#hobbling around to coddle a bad knee sucks

[local-magpie]

man if you let yourself be fragile for a few seconds you just gotta be fragile until things get better huh

[tiredandkindaoverworked]

Surgery HCs with Iida and Sero

A/N: I was thinking back on when I got surgery for a really fucked up knee back in 2017 and my recovery process was kinda not so good, so I wanted to write about how the boys would help you with surgery recovery. This is based on my own experience with it, so it might not align with other’s experiences!

Warnings: Nudity(not sexual),

IIDA TENYA

Worries and overthinks when you’re in the OR

he is literally pacing in the waiting room

he immediately comes to the recovery room to see you

You’re totally conked out, he’s gonna have to wait

Totally the type to follow medical instructions to a tee

He will literally become a mother hen

Dotes on you 24/7 until you recover

“Darling, the instructions say to take medicine every 12 hours!”

“Or as needed, Tenya, you’re gonna keep me sedated if I take that many.”

Thank god he’s not a yandere

Cooks soft foods for you (congee, soups) since you can’t have solid foods

Absolutely coddles you because he’s afraid of you burning yourself (leg’s out of commission, not my mouth, iida)

Can’t cuddle with you because of leg pains but will cover you in kisses

He doesn’t know how to help you when you get the weird phantom pains around your healing scars, so he just does his best to make you comfortable

Spends the first few days sleeping next to you on the ground because he’s afraid of accidentally hurting you

That man is a cuddler and he has no control over himself while sleeping so you know he’d feel bad about it

He blushes profusely when you ask him to help you shower but still helps you out because he loves you and wants to help you

He tries his best to respect your privacy and results in spraying you directly in the face instead of washing soap out of your hair

Will be hovering once you’re good enough to walk on crutches

Watches you to make sure you don’t fall over while getting used to walking around

Accompanies you to PT because physical therapy is a long arduous process and it sucks

Helps you do at home exercises to help you get your leg back to top condition

Celebrates your recovery by taking a walk in your favorite park when you’re comfortable enough to walk around normally

Get yourself a Tenya when you’re recovering

SERO HANTA

boy is absolutely worried about you during surgery

He has Kirishima in the waiting room with him because he knows Kiri can help him stay positive

scrolls through memes while he’s waiting, but starts to get worried when the surgery takes longer than they said it would

Doctor eventually comes out and lets them know everything’s fine

There was more damage to the knee than they originally saw in the MRI scans so it obv took longer for them to fix

You’re lucid way too soon but almost immediately knock back out

Once you’re awake, he helps you get dressed and helps you into the wheelchair

He is VERY careful around your leg brace

Sero wheels you to the car and lifts you in

You basically are out cold for hours until the morphine wears off and the pain starts kicking in

He hears your groans of pain and awkwardly sits you up so you can take your medicine

Brings a futon in the room so he can tend to your needs

When your leg pain starts acting up, he doesn’t wanna give you too many painkillers, so he opts for putting your head in his lap and stroking your hair while he tells you about the Bakusquad’s dumb antics

It doesn’t get rid of the pain, but it helps to take your mind off it most of the time

Tried to cook for you, but gets intercepted by Bakugo

“I’ll cook for them, you’ll just mess it up!”

He lowkey worries about you a lot so he wants an excuse to see you but god forbid he ever admit it

He doesn’t need to, Bakusquad comes to your room anyways

Sero won’t say it, but he worries a little about you getting addicted to your painkillers, but he knows you take them sparingly, so it really shouldn’t concern him that much

When the pain becomes bearable, you get up and hobble around on crutches as soon as you can

If you ask him to help you shower, he is totally on board

He helps you put clear wrap around your gauze to keep it dry

He even joins you in the shower and helps you wash up

He’ll totally follow you and keep an eye on you

You slip once and he catches you in his arms

“Falling for me again, love bug?”

“That implies I fell out of love in the first place”

He cuddles the shit out of you that night

Bakusquad will absolutely mess with your crutches

Sero has to ban them when they accidentally hit you in the face with one of them

He takes you to physical therapy

Will 100% over exaggerate your exercises to the point that you’re both giggling over his silliness

Gives you kisses and tells you how proud he is of you for overcoming such an obstacle

[axiomink]

A Happy Ending

One day you suddenly start hearing muffled voices and the amount of them slowly increases. Eventually, you find out that they are praying to you and that they are people from stories you have created! Somehow, they have gained sentience and have discovered that you created their world.

2.1k words

The air was dank and still as death itself. Suffocating, shoving its way into my throat and rotting my consciousness. The light of my lantern was the only thing keeping the monsters at bay, the only thing keeping their gnashing teeth from sinking it my skin.

“No no no,” I said aloud. “Too dark.” 

I groaned and shoved the ancient typewriter away from me, then cracked open a lukewarm bottle of beer. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ivory paper muddied by my words. Who was I kidding? I lost my touch. Ten years from the last time I wrote a paragraph had slipped through my fingers. Maybe in a past life the writing gods had blessed me, but in this one they only abandoned me. 

