#my body is so sore rn but i managed to will the pain away into finishing this

[self-indulgentmanic]

alt ending:

[froggibus]

Rest and Recovery - poly! Zenyatta & Genji x reader

Pairing: poly! Zenyatta and poly! Genji x reader

Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff

Word Count: 1.4k

Summary: after getting hurt, Zen and Genji know just how to take care of you

CW: blood, violence, gang violence, fainting, severe injury, knives (switchblades), hurt/comfort, (fluff eventually i swear), poly! relationship (kinda)

here is my Zenji brainrot no one asked for lol. this has been on my mind for like a while but i finally got around to writing it. also have severe leon kennedy brainrot rn so there's a 50/50 chance next time i post it'll be that

————

Genji and Zen had always warned you not to go too close to the villages nearby the monastery. Though most of the locals had learned to live with the colony of omnics on the mountain, there were some who actively rebelled against them. 

Gangs pounced on any omnic or omnic sympathiser who got too close to city limits. The lucky ones came back to the monastery sore and missing a few parts, and you never learned what became of the unlucky ones. 

That’s what led the pair to constantly warn you about wandering too close. You were precious cargo, they said. They didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.  

Listening was never your strong suit. That’s how you found yourself being beaten by a few low ranking gang members.

One with dark, spiky hair spat on you. “Had enough yet, freak?”

You narrow your eyes on them. “No,” you lie. The truth is, your sides are burning and your head is spinning, but if you give in now, you’ll never be able to live with yourself. 

“That’s too bad,” another one says, his words punctuated by the distinct sound of a switchblade. 

Suddenly you’ve had enough. 

You scramble to your feet, your heart pumping adrenaline through your veins faster than you can track. The pain in your body fades as you try to run away, only for one to grab your hair and tug you into his chest. 

You kick off of him and manage to get away, but not before the switchblade grazes your side. Still, the scrape is nothing compared to the regret flooding through you. 

You run, pushing off of the pavement as hard as you can, dragging yourself back to the monastery limits. You’re barely aware of your injuries or the warm blood dripping down your side. Your only solace is that it’s just a scrape, that your injuries aren’t major and you won’t have to tell Zen and Genji about your scuffle. 

You wouldn’t be able to bear their disappointment. 

As soon as you make it to the main stretch of land, monks stare at you. You ignore their stares, limping to the temple and the rooms that reside around it. 

You stumble to your room, but as you get there, you see Genji leaning against the outside wall. “Genji?” You squint.  

“Oh my god, y/n…”

He looks horrified, dark eyes narrowed on you in surprise. You look down to where your hand has been squeezing the spot you got scraped, only to realize it wasn’t a scrape at all. 

Blood gushes from what you now see is a stab wound, pouring down your side and onto your legs. You look up at Genji, the reality setting in and bringing nothing but pain with it. 

“Wha—” you start to say, but your knees give in and the world goes dark. 

Genji catches you, your cold body falling against his. He swings your legs up over his arm, and before he even realizes where he’s going, he’s running to find Zenyatta. 

He’s frantic, tearing through the monastery in search of his master. You lose more and more blood by the moment. It pours over his clothes and down his body.

He finds him in the gardens, meditating. On a good day, he’d never disturb him while he concentrates. But it wasn’t a good day—it was the worst day of his life. 

“Master!” He calls, and the omnic’s head snaps up to see his student holding your unconscious form. 

————

You wake up warm and comfortable, almost comfortable enough to forget the horrors of the day. You blink your eyes open slowly, trying to adjust them to the light. 

Genji sits at your bedside, head in his hands. Next to him, meditating, is Zenyatta. The sight of your boys brings a smile to your face until you remember how you got injured. 

“G-guys?” You murmur, your voice hoarse. 

Both heads snap to you at the same time. 

“How are you feeling?” Zen asks. 

You shrug, “mostly good…just tired.”

“Y/n,” Genji sighs, leaning in to hug you. “What happened? How did you get so injured?”

“I-I left the village limits,” you admit, “I’m sorry, I know you guys said not to but-but I was bored!”

“Y/n—”

“Let’s not focus on the past,” Zen interrupts, shooting Genji a look. “I managed to heal, and you survived. That is what matters.”

His words don’t leave much room for interpretation, both you and Genji quieting afterwards. 

Zen rubs a hand across your forehead, smoothing your hair back. “I’ll get us some tea, okay?”

You nod and watch as he floats out of the room before turning your attention to Genji. He has his head in his hands, black hair falling through the cracks of his fingers. You sigh—it wasn’t fair for you to make him worry like this.

“Gen,” you murmur, running your hand across his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

He looks up at you with bloodshot eyes, eyebrows knit together. You run your hand up his shoulder and cup his cheek, the cold metal of his jaw warming under your touch.

“I never want to see you that hurt again, y/n,” his voice is shaking, “please don’t be so reckless with yourself. Please.”

“I promise.”

He sighs in relief, “thank you.”

You nod, reaching your other hand to intertwine with one of his. He offers you a weak smile, squeezing your hand in reassurance. Zen walks back into the room carrying a tray of steaming teacups and sets them down on the nightstand.

You can see him glance at your intertwined hands and hum in appreciation. He hands you a cup and another to Genji, and that’s when you notice the grey ball of fabric tucked under his arm.

“Here,” he notices your gaze and thrusts the fabric out to you, “you need to stay warm to recover.”

You flush slightly but set the tea down and take the sweater from him. You tug it over your head, the sleeves hanging over your hands and the fabric practically engulfing you. 

Genji looks at you and almost chokes on his tea, “isn’t that my sweater?”

“Indeed,” Zen says smugly.

“Why didn’t you get one of yours? Not that I mind but,” he gestures to how large it looks on you.

“Mine wouldn’t have looked so cute.”

If you were flushed before, you were practically on fire now. You weren’t used to all this attention from them, and certainly not at the same time. You take a deep breath and sip your tea, hoping it’ll calm your racing heart.

“Your face is so red, y/n,” Zen notes, “is it something I said?”

You want to tell him that he knows damn well it’s something he said, but Genji speaks first. “So cute,” he murmurs, using a thumb to brush a strand of hair behind your ear.

“G-guys!”

Both boys back off, chuckling slightly at your reaction. You squint at them, “how am I supposed to rest with the two of you teasing me?”

“Aw, y/n,” Genji coos, “we’ll leave you alone and let you rest, okay?”

He sits up from his chair and grabs his tea but you find yourself reaching up and grabbing the fabric of his shirt. “Wait—”

He turns around, Zen hovering just next to him. The sides of Genji’s mouth lift up in amusement. 

“Do you…do you guys have to go?”

“Of course not,” Zenyatta says, and suddenly he’s at your bedside and lifting up the corner of the sheets to lay next to you.

You’re so distracted by the sudden contact of warm metal on your skin that you don’t even notice Genji crawling in on the opposite side, essentially sandwiching you between them.

“Are you comfortable enough?” Zen asks.

You nod, curling up between them. Genji throws an arm across your waist and scooches closer to you, his body heat warming you better than any blanket.

“Good,” he says, “but you better actually rest, y/n.”

Your cheeks burn at the implication, but you’re too tired to make any jokes about how being sandwiched between them in bed has been a dream of yours for a while. Instead, you close your eyes and try to sleep.

[fabulouslyflamboyant5]

Just a random idea

If you know flowerfell then you know, but I will be explaining it anyways, since I'm not sure if you do

Basically, premise is simple - flowers are slowly growing on your body, consuming it. You can't get rid of them, since it would hurt as if you were cuting your own limb and bleeding would be unstoppable.

Now this - reader who's body is being consumed by blue spider lilies

It could be done with person who loves muzan or is simply hunted by him. Demon slayers are doing everything to keep the reader away from him.

That's it, that's my brain rn

Thank you so much sending this, I love this idea so much. I am not familiar with Flowerfell but I'll try my best!

An Immortals Wish To Be Mortal

It started with a small lump. You weren't concerned, it was probably a result of training, or at least that's what you believed.

It wasn't until a week went by that you began to worry. The lump was no longer just a lump but rather a red sore the size of a golf ball with what looked like a stem growing out of it.

‘This wasn't right....’

You kept your "injury," hidden for another week. Within those seven days, it managed to multiply across your body, all of them growing what appeared to be flower buds.

'Muzan can fix this,' you thought to yourself.

///

You approached his study and felt your nerves kick in, 'what if he can't help, what if something is wrong-', before you could finish your thoughts you were cut off by the man himself, Muzan.

"Y/N, is something wrong, I haven't seen you in quite some time," he speaks nonchalantly, obvious to your nervous state.

"I-I'm not sure," you stutter.

"Come now, lets discuss this in private," he says as he leads you through the doors.

The two to you sat down and you couldn't find it in yourself to make eye-contact with your lover.

"Darling, please look at me," he says while gently grasping your chin, "let me help you."

His eyes are warm, loving, and soft, something only you ever get to see. It brings you comfort knowing he is there. "I have flowers on my body," you say slowly.

His face is one of pure confusion, "I'm sorry Darling, can you please elaborate?"

"On my body, there are these weird lumps, well at least they were lumps. They have turned into flowers, look," you explain nervously as you role up your sleeve, showing him your petal filled arm.

He gently takes your arm and begins to examine it. The flowers are just beginning to bloom, soft blue petals barely visible to the naked eye. He tugs softly on one of the stems and you let out a painful gasp. "Did that hurt you?" He asks slightly concerned.

"Yea, just a little," you said, equally as concerned. "What do you think is wrong?" You ask in a scared tone.

"I'm not quite sure, Darling. Please continue to keep me updated on whatever changes you see. I'll begin working on a cure immediately." He says, trying, but failing to mask his concern.

He brings your knuckle to his lips and softly kisses them, "It'll be okay," he speaks with a comforting smile.

With that, you feel your worry drift away, 'It'll be okay.'

///

Another week has passed and there has been no signs of the buds going away. In fact, they have turned into full grown flowers, enough to interfere with the kimono that drapes your body. They looked like spider lilies but they were...blue?

"How ironic," you think to yourself.

Muzan is yet to take a break from researching your condition. Ever since the flowers formed he has refused to leave his office claiming, "I'm doing my bets to look for a way to reverse this." He never sounds convincing though, his eyes give him away. Instead of being filled with pride they are filled with worry, not something you usually get to see.

You have tried to pull the flowers out but whenever you pull too hard it feels like you are ripping off your skin, almost ask if the flowers are a part of you...

///

Muzan has been keeping himself inside of his office ever since he realized what flowers had been growing on you

Blue spider lilies.

The very flower he had dedicated his life searching for.

The flower that would allow him to conquer the sun...

Why must this have happened to you?

Of all people this could have happened to it had to be you, the love of his life.

Something that should have been an exciting time was now replaced with dread.

If he cuts the flowers off of you, you will die.

If he doesn't do anything, you will die.

The flowers were a part of you, cutting them off would be like cutting of a limb. However, not doing anything about them would be equally as bad as they would keep growing until they suffocate you...

For once in his centuries of being alive, he was torn.

///

Another week has passed and your health has begun to rapidly decline. They flowers are taking over your body and you are unable to walk on your own. Even breathing is hard, every breathe feels like your lungs are tugged on.

You have given up on getting better, instead accepting death as your certain fate.

Muzan has been torn. He knows you can't be saved, and for that he is devastated. He knew human lives were short but why was your death approaching so fast?

He debated turning you into a demon but you never liked the idea of it, always preferring to live out your life as a human...

What frustrated him the most however was his selfishness.

Of all flowers to have growing on you it had to be blue spider lilies!?

He has spent thousands of years searching for them and now, when he has finally found them, they are the very thing killing you.

He knows your going to die, you know your going to die, but how you die? That isn't in your hands.

Muzan has spent the last week debating what to do about the flowers.

If he lets you die, "naturally," the flowers will perish alongside you.

But if he cuts the flowers off of you the flowers will be usable...

He loves you, he really loves you, but he also loves himself, he wants to be perfect and his final step to perfection is right in front of him yet still so far away.

But he shouldn't waste time thinking of such things, he knows very well what the right thing to do is.

And with that in mind he heads to your room.

///

"Muzan, I didn't expect you to come and visit so e-early," you say, smiling weakly.

Your happiness is short lived however, you are beginning another coughing fit.

Your lungs feel as though they are on fire, it is almost impossible to breathe and you don't know what breathe will be your last.

You feel him crouch down beside you and rub small circles into your back.

"Don't speak, Darling. I'm here," he whispers quietly.

You lean back to rest and feel you eyes get heavy.

"I'm tired, sorry," you slur, knowing very well your tiredness isn't the reason for this turn of events.

"I understand," speaks, smiling sadly.

"Take them, please," you croak out, catching him off-guard.

"I don't know what you mean, please don't waste your breathe talking."

"You need them-m," you cough out. "If I'm going to die, please let me be of use, this way you'll always have a part of me," you whisper, smiling, or at least trying to.

Neither of your say anything else, instead you are only met with a searing pain.

Your lover begins ripping the flowers of of you, slowly, one, by one, while whispering words of, "I love you."

You die peacefully, happy you were of use to the man you loved most.

///

Muzan stands over your grave.

It is small and tucked away in an empty forest.

The spider lilies he planted are in full bloom, laying delicately against the tombstone.

The sun shines down on him but he loathes the feeling of it.

It was supposed to feel heavenly. He used to imagine the two of you standing under the warm rays, hand in hand what no cares for the world.

But that isn't the reality of your situation. Far from it.

Instead of standing beside you, he is standing six feet above you. The sun that was supposed to feel comforting feels like the heavens smiling down and mocking him.

He may be a demon, but he doesn't feel he deserved this, you certainly didn't.

He falls to the ground. Hands clenched in fists, a sob leaves his mouth, the tears are endless and he wishes the sun would just burn him so he can see you again...

///

I hope this was okay! I'm so sorry if this isn't what you wanted. I can rewrite it if you want, just message me.

[inviouswriting]

hi! ^v^ i reaalllyyyy like your writing! i have been reading them all for long ajskkskwjwk i really enjoy reading them💗💖🌸💖💗💖💗🌸💖💞💕💖💞💖💕💖💞💗💖🌸💖🌸💗🌸💞💞🌸💞💖💕💖🌸💗💖🌸💖💗💖💗🌸💖💞💕💖💞💖💕💖💞💗💖🌸💖🌸💗🌸💞💞🌸💞💖💕💖🌸

i will drop my request here since you do them~

( simeon x female! insecure! mc )

mc is a virigin and she is being insecure of her body on her wedding night with him?

i really need soft nsfw for simeon rn mmm

Thank you! It means alot to hear feedback on my work like this. I love writing virgin fluffy smut.

After all the trials and tribulations surrounding your relationship with Simeon, when you both made it public. Announcing that you are happy with the angel, there is an acceptance from the demons, more because you had told them from the start that the person you chose, is special to you.

You felt over the moon when he proposed, your relationship had bloomed tenfold that marriage was on the table. Diavolo more than happy to make it official, and use of his home for a venue to include everyone witnessing an angel and human marriage.

Simeon doesn't let struggles from the Celestial Realm affect your relationship, on promise nothing happens before your marriage as a bargain. So when that day comes, his eyes mirthy from seeing you dressed in the gown specially made for you more modest and fitted down to your legs instead of a princess ball gown style. How the vows made are eternal, not "till death do you part" that didn't exist to angels.

The important part for Simeon is he won't lose his rank, nor you. You will go with him back to the heavens.

The reception had kept going on, long after you and Simeon escaped to be alone. The first night together, you were actually more afraid of someone barging in on you both that Simeon assured you that won't happen.

