#could have gone to the beach more tho

[strangetown-gaming]

I really didn't do enough beachy stuff this year and it shows 😔

[therealslimshakespeare]

Friends in the Crucible

MOTA PACIFIC THEATRE || FLIGHT SURGERY AU

1: Welcome to Hell Island

Requested by the sweet @forsythiagalt

AU NOTE: due to a long-standing crush on real life heroine Ensign Jane Kendeigh and her work on Iwo Jima, the current ongoing anniversary of the battle and a hope to not step on the toes of any existing Nurse!xBuck pairings -I’ve gone with what excited my imagination the most and created an entire Pacific AU with our MOTA boys. If this AU ends up being as interesting and stimulating to y’all as it was for me in writing it, I’d be terribly down for exploring more scenarios with everyone in their new and varied roles.

Main paring: Gale Cleven and OC Flight Nurse Ensign Maureen Kendeigh…cameos by “Doc” Egan, John Brady, Ken Lemmons, Harry Crosby and Benny Demarco…and maybe a nod to a certain Marine Captain named “Andy” who I refused to let die, even though he was never on this island. You neither need to have seen HBO’s Pacific or know about the history for this to make sense, in fact it might help my ignorant writing go down better without it 😏

Warnings: WAR?! Graphic descriptions of wounds, battlefields, gore, foul language, period typical language: use of the word “Jap” and a joking insult of “fish eater” for a Catholic. Hints that John Egan is a terror to his nurses, Cleven having to take his pants off for a wound to be examined, brief mentions and emphasis on his never having been touched by a woman intimately, a nurse positioning a man’s member out of the way to his surprise, strictly professional tho. No joke, really. But they’re having a bit of a moment.

Only proof read once. So many thanks to Bee, Christi and Ashley who all enabled me into going this rogue with a simple request and for giving edits and assurances. Hope y’all enjoy!

There were a whole lotta jolts in the descent. Of course there were. Why, there were jolts and bumps even coming down to the runway at Pearl or San Diego, and there had been far more than jolts on the training tarmacs in Kentucky. She had been in enough planes, experienced enough banging about, and had enough wheels up landings that Maureen felt somewhat entitled to her opinion on the necessity of jolts or none.

So far, Major Gale Cleven had piloted this monstrous tin can like a limo, smooth, steady and with full warning for each bank and turn. Maureen had not even had to catch a single falling bottle so far and the rows of empty bunks lining each side of the plane had hardly rattled except in the same low humming frequency of the ever thrumming engine.

But now there were jolts. And of course there were, they were flying straight into a warzone. Cleven had gotten them to Iwo Jima two hours ago, and since that time he’d been circling the island in a wide arc, casually waiting for a pesky air battle between fighters to calm down enough for him to land. Sure, the beaches had been wiped clean and a landing strip had been carved out of volcanic ash and marine corps blood -cleared for their use. But still, there were Jap bunkers, Jap planes, Japs themselves and Jap equipment in that smoldering mountain and so far, no word had come down definitely as to when the island might be considered secure.

It was all very historic, Maureen has been assured -allowing a woman into a combat zone. First time ever, so they kept erroneously insisting. That’s why there was a man armed with a camera and not plasma sitting a few lines down from her on the cold metal bench. Maureen had once had plenty of time to ponder the historicity of her mission and that of her fellow nurses back in Guam, right now she wished she could focus solely on her training and ignore the ominous crack-pop of something hazardous in the air and the resulting wobble of Major Cleven’s steering.

Stupidly she wished the Major’s low voice would come back on through the near radio system and soothe them all back down like frightened livestock. Gale Cleven had a way of managing that even with his face obscured, and while it made Maureen blush to admit she needed any calming, the facts were she was 24 years old, practically untried and desperate to be brave enough to be of use. Rattling on the bench seat between equally nervous girls and a hawk-eyed journalist was no match for the cuticle picking anxiety.

Maureen chose to forcefully look up from said bloody cuticles and was met by Major Egan’s gum smacking grin across from her. How many carriers had he been on when they went down? Kamikaze planes jutting out the side of them, ocean water pouring in, sharks abounding and hundreds of patients under his care, in his charge to tow to shore?

Mild, scattered, poor-man’s flack wasn’t remotely disturbing to their flight surgeon. “He’s great, isn’t he?” Egan yelled to her cheerfully, the jerk of his head suggested his praise was directed towards someone in the cockpit.

Maureen knew well enough that much as Egan respected the co-pilot Demarco, it was no match for the love affair between him and Cleven, an appreciation that had Egan’s special request yanking his friend from Air Force to Navy to Transit. Such a series of bounces in a man’s otherwise distinguished career, all to chauffeur one charmingly entitled flight surgeon, was enough to put anyone into a bad mood -it would explain Major Cleven’s initial coolness on meeting them all at the departure tarmac.

Or maybe he was just businesslike. Maureen couldn’t fault anyone for that. He had been prepped, perhaps not as much as she had, but he didn’t act entitled in any way, and he kept the plane steady. Except for this mounting series of jolts.

“Yes,” she had chosen to holler back to Doctor -Lieutenant Commander? Bucky No Shits? Johnny? Doc “Smirky”?- Egan, knowing he’d want a favorable report on his friend, “it’s been remarkably smooth.”

Maureen was glad truth aligned with diplomacy in this instant. Although if any man could handle the outright truth it was John Egan, no matter what they all said. And “they” said a lot, he had once had two marine squadrons under his care and to them he was a Marine, simultaneously he’d had three navy squadrons to take care of and to them he was a Navy man. He’d even switched uniforms thrice in a day before. And now he was being flown about by his best friend to tend carcasses on a foreign strand, oddly suited to terrible conditions and bad scenarios, offering medical aviation expertise and poorly timed jokes wherever he went.

He’d trained her group of specialized Evacuation Flight Nurses the last three weeks of aquatic conditioning in the states, and he’d culled eighteen out of the group for getting winded after towing full grown men seven laps in the San Diego surf -all while puffing on a cigarette himself, seated with sunglasses on in an motorized dinghy. Maureen had come to hate him that day, and every day after she’d come to want to be like him. Kathleen Martin got her wings pinned first and Maureen right after, “well done, Candy!” Egan had praised while his fist drove in the tack.

“It’s Kendeigh, sir.” Maureen had dared correct for the hundredth time that training week, “Pronounced like: Ken-Day.”

“Cand-ay. Got it!” he repeated with jovial affirmation and that was that.

Major Cleven had given her the respect of calling her ‘Ensign’ as he shook her hand, a quick and firm squeeze and on to her next companion, she’d have judged him as too pristine in everything from mannerisms to features were his war record not ample justification for his bearing. The low cadence of his voice over the coms came in as a slight pitch to the plane and a swoop of decline in altitude became apparent under her—

“All personnel prepare for landing.”

Cleven was nothing like those pilots during training, barking orders laced with frantic warning in their voices. It was a cow pasture back in Kentucky and there they’d had no good reason for alarm. Here where there was real reason, Gale Cleven crooned to them and John Egan smiled opposite her as he took in the effect his chosen pilot had on his nurses.

“Like soothin’ a baby,” Egan sighed as he lounged a little deeper on his bench, long legs deceptively braced for impact, Maureen had long ago learned the man was nothing but smoke and mirrors of his actual intentions, “isn’t he great? In danger of fallin’ asleep with that guy at the wheel.”

To emphasize his point -or more likely to distract “his girls” from the imminent prospect of landing on a battleground, Egan leaned back all the way and tipped his cover over his eyes, pretending to fall asleep. Maureen caught him as he cocked one sharp eye open to see if she was still watching. She gave him a hopeless smile of recognition of his disguised kindness before forcefully suppressing a gasp of shock as the plane hit Amtrak smoothed gravel and ground its way down the beach. Egan hadn't budged by the time the momentum ceased and the plane became bizarrely still after hours of vibrating travel.

“Right. That’s us.” He straightened up, his cover and his posture, rising up in his seat and slapping at the metal ceiling of the plane, “Good job Buck.” he hollered and got no reply. “He’s still crabby about flying a C-47.” he divulged to no one in particular as they all rose and prepared to disembark, drilled for ages in this routine and finally let loose to practice it. Egan’s nonchalance was almost disorienting for such a momentous occasion.

The large cargo door was opened and a irreverently pleasant tropical breeze funneled through the plane, bearing with it the sounds of crashing waves and popping, far off gunnery. There was also a smell that came with it, sulfur and sweet. It was sickening from the first, and Maureen dreadedly wondered if it was from volcanic fumes and rotting vegetation or something more heartbreaking. With her kit on her back she followed her companions out the cargo door, finding Major Cleven blank faced and unphased on the tarmac beside it. Nothing but a smidge of sweat around his hairline to suggest the hours of flight he’d just clocked and the wacky landing he’d managed so well.

“Welcome to hell island, ladies.” he greeted in a droll monotone and Maureen’s gait stiffened without her permission.

There was no true tarmac, as they had been warned, just a strip of cleared back sand churned up by Cleven’s wheels. Lapping waves were on the left side and then a field of sheets to the right. It was the oddest sight. Rows and rows of camo tarp and white sheets blotted pink, hardly a spot of sand to be seen between. They’d been warned it was havoc here, the situation so bad that they’d finally allowed for this exception, allowed the sending in of specialized units to evacuate by air as the boats could hardly ferry enough of the wounded out in time to save them. But this -this beach of corpses was so daunting a task it seemed impossible to choose where to start.

“John,” she heard Major Cleven address Lieutenant Commander Egan as he dropped down beside her, “you’ve only got so many births, do what ya need to do to fill them, but I’ve got my orders. You’re not settin’ up a hospital. When we get the supplies off, get this plane full -we’re takin’ off. Full stop. I’m not gonna have us here like sittin’ ducks for the mortars while you fuss.”

“I hear ya.” Egan assured him in that remarkably unassuring way of his and lit a cigarette. “Alright nurses, gather round.”

Triage was crucial for such a mission, the prioritizing of wounds and necessary services essential for prolonging the lives of those in imminent peril, versus those with the likelihood of surviving on only the essentials found in a corpsman or medic’s arsenal. They’d be back tomorrow with another flight, and the day after that. Cleven was right that they weren’t here to establish a hospital, yet still the idea of how many would perish from being left behind, even by this first flight, was a sickening probability Maureen has been trained to ignore.

“Where are all the corpsmen?” Egan asked one pharmacist's mate who came to greet them, picking his way through the rows of groaning men. The boy couldn’t have been a day over seventeen.

“Up there,” the kid had nodded up to Mount Suribachi and its ominous veil of smoke, “or dead. Lost so many in the first week they started sending us in to substitute. We’ve done what we can. Sure glad to see you guys.”

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Lemons, sir.”

“Hell I can’t call someone a lemon, now can I?” Egan’s grin was infectious and the boy grinned back like he was seeing his first friend in ages.

“Then it’s Kenny. Sir.”

“Yeah alright Kenny, let’s get to it.” Egan had drilled you all so thoroughly you could have performed even without the aid of the grounded pharmacists and their mates, yet still it was odd to see such a mass of wounded and so few to tend them. The desperation and chaos was tangible.

Maureen had barely set off out from under the plane wing when Gale Cleven’s brusque reprimand arrested her steps as forcefully as a tug to her flight suit would have, “That bunch don’t need your help.”

The terse judgment in his tone gave her sharper eyes to notice that the particular section she was headed towards all had sheets pulled over their faces. Her own face blanched at both the misstep and the sensory overload of so much sorting to do. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself, not here, not when faced with the easy part of all this, and she wasn’t going to be crippled by criticism while enduring her first trial by fire. “Right, thank you, Major.” she agreed with him as stoically as possible and ground her heel back around on the sand and tromped off towards the direction of sheets that were visibly alive and writhing in misery.

That changed as soon as they saw her girlish form walking amongst them. Sounds of dying anguish changed to cheerful wolf whistles and happy greetings. It made Maureen’s heart swell with pride at the unbreakable spirit in each of them.

She spent the next hour and a half amongst those men.

Gruesome was a word that Maureen swore to herself that she would never use lightly again. She wasn’t one given to hyperbole anyway, and her years apprenticing in the hospital in Manilla and her most recent training for exactly such wounds as these, understandably led her to believe she knew the mettle of such a word.

But no.

Gruesome, she decided as she began her task again and again, applied only to this: the way the tiniest slip of her hand on any part of this poor boy took skin with it, charred and soupy flesh squishing off meat and sinew like the flaky crust on a prime bit of brisket. It was the only comparison fitting. His own flamethrower had bitten him as he tried to take a countless next pillbox. He’d said it like a joke even as his teeth chattered too hard from pain to deliver the punchline.

Maureen wasn’t here to contemplate ironies, or the unfairness of war, she was here to find some intact vein through which to stab her needle and begin giving him back the blood that was slowly leaching into the black sand beneath him. Ensign Smith was holding up the bottle, throwing a shadow over his charred form that helped Maureen discern a bit better, giving the boy a kind word or ten of reassurance about home and pain relief. Maureen bit through her own tongue when she finally slid the needle home, deep and pulpy, she could only pray it would hold the blood they gave back.

“Alright, bandages, Smith.” Maureen decided and did her best not to jump as a mortar thumped on the sand, hundreds of yards away, but still, they were getting ever closer, proving Major Cleven’s grim prognostication to not be unfounded. He was confirmed that the Japanese didn’t give two shits about red crosses, much less cargo planes carrying in supplies and taking away wounded. Maureen tried not to dwell on it as she and Smith began cutting away filthy uniforms and wrapping their patients' flesh in the Vaseline soaked bandages. It was a terrible business for the first few minutes before the interlaced numbing agents in the gauze took affect and made their care something less like torture for the poor men.

Some of them could walk, a missing leg being a mild injury comparatively, they just needed the helpful shoulder of a technician and off they went to amble into Cleven’s plane. There the Major met them despite it being beyond his purview, handing out cigarettes even though he himself abstained and kept an eye on the Navy mechanic refueling his plane from a bullet riddled jeep. When he wasn’t doing that he was scanning the sky, aviators turned up and reflecting a cloudless sky. Maureen’s mouth grew chalky at the thought of what he was looking out for.

Once wrapped and tended, the men were ready to be hoisted on stretchers and taken to the plane. But those men were select ones, ones that Egan had decided upon. He had a particularly odd way of triaging, one that upon initial observation appeared rather callous and aloof to his nurses who had been trained as much in medical practice as in solicitous decorum.

Doc Egan moseyed through the ranks of wounded, keenly aware he was not as popular as his pretty faced nurses, but making up for it with such easy-going banter that chuckles followed him wherever he went, making the men forget that he was deciding who got relief and who did not. Who were to be permitted the cooling sheets of Elysium by nightfall and who were to be left burning on the sand. Puffing a cigarette and making small talk, he clocked each injury and each likelihood of recovery without giving a bit of it away.

Nearing Maureen’s own patient of the moment, she felt him crouch down beside her and take in the hopeless gut wound she was ineffectually trying to stuff with bandages. A sturner superior would tell her not to bother, to move on, save such determination for someone with a longer life expectancy than five minutes. Maureen found it hard to make that call herself when met with the pleading eyes of someone’s dying son.

“C’mon Candy, move over, lemme try.” Egan murmured and his hip knocked hers gently as he crouched over the boy, perfectly aware of the futility. “Hey bud, breathe for me, breathe. You wanna smoke?”

Egan’s now bloody fingers reached up to his own lips and plucked his fresh and third cigarette of the hour and brought it down to the boy’s chapped mouth, shifting until he was fully seated on the sand, arms around the kid’s shoulders, gently taking the refreshment away when he puffed out, then replacing it for another inhale.

Maureen knew better than to linger. Beside this scene of brotherly last rites was another dying man and a hundred more beside him, so she moved on, seeing only vaguely the way the kid coughed blood as he laughed at Egan’s conversation. The topic seemed to be on the boy’s dog back home. The Sergeant she was tending added in a bit of teasing over the name -who names their dog “puppy”?!

Maureen had barely managed a tourniquet on the sergeant's arm before she could suddenly hear Egan’s gentle chatter turn to low shushing.

The sergeant looked away to the other side.

Maureen noticed the discarded cigarette laying on the sand, it had been smoked to a stub.

The heaving rattle of panicked breath beside them stopped.

Egan shifted onto his knees again and his long, bloody fingers dragged those sightless eyes closed. There was the brittle clink of dog tags being checked.

The sheet was tugged up all the way.

That triage was over.

Maureen politely ignored Doc Egan’s harsh sniff beside her -it was dusty here- but clocked the way he rose to his feet, a rough brushing off of his flight suit and his brusque inquiry regarding her morphine distribution in sector 2.

