking it with you, the vivid proof of the crime, on a hasty decision. You remember destroying your dorm. You remember the streets.

The moment you wake up you immediately regret it.

Every inch of your body is aching a thousand burn. You cannot open your eyes, the throb in your head makes you nauseous. Your throat is parched, and the feeble whine you manage to cry out is a pain in itself. Miles away you feel movement, in the distance you hear a voice filled with concerned, asking you words which you can’t separate from each other. It seems a worried litany of disquiet. Suddenly you feel cold and wet on you forehead, a divine relief to the pounding. The voice comes closer and takes your hand. You feel your hand. You have a hand. Panic rushes through your body like it never felt it, you try to move away, to get out, how can it touch you, what is touching you when you can’t even feel yourself?

Weirdly the voice seems to understand. It becomes quieter, soothing almost, ushering things you don’t understand, but it appeases you nonetheless. You feel it close to your hear, you feel its breathe against you. You’re sensitive and it has you tensed immediately, but it doesn’t last for long. A few seconds, the promise of safety. You pass out again.

The next time you wake up, everything is much clearer. You manage to open your eyes despite the soreness of your head. What you see when you do has you freezing up again, afraid you might have lost part of your sight. It is all black and gray. Gray ceiling above your head, a worrisome pattern of cracks. Gray walls, empty of any embellishment. Even the duvet cover is a dirty white. You try to straighten yourself, leaning on your elbow. It has you wincing but it is worth it. You take in your surrounding, even in the darkness of the unlit room. Someone has put your right leg into a splint of fortune, and did the same to your right elbow. You hold your breathe a minute, until you are assured to be alone. Nothing about it is familiar. There is a strong smell of menthol ointment that might come from you – the scent is overwhelming, and you cannot be sure. Your attempt to sit properly ends up worsening the piercing pain in your brain, and you resolve to wait until someone brings you water or food. Without any indication of the passing of time, you lose all notion of it, examining each clue of the room. You have never come here, and it makes you uneasy. You are facing the door and it reassures you a bit, whoever comes here will not have you at their mercy. At last, you hear the creaking of a key into its hole, which makes your heart racing. The door opens behind you in a squeak.

The man is tall, his shoulders wide as he bends a bit to come inside. The youth of his face strikes you the most. He might not be older than you are – and you are rare. The both of you belong to the last generation of children – it is also why, now that all of you are grown-ups, the officials are monitoring each and every one of you carefully. The last trace of unpredictability in the country. And, well, looking at the current situation, maybe they are right. It takes him a while to notice you, and you quietly observe him locking the door, putting a chair against it. Breathing, eyes closed, he relaxes before you. When he turns around, you see him immediately checking on the mattress – checking on you. And his face lightens up when he sees you facing him, rushing to you.

« Oh! You’re up! Are you okay? Do you need anything? Water? Hungry? Space? He chuckles. Take your time, he adds with a smile. » He exudes relief. Your throat hurts too much, so you mimic drinking and he’s on it, handing you a full glass of water. Then you point at him.

It is not going well. Your convalescence is endless. Your are weak and shattered to unclean pieces and every morning he comes back from work wondering if you will still be in this coma or if he’ll have to dispose of your body. In retrospect, it was a mistake, but even though he thinks it over again and again he does not see any other outcome. He would never have left you there to rot. What if you weren’t doomed to die? Suicide is forbidden by law. You are suffering enough as it is, despite Joshua’s best efforts to take care of you, he cannot even imagine the tortures the officials would have given you, had they been the ones to find you.

Yet here you are, at the end of a frustrating shift and a lousy stroll. Sitting up in his bed, watching him coming back. An unmatched joy floods through his body as he comes to you, taking a good look at your conscious face. A belligerent stranger, eyes empty and circled of mauve. Clearly distressed and looking weak. Joshua thinks that you being awake is a wonder, he remembers the poor bag of raggedy bones and torn flesh you were when you arrived. When he brought you to his basement. The clothes he has given you hide most of your skin, but he knows your body looks just like your face. A battlefield of bruises and scars and a timestamp to the day you met. For weeks, he has imagined what your first words would be, were you to wake up. What you would do, what your voice would sound like. He would fall asleep to the sound of your haunting rattles next to him, praying they wouldn’t stop before his wake. Nonetheless he has outdone himself. He has brought you back to life. You look bad, but you’re looking at him and he can’ t help but smile in satisfaction. When you point your finger at him, two things hit him.

You can’t talk and you haven’t lived with him for the past week. You know nothing. You don’t know him. He feels foolish to realize it just now. He sits down by your side, filling up an another glass for you. Ponders a bit – in your place, what would be his priorities ? But you’ve thrown yourself under a car and he never has, so he has no fucking clue.

« All right then I’m Joshua. I live here, obviously. Alone. Well, not anymore, since you’ve been there for a while now – the surprise in your eyes aggrieves him. I work at a supermarket down the grand avenue. I brought you here after you… You know. Wait, do you remember what happened to you? You answer him a simple nod. Okay, then, this car hit you, and, well, I brought you back here. You forget your soar throat but he doesn’t need to hear you to read the only word on your lips.

«Well… I know, I know, we are not supposed to interfere but… His eyes roam you, looking for all the mending he has done you. His voice is only a whisper when he finishes his sentence. How could I leave you there? » You clear your throat with pain. Clearly, the water did you do good. Joshua looks up eagerly, to see what you might say first.

«Who else knows I’m here? » Your words are a cold shower. You don’t trust him one bit. He tries to reassure himself, of course you don’t, you’ve just met him.

« Only this one guy – you scoff. I’m serious! There was barely anyone that day and, the driver died, I believe. I didn’t stay to check on him. But, turns out, something else happened that day and we managed to… slip through the cracks, I guess. »

«What? What happened? » He picks his words carefully.

« Someone bombed the Blue Palace. » You remain silent at first. Eyes closed, you take a deep breathe, then another one, until you look at him again, your facial expressions are still too knew you for him to read them. So he asks you. «What? What? »

« You’re saying someone fired a bomb on the Blue Palace? Quick, the shadow of a smile crosses your face. You close your eyes once again, licking your lips as if it’ll help you collect your thoughts. A bomb. On a palace. A bomb. On the exact day I had an accident? He hums in agreement. You lay back on the wall – he hadn’t even noticed how you had bent yourself closer to him, eager for news. Who did it? »

« I don’t know. »

«Wait, you’re saying someone attacked the blues and they haven’t been caught? »

« I don’t know, that’s what I’m saying. You may have not noticed yet, he gives a brief look around him. But I have no TV here. All I know is that they haven’t made any announcement about it. But if you ask me… » He bites his lips, unsure how much he can tell you yet. You give him a short moment, expecting him to go on. You let out a sigh when he doesn’t.

« Listen, Joshua – that’s it, right? From what I see, you could be sentenced to death as much as I do. I have spent hours in the dark, waiting for someone to show up. I don’t care if you did it, I don’t care if you work for the Palace, but please give me something. I need to know. » He comes closer to you.

« I think they have no idea who did it. They’ve been on the lookout for weeks. If they knew, there is no way someone could hide from them that long. He stays quiet, letting you register the information. And I didn’t do it, I swear. »

« I’ve been there... for weeks? » There is no use in lying to you but he hears the miserable realization in your tone and his heart aches too.

« Seven, to be precise. You’ve been really sick, you know. I patched you up as good as I could, and goodness! That DK guy knows a thing or two but even he can’t put a splint on your ribs. You say nothing. You don’t have to tell me everything, but I think it’s better to tell you right now. You… Said things when you were sick, he says. You work, hm, worked for the governor. You were his maid or something. You did his groceries. I have seen you before. » He is not asking.

« That’s right. » You ignore the elephant in the room that is the question on the tip of Joshua’s tongue. Maybe it is too soon. Maybe he doesn’t need to know now. Maybe your action was self-explanatory enough, and the details don’t matter. For today, Joshua decides he won’t push you.

« Who’s that guy you mentioned? » The way you don’t miss a word he says reassures Joshua – at least your head is fine.

« DK? He’s… Well, I don’t know much about him, I give him my reports. » You frown.

« What reports? You need to make report at a grocery shop? »

« I… Joshua shifts. It is going too fast to his liking. You should take it slow, and so should he. He wished to get to know you, and to make both of your comfortable before diving into such matters. He takes a deep breathe. I… Watch the Palace. Well, no, he stutters, I, hm, well, I go for walks around the Palace. Every day. Well, I work night shifts, so, after that, I go for walks. Every morning. And, hm, once a week, more or less, someone comes to the supermarket, and if I’ve seen something interesting I tell them. Usually it’s DK but sometimes someone else comes. I asked him for help when I saw how sick you were. » You chew the inside of your lips for a while and just when you’re about to speak again you close your mouth right away. This goes on for a few minutes, until you hum in acknowledgment. The silence between the two of you is only broken when Joshua hears your stomach grumble and jumps on his feet. « You should have said something! Of course you’re hungry! » He walks the few steps separating him from the cooking area of his quarter – he decided long ago he could not give the name kitchen to it. Kitchens were warm and full of promises. This was neither, just enough to eat some tasteless soups. He swears to himself he feels you watching him as he fumbles in his cupboard. When he turns back to ask if the soup is indeed fine for you, he notices the life back on your cheeks.

You eat dinner together for the first time. It is not quite lively but it is comforting and Joshua pretends he doesn’t notice the few quiet tears on your cheeks as you savor it. You fall asleep shortly after and as usual he lies down by your side, replaying his day.

No one can ever find out about you, he realizes. Not the officials, not his contact. He is playing a wild card which could backfire in so many wrong ways. The easiest way out would be to run away from the city, but it would involve so many people just to get you out, not to mention he has no idea of what he might find there. Joshua is dubious, but even he somehow believes the Palace’s tales. Maybe it is just a desert outside. Then what? What good would it do to them, to die of ignorance on foreign lands ? How much better would it be, to make all this vain efforts, when you might as well be sentenced to a much quicker death, without the discomfort of plotting an escape? Even if it is miserable, and he has even less room that before, Joshua still finds it better to sleep in his own bed. He is good at keeping secrets anyway.

Times passes slowly.

[loyalflutist]

How Lovely Would it be For This Moment to Last Forever (F!Byleth x Edelgard)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Archive Warning: Major Character Death Category: F/F Relationship: F!Byleth x Edelgard Summary:  "How lovely would it be for this moment to last forever?" Edelgard has said this phrase twice in her life. Both times they were to her professor, Byleth. What significance could this saying have on their life?

A/N: Got too excited about the game and how you could date Edelgard as the female Byleth, so I ended up writing this yesterday. Some things may be inaccurate since I haven’t played the game obviously and it hasn’t dropped yet. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do writing it!

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After the last class was over, many students from all three houses scrambled out of the room. The Black Eagles were not immune to its effect either. Their chatters, their laughter, and their stature brightened. They can finally leave! Then again, not only was it a Friday, but today’s lessons felt as if it dragged on forever.

A lengthy lecture on advanced tactical commands and the importance of teamwork were more than enough to drone anyone to sleep despite Byleth’s best effort. It was a dry topic. Extremely dry. Even Byleth herself wouldn’t want to teach it to her students! She had paused several times during the lesson to stifle a yawn! Alas, she and the other professors had built the core curriculum. She could not avoid her responsibilities.

At least the hard part is over. Now all that was left is to tidy up the shared classroom, gather the worksheets that she ordered the students to leave on the teacher’s desk, and trudge back to her office. From there, Byleth would be able to grade some of their assignments and prepare herself for an eventual staff meeting on tomorrow’s practical exercise on the field with the other professors. That doesn’t even include any students hanging behind that might need elaboration on any concept they have or haven’t learned… or any professors and staffs that need assistance. Not to mention Byleth needs to find a gift for Edelgard since it is her birthday today…

A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face as her shoulders slumped. There was so much to do. Last time she checked, being a mercenary was supposed to be harder than a professor! She was so used to being part of a group and following her father’s orders. Now she has a bunch of children and young adults to guide and pass her knowledge. Had it not been a special power that she possessed, Byleth wouldn’t have had her application as a potential instructor rejected. She would outright be banned from nearing the institution!

Byleth snagged one of the two erasers and proceeded to remove the chalky text on the blackboard. If there was anything that she got out of this experience, it was the fact that she was able to meet with new people.

“How lovely would it be for this moment to last forever.”

The eraser pressing against the blackboard paused mid-sentence. Byleth glanced over her shoulders. Edelgard had a textbook and notebook in one hand, and another hand resting on her hip. One of the three well-known nobles in the academy, she naturally exerts a sense of royalty far above Byleth. Though dignified and talented, it was rare for the noble to drop ambiguous remarks. The older female returned her attention to tidying as she questioned,

“Is there something troubling you, Edelgard?”

Edelgard’s eyes lowered, her breath caught in her throat. There was a pregnant pause. Eventually, she faintly smiled and approached the blue-haired.

“Just thinking about the future, professor.” The student rested her supplies on the desk’s surface. Using both palms of her hands, she somewhat sat on the edge of the wooden furniture as she observed her instructor. “We live in a time of peace. Dimitri, Claude, and I are training to become future leaders for our nation, but we are still young and inexperienced.”

“Inexperienced? Don’t downgrade your skills,” Byleth chuckled. “You’re anything but inexperienced, especially in live combat.”

The white-haired couldn’t resist a grin and brushed stray locks of white hair over her shoulder, her body temperature increased.

“I retract my earlier statement then.”

“Good.”

Although Byleth did not push the conversation further, she was curious about the earlier lamentation from Edelgard. Unlike a certain professor who did not know basic common courtesies in socialization with students, she held her tongue and waited for another response. It paid off as Edelgard’s grin faltered. The young lady redirected her gaze at the older female. She opened her mouth, but nothing delivered. She clamped her jaw shut. Her eyes wandered. Then, Edelgard tried again once her eyes found themselves landing on Byleth again.

