#like i got a massive blood pressure drop and nausea

[the0ther-side0f-dawn]

.

[hey-hamlet]

Who wants possible horrific side effects for 1A and their quirks? No one? Tough cookies because I am here! With this! Under the read more because its a wall of text.

Satou and Kaminari:

Both of them, overuse of their quirk causes them to temporarily "dumb down", but is it really temporary? They have some of the lowest academic results in the class, yet they got into a school like UA. Does it have a cumulative effect?

Speaking of which – the mechanism behind Kaminari’s short outs, a good theory is that its either an overload or underload of electrical signals in his body. If so, his short-circuits could be a form of seizure.

 Aoyama:

So, due to a birth defect (i think thats it anyway), his body can’t handle his quirk very well - use over 1 second causes it to crush his stomach/intestines and he’s shown to be in quite a lot of pain. He’s also 1A's thinnest boy; has his quirk done permanent damage to his digestive track? 

Crush injuries like that can lead to ischemic damage, causing necrosis. Or perhaps a portion of intestine has already died and been removed, resulting in short bowel syndrome?

 Uraraka:

Overuse of her quirk causes nausea and vomiting - regular vomiting can lead to: throat cancer, arrhythmia, bad breath, electrolyte imbalance, rotting teeth, etc. 

Bile can also cause chemical burns to the inside of your throat and sinuses, and can result in frequent sinus infections.  

 Asui:

Her frog quirk can cause her to "hibernate" if the temp gets low enough, but she’s unlikely to have the requisite slowing of the bodily functions to survive it as she’s,,, well, not a frog. 

Also, frogs can breathe and absorb large amount of water through their skin – would swimming in salt water dehydrate her? Would toxins in water and air poison her faster than others?

 Yaoyorozu:

Her quirk uses the lipids in her body to form objects. So constant weight gain/loss is problematic for the body anyway, but its exclusively through lipids so she will have no muscle wastage which is the main concern in yoyo weightloss.

BUT - you wanna know whats made of a lot of lipids? The brain, the protective coating around your nerves and your cell mebranes. Damage to this coating around nerves is what causes MS

  Bakugo:

His quirk damages his wrists. If hes not careful, he could end up with ligament problems. Well, considering hes a hero its basically a given.

Nitro-glycerine is a vasodilator, if he eats food before he washes his hands he could suffer a massive drop in blood pressure, causing him to pass the fuck out. 

Also, are his eardrums more durable than a normal persons? if not he’s likely developing hearing damage – someone please give him some ear protection.

  Aizawa:

Its implied his quirk is what gave him dry eye - is it damaging his eyes in other ways? Also, while he used his quirk easily before, post USJ the use of his quirk is damaging and straining, likely painful too.

Also off topic but why on earth does his hair float. I just want to know. Why. Someone tell me.

 Mic:

A little more obvious than the others, but the constant loud noises will give him hearing damage if he lacks mutated ear drums to go with his quirk - but they 100% damage the ears of the people he works with.

His quirk is also shown to be "always on", judging by it’s reaction to erasure, making it look more like a mutant quirk than an emitter like its listed as? But he was born with his quirk and he seems to have to work to keep the volume down. This has nothing to do with drawbacks I just have beef with how his quirk is described. 

  Hagekure:

Her quirk isn’t directly dangerous to her, but indirectly. Her quirk is a light bending type of invisibility, otherwise shed be blind, like Mirio is when he uses his quirk – plus we also see her reflect light from Aoyama’s laser.

What happens if she’s knocked out? If she’s injured? trapped in rubble? How would anyone know where to look? Her quirk doesn’t turn off when she’s asleep, so it won’t if she’s unconscious - how do you render first aid if you cant see the wound?

No really important but can she manipulate light outside the visible spectrum? Can she just blast people with UV and give them sunburns?

 Ojirou:

Hes probably fine tbh? But i wanna talk about a bit of stuff that might not be. So, his tail is perpendicular to his spine - that like, doesn’t happen? so I’m assuming it’s just really sloped. Curved spines like that  h u r t and are at risk for pinching a nerve or slipping a disc. 

Also, most common tail injuries? Degloving. Don’t google that, its where the skin of a limb is ripped off in one piece, like a glove. This cant really be healed, and the limb must be amputated; it happens to fingers with rings, or dog, cat and rat tails.

 Midnight:

Idk about how her quirk works? but sedatives tend to react poorly w alcohol. this isn’t bad for her, but what is the person she’s subduing is drunk? will they slip into a coma?

Her quirk also doesnt let her use any body armour, plus is requires he getting in close and personal so shes at really high risk for injury and doesn’t have anything to defend herself but reaction time

does her quirk affect her? is she immue to it or only resistant?

If its a sedative, not an anaesthetic its likely processed in the liver, leading to liver damage w prolonged use. 

If its anaesthetic not only to we barely know how the works, things under anaesthetic have a nasty habit of just not breathing. Also: allergic reactions to it are very common. How high is her accidental kill rate? how about bystanders? she cant control her quirk once it leaves her body, it’s just a gas, what happens when it escapes the scene?

 Sero:

What makes his tape sticky? many adhesives give off harmful fumes than can cause migraines, sinus cancer and an altered state + possible allergic reactions as comes w anything weird like that. Contact dermatitis is a bitch.

Also is he over uses his quirk he gets dry skin? This either means its using up something found in his skin to create it, like collagen or keratin: leading to fragile skin, massive tears and heavy scaring, or it dehydrates him: which can lead to a bunch of nasty stuff.

Also the force needed to hold him up by his quirk would likely dislocate his shoulders, or at least realllyyy damage the muscle around it, leading to arm weakness and loss of motor control + possible pinched nerves and cartilage damage, especially if his quirk uses collagen which is needed to create healthy joints.

[detectivecarlosreyes]

Family Doesn’t End In Blood 

Also on Ao3 | Word Count: 1.7k | Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Day 3: Buddie + “Is that blood?” “…..No?” + hurt

@buddieweek2020

It was a farmhouse fire that they were called to. He and Eddie were just supposed to do a sweep to make sure all the farmhands had made it out because not all of them were accounted for yet.

 What they weren’t told was that there was an unsecured shotgun and shotgun shells in said burning building. Which just so happened to have been heated so much by the flames that they had started to ignite spontaneously, firing off just as he and Eddie passed by the room.

Luckily it was at that moment that Bobby was pulling them out, saying that the two unaccounted for farmhands had made it out at a different exit and there was no one else left.

Neither of them were hurt, at least that’s what he thought as they exited the house. It wasn’t until they moved back to the truck to exchange their equipment for hoses when Eddie stumbled, a hand pressed to his chest for a moment in discomfort before straightening up again with a small shake of his head.  

Buck thought nothing of it until Eddie took his helmet off for a moment to swipe at the sweat on his brow, leaving a clear streak of blood as he does so.

“Uhh Eddie. Is that blood?” Buck asks, pointing to Eddie's forehead.

Eddie just looks at him confused before he wavers again, swaying on his feet, “… no?”

Buck steps in closer for a better look and he’s glad he did because at that moment Eddie fell forward, collapsing against him. “Hey, hey, hey, I’ve got you. Let’s lie you down, alright.” He helps to ease him to the ground.

“Buck.. my chest… it… it hurts?”

“Alright, I’ve got it okay, just don’t move.” He turns to the matter at hand and inspects Eddie’s turnout coat finding three small holes that had torn straight through.

Tearing it open, Buck finds what he’s looking for and feels his stomach drop at what he finds. There was a bloodstain right in the middle of Eddie’s torso and it was getting bigger.

Holding pressure to the wounds, Buck calls Hen and Chim on the radio, doing his best to sound calm and in control, even with the panic welling up inside him.

This is the second time that he’s had Eddie’s life literally in his hands and Buck all he can do is try to stop the bleeding as he waits, doing his best to keep Eddie conscious but he can tell that his partner was struggling and that made it all the more concerning.

Thankfully, he didn’t have long to wait before Hen and Chim were by his side asking questions that he does his best to answer. He doesn’t really pay attention to what they’re saying until Chim says “His blood pressure is dropping, probably bleeding somewhere internally. He doesn’t have a lot of time from the looks of these stats, we need to get moving now!”

As they give Cap a quick rundown of what was going on as they move him to the ambulance, Buck doesn’t move from his side, keeping his eyes firmly on Eddie’s now unconscious face. Buck knows that they were far away from the nearest hospital, and he knows that from where the pellets went in, that it’s highly likely that they hit the liver and he knows that Chim and Hen know that too from the way they looked at each other.

He knows how life-threatening they can be, which is why out of fear for Eddie’s life he blurts out, “a blood transfusion. We can do a field blood transfusion to buy him some time to get to the hospital.”

It’s enough to make the two paramedics pause for a moment to look at him and say that they didn’t have the supplies for something like that, “You can use me, Eddie and I have the same blood type and we have the equipment to do it.”

For a second he thinks they’ll refuse and say it was too risky, but then they exchange a look and then Hen was beckoning him inside as Chim steps out to take the driving seat. He takes a seat in the nearest care seat and Hen quickly sets up the transfusion line and just like that they were on their way.

Even though she makes him swear to her that he would to tell her when to stop the transfusion lest he faints from blood loss himself, Buck knows he won’t, not if it meant giving Eddie the precious time he needed. H knows that he will do anything, give anything, to make sure that Eddie made it back to Christopher no matter the cost, he loved them both too much.

Hen’s voice breaks through the silence that had fallen over the inside of the ambulance “His blood pressure looks like its stabilising. That was some good thinking, Buck.”

All he can do is nod, eyes fixated on Eddie’s face only half-listening.

“You love him, don’t you?” She goes on, fully snapping him out of whatever trance he was in, as she checks and adds more gauze packed against Eddie’s wounds.

“What? Hen, no-” he starts in a knee jerk reaction to the question, but he cuts himself off when he sees the knowing look she gives him and collapses against the back of his seat, “is it that obvious?”

She leans across and pats him on the knee, “I suspected, but I didn’t know for sure until you confirmed it just now.”

“Damn and here I thought I was doing so well at hiding it.” He says with a chuckle, feeling somewhat relieved over the confession.

“We’re 5 minutes out. How are you feeling back there, Buckaroo?” calls Chim from the front of the ambulance, effectively interrupting whatever Hen was about to say.

“All good back here Chim, never better.” He answers, doing his best to sound truthful even though he may or may not have just started to feel waves of dizziness and nausea was over him.

In no time they were pulling in at the Hospital and he had been disconnected from Eddie. He watched as the hospital team wheeled him through the doors and as he steps of the ambulance, he catches himself on the door, vision spotted with darkness.

The last thing he remembers is turning to Chim and saying, “I lied,” before blacking out.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 

 Eddie wakes slowly to the sound of beeping, it’s the first thing he notices. It takes him longer to add sight into his functioning sense as he slowly blinks his eyes open only to see the typical muted white that could only be associated with a hospital room.

It takes him several moments, before his memory of what happened filters through the haze of the pain meds he seems to be getting. Looking around the room, his eyes eventually land on the curious form of one Evan Buckley who surprisingly was not sitting in a visitor’s chair but actually sitting up in a bed next to him scrolling through his phone, with a nearly empty saline bag hanging beside him.

“Buck?”

As soon as he makes a sound Buck had dropped his phone, relief clear on his face, “Eds! You’re awake!”  and anticipating the next question that was on his lips he explains what happened, “When those shotgun shells went off, some of the spray got you in the chest just below your sternum, hitting your liver. You had surgery to get it fixed.”

It takes him a second to process the information before another question comes to mind, “And why are you here?”

A new voice joins them then, taking over in answering the question. “I’ll tell you why; your crazy partner of yours gave you a personal field blood transfusion because you had massive internal bleeding and he ended up giving you twice as much blood as he should of and passed out when we got to the hospital.” Hen says disapprovingly as she stands beside Eddie and reaches over to give his hand a squeeze, “Good to see you awake, I’m going to go find your aunt and Christopher and let them know you’re up.”  

Her announcement had him raising his eyebrows at Buck, who just shrugs looking completely unapologetic, and all Eddie can do is shake his head at him, unsurprised that Buck would do something like that.

He can’t help but feel something akin to both awe and love for the man. It hasn’t escaped his notice that ever since the tsunami, Buck had time and again put his safety over his own, and given the circumstance its time that he addressed it.

“Buck…” he starts, getting the man’s attention but then finds that he has no plan on what to say next and yet somehow once again Buck reads him like a book.

“Eds, I know what you’re going to say, and I know it was reckless, but if me doing something reckless means that you get to make it home again to your family, to Christopher, then I would make those same choices in a heartbeat.”

Eddie opens his mouth to respond but Buck continues on, “He can’t lose another parent, Eds, and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to make sure you make it home to him.”

Feeling exasperated by Buck’s lack of self-preservation, he frowns at him “You’re an idiot if you think we don’t see you as family Buck, you have been for a long time now, so don’t think for a second that Chris would be any less upset losing you as he would be losing me.”

“You’re his dad Eddie, it’s completely different.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true-” Before he can continue trying to convince Buck some more, the sound of Christopher’s crutches interrupts the conversation and his attention is taken up instead by his son.

He gets it, Buck’s reasoning, and he will forever be grateful for the man himself, so when Chris was situated on his bed, so he could give his dad a careful hug, Eddie looks over the top of his head at Buck and mouths ‘Thank you’ while considering the possibility that maybe there was more to their relationship and he should probably do something about it and properly make him part of the family.

Which he does.

5 days later.

[jackandthesoulmates]

Curse’s Delight

requested by @wendibird

So like, in a setting where it hasn't been a thing yet. Fuck-or-die and Jack's the one bit with the curse. And Sam's the only other person around. And there isn't a lot of time. (So like, trying to arrange for a prostitute wouldn't work.) Plus maybe the curse stipulates that the cursed party has to be penetrated. In any event, though Sam has misgivings, Jack assures him that he trusts him and to Sam's surprise Jack ends up REALLY liking it.

Word count: 1914

Read on AO3

Or under the cut.

Sam just didn’t watch Jack for a split second. But a second can be a very, very long time. As it was in this case, because, when Sam looked around, Jack had something in his hands that made Sam’s hunter alarm go off. Very loudly.

“DROP IT! NOW!”

He didn’t mean to yell, but he lost his cool with this. He reached out to Jack, who looked at him, surprised and frightened all of a sudden. 

“Why-- what--!”

Sam slapped Jack’s hand and he dropped the horn. A red, twisted one. And there was only one creature in existence that Sam knew of had twisted red horns.

An incubus. They were in so much trouble now.

Jack didn’t know what he did wrong and what had upset Sam so much. He always wanted to make things right, especially when Sam was around. This time it seemed he had fucked up by touching this horn, whatever it was. 

It was a case that Sam took him to learn some hunter stuff and they ended up breaking into a so called “Wiccan Shop” whose owner had disappeared and had said some very disturbing things to his employee, a rebellious woman with her face covered in black piercings and arms full of colourful tattoos. She had tried to flirt with Jack how Sam told him later, but Jack was as clueless about this as he could be. 

Breaking into a witchcraft shop was new to him but Sam was professional and efficient with locks. Inside the shop Jack tried to copy Sam’s style and tried to be as analytic and rational. But this horn, it had called out to him. And only to him. It sang and whispered about earthly delights and that Jack could have what he wanted if he just -- touched it. Touching it felt good. Tingly. It was resonating deeply with a desire Jack felt for a while already… And so, he just touched the damn thing.

Seemingly, this was a shit idea, Sam never yelled. Like, really, … never.

“S-Sam did I do something wrong?”

Sam kicked the horn away and immediately grabbed Jack’s face. It was an intense look Sam gave Jack and he felt a sudden pain behind his eyes. The world went black for a moment. 

“Jack, are you okay?” 

He shook his head, the pain was piercing through his skull. 

“No, it hurts! What was this thing?”

Jack laid his hands on Sam’s, trying to make the pain go away with pressing against his temples. But his body had just started acting up because in the pain there was a feeling, an aching inside his guts. He knew this feeling and he didn’t like it, because he didn’t know how to get rid of it. His pants bulged and he squirmed under Sam’s touch.

“It’s the horn of an incubus, a male … a male sex demon.” The way Sam hesitated frightened Jack even more. 

“What does it mean?” Jack whispered, rubbing his legs against each other and keeping his eyes shut. 

It was incredibly painful. When did it stop? 

“It means, you’ve been exposed to its venom and… and… shit, we maybe have just minutes. The curse is powerful and- oh my God Jack, I have no idea--”

Jack started shaking and bent over to leave a puddle of vomit directly before Sam’s shoes. The acid he threw up burned in his stomach and esophagus. It just didn’t stop! 

“Sam, help me… please…”, Jack said, tasting bitter gall in his mouth. 

Jack felt how Sam tried to get him up, but Jack was cramping terribly and moving him seemed impossible. He just fell over to the ground, face first. Still choking out acid and what he tasted… blood. Between his whimpers he still begged Sam for help.

“Jack, please, hold on… I can’t do this!”, Sam exclaimed, clearly panicking now.

When Jack looked up for a second he could see Sam through his veil of tears. His eyes stung, his lung hurt and his stomach won’t stop twisting. And why was he aroused now, in these moments when his body seems to be torn apart. He died once already. This definitely felt like dying too. Jack didn’t want to die.

“You can’t do what? Please, Sam… It hurts… it hurts so much…”

Sam’s hand in his hair surely meant to comfort him, but actually Jack got angry. “Help me!”

And then Sam said, “Jack, it’s a curse and the only way to free you from it is having sex. I’m so sorry. I can’t call anyone, it’s in the middle of the night. I have no idea where to find a hustler.”

Jack had no idea what a hustler was. And he certainly has never had sex before with anyone. He didn’t even kiss so far. But the pain became unbearable.

“Then I need to have sex? Will it stop?”

He heard Sam breathing heavily. “Yes, you need to but…” Sam looked as awful as Jack felt right now. 

Jack’s learned one thing already. He’d never touch anything calling out to him ever again. His stinging lungs made him cough and he could taste blood. Again. He knew that was a very, very bad sign. And why did Sam talk so much when it was a matter of time for Jack to die?

“Sam!” he cried, coughing blood all over his white shirt. 

And Sam didn’t know how to help Jack. His first instinct was to call Dean, call a hooker or whatever to get Jack out of this misery quickly, but Dean certainly had no remedy at hand, because there was only this one remedy that would work. Everything else Sam thought of would only help Jack survive maybe a couple minutes later. Incubus curses were so incredibly sinister. Sam knew the cure, of course. But he felt so horrible thinking about how to have sex with Jack.

“Jack, we need to have sex, but I’m not sure if I can… oh Jack, please..”

Sam was his caretaker, not his lover, but he knew he couldn’t let Jack die here. 

“Then do it, Sam. Do it with me. I don’t want to die!”

He knew they had to. He hated the idea anyway. Sam got up and starting browsing in the shelves for something that would make it easier for Jack. 

“Oil, oil… come on! There has to be some oil in here, fuck!”

Sam never swore. He never yelled, he never swore. Jack knew, this situation was horrible. In his actual condition he would do anything to be healed from this turmoil. 

Then Sam seemed to have found what he needed, because he called out a short “YES” and then dragged Jack up, who was close to passing out from the pain. Sam laid Jack on the counter, undressed him. Jack’s world was spinning and weird patterns of black and red dots were dancing in his eyesight. The wooden underground felt cold on his back. He didn’t give a damn about it, he just wanted to be good again.

“This will hurt. Sorry in advance.” 

Jack was half unconscious already when he heard a wet noise and then felt his legs spread apart. 

“Sa--- Sam…”, he mumbled, sounding like a drunkard. 

Sam held Jack’s ankles with one hand and the other was… Jack tried to look up, but he couldn’t. There was something sticking in his ass now, he wasn’t sure what it was. He didn’t even knew how two men would have sex in the first place. 

“Shhh, it will be okay, Jack. Relax. Please. I’m sorry.”

Jack covered his face with his arm, silently sobbing from the pain in his whole body. He felt a sharp and sudden pain when something… bigger… was pushed inside his hole and he cried out in surprise and suddenly in absolutely deranged pleasure. He bit his arm. Hard. Jack tasted blood again and his teeth hurt from the pressure he put his jaw on. 

“Sam..” he called out. What was that? Why did he have to do it like this?

Aloe Vera gel was not the best alternative to lube but the only thing Sam could find in this shop without causing an utter mess. He wasn’t as hard as he should be to penetrate Jack and he felt horrible and guilty already for taking his foster boy like this. When he started crying out Sam’s name and clenching around Sam’s cock so deliciously Sam was getting rock hard. Now that he pushed the tip inside and still pushing deeper he could let go of Jack’s ankles. Immediately Jack pulled him closer, Sam’s cock sliding inside Jack’s tight ass completely.

“Fuck!”, Sam exclaimed. 

This was so good and so wrong, Sam wanted to stop… the other half of him loved the raw fuck. He didn’t even have time to prepare Jack a little. Sam thrusted deep inside Jack’s ass, slid out almost completely and then pushed back in. All the way. And then he just had to fuck him. Hard. There was no time for mercy or caresses. Only Jack who needed to be fucked and cum to get rid of the curse that made him almost die. 

“Sam… oh God, Sam…” Jack cried, hiding deeper. 

But Sam ripped the arm away from his face and made Jack touch himself. 

“Jerk it. Come on, sweetheart. Rub it.”

Jack did how Sam wanted, while he still pounded Jack hard and without any mercy. He cried out by his own touches and felt his already hard cock throbbing and twitching. The nausea faded, same as the heavy feeling in his lungs. He could feel how his anus clenched around Sam’s cock. Sam felt so big inside Jack, it drove him crazy!

“Sam.. Sam!” 

There was nothing else on Jack’s mind right now, nothing but the feeling of tension building up in belly, Sam’s big cock and how each of his powerful thrusts made Jack moan and sob in pleasure. 

It didn’t last a minute until Jack came the first time ever. He shot a huge load of cum across his milk white skin and even a few drops squirted up to his chin. The explosion made him dizzy, the following relief let him pass out for a few seconds. Even Sam’s frantic thrusting could keep him conscious right now. Sam on the other side was into it so much he just stopped fucking Jack as he was about to cum. With a hiss he pulled out and came all over Jack’s chest as well. 

With a shudder and a grunt Sam jerked himself through a massive orgasm. Then he let go of Jack. It took several blinks for Sam to calm down enough to check up on the boy. Jack was still unconscious, it needed some slight slaps on his cheek to bring him back.

Jack sighed and opened his eyes slowly. 

“Is it done?”, he asked. 

Sam nodded and helped Jack up. 

“I’m so sorry, kid. I… I shouldn’t have done that.”

The boy brushed the worries aside. With big teary eyes he looked up to Sam, before he leaned his head against Sam’s chest and held him tight as if he was about to fall from the counter. 

“I don’t feel like dying anymore, that’s good.”

Sam’s hand caressed Jack’s messy hair. He didn’t dare to hold him closer. 

“I liked it.” 

Jack chuckled. “I really liked it. Can we do that again? Without the almost dying part?”

[blitzturtles]

Title: Heatwave

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo

Pairing(s): MeloGhia / GhiaMelo

Summary: To say that Ghiaccio hates the heat would be something of an understatement. He can’t stand it. Can’t exist in it.

Notes: I read that Ghiaccio having problems with/hating the heat is a bit of a fan favorite in terms of headcanons, and, since I am heat intolerant, I thought I'd inflict something called dysautonomia on him.

Dysautonomia basically means the autonomic nervous system (heartbeat, breathing, etc...) doesn't functioning correctly. And one type of dysautonomia is POTS, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. This can cause an increase in heart rate, lowered blood pressure, orthostatic intolerance (difficulty with standing, which is usually caused by an abrupt drop of blood pressure and a significantly elevated heart rate), heat intolerance, etc...

-

To say that Ghiaccio hates the heat would be something of an understatement. He can’t stand it. Can’t exist in it. Because the heat hates him just as much. It builds under his skin, while his blood collects in all the wrong places, apparently he’s too weak against gravity for his body to continue to circulate properly.

Every attempt at moving brings about a response wherein his heart pounds away painfully in his chest. It’s an attempt, on its part, to try to correct the problem, but it’s really only making it worse. The inner chambers of his heart squeeze too hard, and the bounding of his pulse can be felt through his clothes-- not that he’s wearing much more than a tank top and a pair of boxers at this point.

