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disasterbiwriter · 8 months ago

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You already know I want to read about what happens the first time Jess gets sick and how Luke handles it 😅

As he has every morning since he brought Jess home six weeks ago, Luke wakes up at 3 AM.

It's not terribly far off from his standard 4 AM wake-up-and-meet-the-bread-guy schedule, but given that he hasn't been falling asleep until midnight most of those nights, a victim of sky-high anxiety and a mental to-do list that feels as long as his leg, it feels a little insulting that his body won't permit him to at least sleep until his alarm goes off.

He tries to focus on his breathing in hopes that he'll ease himself back to sleep for another blessed twenty minutes, but the minute his eyes close again, he becomes aware of the barest pressure on the edge of his blanket.

Luke cracks open one eye to see his three-year-old nephew standing next to him, all bedhead and solemn dark eyes.

"Hey Jessy," he croaks. He pushes up on an elbow. "What's up, bud?"

Jess shrugs and doesn't say anything. Not unusual - he's still shy around Luke, warming up by degrees day after day.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Luke tries.

Jess shakes his head.

Luke hesitates, not sure what to do next, then finally tries, "Do you want to come up here and try to go back to sleep?"

That's all it takes. Jess scrambles up the side of the bed and wedges himself firmly against Luke's ribcage. Luke is instantly on the verge of tears.

It's the first time Jess has ever reached out to touch him first.

Luke thinks he's in for it now, an hour of wiggles and kicking, but Jess drops back to sleep immediately. It's impressive, his ability to konk out like that. Luke envies it. Jess's little mouth drops open and the tight fist he has clutched up under his chin relaxes.

Moving centimeters at a time, Luke lowers himself back down on the mattress and gently reaches down to stroke Jess's hair. He breathes in the little boy's sleepy, sweaty scent, which has become so familiar to him he wonders how he ever did without it before. Luke frowns, then dips his head closer and takes another deep breath.

Jess smells... wrong. His normal, sweet, little-boy smell is still there, but he also smells mildly of something vaguely sour and phlegmy. Luke frowns and gently presses the back of his hand to Jess's forehead. A little sticky, maybe, and warm, but not unduly so.

Hm.

"He... smells sick?"

Luke tries to keep his voice level, but Jess's preschool teacher, Ms. Marian, sounds like she thinks he's nuts, and frankly Luke's temper is its own beast even when people aren't treating him like he's crazy.

He counts backwards from ten, then says, "I just figure keeping him home today is the right way to go. If he's better tomorrow, he'll be back then."

Luke stays on high alert for the rest of the day, taking Jess's temperature every hour or so, chasing the little boy down as he wanders through the diner. It's normal all day, and Jess is himself: tactile, curious, still quiet but getting bolder the longer he lives with Luke. Luke, on the other hand, is exhausted from trying to keep up with regular business and making sure that Jess doesn't climb into a bag of flour.

"But imagine how you'd feel if you'd sent him to school and he was sick," Lorelai says that afternoon when he admits that he feels like a mother hen. She's moving through the diner in this balletic way, delivering meals, bussing tables, plucking up one of Jess's crayons to add eyebrows to the monster they are drawing piece by alternating piece. It's starting to look uncomfortably like Taylor Doose, and Luke is certain this is not a coincidence.

"I guess," he grumbles.

"You gotta go with your gut. But guts can be famously hard to interpret." She rubs one hand over her stomach, stretching her face comically and bringing a giggle out of Jess. "Sometimes I think my gut is telling me one thing, but really it's just saying it needs one of Luke's brownies."

"Brownies?" Jess asks hopefully.

Luke shakes his head and checks the register one last time - plenty of singles, quarters, and dimes. "After dinner," he tells Jess. He comes out from behind the counter and angles his nephew towards the stairs. "Tomorrow?" he asks Lorelai.

"It's only a dayyyyy awayyyyy!" she carols after him.

They eat dinner and Jess happily scarfs down the promised brownie. Luke gives him a bath and sniffs his head again (still a little sour), so he washes his hair twice. They read I Am a Bunny once and The Monster at the End of this Book one and a half times (Luke's Grover voice was apparently unsatisfactory in the first attempt) and by the time Jess is asleep, Luke is halfway there himself. He strips and showers and collapses into bed and is asleep before The Arsenio Hall Show.