“Byleth.” Byleth slowed her motion. It was uncommon for any students to call their professor by their first name. Most students who dared to informally call their professors by their names were playful in nature. For Edelgard, she had only done so when all jokes are off the table. “How long do you think this moment will last?”

“That’s hard to say.”

A single moment can’t last forever for sure unless one had the ability to freeze time. It’s a rather morbid question to ask. No matter the circumstances, there is always a sorrowful answer that accompanies such curiosity. Even Byleth finds it disheartening. A faint hum escaped from the ex-mercenary’s throat. That seems to have perked Edelgard’s ears.

“Edelgard,” Byleth lowered the eraser. She turned around to properly face the noble. As her student pushed herself away from the furniture, the instructor walked up to the shorter female and extended a hand outward. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

Special treatments were given to certain students. Dorothea and Ferdinand were ones she invites to private tea parties for casual socialization. She too invited Edelgard multiple times for tea. But for dinner? Could it be fashioned the same way as lunch at the cafeteria? The young noble gave a slight tilt of her head.

“Are you joining us for tonight then?”

Byleth shook her head.

“I would like to invite you to have a private dinner with me at my office.”

Private dinner? Now THAT is something Edelgard hasn’t seen before. Wait, could this be something that she’s always fantasized? Her stomach fluttered at the idea. Is this…

“…a date?”

Oh GOD, she had just blurted it out. The short female’s knees felt weak at the horror. The reaction? Her instructor had blinked. The noble could not help but catch the outreached hand stiffen. Edelgard had forced every fiber of her being to keep her facial muscles from showing signs of disappointment.

Perhaps her teacher had thought differently. Maybe she should have dismissed the reply and deny it anything more than a jest. Though they had spent plenty of time together, it would be a blunt lie to say that the young adult is not starting to develop an innocent crush towards Byleth. She tried to shoo it away and think of it as nothing more than a nuisance. It only serves as a nuisance the more she resisted instead.

Every single time a male student tried to flirt with Byleth, it evoked irritation in the normally stoic female. Every single time she found herself complimented by Byleth, her body would become still, pupils dilated, and cheeks flushed. Every single time Byleth would enter the room, her conversation with her classmates would trail off and she would lose complete interest in their interactions. Every single time Byleth asked a personal question, Edelgard’s voice unintentionally cracked if taken off guard. Every single time she was alone with Byleth, she would ask subtle questions about her mentor.

When did she start to develop this complicated emotional attachment towards her professor? It couldn’t have been the first time they’ve met. Byleth may have saved Edelgard’s life from a bandit slicing her apart with an axe, but Byleth, to gently put it, was extremely inexperienced when it came to teaching methods. Edelgard and many of her comrades were unimpressed with their new teacher’s instructions—or rather, lack of one. The first month was a complete nightmare. Had it not been for Byleth’s position as a professor, Edelgard would have used her noble status to boot Byleth back to her old mercenary life!

But over time, Edelgard saw how hard of a worker Byleth truly is. She was the only professor to work overtime for her students. She was the only professor that lent a hand with students from other houses. She was the only professor to take excruciating time to plan and make sure every single student comes out alive from the battlefield. Byleth was the only one who took time out of her life to get to truly know her students, especially Edelgard.

She could never forget the time when she wrongfully blamed Byleth for the emotional anguish she received from the empire. It was one of the weakest moments she had ever shown to the public. The young lady stormed out during a private examination. She never came back to complete it. Byleth had every right to snap back at Edelgard. She had every right to punish Edelgard for her misdemeanor. She had every right to expel Edelgard. Instead, Byleth spent the entire WEEK alleviating the noble of her pain. The examination was rescheduled. They also went fishing, shopping, and had a tea party together. Sure, Byleth neglected the other students, but the instructor’s eyes were only on Edelgard.

“I’m always here for you, Edelgard.”

Byleth is the definition of perfection. Thus, that led to the current inner calamity of falling for her professor. It didn’t help that same-sex relationships were uncommon these days. Should word travel that Edelgard likes women, her empire would turn their backs against her in less than a second! That’s an even more depressing thought! Right now, this is simply a hopeless, one-sided feeling Edelgard suffers silently from.

In spite of the noble's angst, Byleth isn’t that oblivious to her students. Having spent time with them for months, she knows them all too well. Thankfully, her reaction was genuine, though more from shock than from disgust. The green-haired decided to reach out and grab Edelgard’s somewhat-moist hand rather than wait around. This action startled the Adrestian Empire noble.

“B-Byleth?”

A small smirk from the older female. Soon, she leaned down to plant a kiss on the back of Edelgard’s held hand. A fitting scene between a noble and a commoner.

“If you would like to think of this as a date, I don’t mind. I’m sure we have plenty to talk about over dinner. Besides…” Byleth straightened her posture and squeezed Edelgard’s hand. The formal composure the teacher always wore washed away with her contrasting witty attitude. “You’re turning 18 today, am I right?”

“That’s… right…”

If there’s something Edelgard wants to do, it’s to calmly part from her professor for a minute, walk to the nearest cliff, and holler about how stupid she is. How could she have forgotten her birthday?! Her comrades and rivals showered her with small gifts and warm wishes, but they were all over by the early morning. A party had been held at midnight with the Black Eagles to commemorate another year in her life. The students enjoyed fine cake and desserts throughout the night. Once classes were in session the next morning, she automatically had turned off all thoughts about luxury and leisure associated with her personalized holiday. What she had forgotten was whether Byleth had celebrated the special occasion with her or not.

Her face burned up from Byleth remembering the occasion. Though in all honesty, this would buy her some time to plan and give the gift to Edelgard. No shame in delaying the delivery, right? On the other hand, this would also provide additional insight into Edelgard’s feelings towards her. Though Byleth never went out of her way to formulate any romantic feelings towards her colleagues and students, she never really thought too hard about what the students would think of her. Whether Edelgard’s feelings towards her was nothing more than a young adult’s lust or desire to become a significant pair is up for speculations. She had just turned 18, after all. The dinner tonight should clear up any misconceptions they may hold.

“The day is long, Edelgard,” Byleth finally released her hold on the noble. A weary twinkle shone as she circled her index finger in the air. “School may be over, but I still have much to do. Let’s meet at my office tonight, okay?”

Edelgard began to play with her hair as Byleth gathered her belongings, the temperature beneath her cheeks having spiked.

“Okay.”

The plan had been set. Now the two can only wait for tonight—and prayers be sent to Byleth as a glance on the nearby wooden clock alarmed her of an upcoming staff meeting. Smoke trailed right behind her heels as she fumbled out of the classroom and into the hallway. Once the ex-mercenary left the area, Edelgard could not help but cover her mouth and whispered, “She’s so cute” under her breath.

A date. She was actually invited on a date with Byleth! It might just be an excuse to celebrate her birthday, but it’s still a date, right? A private one-on-one dinner with her teacher! What should she wear for the occasion? Her school’s uniform outfit? Or maybe something a bit fancier? There is that red dress she’s always hidden in her closet for an exceptional event. What else should she prepare? Wait—it’s her birthday, so is there really anything for her to prepare? Maybe her usual “thank you” speech she gives to those that wished her well for the new year? No… it has to be special. But she doesn’t have to say or do anything, right? Just show up to Byleth’s office and enjoy each other’s company—Though why the heck did Byleth choose her office?

So many questions swimming around in her head and Edelgard feels as though her skull might crack! From the distant, a small number of her classmates all peered from the hallway and into the classroom. The sight of their upcoming lord clutching her head as though she were frustrated is a sight to behold!

“So, she’s definitely got the hots for the teach, huh,” Ferdinand smirked. “Looks like I got a little competition going on with the professor…”

“Ferdinand! Is that all you got in that thick skull of yours?” Dorothea harshly whispered back. “Just because you’re her rival doesn’t mean you should butt into their budding relationship!”

“Lady Edelgard is… in love with another woman… let alone that of our professor…?” Hubert grasped ahold of his own head, his eyes wide and jaw slacked. “I… don’t know what to say…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be her undying loyal servant to her, Hubert?” Petra raised an eyebrow. “Besides, don’t you think you shouldn’t make it so obvious since it’ll hurt her reputation?”

They mumbled amongst themselves, but they made quick haste from the hallway as soon as Edelgard decided to leave the room. Of course, the upcoming lord’s mind is far too occupied with tonight’s reservation. She’s only got one shot at this and anything short of excellence is a failure to her.

“Let’s hope I make it in time tonight—Wait, the professor didn’t mention what time I should be meeting with her!”

Ugh, maybe she should just head over to the office once the sunsets. If there’s anything she would like to change in Byleth, it’s the fact that Byleth can be disorganized.

Spoiler alert: it was actually Byleth who was late to the untimed dinner date. Not only did she earn a scolding from her superior and father earlier that day in the staff meeting, but she also earned herself an earful from the well-kempt and dressed Edelgard.

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[ TIME SKIP ]

Ever since they’ve graduated, many things had happened and Byleth had not seen Edelgard since then. Although it was natural for a teacher to miss her student, it was another matter to miss your significant other. From the day they had a private dinner together during the last hours of Edelgard’s birthday, the once-young noble poured out her feelings for the others. It was less elegant and more like torrential rain. Regardless, Byleth had played along in hopes of helping Edelgard sort through her emotions. It might just be youth chewing at their lust and desire for others.

Time told them otherwise, especially for Byleth. Edelgard’s feelings had grown even stronger, and it even sparked something in the instructor. Not that their relationship was that unknown in the first place with the Black Eagles. Hubert did his best to shield the two from the public, but word travels fast in the house. Almost everyone knew about it! The two were in a fleeting, but also scandalous relationship. Pain have accompanied them and that is evident by the countless headbutts they’ve had against one another. It was almost a daily occurrence that they were so different from each other!

That did not mean it wasn’t also filled with passion and good memories sprinkled in between though. They were experts in battle and filled in the gaps for each other. Outside of the academy’s ground, they held hands and treated each other with great respect. Obviously, they were far more discrete on school ground to prevent unnecessary attention. A quick peck on the cheek and flirtatious phrases sweetly whispered into each other’s ears were exchanged. Then, on rare nights, they showered each other in love. Sometimes, they gently embraced each other. Other times, they ravaged like beasts in heat.

Did they regret it? Absolutely not. Byleth had always reminded Edelgard of her bravery in starting their relationship. If the student hadn’t done so, then they wouldn’t be like they are now. They would have never gotten together. Byleth might have been in a relationship, if any, with someone else other than Edelgard. Edelgard would have been left with a bitter feeling of unrequited crush—or unrequited love towards her professor.

But all good things must come to an end. Graduation came and Edelgard had to return to her empire. It was an already pre-determined decision in part with her nation. Their last interaction was at Byleth’s office. They had their last tea together and reminisce the previous years.

“I will return here someday, my teacher,” Edelgard intertwined her fingers with Byleth’s, her eyes longing for more time. “Promise me that you won’t forget me.”

Byleth leaned in to press her lips against Edelgard’s. The ex-mercenary’s eyes twinkled as she murmured, “I promise. I’ll be waiting for you.”

They eventually saw each other. At the age of 25, Edelgard met with her professor once again.

“How lovely would it be for this moment to last forever.”

Those were the same words Edelgard had spoken of back when she was a student. Now, she said them as a true lord.

She guides her people to victory and easily wage skirmishes without blinking an eye. The confident and proud female shines brighter than ever in the face of conflict. Yet she was not as noble as she originally envisioned. Her nation facing off against her old rivals, Dimitri and Claude, in a bloody war painted their once-pure, pristine goals and accomplishments for a better future into a complex mess. Each one of the three wanted nothing more than to uphold their ideologies. Unlike their young selves who would bicker and eventually fall into a compromise, none dare give up their aggressive persuasions. It’s either do or die. One ideology must dominant others.

Those earlier words were tainted with sorrow and irony towards her professor. Dimitri’s spear tip protruded through Byleth’s chest. Countless arrows from Claude’s precise aim riddled Byleth’s back. A fine axe marked with Edelgard’s crest dug itself into Byleth’s side. Their professor, who had once instructed them in the Officer’s Academy, stood between the three warriors. All three of their expressions twisted in pure horror at the sight of their signature weapons skewering, puncturing, and digging into the very person they’ve respected.

She had dropped her sword. Bloodstains sport her dark academic attire. Broken bones are to be expected from the damages she’s received. Her vision became spotty, blackness threatening to overshadow her consciousness. The pain was unbearable. Yet she stood before her three graduated students. Byleth did not fall. She even reached for the axe and tore it off of her own body! The entire battlefield was blanketed with silence, save it for the low rumbling of the distant thunders from the dark cloud overhead.

A shaky exhale. Crimson red trickled from both corners of her lips as she stumbled forward from her wounds. First, Byleth approached the lord from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Dimitri, with his rugged attire and cruel exterior, reverted to his younger self in the presence of his teacher. His mouth dried as he began to gasp for air. The fearsome mentor that stood against all odds had done so once again. He couldn’t even take a step backward once Byleth closed their distance.

“Dimitri, you must remember to stand by your conviction.”

The now-shorter female out of the three extended her hand. Dimitri nearly slapped it away. It reminded him of the very hand that took his eye away. He managed to resist the temptation as the somewhat warm palm rested on his cheek. Byleth gave a weak smile.

“I always knew… you’ve been a good boy.”

Compliments. Ah—When was the last time he had heard of praises? When he brutally slaughtered his enemies in the name of his ideology? Or was it when he tortured war prisoners who refused to betray their nation? Maybe it was that one time he refused to die when he lost his eye?

Tears began to secrete from his exposed lacrimal gland. Dimitri tried to blink them away. More tears sprouted and were shed. He lowered his head, leaving Byleth’s hand hanging, and felt his chest heave. His knees gave way until his hands pressed against the earthly soil. A loud outcry came from him as he clawed at the grasses.

“Teach--! I—I’m so sorry!”

