#it's just 4 am now and everyone else is asleep. i need to rant SOMEWHERE ok??????

[thedrawnherbarium]

forgot to post this

[qslovebot]

Midnight Escapade: Spencer Reid

Summary: Spencer Reid and the reader have been crushing on each other since they met, but neither of them cared to admit it. When doubled up in a hotel room for the night, reader tries to convince Spencer to go with her at 12:30am to get frozen yogurt to cheer him up and it turns into much more than a snack run.

Pairing: Spencer x Fem!Reader

Warnings/Includes: Swearing, mutual pining (a long time of pining leads up to this fic), food, mention of Sept 11, 2001, self-doubt, fluff, kissing

Word Count: 4533

The case was solved, closed, and finally, your eyes could rest. The case you had just finished was particularly stressful to not only you, but your fellow BAU members as well. You all hadn't slept for nearly twenty-nine hours and Hotch decided it was best you all got the rest you deserved at a nearby hotel.

The ride there, you struggled to keep your eyes open, but Spencer Reid was on another greatly interesting rant about a show he liked, so you figured you would try to stay awake to hear it. You always listened to him because a lot of the time, the rest of the team dismissed him and his oddly accurate monologues. They grew tired of Spencer talking so much about things they didn't understand but you were rather the opposite- and that's probably because you liked Spencer so much.

The two of you met when he was introduced to the BAU. Praised for his mind, he introduced himself to you with a shaky voice and a meek handshake. You instantly admired him from his geeky personality outwards to his tall, thin self with a face sculpted by artists. Little did you know he did the same, but immediately thought of you as out of his league, so he stayed quiet.

You had been friends since then, pairing up on cases as your minds seemed to work like a perfectly oiled machine when together. Like Penelope and Derek, you two were known for the science jokes no one understood and shared looks of adoration that the both of you somehow didn't recognize as romantic. But everyone else saw it.

Derek Morgan teased a lot. He talked to Reid about working with the 'pretty girl' every day, poking him in the side and messing with his hair. The geek and the girl who was smart as hell, but didn't make it her dominant trait.

A doctor and the outgoing agent who matched the loudness of Penelope Garcia at times at karaoke night. You brought more liveliness to the BAU- more music, more spinning, more levity in dark cases. Spencer was always trying to hide a smile when you walked in, trying to pretend he hadn't been waiting for you to bring him coffee each morning. You didn't need an eidetic memory to remember his order and that, for some reason, always sent him over the moon.

But you were here now, listening to him wrap up his story as you fought the sleep that was looming over you as the car came to a stop outside the hotel.

"-And that was the end of it all. I think it's so fascinating how they wrapped everything up into this intricate timeline of interactions and moments and backtracks. We should, uh, watch it sometime." He said as he hopped out of the back, holding his small bag and yours.

You sleepily hopped out after him, hoping you didn't look like you felt, because you truly felt like hell. "Yeah, I'd like that," was all you could really mumble out. He passed you your bag and you smiled your thank you.

Emily held you up by the shoulders as Hotch sent through the check-in information. "Some case, huh?" She laughed as you rubbed your left eye. "I suppose we can't make this a girl's night of post-case celebration if you're dead asleep."

You groaned, "You wanted to do that? Damn it, Em, I'm sorry-"

"You need beauty sleep, (Y/N). I'm not mad or anything, I'll just take a bath and pull out an adult romance novel." A smirk played on her lips as she raised her eyebrows. You chuckled tiredly. "Seriously, no worries."

"Did I hear talk of a romance novel?" Derek shuffled over. "Which one are we reading? 50 Shades of Grey?"

Spencer stepped in, "Did you know that 50 Shades of Grey is actually fanfiction written about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga? If you go further back, Stephanie started Twilight as written alternate universe fanfiction where the emo-slash-hardcore band My Chemical Romance were all vampires. But My Chemical Romance was started by musician and comic book creator- who published a series of comics called The Umbrella Academy in 2008, unrelated, his name was - Gerard Way, who created the band to make music that expressed the trauma he was given from witnessing the twin towers falling on September 11th, 2001."

Emily looked at him, jaw open. "So Nine-Eleven essentially created a badly-written and toxic sex novel, years later?"

Spencer nodded, eyes flickering to you for a brief moment. Derek grinned at Emily, "So you have read 50 Shades of Grey, huh?" He teased. She swat at his wiggly fingers away as Hotch walked over, brow furrowed.

"Rooms need to be doubled up tonight. Morgan, you can come with me. As much as you may hate it, I feel like (Y/L/N) here might collapse on the spot, so we can't go anywhere else." He handed Spencer and Emily a key, expecting them to make their own choices. Of course, Emily knew exactly what she needed to do when Hotch walked off. You were about to turn and go with her, but she bolted off, reaching for JJ.

You looked up at Spencer Reid who had his mouth in a shy, straight-lipped smile. You both knew what this meant, but you were glad you'd get to crash somewhere, floor or not. The room was on the fifth floor, so you took the elevator with Spencer in silence that you were sure he was granting you until you reached the door of your room.

"I will... take the floor tonight," he said, sticking the key in the lock. "You're tired and I'm just going to get dinner and um... read."

His watch read 4:34 pm- it was so much earlier than you had thought, but you were almost collapsing. "I'm sorry," were the last words you could reply with before you walked into the room, got into the bed, and you were out, cold.

You had never had such a fulfilling sleep. You woke up feeling clean, fresh, renewed and restored. There was no groggy feeling that you had accidentally travelled to another dimension while asleep. The room was dim, except for the lamp that was on in the right corner.

When you peered over the edge of the bed, there was Spencer, laying on his stomach with few pillows under his chest and elbows, a book in his hands. He looked peaceful, quiet, calm. "Spence," you whispered. He practically jumped out of his skin and you couldn't help but laugh. "Oh my god, I'm sorry." You grinned.

He smiled sheepishly, setting down his book. "You're awake."

You nodded back, "How long was I out?"

"Since 4:34, so... 8 hours and 20 minutes. It's only 12:22am." Spencer sat up and against the wall while you adjusted yourself to sit cross-legged. You were still in your clothes from earlier and it surprised you to see Spencer in less preppy clothing.

Well, less preppy for him. No cardigan, no dress shirt, just a t-shirt that read 'math is as easy as pi' with the pi symbol made of cherry pie and his regular khaki pants. "Aren't you tired?" you asked, smiling from his shirt, back to him.

"No, uh, I actually got about four hours in the middle of your eight. I usually don't dream anymore but I actually dreamt I was falling, which is a sign of..." he stopped himself, but he was with another profiler, what was the use, you could already fill in the blanks. He continued, "Which is a sign of insecurity and inferiority, but I don't believe in dream analysis..."

You furrowed your brow, watching his eyes look down at his hands. "Are you feeling insecure and inferior, Dr.Reid, because need I remind you that 99% of the time, it's your brain that leads us to solve the cases."

He shook his head, "Thinking myself over, I'd-I'd say it doesn't revolve around work." The stutter was back. He hadn't talked to you with a stutter in months, you'd assumed it was just because he wasn't as comfortable around you then, but now it was back. Spencer Reid needed to be cheered up, something was wrong.

"Well you know you can tell me anything, right? I've kept secrets about my friends since grade one, I can keep yours." You slipped off of the bed and walked to your bag on the table in the far corner. You could feel Spencer's eyes on you as you went, so you shot him a smile over your shoulder. He reverted back to looking at his hands.

Through situations and being friends, you knew Spencer was insecure. He was bullied constantly as a child, some going as far as to strip him down and beat him. Disgusting, self-esteem-ruining acts you wished you could remove from his eidetic memory.

You took off your button-up blouse to stay in your white t-shirt that lay underneath. You hadn't the time to remove it before falling asleep. Thinking about that- you probably had bedhead too. Your balled-up shirt was shoved into your bag and you pulled out a brush in exchange, to get the knots out of your hair.

"I could really go for frozen yogurt right now," you said, running the wooden brush through your hair. Spencer narrowed his eyes at you, a little confused. "I haven't eaten dinner."

"It's nearly 12:30 am..." Spencer said. It looked like he was running through his vast mind to find a scientific explanation as to why you might have wanted frozen yogurt at half-past midnight. You let him, a teasing smile on your lips as you pulled the top bit of your hair up. "Are you pregnant?" He asked, out of the blue, entirely serious. Seemed like the only logical explanation he could find. You nearly choked on the air.

"No, Spencer, I am not pregnant!" You laughed. His face tightened as he went back to searching his mind. "I just want frozen yogurt. Regular cravings, not... pregnancy cravings. Are you coming?"

He looked at you, oddly surprised he was invited. "Why?"

"Why not?" You picked up his jacket from the hook and tossed it to him. "Nobody has to see your cheesy math shirt."

He smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck, but went right back to being analytical, a mumbling rant with hand gestures.

"The average half-cup serving of frozen yogurt alone has about 17.3 grams of sugar and plus various toppings, the sugar is upped to at least 25 grams. But, versus a half-cup serving of vanilla ice cream, the sugar is only about 14 grams and with toppings can be upped to about 22. Fat-wise-"

You interrupted him because this was seemingly the only way to lift his mood and he was making excuses to stay here and wallow. "Come on, for once, let's be able to act like the youngest members of the team. Once, Spence. I don't need a play-by-play on how much sugar is in it- though I did find that interesting-I just want frozen yogurt and I would like you to come with me. I'll pay for yours if you want any, just... please?"

He met your eyes with a curl falling down his forehead and quickly looked back at his hands. You'd been friends for nearly a year and four months and he still couldn't look you in the eyes for long. He really wasn't good at refusing you at all, either.

Spencer nodded and you practically beamed. Maybe this would help to take his mind off of what was bothering him, even if the distraction was brief. You jumped on the spot and slipped on your own jacket and grabbed your wallet, ready to go and by the door.

He had a small smile when the two of you stepped out, his hands behind his back. You locked the door behind you and the two of you walked silently to the elevator, careful not to accidentally wake anyone else in case they decided to peer out into the hall.

In the elevator, you turned and looked up at Spencer who was fiddling with his hands. "You look nervous, Spence. It's frozen yogurt, not a pretty girl."

"Well I'm with-" he stopped himself again and actually started laughing his breathy laugh, squeezing his own hand so hard his knuckles turned white while his cheeks and nose went a little pink. "You..." He finished, rocking on his heels.

You scrunched your nose, shaking your head. Though you mentally disagreed with him sometimes on your appearance, you smiled and looked back up at him. "Thank you. You're pretty too."

He shrugged himself further into his jacket, hands still wildly fidgeting. "Thank you..."

You both stepped out of the elevator the moment it got to the ground floor, looking for air that wasn't filled with odd tension neither of you could explain. You two walked through the lobby and into the cool midnight air outside, where things were open, dark, and still.

You shut your eyes for a moment and opened your arms to face the gentle, cool wind that blew your hair and hit your face gently. Inhaling deeply, you opened your eyes again to Spencer in a similar state, but much less relaxed looking. Instead, it looked like he was trying to calm himself down.

"Spence, you look out of it," you said, folding your arms over your chest. You had gotten him outside, now maybe instead of distracting him from whatever it was, you could help him through it. It was part of being a friend- profiling wasn't needed to see he was thinking long and hard over something that bothered him. "You can tell me what's wrong."

He started walking down the street toward the neon lights that shone bright with the word 'fro-yo', you stepped quickly to follow. "If I like a girl.. h-how am I supposed to go about telling her?" He asked, not even looking at you. His forehead was creased and his hands in his jacket pockets.

So this was about a girl he liked. Spencer Reid had a crush. Of course, you were oblivious it was you, but Spencer Reid was romantically interested in someone!

Yay?

An odd feeling of happiness came with finding this out and there was an uprising feeling within you like the first drop on a rollercoaster, but it lingered... and it was much less happy. You ignored it, of course, letting your outer emotions display themselves.

"Dr. Spencer Reid, the human encyclopedia- have you finally found a girl that puts you at a loss for words?" You teased, pressing the back of your hand to your head for dramatic effect, struggling to keep up with him.

His mouth twitched, "Maybe."

"Well, to be honest, Spence, just... tell her. Just go at it- ask to kiss her, maybe, then confess after. Or... or, you could confess, see how she takes it, then you can see if you should or shouldn't kiss her based off of if you get rejected or not." You told him, catching him by the shoulder to get him to slow down at the entrance of the frozen yogurt place.

He was much taller than you, so that came with him being that much faster, but that didn't matter now, he had stopped. Spencer looked at you, concern in his eyes, panic. You smiled kindly, "She won't reject you. I don't know any girl who would even think of it." Reassurance, because he needed it.

His eyes trailed to the ground and he ran a hand through his hair, opening the door for you. "And w-what do I say?" Spencer asked when you both went inside. You were the only two there and the cashier must have been in the back room.

You hopped over to the flavours, "I mean, whatever feels right, Spence. If you feel like going on a long, romantic, poet-written rant about how much you like her, do that. If you're afraid to bore her, you can wait for her to speak, but the truth is if she can't listen to you rant, she probably isn't worth going for."

He evaluated your words while you casually got yourself vanilla frozen yogurt. He also scanned the flavours, probably mentally shaming the company for marketing this as somewhat healthier. You giggled watching him try to figure out how to get the yogurt out of the machine as you put raspberries in yours.

"(Y/N), uh..." he said quietly, gesturing you over. The genius's mind was scrambled enough to miss the lever in front of him. You took his cup from him and pulled the lever, to which he made an 'o' shape with his mouth and nodded comprehensively.

"Chocolate mocha," you smiled, handing it to him as he stood there sheepishly again. "Good choice."

You spun back to your yogurt, adding a bit of honey over the top of it all. He followed, choosing raspberries as well, silently adding them. He still didn't seem at rest with the girl thing, you noticed by the way he was failing to open the scoop-box of cookie crumbs. He had long fingers, usually nimble ones, but not so much right now. Spencer was too stressed to work properly. Error in the system, you may have joked if things weren't so bad with him.

When you were both finished, Spencer tapped the little service bell on the desk and a little woman, maybe mid-30s came out wearing the merchandise of the shop. You both placed your cups on the scale and she weighed them for the price, but both you and Spencer pulled out your wallets.

He put his card out faster, so you swat his hand with your card and paid while he mumbled "Ow..." Of course, you checked to see if he was really hurt, but he had his small, crooked smile back on his face. He was okay, maybe he was feeling better?

Saying good morning/night to the lady, you both stepped back into the midnight air, starting to walk, but not back toward the hotel. You'd think with what cases you two had worked on you'd be a little warier, but with each other, you both felt safe. You walked a few steps, eating your yogurt, before Spencer spoke up again. "Is it a bad thing I'm so clueless as to what women like? Everything I know about women is scientific. Chocolate releases endorphins, flowers are associated with beauty and love, but... other than that... I don't know anything."

You swallowed your bite as Reid took his, waiting on your answer. Just as you always listened to him, he always listened to you. He probably valued your opinion over Derek's at times. You waved your spoon in the air when you spoke, "I wouldn't say bad. Everyone starts somewhere for everything. If anything, a man who is willing to learn is more attractive than one who wings it and doesn't ask comprehensive questions to up the relationship quality."

"Asking questions, got it. Should my confession include a gesture, though?" He spoke with his mouth full. Spencer really wanted to get this right- it was admirable. But there came that uneasy feeling again. It was more like an ache this time. Perhaps it was the awkward hours of sleep throwing you off?

You sucked it up, shoved the feeling down. "Really, Spence, it depends on the woman. Do I know her? Maybe I can help- that is unless you want to profile her to get her interests? I can help with that too-"

"No, I-I don't want to profile her, I want to stay away from that, we do that on a near-daily basis."

"We?" You questioned. Reid froze, but kept walking, looking a little petrified. He put more frozen yogurt in his mouth, maybe to shut himself up. You grinned, "We as in you and her are both profilers or we as in you and I profile others together, so you don't want to profile her with me?"

"I don't want us... to profile her," he cleared his throat. "Yeah..."

You sighed with a breathy laugh, "Good, because I was starting to think you were after Emily."

He chuckled, "Oh, no, not Emily. She's too scary for me anyway. Uh..." He swallowed hard, the way he always did was he was anxious or nervous. I saw in his face he'd come to some sort of conclusion. "Don't... don't yell at me for this, alright?"

"Yell at you? Spence, I wouldn't..." You were confused. He set his frozen yogurt down on the bench he had stopped in front of and stood back in front of you, pushing his hair behind his ears. He looked at you with his doe eyes and the wind blew his curls back in front of his face, he looked to the ground. His forehead still creased between his brows, but his eyes were soft and sweet, his nose was slightly scrunched and his mouth was twisted to the side as if he was once again mentally calculating something. You granted him back the silence from earlier, wondering what was going on in that mind of his. That was... until his eyes met yours and he looked so desperately lost and longing and like he ached inside... and you no longer wondered.

You let out another long sigh. She was you.

This girl that he was trying to understand how to win over, she was you. He asked you because he needed to know what you wanted. He was nervous because he was practically confessing to you and you, a profiler, were too blind to see that.

He watched your face for your reaction, waiting for something good, but you were too shocked to react right. He unfroze, hands flying to the roots of his hair and he spun away from you. He started rambling, obviously thinking everything had gone wrong. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, (Y/N). That- that wasn't how I had things planned and I was so certain that maybe you-hm- liked me too."

His words made it true. This was, in fact, happening at 12:56am in the middle of a foreign city. Your words spilled out, stern, focused, serious. "Kiss me then."

He spun around again, "What?"

"Confess, then kiss, remember?" You recounted carefully, looking directly at him, stepping closer.

"But I didn't get to do my whole monologue thing-" He was grinning pretty hard now, all signs of stress removed from his face. He looked brighter than the neon froyo sign, in happiness and disbelief right down at you. You were pretty sure you looked similar as all the pieces fell in place in your mind. It all fit.

"I don't care." You beamed back. "Do it after."

