#and they were like yeah its probably infected so surgery today)

[endlessbrainpain]

me: I have heart burn

my dad: why do you have heart burn?

me: I don't have a gallbladder any more!

my dad: oh right

[peterparkers-bad-youtube-apology]

The Sanguine Web - Part 1

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy this, it is the first part of my 100 follower special, the other parts are coming shortly. I’ve been really wanting to a Hanahaki fic for awhile so here it is. I also want to do some different soulmate au’s so those will be coming soon! Love you guys so much xx

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death and blood

Summary: You try to figure out how to tell your friends your sick

Prompts

Masterlist

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(y/n)’s pov

“I know this diagnosis is scary, but we’ve got a quite few options now,” Dr. Shaw smiled, though it felt a little backhanded, “Not, the only way we can guarantee your safe recovery is removal of the infection, but the good news there are plenty of doctors in the city who know how to perform the surgery so it wouldn’t take us very long at all to get you in. Alternatively, having your feelings requited will lead to the infection dying off on its own, or, you can try to resolve your own feelings. If you’d rather pursue one of those then a good first step is talking to them, as scary as that may be.”

“Okay,” I have to let everything soak in for just a minute, “Is the surgery risky?” “The actual surgery is very safe, though it will lead to the removal of your feelings for that person. The only real risk is the chance that it prevents you from falling in love in the future.”

“What are the chances that happens?”

“It’s about fifty fifty, and unfortunately there isn’t really a way for us to tell if that will be you, it’s just a risk we have to take,” she clasps her arms in front of her, “I’m not asking you to decide today, you’ve caught this very early so we’ve got a bit of time to figure things out. Until then I can recommend a therapist who specializes in Hanahaki’s, and there’s some antibiotics I can prescribe you that will help slow the infection.”

“Okay, thank you,” I swallow the lump forming in my throat, “I think maybe I’ll try and talk to him and work it out that way.”

She nodded, “Okay, most patients opt to try that first. We can still get you into surgery later if that doesn’t work out.”

“How late can I opt in?”

“Up until the infection starts spreading, once it’s outside of your lungs the surgery won’t do anything. However, if your feelings were to change at that point or your feelings are requited, there is still a chance you’d be able to pull through,” she began scribbling things onto a notepad, “That’s still far off right now, but this disease it unpredictable, so we’ll need you to come in every week for blood work and xrays. We’ll monitor everything very closely so we’ll know if we start getting close to the point of no return so to speak.”

“Alright, I guess straight to the pharmacy then?”

She nodded, “Good girl, and you call us if you need anything. If things feel like they’re accelerating or you start coughing up a lot straight to the hospital okay?”

I nod, “Okay, thank you.”

“Of course, I’ll see you next week.”

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I took the subway to the pharmacy stuck in an odd state of numbness. Part of me wanted to cry, or scream, but I just didn’t do anything. I’m in shock until the woman behind the pharmacy counter begins speaking to me.

“Alright sweetheart what can I do for you?” “Just getting this filled,” I hand her my prescription with a forced smile.

She takes the paper, squinting at it before frowning, “Oh my…” she types a few things and sighs, “I’ll be right back,” I drum my fingers nervously on the counter while I wait for her to return, finally she does carrying a little white bag, “I know this isn’t totally appropriate but I know they only prescribe this for one thing and…” she trails off for a second, starting to blush, “Well my girlfriend had Hanahaki’s too, and she was really scared, but she ended up telling me how she felt and it was great, she recovered just like that,” she offers me a sympathetic smile, “I know this is hard but you should talk to them, I’m sure whoever they are, they’ll at least want to help.”

It’s sweet of her to say, so I thank her and shove the bag in my purse on my way out. I’m sure Peter would want to help, but he’s with someone else, and they love each other. I don’t get to confess and clear things up and live happily ever after. I have to move on, it’s the only option for me. I’m not getting that surgery and risking never falling in love again. That’s not fair. Just because I fell for the wrong person this time I have to never love again? Or die? 

I’m tearing up when I get home, and unfortunately everyone is already over. 

Betty beams at me from the couch, “Hey, how’d it go?”

“Good,” my voice shakes a little, “They think it’s just, um, allergies. I’ve got some pills that should start clearing it up.”

She nods, though all of them look a little concerned, “You’re gonna be okay then right?”

I lie through my teeth, “Nothing life threatening.”

“Okay…” she seems to buy it, but I’m sure she’ll end up drilling me on it later, “You wanna join us then?” “Sure, just, uh, give me a second,” I retreat to my bedroom, dumping my purse and jacket before clutching myself tight. I just want to cry, but I have to wait, everyone’s going to know something is wrong if I try to hide out.

I return to the living room after consoluling myself for a minute, taking a seat besides Betty on the couch, “We ordered pizza,” MJ smiles, “I got that veggie one I was telling you about.”

“Hope it’s good,” I bite my cheek, I feel guilty even talking to her.

“It’s amazing, you’re gonna love it,” she insists. 

Betty’s eyes bore into me suspiciously, “Are they really sure it’s just allergies?”

I nod, “Of course Betty, I promise I don’t need a lung transplant or something.”

“Are you sure?” she presses, “There was blood.”

“Blood?” MJ raises a brow.

Betty nods, “Yeah, she was coughing up blood last night, that’s why she even went to the doctor. It seemed worse than allergies.”

“My throat was just dry,” I try to explain, “I promise I’m fine, it’s just something in the air right now.”

“Okay,” she lets up, “But if you do need a lung transplant I’ve got you.”

“And maybe if you give (y/n) one of your lungs you two will get some sort of psychic connection,” Ned interjected, “I bet they’d make a tv show about you guys.”

Everyone starts laughing, and for the first time that day I let myself glance up at Peter. He’s so pretty, and so is his laugh, but before I can appreciate either of those things I start coughing. It’s an almost instant reminder that I can’t do that. Something tickles in my throat so I quickly stand up.

“Are you okay?” Peter frowns at me. I nod quickly, “Just need some water,” I cover my mouth with my hand as I struggle to pour myself some water. 

I bend over the sink to make sure none of them can see the petal I cough up. I know it must be a begonia. Last finals week was really stressful for me, and in the middle of the week Peter had dragged me away from the cave I was studying in to relax for a while. He took me to this cute little market and bought me some flowers while we were out, begonias.

I shove the petal down the garbage disposal and wash away the blood, I’ll have to figure out what to do when I start coughing up more, full flowers too. 

“Are you sure you're good?” Betty questions when I stand back up, I swear she has xray vision or something. 

“Yeah, better now,” I take a big swig of my water, “I’ll be good as new in a few days.”

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“Make yourself comfortable,” Dr. Morrison picks a notebook up off her desk. She seems very nice, I just hope she’ll be able to help me work through some of my feelings, “I’m really glad you came here, therapy can be scary, especially in your situation, so coming here is already a step in the right direction.”

“Thanks, I’m still a little nervous, but anything to help.”

She gives one kurt nod and glances down at her notepad, “Absolutely. I’d like to know what your intention is here so I can know how to help you best. Do you intend to get surgery?” I shake my head, “No, I’m not gonna get the surgery. I want to just try and move on.”

“Alright, is this person aware of your feelings?”

I shake my head, “No, he’s with someone else so that isn’t really an option for me.”

She nods, “Okay, can I ask his name?”

“Peter.”

“Peter,” she repeats, scribbling a few things down, “Are you two close?”

“Yeah, he’s my best friend.”

“Is he aware that you're sick?”

“No, I haven’t told anyone yet.”

“Why’s that?”

“I know they’d ask who and I don’t know what to tell them yet, and it’s still new. I mean I want to tell them eventually, but I think I still need some time.”

“Of course, you need to process everything first, that’s perfectly reasonable. I do encourage you to tell them though, having a good support system is going to help you feel a lot better, and you can always let them know you just don’t feel comfortable telling them who it is.”

“I will.”

She smiled, “So, what do you like about Peter?”

I blush, “Everything I guess, he’s smart and he’s funny and I always feel really good when I’m with him. I don’t know, we just kind of click.”

“You two spend a lot of time together?”

I nod, “Yeah, we hang out all the time, I probably see him more than my actual roommate.”

“How would you feel about spending less time together?”

“He’s my best friend, why would I do that?”

“Separation is going to help you move on, I’m not saying stop being friends or avoid him, but giving yourself space from him is going to be good for you.”

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I feel like therapy went well, I feel more hopeful when we finish, although I’m definitely tired. She told me the goal is to get me really comfortable with my feelings so I can move on. I decided to set myself a goal afterwards, I want to tell Betty before my next session, a week from today. I can’t hide it from her for too long anyway, we live together after all, and she’s already convinced there’s something more than just allergies going on. I debate even telling her when I get home, but Peter and Ned are in the living room, and I’m still not sure I’m ready.

“Hey,” Peter smiles to me as I walk in, “How was work?” “Fine. I didn’t realize you guys were coming over.”

“Oh yeah, we’re going to the movies. You should come, MJ is gonna meet us there.”

Dr. Morrison said separation is good, and I don’t really want to be their fifth wheel anyway.

“I think I’ll stay home,” I clutch my purse nervously, “Thanks for offering though.”

His lips pulled to a slight frown, “You sure? MJ picked some weird art film, it’d be more fun if you came.”

“Yeah, work was actually pretty tiring and I still have a bit of homework…”

“Okay,” his cheeks just barely dust pink, “Next time then?”

I nod, “Of course, you guys have fun,” I scurried to my room as quick as I could.

I don’t know what exactly made me start crying, I mean I’ve cried every night this week so maybe it’s just the overwhelming feelings again, but I think it was Peter. I don’t want to have to pull away from my best friend, I just wish I loved him the way I was supposed to. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, it just makes me feel gross. 

I end up hiding out until they leave, then I return to the kitchen for some hot cocoa and comfort food. I calm down a bit, but I’m still a little teary eyed when I pass out on the couch. I don’t know how long I get to sleep for, but what ends up waking me up is the front door opening. I peer through groggy sleepy eyes, expecting to find Betty, ready to scold me for not going to bed.

What I didn’t expect was Peter. 

He bent down beside me and set a hand on my cheek, “Wake up sleepy head, I know this couch isn’t that comfortable.”

“Hey,” I yawn before rolling onto my back, I push my arms up in an attempt to push the sleepiness out of my body, “Where is everyone?”

“Betty is back at mine and Ned’s, I came by just to talk to you, but it can wait,” he smiles and offers me a hand, “Come on bunny, I’ll take you to bed.”

I shake my head, “I’m up, what did you want to talk about?”

He blushes, “Let me help you to bed first.”

“I’m a big girl Peter, I can put myself to bed. What’s on your mind?”

He sits besides me with a sigh, “It wanted to make sure you’re okay, you’ve just seemed a little off this week.”

“It’s just allergies P, I’ll feel better in no time.”

“I don’t think so,” he frowns, “I don’t think allergies forget how to talk to your best friend.” 

“I didn't, I just don’t feel very good.”

“Are you sure? You know you can tell me if you’re upset with me or something…”

I laugh, “Peter why would I be upset with you?”

“I don’t know, you’ve just seemed off every time I’ve seen you this week.”

“Well it’s not you Peter, I just don’t feel very good. If I were upset with you I would just tell you.”

“Okay,” he accepts my answer though he doesn’t seem totally satisfied by it. Who am I kidding? It’s Peter, he always knows when something’s up. “You know I’m always here for you right?”

I nod, “I’m here for you too Peter.”

He wraps an arm around my neck and kisses the top of my head, “We could hang out for a little while, play some games or something.”

“I’m still pretty tired, I think I’m just gonna go to bed,” I blush as I stand, “Maybe some other time.”

His smile falls but he nods, “Okay, but it has to be soon. I miss hanging out.”

“Soon,” I agree, “I miss it too.”

He stands and pulls me into a hug, placing another kiss on the top of my head, “I’m sorry about whatever’s going on, you know I love you tons.”

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to burst into tears, to not break down and just tell him the truth. I can’t though, I know I can’t. It’s not his fault he doesn’t love me the way that would fix everything, he loves someone else and I want that for him, even if it makes me jealous, even if it kills me. I just want Peter to be happy. 

“I love you too.”

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This morning Betty nearly caught me tossing a petal out the window, making it very clear that I’ll have to tell her soon. I’d much rather tell her than have her just find out, I just don’t know how. I think I should just sit her down and tell her, but I just want to sugar coat it somehow, make it seem better than it is. I’m trying to figure out some way to do that when I get called up to the pharmacy counter. I barely even realize I know the girl behind the counter this time. Adeline, MJ’s roommate.

“Oh hey,” she smiles to me, “Are you okay with me filling your prescription? I can totally grab someone else.”

I know she’ll know if I let her fill the prescription, it’s a little scary, but there’s enough separation between us that it feels okay, like a warm up.

“I don’t mind,” I smile back, “Just don’t tell everyone about the pills I’m popping.”

She laughs, “I’ll keep it to myself,” she turns to her computer, typing away before squinting at the screen, then it seems to hit her, “(y/n)...” she turns to me with a frown, “Do you?...”

I nod, “Yeah, but like I said, don’t tell anyone.”

“Of course,” she pursed her lips, “I’ll be right back.”

It was worse than I thought, Adeline and I aren’t super close, we get along, but we never hang out outside of group get togethers or parties. I didn’t expect her to look so upset or concerned, I thought she’d just tell me she was sorry, that she hoped I got better. It makes me scared of how everyone else is going to react.

“Here you go,” she frowned as she passed the little white bag to me, “You haven’t told anyone?”

I shake my head, “Not yet.”

“Really? Not even Betty, o-or Peter?”

“No one, I’m going to, just kind of figuring out how.”

She nods, “Yeah, I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m gonna get better, it’s just a little scary for now.”

“Of course,” she smiles, but it’s one of those sad smiles I have a hard time looking at, “I, um, if there’s anything I can do just let me know. I could help you tell everyone,” she blushed suddenly, “When you’re ready of course. Just, uh, maybe it’d be easier to get it out of the way all at once you know?”

“Thank you.” It’s not a bad idea actually, maybe it would be easier than telling everyone individually. Then I just have to explain it once and answer all the questions once. I don’t have to answer all the questions over and over. It might balance out the reactions too. “That might be nicer actually, and you could probably help explain the medical stuff a bit more.”

She nodded, “Yeah, definitely, I mean do it however you need to, but if I can help in any way just let me know.”

“Thanks Adeline, I’ll think about it,” I give her an awkward little wave as I walk away.

I start making a pros and cons list in mind, weighing both of my options to try and figure out the best way to go about this, of course my thoughts are then interrupted by a phone call. Peter.

He’s been trying to get together, and this time I really have been avoiding him, following the advice of my therapist. I don’t know if it’s helping, I think about him just as much, the thoughts are just sadder now, but it’s what I have to do. My therapist knows how to get me better, and I have to get better or I’ll never get to see him, or anyone. It would be so much easier if I could just tell him that, I hate lying to him. 

“Hello?”

“Hey bunny,” he sounds chipper as ever, “How are you?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Well I’m okay right now, but I would be a thousand times better if you came over and helped me study?”

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” I glance around me, trying to think of something, “I have to go grocery shopping.”

“How about I come help you then?”

“I thought you needed to study?”

“I do but,” he pauses for a minute, “I know you said you aren’t avoiding me, but you know it went from not talking as much to suddenly we haven’t even seen each other in days.”

“Well why do we need to hang out all the time anyway? Just go hang out with MJ.” 

I don’t mean to sound as angry as I do, I’m just so frustrated. It’s not easy keeping this all to myself.

He stays quiet and then sighs. “You’ve been acting weird since you went to the doctor, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. I’m worried about you.”

“Nothing’s going on Peter,” I frown and wrap an arm around myself, “I’m just busy today alright?”

“You’re busy everyday.”

“I’m not, I’m just busy right now…” I sigh and hang up, I just don’t really know what to say to him.

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After my awkward phone call with Peter I decided it would be best for me to tell everyone at once. I just need to get it out of the way, rip the bandaid off. So I texted Adeline, and she proposed that she and MJ would have everyone at their place to hang out today. She said it was gonna just be dinner and some party games, and everyone agreed to go. I told Betty and Ned I’d meet them there so I’d have a bit of alone time to get ready. I wanted just a bit alone just to prepare what I’m going to say and everything, I want this to go well. I want to walk into therapy tomorrow and tell her all about how I told my friends and I have this amazing support system.

A coughing fit interrupts my attempt to hype myself up in the mirror, it’s much more violent than they have been. The petals tickle a bit, and there’s usually a bit of blood, but it’s never like this. As a bit of blood splatters in the sink I hear what I assume is Betty coming back to retrieve some forgotten item. I kick the bathroom door closed and hope she just ignores me. Instead the door almost instantly starts creaking open.

“I’m fine!” I lean over the sink, trying to cover it with my hair, “Just give me a second!” I choke on my words.

The hand that’s set on my back is distinctly not Betty’s, “Jesus Christ are yo-” Peter stops mid sentence, just as the full flower falls out of my mouth, followed by a streak of blood. The full ones are much harder to cough up than the petals.

“I’m fine,” I quickly try to think of someway to explain this, “That was just in my hai-”

He seizes my wrist as I attempt to turn on the sink and wash away the evidence, “Did you cough up that flower?”

I flush, “Did you break into my house?”

“Betty gave me her keys so I could pick you up and figure out why you’ve been avoiding me! Now tell me what the hell is going on!” he demanded in the most concerned, Peter-like way he possibly could. 

I take a deep breath, glancing at the mess in the sink before I finally answer, “I have Hanahaki’s disease.”

His eyes dart between me and the sink, seeming to debate his next words carefully, “How long have you known?”

“About two weeks.”

“Were you even going to tell me?”

I nodded, “I was going to tell everyone tonight.”

He dropped my wrist and pushed a hand through his hair, I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, “W-Well it’s not that bad right? I mean there’s surgery, a-and I’m sure if you just talk to him he probably feels the same way.”

“He’s with someone else Peter, he doesn’t feel the same way.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love you.” When I finally did meet his eyes they were glossy, and his cheeks were red.

“He doesn’t Peter, I just have to move on.”

“I’m sure he does, just tell me who and we ca-”

“I’m not telling you who he is. This isn’t his fault and I don’t want anyone to blame him or make him feel bad about it.”

“It is his fault!” he snapped before sighing, “Okay fine, you don’t want to talk to him, but there’s still surgery right? I know surgery is scary but this one’s pretty safe isn’t it?”

I nod, “It is, but there’s the risk of me not being able to love anyone again, so I’m not getting the surgery.”

“What?”

“I’m not getting the surgery, I’m just going to have to move on.”

“Okay but if that doesn’t work you’re going to get the surgery right?”

My cheeks dust pink as I shake my head, “No.”

His jaw is locked, his whole body tense, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry. “You have to get it.”

“I’m not getting the surgery Peter, but you don’t need to worry about me, I’m gonna move on and get better.”

“Are you kidding me?!” he snaps, “Telling me you’ll get better isn’t good enough! I understand if you want to try and move on first, but if that doesn’t work then you’re getting that surgery.”

“I’m not getting it at all Peter.”

“So you’re just going to die?!” his bottom lip started quivering, it startled me, I didn’t expect anyone to cry, “I’m not going to lose you just because some asshole doesn’t love you back! It’s not fair and I’m not letting it happen!”

“It’s not your choice Peter,” I hug myself because I have no idea what else to do, “Nothing is going to happen to me, I’ll be able to move on and I’ll be just fine. But, if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I really need you to respect my decision on this.”

A couple tears fell down his cheeks and he shook his head, “You cannot ask me to just sit back and watch you die.”

“I’m not, Peter I am going to be fine. I’m on medication that helps slow it down, and I’m seeing a therapist who specializes in Hanahaki’s, she’ll help me move on and I’ll be okay.”

“That isn’t good enough. There’s no guarantee you get better that way and that isn’t good enough for me.”

“I’m sorry Peter, but I can’t give you any other answers. I’m not getting the surgery, even if that kills me. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, and I’m so sorry, but that’s all I can give you.”

A few more tears escape and he pulls me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck and went to my waist. We stay that way for a second, he rests his head atop mine while I wonder what to do. I don’t really know how to make him feel better, I don’t even know if I can.

Peter is the one to finally break the silence. “Who is he?”

“It’s not important Peter.” “Yes it is! You think he’s worth dying over!” his voice cracks and I pull away. It’s really hard to see him cry, and I can feel my own eyes starting to sting at the sight. “You won’t even reconsider it for your best friend so I wanna know what’s so fucking great about him.”

