#go from starving constantly to the point of regular stomach pains

[eevyerndracaneon]

Hrrrnggg food struggles are hard and stupid and I hate them

[alheria]

Fresh wind on a hot day (7/9)

Jim absolutely loved sleeping with Buck.

He was so comfortable every night he stayed there, always tucked in between his partner's arms, basking in pleasant warmth and inhaling that relaxing scent. Maybe it was seriously time to fully move in.

-Good morning babe. -he whispered upon waking up, feeling a pair of gorgeous blue eyes staring right at him.

-Good morning. -the firefighter smiled, tightening the loosened embrace. -I love shared days off. -he yawned, fondly rubbing Street's naked spine decorated with prominent bruising from fighting some criminal on the stairs a few days ago. Apparently, they rolled down a whole three stories before the perp finally lost consciousness.

-Me too. -the Omega murmured, leaning into the affectionate touch despite the slight burning pain, his eyes still closed, cheek plastered just above the steadily beating heart. -Wish they weren't so rare.

Recently, their schedules sucked terribly. While one was off, the other was working. Which meant the past two weeks, until last night, they haven’t seen each-other at all. It was horrible, not being able to satisfy that biological need for regular physical contact. Felt really fucking lonely.

-You know what would be even better? -Buck asked, sliding his palm towards the exposed neck, the horrific mark left by a stranger long gone, sensitive flesh now covered in ones made with love.

-What? -the officer hummed, immensely enjoying the relaxing touch.

-If you finally moved in.

-Buck…-he sighed heavily, his body instantly tensing up at the tough topic. -I'm not ready to leave Luca alone just yet.

Obviously, moving was constantly on his mind, and he was basically spending most days here anyway, however the sole thought of entirely abandoning his current roommate for some reason made him sick to his stomach. Despite Luca assuring it's absolutely okay, and them seeing each-other at work anyway. It made little sense, although somehow prevented him from committing to Buck's place.

-He'll be fine, he's a grown up man. -the firefighter huffed in slight annoyance. He might have been mildly frustrated about his boyfriend staying at another Alpha's place, regardless of knowing there is nothing there but close friendship.

-I know, but still, I feel responsible for him. What if he makes a stupid life altering decision while I'm not there to stop him, or forgets to eat and starves to death? -Jim raised his head, gaze so serious while he spoke, it left Buck speechless for a moment before he snorted loudly in pure amusement.

-...wow. You're either trying to make up a really poor excuse to not move in with me, or you're losing your mind, my love.

-Ha ha. -Street rolled his eyes. -Soon, I promise. -he added, pulling himself up to kiss his boyfriend, therefore killing the problematic subject. -I'll go make coffee.

---

Once they were both out of bed, peacefully drinking coffee in the kitchen, the cop decided to at last talk about something he's been considering non-stop since that time he got bitten: bonding. An ultimate proof of a relationship between an Alpha and an Omega, a permanent mark strengthening any existing emotional connection to the point one is unable to romantically love anyone but their bonded pair. It also can be done only once in a lifetime, and cannot be removed. A forever thingy.

They've been together roughly eleven months without even mentioning taking that very common step, although lately, he started feeling an odd tingle on his nape, which would only stop whenever it was freshly marked. The strange sensation made him think maybe he should finally admit he doesn't intend on being with anyone else, ever.

Buck was beyond everything he wished for in a lifelong partner. Respectful, understanding, loving, pleasantly submissive.

Absurdly hot.

Looking at his shirtless man leaning on the kitchen island, obliviously reading news and sipping coffee, Jim could not stop admiring how handsome he was, comfy pants hanging loosely on the slim hips, naked upper body illuminated by the morning sun, blonde hair ruffled after a whole night of not having sex because they were way too tired.

-You've been staring. What's up babe? -the firefighter asked suddenly, curiously glancing up from the screen. Those soft, domestic words accompanied by a warm smile went straight to the cop's slightly colder heart.

For a second, the world stopped.

-I want to bond with you. -Street blurted out, unable to contain those feelings anymore. Which wasn't a particularly smart thing to do, as the Alpha nearly choked on his drink upon hearing the totally unexpected answer.

-Wh-what?! -he coughed, gaze watery with tears caused by the uncomfortable burning sensation in his poor throat.

-Gee, is the concept of us bonding really that shocking to you? -the officer rolled his eyes, trying to cover the raging anxiety with humour.

-What? No! Of course not! You just caught me off guard! -Buck exclaimed, his voice horribly hoarse. -Damn, Jim, you can't casually say things like that! -he shook his head furiously, trying to calm down from the initial surprise. -Are you being serious?

-Duh. Wouldn't bring this up if I wasn't. -the Omega chuckled nervously, now unsure if bringing this up was a good idea. Maybe his boyfriend didn't feel the same way about their relationship, or never planned for it to become so serious in the first place.

-Why so suddenly? -the younger man wondered, pushing himself away from the counter. He seemed so neutral, it kinda made Jim's stomach twist.

A mistake has been made.

-Well, I'm due for a heat in a couple of weeks and I thought we could...but if you're not ready, I completely understand. We can revisit the subject in a few months. -he whispered, looking down into the half-empty cup, confidence influx long gone, now replaced with doubts and insecurity.

-No! No-no-no! I am more than ready! I want to bond with you, Jim. Wanted for a long time actually, but was afraid to scare you away if I suggested it too soon. -the firefighter explained, fidgeting in place, probably too overwhelmed to decide how to react. -God, I think I'm gonna cry. -he concluded, joyful tears already forming in his pretty eyes.

-Please don't. -Street frowned at that sight, aware it's very hard to cease Buck's emotional outbursts. -Aaaand you're crying. -sighed, quickly approaching his sobbing boyfriend to comfort him. -Babe, please, stop. -he begged, tenderly rubbing the violently shaking back.

-I can't! I'm so happy! -Buck cried out, tightly wrapping his arms around the officer's waist as he continued to bawl into his shoulder. -Dammit, Jim! I love you so, so much! Too much even!

Too much. That was a perfect description of how the cop felt right now, overflowing with love for that adorably vulnerable man.

-I know. -he then hummed quietly, pressing tender kisses to the still trembling neck. -I love you too. Definitely more than I should.

---

-I asked Buck to bond with me. -Jim informed his bestie Chris when on the next day they were alone in the armoury, cleaning weapons during a fairly uneventful shift.

-What?! -she gasped, completely perplexed by the news. -I did not see that coming! Not from you at least! What did he say?!

-He agreed. -Street smiled at the memory of his boyfriend crying for a good half an hour. It drained him emotionally so much, he needed a nap afterwards.

-Wow. I cannot believe our baby Street is finally growing up. -Chris wiped down a non-existent tear in a theatrical gesture. -But still, it's a serious decision. Are you really sure about that? You know well enough that bonding is a forever thingy.

-Obviously. But I love him, Chris. And there is no fucking way I'd ever find a better partner. He's perfect for me. Can't just let him go. -the older office sighed heavily. It wasn’t easy, allowing himself to be guided purely by natural instincts for once, however he really fucking wanted to keep his amazing partner around for as long as possible. -Correction. Don't want to let him go. Ever.

-Yeah, it would be pretty stupid to fuck this up. He is really good for you. -the other cop nodded in agreement. She truly believed Buck was the best choice her best friend has ever made relationship-wise. And perhaps he was a filthy firefighter, but damn, not a bad word could be said about him. He treated Jim with utmost respect, was a great friend and even babysat Deacon's kids on quite a few occasions for fuck's sake. Which actually brought up an important question. -What about kids though? I know he wants them badly and you're all about work. Are you on the same page?

-Well, I clearly said career first. -Street clarified. -I need to have a solid spot on SWAT before I decide to take time off to have a kid, and Buck is totally fine with that, he’s equally obsessed with his job just as we are with ours. And we're still young, it's not like we gotta rush anything.

-Damn, Jim in a serious, adult relationship. -Chris whistled, shaking her head in disbelief. -I cannot wrap my mind around it.

-Right?! And with an Alpha? That’s even wilder. -Jim laughed. Saying it out loud made it sound so ridiculous. He never wanted to be in a relationship with an Alpha in the first place, always leaned towards Betas, or solitude, and yet, here he was, on the verge of bonding with an “enemy” he deeply loved.

-True that! -the older cop snorted. She wasn’t any better, her whole life she’s been saying she would never date a woman who was taller, more dominant, and especially not an Alpha. Amelia ticked all those “unacceptable” boxes. -Just please, don't mess it up, I actually like him! -Chris added, making her bestie smile when his heart felt a little warm.

Yeah, he liked him too.

---

-Jim asked me to bond with him. -Buck revealed, handing his sister her takeaway. They were supposed to go out for lunch on their shared day off to catch up, but it was just so hot outside, the siblings decided to stay at his air-conditioned apartment and order in.

-Really? -she raised her brows in surprise, not expecting her brother’s rather reserved boyfriend to take that big step. -I'm shocked you weren't the one to ask for it. What did you say?

-I obviously said yes. -the firefighter smiled. How could he possibly say no? Street was his everything, the perfect match he never believed he would find. Someone who showered him with love, patiently listened to his lengthy monologues, and didn’t mind him being fairly chaotic, reckless and overly emotional, which was a set of traits highly undesired in Alphas. Being accepted as he was, not forced to change anything to fit the standards, meant the world to him. With Jim, not once he felt a need to behave differently to please him, the atypical Omega eagerly took exactly what he was given without any complaints. He was just perfect.

-Of course you did. -Maddie sighed, slowly opening up the box. -Are you certain you want to spend the rest of your life with him? -she asked, looking up at her clearly overjoyed sibling, whose smile instantly dropped upon hearing the question.

-Why? -he wondered, a bit annoyed that his sister cannot simply be happy for him. It was because she cared about him, Buck knew that, and had no choice but to listen to what Mads had to say every single time they talked about his love-life. -Is something bothering you about him?

-Nothing, he's truly amazing. I just fear you are rushing things. Again. -she emphasised, referring to all those times his relationships failed due to progressing too fast. It always hurt her, seeing her beloved brother in pain on so many occasions. She liked Jim, with his calmer, more rational personality he was definitely toning down Buck’s at times unhealthy enthusiasm, and seemed to love him very much. Somehow, knowing that didn’t make her any less worried.

-It's different this time. -the firefighter assured rather hopelessly. Maddie was not one to change her mind unless proven otherwise through actions. And as predicted, she took a deep breath and asked:

-How?

-He's an Omega. -Buck responded vaguely before elaborating further. -I’ve never dated an Omega before. It's an incomparable experience. From the moment I properly held him in my hands that night I took him home, despite not knowing a single thing about him, I already knew we are meant to be together. I have no idea how to explain this, but my instincts tell me he's the person I should spend my life with. He's the one. I'm positive.

-You were positive quite a few times now. -his sister pointed out nonchalantly, not even looking at the firefighter, gaze focused on the food. She probably was aware she’s gonna get a nasty look from her, surely irritated by now, baby brother whose eyes rolled to the back of his head.

-Maddie…

-I know, I'm sorry. -she apologised softly. Perhaps unpleasant for both of them, but it was her duty to ensure his choices wouldn’t do him more harm than good. -I just don't want you to get hurt because you jumped into a serious relationship too soon. You can't erase a bond if something goes wrong, you'll be stuck with Jim forever, no matter what. Are you ready to fully commit to him?

And just like that, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted in Buck’s brain, and he wasn’t sure anymore if bonding with seemingly the love of his life was actually such a good idea after all.

---

Once Maddie left, and he was completely alone with his thoughts, the firefighter couldn't stop overthinking what his sister said about rushing, and possibly getting himself stuck in a potentially doomed relationship.

Was it seriously a bad idea to accept Street's offer to bond?

As for now, they definitely were solid and close, so close that any separation, even for only a few days, was causing them both physical and mental discomfort. Buck was also one hundred percent convinced that if they split, his heart would die on the spot. He absolutely needed Jim to stay present in his life, therefore bonding was the best available tool to keep them together. Fearing that suggesting it himself might put some pressure on his Omega due to his “Alpha status”, he didn’t mention anything, patiently waited for Jim to take the lead because a bonding offer proposed by someone who despises their nature would be made after a great deal of careful consideration. An honest, calculated choice.

But what if he should reject it? 

Would his boyfriend be okay waiting a year or two more, as his sister proposed?

Is he himself fine with waiting?

Will changing his mind ruin their perfect relationship?

The firefighter didn’t get to answer any of those questions as a key suddenly sounded in the lock, announcing his partner was back home. Which was terrifying because he still had no clue what to do.

-Hi there. -the officer smiled, approaching the couch Buck was sitting on. It was a relief to see he looked rather unharmed today.

-Hi babe, how was work? -he returned the warm smile, watching the older man casually kneel down on the cushions to sit in his lap. Greedy hands instinctively sneaked under Jim’s shirt, seeking comfort through skin-to-skin touch.

-Boring. -Street sighed, cupping the firefighter’s face before joining their lips in a short kiss. -What happened? -he then asked, tenderly rubbing the soft cheeks.

-What do you mean? -the Alpha frowned, confused by the odd query.

-Do you really think I can't tell something is bothering you? -the Omega hummed softly, pressing an affectionate kiss to his boyfriend's forehead. -I could sense your raging anxiety the moment I opened the door.

Of course he could. They weren't yet bonded, but damn, the cop’s mood-reading senses seemed to never fail despite not operating on the highest setting.

-Maddie came over. -Buck informed, his arms instinctively tightening around the older man’s back. -And she might have said some things that made me think…are we rushing things? -he blurted, feeling the urge to get those doubts out of his system.

-Rushing what things? -Jim asked, a hint of insecurity clear in his otherwise steady voice.

-The relationship. We’ve met not even a year ago, and now we think about bonding for life, isn’t it rushing things? Shouldn't we take some more time to properly think about it? Make sure this is not just a heat of the moment type of situation? -the firefighter outlined the issue, and the officer didn’t respond right away, only stared absently at his partner, who began to get even more anxious awaiting some reaction. Eventually, Street let go of his face, and pulled away a bit.

-Are you being totally honest or going a little crazy? -he demanded, aware his Alpha has a tendency to question everything in his life after talking to Maddie. She was a good person, although sometimes wasn’t the best influence, especially considering her brother’s emotionally unstable personality.

-Going a little crazy. -Buck admitted, definitely relieved his boyfriend picked up on it.

-Good. That's good. -Street exhaled heavily, hands reaching for the taller man's nape to provide much-needed comfort. -Listen to me Buck, carefully. I did not rush my decision to bond with you. The first time it crossed my mind was months ago, when we met each-other’s teams. You treated yours like family, and mine like extended family, which made me so happy to be with a person for whom work people are also their people. I could never be with someone who doesn’t understand or respect that, and you totally get it, which is incredibly rare, thus imperative to hold onto. Then that guy bit me. I couldn't stand being marked by someone other than you, it was disgusting, not right, and made me angry I had to go through losing your scent because we weren’t bonded. And when I saw you so full of joy playing with Deacon's kids? I couldn't stop thinking how lucky I am you're gonna be the father of our children. Any time I think about my future, you are always in it, that's why I know this is a natural progression, not a speedrun of sorts. But if you wish to wait, I'll wait for you. As long as you need, 'cause you are the love of my life and I am not giving up on you, no matter what. Aaaand you’re crying. Again.

-I don't want to wait! I want us to bond soon! -the firefighter sobbed, pulling his partner into a bear hug. He didn’t expect to hear such an adorable confession, but it made all his doubts disappear instantaneously. Them bonding was undeniably the right choice, there was no way he could feel insecure following this powerful reassurance. He was loved, cared for, thought about, needed. That was more than enough.

-Soo…we're all good, yeah? -the cop clarified, fondly brushing through the blond strands as he held the weeping man.

-Yes. We're all good. -Buck nodded weakly, head still plastered to the Omega’s chest. -Thank you, Jim. You always seem to know what to say to make me feel better. -he hummed, gladly leaning into the calming touch.

-I'd be a terrible boyfriend if I didn't know how to handle you spiraling into madness once in a while. -Street laughed, showering the silky hair with firm kisses. -Whenever you think our relationship might not work out in the end, remember I love you the same way you love me.

-Too much? -the Alpha chuckled, pulling backwards to look at his incredible, widely smiling man.

-Way too much. -Jim rolled his glowing eyes playfully before leaning down for another, this time longer kiss. -So much I’d rather die than ever let you go.

[madsthewordclown]

Fire Lily | Pt. 11

warnings: slight angst I guess?

a/n: this chapter is a bit shorter than the last two I believe. It’s mainly just Y/N having some bonding moments with the Gaang. I honestly feel like she’d vibe with all of them in different ways? Anyway, I’m excited. This is set during The Awakening.

Fire Lily Masterlist

Y/N almost wanting to cry with relief as she took off the Fire Nation armor. The ship had stopped in the port of a village and Toph and Sokka had invited her to come along to find dinner. Hakoda had said that the armor wouldn’t be necessary for the trip, so Y/N would get to put it away for the night.

Maybe she’d be able to find a shirt while they were in town. She had a small amount of money of her own—she had offered it to be used for the crew, but for whatever reason, Hakoda had declined. Y/N had a hard time figuring out Hakoda. If their roles were switched, she probably wouldn’t have trusted him. But he was treating her no differently than the others.

“Ready to go?” Katara asked, peeking her head in the doorway of the room they shared.

“Yeah.” Y/N eyed the hook swords that laid next to her cot. She made the difficult decision not to bring them. They were far enough into Fire Nation territory that her bending probably wouldn’t be questioned. Plus, they had Toph.

Y/N met Katara, Sokka, and Toph in the hallway outside of their shared room.

“Let’s see if Aang wants to go with us,” Katara suggested, her expression pained. Even though Aang was awake, Katara will still obviously worried about his condition. The kid seemed to have a tendency to overexert himself.

Y/N and the others followed Katara to one of the upper levels of the ship. Toph handed her a brown cloak on the way. “Better safe than sorry,” she explained.

Y/N tugged the cloak over her shoulders and secured the clasp. They finally came to a stop in front of a metal door similar to their own. Katara knocked softly before entering. Y/N and the others followed.

“Hey, Aang! We’re going into town to find some dinner if you want to come!” Toph smiled at Aang, who was leaning back on his own cot.

“I am pretty hungry.” Aang sat up, a hand on his stomach. He was obviously still a bit weak, and it made Y/N’s hands feel jittery.

Sokka stepped forward, holding out a piece of cloth to Aang.

“Here, put this on. It’ll cover your arrow.” The arrow was already mostly covered by Aang’s hair. Y/N didn’t think it looked right on him, although she had only seen him twice before the battle with Azula.

Aang looked affronted, flopping back down onto his mattress. “I’m not going out if I can’t wear my arrow proudly.” It made Y/N’s heart twinge. She couldn’t begin to understand what Aang was facing. It was enough to fight a war without having to let go of your own culture’s traditions.

“Aang, come on,” Sokka pushed. “Be practical.”

“Go ahead without us,” Katara said softly, putting a hand on Sokka’s shoulder before turning to Aang. “We’ll catch up.”

Y/N averted her eyes, feeling like an intrusion. Sokka nodded. Y/N was startled to feel Toph grab onto her hand to pull her from the room, the door shutting softly behind them.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Sokka announced. Y/N hummed in agreement. They hadn’t been able to stop yesterday, so they were living on leftovers. Plus, they weren’t able to eat regular meals. As it turned out, the Fire Nation didn’t respect their schedule.

The three made their way up to the deck of the ship, the port they’d landed in visible. There weren’t many people out and about, from what Y/N could tell.

“Is this a true Fire Nation island? Or a colony?” Y/N asked aloud.

“I think it’s a colony.” Sokka threw the hood of his own cloak up over his head. “We’re too close to Earth Kingdom mainland. The important thing is there are no soldiers.”

“Well, we’re here,” Toph pointed out. “All of the villagers must think we’re soldiers.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right.” Sokka led the way down the gangplank and onto the wooden dock. “C’mon, let’s find the market.”

They continued to walk into the streets of the village. While there weren’t many people around, Y/N noticed a few faces peeking from windows. They looked to be Earth Kingdom citizens. Y/N noticed a woman and child in the Fire Nation’s signature red walking down the street calmly.

“Have you ever been to the colonies before?” While Y/N hadn’t technically lived in the colonies, she had lived right on the outskirts. Her father’s estate was still Earth Kingdom territory, although they were still subject to the occasional visits from Fire Nation soldiers. But the village they went to for food, and where Bihun went to school, was Fire Nation territory.

“No. They seem like a bit of a drag,” Toph admitted, kicking a stray pebble in front of her.

“This one must be pretty new,” Y/N mumbled, looking around at the darkened houses.

“What makes you say that?” Sokka questioned.

“When I was little, the village near my house was a lot like this. Earth Kingdom citizens were afraid to leave their homes. The Fire Nation people, not just the soldiers, constantly belittled us. There was a Fire Nation boy that picked on me at the market once when I was little.

“But it’s not like that anymore. It took a while, but it became a lot more like everyone was coexisting. My older brother went to school with Fire Nation kids. Most kids stuck to their cliques, and it wasn’t always peaceful, but… it was getting better. Or at least, it was before I left. This is more like an occupation.”

“Huh. That’s… interesting,” Sokka hummed.

“The soldiers definitely caused more trouble than anything. But people are just people. Eventually, they’ll figure out how to coexist as long as someone isn’t pitting them against each other.”

“That’s an interesting perspective,” Toph observed.

“I hope I can go back once the war is over.” It was the first time Y/N really had an idea for what came after. “I want to find my brother and see my family again.” The dream Y/N had the night before came back to her. Boiling rock. She could tell that Sokka wanted to ask what she meant about her brother and was grateful when he kept it to himself.

“Look!” Toph pointed suddenly. In front of them, a man was rolling a cart full of bags of rice across the road.

“Yes!” Sokka punched the air in victory. “Food!”

“Finally.” Y/N smiled, feeling her heart flutter as she set off running alongside Sokka and Toph to catch up to the man.

---

The Avatar was gone. It was probably the worst-case scenario. They had pulled out of port and were on their way when Katara went to bring Aang a tray of food. The wind had picked up, and the weather seemed to be going bad. The added wind going west was helping the ship move along at a very quick pace. Sokka said that they’d probably officially be in the Fire Nation within hours.

Y/N watched the stormy skies with a furrowed brow. Aang had taken his glider. The added factor of the turbulent weather made it that much worse. It was already dark from the setting sun, covered by the dark clouds. Y/N remembered how weak he still appeared and shuddered. He hadn’t eaten anything before he left, either.

Y/N pulled her cloak tighter around her body to shield herself from the wind. The ship lurched in the water, and suddenly Y/N regretted eating so much rice. She could tell that Toph felt the same as the girl held her stomach.

“He can’t have gone far,” Y/N reasoned, approaching Katara, who was obviously beside herself. “I’m sure he must have found land not too far from here.”

“We have to find him,” Katara stated simply, her eyes severe. Y/N put a hand on the other girl’s shoulder in an attempt to be comforting.

“And we will. We just have to wait for the storm to die down. I’m sure your dad and Sokka have a pretty good idea of where we are.”

Katara’s face darkened more at the mention of her father. Y/N sighed.

“I don’t mean to intrude, but… why are you mad at him?”

“It’s just…” Katara bit her lip, glancing towards the floor. “After our mom died, Sokka and I were so lost. And then Dad had to leave, and I understand why, I really do, but… we needed him.”

“I think it’s okay to be a bit mad.” Y/N looked out at the dark water. “It isn’t really his fault, I guess. He had to leave. But you’re allowed to feel that way.”

“But I shouldn’t be mad at him,” Katara argued. “I know he had to leave.”

“That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.” Y/N thought of her own father. He would have left, too, if he were asked to fight. “But he did leave for you. He probably hoped that you wouldn’t have to fight. My father never wanted my brother and I to have to fight.

“He tried to keep us away from it all for so long. I didn’t even go to school because he was worried about my bending being discovered. And he was doing what was best for us, and I see that now. But I never had friends, and despite everything he tried to help me, I’m still scared of what I am. And that hurts. But I still love him, and I forgive him for all of it, because now I understand that he just wanted my brother and I to be okay.”

Y/N had surprised herself with how much talking she had done. “I’m sorry,” Y/N backtracked. “That probably wasn’t super helpful.”

“No.” Katara smiled. “Thank you, for talking to me.”

Y/N looked up as the rain finally began to fall, pelting the hull of the ship as the vessel swayed on the sea.

“Come on,” Katara offered, lifting her hands and waterbending the droplets away from them. “Let’s go inside. We’ll find Aang as soon as it stops.”

---

“This is the only area he could have landed.” Sokka pointed at the spot on the map. Y/N lit another lantern as she, Katara, Toph, and Sokka sat in the captain’s room with Hakoda and Bato. “Any other spot is too far away.”

