#but being put into a group situation where they HAVE to share is exponentially more chaotic LOL

[wildaboutchu2000]

i just love the takoyaki party movie sm jst cuz like. its such a perfect embodiment of how the boys function as a unit within the kleomatsu harem. like yea lets all fight and vie for attention and try hard and sabotage each other right in front of the girl we're dating

[awkwxrdapple]

Fallen Angel (Part 1) - Peter Parker x reader

Request: Hi! I love your writing! I was hoping you could do a peter x reader where the reader gets badly hurt and captured and it takes a long time for the avengers and peter to find her and once they do, she is scared half to death, jumpy, nervous, and stays by Peter's side during pretty much everything. They are living in the avengers tower with everyone and since they are the youngest, Peter is particularly protective of her during her recovery. Thank you!

Word count: 1.6k 

WARNINGS: mentions of anxiety, light torture, injury, trauma (after reading if you think I should include any others please let me know thank you)

Part 1

Simultaneously, you removed your headphones and slammed the textbook shut in front of you. Your assignments were getting tiring. It wasn't that they were hard and you were struggling, it was just that after being part of the Avengers, doing calculus and algebra seemed too easy for you. You could do it easily, but after all that you had done and seen already in your life, you knew your time could be better spent. 

Being the youngest Avenger alongside Peter Parker was exciting. You felt unbelievably honoured to be given the opportunity to be part of a team that did wonderfully amazing things. You had made friends for life, and most especially so with Peter. When you had come to New York you were enrolled into the same school as Peter. Midtown High was a good school and you enjoyed it, it also meant spending more time with Peter even though you both lived in the Avengers Tower now. 

Lying back against your bed you realised you were hungry, you'd been studying for what felt like ages. 

Knowing you had nothing sweet that you wanted to eat in the tower you decided that a quick trip out would let you get what you needed. If you were going to carry on studying you were going to need all the help you could get. 

Grabbing your purse from your dresser, you wandered down the corridor to where Peter's room was. The door was slightly open but you knocked anyway and waited for his reply. 

"Hey, I was just going to go to the store, do you want anything?" 

He, like you had just been, was sitting on his bed with papers strewn around him. When he saw you he gave you a warm smile. Having Peter living with you in the Avengers tower was amazing. Peter really was your best friend and you trusted no one more in the world. 

"I'm ok, but thank you. What are you going for?"

"Chocolate, ice cream, cake, anything." You said. 

"Homework giving you a hard time too?"

"Is it that obvious?" You laughed before placing your hand on the door handle again. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Bye Y/N."

Taking the elevator it didn't take too long to get to the ground floor and out into the centre of New York. You knew there was a little grocery store a few blocks over that made homemade chocolate cake. 

Unknowing to you, a set of eyes were watching you leave the tower, cross the street and make your way down the sidewalk. It was busy, and you were tired. Your instincts were slower and less aware of your surroundings. The one set of eyes soon became two, then three, then four. You were blissfully unaware of the imminent danger you were about to find yourself in. 

Taking a swift left at the next building you passed, your face collided with a hard arm and sent you stumbling backwards. Jolted out of your oblivious state, you raised your guard and lunged to land a punch square into your attackers chest. They struck back, using their larger build to throw their weight towards you forcing you to the ground. The air was knocked out of your lungs. 

Kicking back up from underneath them you tried to force their body off you, but they were heavy, and armed. You could feel a gun strapped to their hip pressing into yours. Rapid footsteps were heard around you as more people wearing a similar black combat suit to your assailant emerged and began to hold you down. You continued to fight in any way you could but soon all your limbs were rendered useless. 

"You're coming with us. Don't try to resist." A low male voice spoke into your ear as a cloth was placed over your face, a strong smell evaded your nostrils and then you relaxed back into the concrete. 

+ + +

Upon waking, you found yourself cold, aching and stiff. Your head hung towards your chest and a dull throb emanated from your forehead and rang throughout your skull. Your hands were tied behind you back and placed behind a chair, with your legs also tied to the chair legs completely restricting all of your movement. 

Fear and panic flooded through you and your chest became horrifically tight. The room around you was incredibly dim, with the only light coming from a single dull light bulb above your head. Feeling your breathing become hastened you remembered your training.

Don't panic. Be calm. Assess the situation.

The situation looked bleak. There were no sounds to be heard so you couldn't even begin to work out where you were being held. You remembered the last memory of being free, but couldn't place the people from anyone or thing you had seen before. 

You weren't kept guessing for long as a door creaked open to your left and two figures entered the room. The door was roughly closed behind them and a click of the lock was distinctly heard. You nervously swallowed and waited for one of them to speak. 

"We hope you aren't too badly hurt, Y/N." One spoke and made his way over to you. His voice was calm, and in any other situation you would have mistaken him for a nice man. 

"How do you know my name?" You ignored what he had actually just said to you. It was far more disturbing that your first name was known to these people. 

"That doesn't matter. We may know a few things about you, but you know much more than we do about things important to us."

"And those would be?"

The other man laughed coldly at your attempt to sound confident. 

"Your friends." The first man now knelt down a meter away from where you were sat. 

"My friends?"

"The Avengers."

To this you had nothing to say. You instantly felt guilt at being caught in this way, no other member of the team would be trapped like this. It made you ashamed. These people needed you for whatever heinous reason they had. 

"We understand you know a great deal about the runnings of that Tower, and of the inner workings of the group itself." The man continued. "We think you would be very useful to us."

"I won't tell you anything."

This brought a sigh from him. It was almost sarcastic. 

"We thought you would say that." 

He stood up and took a few steps backwards, allowing the other man to walk into your focus. 

"Maybe this will change your mind."

The first strike to your face stung. The next hurt. The third, numb. The intensity of the punch quickly removed all feeling. You could taste your own blood as your lip was cut upon the second blow. 

"It… it won't change my mind." You spluttered. Tears welled up in your eyes but you were not going to give them the satisfaction. You would never betray your friends, your family. 

"We shall see."

+  +  +

"Has anyone seen Y/N?" 

Peter was worried. You had left the tower four hours ago, and still had yet to return. 

"No I haven't, why?" Nat answered him as she wandered into the shared living room and kitchen space. 

Peter told her that you'd told him you were quickly going to the store and that you weren't back. 

"I'm sure she will come back soon. Maybe she ran into a friend?" Steve offered as he sat holding a mug of black coffee. 

"Yeah… you're right." Peter tried not to think about it too much. But after an hour or so that he hadn't heard you walk down the corridor, he went to check your room to find it empty. And he couldn't find you anywhere in the tower. 

Wanda gave Peter a small smile. She had seen how close you two had become. It was only natural that Peter was concerned. 

"If she isn't back tomorrow morning, we shall then worry, yeah kid?" Tony walked behind Peter and placed a brief hand on his shoulder. 

"Ok…"

The next morning resulted in Peter's worry increasing exponentially. He had sent you multiple texts and phoned you many times to receive no response. Usually you would let him know if you were staying with a friend. The whole situation seemed off. 

"Still no sign of Y/N?" Tony asked as Peter wandered through the kitchen on his way to school. 

"No. I am worried." 

Tony considered Peter for a second. 

"Come with me, I might be able to find her." Tony stated and headed for the elevator. "School is important, but it can wait."

Walking into one of Tony's labs, Peter realised he hadn't been into this one before. Tony tapped on a screen and brought up a map of New York on one of the monitors. 

"Mr Stark, what is this?"

"I regret not telling you sooner but I have tapped yours and Y/N's phones. So even when it's off, it can be tracked."

"You're going to track her phone?"

"I think that's what I just said." Tony raised his eyebrows. "Let's see if she still has it with her." He could see how upsetting this was to Peter. He began to wonder if you two were just friends, or something more.

After putting more information into the computer a yellow dot appeared on the map, quite far from the Tower, but still within the city. 

"Is that her?" Peter asked urgently. 

"It should be. I don't like the fact she's in a decommissioned warehouse though."

Peter suddenly felt a sudden urge to drop everything and run to you. 

"According to this, the signal hasn't moved in 12 hours." Tony turned round to face Peter. 

Peter's jaw was tight. Tony could tell he was ready to fight. 

If you would like to be in the tag list for part 2 or any of my other Peter Parker imagines please let me know! 

"Alright kid, suit up."

PART 2

Tag list: @unmistakablyunknown

Masterlist

[fullmoonremus]

12:45 AM | Sirius Black x Reader

Warnings: major character death, angst 

Time/Era: Marauders era, Age 20 (and a smidge of 18)

Word Count:  2.8k 

Summary: Sirius will never forget that one night when he looked at the clock and saw 12:45 am. 

Request: yo, can I request a story where Sirius is dating Lily’s sister (twin/younger) and he realizes he likes her and they start dating and eventually get married and they’re both in the order but she dies on a mission and at the funeral Lily tells Sirius that she was expecting? Wow I’m kinda evil.

A/N: Thank you for the request and patience! Enjoy!

masterlist | sirius black playlist | read on ao3

“Evans!” James yelled, running towards Y/N. Y/N sighed, holding her books tightly to her chest and turning around. His Gryffindor tie flew across his chest as he came to a sudden stop. 

“I’m not Lily, Potter. Honestly, if you’re going to date my twin you need to be able to tell us apart.” 

James throws his head back with a loud laugh before shaking his head. “No, no, I know you’re not Lily. I just needed to talk to you,” He leans his hands on his knees as he struggles to catch his breath. “It’s insulting you think I can’t tell you apart. No offense, Y/N, but you don’t have the same….oopla that Lily has.” 

“Oopla? What is oopla?” Y/N asks, amused. Even after seven years of being friends with James, she never quite got over some of his strange analogies. 

“Something Lily has, don’t you listen?” James straightens his back and twists, cracking his spine. “It’s not that you don’t have oopla, it’s just different oopla.” 

Y/N shakes her head. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Why do you need to talk to me?” 

“Talk to you? Why do I need to-” A lightbulb goes off in James’ head. “Oh! I know why I need to talk to you! Sirius was looking for you. Something about after graduation plans or something. I’m not quite sure, I didn’t ask.” 

“Do you know where he is?” 

“That’s another thing I don’t know,” A goofy grin filled his features as he spoke. 

“You don’t make for a very good owl, Jamesy.”

“Good thing I’m not an owl then,” James said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Do you know where Lily is?” 

“No clue, you would know better than me seeing as you have a map and all,” Y/N’s grin matched James’ and she started to walk down the hall. 

“Don’t you have twin telepathy or something?! Just use that and tell me where she is!” 

“Bye, Potter!” Y/N called over her shoulder while walking towards McGonagall’s office. She remembered vaguely that Sirius had a career counseling session with her today, so she figured that the small chance of bumping into him there would be worth her while. 

Y/N pattered across the floor as quickly as possible without running. Thoughts swirled in her mind about what Sirius may need her for; they weren’t the closest of friends, nothing like him and the other marauders, but recently their relationship has grown rather flirty. Her stomach fumbled over itself as she thought of Sirius, but her feet only sped up towards the classroom. As Y/N rounded the corner, Sirius walked out of his meeting with his pearly white smile blinding all who could see it. 

“Oh, just the lady I’ve been looking for! Hello, darling,” Sirius said, walking down the hall with various papers clutched in his fingers. 

“Hello, Sirius. Career meeting?” Y/N asks with a subtle gesture to the papers. He waved the papers in the air with a dramatic flourish. Each paper held some grand title about being an Auror and going to the Auror Academy. 

“Good! Apparently Dumbledore put in a good word for me, so the Order is recruiting me!” Sirius seemed to bounce on his heels, the rubber souls of his shoes squeaking on the wooden floors. 

“I’m so happy for you! Oh my god! Congratulations!!!” 

The grin on his face grew exponentially, “You know what would make my day even better?” 

Y/N hummed. 

“If you snuck into Hogsmede for a drink with me,” Sirius leans in to whisper in her ear. “Unless you’re too scared, of course.” 

Y/N sucked in a harsh breath through her nose in an attempt not to focus on his hair tickling her cheek, or how his lips almost brushed her ear. She cleared her throat and nodded. 

“Not scared if you’re not, I suppose,” Y/N croaked. “I’ve done it, like, a million times.” 

Sirius pulled his head away, making Y/N yearn for the smell of his shampoo. “I can think of one time, and you were latched onto my wrist the entire time, rambling about how we could get expelled for skipping class.” 

A harsh red stained Y/N’s chest, cheeks, and ears, which only made Sirius’ smirk grow. 

“I was a different person then,” Y/N countered lamely. 

“Yeah? That was four months ago, love.” Sirius’ hands worked on his papers, folding them four times before shoving them into the pockets of his skinny jeans. Y/N’s eyes followed his teasing fingers, her gaze accidentally lingering on his pants. “Eyes up here, Y/N.” 

The boy made a small tsk noise, wrapped his arm around Y/N’s shoulders, and his hips swayed slightly as he started leading Y/N to the entrance to the Honeyduke’s cellar. His fingers found the bottom of her hair and started twirling it in and out of his middle and pointer fingers as if it were a cigarette. 

“I’m a different person than I was 4 months ago, aren’t you?” Y/N hesitantly snaked her arm under his leather jacket and wrapped around his waist. This was definitely further than they had ever gone in terms of flirting, and Y/N couldn’t wait for more. 

“Perfect four months ago, and perfect now.” Sirius laughed playfully placing a big kiss on Y/N’s temple. “I’m just taking the piss, love.” He turned to the statue blocking the tunnel and said the secret password. “Ladies first, darling.” 

Y/N hesitantly walked into the dark tunnel and cast a simple lumos charm; the damp pathway illuminated in front of the two teens before twisting into the darkness. Sirius returned to his spot next to Y/N and began to lead her down the path. 

“So, I was wondering,” Sirius began, kicking a rock into the wall. Y/N noticed this was a habit of his. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” 

Y/N snuggled into his side, the warm cotton of the inside of his leather jacket brushing her soft skin. 

“And we’re graduating soon…” Sirius let his voice trail before pulling lightly on Y/N’s hair so she would meet his gaze. “And I was wondering if you wanted to spend some special one on one time with me after we graduate?” 

“Special one on one time? Like,” Y/N took a deep breath and took a leap into the unknown. “Hooking up? Is that what you mean?” 

Sirius chuckled lightly, “Not exactly, but I guess that would be a part of it,” Sirius’s cheeky smile was illuminated by the light of Y/N’s wand. “I mean becoming official. I know there’s something between us, and I know you feel the same way, so it makes sense.”

“So, you’re asking me to be your girlfriend?” 

“Precisely. Will you be my girlfriend?” Sirius stopped walking and looked at the girl under his arm. She smiled happily and lightly punched his stomach. 

“I can’t believe you asked me out in the middle of a dark tunnel!” She laughed happily and brought her arms up to his neck to hug him. 

“Hey! I thought it was a good place! Is that a yes, babygirl?”  

“Yes, you idiot, I’ll go out with you!” 

~

Sirius and Y/N’s relationship blossomed quickly after the tunnel; after graduation, they moved into a small flat right in the middle of London’s hustle and bustle. Sirius loved to go out and explore every inch of the city with his girl, which usually resulted in a lot of adventures and long nights. During these times, the couple really took the time to grow their relationship and become closer as a pair. 

Sirius proposed to Y/N in the middle of an ice skating rink on December 13th, 1978. It was perfect; the snow was floating down, gracefully sticking to Sirius’ hair and eyelashes, soft Christmas music was playing in the background and the entire atmosphere of the event was magical. It was a rather simple proposal, but it was more than enough for Y/N. The couple then had a stunning double Summer wedding with the Potters. 

Sirius did amazing in the Order, which Y/N later found out all the marauders had joined. Y/N grew used to Sirius being gone during the nights and coming back injured; this was something she would never wish on her worst enemy. The anxiety-ridden nights and the unbearably silent flat took a toll on Y/N’s mental health. The only thing that got her through these was her twin sister, who was in the same situation. 

The two girls often spent these lonely nights together in attempts to share the burden. The two waited into the early morning nights for something, anything, to ease their tired minds and let them know their boys were safe. Usually, one would send a patronus message or Remus would reach out with cryptic plans and whereabouts. Still, this didn’t completely resolve the paranoia in their minds. 

Sirius and James noticed this early on in their new careers. Sirius suggested they invite the two to join the Order, as you didn’t need to be an Auror to join. But, James disagreed with this idea because Lily was his world and he didn’t want her to get hurt. Without Lily, there was no James and he couldn’t risk losing her. Sirius countered that he felt that way about Y/N too, but keeping the two women in the dark was just harming their relationships and causing a mental decline in all four. It took some convincing, but James finally agreed. Thus, Lily and Y/N joined the Order. 

The two were brilliant additions to the group; both were extremely talented witches and they were beyond smart. They quickly grew to be vital members and went on increasingly more dangerous missions as time went on. The two were an unstoppable pair, and their near-identical looks only proved to be an advantage. That was until Lily got hurt. 

Lily and Y/N were on a mission to stop a group of death eaters from invading a small muggle village just outside of Cardiff. Lily got caught between the crossfire of two wizards and had a huge chunk of flesh taken out of her leg. Y/N had to make an emergency backup call and the two were apperated back to headquarters. That’s when James and Lily decided as a couple that Lily was not going to go on any more missions. 

Y/N, however, only increased the amounts of missions she went on. Specifically, she was after one person in particular.

“I don’t care, Y/N, you can’t go,” Sirius pleaded angrily from the couch. “You can’t go on a mission every day of the week. Just one night, love. Stay with me for one night.” Sirius stood and walked to Y/N, wrapping his arms around her waist and placing a kiss on her forehead. 

“Babe, I am so close to capturing Bellatrix and putting her in Azkaban. Please, I have to go.” Against her better judgment, Y/N placed her head on his chest. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in her husband’s arms and let his soft voice lure her cramped body to sleep. Y/N noticed she seemed to be more fatigued lately, but she placed blame on her heavy work schedule.

 “I need you here, with me, baby. Between your schedule and mine, I barely see you. I miss you.” Sirius’ hands massaged her hips as they talked, all anger and annoyance disappearing from his voice. 

“How about this, we both take the next two or three days off and lounge around here together.” Y/N pulled away from Sirius’ warm, inviting body and began to gather her things. “Please try to get some sleep tonight, I’ll be home by dawn.” 

“I promise, my dear. I love you so much.” 

A ghost of a smile played on Y/N’s lips. “I love you more.” 

~

Sirius was awoken by James’ magnificent stag patronus entering the flat to find him. Rubbing his eyes and sitting up, unable to distinguish what words James’ voice was repeating. Sirius looked at the clock: 12:45 am.

“Can you repeat that?” Sirius’ voice was gruff with sleep.

“Pads, there’s been an accident. You need to get to headquarters immediately, it doesn’t look good. We need you to make some calls.” James’ voice was filled with more panic than Sirius had ever heard in his life, and there was the faint sound of a woman crying in the background. The patronus disappeared as Sirius jumped up and magically changed into some clothes. 

“Thank merlin you’re here,” James pulled Sirius’ arm into the next room once he appeared. He had blood splattered on his face. 

Upon entering the room, everything started to fade. Y/N was laid on the floor, a large gash in her shoulder and head, with healers all around her preforming different spells and CPR.  To her left sat Lily, her fingers coated in the red substance and gripping Y/N’s cold hand. She was crying, more like sobbing, while she watched the healers work on her sister. Sirius didn’t know whether he wanted to cry, puke or faint. All three, his body screamed.

 On the outside, no emotion covered Sirius’ face and he stood frozen near the door. He felt as if he was watching the situation happen from outside his body, almost like he was playing a video game or watching a movie. 

“She’s not going to make it!” One of the healers yelled, preforming compressions on her chest. The healer to his right, who was working on the head gash, cursed loudly and punched the floor. 

“She’s going to make it, god damn it! I’ll be damned if she doesn’t!” 

James nudged Sirius with his elbow, and his soul felt as though it returned to his body. Jumping to her side, he grabbed Y/N’s hand and squeezed. 

“Y/N, I love you so much,” Sirius said through his suffering. 

Her gorgeous green eyes that were focused on Lily rolled to see him and her lips mouthed, “I love you too, Sirius.” 

Sirius swore a smile ghosted her lips as her eyes closed and a final gasp exited her lips. 

~

Sirius stood in front Y/N’s grave in a slightly wrinkled black suit.

 The funeral service had been beautiful; all of Y/N’s friends, family, and casual acquaintances had been in attendance. Her close friends spoke of her adventures and funny stories, her family spoke of her character and strong will, and her professors spoke of her intelligence and quick wit. It didn’t click for Sirius that she was really gone until Minerva McGonagall had asked him how he was holding up, and if there was anything she could do to help. Sirius had responded that no, there was nothing she could do and that he was currently staying at the Potters’ for company. 

Sirius looked at the grave in front of him; it was littered with flowers, chocolate, and everything in between. He looked to his side and found Lily, staring down at Y/N next to him. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, and her nose was rubbed raw. 

“I could have saved her, you know. I was trying to talk her out of going. I should have tried harder.” Sirius mumbled, his voice cracking every other word. 

“This isn’t your fault, Sirius. You couldn’t have done anything,” Lily sniffled. She had no tears left, but if she did, she would be crying. 

Sirius takes in a big gulp of air and stares down at the grave in silence. 

“This might not be the right time,” Lily took a deep breath and looked at her friend. His eyes were dry and his nose wasn’t red, but Lily knew how hard he cries at night when he thought James and Lily were asleep. “But you need to know.” 

“Need to know what?” 

Lily paused for a moment before reaching in her bag and pulling something out. 

“When James went to your flat to grab your clothes, um, he found this in the bathroom.” 

Sirius reaches out his hand for Lily to hand him the mysterious object. 

It was a muggle pregnancy test. A positive muggle pregnancy test.  ~~~

General Taglist: @petalevans @modern-m-a-g-i-c​ Harry Potter x Reader Taglist: @strangerpilot011 join my taglist!

[gay-jesus-probably]

Hey book rec for anyone that's into hard sci fi, I just read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and it was incredibly good; I stayed up until 3-4 in the morning reading it two days in a row, it's really damn engaging.

It's also dark as fuck - the story begins with the moon exploding, for reasons that are never explained, because after the first week everybody realizes they have much bigger problems. Namely with the remnants of the moon, which initially start out as seven big fuckoff chunks hanging out where the moon used to be... but then they start bumping in to each other and breaking, and that collision sends a lot of pieces closer to Earth's orbit. That's a problem, because the more pieces the moon is split into, the more likely those pieces are to collide with each other, which makes more debris, which makes more collisions... it's a vicious cycle. And only a small amount of those bolides end up hitting the earth! ...But exponential growth means eventually they pass the point of no return where the debris cloud around earth is breaking apart fast enough to cover the planet (called the White Sky), and after a few days of white sky the Hard Rain begins, and the combined force of all those bolide meteors burning up at the same time literally sets Earth's atmosphere on fire, scorching the planet and rendering it uninhabitable for the next five thousand years.

They figure this out at the end of the first week. The Hard Rain begins 701 days after the moon explodes. They've got time. And pretty much all of that is spent with humanity throwing all of its resources into building the Cloud Ark, using the ISS as a base to try and construct a viable space colony (though plans to survive by going underground and underwater get throwaway mentions). It's an interesting take on it too; when the Hard Rain begins, the population of the Cloud Ark is 1552, but less than 200 of them actually live on the ISS full time; the majority live in Arklets, little pods that grow their own food and can hold a few people each, and can connect to each other to form groups or to stimulate gravity by spinning around each other like a bolo. At any given time, about 10% of them are docked with the ISS, restocking supplies and letting their crews socialize with the general population. Despite that, there's... rifts. Entirely caused by one fucking person playing politics and manipulating the Arkies into accepting her as a leader for no real reason except her being traumatized by escaping Earth at the last minute and trying to feel safe by taking control of the situation, justifying it to herself as she goes. Or maybe just her being a piece of shit, it's all just guesswork from the protagonists aboard the ISS, and by the time they get to the point of being able to sit down and properly talk with the troublemaker, things are so turbofucked that things like motives and past actions genuinely do not matter anymore.

Aand I'm not going to spoil any more of that. The book is split into three parts; part 1 begins with the moon exploding, and ends with the Hard Rain, part 2 begins right after that with the Cloud Ark trying to put together and enact a long term plan for survival, while dealing with frequent problems caused by both the hazards of space, and the Arkies becoming increasingly rebellious and hostile towards The Man (aka the general population on the ISS), and ends three years later with the remaining survivors succeeding in reaching a safe place to land the ISS for good, and coming to an agreement about their long term plans for humanity. Part 3 is... sorta weird and tbh I kinda skimmed it; it's set five thousand years later, where the Earth is returning to a habitable state, helped along by deliberate terraforming from the space colonists, and then discovering that those throwaway plans from part 1 for going underground and underwater both succeeded off screen, and five thousand years later their descendants are starting to move back up to the surface. The third part is more slice of life, showing how humanity has survived and changed, as well as the Spacers, Diggers and Pingers (descendants of survivors from space, underground, and underwater respectively) figuring out how to communicate with each other, and realizing the connections some of their ancestors shared with each other.