I start crying while I realize I can’t ever tell anyone it’s him. I can’t risk Peter finding out, I don’t ever want to put that on him. “It’s not about who he is Peter, I just don’t want to risk never falling in love with anyone ever again. I know some people are okay with that, but I’m not, love is important to me and I don’t think I’d ever be totally happy knowing I couldn’t have that. None of this is on him, he’s a really great guy, I love him a lot and I know you would to. I don’t want anyone to blame him or be upset with him or anything.”

“Well I hate him,” he snapped, “And it doesn’t matter what you say about him. My mind is made up and I think he’s a dick.”

“You can feel however you need Peter, but he’s a good person, the best I know,” I wiped his eyes, “Can you please keep this just between us for me? I really need to tell everyone on my own terms.”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised before pulling me to him again, “Do you think we could just ditch tonight? I really want to talk, just us, and I want to know what’s going on. I need to be able to help however I can.”

 I nodded, “Yeah, I can make something up.”

He nuzzled his nose against the top of my head before pressing a kiss to the same spot, “Thank you.”

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I ended up texting Adeline, who assured me she’d cover for us so we didn’t have to stress out about it. Peter watched my every move while I washed the blood out of the sink and threw the flower out of my bedroom window. Luck for me, he didn’t notice what kind of flower it was, or at least he didn’t comment on it. Actually he just sat on the edge of my bed, honestly I think he was just too caught up in his own thoughts to actually process what was going on. 

“So, did you have some questions?” I asked as I closed my window and took a seat besides him. He nodded, “Yeah, a few. Do you have some kind of timeline of how it’s going to progress?”

“Well the medicine I’m taking will slow everything down, right now it seems like mine is slow moving and my doctor thinks I’ll have a few months, but it’s really unpredictable. Things could get worse very quickly, but she said that’s pretty unlikely in my case. The coughing will get worse and there will be a lot more flowers and blood, but physically I’ll be pretty okay until the end. As for healing, I have until pretty much the last moments for my feelings to be reciprocated or to move on.”

“What about the surgery?”

“They’re able to perform it until the infection moves outside of my lungs. If I get to that point they’ll hospitalize me, but it won’t get to that point.”

“How long would you have if it did?”

“A few days max, I mean they’ll do everything they can to keep me going as long as possible, but there isn’t much they can do at that point.”

He clenched his hands and gave one stiff nod, “You said your therapist specializes in this?”

“Yeah, and she’s really great, she’s going to help me move on and sort out my feelings and all that. She does a lot of work with patients and their families, and she’s got a really good reputation. I really like her so far.”

“Do you think it’s helping so far?” “Well I’ve only gone once so far, but I feel like I can do this. You can look her up if you want, her name is Raina Morrison.”

“I will,” he assured before taking my hands in his, “Are you going to see her again soon?”

“Yeah, tomorrow actually. That’s why I wanted to tell everyone tonight.” He blushed, “I mean it’s still good you told someone right?”

I nodded, “I think so. It was just a little more overwhelming than I thought it would be.” 

I’m a little nervous about seeing her now, I’m worried that telling Peter wasn’t good. She told me separation was a good thing, that it will help me move on, I’m worried I won’t be able to do that now. Peter’s really protective, he cares a lot about everyone, I really love that about him, and I don’t know if I have the heart to tell him that we can’t spend time together. I don’t even know what explanation to give him now.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have freaked out on you like that. I’m sure it’s not good for you.”

“It’s okay, having you guys know will be better for me, I need to have my friends support in this, it’ll make everything easier.”

“Maybe we can just love you enough that he won’t matter anymore,” the smile he gives is weak and forced, he still looks like he might cry again.

I don’t know what to say to make him feel better. I know he loves me plenty, it’s just not the right kind of love.

“Thank you Peter,” I just ended up hugging him again.

He held me tight against his chest, “If you wanted I could help you talk to everyone, even if you end up doing it one on one. Maybe it would be easier to have me there.” 

“It’d be nice to have you there,” I pulled away to keep from crying again, “You, uh, you’ll get it now if I’m a little evasive right?”

A look of confusion overcame his face, “No. What reason could you possibly have to avoid me now?” his bottom lip started quivering again, “You might not… No, I won’t get it, we should be spending every second together that we can.”

“I need alone time to process my feelings, that’s how I’ll get better.”

“Then I won’t say anything!” his cheeks had flushed again in an instant, “I can sit there and be quiet and do nothing, but I need to be there for you. I need to spend as much time with you as I can…”

“Peter you don’t need to start savoring your time with me or make all these precious memories or anything like that. I’m gonna get better,” I squeezed his hands tight and smiled to him, “And it would help a lot if you believed that too, because right now it kind of seems like you’ve already decided I’m going to die.”

“I do believe that, I know you’ll get better,” he sighed, “B-But what if something happens? What if you’re all alone and you just need someone? I should be here, I want to be here.”

How was I ever supposed to argue with that? I can’t tell him he can’t be here for me, I don’t want to tell him he can’t.

“Maybe we should watch a movie or something before we start crying again?”

He nodded and cleared his throat, “Good idea. Maybe something funny?”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

We threw on some supposedly funny movie, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I don’t know if Peter was, but he seemed out of it too. We just sort of stared at the screen until everyone came back to my place. I had to get up from where I was laying with Peter and pretend I had food poisoning as Adeline told them. Really I just wanted to go to bed, the day had been extremely draining.

“Hey guys,” I smiled at them, doing my best to look sickly. 

Betty smiled sympathetically to me, “Hey, you feeling any better?”

I nod, “Yeah, I threw up a bit but I think I can just sleep it off. Don’t worry, Peter has babied me plenty.”

 “Well between that and the cough I think you need a little babying,” she wiggled a small container at me, “I brought you left overs for when you feel better.”

“I brought some for you too,” MJ added, flashing Peter a smile, “There in the car.”

“Thanks,” his cheeks dusted pink and I just prayed he wouldn’t give anything away, “I think I’m gonna stay with (y/n) tonight though, just in case she gets worse.”

“I’m sure she’s had enough of you hovering for one night Peter,” her smile dropped almost instantly, “I thought we were hanging out.”

I wonder if they’ve been fighting or something. A wave of guilt washes over me for avoiding Peter, for not asking if there was something he needed to talk about too. 

“We were together last night,” he frowned at her, “You know (y/n) and I haven’t hung out in awhile, and she’s sick, I should stay with her.”

“You two hung out all night and I’m sure her best friend and roommate is more than capable of making sure she doesn’t die in the middle of the night.”

Peter’s jaw clenches and I interject in the fear they may start arguing if I don’t, “Yeah, I mean thank you for taking care of me, but I’ll be fine. I’m probably just going to go to bed anyway, you should go hang out with MJ.”

His cheeks dusted pink and he nodded, “O-Okay, just as long as you're good…”

“I’m good,” I assured, “It’s been a long night, I really just want to get some sleep.”

MJ smiled, “See? You’re driving her crazy, just let the girl get some sleep.”

“I’m just taking care of her,” he snapped.

We were all quiet, Peter and MJ are always so mellow. I mean they act like they’ve been married for forty years, they don’t really fight. As long as I’ve known them they’ve just been… 

Stagnant I guess.

“Well she just said she doesn’t need to be taken care of so no need to smother her, right (y/n)?”

I just nod, “Yeah, I’m good. Peter go hang out with girlfriend, I don’t need to be babysat.”

He frowned, a small huff left his lips before he nodded, “Sure, whatever, let’s just go,” he gave me an awkward sort of side hug and called, “Text me!” before leaving with MJ, both seeming annoyed with the other.

Part 2

[appalachianwiine]

Swim Chapter 10 - It’s Gonna Be Okay

All the walls would fall around me All anybody would tell me Is all that bad news how it's gonna fall through But no matter what they say and what they say Its gonna be, gonna be ok

- "It's Gonna Be Okay" by The Piano Guys

 By the time Tuesday comes around, Lydia has continued to be sick and had so many drugs pumped into her tiny body that Daryl can’t keep them straight any longer. Chemo, anti-nausea medications, fluids. She’s had blood work daily and vitals so many times that the passage of time can be counted by them but routine is routine however uncomfortable.

“Just a second.” Daryl calls at the knock on the door. “That’s probably Lori.” He kisses the top of Lydia’s head and peels himself away from her.

“Just me.” Dr. Rhee’s voice surprises him.

“Oh.” Eh frowns. “Come in. Is - is everything alright?”

“Everything’s great.” Dr. Rhee smiles, closing the door behind her. Her blood work looks good, and as long as tomorrow morning’s counts are good we’ll discharge her tomorrow evening.”

“T-tomorrow?” Daryl raises his eyebrows. It’s been nearly two weeks that they’ve been here, two weeks of their lives being upside down.

“Yeah.” Dr. Rhee says. “She’ll take oral chemotherapy a few times every day, come in for blood counts weekly, and get biweekly infusions. Then we’ll schedule her for the inpatient high intensity chemotherapies she’ll need.”

“Th-that’s it?” Daryl’s mouth is suddenly very very dry.

“Well no.” Dr. Rhee says. “You’ll get extensive discharge instructions, and any fevers over 100.4 you’ll have to come straight to the ER for bloodwork and admission. She’s at a very high risk for infection and we don’t want to take any risks. We’ll give you a list of all numbers to call in case you have an emergency and need to speak to us directly.”

“Okay.” Daryl nods. “What d’ ya think Lydia? Wanna go home tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Lydia nods. I want to see Dog.”

“I’m sure your dog wants to see you too.” Dr. Rhee smiles. “You’ll also have to come back for regular lumbar punctures and bone marrow aspirations, we’ll schedule the first of those tomorrow and we’ll probably want to talk about getting a port-a-cath put in. They’re a little more long term than the PICC Line is.”

“Okay.” Dary nods, his mouth very dry. Regular surgeries? A port? It was a lot to take in and he was only just starting to feel like he was getting his footing here.

“Good.” Dr. Rhee smiles. “Now we’re giving Lydia a break from Chemo today and tomorrow but I do want to get a few more fluids in her and keep an eye on her fluid output as -well.”

“More medicine?” Lydia scowls.

“No.” Dr. Rhee promises. “Not right now. Just some hydration.”

“What’s that?” Lydia narrows her eyes suspiciously.

“We’re just going to hydrate you through your PICC line, you. Might have to pee a lot but that’s good. That sound okay?”

“…I guess. Can I go to the playroom?”

“If you wear your mask and your dad says yes.” Dr. Rhee smiles.

“Daddy?” Lydia asks. “Can we?”

“Sure.” Daryl says. “But how about we wait until Lori and Carl get here?”

“Okay.” Lydia nods.

“Are you going to the support group this evening?” Dr. Rhee asks.

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “Lori is going to sit with Lydia while I’m there, I uh, figured I better use the resource right?”

“Right.” Dr. Rhee smiles. “I’m glad you’re going, they’re a great group and it’s good to get advice from people who are in the same boat as you are. Well, I’ll let you two get back to your day, the nurse will be by in just a moment with some fluids for Miss Lydia.”

“Alright Lydi.” Daryl says an hour later, leaning over the table where she and Carl were playing with legos. “Be good for Lori, tell her if you’re not feeling good. I’ll be back in an hour okay?”

“Okay daddy.” Lydia gives him a quick hug and sits back down to play with Carl.

“Call me if she gets sick or upset, okay?” Daryl asks.

“I will Daryl.” Lori promises. “Go, you’re gonna be late.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Daryl says, stepping out of the playroom and watching Lydia a moment longer before finally turning to the elevator.

“Hello Daryl.” Ezekiel smiles. “Coming to group?”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “How’s Henry?”

“Well we were supposed to be discharged today.” Ezekiel sighed. “Then he threw a fever and it looks like we’re going to be here a couple more days so he’s understandably upset.”

“Oh man I’m sorry.” Daryl frowns.

“There’s not much to be done.” Ezekiel steps into the elevator. “Just pray he stays fever free and his blood cultures come back alright so we can go home.”

“Right.” Daryl nods, pressing the button for the first floor.

“I hear Lydia gets to go home tomorrow.” Ezekiel says.

“Yeah. As long as she stays fever free and her blood cultures are good.” Daryl nods.

“Henry and I will keep her in our prayers.” Ezekiel smiles.

“Right.” Daryl mutters. It was a nice thought, but it wasn’t really one Daryl found particularly comforting.

Daryl and Ezekiel seem to be the last people to arrive, Paul and Aaron are here, Enid, Dale, Lucille, Carol, and a blonde woman Daryl didn’t know.

“You came.” Carol smiles.

“Yeah.” Daryl nods, taking the empty seat between her and the older blonde woman.

“And you made it too Ezekiel. Henry doing better?” Carol asks.

“Not really.” Ezekiel admits, repeating what he’d told Daryl in the elevator. “A fever last night means we’re here for at least another two days.”

“That’s too bad.” Carol frowns. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Actually,” Ezekiel says. “This stay has been longer then anticipated, we could use some more laundry detergent. The stuff in the laundry rooms is pricey.”

“I’ll bring some by tomorrow.” The blonde on Daryl’s other side says. “Matthew has counts at noon.”

“Thank you.” Ezekiel says.

“Oh,” Carol says. “Daryl, I don’t believe you’ve met Leah.”

“Uh, no.” Daryl says, glancing at the blonde woman.

“I’m Leah.” The woman says, leaning over to shake his hand. It’s a strong firm shake, and he catches the strong smell of lavender wafting off her. “Leah Shaw. My son Matthew is being treated for Neuroblastoma.”

“Daryl Dixon.” He says. “I’m new. Lydia, my uh, my daughter - she’s got Leukemia.”

“Sorry.” The woman nods.

“So.” Carol says. “How’s everyone doing this week?”

“Well,” Aaron starts. “Gracie went to camp this week, the one for kids with Cancer up in the mountains. We were pretty apprehensive about letting her go but she’s been doing well. She called us last night and she’s already made three new friends.”

“It’s been harder on some of us than it has been on Gracie, but she’s having fun.” Paul squeezes his husband’s hand.

“It’s hard to go at first.” Enid says. “But letting her have some space is a good thing.”

“I know.” Aaron sighs. “But it is hard, it’s been over a year of just trying to keep her alive that this new normal is learning to reparent.”

“You’ll get there.” Lucille smiles. “You and Paul are great dads, you’ll get through this, it’s much better then the alternative.”

“We know.” Paul says, leaning over and kissing Aaron’s cheek.

“Leah,” Carol says. “How’s Matthew doing?”

“Well.” Leah says, adjusting in her seat a bit. “We had a really nice time at our retreat last week. He’s visiting with his Mom today so I had some time to attend the meeting.”

“He’s adopted, yeah?” Daryl asks.

“Almost.” Leah nods. “We uh, we have court next week and it looks like his mom is going to have parental rights terminated.”

“Shit.” Daryl runs a hand through his hair. “That’s hard. I remember when my kid had her parental rights terminated.”

“It’s hard,” Leah agrees. “But it also puts us one step closer to getting better.”

Daryl frowns, he’s about to ask what she means by that Carol interjects quickly. “It’ll be good for him to have some permanence again. How’s his health been?”

“Better with the break from chemo. He had some color come back to his cheeks last week.” Leah says. “And I’m confident the new diet is working too, he’s a lot more like his old self.”

“Diet?” Daryl frowns. Paul and Aaron shoot him a look.

“He’s on a special cancer fighting diet.” Leah explains, her  piercing eyes locking on to Daryl. “No processed foods or strange chemicals. I make everything myself and we grow as much as we can in our garden. We tried to raise our own chickens and rabbits for meat as well but the city of Atlanta is opposed to a whole diet.”

The room stays quiet for a beat and then Carol forces a smile and says. “I’m glad he’s doing better after the vacation, Leah. That’s wonderful.” Her words have a very teacher trying to keep the peace ring to them and as he looks over at Aaron and Paul he decides that’s probably a good thing. Aaron looked like he was trying to hold back laughter, Paul has his eyes closed as though he’s trying to hold back and next to them Ezekiel’s eyebrows seem ready to disappear into his hairline. “And Daryl, what about Lydia?”

“Um,” Daryl licks his lips, dragging his eyes over to Carol. “We um - we got some good news actually. God it feels weird saying that.” He shakes his head. “She uh, I get to take her home tomorrow.”

“That’s wonderful!” Carol’s smile seems more genuine now.

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “We’re lookin’ forward t’ it. She wants t’ see Dog an’ sleep in ‘er own bed.”

“Congratulations.” Ezekiel says, getting up and crossing the small ring of chairs to clap his back. Daryl jumps, the gesture is unexpected. “We’ll get you the full package huh?”

“Huh?” Daryl frowns, looking over at Carol. “The what?”

“It’s just something some of us do, put signs in the yard and stuff to welcome them home.” Carol smiles. “It’s nice.”

“Though some of us go overboard.” Leah’s voice says dryly.

“Matthew loved the balloons.” Ezekiel’s grin falters slightly.

“I wasn’t thrilled with them. They’re terrible for the environment.” Leah rolls her eyes.

“Lydia likes balloons.” Daryl adds. Evidently Leah’s particular brand of odd extends to her kid. “Thanks, she’ll uh - she’d like a welcome home I think.”

“How are you feeling about it?” Carol asks.

“T’ be honest.” Daryl sighs. “I ain’ sure. I mean here, we got nurses an’ shit who know what t’ do when she’s throwin’ up an’ runnin’ a fever, cryin’. At home ‘s jus’ me an’ I ain’ been real good at this so far.”

“You don’t have to be perfect.” Carol says. “You just have to be her dad. Dr. Rhee will send you home with a folder that has what to do when she’s sick or in pain and Lydia will be much happier at home.”

“I know she will, an’ t’ tell the truth I’m ready t’ be back in my own bed,” Guilt coils inside of him at the admission. How could he be thinking about his own comfort when his kid was getting filled with poison to stay alive?

“I hear you.” Ezekiel nods. “The sleep here is some of the worst I’ve ever had. Henry won’t sleep unless I’m in bed with him  and it mostly means that I don’t sleep. At home at least the bed will fit two of us.”

“I don’ usually let Lydia in my bed.” Daryl says. “Sleep like shit with ‘er knees in my back but here - well everythin’s different. I’m hopin’ she’ll sleep in her own bed at home.”

“It might not happen immediately.” Carol says. “She’s probably going to push boundaries, but it’s important to reinforce them, so she knows the rules are still the same at home. So much has changed that having consistency will help.”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “Tha’ was one ‘f the things tha’ we did when she first came t’ me an’ was all out of sorts. Settin’ boundaries an’ all but she’s older now an’ she knows what’s happenin’ t’ her - at least I think she does.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Carol asks.

“A little.” Daryl nods. “She knows she has leukemia, but I don’t think she understands what that means - and I don’t want her to but - but she will I think.”

“They’re wiser than we know.” Leah says. “Little Matthew, he never ceases to amaze me with what he understands and what he says”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “Lydia - i mean she ain’ stupid, she - her situation was shit, she learned real fast how to read the adults in the room and be careful with what she said so it could… it could take weeks before we get reactions to this stuff.”

“Does she have a therapist?” Carol asks.

“Yeah.” He nods. “We’ll try t’ get her in as soon as we can. It’s been good for her in the past, an’ I think she’s gonna need it again.”

“She’ll do fine.” Ezekiel says. “The struggles well, they’ll be there. But she’s got a good father behind her, and a wonderful support network, you can do this. Besides, if you need anything any of us would be happy to help. I’ll give you my phone number.”

“And mine.” Leah offers.

“Ours too.” Aaron says. “This isn’t an easy thing to be going through and both you and Lydia will need friends who understand.”

By the end of the meeting Daryl has a half dozen new phone numbers - one’s he’s almost sure he’ll never call, but the gesture is nice enough. Aaron and Paul are a possibility, their daughter Gracie was only a year older then Lydia. Ezekiel’s son Henry seemed to get along with her well enough. Lucille didn’t have a living child but had offered her number up anyway. The only one Daryl felt certain he’d never call was Leah. She’d offered to send him the diet she was using on her son Matthew, something that sounded miserable and like a full time job. If Leah was going to

He was standing in front of the elevator, having removed himself from the rest of the group once the meeting was over, when Carol touched him lightly on the shoulder. He flinched and turned to look at her.

“Sorry.” she says.

“It’s uh - it’s fine.” He says. “Sorry ‘m just…”

“A little overwhelmed?” Carol offers. “Yeah that uh - that happens. We mean well but it can be a lot to take in.”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “An’ uh - with Lydie gettin’ out t’morrow there’s jus’ a lot so I don’ - I don’ think I’ll be callin’ any of em.”

“Is it okay?” Carol asks. “If ya know, we stop by and put some balloons in the yard for Lydia? I know we talked about me coming by and doing some set up, and I totally understand if this is just too much. But I know they’d love to help.”