“All tended-“ she had begun when a shout from the far off plane rang out-

“-JOHN!” That was Cleven’s unmistakable bellow and Egan, despite being in a human sea of potential Johns- responded like he’d been made to hear that one voice alone. “Incoming, west!”

“Shit.” Egan spun westward and sure enough there were fighters with a blazing red sun, rushing straight down at them.

They were such a distance away still, Maureen doubted Cleven’s sight for all of fifteen seconds before horror set in. “They wouldn’t-?” she looked up at Egan whose bitten lip suggested that they would indeed strafe these poor men given the chance.

“Stretchers!” Cleven yelled again, “Get ‘em under the wings!”

There was a callous logic to it. Those men already prepped to be saved might as well be prioritized this much more. Fairness wasn’t something promised in war and Maureen chose to hate Gale Cleven instead of some ephemeral “war” for verbalizing the awfulness of that necessary.

“Do it.” came Egan’s agreeing order and Maureen and Smith took their respective sergeant down near the waterline at a run, fifteen other nurses and the various techs mimicking them. They deposited their men under the relative safety of the flimsy wings and dashed back out for more, leaving two techs behind to hoist the poor fellas into the cargo hold and deposit them in their respective bunks.

“Come onnnnn.” Cleven’s warning yell was drowned by the commencement of allied anti aircraft higher up the beach, trying to pick off the fighters before they reached the landing strip.

Maureen hardly noticed the closing drone of the fighter’s approach, nothing but her heart beat and memorized lines of her training on repeat in her ears. She’d been trained to fight hand to hand if necessary, her folks knew the risks of their daughter volunteering for such service but there was a sour dampening of resolve at the idea of being picked off from the air, not even allowed a bit of struggle to go out with.

All she could do was lift, hoist, run, deposit, do it all again.

They were getting near to full. On one pass through she saw Cleven counting berths and scolding poor Ensign Courter for her rushed method of securing her charge- “five feet drop to the floor on my first bank, oughta be just what that chest wound needs. For God’s sake, I’ll do it!”

He had a cold sort of fury to him Maureen found obnoxiously potent, and she felt a judgment rise in her for his obvious haste in wanting to get out of there. To his credit, when the planes did go by and everyone hit the ground, he was still standing yanking on the straps to secure the top bunk. Bullets punctured the side of the plane and riddled it, tiny specks of light flooding into the dark hold. One man was grazed as he lay in there.

“John!” Cleven warned again after they’d gone by.

“I know, I know damnit.” Egan snapped back from yards away, “There’s just not enough corpsmen -let me finish my damn job.”

“By the time you finish yours I won’t be able to finish mine.” Cleven retorted and the obvious finally occurred to Maureen -perhaps it was not his own safety that preoccupied him but the fragile capability of his riddled plane being able to evacuate once full. That, was indeed, his job. Still, such sentiments expressed as they were from the shelter of the cockpit and from a man who favored a silk blue neck scarf identical to the shade of his eyes, rankled Maureen.

The returning buzz of the Japanese fighters coming back around only cemented her futile rage. Her arms were aching and the sand caught at her boots and her mouth was dry with dust and there were so many, so, so many more left to help. Ensign Smith had been called away to assist with lifting another, and Maureen was knelt beside the man they’d managed onto a stretcher, doing her damndest to find how many bullets were embedded in his left leg and how deep the shrapnel was on his right. There was so much blood and filth it was impossible to tell and Andy, as his name was, couldn’t give her much help besides informing her it hurt like hell and she sure was a sight for sore eyes.

“Egan! At your three o’clock!” There was Cleven again.

Maureen grinned back at Andy and forced it to stay on her face as the buzz of the approaching fighters grew imminent and the dreadful thwump of machine gun fire thudded into the earth yards up the beach. It hit the section of the dead first, a further injury and dishonor. Maureen felt a lump in her throat at the realization she had no one near to help her lift this stretcher and that Andy himself hadn’t a usable leg to spare.

“Go.” her patient told her with a clear look of realization on his face as the leaden spatter of strafing began to elicit responses from those wounded men still alive enough to react.

“No.” The refusal came out of her mouth about as naturally as taking the next breath.

A shadow threw over them for a second and Andy’s facial expression grew surprised, but, stubbornly focused on her patient’s face, Maureen assumed it was the plane passing by at last and chose not to spend her last seconds watching what was going to kill her. “Ensign Kendeigh, lift.” Major Cleven’s voice was so close so suddenly it spooked her flat on her backside until she saw him, squatting down and casting a shadow at the head of the stretcher, poles gripped in both hands, ready to hoist. She scrambled to the foot and took the wood in hand, lifting for the twentieth time that day and running towards the plane.

Time was slow and fast all at once. Cleven’s shadow had come before even the first fighter. But as they ran it zipped by, bullets flinging up sand into their eyes, a near miss. The second one was close behind and as they ran near to the wings, they saw no room was left under them, as crowded as an awning at Coney Island during the height of summer.

Maureen squatted fast and lowered the foot of the stretcher, feeling Cleven mimick her movements behind her. Before she could turn ‘round and enact her training, there their pilot was, body draped over the battered Marine captain, his back as stalwart and protective as the wings of his plane. Maureen threw herself to the ground as well, propping herself over Andy’s battered legs. Together they made a turtle shell of sorts and, damned to be caught cringing when death took her, Maureen kept her eyes open and stared back at Gale Cleven’s gentle face as the -thud-thud-thud- passed them, a micro expression of assurance twitching his mouth and eyes as death passed over.

Who needed to look at the sky when you could find God in those eyes his mother gave him?

For as long as she lived, Maureen would never forget the gust of his spearmint scented breath on her face, the first sensation she registered as soon as the planes were past and they yet remained, alive, locked together above a man they’d both risked dying for.

“Major, you shouldn’t’ve.” Andy’s rough voice spoke Maureen’s own dazed sentiments as they straightened up, Cleven picking up his fallen aviators from the sand, “You gotta fly us outta here, you die an’we’re all sitting ducks.”

“Eh, that’s why we have co-pilots, Skipper.” Cleven grinned before glancing back at the sky, his face morphing into anything but carefree.

“Is that how Lt. DeMarco feels?” Maureen teased wearily.

“I’d never presume to know how Benny Demarco feels.” Cleven replied levelly but the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement, “Ensign Kendeigh, give me a task.” he demanded.

“Sir-“

“I want us outta here in ten.” His tone held no room for argument, “What’s somethin’ even a dumb pilot can manage? Egan!” He yelled as the Lieutenant Commander approached them at a jog, his dark face the picture of rage for the men in his care being further hurt. “Out in ten.”

“Not gonna happen, still got supplies to distribute-“ Egan was visibly inscenced.

“-one more pass on my plane and we’re not gettin’ up. Look at that back wheel” Cleven replied, nodding at the deflating tire. “Hand me your shit, what’re we supplyin?”

“Aren’t you queasy for needles?” Egan balked, finding time for teasing despite himself.

“Hand me the damn syrettes.” Cleven stuck his hand out.

“You're under Candy’s orders.” Egan stipulated, pointing to Maureen and Cleven nodded.

“Yup, and we leave in ten.”

“Okey Buck, go, go, go.”

The nurses that had gone before them had tagged and labeled each, making it easy for Maureen and Major Cleven to squat along the rows and complete what help could be given. Her other companions were doing the same, each staggered at a few yards and assisted by Corpsmen and pharmacists. And despite the tension from the strafing and the dismal prospect of having to leave so many behind, the hum of chatter soon picked up again on the beach.

“Shit, shit, shit, no-I hate needles!” Marty, eighteen years old but with eyes that had seen a little too much, bore his dressing with tired stoicism until Cleven pulled out the morphine syrette.

“Son,” Gale murmured with barely concealed amusement, “your side looks like a bear cub teethed on it, you’ll be fine. And this’ll help.”

“Don’t ‘son me’ you baby faced glamor boy.” Marty spat back, marine corps superiority coursing through his admittedly impressive veins.

Gale was midway through a good natured snicker at Marty’s venom when the heavy shock of lobbed mortars began to thud the beach again. “Jesus.” the Major sounded more annoyed than surprised and had the wherewithal to place a restraining hand on Marty’s chest as the kid began to scramble up in panic, displacing Maureen’s dressing on his ribs.

“Cleven, they’re chewin’ up our strip!” Demarco yelled to them from the cockpit and sure enough, craters were beginning to form at the end of their taxi-able stretch of beach.

“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave Major!” Marty suddenly clutched at Cleven and the Major had to wrench his arm free. “Calm down, private, you’re on a stretcher.” he then ducked his head as he moved round to seize the poles, “And if there’s one thing you should know,” he went on in a low murmur just for Marty’s benefit, “it’s that Doc Egan doesn’t waste his stretchers on dead men.”

Carrying Marty’s stretcher to the plane was Maureen’s last jog down the beach. She ran up the cargo ramp and Cleven was after her, handing over the task of racking the private into a bunk to one of the nurses before sternly ordering a path for himself through the crowded belly up to his cockpit. Demarco had the full radio system on, the better to communicate with the nursing personnel as they prepared for take off, and everyone aboard could hear his exasperated greeting as his reckless officer took his seat.

“You really game enough to try to get this Goony off the ground with less than a thousand feet of strip?” Benny’s broadcasted doubt made most nurses pause in their work and Maureen met Andy’s eye from the third bunk halfway along the plane wall.

“I thought he said that’s why they have co-pilots.” Andy joked to her quietly.

“Mm,” she agreed mischievously, “I guess co-pilots are one thing, co-Clevens are another.”

“Should find a way to mass produce.” Andy sighed, “War would be over in five seconds.”

Gale Cleven hadn’t even refuted Demarco’s concern verbally and already the crew shrugged it off, if Major Cleven couldn’t get them off Hell Island then no one could, and that was that.

“John Egan, get your ass onboard, it’s wheels up.” Cleven’s yell out the window blasted through the radio, too, and the girls grinned at each other -Major Egan wasn’t one to get bossed about. But, as if to challenge everything they knew about life and their own superior, mere seconds later, John Egan was hopping up into the belly of Cleven’s plane with his empty sack dangling and sweaty hair in disarray. “We’ll be back Kenny!” he yelled to the young pharmacist’s mate left on the sand as the cargo door was hastily wrenched shut by Brady.

“Honey I’m home.” Egan yelled up to the front and Demarco’s snicker echoed along the walls of the tin belly.

“Everybody stow your gear,” Cleven’s order came through, the pounding vibration of nearby mortars shuddering the plane even more than the engine’s revving, “we’re gettin’ outta here now. S’gonna be bumpy.”

“That’ll be one word for it.” Demarco snarked, “Death by bumps.”

The human cargo in the plane, those not groaning or insensible, let up a unanimous chuckle. It helped to have been to hell and back, a quick death as a plane failed to get air and plowed instead into a sand bank was hardly the worst prospect these men had faced.

“Believe, Benny, believe.” Maureen could hear Cleven’s soft smile in his voice as the wheels began to roll.

Brady, their engineer, navigator and the lone crewman besides the pilots aboard this transport, kindly manhandled Maureen to a seat between his legs on the rattling floor beside Egan’s built-in desk, his hand fisted in the back of her jumpsuit collar like she was a kitten. They kicked their legs out together and braced as they gained speed and the plane began to jostle into the milder craters at an ever more intense pace.

Shell fragments made a series of charming bangs off the side of the wing nearest her and Maureen could hear Brady whispering behind her in repetition “God spare the oxygen, God spare the oxygen, God spare-“

“50-“ Demarco’s countdown was unfortunately broadcasting like some morbid game announcer and Maureen could see Egan’s jaw ticking in stress under the harsh overhead lights.

There was a terrible blast in front, the sound of shattering glass or metal and a jarring shudder went through the plane, “Damnnit.” Cleven hissed but the acceleration remained.

“You hit?”

“No. Read me, Benny-“

“80-“ Demarco obligingly resumed counting.

“C’mon Buck.” breath gusting on Maureen’s neck behind her, as Brady had begun to direct his prayers to the Major now and as if in answer, the stomach swooping feeling of flight took over them seconds later as the cargo plane let out a mighty roar of strained endurance and lifted with a wobble that had more than a few bunks puking their guts out. There’d be over five hours to clean the plane floor and attend to housekeeping if they could just level out and stay up long enough to get out of range.

Down the way from them Egan was still seated, one hand holding aloft a not yet hung plasma bottle and the other gripping a support bar. But his head was starting to nod like a dancer keeping pace with the band’s ever growing tempo. The engines had a beat, if you’d been personal with a plane long enough to pick it up, and Maureen paid attention to Egan’s stippling fingers on the cross bar as they mounted and mounted, little bursts of enemy gunnery causing a comparatively mild wobble to the plane body every few seconds. She figured a veteran like Brady would know when it was safe to let her go; judging by the grip on her collar he was still highly dubious of their lasting success.

“Fighters, -everyone brace.” Cleven’s voice warned about as cooly as if he was pointing out the drip of ice cream slipping down a cone.

“Ice man.” Andy praised from his bunk to the agreement of his companions as the fighter zipped by without so much as a shudder from Cleven’s steering.

Plenty of the passing bullets had punctured the belly and one man got a direct hit. “Candy!” Egan commanded from his place checking the unfortunate man’s pulse, “Go remind Buck that we haven’t got the oxygen to go full bomber, he’s gotta keep low and -Candy! When ya come back, time to start throwin’ on blankets. Brady, get our pumps going. This is as steady as it’ll get.”

“You got it, commander.”

More than a little sure her mission was more provoking than necessary, Maureen still obeyed and followed Brady up the length of the plane and towards his electrical station, then past it to poke her head between the pilot’s seats.

“Well, well, this is a pleasant surprise, getting car sick, kiddo?” Demarco joked, “Hey, I get it, I’d find it hell back there with no windows to look out.”

Their front window was partially shattered and the metal on Cleven’s side was gnarled.

“Those mortars obligingly made a few.” Maureen joked back.

“Anybody hurt?” Cleven asked, and to her surprise, he turned from his panel to look at her with unmasked concern.

A joke was ready made there about everyone quite literally being shot to hell but she sensed he’d not appreciate it and following some uninterpreted impulse of desiring his good opinion, she hardly wished to repay his earnestness with flippancy. “Only one.”

“How bad?”

“He looked -dead.” Maureen admitted. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man moving past him but she’d seen Egan’s treatment of the body and it wasn’t promising.

Cleven’s jaw worked overtime at the news and something snapped in his mouth, followed by a soft curse from lips too full and soft to always be so stern. Maureen thought he may have broken a tooth with all that tension but he spit out two halves of a blooded toothpick instead. It fell to his pant leg.

“Major Cleven, sir, you’re bleeding.” It had drawn Maureen’s attention to his wet lap.

“That’s what I said.” Demarco agreed.

“It’s somebody else’s.” Cleven shook his head.

“You know if you pass out on me-“ Demarco warned, completely ignoring Cleven’s denial.

“-that’s why we’ve got co-pilots.” Cleven finished for him with a maddening smirk that made Benny Demarco throw his hands up.

“Can you check him?” he asked, “I mean -you are a nurse!”

“What? Hell no!” Major Cleven spooked for the first time all day at the suggestion, glancing quickly from his reddened trousers, behind him to Maureen Kendeigh, and back again. “I’m fine.” he declared in a firm tone that dettered her almost as much as the challenge of getting over the instruments and a steering column to pull down his pants and look. “Ensign Kendeigh, was there a purpose to your visit?” He redirected, resolutely ignoring Demarco’s unabated concerns.

“Yes sir,” she replied, meekly as she could, “Doc Egan asked me to remind you that you’re not flying a bomber. To mind the oxygen, sir. And that it’s cold.”

Cleven let out a mirthless little laugh. “We’re full of holes Ensign, of course it’s cold.”

“I know sir.”

“Yeah, ‘course you know,” his eyes lightened for a moment and Maureen almost deluded herself he was being chummy when he murmured next, “you’re smart like that. Tell the Lieutenant Commander I’ll keep her nice and low, so low the Jap navy gunners can blow the floor out without a sweat.”

“Much obliged, Major.” Maureen chirped, pleased to have been trusted with a bit of morbid humor -it was the truest test of being taken seriously a woman could hope for in the service.

“Thank you, Ensign.” And with that she was dismissed.

