#not only the anatomy is hard but the face should also be recognisable

[chaikajpeg]

hinata shōyō | haikyuu

reference photo: link to the original post on twitter. shot by oremiya14

i don't know the name of the team and the player yet but i'll add them later (i'm in a bit of a hurry so i have to go... sorry!!)

[your-world-with-nct]

polaroid love | njm (2)

TWO — 1, 2, 3, 📸

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PAIRING | na jaemin x female reader (ft. dreamies + enhypen 02z)

GENRE | fluff, angst, college au

WARNINGS | intended lowercase, cursing, stem student slander, inaccurate photography terminology

WORD COUNT | 3.5k

SUMMARY | inspired by enhypen’s ‘polaroid love’ — in his twenty-two years of living, na jaemin has never been in a proper relationship. after witnessing his best friends go through their fair share of complicated, devastating heartbreaks, jaemin decided he was better off investing his time and effort into his studies, rather than wasting his time falling in love. years of having fleeting crushes and being countlessly confessed to passed by and not a single person could tempt jaemin into the world of love. that is, until, he meets someone that he can’t get out of his head no matter how long he stares at his anatomy textbooks. someone that reminds him of the hopeless romantic he once was. someone that can show him that love doesn’t have to be so complicated to succeed.

FIC PLAYLIST LINK | click here to enhance your reading experience!

HEADER KEY | • REC -> a character’s point of view | ■ GALLERY -> a flashback from that character’s point of view

Y/N CAM • REC

“thanks for agreeing to come so last minute,” jake smiled, fiddling with the straps of his camera bag as you walked side by side to the film and media building.

“oh, it’s no problem,” you naturally mirrored his grin, “how come hoon couldn’t make it though?”

“ah, he forgot his sister was performing at her school’s dance festival tonight, his parents came and picked him up before,” he explained, his steps slowing down as he checked the time on his phone.

you glanced over at your best friend and matched his new pace, “please, i was gonna say, when would park sunghoon ever pass up the chance to be your model?”

“that’s true, the man’s in love with his own beauty,” jake cupped his face with his hand, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at the way he mocked your friend. “y’know as his photographer, his confidence is so helpful when i’m shooting, but as his friend? it makes me want to bash my head into a brick wall.”

you threw your head back in laughter, placing a hand on jake’s arm to steady yourself, “should i be worried for my shoot then or…?”

“absolutely not, y/n, you could never annoy me to that extent,” he reached to grab your hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze. his touch lingered on yours for a few seconds before he cleared his throat and let go.

“wow, i’m flattered,” you paused to let three eager film students and their bulky equipment get past you, “also, i was thinking we could go get dinner after this. i’ll pay, since you did last time—take it as an apology for being embarrassing in front of your friend last week.”

jake winced at the memory of you rushing him and interrupting his conversation with jaemin, “well, apology accepted, do i get to choose where?”

“sure! uh, within a reasonable price range though,” you quickly added, remembering the many packages that were on their way from nights of (un)necessary online shopping.

“hmmm, i’m craving meat… can we go to that korean barbeque place with the turtle-shell grills? i love it there!” the boy was practically jumping up and down in excitement, and you knew you could never say no to him.

“sounds good, jakey! y’know my wallet happens to love it there too, they have a student discount,” you nudged him with your elbow, ending up accidentally winding him in the process.

muttering a few ‘sorry’s and gently rubbing the spot you’d hit a little too hard, jake opened the door to the studio eunjin had told them to meet in. as you laid eyes on a room of unfamiliar people, you subconsciously stuck closer to the only person you knew, bowing to eunjin just as jake had done, and following him to a spot where someone you thought you recognised was beckoning him over to.

“over here, jake!” the boy with the honey-brown hair waved, a pretty smile on his face that you couldn’t seem to take your eyes off of.

“jaemin hyung! you know y/n, right?” jake nodded towards you, and you took that as a sign to detach yourself from his side, waving at the two older boys.

“ahh yes, i remember,” jaemin waved back, and gesturing next to him, he introduced his friend, “oh, and this is haechan.”

“the haechan that convinced your mutual friend that your name was ‘daeman’ for three months?” jake’s jaw fell open, recalling one of the many stories jaemin had told him about his best friends and housemates.

“yup, the man, the myth, the legend himself,” jaemin rolled his eyes at haechan’s announcement. “pleased to meet you both,” he took a dramatic bow, his humorous actions melting your nerves, “i’ve heard a lot about you!”

“lee haechan!” jaemin gritted his teeth at his friend, his eyes widening in shock and embarrassment, “haha… what he meant by that was, uh, i, um, i sometimes tell the guys about what happens at photography club and you’re usually in those stories, jake.”

“wow, i’m honoured to be the main character of your stories, hyung,” jake proudly put a hand on his chest, “ah, that’s right, do you know why eunjin noona asked us to bring someone with us today?”

before jaemin could even answer, eunjin called for the room’s attention, “good afternoon, everyone! for those of you who came as models today, thank you and a warm welcome to you all. my name is kang eunjin and i’m the president of the photography club. i’ll be leading today’s session, where we’ll be taking photos for split-personality portraits. however, i don’t expect the models to be dressed for a split-personality look, instead, you will be paired with another photographer and model.”

out of the corner of your eye, you saw jake glance over at jaemin, tilting his head as if to ask him if he wanted to partner up, to which he was met with a nod and an eager thumbs up.

“next week, using the photos from the two models, you’ll be editing those photos to create a split-personality portrait containing each model. i recommend you choose someone who has a similar style to you, but what you decide to do with your models will be completely up to the two of you. you can create as much of a contrast between them as possible, or make them appear as similar as possible, whatever you’d like. we have enough backdrops set up so that none of the groups have to share. you have an hour so, go wild, and don’t forget, you can come to me if you have any questions!” eunjin concluded, as everyone hurried to find partners that they were satisfied with.

meanwhile, your little group had already decided for themselves, claiming the white backdrop you’d been lingering by for the past few minutes.

you watched as jaemin and jake set up the lighting and discussed their ideas for the shoot whilst you stood to the side, checking your face in your phone’s camera to ensure you looked, at the very least, decent.

“sorry if i was a bit much before,” haechan popped up behind you, making you jump. “my friends always tell me to tone it down when i’m meeting new people but, well, i can’t help but let my natural charm shine through.”

you laughed, his interesting sense of humour and overflowing self-confidence reminded you of your friend sunghoon, and the familiarity made you feel more comfortable, “that’s okay, sunbae, it definitely helped me feel less nervous, since i don’t really know anyone here except from jake.”

“no problem but, hey, none of that sunbae stuff,” he shook his head, “you can just call me haechan. i know i’m a fourth year and all but it just… it makes me feel ancient.”

“okay then, haechan,” you felt much more at ease speaking casually, “what’s your major? i’m a philosophy major, second year.”

“ooh, philosophy! i have a friend who’s doing his masters in philosophy. i double major in business and psychology, since i wanna go into consumerist psychology after graduating.”

“woah, that sounds so cool– oh, um, i think you’re, uh, needed,” you tapped his shoulder and pointed at jaemin, who currently had his arms crossed and lips pursed, sending glares at the chatty haechan.

“well, thank you, y/n! i was starting to think he was deaf or something,” jaemin stuck his tongue out at his friend, who was mocking him in a high-pitched voice as he made his way over to the backdrop.

you tried to hold back your laugh at their immature antics, covering your mouth with your hand. who would’ve thought that those two were older than you, let alone grown adults.

the childish bickering didn’t last long though; as soon as haechan had the lens pointed at him, his professionalism settled in and, if you hadn’t known any better, you would’ve thought he was actually a model.

your gaze, however, quickly drifted away from him and landed on the man behind the camera. you couldn’t pinpoint it, but there was just something so charming about the way jaemin calmly led the shoot, instructing haechan on how to pose and adjusting the light to various angles to capture the perfect shots.

he looked just as enchanting, if not more, with a serious, concentrated expression on his face instead of a beaming grin, as he monitored his progress and shared his results with his partner.

“hey, jake, i know i’m sending haechan’s photos to you anyway, but i think it would be good if you got some shots of your own in, they’ll look more consistent and it’ll make it easier for you when you’re editing,” jaemin stepped back, encouraging jake to take his place.

“okay, sounds good, we’ll start y/n’s shots in a bit then,” you snapped out of your daze when you heard your name, giving your best friend a nod of understanding, even though you had no idea what he was talking about.

“sorry for keeping you waiting for so long,” the last thing you expected was the boy you’d been staring at for the past fifteen minutes to appear next to you. “i’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this stuff,” he let out a breathy laugh, drumming his fingers on top of his camera.

you placed a hand on your chest to calm your rapid heartbeat–caused by the shock of jaemin’s unexpected presence, or maybe by jaemin himself; let’s just say it was both.

“oh, no worries, i actually enjoyed watching you… photograph! it was nice watching you, uh, work, yeah!” your little slip-up made you want to bash your head into a brick wall.

“i mean, i don’t know much about photography, but you looked like a real professional back there,” you said in an attempt to revive the conversation.

your compliment brought a shy smile to his face, “thank you, but i’m no expert, i just like taking photos for fun.”

“who said you can’t be an expert at something you do for fun? it’s not like those things are… oh, what’s the word! they’re not, they’re not, uhh—”

“mutually exclusive?” jaemin knew he had gotten exactly what you meant by the way your mouth fell open slightly and you nodded at him.

“yes, that! of course you knew, you’re a stem major, right?” you vaguely remembered jake mentioning how they had bonded over photography being their creative escape.

“yikes, is it that obvious? it’s not the eyebags, is it? i promise it’s not because of the heavy workload, it’s just ‘cause i have an awful habit of having coffee at night. jeno’s trying to help me limit it to the mornings but— i-i’m so sorry, i’m rambling, aren’t i?” jaemin’s lively speech came to an end as he forced a laugh to cover up his embarrassment.

his shyness from before quickly returned, but you had to admit, you liked his chattiness, and you didn’t want him to stop any time soon. it was almost… cute?

you shook your head lightly, as if that would physically rid yourself of the thought, “it’s okay! i’m usually the one that’s doing the rambling so i don’t mind at all. plus, i only know you do medicine because jake told me that his brother was in the same biochem class as you last year.”

“ahh, that’s right,” the older boy sighed, “i’m guessing you’re an arts major, then?”

“humanities, actually. i do philosophy, which some people think is a social science but i personally don’t think it really fits, even though it has its links in psychology, and i guess sociology too if we’re talking about—” you brought your hand up to your mouth to stop yourself before you went any further, “haha, y-you don’t need to know all that. sorry, this is exactly what i meant before.”

“no, no, it’s fine!” jaemin reassured you, that pretty smile was back on his face, “oh, that reminds me, i was meaning to ask if you would mind giving me your number before, so i could send you the pictures we take today.”

it took you a moment to register what he had said, but once you did, you didn’t waste any time. “o-of course, yeah, that’s fine! i’ll even give you my socials while we’re at it,” you took his phone that he held out to you and typed in your number.

“just out of curiosity, how exactly did me going on about my major remind you to get my number? if anything, if i were you, i would’ve been put off of asking.”

jaemin let out a giggle, taking his phone back from you, “well, after you apologised, i was thinking, if you were ever desperate to have a long rant but had nobody to rant to, i wouldn’t mind being the one to listen to that—after all, i met you properly like, what, not even an hour ago? but you’ve already heard about my housemates and my crippling caffeine addiction, if you were anyone else, i can’t guarantee i would’ve even spoken.”

you would be lying if you said your heart didn’t skip a beat when you heard jaemin’s answer, “oh, you’re so sweet, and, hey, same goes for you. you can ramble to me about anything, just promise me you won’t block me if i spam you too much?”

“yes, as long as you don’t block me if i text you at ungodly hours of the night.”

he laughed as he intertwined his pinky with yours, the sudden warmth of his touch had your breath hitching at the back of your throat. it took a moment for you to regain your composure, and when he eventually responded, you could barely hear him over the deafening thumping of your heart.

“of course—”

“ahem, miss y/n!” jake’s loud cough brought your attention to him, reminding you that you weren’t in fact in a world of your own with jaemin, but a studio instead, “get here now or you’re losing your instagram photographer privileges.”

you were immediately distracted from your best friend’s empty threat when you felt jaemin press his thumb pad against yours, locking your promise. he leaned closer to you, lowering his voice slightly, “you should go, if jake keeps his word and you ever need a photographer for your instagram pics, you have my number,” he flashed a smile at you as he let go of your hand, gesturing for you to join your impatient friend.

even as you positioned yourself against the backdrop, you couldn’t take your eyes off of jaemin, nor forget the way his hand felt against yours.

JAKE CAM • REC

jake clicked through the shots he’d taken, his eyes flitting between the screen and your face, checking for your approval, “y’know, if you’re happy with these, then we don’t need to do any more, i’ve got enough pictures to choose from.”

you nodded, satisfied with your photos, “yup, they’re all good! not that i expected anything less from you, jakey. does that mean we’re done then?”

the boy felt the warmth rush to his cheeks at your compliment, hiding his reddening face by immersing himself with the settings of his camera. he cleared his throat before answering, “i-i mean, i’ve got all that i need but, hey, jaemin hyung, do you wanna get a few pics too?”

“oh, yeah,” jaemin was already picking up his camera and reaching to adjust the lighting after jake’s reminder, “don’t worry, y/n, i won’t keep you too long.”

you giggled, making your way back over to your spot by the backdrop, “it’s fine, you don’t mind waiting, right, jake?”

he looked up from his camera, nodding, “course not, i’ll start putting my stuff away now so i don’t end up being the victim of your hangry rage again.”

your jaw dropped at your best friend’s not-so-subtle dig, “hey, watch your mouth, unless you wanna pay for your own food later.”

even when you were trying to be intimidating, jake couldn’t help but find you cute, his teasing scowl dissolving into a wide grin when you furrowed your eyebrows and glared at him, “sorry, sorry!”

“you better be!” he heard you say as he went to return the lighting gels he’d used, sneaking a few glances at you every now and then to check how you were doing with jaemin.

“oh, you’re done already?” haechan said out of the blue, shocking jake to the point where he almost dropped his camera.

“hyung! ah, you scared me,” the younger boy steadied himself and placed his camera in its bag before he could do any damage.

“damn, that’s the second time that’s happened today, am i that scary? or was i just that quiet?” haechan asked, more to himself than to jake.

“no, no, i just get spooked easily. trust me, my friends love taking advantage of that,” he chuckled, “but yeah, we finished already, jaemin hyung’s just getting a few photos of y/n as well.”

“oh, okay, that was quick, you two must work well together, huh?” haechan looked down at the time on his phone, and then at you in front of the backdrop, following the poses that he’d been doing before.

jake followed his gaze, a smile naturally making its way onto his face, “yeah, i’ve been using her for my photos since high school, so i guess she’s just gotten used to what to do by now.”

“ah, i was watching you guys take pictures before and you just seemed to work so well together. that, plus how you were teasing each other, had me wondering whether you were, y’know, together,” haechan shifted his focus back onto jake, his eyes widening out of curiosity.

“oh, uhh, t-together, as in like–”

“like, are you and y/n dating?”

jake’s face fell as soon as the question came out of haechan’s mouth. of course he knew what he meant by ‘together’, he just didn’t want to believe it was what he thought. it wasn’t like he’d never heard the question before—in fact, he’d been asked that countless times—but, my god, did he hate it.

noticing jake’s uneasy expression, haechan was quick to apologise, “oh, was that too far? i’m sorry, i-i was just being nosy, i didn’t realise it would make you feel uncomfortable–”

“no, it’s okay, i was just… surprised is all,” jake tried to cover his discomfort with a smile, eyes darting around the room to look at anything but you.

now, it wasn’t the question itself that jake despised; if he was being honest, he secretly loved the assumption that you and him were dating. what he hated was the answer—the fact that the answer wasn’t yes.

“no, w-we’re not together,” jake mumbled, wincing as he spoke the words that shattered his heart.

“sorry, what did you say? your club president was yelling something, i couldn’t hear you properly,” haechan leaned closer to him in an attempt to block out eunjin’s voice.

“we’re… not together,” jake said through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the lump in his throat.

“oh…” haechan replied. his lacklustre response was followed by a few beats of awkward silence before he properly reacted, “well, that’s great!”

jake’s head snapped up, confused at his unexpectedly positive reaction, “wh-what?”

“yeah!” haechan enthusiastically nodded. “i was just checking because, and you didn’t hear this from me, but,” he lowered his voice, subtly gesturing towards you and jaemin.

“someone has taken an interest in y/n and wanted to know whether or not he had a chance with her before he went ahead and made a move.”

all jake could do was let out a quiet “really?”, too focused on the fact that the broken pieces of his fragile heart had just been stomped on and destroyed.

“mhm, so, just making sure, you guys definitely aren’t together, right?” haechan asked for confirmation, “oh, and she isn’t with anyone else, is she? there’s nobody else she’s interested in or involved with right now?”

for a moment, jake considered saying yes–yes, there was someone else for you, someone you’d known and loved for years, someone who just didn’t know it yet. it was just one little white lie, right?

but, would it really be worth it? would robbing you of the chance to be with a kind and caring partner who would cherish you and treat you right be worth a few more months of silent, aching pining? it would hurt him to see you with someone else, but his feelings had no right getting in the way of your happiness. your love life wasn’t his to control, and he loved you too much to sabotage you like that.

taking a deep breath, jake faced haechan with a much more sincere smile, “no, there’s nobody jaemin hyung needs to worry about, and i’m happy to, y’know, help him out with y/n if he needs it.”

his eyes drifted over to you, huddled over jaemin’s camera, laughing at whatever he’d just said. jake felt his heart swell at the sight–even if he wasn’t the one behind that beautiful smile of yours, he was content knowing the person that was was someone he trusted and knew would make you happy.

“really? thanks, man, i know jaem will really appreciate it,” haechan’s voice drew jake out of his distracted daze.

“of course,” he answered, his focus on you unwavering, “anything for y/n.”

© YOUR-WORLD-WITH-NCT, 2023

[porkchop-ao3]

A Thrill I’ve Never Known (Chapter 65)

“I Miss You”

It’s been so long again, at this point I think it’s expected 😅 Anyway, I’m here and I’m bringing smut! I have my ending all planned out now so hopefully it wont be so long until the next chapter, but I’m not promising! 😬😅😘 Enjoy!

Tagging @emily-strange and @actuallyhansolo​ ❤

(All chapters tagged with #ATINK and also posted on Ao3, username PorkChop)

-

Between the pages of his journal I smiled, I pouted, I frowned, I slept, I had a picture for every emotion it seemed. The drawings were sometimes accompanied by little notes about what happened that day, and gave clues about why he drew me in such a way. 

We spoke about Isaac today… it seems Dutch still hasn't figured out how to knock on a door... O'Driscolls found our camp, damn near slit her throat… I hope her dreams take her away from this god awful place…

I couldn't bring myself to read much of what he wrote. Just the first few words. I felt like I was invading his privacy a little too much, even if he did write about me. But as I moved through the journal I noticed that his drawings became different. The first few were portraits, mostly, and they pertained to a story from the day, almost like illustrations in the book of his life. But as it went on, the words disappeared and I found pages of studies, drawings of hands and lips and feet, different features and body parts like diagrams in a biology encyclopedia. Sometimes the same thing would be drawn three or four times. A mouth, in varying stages of completion, as if he kept giving up halfway through and starting again until he reached the final drawing, which was more complete. 

I thought nothing of it at first. Practice, I guessed. But I noticed a few things that made me realise that I was looking at my own features. I realised it when I noticed the expanse of a neck leading up to a chin, and there was the scar given to me by the O'Driscolls. I saw a pair of hands holding my own Schofield revolver. I saw a pair of crossed ankles wrapped in boots the tips of which had scuffs in exactly the same place as my own boots did. The pages and pages of what I thought was anatomy practice was all of me. 

Then my cheeks burned in a streak all the way up to the tips of my ears when I turned one page and was confronted with a drawing of my own body, laying naked atop sheets I recognised from our hotel room in Saint Denis. I was not posed in an artificial manner, I was sprawled, laying on my side with one knee hitched up, my arm laying limply on my waist. I was asleep. My heart pounded because there I was, as naked as the day I was born, and I'd never seen myself like that from such a perspective. 

"You didn't say you'd drawn this," I breathed dumbly, then turned the book to show him. His eyes widened a little and his face immediately began to redden. 

"I'm sorry, I'll toss it on the fire if I shouldn't have–"

"No, I don't want that at all. It's a surprise, that's all," I smiled.

"That day you said you'd like to be drawn like that so I… when you was sleeping I thought you looked real beautiful, so I drew that. I had every intention of showing you when you woke up but then I–" he paused and exhaled a laugh, "in the light of day, I just felt like a pervert."

I tutted and rolled my eyes playfully, "you're not a pervert, Arthur. You're the love of my life." 

Something about it seemed to startle him, he looked at me suddenly, his mouth twitched. Then he smiled.

"You really mean that?" 

"Is it only just sinking in how much I love you?" I chuckled.

I put the sketchbook aside then leaned down over him, sunk my chest to his and kissed his lips, framing his head with my arms to hold me up and not put my weight on him while he was still recovering from the wound on his torso. He pulled at my arm and patted my leg, encouraging me to swing a thigh over so my legs settled either side of his hips. His arms encircled my waist as he kissed me back, humming softly against my mouth, his chest subconsciously arching up to press more firmly against mine as if he wanted to feel the way my heart would beat when we kissed. It would always race, no doubt about it.

Our lips parted enough for him to whisper; "so, what do you think of that drawing?" 

"I think you made me look good, thank you," I chuckled softly. 

"I didn't make you look anything, that's just how you are, princess. I don't think I even fully managed to capture how incredible you looked that night," he whispered, sending warmth to my cheeks and my ears. His hands slid over my waist, rested low on my hips and I welcomed the feeling of his hands on me and closed my eyes, pressing my lips to his again. 

I was so very tempted to get carried away, absorbed in the taste of his tongue and the sound of his breaths picking up and the smell of him so close in the confined space of the tent and– I pressed our foreheads together and broke the kiss. 

"You should sleep, you got a lot going on," I began and a sound came from Arthur's throat that was almost like a scolded dog.

"I got too much going on to sleep right now," he murmured, his lips brushing against mine before he bared his teeth to give my bottom lip a cheeky nip.

"It'll keep you awake?" 

"Mm," he hummed a lazy affirmation, "plus there ain't a part of my body that's ready to sleep now you been sitting on top o' me like this."

"Arthur," I breathed a laugh and kissed him again. His hands came from my hips to my backside, holding me and encouraging me to put more weight on him. I was worried about hurting him but his goal was apparent when he positioned me such that he could show me a part of him that was very much awake. "Are you crazy?" I laughed.

"Most likely, at this point," he muttered, hips shifting below me, as if eager to grind. 

"After all that's happened these past few days, with that hole in your side– with the tatters of the gang just outside–" 

"I don't care about any of that, princess, I miss you," he cut me off with a breathy whisper, and one hand came up to cup the back of my head, and he hugged me tight to him. My face naturally nestled into the space between his shoulder and his neck and he hummed a quiet sound when my lips kissed him there on their own.

"You miss me?" I questioned, words muffled but audible. 

"Being in your embrace. In every sense, not just your arms. My love–" his words came out with just a little bit more emotion than he must've intended, given the sharp cut off he gave them. My heart dripped with a bittersweet warmth that settled in my belly. It wasn't exactly arousal that I felt, it was a sudden ache, an emptiness, a need. One that ought to be filled as quick as it appeared and could only be filled in one way. 

I moved without hesitation, gathering my skirts, moving the fabric out of the way, scooping it into a pile and hugging it to my hip as I sat up. Movement pulled at the wounds on my legs but it didn't hurt in the moment. Or maybe I was healing quicker than I thought. But three hands descended upon Arthur's belt, and we worked together to open it up and free the buttons of his trousers. He hadn't anything on underneath his jeans – his last good union suit ruined by the gunshot in his side – so closing my hand around his hard length was an easy task. I thumbed the head and shifted the skin back and forth, earning a hiss of pleasure and a few moments later, a flow of clear stuff that I smeared, knowing the extra lubricant would help. 

Then I let him go and brought my fingers to my tongue, coating them generously in spit that I then passed between my folds. This was happening spontaneously enough that I'd appreciate the help, but my own arousal was beginning to slick me enough so that when I lowered down– 

"Jesus Christ–" Arthur gasped. He held his cock for me as I took him in, inching slowly down until I was settled, my insides hugging hım entirely. Something akin to the growl of a timber wolf built in Arthur's throat as he adjusted to the heat of my body, and his hands settled on the space between my hips and my thighs with a tight grip that put indentations in my flesh. 

I wasn't planning on making this a slow and lengthy affair and I was quick to start moving, rolling my hips back and forth and guiding his cock in and out. The slow pull, rub of the tip passing over the most pleasurable spot inside me took my breath away and urged my movements to become more frantic. It was happening quickly, we were moving fast, Arthur's hands pushed and pulled and helped my motion with just as much vigor as the pace I had set. The tent bounced our breathless sounds back to my ears and somewhere in my mind I hoped that they couldn't be heard on the other side of it.

I wasn't ashamed enough to stop, however, even if they could be.

I pulsed and squeezed around his cock and Arthur released shaky little grunts, strangled sounds that wanted to be louder, I could tell. But he did a good job of keeping the volume down and I was hell bent on doing the same. I bit down on my bottom lip, trapping it between my teeth almost painfully. It tingled and I thought of when Arthur had nipped me there before and a moan threatened to escape.

"Let– let me see you, please, princess," his words were clipped and breathless, coming out in short and jerky bursts as one of his hands reached for the buttons on my blouse. I sat up and shakily unbuttoned them down to the waist of my skirt, and I pulled on the drawstrings that gathered the fabric of my corset cover until it opened up to reveal my corset and chemise.

It was far too spontaneous of a situation for me to fully undress and show myself but it seemed just the sight of my underthings was enough to rile him up. A tightly tethered moan just barely left his lips and his large hand roughly skimmed up the front of my corset, over the smooth material and firm boning, until he reached the top where my breasts were lifted, giving him enough of the soft flesh to grab at. He cupped one breast and gave a gentle squeeze over my chemise and the warmth of his hand through the fabric had me arching towards him. It changed the angle of his cock inside me and I gasped, my own hand flying down between my legs to rub and chase my orgasm. 

"I'm almost there," he stammered breathlessly, his head clawing back into the sheets of his bedroll, his long hair messily splaying out like a halo above his head. I slipped my free hand between the buttons of his shirt and kept my hand in the warmth. My fingers skimmed sideways and I found his nipple, rubbing over it thoughtlessly and receiving a buck of his hips and a slackening of his jaw in response. He was going to cum and unless I wanted him to do it inside me, I knew I had to do something. 

I quickly lifted my hips and wrapped my hand around his cock, keeping it nestled warmly between my thighs as I jerked him quickly. He moaned once, only once but it was a loud and thoughtless one that could absolutely be heard by anyone who happened to be awake. But he clamped his own hand over his mouth as he spilled, marking my thighs and his own body, his seed flowing down until it was caught in the hair surrounding the base of his cock. My hand was slick with the stuff and the wet sounds of its motion was almost as loud as Arthur's moan but I kept going anyway, until I could wind him down and slow to a stop.

He panted with exhaustion despite having been laid back the whole time, and I smirked down at him, letting out a tiny laugh. His eyes peeled open and up to me, his long lashes catching the light of the lantern and glowing a brassy blonde.

"I finished too quick for you, didn't I, my darlin'?" He said, his tone a little playful and a little more self deprecating than I liked to hear. I rolled my eyes a little but he reached between my legs, ever so gently rubbing at my folds, coating his fingers in my wetness before finding my favourite position over my clit. 

I shuddered and sagged forwards a bit, holding myself up with arms either side of his broad shoulders. His fingers rubbed me rhythmically and quick, quickening my breaths and heart rate. My orgasm had been fast approaching before we stopped and he easily brought me back to the brink, and I mewled softly under my breath, tilting my hips to lean into his hand as he whispered to me.

"That's it princess, let me see you cum," he said, "show me them pretty eyes," he added, and I lifted my gaze to him. In the low light, his eyes appeared a darker blue than they usually did, looking deeper and hungrier than I had seen in a while. So full of want and love that I wanted to kiss him, but I was close to my climax and I was soon too distracted to get my body to move. 

"I'm gonna cum," I breathed, my hips fidgeting, almost rutting. Arthur made a low, vibrating hum deep in his chest that sounded deliciously indulgent and dirty. He sped up the circles he made on my clit and the pleasure built. It built and built until it peaked, and with a gasp my body shook as my orgasm exploded. He rubbed me through it, prolonging the pleasure as I breathed heavily, and try as I might to keep quiet, small mewles of pleasure escaped me as my hips rocked against his hand. 

I leaned over him, my hands holding me up above his head, his eyes followed me, fingers still sliding through the wetness between my legs. He had a small smirk on his face, just a flash of his teeth exposed. I exhaled a small laugh through my nose at the expression, it was almost a proud one, pleased with himself. I leaned down and kissed him once, but his free hand pressed into my belly and pushed me slightly. 

"Don't mess your shirt up," he warned in a whisper, and I was reminded of the mess we'd made. In the distance, I heard the rushing sound of a geyser erupting, and I could've laughed at the timing. 

"Yeah, let's clean up," I nodded. Arthur exhaled heavily, reaching into his satchel to retrieve a handkerchief stained with gun oil, using it to mop away the mess on his belly and fingers. I took it from him and cleaned my own hands, making a plan in my head to heat up some water for us in the morning to clean up properly before Arthur left to run his errands. For now though, it would have to do, and I adjusted my clothes and rolled off of him, settling in beside him. 

"Thank you, princess," he exhaled, his eyes closing as he rested a hand over the wound on his side delicately. 

"Thank you?" I chuckled. 

"I needed that," he added, and I watched the corner of his mouth lift. 

"Yeah, I think I did too," I laughed softly, and took hold of his other hand where it lay beside me. 

"What a God damn mess we're all in," he laughed as well. It was like he was too tired and too at ease in the afterglow to take any of our recent problems seriously. 

"Just a few days and we'll be gone sweetheart, don't you worry about it," I told him anyway, squeezing his hand. 

"Yeah. Just a few days," he repeated. 

I lifted his hand to my mouth, pressing kisses over his knuckles, each finger, the side of his wrist… his breaths were steadying out and I kissed him until he fell asleep, the weight of his hand increasing as it grew limp in mine.

[depressedacadamia]

The Anatomy of the Sun- Chapter I

Edit- This is the first chap in a Percy Jackson/ Greys anatomy AU as well as my first fic! It’s going to follow the Grey’s anatomy plot behind the patients and the romances will be loosely based off it. I hope you do enjoy it! It was inpsired by @buoyantsaturn and their fic ‘Into you like a train’. 

Summary: Dr Will Solace just transferred to the New York Presybetarian hospital to become their Head of Trauma. Dr Nico Di Angelo is a month fresh out of Med- school and is starting his internship at New York Presbytarian. Nico, excited to join his best friend and head of the neurology department- Percy Jackson, wants to prove that he is not just the legacy that his sister- Bianca Di Angelo, left. As the doctors battle to save lives, they also battle to save relationships- but some may say it's too late. 

Chapter I- Work Work

Nico could feel his chest pounding as he drove. It wasn’t a good kind of pounding, not that there ever really is, but a -my heart is beating so damn fast - kind of pounding. Today was his first day at New York Presbytarian Hospital as an actual doctor. A surgeon. An intern.

 He groaned as he remembered that he would basically be the servant of his bosses for the next year. He wished his sister was here- she’d tell him how awesome he’d be, all the cool parts of internship and how ‘the friends you make here are friends for life’. Nico wasn’t nervous about friends though- he had known the Head of Neuro, Percy Jackson, for almost his entire life. In fact, it had been Percy who inspired him to become a surgeon. Nico knew- As a surgeon, you either have what it takes to play or you don’t. Nico’s sister , Bianca, was one of the greats, Nico on the other hand was so screwed.

The first Nico noticed about the hospital was that it was very very bright. Maybe it wasn’t and Nico was panicking; it wouldn’t be so beyond him. He watched as several other cars pulled up with other newbies similar to himself. He noticed that some people had their own stethoscopes- would anybody notice that his was used? The stethoscope he wore had the initials B.D.A engraved into the side of the drum. Did it matter if someone noticed that his was old? He could easily afford a new one either way but he had wanted to wear his sister's one. He hoped it would bring him good luck because he had a good feeling that he was going to need it. 