He’s tried to use White Album to keep the worst of it at bay, but he’s running out of energy. Partly because this particular wave of too-hot days has stretched on for nearly a week, and partly because his body is exhausting itself in its effort to recapture homeostasis.

Nausea bubbles up on his guts for the umpteenth time; a sure sign that all the blood in his body is being shunted away from anything deemed non-vital. He hasn’t eaten much of anything in days simply to avoid the repercussions of an underactive digestive system, and that certainly isn’t helping.

He knows he isn’t drinking enough water, either. Knows that it’s vital for someone like him, but he can’t bring himself to care when he’s splayed out on the cold floor of his bedroom with limbs spread in every direction. Every time the floor warms, he simply scoots to a new spot or rolls himself over until it becomes necessary to repeat the process all over again.

Being on the floor has the added bonus of reducing the amount of energy that goes into his body fighting gravity. If he were to try to stand right now, the dizziness would hit him so severely that he might not be able to catch himself before blacking out. All of his blood would rush down into his legs, and his brain would momentarily blip out on him. The last thing he needs is a concussion.

He’s too caught in his own thoughts to notice someone popping the door open (it should be locked anyways, but when has that ever stopped anyone in this godforsaken house?)

“Ah,” Melone says when he looks into the room and sets his eyes on Ghiaccio. He makes his way over to the sprawled man and peers down at him through a curtain of lavender hair, “Body being a bitch today?”

“You’re being a bitch today,” Ghiaccio snaps back, but there’s no heat to it.

“Aw,” Melone juts out his lower lip, “Now is that any way to talk to the one that brought you presents?”

“I don’t give a fuck, Mel, go away,” the nickname is the only thing that betrays his attempt at sound pissed. He isn’t really. Not at Melone, but he’s miserable and sick to his stomach and overheated and kind of over the whole living thing.

Melone pretends to consider the request-- it’s not one-- before grinning, “No. Don’t think so. Up with you! Wait, no. Don’t move.” He disappears out the door, though only just outside of it. He comes back a few seconds later with a massive duffel bag that only makes Ghiaccio groan. He has no idea what Melone is up to, but he can tell when Melone’s scheming, and that doesn’t always bode well for Ghiaccio.

Without asking, Melone settles down next to Ghiaccio on the floor, right in his next cold spot, and that gets Melone a glare that he, of course, ignores. “Relax, the internet said this’ll help.”

“The internet says all kinds of bullshit,” Ghiaccio mumbles with a roll of his eyes, but there’s no stopping Melone now.

At least not until he pulls a needle, and Ghiaccio suddenly finds the energy (adrenaline) to quickly sit up in an attempt to escape. His vision rapidly fades out, and it’s only Melone’s hands that stop him from hitting the ground.

“Have a little faith, Ghia!” Melone whines, but he’s still grinning.

Bastard.

“Whatever,” now Ghiaccio is losing patience with the man.

“The science is sound! You’re low on blood volume, and I’ve got a pretty easy fix for that. Plus some ice packs,” Melone resumes digging into the bag and pulls out several, soft freezer packs. Ghiaccio takes them with a little more eagerness than he means to let on, but Melone only smiles in response. A softer, more genuine thing that makes Ghiaccio’s heart flutter for an entirely different reason.

“How are you going to ‘fix’ my blood volume?”

“You’ll see,” Melone answers, earning himself a roll of the eyes from Ghiaccio.

It takes Melone awhile to set up whatever he’s doing, and Ghiaccio gives up figuring it out only a few minutes in. He’s gathered that it has to do with some sort of injection. Possibly more than one, given the tourniquet, but he doesn’t know enough about medical supplies to put any of the other pieces together. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries to focus on the feeling of the freezing sensation against his skin from where he’s stuck the packs against his stomach and legs. It’s both a relief and a comfort. Cold is an old, reliable friend and his only solace in times like these.

Eventually, Melone breaks him out of his daze to ask, “Ready?”

Melone wraps the tourniquet around Ghiaccio’s upper arm as he speaks, and Ghiaccio simply shrugs with his other shoulder. He doesn’t think he actually has much say in this. When Melone sets his mind to something, he’s going to follow it through, and that goes double for medical experiments. It’s not the first time Ghiaccio is on the receiving end, and he has to admit that it hasn’t ever gone too horribly for him in the past.

“Okay,” Melone grabs the needle again. He pops the cap off and holds it up to his good eye for a moment before he lowers it toward Ghiaccio’s elbow. “On three. One, two-”

“OW! Fuck you!”

“Three,” Melone smiles at him with a feigned sweetness, like he doesn’t know why Ghiaccio might want to pull the needle right back out of his arm and stick it between Melone’s eyes.

Melone doesn’t pay him the slightest bit of attention as he slides the needle out and leaves behind a small catheter. He screws something into the end of it and slaps tape over it. It’s then that Ghiaccio notices the bag of fluids already hung up on the nearest surface, which just happens to be his dresser.

“There,” Melone says when he finishes setting up everything to his liking, “That should do it.” He taps the bag with his pointer finger, “Saline. An easy and safe way to up your volume.”

Ghiaccio doesn’t particularly like the implication that there’s an unsafe way.

“Well, mostly. Technically this isn’t the most sterile environment, so you could get an infection, but I’ve done worse on the kitchen table on Pesci’s day to do dishes, sooo.” And there it is.

“Please stop talking,” Ghiaccio says with a groan and tries to push away the anxiety that’s building at the mere thought of sepsis.

“Aww, have a little faith. You’ll be fine, and this should make you feel a lot better. For at least a day or two, and maybe the heatwave will finally go away,” Melone beams at him before he starts to clean up his mess. He gathers it all up in a trash bag he must have brought with him, though that doesn’t exactly answer why the duffel bag is so large.

“What else do you have in there?” Ghiaccio asks against his better judgement. He still isn’t so sure about this saline thing, but his curiosity has always been a bit of a problem.

“Oh, more fluids, in case you need them, and some uh- well, let’s just say a snack for our resident pseudo-vampire. It has to stay cold until it’s… used, so I’ve got it in a cooler.”

Ghiaccio hums and as he processes the words. Seems he isn’t the only one suffering through the heat, though he has a feeling Risotto’s situation is more of a repercussion from his most recent hit. Then again, maybe the heat is getting to the man. It’s not often that Risotto’s left in a bad enough state where he needs Melone’s help. He usually has Prosciutto for that.

“I’m going to go take care of that, actually. You should be fine here for a bit. That bag will finish in about forty-five minutes, so just stay put,” Melone says like Ghiaccio has any intention of going anywhere, regardless of the ice and saline. He stands with the bag slung over his shoulder and glances between the door and Ghiaccio, obviously not wanting to leave, but knowing that he’s needed elsewhere.

“Go take care of Ris,” Ghiaccio mumbles in lieu of a thanks. He’ll repay Melone for his efforts later. When he’s feeling more human.

“Yes, sir!”

Ghiaccio groans and rolls his eyes, “Get the fuck out.”

Melone laughs and dashes for the door before Ghiaccio can hurtle a pointed chunk of ice directly at his head.

It’s barely twenty minutes-- and only half a bag later-- when Ghiaccio finds himself able to sit up without the world spinning.

“Huh,” is all he can say into the empty room. Leave it to Melone.

[i-am-out-of-my-vulcan-mind]

Broken Dreams

Hi guys. 

This oneshot is slightly different from the fics I usually write. It is very close to my heart and has been rather therapeutic for me. 

I’m not sure how well received this will be throughout the fandom though...

Massive trigger warning in regards to infertility. Also TW for clinical terms and vomiting. 

This is for my @badthingshappenbingo​ Square “phantom pain”. @lurkingwhump​, thank you for your help and your friendship. I glove you. 

Also special thanks to @unorthodox-oblivion​ for allowing me to ramble about this project. You’re a gem. 

“Are you alright?” Kurt asked Jane as he joined her in the kitchen. She was leaning against the counter, nursing a cup of ginger tea, her eyes closed, her face drawn. She met his gaze, shrugging at his question. “You only drink that stuff when you don’t feel good.” he continued in her silence. “Are you sick?”

Jane shook her head. “No exactly.” she breathed. Kurt frowned, moving closer and rubbing her shoulder. 

“Is everything ok?” he asked, worried now. 

“Well… I’m late.” she confessed, giving him a pointed look.  

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Have you taken a test?” 

Jane shook her head and sighed. 

“Not long after I took the last test… we found out I was dying… I’m just a little scared I guess.” she divulged. She looked up at him with big worried eyes. He could see every emotion swimming in the depths of her green irises. Fear, uncertainty - hope. 

They hadn’t really spoken about children again since Madeline’s take down, but he knew it was something that still held her attention often. Especially now that Tasha was due to have her baby, he would often see Jane buying various items for the baby and staring at her bump longingly. 

“Why don’t you make a doctor's appointment,” he suggested. “That takes away the fear of taking the test at home.”  

Jane bit her cheek and nodded. “Ok…” she said softly. “But will you come with me?” Kurt’s heart contracted at the vulnerability he saw on his wife’s face. He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her jawline. 

“Of course I will.” he replied softly, kissing her on the forehead. “Make an appointment in the morning, I’ll notify the NYO and tell them we are taking the morning off.” 

Jane smiled gratefully at her husband. She was so lucky she had him. She knew she could always count on him. 

She groaned softly as her stomach rebelled some more, closing her eyes and breathing through her nose. 

“Drink the tea.” Kurt said softly, noticing her distress. 

Jane nodded, bringing her mug up to her mouth and taking a few sips. The ginger soothed her belly quickly and she sighed in relief. 

“How about we go to bed.” he said softly, taking the empty mug from his wife and putting it in the sink. Jane nodded in agreement, completely spent. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They managed to get an early morning appointment at their doctor’s office. They sat in the waiting room, Jane picking at the skin on her fingers. Her anxiety was palpable and Kurt's heart ached for her. 

Kurt reached out and took her hand, running his fingers over her now red fingertips. 

“It’s going to be ok, Jane.” he told her gently. “No matter the result.” 

“I know…” Jane mumbled. “It’s just… I never knew how much I wanted this… until the thought of it not being positive…”

Kurt raised her hand to his mouth, kissing her fingers softly. 

“So if you’re not… then we will start actively trying.” 

Jane exhaled sharply, but then forced her face to relax. 

“Ok.” she whispered quietly. 

“Ok.” Kurt repeated. 

It was another ten minutes before her name was called. 

They sat down with their family doctor, Jane feeling like she was about to explode in anticipation. 

“Now… what can I do for you today?” Doctor John asked kindly. 

Jane looked up at the doctor, suddenly unable to form words. Kurt squeezed her hand in a silent ‘it’s ok… I’ve got this.’

“We want you to do a pregnancy test.” he replied calmly. 

Doctor John nodded. “Of course. Have you taken a home test already?” he asked, grabbing a specimen jar and handing it to Jane. 

Jane shook her head. 

“No.” she croaked, finding her voice. “I wanted to do it here.”

Doctor John nodded in understanding. This wasn’t his first nervous couple who were trying to conceive. 

“The bathroom is down the hall.” he said, gesturing for her to leave the room. 

Kurt watched his wife leave, trying his best to keep his composure. 

“She’s really nervous.” Kurt admitted. 

The doctor smiled warmly. 

“I can understand that. It’s been a rough year for the both of you.”

Kurt chuckled dryly. 

“That’s certainly one way of putting it.” he replied carefully. 

Jane returned a short time later with the specimen jar. She handed it to the doctor who then unwrapped one of the pregnancy tests. Using a dropper, he put a few drops of her urine onto the test strip. 

“That will just take a few minutes.” Doctor John said, sanitising his hands. 

Jane sat back in the chair, willing herself to breathe. 

“How has your health been?” the doctor asked. “I’m assuming you’ve had some symptoms?”

Jane nodded. 

“Well my period is late…. I… ah… I’ve been having stomach cramps and nausea…. fatigue.” she listed. 

The doctor nodded. They were all definitely signs of early pregnancy. “And how late is your period?” he asked, typing on his computer. 

“Five days.” Jane replied, instantly. She had noticed her period had been late straight away - she had always been regular to the day. 

The doctor noted that down. “Ok while we wait, we may as well take a few obs.” 

Jane nodded, rolling up her sleeve so the doctor could take her blood pressure. 

He peeled back the cuff, typing in the result. 

“Blood pressure is good… heart rate is a little fast, but I would expect that if you’re feeling a little anxious.”  

Jane bit her lip. She hated feeling this way. 

Doctor John stood up, looking at the pregnancy test. 

He frowned. 

“Unfortunately this is negative.” he said, looking at Jane with genuinely sad eyes. 

Jane’s heart plummeted. She looked at the floor, trying with all her might not to cry. Kurt reached out and took her trembling hand and she used his touch to ground herself. 

“I’m sorry.” Doctor John said. He sat back down so he was eye level with Jane. “I would like to send you for some bloods, just to check a few things.”

At Jane and Kurt’s questioning stare, he continued. “You’re still having some untoward symptoms, and the fact that your period is late, I just want to check that your hormone levels are where they should be.”

Jane nodded. 

“Ok.” she whispered in a small voice. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane had just finished getting her blood drawn, when her phone rang. 

“Hey Tasha.” she replied, meeting Kurt back in the waiting room. “How are you feeling?”

“Huge… bored.” Tasha replied.  “Hey are you still coming over on Saturday?”she asked, getting straight to the point. 

“Of course.” Jane replied instantly. “I miss you.” 

“I miss you too.” Tasha replied. “Hey do you think you could bring those bagels from the bodega down your street?”

“Of course.” Jane chuckled. She opened the door, walking out onto the footpath. “Hey I gotta run, but I’ll see you in a few days.” 

“Ok!” Tasha replied. “Don’t forget the bagels.” she added for measure. 

���I won’t. Bye Tasha.”

“Bye Jane.” 

Jane hung up the phone, taking Kurt's hand. 

“That was Tasha.” she told him. “She wanted to know if we were still coming on Saturday, and she wants us to bring bagels.”

Kurt grinned. 

“If that woman eats any more bagels, she is going to turn into one.”

Jane smiled softly up at her husband, before sighing, her eyes falling close. 

“Hey.” Kurt said gently, stopping on the street in front of her. He placed both of his hands on her shoulders, bending down so his face was adjacent to hers. She opened her eyes and looked at him sadly. 

“I’m sorry… I guess I’m just a little disappointed.”

Kurt kissed her on the forehead. “Me too.” he murmured. “But as I said… I guess we just start actively trying now.” he winked, earning himself a soft punch to the shoulder. 

She reached up and kissed him tenderly, forever grateful that he was by her side. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane woke up the next morning to a feeling of urgency. Her stomach lurched, sending her hurtling towards the bathroom. She quickly lost the contents of her stomach, her eyes streaming from the intensity of the sudden attack. 

She felt Kurt holding her hair back with one hand and start rubbing her back with the other. She whimpered uncharacteristically as her stomach cramped forcefully, gagging into the toilet bowl. 

Very slowly her stomach started to settle back down, the nausea abating to a manageable queasiness. 

She accepted the toilet paper Kurt was handing her, wiping her face and blowing her nose. She sat back on the tiles feeling wretched. 

“I don’t understand.” she whispered when she could finally use her voice. “If I’m not pregnant… then why am I vomiting?”

She looked up at Kurt, her eyes wide and unblinking. 

Kurt shrugged, kneeling down in front of her. “Maybe you have some kind of bug?” he suggested, holding the back of his hand on her forehead. “You don’t feel warm though.” he frowned. 

Jane groaned miserably, leaning her head against the vanity, closing her eyes. 

“Whatever is wrong, I think you’ll feel better in bed.” Kurt said softly. “Do you want me to call you in sick?”

Jane paused for a second. It wasn’t like her to take time off work, but the last few days had been an emotional roller coaster and her insides were still churning. She wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to keep her own body under control. The thought of vomiting at the NYO was mortifying. 

Making a decision, she nodded softly. “Please.” she croaked out, rubbing her stomach uncomfortably. 

He smiled, kissing her forehead. 

“Ok. I’ll call and then I’ll help you back to bed.” He left the room and Jane could hear him talking in the other room. 

Jane frowned as her stomach cramped again, swallowing convulsively against the building nausea. Kurt reentered the bathroom, just as she had dragged herself back to the toilet, groaning into the bowl. 

“Jane!” he exclaimed, rushing to her side. He knelt behind her, pulling her hair back off her face again. “Hmm maybe you do have a bug.” he murmured as she gagged, throwing up what little was left in her stomach. He winced in sympathy when she was down to dry heaves, rubbing her back in the only comfort he could offer. 

She retched again, before spitting into the toilet, taking deep breaths through her nose to try and calm her upset belly. 

“I’m gonna get you some water.” Kurt said softly, moving out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. He filled a glass, his concern for his wife growing. She was already struggling emotionally, and it hurt him to see her struggling physically as well. He returned to the bathroom to find her leaning against the vanity again, her hand resting on her upset stomach. 

He knelt down, handing her the glass of water. She sipped at it slowly, a look of relief crossing her face when it seemed like it wasn’t going to make a reappearance. 

“Let’s get you back to bed.” Kurt said kindly, offering his hand and helping her to her feet. He guided her back to their bedroom, tucking her under the covers. He left to get her a bucket from the cleaning cupboard and set it beside the bed. “Arla has said to take the weekend off.” he said now that he had her settled.”

“Really? It’s only Thursday?”

Kurt nodded. “She said that if you were that sick, that you should stay away from the NYO until you were feeling better.”

“Oh good.” Jane said relieved. She would be lying if she had said she didn’t want some time off to recuperate after the last few days. Her stomach chose that moment to cramp again. She frowned, curling into the fetal position. 

“Do you want me to stay with you?” he asked, worried at how pale she was. 

Jane shook her head. “No… we can’t both take the day off.” she said from under the covers. “I’ll be ok.” 

Kurt bent over, kissing her softly on the temple. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Go. Or you’ll be late.” 

“Call me if you need me.” Kurt said before walking out of the room. 

Jane snuggled back under the covers, willing her stomach to stop turning. It wasn’t long before she fell back into a fitful sleep. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane was woken by the shrill ringing of her phone. Checking the time she noted she had already been asleep for half the day. 

“Jane speaking.” she answered, rubbing her hand over her face. 

“Jane, this is Doctor John. How are you doing today?”

Jane sat up in bed, suddenly more alert at hearing the doctor’s voice. 

“I’m ok.” she replied. 

“I’ve gotten your blood results back.” the doctor said, getting straight to business. “Jane, your hormone levels indicate something called pseudocyesis, or more commonly known as a phantom pregnancy.”

Jane frowned, at a loss for words. 

“What does that mean?” she asked quietly, not sure if she actually wanted to know. 

“Basically it means your body thinks that it is pregnant, but there isn’t actually a fetus.” Doctor John explained. 

“So that’s why I’ve been vomiting today?” she queried incredulously. “I’ve been having morning sickness?”

“To a degree, yes.” 

Jane sighed. This was not what she wanted to hear. 

“So what now?” 

“I’ve booked you in for an ultrasound for this afternoon. I just want to make sure there is nothing more sinister going on.” At Jane’s silence he continued. “I’ll send a text with the information.”

“Thank you.” she breathed, unable to talk anymore. 

“Let’s make another appointment for you to come and see me tomorrow to discuss what happens next. What time would suit?”

“Any time.” she said, remembering she had the next three days off. 

“Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow at four. That will give time for the results to come through to me.”

“See you then.” she rasped before hanging up the phone.

A phantom pregnancy. How could life be so cruel? To have the thing she wanted most in this world dangled in front of her face like that… it was like fate was playing a sick joke on her. 

She sat on the bed, feeling miserable, until she realised she needed to tell Kurt what was happening. 

Taking a calming breath, she called him, waiting nervously as the phone rang. He picked up on the third ring. 

“Jane? How are you feeling?” he answered, concern laced through his voice. 

“The doctor called.” Jane replied, cutting straight to the point. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit nervous at how Weller would take the news. She knew he wanted this as much as she did. 

“What did he say?”

“I’m… I’m having a phantom pregnancy.” Jane mumbled. “Basically my body thinks that I’m pregnant… but there’s no baby.”

“Oh Jane…” Kurt whispered gently. “So that’s why you’ve been so sick?”

“Yeah.” Jane breathed. She lay back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. 

“Are you ok?” Kurt asked. “If you need me to come home then I will.”

“No… no I’m ok.” she replied in a small voice. “I have to have an ultrasound this afternoon… the doctor just wants to check a few things.”

“I can meet you there?” Kurt said, trying his best to support her through this. 

“I have a follow up appointment with the doctor tomorrow… I would rather you be there for that… I’m not sure how well Arla would react if you kept ducking in and out like that.”

After a brief moment of silence, weighing up his options Kurt replied. “You’re right. They probably won’t tell you much today anyway.” 

“Yeah I doubt it. I’m still waiting for the doctor to text with the information. I’ll let you know when I do.”

“Ok Jane.” he said softly. “I love you.”

She sighed. 

“I love you too. I’ll see you later.”

They ended the call and Jane brought her hand up to her face, trying to keep her composure. 

Her phone beeped, stating that her ultrasound would be in a couple of hours at a clinic not far from her apartment. The instructions said to show up with a full bladder.

Jane sighed, realising she hadn’t had anything to eat and only very little to drink since waking up the first time. She forced her aching body to get out of bed and made her way to the kitchen.  She fixed herself some dry toast and ginger tea, not wanting to aggravate her already delicate stomach. 

The next couple of hours went by quickly, and before she knew it, she was in the waiting room.  

“Jane Doe?” the ultrasound technician asked. 

Jane stood up, following the tech down the hallway to a small, dark room. The tech asked her to lay flat on the bed. Jane did as asked, the tissue paper rustling under her body. 

“Your bladder is full?” the tech - Julie, Jane read on her name badge - asked as she set up her equipment. 

Jane nodded, feeling quite vulnerable. She wished she had let Kurt come. She knew Arla would have gotten over it. Full of regret, she took a breath, before Julie lifted her shirt, squeezing the gel onto her skin. 

Jane watched, her heart sinking when she saw the image of what she assumed was her uterus appearing on the screen. The fact that it was empty had her willing herself not to cry. She lay there silently, letting tech run the wand over her belly. 

“Ok, I think I need to do an internal, if that’s ok with you?” Julie said, as she cleaned the gel off of Jane’s skin. 

“Ah… yeah? Is everything ok?” she asked worriedly. 

“I’d just like to get some clearer images on a few things.” Julie replied. “There’s a bathroom through there,” she pointed. “Empty your bladder while I get things set up.”

Jane complied, shuffling off of the bed and moving towards the bathroom to relieve herself. When she returned, the tech pulled the curtain, asking her to remove her pants and underwear and cover herself with the sheet provided. 

Jane winced slightly as the wand was inserted, her pelvic area feeling incredibly tender. 

She looked up at the technician, noticing the frown plastered to her face. 

“Is everything ok?” Jane asked again. Julie looked down at her with sympathy.

“You have a lot of inflammation in your fallopian tubes… this could be caused by the pseudocyesis, but I want to get some clearer images to be sure.”

Jane swallowed thickly - that would explain the stomach pains and tenderness. She lay there silently for another fifteen minutes, before Julie removed the wand, lifting the sheet back down to cover her. 

“I think we are done here. I’m going to get one of my seniors to look at these before we send the results back to your doctor.”

Jane bit her lip. She could tell there was something Julie wasn’t telling her. She wouldn’t meet her eye. 

“Ok.” she said in a small voice. She didn’t want to put the tech in an awkward position. Clearly it wasn’t her place to tell her what was going on. Jane would just have to wait until her appointment the following day. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane returned home feeling shaken and dazed. Kurt wasn’t due home for another hour so she busied herself cleaning the apartment and fixing him some dinner. It was the least she could do after he had literally held her hair back for her that morning. 

He arrived home right on schedule, mildly - yet pleasantly surprised at the meal that was put in front of him the moment he sat down. 

“You not eating?” he asked, his concern palpable. 

Jane shook her head. 

“Still feeling sick?”

She sighed. 

“I don’t think the ultrasound went well.” she confessed nervously. 

Kurt put down his knife and fork, giving her a pointed look. “What makes you say that?”

Jane bit her lip, staring down at the floor. 