If she had the energy, Byleth would have bopped him on the head for being such a crybaby. Instead, she whispered, “I forgive you.”

Then, the instructor agonizingly shifted her focus onto the lord of the Leicester Alliance. Unlike Dimitri, Claude had taken a couple of steps backward. He shook his head like a terrified child. His leg muscles had tightened, ready to pounce out of the field. Claude didn’t want to do anything with his old mentor. He didn’t want to face Byleth. That didn’t stop Byleth from coming towards him, of course. She had to pause after the second step, the weight of the pinned weapons affecting her speed and balance. The shadows underneath her eyes darkened as she coughed up blood, its metallic substance dripped down onto the moist patch of grasses.

She raised her head and, surprisingly, cracked a forced grin. She may have not been at close proximity to physically touch Claude, but she left it at that. His constant shaking of the head, his lips pursed from holding back a scream or cry, and white-knuckled grip on his bow… The poor lord looked like he could have a mental breakdown if she got any closer.

“Claude, you must remember to be true to yourself.”

“…”

He wasn’t responding much. It was a typical reply from Claude whenever someone hit the mark. Byleth could not help but allow a soft chuckle.

“I’m sure Dimitri… and Edelgard would appreciate your hidden wisdom.”

“…Teach...”

All he could do was call by her title. Just like Dimitri, Byleth was someone dear to him. Even though she taught for the Black Eagles, she had always been by his side when it matters. She was the only one who saw through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head. By this time, droplets of rain began to fall upon the land. The soldiers in the background glanced up at the sky as another thunder rumbled. That didn’t stop Byleth from reaching out to the last of the trio.

“Edelgard…”

This one was the toughest for Byleth. She hardly got a step in before her knees gave in. Edelgard caught her teacher just in the nick of time with a single swoop of her arms. The now-taller female gently flipped her professor upright, laying in her grasp. If Byleth could make her usual witty remark right about now, she would tease about how princely the grown woman became. It was replaced with another cough. The blood continued to leak from her mouth as she struggled to speak.

“You must remember… to allow change to happen.”

A pause. Afterward, she croaked.

“Edel… You’ve grown so much.”

Byleth fought to raise her bruised hand up. The light behind her lens dimmed with a morbid comment.

“Where did you go, Edel?”

Edelgard immediately took ahold of the weak hand and pressed it against her own face. She stifled her cries, the floodgates unable to hold back the tears rolling down her cheeks. The lord nestled on the growing cold part of her professor.

“I’m right here, Byleth.”

Her instructor blinked. She lost the ability to search for her alumni. The darkness shrouded her vision, the gods granting her the ability to partially hear and feel in her final moment. Then, the corner of her lips pulled upward.

“You came back.”

Edelgard bit the bottom of her lip. She knew what her teacher would say next. If anything, the best thing she can do is simply mourn. The young woman buried her face into Byleth’s uninjured shoulder and sobbed. As seconds ticked by, the other two lords knew that her time was expiring. Their tears shared the same reason as their old rival’s. Dimitri tore a chunk of grass from the soil as another strangled outcry came from his direction. Claude smacked his knuckles against his own forehead, concealing one eye as he whimpered. Byleth blinked one last time and exhaled.

“I… have always loved you. Please… don’t fight anymore, Edel.”

Whether her students followed through with her advice is up for debate. However, Byleth knew for sure that she accomplished her job as a teacher. If anything, she’s taught them all she could, especially to the very person she loves, Edelgard. In the background, Sothis watched the entire scene unfold. She shook her head and turned her back towards the four warriors.

“You chose not to reverse time, didn’t you, Byleth? I wonder if that’s for the best…”

[taehyungiesnoona]

01 | radiance

⇢ summary:  You never had a purpose in life. The night you decided to end it all, you encounter a ray of sunshine that makes you question your way of thinking. Jung Hoseok’s smile is the reason you’re decide to give life a try again.  

⇢ pairing: female reader x Hoseok

⇢ genre: angst,soulmate!hoseok

⇢ rating: SFW

⇢ warnings: minimal use of profanity, depression, attempted suicide, Hobi’s smile (yes I’m included this as a warning because we all know what his smile does to us)  

⇢ word count : 4k 

⇢ A/N: This idea came to me on my way to work and I had to make it a reality. This may be a little darker than what you may be used to seeing in my writing but as I’ve stated many times, I’m trying to write things a bit out of my comfort zone. I hope you enjoy. Happy Reading~

Chapters 01 || 02

»»———— CHAPTER ONE ————-««

Nothing ever mattered.

You were never happy with your life. You never could understand why. Since you were a child, you constantly thought this way. Multiple therapy sessions, several medications you were put on, none of it seemed to work.

Your parents always questioned what they could have done wrong in raising you. For someone who has so much potential in life, why did you only think of the negative? Why did you have nothing to live for?

When you were in elementary school, it was implanted in all the heads of your kindergarten class that each and every one of you had a soulmate. Someone who you were tied to. That once you reached a certain peak in your life, that person would come to you. That peak varied from each person, so it was uncertain of when it would happen. One variable was certain: that each of you would have met your soulmate before you went out into the adult world.

Even with the idea of your soulmate, that was never enough to motivate you. To be quite frank, you hated the idea of being tied to someone you may or may not know. You loved to isolate yourself from others, being alone wasn’t a bad thing to you. In fact, you even worked from home, proving that you indeed refused having to leave the comfort of your bubble.

Occasionally you would skim through social media, the nights were curiosity would bite your  tongue and you’d see what your former classmates were up to. As you would scroll down your timeline, post after post would consist of anniversary mentions, wedding photos, baby bumps. All of them signifying that your teacher was right all those years ago. They did meet their soulmates, and they put on display how happy their lives were because of it.

It made you sick to your stomach at their happiness. You were that cold-hearted at times.

Pushing your phone to the side, you threw your body against the mattress below you. Sighing heavily, your thoughts beginning to consume you. It had been some time since you graduated college, and from what you’ve heard, you were the only one from your class that hadn’t met their soulmate. Which you were glad for since you preferred your singleness, a relationship was something you never thought about.

But there were times, like tonight, were you wondered “what if?”  

What if you weren’t such a negative person? What if you actually enjoyed this thing called life? What if...you actually like the idea of having a soulmate? If they actually found you? Or took the opportunity to do so yourself? A cloud of questions formed in your head and you didn’t like it one bit.

“Quit!” You yelled, the echo reverberating against the white walls.

The questions in your head wouldn’t stop, the feeling becoming almost crushing as you reached for the sides of your temples, the headache beginning to form. The pain now excruciating but unlike others, you never cried in your life. You dealt with pain in the way you knew best.

To just endure it.

You got up from your bed, walked over to your closet and slid the door open. Examining the different fabrics before yourself, you reach for a pair of skinny jeans that was folded neatly to the side. Exchanging them for the sweats you were wearing, you buttoned them as you made your way to the front door. Though you hardly left your place, on nights like this one, you would venture off to your secret hideaway that you knew no one would be at.

It was a little past midnight so you were okay with walking amongst others, not too many people were out at that time anyways. As you entered into the cool night, you looked up to see the sky painted with stars. A sight that you hadn’t seen in some time. You were unsure of when was the last time you left your apartment. Weeks? Months? You couldn’t think of the answer as you continued to stroll through the night, taking a few glances up at the sky.

An hour had passed as you made it to your destination, a large field in a deserted part of town. Railroad tracks accompanied it alongside an abandoned warehouse. This was your getaway. You discovered this place as an adolescent, one time running away from your parents after yet another one of your “failed” therapy sessions. Though you rarely came out here, this place was nonetheless yours. Everything remained the same as you remembered it from the last time. No traces of other human life could be detected.

Planting your butt down into the soft grass, you sat there legs criss-crossed as you observed the scenery. The night sky looking more beautiful from when you left your apartment. The stars twinkled peacefully as a soft breeze swept your hair up, causing your bangs to fly across your face. Shifting you head in the direction of the wind, your hair now gracefully swayed off your shoulders as you looked in the direction and heard a noise from a distance.

That noise causing a slight smirk to curl up in the corner of your mouth. It was one of the few things that would get some sort of positive reaction from you. For as long as you had been coming to this spot, you always enjoyed seeing the train pass you by. The sound it made as it traveled along the tracks was like music to your ears. And so you sat there, choosing to shut your eyes as the locomotive and its cargo continued its way past you.

The clicking noise the train made as it traveled down the tracks was soothing for you. The headache that bothered you so much in the last few hours was started to subside. Opening your eyes once more, you watched as it continued to make its way past you. Looking at the rail cars pass you by, each one of them sporting a different amount of graffiti to them. Some were pretty bland and boring, mostly derogatory words used in rebellion to something political. Some were pretty neat and very artistically crafted, the murals that must have taken a lot of time to achieve. But there was one rail car in particular that took a high peak of your interest, it was just a simple saying but the font used to achieve it was gorgeous. It stood out to you out of all the pieces of graffiti you had seen to this day. It flew by you so fast but you were able to make out the words scribbled along the metal container.

You never walk alone.

As you eyes tried to keep up with the moving train, you noticed next to the lettering that a couple was drawn out, shown embracing one another. You rolled your eyes a bit, knowing that the saying was to signify a soulmate. The few times you would step out of your apartment, somehow in some way or fashion you would see something about a soulmate. It never failed.

Your body falling back towards the soft patch of grass underneath you, your attention back onto the beautiful night sky above. The train had already completely passed where you were, the silence of the night welcoming itself once more. The occasional cricket chirping was the only sound that could be heard amongst your slow breathing. Everything was back to your liking. By yourself. Nothing to remind you of a soulmate.

And normally you would be able to get yourself to your “normal” self but there was something about that rail car that just wouldn’t leave your mind. What was so special about it that you couldn’t shake it from your thoughts? Why did it continue to linger on your mind? Why wouldn’t it go away? As you reached up your arm to the sky, palm facing towards the stars, you spoke to yourself.

“Who needs a soulmate? I surely don’t. I’ve been doing just fine alone. Let’s keep it that way.”

Turning your palm towards you now, staring at it a bit before shaking your head as some sort of confirmation.

“Yeah...let’s keep it that way.” a hint of uncertainty could be heard in your voice, throwing you off a bit.

You laid there for what seemed like an eternity, but was only two hours. After the soulmate questions were no longer clouded up in your head, you continued to stargaze. Another train even passed you by and before you knew it, you were getting yourself off the ground, dusting off your butt and made your way back to the confinement of your apartment. You almost fell asleep in the patch of grass, but being in your bed sounded so much better.

What you didn’t know was that your life was soon about to take a very drastic turn.

You laid there staring up at the bare ceiling.

It had been a few weeks since you last step foot outdoors, and since that day your life became more of a dark hole than it had been before. Falling into a deep funk, there was no ounce of energy in your body. The feeling that was sprung upon you, was something you never experienced before. A strange feeling and though you weren’t one hundred percent if it was certain, you knew this had to be one thing that you were feeling.

Lonely.

Once you had returned back home that night, you couldn’t stop thinking of that rail car and the image of a couple. Of a soulmate. Your soulmate. And just like before, the never-ending cloud of questions would fog up your head. What were they like? Would they even have the patience to deal with someone as yourself? What was their favorite cereal? The list went on and was very much repetitive. Thus you found yourself that next morning, not wanting to leave your bed. Despite after multiple attempts, you just couldn’t get yourself to. So you laid there, drifting in and out of sleep never paying attention to the time. When you finally decided to check it, you were shocked to see that weeks had flown by like it was nothing. Though it felt like only a few days had gone by.

The ceiling had been the only thing you came in contact with for the most part. Occasionally you would get up to use the restroom, but once done you were back underneath the fluffy comforter, your head molding to the three pillows underneath. Eating was non-existent to you, causing you to lose significant amount of weight. Over the course of those weeks, water was the only thing you were able to stomach down. To much your surprise, your appetite didn’t seem to be a thing either.

Does feeling alone hurt this much?

You thought to yourself as you continued to look up at the white ceiling. Reaching over to pick up your cell phone, you unlocked it to see several missed calls from your parents. Hundreds of missed calls to be exact. Though you barely spoke with them since venturing off into adulthood, you wondered why they were trying so hard to reach out to you. Had your job contacted them since you hadn’t notified them of your sudden absence?  Before your thoughts could continue onto their course, you heard a series of knocks from your front door.

Three knocks.

Your eyes moved in the direction of the noise.

Three more knocks. This time a bit more harder.

Still not wanting to move an inch, you laid there.

The knocking continued, nothing could get you up from the spot at which you laid. Not even the husky voice which could now be heard from the opposite side. Your father’s.

“Y/N? Please open the door…”

His voice sounded shaky, faint almost as he continued to knock on your front door. His knocks becoming softer and softer, he finally gave up. You could hear his footsteps due to the thin walls, he stopped half way thru the hall to turn around and knock one final time. This time, you mustered up the strength to pick up your upper half, your palms clinging onto the comforter. Your father’s voice would echo through your quiet space one last time before he walked away completely.

“You’ve always worried me with this behavior of yours….what could I have done better as a father?”

A short breath leaving your mouth, you began to feel dizzy. The room around you spinning in circles. A pain could be felt in your chest, another emotion that was new to you. For the first time in your life, you felt disappointed in yourself. Heartbroken in a sense that your actions had been such a stress on the lives of your parents. It never occurred to you until now.

Thoughts going  back to your childhood. How every time your parents tried to set you up on a play-date, you would fight their attempts. Sometimes locking yourself in your room just so you wouldn’t have to leave. The constant arguing you would hear from them, sometimes your mother losing all hope in you and your behavior. But it was your father who would always stick up for you, defending you countless times. Though before you thought nothing of it, it wasn’t until tonight that everything began piling on top of you. Emotions you thought never existed for.

It became extremely overwhelming for you.

