#no i'm not getting medical care for this yet

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets Friday: Jak 3 alternate opening

What if the Spargans and Marauders both found the boys at the same time?

Jak's saving grace was that prisoners were separated by age range in this strange and terrible place. He was dropped onto a cot in a smaller cell across from the raiders that had taken his goggles and jacket and boots before they were all captured. Without the jacket, some of his worse scars had been pretty visible, as well as fresh injuries.

He didn't remember when the field medic stepped into the cell, but at some point he was given water, and highly concentrated eco.

"Easy, kid. Drink slow," the medic directed him. He scowled over his shoulder at the raiders in the other two cells. "Bloody barbarians, letting one of their young'uns get to this state."

The water had barely returned even a fraction of his voice, but it was enough for Jak to whisper,

"I don't know them"

The medic pulled back, concern etched on his pockmarked face. Then a knowing look.

"Rot. Okay, okay-" He stood up and ran a hand over his hood. "I gotta report that. Crap, I hope they didn't already schedule the trial."

Jak's blood ran cold. Trial.

Images of sneering faces, stun rods when he tried to speak, flooded his memory and he twitched nervously.

"T-rial?" he rasped painfully.

"Trespassing and theft, possibly murder," the medic answered, almost distracted. "I guess we gotta add kidnapping to that too. Trial by combat though. If they make it through, they earn a pardon. So. Hope you don't mind, you might have to see em again."

The medic patted his shoulder. "I'm going to send down an eco and electrolyte mixture. Try to drink all of it today. Barring medical emergencies, I'll get the ball rolling on transferring you."

Jak didn't put much stock in that. No one who put him in a cell ever really cared what happened to him. He lay on the thin palette, sweating, barely able to roll to his side even after the eco. At least he knew Daxter had made it out. He'd find Jak. He always did.

Across the room, the Marauder who'd taken his scarf glared at him with murder in his eyes. What was he looking at? Jak wasn't the one who got them locked in cells!

The stare unnerved him more than he cared to admit. He had no idea who the bandit was, and yet the man looked at him as though he recognized him.

"What's the plan for the trial, eh?" one of the Marauders asked quietly.

"What plan?" another scoffed, "It's just survival in these dogs' gladiator games."

"Not what I heard."

The one wearing Jak's coat leaned back against the bars and scratched his cheek.

"You know they got all the water and eco access, Berni. Worse places to try to fit in than this."

The one glaring at Jak snarled. "That's treason, boy."

The young man shrugged. "I'm a practical man. You pass a trial, they let you emigrate. No consequences for anything that came before, you earn your freedom. Access to eco, clean water, and a shot at real power. You tell me that don't sound like a good deal."

Some muttered grudging assents. Others were as angry as the glaring one. One of them went as far as promising to kill the man if he tried to defect.

"You won't make it out of that Arena," he promised, "I'll smash your skull in."

"Pretty cold, big brother."

"I'd rather see you dead than a Spargan," his brother answered coolly.

Jak closed his eyes and tried to block them out.

A combat trial.

Well, unfortunately, that was one thing he excelled at.

This talk of emigration piqued his interest. He'd never technically existed on paper in Haven. He had no legal rights or protections -- which was why the sham trial was able to take place at all: they classified the boy their leader had kidnapped as an undocumented immigrant. An easy target to exploit for labor and then betray.

If this city gave you rights just for surviving, his odds had just gotten a lot better.

______________________________

The guards came to take them to the Arena before Jak had finished the electrolyte solution. Which, he guessed, meant that medic hadn't told whoever was in charge that Jak wasn't a Marauder.

The eight of them were herded unceremoniously up a narrow set of stairs and into the blinding glare of midmorning. They were pushed out onto antigrav platforms at the end of the stairs that ferried them down into a massive stadium. There had to be thousands of people in the stands, far more than Jak remembered seeing at the races.

Out of habit, he looked around for a floating viewing pod for a leader, like Haven would've had. Instead, he saw a balcony high above the center of the south wall. He could barely make out a figure seated a little ways in. Did this place have a Baron too? Spoiled nobles enamored with bloodsport?

A flash of orange along the railing caught his attention, and his eyes widened.

Daxter!

There he was, climbing up into that balcony like a man on a mission. Jak couldn't help the small smile brightening his face as he looked towards the balcony.

Gunnar, the Marauder with his scarf, only seemed to get angrier when he saw Jak's grin.

"Oh don't look so relieved," Gunnar hissed in his ear, "He isn't going to save you, whelp."

"Rot you," Jak retorted, jerking away from him on unsteady feet.

An unpleasantly familiar voice rang out over the ring, announcing the purpose of the combat trial.

Pecker.

That overgrown feather duster had survived?! What, had he gotten work as a sports announcer?

The moncaw was just explaining that their opponents would join them shortly when Gunnar suddenly surged forward to lock an elbow around Jak’s throat. He'd caught him off guard, allowing him to drag the boy several steps away from the others. Jak started to fight his way out of the grip, but halted when he felt the prick of the blade against his neck.

"Just try, whelp," Gunnar laughed, "I'll open your throat right in front of him."

Was he talking about Daxter? Jak scanned the balcony, but didn't see his friend.

Gunnar stepped sideways until they were directly facing the balcony, then raised his voice.

"I'll kill him, Damas!" he threatened, "You want the whelp to live? You're gonna have to come get him."

Who the Frith is "Damas"?!

The figure in the balcony rose and stepped up to the edge. Now Jak could make out a well-built man in his late thirties or so, covered in Precursor metal armor and wielding an impressive looking staff. There was no chance that this was just another warrior. This man carried himself like a ruler.

Jak remembered his face.

That was the man who had led the capture. That was the man who had been driving when he was tossed unceremoniously into the back of a vehicle.

The man folded his free arm behind his back and peered down at Gunnar and his hostage. He did not look impressed.

"You think threatening the life of one of your own -- without giving him the chance to defend himself -- is going to grant you absolution?"

Gunnar bared his teeth. An agressive smile, like a shrimpanzee.

"Didn't get a good look at him in the storm, didja, you old wolf?" He taunted. The blade pushed just hard enough to draw a bead of blood to the surface.

"Get off that throne, or your spawn dies."

"The rot are you talking about?" Jak grunted.

He gripped the restraining arm with one hand, the knife hand with the other, just barely keeping some breathing room. He wasn't strong enough to pry himself loose without injury. He needed an opening first. A distraction.

Daxter appeared as if by magic, leaping up onto the rail beside this Damas person. Jak couldn't hear what he was saying, but by his stiff posture, he knew Daxter was angry. He pointed now and then in Jak’s direction, then at the armored man in an accusing fashion. The man's brows rose in a concerned expression, then lowered quickly. With each passing second, the frown deepened into something much more hostile.

"You are mistaken," he called down at last, "I don't know the boy."

Then he reached back and handed his staff to someone out of sight. He set down two small side arms and a knife on the railing, and straightened a vambrace. A menacing smile cut across his weathered face.

"But," he announced, "if you wish to invoke a blood feud, I am more than happy to oblige regardless."

With that, he stepped down onto the antigrav platform and let it carry him down. On the railing, Daxter turned to face the ring and signed quickly to Jak.

Oh

There was a plan.

Clever, clever Daxter!

He had signed, "Found your opening."

[starly-amazing]

To Not Change

Rating: Teen

Summary: Finally! After laying in bed and being cared for night and day by their allies friends family—finally Siffrin has been deemed recovered and 'stable' enough to get back on the road. They've had plenty of hugs and excruciatingly vulnerable but necessary (necessary!!!) feelings talky-talks while laid up in bed in Dormont, but they finally left the town and that blinding House behind feeling not completely terrible! That is, until a familiar, yet entirely unwelcome feeling begins gnawing on their insides after its long absence and knocks them right back into bed. After assuring their family it's not, in fact, their craft exhaustion causing their current problems, Siffrin confides in Mirabelle over these mysterious pains that have been following them for half their life. AKA: Doctors suck, intersex Siffrin has had enough of their bullcrab, and he and Mirabelle have a nice long feelings talky-talk about their right to not Change.

Tags: Asexual Siffrin, Aroace Mirabelle, Intersex Siffrin, Feelings Talky-talk, Platonic MiraSif, Anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, Catharsis, Sickfic (i guess)

Warnings: Intersexism, Mentions of Medical Abuse/Neglect, Medical Intersexism, Brief/Vague Mentions of Sex and Periods

[Read on AO3]

--- --- ---

Finally! After laying in bed and being cared for night and day by their allies friends family—finally Siffrin has been deemed recovered and 'stable' enough to get back on the road. They've had plenty of hugs and excruciatingly vulnerable but necessary (necessary!!!) feelings talky-talks while laid up in bed in Dormont, but they finally left the town and that blinding House behind feeling not completely terrible!

That was, until a familiar, yet entirely unwelcome feeling began gnawing on their insides after its long absence.

If there was one good thing about the loops... 

Of course, of course, it's happening now, when they're finally able to help get Bonnie back to their sister.

Siffrin managed to get through most of their journey to save Vaugarde with their family without having to deal with it, but now it's coming back with a vengeance and has them wanting to claw out every organ in the lower half of their body.

What did the doctors say it was again?

Ugh, it doesn't matter—it's not like they've ever done anything helpful for it.

He adjusts his pack, twists his body a few times, then picks up the pace. Just a few more hours of walking to the next city, then they can find a nice patch of grass to curl up in until it goes away.

It's fine.

It's fine!

Just think about your family and how amazing and wonderful they are for staying with you after everything you've done to them! Think about Bonbon reuniting with their sister after you made them wait even longer to see her again!

"Sif? You okay?" Isabeau's voice makes them jump and stumble. They're saved by his strong arm flying in front of him in a flash.

Siffrin squeezes down on his bicep and rights himself with shaky legs. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," they pant.

He narrows his eyes. " Sif ." Slowly, he pulls his arm away and turns to face him fully.

They grumble and clench their jaw. "I don't feel so good."

The rest of their family catch on to Siffrin's distress and circle back around to inspect them.

Mirabelle places the back of her hand on his forehead. "You're running hot again, Siffrin. I think your craft exhaustion is back."

Isabeau glances behind him at the small collection of houses they just passed. "We're only about twenty minutes out from Miette. Do you want to turn back and stay another day?"

Siffrin frowns. "But Bonnie—"

"FRIN!" Bonnie barks, "I can wait! I miss Nille and all, but I don't want you to drop dead either!" They stomp their feet in a wide stance, cross their arms, and pout.

Siffrin feels a twist in their chest. "Hhahah, I'm not gonna die Bonbon."

"Still," Odile sighs, "The nurses back in Dormont did warn you about potential permanent health complications if you overexert yourself while still experiencing craft exhaustion."

"It's fine." Siffrin waves. "It's not craft exhaustion. It's just... something that happens sometimes. It'll go away on its own."

Odile crosses her arms. "Siffrin. Even if whatever 'it' is normally goes away on its own, we have no idea how it interacts with your craft exhaustion. You already know how we all feel about leaving this early. We should head back." Everyone nods.

Siffrin grumbles. "I just need to sit down for a bit." His eye flicks across all of them. "I—" They're all crowding awfully close and Bonnie is digging in their bag for tonics and the clinking glass grates at their ears and he feels the air getting warmer and thicker and they find themself trembling and sweating as the pain inside them twists and claws and threatens to turn them inside out and—

Stars fill their vision, and the world turns sideways.

—

Siffrin doesn't even get a brief reprieve in their returning lucidity before the clawing, twisting, burning sensation returns. They groan and pull their legs closer to their chest but find they can only move a few inches.

Something shifts beside them, and they pry their eye open to see Isabeau already leaning over them.

"Sif! Sif, are you okay? Do you need anything? Are you feeling better?" His hand flies to their forehead, and he pauses for a moment before placing it down gently against their burning skin. They don't flinch; he's too tired, even if he might have otherwise.

"Yeah, somewhat." They smile and run their fingers through their sweaty hair. The air around them is so cold, though, and a shudder wracks their whole body.

"Hold on," Isabeau murmurs, "let me get you some more water." He dashes out of the room.

Siffrin takes that time to slowly, slowly inch their way into a sitting position and survey their surroundings.

Okay, we're in a room. Obviously. Probably back at the inn in Miette. Ugh. Fever is back. Awful whatever-it-is is back. Ugh, they're going to make me stay here for another few days, aren't they?

They shake their head and grab the wall for purchase as the room spins.

No, no it's okay. They're doing this because they care about you. If you drop dead on the road, it'd slow them down even more! You haven't even told them what you wanted them to do with your corpse this time!

The clicking of the door handle jerks them back to reality, and Isabeau comes back with a full glass and the rest of the family in tow.

"FRIN!" Bonnie screeches and launches themself on the bed. Siffrin bites back a groan as the rocking sends jolts through them.

"Boniface, please," Odile presses her fingers to her temple.

"Oh, sorry." They slide off and grab a stool. The legs let out an awful scraping sound as it's dragged across the old, wooden floor. Siffrin grinds their teeth and shrinks in on themself until Isabeau jumps over and lifts it for the last few feet.

Mirabelle kneels beside Bonnie as they get comfortable, and she feels Siffrin's forehead. Her lips twitch downward just a bit. "How are you feeling now?"

He finds himself leaning into the refreshing coolness of her fingers.

"Fi—mmm... bleh," they finally grunt.

"How 'bleh'?"

"Like I-don't-want-to-move 'bleh', not I'm-dying 'bleh."

Isabeau wipes his brow and sighs. "Well, that's good, at least, but you still scared the crab out of all of us!"

"Sorry." They hide their face behind their knees.

"It's okay. Just please, please talk to us more. I know it's hard. But you're not burdening any of us if you need us to slow down."

"Sorry."

Odile taps her notebook. "Siffrin, if you say 'sorry' again, gems help me I'll—"

"Whoa, m'dame give them some leeway, please." Isabeau holds his hands up.

She sighs. "Okay, Siffrin, are you able to tell us what's wrong? You mentioned something about this not being craft exhaustion, correct?"

They look down at their sheets and tug at the hem. "Right," they mumble, "it's something else."

She opens her notebook and raises an eyebrow. "Something else?"

"Frin, I didn't cook you anything bad, did I???" Bonnie leans closer with a stiff frown etched on their face. "I told Za those turnips looked weird, but he said that's normal."

"H-hey!" Isabeau sputters. "They were fine; they just looked weird!"

"I doubt it's that, Boniface," Odile comments. "We all ate it, and none of us seem to be feeling ill."

"Not the turnips." Siffrin shakes their head. They rub their chin on their shoulder to get an itchy bead of sweat off. "It's just something that happens occasionally."

Mirabelle narrows her gaze and stares at Siffrin clutching their gut for a moment. "Oh! Siffrin, are you having cramps? Did you just start—"

"No! I mean, maybe? I don't know, it's—" they grip their side harder. The room is quickly heating up and growing stuffy, and they find their breaths are becoming more ragged and heavy.

"Sif, it's okay; there's no shame in talking about it," Isabeau chuckles warmly. "I have some herbs for that I can grab if you want."

"Sure, yeah," they mumble. Just agree, say it's cramps, and they'll let up. And maybe it is just weird cramps and you actually are telling the truth!

Bonnie jumps in their seat. "Oh, oh! Nille usually cooks up something when she has them, and it helps a lot. I'll try to remember what she used and make some in a sec!"

Stars begin pricking the corners of his vision again. He groans and curls in more, squeezing his eye shut. "Yeah, okay."

"Okay, kids, I think Siffrin needs some space." Odile shuffles the others away from the bed. He takes in a sharp breath. "We'll come back shortly to talk."

"Thanks," Siffrin exhales. His eye snaps open, and he jolts back upright as they start to shuffle toward the door. "Wait!" they yelp.

Everyone jumps.

"Mira, can you stay? Please?"

She gasps and clasps her hands together. "Yes, of course, Siffrin." She settles down on the stool Bonnie just vacated as the others file out of the room.

Mira won't be weird about it. Probably. She's probably the safest person to talk to right now. Odile would want to study you. Isabeau would probably pass out if you go into any details.

"We're trying to find a doctor," Isabeau says from the door, "the only one in this town is swamped right now so—"

Siffrin shakes their head and doesn't stop until Isabeau puts his hands up and takes a step back.

"Enough doctors, I'll be fine. I just need to rest for a little."

"Oh, okay." He grips the door frame and looks between Siffrin and Mirabelle. "We'll be back later with food, then." Isabeau gives one last look at them before closing the door.

Siffrin lets out a long sigh and relaxes as much as his body will allow.

Mirabelle puts her hand beside him on the bed. "Siffrin?"

They flinch but turn to her. "Yeah?"

"I—um—will you tell me what's really wrong?"

They bury their face in their knees.

Honesty. Honesty!

But this isn't about the loops, so why should I?

But it was never just about the loops, though.

Ughhh... 

Mirabelle moves her hand closer until it's hovering over his. She waits for his gaze to fall on it before she places it on top, light as a feather.

They turn their hand around and lock their fingers with hers. Right! They can do that now! And it feels great!

Too bad it’s not enough to vanquish the pain, but they’ll take what they can get!

"I don't know what it is exactly, but it's happened before a lot."

"Before?" Mira tilts her head.

"Before I met you all. It doesn't usually make me pass out like that."

"That's probably the craft exhaustion exacerbating it," she hums. "Wait— usually? You've passed out before?"

They wince. "A few times, yeah. Usually, when I've been traveling for a while and haven't eaten much in a few days."

"A few days!?" She looks like she's seen a ghost.

They squeak. Too honest! He tries to hide beneath his hat, but of course, it's still gone forever. He settles for pulling his blanket over his face.

"Sorry, sorry, Siffrin." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "Please, keep talking. I promise I won't react like that again. I just worry—you know." She wrings her hands together. "But I know reacting like that isn't constructive, so I'll keep it inside for you!" She picks at her nails until Siffrin points at them. "Thanks," she mutters and slams them down on her thighs.

"Okay," he breathes, "okay, well, it's... it's just that... well... sometimes I just get this weird discomfort or pain like..." They gesture between their legs. "My body is... different... down there. And it might have something to do with it. " They begin to explain their symptoms as best they can. Mirabelle stays as still as she's able, only letting out a few small gasps when he goes over the more gruesome details.

"That sounds awful." Her face twists into a grimace. "Have you talked to any doctors about it?"

They cringe until their cheeks hurt and shake their head. "I've been to doctors before but they're always... " They shift themself around and take a swig of water. "They're always trying to look at me like I'm some sort of weird specimen." His heart pounds against his ribs faster and faster.

They take another big gulp. "And then they keep telling me to let them do surgery on me or go to a House and Change to be more normal and show me all these diagrams of what I should look like and say a bunch of confusing words and don't explain what any of it means and it was even worse when I didn't even know Vaugardian that well and they never explain why Changing like that would even help me." Their head starts to hurt like something is trying to pull it apart.

"And they always keep trying to get me to change to one—you know—set down there and rarely the other and now I don't even want to Change like that even if I might have before and sometimes they give me some medicine that helps a bit but other times they don't and just make it feel worse so I haven't even gone in years and just try to ignore it when it happens and—and—"

"Siffrin!" Mirabelle reaches up toward their face. They jerk back but still themself as she slowly, carefully places her hand where he had somehow tangled it in his hair. Her other hand comes up and under his palm and loosens his fingers to pull them away from his head.

He lets his other hand fall to his side as Mirabelle presses a soft kiss to his knuckles.

It tickles.

"Sorry," he breathes and squeezes his eye shut.

"You're okay, Siffrin. I'm so sorry."

"S'not your fault," they mumble.

"I'm still sorry," she frowns, "that sounds awful. Doctors keep telling you to Change to fix this?"

They nod and scratch at their cheek.

"Is that why you were so adamant about not seeing one here or undressing for the nurse back at the House?"

"Yeah," they whimper. "They even try to talk about it when I go in about something completely unrelated, like that one time I burned my thigh." They cringe and hope she doesn't ask them to explain how that huge blunder happened.

