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jeonfiles · 4 years ago

Text

better left unsaid - jjk

genre: angst, rebounds

pairings: jungkook x reader (ft. namjoon)

warnings: arguing, alcohol, profanity, break ups, light smut, use of drugs, jungkook is a fucking dick, jungkook has major attachment issues, toxic relationships, oc cries a lot, namjoon has a heart of gold, unrequited love

synopsis: you knew you shouldnt have given him that second chance, not the third or the fourth either. no matter how much you try he always slithers his way underneath your sheets, arms wrapped around you.

word count: 2.7k

music: into your arms, so it ends?, you will fade, thinkin bout you, julia, my insecurities not yours, fuck u, goodluck, my dear i will think of you

note: uhh ive never written a y/n fic so bare with me, if u listen to the music you’ll be able to feel the story a lot more so yeah if u have time u should, not proof read

Light coming through the cracks of the blinds, making you squint your eyes when the daylight beams into your eyes, head resting on the kitchen island Looking up, you saw the clock ticking on the wall, 11:32 am.

You had stayed up till 5 am, waiting for him to come home, but seemingly, he never did. Reaching for your phone, you saw 4 missed calls from the one and only,

Jeon Jungkook, saved in your phone as “Koo <3″, Rows of messages too, all from the same contact.

Koo <3 [05:34 am]

baby pkck me up pleseee

im so wsated

Koo <3 [06.46am]

dont be mad at me jsut pick me up

i dont knw hewere the fuck i am

i love you

Koo <3 [07:31 am]

i got a rde home i’ll be home by 12

i need to talk to someone frsit

im sorry if i woke ypu dont be worried

You took a few moments to collect your thoughts, but there wasn’t much to collect. This whole thing, was a routine by now.

Standing up to make yourself a cup of coffee, you could literally not feel your own backside, you were so sore from the barstool you had been sitting on all night, and it made you groan in pain.

Two coffee cups right beside the kitchen sink, which you couldn’t bring yourself to clean up, because it was from the last time you had coffee together, which was 2 weeks ago.

The inside of the cup had a coffee crust at the top, and both your lip tint marks on the outside.

When you finish your cup of coffee while watching a bad telenovela, you go sit in your favorite chair and pull out a few books from the backpack hanging on the chair next to you, getting ready to get some studying done.

For a few seconds you imagine Jungkook hanging over your shoulder laughing at the way you write your A-s and R-s, or the way you always sign your homework at the bottom of the page.

And when you open them, there’s no one there. The only sound is from the refrigerator, making refrigerator noises.

You had met Jungkook 3 years ago, when you were at college orientation, senior year of high school. He also wanted to attend Yonsei, just like you.

And when he whispered to you about how bored he was, you couldn’t help but giggle, and then you got yelled at.

It was worth it though, because everyone was jealous of you afterwards,the Jeon Jungkook had talked to you.

Jungkook was an all-rounder as they called it; great physique, intelligent, charismatic and great at sports.

And god, he had a beautiful face, and such a filthy mouth, and it didn’t go long before you gave in to his seductive ways and slept with him. The morning after, he wasn’t in bed with you, and your heart sank.

Luckily, he was in the kitchen making you breakfast.

It was all bliss from there, showering you with love, gifts and kisses for two years, and you even ended up moving in together.

And now? You barely remember what he sounds like, smells like and is like.

A distant memory, just as distant as him.

Your train of thought was suddenly interrupted as you heard 3 knocks on your door. The exact same way he had always knocked when he had forgotten (or lost) his keys.

And even though you should have let him suffer a little, you rushed to the door to open it, and in front of you, was your biggest nightmare.

It was your love, crying his eyes out, bleeding from one of many cuts on his face, looking nearly dead. He collapsed into your arms, and you could only utter a few words, along the lines of:

“How could you do this to us?”

As he was laying curled up in a ball on the couch, face plastered up, ice bag on his knee, wrapped up in a blanket, you realized. this was your que to cry.

So, you did. You cried in silence, sitting across the room from him. You weren’t mad at him for coming home late, or getting in another fight, probably the 5th just these past months, you had gotten used to that by now.

There was a whole other reason that made you cry.

He smelled like Victorias Secret Bombshell, you recognized the scent because it used to be your favorite, however, now you’ve moved onto something less sweet, and more elegant, like Caroline Herrera.

He smelled like someone who wasn’t you, his girlfriend.

He smelled like another girl.

It didn’t hurt as much as you thought it would. Maybe because the Jungkook that had come home to you that morning wasn’t your Jungkook.

Your Jungkook was varsity jackets, star of the american football team (which your school was known for), selfless and humorous, and he would always take care of you.

Your Jungkook was not ungroomed hair, cigarettes and worsening grades. He was not cold and lifeless, and he would never make you cry.

Despite this, you were carding your fingers though his hair, thumb wiping away the blood on his lips while he was sound asleep as you slowly fell asleep next to him.

Maybe it was time to let him go.

Maybe.

You woke a few hours later from your phone vibrating.

Kim Namjoon (school) [07:01 pm]

Hey Y/N! Have you started working on the statistics assignment?

If you haven’t, would you be interested in meeting at the library tomorrow? You’re really smart and i’m kinda struggling ://

You [07:03 pm]

i finished it yesterday, but if you buy me coffee i’ll come help you hehe

Kim Namjoon (school) [07:04 pm]

You’re the best, I’ll bring you a machiatto!! :D

Maybe it would be nice for you to get out of the house, even though you hate the thought of it, and you would much rather just swim in your own sorrow.

But you did go out the next day, and you helped Namjoon get a decent grade, enough to pass with good margines, he thanked you by taking you out for ramen at a convenial store not too far away.

You thanked him for the ramen with a trip to the museum, and he thanked you for the museum trip with a picnic in the park at night, which led you to crying over Jungkook in his embrace, telling him every single little detail.

He made you realize it was time to let Jungkook go and make room for new people to enter your life.

You went home that night, and you found Jungkook passed out on the couch, and you could genuienly feel your chest tighten. Soft features which stood out under the moonlight glow, disheveled brown locks which hung down in his eyes.

He was gorgeous, until you saw the credit card on the table next to three bottles of soju and an empty beer can on the floor. And you knew what he had used the credit card for, though you didn’t want to say it out loud.

You cleaned everything up, and you threw the residue of the white powder right in the trash can, and you recycled his bottles and cans before finally, nudging him to wake up.

“Jungkook, wake up.” You spat coldly, or at least you attempted to.

He groaned, rubbing his eyes before opening his eyes, and s huge smile on his face. “Y/N, you’re home!” He reached to kiss you, but you backed away.

“Y/N?” Jungkook questioned, he didn’t quite understand what your intentions were.

“Don’t try anything Jungkook. This was your last chance, and you fucked it up, again.” The room turned ice cold. “I’m getting you help Jungkook, you need help. And then...”

He understood what kind of help you meant, and since he had now sobered up, he agreed, nodding. “And then...?”

“And then.” Your words were ludged in your throat. “And then I’m leaving you.”

His whole face dropped, smile turned into the frowniest frown you had ever seen, and it was all silent before his lower lip starts trembling, and his eyes start turning glassy.

“It’s alright. Sorry for burdening you.” Was all he could say before tears rushed down his cheeks, and he started shaking.

So you did what you always had done, and you wrapped your arms around him, head resting on your chest as he sobbed.

“Is there anyone else?” he cried out before another wave of sobs hit him.

This exact question made your stomach hurt, and your throat burn. You really had no idea.

Or you did, but you didn’t want to.

You loved Jungkook so much, but you couldn’t be with him in this state. So you did what every rational person would do in this situation.

“Yeah.”

You lied.

“Oh ok. I don’t have the right to be mad do I?”

You shake your head no.

“I love you Y/N. I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

“It’s ok.” was all he said before he fell asleep in your arms again.

That night you slither your way out of his embrace and you pack your suitcase in the dark, bringing all your essentials, trying to be as quiet as possible so you didn’t wake Jungkook.

Packing enough for two weeks or so, you make the bed and leave your t-shirt “accidentally” in the bathroom, and you make sure all his clothes are folded, and then you sort his pencil case, throwing out old pens and worn out erasers.

You leave a grocery list on the counter, and you tuck him in good under the blankets after you took his jeans and socks off so he could sleep comfortably.

You placed his vitamins and medicine by the refrigerator so he’ll see it when he goes to grab something to eat.

Puffed up pillows, a pair of sweatpants, t-shirt and underwear is now placed neatly on his bed. Then you walk into the kitchen again, and you see Jungkook still sound asleep, sniffling a little still.

There’s one last thing, and it makes you cry. It makes you sob so loud you cover your mouth and muffle the sound you make. Sinking to the floor, your whole body is in contact with the cold tiles.

Only a year ago you could never imagine yourself even shedding a single tear over something as small as this, but here you were, on the edge of a panic attack.

Two worn out, matching couple mugs still placed by the counter. one if the first things you two had bought together, as well as the necklace hanging around your neck.

Finally, you stopped crying and started cleaning the mugs, lip trembling as you dried them and placed them in the back of the cabinet.

You unhooked your necklace and laid it down on the counter, and the biggest lump formed in your throat.

Actually, there’s a little detail you forget.

You kiss Jungkook on the forehead and leave a note on the coffee table.

“Dear Jungkook,

If you want to make this up to me (this does not mean a new chance!!) you call the number at the bottom of the page. No matter what happens, I’ll always have room for you in my heart. You even have your own little VIP lobby in there. And - if it’s urgent, call. I still care for you, and I always have. You were the best boyfriend I’ve had, but good things always come to and end, don’t they? Anyways, I’m tired so this letter fucking sucks, but deep down you know how much I love you. Remember to get groceries, shower, get fresh air and study. If I forgot something you can keep it, as long as you call the number and tell them you’re my friend. They’ll help you love. Try and get a part time job too, your student loan and your dad’s money won’t last forever. Good luck Koo. Hwaiting!!

-L/N Y/N <33″

You cringe when you think of the letter’s contents, before you roll out your suitcase out of the front door, whispering a faint “Goodnight Love.” as you close and lock the door behind you.

Standing by the elevator, you cry again. This time, louder, but you still reach for your phone and type out a text to the newly edited contact in your phone.

You [02:13 am]

coming outside now, im a crying mess and im super cold, is your car heated?

sorry for making you wait btw :((

Joonie <3 [02:13 am]

dont worry about the crying part, i’ll hold you. and yeah car is heated, so waiting here wasnt all that bad. you ready for this?

You [02:14 am]

i have no idea but i cant stay here any longer and i trust you sooo

lets start our new chapter. eh?

4 months later...

He had been good to you, great even.

You had been on expensive dates, picnics, had heart to heart conversations, and he’d been so understanding.

Today, it was your 2 month anniversary, and he had asked you on a magnificent date, which he had planned every second of.

At the end of the day, you told him how you don’t love him. He said it was alright. Namjoon loved you, so much, yet he understood you needed time.

You went to sleep that day, warm in Namjoon’s embrace, wondering how Jungkook was doing.

You felt bad, but you missed Jungkook.

You were both with someone new now, and you knew he was in good hands with someone stable enough to care for him.

Before your eyes closed shut, you shed a few quiet tears and hoped that you’d fall in love with Namjoon soon, and deep down you knew you would.

#jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #namjoon smut #jungkook ff #bts ff #bts imagines #bts scenarios #namjoon ff #bangtan smut #jungkook #jeon jeongguk #jeongguk ff

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stickynotestoletters · 4 years ago

Note

may i ask for some poly relationship w larry & sal x male reader hcs?

Ah! Of course! :) Sorry I've been taking so long school is getting to me cause of finals;-;

Warnings: Noncannon compliant (their parents aren't together, no one dies, etc), NSFW (implied teen NSFW otherwise they're out of highschool), no weird cult stuff but they still ghost hunt, more modernish (?) phones and stuff

Sal x Male Reader x Larry hcs

highschool

I think that Sal and Larry would have gotten together before you got there

Like, I say gotten together but the way they started it was literally best friends that were super hornknee and decided to have sex together

They started then developing romantic feelings for each other though

And although the sex dynamic wasn't perfect (refer to my Sal x reader NSFW fic) it was good and they loved each other

It became an on and off thing until they actually worked it out

they talked about it and decided that it was better that they stay friends until they can sort out their own sexual desires and endeavors

Sal didn't even know he could do both as a switch and verse so he wanted to just re-examine his sexual self

And Larry was okay with that

So they decided to date but just without sex for a while

Then you moved to Nockfell their sophomore year

and god were you cool

Sal was the first one to see you in the hallway

It wasn't love at first sight really

He thought you were cool and he wanted to talk to you

Then that same day he told Larry about you during lunch

"I want to talk to him I just don't know how to approach him"

"Oh, well who is it?"

Ngl Larry was kinda jealous about how flustered Sal was getting at the prospect of a new friend but then Sal pointed at you and Larry was like "Oh, okay, I get it."

So Larry just approaches you

It was kinda to tease Sal about how shy he was being

Also kinda because you looked rad as fuck

So Larry approaches you sitting at a table alone

You were actually quite chill

You were happy since no one was approaching you

You guys hit it off and ended up becoming really good friends!

So for the duration of your sophomore year and the summer of your junior year, you guys were really good pals and hung out a lot

Then Larry started developing feelings first

And he was super confused since he knew he still liked Sal, no doubt about it

So he was just super confused and conflicted because he didn’t want to break up with Sal

So during, about the first half, of all of your junior year he kept this to himself and tried to keep himself from feeling for you

Sal on the other hand already accepted his feelings, he realized it later than Larry

And he read yp on what being polygamous meant

So although there was a lot of confusion at first he figured it's no different from people in love triangles

He realizes it a couple weeks after Larry and decides to bring this up to Larry during winter break

The conversation pretty much just went like Sal explaining polyamory to Larry for an hour

They end up deciding to just wait a bit and try to flirt with you individually

you know,

because they don't remember that you don't know they're attracted to you at this point

So basically you think that they're both trying to cheat on each other for the week they're flirting with you

At the end of that week, you tell them to meet you together

And they don't know any better than to meet you

And then you come to them, don't let them explain, and cry because you don't want two of your best friends to cheat on each other like this even though you like them

And then they realize why you're saying this

So although this was not the time they expected to confess to you they told you what they were trying to do

So you just sat there

With these two idiots

and told them "No guys, cause I was literally having a breakdown about losing my two best friends."

And they confess to you

and everything is emotional and raw and you accept

Your guys' dynamic doesn't change because you’re dating now

The only difference is you guys make out together and show lots more pda

although you always bring up what they did when they were trying to give you hints

"We just really wanted to flirt with you okay??? Is it such a crime to want your crush to fall for you???"

"When you guys don't explain you're looking to expand your relationship, yes. Yes, it is Larry."

"He's kind of right babe-"

"SAL-"

Y'all spend a lot of time communicating with each other on stuff like that now

Your senior year goes without any bumps between all of you and you then graduate

College Dynamic

so you and the gang (except Ash, she moves to the city of course) goes and makes a college house

once you all move in together there it's a new routine

You all agreed and talked about the move together and what it would entail

And then you all finally realized how different it was from a monogamous relationship it was

But you all had your learning curves within the relationship

You find out more about their dynamic as a couple

For example, Larry and Sal never liked to fall asleep without you anymore

They had trouble sleeping without you beforehand and the first time you all slept in the same bed together it was just... so... peaceful

They'll spoon and cuddle without you individually (Sal is always the big spoon with Larry)

but they just love falling asleep next to you

They also refuse to do homework without you there

Even if it's just the simplest this they're just gonna need to have you in the room to finish it

Sal likes to make songs about you guys

He records them and edits some but he never lets you two listen to them

"It's just embarrassing if you two were to listen to it. It's like confessing my love for you guys all over again except I can't hide behind the mask."

So until he decides to release his songs online or plays those at gigs he's never going to let you listen to them

Larry likes to paint you guys

His paintings of you before the "disaster confession" were okay, it just looked like he was making a painting of a friend, except for the occasional rose

But now he paints you and draws you two whenever he can

He finds it funny how flustered you and Sal get whenever he makes suggestive paintings or sketches of you two

One time he painted a whole sex portrait of you and Sal together (A 12 by 28 specifically) hung it upright in front of the door to your rooms and didn't tell anyone

So after you and Sal got home that day you were welcomed with Larry lounging on your bed with the giant picture of you fucking Sal next to him

It was definitely beautiful though, even if it's hard to call your nudes beautiful

"Larry Johnson, this painting, as always, masterful. Beautiful craftsmanship but please-" "-we mean this in the most loving way possible Larry-" "-STOP PAINTING OUR NUDES BABE"

He put it away to be hung up in your apartment for when you all move out

Non-College Life

Once you all finish college you guys move into an apartment outside of Nockfell

The minute after you and Sal leave to get food Larry puts up all his private paintings of you guys

It's funny to him

I imagine you guys moving to a really populated city

Somewhere where it's a good place for people wanting to have creative jobs but still close to Nockfell

Maybe not back to New Jersey but probably not as far as New York or LA

you guys do all the cute stuff you never got to in Nockfell together

It's not like the majority of Nockfell was homophobic, mostly just the people who went to the church

But a lot more of them didn't think that polyamory was possible

So now it's easier

It's not like you never experience any polyphobia anymore but it's easier because you're in a more open-minded place

Sal's favorite thing is to go to concerts now

And pride

He also likes coffee house dates too

Larry gets hit on a lot though whenever you guys go out anywhere though

He finds it funny how jealous you both get

Sometimes if he wants Sal to get really mad he'll play along

But most of the time he shuts it down before it begins

Sal gets hit on a lot at concerts the most though

He gets kind of awkward about it, he's not going to edge them on but he gets uncomfortable enough to just not know how to shut them down

Usually, you and Larry will just appear behind him and whisk him away

Larry likes to use it as teasing leverage for a good rough one that night but you usually make sure he's okay with it before Larry does anything

You get hit on the most casually

Here and there but there aren't really specific places

It just sort of happens

You mostly shut them down alone

But occasionally you'll have to go to Sal and Larry if they're persistent

And they'll be mean too

One of the first times you saw Sal and Larry ever legitimately get that mean was when you got hit on in a club and they both just pulled you behind them and absolutely ripped the person a new one

You guys really like to stay at home if you guys have dates though that way everyone feels included

But when you all do go around together it's always specifically for three people you never tell anyone it's a date for dinner reservations, you always make sure you go on rides everyone wants to go on at amusement parks, and hey if worse comes to worst smoking is a group activity (if you have asthma or any other breathing condition Larry makes you edibles if you really wanna do edibles with them)

Starting jobs there are tough and all but you make it off your feet

Sal ends up booking a lot of gigs and Larry's commission request skyrocket when he moves to the city and makes a blog about his art

You all get an apartment with affordable rent and one that allows Gizmo

I hc that Gizmo is an esp but I don't know if that's real

So regardless you'll still be able to have room for him

Sal proposes to both of you

You guys talked about marriage and decided that it would be easier legally to just not get married through a court

So you guys have a friends wedding and Gizmo is the ring bearer

You guys don't get a fancy venue or anything

You guys all just have a city wedding

NSFW

So, the first time you all decide to hook up it's mostly just very communicative rules beforehand

Sal is more comfortable with being fucked than fucking someone else at most times but "It's not like I never want to stick my dick in you two" as he puts it

He also likes background music on most of the time

It's kinda weird if there isn't just a little bit of music

It isn't really bothersome, you guys keep it below 20 at most times

Sal's also super submissive

He liked it rough, make him cry out for you two

A bit of a pillow prince

Especially enjoys being tied up by you two

gags and blindfolds are on the table

Although whenever he does feel up to fucking you and Larry he'll usually end up having you two ride him because he gets to be such a mess with you two unless he's jealous or upset

Usually, when he's upset he's gonna lift you two up and fuck you against the headboard or wherever you two are if he's impatient enough

One time you were chilling with Larry in your bedroom and he was painting over his easel

Sal burst through the door where it slammed back on itself and closed itself

He then tracks his eyes on you

immediately asks you "Can I please fuck you right now"

and as soon as your safe word and consent comes out of your mouth he's holding you down on the bed and fucking into you so hard you can barely breath

Larry doesn't mind it and just continues painting with you moaning and being so pathetic in the background of his music

He kinda finds it funny because before you all got together and he and Larry would angry fuck it never worked out

Sal was just being a brat most of the time because Larry still wouldn't let him fuck him submissively

Speaking of which, Larry's more comfortable with being dominant, he'll bottom but only if he can still be dominant otherwise forget it

Larry's just a rough fucker anyway

He really likes pushing and holding you two up against walls when he fucks you guys

He likes showing off the muscles he got helping his mom with handy work and stuff like that

The first time he did this was to Sal when you were studying in your guy's room

You said you didn't really wanna participate today so they fucked like they would without you

And so they're talking back and forth, teasing each other

and Larry corners him

And just

lifts him up

It looked like he was just lifting a bag of sugar up

Sal seemed weightless as Larry just rocks into him

It was one of the hottest things you'd seen at the time so you joined them

You do that a couple more times but then it just becomes normal and you decide you need to start finishing all those assignments

Larry does that to you one on one as well without Sal but it happens to Sal a lot more spontaneously

Larry though is kinkier than Sal in some respects

He'll try anything at least once "Lisa didn't raise no bitch-"

He's really into breeding and long fucking sessions though

Like, lowkey he has omegaverse fantasies

Not because of the weird stuff just because a lot of the time..... they have breeding written in

He'll never admit to reading any of it but you know he has at least once

Super into dirty talk

And he's really good at it

He also had a praise kink and a degradation kin

He likes degrading you and you telling him thank you and how good he's treating a filthy little brat like you

"What're my filthy little brats good for other than sucking my dick so well. Taking me so well like the dirty little whores you are?"

"Yes sir-" "-we're made for your big cock-" "-thank you for fucking us like this-"

He especially likes breeding you and having Sal suck you off while he does it, he finds your crying cute

And an added bonus is rewarding Sal after for it

You guys talk about long-term consent and all that and decide that it's a good idea, you all trust and love each other so there isn't a problem

lol this kinda went to shit at the end but I still like it enough! Thanks for the Sally Face request I really like this game and the dynamic between a poly reader hc :)

-Laika

#poly reader #poly Sallarry #sallarry #sallarry x reader #sallarry x male reader #sally face #sally face x Larry #sal x larry #larry x reader #sal x reader #sal x larry x reader #noncannon compliant #sally face smut #sallarry smut #sal x larry x male reader smut

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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Quarantine: A Love Story {12}

Chris Evans x Reader Series

Warning: Lots of Cursing, Plot, Angst, Slow Burn, PLENTY OF WORDS

Words: 6.2k

Note: Okay, so this ask/request came in and I was all prepped to write it as a one shot, but I had so many separate ideas that sprang to mind for it and from it. As of right now, I am going to play this one by ear. Hell, I might just keep writing it as long as we’re all in our quarantine/self-isolation. So, it might be one part every week, or I might change it. I honestly have no idea, so let’s start with calling it a mini-series and see where it goes. Thank you anon for the request, hope it’s cool I tweak, twist and stretch this out.