Pushing the comforter off, forcing yourself to get out of bed, you headed to your closet. There was only one place you wanted to be at this moment. To be underneath the starry sky while laying in your favorite patch of grass. So these feelings you were unsure of to handle could subside. So you could get yourself out of this funk and back to a normal routine.  To get somewhat control back.

Legs feeling wobbly as you slid on a pair of sweats you picked up, you hurried out the front door. Not caring at all the pain emencing from the lower half of your body, you ran into the quiet night. It was colder than the last time you were out, breaths leaving your lips instantly becoming fog. Thankfully you were wearing a long sleeved shirt so the atmosphere around you didn’t affect you too much. But as you continued to run down the dark streets, your chest heaved from the strenuous activity you placed upon it. It didn’t matter to you, you’d throw your body down into the grass once you arrived at your getaway.

It didn’t take you long, much like before, and you were soon in view of your scared field along the train tracks. Once you found a stopping point, you could feel your legs ready to give out at any moment, trembling as they tried to keep your body up. Giving in, you let them give out, spawled your entire body in the grass as you were panting, allowing your tired body to rest as you looked up at the beautiful stars that once again painted the sky.

It never cease to amaze you how gorgeous it looked from where you where, even under the wave of exhaustion that you were currently experiencing. The pallet of grass beneath you felt oddly comfortable as you stretched your arms, feeling your eyes beginning to shut. Should you be falling asleep out in the open like this? Probably not, but you were certain that no one would bother you. No one knew of this hidden away gem that you called your own. So a little snooze wouldn’t hurt. All that running seriously did its number on your fragile body, rest was pretty much essential at this point. And so you allowed yourself to, eyes becoming heavier than they once were as you slipped away into a slumber accompanied by a soft breeze that tickled against your skin.

Once fully asleep, your mind began to do things on its own. Creating images from the back of your head, the thoughts you tried so hard to keep back. You were dreaming but the dream felt very much real. Too real.

It started with you walking through an open space, the location you were unsure of. A heavy fog was amidst as you carefully made your way through. From a distance you could make out two figures. As you neared closer to them, the fog cleared, revealing your parents standing there.

Their facial expressions pained you. The dull looks in their eyes as they stared at you, words never leaving their mouths. You watched as your mother walked away from you father, leaving him utterly alone as he wept.

“Dad…” you whispered as you reached out to him.

Your call never reaching him as he knelt down to the ground, the tears overflowing from his eyes as he held a stack of papers in his large hands.

Walking over to him, you peeked over his shoulder, gasping in the process once you caught sight of what he was holding.

Divorce papers.

Bringing up a hand to your open mouth, you were in complete shock. In this world where soulmates meant your “happily ever after”, there were a few occasions when married couples would split. Though extremely rare, it was possible. Seeing the two people who seemed to be very much in love, your parents, splitting brought you down to your knees as well. The pain aching in your chest, devastation hitting you. It was all too much for you to handle.

Would your parents fall into that statistic?

Your body shook as you gasped for air, revealing the open field around you. Looking in all directions, your heart was racing fast. That dream, no that nightmare was finally over as you forced yourself to wake up. The crickets chirping in the background was the thing to help ease your heart rate. Breathing coming back down to a normal pace, you brought a hand up to wipe the sweat that was present on your forehead. But after feeling something drop from your chin, you hand travels down your face, fingertips resting below your eyes.

“Huh?” you gaped as your finger trailed down your warm cheek.

Tears fell.

So many firsts were occurring tonight. Aside from the newfound emotions, you cried for the first time in your life. And the tears cascading out would not stop. Vision becoming blurry from the water fogging them, you had no will inside of you to make them stop. Some of the tears produced found its way into your gaping mouth, the taste being somewhat salt like. Thinking back on the dream you had just woken from, you questioned your way of life once more

Why am I like this?

Will things ever change for me?

Am I going to be the reason for my parents downfall?

Is this my destiny? My fate to be miserable alone?

Could I be the only one who was never meant to have a soulmate?

Things would be better off without me.

Interrupting your thoughts was the accustomed sound that was the train making its way along the tracks. Its horn sounding faint and distant, but it a matter of minutes it would soon be to where you were. Without any hesitation, your body found itself getting up from the patch of grass that was once your bed. Tears continuing to trail down your cheeks, your eyes stinging now as your legs began to move on their own.

They would be better off without me...

You stepped onto the train tracks, your sneakers pointing in the direction of the incoming train. You weren’t sure why but this felt like the best thing to do. To leave this world alone the way that you had grown to only know. After having that dream, what you assumed to be some sort of vision of your parents, you couldn’t bear to think of the possibility of those two calling it quits.

You didn’t want to be the reason for their falling out. To be honest, you were so consumed with feelings of devastation and disappointment in yourself that it was too much for your mind to handle. A ringing noise that was now taking over your head, the migraine becoming more intense by the second. You were acting on a whim but in your mind, this was the best option you had.

The only option you thought to be feasible.  

Underneath the soles of the sneakers you wore, a vibration of some sort could be felt, signaling that the train was getting closer to your location. You closed your eyes as a breeze swept your hair off your back and out of your face, revealing more tears stringing the sides of your cheeks. Though you kept your eyelids shut firmly, you could see the train was nearing, the bright light could be felt against your skin.

You were ready to meet your end.

Taking in a large deep breath, you exhaled slowly, ready to meet your demise.

“I’m sorry..” you whispered as the train’s horn rang through the open field.

A large thud could know be heard as you felt your body being thrown to the ground, the whooshing sound of the train rushing by. Eyes remaining shut, your head bouncing back up from the impact it made against the grass. The ringing sound in your ears was piercing and made you unaware of your surroundings.

Am I dead?

You thought to yourself. But just having the thought confirmed that you were still living..breathing. But the question that bounced around in your head now was how? That’s when you felt heat radiating against your bare skin, breath hitting your smack in the face. A pair of arms were at your side as you slowly opened your eyelids to reveal a man on top of you.

The first thing you noticed was his orange hair, bright and vivid. Catching your breath, your sight trails down to his face. He was completely out of breath, his chest heaving up and down. Sweat was now protruding down the sides of his temples onto the shirt he was wearing underneath his leather jacket. He was looking past you, still trying to catch his breath. That’s when he looked down upon you, the two of you locking eyes onto one another.

Your head began spinning as he looked to you and smiled, flashing his amazing set of teeth. The rush that came over you was one like no other. Colors dancing around in your head, visions once again being shown to you. But not of your parents but with the man that was hovering over you. The two of you holding hands, living life with one another. This euphoric sensation took over you as if you were floating on a cloud. Your life with this man flashing before you.

You shook your head, pushing him off of you. You looked to this stranger in utter shock. What was that you had just experienced? What did he just do to you? The man sat up and dusted the bit of dirt that collected on his jacket.

“Wow, you’re pretty strong” he chuckled as he finished patting his shoulders.

Your eyebrow arched at how optimistic his voice was. The way he talked seemed too casual for your liking, who was this man? The last rail car passed the both of you as you soon realized what had just taken placed. This man, this stranger, stopped you from doing the one thing you were set on doing. He walked over to you, offering an extended hand towards you. Once again he flashed that smile towards you, entrancing you a second time. But you wouldn’t let it get you this time around. Your only reaction was to aggressively swat his hand away, yelling at him in the process.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

A/N: omg! if you made it to the end let me say, thank you! this was really different to what i am used to writing and i was glad i got to experiment with angst. hopefully it wasn’t too much? as i’m writing this and thinking of hobi’s smile, i am in a daze. ahhhhhh i’m so excited to continue this series. i do hope you enjoy this first chapter! if you’re up to it, feel free to leave feedback, though appreciated, it is not mandatory. 

♡ masterlist

[oldlady-of-chibs-and-jax]

Hey loves!! I made an update post for my friends and family and I wanted to share it with you guys because you’re family too!! I changed the name of my school for safety reasons, but everything else is the same!

*I do mention my religion and my personal faith as a part of my story, I understand that we may not believe in the same things but please respect my decision as I respect yours ❤️

As my second year at college comes to end, I can’t help but reflect on how much has changed with in the past 12 months. Many of you don’t know this, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD my first semester freshman year. I feared that I had depression way back in junior year of high school. I hid it from everyone, including my family, because I thought it represented weakness. It wasn’t until a professor recommended that everyone go to the screening the school was hosting, even if it was just to learn the signs of mental illness, that I was officially diagnosed. I remember hiding my face while I sobbed to my grandparents about it because I was ashamed. I started seeing a counselor and began the road to recovery. In the beginning, my counselor tried very hard to find me ways to cope with my mental illnesses that wasn’t medicine. This was okay by me. I absolutely hated taking pills, I still do to this day. I was able to finish my first semester strong with all A’s, something I always strived for.

But then second semester rolled around. I was sleeping less and locking myself in my room. My grades were nowhere near my standards and I was struggling in all my classes. My depression and anxiety had gotten so bad that I could no longer function. I would skip class just so I could stay in bed. The guilt ate at me but I couldn’t physically force myself to do anything. It got so bad that if I continued to stay on campus I knew I would die at my own hands. There were nights that the only thing keeping me alive was going to my best friends room right next door and just sobbing as I laid on her floor. Added on top of this was excruciating back pain that sometimes left me immobile.

I finally went to my doctor so he could give me medicine. It took a couple months or so but I finally got on some medicine that was helping me and I was seeing a physical therapist for my back. But before I got better I wanted to die. Every single time I sat in the driver seat of my car it took the power of God to keep me from intentionally crashing in an attempt to kill myself. I needed someone to go with me, even if I was driving just 10 minutes down the road so the temptation would leave. It got so bad that not only was my mental and physical health being affected but so was my school work and grades. I was failing most of my classes and no matter how bad I wanted to, I physically could not force myself to write papers or do my work.

With only a couple months of the semester remaining, I began begging my grandparents and doctor to let me drop out. Neither one let me. They kept encouraging me to tough it out. It wasn’t until I finally broke down and admitted that if I stayed any longer that the Nola they once knew would become a zombie and quite possibly never be the same that they agreed to let me drop out. I honestly believe that if I would have stayed at college any longer I would have killed myself.

I spent the summer recovering and going to countless doctor appointments and seeing a psychiatrist and counselor. I wasn’t sure I was ready to come back to school in the fall but I knew I needed to. I had thought about transferring to a different school because I no longer had a love for my school. After much debating and prayer I knew that God placed me at My college for a reason and that’s where He wanted me to be. Just before returning to college, I got a job at Hot Topic, my favorite store in the mall.

My fall semester started out strong but I felt myself getting worse again. This time I knew what was happening and I was able to take an Incomplete in some classes so that I could still receive credit for the classes. An incomplete allows you to finish the work within the next semester. I ended up making all A’s in fall.

This semester I have noticed how much I have grown within the past year. I am happier and in a much better place. I finished the semester without taking an incomplete or dropping out. I finally learned that my health and well-being is more important than a grade. That it was okay to take me time. That mental illnesses are not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. We could so easily give up but we continue to fight. I went from dropping out of college to finishing another year and having and keeping a social life. I’m loving life again and I found my love for learning and my love for the Webb again. Praise God for the work He has done in my life. I want to thank everyone who has been with me through this process and has stood by me as I’ve struggled and helped me when I couldn’t help myself. I love you all! I’m not where I need to be but the journey so far has allowed me to thrive and flourish. ❤️🌸

[lemonysharkbait]

Participants

It’s the 19 Days vampire AU no one asked for! Thought vampire stuff was dead? Yeah, me too. Then I got sucked into Vampire Knight (don’t ask) and remembered just how many sexually charged moments vampire stories create. And then this happened. 

Warnings include blood (somewhat obvious) and sexual themes. It’s not full on nsfw. Yet. 

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

TIAN

He Tian smelled him before he saw him. It was the thrumming full smell of someone he wanted to proposition, immediately. He rounded the corner into the parlor room and the site of the man himself sealed his want.

Long pale arms draped over the back of a low couch. The man’s back was to He Tian, but he turned his head when he heard footsteps, locking bright brown eyes onto He Tian. He Tian almost stopped dead in his tracks, almost. The other man eyed him up and down and then snorted, “You all wear the same thing.”

He Tian crossed the room and sat down across from the man. Incredibly, his red hair was real, not some garish dye. His clothes clashed with the somber surroundings of the large mansion. A loose yellow t-shirt hung off his frame. With his arms up along the back of the couch, the edges of his t-shirt lifted to reveal a sliver of skin and the band of his briefs. Sitting low across his hips was the band of his track paints, which tapered to an expensive pair of soft pink Nikes. The red head was looking off to the side with his feet on the coffee table. The large bay window in the room bathed the red head in soft afternoon light. A warm fire crackled in the fireplace.

What a dream. He Tian felt confined in his three-piece suit.  

The red head turned and locked eyes with He Tian again “Do I smell good to you?”

He Tian tried not to look dumb founded. “Pardon?”

“You’re practically eye-fucking me.”

Mouthy.

He Tian put on his winningest smile. “It’s just your skin–“

“Oh my skin,” the red head cut him off, rolling his eyes. “I used to be singled out for my skin and hair but now it’s all you vamps talk about.”

He Tian let out a small laugh. Of course others would comment on his skin. It was pale, so beautifully pale. It wasn’t difficult to imagine what was thrumming underneath.

“You should see him when he flushes.” He Tian and the red head turned to see She Li breeze into the room. “You opened the blinds.” It wasn’t a question. “Shut them for us.” The red head’s eyes looked like they would shoot daggers if they could. Grudgingly, he stood and slowly sauntered over to the heavy blinds, pulling them shut and encasing the room in dim light.

His smell washed over He Tian, doubly strong, sweet and acidic like wine, or champagne with grapefruit.

“Do you want a taste, He Tian?” She Li sat smirking, across from He Tian. The red head tensed.

“I prefer for the arrangement to be mutual.” So the red head was one of She Li’s participants. 

The red head crossed the room and sat back down on the couch next to She Li. The smell wafted over He Tian again, making it momentarily hard to think.

