#right next to Jurassic Park

[cryptid-crawly]

NEXT GENERATION TIME

[slashermary]

my favorite genre has gotta be man’s hubristic delusion in believing we have dominion over wild beasts bringing forth our ultimate downfall. song of the millennium

[megalony]

Cause Of Malpractice

Thank you all for the lovely feedback on my first Doctor! Eddie Diaz imagine. This is another Doctor! Eddie idea I had an idea for which I hope you will all like.

Let me know what you think.

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@ashdoctor @an-aliens-ghost @lunaroserites @houseoftwistedspirits @itshamleth @callsignwidow @winterreader-nowwriter @reneinii

Eddie Diaz Masterlist

Summary: Eddie goes down to the hospital on his day off to be with (Y/n) when she has a routine surgery. But when she becomes ill afterwards, Eddie takes over her care and goes on the warpath.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Are we staying for dinner?"

Eddie twisted his head to the right and gave his son a pointed look with one arched brow. He could see the cheekiness trying to hide behind a plain smile on Chris's face and he knew his son was just dying to make some kind of quick-witted response that might just get him into trouble. But Chris held his tongue and settled for his smile which made his dad purse his lips.

"Your mum's at work, so what do you think?" He could see his response made Chris happy because he started to nod his head to himself.

It was still new to feel those words on his tongue again after years of teaching himself to refrain from talking about Chris's mum. About Shannon. But now the word mum had a different meaning. It meant (Y/n), and Eddie couldn't have been happier when Chris suddenly asked a few weeks ago if it was okay for him to start calling (Y/n) his mum.

It wasn't something Eddie was sure Chris would ever want to do, after everything that had happened with Shannon. But here Chris was, attached to (Y/n)'s hip and overjoyed that Eddie had married her.

Eddie pulled up in the drive and turned off the ignition but when he looked over at Chris, the eleven year old was already throwing off his belt and hurrying out the car.

They were visiting Eddie's Abuela for the afternoon and she had already asked them to stay for dinner. Food was the one thing that always brought their family together, but for all his faults, Eddie was no chef. All the women in his family had tried to teach him how to cook and growing up, he had been the one to bring up his three sisters while their dad worked away. But even that didn't help his cooking skills. Cereal and pasta were the only things Eddie could cook without burning or making it inedible.

Chris had been overjoyed when (Y/n) moved in with them because she was as good at cooking as her brother, Buck. Bobby had been teaching them both and that meant Chris didn't have to try and cook or suffer Eddie's cooking any longer. Either (Y/n) cooked, Buck came over to cook, Eddie got takeout or their Abuela would usually batch cook and send some their way.

"There are my boys!" Abuela was already out on the porch when Eddie climbed down from the jeep and he grinned, but he stayed next to the door when his phone rang in his back pocket.

He knew that ringtone. Jurassic Park. That was Buck calling. For a reason unknown to Eddie, Chris had set Buck's ringtone in Eddie's phone to the theme song for Jurassic Park. And although Eddie wasn't too keen on having personalised ringtones, it was helpful to know who was calling.

"Hey Buck, everything okay?"

It wasn't normal for Buck to call when he was on shift, Eddie knew his wife and brother in law were both on shift today until late on tonight so neither of them should be calling him. Just like when Eddie was on shift at the hospital, he didn't get much free time to call his loved ones. Unless he was forewarning them that his shift would be extended or they had an emergency.

"Are you at work?"

"No…"

"Can you meet us there? At the hospital… like now?"

"Why?" That didn't sound good. This was Eddie's first day off in almost a week, he had been hoping to spend the day with Chris and his Abuela and then spend the night and tomorrow with his wife.

"(Y/n) collapsed, Hen thinks it's her appendix. We're on route to the hospital now." Buck didn't know whether to be relieved or not that Eddie wasn't on shift.

If he was, they would have to call dispatch to get them to send a memo over to the hospital to page Eddie and let him know the situation. But with him being off work it meant he could answer his phone, but it also meant he might not be around or be able to get to the hospital quick.

Everything had been going fine until (Y/n) collapsed on scene and began throwing up. She was running a fever, cradling her stomach and going dizzy and now she was crying, begging her brother to call Eddie for her. She wanted her husband, her personal doctor. She wanted Eddie to be here, he always managed to calm her down and if she had to be in hospital she wanted him there with her.

"I'm on my way, I'll meet you there."

"Thank you."

With his phone shoved back in his pocket, Eddie slammed the jeep door shut and bustled over to where Chris and his Abuela were stood patiently waiting on the doorstep.

"Everything okay, carino?" Her hand stretched out to cup Eddie's cheek while her lips formed a concerned smile and her head tilted to one side.

"Can you watch him for the afternoon?" Eddie kept his voice low but he knew Chris had heard him all the same and the concern only doubled in his Abuela's eyes. She thought they were both staying all afternoon so they could spend some time together and she could cook for them. Not that she wouldn't be happy to look after Chris, but she wanted to see Eddie too.

"Dad, you said you're not on call this week." Chris reached out to grab Eddie's hand and started swinging it back and forth as he whined. His dad promised he wasn't on call this week and the next three days he was going to be off and able to spend time with his family.

"I'm not, buddy… Buck called, (Y/n)'s going to hospital, she might need surgery I need to go be with her. I'll come back and get him later, or see if Buck can watch him after dinner-"

"Go, we'll be fine." She patted his cheek lightly and gave his shoulder a squeeze before her hands moved to Chris's shoulders.

She would never want Eddie to stay here or have to fret about (Y/n) and be apart from her if she wasn't well. His place was by her side and Chris was more than welcome to stay and keep her company. They played games and cooked together and they would have a grand time while they waited to find out what was going on.

"Will you do mum's surgery?" Chris's head tilted to the right and he looked up at Eddie with a puzzled look and worry pooling in his eyes.

"I don't think I'd be allowed, there are rules for that, but I'll make sure she's being looked after. And I'll call you soon and tell you how she is, but she's gonna be fine. It's not big surgery I promise."

If it really was her appendix, that was minor surgery at best. It wasn't life threatening and (Y/n) would be out the hospital in a few days. Eddie just needed to be there to make sure everything went smoothly and to make sure (Y/n) was alright. God knows she wasn't the best patient in the world and she would panic without Eddie there.

He leaned down and kissed the top of Chris's head, ruffling his hair before he leaned over to kiss his Abuela's cheek.

"You let me know how she is." Her words sounded more like a warning and Eddie nodded before he headed over to the jeep.

He thought when he married Shannon that all his family had liked her, he knew their opinions had changed when she left and he understood that. But he was coming to realise that maybe they hadn't favoured Shannon half as much as Eddie thought now that he was with (Y/n). They cherished (Y/n). All his sisters loved her, his parents welcomed her with open arms just like Chris, and all his aunts and his grandma took to calling her a jewel.

Everyone loved (Y/n) almost as much as they loved Chris, and Eddie couldn't have been happier about that.

It didn't take long to get to the hospital and Eddie was thankful of two things. One, that he had his own parking space so he didn't have to fight for a thin space in the multistory or have to pay extortionate prices for a short stay. And two, that he had his work ID badge in the car.

He kept his ID in the jeep at all times because of the amount of times he left it at home on the dresser in the bedroom or in a pocket in an old pair of trousers.

The badge would let him walk straight through reception and get into the assessment unit without having to wait or ask around for instructions. And the staff all knew him so they wouldn't bat an eyelid at Eddie mulling about the hospital on a mission of his own.

He clipped the badge to his belt, stuffed his keys in his pocket and sped determindedly down the path. Bypassing the main entrance to get down to the emergency room doors. He didn't bother going round to the ambulance entrance, that was another fifteen feet round the side of the building when he could just take the shortcut through the main entrance and let himself into the assessment ward to wait for them and see if they were already here.

His eyes didn't glance around the waiting room to his left and he ignored the two women at the reception desk, both of whom he didn't actually know.

It wasn't hard not to know people when they had hundreds upon hundreds of people working here, and Eddie didn't frequent the ER. He was based up on the second floor either dealing with infection control or in surgery.

"Sir-"

"Doctor Diaz." He muttered without sparing one glance at the receptionist. He flashed his badge at her before using it to open the doors to the assessment ward and he waltzed straight through.

He didn't have to look far before a familiar cry caught his attention and he recognised a tall figure in a black and florescent yellow jacket that read Nash along the bottom.

"Hey! Hey, Bobby." Eddie wasn't as close to the team as he would of liked to be, considering they looked after his wife and brother in law when they were all on shift together. But he knew them from the countless parties the team were always having and a few family dinners they had all frequented.

"Eddie, get in here." The words hit his ears but Bobby's lips didn't move and it took Eddie a lot longer than it should have to realise that it was Buck calling out to him and not Bobby doing some form of ventriliquism.

He felt Bobby's hand briefly on his shoulder, guiding him into the assessment room.

There she was. His wife. Curled up on the assessment bed, knees coiled up to her stomach, arms bound around her waist and Buck desperately trying to keep her from rolling off the bed.

"Diaz, what are you doing here? Isn't it your day off?"

Eddie darted his eyes around the cubicle that was overly cramped, they didn't usually have this many visitors coming in with someone into the ER. But there was Buck, Bobby in the corner, Hen and Chimney stood to the far left and then Eddie's colleague. Doctor Armstrong, trying to lean over (Y/n) but she was wriggling away, hiccupping through her cries.

"This is my wife, I'll assess her." He moved round, circling the end of the bed until he was almost squashing Armstrong in the corner. Giving him the choice of either staying and being in the way or giving in and leaving the room. Eddie might not be on shift today but for now, he was the only one (Y/n) was going to be okay with.

Armstrong nodded, knowing he wasn't going to make much of a difference in here. But when he pointed at the door, Chimney, Hen and Bobby all silently agreed and followed him out. They were going to have to wait out in the hallway so they didn't cramp the room.

"Hey mi amor," Eddie brushed his thumb delicately across her cheek, smiling gently as he leaned over her. "I can't leave you alone for one day, can I?"

(Y/n) tried to crack a smile, but she couldn't find the willpower. Both her wrists were now tangled up in Buck's grip so she would stop squirming and trying to move around. And when she felt Eddie's hands run across her body and try to push her legs down, she began to cry again. Her knees were pressing down on her stomach in an attempt to relieve the pain, straightening out only made her feel worse.

A quiet "Oow," tumbled past her lips as her body began to shake again and she wanted to curl up into the tightest ball to make the pain go away.

"Let's take a look at you."

He could see there was already an oxygen monitor on her index finger and clips attached to her upper chest in case of a cardiac emergency. The heart monitor was already set up too and Eddie hated that his ears zoned in on her heartbeat and he could hear it going haywire in the background.

Swiping the thermometer from the holder, he gently tilted (Y/n)'s chin towards him so he could press it into her ear. Her temperature was at forty degrees, she was burning up.

"Okay, and your blood pressure." He nodded at Buck to let go of her hands and he slid a blood pressure cuff up her arm. "Everything's rising high."

(Y/n) snapped her eyes closed and deadlocked one arm back around her waist while she fumbled to shift onto her right side. She shakily reached her free hand out until she had hold of Eddie's arm. She felt Buck's hand on her shoulder and she shimmied over until she was practically on the edge of the bed, allowing her to bury her face into Eddie's arm.

The small whimper she let out vibrated through his arm into his blood and had Eddie's upper lip curling. He looked down at her again, brushing his finger across her chin when she tugged on his arm.

"Baby?"

"Sick, I- I'm gonna be sick."

Reeling back, Eddie took two steps away and held out a cardboard bucket so (Y/n) could hang her head over the edge and throw up. She began to shiver despite the sweat trickling across her skin but she tried to calm down when she felt Eddie's free hand running through her hair. His fingers tangled in her locks and moved her hair from her face until she finally stopped throwing up. And Buck carefully pulled her back on the bed.

"What's the pain scale, baby? One to ten, where are we at?" Eddie's hands moved to (Y/n)'s shoulders and he carefully rolled her onto her back. He leaned down to peck her temple that felt like kissing an oven with how burning hot she felt against his wet lips.

"Eight." (Y/n) felt like saying ten, but she didn't want to be dramatic. The pain was bad. It was worse than it had been earlier on when she collapsed on shift, it had gotten worse on the journey down to the hospital.

Once she was on her back, Eddie moved her hands down to her sides so he could start pressing his fingertips across her stomach and abdomen.

He bit his lip when (Y/n) cried out, clutching her hands around his arm when he touched the lower right side of her abdomen. He pressed his fingers down on her abdomen again, feeling around even as (Y/n) scratched her nails into his wrist and coiled her legs up.

"Is it her appendix?" Buck scrunched his hands up in the bedsheet and arched over the bed. His lips rolled together as he looked between his sister and his brother in law.

"I think it's burst, appendicitis wouldn't be this painful. Alright, alright baby, let's get you prepped for surgery and find you an OR."