“That’s too big of an area,” Katara protested, the worry still evident on her face. Toph yawned. They had all been awoken as soon as the rain had stopped, which turned out to be right before the crack of dawn.

“The wind was blowing to the northwest,” Y/N piped up, eying the map as she lit another lantern. “And with his condition he probably couldn’t be far from the coastline. He probably landed somewhere in the center of that region, because we were about—” Y/N pointed to a spot on the map— “here when the storm started, and he would’ve had to slow down when the rain started. And with the possibility of lightning, he’d have to have been flying pretty low.”

The others stared at Y/N for a moment in shock. Y/N shrugged. “I spent a lot of time in the library.” Her mother had spent countless hours tutoring her, since she couldn’t go to school. Bihun was convinced Y/N learned more at home than he did at school.

“I’ve also done a lot of traveling recently,” Y/N added, feeling her cheeks warm slightly.

“Alright,” Hakoda coughed. “We’ll head in and drop you kids off there. You can find Aang and then lay low, and we’ll meet you again later for the invasion.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Sokka stood, pulling Hakoda and Katara into a hug. Y/N’s heart ached, suddenly feeling the strong absence of her own family. It had been so long since they’d all been under the same roof.

“Let’s go,” Katara said determinedly as Sokka and Hakoda let go.

Katara gave the ship fog cover just in case as they creeped closer to land. Y/N was in awe of the land in front of them. It was rocky, with jagged hills. Y/N thought she could see the orange glow of lava in the distance. They were definitely in the Fire Nation.

The ship moved as close to the land as possible, letting the gangplank fall down into the shallow water. Katara did the rest, parting a dry path across the sand.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Y/N checked with Hakoda one more time. She knew it was valuable having a firebender on the ship.

“Go,” Hakoda insisted. “We can handle it. And we don’t want people to come around asking too many questions about Captain Yai.” Hakoda smiled. “Besides, my kids seem to like you.”

“Thank you,” Y/N said gratefully, reaching to shake Hakoda’s hand. Before she could react, Hakoda was pulling her into a brief hug.

“Take care of them, and we’ll see you in a few weeks,” he said.

“I will,” Y/N promised. She would do her best. She’d already failed once before at taking care of her friends, and she wasn’t eager to fail again.

“Coming, Captain?” Toph called from down in the sand where she was waiting with Sokka and Katara.

“Yeah,” Y/N shouted back, walking down the gangplank. When she hit the sand, she turned to and waved goodbye to the others on the ship. “Let’s find Aang.”

Fire Lily Masterlist

taglist: @kaylove12, @akariblue, @wolfiemichele, @aquatickanye, @sunflowerr-mami, @nadiblue

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Werewolf Thomas x Merman Sammy.

This might end up taking multiple chapters, in addition to me digging in too deep, this ship in general just gives off a petty enemies, to reluctant allies due to supernatural circumstances, to ‘hey you’re not as bad as I thought.’, to friends, to lovers vibe.

Occam's razor indicates that the simplest explanation to a scenario is also the most likely scenario to be the true one.

For example: when an animation studio suddenly closes down and gets condemned, people who are on the outside looking in are much more likely to blame the studio's poor money management than go look for some extraordinary truth. That, paired with the workers of the said studio also coming out to site the terrible conditions of the place as an added cause for the studio's demise. When people have to work long hours with little pay to show for it in a dingy, gloomy, constantly-falling-apart studio that clearly wasn't going anywhere except six feet under or lower, they aren't exactly motivated to work hard or happy.

The Hunger was intense, growing beyond mere gnawing and was now consuming the cursed mechanic. The first change he felt was his teeth, the Curse deciding it was easier to make them all fall out at once so his new ones would grow in. He cut up his own tongue on the newly-made fangs. Call it an act of mercy or an act of mockery, but the tongue followed the teeth's example, falling out altogether so that the tongue of a wolf could grow in.

No one batted an eye when a majority of the studio's former workers left with some of them being untraceable, the lucky ones moved on to greener and happier pastures, others simply got a change in scenery, and sadly, accidents happen all the time in such an unsafe studio, people got severely injured in there all the time, so it was gut-wrenching for many, but not a shock to discover that it was common for unlucky people to lose their lives in the Dancing Demon's domain.

His entire body burned on the inside and outside, taking off his clothes did nothing for him as his new, thick coat grew in, a coat that was the same pitch black as his hair, at least, most of it was. The change did not hurt as much as he thought it would. As painful as it sounded when his bones became a crackling choir that reminded him of fireworks, it was not pure agony, he was sore, afraid, and so, very, very, hungry, but he was physically fine.

No one suspected anything like somebody intentionally sabotaging the many pipes that pumped ink through the entire building, that would just be silly! It was more than obvious that the pipes got the same treatment as the rotting wooden walls: they were ignored until it was too late. With all the wood, paper, flammable ink, candles, no windows, and avid smokers in that place, it was only a matter of time before that place went up in flames.

Colors began to dim and fade out leaving him with vision that could only see black, white, and the several shades of gray inbetween them. The trade off with his senses made itself clear as his sense of smell and hearing both grew stronger, he could barely think as the smells and sounds his human self had been blind to came to him at full force, overwhelming the mechanic. He held back the urge to scream and call for help, he knew none would come, unless it was the dogcatcher at this point. However he would not hold back the urge to whine, whimper and cry, as pathetic as he looked and sounded, he would at least give himself that mercy, even if he didn't deserve it.

No one thought the ink machine was anything more but an expensive and stupid project that definitely sped up the studio's already fast decline, but only with it's mere presence. Honestly, a machine that made models out of ink, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to make a statue of your beloved mascots out of plastic or something like that?

Thomas yelped in surprise when the tail grew in, it felt like somebody gave his spine a good sharp yank. He was furious, scared, even remorseful as he knew he was responsible for this happening to himself and possibly others knowing Mr. Drew, and by god, did he want to sink his teeth into something.

No one except for crazy cross-clutching worrywarts who want to spoil every one else's fun and or conspiracy theorists would assume that the Little devil darling who graced the comics and silver screens for at least a decade would have literal satanic magic going on behind the scenes, no matter how screwy the man in charge seemed.

He was starving all day ever since the ritual, but now that the changes were over, he felt hungrier than ever before, like his stomach was a black hole that would make him consume everything in his path.

No one would ever seriously suggest that magic was real and led to being the studio's final nail in the coffin instead of becoming its savior like it's founder had wanted it to.

In the moment, Thomas Conner believed that Occam's razor was bullshit.

The mechanic knew what he'd seen, he knew to an extent what he took part in, he saw what happened to some of the unluckier members of the "Missing" studio workers, and most importantly of all, he experienced what he just went through. There was no 'simple' or 'normal' explanation for it; the ritual failed and as a result, he and a handful of other people had gotten cursed.

Here the new wolf was, squeezing his now much larger body underneath his bed to do nothing but cower like a frighted animal while trying to convince himself not to panic or to eat his pet snake. Keeping his human mind at the moment was both a blessing and a cur- -some extra salt to rub into his fresh wounds.

On one hand, the fact he was still smart enough to know better than to jump out the window and follow his nose for food like his instincts were telling him to was a lifesaver that kept him safe from animal control. On the other hand; if he was a beast in mind, he would at least be doing something more productive than sulking in his apartment thinking about anything else other than how badly he got fucked over, how his life was in shatters and how he had nobody but himself to blame for it (Well, aside from Joey, but that wasn't the point).

While far from ideal, his current plan was to remain under that bed, try his best to go to sleep, and occasionally chew its legs to stop himself from going on a rampage. He might not be the most supernaturally informed person, but he had seen enough werewolf horror flicks to know that nothing good would come if he gave into his hunger or if he tried to leave. Best case scenario; he'd become as sick as a dog after eating something he found in the garbage. Worst case scenario; Somebody decides that he'd make a great living room rug and BANG!

And then, his ears perked up as he heard the song.

It was a simple, repetitive tune, made with a music box maybe? It was the first time he heard it yet it felt familiar to him. The song itself was muffled, used a lot of ambiance in its melody, and if he strained his ears enough, he could almost pick up the sound of a voice singing along with it, but it was far too faint for him to tell who or what was singing, let alone what the lyrics to the song were. It sounded nice in spite of it's strangeness, but it gave him goosebumps. He knew it wasn't playing from the radio, he only kept it on when he was fixing something at home.

The curious wolf struggled to push a window open with his snout to figure out where it was coming from. He was making progress, the song did sound slightly less muffled now that he was poking his head out the window. Was it just him, or did the tune become faster? And it was also louder and more frantic, and he swore that the constantly repeating motif sounded like something he knew. The mechanic never considered himself to be a man with a keen ear for music, but he knew he heard it before.

Three short notes, three slightly longer notes, three more short notes, again and again and again repeating endlessly...---...Wait a minute. Thomas didn't recognize that pattern from a song, he recognized that that was a call for help!

"Don't do it..." He grumbled to himself as he put his paws up on the windowsill. "You don't know what'll happen, or if you'll even get there in time. Just go back inside and you'll figure out what to do with yourself in the morning."

The song, almost as if it was aware he was trying to ignore it like he was ignoring his hunger, grew louder and faster.

"Don't give in..." The wolf turned back. "You can't help anyone like this anyway, you'll only end up hurting yourself."

It... started to die down, back to its regular, chilling melody and grew even softer. Flickering away like a candlelight in the cold.

"Don't..." The wolf let out a very tired sigh as he looked out the window. "Oh fuck me."

Thomas leapt out the window and sped towards the source of the song, not caring who or what saw him in the city that never sleeps, he bolted directly into the forest. He tried to block out the new sounds of various creatures he couldn't hear before as well as the new smells of the earth underneath his paws and the plants all around him.

Strange marks were on the ground, they looked like someone dragging themselves through the dirt and the marks themselves smelled vaguely of fish and ink.

The song, while faint was very close, he was hot on the mysterious caller's trail! In fact, the wolf's new sense of smell started to become useful as he picked up some familiar scents in the woods; the smell of ink, smoke from a fire, and the smell of cologne- Wait, he recognized that specific cologne, it was that fancy European brand that the "missing" hot-headed music director used to keep himself from smelling like cigar smoke, vomit, and despair.

And the voice of the singer in the distress call 'song' did sound like him now that he was close enough to hear it. He felt a pit of dread in his stomach that almost made him forget his hunger. He knew that the musician was far too prideful to call for help for anyone unless this was his very last option and his will to live made the difficult task of overpowering his ego.

Squelch.

Almost confirming his fears and adding a new one that he was too late, the mechanic made the mistake of looking down and saw that he stepped on a severed leg. A black, tar-like substance that smelled like ink and rotten meat was squeezed out of the part of the thigh that should've been attached to a person.

"...Mr. Lawrence?" He hesitantly called out, thankfully getting him an exhausted groan in response. "Lawrence, where are you?"

"Here." A hoarse yet relieved sounding voice answered. "Look down."

The wolf looked down into a shallow pool to see what had become of the musician. If he was being honest with himself, he wouldn't deny that the music director was always easy on the eyes, and while the curse effected him drastically, that fact about him didn't change.

The water was clear enough to show off the musician's jet black, fish-like tail which glistened in the moonlight, the still human half of his body went through some changes as well; his hands were webbed and clawed, unlikely to properly hold any instrument, let alone use it, his torso, arms, and neck had patches of black scales scattered about haphazardly like splashes of paint on a canvas. Aside from the siren's new set of teeth (which looked like they could haunt anyone's nightmares), waist-long hair when it was previously shoulder length hair, and glassier eyes, the man's head seemed relatively unchanged.

"Could you stop gawking!?" Sammy re-positioned himself to keep his tail out of sight, or at least he tried to, the damn thing was two thirds of his body and he didn't exactly have something to cover himself up with. "I'm not exactly 'thrilled’ about this... Change, for lack of a better term."

"That's one way to put it." The mechanic almost let out a sympathetic chuckle. "I’d never thought I’d be saying this, but it’s great to see you haven’t died yet.”

“Why thank you.” The merman sarcastically responded. “That’s exactly why I went through all the trouble of literally singing my fucking lungs out!” He exclaimed while gesturing to a pair of charcoal-black things that the wolf previously thought were rocks. “To hear you tell me that ‘it’s great I haven’t died yet’.”

The wolf rolled his eyes.

“So why did you go through all the trouble for summoning me here then? Aside from the whole ...fish thing, you seem perfectly fine.”

“It... wasn't intentional.” The fish-man begrudgingly admitted, his voice sounded bitter, but his eyes shone with fear. “I wasn’t thinking about who or what would hear me or come at the moment. My body was falling apart before my eyes and all that was on my mind during it was; ‘Oh god, I’m going to die here, aren’t I?! And if not, my life will be ruined beyond repair!’. And when I sang out as a panicked response, you became the first to show up. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The siren swam to the other side of his aquatic prison and sighed resignedly.

Tom’s ears folded back in guilt, It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the musician was cursed by the failed ritual HE played a giant part in. As strongly as he disliked the musician, it didn’t feel right to leave him like this; alone, scared, and immobile in a place that could even spell out his death if he was unlucky enough.

He walked over to the other side of the pool and laid down beside the edge of it.

“Hey, you don’t need water to breathe, right?”

The siren looked confused.

“I’ve been breathing air just fine, in fact, I think one of the few advantages to this new body is that it replaced my old lungs with healthier ones. Why are you asking?”

“Climb on my back and I’ll take you out of here, granted, I don’t know where we’re gonna go, but where ever it is, it’ll be better than sitting around waiting for your pool to dry up.”

The merman, while hesitant, did climb up on the wolf man’s back, wrapping his arms around his neck to keep him from falling off, the wolf stood up and ran deeper into the woods.

[sansugar]

An ultimate secret

Pairing: Wooyoung x Female Reader

Word count: 4.2k

Genre: Smut

Warnings: rough sex..?, fingering, maybe something else I’m forgetting

--Finally sharing one of my first writings. This is potentially a 3 part series, let me know if you want to read more. Hope you enjoy!--

The train pulled to a halt and your suitcase knocked against your knees, startling you out of an upright doze where your head had been falling forward and jerking back for 45 minutes. A voice over announced the next station and you realised you were already in Seoul. After signing up for a 3 month, intensive course right in the middle of the city, you were excited to be given a second chance at your getting dream job, especially since the end of high school hadn’t worked out because you had been terribly sick. Luckily for you, your brother Seonghwa lived in a dorm just twenty minutes from your new school. With your small savings pot from years of working late nights at the convenience store and not having to pay rent, you would be able to focus all of your time on your studies. Or so you thought.

Exiting the confined tunnels of the station you emerged onto the street, squinting over the blurred, buzzing crowd. Though you recognised the faint smell of tobacco and deep fried chicken, and the clopping of heels across the pavement, you had to take a moment to get your bearings. As you hesitated in the middle of the path, a man leaning casually against a tree caught your eye. He reminded you of a cardboard cut out, slender with hard features, dark hair hanging across one eye. His navy blazer hung open, revealing a band t-shirt underneath, jeans and a belt buckle that caught the sun. You barely recognised your own brother.

“Seonghwa?!”

His face softened with a genuine smile as he strode towards you, arms out. He smelt expensive, like a brand name you’d seen on a billboard, but his enveloping hug was the same as it always had been, like he could wrap his arms around you twice.

“Was your train delayed? I thought maybe I’d missed you.”

“No I don’t think so” you replied, distracted by the of rainbow of advertisements flapping in the street above every shop.

You let him pull your backpack off your shoulders and take the handle of your suitcase before leading you out of the crowds.

“Are you hungry?”

You hadn’t realised until that moment that you had been starving.

“Yes please let’s get something good” you whined, pulling on his arm.

He chuckled, taking you down a maze of side streets to a tiny, hidden restaurant.

The food was delicious and you couldn’t stop yourself from ordering way more than you could eat, especially because you knew Seonghwa would pay. You talked with him more than you had in years. He told you all about his experiences as part of a rookie idol group and you told him all about life back home with your parents. You were lucky that he had just finished album promotions and had some time off to spend with you between training sessions.

When you arrived at the dorms you were quickly introduced to the other members of ATEEZ in a whirl of handshakes and tentative hugs before Seonghwa ushered you to his room to get you unpacked. It had all gone so fast that your mind began to replay Yunho’s warm touch, Mingi’s toothy grin, Wooyoungs constant chatter and San’s smouldering stare. Somewhere in the pit of your stomach you felt excited. How were you going to get any studying done with that around you 24/7?

You placed your suitcase on the bed and began to rummage around in your disorganised mess of clothes when you heard a knock at the doorframe. It was Hongjoong.

“Y/N. Do you mind if I quickly grab something? I left my charger in here” He pointed past you to the bedside table.

“Not at all, go for it”

He knelt down to pull his charger plug out of the wall when it clicked in your head that this was his room.

“Did Seonghwa kick you out of your room? Am I stealing your bed?”

Hongjoong chuckled and shook his head.

“It’s yours for the next three months. I’m happy to bunk with Yunho and Yeosang. A girl needs her privacy. Well, you will be in here with Seonghwa but…you’ll be comfortable”

He smiled at you as he swung his hands around his sides, unsure what to do with them.

“Hongjoong, haven’t you got somewhere to be?” Seonghwa said, appearing at your side.

He gave him a look that you couldn’t quite see and Hongjoong slipped out of the room without a word.

Seonghwa pulled a handful of clothes from your suitcase and began to fold them carefully. You crawled up onto the bed and sat with your back against the wall. The room was small and mostly bare but cosy. Seonghwa’s immaculately made bed was opposite yours and you were reminded of when you had shared a room with him when you were younger. You closed your eyes, feeling content in your new home. But that relaxation was short lived.

“Have you studied today?” Seonghwa asked, brow furrowed as he tried to match your socks.

“No? Classes haven’t started yet”

“But surely you have some work to do? To get a head start?”

“I guess…”

“Y/N. I hope you’re taking this seriously. You’re not always going to have a second chance”

You scowled at your brother, starting to remember why you had celebrated when he decided to become an idol and moved out in the first place.

A few weeks later, classes had started and you had settled into life at the dorm. Like you, the boys were in and out constantly but once a week you all had dinner together, and soon enough you were just a regular member of the team. You played mobile games with Wooyoung, watched dramas with Mingi and had regular arm wrestles with Jongho who was sometimes kind enough to let you win. Yunho would ask you about what you were learning while San tried to teach you to do pull ups and Yeosang would send you song recommendations every other day. Seonghwa had been overbearing and wary at first of the boys stealing too much of your attention but over time he relaxed, appreciative that there were 7 other people looking out for you.

It was a Sunday evening and you were sitting on your bed after a few hours of actual studying to watch a movie on your laptop, the room shadowed as the sun set behind the other buildings. You were snuggled in your blanket, completely engrossed when Seonghwa thumped into the room, flicked on the blinding light and yanked your headphones off your head.

“Hey!”

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you studying?” He scolded.

“I have been studying! Get off my back.”

This had been such a regular argument over the past few weeks, you felt like your responses were scripted. But today, he seemed to have had enough.

“You seem to think you can just get through life with a pretty face and no work Y/N but it doesn’t work that way. I won’t let you laze around here and waste our parents money on a course you don’t even seem to care about”

“What are you talking about? I already studied today. I’ve done all my homework”

Seonghwa grabbed your laptop out of your lap and closed it forcefully.

“This look likes you’re working really hard. Really practising well” he chided.

You glared at him.

“Look Seonghwa, I don’t know what your problem is…”

“My problem? I’m just trying to look out for you. You sit around here all day, wasting time on your phone, watching TV. This isn’t a holiday Y/N. Anyone would think you don’t even want to be successful and employed. If you’re not careful, you’re going to fail this course just like you failed high-school.”

You threw your blanket off your knees, stood up and shoved him. A painful lump rose in your throat, which you held in place, determined not to let him see you cry.

“I had pneumonia you asshole. You were there. How dare you stand there all high and mighty when you did absolutely fuck all with your high-school degree. I’m so sick of you pretending like you’re better than me when all you do is prance around in tight pants on stage.”

His face was like stone as he stood motionless in front of you.

“I know the real you Park Seonghwa and I can see straight through this facade you put up for your fans. You and your fake superiority can get fucked”

You stormed out and slammed the front door behind you with one goal in your mind. You had to get away from him. The lump in your throat became suffocating and tears peeked at the corners of your eyes. Your face felt hot but the hairs on your arms prickled and in that moment you wished you had had enough sense to grab your phone or a jacket on the way out. You walked aimlessly down the road, staring up at the dusty sky, willing your tears to suck back in so the passersby with their dogs would stop looking at you. You replayed his words in your head and saw his constant disapproving face, wondering what had happened to that soft and kind brother that had taken you for lunch those weeks ago. Your brother had always been a bit criticising, but never this cruel. You felt the sudden urge to hurt him, the need to see his face in shock, for once unable to predict you. But how? He had always been the stronger one, the smarter one, always two steps ahead.

You found yourself outside the dance practise building the boys often visited after hours. The lights were still on so you let yourself in, shivering and rubbing your arms. You wandered down the hallway, looking in each of the little square windows when you noticed a familiar brunette in a practise room by himself, music blaring. You slipped past the door and sat on the couch to watch Wooyoung dance, still oblivious to your presence. You had never seen him like this before; wearing a tank top and grey sweatpants, leg muscles straining against the fabric. You watched wide eyed as the bass of the music surged through your chest, playing your heart like a drum, captivated by his lunges that shook the floorboards, the intricate patterns he drew with his body and facial expressions that made you feel all kinds of things in your lower half. He almost jumped out of his skin when he noticed you.

“Fuck Y/N!” He said, running to pause the music on his phone. “You scared me half to death”

“I’m sorry. I just saw you dancing and I…” you trailed off, acutely aware of how flustered and tearful you must still look, trying to hide your face with your hair.

The smile on his face fell as he approached you.

“What happened? Are you ok?” He dipped his head to look into your eyes, softly touching your shoulders, so close you could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Was it Seonghwa again? I swear to god if he’s been on at you again I’ll…” he paused and reconsidered. “I mean I probably won’t do anything…but I will if you want me to”

“I really don’t want to talk about it”

Wooyoung wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close to his chest. He smelt like sweat and deodorant which you inhaled deeply, leaning into his embrace.

“Do you want to get some food?” He asked, stroking your hair.

“No, I’m not hungry.”

“What do you want to do?”

A momentary idea popped into your head. “Could you teach me to dance?”

Wooyoung pulled away far enough to look at your face, a hint of concern and uncertainty in his eyes.

“To dance?”

“It would take my mind off things…teach me the part you were practising”

He laughed nervously but when he saw you were serious, he nodded. You followed him to the middle of the dance floor and he stood just in front of you, legs in a wide stance.

“Okay, so first you go like this…”

Wooyoung showed you sequence and then broke it down into steps. You were shaky at first, but with his help you started to get it, dancing the choreography almost to speed once he turned the music on. You quickly forgot the fight, laughing whenever you got it wrong and Wooyoung playfully yelled at you for not listening to him.

“You’re not low enough. Squat lower! Yes like that. Now thrust your hips. More. Make it bigger. You’re still not doing it right!”

Wooyoung ran over to pause the music and you sighed loudly.

“The hip thrusts are embarrassing” you whined, fanning your hot skin with your hands.

“They are not. Confidence is sexy. You are sexy. Now come on, your form isn’t right”

You caught your breath as he came behind you and ran his fingertips lightly down your sides before settling them on your hips. You felt your body stiffen and skin prickle in anticipation, desperate for him to either slide his hands lower or to put a metre of distance between you.

He did neither, instead putting pressure on the juncture of your thighs to make you squat lower and lean slightly right, his chest flush against your back, sweaty shirt pressing against you. You could feel his hair tickling your neck as his hands slid down your arms to grab your hands and raise them above your head. It took everything you had to stop your thighs from shaking, body completely new to such a low squat position. You didn’t dare move as he analysed you in the mirror, brushing a strand of hair out of your face.

“Just like that” he said dryly as his hands came back to rest on your waist, dark eyes fixed on yours, unconsciously licking his bottom lip

You looked away, at anything other than his intense stare. Were you reading this right? Or did all dancers guide each other with such alluring invasion of personal space? His body shifted and you felt the light press of his bulge against your ass, shattering any notions that this was a normal dance lesson. His breath fanned your shoulder and you thought you should move away, pull his hands off of you, tell him off, anything to remove yourself from the precipice of turning your relationship into something else.

But your hips took a mind of their own and you felt yourself gently grind back against him, drawing an involuntary groan from deep in his throat. You craned your neck to look at him over your shoulder, frozen in the painful squat your mind paid no more attention to. Time stood still as his gaze flicked to your parted lips and you slightly inclined your head in a permissive nod. Before you realised you had moved, he had flipped you around and pressed you hard up against the mirror, licking into your mouth and hands roaming over every inch of your clothed chest. His hips bucked against yours and you reached down to the outside of his sweatpants to palm him, drawing a another long groan from him against your lips.