As you can guess by the whole apocalypse thing, it gets pretty fucking grim, both in part 1 with people trying to face the imminent apocalypse with relative dignity, and in part 2 with the already tiny population slowly shrinking as more and more people die off. But the novel is undercut with moments of hope (or even just joy) as people work together and find reasons to live in each other, along with the incredible sacrifices people make just to try and ensure humanity has a chance at a future. Plus the whole looming apocalypse/aftermath of apocalypse thing is broken up with occasional exposition dumps explaining stuff like the finer points of orbital mechanics, which is really damn interesting if you're a space nerd like I am.

Anyways 10/10 would recommend reading it if you're cool with the depressing setting; just googling Seveneves PDF turns up a page full of results to read it for free, so it's super easy to find.

[what-the--curtains]

Alliance

Chapter 5 – The Outsiders

(Mando x f!reader)

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

Summary: A new lead brings you to a new planet where you search for any trace of the child. Unable to locate him the two of you stop in at a Cantina and when a fight brings the two of you to a hotel new information comes to light, and not just about the childs whereabouts

Notes:Happy new year! Hope your all treating yourself and others with kindness! As always thank you for the likes and shares❤️❤️

TW:swearing, drinking, mentions of drug use/abuse

Tagged: @crazycookiecrumbles

Word count: 6.3K

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

Nar Shaddaa, Hutt Space, S-12

Exiting the ship you take in your new surroundings. The city was highly technological; filled with high speed trains, sky scrapers, constant noise and the richest and poorest members of the galaxy. It was a true Ecumenopolis and there’s no mistaking that you’re out of your element in it.

“You’re right.” You remark, causing Din to look over to you “I do hate it.”

“Here” he says, handing you a set of knives to go with the blaster he’d previously gifted you. “Bow and arrow would stand out and it’s best we blend in.” You take them, concealing the blades in the sleeves of your cloak.

“Anya, stay close” you whisper, pulling up the hood so as to shield the majority of your face from any passersby. The likelihood of you being recognized was exponentially higher than it had been during previous visits and anonymity was something that needed to be taken seriously here. Anya sniffs at the polluted air, miraculously picking up the child's scent in minutes.

The two of you pursue her with heads down, maneuvering through the crowded sidewalk lining the busy highway where speeders rip up and down the tarmac towards their destinations. She leads you off the main road and down a side street backlit by the various neon hues radiating off the signs attached to the strip of cantinas and clubs. Anya sits down and you and the Mandalorian exchange a look of confusion.

“There's no way the kid’s in a strip club,” he states.

“Ya I figured,” you snap back, the unintended harshness catching you off guard, “the water must have washed off some of the scent”

“What does that mean for our plans?” he queries.

“It means they just got more difficult.” You reach out through the force hoping the child may have caused a ripple in it recently, you can feel he’s one the planet, but there’s nothing to suggest his whereabouts. The situation wasn't being helped by the intermittent noise coming from the groups of intoxicated people moving between bars. You let out a groan of frustration causing a few nearby garbage cans to rattle and fall over subsequently startling a couple who were making out near them.

“C’mon, let’s find a cantina, cool off, maybe someone’s seen the scavengers that ambushed the base.” he offers, not wanting any more attention drawn to the two of you.

“Best idea you’ve ever had Mando.” You say, slapping him on the shoulder as he escorts you into one of the many cantinas lining the streets of the city.

The club was packed full of creatures from all across the galaxy. You’d seen places like this before, having even been inside them on more than one occasion. Sometimes clients wanted to take the gladiators out to show them off as a demonstration of power and wealth. The clubs were usually loud with dark corners, expensive drinks, illicit drugs and company you could pay for.

This place was no exception and honestly you’re surprised the Mandalorian had set foot in the cantina, you thought this would have quantified a den of sin to him and his creed. You push through the crowded dance floor taking a booth in a far corner in an attempt to disappear into the background. This task was helped by the dim lighting, loud music and general drunkenness of the patrons.

“What do you want?” you ask, pulling your hood down, feeling confident no one would recognize you.

“I don’t drink in public,” he explains taking a seat.

“And I don’t drink alone” you state, staring down at him.

“When was the last time you had to drink alone?” he asks. If it wasn't for everything you knew about his personality you would have thought that was some kind of line. Unfortunately, you must have been speaking too loud as your statement had drawn the attention of a nearby Balosar.

“Well I can make sure that doesn’t happen” the Balosar slurs clumsily placing a hand on your hip and moving his groin too close to your ass for your, or Dins liking.

“I wasn’t talking to you leave” you state calmly, and the man releases you walking off as if nothing happened, before the Mandalorian could even formulate his next move.

“Here’s the deal, I'll drink if you tell me about that trick of yours” he offers, watching the Balosar disappear back into the crowd.

“Deal” you say, turning to the bar. You make your way over through the mass of what we’re likely criminals or the ultra-rich, though oftentimes they fall hand in hand. This club didn’t smell like the lowbrow places you’d been to early on in your career, no it had that perfumed soaked scent of a millionaires mansion trying to masquerade the smell of fraud and blood that built it.

“Hey can I get two retsas, one with a long straw” you shout over the synthetic music blaring throughout the club to the Togruta bartender. You rest your elbows on the counter leaning forward, biting gently on your thumb as you turn your head, gazing over the crowd to where the Mandalorian was sat, absentmindedly stroking Anya’s head.

“Here ya are love” the bartender says, you turn back around to face her smiling as you hand her the credits and take the drinks back to the table.

“What’s this?” Din asks, picking up the straw slightly.

“Straw.” You say as if it’s obvious, taking a sip of your own beverage as you pull back into the booth “you can stick it up under your helmet. Then no one has to see your face”

“So how do you do that.” He asks referring to your ability to seemingly send people away.

“Do what?” you ask innocently, causing him to push the drink away,

“Fine.” you say, and he pulls it back towards him “the truth is I don’t really know how it works. Just does”

“Like magic” he states, maneuvering the straw under the helmet.

“Not a witch” you return, watching some of the liquid drain from his glass.

“The kid can heal can you?”

“No, I never learnt, I think only certain Jedis can. My specialities lie elsewhere.”

“Like the mind tricks.”

“Amongst other things but mind tricks are the simplest. Heads are easily influenced afterall.”

“Jedis'' he laughs audibly. It was the first time you’d heard him do so and you were taken aback by how pleasant it was. Sometimes it was easy to forget a human being was underneath all the metal.

“Why are you laughing? They exist.” you say smiling, still caught up in his laugh.

“I know I’ve met three now. I just think it’s funny that the kid is more qualified than you” He jokes. Your mouth opens, somehow feeling both admired and insulted by the man sat across from you.

“Say aren’t you a Mandalorian” a passerby interrupts

“No he’s not.” You say, sending him on his way with a flick of your wrist.

“You have to teach me how to do that.”

“You just have to put your mind between a state of complete serenity and complete control. Once you tap in, it’s easy enough to use, but you have to keep at it, it’s a skill and it's remarkably easy to lose.” You say gesturing for him to continue drinking. “Well that and a genetic predisposition for force-sensitivity.”

“Oh seems very easy,” he says.

“Well if it’s easy enough for a child to do.” You return.

“Did you use it to get the upper hand on me when we first met?”

“Maybe.” you respond finishing the last of your drink, only just noticing how lightheaded you were. It has been a while since you’d had a proper drink, but even so being this much of a lightweight wasn’t something you wanted the Mandalorian to know about.

“But you don’t use it all the time?” he prompts.

“No, not always safe. That why I was kept on Vryssa. Guess the empire, or ex-empire or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves these days, were hunting down any remaining Jedi” you explain, lightly tapping your fingernails along the empty glass.

“Can you choke people?” he asks, causing you your eyebrows to raise involuntarily.

“Only if they buy me dinner first,” you quip, watching as he finishes the last of his drink evidently not bothered by what you had just said “ but yes, I try not too unless absolutely necessary.”

“The kid tried it on Cara once.” he says laughing for the second time that evening.

“Fuck,” you snort, partially coughing up your drink “what’d she do?”

“She was beating me in an arm wrestling match.” he chuckles, more so at the sound you had just emitted than anything else.

“So you also need a kid to help you win an arm wrestling match?” you tease.

“Don’t start with me, I’d snap your arm like a twig if we went at it.” Did he know how what he was saying sounded? If so, what was he hoping to achieve by it? He’s about to ask another question when you put a finger up “More drinks” you say scooting out of the seat and making your way back over to the bar.

“Back so soon?” the bartender asks

“Drinking’s a specialty of mine” you say with a smile “Same as before please”

“Of course” she wipes her hands on a towel before heading back to make the order. You rock back and forth on your heels until she returns, but not with the drinks.

“If you’re looking for something stronger” she offers, pulling out a packet of what you recognize as spice. You’d done your fair share of it in the early days of the arenas. Trainers used it to control their more unruly fighters, and you found yourself falling under that classification more often than not. It had also come in handy when you had to deal with some of the less pleasing clients who were paying for your services. After you made it to the big times you were weaned off it by San who couldn’t have you overdosing and losing him money. Your hand reaches out for it but you stop yourself, knowing if you took it the Mandalorian would find out and you’d lose his trust. Something which you hadn’t realized mattered so much to you.

“I’m good for now, thanks though” she nods putting it back and returning with your drinks “If you change your mind, names Ynre come find me” you smile grabbing the drinks and moving back through the crowd. Sitting down you decide it's your turn to ask a question.

“How did you know I was a tracker?” you slide the drink towards him and he catches it with ease.

“ A bartender told me you’d helped him find his daughter, I thought you were isolated from the rest of the world.”

“Living has its cost even if you're off the grid” you begin “we needed credits as well, we offered our services to find those who had been taken, most of the time, all memory would be removed before they returned to the real world.”

“Why did you let him remember.”

“Somethings need to remembered, so they don’t happen again” you say, absentmindedly moving your index finger around the rim of the glass

“What’s it like.” He asks “Being one with the galaxy.”

“Pretty uneventful until you showed up in my life.” you say pointing a finger at him as you take another swig.

“Well I can’t imagine anything much happening on Vryssa. Is there anything on that planet except for mud and trees.”

“Some people like the mud and trees, it’s the poverty that stops most people from staying long. Mining isn’t the industry it once was.”

“So that’s what the planet is known for fuel?”

“That and the most hangings during the war, tall trees make for excellent gallows.” Having finished another round of drinks you go to stand up again, hoping when you went back you wouldn’t be offered the spice again. You weren’t sure you’d be able to deny it a second time.

“I’ll get the next ones'' he says standing up. You sit back down, breathing out a sigh of relief as you watch him walk over to the bar. As he reaches the counter you watch him order placing his hand on the bar turning to talk to a Twi’lek, Arkanian and human who had appeared around him. You take note of the body language, it’s plain to see what their intentions were.

Whether it was for the armour or something else you weren’t sure, but there was no denying the Mandalorian had something about him that made him undeniably attractive, even if his face was hidden. He allows a few of them to trace their hands over his armor, the helmet disabling you from gauging what he was thinking. As you watch the scene unfold you smile to yourself finding it somewhat amusing, but at the same time you feel a knot form in your stomach. You brush it off as you see him returning back to your table.

“Armour kinks really a thing then?” you ask nodding your head to the women who were still staring at him from the bar, as he hands you a drink.

“You have no idea,” he says,sitting back down. So he was experienced, you hadn’t been sure what his creed had said about sex. Your mind drifts back to the cave, causing you to wonder what else was going on under that armour. It was hard to say you wouldn’t if the opportunity presented itself, not that it ever would, most days you were unsure if he was even indifferent towards you and vice versa.

“Any more questions” you ask, freeing yourself from your thoughts, which you chalked up to the alcohol, not enough sleep and too much time alone.

“Are you sleeping?” you're taken aback by this question, why had he asked that. Noticing your concern he continues “When you fall asleep in front of me it’s hard not to notice the night terrors. You ask for me in your sleep. Do you know that? ” You did, but the nightmares were none of his business.

“Well if it’s your name I’m saying it really must be a nightmare, either way I couldn't tell you about them if I wanted to” you lie, hoping your smile would snuff out any suspicions.

“Are they about the fighting rings?” he asks, a sense of guilt hanging in the air.

“No, those stopped a few weeks in” You mumure, refusing to make eye contact with the helmet. He’s about to press for more information when a group of Zabrak walk in. You hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten and trouble usually starts after 1am.

“We should leave, gangsters and you’re too drunk to be of any use.”

“Shut up” you say, downing the last of your drink and cocking your head as if you had just proven some kind of point before pulling your hood back up. As you stand your foot gets caught in your cloak and you stumble. With one strong arm he stops you yet again from plummeting forward, catching your waist just in time.

“I’m not drunk, I just tripped!” you exclaim, trying and failing at hiding a smile as you stare up at him. If it wasn’t for the helmet you’d have seen the grin that had been plastered on Dins face for most of the evening as well. The two of you are almost out the door when you feel someone pull your hood down. The culprit, a tall, handsome man, has moved in front of you, blocking your exit.

“The huntress, you got out,” he exclaims moving towards you causing you to take a step back.

“You have the wrong person” you lie, trying to move past him but he steps in front of you again.

“I wouldn’t forget you, not after what we did,” he looks from you up to the Mandalorian “She’s worth every penny you spent Mando, the best,”

“She says she doesn’t know you. Now move.” Din interjects, succinctly cutting him off. You try again to move towards the door but once again the man steps in front of you.

“C’mon for old times’ sake.” He goes to pull you into him. Tiring of the interaction you drop down one of the knives with an aim of shanking him. Before you can, you hear the distinct sound of metal against skin as Dins fist connects with the man's face, knocking him out.

“Let’s go” he says, pulling your hood back up and ushering you quickly out the door, having now gained the attention of the group at the bar.

“Someone’s following us” you whisper, as Anya begins to emit a low growl. “bounty hunters. Five of them, I can take two if you get the rest.” Without looking at each other the two of you turn, in sync, to face your stalkers.

“Quite a bounty on you two.” One shouts, spitting out chew onto the street, “between the underground, the empire and the gladiators you’re the galaxy’s most wanted duo.”

“Walk away. While, you still can.” the modulated voice says as Din moves his cloak back, revealing the blaster at his side.

“Five versus a drunk Mandalorian and a girl. I like our odds. You don’t mind sharing do you Mando, we like to try the merchandise before we” The lead Zabrak drops to the ground before he can finish his sentence. One of your knives embedded deep in his throat you maintain eye contact with the other four Zabrak as their leader sputters out the last of his breaths. They draw their weapons and an array of blaster shots sound throughout the alleyway until only two of you remain standing,

“You okay?” The Mandalorian asks, giving you a once over.

“Ya, but you’re not.” You say gesturing to the knife currently lodged deep in his side. He reaches up to pull it out.

“Don’t,” you exclaim, grabbing his hand in yours, causing him to look down at you. You quickly release it, worried you may have just crossed a personal boundary. “ It needs to be removed carefully, it’s close to a vein. If you take it out you could bleed to death before we can patch it up.” you explain quickly. “C’mon there’s got to be a place around here somewhere.” The good news was there was a hotel in sight as you turned the corner, but the bad news was that it was upscale. Security would be increased and the knife currently embedded in the Mandalorian would stick out like a sore thumb.

Noting Din’s slowing pace, and aware of the knife's close proximity to a vein and how more movement could dislodge it, you opt to head into the hotel. You enter through the high reaching, stained glass doors depicting what appeared to be a ball of sorts. You sit the Mandalorian down in an armchair near one of the romanesque pillars lining the foyer, hoping to obscure him from the front desk.

Leaving Anya with him you make your way towards the desk, fortunately, due to the late hour late the lobby was essentially vacated. You look up, making eye contact with the concierge as you do, you pull down your hood hoping it would make you appear less threatening. You realize your error when you see a look of panic plastered on his face, likely caused by the flecks of blood marking your hands, neck and face. You see his hand reach for the phone. You make it to him as he's dialing, placing a finger on the hook switch ending the call before it starts.

“Please, we were ambushed on our way back from town, I’m here on a trip for my father. He's an ambassador, the Mandalorian is my bodyguard. We need a room, we can pay any price.” You plead apparently convincingly enough for him to place the phone back down on its receiver as he begins the process of checking you in.

“Seperate rooms I assume.” He says inputting the information

“No ones fine” you say. Noticing the look of judgment coming from the concierge, you continue “He doesn't sleep.”

“Don’t worry, everything here is kept very secret even from your father.”

“No... we… we’re not..” you decide to quit while you're ahead. He ends up offering you a cheaper rate for the room, you being an ambassador's relative and all.

“Thank you” you say sincerely as he hands you the key.

“How’d you manage that?” Din asks upon your arrival

“What can I say I’m an impressive negotiator” Helping him slowly to the elevator, looking back to the concierge offering him a look of thanks once again.

“You sure are.” he says as the elevator doors close, reopening again on the 21st floor.

“Not bad,” you murmur, taking in the room as you sit him down on the king size bed. “I’m going to get some medical supplies, don’t take that knife out until I’m back, and try not to die.” you say, tossing him one of two room cards before exiting the room, descending in the elevator to the main floor and exiting back into the street with Anya at your side.

The two of you dart through the alleys the street lamps illuminate the puddles forming on the pavement beneath your feet. You turn into the first pharmacy with an open sign and begin gathering the necessary supplies from its shelves. One of the benefits of being on a planet run by crime lords was the availability of cheap, illegal and oftentimes more efficient medicines. You’re reaching for a bottle of Shesharile Vodka to use as an antiseptic when you feel something watching you. You turn just in time to see a black cloak disappear into the adjacent aisle.

You follow it over to the next aisle but it moves just out of your view. You carry on into the next aisle, then the next, following the shadow frantically until you reach the cashier who gives you a side eye suggesting to you that there was definitely no one else in the store. You pay for the supplies and make your way back out into the rain which hits against your hood lightly. The soft padding helped to drown out the sense of foreboding that had been with you since you left the hotel. A nearby rib cat runs into a garbage can, making you jump. Startled, you look behind you, but there’s no one there. You shake your head, what was going on with you. It must just be the drink, or the lack of sleep.

You continue to tell yourself it’s just your imagination even when you hear your name whispered into your ear as you re-enter the hotel. Making a bee-line for the elevator you manically press the close door button, the elevator opens once you reach your floor and you swipe the key card. You rip the door open at the sound of the beep, briskly closing it behind you, chest heaving. Your panic worsens when you look to the bed and notice the Mandalorian was not where you had left him. Your eyes scan the room uncontrollably until you hear a faint buzzing coming from the bathroom. You swing the door open and look down to the floor where you see Din sitting. The knife lays next to him as he works at cauterizing his abdomen's broken skin back together. You bend over slapping his hand hard enough for it to retreat away from the wound.

“I said to leave the knife in.” You chastise stepping over him and squatting down to get a better angle of the gash.

“It’s fine, I've done this a hundred times,” he says nonchalantly, once again picking up the pen. After a few minutes of playing tug-of-war you manage to wrangle the cauterizer out of his hand taking it with you as you make your way back to supplies you’d bought. You pull the vodka and return to his side pulling the cork out with your teeth before applying a small amount of it to a towel.

“This might sting” you say as you wipe it against the lesion with gentle strokes. As you do he remains stoic, there’s not even a flinch. A notable sign of someone who was used to being in pain.

“I” he says, but you cut him off, preventing him from making a case for cauterization.

“Shut it, it could get infected, we have no idea where that knife has been. Plus stitches heal better than burns.” You state matter-of-factly, fetching the needle and thread from the supply bag.

Mandos POV

He can’t stop looking at your face as you stitch him back up, you were focused, but there was no sign of stress. You were calm, relaxed as if it was a second nature to you, something that was to be done absentmindedly. You must have done this before, maybe in the early days of fighting. Low brow gladiatorial battles were often messy and crude, you must have had your fair share of wounds when you were just starting off. His mind wanders to the comment you made about burnt wounds healing poorly. Had you seen the many that covered his body that night in the cave? Did you think he was hideous? Why did he care so much, seemingly all of a sudden?

“There. All done” you say, biting the string and applying some bacta to the now closed skin. As you stand up he notices a dark stain glistening through the back of your shirt.

“Wait,” he says quickly, trying to get your attention.

“What?” you ask, turning to face him still wiping his blood off your hands. He’s shocked you hadn’t noticed, based on the amount of blood the laceration was deep.

“You’re bleeding” he says, watching as you casually turn to look at your back.

“Come here” he says, taking another step towards you, concerned you don’t seem bothered by the news that you were bleeding profusely.

“I’m fine, it’s just a reopened old wound. I’ve had worse in the arena.” You say. Every time you brought up the arena, a twinge of guilt came over him. He wouldn’t let any harm come to you again, not while you were with him.

“Stop being stubborn.” He says. He’s about to grab you and force you down, but he rethinks his approach. Instead he places a leathered hand gently on your shoulder, turning you to face him.

“Let me help. Please.” This does the trick and he looks away as you remove your shirt which was now soaked through with blood. As you make your way over to the bed he sees the large open wound going up your back, it was red, swollen and bleeding. He puts some towels down on the bed and you lay down on your stomach. Upon closer inspection he notices the markings going up your spine. They were still prominent even amongst the healed over scars. His hand hover over the ancient scripture which matched up with those on your arms and face.

“Is it bad?” you ask, pulling him out of his trance and stopping him from tracing his fingers over your skin.

“Yes, it’s reopened a few times by the looks of it, did this ever heal?”

“Don’t know can’t reach back there” you mutter.

“It’s infected, it needs to be cleaned, and closed, it’s not deep but it’s too wide for stitches so it’ll have to be cauterized.”

“Just leave it. It’ll heal” you say pushing yourself up onto your elbows. He places a firm hand on your shoulder stopping you from fully extending upwards.

“Or it won’t and you’ll die and I’ll be back to square one.” He says, hoping it's enough to convince you to let him help you. He sighs a breath of relief when you lower yourself back down onto the towels. He positions himself over you, pouring some of the opened vodka into the lesion to cleanse it, noticing your back arch slightly as it does. He takes off one of his gloves, offering it to you.

“Bite down on this”

“This some kind of thing for you.” you ask, taking it from him.

“Or don’t cauterizing isn’t a walk in the park.” he says watching as you reluctantly place it in your mouth before turning your head back to face out the window overlooking the city below. Apparently it was a thing for him, but he shakes his head of any kind of desire in order to focus on the task at hand.

“This will hurt.”

Your POV

You feel the flame hit your skin, but you refuse to flinch, not wanting to appear weak in front of the Mandalorian. You remain still as he cauterizes your skin back together as the smell of burnt flesh fills the air around you. You find yourself wondering how high his tolerance for pain was, if he could essentially melt his skin back together without so much as a twinge. You found yourself exceedingly grateful for the leather which was likely stopping any noises being emitting unwillingly. He closes it up and you feel his hand go to your neck.

“I’m not dead” you say unmoving, your body was still in shock.

“You hadn’t moved in a while, I just wanted to make sure.” He says reaching for the salve,

“Leave it we may need it later.” You protest, but he ignores you, putting it over the wound, evidently not in the mood to argue with you. After a while you stand up and make your way to the mirror to check out his handiwork, not too shabby you think.

“Well now you’re not going to bleed out, you should get some rest” you say, throwing him his glove back before picking up your shirt and rinsing it out in the sink. You lay it out to dry over the radiator in the bathroom.

“You rest i'll take first watch” he says

“Seriously” you say emerging from the doorway “you lost a lot of blood.”

“I won’t be able to rest until the kid’s found.”

“No use to it if you're half asleep, off your game and get shot down one parsec in.” you retort. With that he accepts defeat and gets on top of the bed spreading out his legs and placing his hands behind his head. Careful not to disrupt Anya who was curled up on the bed's corner. You pour yourself a glass of the leftover vodka, swirling it around as you gaze out the window of the 21st floor. The city lights illuminate the sky as if it was daytime, you couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in such a place.

You gaze over to the Mandalorian, was he really asleep? He looked like he was, you’d never seen him splayed out like this before. Must be the only comfortable way of sleeping in all that clunky armour. You still couldn't wrap your head around how he kept it on all the time. Staring back out the window you imagine what life will be like once you’ve gotten the child back and you're free to lead a calmer life. After a few hours you hear the rustle of bed sheets. Turning your head you watch as the Mandalorian maneuvers off the bed with ease.

“Batteries recharged?” you joke, finishing the last of the vodka.

“I'm not an android” he replies, not having caught that it had been a joke. You make your way to the bed and get under the covers which were still warm from where he had been sitting a few moments ago. You rest your head back onto the pillows and shift to your side pulling the covers over your head to block out the lights of the city.

“What are you doing?” he ask

“I’m trying to get it dark enough to sleep.”

“I can close the curtains”

“And you'd just sit in a chair in the dark like some kind of weirdo?” he doesn’t respond after that and you doze off before another conversation can be started.