He pressed the call button behind the bed before he creased over and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. This surgery would be simple, it shouldn't take too long and (Y/n) would be fine, Eddie would make sure of it. He would stay with her until she went into the operating room and he wasn't leaving until it was done and he could check her over himself.

His eyes darted down to lock with hers when her nimble, trembling fingers curled around his wrists and she tugged on his hands to get him to lean closer.

Her wet lips smothered the side of his neck and her trembling hands pulled his arms to pin them against her chest. Her shakes vibrated through into Eddie but he didn't seem to mind. He unhooked one hand from her grip so he could cup the back of her neck and pull her closer.

"You're gonna be fine."

***

"Hey, how we doing?" A smile lit up Buck's face and his hands gave Chris's shoulders a loving squeeze as he guided the eleven year old into the hospital room.

He had gone home to get a shower and get changed and then he graciously collected Chris from his Abuela the moment Eddie messaged to say (Y/n) was out of surgery.

Eddie didn't want Chris to be panicking or wondering what was going on and Buck was more than willing to have his nephew for the night so Eddie could stay here with (Y/n). She was going to be in tonight and tomorrow and then she could hopefully be discharged if she was well enough.

"Hi boys," (Y/n) groggily moved her free arm out, a silent invitation for Chris to rush over for a hug.

He was careful not to lean on (Y/n) when he hugged her and his arms looped around her neck so he wasn't squeezing her chest or torso. He wasn't sure what an appendix was or where it was in the body and he didn't want to hurt her by mistake. His curls brushed her cheek and (Y/n) grinned and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

She could feel Eddie squeezing her other hand and he leaned across to press a chaste, wet kiss to her neck. His chair was scraped as close to the bed as possible and when (Y/n) woke up little over half an hour ago from surgery, she had been pleasantly surprised to find their hands entwined.

"Are you okay? Did dad operate on you?" Chris leaned back and plopped himself down on the side of the bed while (Y/n) tried to sit up a bit better.

"I told you, buddy, I can't do surgery on family. Doctor Levison did the op, your mum's gonna be fine but she no longer has an appendix."

"I'm okay baby, I feel much better now." (Y/n) kissed his temple before she looked up at her brother as he slouched down in the free chair on her right side after he gave her arm a light squeeze. Buck could see she still looked groggy from the meds, she was finding it hard to keep her eyes open and she was slouched right back into the pillows. But she looked much better than she had when he brought her in earlier today.

Chris reached over and trailed his fingers across (Y/n)'s left hand that was tangled with Eddie's. They could both see the intrigue in his eyes as he looked at the green plastic cap taped into the back of her hand where her IV had been earlier. And when his fingertips travelled up her arm, he circled the pad of his finger over the bandage wrapped around her arm at the crease of her elbow.

"What's that?"

(Y/n) looked between her elbow and her husband and the dazed look in her eyes made Eddie's heart flip and a fondness grew within his pupils. She wasn't sure what it was. She hadn't long come round and lucid from surgery.

"It's a blood transfusion, see? The appendix burst, your mum needs a bit more blood." Eddie pointed up to the bag behind him that was slowly trickling blood through the tube taped into her elbow.

The operation had gone well but because her appendix had burst, (Y/n) had suffered a bit of internal bleeding. She had been dosed on antibiotics to make sure she didn't get an infection and they set her up on a transfusion once the operation was finished.

(Y/n) let her head sink back into the pillows and snuggled down, pulling the cover a bit higher up when a chill tore through her bones. She looked over at Buck, only now realising that he had brought a bag with him and he fished out one of Chris's drawing books and a pack of pens. They had come prepared so Chris could stay as long as possible with his parents before going home with his uncle.

"So that was a scary way of getting some time off." Buck muttered as he folded his arms over his chest and propped his feet up on the bed. He nudged his foot against his sister's thigh, grinning when she slapped his ankle playfully.

"Yeah, yeah. How long am I off for?" She looked between the boys, grinning to herself when Eddie murmured 'at least two weeks.' In all fairness it had been a while since (Y/n) last had some time off, although she wouldn't be able to take Chris out somewhere fun or do half the things she would want to for the next two weeks.

Her lips curved into a smile when she felt Chris shuffle round and wriggle to get comfy. He propped himself up against the rail at the end of the bed with his legs cuddled up into (Y/n)'s so he could begin to do some drawing.

She let her eyes fall closed and snuggled down, pulling Eddie's hand towards her chest.

"You good, mi amor?"

"Cold," She murmured, already halfway back to sleep but her lips curved up when she felt Eddie's hand against her temple.

"Cold? You're still flushed." Eddie bit the corner of his mouth and swiped his thumb against (Y/n)'s cheek. She was still warm from the fever she had been burning when she arrived at the emergency room. Maybe it was just her body trying to settle and get back to a normal temperature.

Whatever the reason, Eddie pulled the covers a bit higher for her and glided his hand up and down her arm before he leaned back in his chair. His eyes rolled playfully and he grinned when he saw that Buck was already turning on the tv, flicking through the channels.

He didn't want to take Chris home yet, not when they hadn't spent a lot of time with (Y/n). They may as well stay until the end of visiting time, that way when (Y/n) woke up Chris would get to talk to her for a bit and Buck would reassure himself his little sister was alright before he and Chris went home for the night.

(Y/n) didn't doze off for long, about twenty minutes or so before she woke up to Chris sitting a bit closer than before and grinning sweetly at her. And Eddie and Buck were both watching a sitcom on the tv.

She wasn't sure what conversation they were talking about but she groggily looked towards her brother when he gave her elbow a light squeeze.

"Brought you some clothes," Buck murmured and pointed to the bag at his feet before he carried on the conversation he was having with Eddie. He knew his sister, she wouldn't want to stay in that hospital gown for long. Buck knew once (Y/n) woke up properly, the first thing she would do was go get changed into some of her own, more comfortable clothes.

(Y/n) nodded but she coiled her arms up to her chest beneath the covers. Why was the room so cold? She was freezing. Had they turned the heating off in here? She felt like she was in the arctic.

She closed her eyes again for a few moments, but her knees jerked up towards her stomach when her head started to spin and she suddenly felt like she was falling. Going to sleep had made her feel worse, she felt strangely dizzy and like her limbs were going numb.

She stayed tucked up and tried to coil in on herself, but she soon realised she was shaking. With a grumble, (Y/n) opened her eyes and forced her blurred vision to focus on Eddie as she slithered a hand out from beneath the cover to reach for Eddie. Her fingers curled around his thigh and she dug her nails into his trousers to try and grab his attention.

"You okay, baby?" She felt his hand fold on top of her own but when Eddie looked over at her, his smile faded and his brows furrowed.

"Eddie, I- I don't feel well." She managed to slide her fingers into the grooves of Eddie's hand and when she looked up at him, she could see the concern pooling in his eyes.

He pushed up from his chair and moved to perch on the side of the bed, letting their entwined hands rest on his thighs while his other hand cupped the side of her face. His fingers glided over her neck but his frown deepened. He could feel sweat rolling down the side of her neck and covering her temple, but she was shaking and curling up as if she were freezing cold.

Reaching up behind the bed, he grabbed the thermometer and gently placed it in (Y/n)'s ear.

"Chris, off the bed a minute please buddy." He ticked his head at Chris until he hopped off the bed and moved to sit with Buck instead. "You're burning up baby, let me check your stitches."

Eddie pulled down the cover and moved (Y/n)'s gown to one side so he could try and check her stitches, but he couldn't see her getting an infection this quickly. She had been out of surgery for two hours, if that. She couldn't get an infection in her wound that quickly and he had been there when she went for her operation. It went well with no complications, she shouldn't be having any trouble.

"Any pain?" He pressed his fingertips around the stitches and down her abdomen near her bladder and intestines, but (Y/n) didn't flinch like she had earlier. She was on morphine so she couldn't be in much pain and she didn't seem to be bothered by the stitches.

"Freezing, a-and dizzy… baby, help. I don't feel right." (Y/n) wasn't sure what was wrong and she wasn't in any specific pain, but she felt horrid. She felt like all her wires were crossed within her. Her blood was pulsing and throbbing in her ears. Her head was pounding and spinning even though she wasn't even moving. Her limbs were going numb and she was so, so cold.

A deep frown set in Eddie's features while his teeth sank down in his lower lip. He hummed and kissed her cheek to try and calm her down before he grabbed a stethoscope and listened to her chest.

"What's wrong?" Buck kept his right arm tight around Chris's waist, keeping his nephew tucked close while he leaned over towards his sister.

"Amor, I think you're going into shock." Eddie couldn't understand it. She had been fine. The operation had been a success. But she looked like she was going into a state of shock and he couldn't understand why. This couldn't be a delayed reaction because (Y/n) had had morphine before and she wasn't due another drip for another hour or so.

He had never known anyone to have a reaction to their stitches either and he had checked them, her skin wasn't bubbling up or swelling or getting a rash. (Y/n) didn't seem to have a cause for this and all Eddie could think of was she had some sort of infection and if that was the case, he needed bloods from her and some antibiotics.

Eddie let (Y/n) squeeze their entwined hands while she tried to curl around his thighs and get closer to him. He started to rub his left hand up and down her arm, but when he happened to glance to the right, his head tilted at an angle and he narrowed his eyes.

"Baby…" He let go of her hand, cringing at the whine (Y/n) let out as she tried to grab for him again.

His fingers grazed along the transfusion tube until he was lightly holding the plastic bag and he pulled it closer to observe the writing along the blood bag.

All the colour drained from Eddie's face until he was as white as the overcoat he wore when he was on shift. Both lips parted but he couldn't find the will to breathe, his lungs were seizing up in his chest and his heart was spasming and sending out the wrong signals.

His fingers clenched around the blood bag so tightly his nails almost pierced through the plastic and he squinted to make sure he was reading it correctly.

"Fuck! Fuck, oh Dios."

Buck leaned back in his chair as Chris shuddered and pushed into his chest at his dad's sudden outburst. He wasn't usually one for swearing. Chris had heard his Abuela swear more than his dad. Seeing Eddie look so suddenly panicked and his loud, curt voice made Chris shrink back into Buck for comfort.

When Eddie leaned across and flicked the emergency button next to the plug sockets above the bed, panic coursed through Buck's system.

He stood up and carefully eased Chris down onto the chair in his place before he stepped closer to try and see what Eddie was panicking so much about. His eyes followed his brother in law as he started tearing the bandage around the crease of (Y/n)'s left elbow. The bandage trickled to the floor and Eddie quickly capped off the intravenous needle and removed the tube from her arm.

"What's happening?" Buck reached down to squeeze (Y/n)'s arm while she tried to bring her knees up towards her stomach, but both her hands were reaching out for Eddie.

She clutched at his forearm, desperately pulling Eddie closer because she didn't know what was going on and she didn't understand why she was suddenly feeling so unwell and strange. Tears began to stream down her face causing her lower lip to wobble while shakes continued to tear through her body in waves.

"She's having a hemolytic reaction. Shit, I need O negative-"

"English Eddie!"

"Some fucker's put her on A positive blood transfusion, her blood type is O negative, she's having a reaction. Her immune system's fighting the transfusion."

Eddie tangled his free hand in his hair, pulling at the locks until he could feel strands getting stuck between his fingers and ripping apart from his scalp. His other hand was pressing into (Y/n)'s chest since she had confiscated his arm and he didn't have the will power to pull apart from her just yet.

This couldn't be happening.

How could someone have made such a stupid mistake- and with (Y/n) of all people?

Someone had started her on the wrong blood type. The body was a clever, sensitive thing and it could recognise foreign cells immediately. (Y/n)'s body was fighting itself, trying to attack the foreign blood cells and it was sending her into shock.

Eddie needed to reverse the effects and get (Y/n)'s body syncronised again before her organs started shutting down or she developed sepsis.

His head snapped down when he felt (Y/n) weakly pulling on his arm and he stopped tearing his hair out so he could glide his hand across her cheek and down her jaw.

"W-what's wrong?" (Y/n)'s voice trembled almost as bad as her body that was shaking back and forth on the bed. She brought her knees up to her stomach, unable to muffle her groan but she managed to keep her eyes on her husband. She couldn't concentrate properly. She didn't understand what was happening. What was wrong with her?

The feeling of Eddie's thumb gliding along her jaw made (Y/n)'s heart slow down its accelerated rhythm for a few seconds. "You're going into shock, mi amor, but I'm gonna take care of you. It's okay."

Buck reached his hand behind him and held onto Chris's arm when the eleven year old got off the chair to stand right by his side. He didn't want to look around his uncle and see the state his mum was getting into, but he couldn't help but sneak a glance. The sight of his mum shaking, gasping and crying like that sent his blood curdling and made him cling to Buck tighter.

The three of them snapped their heads to the side when the door opened and a young nurse walked in, darting her eyes around the room. Eddie could see the recognition in her eyes, she knew he worked here, but his plain attire was confusing her.

"What's going on?"

"Go get me a saline bag and some ACE inhibitors and I need two pints of O negative blood. You hear me, negative. Now."