“Yeah,” Daryl nods. “Yeah ‘s fine jus’ - maybe keep most of ‘em outside the house. I don’ wan’ too much changed.”

“Yeah of course.” Carol says, offering a smile. “Lori and I will be the only ones inside, The others will send balloons or stuffed animals or something but I’ll keep them out.” The elevator dings. “Want me to call? I know you need to get back.”

“Nah.” Daryl shrugs. “You uh - you wanna come on up an’ say hi t’ Lydie?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Course not.” Daryl shrugs, stepping into the elevator and motioning her after. “Lori’s watchin’ her, she can help with what ever ya need. She an’ her ex have keys t’ my place. Jus’ - I wanna bring her home t’ - um, -

“We’ll be gone by the time you’re home.” Carol says. “You need to bring her home to a quiet house, somewhere familiar where she - and you - can start to process everything.”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods, the tension in his chest releasing. “I want her to be comfortable, not scared. She’s been scared a lot.”

“Too much.” Carol nods. “We’ll be in and out before you’re home. I promise.”

“Thanks.” Daryl nods, stepping out of the elevator and turning towards the play room. “They should be -” He stops and frowns. THe playroom is empty.

“They’re probably in the room.” Carol says. “You sure you don’t mind me coming?”

“Yeah.” Daryl says, turning the other way towards the room. “Yeah you can get Lori’s number and stuff.”

The door to the hospital room was closed and when Daryl pushes it open the lights are off. Carl is sitting on the pull out bed with an Ipad and Lori is in the armchair next to the bed. Lydia is asleep on the hospital bed, her tiny form snuggled deep in blankets.

“She okay?” Daryl whispers.

“Yeah.” Lori looks over at him. “We stayed in the playroom for about ten minutes but she said she was tired and wanted to take a nap.”

“Any fever?” Daryl crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. Lydia’s brown hair is fanned out behind her on the pillow and she’s clutching one of her shirts up under her nose. He presses a hand to her forehead and she grumbles.

“The nurse checked her twice.” Lori says. “She’s fever free, just worn out I think. How did group go?”

“Fine.” HE says absently, smoothing some of the blankets around Lydia. “Carol uh - wants to talk to you about tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Lori looks over at Carol, who’s standing next to the bed, watching Lydia. “What about tomorrow?”

Carol doesn’t answer for a moment, dragging her eyes away from Lydia as she does. “Um - with - with Lydia’s discharge we were going to um -”

“Oh right.” Lori says. “Um, I’ll give you my number. I’m at the clinic until 2 but I’ll be free after that, my husband has the kids.”

“Some other people were going to bring balloons,” Carol says, folding her arms and hugging herself tightly. “To uh, put in the yard but I have - I have all of the stuff for the house. Lori and I will be the only ones in and out.”

“Well Rick will bring Dog by when you’re on your way home.” Lori says. “Lydia did make us promise that.”

“She misses him.” Daryl nods. “Asks about him every day - damn near demands pictures from Michonne and Rick. You sure y’all don’ mind doing this?”

“We’re sure.” Carol says. “The phrase ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ exists for a reason Daryl.” She reaches out and squeezes his hand, her hands are soft and warm, and soothing. He nods, unable to find the words to thank her. “I’ll go.” Carol’s hand slips out of his, leaving a cold gap in its place. “Let me know if you think of anything you need in the meantime okay?”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “Thanks.” He watches her leave and is only then aware of Lori staring at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” Lori smirks. “Nothin’ at all.”

[haunted-by-catholic-guilt]

hey moon, please forget to fall down

*shows up after a month of nothing with starbucks* look its bad but its been in my WIP since august 

Tim woke up to a dull ache in his stomach.

He groaned, it was annoying but not so bad that it would affect his daily working, so he rolled himself out of bed, pausing only momentarily at the nausea he felt.

He ignored it, got up, and continued on his morning, eating only toast and drinking coffee, before getting dressed, which he found to be more painful than necessary, and left his apartment.

The commute to work was fine, maybe the lights were a little brighter then they had the right to be, and even the noises he heard were painful, somehow sharp and dull.

He got off at his stop, and made his way into the institute, putting on a fake smile and winking at Rosie as he walked to the Archives, before moving as fast as he could without causing the ache that has yet to subside to get any worse.

Jon was in, always was by the time he showed, but today Martin and Sasha were in too, must’ve been later than he thought.

He shrugged it off, and sat at his desk, not feeling well enough to even try to have a conversation, not that it would go well, the pain was distracting and lip-reading was never completely successful anyway.

A little while later, after he exchanged a quick and quiet greeting, Martin tapped him lightly on the shoulder and signed to him.

“Are you okay?”

Tim smiled, he knew he could tell Martin, but he didn’t want to worry anyone over something he knew was nothing, so he signed back

“Tired, I’m alright”

Martin didn’t look convinced but smiled softly at him.

“Ok, let me know if you need anything.”

Tim smiled and nodded back, and Martin shuffled back over to his desk, sharing a glance with Sasha Tim was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to see.

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

Martin was worried, Sasha would say he was always worried, but it was different today.

Tim was quiet, his face was lined with pain, and his eyes weren’t quite as vibrant.

It was a little while later when Jon emerged from his office, his hair done in a bun at the base of his head, his cane tapping on the floor, Martin quickly and quietly grabbed his phone and sent a quick text to Tim, hoping he’d get it before Jon made his way to their desks.

He didn’t, and before he knew it Jon was leaning against the door frame, observing them, they mostly pretended to work.

“Goodmorning, Jon! How’re you today”

Martin was trying to distract from Tim a little bit, hoping he’d be able to hear him enough to snap him into focus on Jon, but Tim seemed like he was in another world.

“Better if you were working.”

And with that Jon left, Sasha rolled her eyes and gave Martin a small smile, but he was more concerned about Tim.

He walked over to his desk and tapped him lightly again, it took a second but he came to and looked at Martin, his eyes were glassy and his face was pale.

“What’s wrong?”

Tim looked tired, and he sighed.

“Not feelin the best, nothin to worry about.”

Martin scanned over the other man's frame, before lightly pressing the back of his hand to Tim’s cheek, moving it to his forehead, before removing it and signing again.

“You’re burning up, what’s going on?”

Tim was pretty sure he whined at that point, if he admitted he was sick he’d need to go home and he would be alone.

He didn’t want to be alone.

Whenever he had fevers he would get emotional, he knew this, so when Martin brushed his finger on his cheek, he didn’t even know he was crying, and that only made him start crying harder.

He felt someone else touch his arm, and looked up to see Sasha, with a bottle of water in her hand, he shook his head, the nausea from earlier coming back in full force.

He took a breath, he wouldn’t be sick, couldn’t be.

“I’m fine, I can work, I’m fine.”

Martin frowned, but wasn’t backing down, signing again, this time more demanding, but somehow still soft.

“Go lay down, at least, for a little while.”

Tim knew this wasn’t a fight he could win, and Sasha already had grabbed onto his arm and began to pull him up, steadying him when he starting to fall, and Martin vanished off outside of the office.

Sasha laid him down on the old couch, and he curled as small as he could into a ball, and he opened his eyes enough to see Sasha squint at him with concern in her eyes.

Martin was there the next time he opened his eyes, he had a blanket on him now, and Martin was holding a thermometer, Tim opened his mouth and let Martin take his temperature, he didn’t hear what it was, and he last saw Martin sign rest before drifting off to sleep.

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

Martin sighed, and sat back at his desk, Tim set up across the room with a blanket on a couch, a bucket next to his head, burning with fever.

It wasn’t hospital bad, but he also didn’t feel comfortable leaving Tim alone, and from Tim’s reaction, he didn’t want to be alone either.

Sasha had mentioned he looked like he was curling around his stomach, but stomach pain and fever could’ve been a number of things, and he thought it best not to worry about the what if’s.

“Martin, why is Tim sleeping on the couch.”

Jon was something he did need to worry about.

“He- uh- he wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone or him taking the tube, and I didn’t think he wanted to be alone either, so he’s sleeping on the couch until after work”

Jon didn’t seem happy with this.

“If he is that ill he needs to be home, not infecting the whole staff.”

Martin was sure he was about to make more complaints and arguments but was cut off by Tim, whining quietly and stirring on the couch.

Martin got up and walked over, running a hand through Tim’s sweat-soaked hair as he tried to curl deeper into himself.

Sasha walked over to stand next to Jon, watching Martin in his natural habitat of caretaking, as Tim had called it.

“He can stay, just don’t get sick, and if he gets worse take him home, you better work overtime next week.”

And with that, Jon left.

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

It was around two hours later that Tim started to get worse.

Martin was working quietly at his desk, finishing up notes on some statements, and tracking people down for research when he heard Tim start to cry.

He quickly made his way over to Tim, just as he did Tim heaved and weakly gripped the bin in front of him.

After he was done being sick, Martin lifted a water bottle to his lips, not wanting him to dehydrate further, and went to move back to work, but Tim grabbed onto his arm, with surprising strength for how sick he was.

Martin sighed, he needed to work, but he also knew that being sick was bad enough at home, let alone on an old couch at work.

He adjusted Tim and sat behind him on the couch, the other man immediately curled around Martin, still trying to make himself smaller, and he winced as he moved.

Martin frowned and grabbed his phone, not able to sign with Tim basically on his lap, and not thinking Tim would be willing to sign back at all, so he quickly opened his notes and started to type.

‘What’s wrong?’

Tim looked offended by the light in his eyes when martin showed him the message, but ultimately grabbed the phone weakly and typed back.

‘Stomach hurts bad’

Martin frowned, but set his phone down and started to run his hand through Tim’s hair.

Jon walked in a little while, and crept over to stand next to the old couch, his cane tapping gently, he quickly reached out and brushed his hand awkwardly on Tim’s forehead, and sighed.

“Take him home, and keep me updated on him.”

Martin was surprised by this, Jon had always tried to remain professional and distant, but he didn’t want to question or argue with him.

He stood up, Tim groaned at the movement, but after a little while of getting ready to go, they made their way slowly to Martin‘s car, where Tim immediately curled into his passenger seat.

He drove him to his flat, not planning on leaving him alone for a while, and when he got to his place, he gently shook Tim awake, and they slowly made their way up to the flat.

After he unlocked the door, he settled Tim onto the couch, and switched out his bedsheets, and carefully ushered Tim into the bedroom.

Tim settled into the bed with little prompting, and Martin tucked a fuzzy blanket around his shoulders, and he left the room to get a cloth and cold water.

He was returning to the bedroom when he saw Tim curled up into a ball, sobbing, he was biting his lip so hard martin thought it was drawing blood, he quickly set the water on the side table and immediately sat next to Tim on the bed.

He knew that getting Tim to watch him sign or read whatever he typed would not work and that Tim probably wouldn’t be able to process what he was saying, so he hoped his movements were clear enough.

Martin suspected he knew what this was, so after he had moved Tim so he was laying out, flat on his back despite the obvious pain this caused, Martin lifted the shorter man’s shirt and pressed his hand on to the lower right side of Tim’s stomach.

At that, Tim let out a cry of pain, and immediately curled back around himself, and Martin knew what the next step was- the hospital.

First, he decided, he needed to tell Sasha and Jon, both had been worried, and they should know what was going on

Archival Gayng

Milk Kartin Blackwood- hey just so you two know im taking tim to AnE

Braincell Holder- What? Is everything okay? Do you need me to meet you there?

Bossman- Why does he need to go to AnE?

Martin Kartin Blackwood- i think he may have appendicitis but im not sure

Braincell Holder- Shit

Braincell Holder- I’ll meet you there

Boseman- Doesn’t appendicitis mean he will need surgery?

Martin Kartin Blackwood- yeah, i know that is more time off, but jon he is sick i don’t really care rn

Bossman- I don’t care about that right now.

Bossman- I care that my friend and employee might need surgery.

Bossman- Sasha, you’re still at the institute right? Can I come with you?

Braincell Holder- Of course, Jon, meet me outside in five. Martin, bring Tim to the hospital.

Martin Kartin Blackwood- ok

Martin sighed, and carefully maneuvered Tim in his arms so his head was tucked into the other’s neck and carefully grabbed the blanket that was around Tim and repositioned it over him again.

He quickly slipped on his shoes and grabbed the keys, and carried Tim out to his car where he once again curled into the passenger seat, his hands clutching his stomach.

Martin bit his lip as he got into the driver’s seat and started the drive to the hospital, it didn’t take long and when he got their, Sasha and Jon were standing in front of her car, Jon fidgeting with his hands and Sasha typing rapidly on her phone.

When he pulled in and was spotted, they immediately rushed over to where he parked and approached Martin anxiously as he got Tim out of his car, and immediately began to flutter around, trying to help.

By the time they had gotten Tim into the waiting room, Sasha and Martin began answering the questions on the sheet, and Jon sat quietly next to Tim and rubbed slightly awkward circles on his back when he curled over in pain.

When Tim was ushered into an exam room, Martin went with him, the others in the waiting room, and after some time, the doctor shared his suspicion, and he was taken away to a CT scan to get a confirmation.

After some time, the suspicion was confirmed and he was taken to surgery, and Martin was walked back out to the waiting area, left to explain the situation to Jon and Sasha.

Jon started to pace ten minutes after Tim had been taken back, and after another five of pacing, Sasha finally spoke up.

“Jon, are you alright?”

Jon stopped pacing and sighed.

“I’m just worried about Tim…”

Martin set his large hand on Jon’s shoulder, and the smaller man seemed to lean into it.

“It’ll be okay Jon, Tim is healthy, and appendicitis isn’t normally deadly if caught on time.”

Jon sank down on a squeaky hospital chair next to Sasha, and put his head in his hands, running a shaking hand through his hair.

“I know, I know, I just..”

He groaned, again, and Martin had to take a second to take it all in, Jon looked so incredibly.. different?

So far from the normal painfully professional and emotionless self he showed at the office, and Martin was then reminded that he was the odd one out here, he didn’t work in research with Tim, Sasha, or Jon.

He sighed and tried to push down the cold feeling that crept up his spine, and ignored the fact that he swore he could see fog seeping into the room from a closed door.

He sat on the chair next to Jon, and they all sat silently and waited.

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

When Tim woke up, all he was aware of was the pain in his side.

He groaned and quickly moved his hand to cover it, but was stopped by the feeling of a tug in his arm, and a hand on his shoulder.

He pried open his eyes to see a worried Sasha looking down at him, but with the worry managed to be relief as well, and that was when the last twenty-four hours came back to him.

He sighed and pushed himself carefully into a sitting position, Sasha worriedly helping him, and he looked over and saw Martin asleep against the wall, and Jon leaning into him.

He was still tired and hurt, but he knew he would be taken care of, so he let himself fall asleep to Sasha helping him lay back down and running her hands through his hair.

[missroserose]

Jooo! How's life? Didn't chat for a while now, hope things are good!

For the weird ask game!

15, 28, 36

Yeah, it's been a minute! How've you been holding up? I'm okay, in general. Found out today that my doctor wants to extend my hospital stay by a week-ish, depending on how long it takes me to kick this infection and my skin to heal enough for ankle surgery #2. Not terribly thrilled about that, but I can't help but agree it's probably for the best.

15.) what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you?

Hrm, interesting question. Weird as in uncanny? Or scary? Or just plain unusual? (...and the fact that I even have to ask for clarification probably says something about my life, haha.)

Back when I was living in a tiny border town in Arizona, there was a really lovely little chapel along one of the roads to the next town that I liked to stop in now and then. I'm not particularly religious, but it had a lovely mural of the resurrected Christ, and it was set on a mountainside with a lovely view of the valley below. One time I was driving to the next town and had a little spare time, so I decided to pay it a visit. Along the way, I'd noticed there were more than a few Border Patrol agents along the road, but that was hardly surprising—there was almost always some drug running thing or illegal immigration thing they were after, and (privilege ahoy) I was a white girl driving a few-years-old luxury car, so I wasn't ever stopped.

Anyway, I get up to the chapel, and there's a couple of Hispanic-looking men sitting in the back, speaking Spanish to each other in low tones. Nothing particularly unusual, so I pay it no mind and sit for a minute to be alone with my thoughts.

Here's the thing. I didn't speak Spanish at all then (still don't, really, though I've started learning), so I hadn't the first idea what they were talking about. But I *did* have the performer's ability to read moods and people, and it didn't take long for me to realize that something wasn't quite right—something about the tone of the conversation, or the fact that, despite not understanding the words at all, I suddenly had the distinct impression they were talking about me. I didn't turn or acknowledge it in any way, but I started pricking my ears up—and a moment later, I heard a pretty familiar-sounding word: cocaína.

I sat for a few minutes more as if nothing was wrong, then left quietly. Neither man acknowledged me, and I resisted the temptation to peek inside one of the tightly-knotted opaque yard-waste bags in the back of a Honda Ridgeline that was parked outside.

And that's how I'm pretty sure I avoided my life rapidly turning into the role of hostage in a drug heist.

28.) an unusual song that’s your favorite?

I am perennially fond of The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist. It's arguably a Dadaist work—weird just for the sake of being weird—but the artistry of the audio collage is profoundly impressive and surprisingly catchy. And somehow they managed to make a video every bit as surreal and unhinged as the song, which is a feat all its own.

36.) how many alarms do you have set?

Just one at 7 AM, though lately my sleep/wake times have been all over the place. Pain and drugs and hospital stays will do that to you, unfortunately.

[leigh-kelly]

(More Hospital!AU)

Like she predicted, Santana gets a yeast infection from her antibiotics and she’s absolutely miserable until the Diflucan kicks in. She’s irritable with Brittany, she’s short with Liam  and she groans more than she should when she wakes up to feed the twins. But then it’s over and Lauren starts at the hospital and the Pierces are coming to look at places to live in New York and Santana calms down. Like she always does after a bought with misery, she apologizes profusely to Brittany, she hugs the boys a little tighter and things go back to normal.

“My mom just called, they landed.” Brittany comes into Santana’s office where she’s working, phone still in her hand.

“I really feel bad we didn’t pick them up. Today was just a lot.”

“I know, if I rescheduled Mrs. Heeling’s surgery again she would have lost it. But they’re fine, they’re used to Boston. They just didn’t want to drive down and when we said they could use the car to go out to Long Island...”

“I can’t believe they’re going to bring our three kids to look at houses.” Santana laughs. “Though I’m sure my mother appreciates a few days to herself.”

“I think it will be good for your mom if my mom can take some of the days from her. She’s been absolutely amazing but I feel like it’s becoming a lot.”

“I’m just starting to realize that she’s getting older. Liam starting school will help, when she just has Max and Oliver, but before we know it they’re going to be all over the place.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said that without crying.” Brittany kisses Santana on the forehead. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, let me just make my last notations in this chart and return it to the nurse’s station. I’ve got sepsis in a three year old, if it gets worse, I’m going to come in tonight. I’m not leaving it to the on call doctor.”

“Whatever you need to do, honey. I get it.”

Santana finishes up with her chart and she and Brittany leave the hospital, anxious to be there by the time Brittany’s parents get to the house. They get home and all three boys are taking a nap way too late but Maribel tells them Liam refused his nap and then passed out on the living room floor while he was playing. Though they invite Maribel to come to dinner with the Pierces, she gently declines, her eyes giving away that it was a really long day and she’s just ready to rest in the privacy of her own home.

“We should at least wake up Liam, shouldn’t we?” Santana asks once her mom is out the door.

“Let him sleep, he’ll be up late with my parents and a little while longer might do him some good. Do you want to take a shower first or should I?”

“Do you mind if I do? I feel extra disgusting today.”

“Go ahead, I’m going to start dinner and then I’ll jump in.”

Leaving Brittany downstairs, Santana goes up into their bathroom and turns the shower as hot as it can go. She steps under the spray of the water and lets it seep into her skin, rinsing off the grime of her day. When she’s finished, she turns off the water and hears Brittany calling her from downstairs. It’s unlike Brittany when she knows Santana is in the shower and so she quickly gets dressed and goes downstairs to find Brittany sprawled on the kitchen floor.

“Are you okay?” Santana bends down beside her and sees Brittany’s face contorted in pain.

“I fell off the kitchen counter and I’m pretty sure my tibia and fibula destroyed.” Brittany breathes through the pain, something Santana never can believe that another human being is capable of. “Can you look at it?”

“Britt...I can see it from here. We need to get you to the ER.”

“The kids...”

“Look, I’ll call Mercedes. She’ll come here and sit with them until your parents get here. This isn’t a joke.”

“I know it’s not a joke.” Brittany snaps a little. “I’m sorry...it just hurts like hell.”

”Just give me five minutes, I’ll get everything situated.”