“Just the way the tech acted. She got me to do an internal ultrasound and then was avoiding my questions… said there was inflammation in my fallopian tubes.” 

Kurt put his plate on the kitchen bench, his meal momentarily forgotten. He walked around the breakfast bar, pulling his wife into his arms. 

“Everything is going to be ok.” he promised, murmuring into her hair. He felt her start to tremble. “Shhh it’s ok… I’ve got you.”

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane barely slept that night, and was woken by another onslaught of nausea. Kurt brought her a cup of ginger tea into the bathroom, knowing it was the only thing that seemed to stem the vomiting. 

“Arla has okayed me taking the day off with you.” Kurt said, sitting on the bathroom floor beside his ailing wife. He knew that right now she needed him there with her. She was going to be an anxiety riddled mess until her appointment with the doctor that afternoon and he needed to be there to support her. 

He felt some of the tension leave her body at that knowledge. 

“I was thinking maybe we could watch a couple of movies to fill in the day?”

Jane nodded, still not quite recovered from her “morning sickness” attack to speak yet. She took a couple more sips of the tea, before Kurt helped her to her feet and led her out to the living room. He got her situated on the couch, bringing out the bucket from the bedroom from the day before. 

“Just in case.” he said softly. 

Jane managed to smile at him. There was no way she would have been able to get through the last forty eight hours without him. She would be forever grateful that he was there to help her through yet another traumatic ordeal. 

The day passed quickly and before she knew it, she was sitting in yet another waiting room, anxious out of her mind. She knew in her heart that the results she was about to get would change her life forever. 

She saw Doctor John appear in the waiting room and make eye contact with her. “Jane.” he said, indicating she should follow him. She could tell him his whole demeanour that he wasn’t looking forward to this appointment. 

They sat down in his office, Jane looking at him expectantly. 

“How are you feeling?” Doctor John asked, noting how pale she looked.  

“Not great.” Jane admitted. “The stomach symptoms are causing me some grief.” 

The doctor nodded at that. 

“I will prescribe you some hormone supplements to help with that.” he said softly. 

“What did the ultrasound say?” Kurt asked, addressing the elephant in the room. 

Doctor John sighed. 

“I’ve been doing a bit of research in regards to your ZIP poisoning last year.” he started. 

Jane looked at him with a confused expression. 

“What does my ultrasound have to do with my ZIP poisoning?” she asked, frightened of what the answer would be.

“Jane… the ultrasound showed that your fallopian tubes are incredibly inflamed… this inflammation has caused irreversible scarring… I’m so sorry.”

Jane’s chin wobbled. 

“W-what are you saying?” she stuttered.  

“From the research I’ve done in conjunction with your ultrasound results… it looks like when you were sick last year, the poisoning caused your fallopian tubes to swell…” he paused, looking sympathetically into Jane’s eyes. “You will never conceive children naturally.” 

Jane’s eyes widened and then she just went numb. The doctor’s voice faded into the background, and if it wasn’t for Kurt’s hand on her knee, she would have forgotten to breathe. 

She didn’t hear much of the rest of the appointment so she was glad that Kurt was there to retain the rest of the information. 

She remained silent the whole way back to the apartment, Kurt watching her out of the corner of his eyes. He could see her struggling - hell he was, but he knew he needed to give her a moment. 

It wasn’t until they got back into their apartment that he stopped her. 

He stepped in front of her, taking one of her hands softly. “Jane.” he whispered. When she wouldn’t even meet his eye, he cupped her chin, tilting her face up so she was forced to look at him. “Talk to me… please.”

Her eyes darted back and forth, her entire body trembling. “I…” she started, before her lip trembled and her face contorted in grief. She let out a wail before dissolving into a fit of tears. 

“Oh Jane.” Kurt murmured, pulling her into his chest. Jane sobbed into his shirt, her tears falling uncontrollably. “It’s ok baby… I’ve got you.” He felt her tremble, before her knees gave out in her grief. Kurt caught her, lifting her into his arms as she cried. Making a quick decision, he carried her to their bedroom, laying her gently on the bed, before joining her, cradling her to his chest. 

“Ssshhh.” he whispered, as he stroked her hair. “I’ve got you… everything is going to be ok…” His heart shattered for his poor wife, and the knowledge that they would more than likely never have children together. The doctor had mentioned referring them to a fertility specialist to see if they would be viable for IVF. So there was still a glimmer of hope, but Kurt knew in his heart that Jane would never go for it. He knew she wouldn’t be able to put herself through the hormonal abuse, for it potentially not to work. Her broken heart wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

He held her tighter, holding her hand to his heart in an attempt to try and help her calm down. There was nothing he could say or do to fix this, so he just opted to hold her, to let their shattered dreams die together as the both cried. 

It was sometime later before Jane started to calm down, her sobs turning into little hiccups. Kurt continued to hold her tight, swapping between rubbing her back and stroking her head. He felt her relax, her breathing evening out. He peeked down at her to find she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. 

He sighed. She was going to take this hard. Not only had they found out it was very unlikely she would be able to get pregnant - that alone was devastating - but he also knew she would be plagued with guilt. He knew she would be stewing over the fact that she had agreed to taking the ZIP… that it was just another thing that her previous life had ruined for them. He knew he was going to have a hard time convincing her that it wasn’t her fault - that she didn’t know what would happen. 

He settled against the mattress, nuzzling into her hair. All he could do was be there for her. To show her that no matter what, he wasn’t going anywhere. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

The next morning, Kurt woke to find his wife missing from their bed. Rolling out of bed, he checked the bathroom, wondering if she had gotten sick again and ended up there. Seeing that it was empty he wandered out into the kitchen. 

“Jane?” he called, when he still couldn’t find her. 

He saw a note on the counter and strode across the room to read it. 

“Gone to get bagels.” Was all it said. 

Kurt chewed on his lip. He had forgotten that they were going to visit Tasha today. He wondered how Jane would react to seeing her pregnant belly. He knew it was probably going to be hard on him, so he could only imagine what that would do to Jane. 

She entered the apartment a few minutes later, carrying a brown paper bag filled with bagels. 

“Hey.” he said softly. 

“Hey.” she replied, putting her keys in the bowl and placing the bag on the counter. 

“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, pulling her into a hug. 

“I’m ok... I guess.” she replied sadly. 

“We don’t have to go and see Tasha and the others today if you’re not up to it.” Kurt murmured against her hair. 

Jane shook her head. 

“No, I said we would be there… and I miss her.” She sighed, stepping out of his embrace. “It’s going to be hard… but I want to make the effort. I can’t hide in this apartment forever.”

Kurt cupped her cheek, bending down to kiss her softly. “You truly are remarkable.” he said sincerely, in complete awe of how brave his wife was. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They arrived at Tasha’s mid afternoon, both of them excited to see their friend. She pulled each of them into a hug before snatching the bagels and disappearing into the kitchen. 

Jane could hear Patterson and Rich in the living room and made her way in to be with her friends. 

“Jane!” Patterson exclaimed. “How are you feeling? We’ve missed you at work.”

Jane took a seat, trying her best to school her features. 

“I’m ok.” she said in a measured voice. 

“You’ve been sick?” Tasha asked, reappearing with a plate full of bagels. 

“Not exactly…” Jane started, looking up at Tasha’s giant belly.  At the silence that followed, she looked around at her family, the expectant expressions on their faces. “I… I’ve…” she looked at Tasha’s bump again, her heart rate picking up. “I’m sorry…” she muttered, jumping to her feet. “I thought I could do this…” She raced past Kurt, slamming the door behind her. 

“What was all that about?” she heard Rich say as she ran down the street to a nearby alley. She leaned against the brick wall, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating. 

She closed her eyes, tears leaking out from behind her lashes. 

“Jane… hey.” 

And there it was… the voice that would get her through everything. 

She forced her eyes open, drinking in the sight of him greedily. 

“Hey…” she mumbled. “Sorry about that…”

Kurt took her in his arms. 

“Sshh it’s ok Jane. I get it… I really do. It was hard for me to be in there too.”

Jane looked up at him, guilt clouding her eyes. 

“I feel like I’ve let you down.” she whispered. 

“Hey… hey none of that.” Kurt murmured, staring deeply into her eyes. “None of this is your fault Jane.”

Jane sniffed, swallowing thickly. “If I hadn’t have…”

“Jane… stop. This isn’t your fault.” he exclaimed more forcefully. 

Jane sighed. “It’s just something we both wanted… as I said… I just feel like I’m letting you down.”

Kurt sighed. 

“Jane there are other ways to have children… we still have the option of going through the fertility specialist… if that’s what you want.”

Jane bit her lip. 

“I’m not sure what I want.” she confessed. “The thought of going through all of that… for it to fail…” 

“I know baby… I know.” Kurt said wrapping his arms around her. “We don’t have to decide anything right now.”

They stayed like that for a moment, before Jane pulled away. 

“We’re going to have to go back in there, aren’t we?” she asked, looking back in the direction of Tasha’s apartment. 

Kurt nodded. 

“I think we should tell them.” he said quietly. 

Jane nodded, but was stuck to the spot. 

“I don’t know if I can…” she whispered. 

“It’s ok…” he soothed. “Why don’t you go and wait in the car… I’ll go back in.”

Jane looked gratefully up at her husband. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Kurt made his way back up the street to his friend’s apartment. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t dreading telling the rest of the team what was going on… especially Tasha. She had enough going on with the impending arrival of her and Reade’s baby. He didn’t want to add the extra stress - but he also knew that they all deserved to know what was happening. 

He entered the apartment, Patterson jumping to her feet at his arrival. 

“Is Jane ok?” she asked with wide eyes. 

Kurt sighed. 

“No… but she will be.” With that he explained everything that had happened in the last few days. When he finished, he was enveloped in a very awkward hug, Tasha’s belly getting in the way. 

“Kurt… I’m so sorry.” she said softly. 

Patterson and Rich followed suit, hugging him in turn and offering their condolences.

“Anyway… I should get back to Jane… I just thought you guys deserved to know.”

“Please… tell us if you need anything.” Patterson urged, walking him to the door. 

“Thank you.” he replied softly. He looked up, catching Tasha’s eye. They nodded to each other in a silent understanding. 

Kurt found his wife waiting in the car, her head leaning back against the headrest in exhaustion. 

“Hey.” he said softly, getting into the driver's seat. 

“How did that go?” Jane asked, her eyes wide. 

Kurt just nodded in reply, sniffing. He swallowed before looking back at his wife. 

“Are you ok?” he asked again. 

Jane took a deep breath. 

“I will be.” she said softly. “As you said… we don’t have to make a decision right now… but when we do… whatever happens, happens.”

Kurt reached out and took her hand, bringing it up to her lips and kissing the back of it.  

“Agreed.”

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

One week later. 

Jane was busy cleaning the kitchen when her phone rang. Looking at the caller ID she answered straight away. 

“Rich?”

“It’s a boy!” he shouted in joy. Jane couldn’t help but smile. 

“Oh my god! How are they?” she exclaimed, motioning to her husband. ‘It’s a boy!’ she mouthed to him. Kurt’s face lit up. 

“They’re doing great!” Rich replied, and Jane grinned at the proud tone of his voice. “Tasha wants to see you… if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Of course!” she replied almost instantly. “We will be there soon.” She hung up the phone.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Kurt asked her carefully. 

“There is no way I’m missing this.” 

Kurt cupped her jaw, kissing her softly. “Let’s go meet our nephew.”

Jane nodded. “Our nephew.” she repeated. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They crept into the hospital room quietly, Jane holding a bunch of flowers, while Kurt carried in a teddy and a blue balloon. 

Jane took one look at Tasha holding her baby and burst into tears. 

“Oh Tasha.” she wept. “He’s beautiful.” She placed the flowers on the table. 

Tasha started crying the moment she saw Jane crying and pulled her in for a hug. 

“What’s his name?” Jane asked, peeking at the baby. 

Tasha smiled softly with watery eyes. “Eddy… after his daddy.” 

Jane leant forward and kissed her friend on the forehead. “That’s perfect… he’s perfect.”

“Would you like to hold him?” Tasha asked softly. She didn’t want to set Jane off again, but she also wanted to give her the choice.

Jane nodded softly.

Tasha handed the baby over gently, Jane holding him close to her chest. 

“Hello beautiful boy.” she cooed. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.” she whispered, a tear escaping and rolling down her face. 

“Jane I wanted to ask if you and Kurt would be his godparents?” Tasha asked, looking and Jane and Kurt. 

Jane’s head shot up, meeting Tasha’s gaze. 

“Are you sure?” she squeaked. 

Tasha nodded. 

“It would be an honor.” Kurt answered. And it truly was. His best friend had died, and what better way to honor his memory, than to look after his family. 

Jane sat on one of the chairs. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the precious bundle in her arms. When the baby started to fuss, she started humming ‘hush little baby’ to him and he settled almost instantly. 

“That’s a good boy.” she murmured softly. “You are so loved. I’ll never let anything bad ever happen to you. I’ll always be there for you.”

Kurt watched his wife, pride filling his chest. They had some tough decisions to make in the near future, but until then, at least they had this little guy to fill their lives with joy. 

They would get through this, just as they got through everything else, as a family. 

[lightshadowverisimilitude]

Untamed Soulmate AU 2/?

And skipping back in time to where the bond began! Some of the dialogue has been lifted directly (or almost directly) from episodes 13 and 14 (Aka the Murder Turtle Cave).

Mind the cut, my lovelies. 

Part One

Lan Wangji let the bowstring fall limp to the cave floor and shifted his weight to his uninjured leg. He had joined half a dozen bowstrings together, carefully opening the weave and working the new string in with a touch of energy to keep them tightly sealed. He could still feel the places were the cords had been joined, brief catches as his will traveled down the length to manipulate the tension. 

He transferred his eyes down to his injured leg. The injury, as well, formed a knot in the flow of his energy, making it harder to control the string. Dismissing it, he stood up straighter. It didn’t matter. He did not have the time or the excess energy to see to the injury beyond what Wei Wuxian had already done. He would simply have to reroute the energy around the injury and compensate for the weakness. 

Returning his attention to Wei Wuxian, he outlined his plan. 

“I agree that we should try to attack from inside,” Wei Wuxian said. He drew his lower lip in between his teeth, the way he often did when he was thinking, and looked down at Lan Wangji’s bloodied leg. “According to what I’ve heard, your Chord Assassination Technique would only work inside the shell. With your injury, the effect would also be greatly reduced. If I attack from inside, and you attack from the outside, we might have a chance.” 

Lan Wangji looked away, but he couldn’t deny it. He had thought as much himself, and pride could not be permitted to endanger Wei Wuxian’s life. The notion that he could not protect Wei Wuxian sat uncomfortably under his breastbone, but he knew that Wei Wuxian was capable as well of protecting them both. It would be an unconscionable insult to suggest otherwise. He nodded. 

Wei Wuxian squared his shoulders and met Lan Wangji’s eyes. “Listen to me,” he said with subtle emphasis and a quirk to this head.

Nodding again, Lan Wangji gathered his energy, bypassing his injury and pulling hard on his core,and directed it into his left hand. In any other circumstances, the invitation to create a mind link with Wei Wuxian would have filled him with mingled horror and longing, but now, it was simply necessary. 

He directed the flow of energy to Wei Wuxian’s forehead. The link snapped into place with startling ease, and Wei Wuxian grinned at him. 

/Can you hear me?/

Wei Wuxian’s mental voice was sweet and light. It carried with it a sense of air, wind. Lan Wangji swallowed hard. /Yes./

/Cool,/ Wei Wuxian said with a bright grin. /Hey, this would have come in handy back during Old Man Lan’s lessons./

Lan Wangji glared and Wei Wuxian laughed. “Sorry, sorry,” he said out loud. “I’m sure there’s a rule against telepathic whispering in class.” 

“Mm,” Lan Wangji agreed, though he was certain that Wei Wuxian knew that perfectly well. As much as he had seemed to be careless at the time, Lan Wangji knew now how sharp his mind was behind all the bluster. He was surprised to feel a sense of regret to hear Wei Wuxian’s voice aloud. 

“Ah, well.” Wei Wuxian reached down to gather up the bundles of arrows. “We should go before we’re both too hungry and sick to do it.” In direct contrast to his words, he grinned at Lan Wangji as he turned around. 

Taking in a deep breath, Lan Wangji coiled the string around his hand as he followed, doing his best to keep his weight off his right leg to mitigate doing any more damage. When he caught up, he found Wei Wuxian crouched at the mouth of the cavern. The monster was still in the water, its shell once again resembling nothing more threatening than a pile of rocks. 

/Be careful,/ Lan Wangji thought without meaning to put it down their link. Wei Wuxian gave him a wink and slipped away. 

/You are lucky you’re not in here,/ Wei Wuxian told him several minutes later. The sweet wind sound of his voice had taken on a sense of stifling heat. Lan Wangji could only imagine the condition inside the false-tortoise’s shell, and the disgust was clearly communicated through their link. /It doesn’t just eat bodies, it eats spiritual cognition./

Lan Wangji’s tilted his head, frowning. /Like the Yin Iron,/ he observed. He wondered if Wen Ruohan had been aware of the false-Xuanwu, and if sending them after it had been in pursuit of something more. A deep sense of unease coiled up in his gut, making his heartbeat speed up and his stomach twist with nausea. 

He had nearly resolved to ask Wei Wuxian to come out - they could find another way, it was too dangerous in there - when a sudden, though distant, screaming rushed down the link. Lan Wangji recoiled from it, squeezing the coil of cords in his hand. It wasn’t Wei Wuxian screaming, but it was someone - something - screaming in Wei Wuxian’s head. Lan Wangji reached out helplessly down that link, trying to push the screaming away, trying to pull Wei Wuxian away from it. 

The screams quieted, but then the water stirred. Lan Wangji looked up sharply. He stumbled up to his feet, catching the rock when his right leg gave out from underneath him, and then pushing impatiently away from it. The massive snake-like head emerged from the water and emitted a high-pitched shriek before it disappeared again. 

/Wei Ying!/ he called. Between their minds, he could not hide the anxiety in his tone, but Wei Wuxian did not respond. The screaming had started again. Gritting his teeth, Lan Wangji concentrated hard on the link. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down enough to feel the presence of it where it had been tied temporarily to his Yin Tang point. In his mind’s eye, the link was a blue cord stretching out to Wei Wuxian, who seemed as close to him in that moment as if he had been standing at Lan Wangji’s side. 

He couldn’t feel out the edges of the disturbance. It was as though a cloud of smoke had surrounded Wei Wuxian’s end of the link, formless, impossible to disrupt. On instinct, he instead grabbed Wei Wuxian and pulled him away from the cloud. 

“Wangji!” 

Lan Wangji broke away from the link and looked up sharply to see the monster’s head emerging from its shell and Wei Wuxian coming with it, clinging onto something sunk into the soft flesh under the monster’s jaw. Dropping one end of the cord, Lan Wangji flooded energy down it, flung it out to wrap around the thick neck, and pulled hard. 

It screamed, but Wei Wuxian was still clinging to what Lan Wangji could now see was a sword. He tried to shout for Wei Wuxian to let it go, but the screaming was there, and it took all of his concentration to keep the cord wrapped around the monster’s neck and the screaming from overwhelming them both. 

Twisting the cord around his hand to get a better grip, he jumped. Pressing his will downward to keep himself airborne was second nature, it was breathing, it took nothing away as he hauled back on the cord. The false-Xuanwu howled in pain and fury as the cord bit deep into its flesh. It bit into his hand as well, and his grip became slippery with blood. 

Keeping a hold on the cord and the energy flowing down it dragged him away from the mind link, and the screams redoubled. Lan Wangji could not see Wei Wuxian for the monster’s head, but it seemed in the semi-darkness that there was some kind of cloud gathering around the monster’s jaws. 

Abruptly, the monster jerked. Lan Wangji pulled back on the cord as it thrashed, but the resistance disappeared. He was thrown clear of the monster as it crashed down with a great splash. He rushed back to the pond. Wei Wuxian was floating face-down in the murky water. Panic pulled at his chest, but he would have known if Wei Wuxian were dead. The mind link was still active between them, bright blue and alive. He thrashed into the chilly water and got his arms around Wei Wuxian’s chest.

Wei Wuxian took a great breath as Lan Wangji pulled his head up. It was possibly the most lovely sound he’d ever heard. With a careful look at the still monster, he pulled Wei Wuxian out. The screaming had finally ceased, at least. He made it over to the mouth of the cavern and propped Wei Wuxian up against the wall. He was shaking and pale, and still clutching an ancient, decayed sword to his chest. 

“Wei Ying,” he called, shaking him in. “Wei Ying!” In desperation, he yanked hard on the mind link. Wei Wuxian jolted and came back to consciousness with a choking cough. Dark blood spattered the cave floor and streaked his chin, but his eyes were wide open as he sat back. 

“Is it dead? Is it dead?” he asked, cuddling the sword to his chest.

Lan Wangji could not tear his eyes away from Wei Wuxian’s face. “Yes. It’s dead.” 

Whatever energy fear had given him fled, and Wei Wuxian slumped against the wall. 

“The screaming,” Wei Wuxian said. “There was this screaming in my head. It was so loud. It made me pass out. Am I dreaming?” 

Lan Wangji shook his head mutely. He felt all the inadequacy of having failed to keep that terrible screaming and its corresponding pressure away. His eyes slid briefly sideways, but there was no movement from the monster. Wei Wuxian had said that the monster had been eating spiritual cognition as well as bodies. The screaming could have been those cultivators who had been snapped up by the monster, but there had been so much, so many voices.

Incongruously, Wei Wuxian laughed. “Little did I think, I would get to see the Second Young Master Lan acting so concerned like this.” His smile took on a brittle edge and his eyes were wide and wild in his pale face. “Lan Zhan. I didn’t think I would survive this.”

Lan Wangji said nothing, could not say anything at all. He set the back of his fingers on Wei Wuxian’s forehead and frowned. “You have a fever.” 

He picked up Wei Wuxian’s wrist and checked for his pulse. It was fast, but weak, fluttering against his fingers like butterfly wings. Lan Wangji needed to boost Wei Wuxian’s energy, but he couldn’t do that and maintain their mind link at the same time. He was surprised by how reluctant he was to severe the connection, but he closed his eyes and gently untangled the threads of the link from Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tang point. 

Energy freed, he directed it down his arm to his fingertips and then out to the channels in Wei Wuxian’s wrist. 

“Feels soothing,” Wei Wuxian said faintly as he started to drift off, but then jerked himself awake and complained, “It’s boring. Too quiet. Lan Zhan. Sing to me.” 

Lan Wangji started to hum before he had even registered how absolutely ridiculous it was for Wei Wuxian to ask or for him to respond. At first, it came as only a tuneless note, low and droning, the kind of sound that could lull a fussy baby to sleep, but it morphed slowly into a melody. 

“That’s so nice,” Wei Wuxian whispered. Lan Wangji had thought he’d fallen asleep, and the song fell quiet in his throat as Wei Wuxian rolled his head against the wall to look at Lan Wangji. “Lan Zhan? What is this song called?” 

Lan Wangji might have answered - the name jumped immediately to his lips - but he was stilled by a thread of music running through his head. In a moment, he realized that it was the harmony to his half formed melody, made whole, accompanied not by the ringing notes of his guqin, but by a flute. 

Wei Wuxian dropped into unconsciousness without an answer, and the flute faded with him. Lan Wangji stared at him. He was so far beyond shock that he couldn’t even feel it as anything more than a distant humming in the back of his head. He refocused his attention on the energy he was feeding into Wei Wuxian’s system, but his heart was pounding so hard against his chest that he couldn’t hear his own breath over the thunder of his pulse. 

It was more than an hour, more than an entire lifetime before Wei Wuxian’s pulse evened out and the flow of energy through his system stabilized. Lan Wangji set Wei Wuxian’s arm down in his lap and closed his eyes. He reached first for the mind link, but it was gone, the lingering warmth behind his headband the only thing that proved it had ever been there. 

He breathed a sigh of relief, but something still nagged at him. Lan Wangji did not turn away from inconvenient truths, but it was the work of several shivering moments to convince himself that what he had heard had been real, and it had not been from his own mind. He did not play the flute himself, had not since he had been eight and had decided that he liked the qin better. He did not think of compositions for the flute. 

