#now time to look for a position at a hospital to improve my resume

[birdyverdie]

I forgot I left my queue on but anyways YAAAA I PASSED THE EXAM!!

SOOO glad the semester is over! Passed with 4 A's, a B+ and a C for Chemistry lets GOOO

Love yall who just wish me good luck <3

[momentofch-aos]

M's Marvel Thought of the Day (tis a long one - hold onto your hats)

Two similar conversations Daniel Sousa is likely to have had at two different points in time.

tw: mentions of PTSD

this got wildly out of control and long in the second part, i apologise

[ The Stark Mansion - 1947]

As he stepped out onto the patio that Jarvis had pointed him towards, he caught sight of her by the pool. It had been a little over 48 hours since they'd shared the kiss in his office. Since then, they'd attempted to leave the office to finally get that drink only to find out Jack had been shot and then jumped straight into their investigation. Between guarding Jack and pursuing any lead they could find, they had probably had 3 hours of sleep between the two of them in two days, and if Jarvis hadn't arrived at the hospital and dragged them to Stark's for dinner, they no doubt would have carried on till they collapsed.

Although he knew how exhausted she was, he couldn't but take in her graceful beauty as she perched on the edge of the pool, both legs of her jumpsuit rolled up to her knees as she dipped her toes in the water mindlessly. Clearly deep in thought, she didn't sense his presence until he came up besides her, her face turning to smile up at him.

"Mind if I join you Carter?" She gestured to the spot besides her as he very carefully lowered himself to the floor. Arranging his prosthetic so it hung over the edge of the pool, he sat a little further back than her. "What's rattling round that big brain of yours Peggy?"

He noticed the change in her demeanour after they'd visited Jack for the first time. He was still unconscious, pale and small of stature against the sheets. There had been a falter in Peggy's expression, almost imperceivable, before the mask she usually wore resumed.

"It's silly really." Her foot moved in the water, the ripples moving away from them as he watched.

"Tell me anyway."

"In the desert, Mr Jarvis and I... we argued. In the heat of the moment he said something, that he has since apologised for, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be true." He didn't push, that wasn't the way to handle Peggy. Instead he waited for her to continue when she was ready. "Everyone around me dies." The catch in her voice as the words spilled out made his head immediately pick up, taking in her now slightly hunched shoulders.

"Peg..."

"Cannot say it isn't true. My brother, Michael. Steve. Colleen. And now Jack..."

"Jack Thompson is too stubborn to die. You know he'll be making us crazy for years yet. Plus remember the doctor said things were looking positive. He's stable and improving." Daniel tried to reassure her.

"Still. It seems to be a theme in my life. Everyone I care about comes into danger by being near me. Ana. Jarvis. Jason. You."

"That is not your fault." She moved to rebut his statement but found herself cut off, his hand landing on her arm in a soft grip. "Ana made the choice to go and confront Frost, she said so herself. Jarvis ran head first into danger at the first opportunity. And Steve... he made his choice, for the greater good. And as for me, it's my job Peggy, just as it is yours. We put ourselves on the line to protect everyone else, no one forced me just as no one forced you."

Her gaze was soft on him as she listened to his words, the honesty shining through. She leant into his shoulder, resting her head against his neck.

"I don't want to lose anyone else." She mumbled, feeling his strong arm loop around her waist and scoot her closer.

"I don't either, but the best we can do is continue to fight. Together, if that's what you want."

"It is. If you'll have me Chief, I think I'd like to stay in California for a while." She smirked up at him, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

"I think we can handle that."

***********************************

[The Lighthouse - 2020]

Despite being familiar with all the Shield bases in his own time, the extensive corridors and seemingly endless levels of the Lighthouse had been completely alien to Daniel. Luckily, he'd been accompanied by Daisy for most of the time since they had returned to this Shield team's timeline. It had been a steep learning curve for Daniel in the past three weeks, but the team had been endlessly supportive and helpful as he learned to adapt.

This morning Fitz had been making some improvements to his prosthetic, which Daniel had thought was pretty much perfect until Fitz adjusted something and there was a relief of pressure he hadn't even realised he'd been able to feel. The engineer made him run drills and lift weights to monitor the performance of the limb and once he deemed it satisfactory, he'd been let go, with the knowledge that there would be periodic adjustments in the future.

In awe of modern technology, he wandered down towards the bunks to find Daisy. She had been excited to see what upgrades Fitz would have in store for him. Rounding the corner to her bunk, she saw Jemma quietly shutting Daisy's bunk door, flinching slightly at the click of the lock. When she spotted Daniel, she put a finger to her lips and beckoned him towards the common room. Doing as he was told, he caught up to the biologist.

"What's wrong?" He asked in a hush tone.

"Everything will be okay, I need you to know that." Jemma said to the visible concerned man out of time.

"Jemma..."

"Daisy's having a bit of a day. She suffers with these anxiety attacks occasionally, which is expected after everything she's been through." Daisy has filled him on a lot of the team's activities before they met him and he'd read her file when she handed it to him a couple of weeks ago. "Similar to what you might call 'shellshock'. We call it PTSD now."

"Is she okay?" The concern laced through his voice.

"She's asleep now. Alya fell while they were playing and hurt herself... she's absolutely fine, clumsy like her father. But I think an overtired Daisy and the fact she feels responsible for everyone around her, may have just pushed her to the edge." Jemma fidgeted nervously with her sleeve. "She feels so much all the time, for everyone, that when she gets overwhelmed it bubbles over. She just needs time, needs to actually sleep. Hopefully, now she'll be okay for a few hours."

"Are you saying she's not been sleeping?" Jemma shook her head.

"She struggles with a proper sleep pattern outside of missions, you know what it's like. But I think with everything Enoch told us and the fact she knows things are changing, everyone...moving on. I've found her up at all hours a few times when I've been up with Alya."

"I didn't know-"

"That's not your fault Agent Sousa- Daniel sorry." Jemma caught herself. "Daisy bottles things up, doesn't want to inflict her pain and worries on anyone else. She's a tough person. If she doesn't want you to know something, you won't."

"Still..." His hand carded through his hair.

"Just give her some time, I'm sure..." Jemma was cut off by a tremor rippling through the base. The pair locked eyes before they both took off at a sprint towards the source. Flexing the new prosthetic, Daniel powered down the corridor to reach it first and find the door locked. He stepped to one side as Jemma appeared, pushing a fingerprint to the lock pad, the system disengaging as the door swung open.

Without much forethought to his own safety, Daniel threw himself through the door, taking the sight of Daisy curled into a tight ball on one side of her bunk, fists clenched in her comforter. Her face was scrunched and tears streaming out of closed eyes.

"Dais- Daisy, wake up sweetheart. Daisy." Daniel knelt by the side of her bed, a hand on her shoulder. "Cmon sweetheart. Daisy, come back to us. You're okay. We're here. We've got you." His hand cupped her cheek in an attempt to wake her and she leaned into the contact, the tremors settling as her eyes blinked open slowly. "There she is."

"Daniel? Whats.." Her eyes flickered to Jemma, who was crouched besides Sousa. "How bad?"

"Rattle the chandelier, not knocking down walls." She joked, smiling down at her friend. "How are you feeling?"

"Still fuzzy." Daisy pivoted herself into a sitting position, realising as he let go that Sousa had still had a hand on her arm. "Sorry."

Jemma sighed besides him, making him shoot her a look before she started to explain. "She always apologises. This is not your fault." She fixed her best friend with a look, which made Daisy crack a smile.

"Is Alya okay?" The worry hit her all at once as she remembered what had happened.

"She is absolutely fine. Mack took her for ice cream. She's having the time of her life."

"Good. Good, she deserves that." Daisy's gaze fixed on the blanket now and Jemma gripped her knee.

"She loves you Daisy, just like we do. Okay? You're her aunt." Daisy nodded in agreement. "You need rest, you've been pushing yourself too hard."

"Yes doctor." She mumbled, a small smirk on her face. Daniel who had been watching the interaction from his perched position, moved to straighten up and give her space to relax, only for Daisy to reach out and grab his hand, a silent question in her eyes.

He nodded and pulled up the chair from the corner of the room. Jemma hid her smirk as she bid them both goodbye.

"You good?" Daisy asked as she settled back against her pillows.

"I'm okay." He wasn't going to push her to talk about it, despite his endlessly curious about the woman in front of him.

"Thank you for staying, it... gets a little much."

"For as long as you want me here, here is where I'll be." He said, sitting back in the chair.

"You might not want to say that." She murmured. His questioning look made her sigh a little. Her instinct was to bury everything, to hold it her chest and keep it to herself. But something about him made that feeling wasn't so strong. Maybe it was a mirroring thing. He'd her about losing his leg when they were back in the barn and they'd had more open conversations. "You remember the team of Shield agents that were killed protecting me when I was a baby?" He nodded. She steeled herself with a slow breath.

"There was an agent we found shortly after I joined Coulson's team, he was one of the first on scene in the aftermath. His colleague was killed after dropping me at Saint Agnes's. He warned Coulson and May 'Wherever she goes, death follows'. They chose to ignore him, but I can't help but feel like it might..."

"No." He cut her off, shaking his head as he sat forward to be closer to her. "You can't think like that."

"But it's true, everyone dies. Trip, Lincoln, even the ones that come back. Coulson, May, Fitz. I put everyone at risk." The tears reappeared as she wiped them with her shirt sleeve, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Daisy..." He moved then, sitting on the bed in front of her. "Their deaths are not on you. It's the job we sign up to do, we put ourselves on the line, to be a literal shield. To protect those who can't protect themselves. There are always risks, but that's what we sign up for. It doesn't make it easy and we let ourselves mourn, but it is not your fault." She looked up at him with glassy eyes.

"You really believe that?"

"I do. You are one of the best agents I've seen. And i've seen a lot in all my years." His joke made a small smile flicker over her face. "Is that why Alya falling upset you?"

"I just don't want anyone else to get hurt. Not on my watch."

"And she's a lucky little girl to have you looking out for her." There was a beat of silence, as if she was digesting his words.

"That speech seemed familiar to you. Like you'd said it before." Daisy questioned, with a tilt of her head.

"You might not be the first person I've had to convince about things like that."

"Because some of your favourite people are people like me?" The smile that lit up her face made his heart flip in his chest. He chuckled.

"Because some of my favourite people are people like you."

**************************

If ya'll made it through this mess of words you deserve a gold star ⭐️

the parallel came to me while i washing up and then this happened.

[kk095]

Alyssa in Trauma

*hey everyone! I wanted to try writing a story with original, recurring characters with more of a 1st person perspective. Let me know what you think! Enjoy!*

It was a slow weeknight in our small community ER. It was just me, the head veteran nurse Nancy, nurse Ashley, nurse heather, and Dr Lindsay. The 5 of us were doing our part holding down the ER that night. We had a few minor cases- a kid who sprained his ankle skateboarding, back pain in exam room 2, and one of our frequent fliers in exam room 3 for who knows what this time.

A little after 8pm, the nurses station gets a call from dispatch. I can see Nancy nodding and responding to the voice on the other end of the phone, but I couldn’t initially make out what was being said. After the brief call, Nancy looked at me and gave me a rundown of the situation: “listen up everyone. We have a 26 year old female involved in a single car crash, possible chest and abdominal trauma. She’s hypotensive and tachycardic, and EMS intubated her on scene. ETA is 5 minutes.”

All of us quickly sprung into action at that point. I ordered the nurses to prep trauma room 1 and gather whatever supplies we may need for this particular case. While the nurses were getting things ready, me and Dr Lindsay put on a yellow trauma gown and a fresh pair of gloves. “make sure we have some unmatched o-neg, FFP, and platelets. And make sure surgery and radiology are on standby for us.” Dr Lindsay told the team, to which nurse Nancy nodded.

The following few minutes came and went quickly. We could hear the sound of the ambulance’s sirens grow louder and louder as it approached the hospital. The trauma room was quiet- the calm before the storm I suppose. We knew the patient was in rough shape, but we didn’t know what exactly to expect. Regardless, we were prepared for whatever was going to be thrown at us.

The ambulance pulled just outside the ERs main entrance and the medics wheeled the patient into the hospital and into our trauma room. To our surprise, one of the medics was performing CPR on the patient upon arrival. “26 year old female, restrained driver in single car MVC. Blunt chest trauma, lost vitals en route. Down 4 minutes, shocked ×2, meds ×1. PEA on the monitors.” The lead medic told us while the other delivered deep, violent chest compressions. “ok, let’s transfer her on my count. 1… 2… THREE!” I called out.

The patient was now on the table and under the overhead light. I looked down at the battered young woman lying on our table. Her name was Alyssa. She’s a 26 year old blonde with blue eyes, with a pretty face and a chubby build. She was just driving home from work when she swerved to avoid hitting a kid that ran out into the street, oblivious to Alyssa’s car, but slammed her car into a light post in the process.

Once Alyssa was on the table, the medics left the room and we began running our trauma code. Nurse heather resumed chest compressions, nurse nancy was ambu bagging, and nurse ashley got the next rounds of epi and atropine ready. Dr Lindsay and I decided to order some tests: STAT trauma labs, a chest x ray, and a FAST scan. After ashley injected the next round of meds, she drew the trauma labs while Dr Lindsay got the ultrasound machine ready. While that was going on, I set up the portable x ray for the chest x ray. The chest x ray showed sternum and rib fractures associated with CPR, but nothing else noticeable. Dr Lindsay then performed an echo. “oh boy, look at all that blood in the pericardium. Massive cardiac tamponade.” She said, shaking her head looking at the ultrasound monitor. “let’s do a pericardiocentesis.” She continued. “I disagree. She’s already in cardiac arrest and that’s a huge tamponade. I think we need to do a thoracotomy.” I responded to Dr Lindsay. “I don’t know Dr Kenny, I think we should do a pericardiocentesis and see if her condition improves. If not, then we do a thoracotomy.” Lindsay replied. “I don’t think we have time to wait. Thoracotomy is the way to go here.” I said, standing my ground. There was a pause for a moment. “I agree with Dr Kenny.” Nurse Nancy said, breaking the silence in the room. Nurse Nancy has been an ER nurse for over 20 years and she’s seen it all, so everyone trusted her judgement when she spoke up.

Dr Lindsay and I looked at each other for a moment and nodded in agreement. “Ok, let’s get a thoracotomy tray set up please.” Dr Lindsay ordered. Once the order was made, Ashley and I began setting up the proper equipment. Meanwhile, nurse Heather kept performing deep, strong chest compressions on Alyssa. The patient’s chest caved in and her belly bounced outwards. Her eyes were half open, staring blankly above while one of her arms dangled off the side of the table, bouncing in sync with each individual compression.

I picked up a 10 blade scalpel off of the thoracotomy tray while Ashley splashed Alyssa’s chest with betadine. While heather kept delivering chest compressions, I made a quick, decisive incision in the 5th intercostal space starting at the sternum. I extended the incision laterally across the young woman’s bare chest. Ashley retracted Alyssa’s large, d cup left breast to give me room to continue the incision. Once I extended the incision past the breast, I continued across to the mid axillary line, just a few inches shy of her left armpit. I had to make a 2nd incision I the same general area to separate the underlying fat and tissue. Once the tissue was adequately separated, I placed a rib spreader into the incision area and began twisting the knobs, forcing the young woman’s ribs apart. A loud popping and cracking sound filled the already hectic trauma room from Alyssa’s ribs being forced apart.

After her chest was adequately opened, heather stepped away, stopping CPR. I took my scalpel and made a vertical incision into the pericardium, performing a pericardiotomy in order to release the tamponade and deliver the heart. After cutting the fibrous lining of Alyssa’s heart, there was a collection of thick, gooey, coagulated blood that came out. Ashley suctioned away the coagulated blood, only for my line of sight to be filled with a large amount of fresh blood. “what a mess.. let me take a look.” Dr Lindsay said, forcing herself into my position, reaching into Alyssa’s exposed chest cavity. While Lindsay was sorting things out, I placed a vascular clamp on the descending aorta in order to redirect bloodflow to the heart, lungs, and brain- a common practice during ER thoracotomies to limit damage elsewhere and to potentially buy the patient time during the resuscitation.

Ashley suctioned out the blood that obstructed the line of sight, revealing Alyssa’s motionless heart. “starting cardiac massage.” Dr Lindsay called out. She wrapped her hands around Alyssa’s motionless heart, placing her thumbs on the left ventricle. She then began squeezing the heart, pushing her thumbs in an upwards motion in the process. “1… 2… 3… come on hun…” Dr Lindsay said, looking down at Alyssa, as if she was trying to convince her patient not to die. Lindsay continued internal massage while nurse Nancy stood at the head of the bed ambu bagging. “let’s get another dose of meds in. Hopefully we can get a shockable rhythm that way.” I called out to the team. Nurse heather went over and got the meds and injected them into the patient’s IV line. Meanwhile, Lindsay continued internal massage. “something doesn’t feel right. Her heart feels almost empty.” She said to me. “let me take a look.” I replied, inching my way closer. Lindsay continued internal compressions while I probed around in the young woman’s chest, trying to see if I can figure out what her injuries were. While I was examining the area, her heart began to fibrillate in Dr Lindsay’s hands. “ok! She’s in v-fib. Let’s get the internal paddles and charge to 20.” She called out.

Nurse Ashley charged the internal paddles to 20 joules, and handed them to me. Everyone backed away from the patient while I placed the paddles around Alyssa’s weakly fidgeting heart. “ok. Everyone… CLEAR!” I called out, delivering the shock. A dull, wet thump was heard from the shock. Alyssa’s torso flopped and her breasts jiggled in response to the jolt of electricity. “no change. Let’s shock again at 30.” I called out. Once the paddles were recharged, I lowered them back into the 26 year old’s chest, and delivered the 2nd shock. Alyssa’s toes curled at the other end of the table in response to the shock, showing off thick, silky wrinkles throughout the soles of her size 10 feet. “No change Dr Kenny" heather tells me, shaking her head while looking at the monitor. “ok. Let’s recharge the paddles to 30 and shock again.” I ordered. Nurse ashley recharged the zoll internal paddles to 30j and handed me the blood stained paddles for the next shock. Everyone backed away before the shock, knowing what was coming. This particular shock caused Alyssa’s torso to jolt sharply on the table, but v-fib persisted. “Damn it… still v-fib. Let’s push another dose of meds and shock again. This time we should shock at 40.” I told the team. Once again, we recharged the paddles, lowered them into Alyssa’s chest, and shocked her again. The same dull, wet thump was heard. Alyssa’s lifeless body twitched sharply on the table in response to the more intense shock, but her heart stopped in its tracks after that shock. “shit. Asystole on the monitor. Resuming internal massage" dr Lindsay called out, acting decisively.