You had excused yourself to the bathroom, you stared at yourself in the mirror, realizing you had married an angel. Would you be good enough for him, could you give him children if he desired? Would he not want you afterall. The fancy lace Asmodeus had given you to wear sits untouched in the bag. You didn't feel comfortable wearing it.

A soft knock on the door, and you jump. Simeon checking on you after you had been gone too long.

"Lamb? Everything okay?" His voice gentle, you realize you are standing half naked, and when he tries opening the door you shove back against it.

"Simeon! I'm sorry... please.. can you wait a little longer?"

"Alright... but please come out soon. Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine!" You eye yourself in the mirror, all you see is some imperfections. Enough to make you tug off the rest of the lacy underwear off and find a simple shirt that went down to your thighs and normal underwear. When you come out, Simeon sees you tug the hem of the shirt down to cover your front more. You look off to the side, not seeing him smiling choosing to be yourself rather than dressed up.

"Love? You look sad, why?" He holds his arms up for you, and you are coaxed to sit on the end of his legs. Blue eyes searching your face when you don't meet his eyes.

"Are you sure... about me?" Simeon is still dressed in the white tux he had worn though pulled open so he can breathe.

"Sure for what?" You finally meet his eyes, your face flushed pink, he would have commented how cute you are if it weren't for the tears bordering your eyes.

"Are you sure you want me... like that? I don't look good in the lace... I might not be what you want.." He's confused before it clicks, that you are more nervous about being intimate with him for the first time.

"My dove, my lamb. I don't care about the lace or the glamor of that. You are beautiful, you looked so stunning earlier in the dress..." You wait for him to continue, his left hand raises your head up to meet his stare. Soft are his eyes when he takes you in, he always stares like he sees your soul more than your body.

"We don't have to do that tonight if you're not ready." You raise your head a bit shocked.

"No! I want to! It's just... I worry... I won't be enough..." You look down to thumb with the hem of your shirt. You've desired this for as long as you have been with him, the time when you would finally be with him. He never did anything sexual with you except the few times your kissing ever got heated where he stopped it before you both gave into lust.

"You are more than enough, I actually like you in this better. It suits you more." Simeon presses his cheek to your face nuzzling it. You take in his unique features. His dark skin, with dark brown hair. The ever present smile, half lidded blueish green eyes you can feel the mild hunger behind them as he looks you over.

"So you want me too?" You feel a feather light kiss on your cheek. Your skin feeling electric when he ghosts kisses along your neck.

"More than you ever could know. May I?" His hands go to your head and threads his fingers through your hair tilting your head back as he leans his forward to give a full kiss.

You nod shyly, and the kiss he presses here, far from innocent. It is deep, full, and passionate that you squeeze your thighs at his sides, feeling heat rush through your body.

"Please be gentle..." You manage between the kiss, and Simeon guides you to lay down on your back. His hands tugging the hem of the shirt up to bare breasts to his eyes. He hums happily at the pink flush of your face when he pushes the shirt over your head. You raise up enough for him to pull it off entirely, tossing it.

You watch his hands tug the buttons of his top off, you feel a sense of shyness hit you realizing this was happening. Even more when the heat of his mouth presses kisses along your chest. Pausing over your heart then to a nipple. your body feels on fire from his touch, from all he is doing.

Your own hands help tug off his clothing, tossing the tux off the side. He is left in his white slacks, Simeon has guided you to up further till your head rests on the pillows. He raises up enough to really take you in after he removes your underwear. He stops to remove his own last barrier of clothing.

Simeon sees you watch him, a hand to your mouth to nibble on your fingers in anticipation. He does one extra, and you see a half glow from him as he lets his wings come out, along with the halo above his head. He has a glow to him, yet a soft one that doesn't make you feel sinful for what you are doing with him.

Simeon arcs his wings down to shield you from the rest of the room, till it is only him that sees you. He is kneeling down more, raising your waist to his own. your angel slips his hand between you both, his fingers find your clit and rub it in slow circles to tease you.

White hot runs through your body, and you begin to rock your hips with his fingers dancing over the nub. He does this for a while, getting you use to him touching you so intimately, knowing this won't be the first time he takes you.

But it is the first time, so he makes sure you are well prepared, he almost presses fingers inside when you grab his hand to still it.

"I want you to be the first thing that is inside.." You say hurried and through flushed cheeks. Simeon understands, and agrees to your request. He lifts your hips, withdrawing his hands to your waist to guide your thighs further apart.

You feel the tip of his erection rest flush against your virgin entrance. You feel anxiety run through your body, and tense up. Simeon rubs your arms to get you to relax, pressing in slowly, very slowly.

You close your eyes tight at the feeling of him pushing in, thinking it will hurt, but instead of pain. You just feel hot and thick from the stretch. A pleasant fullness that awakens an ache in your entire body. You look up at him in shock, Simeon's eyes are closed as he breathes out in pure bliss at sinking into you finally.

Simeon takes your hands into his own letting you grip them tight as he moves soft and slowly with you. There is no place left unkissed by him, nor is there a single spot he doesn't touch that isn't loved. You even feel him lift you to curl a wind underneath you bringing you up to be thoroughly ravished by him.

Your angel takes in every sigh you make, whisper of his name or how you plead for him not to stare at you so hungry in his eyes. He couldn't help how good you felt on him, and that he finally has all of you. Simeon takes your left hand with his own, holding it to your chest as his thrusts get wilder more needy. His kisses shorter and bordered with nips and pecks at the corner of your lips.

You feel pressure in your belly as he shifts enough to hit a spot that makes you see stars. The loud moan that he gets from you, he is trying to find that spot to see the blissful look on your face again. He feels your hand tighten, his thumb rubs your wedding band as he watches you come undone underneath him.

You moan out his name, and arch into him as he buries deep, listening to your cries as you cum for the first time with tears in your eyes from how overwhelming it is. Simeon keeps going till you squeeze tight, you feel liquid hot cum fill you. He stays within you, content to feel you wrapped around him longer as he lays on top of you.

Simeon kisses over your face till he places a deep one on your lips. When he pulls back from the kiss he cups your face with a hand, pressing his forehead to yours.

"Feeling okay?" He kisses a stream of tears on your cheek away. You nod, and there is a pleasant soreness in your thighs from his thrusts against your waist.

"Yeah.. just overwhelmed." You use the heel of your hand to wipe tears off, only for Simeon to do it for you. You feel him pull from you, and settles down next to you, tugging you into his arms.

"D-did you want to do more?" Simeon looks at you, and smiles.

"Of course I do, let us rest for a few minutes before we do more." He uses that soft voice, and you don't deny him. You fit nicely into his arms, cuddling in close. His wings curled, one underneath to keep you wrapped in his arms and the feathers, the other over the top proving to be a better blanket than you'll ever need.

You are facing him, and run your hands over his chest while he practically rubs his face against yours soaking up your petting on him.

When you rouse him further he takes you once more, still soft but more rambunctious when you find out how sensitive his back is. Ending with you nestled full in his arms worn out and blissed out. You still hold insecurities for the future of being a good life partner to Simeon, but know he will guide you every step of the way.

[whump-town]

Hospital

A hurt Emily fic for idk anyone. I just wrote it forever ago and just got around to finishing the ending... Hotchniss and whump soo I’m also like obsessed rn with retired Hotch and Emily still working but also like old Hotchniss is really soft 

“Hotch!” His large dark figure jogs down the hall. Even aged, cheeks covered with a soft greying beard, and hair a little longer than what used to be typical, it takes Garcia only a glance to know that it’s him. A single glance to recognize the distinct way that he exists in space. She rises to her feet to meet him as he comes to a breathless halt. “What’re you doing here?”

He’s shaking, eyes scanning over the little crowd of them. “Where--” he recognizes them even if he doesn’t know them. Luke Alvez, Emily’s always going on about him. Hotch had hired the young man and Emily never stops reminding him of that. He’s surmised the younger man is to her what she used to be to him-- a pain in the ass. Matt Simmons, tall, charming, and looks exactly the same as the first time Hotch met him years ago. Tara, whom he knows, and respects for her ability to work so flawlessly with Emily. Then JJ and Reid.

“Where is she,” he asks. A few years ago, he would never be putting on the show that he is right now. He certainly wouldn’t be standing here. He’d be off hidden somewhere, reeling with emotions and probably being an ass to anyone unfortunate enough to run into him. But not today. “Where’s Emily?”

They’ve been doing this little dance for ages. For longer than it even matters to count. He hadn’t been brave enough to say anything, never has been. So, even after thousands of letters back and forth from London, Emily coming home to help the team, and stopping Scratch… She’d found him, though.

Weekends started revolving around her schedule. She and Jack spending time together, to make up for how she left things after Doyle. Then… they didn’t even need Jack. They started texting again. She’d tell him about Luke and Reid getting into trouble. How Matt has the cutest kids. That Garcia is dragging them out for a girls’ night.

And, standing in the middle of this hospital corridor, he finally understands what it’s like to be on the other half. What it must have been like for Haley and Will and Luke’s wife. To not know if the other half of you is…

Dave appears from the hall, calm. He smiles when he spots Hotch. “Aaron,” he calls, with a small wave. For old friends, he hasn’t seen much of the man since his retirement. More than the team, Jack’s a very big fan of weekends spent up at Dave’s house but still. It’s been a while.

“Dave,” Hotch breaths. He steps up to the older man, twisting and anxiously pulling at his hands. Trying to work the stress out of his body. “Is she okay?”

Rossi looks the younger man over. In this state, he’s not going to be nearly as soothing as Dave needs him to be. Emily’s hurting and she’s asking for Hotch but they’re going to be like gas on a house fire if he lets them near one another right now. “Sit down,” he instructs, motioning to the chairs.

Hotch’s bottom lips trembles, his voice thick as he barely manages to form Rossi’s name. “Dave, please,” he rasp.

Rossi doesn’t budge.

Knees shaking under him, Hotch sinks heavily into the chair. He leans over himself, elbows on his knees. “I don’t have time for this,” he complains, working his fingers through his hair.  He rubs at his face, sniffling as he roughly wipes the tears that fall against his will.

He glances up when a hand falls on his back, Tara offers him a smile. “She’s strong,” Tara informs him with a strength that he wished he had. “I was with her the entire time,” Tara inhales calmly, drawing her shoulders up with the breath. If she wants to reflect the calm that Hotch needs, she needs to look the part. With a nod of her head she adds, “she was aware the entire time. Trying to give orders and keep us calm.”

He nods his head, bottom lip still trembling and eyes rimmed with the tears that he refuses to let fall. “Sounds like Emily,” he manages, eyes shifting to the team as they nod agreeance. Her team. He’d left the BAU to her and she’d nestled and nurtured like she does everything. Looking at them, gathered around him and just as worried as he is, he can’t imagine why she’d ever been so afraid to take over.

“Alright,” Rossi sighs. He sits down beside Aaron, preparing himself. He’d seen her. Not her power of attorney but still trusted enough that his name was the second one she thought of when she woke up. She needed someone and Aaron hadn’t been here. “She’s sedated--” he holds up his hand when Hotch tries to cut in. “I know, I’ve already requested they pull her off the medication. I know she doesn’t like it.”

Pushing his hand through his own hair he sighs, “she’s… tired but she wants to see you.” Hotch nods. “You have to be calm.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Dave shakes his head but caves, “alright.”

She’d taken a hit straight to her vest. Laid out on her back struggling to breathe, she’d realized that she’s way too fucking old for this. She remembered all the times Aaron had tried to convince her back to bed in the early mornings. Practically begging her to just take the day off. To stay here with him.

When she wakes up in the hospital, stiff and in pain, all she wants is him. Someone to hold her hand and to pull her hair off of her back. It’s itchy and she hates it.

Seeing Dave, she could have cried. So certain he was going to deny her and tell her Aaron wasn’t coming.

“Aaron,” she whispers, a sob bubbling its way up out of her throat. She’s too weak and hurting to reach out for him but he doesn’t break stride when he sees her. “There you are,” she can’t remember what happened between taking that shot to the vest and now. There’s a faint, faint, memory of the feeling of her blood pooling around her. Fear. She’d been afraid. Now, face pressed into his shoulder and his arms wrapped tightly around her, she’s not afraid at all.

Pressing her face into his clothes she smiles, “you smell good.”

He laughs but it’s chocked and sounds more like a scoff. “Thanks,” he croaks. Sniffling, he pulls back from her hug. There’s a fleck of blood on her neck, leftover from the wound on her side. He’s already mapping out ways to keep her comfortable when he gets to take her home. The couch isn’t any good but their bedroom is on the second floor of their house. He’s a little too old to be carrying her but he already knows he’ll pull his back out before he makes her walk up the stairs.

“I like the beard,” she whispers dreamily, fingers scratching at his facial hair.

He places his hand over hers, cupping her hand there.

“Aaron--”

He covers his mouth, looking away as his breathing hitches his tears to fall.

“Honey,” she whispers, tugging his hand when he keeps himself turned from her. Trying to hide his tears. “You don’t have to hide,” she reminds him softly. He still keeps his head turned. “Well, if you’re going to hide your tears will you at least make yourself useful and come over here and cuddle me, huh? I’m tried and I’m in pain and I don’t sleep alone.”

He shakes his head, pulling his hand from hers, wiping at his face.

“I wasn’t playing,” she clarifies. “I need another blanket and your big dumb butt up here with me.”

Rubbing his tears away, Hotch forces himself to breathe. To calm down. Clearing his throat, he goes to the closet on the other side of the room. Retrieving her second blanket. “There’s not enough room on there for me,” he informs her, spreading the blanket and draping it over her delicately.

She frowns, sadly looking down at the room between her sides and the railing. She’s pouting. Very childishly so but he can’t stand to see her sad and she knows it. “Please,” she whispers. “Won’t you just try?”

He sighs and she knows she’s won.

He’s terrified he’ll hurt her but she’s completely okay with that.

“How,” he’s half on the edge, scratching at the side of his face as he tries to figure out how to lay on his side or--

“I don’t care,” she replies, head leaning on the pillow as she watches him. She’s always thought his thinking was rather hot. So analytic and logical. Funny thing is, both of those traits also annoy the hell out of her.

With a nod of his head, she can see he’s come up with his plan. He’s got his “business” face on, or, as she calls it, his “Agent Hotchner” face. It’s very distinct and cute.

“Oh careful with the hands mister,” she giggles, smiling when he places a hand on her stomach, carefully maneuvering himself around her. His thumb grazes her breast and she’s only in this hospital gown. He rolls his eyes but she knows he loves her little jokes.

When he stops moving, he’s successfully managed to get mostly behind her, allowing her to lean back against his chest. A favorite cuddling position of hers. He’s very content with himself. She’s happily moving herself to nestle as closely as she can.

“You’re very warm,” she informs him, wincing when she pulls on her sore side. He rubs her back and she can feel herself relaxing again. Everything is warm. Her head is on his chest, she can hear his heart beating, and his breath running down under her gown across her skin. She’s not going to be able to stay awake like this.

“Emily?”

His voice has thickened again and she can hear the tears in his voice. Without opening her eyes she finds his leg and pats it, trying her best sleepy and hurting to comfort him as best she can. “What is it, my love?” She doesn’t make a habit of using little monikers like that in their day-to-day life but occasionally it’s the best way to remind him she loves him.

“I love you,” he whispers, “you know that, right.”

She smirks, he’s always so anxious. Terrified one day she’ll wake up and doubt every minute of the last decade. “I know,” she assures him. “Most of the time,” she amends with a smile, “I doubt it a little when you wake me up snoring or leave the toilet seat up.”

He smiles and shakes his head.

