#i can't do that. i can't handle it because last time we did one of those both sides received death threats

[trekwiz]

I currently have a "desk job." I definitely couldn't handle retail, but my last role was a physical job.

As a streaming producer, most of my work included hauling heavy gear. Across a site; sometimes across state lines. And basically building a production space from scratch.

A lot of lifting, bending, crawling. Work in tight spaces: we had one setup with a curved desk fully against a wall, the same width as the room. Any time we had to replace a cable or add new gear, I had to crawl under the desk and squeeze into a standing position, between the desk and wall.

I got diagnosed with degenerative disk in my 30s from my career. That kind of physical work.

I like my desk job a lot better. But you can't just slot anyone into it. It doesn't require a credential; other companies prefer a PMP, but we don't. Broadcast is specialized experience, but classrooms and credentials are not the barrier.

Producers on the team who have background to understand it consider it to be overwhelming: they strongly do not want my job. I know, because I advocated for promoting internally when we had openings. They refused because of how difficult the work is.

We filled the roles with people who have experience in the same industry. They were "comfortable" after 3 months of training. That means they could lead projects mostly independently. 2 years later, they're still coming to me for direction on a weekly basis because a lot of our work is highly complex. For people who understand it.

If you pluck someone out of any other job to do it, they're going to fail; they'll leave if they don't get fired. And I mean that in both directions of the nonexistent scale of skilled vs unskilled work: you can't take a scientist out of the lab and have them do my job successfully. Medical doctors will fail much faster. I know this--they're among my clients who turn to me for guidance on the technologies I support.

We also had someone clueless in an "unskilled" desk position for about a year. This individual was absolutely not capable of handling "a basic desk job." They're directly responsible for the success I've had in re-positioning the role as a skilled position.

They were a complete and total disaster in the role; they actively made everyone else's job more difficult and unpleasant. Their peer had to fix upwards of 80% of their work. They wouldn't communicate about their progress, so others missed deadlines--you don't get a do-over in live broadcast, so that greatly increased everyone's stress. Clients would get incorrect information and complain on a regular basis.

They would refuse to fix problems, and make the false claim that they did it correctly, even if their error was openly visible with their signature on it.

This person received personal training for months, written step-by-step documentation of their process, and performed the same tasks every day. But they'd complain or refuse the work if someone else in a different functional area wouldn't give them the exact step-by-step instructions to complete the same basic tasks each time.

The idea that just anyone is capable of doing "a desk job" is based on not knowing what constitutes "a desk job."

I would also add that the entry level desk jobs most likely to have their skill trivialized in this way are administrative assistants. It's a career that is still largely dominated by women; their employers significantly undervalue and underpay their skilled labor already. There are outliers, but this typically an undervalued position.

The amount of time management and organizational skills needed to do that role successfully often goes unnoticed. They need specific people-skills to encourage colleagues and vendors to do work outside of their norm, and to smooth over scheduling mishaps. They require great communication skills that not everyone has.

Trivializing the skill it takes to do their job helps keep them at the bottom of the pay scale. And importantly. Doing that doesn't lift up anyone else, except for the highly paid executives who are pocketing the saved labor costs.

[anachronismstellar]

May I suggest a lady beast peak lord (handles beasts of burden and livestock + whatever the fuck LQQ drags home that's still alive) for the achievement ?? Possibly with the name Wu Qingfang?

And here we are, welcome my friend to the possession of Airplane, we can't escape him and he can't stop mixing up his peak lords, apparently DUSHSKDJSKD

And the moment I've seen your ask I fell in love with her aaaaa a woman that takes no shit from all the other lords PLUS can handle Liu-shidi nonsense? HELL YESS HERE WE GO

BTW thank you for her lovely name! :D I hope you like her as much as I enjoyed writing this!

Another thanks to everyone in this post that helped me with the name for the Long-Leg Kicking Pouch Hare creature, you guys are amazing! ❤️

The peak name I've borrowed from @00janeblonde's fanfic FAQ that you can find here!

------

One curious thing that might pass unnoticed by many was the proximity of An Ding peak with Ling You peak. After all, there was no logistics without the transportation, and there was no transportation without animals to pull carriages.

There was also the feeding of the entire Sect. All the dairy, the eggs, and the meat were under Ling You peak responsibility, while the logistics to who sent what fell under An Ding scope.

So Shang Qinghua walking around Ling You peak was a pretty common sight, especially when he had to bring a gift or another when one of the An Ding disciples fucked up a delivery.

It was one of those days, apparently, because Wu Qingfang had barely set foot outside her private quarters when Shang Qinghua turned up on her path, a pile of paper in one hand, a basket on the other, the suspicious smell of honey filling the air, making her stomach grumble.

"What did you do?" she didn't hesitate to pass by him. She had spent the past night organizing a hunt to find a batch of goats that had escaped their sheds after a disciple with their head on the clouds had left the latch lose, she was not in the mood for more trouble.

"Can't a Shixiong visit his favorite Shimei?" he turned on his heels to follow her, making the pressure on Wu Qingfang's head get tighter. Whatever it was, it was bad for him to bring bribes so soon in their little game.

"Oh please," she sent him a glare over her shoulder. "Everyone knows your favorite is Mu Qingfang, don't play coy with me."

"Okay, yes, he is my favorite shidi, but you are my favorite shimei!" he insisted and with quick steps they were walking shoulder to shoulder, the basket filled with sweets being swigged back and forth in front of her. "Wu-shimei please, I swear is not that bad, I just need to send a carriage to Hua Hua palace-"

"Hua Hua- Why?!" The sound of her shoes scraping the ground was too loud for the soft morning, but she couldn't help to turn around and stare at him in surprise. A tripe long like that would take weeks to prepare! "What could you possibly want with those people?!"

And she hated that it kinda worked when he blinked his big brown eyes at her, pulling back the cloth covering the basket, the sweet scent of melon making her mouth water. She squinted her eyes at him, too stubborn to let him win so quickly. Especially when the last time Shang-Shixiong had pulled a stunt like that, she had lost three good horses.

"A little bird told me that they got their hands on a very rare flower, and I need it for Shen-Shixiong-"

"Oh I see how it is," she rolled her eyes, turning her back to him again to keep walking to her office. "You fucked up and now you want my help to get back on his good graces."

"Shimei, pleaseee," he whined, pouting so hard it was a miracle his lips didn't get stuck like that. "I miss our go games and I even don't know why he's so angry at me!"

She snorted in the most unlady manner, rolling her eyes. She knew damn well what he did, in fact the entire Sect did. Or better, who he did. But if Shang-Shixiong was going to play coy, she wasn't going to be the one to burst his bubble. And with a glint in her eyes she took a sharp turn to the left, away from the main building. He wanted to pull this nonsense on her? Fine. He might as well fight for it and help her take care of a very special animal first.

They arrived at the stables after a few minutes of walking and Shang-Shixiong whining about his very hard life. Wu Qingfang ignored it all, taking the papers and basket from his hands to shove an apron on his arms, feeling a little smug to see him fumble to not make it fall on the ground.

"I'll think about it, first you have to help me with her," she said as she pointed her thumb at the last stall where a huge form laid on its side. It was one of the few stalls that had iron bars all over, looking more like a cage.

"Uh." Shang Qinghua took a cautionary step back when he noticed the huge beast behind bars, a nervous chuckle escaping his throat. "What- what is that?"

The that in question had the form of a huge hare, the size of at least two tall men when standing on its feet. It could run on his lower legs and use its upper paws to punch and attack. It was a ferocious thing with poisonous fangs and claws, with a thick fur that shined brown during spring and pure white during winter.

It was one of the most beautiful beasts Wu Qingfang had ever seen, and she wished she could hug it until it made noise.

"Oh she is a Long-Leg Kicking Pouch Hare!" she said after a quick pause to decide where put Shang-Shixiong's things, dropping it on top of a block of hay before grabbing an apron for herself. "Liu-shidi said that she attacked him on his last hunt, but she was already too hurt. So he brought her to me to see if I could help."

"I-Is it safe for her to be here?!" Shang Qinghua squeaked, hiding behind one of the empty stalls.

"Oh, dont be silly, she's sweetheart!" Wu Qingfang gushed as she opened the stall, pulling Shang-Shixiong by his wrist. "Come, she's still sleeping from last night meds, and I need to change her wrappings."

He stared at her as if she had gone mad. She didn't mind thought, she knew that the only other peak lord that shared her enthusiasm for animals was Liu-shidi.

With needles ready, she let go of Shang Qinghua to puncture the beast in the right places to keep her sleeping. After that was just a matter of checking vitals, cleaning up her wounds, and applying some salve. By the look on her belly, she might have a litter soon, so Wu Qingfang wanted to release her before she gave birth, or the little stall would be too cramped. Not to mention how protective the mother would become, too dangerous to be kept.

Surprisingly enough, when he realized the Kicking Hare wasn't going to wake up and eat him, Shang Qinghua was really helpful. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, only making a funny face when the Hare's belly moved when the babies adjusted themselves.

They worked quickly, and in no time Kicking Hare was all wrapped up in clean bandages, the soft smell of salve mixing up with alcohol and wet fur. They put the aprons away, and Wu Qingfang was satisfied enough with Shang Qinghua's help to consider his request. And she was ready to get her sweets and tell him that she would help him with Shen-Shixiong bad humor when-

A loud noise of something extremely heavy hitting the ground reached them both making the stable walls tremble, followed by a grunt that Wu Qingfang would recognize anywhere.

They stepped outside to meet Liu Qingge next to a huge type of lizard, covered in dirt and blood.

Wu Qingfang didn't even blink. After Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge was the other peak lord that would barge into Ling You peak as if it were his second house, but for entirely different reasons. Usually involving huge monsters laying dead in front of Wu Qingfang's doors, ready to be butchered and harvested. Or, like Long-Leg Kicking Pouch Hare, he would bring life beasts, creatures that gained his respect for being good fighters. And Wu Qingfang would care for each of them before setting them back to freedom.

Interestingly though, she didn't remember any other occasion when they have met each other in her peak. Which meant she had never seen them interacting outside peak meetings before. Not to say she couldn't notice how hard Liu-shidi was blushing, doing his best to fix his ponytail, while Shang-Shixiong looked at him from head to toe, his qi warming up the air around him.

Men, as subtle as a thunder hippo in a storm.

"Shidi," she stepped in front of the War God, forcing him to look at her. "What brings you here so soon?"

Having being snapped from whatever was his glaring contest with Shang-Shixiong, he went back to his practical self, hands on his back with feet parallel to his shoulders in a ready stance.

"I came here to deliver my last hunt and request Wu-shijie to lend me her tools so I can clean it up."

"Is that a Southern Fire Komodo?" Shang Qinghua approached the creature, staying a good few steps away from it just in case. Although it looked pretty dead by the pool of bright blue blood coagulating around it.

Apparently Liu-shidi was able to control himself this time, only his very visible ears turning beet red as he shuffled his feet. Still he made himself nod at Shang-Shixiong's question, then going on to explain what were his plans for the skin and the meat. It never ceased to amuse Wu Qingfang how Liu-shidi would eat everything he hunted down, at least once.

It gave Mu Qingfang several white hairs, so it made her giggle a little too much.

"- and for the bones I was thinking of using it to craft into a staff. They're very strong."

"You should give some to Wei-Shixiong, I bet he could carve a nice handle for a sword out of it."