So without wasting another second, he grabbed your face and kissed you. He kissed you with a year and four months' worth of frustration, lust, confusion and past jealousies. His hands holding your jaw, his fingertips in your hair and your hands on his chest, holding fast to jacket. The kiss was a little messy the first two seconds, but every second after it was enjoyable and sweet and oddly powerful. He also tasted rich, like chocolate mocha, but you knew where that came from.

He pulled away first, which surprised you, but he didn't move very far, in fact, he mumbled against your lips as he tucked your hair out of your face. "I think I've liked you since you and I first met. You didn't hate my science jokes and instead of being annoyed with my informational rants, you listened to me. I wasn't expecting you to be so involved with me since you're, well... you're you and you're loud and fun and sweet and beautiful, but we worked so well together how could I ignore what I felt?"

His hand was a little shaky still, but his fingertips on your cheek were gentle. He continued to quietly ramble, "I decided maybe I'd do something with myself that wasn't devoted to the BAU so I thought maybe I'd- I'd tell you this. That I think you're beautiful and smart and talented and maybe you'd understand and feel the same way and now that I know maybe you do, I feel oddly put back to how I'm supposed to be. And... I think I'm supposed to be with you. If this is too soon or... ruins our friendship, I'm sorry and I'll slow it down, but I won't stop liking you."

You couldn't believe that in a three-minute span you had gone from painfully oblivious to so extremely wide awake. But it was in the best way possible after a year and four months of you also being painfully crushed by your secret feelings for Dr.Reid.

"It's fine, Spence," you said quietly, smiling at him with the most happiness you had found in months. "More than fine, I can't believe this is real."

He tucked the other side of your hair behind your ear, "You might have DRC, then. It stands for dream-reality confusion and is a difficulty or inability to determine whether an event or experience occurred during the waking state or whether it was part of a dream. I can assure you that you aren't dreami-"

You reached up and pulled him onto your lips by the back of the neck, smiling into it. This would be the first time you've ever shut him up. He welcomed it by kissing you back again, softer this time. Now that he was sure you wouldn't hate him for it, it felt a lot more natural, a lot more at ease. His passion was still there, as was yours, but this was how things were supposed to be. There was no longer a rush.

The two of you started laughing after it all. Both of you laughed at how painfully oblivious you both were and he went on a small explanation as to why we don't see our own tells and how feelings of romantic relation cloud the judgement. You went over every time the rest of the team had made a comment you both secretly loved or some you dismissed because it was an ache to hear.

Spencer opened up about his fear of rejection and you did the same and that too resulted in more laughing because here you were, so afraid, but you had both been in it for so long. You deserved to have each other after all this time not only because you fit, but because everyone saw it too, far before either of you did.

An innocent, fun, midnight escapade to cheer Spencer up turned into him finding a truly happy state of mind. You took that as a win and success as you tossed frozen yogurt containers in the garbage and found your way back to your room where you told Spencer it was okay to sleep in the bed as long as he was nice.

So he let you turn out the lights and lay next to him, your head on his chest in the way you had done before when it was only an achingly platonic move. He played with your hair, stared at the green walls, ranted about the history of the colour green and soon after, the both of you went right back to sleep, entirely happy.

Tagged: @ellyhotchner @softhairedhotch

[mashi-sims]

6 Popular tropes that fit #Cooliver

1. Friends to Lovers. Duh

This is the most obvious one, and I wanted to start with this one because if Cooper and Oliver ever become canon, this is what their relationship would be.

In my head, Friends to Lovers is always problematic because it’s easy to lose a beautiful friendship to a mediocre romantic relationship, as has happened to many LGBT couples on TV, but if done correctly, it warms my heart and makes sparks of joy fly all around.

The journey of their friendship not only as a partnership but as a mutual beneficence that helps them both grow and develop as their individual selves, helping each other find their own path, confidence in themselves, inspiration and motivation to fulfill their dreams, ultimately becoming better individuals aiming to transform into the best versions of themselves they can be, *voice intensifies* all while being together and offering each other’s company and support, becoming accustomed to being next to one and other and not being able to imagine a life without the other, slowly developing emotional ties that make them consider if a different kind of love exists, and them exploring it and realizing that, in fact, THERE IS. That type of slow build that transforms into a romantic relationship because they both agree they are each other’s most treasured person and they want to stay in each other’s lives forever, that’s some GOOD STUFF.

2. Fake Dating

The reason why I believe a good fake dating au can get so popular, is because it can offer a pretty natural transition between “Not having any kind of feelings”/”Being unaware of their feelings” to “Oh, my gosh I am in love with this person what do I do”, and it can be so heart-wrenching it’s addictive.

In a beautiful world, Oliver is totally in love with Cooper and he just doesn’t know it yet, and there’s where this trope comes in handy.

There’s a number of reasons why two characters may start fake dating; getting someone off their backs, making someone jealous/angry, needing a date for a special occasion, or getting some odd financial benefit from it, if you’re willing to take it as far as getting married and having to pretend to be actually married so nobody know their marriage is a scam.

They agree to start fake dating or to start introducing each other to other people as their boyfriends, because Cooper wants these interested girls (and boys) in his money to go away, or because Oliver is the only single one at his ballet and he doesn’t want to go to after-show celebration alone, and after one or many fake dating moments, they start realizing they don’t need to act or pretend to act a certain way at all, because there’s stuff they’d normally do with or say to each other, or at least the trust or the reliance is already there. 

Think about the inevitable time where they do have to stop acting like fake boyfriends and they start missing it, or when they mid-date realize there’s something real between all that pretending and now they don’t know what to do about it, imagine the conversation they’d have when they realize they can’t go back to being friends anymore.

3. N Things

This one is more like a writing strategy than an actual trope, but it still works. We’ve all read the “4 times they almost kissed, and one time they did” or the “3 times they said I love you to someone else, and one time they said it to each other”

Okay, now hear me out- how about, “3 times Oliver said Cooper wasn’t his boyfriend, and one he didn’t have to”, or “5 times Oliver said he wasn’t gay, and one time he couldn’t”? I’m down for that.

The heart of this trope is the repeatability of a certain joke, a comment or an unfortunate event and that’s obvious it’ll turn itself around, and it’s that one moment that finally comes which makes you want to dance under the rain.

To me, the amount of times Oliver’s had to tell other people that he isn’t gay or that Cooper’s not his bf (Cooper also said it once) is the perfect starter to this “n things” strategy.

Come on, American Housewife! You’re making it too easy for me to expect that one moment when it all turns around!

4. Babysitters

Neither of these boys is ever shown to be a kid-person nor to have a soft spot for babies, or anything like that! Like, at all! Their whole characters are based around the facts that they are both money-driven, superficial, and self-absorbed (although in the process of becoming better than that), and we barely ever get to see them pouring their hearts out or letting their guard down.

Therefore, imagine a day where Oliver is forced to babysit Violet (or another baby if there comes to be another one), and he’d undeniably be annoyed at the situation because this baby/toddler has ruined his plans, but Cooper obviously stays and helps him out because where else would he be?

It’s the times driving them both crazy when they don’t know how to make a baby stop crying, or when they’re deciding who should change the diaper because neither of them wants to; it’s the time when they’re both a mess because some chaos happened with the food or the paint while they were trying to come up with an activity.

Then it’s Oliver slowly coming down with baby fever as he’s trying make them laugh or when he’s walking around the room trying to make them fall asleep, and Cooper is in awe because he had never seen that side of his friend, and he had never expected it to look so damn cute, and Oliver had never expected Cooper to stay with him for a whole day just taking care of a baby.

It’s at the end of the day when they’re tired as hell but they agree that they had fun and that they’re glad they had each other to help out, and although they don’t say it, maybe it wasn’t so bad their original plans didn’t end up working out.

5. Hurt/Comfort

This is not a trope for everyone, you may love it, you may hate it, you may be indifferent, or you may be like me; somewhere in the middle but with some strong opinions. If done right, it can be a beautiful addition to the story of two characters in process of falling in love. If done wrong, it can victimize the characters in unnecessary ways or show them in a light that doesn’t suit them, thus making them feel out of character, which is every true fan’s worst nightmare.

Although, let’s focus on the small things; like characters holding on to their emotions for too long until they really can’t do it anymore, and they need somebody to help them out, even if they resist it, because in the end they’ll acknowledge they’re thankful for having them, and it also makes their relationship inevitably grow and develop, because there’s something really special about having someone you can truly be yourself with and knowing that they’ll stay, and they’ll help you through everything and make you feel like you’re going to be okay, even (and especially) during your worst moments.

(Although really toned down,) we’ve already seen this kind of comfort between the two; like when Cooper found out Oliver lied about his vacations, and he told him he didn’t need to lie to him out of all people, and that he could come on vacation with him whenever he wanted, or when Cooper’s parents ditched him and he confided in Oliver, who believed he had become tired of hanging out with him, and Cooper had to reassure him that wasn’t the case; those were small moments where we got to see them somewhat upset and being comforted by the other, and that’s when it feels like their friendship is strong and real.

The reason why I believe this trope fits them so much is because they are barely shown in a vulnerable state that allows them to have a sad plot where they’d need to be comforted, and it’s during times like these where you can really see their relationship grow.

Also, I want to point out that it’s not about romanticizing or sexualizing sadness, at all! It’s about using these moments to slowly build and give consistency to the relationship- don’t even get me started on how much I hate seeing and reading characters making out after having a breakdown.

6. Mutual Pining

Some people like to suffer, okay? Some of us like a good tragedy, and there’s nothing more tragic than two characters who are deeply in love with each other, but they’ve resigned to keeping it hidden deep down because they’re convinced the other doesn’t feel the same and they don’t want to lose them nor their friendship, even if it means having to live with a painful secret for the rest of their lives.

When you start having feelings for another person, you may be brave enough to let them now or try and see where things go, because you have nothing to lose, right? But what happens when it’s your best friend you have feelings for? There’s a lot there to lose if do things go wrong, and there’s no certainty that they won’t, so you might as well leave things as they are, because nothing would be more painful than to lose the person you love the most for making things weird because they don’t feel the same way...

And it’s completely frustrating to see two characters with the same internal monologue, because you know what IT COULD BE, but THEY don’t know that- and I love it.

There’s a million different ways this trope can play out, and it’s always so interesting to see where things go after both characters have resigned to never let the other one know how they feel, and then we get to see these destructive actions like dating other people because they think their feelings are unrequited, but they have no idea the other is in deep pain because of seeing the person they love with someone else... yes, a good tragedy!

Anyway, thank you for reading this rant and feel free to add to the list or make any of these come to life.

[jaxl-road]

Scar Tissue chapter 4

The boys reluctantly deal with the fallout the next morning. The road is looking long and rocky for all of them, but hey. They’ve got each other.

Pairings: Slash/Duff, side Axl/Izzy, side Nikki/Tommy

Warnings: ((not in this chapter)) Implied/discussed past abuse (non-explicit)

Read on AO3

“Please tell me I just smoked some bad weed last night and I didn’t actually punch Vince in the face.”

Slash was still half asleep when Steven barged into his room. “Uuuuh,” Rubbing his eyes, he glanced around and wasn’t surprised to find that Duff was already awake and out somewhere, “I mean, I don’t know if you technically punched him in the face. There was definitely some hair pulling, but…”

“Fuuuuuuuuuck…” Steven let out a long groan, shuffling over to fall face-down next to Slash on his bed, “Shoot me, Slash. Just put me out of my misery.”

Sitting up, Slash pat his back sympathetically, “Hey, we were all fucked up. Everything will be fine-”

“No it won’t!” Steven wailed into the mattress, “God, what the fuck is happening? I was acting like you last night.”

“Wait, what?” furrowing his brow, he shook at Steven’s shoulder, “What the fuck does that mean? I rarely get in fights!”

“I meant I was acting stupid.”

“Hey!” This time he shoved him harder, “That’s not better!” He may have been offended, but he couldn’t help but be a little relieved when Steven giggled softly. “Seriously, dude. What happened?”

It took a minute for the drummer to answer, “I have a crush and it made me act dumb,” he finally turned his face to look at Slash, smiling wryly, “just like you,” he explained.

Slash paused, “Oh,” he said, “that’s fair actually.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steven huffed out a laugh, but it quickly dissolved into a whine as he buried his face in his arms, “But at least you haven’t fucking decked your crush.”

“Wait, wait, hold on,” holding one hand up, Slash used the other to pinch the bridge of his nose. It was too early for this. “Vince is your crush?”

“Uh, yeah?” Looking up again, Steven looked confused, “I thought it was obvious?”

“Nope, definitely not obvious at all.”

“Well, you’re a bad judge, you’re so distracted by Duff I don’t think you’d notice if I dyed my hair green or some shit.”

“Am not!” He cried as Steven stood up, walking out of the room. Slash quickly followed after him.

“Izzy!” The drummer skipped over to the rhythm guitarist, the other man sighing into his coffee as he was approached by his band mates, “Izzy, did you know I have a crush on Vince?”

“I didn’t want to know,” he mumbled tiredly.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a fuck off.”

Slash snickered as Steven huffed, “Oh come on! If you knew you have an obligation to help me out! You and Axl somehow manage to be in a more-or-less stable relationship. Who else can I turn to? Slash??” he gestured at his friend, “He shares a room with his crush and he still can’t get it!”

“What the fuck, shut up, asshole!” Slash covered Steven’s mouth with both hands, head whipping around wildly in search of the tall bassist in case he had overheard.

“He’d not here, dumbass,” Izzy smirked, “Apparently he got called into work today.”

“Oh,” Slash should have been relieved, but instead he deflated at the realization that Duff would be gone all day.

“See! This is what I’m talking about!” Steven exclaimed.

“Shut up! You fucking punched Vince, I think I’m a step above you at this point.”

“You punched Vince?” Izzy raised an eyebrow, “Nice. I should tell Axl, it might help cheer him up.”

As Izzy walked out of the kitchen, the other two followed after him. They were surprised when they walked past Izzy and Axl’s shared room to find it empty; they had expected the singer to still be holed up. But when they entered the living room, their eyes immediately fell on a lump of blankets sprawled out in a patch of sun on the floor, a few strands of red hair peeking out.

“I put him out here since our room doesn’t get any sun,” Izzy explained with a shrug.

“You two are sickeningly adorable,” Slash pouted.

Izzy ignored him, crouching next to the mass, “Hey, Axe, Steven punched Vince in the face.” It took a moment, but the fabric shifted just slightly. If Axl spoke, his words were too soft to reach Slash or Steven, but Izzy responded, “Last night, I think.”

“There was also hair pulling involved,” Slash chimed in, grinning when Steven shoved his shoulder.

There was more shifting, until a pale arm managed to escape to give a thumbs up in Steven’s general direction. Chuckling, Izzy gave his boyfriend a soft pat around his shoulder as he wormed his arm back into his cocoon. Standing, he gestured for the other two to sit on the couch with him.

“Alright, I’m awake now. Tell me what the fuck you lovesick idiots got into last night.”

“Yeah, I actually want to know the details, too,” Slash agreed, the three of them lounging on the beat up couch as Izzy sipped his coffee and Axl stayed in his motionless heap on the patch of sunlit carpet across from them.

Sighing heavily, Steven dropped his head into his hands as he explained, “We were both drunk and high and shit, and he kept talking about who he could hook up with since Duff was gone, and he mentioned practically every fucking person in the room except me. And so I tried to like, be cool or some shit and mention that, hey, fuck, I’m available, y’know? And that stupid fucker offered to set me up with some chick, and then I think I called him a slut, and then it just… escalated.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Izzy nodded.

“At least you were interacting with him,” Slash mumbled, still feeling bad about his actions the previous night, “I was so determined to impress Duff I ended up ignoring him the whole night.”

“That also sounds right.”

Glaring at Izzy, Steven and Slash both slumped onto the couch, resigning themselves to wallowing for the day.

Izzy shook his head at the two of them, “You two are a sorry sight. I can’t believe you go out for one night without me and Axl and you both manage to fumble your nonexistent love lives. That’s gotta be some sort of record.” Steven shoved him weakly as Slash flipped him off, making Izzy roll his eyes, “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he grumbled, “Coffee’s not enough for this, I need a drink. Or a hit. Actually both. All of you just…” he glanced around at his three band mates, each in some sort of lifeless heap, before sighing heavily, “...stay here.”

After a few minutes of silence, Slash rolled his head over to look at Steven, “This is dumb. We should just, like, find someone else. We get enough hot chicks crawling over us after shows these days.”

“True,” Steven sighed, “maybe if we find someone hot enough to fuck we can just forget about these bastards.”

“You’re both pussies,” Izzy deadpanned as he reentered the room, coffee spiked to Hell and back and a fresh flow of dope in his blood. Dropping onto the couch, he stretched his legs out over the other two men’s laps, “If you really thought that would work you’d have done it already.” Receiving two groans of reluctant agreement, he continued, “And besides, you’re barely trying. You don’t get to give up until you actually put an effort into it.” Immediately they both started arguing.

“I have to put effort into it!” Steven exclaimed, “Were you not listening to what happened yesterday? The asshole was just too dense to notice it!”

“I spend everyday talking to Duff and I’m still getting nowhere!”

“He literally flirts with everything that breathes except me!”

“And I can’t even like, get a little handsy cause he’s jumpy as fuck!”

“He even flirted with Duff-!”

“Vince fucking flirted with Duff-!”

“But he didn’t even notice me!”

“And he didn’t even realize how jealous I was!”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“What else can I do?”

When they finally ended their rants, they found Izzy giving them an unimpressed stare. He took a long drink from his mug before responding, “Steven,” he spoke slowly, like he was talking to a child, “I’m pretty sure next to no one knows you have a crush on Vince. You’re all loving and happy and shit with everyone. The only difference between the people you’re friends with and the people you bang is whether or not you bang them.”

Steven sputtered, wanting to deny Izzy’s words but, unfortunately unable to. Taking another drink, Izzy turned his sights on Slash, “And you,” he pointed almost accusingly, “your crush is obvious to us because we know you. Duff probably just thinks you’re being a nice roommate or some shit.”

