#because that’s where they took the bone graft

[k00ldino]

god bless the everybody working in the medical field bc i just freaked ‘cause i hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and my tummy hurt and i was so whiny about it, but the nurses were so sweet and held my hand as i ate a cup of peaches because i thought i was gonna throw up <3 ily

[defilerwyrm]

Hey, trans guy here, and while I’m not personally interested in getting bottom surgery, I am interested in writing t4t erotica involving guys who have. Do you have any writing tips on that front or just stuff you wanna see from what I imagine is a pretty underserved niche?

Howdy and that’s awesome!

One thing that would be cool to see represented: not everyone who gets bottom surgery is a top! I’m sure not, though strangely my interest in playing that role has increased since I had the work done. You can be the biggest anal queen this side of Pornhub and still get bottom surgery. Only makes sense, right—if we can accept that having a dick doesn’t automatically make a cis man a top, the same is also true of trans men & transmascs.

Some things about a healed-up phallo dick from my experience, under a cut:

The head is VERY sensitive, and the base is very sensitive. Everything in between that has erotic sensation but in an “Mm that’s nice” kinda way until you add pressure too. Once it’s healed up, it is definitely possible to orgasm from stimulating it. How long that takes will vary, though. I was told it might be up to a year, but I have a crazy healing factor and had it back in like 2-3 months.

If you couldn’t successfully kill the hair follicles on a permanent basis via electrolysis and/or laser prior to surgery, there’ll be hair. (It’s not THAT weird. Plenty of cis men out there have hair on their shafts too!)

If you had a tattoo on your donor site, you’ve got a tattoo on your dick now, lol. It might be unrecognizable depending on where it was originally (especially on the inner wrist/forearm).

There’s a scar up the underside right in the middle and all around the base. The scar up the middle of your scrotum will look similar enough to the natural seam of an OEM scrotum that it’s not really notable.

The scrotum won’t have all the wrinkles an OEM one does at rest.

No foreskin, more’s the pity, but the head looks VERY much like a circumcised OEM penis once it’s healed.

Different donor sites tend to produce different results. The non-dominant forearm is preferred because they take a stretch of nerve with it and it’ll typically have the least subcutaneous fat, so you tend to get the best sensation and shape. With the back or thigh, bigger guys might end up with a Coke can cock, which cis men THINK they want but it’s a different story when it’s always that size.

Yep, it’s always the same size. Which means you’ve got something the size of an average-for-your-height erection at all times.

Without an implant, it’s quite floppy as you can imagine. If you manspread at all, you might have to shake a leg out when you stand up ‘cause your dick’ll go between your thighs, and you’ll notice real quick as soon as you start walking. Masturbation can be awkward depending on how you do it, but “double bagging” (wearing two condoms at once) will keep it stiff enough to top.

There are two types of implants you can get: a flexible rod made of silver encased in biostatic silicone that gets sutured to your pubic bone to make sure it stays in place (how metal is that?!), or an inflatable rod that has a pump & release in the scrotum. Look for “erectile dysfunction implant” if you’re researching these. With the former, you basically always have an erection, but it’s posable; not great if you wear a lot of Speedos, as my surgeon put it. With the latter, you choose when it stands up and when it lies down. These implants, along with testicular implants for those who get them, are always done at least 6-9 months after the initial surgery.

Recovery can be rough. I took 3 months off work and needed it. The first two and a half weeks were the worst because I had a suprapubic catheter in, and dear gods I hated being cathed. Felt like I had to pee at all times, even right after emptying the bag. Worth it, though, absolutely worth it.

If you do radial arm flap, you’ll end up with two scars aside from the ones on your groin: a rectangular graft that goes most of the way around (NOT all the way around; that leads to necrosis!) the forearm from the wrist to about halfway to the elbow; and a less-obvious rectangular scar shaped like an open book on the top of one thigh where they take a split-thickness (meaning, only part of the way down) skin donation for your arm graft. The graft is pretty obvious, especially if you’re chubby, but my leg scar is extremely subtle and continues to get fainter as my skin cycles itself out.

The graft will be forever hairless.

People will probably glance at the graft, and they might stare if they’re rude, but in the…what’s it been, almost two years I’ve had it, exactly one person has actually asked about it and that was when it was still fresh and extra gnarly-looking. I told her “It’s a graft, it’s not as bad as it looks” and there were no follow-up questions.

Because there’s nerve harvested from the inside of the forearm, sensation comes to the penis faster than it comes to the graft. The cut nerve DOES regrow! But for the first…I’d say 6-9 months? Ish? I could only feel pressure on the tissue UNDER the graft. Sensation is still duller there, but at this point I can feel temperature, moisture, and texture well enough.

Recovery includes physical therapy for the donor arm. The more you move that wrist early and consistently, the less stiff it will be when it heals. I’ll never be able to touch my thumb to my wrist again, but I also can’t do that on the right either now, so I think that’s more to do with my age than the surgery (I used to be a lot more hypermobile, but I am no longer a spring chicken).

Learning to pee standing up is a messy affair that involves cleaning the toilet and doing laundry a lot. Once you’ve got it down, though, it’s pretty awesome.

Chasers will now ghost me the instant they find out I am not biologically available to be their sexual experiment.

There are a LOT of other options for bottom surgery, but I only have passing familiarity with them based on hearing firsthand accounts and what I learned from my surgeon. Personally, I weighed meta vs phallo heavily; being able to get a natural erection with meta or Centurion was a very attractive prospect, but it just doesn’t produce a size that I would find satisfying in terms of my own self-image, so I went with phallo. There was never a question in my mind as to wanting vaginectomy with it. Beyond the unbelievable convenience of being able to pee standing up without an STP device, I fuckin’ HATED my front hole, and I REALLY hated being pressured about having things done to it (mostly by cis men, but not always) all the time.

[rantsofamadam]

Spinal Fusion- Emotional Recovery

TW: Medical topics and images + mentions of skin picking

One month ago I received Spinal Fusion Surgery to correct a double curve in my spine from scoliosis. Which is known to be one of the most painful surgeries, with rods, screws and bone grafting, changing the entire structure of my spine and proportions of my body. (Which if you are curious, have any questions or would like to hear more about it, please ask! I’d love to share.)

The procedure went well, everything went as smoothly as it could. But wow I am not going easy on myself with any of this at all.

My mom took a video of me right as I was waking up from anesthesia where I told her I asked the nurse if I could stand up already. I was beyond determined to heal as fast as I could from this surgery, and continue with my life. I walked further than I needed to on my own which was extremely impressive to the nurses, and I was ‘one of the most conscious, alert and motivated patients I’ve seen in 25 years’ according to one nurse.

Because of my quick recovery, I developed the expectation I was going to continue healing quickly, and have been trying to be as independent as possible with this surgery. I do a good job of hiding my pain or struggles around my family and friends, they assume I am doing fine and essentially ‘back to normal,’

But wow. It is still extremely difficult. I have so many goals in my life I want to accomplish, and in my mind I should be doing them all immediately now that I seem healed and better to those around me.

But I am still in pain. I am still healing. I can’t bend over easily, I can’t walk very fast. It’s been a month, but I am still so tired all the time. And I am not letting myself genuinely heal in that regard. I tell myself I should be doing more, that I am fine and shouldn’t let this stop me, that I should accomplish so many goals by now- that I’m lazy for taking time to heal.

That is genuinely what I have been telling myself. And it has been nearly impossible to find my way out of that mindset.

Over the weeks after my surgery, I created a lot. I wrote poems, I drew, I made crafts, I wrote stories or information down- I was trying to be productive, as productive as I could but it still didn’t and doesn’t feel like enough.

Currently as I am writing this, I skipped church with my family this morning due to awful painful period cramps and nausea, as well as healing from back surgery. I feel guilty, awful, and like I should be pushing through it and persevering even though I am in pain and need to rest and heal.

My therapist told me ‘just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,’ as in with recovery, just because I am able to get through the day on no pain meds and tough through it all- does not mean I should, or have to, or that it is beneficial for me.

I also have a compulsive skin picking condition. I will pick at any scab or any part of my skin continuously and find it increasingly difficult to stop. So by the end of the second week, I had already re-opened my surgical wound and felt extremely guilty and awful about it. My surgeon had to replace some of the bandages, he didn’t seem concerned or surprised at all. But I was filled with guilt and shame.

It is still a severe struggle for me, to realize it’s ok to actually slow down, rest and not be hyper productive as I let myself heal.

I realize I also have been so focused on healing fast, moving on, and essentially acting like this surgery never happened- that I haven’t actually let myself process all this genuinely means for my body and my future.

My entire body has changed, and will be different for the rest of my life. I will always have a massive scar down my back. I will always have metal rods and screws in my spine. I will never be as flexible as I was. This will factor into the rest of my life. And I haven’t allowed myself to genuinely think through and process what this means for me.

I need to realize and remind myself it’s ok to slow down, and even beneficial for my current healing state and spine.

[jamiesfootball]

more leverage/tl thoughts. any time they need someone undercover in sports or labor, they send eliot. which of course makes sense. for eliot. and also probably au roy.

but consider: jamie is NO good at any of that stuff. he can do a lot of sports, especially anything where you have to be fast or agile, and he takes the boxing job - though he has to fight roy on it, but roy is on his last legs and they all know it. but when it comes to labor jamie doesn't know how to do shit, and he's prissy too. doesn't like getting his hands dirty. he's totally comfortable in his own sweat, sure, but he even gets a bit squeamish at blood he was the one to spill especially if it gets on him (this was never a reason roy cited for why he didn't think jamie should be their new hitter, but in hindsight it's Very Obvious lmao).

anyway, so the team is always like yeah you send in the hitter to fill an undercover role in labor, because his asset is his body, right? wrong. there's a gradient when jamie switches from hitting to hacking, a small transitional period of time where he's doing both, but roy always has to step in for any "hitter" job that isn't... well, hitting. he gives jamie all kinds of shit for being a gen z city boy who doesn't know how to change a tire or whatever, but tbf he's glad for the excuse to only be part time retired lol.

& then when they bring isaac(?) on to be roy's replacement since jamie didn't work out (and roy never stops saying he told everyone so about that), he doesn't know how to do a lot of labor stuff too, but he's happy to learn - unlike jamie, who would do the work of course but he'd whine about it and even when he shut up and bore it you could still tell he hated every second - but usually they don't have time for him to get fully trained in stuff so they have roy on comms talking him thru it and jamie always chimes in with totally wrong info just to be obnoxious aksjfks.

My hand didn't slip so much as it went ice skating, stayed out past curfew, and forgot why we were here in the first place:

"How are you so bad at this?” Roy asked over comms, and it took every bit of his restraint for Jamie not to throw the big-scissors right through the mark’s window.

Bad enough that he had to put up with the older man critiquing his fighting style on a daily basis, and the smugness when he pinned Jamie in a headlock, and the eyerolls when he thought Jamie was being purposely ignorant about some complicated maneuver.

(And he wasn't being deliberately obtuse. Roy just knew more obscure fighting techniques than God, and appeared to think that Jamie should have learned capoeira on the back streets of Manchester while reading a dictionary.)

That's what Jamie had to put up with if he wanted to get better. That was the price of having a stable gig, one that paid per diem even when they weren't on the con. Ted basically paid him to hone his craft, on the off-chance it'd be useful to him later. Jamie banked money, his bones didn't break, and the only note on his head these days were the sticky notes Roy left on his forehead when Jamie nodded off in the breakroom.

("I think it says 'Dante's Inferno,'" Keeley said as they shared a stolen sandwich; Roy really was a good cook. She squinted at the tiny, furious handwriting. "Do you think it's a clue?")

He understood the old man was frustrated; his grandad knee had the structural integrity of a broken bottle that'd been glued back together. He'd be stuck in Beard's weird, smelly little van for at least the duration of the job. But it didn't give him the right to be a dick to Jamie about yard work. Where did Roy get off thinking Jamie had ever learned to prune a rose bush?

"You can't cut it down that low or you risk it having to grow up from the graft."

Jamie yanked the big-scissors back from a deadened stalk. “Then you should’ve swapped me with Keeley,” he hissed.

A while ago she'd been gagging over the comms. Her and Ted had a long debate--the kind Jamie could never get away with--about whether she actually had to clean the mark's bathroom as part of her reconnaissance. Yes, the tank was an excellent place to hide stolen jewels; no, she'd never found one there in her life.

Jamie wondered if the housekeepers wore maid outfits. Keeley would look dead fit in a maid outfit. He'd look dead fit in a maid outfit. Anything would look better on him than the gray, stiff-collared maintenance uniform Beard had presented him without comment.

The earbuds made it sound like Roy was right behind him, whispering disapprovingly, "Keeley's on the inside so she can crack the safe when she finds it. And you're supposed to be keeping a lookout on the armed guards. Focus." The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Focus, he said. Like Jamie had the luxury of forgetting that not ten metres away stood a burly man armed with an assault rifle and a blind spot in the cameras. All Jamie had was a pair of big-scissors and a prickly old bastard in his ear.

Honestly? He'd rather scrub the bathroom.

Jamie could scrub the hell out of a bathroom. Hell, he could scrub a carpet so well the landlord would never find the bloodstain. Roy might get high and mighty when Jamie admitted that he'd never used a drill or whatever, but Jamie knew the ins and outs of patching holes in the wall. He couldn’t change a tire, but he could steal a hubcap in under thirty seconds. He couldn’t slice an onion, but he could make twenty pounds at the grocers stretch for two weeks. Crouched eye-level with the rose bush and with a hidden spycam on his top button, him and Roy faced the same barren pot of twigs. Somehow Roy could see the instructions that would guide it to blooming, but Jamie couldn't. To him the rose bush was a dead thing, simple as that.