Santana immediately snaps into her taking care of business mode and she gets Mercedes on the phone. Then, because she’s concerned about moving Brittany’s leg to get her into the car, she calls an ambulance. She’s so glad the the boys are still sleeping when the paramedics bring a stretcher into the house and help Brittany get on it. Santana knows she’s in a lot of pain because she doesn’t argue with the fact that she’s not doing this on her own and Santana just holds her hand until Mercedes gets there and they can leave.

“Do me a favor?” Santana murmurs to Mercedes. “Don’t let Brittany’s parents come to the hospital, it’ll be too much for them.”

“I won’t.” Mercedes promises. “But I’ll meet you there once they get here.”

“Thank you.”

The ambulance bay at the hospital brings back horrifying memories of mass casualty incidents for Santana as they enter through the back and she wonders if Brittany feels the same way. She just lays silent and white faced as the paramedics wheel her in and Santana squeezes her hand. Neither of them know the name of the new ortho attending that comes to see Brittany, but considering surgical is already involved, they both assume that the paramedics called in a worse break than they’d expected.

“We’re going to have to surgically repair it.” The young doctor who introduces himself as Dr. Hart tells Brittany after her x-rays come back. “You saw the bones, they’re both shattered, you’ll need a rod to hold them in place.”

“Is Tina Cohen-Chang on in anesthesiology?” Brittany asks calmly. “If she is, that’s who I want. How long have you been at this hospital?”

“Three months, I know who you are, Dr. Pierce, I’ve just never had the pleasure of working with you. I’ll see about Dr. Cohen-Chang for you.”

“I’m sitting in the gallery.” Santana interrupts.

“Santana. No you’re not.” Brittany shakes her head. “I need you to go talk to Sue, let her know what’s going on and to call my parents so they don’t have to hear I’m in here from Mercedes. You don’t need to be in the gallery, its just going to make you anxious.”

“But—“

“No. Please, Santana. I don’t want to argue with you.”

“Okay.” She concedes and kisses Brittany on the forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Hart, don’t screw this up.”

Before she does anything else, Santana listens to Brittany’s request that she call her parents. Whitney is beside herself when she hears that Brittany is in the hospital but Santana convinces her that everything will be fine and the best thing she can do is stay with the boys. Then, she calls her own mother and has a mini-breakdown, sobbing ugly sobs in the waiting room. Brittany has been the one in this position before, sitting in the waiting room when she had her breasts fixed, watching her as the twins were delivered early, but Santana doesn’t think she has the mental capacity for the roles to be reversed. She knows that she has to talk to Sue, tell her that Brittany is in surgery, but she can’t seem to get herself together.

“Hey, I know this is killing you, but you need to pull yourself together.” Mercedes sinks down in the chair next to Santana and holds out her hand. “She’s going to be fine.”

“What do you know about this Hart guy?”

“I checked him out in the cab on the way over. He was first in his class at Johns Hopkins, did his residency at UCLA, he’s good. She’s in good hands.”

“Goddamn it. She’s always the strong one, ‘Cedes. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Yes you do, you did it for Oliver.”

“I almost had a damn nervous breakdown after he was born. It was Brittany holding me together.”

“I’m here, okay? You’re not alone. She’s going to get out of this surgery and she’s going to recover and everything is going to be okay. You know that I don’t bullshit you.”

“I know.”

“You need to go talk to the chief. She needs to know that one of her department heads is in surgery, if the rumor mill hasn’t gotten to her already.”

“You’ll text me if someone comes out?”

“Immediately.” Mercedes promises. “Go.”

Wiping her face with her hands, Santana pulls it together and goes to the elevator. Sue is in her office when Santana gets there and she lightly taps on the door. The chief looks up, surprised to see her so late, and waves Santana in. Shifting her weight between feet, Santana takes a deep breath and looks Sue in the face.

“Hi Chief Sylvester, I just wanted to let you know that Brittany is in surgery right now. She fell of the kitchen counter and her leg is pretty damaged.”

“Who’s doing the surgery?” Sue clicks at the screen in her computer. “Dr. Hart, good choice.”

“We didn’t really have a choice, he was the on call doctor.”

“Well she’s lucky, he’s good.”

“Look, she just wanted you to hear it from me, so...”

“I’ll deal with HR for a medical leave for her. She’ll probably be in no shape to talk to me in the morning, but let her know it’s taken care of.”

“I know her, she’ll want to do her admin stuff from home.”

“Not this week. We’ll talk about it when she’s had time to recover. I’ll take over her scheduling for the time being and shift around her surgeries. She’s helped me enough, I just want her to heal.”

Santana thinks of all the times she’s thought Sue was a hard ass, but she’s surprisingly gentle when it comes to Brittany, and for that, Santana is grateful. She thanks Sue several times and goes back down to the waiting room where Mercedes is flipping through a magazine. She gets back in the chair next to her and sighs heavily.

“Everything go okay?”

“Yeah, I mean, she was super accommodating. She’s going to deal with the HR stuff, so...”

Hours pass and Santana FaceTimes with the boys, promising Liam that everything is okay and she’ll kiss him when she gets home. Finally, Hart comes out and he tells Santana that Brittany did well and is in recovery. She can’t get there fast enough, she’s not even sure that she thanked Mercedes for watching the boys or for sitting with her for hours but she just wants to see her wife. When she gets to the recovery room, Brittany has her eyes closed and Santana sinks down beside her, taking her hand.

“You’re pretty.” Brittany giggles, opening her eyes.

“And you’re very high.” Santana lets out a breathy, relieved laugh.

“I don’t feel anything in my leg. Joe said that it’s fixed, so that’s good.”

“Yeah, he said it was an easier surgery than he was expecting and if you’re up for it, you can go home tonight.”

“I want to sleep in my own bed. With you, pretty lady.”

“We can make that happen, you know we just have to make sure you hit your milestones.”

“Santana, I’m going to be out of work for a long time.”

“Six weeks, minimum. You need to heal it, you have to be able to stand for hours at a time.”

“I know. This is going to hurt like hell tomorrow.”

“I called Shelby while I was waiting. I’m taking the rest of the week. Good thing I still have so much banked time from all the years I didn’t take it.” Santana sighs.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It takes awhile before Brittany is ready to go home, but when she is, a nurse wheels her out to the curb and Santana gets a cab. She puts Brittany’s crutches in first then helps her get situated and walks around to the other side. Because of the surgery, Brittany old has a soft cast on and Santana is extra careful that nothing touches her leg.

When they get to the house, Brittany is surprisingly good—even still under the influence of anesthesia and morphine—maneuvering on the crutches but Santana helps her up the front stairs and then Pierce comes running out to help Santana get her up in the inside staircase to bed. Once she’s settled and has taken a dose of her pills, Santana takes a deep breath and Whitney taps on the door.

“What can I do?” She asks helplessly.

“Mom, I’m okay, it’s just a little break.” Brittany yawns, tired from all the medication. “You and dad can go to bed.”

“Oh, honey.” Whitney comes over to Brittany’s side of the bed and kisses her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

Once Whitney has said her good nights and Pierce comes in to do the same, Santana goes down the hall to Liam’s room. She kisses him and he murmurs in his sleep, trying to fight his body to talk to her. She’ll get up with him in the morning, exhausted as she is, because she wants things to be as normal as possible for him even though it’ll be difficult with Brittany down for the count. Once he’s tucked back under his blankets, she goes back into the bedroom and sees Brittany flipping through the channels on TV. She lifts Max and Oliver from their bed and guides her achingly full breasts to them so she can nurse them for the first time since early in the morning.

“I’m sorry, Santana.” Brittany whispers.

“Why are you sorry?”

“For not being more careful. It was a careless mistake and now...”

“Britt.” Santana shifts Max a little so she can kiss Brittany’s temple. “It was just an accident, we’ll figure it all out.”

“It’s just running through my head all I won’t be able to do with only one good leg.”

“Our focus is on getting you healed. Your parents are here, my mom isn’t far away, we have support to help us while you recover. If you want the privacy, we’ll keep you up here, if you want to be in the center of everything, we’ll get you downstairs and set up on the couch. I know you’re good on those crutches, but I don’t know how much you’ll feel like walking around at first.”

”It just...really hurts.”

“I broke my arm when I was seven. I don’t remember anything about it except how bad it hurt. Do you want a pill?”

“It hasn’t been long enough since they gave me the Vicodin at the hospital.” Brittany shakes her head. “I’ll wait, try to sleep, just...focus on something other than the pain.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Let’s just go to sleep.”

When Santana wakes up in the morning, she can tell by the way Brittany is snoring that she woke up and took another Vicodin during the night. Brittany is always so tough, it’s hard for Santana to know that she’s in so much pain. She gently kisses her forehead and slips out of bed. It’s earlier than she’d like to be up, Max and Oliver are still sleeping, but because she didn’t take an Ambien in case Brittany needed her, she’s awake.

She goes into the bathroom, takes a shower and brushes her teeth, coming out just in time for Oliver to start whining. Not wanting Brittany to get woken up, Santana lifts Oliver from the bassinet and then takes Max too, careful not to jostle him and wake him up. When she gets downstairs, Whitney is already awake and has made coffee, so she hands Santana a full mug once she puts Max down and has Oliver settled on her breast.

“Did you sleep at all?” Whitney asks Santana.

“Barely, I was so worried about Brittany. It’s a bad break and...I just...it’s stupid.”

“It’s probably not stupid.”

“Seeing her hurt is hard for me. She always has it so together and looking at her last night splayed on the kitchen floor in pain, it was just a lot.”

“You love her so intensely. As horrible as it is that she’s hurt, it makes me so glad to see the way you love her. I know you’ve been married over a year now, but I haven’t gotten to see this much before, I only know what Brittany tells me.”

“I’m sure there were a lot of not so great things.” Santana sighs.

“She’s never said a bad word about your love got her. She just worried about the difficulties you had after the twins were born.”

“She’s my rock. I’m trying to be a rock for her too.”

“You are.” Whitney pats Santana’s arm. “Trust me.”

Once Max is finished eating and Santana finishes her coffee, she goes upstairs, peeks into the bedroom to see that Brittany is still sleeping, then goes into Liam’s room. She knows that he’ll be up any minute, so she crawls under the covers with him, stroking his hair. She’s not sure how much he knows about what happened to Brittany, so she wants to be there as soon as he wakes up to answer any questions.

“Hi, Mommy Noodle.” He murmurs, burrowing into her side. “Why are you in my bed?”

“I just wanted to cuddle a little bit with you, Sir.”

“Is Mama sick? Gramma said she was at the hospital but not to get worried.”

“Mama broke her leg. She’s okay, but we’re going to have to be really careful with her. We can’t run and jump around her.”

“Can I cuddle her?”

“We’ll have to see how she feels, but I’m sure she’ll want a big hug from you.”

“Can I see how she feels now?”

“We can go see if she’s awake.” Santana mods. “But we need to be really quiet in case she’s still sleeping.”

Holding Liam’s hand, Santana creeps down the hall. When they get to the bedroom, Brittany is sitting propped up on the pillows frantically typing away on her phone. Liam’s smile is wide when he sees that she’s awake and he climbs up on the bed so carefully to get to her side. He lays his head on Brittany and she pulls him as close as she can, hugging him tightly.

“Mama, I was so scared when Gramma told me you had to go to the hospital.”

“Can I tell you a secret, bud?”

“Yes, I can keep secrets. But Mommy Noodle can know too.”

“You’re right.” Brittany smiles. “She can.”

“My secret is that I was scared to go to the hospital too. I haven’t had to go there for me since I was just bigger than you.”

“Me and Mommy Noodle and Maxie and Ollie went there.”

“You’re right, and that’s what reminded me to be brave.”

“Did you get a lollipop?”

“You know what?” She laughs. “It was so late that I forgot to ask for one.”

“Can we get some today?”

“It might be a little bit hard for me to go to the store, but I bet Mommy would get us some, maybe you can go with her?”

“Mommy Noodle, can we?”

“We can definitely do that. We’ll take Max and Oliver too, I bet they’d like a nice walk in the sunshine.” Santana tells him. “Grandma and Grandpa can stay with Mama when we go.”

“Honey, I’m fine if they have things to do. They’re here to look at houses.”

“We’ll figure it out. I don’t want to leave you here alone just yet.”

“Yeah, Mama.” Liam interjects. “We gotta take care of you.”

“Cuddling with you is helping a lot, Li.”

“Are you working on your phone?” Santana asks.

“I’m just sending an email to my department. I want them all to hear from me that I’ll be out for awhile. I’ll still do the scheduling and—“

“Liam, do you want to see if Grandma can get you breakfast?” Santana interrupts, wanting to have a heart to heart conversation with Brittany alone.

“Okay, Mommy Noodle.” He hugs Brittany once more and hops off the bed. “I’ll be back.”

“Britt, Sue wants you to do nothing this week. You’re hopped up on all kinds of pain killers, I can see from your face that they haven’t totally alleviated the pain. She told me you can talk next week and see what you’re up to doing but that she’s taking care of things for now.”

“Santana, it’s my department.”

“When I was out before the twins were born, you made sure that I was relaxing. Now I’m going to do the same for you.”

“I’m fine.” Brittany insists.

“You shattered two bones. You’re not fine.”

“I’m fine enough to work from home.”

“Look. Sue is not going to let you do it, so you can insist to me as much as you want. But remember what it felt like when I was the one saying I could do everything.”

“That was different.”

“No it wasn’t.” Santana shakes her head. “Both situations are about medical advice. I don’t want to argue with you.”

“I’m sorry.” Brittany rubs her temples. “I hardly slept last night and I’m just frustrated the happened. I just...it’s hard to step away.”

“I know that better than anyone and I get that it’s worse for toy because you have a whole department counting on you. But just take a few days, adjust to your medication, get some sleep.”

“I think I actually want to go downstairs, but I really don’t know how to do that.”

“We’ll take it one step at a time.”

[henrik-von-schneeplestein]

❝ i’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you. ❞ -schneeplebro, you got me loving this one

Okay, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, I’m so sorry that this took so long. It reminded me of a story that’s been in the back of my head for a little while now so I just decided to go ahead and do that even though I didn’t 100% know where it was going.

Warning for medical situations and surgery, but nothing graphic. No one’s more squeamish then me so I very intentionally skipped over/bullshitted around that stuff, even if it made the pacing kinda weird lol.

“There’s a patient looking for you.”

“If they just have a question send Laura. I’m on call for emergencies today,” he answered the intern without looking up from his paperwork.

“No, this guy said he was a friend of yours. Name was Chase -”

“Where is he?” Henrik almost knocked the kid over, he was up and across the room so fast. 

“He was in the ER last I-”

Henrik didn’t wait for him, just went right for the stairs. The ER was, as always, chaotic and noisy, but he managed to pull a doctor aside and ask about Chase.

“No Chase Brodys admitted - I have an Alexis Brody.”

“Yeah, that’s his daughter. Where are they?” As the doctor led him back into one of the rooms, Henrik didn’t know what to expect. Anything bad happening to the kids was unimaginable; but at the same time, Chase did have a very real history of hypochondria when it came to them. Henrik couldn’t even begin to count the number of times throughout their friendship he’d answered frantic late night phone calls about fevers or double-checked scraped knees for signs of infection.

He knocked before opening the door. “Chase?”

Chase was sitting next to Lexi, rubbing his face with one hand and looking close to tears. His younger son was sitting in his lap, but when Henrik came in, he stood up, setting Noah back down in the seat, and said, in one breath, “She wasn’t feeling well and she wouldn’t eat and then she said it really hurt in her side and so I brought her here and um, they felt her stomach and then they did an ultrasound and they said it was appendicitis so they want to get her into surgery and I couldn’t even get in touch with Stacy until like twenty minutes ago and she drove out to visit her parents this weekend so she probably won’t be here for hours but they want to take Lexi to Sedation right away.”

He put a hand on Chase’s arm. “Alright. Is all alright, Chase. Hi, by the way.”

“Henrik.”

“Okay, okay.” He walked crouched down beside Lexi. She was awake, but not at all her usual energetic self. “Hi, Lex Luthor.”

“Hi Schneeple.”

“How are we feeling, hm? I bet the other doctors already poked your belly a whole bunch?”

“Yeah - it hurt.”

“Have they given her anything for pain yet?” he asked Chase, looking up at her IV pole.

“Yeah. Just, uh, ten minutes ago, maybe? Like right before you got here.”

“Ok. I’ll be gentle, I promise.” He pressed along her abdomen briefly; after a few whimpers he didn’t see much reason to keep tormenting her. They’d already done the ultrasound. “We should definitely get her into surgery as soon as possible. You might want to call Jackie, see if he can come by to pick Noah up and watch him for a while. I don’t know how long you’ll be here.” Chase just looked at him, eyes wide, like he was waiting for Henrik tell him what to do to make this go away, or what he did to make it happen in the first place. The best he could give was, “It is a very safe procedure. We do it all the time. And I’ll make sure she gets Dr. Fletcher; she’s one of the best surgeons-”

“Wait, you’re not gonna do it?”

“I did not think that would be what you wanted. I am supposed to be doing emergency surgeries today, but if I explain to my boss what the situation is, I’m sure we could get someone else.” Technically, there was nothing against the rules about him doing the surgery; she wasn’t a family member. But he and Chase were close - best friends… even if they weren’t as close as Henrik wanted them to be. And unlikely as it was, if anything went wrong, Chase would never forgive him. Henrik wasn’t, by nature, a dramatic person, but this was Chase’s child. Even if he didn’t hate Henrik forever - and that was a big if - there was no way they could ever be friends again. 

“I don’t know the other doctors.”

“I promise, they are all excellent and more than qualified for such a simple -”

“I don’t care.” He stepped closer to Henrik, grabbing his wrist and looking straight into his eyes. “I only trust you. Please.”

He took a second to answer but he didn’t know why. Maybe just to drink in the sight of Chase looking right at him, in case it was the last time it ever happened. Because he knew, as soon as Chase asked, that he was going to do it. He couldn’t say no to him, and he wasn’t going to leave Chase with someone he wasn’t comfortable with just so he could duck out of the pressure. He was many things, but he wasn’t a coward. If for some reason this was the one in a million case and something terrible happened he was going to lose Chase, but he’d rather be able to look him in the eye and tell him that he had done everything he could than have to live with the guilt of being too scared and stepping aside when he might have been able to do something. He slid his hand into Chase’s, squeezed it, and then walked back to Lexi.

“Did the other doctors explain what we’re gonna do?”

“Surgery?”

He chuckled. He knew she knew what surgery was in a general sense; they’d done pretend operations on her stuffed animals once or twice, and she was normally excited whenever she got to visit him at the hospital. It was a testament to how bad she felt that she hadn’t demanded to use his stethoscope yet. “Yes, surgery. There’s this nasty little bugger inside you called your appendix that’s making your belly hurt, so I’m going to take it out, okay?”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“We will give you medicine to make you go right to sleep and you won’t feel a thing. It may be a little bit sore when you wake up, but not as bad as it is now. We can give you some more of this pain medicine, and I think just maybe your parents might be convinced to give you some ice cream when you start feeling hungry again. Do we have a deal?”

“Ok. But only because you’re the best doctor and I know you’ll do a good job.”

He smiled and held out a hand for her to shake. Her hand was so tiny; even with all her bravery and sincerity, she was still just a little kid, and he loved her like he loved his own kids. Chase wasn’t the only one he was scared of losing, but that thought was unbearable, so he promised both of them, “I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

He turned back to Chase. “I will tell them we are ready to go to get moving. They should be here in a few minutes; you might want to try Jackie while you wait. You can tell him - and Stacy, when she gets closer - to go in the main entrance of the hospital. I’m going to have a buddy of mine go and explain what is happening to the person at the information desk, so they’ll know where to send them. In Sedation they will get her ready for surgery - give her some antibiotics, maybe something to calm her down, if you think that would be best. You will probably have some papers to sign. I will meet with my team, we will figure out some details. Usually they’d have me go out and see her beforehand, but I will let them know I’ve already examined her, so I’m not sure if I’ll see you or not. Once she’s in the OR, someone will take you to the waiting room until we’re done. Alright?”

“Okay.” 

Henrik waited a second for him to say more - ‘good luck,’ maybe, or ‘goodbye.’ But he seemed to be scared beyond words, so Henrik gave him what he hoped was an encouraging nod and left to check in with the ER team. 

After that, as promised, he tracked down one of his coworkers and hurriedly asked them to go to the front desk and tell whoever was there that when a Jackie or Stacy came in to send them to the waiting room outside the OR, and even as he was finishing up, he was being paged.

It was like life was happening at double speed, meeting with the rest of his staff about the case, telling them he’d already been called to the ER to examine the patient, scrubbing in. And then it stalled to slow motion as they wheeled her in. Chase was with her - they let parents do that sometimes with pediatric patients, just until they fell asleep. 