Dr Lindsay reached hands back into the young lady’s chest and began pumping her heart manually. “1… 2… 3… come on Alyssa…” Dr Lindsay said to herself, thinking out loud. Alyssa’s heart felt flaccid and empty in dr Lindsay’s hands. There was a definite contrast between feeling Alyssa’s warm heart and her cold, clammy skin. Her complexion faded rapidly, and her beautiful blue eyes remained half open, with a blank expression on her face.

Dr Lindsay messaged Alyssa’s heart for several minutes to no avail. “let’s push another round of meds. And dr Kenny, how about you take over internal compressions for me? Maybe you’ve got the magic touch.” She said with an undertone of sarcasm. I nodded and took over compressions for my coworker. I reached my hands into Alyssa’s chest. I looked down and saw her heart motionless in my hands- something that’s odd to see in a previously healthy 26 year old. I started pumping her heart with my own 2 hands, desperately trying to bring the young woman back. But I knew the odds grew less and less likely as time went on. “hey, we’re out of FFP. Should I get another unit?” nurse heather asked us. “no honey, let’s hold onto it for someone we can actually save. You know how fast that blood bank can empty out on a busy day.” Nurse nancy replied, implying that Alyssa was pretty much a goner. “She’s young though, we should keep trying at least a little longer.” I said to the team, trying to improve morale.

I massaged the patient’s heart for several minutes to no avail. We maxed her out on meds in that timeframe, and nurse nancy noted that Alyssa had fixed and dilated pupils. At that point, I held compressions and the monitors went flat. “alright… does anyone object to calling this code?” I asked everyone in the trauma room. I was met with silence and a couple people shaking their head “no.” I then nodded and said “ok. Time of death, 20:46. Thank you all for your efforts.”

Nurse nancy detached the ambu bag and shut Alyssa’s eyes for the final time. Nurse heather switched off the flatlined monitors and began removing the EKG electrodes from the patient’s bare chest. I removed the thoracotomy equipment from the patient’s body, while dr Lindsay started removing her gloves and trauma gown, walking out of the ER feeling defeated. Nurse ashley removed all the IVs and started filling out the toe tag. On the blank tag, she wrote: “Collins, Alyssa. DOB 8/26/95, DOD 10/3/21, time of death 20:26, cause of death: Blunt SVC dissection. After filling out the tag, she placed it on the big toe of Alyssa’s left foot. The tag tangled in front of her soft, wrinkly soles while a sheet was placed over her battered body. At that point, I began to remove my equipment and head out of the room. Nurse nancy and nurse Ashley then wheeled the stretcher out of the trauma room to transport alyssa to the hospital morgue while heather stayed back and cleaned the trauma room and prep it for the next patient. It’s never easy losing a patient, but it’s par for the course when you work in trauma. We have to compose ourselves and move on to the next patient.

[pastpatientlywaitingforimagines]

Gravity | Spencer Reid x Reader Platonic

WC: 2764

A/N: I’ve had this one in my WIP doc mostly finished for a while now, I’m so happy i’m finally putting it out in the world!

WARNINGS: SPOILERS FOR 09x23 AND 09x24, violence, hospitals, general CM stuff

This is part of my GALAXY universe! If you liked this relationship, check out the MASTERLIST for more content!

You pulled in with Derek and heard gunshots at your arrival. You jumped out of the SUV, simultaneously unholstering your gun and moving into a better position, catching Spencer ducking behind the door of the Sheriff’s car out of the corner of your eye. With your best friend in check, you turned back to the direction of the gunfire and started pulling the trigger.

Between gunfire you heard Spencer yell, with Morgan shouting slightly after. You had to assume they were ok, because your eyes couldn’t leave the vague movement of the preacher inside the diner. Morgan then came from behind you, JJ on his heels as they moved towards the building. You followed the pair, gun drawn in front of you.

Morgan entered the diner first, and as if in slow motion he was knocked down by bullets hitting his vest. As you returned fire at the preacher, you made a brief mental note to check if Spencer was wearing his own kevlar when you met up with him next. You loved the genius, but he had a really terrible habit of taking off the protective gear when he was in bad situations.

You had to focus up as the preacher ran, your small team following him then clearing each twist and turn of the building he tried to hide in. You hit the floor when you were shot at again, feeling the cool concrete against your cheek. Morgan was able to take out the suspect, breathing heavily once the local police joined you.

“One of your own is in bad shape,” she said. You flickered your eyes to Morgan, who nodded outside before moving back towards the diner quickly.

“Do you know who it is?” you asked harshly.

His reply, a gentle “kid…” was the only answer you needed. You increased your pace to get back to the flashing lights, scanning the crowd for your best friend. You saw Blake first and figured she was a good place to start.

“Alright, Derek, you should go get that looked at,” JJ directed, touching his shoulder gently before grabbing your wrist tightly, “we’ll meet you there.”

An officer came over to tell your group how to get to the hospital and as he spoke JJ’s grip never loosened.

“Thanks,” she said, starting to walk towards the SUV with you in tow. You were still frantically looking around for Spencer, finally catching a glimpse of him being loaded into the back of an ambulance as JJ lightly tugged you in the other direction.

“Wait, I have to go with him,” you said, resisting her pull.

“We’re meeting him there,” JJ’s hand made contact with your other wrist. You knew she was expecting you to bolt, to run towards the one person you knew you couldn’t live without.

“I can’t leave him.”

“Derek is with him. Derek won’t let anything happen,” you didn’t get how she could be so calm when his life was in danger. Of anyone on the team, she should understand how you feel.

“Let’s go, then,” you plopped yourself into the passenger seat, letting JJ drive. You didn’t know what had happened between Spencer and Blake, but you could tell she was feeling guilty about it. Though you really liked the older woman, you found yourself getting increasingly frustrated as you sat across the waiting room from her watching the way she gripped at the bag of Spencer’s personal belongings.

Your fuming only became more ferocious when you heard her tell JJ how Spencer had pushed her out of the way. You weren’t sure who you were more angry at, Blake for having to be pushed out of the way or Spencer for being so… Spencer and choosing to put himself in danger to save her.

Garcia’s arrival made things marginally better for you. She tried to convince Blake to rejoin the team, and when that failed Penelope sat down next to the chair you were curled up in and handed you a figurine.

“You look like you could use some help from the Doctor right now,” she said gently as you turned the plastic toy in your hands.

“Thanks… Chris Eccleston isn’t quite the doctor I’d like to see right now, but he’s a close second,” you tried to give her your best smile.

You pocketed the figure when you were finally allowed into Spencer’s room, resuming your folded position with your arms around your knees in a chair in the corner. Penelope set up the remaining figurines on the small tray in front of Spencer, a gesture that made your insides feel just a bit warmer.

“It should have been me,” it took you a minute to register that Blake was talking to you.

“I know,” you gritted your teeth and exhaled, knowing it did the team no good for you to be angry with her at this moment.

“I’ll stay with him if you want to go back to the team. I’m sure they could use your intuition on this one.”

“Oh, I don’t leave when he’s in the hospital unless he tells me to himself.”

“Right, you’ve been in this position before,” she remembered.

“More times than I would like to admit. Sometimes I wish it could be me for once, he’s been through enough already…” you trailed off. If Alex had something to say it was interrupted by the doctor coming in to check Spencer’s stats.

You didn’t truly settle until Spencer woke up, although you silently hovered in the corner while he talked with Alex and Penelope went to get him some form of food. Your mood improved even more when Spencer convinced Alex to rejoin the team.

“You should go too, they need you,” he rasped, turning his head slightly to get a better look at you.

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm,” he shifted to get more comfortable, grimacing in pain as he did so, “Garcia’s here.”

Penelope gave you a reassuring smile that made you feel a little bit better. If you trusted anyone to stay in the hospital with Spencer, it was Penelope.

“Fine, but call me or Morgan if anything happens, ok?” You had a feeling something shady was going on and leaving him so vulnerable made you uneasy. Penelope reassured you once again that everything would be fine and practically pushed you out the door after Alex.

You could have cut the tension between you and Blake in the elevator with a knife as you headed back out to the SUV.

“(y/n),” she started softly once you were in the privacy of the vehicle. Your efforts to hold your composure started to falter.

“I don’t want to hear how sorry you are. Honestly, Alex, sorry doesn’t cut it anymore. Sorry doesn’t even begin to make up for how the most important person in my life almost died because of you.”

“He’s lucky to have someone like you looking out for him.”

“No, I’m lucky to have someone like him,” you corrected, “if he had died tonight I would have been the one to tell his mom. Not you, not Hotch, me. You don’t get what that will do to her, so I’d suggest you get over whatever complex you have so we can keep him as safe as possible.”  

“I understand.” You both stayed silent until you pulled into the station. Somehow a silent agreement was made between you and you walked into the building as if there was no tension. It was the right move, because you could tell something was up when you rejoined the team. Rossi offered to take Blake for a ride to go get Dinah’s son and fill her in.

“Kid, you’re with me,” Morgan nodded down a vacant hallway. You followed him, listening to him tell you a random story about the dinner he and Savannah had ordered the other night, until you were out of earshot of anyone else and he ducked into an empty storage room, “start looking through the files. The force is corrupt, you get me?”

“Yeah, what am I looking for?”

“Anything.” You nodded, pulling open the first cabinet. Derek found the first piece of helpful information, snapping a picture just as the doorknob rattled. You instinctually hit the floor, pulling Morgan along with you and into the first hidey-hole you could find. Heart pounding, you listened to the steps of the person who had entered. Morgan was pressed between you and the wall, eyes practically boring holes into your skull. You chose not to look at him, instead focusing on keeping your breathing as even and shallow as possible.

When the officer finally left, you transferred your grip from Morgan’s arm to your gun, cautiously revealing yourself. If you weren’t going to be at the hospital with Spencer, you had to make yourself useful in some other regard. You deemed the room clear, then signaled to Morgan to follow you.

“How did you do that?” he asked as you were slipping out of the door.

“Do what?” you dismissed.

“You melted into that corner. I swear he looked right at us.”

“He probably did,” you shrugged, “are you going to call Garcia? You found something, right?” He sighed, shaking his head and putting his phone to his ear.

“He’s right there isn’t he?” Derek’s tone changed drastically when he was talking to Penelope. You immediately turned away, trying to get to where your jacket was without drawing too much attention to yourself. You pulled the SUV keys out of your pocket as subtly as you could, then pulled a pen out as well and made more of a show about bringing the pen back to Derek, just in case anyone was watching you. As soon as you reached him you both walked calmly towards the door and out to the vehicle.

“What did you tell Garcia?” you couldn’t handle not knowing what was going on at the hospital, so as soon as you were safely in the SUV you demanded answers.

“She’s taking Reid into the hallway and pulling the fire alarm so they get lost in the crowd until we get there,” you didn’t say anything, instead just looking out the window and willing Derek to drive faster, “they’re going to be ok.”

“I should have been there, Derek. He told me to leave so I listened, but if I was there we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t blame yourself for this. You both didn’t know dirty cops were involved when you made the choice to leave, and if you hadn’t left then I would have gotten caught in that file room. Even if you were there, you’d need backup and I wouldn’t have been able to get there in time to give it to you. You made the right call, and now we’re going to help them. Don’t you go doubting yourself on me now, kid.”

He had a point, you knew, but it didn’t change the fact that you wanted nothing more than to be in that hospital room protecting your friend when he couldn’t protect himself. Derek didn’t say anything else, instead calling Garcia to confirm that they were still safe and to let her know that you were five minutes out.

When Derek pulled up to the hospital you jumped out of the SUV and started running up the stairs to the floor where Spencer’s room was, flashing your credentials to anyone who looked like they might stop you. You heard the gunshot from the stairwell, drawing your own gun as you made it to the floor, Derek on your heels.

Seeing the way Garcia and Spencer were looking at the man on the floor broke your heart. Garcia wasn’t trained for this, she actively avoided looking at the goriest crime scenes and often emailed you photos of kittens when she noticed you working longer hours than normal. Penelope Garcia was a woman you loved very much, but Penelope Garcia was also a woman who should never have to have a gun in her hands.

Spencer seemed to share the sentiment, you noticed the way he put his hands on hers to lower the weapon onto the bed. You took it from them and stuck it in the back of your belt, checking both of them over quickly to make sure they weren’t hurt while Spencer filled you in on what had happened. He looked and sounded exhausted, even more so than you would expect from someone who had been shot in the neck hours prior.

“(y/n),” Derek nodded towards the hallway after he finished cuffing the man Garcia had shot.

“This was a distraction,” you reasoned. He nodded, confirming your theory.

“I’m going to call JJ and see where they want me next, are you coming or staying?”

You didn’t have to think about it, you knew where you were needed most, “I’ll stay here with them, just in case someone else tries to finish the job.”

“Are you sure?” you appreciated that Derek was double checking your choice to stay back from the action.

“I can’t leave him again, not like this. As badass as Penelope was protecting him, I don’t think she’s in the right mind to do it again.”

Derek half smirked at your comment, “keep them safe.”

“Call if you need me,” you called after him as he walked away.

You reentered Spencer’s room, immediately met by Penelope’s relieved smile.

“You’re staying?”

“Of course I’m staying, I have all of the guns,” you half joked, pulling a chair up to the end of Spencer’s bed. You perched on top of it, feet on the seat and facing the door. You ignored  Spencer’s comments that you were overreacting every time you questioned and searched the nurses that came into the room, but Penelope echoed your reasoning that you couldn’t be too careful.

Hotch called you when they took down the unsub, and Penelope took it upon herself to arrange Spencer’s discharge from the hospital. You sat on the floor next to the couch where Spencer was sleeping on the jet, mindlessly flipping through a book you found in his bag. It was in Russian, so you didn’t know what the words were saying but the shapes of the letters were beautiful and soothing to your tired eyes. More than once, Cruz offered you his seat, but every time you politely declined.

After the jet landed, Blake insisted on helping Spencer get home. You didn’t want to say anything, Spencer didn’t need to be involved in the frustrations you still felt about Blake. You would be honest with him if he asked, of course, but you weren’t going to tell him on your own fruition.

“(y/n), are you coming?” Spencer surprised you by inviting you along too.

“Sure,” you shrugged, though your brow furrowed, “is Blake not…?” you trailed off.

Spencer looked at you with the most pure innocence, “she is, but you still want to watch all of the Doctor Who Christmas specials, right?”

“Of course, Spence,” you couldn’t help but smile, picking up your go bag and following him and Blake out of the airport. You still kept to yourself, clearly something had happened between them when Spencer had gotten shot that they had to talk about. Your suspicions were  confirmed when he asked about Ethan and Blake started telling her story.

It was a moment between them that you didn’t want to interrupt, Blake walking out of the door to Spencer’s apartment before you got the chance to say something. You followed her out quickly, catching her in the stairwell.

“Blake,” you panted, “the things I said about telling Spencer’s mom if he died… I didn’t know-”

“You were just looking out for him, it’s alright,” she was calm, more accepting of your frantic outburst than you expected.

“I’m sorry,” you said earnestly.

“It’s alright,” she repeated, “goodnight, (y/n).”

“Goodnight, Alex,” you watched her walk down the rest of the steps, then rejoined Spencer in his apartment. He was standing by the window, watching Alex hail a cab.

“She’s leaving,” he said, still looking out the window.

“Did you want to invite her to watch Doctor Who with us?”

“She’s leaving the BAU,” he clarified, stepping away from the window and closing the curtain. He crossed to his bag and held up her badge and credentials for you to see.

“She’s going to be ok,” you decided, “are you?”

“Going to be ok?” you nodded, “yeah, I think so. Which Christmas special would you like to watch first?”

Galaxy Taglist: @kermitsaysgayrights  @niallthedancingharry  @shadyladyperfection  @thatsonezesty13  @lexshead  @ceeellewrites  @howdycharlie  @girlycakepops  @fantastic-fans  @canimarrypizzaornah  @daisyflower138  @dyingrexx  @taylormobley @bazzleslynn @tj-drinks-tea @willa-wonky @eddiesbifocals @tee-mbrown @reniescarlett @bone-hurty-bitch

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Revenge of the Star Wars Wednesday

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the dashboard... (It’s an entire chapter of the same au as This Free Day Thursday I did a ways back, where a splinter cell of the Rebellion hands Luke over to Vader in a deal with the devil. The context: Vader got called away before getting a chance to tell Luke what was going on, and had to leave the poor guy in his hyperbaric egg chamber of doom. Which is air conditioned all to heck because that suit gets toasty. Unfortunately, Luke is from a very warm climate, and high powered air conditioning does not agree with him. At all. He’s having a bad day by the time Vader gets back and Many Blankets are required.)

Luke dreamed of falling.

"Alright, Skywalker. This is your stop."

He saw Leia screaming.

"You're wrong! You're wrong!"

She was calling for him. He knew that she was.

"I'm here!" He tried to call back to her, "I'm here, Leia! Help me!"

But the wind scattered his words, and he fell.

He fell past Leia's horrified face, towards a range of mountains. Faces he might have recognized formed and disintegrated in the snow around him, and the wicked looking peak directly below.

With a choked cry, Luke flailed his arms and met with stiff resistance. Well. More soft than stiff. And heavy. Very heavy. Slowly, by degrees, Luke became aware of his surroundings. He could barely move. Something was holding him down on a-

A bed.

He was on a bed.

On a Star Destroyer. 

Everything came back to Luke in a rush. Kobyvern. The handoff. The cell. The cold. 

And Vader.

Luke opened his eyes. He didn't hear the respirator, but the sense of foreboding looming over him suggested that the dark lord was somewhere near. It was imperative that Luke not be so...so vulnerable when he returned. 

Why couldn't he move?! Had he been strapped down? Panic flooded Luke's veins.

No no no, take it slow, Skywalker! Breathe in- breathe out. 

When his heart had resumed a slightly more normal pace, Luke took a slow breath and tried to sit up.

This turned out to be more difficult than he'd expected. If he craned his neck, he could just make out heavy black cloth beneath the blankets, wound around him and pinning his arms to his sides. Well, that was one way of keeping someone from escaping. Arguably more embarrassing than handcuffs, but also preferable to them. 