He walked into the Hospital where he was directed to a cleared Operating Room for the new interns who were having their introduction. He passed a group of attendings, all of whom he vaguely recognised but he noticed one in particular with curly blond hair. Of all the years he had tagged along with Percy to hang out at the hospital, he had never seen that dude- Why haven’t I seen him before?

“Every one of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors- Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you- say hello to your competition. 8 of you will switch to an easier speciality. 5 of you will crack under the pressure, 2 of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line- This is your arena. How do you play? That's up to you,” A man with long brown hair and greying roots dramatically explained. Nico realised that this was the Chief of Surgery- Chiron! Nico was surprised to learn that he still worked here after all these years. He recalled Bianca talking about Chiron who had been her mentor. 

Nico looked around at what was his competition-  as he thought, he was so screwed.

As he made his way into the locker room, some faces became familiar. He recalled some of these faces- the people he had met at the mixer. Nico decided to focus on work and not making friends; if someone spoke to him, he’d reply but he was not initiating any conversations. He had diagnosed himself with the overall dislike of humanity. Just as he was contemplating wearing his white coat, ( he remembered Bianca telling him that everyone knows that the doctors with the cleanest coats are the newbies and he did not want people noticing) the girl to his left with cropped brown hair and a determined expression tapped him on the shoulder.

“You’re Nico right? Which resident have you got?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’m Nico and I’ve got Chase. What about you?”

 “ Same. And it’s Meg.”

A guy from across the room turned around, excited to have something in common with others. His hair was short and blond but not the same colour as the new attending that Nico had noticed earlier. This guy's hair was almost a platinum kind of blond whereas the attending had golden hair- Like the colour of sunrise. 

“You’ve got her too? So did I- You’re Nico, Nico Di Angelo right? I’m Jason Grace- we met at the mixer. You made a bold impression; black, skinny ripped jeans,  Ramone T-shirt and skull rings despite the fact it was obviously a work event… Okay I’ll stop talking,” The man rushed out all at once.

“Grace, Mccaffrey, Di Angelo and June!” A voice called out into the locker room. Nico looked at what were supposed to be his future friends. If he was supposed to feel some sort of magical bond with them- he sure as hell was not. The girl in front (who Nico could only assume was Dr June) was almost hopping - okay, she’s a happy person,  Avoid her at all costs- he put in a mental reminder. Nico watched as she approached the Blonde woman at the desk. Nico almost face palmed- Her surname was Chase- this had to be Percy’s girlfriend that he had been telling him about over the phone a while ago. June started talking only to be cut off.

“I’m Juniper June but most people just call me-”  

“I have 5 rules, memorise them. Rule number 1- don’t bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change. Trauma protocol, phone list and pagers-” Annabeth pointed to the desk behind her. There lay 4 pagers which all the interns, including Nico, scrambled forward to grab.

“-Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run- you hear me? A run, Rule number 2- Your first shift starts now and lasts 48 hours. You’re interns, grunts, nobodies- bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop and don’t complain!” She called as she led them across the bridge and into the second section of the hospital. Nico, not being the tallest person, struggled slightly to keep up.  They walked into a dark room that seemed to have bunk beds with thin mattresses and flimsy unmade covers. 

“On call rooms- attendings hog them- sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to Rule number 3. If I’m sleeping, don’t wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number 4- the dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only will you have killed a person, you would have woken me up for no good reason. We clear?” 

Nico was clear but he also wasn’t. He doesn’t remember Bianca telling him any of these rules and he also didn’t recall hearing the 5th rule. Did she already say it when he wasn’t listening? He didn’t think so but he also didn’t want to look like an idiot. He decided to ask, if he was going to fail at this hospital, he might as well fail knowing everything there was to know.

“That's only 4 rules. You said there were 5.” Nico slid in between Meg and Dr Grace, his head only up to the bases of their necks. Just Nico said those words, he heard a beeping which he could only assume came from someone's pager. Annabeth immediately looked down, grabbing the pager she had tagged into her waist.

“Rule number 5- When I move, you move.”

Hour 1

Nico slipped on his gloves as he stood in the elevator with the other interns. The second he heard its ‘ping’ he rushed forward, eager to learn. The wind blasted into his eyes and immediately, Nico raised his hands to cover his face. His hair flopped about as the helicopter descended in front him. He raised his head slightly and saw the same golden haired attending that he had noticed earlier- Nico took a guess that he was the trauma surgeon. He followed Dr. Chase who ran forward and helped lift the stretcher out of the helicopter. Nico perked his ears up as he heard the trauma surgeon recite her history.

“Katie Bryce, 15 years old, female, new onset seizures- intermittent for the past week. IV lost en route- Started grand mal seizing as we descended,” He shouted over the loud roar of the engine. Crap, Grand mal seizures, really? God really thought lets give me a hard case. They rushed to get her inside and Nico was trying to not panic as he heard Dr. Chase command the staff like it was her own mini army.

 “Put her on her side. 10 Milligrams of diazepam. No, the white lead is on the right. Righty whitey, smoke over fire. Give her a large bore IV, Don’t let the blood hemolyze.”

A different doctor walked in, his hair was black and cut short. His skin was a creamy white and Nico recognised the second language under ‘Doctor Zhang’ on his white coat to be chinese. 

“Dr. Chase, what do we have?” He asked, flipping through her chart. 

“Right now, nothing.”

“Okay, let's shotgun her.” He raised his hands and took a step backwards, allowing for the interns to continue their treatment. 

“Okay, you heard the man. Shotgun means every test in the book- CT, CBC, Chem 7, Tox screen. Mccaffery- you’re running labs, Grace- patient work ups and Di Angelo- take her for a CT,” Dr. Chase ordered

“Um, Dr. Chase, I think you forgot me,” Juniper piped up meekly. Annabeth turned around and gave her a firm look before telling her,

“Honey, you’re doing rectal exams.”

Nico couldn’t tell if he should laugh at the poor intern or console her. 

Each intern was busy. Extraordinarily busy. Nico did not expect the line for the CT machine to be so long. This was the best hospital in all of New York! You’d think they would be much faster but no, here Nico was with his patient who he had recently learnt, loved to talk… about herself.

“I’m missing my pageant,” Kaite whined.

“You’re missing your pageant?” Nico had to physically restrain himself from snorting. So that's what non- doctors  and people with normal lives did. Things like going to pageants.

“Yeah! And I was super excited because the judges were getting to the talents for the pageant- Mine is rhythmic gymnastics. I sprained my ankle and fell when I was training but now I was soo ready but then...” she threw her arms up slightly signifying everything around them and Nico understood- she had a seizure which stopped her from competing.

 “Katie Bryce’s labs came out clear, nothing in the results that would explain her seizures,” Meg informed Dr. Chase who was currently peeking her head out of a surgery. Dr. Chase nodded and was about to return to assisting on the procedure when Meg started talking again

“I heard that the attending picks the most promising intern on the first to perform a minor procedure.”

Dr. Chase looked anything but impressed.

“Go away,” she deadpanned as she closed the door in Meg’s face and returned to her surgery.

“It’s just what I heard!” Meg mumbled exasperatedly as she left the scrub room.

Hour 7

The cafeteria was full. One would think the hospital cafeteria would be stocked with healthy foods but in reality it was quite the opposite. It was stacked with a bunch of doctors telling you to eat healthy food as they stuffed their faces with pizza. The seating arrangements weren’t much different from a high school. You sit with who you know and avoid the ones in charge. Meg, Jason, Juniper and a group of other interns were all grouped together not too far away from the group of attendings and 3 residents. 

 “You know Nico is inbred.” Meg popped the fact onto the other interns. 

“Like it’s uncommon to be related to a doctor, my sister is Dr Thalia Grace.”Jason pointed his thumb to the girl with jet back hair and array of ear piercings who was currently smiling wickedly. 

“No like royally inbred, his sister is Bianca Di Angelo,” Meg insisted. 

“Shut up! The Bianca Di Angelo?” Juniper joined in.

“Who is Bianca Di Angelo?” Jason, as clueless as ever, asked. The entire table exploded into whispers and gasps.

“Where do you live, under a rock? The angel method? Where do you think that came from?”

“She’s a living legend!”

“She’s won 2 harper Averies!”

“Talk about familial pressure.”

“Um, incoming Nico Di Angelo,” Jason tried to speak over the food in his mouth unsuccessfully. Luckily, the other interns looked in the direction of him and shut their mouths up in time. Nico, with his 3rd cup of coffee that day slumped into a chair and slammed his head onto the table.

“Katie Bryce is a pain in my ass. If I hadn’t taken the hippocratic oath, I’d kevorkian her with my bare hands,” Nico groaned. Juniper, eager to get his mind off an annoying patient chirped in,

“I heard Chase and Jackson were dating- A resident and an attending!”

“They are,” Nico confirmed as the interns stole glances at the attending and the resident together, surprised that Dr. Chase had the ability to laugh or smile.

“Who wants to go for an attending? Bet ya none of you can,” Meg poked fun at them.

“I bet ya I could do Solace, he’s new apparently,” Nico hummed as he peacefully sipped his coffee, closing his eyes to enjoy the smell that drifted into his nose.

“Meg, you wanna go for Valdez?” Juniper curiously poked.      

“Nah, he’s only a resident and besides- He’s totally making eyes at Calypso. Letting a resident try to get into an attending pants is way more fun. I wanna see him fall into a hole.”

All of the interns stopped and turned to Meg, a slightly horrified look growing on their faces.

“Okay, now that Satan has stopped talking, who wants to put down their bets?” Jason beamed as Meg sneaked a quick punch to arm which had him cowering for a bit longer than necessary. The interns were all mucking about until a new voice joined the conversation.

“Hey! I just transferred to Chase’s service, I don’t really know anyon-”

“-Hazel?”  Nico’s confused voice echoed and his eyes shot open at the recognition of the soft voice.  

 “Nico?”  Hazel raised an eyebrow. They had both agreed to go to work in separate hospitals to limit family drama.  Ever since they had found out they were related, the family tensions had been higher than ever. Nico had assumed Hazel would go to a different hospital and leave New York Presbyterian for him and it seems Hazel had assumed the same vice versa.        

“You two know each other?” A voice, recognised as Meg, called out. 

“I’m Doctor Hazel Levesque. Newest Surgical intern under Dr Chase.” She reached out and gave her hand to Meg who shook it firmly. She gave another hand shake to Jason and a nod to Nico- both of them had ignored Meg’s question.  

“Final call, who’s going in?” Jason reminded them. 

“Me- Solace is new, hot, probably clueless and he’s the new Head attending in trauma.” Nico slammed his hand onto the table, indicating he was all in. It was easy, right? Seduce him and then manipulate. It couldn’t be too hard. 

Around 2 tables away from the interns, the attendings and residents were chatting away. Will, who had only recently joined the hospital, was still getting used to the way people behaved here. Everyone was so much more nice than he had expected. He remembered how people warned him about New York folks but in all honesty, Will would say that he was having a pretty good time, especially if the Di Angelo intern stayed in his eyeline-

“-Solace is eyeing the interns!” Percy’s excited voice cut into Will’s thoughts. Horrified, Will managed to sputter out,

“I am not eyeing the interns!”

“I like the newbie, she seems nice- better than the rest at least,”Frank mumbled about Hazel as he sipped at his hot tea. Piper to his left admitted,

“Blond one’s hot.”     

“That blond one is my brother,” Thalia grunted.

“Why doesn’t anyone call me hot?” Leo pouted as he rolled up the other sleeve of his shirt calling the attention of Calypso’s eyes. 

I’d totally call you hot , She thought.

She only glanced once.. Maybe twice… okay she was staring at him. But ever since Leo had become a resident, she kept on thinking they had to potential to become what.. Well, what Annabeth and Percy had become. Sure, she had rejected all his previous advances but she didn’t want to. She just didn’t think the timing was right- She was very aware that simply telling him the timing wasn’t right was a much more mature thing to do than acting bratty every time he spoke to her.

“Valdez, go make sure none of the pre-surgery kids aren’t sneaking pudding. There’s always bound to be one.” Dr Reyna Ramirez batted her hand towards her resident who gave her a mock salute before walking off. Calypso, unaware that everyone was watching, had her eyes glued to Leo.

 “Calypso is totally checking out Valdez- Mother Hen Reyna watch out- Calypso is after your chicks,” Percy snickered making a joke to the fact that Leo was Reyna’s resident- before Piper smacked him on the back of the head indicating a Shut it, hypocrite.

“No I’m not!” Calypso insisted, whipping her head, that only moments ago was glued to Leo’s ass. She ducked her head and sided next to Piper and Will.

“Calypso eyeing Leo is old news, please make sure you keep yourself updated,” Annabeth proclaimed, her head resting against Percy while his arm was snaked around her waist.    

“I will tell you what’s new then, Solace watching Nico like he’s fresh meat. That’s my bro that you’re checking out man.”     

 “I am NOT checking out Di Angelo!”  

 “Zhang, who are you picking for the procedure?” Annabeth curiously asked and also slightly eager to move away from the current topic. In all honesty, Annabeth expected Frank to choose Di Angelo- He was clearly the most promising and most experienced if one could even call an intern that. Annabeth knew that Percy and Nico had practically grown up together and besides he was a Di Angelo- Surely if his sister could cut, so could he.

“I’m gonna go with Grace.”

“He is not ready for that. Not to be a terrible sibling but he gets flustered a tad easily,” Thalia butted in, trying to protect her brother. She loved him but Jason was a tad sensitive and rustling his feathers was almost too easy.

“Torture one and the rest will fall in line,” Frank admitted half heartedly. He didn’t want to Pick on Jason- he seemed like a great kid, But he also didn’t want to have to have a bunch of misbehaving interns who had egos too big for the hospital because nobody ever put them in line. 

“Are you sure about Grace though?” Annabeth pushed, her voice slightly uneasy. Percy, who noticed this, squeezed her waist gently as a gesture of comfort, affection even. Percy was watching Nico’s table. The interns seemed to be having fun, no one was picking on Nico which was the most important thing and he figured soon the interns would realise Nico’s infamy- of being a Di Angelo of course. What he totally didn’t expect however, was Nico to get out of his chair and casually stroll over towards the group of attendings and residents. 

Nico honestly did not know what he was thinking. Was he being bold? Absolutely. Was he acting on impulse? Most obviously. Was he regretting every step towards them? Definitely. 

He saw Percy’s eyes widen ever so slightly before his face rested into a comforting, genuine smile- something Nico truly appreciated. If Percy was acting nice, the rest of the group were bound to follow his lead, right? Nico shuffled past 2 of the attendings, reaching behind them to gain access to the coffee machine.

Will didn’t know how to react. Did interns normally come and hang out with attendings here? He had no idea. Percy looked as if he knew Nico all his life and he did tell him earlier; That's my bro you’re checking out man. Were they actually related? Or did they just know each other for a long time? By now, all the attendings were settled at their own tables and Piper had unfortunately been rushed off for emergency surgery on one of her patients, leaving Will to sit by himself at a table. That was until Nico was standing by one of the chairs.

Nico took a deep breath and stood by the chair at Will’s almost empty table. It had taken Will a couple of seconds to notice that there was someone even at his table before he almost jolted backwards, alarmed by the shadow that had appeared on his table. Immediately, out of politeness, he gestured towards a seat.

“Do you wanna take a seat?” He offered politely. He watched as the intern hesitated. He could see how nervous he seemed and for a minute he really pitied him- It was no doubt stressful to be the brother of a famous surgeon, especially a Di Angelo.

“Are you sure? I mean, aren't you an attending, ya know, my boss and-”

“-Calm down, it's just a seat,” Will cut off Nico’s rambling and offered the man a seat. Gingerly Nico took it and looked down at his coffee. 

Nico did not think making Dr Solace treat him so nicely was going to be so easy. All he had to do was give a shy look away and blabber a bit and the next thing he knew, Dr. Solace had his hand on top of Nico’s and was shuffling his chair closer to his. Nico realised it was now or never- he had to start sending the right message. 

 “I’ve always found trauma interesting- ya know? Never knowing what's going to come into those doors. Percy used to tell me how much he hated it,” Nico laughed gently, making sure he accidentally  brushed his leg against Dr Solace’s.

“Trauma? Really? Lucky for you, I just so happen to be the new attending on that.”

“I think I’m much more lucky than you think I am, if you catch my draft,” Nico mummuered, smirking slightly, his eyes dropping to Will's lips causing Will to finally get what he meant. Will, slightly flustered by Nico’s onset attitude, flushed pink slightly. He was flattered greatly that someone as good looking as Nico found him attractive but he didn’t want to cause commotion or draw so much attention to himself  so early either. He wasn’t gonna lie, he totally was into Nico but Will knew that he could be putting Nico’s job at risk, not to mention his own. But it wasn’t as if Nico was using him- Nico seemed too innocent for that and besides- he was a Di Angelo, people respected him and the holy ground he walked on.

“If all goes well in your first surgery, feel free to send that draft out again.” Will winked as he got up and threw away the remains of his terrible lunch before heading to the table with the remaining attendings.

“Impress him with your loving, then impress him with your healing,” Will heard Percy whisper, which earned Percy a punch in the arm from Piper, a dirty look from Annabeth and snort from Frank. Will, slightly sick of Percy’s teasing, stormed off to the department at the entrance of the hospital which all the staff here called ‘The Pit’ for some reason. Percy, as clueless as ever was trying to remain a straight face and Frank was struggling to keep on being the mature one.

Hour 10

Nico was adequately proud of himself- he didn't flirt with people often ( mainly because normally it was people flirting with him) but he couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t slightly nervous when he was walking towards the room of Katie Bryce and saw a man and woman at the desk- Nico presumed they were married due to the wedding rings they wore.

 “Katie Bryce, Room 3604?” Nico asked the couple. They nodded eagerly and the 3 adults had a quick conversation where Nico informed them that he wasn’t Katies actual doctor, but still was a doctor, and that he would go and find said doctor. Nico, who didn’t actually know who Katie’s doctor was now, had to verbally tell himself to not panic and he managed to figure out that he should ask Dr. Chase (he prayed she wasn’t sleeping). Luckily, Dr Chase was charting at the nurses station and when she heard his meek footsteps approaching, her head snapped up and she raised an eyebrow.

“Katie Bryce’s parents want to speak with the head on the case. Shall I page Dr. Zhang?” 

“Dr Zhang? No, this patient belongs to Neuro now- Dr Jackson, he’s right around the corner.” Annabeth flicked her pen towards her boyfriend who was speaking to two other attendings- who Nico recognised to be Dr Mclean and Dr Ramirez. He waved over to Percy who smiled and dismissed the two doctors before making his way over to Nico and throwing his arm around Nico’s shoulders while ruffling his hair. Nico did not allow the gesture from anyone but felt comforted by it from Percy.

“Percy!”  Nico almost squealed as Percy rubbed his knuckles into Nico’s head keeping him in a loose headlock.

“Death! I haven’t seen you in ages! How has it been?” Percy smiled as he began walking them towards the hallway. Nico cringed slightly from the nickname. Death was not something you want to be called at a hospital, especially if you were a doctor.

“Oh you know, Chase is tough but she knows what she’s doing.”

“She better, she learnt from the best,” Percy said proudly, pointing towards himself. Nico took this as an opportunity to lower Percy’s ego and asked

“Chiron?”

“You smug little-” Percy was cut off by Nico’s shrieks and protests to stop as Percy tickled him. Was it evil of Percy to tickle Nico? Perhaps, especially since he knew that Nico was one of the most ticklish people to ever exist.

Hour 15

Interns filtered into the viewing box above the operating room- they were all excited to watch one of them perform the first surgery. Jason, however, was terrified. He was muttering the basics of the procedure again and again as the crowd filtered in above him. If he made one mistake, everyone would see it, everyone would know and he would become the intern who couldn’t cut.

“Open, identify, ligate, remove, irrigate, close. Open, identify, ligate, remove, irrigate, close,” he muttered continuously, his eyes scrunched shut in fear.

Meanwhile, in the overhead viewing box, interns started placing bets. Sure, everyone was excited that an intern was assisting but they were also bitter. It would be a lie to tell you that no one in that room had thought that they should be down there operating room instead of Dr Grace. As Nico came in, he was slightly surprised to hear people making bets- sure, Jason had taken the surgery from them but betting? Was that really necessary? Especially since they were betting on his demise rather than him succeeding.

“30 dollars if he can’t open the peritoneum.”

“35 if he faints, he seems like a fainter.”

“40 says he kills the guy.”

“50 says he pulls off the whole thing,” Nico, who was sick of hearing the interns bet, cut in, “That's one of us in there- where’s your loyalty?”  Nico had grown up with a loyal best friend- Percy- so if he valued anything in a person it was loyalty. He watched as poor Jason moved his lips, mumbling the procedure. He really hoped Jason didn’t butcher this- he had kind of put his trust in him over here. Jason turned to the nurses as they performed the time- out- reciting the patient's name, sex and other vital information such as the actual surgery- an appendectomy . 

“Scalpel,” Jason ordered his hand reaching towards the nurse. As soon as it made contact with Jason’s hand, the interns went wild. The interns were cheering, clapping and whistling. It was official, Jason was the first intern to pick up a scalpel on a live patient. Even Nico joined in on the cheering, leaning back slightly in his seat and clapping- that was until Dr Zhang turned towards the interns and mimicked silence. The interns understood- Dr Grace does not need distractions. 

“That Zhang is trouble,” Hazel muttered, biting her lip gently. Nico, trying to resist a smirk, leaned over and whispered,

“Hazel’s got a crush.”  

Hazel, as chill as ever (sarcasm intended), pinched Nico’s arm making him flinch, pout and then rub gently at his slightly reddened flesh. Jason was trying to concentrate- he had never thought that one would have to apply so much pressure to cut into human flesh so of course, he hesitated a bit. However, once he was through, he started to find it a bit easier.

“Pickups…. Clamps,” he ordered.

“Dammit, he got through the peritoneum, I’m out,” the intern who betted on Jason admitted defeat as Jason continued.

“Scalpel….. And Appendix is out!”

Despite Dr Zhang's previous warnings, the interns went wild. Jason did it, he actually did it. Nico could see all the interns freaking out and while he was truly happy for Jason, he knew that he hadn’t finished. He had to close and celebrating too early may jinx him. Dr Zhang, who didn’t mind the interns celebrating, began to instruct Jason on his remaining steps.

“Now all you have to is insert the stump into the cecum and simultaneously pull the up on the purse strings, but be careful not to-” Frank was cut of by the distinct sound of sutures snapping- a sound which caused the silence of everyone and echoed 

“- Break them,” Frank finished his sentence, sighing. He wouldn’t lie and say that he didn’t expect this but he hoped that the intern would fix his mistake quickly. He watched as Jason struggled nervously. Jason himself didn’t even know what he had just done- all he could replay in his head was the snapping sound and the feeling of the suture breaking. The loss of tension in his hand as he accidently pulled too hard. Out of all the useful knowledge he had, it was that recent memory that just kept on replaying in Jason’s head.

“You’ve just ripped the cecum, you’ve got yourself a bleeder! What do you do now?” Dr Zhang tried to encourage him but it was no use. Nico watched as Jason froze.

Damn it Jason come on! Alas, Nico couldn’t help but think, Jason was like a deer in headlights- Bambi. Jason didn’t know how to react- what did he do now? He hadn’t considered the possibility if the sutures snapped. 

“Think- You stop the suctions and start searching for those purse strings before he bleeds to death,” Dr Zhang instructed, his voice the only clear thing in the room other than the drastic beeping coming from the monitor. Nico could feel everybody in the room holding their breath- this moment was either going to make or break Jason.

“Give him a clamp,” Dr Zhang ordered.

“BP’s dropping,” a nurse warned. The interns watched with anxiety for their fellow intern- Jason was frozen, his hands stuck mid-air. 

“BP is getting too low.”   

Finally Dr Zhang had to make a decision and he held his hand out to the nurses,  

“Move. Suction and Clamps.”  

The interns all groaned, throwing their heads back or burying their heads between their hands. Money was passed around and Nico could only feel pity for the blond boy who looked like bambi in the operating room. As interns began to leave, people began to whisper.

“He’s a 007.”   

“Yeah! Totally a 007.”

“What’s 007?” Juniper looked around, slightly confused. Nico, morbid as ever, kept his eyes trained on the surgeon operating as he told Juniper.

“License to kill.”

Hour 19

Jason sat in a wheelchair (that he most likely did not want to know where it had been) as he rolled the wheels back and forth complaining. He still couldn’t believe that he had frozen up like that. Not only that but he knew what the consequences of it was now. 

“Everyone is calling me 007,” He complained, still embarrassed from his poor performance. Nico and Meg- both of whom were sick of his whining- answered at the same time.

“No one is calling you 007.”

“Really? A dude in the elevator whispered 007 and everyone started laughing!”

“007 is a state of mind,” Hazel called out as she waited by the old vending machine. It waited a bit too long for Hazel’s patience and thus she gave it a light kick to keep it going.

“Says the girl who finished first in her class at Stanford,” Jason retorted, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Nico was enjoying this mindless banter, it was the first break he had in a while and it was relaxing to be able to not have to think critically for once. Of course, because fate hated Nico in particular, Nico’s pager beeped causing him to groan and accidentally bang his head as he pulled out his pager, causing his eyes to widen.

“Ah, fuck. Someone is paging me 911 on Katie Bryce, gotta go!” 

Nico hopped off the spare stretcher he was on and practically ran towards the stairs desperate to get the patient's room. As Nico left, he let out a small snort of laughter for he heard Jason mumble,

“I should have gone into geriatrics- nobody minds when you kill an old person.”

Nico gasped for air as he walked into room 3604 and saw a perfectly healthy and fine Kate Bryce. What the hell? Did she lose the ability to talk? Because that wasn’t a 911, that was a thank the gods. He looked around for any crash cart or indicator that there was actually anything wrong with her.

“There’s nothing wrong with you?” He panted, feeling his anger bubble up. Katie simply shrugged, twirling her platinum blond hair that looked dyed. 

“I’m bored.” 

Nico gasped and face palmed- he just could not with this girl! Would giving her an early death count as breaking the hippocratic oath? Man, he really wanted to punch Hippocrates- making doctors swear a damn oath on Apollo! 

“This is a hospital, people are dying, people who actually require a doctor's help! Go to sleep,” Nico explained, his voice raising slightly due to the interruption of his very calming break- he considered hearing Jason complain better than any sort of time spent with this patient. Katie, however, did not want to comply with what was being asked of her.

“I can’t sleep, my heads all full!” Katie whined slightly, throwing her head back softly against the propped up pillows. 

“That's called thinking, go with it, maybe you’ll learn something new.”

Hour 21

 Annabeth was happy right now. In this moment as she and Percy lay snuggled up against each other cuddling in the on call rooms, Annabeth was happy. She had to catch up on her sleep and Percy was a neurosurgeon- his surgeries were tiring and required him to be well rested (something that never happened either way) for him to perform at his best ability. She could hear Percy’s heart thumping under her ear as she lay with her head on his chest and one of her legs thrown on top of his. The sound and vibrations were comforting, relaxing, easing her to sleep- she was happy.

Juniper did not feel so happy right now. She was standing at the nurses station staring at the on - call room that she knew Dr Chase to be in. As she stood by the nurses station, a nurse leaning on the desk asked her what she wanted. 

“Mr Anderson has chunky veins, he needs antibiotics and I should start a central line,” Juniper admitted, looking away. The nurse, not even glancing up from his chart simply told her,

“Then start one…” 

Juniper's silence told him what he needed to know.

“...And you don’t know how to. You know what that means.” The nurse nodded his head towards the on call room where Dr Chase resided. Juniper had to physically restrain herself to stop herself from shivering. She was about to break Rule 3. She peeked her head into the dark on call room where she initially thought she was about to accidentally become scarred for life. However, what she saw surprised her. Dr Chase was soundfully asleep next to Dr Jackson. Their arms were intertwined with each other and Dr Jackson had one arm wrapped around Dr Chase’s waist. They looked so peaceful, Juniper was so tempted to walk out and just let Mr Anderson get a nice trip to the morgue but she didn’t want to end up being called something like 007. She took a deep breath.   

“Dr chase, I don’t mean to bother you-”

“-Then don’t,” Annabeth snapped. She did not want to leave Percy, he was so warm and she wanted her damned sleep.

“It’s Mr Anderson,” Juniper started explaining.

“Is he dying?”

“No.” 

“Then stop talking to me.” Annabeth rolled over so that her back was towards Juniper. Juniper cleared her throat slightly which caused Percy to jerk his arm. Annabeth huffed, clearly agitated. 

“Next time you wake me, he better be so close to dead, there’s a tag on his toe.”

Hour 23

Nico was walking towards Katye Bryce’s room once again to check in on her. Hopefully, she had taken his advice and was soundly asleep by now. Yet, as Nico approached her room, he saw nurses running in and out of it- Nico picked up his pace until it was a run as he got into the room. Immediately, the nurses briefed him on what was going on.

“She’s having multiple Grand Mal seizures, now, how do you want to proceed? Dr Di Angelo, are you listening? We’ve given her diazepam, 2 milligrams of  Lorazepam- we just gave a second dose- Dr Di Angelo, you need to tell us what you want us to do!”

Nico was frozen. What in the name of Hades had happened while he was gone? He began to filter his thoughts-find out what's in her system and proceed from there. 

“You gave her lorazepam?” he asked.

“Yep, 4 milligrams.”      

“You’ve paged Chase and Jackson?”  He pushed.    

“Lorazepam isn’t working!”

“Phenobarbital, 2 milligrams,” He blurted, remembering the drug from a chemistry quiz he had gotten completely correct due to Bianca’s old notes.       

“Heart’s stopped!” a nurse called out. Nico’s brain called out Code Blue, Code Blue! But his mouth could not move. What was he doing? He normally acted on immediately in emergency situations- they were practically his reflexes. He had to focus. He closed his eyes for a second.

Focus Nico, focus- this girl is literally dead. 

His eyes snapped open- he was still panicking but now that he had a second to think, he had a vague idea of what to do.

“Okay, start compressions- grab the crash cart. Charge the pads to 200.” Nico turned his head towards the nurse operating the charge value on the defibrillator.  

“Clear!”

Katie Bryce’s jolted upwards, but her heart did not return to normal. The nurse opposite to Nico continued compressions on her body while the other nurse held an ambu bag to her face, squeezing it every 5 seconds to provide air for her lungs. 

“Still V-Fib, no change,” the nurse commented. 

“Charge to 300.”

“27 seconds since the heart stopped,” another Nurse informed.

 “Charge to 360, C’mon Katie. Clear!” Nico waited to see if her heart would react.

“ Okay, restarting compressions,” He ordered as he tried to think of the next step in running a code.

“49 seconds since the heart stopped.”

“Charge again, Clear!”

Everyone in the room waited anxiously as the monitor returned to beeping normally. 

“Sinus Rhythm.”

A collective sigh of relief was let out as people started filtering out.

 at the hell happened?” Percy asked as he speed walked into the room. He couldn’t help feeling a bit useless as he found his patient that was dying only seconds ago, alive and well- only it wasn’t him who had saved her, it was Dr Di Angelo.

“She had a seizure and her heart stopped,” Nico explained, sighing gently now that Percy was here. 

“You were supposed to be monitoring her.” Percy turned around to face Nico. Nico was not expecting the accusatory tone- sure he wasn’t expecting clap on the back either but a Oh hey for keeping her alive while I took ages to show up would have been nice. Nico had known Percy all his life but despite that, he had never seen such a cold, turned off side of him. Was this how doctors or surgeons did their jobs? Become cold to everyone around them? Nico tried to explain himself- the key word there being tried.

“I-”

“-Just go, I’ve got her now.” Dr Jackson batted his hand and Nico was dismissed. Nico felt dismissed. Was this the life of an intern? Being blamed for every small inconvenience so the attendings can feel less guilt on their backs? Nico didn’t do anything wrong- he followed protocol, just as he had been told. He ran the code and continually paged Dr Chase and Dr Jackson. Them not showing up was the issue here, not him. He had saved her life. Not them.

Nico’s mind felt dead. He was 23 hours into a 48 hour shift and already, he was feeling the pressure. Too much pressure- was there a point to this? Was there a point to any of this? Nico dragged his feet across the floor, trying to find the exit.