"I hate to interrupt the flow of ideas, Shixiong, Shidi, but to make it all happen, first you have to harvest it," and she was being sincere about it, the past minutes have been fascinating to watch Shang-Shixiong get closer and closer to Liu-Shidi as the War God puffed out his chest like a proud bird showing off his catch. "Come, Shidi, I wasn't expecting you, so I have to see if Wen Rong has finished using my knives."

"I better get going then," Shang Qinghua turned to give her a little bow, batting his eyelashes at her one last time. "Will shimei consider my request?"

"I'll return your basket with my answer, Shixiong," she smiled sweetly at him, going to join Liu-shidi who was already a few steps ahead.

The sound of hissing made the three peak lords freeze, and the sound of whipping made them jump into action, hands going to their swords. But even on the brink of death, the Komodo creature was faster than lightning, using its tail to sweep at the cultivators with vengeance.

Actually, sweep at Shang Qinghua, the one close enough to be hit by it.

The following seconds seemed to pass as if they were under a slowing spell. There was a whizz on Wu Qingfang's ears as Shang Qinghua jumped on his sword to fly over the Komodo's tail. When she thought she would be able to catch her breath, Shang Qinghua grabbed the handle of his blade, twisting his body in a flurry of fabric, using his weight to stab the creature right on its belly. Blood splattered everywhere, painting yellow An Ding robes in electric blue as Shang Qinghua dragged his sword all the way to the Komodo's neck, the warm stank of viscera hanging in the air.

"Holy shit," she heard Liu-shidi mumble next to her, snapping her out of her surprise.

"Shixiong!" She screamed as she rushed towards him, almost slipping on all the blood. "Shixiong are you okay?!"

"I'm fine!" the squeak came from somewhere next to the head of the beast, so Wu Qingfang went around the mess to avoid dirtying herself as well. She found him lying on the ground, an arm covering his face while his other hand grasped firmly on his sword, the blade so deep inside the creature she could barely see the handle.

"Shidi! Go call Mu Qingfang-"

"Nooo!" he went to pull her robes, cursing as he realized that he had messed up her clothes. "Shimei, no, please, I'm fine, promise!" and to prove his point he stood up in a quick jump, giving her a twirl. "See? Nothing broken, not even a scratch! Please don't bother Mu-shidi, please?"

And once again he blinked his big brown eyes, and even though he was drenched in blood, she couldn't help but sigh.

"So uh..." Liu-shidi said after cleaning up his throat, pulling their attention to him. "Should I call Mu Qingfang or...?"

And in a snap of fingers, Shang Qinghua took over the situation, putting himself between Wu Qingfang and Liu Qingge.

"No need, no need, Liu-shidi. Why don't you go fetch Wu-shimei's head disciple to grab her knives and take care of this mess?" He said as he put his hand on Liu Qingge's lower back, gently moving him away from them. "I'm fine, Wu-shimei will let me clean up and she will keep an eye on me, won't you, shimei?"

She seriously considered shoving him back on the puddle of blood, just for putting her on the spot like this. But she apparently had a case of weak knees when Shang-Shixiong dropped his voice all honey sweet.

She couldn't let him find out or she would be in serious trouble.

"Right, please Liu-shidi, go talk to Wen Rong, he will help you. I'll take care of Shang-Shixiong in case the blood has any poison."

Shang Qinghua kept nodding his head like a silly doll but lowered his voice to mumble something on Liu Qingge's ear along the lines of "I'll teach you later." Wu Qingfang couldn't see Liu-shidi's face, but she could see the back of his neck red as peppers.

"Shixiong," she called with a wave of her hand, pausing only to get his things left in the stables to guide him towards her private quarters. On the way, she pulled a disciple to request a bath and clean clothes.

It took a few minutes to get everything ready, time that she used to examine Shang Qinghua's eyes and tongue, checking for any signs of poisoning. She found nothing, but better safe than sorry.

"You bath is ready, go," she gently shoved him to the next room. "The clothes are there as well, if you feel anything scream. Understood?"

"Yes, shimei," he said with a smile over his shoulder. Then it was a game of waiting, with Wu Qingfang pretending not to be worried sick while Shang Qinghua took his sweet time. To occupy herself, she went over her cabinets for all types of antidotes she could find, on top of requesting at least three types of tea. It wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

Honestly, she was about to bust into the room property be damned when he finally stepped out.

She had misjudged his size entirely. The robes were too small, the fabric taut over his shoulders, the tight sleeves of her peak uniform showing off strong arms capable of carrying weights upon weights all day. No wonder his sword had cut thick scaly skin like butter.

She refused to lower her gaze to his legs, forcing herself to stare at his face framed by his wavy hair. She had only seen it down at formal peak meetings, even so the strands had been pulled away from his face.

He looked younger like this. Softer.

"This Shixiong thanks his shimei for her hospitality," he said with a formal bow. "I hope you don't mind me being so forward, but I used a bit of your hair oil."

"Not- Don't worry about it," she blinked several times, trying not to think of him dressed up in her colors and with her perfume all over him. She was the Beast keeper but she wasn't a beast herself! She had self-control!! "Come, I got you some tea, and some pills for you to take, just in case."

Shang Qinghua didn't say anything, letting himself be fussed over, eyes crinkling in a poorly hidden smile. See if she gets worried about him again!

And to knock the smile off his face she decided that a little needling would do him good. "I didn't know you and Liu-shidi were intimate," she casually dropped as her form of petty revenge, doing her best to appear innocent as Shang Qinghua choked on his bitter tea.

"Who- What? No, uh, we just-"

"Shixiong," she made an effort to say it as kindly as possible, to show him she wasn't going to tease him. Much. "You are aware the entire Sect has eyes, correct?"

"O-of course I know that, what type of question-"

"So you know everyone already noticed you getting Sect Leaders left and right wrapped around your fingers. Right?"

He coughed a bit more, eyes so wild she was afraid they might pop out of his face. He opened and closed his mouth like fish, his blush making her want to squeeze his face.

She took a sip of her own tea, nothing like the nasty dirt water Shang Qinghua was being made to drink, as she considered how to break down the news to him.

Should she be the one to tell him about his reputation? Or should her just mention how the head disciples were running a ridiculously high bet on who would be the next Peak Lord to fall for Shang Qinghua charms? It was tempting to let him figure it out for himself…

Or.

Or she could get herself a little something out of the situation as well.

"Shang-Shixiong,” she sighed as she put her cup down, crossing her hands over her lap as she gave him a look up and down. “I know your friendship is not as deep as yours with Mu-shidi,” she couldn't resist giving him a knowing look that made his blush deepen and avoid her eyes. “But I consider ourselves friends enough that I can speak plainly.”

“... O-Of course, shimei.”

“Good. Now, with all due respect, for the past year or so I've seen you flirt your way to get Zhangmen-Shixiong and Shen-Shixiong into having a calm discussion without tears and blood for an hour. It’s also worth mentioning how things have been less explosive on Wan Jian peak, and!” She raised her voice slightly the moment he opened his mouth to protest. “I’ve just seen you pull Liu-shidi by his waist. And he seemed to like it.”

He scratched the side of his face, once again looking everywhere but her eyes. She knew he wasn’t embarrassed, she had seen him truly embarrassed before, but she could see he didn’t know what to do with her knowledge of his romantic affairs.

“I’m not scolding you, I hope you understand that,” she said after a quick pause, ignoring the tug at her heart when he turned his big puppy eyes at her. “I’m just wondering what you are trying to achieve with all this… And if you would be interested in joining the betting poll.”

That made him snap his eyes back at her faster than Shen Qingqiu opening his fan to ignore Zhangmen-Shixiong. “Wait, there’s a betting poll?”

“Oh Shixiong…” she tsk at his lack of foresight, shaking her head slightly. “Of course there’s a betting poll. This has been the most exciting thing to happen since last recruitment.”

He let out a small “Huh” of surprise, crossing his arms (crossing his arms which she was not looking at, definitely not- as he bit the corner of his thumb. He got quiet for a good while, eyebrows frowning as his eyes darted side to side in the face she had seen him doing when he got caught trying to figure out big numbers.

“Before you ask, I’m not going to give away my mole,” she said as she popped one of the small cakes he had brought her that morning, the crunchy melon seeds mixed with honey giving her something delicious to chew on while he scrambled to figure out how all that had happened behind his back.

“Okay, fair. But, Shimei, what exactly is everyone betting on?”

“A couple of things,” she took another small cake, amused as he leaned forward, as if she was about to tell him the hottest gossip he has ever heard. Technically it was true, so she couldn’t blame his curiosity. “There’s a bet about you sleeping with all the peak lords and ladies. That one is not as high as it could be because, well, it’s known that some peak lords and lady wouldn’t be interested. And then there’s a second bet, involving who is the next peak lord that is going to fall for your tricks-”

“Tricks?! I’m not-”

“Shh, and there’s another one about when is Mu-shidi going to actually confess his love for you and stop your flirting ways-”

“Now, hold on for a second-”

“And finally there’s a bet among a select group of Peak Leaders on who is going to seduce you before you seduce them.”

“Oh my Heavens. Is this Wei-Shixiong doing? It has his fingers all over it, I can feel it.”

“I don’t know, Shixiong, but between the two of us, you would be the one knowing how Wei-Shixiong hands feel, I guess.”

“Shimei!”

She just shrugged, unbothered by his hypocritical sense of shame. “Do you want to get your carriage to Hua Hua palace or not?” she asked before he could start scolding her. Not that would do much, she had seen him too many times out of his mind after spending weeks without sleep to take him that seriously.

He paused, biting the corner of his lip, and if she squinted her eyes hard enough she would see his brain working the pros and cons.

“Okay, what do you suggest?”

She clapped her hands to clean the crumbles out of her fingers, giving him a honeyed smile.

“You help win one over Wei-Shixiong and spread the rumor that we are going to spend a lot of time together. Then Wen Rong will bet on my name next round. In exchange I will get your carriage to Hua Hua Palace so you can jump back on Shen-Shixiong bed.”

“Hmm…” Shang Qinghua kept playing with his empty cup of tea, wobbling it left and right. During her little speech he kept stealing glances of her, head tilted to the side. She was starting to get nervous, reaching for another cake just to do something with her hands when he grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her hand closer, eating the cake from her fingers.

Her entire brain went blank and suddenly she could only smell honey, jasmine and the bitter tea from his cup, her heart stuttering to a stop.

“Isn’t shimei curious, though?” he asked against her thumb, licking the crumbs on it before kissing the palm of her hand. “Shimei has called it so many things, tricks, spell… Even so, I have seen shimei looking at me after my bath…”

She should stand up and send him away, money and pettiness damned. Yes, they have been flirting for the past months, but she refused to be just another mark on his list. She shouldn’t be considering his shameless suggestion but a voice that sounded suspiciously like Wei-Shixiong whispered in her ear that if the rumor was to be out and about, why not have a taste of the real thing for herself? Why not enjoy the strength of his hands on her waist like Liu-shidi did just hours before, why not push him to his limits and see what he was capable of?

It was as if he was reading her mind, because Shang Qinghua wasted no time in pulling her hand closer, kissing the inside of her wrist. He kept pressing soft kisses up her arm and when the table got in the way he slid it to the side so he could pull her by her waist, moving her hair to the side so he could caress her cheek, giving her no time to think, no time to breath-

“Tell me, Shimei, was it jealousy in your eyes when you saw me touching Liu-Shidi? Did you want it to be you?”