“Please don’t stop” he panted, planting breathy kisses along your jaw to your collarbone, pausing to inhale your scent and pulling down your t-shirt collar to grant him further access to your skin.

“Can I…” he started to ask, but his hands were way ahead of him, travelling up your shirt, kneading your breasts through the fabric of your bra, forehead pressed into the crux of your neck.

You fingers played on the edge of his pants as you briefly questioned yourself again before diving down to take hold of his hot length, earning a simultaneous groan from both of you. You held tightly but didn’t move, causing him to shamelessly buck up into your hand, his touch abandoning your chest in search of your core, which at this point was embarrassingly wet.

You knew there would be no going back the moment his hand slid down the front of your panties. His middle finger swiped up your slit, flooding warmth into you and you instinctively clenched your walls to feel some friction.

“Holy shit” he breathed, mostly to himself as he inched two fingers deep inside you to curl against your spot, causing you to shudder helplessly beneath him. You were insatiable, weeks of pent up curiosity, fantasises and late night masturbation in the shower caused by living in a house of 7 gorgeous men. It was wrong, it was forbidden and you were intent on riding it straight to hell.

“Please fuck me Wooyoung” you whimpered to the ceiling, shaking at the intensity of which he fingered you, tongue pressing into your neck, drinking you in.

He growled into your skin and captured your lips again with both hands holding your face, the fingers which he had just had inside of you rubbing your own juices on your cheek. You suppressed a laugh at his eagerness and pulled his sweatpants down to his thighs as he pulled your shirt over your head, unclasping your bra and burying his head between your breasts, sucking and grabbing at your flesh.

“Fuck I want you so bad” he said, muffled into your nipple, pulling it between his teeth.

In the space of a breath, he hoisted your leg onto his hip, bunched your skirt up around your waist, pulled your panties to the side and entered you in one swift motion that had you both gasping out.

Time stopped again as he bottomed out, pausing with his forehead pushed against yours, inhaling deeply, fingers digging into your thigh. Your walls were screaming with the sudden stretch and you suppressed a painful sound when he tentatively pulled all the way out and pressed back in. You wrapped your arms around his neck to keep yourself upright and balanced on your one standing leg. He tested a few more erratic thrusts and the pain began to mix with pleasure and an overwhelming desire to be pounded into the mirror but Wooyoung paused his movements.

“I don’t know if I can control myself” he mumbled with shuddering breaths, hair hanging in his eyes.

“Then don’t”

He snaked his arm around the small of your back and jerked your hips closer to his, your head leaning on back the mirror like a rag doll in his hold. He drew his cock back again and you felt every ridge of him before he thrust up into you, setting a bruising pace that made you gasp for air.

“Fuck, I’ve imagined this so many times” he kissed below your ear, bouncing your body with every thrust and your hands fell back flat onto the mirror to hold on for dear life. “You walking around the dorm in your cute sundresses like you don’t know what you do to me.”

Pleasure started to rise from your core to your stomach and you wrapped your leg tighter around his hips, chasing the promise of your release. You leaned back in to capture his lips in a kiss, deeper than you had all night. He held you in that kiss until the pleasure became too much and you had to pull away, sucking in a desperate breath.

“God you’re so fucking perfect. Tell me-ugh…tell me how good it feels”

You moan as the pressure builds, pleasure sparking in multiple directions, but the pain of your wobbly standing leg starts to pull you away. As if reading your mind, Wooyoung pulls out and turns you to face the mirror, spreading your legs with his feet and pulling your hips back onto his cock. You cry out as he reaches deep inside you, igniting a fire as your walls clamp down on him and your hand automatically drops to rub your clit.

“I’m not going to last” he says, inhaling your hair. “Are you close?”

You moan again as if that is a response and rub your clit faster, knowing your release was within reach, just over that figurative hill, if he could just…

“There, a-ah fuck Y/N, I’m there. God-fucking-yesyesyes”

Wooyoung stands on his toes, boosting the angle of his cock to rub directly on your back wall and pound erratically into your spot. Like the crack of a whip, you inhale suddenly, almost choking on air as he hurtles you towards your orgasm, cock twitching as he cums deep inside you.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop” you pleaded, reaching back to hold the back of his thighs in case he dared to pull away from you or reduce his blinding pace.

Your torso was almost completely horizontal now, back arching, thrusting yourself back onto his cock, his cum dripping down your thighs. Your release hit you like a series of waves breaking, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open in a silent scream as your walls convulsed erratically, spreading a wet warmth throughout your core. Wooyoung continued to pound you, fingers coming down to press on your own, rubbing harder into your clit.

Riding you down from heaven, stars and colours swirling behind your eyes, Wooyoung began to slow. Your knees gave way and you threw your hands out in front of you to stop yourself hitting the wooden floor too hard. Wooyoung wrapped his arms around your stomach and dropped to his knees with you in an attempt to keep his softening cock buried inside of you. His chest heaved against your back but you were both quiet, letting the sound of the squeaky fan and creaks of the building fill the silence.

“Fuck, Y/N I should have asked if I could come in you”

“It’s fine, I’m on the pill”

“Even so” he mumbled, pressing a kiss between your shoulder blades and slowly removing himself from you.

You remained awkwardly on your hands and knees, panting at the floor as your senses returned and the reality of what you had done clicked from blurry to sharp in your mind. Wooyoung handed you a towel and you wiped the cum from your thighs, gazing in disbelief up at your smudged handprints on the mirror. Wooyoung was speaking, possibly to you, but you couldn’t focus on his words, caught in a state of ecstasy that wasn’t just post orgasm bliss. As you both got dressed, he tried to catch your gaze, but you barely noticed him, focused on the incredible feeling rising in your chest.

“Hey-where are you going?”

You were halfway out the door when you turned to look at him and forced a smile.

“I have to go back”

You left Wooyoung dumbfounded behind you, revelling in the complete elation of having just done something that would make Seonghwa burst a blood vessel if he knew. You emerged into the night air again, cold wind soothing your red, sweaty face. You felt bulletproof, like there was nothing more Seonghwa could hold over you. Not when you had such an ultimate secret over him.

You heard low voices when you reached the dorm and opened the door to find Hongjoong and Seonghwa sitting at the table, several empty bottles of Soju between them. Something about the way your brother looked at you, eyes glazed over and swaying slightly, told you that the drinking had been one sided.

“There you…I was so…worry” Seonghwa mumbled, standing up to give you a hug though he ended up almost pushing you over and Hongjoong had to step in and hold him up.

“It’s ok, I’m fine” you said, patting him on the back and mouthing a thank you to Hongjoong, who shrugged a smile. You looked up at your brothers’ flushed and puffy face and in this moment you pitied him, a pang of guilt stabbing you somewhere in the gut.

“I wish I…I shouldn’t have-“ he started but you cut him off.

“Let’s get you to bed”

It was a short but slow stumble from the kitchen to your shared room.

“I’m such a screw up” Seonghwa whined, head lolling backwards before you and Hongjoong dropped him on his bed.

“Go to sleep now” you said, smiling to yourself at your brothers complete inability to hold his liquor.

“You’re my sister and I…always…” he trailed off, squeezing your hand, eyes fluttering shut. Hongjoong turned off the light, leaving you sitting on top of Seonghwas quilt in the dark room, listening to his breathing as he started to drift off. You bit your bottom lip, wondering if maybe you had gone too far with Wooyoung tonight.

But your guilt was fleeting as the next morning, a hungover and humiliated Seonghwa berated you over breakfast for leaving the house without your phone.

“What the hell is wrong with you Y/N? What if something had happened to you? It just baffles me how you can be so damn stupid sometimes”

You sat at the table, staring ahead and calmly eating your cereal as he brought up more reasons and memories where you had been what he considered irresponsible. But you didn’t take the bait this time. You felt above that now, addicted to the power of what Seonghwa didn’t know, of how Wooyoung had melted at your touch, and how mere centimetres from your brothers disapproving face, you plotted your next pursuit.

[otterandterrierwrites]

{Hungry hearts} XI. Chowder and fortune cookies

A/N: Hungry Hearts is back! This is my loose interpretation of the March prompt at @hanleiachallenge​: luck. It’s set during the EU novel Razor's Edge by Martha Wells, one of my favourites. I’ve always wanted to write something set in this little getaway. I'm thinking there might be one more chapter set on Hoth before ESB, then we'd move to the trip to Bespin very briefly and then jump to post RotJ, but I'm open to suggestions!

also on Ao3 // FFN

***

From the main hold, Chewie growled that there was food now but there wouldn't be for much longer so everyone better hurried up. Han rolled his eyes at the threat as he wiped the worst of the grime off his hands and face before taking a quick detour to the 'fresher. Like the big fuzzball would ever let the princess starve.

He ran into Her Worship herself on his way out of the cabin as she waited for her turn to wash her hands, Threepio tottering behind her. Thankfully, the usually oblivious droid marched on.

'Excited to see what he brought this time?' Han asked, dawdling by the open hatch.

'So far, yes,' Leia said from the 'fresher, 'although I'm a bit concerned he might start to push it soon, you know? Raise the stakes?'

'Oh yeah, I hear ya. That's definitely a concern.'

She raised an eyebrow as she joined him back in the corridor. 'Thanks, that makes me feel better.'

'Well, hey, he's never fed me anything I couldn't keep down,' he reassured her.

'Has anyone ever told you you're possibly the worst motivational speaker in the galaxy?'

The smell that greeted them as they gathered around the Dejarik table told them that, once again, Chewie had hit the mark.

They had taken a short time away from the hustle and bustle of the Rebel Alliance's fleet, hoping that the crew of the Aegis —a gunship of surviving Alderaanians who had turned to piracy after the planet's destruction—would rendezvous with them to join the cause. Two days ago, the Millennium Falcon had landed on a small trading port in Wroona, one of the Alliance's message drop points, and waited.

Han was very much okay with that. After the craziness of their last mission—nearly blown to space dust by Imperials, fighting a killer mining droid, being captured by a sadistic Lorddian pirate, nearly blown to space dust by the Imps again , all in the span of a couple days—he thought a vacation was long overdue. They couldn't go out sightseeing, or motosurfing, but he was happy to just spend some time not being shot at. Leia had probably figured that out when she'd asked him and Chewie to come with her. That, and the fact that they didn't have any duties lined up, since they were not part of the Alliance.

Chewie had taken out three round styrofoam containers out of a bag and set them on the small checkered table.

'[I hope you like Wroonian seafood chowder,]' he told them as Han and Leia slid onto the bench. '[You can go get food yourselves next time if you don't.]'

The creamy broth had chunks of frella fish and shucked nyorks with diced vegetables, and it was so delicious that nobody was in any hurry to relieve the Wookiee of his food-picking duties.

'Gotta love sea ports,' Han commented between mouthfuls. 'It could be the poorest, murkiest place, but they'll know their seafood.'

'[Oh yeah? Here I thought you would never forget about Venonduri,]' Chewie said with a titter, making Han moan with chagrin.

'What happened?' Leia asked, looking between the two friends.

'Not a story you wanna hear at lunch, Princess, trust me.'

Leia made a face. 'Oh. Got it.'

'But Princess Leia, perhaps it would be useful to know more about Venonduri!' Threepio chimed in. 'What if we visit it in the future?'

'We'll just refrain from ordering any seafood, Threepio,' Leia told him seriously, making Han and Chewie laugh.

Leia seemed to be in good spirits so far, but Han wondered how much that would last if the Aegis failed to show up today again. He knew she would act like it was no big deal in front of everyone else, but it'd be eating at her inside that she had personally failed to sway them over to her cause. Han was good at being the subject of Leia's disappointment in that department.

At least they had come to an unspoken truce after their trip to Odona, although that was another thing Han didn't know for how long it would hold. That mission, just the two of them scouting the planet's unpredictable polar continent as a potential new base, had also been kind of a mess. Not only had that one featured multi-eyed monsters and old acquaintances with a grudge, but Odona had turned out to be non-viable for the base. Also, he and Leia had snapped at each other most of the time. That wasn't anything new; they had been snapping at each other since the moment they had met—but then, for a while, they hadn't, or not as seriously and constantly, at least, and it had been nice. Then they started doing it again, but things were different from what it had been like in the beginning, and their fights took longer to digest, and while they did, they corroded Han's insides a bit, like acid. It wasn't like he set out to fight with her, either, but that's where they seemed to land anyway.

Han knew where this ended if they chose the alternative to fighting. He'd been there a couple of times, and sworn he never would again.

'We certainly don't get much fresh fish these days,' Leia said with a sigh then, dabbing her mouth with a paper napkin.

'We can get some before we go,' Han offered. 'It'll keep for one meal at least, for when we get back.'

'Oh, I could ask but I don't think they will clear an expense like that. Fresh fish for the whole fleet… that's not going to be cheap.'

Han frowned. Who said anything about fish for the fleet?

'Right. I wasn't—never mind. Fish ain't that expensive here, Princess, especially if you buy in bulk. Wouldn't hurt to ask.'

After lunch, Leia went back to her work followed by Threepio, Chewie to his tinkering (he always found something to "improve" on the Falcon ), and Han decided it was a good time to delete outdated and damaged files in the ship's navicomputer, a task he always thought he should do one day but never really wanted to. An hour later, he was bored out of his mind.

Getting up from his chair, he stretched his arms up with a groan. He took the long way back to the main hold, peeking into the crew quarters as he passed by. No sign of Leia there. She was not working in the communal area, either, but he did find C-3PO uttering suggestions nobody had asked for. That was weird: Leia had brought him along to help her with work and kept the droid with her at all times. Even though Han knew she grew tired of his constant chatter sometimes, she had promised him and Chewbacca that Threepio wouldn't get in their way.

As Han walked in, he caught the droid jumping back as Chewie roared in annoyance from inside a maintenance hatch.

'Oh dear, there is no need to get so worked up, Chewbacca,' Threepio said. 'I was merely saying—'

'Goldenrod,' Han interrupted, 'd'you know where's Leia?'

'Why, yes. The Princess said she was going out to get some fresh air.'

Alarms set off in Han's brain. 'Outside?'

'That is correct. She said not to worry, she would stay quite close to the freighter.'

'Yeah, alright. Better go check on her anyway.' Thinking it would be better for all if he kept his friend from tearing off the droid's arms during this trip, Han said, 'Are you any good with computers, Goldenrod?'

He didn't have to worry: Leia was sitting on the dock just outside the Falcon , the pant legs of her jumpsuit rolled up as she dipped her feet in the water. She was leaning back on her elbows, basking in the sun, and when Han walked closer, he realized she had her eyes shut and a peaceful look on her face. Despite himself, his stomach felt as if he'd skipped a step, and for a moment he just stood there, staring at Leia.

She rarely looked that relaxed and content, seemingly free of worries, of pain. Anyone who walked by could have mistaken her for a regular crew member, catching a bit of sunlight before rocketing back to the stars and to the next port. Not a princess. Not a survivor, an enemy of the Empire, a rebel leader. Just a young woman enjoying the sea.

She deserves this , Han thought, even though he generally didn't think much about who deserved what because he knew the galaxy didn't work that way. What he could do was grant her the solitude she had sought out, though, so he stepped back. He didn't think a single board had creaked under his boots, but it wasn't the first time Leia's hearing appeared to be better than most humans. She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.

'Is everything okay?' she asked, sitting up straight. Han knew what she was hoping to hear.

'Yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to get in your way.'

'You're not,' Leia told him. Her shoulders sagged a little before she leaned back and closed her eyes again. 'Come here and take your boots off, the water is so lovely.'

'Uh, if you're sure.'

Boots and socks were ditched, and Han joined Leia on the dock, pulling up his trousers. The coolness of the water felt wonderful on his bare feet; it was no wonder it had been enough to make Leia at ease.

'Oh hey, Chewie got us these,' he said, suddenly remembering. From one of his vest pockets, he took out two crisp-looking cookies and handed one to Leia. She gave the treat a small, delighted smile.

'Fortune cookies. I haven't had one of these in years.' She took the wrapper off the folded wafer and tucked it in her pocket, then looked expectantly at Han. 'Go on, let's crack it together.'

Han held the cookie between his thumb and index fingers and broke it, catching the crumbs in his other hand. He pulled out a thin strip of flimsi from the wreckage. As he cleared his throat, Leia cried, 'Wait, wait!' and covered his fortune with her hand.

'I'll read yours and you read mine,' she said at his confused look. Han had never heard of people doing it that way, but he swapped with her. Leia nodded for him to go on.

'"You will take a pleasant journey to a place far away",' Han read. He looked at the view around them, then raised his eyebrows at Leia. 'I think this prediction came a little late.'

'Maybe it's talking about my upcoming expedition to Hoth.'

'Oh no. Please tell me you're jokin', Princess,' Han begged.

'Better start airing those warm layers, flyboy. Okay, now yours.' Leia cleared her throat and squared her shoulders, looking at him for a few seconds with a pretend air of wisdom. '"You may want to run, but you should stay and fight."'

There was a pause.

'What?' Han watched her face, and caught her tell: a subtle flaring of her nostrils that meant she was bluffing. He narrowed his eyes at her. 'That what it says, huh?'

He dove to wrest the strip of flimsi out of Leia's hand; she shrieked and pushed a hand against his chest, and they struggled for several seconds until Leia gave it up. She laughed, her cheeks red from the effort. The last time she had blushed that badly, they had been crammed in the Aegis ' refresher, the only place that had been private enough for them to discuss sensitive information. He hadn't been very relaxed, either, as the warmth of their bodies had made the tiny hiding place suffocating. In spite of the uncertainty and danger of their situation, it had been near impossible not to follow the trail of a drop of perspiration down her collar, the movement of her lips as she talked, the curve of her falling braid as it fell on her shoulder. He had been nearly jumping out of his skin with the increasing need to kiss her, to touch her.

Realizing he had been staring at her for too long, he looked away as Leia brushed some wisps of hair behind her ear, and read his fortune aloud.

'"Enjoy yourself while you can".' Han frowned and looked at Leia again. 'That sounds like a threat.'

She shrugged, popping a piece of cookie into her mouth.

'Should have stuck with mine.'

'Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't ya?' Han muttered. He picked apart his wafer, the tiny printed messages still clutched in one hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Leia finished the rest of hers, swinging her feet in the clear water.

It had been three years since a farmboy and an old wizard had hired him for discrete passage to Alderaan. Where would he be now if he hadn't taken that gig? Dead, if he hadn't managed to get anything else to pay off his debt. Even if he had, Jabba would have dropped him anyway, as he was not in the way of giving second chances. Then he would have looked for jobs somewhere else, gone back to his old haunts. Made new friends that he wouldn't trust as far as he could throw them. Found someone to warm his bed at night, someone who wouldn't care that he didn't care one way or another to overthrow the Empire. He could have kept doing what he had been doing for the rest of his life.

But he had met Luke, and he had met Leia, and no matter how hard he'd tried—although, if he was honest with himself, which he wasn't, he had not even tried that hard to forget about them and leave them behind. And he didn't exactly hate the Rebellion—the pay was basically nothing, there were people who didn't like him much, and as the latest mission had proved, it wasn't free of backstabbers—but he had to admit it felt good to stick it to the Empire. It gave him a purpose like he hadn't had in a long time.

Mothma had offered him a colonelship some time ago. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to quit the games and take it. He'd have to ask Chewie before he made any decisions, but he knew how that conversation would go.

It would be one hell of a peace treaty, for him and Leia. It would be one more gamble.

For now, Han lay back on the dock and closed his eyes, soaking in the sun's warmth. He would enjoy himself, while he could.

[searchingforstarss]

irondad prompt: accidental poisoning, peter whump? pleeease? love your writing! hope you enjoy your time away!

hi lovely anon!! this took me a little longer to do because it kind of got away from me and turned out a lot longer than i was thinking! i hope you like it because it’s not as whumpy as i originally intended but as soon as i saw accidental poisoning i couldn’t get this idea out of my head so here you go. i hope you enjoy :)) x

---

Morgan’s gleeful yells are the first thing Peter’s greeted to when he arrives at the lake house on a Friday afternoon.

“Peter’s here! Peter’s here! I can hear him!”

The six-year-old barrels through the living room and out onto the front porch, excitement practically radiating off her in waves.

No matter how many times they try to explain to her that it simply isn’t feasible for Peter to stay with them any more than two nights a week because he has school in the city, she whines about how long he’s been away whenever he arrives, without fail. Today is no different.

“You’re not allowed to stay away for that long anymore, I miss you too much,” she declares. “Daddy can’t do the right voices when he reads Harry Potter to me either. You’re wayy better.”

Petter grins broadly down at her, about to open his mouth to greet her properly, ask about her week at school and whether she learnt how to do fraction multiplication like she had excitedly told him that she was going to during their Wednesday night phone call. He can’t even get a word in edgeways though because before he can, Morgan is babbling on again in her same gleeful tone that Peter adores.

“I have a surprise for you!” she announces proudly, tugging him up the creaky porch steps with her smaller hand tucked inside his.

“Whoa, that’s cool. What is it?” Peter asks. He tries to hide the apprehension from his tone, because Morgan’s surprises always swing one of two ways.

He’ll either end up trying to pretend he isn’t choking up when she presents him with a hand drawn-picture and note or craft project that she made at school during their art hour. Or, he’ll end up as a victim to one of her latest ideas, experiments and schemes. Last week it was her determination to teach Peter how to roller-skate on the cul-de-sac a few blocks over, which ended in Morgan clumsily pressing an excess number of band-aids onto his scraped knees. The month before he ended up as a human canvas to entertain her desire to learn how to face paint (that was all-around just as much of a disaster as it sounds like it would be).

“You can’t know what it is, silly!” Morgan sing-songs, “you’ll ruin the surprise.”

“Silly me, of course,” Peter deadpans, but he’s ignored as she tugs him through to the kitchen as soon as he’s dumped his backpack on the couch.

“Surprise!” she exclaims as soon as they’re both in the room. She guestures excitedly towards a few slightly sad looking lumps of something drenched in icing and severed onto sticks. There are sprinkles as well, which look like they might have been a nice touch to cheer the entire thing up, had the majority of them not ended up scattered around the surrounding bench space.

“Daddy and I made cookie pops! Well, I made them, he just helped me use the big scary whisk-y thingy. They’re for Katie’s birthday party tomorrow because we all have to bring something yummy to eat, and Daddy wanted to do regular cookies but I told him that was boring. So we made these instead!”

“They look great, well done you guys,” Peter praises. Secretly, he’s almost certain that Tony was onto something with his suggestion. Cookies would have definitely been the safer option.

“I want you to try one! I saved the first one for you because I’m the best sister in the whole wide world.”

Peter eyes the pink ball of cookie dough being waved in his face dubiously, but Morgan’s creations often look worse than they actually are so he bites the bullet and accepts the treat that she’s thrusting towards him.

He takes a bite, partly because he’s being watched expectantly by large brown eyes and partly because he’s absolutely starving. He’s had a long day. Decathlon practice in the morning, AP classes back to back all afternoon and then the drive up here. Plus, he really wasn’t planning on Spider-Manning today, but there was a gas station robbery on the side of Interstate 87 that he pulled over to break up on his way because the man was threatening the poor guy behind the counter with a gun for a raspberry slushie, a hot dog and two packets of cigarettes and Peter had to intervene because that was just stupid on so, so many levels.

The shopkeeper gave him a free hot dog in return which he gladly scarfed down before he disappeared back out to his car, but that’s all he’s eaten since lunch. So as he chews Morgan’s baked concoction, he figures that the cookie dough is crumbly, sure, and maybe they went a little heavy with the icing sugar in the icing but Peter is so hungry that he thinks anything would probably taste good to him at this point.

Footsteps thud down the stairs, and Peter hears Tony’s voice before he sees him.

“Morgan, I swear if you’re force-feeding Peter. Your dear old brother doesn’t want any of our atrocious attempt at baking-“

Tony rounds the corner, eyes falling on Peter, mouth full of icing and cookie dough.

“Oh, I’m too late. Great.”

“Hey, Tony.”

“Hiya, Pete. Enjoying your snack?”

Peter carries on chewing on the food his mouth. “Mhmm. Definitely. Good job you guys.”

Tony shakes his head. “Nuh-uh, not a good job, not at all. I just got off the phone with Pepper, turns out you actually have to partially bake the cookie dough first. It honestly just seems like a lot of extra work if you ask me, but she’s the boss.”

“You’re starting again?” Peter asks.

“Yep, and since you’re here you can actually make yourself useful,” Tony snarks but there’s a fond smile on his face. Peter nods willingly. “Don’t just stand there then, kid. Grab the flour from the cupboard would you?”

Peter grins and turns to grab the flour like Tony requested. He doesn’t even have to think about it anymore, he knows exactly which shelf to reach for with the same sort of instinct that he has in his and May’s apartment.