You wake up with the sun in your eyes, you must have de-cocooned yourself sometime during the night. Shit, you’d slept through the night. Not something you’d usually be upset at but you felt guilty for making Din take the majority of the watch.

“You should have woken me up, I would have taken another watch” you say sitting up in the bed and stretching your arms up to the sky, the tightness of the closed wound pulling slightly as you do.

“It seemed like a restful sleep. I figured you needed it.” You hop out of the bed and go to the bathroom pulling your blood stained shirt back on, muttering out a gross. The heat from the radiator had crusted the residue into the fabric.

“I’m gonna go get some towels from the front desk do you need anything” you ask scratching Anya’s ears and grabbing a room key. He shakes his helmet no.

You make your way to the desk, taking note of the assortment of well-dressed creatures moving throughout the lobby in the light of day. They stare as you pass through the lobby either disgusted by your bloodied appearance or suspicious of your intent.

“Must be a bounty hunter. I wonder if she has any idea what’s being auctioned off tonight. Should I ask” You overhear a woman ask as you pass by

“Good morning” a new concierge says.

“Morning, can I get some towels.” You ask, nonchalantly rifling through one of the many pamphlets littering the desk.

“Of course anything else madam?”

“ No, that's all thanks” you say, taking the towels. “actually yes this auction what’s that all about.”

“Oh yes the collector, he's having one tonight. Its location has been kept top secret. It changes each year to add to the excitement.” they explain.

“How would one go about getting an invite?” you implore, placing the towels back down on the counter.

“They usually find you. If you're rich, important or dangerous enough that is.” They say offering you a smile.

“Thanks” you say, formulating a plan the second you start your walk back to the elevator.

“I’m, so sorry” you say bumping into a woman who had been flashing around an invite when you had first entered the lobby. Slipping your hand into her shawl you grab the thin piece of paper pocketing it as she exclaims something along the line of how they're just letting anyone in these days.

As you re-enter the room you hear the shower turning off.

“You shower in that thing” you ask when the door opens.

“Not the towel.” He says “where are the clean ones?” he asks, tossing the bloodied fabric onto the floor.

“Got something better. A lead” you say throwing the invite on the table.

“We won’t get past the door, looking like this” he says. You hold up a finger and dial the front desk putting on the voice of the woman in the lobby.

“Hi it’s Mal Ytha” you say looking at the card, “the dress for tonight should be delivered to room 2108, yes its changed, thank you” you say hanging up the phone.

“How do you know it’ll fit?” he asks.

“She looked about my size.”

“If you’re planning on going in alone to get the kid, think again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, invites got a plus one which means you get to be my bodyguard.” This gets a laugh.

“What” you say, his laugh still taking you by surprise, its sound not quite matching up with the gruff Mandalorian you knew.

“ It’s just a funny thought, you needing a bodyguard.” He says as you open the knock at the door.

“Thank you”, you say, taking the towels and garment that had just been delivered by a member of the hotel staff.

“Shine up your armour princess, the event starts in an hour and its inner city, so we should probably drop our stuff back off at the ship before we head in ” He nods in agreement.

You get back to the ship and drop Anya off with the rest of your stuff, not willing to risk bringing her into another auction room. You change in the cockpit, the bathroom was too small and you didn’t want to devalue the constitution of the dress, afraid it may cause you to stand out. If the rich could spot anything it was someone masquerading as one of them. Fortunately your ability to guess proportions were right and the dress fit almost perfectly. Dins rearranging the armoury as you lower yourself down his helmet doing a double take when you enter into his line of sight.

“Don’t worry I can still run and fight in this thing if needed.” you say, assuming that’s why he had been staring for so long. Little did you know he was staring because he’d never seen something so beautiful in the entire galaxy. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.

“I’m not worried.” He says clearing his throat, trying to get a hold of himself.

“Good”, you say slipping the knives into the pants concealed beneath your dress.

“Shall we” you say, gesturing to the door in front of you.

[adhoption]

Game Theory

Being the kind of relaxed, easy-going guy I am, over the years of playing them I have developed a few theories over what makes a board or card game fun (because everyone loved inviting Socrates to parties).

Ability and chance

The first point is that there needs to be a balance between skill and luck. If a game is all about ability, the person who is best at that game will win it every time, and it becomes no fun for the rest. These games are then only good for pure competition, for people who each think they are the best and want to arm-wrestle it out. But like an arm-wrestle, they don’t have much repeat value. If I meet you and we wrestle, one of us will win, and then that question is settled. There is no real excitement in a rematch.

Chess is an example of this sort of game. If I want to be the best at chess, I can put the effort into training my ability, just as I could hit the weights for my arms, and eventually I could become better than more people, but that’s not really a game for casuals to enjoy. It only really works where you are competitive and evenly matched, which isn’t usually the case for a group of friends looking to have fun (after the fun of the first time). Games which just test knowledge or speed or whatever are the same. They aren’t open to everyone. There are games we play where I know I will always win, and games where I know I will never win, and neither are particularly compelling.

But I also can’t stand the opposite, where luck plays too large a part. Then you might as well just roll dice and cheer whoever gets the highest number. Games like Uno fall too far over this line for me: there is little choice to be made, little strategy, and your part could easily be played by a flow chart. You’re not playing a game, you’re just a vehicle for the cards to flow through on their pre-ordained path. You may as well all sit back and just have a dice-rolling or card-circulating machine and no players and watch it whirring on, as there is no connection between you and the points which have been arbitrarily assigned to your name.

Remaining competitive

The game also needs to remain open. This is one of the main reasons that I think Monopoly is broken as a game, other than the fact that it runs far too long: after a couple goes around the board, it’s often clear who is set up to win and who is set up to lose, because all of the good assets are assigned and it’s just a painful wait for the capital-rich players to generate enough rent to crush the capital-poor players into bankruptcy. 

If you miss out on the good properties, you already know that you can’t possibly win after a few rolls of the dice, but you have to keep playing for hours anyway, each turn going around the board of pain and giving away a little bit more of your money, then getting £200 back, then giving it away again, then getting another £200, and so on so you never quite go bankrupt and just limp out a pathetic existence just clinging on for survival turn after turn. 

That’s not fun. But neither is when I’ve played and ended up scooping a good portfolio of properties from a lucky first few rolls, and knowing fairly early on that I’ve won the game, but need to go through the whole process of counting out my money as I wait hours for their spirits to break and agree to forfeit the same. It just does not work. It was literally designed as a model demonstrate the despair of capitalism in that way, that those dealt a poor hand can never win, but it became marketed as a fun game for some reason.

This is linked to the above, because luck has played too large a part in the distribution of resources, which shapes the whole rest of the game. But you can also have this problem at the other end of the scale: games with too much strategy and ability are inevitable from the start. So you need an element of randomness in there, chess-with-dice, to keep it open, and an element of skill (because Monopoly is largely just rolling the dice, and Uno is largely just dealing the cards) to keep it engaging. 

But there is a difference between that openness (anyone can win!) from the start, and then keeping the game open throughout (it isn’t over until it’s over!), like the same principle over two different axes. You need mechanisms built into the game to keep things alive and scupper even the best strategies. Monopoly fails on both axes, whereas at least Uno can be a rollercoaster: you are stuck on a track you can’t change, but you can go down to one card early on but still lose, which keeps it at least interesting as an observer.

Free will

The weird thing about strategy is that it bothers me even if it is hypothetical. In chess, it feels like there is an objectively correct move to make, which weirdly then takes us to being stuck on the track, where you aren’t really required. To give another example, there is a game called Camel Up which is a world apart from chess, but shares the same problems. It’s a gambling game based on shifting probabilities, and there is therefore an objectively correct move to make each turn. 

If you worked it out, it would be easy to ‘solve’ the game and almost always win. But that takes too long to be fun for the other people, who will always pressure you to make your move before you can do the maths, and rightly so. That means you’re either rushed into doing some you know in your gut is wrong, which is frustrating, or you take so long that it ceases to be fun and just becomes an exercise in arithmetic where you each make the logical move and luck decides who wins. But just having the possibility of that option takes the fun away for me, because I know there is an answer, just beyond my reach, but have to pretend that I don’t.

There is some overlap with the above, but this is an area where the pure-strategy games become as bad as the pure-luck games, because they become too computerised and a 'you may as well sit back and watch a machine process the turns’ situation again. You need to have some element of choice, where you don’t know what the right choice to make is, because you have options which affect the game and their success is dependent on random elements and other people’s choices down the line.

The Goldilocks zone

I think that games like Pictionary or Cluedo are good under these metrics because they strike the right balance. There is an element of ability, but also luck, so you can’t over-strategise and can just relax and have fun, but you are still rewarded for playing well, and the game is kept exciting by that randomness until the end, as anyone could still overtake you even if you take the lead, even if they are worse, because of that nicely measured dose of luck.

Chess has more ability than luck, so you can over-strategise and someone worse than you is unlikely to have a chance. Uno has more luck than ability, so you can’t really play well and there is no reward for your choices. Monopoly is the same, except with the added failure that you know whoever takes the lead is probably going to win, because there is a mechanism where success builds success (like exponential growth or compound interest) which doesn’t make for a good game. Good games are open to everyone, are open throughout, and actually need you to play them to earn the win (with a small helping of chance).

[marwritesgood]

Secrets | O. Diaz

Pairing: Oscar x Martinez!Reader

Timeframe: Season 3 Episode 8

Summary: He tells her he’ll call, and he’s never broken a promise to her.

masterlist

A/N: I have too many thoughts on Season 3. So now I have too many fic ideas.

My parents and youngest siblings were out of the house, and my grandmother was on her own adventure somewhere via here station wagon. I took this as the opportunity to call my brother and his friends over and get them to spill the details about what they had been up to for the past few months.

Ever since Ruby came home at 11 o’clock at night, they had been acting secretive, Spooky included. After sticking my neck out for them when they were trying to clean the rollerworld money, I felt offended that they were hiding things from me again.

I was ready to bribe and torture them until they talked, but it was only a few minutes into the investigation and Ruby and Jamal were already squealing.

“- So now we have until July to find Lil’ Ricky before Cuchillos gets mad.”

Ruby and Jamal were breathing heavily after detailing everything that happened. Meanwhile, Monse and Cesar were glaring at them both for having such little will power.

“You mean to tell me,” I began, crossing my arms and knitting my eyebrows together. Ruby shrunk back down to his, knowing what was about to happen. “That you’ve been in the middle of a gang-affiliated vendetta for the past few months and I’m just only hearing about this now?! And after I helped you with the rollerworld money and convinced Spooky to help Cesar.”

Guilt washed over all four of their faces because they knew I was right. They recruited Jasmine and Oscar’s help almost as soon as they were tasked with the job, but left me in the dark until the very end. Ruby, having looked significantly more flushed than the others, stared down at his shoes as he spoke to defend the four of them.

“Oscar made us keep it from you,” he stated, voice trembling with fear, because he knew the kind of conflict this would create. Perhaps he hated the idea of me being mad at him more than he hated the thought of me being mad at Spooky.

“He did what?”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Just as his name was brought up in the conversation, a loud knock on the front door sounded throughout the living room area. Ruby’s eyes widened with horror, having become familiar with sound of Spooky’s knock from all the times he’d come over when my parents weren’t around.

It wasn’t until I opened the door that the other three caught on and sunk into their seats in terror. I was glaring at Oscar the moment I opened the door to him, but he was clueless, smiling like a fool because we hadn’t seen each other in a few days. When he glanced over my shoulder and saw the kids, however, he began to piece together what had happened.

“You have some explaining to do,” I stated bluntly, making my way back to where I stood in the living room- leaving Oscar to follow me inside without the traditional kiss we’d share as a greeting. “All of you do... So start talking.”

“You told her?”

“It was Ruby!” Jamal held his hand out and pointed at my brother, whose eyes somehow grew wider than they already were. I saw Oscar inhale deeply, flaring his nostrils while doing so, in the corner of my eye.

“She tortured it out of me! I’m not made of stone,” my brother retorted.

“All she did was yell at us,” Monse stated.

“Oh, you do not know my sister,” Ruby said defensively, holding his finger out in Monse’s direction. “The last time I made her that angry, she shaved one of my eyebrows off in my sleep, I wasn’t gonna take my chances-”

“Hey!” Spooky was glaring at all four of them, still unimpressed that they told me about what happened. “You four have done enough. Cesar, take ‘em and leave.”

One word was enough for Cesar to know what Oscar wanted him to do. He lances over at the other three, before getting up and heading towards the front door. They stood and followed him out, most likely to meet up again at Spooky’s house to discuss more plans behind my back.

I had grown tired of trying to avoid being kept in the dark, so I let them leave. Not to mention, it was Oscar who kept them from telling me what was happening, so it was him who I was mostly angry at.

“I can’t believe you, Spooky,” I scoffed, a beat after the door slammed shut and the kids were out of earshot. “You told them not to tell me? What the hell?!”

“I didn’t wanna get you involved,” he reasoned. 

That was his reasoning for almost everything. I understood matters concerning the Santos. I understood the deals that went down between them and the prophets. Each of the jobs he had to do here and there because of it. But this wasn’t like that, and he knew it.

“So you don’t think I have a right to know when my brother’s in danger?” I placed my hand on my hip and waited two seconds for him to say something. When he didn’t, I beat him to it. “Since when do we keep shit like this from each other?”

He sighed when I brought that up. I knew that wasn’t what he meant to do, but that didn’t change the fact that Ruby was in danger and he kept it from me. He shoves his hand in his pocket, and I could already sense that he was about to say something stupid.

“You took Cesar in last summer without telling me.” 

My eyes grew wide in frustration, and my mouth fell open. Spooky caught on almost instantly that bringing that up was doing the opposite of helping his argument, but that didn’t stop me from making it absolutely clear to him.

“So what? Because I didn’t want Cesar to sleep on the streets, it makes it okay for you to hide things about my brother from me?” Again, I waited a few seconds for Spooky to response, but there was nothing he could say. On the other hand, I still had a lot to get off my chest. “How would you feel if Cesar was in danger and I made sure you didn’t know about it?”

“Okay,” he sighed, his cheeks flushed because this was a rare moment; me scolding him. And about the protection of our brothers, of all things. “I get what you’re saying.”

 “Oh do you?” I said sarcastically. 

“Y/n,” Oscar reached for my hand, and I knew what he was doing. My boyfriend had so much charm. It had gotten him out of a lot of grudges and arguments, but not this one.

“Don’t,” I shrieked, yanking my hand away from him and stepping back. “- touch me. I’m really mad at you right now, Oscar... And I am so sick of you keeping shit from me. I’m so sick of watching the people I love be put in danger, and have no clue about what’s going on.”

He keeps his head down, and I know he’s caught on. This wasn’t the first time he kept important things from me. When Ruby was shot, I had no it was Latrelle who did it until Jamal told me at the hospital. When Mario was getting targeted by a group of Prophets, I didn’t find out until he came home bloody and bruised. When he was sent to prison, I didn’t find out until Cesar came knocking on my door with tears streaming down his face.

“I know you do it because you’re trying to look out for me,” I cried. As much as I enjoyed winning an argument, I didn’t scold Oscar to make him feel bad for doing what he genuinely thought was the right thing. “But it hurts more when I have to find out this way.”

Silence fills the air for an uncomfortable amount of time. I watched Spooky stare at the ground as he thinks something through in his mind. 

“I’m handling it today,” he began, as finally looked up at me, his expression less stoic than its natural state. “Cuchillos... she’s taking a meeting she’s not walking out of. I’m gonna make damn sure of it.”

I could help but let out a sigh of relief. Even after the kids told me about their task to find Lil’ Ricky, they wouldn’t budge on talking about the rest of the plan. It felt good to know what was happening for once.

However the danger of the situation became alarming aware to me as I continued to process. I was beginning to empathise with Spooky as to why he kept things from me. The hurting was inevitable.

“Hey,” he whispered, after noting the tears brimming in my eyes. He took hold of my face as he closed the distance between us. “Look at me... Remember when I called you that time? Before I closed the deal with the prophets? I promised you I’d come home. And what did I do?”

“You came home,” I answered, after sniffling as I wiped my tears away.

“And when I did time,” he added, this time lifting his other hand to caress the other side of my face. “I promised you I’d get out early, and what happened?”

“You got out early,” I sighed. 

For someone who had just lost an argument, and had put his life on the line several times beforehand, he made a really good point about keeping his word.

“Exactly, mi vida,” he smiled, gazing into my eyes until I began smiling back. It was hard staying mad at him. “I promise you I will handle this, and I promise I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.”

He gently pulled me closer to him, and kissed my temple, before hugging me close to his chest. I placed my hands on the backs of his shoulders and buried my face in the crook of his neck. I wanted to believe his promise, but I couldn’t help but savour the smell of his shirt... just in case.

***

“Y/n, c’mon I went to the mall just to get this for you.” Ruby was whining about buying me my favourite combo from my favourite food joint at his least favourite place- the mall. “He’s gonna call, Y/n... You having something to eat isn’t gonna affect that.”

My eyes had been glued to my phone for most of the three days in which Spooky was gone. And with passing moment, my anxiety and fear grew exponentially. 

“Look, I gotta go,” he sighed, placing his hand on my shoulder. “We’re gonna hideout somewhere until it’s handled... but please eat something.”

I exhaled and put my phone down for the first time in several hours. 

“Ok,” I breathed, before pulling the food closer to me. Ruby smiled and began heading towards the door. Before he reached it I called out to him. “And Ruby?... Be careful.”

He came back to me, and kissed me on the forehead before leaving with his duffel bag on him. It was difficult eating my dinner alone, with two of my favourite guys gone. 

My abuelita came home after an hour, by which I had made myself comfortable on the living room couch. She sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in one hand and her sewing job in the other. 

I had began drifting to sleep, by the time it was nightfall. My grandmother must have took notice, because I had my eyes closed for a few minutes and by the time I opened them again, she had placed a blanket over me. 

Then, just as I was about to call it a night, and head to my bedroom for yet another night of half-sleeping and half-staying alert for Oscar’s call, there was a knock at our front door. I sat up instantly.

Turning to my grandmother who looked just as I confused as I did I concluded that the only person who would be knocking at the time of the night would not be good news. Ruby had his own key, and so did my parents.

With one hand on Mario’s ld baseball bat, I slowly made my way to the door. As I pulled it open, I gasped in horror. 

“Spooky?” I had never seen him with so many cuts and bruises. Without hesitating, I swung his arm over my shoulder and helped him inside. “Abuelita? Abuelita, get your sewing kit.”

After sitting him down at our kitchen table, I held his hand and winced while my grandmother stitched his wounds up. Even in the state he was in, Spooky still had the nerve to chuckle at how squeamish I was. I wasn’t typically faint-hearted, but something about these wounds being on Spooky made my skin crawl.

“Thank you,” my abuelita whispered to Oscar as she finished stitching up his last wound.

“For what?”

“You know what,” she replied, smiling at him. I squeezed his hand and he lifted mine to his lips. Even beaten and bruised, he was still charming as ever. “So... what are you gonna do with the money?”

He turned his head to my abuelita, and he smiled. She nodded, as if she understood exactly what he was trying to communicate, but I was still clueless. Silently, she stood up and walked into one of the bedrooms to give us privacy. I finished placing a bandage over Oscar’s neck, when I noticed him staring at me.

“What?” I asked softly. He reached for my hand and interlocked our fingers together. I put my hand on his lap and gave him my attention.

“You still mad at me?”

“No,” I smiled, before taking the bottle of booze he’d been drinking and taking a gulp of it for myself. I needed it after watching my grandmother stitch him up. After putting the bottle back onto the table, it dawned on me what he had done. “... Is it really over?”

He took hold of my face and pressed our temples against one another. As I gazed at him with worried eyes, he smiled- more confident than ever.

“I handled it, baby.” He chuckled lightly, like getting it done didn’t cost him a few days of getting beaten and battered. “And I can finally get out... We can finally get out.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that one of his motives, aside from saving the kids, was finding a way out. Ever since his affiliation with the Santos became explicit involvement, we fantasised a life away from Freeridge. It was finally becoming and option for us.

That’s what he was gonna use the money for.

I leaned closer to him and kissed him softly. He stroked my cheek, while I held onto his wrist, too afraid to hurt him by touching one of his facial cuts accidentally. As I pulled away, I thought back to our last argument.

“No more secrets?” 

Spooky shook his head before, lifting his head to kiss my forehead. He made sure to lift my chin and grin at me before shaking his head once more.

“No más.”

[janushawkins]

American Wand Cores: The Big Four (Canon)

While in Britain the “big three” are nearly the only wand cores seen, the american “big four” are more accurately the most powerful and often held in highest regard, but they are not even remotely the only cores used.

Horned Serpent Horn

An exceptionally powerful core, horned serpent wands are quite rare, and unheard of outside the american continents. Horned Serpents themselves are quite diverse, but may usually be grouped into either saltwater or freshwater serpents.

Horned serpent wands of any variety are very powerful in all areas of magic, they have a knack for magics to do with water and perform especially well in transfiguration and divination. 

Horned serpent wands are capable of warning their owners of danger by emitting a low musical tone. They are also unique in the behavior between twin cores, if two wands of horned serpent horns from the same serpent work together for a singular goal (often in combat) their power is increased exponentially.

Rather like the Ilvermorny house named after the creature, horned serpent wands prefer owners who are intelligent and quick-witted. However, their preferred owners are not bookish scholars who stay shut in a library all day, but rather creative and innovative individuals who enjoy exercising their mind and putting things they learn into practice. Absorbing information like a sponge, these wixes brilliant in subjects they find interesting and above average in those they don’t. They are constantly thinking. Wixes chosen by these wands are absolutely brilliant and fiercely independent.

The type of horned serpent has some bearing over what they look for in an owner as well. Horned Serpent horn wands from a salt-water horned serpent are playful in nature, and look for owners who share that lighthearted playfulness, these are extremely imaginative, spirited and outspoken wixes.

Fresh-water horns, on the other hand, seek owners who are pragmatic, secretive and a bit slow to trust. These wixes are often very cunning and patient.

Horned serpent wands are sensitive to Parseltongue and vibrate when it is being spoken. It is possible they favor owners capable of speaking in parseltongue.

“I like to keep a special eye on students who are chosen by these wands. I keep track, in a notepad in my desk drawer--right next to my paints and emergency bertie botts--of what individuals have wands from the same horned serpent, and watch patiently for the day when they discover the peculiar connection of their twin wands. Interestingly, if they do not already know each other, it seems they always naturally gravitate towards one another, becoming incredibly close and often becoming the best of friends or incredibly close partners.” - January Hawkins, Resident Wandmaker, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Thunderbird Tail Feather

One of the most powerful cores available, Thunderbird feather’s are somewhat rare, and make for mighty wands with power and range rivaling that of the british Phoenix feather wands.

Thunderbird feather core wands are incredibly powerful in most if not all areas of magic, and are especially good for transfiguration magics and any magic to do with weather, air and travel. Owners may have an exceptional talent for flying.

As powerful as these wands can be, Thunderbird feather wands are uniquely difficult to master, perhaps retaining the original creatures independent nature. However, once mastered they bond with their owner for life, and their allegiance is almost certain to never change.

Like  Thunderbirds themselves, these wands can sense danger and may preemptively cast curses to protect themselves and their owner, acting independently.

It is very rare to be chosen by a thunderbird wand, even most of those that match up to the cores preferences aren’t chosen, these wands wait for someone truly extraordinary, with the potential for greatness. Thunderbird feather wands seek owners with an adventurous spirit, as extraordinarily free and independent as the creature they came from. These wixes are natural travelers and loath having to stay put, always aching to explore the next horizon. Daring, adventurous and curious, they refuse to hold still or conform to any stifling rulesets. With the soul of a wanderer and the skills to seek the unknown, these individuals were born to run.

“When I say they’re picky, I mean it. I’ve gone 3 years in a row without a single thunderbird feather wand choosing a student, I’ve still got over half my original stalk! But when a student is chosen by one of these wands, I know they are destined for truly great things, those kids will see the world over and make a huge impact on it. I also know their restlessness is going to give the teachers hell.” - January Hawkins, Resident Wandmaker, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Wampus Cat Hair

Though a very powerful core, wampus hair wands are rather uncommon due to the incredible difficulty and danger of procuring the hairs. 

Wampus wands are quite powerful. They are renowned for their flexibility, becoming very strong in any forms of magic their owner favors. This core is also very good with magics to do with the mind, especially legilimency, and it can produce mind altering effects both dazzling and horrifying. 

Enchantments and charms created by wands with this core are known to be very long-lasting.

Wixese chosen by this core are often bold and always enigmatic. Possessing a somewhat nebulous view of good and evil, these individuals reject simple dichotomies of light and dark. However, this does not mean that they are evil or without conscience. Rather, they prefer a more complex morality that bases right and wrong on cause and effect rather than convention and idealism. Because of this they are more willing than others to use dark magic. They are also often fiercely protective of those they have accepted on their own, using any means necessary to defend what they hold dear.