"That's..." She puts her fingernail in her mouth but doesn't chew. She looks off at the faded old lamp on their nightstand as her face twists into something that might have scared him if he wasn't so drained.

"That's not okay!" she barks out loud enough for Siffrin to jump. She turns to them, and they flinch again. "They shouldn't do that to you! What the crab is wrong with them?" She wrings her hands on her belt and taps her foot.

"Ooh, I'm so mad! Doctors are supposed to help! Not try to push people to Change as some sort of end-all be-all solution! Especially not people who don't even follow the Change Belief!" She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. Siffrin simply waits for her to continue as he hugs his knees closer and closer to his chest. The pressure helps a bit, but they keep having to move into weirder and weirder positions to chase the bad sensations away.

"Siffrin, I'm so sorry they treated you that way. I'm... " She pinches her brow and is silent for a while. Siffrin leans closer and catches her mumbling something under her breath.

Mirabelle slaps her hands down in her lap, making Siffrin jump once again. Stars , when will he cut that out? "I love the Change Belief. I love how it pushes me to be a better person, and I love how kind everyone is, and I love learning new things. But sometimes I feel like it keeps pushing us to Change just for the sake of change. Like you have to work hard to be a completely different person each day, 'who cares if you're happy where you are in life go buy a whole different set of clothes even though the ones you have are fine go fall in love and get bonded and have babies and—'"

Siffrin perks up. They lean forward and give a few subconscious nods as she speaks.

"'—you're not doing it right if you don't want to do these things even if just thinking about them makes you feel gross inside and if you don't want that you're just going to be alone forever and—'" Her eyes blow wide, and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

Siffrin clenches his jaw and shies away. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, she continues.

"Siffrin, I'm sorry—I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean to make this about me. I shouldn't have brought that up just now. It's just something that's been bothering me for a while," her voice slows and lowers with each word, "even before you said all those things to me. I'm sorry, we can talk about that later. I know this is the worst time to bring it up."

"No, no!" Nope! No going back now. Only forward. Even if it kills me. They lean closer. "No, it's okay. Please keep talking. This is what I was trying to talk to you about that day."

Nope, she can't keep thinking something's wrong with her because of you!

They dig their nails into their knee until it hurts.

"Huh?"

"Like... what you talked to me about on previous loops. You were saying these things, too." They squeeze their legs. "I just worded it so terribly and wasn't thinking about how gross shoving it in your face like that was... even if I did manage to say it right. And I'm still so, so sorry."

"Oh, Siffrin," she frowns. Her lips pull tight and she keeps fidgeting with her belt.

"I should have let you figure it out yourself. I was just so eugh and rushed everyone and ruined everything and—"

"Siffrin!" She squeezes his hands in the same rhythm he did for her. " It's okay . Is this really what we were talking about then?"

They sniff and nod. "Yeah. I was trying to tell you that—well, please, just keep talking, okay?"

"Are you sure? Shouldn't we at least get you something first?" She glances at the door. "I'm sure Isabeau will be back with whatever herbs he has soon."

They shake their head. "Please."

"Oh, okay then. Well," She grumbles and tugs at the hem of her dress. A heavy silence fills the room for a long, long moment. Siffrin shifts themself a bit as their discomfort flares up.

"Okay," she sighs. "Well. It's just that... I mean, it's always about capital C Changing all the time. You have to make huge Changes, and once you're done, you Change again and again and again just for the sake of showing everyone how different you are now and to please the Change God who probably doesn't even care that much! And it's just like people get so caught up in Changing that they don't stop to think about if they really want to or even should, and then they keep pushing everyone to keep furthering their Changes, and it makes me feel like I'm failing everyone because I..."

She bites her lip and rocks side to side in her chair. "I don't want to Change in some ways! I like how I am now! I saved the crabbing country, and I have you and everyone with me who love me and want to keep traveling with me, and I'm happy with that!"

She pauses to take a few shallow breaths. "Why do I have to Change in other ways? I keep looking at those stupid crabbing bonding papers, and I don't feel anything for any of those people or anyone I've ever met. I don't want to date or bond with anyone or have ssss... do stuff with people and have children with them!"

She wipes her glove over her eyes and Siffrin realizes she's tearing up.

"Mira." He squeezes her hands. "Breathe with me?"

"Sorry, sorry, I—"

Siffrin takes a slow breath in and out and Mirabelle soon copies. They close their eye and rhythmically squeeze at her hands and repeat their breaths several more times. The pain clawing at them seems to fade just a bit and they're able to uncurl a little more.

Okay. Okay. This is good. This is fine. We're still getting there even if she's more upset than before and my organs are on fire. Just stick to the s—no—no script, you can do this without one!

"It's okay, Mira," they smile. "You're right, that's really similar to my uh... situation." He tilts his head side to side as he says that. "I can't really imagine being completely surrounded by that pressure all my life."

It seems so stifling.

Mirabelle gasps. "Oh, no, Siffrin, don't get me wrong. I still do love the Change Belief and what it stands for in general, just that... I just—I guess there's some things about it that seem more hurtful than helpful. I thought it was just me and I'm just failing as a Housemaiden when everyone around me is doing these things and I'm not.

"But talking to you about it... I can't be the only one going through this, can I? There have to be other Housemaidens who feel this way too, right?"

Siffrin nods, leaning forward. "Well, I'm not a Housemaiden, but I also don't want to do 'stuff,’ I think. I know it's not exactly the same thing because I do love Isa... and I think it might be romantic but... sex just seems so weird and kinda gross."

Mirabelle perks up and gasps. "Really? You don't?"

Siffrin shakes their head with a tired smile.

She studies him for a moment; he can't quite read her expression. "Yeah. Yeah! It is! It is weird and messy and confusing, and I don't want to do that at all!" She shakes her head and hands, and Siffrin has to lean back so she doesn't smack him in the face with her hair.

He can't hold back a chuckle, but his smile soon falls, and he presses his chin to his knees.

"And I also worry sometimes that that'll be a problem if we do start... d-dating." They bite their lip. "What if he wants to do 'stuff' with me and I still don't want to. Or what if I do try it and he sees me like this and thinks it's weird and gross and—"

" He won't, " Mira says with conviction.

"Wha—?"

"Isabeau won't think or say anything bad about it, Siffrin. I trust him. Just like I know he wouldn't say anything bad to me if I talked to him about what we just talked about."

"Right, yeah." They dig their fist into their gut. "I still don't want to disappoint him."

"If he has a problem with that I'll kick him in his crabbing butt!"

Siffrin snorts and covers their nose with the back of their hand. "Nooo, don't do that!"

"I won't have to!" She gives a sharp nod. "Because he won't! Say anything! Bad about how you look or how you feel about sex or anything like that!"

Siffrin smiles and feels a gentle warmth bubbling up inside him. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. He's too wonderful and kind and understanding and... " they bite their trembling lip. "He's great."

Mirabelle hums and smiles even brighter. "I'm glad you have each other."

Siffrin leans forward and presses his forehead to hers. They both close their eyes and sigh. "I'm glad I have you too."

"Awww, Siffrin," she sniffs and slowly wraps her arms around him. "Thank you for letting me talk about this." She sighs. "I'm sorry, I know I should have just let you explain what you meant back at the House but I was just... " she pulls back and gestures wildly in the air. "...emotions and all that. And it's just so weird knowing you knew things about me that I didn't know yet and, well, you know what I mean."

Woulda been really nice, yeah.

"It's fine. You got it now so it's all good, I hope."

Mirabelle sniffs. "Yep, all good."

They sit like that for a minute before Mirabelle suddenly gasps and jerks upward.

"Wait, Siffrin, are you still hurting?"

Excruciatingly.

"Yeah, but compared to the loops, it's nothing!"

"Siffrin! That's still not good!" she huffed. "We still need to get you... hmm..." She sways her head side to side, mumbles something under her breath, then lights up a bit.

"What if I came with you to see a doctor? I could be there as support and to help if they try to get you to do anything you're not comfortable with."

They open their mouth, but no sound comes out. His mind races. That sounds... like a decent idea, actually. They could get some relief, couldn't they? Mirabelle's strong. She stood up against the King, she could stand up against some stuffy old doctor.

"You'd really do that?"

"Of course!" she beams. "It's my duty as feelings buddy to help you with bad physical feelings, too!" She crosses her arms and gives a curt nod, expression filled with determination. It only stays for a moment before she snorts out a small giggle and looks at him warmly.

"I—" they can't meet her gaze. It's all too much. He shrinks in on himself and squeezes at his wrist. Oh no, he can feel the tears forming. "Yeah, I would like that," he murmurs.

Mirabelle perks up and seems to shake her enthusiasm down as best she can.

"Okay! So!" She dives into her bag and pulls out one of her bonding papers and a pen. "Don't need this anymore!" She crosses out the front and flips over to the blank side. "Let's use it for something actually important!"

Siffrin can't help but smile.

"So! Where to start?"

--- --- ----

Notes:

Inspired by a tumblr post I saw a few months ago that talked about how the Change belief may view intersex people in a similar way to how they view aroace people.

Huge thanks to moltenbinary for proofreading this and motivating me to finish this after I had the idea bouncing around in my head for a while. Check out their fic To Exist in This Body, another intersex Siffrin fic!

Next chapter: Mirabelle strongarms a doctor into being useful. Stay Tuned!

[seasidefallenangel]

she's got those evil eyes

bllk boys and their mean girlfriends ft isagi yoichi, itoshi sae, reo mikage, alexis ness, bachira meguru

notes: reader is a BITCH! (not to the boys), actual horrible shit being said by reader but our boys are too in love to notice or care, suicide mentions, i'm not condoning what reader does the point is that they're feral

༄ isagi:

✣ you’re his precious angel who can do no wrong, so of course he’s defending you tooth and nail. when you’re at his games flipping off the opposite team he thinks you’re too adorable for words. during practice, kaiser is ragging on him as usual and you’re there before isagi can blink, telling kaiser that no wonder his dad hit him with a shitty personality like that. insanely harsh, but you’re so cute to have his back!

⁀➷ “you need to stop getting yourself hurt like this, princess,” isagi murmurs as he gently applies an antiseptic to your knuckles. he wasn’t expecting you to punch rin in the face after some off-handed comment during practice (mostly stemming from rin’s own insecurities, but you’re not tolerating any disrespect towards your man.) isagi had stepped in right as rin was about to retaliate and you had gotten kicked off the field anyway, leading to the impromptu patch-up in the locker room. 

with a final piece of medical tape, he kisses your bruised hand and smiles softly at you, cupping your cheek in his palm. “thank you for being my knight in shining armor, baby,” he says gently, all the love in the world filling his voice. maybe you’re not the most ethical about it, but your desire to protect him more than makes up for it in his eyes.

༄ sae:

✣ always assumes you’re correct in every single situation. he looks to be nonchalant about your dating life, but he is easily your number one shooter. you’re on twitter telling his fans to kill themselves when they talk about how attractive he is or how he should break up with you and he’s in the kitchen smirking at his phone watching you go to war. never once in his life has he ever gave a shit about what people think about him, but the second something about you is viewed in a negative light? all bets are off. he’ll get just as toxic as you are.

⁀➷ the reporters are crowding him the second he’s getting off the plane. he already knows exactly what it’s about yet it still pisses him off. in his opinion, people are at fault for provoking you in the first place. in an irritating attempt to get his attention, one of the interviewers calls out, “sae! what do you have to say about your girlfriend tweeting ‘if i was your mom i would’ve killed myself too’ to one of your fans?!” 

yeah, he saw that one, and he thought it was funny. someone had been trying to rile you up by saying how re ai would be better off without sae on the team. unfortunately for them, they had “rip mom🩵🕊️” in their bio, giving you the perfect ammo to shoot back with. he clears his throat and simply says, “she’s right,” before walking off, leaving the paparazzi stunned.

༄ reo:

✣ you are so awful for the mikage image and reo loves every second of it. having such a stagnant and pre-planned upbringing versus your unhinged nature was just what he needed. barely a week can go by without you trending online for something heinous you said or did. in turn, you have quite a large following for simply how funny your antics and toxicity towards others is. reo must have the most heavily tinted rose colored glasses ever, because he always talks about how sweet and kind you are. the fans are still searching for the person he’s trying to describe, because it sure as hell isn’t you.

⁀➷ you’re lounging in bed, mindlessly scrolling on your phone when reo approaches you. like clockwork, you shift into his arms as he climbs into bed and relaxes next to you. his fingers are running through your hair when he finally asks in the most soft and gentle voice, “my love, why are you being called out on twitter again?” of course, you’re always sure to voice how it isn’t really your fault and that people should stop pissing you off if they don’t want you to come for their necks. 

quite honestly, he’s not really listening ; not because he’s not interested, but because you’re just irresistible when you defend yourself. regardless of whether or not you’re actually at fault (you are), he still sees you as his precious and adorable lover. he simply nods and leaves feather light kisses up and down the side of your neck, mumbling something like, “how dare they?” or “you’re so smart, angel,” every so often. if you ever were to get in any real trouble, the mikage fortune would be there to bail you out - so he sees no real reason to stop your tirades. 

༄ alexis:

✣ “me and my girl don’t argue she tells me to shut up and i do.” ness is honestly thankful for how much of a raging bitch you can be. not only does he never see anything wrong with it, but actively encourages it as well. you’re cussing out the mcdonald’s worker for putting pickles on his burger while he’s behind you with a dopey smile on his face, clinging to you like a lifeline. the only time he had to tug you away is when you were half a second away from clawing kaiser’s eyes out and had his neck bruising beneath your fingers for insinuating ness was more of a dog than a person. the german is still terrified whenever you accompany your boyfriend to practice.

⁀➷ in all the plans alexis had for his future, standing in front of the two people that crushed his childhood fantasies in facts and testing wasn’t one of them. he had left on a bitter note when he joined bastard münchen yet hadn’t found the courage to voice his true feelings on the matter. luckily for him, you had no shortage of guts to lay into his parents without fear.

for the first time in their lives, they’re stunned silent at your vicious words and mockery of their profession, upbringing, parenting, even going so far as to point out his mother’s physical imperfections and saying the only worthwhile thing she did was give birth a child that wasn’t nearly as ugly as she is. they can’t even get a word in before you grab alexis’ hand and drag him out, kicking a dent in his father’s car for good measure. even though your display was nothing short of pure evil, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt closer to god than when you cradle him in your hold, whispering words of love and praise into his ear. being a crybaby was something he was told he should be ashamed of, but the sensation left behind when you wipe his grateful tears is worth it to him.

༄ bachira:

✣ might honestly be the biggest enabler on this entire list along with alexis. he absolutely lives for chaos plus he’s too sickeningly in love with you to ever question a move you might make. he can hear you arguing with ego on the phone about bachira being overworked and while normally nothing phases blue lock’s director, the death threats you sent to his office were incredibly convincing and contained information that should’ve been impossible to obtain. he’d probably hire you if he wasn’t positive you’d pipe bomb the entire structure if anyone even gave a dirty look to your boyfriend. 

⁀➷  “whatcha doiiiinnnn?” bachira asks while plopping on top of the couch - in the exact spot while you were resting, mind you. you let out a light ‘oof!’ as his weight crushes you for a moment before leveling out. the second his head falls to rest on your stomach, you're carding one hand through his hair while the other angrily taps on your phone. he doesn’t really think to ask as he’s on the verge of falling asleep, but the sound he has set for your tweets dings from his phone (because of course he has notifications for you on.)

he lazily unlocks his phone and clicks onto the app only to bust out into laughter. whatever useless no-name had decided to say bachira’s playstyle only hinders his teammates was met with your quote retweet stating to ‘go take a long walk off a short bridge.’ in his overly happy splendor, he blows raspberries onto the soft skin of your tummy while you squeal and try to push him off. stubborn as he is he just refuses to let up until you're curled up in laughter. behind his silliness, he’s eternally grateful to have someone so devoted to him after years of isolation from his peers. he can’t help but think he’d do anything to keep you in his grasp - regardless of the consequences that might follow.

[eorzeanpages]

Something Personal About Me That Still Somehow Ends Up Being FFXIV Related Because Of Course

So I have osteoarthritis in my neck which presents as moderate-severe spinal stenosis at c4-6 on the left side.

For those who want the tl;dr that's not medical terms, my vertebrae are crushing the nerves coming out of my spinal cord to the left, midway up my neck or so.

This presents in a lot of problems, the most relevant bit to this story is that if my nerves get extra pinched by me holding my neck incorrectly, I get intense dizziness, nausea, extreme sleepiness, and I enter this weird psychosis state where I can't move but hallucinate vividly.

And I ended up with a sleep paralysis demon, which yes is a real thing if you have sleep or psychotic disorders. He was like Gollum if Gollum was super stretched out and had wings. I started calling him Hat Man to the group chat, after the benadryl Hat Man post.

Then my sister said, "lmao he should be Amon if he's the hat man, you'd never be afraid of him"

You can, with effort and meditation, change the appearance of your demon.

...

Anyway sometimes when the pain in my neck makes me want to black out, I start vividly hallucinate Amon of Syrcus Tower, stupid hat and all. He stands by my bed staring at me and I laugh at him.

The End

[buttercuparry]

I know I sound like a broken record by now: repeating the same things others have said before but I think banality of it all is the point of my post. The fact that I have nothing new to say– not about the genocide in Gaza, not about the dwindling attention of allies, is HORRIFYING. 

It has been 11 months of a genocide that the UN calls “war on children”. Malnutrition, diseases, lack of suitable medical care have caused Gazan children to lose their childhood; to lose their lives entirely!  

There is no hope left for a future unmarked of pain and my friend Siraj Abudayeh ( @siraj2024 ) , who is father to three sons describes it as a “feeling of oppression”.  He laments that his children have been forced away from their schools, hopes and dreams  by colonizers and where before there were ambitions to excel in either studies or sports, all they know now is helplessness, fear and anger. 

Siraj has told me how his children- Abed, Muhammad and Amir have confessed to their father about how they have begun to  feel guilty for surviving at all now ; after having lost so many of their friends to the genocide they are experiencing survivor's guilt and it breaks my heart to hear that. Abed, the eldest son, is ONLY ELEVEN!!  Can you imagine an eleven year old feeling guilty because he has managed to survive while his friends haven't ? And what kind of survival it is– Half starving, drinking unclean water, forced into tents where sand mites pester him throughout the day?

I am not sure what happened or why the engagement with fundraisers has dropped so drastically lately but there is nothing more atrocious, more horrible than apathy when children are suffering.  It is so strange that we can quote James Baldwin so easily and yet have failed to understand what he meant when he said,

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; ...whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. ”

We have the power that is not afforded to Gazans and therefore it is on us to be attentive no matter how repetitive these posts feel. It is ridiculous and dehumanizing that during a genocide one has to worry about making a post original enough to maintain attention. And yes I know that we won't be able to stop the horrifying banality of Israel’s evil in a day but WE CAN help provide FIVE families that are dependent on this fundraiser with a lifeline during times such as these.  

Please we have managed to get this far after struggling for so long, it cannot be that we will fail Siraj when he is so close to the end goal of 82k !!

So DONATE AND BOOST. Find it in yourself to not just reblog but circulate the fundraiser among your colleagues, friends and family. Share it in your whatsapp chats and discord servers. Share it on every other platform that you may have a reach on.

Currently at $72,987 CAD of the short term goal of 75k. We have 2k left to raise by tomorrow. 