The amount of effort it took to free just one arm was a thorough enough distraction that Luke didn't hear the door hiss open. He pulled at the cape and blankets, already cursing the cold his free arm hinted at. It was tempting to nestle down into the pile of blankets -- there had to be at least four of them -- and let the warmth drag him back down into sleep. But that would doubtless be akin to trusting the hospitality of a Hutt. You didn't get something for nothing. There was going to be a price to pay for this, and Luke wasn't sure he'd be able to afford it.

Luke tried to push himself up into a sitting position and nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand appeared from his peripheral vision to push him back against the pillows.

"Rest easy, son. You've had a hard day."

Vader had returned.

It was difficult to know what bothered Luke more: the uncharacteristic gentleness in Vader's hands, or that he'd called him son.

Luke recoiled as far from Vader as he could.

It wasn't that far.

"You are not in danger, young one. Be still." Vader held out a placating hand.

His jaw ached from clenching and chattering, but Luke gritted his teeth again nonetheless. "I'm s- s-s s'posed to b-believe that-t-t?"

Ugh. It was still cold outside the blankets.

He did not like that he could actually hear amusement in Vader's voice when the man answered, "If I wished harm to come to you, young one, do you really think you would be here?"

Luke picked at the covers and tried to scowl. But being in close proximity to Darth Vader for an extended period of time didn’t exactly bolster one’s courage. The most he could muster was an anxious frown. Don’t let him get to you. He’s manipulating you. Waiting for you to let your guard down. Then he’ll bring in the torture droid. 

“Yeah.” He narrowed his eyes. “D-don’t trus-s-t you.”

Alright, that might’ve been a bit too blunt. 

Vader inclined his head -- helmet? How much of that was his head? Did Luke actually want to know? -- and made a sound curiously like a sigh. “That is to be expected. We were not introduced under particularly favorable circumstances.”

Luke stared at him incredulously. Introduced? As if they were diplomats crossing paths at a senator’s ball? Introduced?! 

This was the man who just...slaughtered anything and anyone that got in his way. He was there for every horrible thing that happened to Leia. He was the reason Luke was stuck trying to figure out the Force on his own. He was the reason Luke was alone! And here he was, upset that Luke didn’t trust him?

“My medical droid informs me that your core temperature has...improved. But you are still feeling ill effects.” If Vader felt as awkward as he looked, he kept it out of his voice admirably. A little too calmly, he lifted a steaming cup from somewhere behind him and held it out.

Luke shrank back. “I d-don’t want it.”

Vader’s shoulders tensed, just a fraction. “It is not poisoned, young one. Nor does it contain a truth drug, or whatever else outlandish theories you have concocted.”

“You c-could be l-l-lying.”

“I could. But I have no reason to be.”

Luke could think of a few reasons. Pure cruelty came to mind. Or lulling him into a false sense of security. After all the bluster about capturing the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, having a tea party with a dark lord wasn’t really on the agenda.

He jumped when the cup was pressed into his hands.

“You do not have to drink it. But the heat will benefit you.” Vader leaned back into a chair that most certainly had not been there before. “Transitioning from Tatooine to the climate of long-term space travel is...taxing.”

No, transitioning from getting thrown out of a ship to getting locked in the Ice Pod is “taxing”, Luke thought, glaring into the cup.

Whatever liquid was inside, it was dark, and smelled almost earthy. Not caf, some kind of tea, perhaps? The steam curled up to bathe his face, and he could begrudgingly admit that it was doing him a world of good.

“My meditation chamber is not meant to hold such low temperatures for such an extended period of time,” Vader said suddenly. “The General’s summons, I fear, did not give me adequate time to reset the cooling system. You were never meant to experience that.”

Luke didn’t care if it was childish or not. He pulled his knees slowly up to his chest -- fighting through entirely too many blankets -- and rested the cup on them. He refused to look up. He would not make eye contact with his father’s killer.

Actually, where even are his eyes under there? 

“D-didn’t exp-p-pect the Empire to ap-p-p-pologize to a p-p-risoner,” he mumbled.

His stammer was decreasing, slowly. He thought a warm drink would certainly help, but he was not brave enough to risk whatever was in that cup.

“I would rather you did not think of yourself as a prisoner, but I understand that your experiences have not given you cause to believe otherwise,” Vader answered. “But you are correct: that was intended to be an apology. I will not allow such a thing to happen again.”

The cup seemed like porcelain. Impossibly delicate. But it held up well under Luke’s grip as it tightened. This was getting ridiculous. The handoff. The fall. The pod. The blankets. The tea. 

“Just…” 

Vader stilled. He cocked his head, as if listening intently. “Luke?”

It was too much.

He broke.

“Don’t c-c-call me that!”

“It is your name.”

“It’s m-m-my! Name!” Luke’s chest heaved. “You d-d-on’t use it! Stop p-p-pretending! I’m n-n-not going to tell you anyth-th-ing!”

I can’t, I can’t do this, Father. I didn’t want to cry, don’t let me cry! 

Vader leaned forward again. “Why do you believe that I am pretending?”

Was he kidding? 

Luke finally looked up at him. “Y-you k-kill Jedi,” he spat. “Like you k-killed my father.” 

And that was what broke the facade.

“Enough.” Vader reached down and took the tea from Luke.

He set it on the tray and whirled back to face the boy.

“Listen to me,” he growled. “Whatever Kenobi told you, whatever wild fictions he spun about your past, he lied.”

Luke’s shoulders hitched. He pulled back against the wall and turned his face back to his knees. “I d-d-on’t believe you!”

“Look at me!” 

Vader took his chin in one hand and pulled it up. “Look at me, Luke. He lied to you. And he lied to me. Why do you think I wear a mask? Do you even know what he did?”

“No no no-” Luke tried to shake his head. “W-why-?”

“Why would he lie to you?” Vader asked angrily. “Why, Luke, would he be so interested in making sure that you believed I killed your father? What did you do on Cymoon, before I knew your name?”

Vader’s anger shook the room, cutting the lights into fragments as shadow overtook them. But somehow, Luke didn’t feel that the anger was directed at him as much as it was at Obi-wan. They really had hated each other, then. But why would Obi-wan lie about his father’s death? He had his lights-

The lightsaber.

Luke’s gut churned.

Vader had his lightsaber now. His father’s lightsaber. And now it was in the possession of the man who had allegedly killed him.

Allegedly.

Allegedly?

Why was he even considering Vader’s words? This was Darth Vader! He was a liar- not this time

He was a monster -- maybe so 

“W-what do you want?” Luke’s voice cracked. “I d-d-on’t understand!” 

The hand on his chin pulled away without warning. The shadows retreated sullenly to pool around the chair. “I know.”

Vader raised his hand again. He hesitated when Luke flinched, then rested it on the crown of his head. “I know you don’t. Not yet. Use the Force, Luke.”

“What?”

Vader tilted his head back with a gentle push. “I know that you can. Stretch out with your feelings. What did you intend to do on Cymoon?”

It wasn’t enough to simply tell the boy the truth. He needed him to see. He needed him to understand. He was a pawn. They had both been pawns. For a moment he almost wished Kenobi lived, so that he could run him through again.

“What did you int-”

“Kill you!” Luke burst out. It came out with a tiny, exhausted sob. “I w-was going to kill you.” 

“Because?”

“B-because you k-killed my-”

“Because you thought that I had killed your father,” Vader interrupted sternly. “Because Obi-wan sent you, untrained, untested, into battle having told you that I was your great enemy in some noble quest to avenge a father you never had the chance to meet.”

“Stop.” Luke didn’t want to hear this. This was a kind of torture after all, wasn’t it? It was emotional. Psychological. But there could be no tactical benefit in telling him these things. Why was Vader telling him these things? Why not just kill him and be done with it?

“Who took you from your mother?” Vader’s earlier question rang in Luke’s ears.

A trickle of sweat dried cold on the back of his neck. What did Darth Vader know about his mother?

Do you really want to pull on that thread, Luke? 

“What do you want?” He tried. He tried so hard to keep the tears from coming. But he was tired and afraid, and so, so overwhelmed.

Vader’s hand smoothed his hair, disturbingly gentle. “I want you to understand that you are not alone, Luke. That you were never alone.”

He raised his other hand. Held Luke’s face between them.

“Do you know why Kenobi told you that I had killed your father?”

“Don’t-” Luke whispered brokenly. He couldn’t take it. Not this. Not him.

“Luke. Look at me. What does the Force tell you?”

“I don’t know-” Luke tried to pull away. Please don’t please don’t don’t tell me don’t change things don’t let it all be lies- “I don’t know!” 

“I did not kill your father.”

It was said with such an air of finality that it rang through the Force, even with Luke’s muffled attempts to read it.

“No,” he agreed. 

His world had a little crack, right at the edge. It was small now, but just the right pressure, and-

“I am your father.”

Crack. 

[kilgorekali]

Week 1: Introduction

My name is Kali Kilgore and I am a business administration major at Central Michigan University. Before attending Central Michigan University, I attended Jackson College. I earned my Associate of Arts degree at Jackson College. I am now pursuing my bachelor’s degree. After I earn my bachelor’s degree, I plan to go on to the University of Michigan Law School. I am unsure of what category of law I would like to study at this time. Once I start law school and experience all aspects of the law I will decide.

Previously, I went to school for nursing, but ultimately decided that nursing is not the career for me. I have always been very passionate about business and law. Earning my business degree will be a step toward my goal of opening a law firm one day. I am looking forward to building my social media skills to apply to my career in the future. I hope to accomplish an exemplary blog to showcase my social media skills in business. I hope my blog will become a resume for future employers and clients to view to get insight on my education, career, and who I am.

A company that I believe is exemplary in regards of its use of social media is Airbnb. Airbnb is a website where guests can find a place to stay and hosts can rent out their homes. Airbnb gives their users options to find the perfect fit for them. Guests are able to filter the results in order to find exactly what they are looking for without hassle. They also include feedback and ratings. A host is able to see whether a guest has positive or negative reviews and could choose to not let them book their place. A guest can see when a host has positive or negative reviews and choose to protect themselves and their money by not choosing that host. A guest can also see the positive and unique qualities that specific Airbnb has to offer. By allowing feedback, guests and hosts are able to see the what their strengths and weaknesses are. They are able to make changes if needed to improve their hospitality. There is transparency within Airbnb. This makes it easy to book a place to stay with no surprises.

https://www.airbnb.com

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober Day 7

Support | Carrying

Ao3

Warnings: Gunshot wounds, blood, canon typical violence

-o-o-o-o-

Here was the thing about fighting crime in Gotham. Well, or just fighting crime in general. Sometimes things just went wrong and there was nothing you could do about it. You could be the most powerful superhuman in the world, or the most skilled martial artist, or have a reputation to the moon and had the documentation to prove that reputation wasn't complete bull. 

No matter who you were, sometimes you got hurt from a dumb thing. A thing you could have avoided. A thing that you most certainly will beat yourself up over in the coming weeks. 

Sometimes a stray bullet just happened to ricochet juuuuust right off the concrete walls and into the back of your hip while you were fighting crime in the streets. 

When Jason felt the intense pain of the aforementioned stray bullet entering his flesh, it took every ounce of will power he had to not cry out or fall down. 

"Hood!" 

He heard Nightwing call his name. The idiot practically begged for tonight's brotherly bonding session and Jason wanted nothing more than to look up and glare at him. Saying: "let's patrol together, Jason! It will be fun , Jason!"

He didn't for a number of reasons. Mostly because he couldn't say his real name out loud; though he supposed he could say 'Hood'?. Anyway, it was also kinda because he had his helmet on and it was sorta hard to glare through it unless he had the helmet literally sculpted into a glare. Partly because the pain was muting even though the bullet couldn't have gone that deep. It should have lost power while bouncing off the stone bricks, and the material of his jacket and under armor should have stopped it a little . All the way if it hit right. But it didn't hit right. Somehow, it came at him in that very specific angle that Kevlar didn't like. 

He had a bullet in his hip. He could feel warm blood pouring out of a hole in his body, trickling down the back of his legs and ever so slowly becoming painfully stabbing. 

So while Jason wanted to joke, look up at his dumb older brother and tease that this is why they don't do things together, it was all he could do maneuver his arms so he didn't faceplant when his hip eventually gave out. 

And oh yeah. The pain was definitely settling in now. It forced his eyes to widen and tear up, his hands to clench, his arms to twitch as his body desperately tried to figure out what to do without his consent. He wanted to grab at the wound, which was good right? Stop the blood flow? But it was at an awkward position behind him, and he was sure there were still thugs in the alleyway; he kinda really didn't want to be seen clutching his ass in front of them all. 

So he sorta just... laid there pathetically, hating how a simple patrol turned out like this; with Jason laying in a growing puddle of his own blood.

This was Dick's fault. Jason was sure. When he got the medical treatment he needed, he was definitely going to hold this above Goldie's head for the rest of time and eternity. 

Although, quicker than what he expected, Dick was by his side with eyes comically wide behind his mask, hands hovering over Jason like he wasn't sure what to touch or where to apply pressure. Jason had just the presence of mind to remember that he was hit by a ricochet bullet, shot in the back by a projectile that should have, by all means, missed. Dick wouldn't have seen him get shot, just the aftermath. The poor idiot was babbling like a soaking wet domesticated house cat, probably thinking he was shot somewhere much more important than his rear end. Like his heart or something. 

"Hip-" Jason gasped, and then groaned when hands immediately landed at the area just to the side of the small of his back. It hurt like a bitch, that was for sure, but it really couldn't have gotten that deep. It probably just entered him at an angle instead of straight on. More torn flesh that way. And Jason knew from experience that the pain of a wound didn’t necessarily correlate with how deep the said wound ran. It could be how long it was. How gaping. How beaten and bruised. 

It seemed silly to drop from a wound such as this. He could hear Dick muttering about how it didn't look horrible and that Jason probably didn't need a hospital and most likely didn't get hit in the bone, but it still hurt. A lot. 

He sucked in a deep, lungful of air, then forced his head to turn towards where they had been previously fighting a group of thugs who thought they could mug some beanpole old man. Confusion washed over him slowly. The thugs… they were so determined to fight Nightwing and Red Hood when they showed up. One of them was even bragging about having fought one of the bats before. Which Jason doubted. They probably ran away from whatever illegal activity they were doing before the bats actually arrived, but put that little white lie on their criminal resume to get hired for big gigs more easily. If they'd fought a bat before, they wouldn't be so excited to fight them again. 

Regardless, the guy was excited and trigger happy, even after the man they were trying to mug managed to escape. You could probably guess who managed to get a one-in-a-million shot on Jason without having to be told.

That all added up to why Jason was confused at this moment, laying on the ground, hands on his back that pressed down with way more force than Jason thought necessary. The alley was empty. Not a thug in sight. No unconscious bodies with hands restrained and a note taped to their foreheads for the cops. Nada. Goose Egg.

"Wh- where-?" Jason tried, but talking made everything hurt . 

Thankfully though, Dick knew what he was trying to ask. "They ran off after they realized they shot you. Got cold feet."

Jason opened his mouth, but ground it shut as Dick increased the pressure with one hand and removed the other to probably get some bandages going. Jason just breathed for a moment. Catch his breath. Bring the focus of his attention away from the hole in his back to return to the matter at hand. 

When Dick pressed a thick sheet of cotton over the wound, Jason knew the next few minutes would be agonizing; as Jason would soon be sat up to allow bandages to be freely wrapped around his hips and stomach. He opened his mouth before Dick could begin the process and forced the words out.

"You let them run?"

"Of course," Dick grumbled, and Jason wasn't sure if he said it as a “ yes Jason, because I love you I let the enemies go so I could take care of you !” or a “ of course you'd ask this, geeze, so annoying…” kind of way.

Jason was offended either way. 

When Dick forced him up so he's sitting and leaning heavily against the older hero, he was positive he saw stars. Bright, flashing starts shining through the constant murk that was Gotham's sky. Or maybe he was just in intense pain. 

Oh well. 

Dick wrapped the wound—working with way more clockwork and practice than what any normal person without a medical degree should be able to do—then, at the count of three he lifted Jason by grabbing the arm of Jason's good side and wrapping it around his shoulders. Jason could barely contain a yelp as he was lifted to his feet. His hip screamed at him, trying to get him to fall back down and just lay there. Probably just die there. He had to force every ounce of his willpower into moving his good leg, dragging his bad one behind him, as Dick struggled to carry his weight out of the alleyway. 

Not so happy to be small and quick now, huh Grayson? Rethinking those offers Jason had made months ago to teach you how to go make more muscle and maybe even get a little taller? Pathetic. Can't even drag Jason's injured ass out of an alleyway without breaking a sweat on your forehead. 

"M'not that heavy," Jason grumbled anyways though when Dick began to release small, panting puffs of air.

"You're heavier than B," Dick wheezed, "so shut the fuck up."

Jason lifted an eyebrow under his helmet. He was sure Dick could sense his amusement, if the twitch of his lips were anything to go by. "How do you know how heavy B is?" 

"Oh you know," Dick said in a mock-sigh, his voice almost singsong, "I'm always saving everyone's asses. Drag each of you to a med bay at least once a month. Did you know Orphan is heavier than Red but not as heavy as Spoiler?"

"Do you want Orphan and Eggplant to kill you?"

Dick let out a bubbling laugh, which made Jason wonder if Tim, Cass, then Steph was really the order of that scale. Jason wouldn’t linger on it for long though, because they've finally made it to where they've parked their bikes. Jason immediately began to plan on how he was going to ride to his nearest house without passing out in Gotham late-night traffic. The dead-hours of night always brought out the best and worst in Gotham drivers. He'd have to manage. He did it before. 

However, all of his plans suddenly flew out the window as Dick disregarded his own blue and black bike and proceeded to try and force Jason into the passenger seat of his own bike. 

"I can-"

"I'll cuff you if I have to Hood," Dick snapped, though there was mirth and amusement in his tone. "I'm driving you."

"You're not ," Jason grunted though clenched teeth as he inevitably lost the battle with Dick and was forced into the passenger space. "You're gonna take me to the manor if I let you drive."

"Yeah?"

" No ."

Dick sighed then stepped away from the bike, planting hands on his hips as he gave that disappointed older brother pout he'd been working on and improving for the past decade. It worked on most everyone except Jason and maybe Cass. Jason was immune to the Older Brother Pout™. Still didn't stop Dick from giving it. 

"Little Wing, you have a bullet in your back."