“But,” Slash frowned, “even as friends, I feel like no matter how close we get he always…” he hesitated, casting a quick glance towards the mound of blankets on the floor, “he’s always closer to someone else. Like, he’s always more comfortable with other people than he is with me,” he finished sadly.

Humming thoughtfully, Izzy debated his response. But before he could say anything, a snapping sound cut through the room. Looking over, they saw Axl’s arm had emerged again, snapping his fingers to get their attention. After a moment, he waved his hand in a ‘come here’ motion.

Izzy raised an eyebrow, “All of us or just Slash?”

Axl held up two fingers, and Izzy kicked at Slash’s side, pushing him off the couch. Frowning in confusion, Slash crept over to Axl’s side, kneeling next to him and leaning close. Shuffling, the singer tugged the blankets down to reveal the top half of his face- eyes red with dark circles under them.

“How relaxed are you around Duff?” he asked, his voice soft and slightly raspy.

The question surprised him, “Uh,” Slash blinked a few times as he considered his answer, “I mean, I’m not… not relaxed around him? But like… I like him a fucking lot, so I guess I’m usually a little more nervous around him than you guys?”

“Hm,” Axl raised a tired eyebrow, and then, before Slash could say anything else, he burrowed back into the comforter, “Okay. Now go away.”

Slash spread his arms in confusion, turning to Steven and Izzy with a look of offended confusion. Returning to the couch, he repeated the short conversation to the other two, “Like, what the fuck was that about?”

Izzy leaned forward, putting his head in his hands and sighing long and hard while Steven giggled, “Oh my God, dude. Dude.”

“What?”

“Jesus fuck, I feel way better about my own situation now.”

Slash shoved at him, Steven still laughing as he ran into the kitchen, the guitarist following him still bickering and clueless. Shaking his head in amusement, Izzy stood and made his way over to Axl, laying down and stretching out next to him. The red head shuffled a bit to flop his head and one arm across Izzy’s chest.

“...We weren’t that dumb before we got together, right?” Axl mumbled into his chest.

