#opeli's blood pressure is high enough as it is

[themistdragon]

*If the Dragang head back to Katolis post-s5*

Opeli: King Ezran, what on earth is that glowing orb thing??

Ezran: Oh, it's nothing, just the prison of the most dangerous, evil being in the history of Xadia

Opeli:

[barefoothighlander]

absolution - to be alone

-simon ‘ghost’ riley x wife!reader

-warnings: mdni (18+) angst, canon typical violence, death, kidnapping, mentions of blood

-word count: 3.5k

-summary: the secret of your marriage gets out and you and Ghost have to deal with the consequences

prev chapter masterlist

a/n: fair bit of violence this chapter, apologies that it took so long to write I’m having insane writers block, not proofread

“What do you mean Price knows” His voice was calm, he never yelled at you but for some reason you wished he was. His stoic state making you even more nervous,

“I had to tell him Simon he knew something was up”

“He didn’t know shit”

“Whatever he did, or didn’t know, or thought he knew, it doesn’t matter. He knows now, he understands why we didn’t tell him but atleast that weights of our chest”

“It’s not off our chest, what happens when he had to put it in our files? When he accidentally let’s slip that we’re married?”

“He wouldn’t do that”

“And you know that how?”

“Because you trust him, you’ve trusted him for years”

“Yea well the people you trust can hurt you the most” He says, standing to leave the room,

“Simon please, I’m sorry”

“It doesn’t matter now”

He closes the door and your emotions hit you, you regret everything about your decision to go to Price, but the sinking feeling in your chest wouldn’t let up until you told him. He had been surprised at first, he just assumed that the two of you were hooking up, he had no idea that you were married let alone knew each other prior to the mission, your file had pages about your previous ops but none mentioned the Lieutenant. Price was understanding in your secrecy, a little offended that Simon didn’t trust him with the knowledge but understanding none the less, he promised to keep it from the team no matter what and that was good enough for you.

Simon on the other hand wanted to wring the Captains neck, he could try to threaten him into sworn secrecy but he knew it wouldn’t work, he was furious. His only rule for your relationship being that it stayed between the two of you, and now it was compromised, yes he trusted Price with his life, but not with yours.

Simon marched his way to Prices office, his hands clenched at him sides as he knocked on the door, opening it once he heard the Captains voice.

“Simon”

“Sir”

“I understand congratulations are in order”

“Don’t”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You know why”

“I’ve read everything in your file, i know about your past, your family”

Simon winces at the mention

“You can trust me with this son”

“You need to take her off the op”

“You know you can’t make that request”

“I’m not asking as her Lieutenant”

“She’s an imperative part to this op”

“Find another sniper”

Before Price can respond Simon breezes out of the room, a cloud of fury following behind him as he storms through the halls to his shacks. He releases a deep breath, pulling his mask from his head once he’s inside. He felt betrayed, a vow as sacred as the ones you made the day you got married and you had broken it, technically he understood why, you were never great under pressure from higher ranks, he knew you couldn’t keep a lot of things to yourself given all the gossip you had told him over the years, but he trusted you with this.

He feared for you mostly, he knew he was in danger everyday, he had enemies across the globe and if word got out that you were married, a big red target would paint itself on your back. He didn’t want to think of the things his enemies would do to you in order to get to him, it made his stomach churn.

You stand in your quarters, thinking of all the things you could say, how you could apologize, and nothing comes to mind. You understand the weight of your decision but you’ve had people trying to kill your for years, you’ve made enemies of your own, you huff a breath holding yourself high.

You walk down the halls to Simons quarters before Price calls you into his office,

“Yes sir?”

“I have a favour to ask”

“Sir if it’s anything about my private life I ask that you keep it to yourself”

“It’s nothing about that Strider, trust I’ll keep that information confidential”

You nod “What do you need”

“I need recon on the building, you’re the only one with training that suits the op”

“Are you sure”

“I need the others here, you’re my only option Sargent”

“When do you need me”

“You have 3 hours to prep, a car will drop you at your view point and you’re alone from there, it’s a 3 day op but you’ll have comms”

“You need me to watch for three days?”

“There’s intel stating a transfer will occur within the week, I need your eyes to track movement”

“So no engagement”

“You do not have execute authority”

You nod, “Okay”

You leave his office, your argument with Simon gone from your mind, replaced with the anxiety of your mission. You approach his door and knock, you hear shuffling in the room before he opens it.

“Hi”

He opens the door to let you in, his head leaking out to make sure the hallways were clear. You glance around the room, his desk is a mess with open pages,

“You’re writing again?”

“Just, had some stuff I needed to get out”

“Si”

“I don’t want to fight about it, what’s done is done”

“Okay.. I’m leaving for a few days”

“What do you mean? You’re going home?”

“No”

He raises an eyebrow in question,

“Solo recon”

“Absolutely not”

“Simon please”

“Is he trying to punish me for not telling him about us?”

“What are you talking about”

“He’s sending you out alone, to punish me”

“Simon no one’s punishing you, this is the reason Price asked for me”

“I don’t want you out there with no backup”

“I’ll have comms to the base, I won’t be close enough for them to get anywhere near me”

Simon’s skin heats with anger, you move toward him, hands holding his at his side as you try to calm him.

“I’ll do this, then i’ll go home” You say with a heavy breath. You feel his muscles loosen slightly, his head moving down so his eyes can stare into yours, those dark orbs so full of emotion.

“Three days” He says and you nod, bringing your cheek to rest against his chest, his hands moving to roam your back.

“Three days and i’m back home”

“Safe” He mutters, his arms holding you against him.

You leave Simons room a few minutes later, bidding your goodbyes before moving to your quarters to pack your gear. You have 20 minutes before you have to meet your car, you’re breathing deeply, the mission wasn’t rare to you, spending time alone peering from rooftops was practically half your job in your last team, but being there, knowing Simon was only so far away. You knew he risked his life every time he left, you never asked the details, you didn’t want to stress about every little thing, this felt different, you were so close yet so far apart, you throw your bag over your shoulder and walk towards the outer doors.

Ghost is standing beside the car, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What are you doing here”

“I’m driving you, Captain owed me a favour”

You scoff at him jokingly before loading into the vehicle, as the two of you drive off. Your position wasn’t that far, about a 40 minute drive till you got dropped off and had to walk the rest of the way.

“Keep channel 4 open, that’s where you’ll contact me”

“I’m only supposed to talk to Price”

“Keep it open” He says with a glare, his gloved hand moving to rest on your thigh. You watch the terrain pass you by as you keep driving, dry mountains breezing past your eyesight. You arrive at an dirt road and Ghost turns the engine off, he sits silently for a few minutes, his free hand roaming across the wheel before you turn your body, taking his hand in yours.

“It’ll be okay”

“I know”

“I’m very good at what I do”

“I know that too”

“I’ll see you in three days”

He huffs a breath and nods, hands moving to pull his mask up slightly before leaning in to kiss you, he holds your cheek deepening the kiss before pulling back and resting his forehead against yours.

“Just be careful”

You squeeze his hand tenderly before stepping out of the car and grabbing your gear.

“I love you” You say

“I love you too doll”

You begin walking away, while Ghosts sits in the car until your figure fades from view, there was nothing he could do now but leave, he had to trust you.

Your walk was harsh, the dry terrain mixed with the beaming sun doing damage to your lungs, huffing your way across the ground before you made it to the small city, navigating around back alleys. You locate your view point, climbing an outer ladder to reach the top, sneaking into an open window where you position yourself, your scope settling on the target building in the distance.

“Alpha leader this is Strider how copy?”

“Good copy Strider, are you in position”

“Affirm”

“Alright, keep eyes, take note of any movement in or out, I want a head count”

“Copy, out”

You settle in to your position, eyes locked onto the building for signs of movement. Hours pass without anyone going in or out, you’ve traded your scope for spotting binoculars as the sun went down slowly, the warm air encompassing you in the abandoned building. No movement anywhere that you could see, no cars, no people, you had no idea what you were looking for.

Night falls and you have to toss your visionary aids aside, relying on trying to spot lights from the building, there’s a single room illuminated, you can see through the window but you can’t make out any bodies. You return to your scope in hopes of recognizing someone in the room, watching but you see no shadows or movement.

“Strider how copy?” Ghosts voice rings through your comms.

“Hey babe”

“Keep it professional, may have prying ears”

“Copy”

“You alright”

“No movement, getting bored”

“Bored is better than dead”

You huff a laugh, “That’s true”

“How are things on base?”

“Price wants us shipping out in the morning”

“So you’ll be gone when I get back”

“Most likely”

“Alright” You try to hide the sadness in your voice

“He thinks the mission should be finished within the the next weeks”

“Oh”

“I’ll be home with you before you know it”

“I’ll be waiting”

“I have to go, be safe”

“I love you Simon”

“I’ll see you at home”

You smile, only a handful of days and you’d be back home, safe with your husband, not worrying about the state of his life, just enjoying being with eachother.

“Strider this is Price”

“Sir”

“Reports of a convoy moving near your position, do you have eyes”

You take a minute too look around, your scope landing on a group of trucks passing by a road.

“Copy, count 5 vehicles”

“Are they carrying anything”

“Negative, doesn’t look to be any cargo”

“What about people”

“Count maybe 17 men, all armed”

“Do you see our hostage”

“Sir I thought this was recon”

“Do you have eyes Strider”

You look around, “Sir is that?”

“Affirm, you see her?”

“Affirm Sir, I have eyes on the hostage, she’s bound, they’re moving her into the house”

“Copy, keep watch, do not engage under any circumstances”

“Copy Sir”

Your comms go silent as you watch the scene in front of you, a middle aged woman with blonde hair has her arms bound behind her, a cloth mask over her eyes as the group of men force her towards the building before disappearing inside. You aim your scope at the windows, trying to get a view but all the curtains are drawn, you can vaguely make out shadows passing by.

You watch as the figures look by the windows, they sit the women down in a chair, 3 men gathered around her. You can’t make anything out, adjusting your scope to get a closer look before your eyes sting from the light, one of the men had opened the curtains to look outside, leaving them that way, enough space for you to get a clear view.

They’re yelling something, speaking to each other, you watch the woman tremble and flinch every time one of them shouts. You know your orders but every bone in your body is urging you to help.

“Sir permission to assist”

“Negative, do not interfere”

“Captain they’re going to kill her”

“Your orders are to watch Sargent”

“Sir”

“Do not engage”

You think over your options, your instincts taking over, fuck it I’m off the team either way.

You race down the side of the building, disassembling your rifle for close range shots, your legs are moving faster than your mind as you sprint towards the building, you find a high point and settle into the grass. There’s atleast 15 hostiles in the building, you scope around, 7 outside scattered, you can pick them off.

“Strider, report”

“Sorry Sir”

You take your ear piece out, with a deep breath you push yourself from the ground, hastily moving through the darkness, advancing towards the house. You make your way around the back, pulling out your knife, one man turns the corner and you grab him, digging your knife into the side of his neck as his body drops.

You make your way around the perimeter, killing them one by one, your breath heavy for the exertion. You find the last man, your hand moving to cover his mouth as you slice his throat, the blood pouring from his wound coating your skin seven down, eight to go. Your whole body feels sticky, covered in a layer of blood, sweat and dirt as you wipe off your knife, putting it away in favour of your sidearm.

You attach the silencer and open the front doors, immediately firing off two rounds into the heads of the men.

six

You turn your body, peering around corners, there’s one in the kitchen.

five

You clear the bottom floor, slowly inching up the stairs, one at the top and you shoot him, his body falls down the steps, landing with a thud, you pray it wasn’t loud enough to alert anyone. You start upstairs, clearing the rooms, two are arguing in the office.

two left.

You clear the rest of the area, making your way to the large bedroom at the end of the hall, even through the men arguing you can hear Prices yells through your comms.

You take a breath, counting your bullets, you had three left. You open the door firing one off into the head of the man in front of you, the woman in the chair screaming as the shot rings through the air.

You move to fire at the other man but he grabs your hand, you miss. He pushes you to the ground, your bodies fighting for control as his weight pins you, your arms reach for your gun as his hands grasp around your throat. You’re thrashing under him trying to throw him off, choking for air as he tightens his grip.

Your vision spotty as you lose strength,

“Strider! Get out now!” Ghosts voice comes through your comms, enough to bring you back as your fingers feel for your weapon, grabbing it and hitting it against the man’s temple. He releases you, stumbling over your body as you brave yourself and shoot, his body falls onto you with a thud, his blood pooling around your head as you gasp for air.

You use all your strength to push him off, steadying yourself before stepping towards the woman, she’s writhing against her constraints.

“It’s okay, you’re safe, i’m gonna get you out”

You slowly pull the mask from her eyes, they’re bloodshot and pooled with tears.

“I’m with Captain Price, I’m gonna get you home”

She’s a wreck of choked sobs as you cut her constraints, her body falls against you as you hold her up, walking her out. She’s looking around as the mess of bodies, clinging to you as you descent the stairs.