She Li shrugged and changed the topic, launching into the recent rash of unsolved murders in the area, the work of a vampire that would cause another panic and a round a stricter laws if he or she didn’t stop. The topic moved into blood deals and trades, gossip at first but then it began to get closer to the reason for He Tian’s visit.

“Should he be here?” He Tian motioned towards the red head. She Li drew the red head’s wrist into his grasp, tracing lazy circles on the soft skin of his upturned arm. The red head didn’t react. In fact, he looked bored.

“Mo Guan Shan recently came into service for the Shes. He’s under my command.”

Mo Guan Shan. He Tian wanted to make Shi Li drop Guan Shan’s wrist, let the red head go. Instead, He Tian shrugged.

The rest of their conversation was short. Simple details of handoffs and buyers. She Li kept Guan Shan’s wrist in his hand the entire time, tracing circles that might have been absent minded if it weren’t She Li.

He Tian ignored it and made to go at the first opportunity. She Li drew Guan Shan’s wrist up to his face, inhaling deeply. “Are you sure you don’t want a taste? He must smell better to you than he does to me.”

He Tian smiled his best fake smile, watching the snake-like eyes of She Li, “No, I must get back.”

“If you insist.”

She Li dipped his head, licking Guan Shan’s wrist and then sinking in a penetrating bite. He Tian noticed Guan Shan didn’t even flinch, and He Tian felt a small twinge of jealousy and sadness at the realization that Guan Shan had this done to him many times before. And then the smell hit. His open wrist released his full scent and He Tian felt a surge of want that made him stumble. He caught himself on the back of a chair and lingered for a second, trying desperately to compose himself while thoughts of sinking his teeth into the delicate skin of the red head’s throat roiled through his mind.

He stifled his thoughts enough to stand. Guan Shan was looking at him with those intensely bright eyes. She Li moved to push Guan Shan into the couch and slide partially on top of him, losing himself to bloodlust. He Tian strode out of the room.

The scent stayed with him all the way out of the complex and down to his car. Shaking, he dialed the number that would bring him relief from his sudden, intense thirst.  

   GREY

Grey knew, from the second he entered the apartment, that He Tian was on the edge of full blown bloodlust. The large airy apartment was dim, all the lights were off but the floor-to-ceiling windows let in cold winter light.

The man– or rather vampire– himself sat low on his couch, eyes unfocused and his breathing barely stable, his chest rising and falling unsteadily.  His long winter jacket and suit jacket were discarded on the coffee table. Rick and Morty played silently on the TV.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Such a silky deep voice. He Tian had the habit of making it slightly menacing, like he knew something you didn’t.

“It’s no problem.” Especially for the convenience fee he would be paid. He crossed the room and half knelt on the couch. He Tian turned his eyes on him and Grey shivered. The coal black eyes were unfocused with a haze of want. He Tian drew Grey on top of him. There would be no preamble today.

He Tian’s cold fingers rolled up his sleeve. Warm breath ghosted on the underside of his wrist, then the pressure of He Tian’s tongue and a gentle kiss pushed against the soft skin– broken by a quick piercing pain, like the initial sting of a shot, followed by a rush of heady endorphins. He Tian looked up at him from under thick lashes. Grey feebly fought his own rising desire and let out a small groan. Why must vampires turn every feeding into something so sensual?

He couldn’t deny it was intimate, and maybe this was just the natural human reaction to a vampire bite, akin to the welts that rise up from mosquito bites. Or it was just He Tian. Whatever the cause, he wouldn’t be getting release this time. He Tian was drinking deep.

Grey leaned into He Tian, resting his entire weight on the absurdly strong man as his own body, instead of going into shock, sank into a warm relaxing stupor.

He awoke on the couch, covered with a blanket, his wrist tightly bound and elevated. His head pounded with an excruciating headache. On instinct, he tried to sit up, but the room spun.

“You probably shouldn’t move.”

Grey grabbed his head. “Jesus, He Tian, what got into you?”

He Tian snorted. He was in the far corner of the large open room, smoking and watching Grey.

“A Red Head. Well, he wasn’t in me, but,” He Tian ended his thought with a drag on his cigarette. “Sorry, by the way, I didn’t mean to, well.” He gestured at Grey.

“I knew a red head once.” Grey said it absentmindedly.

He Tian hummed, letting out an “mm” of acknowledgement. He had probably met hundreds of red heads in his lifetime. How old was he? A century? A millennium?  

Grey let out a laugh as he let his brain surge with memories. “Yeah, from elementary school, which feels like a long time ago in my life.” Grey looked at the food on the coffee table. It was from his favorite take-out place. He Tian never cooked, but he made sure to learn where his participants liked to eat. He took the best care out of any of the vampires Grey knew. He always had pain pills and water on hand. He was gentle with his bites and careful not to make blood stains. He would walk or drive to any food place in the city and pick up the participant’s favorite dishes. He even learned what shows people liked to watch and the music they preferred and would play for them whatever they wanted. And he had the best shower, it was modern and overly luxurious with heated tile and the ability to choose the exact temperature the water should be. Not to mention the perfectly fluffy towels.

He had never taken this much blood. It wasn’t uncommon for a vampire to take a little too much, but they all seemed to know how to hook up an iv. Grey had woken up only once before with an iv in his arm, the result of a vampire drinking too deeply. He Tian had never done that to him and he doubted he ever would.

Grey rolled his head slightly, reaching for a cup of water. “God, if it’s Guan Shan who you’re pining after, good fucking luck.” He had another sentence after that one, but He Tian was suddenly in his vision, in his space. It was uncanny how fast they could move.

“You know him?”

“Him? Guan Shan? We were good friends from elementary school all the way through high school. We kept in touch afterwards, although he took a nosedive off the face of the planet about two months ago. No one’s heard from him.”

He Tian had composed himself into silence. He was thinking.

“You’re sure the guy you saw was Guan Shan?”

He Tian smiled warily, “Natural red hair, bright brown eyes, pale skin and a permanent scowl.”

Grey snorted, “Yeah, that’s him. With She Li?”

He Tian looked ready to burst with too many questions, questions he quickly stifled. His cigarette was finished, yet he still held it between his fingers.

“What is She Li like?” He Tian asked the question quietly.

Grey grimaced. “I only had him once, so I don’t really know.” He Tian fixed his gaze on Grey and Grey felt compelled to answer.

“He’s, he’s, well, intense. You are totally his when he feeds and he doesn’t let you forget that. But when he’s done,” Grey let the sentence hang.

He Tian silently walked over to the ashtray on the other side of the room, then crossed back and sat on the edge of the couch. Grey felt the divot He Tian’s weight made. He Tian turned towards Grey and motioned at the food. “May I?”

“Be my guest, I can’t eat right now anyways.”

He Tian popped open a lid to something and started scooping food onto his plate.

“I am sorry.”

Grey leaned towards the warmth. “I know.”

MO

Guan Shan woke up on the carpet, a deep chill in his bones. He saw the dark paneled ceiling slowly come into focus. His head hurt and somewhere he felt a tube. He thought about intense eyes. Coal dark.

“You’re awake.”

“Welcome to the land of the living.” Guan Shan mumbled. He realized his whole body hurt. “How much did you take?”

She Li snorted “Barely enough, blood bag. You’ve got a transaction tomorrow.”

“Ok. Can someone help me on the couch? I’m a little tired.” He could hear the clack of shoes leaving the room.

“I’ll get someone.”

Guan Shan lay there for a long time.

---

“Red?!” Guan Shan heard his old name and didn’t want to react, but old habits die hard.

“It is you. Old habits die hard, huh?”

Guan Shan scowled. What is this ghost doing, wandering around his present?

“How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

Grey snorted “You don’t look fine, She Li take too much?”

Guan Shan didn’t respond. He turned to walk through the bustling flower market to the vendor they had come to see. His head was killing him and the thick smell of fresh flowers and loud sounds of the bustling mart made the pain worse. He felt like his entire body was bruised. One of his steps faltered.

He felt Grey’s grip on his elbow. “Jesus, Shan. Come on, let’s get you to the delivery truck.”

They passed the stalls of flowers, Grey’s tight grip on his arm the entire way, and turned into the stall they needed. Grey went to walk Guan Shan to the back of the stall, where the delivery truck would be waiting in the alley, but Guan Shan wrenched his arm out of his grip.

“I’m fine. I have to stay to see it loaded.” Grey shrugged while their flower man shuttered the stall. Well, really she was a flower woman.

Chen was all useful muscle and spattered greenery. She knew everything there was to know about international flowers, and everything there was to know about the international blood trade. She greeted them happily, pulling up a stool for Guan Shan and setting a glass of water down for him. She made no comment on his appearance, it wasn’t the first time he had shown up too tired to load and unload the boxes.

“These just came in this morning, incredibly fresh.” She reached into the cooler and pulled out a long box. With sharp clippers from her apron, she cut off the binding and pulled out the thick staples used to keep the boxes shut.

“Alright boys, time to show me a sign.”

Grey pulled a small silver trinket from his pocket. It was a Jackalope, the mythical rabbit with antlers and the sign of the Yi family. So, he was here for Jin Yi. Guan Shan showed his trinket, a serpent with a head at each end of its body. It was inscribed in Greek with “The amphisbaena has a twin head, that is one at the tail end as well, as though it were not enough for poison to be poured out of one mouth.”

He like the description.

Chen nodded and pulled the lid off the long cardboard box. Inside were bundles of flowers. Chen pushed them aside and pulled out a bag of blood, unceremoniously dropping it on the table.

“I’ve got South American and Eastern European varieties. Mr. He is getting back into business, so you’ll stop at his place before you drop the rest off at Jin Yi’s.”

Guan Shan nodded and fished the cash out of his pocket. It must have been cash that He Tian left with She Li yesterday. Grey did the same.

Chen counted the money, nodded, and tossed two jackets on the table. “Wear these so you look less like hoodlums. The jackets were emblazoned with her business logo, a bright cartoon sunflower.

They loaded up the cooler truck without Guan Shan’s help. Chen brusquely helped him into the truck, cutting off any protest with her matter-of-fact manner. Grey drove them off towards He Tian’s without looking up directions.   

“So, you met He Tian yesterday.” Grey was driving slowly through the afternoon traffic. Guan Shan looked at him weakly.

“I’m a little tired myself, I’m one of his participants.” He raised his left hand, the cuff of his sleeve falling enough that Guan Shan could see the edges of white wrapping. “We didn’t have anything planned for yesterday, but he called me up, asking if I was available. Turns out, you got him all worked up. What did you do, bleed on him?” Grey said it jokingly, but Guan Shan felt blanched.

“She Li fed on me, in front of him.”

“Jesus fuck, really? What a sick fuck.”

“He Tian doesn’t do that?” He couldn’t keep the genuine surprise out of his voice.  

“God no, he keeps his participants separate from everything else in his life. I’ve never met anyone else in his life. He probably won’t be happy to see me delivering, but Jin Yi pays well and He Tian hasn’t done business in a long time, so I never had to worry about running into him. Usually I just drop off Chinese blood with our exporter anyways. Which is probably why I didn’t know you were in this business too, until now.”

Guan Shan shivered, remembering the moment He Tian’s eyes had gone liquid, hazy with want. Grey turned up the heat.

“You should switch and work for He Tian. He’s a lot better.”

“I can’t.”

Grey didn’t press the matter and they rode in silence to He Tian’s.

Guan Shan was surprised when they pulled up to a sleek building still within Beijing. Grey pulled up to a service elevator and sent out a quick text. Guan Shan clambered out of the truck and unsteadily to his feet.

“I’m just waiting for the access code– maybe you should stay in the truck.”

Guan Shan felt himself scowl. “I’ll be fine. You won’t be able to get all of the boxes up at once by yourself.” Guan Shan opened the back of the truck. It was a cold day but he was unnaturally cold, unable to warm up even when he was in the truck with the heat at full blast. He started to pull a box out of the back when he heard the ding of the elevator and then a silky, deep voice.

“Grey, you shouldn’t be working, had I known, I wouldn’t have–“ He Tian stopped mid sentence and said something under his breath, his eyes locking on Guan Shan. The box he had been pulling slid the rest of the way out of the truck, but the effort to gently set it down was enough to make him dizzy. Guan Shan felt the unpleasant symptoms of passing out. Tunnel vision, ringing ears, labored breath. He steadied himself with a hand on the truck, trying to hide his precarious lurch towards unconsciousness.

“He shouldn’t be out. Why would–? If, if he passes out and has to be taken to the hospital, the doctors would take one look at him and know. I’m not particularly fond of She Li, but…” He Tian spoke quietly.

Grey nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, Guan Shan, why don’t you stay with He Tian until you feel well enough to leave? You’re safe with him, he’s sated.”

Guan Shan felt his heart beating weakly. He needed to sit for a second. “I’m fine. She Li ordered me–“

“I’ll deal with She Li. I’ll also compensate you for whatever you were to be paid.”

Guan Shan looked up, which was a mistake, he lost his delicate balance and leaned heavily on the van. He suddenly felt a strong arm around his waist and his own arm was slung over someone’s shoulders. He Tian’s, he realized. He hadn’t seen him move.

“No, I’ll at least stay in the van, I need to see the delivery through.”

“You already have, the portion I paid for is here. Let’s go inside.”

Guan Shan felt a blanket of calm enveloping him. He fought it. “Don’t play with me.”

He Tian smiled and the calmness lifted.

---

Guan Shan let out a low whistle when they entered the apartment. He had convinced He Tian to release him and let him stand on his own. He Tian stayed a step too close though, keyed up to catch any stumble, which just annoyed Guan Shan. He used every ounce of his stubborn will to walk steadily.

“You live here by yourself?” Everything was in shades of pale. It was tastefully artfully done, large and airy. It was also too clean, like an Airbnb waiting for the arrival of the next guest.