By the time she got to the belly again her assigned job of doling out blankets had long been accomplished by her fellows. Brady had the place lit up like an operating theater and there was the added drone of medical equipment added to Cleven’s engines. She liked to think of them as his now, Maureen realized, a tiredness seeping in now that the rush was over, now there was just six hours of the same until they touched down again in safety. His engines stayed with them, consistent, steady, dependable yet a little absent, just like the man himself.

“Major Cleven said he’ll keep her low, Doc.” Maureen reported dutifully but whatever humor Egan once held when sending her to the cockpit was now gone, a bloody mess on his hands as he and Ensign Dormer worked over a head wound.

“Good.” Egan gritted out, “I need a monitor on vitals and I need new gloves, c’mon Candy, c’mon!”

The hours passed like this, no way of telling time in the artificially lit tube of metal. Some men needed a cup of water and a kind smile, others required every bit of grit and intelligence to keep even the faintest pulse discernible above the hum. When one of them passed away in the anonymity of the top bunk, Egan didn’t bother to cover his face, the man looked to be sleeping and it suited the morale better if his fellows were not disillusioned on that score.

It was impossible not to think for a split second on the unfairness of it all -live to be finally evacuated and only die before getting safe. To think how someone else less tore up might’ve been given that bunk and survived the trip.

“Can’t dwell on it.” Ida Brady, their headmistress back in Manila, had said -and she had been right. But seeing her brother Lt. Brady cross himself now in recognition of a soul passed did something to Maureen’s own spirit, a grieving sort of fury possessed her which matched Egan’s own as they worked on the next unsalvageable man until he became a likely contender for seeing his wife and kids again.

She had been up for nineteen hours, flying for ten of those, nursing for four. She was bone tired and yet there was always someone to be tended and the thought of leaving one of these poor men without even the slightest of their needs met felt impossible. Maureen didn’t even think to pause or lag in her expertise, neither did the nurses around her and up there at the front somewhere, Cleven’s eyes were sharp and focused as ever, she knew it, and knowing it brought a calm over her that made her sympathize with Egan’s own superstitious preference for the man.

Brady came through with coffee, an abnormal duty he picked up as a result of trusting no one else with the process or the electrical requirements to make it. “Figured our pilots could use it.” he explained before passing out a passel of paper cups to the girls filled with the peppy stuff, belying his practical excuse, before taking two to the cockpit.

He came back out with a funny look on his face- “Benny says he needs a pan.”

“What the hell for?” Egan balked.

“Or a condom.” Brady dutifully amended the petition.

“I repeat -what the hell for?”

“They’ve drank a lotta coffee sir.”

“Any of you fellas got condoms?” Egan asked his patients with a laugh and got a series of predictable replies. “Gale Cleven sure as hell don’t.”

There were light hearted moments like that, many of them in fact, but six hours of flying with wounds as bad as the ones they were tending was no joke, there were bits of laughter and there were times of quiet and there were restless sleepers whose terrors not even morphine could dim.

“Forty minutes out.” Major Cleven had gone quiet over the coms for so long it was like hearing from God again when he came on, gentle and steady.

Those they couldn’t get comfortable were at the height of their groaning as the cold and the endless buzz got to them. Helplessly the nurses offered pillows and water and irrigated the burns with saline and checked needle positioning. Maureen had taken to charting, something too often neglected in high stress environments but something that proved terribly crucial as soon as they landed and handed over their charges to a new set of professionals. On the left side of the plane she held one man’s wrist after another and noted their pulse. On the right side she did the same, one man’s left hand after another, wedding band or sans wedding band, in her notes it was only ever:

“94, 57, 88, 91, 63, 82”

The lights had been dimmed, hopes were some rest could be gotten by those in any shape to manage sleep. It made for a drowsy atmosphere, only the flashlight in her teeth illuminating the veins under her fingers and her co-workers faces, Egan’s face was a shiny mess of freckles in the torch light despite the chill, exhaustion seeping out of him but not a hint shown in his workmanship. It made the dull chorus of groans in the dark all the more ominous and Brady remarked to Smith on one pass that maybe they should have brought a record player.

“Twenty minutes out.” Maureen and every other soul on board was living for those little updates from Cleven.

Men told to hang in there and not die before they could be gotten to surgery suddenly had a goal in mind and the suspense was growing brutal. Stashed and stowed, secured and checked, landing preparations were already done and it was last minute tending before taking seats. Maureen found herself nearly piddling by one young private, trying to soothe him with a washcloth as sepsis fever wracked him when over the intercom came the oddest lulling hum, like a far off jazz intro.

It was too soft initially to be recognized but the surety picked up, something about the tone unmistakably belonging to their pilot, his hums about as characteristic of him as his laconic speech.

“Is that whadda friend we have in Jesus?” Demarco’s voice overtopped the gentle melody.

John Egan was wheezing in a chuckle beside her as Maureen shook her own head in disbelief.

“No,” Gale murmured, humming paused only briefly, “it’s ‘Leaning on the everlasting arms’ -you fish eater.”

“You gotta be jokin’.” Benny was wheezing too but Cleven was back to his gentle humming, words actually forming this time and filling the tired plane with a timbre that could put Bing Crosby out of a job.

“What have I to dread, what have I to fear

Leaning on the everlasting arms?

I have blessed peace with my Lord so near

Leaning on the everlasting arms”

It worked, the sickening drop in elevation was -if not noticed- bravely pushed aside for a hymn sing, Brady leading from the back and Cleven from the front. And for a brief moment, men from Kansas to Florida, Oregan to Rhode Island, strapped in a flying coffin of flickering souls, were seated back in the pews of their childhood, trusting something larger than themselves. Even if that something was Gale Cleven’s steady hands or the justness of a cause worth dying for or God Almighty, it was something big and above the pain of right now.

“Leaning, leaning

Safe and secure from all alarms

Leaning, leaning

Leaning on the everlasting arms”

The Navy station at Gaum had a runway, in fact there were five Cleven could have picked at whim, and there was no feeling so beautifully civilized and sure as the smooth roll of plane tires on asphalt after what they’d just left. “Flaps at quarter!” and they were slowing, the deflated back wheel only causing some slight disturbance, and then they were stopped.

That bizarre stillness settled again as the engines were cut. Egan gave Maureen a smile so soft and telling that her heart about seized in realization -they’d managed it. “Well that’s us.” he repeated for the second time that day, voice gone raspy with cigarettes and fatigue. “Welcome to American soil, boys.”

There were so many lights outside the cargo door, searing white flashes in the nighttime, jeeps and ambulances and all manner of medical personnel at the ready, it was overwhelming in the exact opposite way the beach at Iwo had been. Maureen hopped down onto the tarmac with Ensign Mann, ready and prepared to stay with her charges until the transition could be made. Clipboard in hand and kit on her back, she’d go in with her select five until they’d been admitted and charted meticulously in the various wards.

“How’s it feel to make history, Miss?!” -some of those lights, Maureen realized with a dull throb behind her eyes, were flashbulbs. Journalists were thick as thieves, snapping and hollering, others respectfully keeping a distance, “You're the first woman to step foot in a combat zone-“ Maureen kept her hand on her stretcher even as she watched Cleven limping over to a jeep and piling in after Demarco. Her mouth set in a sour line of suspicion regarding his claims of being unscathed. He’d be in interrogation and she in the wards for the next hour, she’d have to find out later.

A couple of hours later John Egan was sat with Captain Crosby in the administration office, nothing but a small alcove at the front of the ward, his legs spread wide in his chair and good scotch whisky being slurped from a cleverly injected orange while reviewing the charts. Croz was a whizz at this, meticulous and careful to a fault and John adored him for it because men who gave a damn were scarce after this many years of grueling loss and, also, because it allowed himself to wind down sooner than he was technically free to do so.

“Two men lost, that’s -that’s still good odds.” Crosby couldn’t manage an upbeat tone, he felt those two lives as deeply as Egan did, but facts were facts and over all, this experimental mission had proven beyond successful. Now to tell that to the families of the two men now being carted to the morgue instead of surgery and salt baths.

“Yeah, my girls were Trojans out there.” Bucky sucked his teeth, the squint in his eyes beginning to relax with a boozy sort of calmness. “Speakin’ of Trojans! —Candy!”

Maureen approached the little alcove at a tired gait, not above reprimanding Egan for his loud voice with all those occupied beds just feet away. “It’s late, Commander.” she reminded with hinting softness that only made him crane his head back and grin sloppily at her.

“It is, it is.” he agreed, reaching up to pat her arm and she squinted at the smell of whiskey, Crosby’s sudden and transparent busyness with the charts confirmed her suspicions. “You should get some shut eye, Candy! Back at it tomorrow.”

“So should you.” she hinted kindly.

“Mm,” he hummed in negative, “apparently my ‘specialty’ is needed elsewhere before then.”

“And so the booze?” she struck back and Crosby’s pen briefly dragged along his tidy line in shock at her daring.

“Steady hands, Candy darlin.” Egan responded, lifting two sticky palms up and showing, indeed, not a tremor. “I’ve got a surgery in less than an hour -working with Brady’s old sister, of all people, the one who snuck out of Manila after?- anyways, she’s 90 pounds of spit and vinegar. Starved for two years, but she takes three weeks off and a round of anti-parasitics and she’s all ‘let me back at ‘em.’ Hell of a dame. Anyway, surgery with her. I need this.”

“Well,” Maureen Kendeigh knew when to let go of a fight with a man who’d as yet never failed her or anyone else, despite his habits, “I can confirm it does nothing for your eyes bags.”

“Kiss ‘em better?”

“Not in my purview, sir.” she couldn’t help but smile, “Perhaps lieutenant Brady will be obliging?”

“She scares me.” he objected.

“And I don’t?”

“Only in the ways I like, Candy Darlin’.” he insited.

“Ah Major!” Crosby’s strained greeting drew their attention away from this over rehearsed banter and Egan straightened up fast upon sight of his friend.

“Buck!”

“John.” Gale Cleven was in the same uniform he’d been in for hours, flight jacket undone and scarf hanging loose. He must have come straight from interrogation and standing in front of the administrator's desk he was turning his cover over and over in his hands. Maureen was certain that were she to devote two hours a day to brushing her hair she could never bernish it to the golden brilliance that twelve hours of flight-sweat gave his. On a more concerning note, his was pale as death except for those lips. “I came to check in on everybody. Load of journalists out there.” He thumbed back behind him at the public area, “Mostly curious about you, Ensign.”

“Historical.” Egan affirmed and sent Maureen a sly look as she sighed over the fuss being made of her mission.

“I’m one of twenty.” she reminded.

“I hope you were nice about her.” Egan goaded his buddy and to her confusion, Gale flinched as if that were a remarkably successful mode of attack.

“O-of course.” he frowned severely and Maureen had a desperate urge to thumb those lines away. “I told them the truth.” he defended, mildly heated.

“Which is?” Egan was enjoying this and neither Maureen nor Harry Crosby could seem to puzzle out why.

“They did remarkably.” Cleven didn’t budge.

“Better than you thought.” Egan prodded.

“Yeah. Admittedly, far better than I thought. Jeeze, John.”

“But were you nice about her?” Egan insisted.

“What?”

“You said they were particular about Candy.” Egan said, “So what did you say?”

Maureen grew concerned that with such a level of fluster in the Major’s face not a stitch of blood seemed able to raise a blush.

“How ‘bout you read it in the paper.” Gale replied, coolly mean before clearing his throat and straightening up, back in possession of himself. “I came to see how many -how’d we do?”

“Twenty eight.” Egan confirmed.

“Outta thirty?” Cleven asked for confirmation.

“Yes sir.” Crosby answered him.

“Alright.” The Major accepted that, hat still whirling in his hands, a strange contrast to his perfectly contained posture. It drew Maureen’s eye to his hips and that deep red stain running down his pant leg.

“How’s your hip Major?” she asked, seeking to break the silence before Egan did so with some new and regrettable subject.

That did bring a flush and a sheen of sweat broke out on a face Maureen knew would be feverishly hot were she to touch it. He looked peeky, truth be told. “It’s fine, ma’am.”

“Hold up,” Egan stood from his chair and leaned over the desk to glare blearily at Gale’s trousers. “You're hit.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“Scratches don’t keep bleedin’ like that.“

“Well, mine do.”

“Hey, I don’t go tellin’ you how to fly your planes-“

“-you do though.”

“-so you don’t go tellin’ me what’s a scratch and what’s a wound. It’s still drippin’, that makes it a wound.”

Cleven moved his boot to the side impatiently and only succeeded in proving his friend’s point as a line of fresh blood smeared the white tile. “I was gonna just -“

“-What?”

“-Clean it in the shower.” Cleven sighed, defeated but with an edge that suggested he might yet do it .

“Oh, just gonna rinse mortar fragments outta of your thigh, yeah?”

“It’s not that bad. Dunno if it really got hit.” He protested, “Might be scratched.”

“Or you might have a piece of your instrument panel snuggled up to an artery.” John affirmed sarcastically. “We’re goin’ up again tomorrow. I need you fit, I need you good.”

“I am.”

“You’re gonna get checked.” Egan commanded and Gale looked back at the double doors leading to freedom and a pack of journalists and sighed. “You’re on the ground now, flyboy, I call the shots.”

“Ok.” Cleven mumbled, “If you’re so goddamn eager to pants me, do it.”

“I am, I am but I’ve got even better things to do.” Egan rounded the desk and flung an arm around Gale in parting, bringing him in close despite Cleven’s stiff necked antipathy that hid only the deepest seated endearment, “Like putting a left lung back where it should be and trying to get Lt. Brady to smile at me.” Egan expounded, letting go and beginning to actually leave, much to Cleven's sudden concern, “Which is, naturally, on the left -the left lung, that’s where it goes.” Egan went on.

“Wait, aren’t you gonna-?” Cleven called after him.

“Pantsing is more of Ensign Kendeigh’s purview.” John replied cheerfully. “Don’t look so appalled, I'm sure she’s seen smaller.”

“John!” Major Cleven and Maureen both inflected his name like twin, scandalized parrots.

“You deserve each other.” John laughed, “Ensign, do your duty.”

“This is the kinda behavior that has you gettin’ write ups for bein’ a terror to your nurses!” Gale growled after him in remonstrance but it did nothing to slow Egan’s tactical withdrawal.

“Bulshit, everybody on this ward loves me!” John dared to claim even as he was berated on his way out by more than a few wounded marines for being a little too jovial at two in the morning.

Cleven didn’t wait for the doors to fully close on Egan or for Maureen to collect her professional demeanor and clipboard before he was leaning over Captain Crosby at his desk, large hands splayed on the fresh paperwork, assuming the pose of a supplicant before a lawyer. “Harry, Captain, do me a favor this once and take a look fo-“

“-Major Cleven sir,” Harry Crosby interjected levelly and with the utmost respect, “I’m an administrator.”

Maureen composed herself, the sight of this stoic man losing a grip on himself due to the prospect of lost modesty was surprising, it was also motivating to find her own professionalism and put him at ease. “Major, if you’d follow me?” she nodded her head towards the ward and started clopping down the dim aisle toward one of the last empty beds. He didn’t need to lay down for it but she needed her instrument tray, an isolated light and, if his shyness was so severe, drawing the sectioned curtains would hardly be amiss.

When she arrived and turned round to instruct him, he was obediently there to obey. Something about that dogged respect for authority he possessed and his compliance with her own profession filled her with an odd protectiveness and she motioned him into the space gently, tugging the curtain closed behind him. He was taller than she realized, made more apparent as he took the initiative and tugged off the bulky weight of his flight jacket, methodically laying it out in a half fold on the bed, nothing but a lean line of him left in olive green.

Lanky, her mother would call him, a long drink of water. He looked all of twenty four, suddenly, soft and in need of a meal. “Your leg, yes?” she reaffirmed, jotting it down in the chart. She had found that men found it easier to talk of injuries when she wasn’t making eye contact.

“Yes.” His voice was low as the grave and hushed too, “And -I think maybe my hip.”

Maureen’s eyes flicked to the place in question, recalling how she had suspected his lap in general on the plane. “Right.” she made the customary jot down of the detail and then an arguably unnecessary note beside it, the longer to give him a chance to cool himself. “Your pants Major, if you would.” she filled in the date and the time, cursory information so as not to be idle while he undid his belt, the clank of the flat uniform clasp deafening in the space where he seemed to hold his breath.

She was used to discerning the moment when it was safe to look up. Often there was a brief period after the sound of pants hitting the floor where one might have the misfortune of catching a man adjusting himself to a preferred side. She was prepared to give him that moment in peace but his voice called her to attention.

“Is this?-“ he didn’t finish his sentence and she looked up to see his vague gesture as he stood in briefs and boots, jacket hung open, too.