She wanted to scream no, because she didn’t! She really didn’t!! But she couldn’t deny how she wished he had lowered his voice to her, making promises of later encounters.

But to admit that would be giving in too easily.

“One cannot be jealous of one that doesn’t belong to them, Shixiong,” she made herself say instead, keeping her eyes forward to not fall for his tricks, biting the inside of her cheek to hold back a gasp when he pressed his nose against her neck.

“Oh, is that it? Do you want me to belong to you, Shimei?” and then he dared to kiss her shoulder over her robes. The heat of his mouth hadn’t even touched her sensitive skin and she was already trembling, mouth dry. “So does it make you happy to see me in your colors? Or maybe is the scent of your perfume all over me that makes you shiver?”

Oh he was a demon. He was a demon that knew too well how to read her, how to make it impossible to not fall into temptation. She looked at him, swallowing dry at the sight of his hair curling softly around his face, still wet from his bath. And those damned soft brown eyes, staring at her as if he could see her desire written all over her soul, the most annoying smirk on his lips. She wanted to bite, she wanted to squish his face until he was pouting again, she wanted for him to pin her down, she wanted to fight him and lose-

He pounced and she let herself be caught, tangling her hands on his soft hair, pulling him closer until he was pressing her down the floor. He moved as if he needed to devour her entirely, biting and sucking the thin skin of her throat, marking her just like she wished to mark him.

“S-Shixiong-” she gasped, her hands going down on his back, nails catching in the folds of the fabric as she desperately tried to hang on as he bit down her clavicle hard enough to sting. He licked the bruise on her tanned skin and she melted, a sigh escaping her lips as he pushed her robes to the side, scraping his teeth over plump skin, teasing a bite that never came, both of them pausing at the loud sound of fabric being torn apart.

“I think-” Shang Qinghua said against her chest, voice muffled by her robes. “I think I just ripped my pants.”

A giggle bubbled out of her lips as she realized the ridiculous situation they were both in. And it should ruin the mood, laughter filling the air instead of the previous moans, but she realized she actually liked the lightness of it. It was mostly for the bet but it was fun, especially when she noticed his warm smile as he admired her with mussed up hair and ruffled clothes.

“Now, I would love to make good on my word here and now, but I believe my favorite shimei deserves a better treatment than her office floor where anyone could walk on us,” he said as he took her hand again, biting the tip of her finger.

“I think I agree,” she answered with a gasp and a nod, carefully taking her hand away from his mouth to sit down and pull him to a sweet kiss before dragging him to her rooms, their laughter becoming moaning once more.

—------

“Ye Ling.”

“Wen Rong,” she gave him a nod, not bothering to raise her eyes from her thick notebook filled with notes, not even when he set a big bag of coins next to her wet stone.

“I came to make a bet.”

Still she didn’t look at him, putting her brush down to open the bag and count the money. She did raise her eyebrows at the amount, though. This might have been all his savings. Or he had a patreon.

Considering who his shizun was…

“Betting on your own peak lord or lady is against the rules.”

“What?! But Ming Fan made a bet on Shen-shishu three days ago!”

“And then he was made to pay back all the money he won when I found out he had set Shen-shishu to have a private meeting with Shang-Shizun.” She said as she pushed the money back on his bag, dangling it in front of him so he could catch it. “Hence why we made the rule. Don't blame me, blame Qing Jing peak for not being smart enough.”

Thank Heavens he didn't try to fight, grabbing his pouch and turning around to leave the small room she had been using as headquarters for her operation. More like a closet, actually, she thought as she glared at the broom resting next to her on the wall.

It was his heavy footsteps that made her look up again, frowning at the other head disciple.

“Shidi, rules are rules-”

“I want to make a new bet.” And she could see by his own surprised look that he was bluffing. She felt a twitch of pity for him, Wu-shishu was a scary woman, to go back to her with empty hands would be the same as asking to clean the stables for months.

“I want to bet on him finding out,” he kept talking and the mere thought of it sent all her hairs up. She would be in so much trouble it wasn't even funny, she would be so dead Shizun would send her to work on a faraway farm and-

“Do you know something?”

“I don't know,” he crossed his arms, too smug for someone who had been just sent away with their tail between their legs. “But I need to make a bet and this is my choice. I bet that Shang-shishu will find out about the bets before next month.”

She wanted to say no, to send him away again, but that would be the same as calling herself a coward. She glanced at the pouch on his hand and then at him, giving her brush a good bite before sighing in defeat.

“Alright, one bet in the name of Wen Rong: Shang Qinghua will find out about the betting before next month. Your bet will be added to the poll.”

“Thank you,” he said as he dropped the money on her improvised desk. “See you next month, shijie!” And then he walked away, closing the door behind himself.

“See you next month, shijie,” she mumbled as she made a face, then showed her tongue at the door. Her anger was short lived though, the weight of his words hitting her fully.

“Oh God, I'm so dead.” She whispered at no one, groaning as she hid her face between her hands.

Time was ticking, and now she had a month to find a way to tell her shizun about her little scheme.

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I did it!! The fic curse fought me tooth and nail but I finished!!!

And with more disciples shenanigans!!! jsbskdnsnd :D

I was so tempted to make Mobei-Jun show up behind Ye Ling and scare the shit out of her yall have no idea fjsbakdnakdn but that would be throwing another character for me to deal with, so no Mobei-Jun............ Yet

Next on the list is Divination Peak! :D I have an idea, Wikipedia links and a dream of surviving the end of the semester, so it might take a moment but I'm gonna finish this!!!

BTW, there are still two slots open for peak lords/ladies! If you want to suggest a name and a peak, please do!

And here is the masterpost of this AU

Thank you so much for giving this a read!!! It makes me so so happy to see you guys enjoying this, you have no idea <3

That's it for today folks! See you on Peak 9/12!!!

[yandere-paramour]

So Noelle, being to a degree emotionally reliant on knowing that darling is safe and that her apartment is a sanctuary. How is she handling having that mental construct violated? Like say for example there's a break in and the apartment is robbed, darling isn't hurt or anything just that perception of having a safe secure place violated in some way. c:

GREAT Question, I was excited to answer this one.

First, let's explore the logistics of this. By the nature of her wealth and status, Atalanta has a trusted and experienced security team to protect her at all times. Since she was hired, Noelle has had security around her too, both because Ata likes her and because she is a potential risk. If Noelle is kidnapped and tortured for information, Montclair secrets could come out and that's a huge problem. So there is at least 1 security guard following Noelle around/Guarding her apartment at all times. A potential intruder would have to break into the building, get in the elevator, somehow know the apartment number, get past the guard, and then get into the locks. Noelle is no fool, she has taken precautions to protect both herself and Darling.

If someone managed to do all that, Noelle would be downright hysterical. Like she would have a mental breakdown, and Darling isn't even hurt in this scenario. If Darling was hurt, she might go on a rampage. For now, she is able to tone it down to just a simple mental breakdown.

You have never seen Noelle like this, and you will never see it again. In fact, very very few people have seen Noelle like this (Odette, her mom, and a few stepfathers). Noelle is a very, very calm person. She doesn't raise her voice or show any extreme emotions. You could be psychotic and she would calm you down slowly and gently, wrap you in a blanket, and hold you close as you slept.

But this is more than she can handle. This is violating her sacred space. She has carved out one space in the entire fucking world and some jackass has fucking defiled it? She can't have one damn thing? What did she fucking do in her past life to deserve all this?

You're not fucking staying here tonight. Noelle sends you with a security guard to a hotel room Atalanta arranged; she'll catch up later tonight. She has to do something first. You can try to protest but she's not in the fucking mood and you are going to listen and go. She's actually a little scary, she always speaks kindly to you.

You wait anxiously in the hotel for Noelle to come back for about 2 hours. When she finally comes, she is back to her normal loving, doting self, stroking your hair and lamenting about how scared you must've been and how brave you were and how she is so thankful you are safe and sound. She brought your favorite stuffed animal and some clothes for the two of you. She seems the same, only a little sweaty. After she showers, she cuddles you to sleep, then gets up to get her laptop and try to rebuild your lives.

The next day, Noelle allows you (after a lot of begging and pleading on your end) to go get some more essentials. When you get back through the kicked-in door, you are shocked. The place looks much, much worse than it did when you saw it last. The expensive glass vases and trinkets Noelle decorates with are shattered on the ground, the paintings clawed, the TV seemingly kicked in. The place looks ransacked, and your mouth drops open. You know Noelle would never be negligent enough to not leave someone to watch the door, and nothing sentimental seems hurt. All of your possessions are safely intact and pristine. Only... only the expensive things are destroyed... only the things that can be replaced.

"What-" You don't even know what to say, "What happened here?"

"What do you mean, Darling?" Noelle cocks her head at you, confused, "The burglars did this; it was like this when you left."

"No-"

"You're mistaken, my love. This must be such a great shock to you. Let's get your things and we can go back to the hotel room and rest. I'll even order some of those cookies you like."

[mememan93]

killing and biting and killing and biting

[royalphantompain]

Ugh

Probably gonna private this later

TW Illness and cancer warning

[mare-the-silly-scroingle]

today’s been a bad day and one of my friends is practically begging me to let him vent to me and my other friend is picking a fight right now and i can’t remember the last time i saw another person aside from my girlfriend. she makes it better but makes everything worse. i have a meeting tomorrow i swore i’d sleep early for but now i just. i don’t know what i want. 

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

wait, Derin how did your leaving make the hospital shut down?

I used to work as a live-in nanny for a pediatrician.

Now, the thing about hospitals in my country is that they are massively understaffed and massively underfunded. This is especially true outside the major cities. The staff are worked to the bone and receive little to no help in things like finding accommodation or childcare, making working in rural areas a very uninviting prospect; staff come out here, get lumped with the work of three people (because there's nobody else to do it), burn out under the workload and leave, meaning that those remaining have even more work because that person is gone. It's unsustainable and the medical staff are doing their best to sustain it, because people die if they don't, so to the higher-ups it looks like everything's getting done and therefore everything is fine.

My friend (and boss) worked one week on, one week off, swapping out with another pediatrician. This was necessary because it would not be physically possible for one person to handle the workload for longer periods of time. The one single pediatrician had to hold up the entire pediatrics ward, which was not only the only public hospital pediatrics ward in our town, but also the one that served all the towns around us for a few hours' drive in all directions. I regularly saw her go to work sick, aching, tired, or with a debilitating 'I can barely make words or see' level migraine, because if she took a day off, twenty children didn't get healthcare that day, and some of these kids' appointments were scheduled weeks in advance. She'd work long hours in the day and then be called in a couple of times overnight for an hour or two at a time (she was on-call at night too, because somebody had to be), and then go in the next day. Sometimes she would be forced to take a day off because she physically could not stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time, meaning she couldn't drive to work.

Cue my niece's second birthday coming up in Melbourne. I'd been working for her for about 3 years, and she (and the hospital) had plenty of advance warning that I (and therefore she) needed one (1) Friday off. That's fine, we'll find someone to work that Friday, the hospital said. Right up until the last week where they're like "oh, we can't find a replacement; you can come in, can't you?"

No, she tells them; I don't have anyone to watch my kid that day.

Oh, surely you can hire a babysitter for this one day, they say. Think of the children! We really really need you to work that day. I know we said it'd be fine but we need you now, there's no one else to do it.

There are no other babysitters, she told them. Unless you can find one?

That's not our responsibility, they said.