So when he jolts awake in the middle of the night, fully alert, he assumes it's because he went to bed so blessed early. He glances at the clock: half past twelve. So then what...

The sharp bark that rings out through the apartment pulls him immediately out from under his quilt and to his feet. A seal, he is convinced there is a seal in the apartment. What the hell kind of dream...?

The seal calls again, but this time Luke registers it for what it is. Not a seal, a cough.

He turns on his bedside lamp and squints across the room. There's Jess, sitting up in bed, curled over like an apostrophe. His back is turned towards Luke, and the sharp, barking coughs shake his little frame.

"Oh buddy," Luke murmurs. He palms the thermometer and crosses over to Jess, dropping into a crouch in front of his nephew.

He instinctively touches his wrist to Jess's forehead and hisses in a breath. "Hey Jessy," he says softly, trying for calm, "open up your mouth and let's take your temperature, huh?"

Jess coughs again - it sounds so deeply uncomfortable that it makes Luke want to cough in response. "No, Unca Luke," he whispers - or Luke thinks he's whispering. He realizes a split second later Jess is so hoarse his voice can't get any louder. "My neck hurts," he says now. "Inside." He swipes at his nose, smearing snot across his little cheeks. It's a testament to his two months as a parent that Luke doesn't gag.

"Ahh. Sore throat, huh? Okay then." Luke settles for wedging the thermometer under Jess's armpit, feeling like the lowest dog in the dirt when Jess whimpers that it's cold. They sit for a few moments until Luke pulls out the thermometer and reads it.

101.3.

"Shit," Luke whispers. "Shit."

"Unca Luke, it's too cold." And like a flipped switch, Jess starts shivering so hard it makes his pearly little teeth chatter.

Luke's head swims. "Well, we can do something about that," he lies. He takes Jess's comforter and wraps the little boy up in it, scooping him up into his arms and bundling him against his chest.

In between spikes of panic, Luke manages to get Jess to take a dose of Junior Tylenol, all the while running through the list of options.

Call the pediatrician and leave a message with his service - no idea when he'll call back. Take Jess to the emergency room in Hartford - Luke hates the idea of Jess shivering and crying in the backseat for that long. Call someone - Cesar? Lorelai? - to drive them to the emergency room so he can sit with Jess. He's pretty sure nobody signed up to play ambulance service for their boss and his nephew when he hired them.

All the while Jess is still shivering against Luke's chest, no energy to do anything except cough and wheeze, while Luke spirals closer and closer to a full meltdown.

God, if things weren't already bad enough, Jess's cough is getting so sharp and acute that Luke is starting to get properly scared. Every cough makes his pulse rocket, every whistle from Jess's little lungs is enough to make him choke down tears. His whole body aches to do something, anything to help the little boy.

Suddenly, he finds himself remembering a night not unlike this one: waking up in the wee hours in his childhood home on Peach to the sound of a sharp cough and his mother's soothing voice. He followed the sounds to the bathroom he and Lizzy shared to find her sitting on their mother's lap, the hot water running in the shower, the room tropically steamy.

"Lizzy's got a touch of the croup, is all," his mother explained. "We'll sit here in the steam and she'll be good as new. Go on back to bed, hon. I've got her."

He doesn't believe in messages from beyond the veil or anything hokey like that - that was always Liz's deal - but that doesn't stop Luke from whispering a thank you to his mother as he bundles Jess into the bathroom.

Luke turns the water as hot as it will go and turns on the shower. The residue from Jess's apple-scented shampoo is still on the tub, so for a moment the room smells pleasantly like a pie. Luke settles down on top of the toilet seat lid, tucks Jess up under his chin, and sort of awkwardly rocks them both from side to side.

"Okay, Jessy. Let's just hang out in here for a little bit, okay? The nice warm air is going to help your cough. You're gonna feel better in no time, okay?"

"I want to sleep," Jess moans. He coughs again, rough this time. "I want my ducky pillow."

Luke curses himself. Of course he should have grabbed the ducky pillow! "I know, Jessy," he says aloud. "You're tired. It's late and you're ready to sleep, I hear you. Let's get this cough taken care of and then we'll get some shut eye. I'll stay home tomorrow and we can rest and watch whatever you want on TV."

"Babar," Jess says meekly.

"Babar," Luke agrees.

"Can I sleep in your bed?"