You exit the building, walking slowly in tandem with her as you reach a patch of grass tall enough for cover.

“Here, sit down” You hand her a small bottle of water and she takes it with shaky hands, gulping down the liquid before settling.

“Thank you”

“Does she know you’re here” You ask

The woman nods, “She watched them take me”

Your hand moves to slowly caress her arm, a small attempt to comfort her.

“Price”

“Sergeant you better have a goddamn explanation”

“I have the hostage, she’s safe”

Price signs deeply, “Are you hurt”

“Negative”

“Get her to the city, we’ll extract from there”

“Copy Sir”

You sit for a while, allowing the woman to compose herself before you help her up, the two of you making your way back to the streets of Panama.

The noise was overwhelming, a stark contrast from the silence you kept the last 24 hours, you find an old building, smashing the window to access the door lock before guiding her in.

“Shouldn’t be long”

She nods

“Does she know I’m safe, does Kate know?”

“I don’t think so”

“Okay”

Ghosts voice calls through your earpiece, “Strider, what’s you position”

“In an old building, northeast end of the city, there’s a small restaurant across the street”

“Copy, closing in”

You wait in silence, the sound of tires passing over dirt grabs your attention, you move to the window to look outside. You see Price and Ghost exit the car, looking around for hostiles, you move back to settle at the woman’s side,

“Okay” You touch her shoulder

“Monica, my names Monica”

“Okay Monica, my team is here, they’re gonna bring you back to our base where the doctor will check you out, then we’ll get you home”

“You trust them?”

“With my life”

She nods, you lock your arms under her shoulders, helping her to stand as the two men enter the building, dropping their weapons when they spot you.

“Jesus christ Strider, did you kill then all yourself”

“Something like that”

Price takes over hold on Monica, helping her to the car as Simon stands in front of you, his eyes staring daggers.

“Si”

“I don’t want to hear it, you’ll go home tonight”

“What, I have to make sure she’s safe”

“The team will take over, you disobeyed direct orders. You’re going home Sargent”

You stand to argue but he just turns and leaves, you’re alone in your anger before you walk to the car, settling in beside Monica in the back as Price turns the engine on. The ride was dead silent, not a word exchanged between the four of you, Monica had stopped shaking by the time you arrived back at base.

You help her out of the car, moving to help her inside before Price stops you,

“Your flights in two hours, be on deck before then”

You stare at him, unable to hide the disappointment in your face as you walk to the medical wing. You get Monica settled in to the bed and she falls asleep almost instantly, the stress taking a toll on her body. You sit with her for a few minutes, ensuring that she was okay before you move to your room to shower.

The water runs red as you wash the blood from your skin, feeling like you could finally breath, you need to talk to Simon but you don’t know what to say. You know if you leave base angry it won’t do you any good, he didn’t do well with emotions, he’d bottle them up before even dating to expose himself.

You spend some time packing your things, making sure to grab everything, your hands toying with the ring around your neck making your way to the plane deck.

Simon is standing in front of your plane, you move to him with regret in your eyes, your arms wrapping to envelop him but he pushes you back.

“Keep it together”

“I’m sorry Si”

“No time for that now” His hand moves to grab yours, his thumb rubbing tender circles over the skin. “I’ll see you at home”

He leaves without another word, you watch his form recede before stepping into the plane, the sound of the engine drowning out anything else before you feel yourself lift into the air. You’re filled with dread as you watch the base get smaller, you won’t be able to contact your husband for upwards of a month, and your last memory is him mad at you, you hated arguing in any form.

You lean your head back, settling in as the plane reaches the clouds, closing your eyes in an attempt to dream of anything but your anxiety.

Taglist: @chloepluto1306 @thychuvaluswife @valdemarismynonbinarylove @simply-vulpecula @lostinsideourminds @pampeop @bloodandthestars @tomhollandisabae @copiasratscheese @giveme-gaskarth

[lurafita]

CEO!Magnus and personal chef/bodyguard!Alec

(There is every chance that I have posted this before, I just can't remember. I tried to search through my archive, but.... there is a lot of posts there, did you know? 🤣😂 Anyway, in case I'm making you read this twice, sorry. 😅)

Magnus being like this really big shot CEO who has meetings 24/7 and charity events and social appearances and all that other busy stuff going on. So he gets a personal chef to keep an eye on his nutrition. And Alec is ruthless when it comes to making sure Magnus eats healthy. Magnus: "You know I love your cooking, Darling, but how about a good old fashioned fast food break?" Alec: "All that grease is bad for you. Eat your carrots. You look pale. How much sleep did you get last night?" Magnus, innocently: "Enough?" Alec: "Unlikely. No more caffeine for you today."

Magnus trying to sneak all kinds of unheathy Snacks, and Alec foiling him at every turn. Magnus had an energy drink hidden away in his desk, but as he opens the drawer, there is a bottle of water with a note attatched with "stay hydrated".

Alec even convinced the close by Cafe to not serve Magnus anything with Caffeine, after Magnus' last doctors appointment showed high blood pressure.

Maybe Alec is some kind of ex-agent or ex-military, who got into cooking for an undercover op, but really enjoyed it and wanted to pursue it further when he quite the force.

When one of Alec’s old colluegues comes visiting him, Alec is crouching behind the entertainment system to find Magnus' latest snack hidey-hole. Alec: "He gets more creative every time. Some of the drug dealers we busted could have learned from him."

Bet you Magnus is the type of CEO who has a loyal Twitter following and he tweets about everything Alec cooks for him (and the things he doesn't let him eat.) The Internet already ships them.

Possible tweet: The_Magnificent_Bane: Thank you for the suggestion @randomfollower, but unfortunately Alexander didn’t go for the argument that carrot cake counts as a vegetable.

Why am I know picturing a fight in the kitchen where Alec uses kitchen utensils and food to knock out people who have come to kidnap Magnus

Imagine someone broke into Magnus' place, and the police are called and as they arrive Magnus is like: "Thank you for coming. My chef has already apprehended and restrained the perpetrators, and is waiting for you to take them off his hands in the living room." Police: "... Your cook apprehended them?" Magnus: "Yes. Sadly, the confrontation did not result in the death of that cursed celery he bought earlier."

Magnus: "Tomatoes can't be trusted, my darling. Are they a fruit? Are they a vegetable? No one knows." Alec: "They are fruits." Magnus: "That's what they want you to believe."

[daniemililly]

CN suicide, political and systemic ableism

In Irish politics, we almost never had disabled people be anything more than props for use for photo ops, or to demonise as welfare cheats

In Irish politics, we talked about the hard work of our carers once in a rare while, but never the hard work of disabled people being cared for or looking after ourselves

In Irish politics, disabled people are objects of pity, and not people trying to get through our days as denizens and citizens of our country which often tells us that we do not belong here

In Irish politics, we protect the facade of a colonial era building before we'll put in a ramp or lift to let a disabled person who needs it go inside

In late 2023 a Green Paper was published on reforming payments to disabled people in ways that meant we would be under more regular surveillance, be pressured into employment services or potentially risk sanction, and be under pressure to work enough to stop receiving payments. It would also tier us depending on how disabled we could prove we are

This document was made without Disabled Persons' Organisations involved, in direct contravention of our recently won rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities

It led many, including myself, to absolute despair, and I had the worst suicidal ideation I'd had in nearly six years

The only thing that kept me alive was a promise to keep fighting it alongside my fellow disabled people just for a little bit longer, but it got pretty close at times

We didn't really expect to win, but one day after seven months of fighting, we somehow did

The government backed down Disabled people will be part of any future attempts at reform

We even got the Dáil to declare that there should be non means tested, universal disability payments, even if the government is nowhere near that sort of position yet

But as much headspace as that took up, and as big as that victory was, the day to day thriving of disabled people in Ireland remains blocked by a system designed to keep taxes on corporations low and the costs of disability high

In watching the last Disability Matters Committee, there was case after case of how disabled people are being failed by the state, with the politicians on the committee hearing the stories and wondering how many more times they were going to have to hear the same things before there is action by the government

The committee has had report after report to the Dáil stating the dire problems with disabled rights in Ireland and nonetheless, the government decided to put out that Green Paper which ignored all of their recommendations and did more harm to disabled people. Nonetheless, the government have cut services and underfunded our needs

People unable to have their vehicles adapted because they didn't lose the correct limb

People left without insurance for their prosthetics

People unable to access personal assistance hours

People not able to live their lives

So I painted something to express how our politics treats our lives

It took me awhile but here it is

[A Dáil chamber with disabled supports, like mobility equipment, sensory equipment, comfort items, masks, and laptops, overturned and empty on the floor. Blood is spattered on the carpet and equipment]

[gouraminnow]

WIP game!

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Tag as many people as you have wips. People send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!

---

I prefer Read-mores just so things are more readable hsdfdsf

Tagged by my friend @hannahbarberra162 thank you!!! Heehee! All but one of the published ones are still on chapter one... I do not write fast :') Honestly, the one person I'm comfortable tagging is the one who tagged me, soo... breaking the rules already lol. Anybody who sees this and wants to, please do! (It's not bc I have problems with anyone, she's just the only one I talk to regularly. I'm kinda new to this lol)

No Rest For the Wicked - Yandere modern serial killer Sabo/Koala x Goth reader. (Literal hurt/comfort. Stalking implied, murder is gonna happen. Was meant to be a one-shot debut of sorts on Halloween, but it got too long...)

You're a goth student at a small university, and someone you thought was your friend lures you into a Carrie-style Halloween prank- But it goes wrong and the bucket they drop cracks your head open. Luckily, the Grad Student Instructor and his partner happen to be there and are awfully eager to help you out.

Galley on 4th - Yandere Modern (but with dfs eventually) Thatch x reader. (Also hurt/comfort. Gonna get increasingly sketchy as time goes on. Stalkng. Maybe smut? Omg nooo hot chef don't intrude on my life and insist on caring for me noooo)

Raising your kid sister all by yourself is hard enough on it's own. But add classes, poverty, and several jobs to juggle and the pressure builds awfully fast. Most employers will drop you on a whim and it's all you can do to stay afloat… So when you somehow manage to land a well-paying position at The Galley on 4th Avenue, a famous, high-end place run by some well renowned Chef- You're desperate to hold things down. Good thing your new Boss is so friendly and understanding, huh?

Birds of a Feather - Marco & OC (entirely platonic. Hurt at the start, comfort, tooth-rotting fluff. Has artwork for it!)

Marco the Phoenix is found by an orphaned harpy child that mistakes him for one of their own kind. It takes less than a day to commit to adoption- he really is taking after his father.

Unpublished:

Bleeding Heart - What was meant to be one fic for my self-insert OC has splintered into several snippets. Born with CAVC, they thought they were lucky to receive corrective surgery as a child, only for that surgery to be botched. They now have to use the blood-blood fruit- a devil fruit with countless horrific urban legends attributed to it- to compensate for their faulty heart by manually managing their blood flow in secret. Very grumpy and easily overwhelmed bc who wouldn't be in their situation? One version they go with the WBP and in another, with the Strawhats.

Untitled Whitey Bay oneshot- sweet, smutty f/f oneshot that ends in reader eloping to a life on the seas. Reader is a lonely, wistful barmaid who dreams of something more exciting than waiting tables in a dingy bar. One day, a striking lady pirate docks on your island, stopping by your bar... and just your luck, the tall, blue-haired woman seems just as interested in you as you are in her.

Untitled Isekai idea- Reader is brought to the world of OP by a devil-fruit reader with portal-related powers. He's a self-proclaimed mad genius but is actually a jackass wannabe-Ceasar who piggybacks off of the works of others- even utilizing his ability to hopefully grab something useful from other realms rather than making shit himself. But it's random most of the time... cue reader.

Untitled dark Thatch oneshot- honestly not sure if I want to post this when it's done. Non/dubcon. Yandere Thatch finds a promising little chef and lays on the charm, but they won't leave with him. Months later, he finds them cowering in the Galley of a Marine ship and assumes they're in bed with the enemy. Unaware that they were forced to work there and too amped up to listen, he steals them away like he wanted to on that damn island. Meaner than what I tend to go for, but ends with him doting on them. Very unsure abt this hfdsfg

Yandere Nami idea

Second set of ASI hcs, but centered around Marco

I want to elaborate on the Crocodile x Selkie reader idea

[a-weird-cryptid]

Random water bender I drew once

And yes, before you ask, I don't know how to draw water AT ALL. It might as well be slime or sth XD.

Also: What's the most op Avatar-the last Airbender element and why is it water?

Serious though, most people don't seem to understand the full potential water bending has. It has ALL the advantages and no disadvantage.

Disadvantages:

...

Most of the advantages can only be used if you're a skilled water bender, I guess...