The big-scissors in his hand curved sharp and short with a thick handle for wielding. He was sure they had real a name for them, but he was also pretty sure his dad used to have something similar around for threatening the debtors who ran late on payments.

He could use a hammer. Roy never asked him if he knew how to use a hammer.

He made another go at the rose bush and got himself pricked for his trouble.

"Shit!" he swore, and over the comms Roy demanded to know, "Are you bleeding?"

"Don't leave DNA," Beard added. Jamie startled; he'd forgotten about the creepy weirdo entirely.

Danger shifted to his left. The guard rounded towards him, boots crunching in the gravel. "Hey! Is there a problem?"

Roy swore. Beard warned him not to engage.

Jamie rose to his feet with his best charming grin slapped on like a plaster over a nasty prick. He held his bleeding hand out like an offering, and with the other he slipped the big-scissors into the sleeve of his shirt.

One of Rebecca's first rules of the con: if you're uncomfortable, use it to make the mark uncomfortable.

He squeezed the big-scissors tight. "Yeah sorry, mate. Got a bit of a nasty cut--don't want it to infect. Could you point me somewhere I could clean up?"

[minaharker1897]

Gifts

(Takes place in an AU where Vader found Leia mere hours after her birth and they overthrew the emperor together)

(Also note: includes some descriptions of disembodied limbs and tissues. Idk why I even wrote this lol)

Leia waited outside the medical floor, pacing. Her father had broken one of his prosthetic limbs, and it had damaged the skin underneath.

Why did he have to suffer this much?

She stared at her own prosthetic. One of the inquisitors had removed her right arm during the battle for the throne, and her father had gone ballistic, sparing none of them. Afterwards, he made sure that she was fitted with the best prosthesis available, even using synthetic skin and sensory receptors.

It was close to the real thing. But it felt odd, foreign, and disconnected somehow. She couldn’t imagine how her father felt, with all of his limbs gone and his lungs damaged so badly he can’t remember any sensation besides pain.

If only she could help….

Wait….

***

Leia braced herself as she lay down in the bed, her father’s medical droid getting ready to take the bone biopsy. They were going to take samples of all her tissues so they had cells to clone with her father’s DNA (they were genetically close enough that they didn’t have to take specific samples of his tissues.), and create new limbs for him.

This was the one she had dreaded the most.

After about ten minutes of some of the worst pain of her life, the droid wrapped the wound and left.

Her father seriously programmed the droid to do these things without anesthetic? Sheesh. She slowly sat up and went about her day, trying her best to act normal through the pain.

***

It was an accident, really. Leia had wrecked one of his prosthetic hands during practice (he was extremely proud of her because of it) and was just going to get it patched up.

The droid fixed his arm as he did imperial business, although it took slightly longer than usual….

Until he felt a prick of…. Pain?

His eyes darted downwards to see that where his robotic arm was sat an actual arm… one of flesh and bone.

He could feel his hand again… no, that had to be his imagination… but was it? He made a fist and let it go, feeling the blood flow strengthen in his fingertips.

He had an arm. He finally had an arm….

“F22, where did you get this?”

The droid merely beeped at him in response, a simple “cloning.”

The droid pulled out another cryobox, this time holding two legs and an arm, with several skin grafts near it, one covered in hair follicles.

Chestnut. Just like his…..

“Where did you….?”

“Cloning, master. Would you like them attached?”

“Yes.”

***

Leia had pleural tissue taken halfway through the surgery so that it could stay vitalized. She hoped her father would be okay with what she had done. She knew he would feel guilty if he ever found out that it was his daughter’s donations that created his new limbs.

Say what you would about him, he cared about her.

***

The first thing he noticed was that everything was cold. He opened his eyes and everything was…. Colorful. Not red. Not robotic. Human.

He slowly reached up to his head and felt… hair. Oh, it had been so long, so very long! He ran his fingers through it, relishing how soft it was. And his lungs…. They didn’t hurt. The suit was gone, gone forever!

He looked in the mirror on the far wall. It appeared that he was paler than he was before, but that would change with more time outside. He just looked like himself, maybe slightly older.

The door slowly opened and his daughter walked in.

His daughter….

She was beautiful. Just like his Padmé. Just like his angel…. He hadn’t known her eyes were blue… or that her hair was the exact shade of her mother’s…. Or that she even had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, just like his.

He was finally seeing her with his own eyes.

“Leia….”

“Dad!” She threw her arms around him… and he could feel it.

It felt… good. Human.

His eyes welled with tears as he squeezed her back.

***

Three weeks later and he still hadn’t found out.

Half the fleet didn’t recognize him without the suit, but he had quickly proven that he was just as ferocious and capable as before. Grand Moff Piett was extremely pleased to see the emperor so happy. He had been in such a good mood, in fact, that he had allowed his nephew Macaeus to come in as an officer.

Indeed, his good mood had spread through the palace, and was making everywhere a better place for everyone.

***

[orfeoarte]

Hi Orfeofriend <3

Excuse me marching in here unannounced. I decided to send some asks, and well, I thought that perhaps you might also like these questions. (Feel free to answer in your own time or ignore as your spoons allow. <3)

I know we love to talk about breaking the rules in writing and obviously, that not every piece of advice is one-size-fits all, but there is a lot to say about being able to speak with each other about what we have learned during our journey. I was wondering if you wouldn't share. (I also plan on poking some of the others to see what more we can shake out. The more the merrier, no?)

What is the most useful/helpful pieces of advice you ever received during your formal education in relation to writing?

Once you started to write, what was the most important thing that you learned about writing or its process?

Has your real life had any influence on your writing? If so, how?

What advice would you give to aspiring writers (be it fanfiction or original)?

Thank you so much for the ask Winter! I love sharing these things with fellow writers, it makes me so happy, so this is really welcome. Sorry it took me so long!

1. I don't have a formal education in writing other than academic pieces (dissertations, publications, etc), but I think what helped me is "read things aloud". Both for flow and for style, it was so helpful!

2. I learned to not care. If it sounds good to me, I do it. This may sound like bad practice, but Shakespeare made up words, and every theory was made up by someone at some point. If I want to create a new turn of phrase that sounds strange but makes sense to me, I will. This is where being trilingual helps a lot, because I take from multiple languages and find the beauty in each of their structures, so I can import onto another language, like a graft.

In this scene, for example, I use Spanish structure in English, and I think the result is so intense!

She, in all certainty, lacked the will to perceive them as anything other than the sad attempts they made to rule over sacred wilderness rather than form a covenant with it, as she knew Holy, so she hunted and assembled her shelter and supplies out of those carcasses. Bone, sinew and skin were all she needed to survive the inclemencies of Skyrim’s weather.

3. Absolutely! I don't believe you can make anything without your real life influencing you. Art doesn't occur separately from your life, it's inscribed in it and its circumstances. I always learn new things, go through new experiences, meet new people, etc, or even read new things that inspire me! I have a rich life, and so my writing draws from it and is enriched.

4. Don't listen to anyone who says "don't write in an overly flowery way". If you like it, write like that. Do purple prose, abuse the thesaurus, include obscure references to things that only make sense to you. Look for the perfect word. And READ! A writer who does not read (and I'm talking about strong literature, not just things meant for kids and teens, or in-game text) will stagnate. Include Non-fiction In Your Reading Diet. Or else. Non-fiction is so important. Read writing theory, art theory, epistemology, other sciences. Read! Read! READ!

[ronearoundblindly]

The Stark Legacy (17)

Whisky, part of Book II: Mind (see previous or series)

Summary: The birthday girl is discovered for the wrong bad behavior but counters with an unusual offer.

Warnings for mentions of medical self-experimentation and drinking. Rated Teen/Mature so 15+ only, please.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—December 2038

Imagine a paper cut slowly and methodically slicing into your flesh. The pain is not immediate, but you know you felt something breach the surface. Then you feel tweezers slip inside the paper cut and pry it open just a little further. You feel the exposure of air where it doesn’t belong. You can’t move unless you want it to get worse. After the tweezers spin around inside each tiny little cut, a needle is stuck shallowly, repeatedly inside. When this process is completed over the space of your entire limb in 3mm increments, that’s thousands of times per limb, the still-fresh paper cuts are doused in sanitizer.

At least, Sam thought, that’s what it feels like.

The whole process took hours, days, and weeks at a time, yet somehow this was not the most terrible birthday Sam had ever had. She was doing something good for science, and while that thought kept her going each day until she passed out under the cradle’s mechanical arm, whisky kept her from thinking too much about it after a section was complete.

The feet were by far the worst. She’d never had the chance to get a tattoo, but Sam was sure she wouldn’t bother now. And she wasn’t even done; her left arm, chest, and head still remained.

Tomorrow. Not today.

Sam was enjoying a very quiet night on the ‘bone yard’ hilltop, sipping a bottle of Bain’s Cape Mountain Whisky. Burning on the inside was a nice change from crawling on the outside, though the grafting of vibranium into her keratinocytes managed to ease some nerve discomfort after the first 48 hours. Sam took note that this could be because the metal protected the exposed nerves within her Extremis-altered epidermis, but that was only her best guess.

Sam was entirely lost in thought when Bucky appeared at the far end of the field and trudged over.

“Hey” was all he said when he got close enough. Sam nodded back. She hadn’t seen him in a week or so, but they hadn’t had a conversation since flying to Wakanda. That was a few months ago now.

“You look about as good as I feel,” Bucky added as he reached out his right hand, twitching his eye toward the bottle. “I won’t ask you why a seventeen-year-old is drinking straight from the bottle if you share.”

Sam handed over the bottle. “Merry Christmas.”

“Damnit,” Bucky exclaimed, “that’s next week, isn’t it.”

“Sure is…and I’m eighteen as of last Monday.”

The bulky soldier let his shoulders slump. Perhaps he meant to say congratulations, but instead, all that came out was “I’m sorry.” He handed the bottle back after a very long swig, then sat down a few feet away.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, continuing to medicate. “So what have you been up to?”

“Sam Wilson is having to retrain using the EXO-7, so I’ve remotely piloted a few battle sims for him. Then there’s…” Bucky drifted off in thought, deciding what Samantha could know. He finally landed on saying, “always some asshole trying to stir things up here and there.”

“So you get sent off to punch ‘em?” Sam chuckled at the thought.

He maneuvered his hands in the air for a second. “Well, it requires some finesse, too, but sure, I’ve…passed the point of diplomacy a few times.”

Sam noticed the physical difference in Captain Barnes since they’d left New York. He spoke with his hands freely, used and relaxed more muscles while interacting with others, told animated stories, and calmly listened. He seemed free of some constraint in Wakanda. “You like it better here, don’t you?”

Bucky was caught off guard by the errant thought. “Not—” he searched for the words, “not better, I guess, but—maybe? I’d never really thought about it.” He put his metal arm out this time, wiggling the fingers for the bottle.

“You won’t break it?”

Bucky’s head snapped back in feigned offense. Sam was eyeing his arm again, as she’d done in the quinjet during their flight. 

He grabbed the whisky. “Go ahead, you can ask,” he prompted, having heard all sorts of outrageous, mostly rude, comments and questions about the metal appendage. How much can you carry? Can you pull it off and on to sleep or clean? Can it spin around in all directions? Are there weapons inside of it? Can you crush a guy with only that thing? How much did it hurt when they put it on you? Do you have to charge it separately? These were the normal questions. Every once in a while, someone would ask if he missed being a whole human, and that one particularly hurt. 

“Would you ever want a real arm back?” Sam said sheepishly.

The way Sam asked him, though, was unlike anyone else. She did not imply he was not a human, she asked what he wanted instead of what he could do, and most curiously she seemed to believe he could have a real arm again. Still, Bucky wouldn’t be stitched together with a corpse’s arm.

“I’m not Frankenstein’s monster,” Bucky replied, slowly and deliberately, “that’s how I ended up like this.”

Sam took and drank from the bottle. “You know, the monster was the most genuine and kind person in that book.” She looked down at the grass between her feet, very quietly adding, “Forget I asked. I’m sorry.”

Head hopping “You’re a smart-ass,” he mumbled. Then it dawned on him. “You’ve called me that before,” Bucky said absently. “When you were a kid, you looked right at me…and called me a monster. I don’t think you meant I was genuine and kind.”

It took a moment to see the comprehension roll across Sam’s face. “Eh, shit. Children…” Sam shook her head, unable to find the correct way to apologize. “Children don’t see the big picture.”

Bucky returned his gaze to the sky. He didn’t know what he wanted from her; an apology, an explanation, maybe recompense. It made no difference all this time later. Nothing could change why the word had hurt him so much. He would have believed it no matter who said it. Somewhere in his mind or heart, he believed himself a monster from the instant he fell from the train in ’45.

“Bruce was my friend,” Sam blurted, “and then I did something wrong. He got mad at me, but…all I knew was that he didn’t touch me. Hulk didn’t hurt me. And then you beat him up anyway. You beat my friend to a pulp right in front of me. You hurt someone I loved, so I called you names. That’s what four-year-olds have to fight with, mean words that we barely understand.”