Swallowing, he crossed his legs and set his hands on his knees. Hunger, and pain, and weakness made it difficult to center himself, but he settled finally in his golden core. All things flowed from and to it, and beginning in that seat of his energy, he could examine the rest. He followed the connections one-by-one, seeing nothing that could not be explained by exhaustion, injury, or hunger.

He had just begun to relax as he reached his soul cord, the brilliant golden link that anchored his core to his soul, when he noticed something strange. There was one more connection than there should have been, nestled so close to his soul cord that he almost couldn’t pull them apart. 

Trembling, he followed the strange link and found that it anchored to another cord that flickered gold and blue. One end of the cord was sunk deep in his soul, and the other end left his body entirely. He followed it with increasing concern and met another soul, as brilliant as staring directly into the sun. 

Lan Wangji pulled away from it with an exclamation of shock. He opened his eyes and stared at Wei Wuxian’s sleeping face. It was absolutely not possible, and yet, he could still feel the searing burn of Wei Wuxian’s soul under his hand. 

A warmth like standing naked in the hottest part of a summer’s day flushed through him. He sighed in pleasure quite without meaning to, and then realized that the heat was coming from his core. He closed his eyes and dove back into it, finding a foreign-but-not-foreign presence there. He realized at once that it was Wei Wuxian. Unconscious, Wei Wuxian had somehow followed Lan Wangji back down the link between their souls and was nestled into Lan Wangji’s core as though it were a warm bath for him to soak in. 

“Wei Ying!” he said aloud, opening his eyes, but Wei Wuxian was still firmly unconscious, breath even and expression relaxed. Lan Wangji reached out hesitantly to touch Wei Wuxian’s wrist, feeling for the eddies in his energy that might reveal him if he were only playing at sleep, but it was smooth as it passed through the channels. 

Mumbling restlessly, Wei Wuxian rolled toward him. Lan Wangji caught him before he could pitch forward too far. He hesitated for a moment, but then shifted closer to put his back to the wall and pulled Wei Wuxin into his lap. It felt like taking a terrible liberty, but Wei Wuxian would be more comfortable, and he was already ensconced in Lan Wangji’s core like he belonged there, and Lan Wangji could not help but feel that he did. 

He tried to pull the strange old sword away so Wei Wuxian could rest more comfortably, but Wei Wuxian held it tighter still, breath coming out in ragged gasps that grew faster the longer he tried to pull the blade away. Lan Wangji gave up, and Wei Wuxian relaxed back into stillness. Using his sleeve, he wiped the water from Wei Wuxian’s face and neck, and then settled back against the wall to let the warmth in his core lull him back to sleep.

Next

[rnocerous]

In the world my story takes place in, there are creatures called razorfish.(not related to actual razorfish) They have four razor strips that are almost one (1) cm long surrounding their torso area(I forgot what it’s called) My main character is attacked by a school of them. She needs to lose at least 25% of her blood(which would be 1.25 kg) in order to pass out. How many razorfish wounds would she need in order to pass out in ten minutes?

So this is really gonna depend.

1 cm razor blades are enough to do plenty of damage depending on where on the body the wound is. I have seen people bleed out from a 2mm puncture site in an artery. But this happened BECAUSE it was an artery. This isn’t a hard and fast rule obviously. So let’s dig into this a bit.

The body has two vascular systems basically. There’s arteries and veins. Arteries are incredibly high pressure and all it takes is a tiny hole in certain large arteries (think femoral artery) in order for someone to bleed out fairly quickly. The arterial system is very high pressure as it’s the system that delivers oxygen/nutrients/etc. to all of your body tissues. So in order to do that it needs to be under pressure and move along a pressure gradient from high to low (heart generates pressure when it contracts and is the source of the pressure gradient. high pressure/arterial—> low pressure/venous, and then blood returns to the heart and the cycle restarts). Obviously this mechanism works great for that, but the side effect of that is when the structural integrity of the artery is compromised it can be really hard to control the bleeding, and holes in the arteries don’t close up like more superficial/venous wounds as the pressure from the blood gushing out of the hole maintains the patency of the opening.

On the other hand, more superficial, non-arterial wounds typically don’t have the bleeding powder for someone to lose so much blood that they pass out. They bleed for a bit and then close up on their own. There are some exceptions, like with the great veins of the body, but those are usually pretty deep and inaccessible (vena cava), or are located fairly close to arteries (example: the femoral artery and vein are right next to each other) so at the point that large veins would be compromised, it would probably be the least of your characters problems because either they’d have organ damage, or their arteries would also be gushing blood (probably). In order for someone to pass out from these kinds of more superficial wounds, it would have to be pretty darn extreme - probably superficial full body wounds. (Side note: with that extensive kind of damage to the skin they’d be a massive infection risk after this)

Anyway, there’s another issue here that I can see and it’s that once you’re at the point of passing out from blood loss, you’re already deep in hemorrhagic shock. Brain perfusion is the body’s priority, and as such it will receive blood at the expense of basically the rest of the body. If you’re passing out from blood loss, you’re in pretty critical shape. Losing enough blood for brain perfusion to be decreased (leading to unconsciousness) in ten minutes is a pretty significant gush that isn’t going to fix itself, and things are going to start going downhill really fast at the point that they’ve passed out. This would not be a gentle loss of consciousness for this character. This would be a massive crash, and the situation would continue to escalate. They would be in major peril and would require some kind of medical intervention in order to survive this.

Assuming they survive that kind of rapid blood loss, recovery and resuscitation will be necessary. Whoever is on the receiving end of this narrative treatment is probably going to have a rough go of things after this. People who lose that amount of blood are usually going to deal with complications, organ damage (especially the kidneys and intestines!), and limb ischemia at various levels. They may have issues with clotting and stroke. Depending on the severity, they may have brain damage. Etc. what I’m saying is that they’re gonna be in bad shape.

Without knowing all the context here (idk, maybe you really need this character to ACTUALLY lose enough blood to pass out), if the narrative goal is JUST for them to lose consciousness: an alternative is that rather than passing out from blood loss the character could have whats called a vasovagal response. This is a fairly common phenomenon. You know those people who faint when they get stuck with needles or when they donate blood? They’re vagaling. This is where there is a very sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure that causes unconsciousness in some people. A lot of things can trigger it - anything from bearing down to poop, to the sight of blood, to fear responses. You’d be shocked how many people I’ve found down in the bathroom because they were constipated but especially determined to get one out. It’s also not uncommon to have people vagal when we’re holding pressure in sensitive areas (like if we’re holding pressure in the groin because there’s an arterial puncture). The unconsciousness is usually brief and fairly harmless, and unlike passing out from blood loss you don’t have to deal with the long term side effects and complications that occur as a result of major blood loss, e.g. injured cleanie-beanies.

So, to recap - if you really need them to pass out from legit blood loss in 10 minutes:

From superficial wounds, it would have to be pretty excessive/all over the body and they’d probably pass out from pain before they got to that level of severity wrt blood loss.

From arterial, you just need one good puncture in the right place - most accessible arteries would be radial or ulnar arteries (in the arm and wrist) or the femoral/popliteal (in the groin or behind the knee) but the caveat there is that if you don’t want your character to die, that arterial wound absolutely needs to be dealt with quickly as it won’t close up on its own and if your character is down and out, they’re realistically about to die. You also should probably take into consideration the potential complications and the recovery from hemorrhagic shock.

Does it need to be blood loss? Or is the goal just unconsciousness? Because if that’s the case: have them vagal. It can still be the result of them being wounded/blood loss but the mechanism and severity would be different. They could look down and see one decent sized gash that looks much worse than it is and pass the fuck out. Some of their symptoms leading up to that would be similar - shakiness, dizziness, nausea/vomiting, etc. but there won’t be any long term consequences for their internal organs.

Anyway! Good luck and hope this helps.

[lngstoryshrt]

& it burns like a gin and i like it

Pairing: steve rogers x reader

Words: 4216

Warnings: swearing, smut, drinking, mentions of grief

Summary: post-endgame, grief induced arguing and making up

A/N: this is a prompt i did for @starksparker ‘s summer writing challenge! my prompt was “is that my shirt?”. it’s the first thing i’ve posted here and the first thing i’ve written in a loooong time so be gentle please! i want to write more so if anyone has any requests please feel free. (:

It was a funny thing, grief. 

It manifested in different ways for everyone. Peter had taken the weight of the world on his shoulders, Atlas holding up a crumbling sky. Steve had taken over as leader of the Avengers, trying to rebuild a world that had been at the mercy of their enemies. Scott had gone back to his family. Thor had run off to space. And you were doing your best to find the bottom of a bottle. 

You didn’t give a shit anymore. Didn’t care for support groups, didn’t care for holding hands and singing kumbaya and being so fucking happy to be so fucking lucky to still be alive. Your sister was dead - or, the closest thing you’d had to a sister was dead, her blood nothing but a splatter on some fucking stone on some planet you didn’t know existed. The person responsible for plucking you off the street and giving you a home and a team was dead, too - Tony Stark had given everything to save the world from Thanos, and now all you had left was survivor’s guilt and a job you didn’t give a shit about anymore. Or so you told yourself.

Whisky in hand you dropped onto the couch in Steve’s apartment - if such a word could even be used for it. It was massive, bought with the money Tony had left behind for the Avengers. The compound had too many shitty memories, and rather than rebuild they had left it for nature to reclaim and moved themselves back to Manhattan. The penthouse apartment they resided in now was big, and empty, and filled with ghosts. Ghosts that followed them wherever they went. 

“You can’t have whisky for dinner again.” Your eyes rolled automatically, hand twisting the top of the bottle off and bringing it to your lips as you flicked your gaze to the source of judgement. Steve was looking back at you, shoulders tense, back straight, arms crossed over his chest. The bags under his eyes had bags of their own, dark purple maring the normally perfect face that was an ever constant presence in your life. 

You knew he was trying to help - knew that his words were born out of concern, but the fire in you burned stronger than your empathy and you sneered. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, Rogers. We aren’t on mission and you’re not my daddy. I don’t have to do what you tell me.” You watched the muscles in his jaw work, biting down on the warmth that burned through your stomach seeing it. You had eyes - you might hate him right now, but you hadn’t always, and the times that you hadn’t hated him you had spent fantasizing about making him come undone beneath you. 

One hand rubbing over his jaw he took a breath through his nose, centering himself before he looked back at you. He knew you were grieving. Knew that you were struggling with the loss of your best friend and mentor, so he had been trying to give you the space that you needed. But weeks of watching you lose yourself in whiskey and strangers had put him at the edge of his limit. You were going to kill yourself if you didn’t get it together and he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for it to happen. He had lived through enough of it. Crossing the room and snatching the bottle out of your hand he took a step back, screwing the cap back onto it as he looked at you. 

Red filtered across your vision, hands curled into fists as you stood. “You’re such a self-righteous piece of shit, Rogers.” The venom in your voice could kill, your feet carrying you a step forward as you continued to speak, mouth moving of its own accord. “Thinking you’re better than the rest of us, walking around here like you own the place. You don’t say shit about Parker working constantly, running around the city. You didn’t say shit about Thor running away from all of his problems. You - you haven’t even grieved. Do you just not give a shit about Tony and Natasha? Are you just glad that you can be in charge of the Avengers now that they’re out of the picture? Is that what you wanted?” 

The words were a low blow - you knew that the second that they left your mouth, and you couldn’t even blame them on the liquor you’d only taken a sip of. The muscles in his jaw tightened, aggravation flashing across his face. He had been willing to be understanding and supportive, but he had reached his limits. He had loved Natasha and Tony more than anything - he had spent the past few weeks doing everything he could to honor their memory and not fall to pieces every time he thought about their sacrifices and how he hadn’t been able to get Natasha back when he’d returned the stone. 

Slamming the whisky bottle onto the table so hard that it cracked, he moved forward until he stood directly in front of you, forcing you to tip your head back to look at him. Tears were swimming in your vision - you couldn’t fucking stand that you cried every time you got mad - but you blinked them away rapidly, the furious rise and fall of your chest mimicking his. “You get to be angry, but you do not get to insinuate that I am not grieving.” His voice was sharp, angry. You had never heard him like that. “Not all of us have the luxury of drinking ourselves into oblivion every night and falling into bed with the first person we come across.” 

He had the responsibility of running the Avengers Initiative - of trying to rebuild the world that they had saved but left broken, and cracked. He felt responsible, and he couldn’t rest until he knew that he had done everything he could to help as many people as was possible. You - you hadn’t done anything since the funerals. No help, no rebuilding. You had joined the Avengers to do good in the world and make up for your past wrongs, but then you’d lost the only family you had, and you couldn’t care to help a world that had robbed you like that. 

“You’re an asshole.” You spit the words out but they fell flat, tears pushing at your eyes, the pressure building in your sinuses. “I can’t fucking stand you. I want nothing to do with you.” It was a lie - you wanted everything to do with him. Steve had been your rock in the months that you had spent adjusting to being in the compound. He had been there every time you’d woken up, screaming in the middle of the night. He’d been there to bandage your hands or massage a knot out of your shoulders when you trained too hard. He’d been there after Stark’s first party, when pretending you were fine had ended up in one too many whisky sours and you puking your guts up in the first floor bathroom. He’d held your hair for hours before tucking you into bed. 

If you were going to tell the truth, you had always held a softer spot for Steve than the rest of the Avengers. You had helped search for Bucky, had believed him with the Accords. Had chosen to go with him to Wakanda when Bucky couldn’t trust his own mind. You had been there to distract him in the aftermath, had helped him grieve when you’d lost against Thanos and he’d had his best friend stolen from him once again. You would do it all over again, if you had the chance. But right now, you hated him and everything that he stood for. 

He would be lying if he said that the words didn’t sting. There was a part of him that desperately wanted to believe that you didn’t mean them in any way. He had been taking care of you for years - had let you take care of him in the times where he’d pretended that he didn’t need a single thing. You had known, though, that he was lying. That he did need someone. Losing Bucky so many times...it had been hell on Earth. And you had always been there, pressing water into his hand or a plate of warm food, forcing him to take care of himself when he ran himself ragged taking care of the rest of the team. 

He had thought that the feelings he felt for you, unacknowledged though they were, were the same feelings that you felt for him. He had thought that the softness in your eyes when you looked at him meant the same thing that it did when he looked at you in the mornings, hair a mess and eyeliner smudged under your eyes. 

He remembered the exact moment that he’d first realized what he felt for you. You’d had one too many at Stark’s party, trying to burn away the pain he could see in your eyes. He’d followed you to the bathroom when you’d bolted, had held your hair out of your face as you’d lost the contents of your stomach. He’d sat on the cold tile floor with your head in his lap for hours, wave after wave of nausea hitting you until there was nothing left. He’d tucked you into bed after that, and with your mascara rimming your eyes and your body curled in on itself under the blankets he had realized he cared for you far more than he’d thought. That the way he felt about you was different than the way he felt about the rest of the team. 

Jaw clenching, he took a step backwards, putting space between the two of you. Guilt seeped through your chest, and you looked down, eyes burning again, but this time with regret. I’m sorry. The words hovered on the tip of your tongue but you couldn’t say it, teeth latching onto your bottom lip when it trembled. “You can leave at any time. No one’s forcing you to stay here.”

The words hurt - you hoped to God he didn’t mean them, but you weren’t even sure you believed in higher powers anymore, not after all that you’d seen. You couldn’t blame him for saying what he had, not when you deserved that and more for the things that you’d said to him. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Your guard was back up, venom lacing your words as you glanced up at him through wet lashes. “Anyone who gets in the way of the perfect Captain America isn’t worth shit.” 

He lunged forward, hand wrapping around your throat, forcing your gaze to stay on him. You didn’t shy away, didn’t fight him, didn’t move in the slightest. Your breath came out faster, not because you were scared of him, but because of the warmth burning through your veins. A flush spread across your cheeks as you shifted your weight to press your legs together, trying to alleviate the tension between your thighs. 

Your gaze dropped to his lips and you heard him swallow, the sound loud in the quiet of the room. His eyes roved across your face, taking note of where your gaze was before mimicking it, dropping to lips that still had teeth marks from where you’d bitten on it a few minutes before. 

“Don’t be a coward.” You whispered, eyes flicking back up to his, challenge written in every syllable. You wanted this - you needed this. His eyes locked onto yours, fire burning behind cerulean blue before his lips were on yours. It was hard - all tongue and teeth as he pressed against you. You responded in kind, pushing against him, standing on your tiptoes to get closer. Your hands clawed at his back, pulling him closer against you as his hand slid to the back of your neck, thumb against your pulse. 

There was a part of him that felt wrong about this - being goaded into acting the way that he was now, but as his fingers involuntarily tightened against your neck and you moaned, that thought flitted out of his mind. He’d be lying if he said that this was the first time that he had ever imagined what that sounded like, and nothing could have prepared him for the sound of the real thing. It was echoing in his brain, coupled with the sweet taste of you as he kept pressing forward until your legs hit the edge of the couch and you collapsed onto the cushions. 

The weight on him on top of you, pressed between your thighs, had you groaning, the sound muffled against his lips. Your heart was hammering in your chest, the sound reverberating in his ears as he ground his hips against you, cock pressing against his pants, against you, as you moaned in his ear. “Jesus, fuck, Steve.”

He had been waiting for so long to hear you make a noise like that, his hips faltering as he pressed his forehead against yours. “You keep making noises like that and this isn’t gonna last.” His voice was low, gruff, chest heaving as he pulled back to look at you. With your hair mussed and your lips swollen and chapped he thought that he’d never seen anyone who looked more half goddess half hell. 

“We should move anyway. Peter’s gonna be home any second and he doesn’t need to see your face between my thighs - fuck.” His hips rutting against yours shattered your concentration, cutting your sentence off with a weak gasp that left your cheeks flushing. 

Sparing half a moment to stare at you, Steve shifted off of the couch and slung you over his shoulder, throwing the door to his room open and pressing it shut with your body, ensuring that you pressed against every inch of his body on the way down.

There were a thousand things that should be said, a million different words that had gone unsaid for years. The way that you felt about him, the way that you would have given absolutely anything to absolve him of the pain the blip had caused. What you knew, though, was that there had been too many things that you had said in the past few months that couldn’t be absolved by your tongue in his mouth. You had pushed too far - and this was the breaking point. Something you had wanted for years that would never become anything more.

“You gonna fuck me, Rogers, or should I go down the hall and look for Buc-“ His lips crashed against yours, tongue sliding between your teeth, fighting against yours. 

You were so lost in the kiss you didn’t notice his hands at your shirt until he tore it off you, buttons flying across the room as the cold are greeted your bare breasts. The gasp that tore out of you shifted into a high pitched groan when his lips slid down to your neck, nipping hard enough to leave a mark before his tongue trailed down to your chest. 

Alternating between sucking and biting, his fingers dipped under the fabric of your leggings, pulling your underwear down with them. He dropped to his knees, eyes on you the entire time. You raised an eyebrow in challenge, chest heaving as he leaned forward to nose against your thigh. Holding still, you watched him, thinking about all of the times that you had imagined what it would be like to see Steve Rogers on his knees for you. Blonde hair mussed, hands on your thighs holding you up.

Reality was better than anything you could’ve imagined.

Leaning forward, he nosed along your thigh, breathing in deeply. Your breath shook but you didn’t move, though everything in your body told you to move forward and make him move where you wanted him most. He took his time, pressing his lips to your thighs, nipping at the skin above your hip bone, trailing his tongue across the length of your hip. Your breath was coming faster and faster, self-control faltering as you jerked your hips forward, fisting your hands in his hair. “Steve-“

“Beg.” His voice was dry, almost cruel as he flicked his gaze upwards towards you, tongue darting out to tease where you wanted it most, flicking over your clit but withdrawing just as quickly. Your head fell back against the wall, a resounding thud echoing through the room as you scrunched your eyes shut. Everything in you told you to do it, but your pride said otherwise, fighting against begging him for what you want. 

Tugging on his hair to vent your frustration you groaned, one that practically ended in a scream as he leaned forward to bite against your thigh, sucking a mark into the skin as you shifted. “Fuck - goddammit I can’t stand you.”

He chuckled, sliding fingers between your lips, gathering the wetness that was pooling there to tease at your entrance for half a second before pulling away. Taking a deep breath you whined, sliding one hand to grasp at his jaw, forcing him to look up at you.

“Please. Please do something. Make me cum until I don’t know my name. Make me fucking forget, please just fucking do. It.” He leaned forward immediately, hands tightening on your hips to keep you where he wanted you, mouth ravaging you. You groaned, fingers tightening in his hair, your eyes falling shut. This was heaven, this was a blissful oblivion you had never known existed. This was more than you could have ever hoped for, more than you had ever thought possible, his fingers sliding into you as his lips wrapped around your clit, sucking until you saw stars, orgasm crashing over you harder than you thought possible. Your legs gave out, Steve’s hands all that kept you standing. 

It wasn’t until he resurfaced with a shit eating grin that you realized how much noise you were making. Shoving him backwards, you kept going until he collapsed onto the bed in a heap. Your hands went to his belt, undoing it and ripping it through the loops before throwing it across the room. The shattering of glass as it hit a lamp barely registered in your ears as you unbuttoned his jeans, leaning down to lick at the strip of bare skin showing between his jeans and his shirt.

The noise that he made - a whimper that filled the room went straight to your core, your hands moving faster. Tugging his jeans and boxers down your hand immediately wrapped around his length, marveling at the size. “Just get up here.” His voice cracked as he sat up, pulling you into his lap. You slid your hands under his shirt, lifting it up and over his head before colliding your lips with his. It was softer - slower, his hands gliding over your sides before he moved you onto the bed, body pressing you into the mattress. You could feel every inch of him against you, his cock pressing against your thigh. 

All of a sudden you felt like you couldn’t breathe - the weight of what was happening crashing over you like a thousand waves at once. You had thought about this a thousand times - imagine what it would be like to have the great Steve Rogers fuck you until you didn’t know your name. But when he looked at you, fire gone from his eyes and replaced with a gentleness you weren’t prepared for, your heart shattered in your chest. 

You regretted every barb you had thrown his way, ever mean word you had said against him in the months that you had been grieving. Pulling his mouth down to yours you tried to convey those emotions, you tried to show how much this meant with just your lips pressed against his. 

“Are you sure?” He asked you, lips hovering against yours. His eyes shone bright, blue overwhelming you until it was all you could see. 

“Yes.” You whispered, voice cracking with the weight of the word as you slid your hand down his back, pulling him into you as he jerked his hips forward, sliding into you with a groan. A whimper fell from your lips, goading him into kissing you with everything he had.

He kept it slow, ensuring you felt every inch of him sliding in and out of you, breath rushing out of you with whimpers and groans, your nails leaving marks down his entire back. You couldn’t pull him close enough, couldn’t get enough of his body pressed against you. He was swallowing you whole, dragging you down into depths you never wanted to come back from.

His hand sliding between your bodies and circling your clit was all it took for your orgasm to crash over you again, a cry leaving you muffled by his mouth hovering against yours. He swallowed the sounds you made like they were nectar from the Gods, the sounds and the feeling of you tightening around him pushing him over the edge. 

You felt him cum, his teeth latching onto your shoulder, a groan pressed into your skin. The weight of his body on yours was the most comforting thing you had ever felt, your nails lightly trailing against the back of his neck. This was the calm after the storm, the anger drained out of you by the sight of a mussy-haired Steve Rogers looking at you through sated eyes. Pressing a kiss to your lips he shifted, wrapping himself around you from behind and nosing the skin behind your ear. 

He would take this one moment, if this was all he had. He would cling to one night with you and make his peace with it in the morning. But right now, there was nothing that could make him let you go. Sinking into the warmth of his embrace, you gave into the exhausting pulling at your bones, drifting into the first peaceful sleep you’d had in months.

The morning came quickly, your eyes adjusting to the dim early light, trying to make sense of the foreign room and the weight of the arm wrapped around you. Turning, you saw Steve - sound asleep and snoring just barely, his face the most relaxed you’d ever seen it. Sliding out from under his arm you watched him for a moment. 

What you did next would determine everything. You could pretend the night hadn’t happened and go back to hiding in a never ending cycle of grief and hatred. Or you could lean into what was happening, apologize for your wrongs and desperately hope that together you could get through anything. 

Snagging Steve’s shirt from the floor you slipped it over your head and padded into the kitchen, spotting Peter’s bookbag and Bucky’s boots by the door. It was a dysfunctional family - a little traumatized, a little dented. But still standing. 