Laughing, Izzy pressed a kiss onto the top of the singer’s hair, “Oh babe,” he grinned, “We absolutely were.”

~~~~~~

By the time Duff got home in the early evening, the sun had gone done, leading Izzy to carry the Axl burrito back into their room, and the kitchen was in disarray from Slash and Steven throwing things at each other as they bickered about their respective romantic stupidity. On the plus side, they had at least worn themselves out and come to a reluctant understanding that they were both dumbasses.

“Um…” Duff looked around at the mess, before turning to look at Steven and Slash, who were sitting at the kitchen table with a few empty beer bottles between them, “Hi?” The two boys mumbled out a greeting. Clearing his throat, Duff held up a paper bag almost nervously, “I brought food?”

That had them perking up. “Really?” Steven grinned excitedly, “Fuck, Duff you’re the best!”

Chuckling, the bassist set the bag down on the counter, “I mean, it’s not much. Just leftovers and shit from work.”

“It’s food, therefore you’re my new favorite,” Steven insisted.

He and Slash cleared the bottles off the table, allowing Duff to unpack the paper bag, “I’ve got some lasagna, a few pieces of garlic bread, and a bit or ravioli.”

Faced with actual food, Slash and Steven didn’t even bother with plates, each grabbing a fork and eating right out of the containers, expressing their gratitude through mouthfuls of food.

Duff laughed at their enthusiasm, “Save some for Izzy and Axl, you fucking animals!”

Some of the food was reluctantly set aside before the two continued devouring their meal, “You gonna eat any, Duff?” Slash asked.

Shaking his head, the bassist leaned back in his seat, “Nah, I ate at work.” The three band mates chatted amicably for a few minutes as the food steadily disappeared before Duff finally turned to the drummer hesitantly, “So, hey, Stevie, are you, uh, alright? After last night, I mean. Things got kinda intense at the end there.”

“Oh,” Steven blinked in surprise. With all the morning discussion and bickered they’d had, he’d sort of forgotten that Duff hadn’t been around to hear all the details, “Yeah, no, it’s cool. I mean, I’m gonna hang with Tommy tonight to get a feel for how bad I fucked things up but,” we waved a hand, smiling wryly, “just love and war bullshit, y’know?” Steven tried to keep his words lighthearted and nonchalant, but he could still see little flickers of fear, or sadness, or both, flash across Duff’s eyes.

“Hah, yeah, of course, that… makes sense,” he tried to laugh, to stay natural, but Duff's whole body seemed to deflate in something like defeat.

When the bassist looked down to fiddle with his bracelets, Steven sent a look of thinly veiled panic towards Slash. They had been friends long enough for the guitarist to hear the words in his head loud and clear: Holy shit did I fuck things up with Vince AND Duff??

Before they could press the issue further, Izzy wandered out, pausing when he saw the containers of food, “Oh Hell yes, something that’s not ramen,” he said excitedly.

“We were even nice and saved some for you and Axl,” Slash pushed one of the takeout boxes towards him.

“Awesome, hold on,” slinking back into his room, they could hear some shuffling, murmured words, and then soft curses. When Izzy returned, he was carrying a familiar bundle of blankets, but this time it was squirming and releasing a series of muffled expletives. Izzy paid it no mind though, unceremoniously placing it on the kitchen counter before turning to sit at the table with the rest of the band. The grumbling continued, and when he noticed the three sets of raised eyebrows, Izzy merey shrugged as he pulled the tray of lasagna towards him, “Axl is mad ‘cause I’m not letting him isolate himself for once in his fucking life.” A hand wormed out of the comforters just long enough to give a firm middle finger in the man’s direction.

It was strange, Slash thought. Steven was nervously chatting with Duff, scooting his chair closer to try to bridge whatever gap he’d accidentally created, rambling about how Tommy was going to help him fix things. Slash tried to insert himself in their conversation while also chatting with Izzy to keep the other guitarist’s mind off the unmoving, silent, hidden body on the countertop across from them. The dirty, run-down kitchen was packed with five kids who all seemed to carry their own flavor of deep exhaustion and pain with them.

But they also carried the same flavor of ambition and drive and determination. They still managed to fill their hellhole of a house with laughter and creativity, drawing each other out of their own heads, even managing to literally draw Axl out of his shelter after a couple hours (well, the top half of his face. But still).

When the night ended, Steven was still trying to figure out what to do about the Vince situation as he left to find Tommy, and Izzy still had to carry Axl back to their room, and him and Slash still shot up together to take the edge off, and Duff still got wasted before he went to bed, and Slash still didn’t know how to move forward with the bassist. Honestly, things still weren’t great.

But still. Still. Slash couldn’t help but feel like maybe they would be. He couldn’t help but have hope.

They'd get there.

[psychnerd47]

Monster College part 4

Rating PG, Warnings mentions of drinking and brief mild language. 

Authors Note: sorry it took so long to write, I’ve been struggling to write this. I had really hard time trying to keep Billy in character so I tried to write him more like he is in the books and other fanfics 

 The party grew crazier, louder and more insane as more monsters and more booze showed up. Billy and Scarah were able to slink out just as the party picked up, but the others weren’t so lucky. The university police rounded up party attendees and took them down to the station. Deuce, Cleo, Operetta, Heath Burns, Johnny Spirit, and Holt Hyde, who after having been removed from the loud music of the party was starting to turn back to Jackson and some other monsters they didn’t recognize. Jackson was relieved that Frankie made it out of the party and didn’t have to go in for questioning.  

“I can’t believe we have to ride in the back of the police van like a common criminal,” Cleo said disgustedly, “I’m royalty and deserve to be treated as such.” 

A look of horror came upon Deuces face, “You know that it’s not good that we are being arrested, Cleo. Like it could be on our record forever and we could get kicked out of college.”

“But we didn’t actually do anything,” Heath whined. 

“Speak for yourself,” Jackson moaned, “I have no idea how many drinks Holt had, but all I know I now feel miserable.” The nerdy human boy looked like he could barf if the van hit a bump hard enough. 

Deuce put his arm around Jackson, “Hold in there bro, we’ll get to the station soon.”

Operetta sat in the corner of the van steaming, “You all are going to be fine. But I’m going to the slammer because I threw the dang party,” the rockabilly continued to mope. Johnny Spirit put his ghostly arm on her.

“You’ll be ok baby, I’m the one with the milelong rap-sheet.” Johnny said with a new tone of panic in his voice.  

“Do you think I will get my own cell, or will I be thrown in a common one with the peasants.”

Everyone else groaned.

    *                                         *                                                 *

University Police led the ghouls out of the van and into a room for questioning. A female officer walked in, “Operetta Phantom,” the officer called.

“Here,” she replied in her Southern tang. The Rockabilly phantom was lead into the next room. The male cop stayed in the room with the rest of the ghoul friends.

Deuce sat on the hard chair in the cold but crowded room. The gorgon boy let out a sigh, “All I want is to go back to the dorm, take a shower, and go to bed.”

“Well if you pass the breathalyzer test, we won’t charge you will under age drinking and you can go back to your precious dorm room,” the male officer grumbled.

“Well that’s good,” Heath said with a tone of relief in his voice, “Holt was the only one who was drinking so we will be freed.”

 “Well if ‘Holt’ was the only one drinking why does Mister Jekyll here look so miserable?” the officer looked Jackson straight in the face.  

“Um, well,” Jackson started to ramble, “you see Holt, and I share the same body. But while I’m polite, reserved and shy, Holt is obnoxious, loud, and out of control and he is blue skinned with fire hair. Holt appears when loud music is played,” Jackson fidgeted with his bowtie awkwardly, “so it would be wrong to make me responsible for Holt’s drinking. I personally am very against alcohol, honestly it makes me want to puke my guts out,” the nerdy boy winced, he looked so miserable, “may I have a glass of water please.”

 “I guess that will be ok,” the male cop grumbled.

“Can I have one too, and make it with lemon and ice,” Cleo ordered.      

The officer’s glare shot bullets, “This is not a dang restaurant, I’m not getting anyone water. You’ll take your tests and then I hopefully will never have to see you all ever again.”

+                                        +                                                         +                                  

“I can’t believe they just let me off with a warning,” Operetta said with a sigh of relief, “I mean I’m the one who threw this disastrous hootenanny.”

 “But you didn’t know that those frat goons where going to crash it,” Deuce explained to his Rockabilly friend.

“I’m just glad they are letting me go after Holt drank all that alcohol.” Jackson said with a tone of relief.

 “After you puked your guts out on the officer’s boots. I don’t think the officer wanted you around much longer,” Johnny Spirit reported.  

Jackson continued his rant about Holt, “You won’t believe how much trouble we got into when Holt got our eyebrow pierced or when he got that tattoo on our back. It is making me crazy.”

·                                                     *                                           *

“Be quiet.” Deuce told the fire elemental, “you don’t want to wake Billy up,”

“Oh, sure, I am the king of being quiet,” Heath assured his friend, “I’m not going to wake him up,” but right after he said that Heath’s hair caught on fire. Triggering the smoke alarm and setting off the sprinkler.

“What the hell Heath,” Billy yelled uncharacteristically for him as he sat up in his now soaked bed.

“Sorry,” the fire elemental said sheepishly.

*                                                                 *                                                                 *

Deuce woke up at 6:00 the next morning. He grumbled to himself as he quickly pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, he absolutely hated having to go to the communal bathroom in the morning, so inconvenient. As he trudged down the hall the gorgon boy stewed in the misery of dorm life. He no longer had his own room, though having Jackson as his roommate was the best choice he could think of, he was not allowed to have his pet rat Perseus in the residence hall, no longer having a bathroom that he only had to share with his mom. He missed his mom even if she could be a bit overbearing. Deuce hated to admit it, but he was a bit of a mama’s boy.  

Deuce brushed his teeth and started to take his shower. While he was getting dressed in the shower cubicle, his icoffin began to ring. The gorgon boy could tell by the Casta and the Spells song that it was his mother calling.

 “What’s up mom?” Deuce asked into the phone.

  “I just wanted to check on my baby boy,” Medusa said coolly, “how are doing?”

 “Um, fine, just a little tired,” Deuce answered honestly.

 “You haven’t turned anyone into stone, right?” Medusa asked her son.

   “I haven’t mom,” the gorgon boy answered with a tone of annoyance in his voice.

    “You have been remembering to put on clean underwear?”

   “Ugh, mom some one could hear this, but yes,” Deuce felt ready to die of embarrassment.

 “You haven’t been going to any crazy parties, have you?”

Even though he was talking on the phone Deuce could feel his mother’s eyes looking straight through him.  “Um, how did you know about that?” Deuce could feel his face turning red.  

 “Sydney Jekyll called me last night. Turns out Jackson had a traumatic experience last night and decided he need to talk to his mom about that. She said that he was crying and threw up a few times last night. Do you have an insight on this topic Deucey?”

  Deuce grew quiet, he needed to tell his mother what happened but also did want her to freak out and drag him back home. “Well you see mom, Operetta and Johnny decided to throw a back to school bash. It was a pretty cool party until, Manny and some fraternity goons crashed the party. I didn’t drink an alcohol, promise mom, but the frat goons played some loud crazy music, turning Jackson into Holt. I guess while Holt was living it up at the party, he must’ve chugged all the booze. Anyways when he transformed back to Jackson, the poor dude had to deal with consequences of Holt’s mistake. But don’t worry mom I promise I will never drink that stuff I learned about it enough second hand.”

Deuce left out the part about being taken in questioning at the campus police station, didn’t want her to freak out.    

*                                               *                                                           *

Jackson found himself waking up somewhere cold and hard, his head was killing him, and his stomach felt awful. The nerdy human boy started to move, he realized he fell asleep in his glasses, strange. As he tried to sit up, he realized he was on the floor of the hall bathroom. Images of his miserable experience the previous night flashed through his mind.  

“Ohmyghoul!! Jackson are you alright,” Invisi Billy’s voice called out.

 “I’m fine I guess,” Jackson stammered as he weakly pulled himself off the floor, “what are you doing here?”

 “I may be invisible, but I still have to pee,” Invisi-Billy laughed.

 Jackson’s face winced. “Thank you for that delightful imagery,” the “normie” scientist boy said sarcastically.

“I think we need to get you something to eat, all the alcohol on an empty stomach can’t be good,” the invisible boy suggested.

*                                                        *                                                               *

Invisi Billy took Jackson to the Dying Hall were they got plates of scrambled eggs, fruit, and toast.    

tags @queenofworry

[cleverbroadwayurl]

Send My Love (To Your New Lover) (Jeremy Heere x Reader Pt 17)

Song: Send My Love (To Your New Lover) Cover by Sofia Karlberg

Word Count: 5804

Need to Catch Up? PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7 PART 8 PART 9 PART 10 PART 11 PART 12 PART 13 PART 14 PART 15 PART 16

Want More? PART 18 PART 19

A/N: Oh my god I finally did it!! Yay!! I’m so excited about this and I know you guys have been waiting for like months to see this!! So yay!! I decided to keep voting open for a little longer because I know some people can’t be as active during the school year! So voting is going until tonight at 12:00 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST) Just a little refresher, two options can win so don’t worry if your pick is tied with something else! Uhh also,,, I’m not even a little bit sorry. 

Taglist: @be-more-heidi-hansen​ @retrogarden​ @catatonic-kuragin​ @scarsonthecuffsofyourjeans​ @bluhimaweirdo​ @stargirl-murphy​ 

Trigger Warnings: mentions of an abusive boyfriend, cuts, bruises, scratches, mentions of domestic violence, mentions of abuse, verbal abuse, mentions of the SQUIP, Jeremy crying, soft moments, mentions of blood, mentions of hospitals, mentions of nurses

“Jeremy Heere?” His head snapped and looked at the nurse who now stood in the middle of the waiting room. “Can you come with me? There’s someone asking for you.”

Jeremy blinked a few times, repeating the words in his head over and over again until it finally made sense to him. Someone had been asking to see him, at this time of night, somewhere in a unit that he didn’t have access to. He stood, still shaky from the news before walking up to the nurse, who was actually a lot less intimidating up close. She said something Jeremy couldn’t quite catch, something that sounded muffled as he walked through the halls, lights getting brighter and brighter as he walked through the dizzying halls, each room number being scrambled in his mind. Her pink uniform was almost nauseating, the color of something you drink when your stomach rolls. How fitting.  

Numbers went from simplistic and easy to fuzzy and indirect as she kept going. Twists and turns in the bright light made him almost as dizzy as the car ride over, the streetlights whizzing past still haunting him. Flashes of the night kept going through his mind: you, the car, the ride to Michael’s that felt all too familiar to this journey he was making around each corridor. The nurse said something, but all of Jeremy’s senses were captivated by memories up until they stopped. Not the memories, but the nurse stopped at a room. 216. Your name was lazily scribbled on the plaque outside, and the letters themselves started to get fuzzier and blurrier as he read over it again and again. He couldn’t tell if tears were welling in his eyes again or if it was just his head trying to process every event, every turn, every moment that he wished he could forget. He wished that instead his original plan had been executed, that everything would be okay somewhere stuck underneath the stars and surrounded by the safety of the trees, not this.

With a gulp, Jeremy wiped his hands on his jeans—or rather, hand, as it was this moment that he realized he was still holding the infamous blue sweater in his hand, too nervous, hand too clenched to let it go. He blinked several times, the hallway and room coming into focus, the mint that was originally on the trim around the walls now added with a sickening yellow. There was a moment that he had to swallow back everything: the sweat, the tears, the lump in his throat, the nausea, every word, every event, every little thing that made him tick in the last few minutes needed to be wiped away. This was you he was about to see. His hand reaches for the door, still a little sweaty despite him wiping it onto his dark wash jeans that Brooke and Chloe had insisted he’d wear. The baby blue shirt was stained no doubt, but he didn’t—couldn’t worry about that right now.

He almost pulls away at the cool steel his hand begins to grip, already shaking and unsure of what’s behind the door. He was sure a monster would be in there, although he didn’t know whether or not that monster would digitize into your boyfriend or if it would remain abstract, each mark on your body become a part of the beast that you—both of you would have to conquer. Because if he was sure of one thing, it was that he would not let you do this alone, even if it meant that he would stay until the early hours of the morning, maybe 4 AM or later, staying on the line when you were worried, or anything else. Literally anything, he’d have your back for. Helping you tell your parents about what was actually going on? He’d do that. Testifying as a witness in court? Hell, he’d buy a special suit for that. Hearing you rant forever about the things that have changed and the things you felt you couldn’t do anymore? He’d do that, and then some. But right now was about slaying the monster that was lurking behind the door.

And that was the other thing, he didn’t actually know how you were. No updates were given besides the somewhat good news from your parents in the waiting room minutes ago. And now there was the added fact that your boyfriend could easily be in there that had dawned on Jeremy just seconds ago when he thought about the monsters that needed to be sacrificed to some deity in your honor. Your boyfriend had walked right for your room after what Jeremy could only call a staring contest. And he could’ve inflicted more damage—mental, physical, emotional, whatever. Given that you already had your own room in the ER was a bad sign, knowing that he and Rich had at least shared a nurse, meaning that he was somewhat okay, but you had your own team with you, everyone keeping a constant eye on you. Every sign of you not being half dead and in some kind of deep sleep that he wasn’t sure you’d wake up from was gone. Every sign of okay and maybe being released soon was nonexistent, and he knew that from the minute he saw your car stuck in your driveway, frozen, almost like he was.

“I know it’s tough, but they really do want to see you, okay? Take your time, but just know that.”

With the nurse’s words, Jeremy turned the steel door, noticing how white his knuckles had been while he’d been preparing for whatever fresh hell he was about to endure. He didn’t have much strength, but the door opened anyways, a little wind hitting him in the face as he did so. The breeze wasn’t calming, the scent of ”sterile” hitting him hard in the face. Jeremy nearly closed his eyes before taking it in, but couldn’t bring himself to stop staring at you the moment his eyes had managed to focus enough to see your figure, still, unmoving.

A shaky few steps, and Jeremy’s inside the room; alone. It doesn’t take much strain to see that you’re asleep, or what Jeremy hoped was just sleeping, the damage on your face clear in the dimmer lights that washed you out much more than Jeremy��s comfort level. At least, he hoped it was the lights and that you hadn’t actually lost that much blood. No internal bleeding, no paralysis. But there were scratches. Some deep, others just grazing your skin, but you were covered in them. Little to long, each one adding a sickening flow effect to your hopefully sleeping figure. He takes another step forward, making sure to be quiet as he does so, sure to not wake you, eyes stuck on the pulse monitor. He flicks them back to you, seeing that the black circle that surrounded your eye wasn’t just the lighting. It had been a punch, a felony committed right there on your skin. On your other cheek was a red spot, one that brought him back to the first night you two had actually talked and he had figured out everything. If he could go back in time, Jeremy would be so much more helpful, tell of each situation, and help himself help you, no matter what it took.

There are two mint chairs beside him, he had noticed them when walking in, but now used one to throw the sweater onto. While you slept, something tugged at Jeremy. He knew he had to keep you safe and sound, comfort you and be there for you in ways that you hadn’t experienced all night, or even for this entire relationship you’d struck up what felt like decades ago. Another minute passes, still deciding on what to do, how to show that he’s there for you without crossing a boundary that you couldn’t give consent to while sleeping. He looks away only to sit into the other mint chair, the darkness now providing some kind of comfort, a soft glow to you.

Finally he looks at you again and realizes just how many marks litter your arms, one almost permanently around your wrist, a clear hand mark around it. He sees similar ones to weeks ago around your neck, and he finally makes a decision. With a clear stroke of clean cut confidence, Jeremy takes your hand into his and squeezes just gently enough to know he won’t wake you.  He exhales for a second, the world becoming still as Jeremy can feel himself break down in the chair, breath getting shaky as his hand unknowingly slightly grips yours.

A few seconds pass, and Jeremy jumps back as you begin to stir, eyes fluttering open, fear striking into your body but immediately relaxing into a soft smile as your eyes land on him. He’s still surprised, still worried, still in a state of shock as your pale face works its way into a look of adorable wonder at him. The usual stars in your eyes are dull, but they were still there. You inhaled, a flash of pain making its way across your face as you did so, making Jeremy’s heart break more than it already had. Breathing was a normal human function, something that was almost thoughtless and oftentimes looked over by people but now you were in pain as you did something that was usually so simple and easy. Your mouth opens slightly and Jeremy can see more of the damage done—it’s worse than he even thought as your bright red split lip comes into view in the dull but annoyingly white lights that ricocheted off the walls. He can see the strain in every moment that passes and all of the hurt that is still lingering as the corners of your mouth turn up and your and slightly squeezes his back. Jeremy can’t keep the tears from welling in his eyes once more as each action was executed, the entire world seeing irrelevant as your breath turns into an exhale within a second. “Hey,” the smile is more apparent and Jeremy’s tears stream down his face—you were okay. Not completely okay but at least enough to recognize him and know that it’s Jeremy, you’re safe, you’re sound, everything is going to be fine.

His mouth melts into a smile, tears still a steady stream down his face. “Hey.”

You inhale, pain flashing through you again, less this time as you wake up a little bit more. “I’m sorry I didn’t show. I tried, I really did.”

Jeremy shook his head, heart sinking as he did so. “No, don’t worry about it. You’re forgiven. Completely.”

“But Jeremy,” you began, concern invading your eyes as you watched him carefully. “I left you in the dark by yourself. That’s not fair and completely my fault.”

Using his left hand, Jeremy wiped his eyes before continuing, voice soft, “It’s not your fault. I promise.”

A sharp breath escapes you, and he can only assume that you chuckled at him, your smile only growing bigger. “You’re sweet.” Your eyes turn towards the ceiling. Another agonizing exhale escapes you, and Jeremy can barely keep still. This isn’t your fault. And you…you didn’t believe him. He sniffles a little bit, anger beginning to make an entrance as his eyes look towards his lap. But he controls it. Now isn’t the time for anger. It isn’t the time for revenge or any violence. Now is the time for comfort; anything he can do to help you feel better or at the very least take the emotional turmoil for a little bit.

“It’s okay, Jeremy. I’m fine. Look, I’m here, you’re here, we’re talking.” He feels you squeeze his hand and your eyes watching him. His eyes meet yours, and a second goes by, so many emotions are going through you at once, but the overarching one is still concern for him. Nevertheless, Jeremy nods at your statement, so relieved that your statement was right. You two were talking, you were coherent, and you were going to end up fine, no matter what had happened in the past was the past. This was now. And now you were okay, speaking, and reassuring him that everything is fine.