Vetting at 219

[iscratchdoors]

i know this is the trans website and im preaching to the choir here but there is something to be said about the medical gatekeeping around transition being largely based on the idea that transitioning medically is the risky, dangerous option, while denying that transition to people actively seeking it is safe and harmless. all the medical professionals i've dealt with so far seem to understand the harm that comes to a cis person who mistakenly transitions and makes irreversible changes to their body, but the idea that that same suffering is also experienced by trans people who have not yet been allowed to transition, to a greater degree even, seems basically non existent. a cis person's ideal gendered appearance is treated as a thing inherently worth protecting and maintaining, while that of a trans person is treated as something they deliberately chose to pursue and don't actually need. the harm that comes to a trans person through putting off any sort of medical (and as a consequence, legal) transition is a thing that does not exist to these people. only the harm that comes to people who regret it is deemed worth considering. that's been my experience anyway

[crippledpunks]

i was recently denied life-saving gallbladder removal surgery by my GI specialist due to being "too fat" (i'm 300 lbs and very muscular) and "needing to lose 10 -15 pounds and waiting 2 - 3 months in order to get the surgery". i was then signed up for bariatric weight loss surgery before i could get the gallbladder removal despite the gallstone stuck in the neck of the organ as well as the other stones inside of it causing me to be incapable of keeping down food

i ended up getting the surgery done by a local hospital with far better doctors, but the initial denial had me so defeated. if you are fat and have ever been denied important surgeries, life saving or otherwise, because of your weight, i am so sorry and you should never have to face that. most surgeries are not impacted by weight in the slightest. this is usually an issue with the surgeon's skill as a surgeon.

i was told by every other surgeon i met that weight has no bearing on a laparoscopic gallbladder removal surgery. at the other hospital i was also told that anesthesia wouldn't work on me or that i wouldn't survive it. yet again i was told by other surgeons that was also not the case. most surgeons worth their paygrade can do these surgeries after just... trying and learning how to work with fat bodies.

i was told by the surgeons and nurses in the ER that it's ridiculous for the other hospital to behave as though fat people will never need surgery of any kind ever throughout their lives, for one reason or another. it's unrealistic. most people will encounter a potential surgery in their life times, no matter their weight and it's unprofessional to just give up when someone above a certain weight threshold needs help.

my heart goes out to you especially if you're trans, intersex, gnc, and queer and have been denied top surgery or other gender affirming care surgeries because of your weight. this is also medically unethical and done for no reason other than fatphobic transphobic bias. you do not need to lose weight to get top or bottom surgery.

take care of yourself. my heart goes out to you and you don't deserve this treatment at all

[searchingwardrobes]

I have been debating sharing this for some time, but with the new year weight loss ads amping up, I feel it's something I have to say. I'm worried for people's health.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably already know about people taking the diabetic drug ozempic for weight loss. You've probably heard the debates about the ethics of taking needed drugs away from diabetes patients and maybe even the side effect of "ozempic face." However, there is one side effect of taking these drugs that, in my opinion, people are not being warned about.

If you carefully pay attention to the television ads, you will hear them mention "pancreatitis" as a possible side effect. If you're like me a decade ago, that word probably means nothing to you. Let me warn you, however, it is no minor thing. My husband suffered from chronic pancreatitis for five agonizing years. The pain is beyond comprehension. Doctors who specialize in the pancreas describe it as the worst pain a human can endure. There is no actual cure. Little is understood about the disease, so treatment is difficult. Doctors who understand it are few and far between. It took my husband forever to get diagnosed. He went through multiple surgeries and procedures, but nothing worked. He had to go on an extremely limiting diet. If he varied from it in any way, he would have an attack. The only way to recover from an attack was to not eat at all for days, then slowly add in broth and jello. Did he lose weight? Yes. As a matter of fact, one day he stepped out of the shower, and I burst into tears at the sight of him. He was skin and bones - I could count every rib. Was it worth it to be thin? If you even ask that question, I'm concerned for your mental health.

They couldn't figure out exactly why my husband got pancreatitis. At that time, they thought only alcoholics and drug addicts got pancreatitis. This made it difficult to get compassionate medical care, unfortunately. Now they know that prescription medication (particularly diabetic medication) and high cholesterol can also cause it. Then there is another group - where they just don't know. But you better believe I would hesitate to take any medication that could cause pancreatitis. I would weigh my options carefully to assess if it was worth the risk. In my opinion, weight loss is not worth that risk.

My concern has been heightened seeing the Hers commercials for these drugs (under different names, but rest assured, it is the same thing). These commercials brag that you can get these drugs from Hers with just a simple virtual call, no questions asked. I wonder if people are fully aware of the risks of these drugs. I also wonder if we even know all of the risks yet. I also fear that the culture around these drugs could develop into an us vs. them mentality. That if it's so easy to be thin, why wouldn't you be? And some are getting dangerously thin on these drugs.

I know some diabetics who are on these drugs, and necessarily so. They tell me that it causes nausea when they eat. That's why they don't eat much. Again, that doesn't sound like a pleasant way to live. If you need it to regulate your blood sugar, that's one thing. But if you don't? Why would you do this to yourself?

My husband is now healed of pancreatitis. It was a miracle. You may not believe in that sort of thing, but I'm telling you, there is no other explanation. We had exhausted every medical solution, then the pandemic hit. We were concerned because hospitals were only taking life or death cases. What if he had a bad attack and needed an iv of pain meds? What would we do? Weeks passed - no pain. A month passed - no pain. Six weeks passed - no pain. He decided to grill a steak - something he hadn't been able to even take a nibble of in 5 years. I watched him take a bite, holding my breath. Nothing. He ate the whole thing. No pain. Five years later, still no pain. The doctors can't explain it, either.

So our story has a happy ending. Not everyone else's does. I hope people take the time to read this. If you do, please, please share it. I don't want anyone suffering needlessly.

[periwinklecosma]

list of palestinian fundraisers (part 1)

(part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)

during the past several days, i have received a mass influx of asks and messages from vetted palestinians seeking my support for their campaigns. up until now, i have been answering these people on an individual basis, but i no longer find that very practical given how many there are, so i'm going to try to create masterlists like this one instead. it's something i had been considering doing for a while now, since i find that lists tend to get more engagement, not to mention that it's recently become clear that a good handful of people on here baselessly equate asks with scams, so maybe this will help.

if you see this post, please consider not just reblogging. the point of lists like these is to spotlight various fundraisers and get people to support them monetarily. please, try picking out one of two of these and consider contributing! every little bit helps!

Ehab Ayyad (@ehabayyad23) - €1,055/€50,000 (2.11%) // new fundraiser not yet vetted but appears legitimate // EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS

Basel Ayyad (@basel-1995) - CHF6,978/CHF60,000 (11.63%) // vetted twice by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi (#214 on this spreadsheet) -> Note: Basel's daughter is chronically ill and requires medical care.

Safaa and Abed (@safaabed8) - €27,379/€90,000 (30.42%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) and @/northgazaupdates (here)

Adham Ayyad (@stupendouswolfearthquake) - kr10,698/kr750,000 (1.43%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) // EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS

Hadeel Mikki (@hadeelmekki) - €12,817/€35,000 (36.62%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Walaa Ahmed (@ahmed79ss) - $10,631 CAD/$50,000 (21.26%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) -> Note: Walaa has Type 1 diabetes and is in desperate need of insulin.

Mahmoud Alkhaldi (@mahmoud1995) - $10,651/$50,000 (21.30%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Abdel Muti Al-Habil (@abdelmutei) - €9,648/€25,000 (38.59%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Nour Alanqar (@noor-alanqar) - €19,603/€40,000 (49.01%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Heba Al-Anqar (@heba-baker) - €3,504/€60,000 (5.84%) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) // LOW ON FUNDS -> Note: Heba's father is physically disabled with heart problems, and Heba's mother suffers from asthma.

[deosilplanarglitches]

Reason #345734 why I don't tell my mom shit.

Her pain and suffering is the only kind she cares about, and she'll play stupid games with me like ghost me for 3+ weeks after a minor surgery, just to make sure I'm worried enough about her life to check, so she "has permission" to start in with the talking my ear off about her problems without boundaries or preamble. She won't know shit about my issues til after they're over (if she hears about them at all) bc she never asks a damn thing about my life, and literally only ever leaves room for herself and her feelings in any equation literally ever and then peaces tf out like. Bitch I'm permanently disabled and in a degenerative spiral that's gonna last my whole fkn life, and you're still bitching about yourself? Wanting me to cater to your emotions when you haven't even spared a CRUMB of consideration in return?

FUck all the way off.

Should have known that if she had died or sth bad happened, I'd have heard something right away. After 30+ yrs of her pulling the "yeah my kid tried to kill themself for the 7th time, but have you asked ME how hard it is to raise them doing the nothing I have been, bc I still don't know them as a person at all or even try to? Where's the compassion?!" shit... you'd think I would know better, but my compassion gets me fucked over YET AGAIN.

If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty. If she's being flighty, she's being petty.

Back to no contact.

Let the bitch suffocate if she can't self soothe.

[blackkatdraws2]

[Toon x Mobster] Chapter 3: A Toon's Aid

Previously // Next - (chapter list) / (AO3 ver)

[contains: BLOOD / INJURY]

The small bathroom was quiet except for the occasional droplets of water from the leaky faucet. The Grim man sat on the closed toilet lid, tense, yet worn down from his nasty injuries.

Jack sat on a stool in front with a needle and thread in hand, his face taut with stress and concentration as beads of sweat slid down his forehead, trying his best to sew the wound as cleanly as he could.

He interrogates the Toon with a list of short, yet straightforward questions. They've been at it for a while now, the scarred man's cold eyes staying locked on Jack for any suspicious movements as he spoke.

“Who are you?”

"Jack Desmond, sir." He winces as the needle pierces through the edge of the wound. "I'm an office worker at-"

"Where am I?"

"C-Cel City. It's one of the- ow." Jack tugs on the strings and closes a part of the wound, cringing in sympathy at how painful it looked. "Sorry…" He habitually apologizes, feeling bad for any discomfort he might've caused the other, before continuing his sentence. "It's one of the biggest cities here, only second to Doodleheart Center."

As Jack continues to trail off giving the man some background information, the Grim man's stare slowly starts to gravitate towards the Toon’s hands. His eyes followed the way they would pause mid-air, trying to steady them from shaking, before going back to sewing carefully.

His brows furrow at this. It was unclear whether it was out of displeasure or something else, his expression as unreadable as ever, even during this painful procedure.

"What do you hope to gain from this?"

Jack blinked, looking up at the man's eyes with a startled look on his face. Then he furrows his brows, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Nothing..?" He answers, sounding just as questioning about his own decision as the other was. Then he sighs, pausing his task to think of a proper answer.

"To be honest, I… didn't want to bring you here at first." He angled his gaze downwards, feeling heavy with guilt at admitting to his true feelings and scared of how the other man might react. "I mean, you were scary and obviously not from around here," he fidgets with the needle in his fingers as he recounts his terrifying first encounter with the man, "so I meant to just call the authorities on you or something' n' leave…"

"But." Jack lifts his head up to look back at the other. Mixed within the nervousness in his eyes was genuine care. "You just looked like you needed help, so…"

The Grim man's gaze narrowed. Cold sweat continued to creep down the side of Jack's face as he swallowed his saliva, but he didn't look away, fearful that his true intentions may get deemed disingenuous by the other as he stared at him.

…

….

After a while, the Grim man heaves a deep sigh and looks away, seemingly done with his interrogation. Jack's tense frame relaxed the moment the man's eyes were off of him, inhaling in relief before quickly huffing the air back out in disgust as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. Right: the wound.

He went back into stitching, and the room was quiet after that.

Trying not to pay any mind to the silence, Jack's attention eventually began to zone in on the task at hand.

While working on the nasty wound, Jack internally thanked the stars for still being able to remember the important stuff that got taught to him years ago in school.

For a Genre with healing properties as ridiculous as theirs, all Toon citizens must have knowledge on basic medical care. Or at the very least, they must be able to aid wounded individuals in case of emergencies. It's mandatory to be taught in schools, some teaching them as early as Elementary.

Jack's memory on this is vague by this point since it's been such a long time ago. Apparently, a lot of the practices being tested and mastered back then were cultivated mostly to care for the people outside of their own Genre.

Aside from a few mixed-Genres here and there, Jack had grown up in a largely Toon-populated area with little to no contact to the other Genres outside his own. He briefly learned about non-Toon people being far more vulnerable to injuries than they were. Not having met one his entire life, he hadn’t quite grasped the severity of it all until he saw this man dying in that alleyway. It horrified him to see how much a person can be hurt to such an extreme degree.

He didn’t know what happened to the other man in order for him to end up in such a situation, and he didn’t have enough courage to ask him to be honest. But the thought that he may have gotten injured in a city of Toons of all places - and in an area near where he lived at that - made his heart brew with fear.

What happened?

There was an unending waterfall of concerned questions, and the uncertainty of it all made him feel a tad bit too afraid. He didn’t want to think about it. Not for now at least.

Honestly, if Jack had been any less reassured in his ability to at least be able to stop the heavy bleeding, he wouldn't have even thought of taking the wounded man into his apartment.

Jack did his best to finish it up as quickly as he could, though not hastily as his nerves might do more unneeded damage, imagining how much in pain the man was probably in right now.

Snip.

The thread gets cut off with a small scissor. And with that, they were done!

"Phew." Jack stretches, popping a few joints that had become tense from having to keep them steady in the air for so long. He gives the newly stitched wound a hard look, examining it.

…Still red and angry, but no more bleeding. He knows he's largely inexperienced, but he hopes this is good enough.

With that out of the way, he now had to deal with the man himself who had returned to staring at him again a while ago. The side of Jack's mouth curved up into a smile without his control, looking more like a grimace at being observed so intently by such a scary individual.

"So, uh…" His voice wobbled. He clears his throat and stands up, walking to the sink and turning on the faulty faucet to wash off the stain on his hands, struggling to appear more casual. "May I ask for your name, sir?" Jack tries to start a conversation to lessen the tension that's been building between them since the man woke up.

The other's expression doesn't shift. After a beat of silence that stretched on for a bit too long, he spoke.

“No.”

'Yep, I figured as much.' He thought to himself. "Right," Jack chuckles, drained of the usual humor he carried.

To be honest, he felt a bit tired after all of that. He'd been up all night caring for the Grim's wounds, he could really use a quick nap right now… Jack could only hope that this (probably a criminal) guy was at least nice enough to not murder him before he falls asleep.

Turning off the stream of water, he flicks the water off his hands and turns to leave. "Well,” he notes, “feel free to help yourself here. I'll go and get you something clean to wear." He then exits the bathroom, now done with the conversation he was attempting to have.

Pushing aside how he probably hadn't been following some medical rules and regulations taught to (and forgotten by) him years ago. With all the scars on that guy, he's assuming that it's probably fine to just leave him be for now, right? Surely a violence-prone-looking man like that would already know how to take care of himself when he's hurt, right? He sure hopes so. He doesn’t wanna come back to a dead body.

With that thought, Jack goes off to retrieve the clothes he had left for him by the nightstand.

"…"

Gavriel sat in silence in the bathroom, the soft hum of the distant city and the ambience of the Toon’s neighbors filtering through the walls. He was now left on his own, leaving him to reflect on the situation.

Shifting slightly, he grimaced as pain flared through his side and throughout the rest of his body. The stitches pulled, a stark reminder that he wasn’t in any shape to defend himself if something went wrong. Not that it mattered. If the Toon wanted him dead, he’d already had the chance to let him bleed out.

So why hadn’t he?

That thought didn’t bring comfort to him, only deepening his unease. The Toon’s actions were naively kind, something which he understood yet hesitated to accept.

So far, the other hadn’t given him any suspicious answers. Every question Gavriel had asked were met with genuine - albeit bumbling - honesty. The nervous man stuttered more often than not, but he hadn’t hesitated, nor had he tried to deflect or go off topic. The only weird thing happening right now was the fact that the Toon was helping him.

This behavior didn’t seem to come from a place of deception and ulterior motives. Or perhaps it did, and Gavriel just couldn’t see it yet.

In the bathroom, Gavriel could hear the other’s voice phasing through the thin apartment walls. Though his words were muffled, he sounded mournful with phrases like, "I spent money on that…" and "Tsk, tsk. What a waste." followed by a heavy sigh.

Gavriel pressed his lips into a thin line. Despite himself, the lament struck a chord. Money and food. Those were two of the main things a person must never waste in life.

Before he could fall deeper on this thought, Gavriel hears the gentle pitter patter of the Toon’s feet. He appears a moment after, quietly stepping into the bathroom with the clothes in hand. He glanced at Gavriel, who was still seated on the toilet, and carefully placed the clothes on the dry part of the sink’s edge, not having much space to put them anywhere else. His movements were quick but not rushed, clearly trying to avoid intruding too much on the other man’s space.

"Here," the Toon said softly. "The clothes I left for you. I can get you something else if these aren’t… comfortable,” he offers, looking at how much smaller the size of his own t-shirt was compared to Gavriel’s body.

He glances at Gavriel briefly before looking down at the floor, the tension in the room thick, but Jack manages a kind, almost awkward smile.

"I’ll… leave you to it then." Without waiting for a response, the Toon does a polite little head bow before turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom. He even made sure to gently close the door behind him, leaving Gavriel to change in peace.

Gavriel turned his attention to the clothes Jack had left neatly folded on the edge of the sink. Standing up, he walks over to inspect the clothes given to him. They looked cheap and would probably be a bit too tight for him to wear but it was better than staying cold and bare.

He glanced back toward the door, his brows furrowing. The Toon hadn’t lingered, hadn’t said anything besides the brief statement that the clothes were for him, nor were there any lectures, insistence, or attempts to force a conversation. Just a quiet exit. Probably to clean up the mess Gavriel had left in the other room, he guessed.

Gavriel shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to people like that Toon. People who gave generously without any strings attached or wanting something back, people who respected him, not like the wariness of his enemies or the reverence of his underlings, but simply out of basic human decency - albeit with reasonable fear. The Toon… Jack Desmond was painfully normal, perhaps a touch too kind for his own good.

His mind wandered to Desmond’s face earlier. The nervous and awkward glances, the apologetic grimaces when the needle went through his flesh, and the reluctance to meet his eyes, yet his determination to keep helping despite the tension. It had been… odd. Gavriel couldn’t pinpoint what irritated him more. Desmond’s clumsy kindness or the fact that it seemed genuine.

Gavriel sighed, his breath heavy with the weight of his thoughts. His fingers tightened around the clothes.

[This chapter has been edited.] _

Previously // Next - (chapter list)

Special thanks to @demonicrhythms for proofreading this chapter.

[blackenedsnow]

helloooooo, your writing is amazingggggg and i was hoping it would be okay if i requested a shadowww x reader. Where Maybe sonic ask shadow to bring medicine to you (to try and introduce you to shadow as your sick with something or have a major injury, etc). Shadow prehaps is annoyed but agrees anyways, then however when he meets you sees maria in you. Then veryday to be sure you get better shows up in the morning to help take care of you, and slowly the two become friends then prehaps at the end share a kiss and become lovers? Idk it sounded cute in my head lol.

familiar

WARNING: Illness

PAIRING: Shadow the Hedgehog x Sick! Reader

NOTE: This is such a cute request and I'm pretty proud of this! Sending you all the love, and I hope this brightens your day a little! Take care of yourself <333

SUMMARY: Shadow reluctantly delivers medicine to you at Sonic’s insistence, but upon meeting you, he’s struck by a haunting familiarity.

It was late afternoon when Shadow approached the house tucked away at the edge of the city, a small bag of medicine clutched in his gloved hand. The only reason he was here, he reminded himself, was because Sonic had all but begged him to.

“Come on, Shadow,” Sonic had said earlier, exasperated but hopeful. “They’re too sick to go anywhere, and I’m tied up with something. Just drop it off and say hi. You might even like them!”

Shadow had scoffed at that. “Highly unlikely.”

Yet here he was, standing at your door. He knocked, sharp and deliberate, and waited.

A muffled voice from inside called, “Coming!”

The door creaked open, revealing you. Despite the exhaustion evident in your eyes and the pallor of your complexion, you greeted him with a weak but genuine smile.

“Oh, you must be… Shadow?” you asked hesitantly.

He nodded curtly, holding out the medicine. “Sonic sent me. He thought you might need this.”