Dripping charisma, these wixes have an intense presence, able to grip the attention of any room they enter. They have an air of unpredictability, as they fluctuate between decisions and emotions based on feedback from their environment. Constantly adapting to the current situation.

Wixes chosen by Wampus hair wands also tend to be incredibly resilient, able to survive more than most.  There is a trend of some level of magic-resistance in these wixes, It is unknown whether this is a pre-existing trait or one gained by bonding with a wand with this core.

“Just how a student chosen by a wampus hair wand will turn out is, ironically, black or white. While it is true that their complex and adaptable morality does not necessarily lead them down a dark path, I have seen many wixes chosen by a wampus hair wand become truly evil individuals. There are, however, a great many who have become heroes and healers, genuinely good people. One thing is absolutely certain, Owners of wands with a wampus hair core will always, ALWAYS go on to do great things, whether good or bad they will always be extraordinarily powerful, very likely passing into legend.” - January Hawkins, Resident Wandmaker, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Snallygaster Heartstring

A somewhat fickle wand core whose tendency towards change can make it difficult to master, Snallygaster Heartstrings are nonetheless the most powerful of the four major wand cores in North America, and have been highly prized in the american wizarding community. 

However, Snallygasters are not as plentiful a species as dragons, and the fact that taking this wand core requires killing one is causing a decline in their numbers, and as consequence a decline in snallygaster wands. There have been petitions to have this core banned in order to protect the species and many young wixes have taken a disliking to it.

Similar to Europe's dragon heartstring wands, wands with this core create some of the most dazzling and powerful spells. They can be considered a jack of all trades, as they perform admirably in every area of magic. It also excels at combat magics, and offensive spells often pack quite a punch. This wand does seem to be easier to turn to the dark arts.

For some reason, the visuals of spells cast with wands with this core are heightened. Light’s are brighter, colors are more intense and flashes are more erratic. These wands are also often incredibly sturdy for the wood they use, and almost impossible to break, no matter their flexibility.

Owners of wands with this core should have a firm hand to temper the wands fickle nature. This wand’s preferred owners are driven, ambitious and often focused on uncovering hidden truths. With unbreakable resolve and a deep curiosity, these wixes are natural born investigators, almost unstoppable in their pursuit of truth. 

This core suffers no fools, and refuses to work for individuals it sees as dim, lazy or lacking in sufficient drive. Wixes it chooses are often wise and animated, but if something doesn’t effectively capture their attention they will grow bored quickly and become restless, wishing to be anywhere else but where they are. 

These wixes are superb spellcasters who take very little time to master new magics, but this gift is more often attributed to being a natural with magic than an excellent study. It can seem that they were born with a wand in their hands.

“Even I’m growing uncomfortable with this core, I’ve been considering refusing shipments of it, or even snallygaster wands donated by other wandmakers… maybe the feather? It wouldn’t be as power-... but… we wouldn’t need to kill any… Um… So this is the last one we’re talking about today? I can just go now? Great, I’m gonna go find some… uh… I’m gonna try something-- bye!” - January Hawkins (he just started rambling about feathers and disaperated, wtf is with this guy?)

[saevrusarch]

A hodgepodge-y analysis of why Severus fits the doe patronus very much, why he and Lily shared the same patronus form, and why perhaps the doe patronus might not be the best for Lily.

So, it is pretty much fanon knowledge that a patronus is a representation of a wizard's soul, and everyone knows that Severus' patronus is a doe ━ more specifically an albino doe. Now, I will start by describing my reasons for as to why he and Lily share the same patronus form. From the moment they met, Severus and Lily were immediately drawn to each other; aside from the whole magic thing, there was a connection there that they hadn't felt with anyone else. Almost like something had finally settled within them, like they finally belonged.

A single soul cannot inhabit two bodies, but the situation with Lily and Severus is that his soul is an echo of hers. In the same way a vengeful spirit is the echo of the person it once was in life, Severus' soul is an echo of everything Lily's is. They are two sides of the same coin, so while Lily is the positive ━ extroverted, happy, all bright colours and sunshine ━ Severus is the negative ━  introverted, melancholic, softer colours and moonlight. Severus' soul being Lily's echo is the reason why his patronus is an albino doe; this being represented by the fact that his patronus is lighter, a lot less silvery and more white ━ haunting, eerily beautiful.

The deep connection and friendship they experienced was these two parts coming together, an eclipse of sorts. Now that that's out of the way, I will point out why Severus fits with the doe patronus much more than Lily does.

There are a lot of particularities belonging to female deer that do not match with the personality Lily was given, but fit very nicely with whom Severus is described to be. There are also things that can explain their childhood and why they were so at ease with each other and became such good friends.

Let us start with the things that do match.

Does live differently than males do, they are more social, and often live and travel in groups. In these groups, they look out for one another ━ for example, a white-tail doe sensing danger will flee the area with the white of her tail exposed, serving as a silent warning signal to the others. Each social group is led by a matriarchal female, this alpha doe is in charge of the herd, and warns the others when danger is approaching by snorting loudly or stamping her front hoof.

Here we can link to their first years pre and during Hogwarts, where it was Severus and Lily against the world. Also his great respect and willingness to do whatever Lily told him to do ( him perceiving her as the alpha doe ). Lily standing up for Severus whenever James antagonized him, and how they were generally very protective over each other.

Unfortunately there is where the similarities end.

Social and shy, deer have a rigid social structure that determines territory and breeding rights as well as ensuring their safety. A doe's social status can determine her responsibilities within a herd.

From the very beginning, even before Hogwarts Severus was incredibly aware of his social status and position in which it left him, and he unlike Lily, did not try to fight it directly. He climbed his way to the top slowly, battling his way up silently. He knew his place when he arrived at Hogwarts, and acted accordingly; keeping his head down, trying to make himself useful to his housemates. And when he left, now with a better status, he no longer accepted to be mistreated.

Deer are alert to danger and will respond quickly, usually by running away and/or seeking cover but sometimes lying up in or running into wide open areas where they can assess threats.

This clashes with Lily's very confrontational personality, she would not run away from a fight, standing up to James the most popular guy and not backing down. Contrasting with Severus, who knew when he needed to back off, who was not opposed to running to reassess a situation.

Deer are great escape artists, and that is another key to their successful strategy for survival. Their style of escape is a high speed sprint which puts obstacles between themselves and their pursuer. They can also play cagey tricks: they might hide and remain hidden until the predator is very near, and then make an explosive escape —they're gone down a well known escape route before the confused predator knows it. They will cross their own path — sometimes circling and crossing many times — to make their trail confusing. They will slink away on their bellies. They will walk in water to delete their trail, and will even hide by submerging themselves in the water, using their noses like snorkels. They are also known to run near other deer trying to shuck off the predator onto another unlucky animal.

This here is the biggest divergence from Lily's personality to Severus' and why he fits so well with the doe patronus and Lily doesn't. Severus at his very core is a survivor, everything in him is about  self-preservation, it is one of his most basic and core instincts that never really faded and only got exponentially bigger as he grew up. It is what makes him the best and only spy of the Order, it is what makes him 1/3 of Voldemort's best and brightest Death Eaters. He is a master at fleeing, at running circles around the most dangerous and smart wizards of his time and he has constantly succeeded. He keeps allies close and enemies even closer, and has no qualms about throwing someone under the bus to achieve the end goal.

Female deer also display aggressive behavior. Does, like bucks, use the ear drop, hard look, and sidle body language. However, since they don’t have antlers, they use their front feet to determine their dominance. If the preliminary body-language threats are not effective, the dominant doe lunges at her adversary and then strikes out with one or both front fee. As a last resort, the fighting does stand up on their hind legs and slash out at each other with both front feet. Their sharp hooves are wicked weapons, and the does do not bluff or fight mock battles.

This ferocity can be seen in Lily too, but not to extent it is seen in Severus. Lily is essentially a very good person, she is very idealistic in the way that her world is black and white, good or evil. And so I doubt she'd kill someone if she thought she could make them see the "light" or bring them to their side. Severus has no such issues, he fights to win ━ always. And he is brutal, you won't get mercy from him if you cross him, or if you're in a life or death situation and your life stops him from reaching his goal.

And here we enter the post Lily part of Severus life and how her death affected him and his behaviour.

Mother deer know that their presence near their babies alerts predators to the fawns' existence, which puts them at risk. In order to keep her young safe, a doe will leave her fawn in a secluded area, often for as long as 12 hours, distracting predators away from her baby while she forages for food.

The alpha doe of the herd is the one that teaches young deer necessary survival skills, where to find water and food and where to seek cover.

While he took the role of secret "guardian", Severus knows it is not wise for him to be close to Harry; not that he would want to anyway, but it can put him at risk. The sight of them being anything but unfriendly to each other could raise suspicion within the Dark Lord and that would ruin everything Dumbledore had planned. Severus is a teacher, he has been teaching Harry everything he had to know to defeat Voldemort and the trials he’d find since his very first day at Hogwarts whether Harry realized it or not, those were survival skills he passed onto Harry ━ the fawn. 

A doe will sometimes protect her fawn if the predator is small, but more often she will not. Many fawns are lost to predators and does frequently must stoically move on without the fawns they produced, this breeding season a loss. The mother-fawn bond can also be broken in cases of starvation in which a doe will drive her own fawn away from a food source. That is nature's strict law for the species: the most likely to survive come first. A doe can make more fawns, but she must be fed, alive and healthy to do it.

Again, a Doe's survival instinct can surpass its motherly instinct, and that is why Lily shouldn't have a doe as the representation of her soul. This is the woman who laid her life down at 20-something to save her child, with no guarantee that it would work. Severus however, is much more representative of a doe, his survival instinct is incredibly high more so than anyone, and he makes sure he is always the most likely to survive. Here we can exemplify Severus pressing down on Quirrel, but remaining "passive" against the Dark Lord and his assaults to Harry's mind until the very last possible moment. Also the fact that he killed his own father to ensure his position within the Death Eaters, securing a more stable financial situation.

The Doe patronus may look soft and cute, motherly even, and I suspect that is the reason Lily was given this particular form ━ not only to match James' and his stag, but to represent her fragility ( which she had none, being a mother and a woman is not being frail ). Though the reality is very much the opposite, Does are ruthless mothers and will leave their fawns if it means they cannot survive. And that is representative of Severus, who will leave any situation that is not beneficial to him, who only allowed himself to die because he had to, otherwise the plan wouldn't have worked and Draco and Harry would have died.

[barnesandco]

Comfort Food

The Avengers catch Bucky indulging in a questionable snack. They are intrigued. Sam is horrified.

Pairing: None. SamBucky if you squint really hard.

Warnings: Swearing. Love Island hate, none of which is personal. I'm sorry! I needed something to ridicule and this particular reality show drew the short straw for my fic.

A/N: This is a crackpot of an idea I had when I thought about Bucky eating P.B. and chocolate like Seb does, after having a conversation with @buckyreaderrecs . Hope it brings a smile to your day because I don't know what else it's good for.

“What the actual fuck, man?” Sam gapes at Bucky from the doorway to the common room. He's sitting on the floor, legs splayed out under the coffee table, back against the couch, but that isn't what's bothering Sam. Or the other, less mouthy, but just as awestruck Avengers standing behind him, still covered with dirt and dried blood (little of which is theirs) from the mission they have just returned from. No, Sam's expletive-laden surprise is aimed at two things.

One, he is wondering exactly why Bucky is watching what he is. Reality television. And it's not just any old reality TV show. Not at all. Sam thinks he could have tolerated, say, something like Real Housewives, or the Bachelor, or even Keeping up with the Kardashians. But no, it had to be Love Island. The horror. Needless to say, Sam hates Love Island. Avoids it like the plague, claims it disgusts him to no end. Nat tells him it's his innate phobia of romantic commitment speaking. He argues that this particular dating serial promotes the opposite of commitment. But that's not the point here.

The point is that Bucky, for a reason Lord only knows, is watching that literal shitshow. Sam momentarily fears he's been possessed. More realistically, he considers the injury and subsequent orders to sit their latest mission out hit him too hard, and he's desperate for a distraction. That's the only reason anyone would turn to that godawful excuse for a TV series, right? Right. 

He’s now on his feet, looking at them as if he hasn't decided what his strategy for tackling the situation will be. Should he cross his arms, raise his chin, and defiantly act as if there is nothing out of the ordinary here? As if it is perfectly normal for super-powered, super-lethal, broody ex-assassins to sit around watching terrible reality TV that exists only to kill the traditional sentiment of love and relationships? Or should he look sheepish, shuffle his feet, and avert his eyes in the hope that his apparent shame will make them take pity on him so they don't question his actions? 

It’s highly unlikely that either option will lead to them leaving him alone, because it's going to take a lot to stifle their curiosity towards the family-sized Kit-Kat wrappers, and two empty jars of peanut-butter that are currently lying on the otherwise pristine coffee table. Not to mention the half-empty jar in Bucky's hand, which he doesn't quite know what to do with at the moment. And this is Sam's second concern, the one that made him greet one of his comrades with swear-words upon seeing him after a fortnight-long mission, despite their budding friendship. A friendship they both vehemently deny, provided the opportunity, but one that exists regardless.

“Have you been eating peanut-butter out of the jar?” Clint voices the question that's on everybody's minds, and is answered with nothing but a wry smile from Bucky. Not that it needs to be; the evidence speaks for itself.

“We go away for two weeks and you lose it completely? What the hell, dude? Did you hit your head on that mission?” Sam rants, eventually breaking the absolute silence. 

Perhaps it's the frantic expression of genuine panic in Sam's tired, bloodshot eyes. Perhaps it's Clint's dad-like tone, like he's caught one of his own kids red-handed doing something they shouldn't be. Perhaps it's the sight of the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, still in uniform, exhausted beyond belief, standing in their everyday common room with amusement and mild confusion on their faces. Perhaps it's a combination of the aforementioned, that causes Bucky to burst into laughter. Pure, unadulterated laughter. The kind that bursts from your lungs and makes you double over, and leaves your stomach aching when it's over. It's a wonderful, booming sound, and it increases exponentially every time he glances back at his teammates to see them looking back at him like he's grown another head, arm, and leg. Eventually, the laughter fades, and he straightens back up again, next to the others.

He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, and addresses them properly.

“Peanut-butter and chocolate's my… comfort food.” Bucky says slowly, composing himself, struggling to remember the exact term Shuri used to explain the mountain of junk food piled up in her living room when he FaceTimed her the other day. It was her way of coping with the increase in demand from Wakanda's science division due to T'Challa's efforts to integrate Wakanda internationally.

“Since when? And no it’s not. No, man, no. Just no. Pizza is comfort food. Taco is comfort food. KFC is comfort food. Hell, I'll accept club sandwiches. Anything but this.” Sam insists, gesturing wildly at the carnage on the coffee table, almost stomping his feet. Bucky doesn’t seem to have fully grasped the concept of comfort food, and this puts a serious dent in Sam’s impatient plans for helping Bucky catch up to the 21st century.

“What is it?” Vision muses, coming closer to see what's sticking out of the jar Bucky just put down. It's a piece of Kit-Kat. Wanda's face lights up, and she walks up to him.

“Oh my God. You put Kit-Kat in the peanut-butter and eat it? That's genius!” She exclaims, and promptly removes a piece of the chocolate covered in peanut-butter and eats it. “This is delicious.” Wanda moans, reaching for the jar, but Bucky yanks it out of her reach. 

“Go make your own, Wanda. This one's mine.” He says, reestablishing his claim on the unfinished "snack". 

“Delicious? It's disgusting. And you stay away from that shit unless you can handle the sugar-rush, because I can't deal with teenagers high on P.B. and Kit-Kat.” Sam warns, rubbing the bridge of his nose, seemingly still struggling to process what's occurring before his very eyes.

“Um, speaking of teenagers, where did Peter go?” Nat says, looking around. She is undoubtedly worried that he's gone to make his own variant of Bucky's treat. Sugar-rush isn't a strong enough word to describe what happens when that kid gets some sweets in him, and nobody wants to be around when he does.

“I'm up here, Agent Romanoff! There was some more peanut butter and chocolate in the pantry, and this really is delicious.” Peter says from the ceiling, holding his own jar, in which chunks of chocolate are visible. 

“Is there more left?” Scott asks him, craning his sore neck to look up at him, simultaneously rubbing it to ease the ache. 

“Not you too, Scott.” Sam groans, rubbing his hand down his face. He captains a group of children. Total children. 

“What?! I want to try some. Can I share with you, Peter?” Scott continues, face lighting up when Peter nods, holding the jar out for him to take from. 

“Sure. Just a bit, though. I'm starving.” The rest of the team, who had managed to disappear unnoticed, return with a few jars of peanut-butter to share between them, each clutching their own spoons. Sam rolls his eyes, and thinks that if he has to do so one more time, they’ll disappear into the back of his head. Better than having to witness more of these crimes against food, he supposes. Crimes that are being endorsed by his Avengers, who look all too comfortable as they plop down on the sofa around Bucky, in full mission-gear, unbothered by his disbelieving glare. Some people have no taste.

“Come on, Sam, try it. It's good.” Bucky teases, but actually offers the sparse remains of his own jar to Sam, contradicting his earlier statement in favor of dragging Sam to the dark side. He stands his ground.

“Crazy. Every last one of you. I'm going to shower and then sleep, and hopefully not remember any of this tomorrow.” Sam declares, turning on his heel to do precisely what he said, and looks forward to writing off tonight as a bad, bad dream. 

[violetsystems]

#personal

I’m not in a terrible mood this week although I am completely exhausted with everything.  Home is great when you have internet.  Not so great when people try to disrupt it by setting up service on top of your address.  People can be terrible communicators especially when they are focusing only on themselves.  We live in isolated times I understand.  The idea that people ‘project’ all the information you need is incredibly exhausting to have to read into all the time.  Especially when no one bothers to read what you project back.  I often wonder if it will get exponentially worse when people feel safer returning to a public facing world.  I’ve been public facing throughout all of this and for many years prior.  You can’t travel the world alone and develop some sort of toughness.  The real trick is being able to turn your defenses on and off.  It’s a reflex.  Like how in one breath I can tell somebody to fuck off then turn my head and help a kitten from the sidewalk.  If it were called acting then I would have a job already.  I often have to look back at how I’ve grown over time to figure out the headspace.  I’ve always been sort of awkward.  Mostly because I was sensitive to what others thought of me.  I’ve always been bullied as long as I can really remember.  I grew up in an Irish Catholic suburb filled with white people, white pride and whiter drug problems than they cared to admit to.  Most of my friends were losers and rejects.  I kept to myself and listened to hip hop on a broken yellow sony walkman.  People would call me the n word every morning on my way to school proudly claiming I was going to hell.  I was a shy and nerve racked honors student.  I grew up an only child who wrote poetry and science fiction.  I played pen and paper role playing games by myself because nobody shared the same interests.  At times, the friend groups that I did find had group agendas that dwarfed my social needs.  This never really changed.  I spent most of the last ten years revisiting this sort of solitude.  I travelled Korea, Japan and China by myself.  I stayed in hostels in group situations where I still felt uncomfortable.  I developed skills to talk to people.  I met a lot of weird people.  I met a lot of nice people too.  In Seoul particularly, I found a normal that I’d never really understood before.  I’d go out and actually do things with people I didn’t know.  I went to a guitar cafe once in a basement in a small neighborhood called Hyehwa.  The group was myself, a hostel owner, a soccer fan from Dalian, and a random guest.  We sat in silence as a small old man played “Goodbye to Romance” on a small guitar as silent Pink Floyd concert footage played out on the tv behind him.  I escaped to Korea for a long time.  I’d go every six months for two to three weeks on vacation.  At the time I had the vacation from my job to use with impunity.  If I stayed home in the states, people would follow me.  I realized this later when I switched my trips to New York.  My boss and my CIO would stop at nothing to contact me on my vacation to write emails they couldn’t formulate.  Ask questions about things they already knew the answer to.  Looking back on it, there are so many times people made my life miserable enough to make me quit.  I never really got the message because I’ve been so bullied over my life that I learned to ignore it.  My CIO famously cornered me in a hall once and asked what was wrong.  He told me point blank I didn’t have a good poker face.  I replied I wasn’t aware we were gambling.  It was so subtle I don’t think he understood I wasn’t bluffing.  I lost that hand six months later when he fired me over video chat.  Nine months later I’m dead to an entire twenty years of friendships and professional connections.  If I don’t look surprised or scared, it must be the poker face I’ve been working on.

This is to say I understand or process none of anything that has happened to me anymore.  It hurts beyond hurting.  And I’ve become an expert at dealing with it all alone and in silence.  So much so that people follow me around like lost puppies thinking I can offer them clarity.  Or treat me like a practice dummy in their attempt to haphazardly attack the real problems in society.  I’ve never been so tired, done and particularly bored with everything until now.  And yet the bitterness never really gets me anywhere except physically sick and depressed.  Throughout all of this as the situation in society starts to worsen, I see people looking to me for leadership or guidance.  This is often without even asking or having consent.  They think I’m part of some revolution that they’ve never asked about.  Nobody has ever asked my name.  They just know me as the guy they see around all the time.  That I’m some wise and silent protector of things when I’m just some regular person suffering just like everybody else.  If you really added it all up and put these chapters I write together, you’d see an alarming trend.  That for whatever movement people include me in, I’m expected to fight all of this alone.  And me knowing full well how well movements and revolutions have left me completely insignificant and invisible after the things I have done is disheartening.  People enjoy getting a reaction.  Pushing all the buttons every time you step outside your door.  Sometimes it’s a hundred yards before someone starts trouble.  Sometimes it’s the minute you step outside either porch you share with your neighbors.  The lack of dignity and respect is something I deserve because of my supposed position of power.  America is like that.  There is so little to go around that everything is a Hunger Games glorification. Classes need to provoke each other not identities.  And yet we measure each other’s value by our differences and not our common strengths.  America has always been a paradox in this way.  The magical chaos of Anarchy that allows everyone to be free at the expense of others.  The real way to be free in America is money.  And money locks us out from the dialogue more often than not.  It’s a great narrative that people can start their own businesses here in America when all the contract work is locked behind corporate recruiters, headhunters with signing bonuses and worse.  That somehow at the end of a pandemic I’ve survived almost completely alone in I’m supposed to give in at the end.  It’s like the clown in It gnashing it’s teeth as it shrinks into a harmless baby.  I feel a bit sorry for America right now.  And yet that clown has become less menacing to me and has been forced to feed on others.  After all I’ve seen and been through I have no luxury to be afraid of anything or anyone.  I have completely lost my innocence in that respect.  And the face I put on for society when I walk out the door is one of stone.  It is futile to expect that anyone can engage me with respect, humility and courage.  Nobody can ever say my name.  I have not heard my name spoken in forever by people I know well.  I hear it spoke when I get Korean food down the street.  My neighbors simply tell things to me.  Or give me a longing glance like I’m supposed to read their mind, their agenda and trust their nosy intentions of being there at exactly the right time.  We’re all in this together.  We’re all connected.  And yet after all of this I’ve realized no matter how well and good that may seem, it’s a liability to be social without a proper level of respect for your right to be human.  Acting like the neighborhood secret police is not revolutionary. Acting like I owe anybody anything in this city after what IT has put me through is subliminal torture.  I’ve told it like it is more than often about my life here in America.  So much so that it echoes around the globe at this point as an anomaly.  Is it really true that this guy clearly does not give a fuck about what anybody thinks of him?  Yes.  This is how I stay the fuck alive out here.  I need you to understand just how desperate that sounds.  Then I need people to realize that the only thing I’m desperate for is to be left alone at this point.  