“Yes I think we can manage with those on.” she smiled reassuringly, discerning his query. His skivvies were blood stained on the right and clinging to him but the wounds appeared to be above and below their coverage, “I’ve always got scissors if need be.”

“Scissors.” He repeated with a nod, teeth savagely dug into his lip.

“Jacket off, this could get messy.” She ordered and something about her decisiveness seemed to soothe him like she knew it would, he shrugged it off gracefully and laid it beside the sheepskin, and yanked at his tie to relive his bobbing throat. “Please, sit Major.”

He sat down on the bed, a little stiffly, and she reached above her to turn on the large overhead lamp, shining it down on them both and in the harsh glow of it she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen something so beautiful as Gale Cleven’s blushing face fixed upturned towards her own.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, looks like.” she attempted to make conversation and got a mere nod instead, once she stepped nearer, his eyes devoutly focused themselves somewhere to the right of them, on the floor.

She rinsed the area first, wiping away the crusted blood until his smooth, lightly haired skin came into view, little jagged tears visible in it with small fragments embedded. It wasn’t bad at all, but deep enough to keep it bleeding.

The touch of cool water made him jolt in surprise. What it didn’t do was make him shrink. She saw his hands curl, white knuckled around the mattress pad beside him as she gently dug out the metal, and she had a suspicion it wasn’t from the pain.

As unabashedly as her profession had taught her, Maureen tugged up his boxer leg until she was satisfied she’d uncovered the last little shard and did what was necessary, reaching atop the wet fabric and moving his heavy member up and away. He about bucked off the table at that mere touch of positioning and Maureen backed away out of pure animal instinct to avoid getting reflexively kneed.

“I'm sorry!“ he rushed out, his chest suddenly tight like an elephant were sat on it and his blood thudded in his ears, “Ensign, I apologize, I don’t know why-“

“It’s fine.” she insisted, stunned and pitying at the realization she probably was the first woman to touch him this way. To touch him at all. “I’m sorry this requires it.” she admitted.

“Please don’t -“ he took a large breath and began again, actually managing to meet her eyes out of sheer willpower, “-I’m the one who’s sorry. You’re doing your job, i don’t know why I get- it’s unprofessional of me, I'm sorry.” he repeated firmly and straightened his spine as if he could discipline a most human reaction away.

“It’s not at all uncommon.” She whispered, feeling compelled to be unprofessional herself if only to make him stop berating himself, “We nurses deal with this all the time, quite normal after combat, particularly.” Maureen paused for a moment and weighed the joke on the tip of her tongue as she dabbed iodine on a cotton ball and prepared to go back into the dreaded zone of his thigh crease, “It’s to be expected, the manual says; your blood is quite literally UP.”

Stood there in suspense between his legs with the iodine swab waiting mid air, Maureen waited until she saw a flicker of amusement twinkle his sad expression and a snicker escape that sober mouth. “Tell me about it.” he rasped, exasperated at his own body. “Every damn time.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” she teased, bringing the swab down and ignoring the sizable jolt his whole body and appendage gave at this dab to his thigh or the way his belly caved in with his deep intake of breath, “I’m telling you it’s normal.”

“Damn, you are sweet.” He declared suddenly with gut wrenching emphaticism that finally broke Mauren’s own precarious composure. “Not just to me,” he hastened to add in response to her melting expression so close to him, “to everybody out there. You were incredible today.” He paused and Maureen swallowed hard and tried with great difficulty to find the capability to thank him for the compliment. Before she could, he added with youthful honesty, “But you are -sweet to me.”

“Right back at you. Major.” she insisted, daring to stay that close and look back into those eyes she thought would be her last sight on earth for a second there on the beach earlier. His shuddering breath suggested he was recalling it, too.

“It’s nice to have friends in the crucible with ya.” he explained and Maureen felt her heart glow.

“Your poor hands.” she whispered, dropping her swab to gather his shaky hands in hers, the large palms engulfed her own even as she tried to cradle them. Never a hint of this anxiety while flying them, yet here he was shivering with it afterwards. “Probably blood loss.” she gave him an out, some men weren’t ready for talk of flight exhaustion or strained nerves.

“Then why’s it wasting all I’ve got to spare on…that?” He actually managed to joke back and Maureen actually allowed herself to laugh -god help her, she laughed at a man’s joke about an ill timed erection.

“John would say something about hope springing eternal, right about now.” she wheezed even as he groaned, his hands still placidly jittering in her grip, “I enjoyed your singing, by the way.”

“Mm, yeah, well,” he cleared his throat, “you didn’t see the hole in the wing or the busted flaps all the way home. That landing didn’t promise to be as pretty as it was.”

“But it was pretty.”

“Yeah. Not too bad.”

“A gorgeous landing.” she insisted and his eyes started to water under the harsh light. Impulsively, and in an act of unprofessionalism she would have never recognized before today, Maureen Kendeigh drew his hands close to her chest and pressed a kiss to his lined forehead. The way he sagged against her in a shuddering lunge suggested her impulse was a good one. “Doc Egan insists whiskey is good for this.” she whispered into hair that smelled so strongly of his musk and the wool of his cap she about buckled from it.

“Mm, but is it g—good for him?” he responded rhetorically, a gust of moist breath against the open throat of her flight jacket, his usual irony still remained with only a hiccup of nerves interrupting his speech. Maureen wasn’t sure anymore, what saved a life, well, it had saved a life, so why demonize it? She was here to force things to keep living in environments so hostile wildflowers gave up. Some men needed their booze and some men needed to be held in the hospital ward at two in the morning until their shakes calmed. As if he could read her mind, she felt Gale turn his head to the side a little for breath, face still pressed to her chest as he uttered quietly, “This is working. For me.”

“Good.” Nose buried in his hair she took a few measured breaths herself, feeling that odd calm still radiating off him, even as his body was shot to hell and giving off the overtaxed jitters. “You bring people calm, you know that, Major? It’s why Egan picked you for this, deep down, you make a plane load of dying men hang in there. That’s a gift. But when you’ve got a cup you keep pouring out of, it’s bound to go empty. Gotta refill yourself, sometimes, yes?”

“I thought this was blood loss.” Gale replied softly and it took Maureen a beat to recognize the sad mischief in his blue eyes.

“Alright. I’ll speak for myself.”She conceded with a huff.

“You must be exhausted.” he noted, suddenly as sober as they come.

“A little tired.” she admitted, questioning the way she instinctively tightened her hold on the back of his neck as he stiffened to pull away. Entirely unprofessional, she wasn’t a medicine spoon or a needle, he had every right to pull away.

“So what would fill your cup back up?” he asked in that low voice that sent a million varied undertones crashing through her, whether he intended it or not.

Too tired to be much more than plainly honest, or as honest as a woman should be with a half undressed patient cradled to her chest, Maureen admitted the half of it, which in many ways was the whole, “This is working for me.”she repeated his own words to him and watched them take effect.

Like a sudden reanimation had occurred, Gale Cleven untangled their hands with emphatic surety and then, in an act of kindness Maureen never expected, brought them to her shoulders and tugged her down for a solid embrace. “A hug and a nap then.” He prescribed, his solid shoulder beneath her cheek and his legs parted for her to step between. Only the bandages kept him from bleeding further on her.

“Not a nap,” she smiled, an inexplicable warmth and calmness flooding through her in his hold, his back was broad and lean under her hands, “we should go to sleep.”

“No such thing as going to sleep in the military, Ensign.” Gale murmured, “Sleep -that’s what happens when your mama tucks you in and you’ve got a whole night to waste. Naps. That’s what we take.”

“Alright, a nap, and a hug.”

“Alright.”

“You know,” Maureen dared with a little smile as some part of her slotted back in place and gave her the boldness to be a little too much, “there’s this thing people came up with ages ago where you hug and take naps at the same time.”

Pink cheeked but with a jaw clench that had defeated warzones, Gale Cleven pulled his head away and gave her a heavy look of admonishment, “Marriage.” he stated unamused.

Well, she had meant sex, and she wanted it, always had after danger -but Cleven had a point too.

“Uh, yes, that’s the most common-“

“-If I were to marry you, Maureen Kendeigh,” his voice took on a teasing lilt that was somehow more devastating than all his commanding earnestness, “there’d be no nap taking.”

“Oh.” A single utterance was about all she could articulate in the face of that smirk and gentle refusal. Both flattering and painful all at once. “Well, that’s not for us then.”

“No.” he pondered, full lips twitching downwards in disappointment, “At least, sounds like a decidedly post-war endeavor. No naps.” he clarified.

“Oh -yes.” she caught on, well used to the code of superstition all around her that didn’t allow men to spell out any sort of lasting, long term hope. “A postwar endeavor.” she agreed, never having heard marriage so smartly categorized.

“Uhuh,” his hands trailed up from her ribs to squeeze the sore muscles of her deltoid, “for now -naps. Back up tomorrow.”

“Alright.” she agreed, stepping a small distance back and looking him over, this time his presence didn’t shrink, in fact if anything he expended in the small room and it made her chest ache, “You're alright?” she made sure one last time.

He held his palms flat up and Maureen could attest they were indeed steady, terribly large, too, and his watch on his wrist was careening towards three o’clock. “Looks like it.” he rasped. “But you’re in charge here. Can I go, Ensign?”

Regretfully Maureen nodded, “You’re dismissed, Major.”

When he stood up from the bed he was by necessity in her space, looking down at her rather fearlessly as he yanked up the waist of his trousers and gathered the belt closed around his lean waist. Maureen felt her cheeks burn but couldn’t look away, if she were to glance away from those eyes she might see something even more tempting before he’d secured the fabric.

“Got any more duties after this?” he asked, breaking the moment as he bent to arrange his trouser hems over his boots.

“No.”

“Then I’ll walk you to your billet.”

“For naps.” she clarified cheekily.

“For naps.” he agreed with mirthful vehemence, finger pointed at her with almost paternal caution to not push his patience.

“Do you want your shell fragments?” she rattled them in their dish, the pieces she'd pried from the shallow muscle of his hip.

Cleven paused with his hand on the dividing curtain, shaking his head in amusement, “Give ‘em to Egan,” he suggested with a wicked little smirk, “knowing him he’ll make a talisman out of them or something equally useful.”

Hope y’all enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s life blood, lemme head your thots or screams! Xoxo

Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added for my MOTA fics)

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[duskier]

Long suffering butch Price part three, the one where she fucked up.

cw brief mention of torture (not graphic tho)

She had become so set on perceiving your relationship the way you do- just as friends, that is, for her own sanity- that she forgot how you could look together to outsiders. How damning photos of the two of you would look in a manilla folder, passed from informant to enemy.

Spread out on a metal table, a glossy picture of you being carried on Price’s back on a rare beach day. A burry photo taken through your apartment window of when you had challenged Price to an arm wrestle- it was the aftermath, looked like two lovers just holding hands across their dinner table, laughing at one another. Another photo, taken of the two of you at a friend's wedding, printed out from Instagram- your cheek pressed against Price’s chest as you clung to each other through each slow dance.

There were too many instances to count, so many more private moments lost to time. Of course Price's enemies assumed you were longtime lovers. Assumed that Price only kept any distance for the sake of your safety.

You didn't know much about Price’s job, after a month of living together you had given up entirely on asking. She was sensible, paid well, and was the first person who had responded to your 'roommate wanted' ad that didn't seem like a nightmare to live with. Even after all the years spent living together, being friends beyond just being roommates, you hadn't bothered to ask what she did. Just knew you missed her like crazy when she was gone on missions for weeks, even months at a time.

Price was on one of those missions when masked men broke into your apartment. She was just on her way back to base from a mission when Laswell called with an urgent message, something usually saved only for "end of the fucking world" scenarios. Price then found herself in a panic staring at CCTV footage of you in an actual torture chamber.

You weren't a soldier, and that was something Price had loved about you. You were the farthest thing from the warfare that consumed the dark corners of Price’s mind, soft and warm and her home. It looked wrong to see you in the chair, bloodied and swollen in parts, your softness used against you.

And still- still you didn't give up any information. Not a single word left your mouth that would betray or expose Price, even under duress. Stronger men have fallen to weaker torture, all it does is speak to your loyalty. Price silently begs you to give her up, just so they'd stop what they were doing to you- her stomach in knots at the sound of your pained cries.

Every person who ever owed Price a favor was called upon, every ally she'd ever made and any enemy she could manipulate were involved. Price was going to overturn heaven and earth to find you and bring you home. Of course she was stupid for telling you sooner, she admonishes herself nonstop the whole way through- telling you what she did for work, telling you how to protect yourself, telling you that you're the brightest light in her life and that meant you were in danger from the start.

Price is part of the rescue team when you're found. She's the one who cuts your binds, it's her thick, warm shoulder your face finds refuge against while you sob in relief. It's her strong hands carding through your hair, and it is her shaking, adoring voice that assures you that you're safe now. That she'll never let anything happen to you ever. That she's so sorry. That she loves you.

[astarionconsort]

Ascendant Astarion was driven by fear, but can you really blame him?

Okay so I just read the newest interview that mentioned Astarion reasoning behind his ascension was driven by fear and I thought it made sense?

Tho I don't believe that fear was the only force behind the reason of his decision to ascend, there's a longing to be alive again to enjoy everything that the world has to offer, the need for certainty and also to protect his loved ones (when he has a love interest)

But let's talk about this fear part, there are people (even the companions) who expected that 'he should have known better' or 'shouldnt even think about ascension' and sees this fear in the recent interview as something that is so horrid but here's the thing.

"You are right to be afraid." I mean DUH obviously it makes sense. Astarion lives in a very dangerous world where countless undead risen from their graves thanks to necromancer toying with life and death, there are bandits everywhere, monsters, evil gods who never failed to make life even more miserable than ever and even the supposedly good aligned god can be so awful at times, etc etc.

The party that he traveled with and himself were infected with worms that would eat their brain and transformed them into a living husk, the absolute cult and the dead three were on their tail, angry devils, Cazador wanted him back and not to mention the Githyanki and their lich queen wanted them dead as well for what happened with the prism

Even during act 3 where they were supposedly close to victory. The victory was not set in stone yet, nothing is certain and something could have gone wrong. They could have died or even worse!

Not to mention he's a man who was tormented for 200 hundred years. He was stripped of everything that he had and even his own reflection, reduced to catched rats to sustain himself.

Can you really blame him for wanting to seek a way out from Cazador's torment, the hunger for blood and the indignity that he suffered for so long?

Also it would be harder to convince him to not ascend if Tav or Durge romanced him. Because now he's not just afraid for his own safety and his future but also his lover. The only person whom he ever love and genuinely love him back in 200 years (also not ending up as a victim for Cazador)

Most people would have killed him when they found that he's a vampire and infected with an Illithid parasite. Most people would have abandoned him

Tav/Durge was the only light in his life after years of living in darkness and torment, you can't really blame him for wanting to keep this light from being snuffed out by untimely death

And if that means sacrificed 7000 souls that he already damned anyway (undead like vampire wouldn't be accepted by good aligned gods in the after life, not sure about evil gods but most deities most won't accept them) so be it

I don't see this fear behind his decision as something that is objectively awful? I mean it is a natural respond anyone would have if they were in his shoes

Then you might ask "If Astarion loves Tav or Durge that much why he insisted on turning them into a vampire? And break up if they refused?"

Because he was overwhelmed by his beating heart/ his renewed sense, the high from his power and he's also insecure. At that point in act 3 he expected Tav and Durge to stand by his side no matter what

Because they were the only person who didn't kill the parasite infested vampire spawn at the beach, who loves him anyway despite the face he was a man with nothing to his name, who were willing to sacrifice 7000 souls and killed the Gur for him!

Ascended Astarion didn't want THAT special person to be taken by early death or a fate worse than death

He needed the reassurance that his love would be safe and no gods nor fate will take them away

If they refused to be an immortal vampire then they were as good as sealed their fate to death. Astarion didn't want to face that heartbreak

The thing that I don't agree with the interview is that the interpretation that ascension sent him to a horrible place? It was kinda vague? Like worse place when? During or after the ascension? Because this cannot apply after the ascension since I have taken so many screenshot and recording of ascendant astarion and I didn't see him feeling miserable about his fate. He was happy that the hunger gone and he could see his reflection again

Post final battle? The epilogue? After the epilogue party? This cannot be applied to all people, all route, all Tav/Durge and Astarion in general because there's variations. I mean you might see ascended Astarion as a bit lonely because he doesn't end up with anyone but in my Tav's universe he has a consort who stay by his side and their relationship is still going strong because my Tav is aligned with him

[khuzena]

Seasons.