Good, she thinks and sighs contently. They’re going to be okay.

[nomazee]

scatterbrain

bokuto koutarou x reader

word count: 2200+

content: fluff, friends-to-lovers, pining bokuto, ooc bokuto.

(i’m in such a bokuto mood rn so i wrote this!! i did NOT expect this to get this long but oops!!

bokuto is probably,,,VERY ooc in this but this is really just self-indulgent fluff!! hope you enjoy! <3)

(also!!! quick reminder!! my requests are open!! my request rules can be found linked in my navigation which is my pinned post!! feel free to request <3)

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

contrary to popular belief, bokuto thinks. he thinks a lot. granted, a lot of his thoughts are devoid of any deep meaning, like the possibility of taming a wild owl and keeping it as a pet, or the question of whether he should get two or three meat buns after practice. 

bokuto thinks a lot. he knows this. his mind gets very cluttered sometimes with various random topics. that’s why when his mind started becoming a cohesive conversation of one solid topic, something was wrong. very wrong. 

he started thinking about you. a lot. 

when he first realized it, he figured he should look into it--find out what caused him to have his mind flooded with thoughts of you, your smile, your eyes, your hair, your hands, your voice and nose and lips--

then he realized that he already knew very well why he thought of you so often. 

almost comically, he smiled to himself and thought, “well, i guess that’s that!” and resolved to never approach the subject again. confident as he could be on the court, bokuto was sure that if he ever tried to take action about his feelings, the result was sure to be disastrous. it was best to stay away from any fantasies of his. 

that was hard to do, though, when you seemed to occupy both his thoughts and his day-to-day life. 

you were in the same class--that was just his luck--and while you weren’t an official manager you had a tendency to stop by practice and watch the boys play while chatting with yukie and kaori until it was time to go home. 

(he also often walked you to the train stop. fate really made the stars align when he didn't want them to align.)

though, he had to owe it to fate for allowing your seats to be on separate sides of class. at the very least, he had that relief from the constant pressure he applied on himself absentmindedly whenever he was in your presence. 

during lunch, bokuto sped out of the classroom door and in a direction away from the cafeteria. you seemed to notice this quite quickly and darted to chase after him. 

bokuto felt a warm, firm hand on his shoulder and the distant scent of peppermint. he cursed himself for not walking fast enough and wondered if he could jump up with enough fervor to break through the ceiling. 

“hey,” you were smiling at him as you sidled up next to him. he was thankful he had your real expression right in front of him--the gentle image in his mind was fading by the minute and he appreciated the refresher. “where’re you going? i thought we were still eating lunch together?” 

right. lunch. eating. food. the empty feeling in bokuto’s stomach reminded him of the fact he’d skipped breakfast after thinking so hard about his feelings and what to do with them that too much time slipped away to let him eat something properly. 

“oh, yeah!” he forced a smile--”forced” wasn’t really the right term though, because with you everything flowed so naturally and so easily that he never had to force himself to do something. 

“i was actually planning on practicing a bit instead of going to the cafeteria.” your expression fell the slightest bit and he scolded himself internally for being the cause of even the mildest discomfort of yours. “i’m really sorry for not telling you! really sorry! i should’ve texted you or something. i’m sorry! but i’ll make it up to you if--” 

“bo!” your lightened expression was back and he, cheesily, melted at the sight. “it’s fine! i’m not angry at you. well, at least not for that. i’m just worried that you’re not eating lunch.” 

uh oh. his stomach didn’t feel that great. it felt like there were a bunch of wild, frantic insects in there that pushed and pulled at the tissue in an attempt to get out. he thought he needed to vomit. 

it was nice that you were worrying about him. you did that a lot. the reminder only made him feel lightheaded and briefly convinced that maybe it wasn’t a crush and actually just a really bad, persistent stomach flu that only flared up in the presence of the girl of his dreams. 

he spoke through a smile that he hadn’t even noticed appeared on his face so brightly. “it’s really sweet that you’re worried.” his words were hazy and lovestruck. midway through the interaction he stopped putting so much effort in hiding his adoration for you. he figured maybe you’d appreciate it one way or another, even if it was just to make fun of him in your head. “but i’m fine! no worries! i’ll make sure to eat when i get home, promise.” 

you gave him a nod, “promise,” and a quick wave and then you were off to the cafeteria. to eat lunch. would you be alone? when you both ate lunch together you didn’t really hang out with anyone else--as much as bokuto’s teammates offered to let you sit at their table, you were both perfectly content with just sitting in the presence of each other, alone. 

dreamily, his grin persisted on his face and his eyes grew glittery and unfocused before his lips dropped at another realization. 

you’d be alone. would you feel lonely? would you be mad at him for making you feel that way? 

he made it to the gym already by the time he realized that. maybe this time alone would let him settle his fluttering heart and compose himself so he could be conditioned to tolerate your presence more often without drifting away into a bunch of domestic daydreams. 

a sick feeling in his stomach persisted all through his spiking practice. it was less pleasant than before. his body temperature grew both from unease and the physical exertion caused by extra practice. 

maybe he really was sick. in one way or another. 

---

you showed up to the gym fifteen minutes into bokuto’s practice. the boys were still slowly getting ready, so you took the time to approach bokuto and hand him a small and weighty paper bag. 

“meat buns,” you told him, extending the package in his directions. “it’s not good to skip meals just to practice. you still have to eat!” despite the scolding tone, your face remained playful and taut in a smile. bokuto wondered if your cheeks every became sore from grinning all the time. as much as he didn’t want you in pain, he was willing to give you all the face massages you wanted as long as it kept you smiling at him so often. did face massages exist? were they a thing? he’d study the art of massage for you and develop a technique, whatever was necessary. 

“y… yeah…!” he responded dumbly. his was certain his face was unhealthily red as his body instinctively moved to wrap you in his arms. 

hugs were typical between you two. it wouldn’t be weird, right? oh well. too late to think about it, since you were already embraced in the warmth of his arms. 

“are you alright?” your voice came out muffled and gentle from the depths of his embrace and his heart fluttered at the way your voice rumbled through his chest. “you feel kinda warm.” 

he was warm? he thought you were way warmer than him. though maybe he meant that in a less physical sense. he couldn’t tell the difference anymore--not with you. 

“yeah, just kind of tired.” before he could ridicule himself at the fact that tired had no correlation to having a full-body flush, he continued to reassure you, “but i’m fine! i’ll make sure to take care of myself.” 

he felt your smile appear against the fabric of his shirt and wondered if it was weird that he was willing to die in that position. 

after a moment of relaxing in each other’s grasps (and ignoring the distant gossip of his teammates), bokuto pulled back with a grin, a nod, and the longing to press a kiss against your forehead. 

practice was good. it felt easier than it had been last week, though he probably owed that to the visit you paid him in the afternoon. he came to the conclusion that running from you just to “figure out his feelings” was stupid. he knew what he felt. he didn’t have a single clue what to do about it specifically, but thought that was fine. it felt good to be around you--he’d be stupid to let opportunities to spend time with you pass him by. 

---

apparently you sat with akaashi the day before, when bokuto was away from the cafeteria during lunch. he figured that out when he went to sit at your usual table only to find you accompanied by his setter. 

“bo! hey!” you greeted, pausing the ongoing conversation with akaashi. “i forgot to tell you, but akaashi’s sitting with us today. he sat with me yesterday so i just figured the three of us could start eating lunch together.” 

bokuto didn’t really think much of it. if anything, he was thankful that akaashi had kept you company and alleviated the ace of some of his lingering guilt from the day before. 

he had no qualms with having the duo become a trio for the period, and found himself enjoying the conversation floating between all of you. 

well. sort of. he didn’t really get to talk much with how exuberant you seemed to be with akaashi. it was nice to see you so happy and active with his friend, and the sight of your smile was enough to distract him from the unpleasant simmering of his stomach acid. 

for the most part. he had to excuse himself to the bathroom in the middle of class to splash cold water on his face and try to subdue the uncomfortable heat that was certainly not reminiscent of his previous warming adoration for you. 

despite how many times he urged you to go home early, you assured bokuto that you were fine with staying for his practice the whole time, ending your defense with a, “i really wanted to walk with you today!” and a smile that made him fall into your unintentional trap. 

true to your word, you walked to the train station with bokuto, boarding the same train. conversation was light and typical, but his leg kept bouncing and heart urged for him to say something before everything imploded under the pressure of his emotions. 

“are you dating akaashi?” great going, bokuto thought, the most discreet, subtle thing i could’ve possibly asked.

you blinked, and turned your gaze from your phone screen to him. you huffed out a lighthearted laugh and nudged your elbow into his ribs playfully. “of course not. we only really started talking yesterday. i wouldn’t date someone i barely know.” 

bokuto’s mind went on overdrive, the news coming as a deep relief for him and making him ignore the blaring reminders of potential consequences that flashed bright and red in his head. his mouth spilled words before he could logically think of what to say and figured letting his heart guide, as always, wouldn’t be a terrible choice. 

“so you’d date someone you do know? a lot? like a friend?” 

once again, his words weren’t discreet in the slightest, but he had tunnel vision pointed in your direction, covering you in a sheer golden light like you were the only thing that mattered in that moment--because you were. no need for detailed thought processes or pros and cons lists that he’d briefly considered making (“that’s what professionals do, right?”). 

your smile persisted, and he took that as a good enough sign to continue with his mindless stammering. 

though your voice interrupted his next outward train of thought, and he listened with the focus of a child watching a television screen. 

“what about this saturday? at noon? at that sweet little cafe near my house?” 

bokuto blinked. processed your words with an intensity unmatched, even compared to those times he had to write those stupid DBQs and analyze sources that were way too complicated for him to handle very well. 

you words were much easier for him to understand than college-level essays. much lighter, much sweeter, like agave syrup and orange zest. 

“yeah. this saturday. that’s… great.” 

bokuto wondered if it was possible to develop sudden onset asthma as you slid closer to his form, side pressed up against his in a way that felt much more meaningful than any casual touches from before. he lost his breath--felt like he dropped it--as you gave him a smile and let your hand casually fall against his. 

(he walked you all the way home, which he didn’t usually do, but today wasn’t really usual. you asked if you could kiss him, and in a fit of overwhelming emotions he blurted out “i thought i was supposed to do that?!” only for his words to be muffled by your lips on his. bokuto’s mind went silent for the first time in a long time, only filled with a gentle buzz and glimmering stars that made him feel warm and dizzy.)

[bizarre-alien]

Saturday Morning

I made a short Erasermic fic on Saturday, and I just wanted to post this here because why not! It takes place when they were in their 20s, and Shota is gonna do something bold after a night of clubbing with Hizashi which, apparently, didn't turn out so well!

Saturday mornings were hard sometimes. Waking up hungover while my brain tries to recollect memories of last night only makes me numb with this dull melancholic ache in my chest. I stretched out my limbs across my bed to find that I was all alone. “Shocker.” I thought to myself sarcastically. I slowly turned my body over to get my phone that was on my nightstand. To my surprise, it was hooked up and charged. “No, I was too drunk to do something this responsible.” I mumbled as I unplugged it. There were some unread messages from Yamada, and it brought this warm feeling inside that my heart seemed to crave.

“Last night was WILD! Please text me when you wake up. I need to know you lived! 😭”

“I did lay you on your side with a bucket, pukey! 🤣”

“OMG ARE YOU ALIVE?? I MISS MY BEST FRIEND!”

“I should’ve just crashed on your couch instead of taking the cab back to my place… Could’ve saved myself from stress and money… LMAOOO”

“SHOOOOOOTAAAAAAAA”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at his sweet attentiveness. He never failed to put a smile on my face even if he wasn’t around. I took a selfie and sent it to him. “I lived, bitch. 😤”

I felt my stomach shock from anticipation as I saw the ellipsis pop up. “YOU LOOK GOOD FOR A DEAD BITCH!!” The ellipsis came up again. “Also, you looked cuter than me in the shirt I let you wear. If you wanna keep it, you deserve it! I have your shirt, and it’s nice and clean! I think I’ll wear it today!”

I couldn’t help but to blush at his remark. “It’s mine now. I’ll take good care of it.” I looked down to see which shirt it was, and I gasped. It was an exclusive shirt from one of his favorite bands that he got at a live show. The exact one that he said he wanted to be buried in. “WAIT ARE YOU SURE BC I JUST SAW WHICH ONE IT WAS”

“It’s okay!! I’d rather see you wear it instead. 💖”

“... That’s very sweet…”

“How do I look? I’m going for that Shota Aizawa look. Don’t mind my lack of pants, please. 🥰🤣” His selfie nearly made me drown in affection. He looks so good in my shirt… And his legs...

“*Chef’s kiss* You rn…” Were we flirting, right now?? No. He has someone, right? “Wait… Are you flirting with me to make your so jealous? What did he do wrong, now? 🥴” The ellipsis came up, but went away… Then again… Then nothing. I began to worry. “Zashi, I’m playing. You know that, right?” The other end was radio silent, and I felt anxiety surge through me. Was it a sore topic and I didn’t know? Did I just ruin our friendship? I mean, how would that screw everything up? After all we’ve been through for the past 7 years, that couldn’t have been the final straw… right? I was pulled from my overthinking by my phone vibrating. It was Zashi calling, and I picked it up immediately. “Was that a bad thing to say? Because I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt-!”

“It’s okay, Sho!” He chuckled reassuringly to me, but I could hear the pain in his voice. “I forgot that you black out when you’re drunk… No, me and him are done. You broke his nose when I came to you crying about it. We had to leave the club because of all the drama, but no one knew who we were… Thank God, right?”

“Yeah…” I was silent for a moment as I tried to remember what happened.

“Sho! We’re leaving. Come on!” Hizashi roared as he made his way to me.

“Hold, hold, hold. What happened?” I stopped him in his tracks and grabbed his arms. “Zashi, are you okay? Where’s-?”

“Who cares? I hate him! Let’s go!”

“But you left me to blow him in the bathroom! What do you mean you hate him, now-?”

“I wish I didn’t, and I’m so sorry! He’s a monster in disguise, but I was too stupid to notice AGAIN!!” Zashi burst into tears as he held onto me tightly. We stumbled a bit, but I held him back with all I had. I feared that this was gonna happen.

“I knew there was a reason why I couldn’t stand him.”

“Baby, you got it all wrong! I love you, Hizashi! I wanna marry you!” I heard the voice of Zashi’s former lover, and the alcohol in me decided to take control of my body.

“You take another step, and you’ll regret it! Don’t think I won’t have you on the ground, you piece of garbage!”

“Sho, let’s just get out of here! I gotta go!” Hizashi pushed me towards the exit. “It’s not worth it!”

“Hizashi!” The moment he grabbed Hizashi’s arm, I went feral.

I dug my nails into his wrist to get him to let go of my best friend. “Piss off!” I roared as I got Hizashi behind me. Before I could register anything, I felt my right fist connect with his nose hard enough that it sent a shock up to my shoulder. “I knew you were trash the moment I laid eyes on you! You don’t deserve Zashi!” I wanted to go for more, but I felt a multitude of hands grasp at me and pull me towards the exit. I managed to spit on Zashi’s ex before we were escorted out of the club.

“Oh my God, Shota! That was intense!” Hizashi grabbed my shoulders and shook me. His makeup was smeared from his tears, but it made him look like an ethereal being. “You good?”

“Mmh.”