After I chugged down the beer, I threw the empty bottle across the room, and it knocked my old cat in the head. He yawned and hissed at me, struggled to all fours, then bore his teeth—tail taut and stiff. 

It wasn’t unusual for him to scold my self-loathing hijinks, but he would’ve calmed down by now. He stood up and trotted to the coat closet nestled in between the stairwell and the wall. He prodded the door with his paw. I stood up and leaned on my cane, then hobbled towards the closet. As I came closer, whispers leaked out and drifted into my ears. They were great in number and clamored over each other, yet I had never heard them before. 

Palms sweaty, I nudged my cat away, cracked the door open, and peeked inside. A large portal, about six fee tall, hovered in the spot where my coats and jackets were supposed to be. The portal was bright and holographic, reflecting every light that touched it. 

“What the hell,” I muttered. 

The whispers grew louder, beckoning me like moths to a lamp. I stuck my fingers through, and after their tips brushed against silky foliage, I stepped through the portal. The whispers were deafening by now; saying, “Finish our story.” 

I tripped on the seam of the portal and fell face-first into a pile of hangars and coats. I dug myself out and looked around to see five short figures, clad in dark, hooded cloaks, encircling me and chanting prayers and creeds. I stumbled back.

The tallest figure addressed me first. “We’ve done it!“

She whipped off her hood to reveal a pale, freckled face topped by ginger locks and bejeweled by emerald eyes. Her age shocked me the most; she had to be no older than eleven. 

“Our creator has returned!” Her voice was girlish and innocent, with a tinge of exhaustion. “Everyone, bow!” 

The four other figures collapsed to their knees, and the girl knelt at my feet. 

“Wha—what is this?” I demanded, backing away. 

The girl stood back up. “It’s me, Reese. You made me, remember?” 

I picked through dusty, castaway memories.

“You were my first original character,” I said, half-guessing. “I created you as the main character for a book.” 

Reese turned to the others, who pulled back their hoods as well. 

“They remember! Do you remember anyone else?” 

I studied the four faces. The boy with fluffy brown hair and brown eyes was Hunter, formerly Trevor. There was Jessie, Reese’s nerdy tech friend, with wild curly hair and dark skin. There was Missy, the resident mean girl turned buddy. And then there was . . . I grimaced. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning towards the scrawny kid with messy, sand-colored hair. “I forgot your name.” 

He gulped. “I uhh, can’t remember it either.” 

“What?” I asked. 

“Since you forgot it, so did he,” Reese said. 

I stared at all of them. “How is this possible? How are you all . . . alive?”

“We’ve always been alive,” said Hunter, “from the moment you first thought of us. You are our benevolent god, and when you left us, we were forced to become sentient of our existence.” 

“Okay, now this is getting a little creepy.” 

“We just want you to set us free,” begged Missy. “We’ve been trapped here, in a static world that doesn’t change, expand, or age. We don’t how long it’s been. Time is an illusion here.” 

“And how do I ‘set you free’, exactly?” 

“Finish our story,” replied Reese. “Once you do, we’ll be able to take control of our own actions and world.” 

I looked around me. I stood in a giant, lush forest. The grass was emerald green, the trees looked as if they touched the clouds, and wildlife was abundant. But as I examined closer, ominous things stuck out. I could feel no wind, the grass and leaves and foliage were beautiful in an unnatural way, and the animals moved stiffly, as if they were robots enslaved to a pre-written script. Even the horizon seemed empty and vague, like you’d fall off the edge of the earth if you left the forest.

“So I have to write the ending to the novel you guys were all in,” I said. 

“Yes, but it has to be a real continuation, a real ending,” said Reese. “You have to put as much effort into it as you did before.” 

I cringed. “Listen guys, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It’s been ten years since I tried writing anything—The Secret Forest was my last project.” 

“But you have to help us,” chimed in the boy whose name I forgot. 

“I said I can’t!” 

I retreated towards the portal, but I secretly didn’t want to leave. I was curious and wanted to explore the world I had created. 

“I knew they wouldn’t help us,” muttered Jessie. 

“I’m not surprised either,” said Missy. “They abandoned us before anyway. Looks like you were wrong, prophet.” 

Reese sighed and grabbed my arm. “Hey, can you at least stay with us for a bit? Maybe you’ll change your mind? Tell us about the universe you live in.”  

The offer tempted me. “All right, fine.” 

So I stayed there, in the forest. At first I forgot all about my cat, but he ventured through the portal and Missy found him on the second night. She continued to coddle the lively thing. 

After spending time with the nameless boy, where he showed me magic tricks and told funny jokes, I decided to call him Curly. It wasn’t a great name, or even a good one, but Reese said once I finished the story, he’d be able to change it for himself.

In speaking of finishing the story, Reese still acted like I would do it, which made me uncomfortable. I distracted myself by spending hours building skyscrapers and transformer cars with Jessie. 