But I'm not changing my plans, she's got plans by now as well, the hospital knew about this one day weeks in advance, and with absolutely no reserve staff they're forced to reschedule all pediatrics appointments for that Friday. Not a huge deal, it happens on the 'physically too overworked to get out of bed' days too. I go to Melbourne, she goes back to her home in Adelaide for her recovery week, all should be on track.

My niece gives me Covid.

This was way back in the first wave of the pandemic, and there were no Covid vaccines yet. The rules were isolate, mask up, hope. I had Covid in the house, and it would've been madness for my friend and her toddler to come back into the Covid house instead of staying in Adelaide. There was absolutely no way that a pediatrician could live with someone in quarantine due to Covid and go to work in the hospital with sick children every day. And no support existed for finding another babysitter, or temporary accommodation, so the hospital was down a pediatrician.

The other pediatrician wasn't available to do a three-week stint. They were also trapped in Adelaide on their well-earned week off.

Meaning that the only major pediatrics ward within a several-hour radius had no pediatricians. They had to shut down and send all urgent cases to Adelaide for the week. To the complete absence of surprise of any of the doctors or nurses; of course this would happen, this was bound to happen, it presumably keeps happening. But probably to the surprise of the higher-ups. After all, the hospital was doing fine, right? Of course all the staff were complaining of overwork and a lack of resources in every meeting, but they could always be fobbed off with the promise of more help sometime in the future; the work was mostly getting done, so the issue couldn't be too urgent.

It's not like some nanny who doesn't even work for the hospital could go out of town for a weekend for the first time in three years, and get the only public pediatrics ward in the area shut down for a week.

[twig---verginix]

swear to god i'm just gonna stop watching the endings to shows i like. good shows need to get cancelled on cliffhangers forever

[grimandghoulish]

.

[running-in-the-dark]

went to bed early and woke up before 8am today! pretty cool. except I woke up with a bad headache and eventually had a very long nap.

I'm just so damn tired! like, no matter how much or how well or when I sleep, I'm still tired all day. so it's just pointless trying to fix my sleep schedule (when I'll just be asleep most of the day anyway).

[rcmclachlan]

8x06 fix-it fic: Amnion

Buck doesn't bounce back from Tommy the way he did with all his other breakups for reasons he can't articulate or even look at. He thinks of how long it took him to recover from Abby, but even that felt different, because he'd had hope carrying him through most of it. He doesn't have that now.

The worst part is it's bringing everyone else down. It's starting to affect the job, and he can't take any more of Bobby's pity dinner invites or the kid gloves Eddie handles him with. Then one day, Chimney (in an attempt to lighten the mood) asks Buck if he's pregnant, and it awakens some primordial rage in Buck that he never knew he possessed and damn near rips off Chimney's head about it.

But once the blood levels in his adrenaline start rising and he calms down, he starts thinking about it. Before he knows it he's thinking about it day and night, and now that's starting to affect the job more than his heartbreak had been.

Then one night Maddie invites him over to watch trash TV and eat junk food until they can't feel feelings anymore, but instead of the patented Maddie Hug he's expecting, she hands him a First Response test stick the second he walks in the door.

Five minutes later, he comes out of the bathroom pale-faced and dripping tears because there are two lines in the test result window, and Maddie leads him over to the couch where they curl up and cry together. Just like the old days.

Maddie asks if he's going to tell Tommy, but there's no judgment in her voice, like she's behind him no matter what he decides, and Buck tries to make her laugh when he says, "How do you know it's his? I could've been living it up for the last month. New person almost every night. Exploring myself."

She just gives him a Look. Also patented.

Under the weight of her scrutiny, Buck thinks about Tommy's face before he left the loft that night and how ''Buck'' looked and sounded so wrong coming from him. Like the shape of it was so painful he could barely move his mouth around it.

Finally, he shakes his head. His eyes well up with more tears, which feels impossible, because the human body can't possibly produce this much liquid. He's going to drown them both. "I thought... I thought we had a future, Maddie. I really did. I guess I still get one... but only with part of him."

A couple of months pass and Buck's entire world shifts. The 118 have rallied around him in a way that almost feels like they're closing ranks to every other firehouse. Eddie becomes especially protective and devises a 5000-point care plan that makes him twitch if Buck so much as thinks about deviating from it, but he also keeps telling Buck that he needs to tell Tommy about the pregnancy.

"If only to get his family history," Eddie says reasonably, but there's something pleading in his voice every time, like there's so much more under the surface that he's trying to keep under wraps. Like there's more about this that he thinks Tommy should know.

Chimney's in the middle of explaining why he's stealing the cool uncle crown from Buck and sitting pretty on the throne when Buck asks him about it.

"Is there something about Tommy that no one's telling me?"

It trips Chimney up. Literally. He just barely catches himself from going headfirst into the kitchen counter.

Buck's heart starts pounding. "Chim, does he know?"

"No," Chimney says, firm and almost a little offended. "We promised you we wouldn't say anything. But Buck... you should tell him. You should talk to him."

Part of him wants to whip his phone out right then and there and dial Tommy's number. He could do what he did the first time: ask to meet somewhere and laugh about bad coffee and plead his case for a second chance. He could reach across the table for his hand, but this time, he'd stand up and walk over to Tommy and place it on his belly. "I don't care about firsts or lasts," he'd say. "I care about only's. And you're the only one I want."

But the other part of him, still licking its wounds, hormones in flux and forcing organs to shift and bend as it makes room for the thing he and Tommy made together, bares its teeth and snaps, "He made it very clear that he had no interest in hearing what I had to say."

Chimney never brings it up again.

Meanwhile, Hen goes a little overboard with forcing him to undergo random physicals—she pops out of the shadows twice a day to ambush him with the blood pressure machine, and he keeps threatening to avoid rooms that have doors—but he loves it. His body is a complete stranger to him for the first time in a long time, but the changes he's experiencing are interesting and he's having a blast cataloging every new one. He and Hen have a spreadsheet with like fifty tabs, and she helps him navigate every test his actual OBGYN sets him up for.

He's over her house at least once a week, although pregnancy talk at the dinner table is verboten.

"If one of you says the word 'amniocentesis' one more time, I will start a food fight," Karen had said, finally putting her foot down. Across the table, Denny perked up.

As much as he hesitates to even think the Q-word, it's a pretty quiet pregnancy. The cravings are kind of wild, though, and he goes most of his first trimester feeling like he's going to die if he can't eat rice krispie treats with cottage cheese. Every time Bobby sees him cracking open another container of Hood, it looks like he's seriously reconsidering sobriety.

But as incredible as they are about the pregnancy, they're all tiptoeing around the other elephant in the room: when Buck is going to stop working scenes. He and Bobby have a series of discussions that satisfies neither of them and resolves nothing, and it builds to a big blow-out that ends when Bobby tearfully begs Buck to stop risking his own life and the life of Bobby's grandkid.

After that, it's like some stone thing in him dissolves into sand and he finally eases back a bit in his fifth month. He doesn't put up a fight when Bobby orders him to only handle the winch or stick with hose duty, and if he stays a little closer to the engine because he gets winded so easily these days, no one comments on it.

In his sixth month, the inevitable happens: there's a call out at Palos Verdes and it's all hands on deck, which means the 217 is there too. At first he thinks he might make it through without running into Tommy at all, but he turns a corner and—there he is. Smudged with mud and looking like a drowned rat because of the downpours, but in his turnouts he's big and capable and, for a second, he's walking into First Presbyterian and apologizing for missing the ceremony.

But the memory is easily wrestled back into the past the second Tommy's gaze fixes on Buck's belly.

Buck wants to stage a retreat that would make the Allies at Dunkirk stand up and applaud. He wants to throw his arms open so Tommy can get a better look at it, say something cool and mean, like, "Did you know that INNOTEX makes turnouts for carriers these days? Pretty progressive of them, if you ask me."

He wants to be weak and ask if Tommy will spare him a hug. Just one. Nothing greedy. Just—a moment to soak in his warmth, to inhale the smell of his skin. Enough to carry him through the rest of it.

But he does none of that. He inhales through his nose, lifts his chin, and says, "Firefighter Kinard."

At that, Tommy smiles, and it's completely awful. There's no joy in it. Not even amusement. He looks like he wants to be sick, and Buck feels like a monster.

But Tommy swallows and says, earnest as anything, "Congratulations. I-I knew you'd find it. I never doubted for a second that you'd find the person who'd be your last."

Even as he says it, Tommy's face does something indescribable, but it rips through Buck's chest and shatters his ribs, tearing through pericardial layers until it scores the vulnerable muscle of his heart. It's so shocking that it almost knocks the truth right out of Buck's mouth.

Someone comes over the radio and requests all available first responders with flight experience to report to the B-zone, and Tommy straightens up and locks whatever it was away.

With an unsteady hand, he tips an invisible hat to Buck and says wryly, "Firefighter Buckley," before jogging away.

And Buck stands there like an idiot watching him go. It's that night all over again. It's Buck instead of Evan.

"See you around," he whispers, and then runs back to his post in the A-zone.

+

Tommy gets the call when he's halfway through a burrito foisted upon him by Dana, who had taken one look at him and said, "You look like a flood victim. Eat something before I get HR involved."

He'd taken a mutinous bite and couldn't argue with her. Months later and it still felt like he'd watched everything he loved wash away with a tide he couldn't fight. Except he'd sent the tide himself. He had no business feeling like this.

But they send him to the site of a car accident where a pregnant driver had been T-boned by some asshole who ran the red light, and the RA unit called to the scene didn't have the right equipment to assess the fetus. But the victim's belly was hard enough to warrant a med evac.

By the time Dana gets the victim loaded on the backboard and inside, Tommy's already on with both First Presbyterian and LA General to see whose neonatal surgery team is available.

The door on Tommy's side slides open and Tommy turns in his seat to ask what the hell Dana's doing over there, but it's Hen who's pulling herself inside.

His stomach clenches with dread. "Hen?"

"I'm riding with you," she shouts, taking the headset that Dana gives her.

He looks just beyond her and wishes he'd had the presence of mind to listen to the manifest when Dana had read it aloud to him, because Evan Buckley is strapped to the gurney and looks like he's on a completely different planet.

"Hen." Tommy can't hear him say her name, but he sees Evan's mouth shape the word. Evan reaches clumsily out for her with one hand while pressing the other to his belly.

Hen murmurs something to him that the comms can't pick up, and Tommy wonders if they've notified Maddie, if they've notified the father, whoever they are. If they're already at the hospital waiting for them. If Tommy will have to see them, talk to them face to face.

Tommy bites the inside of his cheek until he feels the hot wash of blood over his tongue, then forces everything down to join the burrito from earlier that really wants to make a reappearance. It isn't his right to know any of it. That went out with the tide, too.

He locks it down tight enough that he gets them into the air so easily they might be a feather on the wind, then he heads in the direction of First Presbyterian. The real start of it all.

They're maybe halfway across the city when Evan shouts, desperation and fear carrying his voice over the rotors, the words sliding together, "Hen, check Nora! Y-Y'need to ch—"

"Nora's fine, Buck," Hen says, her voice clear as a bell in Tommy's ear.

Staring at a skyline he can't see, Tommy says, "'Nora'? Was someone else in the car with him?"

When Hen comes over the comm, her voice is as inescapable as a flood. "Nora's what he decided on for the baby. It's her name."

Tommy's hand tightens on the cyclic so the way it starts shaking won't be so obvious. "Nora was my grandmother's name."