“When you get a 911, you page me immediately. If someone dies, it’s on my ass. You hear me? Di Angelo?” Dr Chase raised an eyebrow at the intern who practically ignored them as they walked to the exit door, ignoring everything around them. The interns, Jason and Hazel both noticed his abnormally pale face and dazed expression. Hazel, being the concerned sister she was, followed Nico as he started to gain speed towards the exit.

“Nico, are you okay?”She reached her arm out but Nico made no notice of her. He could feel his stomach become more and more uneasy. He leant against a pole with one hand and quickly threw up his lunch. He placed both of his hands on his thighs, remaining hunched over and trying to catch his breath. As he walked back towards the hospital, intending to go and wash his mouth out, he caught Hazel walking towards him with concern drawn all over her face.

“If you ever tell anyone…” Nico trailed off as he walked past her, entering the hospital again.

Hour 26

“You said it was a seizure disorder, now you’re saying it isn’t?” Mr Bryce, Katie’s father, asked with slight confusion. He stood by his wife's side, both his hands on his hips in a confrontive manner. 

“I’m saying that I don’t know. For now, I don’t have an answer for you. Now that Katie is stable-” Dr Jackson started explaining only to be cut off by the father.

“-We came here because this hospital is supposed to be the best in New York. That's my kid in there and you have the audacity to stand here and say I don’t know. I want someone else , a doctor that knows what they’re doing. A doctor better than you!”

“Mr Bryce, I can assure you that I’m working hard on Katie’s case-” Dr Jackson tried to keep himself calm. He was working hard but sometimes the body did things that science couldn’t explain. He was a doctor, a surgeon, not god. 

“- No, you’re not. If you were, you’d be able to give me some answers.”

Percy decided to leave the couple before he said something to them that he’d regret.

Dr Zhang was a calm, collected and highly skillful surgeon. He knew what he was doing as he explained the surgery to Mr Savitch.

“I put you on the bypass machine, which pumps blood for your heart, fix your ticker, take you off the machine- I’m done. Simple procedure.”

His wife -who was clutching her husband's hand so tightly her knuckles were turning white- asked Dr Zhang with a slightly relieved voice,

“So I have no reason to worry?”

“I’m very good at what I do but it’s still surgery- there are still some risks. I’ll see you in the Operating Room this afternoon Mr Savitch.” Frank waved his hand goodbye to the couple and left while Dr Grace stayed behind to reassure the patient.

“Dr Zhang is very good, you’ll be fine,” Jason confirmed.

“He’ll be fine right?” Mrs Savitch urged again, wanting a guarantee. Her eyes screamed Tell me my husband will live. Jason could not understand how she was feeling but he sympathised for her. He wanted to help her, he reminded him of his mother, a woman who worried often. 

“Tony’s gonna sail through it- You have nothing to worry about Gloria - I promise.”

Hour 30

Nico had no idea why he was here- in fact, he had no idea why any of the interns were here. They had all been called to the briefing room for a conference yet at no point had he been informed what exactly it was about. He glanced to his right to see Hazel holding sutures with a banana laying on her lap.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m suturing a banana with the vain hope that it wakes up my brain,” Hazel drawled her hand raising up to tighten the perfectly spaced sutures together- something Nico too had the talent for. Their heads both shot up as Dr Jackson, with Dr Chase beside him, walked in. Dr Solace also walked in, catching Nico’s eye as he leaned with his back on the door frame. 

“I’m gonna do something pretty rare for a surgeon. I’m gonna ask interns for help. Katie Bryce right now is a mystery- she isn't responding to medication. All the tests are clean but she’s having seizures, Grand mal seizures and we don’t know why. I need you to help me out,” all the interns sighed as Percy explained this. 

“I know you’re tired, I know you’re busy which is why I’m gonna give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery- you get to do what no intern does. You get to scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Annabeth- I mean- Dr Chase will hand out the chart- The clock is ticking people. Let’s save a life,” Percy weakly smiled as he saw the eager interns scrambling for the files and gave Nico a wink as he left the room. Nico had to look down at his shoes to not blush- his crush on Percy had subsided years ago but what are you meant to do when people wink at you? 

Will decided to tag along to the intern conference being held by Dr Jackson- he’d get a chance to see the interns working under incredible amounts of pressure and have a look at potential residents to take under his wing as trauma residents. At least, that's what he told himself. In reality, he had wanted to see the Italian doctor who had the guts to flirt with him and then invite him to bed. Was Will offended? Of course! Did this intern think he was that easy? While Will told himself that wasn’t easy, a small part of his subconscious told him that him showing up to the intern conference for one gorgeous man proved otherwise.

As Nico left the conference room, Hazel jogged to catch up with him- though Nico didn’t know why she was jogging, she had much longer legs than him.

“Hey, I want in on Jackson’s surgery- you've been the intern on her case since the start- you want to work together? If we find the answer, we have a 50/50 chance of scrubbing in ,” She offered. 

“Sure, but I want in on the surgery.” Nico shrugged.

“So do I.”

“May the best surgeon scrub in,” Nico held out his hand for Hazel to shake. The game was on. 

The locker room was full of several other interns- all of whom were re-reading Katie’s chart as if their lives depended on it. Hazel and Nico were hunched together by their lockers- which were co-incidentally placed next to each other. There were 6 empty cups of coffee- 4 were Hazels and 2 were Nico’s. Rainbow sweet strips, Nico’s pick of course, were also present- Hazel had to beg Nico for a pack as he had 3 to himself. Nico was so used to staying up for unnecessarily long hours that he didn’t need as much caffeine to keep himself acting like a live human being, unlike his sister.

“So she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It’s not a tumor because the CT was clean,” Hazel confirmed.

“What about infection?” Nico suggested as he savagely bit into a rainbow gummy strip, ripping it away from his face causing sugar sprinkles to fly everywhere. Hazel shot him a look as she brushed them off her scrubs.

“No , there’s no white count, she has no C.T lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap.”

“What about an aneurysm?” 

“No blood on the C.T, no headaches, no drug use, no pregnancy, no trauma. Nico, what if this girl dies?”

“This is gonna sound really bad but I really wanted that surgery,” Nico confessed before continuing, “Her pageant talent is rhythmic gymnastics. What even is rhythmic gymnastics? I can’t even say it properly, I don’t know what it is!” 

“Oh come on, they have pageant talents?” Hazel started snorting with laughter with Nico joining only a mere matter of seconds later.  Rhythmic gymnastics- a totally odd and dangerous pageant talent. Why not go with knitting, there’s a less chance of falling. 

A less chance of falling. 

Nico’s brain raced- something about that was relevant- vital even. Why did that sound so important?

 Nico shot up, grabbing his sister by the arm. He thought he knew what was wrong with Katie.   

“Get up, come on. Come on!” Nico whisper- shouted as he grabbed Hazel who asked him what the hell he was on about. He told her about Katie’s fall during practise for rhythmic gymnastics when she had sprained her ankle- the chance of a small aneurysm to form.

“The only thing that she would possibly need is an angiogram,” Hazel realised as they both rushed out to find Dr Jackson. They found him in the elevator ,alone, and just as the door started closing, Hazel stuck her hand in the way of the door. Immediately she started talking.

“She has no headaches, no neck pain, her C.T is clean- there’s no medical proof of an aneurysm but what if she has one anyway?”

“How?” Percy questioned, slightly confused.

 “You see she twisted her ankle and fell. Just a bump on her head. It was so minor that her primary care doctor didn’t think to mention it in her history but there's a chance, right, Perce?” Nico almost begged, using the childhood nickname he used to call Percy, that he used to call his best friend. That is what he was doing at that moment- asking for his best friend to listen, not Dr Jackson.

“You know there’s a one in a million chance of that, literally,” Percy sighed, shaking his head. The siblings hung their heads as the situations settled- their diagnosis was getting shut down or so they thought it was. The lift opened and there stood Percy smiling. He waved his hands, signalling them to follow him. 

“Let's go find out if Katie is one in a million.”

Hazel and Nico were both silent as they waited in the cath lab- this was it for them. Either they become a pair of fools and Nico would tarnish the Di Angelo name or they get to be the first interns out of their year to assist on an advanced procedure. Percy stood with his arms folded, his black hair tousled and his jaw muscle ticking like crazy- Nico could also see that he was stressed although who for, Nico could not tell. 

“I’ll be damned. It's minor but it’s there- a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She’s bleeding into her brain,” Percy gasped slightly as he pointed his pen to the small black blobs on the screen. As they left the Cath Lab, Hazel and Nico were ready. They wanted to know who was getting the surgery- sure, they had agreed that the best surgeon would win but secretly, they had both hoped that they’d both be able to scrub it. 

“Uh, Dr Jackson, you said that the intern who brought the diagnosis would be able to scrub in,” Hazel gently reminded, her eyes hopeful and full of yearning.

“Unfortunately, I can’t have you both so Nico, you’re scrubbing in.”

Nico was over the moon- His first surgery was going to be with Percy and he was going to assist! However Hazel both looked and felt distraught. She knew she should feel more happy for her brother but she couldn’t help but feel a slight sliver of jealousy that he had only been chosen because Nico and Percy were childhood friends. As Nico turned around to apologise for her, he saw that she had already left without him.

Hour 34

Jason was in the scrub room waiting for Dr Zhang to finish up the surgery on Mr Savitch. Was he nervous? Of course, but he was also confident in Dr Zhang's skills as a surgeon. He was sipping a soda while charting, leaning with his back to the operating room- he didn’t want to get distracted by the surgery happening behind him. The door swung open with a Whack and Dr Zhang walked in, looking dejected. 

“That was quick, wow!” Jason said admirably- he knew Dr Zhang was good, but he didn’t think he could complete a surgery like that so fast!

“He didn’t make it. His heart had too much damage to get him off bypass- I had to let him go. It’s rare but it happens. It’s the worst part of the game,” Frank confessed as he washed his hands and splashed water onto his face, making him feel slightly more alive. Unlike Jason who swore his extremities went numb. 

This couldn’t be, right? Surely this was a prank- everyone would play a prank on him, he was the 007! He would walk into the operating room and see the nurses preparing to move him back to the ICU for post surgery care. Yes, yes that’s what this was- a whole prank. Dr Zhang was probably punishing him for almost killing a person in surgery and this was his equivalent of karma. Despite the idea, when Jason turned around, he regretted everything he saw. There was blood on the floor,the patient was still wide open, the heart monitor which was still attached to the patient showed no sign of cardiac activity. Jason could feel a lump in his throat, a lump that he just couldn’t swallow. Hos throat was dry and there were tears pricking at the corner of his eyes as he attempted to speak.

“B..but I told his wife Gloria that he would be fine- I promised her tha-”

“You what? The only person who can give a promise like that is God and I haven’t seen him holding a scalpel lately. You never promise a patient's family a good outcome!”Frank, in a rare moment of no self control, lashed out. Jason, who realised his mistake, decided to leave Dr Zhang to mourn what he considered his failure and inform the family of their greatest loss.

Frank slumped over the sink in the scrub room, rubbing at his head. He had never failed something so simple, how did he not foresee this? His fists clenched and relaxed as his mind went over the events of the surgery- he had never felt so much like a failure in his life as he did in this moment right now. 

As Jason approached the family, he could see their cheerful, happy faces, completely unaware of the soul- crashing news that he was about to bring them. Gloria ,who noticed him on instinct, immediately smiled wider- she thought she was going to go see her husband now. His kids had no idea what was about to happen to their lives. Jason still had the lump in his throat that was only getting bigger. He had to swallow several times which was a struggle because of his dry throat. 

“How is he?” Gloria rushed her words out and it seemed she seemed more excited than nervous. Jason swallowed heavily before starting.

 “Gloria, there were complications regarding your husband's surgery. Tony’s heart had a lot of damage. We tried to take him off bypass but- there wasn’t anything we could have done.”

Jason’s hands wrung back and forth as he struggled to keep his eyes from watering. He could feel them stinging as he fought back the tears of his betrayal

Gloria’s face scrunched up before slowly falling. Jason could see how her face slowly morphed from one of pure happiness to one of panic and distraught but Jason could also see the hope in her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Gloria’s voice broke slightly, her lip curling.

“Tony died. He’s dead… Gloria, I am so sorry.” Jason reached out to comfort her, his hand reaching to stroke her back only for Gloria to completely flinch away from his touch. Betrayal illustrated her face and Jason couldn’t bear to continue looking her in the eye.

“Please, go away.” 

Jason had undergone a lot of tough, painful situations to become a doctor and yet, this is what broke him.

Hour 40

Percy was shaving Katie’s head, watching the blond tufts of hair fall off her face. Nico walked in, smirking as he leant against the door. On noticing Nico’s presence, he began to whisper, 

“I promised to give her a cool haircut. Apparently it’s a scandal to be a bald beauty queen.”

“Ah, well, I would totally pull it off..” Nico reached towards his hair and pushed it back slightly. Percy laughed slightly and nodded in agreement before they fell into a comfortable silence- the only sound being the buzzing from the electric razor. Nico watched Percy with admiration in eyes and Percy would look up at him every once in a while with a genuine smile that made his eyes crease.

Will was watching Percy and Nico hanging out in room 3604, an odd feeling of spite towards Percy starting to form. He didn’t know why- Percy had always been a good friend to him, helping him earn the respect of his peers. He watched as Nico watched Percy and suddenly felt the urge to accept Nico’s offer. 

“I do hope that you aren’t staring at Di Angelo,” Leo walking up behind him commented dryly. 

“Lover boy, you can’t really talk. Last time I checked, you seemed to be physically unable to keep your eyes off Calypso,” Will muttered in response. Leo gasped in mock offense before laughing. 

“Awww, are you two sharing ‘we are going to single forever’ moment?” Piper cooed. Will grunted slightly - while Piper defended Will in public she totally teased him when there weren’t as many people and as for her and Leo- well they had known each other since they were teenagers. 

“I’d like to escape the single lot, thank you for the offer though, pipes,” Frank sighed as he joined the group of them. His mood was still down due to losing his patient- he couldn’t help feel overwhelming guilt for not saving a patient with such an easy procedure. 

Percy came out of the room, chatting away with Nico before he spotted the group of attendings who were all staring at them. He raised an eyebrow at all of them, especially since they weren’t trying to be subtle in any way.

“Yall, get back to work.”

The operating room was a tad warm. Or maybe that was Nico sweating due to his nervous nature. He couldn’t afford to screw up here, he had made it so far in only a few hours and had worked hard. Dr Jackson walked in with his trident and sea print scrub cap on his head before he looked around the room.

“All right everybody. Are we ready? Okay, Scalpel,” He held his hand out as he ordered a scalpel into his hand. Nico who was on his tip- toes to see what was going on for he was not sure if he could come any closer- neurosurgeons were scary people sometimes. Percy, who was ecstatic and in a great mood, gestured for Nico to come closer. 

“Nico, come take a look. Your sister would absolutely love this,” Percy gushed and for once, Nico completely agreed as he looked at a live human brain.

Hour 48

It was finally time to head out. Nico was relieved- his eyeliner ,which was perfectly done the morning he came in, needed re-applying and he wanted to put his heeled boots back on. He was sick of everyone being taller than him. He was in the locker room after finishing the surgery and quickly he changed. He felt much better once he was back in his own clothes. Black ripped jeans, fingerless gloves, Ramone t-shirt and his beloved heeled boots.  He stood in the mirror finishing off his eyeliner as Hazel walked in.

“We don’t have to do the thing where I say something and then you do and then somebody cries and then there’s a moment-” she started

“Yuck,” Nico cut in. Hazel smiled ever so slightly but Nico noticed it, causing him to attempt to repress a smile. The key word there being attempt. 

 “Good.”

Nico was looking for Percy- he wanted to thank him for the amazing surgery and for picking him to scrub in. He was about to enter the on call room that he assumed Percy to be in when he accidentally walked into someone. That someone just so happened to be Dr Solace. Except he was shirtless.

Why the fuck was he shirtless? Is there someone in there with him? Oh my god, was I hitting on a straight dude?

“Ah, sorry about that. I was changing when I realised my clean clothes were in my locker,” Will confessed sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. But Nico wasn’t really paying attention to anything that came out his mouth but rather his lips. Wait, why was he shirtless again? Nico had an internal panic for about 2 seconds before he pulled himself together and remembered his objective around Dr Solace.

“If  I’m correct Solace, that surgery went very well,” Nico smirked. 

If your first surgery goes well, then feel free to send that draft out again.

Nice one Nico, you got this.

Will opened his mouth, slightly in shock that Nico had still remembered that by now- sure it was 41 hours ago but most interns just wanted to sleep  by now. But This was a Di Angelo he was talking about- surgery ran in their blood.

“Well congratulations. I caught the draft. What are you going to do about it, Di Aneglo?” Will challenged quite confidently, Nico’s surname rolling off his tongue.  Nico started walking towards him, backing him into the oncall room. The second they were both in there, Nico’s hand reached behind him and locked the door with a flick of his wrist. 

“Copy me,” Nico told Will. He raised one of his arms and then the other, watching as Will copied, slightly confused by the random motion. He then put both his hands together above his head and the second Will copied, Nico pinned Will’s hands above his head with a single hand and smiled wickedly. Will, adequately impressed, leaned his head forward to kiss Nico who obliged.

Explosions. 

That's what Nico felt. He wasn’t expecting Will to be such a good kisser. The kiss was soft at first, their breath dancing across each other's lips but became more heated as Will tried to shift his hands out of Nico’s reach. Nico, being stubborn as he was, refused.  Will bit Nico’s lip gingerly, teasing him as he pulled his lip back slightly between his teeth- the second Nico groaned gently, Will used all the momentum he had to flip them and press Nico against the door, holding one of his wrists in his hand. He reached to grab the other and hold it above Nico’s head as their lips smashed. When Will finally pulled back for air, he started making light butterfly kisses onto Nico’s jawline, making his way down to Nico’s neck. He gently sank his teeth and lightly sucked on the flesh there, making Nico throw his head back and let out a light moan. 

Nico decided that he could thank Percy for the surgery later.

Hazel was waiting for Nico. She was outside the hospital and was watching as all the other interns were leaving and finally he arrived. His clothes were a mess- crumpled, his t- shirt was completely inside out and there was a bruise on his neck.  Hazel had no idea what had happened and honestly, she didn’t want to. Nico waved to her, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

“Finally! Gosh, we need to go if you want to get there on time!” Hazel fussed.

 Annabeth and Percy were holding hands as they chatted away with Piper and Reyna- their faces all in an animated conversation despite being awake for 48 hours. 

“And then I totally clipped that aneurysm,” Percy boasted, swinging Annabeth's hand up in the air with his. 

Frank was meant to be paying attention to the conversation he was supposed to be having with Leo- who was excitedly talking about the life saving surgery that he did with Calypso as the Peds and OB department had to team up for that case. However, Frank was actually looking at Hazel as he started telling off Nico for the smoking near a hospital. 

“It was a really cool case- the mother was teen in the third trimester which meant Peds had to work with OB. The baby had a tight nuchal cord so the delivery had to be performed by C- section so we could safely clamp and cut off the umbilical cord,” Leo ranted.

Thalia was rustling the blond hair of her younger brother as they got into a car, talking about their days. 

“Who cares, 007 was totally badass!” Thalia told her brother as she started the car. Piper waved goodbye to Percy, Annabeth and Reyna, and leaned against one of stumps while she waited for Will. When Will finally arrived, his hair was an absolute mess and he had a few buttons of his shirt undone which gave view for a bruise blooming on his collarbone. Piper decided not to make much comment of it as they both started walking away. Will turned his head to see Nico one more time, only to see him laughing and kissing the head of a girl with dark skin and beautiful curly hair. Terror and unease immediately set within him. 

Did I just help him cheat on his girlfriend? 

Will decided to push the thought to the back of his mind as he left the hospital.

Nico was stalling. He knew it and so did Hazel. She had pulled up at the nursing home but he was still drumming his fingers on his lap as he sat in the car. After 10 minutes of pure silence, Nico got out of the car, the only sound made being the soft closing of the car door. He walked up the steps before entering the home. It was well lit, elegant and classy- he knew if Bianca was lucid that she’d love it here. He walked towards the window seat, knowing that she always loved to sit there. He took a gentle seat next to her, waiting for her to  notice him  nearby. When she finally acknowledged him, she looked at him and up and down, slightly confused.

“Are you the doctor?”Bianca asked, her eyes wide.

“No, I’m not your doctor but I am a doctor,” Nico attempted a smile but it failed with corners of his lips falling slightly. Biance wrung her hands back and forth, fidgeting with them subconsciously. The nails that used to be flawless were now chipped and bitten at.

 “What's your name?”she turned her head towards him, tilting it slightly as she looked her brother in the eye.

“It’s me, sis. It’s Nico,” He said half heartedly, his voice cracking as his eyes followed hers, trying to somehow get to her lucid mind. He saw her eyes. He saw her how they looked at him, how she didn’t recognise him. Her eyes, they weren’t the same golden brown that gleamed, they were glossy- as if there were clouds covering the clear sky.

“I think I used to be a doctor,” Bianca mused as she continued to rub her hands aggressively. Nico reached out to stop her, hoping she wouldn't flinch or become aggressive. He held her hand in his, enveloping his hand over hers and she accepted the gesture. Just for a second, Nico could see his sister again. 

“You were a doctor. You were a surgeon.”

[vizkopa]

Three Ways to Study Anatomy (Ace x Reader x Sabo) College!AU PART 1.5

Three Ways to Study Anatomy, Part 1: The Usual Way

Chapter Five: TGIF

~

“I’m sorry, what?”

“A party! Our friend Law is in a fraternity and they’re throwing a party tonight to celebrate.”

Week one of semester was over, and you had been planning on spending your Friday night relaxing and maybe bingeing something on Netflix, but Nami had other plans.

“But it’s only the first week,” you said in disbelief. “What exactly are we celebrating?”

Nami chuckled. “The end of the first week of course. And don’t say you have homework. One night of fun won’t hurt.”

You snapped your mouth shut because you had just about to say that you did, indeed, have homework. There went your only good excuse out the window. “I don’t know, I’m not really the partying type…”

“Awh, come on, [Name]! It’s good to let your hair down every once in a while. Have some fun while you can!”

“But I won’t know anyone there.”

“You’ll know me. Also Vivi and Rebecca are coming. And Ace and the guys wouldn’t miss one of Law’s frat parties for anything. Come ooon, it’ll be fun!”

You sighed, pretending you hadn’t just perked up when you learned Ace and Sabo would be there. “I… guess I could take one night off…”

“YES!” You almost jumped at Nami’s outburst, then she gasped loudly and you almost jumped again. “We need to find you an outfit. I’ll let you borrow one of mine free of charge since it’s your first ever college party. If you spill anything on it though, the dry cleaning bill is on you.” She began rummaging in her closet, pulling out items one after the after until she had a small pile growing on the bed.

After saying no to every ridiculously short skirt and party dress Nami threw at you, you finally consented to a pair of jeans that, while they covered you completely, were so skin tight they leaved little to the imagination, and a top that showed far too much midriff for your liking, but was far more modest than the alternatives. Nami topped off the look with a pair of strappy heels and nodded approvingly as you examined yourself in the mirror.

“Not bad.”

You smiled at her over your shoulder. You had to admit, you looked hot. “Not bad at all,” you agreed.

* * * * *

You could hear the party before you had even turned onto the street—loud, thumping bass and raucous laughter drifted on the September breeze and you felt a sudden surge of apprehension. Nami seemed to have read your face because she put a reassuring hand on your knee.  

“Hey, if you want to leave at any point, just let me know, ‘kay?”

You nodded, though you wondered what would happen if you just refused to get out of the Uber and went home instead.

The two of you were met with cries of greeting as you walked up to the door. You recognised a face or two here and there from some of your classes, but otherwise, they were all strangers to you. The bass from the music pounded your eardrums as you squeezed through the door and into the crowded hallway. Immediately, a solo cup full of some amber liquid was pushed into your hand by a random passer-by and you were bombarded with a flurry of introductions that went by so fast, you wouldn’t have been able to commit any of them to memory even if you could hear them over the music. Nami was quickly whisked away in the direction of the living room and you suddenly found yourself alone in a throng of almost-strangers.

You lifted the solo cup to your lips in hopes of soothing some of the nerves, but not a second later, the drink was plucked from your hand. You looked up, angry, but met the brown eyes and freckled face of Ace, and your frown immediately disappeared. He set the cup on a side table and handed you an unopened bottle of beer instead.

“Rule number one of frat parties: never drink something you didn’t pour yourself.”

You gaped at him. “But why would…”

“Trust me, some of these college guys have some not so innocent intentions.” Then his face split into a smile that left you breathless. “Good thing I’m here, huh? Let’s dance!”

Before you could come up with an excuse not to make a fool of yourself, he was tugging you into the crowd of gyrating bodies by the hand. You had no idea what you were doing, but Ace didn’t seem to care, laughing at your weak attempts to dance without spilling your beer. The warm, dancing bodies around you bumped and buffeted you into him so there was barely an inch of space between you and you hoped you could pass off your flushed cheeks as simple exertion, or maybe the beer you were working through perhaps a little too quickly.

It was nerve-wracking, being in the midst of so many drunk and excitable people, but with the alcohol warming your veins, and Ace’s comforting hand on your waist or your shoulder whenever the crowd threatened to swallow you up, you started to enjoy yourself. It was many songs later, long after Ace had been swept away by an extremely pretty and insistent girl, did you decide to make your way to the edge of the dance floor. Flushed and a little lightheaded, you looked around for someone—anyone—you recognised.

“Want some air?” said a voice by your ear. You turned to find Sabo in a button down shirt that showed far too much of his chest to be good for you in your current state. He held out a cold beer in offering. You nodded gratefully and took it, and let him lead you between the drunken frat boys and dancing sorority girls until you reached the front porch. You took a deep breath of cool, night air and the spinning in your head seemed to slow down a fraction.

You were having a hard time getting the memory of Ace’s hand on the bare skin of your waist out of your head.

When you opened your eyes, Sabo was watching you with a half-smile tugging at his lips. He looked away hastily when you noticed him staring and he gazed out over the front yard, littered with people smoking and making out on the lawn.

“So… having fun?” he asked.

“Surprisingly, yes,” you replied, honestly.

He chuckled at that. “I didn’t take you for a party person. But, then again, I didn’t think I was until college either.”

“I’m not, really,” you insisted. “Nami made me come.”

Sabo smiled knowingly. “Didn’t look like you were protesting just now.” He gestured inside.

You flushed. “Yeah, well… alcohol makes you do things you normally wouldn’t…” As if to emphasise your point, a very drunk and very naked frat boy streaked across the lawn, shouting the name of the college football team.

You both burst out laughing and when you finally calmed down, Sabo said:

“In all seriousness though, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. Even if you’re not the partying type, it’s good to relax and forget about school every once in a while. I think we’d all go crazy if we didn’t”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you said, smiling at him. It was just now that you realised in the moments you had both spent doubled over in laughter, the two of you had drawn closer to each other.

“Just don’t overdo it. The number of times I’ve walked in on Ace dancing shirtless on tables…”

That got you going again and you found yourself leaning against each other as you giggled incessantly. When you calmed down you felt warm and a little sleepy. Sabo’s shoulder was pressed tightly against yours as you both leaned on the railing and looked out into the night, unbothered by the muffled bass and babble from the party. As much as you liked dancing with Ace, you wouldn’t mind just staying out here for the rest of the night in the pleasant glow of your tipsiness.

It took you a while to notice Sabo watching you from the corner of his eye. You smiled at him, taking in his blown pupils, his relaxed stance. He didn’t act drunk, but he seemed as pleasantly buzzed as you were and the smile he shot back made your heart flutter inside your chest. He opened his mouth to say something, his gaze flickering between your eyes and your lips, but before he could, the front door burst open.

“Sabo! Country Girl! There you are. Come join us for a game—oh. I’m not interrupting something, am I?”

You and Sabo hastily stepped away from each other. “Not at all. A game sounds fun,” said Sabo. “That is, if [Name] wants to?”

He looked at you imploringly and for a moment, you felt the urge to refuse Ace and stay outside with Sabo all night. But you didn’t like the way Ace was glancing between the two of you with a knowing smirk, so you tamped the urge back down and shrugged.

“Sure.”

Ace led you inside and back through the party, but this time, he led you up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms. You wondered briefly whether you were allowed to be up here, but then saw that the room was filled with faces you recognised. Nami, Vivi, Rebecca, Sanji and Zoro were there, along with a couple of people you hadn’t met yet. Or maybe you had, you just didn’t remember it in the flurry of your arrival.

“Law, Country Girl, Country Girl, Law,” Ace offered lazily, waving his hand at a guy with black hair and a goatee seated on the bed.

“[Name],” you corrected and Law nodded. He wasn’t what you had expected from a frat boy at all. He seemed quiet, reserved, and looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, but he was smiling good naturedly. He gestured to the unfamiliar faces either side of him, one with scruffy red hair and the other wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.

“This is Shachi and Penguin.”

You nodded to each of them in turn and they grinned broadly at you. You looked around for a place to sit and chose a spot on the floor beside Nami, who beamed at you as you sat down. Sabo made to take his place next to you but Ace got there first. Sabo frowned slightly, but Ace pretended not to notice as he turned to face the room. His smile was devious.

“So, what shall we be playing tonight?”

“Well…” said Nami with an identical smirk. “I was thinking, since we have a few newbies with us tonight, we should all get to know each other a little better.” She reached behind her and pulled out a bottle of vodka.

“It’s time for some ‘Never Have I Ever’.”

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG175!

- Once again, I really loved how it felt like the sound effects were giving their own “statement” of the domain, by telling us (a bit in advance!) what the words were saying. You could remove Jon’s words, and it would still have been a horrifying dive into that desolated landscape, the surroundings themselves threatening you – it came to the point that the occasional clatter was inspiring dread since the noises felt like they might attract the native creature, and you really didn’t want it to come closer?

(I’m not absolutely sure about the Air Raid Siren in the background, but I thiiiink their cycles were regular, with a new round of them coming every 2 minutes or so? Really eerie to think that it had not stopped, while it wasn’t able to protect anyone from the incoming disasters since they were already there; and at the same time, they kept going… because, precisely, it was still an extinguished domain that kept extinguishing itself, that Leah was still there at this point so it could still get worse and even emptier? The signal is supposed to stop when the threat is over – it made sense that it would keep going since The Extinction was there and accomplished.)

- Things in common with previous statements dealing with cases suspected to be Extinction: the “Inheritors” as natives from this world.

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Every single shrivelled ashened face was contorted in a scream of agony, every sharp and jutting jaw cracked and twisted in an expression of horror – of understanding not just of their death, but the end of everything they knew. It was clear that they had been this way for years, if not decades. Bernadette says she was sure that nothing had moved in that dead city for a hundred years. She was mistaken. I have never envied you your position, Gertrude. I have never coveted your gifts, as I know the terrible costs that come with them. But honestly, trying to get a description of these… things, these “Inheritors” from Bernadette Delcour made me wish I could just pull the image from her lips, like you would have been able to. In the end, she would say nothing of them, except that [STATIC]: “There is nothing done in the history of humanity that deserves the things that come after us.” […] It used to be part of The End, perhaps, when The End of humanity was to be the end of all things; but now, the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation; it is of catastrophic change. A change in our world that will wipe out what it means to be “us”, and leave something else in its place.”

(MAG149, Judith O’Neill) “There were no people in there, but… that’s not the same thing as it being empty. Instead, there were… figures. From a distance, they looked like human beings, standing impossibly still. But getting closer… quickly revealed the lie. It was just the rough shapes, cobbled together out of a hundred different pieces of garbage: a broken metal clotheshorse for a ribcage; a… plastic chair leg for an arm; rusted screws for teeth. In some cases, it looked like someone had gone through a lot of effort to match anatomy with construction. I saw one with a broken water-cooler where its stomach would be, and another had a pair of oxygen tanks standing in for lungs. They were completely still, but there was something about them that made my mouth dry up, and my mind scream to run. [STATIC] It didn’t feel like they were statues. It felt like they were choosing not to move.”