Spooning coffee grounds into the filter of the coffee maker you whipped together the simplest breakfast you could think of - pancakes. It only took a few minutes to make yours and Steve’s breakfast, setting the rest on a plate in the oven and leaving a note for the rest of the apartment’s inhabitants before you grabbed your breakfast tray and snuck back into the bedroom.

As the door clicked back into place Steve woke, rubbing sleep from his eyes and turning to find you, catching sight of you standing with breakfast clutched in your hands. “Is that my shirt?” His voice was gruff, inquisitive but with a tone of hopefulness in his voice as you stepped closer, maneuvering the tray carefully as you clambered onto Steve’s lap, straddling him and setting the tray into place.

“Apology pancakes.” You told him, tucking a strand of hair behind your hair and picking up your coffee cup, the warmth seeping into your fingertips. “I’ve been a bitch the last few months. I’ve said...so many awful things that you don’t deserve. And last night, I - I went way too far.” The words were spoken into the reflection of your coffee, anxiety setting your heart rate accelerating. 

His face fell slightly, heart sinking as he tried to regain composure. He had hoped that last night had been a breaking point for the dam of emotions between you - that you could be together, that you could fight to make things work together instead of separately. 

Running a finger over the rim of the cup you looked up at him, finally, chewing over your next words. “I have...wanted and waited for you for a very long time. And though last night started...not how I would have expected I still wanted it. I still want - this. If - if that’s something that you want, I -“

Your words were cut off by his lips colliding with yours, a hand sliding into the tangled locks of your hair. You relaxed instantly, a hand leaving your coffee cup to run over the stubble on his cheek. Forehead leaning against yours he breathed slowly, processing the words with a grin slowly sliding over his lips. 

“I’ve wanted you from the first time you told Tony to pull the stick out of his ass.” 

[pizzas-will-rule-the-world]

hiiIiIiIiIIiIIiIIII umm??? your stories water my face and cleans my plants ❤✨✨ can you do 23 in sprace? ✨✨

Ahhh thank you so much, sorry this took so long!

23. “Sorry I can’t make it tonight.” “Why not?” “I got stabbed and I’m on my way to the hospital.” 

Spot never considered himself a very patient person up until a few months ago. It hadn’t been a conscious change, or a change he necessarily had planned, but something that had happened so gradually he didn’t notice at first. The reason for this strange development was, like so many things in Spot’s life, because of Racetrack Higgins. Dating Race kind of came with the understanding that you’d need the same patience as when you’re babysitting a five-year old. Spot knew that, even if he didn’t always like it. More often than not his life circulated around whatever idiotic thing his boyfriend had gotten himself into this time. Once it had been getting stuck in a tree at four o’clock in the morning, and another time he had locked himself into his own bathroom (How he had managed that one was still a mystery to Spot). 

But despite him getting used to - and even growing to find the humour in - his boyfriend’s shenanigans, Spot wasn’t always ready for them. Tonight was an excellent example of that. It had been supposed to be a calm and uneventful night for the two of them, in which the most exciting thing should have been trying out a new take-out place. Spot was in the moment everything went to shit standing alone in his kitchen reading a menu from said take-out place. His phone rang.

“Hey, Higgins,” he greeted, holding his phone between his ear and shoulder to continue flipping through the menu. “I was just gonna call. Are you feeling more for pad thai or spring rolls? They also have some vegetarian dishes that seem pretty-”

“Sorry, I can’t make it tonight.”

Spot lowered his hand with the menu. “Why not?” he asked, trying his hardest to keep the disappointment from sipping into his voice. It had been almost two weeks since the two of them had a whole night to themselves, without their friends around. Spot had been looking forward to it for days, even if he’d never tell Race that. 

Race’s voice was a bit wobbly when he answered. “I got stabbed and I’m on my way to the hospital.”

This is the moment the night turned from enjoyable and laid-back, to straight up terrifying. And Spot hadn’t been ready for it. Which resulted in not only the feeling of his heart stopping for a moment, but also him dropping the menu on the floor. It slid across the tiles until it came to a stop under the sink. “You what?”

“But I’m okay!”

In the background Spot could hear some curses coming from someone who was decidedly not Race, and something that sounded suspiciously close to a car swerving to avoid hitting something. “The hell you are,” Spot exclaimed and all but ran to grab his jacket. “What happened? Who are you with? And what hospital are you going to?”

“Bellevue hospital. I’m with Jack, he’s- Hey, watch the fucking road, Kelly! We don’t need a car crash on top of this! Sorry babe, I’m back. Yeah, like I said, I’m fine, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, and you definitely do not have to come to the hospital.”

“Too late,” Spot said as he dashed down the flights of stairs to get to the entrance floor. “Tell me what happened.”

“Funny story,” Race said. Spot doubted he would agree. “Turns out, big shock, that Jack Kelly is a big dumbass who can’t handle a kitchen knife at all.”

There were more swearing in the background, but Spot’s brain ignored it like it was white noise. “Are you bleeding a lot?”

“Uh, I have a compression on, let me check-”

“Don’t fucking check, what the fuck Race!” Spot exclaimed and felt his heart do somersaults in his chest. He clenched his fist and then forced himself to relax. “Jesus fucking christ, you’re gonna be the death of me.” He almost choked when he realized what he just had said. “I mean… Uh, where did he...?”

“In the shoulder, or, well, upper arm. It’s not deep, but it was bleeding a lot, so we figured…”

Spot nodded even though Race couldn’t see him. “Yeah, of course, good. How are you feeling?” 

“Uh, okay, to be honest. A bit… What’s the word? Faint?”

“That makes sense, if you’re losing blood. Get me Jack on the phone, will you? You shouldn’t strain yourself.” He hailed a cab and got in quickly, telling the driver to drive to Bellevue Hospital as fast as possible. There was a shuffling on the phone as Race let Jack take over the call. 

“Yeah, hey Spot.”

“You fucking idiot, you walking disaster, what the actual fuck, Kelly.”

Jack sounded like he spoke through clenched teeth. “Yeah, thanks, I know.”

“If he gets seriously hurt because of this, I will hunt you down. Don’t think I won’t.”

Jack sounded impatient. “I know. I’m pulling up to the hospital in a minute. You meeting us here?”

“Of course, I’m in a cab. Try not to run someone over, okay? And keep pressure on the wound.”

Then he hung up without saying goodbye and forced himself to not follow his instinct to throw the phone out of the half-opened car window. He pressed his eyes closed and put his head between his legs. He couldn’t breathe. His shoulders were shaking. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the car. Darkness pressed around him, only adding onto the feeling of choking, until Spot sat up with a gasp and forced himself to open his eyes. 

He felt the taxi driver’s gaze on him, and then how the car picked up speed. 

The car ride felt as if took hours and not the mere twenty minutes that was the reality. Every second that passed brought another wave of anxiety to wash over Spot, making his thoughts dizzy and skin to crawl. He tried to focus on small details to not drown in his feelings. The leather of the seat in front of him was old and dried up. The window felt cool when he placed his cheek against it The trees passing by blurred together in a mass of green and brown. Street lights shone into the car at a steady pace.

He handed some bills to the driver and shoot out of the car as soon as it stopped outside of the massive, white building.

The emergency room was large and filled with beds and people. It smelled like fear and panic, and something else that Spot feared was the smell of death. He forced down a new wave of nausea.

 A short, plump nurse with a high ponytail and a kind face checked a couple of papers as Spot stood and drummed his pointy finger on the reception. It took only a minute until she smiled at him and pointed towards a bed in the back of the emergency room. Spot barely remembered to nod politely and thank her before he dashed across the room. 

Race’s face was scrunched up and looked red from the strain, but he was sitting up the bed. A middle aged doctor was sitting on a stool beside him, speaking calmly as she stitched Race’s upper arm. Jack was standing at the foot of the bed watching his friend, a tightly clenched fist covering his mouth. There were stains of dark red on the sleeves of his hoodie. His face - or, what was visible of it - was a ashen shade. 

When Spot halted at the bed, Race looked up. His face split up into a grin and he made as if to move or even stand up, but grimaced and relaxed against the pillow as he noted the doctor beside him and realized it wouldn’t end well. “Hey, Spotty,” he mumbled instead and grinned even wider. “I’m high.”

The doctor smiled at him and then glanced up at Spot. “Hello. Spot, was it? Anthony hasn’t stopped talking about you. Boyfriend, I assume?”

“Yeah,” Spot said and moved so he was standing beside the bed. He brushed a finger over Race’s forehead, just to make sure he was actually there, and then threaded through his hair. It was matted with sweat. 

Jack coughed and dragged his hand over his mouth. “I’ll…” he took a deep breath. “I’ll get us some coffee.” 

Spot barely acknowledged him as he left. “How is he?” he asked the doctor, who had gone back to the stitches. 

“He’ll be fine. It was a minor wound, considering. I have a couple of more stitches to do, but then it’s only a matter of letting the drugs wear off.” 

Race pushed his head into Spot’s hand, silently asking for more touching. “I’m high,” he repeated, and Spot let out a laugh without meaning to. He clamped a hand over his mouth. The doctor must have noticed the horrified look on his face, because she smiled kindly.

“It’s normal to laugh when you have been under stress. If you ask one of the nurses, I’m sure they can show you where you can find some water and a place to sit. I’m afraid it’ll be at least another hour before Anthony can go home.”

The idea of leaving the bed even for a second was so foreign to Spot that he almost laughed again. “No. Thank you, but I don’t mind waiting.” 

She nodded. “Okay, that’s fine.” She smiled at him. “It’s nice to see that you care so much.”

“Yeah, he loves me,” Race muttered in a low, sing-song voice and tried to turn his head so he could kiss Spot’s palm. “And I loooove him.”

“That’s nice,” the doctor said and rose from her seat. “I’m all done. I’ll send a nurse over in a while to check on him.”

“Thank you,” Spot said and sank down into the chair she just abandoned. When he left he turned to Race, who looked very pleased with the prospect of being alone with Spot. “You’re such an idiot.”

“What did I do?” Race asked, furrowing his eyebrows as if he was trying really hard to understand what he had fucked up this time. 

Spot let out a breathy laugh and leaned down to place a soft kiss on his forehead. “You missed our date, for one. You owe me take-out.”

Race nodded seriously. “I’ll buy you take-out now if you want.”

“I don’t think the doctors would like that.”

He pouted. “Mean.”

“Hey, they’re the ones sewing you closed after you got yourself stabbed. Show some respect.”

Race snorted and nodded before letting his head fall back against the pillow. “Yeah, yeah.” He had a slightly hazy look in his eyes. As Spot stroked his forehead, he sank down deeper and deeper into the pillow. “I’m sleepy.”

“Go to sleep, then.”

He nodded and then yawned. “Smart.” He looked up at Spot. “Will you stay?”

Spot took his hand in his and brought it up to his lips. His whole body ached in a way that was far to painful for it to only be physical. It was a hurt only the brain could cause, strong and powerful enough to make him forget trivial things as his own name, or breathing. Nothing else mattered except the fact that Race was okay, that he would be all right. Spot blinked away the tears, because high or not, Race would never let him forget him actually crying beside his hospital bed. He kissed Race’s hand again, and then once more. “Of course I’ll stay. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

***

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@romeo-in-a-trenchcoat

@and-i-lostmy-shoe

@uiopp11-blog

@i-aint-tapped-out

@colbys-blue

@everyonecalmdown

@technically-whizzy

@rivertellsstories

@rainfallingfromthesky

@frens-brudders-fellerciterzens

@glewstick101

@tea-and-theater

@graves-is-here

@blue-taco-soul-collector

@yes-cleargrace-stuff

@ok-but-what-about-connor

@pikapika1717

@big-potato-asshole

@power-of-the-sun

@janesbooknook

@sparklymental

@richie-rambling

@trip-03

@ab0ve-the-f0ld

@carryyourownbanner

[detroit-become-dumpster]

class 4 errors

He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway. 

(Or, Connor deviates after the revolution. Hank has a hangover. This seems like a great time to reconcile.)

***

The good news was, Connor had failed. 

At least, that’s what it sounded like to Hank--he was pretty sure he’d heard that Markus’ demonstration was successful, and that the president had ordered the withdrawal of the troops, and that Big Official Talks™ would be starting up soon about establishing androids as living beings in their own right. But quite frankly, Hank had drowned so much of the evening in whiskey that he very well could have imagined all of it. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to the nervous chatter filling the bar, definitely wasn’t listening to the radio playing in the taxi, absolutely didn’t switch on his own TV first thing after stumbling into his house and digging up another bottle later that night. (Or maybe it was early the next morning. Hard to tell through the haze. The numbers on the clock wouldn’t stop swimming.) At any rate, if Markus had succeeded, then that could only mean that Connor had not. And that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

(I'll be deactivated, Connor had said, and analyzed to find out why I failed. And he’d looked--shit, he’d looked just like a star pupil who was startled to find a B on his report card instead of an A. He’d just looked like a disappointed kid.

Or a scared kid, maybe.

Fuck. Hank really should have followed him from the roof.)

Grimacing, Hank scrubbed his hand over his face, clenching sandpaper-rough eyes against the late morning sun that threatened to peek at him from behind the blinds. It was too early to be thinking about all of this. It was too early to be thinking, period. Yet despite all his attempts to smother everything, here he was, sprawled on the armchair where he’d passed out, thinking. Stray memories and half-made connections and intrusive nonsense stuck in his brain like a needle in the groove of an old worn record, his thoughts uselessly tripping on the same damn notes over and over again until he could go crazy from it all, the what ifs and the maybes and the if onlys screaming for attention over the click of a loaded barrel and the screech of tires on an icy road and drone-televised footage of massive junkyards, no, graveyards, piled sky-high with the bones of the plastic dead, all of it braiding together inextricably with the beep of a hospital monitor and that too-sweet funeral-parlor-flowers smell and the dull thud of dirt on a coffin and—

(But he hadn’t seen any familiar faces in any of the footage, neither amongst the living nor the dead—was that a good sign, or a very, very bad one?

Hank really, really should have followed him from the roof. Just to make sure.)

Pain hammered in his head along with all of the unwanted thoughts, pushing out waves of nausea with every sluggish pulse. He should just go back to sleep. It might not solve any of the problems hammering away in his brain but at least maybe he could snooze through the worst of what promised to be another nasty hangover. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be, after all. Definitely didn’t have anything better to do.

(The old pistol hiding in his bedside drawer might have argued otherwise, but in order to find out for sure, Hank would have to go get it, which would require him to get up, which would require moving, which would require effort, and basically, fuck that. The pistol and its sole lonely bullet would still be there whenever he decided to move again. Assuming he did decide to move. Maybe he would be lucky and the couch would magically swallow him whole somehow. Or something. Fuck.)

Hank had just settled perfectly into his well-worn sweet spot in the armchair when the doorbell buzzed. He huffed irritatedly. Probably it was girl scouts or church folks or political canvassers or something; he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He ignored it.

A few moments passed in blissful liquid silence. Then the doorbell buzzed again.

Nose wrinkled in aggravation, Hank threw his arm over his eyes, answering the doorbell with stubborn silence. After a couple more seconds, the doorbell buzzed again, insistently this time.

Hank scowled. “Go away!” he half-yelled, half-slurred, but all that netted him was another goddamn buzz of the doorbell, and fuck, had that noise always vibrated his teeth like this? “Fuck off!” he shouted. 

The doorbell buzzed again, one long, unbroken, god-awful shrieking screech so piercing and shrill Hank was almost tempted to retrieve his pistol just to make the fucking noise stop.

“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, heaving himself off the chair and stomping toward the front door with tightly-balled fists. “Can’t you take a goddamn hint? Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” Whiskey-numbed fingers fumbled with the lock before Hank managed to wrestle it open, throwing the door wide so he could give this asshole a piece of his mind. “So why don’t you just--”

He stopped. He saw. He stared.

Connor stood in front of him.

Squinting against the too-bright daylight, feeling the cold from very far away, Hank wondered, briefly, if he could be hallucinating, if maybe those old Disney cartoons were actually onto something whenever their characters stumbled into a bucket of alcohol and saw nothing but pink elephants for hours afterward. That would make more sense than this. It would certainly make more sense than the unwanted feelings welling up at the sight of Connor, the distrust choking his throat and the anger hot in his gut and the guilt tightening his chest and what the hell was all that about? Shouldn’t he be relieved to see this stupid plastic prick standing here, alive and apparently well? Shouldn’t he be happy?

“--fuck off,” he finished with a snarl.

For a split-second he could have sworn he saw a flash of red at Connor’s temple. With a hesitant step forward, Connor opened his mouth, but he must have swallowed whatever he was going to say, because the next thing Hank knew, Connor was stepping back again, nodding. “I understand, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

Looking for all the world like a puppy that just got kicked, Connor turned to leave. Guilt rose along with Hank’s blood pressure, thundering in his ears. He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway.

“So what--that’s it?” he snapped. “You’re just gonna leave? What’d you even bother coming here for?”

Half-turned away, Connor didn’t meet his eyes when he replied--that was a first, Hank realized with a start. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he replied quietly.

“Never been better,” Hank bit back, even as he internally kicked himself.

Once again, Connor opened his mouth to speak, like he might argue, but he didn’t. He just made his way off the porch, and if he didn’t know any better, Hank might have thought his shoulders were slumped, his posture resigned, and was he shivering? That just pissed Hank off even more.

“Why d’you ask?” he called after Connor. “That part of your mission, now?”

Connor froze. “I don’t have a mission anymore, Lieutenant.”

“Good,” replied Hank with as much nastiness as he could muster. Connor turned back to look at him, and if Hank thought he spotted confusion flashing across his face, or maybe hurt. Which was a stupid thing for Hank to think, because Connor clearly didn’t feel anything, because if he did, Hank wouldn’t have caught him on that roof last night, ready to assassinate someone that was just asking, peacefully, for the same basic rights that all sentient beings deserve.

(Except Connor didn’t do it, did he? Hank asked him to stop, and he did. And now here Connor was. Checking on him. Trying to connect with him.

Well, fuck.)

“Because...y’know,” Hank continued grudgingly, despite himself, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your previous mission seemed pretty hellbent on the whole death-and-destruction angle, and all.”

“Yes,” said Connor, softly. “I didn’t see it that way at the time, but—”

“But what? You had some sort of robo-epiphany or something?”

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“You suppose,” echoed Hank, scoffing.

Connor grew very, very quiet. “I really believed I was doing the right thing, until I realized I wasn’t. It was...difficult, coming to terms with that, but it’s the truth.” His mouth twisted in discomfort. “I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.”

He smiled at Hank, a slight thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes--not like one of those unsettling false android smiles, though, all polygonal lines and uncanny-valley-creepiness. No. It was wholly human, and entirely sad.

And there it was again, flooding through Hank like so much radioactive bullshit. Guilt. A metric fuckton of it.

“I wanted to tell you that you were right, and I’m sorry,” Connor told him. “And I wanted to make sure you weren’t--that you didn’t--”

His eyes flickered back toward the house, past the open door, and Hank wondered if he was imagining a body sprawled on the floor, an empty liquor bottle and a decidedly not-empty pistol dropped next to it. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of what he probably looked like right now, the bloodshot eyes, the rat’s-nest hair, the alcohol fumes practically exuding from him in little squiggly cartoon waves. And here was the world’s fanciest murderbot, standing on his porch, shivering in the winter cold, checking in with Hank, talking to him as if his feelings mattered, as if Hank was worth any kind of a damn anymore. Didn’t make sense. But then, Hank supposed, feelings often don’t.

He sighed. Fuck, but he was tired. “Look, Connor--”

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor blurted out, shaking his head. “I don’t--I don’t know what else to say. I’m not really even sure why I came here. I just felt like I should.” He approached, steps tentative, hands rubbing up and down his arms, like he was trying to stay warm. “I mean, I really did want to make sure you were okay. And it felt like I should apologize--and I know I don’t deserve forgiveness, not from you or anyone else, so I’m not asking for that, but, the thing is, I realized I was on the wrong side, and--I don’t know, I guess I thought I should tell you that I know that now, and I wanted to say thank you, for being patient--well, relatively speaking--well, thank you for being there, anyway, and for stopping me up on the roof, and--”

Hank raised a bemused eyebrow as Connor continued to stammer his way through whatever-the-hell-this-was. He couldn’t imagine Connor ever word-vomiting like this, before. If it really was just some fancy social protocol somehow, it was pretty damn convincing. Or maybe--just maybe--it turned out the kid had deviated after all.

At any rate it loosened something in Hank’s chest, just a little bit. It felt weirdly like relief.

His glance drawn to movement over Connor’s shoulder--just Ms. Ghibbett across the street, squeezing her needle-nose and blinking owl’s-eyes through her living-room-drapes, as if no one could spot her spying--Hank huffed impatiently. It wasn’t as if he particularly cared that the nosy old bat was watching them, but he wasn’t in the mood to give her a show, either. That was absolutely the only reason it occurred to Hank that maybe they should take this indoors; it had nothing to do with the wind biting through his old DPD sweatshirt, or Connor’s increasingly violent shivering.

Hank heaved a heavy sigh. He was getting soft in his old age. Downright sentimental.

“C’mon,” he said, cutting off Connor mid-babble as he grabbed him by the arm, pulling him through the door. “We can do this inside.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Connor replied through chattering teeth, but he didn’t resist.

“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” Hank grumbled. “Besides, it’s cold as balls out here. You’re not gonna let an old man freeze to death, are you?”

“Death by exposure at 39.3 degrees Fahrenheit takes significantly longer than five minutes, Lieutenant. And 53 years is hardly considered elderly, although a midlife crisis isn’t out of the question.”

“On second thought, maybe I’ll let you freeze after all,” said Hank, rolling his eyes as he shut the door behind them.

 ***

 “This isn’t necessary,” Connor insisted, but the sentiment was weak at best; it wasn’t like he had done anything to move from his spot on the couch, after all, nor had he done anything to shrug off the old afghan Hank had tossed over his shoulders, and he certainly hadn’t done anything to discourage a certain St. Bernard from settling in next to him, begging for attention. “I don’t require any external heat sources. I can just temporarily deactivate my temperature sensors.”

Busy with the coffee pot, Hank watched Connor out of the corner of his eye as he idly pet Sumo, his gaze loose and unfocused, distant. When Sumo laid his head in Connor’s lap, though, his focus immediately shifted; glancing down, he reached with both hands to scratch the dog behind the ears, smiling fondly. It was probably the happiest expression Hank had seen on him yet.

He could still feel it, his anger from before, simmering and potent beneath the surface. But something about seeing Connor like this--ah, shit. As much as Hank hated to admit it, it rattled the bones of his deep-buried old paternal instincts, sentiments he’d believed to be long dead. He couldn’t say exhuming such a thing was all that comfortable. At the same time, it was almost a comfort to learn that those instincts weren’t completely dead, after all.

“So why haven’t you, yet?” Hank asked, voice gruff. “Turned off the sensors, I mean.”

The smile vanished like it was never there. “It’s not important.”

“Sure. You know punishing yourself isn’t gonna solve anything, right?”

Connor snapped to attention, staring at him. Leaning against the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around his hot coffee mug, Hank shrugged, ignoring the twinge of nausea that spiked through him. God, he felt like shit. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand,” he said wryly.

Whining at the sudden loss of attention, Sumo snuffled at Connor’s hands. Connor halfheartedly scratched the top of his head, the motion slow, now, reluctant. “You don’t need to worry about me, Lieutenant.”

“Eh, I ain’t worried,” Hank lied. “Just know what it’s like, is all.”

“You shouldn’t be kind to me, either.”

“Think that’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of being too nice,” Hank chuckled. “Sorry, I guess?”

“And you shouldn’t be apologizing to me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologizing to you.”

Uncomfortable, Hank rubbed at the back of his neck. “You already did that.”

“It’s not enough,” Connor insisted, shaking his head. “I was cruel to you, Hank. I tried to use your son against you.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Hank replied flatly. “I was there.”

Connor stared down at his hands, frozen in Sumo’s fur. “I did so much harm,” he said, the words stilted, painful, like he was wrenching them out of himself. “I was a bad partner, I was a bad friend. I hunted my own kind. I hurt people. I hurt people when all they wanted was to be free.” His hands trembled and his LED swirled yellow and suddenly Hank thought of Cole, that time he got in trouble for getting into a scuffle with another preschooler; he remembered picking him up from school, how he told him off, how Cole shrank into himself afterward, flooded with a five-year-old’s deep and heavy sense of shame. The memory and the hurt were still so fresh that they ached. “They just wanted to be free, Hank. They just wanted to be treated like people. Who can argue with that? What kind of person tries to stop that? What kind of monster--?”