The nurse dithered in the doorway, tempted to rush further into the room and assess (Y/n) herself. But she could see Eddie had already done that job for her and if she wasted any time trying to do a double check, she feared Eddie might just explode.

The young girl spun on her heels and disappeared out the room, letting the door slam closed behind her.

"Eddie, I don't understand, how the Hell is she on the wrong transfusion? Doesn't everything have to be screened and she needs to be tested before she's given anything?"

Buck had never needed a transfusion himself, but he donated blood every month along with the rest of the team. He knew it was closely screened, checked for any anomalies or illnesses or viruses and always labelled correctly with the right blood type.

And he understood that it had to be quite hard to give someone the wrong transfusion when it was either already in their files or they would have a blood sample taken and checked so they knew what type to give.

"I don't know, she was hooked up before they let me see her." The words seethed past Eddie's lips as he slumped down onto the side of the bed to be closer to (Y/n).

He had waited a little impatiently for them to transfer (Y/n) into a room on a recovery ward and he shot into the room the moment they allowed him in. (Y/n) had just finished a saline drip and she had been hooked onto the blood just before Eddie got into the room. He didn't know which doctor or nurse did it or if he knew them or not.

But he was going to find out and make sure they suffered the consequences of their actions.

"So what do you do, to treat this?"

Eddie raked his free hand down his face, pulling at his chin and jaw that cracked into place. He hadn't dealt with this before, he had never seen this happen because it was such an oddity. This was something that happened one hundred years ago before they had proper screening for blood transfusions. Before they had computer systems and proper filing and records that easily counted the blood types of patients.

This was something that wasn't seen nowadays, not in good hospitals with a good practice.

"She needs fluids to fight off the shock and the inhibitors will stop her kidneys from shutting down. And I'll have to get her on broad antibiotics to calm her immune system down. I can't have her getting sepsis from this."

Eddie didn't know how far the wrong blood had travelled in (Y/n)'s system. If it was already at her kidneys they would be at risk of shutting down if her immune system attacked them. Her liver could be next. He had to give her meds to preserve her organs from shutting down and antibiotics to stop her raging immune system.

If she developed sepsis, which was the body's way of overreacting to an infection and attacking healthy cells, (Y/n) would really be at risk of fatal damage.

"Can you take Chris home-"

"No! I wanna stay with mum!"

"Then you need to wait outside while I look after her." Eddie's voice was firm and snappy but Chris and Buck obliged instantly.

Buck's hands moved to Chris's shoulders and he regrettably ushered his nephew outside. It wouldn't be fair to leave Chris out in the corridor on his own and it didn't matter how much Buck wanted to stay and watch over his sister, he needed to be with Chris more. He knew (Y/n) was being looked after by Eddie rather than the seemingly negligent staff working here.

"I brought the medicine trolley," The nurse rushed back into the room with her eyes focused on the trolley rather than the doctor that was making her nervous.

She stepped back, letting Eddie take over and rummage around for what he needed. He got the inhibitors and injected them straight into the saline bag before he reached for a fresh packaged needle.

He crouched down in front of the trolley, using the ID badge he still had clipped to his belt to unlock the trolley and look through for the broad range antibiotics he needed. He tore into the packaged needle with his teeth, got the needle ready and injected those into the fluids too. It would be dangerous to give (Y/n) a large dose all at once, and the fluids would be running wide open into her vein so this was the safest method of administration.

"Okay mi amor, let's get you on these." He perched himself down on the side of the bed and hooked the fluid bag on the IV pole, turning up the setting so it was on its quickest speed. He wanted the fluids in (Y/n)'s system as fast as possible to counteract the shock and blood reactions.

His nimble fingers were gentle when he reached out for (Y/n)'s hand and laid it over his thigh. He twisted the cap already taped into her hand and connected the fluids. Once the machine beeped, he twisted to look over his shoulder.

"Did you get the O negative?"

"I got two." It felt better to be safe than sorry and she knew (Y/n)'s notes since she was the newest patient on this ward. She knew (Y/n) was recovering from surgery and if she needed more blood, two pints might be necessary.

"Thank you."

Eddie kept the A positive blood hanging at the back of the pole, he was keeping that there for evidence. And he hung up one of the new bags, filled with the correct match that was riling him up to just look at it. How could someone have messed up this badly?

(Y/n) scraped her nails into Eddie's thighs when he got up, mewling his name quietly as she feared he was about to leave the room. Her vision blurred but she did her best to lift her head and follow him with her eyes.

He grabbed a needle from the trolley and an empty vile and once he swiped the pen from his back pocket, he set about writing (Y/n)'s name and date of birth onto the plain label.

A shudder crawled over (Y/n) when she realised what Eddie was going to do and she snapped her eyes closed but obliged and held her arm out to him. She was surprised to find she barely felt the needle slipping into her elbow for Eddie to take a blood sample. Once it was done, he kissed the crease of her arm and handed the vile over to the nurse.

"That needs to be rushed down to the lab, I want it in writing that she's suffered a hemolytic reaction."

The poor nurse seemed to shake and drain of all colour on the spot when she realised what was going on. She could see that Eddie was on the war path and he was going to be chopping heads for this mistake. Eddie could switch the blood bag and counter the reaction, but before he did that he had to get (Y/n)'s sample sent to the labs. He needed it in black and white that someone had given her the wrong blood type. And he was keeping the old blood bag as evidence too.

"Go get whoever's in charge of this ward please on your way to the lab. I want to know who's the cause of this malpractice."

Once the nurse was out the room, Eddie twisted to look down at (Y/n) after he connected the new blood tube to the intravenous needle in her left elbow. This would do her some good. Her immune system would calm down once it realised it was now getting a supply of the correct blood type.

"You'll be okay now, mi amor. I'm gonna oversee your treatment."

When (Y/n) scratched her hands against Eddie's shoulders, his lips formed a soft smile and he obliged. He leaned down, curving his arms around her waist so he could carefully ease her into a sitting position. Her face tucked into his neck and her hands shook and slithered across his back while she pushed herself into his chest.

They sat there like that for a while and a few times, Eddie wasn't sure whether (Y/n) had fallen asleep or not. But he felt her fingers digging into his back or her lips moving against his neck and he knew she was awake.

"You're not shaking as much," He commented after a while, feeling (Y/n) cling to him with a bit more strength and power.

His lips smothered the side of her temple and he sighed against her skin, thankful he had caught this quick enough to do something about it. God knows what would have happened if he and Buck hadn't of been in the room. What if Eddie had taken Chris home and Buck had gone home too for a rest? What would they have done? How long would (Y/n) have waited, quickly going into shock, waiting for the next staff member to do their irregular checks?

"Okay, why have I been summoned in here? What's going on?" Nurse Avery stood a few feet inside the room, both hands clamped down on her hips with her head tilted at an angle.

She raised a brow when she looked over at Eddie. She had seen on the computer system that there was a patient named Diaz on this ward so it wasn't surprising to see their prominent Doctor Diaz in here too. It was a rare surname so chances were this was a relative of Eddie's.

But she still had no reason why she had been told to come down here for some kind of emergency when the emergency light above the door wasn't turned on. Or at least, it hadn't been on for a while.

Eddie leaned his head down to kiss (Y/n)'s cheek before he slowly unravelled from her, making sure she was okay sinking back into the pillows when he got up from the bed.

He folded his arms over his chest, trying to stop his expression from looking so gaunt and angry but he couldn't seem to help it. He stepped to the side, moving to the other side of the room so he didn't have to raise his voice so close to (Y/n). He didn't want to upset her any further but he needed to talk to Avery and he knew she wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"Someone didn't read my wife's chart so I need you to look through your roster and find out who set up her blood transfusion."

"What are you talking about? What's happened?"

"Look at the chart. (Y/n) is O negative, but when I came in I found her on a transfusion for A positive. I've had to stop it, take bloods, get her on fluids and inhibitors and antibiotics because she was going into fucking shock. I wanna know who set up the bloods."

The darker side of Eddie revelled in the way Avery couldn't keep eye contact with him and how she ran her hand across her cheek and down the side of her neck out of nervousness.

She should be nervous. She should be panicking. She was the shift lead, the head nurse on this ward and someone under her watch had made a near fatal mistake that had been caught by one of their off-duty doctors. Eddie himself had to rectify this mistake. Avery couldn't dumb this down or try and cover it up and pretend only a minor incident had occurred here.

Eddie had witnessed it himself, and he wasn't going to be calmed down so easily.

"Diaz, calm down. We're all professionals here-"

"Really? You really think someone on your team is a professional when they've just dosed my wife on the wrong type of blood and given her a hemolytic reaction? Do you know how rare that is nowadays? Do you see how fucking stupid you'd have to be to do that?"

Out the corner of his eye, Eddie could see (Y/n) wincing and shrinking back in the bed. She didn't want to be the cause of an argument or cause any rifts in Eddie's workplace. Chances are that he might know whoever had made this mistake and that meant waves would ripple across the staff board.

"And you work here! You know what it's like, we've had five different patients in and out of here all morning and I'm three nurses short. The board will investigate-"

"Damn right they will because someone under your watch put a patient into shock and could have killed her. Whoever it is doesn't have a job here anymore if they can make such a simple fucking mistake."

Eddie believed that nobody was perfect. He completely understood that mistakes happen and as humans, they were bound to make mistakes. And he knew the training and the years it took to become a nurse, let alone a doctor like he was. But he also knew that the years of training they were all put through was supposed to stop them from making mistakes like this.

Sometimes a big mistake was understandable, the pressure, the confusion, the hard surgeries and long hours and underpaid budgets.

But to make such a simple mistake was unforgiveable because if someone could make such a small mistake as not reading someone's notes and hooking them up to any blood bag they found, then what was to say they wouldn't make bigger mistakes?

Such a simple mistake could have killed (Y/n). Her body understood that it had the wrong blood, it was attacking those foreign cells and in turn started to attack the rest of her immune system. If it went unnoticed or they didn't stop the transfusion in time, (Y/n)'s organs could have started to shut down. She could have gone into a worser state of shock.

She could have developed sepsis and her state was already weakened by surgery. If the sepsis attacked the tissues around her stitches or got to her heart they might not have been able to reverse the damage.

"I'll go check the roster and talk to my staff. I suppose you've already taken blood samples and switched the bloods?"

"Damn right."

With a curt nod and her teeth sinking into her lower lip, Avery stuffed her hand into her pocket and stormed out of the room. She was going to get into trouble for this. Her team was going to suffer. Whoever was at fault was going to get sacked. Eddie was likely to make a complaint because he was the one who had noticed and taken charge of the situation and had to sort it himself.

There were going to be repercussions for this.

Eddie ran his hand across the back of his neck and trailed back over to the bed, moving his hand to squeeze (Y/n)'s thigh as he sat down beside her. A wave of calm washed over him as soon as (Y/n) slumped forward and leaned into his chest. Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his torso and her big doe eyes stared up at him with a sense of wonder he hadn't seen before.

"Are you sure your a doctor? You sounded more like a lawyer to me."

[lily-fics-11]

I Can See You: Chapter 2 (Ellie Williams, TLOU)

I Can See You

Fic master post here

*Not beta read

Ellie Williams is a player, on and off the lacrosse field. You begin tutoring her so that she can get her grades up and stay on the team. You try to keep things professional, however, your affection is a great motivator. Ellie wouldn't be caught dead with you so you become her secret mission. 

Chapter 2

Ellie’s behavior towards you fluctuates and you aren’t quite sure why. You go to her lacrosse game when you need to learn more about lacrosse, she ends up giving you a private lesson.

Word count: 4k

CW: Profanities, reference to sexual situations and feelings, innuendos, slight intimacy, *Ellie and reader are both 18*

“Under one condition, we keep things professional.”

Ellie, though in need of a few reminders, holds up her end of the bargain. Sure, she is naturally flirtatious but the two of you start to become… friends? She genuinely wants to get to know you and becomes more comfortable being open about her own life. 

However, as your friendship continues to grow, you can’t help but want her as more than that. You gave the ultimatum, but it wasn't long before you regretted it. Even though it was the right thing to do. 

Seeing Ellie in the hallway goes from inspiring admiration to longing begrudgingly. Pangs of jealousy spike when you see her talking to other girls. 

With a little probing, Ellie starts to share her academically oriented interests, and she wants to teach you about them since you’ve taught her so much. You started by asking if there were any sections of a museum that she likes. Turns out that she has an affinity for dinosaurs. “You should watch Jurassic Park with me. I could point out every type of dinosaur for you,” she declared confidentially. 

You smile and shake your head. “Ellie, you can’t just ask me on a movie date. Professional, remember?”

She raises her eyebrows in shock but you can see in her eyes that she absolutely intended it that way. “I’m not asking you on a date! I'm trying to educate you on a subject that actually matters.”

“So that’s not just one of your tricks, telling a girl you are going to teach her about dinosaurs so you can impress her? Get her close enough to kiss?” You are frowning, not wanting Ellie to see you as some girl to put her moves on. 