Something tugged at him, though. As much as he wanted to be completely convinced by your affirmation you’d given before, Jeremy couldn’t believe it himself. Whatever happened in the last few hours was enough nightmare fuel to keep bad memories, flashbacks, and whatever else alive and well for years. That, and there was the added fact of physical therapy, possible permanent injuries, and so much more. Your situation, your condition could change rapidly at any moment, and he could lose you. He could see the pain with simple tasks, bodily functions, and so much more. How could he believe that you were okay with everything that surrounded this moment? With another split second of confidence, Jeremy took your hand with both of his, each of his ten fingers grazing over your palm, trying to provide some sort of comfort to you. He focused on each curve of your hand, what this warmth was like compared to the cold you must be feeling because he definitely was, every callous, every scratch, every line.

“You probably want to know what happened, huh?” With a glance up, Jeremy could see one corner of your lip up, almost teasing about the events that unraveled. But stuck in your eyes, hidden underneath every joke you had, the truth laid like a sleeping dragon, ready to strike at the moment someone decided to awaken it.

“I mean, yeah, at some point. But for right now, maybe it’s best that you rest.”  

“Jeremy, it’s me. I’ll be fine. That, and you have a right to know why I basically stood you up.”

“It’s your choice, but seriously, I’m okay to hold off on it for now—”

“Look at me. I’m fine to talk about it, okay? You have a right to know and this might be our last private moment where we’re both protected by the people around us.”

“Just…keep yourself safe.”

“Always.”

A moment and everything stills. It feels like a painting almost, except instead of the glassy white sickening walls, everything is replaced with darkness, similar to the trees that would’ve kept you protected that night. The neon blue almost becomes the sky, the stars, and everything else in the universe; discovered beauties and undiscovered realities. If both of you didn’t know any better and blocked out the smell of the room, it was almost like stargazing. The world felt right, music playing in the background that on some level, each of you knew was just an old Friends rerun, but on another it was almost like Jeremy’s stereo playing out into the night. Comfort seeping into the crevices, the world fading away, almost like nothing could touch you as you inhaled, pain still relevant, but it fading away with each second, beginning the story that Jeremy wanted to hear, but at the same time wanted to keep you safe from.

“I was getting ready to leave when it started. I’d made some dumb excuse, something like my mom needing me. That’s when the arguing started.” Jeremy’s hand involuntarily grips your own, out of comfort and his own chills as he mentally prepared himself for where this story would take him. He’d seen the evidence, the aftershocks, but now he was getting every detail, every clue he’d missed before. “I was close to the door when he started accusing me of cheating on him, which isn’t really true, is it? And if we were, I wouldn’t come out and tell him when he’s angry like that, you know?”

Jeremy provided a nod, telling you he was listening to every word as it flew from your mouth and settled hard onto the ground. “Jeremy, he was going to hurt you. I had to stop him.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“He was out for blood. I knew that when he stood up and ran for the door. So, I stopped him. And I don’t know one thing lead to another and suddenly he starting saying things. I can distinctly remember him saying something like ‘If you want to continue to side against me, go for it’.”

Jeremy’s mind paused everything around him for a second, familiar laughter tickling the back of his brain as the quote swirled around in his mind instead of directly hitting the floor. Each syllable, each phrase, everything about what you’d just said was almost a reenactment of the SQUIP’s logic and basic manipulation. The phrase coming from anyone else in any other circumstance would’ve been a terrible mental trip, but this, hearing it from you, was adding into his somewhat fucked reality. Your boyfriend wasn’t human, he was convinced. How do you claim to love someone and then have the capacity to tell them something so deep and twisted that they question their sense of reality and self? He could remember that feeling that everything that you were doing was stuck onto some scoreboard you didn’t have access to, something that kept track of every misdemeanor, every act that was seemingly against the other person until the world exploded. Game over, no more lives left. Jeremy unclenched his fist consciously, not knowing how it got that way in the first place, feeling himself break as it dawned upon him that this was happening to you. You, sweet, perfect, amazing, you. He couldn’t take the fact that so much was happening behind the scenes, so much pain and hurt that was undocumented, everything similar to something he’d gone through before—something he hadn’t wished on anyone. But that memory, the things he wished he could change, lingered in you and he wasn’t sure exactly how to take that other than plans to blow up your boyfriend and constantly check on you to keep you safe.

“But I don’t even know how I was siding against him for having a friend that isn’t him. And yeah, maybe I said some shitty things back, but I have never sided against him on purpose. Why would I do that? I’m his partner for fuck’s sake. I wouldn’t side against him even if I wanted to.”

“That’s not okay for him to say. I know how hard you work to make everything work. But I also know that what he said isn’t true. I hope you know that.”

“Jeremy, don’t worry. I know.” You turn away as soon as ‘I know’ leaves your mouth, almost ashamed of your own confidence; almost like you were lying and didn’t actually know. Something inside of you was forcing you to doubt yourself and the instincts you’d grown up with. And this was the moment that Jeremy’s mind became more active than it had been the entire night. It was a second that he realized this behavior, this idea that you had was a force that was causing you to not say what was on your mind, to lie, everything was a force of nature; something that had been learned, just like everything else that happened months ago. From the moment he saw you across the way in the cafeteria, to prom, to that first night, to the café, to other breakfasts, everything had been learned, forced, ingrained inside of you to almost come out as natural as you could make it seem, but there was still toxicity to it, something poisonous lurking in the limelight. “And then,” your voice waved into the room, almost ripping the edges of comfort that you’d had with him. Jeremy moved his thumb against your hand again, hoping to elicit some kind of comfort into your skin. “I don’t know, things got physical. He mentioned something about finding the sweater in my car after seeing it on you or something. I’m just so confused, I was so articulate, so careful. How did he—”

Your breath caught in your throat and tears streamed down your face. You pulled your hand free of Jeremy’s and wiped your eyes. His grip wasn’t that tight, the movement was swift and fluid, something that was so natural and repeated in your daily life that it was almost habit. He noticed the soft touches around your eyes, seeing how carefully your fingers moved around your eye with the all-too-perfect circle around it, gently wincing with each action and attempt to clear the tears. A “sorry” was murmured, but Jeremy couldn’t figure out what to do. His mind raced but was still. He made a choice; as soon as your hand landed safely back onto the bed, he’d carefully take it in his once again. But for now, the most he could do was loudly articulate to you that it was okay. So he did. He left you have the moments alone that you needed as your shoulders bounced and sobs thrashed your body around on the bed. As soon as three rang out, it was like something happened and you immediately calmed down. Another force of nature, Jeremy knew. While he knew that almost nobody saw this side of you, the hurt, the pain, the façade coming crumbling down as the masquerade ended, he did. And he knew you had trained yourself for it to be a maximum amount of time so no one could suspect a thing.

Your hand hit the bed, no sound coming from it as it did so. He took it in his hand, fingers barely grazing yours. As soon as your felt the contact, your hand squeezed his, completely holding his hand to ground yourself in a way you hadn’t seen in ages. He squeezed back, making sure you knew that everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be fine. But the action wasn’t enough. It was a halfway thing, a thing you never got, but still merely a 50-60% effort given. With an inhale, Jeremy finally spoke the one thing that had been on his mind this whole time: “You don’t deserve this, you know.”

He expected an ‘I know’. He expected another lie, another forced thing. But what he got was a truthful, quiet, “Thank you.” Your face went from sobbing in the car, asking yourself why this was happening to hard and stoic, protective and persistent. It pointed in a way that would allow anyone just glancing you over to assume you had everything in hand, under control, a face that was near wrong, blank and numb and staring at a specific point. Something that had been so practiced it’d become a part of you. Your face fit the mold that everyone expected that you had, and the only person who saw the truth was sitting beside you, gently squeezing your hand and giving it soft touches. Your eyes had a look that Jeremy had seen a few times before, but he didn’t have time to study it as words tumbled out of your mouth and covered up any white noise around the two of you, “How are you?”

“Uhh, good. Yeah, I’m good now.”

“Now? What do you mean?”

Fuck. Jeremy had to explain himself to you, this was the moment to be truthful and open. “I took the long way home and made a wrong turn. I somehow ended up on the street your boyfriend lives and I kinda saw the ambulance and stuff.”

“Oh my god, Jeremy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for—Shit, I should’ve at least texted or let you know something. I’m so sorry for worrying you and fuck, for this disaster of a night. I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“Hey,” Jeremy interrupted the spiraling descent into some kind of panicked madness that he’d seen a few times before. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about me. Just focus on yourself for right now. Take some time to rest and stuff, okay?”

Jeremy knew he’d gotten through to you when you nodded at his words, your eyes looking blankly at the wall before shifting to the TV that was still playing late night Friends reruns, the night finally settling into something that both of you were a little bit happier with. For the first time that night, he refocused onto the small screen, watching you carefully out of the corner of his eye. You give a chuckle at one of Ross’ misfortunes, and Jeremy does the same, his eyes flicking at your light smile and seeing something he only had during your best moments together. The entire night was supposed to be these soft touches and light looks, but Jeremy was just grateful for this one not-so-perfect moment where you seemed happy—and not just happy enough. Genuinely having a good time and enjoying yourself. With another flick of his eyes Jeremy sees you relax into the pillows, eyes fluttering softly against your imperfect marks, everything cleaned as well as it could be. But the soft smile on your face has him melting, bringing something sweet to the otherwise upsetting situation.

“I never thanked you for being here. So, thank you. It means a lot.”

Jeremy made full eye contact with you, a soft “You’re welcome” coming from him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. That, and I worry about you.”

“You’re sappy, but adorable,” you chuckle at him, eyes lazily shining some light into him.

Jeremy blushes before looking down at his lap. It’s a reaction, a reflex, something that he had always done. It’s natural, simple, and to him, completely unnecessary. But he can’t help it—the one person that he has the biggest crush on calling him adorable was enough to make his week, maybe even his year. He takes another inhale before giving the TV another glance, everything settling around the noise that it’s making; once white and now turning into the colors that you’re meant to hear. The room was still dark, but the moment between the two of you was so bright that it was almost like everything didn’t matter. This was the two of you being comfortable, being yourselves in an outside world that didn’t allow for things like that. He spared you another glance, this time melting at your closing eyes, the stumble and attempt to stay awake as the rerun played throughout the room.

Without really even realizing it at first, Jeremy got that moment he wanted to see before, the one that felt like it was months ago. He had longed to see you falling asleep on the couch from playing Life is Strange into the early hours of the morning, seeing small ticks of relaxation in your features and witnessing the most innocent and pure form of trust. He was kind of getting that now. Sure, it wasn’t Life is Strange, and sure it wasn’t the best place for it, but Jeremy was still getting it. It was a compromise, but a compromise he was glad he didn’t miss out on. Everything he imagined about you adorably falling asleep was correct, he made a few changes in his mind, committing everything to his memory. Your mouth wasn’t slightly open, it remained closed as your head leaned to the side, heavier breaths than he would’ve thought leaving you. It was a calmer sleep, more scheduled than he had originally imagined. While you sleeping was adorable and wonderful—and frankly, a relief to Jeremy all together—it was still in a hospital room that could’ve been completely avoided, in a situation that shouldn’t have happened, in a part of town that people only visited when things were going badly.

A sudden urge to leave washes over Jeremy, careful not to disturb you. You needed the rest now more than ever. There’s a pause, a moment of contemplation before Jeremy decides to do something bold, something he should’ve done months ago when everything had first happened. He leans over steadily, observing you relaxed, your chest moving up and down rhythmically. Without a second thought, he gives your forehead a soft kiss. As he retracts, he squeezes your hand once more before letting it go completely, letting you get some much-needed rest. He sets your hand onto the plastic-y bed, making sure that the IV’s wire isn’t kinked or disrupted. The tape is undisturbed, almost like he had never been there at all. With a breath, Jeremy stands up and watches you, making sure that you’re sleeping heavily enough where his leaving won’t wake you in any way, shape, or form. It’s now that he sees the bandages around your ribcage, your shirt lifted just enough so he could see the edge of the tape. Jeremy’s fists ball up for a second, knowing that this is what your parents were talking about when it came to internal bleeding. He assumed it was from some sort of kick to the ribs, which his mind couldn’t even bring the mental image up without him getting angry and disgusted—who does this to someone they claim to love? What kind of sick moment takes over enough for you to get violent? And to the point that they’re hospitalized? Before Jeremy could get even angrier and possibly wake you, he took a breath in, glanced at the sweater in the chair adjacent to him, and softened. This wasn’t about anything except you and keeping you out of harms way, secure, and alive.

A shiver runs down Jeremy’s spine and he realizes just how cold it is in the room. Even though the heat outside is enough to make anyone want to peel their skin off, the hospital itself is cold enough inside to almost need an extra layer, especially with the gown you’d been put into. A swift move, and Jeremy grabs a hospital notepad and a pen that had been resting on the nightstand. He scrawls out a note, something about how you can keep the sweater for a little bit longer; it’s cold in the room, you probably need it. He leaves the note attached to the pad so it doesn’t get accidentally blown away by someone’s movements, or if your status changes and nurses have to—help you quickly, it wouldn’t be lost in the process. He sets the pen beside the notepad and hangs the sweater off the edge of the chair so that you can see it when you wake up. Jeremy makes his way towards the door softly, making sure that his footsteps don’t cause any disruptions throughout the room. He moves the door handle gently, slowly, softly before slipping into the hallway, careful not to miss the soft smile on your face that had planted itself there after he’d kissed your forehead and made his way towards the door.

The bright white lights make him wince, but he exhales, relief flushing out all of the worry from before. A nurse looks up from the table and gives him a smile, almost knowing exactly what had gone in the room before he had made an exit. “Ready to go?” she asks, grabbing a clipboard as Jeremy nods, unsure of what to say. The nurse smiles wider, her pink scrubs that had once seemed menacing now providing a sense of comfort and relief to him. “Don’t worry about them, they’re in good hands,” the nurse notes as she guides him back into the large room from before. He nods again, still in shock about the things that had happened, the things he’d seen, and mentally preparing himself for what awaited him in the room he’d started this horrible process in.

Through the double doors they went, and Jeremy’s eyes land on his dad’s back. Michael makes immediate contact and gives his best friend a smile, “Jer!” Everything from then on is almost blurry, still in a happy daze at the events that had unfolded. The nurse, the kiss, the TV, stupid fake star gazing with one another. The only thing he could do without was the upsetting truth that awaited you outside of the exit doors. But for right now, everything would be fine. You’d be okay for a little bit. And for Jeremy, that was enough to let him soar through the once dreadful and dull room he’d sat in for hours.

He takes a few steps towards Michael, a watery smile breaking out onto his face. Jeremy gives Michael a hug, silently thanking him for everything he’d done that night, from reassuring him about the drive, keeping him calm at his house, to finally driving him here to see you without any questions asked. The nurse says something and your parents head back along with your best friend. They give Jeremy a look of sympathy, silently mouthing a ‘thank you’ to him as they pass by, almost hyperaware of each syllable that had been spoken into your hospital room. Almost like they knew that you’d want to see Jeremy. He supposed maybe they did know.

“Jeremy?”

“Sorry Dad, what did you say?”

“I said I’m heading home. If you boys want to spend the night, you can. I’ll get breakfast for you two tomorrow. Come home when you’re ready; you can tell me all the details that Michael wasn’t able to fill me in on in the morning.”

“Yeah, sure Dad. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Drive safe, okay?”

Michael and Jeremy nod almost simultaneously before Mr. Heere gives Jeremy a pat on the back. He leaves through the mechanical doors that now had a new light to them. The watercolor paintings on the walls had now become beautiful, the receptionist now less sinister than when they had first rushed in. Things are going to be okay. The mint chairs now were ingrained in Jeremy’s brain, but instead of horror and nerves associated with them, he thought about you falling asleep, leaving the sweater and the smile he’d seen while leaving your room. The old magazines didn’t seem out of place, and while the lights were still an eye strain, for some reason, that didn’t bother Jeremy as much as it once had.

Michael looked at his best friend sharply, grabbing his keys from his pocket. “Ready?”

“Yeah. I am. Thanks from driving me.”

“No problem! We’re practically brothers dude. I’d do anything to help you. I thought you knew that because I saved you from…you know,” he tapped his temple got really close to Jeremy, almost like the action was a secret to everyone around them. It wasn’t, everyone could clearly see what he was doing, but even after all this time, Michael still wouldn’t even utter the word.

Jeremy gave a laugh for the first time that night before following Michael out through the doors they had before, high fiving and smiling all the way to the cruiser that had sat innocently outside the emergency room for hours. Yeah, things were going to be just fine.

[gh0stgurl]

Revenge is Calling: Part 1

Summary: Fighting in any relationship is normal, but sometimes it gets to be too much. Y/N and Dean have gotten to that point. Y/N decides enough is enough, and takes matters into her own hands.

Characters: Dean X Reader, Sam, Bobby, Cas

Word count:1607

Series WARNING:Angst, Language, Violence, Torture, PTSD, fluff (if you look really close)

A/N: So this is the 1st part in the series. This is my first series ever. Feedback wouldbe greatly appreciated. I hope you guys like it.

Series Masterlist / Tumblr Masterlist

You have been sitting on your bed for a few hours now just waiting for Dean to start his rant. You saved that little girls life, granted it almost cost you yours. Once you say that demon going for her, you had to do something. Dean would have done the same thing, but when it comes to you or Sam he wasn’t having it.

After you got back to the bunker, you went to your shared room. Sam and Dean went to the war room. You haven’t seen him since. He showed up around 10 pm. His face was unreadable. He wouldn’t looks at you. You got up to change into your pajama shorts and one of Dean’s flannels. When You both were laying down in bed he finally spoke.

“Y/N?”

“yeah” you turned to face him.

“ Please don’t do that again.”

“Do what? Save a little girls life? You do realize we save people right?”

“ You know what I meant.” He was starting to get frustrated, but he kept himself clam. “ I almost lost you today, because you decided to make a stupid decision. You don’t just run out in front of demons like that.”

“You would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes. Hell you actually have, so don’t give me that crap.”

“You know what, I can’t have this conversation right now.” He rolled away from you.

“Fine” you turned away frim him too. You love Dean but he can be a hypocrite sometimes.

When You woke up Dean was still facing away from you. This wasn’t normal for him. Dean was a natural cuddler, even when you guys would fight he would always cuddle with you in his sleep. For some reason this time was different.

You got up and went to make coffee. After you got a cup, you went to sit at the war table. Not knowing how Dean was going to act when he got up.

A few weeks went by, you and Dean have been fighting more and more. You didn’t go on the last hunt just to get some peace. Unfortunately that didn’t last very long. It was a quick salt and burn, so the boys were back in a few days.

You guys have been fighting over little things. Half the time neither of you know what you are fighting about. Both of you wished the fighting would stop. Then one of You would do something to set the other off and you were right back at each others throats.

“Ouch” you said as you got back on to your feet. Dean left his boots out again. Normally this wouldn’t bother you so much but he’s been getting on your last nerve lately.

You pick up his boots and walk to his stupid “man cave”. He was just sitting on the couch watching tv. You walked up behind him and dropped his boots in his lap. You weren’t aiming for his crotch but a tiny smile came up when you heard him groan.

“What the fuck Y/N? What’s your problem?” Dean had turned his head to face you while still holding himself.

“I’m sick and tired of tripping on your boots Every time I walk into our room.” You stared at him with your arms crossed. Dean got up and walked out.

A few minutes later you walked into your room, only to trip over his damn boots again. “Son of a Bitch!” When you looked around at the floor you saw all of Dean’s shoes scattered everywhere. “You have got to be kidding me!”

You left them on the floor as you got dressed to go running with Sam. Maneuvering your way around them so you didn’t trip again. When you got back, they were all still there. “I hope he trips over all of these.”

The next few days were Hell. You and dean were doing things to purposefully piss each other off. You need to get out. You needed to hunt. You even called Bobby to see if he had a case. Unfortunately he just finished one up.

You were in the war room looking for a case, when Dean came in with a plate of nachos and Sat down next to you. He started chewing super loud. You gave him a dirty look but he just continued. If You didn’t know any better you would say he got louder. Finally you were fed up. You packed up your laptop and notebook. Before you got up Dean started talking.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going somewhere else, so I can focus.”

“You can’t do that here?”

“NO, I Can’t! Not when your chewing louder than a damn cow. I can’t hear my own thoughts!”

“what’s your problem? I just wanted to hangout with you, now your leaving. You have been so bitchy lately I just wanted a nice quiet afternoon with you but apparently I don’t get that.”

“My problem? My problem right now is you.” You got up and grabbed your stuff. You walked to the doorway before turning back. “And I’m not the only one who has been bitchy. In case you forgot, YOU started this.”

Dean was up in your face as soon as you got the last word out. “I didn’t start this shit you did. Don’t try blaming this on me. This is all You sweetheart.”

Being the stubborn person You are. You weren’t going to back down.

“If You weren’t so wrapped up in that giant ego of your, you would realize that this started when you started acting like an ass to everyone after the last hunt. Then then refused to admit it even after Sammy and I said something.”

“I hate to brake it to you, but that’s just who I am.”