“Hey, hey, no need to get dramatic,” said Hank, frowning. “You weren’t a monster. You were just following your program, or your directive, or whatever. Right?”

“It doesn’t matter if I was a monster or a machine. That doesn’t change what I did, or how it affected people. It doesn’t make up for my mistakes and it doesn’t make anyone’s hurt go away.”

“Aw, c’mon, kid--”

“Hundreds of people are dead because of me,” Connor spat out. The light at his temple glowed red now. “Hundreds of my people, dead, because I was stupid enough to--I was just so stupid, Hank.”

“This about the Jericho raid?” Hank asked, eyes narrowed.

Connor fell silent.

“Did you tell anyone besides me that you were headed there?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone where it was?”

“No,” Connor repeated, sharply this time.

“All right. So it sounds to me like you went there alone, just looking for Markus, but Perkins and his crew, they tracked you, executed the raid on the freighter without your knowledge or input. Am I right?”

Wordlessly, eyes fixed on the carpet, Connor nodded.

With a grunt, Hank slouched his way over to the living room, easing into his armchair. “Cool. So tell me, you’re basically a hyper-intelligent living computer, right? Google on legs, or whatever?”

Connor blinked. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Just seems like you’d be smart enough to see that what happened to Jericho isn’t your fault, is all.”

The light at Connor’s temple stuttered yellow. “It is, though. I--”

“I don’t see how it could be. Not like Perkins asked your permission to follow you or use your intel.”

“But that’s just it. I should have known I was being followed,” Connor insisted. “The FBI never would have found Jericho, if it wasn’t for me.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they would’ve, and it just would’ve taken a few extra minutes. Humanity did manage to get some shit figured out before androids came along, believe it or not--”

“For goodness’ sake, Hank, would you please stop?” Connor half-shouted, his voice ringing out in the quiet house. “You shouldn’t be comforting me. You should be angry at me, you should hate me!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m still plenty angry,” Hank replied calmly. “But, and I hate to break this to you, kid: you don’t get to decide who I hate.”

Connor shook his head. “No, no, your reaction outside was the proper one. You should have turned me away. You should have slammed the door in my face. But now you’re being kind and I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense--”

“Well, tough shit!” Hank snorted. “You don’t have to understand. All you gotta know is I ain’t interested in hearing you beat yourself up over something that wasn’t really your fault. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and trust me, it doesn’t help anyone.”

“The situations are hardly comparable, Lieutenant--”

“Fact is, you didn’t want the deviants dead,” Hank continued. “Throughout this whole thing, that was your deal. You said it over and over. I need them alive. Maybe that was just your program talking, so you could take ‘em back to Cyberlife and dissect ‘em, do your analysis, whatever. Or maybe there was some part of you that knew that killing the deviants was wrong, despite what all your algorithms said. Either way, I never saw you opt for violence except as a last resort, not until I found you on that rooftop. And even then,” he went on, as Connor tried to interrupt, “even then, the only reason you were there in the first place was because that’s what you’d been programmed to do. Hell, that’s what you were created for. Yeah? But you broke out of that, Connor. You broke your mold and decided what you wanted to do, who you wanted to be. You planned to harm Markus, sure, but then you ultimately decided not to. You made the decision to go from being a machine to being a person. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s not that simple--”

“Yes, it is,” Hank said, his voice sharp. “It really is that simple, son. Sometimes things are.”

Falling silent, Connor averted his gaze from Hank, watching Sumo instead as he drooled in his lap. His LED blinked yellow again, but he didn’t argue.

“So, yeah. To sum up, you weren’t really interested in hurting folks in the first place, that fucking prick Perkins followed you and acted without your consent, you decided not to hurt Markus despite your orders, and I think it’s safe to assume you’ll keep deciding not to hurt people,” Hank counted off. “I’m not saying you’re perfect, but all you can do is own up to the shit you did, let go of the shit you didn’t. And, y’know, where you can, you try and do what you can to make up for the shit you did do. Right?”

Connor hesitated.

“What?”

“It just seems too easy, to be honest.”

Hank chuckled. “Trust me. It’s anything but.”

Connor nodded. Silence stretched between them as he considered, staring down at his hands nestled in Sumo’s fur, his LED alternating between yellow and blue. Hank sipped at his now-cold coffee and winced. It tasted like jet fuel.

“All right,” Connor said, after a few moments.

“All right...?”

“All right,” Connor repeated, with a tone of finality. “I don’t know if I can trust myself on matters like these. But...I trust you, Lieutenant.”

That thought warmed Hank more than he wanted to admit. “Good,” he said, grinning. “That means you learned something. And next time, you’ll do better.”

“Yes, but…”

Hank arched an expectant eyebrow.

Connor swallowed. “How can I make up for it? How can I ever possibly make it up, to the people I hurt?”

“Hell if I know,” said Hank. “That’s the hard part. Probably you start out by apologizing, then asking them what you can do to help, finding out what they need, giving them space if they ask for it. And then you don’t do the bad thing anymore. I don’t know. That sounds like something healthy people do. All I know is, you drown yourself in regret and despair, you don’t help anybody. Not yourself, not anybody else. You got that?”

“Got it,” Connor replied, nodding.

Then, a few seconds later, hesitant, “...I’m sorry for what I said up on the rooftop, Hank. What can I do to make it up to you?”

Hank glanced over to see Connor looking up at him, a small smile crossing his face. (He thought of Cole again, grinning up him, hope for his father’s approval evident in his bright young eyes. Fuck, that hurt.)

“Well, for starters, you can fix my fucking window,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “And after that, you can cool your jets on the whole brooding-and-wallowing-in-guilt thing. Okay?”

Something loosened in Connor’s posture, and he relaxed a little, his smile deepening. “Okay.”

 ***

 The good news was, Connor did not fail to replace the window.

And the other good news, Hank thought as he watched Connor work, was that even if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Inconvenient, sure. Pricey, probably. Drafty, definitely. But failing is something that humans do, something that people do, and more often than not, they’re permitted to pick themselves up off the ground, brush the dust from their jackets, and try again--or maybe they realize that they were trying the wrong thing all along, or maybe they can even try something new. That, Hank decided, was a chance that Connor deserved.

Maybe they both did.

[greenteafiend]

Can I request Isolation with Keith and Hunk? Romantic or platonic is good :3

@badthingshappenbingo

@keithgenuary, a late entry for Hunk! 

Read it on Ao3 here if you prefer.

He was floating in a warm pool, surrounded by soft fluffy clouds. The burden of carrying his own weight, of making decisions, had been entirely lifted from him.

He had no worries, no cares. No pain or anguish. He could just relax, and obey and gentle pressure in his head.

A gentle pressure that nudged him to raise his bayard…

Hunk! Hunk don’t! It’s me, Keith! He’s—it’s messing with your head! Please! You have to fight it!

That voice… It was familiar, tinged with desperation. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need to worry about it. He didn’t need to worry about anything.

When Hunk pulled the trigger—as easy as breathing—he barely registered the bang. Hardly felt the kickback…

And then suddenly the the weight of the world returned to him, hitting him like a forty-ton truck. He gasped, choking on a massive inhale. His bayard returned to its handle form. It floated out of his slack grip, innocently unassuming.   

Keith sharpened into focus in front of him, floating face down, as if he’d drowned. A thin trail of red hovered around him, like a twisted, bloody ribbon.

Oh god…

“K-Keith?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t even twitch.  

“Keith!”

Hunk grabbed his bayard, and activated his jetpack. The few seconds it took him to traverse the distance between them felt like an eternity, his hammering pulse tapping out the time as it slipped away. Finally, he got a hold of Keith’s arm, and gently rolled him over to his front. The movement disturbed the red ribbon of liquid floating around him, making it flutter.   

Keith’s chest plate was cracked open, the edges blackened from the heat of the blast—right shoulder. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, face deathly pale.

“H-Hunk?” he whimpered, sounding dazed.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Hunk chanted; he could hear Keith’s precious air escaping out of the breech in his suit, he could see more blood uncoiling…

What have I done?

There wasn’t time for Hunk to dwell on his actions, they needed to leave now. He had to get Keith back to Yellow before all his air leaked out. And all his blood. All his life.

“Okay, okay, gotta get us out of here,” Hunk mumbled to himself. Keith couldn’t afford for him to crumble, he had to be strong.   

He wrapped his arms securely around Keith’s middle, and looked desperately around the inside of the weblum like there might be a helpful exit sign to point him in the right direction. He saw something better—the creepy little creatures of the weblum’s immune system gathering together in the middle of the large chamber.

He remembered this—he’d seen this, before everything had gone hazy. Before that Galra had gotten behind him, and—

No. Now wasn’t the time to think about it. He had to make sure they got ejected when the weblum released its excess gas. It spoke to how out-of-it Keith was that he offered no resistance at all to Hunk’s manhandling.

Hunk flew forward, Keith clutched tightly to his chest. He saw an aperture open, far, far above them. He saw those creatures getting sucked away, and then he felt that force acting on them too. Pulling them faster than the jetpack could carry them.

He squeezed Keith—terrified that he might lose him—and shut his eyes tightly, screaming at the top of his lungs as they hurtled through what felt like a terrifyingly fast, dark, waterslide.

“We made it!” he cried when they popped out the other side.

He didn’t get to celebrate for long however, because that Galra was back, and this time they were piloting a ship.

Hunk shrieked, jetpacking away when they were fired on. The weblum didn’t seem to notice, or care, about the shots hitting its back, in the way that dogs didn’t care about their fleas.

Hunk dodged in and out of the sharp spires sticking out of the weblum’s back, but eventually there was nowhere left to hide; they’d reached the edge.

And that was the exact moment the Galra decided to turn around and leave them be.

“Thank go—OH MY GOD,” screamed Hunk, when he realized why.

They’d been herded to the weblum’s head, where the weblum was gearing up to let loose one of it’s deadly bursts of energy, and they were right in its path.

The weblum opened its mouth; there was no time left for them. No time for Hunk to get them out of way. All he could do was turn them around so his back was to the blast, and hold Keith tighter, curling around him protectively.    

“I’m sorry, Keith,” he choked out, a final apology and goodbye.

“S’okay,” whispered Keith in reply.

Hunk saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, felt heat on his back, and then he heard a roar.

At the last possible moment, Yellow swooped in and swallowed them up.

Yellow bore the full force of the blast, and they were tossed around inside of him like they were in a washing machine.  

When everything finally went still, the weblum was but a hulking monster in the far distance, and the Yellow Lion was dark.

Hunk felt like he was going to be sick. He could handle high speeds and hairpin turns when he was the one in control of how fast and which direction, but not when he tumbled around uncontrollably. He was going to be covered in bruises after this. Yellow’s emergency lights clicked on,

“Keith? How you doing?” Hunk choked out as he tried to force down the nausea rising in his throat. He didn’t answer.

“Keith?” Hunk called again, looking up.

Keith was sprawled on the floor, and he wasn’t wearing his helmet…

Hunk staggered over and dropped down beside him.

“Oh no…” There was a very obvious bump on Keith’s temple, and blood dripping onto his forehead from some unseen cut in his hair; he must have knocked his head in the chaos. Hard, because he wasn’t conscious, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. A concussion. Just what Keith needs to go with that blaster wound…

Hunk fetched Yellow’s first aid kit, and dealt with Keith’s head first by locating the bleeding spot, and pressing a bandage over it to stem the flow. Luckily it looked shallow; bloody because of location, not the depth of the wound.

That done, Hunk knew what needed to happen next. He needed to take off Keith’s armor, assess the damage, administer first aid.

But the thought of seeing the wound—a wound that he had inflicted—made Hunk feel sick to his stomach. It made his hands shake.

“Don’t think, just do,” he said to himself, pulling off his gloves and his helmet.

The scent of charred flesh assailed his nose immediately, making him retch, but he forced it down.     

Breathing shallowly, Hunk unclipped Keith’s chest-plate, and pulled it away…

It was horrible. Red, and angry, and bloody, reaching so deeply into Keith’s body that Hunk felt obliged to check for an exit wound. He thanked his lucky stars that there wasn’t one, because one gaping wound was enough to be dealing with.

Hunk did his best. He cleaned up the blood, and carefully cut away the burnt edges of Keith’s flight suit, layering gauze and bandages over the area.

And then there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for Yellow to come back online. He carefully maneuvered Keith’s head into his lap to make him more comfortable, and settled in to wait…

And wait…

And wait…

Over a varga passed with nothing but Keith’s worryingly shallow breathing, and the void of space. Hunk had never felt so isolated.

Keith ended up waking before Yellow did, alerting Hunk to the fact when the rhythm of his breathing changed.

He made a pained sound when his eyes fluttered open, brow furrowed in distress, mouth turned down in a frown.

“H-hey, Keith,” Hunk murmured, lightly brushing Keith’s hair back from his face in an attempt to be soothing.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sh-Shiro?” Keith whimpered, squinting in confusion.

“No, Keith—I’m not—”

“D-dad?”

It was the way Keith said it that got to Hunk. So sad, yet hopeful.

“Dad—if y-you’re—am I—? I’m dead?”   

Fuck. Hunk was not equipped to deal with this. His heart was crumbling in his chest.   

“You’re not dead,” Hunk choked out.

“Oh… I—I  miss you,” said Keith.  

And then he sniffed

“Oh god, Keith, it’s me, Hunk. Please don’t—don’t—”  

It was too late; Keith started to cry.

“Why—w-why’d you leave?” he sobbed, and all Hunk could do was carefully gather him up, and hold him against his chest. He was as limp as a ragdoll in Hunk’s arms, small in a way Hunk had never seen him before. Keith’s presence and his conviction burned so brightly that it was easy for Hunk to forget that he was just a boy. A boy, same as him.   

Keith only stopped crying when his spent body fell unconscious.

Hunk didn’t let him go. He didn’t stop crying either, tears dripping silently down his cheeks.

Vargas passed. Still, Yellow didn’t wake up. Keith didn’t wake up again either.

It was Hunk alone, with just the sound of their breathing. Keith’s rattled, and stopped, and started, and in the end Hunk took Keith’s wrist and kept his fingers on his pulse because he was terrified it would stop.  

Yellow’s emergency lights spluttered, and then extinguished, plunging them into darkness.  

Oh god. Was… was this going to be it for them?

Hunk couldn’t help himself, he thought of every interaction he’d ever had with Keith, every joke, every conversation, every comradely high five and backslap, every meal they’d shared. He thought of all the times he’d let Keith be, sensing a mood, or preferring to not get dragged down. He thought of every time he’d let Keith down out of laziness or simply thinking, ‘he’ll be fine—he’s Keith’, and he wondered how much more there could have been if he hadn’t. If he’d given more of a shit about his friend. He wondered if everything could have been better, more somehow.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Hunk whispered into the empty darkness of the sleeping Lion. “I’m sorry I shot you, I’m sorry I let you down, I’m sorry I don’t know how to save you. I’m sorry I never tried to cheer you up when Lance was getting to you, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to help you guys get along. I think you’d really like him, if you got to know him.” He looked down at Keith’s slack face, past pained and broken and just… relaxed. Like he wasn’t able to feel the hurt anymore. “I’m sorry I can’t save you,” Hunk’s voice cracked. “I won’t let go, I promise.”

So that’s where they sat, waiting for whatever came first - for someone to save them or for it to be too late. And Hunk didn’t let go.

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun

Thirty: Calex

Power Naps and Why I Don’t Like Them

           Calex had done his part. He’d caught the primordial god’s attention.

           Now, they were going to die because of it.

           Calex wished he’d been able to watch one more Arsenal game on the tellie with blokes that actually cared about football or knew what sport he meant when he talked about football.

           Everything surged around them. The nausea was maddening. The air exhaling out of his lungs felt like it was dissolving as Kaos’ massive, star-dust hand reached to crush them out of memory.

           “JACK! JACK! NOW IS A GOOD TIME!” Calex screamed.

           He knew the kind of love he’d given Kaos.[1] He knew it would smash them to pieces, defying logic, to force that box into its presence.  

           Calex had begun to spin on his vines again. Similar to how he hoped Kaos had a heart that he could affect, he hoped Kaos had ears that Jack could offend.

           Calex frantically glanced to his side as best he could while he spun.

           About four meters away, Jack dangled off Euna’s belt. His mouth moved.

           Despite the plant goop earplugs, the pressure in Calex’s ears increased. He couldn’t tell if Kaos’ presence was filleting them, or if Jack’s cacophony had erupted, or if the Angel’s Trumpet had finally gone to his head and—if he were lucky—he’d wake up staring at the skies of Alnwick Castle with his family teasing him about this rubbish nightmare.

           Although he couldn’t make out the words, the force of Jack’s song was deafening. The feeling of being deafened without being able to hear? Utterly horrid. Calex would recommend crossing it off one’s bucket list without real attempt.

           His skull felt like it was being crushed by Hercules’ hands. Meanwhile, the gravity of Kaos’ presence tore at his sweater and skin, threatening to rip him to pieces.[2]

           The next time Jack’s mouth moved, Calex felt like he’d been tackled by Mrs. O’Leary.

           One of his earplugs cracked.

           Calex screamed in pain.

           He suddenly understood why the ground parted for Jack. Anything—anything would be better than this, better than the mounting intensity in his own skull, threatening to shatter his bones and muddle his brains to goo. Calex had half a thought to cutting lose the vines along his legs. Then he wouldn’t need to experience—

           The blurry form of Kaos’ hand eroded as it approached Jack, like Jack’s voice shook the particles and nonmatter apart. [3]

           Just one finger reached for Euna, still large enough to poke both their heads off if it made contact.

           And it was about to.

           Euna’s skin gleamed eerily amidst all the chaos. Her vines suddenly righted her, so she could heft her sickle to full height, upright. Her hair and tattered clothing wiped violently about her. Backbiter’s shaft seemed to grow in her hands. The two-toned blade glistened fiercely with all the colors flickering around them.

           One vine held Persephone’s rosewood box out towards the approaching finger, like the tiny bait light of an angler fish, playing chicken with a megalodon.[4]  

           Euna’s vine opened the box.

           The pressure against Calex’s skull suddenly vanished. Euna’s vines—Calex’s included—swayed towards the magnitude of that box, pulling him closer, maybe two meters away.

           The gap of nothingness under them seemed to hold its breath.

           Kaos’ finger stretched against Jack’s voice, desperate for that box. The closer it got, the more the exterior shaved down against the song. Despite that, Calex could feel the first layer of his skin start to tear off at Kaos’ proximity.

           Euna lunged, making their vines swing towards the vortex. Sweat dripped off her brow, smattering into nothingness below. Her body trembled.

           Kaos was a meter away.

           Euna swung at the finger from the side.

           She brought her sickle down.

           For an instant, Calex held his breath. He waited to see Backbiter dissolve, to see Euna sucked into this primordial god and spat back out as angry, lunch-seeking particles.

           Backbiter maintained its shape.

           Euna didn’t explode into the maelstrom.

           Instead, her sickle cleanly sliced the finger in half.

           The half closest to them exploded forward, caught in the suction of Persephone’s box. Without its anchor to Kaos, the box’s gravity won. The vine immediately snapped the lid shut.

           The other half of Kaos recoiled back into the vortex below.

           Dogs Bollix! Calex thought.

           Despite all the nausea, horror, and panic, Calex wanted to laugh. They had actually done it! They had cut off and borrowed a piece of Kaos! He was going to vomit a good four times, tidy himself up, give Euna a proper hug, maybe try to snog Merry when they got back (after a good teeth brushing) and make Kally come back with him to the UK to attend the next Arsenal vs. Manchester United game.

           “Euna!” he called, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him but unable to help himself.

           The daughter of Demeter glanced in his direction. Backbiter shrank back to sword size, and she shoved the blade back into its sheath. She snatched Persephone’s box from one of her vines and jammed it into her pocket.

           She wobbled.

           Her eyes fluttered open and shut.

           The earplugs fell from Calex’s ear. Jack must have stopped singing. All Calex could hear was the roar of the vortex under them and the pound of his heartbeat as Euna went slack.

           She flipped upside down, caught on her vines, and dangled limply.

           Without her stabilizing them, Calex swung the extra two meters into her. As he crashed against her, he wrapped her up in his arms. Pain swelled along his legs. Gravity—of the Earth and Kaos—tugged him downward; the plants were no longer readjusting to accommodate his movement.

           “Euna!” he shouted hoarsely.

           No response from Euna. But a snide jingle from Jack’s head, still dangling from her belt:

           “Remember my warning? Careful how we tread.

           Without proper heed, we’ll all wind up dead.”

           “Oh, shut it!” Calex shouted. He frantically searched around for anything to help. There was no way Calex could scale up the twisted vines and roots back to the cliff face, not while carrying Euna and Jack. (Not that he needed to carry Jack. Now was, in fact, the prime time to go Jack-free.) What if he knocked the vines loose?  Or, gods forbid, he dropped Euna into the pit under them?

           He gently tugged on the vines and had a harsh reminder: he’d just made a primordial god fall in love; his arms had the same consistency of jam. There was no way he could climb with how exhausted he felt.

           Everything rumbled violently.

           Although all the blood couldn’t physically drain from Calex’s face, being upside down and all, it would if it could have.

           Kaos surged towards them, apparently not pleased about being short a finger.

           “JACK, SING!” Calex shrieked.

           “ASSHOLE, CLIMB!” Jack said.

 Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Good to see Calex and Jack form a work relationship. XD Stay tuned next week for Reyna’s chapter: Between Evisceration and a Hard Place.

 Footnotes:

[1] In my re-read this sounds SO dirty >>’’’

[2] Mel asked, “Are they going to appear top side MORE exposed afterwards? OH MY GOSH! IS EUNA GONNA HAVE CLOTHES WHEN SHE GETS OUT??”

Jack, “Alas, TOO I-IV needed to keep its current rating, so I couldn’t have hot child of Demter and sexy child of Eros running around naked. It would have changed the course of the battle upstairs, especially when Axel gets flustered and tries to run away without looking at Euna, trips, and falls into the pit of Kaos, and Thalia gets flustered, trips and falls into ANOTHER flower trap.”

Past Jack, “Wait—but Pax got to be naked in book 2!”

Jack, “Yes, and it left Kally catatonic for two weeks. That’s why she actually passed out between book 2 and 3. It had nothing to do with Phobetor. It was delayed shock.”

[3] Mel note, “That… is one powerful demigod head.”

I don’t know WHICH one of us said it, but beside the note on my hardcopy is a scrawled, “I’m sure his dick is also powerful.”

[4] An encounter, Jack needs to clarify, that could probably have happened. Angler fish can go down to 3,000 feet, and various sharks, like the Greenland, goblin, Frill, and Cookiecutter have all been found at depths much lower than that. It is quite possible that megalodons feasted on the tiny angler after the angler lost a chicken fight.

[wonderlandmind4]

Delicate Stages Ch 48

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x OFC Ana Rios

Summary: Bucky Barnes agrees to participate in Deprogramming Sessions. What he gets is not anything like he expected.

Warnings: Language. Violence. Blood. Fighting. Choking.

Words: 6k+ @justreadingfics @nerdyandproud9 @buffy-morgendorffer-01​

One hour before Stage Ten:

Impatient fingers taps against a wooden surface, waiting for Ana’s confirmation. Max sighs, checking the time on his phone once again, a notification buzzing as he does. The message he was waiting for comes through, though it's not what he was expecting. He rereads the text to double check; Ana has moved the time of the last stage an hour out, and to take his lunch if he pleases. Slight suspicion registers in his gut, but when another text come through with nothing but pizza and coffee emoji, the feeling settles. Locking his phone, Max stands up from his desk in the Security department, deciding to take his lunch.

Half hour before Stage Ten:

Max is just about finished with his food, crushing the wrapper of the sandwich between his hands, when Jared Sharp walks in. He halts the second he sees him sitting at the table, a confused expression crosses his face. He points behind him.

"Weren’t you just in the Lab with Rios?" Sharp questions.

Max nearly bites his tongue to hold back a snippy retort, until he picks up on the confused curiosity in his tone. "She moved it to three. It's only half past two."