"Sure, bud. Once your cough gets a little better you can snuggle up in my bed. We'll get ducky pillow and you and I, we'll have a sleepover. But for now why don't you just try to sleep on me, okay? I'm not as good as a ducky pillow but Uncle Luke is pretty soft too."

Jess whimpers a little. "It's too bright."

"It sure is, kid." Luke rises into a half stand and manages to use one elbow to knock off the lights. He settles back down onto the toilet lid and gently rubs Jess's back. He watches the steam swirl around them in the glow of the nightlight.

Eventually they both fall asleep. Luke wakes up at eight to the water in the shower running ice cold. Jess wakes up when he feels Luke shift and demands french toast. He's sweaty and cheerful, bright eyed as he smears syrup all over his face.

Thirty-five years later, it's the middle of the night when Luke gets the call.

"I don't know what to do," Jess says raggedly.

"Hey, it'll be okay. Let me listen to her."

There's a pause. Then, "Hi Pops" echoes weakly over the line, followed by an old familiar bark of a cough.

"Hi honey-girl. I'm sorry you're feeling so bad. Let me talk to your daddy again."

There's a shuffle, and then, "Well? Should we go to the ER?"

"It's the croup, Jess. She's got the croup. Go ahead and take her into the bathroom and let the shower run, sit in the steam. She'll be okay. You've got her."

#hey remember that time i demanded asks and then stopped writing?#this one's for ernest who makes my brain wake up whenever she lets me read her writing #ernest only asks lovely things #jess danes au #i'm here jess au #luke danes #jess mariano #sick fic #gilmore girls #gilmore girls fanfic #am writing #fanfic

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mattzerella-sticks · 8 months ago

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My Idea for a Live-Action X-Men Movie...

Thinking... how can we introduce the X-Men into live action, whether through movie, tv show, limited series, etc. ... and I have an idea.

Let's start in media res.

Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted has been active for the past few years, however with a small class size of seven. Scott. Jean. Bobby. Hank. Warren. Alex. Lorna. Despite only consisting of seven students, due to Xavier's wealth he has been able to keep his school open and thriving since the beginning.

However that has changed as the size of his class has dropped from seven to one after a botched mission led to the capture of his students save one, Scott Summers.

And the opening scene is Xavier sitting in his mansion, worried, waiting, until Scott kicks his door down, tells them his team is gone, and passes out due to exhaustion.

We then pick up on our narrator for the movie, the character whose eyes we will be seeing the entire movie take place through, stepping off a plane and into JFK airport...

Ororo Munroe. Storm.

She had travelled from her home in Africa seemingly on a whim, as if drawn there by fate, and - unsure where to go or what to do next - she goes to a nearby bar to make her next plan.

Who should happen to sit next to her but a short, hairy man in a cowboy hat and a thick, Canadian accent?

Ororo, meet Logan. They do not hit it off.

She does happen to hit it off with the soft spoken Russian man who is reading poetry at the other end of the bar - Piotr Rasputin - and the bartender, a Native American man - James Proudstar - who wasn't supposed to be working that day but traded shifts with his roommate.

While they are all gathered there they hear a voice in their heads and turn around to see Charles Xavier, a man they all recognize and all soon realize is the reason they are now gathered together in this bar. At first they all want to leave but Xavier implores them to at least first hear him out, which they agree to do, but he tells them he won't start until the final member of their group is here.

Cue shouts and gunfire as Kurt - Nightcrawler - runs, leaps, and teleports across the airport in all his blueness.

Xavier manages to calm the crowd however not before one of the security guards manages to call in that the threat is a mutant and it's a race to grab Kurt before reinformcements arrive. But wouldn't you know it the group is not the best team yet and the reinforcements do arrive in the form of Sentinels.

It seems like all hope is lost when, out of nowhere, a stray quartz-colored beam blows one of the Sentinels apart and allows the group a moment to escape. They regroup in Xavier's car, which had been where Scott was waiting while Xavier gathered the others.

They return to the mansion where Xavier explains what happens to his team, that they were responding to a mutant in distress on an island that had ultimately been a trap - with only Scott escaping. The group has been gathered together to help Xavier and Scott rescue their teammates.

It's mostly a resounding no. Piotr would rather be at home on the farm. James has to go searching for a new job since he undoubtedly got fired from the bar for leaving during shift hours. Logan is "not a team player" and believes that the team is most likely dead anyway. Kurt is game but he is also "not the best fighter".