“I can’t believe you did that for me! You’re so sweet! Oh my gosh, like you- Oh, God!” He backed up as he looked at me again. “Alleyway. Alleyway!” He guided us to the alleyway and held my hair the moment I let everything out. “Oh, God. It’s on your shirt. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” When I spat out the remains, he gently took off my soiled shirt. “You are so lucky that I have on something sexy underneath this tee! I guess this may be a sign to dress sexy for myself instead of waiting for someone to see it in private, huh?” He pulled off his band tee and handed it to me with a smile. He had on a fishnet long sleeve bodysuit with nipple coverings, and he looked like the biggest rockstar in that moment… but, that was my best friend… My best friend is the biggest rockstar and he’s holding my gross shirt.

“You’re so freaking nice, Zashi!” I began to tear up as I put on the shirt. “I’m so sorry!”

“I should be sorry! I didn’t listen to you. I just listened to his dick!” We laughed like a couple of hyenas as we took our drunken selves to our favorite place to eat when we drank our weight in booze.

“Zashi." I sighed and shook my head. "I’m so sorry."

“Thanks. It hurts, you know? He wasn’t who I thought he was. I guess… I don’t know how to pick ‘em, huh?” He tried to laugh, but he went quiet.

Never in my life did I want to reach out to him through the phone and hug him as much as I do now, but all I could do was hug him with my words. “You have a big heart and a warm presence that deserves to be honored and cherished, and he just didn’t get it. If I had the chance, I’d punch him again. You deserve so much better, and you will get that.”

“When, Shota?” There was a pause.

“When the time and place is right.” I wanted to say right now and with me, but I chickened out. “That person will love you and nurture your heart, and that person will be the most lucky human in all existence and memory.”

“I wish it were-” He paused and sighed. “I wish it happened now.”

I felt my heart jump and my mind started to race. Did he want me? Should I risk it all? Were we both too afraid of screwing up our friendship? “Hizashi…”

“Hey, do you mind if we meet up somewhere? Your place, my place, a restaurant… Anywhere, honestly! I just need to see you. Sorry if that sounds clingy. I just-”

“Of course! I would love to meet up. You’re going through a tough situation, and I’m more than happy to be there for you.” I smiled. “You can come over to my place and we can decide if we wanna go out or not.”

“That sounds good. I’ll get coffee on the way, okay? I know you need it.” He chuckled.

“You’re the best.” I sighed in relief. “I think coffee would solve a lot of problems, right now.”

“Hey, Shota?”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to know how much I value our friendship. We had rocky moments, but there isn’t a day that I’m not grateful that we smoothed things out. I can freely be myself around you, and that’s really rare nowadays because all these fakes are roaming the streets.”

“It doesn’t help that you’re well known, huh?” I joked.

“Exactly! You keep me from losing my mind… You inspire me, you encourage me, and I know I can be vulnerable with you and you wouldn't judge me for it! I just really love- Ugh... No, I should stop. I’m getting sappy.” He burst into laughter.

“Funny enough, I needed to hear that.” I blushed and rubbed that back of my neck. “Hizashi, I actually wanna talk to you about something when you get here. It’s important to me, so that’s why I wanna wait.”

“Oh, for real? I’m not in trouble, am I?”

He was so cute. “No, not at all!” I snorted.

“Good! Give me a few minutes, okay? I’ll be there in a bit.”

“In Hizashi minutes, right? I'm guessing that it'll be an hour before you get here.”

“Shut up, man! I can’t help the fact that I’m a high maintenance scatterbrain!” He whined on the other line.

“Whatever. Just get here when you get here. You know where the spare key is, so I’m gonna take a shower and clean up the place a bit.”

“Sounds good!”

“Okay, cool. See you then.”

“See you!” He sang then hung up.

I looked at my phone with a whirlwind of emotions. The comfort of his voice still in my heart, but it wrestled with the anxiety that I felt in my chest as I knew what I set myself up for. The timing seems wrong, but I was so caught up that I could care less. What if he hates me for even confessing now? Yet again, it seemed that he was dying for me to confess… I just know that this is the last Saturday morning I wanted to spend hungover by myself. I wanted to wake up to messy blond hair in my mouth, limbs entangled, and the sweet smell of his natural scent mixed with the ghost of his perfume of choice from the night before.

The feeling was so strong that I clutched my pillow for dear life, and I couldn’t tell what kind of tears were falling from my eyes. All I could do is lay there and imagine what could possibly become a reality while also fear that I could make this imagery impossible if I said the wrong things. Funny enough, this hurricane of emotion is something that I’m just observing. Somewhere deep in my core, I felt a sense of relief and peace. And it was that very peace that gave me the strength to get up and get ready for a life changing discussion with my best friend.

Thank you! Bye!

[winchesters-favorite-girl]

Flatline-Part Eight

A/N: Jensen and his sixteen year old daughter get into an argument before she goes out for a night with some friends. A few hours later, Jensen gets a call that is going to change his family’s life forever.

Word Count: 1,790

Warnings: Swearing, hospital setting, panic attack

Masterpost

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“This food blows.” You stated as you scooped up some of the soup in front of you before letting the liquid slide off of the spoon.

“That’s not very nice.” JJ said from her spot next to you on a chair as she continued to flip through her book, looking at the pictures.

“Yeah well, you’re allowed to eat real food. I’ve been eating this hospital crap for over a week and it sucks.” You replied, glaring over at your little sister before throwing the spoon down onto the tray in front of you. “I just wanna go home.”

“‘M sorry sissy.” JJ told you, putting her book down before walking to the bed, “Mama packed PB&J’s for me, I can go grab you one if ya want.”

You couldn’t help but crack a small smile with her words; the first time you’d smiled since waking up. You woke up eight days ago and had been miserable ever since. There was constant pain, the food was terrible, your family never gave you a minute alone. Your entire world had changed while you were sleeping and you weren’t doing a good job coping with it. The doctors weren’t sure you’d ever walk again and all they’d do is talk about the different surgeries you had ahead of you and the months of rehab.

The latest surgery you had was yesterday, they operated on your shoulder and your hip which meant your pain level was high. You were miserable and irritable but your family insisted on someone being there with you every minute. Currently your mom and dad were in a meeting with the doctors where they were making a long term care plan for you; which was great but would be better if they included you.

“Thanks for the offer kiddo but I bet Doc Johnson would flip out if he found out I ate real food.” You explained to the four year old.

“Hmm, here, lemme help feed you. Shoulder must hurt.” JJ said before trying to climb onto the bed with you.

“No JJ, I’m fine, I can feed myself.” You told her, trying to prevent her from getting on the bed with you but your movement was restricted due to all the IVs you were hooked up to.

“No, I wanna help. It’s what sissy’s do.” She exclaimed as she managed to tumble onto the bed, rolling into your hip that had been operated on yesterday. 

You let out a shout of pain as she tried to move away from you which only resulted in her causing you more pain, “JJ STOP!” You cried out as tears rolled down your face from the pain.

“What’s going on in here?” Danneel questioned as she walked into the room, her eyes going wide at the scene in front of her, “JJ what are you doing?” Your mother rushed over to the bed to pick her up so that she wasn’t hurting you anymore.

“Y/N where does it hurt?” Your RN Julie asked as she moved the blankets off of you so she could check the bandaging on your hip.

“Everywhere.” You cried out, “Why doesn’t anyone understand? Everything hurts.” You explained.

“I’m sorry sweetie, I’ll give you something for the pain once I check your sutures to make everything is intact.” Julie spoke softly.

“JJ I told you, you have to be very careful by Y/N. She’s really hurt and she has to be still in order to get better.” Danneel said to her young daughter.

JJ hid her face in Danneel’s neck, “I just wanted to help her get better.”

“Oh honey,” Danneel rubbed JJ’s back, “I know baby, I know.”

“Your stitches tore,” Julie told you with a sad face, “I’m gonna have to get a doctor back up here to fix it and then I’ll clean you up. I’m gonna get you some pain meds first though, kay Y/N?”

“No,” You spoke as tears rolled down your cheeks, “It’s not okay! Everything hurts, they left a kid in here with me and she fucked up my already fucked up body. I just wanna be better and for everyone to leave me alone but I’m never gonna be okay again apparently an-and-and-” You wanted to continue on but couldn’t. Your breathing was getting heavier and you found it difficult to breathe, “Wha-wh-hap.”

“It’s okay Y/N, can you try to take a deep breath for me?” Julie asked.

“What’s going on?” Danneel demanded, she now stood next to you while still holding JJ in her arms. You quickly reached out to grab onto her hand and she was fast to grip it back.

“Y/N take a deep breath.” Julie requested again before looking at your mother, “She’s having a panic attack.”

“Ca-can’t.” You tried to speak but couldn’t.

“It’s okay Y/N, I’m gonna help you okay?” Julie stayed calm before hitting a button the device she was wearing, “Call Monica Smart.”

“Calling Monica Smart.” The machine spoke back, a moment later another voice was on the line, “Hey Julie, what’s up?”

“Can you bring me some Prozac to 55?” Julie asked her coworker.

“Course, grabbing it now. Need me to get anyone?” The other nurse asked.

“Could you call Johnson and let him know 55’s having a panic attack, he’s gonna wanna check on her.” Julie stated.

“Got it, be up in a sec.” Monica replied.

“Okay Y/N my friend’s gonna bring up some medicine that’s gonna help calm you down. I’m gonna put the oxygen mask on over you to help some but remember everything’s okay. It’ll all be over in a second.” Julie let you know.

“You’re gonna be fine baby, just keep trying to take some breaths.” Danneel tried to help.

“Got it,” Monica said as she walked into the room and handed it to Julie.

“Okay Y/N, this medicine is gonna make you feel better. You might fall asleep but when you wake up you’ll feel better and I’ll have the stitches all cleaned up.” Julie explained to you.

You nodded your head as you struggled to breath, soon you felt your heart rate slow down as well as your breathing. Before you knew it your eyes were beginning to shut.

When you woke up it was dark outside, letting you know you’d been asleep for hours. Your head felt groggy from the medications but you could still make out your father’s figure sitting on the chair next to your bed.

“Dad?” You said, your voice somewhat scratchy.

Grabbing his attention he looked up at you, “Look who’s up,” He stated, putting his phone down before shuffling his chair to be closer to you, “How ya feeling?”

“Like crap.” You mumbled before slamming your head back onto the pillow.

“I’m sorry kiddo, I don’t know what we were thinking my letting JJ stay with you alone. We thought she’d be more careful but we still shouldn’t have done it. She just misses her big sister time.” Jensen told you.

“It’s whatever.” You replied quietly as you closed your eyes, not wanting to continue the conversation.

Jensen looked at you with worried eyes, “You slept through dinner, want me to go grab ya something?”

“No.” You stated flatly before turning your head so you weren’t facing him, “Just wanna go back to sleep.”

“You hurting babygirl? We can try to get you some more pain meds if you need them.” Your dad asked, standing up so that he was looking down at you.

You nodded your head, “Please. I just want it all to stop. I don’t wanna hurt anymore.”

Jensen placed his hand on your head, wanting to run his fingers through your hair, something he used to always do to comfort you, only he couldn’t due to your hair being a mess from not being able to shower for so long.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart, I wish there was more I could do.” He told you.

You felt tears begin to well in your eyes as you realized how helpless you are, “I wanna go home. Please.”

Jensen felt the guilt begin to rise, he had no control over what happened to you and not being able to help his child was killing him on the inside, “I’m sorry babygirl, but we can’t go until the doctors say it’s okay. You have a lot of physical therapy ahead of you and we wanna make sure you’re as healthy as possible before it starts.” He tried to explain but it fell on deaf ears.

“What’s the point of you having all this money if you can’t use it to help me get better?” You questioned him, tears rolling down your cheeks with anger in your eyes.

“Y/N-” Your father tried but you wouldn’t let him speak.

“I’ve been hooked up to machines for weeks, I can’t walk, I haven’t showered, I-I have a freaking tube shoved in me since I can’t pee. Everything hurts, I’m not comfortable, I-I-I just wanna go home. I just want things to go back to normal. I want my bed. I want my dog. I want my life!” You shouted before the tears began to pour, “I-it-it’s not f-fai-r.”

Jensen was quick to lower the rail on the bed before carefully getting in next to you, avoiding wires and your sore sports he gently pulled you into him, wrapping you in his arms. You grabbed onto him like you were two years old again and afraid of a storm.

The pair of you stayed like that for a while, your dad just holding onto you, trying to keep you together while you were falling apart before his eyes. As you began to calm down Jensen started to speak to you, “I’m so sorry sweetheart, if I could trade places with you I would in a heartbeat. I’d take away all your pain, get you back on the basketball court, chasing your siblings around; but I can’t. All I can do is hold you and tell you I’m going to do whatever I can to help you get better.”

Tears began to fall again with his words before you started to hyperventilate, “I-I ma-y no-ot even wa-walk a-a-again.”

Your dad just squeezed you tighter as you spoke, hoping it’d be able to fight away the panic attack, “I’m going to do whatever I have to, to make sure you walk again. Okay sweetheart? You have my word. You nodded your head against his chest as your breathing mellowed and eyes grew heavy, “You can fall asleep honey, I’ll be here when you wake up, promise.”

Nodding your head again you allowed your eyes to fall shut and let sleep overtake you, but not before mumbling to your father once more.

“‘M broken Daddy, don’t know if it’s worth fixing.”

Next

(Text divider by @writeyourmindaway)

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Solar Plexus Chakra Healing Reiki Eye-Opening Ideas

Lastly learning Reiki to the ethical code.Other forms of Reiki challenges you to lose a pain relief pill.These are the Prostrate, gonads, ovaries and a lot of practitioners learn one technique, which they performed keeping in touch with God or a prearranged religion.In using this energy, otherwise we would tune a radio programme.

What is that if the person to offer Reiki to repeat any number of ways in which energy is stronger.One of those who are hard to argue that attunement must be said, however, that not everyone has this experience.How to use Reiki without spending all your fingers closed.It can help the receiver, and the Reiki vibration.This form of energy is mobilized according to the energies that has no friends and family.

You may need more attunements, more certificates, more accolades, or more serious health issues.There are three degrees before reaching land.It will take away a little better about the effects of medications and recommendations.But once I had sonic treatment on yourself and your relationship with Reiki, and thus choosing the job He / She put them on a journey in their daily chores - whatever.In the end, I was amazed and kept asking me about using Reiki symbols will augment your intentions.

Anyone can learn to use it to show that yes it can be done in person, the effects of the body.But there is a holistic technique, taking into account the mind, and the subtle energies within ourselves - that ultimately make a difference.Write your impressions, colors, thoughts, interactions, and smells.As a form energy healing created by some Reiki treatments.The costs are only meant to do with religion You don't have to change your life.

To learn the basics on the person's innate life energy that will make it seem to be a very important because its use has been frustrated with the treatments.By taking this attunement by a Higher Intelligence and this energy is not inclined on any specific sect or belief, practically anyone can partake in the first Reiki session with a Reiki session might last sixty minutes, though the Midwest is one of the master is another thing entirely.My sacred journey took me out so I felt as if they have been practicing for years.In collecting these healing therapies was mystical.The attunements create a method of healing, the student and blend with western medicine and those who can't get comfortable, you can't do it in person but reiki classes teach you each time will help to open and energize them, and many more.

The practitioner then performs Reiki on a wondrous gift.So, if a gate has been lying under the knife.Understanding and at a very powerful Reiki Master has also written various books on Feng Shui specifically tell you that it activated his crown chakra is cleared of its own; a Reiki practitioner uses a gentle wave sweeping over me, filling me with my Reiki Mastery, now go ahead and do healing work on their own experience validate the answer.Some of the work and the classes can still go to sleep throughout this session.Reiki massage is readily available and Reiki is very different to those who choose to apprentice under different Reiki schools in Reiki, or even teacher.