It was strange and wrong, to see him here. Chase’s eyes scanned the room and all the surgical staff. He blinked when his eyes met Henrik’s, like he hadn’t recognized him in the full getup of his surgical gown, gloves, and mask until that moment.

“Ready?” the anesthesiologist asked Lexi. 

“Yeah.”

Chase squeezed her hand. “You have good dreams, ok, and I’ll be there when you wake up. I love you.” 

They held the mask over her face and told her to take deep breaths. Henrik watched Chase; he couldn’t touch him - it wasn’t sterile - and there wasn’t much he could say to him either. It may not be technically illegal to operate on someone you happened to know, but given how close they actually were, this was an ethical nightmare, and if any of the other doctors in the room caught wind of it, they wouldn’t hesitate to tell Schneep to get the hell out and send in a more impartial surgeon. He just tried to be gentle when he said, “we’ll take it from here.”

Then Chase left, and in spite of everything, Henrik felt calm. One of the reasons he loved his job was that it was straightforward in its complexity. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple in that there was procedure to it, it was step by step, do this then this, be careful of that, and if something goes wrong, you have a limited number of choices, each with clear, factual benefits and risks. It wasn’t like life, where everything was all tangled up and you could fall in love with your best friend and you had to decide to tell him, or not tell him, or tell him in four months or two years, and there was no way to know what would happen when you did. Henrik was never good at ‘meditating’ or ‘deep breathing;’ his mind was only ever clear when he was standing over a patient, when he had no choice because someone’s life depended on his ability to shut up all the noise that forever rang in the back of his mind and focus on doing each thing perfectly, one step at a time.

And almost in a blur, it was over. Even as they were stitching and bandaging, he almost couldn’t believe it. He’d been holding his breath for the disaster and it never came.

Apparently Chase felt the same; after taking extra care to wash all the blood off his hands, he wanted to be the one to tell Chase they were done. As soon as he walked into the waiting room, Chase sprang out of his seat like he had in the ER earlier. “What happened?” 

“Nothing happened. Everything went perfectly and they’re taking her to Recovery now.”

Chase stared at him for a second then ran across the room, more or less jumping to wrap his arms around Henrik’s neck. Henrik wrapped his around Chase’s waist and held him for a moment, until he realized that Chase was crying - finally, after holding it together as long as he needed to. Schneep patted his back. “Hey, let’s go see her, ok?”

He sniffled but nodded. “Yeah.” He picked up a plastic bag that was sitting beside his chair. “Jackie brought me some stuff from the gift shop on his way to pick up Noah,” he explained. “He took him back to my apartment so he could give him dinner and get him into his pajamas and all that. I didn’t know if we’d be here overnight.”

He held the door open for Chase and lead him down the hallway. “We’ll probably hold her just for observation, yes.” They turned into the room and Henrik pulled back the curtain. “She might not wake up for a few minutes. I convinced them to go on the heavier side of the safe range of dosage for the anesthesia and pain medicine. She will be groggy at first, but she shouldn’t be in much pain. And if they gave her medicine for anxiety beforehand, she probably won’t remember what happened after that; that is normal side effect.”

They sat down in the uncomfortable hospital chairs, Chase never taking his eyes off of Lexi. “They decided they didn’t need to, ‘cause she was ok. She’s so brave, I don’t know where she gets that.”

“From you.”

“Please. I’m a mess. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t work here, dude. I can’t handle this kind of shit by myself.”

“It seemed pretty handled when I got there. She was already where she needed to be.”

Chase shrugged, ducking his face. He reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a bottle of water - which, Henrik was glad to see, it looked like he’d already been drinking -  and took a sip. “Do you want something?” He pulled the bag all the way open in his lap. Henrik could see three more bottles of water, two of those refrigerated bottles of iced coffee, a little get well soon teddy bear, a phone charger, a few granola bars, and some chocolate. Leave it to Jackie.

“I mean, I didn’t want to say anything, but usually when you come visit me at work you bring me some lunch or something.”

Chase laughed, and the sound almost made the whole exhausting day worth it. “I apologize for my rudeness.” He held one of the coffees out to him. “I know you don’t usually like iced, but hey, it’s caffeine.”

“No thank you. I’m sure one of them is for Stacy. Have you heard from her, by the way?”

“Oh, yeah. She should be here any minute.” He bit his lip. “She’s gonna be mad.”

“Why on Earth would she be mad? What could you have done?”

“I don’t think she’ll really be mad at me, but she’ll be frustrated. And scared. As shitty as this day is, I don’t even want to think about one of the kids being in the hospital and me not being able to get to them. I just think we’re both too emotional right now, and things between us are still… a little tough. I don’t know how this is gonna go down.” 

He never knew how Chase did that, could see the humanity in the worst of situations, and he never knew what to say when he did it either. He just looked at him until Chase said, “Lexi’s ok. That’s all that matters.”

It was all that mattered. After all the unexpected stress of the day, Henrik started to relax a little, just sitting with Chase. He spent a few minutes going over some of the basics of what they’d do for pain medicine, how to take care of the wound. At some point, Alexis stirred.

“Hey, sweetie. How do you feel?”

“When’s the surgery?” she asked, her eyes still closed.

“The surgery’s over. You did it.”

“I did it?”

“You did! You did a great job. Do you want some water?”

“Mmm-mm. Not thirsty, just sleepy.”

“Don’t you at least want to see what Uncle Jackie got you?”

But she’d already fallen back to sleep.

“Should I wake her up again?”

“You don’t need to unless you want to try. She’s getting fluids; she won’t dehydrate.”

Chase settled back into his chair. 

“At some point, we’ll get her moved to a proper room for the night. But I make no promises about when. Trust me, now that this is no longer an emergency, you’ll see how slow a hospital can be.”

“If that’s the worst I have to deal with, I think I’ll live.”

“That’s -”

And then the door opened, and there was Stacy, looking completely frantic. “Where-”

Chase got up to get her attention. “It’s alright, Stace. She’s right here, she’s ok. Everything’s good now. She woke up a little for a minute, she was out of it but-”

He was cut off by Stacy pulling him into a hug. “Thank God you were there, Chase. She told me her stomach felt weird before I dropped her off to you last night and I thought she was just being dramatic because she - she wanted to take every stuffed animal she owned, I swear, and I told her there was no room and she had to pick just a few and I don’t know why I didn’t listen to her or why I didn’t let her take the damn toys I just -”

Whatever Chase had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t this, but he managed to get her to sit down, offer her some water. “That was probably nothing. It started getting bad this afternoon - believe me, you would’ve noticed. You would’ve done the same thing.”

Henrik was suddenly very uncomfortable; he backed off to a corner of the room, not sure what he was meant to do or say, just watching them talk between themselves. After a few minutes, Chase came over to where he was standing.

“Hey - you heading out soon?”

His shift had long since ended, but it felt so strange to just walk away from the situation. “I can stay. I don’t have the boys tonight.”

“No, you should go. You must be tired. Go home and get some rest; we’ll be good here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I texted Jackie, he said he can handle Noah for the night. Stacy and I are gonna stay with Lex.”

“Okay. You know where everything is - the cafeteria, the vending machines, all that?” Chase nodded. “And my office, too? I will leave the door unlocked for the night, in case you need anything or you decide you need to be… in separate rooms for a while.”

“It actually seems kinda fine. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“Well, just in case. And there should be a sweater in there if you get cold, some snacks maybe. Just look in the desk drawers.”

“Got it. Now go get some sleep, for real.”

He said it kindly, but it still felt like he was being sent away. He knew it was childish and stupid, but after everything, it was hard to let go. To accept that no matter how much they went through, Chase and Lexi weren’t his family. To leave them behind.

By this time, the hallways were a little quieter. He’d just pressed the button for the elevator when he heard Chase’s voice yell, “hey wait!”

He turned, and Chase was jogging toward him. “I forgot to tell you something!”

“What is it?”

Once again, Chase wrapped his arms around him, pressing his head against Henrik’s chest for a brief second before getting on his tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

“Thank you.”

And maybe it didn’t change anything, but the elevator opened behind them and then closed again, and they were still holding on to each other.

[the-accidentals]

Chapter 1

Laura walked in through the door of her shoddy apartment, the lights flickering on as she slumped down on her stained sofa, she wanted to order takeaway but knew she didn't have the money, life was way to expensive and this week had been a pile of horse shit if any one had been, her car was in the garage after it broke down a couple days ago, the bill was so high she would need to not eat for a month. Before getting off shift today she had seen a family of five burn, only 2 getting out alive, a baby and the father. She tried to not let her job get to her but fighting fires was the easiest part, watching the families as they realise that not everyone made it is the worst, you can feel the guilt in the air. We are trained to move on, you can't take every death personally or it kills you from the inside but whenever i see a family torn apart so abruptly the worry stays on my heart, seeing happy families destroyed was definitely the worst part of her job but laura still loved the job and everyone struggles with it so she just tries to leave the worry at work,but today it followed her home, there was just something about today, the fire had started in the oldests room, probably faulty electrics, she was barely out of primary school, just starting to think she was a grown up, it had already killed the middle kid by the time anyone realised and the mother just breathed in to much smoke, it was come and go for a bit but in the end she didn't even make it to the hospital. A happy family reduced to two, a morning father and a 2 month old girl, how she survived I don't know. All that innocence and such young lives torn away so quickly.

Laura stood up shaking her head, it's not good to stay focused on the bad things, noodles and beer and an early night and she can sort everything else out in the morning.She has parents she can beg for money,they won't be happy but they wont let her starve,she just wishes she didn't have to call. For tonight she resigned herself to the sofa with a bottle of cheap beer and some veg noodles, strolling through the internet. Eventually the sun was long gone and the shame came creeping back, she was sitting here running from her responsibilities with beer, noodles and a blanket around her, just trying to hide away on the internet, she was a grown woman, an adult. She closed down reddit and opened her emails, this was an adult thing, she could clear her inbox. Ad,ad,ad,scam,ad,ad, important thing she should of replied too, she was trying to be grown up but that was slightly too grown up, ad, bank statement, don't want to look at that, oh nice easy one, the unit chief is trying to set up a quiz night, he needs to know when i'm free, i can do that. After a couple minutes of checking her calendar, which was embarrassingly empty she had formed an adult but chill response. There! She had been an adult, she had written an email and deleted a few more. She scanned over the rest hoping they could wait a few more days until a quiet moment at work, one caught her eye, an email from a trial company, she did a couple of studies a few years back to get some extra cash and extra cash was just what she needed, she looked into it, it was a medical study looking into a mental health drug, they needed people with diagnosed mental illness so she knew she would fit right in. Drug trials were not her thing but the pay was pretty good, two injections a week, £50 each, it lasted 12 months but you could leave whenever, just under £5,000 for the whole year, she probably wouldn't hang on that long but long enough that she could fix her beat up honda and still eat. Honestly how could she resist? The testing facility was a 15 minute walk away from the fire station as well. Fuck me if was perefect, no nagging from anyone about “being an adult” and “looking after your finances”. Laura finally went to bed that night, slightly tipsy, exhausted but slightly less stressed.

Laura had 2 days until she got paid and she had her first appointment for the trial today, it was a rolling study so there was no set start date. She had promised steve, the mechanic down the road, that he would get paid the bill as soon as she got paid so that he would carry on working with no money upfront, to be honest he totally owned lorna one, she had set him up with an ex of hers about a year back and she had never seen him happier. She walked up to a little privately owned clinic that she had never noticed before, it was smart but felt way to clinical, the lights were so bright it burnt and like all of these places the smell of cleaner was so strong you could taste it, she popped her phone into the pocket of her oversized jacket as she came to the front desk, the lady at the desk looked he up and down, I suppose she didn't really look like she belonged, it didn't look like a cheap sort of place.” hi i'm here for the trial, umm laura burmwell” laura muttered into the ground,she hated reception staff, they always seemed super judgy and this lady was no different, she tapped away at her screen for a few very awkward moments and sighed, pointing me to a section of chairs near the back. Pulling her earphones out she landed in a seat.

“Dont worry she wasn't very nice to me either” a voice chucked next to her, a small grinning woman sat there tapping on her phone, laura smiled back, she was gorgeous, long black hair down to her waist, out shining laura’s dirty blonde mess any day.

“ I’m glad she doesn't just hate me” Lorna joked, internally panicking. Why is such a cute woman actually talking to me? She suddenly felt amazingly underdressed, she was sat next to a stunning women who was clearly ready to go to work in a nice yellow dress and a jacket and she is there look like a gay hobo, hair up in yesterdays bun and a t shirt that has dinosaurs on it, at she is wearing smartish jeans. “I’m laura, are you here for the study?” she smiled.

“Preet, yeah, i'm hoping they can cure the fuckery going on in my head before the end of it” she chuckled but I could see the blush forming over her skin as she processed what she had said, Laura just snorted, tapping her leg on the linoleum floor, trying to think of something to say, her mind in overdrive.

“ nervous?” Preet questioned.

“i just haven't been in a drug trial for years, what if I grow four heads or something?” She joked, Preet actually burst out laughing, tears starting to form in her eyes, which got Laura laughing too, they just sat there trying to hide there laughter from the rest of the very serious looking members of the waiting room, finally after about 5 minutes they both calmed down enough to speak, laughter still glistening in their eyes.

“ but seriously these drugs will of been tested for years before it gets to these sorts of tests, its perfectly safe, they are just proving it and checking out side effects, im sure you wont grow any more heads.” At that moment Preets name was called over the speaker system, Secretly both of them were hoping they had been forgotten about so they could sit here and chat all day but neither of them said it.

“See you later Laura” Preet called as she picked up her stuff and started to follow the now waiting nurse.

Lorna went back to her music, trying to pull a stupid grin off her face.

1941- September 5th

I walked into surgery, on the bench was the patient, a young soldier, barley 19. He was burning up. Nurse Weber was standing there, trying to cool him down while setting up. He had a gun wound that was starting to get infected and the bullet had yet been removed. We set to work, removing infected tissue and finding bits of the shattered bullet but further we got the more futile it became, he kept losing blood and nothing we could do would keep his temperature down, he was pretty much dead in front of us. The nurse looked up, exhaustion in every wrinkle in her face, defeat in her eyes, im sure she had been on duty when he came on, over 10 hours earlier. With an air of defect I started sawing him up, giving him a dose of penicillin and covering the wound with gauze. I doubt he would make the night but we had tried. I removed my bloodied gloves and left. Hoping to be able to rest now. My eyes started over at the dying children and men who fill the halls. when will the war end, when will the suffering stop, have not enough died for the righteous cause? I started towards the boards, I was still on duty for another few days before I could head home. As i passed through the corridors i passed a officer asking about his son, every has someone fighting in this war to end all wars, he came to a halt in front of me desperately asking for his sons conduction, i had treated him when he first got brought in, he was going to make it but he no longer had a left leg, a bomb had hit near trench and had impaled his leg. As he quickly dismissed me, relief clear on his face, you could clearly see the shine on his Swastika pin. “Heil Hitler” I murmured as he marched away into the chaos

This is the first part of a longer story and my first time doing any serious writing, any advice welcome! I know it isn't perfect but I tried so I hope you enjoy it xx

[wuzzybear]

The Accidentals- A bad fucking week. part 1

A group of broke adults join a medical trial hoping for some easy cash but instead get a lot more than what they wanted. There is something bad at play and they need to work it out if they ever want to be normal, not that they were normal before.

 Laura walked in through the door of her shoddy apartment, the lights flickering on as she slumped down on her stained sofa, she wanted to order takeaway but knew she didn't have the money, life was way to expensive and this week had been a pile of horse shit if any one had been, her car was in the garage after it broke down a couple days ago, the bill was so high she would need to not eat for a month.  Before getting off shift today she had seen a family of five burn, only 2 getting out alive, a baby and the father.  She tried to not let her job get to her but fighting fires was the easiest part, watching the families as they realise that not everyone made it is the worst, you can feel the guilt in the air. We are trained to move on, you can't take every death personally or it kills you from the inside but whenever i see a family torn apart so abruptly the worry stays on my heart, seeing happy families destroyed was definitely the worst part of her job but laura still loved the job and everyone struggles with it so she just tries to leave the worry at work,but today it followed her home, there was just something about today, the fire had started in the oldest’s room, probably faulty electrics, she was barely out of primary school, just starting to think she was a grown up, it had already killed the middle kid by the time anyone realised and the mother just breathed in to much smoke, it was come and go for a bit but in the end she didn't even make it to the hospital. A happy family reduced to two, a morning father and a 2 month old girl, how she survived I don't know. All that innocence and such young lives torn away so quickly. 

 Laura stood up shaking her head, it's not good to stay focused on the bad things, noodles and beer and an early night and she can sort everything else out in the morning.She has parents she can beg for money,they won't be happy but they wont let her starve,she just wishes she didn't have to call.  For tonight she resigned herself to the sofa with a bottle of cheap beer and some veg noodles, strolling through the internet. Eventually the sun was long gone and the shame came creeping back, she was sitting here running from her responsibilities with beer, noodles and a blanket around her, just trying to hide away on the internet, she was a grown woman, an adult. She closed down Reddit and opened her emails, this was an adult thing, she could clear her inbox. Ad,ad,ad,scam,ad,ad, important thing she should of replied too, she was trying to be grown up but that was slightly too grown up, ad, bank statement, don't want to look at that, oh nice easy one, the unit chief is trying to set up a quiz night, he needs to know when i'm free, i can do that. After a couple minutes of checking her calendar, which was embarrassingly empty she had formed an adult but chill response. There! She had been an adult, she had written an email and deleted a few more. She scanned over the rest hoping they could wait a few more days until a quiet moment at work, one caught her eye, an email from a trial company, she did a couple of studies a few years back to get some extra cash and extra cash was just what she needed, she looked into it, it was a medical study looking into a mental health drug, they needed people with diagnosed mental illness so she knew she would fit right in. Drug trials were not her thing but the pay was pretty good, two injections a week, £50 each, it lasted 12 months but you could leave whenever, just under £5,000 for the whole year, she probably wouldn't hang on that long but long enough that she could fix her beat up Honda and still eat. Honestly how could she resist? The testing facility was a 15 minute walk away from the fire station as well. Fuck me if was perfect, no nagging from anyone about “being an adult” and “looking after your finances”. Laura finally went to bed that night, slightly tipsy, exhausted but slightly less stressed.

Laura had 2 days until she got paid and she had her first appointment for the trial today, it was a rolling study so there was no set start date. She had promised Steve, the mechanic down the road, that he would get paid the bill as soon as she got paid so that he would carry on working with no money upfront, to be honest he totally owned Laura one, she had set him up with an ex of hers about a year back and she had never seen him happier. She walked up to a little privately owned clinic that she had never noticed before, it was smart but felt way to clinical, the lights were so bright it burnt and like all of these places the smell of cleaner was so strong you could taste it, she popped her phone into the pocket of her oversized jacket as she came to the front desk, the lady at the desk looked he up and down, I suppose she didn't really look like she belonged, it didn't look like a cheap sort of place.” hi i'm here for the trial, umm.. Laura Burmwell” Laura muttered into the ground,she hated reception staff, they always seemed super judgy and this lady was no different, she tapped away at her screen for a few very awkward moments and sighed, pointing me to a section of chairs near the back. Pulling her earphones out she landed in a seat. 

“Don’t worry she wasn't very nice to me either” a voice chucked next to her, a small grinning woman sat there tapping on her phone, Laura smiled back, she was gorgeous, long black hair down to her waist, out shining Laura's dirty blonde mess any day.

 “I’m glad she doesn't just hate me” Lorna joked, internally panicking. Why is such a cute woman actually talking to me? She suddenly felt amazingly under dressed, she was sat next to a stunning women who was clearly ready to go to work in a nice yellow dress and a jacket and she is there look like a gay hobo, hair up in yesterdays bun and a t shirt that has dinosaurs on it, at she is wearing smartish jeans. “I’m Laura, are you here for the study?” she smiled. 

“Preet, yeah, i'm hoping they can cure the fuckery going on in my head before the end of it” she chuckled but I could see the blush forming over her skin as she processed what she had said, Laura just snorted, tapping her leg on the linoleum floor, trying to think of something to say, her mind in overdrive.

“Nervous?” Preet questioned.

 “i just haven't been in a drug trial for years, what if I grow four heads or something?” She joked, Preet actually burst out laughing, tears starting to form in her eyes, which got Laura laughing too, they just sat there trying to hide there laughter from the rest of the very serious looking members of the waiting room, finally after about 5 minutes they both calmed down enough to speak, laughter still glistening in their eyes.