I hope you guys enjoy this. Thank you for reading as always!!! ❤️❤️

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

***Interactive & Pic Heavy***

Previous Chapters: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 | Q6 | Q7 | Q8 | Q9 | Q10 | Q11 |

~~~~~~~~~~~

-Quarantine: Day 54-

-Chris-

He’d thought about kissing you for years. He’d had countless dreams about it and umpteen daydream about how it would happen, how it would feel, and a slew of other things. In three years, the thoughts were always different. He never imagined it would have gone the way that it had. He expected something accidental, or even awkward like a stupid caught under mistletoe thing or even the midnight new year’s kiss you’re suckered into because you’re standing close. That was not what happened. From the day when he’d admitted to you being a temptation, he’d been overcome with the desire to kiss you. The day at his hideaway, that desire had turned into a need. It was now three days later, but he could still taste your lips. Still.

Groaning, he rubbed his face and walked over to his window. He had to find a way to get a grip. He felt out of control like he was going to lose his mind if he didn’t see you, talk to you, touch you, kiss you, making love to you. With that thought, he hit his forehead into the window and groaned.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

The coolness of the glass was only a slight relief until he opened his eyes and saw you sitting beside the pool in yet another sexy bikini. Slowly he looked along your legs that were glistening with what he suspected was coconut oil. You smelled like the stuff every time he was around you, coconut oil and every tropical fruit known to planet Earth. He loved it more and more with each passing day. You smelled good enough to eat, and he’d thought about several ways he’d like to devour you.

“Get a fucking grip, man!”

When he was about to walk away, you changed positions. He watched as you got onto your knees and peeled off your cover-up to then flip over and bend over, giving him the perfect view of your ass. He felt his face press against the glass, and all he had to do was stick his tongue out to look like the horndog he felt like he was. He always knew you had the perfect ass, but now looking at it practically in all its glory, he realized he didn’t know shit. You had curves his palms were itching to explore. You bent over to the table near your lounge chair and picked up a glass then brought it to your lips. He couldn’t look away. He literally had to forcibly pull himself from the window. Temptation was a horrible thing, a dangerous thing.

It was temptation he’d battled over the last three days. It was a battle that fluctuated every hour. One hour he was winning the war, and the next, he was the weakest man in the world and damn ready to kick down the guesthouse door and burying his face between those sinful thighs. He literally had to force his mind onto other things. It was hard three days ago, and it was hard today.

For the last few hours, he’d been trying to make plans in a world that was shut down. Businesses were closed, venues closed, restaurants closed, everything had come to a standstill. That meant he had to get creative. He went through the plan in his head one more time and took up the freshly sealed envelope as he walked to his door. He’d missed this morning’s breakfast on purpose. He knew that if he faced you so soon after last night, every single thing he was feeling would be painted across his face. He also knew that if he came face to face with his family, then he’d go round and round the situation yet again.

When he got in from walking you back to the guesthouse, he was restless. He couldn’t sit still. After a shower, he still hadn’t exhausted himself. He was wide awake and wanted to do a lot more than go to sleep. From the light on in the guesthouse, he suspected it was the same with you. Every time he laid down and tried to close his eyes, they popped right back open. He went around the last few hours with you, then the last weeks since quarantine began, and he even went as far back as the entire three years he’d known you.

His first instinct was not to waste any more time and plan that date for the next day, but by the time the sun came up, and he’d gone two miles more than he usually would have, he was in his head. He came up with countless reasons to nip things in the bud.

It began with you being too young for him. He was two weeks away from being thirty-nine, and you’d just gotten to thirty. He never saw himself doing the whole older man/younger woman thing. The two of you were at different stages in life. He’d made a promise, an important one. He never went back on promises he made; he was always as good as his word. That was just the kind of man he was. You had a type, and it was one he didn’t fit the criteria for. The two of you led and lived two completely different lives.

This went on all day, for three days straight. The day would begin with him going through countless reasons to end things before they began, or he crossed a line, and by the end of the day, he was right back to where he began, wanting to cross all the lines. He stayed at his hideaway knowing that you wouldn’t show up there again without the okay, and it was a fact he took comfort in. He ate there, slept there, and kept to himself for the most part. When he went back to the main house, it was to make sure you didn’t take his absence in the wrong way and to make sure he didn’t take ten steps back in the progress that was made.

Every time he saw you, it didn’t take long for your eyes to meet. Once they did, it was the most intense experience. It always felt like your mental brainwaves reached out for one another, and when they synced, it was better than every connection he’d ever thought he had. It was an indescribable feeling but one that reverberated throughout him. He always wanted to get closer. If you were across the dinner table, he wanted to push everything off and kick everyone out and slam you on it. If you were across the pool and your eyes met, everyone disappeared, and the two of you went on this mental trip together, one that had him panting like a dog and sweating by the time either of you looked away.

The one thing that tripped him up was the night before when he caught you openly ogling him. It was another night of drinking around a bonfire on the beach with the adults, and you were unusually quiet while nursing your glass of wine. He noticed little looks throughout the night, but it was while everyone was enthralled in conversation. When he did notice you outright looking over him, you started at his neck and went lower along his torso and arms. When your eyes dropped to his waist, he was having trouble breathing. Under the intense heat of your eyes, it took everything in him to stay seated and not throw you over his shoulder and run with you down the beach to the tall grass where he knew he could have his way with you. That was when he knew he had to leave, so he did. Once in his bedroom, he was trapped with his thoughts and imagination, and the entire process began again.

By the time morning came, he was right back to square one, wanting you more than he’d ever wanted any other woman and knowing he had to back away from this. Now he was at the point of saying fuck it. He was only so strong, and three years of continuous strength was impressive enough.

“Where’ve you been these last three days?”

His mother stood before him with her arms crossed as she leaned against the front door.

“Uh, well—around.”

“Around?” Her eyes bored into him, and he knew it was a matter of time before she saw right through him.

“I was gonna--,” he began before she cut him off.

“Let’s take a walk. The others can handle the restocking of supplies.”

“Ma, it would go faster--,” he began.

“Walk with your mother, Christopher!” She didn’t even wait for him to respond before she walked out the front door. He knew he had to follow, so follow he did.

They walked through the front yard along the graveled path in silence for several moments. The chirping of the birds and gentle breeze in the air said summer was on its way. It was a beautiful day, and he hoped it would remain that way to produce a beautiful night.

“How are you handling the shift in dynamics in your life with this quarantine?”

“What do you mean?”

“With what you’ve been doing.” The way she looked at him had him paused, thinking maybe she knew. He remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

“Normally you’re working twenty-three hours of the day and have little to no free time. It’s been opposite, right?”

Relieved, he sighed and nodded. “Yeah. It’s been—different, a real change, but honestly, I think I like it more than I should.”

She smiled and patted his back. “Good. I’ve always told you that you need to take the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. It is important to have some time to yourself to reflect and recalculate your life choices and decisions, time to see what has been working from what is a massive failure, and make the necessary changes that will impact your life positively. It is important to listen to recognize the signs of life and listen to them. If you go against them, you end up in situations that quickly flutter out of control, and then you’re worse off than when you began.”

He felt like she was hinting at something very discreetly, and it drove him crazy. She spoke like this when she knew something no one else knew that she knew. When he looked at her, she looked to him with slightly raised eyebrows.

“Uh—okay.”

“Have you recognized any life signs within the last—seven weeks?”

“Ma, what are you talking about? You only go on these deeply philosophical rants when you’re holding on a piece of information that can throw a monkey wrench in something.”

“I have no such piece of information.”

He didn’t believe her but decided to let it rest. They took a turn toward the path for the beach and fell into a comfortable silence before she began talking about current events. This was where he got his outspoken nature. She had no problem giving criticism of government policies and officials, and neither did he.

Soon the sand was underneath their feet then she spoke again.

“So getting to spend this time with Y/N has been great, right?”

He scoffed and laughed. “So this is what this walk is about? What did I do now, ma?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but since you brought it up, do you have to be so cold?”

“Cold? I’m not cold.”

“I know that. She doesn’t.”

He looked to her and knew the two of you had talked. “Has she said something to you?”

“Do you care?”

He sighed and focused on the sand beneath his feet. If he said yes, then she could read into it, and if he said no, then he knew she’d know he was lying. His mother could always tell between his truths and lies. It was infuriating.

“Maybe just be nicer, that’s all and maybe stay away from dropping that you think she makes shitty decisions.”

He snorted but cringed at the same time. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He was in his feelings, and it popped right out.

“Yeah, that was bad,” he agreed.

“Get to know her a little.”

“Ha, I think that would defeat the purpose. Don’t you think?”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. There was no need to.

“Who says I don’t know her?”

“Learning things about someone on the surface is different than really getting to know someone and all the nuances that make them who they are. She’s a real catch, Chris. I liked her when Scott first brought her around, but these three years—she’s an incredible woman.”

Her words were not helping his internal struggle. They were only making him sway to the side he shouldn’t even be on. It was getting impossible to keep his distance from you, impossible to let another fifty-something days pass where he didn’t bury his face in your neck.

“Isn’t it funny how the universe brings things and people into your life at the most opportune times? Often it’s times when we need to make a change—when we’re ready to make a change,” she said in her Obi-Wan Kenobi wise one teaching tone.

He would have said something about how she was as subtle as a train, but he agreed with her on this one. For the last few days, he’d began thinking it was meant for you to be quarantined with him and his family, it was meant for the two of you to be trapped this close. His mind went back to something his mother said years ago, something that made even more sense now. He nearly laughed out loud.

“Just be the amazing man I raised, the one who wore his heart on his sleeve and spoke from his heart and did everything with light and love. Remember him?”

He nearly threw up in his mouth.

“He wasn’t so bad,” his mother continued.

“Everyone seems to love this guy a lot more.”

“They never knew the other guy. I understand that not everyone deserves to know that you, but I’m sure some people might deserve to see him.”

She looped her arm with his and reassuringly patted his forearm. She knew she was right, and even though he hated to admit when she was right, she was. When they climbed the last step leading to the backyard from the beach, you were no longer at the pool.

“I’m going to make sure everything is packed away where I like. You—enjoy the sunshine,” his mother said with a smile and an almost unnoticeable head nudge toward the guesthouse before she walked away toward the house.

He stood there for a few moments going over his own thoughts. This was supposed to be one of the easiest decisions. It was, but it was also a decision that would cause a domino effect. It was like he had to come to terms with flipping the first domino, come to terms with everything he would end up doing as a result of this date. Digging in his back pocket for the envelope, he slapped his palm with it and walked toward the guesthouse. Once at the door, he wedged it in the crack and released the anxious breath he held before he walked off to prepare for the night.

-Y/N-

You’d been staring at the envelope for the last thirty or so minutes. When you’d come back from the bike ride with the kids, you didn’t expect to see it wedged in the door. At first, you thought it was mail that was forwarded to you, but then you realized you hadn’t given any forwarding instructions. It was then you saw your name scribbled across the front of it, and you immediately recognized Chris’s handwriting.

You were enjoying the agonizing stares and wayward glances of the last few days. You were grateful for the space he was giving you. You didn’t know if he was doing it for you or if he was having second thoughts. Whatever it was, you were glad about it. You were able to go over every single word that was spoken the night at his place, analyze every action, and even daydream about that kiss. You’d never been kissed like that in all your thirty years. None of your crushes, school boyfriends, adult boyfriends, Charles included had ever kissed you like that, and none of them had ever had you feeling what you felt in those two minutes.

For the last few days, that was what was fucking you up. You’d kissed plenty of guys, you were in no means promiscuous, but you enjoyed having freedom of your body and did what you pleased with it. While you were ultimate level exclusive with who you allowed close to you, you had no problem claiming your pleasure. You’d kissed men who loved to use too much tongue or drown you in saliva, or peck at you like they were a bird and you a worm. You’d kissed men who knew what they were doing and those who were entirely clueless, but with him it was different.

He didn’t use too much tongue; it was the right amount, and he had a thing where he rolled it around yours that sent goosebumps down your spine. The level of saliva was perfection; the only thing that was drowning was your underwear. Then the way he nibbled at your bottom lip and sucked; it took your breath away. It was clear he knew what he was doing. He was at expert mastery in the art of the kiss, and because of it, you were ready to risk it all, and that was a first—a first that scared the shit out of you.

You’d never had this reaction to a man before, and you were enjoying prolonging it though it was absolute torture. Every time you caught him watching you, you played whatever you were doing up. If you were walking, you’d swish your ass a little more, swimming you’d lean against the pool wall and pretend you’re stretching your back, which sent your breasts out even more. It was amusing to see his reactions. You thought you’d been stealthy with checking him out, but on the beach last night, you realized you were the opposite of stealthy. When your eyes met, it sent you entirely over the edge. When you went to bed that night, you couldn’t help but bring out your bullet vibrator. Your finger was no longer cutting it.

“Open the goddamn envelope, Y/N.”

You trailed your fingertips over your name that he’d written and flipped it over, ready to rip it open. You unfolded a sheet of white paper and smiled at his messy but strategic handwriting.

-Y/N-

I’ve been trying to figure out the best day and the best way to go about this. You mean that much.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

Will you have dinner with me tonight?

If your answer is yes, please meet me at seven at the house in the woods. God, I hope your answer is yes.

-Chris

Your smile was so wide, your cheeks hurt. You could imagine his cheeks were flushed as he wrote this. Such a dork, you thought to yourself.

“A sweet dork. Huh.”

You took notice of the butterflies fluttering around your belly and dropped back on the couch with a loud groan.

“Get a grip, Y/N. It is just a date. One date, one meaningless date,” you drilled with your eyes closed, trying to slow your racing heart.

After a few minutes, you sprang back up to a sitting position with panic coursing through you.

“Fuck, what do I wear!?”

You leaped to your feet and ran into the bedroom to rifle through the closet and drawers. When you packed for this quarantine, you packed sweats, leggings, tanks, swimsuits, cover-ups, underwear, sleepwear, and even lingerie. You didn’t even want to wear actual fabric, so nothing was adequate for a date. After twenty minutes of searching, your entire floor was covered with clothes, and you were sitting in the middle of it full on panicking.

“What do I do?” Closing your eyes, you fell back onto the pillow of clothing and berated yourself for not thinking to pack anything nice.

After a long, while you got up and looked around and decided you just had to improvise and cross your fingers it looked good together. It took you almost an hour to find something you were remotely okay with that wasn’t overtly sexy or way too chill. You wanted his jaw to drop when he saw you, but you didn’t want him thinking you were some easy piece of ass. After putting it together, you hopped in the shower. When you eyed your hair remover lotion and thought if you should bother. After barely fifteen seconds of decision making, you slathered the lotion on. Better safe than sorry, you thought.

By the time you got out of the shower, you had forty minutes to get yourself put together to get to the house. It wasn’t enough time; you knew that. You wanted to give him the full date look. The full glory of a put together you. It probably didn’t matter seeing that he’d seen you without make up these last seven weeks anyway. Something in you said to carry on as usual. By the time you were finished, you slipped on your slides, refusing to dwell on the fact you didn’t have not one pair of heels. You probably looked a hot mess.

When you opened the door, there was the bike Chris had found you for the bike ride with yet another note in the basket. You smiled, and as you were about to take it, your phone went off.

MSG Scott: Coming to dinner?

Fuck, you thought as you wracked your brain with a response. You couldn’t very well tell him you weren’t because you were going on a date with his brother. You groaned and took a deep breath as you tapped a response out.

MSG: No. Somehow, I have three zoom meetings tonight about a serious project. I’ll be doing this all night. I’ll come by and grab something when I’m done.

MSG Scott: Okay. I’ll even leave a bottle of wine in the fridge for you. I think you’ll need it.

You smiled but felt like an asshole. Chris was probably going to be balls deep in you in a few hours, and he had no idea. The thought of it had you excited. Grabbing the envelope, you opened it and read the note inside.

-Your chariot awaits-

You smiled rolled your eyes as you walked the bike toward the wooded area of the property. Once on the path, you wrapped the hem of your skirt and climbed onto the bike and set off. You did your best to not think about the many ways this night could go. You wanted to stay present because you knew that if your mind wandered, then you’d put yourself in a state of anxiousness for the rest of the night.

Before you knew it, you were in front of the gate, and your heart was racing, and it wasn’t from the exercise. You climbed off the bike and leaned it against the gate before you pushed through it and nearly fell on your face at the sight before you. The path before you was trailed with lights that made a path toward the house. As you took in the house, you couldn’t help but say, wow. It was covered in twinkle lights that lit up the property with a warm and romantic glow.

When you looked back to the path, you saw Chris standing there. From the distance you were at, you couldn’t fully make out his face. You hesitated taking your first step but pushed away the uncertainty and walked on. It felt like the longest walk you’d ever taken. After what felt like five minutes, you stopped in front of him. He looked a little shocked and something else you couldn’t decipher.

“Hi,” Chris whispered. You smiled small at first, but it spread in seconds.

“Hi. I’m sorry I’m late. It was a task and a half getting to this,” you said, signaling from your face to body. Chris then slowly looked over your figure before he returned to your face.

“You look—wow incredible.”

You smiled and released your nervous breath and the worry that he wouldn’t like how you looked.

“Yeah? I wasn’t sure. I literally had nothing to wear.”

“You could have come in sweats and a t-shirt, and you’d still look incredible.” You tried to keep a straight face, but it was impossible, your blush took over.

“Thank you,” you bashfully whispered.

“These are for you.” Chris held out a bouquet of sunflowers and daisies to you. You couldn’t believe your eyes, and he must have sensed your hesitation.

“Sunflowers, they mean happiness, adoration, and even loyalty while the daisies mean innocence, purity, and new beginnings,” Chris explained with his voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t need to speak loudly, you heard him loud and clear, and the wat his voice wrapped around you and coxed you closer was not missed.

“Innocence and purity, huh.” You reached out and took the flowers from him and brought them to your nose.

“What don’t think you fit the criteria?”

“Ha, innocent and pure, nope. How did you get these?”

“I picked them. I think my mother will be very upset tomorrow, but this was an emergency.” You smiled and shook your head. He had game.

“Thank you.”

He led the way to the house then stopped to let you walk up the steps and across the front deck before him. As you walked, you could feel his eyes on you, and you were glad you’d chosen this mix and match outfit. Just as you were going to walk inside, Chris took your hand, stopping you in your tracks. When your eyes met, he came closer then looked at your hands. His fingers softly grazed yours, and goosebumps flew up your arm. When he was inches from your face, he looked back into your eyes.

“Close your eyes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Close your eyes. This is your first test in trusting me.”

You cocked your head to the side and took him in. He was being serious. Scoffing, you shook your head and closed your eyes only to snap them open again. He hadn’t moved an inch. He just stood there patiently waiting. Sighing, you closed your eyes and kept them shut. You didn’t know what he was doing, and the fact that you had no control over this set you off. After a minute, your anxiety was at its peak.

“Hopefully, by the end of the night when I ask you to do that again, it’ll be easier for you.” His lips were close to your ear. You could smell his cologne and picked up the hint of mint and basil that came off him.

He took your other hand and led you.

“Keep coming; you’re doing great.”

After a few more steps, you stopped. You wanted to open and look, but you fought the urge and instead waited for him to tell you to. Again, it felt like an eternity of silence.

“Open them.” You took a deep breath and opened your eyes and slowly blew it out when you took in what he’d been doing. Before you, the limbs of the trees were draped in twinkle lights that hung down, mimicking the limbs of a weeping willow tree. In the dead center of the dangling lights was a table set for two with lit candles to finish off the décor. You were blown away to the point of speechlessness.

“Wow.” It was a whisper. Chris stepped out before you and held out his hand for yours. When you placed it in his palm, he led you across the deck down to the scene. You looked around and took notice of a movie screen that was on the exterior wall, and a setup area with candles, cushions, and flowers. You smiled to yourself.

Chris motioned to the seat for you, and you wasted no time sitting with a plop. Your head was spinning looking at everything he’d done. This looked like he went through a lot of trouble.

I’m going to check on dinner. I’ll be right back.” You nodded and watched him walk toward the house. For the first time, you took in his crisp white shirt and tan colored pants. It was casual, but he looked good. Your eyes dropped to his ass and smiled. He looked really good, you thought. When he disappeared inside, you took in your surroundings again. Taking out your phone, you snapped a few pictures, so you could reminisce later as you reflected.

You were so wrapped up in your thoughts that you didn’t realize when he’d returned. When he touched your shoulder, it scared you half to death.

“I’m sorry, I thought you heard me.”

“Oh god, no. I’m sorry I zoned out.”

“Everything okay?”

Taking a deep breath, you slowly released it and nodded. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I was just—admiring what you’ve done here,” you informed.

“Do you like it?”

“What’s not to like? It’s beautiful, really beautiful,” you said with a smile before you looked at him. when you did a relieved look washed over him, and that was when you saw he was nervous too.

“Wine? I know you prefer white, but I have some red too.”

“But you prefer beer, I can drink beer,” you countered.

“I’m much more than a beer drinker. We’ll start with the white.” Chris began opening the bottle, and your attention dropped to his hands. He had his cuffs rolled up just enough to show his forearms. As he gripped the bottle and the opener, every single vein bulged in his arm and hands, and just like that, your mind was in the gutter.

Clearing your throat, you straightened, “Actually, let’s start with the red.”

“Red?”

“Yeah, red wine is more potent.”

“Potent. Uh—do you think stronger is a good idea?”

You studied him and smirked. “What do you think if I drink red wine that I’ll try to jump your bones?”

His smile was boyish and adorable. “I never said that. Just thought you’d want a clear head.”

“I can more than hold my liquor,” you finished. Chris nodded and switched gears and began opening the red wine instead. When he filled your glass halfway, you eyed him, which made him snort before he poured a little more.