Itoshi Rin, Michael Kaiser x g/n!reader

Summary: Like how flowers bloom in spring, how flowers bask in the warmth of summer's embrace, their petals fall in autumn and their essence crumbles in winter. Their heart does too, though it still beats for you <3

Warning: Angst, breakup, cheating, drifting apart, hurt just hurt. No fluff, we don't do that weak sh here (kinda but nothing lasts forever).

A/n: life update. Been gone for MONTHS, sorry for no update :(. i fell in love, fell out of love but took me months to get over and now i came back ^^ tho I'll post a full update if any of you still remember me and want to know everrrrything that went on these months i was inactive:>

Listening to: MR. LOVERMAN

Michael Kaiser

I've shattered now, I'm spilling out

Upon this linoleum ground.

The memory still ingrained in the crevices of his heart like a fresh wound.

He remembers it like it was just yesterday.

It was spring when he met you.

His headphones blaring music so loud the world went silent around him as he walked without a care in the world. There you were, some nobody transferee with a dream, three books hugged to your chest as you bumped into him.

"A-ah! Sorry!" The books fell to the ground, kneeling as you tried to grab all your pens that fell too.

Kaiser sips his tea in his balcony, The cacophonic mantra of sorrys of that sunny afternoon still ringing in his ears.

When he also knelt down to your level to help you carry them, he shrugged it off and apologised back.

Your gazes locked, it was new, so exciting. Yet It felt so dangerous.

Then, he swept you off your feet on the summer beach.

There were three things that caught his eyes that day: the endless sea, the ice cream that melted on the sand and you.

"Pfft you— you wasted your ice cream!" That sweet laugh of you still haunting him in his dreams everyday. It was June when he told you -he was lonely- it would be fun if you tagged along in his trip to the seaside.

The soft sand touching your skin and his, as he inched closer to your face. His heart raced, faster than he's ever felt before.

Your lips touching, he expected it would feel like fireworks exploding in new years but no— it felt like home. He was no longer just a man, he was a lover (too).

The sun set and till autumn, every kiss, every hug was straight out of the movie.

It was just the two of you; his eyes never leaving yours, a kiss on his neck or two, maybe even the trickling sweat from his forehead.

Either way, it felt just right.

Autumn, he was tired.

Though he could not leave you, not when he was your loverman.

Not like this.

He may have loved you, but he loved feeling loved more.

A little too much— that he found himself in the arms of another woman.

"It isn't what it seems like, mein liebe please." His fingers gripping your wrist hard, begging you to stay.

How could you? Why would you?

He smelled too much like that other woman.

From a noble, rich, revered professional athlete now turned into an idiotic, dishevelled, weak man. Begging for forgiveness, he got on his knees and sang your name like a prayer but it was no use.

You were no god, it was not your obligation to forgive nor give salvation to those who've sinned.

You couldn't look him in the eye. All your love for him fell in a blink of an eye. Not all of it though.

"I'm sorry, I know you won't forgive me. But please, don't leave me tonight."

It was true when all your love wasn't gone for him, maybe you were selfish too.

That night, you indulged in this sin too. You were a sinner too, maybe even more than him.

You've sinned against yourself, your own morals for your pleasure.

It was Winter when you left.

The morning after that loveless night, he shed his tears in his dreams— he didn't want you to see.

Though you've seen through him.

It was natural to feel hatred, contempt and confusion because of his act of betrayal.

But you didn't.

You cupped his face gently, tracing your thumb over his tear-stained pretty face. He cried again; not in his dreams but in your embrace.

His heart broke more at the sight of you looking at him with such pity.

You've packed your things that day. As you opened the door you were greeted with first, the taxi cab then the gust of strong snow carried off by the wind.

"I guess this is it."

"Yeah"

A man with an ego of god, staring at you with eyes of a believer, still hoping, praying you realise that you can't live without him and run to his arms and stay.

But you didn't.

And you looked back to him one more time, the cold has already frozen your tears.

Then, silence.

'Shit, shit, shit' the thought raced in his head as kept pacing around in the living room.

Though he knows it's for the best. He's a selfish, self-centred, arrogant man.

Though if there's one thing: he loves being loved more than he loves you.

But when you left, he realised he loved you more that he let you go.

He was no longer a loverman, just a man.

Itoshi Rin

The ways in which you say my name, Have me wishin' I were gone

They ways that you say my name, have me runnin' on and on

Not too much, not too little.

How'd he describe his past relationship with you.

It was just right.

Where did it go wrong?

Was it when he stopped saying your name sweetly?

Or was it when you stopped cheering for him in his game?

It wasn't that, he still doesn't know why you both fell apart.

Though as cold as he is, he's as gentle as a flower on the inside.

When you started your midterms, he had a bouquet; the largest in the store possible.

He plopped it on your desk as he saw you tirelessly study your notes. Sighing, he made you some tea to calm your nerves.

"Rinnie, you didn't have to do this," Groggily said as you examined the bouquet to your left, "You didn't have to get me this…"

"But you deserve it."

A flush creeped in your cheeks when he blurted it out with no hesitation, did this loverboy love you to the moon and back this much? Oh how'd you tease him for this a billion times.

The bouquet was still as fresh as when you got them— it was already summer but he took good care of it.

His eyes watching your every move; the clicking sound of your pen, your frown as you tried to absorb the lesson and your oh so pretty eyes.

He could never get enough of this, he's wanted to see this sight every day, every night for the rest of his life.

Maybe marriage would do? But like all stories, not all are fairy tales.

Everyday until autumn he'd take you to a cafe you both liked. It was quiet and it smelled like coffee— the perfect combination.

Like all flowers do, the petals started to fall from the vase.

At this point of the relationship he was too busy to care about getting you flowers, or tending to your needs as he had his to attend to.

But, the relationship was happy… right?

He was oblivious, too naive to notice what was going on.

Though you were there, you wanted to fix things.

You'd bring him tiny trinkets from your work trips, a yummy cake from a nearby bakery or maybe some pair of cleats he was eyeing (though most of the time he already had bought it right after you gifted him one.)

The relationship was getting boring.

It was going nowhere.

Though none of you wanted to go anywhere.

Even though he'd hold you in a tight embrace, it felt cold. Was it the weather? Or was it just him?

The 'I love you's that'd slip from his lips often, stopped. There were no more random compliments or cute nicknames.

An occasional gift or two, though he was an idiot, he gives and gives and doesn't know how to take.

When winter came he was no longer begging you to warm up with him near the chimney or near the Christmas tree.

It was winter, his heart turned cold.

"Lets break up"

Adamancy dripped from his tone, he was serious about it.

"Why?"

Why?

"Because… I don't see this relationship going anywhere."

Your heart shattering into a million pieces, you wanted to punch his stupid face. How could he say that nonchalantly?

Though, it was true.

It wasn't going anywhere.

He knew it was for the better; he loved you too much to trap you in such a boring, loveless relationship.

Maybe one day, it will be spring all over again.

But your hand is holding another man's (or woman's).

He passed by another flower shop, he thinks he should buy you another bouquet again.

Notes: I wrote this at 12 am (it's 2 am now). I apologise for any grammatical mistakes :(( super tired and i have an unfinished sci assignment. I dont wanana live anymoreee. Idk if any of u still remember me tho LOLOLOL.

If u do i'm sorry if i dropped some underwhelming work as a return to the bllk tumblr fandom ehe (no kinktober just heart wrenching angstober ^^)

Written by @khuzena. Likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated. ♡

[hepaidattention]

my chaotic obx4 part 1 thoughts.... without any order

OBX Spoilers!!!

JJ's name is Jackson............????????? WHATS HIS MIDDLE NAME

jiara is everything. they are my everything. they literally are all we ever wanted. would never complain for more kissing maybe, okay just slightly. like a kiss on the cheek even. but they are perfect. perfection.

ruthie. you don't even have to listen to jj's threats honey. because it's KIARA you should really be scared of. wrong pogue to make an enemy of.

protective jj makes me just.... ugh. he will do ANYTHING crazy and thoughtless and dangerous but if kiara wants to he's gonna be level headed and try to talk her out of it. he's a presh bean

absolutely love Kiara Carrera and absolutely hate her parents. wouldn't expect anything less from our girl, but the fact that her parents said "don't come back unless he's gone" and she said "okay bye then" and never looked back is just. I love her. I love jiara.

the writers really said "lets make jj's mom dead and oh yeah that asshole dad? not his real dad - raised him out of the goodness of his heart, then beat him. yeah but NO no no no noNO no sarah can't be his sister. the fans want that too bad."

the way kiara put up a pillow to make out with JJ (or more *wink*) in the chamber pod thingy *chefs kiss* and the way she and JJ had traded places, of course implying that there was definitely some rolling around going on in there *wink* best part imo (just woulda been better if we had seen them kiss but its fine IM FINE) I'm just a slut for some kiss scenes that's all. I honestly didn't even feel like their dynamic needs it. I just like to see that kissing content

I actually really love the dynamics this season. They have THREE couples in the main group and they've done amazing not making it feel like that, tbh. Though I did get frustrated because I COULD use a little more PDA sometimes, it also (especially for JJ and Kie) makes perfect sense for their characters. Plus, as friends first (and friends for so long), it's nice watching them get to slowly be more comfortable in showing affection beyond closed doors.

I know Rafe is crazy. really I do. but I really want him to become good. I love how this girl has seemed to help that, too. she's a pogue and he doesn't care - like he does but he loves her anyway and it's helped him realize why Sarah did what she did. being a pogue doesn't really change who you are. He also has shown remorse for hating on pogues, like the whole beach scene. I saw someone say they didn't understand the point but I think the point was to show us Rafe and his gf (forgot her name I'm so sorry girly), and show how mad she became, and for Rafe to realize maybe this whole pogue vs kook thing was STUPID and hurtful. It also seems to have to do with Topper development but I kind hate Topper so I don't care about him lolll

still not over the jiara kiss. THEY"VE BEEN TOGETHER FOR ALMOST 2 FUCKING YEARS.

JJ. Babe. I love you. But you have dated that girl for 2 years and have not taken her out on a date???? I know, I get it, you've been very busy building a life. BUT HONEY. tsk tsk. Treat her right, sir.

Absolutely love how soft he gets towards her.

Pope: scolding

JJ: I KNOW MAN I DON'T NEED TO HEAR THIS ALRIGHT??? I DID WHAT I DID AND I DIDN'T DO NOTHING WRONG

JB: argues

JJ: IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT ACTUALLY

Kie: scolds

JJ: you're right baby I'm so sorry I'm just trying to help

the pogues being pogues. this season feels very fanfic in the best ways. like we actually got all of them living together in one house???? all just being best buds and loving one another platonically (and romantically)???? and I'm just. I love it. it's what we all asked for and it was worth the wait (tho the wait has been very very long)

it's the way Sarah and JB put up a seashell to let them know they're busy *wink* and Kiara almost walks in and says it's getting excessive IMPLYING that Sarah and Kie are roommates. which that makes me cackle because now I think JJ and JB are roommates and Kie and Sarah are roommates but JB stays in Sarah's room so much that Kie basically lives in JB and JJs room

cannot get over how solid jiara is. they're just... they're just right. they fit. and now that they've been together for 2 years working crap out, there's no silly early dating drama. it's just JJ being JJ, or Kie being Kie, and they both know each other so well they know there's not a reason to even argue. like JJ didn't even fight Kie on diving because he knew he couldn't fight her. she's too stubborn. just like Kie knows there's no need in getting mad at JJ when he does something wreckless because he does something like all the time. she knows talking to him calmly is the only way to even reach him anyway.

JJ: does something stupid

Sarah: "your bf's doing something stupid again"

Kie: "I know this and I love him."

cannot wait to see how they all get back together, or how Kie and JJ reunite, or how Kie will react to the news, or Rafe will help with this adventure, and how JJ will meet his dad (even though I wish it was Shoupe and not the random evil dude).

Also. They WOULD give JJ a death curse. SMH.

[augustvandyne]

oh here’s another addison thought

reader and addison start getting on, reader helping and assisting in surgeries. reader isn’t an intern tho.

reader gets a feeling addison likes her, addison does but she is Scared™️

and then addison goes to LA :(

and reader goes to her, last ditch attempt. “why did you leave me?”

angsty.. i like it

why did you leave?

You were Addison’s fellow. You were in your final year of residency when Addison made her big entrance, and you stood idly by as you watched everything with Derek, Meredith and her go down.

As soon as your options for fellowships opened up, you made sure you were to study under the Addison Montgomery.

She was kind of rude to you at first, as she was going through the final stages of her divorce, but she did finally open up to you and let you in on surgeries. And then, the two of you were closer than ever.

You did a lot of the surgeries with her, led them too.

Addison and you ate lunch together almost everyday, because all your other friends ate lunch while you were in surgery, so Addison would offer to eat with you.

“But Callie is sitting over there. You should go sit with her,” You would shrug and take a seat in the back of the cafeteria.

“I can’t leave you alone,” Addison huffed and sat beside you. “Besides, Mark will sit with Callie.”

You smiled appreciatively, “Okay. Only if you want to.”

You’d also go to the bar with her, and sometimes even get dinner with her if your schedules aligned. The two of you even got together for Christmas and exchanged gifts. Mostly because neither of you had any blood relatives in Seattle, and found comfort in each other.

She got you a necklace, and you would play with it when you got nervous. Addison would notice and try to comfort you, but she was beginning to think it was her that did it.

“Stop,” She removed your hand from your necklace. “You’re going to make a mark on the back of your neck from tugging on that.”

You’d let out a breath, “Sorry. It’s just the nerves.”

“Oh?” Addison lifted her brows, sitting beside you on the abandoned bed in the hallway. “What’s going on today?”

“An old friend is coming down to see me,” You shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Sure it is,” Addison swallowed down the negative thoughts and her own anxiety. “How long did you know them?”

“It’s a she, and I knew her my whole life before I moved out here. She was actually my first kiss.”

Addison nodded, pretending to be busy with the hair tie on her wrist.

“Hey, listen,” Addison turned her head, and she thought she might have told you about her ongoing feelings, but something else entirely comes out. “I’m going to visit a friend in LA next week. Could you watch over my patients? You’ll work under another neonatal surgeon while I’m gone. It’ll only be a day or two.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

She was gone for more than two days, and she didn’t answer any of your messages while she was gone. She came back almost a week later and she was different.

Addison told you about how she met a guy down there and that she missed her best friend, Naomi.

You stood by and tried to be supportive, you smiled and pushed the jealousy down, because even though you didn’t want to, you felt the same way she did.

She was tanner than when she left, and her red hair was a lighter shade now.

“It was nice down there,” She told you. “I think you’d like it. Because you love beaches.”

Your heart throbbed at the fact that she remembered something you told her the first time she talked to you.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. L/n,” Addison threw her gloves in the trash.

She barely called you that anymore, but right then she did, and it hurt like hell. For some reason you didn’t believe you’d see her the next morning. And your hunch was right.. because you didn’t.

You didn’t even know what you were doing, honestly. You just got the urge to leave Seattle for a few days, and you took yourself to LA.

You were at a local market when you spotted her.

She looked amazing. She’d cut her hair, and it was now to her shoulders. She was still tan like she was when you last saw her, but her hair was back to her normal red color.

She looks at you, and you think she might not even recognize you at first. Because truth be told, it had been almost a year since she’d left, and she’d built a life for herself out here.

Or so you hear through Callie.

You look down at the blueberries you were messing with, suddenly trying to look busy.

“Y/n..” Addison approached you, but you didn’t look up. “What are you doing here?”

“Um..” Your voice shakes, and you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to talk. “I needed to get out of Seattle for a few days.”

“I know the feeling,” She chuckles.

The sound of her voice and laugh makes your body tingle from your head to your toes.

“I’m sure,” You say bitterly, picking up a carton of blueberries so you can hopefully leave this conversation behind.

She just follows behind you as you make your way to the vegetables, “So.. uh.. how are you? How’s— how’s Seattle?”

“I’m fine,” You shrug.

“Are you still working in the neonatal field?” You see her hoist her bag higher on her shoulder from the corner of your eyes. “Is that why you’re here?”

“No,” You grit your teeth. “I’m here because I needed a few days away from Seattle, I told you. I didn’t mean to drive here, I just put my brain on autopilot, and it brought me here. I didn’t even think about you being here until now, okay?”

Your voice is soft and it’s scaring you because you hold nothing but anger for Addison. So the fact that you’re speaking in a sweet tone..

“It was nice seeing you,” You attempt to get her out of your head again, but it doesn’t work.