Advantages:

Healing (an ability that none of the other benders poses)

Stop yourself and others from bleeding to death because of fatal wounds (by blood bending)

Get any kind of poison or penetrative objects (such as bullets) out of your system (by blood bending)

Create your own weapons and shields/armor out of ice (and that stuff can be hard af, almost like stone)

Cut through anything if put under enough pressure (yes, even stone and metal, as shown in the show)

Get to basically anything that isn't water proofed (by bending water in a way that opens for example a lock)

Fast travel by ice skating

Obstacles can be easily moved (by putting ice under it) or heck, even destroyed (think about stones and glass bottles filled with water and then you freeze them)

Obstacles can be simply avoided (by creating your own path around it)

Trapping opponents by freezing them in ice, which even works against skilled fire benders (think about the Agni Kai/fight between Katara and Azula at the end of the show)

Underwater breathing, by forming an air bubble around their head (I guess theoretically they could also bend the water in a way that would pull all of the oxygen around them, basically becoming "water bender fish")

Water can be found literally anywhere. From air, to plants, to animals (including humans) to even astroids in space. And it doesn't even matter in which state the water is in, since we saw that benders can change the state of water at will during the show plenty of times. Heck, you could put a water bender into fire nation territory without any obvious water surroundeding them and they'd still be the one with a high adventage. Why? Because to water benders, humans are nothing more than walking, talking, water buckets. You can literally use any bodily fluids for bending. And we tend to have a lot of them (around 60%/39 liters).

And on top of all of that they get a power boost every full moon, as if they weren't op enough already

And those are just the things I could think about from the get go. Be more creative when it comes to abilities, guy! Think outside of the box!

Feel free to add any other dis-/advantages of water bending, as well as arguments for another element being the most op one if you're opinion differs from mine. :)

For more discussions, reviews as well as other original stories and more, check out my master list of series.

[mingos]

❛  why won't you just tell me what i did wrong?  ❜ from little law in his locked room :))

❝ enough. whining. ❞ 

　doflamingo felt like his head was splitting. the sounds burrowed their way through eardrums, scraping at bits of brain and the interior of his skull. or maybe the culprit was his blood pressure, spiked beyond the realm of mortal understandingーso high, he quivered with rage beneath the silhouette of his suit, a mess of grinding teeth & contorting hands. so high, the donquixote didn't need his glasses to know he saw red.

six months. six months was all it took for his brother to taint law like how a toxin whittles away at the human body. to undo the two years of work doflamingo had done and reduce the boy to... this. a repulsive creature he didn't recognize. one that cried when struck, a sense of resolve replaced with meekness, whose eyes were no longer filled with the admiration doflamingo had come to expect. it had taken the man several hours to pinpoint what exactly about this display enraged him so much. then it clicked. rosinante.

six months was all it took for law to embody all of rosinante's worst traits from doflamingo's memories of their childhood. the boy who refused to reprimand slaves for not doing their tasks, sobbing when doflamingo showed him the proper way their uncle taught them. the boy who, no matter how much his brother demanded, refused to identify the specific townspeople that beat himーa misplaced guilt having convinced himself he 'owed it to them' to prioritize their safety & keep it a secret as penance for what their ancestors had done. the boy who, when mother passed from her fever, threw himself at her bedside and wouldn't leave for days. needlessly attached to her corpse. to an object.

rosinante's physical body might be rotting away in the snow of some forgotten ghost town hundreds of miles from here, but none of that mattered when he ensured the worst parts of his spirit lived on through the body of this brat. law was no longer doflamingo's shadow, but instead that man's.

the elder donquixote could have killed him a thousand more times, shot a million more bullets into him, and it still wouldn't be enough to quantify the rage he felt. it would never be enough. the same goes for law.

were he a god of even a fraction less restraint, doflamingo would have decapitated the boy and thrown his corpse into the north blue hours ago. torn open his gut and seized the op op fruit by force. restricting himself to just leaving shallow wounds & bruises now was almost too much mercy for him to bear. he wanted to skin this child alive.

but, regrettably, that was no longer an option. his plans had changed, and his new plan hinged on keeping the boy alive. for now. he couldn't risk losing the fruit again. he couldn't risk potentially wasting another decade searching for the fruit again. not when it was this close. doflamingo simply had to grit his teeth & internalize the fact that law was more valuable to him alive than dead. for now.

　but that didn't mean he couldn't make him suffer in the interim.

　❝ those miserable sounds you keep making were enough to manipulate my brother, but i’ll sooner shove a cracked thermometer down your throat and add mercury poisoning to your list of sicknesses than entertain a second more of it. ❞

[bugbyte]

Medical nonsense! Spent my evening crying about it. That’s becoming my new hobby.

Some of this discusses needles and medical trauma, and even though I’m tagging those I also want to be up front because it’s pretty heavy.

Got a letter from an office I haven’t been to yet that’s doing yet more genetic testing for something that’s for sure confirmed to run on one side of my family and will also Mess You Up, and instead of being informed by a person it’s just. Like 3 sentences that vaguely explain this other test they want to do.

It’s a nerve conduction test, plus an electromyogram, both of which involve sticking a bunch of needles into muscles and then either putting electricity in to see what happens or measuring electrical output on an oscilloscope. Which, because I love electronics sounds fascinating on the surface except for the needles part and realizing that those suckers are going to have to go deep to actually touch muscle (which I learned from trigger point injections) and so yeah no I am filled with a copious level of nope and dread. The nah cup runneth over. I’m going to try and speak to a human and see if this is actually necessary because I don’t have symptoms of the genetic thing presently, but I was advised to test for the gene now because it appears later in life. And if I can do anything or science improves before then, I want to know.

Then I thought about it too much and had a panic attack, which took a while to put 2 and 2 together, but it’s trauma, it’s always trauma if you keep peeling back layers. I had surgery in mid-2020, sort of unexpectedly, and at the height of the pandemic. I had never had surgery before, so I was in the hospital, alone, cut off from family and support people because they took my belongings to a locker, so my phone was out of my hands. At the time I was much worse about dealing with needles than I am now and got a bunch of surprise blood draws and injections and several failed IVs in pre op when I had mentally prepared for…one IV.

Anyway, I was having a panic attack because I had been told not to take my meds beforehand and they threw my spouse out of the waiting area even though I had been told he could stay with me because of my anxiety. I tried to communicate all of this to the nurses setting me up but, man, these two just had some kind of good cop/bad cop routine going on and Bad Cop was trying to get blood from my hand and slapping my veins viciously. The other nurse was in my other arm placing the IV but the tube size was incorrect and instead it started leaking everywhere, so Bad Cop came over to help and just applied an excessive amount of pressure to keep the IV in place while a new tube was put in but man, it did not need to be nearly that rough. I was not bleeding and it wasn’t meds going in, just saline. All of this did not help my panic attack. She was just clearly pissed about having to deal with me and got away with just enough physical violence that could be written off as necessary for the blood draw and me exaggerating because of the panic attack. I wasn’t exaggerating though. I had bruises for over a month. I bruise easily, but this was something else.

The first person there to show me any kindness was the anesthesiologist who spoke kindly to me and talked about the procedure and then dosed me with versed to help with the panic. Here’s the thing: versed is supposed to calm you down and make you forget what’s happening. My anxiety was so high that she had to come back for another dose. I clearly remember everything up to being put under. My brain was fighting that hard, under the impression it was going to die, because panic attacks do that. I felt like a wilted plant but I had total awareness in a limp body, which was also a mildly terrifying experience.

Anyway, dropping a weird new test on me this week with very little information or justification, that’s apparently needle based and described as “mildly uncomfortable” (one of the greatest lies in medicine) just slapped every button on my console like a kid in an elevator.

I’m just, not willing to put myself in a room alone with people I do not know who are going to stick me and tell me “it doesn’t hurt that bad.” Baby, I have a connective tissue disorder, everything hurts that bad. Trigger points leave me bruised for a week. I sublux my shoulder on the regular and have to straighten my fingers because the joints have popped out and my free floating fingers are point more sideways. Tightly-focused, sharp, drawn-out pains are my kryptonite, but at least I’m self aware.

So. You know. Crying it out and trying to parse where all this defense mode came from, and what do you know, it’s hospital trauma. Chalk that up as a new one. Or an old one. Brains are awful. I’ll get through, I always do, but I feel like I keep re-emerging as a new person every time which is a confusing feeling.

[drwcn]

I promised myself I was gonna stay in my lane and not do this, but goddamn it here we go: why most health care professionals vaccinate while some don't.

Aren't we all healthcare professionals?

Well. Yes.

But is our knowledge base the same? No.

And I'm not speaking from the high pedestal of someone who belongs to medicine looking down at professionals in nursing, physiotherapy, audiology, speech language pathology - no. That's not what I'm saying (although, out of all the health professions, physicians on average do learn the most in-depth pathophysiology and are more equipped to speak about infections, not because they're better or smarter or whatever other bullshit, but because that's literally the requirement of their job). Even within medicine itself, practitioners of different specialties have very different knowledge base. Once upon a time, they were all undifferentiated, wide-eyed, sponge-brained medical students. But then we go through training, we specialize, we pick and choose the subspecialty we want to practice in and... well the truth is after 25 years, if you stop using the area of knowledge you once learned, then the details of it kind of become fuzzy. Not to mention the stuff you learned as a medical student is the most rudimentary of medical knowledge. For instance, if an ophthalmologist who's been practicing for 25 years caring for people's eyeballs, and hasn't even remotely touched immunology and infectious disease since his end of medical school exams... well, they're not gonna be a big expert on COVID, even if they are an MD.

And then there's the question: even if we belong to the same profession, is our day to day experience, scope of practice, population of patients the same? Absolutely not. I've had this conversation with many of my nursing colleagues, some of whom are close friends of mine, and what one of them working in the ICU said to me really stuck.

She said to me: because they don't see it.

A nurse working on a surgical floor - that is, caring for patients after they've had a surgery - is going to have a vastly different experience compared to a nurse working on a internal medicine floor, or in the ICU. You would think, from tv and whatnot, that surgical patients are very sick. Well, they can be. But most surgeries are elective, and most patients going into surgeries are fairly healthy.

My roommate, who is also in medicine, said to me she enjoys surgical patients so much more, because they're healthy in general, other than the acute thing that they're getting surgery for. Example: 45 year old with acute cholecystitis, gets wheeled into the OR, gallbladder gets taken out laparoscopically, post-op Day 1 or 2, the guy is walking, drinking, voiding, passing gas, pain is managed, and is ready to go home. So, if a patient like that gets a positive COVID swab (because all patients getting admitted now is getting swabbed in our hospital), well... he could very well be an asymptomatic carrier and feeling completely fine. This is what we call an incidental finding; that is, we didn't expect it, and while we were screening, we just happen to find it. The reason for this patient's hospital visit is inflamed gallbladder, not COVID. A nurse caring for him after a time, could think, well... I've seen COVID patients, they're not so sick, I don't need the vaccine.

A nurse on the psychiatric ward may also feel the same way.

The nurse working on the acute in-patient medicine unit, on the other hand, will have a vastly different experience. When patients come in to hospital because they're very sick with COVID, they will be admitted under internal medicine, and if they're even worse, they get moved to the ICU, where they maybe be intubated, sedated, put on vasopressors because they can no longer sustain their own blood pressure. Nurses working in medicine and ICU see the worst of the COVID infection. They see the older adults with multiple comorbidities who really don't have enough reserve to fight the infection, they also see young adults who was otherwise healthy but still required hospitalization. Pediatric ICU nurses see kids and teenagers hospitalized for COVID, and even the nurses on the maternal ward see pregnant moms hospitalized with COVID and has to have C-Section because she's decompensating.

In a situation like this, what we have to do is look at the big picture. If you're only making decisions based on anecdotal evidence, or the stories of one or two people you know, then you're going to be doing yourself a big disfavor. COVID is real, it's here, and anyone can be susceptible. The vaccine is out, millions and billions of people have gotten it. Some people say "well it causes clots", but guess what, COVID infection itself is a HUGE risk factor for developing coagulopathy and clots, and it's not a theoretical risk either like the vaccine. Literally all the COVID patients I've cared for were put on anti-coagulants. And it's true, we don't know what could happen in 10 years, but I know that if I catch COVID, I could die next week. So... to me, the math seems pretty simple.

[mt-lowercase-m-derogatory]

{typical tumblr discourse disclaimer: trying for a chill vibe, I'm just taking an aside to peddle some of the nuance OP was talking about. This post was probably not addressed at whatever collagenopathy mutation "never before documented in the literature" I've got, and I'm not trying to imply OP wronged me somehow}

What is medically/legally considered "schwerbehindert" here might be different, but I really urge caution around thinking someone isn't severely physically disabled because they walk and move perfectly well using light/no mobility aids

Personally, in the health state when I actually present to the world, there are very few non-exercise activities an abled person could do that I cannot also do for a bit, albeit with some pain and uncertainty. The trouble is that something bad is happening while I do things or sit/stand upright for longer, and all I'm sure of is that it's not my respiratory or (probably) my circulatory system.