She looks a little disgusted. “Do you think girls are impressed by dinosaur facts? That would be a tyrannosaurus wreck.”

You shrug your shoulders. “I would be impressed.”

“You’re nothing like the girls I usually date.”

“Good.”

In an attempt to get Ellie further invested you ask her about her dream job. You expected her to say professional athlete, but she actually wants to be an astronaut.

“I like to go to the planetarium, you should come with me some time,” she offers nonchalantly. 

“I’m not so sure about that Ellie, sounds like a date to me.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve never dated a girl that would want to go to the planetarium.”

You roll your eyes back at her, but also laugh. “Maybe you are dating the wrong kind of girl.”

“Then maybe you are the right…” she stutters, “right about the girls I date.”

Things go on that way over the next few tutoring sessions before there is a shift in Ellie’s behavior. She is suddenly quiet, and even a bit awkward. You wonder if she’s tired of being friendly and doesn’t know how to say it. The weird thing is that you see her looking back at you when you watch her in the hallway. She’s never done that before, and only started after acting differently. 

While working on her Spanish homework one day the silence is driving you crazy. You can’t help but say something.

“You have nothing, I don’t know… random, to say?” 

“Random?” She questions nervously. 

“You haven’t asked ‘donde está la biblioteca’ for no reason. You haven’t answered any of the questions with ‘vamos a la play, a mi me gusta baila.’”

“I guess I’ve just been… feeling things. About you…” she stutters, “what you’ve said. I really could do well if I focused enough. I’m going to college to play lacrosse, but doing something I actually want doesn't need to end there.”

Ellie won’t carry a conversation. Nonetheless, you continue to catch her looking at you, anytime or anywhere you see her. She will force down a smile, look away, and pretend like it didn’t happen. You try to stay in your lane but you end up confronting her.

You stare her down until she makes eye contact, she looks a little startled. “You know I can see you, right?”

Her cheeks go pink. “Well I am sitting across from you. Best seat in the house.” She laughs but it is forced and fake.

You cross your arms. “Not like that. Actually looking at me, here, and in the hallways.”

Ellie’s eyes nervously dart around the room. “I like to be aware of my surroundings, I look at everything.”

That makes your eyes squint and your nose scrunch. “I see you looking at me, which would be whatever, but it started after you stopped talking to me. It doesn’t make any sense!”

Ellie huffs and runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve just got a lot going on. The first game of the season is coming up. I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to… uh, get your help. And when I do work I get nervous because I, uh, know there is a lot of pressure for me to do well. I hope you know that I,” she clears her throat, “appreciate you.”

You unfold your arms and busy your hands with papers on the table. “I’m sorry Ellie, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’ll leave you alone from now on, it’s none of my business.”

“Please don’t leave me alone,” she mumbles, her green eyes glassy. You’ve never seen her like this and you wonder if anyone ever has.

“I’m here for you Ellie, I’m not going anywhere,” you assure her and she snaps back into reality. She hurriedly gets back to her work, speaking no unnecessary words or making any eye contact for the rest of the period.

The day before the first game of the season your ears perk up when you overhear Ellie’s name in the chatter coming from the table next to you during lunch.

“Anna is upset because Ellie doesn’t flirt with her in class anymore,” one girl shares. 

“Ellie as in Ellie Williams?” Another questions.

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t sound like her.”

“I heard that if she doesn’t fix her grades soon she won’t be allowed to play anymore.”

You would like to say your initial thought upon hearing this was being proud of Ellie. However, the first thing that crossed your mind was an embarrassing satisfaction, knowing that she’s giving less attention to other girls. Even if you aren’t receiving that sort of attention in turn

Later that day you meet with Ellie. You aren’t going to say anything flat out, but you are proud of her, and wonder why she hasn’t mentioned anything. Even if things are awkward, you hope she knows that you care. 

Ellie is on high alert, which makes sense, the first game of the season is looming over her. Between subjects you casually inquire, “how have things been going in class?”

“Uh, fine I guess,” she mumbles, not looking up. 

“Do you think tutoring is, I don’t know, helping you focus?” You question. “Maybe understand things better as they are being taught?”

“Well it is what made me want to stop…” she hesitates to finish the sentence. “Doing things the way I was.”

Your face lights up. “So you are paying more attention?”

Her posture slumps. “I try. But sometimes I think a lot. Get lost in my own head.”

“I understand that it’s easy to get lost in thought, but doing your best to listen to your teachers could make things a lot easier for you.” You do your best to be gentle and encouraging. 

A smile starts to creep up on Ellie’s face. “I don’t need to listen to them, I have you. You are way more attrac- more accommodating than any teacher I’ve ever had.”

You giggle a little. “I appreciate the compliment, Ellie, but they are the professionals.”

She purses her lips. “It makes sense why you would have faith in them. They have faith in you. They’ve never believed in me.”

Your face drops hearing her say that. “For whatever it may be worth, I believe in you.”

Ellie’s eyes widen and her freckled cheeks blush. “No one has said that to me about anything other than lacrosse in a long time, except Joel.”

“Who’s Joel?” You ask curiously. 

“My dad.” She informs you with a small smile, you can tell she must really care about him by the sparkle in her eyes. 

“You call him Joel?”

Ellie runs a hand through her hair. “It’s… complicated.”

That’s not your business and you are happy she’s already shared so much with you. “Well you should listen to Joel, he knows what he’s talking about.”

Ellie goes quiet for the rest of your time together and you don’t push her not to be.

As she is leaving you call for her to wait. She turns towards you and her green eyes are wide and expectant, there is a certain glimmer in them that you haven’t seen before.

“Good luck with your game tomorrow, Ellie.”

On the day of the game you can’t help but stare at Ellie more than usual in her suit and tie. The team always dresses up on game day. She catches you looking and licks her lips with raised eyebrows, clearly pleased with herself, before returning her attention to the friends she is walking with.

Lacrosse seems to be haunting you when your gym teacher announces that it’s the next thing you are going to be covering. 

The teacher hardly goes over anything before splitting the class into two teams and throwing everyone into a game. Ellie plays with grace and ease, not even the other lacrosse players can compare. You try to watch what she’s doing, and that’s obviously the only reason you are looking at her, to try and see if you can figure out how this sport works. But that is really hard to do when you are worried about getting hit in the face with a flying ball or swinging stick. 

In the locker room after class you hear a few girls giggling and talking about how they can’t wait to see Ellie play this afternoon. It hits you that it would be the perfect opportunity to see how lacrosse is supposed to be played without risking your personal safety. You could study the game, but just the game. Nothing else. At least that’s what you are telling yourself. 

After the final bell of the day you hang around school before the game starts, with your friend Nicole. You convinced her to come to the game with you. She doesn’t seem to have any suspicions that you may have ulterior motives for attending. You start reading the chapters needed for one of your classes tomorrow to pass the time.

When you get to the field the bleachers are pretty packed, rivaling the crowd you’ve seen (only on other students' social media stories), at football games. 

You and Nicole take a seat far to one side that isn’t too densely packed. 

The team takes the field and you spot Ellie immediately, you would recognize that stance anywhere. She is wearing number 11, which happens to be your lucky number, on the opposing team's 30 yard line. You hadn’t planned this, but she is basically in line with where you are sitting. Taking a closer look you see a tattoo on her forearm, which definitely doesn’t have you feeling any type of way. 

You recognize Abby Anderson wearing number 7, from her phenomenal physique. Ellie isn’t the only girl on the team you are attracted to. Abby faces off with a tall girl from the other team in the middle of the field. When the referee blows the whistle their two sticks, and the ball, shoot up into the air. Abby jumps higher and secures the ball for her team. She passes it right to Ellie, who makes a quick getaway, and effortlessly scores before 30 seconds has gone by. You don’t really know how this all works, but from the way the crowd roars that must be impressive. 

The first half goes by rather quickly. You would like to say you were engrossed by all the action, but it was number 11 that was consuming your thoughts. In your defense a lot of the game centered around her, she scored 3 out of the 4 goals for her team, they are winning 4 - 2, and had a ton of assists.

As the team takes the field for the second half your eyes find Ellie immediately, and you could swear that she was looking back at you. She is too far away to tell for sure, and wearing goggles, making it easy to fall prey to delusion. The game starts but Ellie doesn’t move until the ball is passed to her and it wizzes past her head while she is still facing your direction. She snaps out of being distracted and manages to recover the ball. Did she actually notice you? 

“Get it together Williams!” the coach yells at her and that only makes Ellie run faster. She rolls around a defender and scores a goal. That one hiccup didn’t stop Ellie from performing with near perfection the rest of the game. She does, however, glance in your direction every once in a while. But your head must be messing with you, right?

Ellie scores 4 more goals in the second half, leading her team to victory with a final score of 12 - 5.

“You are tutoring her, right?” Nicole asks as you clear out of the stands with the rest of the spectators. 

“Who?” You ask, playing dumb and praying she didn’t notice the trance number 11 had you in for the last hour and a half. 

“Ellie Williams.”

“Oh, yeah,” you reply, acting as natural as possible.

“She really is as good as everyone says she is, I hope you can help her stay off the bench.” 

Nicole doesn’t try to discuss Ellie any further and you thank the universe for its mercy. You part ways after exiting the bleachers because you forgot a textbook in your locker. While making your way back to the school you spot Ellie talking to a ruggedly handsome man. He looks slightly older than you would expect an 18 year old’s father to be, but that must be Joel. You don’t spend too long looking at him, not when Ellie looks so hot now that her goggles are off. Sweat is glistening on her forehead and her short ponytail is tousled with a piece in the front falling across her face. You shake your head to rattle the thoughts of what other activities make her look like that.

When you finally get back to your locker you pull out the textbook and notice that the bookmark you had in it is gone, it must have fallen out. While you can still recall the images on the page you left off on you flip through to find it. Then you get stuck in the hallway even longer when your mom calls you, questioning whether or not you are going to be home for dinner, and what you want to eat.

By the time you make it out to the parking lot there aren’t too many cars left, just those of the lacrosse players who are starting to trickle out of the locker room. You start driving, and as you pass the door Ellie has just stepped out of it. You accidentally make eye contact with her, and she flashes you a devilish grin. In turn you force a smile through your embarrassment and quickly look back ahead of you, praying she didn’t notice how red she has turned your face. 

There is a mischievous fire burning in Ellie William’s eyes when she enters the library for her tutoring session the next day, with a confidence she has recently lacked. “I can't believe you came to watch me play, tutor girl.”

You roll your eyes. “I was there to study.”

“Study what? My physique?” Ellie licks her lips, obviously trying to draw your attention there. “I do look pretty good in the uniform. It shows off my muscles, and my tattoo. Plus green really is my color.”

You roll your eyes in an attempt to convince her that her charm isn’t working on you, even though it is. “I was studying lacrosse, for gym.”

Ellie’ nose scrunches up, quite adorably. “Why would you need to study lacrosse?”

“We are being graded on participation, but it’s hard to participate when you have no clue what you are doing.”

Her pupils expand instantaneously and her lips part. “You would be a little too powerful if you were able to play sports, you are already so smart.” She turns away and you swear you hear her mumble “especially when you look like that.”  

You bite your lip for a moment, almost giving in to the energy that Ellie is projecting. “They don’t offer tutoring for gym class. I figured watching an actual game would be beneficial.”

Something wicked, yet playful, flickers in her striking eyes. “I could tutor you.”

You start to panic, spending more time than necessary with this attractive girl can't mean anything but trouble. “That won’t be necessary,” you rush to say.

“Oh come on, would you turn down the chance to be tutored in physics by Newton?”

“Are you calling yourself the Isaac Newton of lacrosse?”

“That’s just the first analogy I could come up with. It will be so much easier for you if I show you what to do. Since you won’t let me teach you about dinosaurs and space you could at least let me teach you this. You would never want to go on a sports date, so I can help you out and keep things professional.”

“It would be really helpful to have someone show me exactly what to do.”

“My practice ends tomorrow at noon, come at 1, that way no one sees us together.” Ellie passes you her phone with her contacts open so you can add yourself in. “I’ll teach you how to shoot your shot.”

“You know what Williams, I’ll see you then.”

When you get to the field Ellie is alone, waiting for you, looking undeniably sexy. Her legs are casually spread and her elbows rest on the bleacher bench above hers. The sun has kissed her face wondrously, though her cheeks and nose are burnt a little pink. And her hair, messy from playing hard, you wish you were the one making it look like that.

Ellie saunters down to the field with all her things, and the extra lacrosse stick she had said she would bring for you in your brief text message exchange. You reach out for the stick right away, not leaving room for any funny business. 

She looks a little taken aback at first, but smiles playfully while hungrily looking you up and down. You can see her try to focus in when she suggests “why don’t we start with you showing me how you hold the stick.”

You try to take an athletic stance, legs bent at the knees, feet shoulder width apart. You at least know that much. You fiddle with the stick a little before taking your final guess at how to grasp it. “Is this correct?” you ask.