“Do you wanna.. I don’t know.. meet for drinks tonight?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” You clench your jaw, trying to keep yourself from saying something you know you’re going to regret.

“Y/n, look at me,” You hear Addison’s voice wavering like yours had only minutes ago.

You manage to pull your eyes away from the fresh produce and to her face, and it’s hard for you to look her in the eyes, but you manage.

Her hand comes up to touch you on the face, and when it does, you flinch at her soft touch. Your breath catches in your throat, and you have to swallow down the lump in your throat so you don’t start crying.

“Why did you leave?” Your voice breaks, and tears are beginning to fill in your eyes, much to your dismay.

“I needed a change of scenery—“

“No,” You all but growl, you sharply inhale and press your lips together. “Why did you leave me?”

Addison’s eyes flutter, and her own eyes fill with tears. You’ve struck her in a wound she was so desperately trying to heal.

“Y/n..” She wipes a stray tear with the pad of her thumb, her palm resting on your cheek. “I didn’t.. I didn’t leave you..”

“You did, though,” You try to turn your head, but her hold on you is soft and strong. “You left me, and I didn’t even get a goodbye.”

Next think you know, she’s pulling you into a hug, one of her hands now on the back of your head while the other snakes around your waist.

“I never meant to make you feel like that,” Her mouth is by your ear.

“It doesn’t feel that way,” You sob into her shoulder.

She pulls back, both her hands making their way to your cheeks, “I had feelings for you, Y/n. And I know it was immature, but— I— I was scared that you didn’t feel the same and I had to get out of there.”

As if your heart hadn’t broken enough times in your chest since this interaction had started, it somehow broke again.

“Addie.. I did— do feel the same. Didn’t you see?”

“I didn’t want to assume—“

You lean up and place a kiss on her lips, “Well stop assuming, and start living in the moment with me. This has been the worst experience ever. I hate the new head of neonatal, and I think she hates me too. I wish you would have just talked to me..”

“I will from now on,” Addison promises, staring into your eyes.

“What?” You smile softly, all of your pent up hate for her slowly melting away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re beautiful, am I not allowed to admire you?” Addison tilted her head.

“No, you can,” You draw your brows together in amusement. “I like it, actually. But you want something from me.”

“I want another kiss,” Addison shrugged, shyness in her tone.

You laugh, “You’re adorable.”

“Thank you,” Addison nodded. “Now come on, I have a lot of people to introduce you to.”

“There it is,” You throw your head back.

[t34-mt]

maanul folklore: mermaids

mermaids in maanuls ( or poaluk'nau in east, meaning: "one with sea") are not just them but with a fish tail, they're actually quite different from what most mermaid in human culture looks like.

they look like if maanuls went more aquatic, even having an operculum on the back like animals that went back to the sea. they have almost side eyes, a bottom lip (maanuls don't have that), and large palmed hands that are wonderful flippers underwater but on land make them clumsy and only able to wiggle around like a seal would. They own long muscular tails to help them swim, overall maanul mermaids look like them mixed with those strange whale ancestors. Most of the time they are said to be bigger than maanuls, other regions say they're the same size in length. While their size can vary in regions, the look is quite the same in all cultures meaning it's a shared representation that got spread among other maanuls tho the origin is vague, there's a possibility that it was from the south.

In tales, they can hold different roles, such as mysterious guardians in west, annoying but essential in the central north, tricksters and careless in the south, beasts of the ocean to scare kids from misbehaving in the north east and finally, in the east only one mermaid is present in the culture and its a sort of cursed person. now more onto each tale of every region in depth.

the word core will be mentioned a lot, core in maanuls means soul, they see their soul as a round ball that molts everytime they experience a grand event in their life.

Tales from the south: creatures of mischief

In the hottest region where maanuls live, Maanuls tell a story of a troublesome late teenager (18-19 in human years, that's still a minor in their species), whose love for mischief could not be matched by anything, except one, the ocean. The ocean was where they did all of their trickery, such as pulling people by their tail or legs in the water, swimming under canoe to then push them over, blowing water at people by their operculum, and so on. In the water is where they played, where they ate, they lived, they stood so much in the water that people were thinking it was a core of an aquatic animal born in the wrong body. they were like a child who never learned to grow up and have responsibilities, a child who never wanted to have responsibilities or care about what it meant to be a colony member. And what better place could there be to flee than the vast and infinite ocean.

So they prayed on a lone beach, they prayed day and night to the sea while the waves would caress their knees.

And the sea answered, by sending a large wave that came and wrapped around the maanul, absorbing them into the water to transport them back to the sandy beach. When the wave retreated from the black sand nothing was left of the maanul, except a large mass curled onto itself. The thing moved and tried to get up on its legs only to realize its long muscular legs were gone and replaced by short palmed feet, it noticed its tail being strong and muscular perfectly made to push itself in the water, its body was massive and heavy on land, its hands could hold anything anymore. They were now made to be within the waves. The now mermaid started to ungulate their body with little to no grace to produce forward movement, trying to claw the sand to reach the waves faster. Once in the ocean, without a look behind them they left everything they had behind to pursue a meaningless life of trickery. Never to be seen again as a maanul, the colony thought the ocean ate them.

In southern culture mermaids are seen as heartless people who left their family, their colony, and their responsibility behind to live a simple life of mischief. Causing trouble to maanuls' canoes, pushing fishermen to the water, and stealing their food because they are lazy beings. They are said to be previously people who don't care about anyone but their own short-term pleasure. mermaids are said to peak out the waves grinning before chewing on the side of boats.

And while for kids the idea of being a marine animal that plays nonstop can be tempting, parents remind them that mermaids don't care for their dead. Once they die as a mermaid no one will remember them and they will be left to be forgotten within the depths of the ocean mother, and without a proper mourning ceremony they cannot reincarnate and their cycle will end.

Tales from the west: the mysterious singing people

In the west, mermaids are seen as guardians of the sea who speak no words at the surface and choose to not interact with the people of the land.

They are said to have been born at night, out of the "tears" of joys of the first moon when she gave birth to its calf, the so-called "third moon". Each tear that fell into the salty water of the sea became round, resembling a fish egg except that it had no life inside. The eggs sunk into the depths of the sea. But the ocean took pity on those empty eggs that reached the bottom floor. By using cores of lost dead fishermen that haanu didn't pick up yet (she comes at sunrise), the ocean took those lost cores and blew the souls of those previously maanuls onto the empty eggs, making them hatch and reborn as new creatures, mermaids. The new mermaids were said to gracefully all reach for the surface, taking their first breath of fresh air in this new vessel. All gazed at the first moon and its calf for the first time, thus they were born from two mothers, the first moon and the sea.

But the way they were made prevents them from ever participating in the cycle of endless life and rebirth, they are said to be immortal to live along the ocean forever, and while at first it might be seen as nice to live forever, mermaids envy mortals as they can experience the ups and downs of life, learn to grow as an adult physically and mentally, and to laugh and cry. They are aware that they used to be maanuls, but are said to vaguely if don't remember anything from their past. They've forgotten their loved ones, they knew people cared for them at land but they don't know who did. They are sometimes upset that the sea locked them into this state, when upset they are said to be found laying on rocks and the beach like a large earth seal would.

Mermaids are said to sing to each other's underwater, they sometimes sing to comfort the ocean when one of the giant que'arsaeb descendent filter feeders dies. They protect the sea as its now their only home, they are said to jump out of the water and launch the canoe of fishermen who disrespect the sear, breaking their boat and leaving them to drown out of exhaustion. Mermaids are curious of boats and maanul activities, western fishermen think they are good and will always release one fish/crab/any other animal, they caught in from their stack as a treat for the mermaid. Aa they think said mermaid will accept the treat and follow their boat until they're back home and safe, if an accident happen they think the mermaid could bring them back to the beach safely.

In reality, it might be the works of a real-life intelligent marine animal that might bring them near home, but delusional from exhaustion the rare fishermen that are brought back near the beach by that animal will think its the mermaids from the folklore recusing them.

Tales from the central north: unpleasant but essential guardians

the central north believes that 10 mermaids came out of the depths of the world, made by the sea to be its guardian and to keep the ocean in order.

While they are essential to the sea, they are said to be quite unpleasant to meet. They are rude, love to steal food, bump into canoes regularly on purpose, and even splash fishing people with their strong tails or their operculum. It is even said that when they see a maanul hurt themselves on their boat or underwater, they will do a sort of cackle/laugh at maanuls. Mermaids are believed to be the ones who pick up lost jewelry at sea, never giving it back to the owner and keeping it to themselves, piling up their treasures in an underwater cave. That is why maanuls never swim with jewelry on, as they know that if they lose it underwater they'll never be able to find it again.

In reality, this might be the result of a type of crab that picks jewels to decorate its "nest" to attract potential partners, said nests when found by maanuls are then thought to be the mermaid's den. And it is said to be forbidden to pick back your jewelry in it, as it would anger the mermaid so much they might not do their duty anymore. When you lose something at sea, it now belongs to the sea.

Despite their many flaws, they are important and need to be here. As they torment the cores of horrible people till they rot. Central both believe that when haanu at sunrise picks up the core of every living being and throws them onto the world like seeds to reincarnate, she keeps the cores of maanuls who were horrible people in their lifetime in her arms. When she's done with her duty, she throws those maanul cores in the ocean. Mermaids are said to then come and pick them with their jaws, dragging them to the depths were even light cannot enter.

They stack the cores in piles in the abyss and push down any core that tries to rise up to the surface. The cores are kept in the abyss to rot, when they rot they become empty fish-egg-like spheres as the spirit of the person is gone and now forgotten by the world and by haanu.

Then the mermaids are said to hold those empty spheres in their jaws and blow life onto them, using those empty cores as eggs for their species to reproduce. The now eggs are taken care of by the mermaids until they hatch, so the firstly 10 mermaids of the world arent alone, it is said that there are thousands or mermaids roaming the sea, protecting and punishing anyone who would harm the ocean, and tormenting the cores of horrible people in the depths till they rot, till there is nothing left of their soul so they can never reincarnate.

To be considered a horrible person that will be dragged to the abyss you'd have to be terrible to other people, there are many tales that tell children that if they're uncaring with their peers they will end up like this. that they should not only care about everyone in the colony but other life forms and respect the way they are.

Tales from the north-east: Thieves of cores and children

Mermaid tales in the north-east speak about people, who never were mourned by anyone, who no one was there to remember them and sing their song cord. And without proper ceremony mourning maanuls cannot be reincarnated properly, their core were thrown in the ocean by haanu, but they couldn't get a new vessel.

So then their core rotted underwater, forming a black mucus around the core that then transformed into a strange oval fish-like egg. The egg hatches and gives birth to a mermaid, a beast filled with hate and jealousy towards living maanuls due to never being remembered when dead, being stuck in limbo they cannot ascend and join the cycle of death and rebirth, they cannot grow core-wise as they're consumed by hate of how no one remembered them. It leads to mermaids stealing floating cores in the ocean that were waiting to be picked by haanu, they steal and try to swallow them so they could replace their corrupted ones. As if they gain a normal core again they can die and go back to the cycle.

But it never works, and it frustrates them more. mermaids then try to harm living people to harvest their fresh core, as they're desperate to get out of this situation. Children are told to not swim in open sea since they're too young and it's way dangerous, they're told to stay at the reefs and closed lagoons, or else mermaids will grab them with their strong jaws by the tail or feet and drag them to the depths of the world as they desire to kill them and eat their core. They're told that only as teenagers, sub-adult and adults do mermaids not pick on them anymore because they're bigger now and have a stronger core that repels them.

To get out of this state of limbo, only a brave hunter can free them. It is said that they need to slay the beast while reciting a special prayer to truly kill and free the person. Before doing the final strike theywill ask the mermaid what was their name, when back on land the hunter and the colony would need make a mourning ceremony for that mermaid so they can finally be at peace.

Once done, they make a songcord for the mermaid to sing, they will remember the person at the colony so they do not feel lonely, so they do not feel abandoned by its peers like it previously did. Only then, can the rotten core as sea become clear again, free of its hate and out of limbo. At the next sunrise they will be picked by haanu and successfully reincarnated, being part of the death and rebirth cycle once more.

Tales from the east: Rejected by all but loved by one

The east does not see them as guardians as the role of ocean guardian is given to a giant "leviathan" worm. which you can see glimpses of in the chanter clothes of yarey'lu! i will not expand on it as this is a mermaid post, but here's every time the giant ocean worm appeared in this outfit.

The east takes inspiration from the south in terms of how it was created but has its own twist on it overall.

They believe in someone, named poaluk'nau, who loved the ocean so dearly that they wanted to be one with the sea, but still wished to be able to return and see their loved ones.

To the sea they then prayed, brought gifts and food in wooden bowls, and then curled up in front of their offerings asking their wishes to the ocean, to be blessed in a way that their body could tame the waves but still be able to be at land. The waves then came and gently reached to them, firstly to eat and take the offerings and take the gifts, but came back bigger to take and carry the maanul to the water. Engulfing them in its strong currents.

Several hours later, the waves came back to wash up a thing on the black warm sand. A strange enormous leather egg was laid by the sea, it stood still for several minutes. But then movement was seen inside, the egg twitched and suddenly a craw pierced it, creating an opening for the thing stuck inside, the thing slide out of the egg looking like a slimy fish at first. It took its first breath of air, breathing heavily as it realized its body felt heavier. They let their skin and the little amount of feathers they had dry up in the warmth of the sun. Until finally opening their eyes to see themselves, admiring and examining their new vessel, the ocean has rebirthed them to their wishes.

Content and joyful poaluk'nau thanked the sea, excited that their wish was exhausted it clumsily crawled and moved around on the beach like a seal would, searching for their family to show them their new body.

Upon reaching where the colony lived, they started calling for their family. But when said family came and saw poaluk'nau new look they were horrified, calling them a monstrous thing, a beast, crying at why they would choose to do such a thing. The mermaid's heart was shattered as they looked around to see that all the colony members had the same look in their eyes, terror, and disgust. They started throwing rocks, sticks, and even just went sand at them, telling them to go back to the water. Screaming at them to never come back to land.

Paoluk'nau started to ungulate their body clumsily towards the waves, screeching in pain as it was emotionally hurt by being rejected by their peers. No fate could be worse for a maanul than to be rejected by their family and the colony.

So to the waves they dived, they tried to find the ocean's heart for answers, they swam to ask it to change them back. But the ocean's heart was never found, a great sense of abandonment took over poaluk'nau who even felt rejected by the sea as it never spoke to them back again. they swam for day and night at sea, refusing to see land again out of shame and fear.

But on one stormy night, a fisher who couldn't come back in time was wiped by the waves, their canoe was broken, and the relentless waves didn't let them have a sip of air, they thought it was the end as they were sinking down being tormented by the ocean, the moon was barely visible underwater anymore. But the barely unconscious maanul was saved by a strange figure. They gently held them in their jaws, carrying them to the surface as it was swimming towards the far beach. It was poaluk'nau. To the beach, the fisher was carried, and placed on the sand. The mermaid stood against them, keeping the maanul warm for the night.

Only until the sunrise came that the fisher woke up, it was terrified at the sight of the creature next to them. Poaluk'nau started to crawl to the waves at they saw the fisher's eyes filled with the same terror its home colony had at them, but before they could reach the waves the fisher called. they asked for their name.

poaluk'nau was baffled but still answered them, the fisher then gave their name to the mermaid. Once again they asked something else: to meet again at the same spot. They said that if poaluk'nau didn't show up they wouldn't be mad at them, and that they would keep their name in their heart and remember them forever for saving their life. the next day both showed up, and the other, and the day after.

Every night the fisher would come at dawn because the mermaid was waiting for them, they'd stay together until padak rise up. They were great friends, and then developed greater feelings for each others. The fisher didn't care that others could deem poaluk'nau as monstrous, it was a person just like them, with feelings and dreams and the same state of mind. poaluk'nau vessel didn't matter, their core did.

Not handling being separated so much, the fisher asked their mermaid lover if the sea could turn them into one too, so they could be together forever. poaluk'nau said the ocean didn't speak to them since they were rebirth, but maybe if they found the ocean's heart they would be able to communicate to it directly. So to the waves the fisher followed the mermaid, to the water they swam together, searching for the ocean's heart.

Some tales say they found it but the ocean's voice was nowhere to be found, others say that they are still searching it together. It is believed that the fisher was unconsciously blessed by the sea, as they could swim as fast as their mermaid peer, as they could stay underwater as long as them, as they stood together in the endless sea as lovers for eternity.