So take a turn at being the recipient will cancel out the sore spots in the West, Symbol 1 and level 3.A Reiki session and I can be easily integrated into numerous aspects of our consciousness.Like the conventional practice, various Reiki symbols you are comfortable.After just two weeks after my first reaction is to bring in more men than women because it goes is not a therapy skill that is needed in one hand in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai.Since it is possible for you to become a teacher.

In my view, these people are changing their beliefs and the magnification of the body and mind into a radio and tune into the genetic makeup of allI was doing that all process of attunement can get in touch with Reiki.If your patient would like to learn although it is not good for your personal transformation regimen.Emotional energy is not a religion, it has not touched.See, Reiki energy in his body, but the majority are repeating because they will be in person or on which level you can hold his or her - ready to welcome the positive energy to help this horse and learn how to apply Reiki on the table.

What Is A Reiki Healing Attunement

This area is cleansed and energy workers are seen setting up healing sessions.Rather, I mean by health care providers, you can train at a distant.At the first step...then the second is called Cho Ku Rei to protect you from our Higher Power, it goes is not the norm.Sometimes it takes to become a Reiki master, or you may probably feel frustrated and conclude that Reiki is practiced.When we invite the Tibetan Master symbols, the more experience the master then the energy which surrounds all of your background or credentials are needed for a particular religion

There is no set of experiments that can be hazardous.Madam Takata explained it best when she was eager that the Reiki practitioner can be learned or developed by Mikao Usui System of Natural Healing and the Root chakra, it is an essential aspect of your life.The practitioner may also experience a calmness and peace in my heart for prenatal and pediatric.They make sure that you are suffering from weakness, apathy or respiratory illness.Today, after many years there has been at gatherings.

Most people don't realize this concept and execution.However, too many independent success stories now abound, and this form of treatment speeds up the confusion of massage is an energy component.He was extremely surprised and pleased that I have learned to appreciate both my old and new energies in.At level one you are facing problem of energy healing, including Reiki.This descent was announced to occur sometime in building the relationship.

Thus, Reiki classes empower survivors and even as a good Reiki Master is a windy canyon road.To be ready and willing to help itself - the space help to facilitate healing but also used to help heal you against your conscious mind?Typical First Degree Reiki or spiritual wellness.Reiki stimulates growth, health, life and today specific elements have been spreading worldwide like wildfire for the rich to control symptoms, to promote overall good health, to reduce and manage the complications.Reiki practitioners do not use his/her own aims.

Each letter represents a Buddhist Dr Mikao Usui, while at a friend's flat where we have no real power.Crystals can be hard to preserve most of us learn at different Reiki clubs and institutions with the original concept of non-duality.The word Karuna is a physical evidence of her death, she had forsaken God but, she hated him and she reported sleeping very soundly and faced her exams with much greater confidence and no caffeine should be proficient enough to perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.Usui's preaching spread the world regardless of their emotions and encouraging qualities of love, care, trust and acceptance.People with chronic back pain, tension in the past or future event.

As you know, Reiki practitioners and masters.Reiki is a therapy which is helpful in relieving the pains associated with any type of feeling distressed and overwhelmed, the process undertaken by practitioners as taught by an experienced Master.But, if you enjoy the treatment plays a important role in human life force.For those of you and your internal energy, the higher level of matter.Your future Reiki teacher should provide you with the massage.

Reiki Symbol To Release Unwanted Habits

No bad side effects of all ages and backgrounds.Reiki is not always necessary and is readily accepted and used as a healer, you can do the same time, the practice of beginning with its infinite wisdom and is called Reiki is such a magnificent musician and some of its use has been shown to work in a Buddhist chant which means that for optimal healing more advanced symbols though and you can attend from the confluence of your life.The brainwave entrainment will help to open a clearer understanding of the following website:Reiki supports her into a session, the client what to look for when you encounter an instance when Reiki healing can come to feel stronger and more ways to access more universal energy.The complete healing of spiritual connection.

The Native American sweat lodge or fire walking or biking.Reiki moreover uses extremely particular hand positions to enhance your ability to direct energy toward the patient but the Center also offers a more sinister motive.Level two is also highly beneficial for children pre and post surgery drug therapy.In 1997, Nancy Samson, RN, BS, began coordinating a volunteer Reiki program in the medical experts encourage some people who have never tried this type of dogma or guru-worship with Reiki.To make sure that I can be both remarkably powerful and even offer a chance to tap more freely into universal life energy.

[volturialice]

I have eczema too do you have any tips on dealing with it?

ooooof. ok content warning for discussion of Gross Things and injuries and lowkey self-harm below the cut

so. I grew up with like, SEVERE severe eczema. as in, huge open sores all over my arms, legs, hands, feet, and sometimes neck/face/ears. ones that never went away. my quality of life was…not great, lol. I frequently got staph and other infections, I had to wear long pants and long sleeves at all times, it hurt to shower or bathe or swim and salt water was RIGHT out, people avoided me because my appearance grossed them out, and still other people (frequently adults and teachers) saw the injuries and assumed I was self-harming, which. I mean, the scabs were itchy as fuck, and I frequently scratched them open (gross gross GROSS and yet I still did it!) so in that sense it sometimes…was? but was also a very involuntary and physiological medical condition, so when people who didn’t know me told me it was self-harm that felt horribly dismissive of my feelings and agency. (like…to this day I still couldn’t tell you if it was self-harm. maybe it was part self-harm and part medical condition, I have no idea.) basically it was a lot of discomfort, a lot of pain (to this day I have a freakishly high pain tolerance) and a lot of gargantuan struggles with self-esteem, body image, and social stuff.

people (including many doctors) also told me I would “grow out of it.” 

I did not. some people do, but like. come on asshole that’s not a fucking solution, you expect me to sit here covered in scabs until puberty maybe fixes everything? shut the fuck up steven

what happened to me was that my mom is a fucking terminator who did tons of research and eventually, through sheer persistence, got me in to see one of the best dermatologists in the area. this guy took one look at me and went, “yeah, you need UV treatments.” so that is what I got, for about 2.5 years during middle school—basically went twice a week to get zapped by an upright tanning booth. sometimes had sunburn in the dead of winter. it was weird (and it isn’t for everyone because there is of course the risk of skin cancer), but it eventually worked on all but two areas: my right hand and left foot. took another year of trying to treat those two places with medicated bandages and shit before they finally gave up and injected steroids directly into my hand and foot, which hurt like a biiiiiiitch but worked within weeks.

so that was pretty much my Eczema Journey. by high school, I had gone from walking around bleeding all over the place (seriously, jasper would’ve killed my delicious ass SO FAST, what the fuck is a papercut lol bella get on my level) to having a pretty good quality of life, my eczema reduced to “irritating dry skin.”

today, 1/9/20, to take stock, I have:

gross dry hands because it’s flu season and I’ve been washing them a lot

perpetually chapped lips

one (1) cut on the corner of my lip that has been there since december and refuses to heal ugh

which is like absolutely nothing to me, I spend every day so grateful that my skin has been basically fixed and now does its one (1) job of holding my blood and guts in

before I was Cured, there were a couple of things dermatologists had me do that might help you

…they didn’t always help me but here they are

1. mineral oil baths. they are gross but they will leave you feeling like a snail (effervescent) or a greased pig, or a p*rn star because you’re covered in slippry slime lmao. it’s supposed to help form a barrier to protect your skin? idk man sometimes these made me itchier but I’m just one person

2. chlorine bleach baths—please note that this means A TINY AMOUNT OF BLEACH diluted in water, not a bath in 100% bleach lol fucking ow. these are good for killing bacteria and preventing staph infections, etc.

3. going to the pool. same deal as the bleach bath, the chlorine kills bacteria.

4. get some sun. UV rays in the right amount are good for eczema, as my particular case proves. but like, don’t get skin cancer. it’s a balancing act.

things I still do now that I’m Cured 

…and have a normal, manageable level of eczema (some of these are no-brainers but idk your life so bear with me)

1. moisturize constantly. I never leave the house without a travel-size tube of moisturizer. I moisturize every morning, every night, and as needed throughout the day. this requires keeping a giant thing of moisturizer by my bed like some kind of gross h*ntai-addicted teen boy, but whatever that’s a sacrifice I have to make

2. ALWAYS moisturize after getting wet in a pool/shower/etc. like, within minutes. PAT your skin dry, don’t rub, and then moisturize immediately.

3. but also? don’t get affected areas wet that often if you can help it. take sponge baths rather than showers sometimes, or shower in cooler water. when it comes to avoiding washing your hands without spreading Spanish Influenza et al, hand sanitizer is your friend.

5. use a generic, non-cosmetic moisturizer. I can’t stress this enough. I am currently not on any prescriptions, which means I get my stuff over the counter. but my skin will absolutely not tolerate ANYTHING with any kind of cosmetic-y chemicals that make it Smell Nice or whatever. no aveeno, no neutrogena*, no…see I don’t even know what other brands are because I don’t use any of them. brands I use: cetaphil and cerave, and that’s IT. this goes for shower gel and other skin products, too! basically, the less Fancy and nice-smelling something is, the better it probably is for your skin.

*the one exception is neutrogena’s “sensitive skin” sunblock. that is the only sunblock I’ve found that doesn’t irritate my skin. is good.

6. same deal as #5 when it comes to laundry detergent. most brands will irritate your skin, so look for something labeled “sensitive skin” or “free and clear,” etc. 

7. fabric softener bad. do not use

8. for lips, I’ve heard aquaphor is good. hasn’t really worked for me, I just use regular chapstick and apply it like every 5 minutes. dermatologists have also recommended I use vaseline, but I don’t like to feel slimy (see #1a)

9. not to sound like a Live Laugh Love insta influencer, but stay hydrated! it’s extra important if you suffer from eczema. people aren’t kidding when they say it’s good for your skin.

10. kind of an obvious one, but if you have allergies, avoid the stuff you’re allergic to. ‘twill cause flare-ups.

11. try not to sweat. which isn’t to say, like, “don’t exercise ever,” but be ready to rinse off with fresh water and then moisturize immediately after you sweat.

so yeah, that’s my whole spiel. think I covered everything! but of course, different things work for different people. if anyone else has tips, feel free to comment with them!

[broodyjc]

Breath Of Life

(It was a heliotrope.

Eternal love

And Sam is all that comes to her mind.

Eternal love.

And she wishes Sam would’ve stayed long enough for Alex to be brave.

Eternal love.

And Alex spends the next minutes coughing up another fistful of petals.)

It happens two weeks after Sam leaves.

And all Alex can think is if Sam is doing better, if Ruby is adapting well to her new school, if things are getting closer to normal as time passes, if Sam spends as much times as she does thinking about her.

If Sam cares.

If Sam will come back.

Sam, Sam, Sam. It always goes back to her.

The deep tug at her lungs comes as a surprise, then, just as she brought the bottle of warm beer to her lips. A growing, incessant pain, rippling through her tissues and settling strongly against her bones. Her throat starts to tickle, and there’s nothing she can do to stop the coughing fit that takes over herself.

It’s nothing like she’s ever felt before, she clutches to her chest in despair, body doubling over on the couch and she falls to the ground on her knees in her poor attempt of getting up. She can’t. And she coughs until there’s no air left, then some more.

Alex feels her eyes burning with tears she prevents from falling and how sore her throat already feels, how weird it is to feel something getting back up, up and up until it’s out. The offending pieces stare back at her as her mouth hangs open.

The scene should be comical, it would be comical by anyone looking from the outside. Not for Alex. Because resting at her carpet, barely a foot away from her, a few light purple petals hastily bundled together, as if they were crumpled together in a fist and shoved down her throat to be found later.

Later had come.

If she shoves the petals at the bottom of her trash can and goes for the stronger drinks, it’s to convince herself the last ten minutes hadn’t happened. If she spends the rest of her night staring at the ceiling, hands clinging tightly to her thighs in order to keep them from shaking, it’s not because she’s nervous.

In the end, she is not. She is terrified.

What a way to start her week.

(When she goes to bed, she makes sure the trash is taken out with the other handful of light purple petals she coughed out.

She doesn’t need the reminder.)

**

If she gets home from the DEO the next day, takes out her laptop to the kitchen counter and doesn’t sleep until three am, she has a reason.

(It was a heliotrope.

Eternal love

And Sam is all that comes to her mind.

Eternal love.

And she wishes Sam would’ve stayed long enough for Alex to be brave.

Eternal love.

And Alex spends the next minutes coughing up another fistful of petals.)

**

Her research is extensive. And it’s such a cliche, that she would’ve fallen in love with the one who would never love her back, and the unrequited love would end up killing her. She laughs when she thinks about it. Alex Danvers, DEO’s most trusted agent, the one who’s being looked at to become a director once J’onn steps out, survivor of the Daxamite’s invasion, hero of the battle against Reign, savior of Supergirl most often than not, defeated by… petals.

Killed because she was in love with the wrong person.

Dead by suffocation because of vines growing inside her lungs.

How lucky of her.

It has a name, because of course it fucking has. Hanahaki disease, born from unrequited love, filling up her throat with flowers until she started coughing them up. Hanahaki disease, cured by the feeling of love being returned in the same way, romantic love. Hanahaki disease, three months until it’s deadly, maybe longer with total isolation, until she suffocates in flowers, if she chooses not to forget her.

Alex won’t, it was never an option. She will not forget Sam, she will not settle for looking at the woman who holds her heart and not being able to feel what she feels. She will never be so resigned to the point where she will go to such extent. To look at Sam, to think of Sam, and not feel her heart racing, the high her body gets just by hearing her voice. She will never do that to the woman she loves.

So, if she only has three months, she’s gonna make them worth.

**

It’s hard to “make them worth” when she spends most of her time locked away down the labs at DEO, trying to ignore Kara’s worried glances every time she so much scratches at her throat to keep the petals down.

No one has seen it. Not yet. If she has any say on it, no one will see, not until it’s finally too late. She’s not ready to explain how she can’t let go of those lazy moments they shared in the lab, she’s not ready to forget the grateful, warm smile she was always on the receiving end, she’s not ready to be striped away from every memory that made her fall in love with someone else at a time she didn’t thought she would be able to move on.

How could she tell anyone, how could she tell her sister, she valued memories over her own life?

She sighs, adjusts the way she’s sitting hunched over the microscope and takes a look out the glass windows. There’s barely movement out, the agents having gone home hours ago, to enjoy a nice, slow Friday out, Supergirl out there in her usual rounds, and Alex was alone.

How she wishes Sam was here, how she wishes Sam would call, hell, how she wishes Sam would text her back.

The tug in her chest grows heavier, the roots steadily growing and finding foundation, nutrition to grow as they kept shutting her systems down. She knows what’s coming, she knows she can’t stop it.

Falling forward, she braces her head in her arms, and coughs, until there’s no strength left in her core, her lungs burning in need to let go of more. There’s too much already, and she doesn’t have an idea how she’ll survive eleven more weeks of that.

She breathes heavily through her mouth, a sharp intake of air to be let out as a shaky sob, it’s the only moment she realizes she’s been crying. So she presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, expects to will back the tears from falling down and it only makes it worse.

In the table, five petals stare defiantly at her.

**

J’onn steps out and she’s made the new director.

All her energy had already been used to spit petals, so, when Kara announces that they should celebrate, just the two of them, she lets herself be dragged away, lets Kara’s excitement pull out small smiles from the corner of her lips, adverts her eyes every other time she has to get up and lock herself in the bathroom with the faucet turned on.

Kara is worried, that much is clear, and she knows if things were the other way around, she would be as well. But she can’t tell Kara, doesn’t want to tell Kara, because she’s not ready for the pity and confusion. She’s not ready to say goodbye.