“ No, the normal you doesn’t yell or glare at everyone when you see them. He also was never an asshole to me, overprotective yes, asshole no. I don’t know what happened but I’m tired of it.” You turned and started walking away from him.

“Y/n, where are you going? We’re not done talking about this.“ He started following you to your room.

“Well I am. I’m going to my room.”

“ You realize I can just follow you into our room, I have a key if you lock it.”

You walked right past the room you have shared with Dean for the last four years. Earning a confused look from him.

“No, I said My room not yours.” You walked in closing the door behind you. Locking it so he couldn’t come after you. You put your back to the door, and slid down it. Tears started coming down your cheeks.

Dean walked up to the door, trying the knob. “Y/N, open the door.” You just ignored him, trying to keep your breath steady. “Sweetheart, please open the door.”

“Go Away Dean”.

Dean let out a big sigh, before you hear his footsteps retreating back down the hall.

That night you didn’t come out of your room for anyone. Dean tried to get you to come out a few times. Sam even came and knocked on your door. You ignored all of them. Cas even popped into your room to try to get you to come out. The book that hit him in the face was just a subtle hint that you wanted to be left alone.

You hated sleeping alone. You had gotten so used to sharing a bed with Dean, that you had a hard time falling asleep. You tossed and turned so much. You almost gave up but around 4 a.m. you finally fell asleep.

The next couple of days, you only came out of your room in the mornings to get food, water and snacks to last you through out the day. You only saw Sam, knowing Dean wouldn’t get up this early.

“Y/N, are you alright? You look like crap, no offense.”

“None taken. I’m fine Sam. I just haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

Sam nodded, he looked like he was trying to figure out what to say next. “Are you going to talk to him? He’s pretty messed up. He’s doing the same thing you are, only he looks worse and that’s saying something.”

You glared at him for a few seconds. “No I’m not. I just need time. He could talk to me ya know. There’s 2 people in this relationship not 1." You grabbed your stuff and walked back towards your room.

“I seriously need to find a hunt or something.” You said to yourself as you got back into your Winchester free room.

You found a hunt a few hours later. So you decided to pack your clothes. You were glad that you decided to keep your clothes in your old room, because with all the flannels Dean owns it was just a lot easier this way.

You wrote a couple of quick notes for the boys. You were letting them know you found a hunt and you would be back in a few days.

When You knew both boys were asleep, you snuck into the war room. You placed the notes In the middle of the table. You took a moment and looked around, then you walked towards Dean’s room. You quietly opened the door, so that you wouldn’t wake him. He had a sad look on his face. He was also cuddling with your pillow. Just looking at him, made a twinge of guilt run through your stomach. You slowly closed the door. You took a second to gather yourself again before heading out.

[paramedicsuicide]

First responder suicide -- PTSD, or something else?

Its 1:30am. I sit on my computer in complete darkness, having just slept for the past 10 hours. As a Paramedic in a suburb of a relatively small US city, I work 12 hours shifts for 4 straight days. I get 4 days off to recuperate after that, and at this point in my career those days are essential for my survival. Many of my co-workers are not lucky enough to be able to stop at just 4 days, and must work additional overtime shifts in order to make ends meet. The private EMS industry has relatively low wages nationwide. We are the "red headed step child" of emergency services, often hiding in the shadows of police officers, firefighters, and nurses. There is no such thing as a "typical" shift when working in EMS. There are the occasional shifts where I will sit in the parking lot of the local convenience store chain for 12 straight hours without picking up a single patient. The glow of my cell phone screen illuminating my face for each passing person to see the life draining out of my body. The boredom sets in after hour 2.  My legs and butt hurt. I am hungry, but I can't tell if its true hunger or just my body telling me to get up and move. I decide to walk inside to browse the aisles of colorful treats, getting nauseous at the thought of eating "lunch" out of a gas station at midnight for the 3rd day in a row. Despite my disgust, I walk outside with 2,000 or more calories of junk food at a time in an attempt to eat myself to death. "Ill be diabetic by the end of the week" I say to my partner as I open my fudge dipped granola bar. As the career of a first responder goes on, most quickly start to pack on the pounds like a bear preparing for winter. Company policy prevents you from sleeping during your shift, so your food (if you can call it that) is washed down with 16oz of your favorite energy drink to keep you awake and ready to pick grandma up off the floor when she attempts her 2am bathroom run. I have palpitations from all the caffeine. Hopefully one day those PVC's turn into an arrhythmia and the lord takes me. "Anything to get out of this job" I say, as I polish off my second monster of the night.  Morning rolls around. 50mg of benadryl will help me fall asleep after drinking energy drinks all night long. I have severe shift sleep disorder. I am depressed. I just want to sleep. I wake up ready to go after just 4 hours of sleep. Great. Another night of pounding monsters. I punch in 15 minutes early for my next shift and am assigned a call before I am even scheduled to start. I am the only ambulance available in the surrounding 15 square miles of suburbia, and that trend will continue for the next 12 hours. Call after call, I don't have time to finish my paperwork before being sent on the next run. Its 11pm and dispatch calls my unit number for the 5th time today-- "With the fire department for a 1 year old post choking". I have taken 50 calls of the same nature before and say out loud-- "Great, another bullshit call". Every day, nervous parents call 911 over the slightest cough or sniffle which eventually numbs you to the potential of a true pediatric emergency. Its never a real emergency. Until it is. Rolling up on scene after the fire department, I grab my house bag and begin to waddle towards the low income apartment building for the third time this week. I think -- "I should have brought the tablet for a signature so I don't have to walk back outside". Suddenly, a firefighter rounds the corner carrying a limp child like he is holding an offering platter. "That's not good" I blurt out , going from zero to 100 in the snap of a finger. The firefighter tells me the child was eating chicken and rice when he began to choke.  As my partner digs out the pediatric bag valve mask that has been sitting unused in the house bag for an unknown number of years, I set up the suction, only to find an unresponsive, apneic child with a clenched jaw. "That doesn't make sense" I think to myself as I try to peel apart his tiny jaw without any luck. Thank god-- he has a gap in his front tooth that fits a small, 12fr suction catheter. I start to go through the motions. Is he seizing? Nope. Any trauma visible or reported? No. Mom was asked again-- and again says the child was sitting up, eating, and suddenly started choking. What is going on here? With little to be done on scene, I rush to the small local hospital, nervous that the next squeeze of the bag could lodge a piece of food in this kids airway. I am getting good air exchange but his spo2 isn’t amazing. He must have aspirated. Great news. He is now moving his arms, and his eyes just opened. Wait, why is his jaw still clenched? That's not great news. This kid hasn't made a noise. What the fuck is going on. As I roll the stretcher into the small emergency room closest to the scene, I am greeted with that dreaded sentence from the ER Physician-- "why did you bring him here and not children's hospital".  I bite my tongue-- its not the time to have that fight. The kid is now posturing. A few minutes go by and the doctor asks me to get my laryngoscope because the emergency room is not currently stocked with the proper pediatric equipment. Maybe he was right. The thoughts start rushing through my head-- "they are going to kill this kid. I should have just risked it and bypassed. It was only an extra 7 minutes or so further". As I sit there and wait for the next order, new thoughts take over. "Someone shook this kid. There is no other explanation".  Hypertensive, bradycardic, posturing. But mom said he was choking on rice? Where would she get that from? Hmm. She doesn't seem as concerned as a mother should be. She answers a text message while being questioned by the police.  She has yet to ask anyone how her son is doing. The texts start to come in to my phone. "Are you ok?". "I hear you had a bad call. You guys ok?" "WTF was that all about?". I am fine. Any provider who plans to have a lengthy career has to distance themselves from their patients. I can think back to every "bad" call I've taken, and never once have I been able to recall processing a patients face. Its not important. What they look like is irrelevant to my job. Its the circle of life. Some people live, some people die. Its my job to try and make that circle a little bit bigger if I can. Sometimes you are successful, sometimes you aren't. You have to come to terms with that early on. Minutes after calling in service from restocking, the radio chimes my unit number again. "Cold response to the fitness center for a hand laceration". I arrive on scene to find a psych standing out front in his blue paper clothes, clearly having been to an emergency room at least once today. “Hop on in buddy-- take a seat” I say as I shake my head. We drive him 3 blocks down the street to the same emergency room we left just a couple hours prior. I am not greeted like one would expect. Not with "Hello", not with "whats the chief complaint". I am greeted with a sentence that is never good news. "Did you hear?". Our child from earlier had been emergently transferred 6 miles away to the childrens hospital by a specialty transport team. The news from them was not good. "That kid -- he has a brain bleed". My suspicions were confirmed. He was never choking. Someone hurt this kid and tried to cover it up. I know how to handle this, because its not even the first time this situation has happened to me. People hurt kids often enough that I am not even shocked. Stories like this don't make the news *for a reason*. People cant handle stuff like this. No one needs to know that savages live in apartment 3. Some people have to know though. WE have to know. Its not OK. I talk about suicide often. My previous partner was a veteran and has PTSD from being deployed overseas. He has had many friends commit suicide after returning from war, and was concerned about my mental health. That should concern me. He would ask me once a week-- "Are you sure you are ok?".  My little comments here and there come off as jokes to most people. "Id rather die than come into work tonight". "Pull out in front of this semi truck-- we wont feel a thing I promise". "Stage for police? Fuck that. I hope I get shot". In reality, its not a joke. I am not suicidal at this point in my life-- I am apathetic about living. I'm not going to take my own life, but I am definitely not excited when I wake up each morning. This feeling has slowly crept up on me over my almost 10 year career as a paramedic. I tell myself daily that I need to get out before its too late. What will be the breaking point where I become truly suicidal?  I have to answer one question before I leave. "Where will I go?"   I am burnt out. Everyone says "go to nursing school", but the passion-- the fire inside that makes you want to help people has been extinguished for years. Where can you go at 30+ years old with a paramedic certification and no useful degree. I have made financial commitments at my age that makes starting from scratch somewhere at entry level wages an impossibility. What can I do? Where can I go? I am stuck. This job is like quick sand, and I'm up to my shoulders. If I struggle much more it will be above my head. We get to see what goes on behind the curtains of society. How much would you enjoy a magic show if you knew how the magic was performed? That is what life is like for many first responders. Members of the general public get to wear blinders during their day to day lives. There are people who post rants to facebook if the garbage man didn't put their garbage can back in the correct spot. A terrible day for a typical person is a flat tire on the way home from work. They have no idea what happens in their town or city on a day to day basis. They have NO IDEA that 3 doors down, a husband beat the shit out of his wife for the 4rd time this year and she wont tell the police what happened. They have NO IDEA that people call an ambulance from the parking lot of an emergency room because they don't want to wait in the waiting room.  They have NO IDEA that someone in apartment 3 just hurt their baby and tried to cover it up. But we know. We see it all. I have talked with a lot of people who have similar feelings. Its due to me being so open about my apathy towards life. People who I see every day, smiling at their coworkers and telling war stories and laughing. You would never guess these people were at the end of their ropes-- fighting off their own demons. "Make sure they have bagpipes at my funeral". I don't try and talk these people down because they don't want help. How could I help anyways? You cant just "un-know" the things we know. These people just feel comfort in the fact that they aren't alone. I have been lucky that none of these people have taken their lives yet. I know the day is coming. Its been a long time since a co-worker has committed suicide, and the statistics say we are over-due. How will I handle it?

[wavemistress]

100 (oh so personal) Questions, Part 1

1. Is a kiss considered cheating?

It think it depends.  Speaking purely for myself, I kiss my mother and my children all the time and I'm not cheating.   However, if I were to kiss someone other than my husband and kiss them on the mouth, I would consider it to be cheating.  Cheeks are fine. Forehead is fine.  Nose is pushing it.  Mouth?  Off limits!

2. Have you ever faked orgasm?

To me, faking orgasm is the same as lying to your partner.  I don't believe in lying, so, I don't fake orgasms.  Then again, there's also the point that I haven't the first clue on how to fake an orgasm anyway.  Since I have no interest in pretending to orgasm, I haven't found any need to learn how.  I guess this is sort of a round about way to say: “No, I never have.”

3. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Don't you know?  I already have a superpower.  I'm a mom!  With the power of a single touch, a hug, the briefest of kisses, I can soothe even the most upset of my children.  Sometimes, it takes time for my powers to work, but they work and my kids think I'm a superhero.

4. Do you think you are going to be rich in 7-8-9 years?

I'm already rich.  I have everything my heart ever desired when I was a child.  I have a loving husband, two children, a home, food, a back yard, a lawnmower, a vacuum cleaner, a refrigerator, a toilet...  I could go on!

What? You meant money?

Since when does being rich have anything at all to do with money? (what's wrong with you?)

5. Tell us some funny drunk story.

I've never been intentionally drunk!!  Isn't that funny?

6. Why are you no longer with your ex?

Oh, you want that sordid tale.  (sigh) Okay.  Here's the short version.  My then fiancee of eight years told me I could marry him or be married in the temple.  I chose the temple.  The end!

7. If you had to choose one way to die, what would it be?

Old age.

You wanted something more dramatic?!  Okay, I guess I can come up with something.  Ummmm...

Okay, got it!

I'd like to die by trying to look directly at Jesus Christ without being transfigured.

Dramatic enough for you?

8. What are your current goals?

1. Get my house clean and keep it clean

2. Lose about a hundred pounds before I die

3. Somehow get to the end of this list of questions

9. Do you like someone?

What do you mean?  Do you mean like or LIKE?  If by like you mean like, then yes, I like lots of people.  If by like you mean LIKE, then what do you think? I'm a married woman!

10. Who was the last person to disappoint you?

I'm a mother!  My greatest personal weapon is disappointment!

You want me to be serious?

Okay.  Seriously...  I don't remember.

11. Do you like your body?

Let's see.  I'm 5'6” tall and weigh something over 300 lbs at last weigh-in.  I'm also a victim of childhood sexual assault and chronic depression.  You do the math!

12. Can you keep a diet?

You used strange wording for this one...  OH!  You mean can I “stick to” a diet?  ADHD makes sticking to anything that's not a built-in routine really hard to do.  I literally have to change my mind set and make the diet either consistently fun or else so mind-numbingly routine that I just do it without thinking about it.  I've made some slight changes in why I eat and how much.  I also like to treat myself with small food items from time to time so I don't start feeling deprived and I don't weigh myself that often, because weighing in regularly always made me depressed if the numbers went up and nervous if they went down. You wouldn't think this would make much difference, but I've seen a whole lot of change in how my clothing fits.  I don't know if this constitutes a “yes” or a “no” answer, so I leave you to be the judge.

13. If the whole world listened to you right now, what would you say?

Stop listening to me!  You're making me nervous.

Aww! Again with the “be serious” stuff?  Geez!

Okay, I'm being serious, now!  Children deserve to be treated like people. Please talk to them intelligently and articulately.  “Baby talk” only stunts their ability to speak.  Notice them if they're there the same way you'd notice a friend or colleague.  Treat them with considered respect and dignity.  Children are just young people. That doesn't make them idiots.  Yes, as parents our job is to teach them, but teaching them doesn't preclude revoking their person-hood until they reach the age where they start demanding it.  Children are also not objects to be used to fulfill the desires and lusts of grown people.  Until they are old enough to understand what sex is all about, they should be allowed to develop normally.  If you need a sex toy, for heaven's sake, and the sake of children everywhere, go buy a vibrator.

Now I'm feeling upset.  I wish you'd accepted the snarky answer.

14. Do you work?

I know, when you ask this question, you mean, am I gainfully employed and the answer is, “No, I'm not.”  However, I told you in questions 3 and 10 that I'm a mother, so I think it's safe to say that the only time I'm not working is when I'm asleep, though I'm sure, if they could, my family would come up with a way for me to work then, too.  What's more, I do it willingly, even happily.  I love working for my family.  My work shows them how loved they are. Why wouldn't I work?

15. If you could choose only one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Pie.

What?

You need an explanation?

Okay, fine.  Pie can be anything.  Anything can be a pie.  Pizza is pie. There are meat pies and fruit pies.  There are pies outside of a pan and pies you can hold in your hand.  Pies can have a large variety of fillings and crusts.  So, yeah.  I'd pick pie.  That way, I'd stick to the basic letter of the choice without being bored.

16. Would you get a tattoo?

I'm a Mormon and tattoos are against my religion, but let's put the whole religion thing aside for a minute.  When I was a kid, I used to admire the beautiful designs created by tattoo artists, which were rare back then.  Nowadays, nearly everyone has at least one tattoo.  Some are larger and some are tiny.  I know one person who has only one tattoo and it's a tiny bird on her hand, right where she can see it.  So, if I was going to consider getting a tattoo, which I'm not really considering, I'd get a butterfly, a small one, somewhere I could see it regularly, like the back of my hand, to remind me that there is joy, but I would keep it to that.

17. What is something you don't mind spending all your money on?

Groceries and supplies for my family.  That's something I spend all my money on anyway.  

18. Can you drive?

I'm trying to think of a sarcastic or snarky or funny way of answering this without offending anyone.

…

Yes, I can drive.

19. When was the last time someone told you you were beautiful?

A friend of mine in my support group refers to us all as beautifuls. So, I have the delightful honor of being referred to as beautiful every week.

20. What was the last thing you cried for?

My kid shared something with me on YouTube that made me cry.  What was that?  Hmm.

21. Do you keep a journal?

Off and on.  I'm a writer so, sometimes things happen that have to be written down.  However, between ADHD and chronic depression, remembering to write daily isn't always easy.

22. Is life fun?

It has its moments.

23. Is farting in front of people irrelevant?

What a strangely leading question.  I actually had to go look up the word “irrelevant” to be sure of what it meant.  So, your question was, is farting in front of people not really connected to anything.  I don't know a whole lot of people who can fart on command.  To me, all farting means is that your bowels work.  I know some people take offense at public farting because of the occasional smell and the fact that it reminds one of bathroom work.  If you're a considerate soul, for their sake, you excuse yourself just for the sake of being polite.  The fart itself, though, isn't really connected to anything as far as the people to whom you're excusing yourself.  So...  No?

24. What's your dream car?

I don't really have a dream car.  My current car is an 18.5 year old, white Honda Civic.  Its muffler is shot and the engine needs some work that I don't really understand, but it runs and that's the important thing.  Up 'til recently, I shared this car with my husband.  Then my father-in-law gave my husband a new car, newer than the Honda anyway, and the Honda became my car.  I can't tell you how excited I was.  It was like Monty Hall had appeared at my doorstep to present me with, “It's a brand new caaaaar!” Why? Because I'd never owned a car before.  Yes, my husband's name is on the title and, yes, it doesn't really run like a “dream car.” but it runs and it gets good gas mileage.  So, it suits me right down to the ground, as my grampa would say.

25. Are grades in school important?

Another leading question.  Hmm.  As a parent, I feel the need to say that school grades are used as a metric for how well a child is doing in classes.  However, I think they are also a measure of how well the teacher has reached out to the student.  Either way, if school grades are good, the parents know the teacher/student relationship is good and the material is being absorbed.  If grades are poor, parents know that it might be a good idea to set up a conversation with the teacher to try to figure out what's going wrong.  Is it the teacher/student relationship?  Is there a problem with the student themselves?  If there were no grades, how would the parents know when they need to step in?  In case you hadn't guessed, this is me saying, grades in school are definitely important.  However, I don't believe children should be threatened with a poor grade if they don't measure up.  I think that teachers should communicate regularly with parents to see how their students learn best and try to incorporate that into their teaching style, using the child's grades as a metric for how well they, themselves, are doing.

Sorry about the rant.  I tend to get verbose when it's an issue I'm passionate about.

26. Describe your crush.

I'll give you a hint.  It's the one wearing the necktie.

27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you?

The current book I'm reading entitled The 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman.

28. What was your last lie?

How are you today?

Fine

29. Dumbest lie you ever told?

How are you today?

Fine

30. Is crying in front of people embarrassing?

For me, yes.  However, it's more than that. Because of how I was raised, crying in front of people leaves me with a crushing sense of shame, which leaves me feeling depressed unless some kind person tells me it's okay for me to cry.

[worktherooms]

Half Past Three

Pairing: Jordan Fisher x Reader 

Warnings: A curse word or two? 

Word Count: 1,286

A/N: I saw this prompt and thought it was cute: “I call you at 3 AM to talk about random stuff when I can’t sleep, and somewhere between ‘Do pandas like rock music’ and ‘Why can’t fish dance,” I ended up admitting that I love you.” Also sorry this took so long to post, life’s just been crazy! I hope y’all like it! :) 

Tagged: @sunriseovertheroomwhereithappens, @icanneverbesatisfied, @jzzyjones, @afalsacientista

You were staying up late studying for your AP US history test you had the next day when your phone buzzed from beside you. Glancing at the disturbance, you saw it was your best friend calling, and decided to answer.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jordan asked before you had the chance to say anything.

“Shoot, but what could be of such importance that you had to call at 3 in the morning?” You asked, leaning back in your chair.

“I couldn’t sleep, lots of things going through my head, like can you tell me why isn’t a banana called yellow if the orange is called orange?”

“Hm, that has nothing to do with the Civil War–I think that’s more of a question for a philosopher, so I’ll get back to you after I get in touch with Plato.”  

“Great! It’s mandatory I find out sooner rather than later.”

“I hope you know I wasn’t being serious.” You said.

“Yeah, I did, thanks anyways, (Y/N). Goodnight!” He hung up after that.

“Weirdo” you muttered, trying to focus back on something about the Emancipation Proclamation, but instead found yourself reminiscing about your friendship with Jordan.