He'd told Buck about the woman who was basically the only family he could stand, who was responsible for not letting him become his piece of shit father, who accepted him when no one else would. She'd meant the world to him. She'd been the world to him. And for Evan to give his kid her name—

Realization hits like a levy breaking, and he turns to look wide-eyed over his shoulder at Hen, because it can't—he couldn't be—

"Patient, male, 33, prenatal course complicated at 8 months gestation," Dispatch had said.

The timeline is right.

Hen stares right back, as good of a confirmation that he could get outside of a DNA test.

Without breaking her gaze, Tommy tells Dana to take over. She gives him an unreadable look but says nothing except, "Copy that," and smoothly resumes their journey while he squeezes into the back. There's hardly any room next to the gurney and his knees are compressing his lungs, but he takes Evan's' hand and stares blankly at the shiner forming around his right eye until Hen breaks the silence.

Why didn't you tell me, he wants to demand, but he knows that if he so much as opens his mouth, he's going to start screaming until someone sedates him.

"For the record," she says, "I hate what you did. I hate what you took from him. But I understand why you did it."

Tommy rolls his lips inward and wants to suffocate himself to death. She understands? Does she? Does she know a life can be obliterated in the span of a minute? Does she know what it is to live a half life, to walk through the world like a five-year old drew a scribble on a blank sheet of paper that was supposed to be a person?

Does she know what Evan looks like when his joy is sucked away? Because Tommy does. She hates what he did? No one hates what he did more than him. No one hates him more than him.

Shakily, he lifts his other hand and touches the tips of his fingers to Evan's birthmark, which used to know the touch of his lips so well that Evan would joke that it was actually in the shape of Tommy's mouth print. Like a brand.

He forces himself to inhale. It seems impossible that Evan's here, carrying their child, their Nora. Evan used to say the lightning strike gave him super powers, made him invincible, and Tommy's ashamed to admit that he almost believed him. It seemed like nothing could ever bring Evan Buckley down, but here he is in Tommy's sky, halfway to Heaven already.

He glances at the LifePAK—where Evan's life has been concentrated into a series of lines and numbers, the reading strong despite everything—and then looks back at Evan, who is still the most beautiful man Tommy has ever seen even now.

"Evan," he chokes out.

There's no answer. At least not from Evan.

Across from him, Hen breathes through her nose and then quietly says, "I'm only going to say this once, Tommy, so I hope you're listening. If you can't trust him to know what his own heart wants, then this flight will never have happened. When he wakes up, you will not have been here. I'll change the manifest myself."

Tommy closes his eyes. Something hot spills down his cheeks.

"I know things haven't been all sunshine and roses for you. Lucy's said you've basically shut down since it ended. I know you're hurting just as much as Buck is... which is why I'm telling you: be sure. He's going to have enough on his plate without worrying about whether or not you're going to swan out of his life again. You need to be sure, Tommy."

Tommy doesn't say anything, but he opens his eyes and holds her gaze without flinching, and he tightens his hold on Evan's hand.

The rest of the flight passes in the kind of silence that feels like a cyst was lanced. Or maybe a boil, as it were.

+

Buck wakes up in stages to find he's in a hospital bed, and when he puts a hand on his belly it's smaller and almost deflated beneath his palm. He is just starting to hyperventilate when suddenly Tommy's there, murmuring to him, "You're okay. Everything's okay, I promise, she's fine. She's fine. Look."

And Buck, heart racing, forces himself to breathe slowly while he follows Tommy's gaze down to the bundle in Tommy's arms. Then he stops breathing altogether.

"She's fine," Tommy says. "A little early, according to the doctor, but absolutely fine."

Buck collapses back to the bed and weeps in relief, because she's fine. She's here and she's fine and she's perfect. Tommy gently places her in Buck's arms before retreating to the chair next to the bed which has a dent in the vinyl in the shape of his ass.

But Buck is enraptured with Nora, who smacks her lips in her sleep, and he marvels aloud, "She has my mouth."

"Thank God for that," Tommy says with a laugh. "It'll help take the focus off my nose. Poor kid."

It hits Buck like lightning that Tommy is here. He's in this room and talking about Nora like—like he knows. And there are things Buck should probably be saying, like apologizing for not telling Tommy about her as soon as he found out, or asking why he's there at all, but the words are crowding in his mouth and he can't figure out which ones should go first.

Tommy's lips twitch in a smile that is awful to look at, like he completely understand Buck's struggle, but his voice is soft and even when he says, "I need you to know that it wasn't about you. Not you personally. It never was."

Buck stops trying to speak and just stares at him, because that is bullshit, and oh, he knows which words should come first, and he opens his mouth to release them into the wild but Tommy holds up a hand.

"I know," he says. "I was a coward and an asshole, and I'm more sorry than I can possibly say. I won't ever be able to make up for what I did. But I need you to know why I did it."

And, in fits and starts before he finally finds the thread, Tommy tells him about Jeremy.

After Tommy ended things with Abby and then finally came out, he dated around for a long time before he met Jeremy, who was brilliant and fun and new. Tommy was the first man Jeremy had ever been with, and Jeremy was the first person Tommy saw a future with. He'd been so sure about Jeremy. He'd believed that Jeremy was it.

Until, almost two years in, Jeremy ended it. He'd sat Tommy down and said kindly, cruelly, "You're amazing, Tom, but you're just the first. You can't be my last." And then he'd left Tommy completely shattered in the rearview.

"That night, when you asked me to move in... it was like I was watching him put on his coat all over again," Tommy says shakily. "But what I felt for you was lightyears beyond anything I felt for him. I'd fallen so hard for you that I knew if I had to watch you walk away I'd never get up again."

Buck stares at Tommy, eyes rimmed red, and says, "So instead you made me watch you walk away."

It must land like a fist because Tommy exhales sharply and hangs his head, bowing around the pain. He sits like that for a moment, absorbing it, before he lifts his head and nods. "Yeah. That's exactly what I did."

There are deep, dark circles under Tommy's eyes that speak of a hundred sleepless nights, and his body is sharper, leaner, trimmed entirely of anything soft. He's made entirely of angles. He's so unfairly hot. He's miserable to look at.

Buck swallows and murmurs, "You look like there's no love in your life, Tommy."

Sucking in a trembling breath, Tommy smiles weakly and sketches a shrug. It looks like the fatigued steel of his edges are starting to crack.

"I left all my love with you that night." His gaze darts down. "Among other things."

Buck looks down at Nora, who's sleeping the sleep of someone already exhausted by existence, or maybe just by her fathers' drama, and thinks that maybe he really has been carrying all his love plus Tommy's around. Because otherwise he has no idea how he's so full of it.

"She's absolutely perfect," Buck says, smiling dopily.

"She's... more than anything I could've ever dreamed of."

He looks up in time to see Tommy drop his gaze to the floor at the same time his shoulders lift and lock like they're bracing for a blow. And in a voice so thin it's barely a sound, Tommy says, "I know I don't have... any right to ask, but is there any... any chance I could be part of her life?"

The tears that have been languishing at the edges of Buck's eyes finally see an opportunity. He doesn't think he could've held them back any longer if he tried.

Mouth trembling, he whispers, "Just hers?"

At that, Tommy looks up, eyes wide, disbelief and hope chasing each other across his face like dogs. He jerks a little in his chair but he doesn't move. He doesn't move.

Buck stares at him, a tsunami pulling everything back from his shoreline, and bites out, "Thomas James Kinard, if you don't get over here and kiss me, I swear to Christ—"

But Tommy's out of the chair and at his bedside, cupping Buck's face and tenderly smearing a kiss over his open mouth, licking the relieved gasp right off Buck's tongue.

Between them, Nora makes a tiny noise, and Tommy startles away just enough that he can press the side of his head to Buck's and gaze down at her with a tremulous smile.

"She really is something, huh? Sorry about the nose, kiddo," he says softly.

Buck knocks their heads together and says, "I happen to love that nose, thanks. And like you said, my lips will help balance it out."

Huffing a laugh, Tommy kisses Buck's lips. And the side of his nose and the bolt of his jaw. Then he leans down and presses a kiss to Nora's little pink and blue hat.

"I'm sure if you are," Tommy murmurs, tilting his chin up so he can flash a brave smile up at Buck, who smiles back.

"I was always sure."

[alexanderwales]

The high-level prophecy interpreters all worked for the government or major corporations. They were the ones with the money, and the ones most likely to be the subject of a prophecy. Sometimes you'd have a multi-billionaire hire on a prophecy interpreter, but usually they just had one on retainer. The same went for celebrities who were famous enough to attract significant prophecies.

But at the lower level, there were prophecy interpreters who opened up their own firms, usually just one or two if they weren't in a major city. That was me: I had gotten in prophecy interpretation in college and ended up majoring in it after the Kepler Incident. I had my name on bus stops and billboards, and a single secretary in my employ who thankfully handled most of the phone calls.

In the field we sometimes divide the business up into three sectors based on timing. There's "prophecy impact", which is when we do a consultation right after the prophecy has been made, or at least sometime before it rears its head. Some prophecies are decades in the making, but people want to be told what to do about them. I hate that part of the job, personally, because there's not a whole lot to do, depending on the language. Plus the conversations are pretty repetitive: a guy hears a pretty clear-cut prophecy that he's going to die falling out of a plane, and he's begging for some way out, as though there's something I can do about it, as though I can tell him that prophecies are lairs sometimes. Prophecies are liars, but they're clever liars, hiding meanings inside words, only clear after they've passed. You can't escape prophecy, and at least half of "prophecy impact" clients explaining that fact to them.

The second sector is "prophetic immanence", when the client has a prophecy that they think is coming true. Sometimes this can be because there's a trigger phrase in the prophecy, a conditional that appears to have been met. One of the dirty secrets of the industry is that nine times out of the ten, people are mistaken: the nature of prophecy is such that you can't often pinpoint when the prophecy is nigh. In my opinion, you can judge a prophecy interpreter by how upfront they are about this. The weasels will milk their clients dry by pretending that every moment is a crisis moment.

It's the last sector that I find the most satisfaction from, which is why it's a disappointment that it's the least in demand. This is post facto prophecy interpretation. You're not trying to prevent anything, you're not formulating a reaction, you're just trying to figure out what happened and how it all fit together. These are clients that are in the aftermath of prophecy, or what they're pretty sure is the aftermath, and a lot of the time, they just want someone to talk to more than they want my specific expertise.

My client that day was an artist, a rising star who had a few very successful gallery showings. It had been prophesied that her older brother would accidentally kill her father, but it had been her instead. This wasn't a recent trauma, but the wound was clearly still there, so I tried to navigate it as carefully as I could.

"One of the things that makes prophecy tricky is ambiguity," I said gently. "There are some, outliers, that depend on pretty tortured readings. But in this case, I think it's just an alternate meaning. From what you gave me, the prophecy was specifically 'the child who first draws breath', and that's in reference to your career as an artist."

"That's stupid," she said. "He's two years older than me, would he really never have doodled a person drawing? Just a few lines indicating that something is coming out of their mouth?" Her hands were folded in her lap. They were curiously still, for someone who used her hands for a living, but maybe artists were like that, preserving the tools of their trade.

"It's stupid," I agreed. "But I do think it's entirely possible that his drawings didn't include anyone breathing, and that yours did."

"How can we know for sure?" she asked.