Ellie blinks rapidly and one corner of her mouth turns up. “Gotta be honest with you tutor girl, not even close. I have to ask, what were you paying attention to during the game if you didn't no even see how to hold the stick?” She looks you in the eyes, seductively. Like she knows exactly what had your attention.

Your mouth scrunches to one side as you try to find an excuse.  “The ball!” you blurt out. “I got distracted following where the ball was.”

Ellie stands with her hands on her hips, chin up in the air, looking way too pleased with herself. “I’m sure. Let me show you how to hold the stick.”

You expect her to show you with her own stick. Instead, Ellie gets recklessly close and puts her hands over yours to reposition them. Your heart rate shoots up and you thank god the long fingers of her veiny hands aren’t too close to where she can feel your pulse booming. Ellie remains in your personal space long enough for you to smell her cologne. It’s pretty strong, like she just sprayed it. The scent attracts you to her more than usual being in an unusual proximity. It's earthy, woodsy, and suits her well. You are distracted by her tattoo when she pulls away, it draws your eyes, and up close you notice that it’s covering a scar. 

Ellie clears her throat but doesn’t step away. “Now that you’ve got that, show me how you cradle.”

“Why don’t you just show me how you do it?” Being able to feel the heat radiating off her body on this cool spring day, her warm skin touching yours, it’s a dangerous game. It will only leave you longing for more. However, watching her strong hands and muscular arms in action can give you at least some satisfaction, without too much temptation. 

Ellie demonstrates how to cradle the ball before letting you try. You hold the stick and swivel your body. 

“Hold on, it’s gotta come from your wrists, not your torso. Ears to nose.” Before you can correct yourself she grabs your shoulders, more tender than you would expect the rough and tough Ellie Williams to be. She could have remained an arms length away, but she is nearly pressed up against you. When she tells you  “I’m going to keep your body in place so that you can only move the way I want you to,” you can feel her breath on your neck, creating a ripple of goosebumps.

Your breath hitches and you bite your lip so that you don’t audibly gasp. “Are you going to give it a try?” She snickers after you had taken time to bring back your thoughts from the dirty place she clearly wanted them to go. You can hear the smirk in her voice, she knows exactly what she is doing.

“Yeahhhh,” you grumble before you start. She gives you a few corrections as you practice and eventually you get the hang of it. You step away first and turn to face her. 

“I’ve gotta say Williams, I’ve been on dates where I’ve been touched less.”

She raises an eyebrow and scratches her head. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

You cross your arms. “Touching my hands, holding my shoulders…”

“Let’s just say it’s easier to cradle you through this. I wouldn’t do it if I had no reason to, professional was the deal. But I’m not going to act like it’s absolutely necessary, or that I don’t enjoy it. But, if you had let me teach you about dinosaurs I wouldn’t have an excuse to do this. Though I wouldn’t complain if you got scared and let me put my arm around you. I want to steal a kiss but I’m not going to.”

“If this is the easiest way to get this done, so be it,” you huff, trying to disguise your excitement.

Ellie goes on to teach you how to throw and catch. Eventually you can do those a few times in a row when tossing the ball back and forth to each other.  

When you realize how long the two of you have spent together you tell her “I think this is enough… enough to get me a grade that won’t skew my GPA.”

“Are you sure? I don’t have anything to do until tonight.” Ellie looks at her wrist like she is checking a watch, even though she isn’t wearing one. “I don’t mind taking my time with you.”

Your face is burning, and not from the exercise. “I appreciate that. I’ve got a lot of work to do though. Thank you Ellie, I really appreciate you doing this for me.” 

“Anything for you, tutor girl.”

(Shout out to my sister Nicole for being my lacrosse expert) 

Tags: @bready101, @st4r-b3rries, @tlou-bombshell, @stvrs13, @dinanellie, @everegretseverything, @mikellie, @lamolaine

[elliesspacewalker]

Imagine Ellie asking you out and taking you back to hers.

Warnings: transgender!Ellie, weed usage, sub!Ellie, oral! (E- receiving), lmk if I forgot anything

You, Ellie, Dina, and Jesse all sat outside in a park near the college you all went to together. You had a joint in hand with Ellie.

Dina and Jesse had fucked off somewhere else (probably to make out in the bathrooms) and left you and Ellie alone on the swings.

You and Ellie had never really talked; you wanted to talk to her, but you were shy; she was as well, and you never knew how to talk to people. You've seen her at parties, working at Starbucks.

When Jesse and Dina invited you to have a session with them, you immediately agreed, knowing that Ellie would be there. What you weren't expecting was for her to look so fucking hot; she was wearing gray track pants that showed her slight bulge in her dick.

You and Ellie rocked back and forth on the swings when Dina and Jesse went to the bathroom. “So,” Ellie spoke into the comfortable silence, making you snap out of your thoughts.

“Yeah?” you speak, taking a long drag from the cone you held between your fingers.

“You like dinosaurs?” She blurted out, instantly regretting the stupidity that just left her mouth. Truth be told, you made her nervous, and the fact that Dina and Jesse have fucking left her alone with you doesn't help. And the fact that your eyes kept glinting towards her crotch as you squeezed your thighs together, teeth sinking into your bottom lip, definitely didn’t fucking help.

"Uh," you chuckle at her odd question. "They're alright, I guess. Why?" She glances away, trying to avoid your gaze. "I was going to watch Jurassic World if you wanted to, y'know? Come over"

So that's how your day changed from sitting in a park with your friends to being next to Ellie watching Jurassic World.

You took a drag from the joint Ellie had given you after you set foot in her dorm as you watched Ellie avoid your gaze, eyes glued to the TV, her face flushed under your watch, fiddling with the drawstring of her gray sweatpants that had your eyes on the bulge on them since you walked in.

"Ellie?" You mumbled quietly, almost so quiet that she couldn't hear you. "Mhm?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

"Second door on the right," she smiles, with her big, puffy eyes. You get up from your seat and notice Ellie fully lying down on the couch with a pillow over her crotch. You slightly giggle to yourself as you find her bathroom and make your way out swiftly.

"You going to sit up or?" You tease her, "Oh shit," and she attempts to sit up, but you cut her off. "It's okay. I'm kind of cold, can I?" She bites her lip and nods, moving the pillow so you can slightly see the tip of her cock tucked upright inside the waistband of her track pants. You could see the slight vein that ran to the tip of her dick, the head so desperate for release.

You laid down on Ellie's stomach, slowly moving your hips up to straddle her waist. The veins that danced up her arm in unison with your own throbbing pussy drove you fucking insane.

Listening to her heartbeat and breathing, you started playing with the drawstring of her hoodie. You slightly moved back to hit her cock. This movement produced a whimper from Ellie's mouth.

"Sorry," she says quietly, "it's okay, it's cute."

After this, you slowly started to roll your hips to grind into Ellie's dick, feeling the pre-cum on your thigh. Ellie, on the other hand, was dying on the inside, trying everything in her power not to fucking moan.

You sit up and look down at her; she's slightly moving her hips upwards. You move her shirt up and bite your lip as you look at her throbbing dick. "If you want me to stop, I will," you say, and she nods embarrassingly fast.

You pull down the waistband of her track pants and wrap your small fingers around the base of her cock and slowly start stroking. Her breath hitches, and she moves her hips upwards to get more friction. Her cock was pulsating, and it got impossibly harder once you started stroking.

"Can I suck your dick?" You ask her, as you start to speed up the stroking, to watch her buck her hips upwards and her eyes roll back, "Please fuck."

You chuckle at her response and put your mouth to her tip and start to suckle slowly. Her hand finds its way to your hair, producing the loudest moan you have heard. The show is long gone by this point as you move your right hand to start stroking her cock while you suck on her tip, feeling the pre-cum bubbling in your mouth.

"Shhh-shit, fuck-baby... Fuck," she says, your doe eyes looking at her as she tilts her head back, hitting the sofa.

"Don't stop, don't stop, I'm going to cum. F-fuck," she groans, bucking up into your mouth and hitting your gag reflex. You allow her to hold your head down on the full length of her cock as she groans and cums in your mouth.

You giggle, opening your mouth and letting her see the cum on your tongue. Moving up to kiss her and spit the cum in her mouth, she allows you to and swallows her own cum.

You and Ellie are going to be good friends.

Hope y'all enjoyed <333

[sorry-moots]

Clever… Boy?

pairing: tsukishima kei x gn!reader tags: reader insert, characters are adults, fluff, no pronouns used, no use of y/n, reader likes jurassic park cw(s): none

so just pretend with me for a second that you work at a boba shop right next to your college campus, yk the kind that sells boba tea and then random little desserts and pastries

you’re doin your thang when this giant blond saunters in with the most displeased, unimpressed visage a human could possibly muster

but he’s wearing a jurassic park t-shirt which has you perked up in an instant

“Hey, nice shirt! I like Jurassic Park, too,” you greet him, showing off your own merch.

The blank look doesn’t leave his face. “That’s not from Jurassic Park, it’s from the Jurassic World trilogy. Those movies were just a money grab.”

Surprised he noticed, you let out a nervous laugh. “No, literally, have you seen Jurassic World Dominion? Half the movie is cameras panning between some unfortunate reptile and Chris Pratt making aggressive eye contact with it. I just bought the merch because it was cute…” you trail off.

Had you been focused on his face, you would have seen the way his lip quirked up at you. “A velociraptor’s a velociraptor, I guess.”

“Yeah!” you agree, lighting up. “Anyway, what can I get you?”

he visits the shop every monday, wednesday, and friday between classes. these are the days that yamaguchi has tutoring but this is a total coincidence. totally not a decision made to avoid sharing your time and attention with another man.

on mondays and wednesdays, he orders earl grey boba milk tea, but on fridays he asks if you have strawberry shortcake (the answer is always no)

“Why doesn’t a shop like this have strawberry shortcake?” he scoffs. “You have vanilla, chocolate, coffee, red velvet, you even have tres leches.”

“Would you, perchance, like to order vanilla, chocolate, coffee, red velvet, or tres leches?” you asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“This is a serious failing as a business to cater to the demands of its clientele.”

“Want me to tell the boss?”

“Just give me the vanilla cake and the usual.”

once he’s become an official Regular™ and you’re trusted with the display case, you abuse your power. for good obviously.

As he walks in, your eyes are trained on his face and you can actually see the excitement shine in his eyes for all of three seconds before he scowls at you.

“Did you really print out a picture of a strawberry shortcake and tape it inside of the display case? How much time did you waste photoshopping that? Isn’t this a health code violation?”

“Aww, I can’t believe you figured it out so quick!” You expected him to see through it at some point, but not instantly. “I guess you really are a clever… boy?”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“Clever guy? Clever dude?”

“I’m giving you one star on Yelp and mentioning you by name.”

“WAIT NO MY BOSS READS THOSE”

a/n: please shoot me if someone has already done this if you liked this maybe try this other thing i wrote? it has the exact same premise

[buddierecs]

oblivious buddie fics

all of these are general audience, teen and up or not rated (no smut) make sure to kudos/comment on these amazing works :)

"and we're back...in the car again" by: beulaugh "buck gives christopher permission to finally watch jurassic park, and it sends eddie down a feelings spiral" word count: 11k important tags: christopher diaz has two dads, feelings realisation, co-parenting, fluff, first kiss buy back the secrets by: allyasavedtheday "after getting hurt on a call, buck wakes up thinking it's 2018. aka buck can't remember who eddie is but he's pretty sure everyone's lying when they say they're "just friends." word count: 18k important tags: amnesia, memory loss, hurt!evan buckley, hurt/comfort, fluff, friends to lovers, love confessions those two firefighters by: darkfairytale #thosetwofirefighters starts to gather a following on social media, as everyone tries to figure out if those two cute firefighters from the 118 in la are a thing or not word count: 64k important tags: social media, fluff and humour, crack, injuries, slow burn, ptsd idiots on reddit by: 7ate9 "buck and ana seem to keep clashing during eddie's recovery after the shooting. both turn to reddit for assistance, and both get answers." word count: 35k important tags: idiots in love, ana flores bashing, ptsd, shooting (s4), protective!evan buckley tear me to pieces and make me feel whole by: justhockey "and that’s when it clicks. in the pasta aisle of the grocery store, at 10am on a saturday morning. buck is frowning as he tries to decide what to get - and eddie is in love with him" word count: 2.5k important tags: fluff, didn't know they were dating, getting together, fluff, team as family, friends to lovers at every table i'll save you a seat by: siblysleaves "five times someone tells buck he’s in love with eddie and the one time he tells eddie" word count: 10k important tags: 5+1 things, friends to lovers, getting together, fluff early morning sunrise by: taecafune "in which buck wakes up half-naked next to his best friend and ends up facing hidden feelings he'd rather keep undiscovered." word count: 20k important tags: hangovers, pining, light angst, soft!buddie, friends to lovers, misunderstandings, fluff the art of making love. by: dylaesthetics "buck’s loft gets flooded, making him temporarily move in with eddie, who’s out and about dating guys now, apparently, and buck tries to figure out why the hell the thought makes him sick" word count: 6k important tags: roommates, gay!eddie diaz, mutual pining, idiots in love advice wanted by: cairparavels "eddie diaz takes to reddit to figure out why he hates his best friend’s new boyfriend so much." word count: 8k important tags: social media, misunderstandings, jealous!eddie diaz, tommy kinard bashing, idiots in love, fluff, angst, mutual pining, getting together appetency by: daisies_and_briars "when buck learns eddie has suddenly developed a sweet tooth, he falls down a bit of a research spiral about the cause behind unusual sugar cravings, and tries to help eddie with this perceived problem. eddie’s ‘problem’ isn’t exactly what buck has in mind." word count: 4.6k important tags: evan buckley cooks, worried!evan buckley, evan buckley has adhd, fluff, getting together the ducking of evan buckley by: browney3dgirl6 "buck doesn’t have any ducks for his jeep. eddie decides to fix that. aka 5 times eddie secretly leaves ducks for buck, and the one time he hands one right to him." word count: 13k important tags: 5+1 things, crack, soft!buddie, pining!eddie diaz, fluff, humour, jealous!eddie diaz, idiots in love, love confessions betting pools and barbecues by: withmeornotatall "buck is really good with kids. eddie knows this. he just isn't quite sure what it is he's feeling whenever he sees buck with children." word count: 7.2k important tags: fluff, love confessions, getting together

[tkwrites]

He's Got It Bad - Quinn Hughes x ofc

gif by 40ep

Title: He’s got it bad

Author: Tory / @tkwrites 

Relationship: Quinn Hughes x Sarah Roberts (OFC) 

Warnings: Swearing, lots of teasing & chirping, mild spoilers if you've never seen the original Jurassic Park.