You accepted the bag with a quiet “thank you,” looking up at him with an expression so open, so trusting, that it stopped him in his tracks. For a fleeting moment, he was no longer standing at your doorstep but aboard the ARK, looking into the kind eyes of someone he thought he’d lost forever.

Maria.

The resemblance wasn’t physical, but there was something about your demeanor—gentle, unassuming, and kind despite the pain you were clearly in—that tugged at a memory buried deep in his chest.

“You okay?” you asked, noticing his prolonged silence.

He blinked, snapping himself out of the moment. “Fine. Just… don’t forget to take the medicine.”

You chuckled lightly, the sound hoarse but pleasant. “I won’t. Thanks again, Shadow.”

He nodded again, turning on his heel and disappearing into the fading daylight.

To Shadow’s own surprise, he returned the next morning.

It had been a restless night. Thoughts of Maria swirled in his mind, but they mingled with the image of your weary yet kind face. He told himself he was simply being thorough, ensuring you were following the instructions for the medication.

When you opened the door again, wrapped in a blanket and looking just as surprised as you were grateful, Shadow felt the smallest pang of relief.

“You’re back,” you said, stepping aside to let him in.

“You didn’t seem capable of taking care of yourself yesterday,” he replied bluntly, though there was no malice in his tone.

You laughed softly. “Fair enough.”

It became a routine. Every morning, Shadow arrived with something—soup, tea, a fresh supply of tissues—and checked on you. At first, his visits were brief and businesslike. He would make sure you had what you needed and leave with little more than a nod. But as the days passed, the conversations grew longer.

You learned to expect his dry wit and sharp observations, and he found himself oddly drawn to your quiet resilience. Despite how miserable you felt, you always thanked him sincerely, your gratitude genuine and unassuming.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know,” you said one morning as he set a cup of tea on your bedside table.

“I know,” he replied simply, sitting in the chair he’d claimed as his own.

“Then why?”

He hesitated, his crimson eyes flicking to the floor. “You…” he paused, looking back at you with a sigh. “I don’t know.”

You didn’t press him, sensing the weight of his words, but your soft “Okay, thank you.” carried more meaning than either of you acknowledged.

By the time you were well enough to venture outside again, the bond between you and Shadow was undeniable.

“You don’t have to come by anymore,” you said one evening as he walked you back to your door after a short outing. “But… I’d miss you if you didn’t.”

He paused, his gaze meeting yours. There was something unspoken in his eyes, something vulnerable.

“I’d miss you too,” he admitted, the words slow but sincere.

Before you could second-guess yourself, you leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His eyes widened, and for the first time since you’d met him, Shadow looked genuinely flustered.

“Thank you, Shadow,” you whispered. “For everything.”

His lips quirked into the smallest of smiles, a rare and precious sight. “I... You’re welcome.”

And from that moment on, his visits were no longer about ensuring your recovery—they were about seeing you.

[thebibliosphere]

Not to keep reliving trauma on main, but I'm getting weird deja vu from where my health was a few years ago and where it's at now. And most of it is revolving around Good Omens.

In May of 2019, we genuinely thought I was dying because I was dying. My organs were in the process of shutting down because my red blood cells were prematurely self-destructing and damaging my kidneys in the process, and I was rapidly coming to terms with the fact that I might not survive much longer. I'd fought the good fight, and I'd lost. Mostly due to medical neglect. And I was mad about a lot of things, but do you know what I remember from the traumatic blur I'm left with?

"I'm going to be so pissed if I die before Good Omens comes out."

I'd waited 20+ years at that point for something like a tv adaptation of Good Omens. Ever since I was a child and my dad read the book to me, and I fell in love with it. And here I was, mere weeks away from the TV release and on the verge of death.

Then like a miracle, a miracle that hinged on human compassion and a doctor being willing to listen to me, I was saved. Dragged back from the jaws of death by a relentless hematology department that refused to give up on me and ultimately saved my life. And a week later, I got to watch Good Omens propped up in my own bed, still weak, still ill, with my heart stuttering in my chest every time I laughed. And I remember thinking, "I did it. I got to see it."

That it's now it's 2023 and my health has tanked again. My organs are rebelling against me and no one seems to know why. But yet again, a few weeks before Good Omens is set to release, I find a doctor who listens to me and is doing all he can to help. Striving with the grim kind of determination that can only come from a place of compassion and care. Like my world is worth saving, and not just his.

Which is rather fitting, I think.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 31: Forced Proximity

Summary: John and Kyle are gone. You have no choice but to lean on the alpha you've betrayed, the alpha that hates you.

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 11,071 words

Warnings: ANGST, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, language, anxiety, reader has a panic attack and several breakdowns, Simon being mean, ANGST, depression, lots of mentions of vomiting and the reader does get sick quite a bit though it's not descriptive in any way, ANGST, heat cycles, pseudoscience, medical stuff (that's probably very wrong), brief mention of needles, medical procedures (nothing very detailed), ANGST, very heavy emotionally again, some very light fluff like barely there but nothing compared to the ANGST

A/N: I did it. I finally got it up. It's uh...it's a heavy one again, I'll tell you that much. You'll hate me even more but oh well. I expected that through this part of the story. I'm so evil I know.

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

“I don't like this. It's too...”

“Convenient?”

“Suspicious.”

“I know. But we don't have much of a choice in this.” John says, staring at Simon and Johnny. “You keep your eyes on her at all times. Stay in the barracks when you can. If you have to leave the barracks together, she goes with you.”

“We won't let her out of our sight.” Simon says. “If anything happens, Kate will be the first to know.”

“Good.” John says. He trusts the two of them to look after you. Yet he can't deny the timing of this is a bit suspicious. “We'll be back as soon as we can. Take good care of our girl.”

Two weeks. 

It’s been two weeks since John and Kyle left. 

Despite the fact it’s not the longest someone has been gone, it doesn’t ease the ache in your chest, the pain slowly carving its way into your very soul. You haven’t spoken to them. There’s been no word. Nothing. It could be a good thing. Sometimes no news is good news, and you suppose it’s better than a phone call saying they’ve died in some horrible accident. 

You keep waiting for that phone call. 

Every time Johnny or Simon’s phone rings, you begin to panic, fear eating away at that hole in your chest. It’s bad news, it’s Kate calling to tell them your alpha and beta aren’t coming home. 

You’ve hardly been able to relax, tense and jumpy at the littlest things. Being enclosed in the barracks at all times isn’t helping. You haven’t left once, not even to the med center. Dr. Keller has been coming to the barracks, more than she normally would for your appointments. You wonder if it was Johnny’s doing to try and help you relax, or Simon’s doing in hope you stop stinking up the barracks with the sour scent of nerves and fear. 

Simon has been distant still, avoiding you as much as he can. It’s impossible to avoid you completely, though, as Johnny can’t watch you 24/7. It’s a bit claustrophobic, the way they hover, always keeping one eye on you. It’s been a bit suffocating for the last three weeks, but with John and Kyle gone...it’s almost worse. 

Johnny has tried to fill that void, tried to support you in any way he can, but it hasn’t worked. You know it’s Johnny, you love Johnny, yet not even he can fill the void that has become your life without your alpha. 

You hate it. 

You hate their job, you hate that it takes them from you. You hate the uncertainty, the constant fear and worry that makes you sick. You hate that it’s dragged you into it. You know they were digging for the perpetrator of the cameras, who put them up, who ordered them to be put up, who potentially wanted to look into your personal life in such a violating way. The sudden deployment feels too suspicious, too sudden to be coincidence. 

But as John says, entertaining conspiracies won’t get you anywhere. 

Still...it smells fishy to you. 

The hole in your chest has left you in a constant state of uneasiness which has left you on the verge of tears constantly. Every day that passes without word of a tragedy or that they’re coming home makes your stomach churn, tears constantly brimming in your eyes. John’s shirt is constantly in your grasp, a dirty one you’d fished out of the bottom of his laundry basket, soaked in his scent. It’s beginning to fade, slowly eroding away until there won’t be anything left. Then you’ll grab another and another until you have none left. His room still smells like him, his pillows still fresh with his scent. 

You know it will fade, though, and fade fast. 

You’ve been avoiding spending too much time in his room and Kyle’s in favor of keeping their scents in there as long as possible. The fading of their scents is like an omen, marking a fading of their presence in your life, of the bond between you. The constant fear that you’ll forget them, what they sound like, what they smell like, what they look like. 

It makes you physically ill. 

That painful churning in your stomach is back as you sit on the couch in the rec room, curled up as far from Simon as you can get. Simon is still angry at you, at your betrayal of his trust. So much progress down the drain because you proved you’re not trustworthy after he trusted you enough to begin opening up. You still hate yourself for it, for keeping the secret for that long. Even a month would have been better and would have had less consequences for everyone. Maybe then you might have caught the camera in the bear sooner, and not been so violated during some of your most private moments. 

Some of those moments with Simon. 

How violated does he feel, having such vulnerable moments between you recorded and viewed by someone out there? You can’t help but think back to that night when he came back, and the morning after. Someone watched you. The bear had been right there, those black beady eyes staring right at the two of you. How many times had you fucked the others in your bed, the bear sitting there, watching, projecting those moments to whoever was on the other side. 

Your heat. 

The bear hadn’t been looking then, but it had been listening. It knows what happened, every last detail, every slam of the bed against the wall, every knot. 

It makes you sick. 

Your stomach churns, your arms wrapping around your middle as you let out a shaky breath. You’re going to puke again, the bile rising in your throat. The intense tingling in your hands is starting again, your fingers curling in as your extremities begin to go numb. You’re panicking again. 

Instead of vomit, a choked sob leaves your lips, your tears hot and burning on your cheeks, stinging like they’re composed of acid. 

Simon glances up from his phone, his face the mask of indifference that it has been for three weeks. A mask that he had worn for the first few months after your arrival. “What?” He asks, his tone flat and voice rough. 

You can’t answer him, too busy hyperventilating and sobbing where you sit. You can’t even think if you wanted to, your body aching as your muscles begin to tighten. You can’t distress. You’ve been fighting the urge since the day the truth came out. 

You can’t trust Simon to help you. 

You’re not even sure he knows how to. 

Of course, it would be easy to call Dr. Keller, get her to help him, but you’re not sure he’d want to. Could he be so angry and betrayed he’d just stand there and watch you distress yourself to death? 

He wouldn’t. He’d have to explain himself to John, why he let it happen. It would tear the pack apart. It would tear them apart. You wouldn’t put it past John to try and rip Simon’s throat out with his teeth in anger. It would be a bigger betrayal than yours, and Simon wouldn’t let you lose your spot at the top of that list. 

“Fuck.” Simon breathes, setting his phone down before moving in front of you. He lowers himself onto one knee, reaching for your arms. If you had been more aware you might have flinched away, but the lack of oxygen to your brain is making everything fuzzy. 

Simon grips your elbows, tugging you forward gently. Your legs are forced off the edge of the couch, your body upright as Simon holds your arms in his grasp, your legs between his as he kneels in front of you. You stare down at him, the sudden change in position shocking you for a moment. You choke around another sob, eyes blurry as you try to look at him. 

“I need you to breathe.” He says, squeezing your arms gently. 

You can’t. 

Your breaths are sobs, wracking your body, tearing at your lungs. Your chest hurts, aching and burning as you quickly begin spiraling out of control. 

“Look at me.” He says, shifting his hold to your wrists, taking them into one hand before he grabs your chin with the other. He keeps your head still, locked on his face. His eyes are blurry to your own teary ones as you look right at him, looking through the mass of blurry black that surrounds him. “Breathe.” He says, his voice rougher than normal, rumbling with the command of his alpha around the edges. 

It goes straight to your head, a shiver running down your spine. Your body shudders in response, your next sob catching painfully in your throat. You cough, lungs spasming as your body suddenly begins to follow his order automatically. Simon lets you go as you attempt to gain control over your out of control body. One part of your brain is still panicking, still pushing towards distress while the other fights to follow the alpha’s command. It’s a battle, your instincts at war with each other. 

The next inhale is a gasp, inhaling until your breath stutters and your lungs ache. You let it out slowly, the flood of oxygen making you shake in Simon’s hold. He keeps his hand around your wrists until your inhales stop stuttering and your muscles start to relax. 

He slowly releases you, pushing himself up to sit on the coffee table. You’re surprised it can hold so much weight after it’s been sat on so many times. Not even a creak as Simon lowers himself onto it. 

He rests his elbows on his knees as he stares at you. His figure begins to get clearer as your tears slow, no longer blurring your vision. You're expecting the sharp sting of his harsh gaze, or worse the indifference you've grown used to over the last three weeks. 

Instead there's a soft look in his eyes. Not soft as you would describe Johnny's, but soft compared to what it has been. Pity, you think. 

“You're a fucking mess.” He finally says. 

You laugh. You can't help it. The deadpan delivery of such a him statement in response to everything has a laugh escaping your lips. You wipe your eyes, sniffling. He hates it, hearing your sniffles. It annoys him when you cry, it always has. 

You push yourself back onto the couch, pulling your knees up again as you stare at him. There's a slight tremble to your fingers still as you sit there in silence for a moment. 

“I'm sorry.” You say, still looking at him. “If I had just said something sooner...” You swallow thickly as you stumble over your words. “None of us would have...the camera would have been found sooner...we wouldn't have...both of us...”

“You shouldn't apologize if you don't even know what to say.” He says, the softness in his gaze hardening again. 

“It's not that it's just...” You take a breath, trying to straighten out your thoughts. “I feel so guilty. This is all my fault and if I had just said something sooner, none of this would have happened. What happens next is my fault too. I know you and John have been digging into who is behind it and I know how risky that is. They know that we all know now, and...I'm scared of what might happen.”

You let out a long breath at your confession and attempt at an apology, squeezing your fingers together as they begin to tremble even more. You want to look away, his gaze piercing into you again. You're reminded of the moment the words had fallen from your lips that had caused this in the first place. Your heart begins thumping in your chest, your breathing picking up slightly at the memory. Will he get angry again? Will he snap at you and drag you down the hall to lock you in your room until John and Kyle get back, or Johnny calms him enough to rescue you?

“I feel so violated.” Your voice shakes. “I can't even imagine what it's been like for you. It took us so long to get to that point and...” You swallow the bile trying to rise in your throat. “I'm so sorry.” Tears blur your vision again. “I didn't know...I didn't think...I was so stupid.”

He scoffs. “You are.” His words are sharp, and they sting as they slice through you. “Fucking stupid, I'd say.” You wince at his words. “But you’re inexperienced. You don’t think about things like we do. No matter how much everyone has tried to drill it into your head, you’ll never truly understand until you experience it yourself.” He holds your gaze for a moment. “I hope you never have to.” 

You stare at him, the meaning of his words not lost on you. You’ve put yourself in danger, you’ve put all of them in danger by keeping this all a secret. Whoever put those cameras up knew you were keeping it a secret and hadn’t done anything in retaliation against you for finding them and destroying them. Maybe that was their plan all along. They knew you’d keep it a secret and use that to their advantage. Strike when they least expected it, or perhaps wait for the moment the truth inevitably came out and then strike. 

The thought has a cold chill running down your spine. 

You’re afraid for a different reason now. 

John and Kyle are gone. Anything could happen to them and it wouldn’t look suspicious. Or whoever put those cameras up wanted everyone split up. Attack when there’s less knights defending the castle. 

A shiver runs through you, making you curl in on yourself. The feeling of being watched is back. The darkness peeking out from around the blinds over the rec room windows suddenly feels very threatening. 

“What’s goin’ on in here?” 

A startled yelp leaves your lips as you whip around to face Johnny where he’s leaning against the door to the rec room. Simon’s body tenses in response to your fearful yelp, an unconscious motion he has no control over. Alphas will always have the drive to protect the omegas in their pack. It’s a natural protective mechanism, no matter how they may be feeling about said omega. 

Simon’s body relaxes as you do, putting a hand over your heart to try and calm yourself down again. 

“Jumpy this evenin’.” Johnny says, entering the rec room. He steps up to the couch, bending down to rest his hands on the arm next to you. “Didnae mean to scare ye.” He says softly. “Ready tae get to bed?” 

You nod. “Yeah. I am.” 

“Come on.” He holds out his hand and you take it, letting him help you up off the couch. “We’re usin’ yer shower, Si.” He says. 

Simon rolls his eyes. “Course.” 

“Simon?” You say before Johnny can pull you from the rec room. The alpha turns to look at you. “I am sorry.” 

He stares at you for a long, tense moment. “I know.” 

Johnny leads you down the hallway, his hand on your lower back. He’s gotten touchy again, letting his hand rest lower and lower on your back, brushing your breasts as he pulls the covers up around you at night. He refuses to let you shower without sitting on the toilet lid. You know the chances of Simon opening up like that again are slim, if at all. You’ve ruined that opportunity, and you’ll have to be satisfied with where he draws that line permanently. 

“Have a good conversation?” Johnny asks. 

You nod. “He called me ‘fucking stupid’.” 

Johnny nearly chokes for a second, covering his mouth to hide a laugh. “He’s certainly not a man of eloquence.” 

You shrug. “I mean, I don’t exactly disagree with him.” 

Johnny leads you into Simon’s room, steering you to the bathroom. Your stuff is already inside from the unanimous decision to solely use Simon’s bathroom for ease and also safety. 

Your towel is neatly on the rack next to Simon’s and Johnny’s, all folded the same way and hung evenly apart. Your soap and shampoo are neatly placed next to his, along with your toothbrush and other products on the sink. Always so neat and organized, despite his anger at you. 

Can’t break his system even after you break his trust. 

You pull your shirt over your head after starting the water, letting it get warm. Johnny stands behind you in the doorway, and you know he’s watching. You strip your shorts and underwear off, Johnny grunting quietly as you bend over to add them to your pile of dirty clothes. You’ve been tempted to leave them on the floor for the past two weeks just to peeve, but you’ve riled Simon up enough. With your luck he’d just toss them in the trash. 

The water is hot as it pelts your skin, your shoulders relaxing as it begins to loosen the stress of the day. The emptiness in your chest continues to eat away at you, never disappearing despite what happens. Your stomach churns, the nausea returning. You stand under the spray, letting the water pour over your head as you attempt to calm the continuous twisting in your abdomen. 

The shower door slides open, another body joining you before it slides closed. Warm skin presses against your back as arms slip around you, pulling you out from directly under the spray. You rest back against Johnny’s chest as he leans his cheek against the top of your head. 

“I miss them.” You say quietly, just audible over the shower. 

“I know.” Johnny says, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. 

“When will they be back?” You ask him, even though you know he can’t tell you. 

“Hard tae say.” He says, grabbing your strawberry scented soap from next to Simon’s. He’s just been using Simon’s soap, something you probably assume he does often anyway. “Kate will update us as soon as there’s a possible ETA.” 

“I don’t know how much longer I can take.” You say as he begins to wash your back. 

“I know.” He says, gently massaging the knots in your back, trying to help you relax. “I wish I could get them home faster. I wish it had been us instead of them for your sake.” 

His words make you feel guilty, but you both know it’s not anyone’s fault. John is your alpha, you belong to him, you were claimed by him. You’ll always hurt more about your alpha and beta’s absence than the other members of your pack can comfort you. If Simon had claimed you, things would have been different. The ache in your chest would have been less intense as you would still have an alpha you could lean on. 

You’d always miss John, but if you had Simon, the black hole slowly devouring you would have slowed its progress. 

Four weeks. 

A month. 

It's been a month since John and Kyle left. The familiar hole in your chest has widened, a gaping black hole now threatening to swallow you and string you out until you’re nothing but particles lost in its center. It’s worse than the hole Simon left when he went on his solo deployment, it’s worse than the hole they all left when they went on their first mission. Neither of those previous deployments lasted this long, and despite Johnny's attempts to console you, you don’t feel any better. 

There’s been no contact. 

A month with no contact, a month with no word. You'd know if something had happened. Even if you got no word on it, you would know. That sense that omegas have when something happens to the bond would be screaming. 

It's been a rough four weeks.