"We can't," I replied. "Though if we take for granted that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that you were the one to fulfill it, then we have to search for answers within the realm of what we know. And if you're not satisfied with that answer, then I need to spend some time searching for alternate meanings, to find some interpretation that lands better."

"I could understand it if I had some obsession with drawing breath," she said. "If I had done a series of paintings of visible breath escaping from a person's body, then that would make sense. But it's not that, it's the first to draw breath, and that's just ... I mean, doodles we did when we were children. It means nothing. We have no way to mark that. It wasn't pivotal."

I shrugged. "It is what it is." I use that phrase a lot. "There's a selection effect with prophecies. The ones we hear about are hugely ironic, they show the hand of fate, they warp and twist people. But many of them are just," I shrugged again. "Things that happened."

"My brother moved away," she said. "My father had kind of accepted it, probably from the moment we were born, or before that. He'd made peace with it, hadn't tried to fight it. But it was a hard thing to learn for my brother, and he'd just left to go to school a thousand miles away, and coming home was always stressful for him, because maybe this was when it was going to happen."

I nodded. "I can see where that would be difficult. How did he handle it?"

"Poorly," she sighed. "Dad was a good guy. My brother lost all that time, and it had always been a source of tension between them, not the death, but their perspective, you know? Dad preached acceptance, my brother wanted to avoid it, and so when my brother went out west, dad was disappointed. He said it was like losing his son, and that he'd have rather died than have that happen. So not only did my brother not have a close relationship with my dad because of the prophecy, it turns out that dad was right all along. It would have been better for everyone not to fight it."

"Maybe," I said. "In the business we don't counsel people not to fight prophecies. Sometimes it's the right thing to do."

"Well, sorry for wasting your time," she said. "Though I guess I'm paying by the hour, and I'm not going to apologize for something I paid for. So I'd like my apology back, please."

I smiled at her. "Certainly."

She stood up to go, and I marked the time so I could bill her later, but she paused for a moment. I put in the time all the same; so far as I was concerned, we were off the clock.

"Do you have any unresolved prophecies that you know of?" she asked.

"That's sort of a personal question," I said. "But I get it a lot, and if it might help you, I can share: I'm going to be eaten by an alligator."

"You're ... what?" she asked.

"An alligator?" I asked. "They live in swamps."

"And how are you going to be eaten by one?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know," I replied. "There's a chance I've dodged it already, or ... dodged it in the way that you can sometimes dodge an obvious reading." I held up my hand and showed her my pinky, or rather, my lack of pinky. "I went down to Florida, had my finger amputated, then fed it to three baby alligators under the supervision of a zoo keeper."

She stared at me. "And that works?" she finally asked.

"We'll see," I replied. "In general, yes, it's an approach with relatively good outcomes. A self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a peace of mind thing."

"But ... your finger?" she asked. She was looking at it. I sometimes thought that going with a toe would be better, or a chunk of flesh from somewhere else, but I had heard that losing a toe could interfere with balance. I had never regretted that it was a pinky finger.

"If I didn't avert the prophecy, I want to be the kind of guy who says 'oh, well that's funny'," I replied. "I think ... whatever helps you, you know? And now I don't need to stay up at night wondering how the hell it's going to happen. See, your father had it right, I think. You have to find a way to make peace with it. And this was what it took for me to make peace with mine. Though I have to admit that I'm not a fan of zoos, and I don't take vacations south of the Mason Dixon, so maybe I'm not as much at peace as I would like myself to believe."

"Huh," she said. She looked away from the missing finger and to my eyes. "Thank you for sharing that."

"It's okay if you think it's kooky," I replied.

"No," she said. "I was just ... thinking that if my brother had something like that, he might have had more time with dad before he passed."

I nodded. "You can share that story, if you think it will help. Sometimes it does."

When she left I went back to my computer, cruising the local news sites to see whether there had been any updates. I hadn't given her the best advice. My mind had been elsewhere.

A local guy had been busted for breeding reptiles without a license. I was sure it was nothing, but they hadn't said what specific reptiles it had been. It was probably nothing. I mean, a full-grown alligator escaping from custody, finding me, and managing to eat me was a little too much for me to believe.

But fate is a funny thing sometimes, and I was going to keep my eyes open.

[nightingale-prompts]

Saving Batboy

First | Previous | Next

It was as though he was being led through the city. Dick seemed to know exactly where he should go next as he drove.

Dick turned off his location as he closed in on Joker's location. If anyone had doubts about what would happen tonight they knew now. The clown dies tonight.

Batman never did it because he knew there would be no coming back once he crossed that line but he was not Batman.

Tim knew the moment Nightwing's symbol disappeared that he had found Joker's location. He knew he could track him still based on where he was before but he held off. The last time Dick crossed the line and killed the Joker, Tim was there to stop him. In the time since Tim had grown to regret it. Especially after Jason's return. He should be avenged after everything that happened.

Tim never put much thought into what happened when he was kidnapped just like Danny. Joker Jr was just a nightmare and everyone pretends it didn't happen. His past self doesn't exist to him and the gaps in his memory are better as they are.

If Dick was really going to finish this then Tim wasn't going to stop him. Bruce's code was his code alone. What of the Robins that suffer for it? What about his kids that he loves to the point of self-destruction if they die?

It was clear to Tim now. Batman isn't strong enough to kill Joker. If he can't handle it, someone else would.

Maybe Dick just cared more. Or maybe he had seen this happen too many times to sit by and let it happen again. The cost be damned.

Tim took a deep breath. He knew it was a bad move but he shut down the bat computer. No one could locate each other for the next 10 minutes. Enough time to give Dick the lead he really needs. All the comms are down and no information can be shared.

Tim looked up and saw Alfred putting down a cup of tea for him. Tim felt like a child caught doing something wrong under Alfred. But Alfred nodded wordlessly before turning to leave. He cast a forlorn glance at Jason's robin uniform before ascending the stairs.

****

"I was hoping Batman would come for the little bat. Oh sorry, I mean the boy." Joker mocked holding Danny by the back of the neck.

The teen's body was limp. His silver locks stained a rusty brown from dried blood. Blood covered his back and legs. If there had been any doubt if the wings were real there is none now.

"…" Nightwingwing said nothing. His fist clenched.

"You know I debated skinning him next. That fur of his would be a lovely shawl. It's so soft. But it looks like I won't have the time now." Joker provoked, running a hand through the boy's white neck fur.

"Get your hands off him." Nightwing demanded, his eyes locked on Danny for any signs of life.

"You know I am so curious what he was doing here. I was about to build a new trap here for fun when I stumbled upon this little guy here. Practically gift-wrapped. Did he run away from you? Just like you did from good ol'papa bat." Joker's smile widened sickeningly "This all feels so familiar, doesn't it little bird? Are you going to finish what you started?"

"I'm never letting you hurt my family again." No witty one-liners. No games. This bad joke ends today.

****

Batman had scoured the area. He memorize the last location Dick was before the system went down. He wasn't these kids' father for nothing he knew what they were doing.

When sound came back he had already made it to the abandoned factory. The comms rang back to life as the sounds of crying came through.

"Nononono…please no. Wake up. Please wake up." It was Dick's voice. "It's okay. I'm here now. So just wake up. We need to get home soon. Your favorite show will be on soon. WAKE UP! YOU CAN'T DIE!"

Batman bolted to their location and found Dick hovering over Danny trying to resuscitate him.

His son looked at him with pleading eyes.

"I can't hear his heart. He's not breathing." He let out a shaky breath. As distressed tears ran down his cheeks.

Bruce knelt next to them. Danny didn't react to the pressure on his chest. The pain should have at least caused an involuntary jerk if he wasn't too far gone.

Bruce signaled Dick to move back as he checked Danny's pulse again. Nothing. And he wasn't breathing. Bruce looked at his son. Deep down Dick probably knew.

"I'm sorry. He's gone." Bruce said simply as he took off his cloak.

Danny looked so peaceful. Like he was sleeping soundly. Bruce hated that his own suspension had been the thing that had prevented him from having a relationship with his own grandson. He felt foolish to not realize that of course Danny and Batboy were the same. It was a brilliant disguise. But he'd never get to say this to the boy.

Bruce wrapped the boy in his cloak.

"Come on. We'll fix this." He told Dick, carrying Danny for him.

The journey back to the manor was silent until.

"I'm sorry." Bruce said.

"Don't. Just Don't. He's my son. Its my fault." Dick rasped his voice scratchy from crying.

Bruce felt a bitter sting. That was exactly what he felt when he lost Jason and what happened with Tim. When Damian lost his life. These pains didn't go away.

When they arrived back in the Batcave Bruce laid Danny's body on the table. The others were notified about what happened and had already gathered.

Barbara looked like she had bawled her eyes out as she hugged Stephanie.

Damian had pressed himself close to Tim as the older brother told him that it was going to be okay.

The new hole in the wall was clearly Jason if his bloodied knuckles were any clues.

Cassandra paced the floor deep in thought. She was moments away from starting a new crusade.

Duke stared off into the distance. His anger boiling under the surface. All he could think about was the number of lives ruined by the Joker and even in death he took another.

Dick stood still as a statue. Thinking about if Danny could be brought back and even if he was his wings were gone. What if he was gone for good? Could he live like that?

Never had he understood Bruce more than in that moment.

Bruce braced himself for what would come next. He had a plan to bring Danny back at any cost.

But suddenly a sound broke through the tension.

A sneeze.

A fucking sneeze.

It came up from under the cloak.

Everyone snapped to look at the body hidden under the cloak. It shifted under the heavy black blanket groggily and yawned. Then Danny jumped up twisting to feel his back.

"What happened!!" He yelped.

[heavyhitterheaux]

Got 'Til It's Gone

Synopsis: You have been spending less and less time with your boyfriend, and he is trying to be understanding because he knows how dedicated you are when it comes to your career. However, his patience is running out and an argument ensues when he confronts you about it.

Pairing: Joe Burrow x Girlfriend!Reader

Requested by: a beautiful anon 😍

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

Glancing over at the clock in the corner of your laptop, you sighed as the number 2:36 glared back at you. The coffee that was in the cup to the left of you had now grown cold after being reheated at least two times before. The goal had obviously been to drink it, but what was on your laptop screen had your current focus. At that same moment, you felt arms wrap around you as Joe then reached around to place a kiss on your cheek.

“Why is my pretty girl still awake when she should be in bed next to me? Hmm?”

“I know. I just wanted to look over this one more time before tomorrow.” You told him as you had your highlighter in your hand and stacks of research documents to the side of you.

“Babe, it is tomorrow considering that it’s past midnight and you need to get some sleep. Don't you have to be up at seven?”

“Yes, but…” You started to say, but he immediately cut you off as he got a look of concern on his face.

“No, come on. Close the laptop. You're going to bed. Now. You'll thank me later.”

Listening to your boyfriend, you let out a sigh before putting your laptop on sleep mode and once you stood up, Joe quickly placed a kiss on your lips and you eagerly kissed him back.

“How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” He asked you and you simply shrugged.

“Probably less than three if I'm being honest.” You quietly said as you had suddenly become more interested in looking down at your fuzzy pink socks than you were at your extremely attractive boyfriend.

Joe simply placed a finger underneath your chin to make you look at him and he shook his head before grabbing your hand to lead you over to the steps.

“You're going upstairs first so that you can't run back down here and get back on your laptop like you did last week.”

“Babe!” You whined, but Joe immediately shook his head once more at you.

“Nope, don't want to hear it.” He promptly turned you around and you started making your way up the steps while rolling your eyes.