“What should we drink to?”

You thought about it for a few moments then crossed your legs. Chris’ eyes dropped to your exposed thigh, and you thought this was almost too easy.

“What do you want to drink to?”

Chris looked up from your thigh with just his eyes, and you were stunned silent yet again.

“No masks,” Chris proposed holding his glass out to you.

“No masks,” you repeated, tapping your glass to his before you took a hearty gulp of the semi-sweet but tart liquid and moaned.

“Nice choice,” you commented. You could taste the berry and hickory undertones in it, but it wasn’t overpowering.

“Of course, you’d think so, the wine collector.”

“Hey, if you like to drink, you better get a hobby that correlates.” He smiled warmly before he sat adjacent to you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you from the guesthouse. I wanted to but--,” Chris began.

“No, no need to apologize. I understand. Honestly, I think meeting here was a better idea. Cute message, though.” Again, he smiled, and you took another hearty gulp of wine that turned into quite the mouthful.

“Thirsty?”

“You have no idea,” you answered. Chris just watched you, and the longer he did, the more your nerves were playing tricks on you.

This was insane, you thought. No man had you this nervous and anxious. In all the years of first dates, this was a first. You were usually calm, cool, collected, and completely detached and objective. It was all to ensure you analyzed the night correctly down to your date’s words, body language, and efforts with planning the night. You were struggling with remaining objective.

Your knees nearly buckled when you’d walked through the gate. Then when you stood before him, you nearly panted out to give away just how breathless he made you. When you saw what he’d done to the back of the house, you almost let loose an “aww,” and now you were barely keeping it together to not melt right into him, and it hadn’t even been an hour yet. He was already presenting completely different than he had in the entire three years you’d known him. Your head was still spinning.

“Are you hungry?”

Keeping your fresh ass in check, you nodded and took another long sip of your wine. Chris stood and walked back into the house, and you used the time to find your chill.

When he laid down the trey, he carried he arranged the plates and assortment he’d prepared across the table. The scents coming from the plates had your belly grumbling.

“Wow, this smells incredible.”

“You sound surprised. I can cook, you know.”

“I’d heard stories of you being able to do a little somethin’.”

“I do more than a little somethin’, I can throw all the way down in the kitchen,” Chris bragged. You nodded as you laughed.

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Chris sat and waited for you to take a bite. You sliced your meat and put a piece in your mouth. Instantly the juices of the steak washed over your tongue, and you couldn’t help but moan.

“Uh-huh, told you. Chef Evans!”

“All right, it’s good. No need to brag. Cockiness in men is unattractive.”

“You’re a liar, and you know it,” Chris dryly responded which made you laugh loudly.

The two of you ate in silence for a few moments.

“I’ve always liked your laugh.”

Your shock was evident. He smiled as he finished his mouthful.

“Ah, that’s right, you thought I hated everything about you. Got it,” Chris teased.

“Wow, this is surreal,” you added.

“I always thought I was doing such a horrible job hiding how I really felt, thought I was so see through. Either I was better than I thought, or you’re not as good at reading people as you thought.”

“Hey, not cool. Don’t come for me, Chris.”

He laughed again and continued to eat. Your head ran to New Year's Eve. “New Year's Eve, that comment you said. Was that bullshit?”

His smile was soft as he finished chewing. “Complete bullshit.”

You busted out laughing then and squealed. You really thought he was throwing shade at you.

“Oh my god. You asshole. The rest of the night I was in my feelings, I was so salty. Wow, Chris.”

He laughed some more as you shook your head.

“Wait, is this what Sebastian meant?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“As I was making my way over, Sebastian and I chatted, and he said he liked my dress and that no wonder he’s so conflicted,” you divulged.

“Wow, he said that?” You nodded and waited for him to answer.

“Wow. Um, yeah I guess. We’d gone out drinking before, and I must have had too much, and I think I may have let something slip,” Chris explained.

“Wow. I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not, you saw what I wanted you to—what I needed you to,” Chris slid in.

“I was so salty that I was so determined to have fun and ignore you. When Charles approached me, I said, fuck it why not to leaving with him,” you confessed. Chris’s eyes bugged as he leaned back.

“You’re kidding.”

With a yikes face, you shook your head. “Hand to God.”

“Woow. You’re telling me I drove you to him?” His disbelief was evident; you juggled your head from side to side, not wanting to say yes or no.

“Wow, I’m about to flip this fucking table.”

You laughed out loud again and covered your mouth, trying to hide just how amused you were. This was perfect comedic irony. Chris finished his glass of wine, then shook his head.

“Guess I am the asshole.” You shrugged and continued eating.

Thanks to the laughter, your anxiety had decreased, but you were now wondering if he was thinking about you sleeping with Charles on New Year’s. When you glanced at him, his expression was unreadable, his brows were knitted, and it looked like he was in deep thought, but you couldn’t read if his thoughts were angry ones.

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

You smiled fondly as you nodded. It was one of the few pleasant outings with him.

“God, that lake was beautiful,” you reminisced.

“It was. I thought you were gorgeous; your smile was the first thing I noticed. Then your laugh,” Chris began with a soft smile on his lips. “I remember watching you cannonball over and over into the lake. You had endless energy, and you never looked more beautiful. You were so full of light and joy. I don’t know; there was something about you that just made me feel like a firefly drawn to you like you were a flame. Then when you began telling your story, I was hooked. You were funny, charismatic, silly, and just carefree. That is one of my favorite memories of you,” Chris finished.

You didn’t know what to say to that. You had no idea he held that day or memory close at all.

“We talked for two hours straight that night, right?”

He nodded, and the two of you just stared at the flame of the candle, both lost in the memory.

“I remember thinking that night that Jesus Scott’s brother is hot, but he’s smart,” you admitted. When Chris looked at you, you regretted opening your mouth. You gulped down the remainder of the wine and blew out.

“That was the night I realized I liked you.”

“Liked, liked?”

“No, liked, liked was later,” Chris said.

“When?”

He studied you for a minute then finished his glass before he reached for the bottle to refill your glasses.

“It was the fourth of July. We all went to the firework thing in the Hamptons, and the whole night, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. I watched guy after guy approach you, flirt, and with each of them, I felt something that was unfamiliar to me—jealousy.”

“You’d never felt jealousy before?”

“When it comes to a woman or men who talk to her? Never. The way I lived my life back then—there was no reason or room for it. I felt it that night, though, and it was unsettling. You talked, and I was hanging off every single word. When the fireworks started, the first burst in the sky lit you up in this amazing light, and the happiness on your face hit me harder than a Mack truck ever could. It was the most uncomfortable I’d ever felt, the most insecure and fearful. It terrified me, but like a firefly, to the flame, I had to get closer. Then when you looked back at me something felt different in that moment, I saw something in your eyes that was unsettling.”

“Was that when you disappeared? I remember I reached back for your hand and got your fingers. Then they were gone. I looked back, and you were walking away in the crowd.”

The emotions that came back with the memory surprised you. You’d buried that night so deep, but having it resurface now was unexpected. You took a long sip from your glass and tried to work through the feeling of nakedness.

“I’ve regretted that night for a long time,” Chris quietly admitted. You studied him and waited for him to continue.

“Some nights, I thought I regretted walking away, others I thought I regretted everything else.”

“And tonight? What do you regret?”

His eyes met yours, and it was there they remained. The longer he stared at you, the louder your heartbeat. You were sure he could hear it, but he didn’t say anything about it. His eyes dropped to your lips and stayed there for quite a while before sadness washed over his face, and his eyes dropped to the table.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” he softly whispered. You couldn’t help but feel like there was something behind all of that. Something had just happened.

Before you could bring it up, he changed the subject and asked you about work. For the next fifteen minutes, you explained what you did and your goals and hopes and dreams when it came to your craft. Chris happily listened and never looked bored by a thing you said. He genuinely looked interested.

Dinner was delicious, and the conversation was flowing and the worries of earlier that you’d have nothing to talk about dissipated. You talked about a wide range of things that didn’t stop at work or interests. You even ventured into the hard-hitting things such as politics. When he went into a spirited rant about his beliefs, you sat there happily listening.

When he spoke like this with conviction, you found him most attractive. You loved an educated man, a man who had a brain and was not afraid to show it. It was clear he wasn’t his vocabulary was on point, and with every three-hundred-point Scrabble word he dropped, you drank more and more of your wine, hoping it would douse the fire in the pit of your stomach. It did nothing.

As he spoke, you couldn’t help but watch his mouth. It moved beautifully as if he were speaking the most creative prose. You loved the way his mouth formed the words and letters. He had your undivided attention. Four bottles of wine later, you were still sitting at the table talking, and you didn’t mind at all. You couldn’t help but think how you’d misjudged him all these years. You’d put up a wall after that fourth of July, and with each interaction, you just added another pane of glass to make it thick enough that he could see you, but he’d have no effect. It was clear to you now that he was shattering each pane of glass. His effort into tonight took half of it. He was easy to talk to, the way your brains played off of each other was something you’d expected.

When he turned on a movie to fit across the screen of the makeshift movie theater, you were in a comfortable bubble. He handed you the remote, and that was how Netflix and chill began. You watched an action-comedy that had the two of you laughing loud enough to wake the animals in the woods. Neither of you cared. He laughed when you laughed, and you did the same. Every time he clasped his hand to his chest as he laughed, it pulled at your heartstrings, heartstrings you had no idea existed for him. This one night was fucking you up more than three years of his cold and frigid antics.

“Wow, I’m gonna have to call Helms and tell him what a fucking good job he did with this,” Chris announced through fits of laughter.

“Him? My god, that little boy. Shit with my luck that would be my son,” you admitted, which set Chris off on another laughing fit, one that you joined in on.

“Don’t laugh, I’m serious. He’d be dropping all sorts of f-bombs and pussy talk.”

“In his Bostonian accent,” Chris added through laughs.

“Yes. You can see it too.”

“Yeah, like fugettaboutit sweetart now show me that pussy.”

You busted out laughing again and hit him on the shoulder.

“Oh my god, my son would be a badass kid, I can see it now.”

“Nah, I’d keep his ass in line,” Chris said.

“Whatever, you’d be laughing with him egging him because he takes after your ass with that dirty ass mouth,” you added. You laughed together for a few moments before you both slowly registered what you’d said and how it came off. You both had just referred to your future imaginary son as a son you would share. Oh fuck, you thought as you finished your wine.

“I’m gonna get started on those dishes,” Chris announced as he stood and walked off to the table still littered with dishes and utensils.

You sat there and grabbed the bottle before you, and took it to the head while you reflected a little. After a few minutes, you decided thinking was the enemy right now and took up the glasses to walk inside. Chris had already started loading the dishwasher when you approached.

“Hey, got room for two more?”

“Thanks.” He took the glasses and busied himself once again. You hopped onto the counter beside the sink and crossed your legs, leaving your thigh exposed.

“Why did you build a house on your property that already has a house?”

“This is usually where everyone comes to let loose. Often the house is always full, and it gets loud. I thought it would be a good idea to have somewhere I could hear myself think or even work.”

“This is really cool, and interestingly enough, it looks like you. There are so many details that just screams Chris,” you said.

“Like what?”

“The bed.”

You didn’t mean to go right there, but the wine was finally beginning to work.

“The bed?”

You nodded and brought the wine bottle to your head again.

“How?”

“It’s rustic, kind of, and the plaid on it. You have a lumberjack thing when you come home.”

He snorted and laughed out loud. “Wow, a lumberjack?”

“What’s there’s nothing wrong with lumberjacks. There are plenty of women who get hot for lumberjacks.”

“Are you one of them?” Chris glanced back at you with an eyebrow raised. You smiled.

“Maybe,” you muttered before taking another sip from the bottle.

“What do you get hot for?” He didn’t look back that time. He continued on as if he hadn’t heard you, but you knew he had.

“Not gonna tell me? Gonna make me guess? Okay, I can guess. Let’s see,” you began drinking down the wine.

“From the expert analysis of members of Lipstick Alley I’d say tall, slim, partly curvy by slim standards, hair color doesn’t matter not really, you can take blonde, red, brown, black, but beauty does, pretty eyes, slim nose, big boobs, nice ass by slim white girl standards,” you listed off as Chris dried his hands and walked to you. When he was before you, he took the bottle from your hands to raise it to his mouth.

“Sound about right?”

“Does any of that describe you?”

“Not at all,” you answered with a smirk as you uncrossed your legs.

“Then I guess that doesn’t make me hot. Only you have made me hot for the last three years,” he blatantly admitted.

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “You’re full of shit.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been fucking all these years. So hence, you’re full of shit.”

You made a move to hop down, but Chris was between your knees in seconds, stopping you. “How do you know I didn’t have to think about you all these years?”

Butterflies filled your belly again.

“Uh--,” you began.

“Cat got your tongue? Is it really that impossible to be true? Impossible to think that all these years I’ve had you in my head while I was with anyone else, had you in my head every night where I stroked myself, had you in my head every night for the last fifty-two days?” You were speechless as you searched his eyes.

“Welcome to my prison, Y/N,” Chris whispered close to your ear before he walked away back toward the back deck.

You couldn’t believe your ears. Had he really just admitted to using your image to fuck the thots he had all this time? Had he really just called it a prison? You hopped off the counter and walked out back.

“What kind of shit is that to say?”

“It was the truth,” Chris calmly said as he leaned against the table to then cross his stretched out legs.

“You’re telling me you thought of me while you fucked every girl over the last three years? You thought about me as you had sex with other women? How am I supposed to take that? Is that supposed to feel good?”

You felt jealousy like you’d never felt before. “Wow.”

“Does it feel the same way I felt seeing you parade around with every Thomas, Randall, Trevor, Harry, and Charles? Hearing the stories from our friends, sitting there?”

“There is a huge difference there. You knew how you felt. I--,” you snapped your mouth shut and turned your back to him.

“You what?”

“I didn’t know how I felt,” you quietly responded before you spun to him. “You knew how you felt but still chose to fuck them. You still chose how the last three years happened. Now you tell me this. Why?”

“I made a promise, Y/N.”

“To who?!”

“It’s not important,” he began before you got fed up and got closer.

“The hell it isn’t. who did you promise, Chris?!”

“You!”

You lurched back and looked at him as confusion filled you.

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

***If you want to be tagged please SEND AN ASK SO IT WILL BE EASIER FOR ME TO KEEP TRACK OF. Thank you for reading!!!

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

Tag List:

@chaneajoyyy @sonjashuterbugjohnson @disneysdarlingdiva @bellaamor88 @toniilaney @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @ajspencer1892 @ashanti-notthesinger @90sinspiredgirl @titty-teetee @evemej @areubeingserved @theskullgoddess @caramara3 @champagnesugamama @minton131 @pananegra @scoop93535 @try-n-pronounce-it @dumbchick @behindthesehazeleyes27 @blackmissfrizzle @nervousninjatheorist @dangerouslovefanfic @surmya1907 @give-me-a-million-dollars-pls @thinkxlovexloud @chris-butt @swinchestersgirl @momobaby227 @alyxkbrl @angrybirdcr @d1ff3r3nt-b34uty-official @twinx007 @a-dizzle777 @ab-baybay @patzammit @kreolemami @aysha1447 @cutewylie @disaster-rose @wondersofdreaming @lo-cheu @livinglifeformemyselfandi @magdelen69 @snowpiercer21 @renfrewscorner @thevelvetseries @mery-be @hakunalive4eva @anandalambert @youurkryptonite @mizcaptainphoenix @bobbdylann @emilykjhgsj @littlepreciousangel @ssaarroonn @thummbelina @sweetlittlegingy @art-estrange @torntaltos @rynabarnesrogers @rororo06 @anotherblackfangirl @bernie-k @theonewithherheadintheclouds @hista-girl @coldmuffinbanditshoe @jennmurawski13 @deathstroke-terminated-deez-guts @maxcullen @shadyskit @someone-really-bored @thejemersoninferno @itsallyscorner @cristinagronk16 @shakemeupthanks-blog @acciolove724 @straightforwardly @zsuzstyina @acevansss @evansgirl7 @jovanaprime @deadlymistress24 @sunkissedebony97 @turn-thy-paige @amelatonin @nerdybitchpudding @amennariee @likesfairytales @maverickabull @est1887 @periodtcevans @thotti3par7on @vintageembrace @produtofchina @jd-now-jq @winchwm @jesseswartzwelder @pivictorious @anat2507 @euh-say-what-now @raveviolet @rdjparker @actorinfluence @sadishdelray @041802 @ljstraightnochaser @priya212 @evermcfearless @tashawar @dwights-new-plague @renfrewscorner @baby-iyania @euphoric05 @thelilbutifulthings @winterboobear11 @awaywithtime @problackasfwilson @brownskinafro @miss-jackson500 @siempremamita @theladybiers @evermcfearless @ibe-erynn @marvelatthis30 @kailyndavillier @literaturefeen @richonne4life @ani808 @scifi-fantasist @mizzzpink @creolemimi @cessamjrmr @disconectedswift @i-lie-here-charmed @bamakakechick @captainchrisstan @martinafigoli @almosttherebunot @letsdothemostermash @spxcecxramxl @queenwinchester27 @chrisevansfanfic @thejeneralvicinity @doublesidedscoobysnacks @sophiealiice @imaslutforcaptainamerica @redhairedfeistynerd @mirmirmur @nico-diangelo-grey @ibe-erynn @amazonian-strap-queen @cookinggurl43 @jasmindaughteroftheworld @letsdothemonstermash @almosttherebutnot @munteanhore @blackgurlkillinit @madixii @smediumsmeatbae @shar74nett @live-laugh-love-ki @deadpixie22 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @partypoison-00 @timotheessoleil @guardian-tn @rynabarnesrogers-reading @blackmissfrizzle @queenoftheworldisdead @patzammit @reveviolet @madixii

***There are a few that are bold that I tried to tag but your @ wasn’t coming up. I’m not sure why. I’m sorry.

#quarantine: a love story fic #Chris Evans #chris evans fanfiction #Q12 #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #chris evans x black reader #angst fanfic #slow burn fanfic #black fanfiction #quarantine fanfic

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petri808 · 4 years ago

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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32-Epilogue

When he’d agreed to let Lucy move in with them, Natsu could admit it wasn’t the greatest idea to make a snap decision, because inside he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Plus, it had also put Gray in a tough position, because he knew his friend wouldn’t be so heartless to kick out a female with a problem. Yeah, that was kind of a dick move for which he’ll be paying once the dust had settled. Especially now that they were finding out, just how difficult it was really going to be...

Nightmares? More like night terrors. It wasn’t every single night, but Lucy would often wake Natsu up at all hours as if reliving the events of the kidnapping. Physical movements, from fighting a Touka memory. The whines and screams, sometimes blood curdling shrieks as she’d shoot up in bed covered in a film of sweat, hyperventilating and still in the midst of an unseen attack. It was bad enough that Natsu started sleeping on his side, so if Lucy started swinging, his back took the brunt of it. He’d have to grab her arms and just hold her, doing his best to keep his voice low or soft, until she fully awoke from the dream state and collapsed into his arms in sheer exhaustion. Heaven help him, if this is what Levy had gone through for months, the woman deserved a Nobel peace prize for staying sane. After two weeks of this, Gray arranged with Levy to use Lucy’s room. He didn’t want to abandon Lucy, but the lack of sleep was starting to affect his school and job. It left Natsu all alone with his girlfriend, and frankly it was affecting him too. Not only the mental struggles, but the physical exhaustion made it difficult for him to get his job done. Makarov was a saint for being so understanding through it all.

“You look tired today,” Natsu’s therapist questioned in a toned statement. “I take it you’re still not getting enough sleep.”

The bags under his eyes were a dead giveaway to anyone that saw him. “Is it really that obvious?” Natsu responded with a bit of sarcasm to his tone.

“Is it your own demons or Lucy’s?”

“A mix of both.”

“Have you told her about your struggles or are you still hiding it. You know it’s better if you be honest with her.”

Way to go for the kill shot. The therapist went straight to the heart of things. Natsu sighed, “I told her a little... when she’d admitted being worried I’d leave her.”

“What did you say exactly?”

He fidgeted in the chair. “Well... literally, just that. I was just trying to kill her fears not worrying about my own at the time.”

“Ah. Well, maybe it’s time. You’ve told me that you’re trying hard to help her to get over her own struggles, but Natsu, you also need to take your own advice.”

Turn of the screws. But the therapist was right. “I know. I just worry it’ll add to her worries, which will make it worse, a-and that’s not gonna help either of us.”

“I think you should have more faith in Lucy. As you are her strength, she can be just as much yours. Don’t dismiss the idea before you even try it. If she feels like she’s helping you, it will give her a sense of accomplishment too, just like it gives you when you feel like you’re helping her.”

When the therapist put it that way, Natsu couldn’t help but pause and reflect on it, because damn the woman was making a lot of sense! Why did he fall in love with Lucy in the first place? Because of her feisty personality, that’s why. Had he forgotten? The real Lucy was still in there, it just needed to find its way back to the surface. There’s no harm in being honest about feeling scared or guilty. Kind of bare his heart to her in a way.

“Alright. I’ll give it a shot.”

He knew if he’d waited to confront this, he’d find an excuse not to do it. So that night after dinner, Natsu sat Lucy down for a heart to heart and bore his soul. His fears, his guilt, how the brave face he showed her day after day really just hid his own pain and insecurities over the situation. It was difficult and freeing at the same time to get it off his chest.

“Thank you for telling me, Natsu... that actually makes me feel a little better, because I thought I was going through it alone all this time. I mean, you being positive helps to keep me a little grounded, but it also made me feel like a burden. I want to help you as much you help me.”

“Are you sure? I just don’t want to add to your struggles.”

“I can’t tell you it won’t always be easy, so, all I can tell you is right now is I don’t think it will.”

“Okay— then promise me that you’ll say something if it is, a-and we’ll figure out something else.”

Lucy took Natsu’s hands in her own, “now that, I will promise.”

But despite their decision to co-fight, Natsu still took the initiative for Lucy and himself to figure out how to make things better... or lose his sanity in trying. He scoured psychology websites, searching for therapy’s and techniques used for PTSD, anxiety, depression, or anything related that might be useful, even meditation. It was a lot of work, but the information was useful, and he learned a lot about helping Lucy and himself to heal. Some of the horror stories were difficult to read, yet many of the survivors stories he came across provided the much needed encouragement to get through this ordeal.

The first thing Natsu decided to tackle was the nightmares, and to do that he’d learned he first needed to deal with the underlying causes. Pent up emotions being unleashed in Lucy’s subconscious as she slept were producing these horrific night terrors. With suggestions from both his therapist as well as Lucy’s, Natsu encouraged her every night before bed to write, write anything that came to mind, and he gently coaxed her into letting go of the worst thoughts. Unleash it onto the page, as the therapist put it. Then, together they would meditate using a relaxation technique he’d found appealing. Meditation wasn’t something Natsu thought he’d take a liking to, or even believed would work. But after learning more about it, decided it was worth a shot.

Everyone he knew used to tell him, it’s about clearing your mind of all thoughts... yeah, uh-huh, who the hell can pull that off? No, in this other technique it started off by saying that’s almost impossible, and that immediately caught his attention. It taught them about learning to control instead, to have thoughts, but focus them, compartmentalize them away and let them become background static you could more easily ignore through habituation. Ever wonder how a person can sleep near an airport or a train track? It’s because you get used to the sound. Once that’s done, you zero in on something you do want to think about, a nice memory, a sound, whatever you choose. Let it soothe and relax you until the next thing you know, your mind wants nothing more than to fall away into dreamland.