“ but seriously these drugs will of been tested for years before it gets to these sorts of tests, its perfectly safe, they are just proving it and checking out side effects, I’m sure you wont grow any more heads.”  At that moment Preet’s name was called over the speaker system, Secretly both of them were hoping they had been forgotten about so they could sit here and chat all day but neither of them said it. 

“See you later Laura” Preet called as she picked up her stuff and started to follow the now waiting nurse. 

Lorna went back to her music, trying to pull a stupid grin off her face. 

1941- September 5th

I walked into surgery, on the bench was the patient, a young soldier, barley 19. He was burning up. Nurse Weber was standing there, trying to cool him down while setting up. He had a gun wound that was starting to get infected and the bullet had yet been removed. We set to work, removing infected tissue and finding bits of the shattered bullet but further we got the more futile it became, he kept losing blood and nothing we could do would keep his temperature down, he was pretty much dead in front of us. The nurse looked up, exhaustion in every wrinkle in her face, defeat in her eyes, I’m sure she had been on duty when he came on, over 10 hours earlier. With an air of defect  I started sawing him up, giving him a dose of penicillin and covering the wound with gauze. I doubt he would make the night but we had tried. I removed my bloodied gloves and left. Hoping to be able to rest now. My eyes started over at the dying children and men who fill the halls. when will the war end, when will the suffering stop, have not enough died for the righteous cause? I started towards the boards, I was still on duty for another few days before I could head home. As i passed through the corridors i passed a officer asking about his son, every has someone fighting in this war to end all wars, he came to a halt in front of me desperately asking for his sons condition, i had treated him when he first got brought in, he was going to make it but he no longer had a left leg, a bomb had hit near trench and had impaled his leg. As he quickly dismissed me, relief clear on his face, you could clearly see the shine on his Swastika pin. “Heil Hitler” I murmured as he marched away into the chaos.

This is my first attempt writing, please tell me how to improve! this is the first part of a longer story.

[bowsie22]

Malex Collection 7

Summary: Alex starts getting sick and has a difficult decision to make.

It started small, a tickle in his chest. Then, that tickle turned into a pain. Alex thought it was just a cold, at worst a chest infection. He went to Kyle, got some antibiotics, hoped for the best. For a few weeks, it seemed to be getting better.

And then one day, he saw Michael in the Crashdown. The tickle came back. Alex didn’t make any connection. At least not until later that night. Kyle and he were watching Star Trek when a coughing fit started. Kyle watched concerned as he coughed into a towel from the kitchen. He pulled it away, Kyle frowning at the sight of blood.

“Kyle, you see this too, right?”

The doctor slid closer, taking the towel from Alex’s hand.

“Shit.”

Looking down at the bloody petals on the towel, Alex had to agree.

After some Googling, they learned that the flowers were yellow carnations, flowers that symbolised rejection. After that, it was pretty obvious who was the reason for Alex’s Hanahaki Disease.

“There is a cure.”

“The surgery.”

“It’s an option.”

“But that gets rid of everything. Not just the love, but the feelings, friendship, all my emotions tied to Michael. I can’t do that.”

Kyle nodded, understanding. He knew that Michael had been an important part of Alex’s life for over a decade now. Alex had gone to war to protect the other man, he’d fought his father, nearly died for him. Kyle had never seen more people more in love. And he knew Alex. He’d never want to get rid of his feelings for Michael, they were too precious, too important to him.

But Kyle also understood Michael’s need for something easy and painless. As long as Alex was tied to memories of his father and Caulfield, there was no hope of a relationship between the two. Which lowered Alex’s chances of survival if he refused the surgery.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Keep this to yourself for now. I’ll need check-ups, won’t I?”

“I want you at the hospital weekly. We’ll need to keep an eye on the growth. And when it gets too bad, we’ll have to admit you.”

“No, I’ve spent enough time in hospitals. When it happens, I want to die here, on my own terms.”

“But it doesn’t have to happen! Michael still loves you, if you tell him, you don’t have to die.”

Alex stood, pacing around the room. Kyle winced, noticing the limp. The past few weeks had been hell on Alex’s leg, even if he’d never admit it.

“I don’t want Michael to be with me because he has no other choice. If he’s with me, it should be because he wants to be. Because we’ve worked through our problems and we’ve talked and healed. Not because otherwise I’ll die.”

He looked to his friend, surprised to see Kyle was crying.

“I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to put on you especially now, but please don’t tell him. Don’t tell anyone. For one, I want to things my way.”

“Ok. I don’t agree with it in any way, but this is what you want. And it’s not like you ask for much, so I can give you this one thing.”

Alex pulled his friend into a hug, made less awkward when Kyle stood to wrap his arms around Alex’s waist.

“Thank you Kyle. You’re the best, you know that?”

Alex lasted longer than Kyle thought he would. For five months he went about his daily life as if nothing was wrong. It was only when he was alone with Kyle that he allowed himself to show any weakness. By the fifth month, he was only leaving the house once a week. And then Kyle got the text he was waiting for. It was a picture of a yellow carnation in full bloom. Normally, Kyle would find the picture beautiful. But the blood and spit covering the bloom and surrounding it meant that Alex had progressed to coughing up full blooms. Kyle sighed, knowing that Alex was nearing the end.

“Shit.”

It had been one week since Alex sent Kyle the picture. Since then, he’d been confined to his bed, oxygen mask on 24/7 to help with his breathing, too weak to do anything except watch tv and argue with Kyle about telling Michael. Kyle knew that Alex wouldn’t last the week. He was coughing up carnations at least four times a day. He also knew that Michael had broken up with Maria, realising that she deserved more the someone who wanted something easy and fun. So, he made a decision that he knew Alex would hate. But one he hoped his friend would live long enough to thank him for. Or kill him for. With Alex, it could go either way.

Hearing the footsteps heading towards the bedroom, Alex called out.

“Kyle? Where have you been? I thought this was your day off?”

“Oh my God. I thought he was joking, but Jesus Christ.”

Alex turned towards the door, praying that he was so sick he was hearing things.

“Michael.”

“Kyle came to see me, said that you were sick. Jesus Alex, what’s wrong with you?”

He entered the room, eyes taking in the oxygen, bloody sheets and towels bundled in a corner of the room, the bin by the side of the bed. Michael felt the tears at the corners of his eyes. He’d never seen so weak before. God, he was actually going to die. He sat on the edge of the bed, brushing away some flower petals. He knew if he looked and Alex, he’d break down.

“It’s nothing to concern yourself with.”

Michael laughed through his tears.

“Gonna have to disagree with you there Manes. Look at yourself. Are you serious?”

Alex sighed, feeling more tired by the second. He didn’t have the energy to deal with Michael today.

“Michael, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at the Pony?”

Michael was suddenly very interested in the duvet cover.

“Maria and I broke up. She deserves more than me. She deserves more than someone who’s so in love with another person that they couldn’t give even part of their heart to someone else.”

Alex gasped, feeling a tickle in the back of his throat. Damnit, the last thing he wanted was to cough up a flower in front of Michael of all people.

“Michael? What do you mean?”

The alien stood, moving to kneel beside Alex’s side of the bed. He grabbed the other man’s hand, noting with concern how thin he was.

“I’m sorry. For hurting you. You’ve been tied up in so many painful memories that I found it nearly impossible to separate you and your father and those memories from each other.”

He paused as Alex coughed harshly into a towel, wincing when he heard him hack something up. When he finished, Alex tossed the towel to the side of the bed, hiding it from Michael’s view. He nodded at the other to continue.

“But the Iz signed up for some therapy. And it really seemed to help her. So, I signed up too.”

“Michael that’s great.”

“Yeah, it’s been a big help. And it helped me separate everything in my mind.”

“What are you saying?”

Michael looked up, meeting Alex’s eyes. He wanted to be sure that there was no confusion, no way that Alex could misunderstand him.

“I was in that pod for fifty years. And I got out at just the right time to meet you. I don’t know if that was the universe telling me something, but I’m gonna take it like that’s what it meant.”

“Are you saying we’re soulmates?”

“Possibly? I don’t know. But I want to find out. We’ve had a weird relationship. Considering how I feel about you, that we’ve had a decade together; I know so little about you. But I want to spend the rest of my life learning all that stuff. Everything that makes you, you. I want to know it Alex. And I’m hoping that you’ll give me the second chance to do that. I know I hurt you when I went to Maria and I probably don’t deserve another chance, but please, I am begging you. I love you Alex and if you’ll have me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Alex coughed, Michael leaning back, becoming concerned when it didn’t stop. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing Alex’s back.

“Are you ok? Do you need anything?”

Alex pointed towards the bin, choking on something. Michael held the bin in front of Alex’s mouth, very confused. Kyle hadn’t mentioned Alex being physically sick, but he was heaving pretty badly into the bin, and there was some liquid hitting the bottom of the bin. The coughs weren’t getting better, if anything they were getting worse. Michael, concerned, floated his phone in front of his face, texting Kyle to get to the cabin and now. Finally, there was a wet thud as something big landed in the bin. Alex collapsed back against the pillows, gasping for breath. Michael looked into the bin, afraid of what he’d find.

“A flower?”

A yellow carnation lay at the bottom of the bin. Covered in blood from the bottom of the flower to its roots, it was obvious that Alex had just coughed it up. Michael stared at Alex, who smiled weakly at him. Kyle burst into the room. Taking one look at the scene in front of him, Michael crying, Alex exhausted, but happy, Kyle collapsed against the door frame, relieved.

“Oh good, you two finally figured it out.”

Kyle left after an hour with strict warnings for Alex to stay in bed for another day, at least. Michael locked the door after him, making his way back to the bedroom. Standing in the doorway, he examined Alex. The other man looked healthier already, his skin not as pale, not as weak looking. Kyle had helped him shower as Michael changed the bedsheets and threw everything into the washing machine. He approached the bed, grinning as Alex smiled up at him.

“So, Hanahaki, huh? Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Probably not. I wanted you to be with me because you wanted to be.”

“Not out of a sense of obligation?”

“See, I knew you’d get it.”

Alex patted the bed next to him, watching Michael strip down to his boxers and slide under the covers.

“So, soulmates huh?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I know I love you. And I want to spend forever proving how much I love you.”

“I love you too Michael. But we have a lot to work through, this isn’t going to be easy.”

“I don’t want easy, not with you. I’m ready to fight and work for this, for us. Aren’t you?”

Alex pulled him into a gentle kiss, really just a press of lips. It was so different from their normal kisses. It reminded Michael of being seventeen in the museum, the nerves as he kissed the one person he’d ever had any real feelings for, praying that he didn’t screw things up. It was nice, soothing, familiar, what he’d been missing. They broke apart, foreheads resting together as Michael ran his hands up and down Alex’s back in a soothing gesture.

“Of course I want to work for this.”

“Good, we can discuss it more tomorrow. You need sleep. We’ll make breakfast in the morning and discuss it then, kay?”

“Kay.”

Alex lay back, turning on his side, pulling Michael’s arm around his waist. Michael pulled Alex into his body, holding him tight. Pressing kisses to the back of his neck, he listened as Alex’s breathing slowed and the men fell into a deep sleep. Holding him close, knowing that he had nearly lost Alex, Michael vowed to never spend another day away from the man in his arms. Falling asleep to the sound of Alex’s breathing, his heartbeat under his hand, Michael vowed to protect Alex from anything or anyone that would try to hurt him. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Alex and he wanted it to be a long life. Let them come, they’d soon regret it.

A/N I suck at endings! I’m sorry 

[ladytshelby]

Stand By Your Gun chapter one

Stand By Your Gun chapter one

Tommyxamelia

Gifs are from: pcllygray, weheartitsource, miss2lit, sirenjaandthestag. - if wrong please let me know and I’ll fix it.

I hope you enjoy the first chapter. There is plenty more to come in Amelia and Tommy’s story. Please let me know what you think. It would mean the world to me.

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑶𝒏𝒆: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈

Blood is coating the floor. Blood is dripping in her eyes, staining her clothes and her shaking hands. Amelia isn't even sure if it belongs to her because of the adrenaline pumping in her veins. She looks around, her eyes scanning the room finally seeing the damage that was caused in only a few minutes. Bodies littering the floor. Their faces belonging to people that, thankfully, Amelia can't recognize. Bullet holes making honeycombs out of the walls. Blood acting in place of the sweet honey.

Polly said this was a long time coming. A sort of reckoning for the Shelby family. Everyone kept going on and on about how the Italians were going to get what they deserved, but as Amelia walked around, she couldn't help but wonder if anyone actually deserves this end, dying in an abandoned warehouse with the only people who know where you are, are lying dead beside you. Tommy would say it is poetic to die with your brothers and take a bullet in the heart or a knife to your throat as long as it was for your family.

Amelia’s thoughts were interrupted when the sound of footsteps echoed in the hall, slowly coming towards the room. Her hand immediately went for the gun Arthur gave her back at Watery Lane. She raised it, pulling back the hammer, waiting.

Now

“Miss Hastings, are you listening to me?”

Amelia’s head shot up, immediately snatched from her daze by her boss looking at her as if she possesses three heads. “Yes, of course, I am.”

Nurse Smith crosses her arms and looked at Amelia with a crooked smirk, “Okay then, what did I say?”

Amelia sat up straighter and put on her smile that would always get Ada and herself out of trouble when they were younger, running around Small Heath, “you said and I quote, “Millie, you are the best damn nurse on this side of Birmingham, and you know, I like you so much more than Margret Williams. Also, I’m going to give you a raise because I’m feeling quite generous today.”

Nurse Smith is trying hard to mask her laugh behind her scowl when she replies, “That was not it at all Miss Hastings,” She moves to sit in front of the younger nurse, who looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, “I was telling you that all the surgeries have been moved up from tomorrow to today, but never mind that dear, I want to know when is the last time you’ve had a full night’s rest.”

“What month is it again?” Amelia questions jokingly while leaning back in her stiff wooden chair. Her back popping with two loud cracks. There are nurses and doctors cramped into the closet they call a breakroom, all having the same look of tiredness. Even Doctor Anderson is in such a daze that he isn't drinking his tea, he is only staring into the cup, unblinking.

Amelia turns her head back to Nurse Smith who is looking at her with sad eyes, “I am being serious Amelia, you need to rest.”

“And I will,” She replied standing up from the table, “When I’m dead. I have to go check on Mr. Brown, his next round of meds is coming up.”

Nurse Smith stands up with her and blocks the door. Her head only coming up to Amelia’s chin. She may be short, but she makes up for it with her presence. Luckily, Nurse Smith really likes her and treats her as a daughter and doesn't see her wrath as much as the other nurses. “No, I got Miss Williams to take care of that. You, my dear, are going home to get some sleep.”

“But I’m fine, I promise.” Amelia tries to reason with her boss, but nothing was working. “I took a little nap in the broom closet earlier, p –”

“This isn't up for discussion,” Nurse Smith interrupts, pushing Amelia gently towards the exit, “Go home and tell that Shelby boy to leave you alone and let you rest. Doctor’s orders.”

With that, she turns to walk down the hallway, ending the conversation. Amelia waits until she was a few feet from her before she mutters, “Fine, but you’re not a doctor.”

“I heard that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Small Heath is buzzing with life. Merchants trying to sell goods, children running senselessly down the streets with their parents none the wiser, and evangelists speaking prophecies of almighty damnation. Voices and laughter carried and could seemingly be heard anywhere in the town, and Amelia loved it all. She loves the idea of people walking in the same direction but ending up in different places, and people living in the same city but experiencing it differently. Tommy says it silly to think that way, but she has to remind him that he used to think the same as her. When he came back from France, he changed and so did the world around him, everything now has a gritty film over it covering the good and not allowing it to shine through. With the good, comes the bad. Tommy only sees the bad, and Amelia tries her hardest to show him that there is still light in the world, no matter how dim it seems sometimes.

A voice from The Garrison pulls Amelia from her thoughts as she went to walk past the bar where she used to spend a lot of her time as a teenager. Harry, the bartender, waves her over and starts saying something, but she cannot hear from all the noise in the street.

“Harry, what's the matter? Is something wrong?” Amelia questions when she makes it to him, stepping aside to let a man in the door.

Harry shook his head, “No, nothing's wrong. Tommy came by looking for ya saying if I saw ya, to tell ya to meet him at Watery Lane.”

“Did he mention why?” Amelia asked while racking her brain not remembering if they had a family meeting.

“No, but he had a giant horse with him,” Harry replies shrugging his shoulders.

“Oh shit! I forgot that was today,” Amelia shakes her head, looking at her watch seeing that it is much later than she thought, “Harry, I got to go, but thanks for telling me. I’ll see you later on.”