Summary: When Sarah meets the team at Conor's birthday party, not only does she get to know Quinns teammates and their partners, she enters a world she never expected. At practice the next day, the guys congratulate and tease Quinn mercilessly.

Word Count: 2,600

Comments: I’m sorry this one took me so long, Daisy! I started it two or three months ago, but couldn’t find the right way to finish it. And then earlier this week, as I was falling asleep, it just snapped into place. I hope you enjoy it! 

As before, the research described here is dubious at best, so please take it with a big grain of salt.

If you did enjoy this, please let me know by commenting, reblogging, or sending in an ask. Your encouragement and comments truly inspire me to keep writing. 

dasiysthings asked: If you’re taking requests/suggestions for Quinn and Sarah au doing a Sarah meeting the team for the first time has been on my mind lately. What would they think of her? Sure Quinn’s mentioned her and they saw sarah in the stands her first game but maybe she attends a team function like birthday party or team family meal. Something low key and not public maybe? Also how much do they tease Quinn after?🫣🤭

He’s got it bad

A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot

“Are you free on Thursday?” 

It was a rare night off, and he’d requested they order food and watch a movie. Currently, they were lounging in a giant bean bag in the gaming room. Quinn was partially on top of Sarah, his head resting on her chest as the first Jurassic Park played on the large screen.

“I think so. Why?”

“Garly’s having a party that night for his birthday. I hoped you might want to come with me.” 

“Who?”

“Garly,” he repeated before correcting himself, “Conor. Garland. From the team.”

Quinn had mentioned Conor before, and she knew he was one of the trio of guys he was really close to.  

“Sure,” she said, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she felt. “Who will be there?”

“Most of the guys and their partners if they have them.”

“Is it going to be wild?” she asked, winding one of his curls around her finger. She needed to prepare herself if it was going to be a night full of drinking. 

“Nah, Conor’s pretty chill, and we have a game the next day.”

“Okay,” she agreed again, splaying her fingers through his dark waves, letting them slip and slide over her skin. For someone who washed it so often, he had remarkably soft hair. 

 Nuzzling into her chest a little more, he sighed. He loved when she played with his hair.

Sarah jumped when the Dilophosaurus appeared on screen, tilting its head at Nedry. 

Quinn laughed. She hadn’t even flinched when the T-Rex had tried to attack the kids through one of the park cars. “You okay?”

“I hate this one,” she said, turning her head to the side. 

He glanced at the TV in time to see the dinosaur hiss and pop its frill. “You hate this more than the T-Rex?” 

“At least the T-Rex is just a big predator. This one stalks and tortures first, and I hate it,” she said, face still turned away. 

“But Nedry deserved it.” 

“Maybe so, but I still don’t like to think about it.” 

He chuckled.

Only after the yells faded away did she turn back to the movie and continue tracing her fingers through his hair. 

By the time Thursday came around, Quinn realized just how nervous Sarah was. She texted him about the dress code three hours before he was supposed to pick her up.

It’s a party, he’d written back, unsure of what she meant. 

Yeah, but is it like a heels and cocktails party? Or a backyard barbecue party?

Well, it’s been raining all week, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be indoors.

Don’t be a smartass. 

Just casual. Food and drinks. 

She’d called him then, and he’d answered, confused. “Hey?” 

“I just…” she began, “this is the first time I’m meeting most of your teammates and their girlfriends and I don’t want to be the only one in jeans when everyone else is in dresses. I want to make a good impression.” 

“You’ll make a good impression no matter what you’re wearing.”

A breath blew out of her nose, whistling by the phone speaker, “you don’t get it.” 

“Don’t I?” 

“Quinn, you wear the same thing all the time.” 

“First of all, I do not.”

He continued before she could get out her retort that Brady could back her up on this fact. “And secondly, everything I’ve seen you wear would be fine for this. You always look nice.”

And he meant it. Even in her aquarium uniform, which consisted of a blue t-shirt or polo with the aquarium logo and whatever pants she happened to be wearing that day, she always looked put together.

She made some noise in her throat like she thought he was telling tales. 

“Look, you might get some looks if you showed up in a trash bag or something.” 

Laughter barked out of her mouth. “Why would I ever wear a trash bag?” 

“I don’t know. I’m just saying that barring an unhinged trash bag outfit, you’ll be fine. People are just excited to meet you.” 

“You told them I’m coming?” she asked, feeling sudden nerves attack her stomach. 

“Yeah. Conor suggested I invite you. The guys want to meet you.” Plus, ever since she'd met Brady, he'd wanted her to meet everyone in his life.

“Oh,” she said quietly. 

“Just wear what you feel comfortable in, and I’ll pick you up at six, okay?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Sarah said, feeling even more anxious than before she’d called him.

She couldn’t even wear her go-to outfit for when she was nervous. St. Patricks day was the next weekend, and she’d asked Quinn to come to her uncles and needed the green dress for that. Plus, it was freezing and sleety outside. A dress was not the way to go. 

Jane walked by, and Sarah called her in. 

“What happened here?” Jane asked, taking in the clothing spread all over Sarah’s usually tidy room, and Sarah herself standing in her underwear. 

The only thing she could decide on was the blue bra, which always made her feel confident and sexy. She’d paired it with a matching pair of underwear.

“I’m going to a party with some of Quinn’s teammates tonight,” she said. 

Janes eyes widened with what Sarah thought was the appropriate amount of concern. 

“So I’m trying to figure out what to wear. The dress is out,” she said, gesturing to where it was hanging in the closet. 

Jane bit her lip, surveying the chaos. “My vote is for those boyfriend jeans that make your thighs look killer,” she said. 

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief, glad to have someone express a definitive opinion. She’d put those same jeans on earlier but stripped them right back off, worried all the other women would be in fancier dress. “You don’t think they’ll be too casual?” 

“What kind of a party is it?” 

“Birthday.”

Jane looked her over, “you’ll be fine. Killer jeans, nice top. Quinn won’t know what hit him.” 

She pulled the jeans on, hopping as she tugged them over her hips, “thanks. I’m just so nervous.” 

Jane sat on her bed and began putting shirts back on their discarded hangers, “I don’t think you need to be.” 

“No?”

She shook her head, “from the way he was looking at you when he stayed for dinner that night you guys made up, I’m not sure anything could put him off you.”

Sarah felt her cheeks flush. 

“Anyway,” Jane said, pulling a purple blouse out from underneath her, “I think you should wear this. It looks good with your eyes.”

“Thanks, Jane,” she said, gathering the other woman into a hug, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” 

Sarah was already in the lobby when Quinn pulled up to her building. She wore medium wash jeans a dark raincoat. He appreciated that she was wearing flat boots instead of some fussy heel. She threw the hood up to block the rain before running out to his car. 

When they got to the house, he opened the door without knocking before leading her inside. There was a coat rack already brimming with wet jackets, and Sarah stripped hers off to hang up with the others. 

Quinn stopped in his tracks halfway through unzipping his own jacket. 

He thought he’d seen all of Sarah’s clothes. Which was a stupid notion now that he thought about it — they hadn’t been dating for that long — but she tended to wear a kind of uniform.

Today, though, her jeans fit her like a glove — clinging to the curves of her thighs and hips. He was certain she’d never worn them before. He would have remembered. Seeing her in them now, he wished she’d given him some kind of warning.

When he didn’t follow her, Sarah turned, which was worse. The purple blouse she wore skimmed over her breasts and had a pattern embroidered around the collar. The color somehow made her eyes brighter and lips more pink. He had no idea that could happen.

He felt like he needed to catch his breath as a surge of attraction reared in his stomach.

Not only were the guys going to tease him mercilessly for being with someone new, he was going to have to watch her in those jeans all night. The mental exertion it was going to take to not pop a boner was already making him tired. 

Before his mind could truly go to war about the pros and cons of just turning to go back to his place, Conor called out, “Huggy? Is that you?” 

Too late to turn back now. “Yeah,” he said, not taking his eyes off Sarah. 

“Huggy?” she repeated.

“It’s a long story.”

The thrill of touching her reared to life again as he took her hand to guide her into the house. He made his mind focus on math equations for the walk into the kitchen and hoped it would be enough. 

“Hey!” Conor greeted, immediately grasping Quinn in a hug when they walked into the kitchen.  “You must be the elusive Sarah Huggy won’t stop telling us about,” he said as they broke apart.

“Good things, I hope,” Sarah joked as they shook hands.

“Well, he certainly didn’t lie about how pretty your eyes are,” a woman said, coming up to stand next to Conor, running her hand along his forearm before entwining their fingers.

The color that pinked her cheeks made Quinn’s knees want to buckle. God, he was in deep.

The strange thing was that he wasn’t scared about it. That had to mean something good.

“I’m Meghan, and this is Conor,” she said with a bright, friendly smile. 

More introductions were made, and Sarah tried to keep track of everyone, but there were at least 40 people there, and she felt instantly overwhelmed. She should have known. She knew how many people were on a hockey team, but it was still a little shocking to meet everyone all at once. 

They were absorbed into one of the small groups of people, and Sarah sipped from her seltzer only to find it was lemon flavored, not pineapple like she'd expected. She frowned at the can. 

“Do you want something different?” Quinn asked, noticing the disappointed look on her face.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Conor and JT glance at each other. 

“No, it’s okay. I was just expecting pineapple, so the lemon was a bit of a shock.”

“There’s pineapple in there,” Meghan said, gesturing with her own can. 

“I’ll get you one,” he said, turning to the fridge. 

She caught his arm and he turned back, “it’s fine, Quinn. This one’s already open. It’s not a big deal. Most seltzer tastes the same anyway.” 

“I’m glad someone can finally admit that,” Brock said, lifting his beer to his lips.

His pretty blonde girlfriend smacked him on the arm, “just because you can’t tell the difference doesn’t mean no one else can.”

Sarah smiled at them. They were cute together - like a model midwestern couple. 

“So, Sarah,” JT said, pulling her focus, “Quinn tells us you work at the aquarium.” 

She went through her usual explanation of her schooling and research.

“Tell them about Tuesday,” Quinn prompted. 

Everyone in the group looked between them expectantly. JT and Conor shared another glance. 

“What happened Tuesday?” Natalie asked, taking the bait right away. 

“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of experiments with Walter to see if he can taste my mood.”

“What?” 

“Octopus have tastebuds and nerve endings in every suction cup that far surpass our own, so I’ve been wondering if he can taste the hormones on my skin. Anyway, I sprayed some Cortisol, which is the hormone that releases when you’re stressed, on my hands to see how he’d react, and he went from seemingly happy to see me to very subdued almost immediately.” 

“Whoa,” Brock said. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, eyes brightening. “It was really amazing. With some more experiments, I think I could probably use this as the basis research for my thesis.” 

“Exactly how did this guy convince you to date him?” JT asked, pointing at Quinn.

Natalie smacked his arm. 

“No, I’m serious. You’re really smart. You know Huggy didn’t even finish college, right?” 

What the hell was this nickname? 

“I did finish college,” Quinn interrupted, “I graduated last year.” 

“Whatever,” JT said with a dismissive hand as if that detail didn’t matter. “Does he have you under some sort of mind control?” 

Sarah laughed out loud, and Quinn’s eyes darted to her, catching her wide open smile. 