There’s a heaviness that’s started to permeate the air as you try to adjust to the prolonged absence of your alpha. It’s nearly every day that you’re breaking down now, standing in John’s room to catch any whiff of him that’s left. You’ve worn the scent off his bed, his pillows, his clothes. You’ve run out of shirts that smell like him. 

You’re terrified they might fade from your memory entirely. Kyle’s scent had disappeared quicker, fading fast until you were left unable to even picture the sea. The beach is a blurry, distant memory, the smell of the salty air faded and wiped away. 

Still you cling to their shirts, as if you can hold them through the fabric. You carry them everywhere, packing them from room to room as you float around in a daze. 

You’ve left the barracks once in four weeks for a training session that neither of them could miss. You’d gotten looks as you sat there, the sole audience member, but you're not quite sure what had happened or even what the training was far. You had been far away, lost in your own head, the haze of depression and grief numbing you to everything. 

Dr. Keller continues to visit you in the barracks, still more than you normally would see her. You miss her office, the soft warmth of it, the plants and the colors lacking from the sterilized prison that is the barracks. It has become like a prison. You’re trapped inside, unable to even wander around alone. You feel like the princess locked in her tower under the watchful eye of the guards keeping her trapped inside. You need someone to come and rescue you, someone to set you free so you can at least wander the tower alone. 

You want your alpha. 

You miss John and Kyle desperately, their absence chewing away at your insides. The hole in your chest continues to widen as the days pass, consuming more and more of you as you slip deeper and deeper into the black hole of depression. Johnny is being affected too, sucked in by the gravitational pull of the black hole you have become. Even Simon is starting to feel it, softening a bit more towards you. He’d even let your hands brush a couple of times when he’s escorted you places, and he didn’t yank them away like you might pass some disease onto him. 

You wouldn’t necessarily call him affectionate, even before all of this, but this is the first glimpse you’ve gotten of him being back to where the two of you were before you fucked everything up. You know it’s not going to happen overnight. It might never get back to what it was. He might simply be acting out of sympathy, and out of necessity because of your pain and grief being channeled through the pack bonds. Sometimes you wonder if John and Kyle can feel it too from wherever they are in the world. 

You miss them so much it hurts. 

The tears slip down your cheeks as you sit on the couch in the rec room. Johnny is off taking his turn to work out. It’s early, the sky still grey outside, the perfect epitome of how you feel inside. Simon is seated in his usual spot, book in hand. Your own that he had grabbed is still on the coffee table. You’re staring at it, tears gliding down your cheeks as you hold your knees against your chest. It’s become almost a normal occurrence, the tears, the blank staring, the lack of desire to do anything, even the position you’re seated in.

Simon glances up at you as you sniffle again, lowering his book slightly. “What?” His tone isn't annoyed per se, but you know he has to be tired of your constant blubbering. 

“Tell me they’ll be alright.” You say, your voice shaking. 

“You know I can’t-” He starts, but you cut him off. 

“I need you to tell me.” You sob, your gaze lifting to the black screen of the TV. “I can’t take it. I can’t do this.” 

He lets out a sigh, closing his book. You jump as the couch sinks down on your left, Simon taking a seat next to you. The flinch is subconscious as he reaches over to grip your chin and turn your face to look at him. Your tears slide down your cheeks, wetting his fingers. 

“They’ll be alright.” He says, eyes hard as he looks at you. He’s lying but you need to hear it. “They’ve been gone for far longer than this before. Trust Price knows what he’s doing. He’s going to do everything in his power to come back. We’ll know if something happens. Laswell will let us know.” 

You know that, you know all of it. Yet it does little to calm the pain in your chest. “I miss them.” You sob, Simon’s eyes softening as you continue to cry. “My stomach hurts.” 

You’ve been nauseous since the day the truth came out almost five weeks ago. The nausea has been churning in your stomach, making you constantly on the edge of vomiting. It’s the stress, the combination of the truth coming out and your alpha being gone. You’ve been choking food down, eating only out of necessity. 

Simon lets out a sigh, releasing your chin to wrap an arm around you. His other hand drops to rest on your stomach. It’s warm through the fabric of your shirt, applying gentle pressure. He smells like alpha, different from John, but still an alpha. The tears continue to fall as he holds you, your body slowly leaning closer and closer to him. He doesn’t complain, doesn’t even try to push you away as you fall against his side. 

Your stomach is churning, gnawing. It’s not an unusual feeling. It’s felt this way for the last few weeks. It’s never woken you up before, though. You blink in the darkness of Johnny’s room, his arm still thrown over you. The gnawing continues to intensify as you continue to be pulled from your semi-peaceful sleep, becoming more and more aware. 

You’re hungry. 

You slowly unravel yourself from Johnny’s snake-like hold, ready to slip into the rec room to peruse your snack stash. Instead you’re pulled back onto the bed by the arm that slips around your waist. 

“Where ye goin’?” Johnny rasps, still half asleep. 

“I’m hungry.” You whisper. 

He lets out a groan, letting go of you to rub a hand over his face. “Give me a minute.” 

You rise from the bed as he stretches, slowly sitting up as he draws himself from sleep. It’s just past one in the morning, neither of you having been asleep for long. You feel wide awake as the gnawing in your stomach continues to intensify. You rock back and forth on your feet, debating just going and letting him catch up. It’ll force him to wake up faster, and ease the gnawing hunger threatening to turn you inside out. 

Finally Johnny rises from the bed, stretching again as you impatiently open the door. He pads behind you to the rec room, watching as you dig out a bag of chips. He leans against the back of the couch as you stand there, devouring the chips like you haven’t eaten in days. You haven’t really eaten much in the last five weeks, so perhaps it’s finally catching up to you. You finish the bag but it’s not enough, so you grab another, devouring it halfway before you freeze. The bag begins to tremble in your hand, nearly falling from your grasp. 

Johnny is alert immediately as you begin to panic. “What?” He asks stepping closer to you, ready to defend you from whatever has you on edge. 

Your brain frantically does the math, thinking over the last few weeks. The bag falls to the floor as the realization slams into you like a bus. You turn to face Johnny, eyes wide in shock, fear shooting through you like lightning and clouding the rec room in the sour stench of omega fear.

Your lips tremble, the words stuttering out as you fight the panic rising in you, the nauseous churning of your stomach threatening to bring up the bag and a half of chips you just ate. Your fingers are shaking, clenching into fists again as they begin to go numb. Ragged breaths wheeze from your lungs as you stare at Johnny’s worried face, brows furrowed as he tries to understand what has you in a sudden panic at one in the morning. 

“My last heat was eleven weeks ago.” 

“The timeline is right,” Dr. Keller says, taking the blood pressure cuff off your arm. “The symptoms point to pre-heat.” 

You take another bite of your candy bar, eating half out of necessity and half because you’re nervous. You hadn’t even considered this when John left, but of course you didn’t know how long he would be gone. 

“Any word from John yet?” Dr. Keller asks as she packs the blood pressure monitor back into her bag. 

“None.” Johnny says, crossing his arms. “Kate sent out a message, but there’s been no response.” 

You’re numb to that fact, the hope that had filled you two days ago gone now that there’s been no word, not even for something like this. Simon had gone out of his way to call you when you needed him, but John can’t even send a simple message through, even a simple no. 

“We may have to consider alternative options if he can’t get back in time.” Dr. Keller says. 

He won’t get back in time. They’re all saying it silently. They all know it and so do you.

Your hands close into fists. You had hoped with your new pack and alpha you wouldn’t have to go through this again. But, of course with them having to put their job first, this was always a possibility. It was bound to happen eventually, you just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. 

“We’ll wait as long as we can.” Dr. Keller says, looking at you. “We don’t have forever, though.” 

You shove the rest of the candybar in your mouth. You don’t want to say anything, you don’t want to do anything. You’re numb except for the incessant hunger. You’ll know when it’s getting close, when the hunger fades and you’re facing down the reality that your alpha won’t be here. You know he won’t. Even if Kate can get ahold of him, he won’t make it back in time. 

You’re going to have to do this alone. 

Well...perhaps not. 

Maybe there is someone that can help you after all. 

You’re terrified. You’re not sure how to even approach this, how to bring it up. It’s eating you alive, but you have to ask. You have to know. That small bubble of hope still rising in you that maybe, just maybe you can avoid the horror awaiting you. It’s a big request, but perhaps you can be convincing enough to play to his pity. 

“Simon?” You ask, your hands curled into fists so they’re not visibly shaking. Your hair is dripping onto your shirt, soaking it but you don’t care. The cold is keeping you aware, keeping you from floating away into your head again. 

He grunts, looking up from his phone. You’d used the shower in his room again so he could watch you while Johnny took his own shower. You won’t sleep in here. You’ll stay with Johnny just like you have for the last almost five weeks. It’s safer, should your heat start in the middle of the night again. And also because he doesn’t want you to stay with him.

This is stupid. It’s a stupid decision but you need to know. 

What if he says yes?  

“Can I...ask you something?” You say, shifting nervously on your feet. 

He pockets his phone before pushing himself up to stand. He towers over you as he moves closer, staring down at you as you look up at him. Sometimes you forget just how big he is, just how commanding his presence can be. You fight the urge to cower, to submit to him in fear. “What?” 

The nervous lump in your throat threatens to choke you, the memories of his anger directed right at you burning right through you. What if he gets mad again? What if he reacts the same way? You can’t know what he will do, though. You steady yourself, wrapping the fabric of your shirt around your hands. 

“Will...” You clear your throat. “Will you help me through my heat?” 

It’s a big request. A huge request. You’re asking him to jump past barriers he’d kept up even before, something he’d never even suggested or hinted at wanting to do even before your last heat. You’re asking him to jump past barriers he’s put back up since your betrayal, making it clear you’re not welcome back in, you’re not going to get to where you were before. The most he’s done is let you lean against him that one night in the rec room. 

You hope maybe he’ll agree out of necessity, maybe he’ll take pity on you and save you from the horrors of going through a heat without an alpha. It may be stupid, but you’re terrified of what’s awaiting you if he doesn’t agree. You don’t want to do it, you don’t want to be put to sleep and then wake up a week later sick and disoriented, and then spend the next few days still in the same state. 

It makes your stomach churn, and not from hunger. 

His eyes widen in shock as your words register. His hands tighten into fists at his sides, his shoulders tensing. You fight the urge to flinch at the movement, the sudden hardening of his stance before you. He wasn’t expecting it, obviously. You came out of left field with it, but you have to ask. You’ll beg if you need to. You’ll get on your knees and beg like your life depends on it if he wants you to. Anything just to avoid what’s looming in the near future. 

His eyes harden as he stares down at you, and you suddenly begin to regret your decision to ask. His gaze is piercing, taking you back to when you confessed. You’ve made a mistake. You’ve made a huge mistake. 

“No.” 

The word is simple, two letters, one syllable, yet it slices right through you. You should have expected it, should have known that would be your answer, but it still hurts. He knows, he knows John isn’t coming back in time. He knows you’re going to have to do this alone. You had hoped maybe pity would push him into saying yes, maybe he’d open up a bit more before your heat started, maybe he might be merciful. 

“I can’t.” He takes a step back, then another. His gaze softens to what you almost perceive as panic. He shakes his head. “I can’t.” 

So maybe it wasn’t anger at you keeping him from agreeing. You can feel it, the edge to his scent starting to cloud it, the way his hands open and close as he squeezes them into fists over and over. 

Tears burn your eyes as you stare at him, lifting your hands so they’re laced together in front of you. You knew that would be the answer, yet you can’t stop the disappointment. “Oh.” That's all you can say. You don’t trust yourself to say much else. 

You swallow the lump in your throat as Johnny appears in the doorway, looking between the two of you before his eyes settle on you. He can tell something happened, something transpired between the two of you while he was gone. How much of it he heard, you’re not sure. Perhaps none at all judging by the look on his face. 

“Ready for bed?” He asks, his gaze cautious. He’s trying to assess the situation, figure out what could have transpired to cause such a reaction between you and his alpha. He’ll never know. Not unless Simon tells him. 

“Yeah.” You breathe, scurrying out of Simon’s room before you can make more of a fool out of yourself. 

“H-How long will it take?” You ask, your heart thudding in your chest. Your pre-heat symptoms had stopped earlier this morning, the hunger gone, the itching beginning under your skin. 

“As soon as your temperature goes up, we’ll get started.” Dr. Keller says, sticking electrodes to your chest. You’ve already got the blood pressure cuff around your arm and pulse monitor on your finger. 

“Ye were prepared for this.” Johnny says, sitting next to the hospital bed. You’re in a private room, well away from any others, even though no one will know you’re in heat. There won’t be any scent projecting, no neediness, no aching. You won’t be aware at all that anything is happening as your body rapidly cycles through that sudden flood of hormones. 

Dr. Keller nods. “This was always a possibility, so I made sure I had everything on hand for when it did happen.” She takes your temperature again. “Tell me when you start to feel warm. The last thing I want to do is send you under too late.” 

Your skin crawls at her words, memories flashing back to the time you were put under too late. You trust Dr. Keller to take care of you, though. She’s far more competent and aware than that nurse had been. It’s her job to take care of you, to watch after you in moments like this. 

You just wish you could talk to John before you go under. 

You want to remember his voice when you come back out. 

“I’ll be here the whole time.” Johnny says, taking your hand, obviously sensing your discomfort. 

He’s brought a bag of things with him, since he’ll be staying with you for the few days it’ll take to get through your heat. It won’t be as long this time, your body being forced through those hormones quickly. It won’t even register it needs a knot, flying through those symptoms. 

The wait is the worst part. It takes forever, every minute seeming to take an hour. Johnny waits dutifully by your side. You wish this wasn’t the first heat he would be here for. You wish he had at least gotten some experience with a normal heat, just so this one wouldn’t scare him off. Even Kyle might have been shaken by it, though, even with his experience. 

Eventually the heat begins to prickle under your skin, your heart rate jumping. Johnny calls in Dr. Keller, looking nervous as sweat begins to bead on your forehead. 

“It’s time.” Dr. Keller says, taking your temperature. It’s jumped quickly, your body starting to prepare for the onslaught of hormones about to be released. 

She turns your arm, hooking up the IV that will deliver the sedative as well as fluids to keep you hydrated. The heart monitor beeps rapidly as you grow nervous, Johnny squeezing your hand gently. You know he’s trying, and there’s nothing more he can really do. There’s no stopping this. It’s going to happen no matter what. 

“I’m going to administer the sedative. You’ll start to feel sleepy.” Dr. Keller says. “I’ll put in the feeding tube after you’re out.”

You swallow nervously, sweat starting to bead on your forehead. “It’ll be okay right?” 

Dr. Keller gives you a soft smile “You’ll be just fine. It’ll be a few days for us, but it’ll be a few seconds for you. It’ll be over before you know it.” 

You swallow nervously before nodding. Dr. Keller pushes the sedative through the IV, your body starting to relax as it begins to take effect. The itching under your skin stops, the heat fading as the ceiling gets further and further away as your vision tunnels. Johnny squeezing your hand is the last thing you remember before everything goes dark. 

He’s seen a lot of things, done a lot of things that would make the average person violently ill. He’s no stranger to blood and gore, yet he can’t watch as Dr. Keller inserts the feeding tube into your nose. The thought of having it in his own body makes him nearly gag, his eyes closing as he breathes. 

“I’m done.” Dr. Keller says, a small smile on her face as he turns back around. 

“About gart me boak.” He says, looking at you where you appear to be sleeping peacefully. He supposes you are, blissfully unaware of anything and everything around you.

“You’re not good with needles either, are you?” She asks, obviously noticing how he had turned away when she put in your IV. 

“Not my favorite.” He admits. 

“She’s all set.” She says, stepping back. “You’ll want to move her every few hours, turn her on one side, lift her legs up. Keeps her from getting bed sores or blood clots. I’ll be next door, and I’ll check on her periodically. If anything happens at night, I’ll have my phone on full volume.” 

“Thank ye, doctor.” He says, squeezing your hand despite the fact you can’t feel it. 

Dr. Keller takes her leave, the room going quiet aside from the beeping of the heart monitor, and the occasional buzzing of the blood pressure cuff as it tightens around your arm. He stares at you for a long moment, watching the steady rise and fall of your chest as you sleep. It’s probably the most peaceful sleep you’ve gotten in the last few weeks, despite the changes happening internally. Dr. Keller had explained it to him, the hormonal changes, how sedation works differently than going through a heat consciously. Omegas do go through heat cycles awake and aware without an alpha sometimes. Institutes cycle between isolated heats and sedation. 

The thought of you going through both makes his stomach twist. 

Sweat beads on your forehead as you lay there, something that will continue for the next few days, the doctor said. Your heart rate is higher than normal, another sign that you’re in your heat as your brain cycles through the sudden rush of hormones. He’s not quite sure what to expect, not quite sure what it’ll look like if something goes wrong. He’s never done this before, and the little research he’d done doesn’t feel all that helpful. Dr. Keller trusts him to know, though, and he supposes it’ll be pretty obvious should something go wrong. 

You’re not going to be doing much aside from laying there for the next few days. 

The hours seem to drag on and he can’t help but wonder if this is how Kyle feels during your heats. At least Kyle had a job to do, had to focus and listen for the breaks in between rounds when he’d go in, ensure nothing was wrong, nothing happened, that you’re being fed and taken care of. All he has is the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the occasional buzz and crinkling of nylon as the blood pressure cuff expands. Dr. Keller brings him meals, keeping him fed and occasionally keeps him company as he watches dutifully over you. His back is aching from the uncomfortable chair and the makeshift bed, but he can hardly complain. He’s slept on worse. 

He’s sketched a lot in the silence between watching videos on his phone and napping. It’s been a peaceful time, aside from his initial worry. You sleep away, sweat still beading on your forehead. Every so often he grabs a wet paper towel, wiping away the sweat. 

He jumps as his alarm on his phone goes off in the silence, his pencil falling to the floor. He picks it up, setting his sketchbook to the side before he gets up. He’s careful as he slips his arms under you, easing you over onto your side. He bends your legs, making sure you’re steady and not cutting off circulation anywhere. He runs a hand over your hair, the strands starting to slip out of the braid he had put in before your trip to the med center. 

He moves around to the other side of the bed, pulling the tie out before undoing the braid. He’s careful as he redoes it as best he can, making sure not to pull too tightly on the strands. The last thing you need when you wake up is to feel like your hair is being yanked out of your head. 

He ties off the braid before moving back to his seat, staring at your peaceful face for a moment. It’s nothing new to him, but he can’t help but stare. He’s seen you sleep many times, held you, watched you blissfully unaware of the world. The softness in your face, the worry and the stress and the weight on your shoulders of just being who you are gone. 

He picks his sketchbook back up, going back to drawing. 

His stomach churns nervously. There’s a subtle shake to his hands, something that doesn’t happen often. He likes to think he’s prepared for anything, conditioned enough to not be shaken by anything. Yet he can’t help but feel unsure as Dr. Keller closes off your IV. 

“She’ll be coming out of it soon.” Dr. Keller says. “She’ll be confused, disoriented. She might get combative. Your job is to talk to her, try to calm her and help ease her back into awareness. She’s a crier after heats, so I don’t doubt there will be tears. She may get sick as well.” She gives him a reassuring smile. “It’ll be alright. Coming out of a heat is hard, and so is coming out of sedation. Both at the same time is always a struggle.” 

There was a time he thought maybe sedation would be the easiest way to deal with a heat, but from what he’s hearing, he might have been wrong. Sure it might be easier in the moment to not have those week long symptoms of intense desire, the fever, the desperation. Coming out of it though? From what he’s heard so far, it’s not as easy as it sounds. He’s been through it, coming out of sedation after an injury in the field. It’s a confusing feeling, disorienting enough before you find out days or weeks have passed. It’s hard to conceptualize without all those hormones going crazy in your head. 

You start to stir, your brows pinching as you slowly begin to wake. You let out a groan, reaching for the feeding tube immediately. Dr. Keller gently pushes your hands away, nodding to Johnny. Your brows furrow deeper, a groan leaving your lips as you begin to move more and more. 