You two met when you were assigned seats next to each other in a middle school music class, and bonded over your mutual love of the subject. While everyone else in the class were impartial to learning scales and music theory, you were both in awe of the concepts. From that one class on, you two were inseparable, hanging out every free moment you had.

Now that high school was coming to a close and college was starting in a few short months, you were glad you had a friend to distract you from the dull test material–even if he was asking a weird question at three in the morning. You just hoped that your friendship would survive the next four years of college.

Sophomore Year of College

While Jordan moved cross-country to LA to pursue acting, you moved to New York to attend NYU Tisch. Two years later, you two still managed to keep in touch, calling and facetiming whenever possible, although the time difference proved to be difficult. Sometimes you would stay up a little later and listen to him vent about a particularly awful date or you would ask him a basic question about music theory.

You were on the verge of falling asleep after a long night of reading for a play, when you heard the unmistakable buzz of your phone, you groggily reached over to stop the relentless vibrating.

“You do know people on the East Coast are asleep at this hour, right?” You grumbled into the receiver, already having an idea of who was calling.

“You still answered me though,” he replied, you could tell he was smirking, “I have a scene for my theater class due tomorrow and needed a distraction. So why not call my best friend? I was wondering if only 5% of the oceans have been explored, why can’t singing and dancing fish be a possibility? Also mermaids too, cause that’ll be sick!”

After all these years he still thought it was appropriate to call you at three in the morning, and out of all things ask about dancing fish? “You and your ‘fish have Little Mermaid tendencies’ theory…mermaids could definitely be a possibility, singing and dancing fish, however? There’s less of a chance. I have an 8am tomorrow, so goodnight, Fisher.” You responded, desperately wanting to go back to sleep.

You hung up without hearing his response, you liked having him come to you with questionable questions, but he needed to find a better time to call you.  

Senior Year of College

“Jordan?”

“You’re still up?” Your best friend asked, surprised.

“Unfortunately,” You sighed, it’s been awhile since your last late night conversation due to the many obligations of senior year with job applications, final projects, and looming adulthood, so it was nice hearing his voice even if it was 3 in the morning, again. “Senior year is kicking my ass with everything happening, so if you’re calling, there could only be one reason: what’s the great profound question tonight?”

“(Y/N), you got this!” He sang. “Though, tonight’s question is do you think panda’s listen to 80’s rock?”

You chuckled despite how stressed you were, “I’m pretty sure if you blast “Livin’ on a Prayer” everyone including furry animals from China would sing along.”

Jordan laughed at your response, which in turn caused you to smile. You missed the sound of his laugh.

When his laughter subsided there was a comfortable silence, it gave you and Jordan a sense of familiarity, just  listening to each other breathe.

You wanted to talk to him longer but needed to finish the final part of your thesis.  

“Hey, I gotta get back-” You started.

“Before you go,” He whispered, “I have one more question.”

“Go on.” You said.

“I love you, (Y/N).”

Of course you’ve said those words to each other before, but this time his words seemed to carry a different weight, it seemed a little uncertain but also confident, timid yet bold at the same time. He loved loved you. You realized after the words sunk in.

The confession still took you by surprise, you never really thought about your best friend, in that way, given the distance and the strict friendship you thought you had. You knew that confessing feelings could complicate things but apparently he was willing to say something that was risky. He was willing to take that chance for you- to be something more than friends. He must’ve been positive of how he felt, given the way he just said it. Before you could respond, you were interrupted by a knock on your door. Who would be knocking at 3 in the morning?

You looked through the peephole to be met with the sight of Jordan, confused you opened the door.

“Shouldn’t you be in LA?” You asked dumbfounded, not fully processing that he was standing in front of you, looking sleep deprived.

“It’s senior week for us so I decided to hop on a direct flight from LA to see you and say what’s been on my mind for the past 4 years.You’re my best friend, but you’re also so much more than that. You’re the only person who listens to me ramble at three in the morning and doesn’t judge me. You were also the only person in our middle school year who was as passionate as me in our music classes. You get me, (Y/N).” He rambled.

After listening to his spiel, you thought back to one of the first times he called you at three in the morning. You remembered you were studying for a test, desperately needing a break, when he had called asking some strange question about bananas and oranges. It had made you feel better, though, you didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. He loved you all these years?

He was always making you laugh or listening to your rants, and just overall being there for you even though your schools were on opposite sides of the United States. You guess it was the little things that showed he thought of you more than a friend.  

“Out of all the crazy things you’ve asked me at three in the morning this might just be the craziest thing you’ve said.” You murmured, pressing a chaste kiss on his lips. “But what I should’ve admitted at first is I love you too, Jordan.”

“I’m just glad after so many years of asking random questions, you finally gave me a straightforward answer to one.” Jordan grinned.

[cosmosogler]

hmm, ok, it is 12:20, but i should probably write some stuff anyway. i am sorry for being elusive the last few days. i don’t know why my binge reading habits dovetail so nicely with bad depression spells.

saturday i went to the physics department picnic. i had a great time, even though i didn’t eat much. the weather was nice, everyone was good-natured and calm, we talked about stupid things instead of the upcoming stress. i did the “buttcrack guy” pose for the class picture.

the guy next to me said he didn’t know how i could do that with a straight face.

then i was dropped off at the local inn to wait for my mother and dawn to return from the casino. they neglected to leave my backpack, so i had nothing to do except listen to music and angrily fish for bottle caps in pokemon. for three and a half hours.

mother and dawn got back just in time for happy hour. they both got super drunk by using my free drinks card on top of their own. i pointed out a guy with a pokemon shirt that i thought was pretty cool and mom launched into a long ramble about which pokemon she likes and which ones she remembers from the anime. she seemed to think we had the whole series for some reason. we have 3 vcr cassettes of 3-4 episodes each. i showed her vanilluxe (the ice cream pokemon) and she thought it was the best thing ever.

i had a lot of trouble sleeping. mom was breathing so heavy and fast it drove me nuts. i put on my “reiki” music and must have fallen asleep in the 20 minutes that playlist lasts, which is actually really impressive for me. i mean, i had been trying for maybe a half hour before that, but usually putting on music gets me focused on that instead of dozing. i just couldn’t stand the breathing.

then we drove back to phoenix in the morning. i angrily fished for bottle caps in pokemon for the two-hour car ride while mom and dawn talked about things i didn’t listen to. mom’s rant about the dark tower casting really rustled my jimmies. so i put on some video game soundtracks i like and i feelingsploded directly toward asher about my thoughts on how good the games are.

then i got home, hacked a nickname onto one of my pokemon with eric’s help, and went back to my horrible archive binge. i almost forgot to make an appointment with the hospital. i did remember, but i still didn’t manage to go to bed when i wanted.

i got up with thoughts of the ocean in my head. i don’t remember what the rest of the dream was about. i am pretty sure it was one of those dreams where i tried to say something important while i was waking up, but couldn’t get the words out before the person i was talking to was gone forever! my mouth is never actually open when i do that, so at least i’m not sleep talking... usually. sometimes i can be a jerk when i am not fully awake. i have been grounded for it before.

anyway i headed over to the hospital and filled out the dang paperwork yet again. then they told me that the web site’s schedule was wrong and my group actually met today. so i hung out for an hour before starting the three-hour group session. i also did like three intake interviews and tried to meet and get to know my other group members in between being dragged out of the session to do psychiatric evaluations and self reports.

in the last 20 minutes we played a game of “would you rather”. i got a brutal card, “would you rather be ignored for the rest of your life or have everyone always pay full attention to you for the rest of your life” and i joked “either way i’d kill myself in a week” and that was probably inappropriate considering my audience. one of the other group members said “that’s really sad.” i didn’t get a good read on the therapist’s expression.

i actually wasn’t joking and i think that might have been more obvious than i wanted it to be. i need to read the group conduct guidelines and figure out what kind of comments or stories are acceptable. i didn’t have enough time while i was at the hospital. i ended up staying there for just over five hours. when i got home i was wiped. i went right back to my archive binge. 

i was unable to eat much dinner (like, a cup of mac and cheese). i had had some lunch at the hospital, since they had pizza delivered for the all-day patients. i also went downstairs for a snack around 10 and was again unable to eat much. i am hungry again and it’s only been two hours. i shouldn’t eat less than an hour before bed though.

eating the last few days has made me extremely ill. i am not feeling particularly “nauseous,” but when i eat i can tell that my body will probably reject the food if i’m not really careful. like, actively suppressing my gagging. it’s not associated with any particular other sensation. i can’t figure it out.

my reading took me to an article on lucid dreaming. the article mentioned that a common treatment for ptsd nightmares is to imagine the recurring nightmare and make up a different ending. 

i haven’t dreamed about craig specifically in a while... i probably will tonight now that i am talking about it. but one thing i noticed in my dreams is that no matter how fast or far i run, and no matter how many walls i clip through or oceans i fly over, i can’t leave him behind. the only way to get him to for sure leave is to kill him. i would have to be the one with the knife. 

but i am conflicted because i feel that actually literally figuratively murdering someone with the full intention of causing their death is contrary to my values. i mean, i want him to die for real, but it’s more of a “i wish he would get struck by lightning or some other form of ironic death.” 

that sounds really bad. but he likes to hurt people. he does it on purpose. he takes everything i am afraid of becoming and rolls around in it.

i probably shouldn’t be ascribing symbolic value to a guy who thinks he can turn me straight by getting a boner and laying on top of me with it. maybe that’s the problem with the nightmares. it’s not really about craig so much as it is about dark sammie.

what am i supposed to do about that? i am repulsed by it. i could never embrace it. i don’t think i should. i can’t just wish it away with lucid dreaming either. i don’t actually have that much control over my dreams even when i am fully aware of them. like the fear is so ingrained that even when i actively turn it away it comes right back. it sucks. i drop kick the monster into space, or literally leave the dream setting and go somewhere else, and if i have even the slightest suspicion it didn’t work, then it definitely didn’t work.

i guess that’s an anxiety/depression thing. feeling powerless against myself. i’m always suspicious that my subconscious is secretly not over something i don’t actively think about any more. like, i feel like i am ready to move on, and i take steps to move on, and then i feel stupid because the next day my depression gets SUPER bad. like some part of me keeps sabotaging myself every time i try to improve my situation or attitude about the situation. 

hmm. it might be because i am afraid that if i get over my problems, they weren’t that bad to begin with. like a sunk cost fallacy. “if they’ve caused me trouble for THIS long, then i shouldn’t be able to get over them at all!”

but that’s not true. the hardest part about accepting that’s not true though is convincing all of myself that it’s not true. i feel like... i’m always in conflict with myself. and sometimes, usually, it’s good to have a conversation about my choices and what kinds of consequences they will have. but when i don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the conversation, when it’s a conversation with myself, it feels like there is something unknowable and mysterious and sinister going on. 

i can’t control my surroundings, but i can control myself. and i spent a good part of my childhood hating myself for not having more control over my body and immediate reactions and impulses. and now i don’t got control over my mind. but... my mind is me. i don’t have control over me? how does that make any sense? who else is gonna be me, besides me?

maybe it’ll be like one of those “there is no spoon” realizations later on. i don’t think it will be a sudden insight though. kind of like when i realized i do not love my parents and have no desire to have a close relationship with either of them. it wasn’t a big moment. it was more, i didn’t think about it, and then when i did think about it i realized “hey yeah, that IS how i feel now, isn’t it.”

it’s weird. i would never treat a friend like this. sort of, trick them like this. i only interact with my parents because i am financially dependent on them. i do not share any of the rationale behind my decisions with them. i do not share my identity. i do not share my opinions. and, i guess, some part of me recognizes that that’s pretty sad! but it’s just kind of the way it is now. if i wanted to change it then i’d get burned. badly. and i just feel like my parents aren’t really worth the effort it would take to have a positive relationship with them. i don’t see a lot of positive qualities they could potentially have to offer. some qualities, for sure. but not enough to offset the threats.

so, i haven’t really figured anything out about what i’m going to do next. tomorrow first thing i need to make an appointment with my physician, since i got home too late to do that today. and maybe get some exercise with wiley. he hasn’t been feeling well. might be the change in weather, or because we have cici over and she gave him some sort of bug that everyone else was already immune to.

i was hoping that talking through my dream/psychology problems would help me figure out what to do about them. but i really have no idea what to do if i run into “craig” again. being nice to him is what i tried in real life. that didn’t work. running away doesn’t work. calling for help doesn’t work. killing him feels like it would be the wrong choice. but if i don’t do it there is no certain way to make sure he’s gone, at least for the rest of that dream.

i think it helped that i described him as an “evil me” though. that helps frame it in a way that maybe lets me do something about it in the future rather than some intrusion into my dreams. i guess... my encounters with him were awful in every way, but that doesn’t mean i can’t learn from them and adjust my life goals and values accordingly. at the very least it was a lesson in what to never do.

part of the reason it keeps coming back is that i feel like i deserved it because i used to be like him before i met him. not exactly the same, for sure, but the whole “manipulating people to hurt them” thing stinks of my teenager rage. it was like karma kicking my ass and i had to take it because it’s what i had done to other people. 

but... it’s not helpful to keep beating myself up over it any more. i can’t... forgive myself for being a dick lord. and as long as i keep flogging myself with the shame i’m not going to be able to focus on many other things when i interact with people. 

it’s particularly upsetting because my ex/the primary target of my lashing out has said “we’re cool” and we both recognize we were kind of mutual assholes and i STILL can’t let it go. and it’s not always, but usually, on my mind when i am having serious talks with close friends. 

i’ve always chosen my words carefully, even when it takes a while, but this has always been stressful. balancing honesty and understanding with my terrible backseat driver habits. at least i am mostly able to funnel those feelings into pokemon and pikmin. 

maybe i am a micromanager because i secretly think i’m smarter than everyone else? i don’t want to think that. but just because i don’t want it to happen doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. i need to figure out how to bridge that gap, between wanting or not wanting something and making it happen or stop happening. i’ve got the behavior more or less under control (most of the time), but i haven’t really dealt with the self esteem issues. and i recognize i got em but at the same time i feel like that’s still what i deserve.

i guess at the very least i got a goal. maybe short-term, at least something i can feasibly work on in therapy. i shall attempt to communicate these goals with my individual therapist on wednesday. i need to start Doing Things. i recognize that as soon as i start Doing Things i am probably going to get very depressed. at least i’ll be going to therapy like every other day so maybe i can catch things before they get so bad i want to kill myself again.

[sixteenthcenturyballerina]

Long Live The Queen (LLTQ) By Empire Conventions

Written on 08/01/2017

It was an extremely surreal weekend, getting to meet the cast of one of my most beloved shows (where the best part was that I loved the show for the cast and not really the content of the show itself whoopsies). I’m not going to fully document down every single thing that happened at the convention, but just what personally touched me and the little tiny interactions with the cast members and everyone else that just totally made my day perfect. 

Rose commented on my shirt that I wore during the convention 🤗 She seemed to really like purple and she said she really like the colour I was wearing, even writing it down when signing my autograph 💜 She’s an absolute sweetheart and I absolutely love her 💜💜💜 She is so amazing and such a cutie 😍 Edit 18/02/2017: Happy birthday Rose!!!💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜xxxxxxxx Also, she liked my comment on her Instagram photo so I love her even more 😍

On the same note about compliments, Rose & Anna commented on my dress when they saw me during the soiree and they were so nice about it!🤗 They said they really loved my dress when they saw me and that I looked nice in it!!😍 They look amazing without needing to dress up anyway, and they’re just such lovely people 💕

I even got to meet and talk to Jonathan’s girlfriend, Laysla, and she commented on my hair that she really liked it and it was nice and long 😁 I love my hair as it is too, but I’m thinking it’s getting a little long and I should get it cut soon 🤔

It was really nice because at the soiree they let us talk to the guest so I got to talk to Megan about Outlanders, and having a ReignxOutlanders crossover, which would have been really fun and fantastic except that Reign is getting cancelled now (cues loud bawling 😭😭😭). Megan was so nice and she genuinely wanted to know us and asked us individually what shows we liked to watch!🤓 She also remembered me on the morning after the party, which was awesome 😆 I mean it just shows how the cast make an effort and they aren’t just here for more publicity or money or anything superficial. 

I got multiple opportunities to talk to Adelaide, which was absolutely brilliant because I just adore her and I just can’t stop gushing about how amazing she is. We chat about her short-film that might be made into a movie - Realm. And she’s so badass in that promotion I really really love her and I really hope to see more of it. I love how she always picks up on a topic mentioned and carries on about it, showing genuine interest in talking to you. She was also such a darling when I told her that she was my favourite actress, Frary is my favourite couple, and that I wrote her a card. She looked so touched and I didn’t really expect that because I thought she heard it from people all the time. But it really made me feel glad for telling her that way, just to let her know how she touched my life and all our lives, just to let her know that her work is being appreciated 😊 And she was being so condescending on me eating grapes for dinner it was so funny 😜 She was like ‘why grapes out of everything???’😂 I love her new haircut and she was telling me about where she got it and how it was, which, like I said earlier about carrying on a topic, was really nice of her and it just felt like having a nice chat with an old friend and no boundaries whatsoever. Edit 29/01/2017: Adelaide just tweeted a thank-you to the people who wrote in her fanbook and she included my name!!! Ahhhhh so psyched!🤗🤗🤗😍

I even talked to Rachel about Singapore and she said she really wanted to visit there! It’s so cool to find all these small little things that connects you with people you really love. I commented on her amazing blouse during my photoshoot with her and she told me it was from her mum in the 70s, but it still looked amazing on her anyway!☺️ I mean they all look amazing in anything because they’re such nice and beautiful people. 

I got to talk to Anna during the soiree too, and we chat about Narnia, and she actually said she would return if they call her to do it! Oh I miss Narnia so much, it’s such an underrated series ☹️ I really want to see her in The Horse and His Boy and Susan all grown up and all the other Pevensie children of course but Susan is my favourite 🌞 She also asked me when I was flying back and she was convinced that I will be falling asleep in lectures on Monday but we’ll see 😈 She was wearing amazing silver heels during my photoshoot with her and I told her they looked nice and she went on a small rant about how she needs to take them off soon. She’s so adorable 😍 Edit 09/01/2017: I didn’t fall asleep in my lectures today!!!😃

Also Jonathan is really nice like he actually remembers when he met you and stuff so that’s really commitment and genuine interest right there. And he was giving out free hugs during the photoshoot which was nice.

Dan is really nice too like when he came to chat with us during the soiree you could really feel like they’re all trying to know their fans more. Also he initially accidentally wrote my name wrongly so he gave me another poster for the autograph, which was awesome and really nice although the mistake wasn’t huge and could be easily rectified anyway.

Craig is also super nice, like he introduces himself to you after he asks for your name and stuff (which actually many of them do) and you’re like, I know who you are, you don’t have to introduce yourself!😂 And we also had a chat about my ethnic name, which was really interesting.

I would say Toby is really nice although his shyness does seem to cover it a little. A friend told me that he didn’t like people hugging him during photoshoots (fair enough because why should you let strangers touch you let alone hug you) but I think none of the people lining up with me knew that because the staff probably mentioned it when we were really far behind in the queue or somewhere else entirely. Still, tons of people before me asked for hugs and even though I didn’t exactly ask for one he hugged me and it’s these tiny things that people do to put themselves outside their comfort zone for their fans that make them different from the rest.

Also I got to hug Adelaide, Laysla, Megan, Anna, Rose, and Rachel so now I’m officially dead.

During the 6 people panel, they thought I asked a great question, which was what are your favourite canon and non-canon ships in Reign?😃 Love them 😍😍😍

At the soiree, it was so cool because I got to dance with Adelaide, Megan, Rachel, and Rose!💃💃💃 Like, can you even imagine, clubbing and partying with the cast of Reign and dancing around and fooling around with them! Ah, the absolute best 💁

Adelaide and Rachel also waved in my direction during one of the panels, so that was awesome.

NB 18/02/2017: I saved this initially to review it and I was going to post this to coincide with the premiere of season 4 but I had my exams last week so here it is! Hope everyone is enjoying season 4 as much as I am!!😃

[whambamthankyoubram]

ALL OF THEM IM A NOSEY BITCH

YOU ALWAYS DO THIS

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? MORE CEREAL THAN MILK OBVIOUSLY I’M NOT SATAN

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? No bc my cheeks are cold as hell and I need warmth

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? I fold the corners or put little mailings/postcards in them, whatever I have laying around!

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? Tea, nothing; coffee, milk only!

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? Yes :( There’s a gap in my teeth and I hate it. I wish my teeth were perfect.

6: do you keep plants? Nope.

7: do you name your plants? Can’t name the plants you don’t keep, my dude

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? Uhhhh...no?

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? YES all the time.

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? Side!

11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends? 

12: what's your favorite planet? Pluto bc it is still a planet okay

13: what's something that made you smile today? My boyfriend’s Snapchats

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? Messy af