“Cause she couldn’t just like me,” he defended, sarcastically

“A girl like this? This pretty and this smart?” JT asked, “it’s hard to believe, Huggy.” 

Even though she could see the glint of humor in his eyes and knew he was only teasing, Sarah still stepped in, “Nope. No mind control.” She emphasized the statement by reaching for his hand, “You know as well, probably better than I do that Quinn has really great qualities. He's a really good guy.” 

JT leaned back on the counter, a jokingly suspicious look still on his face as he glanced between them. 

Quinn could feel himself blushing. He didn’t mean for Sarah to come to his defense like that. He didn’t mean to put her in that position. All the same, he was a little glad for it. JT had a way of teasing a persons insecurities right out of them, and to know Sarah didn’t feel the same way eased something in him. 

“Our daughter loves the aquarium,” Natalie cut in fluidly as if she was used to smoothing over her husbands’ aggressive teasing.

“Let me know the next time you come by,” Sarah said without missing a beat, “I’ll give you a personal tour.”

“Oh, she’d love that. We’ll have to get a group of us together.” 

JT gave her a genuine smile, and Sarah let a little breath go in her chest. 

At the next mornings practice, Quinn ran through drills and exercises, ears pricked for the inevitable teasing he knew would be coming his way. 

To his surprise, it didn’t come until the end, after he’d showered and was dressing in his stall.

“Dude, you've got it bad,” Joshua teased as he walked by, “I’ve never seen you look at someone like that,” he said, adopting a sappy, lovestruck expression. 

“I don’t know if you can top the way he was about to chuck that can of seltzer away from her because she didn’t like it,” JT said.

“Right?” Conor agreed, laughing, “‘Do you want something different? Let me get you a new can.’” He mimed rushing around searching. 

“Don’t forget the first time he told us about her,” Brock cut in, “he was like fucking Aladdin, ‘she’s got these eyes.’” 

Joining in the laughter, Quinn tossed his towel in their direction. 

Conor caught it easily. “Our little Huggy’s in love,” he teased, elongating the last word into several syllables. 

“Guys,” he said, leveling them with a look he hoped would shut the conversation down. “We’ve only known each other 9 weeks.” 

“So you’ve been keeping track,” Brock surmised, glancing around with a knowing expression. 

Guess he may as well get comfortable in this hole he dug for himself.

He’d dished out this same chirping when Brock had brought Bella around for the first time and knew it was best to just let it lie, and eventually, it would become old news. 

When he didn’t deny it, the boys around him all whooped and hollered enough that everyone else in the room looked over.

“Seriously though,” JT went on, “I have no idea how you landed her, but she’s a great girl."

"And,” he continued with a smirk, “if you ever get bored of her, I'm sure Kuzy’ll take her off your hands. He wouldn’t stop looking at her all night.” 

Quinn glared, more offended at the insinuation he would get bored of Sarah. 

JT laughed, raucous and loud, “Oh, he’s got it bad, alright.”

He couldn’t stop the flush that rushed into his cheeks. 

“Don't worry, Huggy. No one's gonna steal your girl.” 

Shaking his head, Quinn shoved his sneakers on.  

Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist

To read all my fics, check out the Fanfiction Masterlist

[prins-maurice]

Strange Attractors - Ian Malcolm x Reader (smut)

Strange Attractors - The Lost World (4423 words) by WizardToad

Summary: After recovering from the events at Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm signs an NDA, reserving himself to the somewhat quiet life of teaching. When you show up, however, you turn his life upside down. Giving into desires you both know you shouldn't, while a man called Richard Levine keeps pestering him about a so-called Lost World. (Smut in chapter 3)

Chapter 1: That’s Plagiarism, Young Lady

His lips make their way over your shoulder as his hair tickles your neck, sending shivers down your spine. His hands roam freely over your curves. The aroma of his cologne mixed with the coffee on his breath envelops you. He grips your waist and lifts you up, setting you down on his desk. You wrap your legs around him, pulling him flush to your core as your lips meet once again. His hands squeeze your thighs at the sensation. Your hands slide over his black shirt, almost ripping the buttons open-.

You manage to shake out of your chaotician-induced hypnosis just in time to see the one and only Dr. Ian Malcolm squinting at you in the bright sunlight. Shit, the whole auditorium is looking at you, he must’ve asked you a question. He knows he caught you daydreaming and a self-satisfactory grin appears on his face. A single ray of sunshine creeps in through the window, shining right on the man in front of you. Paying attention to Professor Malcolm's lectures was never easy, but the way the golden rays reflect off the stray gray hairs on the side of his head is making it entirely impossible today. You haven't heard a single word the man has said, too sucked up in your daydream.

“If you recall, miss (Y/L/N), we were just talking about the ways in which self-organizing behaviours of complex systems are of interest to the study of evolution.” He gestures with his hand, urging you to continue.

Fuck, you really should’ve been paying attention. You were a good student, you really were, but he had caught you off-guard now. He loved tormenting you like that. Dr. Malcolm had been talking your ear off about this a few nights ago when you were reading some papers from a freshman course. Racking your brain for something to spew out, you remember a bit he said about adaptation and the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change, locating themselves at the edge of chaos. He raises his eyebrows and smirks, satisfied with your answer. You mentally wipe the sweat from your forehead as he continues his lecture.

Malcolm’s is the last class on Friday evening so the students practically storm out of the auditorium the second it's over. You, however, still have TA duties to fulfill. You deeply regret agreeing to spend the evening working on some stuff in his office. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the two of you alone. You've had a major crush on your professor ever since you stepped foot in his class. Hell, it's the whole reason you applied to become his TA. But now it just felt silly, and you’d rather be in a bar getting shit-faced with your roommate. 

As the others stampede out like a herd of buffalo, you saunter over to his desk at the front. He’s still packing away his papers.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you copying me word for word. That’s plagiarism young lady” He teases, sending you a lopsided smile 

“Well you did put me on the spot, I had to say something” You lean against his desk, cracking your back. If they’re gonna make people sit in them for two hours, they really should make those damn chairs a bit more comfortable.

“Or maybe you should just pay attention to the lecture next time” He closes his bag and you roll your eyes. He pauses for a minute, thinking. The curiosity kills him, he has to ask. “What were you so preoccupied with?” He comes around the desk and leans next to you, the height difference even more apparent now. 

You feel your ears burning red, recalling the daydream you’d had earlier. You couldn’t tell him the truth, obviously. You scramble for something to say, managing to come up with “Oh, just this assignment for Dr. Thorne’s class. He’s making us solve one of his impossible engineering mysteries again, you know how he is.” You laugh awkwardly, hoping he doesn’t inquire further about the non-existent assignment. He nods “Yeah, typical.” he hums. You let out a soft sigh of relief, he bought it. He swings his bag over his shoulder and ushers you toward his office “C'mon, we've got a lot of work to do tonight.”

As Dr. Malcolm’s TA, you were usually tasked with doing the shitty jobs he didn't want to do. You sometimes wonder why he even has a TA if he barely needs help with anything useful. So now you were stuck in his office, entering research data into the computer on his desk while your roommate was out partying. 

He paces the office with long strides, focused on the papers in his hand. He stares at them with a frown. "Can you believe this shit?" You look up from the computer, finger on the paper in front of you to keep track of the number you were just about to enter. 

"Douchebag" he mutters. 

"Everything okay Dr. Malcolm?"

He looks up at you, a glint in his eyes. He loves it when you call him Dr. Malcolm. He’d never admit it of course, but it made him feel strong and authoritative. For years after the park, he couldn’t go anywhere without his cane. He used to be known as the rock star scientist, and now people just looked at him with pity. Having to rely on others had made him feel weak, the way they looked at him as they helped him up, or held the door open for him, it drove him crazy. Everyone treated him like a sick puppy, except you. You still looked at him with that sense of wonder in your eyes, as if you couldn’t believe that you were standing in front of the great Dr. Malcolm, and he eats it up every time. It makes him feel like his work is still worth something. 

He appreciated that you never asked about this injury either. After the park, everyone involved signed an NDA, forced to keep quiet about what really went down in Costa Rica. Ever since then people haven’t stopped pestering them with their crazy conspiracy theories, some more accurate than others. Regardless, he had to keep to his story, and lie to the masses. Lie to you. His leg had been much better these days, though. He didn’t need his cane anymore, but he felt his reputation had been tarnished anyway.

"Remember that uh- scientist who interrupted my lecture last week? What's his name, uh- Levine. He's convinced there's a real Lost World somewhere." 

The Lost World hypothesis was one of the many theories scientists had come up with to try and answer the never-ending questions regarding the K-T extinction event. The hypothesis states that dinosaurs may never have fully gone extinct and that somewhere in the world, there's an isolated haven where there are still living, breathing dinosaurs. It's absurd, but then again most scientific theories are. 

"What? But that's just a theory. It's a fantasy."

"You don't have to tell me" he runs a hand through his hair sighing. You can tell he's bothered by it, maybe more than he should be, but you decide not to press it. 

"He wants me to help him research it. Find the supposed island, go on an expedition, the whole works. He's been bugging me about this theory all week but I didn't think he'd go this far."

"He's completely nuts." You shake your head.

"He's a pain in the ass is what he is" he grumbles, walking up to the desk and throwing the letter in the trash can. He leans on the back of your chair, hands nearly touching your neck making you shiver from the near-contact. You sigh audibly as you enter in the last data on this page, just seven more to go.

“You know what?” He suddenly exclaims, slapping the back of your chair ”We’ve done enough for tonight. We shouldn’t be holed up here all night. Go on home (Y/N)” You lean back in the chair, tilting your head all the way backward to look at him. “You’re the best, Dr. Malcolm. I think my fingers are about to fall off.” You sigh, your brows knit together. He laughs, turning the chair and shooing you out the door.

“Go on, go out and have fun or whatever young people do. See you Monday.”

“See you Monday Dr. Malcolm.” You wave him goodbye as you walk to your dorm. Your roommate had let you know which bar she was going to, and it was still early enough to quickly change and meet up with her there. Easy peasy, your Friday night could still be saved. 

- Chapter 2 -

[sophieinwonderland]

Science, and The Lie of Certainty

When you were a child, you probably learned in school what a dinosaur was. You probably learned about their habitats. You probably have seen their pictures in your textbooks.

Not to mention seeing them in movies like Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, The Good Dinosaur, etc.

Except thinking about what dinosaurs look like, you probably realize that they have changed. Our understanding of what they most likely look like has changed. And in the media that we consume, the dinosaurs look differently today than they did 30 years ago.

Even in media, the dinosaurs depicted in The Good Dinosaur look different from what we saw in Jurassic Park.

As children, you were probably certain about what dinosaurs look like. They're in books, after all!

Maybe you still feel a certainty today. Maybe you think that the new more hairy and feathery dinosaurs that we would see in modern images are what they actually look like and this is going to stay the same and never change.

So allow me to inform you that, unfortunately, your certainty is misplaced.

The truth is, even as much as we know about dinosaurs today, we will probably never know exactly what they looked like. There are some things that just don't fossilize and won't be preserved.

We can guess at their habitats, at their behavior, and scientists can get a whole lot right.

But we will probably never have textbooks that will 100% portray what a dinosaur looked like.

And this is pretty sad to me. Because I like to know the answers to questions. I want to understand the natural world as much as possible. I would love to be able to see what a dinosaur actually looked like, be able to observe one up close... Preferably without getting eaten.

But some things just aren't possible.

There is no fault in admitting that.

But there is fault in clinging to a present idea of what a dinosaur looks like.

To pretend like science has all of the answers. That the popular theories about what dinosaur behavior might have been like is 100% confirmed. When in reality, there's a good chance that our understanding of them might change dramatically in the next 20 years, 50 years, and 100 years. And even a century later, we still won't be able to know everything.

There's a fantastic paleoart book you may have heard of called All Yesterdays that presents alternatives for how dinosaurs may have looked based on recent findings and some creative liberties in some cases.

One example of this is the Leaellynasaura. This is what this dinosaur would have looked like according to Wikipedia:

All Yesterdays presents an alternative possibility though based on the same skeleton.

This is dramatically different from what we see in the first image. But they give pretty solid reasoning for these liberties.