They sat silently for a long while, passing the bottle back and forth. Bucky enjoyed the taste, the reminder of old times with friends and men in arms, but he noticed Sam’s aim in handing off the bottle deteriorating, slowing in response. Her eyelids slumped. She didn’t look up at the sky anymore; she looked straight forward with the same wonder as the stars.

Bucky took a moment to amuse himself. “So you’re a genius and can give me an arm, huh?”

“Depends on your definition of real,” Sam slurred a little. “You’re not entirely human, so I’d need to replicate your DNA and tissue. Add in some vibranium for durability because why the hell not? We’re in Wakanda. Of course, I’ll need to do a scan of rotational capacity from your other arm so it can match, and then blend the infused tissue with your existing skeletal, muscle, and skin structure…” The last half of her thoughts were spoken with closed eyes. She got lost in solving the problem, repeatedly pushing her entangled fingers together in frustration.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?” Her eyes were blank.

“You want me to take you back to your room?”

“I—I can do it,” she said, shoving herself up onto shaky legs. She turned to go inside, leaving the bottle with Bucky.

“Hey, Sam,” he called after her. “Happy Birthday.”

She didn’t turn around, only paused, then made a weak salute on her way inside.

[Ch 18: Test]

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[code-of-creation]

Everyone is being so kind and supportive on my blazed post to find my Prince Sidon figure!

This makes me so happy! So many people are trying to help me, a complete stranger, and wishing me good luck. People are giving me so many compliments and good messages about how Im using blaze, how I approach the proper compensation for artistic work, and how I view supporting tumblr.

I have really been struggling lately. I'm a medical marvek of multiple illnesses, both mental and physical. I've had a really hard year and I'm currently on medical leave working closely with psychiatric services to get my debilitating bipolar disorder under control. I am at a place where medication isn't helping me, and I've been relying strongly on family and friends.

I've never had a bipolar episode so intense, so prolonged, and so debilitating. But that is just the most forefront of my problems right now. I've been struggling to take care of NAFLD, Or non alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is very common in my family and often tied with developing diabetes. I need to change my whole lifestyle permanently to prevent further issues. If any of you have ever tried to quit an addicting processed American diet to a fresh minimally processed-low fat-low sugar-low cholesterol-No red meat-Whole wheat diet, then you know how hard it is. Not just the physical cravings for junk food that are so bad they nearly consume ones thoughts, but the societal and family pressure to socialize and bond through food, the mockery and unwarranted cruelty for refusing "normal" food, staple foods, or red meat.

Thats not all however! I had to have all my upper teeth removed at a young age due to a combination of a genetic defect, poor dietary upbringing, and medications that damage teeth greatly over time. Medications I'll likely be taking for the rest of my life. It took me a few years, but I saved up enough to get the "cosmetic" surgery to have screws implanted in my jaw that teeth could be affixed to. In the time it took to raise the money, the medication and genetic defect caused the reabsorbtion of my upper jaw to the point I barely have any upper jaw bone left. There isn't enough left to have a good chance with a bone graft, never mind enough to put implants in. This news was devastating to me. My face is caved in now, and I'm only in my mid 20's.

Then there's the normal assorted fun bag for my body. Wait list to remove heavy fat deposites that cause strain on my back and hinder my breathing. Migraines I can only try to sleep through as doing anything else is too painful. Shortness of breath and stamina from a sudden dramatic weight gain related to a new medixation. I need new glasses as I can't read the signs in windows with my current ones. Painful cysts on my scalp that I cant get removed yet. A new and very persistent rash that Ive been taking antibiotics for, for a month, while my doctor struggles to figure out what is causing it. Constant fatigue and executive disfunction to the point someone has to wake me up every day, and I barely eat because the effort is so much.

I have very little mental and physical energy. Life is hard. Kindness from strangers and the prospect of having my unconditionally supportive shark friend is invaluable to me right now. I felt good today, and I am so thankful.

[thatpunnyperson]

I have two whole stories about why you should take care of your ankle injuries and I'm going to TRY to hide them under a Read More, but if it doesnt work then the TL;DR of the deal is to invest in a lace-up ankle stabilizer brace AND a puffy stirrup air-splint.

Story 1:

I'm not going to tag them, but my older sibling had a seemingly unending cycle of ankle sprains from early childhood all the way until college, when they were hanging out with some friends, slid down a fire pole, and landed wrong. Because of the chronic ankle sprains and the mentality of our parents being "eh just walk it off" for pretty much everything but an obviously displaced bone or obvious amnesia from a concussion, the landing sheared off a chunk of cartilage in the joint.

It was INCREDIBLY painful for my older sibling, and they couldn't walk safely or comfortably on that ankle for literal months, so they finally went to a doctor, got x-rays, and were told, "okay, so theres a flap of cartilage in your joint that should NOT be flapping like that, and given your history, I'm referring you to an orthopedic surgeon." Since my sibling lived in Baltimore at the time, they got referred to the orthopedist at one of the John's Hopkins hospitals/emergency rooms, who happened to be one of the best orthopedists in the united states.

He took one look at their ankle and was like, "Check it out! Your ligaments are so loose! Remind me of your history of ankle injuries?" It turned out that the Lifetime Up Until This Point Of Spraining And Twisting Ankles had led to the wildest case of loose ankle ligaments this doctor had ever seen, on BOTH ankles. The guy had med students come in and wiggle my sibling's feet to feel what supremely loose ligaments feels like in an ankle (which my sibling found entertaining since they were on the pre-med track and are a generally chill person still today).

This led to surgeries on BOTH ankles to tighten up those ligaments, plus a cartilage graft for the first ankle to fix the piece that was flapping freely in the joint capsule. My sibling got the first surgery shortly before graduating undergrad college and thus had to do the whole ceremony on a knee scooter with a big cast, and the second surgery about a year later when working down in Bethesda (and thus had to commute back to Baltimore for the same surgeon because if you have the option to have the best person fix your ankle, you fucking take it and deal with the traffic of getting there).

But now, its been *counts on fingers* 8 or so years since the surgeries and my sibling hasnt sprained or even rolled their ankle once. They still have the walking casts and air splints and shit just in case because better safe than sorry, but the havoc wrought on their ankles from the 20 years of sprains and strains (and near breaks if not for the sheer volume of calcium and vitamin D they consumed) literally made the ankle more and more unstable until the soft tissues literally couldnt absorb the shock of landing a little heavily on their feet.

Story 2:

I ALSO had a childhood and teenage life of twisting and rolling and spraining my ankles, which culminated in my second year of college, at the ripe old age of 19, walking down a flight of stairs, making it safely to the bottom of the stairs, and then having both ankles just fucking flip their shit and refuse to support my weight, resulting in one ankle spraining itself and the other ankle spraining AND BREAKING itself.

I think that it must have been that I had a duffle of laundry on my back and was navigating those stairs So Carefully that my muscles were so tightly wound from controlling each and every shift of my weight, that when I relaxed at the bottom of the stairs, my ankles suddenly slipped out of their Incredibly Tightly Wound state and into the same thing my sister experienced where the ligaments just couldnt hold my ankles together properly for a hot second.

Honestly, my broken little lower leg bone--the fibula--was way easier to treat than my older sibling's cartilage flap, but I was in a cast for months, in northwest pennsylvania up by lake erie, and we got record snowfall that year. And it was RIGHT BEFORE winter break, and I had to fly home to southern california from Pittsburg, having to take a 2 hour bus ride from my college campus to the airport, which meant I could only take 2-part flights with a stop in the middle.

So I had to slog through 2 feet of snow with a suitcase, a backpack, and a broken leg, and then sit on a bus for 2 hours, navigate an airport in a wheelchair in order to take a 4 hour flight to a second airport, where I then misread my ticket and waited at the wrong gate in my wheelchair, them hustled to the correct gate, sat on a plane for another 2 hours, to then THANKFULLY be met at the final airport by my parents, who plead with the TSA security folks to let them come to the gate to retrieve me. And then the 1.5 hour drive home.

The whole time in one of the uncomfortable airport wheelchairs with a half-cast (splint on the bottom of the foot and up the back of the calf, secured to the leg with tons of compression bandages) that TSA made me UNWRAP because they wanted to make sure I wasnt smuggling anything in it (made several TSA agents go sheet-white when they saw the gross swelling and bruising).

Fun fact: if you want to be treated Even Worse by TSA and security folks, be in a wheelchair! They made me Walk through the metal detector because I had "one good leg" despite me and the airport employee pushing my wheelchair vehemently protesting. It was either walk through the detector on my broken leg and sprained ankle or miss my flight. I also got pulled aside for a security pat down when I was flying back to college, and that's when i had a bright yellow fiberglass cast on one leg and a big black walking boot on the other leg.

Moral of the stories: if you roll/strain/sprain your ankle, try to get medical attention. If you can't get medical attention for any reason, invest in BOTH a lace-up velcro ankle brace AND one of those puffy air splint. (Those two links take you to the DuckDuckGo results for those two objects so you can see what they look like and where to get them. I'm not sending you to an amazon link for them or anything, I've gotten all of my various braces as store-brand versions from various drugstores and big box stores like CVS and Walmart)

If I could give one piece of life advice to my fellow humans, it would be this highly specific little chestnut: "If you ever sprain your ankle, get medical care."

One of the most common things I've heard from older people than myself is, "Oh yeah, I twisted my ankle in (insert grade of school here) and it's never been the same." Or, "I have a bad ankle. I can't tell you how many times I've sprained it." And one of the most common things I've heard from younger people is some variation on, "Yeah, I think I just twisted my ankle. I think I have some old crutches from high school at my parents' house. I'll just use those for a few days."

I didn't learn this until after I sprained my ankle last year, but 20% of ankle sprains lead to chronic ankle instability, which was grimly defined by my doctor as, "an unending cycle of ankle sprains."

Another thing I didn't fully understand is that "sprain" is an umbrella term for any of those ligament injuries. Yeah, you could simply stretch the ligament-- twist it. Or you could tear it. Or you could completely sever it, and those are all sprains. If you're not a doctor, it's likely hard to tell what degree of sprain you have. The worse the sprain, the higher the chance of it healing weird and becoming unstable. If you are having trouble putting weight on your ankle and it's not feeling better the next day, please get it checked out!

I know medical care is expensive and many of us don't have health insurance, but it might cost you more in the long run if you don't get care for a hurt ankle. Otherwise you might spend a lifetime of having to get MORE ankle injuries checked out, missing work or social opportunities due to ankle injury, having to limit exercise, surgeries later in life, and more.

When I hurt my ankle and foot last year, I assumed the broken foot bone would be the bigger concern, but my treatment plan was almost entirely centered around the ankle ligament tear. My doctor said that was the more serious injury and the more finicky bit to heal. I worry when I hear a friend mention they sprained their ankle and were just treating it at home, 'trying to stay off it as much as I can.' That usually means a few days, but I had to stay completely off mine for 4 weeks, followed by a walking boot, a brace, and months of physical therapy. It was intense!

Ankles are annoying because they support your entire darn body and you don't realize how much you need them until you hurt one. So that is the one nugget of wisdom I hope to leave all of you with!

[totallyhussein-blog]

Reflections on the healthcare needs of veterans

Paul Swain, an armed forces veteran, explains why it is vital that the military community access healthcare and how he’s received help from the OpRESTORE service run by former armed forces clinicians at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London.

Tell us a little about your military background.

I joined the Army when I was 17, following in my brother’s footsteps. What appealed to me was the opportunity to give service to my country and by doing so, seeing places that in normal civilian life, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience.

I joined a reconnaissance unit, which formed part of the Royal Armoured Corps. Frontline duties followed. I was very involved in military life, representing the Army in both football and boxing, and over my 17 year career, I worked my way up to instructor level where I taught the next generation of armed forces. I served in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

What happened that meant you needed healthcare support?

In active service you see people getting hurt, but you never think that it will happen to you. In May 2011, I was mentoring members of the Afghanistan army to best prepare them ahead of British troops returning to England. One day during training, my translator stood on a hidden landmine device which exploded next to me.

The blast caused serious injuries and I was put on life support, with internal damage caused to the left side of my body. I lost my left arm just below the elbow.

Once I was stabilised enough to fly, I was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, a hospital which specialises in treating military personnel with acute traumatic injuries.

What did your immediate recovery look like?

I had a number of surgeries on my left arm to stabilise it and to prevent further complications.

The next few years involved adapting to a new way of living as an amputee with occupational and physiotherapy support. I re-entered civilian life when I was discharged from the Army in February 2014.

Was it difficult leaving the Army?

You are in your own military bubble and so it took me time to adjust when I was no longer in active service. I expect it’s like when a professional sportsperson retires and you suddenly find yourself with lots of spare time and a need to find a new role in life.

What brought you to OpRESTORE?

Like many people, I struggled during lockdown because of the isolation. This coincided with physical complications of my amputation and some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. While my GP was really supportive and academically understood the conditions I was suffering from, they didn’t have the experiences that I had, and so didn’t 100 per cent get where I was coming from.

I reached out to the Help for Heroes charity who put me in touch with OpRESTORE who could look at my physical and mental health needs in a more holistic way. OpRESTORE is run by medics who have given military service so they better understood my experiences and unique needs.

What support did you access from OpRESTORE?

I had bone spurs protruding from my amputation site which was causing pain and sores and made it difficult for me to wear my prosthetic arm. The OpRESTORE team carried out surgery by trimming down the spurs and then taking a skin graft from my right leg to better protect my amputation site.