The reason I’m invisible to many people is that I’m not worth shit.  We are all technically not worth shit.  This might be news to all of you who read these.  Because I generally feel the most care from people on this platform.  I’m baffled by my own thoughts on this.  How a click can mean more than the world to me than a bunch of people in real life shouting or glaring at me with hidden intentions.  A glare and a hidden message on the internet is most likely spam.  A glare in the streets with a knowing look is basically an invitation to fraud for me at this point.  If you’ve seen me all over the place maybe you should ask my name or introduce yourself.  And yet in Nazi Germany, you wonder if the secret police felt the same.  The overall effect of having people follow, watch and keep tabs on you has this lofty narrative.  Don’t you feel important now that secretly you are being watched?  Don’t you feel special?  I have travelled all over the world by myself at this point.  I paid off the credit card bills to prove it.  Do you think I don’t know what it is like to be surveilled and followed?  Do you think in an era where white people actively target people and hurt them I feel any safer than anyone else?  I am appalled at what I’ve heard in the news.  And yet it is always the same root.  White extremism.  White culture.  White people.  Power abused.  Defenseless broken down worthless trash in rebellion.  Poor me for having a bad day.  In my admonishment of my mother’s call for information for Ancestry dot com, we had a conversation about family.  There are huge segments of my family I stay away from.  My cousin who I have not spoken to for years lives out west.  I learned last night that he sells guns for a living.  My mom told me a story of his father who was an avid gun supporter.  My parents approached him about being godparents.  He replied that he would only accept on one condition.  That when I came of age he would teach me how to shoot a gun like a real man.  I’ve never touched a gun in my life.  I’m a registered conscientious objector.  I swing a hammer in game more often than not though I’m known to creep around with a sniper rifle in Cyberpunk.  That’s a fucking game.  My cousin is out there somewhere at a gun show with a Trump flag and an internet connection just like every other right wing troll on the internet.  And I have to deal with the Fallout just the same.  Everyone bangs away at their status messages and twitter feeds and accomplishes more of the same.  Fear.  It froths over.  It never goes away.  It burns into hatred.  It becomes a righteous cause for which to stand behind.  My rights to be free.  As if holding a gun protects you.  As if wasting your prayers on causing harm to others really heals the world.  As if playing power and mind games on people you don’t know is somehow an act of liberation.  As if boring me the fuck to death with how cool you think you are by thinking you on anywhere near my fucking level helps my situation.  I have a right to be exhausting with all this performative bullshit.  And yet the world keeps upping the ante.  Like we’re in some high stakes Hunger games casino and the reward is your freedom at the expense of others.  We are not all in this together until we can look each other in the eye and understand the cause of each other’s pain.  The pain is that we do not communicate like human beings.  We skitter and prey upon each other like animals.  Animals remember when you feed and protect them.  Humans are worse.  If I know one thing about Planet of the Apes is that not even Mark Wahlberg can save you now.  Just let me exist outside the dome and forget I’m somebody important.  I’ve got my own life and loves I have to protect.  You don’t know what I go through daily to honor that.  And that secret is nobody’s business but mine.  Since there are no jobs left in America, I’ll settle for that one. I don’t need a letter of recommendation.  I write one every week.  Yeah we all float down here.  You’ll float too.  Better than sinking.  <3 Tim

[ellebabywrites]

Hesitant Love - Park Chanyeol

Type : Oneshot // Angst // Fluff // Smut // Mafia!au

Warnings : Violence // Attempted Assault

Word Count : 6690

Author Note : Here is my Chanyeol Mafia!au/Arranged Marriage request , thank you for being patient , I hope you enjoy my lovelies 💛

A wedding is supposed to be a celebration. A joining of two people in love, to live happily forever as one family. Surrounded by the people you cherish most in this world; to dance and drink and enjoy, together. The happiest day of your life. Supposedly.

Your wedding was nothing but a complete representation of all the fuck ups in your life. It wasn’t out of love, but a business deal, a pay off.

As you walk down the aisle, your father’s grip on your arm is tight as if he’s afraid you’ll run out if he lets go. You’re thankful for the thick veil that’s successfully hiding the grimace painted on your face.

This isn’t a wedding. This isn’t what you wanted for yourself. But thanks to your father, that wasn’t your choice anymore.

It was just a little over a year ago when you’d finally left home and started college, being more excited about the leaving part than school you had to admit. Home was never an easy place to be, your mother left when you were 10 and now it was just your father and yourself. You never felt like the ‘child’ at home, constantly having to carry your father through whatever genius business plan he’d thought up, only for it to fall through and leave a mess; until the very next genius idea he had and the cycle repeats. The bills only got paid because you had worked 2 jobs outside of school. It was a miracle you’d managed to get into College at all to be honest.

Unbeknownst to you, the second you’d moved out and the money was no longer coming in, your father did what every other poor soul in your town did when they were down on their luck and desperate - he ran to get a loan from the one family you never want to be indebted to. The Parks.

When your father showed up at your door a few weeks ago, begging on his hands and knees for your help repaying said debts, you had no choice. They’d kill him if he didn’t pay up. The Parks were the most ruthless Mafia family in the city, they killed and stole and corrupted the likes of anyone and everyone stupid enough to fall into their world. And despite the years of resentment and bitterness you had piled up against your father, you didn’t want to see him hurt. No matter how much he undoubtedly had it coming.

So now here you are, in a church of all places, full of the most dangerous men and women around, all staring at you as you’re sold off to the next in line to the criminal empire - Park Chanyeol.

Your father would be right. If he let go of your arm now you would most definitely sprint right out of there. By the time he did loosen his grip, you were stood face to face with your betrothed at the altar. Through the thick white tulle you could see his hands move to de-veil you and it took all the strength you had to pull your lips into a smile. Chanyeol could see your face was strained from the second the fabric was gone. While you managed to keep a sweet smile for most of the ceremony, your eyes remained distant and sad. Not that he cared very much. Chanyeol didn’t want to get married, but in order for him to take over as head of the family, his father insisted, it made him seem a ‘stronger’ and more ‘put together’ leader, as his father had worded it. So he simply ignored you for the night, focussing on getting it over with so he could leave.

You however, spend the night hyper aware of every single moment. Letting your mind wander to all the things you were giving up for the sake of settling some debts.

As the vows were read you think of all your friends you’ve left behind at college, being forced to leave as your new ‘position’ as a Park would put yourself, and them, in unimaginable danger. As the pair of you kiss and the guests erupt in celebratory cheers, you think about your boyfriend, Minseok, whom you had to break up with just a few days beforehand, how he was supposed to be your ‘everything first’ and how he had promised to marry you right after graduation. At the after party dinner as you sit listening to people you don’t know make speeches with stories you weren’t apart of, you think about the wedding you’d always dreamed of. How it was supposed to be You and Minseok; and your friends would be the ones telling stories about how you both had met in the cafeteria at orientation, or that time you all had a sleepover in the library before exams, or about the time Minseok had first told you he loved you on the group trip to the beach last summer and sent them all into hysterics at the sight of you both all loved up.

It was supposed to be magical, it was supposed to be special, it was supposed to be you and the love of your life committing to each other with all your friends and memories. Not sitting in silence next to your stranger of a husband, who wouldn’t even look at you after you’d left the ceremony. You felt completely alone at your own wedding and you hated it. You hated him. You hated your father for dragging you into this. You hated the entire situation, but it was far too late.

The car journey to your new ‘home’ was spent in silence too, not wanting to engage with Chanyeol at all, and luckily he had the same idea, not sparing you a glance or uttering any words of comfort. But what else did you expect from someone like him?

Only when the car stopped did you look up from your hands. The house, if you could even call it that, was ridiculously huge; much too big for just the two of you, but maybe that would be a blessing. It was a modern mansion and you felt completely awestruck. Chanyeol watched you for a moment as you stared out the window at your new home, he watched as your eyes widened and mouth dropped, noticing the glistening of your lipgloss before he turned away, not wanting his mind to wonder there. Without a word he got out and headed inside. Noticing you were alone in the car, you sighed loudly and mentally prepared yourself for this new life you’d been thrown into.

The inside of the house was just as magnificent as the outside suggested. Marble floors and walls, a staircase that wound its way up the wall of the entrance hall, diamond chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Once again you’re left awestruck. With no sign of Chanyeol and the exhaustion from the day finally catching up to you, you decide to go find somewhere with a bed; ignoring the few members of staff that tried their best not to make eye contact with you.

Finding your room is surprisingly easy considering the sheer number of them, your bags left outside in the hallway are a clear give away though and you’re just thankful that you don’t have to share with Chanyeol. All you wanted was to get out of your suffocating wedding clothes; have a hot shower and crawl into bed, ignoring the world and forgetting the day. After making sure to lock the door, you do just that; letting the sounds of your own muffled sobs soothe you into dreamland.

◇

If it wasn’t obvious enough from your behaviour on the wedding night, the next week or so you spent locked in you room made your feelings exponentially clear. Chanyeol knew you hated him. He knew that this was the last thing you wanted and he knew that it was, partially, his fault. But he didn’t care. If you wanted to lock yourself away then fine, he’d leave you to it. With his father getting ready to hand him the family legacy, he had more important things to worry about than your ‘temper tantrum’, as he’d so fondly started referring to it.

“Are you really just going to ignore her forever?” Jongin, Chanyeol’s best friend, asked him one day. They were sitting out by the pool discussing business, when Jongin had caught a glimpse of you in the kitchen through the window. Sighing in frustration at the mention of you, Chanyeol turned to look the same direction.

“Yeah.” He answered bluntly. Watching as you got a drink out of the fridge and went back up to your room.

Jongin, finding the entire situation truly hilarious, nudges him in the arm and gives a teasing look, “c’mon Yeol, she’s your ‘wife’, you have to make some effort.”

“Why? She hates all of this. She stays out of my way, I stay out of hers. That’s how it is.” As nonchalant as Chanyeol was trying to be about everything, he couldn’t deny that your cold shoulder was starting to get to him. You rarely came out of your room and if you did, you’d avoid him; leaving the room if he was there; ignoring the staffs’ attempts at making you more comfortable; refusing to eat anything but those small packets of trail mix that had been in the cupboard forever. Chanyeol didn’t like feeling like he had to walk on eggshells around you; but god forbid if he’d be the first to crack.

“Yeah because that’s normal in a marriage,” Jongin laughs, watching how Chanyeol’s eyes lingered where you’d been standing in the kitchen moments before, “Hyung, just make an effort, you never know, she might be nice.”

Rolling his eyes at the mere thought of putting in any more effort than he already had, “let’s just get back to work” Chanyeol mumbled and turned back to business.

Jongin’s words stayed in Chanyeol’s mind for days after that discussion. Should he be trying more? Truth be told, he was never interested in the marriage or you, but now you were stuck together and the awkward tension that filled the house was becoming unbearable. He found himself thinking about you a lot more than he’d like to admit. If you were okay up in your room all alone; what your favourite food was; if you were warm enough at night or if you needed more blankets; if you still hated him. When you walked into the kitchen one morning while he was sitting there and you immediately went to avert your eyes and turn away; Chanyeol decided enough was enough.

“We’re going to the store.”

He said coldly, staring you down with his determined eyes, showing there was no room for debate. You stared back at him in shock that he’d actually spoken to you, “get dressed, I’ll wait by the door.” Then he got up and left, leaving you frozen and confused.

Reluctantly, you got dressed and went to meet your husband in the entrance hall. You debated just locking yourself in your room again and avoiding him, but you were all out of trail mix and your body was craving some fresh air.

Chanyeol has no idea what he was doing but thought if he could get you to spend more than a few seconds with him, that was progress.

When you met him at the door he let his eyes linger on you, he knew you were beautiful he just hadn’t seen you properly since the wedding, he caught himself taking mental notes of your features before forcing himself to look away. You’d noticed of course but couldn’t find the words to say anything.

“You look nice.” Chanyeol muttered, not facing you and moving to head out the door, “let’s go.”

The ride to the store is silent, bar the radio singing some old elvis song. It’s one your mother used to sing and you find yourself tapping along to the beat on you leg. Chanyeol notices and discreetly turns up the volume a little.

“Do you like Elvis?” He asks, keeping his eyes on the road.

You don’t want to talk to him about Elvis because that could lead to talking about your mother, about your father, and eventually this mess - so you just hum gently and keep your eyes planted firmly on you lap.

“I like Elvis too.” He says, and for the rest of the short ride Chanyeol sings softly along. His voice is beautiful, you think.

At the store, Chanyeol keeps trying to make small talk with you. It’s weird, you think, he’s never tried to speak to you before and now he’s suddenly interested in everything. Your favourite juice, your favourite meat, your favourite fruit. No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to hide the small smile that tugs at your lips when he grabs a bunch of the old trail mix you’ve been living off so far and puts them into the cart without a word. Seeing you smile, and seeing you open up  but more as you’ve been talking, Chanyeol feels his confidence build and decides that making an effort may not be the worst thing.

“Ice cream.” He says, looking down at you expectantly, “huh?”, he looks around with furrowed eyebrows before grabbing your hand and pulling you through the aisles.

He feels you tense at his touch but you don’t pull away so he continues, “We need ice cream. We’re going to have a movie night.”

You’re taken back a bit because, did he really want to spend more time with you? And his hand did feel really nice in yours, so would it be that bad?

“Pick something, anything you like,” Chanyeol stops you in front of the huge freezer filled with tubs of ice cream and you don’t even hesitate before reaching for your favourite flavour, strawberry. It makes him smile seeing your eyes light up at something as simple as strawberry ice cream. He puts another couple of tubs into the cart.

The conversation isn’t restricted to the store. On the car ride back Chanyeol asks you a million more questions and for some reason you find yourself answering all of them.

“What movie do you want to watch?” Chanyeol asks as he pulls up to the house.

“I don’t mind, I like anything really.”

He grins and passes you one of the shopping bags.

“How about we watch my favourite film then, hm?”

You expected Chanyeol’s favourite film to be something rough, a horror or thriller maybe, so when he turns on Lilo and Stitch you can’t hide the shock that’s evident on your face. He giggles at your expression and you think it might be the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, momentarily knocking you out of your frozen state.

Handing you a spoon and tub of ice cream, he sits down next to you on the sofa, “what? It’s a classic.”

As the movie plays, you realise you don’t mind that Chanyeol is sitting closer and closer to you everytime me shuffled in his seat, you find yourself liking his company, the way he giggles at the film and the way his eyebrows furrow at certain scenes. For the first time since the wedding you want to let your guard down. Maybe this won’t be so bad? Besides you have really started to hate being locked in your room all alone.

After that, your movie nights became a regular thing. It didn’t take too long for the pair of you to go through almost every Disney movie in Chanyeol’s inventory, swiftly moving on to his Studio Ghibli collection, your favourite. As time went on you found yourself more comfortable being around Chanyeol.

You’d engage in, and often initiate, conversations and you’d stopped locking yourself away and bolting out of rooms when he was there. It felt good to feel like things were finally starting to be okay. Chanyeol could see the change in you too. He loved that he was noticing all your little quirks and habits the more comfortable you seemed to get; he thought it was adorable. There was still some tension and awkward silences between the pair of you, but it no longer felt so strained. He liked it. He liked you.

When he felt your head lean against his shoulder one night he didn’t even question it, simply bringing his arm around your shoulders to hold you closer.

“So cute,” he whispered into your hair, placing a kiss on your temple and turning back to the movie.

It was confusing for you though, your feelings were getting all messed up and the line between love and hate were blurring. Every movie night, you’d let yourself get closer and closer to your husband, slowly opening up - only to spend the next night watching him leave the house strapped with weapons and returning covered in blood. Knocking you back to your senses and rebuilding those walls you kept around yourself.

After a while, Chanyeol had to go out more for business, meaning your movie nights got less and less and your anxiety went through the roof. You cared about him, that much you knew, but his world scared you and you hated the thought of being alone just as much as you hated seeing him leave every night.

“You’re leaving again?” You’re standing on the staircase watching Chanyeol and Jongin load their weapons by the door.

“Yeah,” he watched you chew on your bottom lip and avoid his eyes, a nervous tick he’s picked up on, and felt his heart melt a little bit. Chanyeol reached out to cup your cheeks to hold your forehead against his, skinship being a new thing for the two of you.

“We’ll be back tonight. Don’t worry, Jaehyun is here.” And then he turned back to Jongin.

Jaehyun is the bodyguard Chanyeol had hired to stay with you whenever he left for work. The two of you had grown incredibly close over the last month or so, other than Chanyeol, Jaehyun was the only person you’d warmed up to.

“So Y/N, what do you want to do today?” Suddenly appearing next to you, Jaehyun always tried to keep you distracted when he saw you were struggling.

“Hmm, we could check out that new cafe downtown you mentioned? Or maybe we could go to that bookstore you like?” Jaehyun was an expert at diverting your attention away from the violent truth of your lives by now, maybe that’s why you’d opened up to him so quickly, because he was a touch of normality for you.

At the sound of Coffee and Books, you finally turned away from watching your husband arm up, instead nodding at Jaehyun enthusiastically, “let me just go get ready!” You beamed at him before running up the stairs.

Chanyeol watched the exchange curiously, Your mood had changed so quickly, Jaehyun always seemed to know how to do that. It shouldn’t bother him, after all, it was what he’d hired him to do, keep you safe and happy when he couldn’t be there. So why was seeing you so excited to spend the day with Jaehyun making his blood boil?

“Jung.” Chanyeol called, catching his attention, “I want you to update me regularly today. I want to know how she’s doing, if anything happens, if she needs anything. Understood?”

The stoic expression on Chanyeol’s face was frightening. His eyes cold and intimidating as he gave his orders.

“Yes Sir,” was all that needed to be said as Jaehyun bowed respectfully and left the two men to wait for you in another room.

Chanyeol was sure that the lasers he was burning in the back of Jaehyun’s head would be enough to get his frustrations at the boy across. Only getting snapped out of it when Jongin giggled next to him.

“Could you be any more obvious Hyung?”

Not understanding what was so funny, Chanyeol groaned loudly and pushed passed the younger.

“What are you talking about?” His outward denial only made Jongin laugh even more.

“Seriously? Careful Yeol, you’re turning green with jealousy.”

“I am NOT jealous!” He scoffed back. ‘Jealous.’ What did he even have to be jealous about? He was your husband, he had nothing to worry about. But then you came bouncing down the stairs excitedly, not paying the two men a second glance before you asked for your bodyguard.

“Where’s Jaehyun?” Jongin had to laugh again at Chanyeol’s expression. It had turned ice cold as he tried to keep his teeth from clenching too hard.

“He’s in the other room,” he watched your face as you practically ran past him without so much as a goodbye.

“Yeah, definitely not jealous Hyung” Jongin teased.

◇

Chanyeol keeps a close eye on you. He didn’t like how close Jaehyun and you are, he didn’t understand how you had opened up so quickly to him while you’d only just started letting him touch you. But he wasn’t jealous. Not at all. At least that’s what he told himself as he watched you laugh gleefully with the bodyguard or how excited you’d get when the two of you went out. It was starting to frustrate him beyond belief.

To you however, Jaehyun was your safe place. Being conflicted with your feelings for Chanyeol made it difficult and confusing whenever he would leave you alone and you would worry. Truth be told you didn’t know the details about what Chanyeol did exactly when he went out, but he’d always take an abundance of weapons and always come back with new injuries.

He’d started missing movie nights and getting back in the early hours of the morning. It scared you. Somehow you had let Chanyeol into your heart and the thought of losing him was hurting you. Jaehyun understood this. He understood how confusing the entire situation was for you; just a few months ago you were loved up with another man, going to school everyday, surrounded by you friends - and now you hardly ever left the house, never spoke to your old friends, and now your heart was being pulled by some unpredictable Mafia boss-to-be who you previously thought you’d hated. Jaehyun was like a piece of home, he made you feel less alone.

“Jae? Jaehyun!” You were calling out through the hallways, making your way through the house, “Chanyeol have you seen Jaehyun?” You asked, seeing Chanyeol sitting in the kitchen eating cereal.

“I fired him.” Chanyeol doesn’t look up to see your reaction but he can practically feel the anger radiating off you.

“W-what…. why!?”

It was infuriating. Why did you care about him so much?

“Because he wasn’t needed.” Chanyeol’s attitude was grating on you, how could he be so cold?

“I needed him!” You shout, surprising both Chanyeol and yourself with your outburst, but you were upset and he was going to know it.

“You…. ‘needed’ him?” Chanyeol hissed at you. Both of your tempers were rising rapidly and anyone could see this wasn’t going to end well. He was jealous of how upset you were over Jaehyun and you didn’t like how he’d taken away the one person that made you feel normal.

Standing up from his chair, Chanyeol turned to you with a look that, a couple months ago, would have sent you running. His anger was getting the better of him, ears turning red and eyes shooting into you like daggers.

“Yes I needed him!” You had reached your breaking point, no matter how hard Chanyeol glared, you were about to explode, “You have taken everything from me! Everything! My school, my friends, my whole fucking life! Jaehyun made me feel normal! He was the only thing in this whole goddamn mess that didn’t make me feel so shitty Chanyeol, and now you’ve taken him too! I left the love of my life, the man I was going to marry, the man who was supposed to be my everything first; I left him, to be here with you, and you took away my only friend! Why!? Why would you do that Chanyeol!?”

Chanyeol was speechless. He’d never seen you so mad before, he had no idea you were feeling this way. For a split second he let his own feelings take over and went into Mafia mode; staring you down with the deadliest look he could muster, deepening and raising his voice to try and gain back some control of the situation.

“You’re forgetting the part where I saved you and your pathetic excuse of a father from death! The part where my family paid for his business and started him from nothing! I didn’t take everything, you owe me everything!” By this point you were shaking with rage, how dare he act like some sort of martyr when he’d torn your world apart, “I am your husband! Me! So forget about your old love, forget about Jaehyun and get fucking used to it sweetheart.”

“You dont fucking own me!” You snarled back at him as you held your ground glaring back. He wouldn’t see you cry, you wouldn’t give him the pleasure.

Throwing away the last of his cereal, Chanyeol moved around your trembling figure before whispering into your ear, “really love, now we both know that’s not true.”

For the first time in months you find yourself locked away in your room. So many questions ran through your head; why would he do this? Was it jealousy or just his Mafia side coming out? After staring at the ceiling patterns for what seemed like hours, mind spinning in circles trying to make sense of your feelings and the situation, you decide that The Parks’ have taken enough of your life and now you’re going to take it back. Starting with your friends.

Taking the phone you’ve had hidden under the mattress since the wedding, you press the call button and wait.

“Joy? Oh my god Joy!” You scream into the receiver. Joy has been your best friend since you were kids, it broke your heart to leave her behind but in the end, her safety was more important.

“Y/N? Is this really you? Oh my fucking god Y/N I’ve missed you so fucking much!” Hearing her voice for the first time in months made tears flood your eyes, you didn’t realise just how much you had missed till you heard that familiar squeal she always did when she got excited.

“Yes It’s me, I’m so sorry I haven’t called or text even though I’ve missed you like crazy. How is everyone? How’re the girls and Minseok? Is everyone well?” The pair of you babbled on for a few minutes, catching up on everything you had missed since you’d been away.

“Yixing’s throwing a party tonight, will you come? Min will be there,” Joy asked, not even attempting to hide the pleading tone to her voice. It would be a lie to say you didn’t want to go, but could you? Would Chanyeol mind?

“Of course! I’ll get ready now, meet you there in 15?” You decide you don’t care if Chanyeol minds. If just for one more night you could be with your friends, with Minseok, then you could face his wrath once more. Pulling on a simple black dress and heels, you quickly put on some makeup and call a cab. Sneaking out is even easier; Chanyeol must have left to sulk in his room too....not that you cared.

◇

The atmosphere was incredible. The dimmed lighting and smokey rooms packed full of people, all moving and dancing to some early 2000’s R&B album playing over the speakers, half empty red solo cups scattered everywhere and the smell of liquor and weed making your eyes water. It was perfect. Joy had left you on the dance floor with Wendy while she went to get another drink, when you felt those familiar hands wrap around your waist from behind.

“You’re back,” his husky voice mumbled against your neck, “I’ve missed you baby, don’t leave again.” leaning back into his warm embrace, you felt his lips leave a trail of kisses up your neck and you melted.

“Minseokie,” you turn your body in his hold so that you can see him, “I missed you more,” when you lean in to place a kiss on his lips, you’re hit with such a strong smell of alcohol that you almost pull back. Minseok was never a big drinker when you were together, maybe this has been harder on him than you thought.

“Come upstairs with me,” he asks you, though it doesn’t really sound like a question.

Once Minseok pulls you into an empty bedroom, his whole demeanor changes. Expression cold and body language confrontational, you just put it all down to a mixture of the alcohol and missing you.

“What’s wrong Minnie?” you ask timidly. In the whole time you’ve known him you’ve never seen him look this mad and it was starting to scare you; not even Chanyeol looked this aggressive when he was angry.

“You.” He inches closer to your shaking body, making you take a step back with each of his advancements, “You’re what’s wrong Y/N.”

“L-look Minnie if this is about me leaving, you have to know I didn’t have a choice, I never wanted to leave…”

“It’s not about that!” He shouts, cutting off your attempt at an explanation, “it’s about who you left me for. Park Chanyeol. Really Y/N?” He was looking at you with such hate, such disgust, you suddenly wished you’d stayed at home with Chanyeol.

“Do you even know who he is Y/N?” before you could even respond he was cutting you off again, “He’s a mafia, and a Park at that. You left me for some low life thug. Do you know how embarrassing that was for my family? The woman I’ve talked so highly of for over a year, the woman I was going to marry, leaving me for our biggest adversaries”

As the weight of Minseok’s words set in, the shock and confusion must have been evident on your face because the next second he was grabbing you by the shoulders to hold you in place, laughing dryly.

“Yes baby. The Kim’s are one of the greatest crime families in the country and you,” his hand brushed away a stray tear from your cheek, “you my love, have betrayed us.”

The next few moments happened too quickly for you to react. You were completely frozen. Maybe it was the shock from Minseok’s confession, maybe it was the confusion from his sudden personality switch, or maybe it was just whiplash from the way he grabbed a fistful of your hair and threw you onto the bed. His hands roamed your body, his weight keeping you pressed into the mattress while he continued to whisper lewd things into your ear, neck, chest. You feel the material of your dress start to tear and in the next second Minseok had managed to rip it off of your body completely.