"Woah, thanks for telling me, I didn't know!" 

Now Dick looked a little annoyed. Good. "Jay-"

"No," Jason snapped, desperately wanting to stand up and cuss him out like he deserved. "We'll go to my safehouse."

"What one?" Dick argued and angrily Jason threw his hands in the air on instinct. 

The action sent bolts into his back, making his brain short circuit as his body tried to figure out if it wanted to bend forward or back. In the end, it didn't matter, because like the absolute bastard he was, Dick used his pain as a distraction to jump onto the sitting space in front of him. He turned on the engine and Jason felt himself go boneless, the pain of the wound on his back ate up his energy more violently than a crocodile. His metal helmet slammed against Dick's back, and when he felt the bike jolt with motion, he angrily, carefully, and reluctantly wrapped his arms around Dick's waist. 

"'ny of them," Jason mumbled, blinking blurry shapes from the corners of his eyes. "Ju's don' take me t'the manor…" 

"Alright," Dick chimed, revving the engine. He sounded too happy about something, but Jason was too focused on holding on and ignoring the pounding hole in his back to question it too much. 

Dick drove with more caution than what he normally did. Jason had ridden with Dick on bikes and in cars before, and the guy is borderline psychotic while driving. Jason supposed it was because his adrenaline junky tendencies mixed with the famous Blüdhaven road rage to create a man to be feared on any sane roads. Or as same as Gotham got. Jason swore Dick was always on the horn, always looking for that split second window to speed up and get to where he wanted as fast as possible. He wasn't a dangerous driver, just one that wasn't one to trifle with when in the zone of driving. Yet now, while the speed was fast and the spaces between cars was utilized to get the cycle through quicker, there were hardly any other risks involved. No running lights, no cutting it close between cars, no sharp and split second turns. Everything was calculated and smooth, and Jason made a mental note to mention it to him later. 

So you do know how to drive?

With the hum of the engine and the warm body in front of him, it became rather difficult to keep his eyes open. A weary cloud had slowly begun to settle around him, probably not because of any blood-loss but because of falling levels of adrenalin and perhaps mild shock. He squeezed his arms tight around Dick's chest—he silently promised that if Dick mentioned this as a hug he would lose it—and let his eyes fall shut. He would just rest them… for a little while. He had a long night ahead of him. One of digging out a bullet and stitching the wound shut. He should guilt trip Dick into going out to buy ice cream or takeout chinese later.

And thankfully, focusing on the sounds around him by having his eyes closed helped him ignore the pain. Well, not all of it. It was there. Just… muted. 

He could relax to this. 

It was a pity all the peace and relaxation left the moment the bike suddenly dipped in altitude, the sounds of the city becoming the seemingly endless echoes of the bike itself. Jason snapped open his eyes, recognizing the dark tunnel around him. A growl escaped his throat. 

"Dick," he hissed. Or well, grumbled. His voice was slurred and definitely sounded as tired as he felt. 

"Yup?" Dick replied like he was innocent. Jason will kill him. 

"Safe. House."

"Yup." He popped the "p" on that one. Alright. Jason will definitely kill him. 

"This isn't my safe house," he growled, putting as much force as he could into each syllable. " No manor."

"Kay," Dick hummed, "but I don't know where any of your safehouses are. So I thought, Jason doesn't want the manor, so where's the next best place?"

"The manor includes the cave, Dickhead!"

"Y'know, everytime you insult me with my own name it just gets more and more sad."

Jason wanted to scream. "I'll show you what's sa-"

The tunnel opened up, revealing one of the last places Jason was in the mood to be at. The Batcave was just as large, impressive, and condescending as ever. Dick came to a stop near where the rest of the vehicles in the cave were parked, killed the engine, then stuffed the keys into his gauntlets so Jason couldn't snatch them and drive away in a pain filled haze and probably crash in the straight and narrow tunnel used to get here. Dick looked up from the bike, smiled, and waved. 

Jason wanted to shoot something. With rubber bullets, don't worry, but he still wanted to shoot something. 

Of course Batman and Robin couldn't be out in the city right now. Of course they were right here, a good distance away near the batcomputer, both standing up to curiously regard their guests. 

"Don't tell the truth of how it happened," Jason said quickly.

Dick scoffed and dropped his hand, using the other to tear off the edge of his mask. "I don't even really understand what happened-"

Jason glared. "Just make me sound cool, alright? I have a reputation. Can't have them know I was taken out by street level thugs."

"Don't worry, Jay," Dick assured, jumping off the bike and grabbing Jason's arm again, grunting under the weight to eventually help Jason to his feet. "I'll make sure your ego isn't bruised."

"Ya better."

"Richard," came the voice of the most tater tot boy to ever tater tot. "… Jason." There was only one kid that could say someone's name like it was a poison that tasted good. Jason looked up from where he'd been focusing on his feet to see the kid had ran up to get ahead of the big man.

He grinned wickedly, because he loved watching the kid be a little unnerved by him. Not in a rude way. Just in a " hell yeah, little man, I'm your second eldest brother and you gotta respect me " kinda way. 

"Hey, short stack," Jason waved half-heartedly as Dick began to guide him over to the medbay. Alfred, who was standing by the computer, looked Jason up and down, sighed, then walked over to the medbay as well. "How's the cow? Ready for the grill yet?"

"Batcow is fine," Damian replied civilly. Jason wondered why that was. Normally the kid was ready to throw down at the slightest tiny itty bitty inkling of a suggestion of cooking any of his pets. Jason wasn't even subtle about it this time. And Damian also had issues with comments of his perfectly normal for a thirteen year-old shortness. Jason honestly expected reddening, bloating cheeks and narrowed eyes. Instead, Damian looked him up and down, his green eyes calculative and his posture looking oddly like he was trying to convince himself to say something more.

Luckily, or unluckily in many cases, Bruce came up before this odd little exchange could be explored more. 

"What happened?" He demanded in that worried-but-constipated-about-it way of his that he was always so good at.

Jason saw Dick open his mouth and he prepared himself for the coming lecture. Always be ready for an attack, Jason. Be prepared for anything. Even if the enemy is low level street muggers who barely even know how to hold a gun, Jason. Ugh. 

"I shot Jason."

Aaaand Jason now remembered that Dick was literally the worst liar in the whole entire goddamn world. Alright. Jason could work with this. 

"Yup. Dick shot me," Jason agreed, probably enjoying Bruce's frown way too much. Bruce walked around towards their backs and Jason fought a tense as a hand barely even brushed across the bandage around his lower abdomen. 

"Richard wouldn't shoot anyone, even someone as annoying as you," Damian argued, looking genuinely outraged and confused. 

"I'm sorry, Dami," Dick continued, sighing in mock apology as he continued to drag Jason closer to the medbay. "I finally snapped."

"No you didn't!" 

"I did, and I'll do it again!"

Jason tuned out the coming shouting match between a literal child and Damian. That would keep them occupied. He side-eyed over to where Bruce was walking besides them, looking torn between walking ahead to the bay or helping Dick carry Jason. It was times like these that Jason found himself more grateful than ever for his helmet, it allowed him to watch as Bruce has a whole mini crisis, trying to decide what to do with his hands, without Bruce actually seeing him paying attention to that stuff. 

"B," Jason tried, and somehow his voice carried over regardless of Damian's shouting about how Dick wasn't secretly a murderous psychopath who had been repressing his violent urges up until this point. Dick really was going to stick with that story huh?

Bruce's eyes flickered up towards Jason, looking immediately guarded. Jason knew it was a front. So he reached up with his free hand and took off his helmet. He proceeded to look Bruce directly in the eyes. 

He tried a smile, even though he really didn't want to be here in the cave right now. He'd rather be at home, watching replays of Harry Potter and stuffing his face with chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. But, he supposed, if he was going to be forced to be here via one stubborn prick of a brother, pun intended, then he was going to do his best to be as civil as Damian was a moment ago. 

He had a reputation to keep up, after all. Jason didn't get gunned down by street muggers, and he didn't lower himself below the only kid in the cave. 

"Why don'cha help out, yeah?" Jason asked, "Dick is tiny and slow and my back hurts."

Dick squawked. "I take offence to that! I might just shoot you again, Hood!" 

"Stop it Richard! You don't shoot people!"

"I can't help it, little D! The urge to shoot people is stronk ."

Damian groaned at the horrible attempt at gen z slang while Bruce slowly and almost... timidly grabbed Jason's other arm and immediately sped up the process of getting him towards the ever awaiting Alfred and the cot behind him. 

Jason tried to not focus too hard on that. Of how far they have fallen from when Jason was still young. Robin. Full of magic. 

He tried not to think about how far they have come from when Jason was stuffing heads in duffle bags. 

He just allowed Bruce to take him to the cot and gently set him down, shooing Dick and Damian away as Alfred approached with the tools he needed. 

Dick was correct in saying that the bullet didn't go in far, and Jason was right that it went in weirdly and that was why it was so painful. After an excruciating makeshift surgery and a stitching session, Jason reluctantly allowed himself to be lowered into the cot. He was all tuckered out. He was so tired from the entire night that he couldn't keep his eyes open, even though Bruce was in the same room and Jason still didn't feel comfortable being vulnerable around him. 

He might have imagined it, but when he was a sliver away from falling fully into a deep sleep, he might have felt something warm and calloused grab his hand and stroke the joint of Jason's thumb. The hands holding his own were easy to recognize. Bruce had unique hands. He might have felt weirded out by that, that Bruce was holding his hands as he fell asleep, or maybe annoyed. But like he said, he was too exhausted to really… care. 

Too tired to know if it was real. 

"I'm glad you're safe, Jay-lad," Bruce whispered. Or maybe he didn't. 

Jason was too far gone by then. 

[dimitrescus-bitch]

Make It (Kelley O’Hara x Reader)

Everything happened very fast. One minute you were getting into position for the cross and the next you were on the ground. Your head hurt really badly and everything was sort of muffled. You tried to get up, but you couldn’t. Kelley was holding your hand and saying something to you, but all you could focus on were the tears in her eyes. Medical personnel came onto the field and you were carried off on a stretcher.

“Fuck!” Kelley swore as she watched you being taken off of the field. You wanted to go back and tell her that you weren’t in pain, but you couldn’t. You were taken off and separated from Kelley. You wanted her to stay on the field, there wasn’t anything she could really do for you while you were at the hospital.

“Hey, calm down. She’s going to be fine. Y/n is going to make it, she’s strong.” Christen was reassuring Kelley before they resumed play. There was a tension on the field and it was obvious that everybody felt a little guilty still playing. Kelley didn’t bother to stop by the locker room to change or home to get clothes.

“Hi, I’m Kelley O’Hara. My wife was admitted here for an injury earlier, Y/n Y/l/n,” Kelley said to the man at the front desk. He looked you up and then told Kelley where you were. Kelley raced up to your floor and was about to go into your room, when she was stopped.

“Mrs. O’Hara,” the doctor said and Kelley turned around. “Your wife is not a good state. There has been a lot of damage done to the brain. As of right now, she has been put into a medically induced coma. If her body doesn’t start to make improvements on its own within the next couple of weeks, there is a high chance that she will not make it.”

“No, I know Y/n. Trust me, she’ll make it,” Kelley said. It was obvious that she was telling herself more than the doctor. Kelley laid down on the couch in your hospital room and sniffled. “Hey baby, I’m here. You did amazing tonight. After you went off, nobody really played as well. The game wasn’t the same without you and I doubt it’ll ever be if I have to play without you.”

Kelley kept talking to you until she began to fall asleep. She slept next to your bed for a week and by the end of it, the doctor didn’t have any good news for her. Christen had come in a couple of times to make sure that Kelley showered and took care of herself. After nearly another week of nothing, the doctors had come in and woken you up from the coma. Kelley was kept away from you for three grueling days before she came back after what was your last surgery for the month.

“Well, I went to practice. Becky called me, she’s really worried about you. She’s gonna come down from Portland soon and visit,” Kelley said to you. “I’m talking to myself like a crazy person. You’d laugh at me if I could see me. I’d probably say something a little rude to you and then you’d pout and slap my shoulder. I’d lean over and kiss you, so that everything was forgotten. I miss this.”

“K-Kel,” you croaked out. She looked up at you and smiled. There were tears in her eyes and immediately, doctors and nurses rushed in. Kelley let them do their thing and then she was happy to have your full attention. “You’re right.”

“Right about what?” Kelley asked and you smiled at her.

“You’re a crazy person,” you said and Kelley grumbled playfully at you.

“I’m not even gonna say anything. I’m happy that you’re here,” Kelley said as she kissed you.

“I’m happy to be here,” you said with a dopey smile. You spent the better part of the next month in the hospital with Kelley. Once you were out, there was an adjusting period, but you were prepared. You knew that you wouldn’t get back into playing shape, but you took coaching classes while you did your recovery and by the end of the next year, you had a job lined up to coach an NWSL extension club.

[ponds-of-ink]

Fifth Hour Drabble: “Mirror Image”

Consider this my Fazbear Frights meets Twilight Zone Drabble. Well, in terms of tone, that is.

Tonight, you’re in front row seat to the aftermath of one Cecil Smith’s third surgery. Thanks to many enemies and deep injuries, he’s not a pretty sight. In fact, up to this point, his heart wasn’t a pretty sight either. But, thanks to a last-minute intervention, the doctors can definitely attest that he’s much different this visit than the other two.

Unfortunately, not even a redeemed man is safe from the effects of the fifth hour. Be glad Nurse Grace is at hand to help if the eyes of the beholder get a little... misty...

“Now, let me know what you see when each layer is removed, all right?” Nurse Grace asked, her sweet voice passing through the bandages just enough to invoke a response from the bandage man beside her. She watched as he gently nodded, then set to work.

Her fingers gently grasped the end of the white fabric and lightly pulled it off her patient’s face. “The first layer is off,” she said warmly. “Do you see anything? Like light or shapes?”

”I only see a gray light,” Cecil replied, his voice rasped with a strange hint of fascination. “Nurse Grace, remind me: Is this... normal?”

”For you, it’s been,” Grace giggled as she prepared for the next step. “Are you ready for the second layer?”

Cecil only nodded.

Once again, Grace’s fingers delicately removed another roll of white cloth. Strands of hair peeked out from the crevices left behind, which was a good sign. “Do you see anything else?” she asked, her voice wavered as it tried to hide her true emotions.

”The light is much brighter,“ Cecil answered formally. “Very bright.”

“Very good,” Grace responded brightly. “I’m at the last layer. If you want, you can tell me what you see while I finish.”

”No, thank you, I’m sure my expressions will do just fine,” Cecil chortled softly. “I was a theater major before my downfall, you know.”

Grace acknowledged with a glance and a smile, then resumed her duty. As she undid more and more of the bandages, she could see that his confidence in his expressions was well founded this time. She watched as his shadowed face contorted into a grimace from the full light. Then, after this readjustment, his eyes lighting up as the world became more than four walls of cloth.

But, of course, the lighting in the room made it hard to judge both his real expressions and the full extent of his recovery. She turned away from her overjoyed patient and turned on a long-necked lamp. “Confidentially, I wish you the best in this final part,” she said softly as she swung it closer to her patient. “I know Doctor Bennet won’t agree with me, but I think you should have a much better life after this is over.”

Cecil chuckled sheepishly and rolled his eyes. “Just get on with it, will you?” he smiled. “We can’t let Patient 129 keep waiting.”

Grace bobbed her head in agreement, then positioned the lamp directly above him. Her fingers flicked a switch, instantly generating a beam of yellow-white light. Her heart sank and her skin paled. “Aside from a few minor improvements, there’s no change,” she sputtered as she leapt from her seat. “In fact, I’d say you look even worse!”

Cecil recoiled at the words, but let his shock override his outrage. He silently climbed out of bed and hobbled with his support over to the nearest source of a reflection. His left arm, which had been badly damaged, now was replaced with a stylistically metal prothetic. His eyes, which were once cloudy and hard to distinguish, now had more color and clarity. His hair had also started to recover, but only in patches. All of these “minor improvements“ made what went wrong even more noticeable. His entire body was now a patchwork of metal and skin in a hospital gown. A dressing gown that shrank, mind you, thanks to his towering build. In short, he was a cyborg Frankenstein’s monster.

As Cecil gawked and winced, Grace leaned out the door and explained everything to a man in a lab coat. “I don’t understand it, Doctor Bennet,” she lamented. “Why did he turn into a half-machine? I thought that order from Afton Robotics was just for the arm, not the entire body!”

”Let’s just say that Patient 128 has a... special case requiring this sort of treatment,” Doctor Bennet answered with a shrug of the shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk with him alone.”

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Broken arm

A/N: This was requested by anon, I hope you enjoy! please let me know what you think! Also this is like my worst fear, like that sounds dumb but breaking something sounds absolutely disgusting to me. In movies if they do like sound effects of bones breaking and I know it’s coming, I mute the sound. 

summary:  i was wondering if you could write a reddie x daughter where the losers club all go out and the daughter gets hurt (maybe breaks an arm) so they all freak out and take her to the hospital, and it’s just rlly cute at the end. i just feel like i could image richie and eddie just freaking out abt what to do and not actually doing anything so the rest of the losers have to step in

warnings: mentions of a broken arm and surgories (not graphic), mentions of throwing up (but also not graphic) and some curse words and your mom joke

At least once a month, all the losers have a reunion that usually either takes place in Ben and Bev’s lake house, or in their boat. The reason it does, is because Ben and Bev combined have enough money to restore any damages that may or may not occur during these times, more often than not Richie fault.

This time however, by some unlucky draw of the hat, everyone agrees to meet up in Richie and Eddie’s home, because their daughter Alexa isn’t feeling too great, and Richie not Eddie felt comfortable relocating with her for a few days.

She had nothing major, just a stomach bug that causes her to throw up from time to time, but Both Eddie and Richie were more than ready to postponed the losers’ meeting. Alexa insisted that all the plans continued on as normal despite her feeling unwell, since she loved spending time with her uncles and aunt any time she could, and when she showed signs of her health improving, nobody cancelled anything.

With the first knock on the door, Alexa jumps up, rushing to welcome whoever has made it to their house first, ignoring how her stomach was protesting the flash movement, and she’s greeted by the sight of her best-loved aunt, which happened to be Aunty Bev. Six months into the pregnancy made Bev look bloated and tired, but her eyes lit up as soon as Alexa opened the door, bending down as best as she could to hug her back twice as hard. She’s alone, Ben had had a meeting over in Portland, and agreed to meet Bev here.