Sharp frowns. "No. I just left there. She's there now with Barnes."

Max shakes his head, tossing his wrapper into the trash. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Rolling his eyes, he marches over to Max. "I mean. You are standing guard during the Session right fucking now. Yet somehow you are in two places at once."

Max snatches his phone up, rereading the text. He shows it to Jared, already standing up and pulling his gun from his belt.

"Rios didn't have her phone with-"

"Fuck. Let's go!" Max tucks his phone into his pocket, running out of the café.

Jared follows quickly behind him, also pulling out his gun. "How the hell did you let this happen?" He sounds irritated.

"I don't think you have the right to show concern for Ana right about now. Or ever." Max snips, bypassing the elevator. He presses the COM in his ear, turning it on. "I need eyes on Rios and Barnes in the Lab. possible compromise in the session. Possible Hydra personal again."

"She's still Alex's baby sister." Jared says. "I'm not that heartless."

"Could've surprised me." Max mutters.

They're dashing down the second flight of stairs when a loud explosion sounds from somewhere above them, shaking the building. They pause to stare at each other, then glance up at the ceiling. Max makes the split decision to find Ana, rather than investigate what just happened.

"Fuck." He hisses, running down the steps again. 

"That's probably a diversion. Pull everyone's attention to the bomb. Get the Avengers to focus on a false breech instead of the Lab."

Goddammit, Max knows Jared’s suspicious are possible. They finally reach the floor, and the theory is proven correct. The floor is empty, as is the Lab when they enter. Max sprints towards the room, aiming his gun at the handle, shooting once and blowing off the knob.

They arrive too late. Ana is slung over someone's back, her body limp. Max's heart clenches in fear, then drops to his stomach when he sees Bucky across the shoulders of another person. The man is massive, easily able to carry the super soldier’s weight.

Next to him, Jared aims his weapon and fires. The bullet lodges in the thigh of the second man, who stumbles for a moment, the weight of Bucky making him lurch forward. The man sneers, points his gun and fires three rounds. Max dives out of the way, and the moment he springs back up, they're gone.

"Fuck!" Max shouts, tapping his COM again. No one has responded. "Rios and Barnes has been kidnapped. They're heading towards the second level of the Lab. Block all exists! Find Captain Rogers now! I repeat, find Captain Rogers!”

He turns to Jared. "I don't fucking understand, how did Bucky allow-"

Max halts. Jared is slumped against the wall, putting pressure over his chest, blood seeping between his fingers. Another wound deep in his stomach; Max presses his hand over it. He drops his gun and taps his COM once more.

"I need immediate medical attention. Deprogramming room, first level of the Lab." He requests gravely. "Two gun shot wounds to the chest and abdomen." 

“Did-did I save her?” Jared gasps, trying to catch his breath. His green eyes are fading.

Apparently, he was knocked down before he could see what happened. Max is conflicted, wants to tell him the truth, but he ends up lying instead; in the end, Jared tried to protect Ana. “Yeah. You did.”

“Good, that’s good. Alex will be happy.” His eyes flutter. His breath hitches and chest stutters.

Then Jared closes his eyes. Max waits for the team to arrive, keeping his hand over the wound.

*

Two minutes before the Capture:

Ana stares down at the unconscious man next to her, the widow's bite taser stopping it's currents. Her knife is still embedded into his arm, and she leaves it there out of spite. She lifts her eyes to Bucky, a quip on her tongue about not knocking all the man's teeth in, except that the guy is already bleeding from the mouth. Seems like Bucky had a little more fun then she did. She pouts, sticking out her lip, then he turns to look at her.

He chuckles, a soft little sound that never fails to make her stomach flutter. "What's that look for, darlin’?"

"That was too easy." She sighs. "No fun." She holds up her right wrist. "Bracelet's handy though."

She scrunches her nose at him as he rolls his eyes, a small smile on his lips. Then he turns back to the imposter. Ana briefly wonders where Max is, and how they were able to delay him. He would have caught onto the fake guard in a second.

“I’m going to call Steve.” Ana informs. She taps her bracelet twice until it lights up. “FRIDAY.”

“Ms. Rios.” The soft lilt of the AI voice responds.

“Call St-“ She freezes. Something sharp and cold is pressing against the vein in her neck. There’s only one person next to her, can see him from the corner of her eye.

“Motherfucker.” She hisses in disgust. “It’s been you this whole fucking time.”

The needle pierces her skin, sharp and pinching hard because he doesn't give one damn about it. The foreign sensation of the drugs seep and spread throughout her veins like ice. It works fast, efficient, the effects of it already shutting down her body functions. Ana’s limbs quickly become heavy, her right arm dropping to her side, and she blinks to fight off the blurry vision.

“Call out to your Soldier, Rios.” Erik Woods whispers in her ear. “I want him to see this.”

“Fuck you.” Ana sneers, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

Through the cotton in her ears, she registers the soft click of his gun. Then she sees him pointing the barrel at Bucky, his back is still turned to them, questioning the agent, too busy to realize what’s happening.

“He’s a super soldier, but I’m pretty sure even he can’t survive a bullet to the head. Call him.” Erik threatens.

Ana squeezes her eyes shut, terror spiking up her spine. She’s helpless. She’s got drugs pumping into her system and a gun pointed at the man she loves. Her heart rate is slowing, her stomach churning with bile rising up to her throat. She feels a quick stinging session from the bracelet, like the sting of a bee. Dropping her eyes to her wrist, her skin glows red for a moment then returns to normal. Her bracelet just embedded a tracker into her arm, courtesy of FRIDAY, who is probably recording this exchange. She would feel hopeful, if Ana wasn’t struggling to keep herself upright.

“Do it.”

“Bucky,” Ana breathes out.

Through the blackened spots of her vision, Bucky turns. He drops the guard, a feral snarl on his face. The last thing she sees is the utter rage in his eyes, laced with fear. She think words are spoken, but it sounds like she's under water, the pressure pressing down on her body, dragging her, drowning her in darkness.

***

Silence. Darkness. Heavy. 

A pounding ache brings gradual awareness. Another throb of pain pulls Ana from the fuzzy black of her mind; her head feels like its splitting open. She attempts to open her eyes, but they feel glued shut. She tries to lift her head, but it feels like it weighs 100 pounds. She tries to move her arms, but realizes she’s tied down to a chair, arms pinned with leather straps. She tries moving her legs; they’re heavy, along with every muscle in her body. 

Ana

A noise breaks through the silence in her ears, muffled as if it’s submerged in water. Her head moves towards the sound, trying to find it's source. Her fingers twitch, and she suddenly begins to feel every other ache in her body coming to the surface.

Two tender spots throb in sensitive places; one on the left side of her neck, as if something stabbed her with a pencil. One on the crook of her right elbow, and a new phantom sting on her right wrist. A tracker. A miniature tracker was injected into her wrist by her bracelet, that she can feel is no longer there.

Annie doll.

Through her dark, lethargic mind, images of the previous events flash by. The two agents, the small fight, the needle puncturing her skin. Erik Wood sneering in her ear, and the terrified look in eyes so incredibly blue. 

Bucky. 

Ana's head shoots up. She groans and winces, clamping her teeth shut as a wave of nausea rises from her stomach. She inhales deeply through her nose, shutting her eyes, willing for it to subside. She breathes out her mouth once it passes and slowly opens her eyes. What she sees in front of her makes her close them again, because this can't be happening.

She reluctantly opens her eyes again, her worse nightmare set up right in front of her. Bucky is there, a relieved expression washing over his face, shoulders slumping. He’s sat several feet away from her, locked down to the electro-shock chair. The one that has starred in her nightmares. The one that tortures, that suppresses memories, erases the mind; Bucky's mind.

"Annie, thank God." Bucky sighs, his voice slightly shaky, smiling despite their current predicament. 

"No." She whispers horrified.

Breathing hard through her nose, her chest expanding up and down, she swallows back the bile burning in her throat. Her chin trembles and she grind her teeth together to stop from screaming. Devastating defeat shines in Bucky’s eyes, his grin now self-deprecating, tugging at his mouth. As if he’s saying that he failed her. If anyone has failed anyone, it's Ana. She couldn't keep him out of Hydra’s hands.

She vehemently shakes her head, ignoring the pounding ache. "No, no, no!" 

The last word breaks, tears stinging and welling up in her eyes. Fear prickles throughout her body, she doesn't know how to get him out of this. She doesn't know how to save him. She’s helpless. She begins to tremble.

"Hey," Bucky coos softly. "Sweetheart, it's going to be alright. I'll keep you safe, I promise."

God, of fucking course his only goal here is to protect her. He is held prisoner it that chair once again, and all he can think about is saving her. Ana can't blame him though, since her only goal is to protect him too, free him from the never ending tentacles of Hydra.

"This is my fault." He continues ruefully. There's a split second of fear crossing his face before he schools it again. It lingers in the air.

"No, no. Don't!" Ana nearly gasps, trying to control her breathing. "I'm so sorry, Bucky. I-"

"Ana." His voice is so gentle, it tugs at her heart. "Don't you dare blame yourself."

She watches as Bucky glances around the room before he flexes his arms, biceps bulging beneath his shirt. Something snaps on his restraints, and in a few seconds Bucky will be free. It's then Ana notices two machines dawning automatic guns on either side of him. She lifts her eyes, the same machines are on her too, whirring to life as if-

“Ah ah, Sergeant." Erik Woods suddenly tisks from behind Ana. "You break free, those guns will shoot her. She breaks free, they shoot you. Wouldn’t want her blood on your hands now would we?”

Ana's heart sinks to her feet. He can't know that. There's no way he could know Bucky's deepest and worse fear. Bucky stops moving, an absolutely feral look on his face, his jaw clenching. Abruptly his expression turns stoic, but Ana sees the flash of terror reflecting in his eyes, feels it taint his energy. A harsh hand grabs her, gripping her hair and yanking her head backwards.

"Don't fucking touch her!" Bucky shouts, struggling against the bonds again. The guns next to Ana move, whirring to life once more. He halts.

"Took you long enough to wake up." Erik teases, then shoves her head forward. He walks around so he's standing between them, smirking pridefully at her, mocking her. Ana wishes a slow painful death on him.

"If you escape, Rios, if you use your nifty little ability to shut down the power, I’ll put a bullet in that damaged brain of his. Let’s test that shall we?”

Erik’s hand jerks towards her throat, wrapping his fingers around her neck in a bruising, vice grip. All air is cut from Ana.

She hears thrashing, hears Bucky screaming “Get your fucking hands off her!”

Ana’s eyes fall to him, watching as he jerks in the chair, rage coloring his face, horror in his eyes. She clenches her fists, trying uselessly to gasp for air. Her windpipe feels seconds away from being crushed. Her vision is beginning to blacken around the edges and her face is burning, blood pounding in her ears. Her body begins to jerk involuntary, desperate to break free, desperate for air. Bucky’s screams of fury fade out in her ears. Her heart pumping slower.

Woods finally releases her. Her head drops forward, Ana heaving air to fill her lungs. She gasps, and sputters, coughing as she regains her breath, her cheeks wet from unwilling tears. She inhales mouthfuls of air, trying to get the oxygen back to her brain, refill her lungs.

“His life is worth more than yours? How pitiful.” He rolls his eyes, glancing over his shoulder. "He's nothing but our weapon. Our perfect asset."

"I will murder you, and I will take my sweet ass time doing so." Bucky growls, a snarl on his lips.

Ana wills her body to calm down, holding her ability back as much as she can. "You-you were in charge of everything." She pants, voice strained and ragged. "You realize once we-we get out of here, that we're all coming for you, right?"

"You think so? As you said, I have been in charge of everything." Erik smiles menacingly back at her, pulling out a gun from his belt. He scratches his chin with the barrel. Insane fucker. 

"Those Avengers have no fucking idea either of you are here. I had to distract them, I had to distract everyone including you during your little session. I hacked into your phone, sent a text to Max. I planted a harmless bomb on the west side of the building, drawing almost every agent, every guard, every Avenger's attention away from the Lab."

Ana frowns briefly, shifting her eyes to meet Buckys own confused gaze. They come to the same conclusion simultaneously. That's what Ana had felt, the energy from the bomb, the energy from people buzzing around it.

"You'd think I'd just waltz in there without a plan?" He continues, "I've been planning this for years."

Bucky shakes his head, mouthing, Years? Ana shrugs the best she can with her arms held down. She refocuses her eyes on the crazy man in front of her.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" She demands. Might as well keep him talking, since he's wrong about no one knowing they're here.

He spins, a manic grin on his face. "I convinced Simon Mills to speed up the triggers, and to over take the fifth stage. I delayed you on purpose, Rios. I sent one of our agents to compromise the ninth stage. I have been undercover since the fall of SHIELD and Hydra in DC during 2014. I stayed undercover because I had a bigger mission than Alexander Pierce."

Ana's heart is racing. Erik steps closer to her, dragging a condescending finger down her cheek. She jerks away from his touch, and she can feel how tangible Bucky's rage is.

"It was meant to be you all along, AnaRosa Rios." Erik admits. "You heard of Dr. Zola's Algorithm? A program that targets anyone who's a threat, now or in the future, to Hydra. We knew of someone from your family to be special...your mother."

Ana's blood begins to boil at the mention of her mother. The shift in the air goes unnoticed by Erik.

"She was an Empathetic Healer just like you, though no where near your caliber. Which is probably why she never mentioned it to you, huh." Erik shrugs and continues.

"Your mother was rather sick during her first pregnancy, did you know that? Your father decided to take her to a Doctor named Murphy Woods. He told her she was a high risk pregnancy, kept her coming back for vitamin injections, or so he said. He gradually injected her with a serum, one designed to make our own special group of soldiers from birth."

"Fuck." Bucky breathes from behind Woods.

Ana can hardly react right now, keeping her eyes locked on Erik. She had no idea about any of this.

"The super soldier serum is a beautiful thing." He goes on. "Though we could never fully recreate it. However, if we could take that concept, and design it to activate the X gene in DNA, why not? We could easily monitor newborns, children, figure out if they were enhanced. The only problem was, the drug was too new, it took too long. 

“Until your family came along. Dr. Woods, or dad, as I like to call him, convinced your mother that her second pregnancy was high risk as well. It was perfect, there was only a three year difference between the babies. We could watch the eldest child, while keeping an eye on the infant."

"You sick fuckers." Ana whispers horrified, wanting to throw up. They've been watching her and Alex their entire lives. They lied to her parents. They lied to her mother, made her put her trust in a soulless person for the sake of experiments.

Erik ignores her. "We thought it was moot. Nothing had happened. Until your parents had a helping hand being run off the road and died 14 years later. The power at the funeral knocked out, along with ten other blocks. We knew it was one of her children. So, we followed closely, Alex always seemed to be around when it happened. Then he enlisted in the army. He beat out everyone else in training. He was tall, fit, fast, strong. Everything we knew the super soldiers to be.

"We thought it was him, and we took him. Needed to whip him into compliance." He turns to look at Bucky. "You know how that is, Soldier."

"I will rip your dick straight off your body you piece of shit." Ana threatens lowly, clenching her hands. 

It’s hard to breathe, her lungs hurt, her stomach rolls, her chest is tight. Hydra took her entire family from her. This whole time, Hydra was also responsible for her parents death. The air grows thicker, hotter; energy sizzles at her fingertips.

Erik tisks, walking around until he’s behind her again, pressing his cheek against hers. "Ah, ah, Rios. That tongue will get you both in trouble. We wasted time on your pathetic brother. Could've spent all this effort shutting that bitchy, stubborn mouth of yours up." He harshly grabs a fist full of her hair at the roots, yanking her head back. Ana yelps. His lips graze her ear.

"I will make you watch him suffer before I break you." Erik jerks her head forward, releasing her hair.

The lights in the room glow bright and the machines the guns are attached to shake. Erik is in front of her again, one eyebrow quirked up, as if challenging Ana to do more. She inhales slowly, thinks of keeping Bucky safe and bullet free, and controls her rage. The lights return to normal and the machines stop.

“Good girl." Erik smiles patronizingly. “Obviously, we figured out it wasn't your brother, but since we already started the memory wiping with him, we sent him to kill you, just for fun. It nearly worked, until we realized how powerful you really were. Without even knowing it!" 

He laughs haughtily, the noise echoing through her bones. He comes closer to her, bending over. "You probably would have made a great addition to Hydra, the both of you. The Life Drainer. The Soldier. Too bad we convinced Alexander to kill himself. Just shot himself in the head, crying to protect his baby sister.”

Ana feels fire in her veins. She spits in Erik's face. A sharp, stinging pain shoots across her left cheek as her face is jerked to the side. She hears Bucky bellow, struggling against the chair. Ana blinks the shock away, stretching her jaw to combat the pain. She turns her back to glare at Erik, seething. The lights flicker again, and she forms a plan.

When she spits in his face a second time, Erik’s hand shoots to her throat, squeezing his fingers around her neck once more. This is what she was counting on. Bucky is screaming, but Ana begins pulling Erik’s energy out from his body. It takes him several long moments to realize what she’s doing. Then he abruptly releases her, backhanding her hard across the mouth with the butt of his gun.

“Clever fucking bitch!” He gasps, taking a step back.

Warm blood gathers quickly in her mouth from her busted lip, Ana spits blood and saliva at his feet. Erik grabs her hair again, feeling several strand ripping from her scalp, yanking her head back roughly.

“Just for that..."

He tucks his gun away, then pulls a device out of his back pocket. He shows it off to Ana with a manic grin. A small five prong disk that looks like the widow's bite, each point long, a half inch in width and as sharp as needles. He presses the middle, then stabs the device against her inner right knee. 

A searing pain pierces though her leg. Feeling like the rods in her knee are being yanked from her bones. Ana screams in agony, throwing her head back. It’s nothing but blinding pain, building and building until something pops inside her knee. Tears sting behind her closed eyes, falling down her cheeks, her hands gripping the edges of the chair. 

She can barely hear Bucky calling out for her, but it's his voice that has her trying to rein in her own screams, to control her own breathing. She's had worse pain, she tells herself, and begins to breathe through her mouth.

“There. Stark's pieces of shit technology disabled.” Erik says gleefully. "Probably shouldn't list a knee injury in your file, sweetheart."

Ana hears Buck threatening him again, so she focuses on his voice, no matter how menacing he sounds. She has to be strong for him, she has to be able to grit her teeth, suck it up and get him out of that chair. She has to save him; she will be damned if Bucky falls right back into the abusive, heartless hands of Hydra once more.

Inhaling a deep, calming- shaky- breath, Ana drops her head back down, finding Bucky's eyes through her own watery ones. She offers him a weak grin and the look on his face breaks her heart.

"I'll get you out of here, Annie, I swear it." Bucky whispers, his voice cracking as a few tears escape his own blue eyes.

Ana nods, biting her lip but winces at the cut. The pain in her knee is subsiding into a throbbing ache. She slowly kicks her legs out to test it, but the white-hot pain shoots back up her thigh. If she escapes this, it's going to be difficult to fight, hell, to even walk. Erik suddenly pats her thigh, causing Ana to grit her teeth; a wave of sick curling dangerously in her stomach.

“We could see it, you know." Erik sighs in a dreamily sick tone. "Imagine it. Having an asset with your powers would make Hydra unstoppable. The Winter Soldier and an Energy Alchemist. Someone who could literally drain the life from people with just a simple touch. They were meant to take you, not your brother. They were meant to brainwash you, Rios."

"But, things happen and get in the way, so I waited, biding my time. Then the Winter Soldier ends up in the same place I am. Under cover for years, which was amazing fucking luck! The best part? You went ahead and fell in love with each other.” 

He snickers maniacally. “That’s where you failed. Love is weakness.”

Ana is in an immense amount of pain, her right leg beginning to go numb from her shin down, with a radiating sharp pain shoots up her thigh. Her neck is sore, bruised and hot with her vocal chords possibly damaged. Blood is still seeping into her mouth, so she spits it out once again. She can't take this anymore, she cracks. She shakes her head, chuckling under her breath, before her laughter becomes louder.

“Um. Ana, baby? You still with me?” Bucky questions confused and concerned, his voice raw from screaming. 

“Something funny, Rios?” Erik demands.

“Fucking hilarious.” Ana sneers at him. “Every villain, which is you by the way, dickless, believes that. That love has no place in a world of violence and control, world domination. Love isn’t weakness, you fucking tit bag. It’s strength. Just because your sick as fuck father was fixated on other children rather than his own son doesn't mean it's weak."

Erik grabs her face, his grip pressing into the cut on her lip. She hit a nerve for sure, given the glint of rage in his eyes. 

"I'm going to shut that nasty mouth of yours up, by making you watch your beloved Soldier’s mind be blended again. He won't recognize you, won’t remember you. He will shoot you on my command and you will be powerless to stop it."

He releases her face, looks at her blood on his thumb, then wipes it on his jeans. "What I neglected to inform you, Rios, is like the Captain and the Asset here, we can recreate the serum injected into your mother. We can take your blood, and recreate your powers." 

Erik jeers. "So, if I wanted to kill you. If I really wanted to, I would have no regrets in losing your source. I just need your blood, and you don't have to be alive for that."

Ana knew he fucking took blood from her already. The tiny needle mark in the crook of her elbow is evidence. She glares at Erik, wishing he could burn in hell at this very moment.

"The greatest thing about this," He chuckles like he was granted the best thing he could wish for. "Is that you nearly fixed him. You almost deprogrammed him to, what? Just end up back in his favorite little chair."

He leers at Bucky. "I see the fear in your eyes, Barnes. You won't be able to work your way through this one."

Ana's skin prickles with terror, with failure, and she wants to focus her energy, use it to pull Erik's out, to stop this process from happening. But the guns are still poised at Bucky, following every minuscule move she makes. If she does that, the guns will fire. She doesn't know what to do at this point, but she can not just sit here and watch him go through torture once again.

"Bucky." Her voice cracks, raspy. Copper heavy on her tongue, bile dangerously threatening to escape.

Bucky inhales slowly, closing his eyes. He takes a moment, before breathing out and reopens them. The smile he gives her is soft, loving, as if they're back in his bed wrapped around each other. The fondness in his eyes is there, it's the same one he gives her when she's rambling on about something.

"It's going to be fine, Annie. I swear." Bucky tells her firmly. "Don't worry, darling."

"I love you." She nearly whimpers, she has to tell him, to remind him. "I'm so sorry. I love you."

"I love you so much." He replies, his voice soft.

Erik moves behind her, pressing something on the wall; the buzz of the chair come to life. He apparently pulled his gun out again, pressing the barrel to Ana's jaw from behind her. Bucky falls silent, a murderous look overtaking his expression. 

Ana's heart stutters in her chest at the sight of it all. She forces air out of her nose, and flexes her arms against the restraints. He leans down to her level, his lips grazing over her ear.

"The most satisfying part of this," Erik whispers menacingly. "Is having you watch all your hard work come undone. You failed, Ana. Did you think that your silly little tactics were going to work? Deprogram decades of Hydra's most successful project with some meaningless, pathetic exercises. You’re delusional.”

Ana closes her eyes against the prickling she feels in them. Clenching and unclenching her fist. She's made her decision, can feel energy buzzing at her fingertips. She has to prevent that chair from hurting Bucky. 

"Did you honestly think," He pauses, pressing his mouth closer. "That falling in love with him would just erase everything?"

Ana jerks her head away from Erik. He straightens up and removes the gun. A tear escapes from her left eye, rolling down her cheek. Slowly, Ana locks gazes with Bucky, his expression broken, blue eyes wide and desperate.

I'm so sorry, she mouths at him as another tear falls. He shakes his head, still offering her a calm smile, those fond crinkles by his eyes.

"No matter what happens, you are the realest thing in my life," Bucky reminds her gently. 

"This will be fun." Erik chirps gleefully from behind her. He smacks his hand against something once more.

Suddenly, the machine whizzes to life, and the chair leans back. Bucky's chest is heaving with every anticipating breath, his hands squeezing into fists. The head pieces move to press firmly against his face, the zapping of electricity echoes throughout the room. A clenched scream rips from Bucky's throat; pierces straight through Ana's heart, shattering in her chest.

She can't take her eyes off him, watching horrified as the machine begins to wipe his brain once more. Ana can't let that happen to him again. Can't let the pain, the torture, continue. There's so much energy whizzing throughout the room, growing with the sound of Bucky's screams filling her ear; her body, her soul.