“It was supposed to be us Y/N. You were supposed to be all mine, ‘first everything’ you said, remember, tell me, am I still your first everything?” You were clawing desperately at his arms trying to push him off of you, but it was useless. He bit onto your ear harshly making you cry out in pain, “you didn’t let him touch you right Y/N? You’re still all mine right baby?” The voice that once made you feel so safe and loved, now made you want to run hide.

You could feel Minseok’s hands moving to undo his own clothes and you choked out another sob, “please, please Minnie, no, no stop,” but it was futile.

Just as you were about to completely give up, body still frozen in fear and vision blurred from the tears; you hear someone breaking down the door.

The thought of you with someone else is enough to make Chanyeol homicidal, but when he heard your cries from behind the door, he snapped. Breaking down the wooden barrier with his foot, grabbing Minseok by the back of his neck and throwing him to the ground punching the living shit out of him. Chanyeol doesn’t stop. In a blind rage, punching over and over and over again till his fists are covered in blood and Minseok is unconscious.

“Chanyeol! Chanyeol enough! That’s enough!” Behind him you’re crying out, begging him to stop but he can’t hear you, too immersed in his assault. Only when he feels your trembling fingers pull the back of his T-shirt does he relent.

“Chanyeol let’s g-go, I want to go, p-please,” your voice was hoarse and face was stained, his heart broke seeing you look like that, it almost made him want to turn around and keep punching, but he didn’t.

“Okay baby, it’s okay, I’ll take you home,” Chanyeol lifts you up bridal style and holds you close into his chest, shielding you from onlookers as he carried you out of the party to his car.

“Jesus fuck Yeol, what happened in there?” Jongin was waiting for the pair of you in the front of Chanyeol’s car, that explains how he found you so fast. One look from Chanyeol and Jongin turns away, instead focusing on driving back to the house as quickly as possible. The whole ride you’re in Chanyeol’s lap, he strokes your hair and whispers reassurances into your temple as you continue to cry into his shoulder. You just couldn’t believe it. Minseok, your sweet, loving Minseok who would never hurt you, had been such a monster just then. He had attacked you, hurt you, if Chanyeol hadn’t have shown up who knows what else would happened. When your tears have slowed down, you reach out and grab onto Chanyeol’s hands, bringing them up to see if he’s hurt. Chanyeol watches in shock and anger as you do so, annoyed that you’d even think about him right now after what you just went through.

“I’m fine Y/N,” he pulls his hands back from you, “I’m worried about you, okay, I’m fine baby.” He notices how you avoid his eyes, your hands still trembling, so he pulls you back into his chest, holding onto you tighter than before until Jongin pulls up outside the house.

Exhaustion starts to set in once the adrenaline had worn off and you suddenly find it very difficult to move, afraid if you were to try to stand your legs would give out. Not that that’s an issue though as Chanyeol continues to carry you all the way up to your room.

“Y/N I’m going to help you get you dressed, is that okay?” He asks, not wanting to overstep any boundaries after what had just happened. When you nod weakly in consent, Chanyeol helps you remove your shoes and dress, the bruises that have started to paint your skin reignite the burning anger and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep calm. Once you've changed into a loose top and he has you tucked in, Chanyeol sits beside you on the bed and softly hums along to your favourite Elvis song till you fall asleep.

“God I love you so fucking much,” he confesses once he thinks you’re asleep, “I’m so sorry Y/N, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” playing with the stray hairs around your face, Chanyeol can’t stop the stray tears that run down his cheeks, “fucking hell.”

He stands up to leave but you grab onto his wrist. You don’t want him to go, you don’t want to be alone.

“Stay,” you whisper as he stares back at you with his own watery eyes, unable to turn away from you, so he agrees.

That’s the first night you and Chanyeol sleep in the same bed.

◇

After that night, you and Chanyeol always shared a bed, cuddling up together and finding mutual comfort in the contact. He never once pushed for anything more than cuddling, being careful to respect your boundaries and asking before he initiated anything and while that was nice - you were tired of it.

It felt like he was walking on eggshells around you even after weeks. You’d finally come to terms with your feelings and you wanted him. He was your husband and sleeping next to him every night without that extra level of intimacy was beginning to feel like torture.

It was late, 1am, when you finally worked up the courage to ask for what you needed.

“Yeol… are you awake?” You whisper into the darkness, feeling his even breaths against your back.

“Hmm..” he mumbles in response.

“Yeol… I need you,” You’re feeling nervous, it would be your first time, but you love him and you know this is right.

“What? Is something wrong?” Concern lacing his words as you slowly turn your body to face him.

“No Yeol,” you move his hand that’s resting on your hip up to cup your breast, “I need you”

The look on Chanyeol’s face is beautiful, you think. How his expression morphes from something of confusion to sudden understanding and finally one of nerves and shock.

“A-are you sure?” His big brown eyes staring deep into your soul, looking for any signs of uncertainty, but he finds none; and when you nod up at him, it doesn’t take him long to move his body to lie in between your legs and to start kissing you gently.

“I love you so much,” he whispers in between kisses, planting them everywhere from your lips, down your neck and onto your chest.

“Yeol please, please I need you now,” he doesn’t hesitate. Removing your panties in a flash and stroking his fingers between your folds, making you moan and buck your hips at the new feeling.

“You’re so wet baby, you really needed me this much? You’re so cute,” using his other hand to move your own to his growing erection, Chanyeol leans back down to suck your lip between his own, chewing on it gently and eliciting another string of moans from you. He feels hard in your hand, you can feel every part of him through his boxers and it almost feels natural when you push them off his hips.

“Need you,” you whimper when he pushes a finger inside your heat, the feeling foreign but pleasurable and when he adds a second you’re in euphoria. “Yeol, Y-Yeol,”

His smug face pulls away from the side of your neck to look down into your eyes as his fingers pick up their pace.

“What is it baby? What do you need? Tell me what you need.”

Not trusting yourself to talk without moaning, you move his erection to where his fingers are pushing in and out of you, trying to get the message across.

“You want me to fuck you Y/N?” He whispers, face back to being buried in your neck, sucking and biting on the flesh, marking you as his.

“P-please,” you whimper again and he can’t hold back anymore.

The whole time Chanyeol holds you close to him, both of his hands touching you at all times, on your hips, around your thighs, keeping your bodies pressed together. It’s soft and full of an indescribable kind of love that you’ve never experienced before. Between low moans and whimpers, whispers of how much you love each other are shared; he tells you repeatedly how much you mean to him and how special you are, how you’re safe with him and he’ll always be here for you; and in return you leave purple coloured marks up the column of his neck, so everyone can see that he is just as much yours, as you are his.

It was perfect. After you both come, you keep your bodies tangled together as you drift to sleep, feeling the happiest you’ve felt in months and never wanting to let it go.

[themiscyra1983]

Gender Identity In The 24th Century, As Viewed By Trekkies Named Cass Who Are Me

I’ve been real sick lately - in kind of a health crisis, honestly - and I’ve only recently been coming out of it. It made it really difficult for me to write or to find the presence of mind to keep up with a lot of things, Tumblr included.

But I’m back! I’ve been looking in now and then. I probably won’t try to catch up. And I’ve been easing back into writing by finally putting together the first few chapters of my “Trans Harry Kim” fic. (I need to work on other things, which I will get to.) As part of this, today, I wrote some notes on where I plan to take the fic over time, and then I got on this, which...took longer than I thought and now constitutes the majority of the notes.

Presented for your entertainment, my personal views/working canon on how gender identity is handled in the late 24th Century of the Star Trek universe. Working title: “FUCK THE J’NAII UP THE ASS WITH A PISSED-OFF CAT”. Actual title: “Gender Identity In The 24th Century”. With the caveats noted above.

The State of the Art

Even in the 24th Century (Earth standard calendar), no single genetic, environmental, psychological or other factor associated with gender identity has been definitively identified by any culture on par with the scientific and technological development of the United Federation of Planets. Though routine gestational and neo-natal scans sometimes turn up certain genetic indicators, these are generally not acted upon - at least within the Federation - until a child is old enough to express their own gender identity. In most Federation cultures, this will occur by the onset of puberty, if not before. When a child reveals that their gender identity differs from their presumed gender, standard procedure within Federation cultures is to begin a course of psychological evaluations coupled with hormone blockers to delay puberty. However, full transition is generally not delayed - the Federation lacks the paranoia that attended underage trans people of 21st Century Earth, medicine and psychology have advanced exponentially, and physical transitions can be reversed or performed again if required.

Federation medical technology allows for a complete physical transition into the form the patient finds most comfortable. This is accomplished through a cellular reconstruction matrix. The patient is suspended in a tank of biomimetic gel, and through a series of procedures over the course of a week, their body is altered on the genetic level - this is one of the few exceptions to the Federation’s general ban on genetic engineering. Cosmetic changes may be made if desired by the patient, but are generally minimal; in a sense, the patient is recreated as though they had always outwardly presented as their true gender. Those who fall within established gender groupings are genetically and biologically indistinguishable from cisgender individuals. Barring other medical conditions, trans women can bear and nurse biological children; trans men, similarly, can conceive biological children. Fat deposits, hormonal distribution, and all other biological functions are altered accordingly. In the case of individuals who fall outside their culture’s established gender groupings, their bodies will follow the functions they have chosen in collaboration with their physicians.

Cellular reconstruction can be performed on any sufficiently developed Federation planet and most starbases. The majority of Starfleet and civilian vessels are not equipped for the procedure, though some are, most notably those designed with the long-term residence of families including children in mind. Beyond the borders of the Federation, the available medical and psychological procedures vary.

The following is an incomplete summary of attitudes toward transgender individuals on various homeworlds and among the relevant species, including both Federation and non-Federation cultures.

Earth

Contrary to the stereotype, humanity has not become a species of perfect angels, coddled and content in their paradise. Bigotry still exists, but by the 24th Century, that bigotry, where it manifests, is largely turned outward. Vanishingly few human beings object in any way to any element of what the 21st Century would have considered the LGBTQ community; all romantic and sexual interests among consenting adults (including asexuality and aromanticism) and all gender identities are broadly accepted. When homophobia, biphobia, aphobia, or transphobia do manifest, those responsible are shut down hard. Though the LGBTQ community has largely integrated with the broader population and is no longer considered unusual in any way - human sexuality and gender identity are both understood to fall along a relatively even distribution curve - there is still a form of queer culture revived after First Contact. It differs substantially from the pre-warp queer culture that existed prior to the Third World War, but annual Pride festivals remain common, particularly in New York, where the Stonewall Inn still stands as an historic monument.

Transgender individuals are considered widely unremarkable, though self-actualization in any form is considered praiseworthy. Many are open about their history to some degree, but some binary trans people still choose to leave their past behind them, and considering both Federation law and the availability of complete physical transitions, it is easier than ever to do so. Though 24th Century Starfleet considers the use of addresses such as “sir” and “mister” gender neutral, some trans people do quietly object to the practice - as do some cis people, for that matter. Requested exceptions to these addresses are generally accepted with no questions asked; though there is a small movement to correct the perceived problem across Starfleet, tradition continues to stand for the time being.

Vulcan

Those with only a child’s understanding of logic might conclude it is illogical to change the physical body to fit the mind, when surely it is far more efficient to ‘repair’ the mind. Surak and the logicians who have followed in his footsteps would disagree. Transgender Vulcans were known even in the pre-logic era, and recognizing the complexity of the issue, even Surak wrote briefly on the subject in the Kir’Shara. Six hundred years later, in the 10th Century of Earth’s standard calendar, the non-binary Vulcan philosopher S’lira wrote what would later become known as The Logical Underpinnings of Gender Identity, still considered a seminal text by all students of Vulcan literature and philosophy, and beloved by trans people throughout the Federation. Vulcans possessed and employed cellular reconstruction technology prior to First Contact with Earth, though they did not share this technology with other cultures - humanity included - until the establishment of the Coalition of Planets, the precursor to the Federation.

Andor

Andorians, too, recognize gender variance, though their sense of it is somewhat complicated by the fact that their species recognizes four distinct gender groupings as well as a spectrum between and outside these genders. The specific physiology and biology involved can be complex, and as Andorians and Vulcans were mutually hostile for much of their shared history, it took some time for the Andorians to accept cellular reconstruction technology from their former foe, and longer still for them to adapt it.

For a time, during the 24th Century reproductive crisis, there was talk among the higher levels of Andorian government of suspending cellular reconstruction for transgender individuals, as it was felt that the population needed to stabilize and any form of genetic ‘tampering’ was unconscionable under these circumstances. Though this was a minority view, the suggestion, coupled with rumors of wide-scale genetic manipulation to reduce the Andorian species to two recognized gender groupings rather than four (modeling the “male” and “female” of other species), led to ferocious debate in the halls of power. Fortunately, by 2386, the crisis was resolved through the work of Dr. Julian Bashir and his colleagues.

Trill

Unjoined Trill may declare their own gender identities and transition freely. There is no stigma attached to it, and following a physical transition, transgender Trill can still apply to be joined.

There is, however, a taboo around joined Trill transitioning. This is due to two factors: first, the health of the symbiote is considered paramount, and though there are methods of reducing the risk, cellular reconstruction can endanger or at least alter the symbiote as well. Second, in the aftermath of joining, joined Trill must learn to balance their own identities against the memories and identities of their prior hosts. Though candidates for joining are vetted thoroughly, there is still a belief, generally unspoken, that it is possible for one or more prior hosts to so overwhelm the current host that their identity is radically changed. This would be considered a failed joining. In the rare event that a Trill comes out as transgender following joining, the Symbiosis Commission becomes directly involved in the subsequent evaluation, and can deny requests for cellular reconstruction. Though most such situations have been resolved amicably, there have been a few ugly incidents resulting from the Commission’s decisions.

Bajor

Prior to the Cardassian Occupation, the gender spectrum was widely recognized and celebrated among the Bajorans. Though most fell within genders analogous to the human concepts of male and female, and agreed with the gender assigned at their births, binary and non-binary trans Bajorans were not unknown. Trans people were viewed as following the calling of their pagh, and declarations of self, as well as physical transitions, were cause for celebration. Many Bajoran poets and religious figures wrote eloquently on the subject of gender identity, and the ancient Song of the Self Discovered has become a beloved text among Federation cultures since the Occupation ended and Bajorans began to trade and communicate with the Federation on their own terms.

During the Occupation, however, much of this fell by the wayside. The Cardassians frequently refused to allow the Bajorans any form of self-actualization, and it was difficult for those Bajorans in hiding, or in the Resistance, to receive the care they would previously have enjoyed. Following the end of the Occupation, the Bajorans turned to rebuilding their planet, and in that light, some viewed cellular reconstruction or other transition care as a frivolous luxury on a planet still prone to famines, disease, and a general lack of resources.

This began to change as the Bajorans gained distance from the Occupation, and successfully repaired the damage done to their world. By the time of Bajor’s long-delayed admission to the United Federation of Planets, transgender Bajorans were once again widely accepted, even if the culture around them had shifted. The Bajoran people continue to work to recover all that they lost, and strive to build a culture that carries worthy traditions forward while rejecting those elements, such as the d’jarra caste system, that no longer have a place in their society.

J’naii

The J’naii, the native species of the planet which shares their name, are not members of the Federation, though they have had contact and even trade with the Federation in the past. They consider themselves a monogendered species, and do not tolerate any form of gender variance, subjecting those who express any gender identity which does not agree with the prevailing consensus to exruciating psychotectic treatments which most Federation medical professionals decry as brainwashing and torture. This practice has soured relations between the J’naii and the Federation, but the Federation will accept individual J’naii refugees fleeing persecution for their sense of gender identity or general political dissent. There are even some J’naii officers across the gender spectrum serving in Starfleet.

Qo’nos

Even in the 24th Century, Klingon culture is often sexist and rigid. Though women can be warriors and serve aboard Klingon vessels, they do not command. Among noble Klingon Houses, the husband controls the House and its assets, while the wife attends to ritual and social matters. In the event of a noble Klingon man’s death, his widow can preside over his House only in narrow circumstances.

As such, Klingon society has a uniquely one-sided - perhaps completely warped - view on gender identity. It is understandable, in their view, for a woman with the heart of a warrior to hear the call to become a man. This warrior must prove himself in glorious battle before physical and social transition is allowed - but it has happened, and Klingons who would be recognized as trans men among other species have risen to high ranks, even commanding noble houses; historians and observers speculate even some Klingon Chancellors once presented as women. Trans men have been recognized in this fashion since the days of Kahless, who had such a warrior among his companions, and prior to the availability of cellular reconstruction technology on Qo’nos, such warriors could live as men without altering their bodies, taking wives and adopting children.

On the whole, Klingon society does not understand why any virile man would wish to become a woman. There is, even among Klingons, such a thing as compassion, and it is not unknown for individual families to take their transgender daughters offworld for treatment. Correcting their personal records is a more complicated matter, and as a result, there is a small population of “orphan girls” allegedly found among the stars and adopted into families grieving their sons. With the proper persuasion, the authorities generally look the other way.

Klingon society does not generally recognize non-binary individuals within their own species. The concept is baffling. Again, it is not unheard of for non-binary Klingons to seek treatment outside the Empire - but they often exile themselves from Klingon society afterward. Some abandon their culture completely; others attempt to preserve a form of their culture in solitude; but generally speaking, non-binary Klingons do not present themselves as such in public if they continue to live within the borders of the Empire.

Romulus

Gender variance and any accompanying physical transitions are accepted among the Romulans - but there is no escaping the past. Records are meticulously updated and maintained; transgender Romulans are recognized according to their gender identitiy in the present, but their assigned gender at birth, along with all the medical and psychiatric care they have received, are noted in their files. However, though this information may sometimes be brought into play if it seems relevant and the individual has become a target, there is no particular stigma attached to being transgender. Romulan society is largely egalitarian with regard to gender, for all that it is a xenophobic. repressive oligarchy. Men, women, and non-binary Romulans can all be of service to the state, whether in the military, the Tal Shiar, the Senate, or as simple shopkeepers, farmers, or whatever else is required.

Ferenginar

The Ferengi readily understand why a female might wish to become a male, but given their extensive cultural misogyny, they have generally forbidden it. Any Ferengi male discovered to have been assigned female at birth will be harshly punished, their physical transition forcibly undone. As a culture, they have no idea why a male would wish to become a female, and non-binary identities are beyond their comprehension.

None of this means it has not happened. Certainly Ferengi women have posed as men in pursuit of better lives, and some assigned female at birth have genuinely been transgender, going offworld to transition not only for the sake of profit but in answer to the call of their inner selves. Some Ferengi assigned male at birth, though it would be considered scandalous, have abandoned the expectations of their society to become the women they know themselves to be. And Ferengi assigned either way sometimes adopt non-binary identities. It often means leaving Ferengi society, living on the edges at best, but even among a people as profit-driven and rigid as the Ferengi, the true self cannot always be denied.

Things have begun to change with the ascension of the Grand Nagus Rom. Ferengi females can now wear clothes, move outside the home, and pursue profit in their own right. Slowly, the concept of non-binary gender identity has been introduced. Though it is a secret between zirself and zir wife Leeta, Rom is in fact genderfluid, sometimes identifying as male, sometimes as female, and sometimes as non-binary. Leeta accepts this truth wholeheartedly, and Rom’s mother Ishka has come around on the matter as well, but even the new Ferenginar would not accept Rom’s circumstances so readily, and so Rom maintains a strictly male presentation when dealing with literally everyone else.

Cardassia

Cardassian society is perpetually paranoid, and has been for some time. Gender variance is widely viewed as weakness, and weaknesses are to be exploited to remove the unfit from power and allow the advancement of those more equipped to deal with reality. Cardassian society officially only accepts the binary genders of male and female, and has not historically allowed transition between them.

This may not always have been the case - some archaeologists have found evidence of more accepting cultures in the Cardassians’ past, before the rise of the military regime that ultimately gave way to the Dominion. When the civilian Detapa Council briefly overtook the government, there was some movement in the direction of greater tolerance, but this was swiftly quashed once Gul Dukat and his Dominion allies took control.

In the aftermath of the Dominion War, the new civilian government has wrought many changes in Cardassian society. As a people, they have begun to rediscover their history, their ancient culture, even their spiritualism. Tolerance for gender variance, among other differences, has been growing. But progress remains slow. The military and the Obsidian Order, in their time, caused damage that may take decades or centuries to repair. For now, transgender Cardassians generally seek treatment offworld and do their best to keep their heads down and their hopes moderated. But there is hope, no matter how long the road ahead.

Breen

Literally only the Breen could tell you, and they aren’t talking.

The Dominion

The worlds of the Dominion vary widely in their acceptance of and response to gender variance, though most accept it to some degree and offer some form of transition care. The Federation is now in more constant contact with these planets, and with communication and trade have come cultural changes which are bringing even the more conservative societies around.

The Founders have no actual concept of gender or sexuality beyond the Link. They present in whatever forms suit their needs of the moment.

The Vorta and the Jem’Hadar are so heavily genetically engineered, created to singular purposes, that it is difficult to impossible for them to think for themselves. Federation doctors and anthropologists, with the permission of the Founders, are working to undo the genetic damage and to introduce concepts long since lost among these species, but for the moment, all Jem’Hadar continue to present as male and refuse to admit any feelings to the contrary.

The Vorta consider it blasphemy to alter the bodies given them by the Founders, but male, female, and non-binary Vorta all exist, so that they can interface with any culture regardless of the local views on gender. Among the Vorta themselves, the distinction is meaningless. They are sterile, cannot reproduce without medical intervention, and have been cloned exclusively for longer than any living Vorta can now recall. Their culture is stagnant, their imaginations nearly nonexistent, and they are only slowly beginning to recognize any sense of personal identity.

The Borg Collective

Surprisingly, the Borg recognize gender variance and routinely perform physical transition. The reason has to do with efficiency: gender dysphoria is a condition which inherently complicates the interlink between the drone and the Collective. In allowing a drone’s body to conform to their sense of self, this sense of self can then be subdued. The conscious mind, at peace, can be suppressed and captured within a waking dream, giving the drone over to the Collective. Transphobia and gender stereotypes are irrelevant. All will become one with the Collective and adapt to service them. Dysphoria will be subdued; resistance is futile.

Aboard a Borg ship, genetic reconfiguration can be achieved within any standard regeneration alcove or maturation chamber. Sterilization fields and other necessities can be easily supplied by the ship’s systems. The technology would need to be adapted outside this environment, but as the vast majority of drones live aboard ships, stations, and unimatrices, and treatment is applied as soon as the problem is identified, this concern is generally irrelevant.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Washington state was the initial epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. And New York is now the hardest-hit part of the country so far, with hospitalizations increasing at rapid rates — more than 37,000 people had been diagnosed with the coronavirus in New York as of late Thursday afternoon.

Because COVID-19 hit blue, coastal states first, and because politics is politics, the response to the pandemic hasn’t exactly been apolitical.

But blue states are hardly alone in what is becoming a nationwide epidemic. Jefferson Parish, Louisiana — which went for Trump by 15 percentage points in 2016 — has a death rate about equal to that of Manhattan. And as terrifying as the hospital situation is in New York City, hospital capacity is also under strain in states such as Michigan and Georgia.

Overall, although the number of detected cases is higher in blue states, the number is increasing at a more rapid rate in red states.1 Moreover, blue states have conducted more tests per capita than red states, so — given that the large majority of coronavirus cases remain undetected — the lower rate of cases in red states may partially be an artifact of less testing.

Here is the data as of late Thursday afternoon, with states sorted by the increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases between Monday (March 23) and Thursday (March 26).2 All data is taken from the invaluable COVID Tracking Project.