It took a few days of pushing Lucy through each step, because at first, she really did not want to rehash, even in a fictional way, the events of the kidnapping. So, Natsu would pull her onto his lap, with his arms around her waist while she held the paper and pen, closely monitoring her body language. The tensing and shaking were his first signs... ‘it’s okay, let it go...’ he’d whispered and tightened his hold, continuing the positive mantras, ‘you’re safe now, you can do this, I’ve got ya...’ Next came the release in the form of tears. A trickle, like a cracking of a dam, until it burst forth. Words on paper and liquid trails along her cheeks, but it was a good thing. All the anger and negativity flowing out instead of walled up in her mind. After a couple of weeks, the techniques were showing signs of working. Lucy awoke less and less because of the nightmares. She was still having some, but they weren’t to the same degree or frequency they’d once been.

“Yup... uh-huh, n-no, really, I am doing much better Lev. Yeah, we’ll visit tomorrow.... That sounds awesome. It’s be awhile since I’ve eaten sushi... I’m pretty sure... I’ll be okay, I promise… Yeah, we’ll meet you at Genki Zushi… Uh-huh, you too Levy. Good night.”

As soon as Lucy hung up her phone call, Natsu checked to make sure she really was okay with the plan to go out for dinner. It’d been just over three months since Lucy went anywhere aside from the doctors or police station willingly.

“I need to do this,” she stammered, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I can’t stay locked away forever.”

Natsu kissed her on the forehead. “I’m really proud of you babe.”

“I’m proud of us both,” Lucy smiled. “But I couldn’t do this without your support.”

Such a simple phrase meant the world to Natsu. After the last two months of struggle, his therapists advice was coming to fruition, or at least his truly believing it was possible. They were on the road to healing and nothing felt better than that, because one of the hardest legs of their journey was coming up fast.

#nalu #nalu au #nalu fan fic #nalu fan fiction #Natsu x lucy #Natsu dragneel #Lucy heartfilia #strangers on a train #ch 27

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unichrome · 4 years ago

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I’ve been wanting to write down as much as I can remember from the month at the hospital in April, and this tumblr blog is the only thing I have that even remotely resembles a journal. So here it is, feel free to read and comment if you’d like, but please don’t reblog.

I was living in Copenhagen when this happened.

A few weeks prior, I started a new medication, an antipsychotic so the usual side effect was to be expected: tiredness. But I’ve been in this carousel before, I know the worst is over after a week or so. I did indeed become extremely tired, and this was during working-from-home corona days so most shifts I ended up napping in the couch at any chance I got. Easily slept 12+ hours per night. It kept getting worse, I couldn’t stay awake during the days, became extremely lethargic. And it didn’t get better after a week, it just kept getting worse. So I called my psychiatrist and told her the medication wasn’t working and I felt so very bad and tired.

I got a new appointment with her, which I can’t even remember really. She got worried and sent me off to the psychiatric ward, where they did the standard blood test. Then sent me off to a room. Luckily I had anticipated for something like this to happen, so I had brought the work phone as well as chargers, so I could call in sick to work. A while later, three people suddenly entered and told me I had to go to the hospital right now, two of them were from the hospital transport. They took me to Amager hospital, I was so confused and not really present at all. I don’t know what they told me, but I needed a blood transfusion immediately. I stayed there for a night, the only thing I can remember is going to the bathroom once.

The Amager hospital apparently wasn’t capable of providing the care I needed, I was transported yet again, to Rigshospitalet. The memories from here on are very blurry and sporadic. Eventually I heard that both of my kidneys were failing, when I was admitted on April 22nd, my kidney functionality was around 18%. If it drops under 20% it becomes lethal. Kidneys are also responsible for the production of blood, which wasn’t happening anymore and I had a very dangerously low count of red blood cells.

I’m super difficult to get blood from if the first attempt isn’t successful, as the poor nurses became painfully aware of after failing on the first try. During one of the first days there, when the daily blood test was to be taken, they didn’t succeed. Three nurses tried, eventually they called for a narcosis doctor to try with a ultrasound machine to find my veins, but it didn’t work very well either. They stung me all around the body, down to my feet and it took at least an hour to get the sample and my body had pretty much gone into shock since medical procedures and needles of any kind are one of my worst fears. Because of this it was decided to install a port for draining blood so this wouldn’t have to be repeated every day.

A kidney biopsy was ordered as well as more detailed blood tests to figure out why this kidney failure was happening. I would also have to call my parents in Sweden and tell them what was happening, and the fact that they couldn’t come and visit me, at all. I was in a quarantined zone of the hospital where no visitors were allowed, not even family. But also Denmark had closed its borders at the time, so they couldn’t even enter the country in the first place.

My only contact with the outside world was my phone that I treated as the most precious thing in the entire world, it was also pretty much the only thing I had with me. I would have long calls with my family talking about the most mundane and boring things but it was such a blessing to hear about, I would drag out the subjects as much as I could and so would they. I’d often cry after having to stop the calls.

The biopsy and tests revealed that I had antibodies that shouldn’t be there. My immune system was attacking the body, pretty much. This autoimmune disease is very rare, Microscopic Polyangiitis, and will cause kidney failure (and other organ failures) if not discovered and treated in time. Since I barely had any prior symtoms, it wasn’t discovered in time. My lungs were also examined as the disease usually targets kidneys and/or lungs, but no significant damage was found there luckily.

I was put on steroids (prednisone 60 mg) that would support the kidneys and dampen the damage from the antibodies as well as chemotherapy (Sendoxan 100 mg) that would shut down the immune system almost completely. Synthetic hormone injections every week to stimulate the production of red blood cells.

Every morning a blood test was done a 6:00, as well as checking the temperature and blood pressure. I was forced to drink 3 liters of fluid every day (which I logged on a paper meticulously - every ml counted) and I could only pick between water, disgusting orange juice or disgusting apple juice. Except during lunch, when I got a small package of milk - this became pretty much the highlight of my day. One glass of milk. That was like pure joy, it tasted so divine. In just a few days your entire world shifts in such a way that this package of milk is what you look forward to the next day.

All day I was bedbound and in a haze, time was entirely dependent on medicine, meal and test times like a work schedule, from the 6:00 tests to the final 23:00 medications, that left 7 hours of rest that was robbed from me because prednisone makes you unable to sleep well, even with the sleep aids I got. Despite being in bed almost all day every day, I was constantly sleepy and tired but I would never get any rest. Couldn’t even pee normally either, had to collect everything in a bottle for them to log.

But of course it would get worse. After about 6 days, my doctor came in and told me that the treatment didn’t seem to be working fast enough. My kidney functionality kept dropping, now at 13%, creatinine levels above 400 (it should never be above 80 for women, around 200 is kidney failure). They had one more weapon to combat this - plasmapheresis. This would mean connecting me to a machine that would take out my blood, clean it from the harmful antibodies, and put it back in again. Hopefully this would buy me time for the treatment to win. To do this, they had to cut up my throat to insert two tubes that would take in and out the blood. I had to be awake during the whole procedure to control the breathing as instructed.

I wasn’t connected to the machine all the time. A few hours every other day. It was noisy, sounded like a miniature washing machine, and I hated it so much. The tubes in my throat, blood going in and out of me, it was just pure terror even if the procedure itself didn’t hurt. I got some mild sedatives but they were way too mild and didn’t do shit. The fact that I didn’t have to be connected to the machine every other day became yet another highlight like the milk. I’d talk about how today was such a good day because it was a no machine day, like a holiday.

Showering was horrible too. Because of the tubes I had to avoid getting them wet as much as possible while still somehow washing the hair. Then the tape around the tubes had to be changed and I hated anyone touching that area. I went for as long as I could between the showers, up to 9 days.

I was quickly becoming very weak, as the medications and chemo ate away at my bones and muscles. My legs have always been strong, I’ve had no problems doing squats with a grown man hanging on my back. But one day when I was in the bathroom, I spilled some toothpaste on the floor. I squat down to wipe it, but I couldn’t get back up again. My legs were way too weak. I ended up having to drag myself up via the toilet and sink, it felt so humiliating I refused to use the button to call for help. I bet it took several minutes to get back up standing.

It was still very unsure if I would make it, the plasmapheresis wasn’t a guaranteed help. One day a psychologist came to talk to me, but the only thing I remember is that he asked if I was afraid of death. I told him that my current biggest fear was the damn tubes in my neck, the constant needles, every day the touching and prodding of my body, but it didn’t seem like it got through to him. Maybe because my Danish was so damn shitty too, I could barely articulate myself and what I felt in Swedish, much less in English or Danish, I think I was mostly rambling incoherently.

In the meantime my parents had been writing the hospital for updates and visitation possibilities, and eventually the kind nurses and doctors there started fighting for getting my parents to visit. They got granted an exception by the hospital to visit my room once per day, but they still couldn’t get into the country. My parents contacted the Danish police asking if an exception could be made since it now was entirely possible that this could be the last time they’d see me. They were eventually granted permission and now the final hindrance remained - getting there. Since they live far up north, the transportation options are limited especially during corona. There were essentially no flights, so the second best option was train for about 2 days.

As luck would have it, the plasmapheresis did help, my kidneys were slowly recovering and once I got up to around 25% functionality, I was free from the damn machine and the medications now had the upper hand against my stupid immune system. In the final days at the hospital, my parents arrived. And we could actually be happy because it seemed like the danger was over. I begged the doctor to release me and let my parents help me at home instead. I knew how to take the medications by now and it wouldn’t be necessary for daily tests anymore. She agreed but I had to come to the hospital every few days for a checkup.

And that concluded my first chapter of this disease and kidney failure. Thank you for reading all the way to here, I appreciate it.

#njursvikt #sjukhus

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aurelie-celine · 4 years ago

Text

Mi Alma - Part Two

A few years ago, Miguel, Lina, Nestor, and you were laughing together in a restaurant in Florence, Italy. Back then, you thought you would have many other happy moments with them. But then everything changed - was it for the worse, or for the best?

Love, Murder, Friendship, and Trust.

Mi Alma, a story with Miguel Galindo, Nestor Oceteva, Lina Brayer (OC) and Aurélie „Elie“ Gaillard (OC)

Part one | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Warning: nothing for this part

Words: 1431

London, UK – Present

After what seems to be an endless journey, you finally reach your flat, and the only thing you want to do is taking a shower and going to bed. You just spent a couple of days in Lyon, France with your family and for God knows which reason, you decided to go back to London by train on a Sunday evening with a stop in Paris.

As soon as you open your door, you can see all the mails that are patiently waiting to be open on the floor. You pick them and quickly check them before putting them on your kitchen counter. None of them seems essential, but a navy blue envelop catches your attention, so you open it. It's a note from Miguel, letting you know that he will be in London for the next five days as he has some important meetings to attend in person. He also mentioned that he is unsure when he will be available, but he will try to come in the evenings.

Apparently, no matter how busy he is, he spent all his evening in London with you. Tonight was the last night you had together before he leaves tomorrow morning, and you were now drinking dome wine sitting on your sofa.

"Please don't get me wrong, Miguel. I'm always happy to have you here, but will you not prefer to go to a nicer place? "you ask him. You knew it couldn't be possible with you, as it will expose your connection, but you were sure he has other people with who he could go to fancier places.

"I spend my days faking smiles and wearing a mask. When I'm here with you, I know I don't have to."

You smile at him before replying." You are always welcome here, Miguel. Whenever you need. "

Without a word, he stands up and walks toward the window next to the sofa you are still sitting on. He stays there, looking outside, his hand on your shoulder with his thumb rubbing the back of your neck.

After about 20 minutes of silence, he sighs before placing a kiss on the top of your head and whispering, "I need to go."

"When will you be back?" You ask him.

"Not sure. Take care of yourself Elie. "

You say your goodbyes and give him a quick hug before he leaves. You put the glasses away and go to bed. That night you dreamed of him, and the first time you met almost three years ago.

Havana, Cuba – Past

"Why did I agree with that? "You ask Lina, your friend and colleague sitting next to you on the plane that will bring you to Havana.

"Don't worry; everything is going to be okay." She replied. "Now, let get some rest because I think we are not going to sleep a lot in the few days. "

"Yeah, especially you! "

You both laugh at that before getting yourself as comfortable as possible in your airplane seat. You had the feeling that you just closed your eyes when the steward wakes you and ask to tighten your belt as you are starting to go down.

After collecting your suitcase and passing the security check, you are welcome by a driver with both your names written on it. Once sitting in the car that will drive you to your holiday destination, you let a heavy breath out.

"Relax, Aurélie. Trust me; you are going to enjoy the next week! "

You spend the rest of the drive doing small talk, and you are finally relaxed when the driver announces that you reach the house. It was an amazing place, but you instantly starting to feel nervous again. When Lina offered you to come to spend a week away from the London weather in Cuba, you agreed to stray away. You were just not expected that her new boyfriend will pay for everything.

She didn't tell you a lot about him, just that the two of them met at an event when she was still working in the Stockton office of your company, and his name: Miguel Galindo. So expect the fact that he was incredibly rich, you were not sure about what to expect of this week with him.

"Good morning, Ladies." he gives a surprisingly chaste kiss on Lina's lips before facing you. "Aurélie, I assume? How are you? "

"Yes. Nice to meet you, Miguel. I'm good; thank you, and you?"

"A lot better now." He replied while Luna jumps to his neck and kiss him.

You smile at your friend's reaction and go to the back of the car to grab your suitcase, but someone was quicker than you.

"I got it." He says with a deep voice while giving you a quick look.

"Thank you." You were about to ask him his name when Miguel announced that he would show you your room for the week.

"Your" room only was actually bigger than your apartment in London, and this is without taking the dressing, bathroom, and balcony. After refreshing yourself, you got ready for dinner.

You could tell that Lina just wanted to head back to her bedroom during the dinner, but Miguel makes sure to do some small talk with you. He was a very nice man, and even if he was not your type, you understood why Lina felt for him. After the meal, you excuse yourself and head back to your bedroom for the night.

After a very relaxing night and a quick shower, you walk toward the balcony when you notice a coffee machine with a note next to it.

Lina told me that you needed your coffee before any human interaction. Miguel

Unsure whether to be grateful for Miguel's attention and embarrassed that Lina shared this information with him, you make your coffee and drink it on your balcony.

You don't see a lot Lina or Miguel during this week, only joining them for dinner. Except that you feel a bit uncomfortable that Miguel is paying for everything, you start to appreciate him and notice that he feels a bit more relaxed days after days.

You spent the next few days enjoying the atmosphere of the city. The man of the first day was always with you, and even if he was not talkative, you now know his name: Nestor.

The last afternoon before you leave you decide to go to a small market to buy a few gifts. You were looking at a necklace when Nestor approached you to inform you that it was time to go back to the house if you didn't want to be late for dinner. You sight a bit and put back the necklace where you found it before following him to the car.

After the diner in another costly place, you decide to head back to your room to put on some more comfortable clothes before going back to the city center. It is full of joy, laughter, and the smell of street food – that's amazing! And then you noticed him again.

"You know, you don't have to spend your time watching me?" you say, now standing in front of him.

"I just want to make sure that nothing is happening to you," he replies with a much softer voice that you were used to hear, but before you have the time to say anything, he looks away.

---

You were finishing to pack your suitcase in the morning when you see a small package on your bedside table.

"Come on, Aurélie; we are going to be late! "You heard Lina screams from downstairs.

You put the package in your jacket and follow her to the car to bring both of you to the airport. Miguel excuse himself last evening, explaining that he will not be able to see us before we leave due to an important business meeting.

London, UK – Past

When you finally reach your flat in London, you are so tired that you decide to take a quick shower before going to bed, leaving the unpacking for tomorrow.

It is now 13:45 when you wake up. You slept more than 12 hours, and after drinking half a liter of black coffee, you decided to start unpacking your suitcase. It's when you were about to put your jacket in the laundry basket that you remember the package.

You open it and discover a necklace, the same one you were looking at in the small shop. A note accompanied it: It would look nice on you. N

Part Three

It's my first story, and I would love to receive your feedback!

#mayans mc #mayans imagine #mayans fanfic #nestor oceteva #nestor oceteva x oc #miguel galindo #miguel galindo x oc #aurelie gaillard

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willkillforgoodmemories · 5 years ago

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Schools Re-imagined

Okay fellow guys, gays and ladies (all beings are invited), TODAY on quaran-talks (get it, quarantine but replace the tine with talks, never mind), we will be

“RE-IMAGINING SCHOOLS” (Mostly High school and it’s equivalents around the world)

so that they actually do their job and prepare us for the real world, which they haven’t. They have, however given me sleep-deprived days, traumatic memories and snakes for friends.

ASPECT NUMBER ONE

Changing when school starts. I mean, whose lovely idea was to start school at 8.00. Many schools also start schools at 8.30 but lord, imagine how happy we all will be if schools opened a little later.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the sleep requirement for teenagers is between 8-10 hours per night. That indicates that the earliest healthy wake-up time for teens should not be before 7 a.m.

I propose that schools start not earlier than 9.00 am. That way one does not have to bear with the absolute feeling of grogginess of completing tasks on auto-pilot (when you complete tasks by doing the bare minimum because your brain is not awake), not rushing through morning routines (rushing can cause stress and anxiety) and can start the day on a good note. All those you thrive on 3-4 hour naps, it is in no way healthy and in some ways, not even your mistake. Moving on,

ASPECT NUMBER TWO

The marvellous blame-game. The student is usually the pawn. Don’t get the concept while in class, the teacher will probably say that you weren’t listening.

Ma’am or Sir, it’s your job to make sure the students understand what you teach. Be patient and stop telling them it’s wrong if they don’t understand the concept.It won’t hurt if you take out some time and teach them the concept again.

If you don’t get the concept during homework and use the reference guide, the parents will usually say that they weren’t paying attention in class and should know it. The reference material was made for a reason, and that was so that the student could use it. If the student wasn’t able to understand in class, there is a high chance they would be able to understand it on their own with their own research. Don’t doubt a student’s ability, even a little pat on the back can go a long way. More on this later.

ASPECT NUMBER THREE

A very popular opinion is that schools kill creativity. They don’t out right kill it, they just suppress it until it never come backs. In other words, it’s there but not quite. (confusing, just like the world’s education system). If the student says a wrong answer, don’t outright say no or prompt the class to laugh at them. Question their understanding in a polite way. Promote creative thinking and finding different ways of solving problems. Creativity can be found in all subjects, you just need to find a will. Don’t suppress interests such as liking of a particular aesthetic, genre of music or style.

ASPECT NUMBER FOUR

There is no space for individuality. Uniforms are okay because you don’t have to go through the hassle of picking out clothes but limiting other choices such as style of hair, use of accessories and nail polish and colour of hair should not dictate what kind of a student they are. Teachers and Administration should not care about these things because every student needs their own way of showing creativity. These things do not dictate what kind of student they are. There is a common misconception that students who do the above mentioned things will distract students and disrupt the class. The students usually compliment or comment on it and move on with their day. The teachers, however will call them out, fine them, give them detention or some other kind of punishment. The only people that are getting distracted here is the staff who takes the time out of their day to call a student out on their mode of expression. All those teachers who support their students’ choices are pure gems and deserve all the love in the world.

ASPECT NUMBER FIVE

The ungodly amount of homework. This is an extension of ‘aspect number two.’ I along with many other teenagers believe that the homework should be limited to two hours a day. No, I don’t mean two hours per subject. I mean two hours total. It can be extended to 3.5 hours but not more than that. Take the example of a GCSE student. A normal student takes about 9-12 subjects. Depending on the intensity of the subjects,the student should spend about 15-20 minutes per subject. During tests and exam weeks, this can be bumped up to 5 hours but still, testing a student’s skills of memorization does not prepare them for the real world. After spending six hours in school, this time should be taken to go over material and identify weak points in their understanding, not increasing stress.

ASPECT NUMBER SIX

The unhealthy expectations which really effect a teenager’s mind, and not in a good way. Many people are out here judging a student who excels in art on it’s ability to do STEM subjects, and vice versa. That’s like judging a fish's ability to climb a tree. Let the student pursue what they like without a thought in their head, “what will everyone think of me.” As a human being, they’d support and not belittle your choices. Let them pursue what they like. If they get bad grades, ask them about it. Don’t start shouting. Teachers, do not announce grades in class, you are literally creating students who build up low self-esteem. How hard is it to understand that teenagers are human beings. They’ll learn. If a previously-gifted student gets a bad grade, don’t make them feel bad about it.

ASPECT NUMBER SEVEN

Actually take a stand on matters that make sense. Stop bullies, racists, homophobes and sexists. Don’t go around nit-picking students who have long nails and unkempt hair or uniform if you have these problems roaming around. That just says that you are only caring about your outer appearance at the expense that most of your students will grow up to be ignorant citizens. A teenager mirrors their surroundings and if you can create a positive surrounding, it’s your part towards a more understanding society.

ASPECT NUMBER EIGHT

WHO thought that giving extra homework on weekends would be a good idea. Like, WHY? Weekends should be for relaxation and for revising topics. Wouldn’t it make sense if students took time to, I don’t know, go over the work from the week. That way, the information can be retained for a longer time. I also present to you the idea of making open book tests the norm. What many schools don’t understand that not everyone can memorize entire books. A student who does well on assignments but not on exams clearly shows that they understand but can’t remember it. The real world clearly shows that you don’t need to remember things because resources will always be at your disposal. A student should know how to apply concepts because 85% of the stuff they learn in school is utterly useless in real life. The remaining 15% are basics of subjects which should be learned.

ASPECT NUMBER NINE

The schools either need counselors that actually do their job or teachers that are willing to go the extra mile. Counselors need to understand the students’ situation and help them. Don’t blame everything on the phone. (Phones are least of our problems). Normalize opposite-gender friendships. Lastly, with classes algebra and all that, wouldn’t also having classes like etiquette's, how to file taxes and other worldly classes actually help.