Ororo also agrees to help.

That surprises everyone. She says that while the circumstances that brought them together were underhanded, she cannot sit idly by while innocent people, people like her with a mutant gene, are in danger. Not just those on the island, who they are tasked with rescuing, but around the world especially since Sentinels have become standard issue around the world. While she does not see herself being a full-time member, she knows that the team Xavier had protected mutants like them from these threats and, with them gone, who will protect their community now?

Xavier tells them that, after they help rescue his original team, they would be free to leave and do what they want with their lives as they please.

Piotr is in. So is James. Logan sighs and agrees, "Since I don't want to be the odd one out." They agree to go save the others. Scott says, however, that before they can mount the rescue mission, they need to become a team first - referencing their battle at the airport and how they need to improve.

They agree to train.

Meanwhile, on the island, we see that there is a Master Mold along with Trask and scientists working on creating the next model of Sentinels in their ongoing war against mutants using the captured mutants from Xavier's Academy as test subjects. The scientists are just as much as prisoners as the X-Men, however, as they were led to the island on false pretenses and forced to work for Master Mold who had, unbenknownst to everyone until the final act, had taken over Trask and controls him as a puppet.

A few of these scientists came with their families. One of these families were the Prydes. Katherine Anne Pryde is seen as a non-threat by both Master Mold and Trask, and is able to freely wander the island as well as speak with the prisoners because, since everything is monitored and she is twelve, she cannot do anything to disrupt the mission. We learn from this scene that Master Mold is on the cusp of unveiling a new breed of Sentinel that, using the schematics pulled from Jean's mind, would be able to track mutants anywhere without needing to be called in. It was luck that the X-Men arrived on their island, fell into their trap.

Meanwhile back in Westchester, NY, this new team of X-Men are having a hard time at coming together to work as a team, which is making Scott mad. He and Logan almost come to blows if not for Piotr stepping between them to break things up. They both step away to cool off.

Ororo decides to speak with both of them. First, she goes to Scott, and tells him that he is not being a good leader. They have a heart to heart where he confesses that his friends are his family, and Jean... he has a lot riding on this being a success, and this is as new to him as it is new to them. He is not used to working with people he hasn't grown up with. Ororo tells him that he needs to lead from a place of love and courage, and not fear. Then, she goes to find Logan to see that he is brushing off Kurt rather coldly and Ororo does not wait to take him to task on his loner attitude. They clash a bit before Ororo tells him to get his act together or just leave, as it shouldn't matter to him what they think if he really doesn't care.

They all agree to do another training session, only they never get the chance as Xavier tells them it is now or never as there was a spike of pain from the same island his first team was lost, and that cannot mean anything good. The heroes go to get suited up and fly to the island base.

Master Mold is ready to create his new breed of Sentinels and it looks like they are a success, as they have been fitted with new upgrades. He activates a few and they immediately power online with the alert that there is a mutant among them.

All eyes turn to Katherine Anne Pryde. Kitty.

Her father and mother object but are restrained as the Sentinels begin to pursue her, only able to tell her to run before they are knocked out. Kitty runs and manages to escape the Sentinels after discovering her ability to phase through solid matter. The escape is not fullproof as they burst out the bunker in full pursuit. When she reaches the beaches with what looks like no place left to go, the clouds part and reveal the Blackbird jet which Ororo had just exited from and is now flying down to confront the Sentinels she spotted chasing the little girl. The Sentinels sense her power and lock onto her, only to get blasted by lightning and turret fire.

The X-Men land and confront the Sentinels but, unlike at JFK, they are able to work together and take them down. Even Logan finds himself being a team player. They rescue Kitty and she tells them where the prisoners are and also what Master Mold is planning.

The team decides to split up - Scott, Piotr, and James will confront Master Mold while Ororo, Logan, and Kurt follow Kitty to the prison area.

Of course we stay with Ororo because, again, she is who we are relying to guide us through this story.

We get to the prison area and it's Ororo, Logan, and Kurt going HAM on these guards taking them down while Kitty uses her powers to free the X-Men. She manages to get to the main control room and hits the button that releases all the prisoners who do their best to help, despite being weakened from experiments and torture.

We learn from Kitty that there's a prisoner missing, and they admit that it's Jean. She was taken by Trask.