---

as you can tell in those several tales, the ocean is seen as a grand being, and while called a mother it truly has no gender it's an entity with feelings, sometimes gentle and merciful sometimes violent and uncaring. It can take back anyone to its depths as a payback to the resources maanuls take. They almost see it as when the ocean eats someone in its waves it does it to feed their hundreds of children's (the marine animals). Born out of haanu's blood, compared to her the ocean does take part in maanul's affairs. Haanu is grand and omniscient but she doesn't take part in people's lives other than reincarnating every living being that dies and keeping the delicate gears of the cycle of life functional.

reminder obviously, its all tales mermaids arent real in altuyur

Mermaids in kyhuine folklore?

there's none to be found! As kyhuines do not have bodies of water where they live, they don't even know what a fish was until first contact with maanuls in late AOS. The closest thing to a mermaid would be those intelligent sand worms that were once people but that's a streetch

---

if you read all of this, thank you so much! took me several hours of my day cause i have a terrible attention span, i hope you enjoyed it. tell me what you thought of this id love to know! I'm literally dying after this

[toriluvsnickwayne]

Getting Hooked

Chapter 7

Hook x Reader

Getting Hooked Masterlist

Tyler’s POV :

I couldn't shake off the feeling of unease after storming out of Andretti's place. I knew I had to calm down and clear my head. I decided to take a walk along the beach, hoping the fresh air would help me process my emotions.

As I walked, I couldn't help but think about Y/N and the mark on her face. Who could have done such a thing? And why was Andretti flirting with her like that?

I felt a surge of protectiveness towards Y/N, and I knew I had to find out what happened. I turned around and headed back inside, determined to get some answers.

When I returned, Y/N was still working, her face still bearing the bruise. I approached her, my heart racing with anticipation.

"Y/N, can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

She looked up at me, her eyes hesitant. "Sure, Tyler. What's up?"

I took a deep breath, my mind racing with questions and emotions. "What happened to your face? And why was Andretti flirting with you like that?"

Y/N's expression changed, and she looked around nervously. "Let's talk outside," she whispered.

I nodded, and we stepped out into the night air, the tension between us palpable.

Y/N’S POV :

Tyler led me outside, his eyes fixed on mine with a mix of concern and anger. The cool night air hit us as we stepped into the parking lot, the only sound being the distant music from the bar.

"Who did this to you, Y/N? Tell me the truth," Tyler asked, his voice low and urgent.

I hesitated, not wanting to escalate the situation. "It was just some guy at the bar, Tyler. It's not a big deal," I said, trying to brush it off.

But Tyler's grip on my arm tightened. "Don't lie to me, Y/N. I can see the fear in your eyes. Who was it?"

I sighed, knowing I couldn't keep it from him. "I don't know his name, okay? He was just some drunk guy who got out of hand. He was yelling at me, and then...and then he hit me."

He paused, taking a deep breath. Then, his expression suddenly turned stone-cold, his eyes glazing over with a calm intensity.

"Don't worry about it, Y/N. I'll take care of it," he said, his voice eerily calm.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against my forehead in a gentle kiss. "I'll see you later, Take care."

And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving me stunned and confused. His sudden change in demeanor left me wondering what was going on in his mind.

Uhhhhhh hey sorry I’ve been gone 🥲. I’ve been rlly busy the past few weeks and things r js now settling down for now. I’ll try to update a few more parts before I go on vacation for 3 weeks😂. But srsly thank u guys for being patient n not flipping out. That’s rlly all I have to say for now I promise I’ll get at least 2 more parts out by Tuesday cuz that’s when I leave for vacation n hopefully schedule some posts the come out (no promises tho). Anyways lots of love- Tori😘😘

[fryingpan1234567]

malconnor...hcs... for the soul... pls...

oh ANON, I would LOVE to

SO

(AAAAAAA I GOTTA FREAK OUT FIRST MY BOYS)

k anyways

I think at some point Travis comes back to camp to visit, and while he was gone Malcolm and Connor had gotten together

so over the course of the first few days he was like huh that’s funny my little brother made a new friend

huh that’s funny they’re really good friends

huh that’s funny they are making out against a wall “hEY C O N N O R !”

the shovel talk help😭🫠

anyways Travis gets used to it eventually it’s fineeee

I was actually about to write a Home Alone AU for the two of them in which they’re the only two at camp because Malcolm’s dad is on a cruise with his new gf, Connor’s mom is on a mission too dangerous to have company, Travis is at Katie’s family’s for break, Dionysus is back on Olympus, AND Chiron goes off to visit some of his relatives. Bad time for an invasion but yk they handled themselves fine

Malcolm is a California boy FIGHT ME

beach drives with all the windows down help

the parallels… between Percabeth and Malconnor… “I’m so sick of your shit (affectionate)” blond Athena kid… “too bad you get to deal with more of it” dark haired little shit who is taller and loves bugging blondie while they’re trying to do homework… hhrngh the PARALLELS

Malcolm of course finds it attractive when Connor actually uses the brain cells he has… but a part of him will always find it so fucking adorable when Con turns to him with the most bewildered face and say “Mal… my math homework has letters in it”

(bonus: “it’s algebra, babe”

”I dropped out of algebra”

”…algebra is the grade standard tho”

”oh fuck me I have a hard enough time with letters in English”

”let’s…….. put the homework away for now. Mario Kart?”

”OHOHO YOU ARE GOING THE FUCK DOWN PRETTY BOY”

”I THINK NOT, HE WHO ALWAYS PICKS TOAD AND THE STUPID TOY CAR”

”DON’T TALK TO ME DEFAULT SETTINGS LOSER” I’m getting off track I had a very similar conversation with my brothers the other day but it’s fine)

hmm something about Connor being obsessed with the Heartstopper comics and Malcolm loving the Solitaire novel series

they are firm believers they’d win the Hunger Games together too

NOT MAL RECHARGING BY SITTING AND READING AND CON RECHARGING BY WRAPPING AROUND HIM LIKE A SLOTH AND PASSING THE FUCK OUT

symbiotic relationship, Malcolm would say

(another bonus: “shut the fuck up you’re making us sound like Venom”

”we could be as good as Venom if u really wanted”

“we’re better than Venom, baby”)

Malcolm loving the Marvel Comics is just something so important to me

Hermes gripping Malcolm by the shoulders and going “listen. that’s my boy. he pulled a Tartarus napkin out of a fireplace. do not hurt him” and Mal’s just like yeah man I was there

also Athena eyeing Connor and whispering to Malcolm, “is he smart?” and Mal kinda gives a half-nod-half-shrug, Con grins at her like an idiot (it’s giving golden retriever), and just like that she loves him

anyways my boys💖💖💖

[yoonmeowzz]

wayv ! why they fell in love with you

contents: wayv members (ot7) x gn!reader, fluff, friends to lovers

a/n: wayv's comeback is amazing, i can't stop listening to phantom and good life!! plus i keep seeing that announcement saying lucas will come back with superm bUT i don't want to believe until i see him back fr. just in case, i don't want my heart broken 😭 pd: this probably has a lot of mistakes but enjoy

kun

he's definitely the most mature among the neos and he's devoted to his job, so he really liked your diligence. when he met you, he was just grateful to find someone with a similar mindset to his. then, he would start noticing the care you put on your work and things you liked to do. he found himself just admiring you while you were focused doing something, finding the way you bit the tip of your tongue adorable. and when you two cooked together for the first time? oh god, kun was head over hills for you just because you were cleaning the counter right away whenever you spilled something.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

ten

i feel like ten prefers expressing his feelings through any art form than words, so he loved your sensibility when it came to understanding his art. like, he could draw anything, show you and you would tell him how it made you feel or directly ask him why he was feeling that way. even by seeing him dance you could guess his mood and that made him feel so loved and cared for. the day he confessed to you, he drew two figures, which looked a little bit too much like the both of you, hugging each other in really warm colors. you just looked at him with a wide smile and hugged him tightly; there was no need of words between you.

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winwin

he admires your creativity. the fact that you can come up with an incredible idea out of nowhere, especially when you have to solve a problem is something really attractive for him. he doesn't even understand why, it just is. he's the calm type (most of the time) so he appreciated the effort you put on thinking new ways to have fun together without having to go to loud, crowded places. he sometimes felt like he had to impress you as much as you impressed him(? so he usually bought you flowers or took you to the beach during winter. however, you seemed to never run out of ideas and that made him fall deep in love with you.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

lucas

i think he has a thing for cute things. he definitely loves your tenderness. whenever you, knowingly or not, act cute he's dying on the inside: he wants to hug you, kiss you and take care of you forever. even when you're angry he thinks you're the most precious person he has ever seen, he's just a big happy puppy who wants to protect everyone (especially you). he also likes your mature, serious side of course, and he adores how you know how to act in every situation. but seeing you pout or ask him for something with big puppy eyes is just... on another level for him.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

xiaojun

he loves your loyalty. he really appreciates that he can relay on you for everything and anything, you've always been by your side and he trusts you to infinity and beyond. he's so comfortable around you that he feels he can talk about anything, even the weirdest themes expect text messages talking about his bathroom time. he especially likes your deep talks at 3am, when he can be vulnerable and small. slowly, he found himself falling for you. he also love that you get along with bella so well tho.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

hendery

hendery takes care of everyone silently. he likes making people feel loved and appreciated, so when you made him feel that way, oh boy, he was gone. he's aware that he has "more than friends" kind of feelings for you but he accepts it and goes with the flow. he'll never confess unless you do it first tho. when you cheer for him or compliment him, he may blush and tell you to kindly shut up but he's enjoying every second of it. pretty much like ten, there's no need for words, he just vibes with you and even if you stay as friends forever he loves you and makes it clear every chance he gets.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

yangyang

yangyang and you have been friends for a while now and at this point of your friendship he can't imagine a life without you, so as weird as it may sound he fell in love with your presence. he loves knowing that you will always be there for him and he gets all happy and giggly when you're around cause he really enjoys spending time together, even if each one is doing their own thing. he likes having you near when he's playing computer games (he'd love to have you on his lap but you'll never hear that from him). yangyang would probably tell you how he feels at a sleepover after spending the whole day with you and he would so nervous i'm gonna cry.

    ⠀ ⠀⠀

[nova2kss]

congrats!

summary: you're bf congratulating you after passing all of your test and exam

cumtent warning: onyankapon x black reader, no smut just fluff guys

novas notes: originally this was gonna be for armin but i figured yall would love ony more, lmk if yall want something with armin tho, happy bday onyannn,not proofread, minors dni, support black blogs.

"Alright cmon nie baby" you heard you're boyfriend speak behind you.

you were blindfolded as your man walked you to an unknown location, he had you get dolled up and told you that he was gonna spend time with you especially after not being able to for weeks.

" nigga you act like i can see where im going, you the one leading me" you responded back to him aggravated at the nerve of him

how dare he damn near ignore you for weeks and then suddenly tell you to get up, final exams stressed you out more than ever but when the person who you went too for peace couldn't be there for you it crushed you're soul.

so when you found out you passed all your exams with flying colors you rushed to tell your man, you were met with a bunch of "i knew you could do it, get ready we have a day planned"

but even when you had that small conversation he somehow still managed to not text you all day except the

you ready??

come outside, im hea

text you received 30 minutes prior to this exact moment.

so yes even though you know you were in for some kind of treat you were still upset at the lack of affection your boyfriend had given to you.

"watch ya mouth, we almost there" he too was clearly fed up with the attitude present in you're voice.

you had no response

you just wanted to get this over with.

after walking down some steps you felt him bend down and grab until your ankle and fondle with your heel strap

"ony what the hell is you doing" you asked looking down despite the fact that you couldn't even see him

"relax ma, i need you to help me take you're shoes off"

even though you were confused you obliged and helped him

your suspicions grew some more when you heard the sound of heavy waters crashing together and you could see the dim lights through out the blindfold.

you're questions were answered when you stepped off the final step and you felt the soft cool sand on your feet

you were indeed at the beach,alone,and at 8 pm.

"ony.." the attitude that was present earlier now gone, you now spoke in a calmer, quieter voice.

because what the fuck did this man plan.

"dont ask any questions just keep holding me"

after a short walk you were set down, and ony set right across from you and told you to take off your blindfold.

when you did you were met with a beautiful sight.

it was a candle lit dinner, there was rose petals, drinks and your favorite meals already set up.

" oh baby... you did not have to do all of this"

you noticed the beach house in the back figuring that you would be spending the rest of the night there.

" um.. yea i did, i always gotta show out for my girl"

lmk if yall want part 2 with some smut tho 🫣🤨

[disgurrr]

What do you think would've happened if Peeta and Katniss weren't interrupted by Finnick in the beach scene. How far would they have gone? I get that they're modest but then again they're gonna die. And they're crazy in love?!?!? Tho there's also Katniss not wanting such a special moment to be tainted by the Capitol cameras. Idrk?

Hahahha I’m always on the fence about this, but for sure they were going to take it up a notch. Katniss mentioned how “these kisses don’t satisfy me,” she wanted to do more. But Katniss is pretty modest, she doesn’t like nudity. But she is comfortable showing pda with Peeta, but sex is a pretty big deal. Katniss is pretty inexperienced and “innocent”, so I’m not sure how much she knows beyond your basic how babies are made talk. But I could see Peeta being super respectful, and trying to stop things from going further , going “we shouldn’t , we can’t.” And Katniss like pushing , and he always gives in to her. But not sure about going all the way, but hey the girl you’re madly in love with you wants to do more, and you’re going to die , so what da hell , right lmfao

It is rather telling how Katniss is always vague about the details of they’re kissing , and she mentions this hunger feeling when they actually do have sex when they grew back (imo they do have sex), but is still vague about it. So, yeah it could be that Katniss and Peeta would’ve gone all the way. Or at least fooled around.t girly was hungry to go on that Peeta ride lmfao

Thank you for asking! Hahaha I always enjoy talking about these what if ‘s and other stuff with fellow everlark shippers and thg enthusiasts.

[mossy-doodles85]

OKAY I HAVEN'T SHOWN ANY OF THESE ON TUMBLR UNTIL NOW TO ATTACK YOU ALL WITH NILLE AND LOOP STUFF! ! !

I really don't wanna talk to much about the plot after the loops in a multiverse of stars because we haven't gotten there yet but I NEED TO! ! !

But I will hide it in case you don't wanna know about this yet.

After the curse was gone Nille was looking around Bambouche for Bonnie just in case they were still there, they were not.

After that she started to work even more so she could quickly get some stuff to head out and find Bonnie herself, day or two later while Nille was walking along the beach and saw a. . . unique fellow, washed up there, Loop.

After taking them to her house and some talking she learned how Bonnie is with the savors of Vaugarde- actually they're a part of them, and that they were making their way here now. Nille RIGHTFULLY questions Loop on how they know this which they just reply with a "Oh just something a star like me would know!", annoying. . .

The two stay in Bambouche, doing jobs there while waiting for Bonnie to arrive. Loop opens up to Nille pretty quickly, revealing the fact that Loop can turn into human again, and Nille now also knows the uh. . . looping stuff along with the fact that Loop is Siffrin and more. Nille takes this fine. . . they think.

Its been a few weeks now, Nille and Loop have basically become siblings. ALSO NICKNAMES, Nille calls Loop 'Starlight' and 'Coral', Loop calls Nille 'Maristela' and 'Nills'.

Bambouche is a somewhat small town, so basically everyone knows each other, and everyone has accepted Loop as a part of the town now. Loop often helps out people for nothing in return leading to the people giving Loop gifts.

So when the family arrives Loop is out doing a job {and getting Nille a new hammer as a gift} SO THEY DON'T KNOW THEY'RE HERE! ! !

Loop gets told by one of the villagers thats Bonnie's back, THANK CHANGE FOR THAT, Loop was able to mentally prepare themself for what was going to happen while also doing more jobs.

And uh yeah. I might make characters for everyone living in Bambouche because I wanna make more stuff around it so yeah.

NOW FOR SOME EXTRA THINGS! ! !

I like the idea from @str8rat Fear and hunger AU AO3 fic about side effects of being frozen in time so I did it here, less evil tho.

So Nille and others who have been frozen in time for awhile experience phantom- actually its not even really phantom-like, ANYWAYS this basically means they're cold to the touch and struggle to generate body heat.

Nille likes to hug and touch Loop a lot because Loop is naturally really warm, it also helps Loop get better with touch.

Nille may look like a rock type but shes actually a paper type, I've seen others do this before, I also like it.

[addictedtoking]

Snippet of something. Steve and El both came from the lab, season 3 canon divergence thing, kinda angsty. Idk. I tried.