“My uncle owns the building, although I still pay rent.” He Tian strode around smoothly with the grace and strength that all vampires seemed to embody. “You can rest here, the TV–“

“Woah no.” Guan Shan back-peddled from the room. It was a bedroom, the master bedroom. “The couch is fine.” He felt the wash of calm pour over him. It was an unnatural dulling of his own feelings. He scowled at He Tian. “I said, don’t fuck with me.”

“You said to not play with you.” He Tian smiled his infuriating perfect smile.

“I’ll just call a cab.” That beautiful smile faltered and Guan Shan felt vindictively happy. The crashing warmth of calmness ceased abruptly and Guan Shan, momentarily, wished for it back. That was the entire problem with these creatures, you didn’t know yourself. They could twist feelings up.

“At least lie on the couch until you’re past the possibility of passing out.” He Tian glided out of the room and to the large open area. The couch and TV weren’t far from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Guan Shan couldn’t help himself. He wandered over and looked out of them. They were far from the ground. People looked like dots and cars were bright splotches. It was starting to snow.

Grey was shuffling in the boxes of flowers and blood bags. He Tian turned to help and Guan Shan strode unsteadily towards the couch. He felt better without the vampire’s intense gaze on him. He settled in. He really was very tired, literally drained.

He didn’t know when he had closed his eyes, but somehow, He Tian was there, pressing cool fingers into the crook of his arm.

“Are you taking my pulse?”

“I’m looking for a good vein. You need more fluids.”

Guan Shan vaguely thought about fighting this newest insistence. He Tian was right though.

He Tian took his silence the wrong way.

“You don’t have to worry. I’m sated. And your scent is weak right now.”

Guan Shan felt a light sting as He Tian slid the needle in and taped it down.

Guan Shan noticed there were blankets thrown over him and his shoes were off.

“You’re scowling.”

“What time is it– where is my phone?”

He Tian handed him his phone from the coffee table. His wallet and keys were there as well next to a glass of water, pain pills and a piece of fruit. His phone was even charged to 100%. Guan Shan struggled between feeling thankful and creeped out.

“I would encourage you to stay the night.”

Guan Shan looked up from his phone, his eyebrows knitting together. He didn’t mean to wear a permanent scowl, but everyone was looking for some sort of advantage, some way to get something. The less people, and vampires, that liked him the better.

He Tian reached out a cool hand, gently gripping Guan Shan’s chin. Guan Shan felt a small thrill at the touch. He turned his nose up to break the grasp.

“The only time you dropped that scowl was around She Li.”

Guan Shan nearly dropped his phone. That was because he had nothing to fight for with She Li. At least not at that moment. Resignation. The small thought drifted through his mind. No, that wasn’t fully right. He wasn’t resigned to She Li. But he was bound.

He Tian stood up and lit a cigarette, “Why do you work for him?”

“None of your business.”

“Break contract with him and work for me. I’ll pay you more.”

Guan Shan stared at him incredulously. He couldn’t tell if He Tian was joking or serious, playing with him or offering pity. Anger boiled up and he let his voice sound sharp with it.

“Being his participant isn’t about money. It doesn’t matter if he bleeds me dry. I work for him.”

“Why.”

Guan Shan stayed silent.

He Tian sighed and tapped his cigarette, sending ash into the ashtray. “He’s dangling you in front of me, although I don’t know why.”

Guan Shan stayed silent again, not understanding what the vampire wanted to him say, or even what he should say.

“So quiet. I’m sure She Li doesn’t tell you much. Well, we have all night to talk about it. You’re snowed in.”

[inthroughthesunroof]

So, I love my new doctor. She understands medical misogyny and is pissed about it, she keeps up with new developments in her field, and she listens and actually cares about the chronic, nagging stuff that most doctors shrug about. The rest is behind a cut for TMI involving birth control, the associated body parts, pain, and medical misogyny...

So I have recurring yeast infections that maybe aren’t yeast, and apparently there’s some new research out there about that stuff. So she’s running some labs, and we’ll see what comes up. Hopefully it’ll result in something more than the standard ‘the test says it’s not yeast, come back and see us again even though the treatment we gave you for yeast already worked and we have absolutely nothing useful to say or do’ that I’ve gotten every couple years for the last decade.

But anyway, as she’s doing a pelvic exam and collecting the necessary samples for testing, she’s talking about new developments in the science of itchy hoo-has (which includes new strains of yeast that have been discovered, a better understanding of the causes of bacterial vaginosis, and the discovery of some third type of microscopic critter the name of which I didn’t catch). She mentioned that one treatment for people who have IUDs involves removing the IUD, treating, and then reinserting, which she’s guessing I would not be a big fan of. I confirm that she’s correct about that, and then she says it.

“Yeah, I can tell. You have a tiiiiiny cervix.”

Wait a second. I was told that the pain of getting an IUD inserted varied from person to person, and is generally worse for people who haven’t shoved a baby through their cervix, but there’s really no predicting it. I was also told to take a few ibuprofin ahead of time for pain control, and just hope that that’s enough. (Spoiler: It wasn’t enough.)

But apparently a quick look up the ol’ love canal was enough to tell her what kind of (severe) pain I would be in during IUD insertion. A look that gynos have been getting on at least an annual basis for the last decade of my life.

So if this shit is predictable, why the FUCK did my gyno not take one look at me and prescribe heavy-duty painkillers before stabbing me in my cervix?!?!??

Apparently our culture is such that we’d rather women undergo a procedure with a high risk of excruciating pain than preemptively (and maaaaaybe unnecessarily) give them a single dose of prescription painkillers.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

[devinexok987-blog]

Marijuana Laws Up In Smoke

"The thought that cannabis could be used for medicinal functions is not a new concept; in fact, it has actually been around for countless years. Before I started to do research study on this subject I highly thought that cannabis could be used as an efficient medication. I had heard many stories about its potential for helping cancer and also AIDs people, among other health problems, to handle both the signs and symptoms of the conditions and the side effects of the therapies. These treatments could consist of chemotherapy or radiation when it comes to cancer cells individuals. I likewise was aware of the truth that marijuana has never had a solitary documented case of an individual passing away from a cannabis overdose. This in itself is cause to say that marijuana could be a more secure medicine instead of various other prescriptions. With this evidence alone, it might seem that I am a full advocate of the possibility of marijuana being utilized for medical functions. This is not completely the case. Before doing any of my research study I have actually listened to the scary tales of people becoming completely addicted as well as having the drug take control of their lives. The whole concern of marijuana is an extremely debated topic as well as must be looked at from various point of views before making a decision a placement.

As I performed my study one of the major disagreements in this warmed dispute is about the real capacity for it to assist individuals better manage the symptoms of illness. Some individuals think that marijuana has much to offer individuals in the realm of medication; others say that it does more harm than great. Those who are supporters of cannabis being legislated claim that it is of incredible clinical worth. They recommend that it can assist relieve persistent pain, stop muscle spasms from happening, trigger a gain in appetite and help quit queasiness, as well as additionally relieve pressure within the eye. A few of the conditions that could be aided by this drug include AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, numerous sclerosis, and glaucoma. AIDS as well as cancer patients can take advantage of cannabis by having both the discomfort connected with this disease reduced. Likewise, these clients could be assisted by having a more triggered cravings and much less nausea or vomiting. Those with epilepsy could be aided by potentially having seizures avoided. Individuals suffering from multiple sclerosis can perhaps have less excruciating muscle spasms. Likewise, those who have glaucoma could be offered with remedy for intra-ocular stress and possibly be spared extreme eye damage.

This post overall was essentially a listing of right that it could be valuable for a number of conditions. It likewise pointed out that for a very long time cannabis was being made use of as medicine currently so this idea of it working is not new. After seeing every one of the conditions that it can possibly assist with I was stunned. All I might consider with regard to individuals that deal with these diseases is that if I remained in their location I would certainly want to try anything that can possibly function.

Nonetheless, there are those that disagree completely and also claim that marijuana has no location in the clinical world what so ever before. They mention the fact that marijuana has actually never been approved as a true medication by most significant organizations associated with screening and also accrediting medications consisting of the Food and Drug Administration. Likewise, it has actually been pointed out that medical cannabis still can not be prescribed in the vast bulk of the states today. Cannabis is likewise not marketed in pharmacies, and also possibly the most important point to note is that cannabis is still placed in the exact same classification of drugs as heroin, LSD, and other controlled substances.

This short article was defiantly versus medical marijuana. It criticized every single part of it having clinical value. It pointed out that it has actually never ever been approved for clinical usage by the Fda (FDA). It likewise broke down the requirements for a medication to be accredited to have clinical worth and discussed each factor and why cannabis did not certify. i49 cbd This article was, if absolutely nothing else, very efficient at revealing the sharp contrast in views between the fans as well as opposition.

Another argument that has been made is whether or not cannabis has the potential to be an addicting drug. Some people say that cannabis provides a hazard to culture because of its addicting buildings. There is an excellent reason to count on this perspective. During the time in between 1992 and also 2006, the stamina of cannabis greatly increased. In fact, it is estimated that this boost could be as much as one hundred seventy-five percent. This triggered the number of people that are dependent upon cannabis to increase. There are numerous threats that accompany dependence on cannabis. Among these is that some individuals could potentially drive while drunk of the drug. Utilizing cannabis hinders motor skills and can result in mishaps. Generally, cannabis is the second most often detected drug in the vehicle driver's systems.

When reading this post, it became clear that the author was extremely versus all forms of marijuana both medical and also non-medical. It goes on to talk about the development of cannabis into what we have today, as well as the reason that it is so addicting. The writer of this short article additionally reveals the largest factor they believe that marijuana should not be legalized in any kind of kind. Medical cannabis is one step better to legalisation. This places children as well as teenagers in danger and also this write-up mainly makes a declaration against such scenarios.

On the other hand, there are people that say that marijuana is not habit forming as well as is really a very safe medication to use. One such person is Paul Armentano writer of ""Marijuana is not habit forming"". In his post, Armentano mentions a report done by the Institute of Medication (IOM). According to the IOM, less than ten percent of individuals that attempt marijuana satisfies the summary of an individual that shows addiction. This is a far cry from the variety of individuals who revealed addiction to other drugs.

These medications included cigarette which was at 32 percent, heroin at 23 percent, cocaine at 17 percent, and alcohol at 15 percent. All of these percents are high contrasted to cannabis which was at less than 10 percent. An additional factor that supports the reality that marijuana is non-addictive is the lack of withdrawal signs. Cannabis, unlike tobacco or alcohol, does not trigger serious withdrawal effects. The most significant results of cannabis are slight apprehension, frustration, and also lack of rest. Tobacco produces comparable withdrawal results, however a lot more extreme by comparison. Sometimes cigarette's effects suffice to persuade a person to launch once again, which is not real for cannabis.

This short article to me was really mind-blowing. It offered a very large amount of information that was concentrated on the concern of whether or not marijuana is addicting or not. It contrasts dependency rates with much of the other over used narcotics; in addition to discussing the withdrawals that each medicine causes. Overall, it plainly is in favor of cannabis being made use of as a medication, as well as presents scientific proof to reveal why it must be.

One more significant item of proof that sustains legalisation originates from a write-up entitled ""Medical Marijuana"". While the National Organization for the Reform of Cannabis Laws was carrying out a research regarding the chemicals that cannabis has, scientists uncovered something interesting. The particular chemicals that they researched are called cannabinoids which are chemicals special to the marijuana plant. These chemical substances were found to really be anti-cancer.

This write-up is extremely important as a result of the details that it consists of about the unique impacts of cannabis' chemicals. The article also takes place to restate the benefits that were offered formerly in a different discourse. Additionally in the source, the lawful triumphes are also gone over which were associated with just how medical cannabis was able to reach where it is today.

In conclusion, cannabis being used for medicinal functions is an extremely arguable topic. So many studies have actually been done with each appearing to create various results. After checking out all the articles, my opinion has not been persuaded by the opposition. I still side with those that believe in legalisation for clinical objectives. I do however recognize that individuals have really various as well as extremely solid viewpoints on the topic. It is hard to inform exactly who is right or wrong. There is so much evidence presented both for and also against the legalisation of cannabis as medicine that it is much less about that to believe and more concerning who not to believe."

[meetmitsui]

Congratulations, 2017 Survivor!