REVISED TIMETABLE

As per the guidelines above.

Biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm.

Sleep between 11:00-11.30 pm. Wake up at 7:45 am (Assuming you slept at 23.15 which is the halfway point, you got a sleep of 8.5 hours, which is healthy)Getting ready and having breakfast at a peaceful pace takes an average of 15 minutes. You will be done by 8:15 am. An average school commute takes about 30 minutes so you should have 15 minutes to spare before 8:30 am strikes and you leave for school.School starts at 9.00 am and ends at 3.00 pm. (Schools here last for 6 hours).Go for extra-curricular activities. On average, extra-curricular activities last for 1.5 hours so you should be free by 4.30-5.00 pm. That leaves you with 6 hours. Even if you take an hour long nap and take exactly 2 hours,no more or less for your homework, you will still be left with 3 hours of leisure. These 6 hours can be scheduled how ever you like.

Now compare it to my timetable that was in place before the lock down. I woke up 6.00 am (Usually woke up early to complete homework which was impossible to complete yesterday) Left home for school at 7.15 am, usually made up for sleep in the car.

Reached school by 7.45. School started at 7.50 am and went on till 2.00 pm. All extra curricular activities were suspended due to tests and exam prep. Reached home at 2.40 pm. (Was picked up from school at 2.10 pm because group assignments roles cannot be assigned in class for some stupid reason so a lot of work has to be done outside class).

Refresh and have lunch, start homework at 3.00 pm. Went on till 5.00 pm, took a 15-minute break and again continued till 9.00 pm (This is just homework). Picked up the assigned reading and assignments, that went on till 10.00 pm. Time with family till 10.45 pm.

These were the good days. The days I was assigned art homework were torture. I have gone to school with only 3 hours of sleep many weeks.

For a system that is suppose to help the students, the education system sure does hate students.

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sincerelyreidburke · 4 years ago

Note

Ok I have no idea where this is coming from but I want to hear about Nando and Quinn's first New Year's Eve together

First, Isabelle, please let me apologize for my delay on this ask fill. Rest assured I had never forgotten or abandoned this idea! It’s very soft, and here’s a ficlet to quell your curiosity.

I’m not taking “first New Year’s” super literally here, because this is set during junior year winter break. The reason I’m doing that is because while they’re dating for two winter breaks prior to this one, this is the first time they get to spend New Year’s physically together. I’ll enlighten you about the two New Year’s that occur prior to this one...

Freshman year: Nando goes to his hometown friend’s party, and Quinn watches a movie by himself. They FaceTime at midnight. Nando is kind of drunk, but being safe, and Quinn finds it endearing. They’re schmoopy, and Nando gets chirped by his friends when he comes back from whatever random room he stepped aside in to make the call.

Sophomore year: Nando goes to that party again, and Quinn is once again by himself, but this time, Quinn accidentally falls asleep at, like, 10:30. Nando wakes him up with another midnight call, and makes fun of him for being a weakling who can’t stay up late. Quinn is slightly grouchy because he’s half-asleep, but misses Nando very much, and therefore lets his grouch fade into soft.

Junior year: this. Long live the return of Gabi and Rosa Hernandez!

(Ask me anything about the crickets!)

junior year | december/january

“Gabi! Rosa! Wake up; it’s almost midnight!”

Nando watches, with so much glee that he’s holding back a laugh, as both of his sisters rouse in unison. They sit bolt upright on the basement couch, in two different shades of alarm. Gabi rubs her eyes and makes some kind of half-asleep grunting noise, and Rosa is immediately wide awake. “What?” she cries, flailing her arms in panic. “Did we miss it?”

“No!” Nando replies, and next to him, wrapped up in his arm, Quinn is shaking his head for emphasis.

“You woke up just in time,” Quinn adds, then points to the clock on the basement wall.

Gabi and Rosa both look that way, and Nando holds up his watch, gesturing to its face. “See?” he says. “It’s 11:57.”

Rosa marvels at his watch. “I didn’t know we slept that long…”

“Yeah!” Gabi frowns, with a little hmph , and folds her arms. She’s wearing the nightgown she got for Christmas; it’s lavender, with sugar-plum fairies all over it. “Why didn’t you guys wake us up?”

“Well, we did wake you up,” Quinn points out, evenly. “There are three minutes left to go.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep ,” she whines. “I said I was gonna stay up this year!”

“It’s a good thing you have us,” Nando quips, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Quinn, who is infinitely more patient with Gabi and Rosa than Nando feels like being with his little sisters right now, pats Gabi on the shoulder and remarks, “It’s okay, Gabi. Staying up on New Year’s isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, anyway.”

“But you’re doing it,” Gabi points out.

Quinn tips his head into Nando’s arm, and Nando grins down at him, squeezing him around the shoulders. “I am,” Quinn says, “because I’m with you guys.” He pauses. “I fell asleep before midnight last New Year’s, by accident.”

“It’s true,” Nando says, chuckling, because that really is true— he remembers Quinn’s sleepy face picking up his FaceTime call at midnight last year, rubbing his eyes with a raspy voice over the phone. It was the cutest shit he’s ever seen, not to be dramatic.

Now, a year later, he nudges his boyfriend— who is sitting on his mama’s basement couch, live and in person, his for the entirety of the holidays. The end of Quinn’s fall semester may have been beyond shitty from a home life standpoint, but it led to this: Quinn, home with him, in Arizona, for all of winter break. And summer, once it comes. And the winter break after that, and, well—

Nando loves having him here, more than he can even say.

“Quinn’s a weakling,” he chirps, with eyes on the boy himself. “He’s no good at staying up late.”

Quinn squirms, with a little laugh, and swats upward towards Nando’s general chest region. “ Sebastián ,” he says, easily. Nando kisses his temple.

“Staying up late is cool !” Gabi cries. “Sometimes I use Mama’s phone to text Sebastián when it’s midnight at college, and he’s still awake .”

“Mm.” Quinn nods, with his cheek pressed into Nando’s shoulder. “Your brother has a habit of letting Ben have an influence on his bedtime.”

“I mean.” Nando wonders if defending himself is even worth it. Quinn is sort of right. “He lives right on the other side of the bathroom. He, like… invades my room.”

Rosa is studying the wall clock intently. “I’ll tell you guys when,” she announces, like counting down to midnight is a mission she is taking very seriously. “We have a minute and thirty-seven seconds left. Now it’s thirty-six. Thirty-five—”

“Aw, don’t count the whole time,” Gabi says, shoving her in the shoulder. “You’ll kill all the fun.”

“It’s okay, Rosa.” Once again, Quinn seeks to pacify the sisterly disagreements. He’s a natural, Nando notices. It sends him into thoughts of Quinn as a dad, which is so much for his extremely in love, extremely gay brain. “It’ll be midnight soon.”

Nando buries his face in Quinn’s hair to mask his smile, and plants a kiss at the top of his head. With three weeks in the Arizona sun under his belt— because even in the winter, the sun here is aplenty, something Nando will never stop loving about his home state— the usual strawberry tones of Quinn’s blond have lightened significantly. Not only that, but he has more freckles today than the number he showed up with when they stepped off the plane after finals. It’s a good look on him, and Nando hasn’t been able to stop himself from imagining what that means for Quinn if he lives here after graduation.

They’ve talked about that a little, which is plenty for Nando’s brain to run wild with.

“Wait!” Gabi draws something out from between couch pillows. The four of them are all stationed on the basement couch; Nando is resting against the end with his arm around Quinn, and the girls are right where they fell asleep for their accidental nap. It’s a smallish couch, but a comfy one, with a green plush cover that’s easy to sink into.

Gabi brandishes her finding— a silver noisemaker, the cardboard kind you blow into to unfurl it and make a sound. “I forgot about these,” she says.

“Oh, goodness,” Quinn chuckles. “Are you going to blow into that at midnight?”

“Uh, duh ,” Gabi replies. She tests it out once, sort of in his face, and Nando feels Quinn wince under him.

“ Gabi .” He huddles Quinn closer. “Remember, his ears aren’t like yours.”

“Oops.” Gabi’s cheeks flush just a little. “Sorry.”

Quinn smiles at her. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. I know you’re excited.”

“Thirty seconds!” Rosa cries, eyes still glued to the clock. “When should we start counting?”

“At ten?” Quinn volunteers, and she seems to like this, because she nods.

“At ten,” she echoes. “It’s twenty-five now.”

Gabi bounces on her cushion, which sort of moves the whole couch just a little. “I’m so excited!”

Nando rests his hand on Quinn’s knee, who promptly tips his face up to smile at him. Nando bites back another laugh, and kisses his nose instead. Quinn’s smile is normal, but there’s humor dancing in his blue-green eyes, a little sparkle.

“Twenty!” Rosa, who’s usually pretty quiet, is even seeming excited now. She chews on the edge of her nightgown’s sleeve; it’s the same style as Gabi’s, but with gingerbreads and candies instead of fairies. Her hair is still in the fishtail braid Quinn gave her, while they were watching TV an hour ago. “Fifteen… aaaaand— okay, ten!”

“Nine!” Gabi joins her, bouncing once in her seat for each number. “Eight… seven…”

Nando participates in the countdown, as does Quinn, quietly, next to him. “Six… five… four… three… two… one—”

“ Happy New Year !” Gabi and Rosa yell, in unison, and Gabi blows into her noisemaker again, but this time angles it away from Quinn. Nando laughs, finally, and Quinn claps a little, for the girls’ excitement. Gabi jumps off the couch to dance around in front of it, and that’s about when Nando realizes that Quinn is looking up at him expectantly.

“Oh!” In a hurry, he pecks him on the mouth. Quinn is smiling when they pull away.

Gabi finishes her dance with a little bow, which Quinn claps, again, for, and Rosa sits calmly on the couch with both hands in her lap, still staring at the clock as the second hand moves 15 seconds psat 12. “I…” Rosa pauses. “Don’t feel any different.”

“I never do,” Quinn confesses. “New Year’s is an odd holiday, don’t you think?”

“I do think,” Rosa replies, with a nod, and then Gabi lets off a very loud yawn, collapsing back into the abyss of the couch cushions.

“Hm…” Quinn says, looking between them. “Are you guys tired? You stayed up really late.”

Rosa, because yawning is contagious, is also yawning. Nando feels like he might be about to yawn, even though he’s barely tired. “I think so,” she announces, and so, without much ceremony, they’re able to get them to go upstairs relatively easily.

They patter up the basement steps to the ground floor, and they’ll go from there to the second floor, where they’ll nestle all snug in their beds like it’s the night before Christmas and not the night before 2020. “Night, guys,” Nando calls after them, as they’re going. “Happy new year.”

“G’night!” Gabi calls, and Rosa waves over her shoulder. “Don’t stay up late!” Gabi adds, in a singsong voice, and they disappear through the door to the ground floor in a flurry of giggles.

Nando looks to the ceiling, and listens to their feet on the kitchen floor above them, still holding Quinn around the shoulders. He hears them cross to the other staircase, and then, slowly, their steps fade away entirely.

Nando waits at least three seconds after he’s lost track of the noise, then looks down to Quinn, with the shit-eating grin he’s been holding back for the past five minutes finally giving way. “Nice work, baby,” he remarks, holding his hand up.

Quinn laughs. He high-fives him, then leans into his chest. “I feel bad,” he sighs. “They were so excited.”

“ Pff .” He stands from the couch, lifting Quinn right up with him, and says, “Are you kidding me? They’ll never know.”

“I suppose.” Quinn hooks his arms around his neck. “Are we resetting the clock?”

“Sure, yeah.” He looks to the clock above the TV. “Let’s do that.”

The same way they did ten minutes ago, he helps Quinn onto his shoulders until he can reach to change the time on the clock. Nando holds him steady as he turns it back two hours, landing it correctly at 10:04 rather than the 12:04 Rosa and Gabi think it is right now. When Quinn is done, he hangs the clock back up, flashes a thumbs-up, and announces, “All set!”

“Perfect.” Nando grins, then reaches for his waist, bends over, and says, “Hold on tight.”

Quinn puts his hands down on his shoulders. “Holding.”

In a maneuver they’ve gotten down to a science, he moves Quinn from his shoulders to his back, where he gets a kiss to the cheek from him on his way by. From there, Quinn hops down, and Nando turns, lifting him so he’s facing him. Quinn winds his legs around his waist, and kisses him properly.

“We’re evil,” Quinn mumbles, nose-to-nose with him, when they pull away. “We lie to children.”

“Baby.” He closes his eyes. “They were never gonna make it to midnight anyway.”

“That’s likely true.” Quinn kisses him again, then eyes the couch, so Nando takes it as a cue to lead him back there. Once they’re settled, Quinn tucks himself right up into his lap, resting his cheek against his shoulder, and all is right in the world.

“What now?” Nando asks, like his mind isn’t already wandering. “You… wanna watch TV?”

“Sure,” Quinn murmurs, “we can turn it on.” He doesn’t sound opposed to it, but he also sounds relatively indifferent, like it doesn’t really matter if the TV is on or not.

So Nando meets his eyes. “We could…” He raises his eyebrows, with the tiniest smile. “ Not watch TV?”

Quinn swats him for the second time in ten minutes. “ Sebastián . Your mother said—”

“I know, I know.” He chuckles, kissing Quinn’s forehead. Leave it to his boyfriend to keep Mama’s spirit hovering over them even while she’s safely five miles away at work. She pretty much threatened his life before she left for tonight’s night shift re: funny business in her basement, and he shouldn’t try to go behind her back (despite the multiple times he’s done that during winter break already, at strategic times when they have the house all to themselves). Tonight, Nando won’t tempt fate. He leans toward the empty part of the couch and tells Quinn, “Hold on. I’ll get the remote.”

It’s buried in couch pillows, but he draws it up after a second of rooting around. He looks past Quinn to hit the power button, and flicks through the channels until he lands on the ball drop countdown. Two news anchors are doing shots, live on the air in Times Square. “This?”

Quinn isn’t even facing the TV, but he nods. “Anything’s good.”

So Nando drops the remote down into the cushiony abyss again, securing his hands on Quinn’s tiny waist. He’s in one of his many stolen Kiersey Hockey sweatshirts (this is a really nice one, actually, with his name and number on the sleeve), and a worn pair of blue shorts, which Nando can tell are his own because of how short they are. His socks reach nearly to his knees, and under the sweatshirt, he’s wearing a tight t-shirt that rides up his waist. So in other words, he wants Nando dead. And him being in his lap isn’t helping.

Nando edges his hands under the hoodie until he’s touching warm skin on his middle. He looks down into his eyes and murmurs, “God, you’re fucking cute.”

Quinn giggles like being cute has been his plan this whole time. “You’re not so bad yourself, papi.”

That gets Nando in just the right place, apparently, because the only thing he can think to want to do until midnight is just absolutely kiss the hell out of him. He gives him a kiss that starts soft and turns tender, and Quinn scoots up as far into his lap as he can go. Nando smiles as Quinn presses his thumb into his cheek, and when they pause to breathe, Quinn murmurs, “This is better than TV.”

He laughs, kisses him again, and nods. “Glad you agree, cariño .”

More or less, that’s how they pass the next two hours— making out on and off, occasionally sneaking a glance to the TV to comment on the absurdity of how news anchors entertain themselves waiting for midnight to come, trading bits and pieces of miscellaneous conversation. Between bouts of kissing, Quinn rests against his chest, his legs thrown snug around his waist, and Nando rubs his back under the shirt he’s wearing. His skin is a little sunburnt, thanks to his first taste of Arizona weather (and if he’s already burning in December, Nando can’t imagine what it’ll be like when they come home this summer) (which, by the way, is a wonderful thing to remember is happening).

That’s how they are when the countdown arrives— in fact, Nando doesn’t even realize it’s so close to midnight until he sees the TV out of the corner of his eye, and the ball is falling, with forty seconds left until the New Year.

“Oh— baby.” To get his attention, he rubs Quinn’s thigh right under the spot where his shorts end; he’s been holding him there for the last little while.

Quinn lifts his face from his chest; he’s been resting there so long that there’s a warm spot where his head was. On his way up, he turns his hearing aids on, since he shut them off sometime over the course of the past two hours. Nando supplies, “It’s almost midnight.”

Quinn rubs his left eye and asks, in this little, raspy voice, “Already?”

God , he’s so fucking cute. Nando is too gay to function. “Already,” he says, with an affirming now, and then chuckles a little and adds, “For real this time.”

Quinn laughs, pressing his face into his shoulder, and Nando takes the opportunity to squeeze him tight, with a kiss to the top of his head. His hair is so messy by now, a look he’d never show to the public. Nando loves his rumpled boyfriend more than there are words to express.

“Well,” Quinn mumbles, turning his head to the TV. “Perhaps I should actually watch it.”

Nando holds him close, and he watches, too. He hasn’t seen the ball drop in awhile, because for the past handful of years, he’s usually been at Antonio’s New Year’s party down the street. He and Quinn were invited to it tonight, but Mama had already taken the shift at work, so they gently declined in favor of babysitting the girls.

Nando loves hanging out with his friends, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t prefer this— a snuggly New Year’s Eve in his basement with the love of his life— to a house party.

When the ball hits ten seconds to midnight, the crowd in Times Square ramps up the noise. It’s all flashy and loud, and Nando used to think that going there one year would be fun, as a bucket list kind of thing— but it would be so much for Quinn, he would never do it now. He debates counting along with them, but he just watches and listens instead. Quinn is quiet in his arms, head rested against his shoulder.

Five… four… three… two… one— happy new year!!!!

On the TV, a symphony of confetti and cheering erupts. But Nando does not care, at all, what’s happening in Times Square at that moment, because as they ring in the first seconds of 2020, he’s looking down at Quinn. He keeps his eyes on the TV for just a second after the stroke of midnight, before he looks back up to Nando, with a gentle, knowing smile.

Nando tugs him close in his lap to kiss him, and that’s how they ring in 2020— wrapped up in each other with their first official New Year’s kiss. “Happy new year, baby,” he hums, when they pull away.

“Happy new year,” Quinn echoes. He’s cupping Nando’s face in his hand again, and his eyes are searching. “I love you.”

Nando beams. “I love you so much,” he replies, and kisses him again, for good measure. They’re playing Auld Lang Syne on the TV. The noise is a million miles away.

They’ve been together for over two years now, but thanks to the woes of a long-distance relationship, this feels a lot like their first real New Year’s together than the way they rang in 2018 and 2019. Nando wouldn’t change a thing, but FaceTiming at midnight just isn’t the same as holding him in your arms.

So, yeah. Happy new year, indeed.

They keep the TV on, and some time later, after more kissing and vigorous snuggling, they wind up just resting on the couch together. Quinn is still wrapped around him, half in his lap and half to his side, and Nando is rubbing very gently at the back of his neck. He thinks Quinn is maybe asleep, or definitely at least not tuned in on his hearing aids, so it comes as a surprise when he hears him mumble. “Sebastián… I was thinking.”

“Huh?” He looks down at him, threading his fingers into his hair. “What about, baby?”

Quinn is quiet while he takes a deep breath, then he snuggles impossibly closer into his chest. “Well, I was just… I wanted to tell you that I love it here.”

Something flutters in Nando’s stomach, but he holds back on saying anything, because Quinn sounded like he wasn’t done with his thought. It turns out he’s right, after a second. “I could completely see myself living here, you know. I mean— of course, I could see myself living here before, because it would be with you, but— well, I suppose being here? It’s made it more real. If you know what I mean?”

“I do know,” he replies, trying not to sound completely like an excited puppy, but probably failing. He can’t help it. They’ve talked about the future, and made clear with each other what they want; they’ve made a plan that fits them accordingly. But Quinn is right. Being home, with him, makes so many future plans so much more real in his head. For two years, he’s daydreamed about taking Quinn home. Now that he’s done that… it’s a lot easier to picture moving here with him, after graduation. And buying their own house. And marrying him. And having a family. And so on.

So, yeah. He gets it. “It makes me really happy to hear you say that,” he tells Quinn.

“Well, it’s the truth,” Quinn remarks, in that little know-it-all voice that Nando is so fucking head over heels for. He pauses a moment, pressing his palm flat against his belly, before he adds, “I can’t wait to live here with you.”

“ God , baby,” he says, and he can’t stop smiling. “I can’t wait for that, either.” He squeezes lightly at the back of his neck. “C’mere.”

Quinn lifts his head for a lazy kiss, and then snuggles right back in. He holds him so close, and that’s how they stay. Going to bed doesn’t even cross either of their radars for a very long time.

Nando wants to ring in every single year, for the rest of his life, just like this.

#crickets #ficlet #quindo #mini quinny #nandoooooooo #mel writes

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accioharry · 5 years ago

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just stay for a moment & heal with me | brightwell (post 1x10)

dani reunites with malcolm after his kidnapping.

this fic is based off the song All of the Love in the World by Lily Kershaw. I fell in love with it and it's literally brightwell and now I'm emotional!!!

read here on ao3 | word count: 3.2k

Dani woke up to her phone ringing on her nightstand. She grumbled, knowing full well she put her phone on do not disturb before she fell asleep. The moonlight coming in from her window allowed her to see in the darkness as she fumbled for her phone, answering it without even checking the caller ID.

“We got him,” Gil’s voice came through before she could even say anything. “Malcolm…we…we got him.” His voice was full of emotion, as though he couldn’t believe it himself.

She shot up like a light, suddenly fully awake. Her hand shook as she gripped the phone. “What…what? Is he...” she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “Where? How?”

“He’s alive, but it’s not looking good Dani,” Gil’s voice cracked. “Just…get here, to the hospital.”

Dani had never obeyed an order so quickly as soon as Gil hung up the phone, presumably calling JT or Edrisa. She nearly fell out of bed, rushing to her dresser to throw on a pair of jeans and an old college T-shirt. Her mind was racing in a thousand different directions. They got him. They got him…They saved him.

It had been six weeks since Malcolm disappeared, taken by the Junkyard Killer. Six weeks of Dani crashing on the couch at the station, of Gil and Jessica fighting, of JT not cracking a single joke. Six weeks of Ainsley bringing coffee for the team on her way to work every morning and Edrisa bringing homemade desserts every other night. Six weeks of exhausting every resource, every lead, every interview, and they always came up with nothing. For six weeks, Dani had never felt so alone.

Malcolm Bright came into her world unexpectedly, crashing into her life like a hurricane. At first, she didn’t know what to make of him. Here was the son of The Surgeon, one of the world’s worst serial killers, brought onto a case without any clarification from her colleagues. Within hours of meeting he was in her arms waking up from the worst nightmare she had ever seen someone go through. She frantically caught him as he held a person’s hand in a cooler after a bomb had gone off in a building. She made sure he stayed alive the night he accidentally got high, admitting to him more about her past than she had ever planned on sharing.

That was the night she started to feel things for Malcolm Bright, but she’d never admit that. The night he told her she could trust him, and the night she decided to let him in.

Then he was gone.

The drive to the hospital was the longest drive of her life. It was raining but Dani didn’t think about running back inside for an umbrella. At 2 am the only thing on her mind was Malcolm. An ambulance passed her apartment complex as she was walking to her car, and her heart stopped. The chances of it being Malcolm were next to nothing as she knew darn well Gil would have a police escort to the hospital, but it still made her pause. It still made her heart drop as the rain fell on her.

The street lights felt like spotlights as she drove. Each one highlighting a different part of her short time with Malcolm Bright. She smiled to herself as she remembered when Malcolm brought her tea, or when he told her that her hands were too cold. She didn’t bring gloves and knew JT would tell her she’d get hypothermia, but she didn’t turn back. Her hands were cold and all she wanted was Malcolm to get the chance to tell her that one more time.

She parked badly but didn’t stick around long enough to check. She followed the sounds of sirens to the back of the hospital, to the ambulance entrance. She recognized Gil helping Jessica and Ainsley out of a police car, no doubt he sent an officer to pick them up.

“Gil!” She called, running to catch up to them. She was out of breath by the time she reached them, Jessica putting her arms out to steady her. In the past six weeks, Jessica and Ainsley Whitly had become something of a family to her, another part of Malcolm’s life she never thought would intertwine with her own.

“Dani, where’s your umbrella?” Ainsley asked. Dani shook her head.

“Where is he?” She asked as they walked into the ER. There were cops everywhere.