‘How’s my favorite girl doing?’ Bev asks with a huge smile on her face, her hand resting on the top of her belly softly rubbing up and down.

‘I’m okay’, Alexa insists, even though her face still looks a little pale. Eddie, who had joined the two of them at the front door, rolled his eyes begrudgingly. Insisting that she’s fine even though she isn’t must be a trait she picked up from Richie.

Staying silent however, he brings Bev into an embrace, an; ‘hey Bev’ falling from his lips in the process.

‘Richie’s out back, come in, I’ll go get him.’ Before Eddie has the chance, the next guests arrive, in the form of Patty and Stan. Stan was holding a stuffed animal, a bunny in his hands, smirking as if he already knew that he was going to be the ‘chosen’ one today.

Eddie laughs out loud, watching as his daughter’s eyes grow bigger and wide, and she excitedly begins the bounce up and down, seemingly forgetting about the sickness for a little while. In his mind, Eddie is already praising Stan, for the few moments of rest this allows his daughter to have. Sleep is nothing something that has come in large doses to her in the last two days, every single waking minute of the day being consumed with sitting next to a toilet bowl, and brushing her teeth afterwards.

Eddie also praises Stan for basically knocking down the competition before the rest of them even have a chance.

At two years old, Alexa figured out how to play her family like the harp she later maintained she wanted to practice, giving up after only two lessons. She used to go around the room and beg her uncles and aunt to play a game with her, any kind, and when they relented, the first person who did would be her go to person for the rest of the evening.

Endearing everyone’s heart, but also resulting in a rivalry, where many presents were tossed around, and Alexa was in danger of becoming a bit spoiled. Now at twelve, she’s stopped crowning anyone as her winner, yet the losers still  arranges bets on her, as if their daughter is something to bet on.

It’s all in good fun of course, and Richie himself joins in on the gamble from time to time, but for whatever reason he never guesses correctly, but Eddie has a burning suspicion it has something to do with manipulating Stan to lose. Not that his schemes work, Stan is much too smart for that.

In rapid succession, Ben follows Stan and Patty, and after him Mike emerges, and finally Bill and Audra appear from the end of the streets. A loud and ugly snort forces its way out of Eddie, when he sees the exact some bear clutched to Bill’s chests, the annoying, cocky smirk on his face he mirrored from Stan, the same one that vanishes as soon as he steps through the door, and lays his eyes upon Alexa, clasping Stan’s gift.

Richie, who had since joined the rest of the group, could not contain his laughter, finding in Bill the perfect victim to tease throughout the entire night.

Rice and chicken were on the menu tonight, a light meal that was decided in light of Alexa, but nobody complained. Despite popular belief, Richie was a very good cook, and when he prepared any meal, it was guaranteed that it would taste delicious.

Alexa ate a bit, more than she had eaten in the last few days, and Eddie sighed a breath of relief.  Years of conditioning that any sickness was going to get him killed did not disappear off the bat, so he was immensely glad his daughter was starting to feel better, even if he knew her ailment was not that serious to begin with.

After dinner, the group resides to the living room, watching a movie that Alexa had her mind set on viewing, and secretive adult talk concealed in a child appropriate package so she wouldn’t notice, making a way across each other. A normal reunion like any other.

At nine pm, unsurprisingly, Alexa got up from her seat. ‘I’m going to bed dad,’ she explains, her hand stroking Bev’s baby bump one last time, and then waving at everyone. The spot next to Beverly, the one that Alexa had claimed, so she could discuss her new best friend as she lovingly called the new baby that was yet to be burn, remains achingly open. A weird feeling creeps up the back of Eddie’s neck, ridiculously.

The losers club just doesn’t seem complete without her, even if she has only been there for twelve years. Her bedtime was around eight, but when they go on a trip, she is allowed to stay up as long she want, the fact that she turns in for the night so early, is a testimony to how bad she suffers.  

Richie started to make his way up from the sofa too, ready to tuck her in, as he did every night, but she shook her head. ‘I can go to bed alone, Pops, don’t worry.’

She gave him a kiss on his cheek, and then scampered off to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Bill chocked on his drink in laughter when he saw the fallen look on Richie’s face, disappointment coating his expressions in a grey attire.

When he dejectedly resumed his place next to Eddie, the latter patted him on the arm in sympathy. ‘It’s just because there are others here Rich. You know how ashamed she gets of you.’ The smirk cannot be contained when the words leave his mouth, even though he means nothing but lies with them.

‘And they say my jokes suck? Spaghetti, come up with new and innovated humor, like mine. Thank god she’s got some of my qualities-‘

‘she’s adopted.’

‘- don’t interrupt me Eds that’s just bad manners. I’m so sorry your mom was to busy teaching me the way around her body to teach you how to be polite but-‘

‘Beep beep asshole.’ A murmur of agreement rose up from the group, Richie flipping them the bird.

‘Whatever, you losers have no taste at all.’

Deciding to check up on her after about fifteen minutes, Eddie settles back in his seat, joining in on the conversation to his right, where Ben and Stan discuss the different plants they have in their garden, listing a bunch of flowers Eddie will never know the meaning off.  

The movie clutters on in the background, almost like a lullaby, and Eddie yawns significantly. Richie’s hand presses in the small of his back, a grounding warm signal that he was safe, even though he doesn’t mean too, he zones out, not asleep, but also not as awake as he should be.

That happens to be a mistake when he hears something slam on the floor above them, the sound of the toilet being flushed a second after. He makes eye contact with Richie, both of them realizing that that is probably the result of Alexa throwing up again.

‘Dad, Pops’, and then a loud bang, proceeded by a few thuds that can be relocated to their stairs, and a pained yell.

Richie and Eddie scramble up faster than they have ever done before, even more hurried than when Pennywise was chasing them in Neibolt. Stan, Bill and Bev scurry alongside them, to the place of the accident, every single one of them in a panicked haze.

It only takes a second to get there, in their haste, and no other sounds emerge anymore, until They run into the hallway.

Alexa is spread out across the bottom of the stairs, her arm bend in a weird position, her legs propped up as she looks around the space dazedly, as if she’s not sure what just happened.

Her faces goes through a couple of emotions, intensifying when she takes a look at her arm, but not yet crying.

Eddie is the first to reach her, and when she sees him, her lips open slightly and a wail falls out. It proves to him that she is in real, and agonizing pain. Back when she learned how to ride her bike for the first time, she had fallen many times, as kids do, but if she cried, Eddie refused to indulge her. He wouldn’t let leave or abandon her, but he would tell her that everything was fine, and that it only stung a little, and there was no need to cry.

He mostly did this to stop himself from becoming like his mother, and to allow Alexa to discover her own boundaries and which one hurt enough to actually ask help for. He never shamed her for crying either, he just tried to teach her the difference between actual pain, and being shocked from a fall.  Ever since, is she saw Eddie walk towards her, her tears stopped if it barely stung, or begin to cry if help was needed.

Now she sobs, heavy and with snot, hiccuping to catch her breaths. It only takes a look to tell Eddie everything he needs to know, she is suffering from an open fracture. The bone is not stuck outside the skin, but the bump is visible from the outside, in the same way that his bone was when he broke his arm.

All previous training flies out the window when it’s his daughter that is the one who is harmed, nothing of the medical terms he surrounded himself with in his childhood sticking, like liquid dropping from his head.

He stands there, blankly as he gazes upon his daughters still laying form, until he gets pushed back by Bill. Richie too stands frozen, trembling from head to toe, but Bev and Stan launch into action, dropping down next to Alexa, each on opposites sides.

‘What do we do, what do we do?’ Richie inquires frantically, pushing against Bills hands, to get to her, trusting Eddie for guidement. Eddie subconsciously reaches for his inhaler, and curses once he remembers that he threw his placebo away.

‘Fuck, fuck, Eddie should we snap the bone back in? It worked last time right?’ Richie reflects Eddie’s frantic, ignoring Bill’s pleas to calm down, the cries of Alexa deafening their ears, and making their heartstrings cave in.

‘What? What the fuck asshole no. That was a terrible thing to do, and you were lucky that my arm got back to normal, are you fucking kidding me you absolute moron?’

He doesn’t mean to snap at his husband the way he does, but the mantra of; this is your fault, she’s going to die, get her to a hospital now, more careful, you should force her to be more safe, in a voice that sounds an awful lot likes his mother hisses in his mind. The panic is very nearly all consuming.

‘What the fuck was I supposed to do then huh Eds? I was fucking twelve.’ Their panic-stricken words grow louder and louder, until even Alexa’s cries of agony sound quieter than theirs, they’re so consumed with worry, being oblivious to notice what Beverly and Stan are so desperately trying to convey.

‘I don’t know, not that. And you’re 43 years old, by now you should now better dickwad.’

‘Stop it’, Bill yells in the same determined leader voice that lured them into the house on Neibolt street, effectively silencing them and focusing their attention on him.

‘Your daughter needs you right now, so shut up, and do what we ask you too okay. Richie get her cloths, Eddie retrieve anything she has that helps calm her down. Alright? Okay go.’

Richie hurries to get the car as fast he can, but Eddie hesitates when he gapes at Alexa. He doesn’t want to leave her without her parents. ‘Hey’, Bill places on of his hands on Eddie shoulder, ‘we’ll take care of her for a minute okay?’

Her cries have turned into loud whimpers, her face hidden behind Stan’s body, which stops her from seeing Eddie anyway. Bev is calmly shushing her, on the phone with what must be the hospital, carefully checking her arm. Stan is trying to distract her, his cardigan being discarded towards Bev, who uses is to carefully cover the injured arm.

It looks painful, and Eddie can’t stand to think of her in pain, so he too complies with Bill’s demands, searching for the plush toy she got as a gift, and her soft blanket that she sleeps with during the winter.

When he comes back, he hears the blaring sirens of the ambulance stop outside their door, and his stomach falls when he realizes that a few hours ago, Alexa was standing in that exact spot, excited for the night.

Audra and Patty lead the paramedics into the home, apparently they had been waiting outside to help, Patty grabbing Eddie’s arm to steady herself, and maybe even Eddie, who is swaying dangerously from side to side.

He’s been through all of this before, in a way, but that seemed somehow less scary than it is now. Back then, Eddie had been glad none of his friends got hurt, so it didn’t matter that he did. Now, it’s different, but if he could somehow switch places with Alexa, he would do so in a heartbeat.

They insert an IV line and administer pain relief, Eddie assumes, since his ears seem like they’ve been stuffed full of cotton. He vaguely registers Richie’s hand in his own, all his attention pointed to watching Alexa’s face for any discomfort.

She’s placed upon a trauma board, Stan and Ben aiding to help her jolts as minimal as possible, before they carry her to the ambulance as fast as humanly possible. Eddie hopes to god, something he hasn’t believed in since he started dating Richie, that the medicine she has received knock her out, just so she’s painless the rest of the ride.

‘Dad, pops’, she wails, extending her uninjured arm to reach for the both of them. Next to him, Richie cries too.

Eddie speed walks to be by her side, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to it. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine.’ He can’t help the way his voice cracks as he tries to keep his own tears at bay.

Richie also hast himself to get to her, brushing away her tears as best he can, but new ones continue to leave wet rivers on her cheeks.

After consideration, Eddie says to Richie; ‘You need to go with her,’ his words lacking any really conviction.

Richie gazes up to him in surprise. ‘Eddie?’

‘I can’t be in there, in a hospital or ambulance, but I would feel so much better if you were with her.’ The trauma lingers around Eddie like a bad stench, and he hates himself for the fact that he can’t be with his daughter. He knows Richie will keep her safe though, so if he were to go with her, maybe the grip guilt has on him will loosen.

Richie says nothing and stares for just a split second, before one of the EMT’s says they need to hurry. Then he nods, climbing on board with Alexa, but pressing his lips against Eddie’s quickly before his does.

He’s trying to convey Eddie into believing everything will be okay, but Richie isn’t sure if he believes it himself.

They have to leave then, and Eddie stares as the ambulance disappears into the distance. When he can’t see it no longer, he allows himself five seconds, and he uses those five seconds to cry upon Mike’s sturdy statues the waterfalls flowing from his eyes like they’re a rives. He can sense the others coming closer, each laying a hand on a part of his body, their silent way of telling him they’re here for them.

He feels bad for making Richie having to be the one to hold it all together, since he can’t break down in front of Alexa, but Eddie honestly didn’t have any resolution left to sit in an ambulance.

When his five seconds are up, he begs someone to drive him to the hospital, ignoring his next door neighbor who comes to check up on the commotion that was happening.

He ends up driving with Stan and Patty, in the middle backseat, where he can feel their worried gazes on him. In his mind, he is trying to recall any information about what he had to go through with his arm, but all he really remembers is that he had to have surgery.

As predicted, that is the first thing Richie tells Eddie when he finally gets to the emergency room, Richie waiting near the entrance, his hands trembling when he reaches forward to pull Eddie against him in a tight hug.

‘She needs to have surgery Eds, you have to come quick. They’re about to put her under.’ Richie informs him when he pulls back, this time reaching for his hands and pulling him in the direction of the room Alexa is in. Eddie wants to say something to his friends, but he’s already whisked away, and he just figures he’ll tell them later.

Upon entering the room, Eddie can smell the disinfected in the room, the whole room is drenched in it, but he refuses to let it deter him, so he pulls through, pulling a chair to the side of the hospital bed, resting his hand on Alexa’s shoulder. Richie goes for her hand on her good arm, his thumb sweeping the back of her hand back and forth.

‘hey, honey, how are you?’

Alexa lets her head fall sideways, her eyes dropped with exhaustion, she hasn’t received any anesthetic, so Eddie assumes that it’s the adrenaline that has worked off.

‘I’m scared dad,’ she tells him truthfully, squeezing Richie’s hand tight while not looking him in the eyes.

‘It’s okay to be scared baby,’ Eddie soothes her, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. ‘I had to same thing happen to me when I was little.’

Her lips tug upwards in a faint smile. ‘I know, pops told me.’

‘It wasn’t that scary anymore. Not when getting into the hospital. I just fell right asleep, and when I woke up, the pain was dulled.’

‘I’m not in so much pain right now though, can I not avoid the surgery?’ Eddie’s heart breaks once again, and he wishes so bad he could heed his daughter from this, but it has to happen, there’s no other option.

‘That’s cause you’re on a lot op pain medication kiddo, but as soon as they’re worn off, you’ll feel it again.’  Richie heavily admits, the lines on his face have turned more prominent, the night taking ten years of their lives away from them.

‘Like I said, you’ll just go to sleep, and when you wake up, we’ll be here.’ Eddie tries to convince her one last time, and with a heaved sigh, she relents.

Just in time, for the nurse sticks her head through the door, her smile apologetic.

‘Alexa Tozier-Kaspbrak? I’m sorry, but we really have to get her upstairs now.

‘You’ll be fine bucko, We won’t be fare okay?’

‘And remember we love you okay?’

‘I know dad, Pops, I love you too.’

When they wheel Alexa away in her hospital bag, the other losers wave at her from behind the glass door, sticking their thumbs up in good luck, while Alexa waves at them as best she can.

‘She’ll be okay’, Richie insists as he pulls Eddie close to him by the waist, pressing his nose in his hair to comfort himself.

‘I really hope so Rich, I’m scared.’

‘Don’t be Eds, she’s your kid, she’s so strong, this is just a minor setback. I love okay, we’ll get through this together.’

‘I love you too.’

Later, when Alexa is back in her room, falling asleep on her own this time, and Eddie watches Richie’s lanky from twist in half to rest his head on the bed, the rest of his body in an uncomfortable hospital chair just to be close to their daughter, he thanks whoever is listening that he got this family; He would never trade them for anything in the world.

He’s mumbling to the both of them, a stupid story about Richie and his childhood, because Alexa had once told him she slept best with some background noise. Twirling the same piece of hair over and over again, he presses another kiss to her head, thankful that’s okay. 

He nearly thinks of his mother, and how much he would have loved to see her face if she ever saw him like this. Gay, married, with a child and in a hospital. But then he banishes her to the back of his mind. She is not worth any ounce of his thoughts. 

 Alexa shifts in her sleep, relaxing into the movements, and Eddie can’t do anything but mumble out in pure adoration; ‘I promise, I’ll never be like my mom, I love you and your pops too much for that.’ 

[mst3kproject]

Exo-Man

Failed series pilots were very much part of MST3K’s stock in trade.  We’ve sat through San Francisco International, Stranded in Space, Code Name: Diamond Head and I’m sure there were others.  I generally recall all of those movies being kind of dull and lacking in personality, and I can’t imagine this 70’s superhero mess being much better.  I don’t think anybody in Exo-Man was ever on MST3K but Jose Ferrer (the first Latino actor to win an academy award, for 1950’s Cyrano de Bergerac) was once in a movie called Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, which I am deeply remiss in not having seen yet.  You may also recognize Harry Morgan, who was Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H.

Dr. Nick Conrad is a wacky physics professor of the type nobody has ever encountered in real life.  He’s somehow both smart enough to invent anti-gravity and memory plastic, and stupid enough to chase after a fleeing would-be bank robber.  The latter stunt, set to wakka-chicka Mitchell music, makes Nick the target of a mafia assassin, who kills his lab assistant and leaves Nick himself paralyzed from the waist down.  He wallows in self-pity for a while, but then rediscovers his passion for invention and builds himself a suit of armor that will allow him to walk again… and to take on the mob single-handedly.

I don’t know why they called the movie Exo-Man.  That name is never used in the dialogue.  I guess the more accurate Fiberglass Avenger just wouldn’t have sounded as cool.

The first thing you’re likely to notice from the plot summary is that Nick’s story starts off as Dr. Strange and then takes a hard left into Iron Man.  I’m pretty sure the latter at least was an intentional ripoff, with bits of the first thrown in, knowingly or not, to distance Exo-Man from Marvel’s lawyers. What’s funny is that posterity has actually made it a hat trick: the movie opens with a weirdly homoerotic jogging scene, so now he gets to be Captain America, too!

Exo-Man is a really stupid, often boring, and consistently ugly movie.  The actors are mediocre, the music bland, the effects terrible, and stuff is made to look ‘high tech’ by sticking lots of blinky lights on it.  Way too much time passes before we get to the action and when we do, we find a deep pit of disappointment.  Yet at the same time… I kind of enjoyed it.