When I came for my surgical consultations, it wasn’t a ‘just about the surgery and close the door as you leave’ kind of appointment. My surgeons Mr Reilly and Mr Hettiaratchy were asking ‘what else can we do to support you?’. They put me in touch with experts to support me with my other issues – not necessarily health related – so I was getting the full range of support I needed, alongside my surgery.

What would you say to other veterans who may be reluctant to access healthcare?

I can only talk from my experience as everyone’s experience is different. I felt that I developed a stiff upper lip which made me think I should suffer in silence rather than deal with the physical and mental health symptoms I was experiencing.

The thing about OpRESTORE is that you don’t have to navigate the health system all on your own – you can get help from skilled members of the military family that have some experience of where you’re coming from.

There are still challenges that I’m facing but life in general is better than before I accessed OpRESTORE. If you are from a military background and have health symptoms that require support, make your GP aware of the service and ask them to refer you.

[piratewithvigor]

Journey Out Of Darkness: The History Of Kane

Chapter 2: 20-20-24 Hours To Go...

Besides The Ramones, who ever wanted to be sedated anyway?

Last Chapter

Taglist: @the--blackdahlia @coffee-n-bagels-comic-universe

Abel Carrion was unconscious for six weeks.

Calls to clear the highway had allowed the EMTs to get him from Marfa to Big Bend Regional Hospital in Alpine in just about fifteen minutes, sirens screeching the entire way. It took the ER doctor there even less time to realize the burns he was facing were far beyond his ability to heal. By the time the sun began to rise, Abel was in a bed in San Antonio. He’d been choppered into the burn center at Fort Sam Houston, recovering from the first of what would be six skin grafts in all. Doctors had worked through the night to scour his body for healthy flesh that could replace what had been burned away. Abel knew nothing of his helicopter ride, regardless of how excited he would have been to take it even a few days ago, nor of the operations, his surroundings or the attention he drew nation-wide for his miraculous recovery. For his own sanity, the doctors kept him drugged. He needed to heal, which couldn’t be done when his mind was overwhelmed with the agony of the affair. They didn’t know he wouldn’t feel the agony. So he was drugged. He was unconscious.

He was dreaming.

–

He opened his eyes slowly, the fuzzy image of his dad coming into view. Dad was leaning over him, brushing the rusty-brown curls out of Abel’s face.

“Hey, buddy. How you feeling?”

Abel shrugged, still not feeling quite like himself. “Okay, I guess.”

He was four years old again, lying in a bed that felt too stiff, in Big Bend Regional, where was waking up after a day of being poked and prodded and tested by doctors who kept drawing blood and shaking their heads. At least it was over now.

His parents didn’t look comforted by this. Especially his ma, who was sitting on the edge of his bed and rocking, like she had a tendency to do when she was especially upset. With every new update from the doctors, Abel had assured her that he felt fine. She never seemed any calmer.

“You understand what the doctors were telling you?” Dad asked, leaning in close to him. That was how Abel could tell he was nervous. His dad never showed it otherwise. “What they were talking about?”

“Yes, sir. I do understand.”

“They call it HSAN. That stands for Hereditary Sensory and Autonomic Neuropathy. It means you can’t feel any pain.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Which means you have to be very, very careful about what you do. Pain is–”

“I remember,” Abel interrupted. “Pain is the body’s warning mechanism. I have to watch what I’m doing all the time, I have to be careful not to get into fights or play sports or do any of those kinds of things because since I can’t feel pain, I’ll never notice things like cuts or bruises or broken bones.”

That, at least, drew a small smile from Dad. “That’s right, son. That’s right. Exactly.”

Of course it was right. The doctors had told him that might be what he had when they first brought him into the hospital. Then every new doctor who did a new test and came to the same conclusion did the same. Some of them used different examples, or phrased it differently, but they all started the same way: telling him that pain was important.

“I’ll be careful.”

“This is all my fault,” his ma whispered, her face shielded by long red hair, as if she was hiding away from the reality of the situation.

“Now don’t start in with your crazy talk, Susanna.”

“It’s not crazy. Not crazy at all. My father. His father before him. My cousins. My aunt, my uncle, all the way back to–”

“Susanna Kane,” his dad said sharply. “How many times have I told you not to talk like that in front of the boys? Those ideas–”

“They have a right to know.”

Abel pulled his blankets up a little. He wasn’t sure whether his dad had been drinking yet today, but he didn’t always need it to be mean. Especially if he was stressed.

“It’s nothing they need to be worrying themselves crazy over like you.”

“It’s their family.”

“Susanna Kane–”

“She’s right, Dad.”

Abel lowered the blankets from his eyes and saw Thomas, standing at the door.

“We got a right to know, me and Abel. We got the blood in us too, after all. Maybe we got the curse too. Just like all the people in here.”

He was holding a book. A thick, wide one with a brown leather cover that Abel recognized immediately. The Kane family scrapbook. The project Ma had been working on for the last few years that traced her family history all the way back to Pilgrim times. She worked on it as often as Dad worked in the basement. In that time, it’d become– what was that word Dad had used? – an obsession of hers ever since…

Ever since he was born, Abel realized.

Now how did he know that?

“You are not cursed. The boys are not cursed. No one in your family has ever been cursed. Because curses don’t exist,” Dad said firmly. 

“How do you explain everything that happened? And now with Abel…”

“There’s nothing to explain. Bad luck with some of them, others had diseases the science of the time didn’t know about. It’s just genetics.”

“Kane family genetics,” Thomas pointed out. Dad glared at him. Lately, Thomas had taken a vested interest in the Kane family. He’d been helping Ma out with any research he could, pouring over history books and spending even more time looking at the scrapbook, analyzing every picture and paper kept inside. He spent more time with that book than actual schoolwork, in fact, that’s what Dad was always saying. Too much time. Wasn’t playing outside like a boy his age should be. He was going to get even more pale…

That didn’t seem possible. The longer Abel looked at his family, the more pale they all looked, how white their skin was. As white as some of the bodies he’d seen in the parlor, almost waxy-looking, like they weren’t real, like– 

A terrible feeling ran through his bones down to the marrow, making him shiver.

“Please,” Abel spoke up softly. “Can we not talk about the curse?”

“That’s my boy.” Dad put a hand on his shoulder and seemed to ease up a little. “Ain’t nothing mystical about this condition, this HSAN. Long as you’re careful, you’ll be more than fine.”

Abel nodded. Of course there was nothing mystical. Plenty of people had this. “More than you’d think,” a lot of the doctors had said.

“No fighting,” his dad continued.

“I know.”

“No sports.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And stay out of the sun whenever you can. You don’t want to burn. Getting too many sunburns could be dangerous. Very, very dangerous, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“You could crisp right up and never know it. Never feel a thing.”

Dad raised his hand and took a drag off his cigarette.

As quickly as he did– like magic, Abel thought– a nurse appeared behind him.

“Sir, there’s no smoking in here.”

Of course smoking would be forbidden; there were so many machines and tanks filled with gasses that could explode in an instant. His dad seemed to have forgotten.

“No smoking?” He looked down at the cigarette in his hand. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

He dropped the butt on the floor, neglecting to put it out with the heel of his boot like Abel had seen him do dozens of times. Instead, it landed, bounced, almost in slow motion before it rolled just enough to rest next to the trailing edge of his blanket. The edge of the fabric glowed red and began to smoke.

There were a lot of words Abel wanted to use in that moment that he’d heard Thomas use before (and promptly get a lashing for). The only ones that came to his mind were ‘oh no’.

“Oh my. Look at that.” The nurse put her hands on her hips and shook her head, using the same disappointment Ma would every time she caught Abel getting a little too rambunctious. “Your bed’s on fire, I’m afraid.”

His ma’s eyes widened. “I knew it. You see, Tom? You see what I mean?” She stood and grabbed hold of Abel’s hand. “We should get going.”

“Well, shoot.” Dad was looking at the little fire with just as much quiet disappointment. “Seems you’re right, Susanna. We best get going.”

Abel began pushing himself out of bed, working through the exhaustion, but unable to move against the nurse pushing him back down.

“No, you don’t. We got some more tests to do.”

“Let me go…” Abel whimpered, looking down at the growing fire. “Please.”

The nurse shook her head, looking about as unapologetic as one could. “I’m sorry.”

“Abel, come on!” Thomas was standing in the doorway, holding it open with his back. Dad walked through it and disappeared down the hall.

“Dad!”

The fire was getting bigger. More of the blanket was falling away into ashes. 

“Come on, Abel!” Thomas yelled. “I can’t hold this door open forever!”

The nurse was still holding him down. All he wanted to do was get up and follow. His hand slipped free from his ma’s in the struggle.

“Oh, Abel.” There were more tears dripping down Ma’s cheeks. “I wish you could come with us.”

He didn’t want to stay. He didn’t want to be left behind. His own tears of terror began falling.

“I’m coming, Ma! Please don’t leave without me.”

She didn’t hear. Or didn’t listen. She was gone out the door with Dad. Abel met Thomas’s eyes one last time before he followed and the door began to slide shut.

Abel tried one more time to sit up. The fire was beginning to reach where his feet were under the blanket. The nurse pushed him back down, pressing on his shoulders. He struggled a little, but the events of the day had left him weaker than he usually felt.

“You heard your dad, Abel. No fighting.”

“But–”

“No fighting.”

He spent the last of his energy to squirm out of her grasp and make it to the floor. The door had been so close when he was in the bed, but without the extra height, the smoke in the room began crowding his eyes. He could barely see past his own hand. The nurse couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see her. Couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear anything except the crackling of the fire. He stumbled with his hands outstretched, trying to feel for anything. His hands landed on something rough and wooden. A stairway. The stairway at his house, back in Marfa. It wasn’t the hospital room on fire, it was his house.

With that, he remembered it all, and began to scream.

– 

At the nurses’ station, in the burn unit at Fort Sam Houston, the detector began beeping. It was a marvelous piece of machinery that let any of the staff know right away if a patient was awake. Sensors in the mattress sent a signal to a computer, which made a light flash under the number 41 on the board. The nurse on duty set down her magazine and frowned. The boy in room 41 was not supposed to be waking up. 

She made her way down the hall and adjusted his sedative drip to keep him unconscious– so his body could concentrate on healing. The operating room schedule said he was going to be getting another skin graft in the morning. The last thing he needed was to be moving around and draining what little energy his body had in the first place.

She knew his story, everyone in the hospital did. He’d been a minor celebrity for somehow surviving one of the most intense housefires their nook of Texas had ever seen, but it was still anyone’s guess how thrilled he’d be about it. 

In his slight shifting, the boy’s hair had fallen into his eyes. The nurse brushed it back gently, revealing his pale face. Thank God for small favors– at least the burns on his face were relatively minor. They’d likely fade in time and he’d be able to live a normal life, assuming he survived the next few weeks. Assuming anyone could live a normal life after their whole family had been killed.

“You’ll make it,” she whispered.

Abel shifted a little in his sleep, reaching out to the sound of her voice.

[djchika]

Title: Perdition of Their Own Making Rated: E Tags: Alternate Universe - Dark, It's not as dark as I expected it to be but ymmv, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Graphic Torture, Murder Husbands, Kidnapping, Body Modification, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Evil A/N: Happy Halloween! Finished for @riproswell but more importantly written for @im-the-punk-who because we all need our comfort characters to be evil sometimes.

(Also on AO3)

-

And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since mankind came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty.

-

Roswell, New Mexico was once a tourist trap. A city of fifty thousand humans, a legend that few truly believed, and three harmless aliens that no one knew about.

Then there were three harmless aliens and one psychotic alien-murderer.

Then there were three harmless aliens, one psychotic alien-murderer, and a secret government facility full of alien-prisoners.

An explosion and a lightning bolt later, it was back to three harmless, homeless aliens.

For a quick second it seemed life would go back to being relatively normal.

But then Jesse Manes got a paramilitary operation involved.

-

“We’re reporting live from Roswell where just before sunrise a blaze consumed a popular local haunt, the Wild Pony. One casualty has been declared with sources claiming the dental records match those of the proprietor, Maria Deluca. Witnesses say that the cause of the fire was an accident brought about by a freak lightning storm—”

-

The six of them stood vigil over the wreckage long after the camera crews and the first responders cleared out. The bright morning sun an affront to the grief and ash and soot.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Alex croaked out. He’d been crying. They all were.

Liz gave him an even gaze that prickled at the skin on the back of his neck. “No. It doesn’t.”

Nothing as human as grief could ever stop Liz Ortecho.

She sniffed out a lead, then another. By the end of the week they had Maria back.

Or at least what was left of her.

-

Kyle was taken in broad daylight. An immigration issue. Nevermind that Kyle had been born in the same hospital where they took him.

It was Alex who found the lead that time.

Correction.

They let him find it.

-

After Caulfield, Alex was well acquainted with the ins and outs of restricted facilities. About experiments and prison cells and operating theaters straight out of a Stephen King nightmare.

Having first hand experience. That was new.

They weren’t gentle as they strapped him down. Didn’t put him entirely under as they sliced him open, grafting pieces of the beautiful, hateful alien glass that he’d found in the Valenti cabin onto the nub of his missing leg.

He’d kept the artifact secret. Afraid it would be the thing that finally took Michael away from him for good.

The irony that he might die because of the glass wasn’t lost on Alex.

Or the irony that he’d been trained to withstand being tortured for information when all the information his captors cared about was in his skin and blood and bones.