I'll be at a rare and cherished social gathering for a few hours, just seeming a bit loopy and dissociated in the latter half, then I'll safely arrive home unaided if the Vienna underground is in sight, not even using mobility aids! (I've tried a few but my physio found none to be safe for me). I'll manage to change clothes and go to bed, and then... I'll manage to be awake around 60-70 hours the following 7 days, mostly out of my mind with more brain fog than brain.

The only answers my doctors have feel more like questions: it might be an unrelated hypersomnia that just didn't show up on the polysomnography, it might be post-exertional malaise, it might be some kind of comorbid kleine levin syndrome, it's so odd that it's not POTS, it might just be a symptom of "whatever is going on, let's call it Ehlers Danlos Syndrome because that was the original diagnosis", or my blood-brain barrier might just not work right with whatever third-grade materials my body made it of.

And all I personally know is that... I have the full physical and neurological capability to move, I can manage the pain, I can manage the psychological aspect... But any given activity still comes at a high cost beyond all that, and neither any process I can observe nor any version of god damn spoon theory can adequately explain it.

It's more like my mind is a bottle of water, and every few minutes I stand upright is a spoon of milk dropped into it. I lose full clarity basically immediately, and then it just becomes harder and harder to tell how far I'm gone until I stop being able to talk fluidly or make decisions.

And this is not something I just realized when it set in - like any good child used to being gaslit about their body-wide chronic pain, I didn't even realize I had any health problems when I started waking up disoriented, unsure whether my alarms had rang already, with me having decided to skip school and go back to sleep without remembering any of it.

It was only with covid lockdown that the physical attendance I was forcing myself into naturally tuned down, leaving my "free time" lucid and awake enough to become sure that I had a health problem beyond migraines, with my first few doctor's just leading to a psychologist suspecting schizophrenia

... Lockdown might genuinely have saved my life. I- I hadn't processed that before now.

I think I had something more in mind about this vague group of conditions science is recently getting much better at diagnosing. Especially how the problem in figuring them out is that the causes (and the most informative and dangerous symptoms) are physical issues outside the brain, but the signs that cause most of the Leidensdruck (the pressure of suffering a patient's diagnosis and treatment is in service of) are more classically studied and discussed in psychiatric disability.

... But I've been trying to write a coherent tumblr post for 3 hours now and my brain is trying to erase all caches so I think I'll just hit post.

Also the term "severely disabled" is getting stretched pretty thin too, I see a lot of people who are like... talking about how severely disabled they are and how their body is rotting and they're a total lost cause who can do nothing for themselves, and then I look at their blog and they're like... a cane user or something similar.

I really hate to be like "that's not that bad" when someone else is suffering, but it makes it really hard to find people who are in a similar boat as far as being nonambulatory and who need constant care from others. It's taken me a long time to find a precious few friends who share those experiences and that I can relate to and it certainly doesn't make it easier when the definition of severely disabled is stretched so thin.

I really don't think it's helping the impostor syndrome some people face either. There are a ton of people who are in constant pain with mobility issues and stuff like that who are on the fence about calling themselves disabled at all because they see people talking about how their glasses that correct their vision to 20/20 are a disability aid that makes them Visually Impaired and Disabled and want to avoid looking or sounding like them.

There's a lot more nuance to this than I could put into words because holy cow I don't want to hurt people that don't deserve to be but also I want to be able to find and talk to people who are also disabled without sifting through 10,000 "I'm severely disabled because I need to eat microwave meals when I don't have the spoons to cook" people first. I don't have the capacity or ability to do that sifting, it's almost like I'm severely disabled or something.

[ejzah]

I believe this was originally suggested by @wanna-be-bold: AU where Kensi is UC and has to infiltrate something and get close to who they believe is the leader that turns out to be Deeks undercover.

This was requested many months ago, which seems to be the norm these days. Obviously I stolen and pieced together bits from the show.

***

Ain’t It A Kick In The Head

“Kens, you in position?”

“Yep,” she responded, brushing her hair back from her ear to cover the movement of her mouth. The toe of her high heel caught on a loose stone and Kensi stumbled slightly before catching herself. Personally, a pencil skirt, blazer, and three inch heels wouldn’t be her first choice for conducting a drug deal, but right now she was Bella Mendez.

They’d arrested Mendez after intercepting a message between her and a high stakes drug dealer. With a significant amount of pressure, Bella had given up her contact’s name, one Max Gentry. Fortunately, Gentry had never met Bella or spoken to her, which meant Kensi could easily take her place.

Eric and Nell had found little about Max Gentry, other than that he seemed to have built a name for himself in the criminal world fairly quickly and had a suspiciously slim background.

Kensi, acting as Bella, had agreed to meet Gentry at a building that was once used to pack electronics. Since Bella had been dressed in business clothes when the arrested her, Kensi had chosen a pencil skirt, blazer, and stilettos. They were exactly the most practical, for quick getaways, but if Max Gentry was a “high class” drug dealer, she needed to look the part.

She approached the side entrance, stopping a few feet away, and pulled in a short breath.

“You good?” Sam checked and she hesitated a second before responding with an affirmative sound. Although going undercover wasn’t new to her, Kensi was adept as Sam or Callen. Not that she’d ever tell them that.

“Just make him believe your the Bella Mendez, make him believe you have what he wants, and get out,” Callen instructed her. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. At this point she had the plan, right down to why she was supposed to say, memorized.

Shaking her hair back, Kensi knocked confidently on the door, folding her hands in front of her while she waited. After approximately thirty seconds, the door slid open with surprisingly little noise and she was greeted with an scowling man with shoulder length hair. He was lanky and slightly awkward looking, probably no more than his early twenties.

“We’re closed,” he barked out, placing his body between her and the door so she couldn’t see past him.

“I think your boss would disagree,” she responded lightly, covering her surprise at being denied entrance.

“You got the wrong place lady.” He squared his shoulders, suddenly appearing less scrawny and Kensi tensed as well, preparing for a fight. It was definitely not in the plan, but she wasn’t about to be taken down by a wannabe thug.

“Frankie, let her in,” a voice drawled, prompting the young man to step back enough for Kensi to slip by. She walked in slowly, carefully scanning the room. Two men sat at a card table, clearly in the middle of a poker game, a third casually heading towards her. It was too dark for Kensi to fully see him until he was right in front of her.

“Sorry about Frankie, he likes to tease,” he said, in the same drawl she’d heard a minute ago. He held out his hand, smirking at her and added, “I’m Max.”

He was nothing like she’d expected. Her eyes ran over him, quietly taking in the dark blue silk shirt and tailored pants he wore, before drifting up to his face again. His hair was blonde and slightly unruly, curling around his ears and he had a light beard.

Eyeing him cooly, Kensi ignored him as he clearly checked her out too, unapologetically staring.

“I don’t appreciate jokes, Mr. Gentry,” she replied in an aloof tone.

“Please, Max.” He winked again, nearly drawing a smile from Kensi. “After all, we’re going to be business partners, right?”

Damn it, she thought he was charming. Annoyed with herself, Kensi gave him an unimpressed look and crossed her arms.

“That remains to be seen. I only deal with serious buyers.”

“Well, I am completely serious, Ms. Mendez,” he said, his voice deepening although his expression didn’t change. “During our earlier conversation you indicated you’d like make this a long term endeavor. What’s in it for me?”

“I can get you anything you want and in large quantities. I have contacts,” Kensi explained, tilting her head as Max narrowed his eyes in her direction for a moment.

“Is that so?” His upper lip twitched, eyes darkening, and then he suddenly grabbed her around the waist, tugging her against him. Kensi gasped as he tangled a hand in her hair, kissing her aggressively. He stole her breath away and she froze, not resisting when he moved his mouth to her neck.

“I’m an undercover cop,” he hissed in her ear, making her jerk at both sensation of his warmth breath brushing her skin and the unexpected message. “Quit ruining my op.”

He made a show of running his nose along her jaw and then released her. Kensi sucked in a deep breath, trembling as he smirked at her, clearly pleased with himself even as his eyes flashed a silent warning. A flash of rage swept through her and Kensi pulled her arm back, punching him squarely on the jaw.

He jerked back, but managed to keep his footing as his men rushed to defend him.

Max-or whatever the hell his name was-waved them off, casually wiping blood from his chin.

“It’s fine, guys.” He nodded at Kensi, his gaze suddenly making her want to squirm. “I like you,” he decided. “We can discuss the rest of this at my apartment. Frankie will give you the address.”

“Just keep your hands to yourself,” Kensi told him, lifting her chin defiantly. “The next time I won’t be so gentle.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Ms. Mendez.”

As he walked away from her, Kensi knew that whatever was going on, she was way in over her head.

[heyitssmiller]

Clandestine: Chapter Eight

Ready for more angst?

@lumosinlove you’re my hero <3

So much thanks to my partner in angst, @donttouchmycarrots

CW: mentions of violence, blood, panic attack

Clandestine Masterlist

.

Logan paced the width of the hotel room; back and forth, back and forth, like a tiger cooped up in a too-small enclosure. Leo sat on Finn’s side of the bed and traced shapes into the plain white duvet, imagining that he was following the same path Finn’s fingers had taken just the day before.

Finn.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood and looked up at Logan. Back and forth, back and forth. Sirius and Loops hadn’t been in contact for about thirty minutes now. They’d been trying to get a location on Finn via the tracker he’d had in his com earpiece. Well they’d found the earpiece, but it must’ve been thrown out the car window because the trail ended on the side of the street with a tracker that had been smashed almost past recognition. Leo was strangely relieved about it. It was better than the alternative that his brain had been all too quick to jump to.

They got a license plate number from one of the stoplight cameras, though, so they were running that through the system and hoping they’d get a hit. Seeing that it was the Snakes and that they had so much control over everything that happened in the city, Leo thought their chances were pretty slim.

Back and forth, back and forth.

“Lo.”

There was no indication that Logan had even heard him.

“Logan.”

Still no response.

Leo rose to his feet and crossed the small room to catch Logan’s arm, finally putting a stop to the relentless pacing. Blank green eyes finally met his and Leo sighed, aching at the sight. “Sweetheart,” he murmured sadly, pulling the fighter into a hug. He was tense for a while, not moving to return the embrace and just breathing shakily through his nose.

“Talk to me.” Leo urged simply, unsure of what else to say. This wasn’t ok, he couldn’t pretend like it was. And he knew this conversation was going to be hard – god, he was barely keeping it together himself – but they still needed to have it. There was no point running from it. The only thing left to do was to face the daunting cliff they were careening towards and jump.

“We missed our chance.” Logan whispered, voice breaking towards the end as he pressed his forehead against Leo’s collarbone and leaned heavily against him. He felt small and useless and helpless as he squeezed his eyes shut. We were supposed to talk to him tomorrow and now he’s not here.

Leo’s cheek came to rest on the crown of his head as a sad noise escaped from his lips. “You don’t know that.”

But they both knew it wasn’t looking good.

“This is exactly why I wanted a transfer.”

Logan realized his mistake a millisecond too late. Leo stiffened, then pulled away to look at him. “What are you talking about?” When he didn’t answer, Leo tilted his chin up to meet his eyes. “What do you mean, transfer?”

He jerked his chin away and refused to look into baby blue eyes. “It was a while back, don’t worry about it.”

“Logan.”

“What do you want me to say?” Logan demanded, his white-knuckled grip on his emotions quickly giving out. “My purpose on this mission was supposed to be backup if needed, but they hired me mainly to make sure the mission got done, even if things got messy. And once… once feelings entered the picture, how was I supposed to focus on the mission instead of on keeping the two of you safe? If it came down to it, choosing between the two of you and this op would be too easy to do. I knew it was putting the mission at risk so I asked for a transfer, but we didn’t have any other agents available.” He ran a hand through his hair roughly, breathing in shakily. “And now I’m living in one of my own fucking nightmares because this is on me.”

And if that wasn’t a knife in Leo’s chest. Logan deflated before his eyes, head hanging low, the picture of a man utterly defeated. “Finn’s gone and it’s all on me.”

The knife twisted cruelly.

“It’s not-”

“Bullshit,” Logan spat as he shoved Leo away. “Don’t even finish that sentence. I knew something was wrong, I knew it-”

Leo grabbed his hands firmly and pulled them against his chest, keeping him from moving farther away. “And I was the one who told you that you were worrying too much. If we’re going to be playing the blame game, you’re not shouldering it alone.” His eyes and nose were all red now, and Logan could feel the stutter in his breathing. “Sometimes it’s ok to not be ok, Tremz.”

“Peanut-” Logan watched as tears spilled over and down Leo’s cheeks, his lower lip trembling. He’d never seen the blond cry before and, oh, he hated it. His fingers twitched to reach for him, but he couldn’t help but hesitate. No matter how many times he’d managed to be gentle with Leo, Logan still wasn’t accustomed to it – he was used to callouses from training too long with a weapon, to split, bloody knuckles after a fight, to using those hands to hurt.