A major part of why has got to be the incredibly dopey super-suit the main character wears, which looks less like ‘Iron Man’ and more like ‘Fiberglass Commando Cody’.  It moves really slowly and I doubt the guy in the costume can see very much.  Nick controls the bottom half of it using switches on one sleeve, which appear to have simple functions like ‘sit’, ‘walk’, and ‘jump’ (there is, of course, no ‘run,’ because nothing happens fast in this movie). He puts the thing on by lying down in what looks like a tanning bed (or maybe one of those contraptions from Avatar).  My personal favourite is the warning light labeled malfuntion.

All this is in a movie that sometimes manages to be surprisingly subtle.  We are introduced to Nick while jogging, we watch him play tennis with his girlfriend, and see him maintain this exercise regime even while he’s supposed to be under police protection.  These shots are in brilliant sunshine, and the camerawork is as active as the subjects. Post-injury, Nick never outwardly complains about his inability to participate in sports, but we now see him sitting in his wheelchair in dark surroundings, with the camera held perfectly still.  We feel that he has lost something he loved dearly, and we never need to be told it outright.

We are also introduced to Nick as somebody who is devored to furthering minorities.  His two lab assistants are an east Asian student and a Jewish one (the latter identified as such by a surname, rather than appearance), and the reason he was at the bank was to help a Latino student get a loan.  Again, the script trusts the audience to get this without having to draw attention to it through dialogue.  These minority characters are, of course, still just accessories to Nick’s story. The Jewish guy in particular is there to be fridged – its his death that leads to Nick flaunting his police protection and getting hurt.  But the effort was made to say that minority rights are important to Nick, without hitting us over the head with it.

Theme-wise, Exo-Man is about a man coming to terms with a disability.  I should preface this by saying that I am not disabled, so my perspective is necessarily biased.  If anything I say below is offensive, that is out of ignorance, and please let me know so that I may edit or delete the review and do better next time.  I was actually pretty impressed by how the script and director handled the life-changing nature of Nick’s injury… mostly.  I’ll start with the bad stuff.

The attack on Nick comes with a heaping helping of victim blaming.  As an important witness in the bank robbery, he was offered police protection.  The assassin tries to get around this by putting a bomb in his car, but one of the lab assistants borrows the car for a late-night pizza run, and gets killed in Nick’s stead.  This leads Nick to deliberately place himself in a vulnerable position, hoping to draw the killer out for capture and punishment.  In the hospital with a broken back, Nick blames the police for failing to protect him, but I’m pretty sure the movie wants us to think that this is really Nick’s own fault.  Like the tragic accident victims in Days of our Years, he has nobody to blame for his own misery, or that of his loved ones, except himself.

After that, however, the movie’s treatment of Nick’s disability improves quickly.  His girlfriend Emily leaves him, but that’s not because he’s in a wheelchair, it’s because he’s too busy wallowing in self-pity to even let her into his apartment. Later when he apologizes to her, she takes him back and they resume their happy relationship, and the fact that they can’t play tennis together anymore is not an issue.  She does not treat him as something to be pitied, she speaks to him on his eye level, and they avoid that weird trope of having the abled partner sit in the wheelchair-user’s lap.  Emily loves who Nick is, not what he can do.  His colleagues and students, likewise, treat him with respect and help him with his chair, and never make the latter feel like a burden.

By the end of the film Nick has come to terms with his disability.  The suit he’s built is not a cure for his condition: in fact the first time he wears it out, it breaks down and he needs help getting back to his high-tech armored van.  It’s a tool he has built for a purpose, and he doesn’t feel the need to wear it in non-superhero situations.  Based on what we see, he could have built a legs-only version to wear under his trousers and let him go jogging and play tennis again, but that is no longer who Nick is.  And when and whether to wear the suit is always Nick’s own choice, not something imposed on him from the outside.

Of course, it would also be really helpful in later maintaining Exo-Man’s secret identity, and I suspect the writers were thinking of that a lot more than they were of things like parents forcing questionable ‘cures’ on disabled children.  The secret identity probably would have been a big deal if the pilot had sold, but in this stand-alone story, I thought the suit worked well as a metaphor about a disabled man at peace with himself.

Exo-Man also takes a quick little peek at the morality of vigilante justice, although this comes in pretty late and clearly isn’t something they wanted to get into in any detail.  The first person Nick confronts in the suit is the assassin who actually beat him up. He says he didn’t go into this encounter with any real plan… perhaps he just wanted to scare the guy.  What ultimately happens is that the assassin climbs a drainpipe to get away from the terrifying robot man, the pipe comes off the wall, and the man falls to his death.  Nick feels this is his fault, and so the next time he takes the suit out he does so with a particular goal in mind: he wants to capture the mob boss and provide evidence of his wrongdoing to the police, not to kill anyone.

The mob boss’ name, by the way, is Kermit Haas, which is probably the least intimidating name a movie has ever given to its big bad.

Would that work?  Is evidence a guy in a robot suit left in your dumpster for you admissible in court?  Isn’t where stuff was found kind of important?  I honestly have no idea and I’m not sure how to go about finding out.  People might wonder why I want to know and I don’t think saying it’s for my blog would allay their suspicions.

At the end of Exo-Man, I was more entertained than not, but mostly on the level of laughing at the dumb-looking suit and appreciating the fine art of ripping off comic book characters.  If that’s your kind of thing then this movie ought to put the fun in malfuntion for you. If that’s not your thing, well… this is an MST3K blog.  What are you doing here?

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

"The Hardest Thing in this World is to Live in It."

I wish I could be your good news

[Originally posted June 25, 2020]

Hi friends,

It's been a long time since I've written here, though with all that's going on in the world I was genuinely unsure if had been months, weeks, or days. Time dilates each day while the days somehow pile up into months. It's actually been about 6 weeks, during which time I had more scans that showed that my primary tumor is still growing.

It's really a stubborn bastard, isn't it? As before, the treatment I've been on has been relatively successful on the metastatic sites (no new locations, some regression in size overall), but the breast tumor itself just keeps getting improbably larger like...well, like a cancer.

On June 1st, the day after I got my most recent news, I posted on Twitter and Facebook to say this:

"Thank you to all of you for liking this and sending your messages of support, both privately and in public. It's hard sometimes to remember in the dual isolation of quarantine and illness that there are so many kind people in the world wishing me well: a bright light in dark times.

I'll post more about it when I'm able, but I am ok given the situation. My latest scans showed that my cancer is still growing-my 3rd failed line of treatment in 15 months. Good things: metastatic sites stable, no new ones, still approaches to try. But optimism is hard right now.

In my cancer group, we talk about "toxic positivity," the pressure to present news w/the best possible spin and be a model patient who determinedly soldiers on. I tend only to post when I can do that. Right now, going on feels impossible. I am so lonely and so tired.

It's not just cancer, though it's quite a burden to carry. Things are bad in the world. Worse than I'd ever imagined. And I am tired of having cancer. But I will never be done while I'm alive. There are burdens we can't put down. It's ok not to bear them cheerfully, for you too.

Addendum: I also feel (absurdly) like I let people down personally when I don't improve (a thing over which I have zero control). In addition to wanting to be better, I want to be your good news, to give us all something to celebrate. I know it's untrue, but it's compelling anyway."

So that's how I've been feeling. I've been wishing, over and over, that I could be your good news, could give you something positive in the midst of all this horror. The fact that I can't turns me quiet and exhausts me in a far more profound way than the ongoing side effects of chemo. I just had my 8th chemo treatment - my first was on January 30th - so that's been 6 months of chemo while working full-time. I didn't realize how burned out I truly was until I used some vacation days (which I had been rationing for hospital days and side effects) for an actual vacation.

It's all more than enough, in combination with all the events going on in the world, to weigh me down. Not only because I do feel, quite literally, weighed down by a tumor that is 8cm x 6.5cm (think of it as a large orange or small grapefruit), but because the heaviness of just continuing to live each day as the pandemic worsens across most of the U.S. and the prospect of ever resuming the still-good life that I was able to manage with cancer--full of things like travel, going to my job, seeing groups of friends, dating, and bars and restaurants--dwindles to almost nothing.

A year in quarantine is a terrible prospect for us all, but a year is longer in my foreshortened life than it is in most of yours. I've become unsure how to continue to live with that, to confront it every day and feel angry that nothing is seemingly ever getting better. I'm actually a fundamental optimist, despite it all, but sometimes enduring, surviving, and keeping on is overwhelming. I just want to be better. I just want not to be alone. I just want to go back to normal. I just want some good news. Preferably, I would like to be that good news.

The quotation in the title of this blog post is, as I know many of you will have recognized, a quotation from "Buffy." (Sidebar: I almost never used the long title when referring to the show, leading one of my UCLA undergrads to inquire once in class, "do you mean the Vampire Slayer?" and yes, UCLA student, yes I do.) I've begun rewatching (or re-re-re-watching? I don't even know at this point) my favorite season of the show, the sixth, which is many people's least favorite.

**SPOILERS** for a show that began airing in 1997 and a season that ran 19 years ago.

It's my favorite because it is an entire season about loss, deprivation, grief, and trauma. The quotation is the last thing that Buffy says to her sister before she takes the swan dive that leads to her death at the end of Season 5. Her death is meaningful, saving the world and preventing the apocalypse. Yet, at the start of Season 6, Buffy is brought back to life (and to a different network) by friends who claim it's because they believe she is in Hell but whose secondary motivations (their own inability to survive without her) are revealed over time. We soon learn that she was not in Hell (how could she be?) but Heaven (or a "heavenly dimension"). And like Milton's Satan and Marlowe's Mephistopheles, the deprivation that she knows, having been at peace, makes living each day painful.

As Buffy herself says in 6x03 "After Life" (to Spike, the only one she is able to go to for solace): "Everything here is bright and hard and violent...Everything I feel, everything I touch...this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that...knowing what I've lost ...They can never know. Never." Buffy becomes not the hero she has been for five seasons, but the anti-hero who is no longer able to be what her friends (and the viewers) demand of her: the same. She is profoundly changed, alienated from nearly everyone by the fundamentally incommunicable nature of her pain.

I have never identified with a character more than when, a few episodes later in the beloved musical episode "Once More, With Feeling," she pummels the villains of the day while spouting cliches: "Where there's life--" PUNCH "--there's hope! Every day's--" KICK "--a gift! Wishes can--" JAB "come true! Whistle while--" PUNCH "you work...so hard..all day..to be like other girls. To fit in this glittering world." It's a perfect literalization of the metaphor for fighting depression. (Literalizing metaphors is something the show always did especially well from its very first episode: high school is hell.)

I feel like this now. Kicking and throwing punches and struggling to make it look effortless, which it most certainly is not, fighting to remain here because the other choices are not really choices. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it." The line is thrown back at Buffy by her sister at the conclusion of this show-stopping number, only it is now invested with new meaning. We now have more of a sense of how profoundly difficult that can be. How much we must struggle. And Buffy does struggle and she does fail. And that's why many fans dislike the season.

But I see in her struggles and failures the resilience of someone who continues to fight to stay in the world not because it is good, but because it is enough. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

So what will I do now? It's looking very much like I will be having surgery, possibly as soon as within a few weeks. The sheer size of this tumor and its resistance to other treatments make removing it a better option than it has been in the past. There are more details, of course, but I will share them later when I'm not exhausted from chemo. In the meantime, I am going to watch more "Buffy," and so should you.

Be well and be kind.

Love, Bex

[evien-stark]

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 108 [End: Captain America: Winter Soldier]

“-it’s plain as day, SHIELD has been- should be- labeled as a terrorist organization for their efforts in multitudes of operations-” 

“Then they’re a government sanctioned and paid for terrorist organization! If the members in the benches want to blush at the fact that one of their top spy agencies got caught, then let them turn beet red. But I will not sit here with my colleagues and listen to you pretend you weren’t writing every single check that came their way.” 

“And what of the checks that were issued via Stark Industries?” 

“Non-existent. Try again. Stark Industries has maintained itself as an independent business focused on technology and efforts that improves people’s lives.” 

“And the Avengers?” 

“Brought together under the direction of SHIELD but, rest assured, move of their own agency. While we’ve worked through SHIELD with the US government, we are more than happy to drop the middle man.” 

“You’re asking the government to fund vigilantism?” 

“The Avengers team was constructed to handle enhanced- and otherwise otherworldly threats that the military has no capacity to handle. And, again, I remind you that SHIELD used to be a government organization, since you all conveniently keep forgetting. That puts us above random lawless people running around in masks. I say we’ve done our jobs pretty well. And we’ll continue to do them- no funding from Uncle Sam necessary.” 

“Because of Stark Industries. What was that about being an ‘independent business’?” 

“The Avengers have every cause and the means to handle things the government has otherwise decided they can’t. I’d say removing people from fatal danger when the military is unable to do so, and funding relief efforts when the government sits on their hands counts as life improvement.”

                                                 ---

You and Tony had taken multiple trips back and forth from New York to DC over the past few days. It was to be expected, what with the massive shit storm going on. The two of you were tired, beaten, and worn down, but this was no time to stop. Especially not when you and everyone in your team was being accused of some pretty high crimes.

As you’d expected, the government was not handling the SHIELD leaks all that well. Classified documents spilled to the world in the name of the greater good was not the sort of thing they liked. They would have much rathered everyone kept their mouths shut and allowed Hydra scum to continue thriving. Probably would have preferred a world in which they could quietly direct the Avengers to try and capture as many as they could, while the common American slept in ignorance. 

But that was too bad. What had happened, happened. Your testimony in congress, along with Maria Hill’s and Natasha Romanoff’s played on all the 24 hour news stations. Clip after clip after clip in an endless nauseating run. There was so much to digest. So much to pick apart. Or praise. Depended heavily on which station was doing the featuring. From time to time, your press briefing the day after the Battle at the Triskellion would pop in and out. 

“-Stark Industries is not a safe haven for Hydra. Rest assured, as we speak, our security personnel are taking Hydra into custody, as I imagine the government is doing with their own staff, and getting ready for trials that will last years. We are ready to expend as many resources as necessary to bring them to the justice they deserve. Justice they should have seen years ago, were it not for overzealous intervention that invited them into our country. Into our homes. But there’s no going back now. Tony and I-” 

“Mute.” Silencing the TV as you walked into your office. Having touched back down at Tower after your fifth jet ride in three days. You wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and go to sleep. Take a nap. Didn’t you deserve it, after all this shit? 

But Pepper had been trailing your heels since you’d landed on the tarmac, with a long list of things for you to do. As predicted, the government hearings were ending with them labeling SHIELD as a terrorist organization. They’d only been crowing about it the entire time they’d been bearing down on you. With that came its disbanding. 

So. Time to sow some wild OATs as Tony had put it, after going over your proposal. It was almost hilarious, that way. As some of the documents you’d read (been forced to read, and brought up during the hearings) had stated plain as day that SHIELD and the government had invited Hydra scientists into their labs. Operation Paperclip. What a wonderful idea. 

Thinking they had something to offer that otherwise decent people may not have. Taking a chance. Gambling on that. And, well… after all this you’d have to say it had failed spectacularly. Now, looking on the other side of things, you were about to open a new office to handle the influx of SHIELD agents that were sending in resumes in order to not only keep working but not be threatened by the government they used to work for. 

How quickly the tables turned. Ellis had assured you this was best case scenario. And all he could do. If he’d done anything at all. Sure as hell didn’t feel like it. You had to count your blessings and just thank him regardless. You supposed they really could have come after the Avengers much harder. And… to be honest, you really weren’t prepared for something of that magnitude right now. Hopefully it would never come to that. 

As you signed your name on ten more dotted lines and then sent her away, you got immediately caught with your head in your arms after Pepper left the office and then seconds later poked her head back in. “Maria Hill is here to see you.” 

Sitting up slowly, you ran a hand through your hair. “Yeah.” Despite sharing a table with her for your part of the hearings, you hadn’t actually been able to speak with her at length. It had only been a matter of time before she showed up here. 

Pepper stepped aside to let her into your office and then shut the door. Maria came in, head held high, as always with her. She seemed like a very proud woman. Then she put a folder on your desk and took a seat. “Figured I’d come for the interview personally.” 

“Your resume?” Arching a brow at her. When she nodded you tried not to jump at the opportunity. “You’re hired. You’re now director of the OAT initiative. Go down to HR. Get a badge, do the paperwork, get an email set up. We’ll give you a phone.” 

“...just like that?” At least a little surprised. 

“They’re your people. If there’s anyone I can trust to treat them fairly, it’s you.” She was exactly what you needed. Someone you knew who would do right by these poor people so that you could take it off your plate and not micromanage it. Absolutely perfect. 

She smiled lightly. “Can we at least talk salary?” 

“What was SHIELD paying you?” Folding your hands atop the desk, sitting a little straighter. 

“61k a year. ...decent benefits.” 

“200k. Fantastic benefits. Holiday bonuses.” 

“That’s uh- that’s a solid deal.” Standing up she offered her hand for a shake, so you hid your pain as you stood to meet her with a firm grip. “Just understand, I can’t sit behind a desk forever. Once we’re done with this employee transfer, I’d like something a little more… substantial.” 

A grin found its way to you. “Like I told our dear members of congress, Stark Industries merely funds the Avengers. If that’s the next thing you’re about to ask… I have a different office for that.” 

She smiled back, holding your shake for only a second longer before letting you go. All too soon the expression vanished, and her voice lowered. “Nick is headed to Europe for now. Laying… as low as someone like him can get. But. ...he’s really grateful. For everything you’re doing.” 

Disappointment struck through you very suddenly. Although you didn’t have the closest relationship with Maria, you couldn’t help but let some of your feelings leak out of you. “I really wish…” Sighing, thinking twice about it- and then proceeding anyway. “I just wish he and I could have had a coming together moment or something. Where we finally saw eye to eye. There was a time I shook his hand and it seemed like things were getting better. And then they felt like they got worse. And I don’t know if we’ll ever rectify it all.” 

Was that bad? Did you care? ...some part of you must have. After all this time, you wanted to believe things were worth repairing with Nick.

She looked mildly uncomfortable, crossing her arms, and then cast her gaze aside. “I’ve worked a very long time for Nick Fury. He’s a very complicated man. And we don’t always agree on everything. But I know that whatever he’s doing, however he’s doing it, it’s always for reasons he thinks are right. He’s always just trying to do his best. Even when that means making the toughest calls. That’s why I’ve stuck by him so long.” When she looked up at you, she caught you off guard. “You know exactly what that’s like, I imagine.” 