There was no spark of hope when he saw the stoic figure watching from the observation deck, saw his father, but Alex called out nonetheless. Desperately grasping at the humanity he hoped still existed in the man that raised him. His pleading turned into whimpers, into screams, into raw, choked out groans until his mind forced him to black out.

Hours later, the sterile cold stirred Alex into consciousness and it was Jesse he first saw. Standing over him, smiling proudly as he murmured about the great sacrifice Alex was making for his country.

Alex gathered what little strength he had and told Jesse to go fuck himself.

When the doctors came back for more, Alex barely let out a sound. He was deep in the quiet of his mind, dreaming of tearing Jesse’s jugular out with his teeth.

-

He was never meant to survive. He was a lab rat. A guinea pig. The doctors barely contained their surprise when the alien glass willingly merged with his body, when he didn’t reject the mechanical leg they’d fashioned to work with it.

Alex welcomed every second. Keeping their focus on him meant they weren’t hunting the aliens. That he was keeping Michael safe.

They kept him in a makeshift pod in between procedures. Letting him marinate longer and longer as their interest waned. He’d been in the pod for a solid two weeks before they pulled him out again.

The agony that hit him was new.

Raucous noise scraped against Alex’s ears, the harsh buzz of the overhead lights, the sharp grating sound of metal against metal.

The sounds overwhelming his senses that he crumpled to his knees.

A giggle tore past his lips at the thought that he might finally be losing his mind.

They hauled him onto the table, buckles clanging like church bells as they strapped him in. He was left alone, but he could still hear the voices clear as day.

“We’ve gotten everything we can from him.”

“What do we do now?”

“Master Sergeant Manes gave specific orders before he left. Dispose of the subject then go after the three. We know better after the first attack. The girl first. The other two won’t fight back if we have her.”

All the previous noise disappeared into a swirling blackhole as blinding rage swept over his vision.

No.

Not Michael.

They’d carve marks into his skin. Make him scream his throat raw. Take more and more and more until there was nothing left.

Alex would die before he let that happen.

An explosive charge pulsed through him once before it ripped through his veins, blowing out every bulb in a ten mile radius and tearing through the straps that held him.

He was ready when the first person came for him. Then another. And another.

It shouldn’t have been easy to snap a neck, to break a bone, crush a ribcage, and yet somehow it was. Alex didn't leave any of them alive. He was focused on a singular mission — wipe Michael’s existence from their memory.

Dead men tell no tales.

-

He was barely conscious by the time he’d gone through every room in the facility, but he remembered—

Remembered gore. Remembered viscera. Remembered screams.

None of which were his.

He remembered staggering to a console. He remembered locking them all in with him. Remembered typing out a crude program to destroy any mention of Michael and Max and Isobel.

He remembered slumping to the floor.

Remembered pain. Remembered vomit. Remembered tears.

All of which were his.

He remembered—

He remembered the ground as it shook. Remembered the safety he’d felt because he knew. He knew.

He remembered seeing Michael.

And then it was black.

-

He slept.

For days. For weeks. For months.

Alex’s body wasn’t entirely human anymore, but the human psyche could only endure so much trauma before it receded into itself.

He slept through Max healing him. He slept through Isobel coaxing his mind open. He slept through every visit of the nurse they’d made to dress casually after Alex attacked the first one.

The only time he stirred was when Michael was around. Eyes following his every movement, fingers gripping his hand tight when he was near.

He found out later it was actually twenty four days. Twenty four days before he pushed himself up of his own accord, his gaze drawn across an unfamiliar room to the only reason he came back at all.

“Michael?”

His voice was barely a whisper, nothing more than breath vibrating through disused vocal chords, but Michael seemed to have sensed the shift in the air, his arms already around Alex before Alex even finished saying his name.

Scalding hot tears trailed down his cheeks, relief practically choking him as he gripped Michael’s shirt. He’d done it. He hadn’t hallucinated the end to his nightmare. He’d kept Michael safe.

Alex had kept Michael safe.

Hysterical laughter bubbled out of his chest despite the tears still flowing freely down his cheeks. He’d killed to keep Michael safe and he’d do it again.

Michael pulled away with nothing more than an amused shake of his head, his own face wet with tears.

“I can feel you, you know?” he asked, placing a hand against Alex’s chest. “It’s how I found you. You drove me to my knees with how much you wanted to protect me.”

Alex realized for the first time that the relief surging through him wasn’t just his. It was his and it was Michael’s, their emotions coalescing into a singular pool under Alex’s ribcage.

Curious, Alex dipped into it. He heard Michael gasp and then—

Remnants of a paralyzing fear.

Deep echoing anger.

A chasm of grief.

Alex soothed it all. Poured every inch of love he possessed into the cracks that had been left behind. Etched a promise into his soul. Into Michael’s.

“I’d burn down the world to keep you safe.”

“We’ll do it together.”

Alex surfaced grinning.

No one was going to touch either of them ever again.

-

Roswell had descended into hell while he was gone. Homes deserted. Businesses boarded up. A town populated by the ghosts who decided to stay either by choice or necessity. All of it a perdition of their own making, pushing the aliens closer and closer to the brink with every loss.

Homes obliterated.

Parents driven out of town.

Maria speaking in riddles only Isobel could understand.

Kyle still missing.

Alex’s own disappearance.

And Liz—

Liz wasn’t dead.

Not quite.

-

It was Max who took him to see her.

Liz was in a similar room as the one he’d woken up in. A gigantic, lavishly decorated room among dozens of other gigantic, lavishly decorated rooms in the mansion they had commandeered. Only Alex had been in a bed that smelled of grief and rain. Liz was in a hospital bed, hooked up to a machine that made her glow pink and purple and blue.

His mind flashed unbidden to the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe perched on the Ortecho’s altar.

“They came for us three days after they took you,” Max said, his sandpaper voice a stark contrast to the tender brush of his knuckles against Liz’s cheek. “They destroyed the pods, our houses, leveled the junkyard. They chased us into the desert. Liz — she, she took a dart that was meant for me. It had a serum that was meant to neutralize our powers. Only in humans — it caused her cells to degenerate.“

Alex understood the machine now. Without the pod there was nowhere to keep Liz in stasis the way they did for Isobel.

“Her heart kept stopping,” Max clenched his jaw. There was no desire for absolution in his voice. Nothing but a simple stated fact. “I had to save her.”

Alex nodded once. “You killed them all.”

“There was no keeping our secret after that. The town turned on us. People I’d known since I was eight looking at us like we were strangers, like we were dangerous .”

Max looked at him, a dark humorless smirk on his face.

“Guess they were right.”

-

“Wyatt Long was first,” Michael recounted as he stroked Alex’s hair.

“Wise choice,” Alex hummed distractedly. He couldn’t stop touching Michael, his fingertips moving from his lips to his neck to his torso, greedy with the need to know he was real.

“An easy choice,” Michael said with a small laugh. “He made the mistake of stalking Isobel. Then it was a couple of his friends. The mayor’s son. The mayor himself.”

There was no inflection in his voice. Like he was rattling off a list of classmates they’d seen at the reunion rather than a list of lives Max had taken to keep Liz alive. Unlike the pods, the machine Michael built required an external power source. It required Max. Only Max wasn’t an endless fount of energy even with the desert massacre.

Alex’s fingers roamed over Michael’s biceps, his forearm. He traced over the groves of Michael’s left hand, still unused to the smooth skin.

It was a painful sort of parallel that both of them were made whole without their consent.

The thought dissolved into wisps of smoke when Michael brushed his lips against Alex’s temple. As if he’d sensed Alex’s discomfort and done it instinctively.

“It’s still a three person job keeping Liz in stasis,” Michael continued, oblivious. “I need to keep making adjustments and Iz still has to find people for Max to drain. She thinks it’s funny when she can convince them it’s the only way to make Roswell great again.”

“I’ve learned a few tricks at torture camp. I can amplify her powers, air it through a frequency so that people come to her—” Alex propped himself up on one elbow prepared to dive into a detailed explanation when suddenly a chair flew across the room and into the wall, the pure rage that echoed from Michael trembling right through him.

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“I hate it when you talk about the shit you went through like that,” Michael grumbled.

“It’s my trauma and I’ll laugh if I want to,” Alex sang softly. He nodded towards the shattered chair. “Is that what you’ll do to my father when we find him?”

“Yes.”

The smile he gave Michael was all teeth and sharp edges. “Good.”

-

Alex had always believed Isobel could rule the world if she set her mind to it. Turned out all the assistance she needed were a few dozen radio towers and one world class hacker.

“How’d it go?” Alex asked as Isobel flounced into the section of the mansion that he and Michael had taken over as a workshop-slash-command center.

“The Governor was ecstatic to welcome me as Roswell’s new mayor.”

Alex raised an eyebrow when Isobel continued to stand there, smirking like the cat that ate the canary.

“He has a little crush on me,” she admitted. “So I fucked his wife.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Didn’t Max tell you to stop playing with your food?”

“She wanted me almost as much as he did,” Isobel replied with a shrug. “The only thing she wanted more was to kill her husband in his sleep.”

“And will she?”

The grin that broke across Isobel’s face was both beautiful and terrifying. “Our friend the Vice Governor will receive a nice little promotion by next week.”

-

Alex wasn’t entirely human but he didn’t have the kind of powers the aliens had either. His bootleg version was unreliable at worst, erratic at best. The one thing he could count on was the connection he had with Michael.

He didn’t realize that it was that connection, that protection that fed into whatever power he had.

Not until he was walking down Main Street alone, a freedom he’d only been allowed after he was able to take down the combined attacks of Max, Isobel and Michael in their training sessions. Even so he could feel Michael gently prodding their connection. As if making sure Alex was still there.

Because of that, it was curiosity not fear that made him pause when he heard the click of the firearm.

He found a group of men harassing a young woman and honestly Alex would have let them live. Probably broken a few appendages. Permanently cut off one in particular. Only they didn’t take kindly to his interruption. A shot rang out and suddenly a bullet had sliced open his shoulder.

Alex touched his fingers to the wound and it came away sticky with blood, the copper color of the desert sand as the sun descended on the horizon.

In the distance the air crackled with electricity.

The idiot waved the gun at him. “Walk away man and I won’t shoot again. She ain’t none of your business.”

“This is my favorite jacket. Do you have any idea how hard it is to break in new leather?” Alex snapped as he shrugged it off to assess the damage.

There was a muttered curse. A prayer.

It was only then that Alex saw the crisscross of lines shining through his shirt, up his neck, down his arms.

“Y—you’re one of them.”

Alex’s face split into a grin, the planes of his face lit unnaturally by the faint glow of his scars.

“Not really, but they’ll be here soon enough.”

-

The woman had run off the moment she found an opening, Isobel had taken their new friends to Max, and Michael had mostly held his tongue when Alex refused to let Max heal him.

Mostly.

“That’s going to get infected and your arm is going to fall off,” Michael said, unable to help himself after seeing Alex eye a tube of superglue. They were both fresh from the shower and while Alex’s wound was clean and ready for bandaging, it still needed stitches.

“Max is barely on his feet trying to keep Liz alive and no doctor is coming near me.”

Michael ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Fine. If you don’t want Max to heal you then let me do it.”

That made Alex pause. “Since when can you heal people?”

“I never have,” Michael admitted, sitting next to Alex on the bed and giving him a soft, sweet kiss, “but you’ve always been my exception.”

Alex rolled his eyes fondly at the cheesy line but nodded.

There was a moment when Michael hesitated, his hand hovering a little too far to be effective, but Alex placed his hand on Michael’s, drawing him close.

Michael cupped Alex’s cheek with his other hand and in the next breath, liquid gold bloomed over Alex’s skin.

He barely noticed as muscle and sinew reformed under Michael’s touch. A lightning storm of overwhelming love was sparking through him, from him, leaving Michael-shaped burns in its wake.

Alex was grateful to know it wasn’t just him, a moan rumbled in Michael’s chest and suddenly his lips were on Alex’s, tongue sliding into his mouth, wet and dirty while his other hand moved down, groping every inch of bare skin he could reach.

It took no time before Alex was on his back, Michael riding him, one hand still on Alex’s shoulder as he rocked his hips, slow and steady, driving them both crazy in a feedback loop of pleasure.

Alex trembled, lights flickering around them as his control loosened. “Michael— I— I’m—”

“I’ve got you, darling,” Michael promised. “I’ve always got you.”

-

They rescued Kyle on a Friday.

Michael didn’t think it counted as date night.

Alex figured they could kill two birds with one stone.

Or a whole flock of them as the case may be.

Red warning lights flashed overhead as he and Michael walked hand in hand down the underground facilities’ corridors. Alex hummed softly to the beat, easily introducing the sound of Michael snapping soldiers’ necks into his symphony.

“We should go dancing.”

“Anything for you.” Michael winked cheekily as he wiped a splatter of blood off Alex’s cheek.

-

Kyle was in a slightly better state than Alex had been, but it still took two weeks before Isobel was able to reach into his mind without getting flung across the room.

When he finally emerged it was to Alex sitting at his bedside. Going from an endless slumber to leveling Alex with a heavy gaze. Contained within was an intimate knowledge that drove a blade right between Alex’s ribs and lodged itself there for them both to see.

“He took you too.”

Alex gripped Kyle’s hand tight. “I’m going to kill him.”

In another life Kyle would have counseled against it. Would have lectured Alex about the Valenti Code, about doing good and taking the high road. In this one, Alex stared into the broken eyes of a boy he once called his best friend and found a kindred spirit.