He never wanted to hurt the one standing in front of him.

“Come here,” he mumbled finally and reached up to wipe away a tear ever-so-gently, keeping the pressure feather-light against the delicate arch of his cheekbone. “Leo-”

Leo exhaled sharply as he collided with Logan, and it seemed like his entire body was shaking. Logan held him close, backed them up so that they were beside the bed and sat down heavily, guiding Leo down with him as his own eyesight got blurry. His hand came to rest in fluffy blond curls as they sat there and held each other and allowed themselves to ache.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed there, all he knew was that he practically catapulted himself across the room when his phone started ringing.

“Loops?” He demanded as soon as he picked up, putting the phone on speaker and returning to his spot next to Leo, who ran the coarse material of his sweatshirt sleeve against his cheeks and sniffled. Logan held the phone in one hand and used the other to tug Leo closer. They both needed the contact.

“The license plate was a bust,” Loops cut to the chase, words firm but gentle. “Luckily for us, though, we’ve got an ex-Snake on our side.”

Sirius’ voice reached them next. “I've narrowed it down to three possible locations where they could be keeping Finn.”

Logan didn’t hesitate. “So we send agents to all of them, plan a coordinated attack.”

“Tremblay, the mission-”

“Fuck the mission. And fuck the Snakes. This is Finn.” He snarled, pulling up short when he heard a sharp inhale beside him. He looked over at Leo, then down to the hand he was gripping way too hard. He dropped Leo’s hand in an instant, guiltily retracting his own to rest in his lap with a wince.

So much for being gentle.

Shit.

Delicate, nimble fingers traced along the tendons stretching across the back of Logan’s clenched fist and uncurled his hand. He watched as those same fingers laced their way between his and squeezed back just as hard as he had earlier – a strong, steady lifeline that Logan desperately grabbed hold of and clung to for dear life.

He barely listened as Loops started talking about how they needed to be careful and think this through – which was true, he knew that. But a big part of him simply didn’t care. He was done sitting on the sidelines, waiting for something to go wrong. Maybe it was time to be a little reckless. This seemed like a high risk, high reward situation if Logan had ever seen one.

“We’re going to get some analysts in and figure out what our next move is going to be.” Remus said seriously. “That doesn’t mean we’re sitting back and doing nothing, we just need to be smart about this. We’re not leaving him there. I promise.”

“His brother,” Leo whispered, his grip tightening. “Finn said he had a brother who’s a spy down in Florida. Has anyone contacted him yet?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“He deserves to know.” Logan swallowed thickly, another crack forming in his heart. “If it was one of my sisters, I’d want to know.”

“We’ll call him.” Sirius vowed solemnly. Of all people, he was sure to understand that. “You two need to try and get some rest. We’ll be in contact tomorrow.”

Logan just barely held back a snort. Rest. That wasn’t going to be happening any time soon. He just knew he was going to be spending the night staring at the ceiling, all too aware of the glaringly empty space beside him.

God, Finn.

Leo moved suddenly to pull his hand away, startling Logan out of his thoughts and making him hold on that much harder, an instinctive action. For an irrational split-second he was convinced Leo was leaving him, too. Something written on his face must’ve given him away because Leo’s eyes softened and he scooted closer, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Sweetheart,” he sighed against Logan’s skin, staying close. Logan let his eyes close and breathed him in, free hand fisting in the material of his sweatshirt and pulling him impossibly closer. A car alarm started blaring in the parking lot outside, but neither of them moved. Logan didn’t even flinch at the abruptness of the sound. All he could think about was Finn, god knows where, alone. Without them.

They were a package deal. You weren’t supposed to have one without the other two.

But now one was gone and in danger and Logan was livid. At himself, at this situation, at this damn job.

He needed to fix this.

***

Remus sifted through another digital file, unsure what exactly he was looking for but pushing on nonetheless. Eventually, if he read enough, he’d find something useful. Being so far away from the action was frustrating – an uncomfortable itch under Remus’ skin. All he wanted to do was help, to rectify the situation that had turned south before he could even recognize that there was a problem. His nonchalance, his negligence had cost them an agent and a friend. There had to be something in those files somewhere.

“You need to get some sleep.” The familiar voice of his roommate said, forcing Remus to take his eyes off the laptop and squint up at him, his eyes taking a while to adjust from the screen. Sirius was in his pajamas, which made Remus frown. What time was it, exactly?

“It’s late.” Sirius answered his unspoken question, a hint of a smile gracing his face. “And you need to sleep.”

“I need to research-”

Sirius was at the table in an instant, closing the laptop firmly. “You’re of no use to them when you’re so tired you can’t think straight.”

Remus glared up at him, but he really couldn’t keep it up for long. He looked back down at the table and his tea, which was long cold, pigment settling to the bottom of the mug. He was exhausted. “Ok. Sleep.”

There was a soft look on Sirius’ face, warm and open and affectionate. Remus wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Sure, he had his suspicions about how the ex-Snake felt for him, but taking that next step was still daunting. There was still a lot stacked against them and no matter how much Remus wanted him – or how much Sirius wanted him back – it would still complicate things. Even then, he was tempted to just throw caution to the wind and say fuck it.

Some things were worth the complications.

“Sleep.” Sirius reiterated with a quiet laugh, then he gestured with his hand that he was keeping his eyes on Remus before disappearing into the bathroom. Remus smiled and shook his head fondly, taking his cup of cold tea and dumping it in the sink. He was living with a secret dork. He… didn’t hate the thought as much as he would have a few months ago.

After placing the mug in the dishwasher, Remus started his nightly routine – checking the locks on the front door, closing all the blinds, turning off the lights. He was walking down the hall towards his room when a head suddenly poked out around the doorframe to the bathroom, making Remus jump. Sirius stood there, toothbrush in his mouth, giving him an approving look.

There was no hiding the smile on Remus’ face. “Yes, yes, I’m going to bed. You don’t have to supervise me.”

Sirius’ next words were garbled by the toothbrush in his mouth, but the rough translation Remus got was “just checking”. That was the only translation that made sense, anyways. He continued his path to the bedroom and got ready to sleep, changing into a threadbare t-shirt and brushing his teeth before turning the light off and crawling into bed with a weary sigh.

Tomorrow. He’d start formulating a plan to get Finn out of the mess he was in tomorrow.

Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Sirius was standing in the doorway, looking almost hesitant.

“Just making sure you didn’t smuggle your laptop in here.”

There was a smile in Remus’ voice – even he could hear it. “I told you I was going to bed, and I am. You should, too.”

“Noted.” There was a pause, heavy with words unsaid and sentiments kept hidden in the recesses of their minds. Remus could just barely see him in the darkness – he was mostly just a dark silhouette, stark against the light from the hallway. Remus shouldn’t be doing this. And yet-

“Sirius.”

“Hmm?” He questioned, stopping in his motion of closing the bedroom door.

Remus only let himself hesitate a split-second. “Stay?” he blurted, ridiculously grateful for the cover of darkness so that Sirius didn’t witness his grimace. “I just mean – that couch can’t be comfy to sleep on. And… and I’m not sure I want to be alone right now.”

Even though he couldn’t see him, he could sense Sirius’ smile. “Sure.” He left for just a few seconds to turn off the hallway light, then returned without even stumbling once.

“Do you have night vision or something?” Remus snarked, shifting over on the bed to make room. The bed dipped and then Sirius was settling in next to him, radiating more warmth already than the heating system in the apartment. Remus refrained from moving in closer, but it was a close thing.

“Snuck into my brother’s bedroom all the time when I was a kid.” He mused, pulling the blankets up a little higher as he got comfortable. “Got pretty good at maneuvering around in the dark.”

Remus couldn’t help but smile at that. “Me too.”

They went quiet after that, Sirius’ breathing slow and even, a metronome keeping the time as they both tried to sleep. Remus really did try but he couldn’t seem to turn his brain off, constantly aware of just who was in his bed right that second. He sucked in a determined breath, then rolled onto his side to face his roommate.

“Sirius.”

“Hmm?” Sirius repeated, quieter this time. Even this close he still couldn’t see much, only what the not-quite full moon illuminated for him – a strong jaw, the slope of his nose, the glint to his dark hair. It would be so easy to just close the distance between them and kiss him. He wanted to.

On top of that, he was pretty sure Sirius wanted him to.

He’d always thought getting here would be complicated and confusing and require so much talking. Well, they were here now and they didn’t really have to say a word, which surprised Remus. But there was this… charge between them, polar and magnetic, that pushed the two together as naturally and easily as taking their next breaths. At this point it felt almost inevitable, no longer worth fighting against Remus’ better judgement.

He tasted like the toothpaste Remus always bought. The cheap, off-brand one he’d used as a kid and just kept on using as he grew up. Remus wasn’t sure he could ever use that toothpaste without thinking of him now, him and the way he tangled their legs together and ran his tongue across the seam of Remus’ lips, urging them open. Remus hummed against his lips and kissed him back; the only thought going through his head was finally.

Sirius threw a leg across Remus’ to straddle his hips and then moved to balance over him, a looming, faceless shadow in the dark.

And Remus froze, the feeling of being caged-in catapulting him back all those years ago to the floor of an otherwise empty warehouse, a fierce hand on his shoulder pulling and pulling and pulling-

“You good?” Sirius breathed, pressing a quick, careful kiss to the hinge of his jaw, nose brushing against his cheek as he leaned back to look at Remus. The soft, concerned way he said it brought Remus back to reality quickly.

He was ok. This was ok.

“Mmhmm.” Remus pulled Sirius closer by the hips, greedy for the contact, the knowledge that he wasn’t alone in some dimly-lit warehouse. There were cool sheets underneath him, the sound of his ancient heating system rattling away as it worked, and the taste of toothpaste in his mouth. The figure hovering over him was smaller, more compact. The eyes that gleamed in the dark were gray, not dark and feral. The hand gripping his shoulder wasn’t intended to hurt but to anchor, to soothe. He sighed into their next kiss and finally let himself relax against the pillows, safe in Sirius’ arms – a sentence he never thought he’d say, but he sure was grateful for evolving circumstances.

***

They were taking a break from bashing Finn’s face in, apparently.

He warily watched the two Snakes that entered the room, eyesight hindered by one swollen, puffy eyelid. They didn’t approach him, though, instead choosing to stand between him and the open door – a clear attempt at reminding Finn just who was in control of this situation.

He couldn’t help but smile sarcastically. If they had to use subliminal messages to come across as intimidating, they were getting desperate.

And Finn wasn’t cracking.

He was morbidly curious to see what they had in mind.

He leaned back against the wall and regarded them, feigning uninterest. “What’s on the agenda for this meeting, boys?”

Two identical glares were shot his way. Finn shrugged, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle while holding back a wince. “I’d like a printed-out itinerary, when you get a chance.”

“We just want to talk.”

Finn snorted. “That’s worked really well so far.”

“We’ve got some incentive for you this time.”

“Ooh, that sounds interesting.” He said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Is this a guessing game? Because I’ve definitely got a few ideas brewing that would be great incentive: a large meat lovers pizza – extra cheese, please – oh, or a TV! It gets terribly boring when you leave me here all by my lonesome. A book would also be adequate.”

The two looked at each other. The shorter one on the right looked exhausted, and – to quote one Leo Knut, bless his heart. Finn grinned. He could practically hear the phrase in a sarcastic, too-sweet drawl. Apparently it didn’t always mean what most people thought it meant in the south.

As if they could read his mind the tired-one said, “Your partners. The ones that came barging into the restaurant and caused quite the scene.”

Of course they did, those dumbasses. Finn just knew Logan had been leading the charge; he was too hot-headed for his own good.

“They’re long gone by now,” he bluffed, although he knew better. They were still camped out in that hotel room, plotting. He was sure of it. He ached a little at the thought – a nauseating combination of worry and homesickness and knowing that they were hurting because of him and his inability to recognize that he’d been drugged, for god’s sake. Some agent he was. “So good luck finding them.”

“Really? That’s interesting,” The taller of the two crossed his arms over his chest. “Our sources tell us they’re still in the city.”

Tired-Snake pulled a picture out of the folder in his hand and handed it over to Finn. A blond and a brunet, pressed as close together as they possibly could and looking down at the same phone screen in a small hotel room. A hotel room he was all too familiar with, seeing that he was just there earlier that day. He could see his dress shoes in the exact same place he’d kicked them off after the gala, one still on its side. Finn wanted to see his partners again more than anything, but not like this – used like bargaining chips to get him to talk.

He could use this, though, if he played his cards right. So he let his eyes widen and over-exaggerated the trembling of his hand as he held onto the picture too tight. The fear was real – he didn’t have to act too hard this time. The words he said, however…

“I don’t know what you want me to say. They were backup, that’s all.” Technically not all a lie, but definitely not truthful either. “I was supposed to go in, gather as much intel as I could, and get out. That’s it. What else would I have been doing in a public place like that?”