You weren’t sure if you wanted to dignify that with an answer. It wasn’t Maria’s fault. And you had no reason to make her feel bad about it, but… comparing Nick to Tony… you weren’t quite there yet. So you chose the worse option, deciding the stay in your position over building a stronger foundation, letting a small silence hang. Then, you just gave her a smile. “Well… anyway. Pepper will show you to HR. Once you’re all set up, I’ll send things your way.” 

“Sure. Thanks.” 

She was at least quick and efficient, turning and leaving without another word. Maybe ready to go to work. It was one less mess you had to focus on, and for that you’d be grateful. But it was just as the door had shut and you had sat down, for no less than five seconds, that it opened again. 

It wasn’t the best look to be barking in the tone that you did, but you kind of just couldn’t help it. “What now?” 

Immediately silenced by the door opening wider to reveal Steve standing there. He looked better than he had, lying in that hospital bed, but it still made your heart ache. Just looking at him. Which wasn’t a very good sign. He looked just as upset. “I figured we needed to talk.” 

Thoughts of him had been churning around in your head for the past little while now, surely not unduly so. Congress had asked about him multiple times, but you, Maria, and Nat had told them the three of you were enough. He didn’t need to get mixed up in all this. 

“Yeah, I guess we do.” This wasn’t his fault. How could it be? The more you thought about it… the more you wondered if it was your own inherent selfishness that had caught him in between a rock and a hard place. You’d told him you’d cared about him, and practically begged him not to… do exactly what he’d done. Get beaten to near death to try and make a point. 

But, that’s not all it was. That voice that you’d heard in your head- Steve, calling out for this man. Bucky. It had been so… so sad. Almost unrecognizable. 

You wondered. You wondered what your own decisions would have been, had it been you on the other side of something like that. Steve very clearly cared a great deal for this man. That had been his advantage. He loved him, without a doubt. Maybe not in the same way you loved Tony, but for basis of comparison… you’d thought about it more than once. 

What if someone got control of Tony? And turned him against you? Would you fight back? Would you kill him, knowing the real man you loved was underneath? Or would you… try and do just enough. Fall to your knees. To make a point. To try and hold out. To try and get him back- 

Same as Steve had no doubt done. 

He was intensely uncomfortable. “Can we take a walk?” 

Despite your aching body and its protests, you stood. “I’d like that.” 

                                                ---

Before leaving the building you asked Happy to set up a thirty foot security perimeter to keep paparazzi and reporters at bay as you and Steve walked one of Central Park’s paths. Cold as you were even wearing your own jacket, he dropped his over your shoulders without a second thought, and stuck his hands in his pockets. There was silence for probably too long a time before you broke it. 

“Tell me about him. About Bucky.” 

Sam’s debrief report had come in a day ago, and his conversations with Steve had told you all you needed to know for base information. Steve had fought against Bucky and lost. Steve also thought Bucky had dragged him out of the river after perhaps putting him there in the first place- he’d be right about that, as no one on your team had done it. But after that, no one had a trace on that man. So right now… he was just sort of gone. Which was kind of a problem. 

But to really address it, you had to do exactly what you were doing now. 

Listening to Steve talk, after his surprise that you’d ask that (maybe about how you knew that name), about James Buchanan Barnes. His best friend. They’d met as kids, when Bucky had defended him from some bullies trying to steal his lunch money, and had been stuck to each other ever since. Steve was intensely fond of this man. Proud of him. Looked up to him. Tried to shape himself after him. 

And from the sounds of it, no matter how tough it got, the two of them always looked after each other- Bucky, a little more so, after Steve’s parents had died. Yes, love was no longer a question. Deep and platonic. And then, in the midst of their war with Hydra, he thought he’d seen Bucky killed. 

For years he’d carried a sense of extremely heavy guilt over him about it- and had probably never processed it, either. Having to move on so quickly. It made sense. Too much sense, then. Why, when having that gun leveled at him by that man he’d just stood there. And it made more sense than was fair, why Steve would have died trying to break somebody’s control over him. 

“Do you think you got through to him?” 

He sighed. “Some part of him… I’d like to think so. It’s why he saved me. It has to be. There was a minute there, between punches, when it was just him looking at me.” 

The next question became obvious. “You’re going to go look for him.” So obvious in fact, you merely needed to state it, not ask. 

“...yeah. I have to. He would have done the same for me.” 

The two of you stopped walking, and just stood there. Looking at each other. It was hard to know what to say next. And you wanted to try and… stop being that selfish version of yourself, especially after knowing you’d be in the exact same position. If you were him. “Steve…” Trying to start and then deflating. But when he simply waited patiently, you tried to gather your courage. “I know we can’t compare. And I’m not asking you to choose- I get it. I was… I was wrong, doing that.” 

Bucky had been his best friend through thick and thin for years. Years and years. They loved each other. You two had only known each other for a short time, no matter how close you felt to him. 

Trying to not lose momentum, you continued. “But… even if that’s true- I’d like to still consider us family. Close. A team. And… no matter what, we’re here, too. For you. You started building something here. I know it wasn’t by choice but… don’t forget that. Please.” 

“I won’t.” There was a light twitch of a smile. “...some of it was by choice, you know.”

You found enough strength to smile back. “I know you think you have to do this on your own, like you owe it to him and your relationship- but if you need anything-” 

He silenced you by reaching out, laying a hand on your shoulder, giving you a little squeeze. Holding steady on that expression. “Believe me when I tell you that you offering means the world to me. And if I do… I’ll ask.” 

Giving him a little side-scrunched pout, you lifted your brows. “No more macho man bullshit?” 

And at this his head dropped forward with a little laugh. “Yeah I-... you know, I never thought I’d ever have a label like that put on me. It’s kind of weird.” 

“But not wrong.” You huffed out, at least indignant about this. You were right. And you knew it. 

“Yeah. Maybe not. I’ll work on it.” 

There was still a small sense of hesitation coming from him. Reaching up, you wrapped your arms around him in a hug, helped when he lowered down that small bit to meet you. It was nice. To just have this. “You looking for my blessing this time?” Joking. 

“Actually- this time…” 

When he let go you settled a gaze up his way, just looking at him. Reaching up, you put a hand just near his shoulder. Not quite over his heart. But. Close enough. “Consider yourself blessed.” 

“Thank you.” 

                                                ---

You gave Steve back his jacket and parted ways amicably. The car ride back to the Tower was short. Once there you headed straight for the labs. Deeper into the private part, Tony was writing some long equation on a holo board next to a few rough schematics, lights dimmed. 

Coming in, you settled your arms around his middle, resting your face against his back. One of his arms moved to rest over yours, while he sketched out however the rest of those numbers made sense to him. Once he was finished, and you were content to wait there until then, he set his marker down. “Rogers leave?” 

Of course he would know that. It was of such little surprise to you that he did, that you didn’t even think twice in answering. “Yeah. Steve’s out for a while.” 

His thumb stroked over your arm. “You okay?” 

“We made peace over it.”

“He stopped here, first.” Ah. Well. That made about as much sense as anything else. Why Tony knew and… why he suspected you might have been a little melancholy over the whole thing. ...also why he was checking in to see if that was true. And how things had ended. 

You wondered how that conversation had gone. The two of them had been a little weird with each other for too long a time there. It wouldn’t help the team, for them to be like that. Steve wouldn’t be away forever. Whether or not he found Bucky, a strong part of you knew he’d be back eventually. 

“And did you two make peace, too?” Couldn’t hurt to ask. 

“I don’t have a problem with him, if that’s what you’re asking.” His shoulders drooped, and for a moment, his fingers curved a little more into your skin. Not painfully, but… in a very telling way. “After he explained- I get it. I still stand by what I said. I wouldn’t stand there and let somebody I knew shoot me- but, hey. We’re not all me. Can’t ask for perfection.” 

Your lips formed a brief smile against his shirt, breathing out a lightly admonishing noise. “Right…” 

“Anyway. I get it. He made a choice. You made a choice. No changing it. And he’s making another choice now. I get that, too.” 

It was easy to imagine Tony had been thinking about the same thing you had. Likening his own relationships to try and make it make sense. The lengths one would go to, to drag someone they loved out from underneath someone else’s control. 

He let go of you, so you dropped your own arms, allowing him to turn to face you. The bruising around his eye was still slightly prominent, as was the cut along the back line of his jaw on the right side. Reaching up, you palmed his cheek, and he moved his hand to hold yours there. 

“We’ll keep his room open.” 

Tony’s lips quirked. “But still charge rent, right?” “We don’t charge anyone rent.” 

“But we pay them. ...and we’re not charging them rent.” His eyes squinted, brows knitting, but his grin was telling. “How are we making money on this operation again?” 

Giggling lightly, you moved to loop your arms around his neck, drawing him in. “Oh, honey, I don’t know how to tell you this. But the Avengers account has been in the red ever since its incarnation.” 

His hands came to your hips, leaning in, nose nuzzling yours. “Who’s in charge again?” 

“Debatable. What, you don’t trust me?” 

“Implicitly.” His warm, amused hum was lost between a press of lips. 

But when you pulled back, “In that case, I need to tell you just how much money we’re losing-” 

With an even lift, he pulled you up onto one of his nearby work stations, grin touching over your smile. “Please don’t. You know what they say-” 

Your giggles continued. “Ignorance is bliss?” 

“Money isn’t everything.” 

 There was a warm purr in the back of your throat as he kissed you again. At the next part, “Says the man who has it all.” Teasing, still.

 Delighting in the way his lips curved over yours. Amused. Lovingly so. His next few thoughts came out between slower and sweeter kisses. “There is one thing more important to me than money… and I’m currently trying to seduce her to bed…”

 Your reply was just a bit breathy. “Oh… is it working?”

 His light laughter against the side of your neck threatened to do you in completely. “You know what, I think so. Lucky me.”

[realityandrebirth]

Femslash February: Turing Test

Summary: Pixal has never considered herself human, and she isn't about to start. When an old villain returns, she's forced to confront the traits that make her different from the humans she loves. A Nya/Pixal fic.

Notes: hey hey hey here’s a late post for day one of femslash february! my apologies for starting a new chaptered fic, but this one is only gonna be like, 8 chapters long & finished by the end of the month.

all my fics for femslash february are gonna be posted on tumblr first and collected on ao3 at the end of the month. have fun!

Chapter One

Ninjago City's bright lights gave the night sky a soft glow. Even from miles away, she could pick out her father's tower with its shining blue logo. She wasn't looking at the skyline that night, but even so, she felt it when all the lights went out.

Pixal snapped her head up. Zane looked over, concern written across his face. "Is everything alright?" he asked.

"The power went out in Borg Tower." Pixal stood up from the couch, checking her system for the other connections that had gone out. "The rest of the city, as well. Generators are bringing emergency services online, but I can't get in contact with my father."

She moved to the window. The horizon was dark. Her processors whirred as she tried to figure out what had caused the blackout – she hadn't noticed anything wrong in the moments before. She couldn't connect to the internet. Pixal checked the most recent flow of data into her systems, but even for her, thinking in milliseconds, it would take hours to comb through everything.

Zane put a hand on her shoulder and she jumped. "I'll tell the others," he said. "Do you us to go ahead of them?"

"I can go alone," Pixal said. "I will call if I need backup."

"There might be danger, Pixal. We don't know what caused this blackout. Isn't there supposed to be systems to prevent this sort of thing?"

Pixal shrugged off Zane's hand. "My first priority is making sure my father isn't trapped in his office without a functioning elevator," she said. "As I said, I'll let you know if I get into trouble."

Zane frowned, but didn't protest further. Pixal left the room and went to put on her armor.

*

She was greeted on the street by panicking citizens. "Samurai X!" someone shouted, and they all turned to look at her.

"I thought she was Pixal?" someone commented. Pixal herself scoffed. They clearly weren't in significant danger if they could debate the semantics of her name.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked, looking around. The buildings were intact, and there were even some cars still driving around. "What's the situation?"

It took some argument among the crowd, but eventually, someone stepped forward to explain things to her. The blackout had happened without warning and with no explanation. The emergency broadcast system was down, too. With no way to find out how or why this was happening, and with no sign of when it would improve, people were starting to panic. Pixal confirmed that emergency services like hospitals had generators running, and faced the rest of the crowd.

"Don't worry," she said. "The ninja will be arriving shortly to assist in any way they can. If there's nothing that needs my attention before they get here, I need to check on Borg Tower."

No one argued otherwise, so Pixal left to check on her father.

*

Pixal didn't see any of the usual employees in the lobby to greet her, and no one as she ascended the stairs. Around floor thirty, she did a quick sweep through the rooms just to make sure no one was stuck somewhere, but when her search came up empty, she resumed her climb.

Was Cyrus Borg even here?

His room was empty. Pixal shone her flashlight in every nook and cranny, and found nothing out of the ordinary. Was he in his office? He often worked late nights, but it was almost three AM. Pixal found that her mind was using excessive processing power going through potential explanations for what had happened. She killed the routine and headed to the hundredth floor.

"Father?" she called out, shining her flashlight around the dark room. "Are you here?"

For a long few moments, no one answered. Pixal was prepared to turn back, but something kept her standing there, and she heard a weak voice respond.

"…Pixal?"

"Father!" Pixal took a few steps into the room. "Father, where are you?"

"…over here…"

Pixal pointed her light at the desk at the opposite of the room and ran to it. Cyrus Borg was on the floor behind it, and he looked up at Pixal with a small, crooked smile when she kneeled down. "Thank goodness," he croaked. "I thought…"

"Father, your arm!"

Long ago, an evil force had taken her father's arm and replaced it with a mechanical prosthetic. The invasive procedure had rendered it impossible to remove, and all Cyrus could do was accept that it was part of him now.

Now, the prosthetic was in pieces, warped bits of metal scattered across the floor, and there were wires sticking out of the remainder that was still attached to his shoulder. Cyrus winced away when she reached out to examine it. "Ah, Pixal…"

Pixal's mind whirred. "The doctors said the wiring reached to your spinal cord," she said. "Removing it entirely was too risky. The procedure could kill you. Father, what happened?"

Cyrus took a deep breath. "There was a virus," he said. "Not the Overlord, no, but… something he placed to… to monitor me? To… I don't know."

"It was in your arm?" Pixal eyes scanned the pieces strewn around him. None of it was together enough to still be functional. "Father…"

Cyrus pushed himself up, his face contorted in obvious pain. "You're hurt," Pixal said, and she took hold of his good arm and let him lean on her. "Did something attack you?"

"The virus was dormant after the Overlord's defeat," he said instead of answering her question. "But… it was reactivated. I don't know how or why, but when I realized… no, Pixal, I did this myself."

Pixal took a moment to process his statement. "The power went out," she said, preferring to think of something other than Cyrus smashing his own prosthetic. "Was that caused by the virus?"

"It… might be related. It went out shortly before the virus was reactivated. Pixal, are the ninja coming?"

She nodded. "Zane knows I'm here, and I can send a message to him and the others. We need to get you to a hospital."

"Of course," Cyrus said, and he let out a half-laugh cut off by a pained groan.

Pixal picked Cyrus up, careful not around the shoulder where his prosthetic had been. She didn't know the full extent of what the Overlord had done – not even her father knew – and if something had been damaged internally, there was no telling what might happen. Her father was clearly in pain already.

"We're going," she said, and she stood up.

Someone was at the office entrance. Pixal couldn't see them clearly in the darkness, and they disappeared into the stairwell when she shone a light on them. All she saw was a flash of green. Pixal frowned. Cyrus had gone stiff, and she could hear his rapid breathing.

"Just a moment," she said, and she placed Cyrus back on the ground.

"Pixal, wait –"

"I'm just making sure there's no danger," she said. "Stay here."

Despite Cyrus' protests, she turned and strode towards the entrace. "Show yourself!" she shouted, drawing her sword. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

No response. Pixal stepped into the stairwell. It was quiet, and she didn't see anyone, but there was a presence in the atmosphere that was impossible to ignore. Pixal gripped her sword and ran a program to scan the area.

Something slammed into her side. Pixal tumbled down a flight of stairs before locking on to her assailant's position. She threw the sword without confirming visuals, and looked up to see her sword pass through empty air, with no sign there was anyone in the stairwell with her.

No – there was someone there. She caught another ripple of translucent green coming towards her before she rolled out of the way.

Pixal heard the thud as the invisible figure hit the ground where she had just been. She righted herself and pointed her sword. "Show yourself, ghost!" she demanded.

"Is that what I am now?"

She knew that voice. Pixal tried to calculate the probability of her situation. It was inconceivable. All the villains that had come back on the Day of the Departed had been banished again – how was Cryptor here now?

Slowed down by her calculations, she didn't react in time to stop him from slamming into her again.

She crashed to the ground, losing her grip on her sword, and reached for the second one on her back. Just as her hand closed on its hilt, something sharp was jammed into the joint of her shoulder.

Electricty coursed through her. Her mind filled with hundreds of warnings and failures that she was rapidly losing the ability to comprehend as her systems killed every unnecessary routine. In one last, desperate move, she took all her power and rerouted it to her chest.

The world went white. Pixal's last conscious thought to hope there was enough of her left to reboot.

[ohprettyweeper-fics]

The Last Bandito: Vulture Generation

Part Eleven: Denounce Vialism

Summary: Tyler and Ildri’s calm day is interrupted by information from Josh; Quinn is visited by Berit; two members of The Conference discuss the citizens’ reaction to The Vial.  Word Count: 2145  Warnings:   Angst A/N: Book #2 of The Last Bandito series. Prompts are in bold; translations are from Google Translate.

Masterlist

Several days passed without incident. It was the longest time that had passed since their arrival to Trench without a cause for worry — which, in itself, caused Ildri to worry. 

“It feels like the calm before the storm,” she confided in Tyler. 

He shook his head. “It’s a slow down. One we all sorely need. We should appreciate it for what it is.”

Ildri drew in a deep breath; he didn’t know the things that she knew. He could only speculate as to what was coming next. Tyler’s hand squeezed hers, and Ildri couldn’t shatter the hope he had begun to build. So, she forced as much of a smile as she could. 

“You’re right. We should take the opportunity to breathe. What should we do with our day?”

Quinn hid out in her apartment for three days after leaving the hospital. She knew that The Conference had to be looking for her, but the alert had not been spread over the city. 

“How could they,” she muttered to herself while she set water to boil for tea, “then everyone would know The Vial is a crock.”