The best part about 2017 is that you gave it your best shot. 😌👌🏼 Yes, tables turned. Plot twists happened; LIFE happened. 🙂 Reaching breakthroughs nearly broke you, stepping off your comfort zone felt almost like the worst idea, letting go of certain things barely had you moving forward, but guess what? You’re still here, alive and ready to conquer the next decade. You’re still here reading this post along with the rest of the year-in reviews on social media. This however, is not a #2017bestnine post, sorry. 😅😂✌🏻 Perhaps more like a proud congratulatory message from an ordinary human being who survived the year of seeding and reaping just like you did. 😎👍🏻#thuglife For some reason, 2017 was indeed a year of absolute crunch if not for all, maybe for the most of us. Let me walk you through this year’s highlights. From a forex trader’s perspective, the Brexit event welcomed the year with a crash on the British Pound. This sent trading charts on disarray until almost half of Q3. Also, Trump happened... need I mention what kind of Trump actually happened? Oh yeah, tensions on war here (China), tensions on war there (North Korea), tensions on war everywhere. Anyway, so the Federal Reserve also hiked interest rates 3 times this year; enough to send the dollar to Mars. But then again, Trump happened in between (ha ha ha, but may Trump supporters take no offense) and as Janet Yellen said before she left office, the fundamentals are supportive of growth and increasing rates is still appropriate. Oil prices hit new highs and boy, of course, #bitcoin... BITCOIN made history! 🤯💸 I’ve never considered it as an investment, but well it’s a highlight yesteryear so let me give credit to where it’s due. Congratulations to those who made profits or earned valuable lessons from the heavy market waves, and all the best to your 2018 investment journeys! 🙌🏻 Meanwhile, Juan de la Cruz could be crying out “Why can’t we let the yearend event pass without a single record of damage from typhoons?!”. Urduha, Vinta, you guys happy now? Well, that’s just the tail of a long list of highlights from every Filipino citizen’s 2017 diary. Why? Well, starting today we ought to be watching our hard-earned cash flush down the drain for the new tax schedules. Too negative in context, sorry but I just really hope the government’s “Build, build, build” program would be implemented as presented to the trusting (even in blind sight) public. If the program delivers (in the next five years) then I’ll wholeheartedly salute this administration. Ikaw na bahala sa pera namin, Tatay Digong! 😅 Moreover, this year we almost lost our life-changing tech advancements. I’m talking about Grab and Uber, but I’m just happy you managed to settle issues and stay in business. At least you can still keep helping Pinoys in their daily exodus (of commuting) and you can still keep saving lives from the wonderful world of random, choosy, abusive, unpredictably unsafe cab drivers. Well done, Grab & Uber! We didn’t lose you, however we lost Angkas & Wunder Carpool just like we lost someone’s hand when MRT messed up once out of the countless times it messed up this year. So let’s take this moment to reminisce our escapes from traffic (with Angkas) and our environmentally friendly acts (with Wunder Carpool, while eliminating the number of cars in the streets and their carbon emissions)... R.I.P. Angkas and Wunder Carpool App 😔 Let’s not forget the nationwide teleseryes we’ve actually casted in without us knowing. Mocha Uson’s role stood out as she escalated (way too) quickly from being an icon of fake news to being an epitome of dedication in service to Filipinos (specially when she entered law school). But still, let’s give her a chance, we’ll never know how much things can change for her and the (fake or not) news she’s had the power to infuse in our unsuspecting minds, sarcasm aside. One other plot in our nationwide teleserye also picked sizable interest from the public. Remember the sensational pre-debut shoot in the Malacanang Palace? Of course you do, that’s the latest twist. I wonder how the story ends though. 🤔 The war against drugs is still on, but only the branches of the glorious tree (of gods and masterminds) have been shut down. The carriers of the drug biz could be out, but its origin persists. And this question also persists: is the battle truly for the purpose of eliminating narco politics in the country or just for the purpose of silencing gnawers to the business? Oh well, let’s see. 🤧 On the brighter side, Filipinos became more educated and aggressive in terms of investments. The PSEi made multiple all-time highs and settled above 8,500 in the last trading hour. I hope that our willingness to explore the local and global markets continue to grow and that we’ll still feel empowered despite an increase in tax for passive investments. Mehehehe... amazing pahabol for the year ahh. I like your style, PH gov’t. Well, who doesn’t, right? 🤣 Congratulations, my fellow Filipinos who cared enough to feel the frustrations and handle the crazy political roller coaster. Congratulations for having no choice, but to deal with adversities like we always will. #thuglife Congratulations for having the courage to post your views on social media despite huge chances of your issues being left diverted and unaddressed by the stupefying government officials. Uso pa rin naman ang welga, galit lang talaga tayo sa dakilang traffic... soooo nah! 🤗😶😂 Now enough on politics. Inhale optimism, and breathe out these words: “Thank you government of the people, for the people and by the people. Well done!” *slow clap* 👌🏼 Now if there’s anything more sensational this year, that’s your love life. Yes, your love life. It’s that piece of needle that made you feel excruciating pain at one point this year, and that thread that sewed you back together when everything fell in perfect bliss. Well, let me not dwell on this too much, because we’re not ending this novel with everyone’s love stories. 😅 Congratulations, strong and independent humans for knowing your worth and not settling for less. Congratulations, f*ck boys and girls for playing too well this year you might actually have caught yourself STD. Sorry not sorry. 😏 And of course, congratulations to those who started and finished 2017 on their own (like completely “single”). Your third wheeling skills are remarkable! 😂🙌🏻✌🏻🍻#ForeverAlone 🙃 Highlights from the world’s iconic couples though? Single, taken, married, or whatever, we all felt that heartbreak on #Brangelina ‘s split (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt). Don’t tell me you didn’t twitch on that painful news. Oh well, at least “Jelena” (Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez) are back together before yearend, coining each other as their one true love. #MayForever na ba to? News just two hours ago revealed, Selena’s been calling JB, “my husband”. Boom!! And oh, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth got engaged, while Kylie Jenner got preggy. 🤭 Meanwhile, from the locale, #JaDine was a highlight for allowing the battle of morales to surface among conservative Filipinos. “Come on guys, it’s 2017.” he he he. 🤷🏻‍♀️ But really, let me take this moment to shed one last tear of joy for all the “It girls” getting wedded this year, even including the mother-of-the-It-girls, Dr. Vicky Belo-Kho. #WeddingGoals emerged from this parade of love, and I can’t wait for all of them to spread lovely genes across the planet. 😂🤗 Solenn and Nico, ano na?! Hahaha! Kayo talaga hinihintay ko eh! El Patato 🐢 deserves cute company 👶🏻 ! JK! Oh, I just love this pair! Anyhow, for some time my newsfeed’s been filled with wedding-related posts of friends. In fact, I was a bridesmaid for a time so yeah, 2017 was a year of love after all. 😍Congratulations to those who tied the knots this year! All the best wishes!🍾 From the social arena, we’ve seen depression take its toll on a massive scale this year though some thinkers disvalue its existence. Hi, Tito Joey! Sorry, but depression does exist. We’ve seen people fighting against bullying and racism to name a few, and people working towards advocacies on gender equality. The battles have been tough. In fact, we have casualties. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden & Black Hole, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, and Kim Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, are iconic names we’ve lost to suicide with depression being the key cause. One that triggered sadness most in me though is with Nadine Lustre’s brother where she coined #KeepGoing . The series of suicidal deaths allowed me to write the song “I Owe You”, and I hope I never get to finish it. 😔 Hello, survivors of this reaping world! Congratulations for never giving up! Congratulations for taking it all in, for standing up for what is right, for challenging yourself everyday, for battling with your personal demons and for pushing yourself to #KeepGoing . You may not be proud of yourself just yet, but God is proud of you and He will always be. 😉 Moving on, the more trivial things. Quite a number of words were added to the Filipino dictionary (unofficial but widely used) 🧐 such as “petmalu”, “lodi, & “werpa”. Vice Ganda even made a song out of these words. And speaking of songs, “Baby Shark” was almost this year’s favorite along with “Despacito”. 😅 Congratulations to all of us for enjoying 2017 with simple pleasures amidst the chaos! We truly are Filipinos for this trait. We smile amidst the storms, stand up and move forward. But really, take no offense, I’m sure we can do better than what we’ve done this year. Our creativity and love for novelty could translate to creativity for the bigger things this 2018. I am certain of this, and sure that we can attend to the issues that really matter. We need not be superstars or high profile personalities to change our bad habits that collectively destroy the world, socially, economically or environmentally. We need not be superheroes from films we’ve watched this year. No need to be part of the “Avengers” to save someone from bullying. No need to be part of “Justice League” to hear out anyone who’s close to committing suicide. No need to be “Wonder Woman” to look at humanity with hope amidst all the chaos. No need to be the big guy, because no matter how minute we are compared to this huge planet, our actions still create the Earth as our home. And what do we do to build a “home”? We build and connect our little realities. Let’s create better realities this 2018, so that next time we can congratulate ourselves for being co-creators of a better world. 🌍🌻 Too abstract I know, but well congratulations for letting that thought sink in for awhile. Congratulations for closing the year stronger than when you started. Congratulations for making it this far. Congratulations for surviving 2017! Now, get ready for a grander year. Hello, 2018! 💪🏻😎👌🏼 P.S. Congratulations for finishing this lengthy piece. hahaha! I hope you found value in it.😂

[milohbyt208-blog]

The One-of-a-kind Challenges Dealing With Medical Marijuana Sellers and also Users

"The thought that marijuana could be utilized for medicinal purposes is not a brand-new principle; in fact, it has been around for thousands of years. Before I began to do research on this subject I strongly believed that marijuana could be made use of as a reliable medication. I had listened to many tales regarding its capacity for helping cancer cells as well as AIDs patients, to name a few illnesses, to handle both the signs and symptoms of the diseases and also the side effects of the treatments. These treatments might consist of radiation treatment or radiation in the case of cancer patients. I also was well aware of the fact that cannabis has never ever had a single recorded instance of an individual dying from a marijuana overdose. This by itself is reason to state that cannabis could be a more secure medication as opposed to other prescriptions. With this evidence alone, it may appear that I am a full fan of the possibility of marijuana being utilized for medical purposes. This is not completely the case. Before doing any one of my research study I have listened to the scary tales of people coming to be totally addicted and having the medicine take control of their lives. The whole issue of marijuana is a very discussed subject and also ought to be considered from various point of views prior to choosing a position.

As I conducted my study among the primary debates in this heated discussion is about the actual potential for it to help individuals better manage the signs and symptoms of illness. Some individuals believe that cannabis has much to supply people in the world of medication; others say that it does even more injury than excellent. Those who are supporters of cannabis being legislated state that it is of remarkable clinical value. They recommend that it can aid minimize persistent discomfort, quit muscle spasms from taking place, cause a gain in hunger as well as assistance quit queasiness, and additionally alleviate stress within the eye. A few of the disorders that could be assisted by this medication include AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, several sclerosis, and glaucoma. AIDS as well as cancer individuals could take advantage of cannabis by having both the pain related to this disease decreased. Additionally, these patients could be aided by having a much more triggered cravings as well as much less nausea. Those with epilepsy could be assisted by potentially having seizures protected against. People dealing with multiple sclerosis might possibly have much less excruciating muscle spasms. Also, those who have glaucoma could be offered with relief from intra-ocular pressure and possibly be spared extreme eye damages.

This write-up as a whole was generally a checklist of all the ways that maybe practical for a number of diseases. It also explained that for a very long time cannabis was being utilized as medicine currently so this idea of it working is not new. After seeing every one of the conditions that it could potentially aid with I was stunned. All I can think about with regard to individuals that suffer from these diseases is that if I remained in their area I would want to try anything that might possibly work.

Nevertheless, there are those that differ completely as well as state that marijuana has no area in the clinical world what so ever. They mention the reality that cannabis has actually never been approved as a true medication by the majority of significant organizations involved in screening and also certifying drugs including the Fda. Likewise, it has actually been pointed out that clinical marijuana still can not be prescribed in the large majority of the states today. Marijuana is likewise not sold in drug stores, as well as possibly the most essential point to note is that marijuana is still ranked in the very same group of drugs as heroin, LSD, and also various other illegal drugs.

This short article was defiantly versus medical marijuana. It criticized every part of it having clinical value. It explained that it has actually never been accepted for clinical use by the Fda (FDA). It also broke down the requirements for a medicine to be accredited to have medical value and also spoke about each point and why marijuana did not certify. This short article was, if absolutely nothing else, very reliable at showing the sharp comparison in views between the supporters and also opposition.

Another argument that has actually been made is whether marijuana has the possible to be an addicting drug. Some individuals state that cannabis presents a danger to culture as a result of its addicting properties. There is an excellent reason to count on this perspective. While between 1992 and also 2006, the stamina of marijuana enormously increased. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that this boost could be as much as one hundred seventy-five percent. This created the number of people that depend on marijuana to increase. There are several dangers that go along with reliance on marijuana. Among these is that some users could possibly drive while drunk of the drug. Utilizing marijuana impairs motor skills as well as can lead to mishaps. In general, marijuana is the second most often found medication in the driver's systems.

When reading this write-up, it became clear that the author was extremely against all forms of marijuana both clinical and also non-medical. It goes on to discuss the development of cannabis right into what we have today, along with the reason that it is so habit forming. The author of this short article likewise reveals the most significant factor they assume that cannabis needs to not be legislated in any kind. Medical cannabis is one step better to legalisation. This puts children and also teenagers in jeopardy as well as ptsd treatment poinciana fl this post generally makes a statement against such conditions.

On the other hand, there are individuals who state that cannabis is not habit forming and is in fact a very risk-free medicine to utilize. One such individual is Paul Armentano author of ""Cannabis is not addicting"". In his post, Armentano cites a report done by the Institute of Medication (IOM). According to the IOM, less than ten percent of people who try marijuana meets the summary of an individual who displays dependency. This is an unlike the number of people that showed dependency to various other drugs.

These medications consisted of cigarette which was at 32 percent, heroin at 23 percent, cocaine at 17 percent, and alcohol at 15 percent. Every one of these percents are high compared to marijuana which went to less than 10 percent. Another variable that supports the truth that marijuana is non-addictive is the lack of withdrawal signs and symptoms. Marijuana, unlike cigarette or alcohol, does not cause extreme withdrawal impacts. One of the most noteworthy effects of cannabis are mild worry, agitation, as well as lack of rest. Tobacco creates similar withdrawal results, yet much more severe comparative. Often times tobacco's effects are enough to convince an individual to start up once again, which is not real for cannabis.

This short article to me was really eye-opening. It presented a large amount of details that was concentrated on the concern of whether or not cannabis is addicting or not. It compares reliance prices with much of the various other abused narcotics; in addition to discussing the withdrawals that each medicine triggers. On the whole, it plainly is in favor of marijuana being utilized as a medication, and presents scientific proof to show why it should be.

One more major piece of proof that sustains legalization comes from an article labelled ""Medical Cannabis"". While the National Company for the Reform of Marijuana Rule was performing a research about the chemicals that marijuana contains, scientists found something fascinating. The particular chemicals that they studied are called cannabinoids which are chemicals distinct to the marijuana plant. These chemical compounds were found to really be anti-cancer.

This write-up is extremely important due to the details that it has about the distinct effects of marijuana' chemicals. The article likewise goes on to restate the advantages that were offered previously in a different commentary. Even more in the resource, the legal triumphes are additionally talked about which were related to just how clinical marijuana was able to reach where it is today.