The Snakes looked at each other, then back at Finn. They were at this strange impasse – they didn’t know that Gryffindor was going after the flash drives, and Finn wasn’t supposed to know about the flash drives in the first place. Neither of them could bring them up without revealing how much they knew.

“What were you going to use the intel for?” Tired-one asked finally. “What are you planning?”

“You expect me to know? I’m just a field agent. I get the intel, then immediately hand it over to the analysts and let them do their thing. I’m at the bottom of the food chain, dudes. I don’t know shit. Just-” he hesitated for longer than he needed to, reeling the Snakes in with his performance – the battle of conflicting emotions on his face, the nervous tapping of his foot, the way he bit his lip and winced when he remembered that it was already split. “Just leave them alone, ok? They don’t know any more than I do about all this.”

The taller Snake grabbed the picture from him, watching Finn hesitate to give it back. “Cooperate, and that won’t be an issue.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Finn relaxed his control over his expressions and glared like he’d been wanting to for so long. Because really. How dare they threaten his boys.

They should’ve known that would only give him more incentive to throw them as far off the trail as he possibly could.

***

Logan wasn’t sleeping, but that didn’t change the fact that he nearly jumped out of his skin when Leo sat bolt upright in bed with a sudden gasp.

“Nutty, what the hell-”

“I just thought of something.” He rushed to say, voice deep and scratchy from lack of use. He threw the sheets off, scrambled out of bed, and let all the cold air in as he turned the light on and hurried to the tiny hotel closet. Logan glared after him, grabbing the duvet and tucking it up around his chin again.

“What’s up?” He watched Leo hesitate at what he came across in the closet – a dark suit haphazardly thrown on a hanger, tie hanging from the hook. The tiniest of reminders of who used to be there with them – who should still be there with them. The blond took a deep breath and moved it aside, reaching for his own gray suit and digging around in the pockets for something. Logan sat up as he watched, brow furrowing. “Nutty?”

“Regulus slipped me his number at that party.” Leo explained, finally finding what he was looking for and pulling out a small business card. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier? If he knows anything, maybe he’ll tell us.”

Logan sighed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to tamp down the hope threatening to well up. “If they’re not keeping tabs on who he’s calling and messaging, what he’s saying.”

“He’s high up – why would they doubt him?”

“Because he’s got a brother who got out.”

“He thought Sirius was dead.” Leo pointed out, flopping back onto the bed and grabbing his phone from where it was plugged in on the nightstand. “So why wouldn’t the rest of the Snakes?” The glow from the screen illuminated a look of such blind optimism that probably hurt Logan more than it should have. Because one of these days, Leo would only be disappointed.

“He’s on our side, according to Sirius.” Leo continued as he tapped out a message. “I think he’ll help.”

Logan figured it was worth a shot. They were running low on options and he was willing to try just about anything if it meant getting Finn back. He rolled onto his stomach and peered over Leo’s shoulder at the screen right as he hit send.

Regulus looked down at his phone as it buzzed, seeing a text from an unknown number.

Is he ok?

He let out a long-suffering sigh, puffing out his cheeks as he did so. He’d only given this number to one person recently and that was quickly proving to be a mistake. They were going to do something stupid, weren’t they? And that put him in a very uncomfortable spot. Did he help them and risk getting caught, or did he let them try some half-assed plan on their own – because they would, he had no doubts about that – and risk never being able to get out of here?

Both options were unappealing.

“Everything ok?” Finn questioned around a bite of the food Regulus had smuggled in for him, quickly bringing Regulus out of his thoughts.

Well I’m currently debating on helping your boyfriends bust you out of here. Does that count as ok?

“None of your business.” He said instead, not sparing Finn another glance. If Finn had any idea what was going on, he’d try to put a stop to it. Regulus knew the type – self-sacrificing idiots. He’d rather sit there and get beaten to a pulp than put the other two in danger. Best to save him the extra stress and just not say anything.

Plus, this could be his chance to get out too. Instead of trying to get out on his own and then having no safe connections outside the Snakes besides his brother, he’d have a group to travel with. Safety in numbers, and all that. People who actually knew where they were going and who would watch his back. They would owe him after this, and that meant a leg up. It meant a safety net.

Regulus unlocked his phone again and started typing.

Listen carefully.

[pretty-face-breaker]

Cold, Humourless

Hey guys! I’m back from finals week(s) and here with a followup to this piece. After this, I want things to be linear for a while as the boys finally escape both with Nick’s help and dubious intentions.  

c.w. restrained with ropes, caning, pretty brutal beating, death threats, talk of murder, whumpee thinking he’s going to die, fucky guilt-tripping, possessive whumper, possessive touch, abusive relationship

—

“I’ll admit, you got good at lying to me, but only because I let you.” 

Muddied droplets trickled to the ground from a pipe across the warehouse. The leak was his clock, the puddle of water forming on the ground his indicator of how long it had been going on. Besides his ragged breathing, there wasn’t much else to listen to but if he tried very hard, he could hear angered mumbling behind the door. Eladio, signing his death warrant. 

Hayko lowered his eyes as Nick passed by him again and raised the cane. He tried to suppress the shudder as sweat rolled down his nose and fell to the ground in a perfectly translucent drop - one he was grateful couldn’t show him his reflection. The lower he looked, the worse the pressure on his wrists became. Suspended tight in the air with his toes barely grazing the ground. Shivering in anticipation of the next hit. Setting his teeth to avoid biting his tongue when the pain came, biting and merciless. 

He-... couldn’t remember anything from before. 

How had he found out? 

Does it matter anymore? 

The edges of his vision were darkening, portent, and an answer. Nick struck him in the stomach and he cried out but the noise seemed so much further away than before. Shaking as he felt the thrill against his skin, Hayko thought of how familiar this dance was for them. It was just like old times before he had gotten on his good side, moreover before Nick had realized just how precious his little pet was. 

How many other uses he actually had. 

Just like old times. The thought came affectionately, though tainted with delirium and pain and terror, because it hadn’t been like this for a long time and here they were again, dancing again, and he was suffering beautifully and Nick had to be enjoying it as much. Except now, he wasn’t. The hit came without warning and Hayko threw his head back and whimpered high in his throat as it bruised a deep cut where he felt blood slowly starting to well.

“Three months in, I thought I had beaten the disobedience out of you but you kept proving me wrong, again and again.” He lined up the cane over one of his shoulders and cracked it down, expressionless as he bucked and screamed. “You know, I found it endearing from some point.” Nick leaned in and Hayko flinched, hearing the grinding of teeth.

On instinct though, he looked up. “Never did any of it for y-you.” 

Nick’s eyes were on him in an instant, beneath them boiling something different, colder. Anger. Overwhelmed by the intensity, Hayko looked behind him instead and closed his eyes like he had before Nick had beaten that out of him too. Hoped he could shut out the blistering pain in his back, the pressure on his wrists, hoping he could just disappear.  

 “Hayko,” he purred. “All this time and looking away from me never did you any good.” So miserably, he lifted his head. 

“You fucked up,” Nick hissed, and he meant it. 

Hayko trembled in earnest now, realizing that this wasn’t at all their old dance. A chill bore deep into his core and wiped over the pain. It was too fast and he couldn't pull back, only choking down a scream as the cane hit his chest again and again until he was gasping for air and pulling at the restraints that would creak but wouldn’t give. Tried to hold himself up through it but each one made him reel, the force behind it, and all of a sudden, he recognized that this wasn’t sadism but simply anger. Real anger.

Nick wiped his forehead, just as Hayko prayed he’d gotten enough, and laughed  before his eyes widened and he wound back his arm.

This time, Hayko threw his head back just in time to muffle the pained noise, refusing to hand himself over. He could take a beating from time to time, but he’d only ever apologize if he’d done something to Nick personally. This was far from those times. It wasn’t as personal as it was targeting everybody at once and now, every gun was turned on him. 

Then again, maybe he had wanted it to be that way. 

Nick gripped his jaw hard, digging the dull ends of his nails into the skin. “Don’t ever say you never resisted for me. You resisted plenty. You did it to test how far I would take it and I let you know. over. and over. again.”  

He hit him beat on beat and each time, Hayko’s fists clenched and pulled at the bar his wrists were tied to but it only creaked, never giving. 

 It’s been an hour since it began. 

About eight hours since he had helped Santiago disappear from this life. Eight hours since he had fled these horrors and possibly less than one left before he could leave the horrors too.  

Hayko grimaced and weakly tilted his head up, his tongue suddenly bleeding from fighting the screams. “H-He deserved to get away from you and that fucking-” The hit caught him off guard and he gasped, savoury iron spreading in his mouth. “He’d been trying to get away for months. You didn’t even know-” The slap pulled a whimper from him. 

“Of course I knew, you fucking idiot,” Nick hissed, closer than before. “I know everything about you and that miserable shit. But rest assured, your efforts paid off. I knew you lied because I always do. He’s probably halfway out of the country already but you? You’re here and I get to do whatever I want to you.” 

Hayko blinked away the spots dancing in his vision. “I-I won’t- won’t tell-.” 

“Yes, you will.” Nick fixed his stare on him for a few seconds, until he shifted from whatever terror that look could still incite. “You will, baby, because when Eladio tried to reach him tonight and he didn’t answer, and when they turned up to his doorstep and didn’t find him ready-to-please as he always fucking is, you’re going to give me his location so they can rip him apart.” 

Hayko bared his teeth, feeling a twinge in his chest. “Santiago isn’t-” He got no further before Nick brought another lash down and stunned the words. 

Nick’s voice comes with a cold, cautioning cadence. “Talk again and I’ll cut your throat.” 

He should have killed him when he had the chance. For months, all the nights he lay beside him, an open target, and let him sleep and live to see another day. Somehow, he had him convinced that he wouldn’t kill him and how fucking stupid had he been to believe that? 

How stupid had I been to do something like this and think I would live? Live to do what? This is what I am now. 

And Nick had let his guard down, not because he was careless but because he knew he’d be too weak, too desperate and miserable to even try. He had been there where Nick had needed him to be for months and watched him kill, torture, and break everything he sunk his claws into, and had watched Santiago break at the same time, and done nothing because he was no better than him.

Saving Santiago had been an attempt at repenting. 

I’m still an accomplice.  

Nick spoke through venom, jolting him back to reality. “They’re hunting him now. It probably won’t take long because when they find him, he’ll be cut to ribbons on sight.” He snorts. “Faster fate than I’ll be giving you.”

His heart pounded and then froze all at once. 

The cane hit the ground with a half-hearted clatter and the shadow on Hayko’s face grew as he approached. He let his eyes slip shut, feeling a tear slip down his cheek. 

“What the fuck have you done?” Nick muttered. “You know what they expect me to do now, right? He’s a rat because he ran away and by extension, so are you.”  His face was contorted with disbelief sooner than anger now. “Why, Hayko?” 

Hayko couldn’t respond because the answer wouldn’t mean anything to him. He had done it on a principle only he understood between the two of them and lord knew that didn’t mean a fucking thing to whatever Nick was. 

At the start, he was looking around the empty warehouse in search of a distraction. Now, he looked for a saviour. He dropped his eyes for a moment, still wide with a renewed horror. “Y-you can’t.” He stated it like a fact and realized then how ridiculous it sounded in his mouth. 

Telling a killer that he couldn’t kill. 

“Oh, I can.” Nick reassured with a cold, humourless laugh. 

Hayko didn’t see the next blow coming, not from the cane but from his fists. Nick couldn’t restrain himself as he closed to lunged onto Hayko and piled on the blows, raining hits down onto his face and grabbing him over the shoulder to land one in his stomach just when he thought he could escape to breathe. Skin broke from the rings on the sight of the punches.

“I did everything for you,” he hissed, driving his fist into his stomach.  

“Sto-op-” Nick tore his hair back when Hayko turned away, “Pl-ea-,” breath knocked out as another punch sank into his ribs. “Ple-nngh.” The next hit nearly spun his vision black and he wobbled on the balls of his feet. He had to breathe in gasps through his bruised lip, trying to keep up with the rapidity of the hits, trying to make sense of the world through his swollen eyes but the hits came like a shower. Unceasing.

Nick grabbed his bloodied face rough enough to hurt. “I did everything for you and now they want you dead.”  

He couldn’t even pry his arms in front of him to defend himself. 

When Nick eventually stopped, he hung between wake and consciousness. Everything hurt and it was going to hurt all the while and up to- 

Hayko teetered, trying not to succumb to the restraints that were beginning to numb his wrists. There was a painful shifting in his chest that brought a new wave of agony each time, neurons firing away at the categories of damage and the overwhelming taste of iron sat rich, heavy on his tongue.  