“Do it slowly.”

In the end not even his code could save Kyle’s soul.

-

Kyle was the key to getting Liz off the machine. It didn’t stop there. There was too much at stake. Too many times that they’d been caught off guard.

They razed the organization that had been out to get the aliens. Expanded their control beyond the city limits. Persuaded politicians and billionaires and warmongers into their fold. They had the power. All Isobel needed was their will.

Jesse Manes eluded them through it all. A cockroach surviving a nuclear holocaust. He might have had the tenacity to outlive them, but Alex made an oath. A Manes Man was always a man of his word.

He felt it before the program even let out its telltale ping. A shiver up his spine telling him that everything was falling into place. That this new world they’d created would soon be the one he’d promised to Michael.

Strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and Alex sank into them easily. They had a whole universe left to conquer, but first he had family business he needed to finish.

-

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be.

[bosspigeon]

if you're still bleeding

Pairing: Jax/M!Merc

Words: 2657

Summary: Jax should know better. He should know to mind his own damn business. But, unfortunately, he's well beyond "knowing better" now that he's gone and gotten tangled up with an unhinged mercenary with more knives than sense, and the scars that say the chances of him finding any sense are slim to none.

and if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones.

'cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone.

we're setting fire to our insides for fun.

collecting pictures from a flood that wrecked our home,

it was a flood that wrecked this home.

- "Youth" by Daughter

CW for: implied/referenced sex, sexual humor/innuendos, references to blood, violence, and trauma, and implications of kink

Knox is a man with scars.

Jax has plenty of his own, of course, but Knox has a lot of scars. There's a story to most of them, too, and he's never shy about telling them. Hell, half the time he tells those stories completely unprompted, whether you want him to or not.

There's a scar on his chin from where Royal told him he couldn't knee slide the entire bar. There’s the ugly knot of scar tissue where his left arm used to be, where the port to his prosthetic is grafted on. There's the scar in his stomach from the mook Jax had to help him bury. There's a scar on his lip where he bit himself too hard with his freakishly sharp teeth trying to keep quiet while Jax bent him over the hood of his car outside Saints and Sinners in the wee hours of the morning.

He's particularly happy to blab the story about that one to anyone who'll listen.

But he doesn't talk about the scar across his throat.

As little clothing as he tends to wear on the day to day, ("As little as I can get away with," he says with a sleazy wink) his neck is always covered. High-collared shirts, a jauntily knotted scarf, decorative chokers and heavy leather collars always keep it covered. He'll flash his tits before he'll show his throat—but in all fairness, it's not really all that hard to get him to flash his tits.

Jax didn't even see the scar until the fourth or fifth inadvisable hate fuck, at which point he was beginning to think he didn't hate the merc quite as much as he thought, considering he kept letting the little bastard in when he showed up at the door out of nowhere—and didn't shoot him when he decided to forgo the door entirely and come in through the window. (Jax still can’t be sure how he even got to the window, seeing as Jax lives in an apartment well above ground level, but he figures he’s better off not asking.) He didn’t think to ask about it until he’d actually lost count of how many inadvisable hate-fucks there’d been, and when they’d progressed somehow from inadvisable hate-fucks to still pretty inadvisable but otherwise amicable casual fucks.

Knox was loose and relaxed, quiet in a way Jax didn't even think was possible when they first met. And, to think, all it took was shoving him face down into the pillows and thoroughly wearing him out. Usually, he rolled out of bed as soon as his legs could hold him again, commandeered Jax's shower, and used half a bottle of his expensive conditioner before he disappeared without so much as a thank you. This time, he stayed. He sprawled gracelessly across Jax's sweat-stained silk sheets, arms stretched over his head, eyes half-closed and his ever-smirking mouth curled into something softer... almost sweeter.

Jax doesn't know what possessed him to roll over, to reach out and touch, but he did. He started at the inner thigh, the bruises he'd left with teeth and then fingers, a rumbling of possessive pride stoking the banked coals of satisfaction in his belly. His knuckles skimmed the soft curve of the merc's belly, the angry red scar tissue of that knife wound, then higher still. Inked into his sternum is a coyote skull, surrounded by boldly outlined flowers that curve along the underside of his breasts. Jax was almost surprised by the softness of the design, especially in comparison to the rest of the merc's ink, like the crude stick-and-poke perforated line and little pair of scissors right above his prosthetic, or the dirty pinup of some generic muscled pretty boy on his bicep, or the peach on his inner thigh that bears an artful addition of a T-dick very much similar to Knox’s own.

He wondered vaguely if the flowers meant anything to Knox.

Before he could dwell on the uncomfortably tender direction his thoughts had taken, his fingers travelled upwards, flicking absently at one of the heavy, angular piercing through Knox's nipples. Knox huffed a rough laugh, watching the progress of Jax's hand through eyes narrowed to dozy, yellow slits.

He traced Knox's collarbone, and his body was all but melted into Jax's bed, soft and pliant. Like he belonged there.

And then Jax’s curiosity got the better of him. He saw the scar, a thin line, pale with age, but standing in stark relief against Knox's tanned skin. It sits at a bit of an angle, slicing across the middle of the merc's throat.

The second his fingers made contact, skimming that raised line of flesh, he knew he'd fucked up.

Knox's body went taut for a split second, and that was all the warning Jax got before Knox was twisting his wrist hard enough for the bones to grind together and snarling in his face like a wild animal. If his knives weren't two rooms away in his discarded pile of clothes, Jax knows he would have lost fingers.

For once, Knox didn't say anything. For once, he was dead silent, mouth a grim sneer, eyes flat and hard. He shoved Jax roughly off him and rolled out of bed. He didn't look back once, stalking out of Jax's bedroom naked, every inch of his compactly muscled body vibrating with tension. Jax heard the rustle of clothes, the jingle of buckles and zippers and a half dozen knives, and then the front door slamming shut.

He didn't see Knox again until Orla called them in for another job, and it was as if nothing had happened. He was his usual smug, annoying self, not a single break in his usual facade of irreverent humor and Napoleonic bravado.

And maybe some of Knox's reckless stupidity is rubbing off on him, because Jax can't shake the curiosity that grips him, even now. He shoves it down, naturally, because he doesn't want the batshit merc to get twitchy on him again when he's got enough knives on him at any given time to outfit a military squadron. Hell, for all Jax knows, that's the end of it. He's not going to go crawling back to Knox (even if the sex is really fucking good—it's always the crazy ones, isn’t it?) and he knows Knox won't come to him first.

Except he does, dragging Jax into one of the back rooms after a meeting with Orla, shoving him against the wall, and dropping to his knees. Things go right back to normal after that, or as normal as they ever are with Coyote Fucking Knox. And as normal as they can be once Orla oh-so-sweetly reminds him there are cameras in the back rooms, and if he doesn't want stills of his dick forwarded to the entire Mirage gang, he'll keep his and Knox's exhibitionism where she doesn't have to see it.

So Knox continues to invade Jax's privacy, steal petty shit from his apartment and/or pockets, and loudly demand that Jax fuck him hoarse (-er) if he wants him to shut up.

And he winds up tangled in Jax's sheets again, sprawled out on his belly with one leg tossed over Jax's thigh, his face smashed into a pillow, one smug yellow eye watching Jax try to catch his breath beside him.

He could let it be. It's not like this is anything but a convenience. Some fun between… well, they're definitely not friends. Coworkers, if anything, and even that's pushing it. For a while, Jax considered it a fair trade for dealing with Knox's bullshit constantly. Now, it's becoming a pattern, and when it comes to semi-regular sex with a stab-happy mercenary, patterns can be dangerous.

But he can't kill the curiosity.

He figures his best bet is being blunt. And maybe getting ready to dodge in the very likely event things go south. He doesn't touch this time, at least not where they aren't already, Knox’s knee between his legs, the skin feeling a bit feverish and clammy as the sweat cools. The urge to touch is still there—he left some nice bite marks on Knox's shoulders he'd like to reacquaint himself with—but he ignores it for now. He rolls onto his side, meets that one yellow eye with quiet consideration, and props his head up on his hand.

Knox must read the change in his face, because he goes from cat-got-the-cream contentment to a warily curious tension. Jax just goes right for the throat, so to speak. “Any chance of hearing the story behind that one?” he says, casual as anything, and nods in the vague direction of Knox’s neck.

There’s a growling noise building up behind Knox’s teeth, but he bites it back. He smiles, but it feels feral, like an animal baring its teeth looks like a smile, but it's really a threat. It looks brittle, like it'll shatter if he tightens his jaw any further.

Jax gives in to the urge, reaching out to touch, fingertips skimming down the mercenary's spine. A shiver ripples across the skin. He’s not sure if it’s the right move, but at this point, if you’re going to Hell...

“I don’t know,” Knox says flatly, and Jax is almost shocked he answered at all. There’s no inflection, no mirth. Just that broken-glass smile.

Jax snorts. Knox never fucking shuts up, that much is true, but Jax isn’t stupid. He knows when someone’s talking a lot and saying nothing of importance on purpose, and he also knows when Knox can’t deflect, he lies his ass off like he was born to do it. Even Orla barely knows anything about her least favorite favorite merc or where he came from, though the chances of her caring enough to even try to find out are slim to none. Still, he has no idea what the mercenary even has to gain from lying, especially here. "If you don't want to say anything, just tell me to fuck off."

The knife edge smile stretches wider. Tips closer to the breaking point. "Fuck off," he echoes like a parrot.

Something starts to uncurl in Jax's gut, something burbling and acidic, a nasty niggling feeling he can't quite name. "You're serious," he says, and he doesn't want to believe it, mostly because he can't imagine someone like Knox taking that sort of… personal unknown well. “Nothing?”

The smile cracks, and Knox lifts his head so Jax gets the full effect of it. His eyes are wide, wild, and suddenly that smile is too big for his face. Slowly, he sits up, and there's the scar. Old and faded, but splitting his throat neatly and boldly from east to west. He drags his thumb across it, digs it in hard enough the white scar tissue goes a bit pink. He laughs. He's never had a pleasant laugh, rough and raspy and mean. Somehow, this one is worse. “Not a lick,” he drawls, and the effort it takes him to sound so casual almost makes Jax cringe. “There’s a reason Orla found me in the fuckin’ bargain bin.” He taps his temple, his messily painted nail clicking against the chip in his head.

Jax’s eyes flick down to the scar, frowning deeply. It doesn’t make sense. Knox is deflecting again, he has to be, but there’s something in the way he’s holding himself, the tension radiating from him, the way he slumps against the headboard of Jax’s bed with his knees pulled up, not quite close enough to hug to his chest, but more like he’s thinking about it, resisting the urge to physically hold himself together and risk looking weak.

"I have nightmares, sometimes," he admits, so soft the syllables catch on the rough edges of his ragged voice. "They never make any fucking sense. I'm just… I'm choking. Something’s cutting into my neck, and there’s someone behind me, and I know them, but— But I'm guilty? I don't know for what." He laughs, bitterly brittle. "Could be fucking anything. Got a lot to be guilty for that I can remember, never mind what I can't."

He inhales, and it sounds like it hurts him, like his breath is made of shards of glass. He drags his hand down his face until he can curl his fingers around his throat so the scar doesn't show. "I just know there's this perfume Orla wears that makes me want to climb the fucking walls and I don't know why. I think I know how to play the piano, but I can’t even look at one without wanting to smash it to pieces. Sometimes I hear some… some fucking opera song, or some shit? And I know the words, and I want to sing along, but then my voice just—just cracks, and I feel like… like a broken fucking wind-up toy? It's like my head doesn't remember anything, but the rest of me does and it makes me so fucking angry. What am I missing? Why does it matter?” His voice hitches dangerously, and there’s a stab of panic in Jax’s belly, his hands twitching like they want to—to reach out? “Why can’t it just leave me the fuck alone?"

Knox squeezes his own throat so hard the skin dimples around his fingers and bleeds white where he’s cutting off bloodflow. His shoulders tremble. There's something in the furrow of his brow, the twist of his mouth, that says angry isn't the only thing it makes him, but he either doesn't have the words to say it, or he just won't, not even to himself.

The silence falls again. Jax always thought he preferred silence where Knox was concerned. Turns out he was wrong. This silence is brutal, heavy and choking and just… wrong. When Knox does see fit to break it, it's with a loud exhale that almost makes Jax start.

"Would you look at the time," the merc says loudly, shaking out his bare wrist and looking at it critically. Jax could almost laugh. Knox tosses his legs over the edge of the bed smiling crookedly over his shoulder. "I should really head out, huh? Don't wanna overstay my welcome."

Before he can think, Jax snaps a hand out and catches Knox’s hip, squeezing. Not enough to stop him if he really wants to go, but enough to give him pause. Once again, Jax counts himself lucky they rarely make it to the bedroom before one or both of them are naked, which means all those knives are somewhere by the door, or scattered across his coffee table, or in the leather jacket tossed over the back of his couch. Coyote turns slightly, just enough to eyeball him. Just one yellow eye.

There's a lot Jax could say, a lot he even wants to, but there's something raw in that one yellow eye, something wary and broken that just wants to hide somewhere quiet and lick its wounds. They've been at this for way too fucking long at this point, Jax should know what to do with that, shouldn't he?

Maybe he does.

He snorts. "When the fuck have you ever cared about overstaying your welcome?" He smacks Knox's hip just on the wrong side of gentle, and rolls over. "You're not leaving until you help me change these sheets. Hell, maybe if I'm feeling generous, I'll let you back in bed after we shower."