Detected COVID-19 cases are on the rise in red states

Known COVID-19 cases as of March 23 and March 26, according to The COVID Tracking Project

March 23 March 26 State Detected cases Per 10k pop. Detected cases Per 10k pop. Change 2016 winner Texas 352 0.12 1396 0.48 297% Trump West Virginia 16 0.09 51 0.28 219 Trump Massachusetts 777 1.12 2417 3.48 211 Clinton Oklahoma 81 0.2 248 0.63 206 Trump Alabama 167 0.34 506 1.03 203 Trump Missouri 183 0.3 502 0.82 174 Trump Alaska 22 0.3 59 0.81 168 Trump Pennsylvania 644 0.5 1687 1.32 162 Trump Idaho 47 0.26 123 0.69 162 Trump Indiana 259 0.38 645 0.96 149 Trump Connecticut 415 1.16 1012 2.84 144 Clinton New Jersey 2844 3.2 6876 7.74 142 Clinton Arizona 265 0.36 577 0.79 118 Trump Michigan 1328 1.33 2856 2.86 115 Trump North Carolina 297 0.28 636 0.61 114 Trump Vermont 75 1.2 158 2.53 111 Clinton Montana 34 0.32 71 0.66 109 Trump Kansas 82 0.28 168 0.58 105 Trump Wyoming 26 0.45 53 0.92 104 Trump Maryland 288 0.48 580 0.96 101 Clinton Florida 1171 0.55 2355 1.1 101 Trump District of Columbia 116 1.64 231 3.27 99 Clinton Georgia 772 0.73 1525 1.44 98 Trump Illinois 1285 1.01 2538 2 98 Clinton Louisiana 1172 2.52 2305 4.96 97 Trump Ohio 442 0.38 867 0.74 96 Trump Mississippi 249 0.84 485 1.63 95 Trump Arkansas 174 0.58 335 1.11 93 Trump Delaware 68 0.7 130 1.34 91 Clinton Kentucky 104 0.23 198 0.44 90 Trump Colorado 591 1.03 1086 1.89 84 Clinton Virginia 254 0.3 460 0.54 81 Clinton New York 20875 10.73 37258 19.15 78 Clinton New Hampshire 78 0.57 137 1.01 76 Clinton California 1733 0.44 3006 0.76 73 Clinton North Dakota 30 0.39 52 0.68 73 Trump New Mexico 65 0.31 112 0.53 72 Clinton Nevada 245 0.8 420 1.36 71 Clinton Oregon 191 0.45 327 0.78 71 Clinton Iowa 105 0.33 179 0.57 70 Trump Wisconsin 416 0.71 707 1.21 70 Trump Hawaii 56 0.4 95 0.67 70 Clinton South Dakota 28 0.32 46 0.52 64 Trump Utah 257 0.8 402 1.25 56 Trump Rhode Island 106 1 165 1.56 56 Clinton Tennessee 615 0.9 957 1.4 56 Trump South Carolina 299 0.58 456 0.89 53 Trump Minnesota 235 0.42 346 0.61 47 Clinton Nebraska 50 0.26 73 0.38 46 Trump Maine 107 0.8 155 1.15 45 Clinton Washington 1996 2.62 2580 3.39 29 Clinton

Sources: The COVID Tracking Project, U.S. Census

Nine of the 10 states that have seen the most rapid increase in coronavirus from Monday to Thursday are states that voted for Trump in 2016, led by Texas, where the number of reported cases increased by 297 percent.

On average, states that voted for Trump saw a 119 percent increase in cases over this 3-day period, as compared to an 88 percent increase in states that voted for Hillary Clinton (plus the District of Columbia). Weighted by state populations, the difference is slightly larger: 141 percent in states Trump won and 88 percent in states Clinton won.

For now, states Clinton won do have considerably more total reported cases. As of Thursday, Clinton states had 4.29 positive tests per 10,000 people, as compared to 1.13 per 10,000 people in Trump states. A lot of that difference is attributable to New York; without New York, Clinton states have 1.89 cases per 10,000 people.

But the nature of exponential growth is such that these differences could evaporate in a hurry. If reported cases in Trump states continued to increase at 119 percent every three days (about 30 percent per day) while reported cases in Clinton states increased by 88 percent every three days (about 23 percent per day), then the per capita case count in Trump states would surpass that in Clinton states within about 30 days, or by late April.

Hopefully, the rate of increase will slow in both types of states as we begin to see further effects of social distancing measures in the data. However, these measures were generally enacted earlier and have been more forceful in blue states. That means the rate at which new cases are being diagnosed could slow down faster in blue states than in red states, meaning that red states would catch up earlier.

Blue states have also conducted more testing than red states. In states with reliable estimates of the number of positive and negative tests as of Thursday night,3 Clinton states had conducted 21.8 tests per 10,000 people as compared to 12.5 tests per 10,000 people in Trump states.4

Blue states have done more COVID-19 testing

Tests completed per capita as of March 26, in states with reliable reporting on the number of negative tests

State Tests completed per 10k people* 2016 winner New York 62.8 Clinton Louisiana 38.8 Trump New Mexico 37.2 Clinton Massachusetts 34.0 Clinton Vermont 32.2 Clinton Maine 26.4 Clinton District of Columbia 26.3 Clinton Alaska 25.4 Trump Utah 24.0 Trump New Jersey 23.1 Clinton New Hampshire 23.1 Clinton Minnesota 23.0 Clinton South Dakota 22.8 Trump Tennessee 21.8 Trump Wisconsin 21.1 Trump Montana 20.6 Trump Connecticut 18.6 Clinton Oregon 17.3 Clinton Nevada 16.6 Clinton Ohio 14.8 Trump Rhode Island 14.2 Clinton Pennsylvania 14.2 Trump Illinois 13.1 Clinton Idaho 12.2 Trump Florida 12.2 Trump Kansas 10.4 Trump Michigan 9.4 Trump Nebraska 8.6 Trump Georgia 8.4 Trump Alabama 8.4 Trump Texas 7.4 Trump Kentucky 7.4 Trump Virginia 7.3 Clinton Arkansas 6.1 Trump West Virginia 6.0 Trump California 5.2 Clinton Oklahoma 3.0 Trump

* Excluding tests that are listed as pending.

Sources: The COVID Tracking Project, U.S. Census

That means the true gap in the number of cases may not be as large as the roughly fourfold difference in reported cases between blue states and red states right now. States such as Louisiana have discovered they have far more cases than they originally realized as they’ve ramped up testing over the past week, and other red states (and blue states) could follow.

COVID-19 has also led to a slightly higher case fatality rate (the number of deaths as a share of the number of known cases) in red states so far. As of Thursday evening, the death rate per case was 1.7 percent in Trump states as compared to 1.3 percent in Clinton states. This could reflect a variety of factors, including potential underreporting of cases in Trump states,5 the age and health of the populations in each set of states, or the efficacy of responses by local health care systems.

However, the higher fatality rate it is a somewhat troubling sign for red states given that many of them are generally at an earlier point in their epidemic curves, meaning that many people who have acquired COVID-19 in those states have done so recently and have not yet developed the most serious symptoms that could lead to long-term hospitalization or death.

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Great leaders, in contrast, are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained. Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.” ~ Simon Sinek | Author – Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Game Changers | Series One Reflection

In March this year I launched an educational podcast series titled Game Changers, with fellow host Associate Professor of Education & Enterprise Dr Phil Cummins. Game Changers is a podcast for those who want to change the game of school. We started Series One with the provocation “What is the purpose of schooling for today?”

When Phil and I started to record this series the coronavirus pandemic had not taken hold. Before I launch into a reflection of Series One I feel it is important to acknowledge and state that during this unimaginable time we find ourselves in, we in education have to be super conscious of our parents and families, who are balancing work, finances, a house and home learning, our remarkable teachers who have demonstrated amazing agility and adaptability like I’ve never witnessed before in my educational career and finally to our students. Who now find themselves without the huge benefit of the physical, on campus community and relationship connectedness that had brought them much psychological safety, certainty and comfort.  

Since then we have seen a new learning paradigm – learning remotely, online, distance, home campus �� whatever you wish to call it, actually I prefer continuous learning, because the pandemic has amplified the notion that learning can happen anywhere and anytime. So, we live in interesting times. Coping with the complex changes of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) – but what do we do with this insight? For mine, this podcast has become a sign of our times. This series has confirmed that emotional competency and our inherent humanness is the new knowledge base, in a world that is increasingly automated, with artificial intelligence a more and more prevailing construct. And it has taken a virus for educators across the global to put a spotlight on educational models, amplifying the gulf between a model of schooling that has passed its use by date and a move toward a dynamic learning ecosystem for a new world environment.

It has been a real privilege to be in dialogue with this diverse group of educators and entrepreneurs. I am better for my encounter with their body of work, their passion, their thinking, their unwavering commitment to young people and above all, their humanity. When I think about all eight individuals I am remined of this quote from Parker Palmer’s landmark book, The Courage to Teach, he writes, “The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts – meaning heart in its ancient sense, the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self.”

Episode One | Stephanie McConnell

We then started Series One with foundation Principal of the Lindfield Learning Village in Sydney NSW, Stephanie McConnell.

Key learnings – We have to reimagine schooling to best prepare all young people to learn, live, lead and work for their future. And to this end Stephanie spoke about equipping young people with the mindset to thrive. That learning needs to be more around the contexts of young people, therefore relevance a prevailing construct. And that a thriving learning community or village is about true collaboration - learning with and from the local and global community. And that the individual learning pathway is central to the future of schooling.

Episode Two | Yong Zhao

Key learnings – We need to abandon the prescribed factory model. That we currently manufacture scarcity with our industrial model of schooling – life is not about fighting for a few spots. And that adaptive challenges however are less precise, intangible and are usually resolved through a more organic process of trial and error, as we have been witnessing many adaptive teachers during this pandemic. I particularly love that Zhao is strong advocate for students to become drivers of their own future, trusting in each young person to take ownership and agency. Believing each can create their story, for their own future.

Episode Three | Valerie Hannon

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen first suggested, back in January 2011 in Yale Environment 360 online magazine, that we were living in the Anthropocene, describing the value of this new framing for our current Earth history. He stated “Students in school are still taught that we are living in the Holocene, an era that began roughly 12,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. But teaching students that we are living in the Anthropocene, the Age of Men [Humans], could be of great help. Rather than representing yet another sign of human hubris, this name change would stress the enormity of humanity’s responsibility as stewards of the Earth. It would highlight the immense power of our intellect and our creativity, and the opportunities they offer for shaping the future.”

Key learnings – For mine, our conversation with Valerie Hannon was brilliant in highlighting that we are in exactly that, The Age of Human. And that we have a responsibility to craft learning communities that understand and embrace this stewardship of earth, where we see ourselves as part of nature, understanding how to live within and with the planet as a whole. It is less about a selfless approach to living and more about place and the other. And that educators and schools have a fundamental role to prepare future generations for this world that awaits.

Episode Four  | Henry Musoma

Key learnings – For mine, this conversation was the reason why I do what I do, teach. Henry reminded us all that authentic learning is a social exchange of the heart and of the mind. He reminded me of two key things:

Self-actualisation - When we do the work and invest in improving ourselves, we evolve all aspects of our being. Then, we take what we’ve learned and share that light and love with the other. This feeling of self-actualisation is worth actively working toward for true personal fulfilment.

For All -  Effective educators leave a legacy, and a tremendous influence on the life of the other. This is a privilege and gift. “Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong.” – Albert Einstein. This is the human act of giving. Therefore generosity, love and kindness are not impulsive reactions. They require a profound consciousness and concern for the other.

Episode Five | Catherine Misson

Key learnings – Today’s educational sector calls for adaptive leadership. It is a collaborative change movement that emerges in a non-linear manner from interactive exchanges. School leaders and educational sectors need to wake to the fact that control, order and certainty are fallacies and that agile and adaptive leaders read the patterns of life effectively, moulding themselves to the needs of the moment, the sign of our times. Catherine is one of those leaders who isn’t afraid to agitate for doing schooling differently, always with the wellbeing and dignity of all the centre of her decision making.

Episode Six | Peter Hutton

Key learnings – School leaders need to re-examine the purpose of education for today’s world and ensure that it is based on the facts and emerging predictions about the impact of the exponential change we are currently witnessing. It is our collective responsibility to expose young people to new experiences and possibilities, but if we want them to take charge of their learning, these experiences have to be worthwhile and applicable in the students’ lives… really applicable, not because traditional dogma says they have to know it.

Episode Seven | Madeleine Grummet

Key learnings – Real opportunities exist with private enterprise to partner with schools and educational sectors to codifying curiosity and connect young people to industry-based people. What a dynamic way to accelerate the work of careers practitioners in schools and scale up with entrepreneurs that are focused on empowering young women, across industries that smash gender stereotypes. I always love having a dialogue with wonderful entrepreneurs like Madeleine - because they are forever curious about learning, living, leading and working. So, ask yourself, how do you quench your thirst for curiosity?

Episode Eight | Mark Hutchinson

Key learnings – The heart of the matter is what matters most to Mark and his commitment to the formation of pre-service teachers. He spoke about the importance of congruence and a readiness of pre-services teachers having a greater sense of fit with the ethos of the schools they are joining. Ensuring that the preparation of future teachers to be re-situated in the learning ecologies of their particular practice.

The American marketing guru Seth Godin once said, “The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.” It is time. We can’t do nothing. We must act in creating a schooling model that has an explicit emphasis on the fostering of confidence, competence and character. Having said that, above all, this series has confirmed for me why remaining forever curious, highly adaptive and that when we make a commitment to our own self-efficacy and that of the other, these are all fundamental to thriving in this new world environment.

When we go back to school everything will be different – and it must be different. It is time to focus education on the flow of humanity and the importance of relational connection. And if that’s the construct of the new normal, the new mainstream in schools. A holistic education nurtures a student’s unique talents and shapes their awareness of the broader common good. We need teachers and school leaders who challenge the status quo, embrace diversity of opinion, acknowledge limitations in expertise, seek input, and most importantly who are not only able to as John Dewey as previously stated “learn from experience, but rather learn from reflecting on experience”.

Thank you to Stephanie, Yong, Valerie, Henry, Catherine, Peter, Madeleine and Mark for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series One: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.

[fanficnewbie]

“Open Heart Fanfic: 72 Hours & Beyond” Chapter Eight

This is my first story/series. The first 5 chapters are adaptations from the first 4 parts of “A Weekend with Dr. Ramsey” series with permission from @alwaysmychoices and then I continue my own original work in chapters 6-14.

I start this adapted storyline during Chapter 15 of the original OH series. There is a bit of AU, where I play around with the storyline a bit and insert two days between MC leaving the country club and returning to her apartment to find Landry packing. Some situations have been changed to keep with the original vision of @alwaysmychoices and make the story work in the direction I wanted it to go. However, I find my way back to the original in Chapters 6-8 and then move on past the ending of Book One during chapters 9-14.My MC is female, Francesca Houseman, who has only had eyes for Ethan Ramsey from day one.

*This chapter borrows a few lines of dialogue adapted from @alwaysmychoices​ Brunch chapter because I thought they were so fun.*

FULL SERIES

Chapter Eight: “Recovery”

7553 words

This entry retells the story of Banjeri’s recovery, the ethics hearing and the last night with MC and Ethan.

(NSFW)

Francesca lay awake in bed, surprised that she had beaten her alarm after taking sleeping meds the previous night; yet savoring the few minutes of silence before her world was potentially turned upside down. Today was the Ethics Hearing, today her fate would be sealed. She closed her eyes to enjoy the last precious seconds of peace before her alarm started beeping. As she moved to shut it off, the door opened and her friends piled in – like they were waiting for the sound as their cue.

She sat up amazed as they all started talking at once, giving her the advice they’d gleaned the night before to help her prepare.

Sienna insisted she have a hearty breakfast while Jackie explained the merits of dressing the part. Elijah repeated words that make people sympathetic: “Butterfly, Rainbow, Cupcake, Grandma”. Bryce, who she gathered must have crashed on their couch, had gotten her up and out of the bed to position her in poses he was convinced would instill confidence.

“Wait, wait!” Francesca tried to quiet them, at once overwhelmed and appreciative. “Will you people listen for a second?”

They all stopped and looked at her impatiently, eager to share their individual plans to get her through this. She took a deep breath, genuinely touched by how much they cared about her, “Thank you. No matter what happens today…I couldn’t do this without you. All of you.”

Sienna’s eyes brimmed with tears, “Group hug!” Jackie immediately stepped out of the way but Bryce grabbed her arm and pulled her back in for the big embrace. Sienna held on the longest, when she pulled back she looked at Francesca encouragingly, “Get dressed okay. We have a lot to do.”

Alone again, Francesca reached for her phone, anxious for an update from Ethan. He had sent a text confirming that Dr. Banjeri was still alive. The bacteria levels had decreased exponentially and now his body was fighting the phage. They had administered the meds to help with that fight, but he didn’t expect any immediate answers. She sighed relieved and nervous as she put down her phone. Now it was just a waiting game to see what would happen. But if it worked, they were almost there.

A short while later, after Francesca was dressed, fed and had received all the advice and instructions she could manage from her friends, they headed over as one group to Edenbrook. The ten-minute walk had never felt so long.

When they arrived, Francesca wondered if this would be her last time there. With so much on the line, everything about the hospital looked the same - but somehow different. She turned to Bryce, “I think I’m starting to get nervous…”

Bryce put a warning hand on her shoulder, “Don’t let them see it.”

Elijah overheard the exchange, “You’ve got this Francesca.”

Crossing the atrium, Francesca spotted Aurora and turned away from her. She recognized that what she needed the most was support, not insults or sarcasm. But Aurora walked up to her anyway, “Hey Francesca?”

Francesca heard Jackie as she whispered, “Ugh. It’s Princess Nepotism” behind her. She stopped and turned to Aurora who paused only to say, “Good luck in there.”

Shocked, Francesca stammered her reply, “Oh, uh… thanks Aurora.” Aurora nodded and quickly walked away. Sienna voiced what everyone was thinking, “The heck was that about?”

Francesca spotted Ethan waiting just outside the lecture hall, still in his clothes from the night before, she surged forward while her friends hung back.

“Ethan! I mean, Dr. Ramsey! What are you doing here? Is Dr. Banjeri…”

Ethan had to consciously stop himself from taking her arm or hand to reassure her, instead, he simply nodded, “He hasn’t woken up, still fighting the phage. I have Dr. Olsen keeping an eye on him with specific instructions on what to do if he recovers in time.”

Even though Francesca was thrilled that Ethan was there, her fear for Dr. Banjeri still nagged, “But, shouldn’t you be with him?”

Ethan ran his hand through his hair, “I’ve done all I can for him. And I think he’d want me here, supporting you. I know he would be if he could.”

Francesca smiled at Ethan as she remembered Dr. Banjeri’s words, He may hold you at arm's length, but he never lets you go… He returned the smile, not understanding the full reason behind it, “Hey, stand tall. You haven’t lost your license yet.

“Yet being the operative word.”

Ethan shook his head, “If the past 24 hours have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is set in stone. I still cannot testify but like I told you last night, I’m not out of tricks.”

“Yeah, what exactly did you mean by---”

Sienna stepped up, interrupting them by gently touching her arm, “Francesca? It’s time to go inside.”

Over the upcoming years when Francesca would think back to the Ethics Hearing, her memory would come in flashes: Declan taunting her, grateful patients testifying on her behalf, senior physicians acknowledging their support. There were some highlights, Jake Sandburg testifying caused a good buzz; and she always got a bit teary-eyed when she remembered the two witnesses procured by Ramsey to testify in her defense: Mr. Martinez who hugged and thanked her for what she did for his mom; and Delores’ sister stating her firm belief that Francesca had helped to save baby Ethan’s life by salvaging his mother’s last gift for him, a stuffed frog, and keeping it close while he fought for survival.

However, the part that burned brightest was the appearance of Dr. Banjeri. The shockwaves that reverberated in the room when he came through the doors were palpable. Her first thought upon seeing him wasn’t that he would save her, it was astonishment at the realization that she had managed to save him. It was an indescribable feeling of knowing that with Naveen’s health restored, Ethan would be resurrected. For those moments any thoughts of her career were secondary, and it was Ethan’s redemption she focused on, not her own.

Of course, Dr. Banjeri’s arrival and announcement at her part in his survival immediately convinced the doctors to vote unanimously in her favor. That being said, she was pretty confident the hearing was already going her way, as only Dr. Wen and Dr. Cyrus seemed to still be following Declan’s lead. The others were starting to accept her argument that by helping Mrs. Martinez live the life she wanted, if even for a short while, Francesca had served her best needs as a doctor. Even Harper voted for her, by that point seemingly considering more than just Francesca’s future. During the recess, she had gotten in an argument with Aurora about her overbearing attitude towards her, and when the proceedings resumed, her mind seemed to remain elsewhere.

Once the hearing was adjourned, Francesca walked up to the panel to give her thanks to all of the doctors, even Wen and Cyrus. She knew she’d be working with them again and wanted to prove that she was worth supporting over Declan Nash. Then, with tears in her eyes, she fell into Dr. Banjeri’s waiting arms and gave him the biggest hug his frail body could take. She was beyond grateful that her prayers had been answered as his bright eyes twinkled with their appreciation. When she looked into them, the tears finally fell from her own as she exclaimed, “I can’t believe you’re here!”

He stepped back, welcoming a hug from Ethan who had come down to join them.

“Neither can I, but Dr. Olsen insisted that he was under strict orders to get me here to cast my vote, and who am I to defy my doctor’s orders?” He smiled at Ethan mischievously.

It was only then that Francesca noticed Landry standing towards the back, watching the scene unfold. She turned to Ethan, incredulous, “Those were your specific instructions to Dr. Olsen if Dr. Banjeri woke up?”

He shrugged sheepishly, “Tricks Rookie, I told you I had a few.”

She laughed and turned to motion to her friends that she’d meet them outside in the atrium. Harper came over to walk Dr. Banjeri out and Ethan walked Francesca back to the lectern so she could gather her things – that’s where they found Declan sitting, staring, fuming. He had just been admonished by Harper for keeping the efficacy of medicine Francesca had stolen a secret, and Harper also threatened to expose Panacea Labs if they didn’t start testing the drugs further. The public humiliation was making him unstable.

“This isn’t over. I still have that deal you signed Ramsey. You’ll be seeing a lot of me around here.”

Ethan looked nonplussed, “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it Nash, go home.”

Declan puffed out his chest and tried to look intimidating, “And if I don’t? What are you going to do, punch me again?”

Francesca balled her hand into a fist, fully ready to take him up on the offer, but Ethan noticed and covered her hand with his, silently suggesting restraint.

So instead she reminded him of his humiliation, “I think you’ve been embarrassed enough for one day.”

She walked away with Ethan, leaving Declan simmering,

“Enough? I haven’t been embarrassed enough yet! Not by a long shot! I can take way more embarrassment!” Declan yelled after her, clearly coming unhinged.

Unable to hold back her disdain, Francesca called over her shoulder, “Fuck you Declan.”

After they walked out into the atrium Dr. Houseman and Dr. Ramsey were forced to part ways. She was pulled into the waiting arms of her cheering friends and he headed over to confer with Dr. Emery and Dr. Banjeri.

She caught a glimpse of him as she was whisked off by the crowd of interns. He had a protective hand on Dr. Banjeri’s shoulder, broadly smiling. Her heart ballooned with happiness at the sight of the two of them together as doctors again.

She spent the rest of her afternoon dealing with HR paperwork, catching up on her cases and acknowledging the congratulations of nearly every staff member in the hospital. She was amazed at how many people supported her behind the scenes and wondered how many of them supported her before she won her case, or had helped Dr. Banjeri recover. But she decided that she was done with it all now. It was over, she had won and now wanted the whole thing behind her - well, after the party at Donohue’s.

Francesca had looked for Ethan throughout the day to see if he would be at Donohue’s that night, but he was nowhere to be found. She knew he didn’t exactly work there anymore but she hadn’t expected him to just leave. By late afternoon she started to get anxious but then it occurred that he was likely exhausted, having been up with Dr. Banjeri all of the previous night. Maybe he had just gone home to see Jenner and get some sleep. She decided to have some faith and let him be.

By the time Sienna found her in the cafeteria, Francesca was ready to celebrate. She needed to release all of the tension and anxiety she had endured over the previous 36 hours and tried to gulp down a burger and fries so that something was in her system when the alcohol landed. Her plans to “never drink again” had been permanently discarded.

“Come on, everyone is waiting for you.” Sienna motioned at her from across the room.

Stuffing the last handful of fries in her face, Francesca got up and followed her out. She arrived at Donohue’s to a deafening cheer. The bar was packed with friends and colleagues. Even her landlord, Farley, was there yelling for her to give a “Speeeeeeeech!” Elijah followed his lead and soon had the whole bar chanting, “Speech, speech, speech!”

Francesca stood there awkwardly, “Uh okay…” with nothing planned and having already thanked the people she needed to, she said what was truly on her mind, “...Let’s drink like it’s the first day of our residency!”

The patrons cheered in response. She laughed to herself, thinking she could have probably said anything and they would have cheered just the same.

Francesca followed Jackie and Sienna to the bar as the revelry raged around them. She was ready to drink anything, except tequila. Sienna leaned in so they could hear her, “This year was insane. How do we have two more years of this?”

Jackie made a face, “And with both Banjeri and Ramsey coming back, there’s still no spot on the Diagnostics team. We’re back to Square One.” She looked around, making sure nobody else was paying attention, “But for what it’s worth Francesca, you would have won, probably.” She paused, a sly smirk on her face, “Even without the extra credit.”

Francesca blushed and then mocked her, “That must have been really painful for you to say.”

“It was, now I need a drink to wash the taste out of my mouth,” Jackie ordered them a round.

Francesca spent the next few hours hanging out with all of her friends. Bryce, Raphael, and Kyra joined them at the bar. Francesca was thrilled to see Raphael up and out of the hospital, even though he still had another month to fully recover. Kyra invited him to sit with her during her chemo treatments, correctly assuming that an EMT wouldn’t be scared off by that sort of thing. Francesca hoped she was seeing the beginning of a love connection and smiled sweetly at them as she said a silent prayer for Kyra’s full recovery.