So the group races to the main room where Scott, Piotr, and James are and see a BUNCH of Sentinels on the loose and pure pandemonium. Piotr and James are on the ropes and Scott is putting up his best fight, however just as the group arrives the Sentinels converge and blast him, with a woman across the room watching calling out his name as he 'perishes' (we'll circle back on this later).

Without their leader and shocked, Ororo steps up and takes command, leading the group into battle like she's been doing it all her life against the Sentinels while Kitty and Kurt evacuate the scientists. She cuts across the room almost instantly to get to Trask and Jean where we finally learn that the former has been completely taken over by Master Mold and is now a Sentinel cyborg. They battle it out but it's a tough battle given the numbers they're against until there's a moment where Ororo and Jean are tucked away, shielded from incoming blaster fire from Trask and the Sentinels, when Jean places her hands to the ground and closes her eyes. Ororo asks what she's doing and Jean tells her she's asking for help.

"From who? Xavier only sent us?"

"From the mutant we came here to help in the first place. From the island."

BOOM! We get the reveal that the island. Krakoa, is a mutant and has been weakened by the experiments run on it by Master Mold and the Sentinel. Jean tells the group that they need to let Krakoa 'feed' on a piece of their energy to recupe its strength for it to help them and they all look to Ororo as it's her call, and she says they should do it. They do and the ground rumbles and shakes and we can see the island begin to terraform as it fights back against Master Mold and the Sentinels. It takes out MANY of them while the X-Men pick up the slack on the rest.

Ororo takes on Master Mold/Trask hybrid as the island begins to sink back into the ocean, with Trask, damaged, spouting nonsense. That he is there to save the world, that he is the FUTURE, the INEVITABLE, that the X-Men cannot prevent the world falling apart in the future, that they will be responsible for the apocalypse. However, with a lightning zap and some timely telekinesis, the group escapes back to the Blackbird as the rest of the island has already been evacuated.

The X-Men return to Westchester without Scott and inform Xavier of what happened.

Time moves on. They recover. They mourn. A memorial service is held for Scott. Xavier's original students, Warren, Bobby, Alex, Hank, and Lorna, decide to leave the school afterwards as they believe they need to come at the Sentinel problem another way. They form X-Force.

Xavier comes up to Ororo after the service and asks her to stay on, despite her having no obligation to do so. She watches Logan and Kurt keeping Kitty entertained while Piotr and James speak with her parents, about Kitty staying on at the school and learning from Professor Xavier, and decides that she would like to stay and lead the X-Men. Jean joins them and says that she'd be happy to be on any team Storm is leading, revealing that -of the original students - she is the only one who is staying with the X-Men. The three look out onto the horizon as there are endless possibilities for the X-Men now *play the theme song*

END CREDIT SCENE NUMBER ONE - Magneto watches Xavier's new team of X-Men in action and converses with Mystique, saying that, "If Charles has put together a new team of recruits, we should, too."

END CREDIT SCENE NUMBER TWO - A blonde woman in all white speaks with a raven-haird men with red eyes and a crimson diamond embedded in his head. "You pulled a lot of favors to get him, are you sure he's worth it?" "Believe me. He is." The duo, Emma Frost and Dr. Sinister are looking over the body of Scott Summers, very much NOT DEAD, held in stasis as the camera pans out and reveals the Hellfire Club.

And that would be how we introduce the X-Men, and mutants, into live action movies.

#marvel #mcu #x-men #ororo munroe #wolverine logan #piotr rasputin #kurt wagner #james proudstar #charles xavier #scott summers #jean grey #bobby drake #warren worthington III #hank mccoy #lorna dane #alex summers #krakoa #like personally you HAVE to start with the x-men team that changed EVERYTHING I.E. the team from giant size x-men #love to the core 5 because that was the humble beginnings but we can easily sum their experiences up in like 5 minutes #whereas you take the team from 1975... there's your story #throw in kitty really set yourself up for success and you have a story #however instead of having kitty be our stand-in to guide us through the plot - sorry girl i love you so much - we need it to be ororo #ororo who is having such a MOMENT in pop culture right now AND is dominating as a boss in comics #ororo who DESERVES her flowers #ororo who is the LIGHTNING #like put ororo center stage in the x-men/mutants universe and just let everything unfold #she should be the EYE of the STORM #and also this idea sets up so many other plotlines #you have X-Force which we can then follow in a miniseries #you have the Brotherhood where we can be introduced to ROGUE

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