(Even with all three of their hands on deck, the second round of cookie pops only end up looking mildly more appetizing than the first, but at least all of Morgan’s tiny friends won’t have uncooked, crumbly cookie dough forced on them so Tony claims it as a win - he’s never had the patience to deal with other kids’ whining parents anyway.)

---

Peter sleeps in the next morning, and the house is silent when he wakes. The first thing he notices is the way he’s shivering, even in the balmy morning sun streaming through his windows. There’s nausea as well, constantly threatening to make its way up his throat as it sits at the bottom of his stomach, churning and rolling uncomfortably,

The second thing he notices is a note sitting on his bedside table as he fumbles out one arm to grab his phone and check the time. Peter recognises Tony’s scrawl immediately.

Morning, sleepyhead. Gone to drop Morgan off to her party. Be home soon. T

He’s content to lie there for a while and wallow in his own misery and how dreadful he feels while he’s all alone in the house until his stomach lurches violently and he’s hauling himself out of bed, sweaty covers pooling around his feet. The room around him is spinning, but the singular thought occupying his hazy mind is get to the bathroom, Parker. Just make it to the damn bathroom.

He does, even though his legs are shaky underneath him, and he just manages to stumble through the open doorway of the bathroom and drop to his knees in front of the toilet. He doesn’t even register the pain that shoots through his knees and up his legs as he slams into the tile.

A charming mix of gas station hot dog, Morgan and Tony’s tragic attempt at a cookie pop and the lasagna Tony made for dinner last night ends up swimming at the bottom of the toilet bowl.

Gross.

“Peter?”

That’s his name. It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere down near his bedroom. He tries to call back, but acid coats his raw throat and he can’t seem to get the words out. He retches again, before dipping forward to lean up against the ceramic of the toilet.

“Peter, oh, there you are-” Tony begins, but he drops off as Peter sees him appear around the corner of the bathroom door and take in the scene in front of him. “What’s going on?”

He blinks up at Tony through cloudy eyes.

“Think ‘m sick.”

“I thought you couldn’t even get sick?”

Peter tries to give a coherent answer, he thinks, but all that comes out is a whine. He looks up at Tony, eyes pleading. He’s not sure what he’s asking for, really. He just wants someone to make it better.

“Okay, okay, got it. That’s not really the point right now.”

Peter isn’t quite sure what he’s expecting as Tony hovers around the doorway. He wants comfort, he wants Tony, but he doesn’t dare to move far from the toilet.

“Oh, shit. Kid, you actually ate that garbage attempt of baking that Morgan gave you yesterday, didn’t you? There was raw egg in that.”

Peter just nods feebly, not entirely listening. His head is head still resting on the toilet seat. He doesn’t have the energy to lift it.

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but maybe Spidey is just as susceptible to food poisoning as the rest of us.”

Peter’s certainly listening now, his glazed eyes shooting open. Weak displeasure simmers within them.

“You poisoned me?”

Morgan’s surprise has now definitely landed on the bad side this week, leaning towards absolutely-fucking-awful.

“Technically, Morgan poisoned you. I just operated all the heavy machinery,” Tony says. Peter glares at him, but it’s so pathetic that Tony’s own stomach clenches in sympathy.

“You’re the adult-” Peter points out, feeble indignation in his voice before he cuts himself off with another round of heaving.

“Oh, Pete,” Tony sighs, stepping further into the bathroom at the sight. He lowers himself to the floor right next to Peter. A warm hand finds his back, rubbing in slow circles right at the base. A fraction of the tension leaves Peter’s body.

“You’re alright, bud” Tony soothes. His voice is gentle and calming, and Peter lets it wash over him. He’s always loved just listening to Tony talk. “You’ll feel so much better once it’s all back up.”

Peter finds that hard to believe because caught right in the throes of pain, shivering and feeling like a total and utter mess, he struggles to remember a time when he wasn’t wholly consumed by Morgan’s attempt to poison him.

There’s nothing left for Peter to bring up eventually, and he’s left gasping for air.

“Think you’re done?”

Peter nods, stomach still clenching painfully. He shoves himself away from the toilet, legs giving way underneath him as he slumps into a pile of shaky, sweaty limbs against the bathroom counter. This doesn’t seem to faze Tony though, and Peter watches through bleary eyes as he goes into Dad Mode. It all fades in and out in front of him, but he registers the corners of his mouth being wipes gently with a warm washcloth, the hair being brushes back from his sweaty forehead, a cool glass of water being tipped down his throat.

It was because of moments like this that after the snap, it took Peter a while to correlate his Tony with Morgan’s Tony.

His Tony had only ever cared from afar and he usually shied away from physical affection and comfort unless either of them were on their deathbeds. They always loved each other, but it was sort of a given. An undeniable fact with little physical expression. Now though? Morgan’s Tony tucks her into bed at night and smoothes kisses into her hair and lets her curl into his lap during lazy evenings on the couch with absolutely no reservations or qualms. He tells her he loves her at least five times a day.

It then took Peter even longer to realise that Morgan’s Tony wasn’t exclusively hers. He’s just Tony, softened around the edges a little with parenthood and settling down, but he’s Peter’s as well, still.

That’s evident in the way that instead of leaving Peter to his own devices once he’s taken care of him and cleaned up his mess, Tony just leads him gently downstairs instead, a warm solid hand wrapped around his forearm to make sure he doesn’t stumble forward and end up on his face.

Tony lies him down on the couch, before taking a seat himself. He lets Peter pillow himself against him, head buried into the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Tony’s hands trail along their time-worn path in Peter’s hair, the action almost second nature.

“I’m never eating anything you make me ever again, I swear,” Peter mumbles into Tony’s chest. His words are quiet, scraping against the rawness of his throat but Tony hears him loud and clear. He chuckles.

“Fair enough, buddy.”

---

Peter’s nap is only interrupted when Morgan bursts into the room sometime in the afternoon. He blinks slowly from where he’s resting against Tony’s chest, head tucked up against his collarbone.

Morgan has a goody bag clutched in her grip and a few flyaway pink streamers caught in her hair. She beelines for the couch.

“Petey, Mommy said that I need to apologise for poisoning you!”

Peter feels a deep rumble in Tony’s chest as he attempts to stifle a laugh. He can’t quite muster up the energy (and he’s far too comfortable anyway) to get up from his position resting against Tony to hug Morgan, so he just gives her the warmest smile he can manage.

“It’s okay, bug, I know you didn’t mean to. I forgive you.”

She beams up at him. “There was one cookie pop left so I saved it for you, see?” she says, rattling her goody bag around, which Peter presumes contains the cursed treat. “They’re really good, I promise!”

Peter’s stomach churns again at the thought.

“That’s really nice of you, Mo, but I think I might give cookies a miss for a while.”

[mothercareguide]

How do you lose weight in 2 weeks?

A lot of people struggle with losing weight and just can’t find the right path to follow for their weight loss journey. But what if I tell you how to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks. It almost seems impossible right?

Losing weight not only is going to boost your confidence, but it will also help you stay healthy and make you live longer.

Here are simple tips and tricks on how to lose weight: We all know that our day starts in the morning, but so does your weight loss journey:

1) First thing to do when you wake up is to consume some warm water with lemon juice. It will boost your metabolism and aid in faster weight loss.

2) Eat at least 5 times a day! I know allot of people think that eating fewer meals will help you lose weight, but that is all wrong. If you eat small portions throughout the day, it will help your body to take good nutrients from food and reject bad ones.

3) Another simple trick to lose weight is to drink loads of water every day. And if you don’t like the taste of bare water, you can always squeeze some lemon juice in it. This will also help you get closer to lose 20 pounds.

4) Cut out on the carbs! Your bodies need carbohydrates to survive but only good ones, not chocolate or hamburgers. Fat and grease from these foods sticks to your body and doesn’t leave for a long time. Soon they gather in layers and you start gaining weight.

If you really want to dedicate yourself to weight loss, you can follow these simple ways on how to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks:

5) Drink apple cider vinegar on an empty stomach. This simple fluid will boost your metabolism and fill your stomach like crazy, you don’t ever need to be afraid of not losing weight ever again.

6) Drink green tea after every meal. This tasty tea will help you in achieving your goal in less than a month. It also has other great nutrients that will help you in maintenance of your health.

7) Run before your first meal. This is very important because it boosts your energy and it is also a more effective way of burning calories.

8) Replace one meal with fruits.

9) Eat healthy carbohydrates. Carbs like nuts or avocado are great for weight loss.

10) Drink water while eating If you drink water while eating a delicious slice of pizza, it is proven that eventually, you’ll get bored of it and stop eating.

11) Don’t stay calm for your metabolism to work at its best, you should be in movement constantly.

12) Make your own food If someone else makes your dinner it is more likely that you are going to eat it all.

13) Stop making excuses Don’t think you can make excuse for eating unhealthy or not exercising. It will all stop you from achieving your goal. Mistakes happen, but you should never stop.

14) Motivation: Lastly, the most important thing is to be motivated through entire weight loss journey. Find some inspirational quotes or pictures to keep you motivated. But remember you, yourself should be your biggest motivation.

15) Avoid fat burners and any kinds of steroids, They might bring you immediate effect but can surely cause you long time consequences.

16) Your breakfast should be heavy, lunch a little bit less and the dinner should be the lightest. Night time is for sleep and because there is no physical activity at rest time, so the dinner should be light.

Related: Here is a free video with a 2 week diet plan to help you lose weight in 2 weeks.

17) Consume oats. They are rich in fiber and favor fat loss.

18) Avoid egg yolks and stuff like butter, ghee, fast foods, etc.

19) Consider exercise, if you go to the gym, you can go for sit-ups, ab crunches, squats, deadlifts, etc. for losing weight, especially your belly fat. And if you are not a student in the gym, you can go for crunches and sit-ups along with the plank exercise, some running, some jumping, etc.

Summarizing all these, the important point to note is that you should try to give at least an hour of exercise daily to lose weight quickly and safely.

Here are some diet and exercise tips to make you stay on track

Diet:

20) Have 1 cheat meal per week. You are not going to gain all weight back if you eat 1 cheat meal per week. It is just going to remind you that there is something waiting for you.

21) Ginger is amazing for weight loss, and you can drink it as an ingredient in your daily cup of tea or even slice it into a fruit salad.

22) Replace snacks with nuts as the are a tasty alternative for all those unhealthy snacks that you are used to eating. They fill you up quickly and have loads of healthy benefits.

23) Don’t starve yourself, if you don’t eat anything for some period of time, your body will go into starvation mode and once you start eating normally you will gain all the weight back again.

Exercise:

24) Cardio has always been known to be the best type of exercise for burning fats and calories. Exercises like running or cycling will show great results in no time.

25) Light weights If you want to tone certain parts of your body, lifting light weights will help you lose weight in places that you want.

26) Don’t overdo yourself This is very important because a lot of exercising in once can lead to muscle pain or even worse. Do as much as you can and stop when you need to.

Now you might be thinking, what are some healthy food items that will help you to lose weight. Many of us might be vegetarians and many, non- vegetarians. So, combining foods for both the category of people, we can prepare a huge list of healthy foods.

These include green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, fish, chicken breast, beef, beans and legumes, tuna, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, almonds, avocados, cottage cheese, etc.

Choose a High Protein diet, Less Fat & Avoid Bad Fats

27) Choose food with high protein content and less fat. There are two types of fats, one being good fat and the other being bad fat. Good fats are monosaturated fats. Their primary source is olive oil. It helps to reduce bad fat in your body.

Good fat also includes polyunsaturated fats found in fish, sunflower oil, nuts and corn. Lastly, good fats include Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats that are found in fishes like salmon or in vegetable oil.

Avoid Bad Fats

28) Avoid bad fats, which include Saturated fats and Trans fat. Saturated fats are found in butter, hard cheese, coconut oil, etc. And Trans fat is found in Dairy products, margarine, etc.

What to Eat to Lose Weight

A lot of people ask the same question: What to eat to lose weight. Some think it’s all about calories, but that is not the case here.

Here is a list of foods you should eat if on a weight loss regime:

29) Fresh fruits: Fresh fruits, especially the ones with loads of water content are great for weight loss as they provide you sugar as well and your body needs it to be fully function.

30) Raw vegetables: Even though some raw vegetables are not as tasty as they taste after being cooked or fried, raw vegetables have all important nutrients that your body needs for its healthy functioning.

31) Nuts: Nuts are the best thing you can eat while on a diet but do not consume nuts excessively.

32) Fish: Fish is a great alternative to meat, and it is way healthier than red meat or bologna.

33) Eggs: There are a lot of diets that include eating even up to 12 eggs a day. But to keep it healthy, one egg a day is probably the best way to go. It has a lot of great benefits and will also help you with weight loss.

34) Cinnamon – If you only put 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in your cup of green tea then you can see a major difference in your weight in less than a month.

35) Honey: Last but not the least, honey. It is a great sugar alternative for your hot beverages or even when you need something sweet. It is healthy and tastes well mixed with cinnamon and ginger. Honey can be used as a substitute for sugar in majorly all delicacies.

Conclusion & Recommendation

Finally, a word of recommendation would include the fact that eat small meals at regular intervals and do not be lethargic in your daily routines. It will not only help in weight loss but, will also make you feel healthy and stress free.

To conclude, diet and exercise do not exist only for people who want to lose weight. These do have a major impact on your overall health and your entire appearance. People who eat healthy and exercise regularly, usually have a healthier life, longer hair, cleaner and glowing skin, longer nails and obviously a much longer life span. Also, since it is proven that people with healthy lifestyle live longer, so it is now your responsibility and job to decide, whether you want to continue living your life as you are living now, or do you want to improve yourself as a person and give your body a chance to shine in its full glow and live longer.

Related: Here is a free video with a 2 week diet plan to help you lose weight in 2 weeks.

[metalchick19-blog]

The Bowers Gang: Reasons the Guys Would Get Cheated On/How They Would React to It (Anonymous Request)

* Any and all credit for this idea goes to the requestor.

Belch: Although, for the most part, Belch is something of the full package where relationships are concerned, one of the chief reasons he might still get cheated on (and has been cheated on in the past) is because he’s extremely timid in bed. Even though Belch is always willing to try new things (especially if it’s something his partner is adamant about), he typically can’t get the hang of anything that forces him into a dominant role, and so wouldn’t be able to satisfy an s/o that wanted a confident alpha-male between the sheets; he stutters through dirty talk, prefers to be on the bottom during most sexual encounters, and just generally can’t get into anything that’s overly kinky (BDSM, role-play, etc.). Because of that, in a lot of ways, Belch is so vanilla as to be considered boring - though he often tries to spice things up in the ways his s/os want, he usually crashes and burns so hard that it isn’t worth a second attempt, and the sexual fantasies his partners have, more often than not, get swept under the rug. Basically, Belch would get cheated on because, even though he can satisfy the shit out of a partner emotionally, he can’t always cut it for them physically. In response to finding that an s/o had cheated, Belch would first get very quiet - he’s experienced that “stomach drop” type of hurt before, and would need to take a minute to process his feelings. Afterwards though, he would talk with his partner about why they did it, and, depending on their reasoning, might be open to making things work. Being that Belch places so much value on his romantic relationships (and, really, all of his relationships in general), he’s never too hasty to call it quits, regardless of how badly he’s been treated. Because of that, he would open himself up to getting cheated on multiple times by a partner before checking out - and would take a pretty severe emotional beating in the process.

Henry: One of the main reasons Henry might get cheated on by a partner is for unintentionally, but ceaselessly subjecting them to emotional abuse. Because of the way Henry was brought up (i.e. with a belligerent drunk for a Dad), he never really learned to express his emotions correctly, and doesn’t handle negative feelings with any amount of maturity - he’s very much a “I’m not really mad at you, but I’m going to take my anger out on you” type of person, and often snaps at his s/os multiple times a day over things that don’t make sense (for kissing him on the cheek at school, asking him if he’s okay when he looks upset, etc.). That, mixed with the explosive temper that would emerge every time they really did fight (Henry’s never made it through an entire verbal argument without throwing or breaking something), could quite easily leave his partner feeling exhausted and unloved, more alone in the relationship than they had been when they were single. Because of that, Henry would likely get cheated on by a partner emotionally rather than physically - his s/o, starved for affection, might meet someone at work, school, or in town that was simply nicer to them than Henry was, sparking a connection they might eventually leave Henry in order to pursue. Really, this wouldn’t be because Henry’s partner didn’t love him, or because they were a bad person - it would simply happen because Henry wasn’t able to offer them a stable, warm connection. Despite loving him, Henry’s s/o would feel forced to escape his constant misdirected anger, unintentionally becoming attached to someone that truly made them happy. In response to hearing that his partner had become involved with someone else (emotionally, or otherwise), Henry would immediately end the relationship. Regardless of whether or not his s/o wanted to work things out, Henry would feel too betrayed (and is too protective of his hard-man image) to consider taking back a two-timing partner. If anything, he would just call his partner a slut in the most unemotional way possible, then stare them down with dead-eyes before ejecting them from his life for good. The thought of his partner cheating on him would haunt Henry for a long time (totally the type that plays out scenarios in his head), but he would never acknowledge them again outside of that.

Patrick: Frankly, there are thousands of reasons a person could justify cheating on Patrick Hockstetter. He’s manipulative, he flirts constantly, and he tends to physically hurt and/or terrify the majority of his partners on a regular basis - just to name a few. The biggest reason a person might cheat on Patrick though, is because he started cheating on them first. The ugly truth is, Patrick cheats in all of his relationships; not because he doesn’t like his partners, but because Patrick just isn’t a monogamous human being - he refuses to limit his own freedom for the sake of one person he doesn’t truly think is there (solipsism, revamped), and regards his s/os more as “favorite toys” than anything else. To him, having a favorite doesn’t mean he has to stop playing with all the other toys in the box; it just means he likes that one best. However, this isn’t to say Patrick throws his “outside activity” in his partners’ faces at all - for the most part, he keeps it so low-key as to be unnoticeable, and takes whatever measures he feels are necessary to maintain peace with his s/o. If his partner were to ask him about it directly though (or do some serial stalking, and catch him in the act), they would receive a brutally honest answer... and this could start a game of “you cheat, I cheat.” Hurt by what Patrick had done, and not being able to think of any other way to get back at him, Patrick’s partner could cheat on him as a way of paying him back for cheating on them, not realizing that his lack of human emotions would basically make it a purposeless act. Provided that Patrick didn’t murder his s/o after being told they had cheated on him the first time (which, depending on how much he “liked” them, and how disrespected he felt, might legitimately happen) he would react entirely out of revenge - Patrick would smile, pretend to be forgiving, and allow their relationship to return to “business as usual” before cheating on his partner again in a much more obvious way than before. The entire relationship, from that point on, would basically be a competition of who could hurt who the most, with Patrick relishing the fact that his partner was the permanent loser; being the smartest literal asshole you’ve ever met, Patrick would understand that his partner was hurt every time he cheated, but he would also understand that, unlike himself, his partner was hurt every time they cheated as well - he would have a fantastic time watching them continue this cycle of pain (i.e. seeing him cheat, and lowering themselves to do the same) until they were barely a shadow of who they were before... at which point, the game would get boring, and he’d dump them.

Victor: Victor might get cheated on in a relationship primarily because he chooses damaged people to date - since he was in middle school, Victor has been known for making “bad investments” where romance is concerned, and always tends to pick people that don’t treat him the way he deserves to be treated. That isn’t to say he’ll take abuse (Victor has never been one to let himself be talked down to, or manipulated), but he often settles for people that put less effort into the relationship than he does. Because of that, Victor would most likely get cheated on, because, from the start, his partner just wasn’t as invested in their connection as he was, or because his partner brought emotional baggage into the relationship they hadn’t yet found a healthy way to deal with. Essentially, it wouldn’t be Victor’s fault - he’s just a hopeless romantic (aka: a serial “fixer-upper”) who’s shit at deciding who’s worthy of his time. However, an aspect of Victor’s personality that might make him partially responsible for a cheating s/o would be his cold, yet seething temper - during periods of struggle (aka: during fights) Victor can genuinely make a partner feel like he doesn’t love them anymore, becoming so angry, yet so closed off that he freezes them out for days. Because of this, Victor’s partner could cheat on him in response to his harsh, unbroken silence, possibly feeling desperate, or even just assuming that their relationship had ended. Regardless though, like Henry, Victor would end a relationship immediately if he was told his partner had cheated on him. In a lot of ways, cheating, in general, is one of the few things that Victor has zero tolerance for, and, whether it be from growing up with the example of his parent’s 20-year marriage, or from his own personal moral code, he has been disgusted by the idea of cheating in relationships for a long time. Victor values loyalty over every other ethical principle (hence his relationship with the guys) and would completely lose all visions of a future with an s/o that he found had stepped out on him. In a lot of ways, Victor just views it as the worst way you can hurt a person, because it ruins their ability to trust for years to come. Because of that, it would be easy for him to believe that a partner who had cheated on him, had never really loved him at all - in that way, getting over them would be easy.

[mosylufanfic]

Ups and Downs and Then More Downs

You know, that whole episode was about Iris, but she still had to comfort Barry and listen to Ralph be an idiot. Our girl had a really rough first day as the Flash and needed someone to support her for a change. Title from I’m About to Come Alive by Train.

(Read more here because Tumblr is still being weird about quotation marks)

Ups and Downs and Then More Downs

When Barry stepped on Caitlin's foot for the third time in two minutes, Iris said, “Babe, I need new clothes. Can you please go get me some?”

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” He shifted his weight in a way that Iris had seen several times today, the gesture that said he was about to bolt at the speed of sound and be back before her heart had finished its beat.

Of course, all he did was take a regular old human step. The familiar mix of bewilderment, disappointment, and dismay flickered across his face.

She gave him a little smile. “No rush,” she said softly.

He mustered up a return smile and walked out of the med lab, headed for the lockers downstairs with the spare sweats.

“Thanks,” Caitlin said, with deep feeling.

Iris shot her a smile. “I thought this might go faster without him hovering and clutching my hand. Not that I mind a little pampering, but - “

“Yeah, I know,” Caitlin said. “He doesn’t know how to stay out of the way like you do.”

“That shouldn't sound like a compliment,” Iris mused. “But somehow it does.”

Caitlin smiled a little and focused on her x-ray. “Well, your tibia is broken,” she said. “I was pretty sure, but this confirms it.”

“Bad?”

“Not great. It’ll take several hours to heal.”

She shouldn't be shocked by that, not after the past few years of watching Barry bounce back from injuries that would have landed a non-speedster in the hospital for weeks. But it was different when it was her body, and she could watch the bruise bloom and then shrink away on her wrist, and she could feel the itch of broken skin knitting together.

“I’ve got to set it fast,” Caitlin said, “or it’ll - “

“Heal wrong, I know.” Iris set her teeth and briefly wished she hadn’t sent Barry away quite so fast. “Do it.”

With the bone set and a splint strapped on to stabilize it, Iris wiped her sweaty face and took a few breaths.

"How are you doing?" Caitlin asked. She’d moved on to her less serious injuries, and now was cleaning blood away from what had been a deep, painful cut on Iris's arm.

Exhausted? Humiliated? In pain? But most of all - "Starving," Iris said. "I don't suppose you've got an entire roasted chicken stashed away in one of those cabinets?" She wouldn't be surprised. Caitlin seemed to produce all sorts of unexpected objects from her lab.

"I can offer you a nutrient bar." Caitlin rummaged for a moment, and held out a bar wrapped in aluminum foil.

Iris studied it doubtfully. "Barry always complains about the way they taste, but they can't be that bad, can't they?" She bit off a corner, coughed, and almost spit it out. "Oh. Noooo. Oh my god."

"Cisco's trying," Caitlin apologized, throwing the blood-stained gauze square into the trash and stripping off her gloves. "But every time he improves the taste, the nutritional quality goes down."

"Maybe the reason they work is because they kill your appetite."

Caitlin laughed, but said, "I've tested them. Ten thousand calories a bar."

Iris froze in the act of taking another bite. Her stomach growled again. She remembered that she'd been training all day, even before the fire, and although she'd eaten a huge lunch, now her stomach felt like it was devouring her from the inside out.

"So weird to think of calories as good things," she said, taking the bite and forcing herself to chew before swallowing.

"They are good things," Caitlin said. "When you get the amount you need."

"I know that in my head, but the diet industry is powerful." Iris took another bite, defiantly - take that, lo-cal everything - and almost choked. "God, it's so bad, though."

Caitlin handed her a bottle of water. "Small bites and wash them down," she said. "And when you're done - " She opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a bright pink tampon box.

"Uh, that's not my brand, and that's not a problem at the moment." What if speed affected her cycle too? Oh, great.

Caitlin smirked and opened the box to show it full of Hershey's miniatures.

Iris felt her eyes widen. "You're diabolical," she said, and choked. "I - that wasn't - I meant the guys would probably all chop off their fingers before they even touched that box."