She turns to leave, not waiting for Harry to reply and runs straight into a girl with blonde hair, who she swears appeared out of nowhere.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you there,” They both said at the same time laughing lightly and continuing on their separate paths. Amelia’s feet going a little faster than before. She is anxious about finding out how the charm went with Tommy and the horse.

~~~~~~~~~

The chaos of Watery Lane will always bring a smile to Amelia’s face. As she walks into the house, she can faintly hear the chatter of the bets being taken behind the door by the fireplace. She usually helps with the boys take up them up but the hospital has been taking up the majority of her time. It seems as though everyone decided to get ill at the same time.

Amelia pushes through the door to come face to face with John who stumbles backward almost falling into the man behind him. “Shit Millie, where have ya been?” He straightens up smoothing out his worn jacket and motions for her to follow him. “We’ve been waiting for ya all damn day.”

“You do know I work at the hospital, John,” Amelia answers John, motioning to her nursing dress and walks into the room where the family meetings are held. “I can’t just up and leave whenever I please, ya know.”

“Yeah speaking of the hospital, we need your he—”

“What the hell happened to his face?” Amelia interrupts John when she sees the looks of Arthur. its as though he has been in a fistfight with a cat... multiple cats. She makes her way over to him and lifts his chin with her finger. He winces a little at her touch. “Who did this to you?”

“That fucker Campbell.” Arthur curses as Polly begins grabs his hand inspecting it.

“Who is that and why is he trying to kill you?” Amelia asks reaching for the rag from Ada. “Give me that Ada.”

“Yeah Ada, Let a real nurse do it,” John interjects, earning a scowl from his younger sister.

“Hey! I’m trained.” Ada pouts and hands the rag to Amelia knowing her brother is right.

Amelia laughs while dipping the rag into the bowl of water on the table and wiping some of the blood from Arthur’s face. “Ada, you ditched after day one of class and left me alone so I had to partner with that horrid Margret.”

“Well, all of ya can just fuc—” Ada begins to swear but gets cut off by Tommy bursting in through the door carrying a bottle of whiskey.

“Let me see him. Here” Tommy comes to stand beside Amelia and holds the bottle up to Arthur’s mouth for him to drink. Once he gets a good swig, he takes the rag from Amelia and pours the alcohol onto it before handing it back to her. Tommy gives her a look that says he is concerned for his brother, but under it, there is something Amelia can’t quite read.

She puts her hand on the back of Arthur’s head to hold him still. She dabs the rag on his cuts to clean them so they won’t get infected, and he hisses through clenched teeth and grabs her arm with his free hand. “Shhh, Arthur it's all right. None of the cuts are too deep to need stitches so you will be okay, only a little sore.”

After Arthur is patched up, Amelia sits down beside Polly and puts her head on her shoulder. Polly rubs Amelia’s knee and smiles. “What would we do without you, girl?”

“Probably have to deal with Ada’s nursing skills,” Amelia jokes and laughs when Ada throws a bloody rag at her.

“Leave me alone. I swear its pick on Ada day!” Ada exclaims and moves to stand by Tommy, who is watching Amelia closely.

“No, it isn’t. Its just quite easy to mess with you.”

The sense of family is what has always drawn Amelia to the Shelby family. She is grateful that they took her in all those years ago when she was new to Small Heath. After her father died and her mother turned into a recluse, Amelia was looking for a place to belong, and thankfully she found that in them. Of course, she knew about the family business and it has never swayed her love for them, she is in on everything that goes on. Tommy confiding in her the most.

Arthur’s voice breaks her thoughts when he says, “That inspector said Mr. Churchill sent him to Birmingham.” Arthur tries to sit up straighter but stops and winces. “He said something about a robbery.”

“We don’t know nothing about no robbery,” John interjects. He has to talk around the toothpick in his mouth.

Amelia raises her hand still confused about who this inspector is. “Can someone explain to me who that is.”

“You would know, Millie, if you were here earlier.”

“Why don’t you shove it, John. I’m sorry I’m trying to help the sick.”

“Will you two shut up for the love of Christ,” Polly exclaims then turns to Amelia. “Amelia darling, Campbell is an Irishman who is trying to clean out the IRA.”

Amelia nods appreciatively, “Thank you, Aunt Poll. That’s all I wanted to know. Arthur, please continue.”

While Arthur is explaining the situation with the BSA strikes and how the inspector wants the family to be his eyes and ears, Amelia keeps stealing glances at Tommy trying to get his attention, but he won’t look at her. Instead, he is keeping his eyes on the floor seemingly very interested in his shoes. Something is not right and she knows it. He knows more than he is letting on, information he deems unworthy for the rest of the family to know, or it is the opposite. They are unworthy of the information. A knot forms in Amelia’s stomach and makes her feel ill at the thought of something being wrong.

She mustn't be the only one who notices Tommy’s silence because Arthur points his finger at his brother and looking at everyone else, his face mad with anger. “What the fuck is wrong him lately? Been doing all sorts behind my back for a while now and I’m bloody sick of it, Tom.”

Tommy finally looks up and looks his older brother in the face, his face the mirror opposite of Arthur’s and just says, “I’ll tell you in due time, brother. It’s none of your concern at the present.”

That was the wrong thing to say because Arthur tries to launch himself at Tommy but is restrained by the table and his injuries. John jumps up and pushes Arthur down into his chair telling him to be quiet.

Amelia takes this time to get up and go over to Tommy. She stands in front of his slouched frame in such a way everyone else in the room can’t see him and can only see her back. She gently puts her hand on his arm feeling the roughness of his jacket under her hands. She waits for him to look up before she nods her head towards the stairs and mutters, “We can go talk upstairs.”

Tommy looks like he wants to say no, but ultimately agrees and turns to make his way to the stairs leaving Amelia to follow close behind.

[milkfreaker]

rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 15 people

tagged by @droolphobia !!! THANK U i love doing these too....

1. drink - iced tead

2. 📱 call -  amy mother and paw

3. text - discord server w my friends

4. song you listened to - fatty boom boom by die atwoord lol

5. time you 😢 - UMMM rewatching on the run from su

HAVE YOU EVER

6. dated someone twice -i have never even dated someone

7. 😘 someone and regretted it - Nooo

8. been cheated on -No

9. lost someone special - this is dumb but my dogs and recently i had to put down my favorite rabbit... not at the vet i had to kill her cuz she was in so much pain 😔

10. been depressed - YEA

11. gotten drunk and thrown up - no hate hate hate alcohol

FAVORITE COLORS

12. PINK

13. Purple

14. Peach

15. White

in the last year have you

16. made new friends - ya!!

17. fallen out of 💛 - no

18. 😂 until you 😢 - uhhh i think so??

19. found out someone was talking about you - nah

20. met someone who changed you - noo

21. found out who your friends are -idk?? 22. 😘 someone on your facebook friends list - NO

GENERAL

23. how many friends from your fb friends list do you know irl - idk.. i only use fb for my rabbitry page lol

24. do you have any pets - OH GOD YEAH... 3 dogs, 3 cats , 2 snakes, leopard gecko, crested gecko, 2 cockatiels, bantam cochin chicken, lots of fish and like 20+ rabbits

25. do you want to change your middle name - idk i guess? its anne so its fem

26. what did you do for your last 🎂 - hung out with my family and friends and had dinner and cake and swam in th pool 💖

27. what time did you wake up today - 10:13am cuz my mom called me it was 2 minutes before my alarm

28. what were you doing last night at midnight - sleepin for once

29. what is something you can’t wait for - getting top surgery money

30. what are you listening to right now -my fish tank and my doge snoring

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom - probably??? lol

32. something that gets on your nerves - vegans and vegetarians lol

33. most visited website - tumblr hell site

34. hair color - natural is arbrurn, rn its dyed purple

35. long hair or short hair -SHORT

36. do you have a crush on someone -maybe...? ive never really had a crush like ever so idk

37. what do you like about yourself - that i learned to stop giving a shit and stand up for myself

38. want any piercings - septum... and maybe ears but the earrings got stuck in there and infected so im kinda tramatized

39. blood type - A-

40. nicknames - harl/harls, dome

41. relationship status - single

42. zodiac -virgo 

43. pronouns - they or it

44. favorite 📺 show - steven universe babey!!!

45. tattoos -maybe one day... idk what i would get

46. right handed or left - right

47. ever had surgery -wisdom teeth if that counts

48. piercings -none rn

49. sports - i used to do gymnastics and karate, i did trac and field (shot put and discus) but had to drop out cuz thy would make us run even tho i wss in field only

50. vacation - latest was going to iowa for a rabbit show!

51. trainers - like.. shoes?? my favoraite are my angel wing boots

MORE GENERAL

52. eating - A peanut that was on the table from my trail mix i ate earlier LOL

53. drinking - nothing

54. i’m about to watch - idk

55. waiting for - TO GET DINNER BURGER KING

56. want - burger king

57. get married -if i ever meet the right person

58. career -freelance ceramics and homesteading

WHICH IS BETTER

59. kisses or hugs - hugs!

60. 👄 or eyes - eyes!

61. shorter or taller - idk either??

62. older or younger - um... the same age i dont like this one

63. nice arms or stomach - arms?? tho i do like a thicc tummy (NOT IN LIKE A FETISHY WAY I HATE THAT SHIT)

64. hookup or relationship - relationship!

65. troublemaker or hesitant -IDK

HAVE YOU EVER

66. 😘 a stranger - no

67. drank hard liquor -i would honestly rather die

68. lost glasses - I don’t wear glasses

69. turned someone down -no but ive never been.. asked on a date.... lol

70. sex on first date - no

71. broken someone’s ❤️-i hope not..

72. had your 💔 - ya

73. been arrested - no

74. 😢 when someone died - Yea

75. fallen for a friend -YEAAA

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

76. yourself - most of th time

77. miracles - i think?

78. 💛 at first sight - nah

79. 🎅- yes hunch santa

80. 😘 on a first date - nooo?

81. angels yes

other

82. best friend’s name - mell, jesse and konyleigh!!

83. eye color - brown!

84. favorite movie -uhhh lego batman movie

85. favorite actor -sexy aquaman idk his name LOL

i tag @cacksacker69 and YOU.

[bigtransmoods]

hi so i'm trans (ftm) & am currently not in a good living situation. my parents aren't supportive, & i've been going to a private christian school ever since they found out about me. i'm not allowed/able to see any friends at my old school who were supportive of me. i know it's probably bad, but every day i wear 3-4 sports bras. it's getting really hard to get through each day, & i recently relapsed & self harmed. idk what i'm asking for, advice? ways to cope? anything will help. thank you!

Okay first of all take a breathe dude, just sit down and breath calmly. Everything is going to be okay, you are safe and you are fine; remember this. Coming from a family that also was unsupportive I’d just like to let you know that if the only time you can be yourself is behind close doors, that is fine! You are still being you are you are still valid. They just dont understand and thats entirely their problem, it doesn’t have to be yours. Its going to sound stupid but try to not let their transphobia get to you, it doesn’t deserve the time or effort thinking about it. Don’t honor their transphobia by even giving it a second thought; their opinions are their opinions and although it can be hard you might just have to accept it to avoid any other kinds of emotional or physical pain.

I also went to a school that was religious. As a child I went to a Methodist school and although I didn’t believe in Jesus or anything I understand those feelings of nonacceptance. It can be hard to go to a school that rejects your identity as well as your existence, its sort of like being a ghost and fighting to be real. Since coming out I’ve struggled with religion and although I’ve not come to a conclusion on this just so you know, you can be religious and transgender as well as gay and religious. Your religion is up to you and I hope they know that by forcing you into a religious school this isn’t going to change you or “convert” you. My sister for example is still pretty butch and she continued to go to a variety of christian schools. 

If you are struggling to see your friends you could do the following but you could get in trouble so thats a warning. Text them, write to them, sneak out. The last one would probably get you into the biggest trouble so dont blame me if that happens lmao. Isolation can be hard to deal with but remember that there are millions of us on here who accept you and if you need friends I would be more than willing to text you everyday! You have many trans brothers and sisters who understand and will want to talk to you even though its not verbal contact.

Yeah if anything the most acceptable amounts of sports bras are two, I wore three binders today and that almost killed me so I cant imagine what you are going through. Remember the rules because I know its quite likely you’ll continue to use three to four sports bras and I’d rather give you binding tips then telling you something pointless; Take breaks, wear for a maximum of eight hours, don’t do excersise in them. You probably know the rest. I can’t remember off the top of my head. However my best recommendation would be taking one or two off if you don’t want to ruin your chest for the future of your top surgery.

Okay... self harm. I can’t say that I have never done this and I can’t say that I haven’t done this recently and I am in the same boat but I just want you to know. I am here for you. If you hit up my inbox right now I’ll talk to you through this. I’ll sit for a couple of hours and listen to you because you sound like you need this right now, I wont judge, I wont push my opinions onto you, Ill listen and be the friend you need right now. This is the important part that since I cant tell you not to do it, since its already done, make sure that it is clean. Antiseptic creams, plasters, bandages ect, make sure that they are clean and do not get infected; look after your physical health as well as your mental as both correlate with each other. In the future please try not to do this and if you are, seek help immediately or contact me and Ill try to help you in any which way I can.

 In coping strategies... Remember that as much as you are struggling to get through the day, you still are; you are strong. So fucking strong. You are strong to be yourself in a society that tells you its wrong. You are so fucking strong and you might not feel it but you are and I support you completely! Wherever you are, wherever you go, you are valid. I’d say take part in hobbies, do simple things, anything that you can to take your mind of dysphoria. I love writing and reading, this takes me out of reality. 

The best of luck to you, I hope this helps and if you wish or need to contact me, feel free. I am here to give you as much guidance and advice as you want :) I love you, you are respected, valid and safe here on my blog. 

[veteran-shipper]

Voltron’s Anatomy

part 2 of ???

so i realize that doing all how-many-bajillion episodes of grey’s anatomy is an improbable task. i’ll probably be mixing and matching episodes because ain’t nobody got time for that, least of all me. plus, let’s be real. we were really only in it for Der and Mer’s Epic Love Story. 

alternatively titled: never air to breathe (never inbetweens).

Pidge slams her locker shut in frustration. “I have got to move out from my parents’ place,” she announces, yanking viciously at her shoelaces. 

“What’s up?” Hunk asks, his forehead creased with concern. 

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just sick and tired of all the tension because my brother Matt has been MIA. It feels like I’ve been walking on eggshells ever since I moved back for residency. They’re being overprotective, and as much as I understand, I’m a god damn adult, and I can handle the shifts I signed on for. The fact that they also work here is literally my worst nightmare. I can’t believe I agreed to come back.” 

“Why don’t you move into my place, then?” Keith suggests, shrugging his white coat on. “I have the space.”

“I thought you were trying to sell it?” Hunk says, mildly surprised. “What changed?”

Keith shrugs. “I just never got around to it. Plus, I moved back here, didn’t I? Might as well keep it around and get some roommates. It’s practically a family heirloom at this point. What do you say? I’ll keep rent reasonable.”

“I’ll think about it,” Pidge says with a shrug. 

“Sure, just let me know whenever. I have two rooms up for grabs if you want in, too, Hunk,” Keith adds. 

“It would be nice to be in a full house again,” Hunk says wistfully. “I’ve basically been crashing on my uncle’s couch since moving here from Hawaii.” 

The three of them approach Altea for their assignments of the day. Altea’s eyes narrow. “Where’s Lance?” she asks. Keith shoves his hands in his coat pockets and shrugs. 

“Dr. Altea! Sorry to keep you waiting!” Lance skids to a stop, just barely keeping a tray of coffees from tipping over. “I brought you a coffee--mocha, soy, just the way you like it.” 

Altea looks slightly mollified as she plucks the coffee out of the tray. “Thank you, Lance, but next time, apologize by being on time,” she says dryly. “You’re on code team. Keith, take the trauma pager. Pidge, deliver the weekend lab results to their patients. Hunk, you’re on sutures.” She turns on her heels and starts to walk away. 

“Dr. Altea!” Lance says, stopping her in her tracks. “I was wondering if I could assist you in the OR today? I think I’m ready. You know, for a minor procedure or something like that.” 

“Hey! If he gets to cut, I want to cut, too!” Pidge says, elbowing Lance out of the way.

“Me too!” Keith interjects. 

Hunk gulps. “Yeah, I guess,” he adds lamely.

“Okay, stop.” Altea puts her hands on her hips, eyes blue steel. “Every intern wants a chance to perform their first surgery. But that’s not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make me happy. Do I look happy? No, because my interns aren’t doing the jobs I told them to do. Nobody gets to even touch a cadaver until I think you’re ready, understand?” 

“Yes ma’am,” the interns mumble collectively. 

“Now move!” Altea makes a shooing motion with her hands, and the interns scatter off to their various jobs. “Vrepit Sal’s Dead Baby Bike Race starts in six hours and I need my weekend labs run and my code team staffed!”

Shiro was idly tapping on his phone when he spots Keith pressing the button for the elevator. Pocketing his phone, he saunters as casually as he can until he’s within an arm’s length of Keith’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you rode a bike,” he says in Keith’s ear, trying for casual. 

“Doesn’t everyone?” Keith asks, not diverting his attention away from the ticker. 

“No, I mean, a motorbike--a motorcycle,” Shiro backtracks with an internal grimace. The elevator dings, signalling its arrival. Ah, saved by the bell, he thinks to himself. “I have one, too. Never expected Nevada to be such a good place to go for a late night ride.” 

Keith tries to suppress his smile as the elevator’s occupants file out. He and Shiro get on together and stand side by side as they wait for the doors to close. Shiro continues to ramble. “Now I have to like it here. I’m from Seattle. I’m not supposed to like how dry and deserted it is here. I have a thing for motorcycles,” he finishes lamely as the doors close and the serene elevator music starts up. 

“I’m not going out with you,” Keith says to break the monotony of the music.

“Did I ask you do go out with me?” Shiro mentally palms himself in the face. Yes you did, you idiot, he chastises himself. “Do you want to go out with me?”

“I’m not dating you,” Keith reiterates. “And I’m definitely not sleeping with you again. You’re my boss.” 

“I’m your boss’ boss,” Shiro corrects before he can help himself. Idiot! That makes nothing better, his inner monologue whacks him over the head. 

“Regardless, this is inappropriate,” Keith says firmly. “This is grounds for sexual harassment.”

 Shiro turns to face him. “I’m riding an elevator,” he says mildly. 

“Don’t come any closer,” Keith says, a flush riding high on his cheeks, clashing horribly with the orange scrubs. 

“Red’s a good closer on you,” Shiro says, and closes the gap between them, tangling one hand in Keith’s hair, dislodging the little pony tail, and wrapping the other around his waist. Keith flips their positions and pushes Shiro against the elevator wall, smashing his charts haphazardly between their chests as he fights to get closer to Shiro’s mouth. He reaches up to tug Shiro down by the back of his neck, biting gently on his bottom lip, gasping softly at the feel of the cool metal of the prosthetic sliding lower and playing with the waistband of his thin scrubs. 

Just as Shiro’s about to go for the full on ass grab, the elevator dings, and they hastily break apart, Keith’s files spilling onto the floor between the two of them. 

“Oh fuck,” Keith rasps, gathering up the files as quickly as he can and marching off to see his patients. Shiro’s gaze follows him, dazed and forlorn as nurses and other hospital staff file in, none the wiser.

Keith walks into a room filled with nurses and PAs rushing around, a hand absentmindedly on his bottom lip, mind a million floors away with Dr. Shirogane. 

“There you are!” A harried looking PA comes into his field of view. “We’ve got a rape victim. She came in with a GCS of six, BP eighty over sixty. Exam is significant for blunt head trauma, unequal breath sounds, right pupil is dilated. We think she ran right into the bike race,” he rattles off. “She’s ready for x-ray. You ready to roll?” 

Keith blankly surveys the room, taking in the blood on the body, the ruined shoes that haven’t yet been bagged, and--

“Hey!”

“Is that a penis?” Keith asks, peering into the kidney tray. It’s resting on ice, and definitely looking worse for wear. “Yeah/ Call ahead to CT. Let them know I’m coming. Load a portable monitor, and call Respiratory for a ventilator,” he orders, checking her eyes himself and her breathing tube. “I’ll do x-rays while I’m down there.”

The PA grunts in amusement. “Tough lady. Bit it right off. We found it in her mouth.”

“What a warrior,” Keith murmurs softly, checking her chart.

He takes responsibility over her and follows her from her scans into emergency surgery, where he and a couple of the less busy interns observe as Shirogane, Iverson, and Coran work to set her bones back in place and fix the internal bleeding. Shirogane lets out a low whistle as he works on setting her arm. “He really did a number on her. What is she? Five foot two, not even a hundred pounds?”

“Yeah, she’s going to spend a helluva time in recovery,” Coran says, jovial as always. “Really gave him a good walloping, though. Clearly a case of ‘You should see the other guy.’ I heard the rape kit came back negative.” 

“She bit his penis off,” Keith offers. “It was in a kidney dish when I went to go get her for scans.” 

The three attendings heads swivel to look at him, their hands never stopping their work. “What in tarnation?” Iverson says, incredulous. 

“Jesus,” Coran says. “Well, if she can fight off the infection, she can fight off anything.”

They start to close on the patient, and before Keith can slip out to round, he hears Iverson call his name. Or, more accurately, his “designated Intern number assigned by the one-and-only Coran.”

“Intern number 3!” Keith pauses. “I need you to stay with the penis until the police arrive. Chain of custody rules, and all,” he barks. 

Keith blanches. “Seriously?” he asks, looking at the small cooler they’d placed the severed body part in.

“That’s an order, intern!” Iverson says, pulling closed a stitch. Keith sighs and grabs the cooler before exiting. 

Over at the HUB, Pidge sorts through the labs while Lance toys with his pager and gloats about his assignment.

“Code team rocks,” he says with a smug grin. “One minute I get to shock a heart back to life, and the next minute I have my arms full of grateful daughters and sisters.”

Pidge stacks a lab report a little harder than necessary on top of her growing stack. “You know, I have an MD/PhD from Stanford, and I’m delivering patient labs. This is going to take me all day,” she says, annoyed.

Altea whisks by briskly. “Better get started then!” she says, sipping daintily at her mocha latte. “Lance, with me!” she says. “I need as many hands as I can find, and since you’re not doing anything, you’re going to help me wade through this disaster coming in.” Lance’s expression brightens and he hurries after her, pager beeping.

“Oh! Uh, I wasn’t complaining,” Pidge says weakly, grabbing her stack of labs and hurrying off. If she's fast enough, she decides, she might be able to put staples in someone’s wound.