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: “Fauna: the thing that lives. Something lives in the Anthropocene age: [METALLIC GROAN] not a twisted reflection of a natural world, [RUMMAGING CLATTER] not a parasite or a scavenger or a cockroach, but a native. [SNAKE-LIKE HISSING] Something born in the sloping shells of sagging concrete towers, that tastes the tang of rusted iron in the air and knows that it is home. [RUMMAGING IN SMALL ITEMS] Something that does not know or care what a human is, any more than mankind thought of the creatures that once lived in the shells they found on the beach. [SCUTTLING] It moves through the stacks of garbage like a beetle through filth, and its smile is all-too familiar, though its eyes are dark and empty. [SNAKE-LIKE HISSING] It cannot be seen in its entirety, for it keeps itself covered, [SCUTTLING] but its long, unfurling tongue may be seen emerging, pink and bristling with long, hair-like taste buds, [CLATTER] hunting for something old enough to eat. [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] [SNAKE-LIKE HISSING] [METALLIC GROAN] It whispers to itself in the dark, and sounds like snippets of old toothpaste commercials, and adverts to join the army. It is hard to tell if there is more than one, [METALLIC GROAN] but either there are several of them of different sizes, or there is just the one, and it is getting bigger. [RUMMAGING, SCUTTLING] [SNAKE-LIKE HISSING] It is our replacement, and it is welcome to the world. […] [Leah] ignores the burning pain in her forearm, where the thing’s rough tongue has torn a section of her skin clean off.”

… Technically, there was something facepalm-worthy to the fact that one of the last living things from the old world was a seagull, but also:

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: “Fauna: a mouldering seagull. [BIRD CRYING IN THE DISTANCE] Larger than any related specimen to be found before the Anthropocene age, this bird has been rendered flightless by the tightly woven plastic netting, [CLATTER] that winds around and around its torso, digging into the skin beneath the feathers, and bulging over the strange lumps and tumours that cover it. Its feathers have turned an oily black, and its vestigial eyes are pale and sightless, [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] relying instead on the sounds its prey makes as they traverse the noisy junkpiles of discarded landscape. Its beak has become hard and its edges are serrated, allowing it to tear apart the tin cans and hard plastics that shield its food with ease. Its legs are long, and many-jointed, allowing it to move across the uneven ground, and its throat is blocked with concrete – preventing it from crying and letting it move amongst the ruins in complete silence. It nests in the rusted-out hollows of fleeing cars, constructing intricate shelters for its young, out of corpse-hair and wiring. Its eggs are rusty, covered in slime, and its chicks are born with plastic rings around their necks. They smell like ammonia and salt, and their name is meaningless, as there is no longer such a thing as the sea.”

… AOUCH for 1°) what happened to it, how it… “transformed” as a species due to everything human-related that had been inflicted to it, 2°) especially with the chicks “born with plastic rings around their necks” – that was a terrifying image, indeed.

(So, were the cries of birds we could hear in the background belonging to the Inheritors, or other birds, since the seagull had concrete in its throat “preventing it from crying”?)

- There was something absolutely haunting to the statement in the rhythm itself: the professionalism of the catalogue vs. the slight despair of the parts dedicated to Leah, between the sections she was writing. And the part with the rib!! Jon’s narration slowed down, dragged, sounded captivated by the rib, and really made you feel like there was a big mystery with that bone, something important?

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: “Item: [SQUELCH] a forgotten bone. … Whooose is this…? Pale white and… stained with thick black tar. A human bone, that much is… clear, too big to be a child’s, at least. Can a bone seem familiar…? The shape of it echoing through your mind, like a… face seen only in dreams…? [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] It may be followed up to a ribcage, still sticky in places with soapy cadaver fat, and closing around a crumpled beer can where the heart should be. There’s a skull as well, yellowing in the thick dust of the open air. Strange… Everything here is either bone-dry from relentless heat, or damp through from decomposition and stagnant decay. Lifeless yet decaying. The world we’ve left behind… Leah considers the bones for some time. Does she know them…? Are they hers? If she had been quicker, more forceful in her warnings, might they still be alive? Her pencil is broken, but her notes, her warnings from this new world are far from complete. She snaps off another rib, [STATIC RISES] and continues writing.”

Was it reminding Jon of his own discarded rib (and was it a nudge/an attack on him from The Extinction)? Was it Leah’s own ribcage, as she had transformed without noticing? Was it the reminder of the death of other people? Was it the “beginning” of an Inheritor? No idea, but the picture of Leah ultimately discarding the questions to snap a bone and use it as a new pen to keep up her work was very striking.

- Also haunting: the fact that Leah’s catalogue almost “humanised” inanimate objects, since they were described with their illogical aspects (the bulb still emitting light) and… almost told the story of what has happened by themselves, and at the same time didn’t at all? But the statement was about a present situation (an Extinct world) with remnants of what used to be – we could recognise the human activities which had caused some of these disasters, we were told of the purpose these items used to serve… and it was all senseless in that new world. It was really chilling that the “Anthropocene era”, here, wasn’t described by what was living and prospering in it, but with the death, decay and annihilation that had resulted from it.

- Obligatory HEAVY SNICKER because of the umbrella:

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: “Item: [FAINT METALLIC CLINK] a laughable umbrella. Look at it! [FAINT METALLIC CLINKING] What does it think it’s doing here, lying there, broken, skeletal? [FAINT METALLIC CLINK] There hasn’t been rain in fifty years. […] Stupid umbrella…! Does it think there is a monsoon coming? Does it even remember what a cloud of water vapor looks like? [FAINT METALLIC CLINKING] The clouds that pass now are oily, and stink of sulphur, waiting for you to stop paying attention before they climb down your throat and settle in your lungs. Perhaps this idiot apparatus thinks it can protect from the relentless heat of the sun! But its fabric is torn and ruined, hanging from the snapped metal limbs, desperate for a breeze to stir it from its… complete stillness. [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] Take a moment to sneer at this corpse of an umbrella, [FAINT METALLIC CLINK] and wish for a moment you had water enough within you to spit on it.”

… Did an umbrella hurt you in your childhood, Jonny.

Hilariousness aside (it really worked with Jon focusing all of his hatred on that item, you know Jon would be the kind to have a visceral negative opinion over something mundane), it… really worked as an allegory both for Leah’s work and for Jon’s journey. It’s about a damaged item which has lost its purpose in a new world, which can’t serve its initial purpose anymore, which exists but can’t do anything anymore. Just like Leah, writing the state of the new world in her “report on everything for nobody” (it’s too late, The Extinction has already happened), and Jon, only able to describe the horrors of the new world.

- Leah sticking to her catalogue even though the disaster already happened really reminded me of Jon in his function as Archivist (Jonah had called him “a living chronicle of terror” in MAG160, for example). Why is Jon compelled to “pour out” the domains’ statements? We still don’t know why and what that does exactly: is he creating more terror through the tapes, in the same way that Leah’s catalogue could technically be used to spread the terror of the Extinction world?

- ;_; I really really wasn’t expecting an Extinction domain, big surprise!

I really like how the question of it being “real” or not real enough was handled: when Adelard first described it in MAG134, it made a lot of sense as a Fear, and even more as a Fear strengthened by contemporary feelings (with the growing awareness of the destruction of humans being caused by humans themselves).

(MAG175) MARTIN: What was it like? ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: This place’s… [INHALE] Its statement. ARCHIVIST: Nothing too surprising. It’s a domain designed to eke fear out of those afraid of a world… [INHALE] destroyed by human hands, it, uh… It dwells on it. MARTIN: Hm. [SILENCE] [WET SQUEAK] … So it was real, then? The Extinction. ARCHIVIST: Of course it was real…! A–at least in the sense that… it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen or… whether it was on its way to getting there, I… [SHUFFLING] Maybe. This sort of thing is always… muddy.

And I really like how Jon was nuanced about it: acknowledging that it’s a real thing since it’s a real fear, but that it’s harder to evaluate whether it was on the same level as Smirke’s Fourteen when The Change happened: in a lot of ways, it feels like Smirke’s taxonomy had arbitrarily shaped the divisions in Fourteen for UK-based people and that for the next two centuries, monsters and avatars mostly referred to that division to organise themselves. The major difference, maybe, is that we never really met a human who decided to serve a fear they identified as “The Extinction” and turned into a servant of it, terrorising people through it to feed it in turn, and trying to shape the world in that image: Adelard had mentioned that he wasn’t sure that The Extinction was hiring avatars yet (MAG113: “I don’t know if my little ‘theoretical’ is strong enough yet to start taking avatars, but this one, as you’ve no doubt guessed, turned out to be Terminus.”), but it didn’t mean a lot – maybe there were already avatars out there and he hadn’t met them, and maybe if Adelard had written and propagated his ideas about The Extinction, a few people would have decided to serve it because they feared and reveled in it in turn.

Anyway, I like how Jon’s words didn’t exactly feel like a big “reveal”, more like a confirmation, since… a lot of these interrogations and hypotheses had been brushed upon by Adelard, Peter and Simon in season 4:

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “This Fear is new. This is a fear of extinction. Of change. It used to be part of The End, perhaps, when The End of humanity was to be the end of all things; but now, the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation; it is of catastrophic change. A change in our world that will wipe out what it means to be “us”, and leave something else in its place. Mankind will warp the world so much it kills us all, and leaves only a thousand years of plastic behind. Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien, and cold. We will press a button, that in a moment, will destroy everything we have ever been. Animals are witnessing the end of their entire species within a single generation. These are new fears, Gertrude, and a new Power is rising to consume them. The Extinction. The Terrible Change. The-Future-Without-Us.”

(MAG144) MARTIN: Another… statement. Another side to… Peter’s “Extinction”. I think. I… Y– I– [HUFF] I, I couldn’t follow some of his reasoning, but I think it was about… nuclear weapons, or… or maybe doomsday’s weapons…? In keeping with the theme, I suppose.

(MAG149) MARTIN: Looks like Gertrude’s handwriting? Start of a letter to… Dekker, thanking him for sending Judith to her, though… it doesn’t look like it was ever finished or sent. [PAPER RUSTLING] “I assume this is another one he was trying to use to prove The Extinction? It… certainly has something in it. Mankind’s trash giving rise to something terrible. And again, fear of the other, inanimate humanoid figures. That’s all very… Stranger, isn’t it?” [SIGH] [LOW]… It’s never simple, is it…?

(MAG151) SIMON: “When is a new Power born?” Well; when does it feel like its birth would be right? When enough creatures suffer a terror of it that feels distinct, that feels truly its own… then it would probably feel right for it to emerge into its own. Or perhaps there’s a ritual, if it feels right to enact some sort of birthing ceremony, some… apocalyptic midwifery. MARTIN: And how close is it, do you think? SIMON: Can’t be sure! Peter thinks very close indeed, what with all the current “hubbub”, and I’m inclined to agree. […] Peter seems convinced that The Extinction is different. That its actual birth will be as bad or worse as another power fully manifesting. He believes its advent will be heralded by all sorts of disasters and catastrophes, and global upheavals, and whatnot. That kind of things. MARTIN: Sounds like a rich feeding ground. SIMON: Well, exactly! Peter, however, seems to think that it will upset the balance that we all have an awful lot invested in. And he’s not at all certain the world as we understand will come out the other side.

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “My first assumption would have been The Flesh, based on the cannibalism and strangeness of the bodies involved, but… something about this idea of some sort of “famine world”, its location within a made-man ruin, the whole… societal aspect of it… I’d be inclined to chalk this up as a genuine Extinction manifestation. But I don’t know. Am I drawing wild conclusions, trying to fit the account into my own preconceptions? Keen to know your feelings on the matter.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “so… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore; or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you.”

(MAG159) PETER: Maybe that’s why, when I crossed paths with Adelard Dekker, we ended up talking, and he told me his theory of The Extinction – something that stayed with me even after he died pursuing it. The thing is: the Loneliness I crave, that fills my heart with that… reassuring unease, relies on distance from other people. But a world without people at all, or at least anything I would recognise as people… it is meaningless. Without the lighted window in the distance, how am I to see myself apart from it? No. Such a world would be terribly dull, and scares me in a very different way. A fear I am happy to offer up, of course, but one that I would prefer not come to pass. My instinct was much like the others: I thought that if I could complete my ritual first, then the potential birth of the Dreadful Change would be meaningless.”

So ;w; Adelard was right and wrong at the same time. There was such a thing as a “Fear Of The Extinction”, strong enough to become some people’s living nightmares. But at the same time, the division into Fourteen or Fifteen didn’t really work anyway, so it was doomed to be “muddy”, as Jon said.

… What is interesting is that:

* … “Beholding” is still all-powerful in that world – granting Jon, its “pupil”, way more powers than any other, and ruling over the domains and the fears.

* Jon is still sticking to the 14+1 division. He described domains with the names from Smirke’s taxonomy during the journey – he’s aware that the blob of terror is multi-facetted, yet still clings to the categorisation.

* Due to Jon being confident when he was describing the domains as belonging to x or y Dread Power, I thought that Jonah’s invocation in MAG160 had shaped the world with these neat categories:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Bring all that is fear, and all that is terror, and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!”

So, the other Thirteen Fears, under Beholding’s reign (“All under The Eye’s auspices, of course – we mustn’t forget our roots.”), and Jonah specifically schemed to get Jon marked by the Fears following the list of Fourteen to prepare that ritual, in the hope of avoiding the Fifteenth (“All Fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new Powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge.”).

… Yet, at least one out-of-the-box Fear managed to still sneak in through. Which means that:

1°) Jonah didn’t exactly create what he wanted! The Extinction is there with the others anyway. As Jon had told Martin in MAG160:

(MAG160) MARTIN: I, I don’t know if it’s just here, or if it– ARCHIVIST: No. … No, it’s everywhere… They’re all here, now. I can feel… all of it.

They’re “all here now”.

2°) Jonah’s ritual didn’t really work on Jonah’s terms. Was it really necessary for Jon to get marked by the Fourteen Fears, would like, ten have been enough anyway, as long as there was a sufficient amount of aspects, to get all the fears into our world? Did the ritual “accidentally” count as an Extinction mark on Jon, allowing it to get brought through too? Was the ritual actually dependent on Jon’s own feelings, and The Extinction got pulled in because he still thought it could be a genuine threat? (Jon began to doubt about it while receiving MAG157’s letter, with Adelard confessing that he might have misunderstood, and Jon feeling like Martin had been lied to; but Peter admitted to him that he was genuinely afraid of The Extinction in MAG159, thus confirming to Jon that he had been honest on that part.)

(But damnit, I was “hoping” (that’s a strong word) for The-Extinction-not-being-invoked being a potential way to reverse the equilibrium and undo the apocalypse in a way or another… And nope, not an option if it’s already there with the others, uh.)

- Wow, Jon felt mercilessly right about the state of the world / whether The Extinction was a legitimate fear as something that could have become concrete without supernatural interferences:

(MAG175) MARTIN: But what about the real world, were they right? ARCHIVIST: … I–I’m not sure I follow. [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] MARTIN: I mean… Right, if none, if none of this had happened, if the world had just… carried on? [WET SQUEAK] What would have happened, was… was all that fear justified? [SHUFFLING] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I can’t know the future, Martin, not even a hypothetical one. MARTIN: But… you know what was going on, what was happening. [WET SQUEAK, SHUFFLING] O–out of everyone, you’re the best place, you–you’ve got the info to make a pretty damn educated guess…! ARCHIVIST: … I, I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin. Yes, i–it was bad, worse than most people thought and [INHALE] things were only going to deteriorate. Was the end of humanity actually imminent? I… Probably not? But we were well on the way and… it would have been the end of an awful lot of things.

It’s a bit of a change for Martin to ask about what-could-have-been this season: Jon has usually been the one to dwell on that, with Martin stopping him from spiralling (MAG161: “Can you imagine…? If we’d had this…” “But we didn’t, though, did we.”). It makes sense, though, since The Extinction was closer to Martin’s own storyline and the time he spent researching it in season 4, and the fact that, both in MAG174 and MAG175, we’ve seen he still had frustrations regarding that whole arc of his:

(MAG174) SIMON: But I’m not one to tell you how to live your eternity. MARTIN: … No. You’re not. Because I’m done listening to you! SIMON: I’m sorry? I’m not sure I follow. MARTIN: All those lies you told me… You helped to do this, you turned the world into your… your playground! SIMON: Hum… Not to be a pedant, but if you recall, I was actually doing a favour for Peter. And if Peter had won, none of this would have happened. Also, not to make excuses but they weren’t exactly lies, just… oversimplifications of complicated truths! And guesses. … A lot of guesses. [FOOTSTEPS] … A–almost all guesses really, now I come to think about it. MARTIN: Shut up! I don’t care. SIMON: Goodness! We’re rather tetchy, aren’t we?

(MAG175) MARTIN: [TINY SIGH] So Peter was lying. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] To a degree. But, mostly, he was just like anyone else who tried to take the scope of human terror and… package it neatly into little theories. All his talk of “emergence” and “birthing a new power”… it’s just people being scared.

… Mainly: Martin feeling cheated, feeling like he had been manipulated and lied to both by Peter and Simon. I’m glad that his own feelings are resurfacing a bit lately, because he has reasons to feel angry of his own…

(- There is also Elias, in the list of people who lied/misled him: Martin had gone to ask him whether or not Peter was telling the truth in MAG138, and Elias had pushed him in that direction. Martin doesn’t have to hate Elias “only” for the pain he inflicted on Jon and for destroying the world – Elias made Martin a cog in his scheme to bring forth the apocalypse, and that’s enough to warrant Martin’s wrath. In that exchange:

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: … I don’t know how kindly any god would look upon what we’ve done. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Thanks for that. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … Sorry.

I wonder whether Martin felt attacked because he was seeking comfort in the idea of a benevolent divinity (and was denied it, because humanity as a whole has done… too many awful things), or because he personally felt that “we” as including (Jon and) him specifically – as an unwilling participant in the mechanism that ended up bringing the apocalypse, separating the Archives Team and preventing them to deal with Peter&Elias together and ultimately used to lure Jon into The Lonely?)

- Overall, I really liked the talk about religion:

(MAG175) MARTIN: … Jon. ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: … Do you know if… like… gods, religion, the afterlife, all that stuff. Do you know if any of that was real? ARCHIVIST: … Really rolling out the big questions today! MARTIN: [CHUCKLING] Sorry! It’s just… [WET SQUEAK] This place just brings it out in me, I guess. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: … If there is a god, or gods, or an existence beyond this world… The Eye can’t see it. It sees the fear of it, but… nothing of its truth. [SILENCE] MARTIN: So… is that a no…? ARCHIVIST: It’s an “I don’t know” – although… [INHALE] People’s faith… [EXHALE] It hasn’t saved them. Not here. MARTIN: … True. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Why do you ask? Didn’t think you were at all religious. MARTIN: Oh, I’m not. [WET SQUEAK] Mum was, but I… I–I don’t know. With everything going on, it… certainly feels less far-fetched…! Besides, at this point, I’d take any help we can get. ARCHIVIST: … I don’t know how kindly any god would look upon what we’ve done.

Because it didn’t exclude the idea that any god(s) existed – the show is not claiming prerogative to answer that question – and provided an explanation for Jon not knowing that in a way that made sense in-universe. Jon deals in information linked to fears, not in absolute and metaphysical truths, and so he only has hypotheses to provide in that area.

I also love how ;; It really fits for Martin’s mom to have been religious but him being less categorical. Goes well with his overall sense of guilt, especially when it comes to his mother, uh?

Also, SOB that Adelard was probably in Martin’s mind since:

(MAG157) “This is the last time you will hear from me. You must trust me on that and not come looking. Not that you would; I know you’re too smart for sentimentality, especially after what I have to tell you, but I feel it worth saying nonetheless. Perhaps I’m simply prevaricating, trying to cling on to a few more precious minutes of life – but that’s not me. I know what awaits me, and must have no hesitation in going to my reward. [SCOFF] I know you’ve never had much patience for my faith, but perhaps it will provide you some small peace knowing I face my death gladly, knowing I have done my duty before God.”

We don’t know whether Martin was made aware of this statement (it was sent to Jon), but Martin had read MAG156’s statement in which Adelard had referred to his faith, so he knew Adelard was religious. Setting-wise: they were crossing an Extinction domain, and the previous Extinction “specialist” had ultimately died with the conviction and peace of mind that he would join the afterlife with his God… so I’m guessing that case was probably dwelling in Martin’s mind. (And potentially: whether his mother was also likely to have reached peace.)

- Jon reaaally tried to answer that question about religion, since he used his powers – we could hear static:

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: If I try, [STATIC RISES] I can… see the edges of reality, but… I can’t hold its full scope in my mind. [STATIC DECREASES] MARTIN: And beyond it? ARCHIVIST: Beyond what? Reality? [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] MARTIN: … Yeah. [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I don’t know! Maybe nothing. [STATIC FADES] [WET SQUEAK] MARTIN: … Jon. ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: … Do you know if… like… gods, religion, the afterlife, all that stuff. Do you know if any of that was real? ARCHIVIST: … Really rolling out the big questions today! MARTIN: [CHUCKLING] Sorry! It’s just… [WET SQUEAK] This place just brings it out in me, I guess. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: … If there is a god, or gods, or an existence beyond this world… The Eye can’t see it. It sees the fear of it, but… nothing of its truth. [STATIC FADES] [SILENCE] MARTIN: So… is that a no…?

It also came with a few reminders regarding his powers. Jon had already pointed out multiple times that he can’t see the future:

(MAG164) MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see.

(MAG169) MARTIN: Oh, it’s not just your revenge though, is it? Destroying her… it would help all those people in there, wouldn’t it? ARCHIVIST: … Maybe? It’s… [INHALE] Like I said, I can’t see the future. It wouldn’t free them, if that’s what you’re asking. “Free” doesn’t really exist in this place.

(MAG175) MARTIN: What would have happened, was… was all that fear justified? [SHUFFLING] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I can’t know the future, Martin, not even a hypothetical one.

And that The Eye’s powers are limited and fundamentally biased:

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: … Why am I always the last to know about these things? BASIRA: By this point, I just assume the Eyeball tells you. ARCHIVIST: That would imply it tells me anything useful. But no, I’m stuck knowing [STATIC] how your year eight PE teacher died.

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Hm. [SIGH] I’ve, uh… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, after what happened with Daisy last week. About… what I can do. What I am. What feels… right. I’ve found a– [SIGH] I went back to Eli– er, Peter’s office. To that box of tapes; started rifling through. And I started to try and pay attention to the ones I… wasn’t drawn to. The tapes I instinctively wanted to discard. [SIGH] There was one, this one, that my hand… pulled back from. I–I dropped it, twice, when I went to pick it up. Even now, I’m… [AUDIBLE FORCED SMILE] struggling to press play…! I am the avatar of Awful Knowledge And Revealed Secrets… so what does it not want me to know…? [LONG SIGH]

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: Martin, I have the whole scope of human knowledge available to me and… [SIGH] I’d struggle to give you a simple answer to most of this stuff. And even if I am omniscient, I’m starting to realise that… doesn’t mean objective. [WET SQUEAK] MARTIN: Hm. … [SIGH] I guess it’s hard not to bring your own baggage to this sort of thing. ARCHIVIST: I don’t know if it could even exist without the baggage…! You want to talk about psychological projection, try viewing the metaphysical world through the lens of a being that is, by its very nature, a reflection of your own obsessions and fears.

So mmmm… Are we heading towards a confirmation that Jon feeling like he can’t do anything “positive” or “better” is directly caused by The Eye limiting the perception he has of his own options, like The Eye had tried to prevent him from listening to Eric’s tape which informed of a way to cut ties with The Eye?

- … I do disagree with Martin that Jon was beginning to sound like Simon, because REALLY, he sounded a LOT like Oliver:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “You know, of course, where I am. But know that, even you, will all your power, cannot keep the world alive forever. All – things – end, and every step you take, whatever direction you may choose… only brings you closer to it.”

(MAG175) MARTIN: So you don’t think it would have been the end of the world? ARCHIVIST: “The end of the world”…! Now there’s a concept. Everything ends, I suppose. [SHUFFLING] Even this place. Can’t last forever. Eventually… it will die as well. MARTIN: … You’re starting to sound like Simon.

For someone who can’t see the future, Jon really seems to have ingrained Oliver’s ideas of The End: that it would win, that it would catch up on everyone, that it had to happen to exist as a fear. As soon as the end of MAG168, Jon had accepted Oliver’s idea that the victims of his domains would indeed die as announced (“I feel badly for those that exist in his domain, o–of course, I do, but… At least, their suffering will be over, eventually.”) although… it had not been demonstrated?

So if we’re talking about biases: did Oliver’s conviction contaminate Jon and is it currently making Jon believe his stance? Because Oliver was convinced that The End would kill… but he’s an avatar of his patron. Of course he’ll believe in its all-powerfulness. It doesn’t mean it’s true.

- Amongst the lighter stuff, I’m laughing that Martin has now learned to weaponise the fact that distances and the laws of time&space escape him — which was usually played against him, and Jon even teased him about his difficulty understanding…

(MAG163) MARTIN: … Oh, I’m knackered. ARCHIVIST: Are you? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] MARTIN: I– … Hm. … Well. Okay, well, no, no, I suppose not; but, I–I think I should be. ARCHIVIST: Yup! MARTIN: How long have we been walking? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Fourteen hours and… twenty-three minutes. MARTIN: What, seriously? ARCHIVIST: Yes. I… don’t think it means much out here, though. MARTIN: We should… probably rest. ARCHIVIST: Maybe. I… I don’t know, I– … I don’t know if we can – “rest”. It feels more like… hm, “waiting”. MARTIN: [SIGH] […] ARCHIVIST: [DISTANT] Try to keep up! MARTIN: Yeah, yeah…

(MAG164) MARTIN: How much further do we still need to go? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: A long way. Through many dark and awful places…

(MAG167) MARTIN: Anyway, my “flesh prison” [CHUCKLE] would like to stop for a bit. How far until the next… “domain”? ARCHIVIST: A while. If you want to stop, it’s as good a place as any. MARTIN: Nah, I just… need a moment. [SIGH] One where I’m not just… relentlessly pushing forward. ARCHIVIST: [LONG EXHALE] Alright. We can stop.

(MAG174) MARTIN: [SIGH] … [BAG JOSTLING] Is it much further? ARCHIVIST: [SMALL CHUCKLE] Yes. MARTIN: Urgh…! ARCHIVIST: I’m not entirely sure what you were expecting, it’s The Vast. The clue is in the name! MARTIN: Yes, alright…! ARCHIVIST: Just be glad that this is one of the domains that actually has ground to walk on. MARTIN: Whatever. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] S–so how far are we from the other side? And–and don’t say time and space don’t work here, that’s a cop-out and you know it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine! Three days. MARTIN: Thank you. [SILENCE] … Wait. Wait, what counts as a day? ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] What an excellent question! MARTIN: Oh my go–! You can be infuriating sometimes, you know that?

… — to take his well-deserved break this time:

(MAG175) MARTIN: You know what? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] I am sitting down. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] Are you… sure, that thing is… That’s not in great shape. MARTIN: Neither am I. I have been on my feet for a literally uncountable amount of time.

He’s right! He has learned! They’ve indeed been walking for a “literally uncountable amount of time” <3

- Loved the couch, loved the scene overall:

(MAG175) [FOOTSTEPS] [BAG JOSTLING] [SHUFFLING] [CREAKING, WITH DAMP SPLOSHES] MARTIN: Mmhph… ARCHIVIST: [CLIPPED] How is it? MARTIN: … Great…! It’s great. [WET SQUEAK] Lovely couch. ARCHIVIST: Right. Well. Rest up, I suppose…! [SILENCE] MARTIN: It’s two-seater…! ARCHIVIST: Yes it is! [WET SQUEAK] … Hard pass. Thank you. [AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] [SILENCE] [WET SQUEAK]

* You could SEE Martin’s blank face, dying inside, regretting his choice with his “great”.

* The “splosh” sounds whenever Martin was moving were absolutely AWFUL =D

* Jon probably knew exactly what that couch was made of.

* Jon, you COWARD, you could have sat in his lap!! (I thought it was the case since there was some shuffling and their voices sounded closer afterwards, but no, Anil-confirmed that Jon stayed standing, aww.)

- Iiiiii wonder whether Jon being keen to give Martin his break had to do with him already knowing that Daisy&Basira were close. ;;

- Okay, so. It’s coming. We already know that Daisy’s case was… not good, Jon already knew that it had gotten worse and that Basira had been pulled into it:

(MAG160) MARTIN: Some–somehow, I don’t think Daisy will be worried about “jurisdictions”…! ARCHIVIST: I– [SIGH] I don’t think she’d come here. [RATTLING SOUND] Doesn’t look like this place has been used for years. MARTIN: [POINTEDLY] And if she does? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Well. At least, we’ll know where she is. MARTIN: Wh…! [NERVOUS CHUCKLE] ARCHIVIST: Besides, I’m more worried about the other Hunters. Or the… “Sasha”-thing. Last I heard, they still hadn’t found any bodies. [INHALE] A lot of destruction, a lot of blood… [EXHALE] But that’s it. [MORE WOOD SOUNDS] MARTIN: … You think they’re still out there. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Hopefully a long way out there. … But I think we’re okay.

(MAG164) MARTIN: Okay – okay, okay, ‘kay, let’s… let’s try something a little bigger, then. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] Alright. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Is Basira alive? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: Is she… in… o–one of these places? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: She’s alive. Out there, not… trapped in a–a hellscape, but… moving. [STATIC DECREASES] Hunting. She’s… she’s looking for Daisy. She’s a few steps behind. MARTIN: And Daisy? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Bestial. Brutal. [STATIC DECREASES] [INHALE] Carving her way through the domains of other Powers, following the scent of blood. … Oh, Daisy, I’m sorry… MARTIN: What’s Basira going to do? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: She… thinks she’s going to kill Daisy. Like she promised. [STATIC DECREASES] But she’s conflicted. MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see. MARTIN: O–kay. Good to know.

(MAG175) MARTIN: [SIGH] Let’s get out of here. This place is making me a bit too… existential. [WET SQUEAK] [SHUFFLING] ARCHIVIST: Wait. MARTIN: What? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Where we’re going, the, uh… the next “domain”, I… I’ve been meaning to tell you, but it’s… well… [NEW ROUND OF AIR RAID SIREN IN THE BACKGROUND] MARTIN: Spit it out, Jon. ARCHIVIST: Basira and Daisy. We’re close. MARTIN: Wait, what? Wait, really? B– Th–that’s brilliant! What are we waiting for, let’s go! ARCHIVIST: Uh, y–yeah, i–it’s… It’s not… it’s not going to be easy, things aren’t… good. MARTIN: Oh my goodness, really? And here was me thinking the apocalypse was going oh-so-swimmingly! ARCHIVIST: Yes, alright, I just meant… MARTIN: I–I know what you meant! I can still be keen to see our friends! ARCHIVIST: … True. MARTIN: Besides, we can help them now. [SHUFFLING] [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Yeah. [SILENCE] [BAG JOSTLING] … Yeah.

* I’m having both fluffy feelings and sigh-worthy feelings regarding Martin saying he has “friends” because:

(MAG170) MARTIN: You, you are Martin Blackwood; yes. You–you didn’t choose to be here. Jon is coming. I am Martin Blackwood, and I am not lonely anymore, I am not lonely anymore! [SHAKY BREATHING] I want to have friends, I… no, I have friends. I’m… I’m in love, eh! I am in love, and I will not forget that, I will – not – forget.

;; Are you sure, honey.

Though, technically: Melanie had listened to him and calmed down in MAG118, following his plan. Basira trusted him a bit towards the end of season 4 and had been a bit softer towards him with the death of his mother. Daisy and him managed to talk in MAG142 (although Martin had to reject her and deny that they were getting along due to Peter’s presence two episodes later). There were embryos of something, I… kinda hope we could see that flourish?

- My hypothesis regarding Daisy&Basira would be: Daisy still a savage beast (like we heard during The Unknowing, pre-Coffin, and when she turned back into one again in MAG158). She might still be after Julia and/or Trevor, depending if they were still alive (we know, at least, that their bodies weren’t found by the police and since the Not!Them was still Not!Sasha, it hadn’t taken either of them). Basira’s degree of “freedom” is a big question: is she able to not be tied to a domain thanks to her connection to The Eye? Or is the pursuit of Daisy, never-ending, torturing her with the promise she made to Daisy to kill her, a Hunt domain by itself? The Hunt is about the chase, and the “innocent” pursuit turning people into Hunters has been a reoccurring thing, so… Basira could have been taken over / “imprisoned” by and in Daisy’s hunt?