"I know," Caitlin said, but the smirk had dissolved. She set the box next to Iris on the bed and started cleaning up.

Iris took the prescribed small bites and watched her.  “Sorry about your clothes,” she said eventually.

The pants were in a cut-up heap in the corner of the room. The sweater was torn, blood-stained, and stank of smoke.

Caitlin just shrugged. “They were old, anyway.”

And soft and cuddly and - "I can replace them."

“No, no, of course not. I don’t need you to do that. You obviously couldn’t have gone out there in this.” She plucked at the Star Labs sweatshirt that Iris had swapped with her. “It’s fine, really.”

Iris finally finished the noisome nutrition bar and picked out three Mr. Goodbars. She wanted to eat the whole box, wrappers and all, but she forced herself to remember that this was Caitlin’s stash. “Thanks for being so supportive."

“You've had a big day.”

“Yeah, and I capped it off by totally biffing my first save.”

Caitlin straightened up and turned around. “You didn’t biff anything.”

Iris pointed at her splinted leg and raised her eyebrows.

“Please,” Caitlin said. “Barry broke his wrist on his first day as a speedster. And he ran into a laundry truck. Different occasions.”

“After he’d stopped a bad guy and saved me from being pancaked,” Iris said gloomily, biting her first chocolate bar in half. “Me? I completely blanked. If it weren't for Cisco, I would have been toast. Literally."

“That’s happened to Barry, too,” Caitlin said. “A lot. Ease up on yourself.”

“I can’t,” Iris sighed, and ate the rest of the Mr. Goodbar. "I couldn't kill the fire, I couldn't phase through that piece of ceiling - I knew what to do, I just couldn't."

Caitlin sat down next to her. “Listen, okay? There are five people going home tonight because of you. Home, and not to the morgue. Do you think that’s nothing?”

Iris shook her head. "I know that's the most important thing."

"Damn straight it is," and Iris knew it was serious because Caitlin rarely swore. "Barry didn't kill a fire like that until he'd been a speedster for weeks. He didn't phase through objects until he'd been doing this for over a year. Again, this is your first day, Iris. Are you really measuring yourself against the Flash as he is now?"

"Of course I am," Iris said brightly. "And I have to do it backwards and in heels, too."

Caitlin scowled.

She sighed and ate her last candy bar. "I know what you’re saying here. But you know how it is."

Caitlin’s scowl softened. She’d spent much of her adult life as the only woman in the room and constantly having to prove her right to be there. "I do know how it is."

Iris fiddled with the yellow-and-silver wrapper. "Well. This has been good for me, I guess. Before, I just holed up here all nice and safe while told you all what to do and where to go, and I had no idea what it was really like. Now I do."

But instead of agreeing, Caitlin frowned. "That doesn't sound like my friend Iris. Whose words are those?"

"It's true."

"Who said that to you? Was it Barry?"

"No, of course not." She wondered for a split second if Barry thought that, and pushed it out of her head. "Ralph might've been venting a little bit."

"Ralph?" Caitlin let out a laugh that sounded like ice breaking. "Ralph goes out in the field, sure. When we drag him. Otherwise, he's hiding in the basement. He's not up here in the cortex, seeing all the work we do, and he's certainly not lifting a finger to help. He can shut his big fat mouth."

The words settled into her stomach, dissolving the rock that Ralph's contempt had left there. Caitlin was right. What was she even doing, listening to him? "Thanks," she said.

"Anytime. I mean that. Don't ever think that you haven't been important. We haven't had a leader in a long time and now that we do, it's so different."

"What about Barry?"

"Barry's good at many things," Caitlin said. "But he's a hero, and that's different than being a leader. He has a terrible tendency to pick one thing to focus on and forget about everything else. It's not bad, necessarily, but it does mean that whatever's not important to him gets ignored."

Iris opened her mouth, feeling as if she should defend her husband, but - actually. Yes. Caitlin had a point about that. How many times in her life had she had to call Barry's attention to something that had whiffed right past his head because he'd decided it wasn't important?

"I mean, I do that too!" Caitlin exclaimed. "And so does Cisco. It's a blind spot for all of us. But you see the big picture. You see all our pieces and how they fit together. Maybe it's the journalism, I don't know."

Iris felt a pang at the thought of her old job. She'd left it behind for a good reason, she told herself. Her priorities had changed, she hadn’t had enough in her to do both. Good reasons.

But her fingers still itched for a keyboard sometimes.

"We need that,” Caitlin was saying. “We need a big-picture person."

"Harry," Iris suggested.

"Has all the compassion, patience, and empathy of a seagull who wants your French fries. He's very, very smart, I know, and it's saved us several times. But intelligence doesn't make a leader, just the same as heroism doesn't."

Iris looked down to find that she'd rolled the candy wrappers into a ball. She tossed them at the trash can and leaned forward. "I hear what you're saying and I appreciate it, I do. But being out there today, in the middle of everything, before I messed it up - "

Caitlin made a warning noise in her throat.

"Before it went wrong," Iris corrected herself. "I felt . . . I don't know. I felt like I'd found something I've been missing."

The doctor studied her. "Does that mean you want to stay the Flash?"

"Barry's the Flash," Iris said sharply, almost defensively.

She held up her hands in a peacemaking gesture. "Of course he is. I meant, would you want to keep the speed if Barry could also get his back?"

Iris frowned over it. "I don't know," she said. "I mean, out there today, I felt like I was wearing a costume that didn't belong to me."

"Well," Caitlin said. "My clothes, Jesse's mask - you kind of were."

"Besides that," Iris said. "The speed was fun, but it didn't feel like me." She shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe I just have to get used to it."

Caitlin reached out and picked up a pad of graph paper. "Should I be trying to figure out a way for you to keep your speed?"

Iris held up her hand. "Right now, I want you to focus on finding out if there's a way to reverse what Melting Point did. If all he has to do is touch two people, Barry and I definitely aren't the first and we won't be the last."

"On it," Caitlin said.

Iris wondered if it could even be done. But Caitlin had the set to her mouth that meant she was going to work all night if she had to.

Barry came back, with a new Star Labs sweatshirt and a pair of loose shorts that would go over the splint. Caitlin shooed him away and helped her into them, working carefully around her leg. Even so, her leg ached and throbbed by the time they were done.

“Don’t suppose you ever found a painkiller that would work on speedsters?” Iris asked.

“It’s my personal white whale,” Caitlin said, opening the curtains of the med lab again.

“Right.”

She looked through the window. Barry was standing in front of his Flash suit, his arms wrapped around himself and his head drooping. He'd lost his speed before, and gotten it back, but she knew he always worried that this would be the last time.

Cisco stepped up next to him and said something quiet. Barry’s shoulders softened, and he glanced over to smile at his friend. Cisco grinned brightly back, asked something, and made a small breaching motion with his hand. Probably offering to breach them home. Barry nodded.

She glanced over at Caitlin, who was scribbling something onto her paper with a frown line between her brows. The other woman glanced up, gave her a brief smile, and dove back into her calculations again.

Big picture, Caitlin had said. Iris looked at the big picture.

Well, yes. Of course she did. How could you see what was coming in the distance if you didn’t?

She narrowed her eyes at nothing, wondering how big the picture would have to be before they figured out what DeVoe was planning.

She made herself let that go. Right now the big picture that she could see included the speed humming in her bones. Even if it didn’t feel like it belonged to her, it was there, for who knew how long. She had to go home, rest up her healing leg, and come back here in the morning, ready to be the speedster that the city needed while Barry was out of commission.

Barry came in. “Hey,” he said to Iris. “Ready to go?”

"The Cisco Express is about to leave the station," Cisco added, coming in after.

“Caitlin?” Iris asked. “Am I clear to leave?”

“Oh!” She looked up. “Yes, go on. When you get home, elevate that leg. And call me if something doesn't feel right, okay?”

“Of course,” Barry said.

"And don’t forget to eat. Want more nutrient bars?” She got up and opened a cabinet.

“No!” Iris yelped.

Cisco said, “Hey.”

“No, that’s fine, we’ll order my usual,” Barry said, referring to a family feast from the Chinese place around the corner. He helped her off the bed.

“You’re going home too, right, Caitlin?” Iris asked.

“Hmm? Sure. I just want to test some things out first." She shut the cabinet and went back to her computer, frowning. "Night, you guys."

Iris eyed her, doubtful. But the familiar whoosh of Cisco's breach distracted her. When Barry helped her through into their own living room, she headed right for the couch and carefully dropped into its fluffy cushions.

Something bumped her hip. She said, "Ow," but not too loudly because Barry would panic instead of calling out for delivery and she really wanted about fifty potstickers, immediately if not sooner. She shifted cushions until she found her laptop, left there after a Netflix binge.

When was the last time she'd used it for anything else?

She eyed it, then moved it onto the table next to the lamp and dropped her head back against the back of the couch and let out a gusty sigh.

It really had been a hell of a day.

FINIS

[barelynakedthoughts]

Disclaimer: Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there who want to be celebrated today! Pregnant with ease, pregnant with hardship, moms with adult children, moms who have lost children, mom with babies, moms with "normal children", cat moms, etc...I will never stop another person for celebrating their accomplishments! So have a wonderful day and keep going on with your bad self! None of my post is to demean your feelings and opinions. I'm just expressing how I feel.

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It's Mother's Day and I've already received a few messages wishing me a happy day. Sure, I've been parenting this little one since we conceived them, but then technically...I've been preparing for the birth of my baby for longer than that. I've been abstaining from a non-pregnant lifestyle for three years. I've also been training to be a mom for longer than that. So just because the little one is now physically growing in my stomach, I now count as a mom? I understand the opinion, but it's also not time yet.

We are a few days away from the induction, and while I'm not very superstitious, I really don't want to jinx anything. All three of us walking out of that hospital and making it home is when I'll be able to take the mantle of motherhood with assurance.

For two years, we struggled to get pregnant. It's not as long as some others, but I am scarred from that time period. I don't like to use the word trauma very often because we can all admit...it's thrown around a bit too much these days. Yet infertility was traumatizing to my psychee. Every month was a disappointment. Every month we tried something different and failed. I took hormone changing medicine with irregularity all that time. I went through procedures telling me I was fine...and never gaining a true sense of why my body wouldn't conceive. Some of these procedures were painful even. Plus my vagina has never been touched by more people than then...and this a very vulnerable part of my body.

Sure, PCOS was the answer they followed...but my symptoms and tests revealed it could have been endometriosis. Yet they insisted I had the "best chances of a rough situation." As my hormones fluctuated, as my mood swung in every direction, as I cut myself for the first time in years, as I struggled to give up behaviors to an eating disorder...as I hugged my husband tighter, as we fought more than we ever did before, as we cried together more...we didn't classify as parents then? Honestly, we weren't "really" parents then and I'm not trying to gain sympathy for that time period, but I do want to remind you that my husband and I are still fighting the same battle as those two years of fertility treatments.

Right now, if we lose this baby, we get to be parents of a dead child...and we also get to maintain the status of infertility. Take that in. We will be infertile parents. We will have to go back to the drawing boards to conceive again all while mourning the loss of a baby we didn't get to nurture outside of the womb, outside of fertility treatments, outside of loving each other.

Maybe I put on a good face or maybe people don't want to entertain my pain when I should be thankful, but either way, I don't want to be wished a happy mother's day three days before we go through a life-changing procedure in efforts to bring this child to our arms. Our primary infertility race is not done.

I fully admit the level of absurdity to my hesitation and I also accept how reasonable it is, too. I didn't know how much our time going through fertility treatments traumatized me until I found myself constantly waking up in the middle of the night crying over not wanting to trip at the finish line. Until that one time blood gushed out of me at the beginning of the pregnancy and I cried on the toilet into my husband's shoulder saying "we lost them"...until the fourth ultrasound scan in six weeks due to panic. Sure, parts of this is regular worrying as any pregnant woman would do - as any soon-to-be mom would entertain, but in reflection, I know where my individual anxiety was coming from. My husband and I have had many conversations about my heightened pregnancy anxiety, and it can all be explained by the doubt, guilt, shame, sadness, pain and fears developed through infertility.

We were naive to infertility prior to our time...we were expecting to be pregnant in six months or less like a normal family. We knew people who had trouble conceiving but we didn't know their struggle. We couldn't step foot in their shoes until we had to lace up our own.

Now, infertility is not something we choose to face but it is something we choose to walk through if we end up meeting it. Everyone could choose to just adopt or to just accept not having their own kid. Heck, even the option of still trying, not getting disappointed if it doesn't work out and not going through any form of struggle is still there, too. Each month we tried and failed, sure...we could have just brushed it off and moved on. I've read many articles where people find those going through infertility and labeling it as a struggle as selfish people who could be contributing to the current issues at hand like poverty, hunger, world peace, etc instead of enduring through masochistic tendencies of overpopulation.

"There are starving children who could use your money that you spent on infertility treatments."

"There are orphans you could adopt!"

Those are just a few big ones that run through my head. Fortunately, we didn't spend much on infertility treatments to get to this point because of my work place's incredible healthcare...and we also still plan on adopting after we buy a home. Yet even with these qualifiers and my full understanding of worrying about the born children before the unborn, I now know why infertility can be labeled a struggle without any guilt lying behind it. I feel bad it took getting pregnant to realize it (would have saved me from some guilt), but I've experienced the mental and emotional Olympics for myself now. I can see the pain of not getting pregnant in other people's eyes...it's natural. It's human...and it's normal. Sometimes we don't choose to have motherly instincts or desires that we don't comprehend - even if we never wanted to be a mom in the first place.

(Please don't read that as "women should only be moms." I am not saying that nor will I ever even entertain it.)

So now as I sit here struggling to come up with a response to people who are honestly just wishing me the best and trying to be nice, I also continue my rumination of fear and loss. It's not something I am enjoying...and it's not something I wish to someone else. Yet I'm in this position and I have no answer.

[baepsaetan]

Drop the Bar (Yoongi)

Summary: Yoongi might not be a model citizen, but he’s more than capable of tracking down a serial killer. You might be new to the world of vampires, but you’re more than capable of getting in his way.

And helping. Maybe.

Chapters: pt.1, pt.2 

Genre: Angst, action, murder mystery, Vampire! AU –> Part of the Vampire Bar! AU

Warnings: Swearing, violence, mature themes including death and depression, smut-to-be

Length: 11k words

A/N: Part of my Blood, Sweat and Tears Bar universe. Will constantly be adding to it with all the members. You can read the current other piece (a Jimin x reader fic) here. Not necessary to understanding this fic, but might be fun. ^.^ Y/N is in this story, but her PoV won’t come for a few chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

The silver fizzed sluggishly on his tongue and Yoongi held it there, smirking at his audience’s disappointed expressions. Swirling the little flecks of metal around his mouth, the familiar burn began to blister along his gums, against his cheeks, but he ignored that and instead held his hand expectantly out to Taehyung and Jungkook. Exchanging looks, eventually the two rooted around in their pockets and produced a vial each, and Yoongi accepted them, all the while playing around with the silver across his tongue.

“I told you,” Hobi laughed from behind the bar, though in truth he’d been watching with just as much breathless expectation. “Hyung can eat that stuff like it’s chocolate.”

“But how?” Taehyung whined, eyes still fixed on Yoongi, and Jungkook merely crossed his arms in disgruntled silence.

“Magic,” was the arch reply, and then Yoongi swallowed, the dose of silver sending little pricks of pain down his throat. If he was inclined to compare, it was like eating something spicy, though he’d been using silver for so long it had become a muted sensation. He’d told both idiots that, too, and they’d still insisted on betting against him eating a handful without gagging. Ah well. They didn’t lose all that much.

Idly Yoongi tilted the containers in his hand, watching the way the dark red liquid shifted with thick, lethargic movements against the plastic. He hadn’t had anything to drink – anything important – for at least a week and a half now, and a dull ache in his gums reminded him of the fact. Easily ignored. He could go for about three weeks before losing it, before the hunger devoured his self-control as an appetizer and then moved on to some poor screaming no one. It wouldn’t get to that – it hadn’t gotten to that since Namjoon had taken him on as a bouncer – but his survival instincts scorned knocking back some blood just because he was a little thirsty. His instincts rejected the waste.

They still remembered what starving felt like.

He blinked, and shook off the memories that clung like wet grains of sand, gritty and annoying. This late into their service time – it was close to five in the morning – almost all the patrons were gone, either to get out of the sun or to try and limit the regret of staying awake so late on a working day. The only two left, two vampires, were regulars who always stayed to closing, and even they’d be gone soon. From the kitchen a quiet clatter and murmur advertised the cooks doing their thing, though Jin’s distinctive, cheery voice was lacking from the low buzz of noise.

Thursday was shopping day, and it had previously been Yoongi’s extremely dubious pleasure to accompany their head chef as he breezed through supermarkets and stands, haggling with vampires and humans alike with a badgering enthusiasm that would have done any stingy fishwife proud. Ever since that new guy Jimin had picked up one of the BS&T’s waitresses, though, the two of them had taken on the task of lugging around all Jin’s groceries. They were welcome to it.

Even if he was just doing it to pay off a debt, it wasn’t that Yoongi had loathed the experience – he enjoyed dealing with the money and the organizational side of it, and Jin was mostly (he admitted grudgingly) good company – but ultimately it was just too much.

Too much sunlight, too many people. Too much small talk and standing around. Too many shoulders to avoid brushing, and altogether too much trying to persuade himself he wasn’t thinking about how good the hot, slick blood of every other person they went by would feel coursing down his throat.

So instead of being out and about in a market that was slowly adapting to vampiric hours, here he was, leaning back on his stool, silver a different kind of pleasant burn in his stomach. Hobi was teaching Jungkook how to flip bottles and mix drinks at the same time. Taehyung had wandered off – the boy was a brilliant server, all easy smiles and instant connection with customers – but he did get distracted. In the last few months, him, Jungkook and Jimin had all found little niches in the bar, and Yoongi didn’t resent it anywhere near as much as he’d thought he would. The foreign vampires, all wide-eyed amazement at every little human interaction, had provided some much-needed levity to the BS&T.

It had been a good idea on Namjoon’s part to put them to work, too. Just having them hang around all day, Jimin making heart eyes at his girlfriend and driving her to the point of distraction, and Jungkook and Taehyung under foot and driving everyone else to distraction, hadn’t been ideal. At least they could be semi-productive during their abruptly extended pilgrimage from their Clan’s holding, and learn something useful to boot.  

In the back of the building, away from the dining room and kitchen alike, a click made a flinch jolt through Yoongi’s nerves – but that was just Namjoon, setting down the phone after a long-winded conversation that Yoongi had filtered out.

Not out of politeness, really. It had just sounded really fucking boring at the beginning.

Apparently not that boring, though, because a few minutes later their boss’ voice came from the office, terse and thrumming like a taut wire. “Yoongi.”

The tone made Hoseok falter, and he missed one of the empty bottles he’d thrown up. Jungkook laughed as it hit the floor without breaking, and so did Tae, magically materializing from the kitchen. The kids hadn’t been around long enough to feel Namjoon’s tension, but it was enough to set Yoongi on edge as he shoved the vials into the generous pocket of his threadbare black hoodie. Unfolding from the stool, he stalked to the swinging doors, meeting Hoseok’s gaze for a millisecond before breaking the connection with a brief jerk of his shoulders. It was nice that there were no human patrons; it meant he got to move as fast as he wanted, and given that tone, his steps blurred.

Namjoon’s desk was the second indication that something was wrong. Yoongi entered his boss’ office without knocking, his eyes narrowing as they zeroed in on the tidy – compulsively tidy – surface of the mahogany table. In the decade or so he’d known Namjoon, he’d never seen the area be anything but cluttered on a good day, chaotic on a bad. Even as he halted to a smooth stop, the tall vampire seated behind the desk shuffled a pile of papers, aligning the edges into razor straight order in a movement that, from anyone else, he would have called anxious.

Except this was Namjoon, and Namjoon didn’t get anxious.

“What?” Yoongi demanded, and god damn, if he’d had an active heart it would have been pounding. The belligerent question – voiced quietly enough that no one would hear outside of the office – was a convenient mask for his sudden worry.

Namjoon’s long fingers set down the papers, reached out to brush gently against the cell phone set with painful precision on the edge of the desk. His eyes were tired, dark and a million miles away – or maybe a million minutes ahead, staring at a future Yoongi’s gaze never dared to skirt towards.

“That was Choi Siwon,” he said, and sighed at the blank look on Yoongi’s face. “You’ve met him before. He’s the chief of police of our precinct, and he’s the one with the loud voice in all public affairs.”

It wasn’t that surprising to hear that the BS&T’s owner was in contact with someone of high importance (although Yoongi couldn’t for the life of him think of who this Siwon was). Namjoon had been growing a reputation for years now, in bloodsucking circles and out, and that reputation painted pictures of discretion, empathy for both sides, intelligence and a general desire for fair peace. The BS&T was a place to come together, mainly for vampires, and Namjoon was often out in the main room, listening to complaints, giving quiet opinions that people shut up just to hear. He’d been contacted by any number of politicians throughout the last decade, all hoping he could be the bridge between cold teeth and fluttering hearts. In the best way possible, of course.

None of which quite explained why Namjoon looked the most ruffled Yoongi had seen him since that incident with the public nudity. “Okay,” the shorter man drawled, rocking forward on his toes. “And you called me in because you wanted my stunningly good political advice?”

His mouth thinning just slightly, the only sign of irritation, Namjoon leaned forward in his chair. “This isn’t a laughing matter, Yoongi,” he stated firmly, and Yoongi’s head tilted to the side in a mild sort of disagreement. The difference between what the two of them would find hilarious was miles wide and histories deep. Ignoring that little movement, Namjoon continued. “There have been four murders in the last three weeks. Three of them females, one male. All of them were found in our neighborhood.”

Things began to make a little bit of sense, particularly the boss’ concern. In the last few years, as activists waved their wooden signs and protestors waved their wooden stakes, the integration of vampire and human hadn’t been smooth. Far from it. It was more like a car wreck, mangling both vehicles together into some warped hunk of ungainly metal. At this point it was hard to tell if there were going to be any survivors, but every time something happened to increase the pressure, the percentage went down.

Enter Namjoon, who was either a paramedic or a metal smith, Yoongi still hadn’t decided. It was hard to tell if the authoritative man with the powerful smile was trying to get the two groups to blend together, or just doing his damnedest to limit the casualties. Still, several murders showing up in their neighborhood would be shit for publicity, at the very least.

Which still didn’t answer why Yoongi was here – unless it did, and he went utterly still at the sudden thought, his expression blanking. After all, there wasn’t anyone who knew his history better than Namjoon.  

Yoongi forced a cool smile while his jaw ached. “Let me guess. They were a little lacking in blood when they were found?” There was a sharpness in his voice, an ice that he couldn’t quite melt, and Namjoon raised an eyebrow at the response as Yoongi’s throat convulsed. He wasn’t picturing what the bodies had probably looked like, wasn’t painting a red image of quiet and the lingering scent of terror and the overwhelming taste of copper across his tongue. He wasn’t, because he wasn’t guilty and he was done with that time in his life. Namjoon knew that.

Didn’t he?

The instinctive defensiveness rose as quickly as the tides, surrounding him on a jut of land far from the shore, and the beach of rationality seemed too far away to swim. “You care if I ask why you’re calling me out?”

The other eyebrow joined the first, and Namjoon looked genuinely taken aback. His hands fell together on the desk before he began, careful and just a little perplexed. “I don’t think it was you, Yoongi. This isn’t an accusation.”

He hadn’t eaten in - suddenly it felt like too long - but if he’d had actual food recently, Yoongi would have blushed. There may not have been blood sloshing through him, but the emotion more than made up for that, a keen mixture of embarrassment for his assumption and mulish refusal to apologize. Out of all the people he could snap at, didn’t it make perfect sense he’d get riled up at the person who’d lifted him out of the mire in the first place? After all, that person was the one who’d seen him at his lowest, covered in mud and far worse. “Fine,” he replied gruffly, masking his embarrassment. “Still doesn’t answer why I’m here, though.”

Hand coming up, Namjoon traced a finger across his lip, and Yoongi knew the man was wondering if he should pursue the defensive response. Jesus Christ, I don’t need to deal with a therapy session from Mr. Kim today. Apparently someone was listening, because after a moment the other vampire replied, and it wasn’t an attack on certain insecurities he may or may not have possessed.

“You know this town better than any of us. After all, the newcomers have earned their name.” That said with tolerant amusement, for Jimin, Jungkook and Taehyung had each found their place at the BS&T in the months since they’d arrived. “Jin and I don’t often go to… certain areas of the city, and Hoseok only does when you drag him there. If there’s anyone who might catch the scent on what’s going on, it’s you.”

“It’s me,” Yoongi echoed, a little mockingly, but that didn’t erase the thoughtful crease between his fine brows. “Okay, I can get behind that idea. So - what? I’m looking for some vampire that’s gone savage?”