Once you reached the bedroom, your clothes quickly came off with you changing into one of Joe's shirts and throwing on your bonnet before quickly hopping on your side of the bed. Joe made sure to plug your phone into the charger for you as well as set your alarm. It helped that he did have to be up at the same time and would make sure your alarm was loud enough for the both of you.

“Are you pouting because I want you to sleep?” Joe asked you as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Kinda. There's just so many things for me to do.”

“And it can wait until later. You can't keep doing this to yourself. I promise you that they aren't going to go anywhere.” He told you as he hugged you tighter.

“I know, it's just that it's really important to me.”

“And it'll still be important tomorrow. But we're supposed to have a date night so don't forget. Been missing you all week.”

“I won't. I promise. I love spending time with you and it’ll be a much deserved break. What exactly are we doing?”

“Everything is planned, babe and the only thing that I need for you to do is show up. I got it all handled. I see how hard you’ve been working so I wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Aww, Joey, I love that and I appreciate you for doing this for me. I just want all of my hard work to pay off and be able to make a difference in the healthcare world.”

“New things and advancements are happening every day and I’m sure that it will. I know how much this means to you to be able to do this.”

By the time seven in the morning rolled around, you were exhausted as you heard your alarm loudly going off beside you and you were silently cursing Joe for setting it, but also thanking him at the same time to make sure that the both of you were awake. Joe let you know that he had heard the alarm by his loud groaning for you to turn it off.

“Babeeeee, turn it off. It's so loud.”

“Not you complaining when you're the one who set it.” You told him as you grabbed it to silence it. You had thrown off the comforter and made a motion to get up when Joe promptly pulled you back and held you tightly to his chest.

“Joey….”

“Five more minutes. I feel like I never see you anymore so I need to get my cuddles for as long as I can.”

“I guess I can spare five more minutes, but remember that you get me all to yourself when I get finished today.”

“That's literally not until 5:30. I honestly don't think I'll survive until then.”

“Babe, I promise that you will. Now we have three more minutes until we have to get up.”

“The only way I'm getting up is if you'll save water with me.”

“I like the sound of that so come on so I won't be late.”

It was now around six in the evening and Joe was currently at home pacing wondering where you were. You told him that you would be home around 5:00 for date night since everything would start at 5:30, but you were nowhere to be found. He quickly decided to send you another text asking what the hold up was since you hadn't responded to the first one.

Joey- Babe, date night was supposed to start at 5:30. What is going on? Is everything okay?

You- OMG Joey, I'm so sorry. I lost track of time, I'll be on my way in about fifteen minutes. I just have to get all of my things together

Joey- This is the third time this has happened….

You- Baby, I know and I said I was sorry. I promise to make it up to you.

It was 6:45 PM before you finally stepped into the house and peeked around the corner to see Joe sitting on the couch scrolling through his phone. You knew that he had heard you come in and figured that he was annoyed with you and for good reason.

The research that you were doing was important to you seeing as it was something that you held near and dear to your heart.

You were a nurse who had an advanced degree in nursing research and your current focus was on diabetes type one, also known as childhood diabetes which you were diagnosed with at the age of five. There had been plenty of ups and downs trying to learn about the disease and how best to manage it for your tiny five year old body.

Now being an adult, you made it your focus to get a PhD in nutrition and the research you were doing was going towards it. The goal was to do as much research on it as possible in order to prevent it from happening or signs seen in patients that could lead to an earlier diagnosis. So therefore a lot of your time was spent in front of your laptop and various textbooks leaving little time for you to have an actual social life.

You walked over to him and sat down while pulling his hand into yours as you leaned over to kiss his cheek.

“Babe…” You started to say, but he barely acknowledged you.

“Okay, I know you're mad but…” You started to say, but your phone started to vibrate in your hand indicating a call was coming through. You looked down to see it was Anthony who was another person on your team that did research with you.

“Just… two minutes.” You told Joe and he immediately shook his head and rolled his eyes as he waved you off.

Walking into the kitchen, you took the call and immediately went back to where your boyfriend was.

“Joey…”

“I thought that we agreed on leaving work at work and while we're here spending time with each other. There are literally two weeks until training camp starts and I'm trying to spend as much time with you as possible but you're making that extremely difficult.”

“We did, but…”

“But what? Because this has been going on for the past month almost. I was hopeful since it's the first time you actually didn't cancel date night altogether.”

“You know how important this is to me.”

“And I'm not? I barely fucking see you anymore and if I do, you're asleep or waking up to get ready to leave the house again. You're starting to act like you're not even in a relationship and being selfish as hell.”

“Are you serious right now? You know how important you are to me, Joseph, so cut the bullshit.”

“Hmm, sure doesn't feel like it.”

“But I'm here now and we have the rest of the night. Let's not fight about this please. My day was long and I just wanted to come home to my boyfriend.” You told him as you sighed before taking out your ponytail.

“You told me that you would be here by 5:00 and you don't show up until damn near seven. I obviously asked you to be here at a certain time for a reason. It's obvious that whatever you're doing doesn't allow you to have time for me.”

“Joey! That is not true.”

“How is it not true because I'm seeing it with my own eyes? I guess that degree is doing a better job of keeping you warm at night instead of me.” He told you and your eyes immediately started to water. He grabbed his keys and started to make his way towards the front door.

“Babe, where are you going?” You quietly asked and he didn't bother looking back at you to answer you.

“Out. Don't wait up for me either. Like I said, let that degree keep you warm.”

The door slammed behind him as he walked out and you let out a sigh while throwing your phone to the side of you. The day had already been exhausting and fighting with Joe definitely didn't help and you knew that what just happened was going to cause you even more stress.

Not having energy to do anything else, you went upstairs to get into the shower and hoped that it would bring you an ounce of relaxation. But your thoughts couldn't help but to wander. Joe knew how important this was to you and how much time and dedication it took, since you told him at the beginning. However, his feelings of not being able to spend enough time with you were valid and made it up in your mind that you would do better moving forward. Just a little while longer.

The next morning you woke up to an empty bed which you weren't surprised by and began to get ready for the day. In the past when the two of you would have disagreements, Joe or you would either leave the house for an hour or two at the absolute most. Never for an entire night. After you had gotten dressed and put your faux locs into a high bun, you made sure to have all of your notes along with your laptop and left the house.

It was around three in the afternoon when Joe was simply having a movie marathon in the home theater that was located in the basement when he suddenly had gotten the idea to check your location. He could admit that he had high hopes since maybe you would come home early so the two of you could apologize and move on. He absolutely hated fighting with you, but he had to let his feelings be known that even though he was extremely proud of you for having a career, he still was an important part of your life.

To his shock and surprise, your location was set to the hospital not too far from your job and Joe suddenly began to panic. It had been a few years since you had been in the hospital for your diabetes and he had a strong feeling that this was the cause and silently cursed to himself. But, he couldn't understand why you hadn't called him to let him know that you were okay.

Immediately jumping up, he threw on some clothes and got into his car pulling out of the driveway and speeding down the street while trying to call you and praying that you would answer.

Calling you had gotten him absolutely nowhere and when he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down before getting out of his car.

After checking in with security, he went to the front desk to ask for you. It had helped that Joe was listed as your emergency contact ever since the two of you had begun dating when you had a mishap on one of the dates he had taken you on. A nurse passing by had overheard which room he was going to and offered to show him where it was.

Once he reached your room, your nurse was in there with you checking your IV site and he noticed that a bag of fluid was infusing into you. He looked at the bag from the door and read what it was and immediately sighed.

It was insulin.

Joe quietly made his way all the way inside and your nurse Jessica was the first to notice him. It just so happened that he had remembered her from taking care of you before. And it also helped that she was one of your good friends.

Even though it was considered a conflict of interest for her to be your nurse, she wouldn't let anyone else take care of you when you came to that particular emergency department.

“Oh, look Y/N, your boyfriend is here. Hi Joe, nice to see you again. I wish it was under better circumstances, but you get it. Especially since this one doesn't know how to listen.”

Hearing this, your eyes went wide and immediately looked up at Joe as he greeted Jessica.

“Hey, Jessica. Is she doing okay? What happened this time?” Joe asked, pressing her for information, but she glanced at you first to make sure that it was okay to tell him.

“Can I tell him?” She asked you and you nodded your head before looking down and playing with your bracelet that he had gifted you when you first accepted into grad school.

“She's stable, but her sugar was damn near 800 and she forgot to take her insulin. She was having headaches all day apparently, super thirsty and not feeling like herself. Her coworkers were concerned so they called 911 to come and get her. Oh, and she forgot to eat. We're all thinking her insulin dose needs to be changed combined with a high amount of stress caused this.”

All Joe could do was sigh as he pulled up a chair to sit next to you and kissed your forehead, but you wouldn't make eye contact with him.

“And fun fact, she didn't want us to call you because according to her, you were already mad at her and she didn't want to make it worse. But I said he probably wants to know that you're okay but I'll be back soon.” Jessica said as she basically ran out the door leaving you and Joe by yourselves.

You didn't want to be the first one to speak and luckily Joe broke the silence for you.

“You know me better than that.” He whispered and you simply nodded your head.

“I know, but I just didn't want to add anything else to…”

He wasted no time in cutting you off.

“Your well-being is what's important to me. I don't care how mad I might be at you or what we argued about the night before or even five minutes ago. The only thing that is priority in that situation is making sure you're okay. I shouldn't have had to check your location to see that you were in the hospital and when you didn't answer, I thought the absolute worst. Don't you know how much I love and care about you?”

“Yes, I… just… I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for not spending time with you and making it seem like you aren't a priority when you know that you are. Now stressing myself out over this job, I ended up here. Last night I didn't sleep very well because you weren't next to me.” You told him as you sighed and laid your head back on the stretcher.

“You're amazing at your job and I’m happy you love it and I'm proud of you. I don't want you to ever think that I’m not. But you need to take better care of yourself so that this doesn't happen again.” Joe told you as he took your hand in his and kissed the back of it.

“I know and I promise that I will.”

“And I need you to promise me something else too.”

“What's that?”

“Never in your life scare me like that again. I can't imagine something happening to you and the last thing we did was argue. I don't want us to be that couple.”

You nodded your head as you laid back and closed your eyes since the light had been bothering them.

“Is the light bothering you?” Joe asked while still holding onto your hand.

“Yes, I still have a slight headache. I know food would help, but my sugar is too high and needs to get stabilized first. And besides I want to be able to look at my boyfriend so I'm slightly annoyed.”

Joe nodded even though you couldn't see him to get up and turn off the light to hopefully help your headache.

“But you know what I look like babe. I turned the light off by the way to hopefully help.”

“Not the point and thank you. You’re going to win sexiest man alive one day, mark my words. I mean you already win every year in my mind anyway.” You told him as you peeked one eye open to laugh at him while he turned a bright shade of red.

“You’re so cute and I'm always going to give you compliments, but I really need to make this up to you once I get discharged.”

“No, the only thing you need to do is focus on getting better. And maybe take a vacation.”

“We have to settle for a staycation because training camp is about to start and I obviously want you with me.” You replied as you took a deep breath and sat up.

“That can be arranged. Whatever my princess wants, she gets. But we need to focus on one thing at a time. Let's get you better first.”

Three weeks had gone by with you recovering from being in the hospital for the first week with the physicians having to adjust your dose of insulin that you had to take on a daily basis with coming up with a new sliding scale.