“Easy, kitten.” He says, leaning down close to you, projecting his scent so you can hopefully get a whiff of it to help calm you. “I’ve got ye. Yer alright.” He brushes your hair back from your sweaty forehead as you continue to groan. He takes your hand as you reach for the tube again, squeezing it gently.

You crack your eyes open for a moment before quickly pinching them shut. Dr. Keller reaches up, turning off the overhead light before leaning down close to you again. She’s projecting her natural beta scent as well to try and help calm you. “I’m going to remove the tube, I know it’s uncomfortable.” 

Johnny has to look away again as Dr. Keller removes the feeding tube, pressing his face into your hair as he projects his scent even more. You squeeze his hand back, the other gripping the side of the bed. You take in a harsh, gasping breath before you begin to cry, tears spilling out of your eyes as you sob. He had heard that you’re a crier after your heat from Kyle, he’s just never witnessed it before. 

It takes him back to just a few weeks ago in John’s office when you had sat there crying as they interrogated you. It had made him uneasy, the stress and the fear clouding your scent. The fear he’d felt in those moments, listening to you cry and panic, nearly sending yourself into distress before John had calmed you. He might have done more, but he had been angry, angry at whoever put those cameras in your room, and slightly at you for keeping it from them for so long. 

He can’t blame it completely on you, though. That had been back in the time where you still weren’t sure if you could trust them, before you fully opened yourself to them. Maybe they were slightly at fault for not making you feel like you could trust them, for not being realistic with you about the dangers. Sure you had been warned, had it drilled into your head why your safety was paramount, but maybe they had kept too much hidden from you. Maybe they had put you in more danger by trying to keep you safe. 

Your eyes are still pinched closed as you continue to cry, sobs wracking your body as you grip his hand tightly. It tugs at his chest as he whispers quietly against your hair, trying to get you to recognize him, pull you out of the confusion and disorientation you must be feeling. You begin to hyperventilate, your hand slipping from his as you try to push yourself up. Dr. Keller already has the bed lifting, her other hand holding a vomit bag in front of you. It seems almost instinctual, but she’s been through this many times before. She had told him how many during one of their talks, when he’d asked her how long she's been working with omegas. He hadn’t realized just how little he really knew about your doctor before now. 

Johnny has to look away as you vomit into the bag, his own stomach churning. Not just because of you being ill, but also because of how distressing this all seems. How you haven’t gone into distress is a miracle to him, but perhaps you’re still too out of it to be that aware. 

Your breathing has calmed just slightly, your forehead beaded with sweat. Dr. Keller removes the vomit bag from in front of you, grabbing another and setting it on your lap. 

“I’m going to dispose of this.” She says. “She’s going to be sick for a while. I’ll grab more fluids and I’ll be back shortly.” 

Johnny nods, wiping at the sweat on your brow. You lean into his touch, letting out a quiet whine. His touch is gentle, almost scared he might hurt you in your fragile state. You’re still crying, the tears cascading down your cheeks. His chest hurts, guilt and sorrow churning inside of him from seeing you in this state. All thought that sedation was the best option goes out the window as he holds the vomit bag for you, keeping your braid out of the way. 

Kyle had told him about what it was like during your heat and after, partially to feed his curiosity, but also in case something like this happened where he had to be the one taking care of you. He’d heard about the pain, the tears, the disorientation. This is different, though. This is far worse than what Kyle had described to him. 

Dr. Keller returns, IV bag in hand. She removes the empty bag and replaces it with the full one, hooking it up to your IV. You have to be thirsty after a few days of having nothing but a feeding tube and the fluids to keep you going during your fever. 

Johnny catches her hand as she pulls out a syringe, small enough to be discreet. Something tickles in the back of his mind as he stares at it, his instincts on edge. 

“What is that?” He asks, starting to get defensive, his metaphorical hackles rising.  

“Pain medicine.” She says simply, handing it to him. She has to be able to read him, sensing the sudden protectiveness wafting off of him. 

He takes the syringe, reading the label. Morphine. He feels silly for distrusting the doctor. She’s never proven herself untrustworthy. While he knows they can’t be too trusting of anyone, she’s never done you any harm, never given them a reason to suspect her. She wouldn't hurt you, not after the dedication he’s seen from her these last few days alone. 

“She might need it later once she’s more aware.” She continues, taking the syringe back when he hands it to her, putting it back in her pocket. “Her body just went through an intense hormonal cycle and those hormonal levels are now dropping suddenly. It can cause a wide range of symptoms from crying to illness to physical pain. When omegas are allowed to go through that cycle naturally, usually with an alpha, the symptoms of coming down from that cycle are typically less severe compared to when sedation is used, of course besides the physical pain. The pain with sedation is obviously quite different from the pain when the cycle happens naturally with an alpha.” 

Johnny’s brows furrow as he rests his hand over yours, your breaths stuttering through your sobs. Your hands are clutching at the blanket, one of yours he’d grabbed from your room in hopes the familiar comfort might help you through the process. He hates that you’re in pain like this, he hates that you’re in pain at all. He’s beginning to feel the bubbling anger deep in his stomach at Simon for letting you endure this. He has no idea. He’s isolated himself for your safety, and he’ll never get to see what this is like, what you’re going through right now. 

Dr. Keller says your name softly, leaning against the side of the bed, electing to ignore the swirling emotions of her fellow beta. He’s not her concern, you are. “Can you open your eyes for me?” 

You continue to cry, but you manage to get your eyes opened, squinting at her through your tears. Dr. Keller takes your face in her hands, using her thumbs to gently pull down your lower lids, trying to get a good look at your eyes. You try to jerk away, letting out possibly the cutest defiant sound Johnny has ever heard, and he might have reacted had it been a different situation. Instead he leans over the side of the bed again, talking to you quietly so you calm a bit. You do relax at the sound of his voice, his scent projecting even more to try and comfort you, bring you back into reality. 

“There we go.” Dr. Keller says, looking at your eyes before she gives you a soft smile. “Welcome back.” She removes her hands from your face leaning against the bed rail again. “It's all over. You did perfectly.”

You let out another groan, lifting a hand weakly before letting it drop back against your stomach. 

“I know you're thirsty.” Dr. Keller says. “I'll get you some soon. We need to make sure your stomach has settled for now.” 

Your eyes squeeze closed as you start to cry again, your inhales shaky as the tears start sliding down your cheeks. Johnny shushes you gently, petting your hair. Sweat still drips down your face, your hands curling around the edge of the blanket. 

You try to push yourself up to sit, Dr. Keller immediately understanding what you need again as she lifts the vomit bag up to your mouth.

Johnny peels your hand from around the blanket, holding it tightly. His own stomach is churning but he swallows it back, bringing your hand up to his face. He kisses the back, the skin clammy and warm to the touch. Your scent is a swirl of things he’s never smelled before, drowning out the natural sweetness. Kyle had mentioned how your scent and John’s change during the heat and after. He hardly recognizes it right now, and he finds himself missing the sweet scent of strawberries. 

Your fingers squeeze around his as you lay back against the bed, eyes cracked open and sniffling as the tears continue to slide down your cheeks. You let out a groan, tugging weakly at his hand. 

“Hi kitten.” He says, leaning over the bed rail again. “Yer alright. Get ye feeling better soon.” 

Your inhale is shaky, catching in your chest. You weakly tug his hand towards your face pressing your sweaty cheek against his skin. You nuzzle against his hand, your tongue darting out to lick his skin. He can't help but chuckle, wiping at a tear that falls with his thumb. You’re still out of it, but he knows that’s a sign that you’re starting to come through, starting to come back to yourself through the haze. 

You let out a long groan as you pull away from his hand, licking at your lips. They're horribly chapped, almost rivaling Simon's, but at least you have an excuse.

“Thirsty?” Dr. Keller asks, returning to the bedside with a cup of water. “Drink slowly, you'll get sick again.” She warns, holding the straw up to your lips. 

You manage to do as she says and take small sips of the water despite how thirsty he knows you must be. Johnny keeps caressing your face with his thumb, your fingers still laced with his. 

“Let me get your vitals.” Dr. Keller says, setting the cup of water on the table. You let out a groan in protest, smacking your lips, obviously wanting more. “You can have more in a minute. Too much on your stomach could upset it, and I’m sure the last thing you want to do right now is get sick again.”

You let out a quiet grunt, leaning your cheek against his hand once again. Your skin is still a bit warm to the touch, but that could just be from the exertion of trying to come out of sedation and being sick. Dr. Keller takes your vitals once more, recording them on her sheet. She’s been tracking them your entire heat, using them to judge how far along you are since she doesn’t have the benefit of you being awake to track the symptoms that way. He had wondered why she tracked them on paper, but then he remembered John telling him about how Shepherd had requested all of your private records and Dr. Keller’s notes. 

She is smart. He’ll give her that. 

“Things look good, even if you might not feel like it right now.” She says.

You try to shift on the bed but you let out a quiet groan, freeing your hand from his. 

“Hurting?” Dr. Keller asks.

You nod, letting out a whine. It tickles in the back of his brain, his beta wanting to reach out and comfort you, but he knows he can’t. He can’t ease the physical pain. One downside to beta evolution. Their ancestors never learned how to fix physical pain. Maybe that would have made them too perfect. All he can do is try to comfort you through it. 

“Let's get some pain meds in you.” She says, pulling the syringe out of her pocket again. “Then we can get you somewhere more comfortable.”

She injects the pain medicine through your IV, giving it a few minutes to begin working before disconnecting you from all the machines. Johnny helps her get you in a sweatshirt, wanting to keep you warm. You are shaking, though what that might be related to he’s not sure. Perhaps everything. 

Dr. Keller hands him the cup of water. “Keep her drinking. I'll go grab a car, then we can get her back to the barracks.” 

You feel far too light in Johnny’s arms as he carries you from the car into the barracks. Simon is nowhere to be seen, though he hadn’t expected a welcome back party from his alpha. He’s probably still hiding out in his office, or in the gym, his usual hiding spot. Johnny is kind of glad he’s not here, though he would like to rub it in his face, the decision he’d made. 

Johnny takes you to his room, still avoiding yours. It’s almost like a crime scene, Johnny tempted to take it off. He knows placing you in there might make you panic when you wake up after everything. That’s the last thing he wants. So instead he takes you to the place you’ve spent the last almost six weeks in, somewhere you’ll recognize the scent and be comfortable when you wake up. 

You roll onto your side as soon as he lays you down, curling up on his blankets. He drapes yours over you, tucking it around your shoulders before he steps back out into the hallway. 

“Keep her hydrated. Lots of water, tea, clear sodas.” Dr. Keller instructs him. “She'll be drowsy for a while because of the pain medicine. Give her a couple hours and once the pain meds wear off and her stomach settles a bit, try her with some bland foods. She did well with mashed potatoes after her last heat. She’s going to be out of it and sick for a few days. Keep an eye out for anything abnormal. Vomiting blood, can’t keep food down, if she complains about pain somewhere or is hard to wake, give me a call.” 

“Got it.” Johnny nods, committing everything she’s told him in the last ten minutes to memory. 

“You did really well.” She says, giving him a soft smile. “You should be proud of yourself.” 

“Thank you, doctor.” He nods, internally beaming at her praise. 

“Keep me updated, and don’t be afraid to call.” She says. 

He watches her walk to the door, Simon’s door opening as soon as she’s gone. He at least looks guilty, like the shame is eating him alive. Johnny hasn’t seen him like this in a long time, not since he caused you to distress. It makes him a little too happy to see him in such a state. 

“How is she?” He asks, not moving from in front of his door. 

The sound of you vomiting into a vomit bag reaches their ears. Simon at least has the decency to flinch at the sound. It’s subtle, probably unnoticeable had Johnny not been able to read his alpha like a book. 

“Sick.” He says, trying to hide his anger and disappointment. They’re complex feelings. He knew Simon would turn you down if you asked for his own reasons, but now after seeing what happens when there’s no alpha available during a heat, he almost hates Simon for doing this to you. “Confused. Still a bit out of it.” 

“You know I couldn’t do it.” Simon says, using that uncanny ability to read everyone around him. 

Johnny hates it sometimes.

He turns to glance at you through his open door as you continue to be sick. You’re going to be miserable for the next few days, likely more than you are usually after your heats. This one will be less physical pain after taking knots for a week straight, and more pain from being sedated, pain from being mostly immobile, pain from just being alive and carrying this status. Such pain omegas live with, physically, mentally, emotionally. 

He hates it. 

“Ye don’t know what it was like.” He says, his hands closing into fists. “Seeing her like that.” 

You let out a long whine, a sob tearing from your chest as you inhale. Tears prick behind Johnny’s eyes as he holds Simon’s gaze. “Ye just had to say no.” He shakes his head, turning to go back into his room. 

He doesn't want to tell you. He can see the look on your face already. The disappointment. The pain. The agony. He can smell the souring of your scent already, the painful grief filling it and there will be nothing he can do to ease it. It's a rare moment they've left you alone in the last month and a half, forced to after a call with Kate and Shepherd.

He's not even sure how to approach it. 

He opens his bedroom door slowly, his stomach clenching as he looks in at you. You're on the bed, wrapped in a blanket where he left you, cuddled against your big bear. He doesn't want to wake you, especially not for this but he has to. He has no choice. You have to know. 

He lets out a sigh as he sinks down on the edge of his bed, gently putting a hand on your shoulder. “Kitten?” He shakes you gently. “Kitten, wake up.”

You inhale sharply, startling awake despite his attempt to be gentle. There’s a sharp spike of fear in your scent for a moment as you’re yanked from sleep suddenly, but it fades as soon as you realize where you are and who is with you. You turn over onto your back, winding up resting against his knee as you rub your eyes. 

“Johnny?” You croak, still partly asleep. 

“Si and I just got off a call with Kate.” He says carefully, not wanting to scare you too much. 

You're wide awake immediately, pushing yourself up to sit. You swallow nervously, your scent already souring. “What is it?” Your voice wavers as you ask, eyes already shining with tears. 

“John and Kyle are fine.” He says, regretting not starting with that. He can see the temporary relief on your face. “But, they need some backup for this one.” 

It takes a moment for your brain to process his words. A hole tears through the center of his chest as he watches the realization hit, your face falling as your scent begins to sour even more. Your arms wrap around yourself as you stare at him, the relief gone from your face as you stare at him. He swallows the lump in his own throat, your scent causing his beta to stir, the drive to comfort you itching in his brain. He can’t though, he can’t comfort you through this. 

Your voice shakes, a tear sliding down your cheek as you figure out what it is he woke you to say, why Kate had called. Your inhale is shaky, catching in your chest before you speak. 

“You're both leaving too, aren’t you.” 

NEXT ->

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[imjustheretotrytohelp]

Not to get ahead of myself but I don't think many people will choose the last option, yet that's what Mohammed (@ayeshjourney) does everyday for his fellow Palestinians. Not only through his work in the health sector, which is in and of itself extremely dangerous as it involves going into perilous area to help injured people. But also because he is tirelessly working to vet fundraisers on the ground, which also means getting through some of the most targeted areas of Gaza. All to make sure other Palestinians can get their fundraisers shared and brought to attention.

His work is inestimable, that is why we should support him as much as possible. He is now asking for our help : his brother needs to repair his hearing device and get the appropriate medical support due to his hard of hearing condition. On top of that, him and his family are currently displaced, in an area where IOF troops and tanks are stationed, trying to hide from frequent shootings. And now he is getting accused of being a scam by zionists, which is greatly impeding his fundrasing efforts!

If you have chosen the second option in this poll, then please consider helping Mohammed and his family out. Donate any amount you can and share his fundraiser. They need to get to £10k urgently!

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[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch4. in a mother’s eyes

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 4/x

ᰔ words. 10k (omg a whole number...very sexy)

a/n. hellooo my ihm friends! hope you're all doing well. ahh i'm glad to finally be posting this chapter lolol. it's a littleee off tangent from what happens in ch3, but still has some important plot developments. it does dive into feelings of depression & anxiety, so just wanted to give a warning on that! but yea other than that i hope you enjoy and see you at the bottom!! :) also so sorry if there are errors i only had time to skim through it once :((

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“Just go ahead and sign right here for me.”

You take the pen from the hospice nurse’s hand. It’s cheap black plastic with a pink fuzzy pom pom attached to the end of it with peeling glue. 

Your eyes briefly flit across the paragraphs detailed in printed ink until your gaze lands on the highlighted lines at the bottom of the page. Your signature. Spouse’s signature.

“We’ll need to have your husband come here to sign the paperwork as well, since he’ll have to add your mother on his list of dependents, but we can certainly get started on expediting this process for you since the insurance has already been pre-approved,” the nurse tells you as she accepts your signed paperwork and then neatly tucks it into one of the compartment holders. 

The afternoon goes by smoothly, with your mother surprisingly patient as she sits in the waiting room while you wait for the nurses to formally show you to her new room.

You thought that you could put off putting her in hospice for a little longer, because in all honesty, you weren’t prepared to let her go just yet. You weren’t prepared to not have her in the house anymore. But lately, she’s been putting herself in lots of danger, like attempting to take her own medications when she does not know the correct dosing, and forgetting things on the stove when she attempts to cook.

But the last straw was when you came home from a very brief run to the grocery store at night a couple days ago to see a handful of your neighbors out on the front lawn with your mother at their side. She had apparently gotten out of the house and walked down the neighborhood, then fallen on the sidewalk but was unable to get up. When your neighbors had found her, a miracle as they were just coming home from dinner and caught sight of her in the illumination of their headlights, they tried to help her get up but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even tell the firefighters that came by to help her what her name was, or what year it was, or where she lived.

It was when you realized you couldn’t even keep her safe anymore that you had to let go.

“Is that a wedding ring?” your mother asks, pointing a trembling finger to it as she lays tucked inside her new hospice bed, “are you married?”

You glance down at the ring Gojo gave you in the courthouse, almost surprised to find that you were still wearing it in good faith. “Yes, mom. I am.”

“Why am I here?” she asks you, “I don’t want to be here.”

You stiffen a little. Although you were mentally preparing yourself to answer these questions, the preparation didn’t make it any easier. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just for a little short while, okay? The doctors want to run some tests on you.”

“Who are you married to?” she asks.

“To Satoru,” you tell her, “our neighbor.”

She lets out a small gasp. “The sweet boy who fixed our A/C?”

You roll your eyes. not sure why your mother has hyper fixated on that memory with Gojo when most days she’ll look at you like you’re a stranger. “Yes mom.”

“Oh, I like him,” she tells you with an affectionate nod. She hesitates slightly, wearisome of some other thought that flashes through her mind. “How long have you been married?”

You let out a small sigh. This is already a conversation you had with her a couple days ago, and it doesn’t feel good to lie to her. It was hard enough to do once, but to have to constantly lie to her over and over again over all the smallest things just so that she stays calm and safe and happy seems to drain you of all your energy and happiness you had left in your bones.

Little white lies, that’s what they are. Harmless ones. That’s what you tell yourself to absolve yourself of the guilt.

“I’ll come back soon, okay? I’ll tell you more about him some other day,” you say to her, speaking gently in the way an adult would speak to a child. The way she used to speak to you. You could never exactly pinpoint when those roles became reversed.

You finish discussing some more insurance matters with the front-desk nurse as she puts together a small folder of documents for you. While she works, you glance at the little counter shelf that includes a plethora of pamphlets on how to deal with the complicated feelings that arise from putting a loved one in hospice care, and dealing with the emotions of having a relative with advanced stage dementia. They are pretty brochures, lovingly creased at the folds as if looked through multiple times by people who walk in and out of this facility, but seemingly only few take them home. You slip one of each into your folder when the nurse hands it to you, manage the best smile possible, and then turn on your heel to head out the hospice doors.

The sun is setting outside as you take the walk back to your car, which was purposefully parked a half mile away to afford you the luxury of a melancholic stroll. Somehow, you feel like you’ve left a piece of yourself back at the hospice. A feeling you can’t quite shake from your bones.