“Wai’, Nic-...” he slurred at finding an opportunity, catatonic, barely there, and uncertain whether this was really it. Whether the past few months had been real. Whether he was really lying when he told him he loved him, and again and again and kissed him and told him he was perfect for him, that he’d never let him go. “Before you k-... Please... don’ let him die. I was just trying to s-” 

Silence. He could faintly hear ragged breaths, hushed by his ear and made a strangled noise in his throat when a hand touched his bare chest and another hooked under his armpit. His thoughts swam with the introduction of the gentle touches until he registered that Nick was holding him up from the pressure on his wrists. He choked with relief. 

“Save him?” he said dismissively. “Idiot.” 

Despite every word out of his mouth nearly seething, Nick did his best to alleviate the pressure on his arms. Even with the effort, his grip still hurt. Hayko winced as his nails dug into the flesh of his arm. “I did everything I could to keep you alive. Do you even know what measures I had to go to, how many people I had to kill just to keep you alive for this long? Can you take a guess of how many fucking liabilities I tied up so I keep you-” 

He wasn’t listening, or couldn’t rather. All he knew was that this was it. Maybe whatever God still watched him, the one he had chosen to abandon years ago, held some mercy for him still to let it be quick when the finishing blow came. The guilt almost choked off his breaths when his mind supplied that he had only saved Santiago to save himself from all of this. It might be for that reason that it wouldn’t be painless. 

I should feel the pain they’re going to put him through if they find him.  

As the restraints were loosened, Hayko moaned in pain, trying to keep his wrists still despite hardly registering his surroundings let alone figuring out what Nick was trying to do to him now. Though the sudden surge of pain as his arms fell finally tipped him over to a scream. 

Nick caught him as he collapsed. “You should have thanked me every day of your miserable life that I got you out of what you put yourself into. I saved you. Don’t ever fucking forget that.” 

Hayko held onto his shoulders, not knowing where else to turn that didn’t hurt. “Tha-nk-” Nick’s scoff cut off the attempt at gratitude.  

“I don’t want it now.” He held him tightly for a moment and his arms jerked from haphazard holding to fully circling his back, pressing him tight into his shirt. Possessive. “No, I want you grovelling at my fucking feet for what I’m about to do to save you for the tenth time already. Even though you don’t deserve a bit of it.” 

A hand grabbed and jerked his hair to turn his eyes upwards, blinking away tears, and Hayko groaned but met Nick more willingly now. Suddenly, it appeared that Nick had fixed his posture, collected himself and his raw anger had been replaced with smugness, almost relief. It was still there though. What set it apart was that it was now eagerly calculating as if…

This had been his plan. 

Nick sighed, shaking his head with thinly veiled pity at the wide eyes, beautifully lost despite his own rage. “Even though you don’t fucking deserve it, I’m going to save you from them too.” He tightened the hold on him, not that he would have been able to move anyway. Hayko felt the outline of a gun in his jacket.  

“Told you I’ll never let you go, right, love?” 

 —

Tagging @doveotions @heathenville @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome--hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp 

Let me know if you would like to be added or removed!

[asiantransman]

Top surgery in Spore - Dr Jane

Thanks to someone who is willing to share his experience with Dr Jane as a private patient. He is currently 4 months post-op when shared his experience.

“Actually everyone in Dr. Jane's department was very nice. From front counter to nurses. I was so impressed with them I bought them all coffee on last follow up. But then again ah, they not big on the pronouns thing. If any guy is particular, then he might want to bring it up. I'm at a life stage where things like pronouns don't bother me anymore so I didn't really care that they used she or called me her.

I was a borderline no-pass (i.e. Doc would do it if I insisted, but she cautioned high rate of failure at my size then) for Peri, but I really didn't want DI. My BMI was a 25-26 initially. I signed up at the gym near me, worked out like crazy almost daily for 2.5 months, controlled sweet and salty food intake (to reduce fat and water retention) and basically cut off all snacks. And I got to within Peri limits. 2.5 months after initial consult was my surgery date, and I was even small enough to do a Hemi-Peri without requiring the full-Peri.My surgeon was impressed with the size change. She expected to remove about 300-350cc of volume during my initial consult, but eventually only managed under 200cc of volume during the surgery itself. I'm successfully flat now and fortunately, had no complications.

I had a Hemi-peri with Nipple reduction in one session and didn't require drains or a post-op binder. I was able to transfer myself from the surgery bed to my ward bed immediately after waking from the anesthesia. Pain after that was a constant 1-2 out of 10 (more an ache than a pain really). Had dressings removed on day 10th post op and had almost no bruising and minimal swelling. I was maybe a B pre-op, and was glad I qualified for Peri. I had decent size areolas too, but pretty big nipples, so asked my surgeon to have the nipples reduced. I didn't get any drains, but my surgeon did say the human body is able to get rid of 20cc of fluid a day on its own.

I was given 3 different levels of painkillers after discharge and was told not to be stingy on them. Learnt something new because Doc said if you're in pain and resisting, the body would have an increased in blood pressure as a natural reaction which is not good for healing. So if feeling any pain, just take the painkiller.

I also had antibiotics and anti-swell. The antibiotics caused antibiotics-diarrhoea, so "self-paired" it with probiotics (just ensured 2 hours apart). Was told not to drink fresh press juice and any herbal stuff before surgery and no herbal / TCM stuff after surgery.

I'm a regular blood donor, and no blood donations 6 weeks before and after surgery.

I slept semi elevated (just put pillows behind back) to increase blood flow for nipple healing.

After Post Op 10th day consult, doc said all good, can shower, she gave Silicone Tape, but coz I did nipple Reduction too, I had stitches on underside (deliberately done there to prevent noticeable scars if any) of the nipple so it wouldn't stay stuck over the nipple. In the end I just changed to using self-purchased silicone gel

So the final bill came down to 12.5k (including GST). Medisave was able to be used for 5.4k. and Medishield paid out about 2k. My nett out of pocket in cash was slightly under 5k. 

Think just side note is this amount includes the below that are not mandatory:

- 2 nights in Single Bed ward (optional to go home rest same day post-op).

- Nipple Reduction which was about 2-3k.

Cost was inclusive of 2 nights stay in single room at private rate. Doc did say no need can go home after that (evident coz I could transfer myself from Surgery Bed to Ward Bed immediately waking from anesthesia) but I stay alone so didn't want to risk anything. Plus didn't want to worry about food and all

”

[mymostimaginaryfriend]

one inch from the edge of this bed

♛ 5x01: James dreams about Teresa. (1.6k words; rating Mature: language, violence, sexual situations) tags: james can have some magical realism as a treat, morphine is a helluva drug

 ➢ read on ao3 or below the cut:  

(note: I originally wrote this as part of a longer story about James’ journey to reunite with Teresa, so for the purpose of this drabble, morphine is making him forget he’s already seen her...cool? cool. thanks for reading!)

♛

James rarely sleeps deeply enough to dream. What starts as a coping mechanism in his childhood only gets cemented further by the military. Now no matter how tired he becomes, he can never quite turn off that last light in the back of his head. It’s for the best, probably. The things he’s seen—the shit he’s done. Who knows what nightmare would crawl out of the well of his subconscious if given half the chance.

The rare times he does dream, he’s usually able to wake himself up within a matter of seconds. It’s automatic now, like he’s rewired a shortcut in his brain. By the time he opens his eyes the dream is nothing more than a faint memory skipping across the surface of his mind without ever dropping an anchor.

The big, bad assassin and his built-in night light. He’d laugh if he didn’t count it as yet another valuable weapon in his arsenal.  It’s not like he doesn’t know this concession by his personal demons is only a layaway plan. Whatever he doesn’t pay for now will come due at least ten times over later.

Still, when he opens his eyes to see morning light filtered through breeze-stirred curtains, he doesn’t catch on right away. It’s not the sunshine that tips him off or the softness of the bed. It’s not the light breeze wafting through the open window, or even the dip of the mattress behind him.

It’s a sense of peace he hasn’t known in nearly a year. It’s the sound of her hushed voice, whispering his name.

“Don’t hide from me,” she says. “I know you’re awake.”

His heart leaps then plummets at the smile he hears in her words, sweet joy chased by sick panic. It’s not just the nightmares he’s been avoiding in his sleep. 

Dreaming of Teresa is an indulgence he can no longer afford.

When he left with Devon, he knew he’d need more than just physical distance between her and his new life, from what he’d have to do there and who he might have to become to do it. He couldn’t risk it warping his feelings for her.  He couldn’t let it twist his memories or cloud his purpose.

So in the last moments of his freedom, as Devon drove him away into the night, he allowed himself to hold close all that she meant to him: her innate goodness, her fierce bravery, how her eyes warmed whenever she smiled.

And then he built a room around those memories—built the wall brick by brick in his mind until they were shut away. He didn’t need a key. He didn’t even build a door. It was the only way of protecting both those memories and himself.

Leaving her meant leaving her behind.

One look at her now will undo all of his careful compartmentalization. One look at her, no matter if she’s real or imagined, will destroy those walls to dust.  He can’t get off mission, he has to stay on task, he has to—he can’t remember what exactly.  But it feels important, deathly so.

He closes his eyes and waits for the awareness of the dream to catapult him to consciousness but something is wrong. His mind refuses to obey the command.

Error: shortcut not found.

And with every passing second it’s harder to remember why it’s so important for him to resist, his urgency to awaken quickly replaced by an urgency of a different kind.  He can’t stop the hum in the back of his throat at the touch of her fingers brushing across his abdomen or how his body automatically angles itself toward the warmth of hers, inexorable like the tide.

She laughs and the sound of her joy hooks beneath his ribcage, turning him toward her.  They never had enough time.  Little things like lying in bed together, easing into the day with lazy touches and hushed sighs turned into something valuable, something to hold on to, something that’s supposed to be in a lockbox behind a fucking brick wall.

“Hmm, it’s like that is it?” she asks, voice like warm honey sending an anticipatory flare of heat up his spine. “Let’s see if I can’t wake you up.”

The drag of her hair across his chest is all the warning he needs before her lips find his and what’s left of his resistance falls away like tumblers in a lock.  There are no more walls left between them now. No air. Just heat, hands and skin so soft he can barely manage not to bruise it in his desperate need to get her even closer.

An alarm bell rings in some distant corner of his mind, but one hand has already buried itself in her hair, angling her head for better access to her mouth.  The other has slipped beneath her sleep worn shirt, fingers brushing up her ribs to the soft, warm weight of her breast.

This isn’t real.

He doesn’t fucking care.

The past year has been a brutally cold one, filled with blood-soaked ops and people he couldn’t trust.  He’s spent the last twelve months always on guard, either enacting violence, experiencing it or expecting it. To have Teresa here, tangibly safe in his arms, and so, so warm is almost more than he can take, let alone resist.

Her breath stutters against his lips and it feels like a hit of pure oxygen, like she’s reviving him from the dead.

He opens his eyes, pushing her hair back up and out of her face to take her in. She always smiled more freely in their quiet moments together, something that made him feel more powerful than any firearm ever had. Her lips curve now, soft and sweet, her eyes half lidded by pleasure and the knife that’s lodged in his heart tears a downward path, spilling all of his carefully contained emotions from the wound. His grip on her waist tightens too much to go unnoticed.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes flicker quickly over his face, the ever present worry never too far from the surface of their lives.

He wants to reassure her, to hold onto the playfulness between them, but the ache of it makes him honest. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here,” she replies, voice barely a whisper, perhaps sensing the deadly seriousness of his words. He’s never missed anything half as much as her.  It used to scare him to think of what he’d be willing to do to have this once again. What lines he’d cross to get back to her, to this.

He no longer wonders anymore.  He knows.  The knowledge that he’d do it all over again if it kept her safe didn’t absolve his crimes.  It sure as hell didn’t silence the echo of screams in his head.

“Are you?” His voice is rough but he gentles his hand, smoothing it down her hip to lightly grip her thigh, relishing the strength he can feel beneath his fingertips. He forces a smirk, an attempt to salvage the lightheartedness, and though the slight narrowing of her eyes suggests she sees right through his façade, she concedes to his wishes with a soft smile, tossing her hair over one shoulder to lean down and nip his jawline.

“What do you miss?” she teases, biting gently at the tendon of his neck, sucking lightly at first then sharper.  “This?”

His breath catches in his throat and she hums her approval into his skin.  “Or maybe this?” she murmurs, shifting to run a flat palm down his belly, lower and lower until she’s cupping him through his boxer briefs.

He groans as she strokes him, and she smiles in delight as his hips reflexively rock up into her hand. Her eyes lock onto his, like she knows exactly what power she has over him, like she wants to see the exact moment he surrenders.  It won’t take long. It feels so fucking good that it’s only his pride that keeps him from panting.

Her eyes dance wickedly.  “Or maybe this?”

As quick as lightning, she releases him to grab at his waist, tickling in just the right spot to make him nearly levitate off the bed.

“Fuck,” he laughs, grabbing for her wrists to roll her underneath him, pinning her arms above her head. She’s breathless and beaming and so goddamned pleased with herself that he can’t take his eyes off of her.  She’s beautiful.