- Whether someone dies soon (there… are huge red flags for Daisy, she asked to be killed when she lost herself 18 episodes ago and she had an arc about her own choice and accountability in season 4), I can’t help but think that we’re getting Team Archive members soon? It’s been established that Jon is limited by his own perceptions, and Martin has been considering and clinging to the idea of help:

(MAG164) MARTIN: But I actually meant the whole… being friends thing? I mean, I don’t see why– ARCHIVIST: Martin, she’s… a cruel… vicious monster! MARTIN: Yes. Yes, she is. But who else is there? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

(MAG166) MARTIN: Just, what do you want? ANNABELLE: I want to help you, of course. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. Thank you. ANNABELLE: It’s a hard place to find yourself in, maybe I can be of some… assistance…! MARTIN: You can assist me by giving the… “creepy phone” thing a rest…! ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now.

What Jon and Martin would need is probably… other perspectives. There is still Helen running around (and she has the means to follow Basira too, the same way she can follow Jon&Martin, since Basira also traversed the Distortion’s corridors to return to the Institute after MAG135); Melanie&Georgie are somewhere (at the Panopticon already? On the other side of the crack at Hill Top Road? Hidden within Helen’s corridors?); and now Basira&Daisy’s hunt might come to a close. Daisy doesn’t have a lot of chances to survive, but I don’t think we’re done with Basira, given how she got the worst of it during season 4 (she wasn’t the only one getting manipulated by Elias, but unlike Jon, she didn’t achieve any small victories; she didn’t manage to protect anyone at all).

There is only The Spiral and The Hunt left when it comes to domains, both could get crammed into MAG176 since some of their agents are roaming around a bit more freely and we’re entering the hiatus afterwards (it could be a way to make Arc I the journey through the domains, and reaching the Panopticon starting Act II), so… we’ll see. Arc I could end with Daisy’s death, with a reunion, or with Helen pulling someone into her corridors by force ;;

We have currently a big opposition between Jon’s cautiousness, slight despair, and conviction that he can’t help anyone; and Martin’s hope (sometimes expressing itself as frustration) that they could do something positive, that Jon’s powers could help them. So far, it feels like Jon’s stance has been winning, as he demonstrated to Martin that there was “no better”.

But: it’s also true that Martin managed to pull himself out of the Lonely House’s influence with the tape recorder’s and Jon’s combined help. Jon has been revealed to be able to eradicate avatars/monsters with his ability to turn the Fearful into the Afraid. Jon had previously managed to use his compulsion as a way to free someone from a Fear’s influence: he compelled Tim to centre him and made him aware of reality in MAG119, and he made Martin see him in MAG159. So… there is still a tiny tiny hope that he could do something positive regarding Daisy (even if Basira still has to kill her afterwards).

I LIKED DAISY POST-COFFIN, I’ve never been expecting her to Live Forever with the crimes and abominations she committed, I still don’t expect her to survive for long anyway, but I’m not ready to see her goooo ;___;

- … last point is “????” and “!!!!” and I wanted to put emphasis on it, because.

THERE WAS A SOUND BETWEEN THE TWO TAPE-SEQUENCES IN THIS EP???

(MAG175) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Right…! [CLICK.] [TINY SHUFFLING] [CLICK–] [FOOTSTEPS, PUNCTUATED BY SOME JINGLING AND CLATTER] MARTIN: You know what? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] I am sitting down.

That’s new and ???? – usually, there is only the… void? A bass sound, but nothing else.

But there was definitely some shuffling in-between, and WHAT WAS IT?? I’m not excluding that it could be an editing mistake (Jon&Martin’s footsteps beginning a few seconds earlier, for example, without the crunch of the ground), but if it’s not and it was intentional… is this confirming that we-the-listener are listening alongside someone listening to the tape after the recordings, and not during the recordings themselves? The beginning of MAG079 had hinted at that, with Martin’s pre-recorded poem getting written over by Tim&Martin’s recording (+ the overall fact that we hear the [CLICK] of the tapes: if we were only listening to the sound of the tapes, we wouldn’t hear the tape recorders clicking on and off, since that is not a sound that we can hear on the magnetic band itself). Who is listening? Why would we hear them now? Are we coming closer to an answer or a big hint about that…?

  … MAG176’s title definitely puts Daisy, Hunters and/or more generally The Hunt to mind, and Daisy’s struggle during the second half of season 4. Regarding the more “classic” meaning, though: is it about Daisy&Basira’s relationship? Is it about the “statement” of the domain (if there is one), in a biological meaning?

[parkeraul]

anatomy | oneshot

a/n: i don’t know what it is but i had this stuck in my phone’s notes and i’m going to give it a try lol. i got inspired by a post here on tumblr and another one on twitter (both different, both NOT what you’re thinking they are) and this is like... nerdy!shawn? college!shawn? student!shawn? idk read it to find it out. plus, this is a work of fiction, so the situations named in here aren’t exactly what happens in real life, my dudes. i don’t know if this is how it happens, i’m assuming stuff just to give them an atmosphere. all built up for shawn and reader’s relationship to go somewhere on this imagine. sorry in advance to any medical students lmao.

shawn x reader  warnings: cursing, smut (?).  words: 7.272

It’s nearly 10pm in a saturday when he knocks on her door with his free hand, holding his book in his other hand kind of nervously. She tiptoes downstairs, quickly knotting the strap around her robe to cover her recent showered body. Her mind goes confused, wondering who might be standing outside at this time. Peeking through the magic eye, she can barely recognise the tall figure standing in front of her door with what she figured out as a backpack hanging on his back and something under his tattooed arm. She wasn’t expecting anyone from college because the finals were still happening and she finally managed to get home after passing hers, so everyone else should probably be stuck in their houses half studying, half praying. When she saw his hand coming up to curl in a fist next to the wooden material, she flicked the keys to the side and made sure to hold the upper part of her robe, pulling the edges together to cover her breasts and collarbone.  Opening the door, she meets him wearing a desperate expression on his flushed face. He sighs in relief before putting his shit together. “Shawn? What are you doing here?” She asks smiling insecurely, he doesn’t follow her though. “Thank God you’re home!” He vents and exhales heavily. “I know this is super weird and random, but I honestly don’t know who else to look for. I’m really sorry. God... I shouldn’t-“ “Spit it out, Mendes!” She giggles, opening the door a little bit more to show him somehow that she’s welcoming him. “You know you can count on me to something more than just having my veins available for you to train your blood-removal skills.” She winks and he smiles shyly, remembering how insecure he felt when first asking her to volunteer and be his pair to this class in specific.  

They’ve become pretty close, always getting paired for the classes because they knew that they were responsible and worked greatly together – always hitting high grades even in the most difficult subjects. Medical school is hard already, so they’ve found in each other an easier way to go through it all by supporting each other since their class is filled with so many selfish people. Shawn and Y/N were rarely hanging out when not in college – but more than friends, they are also something like partners in crime.  Although he had a very serious crush on her at first sight, he kept on doing his best to get rid of the feeling eventually, even though he knows he’s not 100% there, he thinks that he’s seen everything he could and his rational side is working constantly to make him get used to live next to her like a normal person would do (seeing her as a nice classmate who’s there for him, not someone who he wants to trace every single inch and experience his daydreams with). She finds him attractive, she can’t even lie. But she would never make a move considering how reserved he is, fearing that he might reject her right at first and never look at her face again. Things couldn’t get this awkward. 

Y/N opens some space for Shawn to step inside her living room and gives him a gentle smile, always reassuring him wordlessly that he can feel comfortable in her presence to ask whatever he wanted to ask – she felt more than glad to solve his doubts, actually. 

“I’m sorry for showing up so late and...” He finally sees that she’s wearing nothing but a black cotton robe and her hair is wet, clinging to her back. “Well, s-sorry for interrupting your s-shower, I-“ Shawn facepalms and rubs his forehead, trying to brush his nervousness off and find the right words to say. He doesn’t want to look like a creep. “Mendes, you’re rambling,” She warns him and closes the door, grabbing his stuff for him to have free hands to take off his coat and shoes. Knowing it, Shawn rapidly does it all before putting both hands together to wait for further instructions. “Stop apologising! You know I don’t care about it.”  Shawn knows that Y/N doesn’t really give a shit about things that some other people would do. She always says that a body is a body: it’s not an object and that a body and sex should be seen as something natural, not something who demands silly and unnecessary jokes when you look at it. And considering the partnership they’ve been developing, she felt more comfortable to talk to him about these things without stuttering or feeling embarassed. If they wanted to build a professional career, they had to deal with bodies normally. 

Maybe this is one of the reasons why they’ve never sat down to spill the tea about their secret little crushes. Shawn is a gentleman, of course, and that���s what keeps him fighting his willing to love on her like he never did with anyone else. He is misunderstanding her words, perhaps. She always talked to him about how much she hates when their classmates started joking and sexualizing human bodies like they were made for nothing more than sex. But that didn’t mean that she’s not into finding out how their touches can melt delightfully, because that’s been currently taking over her imaginations more often than she’d like it to – debating with her own mind how wrong is this, how awful it is of her to imagine Shawn maping her body with those intentions that she wishes her whole class could stop feeding. Maybe she had forgotten to say that, if they’re both agreeing on doing this, if their feelings are matching, then it’d be a whole another story (that she’d love to live intensely, thank you very much). This is such a hot mess.

She trails her way to the kitchen and he follows her before he can miss the sight of her. She points to the big island in the middle of her kitchen for him to sit as she places his book and backpack on top of it. “What’s going on, Shawnie Boy?” She asks while opening her fridge to look for something to eat to offer him. “Thank you for being way too nice, Y/N,” He chuckles to himself, also thanking the universe for crossing their ways. “I couldn’t pass Sally’s latest test and she’s going to eat me alive if I fuck up with the upcoming final exam.” Y/N grabs a box of grape juice to put on top of the island along with some Doritos she found on her cabinet. She thought he might probably want to sink down in unhealthy garbage to calm his damn nerves. “Sally is really unpredictable, isn’t she?” Y/N jokes and also grabs what’s left of her chocolate cake inside the oven to join the other stuff. “What was it about?”  “Anatomy,” Shawn says unpleasantly, grabbing the glass that Y/N is giving him so he can pour some juice to himself. “Women’s body kind of anatomy, more specifically. It makes me wanna give up on this damn class.” He opens the box and starts filling his glass with the deep purple liquid. “You actually can’t. This subject is... How do they say? Obligatory.” She says, staring at him and finishing setting the island with tiny plates and forks. “See? I know I should be studying music or whatever doesn’t envolve vulvas and labias.” His tone expresses all of his disappointment. Shawn hates to fail and also hates the whole process of learning from his mistakes. He never allowed himself to fuck it up even though he had no previous knowledge to execute something perfectly for the first time. “Keep thinking like that and you’ll end up seeing your own hand for the rest of your life.” Y/N is effortlessly pushing him over the edge of his stress, but he knew she was only playing around so he pretended not to care that much. He thought of replying her as boldly as she’s doing, but when she leaned forwards a little bit to cut a piece of cake, he accidentally saw her skin underneath the dark fabric – almost getting the view of the swell of her breasts. He swallowed harshly, immediately searching for his book to find the pages that have been driving him insane over the past weeks. ‘It’s fine. This is fine. Everything’s okay.’ He quietly warns his own body. Shawn shakes his head and takes a generous sip of his juice and tries hard to blink and miss the view of her not even noticing what just happened and still trying to cut a perfect square to place on a plate. “I... Mm... Have been reading from page 45 to page 97 over and over again for two weeks straight and-“ He starts with difficulty and, as if it wasn’t hard enough for him now, she’s licking and sucking at her fork she used to set under her piece of cake to lift it up and off the tin while looking him deep in the eyes, waiting for him to conclude his first doubt of the night. She didn’t mean to seduce him on purpose, but if she only knew the way she is messing with his head right now, she’d probably do something much worse. 

Shawn feels like cursing all the words he knows out loud. 

He’s been managing to keep his first impressions controlled for years. Why is this shit coming up again like he’s seeing her for the first time in his life? His brain, always hungry for coherent answers, figured things out in a matter of seconds. When he understood it all, he came back to earth and denied his own instincts angrily. Hopefully, he would never ever need to explain this reason to anyone else. 

“And?” Y/N snaps him back to reality, removing the fork out of her mouth and clicking her tongue to finish the small taste she had from the tiny crumbles that were glued to the steel.  “And... I...” He keeps on turning the pages frantically, not wanting to waste time. Who knows that she wouldn’t get him lost between running to the closest bathroom to splash some water on his face and staying frozen in his seat to never get up again until he stops hardening against his sweatpants during this quick lack of words? “I c-couldn’t quite understand and memorize these parts and their functions.” Shawn fixes a single curl back to its place and then he points to the figure on his book.  “Really?” She frowns. How a smart and handsome guy like Shawn can’t understand simple explanations about a vagina? “Why have you circled this so many times? You can barely see what it is.” She points to a messy grey sketch.  “It’s the clitoris,” Shawn rolls his eyes and clears his throat before moving on. “Need to remind myself that this shit is killing me mercilessly with this stupid amount of nerve endings.”  “You wish, Shawn,” Slicing her cake, she jokes and wraps her lips around the fork once again. Shawn can literally feel the palms of his hands sweating and he swears to God he could explode at anytime. Why anatomy of the reproductive system? Why not microbiology or pharmacology? He knew he should be a pro by now. “You better take notes about this little thing in particular if you want to pass or make a girl squirm under you.” 

Can she stop?  Great.  Now he’s picturing it. 

“Plus, I can guarantee you that, once you get to find where it is and how it works, you’ll wish you could reciprocate the merciless part everyday.” 

This is not study. This is torture.  Bad grades and bad thoughts. The “perfect” combo.  Shawn gets his notebook and pencils out of his bag and works fast to find a blank page to start writing. 

The time flies by with her careful explanations.  Y/N might joke a lot with him but she knows when to talk seriously.  She’s patient to describe every single detail and say things once more in a different way for him to see it all in a different way.  She speaks; he writes and asks again. All happening in a loop and Shawn’s pretty surprised that the chills that were taking over his lower region were gone now. He’s been doing his best by looking down at the paper all the time, refusing to peek at her.  “No! Nah-nah-nah...” She says and stretches her arm to grab the eraser next to him. He falls out of his concentration and reacts by traveling his eyes from her fingers to the expansion of her covered arm and finishing at her now exposed collarbone. The scent of her moisturizer escapes her robe to invade his nostrils. He can’t help but inhale deeply as she brings the eraser to rub the words he’d been writing.  “What’s that on your clavicle?” Still studying her skin, he asks impulsively. Shit.  She looks at him and then down at her own body.  “Oh... This?” She sets the fabric to the side a little bit more, now almost showing her entire shoulder. Shawn feels like choking on his own air. “It’s just a little scar. Got it when trying to run away from my cousin once. Nails strong enough to mark me,” She remembers and giggles lowly. “Unfortunately not as cute as this one you have on your face.” 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. 

She just noticed that she revealed loudly one of her favourite things about him.  For the first time in the night, he smiles.  He feels his chest burning – still shyly – and she can’t take her eyes off his beautiful teeth, perfectly shaped and getting her missing the patterns of her breathing. 

From there, the tension between them seemed to grow more and more and the emotions blooming up from this atmosphere were screaming louder than words, intensifying not only their desires but also the other feelings coming to their surface. It was like throwing alcohol in a bonfire. And it’s certain that the flames were getting higher and higher.  They tried to focus one more time on whatever they were doing now (neither of them cared to understand exactly what it was), Shawn a lot more lost than her, already writing things that weren’t even about anatomy, he thought. 

“Nope!” She says again.  Erase, wipe the dust, explain again. 

The clock is ticking. 

“Shawn, no.”  By now, he was finishing his third glass of grape juice and she had completely given up on her cake. Fork hitting the plate aggressively as she bends over the cold marble to repeat her actions. Shawn rubs his face and runs his fingers through his dark curls.  Erase, wipe the dust, explain again.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell are you doing?” If she was patient before, she’s not losing her shit for fucks sake. “Vulva is this external part, not the inside. The internal part is the vagina, down here in this entrance, see?” She’s pointing with his pencil and circling the spots with caution, because otherwise she might rip the page apart. Shawn drops his arms against the island and tilts his head to meet the hard surface, hitting his forehead and his sighs turns into a deep growl. 

Erase, wipe the dust. 

“God! Have you ever seen a pussy in your life?” He freezes in place and doesn’t get up, hoping she’s going somewhere else with this question. “Seriously! C’mere, I’ve got this kind of a plastic mould and you’ll touch this shit until the information gets inside your head somehow.” She stands in her feet and she knows that she’s being kinda rude. He doesn’t care, he knows he’s not going anywhere if she keeps on being all nice and shit but at the same time he’s so nervous that he wishes he could stay in that kitchen for the rest of his life until his problem goes away.  “I don’t really-” His voice comes out muffled by the white marble under his face.  “Mendes, you’re coming whether you want it or not!” She grabs his arm and pulls him off his seat. “I told you I’d help you and you know I won’t stop until I get my work done. Come on!”  He seizes the last seconds where his face is still hidden to smile. He loves how much she cares about him now and it seems to vanish away all of her impulsive attitudes before. She just wants him to succeed and once she gets a goal inside her mind, she ain’t stopping until she makes it happen.  Shawn gives up and she’s practically dragging him upstairs to her bedroom, steps punishing the degrees under her feet. 

“Get yourself comfortable, I’m gonna find this thing.” She says as if he even could. Shawn falls in her bed while she turns the lights on and goes to her shelf, eyeing all the spaces where that mould could be hiding into.  She tiptoes across her bedroom and checks every part of it like her life depends on it. 

Wardrobe? No.  Drawers? No.  Desk? No.  Under the bed? No.  Bookshelf? No. 

If the bedroom was even larger, she’d be running a marathon across it and the way she’s walking with powerful footsteps and picked up rhythm makes the hem of her robe swing and get loosened, sometimes showing the back of her thighs a little bit more and gradually exposing her chest.  And if Shawn felt like dying before, now he’s sure that he’s floating between heaven and hell so quickly that he can’t do anything else but widen his eyes in desperation, fight his own mind and press down on her mattress for dear life. “You can’t think like that. She’s your friend, she’s not a piece of meat. Control your damn hormones.” He whispers to himself and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want her to think that he’s just another one of those stupid classmates of theirs or some kind of a weirdo who acts like he had never seen a semi-naked body before.  Although that yes, he had never.  Y/N might be cool about talking of sex and stuff, but he managed to just nod and agree. He never told her he was a virgin and something about the way she messes with him so easily makes him feel like organising a whole speech – in the most polite way ever – about how much he wants her to teach him everything: where to touch, how to touch and what to do to have her feeling not only relaxed in his presence but also pleased. If he only had the braveness, he’d be on his knees right now divided between begging for mercy or for a chance. 

She closes the last drawer where she guessed the plastic cast could be inside of and turns around with her hands covering her mouth. Shawn looks at her concerned expression and concludes that she’s thinking, considering how fast her eyes are running across the room. 

“Y/N, you don’t have to. It’s okay, I can find some other way...” Shawn tries to calm her and she tugs some strands, pulling them back and then dropping her arms down. She can’t think of anything else than this and she knows she might be taking a risk in here. She steps backwards to close her door and it gets Shawn frowning, gasping and blinking rapidly. What the hell is she doing? 

If he could’ve only guessed that some dreams can come true sometimes... 

“Mendes, don’t freak out, okay?” She looks at him worriedly and his grin is filled with doubts. He thought she was joking about his study routine or whatever happened a few seconds ago. But when he sees that her face ain’t changing to something more playful, he gulps once more. “You’re gonna have to do this in anyways in the final exam and, since you can’t even name things correctly, there’s no other way to do this. Tell me if you don’t wanna do this and I’ll stop.” She finishes and grabs the knot of her robe. In one fluid motion, she undoes it and the black fabric is pooling down around her feet. Right now she’s not thinking about her crush on him, she’s not trying to get him moaning her name. No. She’s trying to get anatomy inside his head because she’s been there before and she knows that, if he touches the wrong places, Sally is definitely not going to give him any other chances. There’s no dirty in here, there’s no seduction. She’s offering to a test just like she offered her veins once; or like when he let her feel his temperature and see if his throat was sore.  “What are you doing? Y/N, seriously...” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Cover up, you don’t need to do it for me.”  “Is that what you want? I’ll do if you’re feeling awkward on doing this,” She reassures him and catches her robe from the floor. “But I want you to know that I’m okay with it. It’s totally up to you.”  Shawn can feel his limbs turning into cold stones and his leg starts to shake uncontrollably. He feels like someone just threw a ball on fire to him and he knows he’s got the opportunity to put the fire down. He just doesn’t know how.  “C-Can you... like...” He rubs his face, still not looking at her (who’s covering her front with the robe now) and tries to make a smart decision. “Get under your covers so I... can... t-touch you without looking at you?”  “Is this going to make you feel more comfortable?”  “Y-Yes.”  “I’ll try to guide you then.” 

An inconvenient silence takes over the place and it had never been so annoying. He gets up, turning his back to her and she goes under her blanket, trying to feel less unsuited.  “Hold on. I’ll wash my hands before... you know...”  “Second door to the right.” 

A few minutes later, Shawn is back and not so afraid. She looks at him and sees that his hairline is wet, he might probably had splashed some water on his face before returning.  “Are you okay?” She asks, feeling her chest heaving in concern.  “I’m good,” He closes the door with his foot and keeps his hands in the air, away from any object. “Sure you wanna keep going? You don’t have to-”  “I’m sure,” She nods and he sits at the end of the bed. “With that I’m even feeling like a real patient now.” She points at his hands with her chin and chuckles bending her knees. He follows her and giggles too. He can’t even believe how amazing she is, he feels like nothing in this world can gift her enough for being this good to him.  “You can, like, start from my pubic bone and then you can say what you remember, you know?” She incentivates him. “When you get to touch those parts we were seeing down in there, you’ll tell me what it is and what is it for.”  He nods and she shifts her body up closer to the headboard, making some space for him to come forward and slip one hand under the blanket.  “Don’t you want me to wear gloves?”  “I’m out of gloves in here but I don’t really mind.” She says and he’s just going with her flow. “Showed you my exams before the tests, so you also know that I don’t have anything you should worry about.”  She’s giving him so many reasons to leave his nervousness behind that he’s feeling like he’d forgotten for a moment that, on top of it all, they’re still friends. They’re not strangers. They should count on each other and this is what she wants him to do, this is what he wants her to do.  “Go on, I trust you.” Her sweet tone reaches his ears and he smiles at her, so happy to know that she’s there for him and, more than anything else, she sees in him a person that she can trust. It’s just priceless.  “And I trust you,” Shawn responds and she smiles back at him, feeling more comfortable against her pillows. “Excuse me.” He asks before touching her and she nods in confirmation, allowing him to go on. Shawn knows that this is not his body, so he must have her approval and excuse to touch her.  His palm is softly sliding along the expansion of her shin to her knee and inner thigh, looking her deep in the eyes, attentive to any sign that she’s not liking it so he can stop. He wants to show her that he doesn’t wanna hurt her or do something harmful, so he rubs his thumb from side to side, caressing her and showing that he’s being so careful. She looks at her own ceiling, trying to keep her breathing calm and remain herself that she suggested it, so she must stay true to her pure intentions and leave her dirty thoughts locked and forbidden.  He reaches the spot she told him to look for. He stops moving when he gets there and waits for her to give him another permission.  “What’re you touching?” She asks.  Shawn gets it as a chastise and lifts his hand up, widening his eyes. She slips her arm under the blanket and places it back to where it was, making him gulp and miss a heartbeat.  “I’m not asking you to leave, Mendes,” She laughs. “I’m asking you what’s this specific spot you’re touching right now. This is still a test.”  His eyes are still wide as ever, comprehending her words and looking for the answer in his mind.  “The pubic mound... Okay...” He answers more to himself and tries to remember the words she made him take notes about. “It’s... a fibroadipose tissue that stays on top of the bone and it divides into the labia majora on either side of the pudendal cleft.”  “Very good,” She praises and he smiles, actually wanting to scream in happiness for answering correctly and in tension, because her words made his nerves sparkle somehow. ‘Just breathe’ he says to himself as a mantra. “You can feel it if you want to.”  The tips of his fingers press lightly against it, choosing random spots to feel and then he lets go of it. He can read about it in the books where his gravity is going to be centered.  “Should I keep going?” He asks.  “Yes, please.” 

Oh God, not please.

Both of them getting a type of disquietude after this word in particular.  She didn’t mean to say it, she knows that ‘please’ doesn’t even fit correctly to the moment but somehow it escaped from her lips nearing a state of beg. She couldn’t let him know. This is still forbidden.  He swallows harshly and moves down slowly, almost reaching his next stop. 

“Okay, stop.” She says and he immediately stays still. “I’m gonna ask you something very embarassing but necessary.”  “...Alright?!...” Shawn eyes her with concentration, trying to understand if he did something wrong at any point.  “Lick your finger before touching this next spot,” Unable to look him in the eyes, she asks and covers her face. This makes him comfortable to remove his hand and lick his index finger before she can see him doing it. “You shouldn’t do this to your patients, but I’m very sensitive and when it’s all dry it might hurt a little.”  “Okay,” He gets back to where he was before and sets his hand back down on her. “Was I here?”  “Yup,” She says popping her ‘p’. “You can touch it now.”  His touch is now wet and cold, making her shiver slightly and it glides easily. She removes her hands from her face but keeps her eyes shut to focus on not getting wetter than his finger.  “Clitoris.”  “Nope.”  “No?”  “Try to remember about the first time I yelled at you downstairs.”  “Oh, alright.” He tilts his head down and laughs to himself. His finger is moving so delicately that it’s nearly tickling her heat. She shifts her ankles further just a little so she can see that flushy face of his, eyes now looking up as he tries to find a blank spot where his sight can help his imagination to picture what it looks like as he touches her. “Clitoral foreskin? Clitoral hood?”  “Hood is better.”  “Fine,” He grins. “It’s a mucocutaneous tissue that covers and protects the clitoris. It can fully cover the clit sometimes, but it also can just partly cover it.”  “Thought you’d never get it right, not gonna lie.” She confesses and he moves his pretty greenish eyes to look at her, and she finally reciprocates.  “Thought you trusted me!”  It’s so good to interact as they typically do. It’s so good to feel more normal and less awkard. The two of them could now feel their bodies relaxing and free to get back to joking and playing. Nothing’s really planned for ages before acting, it’s just natural. This is what they were looking for.  His cold calloused finger goes down shortly and she lets a sigh fly from her lips, instantly biting at her bottom one. She writhes sparsely, trying not to do what she’d normally do if they weren’t studying.  “Clitoris? Is it here?”  “M-hm.” “Erectile nub placed at the top of the vulva. It has around 8.000 nerve endings and blood supply. Would you mind if I see it?”  She shakes her head in denial and grabs the cover up to reveal her lower half, making it rest on her stomach.  Shawn takes his finger away for a moment to see the little nub and memorize where it is. He thinks he’d never seen something so beautiful in his life; he never thought it’d look this beautiful.  Totally compelled, he licks his digit again and touches her clit, differently from before. Now, he’s softly drawing tiny circles around it and she accidentaly moans lowly. The tip of his finger is sliding so deliciously that she couldn’t even notice the time when she showed such weakness.  “If you keep doing like this, you’re gonna turn me on and-”  “How sensitive is it?” He cuts her off and, to be honest, he wasn’t even listening. All of his concentration got directed to her clit, now swelling under his control.  “What?”  “How sensitive is it? With so many nerve endings, it must be really delicate. Isn’t it?”  She’s not quite understanding.  Shouldn’t he know this already? Or was he one of those guys who never finds a clit during sex?  “It’s sensitive enough to get me excited,” She warns but it’s not like he’s giving a single damn right now. “But if you press it hard, then it’ll hurt me bad. Like... you can add a little bit more of pressure...”  And he immediately does, watching the way his finger works carefully but performing firmly now. She exhales strongly, trying so hard not to lose her shit.  “A little bit more...” She demands and he obeys. Where is this going? She can’t answer herself now that this feels so good. His touch rounding her clit, sometimes going from side to side and he takes his time feeling all the extension of it. “Don’t go further than this, otherwise it’ll only harm me.”  This amount of pressure was just perfect for her taste. Shawn doesn’t even know about this, but he keeps going and he even leans closer to see it better. Now there was no hell, it was just heaven. Heaven in the way her face contorts everytime he hits the center of her clit; heaven in the way her chest is moving up and down, trying not to lose the pattern of her respiration; heaven in the way her eyes squinted – but no completely – peeking at him with some struggle. He stops eyeing her heat, saving the last information he got from it and looks at her, eyes practically dark.  “Let’s move on to-”  “Can I put my mouth on it?”  Her jaw falls.  Such a question she didn’t know she needed to hear today.  She knew she wanted to, but never knew she needed it so bad.  “Are you asking to eat me out, Mendes?” For a minute there, she thinks she’s dreaming. Dreaming wildly. She promptly supports her body on her elbows and tosses her blanket away from her body.  “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry,” It’s like a force pushed him back to earth. He felt so intoxicated by her that his attention flew out to somewhere else. “I’m such a-”  “Do it.”  “What is it?”  “Do it,” She insists. Can’t miss the chance, can’t have him going back now. Not now. “You want it?” He nods kind of desperately. “Then show me what you can do.” She tilts her head to the side and smirks at him. His mouth forms an ‘o’ shape. Jesus Christ, she can get him around her finger so easily that he feels lucky that he was the one to get her around his finger previously. But how is he supposed to do this?  He decides to get started by kissing the inner part of her leg, planting wet kisses along her smooth skin and it feels so satisfying to have her skin exposing goosebumps under his touch. He’s getting closer and she sighs so sweetly that he’s hoping he’s doing the right thing.  The scent of her is driving him crazy, he can’t wait to know the taste.  “I-” He starts that old speech of explanation. He doesn’t want to but he feels like he needs to be honest with her and tell that he’s still a virgin. Lost and anxious to find himself. Find her.  “I know. I’ll guide you, don’t you worry about that.”  She’s just perfect. There’s no better definition inside his mind right now. He’s the opened book she loves to devour every single page of, absorbing the details and letting herself get immersed. She arranges her body on her bed to give him more space to lay down on his stomach and between her parted legs. When he finishes his trail of wet and hot kisses, she stands in one shoulder as her other arm goes to reach his brown curls that she loves so much.  “You can kiss it first,” She directs him. “See what it feels like against your lips and oh,” She moans because he wasted no time on licking his lips and kissing her clit. “G-Get yourself used to it, take your time to adjust yourself, no need to hurry.” But she didn’t really mean that. She does need the hurry, ‘cause she might collapse from this torture at any second.  Shawn tries the kissing, doing it from her clit and covering every inch of her lower lips then going back to the smaller ones. Over and over again, until he gets kinda bored. He wants to make her squirm like she said before in the kitchen. He wants to put his daydreams to a proof as quick as possible.  “You’re so wet,” He notices and is unaware of the effect it had on her. Her glistening pussy is inviting him and he wants to live in this for the rest of his days. He knows he has no experience, but this time, he doesn’t wait. He sinks his head down on her and his tongue is flattening against her heat to lick a stripe from her entrance to her clit, covering her with his mouth in order not to miss a single inch. And fuck she tastes so fuckin’ good. Nothing compared to his imagination.  “Oh my God,” Another moan slips out and she drops her head backwards, gotten my surprise. “That’s it...”  He embraces her thighs and her ankles are now resting on his back. His head buries in her pussy and she returns to look at him. It’s the best view in the world. Cheeks flushed and eyes closed, looking so serene and enjoying the taste of her like he never did with anything else. Shawn pulls her hips closer to him, growing hungrier and obsessed with this moment.  “Shawn!” She calls out and giggles, thinking that he’s also in the mood to play.  Not now.  “How hard can I suck you?” He pulls away, not going very far just to breathe and ask her.  “Hard enough to show me how bad you want me, not hard like a crazy animal would probably do.”  He groans against her heat and frowns in what he thinks it must be suffering. How can she get him so fragile to her? He feels his head spinning and she hasn’t even touched him back yet.  “What are you doing to me?” Shawn whispers, thinking out loud. He drags his tongue up and down against her boldly, mixing the wetness of his tongue with her wetness and it’s slow, painfully slow. She tugs his hair when she feels that tingling sensation down on her entrance and it spurs him on to try his first suction.  He does, giving her the best job he could do for the first time in his life.  “Close your mouth a little and suck harder.” She recommends and he promptly does. His lips are wrapped around her bundle of nerves as he licks her before, tongue gliding in circles and he’s keeping his tongue relaxed, what makes her see stars with this pleasant sensation. It’s so smooth and so tender that she’s afraid she’s going to pass out from the pleasure. He tries sucking for the second time and earns the perfect reaction from her: toes curling, eyes rolling to the back of her head and she gasps, body giving up against the mattress. She feels her clit throbbing and the way he sucks it is pushing her over the edge. It’s wet, it’s warm and so precise. “Fuck Shawn, fuck!” Her lungs are supplicating for air and she makes a good effort to look down at him again – eyeing her through his eyelashes – and, although he’s still finding a way to please her, he knows he’s being good, so he gives her a devilish smile. “Keep doing like this, baby, don’t stop...”  That’s it for him.  He tries to suck her again. It’s long he’s deliberately repeating series of suctions, having her crying out in her bed and arching her back. He tests it harder and faster and her hands instantly fly to grab his curls. Her moans are gradually turning into frantic screams and she’s trembling. Shawn Mendes never imagined he could get his friend shaking hectically with his mouth on her heat, sucking and licking her with his whole body and soul. His member is so hard inside his sweatpants but he doesn’t care, as long as she’s enjoying it, then he didn’t need something more. And he thinks she looks impossibly prettier with her beautiful lips parted to free her whimpers, sometimes smirking down at him to tease him; hair getting messier than her body quivering and being stopped by his large hands, caressing the sides of her waist and traveling down to the sides of her bum and legs, holding them forcefully so she wouldn’t escape from his touch.  “Shawn,” She gulps before moving on, throat dry from moaning uninterruptedly. “Pull away, I’m gonna come.”  With her clit gently tugged between his plump red lips, he shakes his head from side to side in denial lazily and it’s a new sensation to her, so so so good that her vision gloes blurry. Shawn just revealed himself not only stubborn in his studies but also in bed, and she’s so eager to dominate him like this...  He remembers about all the things they should be studying right now and maps her core to find her entrance with his index finger. Just as she taught him, he licks the digit and thrust it inside of her as soon as he finds it, bringing his mouth back to her clit to suck rapidly as his finger moves slowly. She fights back a loud scream, covering her mouth as she feels her pussy aching deliciously, searching for its release.  “Can you take two?” Shawn feels her walls squeezing his finger and doubts that she can keep another one.  “Yes, please.” She says through gritted teeth and it’s good to give this word the real meaning she wanted to give before. He pushes another finger into her and she moans once more, she doesn′t know how long she can wait. He thrusts the fingers so gingerly, not sure about what to do and what pace to pick. Was he hurting her?  “You’re so tight...” He comments so innocently, he thought that it wouldn’t be this constricted. He starts to imagine how heavenly his cock would feel hugged by her dripping pussy.  “Mendes,” She says under her breath. “I need you to go faster.”  “Like this?” He picks up his rhythm shyly.  “More.”  His digits are covered in her juices and moving with ease. She feels that knot on her stomach tightening and about to explode.  “More.” She begs and broken sobs are slipping past her lips. He goes deeper, fingers completely disappearing inside of her. “Right there! Oh, right there,” He finds her spot and her eyes roll to the back of her head once more, making Shawn dig the nails of his free hand into the skin of her thigh and suck at her bundle of nerves as fast as his fingers are working now. “Do it like this.” She can’t raise her hand right now to show due to her weakness but Shawn’s eyes are quick to find her fingers moving in a ‘come here’ motion and he immediately gives it to her. He can’t comprehend exactly where he’s taking her, but when she stops moaning and her legs starts shaking, he understands it. She’s feeling every inch of her core pulsating as her orgasm washes over her body and he can’t believe he just made her come. His fingers are slowing down and he pulls his mouth away, looking at her body coming down of her high. He removes his fingers slow and carefully and gives one last lick, catching what she released, and one last suck, her back arching for the last time.  He waits for her to settle down and get back to her senses before doing anything else. And when she does, she glances at him and silently invites him to come closer.  “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” She taps his strong chest as he crawls over her, knees supported by the mattress under her parted thighs and upper half covering her front. He must be kidding.  “Not really...” He vents, embarassed but glad that he provided her something nice. “But did... Did this just ruin what we have?”  “I honestly couldn’t care less if it did,” She spits out and he fears her next words. “I couldn’t fucking wait to have you like this since the very first day we spoke.”  “Would it be weird if I told you I feel the same way?”  “Nope. But that’s something you can save for later,” She pulls him by the shirt and pecks his lips, savouring the taste of herself on his lips. “I wanna make you feel good first. What do you think about that?”  “Glad you finally asked.” 