To conclude, marijuana being utilized for medicinal functions is a very arguable topic. A lot of researches have actually been performed with each appearing to create various outcomes. After reviewing all the write-ups, my viewpoint has not been guided by the opposition. I still side with those that rely on legalisation for clinical purposes. I do however recognize that people have extremely different and also very solid point of views on the subject. It is hard to inform exactly that is right or incorrect. There is so much evidence offered both for and against the legalization of cannabis as medicine that it is less regarding that to think and also much more concerning that not to believe."

[jeffreykrhh403]

The Several Benefits of Clinical Marijuana

"The idea that cannabis could be ptsd treatment poinciana fl utilized for medicinal purposes is not a new concept; actually, it has actually been around for countless years. Prior to I began to do research study on this topic I strongly thought that marijuana could be utilized as an efficient medicine. I had actually heard numerous tales concerning its possibility for assisting cancer as well as AIDs people, to name a few health problems, to deal with both the signs of the diseases and also the adverse effects of the therapies. These treatments could consist of chemotherapy or radiation in the case of cancer cells individuals. I additionally was cognizant of the reality that marijuana has never had a solitary documented instance of a person dying from a marijuana overdose. This by itself is reason to state that cannabis could be a safer medication rather than various other prescriptions. With this evidence alone, it might seem that I am a full fan of the possibility of cannabis being made use of for medical purposes. This is not entirely the instance. Before doing any one of my study I have listened to the horror tales of people becoming entirely addicted and also having the medicine take over their lives. The entire issue of cannabis is a highly disputed subject and must be taken a look at from various point of views before determining a position.

As I performed my research among the primary disagreements in this heated dispute is about the real capacity for it to assist people better handle the signs of illness. Some people believe that cannabis has a lot to offer individuals in the realm of medication; others state that it does more harm than good. Those that are proponents of marijuana being legislated claim that it is of significant medical value. They suggest that it can help alleviate persistent pain, quit muscle spasms from occurring, trigger a gain in cravings as well as assistance quit nausea, as well as also eliminate pressure within the eye. A few of the ailments that could be helped by this medicine include AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, numerous sclerosis, and glaucoma. AIDS and cancer patients can take advantage of cannabis by having both the pain associated with this disease reduced. Also, these patients could be helped by having a more stimulated hunger as well as much less nausea or vomiting. Those with epilepsy could be helped by possibly having seizures avoided. People dealing with numerous sclerosis might potentially have much less excruciating muscle spasms. Also, those that have glaucoma could be offered with relief from intra-ocular stress as well as potentially be saved severe eye damages.

This write-up overall was essentially a list of completely that maybe helpful for a number of diseases. It likewise explained that for a very long time marijuana was being used as medication already so this idea of it being useful is not new. After seeing all of the conditions that it can potentially assist with I was amazed. All I could consider when it come to individuals who deal with these diseases is that if I remained in their place I would certainly intend to attempt anything that might potentially function.

However, there are those that disagree completely and say that cannabis has no location in the medical world what so ever. They point out the reality that marijuana has never been approved as a real medicine by most significant organizations involved in testing as well as accrediting drugs including the Fda. Also, it has been pointed out that medical cannabis still can not be prescribed in the substantial bulk of the states today. Marijuana is also not sold in pharmacies, and maybe the most vital thing to note is that marijuana is still placed in the very same classification of medications as heroin, LSD, and also other controlled substances.

This post was defiantly versus clinical cannabis. It slammed every single part of it having clinical worth. It mentioned that it has never been approved for medical use by the Fda (FDA). It also broke down the requirements for a medication to be licensed to have clinical worth and discussed each point as well as why cannabis did not qualify. This short article was, if nothing else, really efficient at revealing the sharp comparison in views between the fans and opposition.

One more disagreement that has actually been made is whether or not marijuana has the possible to be an addicting medication. Some individuals state that marijuana presents a risk to culture due to its addicting buildings. There is an excellent factor to believe in this viewpoint. During the time in between 1992 as well as 2006, the stamina of cannabis massively boosted. As a matter of fact, it is approximated that this rise could be as much as one hundred seventy-five percent. This triggered the number of people who are dependent upon cannabis to boost. There are a number of risks that support reliance on marijuana. Among these is that some users can perhaps drive while under the influence of the medication. Utilizing marijuana impairs electric motor abilities and also can cause accidents. On the whole, marijuana is the 2nd most regularly detected drug in the motorist's systems.

When reading this article, it became clear that the writer was very versus all forms of cannabis both medical and non-medical. It goes on to review the development of marijuana right into what we have today, in addition to the reason that it is so addictive. The author of this short article also shows the most significant reason they believe that cannabis should not be legislated in any type. Medical marijuana is one action more detailed to legalisation. This places youngsters as well as teenagers in jeopardy and this short article mainly makes a statement versus such circumstances.

On the other hand, there are people who say that cannabis is not addicting as well as is actually a very safe medicine to use. One such individual is Paul Armentano author of ""Marijuana is not habit forming"". In his post, Armentano points out a record done by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). According to the IOM, less than ten percent of people who attempt cannabis fulfills the summary of an individual who displays addiction. This is an unlike the number of people who revealed dependency to various other medications.

These medications consisted of cigarette which went to 32 percent, heroin at 23 percent, cocaine at 17 percent, and also alcohol at 15 percent. Every one of these portions are high contrasted to marijuana which was at less than 10 percent. Another aspect that sustains the fact that marijuana is non-addictive is the absence of withdrawal signs and symptoms. Cannabis, unlike cigarette or alcohol, does not cause extreme withdrawal results. One of the most remarkable results of marijuana are mild apprehension, anxiety, as well as absence of rest. Cigarette produces similar withdrawal impacts, but much more severe comparative. Many times cigarette's impacts are enough to persuade an individual to launch once more, which is not true for marijuana.

This write-up to me was very eye-opening. It provided a large amount of details that was concentrated on the issue of whether or not cannabis is addicting or not. It contrasts dependency rates with much of the various other abused narcotics; in addition to going over the withdrawals that each medication causes. In general, it clearly is in favor of marijuana being utilized as a medication, and provides clinical evidence to show why it must be.

Another significant item of evidence that sustains legalisation comes from a write-up labelled ""Medical Cannabis"". While the National Company for the Reform of Marijuana Regulation was performing a study about the chemicals that marijuana has, researchers uncovered something interesting. The particular chemicals that they studied are called cannabinoids which are chemicals one-of-a-kind to the marijuana plant. These chemical substances were found to actually be anti-cancer.

This short article is very vital because of the information that it includes about the distinctive effects of cannabis' chemicals. The article likewise takes place to restate the advantages that were provided formerly in a separate discourse. Additionally in the resource, the legal victories are also discussed which were associated with how medical marijuana was able to get to where it is today.

To conclude, marijuana being made use of for medical objectives is a very arguable subject. So many research studies have been performed with each appearing to produce different outcomes. After going through all the posts, my viewpoint has not been swayed by the opposition. I still side with those that count on legalisation for medical objectives. I do nonetheless understand that people have really different and really solid point of views on the subject. It is hard to inform precisely that is right or incorrect. There is a lot evidence provided both for as well as against the legalisation of marijuana as medication that it is much less regarding that to think and much more about who not to believe."

[andresqhxz324-blog]

Points To See as well as Do in The Netherlands

"The idea that cannabis could be used for medical purposes is not a new idea; as a matter of fact, it has been around for hundreds of years. Prior to I started to do research on this subject I highly believed that cannabis could be made use of as an efficient medicine. I had actually heard numerous tales about its capacity for aiding cancer cells as well as AIDs people, to name a few ailments, to handle both the symptoms of the diseases and also the side effects of the therapies. These therapies could include chemotherapy or radiation in the case of cancer cells people. I likewise was well aware of the fact that cannabis has never had a single documented instance of a person dying from a cannabis overdose. This by itself is cause to state that marijuana could be a more secure medication in contrast to other prescriptions. cbdforsalenearme.com With this proof alone, it might appear that I am a total advocate of the possibility of cannabis being made use of for clinical purposes. This is not totally the instance. Prior to doing any one of my research I have actually listened to the scary tales of individuals coming to be completely addicted and having the medicine take over their lives. The entire problem of cannabis is a highly discussed topic as well as must be taken a look at from different perspectives prior to making a decision a setting.

As I conducted my study one of the main disagreements in this warmed argument has to do with the real potential for it to assist individuals better manage the signs and symptoms of illness. Some individuals think that cannabis has much to supply people in the world of medication; others say that it does more harm than good. Those who are advocates of cannabis being legalized say that it is of tremendous clinical value. They suggest that it can aid minimize chronic discomfort, quit muscle spasms from happening, trigger a gain in hunger and also aid stop nausea or vomiting, and likewise soothe stress within the eye. A few of the conditions that could be assisted by this drug consist of AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, numerous sclerosis, as well as glaucoma. AIDS as well as cancer clients could benefit from marijuana by having both the pain associated with this illness reduced. Additionally, these people could be helped by having a much more stimulated cravings as well as less nausea. Those with epilepsy could be helped by potentially having seizures protected against. People struggling with multiple sclerosis could perhaps have much less excruciating muscle spasms. Likewise, those who have glaucoma could be provided with relief from intra-ocular stress and also possibly be saved serious eye damage.

This article all at once was primarily a list of all the ways that it could be practical for numerous conditions. It also explained that for a long time cannabis was being used as medication already so this idea of it serving is not new. After seeing every one of the diseases that it could potentially aid with I was surprised. All I can consider when it come to individuals who deal with these conditions is that if I were in their place I would certainly want to attempt anything that might possibly work.

However, there are those that disagree entirely as well as state that cannabis has no location in the clinical globe what so ever before. They mention the reality that cannabis has never been approved as a real medication by many significant organizations associated with screening and accrediting medications consisting of the Fda. Also, it has actually been explained that clinical cannabis still can not be suggested in the large bulk of the states today. Cannabis is likewise not marketed in drug stores, and also probably the most essential thing to note is that cannabis is still rated in the exact same classification of drugs as heroin, LSD, and various other illegal drugs.

This post was certainly versus clinical cannabis. It criticized each and every part of it having medical worth. It mentioned that it has actually never been authorized for medical usage by the Fda (FDA). It likewise broke down the criteria for a drug to be licensed to have medical worth as well as spoke about each point and also why cannabis did not qualify. This write-up was, if nothing else, really efficient at revealing the sharp contrast in views in between the supporters and also opposition.

Another argument that has been made is whether marijuana has the potential to be an addictive medication. Some individuals state that cannabis provides a threat to society as a result of its addictive buildings. There is an excellent reason to rely on this viewpoint. While between 1992 and also 2006, the stamina of marijuana massively enhanced. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that this boost could be as high as one hundred seventy-five percent. This caused the number of people that are dependent upon cannabis to boost. There are a number of threats that support dependence on marijuana. Among these is that some users could perhaps drive while drunk of the medication. Utilizing marijuana harms motor abilities and can bring about mishaps. Overall, cannabis is the 2nd most regularly identified medicine in the vehicle driver's systems.

When reading this article, it became clear that the writer was really versus all kinds of cannabis both medical and non-medical. It takes place to review the advancement of cannabis into what we have today, as well as the reason that it is so addictive. The author of this post additionally reveals the biggest factor they assume that cannabis should not be legalized in any kind of kind. Medical marijuana is one action more detailed to legalization. This puts kids and also teens in jeopardy and also this post primarily makes a statement versus such situations.

On the other hand, there are individuals who state that marijuana is not habit forming as well as is really a very safe drug to make use of. One such person is Paul Armentano writer of ""Marijuana is not habit forming"". In his post, Armentano cites a report done by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). According to the IOM, less than ten percent of people who try marijuana meets the summary of an individual who displays dependency. This is a far cry from the number of people that revealed addiction to various other medications.

These medications included cigarette which went to 32 percent, heroin at 23 percent, drug at 17 percent, as well as alcohol at 15 percent. Every one of these portions are high compared to marijuana which went to less than 10 percent. Another factor that supports the truth that marijuana is non-addictive is the absence of withdrawal symptoms. Cannabis, unlike tobacco or alcohol, does not trigger serious withdrawal effects. The most noteworthy impacts of cannabis are mild concern, anxiety, and lack of rest. Tobacco generates similar withdrawal impacts, however a lot more serious by comparison. Lot of times cigarette's impacts are enough to persuade an individual to launch once more, which is not true for marijuana.

This short article to me was really mind-blowing. It presented a very large quantity of info that was concentrated on the issue of whether cannabis is habit forming or otherwise. It contrasts dependence rates with most of the various other abused narcotics; in addition to discussing the withdrawals that each medicine creates. Overall, it plainly is in favor of cannabis being used as a medicine, as well as presents scientific proof to show why it must be.

One more major piece of proof that supports legalisation originates from an article labelled ""Medical Marijuana"". While the National Company for the Reform of Marijuana Regulation was carrying out a research concerning the chemicals that marijuana consists of, scientists discovered something intriguing. The particular chemicals that they researched are called cannabinoids which are chemicals special to the marijuana plant. These chemical substances were located to really be anti-cancer.

This short article is extremely crucial as a result of the information that it consists of about the unique effects of marijuana' chemicals. The write-up additionally takes place to restate the advantages that were offered formerly in a separate commentary. Even more in the resource, the legal success are also gone over which were related to just how clinical cannabis was able to get to where it is today.

In conclusion, cannabis being utilized for medicinal functions is an extremely debatable subject. A lot of studies have actually been performed with each seeming to produce various outcomes. After reading through all the articles, my opinion has actually not been guided by the opposition. I still side with those that rely on legalization for medical functions. I do nevertheless understand that individuals have very various as well as extremely solid viewpoints on the topic. It is tough to inform precisely that is right or wrong. There is a lot evidence offered both for and against the legalisation of marijuana as medicine that it is much less concerning that to think and extra concerning that not to believe."