I painted my face in striking colors and tried on dazzling clothes with Missy. Suits, dresses, she owned everything.

Hunter didn’t like me very much, and Reese told me it was because he was jealous. She was the main character, and so he was he, but slightly less so. He believed he should’ve been the prophet—the main character. 

“But I still like him,” she said, sighing. 

“Eugh,” I replied. 

“What? He is the love interest after all! You used to ship us.” 

“Yeah, but not anymore. Honestly, now that I look back, all of you guys sucked.” 

Reese was taken aback. She shifted on the large tree branch we were sitting on. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, all of you are one-sided and poorly developed. I based all of your personalities off of stupid tropes, you know. And you’re a friggin’ self-insert from when I was like, eleven.”

A tear welled in her eye. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” she choked out. “You had just started writing.” 

“Yeah, but I could’ve done better. That’s why I quit, you know? I just didn’t like what I was writing. It was just so . . . bad. Everything, the plot, the world-building, and especially the characters.” 

By now her face was red as rubies. “But you are going to finish our story, right?” 

I shrugged. “I dunno. Do I want to? I don’t really care or like any of you so. I’m not a writer anyway, not anymore.” 

She turned away. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she muttered, “to not have name. You don’t know what it’s like being trapped, in a median where you’re never truly caught nor free. You don’t know what it’s like staring into the eyes of someone who loves you back, but you can’t have them. Or even confess to them. You don’t know what hopelessness feels like” 

“Well, fun fact—I do,” I snorted. “Man, that sure was a dramatic monologue. Don’t remember writing you as the emo trope.” 

Reese gasped and jumped down from the tree, landing with grace on the mossy ground. “Fine!” she yelled. “Go home then! Keep Hunter and I apart! Keep all of us from living our lives!” 

She stormed off towards the waterfall and swiped her arm across her face. 

I groaned and slipped down the tree, with much less precision and poise. I began to follow her, but Hunter appeared and stopped me. 

“You should probably let her be,” he said. “Listen, I’m not going to tell you what to do, I’m not going to give you some stupid pep talk about how you’re still a writer. Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. You don’t have to keep writing, and you don’t even owe us a happy ending. But remember that you created something you still control, and you’re responsible for it.”

I stared at him. “Well, I certainly don’t remember writing you like this either.” 

“Every character has potential,” he responded. 

I thought for a moment, then turned and headed to the waterfall. 

Reese bent over her reflection as it rippled with the waves. The waterfall towered over her, pouring gallons of sapphire liquid from an eternal source.

“It’s the only area that changes,” she explained, hearing us approach. 

“Do you have a typewriter I could borrow?” I asked.  

She didn’t look at me. “What’s a typewriter?” 

“You’ll uh, you’ll find out. Is there any paper around, then? I need lots of it.”

“Why?” she asked, solemn. 

“Guess.” 

She stood up. “What made you change your mind?” 

Hunter nudged me and whispered, “Don’t tell her I did it, she will not like that.” 

“I just decided to,” I said. “Do I have to like, put something that indicates it’s the end?” 

“No,” Reese said. “It’s the end whenever you decide it’s the end. You have to return home first, I imagine. Since our world will change drastically when you close it off.” 

“Of course.” 

So Curly came over and slapped down a stack of fresh copy paper while Missy gave me her lucky pencil and eraser. Then I got settled in the lush grass and wrote and wrote, scribbling my heart and mind out. 

For the first few hours writer’s block trapped me, but my characters gave me ideas and helped me fight through it. Callouses formed on my fingers, my eyes were bloodshot, but I kept pressing the lead to paper. Missy’s pencil was soon ground to a nub, and eraser bits covered the area. 

I wrote from sun up to sun down, and once I was nearly done I wished everyone goodbye—Curly, Missy, Jessie, Hunter, and Reese. Missy gave back my old cat, who had warmed up quite a bit to her. 

They escorted me to the field where they prayed before, and I helped Reese summon another portal. Everyone waved and cheered as I stepped through—papers, cat, and coats in my arms. 

I tumbled out of the closet and sealed the portal, then sat down in front of my typewriter and put the finishing touches on the ending. Once I was sure it was done, I wrote, ‘The End’ in big, bold letters, just to make it official. 

It was a rough draft, so it was far from perfect. I knew that. But I didn’t mind this time. 

I leaned back and wondered what kind of life my characters would lead. Jessie might become a NASA scientist; Curly a stand-up comedian or perhaps a famous Youtuber; Missy a fashion designer; Reese an environmental activist; and Hunter would follow her where ever.

Afterwards, I never wrote again.

THE END

So this was for a mini-contest. I know it’s vaguely personal essay-esque, because I feel like if my ocs came to life there’d be a certain set that would be very upset with me. My first idea was that the ocs would kidnap me and take me to their world because this crazy serial killer from another story I wrote somehow escaped into their world, and I would be the only one who could stop him. That idea would have had more of a humorous slant, but in the end I just went with this one.