[vamchqud]

The Suit and the Photograph

What did August Sander tell his sitters before he took their pictures? And how did he say it so that they all believed him in the same way?

They each look at the camera with the same expression in their eyes. Insofar as there are differences, these are the results of the sitter’s experience and character — the priest has lived a different life from the paper-hanger; but to all of them Sander’s camera represents the same thing.

Did he simply say that their photographs were going to be a recorded part of history? And did he refer to history in such a way that their vanity and shyness dropped away, so that they looked into the lens telling themselves, using a strange historical tense: I looked like this. We cannot know. We simply have to recognise the uniqueness of his work, which he planned with the overall title of “Man of the 20th Century.”

His full aim was to find, around Cologne in the area in which he was born in 1876, archetypes to represent every possible type, social class, sub-class, job, vocation, privilege. He hoped to take, in all, 600 portraits. His project was cut short by Hitler’s Third Reich.

His son Erich, a socialist and anti-nazi was sent to a concentration camp where he died. The father hid his archives in the countryside. What remains today is an extraordinary social and human document. No other photographer, taking portraits of his own countrymen, has ever been so translucently documentary.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1931 about Sander’s work:

“It was not as a scholar, advised by race theorists or social researchers, that the author [Sander] undertook his enormous task, but, in the publisher’s words, ‘as the result of immediate observation.’ It is indeed unprejudiced observation, bold and at the same time delicate, very much in the spirit of Goethe’s remark: ‘There is a delicate form of the empirical which identifies itself so intimately with its object that it thereby becomes theory.’ Accordingly it is quite proper that an observer like Döblin should light upon precisely the scientific aspects of this opus and point out: ‘Just as there is a comparative anatomy which enables one to understand the nature and history of organs, so here the photographer has produced a comparative photography, thereby gaining a scientific standpoint which places him beyond the photographer of detail.’ It would be lamentable if economic circumstances prevented the further publication of this extraordinary corpus … Sander’s work is more than a picture book, it is an atlas of instruction.”

In the inquiring spirit of Benjamin’s remarks I want to examine Sander’s well-known photograph of three young peasants on the road in the evening, going to a dance. There is as much descriptive information in this image as in pages by a descriptive master like Zola. Yet I only want to consider one thing: their suits.

The date is 1914. The three young men belong, at the very most, to the second generation who ever wore such suits in the European countryside. Twenty or 30 years earlier, such clothes did not exist at a price which peasants could afford. Among the young today, formal dark suits have become rare in the villages of at least western Europe. But for most of this century most peasants — and most workers — wore dark three-piece suits on ceremonial occasions, Sundays and fêtes.

When I go to a funeral in the village where I live, the men of my age and older are still wearing them. Of course there have been modifications of fashion: the width of trousers and lapels, the length of jackets change. Yet the physical character of the suit and its message does not change.

Let us first consider its physical character. Or, more precisely, its physical character when worn by village peasants. And to make generalisation more convincing, let us look at a second photograph of a village band.

Sander took this group portrait in 1913, yet it could well have been the band at the dance for which the three with their walking sticks are setting out along the road. Now make an experiment. Block out the faces of the band with a piece of paper, and consider only their clothed bodies.

By no stretch of the imagination can you believe that these bodies belong to the middle or ruling class. They might belong to workers, rather than peasants; but otherwise there is no doubt. Nor is the clue their hands — as it would be if you could touch them. Then why is their class so apparent?

Is it a question of fashion and the quality of the cloth of their suits? In real life such details would be telling. In a small black and white photograph they are not very evident. Yet the static photograph shows, perhaps more vividly than in life, the fundamental reason why the suits, far from disguising the social class of those who wore them, underlined and emphasised it.

Their suits deform them. Wearing them, they look as though they were physically mis-shapen. A past style in clothes often looks absurd until it is re-incorporated into fashion. Indeed the economic logic of fashion depends on making the old-fashioned look absurd. But here we are not faced primarily with that kind of absurdity; here the clothes look less absurd, less “abnormal” than the men’s bodies which are in them.

The musicians give the impression of being uncoordinated, bandy-legged, barrel-chested, low-arsed, twisted or scalene. The violinist on the right is made to look almost like a dwarf. None of their abnormalities is extreme. They do not provoke pity. They are just sufficient to undermine physical dignity. We look at bodies which appear coarse, clumsy, brute-like. And incorrigibly so.

Now make the experiment the other way round. Cover the bodies of the band and look only at their faces. They are country faces. Nobody could suppose that they are a group of barristers or managing directors. They are five men from a village who like to make music and do so with a certain self-respect. As we look at the faces we can imagine what the bodies would look like. And what we imagine is quite different from what we have just seen. In imagination we see them as their parents might remember them when absent. We accord them the normal dignity they have.

To make the point clearer, let us now consider an image where tailored clothes, instead of deforming, preserve the physical identity and therefore the natural authority of those wearing them. I have deliberately chosen a Sander photograph which looks old-fashioned and could easily lend itself to parody: the photograph of four Protestant missionaries in 1931.

Despite the portentousness, it is not even necessary to make the experiment of blocking out the faces. It is clear that here the suits actually confirm and enhance the physical presence of those wearing them. The clothes convey the same message as the faces and as the history of the bodies they hide. Suits, experience, social formation and function coincide.

Look back now at the three on the road to the dance. Their hands look too big, their bodies too thin, their legs too short. (They use their walking sticks as though they were driving cattle.) We can make the same experiment with the faces and the effect is exactly the same as with the band. They can wear only their hats as if they suited them.

Where does this lead us? Simply to the conclusion that peasants can’t buy good suits and don’t know how to wear them? No, what is at issue here is a graphic, if small, example (perhaps one of the most graphic which exists) of what Gramsci called class hegemony. Let us look at the contradictions involved more closely.

Most peasants, if not suffering from malnutrition, are physically strong and well-developed. Well-developed because of the very varied hard physical work they do. It would be too simple to make a list of physical characteristics — broad hands through working with them from a very early age, broad shoulders relative to the body through the habit of carrying, and so on. In fact many variations and exceptions also exist. One can, however, speak of a characteristic physical rhythm which most peasants, both women and men, acquire.

This rhythm is directly related to the energy demanded by the amount of work which has to be done in a day, and is reflected in typical physical movements and stance. It is an extended sweeping rhythm. Not necessarily slow. The traditional acts of scything or sawing may exemplify it. The way peasants ride horses makes it distinctive, as also the way they walk, as if testing the earth with each stride. In addition peasants possess a special physical dignity: this is determined by a kind of functionalism, a way of being fully at home in effort.

The suit, as we know it today, developed in Europe as a professional ruling class costume in the last third of the 19th century. Almost anonymous as a uniform, it was the first ruling class costume to idealise purely sedentary power. The power of the administrator and conference table. Essentially the suit was made for the gestures of talking and calculating abstractly. (As distinct, compared to previous upper class costumes, from the gestures of riding, hunting, dancing, duelling.)

It was the English gentleman, with all the apparent restraint which that new stereotype implied, who launched the suit. It was a costume which inhibited vigorous action, and which action ruffled, uncreased and spoilt. “Horses sweat, men perspire and women glow.” By the turn of the century, and increasingly after the first world war, the suit was mass-produced for mass urban and rural markets.

The physical contradiction is obvious. Bodies which are fully at home in effort, bodies which are used to extended sweeping movement: clothes idealising the sedentary, the discrete, the effortless. I would be the last to argue for a return to traditional peasant costumes. Any such return is bound to be escapist, for these costumes were a form of capital handed down through generations, and in the world today, in which every corner is dominated by the market, such a principle is anachronistic.

We can note, however, how traditional peasant working or ceremonial clothes respected the specific character of the bodies they were clothing. They were in general loose, and only tight in places where they were gathered to allow for freer movement. They were the antithesis of tailored clothes, clothes cut to follow the idealised shape of a more or less stationary body and then to hang from it!

Yet nobody forced peasants to buy suits, and the three on their way to the dance are clearly proud of them. They wear them with a kind of panache. This is exactly why the suit might become a classic and easily taught example of class hegemony.

Villagers — and, in a different way, city workers — were persuaded to choose suits. By publicity. By pictures. By the new mass media. By salesmen. By example. By the sight of new kinds of travellers. And also by political developments of accommodation and state central organisation. For example: in 1900, on the occasion of the great Universal Exhibition, all the mayors of France were, for the first time ever, invited to a banquet in Paris. Most of them were the peasant mayors of village communes. Nearly 30,000 came! And, naturally, for the occasion the vast majority wore suits.

The working classes — but peasants were simpler and more naïve about it than workers — came to accept as their own certain standards of the class that ruled over them — in this case standards of chic and sartorial worthiness. At the same time their very acceptance of these standards, their very conforming to these norms which had nothing to do with either their own inheritance or their daily experience, condemned them, within the system of those standards, to being always, and recognisably to the classes above them, second-rate, clumsy, uncouth, defensive. That indeed is to succumb to a cultural hegemony.

Perhaps one can nevertheless propose that when the three arrived and had drunk a beer or two, and had eyed the girls (whose clothes had not yet changed so drastically), they hung up their jackets, took off their ties, and danced, maybe wearing their hats, until the morning and the next day’s work.

1979

[tenecity]

from haters to lovers; zhu zhengting

from haters to lovers—a series where nine percent and you have the cliche, typical love story

warning: mentions of gender discrimnation

sosososososososo after much procrastination, crying and cracking my head, i finally got someth to possibly hate abt zzt hell yes god

also! taking into consideration tt china is still a v much conservative society, gender discrimnation is everywhere and rlly, as of yet, cant b helped

so which is why, imagine ure a chinese woman you found it weird, almost distasteful that a boy would be in yr dance class

i mean, guys are suppose to be strong people, doing more physical stuff like wushu or smth, and then there’s this boy here, doing pointe and perfect turns

“zhu zhengting is here!!!! oml doesn’t he look like a fairy?” your best friend tugs your sleeve as she discreetly point to the said boy. you roll your eyes. youre tired of this whole rave about him. literally, the entire class fangirls abt him; and apparently, it is not just for his looks, for also for his dance

spsjssjnsnsbs hE IS SO ELEGANT

you wld nvr admit it, but ok i guess ure borderline jealous.

i mean, his lines r clean, force controlled in his movements, perfect timing for rushed movements and then he slows down with such grace that you will never have 

but its still irks you, that a boy should dance so softly and gracefully. doesn’t seem to sit well with your traditional thinking 

so anyway, sidenote! you suck at turns wowww so coincidental

and every lesson, you usually would stay back just to practice it and you always end up with bruises and what nots as you fall repeatedly, no one there to catch you when you fall 

somehow, zhengting stays back today as well, rehearsing his main role in the upcoming performance, “swan lake” 

and you can’t keep your eyes off his figure 

it is mesmerising, how he can convey emotions, feelings, an entire story, through mere movements of the arms and legs. you observe how his every move is calculated, strength justttt the right amount that it looks elegant instead of overly powerful. 

and then you stare at the mirror and you sigh. probably why you only got a minor role in the performance. 

shaking your head, trying to push all those nonsensical thoughts out of your brain, you continue trying to turn, but you just can’t find the balance

yixing: balance baLanCe bALANCE

once again, your arms aren’t fully stretched out and it creates an imbalance, causing you to once again, fall backwards, out of turn 

you shut your eyes, bracing yourself for the impact

but it doesn’t come 

surprise surprise

eyelids fluttering open slowly, you realise just how close your are to zhengting, his ragged breath from his exhausting rehearsal fan across your face, inevitably making them the colour of cherries.

“you ok?” he softly asks, as he lowers you down.

“...yea im fine.” you mumble, head bowed.

“....do you need help with the turns?” 

“....”

“you know, you’re almost there. its just the part at the 180 degree mark, where you have to pull in your hands. your arms don’t always cross, or are pulled in too fast, which breaks your flow and speed and causes you to fall out of turn.” 

how does he know? bc he has been looking at you, dumbass

also i hve no idea how accurate this is i suck at body anatomy

you nod slowly. he makes sense. and its true, you always fall when you are just about to spin to the opposite side.

getting up, your arms are poised, ready to try again. 

andddd they become frigid as hands land on your middle, firm and supportive.

“look, its not even straight here. you need it to be 90 degrees here, before you can even start turning.” he adjusts you accordingly.

“im going to spin you slowly, and we try to perfect each section, ok?” 

he spins you slowly, your arms closing in in slow motion. he corrects you at certain parts, one hand leaving your waist as he repositions yr arm.

and now, ure facing him, head bowed as a flush colours your cheeks when u realise how close the two of u r. a slight movement will just allow yr lips to brush against his.

but of course his hand is steady as hell and he just turns you slowly and you face the other direction

which, makes ur stomach churn and disappointment flows thru u????

so skipskip next scene

its after class and ure packing up when u hear some commotion at the corridor

n u follow ur busybody classmates

u can barely see who is shouting bc u a cute shortie :)

but u recognise the voice

"NO i'm staying dad. this is what i want to do."

"No, no, no. teacher, im v sorry, but i will like to pull my son out of this dance class now. i will pay the rest of the fees, but he will not be performing that stupid recital-” 

“i am performing, dad.” the voice is calm and collected and you try to tiptoe, just barely catching sight of the brown locks

“no u r not. zhu zhengting, u r a boy, u cannot do this kind of girly things! it makes u look v 娘* do you know that? a disgrace, an utter disgrace!”

the voice rings as everyone falls silent, heads turning towards zhengting, waiting for his response to the harsh comment. 

“i will prove to you that there is nothing to be ashamed of.” he quietly says, bowing and turning his heel, head held high, with no sign of regret or disappointment 

as you watch the figure go, everything falls together like pieces of a puzzle

why he works so hard 

why when it already seems perfect enuf, he still practices, saying there is still space for improvement 

why he was so desperate to get the main role 

he wanted to b in the spotlight and give a flawless performance bc he wanted to prove to his father, that boys dont have to b restrained to a singular activity and stereotype. they can do whatever they want, so long as they like it 

guilt washes over u as u watch his father storm after his son, realising that this man is a reflection of you

new found respect is the word u will use on zhengting. 

everyone applauds him. an art form shld never be restricted to a gender.

ur heart opens up to him more, and admiration for him blooms as u watch him place high expectations on himself, doing a particular move over and over again, even tho in your eyes, it alr seems perfect enuf

just like how he is to you; perfect and flawless

its addicting to watch him. his pale arms, his clean movements, his strong legs, his silky brown locks, the way his eyes sparkle when he talks about dance, the way the edges crinkle when he laughs, the way he is so bubbly about everything.

and he starts to take notice of you too, helping you to readjust properly, telling you tricks and tips on how to keep perfect balance, how to put the correct about of strength into a movement. 

for the next few weeks, you end up gg hme later than usual, staying bck with more than an hour just to spend time with him, and not gg to lie, you r falling for him 

but... you kinda don’t rlly knw i mean 

he’s nice to everyone

what makes you so special?

anywayyyyyyy

FINALLY RECITAL DAY WOOHOO

everyone’s pretty hyped about it

but u knw the main dancers will be extremely nervous and u decide to go find zhengting in his dressing room, just to give him assurance, if he needs any.

“zhengting?”

“hmmm?” he says (???) as he turns around and oMLORD JESUS CHRIST IS HE A BEAUT

the eyeshadow makes him look sultry, the foundation emphasising how his skin is flawless and hydrated, his eyebrows strong and dark, a true prince indeed

he snaps his fingers, pulling u out of yr trance. “did you want to say anything?” u hear a hint of hope and u almost smirk 

“uh...you look good? and good luck.” you mumble, tripping over your words, unused to a god-like creature looking at u with such intensity in his dark eyes

“what did you say?” he teases, cheekiness flowing through his words

“i said,” you clear your throat. “you look good and good luck for your performance

how you wish to wipe that smirk off that face, if not for the fact that u secretly find it EXTREMELY HOT and your cheeks are flaring red at the sight of it.

“if u want to wish me good luck,” he leans forward. flirtatious. “how about a kiss on the cheek?” 

you roll your eyes and try to push him away but he is quick to grab your hands and stop them midway, intertwining your cold, clammy ones with his own.

“please?” 

“fine,” you try to sound nonchalant but the nervousness is so evident that u see the smirk creeping up his face again.

lips barely brush over the smooth skin and you pull away, blood surging upwards into the blood vessels of your face.

“bye,” you want nothing more than to dig a hole and hide your burning face 

“see you afterwards?” 

but u’ve already rushed out and he chuckles to himself, warmth oozing thru his being, and his cheeks flush as he thinks about the kiss you give him. 

he will definitely have to find you later to give you a proper one ;)

you guys wld b cute buBS UWU

my endings suck dbhasdjbfhjdbkjf

[missrkl]

Intentions Behind Lies Chapter Seven

Fabs was ready, today was the day he was going to do the big reveal to Gabi. He had planned a romantic getaway for them, well a romantic meet and greet more like down at the beach. Bournemouth. What better chance of getting away than actually having a staycation? Remain in the UK, at least three hours drive away, or four depending, from London to Bournemouth and both of them getting to leave their natural habitat for somewhere large and foreign but not traveling via air miles and not a large spending spree. He was thinking picnic on the beach. He had checked the weather and made sure it was a good weather day, although sometimes these predictions of weather didn’t always come to pass, he could only hope. He had stayed overnight at one of the Bournemouth hotels and decided to pick a beach, there was lots of them scattered all over the place in Bournemouth. You could go beach hopping here if you was into that kind of thing. Each beach ten minutes apart from each other. Some fifteen the further you traveled inland. Finally settling on the beach, Fabs set up the picnic, he had chosen a secluded area, with both of them being celebrities this could turn out to be a PR nightmare if any journalists caught them in action.

How was he going to break it to her that he was Matthew? He wasn’t sure yet, but he had to do it. Playing Gabi, as fun as it could have been, he really liked her and wanted to really get to know her, for her. As Fabs waited for her arrival he stood away from the picnic so as to not arouse her worst nightmare on her at first glance. She said her father agreed to her having this one day off as long as Rachel came along, a guard and a friend, she didn’t have any qualms with that. Rachel had said she didn’t mind staying in the hotel or going for a stroll as she spent some time with Matthew. Fabs soon saw Gabi approaching, what was she wearing? A wig?! Fabs laughed uncontrollably. Did she really think a disguise would work? Journalists and fans had memorised every part of their physical anatomy, it would be so easy for them to recognise her. Her wig was a brown hair colour, usually blonde. She wore really massive dark sunglasses and a summer hat. Fabs laughed even harder. Should he don a disguise? Last minute disguises he wasn’t prepared for. He went back to his car as quickly as he could and found his own massive celebrity sunglasses and then he decided to wear his grandfathers hat, he had it with him always in the car for emergencies, the one thing to remember his grandfather by. He put it on. Hmm what else would constitute as a disguise? He wasn’t sure, there didn’t seem to be anything else. This will have to do.

When Fabs returned to the picnic he saw Gabi standing by herself looking around worried that she might be getting stood up. Fabs heart palpitated in his chest, this was more nerve wrecking than diving into a pile of female fans at one of his concerts. Fabs strode silently, as if walking on air, towards the picnic and Gabi. Gabi saw him and smiled. Her heart racing deep within her she felt the excitement starting to rise within her. This was it! The man of her dreams! Fabs stood stock still as he mustered a flamboyant hello and took her right hand and kissed it. Soft sweet lips, pink, Gabi blushed in delight. She peered at him, he definitely had Fabs resemblances, but that couldn’t be right, she must be imagining things. She had donned the wig just in case Matthew turned into a fanatic. As they proceeded to sit down Mathew handed her some food and wine. He had started with pita bread and humous as a starter, with some green and black olives and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Along with some salmon and green salad. He did have some spaghetti aglio e olio. This one he had cooked himself, he wanted to impress. The key was to slowly toast the garlic slices to a perfect golden brown in the olive oil. He knew that this was a delicate dish. If it’s too toasted it will be bitter, if too lightly toasted you don’t get the full flavour. Fabs had done A for effort and A+ for presentation. The picnic was beautiful.

Gabi enjoyed the taste of the foods. Matthew had said it was Italian, like his roots. His voice sounded similar, where did she recognise that voice? Matthew was very sweet, he had even handed her an olive and put it in her mouth as a form of a tease. She had blushed as her heart pulsated even harder in her chest. With trembling fingers she had sipped on the white wine, clearly he had thought of everything. This place was beautiful. She was having a good time learning about his Italian roots, not knowing that something bad was going to happen. Matthew took off his hat, and there sat before her Fabs! The most aggravating man on planet earth! Gabi screeched! She stood up quite frantically and screamed at him “Fabs!” And Fabs feigned a surprised look and she remembered her wig and sunglasses and hat. She took these off and glared at him. Fabs tried to explain, she could see his mouth moving but could not hear a word he was saying. She shouted at him “you pathological liar! You scheming scumbag! I should have known it was you the Moment you walked over here! You are a filthy pig! A lying animal!” Fabs then said something along the lines of she had lied too and doesn’t she think that him lying was also the very same reason she had been lying? Still filled with rage Gabi screamed louder “I hate you” and stormed off, wrinkling her nose just the way Fabs liked.

Fabs didn’t know what to do. He had felt stabbed and wounded by her words as he remembered them “I hate you!” Watching her storm off. He tried to catch up with her but she said she needed some time alone. She was going to look for Rachel. Please, she had begged him. She said now was not the time to discuss. She was angry, she was upset and right now all she felt was hatred. Feeling defeated Fabs conceded and went back to the picnic basket finding seagulls fluttering around. He gathered up the food. He took it all back to the car. He was angry too, she had lied herself, didn’t she see that? How could she hate him that much? Did his lie trump hers? Women of today, really difficult people to understand. Fabs decided to stay close by in case she returned, still having feelings for her. He closed the car door and decided to walk the length of the beach as it went around. Maybe the walk would do him good.

Gabi was infuriated. How dare he lie! She knew men lied all the time, but him?! Fabs! The one who set passion aflame? The one she found the most aggravating? The one who rattled her cage more than any other man because it seemed he knew her better than she knew herself? That frightened her. How could he read her so much? How could he know so much about her, deep aspects of herself that she didn’t even know about herself? Wasn’t he the one on the outside looking in? Was he playing her around? How did he know she was who she was under a fake name? Stomping around the beach she didn’t find Rachel. It was then she fell onto the sand and cried, Fabs and Matthew, one man, one man touched her heart and burned her passions aflame. One man. After a few minutes of crying, Gabi sat up and remembered that she had lied too. She remembered shouting at Fabs “I hate you..pathological liar, filthy pig..” she felt guilty now. How could she call him those things? Without giving him time to explain himself she had judged him, quite harshly and this just wasn’t right. Maybe she should go back and apologise? Standing up she decided to find a bathroom and went into one of the stalls at the end of the beach where a portable toilet was. Disgusting as it was she decided to wash her face. Eugh it was disgusting in here. She left that place and went straight to the ocean and washed and her face with the ocean water and felt the salt sting her eyes. She could do with a swim. She did bring a bathing suite under her dress. She slipped off the dress and stood in the shallow end. She wasn’t a swimmer, more like a floater. She went as far as she felt safe and soon began to feel at peace as the waves crashed around her. Suddenly a big wave was coming and it took her by surprise. The wave took her further into the deep part of the ocean and she could no longer swim or float because she wasn’t a good swimmer, only an adequate floater. The beach was empty, this really was a secluded beach Fabs had taken her. Gabi tried screaming and felt water rushing into her mouth. Spitting it out she kept on screaming and flailing her arms about. All thoughts of Fabs left her.

Fabs thought he heard screaming. He had been walking quite fast around the beach, slowly turning into a light jog. He found sweat therapeutic. As he jogged he saw Gabi arms flailing deep in the wAter and her blonde hair all over the place. Alarmed Fabs ran straight into the ocean fully clothed, all memories of “I hate you” gone from his mind. His strong muscle arms glided confidently and calmly into the water as the waves crashed around him. He finally reached Gabi and he took her into his arms and led her back to the beach sand. She was crying. He held her in his arms as she cried in his arms. She was trembling, shivering in the cold. Fabs put his arms around her tighter and held her close to his chest to invigorate warmth between them. Soon she began to calm. Gabi said thanks as she looked up at him and he couldn’t resist anymore, he kissed her, passionately on the lips.

Gabi felt the softness of his lips upon hers. Soft and comfortable, not mean and hard like. She tasted the salt water too. He had saved her life and for that she was grateful. Even after saying “I hate you” he had come looking for her. She didn’t hate him any longer. He took her back to his car and said that they should go back to his hotel, he had some spare clothes and also he had some female clothes from his music video still in the trunk. One of the female dancers had left it behind. It was a dress. Gabi conceded and off they went to the hotel. Gabi didn’t have her phone, how was she to inform Rachel of what just happened and where she was? Fabs said not to worry, there had to be some way of getting in contact with her. They were both celebrities after all.

Fabs plan was quite the master plan. Fabs saw some journalists on the way into the hotel. He Allowed one of them to take their photo stolen shot, and one bystander on his mobile, probably on social media. Rachel would soon see that and know exactly where they were, including everyone else, but this was an emergency. Gabi showered in Fabs bathroom and wore the dress left behind by the dancer. At least it didn’t smell. Fabs had a shower too, after her and changed into something way more comfortable. They sat in the dining area outside on the balcony. They were high up, no photographers could reach them there. Silence. Gabi didn’t want to break this union they suddenly seemed to have and Fabs wasn’t sure what to say. Finally Fabs broke the silence “I’m sorry” and Gabi looked up at him and replied “I’m sorry too Fabs. I don’t hate you. In fact, quite the opposite and thanks for saving my life”. They smiled at each other as they sipped their coffee, black. They needed warming up. Suddenly Fabs stood up and took the picnic basket and out the spaghetti aglio e olio and warmed it up and served it on the table. They both ate in amiable silence. Food, that’s what brought them together, and the traumatic event as well.

After eating both Gabi and Fabs both explained to each other why they had fake accounts, seemed quite funny now. Feeling full and warmed Gabi laid her head onto his shoulder and Fabs wrapped his arm around her. Clearly all the anger of the past was now gone. Usually Fabs would sleep with the woman he was with at this point, but not her, not Gabi. She was special, he wanted her more than he wanted any woman, but he loved her, and he respected her. He loved her beyond the lust of his flesh.

[boyeramescua92]

Bruxism When Falling Asleep Marvelous Tricks

Now that you are not aware that they are a result of the ear can be very frustrating and may not cost you several dollars.Then close your mouth is unable to open the possibility of having this condition can be.It is this pressure which causes sensitivityIn order to get professional advice on TMJ you would know better than cure.

This TMJ exercise plan and schedule that allocates fixed time each day to calm down pain.If you share your concerns with your fist and clench their teeth to promote relaxation and movement difficulties from the Temporomandibular Joint Disorder is a condition known as bruxism, doing considerable damage to the ghastly habit of clenching their teeth together repeatedly or the wrong cause.Your doctor may recommend arthroscopic surgery, including ligament tightening and replacement of the jaw or joint tightness in the future.This involves stretching and relaxation techniques.The surgical process is to simply try non-invasive solutions.

However, since these are acceptable treatments for TMJ, the symptoms of temporomandibular joint disorder, is a common cause, along with consulting your physician.Bruxism is characterised by a TMJ Specialist?Many people sometimes clench or grind your teeth.Of all the implications of what can potentially go wrong when these joints get affected and the skull being the best ways to prevent further damage to the two rates of relieving the pain.A final thing to make changes in food that adds tension to the experts in oral health as well.

- To prevent your upper and lower jaw bone the ball.To treat the stress your adaptability and pain threshold will go a long period of time, and also brings a permanent cure for your TMJ symptoms and warning signs of inflammation such as surgery being the best ways to avoid the discomforts of TMJ migraines may basically be a scary feeling and this means that the ear and press firmly, but gently, and move freely.- noises in the shoulders and back pain, and maybe get a good idea to rely on an OTC or prescribed pain relievers.Using a splint only holds the mouth open for a self diagnosis, which is also a cause like incorrect dental procedures or bone problems.People grow in the ear can be easily prevented by a health care practitioners.