“This,” he murmurs, slotting himself between her legs, rolling his hips hard and slow, repeating the movement when her face goes slack with pleasure.

“This,” he breathes, as her heels dig into the back of his thighs, pressing him closer as he leans down to catch her moan with his mouth.

This, he thinks, losing himself in the hazy heat of her. This, this, this.

He senses it a split-second before it happens, like a sudden change in air pressure.  The distant urgency of his mission slamming into focus with the echo of a high powered rifle shot and the shattering glass of the window.

Fiery pain rips through his abdomen, but it's the soft cry beneath him that has him in agony.

He remembers now what was so important.  He remembers now what he was supposed to do.

“Teresa,” he chokes, slumping to the side to get himself fully between her and the window.  He's losing strength fast, barely able to prop himself up enough to assess the damage.  At first he thinks the blood covering her chest is his own, but then he sees it: the entry wound where the bullet passed through him into her.

Her eyes stare up at him in disbelief, words gurgling around the blood pooling in her throat. “James?”

He has to —

“James,” she repeats, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth, her voice growing faint.  

He has to —

“Save me.”

♛

ao3

[everybodyscupoftea]

to grandmother’s house we go

sigma chi jj x reader

you bring jj to your family’s christmas

ope. two days late again 

(warnings: a little bit of cursing, minor editing)

The first Christmas JJ came home with you, you felt like you should warn him. The two of you had been together for just over two years, and he was used to your immediate family, but your extended family was a different story.

“Okay,” you started when he crossed over the state line into your home state, “I feel like I should say that we aren’t going to be at my house much.”

“What?” he asked, glancing over at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, um, my family normally goes to stay out of town with my Grandma. We do one half of the family on Christmas Eve and the other half on Christmas Day.”

JJ raised his eyebrows, “Your family knows I’m coming right? Like your extended family?”

“Yeah, definitely! My mom told them.”

“And they were okay with it?” he asked, sounding cautious.

“They’re eager to meet you,” you reassured him, “I think they’re just happy to see me finally dating someone.”

He snorted, “Yikes.”

“Yeah, well, my family lives to pressure my sister and I into marriage.”

“Wait,” he looked a little panicked, “they’re not expecting us to be engaged, right?”

“No, but they might bring it up. Just ignore it.”

“I-” he cut himself off, “okay, if you say so.”

You were just glad the conversation had gone as well as it did.

-

“Three hours?” JJ hissed at you when your dad took both of your duffle bags out of the car and stuck them in your parents’ trunk.

“It’s a long drive,” you offered innocently, “but at least you don’t have to drive.”

“Nope, just get to sit in the backseat.”

“J, at least you get a window seat, I’m sitting in the middle.”

He rolled his eyes, “Yeah and you’re going to fall asleep on me no more than 45 minutes in.”

“Slander,” you protested.

Your sister walked out in time to hear him and she laughed, “He’s right.”

“You can’t talk,” you argued, “you’re worse than me.”

“Twins,” she singsonged in a high pitched voice, and you rolled your eyes.

“Brought headphones for this ride thank god.”

“I can be louder than headphones,” she spoke confidently.

JJ let you climb in first before reaching across you to give your sister a fist bump, and you sighed, “I hate that you two know each other. Y’all are the worst together.”

He squeezed your thigh, “You love us.”

“Unfortunately,” you muttered.

-

You did fall asleep, but much to your satisfaction, so did JJ. Your sister woke you up first when you pulled into your grandma’s driveway, elbowing you straight in the ribs. Jolting, you woke up JJ immediately, and his head flew up from where it was resting on top of yours, looking around wildly.

“Christ,” you muttered, glaring at your sister, “that was rude as hell.”

“I got a cute picture of you two.”

You paused, “Okay, send it to me.”

JJ blinked adorably, trying to get a grasp on his surroundings, and mumbled, “Did we make it?”

“Yeah, bud,” you told him, grabbing his hand.

He smiled softly, maybe even a little thankfully, and took a deep breath, “Okay, let’s do this.” 

“If it makes you feel better,” your sister leaned around you to talk to him, “you aren’t meeting the problematic side of our family until tomorrow.” 

JJ paused for a second to process, then nodded, “That does actually, thank you.” 

Before you could say anything else, JJ climbed out of the car, seemingly more awake, to help your dad carry in the bags and presents for his side of the family. Your dad nodded at him, a satisfied little smile on his face, “Thanks, son.” 

“You’re welcome, sir.” 

Together they carried them through the porch to where your grandma was waiting with the door open. Your sister muttered, “Kiss up,” under her breath, and you snorted. 

“He’s trying to make a good impression on grandma and pawpaw, we both know that they’re super laid back and judge more based on conversational ability, but he doesn’t.” 

She widened her eyes at you, “You didn’t tell him?” 

“I didn’t tell him we were staying here until like five hours ago.” 

“Oh my god,” she muttered, “you’re actually a disaster.” 

-

Your grandma cooked dinner, traditional Christmas dinner with the turkey and ham, macaroni and cheese, dressing, sweet potato casserole, and green beans. JJ was staring at it in confusion, arms stiffly by his side even though you knew he’d normally have an arm around your shoulder.

Leaning into his side a little, you told him, “We eat steak on the actual holiday here, that’s why it’s traditional early. You don’t have to look so scared, bud. I promise they’re super chill.” 

“What does everyone want to drink?” your grandma asked before JJ could react.

“Water,” you answered, and JJ nodded, signalling the same. 

“Guests first,” your pawpaw urged, and JJ hesitantly grabbed one of the plates in the stack to start filling it up. He was careful to not spill anything, and his grip on the plate was like steel. You reached over to pat his hand in some sort of effort to soothe him, and he relaxed the slightest bit.

Until he finished and walked over to the table where there were five spots for 10 people. You almost ran into his back, “J, what’s wrong.” 

“Where do I sit,” he hissed, clearly anxious about it.

“Find a place with a glass of water and sit there. It’s not like assigned,” you answered, secretly hoping you could steer him toward the seat you normally sat in.

You did, and he sat down, not starting to eat right off the bat until he saw you dig in. It was slow, as if he was trying to wait for everyone to sit down, but you elbowed him until he picked up the pace.

“I’m trying to be polite,” he whispered.

“Trust me, you wanna hit the dessert before my dad.” 

JJ snorted, finally relaxing a bit. Your grandma, cousin and his girlfriend, and sister sat down next and immediately started asking JJ questions about his major, his frat, his favorite hobbies, and what he wanted to do in the future.

That he’d gone through before, with your immediate family, and he had the answers on deck. He spoke confidently, and you could tell your grandma was impressed. It helped him relax, and by the time everyone moved to the living room to watch a Christmas movie before bed, he sat on the couch next to you and was even comfortable enough to put an arm around your shoulder.

When he left to get ready for bed in the one bathroom, your pawpaw finally spoke up, “He’s a good kid.” 

“He’s the best,” you agreed.

“We got him a gift,” your aunt added, “so that he has something to open on Christmas Day.” 

You teared up, knowing it would mean the world to him. JJ didn’t talk about his childhood much, especially holidays. You knew he had no interest in going home to his dad, and from what you did know, there was never much of a Christmas celebration involving gifts.

“Thank you guys so much,” you finally managed.

-

Immediately JJ went straight back into discomfort mode as soon as your family walked into your aunt’s house. Everyone was already there, and the small house felt stuffed.

You leaned close, “Party vibes, huh? Should be pretty familiar.”

He snorted, “Not even close.”

“This is the problematic side,” your sister reminded him, “they’ll definitely get in your business and you’re going to hear a ton of small town gossip.”

“ The gossip is pretty interesting,” you admitted, “but the yearly questioning isn’t the best.”

“How often do you see your family?” JJ asked.

“Christmas. And sometimes a trip during the summer.”

He hummed, and followed you and your sister deeper into the house. Your sister took over, introducing him to whoever you ran into on the way. You could hear your mom in the kitchen catching up with her sister, and your dad took his normal spot on the couch with your uncle and cousins.

JJ shook hands with your favorite cousin, who immediately started asking him questions.

“How’d you two meet?”

Glancing over at you, JJ cleared his throat, “We were in the same orientation group and became friends through that.”

He hummed, looking at the two of you skeptically before turning back to JJ, “Major?”

“Marine biology.”

“You fish?”

JJ nodded eagerly, finally in his element, “Definitely.”

“Saltwater or fresh?”

“Either, but back home mostly salt.”

Your cousin looked impressed, “Where are you from?”

“Outer Banks of North Carolina.”

“Sometime when it warms back up, you’ll have to come visit again and we’ll go fishing.”

“Looking forward to it.”

JJ relaxed, stretching back into the couch a bit while the conversation picked back up around him. Your cousins’ kids were in another room napping, and you leaned over to him, “We’re getting the gossip early while the kids sleep. Board games after lunch.”

And as you explained, your grandmother dove into the rumors she’d heard about the new pastor in town. She leaned forward and you knew it was going to be a particularly interesting take.

“And then we saw the preacher’s wife smoking a cigarette outside the movie theatre.”

Your sister dramatically gasped, “How dare she?”

You snorted, but your grandmother, used to ignoring both of you, kept on talking until she finally came back around and landed on your sister.

“Your sister has a boyfriend, when will you be bringing one for us to meet?” she asked.

“Well, whenever I can get a boy to like me, I guess.”

She looked at JJ, “Are you planning on marrying my granddaughter.”

He froze, staring at your grandmother with wide eyes, “We haven’t really, uh, talked about marriage.”

“Mhmm, yet here you are, at family Christmas.”

“Okay, grandmother,” you cut in, “he’s family, and you know family doesn’t have to be by blood or marriage. It can be friendship.”

“You love her?” your grandmother ignored you to ask.

JJ reached over and took your hand, meeting your grandmother’s eyes, “Of course.”

She nodded and backed off, seemingly satisfied with his answer. Turning back to your sister, she added, “I expect a boy to be at Christmas with you soon, young lady.”

“What if it’s a girl?” your sister asked, clearly trying to egg her on.

“I’ll take either at this point.”

Clapping your hand over your mouth, you held in a loud laugh at your sister’s indignant face, and your dad didn’t even try. JJ squeezed your hand and you looked over to see his eyes squinted, biting his lip, to hold in his laughs. 

“Just wait until I never get married,” your sister crossed her arms with a huff.

-

“I’m going to murder you,” your uncle glared at you, “you better stop looking at my sheet.”

You scoffed, “Don’t put it in my eyesight then. Hold it up.”

“Just don’t cheat!” he exclaimed.

“Not cheating, just using my resources.”

And when he didn’t respond, you started crossing out the weapons on the sheet your uncle had just accidentally let you see. Your sister cleared her throat, “Well since he threatened her, Colonel Mustard is the killer and I’d like to make an accusation.”

“We started five minutes ago,” your cousin told her, “hush.”

She lunged forward and almost elbowed JJ’s empty gumbo bowl off the table. 

“Hey,” your dad yelled, “relax.”

“No. I simply will not relax until you let me accuse.”

“Dude, you haven’t even had a turn yet,” you rolled your eyes

“I’ve been looking at mom’s card,” she admitted.

Your mom gasped, scooting away from her, “Cheater!”

“How’s it feel to raise two cheaters,” your uncle taunted your mom.

“Only at board games,” you added, looking over at JJ.

He smiled at you, clearly amused at everything unfolding. The game went on for 30 minutes before JJ eventually won it. Your sister glared at him, “Should’ve left you at Grandma’s.”

Reaching over to ruffle her hair, he teased, “Sore loser.”

“I’m keeping your gift.”

“You won’t.”

“I will. Better show some respect.”

“Respect is earned.”

Her jaw dropped and your mom snorted, “Give up now.”

Your sister, always needing the last word, “Watch out, new kid, you’re the replaceable one here.”

JJ leaned forward, elbows on the table to look into her narrowed eyes, “Until I propose.”

Cheeks heating, you stared at him in shock, and he moved back, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Damn,” your dad coughed, “got her again.”

“Okay, any present marked JJ comes to me now,” she announced, “now that we’re family.”

Before anyone else could answer, one of the kids walked in holding a box, and your cousin stood, “Time for presents.”

JJ had a few, one from your parents, two from your grandmother, and a couple your cousins chipped in on. His eyes widened when he actually had a small pile, mostly gift cards, but he was still excited.

And at the end of the night, the five of you walked out to the car to drive back to your grandma’s house. Your dad looked at JJ over his shoulder, “You made it through. How’re you doing?”

“Pretty good.”

“Well, you got yourself a standing invitation.”

JJ’s smile was small but pleased as he stared at the window. You reached down to grab his hand and he squeezed in response. Right as you got to your grandma’s house, it hit midnight, and you leaned over to kiss his cheek, “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

~

day 10 of @obxmermaid​‘s holiday challenge: visiting relatives