“Maybe.” Again the troubled look on Namjoon’s face appeared, and he straightened in his chair. “I’m not yet convinced. For one, the humans - they were so badly torn up it was impossible to tell if they’d been bitten. And, as you can imagine, their state made it unclear if they’d been drained, or bled out when they were wounded. At any rate, each body still had some blood in it. That doesn’t leave a strong argument for a feral.”

This conversation was not being kind to Yoongi. He turned away, staring at the far wall, struggling against the temptation of picturing those bodies. Of imagining what Namjoon meant when he said “so badly torn up”. “It’s some asshole, then,” he suggested flatly to the wall after a brief pause. “Not a feral, but one of those bastards that thinks they can do whatever the hell they want, to whoever they want.” Like I used to, he could have said, but the words were already hanging heavy between them and Yoongi wasn’t one for redundancy.

“Maybe,” Namjoon repeated, also electing to ignore the bones buried in the ground under their feet. “We’ll have to see.” What he was thinking Yoongi couldn’t tell, but his voice was very measured when it started again. “That’s where you come in. I’d like you to go to the police station. They’ve got the most recent victim’s clothes and other possessions; see if you can pick up a scent. See if it leads you anywhere.”

“Y'know, you’ve made me into a lot of things - a bouncer, a bruiser, fuck, even a respectable citizen - but I think this is the first time you’ve asked me to be a dog.” He wasn’t sure how angry he really was at the proposal, or if this was just the residual taste of his assumption that Namjoon was accusing him, lingering like blood in his mouth. But still, the thought of running around the city, chasing after a scent as if he were some obedient hound… it didn’t sit entirely well with Yoongi.

He tore himself from his inspection of the wall and stared impassively at the man who’d read him like a children’s book the very first time they’d met. “Why the hell should I do this?”

“Because I need your help.”

The reply struck him like a stake, straight through all the bullshit uncertainty he was wading in. It always had, and fucking Namjoon knew that well enough. Min Yoongi’s best kept secret, the thing that kept him awake at night. See, he didn’t need anybody, and he’d long ago resolved to bite the first asshole to suggest it was any different. But when someone else asked him for help - when someone who couldn’t do shit asked him to do it for them, to protect them in their time of need - well, he’d a little while ago discovered with horror that things started getting messy. His kryptonite. The chink in his armour.

Min Yoongi was a fucking bleeding heart for his friends, and he almost laughed at the thought.

“Okay,” the vampire with no living heart and too little blood said. “I mean, I’m here and I assume you’re paying me. When do I start?”

“Now,” was Namjoon’s simple reply, and if he’d smiled Yoongi might have needed to punch him in the face. Thankfully the boss controlled himself, and when he continued his voice was clipped and businesslike. “Take as much time as you need – everything is working hours. In the meantime, I’ll have Jungkook stand in as bouncer.”

That received a snort, and this time Joonie did smile. “Ah, come now. You know he’ll do well. He’s strong, he’s focused enough to notice things, and frankly I don’t think serving or bartending quite matches his skill set. He’ll be able to intervene if anything gets out of hand.”

“That’s not enough. Maybe for some human bar, but for here?” With lazy purpose, Yoongi cracked his knuckles. “All I’m saying is that he’ll get his strong ass kicked if he doesn’t get a thrill out of it.”

Namjoon’s smile had faded. “Like you still do?”

The pain was back in his gums, sharper than before, and he grinned, showing teeth that hadn’t – quite – elongated. “Like I do,” Yoongi agreed. “Hate it all you want Namjoon, but it’s the reason you hired me in the first place.”

A short, oddly vehement shake of his head refuted the statement. “That’s not why I hired you,” Namjoon disagreed, as heated as he ever got. “I took you on because Jin was getting beaten for standing up for that woman, and for no discernible reason you intervened.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Already told you, that sonofabitch interrupted my drinking. Was so poor back then that that shit was liquid gold and it pissed me off to have to leave it.”

Even that was an understatement. He’d been… well, nomadic was a polite way to put it, a Namjoon way to put it. Drifting in and out of cities, working odd jobs (if he could get them) to drum up cash to pay for liquid life at a vampire run blood bank. And if he couldn’t, there were always other ways to get blood, especially when the thirst started getting bad. Always some drunk, homeless, or merely lonely person walking where they shouldn’t. A few survived the experience. Most didn’t. He always had to leave whatever city he was in after an incident like that.

That was the way of things back then. Thirty or forty years ago, vampires were still the fringes of myth, the scary movies and the stupid romances and the cape with the ridiculous accent that Jin was still trying to perfect. The BS&T had been host to a grand total of five humans in that time, three of which were hunters who had made very, very poor life decisions in stepping through the doors. The other two were, arguably, some of the founders of the car crash era of the city, two random people who Hobi had met and taken a liking to. Dragged (mostly) willingly to the bar, they’d been introduced to vampires in one fell swoop, and the ever gracious Namjoon had been persuaded to let them stay.

Them, and in ones and twos, other likeminded individuals, people who were curious about the lively dead. Some of them morbidly so – they’d had more than a few macabre or depressed spectators in their time – but mostly the humans who began to frequent the BS&T were just curious. Under Namjoon, such humans were off limits unless full consent was given, which had been something of a piss-off the first time Yoongi had visited the bar.

Back then he’d been – well, immature was a polite way to put it, a Namjoon way to put it, and the state he’d been in when he’d entered the city had not encouraged self-control. Being around the living at the time had been torture, a horrible, wrenching pain that beat deeper into his brain with every soft thump of their hearts, that burned dry and scalding against his throat with every whiff of their scent. He’d been quite literally kicked out of the BS&T the first time he’d visited, within minutes of entering. It was probably the haggard way he’d been staring at the nearest living body that had tipped them off that he hadn’t exactly read the establishment rules posted just inside the door.

It had been Hoseok who had intercepted him, coming around the bar counter with an apologetic smile and a grace that had made the street wary part of Yoongi wonder how difficult he’d be in a fight. But the bartender, for all his striking form, killed that edgy speculation within seconds, by the simple expedient of screaming when a human at a nearby table knocked over their glass. Not a fighter, that had been immediately clear. Or at least certainly not a willing one. It had killed most of Yoongi’s desire to get into it, and Hoseok’s personality had done for the rest.

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok had said, showing him to the door. The genuine sincerity in his voice had been the only thing stopping Yoongi from swiping his head off. “We just can’t risk anything happening to the humans – well, you know.”

He hadn’t, not really. It wasn’t that he had hated humans; even back then, he hadn’t been one of the supremacists or isolationists, citing themselves as superior beings. All Yoongi needed to do was look into the stained, blurry mirror of whatever one-star motel room he was crashing in to assure himself that he was far from superior. But at the end of the day – it was what it was. He was hungry and they were weak and he didn’t hate himself or the plodding monotony of constant appetite enough to be a sacrifice on the altar of human life. That was the way of the world, and to have to deal with someone telling him he was wrong to feel that way…

The second visit had been out of pure spite, with a nice seasoning of hunger to take the edge off any courtesies demanded by cultured society. Slouching through the doors at their busiest time, music blaring (by vampire standards) in his ears, he’d avoided detection by the simple expedient of being shorter than almost everyone in the building. That, and everyone was so busy with serving they hadn’t exactly been careful about checking over anyone who entered. Back then they didn’t have anywhere near the same number of staff.

No bouncer, either.

It’d been nothing to get one of the humans thronging the place to sit with him. Even hungry, his compulsion was a quiet, subversive whisper. It wasn’t so much that it was too powerful to resist, it was that you couldn’t resist what you didn’t recognize in the first place. And the guy sitting in his lap, heady scent going straight to Yoongi’s brain, sure as fuck hadn’t been feeling anything, maybe even before the compulsion. He’d been so drunk Yoongi could remember thinking he’d practically deserved it.

Drunk, sweaty, smelling like an ashtray… The taste of it didn’t bother Yoongi now, and it hadn’t bugged him then. He’d leaned over, roughly jerking the guy’s chin up to bare his throat, the familiar pressure of his canines elongating sending a wave of heat crashing over him. He’d planned to do his best to make sure the man survived, though admittedly his self-control was a bit lacking once he started drinking.

It was a very cold part of him that was amused to find that he and the human had something in common.

And then the human had stiffened, his utterly unexpected voice prying at the hot haze. “I don’t want this,” he said, clearly, distinctly, but despite the words he’d made no move to try to wrestle from Yoongi’s grip. He’d just sat there, each syllable sitting hollowly between them, and almost despite himself, despite the hunger raging at the edge of a very short leash, Yoongi had paused.

“The fuck does that mean?” he’d rasped, pulling back to stare at the dreamy expression of his meal-to-be. His meal-to-be that was definitely not supposed to be lucid enough to think, let alone think about saying no.

“I don’t want you to drink my blood. I’m afraid, and I don’t want you to do this,” was the emotionless reply.

He’d been living for – hell, for longer than he’d liked to think about – but he’d never heard those words from a human before. Either they were so thoroughly under his compulsion, or he was too quick, or they were in too much pain or terror to say it before he was done ripping their blood and life from them. It was, point blank, one of the most unsettling things he’d ever experienced in his long years, and the fact that it was said without any pathetic begging, or emotion at all… A statement of fact, not of emotion, not something he could just brush off as a pitiful sentiment he no longer empathized with.

I don’t care, he’d been tempted to say, but there had been an uneasy tightening in his gut that blocked the words. Too fucking bad, I’m hungry, was a close second, but even unvoiced, it had rung petulantly, emotionally, in his ears.

With a sudden surge of disgust - with himself or the guy, he wasn’t sure - he’d shoved the human away, snapping the compulsion between them with a savage anger. No word had escaped the suddenly pale man, but he sure had vacated his spot quickly enough, scurrying through the door and out into the night like the devil was behind him. Well, in a manner of speaking…

And who else but Kim Namjoon had taken the empty seat not two seconds later.

Yoongi was many things, but slow on the uptake was not one of them. Even at that time, among vampires Namjoon’s reputation for meddling preceded him, and Yoongi had seen him from afar on a few occasions before, always composed, often quiet, exuding an intelligent mildness that soothed all but the fiercest tempers. No one Yoongi had spoken to knew if that was the man’s vampiric abilities or just his personality, but all agreed it was a force not often seen. Already Namjoon’s still face had had an effect, blunting the fanged edges of Yoongi’s aggression, but in some ways, that had just made him want to bite more.  

“That was you, wasn’t it?” he’d snapped, chin jutting at the door just closing behind his dinner, his surprise a pale cry next to his thwarted anger. There’d been a part of him that wanted to be guilty, to be defensive, but Yoongi had long ago discarded any interest in obeying the orders others set down for him. Might was right, and they were welcome to kick him out – if they could manage it – but he was pissed off. Rules of the establishment be damned, he had been that close to getting a free meal.

Namjoon had nodded, unrepentant and untouched by Yoongi’s hostility. “Yes.”

“You made him say that shit? You really so bored you need to put words in some human’s mouth?” Anger was churning, frothing in the unfamiliar agitation in his stomach, quickly turning to something closer to rage, and he’d abruptly stood. By now everyone in the bar was aware of the confrontation – he’d made no attempt to keep his voice down – and the quiet pressed hard against his taut nerves, clanged harshly against his ears and his temper. From the corner of his eye he’d seen Hoseok skirting around a table, getting discretely closer, and welcomed the raging oblivion of a looming fight.

Bitter disappointment flooded his blood-empty veins when a gesture from Namjoon stopped the bartender.

Namjoon remained seated. “You misunderstand, Yoongi.” As the standing vampire’s fingers had curled into fists, the composed man had raised an eyebrow. “It is Yoongi, isn’t it?” There was a complacent confidence in his voice, like he was merely humoring a guest with the question, and Yoongi remembered wanting to deny it just out of sheer rancor – except he’d been painfully aware of how childish that would be. Besides, it was obvious that Namjoon had asked about him, maybe after his last disgraceful exit from the bar, and there had been a nagging, sharp urge to find out why. Even by vampire standards, he’d been solitary, asking nothing of no one and demanding they ask nothing of him. He hadn’t really seen himself as worth knowing about, unless you were compiling a list of who not to mess around with.

When Yoongi didn’t respond, Namjoon had continued. “I didn’t make him say anything. All I did was push your coercion from his thoughts, leaving whatever you’d put on his emotions. He said what he wanted to say, because with my help, he could.”

Staring, his jaw ticking, Yoongi was aware of a pressure building somewhere in his chest, somewhere far away from his hunger, somewhere he couldn’t put a name to. It almost felt like the beating of a heart. Eventually it burst out in one explosive demand. “Why?”

An apologetic look crossed the full panes of the other vampire’s face. “Because I wanted to see what you would do.”

The pressure got heavier. “You wanted to fuck with me?”

“No. I wanted to give you a choice. Vampires don’t traditionally give humans a choice, but at the same time… we don’t usually get a choice, either. Our natures don’t allow it. We’re not given the chance to really think about what we’re doing. I gave you that.” Namjoon had smiled, and it was almost warm. “I have to admit, it’s always satisfying when my theories are correct. Sadly, they aren’t always.”

“I -” All at once, Yoongi had felt – powerless. Before, Hoseok’s approach had been welcomed with reckless eagerness; he’d wanted the lithe man to come over just so he could break him. But if a human child had picked a fight with him, just then, he would have lost. Stunned, confused, his hands falling, the blonde vampire had made a confession that ripped from him like a splinter. “I don’t get it.”          

“No?” Namjoon had shrugged in his elegant suit, and somehow the motion wasn’t patronizing. “No one ever does at first.” He’d stood, still smiling a little, and gestured at the door. “Now, you’ve broken the BS&T’s policies, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave. However, you get one more chance. One more choice. Think it over, and whatever you decide, when you come back I’ll personally buy you a round of whatever drinks you’d like.”

Like some feeble, helpless old man – and there was a part of him that had hated Namjoon for making him feel that way – Yoongi had looked around the silent room, eyes skimming blindly over vampires and humans alike. Hoseok stood out only because out of everyone there, he was smiling, a broad grin that was too close to the sun for Yoongi’s liking. The dull embers of his previous anger had flickered, and if he had breathed on them, he’d known they would come roaring back to life. Part of him had wanted that. Part of him had wanted to set that fire.

For someone eternally cold, there was a strange pleasure in burning.

He had shoved his hands inside the ratty pouch of his hoodie instead, throwing away with shaking soul the matches his fingers longed to strike. He’d decided not to fight. Namjoon’s words had danced teasingly around his head, and he hadn’t wanted to risk turning those to ash until he’d caught them, turned them into something that made sense.

Without another word, Yoongi had left, and he hadn’t returned for three years.

But three years later had seen him ducking back into the BS&T, hurrying out of a torrential downpour that had somewhat drenched his enthusiasm. Still, drowned features aside, Hoseok had recognized him pretty quickly, and the gangly man’s doubletake had almost been worth the trouble. Namjoon had been summarily summoned, and Seokjin too, introduced as the newest and proudest employee of the bar. Yoongi could say he hadn’t understood Jin back then, but that would suggest he understood his hyung in the present day, and that was a blatant lie.

He could say he’d taken an immediate liking to the drama prone human, finding a convoluted joy from the careless way Jin carried himself. It wasn’t selfish, it wasn’t the way so many of his esteemed species (himself included) held themselves, like they knew they couldn’t die easily and lived accordingly. No, the broad-shouldered man with the squeaky laugh had come to accept himself – well, no, not accept. Love. He loved himself. He loved life. The stupidest things gave him pleasure, from arguing with Namjoon to pressuring Yoongi to talk about his travels, two syllables at a time.

Even when the conversation had become grimmer, darker, spattered with the blood of his fellow humans, there was never a suggestion of anger in Jin. Indignation, occasionally, and an expansive sort of sorrow - but there was an acceptance of that, too, an unspoken hope and certainty that things could be better. Yoongi had rarely conversed with a human before, and never so openly as he did in front of Jin and Namjoon that day.

It had been something to add to the growing list of strange events that the nomadic vampire experienced while under the roof of the BS&T. Another was that Namjoon kept his promise; long before they’d discussed anything to do with morality or responsibility, Hoseok had brought over a tray so overladen with drinks that Yoongi was confident someone else would have spilled it. The man had been beaming again, that same megawatt smile that made Yoongi feel blinded and energized all at once. Hoseok hadn’t stayed, but Jin and Namjoon had proved to be more than enough company for one solitary individual who found himself talking more in an hour than he had in a decade.

The conversation had flowed naturally despite his inclination towards fumbling for small talk. Namjoon had been engaging, purposeful, slowly guiding the talk towards areas Yoongi could only be reluctantly dragged to. Jin had made the examination of his past bearable, accepting his vague – but, oddly enough, truthful – stories with an open gravity that neither dismissed nor judged the tales of slaughter. It was not a painless discussion, far from it, and years later Namjoon had admitted to soothing some of Yoongi’s more violent responses to their challenges…

But of the thousands of memories Yoongi kept clutched possessively to his chest, defiant of time’s attempts to erase them, he valued that hour or so more than almost any other. It was his match, his beginning, the start of light to drive away the dark, and he would have been separated from his hand before he was separated from that memory.    

It might have ended that way, with that conversation, with that softly glowing experience. Sometimes, curled up on a thin mattress in the pitch darkness of his two-room apartment, Yoongi thought about the different paths he could have travelled from that day. Maybe he would have moved on, not – quite – captured by the suspiciously tempting picture Namjoon painted of humans and vampires living side by side, but still pushed to live just a bit differently, a bit more kindly. Maybe he would have stuck around, kept the BS&T as an entertaining place to visit, never – quite – grasping the message Namjoon had tried to impress on him. Maybe – and, secretly, this was the thought that made him jolt up and leave his apartment no matter the hour, almost ripping the door off the hinges as he did – maybe he would have ignored everything and gone back to the crimson habits of the past, always haunted by the possibilities he’d never quite understood.

It might have ended any of those ways. It didn’t.

The first sign of trouble had been an overly loud burst of laughter from a trio of vampires, scratching against Yoongi’s senses and making his eyes automatically cut towards the source. They were like him. Dressed in clothes a cut above rags, with faces more haggard than their clothes. The BS&T hadn’t yet started giving silver to guests, but a score of empty glasses scattered across the table paved a relatively straight road to mild intoxication. At the time, Yoongi had merely curled his lip and gone back to his own drink, not caring what they did so long as they stayed the fuck away from him.

It had been difficult enough to focus on what Namjoon was saying with the little cups of various types of blood arrayed before him. While the last three years had been a time of change for Yoongi, a time of thinking and running and hating and repeating the cycle until the running slowed, it had not changed his financial prospects. He’d never settled down, not then, and money still trickled through his fingers with taunting regularity. The new thoughts in his head hadn’t helped at all – they’d made getting a meal outside of a blood bank nauseatingly difficult. Drinking from a willing donor only to find them dead because he couldn’t stop himself from drowning hadn’t exactly been great for his psyche.

Coming back to the city, he’d been just as hungry as the first time, and if anyone had asked, that was the reason he’d returned at all. A few free drinks, and all he’d had to do was listen to some moralist spout off? It was a close second to paradise.

Lying or not, the plethora of blood that had been before him – not just the amount, but the variety, too – far surpassed anything Yoongi had seen since becoming a vampire. To say that he’d been intent on juggling his enjoyment and Namjoon’s words, and willing to ignore any extra distractions presented by some random group, would have been an understatement.

Of course, life could rarely be juggled smoothly, even back then.

The second move towards trouble had been Namjoon’s departure. Their talk had wound down, Yoongi utterly overwhelmed and exhausted, contributing less and less to the conversation. Eventually Namjoon had stood, offering his hand. Yoongi had hesitantly accepted it, and Namjoon had said, “It’s been very interesting to speak with you. I’ll admit I’m surprised – just a little – that you found your way back to us… but I’m glad you did.”

Inexplicably pleased but simultaneously disliking the abject emotion, Yoongi had muttered something and looked away.

The taller of the two had given his hand a firm squeeze before letting go. “I have an appointment starting shortly, but I’ve certainly appreciated you coming, Yoongi. Hopefully you can find your way here again – I can’t guarantee all the drinks will be free, but certainly I could buy one or two more.”

Smiling faintly, the BS&T owner had nodded to Yoongi and paused beside Jin, his hand lingering across the other’s broad shoulders, before disappearing into the back of the building. A short amount of time went by and a woman had entered the bar and headed straight to the swinging doors, giving a friendly wave to Hoseok as she went. Namjoon’s appointment, Yoongi had supposed.

He didn’t entirely remember what he and Jin had talked about after that. He suspected not much. Or rather, that he hadn’t spoken much, and Jin had talked enough for the both of them. But there came a time when the group Yoongi had noticed before, only a few tables over, had become more and more rowdy, so much so that Hoseok started slowing their drinks.

Only a few minutes later, a human girl was walking by that group’s table – her presence only peripherally noted by Yoongi - and a sudden scream had cut through the room. He’d whipped around, fueled by reflex and not concern, and felt his muscles loosening at the sight of one of the vampires gripping the girl, her head yanked back cruelly hard. He’d relaxed, because it hadn’t been his problem. He’d thought that Hoseok, on the far side of the bar, could deal with it.

Except that Jin had abruptly risen from his seat, cheeks flushed, and a wave of outrage and anxiety and adrenaline had slammed into Yoongi’s nose so hard he’d choked. He’d been filtering out all the noise, all the tantalizing smells – that was a vampire’s life, constantly filtering experiences to the most bearable level – but the scream and Jin’s movement had turned everything back on. Sweat-fear-music-beer-gasps-hearts-blood-blood-blood-

The sheer overwhelming nature of the sensations meant Jin got six steps away before Yoongi surged to his feet – and got to the table before he could stop him. There were no words, and to the present day Yoongi couldn’t fathom what the human had thought would happen when he’d tried to rip the vampire’s hand away from the girl’s shoulder.

If only he’d consulted with Yoongi. Yoongi was an expert on what would occur when a human attempted to interrupt a feeding. Firsthand experience had cemented the certainty in his very marrow, and he hadn’t been at all surprised to see his fast friend unceremoniously flung to the floor, the snapping of his wrist too-loud against the vampire’s heightened hearing. The blood he’d only recently gorged on had been like a living fire wreathing his starved muscles, and it was only then that Yoongi had remembered how good it felt to be full.

He didn’t remember much else of that night; at least, nothing important. One of the other vampires – he’d been part of the raucous trio - had tried to stop him, and in the fifteen or so seconds it took to deal with that, Jin’s attacker had managed to take a chunk of flesh from Jin’s shoulder as well as break a few more bones.

Ever the accountant, Yoongi had made him pay for that with interest. By the time they’d pulled him from the other vampire, living dead was a hairsbreadth away from being an inaccurate description. He would have gone further, too, but it had been Namjoon that had yanked him off, Namjoon’s voice thundering across the ringing that had enveloped his ears – and maybe that was why he couldn’t remember. Because for the first – though not last – time, Namjoon had turned the full scope of his psychic powers to the task of crushing Yoongi’s raging bloodlust. The compulsion was so massive, so smothering, it had blacked out Yoongi’s awareness.

He’d woken up several hours later with a pounding headache, the likes of which he’d thought he’d been rid of on becoming a vampire. Hoseok had been sitting on the edge of his bed, and for once the expressive lines of his mouth were turned down. Somewhere, someone was screaming, a tinny sound scratching annoyingly against his eardrums. As it turned out, that someone had been Jin, going through the agonizing process of the change

Namjoon hadn’t left Jin’s side for long – just long enough to inform Yoongi that a bouncer position was open at the bar, if he was interested in taking it.

And the rest, as humans tended to say, was history.

Even in the present day, Namjoon hadn’t lost his poker face. If Yoongi’s boss was aware of the lie behind Yoongi’s reasons for interrupting the fight so long ago, it wasn’t obvious. He just cocked an eyebrow and echoed dryly, “Because you were upset to be interrupted in your drinking. Of course. That was why you almost tore that man’s head off.”

With an innocent smile, Yoongi said, “I’m glad you believe me. I tell you – everyone’s so fucking suspicious these days. Makes it hard for a hardworking man to make an honest living ‘round here.”

That did it. Professionalism momentarily buckling, Namjoon snorted and waved his hand. “Aish, you are the model employee. It’s remarkable. When you leave my office, employee of the month, please tell Jungkook about his new assignment. Be a shining example for him to follow. Give him a few suggestions.”

“I could,” Yoongi acknowledged judiciously, “but it’d be way cuter to see him try to deal with a fight for the first time with shit-all idea about what to do. Can you imagine his face? He’d -”

The crumpled piece of paper thrown at his head was narrowly ducked and as Yoongi retreated to the door of the office, Namjoon called in a more serious voice, “Don’t be a smartass at the police station, Min Yoongi. Remember who you’re representing.”