“They flew him in about a half-hour ago, he’s in surgery,” Gil explained. A helicopter meant things were serious…it meant Malcolm didn’t have a lot of time left.

“Where was he? What happened?” Dani knew she was still shaking, but she wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the cold.

Gil pulled her and Ainsley aside as Jessica spoke to doctors across the room. “I need to prepare Jessica and Ainsley for this, but I meant what I said on the phone, it’s not good.” He gestured for Ainsley to step aside. She refused.

“Gil,” she protested. If Dani had learned anything about the Whitly family in the past six weeks, they all were extremely stubborn and resilient. Asking Ainsley to walk away would be asking Malcolm to walk away from a homicide case. It wouldn’t happen.

Gil stared at the two for a moment before nodding. “We found him about two hours north of here, in the middle of nowhere in a cabin. Watson was shot on scene after he attempted to shoot at officers. Malcolm was in the basement.”

“What was his condition?” Ainsley asked.

“He…he was barely conscious. I got to him first and he was dehydrated, starved, and badly injured. There was…a lot of blood. He was holding on for us, and when they prepared to take him to the hospital...” he trailed off.

“He what?” Dani asked. When Gil didn’t answer she raised her voice and asked again, “What happened?”

Nothing could have prepared her for when Gil said the words, “His heart stopped.”

Suddenly, Ainsley had dropped into the chair behind her. Dani was frozen, stuck standing in what felt like hell. This had to be hell because what could be worse than this? She didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt a teardrop.

“No,” she mumbled. “He didn’t die, he’s…he’s in surgery. He’s going to be fine, right? Gil, please tell me he’s going to be fine.”

“Dani, I can’t promise anything…you know that.”

“I should’ve been there!” She argued. “I should’ve been with him! Why didn’t you take me with you? Why’d you send me home tonight?”

“It was a long shot, Dani, you’re too close to this. The FBI said they didn’t want any of us there, I fought tooth and nail just to override that for myself. I did my best, but I knew it was better to not disappoint you again in case we came home empty-handed.”

“But you didn’t come home empty-handed,” her voice broke. “Gil…I can’t…” she sobbed, feeling Ainsley’s arm pulling her down into the chair next to her.

“Dani,” she started. “He’s going to be fine, he held on for us, remember that. He held out until we got him, now we have to hold on for him.”

Dani nodded, looking up when she heard footsteps entering the room. JT and his wife came in, both looking frantic and confused. Both were speaking to Gil in hushed tones, probably not to alert Jessica. Dani knew Gil would tell her in a few minutes, but wanted to spare her the pain for as long as possible. JT came to her, pulling her into his arms, and Dani let herself cry.

Malcolm was in surgery for eight hours. Gil broke the news to Jessica about Malcolm’s heart stopping, and Dani feared she’ll never forget the sound of Jessica Whitly’s heart shattering. Gil and JT did their best to comfort her, reminding her that Malcolm was still alive, just as Ainsley had to remind Dani. Regardless, his heart had stopped. They got there in time, but was it enough?

Dani paced the halls of the ER for the first few hours until Edrisa showed up around 4 am. She took one look at Dani and shuffled her and Ainsley out the door to the nearest 24 hour Starbucks down the street. Together the three of them sat and watched the sunrise, as the city woke up and began their day. Cars honking, people running in for coffee before work, even doctors from the hospital coming between their shifts.

“How can the world still be going?” Ainsley had asked at one point, her eyes not leaving her coffee cup. “How are they so oblivious to what’s happening?” Her voice was so quiet, it reminded Dani that even though she was hurting, Ainsley was hurting more. She was still Malcolm's baby sister, the one who saw his night terrors first hand and slept on the floor of his room when they were children. Dani didn’t say anything, but Edrisa reached over and took Ainsley’s hand.

They got back to the hospital around 7 am, not even realizing they had spent the past three hours in a coffee shop. Dani felt guilty but also knew the fresh air was good for her. They had brought back breakfast for everyone else, even though Ainsley had begged Jessica to go with them, knowing it was no use. The ER was different, a shift change meant new nurses and new doctors, new families waiting for their loved ones. A doctor had come out at one point, briefing Jessica and Gil about something Dani didn’t understand. Something to do with his brain activity and that was all she needed to force herself not to listen anymore.

Malcolm was out of surgery at 10 am.

By some miracle, his heart kept beating. The next 12 hours were critical for his brain, but things were looking positive. A doctor had the group moved into a private waiting area in the hospital as Malcolm was taken to be admitted to the ICU. He had a punctured lung, a few broken ribs, and had wounds on his abdomen causing him to bleed out, most likely from a knife of some sort. His lack of oxygen and his heart working to make up for the lost blood is what put him in the cardiac arrest.

Right now, Malcolm needed blood and a lot of it. The critical part was until Malcolm woke up, there was no way to tell how much damage was done to his brain during his arrest.

Dani refused to go home and change, let alone leave the waiting room. Jessica, Ainsley, and Gil went into the ICU first, not wanting to overwhelm Malcolm or the nurses. The doctors were slowly taking him off the sedation medication, but the time it would take him to fully wake up would at least be a few days. Regardless,

Dani knew she was here for the long haul, regardless of the circumstances.

Ainsley came back around thirty minutes after she had gone into the ICU. Her eyes were red and her face was stained with tears. Her normally curled blonde hair was falling out of the messy bun she had it in when she arrived, and Malcolm’s old college sweatshirt looked as though she had been chewing on the sleeves from her nerves. She sat down in the chair next to Dani, tucking her feet under her.

“How is he?” JT asked after a moment of silence. Ainsley took a deep breath, fiddling with the sleeves of Malcolm’s sweatshirt.

“He’s on a lot of morphine,” she started. “The nurse said he could potentially hear us talking to him, but he wasn’t reacting to anything Mom or Gil were saying,” she wiped tears from her eyes. “They aren’t giving him any more sedation medication, so he could start waking up in a few hours or as long as a week.”

“How are his injuries?” Edrisa asked, sipping her coffee.

“It’s hard to tell. The doctors decided he didn’t need to be on a ventilator because he never crashed during surgery and his heart rate was able to maintain normal levels once they started the blood transfusion. The nurse who changed his bandage on his stomach said it looked better already compared to when he came in, but he isn’t out of the woods yet. Not until we know his brain function.”

“Go see him, Dani,” JT said. Dani shook her head.

“Family only,” she muttered, nodding to Ainsley. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.”

“Gil pulled strings. We all can’t go in together until he’s out of ICU, but I can sneak you in Dani.” Ainsley stood up. “He’ll want to hear your voice.”

Dani had never been in an ICU. It was a small unit with nurses at every turn. Code blue machines were parked in the hall, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Dani noticed one was outside Malcolm's room as they went in. Gil and Jessica had stepped out of the room when she and Ainsley arrived.

Dani covered her mouth with her hand to hold in her cries when she saw Malcolm. He looked so vulnerable, so broken lying in that hospital bed. He was connected to too many machines to count, one for his oxygen, one for his heart, and one for monitoring his brain function. Ainsley nudged her so she’d walk into the room.

“He might hear you if you talk to him,” she muttered, before stepping out herself.

Tentatively, Dani walked towards the bed. If you took away all the machines, Malcolm just looked as though he was sleeping. He had a bandage on his forehead, one on his chin, and Dani knew the rest were under his hospital gown. The only sounds in the room were the machines, and Dani was so grateful to hear the heart machine. It meant he was here, that he was alive.

He was home.

She moved to walk around the bed, but her hand brushed his. She pulled back…he was so cold.

“Your…your hands are cold,” she said, forcing her voice not to break. She stared at him for a moment waiting for him to blink, to smile, to laugh, even though she knew he still had the sedation medication in his system. Gently, Dani put his hand in her own, careful not to pull on his IV. She tucked it under the blanket. The nurses would have to access his IV for medication, but for now, Dani wanted him to be warm. He needed to be warm.

Malcolm woke up three days later.

Even though she wanted it to, life didn’t stop. Dani was needed at the station and was grateful Gil had placed her and JT on desk duty while Malcolm was in the hospital. It wasn’t safe for them to be in the field when their minds were somewhere else.

Dani had gotten into a routine of going to the hospital after work, meaning that during the day she was going stir crazy sorting through case files that needed to be digitalized. On day three, she had enough. She told Gil she was taking a sick day, and he had smiled at her knowingly, gesturing his head in the direction of the hospital.

Dani stopped at home to grab another book and a coffee. It felt like a lifetime ago when she and Malcolm had gotten into the topic of reading and Malcolm had a list of book recommendations at the tip of his tongue. Most were about serial killers, not surprisingly, but Dani had taken note anyways. She didn’t look at the list while he was gone, but now had a small pile of books on Malcolm’s hospital nightstand that she had read. When everyone stepped out to speak with doctors, Dani even read out loud to him.

She wasn’t expecting Ainsley to run at her when she entered the ICU. Dani panicked, what happened? What went wrong?

“He’s awake!”

It took Dani a moment to process what Ainsley said. “What…what?”

“Apparently it happened last night. My mom didn’t call me because she wanted me to sleep, but I found out when I got here this morning. He’s been responding to us most of the day, but sometimes he struggles, especially because his body has been through so much. They’re going to sedate him so he can sleep without night terrors tonight because they don’t want him to hurt himself.” Ainsley let out a huge breath, having said all of that without pausing.

“But…” Dani shook her head. “His brain? It’s fine?”

“It looks like it, physically anyways,” Ainsley’s voice softened. “He isn’t talking about anything he’s been through; he just stops talking if we come close to mentioning it. Even if I tell him about things that have happened while he was…missing…he stops.” She shrugged, crossing her arms. “It’s more than I expected to be honest,” she looked back at his hospital room. “He’s been asking for you. I’m going to call my mom,” she patted Dani on the shoulder on her way out of the ICU.

It took Dani longer than she’d like to admit to getting her legs moving towards Malcolm’s room. Once she had processed everything Ainsley had said, she nearly sprinted to his room at the end of the hall.

Malcolm was watching something on the television, the curtains of his room pulled back to let the light in. He was sitting up in bed and once he heard her, his eyes turned to Dani. As soon as their eyes met, Dani knew she was going to cry again. She rushed to his bedside.

“Hey,” she smiled softly, not wanting to overwhelm him. God, she missed those blue eyes. She gently sat herself in the chair next to his bed, fully prepared for

Malcolm to ignore her when he turned back to the TV.

“You said my hands were cold,” he whispered. Dani wasn’t sure if it was the mental or physical trauma that made him speak so quietly.

She wiped her tears with her sleeve. “You heard me,” she murmured.

He nodded. “You read to me…it was nice.” She moved to cover his hand with her own. He wasn’t cold anymore.

His eyes found her own. “Thank you for finding me.” It was the first time he acknowledged the past six weeks.

“That was all Gil…I wasn’t there,” Dani felt the guilt build in her stomach. She bit her lip to stop herself from breaking down in front of him.

“You were,” he murmured, a tear falling down his face. “You were always with me.” He had visibly relaxed since she had entered the room, and his hand that was in hers held on tight, as though he was afraid she’d let go. She didn’t.

He was silent for a while and Dani assumed he had fallen asleep. She muted the TV and with one hand, awkwardly reached in her bag for the book she brought. She looked up to see that Malcolm’s eyes had met her own once more.

“Can you read it out loud?” He asked.

Dani nodded, reaching with her arm to brush the hair out of his face. “Yeah, I can.”

Malcolm smiled softly and drifted off to sleep. Thirty minutes later, that’s how Jessica and Gil found them: Malcolm with his hand in Dani’s, her head in his lap, with the book half opened, both sleeping soundly.

#my fics #lol hi i wrote a thing #prodigal son #malcolm x dani #malcolm bright #dani powell #otp: the one i like talking to #brightwell fic #prodigal son fic #one shot #malcolm bright fic #prodigal son fox

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parsnipsginger · 4 years ago

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The Insane Undead Ch 1

Summary: After an unknown event forced the sides out of the Mindscape and all over Gainesville, Florida, the sides must adapt to a number of changes. Two of the most prominent being the change into a human form and the zombie apocalypse, which was cause by the same unknown event that forced Thomas to split into all six of his sides. So, they now must figure out a way to survive on their own in a world that belongs only in stories and comic books.

TW: decapitation, fighting, violence in general, food mention (tell me if i missed anything!)

He reaches for his phone in a familiar movement as he tries, and fails to open his unwilling eyes. When he’s unable to find his phone, or the nightstand he always leaves it on, that’s when he snaps out from last night’s grogginess. He doesn’t have his phone anymore. He hasn’t had it for a couple of weeks now. Not since it lost its signal and died on him. He had to throw it away after that since there was no electricity to charge it with. He sits up, twisting his body into a sitting position in the make-shift bed he slept on the night before. Reaching for his bag, he takes out a small water bottle and takes the smallest of sips. No point in wasting the last of my water now, he thinks to himself. But, I DO know where I could get some more water. And it’s not even that far away! His thoughts immediately shut down that idea. NO! What if you get attacked on your way there? What if someone finds you and kidnaps or kills you for the few supplies you do have? What if… The “What if” thoughts kept racing through his mind. Finally accepting that there was no way his thoughts would let him go, he stood up and went to the broken window that faced the bed. He looks out, looking at the sun, wondering what the time was. Not that he cared, or he needed to know, he just...wondered. He stood there, looking out upon the decimated city he used to call home, thinking about anything and everything, for the next couple of hours. What he didn’t know was that there were others, survivors like him, out there, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Roman falls to the ground, grateful for his sword. He grabs it, stabbing the nearest two zombies in the gut. He then proceeds to decapitate the third and final one that was creeping up behind him. Yes, he had wanted some action and some danger today, but not this much all at once. He picks up his backpack, he must’ve dropped it in the struggle, and calls for his brother. His identical twin, Remus, comes bounding towards him as he signals for Remus to follow him. He obediently follows, almost resembling a little kid. At this action, Roman knows he did something, but he doesn’t know what.

So, he asks. “What did you do?” he asks, with a bit more edge in his voice than he meant there to be. Remus hears this and answers right away.

“Well….” He draws out the word, then rapidly speeds through his explanation, knowing he couldn’t get out of an explanation once his brother prompted for one. “I ate a zombie.”

Roman hears this and is barely spared a heart attack. “WHY WOULD YOU-” He’s cut off by Remus’ defense for himself.

“Don’t worry, it was already dead. And you can only get infected if you get bit. You can’t get infected if you eat ‘em. So, that’s exactly what I did. Ate what I could.” He ends his defense with the exact high-pitched cackle that he's known for. Roman just groans, knowing he’s right.

With a sigh, he replies, “Well, just don’t do anything stupid that could get you infected. I don’t need a zombie for a brother.”

After that, they continue walking, looking for a safe place to regroup and gather more supplies.

Crouching down, Logan surveys the parking lot of what used to be the Gainesville Mall. He looks out to see an entire horde of zombies walking aimlessly about the parking lot. Making an estimate, he’d say there had to be at least 50 or 60 zombies just waiting for a piece of fresh meat to wander by. Knowing he can’t take them by himself, he begins to calculate the best way in. He can see about two entrances, three if you count the roof. The front entrance he immediately rules out. Too many zombies, not enough ways to distract them. He then thinks about the second entrance, the fire exit. He could pick the lock and disable the alarm. It would take a while, but at least it would be subtle and stealthy. The third entrance, the roof, would be a lot safer than the fire exit, yes, but it would be really noticeable and dangerous. After considering all three choices, he decides to go for the fire exit. To use this path, he will need to find a way to disable the alarm first. He approaches the destroyed mall, crouch-walking to the fire exit on the left side of the building. Once he reaches the door, he straightens up, now standing at his full height of 5’ 11”. He begins to analyze the door, looking for any signs of wires or a signal that he could hack to disable to alarm. While looking, he gets the thought, What if the power to the building is off, causing the alarm to be turned off? The next thought he gets is especially action-provoking. What if the door’s not locked in the first place? At this thought, he tries the door. It opens, albeit slowly, the only noise it gives off is a small, creaking sound. Of course, it was unlocked and the alarm was off. There’s no electricity in the city. At least, not anymore. Not since the zombies had gotten to the power plant. No time to think about that now, Logan thought as he commanded his thoughts back onto the task at hand. He walks into the mall, refraining from making too much noise. He immediately goes to each of the stores and shopping outlets on the first floor, looking for anything that could be of use to him. He stays away from the food court, promising himself that he’ll gather food after he’s done scavenging for other necessities and supplies, like water, first aid supplies, weapons, etc.

After about an hour of looking on the second floor, Logan had come up with a surprisingly good list of supplies. When he did his second round of inventory so he could organize his backpack so could he fit everything in it, he realized how great of a supply run this had been. He had gotten:

-two 12-packs of water bottles

-four pocket knives

-one pair of scissors

-eight first aid kits that each contained the following: two boxes of bandaids, one ice pack, and plenty of ibuprofen.

It was now time to raid the food court. He packed up his supplies and went forward into the food court. When Logan got there, he was faced with the dilemma: Most of the food will be spoiled by now. But, Logan had the solution. He would only take non-perishable canned or packaged foods. But….with making that decision, he ruled out over 80% of the food in the food court. Oh, well. It looked like he’d have to work with what he had. So, for about the next hour and a half, Logan looked through the food court and gathered as much food as he possibly could carry. He then went to the abandoned apartment he used as a shelter for the night.

Patton, while finishing wrapping up and taking care of the injuries he’d gotten in the past week, was humming his favorite song under his breath. As he got up to go make himself something to eat, he began singing while he cooked. “...ever so slightly, daily and nightly....” He loved this song, not just because it was one of the only songs he could still remember (he had it committed to memory long before this zombie apocalypse stuff started), but also because the song always gave him a sense of hopefulness.

By the time his food was ready (a hearty meal of popcorn, fruit snacks, a peanut butter sandwich, and beef jerky) he had sung the song so many times he couldn’t even recall how many times he had sung it. He didn’t care though, because it's not like there’s anybody around to complain about the repetition or noise of his singing. There’s no one else around. Period, he thought as tears began to form on the corners of his eyes. He brushed them off immediately. No, he reprimanded himself, you can’t cry. There’s no use. It will do nothing except make you tired and give you a headache. Tears still persisted as a tiny voice in the back of his mind remarked, It’s not like there’s anybody around to hear you anyway. At that thought, the floodgates broke open and Patton found himself sobbing on his makeshift bed before he could process what was happening. He would continue until he fell asleep from, more emotional than physical for once, exhaustion.

While the others took the more direct path to their destinations, Janus always took the backstreets and alleys; it kept up his lying, secretive identity the others had known him all too well for having. And, well, if you took that thought literally, it was a really helpful habit to have when the zombie apocalypse started. It kept him safe and had saved his butt on numerous occasions.

While walking to his “home sweet home” (if you can call an underground bunker that, but it kept him safe and from ever needing to go outside so he couldn’t complain), Janus took note of how there wasn’t much change from the last time he checked up on the destroyed town. He didn’t mind; this was actually great for his situation. Now, he doesn’t need to worry about leaving the protection of his bunker any time soon.

He got to his bunker (an old 1960’s tornado shelter transformed), unlocked what seemed like a thousand locks, wrenched open the old, wooden doors, and entered. Walking past the shelves stocked with an assortment of different items needed for survival, Janus made a beeline for his makeshift bed (He was lucky to have found a mattress that wasn’t that badly stained or had any type of weird, unidentified substance on it. So, of course, he kept it). He was, for some strange reason, exhausted. He hadn’t done much that day, so he was more than a bit confused. He went to sleep anyway, brushing it off knowing that, if he refused to sleep any longer, it would only spell out trouble for the future. So, laying down on his bed, he closed his eyes and tried his best to fall asleep.

Months pass, dragging the heat of summer slowly into the chill of winter. The survivors go about their daily lives and habits without giving anything outside of their own survival a second thought until something unexpected happens.

Because of that zombie attack months back, Roman and Remus weren’t able to get as many supplies as they would’ve preferred. They still got enough to last them a couple months, but, on that particular supply run, they were planning on getting enough supplies to last them the rest of the year. Alas, that didn’t happen. Thus, the midwinter supply run they were on now.

After leaving the tent they now called home (it got pretty cold at night and there wasn’t much room to do anything, but it kept them safe, so c’est la vie) they set off to the same grouping of stores they had raided the time before. They had made sure to leave a decent amount of supplies there, so they’d at least be guaranteed a haul of supplies for their next supply run.

On their way to the store, (Oh, God, Roman noticed, it almost sounds normal when you put it that way,) the twins made sure to keep quiet the entire way there. They didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention or trouble.

When they got to the store, they immediately began to fill all four of their backpacks to their brims. (There were two backpacks per twin, so, if they got separated for any reason, they both would have enough supplies to last them for about half a month.) When they had sat down on the checkout counter after finishing, Remus remarked on something he had noticed.

“Hey Ro, did you notice the zombies today? Or, at least the lack of zombies?”

Roman concentrates and realizes that Remus is right. There was a lack of zombies on their way here. I mean, you have to go through one of the most infested places in town to get to these shops, Roman decides.

“Yea I did. I don’t know what’s up with that. But, just to be safe, we’re taking another route home. OK?” Roman said with a worried tone. Remus only nodded in agreement before he began to suggest they get going before it gets too dark to go home. They picked up their backpacks and headed home.

On their way back, they took the long way back as a safety precaution. That would mean over an hour of walking what would usually be an unnecessary mile and a half. They never take this path unless one of them feels taking their normal route would be unsafe, thus they began calling the “Alternate Path to Safety” or APTS.

While on APTS, they were walking through a small park and they saw something cross from the corner of their eyes. Roman gestures for Remus to get his weapon out (a handgun was his pick that day.) They turn to see what had caused them to feel threatened. What they saw at first didn’t surprise them in the slightest. Three or four zombies, no more than they can handle. What they noticed next was what was completely out of the ordinary. The zombies weren’t coming towards them, the zombies didn’t even notice the pair. They seemed to be focused on something - no, someone - else. The person, whoever they were, seemed to not be faring well with the zombies. So, thinking that nothing bad could come from it, decided to step in to help.

The brothers decided on a stealthy attack. They crept up on the zombies, and, almost in sync, decapitated all four zombies. After they finished up (the entire act took about a minute and a half), they approached the person they did that all for.

“Hey, sorry to barge in but it looked like you could’ve used some he-,” Roman abruptly stopped, realizing who exactly he was talking to.

“Logan?!?!”

#sry for the late post #i couldn’t figure out how to get an ao3 account #it was a bit confusing #but i figured it out nonetheless #happy reading #byyyyyeee!!!#the full story is still a wip #but i’m working on it #anyway #im gonna go now #byyyyeeee and happy reading!!!!#insane undead au