He pushes up to his feet and stretches out the kinks in his muscles, allowing himself to luxuriate in the pleasant soreness leftover from their romp. Knox is quiet behind him, and he can't really think of when he actually started to trust the crazy bastard enough to turn his back to him.

Knox makes a rough little sound, something not quite a laugh. "Is that an order, Sir?" he asks, low and raspy-sweet.

Jax glances back with a raised eyebrow. "Do I need to make it one?"

[one-boring-person]

Requested by: @80s4life

I hope you like this!😊💛

What I Did To You.

Snake Plissken (Escape From New York/LA) x reader

Warnings: violence, injury, swearing, gun use

Masterlist

I have my gun levelled at his head before I've even closed the door properly, my face drawn into a fierce scowl, eyes blazing with anger. Every muscle in my body goes tense, my hand unwavering as I hold the weapon up, my leg throbbing in memory pain. Across from me, the intruder remains stood silently, his eye fixed on mine, his own hand still resting at his hip, ready to draw his pistol at any point.

"Hello to you, too." He greets me in the quiet way he always used to, his lips barely moving.

Frown deepening, I push the door behind me closed without looking at it, keeping my gun aimed at his head as I look him over. Not for the first time, he's covered in a light layer of grime, his brown leather jacket darkened in places by the dirt and lightened in others by the fraying, his boots caked in dust from the wasteland outside. His golden mane of hair is slightly dulled from exposure to the unforgiving sun outside and falls into his eyepatch, flicked out of the way every so often by a jerk of the head. A shadow of a stubble covers his chin, as it always has, disguising a few new scars I've not seen before...as well as one I know very well. Other than that, Snake Plissken has not changed at all.

My eyes narrow, grip on the gun tightening.

"Leave." Is all I say, shifting my weight onto my other foot.

"You used to have such nice manners." Snake's lip curls, the soldier taking a step towards me.

Instantly, I flick my thumb over the flintlock.

"Leave." I repeat, pulling the hammer down as the gun makes a dull clicking sound.

"No." He moves closer, standing so the gun is inches from his chest.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming here." I growl, oh so tempted to pull the trigger, "I don't know why you don't keep your distance."

A cruel smirk creeps onto his lips, eye narrowing as his head tilts to the side.

"Trust me, I didn't want to come here, either." He reassures me, "But I have no choice."

"I'm giving you a choice. Leave, or I'll introduce some lead into your diet." I retort, ignoring the burn in my arm from holding it outstretched. At this point, it's the only thing keeping us separated.

"I'll pass on both." Snake snorts, shooting a dismissive glance at the handgun pointed at his throat - now that he's standing closer, my aim only really comes up to his chest and neck, "Put the gun away."

I nearly laugh at him then, another surge of anger going through me.

"You're in no position to order me around. Not anymore." I practically snarl at him, keeping the gun where it is.

"Suit yourself. I came to ask for your help, the least you could do is be civil." He replies coldly, glaring at me now.

Again, the urge to laugh in his face goes through me.

"You came here to ask for my help?" I repeat, cocking my head in disbelief at the sheer balls of the man, "You really need to leave before I pull this trigger."

"(Y/n), we both know if you wanted me dead, I'd be bleeding out on the floor already." He points out, unimpressed.

"Maybe I'm waiting for an apology first."

This seems to catch him off guard.

"An apology?" He repeats, frowning in confusion, "For what?"

It takes all I have not to lunge at him and throttle the handsome bastard's neck in my hands, my leg flaring up in pain at the reminder.

"You know damn well what for." I growl at him, shifting off of my leg again, rubbing at it unconsciously.

Snake's eyes follow my movement, realisation dawning on him.

"I already apologised for that." He says quietly, clearly remembering back to the time I'm referring to.

It still plagues me, that one last operation we'd had to do together. Three years ago, back when we were still working together on jobs, good at what we did, the perfect partnership...except for Snake's tendency to protect his ego. It had been horrible that night, rain pelting the ground as we moved on the abandoned construction site, mud slicking our boots and trousers, foggy air making it impossible to see anywhere. I had told Snake we shouldn't go that day,  that it would be better to wait until another, clearer night, but he insisted on the raid. He'd told me that he'd "been in worse" and that this was nothing, so we took our guns, knives and other equipment, and headed out into the wastelands to deal with the threat.

At first, everything had been fine: we'd managed to get in with no problem, creeping around the perimeter, taking out guards as we went, bodies sodden and filthy now, freezing under our light jackets. It was only as we moved to go further into the site that disaster had struck. Suddenly, gunfire was tearing into the ground inches away from us, driving us back behind an old container box, flashes of light appearing in the milky fog around us, our vision obscured by the sheeting rain, the mud making it hard to retreat. We later found out we'd been ratted out to the terrorists occupying the site, and they'd set up a trap for us, hounding us from the place with rifles spewing bullets at us the entire way. We had been close to escaping.

Then I slipped on a landmine.

All of a sudden, I was flying forwards through the air, agony erupting in my left leg as the flash of light and flames exploded behind me, my body crashing to the floor seconds later. Winded and incapable of moving thanks to the pain lancing through me from my leg, I had screamed out to Snake, hoping for him to return to me, the smell of burning flesh soon flooding my nostrils as my foot caught in the blaze. Howling in agony, I had tried to pull myself out, my fingers scrabbling at the slick mud in desperation, only for the pain to become too overbearing. I had looked for Snake, only to see the back of his head disappearing towards our getaway vehicle, paying no mind to me. It was then that I blacked out, my heart drowning in betrayal and hurt.

For a week or so, I'd been held captive by the terrorists, tortured sometimes, my wounds left to fester, bones shattered and out of place, burns turning ugly over the time. Eventually, another team had been sent in to rescue me, the group getting me out before it got too far. Taken to a hospital, it took me weeks to recover, every muscle and bone in my left leg needing to be reformed almost completely, surgeries being done near-daily to realign them all, the skin basically unsalvageable. I'd had four different skin grafts from various parts of my body, only to leave the limb looking twisted and mangled, basically useless to me until I was encouraged to learn how to use it again. That entailed another half a year of time spent working on getting it to full use again, and even now I can't go nearly as far as I used to. Every so often, the leg throbs, memory pain still hounding me since the day I got the wounds themselves, but I suppose I got off lucky: the surgeons hadn't expected me to make it through.

All of that because of Snake's ego.

His apology? A note sent to me whilst I was unconscious in the hospital.

"You and I have a very idea of what an apology is. Especially for something that kept me bedridden for months." I bite out, heart aching now at the memory, "Especially for someone who left me to die."

Snake purses his lips, swallowing tightly.

"I thought you did die." He says, much quieter now, eye roaming my body guiltily.

"You heard my screams. There's no way you didn't." I reply harshly, reminded again of the raw-throated shrieks for help.

He winces, looking down at his feet now, his fists clenched at his sides.

"I didn't think you'd make it. If I went back, I wouldn't have gotten out." He murmurs, sounding somewhat saddened by what he's saying.

"You wanna know how long it took those fuckers to get to me? Fifteen minutes. Fifteen! There was more than enough time!" I spit at him, face twisted in anger.

Once again, he winces at my words, only now realising the extent of what he did.

"And even when you knew I was alive, when I was in hospital, you couldn't even be asked to come and apologise in person. You sent a damn note." I shake my head, looking at him in disgust, "You're a coward. A spineless coward. Why didn't you at least show your face? Why? Why did you leave me to face the pain on my own?"

"Because I couldn't face it! I couldn't face seeing you there, lying in a hospital bed, all doped up, cut-up and bruised because of me! I couldn't face seeing you nearly crippled because of my stupid fucking pride!" Snake finally snaps, voice strained as his eye returns to my face, pain clouding the blue depth, "I thought I got you killed, (Y/n)! I could barely live with myself because of it!"

"Then why wait until now to find me? Why not come sooner?" I question, voice tense.

"I didn't think I'd be able to face you so angry and upset. I cared - care - so much about you, (Y/n), you have no idea how hard this is for me. I've lived with this guilt for so long." He fumbles for words, unable to voice his feelings as he always has been.

"How hard this is for you? Do you have any- argh!" I cut off in pain. As I was speaking, I'd stepped forwards, my leg sending a shock of agony through me as I'd done so, making me stumble forwards.

Snake moves closer, catching me before I can connect with the floor, his arms secure around me as my hands come to rest on his muscular chest. Blushing at the proximity, I try to ignore the butterflies in my stomach, pushing off of him to sit on a nearby chair, dropping the gun to the floor. Stretching out the affected leg, I sigh in frustration, the anger residing into the same loneliness I've always felt since I got the wounds that have left me like this.

Snake watches me silently, expression pained as he finally speaks.

"Can I...can I see? Please, I want to know what I did to you."

Surprised, I give him a sceptical look, before I hesitantly start to pull my trousers down over my legs. His eye widens at the sight of the limb, lips parting slightly.

Gnarled scar tissue crawls up my leg, discoloured and tight, appearing somewhat ghostly in the light of the room. Snake stares at it in horror, grief swiftly clouding his eye now as he falls to his knees in front of me, hands lifting to hover over it. He flicks his eye up to me, asking for permission, to which I nod, gasping as he removes his gloves and gently places his hands on the sensitive skin, a shiver going up my spine. Ever so carefully, Snake runs his palms over the scars, feeling them over with hesitant fingers, his expression becoming more and more open.

After a while, he looks up, pained eye meeting mine.

"God, (Y/n), I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." He grasps my hips, pushing his head into my abdomen as he wraps me into an awkward embrace, murmuring apologies over and over. Shocked, I hesitantly place my hands on his head, threading my fingers through his soft hair. An old tenderness springs into life within me, reminding me of why I used to stay with him, and what his riendship used to mean to me. Over the years, I had tried to forget it, but it's impossible - as he holds me close now, I realise I've missed him more than I'd ever let myself admit.

Snake pulls away after a few more minutes, caressing my hip as he looks up at me, thoughtful now.

"What job was it you needed help with?" I ask him quietly, twisting a strand of his hair between my fingers, "I'll work with you, if you drop the ego act."

He looks surprised and glad, a smallsile pulling at his lips.

"Of course." He promises, looking away again bashfully, "I only kept it up to impress you."

I blink in surprise.

"To impress me?" I repeat dumbly.

"Yeah, I, err, I've always felt the need to. Wanted to impress you so you'd consider going out with me." He admits, blushing furiously.

I blink again, head tilting in curiosity.

"Wait, what?"

"I always wanted to go out with you. Always." He chuckles, swallowing, "I've always loved you."

"You...you love me?!"

"Yeah, I do." Snake nods, biting his lip.

"Wow..." My voice trails off in surprise, unable to compute what he's saying, "I wish you'd told me sooner."

He frowns.

"What do you mean?"

I smile sheepishly at him.

"I've always had a thing for you, too. I just never thought you even liked me full stop."

"Really?!" He looks astonished.

"Yeah, really."

He's quiet for a moment, until a cunning smirk crosses his lips.

"In that case..." Snake leans up and connects our lips, kissing me softly but passionately.

A quiet moan escapes me, my lips moving instinctively against his, kissing him back in relief. His lips are chapped, but I can't find it in me to care as I pull his head closer to me, smiling as he pulls my body into him, his chest pressed firmly against my abdomen. In his arms, I can feel the pain of the last few years starting to slip away, still hooked deeply into me but starting to lessen, my eyes falling closed with the movement of his lips.

He finally pulls away, a content smile on his face, eye taking my expression in.

"So what's this job?" I breathe out, stroking his hair.

He grins lazily.

"Ever thought about going to LA?"

[leebird-simmer]

Russian Fairy Tales Test Prep: Spirits of the Forests, Waters, and Fields

Like the domovoi, the spirits of the forests, waters, and fields had their origin in pre-Christian times, but the nature spirits were considered basically harmful to humans and were generally regarded as unclean. The bulk of available sources re: nature spirits dates from the end of the 19th century, when belief in these beings was already in a state of decline and information about them was often imprecise or contaminated by the addition of traits more properly belonging to the Devil.

The Leshii: master of the forest, guardian of beasts.

He could assume the likeness of a familiar person, a forest beast, a domestic animal, even a mushroom. He made his presence known to peasants venturing into his territory through laughter, handclapping, and the various sounds of the forest. It was reported that he could “sing without words.” He would frequently “prank” peasants by calling to them in a familiar voice so they would get lost in a deep thicket or ravine. Sometimes he would tickle people to death. At all times, it was considered essential to utter a protective prayer upon entering the forest. The leshii hated boisterous conduct, sojourns in the woods at night, and woodcutters. He wailed if one of his favorite trees was chopped down. 

Historical basis: In medieval Russia, it was customary to cut off a robber’s left ear after the first offense. The peasants had a tendency to refer to the forest spirit as kornoukhii (”one whose ear has been cut off”). In Karelia, Russians often pictured forest spirits wearing military uniforms, indicating that peasants assigned them traits of fugitive soldiers hiding in the forest. Similarly, narratives in which the leshii approaches a campfire and requests food may reflect this practice among vagabonds and escaped serfs seeking refuge in the forest.