Without looking back, Yoongi gave a lazy salute and left. Jungkook’s reaction to his new responsibility was an amusing mixture of excitement and trepidation, though the way Hoseok hovered over his shoulder the entire time made it more difficult to enjoy. The oblivious Jungkook begged for a few tips, and despite his joking with Namjoon, Yoongi was responsible enough to teach an extremely succinct lesson; he unceremoniously punched the kid in the face. The resulting fight was a series of bullet points, all of which were underlined with swift punches or kicks, and when Yoongi eventually pulled Jungkook off the floor, he had to admit the younger vampire had done well. B+, probably. And fuck, the boss hadn’t been lying when he’d said Jungkook was strong.

“You wanted to win,” he congratulated his bemused, unbalanced pupil. “That’s good. That’s what you need.” Absently rubbing at a throbbing spot that Jungkook’s fist had kissed into his chin, he grinned. “All those hits I got on you? Don’t let someone else get them, and you’ll do great.”

Leaving the bewildered male to brush up on his notes, Yoongi was stopped at the door by Hoseok.

The bartender obviously wanted to learn what he and Namjoon had talked about, but now that he was out of the office, a familiar prickling impatience was stabbing at his heels, urging Yoongi to get on with his job.  

Give it to the bouncer; he was lazy, right up to the point that he wasn’t.

“It’s nothing,” he told his friend brusquely. “Namjoon can fill you in.”

That didn’t go over stunningly well – Hoseok’s mouth twisted – but he allowed it and took a surprise route. “Okay, I’ll ask the boss about it. But – you’re okay? Usually you only punch one of the kids after they’ve done something stupid.”

That startled a laugh out of Yoongi despite himself. He hadn’t thought his temper had been particularly affected by the conversation, but he supposed you didn’t usually wade through shitty memories and come out completely clean on the other side. “Yeah,” he said with a grin. “I’m fine. Just felt like kicking someone’s ass.”

From the bar where he was sharing a glass with Taehyung, nursing his wounds, Jungkook grumbled, “You could have found someone else, you know.”

Ignoring that, Hoseok cocked his head, eyeing Yoongi. “Oookay,” the lanky man eventually conceded. “Hope you got it out of your system. If not… Just don’t try to kick too many people at once, alright?” That was probably a reference to some of the more colourful experiences he’d had, roaming the streets with Yoongi as the other looked for trouble. Brow furrowed, lips pressed together, Hoseok was the picture of concern, and Yoongi couldn’t help but be touched.

He waved his hand irately to cover the feeling. “Yeah, yeah. Trust me, the only time I pick fights I can’t win is when you’re with me.”

And then, before any of them could delay him further, he shouldered through the BS&T’s doors and spilled out into the pale light of early morning. The change in brightness wasn’t drastic, yet the vampire still flung up a hand, shielding his narrowed eyes as little furrows of pain appeared between his brows. It wasn’t exactly the equivalent of bursting into cinders like some of the old movies used to show, but the instant, itching discomfort of the sun splashing across his bare skin still couldn’t be called comfortable. Pulling his fraying sleeves over his hands and his hood over his head, Yoongi was just glad it was still morning. The afternoon sun was a fucking bitch to be doing anything in.

Wishing he hadn’t forgotten his headphones at his apartment, he kept his face well hidden by his hoodie as he started walking down the street, gaze fixed on the pavement. In part it was to make it harder to realize what he was – Yoongi didn’t care what people thought, it was just that the sheer annoyance of being stared at got old - but it also made it easier for him to ignore at least some of the distractions. Even this early, cars still swept by at a steady rate, their exhausts spilling disgusting stenches, engines drumming into his ears. The humans passing by were worse only in that he didn’t automatically want to tear the cars apart. If he ignored the cars, he actively avoided the humans, shoving his thoughts away into blankness every time one of them got close.

He wondered, idly, what Namjoon would do if he ever found out how hard Yoongi still found this whole civilized thing.  

It didn’t really bear thinking about… so he didn’t.

The police station was about a twenty-minute walk away, and while some of his undead brethren chafed at the slow pace humans lived their lives at, Yoongi didn’t really mind. Where Hoseok would have run just for the fun of it, arriving in a few minutes and heedlessly scaring the shit out of people along the way, Yoongi took his sweet ass time.

For one, he wasn’t particularly enjoying the prospect of getting in contact with the police. There was very little love lost there. Given that he was a self-confessed murderer, he couldn’t entirely blame them, but still – he’d done his time. Some fifteen years of it. Just because he looked the same now as he did the day he’d stepped behind bars didn’t mean anything. Give it time, Namjoon had said. They need time to see you’ve changed. True or not, if they took too much more time they’d be dead and not his problem anymore, so Yoongi supposed he shouldn’t care all that much.

Shame it was easier said than done, with a bunch of cops flat-out eying him every time he so much as existed in their line of sight.

The other reason (besides sheer laziness) for his slow stride was to give himself time to think about what Namjoon had said about his task. Some rogue vampire going around killing humans… but not draining them of blood, at least not completely. Leaving the bodies where they could be found, but not conveniently. He had more than a few acquaintances that hadn’t yet seen the light of reason and necessity, that still maintained their right to hunt if they wanted. But all of them were careful about body disposal – that was just common courtesy, not getting the humans all riled up and making life harder for vampires everywhere. There were a few newcomers he’d heard about but hadn’t spoken to; that should probably be pretty high up on his list of priorities…

It was pleasant to formulate a plan as he walked, made it that much easier to ignore everything around him, but it passed the time too quickly and abruptly Yoongi found himself in front of the police station. A grimace curling around his lips, he paused, working up the will to go in. Only for a second, though; if he waited longer than that, he’d end up lurking around the building for the next few hours. Breath expelling in an entirely unnecessary sigh – given that he had to purposefully inhale before he could exhale – the vampire forced himself to enter the building.

They didn’t really notice him at first. Whoever was working the desk looked up and called, “I’ll be with you in a moment,” and then preceded to continue listening to the D&D podcast Yoongi could hear leaking through her headphones. Further back, behind more desks scattered throughout the space, the other officers didn’t even look, and certainly none of the high-ranking office doors opened. Irritation spiked, deep in his gut and contrary to the relief at being ignored, but Namjoon’s words echoed in his mind and Yoongi made himself lean against the nearest wall, disdaining the waiting chairs arrayed before the front desk. Always better to keep his distance, when possible.

The girl found a convenient place to pause her podcast soon enough, and he knew the exact moment she realized what he was because her heart stuttered loudly, almost hidden by her sharp intake of breath. To some extent, Yoongi couldn’t blame the reaction. It had been how long since vampires had stepped into the light? A decade? A little more? Less? Certainly not long enough to have every undead procedure neatly typed up, every i dotted and t crossed. A little apprehension about dealing with someone who genuinely, sincerely wanted to drink your life force could be excused.

So he made his smile not too amused as he took a step forward and inclined his head. “Hey,” Yoongi stated quietly. “Kim Namjoon from the Blood, Sweat and Tears sent me. I think your chief wants a little… Well, to talk.” ‘A little help,’ he’d almost said, but that wouldn’t have gone down well, which was stupid but unsurprising. It was ridiculous vampires hadn’t been more integrated into police searches, what with the whole super senses and strength thing, but at least this chief was making steps.

She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands; they fluttered across the desk and he wished she would calm the fuck down. It was hard enough ignoring the unintentional call of her veins when they weren’t singing with anxiety. His smile was that much more fixed when she replied. “Oh, I… see. If you’ll just wait a moment?” When she stood up and turned to go, her pulse staggered heavily, an automatic fear reaction to putting her back to him, and pain drilled into his jaw, a heavy pressure pushing at his eyes and making everything seem just a little too clear, a little too bright.

He was used to the play of macabre situations stalking through his head. He was used to imagining how he might get away with murdering people, and he was used to ignoring it, too. But the hungrier Yoongi got the sharper the suggestions became, like a cattle prod sending electricity through his nerves and making him jump. And he was hungry enough that watching her hurriedly walk away, heading in the direction of a door titled Chief Choi, was – almost – enough to make him twitch with that shocking impulse. Fuck.

A quick motion and he’d yanked out the vial he’d received from the erstwhile Taehyung, mentally cursing himself as he did so. By now a few more of the officers had noticed him, and their judgmental looks made it harder to unscrew the lid – but he did anyways, because his vision was getting more fractured and little tremors were shaking their way through his limbs. He hadn’t realized how bad he’d let himself get; it’d been weeks since he’d gone out into the actual public, during his last trip with Seokjin, and whether through arrogance or stupidity Yoongi had just… assumed he’d be fine. Assumed he could manage it despite being hungry. Wrong.

Tae’s favourite blood mixture sat sweet and heavy on his tongue even after he’d downed the bottle, the taste of it making his features twist. Trust Taehyung to add something like cinnamon and brown sugar to an already perfect mix. It was like those people who drank their coffee with five creams and seven sugars – disgusting. Blood was blood, though, even if it tasted like syrup, and as he carefully wiped a bead of the red liquid from the corner of his mouth, he could already feel the difference. Jesus, it was a strangely comforting impression, the liquid warm and tingling as it seemed to spread out from his stomach.

He could still remember the sensation of holding his breath, from back when he’d still had to breathe. Drinking blood was getting a blast of oxygen after holding your breath, after that tight, panicky sensation closed around your chest with a fist so firm you could almost convince yourself you were never going to breathe again. It was air for a suffocating person, and Yoongi had long ago gotten hooked on the indulgence of taking a hit of pure oxygen whenever he wanted, no matter how long he’d been choking. Dark red eyes a little glassy with the pleasure and relief abruptly relaxing everything in view, he could even drift over the affronted looks he was getting from the city’s finest.

Only a few heartbeats after Yoongi had polished off the container and thrown it into the nearest trash bin, the chief’s door was opening, and the girl was waving him forward. “He’ll see you now,” she said, and added after a moment, “Can I get you anything?” in a rather impressive display of politeness, one not often extended due to awkwardness or just plain rudeness.

Full, riding on his high, Yoongi could even be polite in return. “Nah, thanks,” he replied with a smile and a wave of his hand, and had the amusement of seeing her blush. An automatic reaction, as visceral as her fear, but he generally preferred attraction to the former. Fear dragged up something from the depths of his being, something primal and endless and savage - and attraction was a candle compared to that.

She let him into the room before leaving, the door clicking shut softly behind her, and then he was alone with the chief of police. Siwon’s office was bare of everything but the essentials – there weren’t any pictures on the desk, or articles on the wall. It was almost uncomfortably spartan, though that spoke to the man it belonged to. As Namjoon had said, Yoongi did in fact have some vague recollection of meeting this poised man, but it had been years ago.

Siwon rose to a height that might have intimidated someone else, offered his hand with absolutely no sign of discomfort or derision, his manners as immaculate as his uniform and carefully styled black hair. He didn’t react to the cold of the dead hand in his own, either. Just to experiment, Yoongi squeezed harder than might be - strictly speaking – necessary, and Siwon’s expression didn’t even remotely change.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” the chief said when his hand had been released, and Yoongi merely inclined his head, not trusting his tongue to stay away from something caustic.

“I assume Mr. Kim has filled you in on the details?” Another stiff nod. “Good. You can ask Irene – the officer who let you in - to show you the victim’s clothes, as well as give you the exact addresses where each of the bodies were found. She’ll take you to the most recent crime scene, too.” Siwon’s face was a testament to professionalism as he paused, studying Yoongi. “I am, of course, very pleased to have your assistance in this matter, but I hope you understand that this is an… unusual situation. Your ability to help has certain restrictions, and I can’t give you the full freedom of our trained employees.”

His shoulders rolling in an impatient shrug, Yoongi replied, “I know this doesn’t make me some honorary cop. Believe me, I ain’t putting it on my resume.” Ah, and there his tongue went.

If he disapproved of the flippant remark, it didn’t show. “Beyond not being an officer with this department, all we’re asking you to do is gather information. I just want to be very clear about where your authority lies.”

Clicking his tongue, eventually Yoongi smirked. “You’re worried I’m gonna take matters into my own hands? Rip this person apart when I find them?” The silence was answer enough, and Yoongi couldn’t help but laugh. “Sir, I’m here ‘cause Namjoon asked me to be, not outta some burning desire to avenge those poor suckers that got, well, sucked. I’m not getting paid enough to get into a fight with every greedy asshole hanging around.”

Of course, sometimes fights could be valuable for reasons far outside of payment, but Yoongi wasn’t getting that vibe. Sure, if whoever he was hunting tried to start something he’d be down to finish it – he always was – but this was far too impersonal to intertwine with rage and competition and the urge to bury his fists or fangs into flesh.

His smile could almost have matched Siwon’s cool composure. “I’ll find out who did this, and I’ll let you know. Simple. Nothing more or less.” It was such an easy promise to make, and such an easy one to believe. Yoongi could hardly be faulted for failing to see the lie imbedded in his words – he didn’t have the gift of foresight.

The unintended falsehood was well received, and Siwon’s thin lips lifted at the corners, some of the stiff tension easing out of the fine lines of his face. “Excellent. That’s what we need from you, and as I’ve already discussed with Mr. Kim, we’ll pay you very well. In more ways than one.”

That probably meant stronger ties between Namjoon and the precinct, maybe some more leniency for Namjoon to deal with fanged offenders on his own, but it didn’t matter much to Yoongi. “Right,” he said briskly. “Works for me. I need to know anything else before starting?”

“Not much, no. The latest victim was found this morning – the first a little over three weeks ago. All in different places, but all throughout this neighborhood. There are definitely some indications of vampire activity,” and Yoongi let himself be mildly impressed with how steadily that was said, “but we need more proof before we rule out other possibilities. It’s my understanding that you’re quite familiar with the community. After you’ve visited the sites, I’d like you to ask around, see what you can find out, if there’s anyone unfamiliar who arrived recently, if people have -”

“Yeah, I got it.” Cutting abruptly through the advice, Yoongi’s voice was dry. “This ain’t my first rodeo; woulda expected you’d read that off my files.”

Moving around the desk, Siwon paused. “I have read your files. Intently. It’s interesting that Mr. Kim puts so much faith in you over something so serious.”

Yoongi stiffened, but there was a calculating glint in the chief’s eyes that was half again too shrewd for his liking. Was this – some kind of test? He made his shoulders drop, Namjoon’s warning echoing in his ears. “What’s that thing people always say, sir? Takes a thief to catch a thief? Well, maybe Namjoon puts more stock in human sayings than I do.”

“Certainly he puts more stock in you than most humans do,” Siwon agreed, almost amiably, and if Yoongi hadn’t been aware that this was just another show, another push to see what he’d do, he might have reacted. As it was, he swallowed the bitter resentment frothing in his throat and just found his way to the door, eased it open.

One foot out the door, he stopped. “Namjoon is a great man,” he said flatly. “A great man, not just a vampire. Maybe you should start trusting him more.”

A rich, amused laugh surprised him. “Forgive me, Mr. Min, but you wouldn’t be in this office if I didn’t have a good deal of trust in Kim Namjoon. I just hope that this isn’t one of those very few instances when he turns out to be wrong.”

He shut the door too hard, the rattling of the wood crashing into place making the desk receptionist startle and drawing eyes his way. Scowling at his feet, Yoongi gave himself all of two seconds to shrug off the flush of anger roiling across his skin before he accosted the girl – Irene, Siwon had said. It took more than a little effort, but he didn’t make any sarcastic comment about the way she kept more than a foot of space between them as they went to the storage room. He even clenched his teeth over his impatience at her nervous fumbling that meant it took forever to open the evidence locker, smiling curtly at her mumbled apologies.

A great man was Min Yoongi.

The clothes – a blouse and a skirt - were quite literally drenched in dried blood, which meant it was a really good thing he’d downed a vial previously. Instead of drooling over the stained clothing, Yoongi was able to handle them in his gloved hands with quick, disinterested movements, the scent of the woman’s life still lingering heavily in every fold and weave of the cloth. He was certain enough that he’d be able to recall it again; a person’s blood was as different from the next person’s as a face. As unique.

For a moment his slender hands tightened around the torn blouse, blood flaking off under his ungentle grip. Beside him Irene was staring but he didn’t notice. Unique. This dead woman who’s blood he was inhaling was unique, special. Maybe she had a partner, or kids, or a dream, or – fuck, a dog. Why was it so fucking hard to care? Why couldn’t he feel anything unless he forced himself to think about it, dragged it through his head one depressing syllable at a time until something clicked, and emotion showed up late to the party? When had this become so fucking hard?    

It’d be the easiest thing in the world to leave behind the person Namjoon was trying to force him to be.

Maybe it was a good thing that, at the end of the day, Yoongi liked a challenge.

He took one more breath, the air rustling uselessly through his lungs, before he stopped trying to kid himself about what he was. Not breathing, the vampire left the blouse crumpled on the floor and stalked away. “Your boss,” he threw over his shoulder, “said something about addresses.”

[peculiarmindset]

Gonna slightly be borrowing from Gassy OTP, but with a different outcome if that’s alright? Yurio has eaten a whole box of Fibre One throughout the day. When Otabek comes home, Yurio’s stomach is rumbling constantly, face screwed up as he’s subduing the pressure in ass before coming clean reluctantly, as Otabek offers to knead his stomach while farts come out, as he lets out one final massive one before scurrying off to the bathroom in urgency while clutching his backside desperately.

*I remember eating Fibre One bars before and at the time, I had no idea that it was something to help the bowels along- I just ate them like a regular snack, but thank god I never ate more than one (sometimes only half) every once in a while 😆

The Alarm Fart - Starts with a loud unnaturally high note, wavers like a siren, and ends with a quick downward note that stops before you expect it to. It sounds like something is wrong. If it happens to you, you will know right off why it is called the Alarm Fart. You will be alarmed.  

“Fuck….” Yuri cursed, rubbing his growling stomach as he slammed opened the refrigerator.

He had just come home from practice and the teen was absolutely ravenous. He was so starving that he didn’t even have the patience to cook anything- he needed food and he needed it now.

When he raided the kitchen, the only thing there that was edible without needing to be cooked or heated up was a whole box of Fibre One bars. The box looked like nirvana to the blonde as he ripped the box open and devoured the first two bars in less than a minute.

Taking the last three bars left in the box (he mentally noted to buy Otabek more later since these were actually the Kazakh’s), Yuri grabbed a glass of milk and went to the living room to finish his snack.

Yuri was biting into the fourth bar when he read the wrapper, taking note that the bars were actually healthy and of course, full of fiber. But all the teen could care about at the moment was how chocolate and peanut butter could make something healthy taste so unhealthily delicious.

Finishing up the last bar, Yuri gulped down the rest of his milk before washing his cup and throwing away the wrappers.

The blonde went back to the living and spent the rest of the time playing with his game console as he waited for his roommate/boyfriend to come back home.

“Oh crap!” Yuri hissed as his character died yet again. He took a deep breath, taking everything in him not to throw his Nintendo at the wall and breaking it like he had with his past four consoles.

As he repeated the level, he felt his stomach give a loud grumbling sound. The blonde winced, pausing the game to place his hand on his stomach as he could feel his guts twist up uncomfortably.

Thinking whether he should go to the toilet or just ignore it and keep playing his game, the blonde’s choice was made for him when he heard the front door open.

“Yuri? I’m home. And I brought us some dinner at that new Vietnamese place from across the street.” Otabek’s calm voice called out.

Yuri bit his lip to keep from cursing as he could feel his stomach practically bubbling up by the second. What the hell was up with it?

Otabek came into the living room and gave his boyfriend a small smile, but raised his eyebrow as soon as he noticed the other’s tight expression and body posture. “Yuri? Are you alright.” He asked, looking worried.

The blonde nodded his head, trying to not to make his discomfort obvious as he was literally squeezing his butt cheeks together.

Otabek of course didn’t believe his boyfriend’s lie. “Are you sure nothing’s up? Usually you greet me by shouting my name and tackling me at the door.” He grinned.

Yuri blushed but there was a deep frown on his face. “I don’t-”

Just at that moment, his stomach made a loud noise, sounding just as pained as the blonde felt. “Unghh…” Yuri clenched his teeth, giving his boyfriend a haughty look, silently warning the other not to say anything.

But unfortunately for him, the Kazakh skater was immune to Yuri’s threatening looks and gave Yuri a ‘look’ of his own. “Okay, tell me whats going on, Yura.” He demanded.

The blonde teen flinched, knowing his boyfriend only called him by that nickname whenever he was either horny or in trouble.

And he doubted the other wanted sex right now.

Yuri gave a long sigh and finally confessed what he had done, “Fine. I ate your snack bars earlier and I swear I’ll buy you two boxes to replace them tomorrow. But now my stomach’s killing me for some reason.” The blonde told him, clutching his stomach freely now since there was no point in hiding anymore.

Otabek blinked as he suddenly looked thoughtful. “What snack bars are you talking about, exactly?”

Yuri groaned as his stomach gave another cramp as he answered tightly, “Those chocolate and peanut butter ones- you know, the ones you leave in the top cabinet at the kitchen?”

Otabek’s eyes widened as he heard what the other had just said, “Yuri, those bars aren’t just for snacks. They’re rich with fiber to help move your bowels along. I eat one, sometimes two, when I’m constipated.” The Kazakh told him. “How many bars did you eat exactly?”

Yuri grimaced as he weakly said, “The whole box?” He groaned again when his stomach rumbled once more.

Otabek sighed as he walked towards the couch and sat beside the blonde. Opening his arms out, he said, “Okay come here and I’ll rub your stomach- you’re just gonna feel worse if you hold it in like that and if I know a thing or two about Fibre One….the gas isn’t going to go away just like that.” The Kazakh informed him.

Yuri huffed but he was feeling so bloated and in pain that he obediently scooted next to his boyfriend and rested against the couch, taking his own hands off his stomach so it could be replace with his boyfriend’s.

Otabek lifted up the blonde’s shirt and couldn’t help but give the other’s bloated belly an amused look. Shaking his head, he rubbed his hands to warm them up first before putting them directly on the teen’s stomach.

Yuri gave an obscene moan as he felt his boyfriend push down on his swollen belly, making kneading motions with his hands.

BRRRAAAAAPPP!

“GOD!” Yuri gasped loudly when a loud fart came out of him. But right after, two more equally loud, blustering farts came out, sounding like gun shots.

“Don’t worry, Fibre One usually makes…loud noises. It’s normal.” Otabek assured him.

PRRRRTTT! ……….BRRRRAAPPP!…. BRRRRRRRTTTTT!

“There’s nothing normal about this!” Yuri groaned, unable to stop himself from letting more thundering farts fly out.

Sure, the blonde teen can fart as loud with the best of them, but never had he farted so much in so little time and all at such a loud volume.

BRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT!

“Holy mother of- when will this fucking end?!” Yuri bit his lip as a sharp fart practically forced its way out of him, making his butthole burn from its release. It had already been about half an hour and the blonde’s farts were still going strong.

Otabek gave the right side of his boyfriend’s stomach a hard push, forcing another  burst of gas out, before replying, “Since you ate the whole box, it could be a while.” He looked apologetic as he said this.

BRRRUUMMMMPPP!

Yuri’s groan couldn’t even be heard anymore as a nearly ear-shattering fart exited him right at that moment.

Yuri didn’t even know what he was feeling at that moment- whether it be humiliated, embarrassed, pained or relieved. All the teen wanted was for this whole thing to be over.

Otabek continued to knead the other’s belly and at one point, he used his thumbs and pressed down firmly at a certain area nearly the blonde’s belly button.

PRRRRRRUUUUuurrrt.

The fart that was forced out started off loud, almost screeching, like the previous ones but quickly made a downwards spiral until it suddenly stopped.

Otabek looked up, feeling alarmed by the abrupt end of that last ominous fart, and saw the ghostly pale look on his boyfriend face.

It was like time had stopped just then. But it lasted for only a second because suddenly Otabek found himself watching as Yuri was suddenly up and now running out of the room, both of his hands holding his backside.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” The Kazakh skater could hear his boyfriend curse up a storm as loud footsteps desperately ran towards the restroom.

Otabek stayed on the couch and listened as a door was slammed accompanied by another loud curse they echoed throughout the entire house.

Shaking his head, Otabek finally got up from the couch and stretched out his own stiff body for a few seconds before making his way to their shared bedroom to grab Yuri an extra pair of underwear and some shorts- because he had a strong feeling the blonde was gonna need it.

[underwish]

two years since D.C.

this is very long but it kind of just poured out of me (tw for eating disorders, mental illness)

My life-changing moment occurred several weeks and also many months before my life changed. Let me explain.

 It was the crispest, coldest morning as I made way across the town and in and out of lyrics and past the most important House in our country. Breathless, I arrived as the sky was turning from pink. Within seconds it was steel blue, cold gray, and my blood, which had been churning to the rhythm of the newest Kendrick Lamar, began to freeze.