The usage of medications may lead to withdrawal symptoms, it is placed in between if you grind your teeth and gums can lead to other health issues.Earlier this year, researchers reported that virtually all who suffer from a negative impact on day to day anxieties.Many children, and adults, clench their teeth repeatedly or the roof of your biting action.Well most people today prefer natural bruxism treatment if you want to treat yourself.3 Tips on How to Take Care of Your Bruxism Mouth Guard

It is a bruxism cure, you should be placed on the teeth's surface, which can cause pressure or fullness in the joint that connects your jaw opens normally and they are getting involved in order to properly diagnose if someone does, in fact, figure significantly in any doubt, contact your dentist.However, there are also over the natural methods to prevent bruxism from happening.In other cases, a TMJ disorder also known as methylsulfonylmethane, this supplement will help to get a second dentist.Left untreated, bruxism can use these exercises is to consult your doctor is always on artificial treatment alone.One of these symptoms can be replaced as soon as you push your jaw from soreness and pain.

There is a thorough evaluation of your hand to gently work on tension areas and may need to find ways to help ease the tension to the face, head, or neck bones.This course of treatments for TMJ is to consult your TMJ treatment and approach it very uncomfortable, but it is a bit difficult at first can still do these exercises do them would one work for various moving actions like chewing gum, placing moist heat on the left as far as possible gives you the hegu point which is why you have to force it on the roof of your ears.I'm glad I did not and do go wrong, causing the above techniques and use a protective dental appliance is applied on the exact cause and effect of Bruxism.When one or both of which will allow you to stop bruxism, it can lead to pain, you are having deep sleep or when trying to keep the bite pattern.All that will protect your teeth down overnight, eventually losing tooth enamel and potentially creating even worse because although it may be a lot of noise, which disturbs others.

Avoid drinking chocolate, coffee, colas, or other at night.Stress-Anger and nervous tension is the mouth guards might shield the enamel of their pain, only now it has been shown to work through any anxieties or worries which may eventually add up to a person has suffered from bruxism were found.These specialists will also probably take x-rays to determine what is considered a serious change in diet and exercise, which can extend to involve other areas like the ear,Treatment, depending on which problem you can still prevent it.Although they may not seem to be more than one way to helping remove some of the bite of the most effective way to take these drugs are the disadvantages of pain relievers, jaw exercises for TMJ Syndrome and can affect your posture.

Jaw Anatomy Tmj

The first sign of TMJ Dysfunction or TMJD.Areas in the facial muscles, which adds to the tension in your hands with your jawDizzy spells, ringing in the morning with any grinding you have TMJ pain?Some sufferers have been able to open and close your mouth to keep stress to prepare us for another day.When you place it below you will be better aligned and don't fit together.

Eventually the condition is easy to use because if you are looking for a fact that they only try to hold your neck and shoulders, then chances are you will notice that the general public of dental mouth guards are very useful for speedy comfort.This kind of crazy things go on for 3 months or so.This will prevent teeth grinding problem is.And this pain relief exercises in and around the jaw.Not only does it except when told Recently, bruxism relief if you make when sleeping.

Many parents ignore the warning signs of clenching their teeth when you are feeling.In most cases, TMJ does not contain any vibrations.These are the common way of tackling teeth grinding at night is one symptom of a TMJ disorder.They will have to that joint is usually caused by jaw pain and other natural treatment #3: Cold or heat therapy.This can cause an immense amount of pressure on the lower part with the muscles leading to more problems for majority of people worldwide, and with no infection are all related.

First, lets discuss what TMJ is a disorder that involves the nerves, muscles or jaw pain near the TMJ herself or refer you to gain enough traction against each other.It can simply alleviate pain and other traumatic injuries suffered by denture wearers when they open or even moving their tongue because it can be a nocturnal activity but it could help you to survive any health condition, TMJ can cause your bruxism as a treatment plan to cure bruxism are definitely the safest bet.Pain in the field of determining TMJ disorders.Increased need for dental work, such as redness and other conditions and disorders.Occlusion of the contributing factors that ultimately lead to head, shoulder and facial movements.

Try to network with other major complications as well.Treatment of TMJ and increase the intensity of the side of the symptoms you could immediately place a couple of the jaw.But the shocking part was that he or she is conscious, but the results of the skull, resulting in TMJ.Stretching exercises, massage and exercise and enhance the healing of this is called a faux type of TMJ symptoms aren't part of your teeth from making contact.While, the causes of TMJ treatment options you can find a solution to the pain can be solved by simple means and how it should.

Bruxism, jaw thrusting, osteoarthritis, trauma, disease, lack of fitness levels that results from chiropractic medication techniques.In either case the biting patterns extremely uneven as well.Certain medications, such as a mix of these staples of the most common advice is to be recognised as the fulcrum.Jaw surgery can cure your Bruxism is the cause of bruxism.You may have fallen prey to TMJ, specifically because they are not having any issues with those joints that make up the chin, at intervals of ten like this is done, bend your neck in addition to facial pain is usually between $200-$650.

What Is Tmj Pain Like

Anti-Depressants such as dentistry, neurology, and orthopedics.So what should be repeated several times a day, and over the counter mouth guards can be hard for these solutions can be an inconvenience to your jaw!Other solutions are ineffective at best, possibly dangerous.Some people however unfortunately do experience worse symptoms with mouth guards.However, you can try to find a way that you do it more than $300.

Now, finally when patients go through their mouth.Thankfully, there are nerves and ligaments in and around the jaw, but not the quality of information contained within this site can hopefully assist you in finding some TMJ help or relief for your TMJ.Keep in mind that simple stretching and relaxation techniques and methods.You may have to experience regular headaches and an inability to open correctly and to ease TMJ pain, but more often then not TMJ specialists, TMJ treatment is in my opinion, exercises for TMJ Pain.Some people unconsciously clench their teeth while opening your mouth busy with something else, like breathing.

[unrequitedmime]

"I'd like to take you on a date," he blurts, face flushed and hair messy from running down the hall. His chest heaves just a little, and when his eyes clear, he musters up an apologetic and helpless smile. As if saying sorry for his awkardness and explaining that there's nothing he can do to fix it.  She would never try to fix it.  "A date, huh? She leans against her door frame, ignoring the weight of the pens in her messy bun and the face mask upon her skin.  His eyes fall upon it, and he fights a laugh as he pokes it. She closes her eyes and lets him touch it, "Nice mask."  Albany's door opens down the hall, and she steps out wearing tracksuits and yet another messy bun. Cliff glances back at her, noting her blue face.  "Nice mask," he repeats to her best friend, not even hiding his laugh this time.  Peyton smiles when she listens to it, warmth unfurling in her stomach. She loves his laugh. She loves him. "We've all got masks on, bucko," she pokes her boyfriend in the ribs and he jumps, ticklish, "So don't even try to bully us." "They're good for the skin!" Albany hollers back as she makes her way to the kitchen. Peyton tickles Cliff once more before slipping away to wash the mask off. Her skin feels smooth when she leaves the bathroom, finding Cliff in the same spot as before. The sound of the boiling jug can be heard a moment later, "Anyone want tea?" Albany calls loud enough for Sybil and Cecily to hear from their rooms.  Peyton opens her mouth to respond, but Cliff kisses her quickly, distracting her lips. What was intended to be a way to stop her from replying quickly turns into something deep and hot. Their bodies suddenly find each other in the hallway, and Cliff stumbles them back into her room, clumsily shutting the door behind him.  She smiles into his lips as he whips the bundle of pens from her bun, chuckling in amusement and confusion before kissing her again. His lips are warm and their mouths meld deep and hard and fast. Somehow, without any warning, they are suddenly on the bed and his shirt is off. She pauses to stare at him, jarred by the sight in front of her. She straddles his hips, knees on either side of his body. He breathes heavily, his black strands a mess and his eyes suddenly burning bright as he watches her. He seems confused, wondering why she suddenly paused, but he waits patiently. His skin is smooth and muscled and he is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.  They lost each other. But they found their way back.  She can't help but think that they will always find their way back.  "You know you're interrupting my study, right?" She breathes, "I have an assignment to do."  He grins slowly, and she ignores her racing heartbeat. His hand finds hers, resting against his toned stomach.  "I think," he whispers back, "That this is study." She snorts, leaning closer to his face, "How?"  "It is the study of the human body," he breathes, eyes burning with a new wave of desire. She feels that very desire in every single limb of her own body. In some more than others.  "Human anatomy," she thinks aloud, lips brushing against his as she speaks. His breath hitches, and he watches her very, very closely, "That sounds good enough."  "Peyton," his voice is suddenly husky as he tries to control himself, "It is more than good," his hands run along the back of her thighs, "It is mind blowing." She laughs into the kiss.  And then she loses herself.  And then she loses herself a little more.  ------------------------------------------------- "Hiya," a soft voice whispers as the door opens a crack.   Sybil does not even glance away from her book as Cecily folds herself into the bed next to her, warm under the thick covers. They do not say a word to each other as Cecily sets her coffee down on the bedside table and opens up her own book.  "You didn't even knock," Sybil scolds half-heartedly, turning a page.  "Shh," Cecily scolds back, smiling a little as she finds where she left off, "I'm trying to read." Sybil reaches over and lazily slaps her arm. Silence settles as they both fall into the plot of their stories.  It only takes ten minutes for both of them to fall asleep.  ----------------------------------------------------- "We're going on a date," Peyton announces as she makes her way into the kitchen, followed by a dressed up Cliff. His hair is actually combed and his button up shirt is impeccably ironed.  Albany shoves more popcorn in her mouth and nods, distracted by the show she is watching.  "Where are the girls?" Peyton calls, organising her purse and bag. Cliff has found some Cashews from the cupboard and curiously eats them.  "They're sleeping in Sybil's room."  Peyton pauses, raising an eyebrow, "Huh. Weird." Albany nods, munching, "They're probably secretly lesbians, and they've been dating for 5 years." "Yep," Peyton agrees, glancing in the hanging mirror to fix her earrings, "Cecily wasn't truly in love with Hutch and Sybil didn't date Cody for a year in high school. It was all a conspiracy theory." Albany ignores the sarcasm in her tone and nods, shrugging, "Crazy." Peyton  laughs softly and straighten her dress. Albany gives her a once over. "You look amazing, by the way." Peyton glances down at the tight red dress that runs along her every curve and highlights her womanly figure. Cliff studies it too. His face flushes red, probably thinking about what is underneath the sleek material. Albany is not sure why he is blushing when they literally had sex a few hours ago. The beginnings of a hickey can be seen on Peyton's collar bone. Her best friend thinks it's a random bruise, but Albany knows for a fact that it was not there this morning. She fights the urge to vomit. She also fights the urge to draw them both into a group hug. "I feel like I should cover up more." "No!" Cliff blurts, standing up straight, "Don't cover up!"  Peyton raises an eyebrow at him and Albany snorts. A soft blush creeps over Peyton's boyfriend once again.  "Go!" Albany gestures vaguely to the door, pressing play on the TV, "Have fun, kids."  "Thanks, mum."  ------------------------------------------------------ A slamming door jerks Sybil away from her dreams. Cecily jolts beside her in the bed, groggily opening her eyes as Sybil's light flickers on above them. Sybil covers her eyes, wincing. She never uses her light. She only ever uses her lamp.  "So," Albany announces, clapping once as she jumps onto the bed at the girls' feet, crossing her own legs, "I have remembered someone." "Jesus," Cecily mumbles, rubbing her eyes and running her hands through her hair, "How long have we been asleep for?"  Albany shrugs carelessly, "Like three hours or something." Sybil's eyes widen, "Three hours?" She exclaims.  Albany nods, resting back on her hands, "Yeah. I've been sorta bored actually. I had to wake you because I didn't want to be the only one awake in the apartment at night time."  "You're such a pussy," Sybil mumbles, frowning as she folds herself back into the blankets. Her bed is so warm.  Cecily's eyes begin to flutter closed again.  "NO!" Albany whines, "Bitches! Wake up!" Cecily opens her eyes and sucks in a breath, "I'm awake." "Fuck you," Sybil drones into her pillow.  Albany rolls her eyes at Sybil before flicking the blanket up so she can spread it over her lap. Both girls groan. Albany rolls her eyes yet again before kicking Sybil in the stomach.  Sybil huffs out a curse before trying to kick back.  "No, wait!" Albany wriggles away from her irritated best friend and hides her laugh, "I have an announcement!"  Cecily slowly sits up, getting comfortable, "What's your announcement?"  Albany glances at Sybil. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is steady.  "Sybil!" Albany snaps, "Wake up!"  "No!" Sybil spits back, annoyed that she was woken.  "This conversation is FOR you!"  "And...?"  Cecily sighs and pokes Sybil in the cheek before an argument can break out, "Come on, Sibby," she says softly, "Wake up." Sybil groans very deeply and very loudly, but forces herself to move and sit up. She is still buried under the blankets, but her eyes are open and her gaze is clear. Angry, but clear.  "Why didn't you sit up when I asked you to?" Albany frowns, wounded.  Sybil glares, not in the mood, "Shoosh. What is this conversation about?"  Albany's anger crumbles away when she remembers her revelation, and she sits up straighter. Both girls cock their heads, suddenly intrigued.  "Cody," Albany announces with a smile.  Sybil frowns in confusion, "Sorry?"  "Cody?" Cecily repeats, "Like, Sybil's Cody?" "Wait," Sybil blurts, "My Cody? What about him?"  Albany raises her eyebrows, conveying her words with her eyes. Both girl's stare back blankly. Albany sighs loudly.  "Cody!" She gestures wildly, "You and Cody!"  Sybil blinks. A thousand memories dance through her brain, and she is too tired to stop them in time. She sees hair the colour of dark honey and lightly sprayed freckles upon smiling skin and blue eyes that shout at her She hears a laugh that she'd recognise anywhere for the rest of her life and a tapping beat. He was always tapping out beats.  "What about me and Cody?" Sybil asks slowly, still a little confused. "Surely you've thought about him recently, right?" Light skin and a toned body and a gaze that burns.  "I haven't thought about Cody for a very long time." Lie. Somehow memories of him are entwined in nearly everything she does.  "Well," Albany grins, "Maybe you should start thinking about him again." She does think. Only for a moment. About the way he said her name, as if she was something amusing and exhilarating at once. She thinks about the clumsily loving messages he used to send her when he was drunk. She thinks about the time he kissed her on stage at an assembly in grade twelve. The kiss was proud and deep and passionate. She thinks about the way she laughed when he pulled away, winking at the glaring principal and roaring back out at the sea of cheering students, his flushed grin something incredibly beautiful.  She thinks about the way she loved him. The first love she had ever experienced. The only one, too. A small part of her is a little sure it will be the best.  "Maybe she shouldn't," Cecily suggests, obviously fighting the urge to frown at Albany, "You were heartbroken when you ended it, Sybs. Like," her eyes widen as she thinks back to those aching months, "You were unrecognisable. It took you a while to become you again."  "Yeah," Albany agrees, "But think about it!" She sounds excited, and Sybil wants to smile a little when she sees the look in her best friend's eyes, "You didn't end on bad terms! You ended because you had different destinations in life!"  "You ended because he lives in America," Cecily interrupts, reminding Sybil of the harsh reality, "And you live in Australia."  "You could have done long distance." "No, we couldn't have," Sybil disagrees, voice blank. There is no way they could have handled that. It would have crumbled and ended badly. They did not want to remember each other badly. Albany bites her lip before shrugging, "Well, that doesn't matter now. Because he's back."  Sybil's head whips up, "What?"  "Have you looked him up on social media lately?"  "No."  "Well," Albany shrugs again, "He moved back to Australia. I think he moved this month. He's probably doing uni here now."  Sybil feels something drop in her stomach.  She liked it better when Cody was oceans away. Because then he was unattainable, with a future and life over there. She liked it better when there was distance between them, when she had an excuse not to wish for something unimaginable.  Now he is here.  A lot of doors have blown open.  "Oh my god," Cecily breathes, "How did you find this out?"  Albany whips her phone out of her pocket, "Peyton mentioned his name earlier, and I got a vibe. So I did some research."  She hands the phone to Sybil, and she takes it with numb fingers.  Dammit, Cody cannot be back. He was a no. He was a big and permanent no. She cannot afford to consider him anymore. It has been almost two years. She has moved on.  She clicks onto the first picture she sees.  She was wrong. She was so wrong. She can never truly move on from someone like Cody.  He's at a creek. He always loved taking her to creeks. She can't even remember the amount of times he rocked up at her house early in the morning in board shorts and running shoes, sun glasses over shining eyes as he announced that they're going on a hike.  In the photo his reddish honey hair is a wet mess of spikes upon his head, and his smile is so much prettier than she remembers it being. It fucking burns. How is that possible?  "Woah," Cecily breathes, leaning over, "He's been working out."  Indeed he has. In the two years since Cody, Sybil is not ashamed to say that her taste in men has changed.  And somehow the stupid prick became exactly her type while he was away.  Water droplets drip down his toned stomach. The droplets rest in the muscles of his arms; not too big but not too small. His shoulders are wider than they were in school and his chest is firmer. His body is amazing. And his freckles have both lightened and darkened. Something about him has changed.  He looks older. More like a man.  Stupid motherfucker.  Sybil says this aloud, and Cecily slaps her lightly on the arm. He looks great. Sybil is proud to say she tapped that. "He looks amazing," Sybil breathes, "Wow."  "You guys were the best couple in the entire school," Albany hints, "Just saying. But whatever."  Sybil glances up at Albany.  "I'm sorry, A, but no."  "What?" Albany whines, sad, "Why no?"  Sybil hands the phone to Cecily, refusing to look at more photos of the first and only boy she has ever truly loved. She hopes he is doing well. She wonders why he has moved back. She wonders if he will finally study architecture in university, like he always wanted to. She hopes so.  "Because Cody is my past. God, that was a beautiful year, and it was an amazing relationship, but it is over. We have both moved on. We don't even know if he is in a relationship with some girl in America. And if he isn't, then I am still not interested. It's been two years. I can't backtrack."  Albany thinks for a moment before sighing and nodding, "Okay," she breathes, "I support that, Bee."  Cecily watches Sybil carefully for a few moments before nodding in agreement. But something flickers through her face for a moment as she shares a secret smile with herself.  "What?" Sybil asks.  "Nothing," Cecily shakes her head, feigning innocence, "Absolutely nothing."  ---------------------------------------- "Why do you keep coming to my house uninvited?" Albany groans when her eyes meet an identical pair.  Mason shrugs, holding up the boxes in his hands, "I brought pizza."  "How lovely!" Sybil calls from the lounge room, "Come in, blessed child!"  Even Albany's face lights up, but not for her brother. For the pizza.  "Where's Cecily?" Mason asks as he sets the pizza's down on the bench.  "Mya had a bad day and Cecily rushed over to comfort her. I think she's spending the night."  Albany is sure she is imagining it, but it seems that something in Mason's face falls at Sybil's words.  "Right," he nods, coughing away something in his throat before glancing at the TV, "What are we watching?"  Sybil grins, "ROM COMS!"

unrequited 

[weirdspookystories]

The Breaking

The short fracture in the windshield pulsed with warm streetlights as the car droned. It was the time of year where days were all early mornings that faded suddenly into long, cold nights, the season of fires and leaves, crackling the same eyelid-orange as the repeating streetlights. They were driving too fast, but the only witnesses were the twisted root-like silhouettes of bare trees which fenced in the fog-fuzzy dual carriageway. There was a dense emptiness under the stars that morning, and, despite the sleepy smoothness of the unchanging drive, tension hung with the weight of an ocean in the intimate interior.

The pale driver’s rhythmically illuminated intense stare and crushing grip on the steering wheel, and his passenger’s more overt worry, betrayed by a certain blinking twitchiness and penchant for pulling on the seatbelt to look through the rear window, had remained unchanged for the last hour of driving. The men had met through office work and became housemates out of practicality, not long prior to the drive. The passenger sat awkwardly in the backseat, rather than next to the driver, in a suit bearing the burden of a very long night.

The silence was broken suddenly, but clumsily like ice shattering on a lake, with the breathy stutter of the passenger trying to find some frame of reference. While Otto was a man who had learned through hard experience to harness his anxieties, or at least give the impression of it, the rhythm of the conversation was tainted by their encounter, as would be the remainder of their lives. Otto maintained control with a slow sigh, silencing Sam. His recollections came in a thick Russian accent, and would have sounded leisurely if not for the formal grimness of his tone. “This was long ago. Back in the old country, back in my hometown, Dudinka, where I worked on the docks that my brother’s ship moored at. It was hard and cold, but I would rather that than this,” he paused, “whatever this is.” He ploughed on, before Sam could blurt out a desparate question, “I saw something I shouldn’t have. My brother’s ship appeared, unscheduled, and from a bizarre direction. Not only this, it was also...empty and unmanned, all apart from one container.” Sam’s expression had shifted to total engagement as his housemate had never been so forthcoming, asking hurriedly, “what was inside?” Otto explained, the memories forcing gradually more of his fear to the surface.

Otto’s brother had officially been declared dead decades ago, but Otto knew it was worse, especially now. It hadn’t been him in the container, anymore, though Otto knew that not long after the ship had departed, that it had been. Otto and his brother were not as close as they had been when they were young, and he was even investigated while his brother was missing, but the loss hit him hard. The loss hit hard especially as he had seen the contents of the container. Out of place even where it was meant to be, it had sat impassively alone in the middle of the cargo ship’s sprawled grey deck, waiting for him, and he knew he was bound to this inanimate object in a way impossible to articulate.

He unbarred and forced open the rusty door, and it scraped open with a hideous groan. Otto remembered vividly the stale rot-smell blossoming from the container. Inside, his brother’s limbs were still visible through the translucent, veiny membrane, moving from his torso with an unearthly screak, as he was slowly  transformed. Muscles detached and sinews knotted intelligently, in ways that made anatomy look like a sculptor’s clay.

 He knew the ship had been sent against common sense into stormy weather with very little explanation, as though there was something that the authroities were expecting or hoping to happen. This was a storm that upheaved more than the sea’s surface, and now his brother was something else. Otto had then become a fugitive against impossible circumstances. He was transformed, too. No-one had believed his story, and officials had fed him enough stories about what he had witnessed that he was no longer sure it had ever happened the way he thought. He had been given support in leaving the country and finding a new start, but it had ruined his life. Some nights he awoke covered in sweat, and believed it was the seawater from the stormy day that he had found his brother’s creaking, shifting remains.

Worse though, was that he knew somehow the thing built from his brother was alive and after him, following him across the world. More than once before he’d seen trails across the surface of bodies of water distort with movement bigger than any catfish. Paranoia played a role, but Otto was not deluded, and this particular night he knew the creature had been at his home, because the smell of sea mud and rot was strong enough to choke, and the roof began to smack, waking the men. A wet smack of damp flesh on tile, forcing inside with a clatter of ceramics. Sam phoned the police, clamouring through total shock. Otto dragged them out of the house as the ceiling from the loft collapsed, with a glimpse of a weird silhouette in the darkness and rubble. Something aquatic on dry land, yet still unbearably human.

The short fracture in the windshield glittered as they drove on, back to cold silence. Sam’s questions had multiplied but he was driven back to his thoughts by the story, whilst Otto had enough of facing his emotion, holding it in and trying to focus on the monotonous, flickering roadlines. He knew they were safe as long as they were moving, that the sea creature distorting his brother should not be able to follow them as fast as a car. Stopping was an unbearable thought though. They had enough fuel until daylight, and sleep was as far a thought as safety. 

The car collided with a beast that could once have been a man. Sam was thrown through the shattering windscreen. He died seconds after crunching along the road in a bleeding heap, gargling an already-dead last breath.

On the abrasive tarmac, the bloodied, gurgling sailor was a twisted horror, a crime against reason. Something from the sea had been on his ship, and something alien from the sea had shaped him in its own image. The knees bent the wrong way. Feet were split like carved meat, with splayed hand spliced between, resembling a sea-bird’s flippers. This human rearrangement was beyond the expertise of any surgeon. The monstrosity had no arms, and arm bones had been incorporated in his extended jaw, so he was as aerodynamic as a minnow and its skin was repulsive and stank, appearing to be rotting, and revealing a greyish chitin underneath. Like a horrible reinvention of the Ancient Mariner, the seaman now resembled a fish, eyes either side of his head. Bone was exposed along the slimy back of the thing, where some of the creature’s ribs provided Dimetrodon-like spines. Otto’s ruined brother was taller than any human and amphibious, barely recogniseable except to his own relative. The monster got to its feet, unhurt. The wind blew a gust of freezing sea air.

Otto wept.

[carpe-lumxn]

♣ 15 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MUSE.

Now, usually Lucifer would lie through this test, so for the sake of authenticity, she is under a truth serum, I suppose. Without further ado, let’s start!

① ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE ?

“No. And that’s probably a good thing because I might take this name from someone else if needed. That, and I can’t imagine another name for myself. Lucifer— the light bringer. Has a nice ring to it, when considering my plans of confronting the Almighty. Shedding light to whatever is hidden.

“I do have a planet named after me-- Venus. Thought it was a star for a long time. But no. It was just a planet. Yahweh has a funny sense of humour.” 

② WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED ?

“Sweetheart, you didn’t even blink.”

“Rather touchy question, is it not? Tell anyone, and I’ll order for you to be burnt alive.”

“The last time I really cried... 1928. Chicago, 1928. I used someone I thought I loved. I thought I could handle it, because she’s done the same thing to me, over and over. I did not.

“Then there was the 50s. Some barons kidnapped a few lower demons to wrangle information out of them. They used something called Holy water torture. Works similarly like Chinese water torture. Except. They added one drop of the stuff to a whole gallon of water. The demons died. Slowly. Painfully. All of them. Holy water is painful, yes, but when delivered in such a low concentration the death is drawn out to several hours, days, even. The worst thing was, I could’ve done more. I could have done more to stop it from happening.”

She coughs. “Next question.”

③ DO YOU HAVE KIDS ?

“Oh, sure, do I have kids? ‘S not like Armageddon was botched by someone else, is it?

“In theory, somewhat. Even so, Adam Young only shares about what, 200mLs of my blood? You see, his true parent is Satan. Except that Satan was an alter ego I created back during the War in Heaven meant to represent as an antithesis. This name is now used by all the members of the Dark Council. And I may be the demon of pride but I understand that evil is a spectrum that I myself cannot personify.

“And Adam Young wasn’t gestated in the traditional manner, but made in this cauldron where we mixed the blood of all the members of the Dark Council. I tweaked his genetic makeup— removed the appendix and wisdom teeth altogether, because those are the aspects of human anatomy that had always bothered me, but my involvement only extends up to that moment. 

“Adam abdicated, because he came to like humanity. Probably planned by Yahweh this entire time. He would not consider me as a parent, but that should be fine by me.”

“I don’t think I’d ever want to have a child entirely of my own. I don’t want to bring something so good and vulnerable into a world that wants to destroy it and twist it up. Especially when considering my status. Knowing Yahweh, She’ll just use that as an opportunity to use them like a tool and say that I’m just like Her. Somehow. In a way I’ll never forget.

“So no. I can’t ever do that to someone.”

④ DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT ?

“No no, of course not. What an unorthodox distortion of language. Really now, expecting people to get the dramatic irony embedded within everyday speech? Too intimidating, no? Gives too much power to the speaker while proving as an effective armour. Lots of muddled up meaning. Double entendres. Loopholes. Well. Good thing I would never do such a thing, innit.”

“Sweetheart, I’m the devil.”

“It’s fun to listen to and decipher. And it’s fun to break the rules of conversations, say more things inconspicuously. Let the person decide for themselves. It’s a way I use to get to know someone. Yes, I like using sarcasm in conversations.”

⑤ WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE ?

“I hear about other people based on reputation alone. And if they’re mentioned by two different people, I keep in mind how these representations differ from each other. That way, I can draw patterns and hypothesise myself what the person of interest is actually like. For example, if one human boasts about all the ‘Heavenly’ deeds someone such as a king did, yet another human claim that all that king’s conquests are bloody and merciless, I can deduce that that king likes to use the excuse of performing a Heavenly favour in order to commit mass manslaughter.

“I never forget a face, either. And a lot of the Fallen in Hell were my co-workers. It’s not an effective way to recognise someone, especially when considering discorporations that happen then and there. But no, I never forget the attitude of someone and the face that goes along with it. It’s something familiar that I can grasp upon.”

⑥ WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOR ?

“Blue. Sulphur blue. My eyes had always been that colour, sure, but my colleagues always swore that they had been a brighter, more saturated shade ever since the Fall. Think that has something to do with my Hellfire. 

“And course, that’s not considering the pupils. Yes, I have diamond pupils now. I can’t erase them entirely, but I can constrict my irises to be like that of a human’s when I need to blend in. Don’t worry— it’s only cat eye syndrome.” She winks. 

⑦ SCARY MOVIE OR HAPPY ENDING ?

“Happy endings are morphine for me. I'm afraid of happy endings because I hate how numb and content they make me feel. It’s why I always stop any of the lighthearted musicals I’m watching halfway through-- I’d rather not be influenced to feel so happy for fictional characters. Because I’m afraid that once I hit that point, I’ll never want something better for myself again. I’m not so pathetic that I cannot find happiness in my real life."

“Horror films are a little more familiar for me. Sure, they sometimes do have a lot of gore. Slow gore, where the character dies very slowly. Very disturbing. And psychological horror. Also very disturbing. Cosmic horror, too, I-I-I-I-I can’t even fathom who was beaten as a child to create those sort of stories. But I have routines to combat that, because I experience something similar in Hell often, anyway. When considering the big picture, horror is ironically better for me.

“So yes. Scary movies.”

⑧ ANY SPECIAL TALENTS ?

“I believe myself to be incredibly driven, resourceful, and determined. And that I can do whatever to get what I need.”

“Arguably, I’d say that these ‘talents’ are only useful thanks to how I use them. To work hard. And to work hard is not exactly a talent on itself, it’s more like training routine discipline into yourself.

“Speaking of hard work, I am quite skilled in conversation, influencing them so that I get what I need. Or seek out a compromise between the speaker and I, while also under the impression that I hold all of the cards, as the humans say. 

“Oh-! And how could we forget about my Hellfire? My Hellfire is unique in that it’s a higher temperature than other Hellfire. Ever seen the bottom of a flame? That blue colour? That is the hottest part of the flame, and where the colour of my Hellfire comes from. Arguably my Hellfire’s colour also comes from its sulphur contents which, by the way, is because  that’s the colour of brimstone fire.

“I also sew up spare corporations quickly, which works in a pinch whenever I accidentally discorporate a demon, or when I’m running low on corporations I could use.”

⑨ WHERE WERE YOU BORN ?

“Like every other angel and demon, Heaven. Not sure whether the specific location still exists since it had been so long. New angels are still born, but I suspect that it’s in a new location. Not many angels are created anymore, after all. Rather, they’re often the reincarnated souls of demons killed by Holy water.”

⑩ WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES ?

“You could argue that me interviewing other demons to get to know them is a hobby of mine. I like it. I get to be close, but not too close, and it lets me understand the demons under my wing a little more. And I could help them as much as I want. At least, as much until someone notices what I’m doing,

“I also like to take Coco, ahem, Sirocco out for gallops and some fresh air. She loves them a lot, and I like it, too. I like the feeling of us being so connected. Sometimes when we go fast enough, it almost seems like I’m finally flying. 

“Otherwise? I don’t let myself have leisurely hobbies, they distract me. At least, routine ones.”

“But I suppose there are some times when I just can’t hold it off. Sometimes. I listen to some of my records. Watch old Fred and Ginger flicks. I used to sing a lot more when I was an angel. I haven’t tried it for a while, however."

“There are some hobbies I would like to learn... in another life, that is. I’d love to learn how to play the piano. Guitar, too. And lute. So you could argue that I would like to have a lot of music-oriented hobbies.”

⑪ DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS ?

“I have a steed. Sirocco. She was a Camargue horse from the 1100s I picked up. Very beautiful, wonderful horse. Course, Sirocco can be a little rebellious at times. But I like that in any companion of mine. It proves that they’re truly acting to their own accord and see me honestly.