Social organization: While there was usually one leshii per forest, sometimes there were several. For particularly large forests, the notion existed that there was a hierarchy of forest spirits, ruled by a tsar. Forest spirits feasted and played games together. The leshii lived with his wife, his children, and sometimes his mother & father. Their domestic order was imagined as similar to that of the peasants; they lived in houses, had dogs, and raised livestock. In certain areas, the leshii’s wife, the lesovikha, played a prominent role in forest lore. 

Dealings with humans: Among the forest beasts, the wolf was the leshii’s favorite, and on occasion the spirit assumed the form of a large white wolf. Throughout the woodlands of Great Russia, peasants took measures to guard their cattle from the leshii’s wolves. Many of them called on St. George’s protection from predators.

In the Russian North, where cattle were pastured in the forest, peasants also solicited the leshii’s protection. This sometimes took the form of a pact between the forest spirit & the herdsman, who (according to one account) concluded this agreement much the same way that sorcerers concluded pacts with the devil: he removed his cross from his neck, swore fidelity to the forest spirit, and instead of swallowing holy communion, handed it over to the leshii. Peasants often looked askance at herdsmen (and at hunters, who made similar pacts), suspecting they possessed occult powers.

Leshie also carried off young girls, who they sometimes married, and women living in discord with their husbands. Narratives tell of peasant women abducted or summoned to serve as nannies or midwives for the forest spirit. One occasionally encounters the idea that captives could gain their freedom by refusing to eat the leshii’s food. Those who returned from the forest were reportedly wild-looking and covered with moss, and often they could no longer speak. Many never recovered, remaining in a state of continual distraction for the rest of their lives. Some made use of the knowledge of the unclean force gained by their forest experience and became sorcerers.

The Vodianoi

- often referred to as “the water devil” - universally considered evil & dangerous, since his sole purpose was drowning people

Habitat: The vodianoi lived underwater in deep pools. He confined himself to his own & neighboring waters, coming out only as far as the bank or the mill wheel. In some areas, it was believed that the vodianoi did not leave the water at all, but emerged only as far as his waist.

In the black-earth provinces of Riazan, Tula, Orel, and Kaluga, peasants claimed that the spirits had magnificent underwater palaces of crystal and that they gave grand feasts. Peasants from northern areas (such as Olonets) had a more modest conception of the spirits’ dwellings: here the silver floors, golden ceilings, and crystal chandeliers of their southern kin are replaced by sandy bottoms, snarled branches, and slimy logs.

Relationships: The vodianoi married a drowned maiden, either a rusalka or his female counterpart (the vodianikha), who was envisioned as a naked woman with gigantic breasts sitting on the bank at night, combing her long wet hair.

The vodianoi liked millers & fishermen; the miller in particular was often regarded with suspicion because of his relationship with the spirit. When a new mill was constructed, a black rooster was placed under the threshold as an offering to the vodianoi. If you really wanted to impress him, you could drown a drunk passerby instead of a rooster, maybe even as an annual sacrifice. That was said to be worthy of a standing invitation to the spirit’s nightly underwater feast.

The Polevoi & Poludnitsa: spirits of the field.

In some places, the polevoi was considered an oracle, and thus morally neutral. In other places, they were a sign of misfortune, considered unclean and dangerous. According to folk notions, it was dangerous to sleep on the boundaries of the field because the polevoi liked to gallop there and might run you over with his horse. His children also played there and liked to smother sleeping humans.

In some regions, one finds mention of a female field spirit known as the poludnitsa or “midday spirit” AKA Lady Mid-day, who may have played an important role in folk belief during medieval times. Back then, she was believed to walk the fields at noon when the grain was ripe. Her function was to protect the crop and to punish peasants caught working at noon (in violation of custom) by breaking their bones and twisting their necks.

The Rusalka: female spirits, thought to be the souls of unbaptized/stillborn babies and drowned maidens.

alternate names for her: “jokestress” (shutovka), “tickler” (loskotukha), “abductor” (khitka), and among the Northern Great Russians, “demoness” (chertovka).

alternate origins:

 1. Some creation legends claimed that the devil himself fashioned the spirits (both domestic AND natural) when, imitating God, he struck one rock against the other. The fragments became these creatures.  2. One legend claims that these spirits were children whom Adam (or Noah) was ashamed to show to God and thus hid.  3. Vodianye & rusalki were thought to be descended from Pharoah’s forces, drowned while pursuing Moses across the Red Sea.  4. In Kaluga Province, it was believed that they received their eternal youth and beauty directly from the Devil, who boiled them in a cauldron.   5. Only in Bulgaria was the rusalka portrayed positively; rusalki were understood as winged spirits who lived on the edge of the world and brought moisture & fertility.

All but the last of these explanations bear the stamp of apocryphal legends based on the Old Testament, illustrating the grafting process of dvoeverie. 

These spirits were considered especially dangerous in the late spring during Rusal’naia Week, when they supposedly left their underwater homes from the forests & fields. Peasant women sometimes hung offerings of scarves and linen on forest trees to appease them. Reports sometimes specified that the rusalki did not like women; on the other hand, they often told of love between these spirits and village lads. 

Most accounts of the rusalki paint this picture: sisterhoods of lovely maidens in league with the unclean force. This is the standard image for Southern Great Russia & the Ukraine, an image highly evocative in its interweaving of beauty and treachery.

[dadsbongos]

*bows down to you* I would like to know your despair arc headcanons for antag reader! Literally love antag reader so much 😳

ahhhhhh nonny please let me treat you to my adoration, i can’t thank you enough for asking me about my despair arc hcs for antag reader

Request for: Fuck it, not even Hajime anymore it’s just antag reader. Girlboss moment Warnings: fuckin despair arc tings lmao there’s a lot to deal with, face cutting, abuse (emotional, mental, physical) cuz hi junko enoshima, manipulation cuz hi junko enoshima, self mutilation/harm, mikan/junko toxicity, gore, vomiting  ~~~

Headcanons:

🐇Okay so I’ve said it before but!! 🐇She was in that toxic relationship between Mikan and Junko 🐇Junko would make her and Mikan compete for any and all affections just to cause them both despair (which even if “won”, was still denied) 🐇And then anytime she could, Junko would just absolutely berate (Y/n)’s looks and talent, calling the Ultimate Copycat a “fake talent” and “just stealing” 🐇So after Junko died, (Y/n) found her body and cut off portions of her face and replaced them with patches of Junko to “be more like her Despair” 🐇She would find people who wanted to fight for hope and take them in, insisting that she was on their side and would lead them to her house for “safety” 🐇Then she’d just restrain them with Mikan so they could perform experiments and surgeries on them together 🐇Definitely helps Kazuichi build his bigger machines, using the more intelligence she has to make better plans for what they’ll do with them 🐇I imagine that as a copycat antag, she’s got a shitload of charisma so she prolly just gets a load of followers 🐇I’m not saying it’s a cult… but 🐇Probably was the influencer for Nagito’s decision to become Servant 🐇Since he was already serving her all the time pre-despair he decided to join the WOH as their servant  🐇As for when she got captured by the Future Foundation… 🐇Was probably one of the harder ones to capture like Nekomaru and Gundham since she could be the Ultimate at almost anything she wanted 🐇When being interrogated by the Future Foundation she was probably smug and cocky af 🐇A solid match for Byakuya, no joke 🐇Maybe worse, like at least he sort of mellowed out with responsibility 🐇Keeps her mouth tightly shut until they mention anything about her face or Mikan 🐇Because as much as she doesn’t truly romantically love Mikan, she’s not even sure she loved Junko, she does care about the nurse very deeply 🐇So it’s when they mention having captured her that they get any sign of emotion other than cockiness 🐇When they say they have Nagito, that also gets them some words from her 🐇But if they say anything about her face, she has a little breakdown and throws a fit about how she’s better than everyone else in the room and she could kill them all if she wanted and she’s more beautiful than any of them could ever dream to be 🐇Didn’t get the chance to help Izuru release Junko into the Neoworld Program, but definitely would have if she could

Stories:

“Would you kill for me?” Junko murmured, bringing a hand up to caress (Y/n)’s cheek, rubbing her thumb over the bone, “Would you die for me?”

“I would!” she cried hysterically, tears already streaming down her face, “Please, say it! Please, just say it! I would do anything for you, please, just love me… I love you! I love you! Just love me, please…”

Her brows furrowed, bringing her gentle touch back to whip the copycat in the face with a backhand slap, “You’re so ugly, a little piggy ripe for the slaughter.”

Sobs pulled at (Y/n)’s convulsing body as she heaved on the ground. Her throat closed and dried up, chest burning and stomach churning until she finally felt her gag reflex trigger. She spat out stomach acids as she wept over a love that was never hers.

“God, you’re so nasty,” Junko kicked her in the ass, knocking her down into her own puke, “Get out and don’t come back until I command.”

“Love me… love me… love me… please… I beg you…!”

~~

“Do you think if I crushed my hand, Junko would care?”

“No.”

“Sonia wouldn’t care if you crushed yours.”

Kazuichi’s eyes flickered from his work to (Y/n), “I know.”

“It’d be…”

“Despairful?”

“Absolutely morbid,” her tone was breathy, a grin easing up over her lips and heart beating faster as she set aside the half-finished Monokuma and pressed her hand onto the metal desk, raising her heavy wrench above her head. 

Kazuichi was quick to copy the moves, eyes wide in anticipation and muscles twitching as his brain desperately tried sending the signals for him to stop.

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

Screams echoed in the warehouse following the sickening crunch of bones under the torturous weight of their wrenches. Kazuichi looked at the girl through his tears, “Again?”

In the midst of her agonized cries, she nodded, blubbering about how horrific the pain was, “Yes, yes, again!”

And so, the countdown started once again.

“One, two, three!”

More bones broken, more pain blasting through their hands for their beloveds to reject everything they were. For the loves they held so dear to look upon them and their injuries and roll their eyes - because they were meaningless in their loves’ eyes.

And that was the despair they craved.

~~

Nagito held out his chain, grimacing when it was Izuru who took it rather than (Y/n) before shoving that hatred back into his chest. Izuru may be a despair-filled faker with no real talent he’d been born with, but he himself, Nagito Komaeda - Servant - was worse. 

He wasn’t worth the air in his lungs. Not even human garbage as he was barely passable as a human being. 

Then, his eyes traveled once again to (Y/n). His dearest and closest friend.

Izuru may have had more talents mastered, but she was natural. She was genuine and had taken the time to master her Ultimate herself while Izuru had them all planted inside his brain as if he had a right to them at all. It was like watching a slacker get all the credit that a hard-worker had already done. Infuriating.

He wished to see (Y/n) ascend into hope once more, he truly believed she could pave the way above everyone else. She had to. She was better than everyone else, it was up to her to return them to hope, once she realized hope for herself.

He believed in her and her hope - once Enoshima’s metaphorical hands were ripped from her spirit.

And he liked to think she had fresh patches of skin that weren't hers, still red around the scars and peeling, were there for the same reason he had a new hand that wasn’t his.

~~

“She’s so much like Byakuya,” Makoto mumbled, watching through the glass as their newest captured Despair, (Y/n) (L/n), tapped her nails against the table her hands were chained to.

“First that troublesome imposter and now her, who do they think they are? They’re not even near being worthy of the Togami name.”

Kyoko scanned the girl, “She was screaming at the guards earlier when they pointed out the scars and patches on her face. Perhaps bringing it up again will get her to talk about some things.”

“We…” Makoto stopped, shivering at the memory of Junko Enoshima’s corpse when they’d found it on the side of the road outside their old school. Patches missing from a bloodied, pulpy face, “We already know what happened. What more could you want her to talk about?”

“Maybe she knows where some of her classmates are.”

“The nurse freaked out when we mentioned her, maybe if we bring Mikan up to (Y/n), she’ll have a similar reaction,” the Ultimate Hope offered up.

Nodding, Kyoko turned towards the door into the interrogation room, “It’s worth a shot.”

~~

Five minutes was all they got, Makoto Naegi said. He was compassionate and understanding and so sweet. Of course, he’d set up a meeting between the lovers who didn’t know if they ever really loved each other.

Mikan was always unusually cold and smelled of lavender with a hint of vanilla, her hands were soft and her lips a lovely shade of pink.

Now, as (Y/n) held the nurse’s hand over the interrogation table and basked in her presence, she could feel how much she’d changed in despair. She was still cold but now she reeked of dirt and blood, no matter how many showers she’d taken. Her lips were much paler; dry and cracked. Hands rough and calloused.

“They told me you took her womb.”

“You took her face.”

“You’ll bear her children?”

“You’ll bear her beauty?”

It was always a fight. It was always a competition. For more. For love. For the affection and attention they’d been deprived of all their lives.

“Have you… tried conceiving?”

There was silence. Mikan looked down at the table and then back up at (Y/n).

Her skin was no longer peeling along the jagged incision sites but her scars were infecting when she’d been taken in and it was obvious. They were puffy and oozed every so often.

She looked back down.

“With who?”

Shaking her head, Mikan tightened her grip on the girl’s hand.

“Why didn’t you get me to do the skin graft?”

“You were probably busy.”

“I would’ve done it anyway. I’d done Fuyuhiko’s eye.”

There was more silence. Stiffness building in the girls’ bodies the longer their quietness buzzed in the room.

“Am I still beautiful…?” it was rare to see vulnerability in (Y/n).

“Almost like our beloved herself.” it was rare to hear a lie from Mikan.

It wasn’t the scars or the blood or the skin patches, it was the act of how she’d gotten them. Scars and patches didn’t make a person ugly, but stealing pieces of a dead woman’s face and using them as your own did.