Ines, who Francesca suddenly realized was just a Senior Resident version of Sienna, ran up to give her a hug. “I’m so, so, so glad you get to stay.” Francesca returned the gesture while Zaid stood nearby and rolled his eyes.

He tipped his glass towards her, “I have to admit, I’d be very sad if you didn’t make it to your second year as a senior resident...and never had your own interns annoying the crap out of you. This way you’ll finally have a chance to know my pain.”

Francesca tipped her drink in return, now well versed in dealing with his sarcasm, “That means we’ll be equals soon.”

Zaid looked incredulous, “It most certainly does not.”

Jackie piped up smirking, “I dunno, I’m preeeetty sure Francesca’s right.”

Ines confirmed their theory, “Yes, and as equals, we can hang out way more!”

Zaid grumbled under his breath, “What did I do in a past life to deserve this?” He walked away, Ines following. Francesca went to mingle with the crowd and as she stepped away she overheard Bryce asking the group, “So hey, are they a couple?”

Another hour passed during which Francesca danced with Sienna and finally received confirmation that she did have a crush on Danny, but she also understood Sienna’s desire to be on her own for a while after her brutal breakup. Conversely, Elijah and Phoebe looked to be doing quite well together and Francesca truly hoped that Elijah was joking when he acted non-committal to the relationship, explaining that “a player’s gotta play.”

Landry sat at a booth by himself, seemingly waiting for Francesca to acknowledge him but she had nothing more to say, so instead, she went over to Aurora who sat alone in a corner with a beer, flipping through her phone. Francesca had never even seen her at Donahue’s before. She walked up to her surprised, “You came!”

Aurora rolled her eyes, “You always did like stating the obvious, You don’t have to check on me by the way, I’m used to being alone.”

Francesca could see the listings for one-bedroom apartments on her phone and quickly put things together, remembering the fight she had witnessed between Aurora and her Aunt earlier that day. Before she could stop herself, Francesca offered Aurora Landry’s vacant room,

Aurora reacted, clearly thrown, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Francesca realized that she was, “Yeah, I mean I have to ask my roommates but...it’s not like we can afford the place on our own. Think about it.”

Aurora looked as if she wanted to immediately accept, but she only murmured that she would consider the offer.

By this time Francesca noticed that Landry had left and while she was glad he had gone, she was also acutely aware of Ethan’s absence. Where was he? 

Trying to hide her disappointment she headed back to the bar, where Sienna ordered them another round while Jackie cracked open a beer and took a swig.

“Honestly Francesca, I don’t know what you’re still doing here. If I’d just survived an existential threat to my livelihood, I’d be going home with the hottest person I could find.” Jackie arched her eyebrow, obviously baiting her.

Francesca deflected, “There’s plenty of time for that.”

Bryce and Kyra returned to the bar to refill their glasses, Bryce grabbed another beer and Kyra, seltzer water for her and Rafael. Francesca smiled to herself as she overheard the order and then remembered,

“Hey, did any of you speak to Landry? He was here for a while but then he disappeared.”

“You mean the lying piece of shit we no longer acknowledge,” Jackie corrected.

“No, the snake who shall not be named,” Sienna chimed in.

“Ah, the fucker we kill on sight,” Bryce added in for good measure.

Francesca laughed, “Yes, so?”

Jackie came clean, “He walked over to say goodbye and let me know he was transferring to Mass Kenmore, I think he wanted to tell you himself but,” she took a swig, “who gives a flying fuck what he wants?”

Bryce clinked Jackie’s glass at her last comment, then he and Kyra made their way back to Raphael and their ongoing darts competition.

Francesca thought for a moment, “Mass Kenmore? That’s rather sudden.”

Sienna shrugged, “The way I look at it, just one less asshole we’ll have to deal with next year.”

Jackie and Francesca looked at each other, both shocked at Sienna’s language, then busted up laughing. Jackie clinked her glass with Sienna’s, “To bad influences!”

Francesca grabbed another cocktail and chatted with her friends, enjoying the camaraderie and conversation. However, the more time she spent with them, the more she kept glancing at the back door, willing for Ethan to show up. Not wanting to have to chase him down...again; not sure that she even could. Her stomach churned.

Sienna finally noticed, “Who are you looking for?”

Francesca tried to play it off, “No one. I’m not looking for…”

Just then Ethan walked through the door.

Sienna’s face lit up, “Ohhhhhhhh”.

Francesca looked around innocently while relief flooded her body, “‘Oh’, what ‘oh’? there’s no ‘oh’ here.” But she couldn’t hide how pleased she was to see him.

Sienna grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye, “You heard Jackie earlier right? You know he’s coming back, I heard Chief Emery offered him his old job. Tomorrow your suspension is over, you’ll be an intern at Edenbrook and he’ll be an attending. But tonight, it’s just like the other night right? You’re not an intern, and he’s not an attending, you’re both just people. Catch my drift?”

Francesca nodded at Sienna was already one step ahead of her, she had just needed for Ethan to show up. He had barely gotten inside the bar when she walked up to him, fully fueled by her pulsing need and the alcohol coursing through her body”.

He tried to explain, “Sorry I’m late, I had some business to attend to.”

Francesca nodded in understanding and touched his arm, not in the mood to waste time, “Come home with me tonight, I’m gonna lose it if I don’t get you in bed right now.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised by her unabashedness, “Well we wouldn’t want that would we?” The hint of a playful smirk crossed his face. “What are we waiting for?”

Glancing around quickly, Francesca caught Sienna smiling at her knowingly, everyone else was seemingly oblivious to her departure. She overheard Ethan make an awkward excuse to another intern as they walked out together. He only managed to completely confuse the guy, who hadn’t been paying them any attention. She laughed as they stepped onto the street.

“You are so bad at being subtle.”

His surprise was genuine, “What are you talking about? I played that extremely well.”

She rolled her eyes, and then stepped up to him, her heartbeat quickening as she brought her lips close to his, “Your place or mine?”

He made a quick calculation, “Yours is closer.”

She leaned back slightly, “What about Jenner?”

He pulled her back in, “Jenner is fine. I called in my dog sitter since I was gone all last night too. Plus I saw him for a bit this afternoon. I mean, he gets upset when I’m away but he’s a dog, he always remembers he loves me the moment I walk back into the house.” Then he considered for a moment, softening, “...but I was gone all last night, so I should probably get home before the morning.”

Francesca nodded, “I understand, I certainly don’t want him upset with me for keeping you away.”

She took his hand, planning to walk the 10 minutes to her place when a cab pulled up to let some people out. She turned to him, “A cab gets us there 6 minutes faster…”

They jumped in. Sitting in the darkened vehicle, she reached her hand across the middle seat to find his. His fingers intertwined with hers and squeezed, both looked straight ahead, the electricity already pulsing through their bodies at this simple touch - a promise of so much more to come.

Standing with him at her building as she opened the main door, Francesca was suddenly astounded by all that had happened since the last time they were both there. My god, she thought, that was just yesterday morning.

Ethan was quiet and he trailed slightly behind, waiting for her to gain entry into the actual apartment, which she abruptly noticed was so shabby compared to his. Francesca looked up, suddenly nervous to have him in her space she talked quickly, “My room is at the end and Landry’s was right next to it, it’s obviously empty so noise shouldn’t be a factor. Plus they’ll stay out late tonight, I mean it’s barely 10pm now so I’m sure they won’t be back for another couple of hours.” Ethan listened, disinterested, as she led him to her room, “Uh sorry for the mess in here, I just --”

He closed the door behind him, cutting her off, “I don’t give a damn about your apartment.”

Francesca looked up to see his eyes fixed on her, and her heart skipped a beat. All thoughts of her living arrangements vanished as she looked at the man standing in front of her.

His gaze on her never wavered as he brought her close, her breath shuddered in anticipation and her skin flushed, eagerly awaiting his touch. “Ethan” she breathed as he touched her cheek, lifting her chin slightly so his lips met hers.

She melted into the kiss, a wave of longing, anxiety, fear and desire crashed down on her. She moaned into his mouth and pulled him closer, her hands traced his jaw and ran through his hair. His hands were on her waist holding her to him, their bodies pressed together. She felt the physical presence of his arousal and it made her entire body throb.

His hands ran up her sides, to her shoulders, trying to tug her jacket off without breaking the kiss. Francesca suddenly pulled back, a plan forming. She walked Ethan to the edge of her bed and then pushed him back until he was sitting. Still unsure of her intentions, he reached for her but she stepped out of his grasp, smiling seductively, “No touching, just watch.”

He leaned back on the bed and sucked in his breath, looking as she took another step back and slowly, so slowly, started peeling off her clothes. The sight was mesmerizing and tortuous. “Francesca, you’re killing me.”

“Patience Ethan, patience,” she gave him a devilish smile as she repeated his words back to him, enjoying the bare longing on his face as she uncovered herself. He watched as she undid her blouse and stepped out of her pants, her body perfectly lit by the moonlight shining through the curtains. He sucked in his breath as she unclasped her bra, watching intently as her nipples instantly hardened when exposed to the cool air. His hands clenched as she shimmied out of her panties, finally standing completely naked before him.

He groaned, “God, I want to make you feel so good.”

She bit her lower lip, her body hummed with anticipation as she thought about all that could mean. She took a step towards him, teasing, “I doubt there’s anything that could make me feel better than the way you’re looking at me right now,” she stood before him, hands on his shoulders as she looked down on him. “...but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

She straddled him, leaning down to meet his kiss while his hands urgently explored her body. Wanting more of him, she gently pushed him back to lay on the bed while she remained on top. She opened his sweater and started unbuttoning his shirt. Ethan had gotten the hint by now that she wanted to be in charge, so he let her push his clothes aside while he massaged her neck, her back, her ass, any place that he could reach. Then she started to kiss down his body, moving just out of his grasp again.

“What are you…”

“Shh” she whispered against his muscled skin, her hands followed her lips and blazed a trail downward, lower and lower causing him to suck in his breath once more. Finding her target she began to unbuckle his pants. He helped her pull them and his briefs down just enough until he was completely exposed. He watched as she looked at this part of him hungrily and he closed his eyes to prepare himself for the onslaught of what he knew was about to happen.

Francesca took him in her hand and positioned him, following with her mouth. Finding her rhythm, her mouth and hands moved in sync as Ethan groaned in pleasure, he arched his back and ran his hands through her hair as he tried to steady himself against the storm she was creating in his body.

He propped himself up slightly and watched her work. “You’re incredible.” He was barely able to speak the words as his pleasure built and he fell back down onto the bed, marveling at how she could bring him to the edge so quickly, so effortlessly. His muscles tensed and flexed as he got close, too close - and with willpower he didn’t know he had - he gently pulled her away and back up to him, admonishing, “No, not yet.”

She nodded in understanding and then looked at him, puzzled, asking breathlessly “Why are you still dressed?” They quickly finished removing his clothes, now with an urgency they both shared to feel and taste each other with nothing in their way. Finally unencumbered, he pulled her down on top of him, loving the feel of her soft body pressed against his muscled core, skin to skin. Her legs parted and she pressed herself against his hardness, rocking against it, moaning with the feel of him rubbing against her slick skin. “I want you, Ethan, I need you right now.”

He grasped her hips and her back and effortlessly flipped her over, gazing at her in the soft light of the bedroom. “Francesca”, the way he said her name revealed the depth of his need for her.

“Please”, she moaned as she felt his lips on her breasts as he kissed and caressed her nipples, her body undulating from his touch. She parted her legs wider for him, sliding her hands down his back and drawing him closer, she could feel him start to push forward, “Oh yes Ethan, please take me,” she begged in pure bliss as he positioned her body to better receive him, her nails dug into his back as she lifted her hips to meet his. The sensations washed over her in waves as he slowly filled her, setting her body ablaze as she cried out, “Oh, god, yes!”

Ethan buried his head in her neck to absorb the powerful sensations that were running through his own body and threatened to overwhelm him at every thrust. He held on tight, his pace quickened, his muscles tensed and he measured himself in her over and over and over again. He groaned as her body wrapped around him - matching his every movement. He grabbed her thighs and pushed them towards his shoulders, re-positioning himself inside of her, pumping deeper.

“Ethan, please, Ethan, don’t stop, please,” every time she gasped his name his blood ran hotter, like a siren beckoning him, but he didn’t want it to end either, this connection, this possession, knowing that at this moment she was fully his and he was hers. He kept up his pace, fighting the inevitable as he looked down at her. His heated gaze met hers and her resolve to hold on dissipated, her words to him a whispered confession, “I can’t,...”, he watched her eyes go wide, felt her skin flush, heard her breath hitch and his constant onslaught suddenly overwhelmed her as she called out his name again when the full force of her orgasm hit her and pushed her into a chasm of pure ecstasy. Even with her warning, Ethan wasn’t prepared as her body spasmed and tightened against his while her glittering cries echoed throughout the room. So he closed his eyes and finally let go, following her straight over the edge, her name on his lips in total surrender.

They lay on the bed for endless minutes, catching their breaths, sweaty and satiated until both were overtaken with exhaustion and they fell asleep entwined in each other's arms.

Francesca woke first, she heard the front door open and close, the drunk whispers, which weren’t whispers at all, and the exaggerated giggles that announced her roommates had returned. She craned her neck to look at her alarm, almost 2am. She was surprised they stayed out so late, surmising they had probably gotten food before coming home. She listened a bit longer, until there was silence again, everyone safely in their rooms - moments away from their respective drunken slumbers.

She tried to fall back asleep, she grasped at the dream she remembered but couldn’t completely remember. It was a pleasant one, that’s all she knew for sure. She turned her head to look at Ethan, he was on his back now, one arm under her head, the other under his. The sheet tangled around his legs and torso, his breathing was constant and steady - content. If the noise had awakened him, it was only for a moment and not nearly enough to deprive him of his continued respite.

Ethan Ramsey was in her bed, the thought astounded Francesa. This was the man she idolized for almost a decade, the man who inspired her to become a doctor in the first place. She first learned of his name during high school, when working on a research paper for her junior year biology class. He had been her age now and was already published in several medical journals. She smiled to herself, if that young schoolgirl had only known all of the sexual things Dr. Ramsey would do to her later in life. Francesca mused on her nerdy innocence in high school. It was better that she didn’t know, that girl couldn’t have handled it.

Giving up on sleep entirely, she shifted towards Ethan and started absentmindedly stroking his chest. He had done everything he said he would do - even more actually. He had kept his promises, but tomorrow, everything changed. He’d be an attending again, she, an intern. They were back to square one, where it was all the same but completely different. It worried her, how would he reconcile this in his mind? Did he have the capacity to push her away again, to turn his back on this glimpse of what they could be together? She started to ponder about all that she knew about him and concluded that the answer was “no”. If he was intent on shutting her out, he wouldn’t be there with her now, certainly not in her apartment. He wouldn’t have shown up at Donohue’s, he wouldn’t have left Jenner for a second night. He’d be gone already, and she’d be alone once more. Somehow, he had found a way to make this right in his mind, he had figured out a way to be with her. She was almost certain of it.

Francesca adjusted again and recognized the familiar ache as she continued to touch him. Suddenly it wasn’t enough to be next to him, she wanted to be part of him again. She needed their bodies to express the emotions that they were not ready to put into words. Her hand dipped lower, stroking, and rather quickly, Ethan woke up too.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, looking down at her.

She giggled softly, “Do you really have to ask?”

“What time is it?”

“Still really early in the morning,” by now she had received the physical response she desired and started pushing the sheets out of the way. She moved her leg over his waist, settling herself on top.

“Francesca,” Ethan could make out her silhouette from the moonlight still casting a glow through the darkened room, she looked like a goddess.

“Shhhh, we have to be quiet, everyone is back home.”

He started to say something else but she already had him in her hands, guiding him to her, sinking down on him and taking him completely. His breath caught at the swiftness of the action and his mind momentarily went blank as his hands grasped her hips and urged her to move.

Francesca threw her head back at the shock of being so completely penetrated, having him so deeply within her, she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming at the pleasure pervading her body. She moved with his hands, grinding against him, leaning forward when he reached up to bring her to him, his mouth covered hers hotly in an all-consuming kiss as he rocked her hips faster. This time around they both desperately craved the rapturous release that they had tried so hard to delay just hours before.

Francesca broke the kiss and buried her face in Ethan’s neck, trying to stifle her moans against his skin. She clenched at the sheets as she once again reached the point of losing all control. With ragged breaths, Ethan used the last of his energy to start driving his hips up to meet her downward thrusts, the change in pace and friction gave them what they both needed and she muffled her cry against his shoulder - overcome by an internal tidal wave of pleasure crashing through her body as he gave in with a silent scream of orgasmic relief.

Hours later, Francesca was roused by her beeping alarm. She was still wrapped in Ethan’s embrace, he was already awake, gazing at the ceiling.

She silenced the clock and then turned and looked at him lazily, “I thought you said you couldn’t spend the night?”

He shrugged, a few hours earlier he discovered that he just couldn’t find the proper motivation to leave her bed, “I...found myself convinced otherwise.”

She moved slightly to get up but he stilled her, “No. Not yet. When we get up, it’s over.”

Francesca nestled into him for one last moment, “I know. But I’ve gotta get you outta here before my roommates wake up.”

A few minutes later Ethan acquiesced, and they both got out of bed to quickly and quietly get dressed. But something gnawed at her… “When you said ‘it’s over’, you meant this night, us right now...” She looked at him, trying not to show her increasing panic, “Not us completely…?”

Ethan glanced up as he buckled his pants, “It is different, we’re back at Edenbrook, I’m your boss again, the complications are still there. However…,” he walked over to her, pushed a stray curl behind her ear and reassured her, “I always knew the moment I crossed this line, I wouldn’t be able to go back so,” he kissed the tip of her nose, “...I definitely did not mean us completely.”

He watched as her whole body visibly relaxed and that was when he realized how much Francesca was still in turmoil over his feelings for her, even after he had already promised her that he wouldn’t leave. He was disappointed in his understanding that his past actions were the cause of her lingering doubt. He knew he needed to give her a stronger assurance, and after a thoughtful moment, he placed his hands at the nape of her neck and tilted her head so he was able to look into her eyes, “I’m right here Francesca. I’m all in.”

Francesca’s eyes closed as she savored his words and she was quite sure she had never been happier in her life than she was standing in her bedroom listening to Ethan commit to her, in his Ethan Ramsey way. She opened her eyes, smiled at him and exhaled, pulling his head to hers for a kiss as she murmured against his lips, “I’m all in too.”

They were not the three words that expressed the totality of how they felt about each other, but it was a solid start.

They released each other to finish getting dressed as Francesca hypothesized, “You know, you’re really just ‘a’ boss, not ‘my’ boss. I mean there are a lot of attendings.” She grabbed her shirt, “Technically Ines would be my direct boss, she’s my Senior Resident along with Zaid. So as long as I’m not sleeping with either of them...” she shrugged, “...it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Ethan chuckled as he picked his sweater up from the floor, “That’s a very interesting and convenient way of looking at things Rookie.”

Fully dressed, Francesca hurried Ethan to the front door only to see Elijah and Sienna sitting at the table for breakfast. Everyone froze, unsure of what to say before Sienna broke the silence,

“Uh, good morning, Dr. Ramsey.”

Ethan stumbled his reply, “Hrm, er...good morning, Trinh. Greene.” He nodded curtly and continued towards the door.

Elijah called after him, “If you’re hanging out here, wanna come back for my John Carpenter movie marathon?”

Francesca was mortified, “Elijah, shhhh!” He flashed a wide grin, clearly trolling her, but Sienna gave a thumbs-up. Francesca blushed deeply, embarrassed but also somehow pleased. Then as she walked Ethan out she could hear him muttering “...interns...” as he walked down the hallway and she laughed to herself.

As they exited the main building he turned to her and asked, “Can they be trusted to keep a secret?”

She cocked her head, trying to figure out if he was serious. “Um, if they could keep my secret about Mrs. Martinez from Harper Emery, while being interrogated by Harper Emery, I think they can handle this.”

He chuckled, remembering, “Touche.”

She touched his arm as he turned to go, “Give Jenner a belly rub for me, and tell him I’m sorry for keeping you another night.” She grinned at him, “ I’ll see you at work.”

He kissed her forehead, “Yes and remember Rookie, boundaries.”

She smiled, recalling the last time he said that to her, “I’ll do my best...as long as we don’t end up in any supply closets.”

He shook his head, amused as he walked off.

Later that morning Francesca was back at Edenbrook with Dr. Ines, “Welcome back, doctor.” Ines slid her hospital ID across the desk. She grabbed it, beaming.

“Thanks, Ines, I can’t wait to--” She’s cut short by a cry of alarm behind her, she turned in time to see a man collapse out of his seat. Francesca slipped her ID badge to her pocket and winked at Ines, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

A short while later she jogged across the atrium and joined a crowd of doctors and nurses at the foot of the stairs. They’d all been summoned, she figured it was to officially welcome Dr. Banjeri back.

Harper stood on the landing, looking at the group. “Thank you all for coming. I just have a few short announcements…”

Searching for her friends she saw and passed by Ethan, their eyes met and he hesitated before acknowledging her.

“Dr. Houseman.”

“Dr. Ramsey…”

Francesca knew he was doing his damndest to be subtle and she struggled not to laugh. She turned away to avoid the sudden urge to touch him and weaved through the crowd, stopping beside Bryce and Jackie.

Jackie spotted her, “Are you seriously late on your first day back?”

“Sorry, had to resuscitate a guy in the waiting room.”

Bryce nudged her, “You get to have all the fun.”

Dr. Harper Emery continued, “I’d like to thank you all for your support and service during my year as hospital chief…but after much deliberation, I have decided to step down, to return to my previous post as head neurosurgery.”

The crowd rumbled with shocked chatter and a smattering of applause. Francesca noticed as Aurora smiled, bigger than she’d ever seen her smile before...had she seen Aurora smile before at all?

Bryce clapped his hands together, excitement in his eyes,  “Are you kidding me? I get to do surgeries with Harper Emery all the time now? I am blessed.”

Harper went on, “Thank you all. I’m eager to get back into scrubs, and I couldn’t do it without someone very qualified to hand the reins to. Please welcome our new chief of medicine, Naveen Banjeri.”

The crowd cheered and clapped as Naveen joined Harper, his cane still in hand. Francesca noticed Ethan standing by the wall looking shocked.

Naveen took Harper’s place, “As many of you know, my health has taken a recent turn. It has required me to step away from the busy caseload of my diagnostics team. But I’m leaving it in the very capable hands of Dr. Ramsey”

Everyone turned to applaud Ethan, he was stunned, “Wait, what? What the hell is happening?”

Most people didn’t notice Ethan’s surprise at his new promotion or register his words of confusion, it was all lost over the sounds of their own applause. Francesca tried to make sense of it her mind - is it his new promotion or old promotion? Technically Ethan was already head of the team when Benjari left so… the crowd dispersed before she could come up with a suitable answer.

She lingered nearby and watched as Ethan marched up to Naveen and Harper.

“Administration Naveen? Really? You hate administrators.”

Naveen shook his head, “No, my friend. You do. But now that I am one, I’m sure you and I can strike a balance.”

Harper laughed, “Ha. Good luck with that one, Naveen.”

Ethan stood there, shellshocked as Harper and Naven turned to go...then noticing that Francesca was still there, Naveen looked back.

“Oh, and Ethan… this will leave an open spot on the diagnostics team after all. And I think I know who I want to take it.”

When she realized he was talking about her, Francesca was momentarily flabbergasted, “Me?” Naveen raised an eyebrow at her and she smiled, “I knew I saved you for a reason.”

Naveen’s eyes were bright and jovial, “These things do have a way of working out, don’t they?”

Ethan was perturbed, “Houseman? But...she...”

Banjeri looked at him quizzically, “You don’t think she’s proven herself worthy to train with the team?”

Ethan tried to explain a way out, “Of course she has. But we--”

Banjeri cut him off, “Excellent. It’s settled. Dr. Houseman will spend her second year as the junior fellow on the diagnostics team… with you as her direct supervisor. Congratulations, Francesca. You’ve earned it.”

Naveen smiled and walked away with Harper who was trying to hide her own amusement, leaving them alone.

Francesca walked up to him, biting her lip, “So, um… how do we deal with this?”

Ethan shrugged, and shook his head, still processing the sudden turn of events, “We make it work. What matters are the patients, right?”

Francesca nodded and chose to trust him, “...Right.”

He hesitated, scratching the back of his head…”Well then... Get to work, Rookie.”

She smiled, “...Yes, doctor.”

Leaving him behind, she walked through the once-confusing halls with her head high, unable to wipe the smile from her face. Finally, she reached the first patient’s door. Francesca remembered the nerves she felt on her first day with amusement. She thought to herself, if only I’d realized what I was capable of.

She checked the patient’s chart, familiarizing herself with the details before opening the door, poised and confident.

“Hi there. I’m Francesca Houseman, and I’ll be your doctor today.”

CHAPTER NINE