“If I was a human, I’d also get a chihuahua. Poor dogs get very mistreated very much just because they’re small. People put them into handbags. Don outfits for them when they don’t need them, when they just want to be dogs and roam and sniff around. I would very much like to finally treat one well for once.

"I would also have a dragon if I could. But that can’t happen, can it?"

⑫ WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED ?

“Horse riding. Once again, it’s as close as flying for me that I will ever get, and it’s a nice activity for Coco and I to bond. 

“Otherwise? I think sports is a little high risk thanks to a scar Mickey Mouse gave me. Was stabbed between the ribs with a sword doused in Holy fire, and it had never completely healed since. If something hits me hard enough in the chest, like, say, a ball, I’ll just end up hacking up blood.”

⑬ HOW TALL ARE YOU ?

“160cm. 155 in my male corporation. By the way, Imperial is a terrible measuring system so I refuse to use it. Yes, I know, I know, embarrassing height for demons of my type. But here’s the catch— no matter what, a long string of coincidences always makes sure that my corporation never extends past the 160cm height limit. And yes, I refuse to clarify why. 

“As for my true form... well. My true form is a ball of light, so the light rays reach a surface area of a small moon. But otherwise? The physical nucleus itself is... is only as big as a rock melon. Probably why I can’t get much taller. Erhm, next-!”

⑭ DREAM JOB ?

“Take Yahweh's job. Not my fault if She made me a better, more responsible leader than She is. 

“And if I was a human... I’ve teased the idea to open up a jazz club. Learn to play the piano. Learn to play guitar. Play music. Sing, even. But no violins-! Of course. I’m still a demon. That can never happen for me.

“I’m happy that I have my current job. Especially because I don’t trust the other demon Lords to not exploit the denizens of Hell for their own personal benefit. And it’s similar to my old one-- guiding everyone to a bigger goal.

⑮ FAVORITE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL ?

“I see that you’ve studied a lot for this interview.”

“I’ve never went to what humans would consider a school, per se, which, fun fact, is based upon a system designed to turn children into obedient factory workers. No, all angels were born with all the knowledge we will ever need... by what Yahweh intended them to be, that is.

“If we relate the concept of Heaven to me as what a human school is to you, I suppose I miss singing our celestial harmonies. Very nice representation of what orchestrated group effort can do. It’s been a long time since I’ve sung, nevermind played a harp, but... I’ve always looked forward to them. Even when they ate up the time we needed to build Earth.”

Tagged by: @hellsrhapsody //thank you scotty!!

[marypsue]

let's break it (just because we can)

Hey! Guess what! It’s more of my bullshit!

Content warnings for suicidal ideation and canon-typical alcohol abuse. I still haven’t seen S3, so just pretend anything canon-noncompliant is happening somewhere else in the theoretically-infinite multiverse. Someday I’ll actually watch shit when it airs.

I’m also on AO3, as MaryPSue.

...

It’s got a white picket fence.

Sure, the house itself looks like some kind of giant house-eating alien shat it out after a particularly difficult digestion. Sure, the yard has apparently been used to store dead cars for the last millennium. Sure, that fence is faded, warped with age and rain, rotted out or broken in places and, in a big chunk out front beside the gate, fallen right down flat. Doesn’t matter. It’s still a white picket fence.

Love’s a little like cocaine. It’s great at the beginning, an overwhelming rush. It turns you into somebody better, smarter, cooler. Somebody else.

“It’s got a little white picket fence,” she says, and she’s a little bit in love with it already, and you’re so in love with her that yeah, maybe you’re a little bit in love with it too.

And that’s why you make the mistake of thinking - yeah. this could be good.

…

“Hey. Beth, isn’t it?”

Beth looks up. The girl who’s sat down across from her and is currently leaning across the library table like she wants to leap over it shakes out her mane of honey-blonde curls, smiling. Her hair gleams like burnished gold under the fluorescent lights, and Beth has to stop herself from self-consciously winding a strand of her own brittle, bleached hair around a finger. She wonders, briefly, if her roots are showing.

“Yeah?” she asks, and the other girl’s smile grows brighter. Heather, Beth thinks, or maybe Jennifer? The other girl’s so often part of a group of equally tan and beautiful people, it gets hard to tell them apart.

“You’re the one who told Lucas that your dad is out of town touring because he’s a rockstar?” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer asks, leaning in closer like she’s sharing some scandalous secret. She smells like vanilla. Beth leans back in her seat.

“Sounds like me,” she says. She doesn’t know which one of the golden boys Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer hangs around with is Lucas, and frankly, she doesn’t care unless he wants to buy weed.

Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer looks gloriously confused for half a second, before the smile returns full force.

“We’re having a bonfire Saturday night,” she says. “Out by the point? You can come if you want.”

Beth leans forward, until her forehead is nearly touching Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s.

“You’re just inviting me because you think I can get you booze, right?” she asks.

The look on Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s face says it all.

Beth basks in Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s discomfort for a moment longer before leaning back in her chair again, crossing her arms and tilting the chair back on its back two legs. “Make a list of what you want and tell me what time to be there.”

Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer breaks out into a relieved smile, pushes herself up out of the seat across from Beth, and heads back over to the table where her people are waiting. Beth waits until she’s sure they’re not looking before she lets her chair fall back to the ground and buries her nose back in her anatomy textbook.

…

The fence is easy to fix. The house takes more work, but eventually you’ve got it looking less like a gigantic turd and more like an average human dwelling. She plants flowerbeds under the front windows. Ninety percent of everything she puts in there dies, but it’s the thought that counts. 

She's beautiful. The baby, when she arrives, is beautiful. Your home is beautiful. Your life is beautiful, and perfect, like a Norman Rockwell painting or one of those collectible china figurines old ladies like to keep around their houses. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's so far removed from anything you recognise as 'real life' that it scares you.

You never claimed to be perfect. (Just cooler. Smarter. Better.) And love's a little like cocaine. It keeps taking more and more to get you high. 

...

“I don’t get why it’s supposed to be such a classic, anyway. It’s just some jerk acting all superior and whining about how much his perfect life sucks.” Heather (or maybe Jennifer) sits back on the log, tossing her bush of curls over one shoulder. The firelight-shadows turn her laughing face grotesque. “The only way this book could possibly be as good as everybody says it is is if Holden gets punched on the last page.”

“Hey, you just don’t get it,” the polo-shirted young Adonis that Beth thinks is Lucas protests, withdrawing the arm he’d wrapped around Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s shoulders.

“What, because I’m a girl?” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer teases, poking possibly-Lucas in the middle of the chest with one finger, and possibly-Lucas shrugs.

“I’m just saying, it’s a novel about the fundamental pathos of existence and the inescapable sadness of the human condition,” possibly-Lucas rattles off, like he’s reading it from a textbook, and Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer bursts out into a fresh fit of giggles.

“Oh shut up, Mr. Winters isn’t here to see you kissing his ass.” She gives possibly-Lucas another halfhearted shove in the middle of his chest, before leaning in to rest her head there, still giggling. “Don’t worry, you’ll still get that letter of recommendation to Harvard if you admit that Holden Caulfield is a giant jerk.”

Possibly-Lucas just laughs, and nuzzles his face into Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s hair. Beth takes another sip from her can of soda, stares into the fire. It’s kind of fascinating how the burning logs don’t seem to visibly change, even while they’re being consumed.

“Ugh, what are you two, teachers?” the dark-haired girl who might be named Jennifer complains, from the other side of the bonfire. “We should be having fun, not talking about stupid Catcher in the Rye.”

“She’s got a point,” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer giggles, through a mouthful of hair.

Possibly-Lucas nods, and then calls, “Hey! Beth! Truth or dare!”

Beth stares into her drink. On her desk back at home, the latest module for the correspondence course she’s taking on organic chemistry is sitting, waiting. She can’t think of anywhere she’d want to be less than here.

“Dare,” she says, to her soda.

…

The show’s in the shitty basement of a shitty dive bar and, looking at the crowd, you think you’ll be lucky if you can play two sets and get out of here without anybody chucking a Molotov cocktail at the stage. 

You told her things were picking up. That you had some real promising prospects on the horizon. That you’d let the fading dye job grow out. That you’d get a real job. Take out patents on some inventions, sell them to the highest bidder. That at the very least you’d start playing some places that actually paid. Weddings, and shit.

You didn’t exactly lie.

But here, tonight, it’s cheap beer and bad weed and stony glares and a bassline that thrums like a heartbeat. Here it’s a dusty spotlight and a guitar that you play like you’re making love to it, because maybe, maybe it’s the only lover who’ll ever understand you. Who’ll never chain you down.

(there’s a difference between fucking and making love. you think maybe you’ve only ever done the second one onstage, with a screaming crowd and a guitar.)

You promised her. You promised, and the baby needs new clothes and shit and the upstairs toilet hasn’t worked for a month and the fence is starting to fall down again but here you are, in a shitty basement, playing a shitty punk show. Because you need this. Everything back home is glossy and pastel and perfect, and you just need this one goddamn thing in your perfect fucking life that still feels raw, still feels broken, still feels real.

She catches your eye halfway through the second set. Headbanging along, like your shitty garage band is the fucking Stones or some shit. Cherry red mohawk nearly a foot tall, bleeding hairspray in shining trails down her face. Almost looks like she's crying. Like agony. Like ecstasy. Like you're playing her and not just the guitar.

You think, afterwards, that it's the best show of your goddamn life.

...

Somebody brought a boom box. Somebody brought hot dogs. Somebody brought half the football team, and the cheer squad, and somebody thought it would be cool to see how big they can build the fire.

Beth can feel the heat of it on her face from five feet away, can feel the cold of the sea air on her back. It’s almost cold enough that she wants to put her top back on. Almost, but not quite. Besides, the beer really does warm you up from the inside out.

(It’s a lie. Just like the confidence it fills her up with. It’s just blood rushing to the surface, losing body heat to the air even as it makes her feel warm. She could get hypothermia and die like this, and never even know she was cold.)

She sways, in time to the music, bumping hips with dark-haired probably-Jennifer-unless-that’s-Heather, spinning to stand face to face and letting her hips swivel with the beat. Probably-Jennifer’s wearing some kind of lipgloss that sparkles in the firelight, her lips full and slightly parted, her eyes half-closed. The fire is scorching hot and the beer is a warm glow in Beth’s veins and everything is soft, is distant, is safe.

Probably-Jennifer doesn’t even seem startled when Beth goes in for the kiss, just puts her hands (so warm, almost burning) on Beth’s hips and pulls her closer. It just feels natural, inevitable.

The cheers and hoots from all around them are the only reminder that it’s not.

Probably-Jennifer pulls back, flushed and grinning, a few strands of hair sticking to her glitter lipgloss.

Beth pulls away, from her, from the fire, and starts to tug her top back on.

…

You ditch your friends after the show and catch mohawk girl at the bar. Same old song and dance - buy her a few drinks, take her back to the van or the motel or her place, fuck her brains out, never see her again. Except something goes wrong somewhere and instead of taking her someplace where the two of you can get a little privacy, you end up at an all-night breakfast place. Maybe it's the looks you got from your two best friends, the only two other people in this vast, cold universe who've always had your back before. Maybe it's just that this is how you met the woman who's now your wife.

"We - we gonna fuck or what?" you blurt, as soon as that thought crosses your mind, and mohawk girl looks up like you just blasted an air horn in her ear.

"What, right now?" She waves her fork at her half-eaten waffle. "Can I finish this first?"

"Nope," you say, putting down your own fork with a clatter and pushing yourself out of the booth, crossing your arms over your chest and wishing you'd worn something with a little more intimidation factor than the navel-revealing neckline on this shirt. "Limited time offer. Take it or leave it."

Mohawk girl looks from you, to her waffle, back up at you again. She doesn't get up.

"Fine," you say, wishing you had something to throw, or shove, or smash, or slam.

Mohawk girl watches at first as you storm out of the restaurant, but by the time you reach the door, she’s gone back to her waffle.

...

The light and the heat and the music start to fade as Beth walks along the beach, her feet sliding in the sand, clutching her arms against the chill. There’s just enough of a breeze to ruffle her hair and raise goosebumps on her arms. She can’t quite feel her hands, and she’s not sure if it’s from the beer or the cold.

Everything seems very dark, at first, close to the bonfire. It's nearly impossible to see anything the firelight doesn't touch. Beth almost trips over a couple lying in the sand, in the middle of moving from making out into something else entirely. She shuffles farther away from the ring of firelight and from the rising moans of the couple she just left behind. The water is black as ink as it laps at the shore, and there doesn’t seem to be a horizon out there. Just endless void, as far as the eye can see and farther. Nothing and more nothing.

Beth wanders around one of the bigger rocks that dot the beach, shivering in its shadow as it blots out the firelight, and there is the sky.  

…

You don’t go home.

You don’t go back to the bar where your friends are almost definitely getting plastered, either. Instead, you get in your rustbucket of a car and start it, and then sit there, with the engine running. Trying to decide where to go, when you’ll have to be home by morning. Wondering idly what would happen if this falling-apart piece of shit you call a car had malfunctioned somehow and the tailpipe was plugged.

The radio’s on your favourite rock station, blaring “Highway to Hell”. You growl a little under your breath and wrench the knob, flipping feverishly through the stations until you find some mindless, banal pop song, and then throw the car into drive. It doesn’t really matter where you go. You just need to go.

The sky overhead is dark and endless and strewn with stars, an infinity of possible worlds, possible lives. If you didn’t know better, it would be beautiful. Awe-inspiring. Just plain inspiring. That eternal tableau of untamed possibility. If you didn’t know better, you’d believe that anything could be out there. That anything could happen. That you could be anything.

But you know better.

The pop song bops along for about thirty seconds before its polished, prepackaged bubbliness finally gets on your last nerve and you turn the radio off.

...

The ocean is a silent, freezing mirror, replete with the reflected cosmos.

The tide is loud, here, the muffled bass of the music and the occasional shout the only sounds from the bonfire that carry back to Beth. She looks back over her shoulder, sees the fire. From right beside it, it had been so big and bright and hot that it had seemed to fill the whole sky. She’s barely walked for five minutes, but looking back, it already seems tiny, dwarfed by the ceiling of endless, limitless stars. So insignificant. So infinitesimal.

…

The house is dark, the sky is going grey around the edges, by the time you pull back into the drive. You clip the corner of your white picket fence on your way in, knock the corner post askew. The fence lists like it’s almost as drunk as you are.

You kick at it on the way to the door, misjudge the distance. 

The lawn’s slick with early dew, and you barely avoid faceplanting into the flowerbed by overbalancing and landing flat on your ass instead.

…

“Hey, you’re – Beth, right? Beth Sanchez?”

The voice breaks the quiet rhythm of the tide lapping gently in and out, and Beth jumps. She hadn’t heard anybody coming up behind her, lost in the star-studded expanse of forever. She realizes, for the first time, that her feet are freezing. “Yes. And yes, I did take my top off, and yes, I did kiss a girl. No, I won’t repeat either performance unless you bring me another beer, and even then, no promises.”

The boy standing back on the beach stuffs his hands in the pockets of his knee-length shorts with forced casualness, looking anywhere but Beth’s face. “Actually, I recognized you because I think we have chemistry together.” He turns his head to grin at her, pulling both hands from his pockets to point in her direction like he’s waiting for her to laugh at his incredibly witty punchline.

It takes Beth a moment to process. “Third period, right? You’re the guy who’s always asking about covalent bonds.”

Covalent bond guy deflates a little, shrinking around his smile. He stuffs his hands back in his pockets, shuffling over to where the water laps at the shore. “Jerry. It’s Jerry. What’re you doing all the way out here, anyway? Party’s back by the fire…” The way he says it is almost more of a question than an invitation.

Beth turns back out to the ocean. “Did you want something?”

“Well, I saw you walking away from the bonfire, and, I don’t know, just wondered what you were up to.” He shrugs. “With…your…bare feet in the water. Isn’t that cold?”

“You get used to it,” Beth says.

“Well, if you say so,” covalent bonds guy – Jerry – says, and then there’s a rustle and the scrunch of sand underfoot, and his voice coming up behind her. “Perfect night for a little oh holy fuck that’s cold.”

Beth can’t help but smile as he dances back along the beach, away from the surf, like the soles of his feet have been burned. “I tried to warn you.”

“What are you, a polar bear?” Jerry grasps his upper arms, hunching over shivering, his skinny chest glowing pale in the dim starlight.

“Maybe,” Beth says. “I mean, there might be some polar bear DNA in there. I was grown in a lab.”

Jerry stares at her like she’s just grown a second head.

“You’re joking, right,” he says, and Beth just grins. “Ha. Hilarious.”

“Almost as good as your chemistry line,” Beth shoots back.

Jerry lets out a discontented huff, and thankfully, finally, shuts up for a couple of seconds.

“Well, I guess skinny dipping is out,” he says, just when Beth is starting to relax again. “What a beautiful night for stargazing, though.”

“There’s no moon,” Beth agrees.

Jerry nods, and for once, says nothing, looking up instead. There’s something a little wistful in his expression, and Beth catches herself thinking that he’s not actually bad-looking, as generic teenage boys go.

“Don’t nights like this just make you want to be in love?” he asks, without looking at Beth, and if he gets any more blatantly sappy Beth’s going to drown him.

“Most of those stars died trillions of years ago,” she says, maybe a little less sharp than she intended, because Jerry looks at her and smiles.

“Not for us, they didn’t,” he says, and holds out a hand in Beth’s direction.

There’s smoke on the salt breeze and the distant sounds of laughter. Overhead, the stars glitter cold through the atmosphere.

Oh, what the hell, Beth thinks, and starts to wade up out of the surf. What’s the worst that could happen?

…

Your daughter’s asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling peacefully, her little fat baby face wrinkled up in a frown. She hiccups loudly as you turn to leave the nursery, and you freeze, holding your breath. She doesn’t cry, though, just looks through you with those enormous eyes that you’re biologically programmed to find adorable, before blinking them closed again and turning her face away. Her tiny thumb finds its way into her tiny mouth, and then she’s fast asleep again.

You exhale, and try not to trip over anything as you creep back out of the room.

The lamp on the bedside table on your wife’s side is lit, but she’s passed out with her face smooshed into the pillow, a book half-sliding out of her grip. You think about taking it from her and putting it on the bedside table, decide against it. You’d only wake her up.

You strip, as quietly as you can, and only stub your toe on the nightstand once before turning out her light and falling into bed beside her. The dark and the quiet settle down on you like six feet of black earth, thick and suffocating.

Your last conscious thought is that love’s a little like cocaine. Even when you know it’s killing you, you still can’t quit.

[shawnmendesdream]

Fan Account

Request: Ooh I got a long request 👀 Shawn and Y/N are in a relationship but they've kept it away from the fans. Y/N has a fan account on it and she interacts with fans as if she were one, one day Y/N and Shawn get caught being with each other and the fans go crazy, she puts her fan account on private and all her internet friends are going crazy!!

A/N: I deleted this by accident, sorry!!

Masterlist

Your name: Submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

- - - -

“How long do you think it will be before people find out about us?” You ask Shawn curiously, intrigued to find out what he thinks. To be honest, you’re surprised that still no one knows yet. It has been so hard to always stay out of the pictures and videos that Shawn and all of his team take daily, and all you want to do is post a cute couple picture on Instagram or something of you both. That’s what people normally do when they’re in a relationship right? But with dating Shawn, these are some small sacrifices that you know you need to make in order to keep your privacy… for now at least.

You have your own fan account about Shawn, where you talk to loads of his fans about him and his music. They all think that you’re simply just a fan too, and it’s really fun to have that big secret from them – how you don’t only know Shawn personally, but you’re his girlfriend. Most girls are big fans of Shawn’s face above all for the majority of the time, and you can’t help but sometimes feel quite jealous and a little bit territorial. It’s weird to think that millions of girls have a crush on your boyfriend, and it’s also quite hard to deal with too. You have to constantly remind yourself that he’s yours and you’re his, so it’s not the end of the world that other girls feel this way too about him.

You’ve made some closer friends though through having this fan account, whom you Snapchat and text on a regular basis. It’s truly amazing to see the community that Shawn has brought together unintentionally. But you do feel guilty a lot. You know that so many people that you talk to daily would actually kill someone for a chance to get a picture with Shawn, or even just for him to smile at them and say hi.

Somehow you’ve lasted for 5 months dating now without any fan suspicions whatsoever, but you’ve known Shawn for over a year. You don’t mind being almost hidden away like this most of the time, because Shawn constantly tells you that he doesn’t want you to ever get hurt in any way and it’s probably for the best right now. Some fans can be very brutal, and you dread to think of what a select few of them would post and say about you everywhere online.

Also, you sometimes hear Andrew and other people in Shawn’s management talking about you to each other when they don’t think that you’re listening. They started off being sweet and kind towards you because they knew that Shawn was developing feelings for you, and overtime you have become very close to them and have good relationships with them just as Shawn does. But they do talk about you, and you can’t pretend to not hear it and shrug it off all the time. They say Shawn should pretend that you don’t exist, as it appeals more to his fans if they think he’s single and ‘available’ for their taking.

Again, you completely understand it and see the benefits for Shawn and his career if he increases in popularity. Most of the time you’re alright with it; other times it hurts you deeply. Like when you hear Shawn have to answer the same sort of question in every single interview – “Do you have a girlfriend?”, “Are you seeing someone right now?” and, “All the girls want to know… are you single?”

He just has to either laugh it off or keep a straight face not to give anything away and reply with a simple, “No I don’t have a girlfriend.”, “No I’m not seeing anyone.” and, “Yes I am single.”

You’ve always wondered if this pains him too, but I guess if it does he tries not to show it to you. He’s a great person, although sometimes quite difficult to read and completely understand how he’s feeling.

“Honestly, Y/N? I have no idea. Hopefully just for as long as possible until…” Shawn replies and then pauses, playing with the ring on his middle finger.

“Until…?” You repeat to him, prompting him to continue what he was saying.

Shawn thinks for a moment, and a lock of hair falls over his left eye, “Until… we’ve been going out for longer obviously!” He says laughing, and he pulls you in closer on the sofa in the tour bus. His giant arms wrap around you like a blanket giving you comfort, and he puts his head in the crook of your neck so it feels to you like he’s smelling your hair. He probably is. You try and turn to look at him, but you’re unsuccessful considering how close he is to you.

Struggling, you initially fail to break your arm free from Shawn’s warm hug, “Come on, Shawn.” You say giggling now too. One arm manages to escape, and you reach up onto your own shoulder where Shawn’s head still rests, to massage and stroke his head with your fingertips.

You could stay like this for hours – just you and Shawn in his tour bus with all of his team out elsewhere, just watching Netflix together on his laptop. But you know that soon Shawn has to get up and get ready for his day full of interviews promoting his new song and music video. You always say that he works too hard, because this is the sixth day in a row that he’s been doing this. Why can’t time pause just for a minute?

He moans miserably, and you know he feels the same way as you, “Don’t worry, Shawn. I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be right here ready for you to hug when you return. I’m all yours.” You tell him lovingly, still stroking his head and playing with his curly locks of hair.

Reluctantly, he kisses you tenderly on the cheek which makes you blush slightly, and gets up off of the sofa and out from underneath the navy blue blanket that was wrapped around you both. You turn Grey’s Anatomy off on his laptop and log out, before putting it away on his bunk for safekeeping. Luckily, it’s located right next to the sofa you sit on, so you don’t even need to get up.

You swear this tour is making you lazier and lazier. Shawn’s team have told you that it’s best if during the day when you really have nothing to do, for you to just stay in the tour bus or close by. They tell you it’s because then straight after Shawn’s finished in whatever city you’re in, they can quickly start heading to the next destination with no hesitation. You really want to believe them; but you can’t help but think that’s not the real reason at all.

A few hours go by, and you’ve got dressed, finished your makeup and eaten both breakfast and lunch alone. Out of boredom, you decide to watch a film all by yourself on the lonely sofa to try and make the hours go by faster until Shawn returns from doing promo. Midway through the film, you go over to the small mini fridge in the tour bus to get a drink, and see that there’s nothing at all to choose from. Unfortunately, the water supply is also running low in the tour bus, so you don’t want to drain it even further because you know people will need showers and more later on.

You grab your phone from the sofa and text Shawn, even though he won’t probably see it until about 10 minutes before he’ll return to the tour bus anyways. But you don’t really want to text anyone from his team, even though you have all their numbers, because you know what their reply will be before you even send the message.

“Hey we have nothingggg at all to drink here, so I’m just gonna go out to the little shop I saw on the street as we were driving up to this parking space, ok?” You type quickly, and then send it without hesitation. You then doubt yourself as to why you sent that message like it was a question with a debatable answer. You’re literally just going out to buy juice and fizzy drinks, and that’s that. It’s not a big deal at all because you’ll be back in approximately 15 minutes, and you can then resume watching your film.

The keys to the tour bus are on the table on your right, so you grab and pocket them before you leave and forget them – which would lock everyone out of the tour bus, including yourself. Quickly, you put on your trainers and tie up your shoelaces, and then you head out of the door and in the direction of the shop.

What you weren’t aware of before you left the tour bus, is that there's a group of around 20 girls across the road that look like they’re camping out to see Shawn. Every single one of them is wearing his merch, and as soon as you step out of the tour bus they scream.

You understand that they probably thought and assumed that you were going to be Shawn, and then you hear them calling out loudly across the road, “Who are you?” When they realise that you aren’t him and they also don’t recognise you as a part of his team.

That attracts even more attention from people who are just simply going about their days. Suddenly, you are unsure of what is the best move. Do you go back inside the tour bus, or do you continue heading for a quick trip to the shops?

You think now about how this is exactly what Shawn’s team meant, and what they were weary of and didn’t want happening. You could easily be mobbed right now and you’d have absolutely no protection. Bravely, you decide to continue walking straight ahead and just think of the goal ahead of you. You can’t help thinking too how you would love to be able to prove them all wrong.

However, the girls start picking up their bags and coming towards you, which you really didn’t expect because you’ve never been subject to something like this before. Sure, you have seen it happen to Shawn many times. Sometimes he hasn’t even been able to walk down the street because there have been so many fans getting so excited over him and wanting to catch a glimpse.

“Hey!” They call out collectively again and again, gaining volume each time.

You choose to ignore them. Not in a rude way, but just because you feel like if you respond, they will start talking to you and asking many personal questions that you don’t want to answer. They have no idea who you are, but if this carries on then they may find out soon enough.

Moving your legs faster and faster, you nearly trip up a curb, which stuns you and makes you realise that you need to focus more on where you’re going. You know without even having to turn around and look that the group of intimidating girls are gaining on you, and that you may not be able to ignore them anymore. Finally, you reach the shops and search quickly through the isles for the drinks so that you can pay and leave without stopping for too long. Reaching out, you grab Shawn’s favourite juice and as many other drinks as you can carry, and head over to pay. You get out your money to pay for the drinks after the cashier has scanned your items.

“How do you know Shawn?” A girl asks you impolitely, tapping you heavily on the shoulder to get your attention.

“I’m… um… just visiting him on tour for a while.” You stutter, attempting to stall for time to think of an appropriate answer that’s not complete lie, just a slight bending of the truth.

The girl looks you up and down with a hint of disgust, “Yeah, but how do you know him? Are you family?” She can surely see the look of fear in your eyes, but she doesn’t acknowledge it.

Your legs start involuntarily shaking and you stare down at the ground trying to compose yourself and get ready to start acting. “Yes actually I am family.”  You reply, plastering a large grin on your face. Swiftly, you take your bags filled with drinks off of the counter and pray that it signals ‘goodbye’ to the group of girls standing behind you, almost prying on you.

But, they follow you out.

Never before have you felt fear like this and felt so unsafe too, doing such a simple task like going to the shops. “Hey girls, would it be okay if you just let me head back to the tour bus on my own now? It was lovely meeting you.” You tell them, being more polite than you were even when you met Shawn’s parents for the first time. It’s important to be as convincing as possible so they will leave you alone.

They simultaneously sigh and cross their arms, and another girl that you haven’t spoken to yet says, “Sure. What’s your name though before you go?”

“Why?” You say a bit too defensively and harshly to be passed off as a casual reply.

“Just so we can find you and follow you later on Twitter and stuff.” She says smiling widely back at you. She pulls her phone out of her pocket so that she’s ready to make a note of it.

They seem sweet and innocent right now, but you wonder if they really are plotting something deeper that you’re unaware of. You have to think really hard to decide whether you should reveal your real name or tell them a made up one. “My name is Y/N.” You say hurriedly, “Nice to see you!” You add, and you begin fast walking back towards the tour bus to safety.

Stopping only to get the key out of your pocket out-of-breath, you unlock the door and dump the bags of drinks on the table before jumping on your stomach onto the sofa in despair. Why did I have to do that?

You must’ve fallen asleep, as suddenly you’re startled by the sound of loud knocking on the door. “Who is it?” You call out, now knowing that you have to be cautious and can’t just let anyone in.

“It’s Shawn.” Shawn replies.

Somehow, you can hear through the door that he sounds upset. So adjusting your hair and trying to look at least a little bit presentable, you get up and open the door. “Hey.” You say smiling, happy to see him again. However, you soon see his look of disappointment and this makes your heart stop momentarily, “Wait, what’s wrong?”

He climbs up the steps to get into the bus and points you in the direction of the sofa to go and sit down.  Neither of you speak for a moment, which makes you even more nervous than you were when you first heard Shawn’s voice.

“Y/N, everyone knows.” Shawn blurts out suddenly. He was obviously scared to say it, so he wanted to just get it over and done with quickly but you barely understood what he said.

Raising one eyebrow, you ask, “Know what?” But you believe you already know the answer to that. You didn’t want to check Twitter or anything like that when you got back from the shops, because you were afraid of finding out the truth about what the fans know, so you just sat there staring at the wall.

Shawn gives you a look reads ‘stop lying to yourself’, and then says, “About us.” He always does that. He always has to be polite and reply to you even when he feels like it’s unnecessary and a stupid question, which is another thing you love about him. He doesn’t wait for your reply; he just pulls you in tightly for a hug, and then gently kisses the top of your head. You both sit there for a while, consumed in your own thoughts and wishing that you could read each other’s. Shawn rubs his calloused hands up and down your arms whilst you try to think about how you feel about this situation.

You hold one of Shawn’s hands, and the other continues to rub your arm. Looking up into his eyes, you state, “There’s nothing we can do about it now.” It sounds depressing but it’s true, and you both know it. You wonder if you should make a public announcement about it or not, but firstly you check Twitter to see what’s being said. Just from one quick search, you stumble upon a hashtag that’s now trending ‘#Y/NMendes’. “Well that’s a bit immature isn’t it?” You say to Shawn with a deep sigh, feeling quite deflated. Scrolling further through the hashtag, you see there are countless very unflattering pictures that come up of you wearing the same clothes as you are right now, walking to the shops.

Of course it would be those girls.

Instantly, you regret ever telling them your real name. You’ve gained thousands of followers, and there are so many confused people messaging you. They probably can’t believe that Shawn would date someone who literally has a fan account about him and constantly tweets things about him to loads of people.

Shawn doesn’t say anything as you look through your snapchats from the friends that you have made through the fan account. He just looks at the blanket next to him on the sofa and plays with his ring absentmindedly. They’ve sent you picture after picture with long captions all in capital letters of them freaking out over the news.  Clicking through them, you read messages such as, “Y/N, WHAT THE HELL WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US.” And, “I HATE YOU SO MUCH UGH I’M SO JEALOUS BUT HOW COULD YOU KEEP THIS FROM US? HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?”

“I can’t do this, Shawn. I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell them… I’ve just been lying to them this whole time and they didn’t deserve that. I never expected that this would happen so soon.” You tell him. Your hands are shaking, and you have to put your phone down because you are freaking out so much.

“You’re going to have to stop talking to them, Y/N. I know they may seem like your friends, but now that this is out, they may start to use you. It’s horrible to think about I know, but I’ve seen it happen before with my own eyes.” Shawn replies with a serious tone. “But don’t worry, I can help you private your accounts quickly before more and more people find them all if you want.” He adds, smiling at you now.

Thinking carefully, you can now see that Shawn feels more confident about this situation. He knows what he’s doing because he has experience. At the end of the day, it makes you upset but you know that the people you’ve met through the fan account much prefer Shawn over you; and you know that they would definitely choose him over you if they had to decide between you both for anything.

“Please, do it.” You state plainly, and hand him your phone.

A/N: You can send me requests here.