It was 6:00 a.m. at the Washington Monument, and I got in line behind a dozen or so people who had somehow arrived even earlier than I did. I had relished the long walk from my apartment over a mile away – my parents and younger brother were in town, visiting me at the close of my work-study program in the nation’s capitol, and I was petrified that their presence would keep me from my daily gym visits. Each day, I’d run on the treadmill to the point of dizziness – and then run some more.

My desire to be thin wasn’t at its peak. That had occurred several months earlier, while I was still studying at my main university and had nurtured a full-fledged eating disorder that I was only partially “recovered” from. Well, in my own eyes I was recovered; I now fed myself, at least, although with a meticulous obsession that kept me right toeing the line between healthy and “underfed.” Hence, the daily dizzy attacks on my local YMCA’s treadmill.

And here I was, bundled up within an inch of my life (or so the California girl in me thought) waiting to get tickets for the Washington Monument as part of a full day of D.C. adventuring with my parents. The ticket office didn’t open until 8, and I whiled away the next hour and a half while my body slowly numbed.

I was frantic, overwhelmed by the cold, when I finally obtained four tickets. I was starving, having devoured a single Kind bar while in line (another aspect of my diet was this measure of control: if I knew I’d be out and about all day with no access to food, I’d purposely pack very little, therefore forcing myself to spend a day on single granola bars or a piece of fruit.)

At this point, families of tourists were beginning to arrive in throngs around the miles of Smithsonian museum grounds, and I hurried past people in an effort to get someplace warm. I ended up in the quaint Smithsonian House, essentially a visitor’s center, and took refuge on a bench in a large hall.

I slowly took stock of my body. I couldn’t get warm, and yet I was sweating profusely. My heart was racing. My feet and toes were tingling, and not out of cold – in fact, this was something that had been happening to me regularly over the past several months, in addition to bouts of insomnia, night sweats (and on one occasion witnessed by my poor roommate, night screaming) and migraine headaches. All of this had begun to pile on top of the constant exhaustion I’d felt for years, despite regular nights of 14-hour sleep.

And so, sitting in the middle of the visitor’s center, I pulled out my phone and resorted to one of my favorite games: Web MD. I frantically Googled my symptoms (dizziness, tingling hands and feet, racing heart) and my eyes landed on hyperglycemia. Pre-diabetes, I read, high blood sugar – all of my symptoms checked out.

I’m going to jump the timeline here and interject: I was not, nor have I ever been, hyperglycemic or pre-diabetic. But during that March morning, I was so determined to ignore what was right in front of my face, my body’s cry for help, that I was more willing to think I had become pre-diabetic than realize I was suffering from intense anxiety and depression (combined with my newfound eating disorder, of course.)

My family wasn’t due to meet me at the Smithsonian until 9 (and they, of course, were also running late), and so I spent the next hour or so combing the Internet for more information on hyperglycemia. 

It was then, however, that – despite my actual lack of this serious medical condition – I had a breakthrough. In trying to understand how I could have let me body get into such a condition, I read an article discussing how eating disorders and restrictive eating can lead to diabetes.

Oh my god, I thought, in only a year I’ve already wreaked incurable damage on my own body. 

I believed that I was pre-diabetic and that this was the result of the days without any food, of the hunger pains and the excessive exercise. And I was floored, absolutely terrified. The fear increased as I read about diabetes, about what I thought I had done to myself.

And it was then I decided, with sudden, startling clarity, to eat. A tiny voice spoke logic, for once: you need to eat.

It wasn’t that simple, of course. First, I had spent months (and, I later realized, years on a more subtle level) obsessively controlling everything that went into (and occasionally out of) my stomach. Trying to flip the switch and give myself permission to eat was anything but easy, and the next week was spent fighting off small panic attacks with every calorie.

I “allowed” myself an ice cream cone on a freezing day in Virginia; I ate the bread put out on a restaurant table; I even swallowed a spoonful of honey, one night before bed when my heart was racing and I was positive my body was shutting down. The honey, I read online, would hopefully stop me from slipping into a diabetic coma overnight.

In retrospect, it’s so obviously ridiculous. Not only my sudden confidence that I had this particularly complicated medical issue, but the fact that I was silent about it – to my friends, my boyfriend, and most of all my parents, who didn’t see my ribcage through my heavy winter coat and who saw me eat bread and ice cream like any other 21-year old girl. 

And my symptoms, as you may have guessed, did not disappear. I returned to Los Angeles, my home, with my family about a week later. I was officially finished with college. As our taxi pulled away from LAX, I rolled down the window and inhaled the humid air, positive that now, in the warm embrace of my home, I could begin to cure myself. 

I made a doctor’s appointment. Sitting on the papered examining chair, I confidently explained my symptoms and subsequent self-diagnosis with a nurse, and then my doctor. I asked to have my blood tested, and they obliged. I was so excited, in a way, to have confirmation of a physical defect in my system that had caused all of my aches and pains.

Instead, the doctor returned to tell me that my blood sugar was totally fine. All of my other vitals, in fact, were great. There was nothing physically wrong with me. 

My doctor sat down and asked me, gently, if there could be something else going on. The discussion is a blur now: I remember the spike in my heart rate, fighting to keep tears from my eyes as the doctor asked me if I’d been feeling depressed. If anxiety ran in my family. If I was battling an eating disorder.

In the past year I’ve seen a crop of articles addressing the stigmatization of mental illness. People are starting to become more outspoken about their struggles. But I, an already intensely secretive and uncommunicative person, was barely able to nod along with my doctor at the time. I had hardly addressed my mental illness in my own head; saying it out loud felt like the world would crumble all around me.

 But I’ve always communicated best when forced to answer a direct question, and my doctor’s clinical, straightforward nature allowed me to finally admit and accept what had been hurting me for many years: I was extremely depressed and I had very high anxiety (both of these sparked the night sweats, the headaches, the tingling and the sleep problems) and I was battling an eating disorder.

I was prescribed Lexapro, as well as Xanax to help with my intense anxiety before the anti-depressant kicked in. I was referred to a therapist. My second breakthrough, this clarity of the fight I was up against, had occurred -- several weeks after my initial breakthrough that led me to feed myself.

It’s very much worth explaining that after this wasn’t suddenly a sunny, fixed world. In fact, it’s been two years of figuring out the right meds, the right doses and the right therapist. And it took a long time for any of my symptoms – physical symptoms caused by my depression and anxiety – to go away.

I still get bouts of tension headaches or migraines when I have stressful or anxious days. I am constantly working on my communication, my honesty with those who matter to me. I still have a difficult relationship with alcohol, and a difficult relationship with food and exercise. And I still battle the stigma that comes with acknowledging mental illnesses and the drugs used to fight them.

But I have come so far in the past two years. Exactly two years ago, in late March 2015, I was suffering on a level that seems incomprehensible, foreign to the girl I am today. I’m happily on a low-level of antidepressants (Cymbalta finally did the trick for me), and I still need a Xanax in certain anxiety-inducing situations (hello, crowded, dark, loud movie theaters!)

And that is okay.

I’ve reached the point in writing this piece where I’m not sure how it ends, but I suppose I want to leave whoever is reading this with some hope for their future, if they’re going through anything similar. I very much understand not wanting to speak up about mental health struggles – which is why it took an almost-stranger, my very professional doctor, to pull the truth out of me. So if you ever need some anonymous advice or help, please feel free to ask me.

I don’t remember his exact words, but my doctor wrapped up our conversation that day by explaining that anxiety and depression were a physical, medical condition. He affirmed my right to seek help and told me it would get better. There have been many times since then where I did not believe him, but turns out – he was right. I got better.

[idonotknowhowtoo-blog]

- How to Cure a Hangover -

Hangover treatment is constantly more needed throughout the holiday season. Parties and celebrations are generally followed by alcohol intake in large quantities that often get visible the morning after when we meet our "well-known buddy" that visits us after every "excellent" party- HANGOVER. And it is usually being followed by headache and that popular feeling that we have been run over by a bus. Sounds familiar, right?

There are many ways how to survive "the day after". Pharmacists just recently created many preparations (consisting of hangover tablets) however there are really natural hangover cures that can prevent "the day after hangover" pains- which generally are exhaustion, diarrhea and extreme headache.

Hangover signs

Hangover is a physical and psychological condition that occurs after extreme alcohol intake, depending on what and how much drink was taken, and can differ from mild headaches to serious exhaustion and dehydration, queasiness and diarrhea. In the case of a headache, an individual is troubled by all the surrounding noises, the regular volume of conversation, even moderate creaking door, because he actually feels like his head is going to explode.As you can see, alcohol is a miracle. If there is a strong desire to vomit, and at the same time nothing comes out, it is most likely since the stomach is totally empty. Consistent stress just makes this issue even worse.

of the body is often acknowledged due to strong thirst because alcoholic drinks can quickly empty our body. The finest hangover and dehydration treatment is certainly higher consumption of fluids-- water above all. It might be that you actually burn the esophagus-- as an effect of intake of spirits. Sluggishness, fatigue, weak point and extreme tiredness are a regular event after drunkenness. This would be just the physical signs of a hangover, what about the psyche? No hangover solution will cure anxiety, which happens immediately after awakening. You can also face worry and remorse.

Hangover remedies

The best way to avoid a hangover is to moderate usage of liquors or even better, completely avoid it- since only then you are 100 percent sure you will not have to deal with hangover. If you still choose to drink however want to be sure that you would prevent dehydration followed by a series of undesirable symptoms, it is really important that with every glass of alcohol you consume and one glass of plain water. No alcohol ought to be taken on an empty stomach, since in this way you lower the threat of binge drinking. If this condition has actually currently occurred, the best hangover remedies are dishes from nature, because there are many ways to ease the pains and speed up recovery and return to your typical self.

Milk against hangover

A cup of milk has a positive preventive effect because it will reduce the speed of absorption of alcohol and will effectively eliminate symptoms of a hangover.

Water hangover treatment

Immediately after waking up the next day, after a stormy night, if you feel that your head resembles a "huge drum", drink a big glass of water and continue to sip it throughout the day in bigger amounts.

Tea hangover therapy

A big error in the morning itself, after the "joyful night" is to prepare strong coffee which is a typical practice. If you think that strong coffee can assist you deal with headache-- you are wrong! Coffee is really strong diuretic and would trigger even higher dehydration, and you will only irritate currently irritated nervous system. Instead of coffee you can drink a cup of tea from lemon balm, chamomile, mint or always popular green tea.

Food treatments for a hangover

Lots of people who handle a hangover frequently experience nausea, retching and uncomfortable burning feeling in the chest location. The very best recommendations is to consume even if you are not starving due to the fact that when you eat something, your stomach will begin functioning properly and identified symptoms of a hangover will be relieved. The best service is to make a healthy breakfast containing cereals and fruits because they are abundant in vitamins C and B, which are most needed at this time, as well as carbs, because they provide all the required energy.

Gingerversus hangover

Ginger is an exceptional hangover solution. It relieves stomach problems, dizziness and headache. It can be consumed in a tea kind, as a condiment, or powder mixed with water. Ginger tea with honey and lemon juice is the very best hangover treatment.

Consume a fresh egg for breakfast

Eggs include cytosine, an amino-acid which is a powerful weapon against the acetaldehyde, a toxic substance which is a byproduct of ethanol oxidation. Acetaldehyde causes sleepiness that eggs successfully break.If you squeeze the juice of one lemon and blend it with a fresh egg (you can include a bit of honey), and then drink it on an empty stomach at the same time, you will make an amazing hangover treatment and quickly they will reduce problems and will absolutely make you feel a lot better.

Excellent morning smoothie

Mix in a mixer one banana, fresh orange juice, a handful of blueberries, a piece of ginger root and a teaspoon of local honey. Consume it in the early morning on an empty stomach and it will provide us with all the essential energy, vitamins and minerals, and it is also an exceptional house detox. With this healthy smoothie no hangover pills are needed.

We think that by now you have been offered details on what's good for a hangover, so you should certainly take some of these recipes and attempt them out. It is necessary to take foods rich in potassium, as it will be of fantastic aid in the fight against hangovers. Today we understand that alcohol does not eliminate only water from the body, however also valuable electrolytes. For that reason, eat a banana, it is a terrific cure for a hangover, drink a glass of juice of fresh tomatoes or cook a light tomato broth. Spinach is also a good source of this mineral, in addition to newly squeezed orange juice.

[thegreenninja-blog]

Weight Loss Surgery: A Cautionary Lap Band Tale

I made the option to get fat loss surgery. At that time, I expected the scales at about 305lbs. Our reasons, as anyone up against this determination can recognize, were my own. I also made several errors now and those I believe need addressing. The biggest were: my alternative to really have the surgery in my neighborhood as well as the surgery I decided. I reside in a town of 100,000+. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area is roughly three hours away. There is an office of doctors within my village recently reported as performing weightloss surgery, but just two: the Lapband and Gastric Bypass. I researched both procedures and had some ideas about each, but wished to consult with a doctor within this office before making my final choice. I did believe the Lap-Band could possibly be it for me though as it’s reversible and a less critical decision than the bypass (so far as having my composition cut-up and re-planted together and experiencing issues such as the chance for needing gallbladder surgery, “dumping syndrome,” and malabsorption problems.) Our step-sister chose to possess a bypass inside the metroplex area right before I had my procedure and was pleased being a clam about the whole point - I hope I’d followed her lead. I met with the physician. I was asked what insurance I had (National Blue Cross Blue Shield) and what procedure I would like. I told them I’d prefer to discuss my choices along with the physician did a brief run-down of each, however the perspective of the visit was very much “Why did you come here if you didn’t know?” I opted for Lap-Band… when I really should have plumped for another physician, but the Lapband requires frequent follow-up visits for floods (injecting fluid in to the band with a port under the skin to be able to take care of the band’s rigidity round the stomach and encourage weight loss.) I wanted to be able to seek this preservation in my own hometown rather than push for three hours everytime I must be seen. I had been ok with all the probability of slower weight loss because - after spending nearly all of my living in Weight Watchers - I understood slow weight loss was more likely to equal permanent weight loss. The next time I noticed my surgeon was the afternoon of the procedure.

I was later told that is what’s called being a “heartbeat with insurance.” I'd the task 01/14/09. There is no psych consult, no diet beforehand, no meeting with a dietician or exercise consultant - I was told “eh, should you don’t want it, consider it out!“. My last stable food and carbonated beverage was 01/12/09. The surgery was a day surgery. I had been put under, the band was put, I had been taken to recover, lightly hit awake, taken up to radiology, made to do an upper GI and swallow contrast material so that they could scan me and make sure everything was ok. This made me begin to retch which caused among my medical sites to reopen. I bled all around the ground - I still have the bloodstained clothes. I was patched back up and sent home. For your first twentyfour hours, I had been hanging. I was still at the top of whatever they gave me in the hospital in addition to the Twilight sleep patch behind my ear which was put there to avoid the inevitable nausea I get after being sedated. After that? I had been in hell. I always joked about requiring a Clockwork Orange Diet - one where I experience real pain or discomfort at the concept of eating since I decided that’s by what it would try get me to alter my ways since I really like eating THAT much. Well, be careful what you want for… I vomited constantly. I had been more nauseous than I've previously been in my life. I got my pain medicine and that made it worse. The worst part? I was still ravenously hungry. The Lap-Band had no effect whatsoever on that. I wanted only to consume and even the broths and soups I ate made me throw up. The whole time I was nausea, I had been terrified I had been about to slip my group (trigger the band to move which would cause the wrong sort of constraint - myths I find out about this on the web stated that people that did this couldn’t even take their own spit afterward.) Band slippage often requires additional surgery to fix and that I had been in enough discomfort to not ever need surgery again. I can remember my Mother visiting visit me at this time and me crying and just saying something similar to, “What have I completed? If you had been also considering this, don’t do it.” My husband called the doctor to report how nauseous I was to the point we thought something was wrong. They shrugged it off. We called again. A doctor finally admitted maybe it was my pain medicine. Affirmed, I had codeine awareness and issues were only a little better after I stopped taking the medication, but rather of offering to displace it with another thing, I was instructed to take liquid Tylenol… which I gave up on because it didn’t support a little. So pretty much used to do nearly all my healing with no pain management whatsoever $6. Besides being physically painful, I was abruptly also up against an extremely true feeling like mental pain. Not able to sleep or get comfortable, I resigned myself towards the chair and watched TV all day. You don’t realize how much food there is on TV before you can’t have any. My husband could come home from work and I would just cry. I’d list everything I watched and what everybody ate: a detective show with sandwiches, a sitcom with delicious cereal being nonchalantly enjoyed directly in the box. It was suffering. I don’t actually remember the post-surgery diet I had been on. I believe it had been a week of clear liquids, fourteen days of whole (milky), fourteen days of smooth and after that regular food as tolerated. I’m not 100% sure though. I had been appointed for my first follow-up. I think this was the first time I left the home, wore garments, etc. I still felt like death. I introduced myself within the surgeon’s office, searching and feeling like death and he explained ‘well done.’ I wondered if he was also considering me. A pal got me out of the home after week two, but I still felt terrible. Basically it was merely a chair vacation, from languishing on my chair to languishing on hers for an evening. I got two weeks removed from work whole. “They” will say you often will go back to work after one, but justincase there were issues, I wanted more time to feel better - kid, am I glad I took that much. Even if I had been actually powerful enough after Week One, mentally was another story - I would have gone ballistic on everybody the very first time someone introduced a sign up for burger for lunch. I continued going in to find out the doctor for band fills. We didn’t examine my plan for treatment or just how many fills I might need - at first I didn’t also feel any variation whilst the band tightened. He just kept telling me to come in. I'll attempt to sum up since I don’t really remember in what order things happened after this point. The almost 3 years I had the group were probably the most unpleasant of my life. Our band never slipped or eroded, but I still experienced pain, distress and almost constant vomiting. Anytime I'm asked now in what I had, I respond that the group is “medically managed bulimia” - and that I have the damaged esophagus to prove it. Here are some things I wish I'd identified: 1. The band doesn’t make sense Your stomach isn't a sealed container. It’s similar to a sieve. The entire reason the Lap-Band is meant to work is because the location of your stomach that causes emotions of fullness which it declares for your mind is close to the top. The band cinches up your belly to create a little pre-stomach pouch that you are supposed to complete with food that'll trick this region into early feelings of volume. My surgeon said the whole objective of eating will be to get pencil eraser-sized hits and delay MOMENTS in between each. You must get so “bored with eating, you will get up and go do another thing instead.” (Yea, tell somebody who is like she is starving to death to sit in front of food and take pencil eraser-sized bites. Which will certainly work.) So tell me this: you possibly follow this strategy and pulverize your meal to the point that it moves straight through the band and beats the reason or you take big enough hits that you do refill your sack, but are then in anguish when you feel each piece of badly chewed food try and go through your stoma (your new starting from stomach pouch to regular stomach. I call it having “food babies.” the 1st time I experienced the sensation of eating anything too big to easily pass through this opening, it felt such as the worst ice cream headache ever. in my stomach!) 2. To the majority of physicians, you're what I was: a pulse with insurance Surgeons receive money for doing surgery NOT for aftercare. It is likely that excellent your doctor is going to LEAVE YOU. Hey, if you go have surgery in Mexico, you almost certainly won’t get any aftercare at all! Leading me to another location fun fact I hope I would have known: 3. If your doctor leaves, NO BODY WILL TOUCH YOU. My surgeon left town and took his entire office with him inside a year of my surgery. This left my area high and dry. There was no one in town who'd actually go near me. This managed to get extra fun after I finished up “obstructed” (the group packed my belly completely shut for no reason whatsoever - I was struggling to eat or drink anything) as well as in the IM in regards to a week after he pulled up stakes. The original result of the ER was “go away, we don’t know anything in what you've,” nevertheless it was a three day weekend and that I literally had nowhere else to show therefore I really needed to walk them through just how to take water out of my group so I might have some relief. I searched physicians inside a 300 MILE radius and was either declined being a new patient although I might develop my surgical report which showed there have been no issues with my surgery, or was quoted a silly “New Individual Fee” of anywhere from several hundred a number of THOUSAND dollars. 4. Your insurance means nothing If you end up inside the position I did, forgotten by your physician with nobody else in your town or out who'll help you, congratulations: you've now joined the world of income-for-service! It doesn’t subject that I have outstanding insurance that paid for just about anything I needed, without any doctor to take my insurance, I had been SOL. I resorted to gobetween. A silly middleman company that necessary money at the start and approached a community of companies near me (I applied Austin mostly - the quack in Irving hurt me worse trying to give me a fill than I’ve possibly ever been injured because location before) to secure an appointment to have me a load. I'd to utilize this company several times to secure fills to get me backup to the level I was at before the ER had taken some out once I was blocked. 5. You're at the band’s mercy Your Research-Group employs no preset rules. It's also affected by points totally beyond your control like atmospheric pressure. I'm very much a creature of practice and might consider the exact same identical Lean Cuisine food to work for lunch every day. I may have no trouble whatsoever eating it or -two to three days out of five- I would throw it up. I was also told inflammation and water retention during my time might and could make the group cinch itself up. The group can be an implanted medical device. Believe very carefully about all the advertisements you notice on TV: “Call 1800-fat-sttlmet4u if you have had some of the following… Attorney Steve can struggle for you!” If anything goes wrong withit, you experience more unwanted side effects or surgery. My band actually had a recall released on it not too much time after I got it: a little piece used to show the port’s tubing and maintain it from getting kinked up can come undone and cause said kinkage to happen. The best part: the recall was for companies not already inserted. For me who already had it? “Don’t worry. Take no action. You’re probably fine.” The worst thing I focused on was getting obstructed again with no one to assist me. Because the best thing to do is worry and worry, I instantly looked at one of the best books/videos: “The Stand.” There was a complete part in the book devoted to people who could have survived the trouble whenever they hadn’t accomplished x/b/z (ruptured appendix, fell off motorcycle and cracked head, etc) and gotten killed. I quickly put myself within this type: the world ends, I endure, except my stomach pushes spontaneously shut and that I starve to death. 6. You may still make all the wrong choices What no one explained and I didn't discover within my study about the group is: the band is just a resource for fat loss, yes, but it’s a poor one. As your belly is intact, you can still expand it. The quack I mentioned before in Irving mentioned an individual he was seeing who were able to loosen up his bag so far that the upper GI revealed that his pouch only returned his intact stomach BELOW the group (one stomach, then lapband, then your other stomach.) There's also something called “soft fat problem,” where your band could possibly be too small (a state my surgeon had me constantly existing in before he left.) You're physically unable to make the “right” possibilities in regards to food since the right choices hurt. It never stopped to impress me how I had been suddenly limited in this value following the group. I got to where I had endless desires for salad since I hadn’t enjoyed a salad just about the entire time I had been banded. The vegetables were a no-no for me and would get stuck and irritate me until I threw up. This kind of discomfort can also be what would cause potential congestion because I’d get swollen. You begin making choices that are simple and never right - high calorie, creamy, fatty sauces, milkshakes, icecream - items that are simple to eat simply because they get through the band and don’t cause any pain or discomfort. 7. You can still gain all of it back I guess I knew about this potential, but I didn’t need to think about it. Allinall, I lost about 70lbs with the group all together. The truth is: as it didn’t impact my hunger whatsoever, all it did was delay the inevitable. Each food and eating associated need was still there, I had been only physically struggling to show it. The month the ER did a partial un-fill as a result of congestion? Yes, I gained 20lbs. I lost it again after I got re-tightened, however it showed me the score. I was probably just about 10 or 15 pounds up when I finally chose to produce a change. I joined Weight Watchers for the thousandth time and began checking and tracking - anything I should have done since Day-One with the group. I don’t understand what I was thinking. I had been told a lot of things about what the group was allowed to be and there were also lots of items that I will have done that I didn’t. * * * And so I was un-banded (disbanded?) on Dec 6th (RIP Lappy 01/14/09 - 12/06/11) and opted for the gastric sleeve. I realized when I didn’t get another kind of surgery - for all my training and good intentions - without that safetynet, I'd be backup past 300 in a year.

My experience was the precise opposite of the Lap-Band in almost any way. I'm fantastic and wish I acquired the sleeve to start with and didn’t waste almost 36 months in anguish, but what’s the cliché? Hindsight is always 20/20. The sleeve was still being processed like a technique in those days therefore I might not happen to be as happy with after that it when I am now-so - here’s another for you - everything happens at its time and for its reason, I guess. I started out writing this as a comparison of every encounter (thus the lengthy URL), but I noticed I'd much too much to write therefore the gastric sleeve must have a unique link later. I do very much know that is ONLY one person’s experience. There are plenty of other folks available who enjoy their Lap Bands and also have had wonderful experience with them. I just wished to inform you what happened tome in case you're creating a fat loss surgery decision today an Get to know more about Centralia Orthognathic