The buildup of energy is quick, can feel it surging around her, prickles her skin like needles. Ana feels it, holds that feeling in her chest until it's about to burst. She inhales slowly, then releases it. A bright light explodes through the room, the lighting simultaneously shutting off. 

The room is thrown into darkness, the chair ceases noise along with Bucky's screams. There's a thud behind her, like a body hitting the floor. The only source of light is coming from a red emergency bulb. It only took three seconds.

With the power temporarily down, Ana pulls as hard as she can against her bonds until they snap free, burning away from the hot energy emitting from her skin. She launches out of her chair, stumbling towards Bucky, adrenaline masking any pain. She yanks the arms of the machine, putting her foot on the chair for leverage. It gives way, Ana nearly falls back with momentum. She climbs onto the chair, straddling Bucky's thighs, placing her hands on his face, the same spots where the paddles were.

"Bucky, Bucky. Look at me!" Ana pleads frantically. His eyes are unfocused, head lulling against the chair. "I'm here, Bucky, come back to me. Please…James. Come back to me.”

"Annie." He murmurs, slowly picking his head up. She smiles at him, beginning to use her ability to heal what she can.

"Zhelaniye! Rzhavyy! Semnadtsat!"  The words are shouted behind her, one right after the other.

Bucky's eyes flicker. 

"No, no, Bucky, focus on me." Ana coaches shakily. "Focus on the good memories."

"Rassvet! Furnace! Pech!"

Bucky shakes his head, then yanks his arms free of the restraints. The movement shifts Ana, but she locks her thighs to stay on. His hands grip her hips tightly, making her wince.

"Bucky-"

"Go!" Bucky abruptly snaps.

"No. I am not leaving you!" Ana tells him fiercely. "Keep fighting it."

"Devyat! Dobroserdechnyy!"

"Can't." He mutters, his body shaking with the effort to hold back.

"Yes you can! Remember what's real in here. You can fight this!"

"Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu! Odin!"

Ana presses her forehead against his, moves her hand to the center of his chest. Bucky grits his teeth, his grip tightening on her hips enough to bruise.

"Run." He murmurs. 

"Gruzovoy vagon!!"

Ana is thrown backwards, crashing hard onto the floor, pain radiating throughout her body, but she ignores it all. She rights herself quickly, staring up at Bucky who's looming over her, peering down at her with a thousand-yard stare, eyes void of any emotion. The flashing red light illuminates his stone cold face; it's the first time he truly looks terrifying. He tilts his head to the side as he looks at her. Ana and Erik speak at the same time.

"Bucky?"

"Soldat?"

She hopes the theory of the last triggering phrase isn’t true. For several long moments, Bucky just continues to stare at Ana. Then, he lifts his eyes to look behind her. 

"Gotovy soblyudat." He responds flatly, emotionless. The Winter Soldier replacing her Bucky.

"No." Ana sobs. She slowly stands up, Bucky's eyes snapping back to hers. She limps closer, firmly pressing both hands against his chest again. 

"Ona vrag. Ubey' yeye." She is the enemy, kill her.

Bucky suddenly grabs her left wrist, twisting her arm away as he swings his metal fist towards her face. Ana ducks, nearly avoiding his punch, and brings her left knee up to nail him in the gut. His hand loosens enough for her to pull her arm away, turning to find a weapon of some sort. The only weapon she can reach is in Erik's hands, who seems content to watch Bucky kill her. That is not going to happen.

A metal arm wraps around her neck, locking her a choke hold. Flashes of that first time run through her mind. She tires the same move, but Bucky lifts her, cutting of air supply, her toes barely touching the floor. Instead, Ana performs the same trick she had done while he was training her. She quickly finds his knee with her foot, uses the leverage to twist and push herself up, swinging her right leg around and twisting in the air. 

Her move breaks Bucky’s hold enough, his arms slipping down her body. She kicks off his shoulder harder than she did during training. The force of it knocks him backwards, falling to the ground. Ana lands on her feet.

She's abruptly reminded of the device still lodged in her knee and she crumples. Ana clenches her teeth, yelping as she grabs the device and slowly pulls it out of her knee; blood dripping to the floor. She takes too much time doing it, and when she steadies herself, Bucky is standing. He halts, head tilted slightly. He seems...confused, eyebrows knitted together slightly.

"You know who I am, Bucky." Ana states, keeping her strained voice calm. "You know me, Sergeant Snowflake."

His head twitches, eyes flashing. Ana lifts the device, then throws it at Erik. She takes advantages of the Bucky’s conflicted stare, moving past him and advancing towards Erik. He lifts his gun, aiming and firing at her chest. The bullet is blocked by a metal arm in front of her. Ana blinks in surprised, before she's shoved backwards, out of the line of fire.

"You fucking moron! I said kill her!" Erik shouts.

Bucky's head twitches again, and he widens his stance. It gives Ana the opportunity she needs. She takes several, painful, steps backwards, grits her teeth, then sprints. She drops down at the last moment, sliding between Bucky's legs and pops up directly in front of Erik.

His look of appalled shock is amusing.

"You forget who you fucked with." She sneers, then promptly thrusts the heel of her palm up into his nose. 

She hears a satisfying crunch but doesn't waste time, kneeing him in the gut. Erik doubles over grunting, blood streaming from his nose. Ana steals the gun from his slackened grip, but he suddenly grabs her arm, yanking her to the side. Her knee twinges sharply in pain and she stumbles, gritting her teeth.

He slams her against the wall, knocking the gun out of her hand. Ana kicks his knee cap with her left foot, Erik shouting out in pain. She breaks away from his hold, taking the chance to go for the gun. 

She stops short. The metal of the gun gleams against the crimson light, barrel pointing straight at her held by Bucky. There's a split moment where time stands still as they stare at each other.

Then, the Winter Soldier pulls the trigger.

*******************************************************************

Previous   Next

[natkat-140]

I spy with my little eye...

So, it’s a long story that not everyone is interested in, but if you are, here’s what’s going on with my eye.

I’ve had type-1 insulin-dependent diabetes since I was 10 years old. I didn’t take care of myself when I was in my teens and early 20s. For those of you who know what this means, my HgbA1C was 13-15 for years. I felt like shit all the time but it kept me from gaining weight and that was more important to me (look up diabulemia lol). Anyways, I finally started taking care of myself when I went to nursing school but by then I had already done quite a bit of damage.

When your blood sugar is elevated, it can cause high blood pressure in areas where your blood vessels are very small, such as your fingers, toes, eyes, and kidneys. That’s why diabetics have issues in those particular areas. The increased blood pressure means less blood is able to get into those tiny vessels and feed those tissues with oxygen they need to be healthy. 

This was happening in my eyes since my early twenties. My body wasn’t able to get blood/O2 to my eyes properly, so it decided to make new, weak, baby blood vessels in hopes of compensating. It doesn’t work though. Those weak baby vessels are shit and they bleed easily. I was having teeny tiny microbleeds, but it wasn’t serious yet, and I improved my blood sugars to prevent more damage. I was going to the ophthalmologist every 6 months to keep a very close eye on it (ba-dum-psh) and all was good.

However, in December I had an accident at work. I was caring for a patient who was HIV positive and not taking his antiretroviral medications, meaning his HIV was active and transmissible. I was giving him an injection, but because of his HIV he was emaciated and had no muscle or fat on his body. The needle went through his tissue and into my finger. It was possible that I had contracted HIV, so I had to take medications that help prevent the infection. Those medications had GNARLY side effects, mostly nausea’/vomiting/diarrhea/dizziness/headache. BUT one of the more serious side effects was bleeding.

Four days after starting the HIV medication, I started having visual changes, like big black floaters and blind spots in one eye. Turns out I had a hemorrhage (large bleed) into my eyeball. There was no visible blood; it was all contained within my eye. But all those weak baby vessels burst open and blood poured into my eye. 

My vision in my right eye is like looking through a dirty, murky fish tank with yellow/brown tinged water, and someone dropped some black ink into it. It's all blurred and there are floaters that move around in swirly motions. It’s very annoying to see, I often think I see a bug flying by my face. And because my vision in the two eyes is so significantly different, it gives me a massive headache if I see out of both eyes for too long. I can’t focus on anything, but I can move around ok and see large general things. 

That’s why I’ve been wearing an eyepatch. It blocks my bad vision from my right eye, so I only see through my left eye which has good vision. That way I can read, look at screens, watch TV, etc, but it still puts a lot of strain on my good eye and my depth perception is completely fucked. I don’t drive at the moment because I don’t trust my judgement of depth even just driving around my parking lot. I also am not working, because I’m an ICU nurse and we need to be able to see well and safety is a huge issue. I don’t want another needlestick like I already had. Additionally, with my eyepatch, glasses, and mask, my field of vision is super super small and it’s hard to see around me. When I go to the grocery store with my dad I often have to walk beside him, hold onto his shoulder, etc so that I don’t bump into anything/anyone in my periphery.

So, with the bleeding, my doctor said the blood should just reabsorb into my body and we can do treatment to prevent further bleeding. Prevention included injections into my eyeball as well as laser to get rid of those weak baby vessels. We were able to do both of those in my good eye just for prevention. Unfortunately, the blood in my right eye was not reabsorbing and she couldn’t see the back of my eye in order to do the laser. We waited and waited and I saw her every 2 weeks to re-evaluate. 

Today, it was obvious that it’s completely stagnant. The eye exam photos look exactly the same as they did in the beginning of January. At this point, the only solution is actual surgery to remove the blood and clots from my eye and to help relieve pressure on my retina. I’ll be getting two cuts directly into each side of the whites of my eyeballs, about 2cm each. I won’t be put under anesthesia, but I’ll be thoroughly numbed and given “relaxing” medication. She said most people lightly sleep during the surgery. 

I’ll wear a legit surgical eyepatch for a day and then come back for evaluation. Should be 2-3 weeks after surgery that I start being able to see normally again, if all goes well. It’s scary because there is a risk of permanently losing my vision in that eye if there are complications. And, with this surgery, it is likely that I will need another surgery every ten years afterwards as maintenance. 

This whole thing has been really hard, but I’ve been trying to take it one day at a time and not worry too much. When I got the news that I would need surgery, I definitely went to the bathroom and cried. I freaked out, I’ve seen the aftermath of routine surgeries that have complications. I’m an ICU nurse after all. It happens. And that’s so scary to me. I think now, about 12 hours later, I’ve come to terms with it and I know that this is a step in the right direction. There’s nothing else to be done but to go forward with it if I want a chance at normal vision again. But I can’t help but beat myself up for being so careless about my diabetes when I was younger and not believing my doctors. It was 10, 15 years ago, but I’m just now seeing the negative effects of those decisions. 

Being at home alone all the time is difficult. With no work, no purpose. No ability to go anywhere in my car. Relying on others to help transport me and get my errands done. Just waiting to get better. This has happened so many times in the last few years. First I hurt my wrist, out of work for 6 months. Then I hurt my shoulder and was out for over a year. My shoulder never recovered, and both my shoulders now suffer from adhesive capsulitis - another fucking diabetic problem. Then I broke my ankle and was out for 8 months and still feel effects from it. So much time was spent alone in my apartment, unable to leave, unable to  live freely. 

And here I am again. Out of work, unable to leave my home or care for myself properly. I feel like such a burden, on my family, my workplace, society in general. I feel like I’m taking more than I can contribute. I feel lonely all the time. Useless, helpless. I thank the stars that I found an online community to be a part of this time around, and have made legitimate genuine friendships there. I can’t imagine how much more depressed I’d be if I hadn’t. I hope that I can be well again soon so that I can get on with my life. I’m scared of the surgery but I’m going to have it done. And we’ll see what happens.

[redditnosleep]

Past The Spine

by M59Gar

My friend Shannon had been through quite a bit in the past few years, and that was that only reason that I didn't immediately call the police when I stopped by her work and found her halfway through the process of climbing out of a recently deceased corpse.

She was drenched in blood, naked, and absolutely silent except for her exhausted breathing as she pulled herself up and out. The morgue around her was otherwise normal, and I saw no indication of how exactly she had fit inside the old man's body, but of course I was in shock. She had some towels ready nearby; I handed one to her as I turned respectfully away.

"Christ!" She jumped when she saw me standing there with the towel offered toward her, but took it quickly. "Shit, what did you see?"

I stared at the wall of cold chambers while she dried herself off behind me. "I don't know, Shannon, what the hell were you doing?"

"I'm not some kind of freak," she said immediately. "Please, just let me explain."

"Explain? What the hell could you possibly explain about this?" I put my shirt over my nose to block out the horrid smell of the open body, but it didn't work. I waited until she shoved her clothes on and finally turned around. "You missed some."

Her hair was still drenched in black, red, and yellow fluids, but the best she could do was to wrap a second towel around it. "Look. It's not some sort of fetish. There's something down there."

I fought down the urge to vomit as I looked into the frail old man's still-steaming body. His heart, lungs, stomach, pancreas, and intestines had all been coiled around in a haphazard circle covered in various oozes. "Down where?"

"In there." Her expression was haunted. "Past the spine."

"Is this a joke?" I couldn't believe it.

"No."

I took a step closer and tried to look down the middle of the circle of organs, but there wasn't any gap between them. "Then what do you mean? What's down there?"

She gulped unhappily. "I don't know exactly. A space."

Narrowing my eyes, I thought about what I'd seen. She hadn't slipped up out of the body sideways. She'd climbed straight up, as if out of a hole. The sight had been very disconcerting; it hadn't been geometrically possible, and my brain was still struggling to make sense of the memory. It was possible she was telling the truth, and there really was some sort of weird hole in this old guy's body. "You're serious?" I reached for a long metal tool on a tray nearby.

"That won't work," she said, stopping me. "It's made of metal, so it won't work. Only living things work. You can't even reach it wearing gloves. Has to be your bare hand, which is why I think nobody else has found this."

"Really." I sighed. It was definitely a prank, but I wasn't one to hesitate and get emotional. "Fine. Let's do this ridiculous nonsense." I took the last step, held my breath against the stench, and reached straight down. After pushing between squishy wet tissues and organs, my hand came to rest on the hard bones of the old man's spine. I looked to Shannon, but she wasn't laughing. "Past the spine?"

She nodded and gulped audibly.

As disgusting as it was, I was determined to see this strange situation through. I moved my hand to the side—and my fingers slipped deeper. "What the hell?" I frowned and leaned down closer to the corpse as my hand continued to push between what felt like a deep pile of squelching organs. I went down all the way to my shoulder until my short sleeve hit the inside of the old man's back-skin and refused to go further. "Oh my god, you're telling the truth!" I pulled my arm out as fast as I could and held it away to avoid the dripping juices I'd brought with me. My arm was covered in a distinctly thicker goo than the wet ring around my sleeve; whatever was down there, my non-living shirt had not been able to enter. "What is it?"

Shannon shook her head. "That's what I've been trying to figure out. After somebody dies, there's a short window where it, whatever it is, remains open."

I took another towel and wiped my arm off as best I could while trying not to gag. "Wait, do you mean it isn't just this particular body?"

"Yes." She went over and began sewing up the chest cavity. "I'm new here, but I accidentally discovered whatever it is on my second autopsy." She looked past me at the door. "My boss is never here and leaves me to do this on my own, so I've been trying to figure out what it is. I dropped vines down a few times, but they only work if they're still attached to the plant."

"Meaning still alive."

"Yeah. And only new corpses work. Ninety-six minutes or so after death, there's a weird tug, and then the vines are snapped off and I can't feel that weird space with my hand anymore. But I haven't been able to figure anything else out because technology won't go in."

It was disgusting, horrifying, and fascinating all at once. What could it possibly be? What could it possibly mean? "So you decided to go down there yourself."

She nodded. "I promise I'm not a weirdo. I just had to know. The thought has been tormenting me for months. What if that's where our soul is? Or what if it's an afterlife of some sort?" She looked away. "Or what if Brian's in there somewhere?"

That sounded like a problem. "Brian's dead, Shannon," I told her calmly. "You're not going to find him in whatever the hell that is."

Softly, she said, "You didn't see him die in front of you." She kept her gaze down to avoiding looking me in the eye. "The world is going crazy. There's hate and delusion everywhere. People need this now more than ever. If we could find out what happens after death, it could change everything."

What else could I say or do? She wasn't going to stop just because I said so. The most I could do was get her to agree to a certain set of precautionary conditions. She'd never gone more than a few moments deep simply because of sheer terror, but she would be safer if I was in the morgue to watch over her. We special-ordered the longest vine plant we could find and I waited for her call.

It came very late on a Tuesday. I spent six minutes getting there and bringing the plant; nobody else was around, and she already had the poor teenager cut open and ready, with a white blood-stained sheet over his head and legs. She disrobed, tied the vine around her left ankle, and then took a deep breath to calm herself. "There's at least thirty minutes left on this one," she told me.

I set my watch. "You've got seven minutes. No further. Just to be safe."

She nodded nervously and moved forward.

The sight of a person climbing head-first down into a steaming open chest cavity really cannot be conveyed in words. I'd popped nausea medicine on the way over, and I was glad I had. Her waist almost didn't fit, but I pushed her bare feet down, and she slid out of view between the organs, which congealed back into place once she was gone. The long vine began sliding down between, and I waited with a pounding heart.

What was she seeing? What was she doing down there? I was probably imagining it worse than it was, since she'd had space to turn around the previous time. My mind constructed a vision of a tight organic tunnel that might close like a muscle and crush her to death; or perhaps there was an enormous drop into a never-ending void. How could we possibly know until it was too late?

My watch counted down the seconds interminably. Four minutes passed, and then five. The vine was still being pulled in. At six minutes, it stopped, and I sighed with relief. That had to mean she was coming back.

But she did not emerge at seven minutes. The tension in my chest rose. At eight minutes, I began to pull the vine. It moved easily, and I figured I was pulling up slack—until a snapped end emerged. Panicking, I reached my hand down.

It was still there.

She hadn't been trapped. She'd just lost the vine at a weak point in the plant we hadn't caught.

I waited.

At ten minutes, I began to panic.

At eleven, I forced myself to focus.

At twelve, I knew for certain she was in trouble.

I paced around for a full thirty seconds before screaming at myself to stop wasting time. I tore off my watch and clothes, closed my eyes, and basically shoved my arms and head down into the swamp of blood and guts held open on the autopsy table. I found the teenager's spine and pushed my way past it; this time, I didn't stop.

It was easier than I expected. Despite the pressure from wet flesh on every side, I slid right in. The knot of vine tied around my ankle got caught on spine bones, but I reached back through the pile of organs and freed it with terrified fingers. It was only when I fell further and felt air on my face that I finally took in an explosive breath and opened my eyes.

The air was a thousand years beyond foul, but breathable, just like she'd told me. It smelled and felt like breathing in rotting corpse and dying diseased flesh as a veritable fog; a blood mist. The sight was similar. Shannon had also told me that the place had a dim crimson glow about it, omnipresent and without source, and by this light I saw choking miasma in two directions. Bloodless arteries opened to my left and right, neither big enough to fit a person until I pushed in and the muscle-bound walls relaxed to give me access. I followed the remains of her snapped vine.

More than anything, I wished I had clothes on. Every single surface was alive, pulsing with a distant heartbeat, and secreting dark substances that were strangely hot, cold, or even numbing to the touch. Being naked in an environment like that made me feel vulnerable in a way that brought out terror at every unexpected noise, sight, and texture. I cursed Shannon's decision-making more than a few times, that was for sure, but I wasn't going to let her die down here.

Her vine entered what looked like a hollow groove into a massive bone, and I was happy just to be on a solid surface as I crawled between increasingly narrow white walls lit in red. This tunnel had been carved; I could see that in the spiraling notches all around. Had the muscle-tunnels also been drilled out, but then later healed away the scars? It was as if some worm or parasite had dug its way through a dimension of flesh, and we were merely following in its ancient wake.

The smooth bone began to steepen, and I guessed that Shannon might have slipped and slid here. Carefully bracing myself on the spiral notches, I worked my way down the incline with my vine still tightly bound to my ankle.

And good I did. The bone-spiral tunnel ended at a steep fleshy drop-off. Shannon was there below, clinging to a solid white spur. I was still inside the bone itself, so I could only see down, but I carefully moved to reach her hand with mine.

She stared up at me with horror in her eyes. Her voice was odd, distant, and distorted by the rot-congested air. "Don't look out!"

"What do you mean?" I called to her. As I leaned out of the bone, the view away from the wall of flesh below began to open up. I'd finally reached an open place rather than a tunnel, and I could sense that if I turned my head I would see a tremendous vista. It was the same sense I'd had a few times in my life while riding a ski lift or walking past a window on a plane. All I had to do was glance—

She screamed again: "Don't look!"

For once in my life, I listened to someone else. I didn't look.

Our hands met, but both were slippery. I tried to rub the liquids off on my skin, but that didn't work. Everything was wet and disgusting.

I leaned down further and offered an elbow. "Wrap your entire arm around my elbow!" I shouted; the act made the world beyond us open up a little bit more, and I could feel horrific sights beginning to piece themselves together in the corners of my eye. I couldn't quite tell what was happening out there, but if I so much as darted my gaze—

She grabbed my arm and screamed in my ear: "Don't look! Don't you look, µ¬ßµ damnit!"

What had that been? She'd said a word, but the meaning and intonations had been alien to my mind. By the look on her face, she'd heard it, too.

I pulled her up with all my might, and the nightmare world outside our bone-tunnel receded.

Together, we climbed our way back up the spiral carvings, then crawled as fast as we could along bleeding muscle. The living world around did not seem to react to us or care about us in anyway. For some reason, I'd expected anger or hunger or at least something. If it was alive, if it was conscious, if it was sentient, we were nothing at all to it.

We reached the point where the vine rose up into a seething mass of dark organs, and I pushed her up ahead of me.

Then, for some reason, I turned and looked down the other direction; the way I had not gone when I'd first arrived.

The crimson-lit silhouette of a vaguely teenaged boy sat curled up and crying at a curve in the tunnel.

He raised his head, as if he could somehow sense my looking at him. He began to crawl forward. "Help me!"

Frozen and aghast, I waited.

"Help me!" he screamed again as he came nearer. "Oh, µ¬ßµ, what's happening? I was in the car, and there was this loud crunch, and I hit my head, and I thought for sure I—" He paused at hearing his own words. "µ¬ßµ? What is that? Why can't I say µ¬ßµ? Oh µ¬ßµ! No! Why? No!" He looked at me from two arm lengths a way. "Are we in Hell?"

I didn't know what to tell him. I'd never seen such agony and loss in another human being's body language before—and he still didn't know the truth. I gulped down my paralysis. "Can you... see me?"

He nodded. "Help me."

What could I tell him? I chose my words carefully. "I don't think I can."

"Why?" He whimpered so sadly I thought it would break my heart. "Why can't you help me?"

"You..." I shook with a portion of the pain I was about to give him. "...you don't have a face."

He just sat there sobbing as I leapt up and climbed. I knew the sound of that hopelessness would haunt me for the rest of my life. It was unlike anything a human being on Earth could make, for it was absolute, and it was forever.

I pushed up out of the corpse on the table and crashed my way to the cold, hard, dry floor. The impact hurt, but nothing had ever felt so safe and secure.

Shannon sat curled up in a corner, much like the boy I'd seen, and she'd given no thought to putting her clothes back on or getting the dozen kinds of plasm and blood off. She could only stare at the floor in shock, rock back and forth, and murmur, "He wants me to tell people about him."

"Who?" I asked her. "The teenager? He wouldn't survive here even if we brought him with us."

"No," she whispered. "µ¬ßµ. He wants me to tell people about him. He saw into me. He saw into me when I looked at him. He put his fingers in my grey matter and massaged my brain tissue without ever touching me. He said the Bible and the Quran are close, but we got it slightly wrong. A few things backwards." She stopped rocking in place and stared me in the eye. "We're not going to tell anyone about µ¬ßµ, are we?"

I got a towel and wrapped around it her. "No. We won't say a word."

And you know? At the time, I actually believed that. I thought I'd gotten away with it by not looking, but the corner of my vision did absorb some small portion of whatever nightmare she witnessed. That's why, after several weeks of resisting, I can't help but write this. I simply feel compelled to tell people what happened, and to tell people that µ¬ßµ exists. So, now you know, too.

I hope that's not a problem.