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bangchanshehe · 5 years ago

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The Boogeyman pt. 2

Summary: You were constantly having the same reoccurring dream over and over again and your friends told you that it meant nothing. But as your nights became more strange as days passed by you knew that it was more than a dream. much, much more. You tried every night to stop the bizarre dreams from occurring in the same sequence to try to find out more about who or what was controlling them. But when you came face to face with the demon in your dreams in real life, you realized that what he had been telling you all along was true. There is no escape.

??? X Reader

Word Count: 3k

The rest of your morning passed as usual. You made your coffee at 6:30 am sharp, you did your hair and makeup and got dressed and made your way to work. The only difference between your morning and other people’s mornings is that you had only slept for 6 hours. You sighed to yourself once you were parked in the work garage and checked your reflection in the rear view mirror.

Fucking eye bags. You cursed under your breath.

You could tell that physically the lack of sleep was starting to get to you. You no longer had naturally dewy, well rested skin. Your eye bags had grown exponentially, and your mood. Most of all… your mood had taken a turn for the worse.

In your precinct you were always known as the most serious investigator, but lately a few co-workers had added some extra vocabulary to your name. detective “bitch-face”, was your favorite as of yet. You gathered up your bag, threw your keys and phone inside and held onto your coffee cup with a death grip as you prepared yourself for another day of mind-numbing work.

You had barely clocked in and sat your things down at your desk when your boss called you into his office. You rolled your eyes and mentally shifted into your role as a well mannered subordinate, before you stalked off to his office. You knocked twice on his glass door before welcoming yourself in.

“you wanted to see me?” you asked him with a straight face although you knew what he was calling you into his office for

“yes, take a seat y/n” he commanded in an authoritative tone

You obliged him and tried to make yourself comfortable in the stiff chairs.

“I know that you are having some trouble in dealing with the suicide cases y/n.” he started and you let out a sigh “I think that we need to put this case to rest not only for our sake but also for the family’s sakes” he leaned forward at his desk and spoke softer to you “simply put there is nothing further to investigate, and there is no sign of foul play in either of these women’s cases.”

You knew that the correct and polite thing to do would be to agree with your boss, but you had a hunch that you couldn’t get rid of. And you knew that if it was you in those women’s shoes, that you would want for someone to try their best for you.

“all do respect sir, ill have to disagree” you started “I’ve spoken to the families and neither of them mention mental illness or indication of suicide. Their work life, social life and financial stability was solid. There was no reason for those women to have motivation to take their own life. I’ve already –“

“let me stop you right there” your boss interrupted you mid-sentence. “we don’t know for sure that these women weren’t suffering from any mental illness. We cant say that they didn’t commit suicide just because they were perfect on paper.” He shook his head in disagreement

“sir, I’ve spoken with the medical examiner and they say that there is no sign of natural death….” You gave him a stern look and he gave you one back “these women essentially just dropped dead. Nothing in their system, nothing wrong with their health. It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I want you to dismiss the case.” He said firmly

“if either of these women were your daughter or wife, would you want someone else to just dismiss the case sir?” you asked him

He paused for a long while giving you a pointed glare before finally looking down at his desk and back up at you again. “y/n, I am going to give you one more week to work on this case. Either you bring me more evidence that this was a homicide by that time, or we dismiss the case. Is that understood?” he asked you

“yes sir! I appreciate it sir!” you said with a small smile, happy that you had talked him into giving you some more time.

You walked out of his office with more motivation than ever to help these women and their families. You made your way back to your desk, unpacked your files and looked back over their cases, starting with the basics.

Looking over the autopsy results the women seemed to be perfectly healthy beings with nothing in their system other than an sleeping aid.

You didn’t find that the fact that they might need help with falling asleep strange, but if you were going to produce results by the end of the week you had to cross all of your t’s and dot all of your I’s. starting with a call to a medical examiner.

You picked up the phone and dialed the examiner less than hopeful to find anything of significance but unwilling for the case to be dropped without finding any further answers.

“hello, this is examiner song speaking. How can I help you?” a friendly and familiar voice answered

“Hi, Mr. Song this is detective Y/N speaking. I have a few questions for you in regards to the double suicide case. Are you free right now?” you asked him as friendly as possible hoping it would gain you the favor

“oh! Sure ask away!” he said as chipper as ever

“I see from the report that both of the women were both using a sleeping aid and I was wondering if the dose that they had in their system was typical and if you had any other information on this medication?”

He hummed for a moment “the amount still left in the blood stream was pretty typical for a sleep medication, particularly if they had taken it that night. There doesn’t seem to be any signs of drug abuse or abnormalities. However, I don’t know too much about the medication other than its prescription and you have to have some serious sleep insomnia to get prescribed it.” he mentioned

You quickly scribbled down the name of the drug on a piece of paper and thanked the examiner before you hung up the phone. Looking back over the files for the women you quickly look up their family physician’s number only to find that the women both go to the same doctor.

You wrote the number down underneath the name of the medication and stuck in on your computer monitor. You highly doubted that it was a strong lead to pursue since doctor song said the levels look normal and decided to save it for later.

You restlessly looked over your notes and files calling anyone who you think would have any additional information on the women, before you finally noticed that it was close to 11.

You pulled out your phone and text your best friend who was a practicing therapist in your area. You had met her because of work and ever since then you were glued to each other. You smiled to yourself remembering how comfortable it was for the two of you when you had first met. It was like you had just met your best friend who you hadn’t seen for a while and had a ton to catch up on.

The entire reason that you were there to begin with was because you were injured on the job and was told to go as a part of probation until you were “better again”, which was short for do your required 3 appointments for an hour and you’ll be cleared to be back on the force again. But the two of you were so close that you met often after your standard three meetings. Only this time you often met at a bar, after business hours for the both of you.

Hey, want to get Mexican food for lunch around 12? You sent here knowing that she was done with her standard 10-11 appointment. You had looked away for only a moment before you had heard your phone vibrate.

ABSOLUTELY! I have the craziest story to tell you when I get there! Get ready!

You laughed quietly at her text. She always had some crazy story to tell you about her clients. Was it technically legal for her to do so? No, not really. But she was at least responsible to change the names and places in her stories so that at least identities were protected. Plus, since she worked strictly with more upscale clientele, she heard a lot of stories about wild affairs, extravagant parties and occasionally a celebrity gone bad.

You locked your phone and put it down on your desk hoping that within the next 45 minutes you’ll be on a better track then you currently were.

“so you would never believe what happened today!” your friend started off excitedly from across the table, drink in hand “my typical 10 o’clock canceled on me today… whatever, no big deal. But come 9:50ish I get this message from the receptionist that a certain very attractive celebrity wanted to book a same day appointment with me if at all possible. So I’m all ‘hell yeah! Get his ass in here!’ and when he came into my room he told me this story about how he drunkenly married a woman from a foreign country, spent the next three amazing weeks with her in paradise and now she’s gone and he’s completely torn apart from it” she said like it was the wildest news she had ever heard

You stared at her from across the table wondering where she was going to go with her story. Unamused or impressed with what she was telling you

“and I mean like full blown ugly crying in my office over this girl. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture after picture of her proclaiming that she was the most attractive woman he’d ever met. And eventually at the very end he said that he had received a message from her saying that she was pregnant with another man’s child and wanted to be with him to raise the baby” she stopped to take a breath “I mean the poor guy was really losing his marbles over this chick. But as he’s walking out of the building I literally see him eye fucking some chick and then without a word she just gets into his car and they drive off together to do god knows what!” she finally finished

You raised your eyebrows at her and gave her a look of disbelief. You wouldn’t have believed your ears if it weren’t for the fact that you had some of your own run ins with celebrities or word of celebrities in her office.

“that’s so crazy!” you said confused over such behavior. “hey I have a question for you about a medication and I have no clue if you’ll actually know anything about it.” you said pulling out your sticky note with the name scribbled across the top

She leaned over to look at the name and immediately perked up. “oh yeah I prescribe that pretty often to patients who need help sleeping.” She said before looking up to you “why? Are you looking into a new sleep medication?”

You sighed and put the note away. “well I found it through a case and had never heard of it, so I figured I’d ask. Is it any good?” you asked her

She scoffed and giggled “it’s the best thing that anyone has invented since bread.” She said “fuck all of the older sleep medications. This one is the best. Plus… there’s a little more that goes into it than just getting the drug from a store. You take a questionnaire and they give you an at home test so they can create it to be designed more for what you need.”

Your eyes went wide and you sat back in your chair happy to hear about how good the medicine was. Whatever the price was you would be willing to pay for a decent night’s sleep again.

You pulled out your phone and googled the drug, and scheduling was much simpler than you thought, you made an appointment for 5:30 so you could go straight after work.

“thank you my sweet, sweet friend. I’ll see you later!” you said with a smile on your face shoving one last tortilla chip in your face before you ran to your car so you could get back to the office on time.

The rest of the shift went by terribly slow and you were actually itching to get out of your chair come five o’clock. You had done literally everything that you could have to cover your basics with the case but everything seemed to run into a dead end.

You quickly packed up your belongings and raced out the door so you wouldn’t be late for your appointment. You were as giddy as a school girl to find something that might finally help you feel like a normal human being again. and as soon as you pulled up to the offices for the drug you smiled.

Utopia Inc. you read to yourself, before getting out of the car and walking towards the doors.

Once inside you were impressed with how comfortable and yet clean the offices were. You took a seat in a chair and began reading over the paperwork and questionnaire.

Are you getting more than 5 hours of rest? No.

Do you have trouble falling asleep? No.

Do you have trouble staying asleep? Yes.

On a scale of one to ten how would you rate your average nights rest? 4

Are you currently using any other sleep-inducing medications? No.

What is the average time that you sleep in one night? 4-5 hours

You sighed as you looked over the remaining questions. You couldn’t even remember the last time that you had a decent nights sleep and you were more than anxious to have that back. But the questions were a little dull. You were hoping that the questions would be a little more in depth than the traditional sleep surveys you’ve done in the past.

As you filled out the remaining few questions your name was called by a nurse and you quickly stood and approached her.

“please come this way miss Y/l/n” She said opening a door and walking down a long hallway full of doors. She stopped in front of a office and held the door open for you “ go ahead and have a seat, and the doctor will be ready in just a moment”

You thanked her and took a seat in the stiff looking chair. You read the posters on the walls and looked around the room while you waited, bored and nervous all at once.

Knock, knock.

Your head snapped up and a friendly looking man walked into the room. He peaked his head into the room and gave you a warm smile before introducing himself.

“hi y/n! my name is Jongho and ill be taking care of your sleep test and diagnosis.” He held out his hand for you to shake and you accepted with a smile “I already looked over your questionnaire and it looks like you have some symptoms of severe sleep insomnia” he explained

“which I have some good news and some bad news with that. Unfortunately there is no cure for sleep insomnia, however after we run some sleep tests on you we can get an idea of what kind of medicine you need to regulate your sleeping patterns” he explained to you very calmly and coolly.

Knock, knock.

The two of you turned your head to see who the new intruder was in the room and you were surprised when you saw a very attractive man walk into the room with a bright smile. Jongho was surprised as well by the new guest in the room and looked back over to you with a smile only to give the man a curious glare.

“hello my name is Hongjoong!” the man said extending his hand “ill be assisting doctor choi”

“y/n” you said taking his hand

You couldn’t help but notice the strange way that the physician looked to the man before he looked back at you with an awkward smile. For some reason it made you feel unsettled

“right, so all you have to do is turn on this device and put it on your finger as you sleep for the next week and it will record all of the information that we need. From there once we look at the reports we will form a diagnosis and get you the perfect medication to help you out. Re-testing can occur at any time if you feel that the diagnosis was incorrect and you need a different medication. Any questions?” he asked you with a smile

You shook your head and jongho smiled back at you. He gave you a bag with the necessary equipment and a packet with questions and answers on insomnia. He scheduled an appointment for a week from now and you were completely ready to go home. He shook your hand one last time before you left the office and on your way out Hongjoong stopped you.

He handed you a business card and you accepted it. it was simple with his name, email and phone number on the card. “please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or difficulty during the tests”

You looked him over once more noticing how differently he was dressed compared to doctor Choi who was in a white medical gown and business casual clothes. He was wearing a suit that looked like it cost a fortune and he had the air around him like he was a man who didn’t work with people all day long. he seemed impatient, guarded and utterly too perfect.

you smiled at him once before leaving the long hallway and entering the reception area once more. happy like a child on Christmas you carried the box to your car and set it down carefully in the passenger seat as if it were a precious treasure. You looked back up at the building one last time before you pulled away and smiled. Hopefully this would be the answers to your prayers and help you start a happier and healthier chapter in your life.

#kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop seires #kpop smut #kpop fanfic #kpop boogeyman #boogeyman series #boogeyman au #kpop idol #kpop au

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patriciahaefeli · 5 years ago

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A Cautionary Tale? A Love Story? You Decide

It's been one of those rollercoaster weeks, one that began with a great deal of pain, which I tried to ignore at first, so as not to ruin my 17- year old’s already Corona-compromised birthday party. At some point during our 5 p.m. family Zoom celebration, I quietly left the room and went upstairs to lie down, writhe in pain, get back up, bend over, moan, repeat. This continued through the night Monday – and at one point, I remember thinking that labor wasn’t this bad and that I should probably go to the emergency room. In this new world we’re in, that thought was quickly dismissed by one word: COVID. I paced the floor at 3 a.m., alternately moaning and then bopping my head and sort of softly singing what kept running through my head, which was the chorus of The Knack’s 1979 hit song, “My Sharona.” Only my version went “My Corona.” Yes, even while suffering, I’m clever that way.

By Tuesday morning the pain had subsided. I was exhausted however, and slept throughout the day. “Tricia! Drink this! Jesus, she’s burning up.” It was the alarm in my husband’s voice that I responded to more than the command. I sat up, drank the water he was holding out to me, and when I caught my reflection in the mirror over the dresser I had the brief, feverously detached impression of someone who’d sat under a sun lamp for too long. Sun lamp, the words made me almost giggle out loud. Sun-lamp, sun-lamp, sun-lamp…Does anyone even know what that is anymore? A few hours later I had a virtual appointment with my regular GP, during which the decision was made for me to go to the office first thing Wednesday for a full exam. My instructions (my fever-addled brain again added the words “should I choose to accept them” - hehehe), for entering the building would come in the form a text.

My office exam was efficient and thorough. Upon arrival, I called the office and someone met me at a side door. As we were both masked and gloved, we nodded and murmured muffled greetings. Two PAs and an MD palpated my tender abdomen while I stifled screams. They decided that I should have a C-T scan that day, with the expectation that the offending culprit was a kidney stone. As many radiology facilities are currently closed, it took a few hours for them to locate one that would take me. My scan took place at 4:30. I was the last patient of their day.

Fast forward to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. I picked up the call, which was remarkable in itself because anyone who knows me knows how irritating it is that, a) my phone is always on silent mode, and, b) I rarely answer numbers I don’t recognize. It was another doctor from Vanguard, calling to let me know that my C-T scan showed no evidence of kidney stones – “Yay!” BUT, he cut in, it did show acute appendicitis. What I needed to do, he said, was to go directly to the nearest ER.

So here’s where this story really begins, because I was about to get a reality check regarding the difference between the inconveniences of “social distancing” and quite literally, matters of life and death. For those of us who are shuffling around at home in our sweatpants, eating too much, complaining about the buffoonery of our President, laughing at all the funny memes, and who are, to one degree or another, COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to the fact that health care workers do not have the luxury of ANY of that, here’s the newsflash: The Corona virus has virtually SHUT down normal operations for hospitals and surgical facilities, so if you’re also laughing in the face of social-distancing guidelines, and just can’t wrap your head around the possibility of contracting this deadly disease, know this too: If you break your arm, or your spouse has a heart attack, or your child’s strange rash won’t go away and you’re just really concerned, good luck. We are NOT in Kansas anymore, peeps.

I considered doing a bit of a negative a rant on the first hospital that I went to here, but perhaps that wouldn’t be fair. “The nearest ER” for me would have been another hospital, but due to their somewhat dubious reputation, we opted to go just a bit farther away. The best thing I can say about that experience was that the safety protocols to enter the ER were impressive. Picture the scene in E.T. where the Hazmat-suited guys from the space program find out about him and “invade” the house in a tunnel of white - then picture the people standing six feet apart outside of say, ShopRite, only these people don’t look so great. They’re kind of bent over, or swaying, or leaning on someone else. Then count your blessings that your gut hurts and you’re not bleeding out…or struggling to breathe.

Three hours later, after they’d reviewed my scans and completed all of the necessary pre-op tests (blood work, EKG, urine analysis), I got the word that most of the ORs were being used as ICUs for COVID patients, and they were only doing “emergent” surgeries. They sent me home with massive doses of antibiotics, and a referral to see their staff general surgeon - outpatient.

I figured they were right, too. Must not be very serious. I was doing well with that notion until the following morning, when I heard the barely concealed shock in the voice of my regular MD.

“Did they see your scans?” his tone serving only to increase my anxiety.

“Yeah. But my appendix hasn’t exploded yet.” I said.

“Ah,” he sighed, “I know things are being handled differently in the ‘current environment,’ but last time I checked, acute appendicitis was emergent.”

Okay, pay attention now, because here’s where it gets really interesting: See if you can answer his parting questions:

“Do you have a general surgeon? Preferably one with their own facility?”

So, do you? And if you do, are you sure they’re even open right now? I sure as hell didn’t (and the name they gave me at the hospital turned out to be for a doctor whose answering machine told me he was not seeing new patients). And the idea that it was now pretty much my problem to solve was a little intimidating – especially for someone who generally needs to be told that they’re sick (enough) or in (enough) pain to seek help—but that’s another story. Now that doctor, who I respect and like a lot, said he’d be trying to find me one, but that I should do my research as well.

My husband and I made a fairly long list of people/places to call, and split it. Those we were able to reach at all offered possible solutions to my dilemma, but each dead-ended pretty quickly. I focused on the task now, trying to ignore what it might mean that the ache in my belly seemed to be spreading down my right leg.

As of this writing, I have yet to hear back from my regular GP and yet, here I sit, post-op, able to get this down mostly because of a Facebook message I sent to one of the nurses in the Belleville Public School district. The only real help I got came from her, a nurse, who responded immediately to an “in-boxed” message, and kept responding for the next hour, sending me the names and phone numbers of doctors (sometimes with their credentials!), links to possible facilities, and words of encouragement. She gave me her personal cell phone number and encouraged me to call it if I had questions and/or to let her know how it was going. I felt like she meant it, too. I also think she was responsible for the first in a series of serendipitous events that just may have saved my life. One of the names she gave me turned out to be the dad of one of my kid’s friends.

At that point, things happened pretty quickly. I called him (at home) and told him my situation. In a matter of 20 minutes, he had my scans and had booked a time slot for me for same-day surgery at Clara Maass. He’s a high-energy, outgoing kind of guy, and although I’d stood on sidelines with him and his lovely wife at many a sports event, I don’t know him well enough, nor did I think it was appropriate to laugh out loud when he laid out the plan: “With everything going on, I just really want to do you – and get you the hell out of there!”

So here I am, more grateful to him than I can possibly express and having some time to consider just how random and crazy and dangerous that whole situation was (turns out, my appendix had begun to perforate after all, and the real fun was just beginning) and how fortunate I am.

But the real heroes here - Oh, and God, aren’t we all a little sick of the “hero” thing? – well get over it, and listen up! From the minute I walked through the door of Clara Maass yesterday, my experience was the best it could possibly have been. The nurses! OMG the nurses - I was in pre-op for hours. Lucky as I was to have been squeezed in to an already crowded surgical schedule, the truth of the matter was that my presence had required a quick shifting of resources—stretchers and space and - nurses. My sudden appearance in the queue was inconvenient, possibly even annoying. And yet all of them, including the nurse who ran the OR, came by to check on me, to give me extra blankets, to chat with me, and laugh with me. A friend’s daughter-in-law, who is a nurse there, got a text from him and even she came from three floors below just to say hello and charm me with her Australian accent and tired-but-twinkling blue eyes. I swear, for me? The whole experience was a cross between a weirdly sterile spa stay, and – as mine all happened to be women - a girls’ sleepover with your best girlfriends—only these were women I'd just met (but they’d also pretty much seen me naked, so, there’s that…).

Most of them were nearing the end of a 12-hour shift. As I lay there, relaxed and warm, reading and texting, they race-walked back and forth among those of us who waited, or were recovering. I lost count of how many times one of them asked me if I was okay, or if I needed something. They ate their dinners on the move, taking bites and then sprinting off, tearing off one set of gloves, putting on another. These people Do. Not. Sit. The sink was right near my bed, so I saw a lot of hand-washing traffic too, and a lot of red, chapped, over-sanitized hands. They spoke in soothing voices to those who were waiting, and possibly scared, and loud-enough voices for those emerging from the cloud of anesthesia to understand. Sometimes they shouted good-natured complaints to one another, or teased one another – and me, as when one started repacking those bags they give you for your clothes, amusement in her voice as she yelled, “What the hell did you do here, shove it all in like a little kid? Your purse is open – Maria, come over here and see this – she’s a mess!” Hahahaha! One came by and pointed to the cover of the book I was reading entitled “The Silent Patient”, and joked “That’s the kind we like!”