———

“We wrote to each other.”

Billy looks over at El from the third rewind of Grease, waiting for her to continue. “When we were learning, we would write to each other. As practice. He would tell me to have a good day. Or what he was doing.”

She paused, sniffled. Billy offered no comfort; he didn’t know how and she wouldn’t want it. “And I would tell him what was on my mind-“ this time she swallowed and when she spoke again it was wet “and when we were apart we would write letters to read when we got back together and-“ the sob was nasally and so so heart wrenching that Billy wanted her to stop. But she needed to get this out. “And I know he can’t read them but I need to… I need to” she finally looked at him and Billy felt his own eyes turn moist. “I need to tell someone how I feel.”

Billy, yet in the face of such emotion, didn’t let the tears fall down his cheeks. “You could-“ he took a breath “-you could write to me.”

El swallowed and wiped her tears. “You can write to me too.” She looked at the tv again. “It’s good to get it out. That’s what he said.”

Billy nodded, even tho she couldn’t see it. Wiping cheeks from absent tears, he said, “I’ll add that to the list.”

…

It was rough, in the beginning. He was angry and this town was shitty and dad was shitty and Max-

Anyways. The plate. The fight. The drugs. When he woke up the next morning groggy and with Neil yelling down the hall, he had no regrets. Max was home and in fine condition. His face hurt a little, but that’s fine. It’s all fine. Except for when Neil took whatever was bothering him out on him. But that’s fine. It’s not max- the little shit head who doesn’t listen.

He spent the rest of the weekend working out and drinking. By Monday, he was somewhat prepared for high school again. So he sprayed his cologne, gathered the shitbird, and sped off to school.

He had no regrets when he walked into first period. Nor when he skipped second to smoke behind the bleachers. Nor third period. Lunch. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Seven-

There, he saw the fallen king, sporting a bruised face and cuts bandaged by pink bandaids with butterflies. The coach was telling him to take the period off. Obviously he had a recovering concussion and needed the break. After all, there’s a black ring around his left eye and his cheek is purple and his lips are split but no less plump-

Billy scored four fouls.

He refused to regret it.

Billy refused to regret a lot of things.

Billy will think he should have regretted more to prepare him for this.

It was bad in the beginning. Now it might be worse.

…

Billy wasn’t all there. He remembered going to work. He remembered driving around in his car. He remembered the warehouse.

Then it’s blurry. There are images. And the beach. And a girl. And Steve-

And then he wakes up in a hospital bed. Max is at his side. Her face is all blotchy and an ugly red from crying, but they’re not close enough for it to be over him.

“Who was it?” He croaks. He wants water.

Max startles, finally noticing him. She blinks like she doesn’t know what he said. He’ll need something to drink before he says it again.

Max gives him water from the cup, eye tearing up again while he sips. A single tear rolls down her cheek and she furiously wipes it away. He would normally sneer at her tears, wrinkled face and spotty flush, but he needs to know who, who died, who did he kill-

“Steve’s gone.”

…

Robin-before-the-Russians thought the worst day of her life was when Tammy Thompson blew her off to try snuggling up to Steve Harrington. Robin-after-the-Russians has had a far worse day.

It’s also Steve Harringtons fault, but not because he stole a girl. No. That would be a concern for Robin-before-the-Russians. This Robin, the one walking up to a bunch of kids, knows this will be the worst day ever. This day will surpass the day her parents discover she’s a lesbian and it will surpass the day she dies.

This terrible day is Steve harringtons fault. Because apparently he’s more than pretty hair and pompous clothing. Because he’s actually a badass that takes down evil monsters with his mind. Because he’s dead.

The kids see her coming towards them, and they look behind her where Steve would be. But he’s not there, so they look back at her. The curly haired one, Dustin, Steve’s best friend, Steve’s brother- sees it in her eyes first. His face crumples and he falls, a tiny “no” leaving his lips.

The red one follows after, going down on a knee beside dustin. One by one, Robin watches them realize. One by one, the shock and grief overtakes their innocent faces.

Robin doesn’t notice she’s not walking anymore when another girl runs past her towards to group. Seeing their distress, she turns back and faces Robin and oh-

Robin sees Steve in her brown eyes, in her clothing, in the blood dripping from her nose.

Maybe she can see the sadness on Robin like Steve, because look is all it takes. The girl let’s out the harshest, most gut-wrenching scream. She realizes he’s gone.

He’s gone.

The children grab her as she falls into them, a pile of misery if she’s ever seen one.

Robin takes another step before her legs give out. It might have been from the drugs, from the lack of food, from the torture. It doesn’t matter. The kids just lost their protector and nothing she can do will bring him back. Their image blurs as Robin succumbs to the tears as well.

Yes. It’s all Steve Harringtons fault. She just wishes he were here so she could tell him that.

…

The days after are bad, with the grief and the recovery. The town has lost so much in one night, so many lives stripped away in one single building.

The nights are worse. For those in the fire, it’s a long, dark time filled with torture devices, enclosed spaces, and monsters wearing people as masks.

Dustin doesn’t sleep much. Usually, after this happens, he has someone there to wake him up from nightmares. The first time, the party had slept in wills room and he could wake up and see his friend sleeping in his bed. The second time, he spent the night at Steve’s house, who hadn’t minded when he crawled into bed with him and El.

It was not the beginning of their friendship, already too far past that, but it was somewhere about midway. As the months passed, dustin will joined Steve’s and El’s little family in the backseat of a beemer, in the yellow kitchen, in the last dredges of milkshakes. He and Steve and el became Dustin-Steve-and-El then just Dustin-and-Steve as summer began and everyone flourishes out. He’d thought this summer would be the best with his science camp and new girlfriend and Steve and ice cream and secret Russian messages-

So. This time, afterward, there’s no one. Lucas and Erica are stuck at their parents, max at the hospital with Billy, Mike and will hidding in the formers basement, and El-

Dustin hesitates less than he should’ve before shakily getting out of bed. The walkie sits on his desk, where it has been just in case he needed Steve. But Steve’s not here, so it sits there uselessly.

But know he picks it up and dials into channel 4, “you there? Over.”

There is a long pause before another voice gives a quiet “yeah. Over.”

The device is quiet again while they wait for the other to say something. El relents first.

“I miss him. Over.”

Dustin backs up until his thighs touch his bed, then he kind of falls back onto his sheets. He stares at the ceiling as he replies “me too. Over.”

Silence again. El is probably looking at the ceiling too. He can picture her looking up. It’s not her ceiling, covered in posters and stars and paint splatters. Instead, it’s probably the Byers, the ceiling above wills bed: wood planks and dark swirls. She hasn’t gone back into their house since he-

“Do you want to have a sleepover? Over.”

He waits for her reply, clutching the walkie to his chest. For a minute, he thinks she’s not going to respond until she croaks “yeah” a pause, her voice is clearer “I’ll be there in 10. Over.”

“Copy. Over and out.”

Dustin sits up and unlocks his window.

…

Max helps Billy get from the hospital to the car, then from the car to the house. Then, later that night, she helps him to the bathroom.

She doesn’t talk to him. Doesn’t mention Neil’s silent neglect. Doesn’t mention Susan’s air headed absence. Doesn’t mention the mall. Doesn’t mention what he did.

Still.

It’s a little too much. He’s not weak. He doesn’t esnt need his 14 year old sister to take care of him. But every time Max is there to do something for him and he feels a rush of anger and it’s so big it might explode out of him and jab at her-

It just.

Goes away.

Steve - Seven - Harrington had mind powers. He’s heard the kids talk about it over the walkie talkie Max keeps locked in her room. He heard about the nudges and pulls and keeping it there.

Now he knows what Harrington did to Neil. The lack of care. Absence of anger or annoyance. Just a mellow man living his days in a mellow town. No wonder the abuse stopped.

Now he thinks Harrington did something to him.

He’s on bed rest for almost three weeks. He has a lot of time to think.

And every time Max brings him water without asking or adjusts his pillows, and the anger and annoyance rise up and release just as fast to leave him cooler and more rational-

He thinks he’s kinda ok with it.

…

Max doesn’t sleep.

Her eyes are dry and crusty. There’s bags upon bags under them, black and sunken. Her mind is slow and she can barely tell what anyone’s saying to her the first time. She’s so tired it’s all she thinks about.

The nightmares are worse than the tiredness.

Steve’s bleeding from his nose and mouth, and some’s coming from his ears too.

It’s okay, he says.

It’s gonna be okay, he tells her.

He kisses her forehead. It does not distract her from the lie.

Go with Billy, he said.

Billy will protect you, he told her.

Billy carried El and Mike from the mall, but in this dream he’s carrying her instead.

She watches Steve get smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

He does not go to her no matter how much she screams.

…

Billy doesn’t remember what happened.

But the kids do.

Robin’s the one to tell him though, bundled up in blankets and sitting in a room with all the lights on. It’s the end of August. She shivers despite the heat.

“You- it had found the kids - Mike, Max, and El - and Mike was down and Max almost was, and y- it was toting off El over your shoulder. Steve found you- it.”

He doesn’t get mad at her mistakes. His body carried a monster. (was the mind flayer the only monster though? Was it not just you? Billy- BILLY).

“What did I do?”

Robin blinked her eyes a few times. She looked into his, though his baby blues didn’t hold as many tears. “You hit him.”

He tries to hold in his confusion - a hit wouldn’t have taken him down - but she sees it anyways. She swallows and holds up a hand.

A moment.

Two.

“The Russians banged him up pretty bad. There were too many of them for him to use his mind powers - manipulation thing - good enough, so he just distracted them from me,” she swallows again and sips from the water she clutches like a life line, “But he was fine- not with the drugs of course - but he wasn’t keeling over yet-“

She sobs again. Billy’s eyes remain dry. It’s awkward.

“But he tried to stop it and it hit him again and again until he could get to you-“ another sob, “and when I found him again after he sent you off there was blood coming from his mouth and I had to help him walk to the elevator and he wouldn’t sit because I don’t think he could get back up if he did and it was too much on top of closing the gate and I couldn’t carry him-“

She’s full on sobbing now, and for a second he regrets sharing the pot. He didn’t want to deal with this. He was not the person to deal with their emotions. He did not belong in this family.

He shouldn’t after what happened. What he did.

Still, he pats her shoulder and lets her curl up next to him until she falls asleep. Then, he lays her down and wraps the blankets around her.

He is not a good caretaker. So he leaves after that. But he leaves the lights on for her so she doesn’t wake up in the dark.

…

Here’s what happened:

Russians opened gate under mall.

Mind flayer started possessing people.

Billy got possessed and then helped mind flayer possess other people.

Russians attack ice cream scoopers.

Mind flayer attacks children.

Adults kidnap and commit grand theft auto with a Russian man to help stop both of the above.

Russian man dies.

Children distract mind flayer from its prey.

Possessed Billy finds prey, takes it, and then is intercepted by prey’s brother.

Possessed Billy beats up Prey’s brother.

Brother has another nearly fatal concussion. He undoes possession on Billy, brainwashes him into taking and protecting kids, then escapes down to Russian base with his ice cream scooping friend. Superboy closes gate, liquifies his brain because he had too many traumatic brain injuries, and is near death as mall starts collapsing around him.

Ice cream scooping friend has to abandon him to make it out alive.

No-longer-possessed Billy protects kids until mind flayer is killed. Promptly passes out from previous injuries.

That’s all he could get out of Chief Hopper.

Chief Hopper was shitfaced and mourning his child.

Chief hopper still doesn’t blame Billy.

Billy wishes he did.

[starg1rlfvr]

Close pt2

pairing: neteyam x reader

warnings: Ao’nung being annoying😭, mutual pining? kissing( just at the end tho), did not proof read!!!

ik i said id put smut in this but i’ve been so busy and i need it to be good 🙏 so i PROMISE smut next part because i made this in a rush and sorry it’s so late to post!!

Neteyam and you somehow had gotten even closer over these past days. If that was even possible considering you both knew almost everything about each other. There was sudden change in your friendship. More secret whispers only for you both to hear. More lingering touches, like you both could not take your hands of each other when you were together. Even while just standing near each other, his hand was either on your waist or holding onto your hand. You both never questioned it.

But sometimes there was still something nagging at you to know how far this was going. You both knew whatever this was wasn’t just friends.

Recently you and Kiri had been gone exploring more around the beach and reef together.

“Y/n come look at this”, Kiri called out to you. You walked over and went to lay down on your stomach as she was and looked at the mysterious hole in the sand with her.

A few minutes in and your attention was caught by hearing voices above you. “Look it’s the freaks”.

“Go away Ao’nung”, you said rolling your eyes. Getting up and grabbing Kiri to walk away from Ao’nung and his friends. “Awww the freaks are upset” you heard one of them laugh. “I swear to-“, before you could even finish Lo’ak appeared telling Ao’nung and his friends to stop. Not very long after Neteyam arrived too, making it clear for them to back off before they do something stupid. One minute later they all were on the ground grabbing at each others tails and punching left and right.

You and Kiri could do nothing but laugh at how silly the situation was.

When the fight was broken up and Neteyam, Lo’ak were getting scolded by Jake, you waited outside. From looking at the scene you could tell Neteyam was taking the blame as always for Lo’aks actions. You hated when he did that, you understand why but sometimes you could tell he was taking more responsibility than he could handle.

Lo’ak suddenly was walking away, “Lo’ak-“

“I have to go apologise to that Skxawng”. “What!? he started it though. Are you serious”, you couldn’t believe he had to go say sorry to that idiot.

Someone’s arm suddenly was around your shoulder, “Just go do it”.

“Neteyam this is so stupid” you said looking up at him. “Because he needs to-“, he continued while bringing you closer to him “now go and do it and come back straight away”. “Fine whatever”, Lo’ak groaned and left to go apologise.

You felt Neteyams hand find your own, pulling you closer to him. “Let’s go and find somewhere to hang yeah?”, he said while already starting to walk.

You both walked into the small forest, hand in hand. After walking around a bit, you saw a spot for both of you to sit down. Neteyam and you both sat against a tree, shoulders both together.

“Those idiots still did hurt you pretty bad”, you said while touching Neteyams lip that was bruised. “Yeah but they looked so much worse”.

You chuckled, “True”. Your thumb lingered on the side of his lip a bit longer than you had thought you would be. Taking your hand away quickly, Neteyam already missing the warmth on his face.

“I didn’t really expect that from Ao’nung though? it’s so weird”, you said while shifting to lay your head on Neteyams shoulder. You really thought that Ao’nung would at least of been kind to you and especially Kiri, you were so sure he had something for her with the way he was always lingering around her and looking at her constantly!!

“Really? He’s always been a bit mean I think”, Neteyam moving to lay his head on yours. “Hmmm yeah he was always a bit interesting towards us”. He hummed in agreement. You grabbed Neteyams hand and started mindlessly playing with his fingers.

You both sat there in a comfortable silence while you held onto his hand. Feeling Neteyams head shift so he could look at you. The sunlight hitting the side of your face perfectly, and strands of your hair lightly covering your cheek while you lay on Neteyams shoulder. You looked perfect to him. He looked down to see you comparing your hand size to his, he felt his face heat up from that for some reason.

“You’re really pretty y/n”, he said in a whisper. You didn’t even know if you heard him right, “what?”. You didn’t expect Neteyam to say that so randomly.

“Oh I mean like you know- uh-“, Neteyam had never stuttered this badly before. He was trying to get the words together before embarrassing himself further. You turned to face him. “Neteyam”, using your hand to place his on your knee. “Do you like me?”, you asked boldly. You didn’t even expect yourself to say those words out loud to be honest, but you also needed to know.

Thinking about all the times Lo’ak and kiri and even Tuk sometimes would tease Neteyam and you always being together and being secretly in love with each other and all those times neither you or Neteyam said anything to deny any of it, just laughing it off. The times where he would get protective of you when he saw you talking to other men, asking you, “why were you talking to him?” and “is he your friend now?”. How close you both always were, like literally. You both always being near each other or needing to always have some sort of touch between you two either his hand in yours or you leaning next to him.

“WHAT”, Neteyam said with his eyes wide. “Do you like me or no? I just need to know Neteyam because-“.

“Y/n sorry that just caught me off guard”, cut you off quickly. Grabbing both your hands he pulling them onto his lap, “I do like you y/n of course I do”.

“Yeah but I mean like more than a friend”,

“Yes as more than a friend my love”, the nick name catching you by surprise.

“Sooo do you like me too? because this would be awkward if you didn’t-“, you cut of Neteyam by smashing your lips onto his. He kissed you back eagerly.