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! “In space, the skin on your feet peels off.” EW SPACE WTF

16: what's your favorite pasta dish? MMMMMM any pasta tbh I’m Italian I will eat anything

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? I love my hair color the way it is now!

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. My ex never let me forget the time I was passed out on his couch, and I woke up intermittently before falling back asleep. He was watching Rush Hour. I asked him, (HALF ASLEEP MIND YOU), Oh, is this the movie with Chris Rock and Bruce Lee? (I’m awful).

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? I write my thoughts and crazy paranoia in there boyyyyyeeeee

20: what's your favorite eye color? BROWN

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. Uhhhhh it’s a longchamp bc I’m a white girl

22: are you a morning person? Not really

23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? SLEEP!

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? Not sure

25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into? I’ve never broken into anything omg

26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit? My Uggs, because I’m a white girl

27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor? Mint

28: sunrise or sunset? Sunset

29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? My BFF giggles sometimes when she talks and idk it’s cute

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? Fuck yes, have you ever seen a spider? In your shower? Without your glasses on? 

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. I LOVE SOCKS! When I get socks for Christmas I get so excited. I can fall asleep with socks on, but at some point in the night, they’re coming off my feet lol.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. I ate pizza while I was drunk #wowimsocool

33: what's your fave pastry? Cinnamon buns, does that count?

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? Winnie the Motherfuckin Pooh. No :( He fell in the mud and I had to throw him out bc the washer couldn’t fix him

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Fuck yeah I do!

36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now? Noooo clue tbh

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? Clean, but it’s always a mess

38: tell us about your pet peeves! I hate when the President sniffs into the microphone while he’s delivering some sort of address, blow ur nose next time or stop doing coke

39: what color do you wear the most? Black lol

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you? Nose ring, no special meaning I just really like it

41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving? An Abundance of Katherines bc I fucking love the shit out of John Green

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! Not really tbh

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? Probably my bf

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? The other night, at the beach! So pretty :)

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Yes

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. I couldn’t think of any, next question

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? Aerosol cheese

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Bugs, yes, ew

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? Don’t remember!! I bought the first Glee soundtrack when it came out LOL

50: what's an odd thing you collect? Socks?

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? I associate “All Night” by Chance the Rapper w my bf

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? Salt bae for sure

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? Beetlejuice was the only one, I watched a little of Pulp Fiction - they were both ok

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? My friend :( she’s ok now but I saw her the other night and she was upset

55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point? Not sure 

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? Laughter and the way people get excited over things

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? It made me feel like I’ve been having too much sugar tonight tbh

58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? I’M THE WINE MOM!!!! I am the wine QUEEN ok that’s all I ever drink. My bff is the vodka aunt, but she lives miles apart from me so we rarely drink together nowadays 

59: what's your favorite myth? Dude? I don’t have one

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot. 

61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received? I got a really ugly hat once, and I gave a really ugly hat once, at the same Christmas exchange party 

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? Nope

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? Hell no I’m a living mess

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? Black

65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with? Yes, my bff 

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? Mad lilies! They’re my fav flower

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? Depressed and tired tbh

68: what's winter like where you live? Cold but not too cold bc you know global warming

69: what are your favorite board games? Scrabble!!

70: have you ever used a ouija board? Yes lol

71: what's your favorite kind of tea? ANY KIND! Right now I’m really feeling ginger turmeric from Trader Joe’s, though, soooo good

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it? YES.

73: what are some of your worst habits? Uhhh not going to bed early enough lol

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. This person is a HUGE JARLEY FAN and super adorbs!!! Hates Mon-El and LOVES TO RANT ABOUT IT AND I LOVE THIS PERSON REGARDLESS 

75: tell us about your pets! So I have a dog, he’s almost 12 years old which is really depressing bc he’s probably going to pass on soon :( I’m obsessed with him and love him so much!!

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't? Yeah, taking my bra off why am I still wearing it

77: pink or yellow lemonade? PINK, always

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? Hate club, get them the fuck away from me

79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? One of my old boyfriends learned how to knit for me which I thought was very sweet

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? Aqua! Because I like it?

81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. “Comets.”

82: are/were you good in school? Not really

83: what's some of your favorite album art? Ohhhh I know this, I love Californication’s album art so much

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I have seven!!

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? No

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? Wat

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? The Lion King, BITCH

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Not really

89: are you close to your parents? Yes

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. NEW YORRRRRK. Concrete jungle where dreams are destroyed you’ll never get anywhere go back to long island

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Somewhere over the summer, not sure where yet tho

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? In the middle

93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most? Top knots bc I’m lazy

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? The Weeknd LOL

95: what are your plans for this weekend? Date night, then I’m not sure!

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? Ohhh I procrastinate so much

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? Not sure about the Myer-Briggs type, but I’m a scorpio + Ravenclaw

98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? Yes! I think in November. It was chilly, but a lot of fun

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

One Headlight - The Wallflowers (listening now)

Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

Love Drought - Beyonce

Under the Bridge - RHCP

Strip My Mind - RHCP

Literally anything by RHCP

Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips (I cry literally every time I listen to it)

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? Neither, because I am choosing to live in the MOMENT :) 

[bnymedic]

First responder suicide – PTSD, or something else?

Its 1:30am. I sit on my computer in complete darkness, having just slept for the past 10 hours. As a Paramedic in a suburb of a relatively small US city, I work 12 hours shifts for 4 straight days. I get 4 days off to recuperate after that, and at this point in my career those days are essential for my survival. Many of my co-workers are not lucky enough to be able to stop at just 4 days, and must work additional overtime shifts in order to make ends meet. The private EMS industry has relatively low wages nationwide. We are the “red headed step child” of emergency services, often hiding in the shadows of police officers, firefighters, and nurses. There is no such thing as a “typical” shift when working in EMS. There are the occasional shifts where I will sit in the parking lot of the local convenience store chain for 12 straight hours without picking up a single patient. The glow of my cell phone screen illuminating my face for each passing person to see the life draining out of my body. The boredom sets in after hour 2.  My legs and butt hurt. I am hungry, but I can’t tell if its true hunger or just my body telling me to get up and move. I decide to walk inside to browse the aisles of colorful treats, getting nauseous at the thought of eating “lunch” out of a gas station at midnight for the 3rd day in a row. Despite my disgust, I walk outside with 2,000 or more calories of junk food at a time in an attempt to eat myself to death. “Ill be diabetic by the end of the week” I say to my partner as I open my fudge dipped granola bar. As the career of a first responder goes on, most quickly start to pack on the pounds like a bear preparing for winter. Company policy prevents you from sleeping during your shift, so your food (if you can call it that) is washed down with 16oz of your favorite energy drink to keep you awake and ready to pick grandma up off the floor when she attempts her 2am bathroom run. I have palpitations from all the caffeine. Hopefully one day those PVC’s turn into an arrhythmia and the lord takes me. “Anything to get out of this job” I say, as I polish off my second monster of the night.  Morning rolls around. 50mg of benadryl will help me fall asleep after drinking energy drinks all night long. I have severe shift sleep disorder. I am depressed. I just want to sleep. I wake up ready to go after just 4 hours of sleep. Great. Another night of pounding monsters. I punch in 15 minutes early for my next shift and am assigned a call before I am even scheduled to start. I am the only ambulance available in the surrounding 15 square miles of suburbia, and that trend will continue for the next 12 hours. Call after call, I don’t have time to finish my paperwork before being sent on the next run. Its 11pm and dispatch calls my unit number for the 5th time today– “With the fire department for a 1 year old post choking”. I have taken 50 calls of the same nature before and say out loud– “Great, another bullshit call”. Every day, nervous parents call 911 over the slightest cough or sniffle which eventually numbs you to the potential of a true pediatric emergency. Its never a real emergency. Until it is. Rolling up on scene after the fire department, I grab my house bag and begin to waddle towards the low income apartment building for the third time this week. I think – “I should have brought the tablet for a signature so I don’t have to walk back outside”. Suddenly, a firefighter rounds the corner carrying a limp child like he is holding an offering platter. “That’s not good” I blurt out , going from zero to 100 in the snap of a finger. The firefighter tells me the child was eating chicken and rice when he began to choke.  As my partner digs out the pediatric bag valve mask that has been sitting unused in the house bag for an unknown number of years, I set up the suction, only to find an unresponsive, apneic child with a clenched jaw. “That doesn’t make sense” I think to myself as I try to peel apart his tiny jaw without any luck. Thank god– he has a gap in his front tooth that fits a small, 12fr suction catheter. I start to go through the motions. Is he seizing? Nope. Any trauma visible or reported? No. Mom was asked again– and again says the child was sitting up, eating, and suddenly started choking. What is going on here? With little to be done on scene, I rush to the small local hospital, nervous that the next squeeze of the bag could lodge a piece of food in this kids airway. I am getting good air exchange but his spo2 isn’t amazing. He must have aspirated. Great news. He is now moving his arms, and his eyes just opened. Wait, why is his jaw still clenched? That’s not great news. This kid hasn’t made a noise. What the fuck is going on. As I roll the stretcher into the small emergency room closest to the scene, I am greeted with that dreaded sentence from the ER Physician– “why did you bring him here and not children’s hospital”.  I bite my tongue– its not the time to have that fight. The kid is now posturing. A few minutes go by and the doctor asks me to get my laryngoscope because the emergency room is not currently stocked with the proper pediatric equipment. Maybe he was right. The thoughts start rushing through my head– “they are going to kill this kid. I should have just risked it and bypassed. It was only an extra 7 minutes or so further”. As I sit there and wait for the next order, new thoughts take over. “Someone shook this kid. There is no other explanation”.  Hypertensive, bradycardic, posturing. But mom said he was choking on rice? Where would she get that from? Hmm. She doesn’t seem as concerned as a mother should be. She answers a text message while being questioned by the police.  She has yet to ask anyone how her son is doing. The texts start to come in to my phone. “Are you ok?”. “I hear you had a bad call. You guys ok?” “WTF was that all about?”. I am fine. Any provider who plans to have a lengthy career has to distance themselves from their patients. I can think back to every “bad” call I’ve taken, and never once have I been able to recall processing a patients face. Its not important. What they look like is irrelevant to my job. Its the circle of life. Some people live, some people die. Its my job to try and make that circle a little bit bigger if I can. Sometimes you are successful, sometimes you aren’t. You have to come to terms with that early on. Minutes after calling in service from restocking, the radio chimes my unit number again. “Cold response to the fitness center for a hand laceration”. I arrive on scene to find a psych standing out front in his blue paper clothes, clearly having been to an emergency room at least once today. “Hop on in buddy– take a seat” I say as I shake my head. We drive him 3 blocks down the street to the same emergency room we left just a couple hours prior. I am not greeted like one would expect. Not with “Hello”, not with “whats the chief complaint”. I am greeted with a sentence that is never good news. “Did you hear?”. Our child from earlier had been emergently transferred 6 miles away to the childrens hospital by a specialty transport team. The news from them was not good. “That kid – he has a brain bleed”. My suspicions were confirmed. He was never choking. Someone hurt this kid and tried to cover it up. I know how to handle this, because its not even the first time this situation has happened to me. People hurt kids often enough that I am not even shocked. Stories like this don’t make the news *for a reason*. People cant handle stuff like this. No one needs to know that savages live in apartment 3. Some people have to know though. WE have to know. Its not OK. I talk about suicide often. My previous partner was a veteran and has PTSD from being deployed overseas. He has had many friends commit suicide after returning from war, and was concerned about my mental health. That should concern me. He would ask me once a week– “Are you sure you are ok?”.  My little comments here and there come off as jokes to most people. “Id rather die than come into work tonight”. “Pull out in front of this semi truck– we wont feel a thing I promise”. “Stage for police? Fuck that. I hope I get shot”. In reality, its not a joke. I am not suicidal at this point in my life– I am apathetic about living. I’m not going to take my own life, but I am definitely not excited when I wake up each morning. This feeling has slowly crept up on me over my almost 10 year career as a paramedic. I tell myself daily that I need to get out before its too late. What will be the breaking point where I become truly suicidal?  I have to answer one question before I leave. “Where will I go?”   I am burnt out. Everyone says “go to nursing school”, but the passion– the fire inside that makes you want to help people has been extinguished for years. Where can you go at 30+ years old with a paramedic certification and no useful degree. I have made financial commitments at my age that makes starting from scratch somewhere at entry level wages an impossibility. What can I do? Where can I go? I am stuck. This job is like quick sand, and I’m up to my shoulders. If I struggle much more it will be above my head. We get to see what goes on behind the curtains of society. How much would you enjoy a magic show if you knew how the magic was performed? That is what life is like for many first responders. Members of the general public get to wear blinders during their day to day lives. There are people who post rants to facebook if the garbage man didn’t put their garbage can back in the correct spot. A terrible day for a typical person is a flat tire on the way home from work. They have no idea what happens in their town or city on a day to day basis. They have NO IDEA that 3 doors down, a husband beat the shit out of his wife for the 4rd time this year and she wont tell the police what happened. They have NO IDEA that people call an ambulance from the parking lot of an emergency room because they don’t want to wait in the waiting room.  They have NO IDEA that someone in apartment 3 just hurt their baby and tried to cover it up. But we know. We see it all. I have talked with a lot of people who have similar feelings. Its due to me being so open about my apathy towards life. People who I see every day, smiling at their coworkers and telling war stories and laughing. You would never guess these people were at the end of their ropes– fighting off their own demons. “Make sure they have bagpipes at my funeral”. I don’t try and talk these people down because they don’t want help. How could I help anyways? You cant just “un-know” the things we know. These people just feel comfort in the fact that they aren’t alone. I have been lucky that none of these people have taken their lives yet. I know the day is coming. Its been a long time since a co-worker has committed suicide, and the statistics say we are over-due. How will I handle it?

[tiredyetsoft]

What am I? (This is on my other blog with a few other..complicated people)

So! 
First off, I would love to know what the hell is wrong with my head, but I can’t. I’m just ranting about the things that make it VERY hard to function in my life. Since I can’t be diagnosed professionally cause of personal things (even though I probably should like seriously..this is getting out of hand) I just kinda do my best when I have better times. Okay now the rant 1) The crippling fear I have of talking/socializing/existing around other human beings without the two main people I basically consider the two reasons I’m alive :) 
This right here makes it VERY HARD to do ANYTHING. These few days have been okay, one of the friends is in Nicaragua, and the other has no way of contacting me, so I haven’t spoken/seen these two humans in about 4 days. This is the best I’ve done in a long, LONG time. The worst I’ve been is basically going mental and living in a series of panic attacks after not talking to these people after an hour. Sound like a problem? Yes! Yes it is! I can’t tell you how annoying it is when I just want to do things alone and be by myself and do things alone but nooooo my “slight” dependence on these two people will either “sleep” as I call it and let me pretend to be able to function for a few days and then drive my brain into a rabbit hole of horribly intrusive thoughts as soon as my head remembers that these people are not right next to me. What makes this worse is then I get very, V E R Y protective and possessive of these people. Like seriously. I have straight up GROWLED at people if they even LOOK at my friends the wrong way. I have realized I kinda can’t keep these friends forever and they have their own lives so I try not to get jealous or possessive but it just kinda happens and drives me crazy. But whatever. *deep breath* 
Here we go 
2) I literally can not do anything by myself besides basic life functions. 
Yes, I can go places alone
Yes, I can make small decisions alone
But the thing is 
If you take me somewhere, out to eat for example, and you tell me that I can get whatever I want 
I will actually malfunction 
I will ask what you like 
And 
If you do not tell me that something is good 
I will literally copy exactly whatever you get 
Ugh 
Do you see why I’m annoyed with myself!? 
I can’t do things alone! I have tried to make my own decisions, I have tried. Trust me. 
But I just can’t. I take orders. I could go into an EXTREMELY complicated rant about WHY I literally can’t make my own decisions but I’m not going to. All I will say is there’s a LOT going on in my head. But I digress on this topic. *sigh* This part is a little dark I. Hate. Every. Part. Of. My. Existence, Yes I can enjoy some things, my two friends for example. But I can’t go a freaking minute without thinking that even they will eventually leave, live their lives, die and be forgotten. I will do exactly the same. I’m here, for no other reason than some teenager forgot a condom, (Sorry for being blunt but that’s true) and I will do nothing memorable with my life, and then I might live to be 21. 
Awful way of thinking right? 
I know. Trust me I freaking know. 
Okay well I’ve tried to be more positive about things, and I’ve tried to empathize with people, but ya see my brain casually reminds me that not one person I meet will actually mean something (maybe) and that the problems they have and the things they say will mean NOTHING in a matter of years, months maybe. 
Not only do I have an awful way of thinking but also I have like no empathy. None. Zip. Nada. 
I care about 2 people. 
2. 
BUT 
at the same freaking time I want everyone to be happy and I wanna take care of everyone and just let myself slowly fade away. 
Make sense right? 
NO OF COURSE NOT 
I literally hate my own existence and I hate that others exist and I hate everything 
But 
At the same 
Time I want to love everyone I want to care but ya see I can only care about the problems and needs of two (screw It im swearing now) fucking people. 
But here’s where my mind makes NO GOD DAMN SENSE (hah references) 
I hate everyone 
I hate everything 
I have so much hatred 
But at the same time 
I can literally be everyone’s sugar daddy and not even blink an eye at my own health. 
I will bend over backwards for the two people I really really enjoy having around 
I will literally jump into traffic if one of said people I keep mentioning tell me to do so. 
I will take care of anyone that “needs” to be taken care of 
I love everyone so nobody needs to love me back. God I hate my brain so much Let’s see what else can I rant about 
Oh yea 
MY FUCKING IMAGINATION FUCKING WITH MY VISION AND MESSING UP WHATS REAL AND WHAT ISNT 
*deep breath* 
To explain better 
I like to fantasize 
(Take that however you want you’re probably right)
I like to daydream and put myself somewhere else 
But the problem is sometimes I forget that reality and my daydreams kinda aren’t the same thing. 
I literally forget about reality. 
I have gone days wondering why the ever loving fuck everyone has cat ears then I remember normal people don’t have fucking cat ears and then they disappear. Or I’ll straight up be in another fucking Universe and then snap back into normal reality with my two friends looking at me (or one like stabbing my nose with their nail sometimes. -_- I’m not salty and it’s not incredibly painful and annoying I love you dearly) I haven’t even touched on my feelings have I? Romantic feelings and that type of shit of course. 
I can not tell the difference between actual feelings and enjoying the attention I get 
When I do realize I like someone I get deathly afraid of them, but I also desperately try and get closer to them, annoy the shit out of them, and I’ll be damned if I all but don’t drive them away because I desperately want to be close to the person. Okay, for example, I had (have?) a MAJOR crush on a person since the day I saw them. And I had no idea what I was feeling for a good 6 months. Apparently this person saw RIGHT THROUGH ME and could tell and was like “aw shit well this is a thing” and I didn’t realize till about 7 months later. I realized and noped out so hard I shoved those feelings way down into a bottle and pretended it didn’t happen. I’ve been best friends with this person for about two(?) years now and a LOT of shit has happened and quite frankly I still don’t know what exactly I feel besides the small fact that I would give what’s left of my soul to never leave their side and let them control my entire existence 
Now, that sounds extremely…weird(?) but that’s how my brain currently functions. The other friend I have I don’t think I have any romantic/other attractions to, and I hope not cause I think they would have a stroke and probably hate me *anxious laughter* but I really don’t know how to control my own emotions anymore so it’ll let me know when my own head is ready to explain how I feel. But whatever. Alright I think I’m talking in circles. 
But nonetheless I’m trying to stay…idk stable(?) at this point and I swear to ever loving ballsacks that if my emotions decide to destroy me again I can and will actually fight..wait how will that work. Nevermind fuck it. I think I’m gonna fall asleep after I post this on my main acc cause I’m bored and tired. Bye