I even began to wonder if what I was getting was “special treatment” reserved for those whose surgeries were personally called-in by the surgeon. Once he arrived, however, it was clear that not only did they not know he was the one who got me in, but they chided him in the same affectionate way. At a point, I said to one of them, “Doctors think they’re all that, but nurses really run the show don’t they?” She winked at me and elbowed me a little, “Like husbands, honey – they just think they’re in charge!”

I lounged, for over four hours while they stood on what had to be tired feet, hands on hips as they talked to me, telling me which part of the hospital they’d spent the morning in, or where they were headed next in this crazy, all-hands-on-deck environment. We chatted about jobs and kids, and only when the topic of this deadly disease came up did the lack of words become conspicuous. Then it was all a mime of sad shakes of the head and downward glances.

It occurs to me today that after all of this, I'm not sure I would recognize any of them tomorrow if I saw them on street – nor they me. Of course, we were all masked. But maybe I would – if I could see their eyes again. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that most of all, those eyes conveyed a profound kindness. And laughter, and concern, and compassion, and dedication—and a toughness that allows them to do it all.

I'll tell you a secret: I am a person who often has a weird response to unexpected kindness - it makes me cry. I welled up more than once yesterday afternoon. I may have been just one of many for them – this is just what they do - but for me, a bond was made. I will always remember them.

Make no mistake: it’s no hardship to be home in your sweatpants with your gel manicure looking a little ratchet, and your spouse and kids seeming more like houseguests who have overstayed their welcome. Today, I want you to feel really, really blessed and grateful, and if you’re like me, a generally healthy person who never really gave too much thought to the job that these people do, I hope I was able to convey just a little of it.

That school nurse who rescued me put it this way: “I took an oath when I graduated just as physicians do. I have followed it for 28 years and it has never let me or my patients down.” That whole oath thing is good and important and all, but the heart behind it gives it grace.

So, if you get an invitation to do one of those car processions where you beep your horn and cheer for the local health care workers as they go in to, or leave, work– get in your car and go. Or, just mail them each a check for a million dollars. Either way.

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queerhargreeves · 6 years ago

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De-aged Luther whump fic pls !! Where the family finds out that Reginald treated him much, much worse than they think (ex. Gaslighting, sexual abuse, pain, water and food endurance training), but Luther still thinks it's love?

wowie this is the second longest fic ive ever written?? i hope you enjoy anon and thank you for your kindness and patience!

TW: child sexual abuse and child abuse discussed

(gif by tuagifs)

The Hargreeves have had to put up with a lot of things that would drive most people to absolute madness throughout their lives. From the second each of them were born, their definition of what “normal” is would rival that of pretty much anyone. The seven of them were trained to be obedient soldiers in a goddamn science experiment by a man with too much power. This man wasn’t capable of love or compassion, no. Quite the opposite.

He treated them like they were shiny toys. Sir Reginald Hargreeves wanted them to reach impossibly high standards and would stop at absolutely nothing to make sure they got there.

They only had 30 minutes of designated “free time” a week growing up. The only time they could do as they please, within “reason”. Granted that didn’t stop them from sneaking out to get donuts after hours, Pogo keeping their secret safe.

“You all deserve to be children, Master Luther. All I ask of you is to not be too careless. We can’t have your father finding out, now can we?”

Daily rigorous training ranged anywhere from running five miles before breakfast to memorizing every pressure point in the human body and how they worked/functioned. Individual training, specialized by Sir Hargreeves himself, was another story in of itself. Water tanks, mausoleums, broken and straining limbs, tearing animals apart, throats so coarse and raw you couldn’t speak for a week, spatial jumps for four consistent hours, constant exclusion from activities …it was all the norm for these kids. Nothing out of the ordinary.

They have all gone through experiences that any average bystander wouldn’t even be able to begin to wrap their heads around. The Hargreeves have powers, yes. Their time traveling brother who left them 17 years ago came back, is nearly 60 years old, and was reverted back to the 13 year old body he disappeared in, yes. Their dysfunctional family may have caused the end of the world, yes. They avoided the end of the world, yes.

But this? Their big brother, their gallant leader, an actual child again? Now that is a lot to process, yes. Even for the ex-superheros.

It happened a few months after the family successfully didn’t cause life itself to end. They all had been making an attempt to start over with one another. The way they treated each other is what almost caused the end of the world after all.

It wasn’t easy, of course. Undoing a lifetime of trauma and repressed emotions wasn’t a simple equation or an overnight fix. It’s something that takes uncomfortable, late night hash sessions where every party involved opens up about things they don’t want to. It takes withdrawal symptoms and panic attacks. It takes realizing and acknowledging trauma and addressing it head on.

It wasn’t all tears and tension though. There were plenty of family outings, movie nights and, 2 AM impromptu baking sessions filled with nothing but laughter and comfort. They were getting better communicating with one another - they were getting better at simply existing together as an actual family instead of constantly working against their own.

The seven were out at dinner one night, Korean food per Allison’s request. The dinner went on without a hitch as they usually did nowadays, the siblings just enjoying one another’s company. However, it was after dinner when it happened.

Five noticed a man following them a bit too close for comfort as they were making their way back to the 10 seater van. It happened within seconds: an instant flash that rivals Five’s very own. One second Luther was trailing at the end of the group, listening to Ben tell a Klaus story. The next second there was a man sticking a syringe into his neck. And the next second he was on the ground, unconscious. Klaus, Ben, and Vanya rushed to his side, carrying him the rest of the way to the van. Allison, Five, and Diego stayed behind, going after the man who they didn’t even get a proper look at.

They all eventually regrouped at the house after having little luck finding the said culprit.

They were all clearly shaken after the attack. Five was, to put it quite simply, absolutely livid. He was infuriated at not only the situation itself but at himself for dismissing his instincts. Diego was also feeling quite a bit of guilt himself, but he’s been working on channeling those emotions in healthier ways. AKA no longer lashing out and hurting himself/others. Instead, he sulked silently. He played through the events that happened over and over again.

Allison was probably the most visibly distraught about the whole thing. Klaus and Ben had to quite literally drag her out of the infirmary after she refused to leave his side. She slept with her two brothers that night, wedged in between them. She couldn’t be alone. They all needed sleep and they knew Luther was in good hands.

Grace had assured them all that Luther would be fine, insisting that she would run tests on him as he got some rest. They were comforted knowing that their brother was out of the woods in terms of immediate danger of whatever substance was forcefully injected into his body. Luther would never leave Grace or Pogo’s sight for the night, the two of them adamant on making sure the six of them got some sleep that night.

None of them were prepared for what they found the next morning, however.

The six of them were all piled in the infirmary and there lied a Luther Hargreeves. A 12 year old Luther Hargreeves.

He looked so small in the bed; he was hooked up to monitors and his oversized sleeping clothes didn’t help either. His breathing was even. His chest was rising and falling in a slow, calm rhythm. His lips were slightly pursed open and he was snoring lightly.

“Holy shit.” Klaus was the first to speak up, staring in a mixture of awe and bewilderment at the small boy in the bed. “You’re no longer the babiest bro, Five.”

The statement hung in the air, thick and heavy. No one knew what to say or where to even start. Is his body just young? Or his brain too? Is it permanent? What does he remember?

“Oh, good morning children! I wasn’t expecting you all to be awake so early!” Six heads whipped towards the sound of their Mother’s heels against the hardwood floor as she walked into the infirmary.

“M-mom,” Diego’s voice shook, his eyes still glued at the young sleeping boy, “wh-what happened? Is Luther o…okay?”

“Yes dear, Luther is alright.” She said softly, resting her hand on Diego’s shoulder as she walked past him. She walked to the bed getting closer to the bed and removed one of the monitors from his chest.

“Your brother is going to be okay. It seems that he was injected with an age regression agent last night. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I’m hoping the bloodwork will give us some answers. What I can definitely say is that it will stop at this age. Luther is around 12 years old.” She explained, running a gentle hand through Luther’s hair.

“It isn’t causing him any physical harm. He was regressing quite quickly throughout the night but it stopped at 5:37 AM.”

Allison silently walked to the other side of the bed. She ran the back of her hand down Luther’s cheek, her expression soft. He looked so peaceful like this. The most peaceful she’s seen in ages.

“We…we have to be there for him when he wakes up. Luther, he was there for me after…” She paused, meeting Vanya’s eyes with a sad smile. She gave her a small nod to which Vanya reciprocated, signing “it’s okay” to her sister. They were both on good terms with what happened now. They talked it out, thousands of apologies and tears falling from both of the sister’s lips.

Allison’s voice was getting stronger every day but it was still important for everyone to be silent when she spoke so she didn’t have to strain more than necessary.

“He said he knew the comfortable dark place I was in. He didn’t want me to wake up to someone who wasn’t me anymore alone. We can’t let him go through this alone, we just can’t.” She took his hand and gave it a light squeeze, turning her gaze back to her siblings.

“Of course we’ll be there for him, Al.” Ben agreed.

And so they waited. They decided to take turns watching over him throughout the day. Diego and Five helped change Luther into the old academy pajamas before Allison and Vanya took on the first shift. Klaus and Ben went to the kitchen to make Alfredo pasta with extra chicken, Luther’s favorite dish. They remembered how insistent he was on the extra chicken when they were young.

“I need all the protein I can get! You all do too. But Five, you especially. You use up too much energy during training. This is far more nutritious and better for you than your peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. We don’t need anymore nose bleeds. Go ahead and grab an extra chicken breast, yeah?”

Luther was always good at watching over his siblings, whether they liked it or not. Half the time it annoyed them all to no end - especially Diego. But Luther took his role as not just their leader, but as their big brother, very seriously. It was a responsibility he did not take lightly.

The pasta didn’t turn out as picture perfect as it could have if the two let Grace do all the work, but with her guidance they were able to scrap up a delicious dish between the three of them.

“Damn Ben, Olive Garden better watch out! We’re gonna steal their jobs!” Allison and Vanya could hear Klaus exclaim all the way from the kitchen, a small smile appearing on both of their faces.

“If nothing else, it’s comforting that Klaus will always be just…”

“Klaus?” Allison finishes.

“Klaus.” Vanya agrees, her gaze falling back to the boy in the bed. He was still sleeping soundly, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

She doesn’t remember him being a deep sleeper - in fact, he was the lightest one of the seven. If Diego did so much as drop a book in his room or Klaus tumbled over his own feet, Luther would be in their room within a few moments to make sure they weren’t in danger. He lost a lot of sleep that way, but it never occurred to her until just now the extent of how much Luther did for them as children. Seeing him so young, so vulnerable looking was overwhelming. It was as if they were slapped in the face by past memories, repressed or otherwise.

“Mmmm…” Both women stood up at the mumbling, hovering over Luther as he started to stir in the bed. His eyes slowly started to flutter open after a few moments. You could see the realization of where he was wash over his face as he took in his surroundings. It was almost as if he was seeing right past his sisters.

“Luther?” Allison asked in a small, gentle voice. His eyes finally met hers and she placed her hand on top of his.

“M’am?” He looked down at their hands and back at her, then back down and back again. He blinked furiously, opening his mouth and closing it once more. He then whipped his head to Vanya as she tried her best to put on a gentle smile.

“Hey Lu.” She said softly.

“Vanya? Allison?” His voice went up an octave as he looked between both of his sisters. “What’s going on? Did I fail the last mission? Are you two hurt? I-I need to go back to the training room, find dad and explain! Maybe then I can -”

Allison and Vanya locked eyes as this answered a few questions. Luther definitely was mentally and 13 again, not just physically like Five. Allison’s mind reeled as she processed this, trying to think of how to even begin explaining what’s happening. Explain what has happened. Not only to Luther, but to them all.

Luther started to sit up, rambling on as he attempted to swing his legs over the bed before Allison and Vanya stopped him. Allison placed herself in front of Luther, legs shoulder width apart and hands braced on both of his shoulders. Vanya stayed at his side as she placed a firm hand on his upper arm.

“Woah, woah, woah not so fast there, Luther!” Allison knew his strength, even at this age, rivaled hers tenfold. He would only have to raise his pinky to push them both off him, but he didn’t. He let his sisters push him back in bed, but he stayed upright.

“Lu,” Vanya started, her hand still on his arm. “I can’t even imagine how overwhelming this all must be. Before I get the others I just need you to know that-”

“You’re all old.” Luther said simply.

Allison let out a small chuckle at the transparent comment and threw her head back ever so slightly. Luther had always been Mr. Obvious.

“You could say that, yeah.” Vanya scoffed, “I’ll go get the others if you’re ready?”

Luther drew his lips in a thin line, “What about Dad?” He asked cautiously, sounding all too much like the 12 year old he was.

“Dad…” Vanya looked up at Allison, wordlessly asking for help here.

“We’ll talk about it when Van and the other boys are here, yeah?” Allison reassured, trying to keep her best ‘mom’ voice on in an attempt to ease some of her brother’s evident nerves.

Luther just nodded at that answer as it was found satisfactory enough for him. Vanya gave his arm one last squeeze before disappearing down the hall. Within 30 seconds the rest of the Hargreeves came in the room, single file line. Luther watched every single one of them as they walked inside, his eyes wide and mouth pursed open.

Diego was always rough around the edges, but seeing him in all black, bearded, and scarred was certainly a bit unnerving. Klaus made him smile ever so slightly. It made Luther happy that Klaus was still oh so very much Klaus, even with a plate of pasta in his lanky arms. Eyeliner, skirt, and messy curls. Ben was a bit odd to see - blue around the edges and younger than the other two brothers before him. But Five. God that certainly put his head through a loop as if he hadn’t had enough of that already. He looked…just like he remembered. Small frame with a sharp jaw and the most intense blue eyes.

“Guten morgen, dear Luther.” Klaus said singsongly, placing the plate of pasta on the wheeled tray and wheeling it next to the bed.

“Vanya told us you woke up! Welcome back.” He sat down in one of the chairs in the room, the rest of the siblings also taking a seat.

“Thanks…” Luther drew the word out, “The pasta smells good. Thank you for that too.”

“Nonsense.” Klaus waved his hand in the air, “I’m just glad to see you’re okay.” He said honestly, crossing his legs and leaning down to rest his elbows on his knees.

“I-” Luther stopped for a moment, “I think I understand what’s happening. You’re all..older. But,” He turned to where Five was seated next to Ben. “Five?”

“It’s a bit of a long story, as this whole situation is. But I time traveled, managed to get stuck for quite a while, then came back in this body. I’m actually older than all of you, but that’s besides the point.” Five explained flippantly, “How are you doing, Luther?”

Luther gave a shaky nod as Five explained, “I’m um.” He gulped and looked back up at Allison who still stood over the bed. “When can I see Dad?”

All of the siblings tensed at the question, sharing looks with one another. Surprising to everyone it was Diego who spoke up first.

“Lu, Dad isn’t here.” He explained. “You don’t have to w-wor-worry about him anymore. It’s okay.”

Luther shook his head and a few dry chuckles fell from his lips. “Yeah, uh huh. And two times two equals three.” He spat.

“Luther…” Allison said calmly, “Diego is telling the truth. Dad is dead.” She watched as his blue eyes start to brim with tears. But Luther immediately threw his hand up to wipe them away. He shook his head again, this time more violently.

“No, no he can’t be… I-I didn’t report the last mission! I need to, I-” He started to try to get up once more, this time Diego and Ben rushing to the bed to attempt to keep him from getting up any further.

“Luther, it’s okay, please! Calm down.” Vanya said, voice shaking as Luther struggled against his brothers.

“No! No I need to get back to training! I need to go to the weight room! I-I can lift 2,000 pounds now! I need to show Dad! He’ll take me to the tree again if I don’t show him! Just LET ME GO!” Luther shouted, furiously pounding his fists against Diego’s chest. Diego and Ben held him in place best they could, letting their brother dispel the pent up frustration into their bodies. They could take it, for now. And it was evident he was running out of steam.

Vanya wordlessly sat down on the bed and wrapped her arms around his waist. He stiffened at the touch, his incessant pounding coming to an abrupt stop.

“Luther, it’s alright. You don’t have to train.” She gently pulled Luther into her lap. It wasn’t too uncomfortable as he was about an inch taller than her at this point. It seemed to do the trick. Luther let himself be held from behind, something she knew never happened to them as kids. They were all so touch deprived and it pains her remembering how much Luther would avoid any touch at all a few months back.

Vanya rested her head on his shoulder and he found himself leaning into the touch, finding comfort in her firm embrace. He can’t remember the last time he was held like this.

“Your body has been through a lot, Lu. You can’t go up and lash out like that, okay? At least not right now, not until we get more answers.” Allison sad next to the pair on the bed, running a hand through Luther’s soft, golden hair. He nodded, feeling his eyes begin to sting yet again with tears. He closed them shut as the tears silently fell down his face.

“This is a lot to process, Luther. You’re doing a really good job so far. We just want to protect you. You know that, right?” Five spoke up softly. It hurt him seeing his brother so panicked, so afraid. Five remembers Diego and Luther saying something similar to him when he was in need.

“I’m sorry,” Luther choked out. “I-I didn’t mean to.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Diego and Ben. Ben looked fairly untouched. His hair was a bit disheveled at worst. Diego, however, was another story. He had a split lip and red marks along his neck and whatever skin was visible. He didn’t look angry or upset though. His brows were furrowed in concern.

The brown eyed man shook his head, “I know that, Lu. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I’m okay, bro.” He knew Luther must be thinking there is going to be some sort of punishment. There always was when Luther and Diego would brawl as kids. Well, when they weren’t asked to brawl anyway. But that wasn’t the case anymore.

“Luther,” Klaus finally spoke up after a few moments of silence, “What did you mean by the tree?” He remembers Luther mentioning Reginald’s ‘favorite place’ at his funeral, but he never thought to ask him anything more about it.

Luther tensed, his gaze falling to his lap. He clenched his hands tightly, adamant on not crying anymore. Crying was weakness and Luther absolutely had no room for weakness. He had hit that quota enough today for a lifetime. And he can’t talk about the tree. Dad said so.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Luther mumbled.

Vanya’s stomach dropped. Whatever this is, whatever Luther isn’t saying, is something they don’t know about and there’s a reason for that. They all had experiences with their father they didn’t want to share. But eventually they all did. Or so she thought.

“Dad isn’t…he can’t hurt you anymore. I promise.” Vanya reassured from behind.

Luther’s grip tightened and he felt the moon shape imprints go deeper into his palms, finding the pain grounding. He deserved pain when he acted out of line.

Allison swiftly uncurled one of his fists and wrapped her hand in his. She knew that old habit of his from when they were children. She’s watched Luther dig at his palms until they were bleeding during post mission briefing sessions on more than one occasion. And she isn’t about to let her brother do that to himself again.

“This is a safe space, bro.” Klaus pressed gently, giving him an encouraging nod.

Luther sighed, glancing up and at the faces around the room. They were all watching him with a look concern. But there was more to it. He saw it in the way Klaus’ lips curled up ever so slightly, he saw it in Five’s dimple and Diego’s eyes. They weren’t going to judge him or punish him.

“Whenever I did something wrong, Dad would, he just liked that tree. And when I-I messed up he would take me there.” Luther focused on the arms around his waist and the hand in his, “At first it was a time out thing. He would exclude me from activities, which he knows I don’t like. I wanna be involved.”

“That wasn’t enough anymore I guess. I kept messing up. So he would make me fast for days on end after missions. Or Dad wanted me to throw things until my shoulders dislocated. But that wasn’t enough anymore either,” He continued, “I deserved more than that. He started to make me…help him. A-and if I did it well enough, he insisted on ‘helping me too’.” Luther’s voice was barely above a whisper once he finished. The rest of the room was silent, Luther’s IV drip being the only thing audible in the room. No one, absolutely no one, was expecting that.

Reginald was an asshole, yes. They all knew that. It was common knowledge just like how water is wet. But Reginald being a pedophile? Not only was he emotionally manipulative, but also sexually? To his own goddamn child? That was a whole other level that they were not prepared to hear. There was no way to be prepared to hear something like that.

“Luther, you did not deserve a single second of that, do you understand me?” Diego demanded, tone soft but assertive. He had to learn about sex trafficking and sexual abuse victims during the Police Academy. And he remembers how that was the most heartbreaking lesson of them all.

He learned how, especially young boys, will dismiss and refuse to acknowledge their abuse. Even more so if it was from their guardian. “You are not a bad child. You do not deserve to be treated like that. We love you, okay? Did…did Dad make you keep it a secret?”

Luther gave a short, “He said if I told anyone h-he’d kill one of you and say I did it. He said I’d go to jail for murder. But I always did it! I couldn’t let you guys get hurt…Dad loves me. He punishes me because he wants me to learn.” He said as if it didn’t need explaining, looking around the room at his siblings. He wasn’t expecting to find every single one of their eyes to be filled with tears themselves.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I-I’m sorry if I did something to-”

“Goddammit Luther, you didn’t do anything wrong! You didn’t. You’re a good boy, okay? Such a good boy, fuck.” Vanya squeezed her brother tighter, dropping her head in the crook of his neck.

Luther froze for a moment at the outburst before feeling something within him burst open. He was…allowed to be upset. He was allowed to be angry, to be sad, to be ‘weak’. A watery sob escaped his lips and within a second he turned around to wrap his arms around Vanya. They were properly holding one another now and Vanya let her brother grab her sweater in tight fists and cry. And he did so; ugly, heart wrenching sobs came from the small boy as he was being cradled in the small woman’s arms. His shoulders shook violently with each one. The rest of the siblings watched as this intimate moment unfolded before them. They all felt their souls leave their body, their hearts crushed.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Luther was no longer shaking and his eyes were dry. No one said a word. Were there words to even say? Allison wrapped her arms around her two siblings and Klaus got up to do the same. Then Diego, Ben, and Five. All six siblings wrapped their arms around Luther. Diego kissed the top of his head and Luther simply let himself be held for a few moments before breaking up.

Luther isn’t sure what happened in the 15 years or so he’s missed nor is he even completely aware of the situation he’s in. But one thing he can say for certain is he’s grateful for his siblings. Whatever they all went through in those years he wasn’t there for, it must have been painful. It must’ve fucking hurt. Because the love he’s feeling? The pure, genuine warmth and care? He couldn’t even begin to fathom anything like it - not in his timeline anyway. And he’s so glad he’s been given the opportunity to feel even a fraction of it.

#child abuse cw #luther hargreeves #luther defense squad #luther positivity #the umbrella academy #tua #tua fanfic #the umbrella academy fic #diego hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves

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