Your feet stop walking somewhere along the sidewalk on their own, the street lights above you flickering brighter into life as the sky is now a dusty gray with only streaks of purple. There’s a liquor store you spot across a small parking lot to your right, and you’re guided towards it, but not without a sickening feeling in your chest.

When you open the door, the bell at the top jingles, and you glance to the right where you see a lanky young man playing some sort of shooter game on his phone by the cash register. You grab a bottle of vodka, a bottle of white wine, some packs of skittles, one of the mini pizza boxes at the hot food station, and then dump it all onto the counter.

The young man scans all your items without even so much as sparing you a glance, but does take a look at your ID, then says, “Total’s $68.65, cash or card?”

“Card.”

Just before you tap your card, something displayed behind the cashier counter catches your eye. Something familiar, something tempting, something you weigh in your head about twenty times within one millisecond all due to the cortisol coursing through your veins and you eventually say, “Uh, and could I get one of those, too?”

The cashier looks behind himself to what you’re pointing at before turning around. “Sure.”

The same jingle is heard on top of your head as you leave the store, now with a burning hot mini pizza box in your hand as well as a plastic bag that carries your candy and the two clinking bottles of alcohol.

“Oh!! omg, y/n,” you hear a feminine voice call out and you’re instantly wincing. The last thing you wanted was to be bothered right now. You just wanted to go home and get drunk and then pass out on the floor of your living room. But alas, the world is small.

You turn around to see Hana come running across the sidewalk lot towards you, and when she’s about a few feet away, she glances down at your hands and all the things you were carrying. You quickly shove your last-minute purchase into your jacket pocket with a shameful conscience, and try to hide the plastic bag of liquor behind your calves. There was no hiding the pizza box, but at least that was the least incriminating.

“Oh, Hana, wow! What a coincidence seeing you here,” you say to her, pressing your lips into a small smile.

“Yeah, I um,” she points over her shoulder towards the hospice that’s standing tall in the darkness of night, cells with windows illuminated with light. If you didn’t know any better, you would think it was a prison. “Remember I told you my friend’s mom is sick and she’s at this hospice?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“I was just visiting her mom with her,” she tells you.

“Aw,” you comment, “I see, I see.”

You adore Hana, you really do. She was there for you when the whole Yuna and Choso thing went down, picking your shifts up for a good week when you couldn’t stomach going into work when your ex-best friend’s stupid face was gloating in the halls over how she stole your boyfriend. Hana was there for you when you were a new hire and all the doctors were being bitchy about a “newbie in the ED”, but she stood up for you, even cussed the fuck out of one of attendings for the whole hall to hear when you were being disrespected by one of them. She’s someone you can beam about how hot the EMT and Firefighter men that stroll into the ED are, too. A priceless companion.

And even though you two have hung out after hours sometimes, it was still always a little awkward to see a coworker outside of work.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I actually, um, was going to tell you at our shift tomorrow, but I just admitted my mom to the hospice too,” you say, “and…thanks a lot for telling me about it. I really appreciate it. It seems like a wonderful facility.”

Her eyes briefly widen with surprise before they soften once again. “Oh, that’s wonderful, love. I hope all goes well. And your little insurance scam worked! Good for you!”

“Shhh,” you hiss at her, looking around yourself with paranoia, “the feds are everywhere.”

She laughs, sweet in the air, before the sound settles and she looks at you with something reminiscent of well-intentioned concern. Her eyes flit to the plastic bag you were still holding behind your legs. “Hey…um, if…if you ever want some company when you come to visit your mom, just let me know. I hope you know you don’t have to do everything alone.”

You blink at her, sucking in a short breath to respond, but it only leaves you as a slight puff of air. There’s a silent gratitude that you give her, because it’s hard for you to express any feelings with words, but you’ve found that the people in your life who know you best can always read you without them. 

“Thank you, Hana,” you manage to say with a slight croak to your voice because you were fighting back tears.

She smiles at you. “Take care, okay? And see ya tomorroooowwwwww,” she coos at you, coming up to you to give you a small hug, a squeeze of your upper arm, and then she heads back towards the direction of the hospice.

You watch her walk away until you can’t see her anymore. And then you head towards your car.

When you arrive at your neighborhood, you park in front of Gojo’s house. You have a feeling that you won’t be able to bear the vast emptiness of your home now that your mother is elsewhere, and so you drag your feet up the stone stairs of his house with a heavy heart instead.

The spare key that he gave you weakly pushes into the keyhole with about as much force as your fingers can manage, and you realize they almost feel atrophied. 

The house is dark when you step inside, spare for the ambient street lights shining through cracked open blinds on the windows, and the curtains rustle gently from the draft of the AC, a chill that reaches you too by the time you make it to the staircase.

It doesn’t seem like Gojo’s home. A glance at the clock tells you it’s close to 8pm. You briefly consider texting him to ask where he’s at, why he’s out so late, when he’ll be home, and what’s for dinner, but you can’t even bring yourself to pull your phone out of your coat pocket.

Weak legs manage to take you upstairs and you’re about to pass through to your room when the slightly open door to the master bedroom taunts you, like a peephole into some other wordly dimension. Like the wardrobe in the chronicles of Narnia. A portal into your fake husband’s life.

With a palm pushing on the door, you slowly crack it open, and you know the anxious voices in your head are getting worse by the day when the creaking of the door hinges sounds like a lullaby to you. 

Was this an invasion of privacy? And did you really care if it was?

The room is big, with a king sized bed off to the left, sheets neatly made and duvet primly tucked under, like the way hotel beds are set up. You feel a slight flush of embarrassment when you remember you haven’t been making your bed in the mornings for the past couple days you’ve been living here so far, and you wonder if Gojo would judge you for something like that. If he’d think you were a messy or undisciplined person. If he would think less of you.

Truthfully, in a lot of ways, you still felt like a child. You barely weathered a lot of your formative adolescent years when dealing with your parents’ divorce, and you’ve had to put so much of your life on pause to take care of your mom ever since she got diagnosed. So here you were, in the body of a 29-year-old woman, yet still feeling so painfully juvenile. One that forgets to make her bed in the mornings, and on most nights can’t seem to stomach anything other than cereal for dinner. It was like you were still at a party that everyone else had left, except all it ever was is hell. Your life was such a stark contrast to the lives of other adults you’ve come across. The ones that wake up at six to go on runs, the ones that have paid off mortgages with five figures in their retirement accounts, oh god, the ones that meal prep, and the ones that, all things considered, have their lives together. The ones that don’t spend at least an hour of every day, in fetal position on their bed, sobbing until tears soak through the sheets of the pillow down to the feathers like bone, because you’re so overwhelmed with stress and preparing yourself for the grief of losing your mother which you know that, no matter how hard you try to save her from, will inevitably one day come. 

You used to cook dinner every night, make your bed every morning, and go to pilates on the weekends. Back when you were a little younger and healed and excited to live life. But now, you barely get by. Your priorities are with your mother. You can’t remember the last time you did anything nice for yourself, including something as simple as the luxury of getting to come home to a clean house because you hardly ever had time to clean it, not with all the doctor’s appointments you were driving your mother to, not with all the extra shifts you were picking up at the hospital to pay off your debt, not with all the times you felt too depressed to even get out of bed. 

But your mother is in hospice now, so you’ve made time, right? You’ve made the decision that everyone in your life has been begging you to finally do. So why do you still feel so empty inside?

By a quick survey of the room, you notice Gojo doesn’t really have many framed photos hung up on the walls or perched up on surfaces. None, actually. Only a contemporary painting above his bed frame and then a faded vintage horror movie poster plastered up near his desk. Not terribly odd, since in your experience most men don’t really do the whole “cluttering the house with millions of photos of their family” thing until they at least have a couple of kids and some purebred dog. The thought of Gojo someday setting up a little portrait photo at his desk with his wife’s—his eventual real forever wife’s, pretty face in it, posing with their two beautiful kids, makes an oddly melancholic feeling waft through you. You wonder if he would keep a two-by-two in his wallet, too.

Your feet move one in front of the other as your finger traces the surface wood of a dresser cabinet, something that looks a little vintage and oaky, in stark contrast to the modern minimalist vibe Gojo has set up in the rest of the room. A family heirloom, maybe? There’s no dust that coats your finger, which surprises you. If you were to run your finger across your dresser at home you’d have collected enough dust to snort down your windpipes like a recreational drug. But Gojo’s a real estate agent, making a living off of dressing houses up in perfect cosplay so that monetarily stable middle class families feel inclined to buy them. So you’re not exactly surprised he’s invested in keeping his own house in pristine condition too. 

There is a little bit of chaos, though. Like the shirt he has haphazardly hung over his chair at his office space over to the right. There’s a coffee mug sitting there too, porcelain and reflecting the moon light off, but upon peering inside you see that it’s half empty with stale coffee. He’s got pens sprawled across the desk, in a fashion that suggests he accidentally knocked them over in a rush, and slowly, like some grounding exercise, you place them one by one back into the paper mache pencil holder. It briefly occurs to you that he has a lot of paper mache containers of sorts around the house. You lift up the pencil cup, turning it in your hand until your eyes catch something written on it with glittery pink gel pen.

i luv u unkle toru! -yur BEST FREND 4EVUR juno!!! :D

A small smile makes it onto your face. The handwriting was messy, more like scratches than smooth lines, and nothing less than what you would expect of a child. You remember making paper mache and clay trinkets at preschool for your mom and dad when you were younger. And you’re sure if you were brave enough to open the box of memorabilia that sits in your attic some day, you’d see your own scratchy scribbled handwriting on them. An innocence that is long gone and buried, never again to be delicately placed on desks or counters for all the living.

The draft from the AC reaches you once again, brushing over your skin and causing a chill to shiver down your spine. It kicks at the curtains as well, causing them to ruffle up towards you, baring the dark outside world into the streets. And you notice in that momentary glance that there’s a roof just outside the window that overlooks the backyard. A roof? Spotted by a depressed woman going through a quarter life crisis? There was nothing more tempting than that. 

The window was easy to open, which only caused unease over the revelation of how easy it would be for someone to rob this house. You make a mental note to tell Gojo to get a ring camera or security system of some sort since he doesn’t seem to have one, but you can already picture him telling you something about how statistically low the crime rates are in this neighborhood compared to all the other neighborhoods, and then you’d tell him that it’s just for your peace of mind. But whether he’d compromise or not after that, you’re really not sure.

You take a seat on the roof, a little scared as you sit because of the slight slope, but it’s comfortable once you’re settled. You sit criss-cross-apple-sauce, staring out into the neighborhood of perfectly lined up suburban houses. You’ve got a better view into some neighbors' backyards, noticing that a couple of them had pools while some of them have big gardens. There's a cat resting up on a fence in the distance. A car drives by with headlights illuminating everything in its proximity briefly before zooming off. You glance up at the sky, and notice the full moon, but it’s too cloudy to see any stars. Or perhaps it was just the light pollution from the lamps making it difficult to see.

On instinct, your hand reaches inside your coat pocket for your phone, but your knuckles hit something else instead. A moment of brief confusion flickers through your head, but then you immediately recall the last-minute purchase you made at the gas station.

Your hand pulls out the object, and then you stare down at it. Squinting your eyes a little, because it’s a sight that feels familiar but also one you haven’t seen in so long: a pack of twenty Marlboro red cigarettes. 

You’ve tried a lot of things to manage your stress over the years. Excessively working out, eating a lot of sugar, going on six hour hikes to touch grass, flirting with random men at bars, fucking Choso until he was rendered speechless, multiple types of antidepressants, you almost tried smoking weed once with your roommate in college but you wimped out last second. But the habit that had gotten you through the years of 21 to 24 is held loosely in your hand right now. It’s been five years since you quit, but resolve was often a fickle thing. As the saying goes, once an addict, always an addict. 

There’s a brief moment of hesitation as you slowly peel the plastic off of the back, but then it all comes back to you like a reflex you’ll never forget up to where you slide a cigar up out and then pinch it between your two fingers. Forgetting to buy a lighter with the cigarettes is definitely something you would do, but because you remembered it was something that you would do, you remembered not to do it. The flick of the flame coming to life is ASMR you didn’t know you were painfully nostalgic for, and you balance the cigarette between your lips in that sort of movie-star way people used to obsess over back in the day. But just as you bring the lighter up to the end of the cigarette, and just before you can light it—

A hand shoots out in your periphery, grabbing your wrist and entirely stalling the movement.

You gasp, lips parting enough for the cigarette to fall from them and into your lap. The hand wrapped around your wrist is large and masculine, and you briefly consider screaming, but when you snap your neck to look at the perpetrator, you see Gojo crouched down next to you on this roof. You notice he’s wearing a black suit, a tie that was loosely secure hanging from his neck into the space between his spread thighs as he’s crouched, and whatever gel he had in his hair from earlier only barely remains as strands fall over his forehead haphazardly. He looks like he’s on the other end of a long work day. 

You blink at him, expression plastered with surprise, but his is only earnest. With breathtaking blue eyes that you realize he could easily use to surrender a person just by looking at them, like the way he’s looking at you right now. His lips are pressed together into a firm line, as if to suppress some emotion, but the slight crease to his brow makes you feel like you’re in trouble somehow. Like he was silently scolding you for something.

“I—” you stutter.

He lets go of your wrist and discreetly pulls the lighter out of your hand. And then his hand reaches for the pack of cigarettes you were balancing on your knee, but on some reflex that you don’t even think about, you try to snatch them away from him, and now you’re both tugging at the same pack of cigarettes.

“y/n,” he says, “let go.”

“No,” you say stubbornly.

He sighs and tugs a little harder. “Give them to me.”

“But—” you stammer, voice becoming softer to see if that’d work on him, “I’m…” Your grip on them tightens. “I’m stressed.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, then finally loses his patience and snatches them right out of your hand. He stands up from his crouched down position to toss the pack off to the side onto the roof somewhere. You’re surprised when he lets out a sigh and sits down next to you on the roof, as if he felt the obligation to. His legs stretch out in front of him, but still bent slightly at the knees, and he leans backwards with his body weight braced on his palms laid flat on wood paneling behind him. “There are better ways to relieve stress,” he tells you candidly. 

“Like what?” you ask, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you clarify, “and don’t say sex.”

He shuts his mouth and his eyes flit up to the sky for a brief second. “Damn. I didn’t have a back-up answer.” 

You roll your eyes, releasing a deep breath, then draw your knees to your chest before resting your chin on top of them. 

“I didn’t know you smoke,” he says after a century-long minute. 

You wince a little, because you were half hoping he was going to just drop the subject all together. 

You bite your lip nervously and hug your knees to your chest tighter as if to hide yourself from him. “I don’t. Well, I haven’t. Um, not for a while.”

“Huh. I see,” he says.

Another silence passes, and as he shuffles next to you, the fabric of his suit brushes against the fabric of your coat, and you’ve become entirely too aware of the feeling.

“So,” he says, breaking the awkward silence, “your mom’s in hospice now?”

You nod, enthusiastic enough to where you won’t look like you’re entirely depressed about it.

“That’s good,” he says, “no issues with the insurance?”

You shake your head. “They need you to sign some papers by the end of the week though,” you tell him. “We’ll have to go in person.”

He nods slowly to affirm he’ll make time for it. “I really hope things get better for your mom,” he says, voice soft as he stares off into neighbors homes like you had been doing ten minutes ago. You see the cat that was resting on the fence get up, do a big stretch, and start walking along the length of the fence. Your eyes briefly glance at Gojo, and you notice his gaze is tracing the cat’s path. 

“My—” you start, hesitant all of a sudden by the vulnerability you already feel swelling within you, most definitely due to sitting with someone on a rooftop late at night, but you decide that you’ll be nice to him for once, “…my mom seems to remember you a lot. More than she remembers me.” You let out a small humoring laugh, as if that fact doesn’t completely destroy you. “She was blabbering to me again for the seventh time about how you apparently fixed our AC.” You try to bite your tongue, but can’t help it when you say, “although I’m pretty sure you just pressed a bunch of buttons until it started working again.”

“Yup. That’s exactly what I did.”

You roll your eyes and sigh.

Another awkward silence.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say.

“Sure.” His voice sounds deeper, like he’s sleepy. 

“Why did you agree to marry me? That’s not something people just do out of nowhere.”

He glances over at you, and you flicker your eyes to him. “Why? Having regrets?” he teases, with a slight nudge of his elbow to your side. 

“Just answer me.”

He lifts his palms up from behind him and leans forward, placing his hands on his knees instead. “I don’t know. If something I could do would help someone out that much, I wasn’t going to say no.”

You hum quietly, still confused by his intentions. But you’re too jaded to question them.

“It costs nothing to be nice,” he adds. 

You run soothing circles over your thigh through the fabric of your jeans. For some reason, your mind wanders to Choso. Thinking of all the years you wasted staying with him even though you knew his affections were long gone, just because you didn’t want to break his heart. Only to realize that you never had that privilege in the first place. 

“I think,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper as you draw your knees closer to your chest, “that sometimes it does.”

A gust of autumn wind breezes by, ruffling the trees that the two of you are at eye-level with at the moment. You're pretty sure you’ve completely lost Gojo’s interest at this point, where he’s finally too tired to deal with your oddly cryptic attitudes and overall generally displeasing vibe, assuming this based solely on his prolonged silence beside you. You’re ready for him to get up and abandon you here on this roof, left to ponder every single thing you’ve done wrong in your life. It was any second now.

“Sometimes,” he instead speaks up, and it’s so surprising to you that you jolt a little bit, “you can do everything right, and people will still find a way to fuck you over. But I don’t think that’s any reason to stop being nice to others.”

You glance over at him, your eyes widening slightly, but he just continues to peer off straight into the night. His blinks are slow, lingering on being closed for a moment before he opens them again, and you’re mesmerized by the sight. The skin under his eyes is slightly dark from exhaustion, heavy with character that makes you aware that he’s just a person too. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, you realize that he’s—…handsome. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, your heart flutters in your chest.

He scoffs suddenly and dusts his hands off. “I sound like a fucking youth pastor.” He lets out an exhale before suddenly standing up onto his feet before you can think more on it. He looks off into the night again and lets out another exhale that sounds more like a sigh this time. “God, it’s getting a lot colder these days. Might have to start running the heater.”

You blink up at him with no commentary to add. 

He looks down at you. His face is relaxed, but you can tell those eyes are distracted. A shimmering blue ocean in its own world while he attempts to stay present in this one. 

He holds his hand out to you, and you stare at it blankly like you’ve got no clue what he intends for you to do with it. But you finally take the hint and curl your hand around his palm so that he can pull you up onto your feet too.

You stumble a little, falling forward from the sudden blood flow to your brain, but he holds you steady by the strong grip of his hands on your elbows. He’s close to you, close enough to where you can smell the faint lingering scent of his cologne. Something different than that expensive one he wore to the courthouse, but it’s comforting somehow. A fragrance that’s more him. And you feel nervous as you look up at him underneath pale moonlight. 

He lets go of your elbows. You feel cold from the loss of his touch. But his right hand moves to gently hold your left hand in his palm, holding it curled as his thumb barely grazes the stone you wear on your ring finger; the one he gave you.

The way his thumb prods at the silver band is like he’s inspecting its quality, as if it has to pass some test to be worthy of sitting on your finger. Or maybe just any finger, if you were to quell the delusion. You’re not sure if he’s satisfied with his inspection.

“Where did you get it—” you blurt out.

His gaze flickers up to your face briefly before he’s back to examining the ring. “It was my mom’s.”

Your mouth gapes slightly in shock, heart dropping a little in your chest, and all of a sudden you feel guilty. Guilty that he put his mother’s ring on your finger for something that was fake, something that was essentially a business deal, something exchanged to you out of fraud when it was a precious family heirloom that should be exchanged with love. And maybe he didn’t care about it much, some people don’t care about the sentiments of objects. But your mind thinks of the oaky vintage dresser in his room, so out of place in the aesthetic of its surroundings, a decision you can only imagine him of all people, mr. “everything in this house has to look like an IKEA catalog”, would do if the dresser held some importance to him that was more than meets the eye. And so you’re compelled to think that maybe this ring did, too. 