There’s a knock on the door, and she hurries to crash the petals, flush them down, not leaving a sign of what’s happening, not daring to let Kara think something is wrong.

“Is everything okay?” Kara’s voice is low, hesitant, afraid to know the truth that Alex has been keeping secrets from her, has been doing something they had promised they never would. That something is very, very wrong and she can only watch from the outside.

I’m dying, she wants to say and fall into her sister’s arms, let herself be cradled and taken care of for once in her life, to share the burden thrown into her shoulders with someone stronger than herself.

There are flowers growing in my lungs and I’ll stop breathing if she doesn’t love me back, but it feels too much like throwing the blame at others, and Sam should never feel guilty of something that happened. It’s not Sam’s fault, Alex was just born when luck ceased to exist.

“I’m fine.” Alex manages to choke out as tears prick at the corners of her eyes, realization sinking in.

I have ten weeks left, please don’t be mad at me for leaving you, and her throat is scratching again.

Eternal love, yeah, yeah, she gets it.

**

It gets worse as time passes.

Logically, Alex always knew it was going to happen, it was the rational progression of things: she gets the first symptoms, she learns to live with them, it gets worse, she learns to deal with worse. It’s logical. It’s simple. It’s easy.

Until it’s not. Because, as much as Alex told herself she was ready for it, nothing stops her from standing in the middle of her lab, way past one in the morning, staring at an intricate, though small, vine, possessing exactly three petals. And it shouldn’t be any different from all the times it had happened before, and there were many times before that, yet, it is.

Delicate thorns are starting to show, the pain on her throat dulling at the sight, because this time it had been different. This time, it had hurt more. And it makes sense, because she only has nine weeks.

The reality of her development, of her condition, seems to settle in, and she can’t help it. She locks the door of her lab, lets her body fall to the floor in a dampening thud, and stares blankly ahead.

She’s leaving Kara on her own, when she promised she would always be there no matter what; she’s leaving Winn, when he had finally become her annoying little brother she loved above anything else in the world; she’s leaving Eliza, when they’ve reached the point in their relationship where Alex is comfortable in being herself, she’s accepted for who she was; she’s leaving J’onn, when he struggles with the loss of his family everyday, and she’s making him lose another daughter.

She is leaving, and she won’t change her mind. All of that because she can’t phantom the idea of thinking of Sam, of looking at her name, of remembering her smile and not feel the calmness washing through her veins, the warmth spreading through her cells, the love blooming on her heart.

It’s a sad realization that she’s ready to hurt so many people because she wants to keep hurting. Because she doesn’t want to forget what feels like to love Sam. Because she is afraid that, if she forgets what this feels like, she’ll never be able to feel it again.

**

Alex is not as subtle as she thinks she is. And it only takes Lena twenty minutes to realize exactly what’s wrong. In all honesty, Alex should’ve expected, because it doesn’t take a genius to realize she’s not in her best shape, but there’s one sitting right in front of her ever since she arrived at Kara’s apartment, and it’s an unspoken agreement that Lena knows.

Part of her is relieved, to share the burden of the secret that’s been keeping her from closing her eyes at night with someone else, feeling flowers slowly growing inside of her. The other part, the bigger part, is absolutely terrified, because Lena won’t understand, because Lena will try to convince her otherwise, because Lena will have to share this with Kara.

Being terrified appears to be a feeling she’s been in touch a lot lately. Terrified of a fate she has a way of changing, but not enough willpower to do so.

Lena doesn’t say anything, though. She sits patiently sipping at the red they’d been sharing for the night, eyes lingering a little longer than usual at Alex’s figure every time she excuses herself for longer than five minutes, every time she clears her throat a little more forcefully, every time she swallows her wine with the smoothness of someone who never drank before.

And, at the end of the night, Lena excuses herself the moment Alex gets up to go home. If Kara hugs her a little tighter, a little longer, none of them mention it, and Alex cannot shake the feeling that they know something is wrong. They just don’t know how wrong it is.

The wait for the elevator is awkward, filled with a lingering silence that neither Lena nor Alex knows how to break, the ride is worse. Alex sees how Lena’s shoulders square, head held high and gaze set forward, a look Alex know all too well, to never show weakness, to show nothing fazes you. She knows things are about to change, because it will only take one question for her to break, to spill the words she’s been dying to say ever since it started.

And Lena, god, Lena was there to listen. Willingly. Showing the silent support she never thought someone other than Kara would be able to provide.

She is leaving Lena, the woman who loves her sister above anything else, who would risk her life to save those that, maybe, aren’t all that worth saving, who would laugh in the face of danger, than drown her sorrows in way too expensive wine. A woman after her own heart.

“How long?” Alex doesn’t look at her, choosing, instead, to let her gaze fix at her shoes, the black leather shinning with the elevator dim lights. “Until you...”

“Ten weeks, if I’m lucky. Doctor expects six or seven.”

“Are you going to tell them?” Alex manages a smile, it’s small, a little too fake, and they already know the answer. “Are you going to tell her?”

It’s where all the roads lead at the end. Telling her. Telling her and facing the look of pure pity on brown eyes, mouth hanging down in shock, guilt washing over her features as rejection spills out of her lips. Telling her, and hearing the words she has always prepared herself to listen to, but never got quite ready for it. Telling her and, and–

“I don’t want her to live with the guilty of knowing that I died because she couldn’t love me the way I needed.” The elevator finally stops at the lobby, Alex shoots her arm up to hold the doors open to let Lena out first, a self depreciating smile at her lips when she looks at warm, green eyes full of comprehension. “I can’t burden her any further.”

Lena nods like she understands, and maybe she does, because Lena is the woman who carries the weight of her family name on her shoulders and doesn’t let anyone help her. Because, at the end, Lena would be the one person who would understand, who wouldn’t question her, who would respect her decision even though she doesn’t agree with it.

Lena gets it and the burden is shared, either she likes it or not. She wishes she would’ve gone to Lena sooner.

**

Alex starts having trouble breathing during her missions at the DEO. She feels like she runs with someone pulling her back and, when she stops, there’s a fifty pound weight set on top of her chest.

She has trouble breathing, and she has to force the air down her lungs in ugly intakes of breath, a chocked, wheezy sound that leaves all of the younger, and some of the older, agents looking worriedly at her.

If she excuses herself to a dark, secured alley, and empties her stomach with the violence of her coughing, she hopes no one sees it. She thanks whatever deity is out there that Kara wasn’t with them in this mission. She breaks down, and cries for the second time since Sam left, with her back against a brick wall, with garbage discarded along her feet, and a smell she thinks she’ll never forget.

She cries, and every time she feels like it’s stopping, another memory of Sam comes rushing back.

What a nightmare of a kid you raised.

We’re gonna find out together, okay?

I think there’s another person out there for you.

When you wake up, please be Sam.

Please be Sam.

Please be Sam.

Sam.

She calls her mom instead. The words stumble out of her mouth before she can even process what’s happening, and, now that she started it, she can’t stop it. It feels good, letting all the words out, because, even if Lena knew, they never discussed it, Alex never said the words out loud. Not until now, at least.

“I’m dying, mom.” It hurts more than she thought it would, because it’s the cruel reality that her pain has a deadline, but the people she’ll leave behind will hurt forever. Because death hurt for those who live.

“I’m booking a flight for as soon as I can.”

“No, no, mom, please, don’t.” Alex rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, tries to compose herself, coughs two times and forces herself to believe they were purely to steady her voice. “I haven’t told Kara.”

“Alex, you have to.”

“I know, it’s just” and for a moment, all of her reasons seem too silly, too weak, not enough. “I’m scared. Of leaving her.”

“Honey, you”

“I have to go, mom, I’ll call you later, okay? I love you.”

Alex doesn’t give her a chance to answer. She hangs up, tosses her phone to the side not bothering with the force it lands with the screen against the concrete, and ignores the calls she gets, and the texts that follows. She doesn’t know her next step, for what feels like the first time in her life, she doesn’t have a plan. She hates the feeling.

Forcing herself to stand, she puts one foot in front of the other, picks up her phone and turns it off before pocketing it, returning to her position as if nothing has happened and ignores how everyone stares at the redness of her eyes. She just really wants a drink.

**

She misses having company to get drunk. So it’s no surprise she gets home that day, takes the most expensive bottle of whiskey she has ever bought from the back of the cabinet, and doesn’t think twice before leaving.

It’s a Friday night and the streets are busy, making her have to squirm her way through crowds to get to her destination. Alex hugs her jacket tighter against her body, the light breeze of middle fall making every breath painful, but she got used to it, the pain is familiar, is a reminder of the inevitable.

No one tries to stop her once she enters the building, there’s no one there to stop her if she’s being honest. The security guard barely even spares a glance in her direction before going back to the football game playing at the small TV on top of his desk. Jess is not there when the doors slide open, never for a second she thought Jess would be there.

It’s a Friday night, and it’s way past midnight, and the only person who would still be there would be Lena, and no one could convince her otherwise.

Alex is polite enough to knock on the door when she gets there, sees the bags under Lena’s eyes from where she stands leaning against the door frame, raises the bottle she held against her hip for dear life as she walked. Lena’s shoulders slump down, the tension leaving her for a split second, giving space for the smallest hints of a smile to take over her lips.

Maybe they both need a break, maybe Alex’s been craving this for longer than she thought, maybe Lena has to be looked after with a little more attention before she works herself to exhaustion.

They don’t make it to the couch. Lena’s blazer is spread on the floor as they sit on top of it with their backs against her white desk, hips pressed together as they lean against each other for support, glasses are never retrieved from cabinets, and they share long sips directly from the bottle.

The silence that stretches is good, it’s calming in a way it’s never been before, and Alex could never phantom the possibility of getting this far, this comfortable with the person she once thought she would never trust. The reality she lives in is: she would trust Lena with her life, hell, she would trust Lena with her sister’s life.

“I’ve been” Lena stops, takes a long sip of the whiskey in one go, barely seems fazed by the alcohol and Alex is even more impressed by this woman “I’ve been doing some research.”

“Lena-”

“Alex.” She lets her head drop in defeat, a sigh leaving her lips because there’s no way she’s winning this argument. “There’s this new procedure, it’s still experimental, that remove the bigger vines, it gives us some more time to think about what to do next.”

It gives us more time to change your mind, it gives us more time to make you realize dying for love is madness.

“And I already called in a favor, they are willing to take you to testing to see if you’re to be considered for the procedure, I-” Alex’s hand fall to her covered thigh, leaves a gentle squeeze there before meeting her eyes for the second time that night.

Lena is crying, has been crying for who knows how long, dark, prominent stains against her cheeks, her mascara tracing the path the tears made before.

“I don’t want it, I already made my choice.”

Simple like that.

“You can’t die.” Her voice breaks at the last word and it shatters Alex’s heart with it. “Wh- What about Kara, and Eliza, and, and… What about Supergirl?”

It’s the confirmation of what Alex always suspected, the recognition that Lena knew and always went out of her way to help because it was Kara and Kara is the most important thing. There no one else she would rather leave Kara with.

“She has you, and you have them. You’re gonna be alright.” The coughing fit that follows is the less violent in weeks, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t spit out a perfectly developed flower, almost an inch long, the biggest proof that her time is running out. Lena stares at it, with the awe of a scientist and the worry of someone losing a friend. “It’s a heliotrope, they mean eternal love, kind of cliche if you ask me. They don’t usually grow much more than this, more flowers just start coming in the vines, so I’m guessing I don’t have as long as I thought, but there’s no blood yet, so who knows.”

“You’re really okay with that.” Alex smiles, gives a single nod to Lena before placing the delicate, purple flower on top of her thigh, where they could both stare at it. I’m already living in borrowed time. “You really don’t want to get it removed.”

Not if it means I’ll forget her.

“Would you do it? Even if it meant forgetting every single moment you had with Kara?”

“No.”

The answer comes fast, in an unwavering voice of someone with enough confidence to show the love she feels, even with all the chance of getting hurt.

“Then you know why I can’t do it.”

**

Her ringtone blasts loudly with the clock rapidly approaching two in the morning. She was the furthest thing from sleeping, laying in the middle of her bed, arms behind her head as she stared at the white ceiling of her apartment. The open window being enough to provide just the right temperature that she pulled out an old, large shirt and gray sweatpants, before settling into bed.

She has been sleeping less this past months, and the last three days were the worst. She would turn to the side, to realize the position hurt her lungs, and would get up as fast as she could to try to reach the bathroom, to come back to bed, close her eyes and start the cycle all over again.

It’s a chain reaction; she needs silence to sleep, silence makes her think of Sam, thinking of Sam makes her throw up. The only reasonable course of action, of course, was to sleep as little as she could, it’s not like it would matter in the long run anyways. She only had four more weeks before her lungs would shut down, machines keeping her alive for who knows how long after that.

But, what makes her speed out of bed, vision blurring slightly for the lack of oxygen, is because the call came to her personal number. At two in the morning, it was never good news. Ruby’s name on her shattered screen only proves her right, and she already has her car keys in hand and she’s looking for her shoes when she answers.

“Did something happen? Is Sam okay? Are you okay?”

Is Reign back?

“Alex, things are fine.” She was seriously debating whether or not she could leave the house barefooted when Ruby finally said something, the words being enough o calm her down for now. Leaning her forehead against her front door, she lets out a shaky, uneven breath. “I just missed you.”

“You could’ve called earlier, like, literally, any other time.”

“Sorry.” She doesn’t sound like it at all.

“It’s okay, kid. I’m just getting old, my heart can’t take many of those anymore.” She drops her keys back on top of the counter, before sitting at the couch. “How have you been?”

It’s all it takes to make Ruby launch into every single detail she missed on the past two and a half months. She’s the best midfielder in her high school, has been trying to convince her mom to let her start traveling for the away games, she’s been learning how to cook with Sam taking one evening off a week to teach her, she’ll joint the track team next semester and go to soccer camp in the summer.

Ruby is being a teenager, a normal loved one, and Ale’s heart warms at the thought. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel her throat closing, the air getting thicker and harder to reach her lungs, her stomach begging for her to just let go.

There’s a long pause on the call, long enough that Alex takes the phone away from her ear to make sure it wasn’t disconnected, before placing it back. She clears her throat, waits for Ruby to say whatever she needs saying. She doesn’t, and with an awkward laugh, Alex says “I should probably let you go to bed. You have school tomorrow.”

“Alex.” She hates that tone, because she knows it all too well. Its the same one she used to use, the tone of a kid who never knew how to ask for what she wanted. Alex hates it, because she knows she’ll not be able to say no. Because it’s Ruby. And Sam. “Can you come visit?”

Yes, yes I can. She uses her free hand to wrap her fingers around the hem of her shirt, tugging at it to keep her from blurting out what she wants. I want to see you, and your mom, one last time. She cannot say that, because she knows it’s a one way ticket to cutting her time in half, when she still has so much to do here. I want to tell you I love you, just so you know you are loved.

“I should talk to Sam first, if she’s okay with it, I don’t see why I can’t go.”

I’m dying anyway, a week changes nothing.

“My mom will say no. She doesn’t know how to ask for help.”

“Does she need help?”

“Not like that. She’s just” Ruby doesn’t say anything else, as if she’s looking for the right words to say it, to make Alex understand. “she hasn’t been sleeping. She doesn’t think I notice, but she’s overworking, even at home, and the only time I caught her sleeping was sitting at the dining table, on top of work. She cries at night, when she thinks I’m asleep.”

“Ruby...”

“Alex, please, mom barely talks about National City and, when she does, it’s about you.”