Cooler in hand, Keith runs into the ER just in time to see multiple stretchers being brought in. “Keith!” Altea says. “Excellent timing! I need you to help Hunk with some suturing and debridement in beds four through 8! What is that?” she asks, pointing at the the cooler. 

“I’m babysitting a penis until the police get here,” Keith says, already moving towards bed four, where Hunk is dealing with a particularly rowdy bicyclist who didn’t seem particularly interested in staying for x-rays.

Along the way, he sees Shiro, sitting with his unconscious patient, flipping through her chart, though he chooses not to stop in favor of setting the cooler down and grabbing a suture kit. 

“Sir, I highly recommend that you stay for X-rays,” Hunk says, a firm hand on the bicyclist’s shoulder. 

“What? No! I need to get back to the race!”

“Sir, please,” Hunk says again. “You might have internal bleeding. I don’t feel comfortable taking those bike spokes out until you’ve had a thorough check up.”

His patient rolls his eyes. Then, he grits his teeth and, before Hunk and Keith can do any more than exclaim in alarm, grasps the bike spokes, pulling all four of them out with a grunt. “See?” he says, with a ta-dah wave of his hands. “No swooning, no fainting. I’m fine.”

Hunk shakes his head, holding a kidney tray for him to place the metal spikes. “Keith, this guy’s all yours. I’m going to move on to the next one.”

“Ah! Hunk!” Coran catches Hunk before he can check on the brain dead guy in bed 5. “Just the doctor I wanted to see! I’m going to be stuck in the OR all day today doing repairs, and I need someone I can rely on to check on my pre- and post-op patients. Can you do that for me?” 

“Uh, yes sir!” Hunk says.

“Oh, and one of them, Mr. Mackie, is a good friend of mine. Make sure you get him everything he needs.”

“Got it,” Hunk says, leaving Keith behind to deal with the victims of the race.

Keith sutures Impatient Biker Dude closed and is smoothing the bandage over the area when he opens his mouth to speak.

“Hey, you’ve got a really nice touch, and you are a rockin’ babe. Why don’t you let me take you out sometime?”

“Excuse me?” Keith raises an eyebrow but otherwise tries not to let his annoyance show and turns to grab his patient’s chart. “I don’t date my patients. If you insist on leaving, you’ll be doing so against the doctor’s orders, so you’ll have to sign this form saying that you understand the consequences.”

“Darling, I will do what ever you want,” he purrs, taking the form. “I have to get back to the race.”

“Look,” Keith tries again. “One CT scan. You’ll be in and out in thirty minutes.” 

“No can do, babe,” his patient says again, handing the form back. “I’ve got a race to finish.” He swings his legs over the side of the hospital bed and gets up. “There’s a party at the end, you know,” he says. “Maybe I’ll see you there?” 

Keith rolls his eyes and turns away, only to feel a hand grab him by the waist and spin him around. He feels his patient’s lips meet his and pull him into a deep lip lock, and he freezes, indignation bubbling up behind his rib cage. “What the fuck?” he demands once his patient lets him go. 

“One for luck,” he says with a jaunty wave and a wink. “You’ll be seeing me again soon.”

“For your sake, I hope you don’t!”

He whirls around, and accidentally makes eye contact with Shirogane, whose eyes look filled with hurt. Shiro gets up from his station near his comatose patient and intercepts Keith before he can get to Mr. Brain Dead in bed 5. With dismay, he watches as Lance and Altea start the next round of tests on him.

“What was that?” Shiro demands. “Are you kissing patients now?”

“For the record, he kissed me, and I definitely did not want to kiss that guy.” Keith tries to move onto bed 6, but Shiro blocks his way. “Oh come on! Dr. Shirogane, are you jealous? This is highly unprofessional.”

“I am not jealous!” The faint flush across the bridge of his nose bringing out his scar says otherwise. “Go out with me,” he says instead. 

“No! You’re my boss! It’s against the rules.” Keith signs off on the chart. “We had sex once and we made out in an elevator once. That’s not going to happen again.” Keith tries again to move to bed 6, wanting the conversation to end.

Lance and Altea are debating over what they should do with Brain Dead. 

“I think we should harvest his organs,” Altea says. 

“What?” Lance exclaims. “He has a family!”

“Great!” Altea says cheerily. “Find them, and get their consent.”

“What? No! Come on, he’s got six hours.”

“Okay, fine,” Altea says decisively. “We’ll let the family make the decision.”

Lance narrows his eyes. “You just want a harvest surgery.” 

“Don’t you?” Altea asks. 

“I--” Lance throws his hands up, conflicted.

“Dr. Shirogane!” Altea motions for Shiro to come take a look. 

“Just a minute!” he says normally, before lowering his voice again. “‘It’s against the rules?’ You don’t take me as a by-the-books kind of guy,” he says to Keith.

“Look, you’re an attending. I’m your intern. Unlike you, I still have something to prove. Now, I really need to get to Ms. Ho before she bleeds out.” Keith puts a hand on Shiro’s upper arm and pushes him towards Bed 5. “Go deal with Mr. Brain Dead.”

Pidge finishes with her lab deliveries just in time to watch as a car screeches into the front of the hospital, and a man stumble out of the driver’s side covered in blood from the waist down. She catches a nurse by the arm. “Get a stretcher--he’s hurt!” she orders, and motions two other nurses to come help her get him inside and onto the waiting stretcher. They get him hooked up to a heart rate monitor and a breathing tube before cutting him out of his clothes. “Oh my God!” she yelps, looking at the bloody mess of his groin. “Somebody call security!”

She ends up getting to observe the surgery that Iverson performs on the bloody John Doe. 

“Medicine’s a funny business,” he comments as he cauterizes a blood vessel. “One minute you get to save the life of someone who fought off an attack, and the next, you’re trying to save the life of the attacker. Intern, why aren’t we trying to reattached this penis?” he barks at Pidge.

“Teeth tear, but reattachments need clean cuts. If she’d taken a knife to his penis, he might still be able to save it, but since she bit it off, plus the digestive enzymes in the mouth, there’s no way he’s ever going to get to pee like a normal person again,” she says, trying to keep the smugness out of her voice.

“Hmm, a moment of silence for this poor guy,” Iverson says, rolling his eyes unsympathetically, cauterizing the final blood vessel. Pidge can’t help but agree. Good riddance. 

As Vrepit Sal’s Dead Baby Bike Race ends, so does the endless stream of injured bikers, and the interns finally get a chance to trudge wearily back to the locker rooms to freshen up and change into a fresh set of scrubs. 

“I need a bed,” Pidge moans, lying on a bench in the locker rooms wearing just her sports bra. “Or a drink and a massage. Or a drunken massage on a bed.” She sits up with groan and starts wrestling her scrub top back over her head.

“I lost five patients today on the code team,” Lance moans at his reflection. 

“Lance, ninety-five percent of code patients can’t be revived. They’re seriously dead before you even get there.” 

“What?” Lance exclaims. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because,” Pidge says loftily. “I’m Pidge, and you’re Lance.”

Hunk trudges in, looking somewhat disgruntled. “Mr. Mackie won’t stop hitting on me, and I don’t know how to tell him I’m not interested. He’s Coran’s VIP, for crying out loud.” He sits down heavily next to Pidge. “At least we found a match for him.” 

“Oh yeah? Who?” Lance asks, splashing water onto his face.

“Oh, just some brain dead guy from earlier. When I told him, he cried and then tried to ask me out again.”

“Nice!” Lance gives Hunk a fist bump. “That was Allura and my’s first patient together!”

“Allura? Since when did she start letting you call her Allura?”

“Oh, she hasn’t. I just call her that in my head.”

“A patient kissed me today,” Keith announces, moodily playing with the handle of the cooler. “I wish I’d shown him the severed penis just to freak him out, but I didn’t think about that until it was too late. Plus, I don’t think it would have stopped him.”

Hunk makes a noise of sympathy. Lance, ever the incorrigible romantic, asks, “And what did Shiro think of that?” 

“He asked me out again.” 

Pidge groans. “Men,” she says. “They think they can just get away with anything.”

Lance, Hunk, and Keith all make indignant noises. 

“I got to watch Iverson cauterize the penis of a rapist today,” she continues as if they hadn’t said anything. “Simultaneously the best and the worst thing I’ve seen today, and I had to endure twenty-seven patients’ family members hug me with joy.” 

“Aw come on!” Lance interjects. “I should’ve gotten that job! I love hugs!”

“Does that mean I’m finally going to get to not babysit a penis anymore?” Keith asks, perking up at the thought. 

“Keith, it’s 2AM. They’re not sending someone over at 2AM.”

Keith drops his head into his hands and groans. “Fuck me,” he mutters.

“I mean, since you asked so nicely,” Lance starts. Pidge sticks her foot out and trips him.

“Thanks, Pidge.”

“Any time, bud.”

When Keith passes by the unconscious patient again in the morning, Shiro is still there and he looks like he hasn’t slept. He has, however, moved to the HUB, where he can simultaneously keep an eye on the patient and work on charting on the computer. Keith sets the penis cooler down on the counter. “Have you been here all night?”

“Yeah.” Shiro barely spares him a glance, and he rubs at the scar across the bridge of his nose. “You know, I grew in a family of all boys. All brothers. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have anyone waiting for me when I wake up.”

“I can,” Keith says. Shiro looks up at him then, and stands to go make himself a cup of coffee, eyes soft.

“So,” he says, coming back with two paper cups of the hospital’s cheap free brew. “We’re kissing, but we’re not dating?”

Keith made a sound of annoyance. “I knew this would come up,” he says, accepting one of the cups.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the kissing. More kissing, any day, I say,” Shiro says. 

Keith rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. “You sound like Coran,” he teases.

“I just want to know if this is going to happen again in the future. If it is, I’m gonna need to carry around breath mints. Maybe a,” Shiro lowers his voice, “condom in my wallet?”

“Shut up,” Keith whispers back, finishing off his coffee. Together, they stare at the patient in silence. All the monitors start beeping at once, and Keith and Shiro immediately move into action, calling for nurses and equipment.

“Prepare for an emergency craniotomy!” Shiro yells at a nearby nurse, who nods. Together, they mobilize the hospital bed into the OR, and Keith waits anxiously outside until Shiro’s done, looking more worn than ever. 

“We had to leave the top of her skull flap off,” he tells Keith. “Until the swelling in her brain goes down.”

Keith sighs. “She’s not going to make it is she?” he asks. 

“She’ll be fine,” Shiro replies, with a soft smile. “Come on. You have rounds. Don’t forget your penis.”

Keith sighs, shooting the cooler a look of distaste. “I just want the damn police to show up already,” he says in annoyance, heading back toward the HUB to catch up on some charting.

As soon as he reaches the HUB, however, a nurse motions him over. “The police have arrived to take custody of the evidence,” she tells him pointing over to where two uniformed men stand.

“Oh sweet! Thanks, Nyma,” he says, making his way over to the cops standing near the water cooler. “Hello sirs, I’m Dr. Kogane. I hear you’re here to collect my penis?”

The two cops look distinctly uncomfortable for a split second, before one of them notices the cooler in Keith’s hand. “Oh! Yeah, you just need to sign a couple of forms, and we’ll be out of your hair,” he says.

Keith gladly takes the paperwork and fills it out, handing both the forms and the cooler over to the cops. He runs into Pidge and Hunk halfway through rounds and they both give him high fives when they realize he’s no longer holding onto the penis cooler any more.

“Hey, so about those rooms,” Pidge says. “I’m in.”

“Yeah, me too,” Hunk adds. “I think I’m ready to give up my uncle’s couch.”

“Oh okay, cool,” Keith says. “I just need to get a few copies of my key made for you guys, and then you can move in whenever.” 

Pidge and Hunk cheer loudly and get shushed by Mrs. Cobb in bed 9.

[cowpants147]

What the fuck happened to you?

Aaron was having a good day so far. He’d gotten some alone time with Kaitlyn that morning in between their shifts, the guy at the coffee cart had gotten his order right for once and also he was finally allowed to start seeing and treating patients. 

He was a resident now at a hospital in Chicago and the closest he’d come to actually practising medicine as of late was rectal exams and removing overgrown warts. He couldn't wait to get in on an actual surgery or stitch someone up at least. 

Today Aaron was in the ER, where all the good cases came in. He’d barely been there a minute when he was being called to Treatment Room 2 where apparently there was a patient waiting for him. 

He slung back the curtain and froze when he saw who was sat there one the bed covered in blood.  “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Dr Minyard!” a voice gasped from the corner of the room and Aaron bit his tongue to stop from swearing because of course the trauma attending was standing right there and had witnessed his less than professional greeting. 

“Yeah Dr Minyard, that’s no way to treat an injured patient” the smug voice of Neil Josten mocked playfully from where he sat crouched over. 

Aaron chose to ignore him, at least for a second. “Dr Lee ...“ he said not knowing what else to say. God he was going to murder Josten. 

“That is no way to treat a patient!”

“It’s fine, doctor” Neil spoke up “I know him”. 

“I’m afraid that's no excuse. I do apologise Mr Josten. I can ask for a different resident if you’d prefer”. 

Neil shook his head and Aaron didn't miss the wince “actually I’d prefer if Aaron stayed as my doctor”

“He’s a first year resident, we don't want his carelessness messing up your career. My daughter would be seriously pissed if the Panthers don't win the championships because of one of my doctors”. 

“Thanks Dr, but Aarons been stitching me up since college, I trust him” 

Well that was new. Neil trusted him? 

Dr Lee bit his tongue but nodded and went back over to the corner to keep and eye on things. Aaron approached the man he was sure was the bane of his life. Aaron took in Neil's injuries. Blood was coming from his stomach, he had a cut along his head and a nose that was starting to swell, an eye starting to blacken and he was holding his arm out at a funny angle. 

Brilliant. 

“What happened?” Aaron asked again, cutting open Neil's t-shirt wanting to stop the bleeding first. He didn't even blink when he saw Neil's scars, still horrifying as the first time he’d seen them. If he bled out Andrew would no doubt kill him. 

“I was stabbed” Neil shrugged, totally casual, “and then I got hit by a car”

“Jesus Christ Josten!” 

“It’s not as bad as it looks” 

Aaron switched to German then, fed up of the looks he was getting from his superior, “you fucking idiot, Andrew is going to kill you”

“You cant tell Andrew” Neil argued, also switching to German

“Yeah not gonna happen“

“You’ll just worry him and he has a game tonight” 

“He has a right to know you‘re trying to turn him into a widow” Aaron told him. 

Neil looked up confused “how did you know me and Andr-”

Aaron scoffed while applying pressure to the wound, the blood was slowly stopping “its obvious to anyone with half a brain cell”.

“Do the others-?” 

“Probably not, I said anyone with half a brain cell and they barely have that between the lot of them”. 

Neil hummed in reply. They stayed silent as Andrew stitched up his side, the only sound between them was Neil's occasional sharp intakes of breath.

“I’m sending you up for X-Rays” Aaron informed Neil once his torso and head wound were stitched up.

“I don't need X-Rays I’m fi-”

“Fine? Yeah course you are. Of course you’re fine after being stabbed and then hit by a car. I mean how does that even happen you complete idiot!”

“You’re mad” Neil observed. 

“I’m not mad” Aaron said but at Neil's disbelieving look he admitted that yes he was infact mad. “Not because I care about you but because I care about Andrew and what would happen to him if you go and get yourself killed which is why you’re going for X-Rays”. 

Thankfully Neil saved him from arguing and he attempted to stand. And by attempted he stood, putting weight on both feet before crumpling back against the bed. Neil met Aaron eyes “I think I may have sprained my ankle when I got hit by that car”. 

Aaron gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes before finding a wheel chair. 

“Where is he?” an all too familiar voice asked from behind. 

Aaron turned to see his twin brother standing there behind him looking to anyone else calm and collected but Aaron saw the worry hidden on his face. 

“You got here fast” Aaron remarked, he’d rung two hours ago to tell Andrew he’d gone to work to find a bleeding and bruised Neil waiting for him there. He’d been at an away game with his team a couple of hours away. 

Andrew shrugged, hands in pockets “speed limits are for wimps. Where is he?” 

“Should be coming down any minute now. I had to put his arm in a sling and sort out his sprained ankle and then he went up for X-Rays and other brain tests too to make sure he hadn't done anything that would cause complications later on”

Andrew nodded not saying anything but Aaron saw his shoulders relax just slightly. 

“Come on I’ll take you too him”. 

The walk to Neil's room was silent but not tense or awkward like it might have been once upon a time. They headed inside to find Neil hopping around his room. 

“Neil” Andrew said causing the red head to hop around on his one good foot to face them. 

“Andrew!” he grinned before turning to look at Aaron “I thought we’d agreed not to call him”. 

“I agreed to nothing“

“And why shouldn't I know?” Andrew asked going over to guide Neil back to the bed, he was so gentle with Neil compared to literally anybody else and it was always an odd sight for Aaron. 

“You have a game tonight, and it’s not like I’m dead, there’s nothing wrong with me, I didn't even need those X-Rays” this last point was directed towards Aaron and was basically a subtle way of saying ‘told you so’.

“Junkie. I’m not playing the game tonight”

“What no you cant-” Neil started but was silenced by Andrews stare. 

“Well you’re free to leave as soon as you fill out the papers” Aaron said and then hesitantly asked “where are you guys staying tonight? You cant travel till tomorrow, you need at least one night of rest Neil”  

Andrew didn't reply but Neil did “My team head home today and I’m already checked out of my hotel room” he shrugged “I’m sure we‘ll find some place”. 

“You can stay at mine” Aaron found himself saying “I mean, beats shelling out for an over priced hotel room or staying at a dingy motel where knowing your luck you’ll end up infected and I’ll no doubt have to save your life.”  

“We can afford a hotel” Neil argued. 

“Don't I know it, you guys earn more by throwing a ball around and breaking peoples noses then I do saving peoples lives” Aaron sighed “At least if you’re under the same roof I can check you don't have a concussion or something”.

Aaron was expecting Andrew to say something along the lines of “I can do that” although Andrews version would no doubt be more rude. Instead Andrew collected up Neil's belongings and pushed his husband into the nearby wheelchair. He held out his palm to Aaron. 

“Keys idiot. Unless you want me to pick the lock on your front door”. Andrew explained at Aaron confused look. 

Aaron met them both back at Andrews car ten minutes later. Neil was already safely inside as Aaron handed over his keys and kindly asked for them to not wake Kaitlyn if they could help it. Andrew nodded then turned to climb into the car but he froze. Andrew turned back to his twin “I appreciate you not letting him die” he told Aaron before climbing in and speeding off. 

Previous

[kaimuki]

Actually something very pleasant happened this morning.

Sorry this really isn’t well written and I talk about some stuff that was traumatic to me like bullying, self-esteem issues, and being misunderstood or not known at all.

For the past few days, I’ve been getting these tiktoks that talk about how emotional trauma manifests as unbalances in hip muscles, and probably other stabilizers in general. So it’s kind of been on my mind to stretch and just hope that passively this will unlock some kind of healing pathway for my brain, is worth a shot.

I’m not entirely sure if it worked on it’s own, but definitely some free progress was made today. Yesterday was a friend’s birthday, but I felt some huge anxiety about it -which I acknowledge doesn’t make any sense -so I think that contributed as well.

Anyway, I had this extended dream where there were people from both college and high school in it, and the friends that I made in college were really a source of comfort for me. I think I’ve had the privilege of meeting some really nice and awesome people, which I can credit being the literal thing that saved me in this instance.

High school has always been a mixed topic for me. There were moments of joy, peace, pleasantries, but also moments that were deeply confusing, disturbing, and chaotic even. I can imagine that this isn’t the case for everyone, and I can also imagine it being extremely common; but, I was not very bright, and I lived my life at its most surface level. I tried my best to understand what was going on, but I was ultimately deeply confused.

The stand out moment for me which was only important because it came at the absolutely worst time was this girl spreading rumors and talking shit about me. Simultaneously, I had just torn apart my leg playing sports, was having surgery, getting a severe, rare infection, having the classic sexuality/god hates gays problem, struggling with school, parents, and all the classic growing up problems.

So, at the time, I was playing basketball with the high school team. One of the upperclassmen were in the computer lab overhearing a conversation with a girl and my boyfriend at the time, and the girl was saying some wild stuff about me. I barely knew this girl, and my upperclassmen said she was calling me a monster, and then going into specific detail about why I was a monster.

Here’s the issue though. It’s obviously loud enough for other people to hear, and she’s using my name enough so that people can tell she’s talking about me. So yeah, this isn’t really casual.

The interesting thing is that I never really doubted my upperclassmen teammates. I don’t think they believed these rumors or shit talk at all. I always felt like they had my back, and that they knew me enough to not believe them. That was always a source of comfort. I’m always thankful that they knew better.

But the mutual friends I had with shit-talker, I didn’t trust. I tried so desperately to explain things to them, but I still felt them changing the way they treated me. Eventually I gave up. I thought that this feeling of being so deeply misunderstood was mine to carry and I never talked about it with them, just robotically said yes to things and showed up. I was constantly angry.

I thought that maybe there was just something wrong with me. I didn’t really think bad of anyone else. I thought if I knew how to express myself properly I could just tell them the truth, and it would be convincing, because how could any lie be more convincing than the truth? The truth happened. I know now that maybe I was really stupid and naive for believing things like that, but it is kind of endearing isn’t it? Like, what a sweet kid.

I realized that they never really had the pleasure of knowing me. They did have the pleasure of me reaching out to them, wanting them to understand me, but I think they took it for granted. They didn’t know who I was back then. I was someone who tried hard, cared a lot, and did my best despite being stupid and dense.

My best moments were with the team. I’m not sure if it was coach who tied us all together, but I felt like I genuinely liked my teammates outside of basketball. People shit on sports a lot, but I think I learned how to be a good friend, being on a team.

You needed someone to be at the gym with you? I’m there. You got in trouble and were running laps? I’m running with you. This kind of support I learned to give carried over outside of sports. There were places I knew I had to be to give support I knew I had to give, and I did it with my full heart in it. See, sweet kid.

Looking back now and being so separated from it, I could never think I was a monster. Insecure, probably. Stupid, yes. Never mean spirited. Never cold hearted. Alive and wanting to express myself, wanting to be understood, wanting to be connected to other people. Wanting to be helpful and aspiring to be kind. Failing at times, but always trying. Legitimate qualities. Maybe shit talker was the same, but she hasn’t earned my love the way that I have.

People have tried to communicate this idea to me before. Someone not knowing who I am, not paying attention to me isn’t my problem. So that feeling of being misunderstood or no one knowing me that I’ve been carrying around, it isn’t mine to bear.

Whether or not people think they know me, they’re not in my life to enjoy the love I have to give to them. So if I could just keep this idea in mind and not let the anxiety of thinking that I deserved all of that or that I’m a shit human that no one wants anything to do with, I can maybe be a better person and reach out more to people who might actually like me enough to be happy with that.