“Why would you give me this?! You could’ve just gotten a cheap fake diamond ring from a pawn shop and called it a day,” you ask him, suddenly feeling burdened by it.

“Well I wasn’t exactly given much time to think of other options.”

“But—” you start, only to realize you have no counter arguments for that.

He lets out a huh noise, like the sound someone makes when they’re pleasantly surprised by something, as he looks down at your hand that he still held in his. “It’s kinda crazy that it fits you perfectly. I wasn’t sure.”

Your mind wanders to when he slipped the ring onto your finger in the courtroom, followed by the kiss. Soft, sweet, the lingering warm sensation of his palm on your cheek as he cupped your face, the same way those heartthrob actors do in all those romance movies and kdramas that you watch on Friday nights while snuggled up in a blanket, wondering when anyone will ever kiss you like that. You remember the ghost sensation of his hand hovering over the small of your back, fingers lightly grazing the nape of your neck, his frame blocking out everything around you as he kissed you, just to pull away and for the two of you to then pretend like it never happened, as if it wasn’t one of the sweetest kisses you’ve ever known.

You slowly pull your hand out of his, the moment feeling too tender for your liking, and you clear your throat before flitting your eyes up to his. 

“Rule #1,” you remind him with a soft whisper, “no touching.”

You purse your lips, watching his round eyes blink once, then twice, before he shoves his hands in his suit pockets. He rocks back and forth on his heels for a few seconds, nodding slowly in submission, and then he turns on them to head back to the house. You’re standing a little stunned from the abrupt ending to this trance of a moment on the roof, and you’re also a little surprised with how your chest is heaving a little bit with fast breaths, but you eventually snap out of it to follow him inside too. 

You two make it back inside the house, with little words exchanged. You pretend to not notice the way Gojo tilts his head at his desk, like he’s confused about why it looks tidier than when he left it. You’re prepared to feign innocence or ignorance, but he doesn’t press you about it. 

“Y’know,” he says from behind you, his chest briefly brushing against the back of your head as he pushes the bedroom door in front of you open so that you can head out into the loft, “those oversized 1800s-esque nightgowns you’ve been wearing around the house kinda make you look like a less-hot version of Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sign right here for me, sir.”

You watch as the nurse slides the papers across the high-raised counter of the hospice nursing desk towards Gojo, his eyebrows narrowing as his eyes skim the words on the paper and land at the highlighted lines where he’s been intended to sign. You feel nervous for some reason, as if he’d suddenly find something disagreeable and refuse to sign, then take you to the courthouse first thing to finalize a divorce and send you off to prison while claiming he was blackmailed into the whole marriage in the first place.

Instead, he pulls a pen from the chest pocket of his suit jacket, clicking the end of it and scribbling his signature onto the paper with some jet black ink that looks like it takes a second to dry. How pretentious of him. The pink pom-pom pen was right there.

The nurse behind the counter continues to chat with him about something, blah blah dependents, blah blah tax claims, blah blah you’ll receive an itemized bill in the mail. You’re trying your best to eavesdrop in on the conversation, but most of your senses are being occupied by examining all your surroundings. When you dropped your mother off at the hospice, your feelings were at the forefront of conscience, but now that you’ve had a couple days to come down from that overwhelming emotional high, you’re here to scope out the quality of this place you’ve just dumped your mom at.

The facility is clean and sleek, with a color theme of red and an ocean blue across the signs, the furniture, even with the paperwork they hand out. All the workers had color-coded scrubs based on their occupation or specialty, and none of them had stains on the fabric. You take a glance down at the modest leather pumps you were wearing past the creases of the long skirt, and notice that the floor was shimmering off their reflection in a perfect polish. It wasn’t bad, this place.

“Thanks, you too,” you hear Gojo say to the nurse behind the counter. He has a professional smile on his face, but still kind and genuine, which makes the woman at the computer something bashful and unable to make eye contact. He folds something that looks like a receipt into his chest pocket before tucking his pen back in there too and then turns to face you. You make a mental note to pay him back for whatever he just paid for, at least once you move some money around. 

Your eyebrows lift, feeling a little dazed as you blink at him blankly.

“Alright,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, the sound of his shoes on the polished hospital floors satisfactorily tapping in your ears as he took a couple steps towards you, “where’s your mom’s room?”

“Huh?”

“What’s her room number?” he asks you.

“Y-You wanna go see her??”

“Of course I want to,” he says, “she’s my mother-in-law.”

You roll your eyes and pet the fabric of your skirt to smooth the wrinkles out. “You’re getting a little too invested in this role of fake husband.”

“I get to annoy you all day and ride the adrenaline rush of committing a federal crime,” he says, “of fucking course I’d get invested.”

You sigh, tossing some of your hair to behind your shoulder before glancing up at the signs, squinting slightly to locate the ward where your mother’s room is, before you hear an extremely high-pitched and somewhat catty feminine voice call out from behind you. You glance at Gojo’s face as he peers off to whoever’s behind you, and you see him visibly stiffen a little.

“Is that Dayton county’s sexiest realtooorrr???” the voice purrs, and you turn on your heel to see a blonde bombshell of a woman clacking her kitten heels down the glistening floors of the hospice, with another brunette bombshell just a few paces behind her. Bombshell #2 sighs something like “it issss” before they walk right up to your fake husband and take turns at giving him a playful squeeze of his bicep. You have to physically stop your jaw from dropping at the sight. 

“Wow! Ladies, so–...so great to see you two,” he says out of polite obligation, and you immediately clock the fact that he doesn’t address them by name.

Bombshell #1 turns to look at you, all of her hair moving as one solid entity with the motion from all the hair spray that’s probably holding it up, and she points at you with a long slender finger that narrows into a french-tip. “Oh who’s this?? Another one of your clients??”

“Oh, no, she’s my–”

“I’m his wife,” you interrupt him, irritated for some reason. 

Both the women chirp something out like oh! before their faces twist with confusion. 

“I didn’t know you were married,” Bombshell #2 says in a thick New Jersey accent.

Gojo lifts his left hand up, the silver band on his hand glimmering under fluorescent hospice lighting. “Very happily,” he says, as if someone was holding a gun to his head.

Bombshell #1 crosses her arms, and you try not to stare at how nice her boobs look in the low scoop-neck jaguar print top she was wearing. You were no better than a man. And now you’re pissed off at the idea of Gojo glancing down too, but a flick of your gaze up to his face tells you he’s safe. For now. 

“You weren’t married when I asked you if you were a month ago,” Bombshell #1 sneers at him. It’s true, the math wouldn’t make sense, but in his defense, this marriage was a fraud.

“Or when you took me out for dinner last week after I bought my house,” Bombshell #2 snarls with an undertone of hurt. 

Gojo clears his throat beside you before pointing at Bombshell #2. “How is that, by the way?” he asks in an attempt to change the subject, “the half acre down on Maple Ave, right? You, uh, enjoying the pool?”

The woman let out an offended scoff and–were her eyes sheening with tears?? She puts her hands on her hips. “No. Mine is the three bedroom house with the cedar gazebo on 14th street.”

Her friend next to her rolls her eyes and smacks her gum between her cheek. “I’m the one that bought the half acre down on Maple Ave, jerk. Ugh!” She grabs her friend’s arm with a high-pitched hmph noise leaving her throat, and you can hear the other one sniffling subtly as she wobbles on her heels with her friend’s pull of her arm. 

Right before leaving the two of you alone, Bombshell #1 turns to you and says, “I hope you find someone who treats you better,” and then they storm off together down the hallway, their perfectly blow-dried hair bouncing in sync with each stomp.

You blink at the sight, a little flabbergasted from the interaction, and then flit your faze up to Gojo. You see him awkwardly scratching at the back of his head with a grimace on his stupidly handsome face. 

“That’s what you get for being a manwhore,” you tell him.

“I’m not a manwhor–”

“You went on a date with another woman while you were maaaaarrrieeeddd?!” you coo as you let out a fake gasp and slap your cheeks with your hands, “despicable, really.”

He lets out some disgruntled noise, the source coming from deep within his throat. “No. We weren’t fake-married yet,” he vindicates himself, “and it wasn’t a date. I just bought her dinner as a congrats for buying a house. Not a big deal. I do it for all my clients.”

“Satoru. You do realize you’re leading these women on, right? I mean, I’ve seen the way you talk to them. Even if you think you’re just being friendly, please know that your definition of friendly is most people’s definition of flirting.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true.”

He raises an eyebrow as he glances down at you. “Alright, how come this flirting in disguise of friendliness hasn’t worked on you then?”

You scoff in disbelief before crossing your arms. Maybe you did deserve a better fake husband. “You’re never friendly with me. You’re always rude to me.”

“What? I’m not always rude to you.”

“Well, you’re certainly much more rude to me than you are to other women,” you say, tapping the tip of your shoe with irritation.

“Can we not do this right now? We’re in the middle of a hospice.” 

“God, you’re such a cop-out,” you mumble as you forcefully push past him towards the hallway that’ll lead you to your mother. You can hear that Gojo’s on your tail, following you down one of the more dimly lit hallways, and you can tell he needs to stall the strides of his Daddy Longlegs to not overtake your pace.

“What the fuck is a cop-out?” he asks you from behind.

“Look it up on urban dictionary, Grandpa. Unless you don’t know what the Internet is, either,” you spat. 

You waltz right up to your mother’s room just in time to see a nurse making her way out with a clipboard in her hands. She glances over to you when she sees you approaching in her periphery.

“Hi! How can I help you?” she asks.

“Is it alright if we visit my mother?” you ask her.

“Oh! Sure, let me just clean her bed pan really quick.”

Your brow furrows. “B-Bedpan?? Why is she using a bedpan??”

The nurse stops in her movements. “Well, yesterday and today, that’s just what she has decided to use.”

You immediately become hostile. “That’s not right. She never needed to use one at home. Why is she suddenly using one here? Is that not a clear sign of deterioration? The restrooms must not be kept well enough here if she doesn’t want to use them.”

The nurse becomes something meek, her eyes widening as her mouth gapes slightly. “Ma’am,” she squeaks out, “we see this commonly with patients as they begin to adjust to hospice life. We’ll urge her to use the restroom, but as of right now, we need to prioritize what she finds most comfortable.”

Your expression softens, your shoulders relaxing from their tense position, and you duck your head a little with guilt. “Right…I’m sorry.”

The nurse presses her lips together with a well-meaning smile before shuffling into the room and closing the door behind her. You sigh and lean your back against the wall next to the number plate, cheeks flushing slightly from the confrontation. You have no idea how loud your voice was or who heard you. But you try to convince yourself that you’re just stressed and trying to look out for your mother, although the guilt still sits.

You glance up to see Gojo staring at you with slightly wide eyes, his hands shoved into his pockets, and he tilts his head to study your expression.

“What?” you snap at him.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Just fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Satoru,” you cut his questioning off by raising a palm into the air, “just—…just stop.”

His brow furrows together slightly, but before he can show any further concern, the nurse exits the room and holds the door open for the two of you. 

“All set!” she chirps, and Gojo moves to hold the door open in her stead, and then the nurse bolts down to disappear somewhere down the hallway.

You hear Gojo let out a small huff of a scoff as he stares down in the direction the nurse ran off in. “Glad to know I’m not the only one that’s scared of you.”

You roll your eyes and walk into the room through the open door.

Your mother lays in her bed, looking out the window with her hands resting on top of layers of white linen sheets, her skin looking slightly paler than usual. You approach her bedside slowly and she finally turns her head to look at you.

“Hi mom,” you gently greet her, sitting down on the stool beside her bed, “how are you doing?”

Her eyes dart across the features of your face, and you briefly glance towards the wall to the right where you see Gojo standing from a slight distance.

“Oh, hi dear,” she says with a smile, and relief washes over you.

You match her smile with your own. “Mom, I brought someone here to see you.” You glance over at Gojo, who starts to close distance now as he approaches the foot of the bed, “this is Satoru, my husband.”

Your mother’s eyes widen, “Oh! I know him,” she scoldingly swats a hand at you, like you’ve embarrassed her somehow by assuming that she doesn’t know who he is, “he’s my neighbor!”

You sigh, “yes mom, the one that fixed the A/C?” You attempt to finish her sentence for her.

She looks confused for a moment, but slightly nods as if to avoid any further confusion for herself. “But—…but, why…” she trails off and then looks at you, “I’m sorry, are you my nurse?”

Your shoulders drop slightly. “No, mom, it’s me. Your daughter. Do you remember?”

Her face scrunches before it entirely relaxes to keep some image of composure despite the haze you know she feels in her head. “Oh…yes, yes…my little girl. I remember you, of course!”

Your eyes become layered with a slight sheen of tears, “I’m glad.”

“Where’s your father?” she asks, “he said he’d bring me some…oh dear, what—…he said he’d bring me tea. I’ve been waiting.”

“Mom, dad is—” you pause for a moment to think on your feet. You could either tell the truth, or a little white lie. You never know what to do. And either one comes with either guilt or sorrow. “Well, he’ll be here soon, I just wanted to come see you.”

“Oh okay…” she trails off, her eyes squinting at you once more with that same look of confusion on it, but then they drift towards Gojo. “Oh you’re a very handsome young man! You look just like my neighbor.”

Your eyes flicker up to Gojo, and he walks up to your side by your mom’s bed. “Yes, Mrs. l/n, I am your neighbor.”

“With the lemon tree!”

“The avocado tree,” you correct her with a small sigh. “And he’s my husband mom. And also our neighbor.”

“Oh I see I see…” she says, looking up at him, and in a moment that shocks you, she holds her hand up for him to take.

There’s a slight moment of surprise on his face too, but he accepts her frail hand in his, and you glance over to your mom to see her look at him with some look of peace on her face.

“Oh, sit down here, won’t you?” she tells him, and you both blink at her in a moment of hesitation.

He pulls a stool up to the side of the bed right next to you and takes a seat down onto it. Your mother holds his hand with both of hers now, soothing her palm over the back of it before she taps on it lightly.

“Oh, my little girl is very sweet. She would bring me flowers from the garden when she was,” she glances at you, confused once more, “well I remember her when she was so little but she looks…a little older now. Ah, but she would bring me such pretty flowers.”

Your heart aches in your chest. You never knew what version of you your mother would remember. Some days, you’re still supposed to be an angsty teenager that shuts doors in her face, some days you were just as you are right now, and other days, you were just her little girl. And it confused her, the image of not seeing you in the way that she remembers. In the only way she knew how.

“You’ll take good care of my sweet girl, won’t you?” she asks him.

And it knocks the wind out of you.

It drops your heart to the center of the earth.

The thought that, after so many moments where she doesn’t remember you, she still knows that you’re someone she wants to keep safe.

Your mouth gapes slightly, tears welling in your eyes and you try your best to blink them away, but you see Gojo’s hand slip out from being held by your mother’s hands, to instead use both of his to hold hers. Your eyes snap to his face, and you see that same earnest expression you’ve been growing used to seeing these days. 

“Yes,” he responds, eye contact level with hers, “I will.”

A small puff of air leaves your lips, a single tear streaming down your cheek and you quickly swipe your trembling fingers to remove any evidence of it before you huff out a shaky, “excuse me.” And then you’re standing up off the stool, and in a few hurried steps across the room as more tears continue to stream down your face, you make it to the door to push out into the suffocating air of the hallway.

It’s hard to breathe, huffs and puffs barely leaving your lips as you struggle to pull air into your lungs while you storm down the hallway at a fast pace, your heels clicking underneath you in a way that only sets you off further. Suddenly, all the sounds around you make you sick to your stomach, a wave of nausea washing over you, and your nose burns with the intensity of the tears that continue to stream down your face. A few hospice staff look at you with concerned expressions, and you eventually reach a heavy-duty door that leads you out into a secluded staircase hallway where the dim lighting serves to relax at least some of your senses, but you still feel like you’re about to pass out.

Even in the haze of your emotions, there’s this glimmer of a memory that comes to mind. One from when you were younger and you were pushed on the playground at school. You cried and cried and cried in your mother’s arms, but even then, you didn’t want her to baby you. You would say to her, I’m a big girl now! in that same way a child knows nothing of what it truly means to brave the world. 

That little girl had no idea that one day, there would be moments where she wouldn’t be remembered as her mother’s little girl anymore. 

No matter how old you grow, you will always be my little girl, your mother’s voice echoes to you, the feeling of her squeezing you in her arms as she holds your sobbing little form in hers casting a ghost sensation across your skin.

In a mother’s eyes, you’ll always be her baby.

And that’s why it hurts.

Because it’s all fake.

It’s phony.

It’s not real.

This arrangement you have with Gojo.

And if your mother were to die tomorrow, there would be no one to take care of her little girl anymore.

Not in the way she believes there will be.

Of all the white lies, this one pierces you straight through your heart in a way that leaves you gasping for air.

Amidst your whirlwind of thoughts, you hear the door push open harshly, and when you glance over, you see Gojo standing in this dimly lit hallway as he turns his head quickly to the left and sees you standing there.

“Hey,” he says, catching his breath as he lightly jogs up to you, “hey, hey, hey,” he repeats with more concern now when he sees the state you’re in, and he seamlessly pulls you into a hug, your cheek pressing against his chest that feels warm even through the fabric of his suit jacket and shirt, and that familiar scent of him completely engulfs you.

You sob quietly, wiping your snot on his tie and your tears on the felt fabric beside it, your hands balled into tiny fists at your chest, squeezed between the two of you. You feel him tuck your head under his chin and his arms wrap around you tighter. You don’t even realize it at first, but suddenly, it has become easier to breathe.

Then, you wail, and you cry, and you sob, because you don’t have the words to even explain how you feel, about not just this, but with everything, a buildup of everything that has been suffocating you in your life that just comes crashing down on you all at once.

“I know,” he says, his palm resting on the back of your head as he holds your face to his chest, his voice soothing in your ears while you sob until there’s nothing left to cry. “I know.”

You two stay like this for another minute or so as you come down from the cries, your remnant sniffling echoing in the hallway while you wipe more of your snot on his jacket. You make the first move to pull your face away from his chest, but he still keeps his arms wrapped around you when you look up at him.

With your gaze darting across his face, you take in the blue in his eyes. Eyes that are looking at you so softly it’s suddenly hard to breathe once more. And when those eyes flit to your lips, your mouth parts slightly as you two breathe in unison.

It’s possible that you could have dreamed the moment you saw him lean down slightly towards you, his eyes still set on your lips, but it didn’t matter because you’re pushing him away with strong fists before you can even register the thought in your head.

He lets go of you entirely, his eyes wide once more, and you glance down at your feet. 

A tender moment, just like on the roof, broken just because you can’t handle that—…that way, that intense way that he looks at you. New rule, no looking at me longingly like you want to kiss me. I won’t allow it.

“I want to go home,” you whisper, still examining your shoes. And you suddenly feel embarrassed that he had to see you this way. He’s supposed to be scared and intimidated by you, not holding you in his arms while you cry. 

He’s silent for a moment, but you can tell he’s searching for things to say. “You don’t want to say bye to your mom before we go?”

You swipe your palm against the wetness on your cheek. “No. I just want to go home.”

“y/n,” he tried to convince you.

You finally look up at him. “Please.”

He breathes in a few breaths as he studies the features of your face in a way that makes you feel so seen that it’s frightening. But he slowly nods, then says,

“Okay.”

.

.

.

.

.

[end of chapter 4]

a/n. hi friendsss i hope you enjoyed :'') yea like i said at the a/n in the beginning, this chapter is a slight off-tangent from last chapter, but ch5 will continue with a lot of the stuffs that were brought up in ch3. but yea i wanted to explore the whole process of emotions reader would go through putting her mom in hospice, since it kinda felt like a big thing, hence why it got its own chapter. aaa i hope to see you in the next one!! much love from me :''0

➸ take me to chapter five!

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