The longer she was away from the hospital, the more her health improved. The Heathen virus was fading, as she had suspected. If The Vial had done her any favors, it was to bolster her genetic virus to work harder to overcome any foreign substance in her body — the ‘cure’ and the Heathen virus both. With that surge, the dearg-due within her began to surface at any given time. Quinn was thankful she had already been learning to control the monster before all of this happened. 

She knew she wasn’t going to be able to hide out here forever. Eventually, the same men that had been waiting for them in Ildri’s apartment after rescuing Tyler and Josh from Old Dema would come for her here. It was only a matter of time. 

The tea bag made soft noises as Quinn dunked it in and out of the hot water a couple of times before letting it settle and steep. She put two pieces of bread in the toaster, then stood back to wait for her small meal to be ready. 

In the same moment the toast popped up, a knock sounded on the door. Quinn’s breath caught in her throat; her cheeks heated as the monster swirled to life within her. 

“Stop it,” she whispered. 

Through the peephole, she could see Berit standing in the hallway. The threat of the visiting nurse was real, but Quinn wasn’t worried that Berit would be able to overtake her. If anything, the concern was Berit convincing Quinn to return to the hospital. 

“What do you want?” Quinn asked, almost before she had opened the door all the way. 

Berit stepped into the apartment. “Only to see that you’re all right.”

The door was still open; Quinn motioned to it. “You’ve done that. I’m fine.”

Berit pushed the door closed. “Quinn, you don’t understand. The Vial is being met with immense pushback from citizens. The Conference is scrambling, trying to get results — positive results — to give to the people so that they can see that this cure, this vaccine, is real. It works.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Quinn asked. “The Vial is a hoax! When you and the doctor injected it into me, my monster bucked against it. It’s poison, Berit. How many Heathens have they tried that on before they released it to the public?”

“More than a hundred.”

Quinn narrowed her eyes. “And how many of them are still alive today?”

Berit swallowed hard. “None.”

Quinn scoffed. “None. Not one. And you let them inject me with that? I could have died! Why did you convince me to stay? I wanted to leave. I wanted to die my way — which now I know wouldn’t have happened. My body is fighting the remnants of the Heathen virus on its own, just as I told you. So why. Tell me that. Why convince me to stay?”

Berit’s eyes filled with the tears of someone who has no choice but to, finally, share the truth. 

“There are a group of us who support The Conference without question. We have been deeply involved in the development of The Vial. We’ve invested time, money, whatever resources we could offer. Heathens and other non-humans, Quinn, it’s not how life is meant to be lived. The Bishops go against nature when they inject their own citizens with The Serum. We believe that the efforts of The Conference to cleanse the Heathens and —”

Quinn held up a hand. “Cleanse? I’m sorry, but I have to ask again — do you hear yourself? You’re talking in terms historically associated with genocide! The Heathens are not all loyal to the Bishops. If they were, the Bandito camp would not be growing as it is.” She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest. “I was born this way. Ildri was born the way she is. What about her? What about me? Are we abominations in need of cleansing, too?”

Berit was quiet; that was enough of a response for Quinn. She asked the nurse to leave, and Berit didn’t argue. Before Quinn could close the door, Berit turned back quickly. 

“They know you’re here. They’ll come for you. If you come back with me —”

But Quinn interrupted her again. “You convinced me once, Berit, but you won’t convince me again.”

With the door shut and locked, her tea and toast forgotten, Quinn scrambled to pack as much as she could. She hadn’t thought she would come back here before, but this time, there would truly be no returning. 

After closing the door behind her for the last time, Quinn turned to tape a note to the door before leaving New Dema for Trench. Only two words were written on the note but the words would leave a clear idea of where she stood when they came to find her. 

When Tyler and Ildri returned from their walk, Josh and Savea were waiting for them. Ildri exchanged a glance with Tyler before stopping in front of the other two. 

“We have to talk,” Josh sighed. “I had a dream about Faylinn. Not a good dream.”

Ildri’s eyes met Savea’s in a silent apology. “Is she alive?”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t know. Do you want the details?”

Did she? “No. I’ll have to go into New Dema, back to the apartment. Try to figure out where she went in New York.”

“I’ll go with you,” Tyler offered, leaving no room for questions. 

Ildri nodded her agreement and went to their tent for a couple of things she would need for the errand. Josh was quick on their heels, offering to go as well. 

“No,” Ildri answered quickly, again meeting Savea’s eyes. “Tyler and I will go. It’s not a mission, it’s an errand. Stay here, in case someone shows up in Trench. We’ll be back soon.”

Josh’s shoulder’s immediately tensed and he turned away without another word. Tyler frowned, but Ildri pretended not to see his silent question as she tied the bandana around her neck before pulling it up over her mouth and nose. 

“Vialism,” Claude Chevalley announced, dropping the day’s newspaper on Andre’s desk, “they’re calling the vaccine campaign vialism. The patient that received the injection at the hospital has left for Trench. ‘Denounce vialism’ — that’s what the note on her door said when officers went to retrieve her. We don’t know yet if she’s gone to Old Dema or to the encampment, but the nurse who cared for her says the patient refused to come back willingly.”

Andre took measured breaths as he skimmed over the newspaper article. “What would you have me do about it, Claude? The people are unhappy. We cannot deceive them with the results of the injection, of the trials of the injection. If we do that, we are no better than the Bishops. We are no better than the life we left behind.”

The other man glanced over his shoulder at Velika, who’s typing had slowly stopped as the exchange took place. Her eyes were wide and full of fear; Claude gave her a kind smile and asked her to put on a new pot of coffee in the staff lounge. 

“Of course, Mr. Chevalley.”

The young woman hurried out of the room. Claude raised a brow at Andre, who waved away his colleague’s fears. 

“She only has concern for the wellbeing of herself and her family. Velika is, perhaps, the only innocent soul left here in the city.” Andre sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll ask you again. What would you have me do about the Vialism issue? It’s a movement. Something we must manage in the sense of not allowing it to create chaos, yes, but it is not something we can stop the people — our people — from believing. Just as the Bishops could not stop us from believing there was a better life outside of the walls.”

Claude nodded. “When we were Banditos, brother, they called that a movement as well. They lost our trust, our loyalty. Are we next to lose these things of our citizens?”

“Not if we handle this with care — care, mind you, means not only with caution, but with the best interest of the people at heart. If they are concerned of The Vial, we will give them the information they want. No medication is perfect in its initial formation, but if we assure them we are seeking to do better, to improve the formula … they’ve no reason not to trust us.”

Claude picked up the newspaper and backed towards the door; Velika returned and resumed her position at the desk. 

“I hope you’re right, brother. I hope you’re right.”

The moment they entered the apartment — one she had never planned on returning to — Ildri wished she had never come here. A million memories hit her all at once, good and bad and in between; she had to stop at the top of the stairs to catch her breath before she could make herself remember why she had come in the first place. 

“If they’ve left anything,” she told Tyler, “there should be a stack of mail on the kitchen counter. Will you go through that and see what you can find?”

Tyler nodded, squeezing her elbow gently before going in search of the pile of mail. Ildri watched after him for a few steps before she turned toward her cousin’s part of the house. 

Faylinn’s room wasn’t empty, which told Ildri that her cousin planned to return — or had planned to return. There were still clothes in the drawers, some of her favorite jewelry heirlooms in an old jewelry box, and a picture of them as children taped to the vanity mirror. 

Ildri plucked the picture away from the mirror, leaving a scrap of tape behind. The picture had been taken only a few months after Ildri had been adopted. She and Faylinn hadn’t been quite the fast friends she and Tyler had been, but they had grown close in only a couple of months’ time. The nearness in age helped. In this photo, they were seated together on their grandmother’s sofa, smiling with big, toothy grins. Judging by their t-shirt and shorts, it must have been summer. A nearby window showed that it was dark outside, but the room was well-lit. 

What a contrast those two little girls were in appearance. Faylinn with her bright, happy eyes and naturally orange-red hair. Ildri’s dark eyes were already masking secrets then, and her hair was as dark a shade of brown as nature could muster. In that moment though, she was happy. She remembered that much for certain. The differences between them didn’t matter — hadn’t mattered until the night Faylinn followed her to Old Dema. 

When you realize who you are, then maybe you’ll understand. The last thing she had said to Faylinn. Had her cousin realized who she was? She was a citizen of New Dema. The cousin of a half-Heathen, half-human. The closest family member of the last Bandito child. Faylinn had always been a believer in what New Dema was supposed to stand for; she never would have been loyal to the exile if she had not been acting out of fear. She would have fought it, right by Ildri’s side in Trench. 

“Nothing in the stack of letters,” Tyler announced, “but I found this in her desk drawer.”

Ildri shoved the picture into her jacket pocket and took the letter from Tyler. The name and contact information for the publishing company was in the letterhead. Ildri nodded. 

“We’ll start with this information and hope for the best. Let’s see if the phone line is still connected.”

Tags: @nonsenseverses​​​ @tylersheavydirtysoul​​​ @apurdyfulmind​​​ @adversaryproject​​​

[peakysabrina]

Dark Horse: chapter 9

So! Warning for like a makeout? So it’s like slightly NSFW. Nothing crazy tho. I promise. 

Sure, Gigi is in mortal peril, and that needs to be worked out, but it’s also super obvious her and Ada have like... chemistry. Hence the warning. 

The physician who was called shook from top to bottom, having been draggen to Polly Gray's home under the threat of Isaiah Jesus' shotgun. Neither the preacher's son nor the good doctor were aware of who it was who needed medical care, and only the latter one was allowed inside the home, and inside the guest bedroom. The patient had to be the blonde girl who laid on the bed, either sleeping, passed out, or dead already; covered in soot, it was hard to make out any other features.

"She inhaled a lot of smoke" Polly Gray informed, hand over her mouth. Philip Morris, the doctor, knew the lady fairy well, and couldn't say that he'd ever seen her as worried as she was now. "And she sometimes wakes up, but can't really speak"

"Does she look confused when she comes to?" Morris asked, approaching the patient and seeing that some efforts had been made to clean the afflicted girl, and there had been the common sense to open the windows, so that fresh air could come into the room. 

"I wouldn't say confused, no. She does have a hard time breathing, though, and seems to be in pain" Polly replied, making the doctor nod. Those symptoms were to be expected, as was the shallow breathing he could hear.

"Hm... Well, the first thing we need is some oxygen, but for that we need a..."

"Polly! Polly, I need help with this!" a voice shouted from what seemed to be front door. Following suit, both Polly and Morris went down the stairs, where none other than Ada Thorne stood, after seemingly have dragged a full cannister of oxygen, with what looked like a hose and a mask. 

"We need one of those, that's what I was about to say" doctor Morris completed, looking mildly concerned with the presence of a medical device outside of a hospital or GP practice. However, it shouldn't be surprising that a Shelby had access to whatever they needed, but it was strange that Ada knew such a thing existed and would be needed. "Let's get it upstairs" he prompted, deciding not to comment on it. 

"I shouted at a few nurses and pointed a gun at them until they gave me it" Ada commented, as if it was completely normal and not at all noteworthy. Polly nodded, as the three of them made their way to the guest bedroom. The girl, whoever she was, was still sleeping, and doctor Morris went to work setting up the machine, to hopefully save a life that day. 

"Did it work? Gigi? Gigi?" Ada Thorne let out the second the mask was on the girl's face. Morris did appreciate having a name for his patient, although Gigi was atrocious. "Gigi! Wake up, love!"

"Mrs. Thorne, she needs to take in a good dose of it before we can see any improvement" the doctor explained, breathing deeply. "We'll leave the mask for about an hour, and then we'll see how she feels, and if she needs some more of it to clear out her lungs" 

"Fine. Thank you, doctor" Polly even made an effort to smile, but rushed the doctor out quickly, advising him that he was to tell no one about what he'd gone to her house for, under the threat of consequences he would not appreciate. 

Ada, on the other hand, had not cared at all that a medical professional, or anyone else, had been to see Gigi. She knew enough about human anatomy to know that oxygen would help someone breathe, and that seemed to be Gigi's main issue at that moment. As to how she got her hands on oxygen, it was also pretty easy; if needed she was ready to go to the ends of the earth to get whatever Georgia needed. 

"Hey love, I'm back. You alright? Is the mask too tight?" Ada asked, taking Gigi's hands into hers, resuming their positions before she'd left for the hospital. Of course, there was no response, but at least something was being done. There was no way to tell whether the poor girl was sleeping or passed out, but there was a heartbeat, which Ada checked obsessively. 

"She's not going to die if you eat something" Polly chuckled from the door, trying not to smile too widely. "Or have some tea"

"Not hungry" her niece replied, brushing some stray hair from Gigi's face, as carefully and lovingly as she could. "I hate seeing her like this"

"I do too" Pol agreed, leaning on the doorway. "I did wish to see you and her together, but not like this"

"Why did you? I myself didn't realise how I was starting to feel about her until I found her there" Ada admitted, hating herself just a bit. She'd had three weeks to come to terms with what had started to bloom the first night Gigi appeared in her life, but she had ignored all of it. 

"I have my ways. Not to mention Gigi may have told me in great secrecy she had feelings for you" Polly confessed, opting for staying by the door, to take in the complete picture before her, equal parts beautiful and sad. 

"She did? Well, she... Gigi told me... back at the camp..." Ada stuttered, trying to decide whether she wanted to share that information, or if she wanted to keep that memory to herself. 

"And what did you say to that?"

"I told her I was falling in love with her, and she told me she already was in love with me" 

There was no point in hiding that information from Polly, was there? Love wasn't really something to be afraid of, or embarrassed by. As for the precious memory involved, Ada refused to believe those words were the last thing Gigi would say and hear. There would be time for them to say it, to feel it, to discover what it meant for a future that seemed uncertain. 

"We'll have to find a way to hide her, and probably get her away from here without Tommy knowing" Polly reminded, going from the door to the window, and looking out to the back garden. There were Blinders somewhere around there, but she knew from experience that they couldn't hear them from that distance. 

"Do you think he'll still want to..."

"Do you think Gigi will suddenly change her mind when she's well enough to walk by herself?" Polly asked, lighting a cigarette. "Her father will still be dead, and it will still be Tommy who's to blame for employing him" 

"You're right. Fuck, Pol; what do we do?" 

"I don't know. But I think that the best option would be to get her back to Swansea, or to travel with one of her sisters. Let Tommy believe she's really gone" Polly admitted, breathing as deeply as she could. Of course, her heartbreak was lessened by a daughter she couldn't keep close; another loss for her already extensive list. Letters would have to sufice, and that was already better. 

"I know" Ada sighed, conflicted between brain and heart. It was too dangerous to keep Gigi around, it could threaten her life again, but damn it she didn't want to let go. The thought alone hurt, and it was all because of Tommy. Tommy had gotten them into this mess, had gotten Aberama Gold killed, which in turn had lit the fire of vengeance in Gigi. Between the two of them, there could only be one outcome: death. "What if she came back to London with me?" 

"And have to hide for the rest of her life? Looking over her shoulder, thinking about what might happen if she lets down her guard?"

"Thinking about what might happen to you and your children when he tries to get to me?" Gigi asked, having managed to take off the mask, and even attempt to sit up. Ada's face lit up with a smile as she helped her sit, a sigh of relief loud and clear. 

"How do you feel? Better?" Ada asked, hands on Gigi's cheeks, examining every inch of her skin, and then slooking straight into her eyes. "Does anything hurt, can you breathe?"

"I'm fine, I'm alright, I feel great" Gigi chuckled, albeit a bit breathless from the effort of sitting up. "I don't know where I am right now, but I have to go before Tommy finds out and hurts you" 

"You're not going anywhere" Polly ordered, chucking her cigarette and closing the window. "You need to rest, and you need to recover before you do anything. Tommy won't find out anything, and we need time to think about where it would be safest"

"Swansea. Swansea is safest" Gigi argued, looking around. "I know the rest of them are dead, they couldn't have survived, I remember their trailers on fire. But I've more people loyal to me in Wales, and Tommy wouldn't dare go that far"

"He would, Georgia. You don't know him like we do. He thinks his life's in danger, and he will stop at nothing to get rid of you. He's got resources, he's got..." Ada explained, sadly aware that Gigi would have to leave the country, and never come back. 

"Well, he's right. His life is in danger. He tried to kill me, and killed people I cared about. I'm willing to go back to Swansea, to my home, to make sure the heat dies down. But I can't guarantee I won't be back to finish what needs to be done" Gigi informed, her eyes darkening significantly. It was impossible to doubt her, her expression provided all the proof that she would, indeed, stop at nothing to see Thomas Shelby die. "What I refuse to let happen is him finding out you helped me get away, and doing something to hurt you"

"What about me, eh? What about me? You'll go back to fucking Swansea, and leave me here? And then what? After what you said, after what I said? Does that mean absolutely nothing?" Ada spat, in a tone that surprised Gigi. She sounded beyond cross, she sounded furious, betrayed. "Fuck, I sound like a teenager. I sound like a brat"

"You don't, actually. You sound like I want to sound, and you're saying what I want to say" Gigi admitted, lowering her eyes to their intertwined fingers. "I don't want to go, and it's absolutely my fault that we're in this situation. I should never have come here"

"Don't say that, that's not true and you know it" Ada responded, dismissing those hurtful words. "We would never have met if you hadn't come, and I would've never fallen for you"

"Well yes, but this? This situation we're in? I can't... Ada, I can't give you anything but trouble. I want to, I desperately want to give you the world, settle into a little cottage in the middle of the Brecon Beacons and kiss you every day for the rest of my life, play with your kids, go get wood for our fireplace, sleep by your side... but I can't. You've a business, you've a job, and your brother would never let us have a normal life" Gigi confessed, with tears gathering at the corner of her eye. "Believe me, I want to be with you, more than anything in this world..." 

Ada never knew how that sentence would end, because she found herself moving forward to kiss Gigi as hard as she could, knocking the oxygen right out of both their lungs. Gigi kissed back, fueled by the energy she'd gained in the last hour, and by the absolute pleasure of feeling her beloved's lips on her, her tongue in her mouth. Out of the blue, but as welcome as sunshine after a rainy day, Ada moved so that her body could be on top of Gigi's, deepening the kiss, destroying any awareness of the outside world. Polly was long gone, reading the room as one she didn't belong in any longer, so they were alone, and free to get rid of their clothes, carelessly throwing them on the floor, anxious to feel closer.