Joe had started training camp and was constantly telling you how excited he was. You had high hopes for him this season seeing as this is the healthiest that he's ever been.

Last night you had called Jessica to see if she was free to see if she wanted to come to training camp with you. Luckily, she didn't have any plans and immediately jumped at the opportunity to come with you.

The two of you were currently sitting to the side and she made sure to bring a wide variety of snacks so you had no excuse not to eat something.

Your eyes were currently on your boyfriend when Jessica asked a question pulling you from your thoughts.

“You two good now?” She asked and you turned to smile at her.

“Better than we were a few weeks ago. But it's still a work in progress. We know that we love each other and want to be together for the long haul so some compromises need to be made.”

“I get that you love your career, but spending time with people who love you matters too. Tomorrow isn't promised and you definitely don't want to have any regrets.”

“I get it and I'm surprised you didn't notice yet.”

“Notice what?” Jessica said as she looked at you confused.

You smiled and simply held up your left hand to show her the huge ring that was now gracing your left ring finger and she immediately gasped.

“Damn, I'm surprised I didn't notice either. And not you trying to blind me.” Jessica replied as she grabbed your hand to inspect it.

“I had to realize what I had before it was gone and I’m so happy that I did.”

“I'm going to be the maid of honor, right? I mean no pressure or anything though.” She told you as she batted her eyelashes making you laugh.

“All I ask is that my bachelorette party is top tier.” You told her and she immediately smiled.

“One less thing you have to worry about. Leave all of it to me. We'll have to make sure none of it ends up on social media though.” She said and your eyes went wide.

“Wait, what?”

“Operation future Mrs. Burrow is officially in effect.”

[hahaifolded]

141 x POC!GN Intelligence Operative - Ending Things (Long Drabble) Author's Note: Oh this one hurt to write. And I'm not gonna lie - it's going to keep getting worse from here Warnings: MDNI, Angst

After that one night you over did it at the bar, you woke up, hungover and worried that you had done something stupid in front of the 141. But it seemed like things were fine as everything went on as usual the next few weeks. If anything you assumed something happened between them as you sensed some weird tension among them. But you weren't worried, they're the 141. They'll figure it out.

And it seems like they did after that random meeting in Price's office. But as they returned to normal, your relationship with everyone shifted.

It's like these last few months of camaraderie just disappeared. No more "good mornings", "how are you", "any plans tonight" - nothing of the sort. Instead, it's just commands, orders, and the occasional question about intel and reports, but overall nothing too comfortable. Confused by the sudden switch up, you decide to reach out first and figure out what happened.

If you had done something, then the least they can do is be mature about it and tell you. Because that's what teams do.

So with some recently dropped intel, you knock on Soap's door. After hearing him say enter, you walk in and take note of how the sergeant faltered, surprised to see you in his office.

"Hey Johnny-boy, I was wondering if you could help me go through some files we just got?" This was y'all's thing. He's never turned you down before so in your mind, this was foolproof. Or at least, you thought it was.

"If you can't handle some measly reports, you should probably re-evaluate your career choices. I can't always hold your hand when things get hard. I got my own work to do, you know?," he says, eyes still on his paperwork. Annoyance clear in his voice.

Your mouth runs dry. You try to save face and explain that you just value his insight on things. Your face heats up when he looks at you with the most unimpressed eyes. You apologize for wasting his time and quickly leave his office, feeling embarrassed by the interaction.

What you don't see is the way the Scotsman winced when he sees his door close, knowing that you left feeling like a fool.

Things with Soap did not go well, but you try not to dwell too much on his words. You knew that he had his days so if anything, you probably just picked a bad one.

So that's why you approach Kyle next as he always kept his cool when things were rough. If you anyone would listen to you, it would be Kyle. So the next day, you head to his office, lunch in hand, excited to catch up with the sergeant.

Seeing his door open, you stop at the entrance and knock on the door frame. He glances up and asks if you needed anything.

"No, just wanted to check up on you. Maybe see if you had any ideas you wanted to work through before the meeting," you chirp, eyes beaming with joy. Kyle usually workshopped his ideas with you before suggesting them to the team. But it's been awhile. He's probably been busy with reports and all that.

"With you? Not really."

"Oh, I just thought, you know since you usually--"

"Yeah, I know, but honestly what's the point? You've never been out in the field so what would you know?" He shrugs with that last phrase.

While he had somewhat of a point, that didn't mean you were completely useless. The last few months should speak on that. You try to push back, but he doesn't bother to look at you. Realizing he wasn't going to listen, you leave.

But, Gaz does listen. He hears how your steps get further and further away until he hears the distinct sound of your office door closing.

Okay, things weren't looking great. But if there was one constant in your life, it was Ghost. Despite his prickly exterior, you knew he was a softie at heart.

So you look for him at the base's gym, instead of his office, knowing that he was probably getting some reps in during his break. And just like you predicted, you found Ghost at the bench press with some rookies that liked to test your boundaries. But with Ghost nearby, you knew you'd be safe. Now with a gift in hand, you stand in front of the Lieutenant and wait for him to finish.

After a few minutes, he sits up and questions your presence, adding that he didn't think pencil pushers like yourself went to the gym. Ouch, that was uncalled for, but this was part of his shtick... right?

"Good to see you too, Ghost" you quip. He doesn't react. You falter a bit, but you quickly regained your composure. This was Ghost who you were talking to, he wouldn't hurt you. "Remember the other day when you were complaining about the calluses on your hands? Well, I got you some new gloves to see if they could help," you proudly announce as you drop the bag in his lap.

He carefully opens the bag and takes out the gloves. This had to do it. He's probably going to say thank you, maybe even ask you how you been. And that's your way in.

Or it would have been if the sound of fabric tearing didn't fill the air. Right before your eyes, Ghost was tearing a glove right through the middle. He stands up and towers over you, throwing your gift to the ground.

"Honestly if you spent even half of this energy in your actual work, maybe you'd be worth keeping," he spits. You hear the nearby rookies snicker. After staring you down for a few more seconds, he lays back down and starts another set. You don't bother saying anything as the lump in your throat threatens to give you away. You walk out of the gym, shame filling your core.

But with tears blurring your eyes, you fail to notice Ghost quickly grabbing the gloves off the floor.

And now with three failed attempts in figuring out what's wrong, Price calls you into his office for a check-in. During these check-ins, he'd ask you if everything was going well with the team. You really wanted to avoid inconveniencing him with such a trivial matter, but the other three left you with no choice.

You walk into his office, determined for answers. Or at least, were until he asked you to close the door behind him, an action only reserved for when the conversation was serious. After shutting the door, you take a seat, nervous as his usually friendly eyes aren't there to greet you.

With a cold gaze, Price looks you over and begins. "Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Your work on the team has been decent at best." Decent? "It's clear that you're more interested in harassing my men than working alongside them." Harassing? "So if you're actually serious about your future here, I'd recommend you get your priorities straight. Do I make myself clear?"

You sat there dumbfounded. How did you get here? Just a few weeks ago, you were confident in your place on the team, and now you're at risk of losing everything you worked for. How? What caused this sudden-- oh.

The night at the bar. The night you can't remember. You probably crossed a line and despite their best efforts to ignore it, they just couldn't. Whatever you did, it must have been bad, because why else would they switch up on you like this? You obviously messed up.

That's why at the next team meeting, you ask Price if you could say a couple of words. Realizing the second chance they were gifting you, you decide to apologize for your inadequacies, for ever making them uncomfortable, and for overall failing them as a teammate when they never once failed you. With that, you promise to do better from here on out.

You leave that meeting determined to prove yourself once again to the team. While Johnny, Kyle, Ghost, and Price leave feeling horrible for making you feel like the monster here.

But that's what best for the team... right?

Word Count: 1371

More Thoughts - Next Thought

[rafeandonlyrafe]

eventually

words: 700

warnings: established relationship, college student!reader, long distance relationship, cheating, not a happy ending, wheezie is a queen as per usual, mentions/implications of hooking up but the fic is pretty sfw

“it'll be… it'll be really hard and i understand if you want to break up.” just the words coming out of your mouth breaks your heart.

“is that what you want?”

“what?” you shake your head quickly, moving to sit even closer and taking rafes hands in yours, squeezing them tightly. “i love you. i don't want us to ever break up, but im going to college three hours away.”

“we will just have to go long distance.” rafe raises your joined hands and kisses the back of your hand to your fingers. “im not giving up on the only good thing in my life.”

“oh, rafe.” you pout, launching yourself forward into a tight embrace.

--six months later--

you smile at the email approving you to take your exam early. it's the last one you need and considering you already have a 4.0 in the glass, you don't see it dropping just because you get less time to study.

you quickly close outlook and open up your text messages. as much as you want to tell rafe that you'll be coming home two weeks early, you also really want to surprise him.

hey wheezie girl!! I need your help…

--

“where is he?” you whisper as wheezie let's you into the house.

“in his room.” wheezie also keeps her voice low. “he might be asleep though so i don't know if you want to wait.”

“no.” you shake your head quickly. you just got home and the first thing you did was drive to tanneyhill, you're not sure if you can wait even a minute longer. “i got it from here, thanks girl.” you give wheezie a big hug. “i missed you too, ya know.”

wheezie hugs you back before letting you tiptoe up the stairs, keeping your steps as light as to not wake rafe.

you take a deep breath when you see his door, excitement filling in you knowing he's just on the other side.

you grip the brass handle and turn it slowly, attempting to keep the door from creaking as you step into the dark room.

your eyes take a second to adjust to the darkness, the morning light blocked out by the heavy curtains. you recognize a figure in bed and take a few steps closer, but with every movement, your heart drops further.

the sob rips from your chest before you even realize you're crying, waking rafe instantly.

“baby?” he sits up quickly, his voice frantic. “what are you doing here?”

“baby?!” you squeal. “you don't get to call me baby when there's a girl in your fucking bed!”

the clearly naked girl, gripping the blanket to her chest is now awake and staring at the both of you in confusion, probably some touron who had no clue what she was getting involved with.

“p-please.” rafe stutters, standing quickly. “it doesn't mean anything, i don't even remember her name i just needed to-”

you hold your hand up. “i don't want to hear it. i can't believe you… this is over. we are over.”

you walk quickly out of the room and stumble down the stairs, feeling like the house is suffocating you.

you don't even realize that you bump directly into ward, practically crashing into him and forcing him back into rose.

“y/n, what's wrong?” ward asks just as rose asks you when you got home, the whole family knowing when to expect you.

“what's wrong is your son is a cheater.” you give rafe a glare as he stands at the top of his stairs in only his underwear.

“rafe-” ward growls out. he knows how good you are for his son, he's seen the shift in his behavior since you left.

“baby, i still love you, she means nothing to me! it was just casual-”

you leave the house as his pleas continue, not wanting to hear another word of his bullshit arguments, knowing two years has now gone down the drain.

“im sorry.” you look up to see wheezie standing by your car. “i didn't know for sure but… but i guessed. i know you needed to see it with your own eyes. he went to a party last night and-”

“oh, wheeze.” you quickly give her a hug. “it's okay. ill be okay.”

“you will?”

you don't know the answer to that question, not for certain as you look back at the house, rafe stood in the doorway but not following you as ward lectures him.

“not any time soon.” you admit honestly. “but i will be. eventually.”

sfw taglist: @winterrrnight @bejeweledreverie @ethanthequeefqueen @ladyinbl00d @drewsephrry