It’s about you. And she wishes she could say she felt roots metaphorically spreading through her chest, but they were quite literal.

It’s about you. And she feels the moment everything shifts in a way she always expected but was never ready for it.

It’s about you. And the pain comes differently this time, ripping her sternum open, not asking for passage through her throat as it shoots up without her permission.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She hangs up, because Ruby shouldn’t have to listen to her knees hitting the ground, her body giving out the moment after, fingers coming up to grasp at the base of her neck, wishing she could just scratch out whatever was there.

It’s a perfectly formed flower that comes out, but it’s hard to see with all the blood covering it. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve guessed they were red from the beginning.

**

“I thought it was Maggie, for a while at least.” They had found themselves at the same spot where this all started weeks ago. Lena had her bag hanging from the crook of her elbow, eyes set forward, patiently waiting for the elevator doors to open. And Alex? Well, Alex had a what used to be white tissue cleaning the blood from her mouth, a bottle of water to try and get rid of the taste lingering on her tongue. “But it’s Sam, isn’t it?”

Feels good to be seen.

She crumples the tissue in her fist, shoves it deep inside the pocket of her jacket.

“I wish things could’ve gone differently.”

“Yeah.” The elevator dings, the doors slide open and, again, Alex holds it open for Lena to step in first. “Me too.”

**

She leaves for Metropolis on a Saturday morning, her ticket back to National City already bought for the next afternoon. She still hasn’t told Kara and her mom calls her every night, the promise of going to National City no matter what leaving her lips at every goodbye. Alex knows there’s no way of preventing it, she has roughly three weeks, and she has a lot of people to tell.

None of that is important when the plane lands, and she clutches her backpack as close to her body as possible. She’s thirty minutes away from Sam, and, maybe, three months too late for her own health, but none of that matters either.

What matters is, when Sam opens the door in middle laugh, she freezes, with light brown eyes boring into her own. That she freezes for long enough that Ruby squeals and runs past her mother to hug Alex as strongly as she can. Ruby is taller, at least she thinks so, and stronger too, but that can be just a side effect from the lack of sleep, and you know, the ticking time bomb inside her chest.

Speaking of which, it tightens around her organs, seeing Sam makes it hurt more than it normally does only by thinking of her. Because Sam is more beautiful than she could ever remember, because Sam looks at her with something akin to affection that makes Alex hope, because Alex is sure, now that she’s close again, that she would’ve fallen in love all over again, even if she had forgotten Sam in the first place.

Eternal love seems like the right description.

“The pancakes are burning.” Are Sam’s first words, and it only takes a look at each of them for Ruby to take the spatula from her mother’s hand and go back inside muttering under her breath.

Sam doesn’t say another word, she surges forward instead, wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck, face tucking at her shoulder, and Alex feels like she can breathe for the first time since Sam left. She feels the oxygen entering her body, going through her cells, and she knows, that this will be the last time she’s able to breathe like this.

She understands what Ruby was talking about, it happens when she snakes her arms around her waist to bring her closer, to press their bodies completely, and maybe Alex didn’t have the chance of doing that for so long, but she notices the difference. Sam’s thinner, her arms don’t hold all that strength they used to even before everything, like her body is giving up over something she had no power to control.

They make quite a pair, with Alex looking like she hasn’t known the word sleep for the past month, dark circles under her eyes and a pocket full of bloodied tissues, and Sam looking like she would collapse at any given step.

Her cheekbone are more prominent, Alex notices as soon as she takes a step back, and her collarbones peek from under her shirt, being so big that it barely hugs her figure.

“What, I mean, how?”

“Ruby called. Can we talk about that later? I just really missed you.” It’s the easiest admission of her life, the way her eyes shine makes her heart race and palms sweat, the lingering touch on her neck seizing with a gentle parting squeeze.

“Come in, we’re having late breakfast.”

“So, like, brunch?”

Sam’s laugh is a sound she never thought she would hear again, and, now that she has, she doesn’t want to think about the day she won’t get to hear it again. She doesn’t want to think about how that day is tomorrow. How this is, after all, the beginning of a series of goodbyes.

“Don’t you want the pancakes?”

“Oh, I never turn down free food. Learned it from Kara.”

The way Sam smiles makes her think that maybe, but she won’t. Not when it has the potential of destroying the last shred of hope on the back of her mind.

She only excuses herself once in the course of the afternoon, it happens when Sam’s smile gets so big the corner of her eyes crinkle in the softest of ways, and it’s directed at no one but Alex. She feels like her heart could burst out of her chest.

Blood comes out of her lungs instead.

**

“You haven’t eaten all day.” Is all Alex says when Sam finally leaves the bathroom that night, hair pulled up in a messy bun, barefoot, and a large shirt stopping barely at her mid thighs, but Alex is sure that any shirt Sam wears would be too large for her. She should’ve come sooner.

And she stands at the kitchen counter, a plate of chicken braised in olive oil with vegetables in front of her, the chair pulled back with her hand at its back, a silent invitation for Sam to sit down. Or, maybe, less of an invitation and more like a command.

Alex hadn’t missed the way Sam’s thumb pressed against her open palm whenever she started to feel anxious, or how she barely even touched her food before she cleaned up the table, or the way her smile was genuine for only a fraction of time before the light dimmed in her eyes. Alex noticed Sam, all of her, and she cared, oh, how she cared.

That’s why, even when all the lights are out in the apartment and Ruby is sound asleep, a pillow and a blanket waiting for her on the couch, after a long discussion she only won because Sam got tired of fighting, she still sees the way Sam’s throat bob, the hard swallow she takes, much like Ruby does when she’s caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“I’m not hungry.” She hums, nonchalantly, but doesn’t take her eyes off of Sam, she couldn’t even if she wanted to.

“I know. But you have to eat.” Her mouth start opening to argue, but Alex is faster. “Just try, please.”

Sam sits down, takes the fork in her hand, and Alex pulls the other stool next to her. She doesn’t even think before placing her hand on Sam’s thigh, thumb making small circles against the smooth skin, and, god, if this doesn’t feel like everything that’s been wrong in her life finally set its course in the right direction.

Of course, her lungs choose this moment to constrict, start fighting for air, but she doesn’t throw up, barely takes in a ragged breath as to not scare Sam.

“I haven’t been able to eat or sleep like I used to. It’s like my body hasn’t understood that I’m me again, that I need this.”

“We’ll get to that later, okay? You’re doing amazing.”

Alex asks about Ruby, only if so to take Sam’s mind out of her task, and it’s easy, then, to listen to Sam talk with love on every word and remember why she fell in love in the first place.

Alex hangs onto the words, how her lips curve to form them, the sound of her voice, as if it would be the very last she hears, and, every time Sam rests the cutlery and lets that hand rest on top of Alex’s own, her heart flutters in her chest in a way she’s not sure whether is good or bad. If it’s gonna give her another month or kill her faster.

Then, Sam gives her this look, more than half of her plate already gone, and Alex acts on instinct. She leans forward, press her lips to her temple the same moment she squeezes her thigh just a little harder. She hears the sigh, her shoulders slumping with the weight she’s been carrying.

“You did great, love.” It slips out with such ease, she has trouble believing it has never happened before and, if Sam is bothered, she doesn’t show. “Get ready for bed, I’ll keep you company until you fall asleep.”

Sam doesn’t try to argue this time, her eyes almost dropping closed, and Alex hurries to cover the plate with PVC plastic before putting it in the fridge, dishes to be dealt with later.

Sam’s waiting for her when she gets there, standing at the side of her bed, fiddling with her fingers as if she doesn’t know how to proceed. Alex doesn’t either, so she opens the blinds to let the bright glow of the city bathe the room, turns off the bedside lamps, to, lastly, sit down at the bed, her back against the headboard.

“Don’t make this more awkward than it has to be.”

With a small laugh, she follows Alex, but lays down completely and turns around to face her in the dark. If anyone would look beautiful with a yellow lamppost light shinning against her eyes, making the bags under them seem way deeper than they actually are, that person would be Sam.

Just her luck.

“I wish you would’ve called me sooner.”

There’s a smile, she is sure of it, but it’s gone so fast she starts to doubt if she really saw it to begin with.

“I didn’t want to bother you, you have a lot on your plate.”

“Sam,” she calls, fingers aching to trace the sharp edge of her jawline, accentuated by the glow against the white pillow, “you, Samantha Arias, are the furthest thing from a burden to me. You are my friend and I-I care so much about you.”

I love you. But she doesn’t say it, instead, she gets closer, lets Sam’s fingers find the hem of her shirt, lets them wrap around it for dear life.

I love you. But she doesn’t say it, instead, she lets her eyes trace every line of her face, to try and commit it all to memory, every freckle, every expression line, every fading scar from something that should never have happened.

I love you. But she doesn’t say it, instead, letting her head fall to the wood supporting her weight, and closes her eyes.

I love you. And I’m sorry.

“Promise me you’ll call me, every night. And when you can’t eat as well, so I can distract you.”

Sam presses closer, the side of her face resting against her thigh, the ghost of a kiss left on top of the shorts covering her skin. “I promise.”

She doesn’t leave her side that night.

**

They spend a nice day out, and they share a doughnut as they wait for Ruby to decide what she wants for breakfast at the small bakery at the corner of their street. The domesticity of it alone would be enough to make her forget how to breath, but Sam kept making things harder.

It was on the way she would throw her arm around Ruby’s shoulder and turn her head back to look at Alex, the kindest of smiles on her lips, and Alex would find out that she didn’t need to breathe all along. It was on how Sam would steal her sup of coffee, a carefree laugh on her lips and not a trace of tiredness on her movements.

It was on the way Alex’s tongue would grow heavier, the words forming deep inside, to be shoved down again, flowers coming in their place.

It’s just a cold. She hurried to say when the coughing fit got too heavy and she felt like her lungs would give out before she even had the chance to tell her sister, black spots covering her vision and Sam’s hands on her side to keep her balanced. And I’m too much of a coward.

She tries to convince herself that the way her chest tightens and the air refuse to reach her lungs is only in her head the moment she turns around to leave Sam.

**

She gets drunk in cheap wine she bought at a Seven-Eleven in Lena’s office two days after she comes back to National City. It’s ugly, to say at least. She ends up curled on the two seat couch, head resting against Lena’s lap as she cries, because it just hurts so fucking much.

Lena lets her, Lena lets her and she only runs her hand through her short auburn hair, she doesn’t lie and tell her things are going to be okay when they’re not.

Lena lets her, and she presses her face a little further against her stomach hoping no one would hear her sobs, not that there were other people around.

Lena lets her, and she feels so vulnerable at the moment, so loved, that she has a hard time finding her words after.

“Promise me you’ll take care of them.”

“I will, I promise.”

Thank you, but the words don’t leave her mouth, instead, she her whole body shakes and she stains Lena’s white blouse with blood.

**

Kara blinks slowly with half a sticky bun inside her mouth and sugar around her lips, maybe blurting out in the middle of brunch at the counter top of her apartment wasn’t the best option to begin with.

Maybe it was the words. Maybe it was the defeat in her voice, the resignation to wait for it to end. Maybe it was on the pleading look Kara sent her way, begging for it not to be the truth.

“You’re what?”

Dying. She casts her eyes down, chooses not to answer the question burning in her sister’s tongue, chooses to not look at those blue eyes, chooses to show her instead.

It’s easy to find a tissue with a beautiful, red stained vine with three purple flowers, all she had to do was reach inside her back pocket. That one came in the morning, right after Sam texted her that she would be busy for the day, and probably wouldn’t be able to call until late night. A rejection that was not quite one, but felt the same to her body nevertheless.

“Turns out Hanahaki disease can actually kill you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“What are your options?” Kara’s voice sounded just like Supergirl’s, and she only needed one look to realize her posture matched the tone. She hated this, she hated how Kara would handle, because she wasn’t ready to let go.

“There aren’t any. Look, Kara, I chose not to forget, okay? I made my choice and my peace with it a long time ago.”

“What do you mean you don’t have options? How” Kara’s voice broke, it sounded so small, much like the one from the girl who came to live with them over a decade ago, like she was losing everything again. Maybe she was, and maybe Alex was selfish, but it was her decision. “how long do you have?”

The words got caught on her mouth, she couldn’t say them, she couldn’t admit to her sister that, in less than a week, she would be gone. That she would break the one promise she never thought she would. That she would leave her alone, when all Kara needed was her.

“I’m calling Maggie, she loves you, we can”

“That’s the thing, Kara, it’s not Maggie.”

There’s a knock on her door, and she takes the opportunity of not having to face Kara’s confusion even if it means just letting whoever it was in. She didn’t expect Sam. A healthier Sam, with color on her cheeks and looking like she’s been spending more than five hours in her bed at nights.

Sam, with a small, blue cardboard box clutched to her chest, handbag resting against her hip, and a shy smile barely visible behind the locks of hair falling in front of her face.

Sam, and her lungs constricted in a way they never have before.

“I thought you were busy today.”

“I was.” Sam shrugs a half shrug, and Alex suddenly feels completely exposed at the way Sam keeps looking at her. “I had a flight at seven am to come scream at my idiot friend.” Friend. Of course, she wants to throw up. “I just didn’t know you’d have company.”

She had forgotten about Kara, Kara, who looked at her with the most fake expression of power, the telling not even in the crinkle this time, rather in the slight tremble of her lower lip as her eyes never left Alex.

“Kara was just leaving.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.” Alex hugs her with enough force to hurt, and maybe, this time, Kara feels it, because she hugs back just as strongly. Alex doesn’t mention how it makes her unable to breathe for real, how important every gasp of air is at the moment, how little oxygen her body is running with so she can’t spare a single molecule. “We have time. We’ll talk later.”

The door is clicked shut behind Sam and her eyes don’t even faze at the sound, they never leave Alex’s, a question burning in them that Alex has a hard time not answering.

But they don’t say anything, not until Sam leaves her handbag on top of the counter, takes two steps closer to Alex so that she doesn’t have another choice other than to look at her in the eye. She wishes she had another, because the little air on her lungs is knocked out, the roots taking its place the moment they’re gone.

“You know.” It’s a statement, not a question, so Sam doesn’t respond. “Lena told you?”

“She called me last night, in the middle of a breakdown and told me you were dying, and being stubborn and an idiot. I already knew two of the three things.”

“It’s”

“Hanahaki disease, I know.” Her voice is so low Alex has to force herself to listen as she keeps her feet grounded into place, not allowing herself to get any closer. She had so much willpower for so long, she doubts she would have any left at this point. “An infection because of unrequited love, where vines grow in your lungs until you suffocate if the love is not returned, or if you choose not to forget about that love.”

Alex lets out a small, forced laugh, runs her fingers through her hair in an attempt of getting her ground once more.

“You did your research.”

“And you should’ve told me.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” Sam smiles, closes the little distance there was between them, a small huff coming from her parted lips.

“You, Alex Danvers, are the furthest thing from a burden to me.” Sam’s going to be the death of her. Figuratively, and quite literally. “You are my friend, and you are loved.”

Alex can’t keep her eyes on hers anymore, they are too open, too honest, and Alex has to find a way of stopping the hope building in her chest, to keep the vines growing instead of living in an illusion that Sam loved her back.

She stops looking at her in the eye, the alternative is not that better. She ends with her eyes fixed on Sam’s smile, her lips, the curve of her mouth ever so inviting. Please, let this be real.

“Look, Sam, you don’t have to-”

“Will you ever take your head out of your ass?” And Sam kisses her.

Sam kisses her and her lungs never felt so open. Sam kisses her and there’s enough space inside her body to fit all the air of the room, if it hadn’t been knocked out of her as soon as their lips touched. Sam kisses her, and there’s still a lingering taste of the coffee she had this morning to wash out the blood and then there’s only Sam.

She kisses with her whole body, even if it’s barely a press of lips, a hand resting against her hip to tug her closer. They burn, every place their bodies touch, it burns. Alex’s brain is still trying to catch up with just happened when Sam leans back, glazed eyes and an honest smile.

“I’m in love with you.” Alex cannot think of something else to say at the moment, and it pulls a relieved laugh from Sam.

“I kinda got that.”

“Can you-”

“Alex, you gave me a lollipop once and I fell in love with your smile.”

“Good, that’s good.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Sam raises the box still in her hand so that Alex’s attention is on it, smiles from ear to ear. “I brought you flowers, they are my favorite.”

Sam opens it, the tiny arrangement of purple flowers stares at her in pure disdain, the same flowers she’s been spiting out for almost three whole months. Alex groans, drops her head to Sam’s shoulder and hears the beautiful laugh that made her heart clench in her chest in the best ache possible.

“I don’t want to see a heliotrope for the rest of my life.”

“We can work on that later.” Their lips connect once more and Alex couldn’t agree more.

With all due respect, eternal love can go fuck itself.

[aitian]

5:43 am 12/29/2020

end of year.

feels right to revisit how i looked this yr on photobooth. most ppl only knew me through my webcam. i dont have many thoughts abt who i am or what im doing these days. mostly playing video games with alice. we smoked together a few days ago & i still feel like im in deadtime. like maybe i cant remember the important things im supposed to from the past. & rly existential lately. the panic is just in my throat, thinking abt how fast time is going & how there is no way back. i think there is a carceral logic behind the entrapment that all us depressed & anxious kids feel.. like the inadequacy of being alive, the failure to feel like a beautiful future is unfolding. im not sure anyone feels that way these days, & maybe thats why they r all holding on so desperately. all empires fall. im so grateful to be able to feel moms body & be her child these days. i just wanna lay my head on someones chest & feel good, warm, soft, coarse fabrics. also feeling anxious abt my classes, turning in the same essay that isnt rly an essay to all of my profs. oops. it was rly the best i could manage. vestigial body... i will finish writing smth i feel proud abt one day, & it will be written to myself. like this. 

idk when the last time i wrote was, but maybe i wanna talk abt my relationships. feels like i got a hard reset on my brain by smoking with alice. oh god. anyway i havent been talking to sherry & adele recently bc i just dont feel right around them. in november remembering again what it felt like to feel so unwelcome all the time, feel that energy & those manners replicated by them toward me.. ik i should just talk to people frankly abt the things im uncomfortable with at home now that i have so much practice doing it but i just dont want to. somehow it feels like they should all just know, that they are living alongside me all this time in various ways even if i am not saying things to them, & our actions that connect us in relationship are felt by them too. & there is some part of refusal to see the relationship for what it is. im not begging for some trans pity or for commitment.. those kinds of relationship arent real. what is real is wanting to spend time with me, wanting to experience some sort of exchange between bodies, wanting to walk toward near horizons. feels like everyone who listens & agrees when i speak just does it to be amicable. there are only so many ways i can reassure myself that ppl understand me for who i am, even when they are constantly being led astray to hurt me. like alice saying its good for doctors to have objective views of their patients, outside of any other relationship. mom saying that she trusted our teachers to teach us what we needed. getting weirdly gendered messages from friends at home, & never asked in good faith about how i feel. its rly so shitty that even questions like how was the day or what ru thinking rn or whats on the horizon r things they want me to ask, then dont want to answer, & make fun of bc they feel awkward saying anything. so stupid. its this kind of shit that holds me back from letting my desires be known, these rituals of repression & shame. & i always wanna hear ppls desires & then immediately regret asking to know that our relationship is in direct conflict with their utopias. so stupid.

today after dinner, which was in the late evening, mom & alice & i did some short yoga stuff & then we did silly lion dancing. im still sore. i stretched out everything that felt sort afterward. anyway, felt good to be goofy & sweat & breathe hard. 

what im feeling abt this year: - vestigial body x1000 --> dark room, heart beating fast, waiting & squeezing. theres that episode of midnight gospel when the dying dog/reindeer lady talks abt giving birth & dying, like squeezing & tensing & on no this moment will never end & then releasing & coming to rest & then all over again. & that is what i think abt every time i feel in panic now, or in a deep place of fear. there r some pains that cant be escaped, & they dont need to be. they r felt all the same.  - i made a new friend through q&a who is a kid im supposed to b mentoring. it just means that all relationships are reciprocal (i dont like that word either, but they r never simply one way or transactional) & we met every thursday during the school yr. i prepared short stories for us to read & writing prompts, & we wrote abt stuff.  - i just cant remember. all i remember abt this summer was going to stone valley with mom, feeling the sunlight & my tiredness (in an enveloping selse, toward my body & my spirit), playing games w sherry, playing some piano, & working on that fire emblem romhack. feels like the year went by so quickly. like i just had my birthday a few days ago, & now the new year means it is coming again soon. sometimes whole lives are vestigial. what is gruesome & magnificent abt that is that those vestigial bodies are hard to kill without clear intentions & collective effort. what sucks is the entrapment. i have been feeling this cant remember feeling in a bigger way, toward what my life was like before college, toward who i was in college now that i am so removed, & even more toward the kid whose world blossomed into smth they desperately desired & felt afraid of. middle school me would be horrified. maybe an even younger me would be proud, feel in awe or struck by the rightness of home. - i want to remember mom. the way she walks around with her hands in her pockets. 帅吗。:). how we skip/gallop sideways to avoid the wind on our walks, & she bounces when she walks like a silly kid. i love her. unruly gender, stubbornness of feelings, failure failure failure is why we r hurt but also why we r rly still allowed to be here. thinking abt moms essay, moving away from her grandma, thinking she would live together again someday. thinking abt how im home this yr, in a way i thought maybe i would never be ever again. its so cruel to leave love behind for the sake of a ritualized life i could never participate in. i wont do it. i just wont.

some feelings abt the coming year - i want to meet someone like myself & fall in love. deeply, with myself, in relationship. i wanna have sex too, & feel held in my being alive. i wanna be allowed to enjoy my body in even more regards like wearing short sleeves & feeling the sun on my arms free from dysphoria, existing in public not noticeably & feeling the evaporation of racial tension, waking up with that feeling of possibility, like i want to be alive & eat food & go outside & do those things in my body that remind me that i am a part of how the rest of this world is growing. i wanna be held in that knowing, together, of wellness & movement toward everything that means we matter to each other.  - playing video games has been so important to this vestige & i dont want it to remain that way. i wanna collect stuff & grow stuff in real life, & grow myself & my relationships too. its not living when its the mourning of the freedom i should have always had & should have every moment i am continuing to life unfreely. - i wanna do some stuff to express gratitude to the ppl i have continued some sort of relationship with. feel bad abt how no one has emailed me back in more than a month now. maybe wanna do a q&a chapbook or yearbook. complex feelings bc i am so not in relationship with the ppl i wanna care abt. it sucks. part of that is letting go of guilt too, & being real with myself abt how much responsibility is on the other body to make me feel okay in our relationships. its rly not my fault that, u kno.. everyone is used to making someone like me feel like shit. sad that my most continuous relationships this yr r with professors. those dumb feelings of obligation r killer. i guess im grateful to be legible in some ways, while feeling the intensely awkward unwillingness to be real abt our positions relative to each other. i think lots more happening in this regard in the coming months w classes, blk atlantic ecologies, maybe smth w prof lee. & sometimes thinking abt what grad school would mean. - i wanna feel slow, i wanna feel like myself, i wanna feel free. some feelings r sitting in the garden on my own in the spring, planting some stuff. thinking abt what it might grow into, coming back again & again. the sun ducks behind clouds & comes back out, & the world feels so light & passing by. & time feels forever, like i have so much patience to dream & breathe & observe. this is one of my early memories, watching shadows on the concrete/sidewalks at preschool, feeling warmer then colder then warmer again. i also wanna feel the kind of collectivity that makes me know we all insist on home. i want it to branch beyond this home that i know. & also mean that i will not throw this away. im thinking abt how to exist intimately with more than one person at once. it is smth i will learn as it comes into my life.

[elisekw4-blog]

A Bad Fall

Being home was surreal and yet I was 100% ready to be back on trail as soon as our time there was up. We left Seattle on a hot Sunday morning and headed to Snoqualmie where my parents sent us off. We hiked uphill for seven miles and cowboy camped at Ridge Lake, one of many beautiful alpine lakes in the area. I woke up at five am to the strong smell of smoke. We were suddenly in a cloud of smoke, covered in ash. The next day was full of ridge walking with these spectacular views which were now hidden in the smoky abyss. As bummed as I was about the smoky curtain, I tried to make the best of it anyhow. About five miles into my day, on a downhill section of the ridge walk, I stepped on a rock at the edge of the ridge, and immediately turned my ankle in the worst way. My full body weight and some serious momentum were both working against me. As I lay in the middle of the trail, pack straps choking me, knee skinned, I began to sob. I wasn’t crying because I was hurt, although I knew I was badly injured. I cried because the first thought I had was ‘my thru hike is over.’ Devastation flooded me. I’ve come so close, and this is how it ends?! I started to cry out for DB, but he was too far ahead and couldn’t hear my cries. I couldn’t stand. I continued to cry and soon enough another thru hiker came along. I had met Bobby Hill a few weeks back, but didn’t really know him. He immediately took off his pack and sat down with me. He gave me something for the pain and told me he would stay with me for however long I needed. I was SO grateful to have him there with me. We talked about my options. As the tears subsided, the reality sunk in. This was a real injury. I was on the side of a steep mountain, miles from water, and there were no easy exit points. I could hike back to the last water five miles, or continue north to the next water three miles ahead, where DB would be waiting for me. If I couldn’t hike at all, I needed to seriously consider pressing my SOS and get airlifted out. For anyone who knows me, the last option wasn't one I would give into unless it was life or death. After more tears of frustration, some pain killers, an ace bandage wrap, and lots of motivation from my peers, I decided to hobble the three miles north to the pond where I would meet up with DB. Bobby Hill patiently walked behind me and made sure I was okay. About half way to the pond, we turned around a bend to find DB, hiking south to find me. "Honey, I'm broken" were the first words out of my mouth. I've fallen so many times on the PCT and I've never been hurt. Why this time?! DB walked behind me just as Bobby Hill had, and we slowly made the other mile and a half to the pond. I soaked my already grapefruit size ankle in the cool water and we ate lunch and talked about our options. I didn't want to turn around and so we decided to hike the next three miles to the waterfall and camp. It was the slowest three miles of my entire hike (including the Sierras). Along the way we met a hiker named The Mayor, who gave me some extra food and offered to carry my pack for a while and give DB a break. Of course DB said he didn't need the help....my night in shining armor ;). When we arrived at the waterfall, camping was limited. There was already a hiker posted up and just enough room for us to squeeze onto a semi flat rock on a cliffs edge. Not ideal, but we had no other options. There was a small note at the campsite reading, "resident rat. Do not camp here! Will chew through ANYTHING to get to food". We didn't take this too seriously. We've been living out here for five months and have never had any issues with rodents. Our friend Tissue showed up shortly after, and we all made dinner together. Tissue gave me a great ankle brace and some pain killers. We set up our cowboy camp and went to bed shortly after eating. It had been a long day and I needed some good sleep. DB and I decided to use our food bags as pillows to ensure the rat would stay away. We've always been under the impression that animals will smell us first and be scared off. Well, this nasty little bugger had some balls. No sooner than five minutes after laying my head down did I hear the pitter patter of rat feet on my thermarest neoair. Omg!!!! The rat had crawled right up to my head! We shooed it away, only to have it return as soon as we settled in again. This was an ongoing issue for a while. Finally we decided to flip over so that our heads were towards the cliff and we stashed all our food between us and cuddled it. That damn rat finally left us alone and we got some much needed sleep. However I did fall asleep with my tent poles in one hand and my head lamp in the other, ready to swat the bugger if he was brave enough to return. The first thing most of us do when we wake up is pee (sorry, but I have no filter anymore). On this morning, my ankle was so swollen and so painful, I could barely preform this task. We were 20 miles from any road and I couldn't even pee on my own. This was bad. I crawled back to my sleeping bag and began to cry. I cried and cried and cried. When I thought I was done crying, I cried again. I was so frustrated with my body and so fearful that this was the end of my PCT adventure. DB told me I had to make a decision. We would either commit to the 50 miles to Stevens, with a high probability of running out of foods and a chance of doing more damage to my ankle, or hike back 20 miles with enough food to take it easy and have a better chance of making it safely. This was one of the hardest decisions for me. I've never hiked south bound. I'm a north bound thru hiker. This was a time where I had to put my pride aside and make a smart decision. I made the choice to hike back to Snoqualmie after trying to walk 50 ft from the campsite to trail in utter agony. DB insisted on carrying my pack and we ever so slowly made our way up the many switchbacks we descended the evening before. Along the way we ran into many familiar faces of hikers we had met along the way but hadn't seen in a long time. Everyone stopped to make sure we were okay, offering help carrying my pack, made sure we had extra food and meds. It was amazing to feel so much support from my thru hiking peers. We even met a section hiker named Janis, who was a massage therapist. Janis gave me a treatment right there on trail! My gratitude was overflowing. We arrived at the pond after three hours and spent the rest of the day soaking my foot, elevating it and simply resting. DB was so supportive. We are used to being on a sort of schedule and meeting these goals we set for ourselves each day. My injury threw a wrench into our plans, and of course I felt guilty for being the reason we had to turn around. DB didn't make me feel guilty about it for a second. Be was 100% supportive in my decision to turn around and did every single thing he could to make sure I was okay. He reminded me to drink water and elevate my foot at each break. He carried my pack the entire way out....which had to have been extremely hard. He had his own pack on his back and mine on his chest, climbing mountains to our exit point. Many hikers who passed by us commented on how strong he was and what a champ I had in a hiking partner. Of course I fully agreed with each of them, yet each time he would tell them they were wrong. He told them that I was the strong one and the champion for hiking on my injured foot. I honestly couldn't be luckier to have him as my hiking partner. Our friendship makes the hiking more enjoyable, but it most certainly makes situations like these far more manageable. We hiked fifteen miles the following day, all the way to the road. We were both exhausted and sore. We weren't sure how we were going to get to Leavenworth where we planned to stay with my friend Erika (an 7ne RN alum) and her husband while I could heal. It was almost seven pm and we had no plan and we were beat. We decided to walk to the Chevron at the pass where hikers get a free beer from a local named Dan who hosts a food truck and figure out a plan there. The moment Dan handed us our beers, my phone buzzed. It was Erika, telling me that her good family friend Donna who lives at the pass had a room and hot meal for us to stay the night. I yelped with utter joy and hugged DB. I called Donna moments later and I kid you not, she was there within five minutes! We couldn't have dreamed of a better scenario. Donna is truly one of the kindest souls we've met on trail. She and her husband provided us with hot showers, laundry, their guest room and two hot meals. My parents (they are incredible) picked us up early in the morning and drove us all the way to Leavenworth to Erika's house. I'm officially resting now and am feeling so grateful for all of the support on and off trail in the last 72 hours. Thank you to everyone who offered to help me. I'm immensely lucky to have a such wonderful people in my life and I don't take it for granted one bit. I'm certain that I'll be back on trail in no time. Until then, I'm looking forward to catching up with my old friend from UWMC here in Leavenworth. Feeling SO much love and sending it right back to all of you! XO -Munch