As seen before with Hypsilophodon, many small plant-eating dinosaurs will have their popular images greatly revised thanks to new discoveries of social behaviour and integument. Instead of looking like two-legged iguanas, these animals will have to be re-imagined with the extra possibilities offered by furry bodies and communal living habits. Here is one more small ornithischian re-interpretation, this time featuring Leaellynasaura. This dinosaur was discovered in Australia, where it lived during Early Cretaceous times, about one hundred and ten million years ago. At that time, Australia was located close to the Earth's geographic south pole. Although its climate was possibly not as cold as today's Antarctic, the axial tilt of our planet meant that Cretaceous Australia did not receive direct sunlight for long periods of time, and almost certainly experienced sub-zero temperatures. Aside from being a polar dinosaur, Leaellynasaura was also extraordinary for its immensely long tail, which was almost three times as long as its body. Nobody knows why Leaellynasaura had such a long tail, or what it used it for. Theories range from the tail being used as a climbing aid, a sexual and social display feature, or a long, shaggy “scarf” that the dinosaur wrapped around itself as protection from the cold. It has even been suggested that the tail aided the animal in swimming! Drawing on these facts, we reconstructed Leaellynasaura as a rotund furball that scurried peacefully about in the polar forests of Australia's past. We imagined its long tail as a thin, signalling "flagpole" that helped it identify and keep close to members of its herd. No doubt some people will find this reconstruction preposterous, and perhaps they will be right. However, we felt that not enough dinosaurs were reconstructed as "cute" beasts, whereas in nature, polar animals can look quite pulchritudinous under layers of fat, muscle, fur and other insulation.

Later on in the book is a section entitled All Todays which, to really drive the points home about how little we understand about how dinosaurs may have looked, tries to imagine how future paleo-artists might interpret creatures who exist today based on the same errors we've made.

For example, going with the theme of how fat doesn't fossilize, someone from the future might make this sort of reconstruction of a common modern animal:

Alternatively, perhaps swans could be reconstructed as preadory wingless monsters.

And for the faults of assuming all dinosaurs were scaly in the past, it could be equally dangerous to assume that now that we've discovered some with fur or feathers that we should extrapolate to all dinosaurs.

Such extrapolations could lead to fallacious assumptions, like how a future paleontologist might assume that because rats had fur, the same must be true for iguanas.

There are so many more examples in this book that I would love to share and discuss because it's just fantastic.

But I have to end this post at some point.

So let me just bring this back to the main point. Which is that we know very little. The more you learn, the more you realize how little we actually know for certain.

Certainty of science is often a lie.

As true as this is about paleontology, it's true of a lot of other fields too. It's true of psychology, of history, of neuroscience, of biology, of astronomy. While there is a lot that we do know, there's a lot more that just ends up being our best guesses.

And that's okay.

It's okay to accept that we still have so much more to learn about the world around us.

This is something that should be embraced.

There is safety in the comfort of the lie of certainty. But it is a lie. It's a cozy blanket that was weaved around us when we were children and learning about the world, convincing us that we had all the answers when we don't by covering our heads to the larger world outside the blanket.

And while pulling off that blanket and realizing that we don't know everything is scary, we NEED to pull it off to be able to acknowledge that we have room to learn and grow.

We need to be able to proudly say, "I don't know, and that's okay because it means I have more to learn!"

So please keep learning and keep questioning everything!

[drakaripykiros130ac]

I imagine if the Asoiaf world had been put on screen in the early 2000s, not only would they have shown respect to the canon events of the book, but they would have also cast the right actors (who are the exact description of the characters in the books).

There would have been amazing dialogue, and no fear of political propaganda ruining the experience.

Admittedly, the CGI wouldn’t have been as good (or who knows? The dinosaurs in the original Jurassic Park movie looked amazing, and it was the 90’s) and the trailers might have been dull.

But it wouldn’t have mattered, because plot wise and character wise, it would have been amazing to watch. More focus on a good story and less on what is “politically correct” (that remains highly debatable) or shock value.

It’s a shame, really. Because there is no hope of anything good coming out these days. Watch them destroy “Aegon’s Conquest” next.

[merriclo]

the LU Chain as things that i did on my school’s orchestra trip to Universal

Time: defended gingers

Warriors: learned my ex was a neonazi

Twilight: bought a cat plushie and didn’t let go of it for the rest of the day

Sky: took an obscene amount of photos of pigeons and other birds

Wild: chugged two 16 fl oz redbulls in the span of 12 minutes while having a cardiac disorder

Four: read Death Note manga while waiting in line for a dr seus ride

Legend: went “fuckin hell” without realizing that a six year old was standing right next to me

Wind: cried while petting a stingray

Hyrule: found a busted up walgreens shopping cart on the side of the road and sat in it for like an hour. also kept rattling off Jurassic Park trivia completely unprompted

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 2: Walking With Victorian Dinosaurs

[Previously: the Permian and the Triassic]

The next part of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur trail depicts the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Most of the featured animals here are actually marine reptiles, but a few dinosaur species do make an appearance towards the end of this section.

Although there are supposed to be three Jurassic ichthyosaur statues here, only the big Temnodontosaurus platyodon could really be seen at the time of my visit. The two smaller Ichthyosaurus communis and Leptonectes tenuirostris were almost entirely hidden by the dense plant growth on the island.

Ichthyosaurs when fully visible vs currently obscured Left side image by Nick Richards (CC BY SA 2.0)

Head, flipper, and tail details of the Temnodontosaurus. A second ichthyosaur is just barely visible in the background.

Ichthyosaurs were already known from some very complete and well-preserved fossils in the 1850s, so a lot of the anatomy here still holds up fairly well even 170 years later. They even have an attempt at a tail fin despite no impressions of such a structure having been discovered yet! Some details are still noticeably wrong compared to modern knowledge, though, such as the unusual amount of shrinkwrapping on the sclerotic rings of the eyes and the bones of the flippers.

———

Arranged around the ichthyosaur, three different Jurassic plesiosaurs are also represented – “Plesiosaurus” macrocephalus with the especially sinuous neck on the left, Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus in the middle, and Thalassiodracon hawkinsi on the right.

They're all depicted here as amphibious and rather seal-like, hauling out onto the shore in the same manner as the ichthyosaurs. While good efforts for the time, we now know these animals were actually fully aquatic, that they had a lot more soft tissue bulking out their bodies, and that their necks were much less flexible.

———

The recently-installed new pivot bridge is also visible here behind some of the marine reptiles.

———

Positioned to the left of the other marine reptiles, this partly-obscured pair of croc-like animals are teleosaurs (Teleosaurus cadomensis), a group of Jurassic semi-aquatic marine crocodylomorphs.

A better view of the two teleosaurs by MrsEllacott (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crystal Palace statues have the general proportions right, with long thin gharial-like snouts and fairly small limbs. But some things like the shape of the back of the head and the pattern of armored scutes are wrong, which is odd considering that those details were already well-known in the 1850s.

———

Finally we reach the first actual dinosaur, and one of the most iconic statues in the park: the Jurassic Megalosaurus!

Megalosaurus bucklandi was the very first non-avian dinosaur known to science, discovered in the 1820s almost twenty years before the term "dinosaur" was even coined.

At a time when only fragments of the full skeleton were known, and before any evidence of bipedalism had been found, the Crystal Palace rendition of Megalosaurus is a bulky quadrupedal reptile with a humped back and upright bear-like limbs. It's a surprisingly progressive interpretation for the period, giving the impression of an active mammal-like predator.

This statue suffered extensive damage to its snout in 2020, which was repaired a year later with a fiberglass "prosthesis".

———

Reaching the Cretaceous period now, we find Hylaeosaurus (and one of the upcoming Iguanodon peeking in from the side).

Hylaeosaurus armatus was the first known ankylosaur, although much like the other dinosaurs here its life appearance was very poorly understood in the early days of paleontology. Considering how weird ankylosaurs would later turn out to be, the Crystal Palace depiction is a pretty good guess, showing a large heavy iguana-like quadruped with hoof-like claws and armored spiky scaly skin.

It's positioned facing away from viewers, so its face isn't very visible – but due to the head needing to be replaced with a fiberglass replica some years ago, the original can now be seen (and touched!) up close near the start of the trail.

———

Two pterosaurs (or "pterodactyles" according to the park signs) were also supposed to be just beyond the Hylaeosaurus, but plant growth had completely blocked any view of them.

Although these two statues are supposed to represent a Cretaceous species now known as Cimoliopterus cuvieri, they were probably actually modeled based on the much better known Jurassic-aged Pterodactylus antiquus.

A second set of pterosaur sculptures once stood near the teleosaurs, also based on Pterodactylus but supposed to represent a Jurassic species now known as Dolicorhamphus bucklandii. These statues went missing in the 1930s, and were eventually replaced with new fiberglass replicas in the early 2000s… only to be destroyed by vandalism just a few years later.

(The surviving pair near the Hylaeosaurus are apparently in a bit of disrepair these days, too, with the right one currently missing most of its jaws.)

Image by Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The Crystal Palace pterosaurs weren't especially accurate even for the time, with heads much too small, swan-like necks, and bird-like wings that don't attach the membranes to the hindlimbs. Hair-like fuzz had been observed in pterosaur fossils in the 1830s, but these depictions are covered in large overlapping diamond-shaped scales due to Richard Owen's opinion that they should be scaly because they were reptiles.

But some details still hold up – the individual with folded wings is in a quadrupedal pose quite similar to modern interpretations, and the bird-like features give an overall impression of something more active and alert than the later barely-able-to-fly sluggish reptilian pterosaur depictions that would become common by the mid-20th century.

(Much like the statues themselves, the "modern" reconstruction above is based on Pterodactylus rather than Cimoliopterus)

———

The last actual dinosaurs on this dinosaur trail are the two Cretaceous Iguanodon sculptures. At the time of my visit they weren't easy to make out behind the overgrown trees, and only the back end of the standing individual was clearly visible.

Named only a year after Megalosaurus, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever discovered, and early reconstructions depicted it as a giant iguana-like lizard.

The Crystal Palace statues depict large bulky animals, one in an upright mammal-like stance and another reclining with one hand raised up. (This hand is usually resting on a cycad trunk, but that element appeared to be either missing or fallen over when I was there.)

Famously a New Year's dinner party was held in the body of the standing Iguanodon during its construction, although the accounts of how many people could actually fit inside it at once are probably slightly exaggerated.

A clearer view by Jim Linwood (CC BY 2.0)

Considering that the skull of Iguanodon wasn't actually known at the time of these sculpture's creation, the head shape with a beak at the front of the jaws is actually an excellent guess. The only major issue was the nose horn, which was an understandable mistake when something as strange as a giant thumb spike had never been seen in any known animal before.

(The fossils the Crystal Palace statues are based on are actually now classified as Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, but the "modern" reconstruction above depicts the chunkier Iguanodon bernissartensis.)

———

Image by Doyle of London (CC BY-SA 4.0)

I also wasn't able to spot the Cretaceous mosasaur on the other side of the island due to heavy foliage obscuring the view.

Depicting Mosasaurus hoffmannii, this model consists of only the front half of the animal lurking at the water's edge. It's unclear whether this partial reconstruction is due to uncertainty about the full appearance, or just a result of money and time running out during its creation.

The head is boxier than modern depictions, and the scales are too large, but the monitor-lizard like features and paddle-shaped flippers are still pretty close to our current understanding of these marine reptiles. It even apparently has the correct palatal teeth!

Next time: the final Cenozoic section!

[carlos-in-glasses]

Thank you for the tag @heartstringsduet @thisbuildinghasfeelings @bonheur-cafe @nisbanisba and @paperstorm 🧡

Chapter 8 of Rhythms is now on Ao3, and I don't want to spoil chapter 9 before Sunday, so here is something different! From my TK POV 4x12 coda that I'm planning to share next week!

It was the most terrifying day of my life, when you were born.”

“Thanks,” TK laughs. “Most kids get to hear that their arrival was the best, but whatever.”

“I’ll say this,” Owen begins, looking right into TK’s eyes. “It was really good to meet you. But it was terrifying. We got you home. It was still terrifying. Then time passed and you got a bit bigger and you had these bright eyes that you’d open so wide. And you’d really look around.” Owen grins tearfully. “I’d come home from work and you’d smile at me all toothless.”

“Stop.”

“That was the best,” Owen sniffs and takes a comforting bite from a whole handful of French fries. “And then you were a teenager and I wasn’t really there. Not enough.”

“You were when I came out, though. You were amazing.”

“That was another best-ever day,” Owen says.

It happened after school on a rainy March Monday - a day otherwise ordinary and inconsequential. But it had meant everything to say the words out loud and receive a huge hug in reply. They relaxed on the couch together with takeout afterwards, talking and being pals.

TK feels a twinge of nostalgia for the moment, even though they’re more-or-less doing the same thing now with four buckets of fried chicken between them.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so excited,” TK laughs, looking down at his feet. “You were like Buttercup when we tell him he’s going for a W-A-L-K.”

Buttercup boofs. He knows what that means. He’s not an idiot.

“Buttercup, down!” Owen says as Buttercup starts to heave himself up. “We have to just say W now,” Owen whispers to TK, “He’s figured it out.”

“Really?” TK laughs. This is Buttercup’s equivalent of learning to turn doorhandles like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

“Yes, so zip it,” Owen tells him, and returns to the subject at hand. “The day you came out to me is one of my favorite memories.”

“That’s so nice,” TK says softly. There can’t be too many people who hear that from their dad.

“I was happy that you could be yourself. I was happy you felt like you could come out to me when you were so young.”

“Me too.” TK takes a deep, shaky breath, thinking back on it. He was fourteen when he came out to his parents just a day apart, and the way they embraced him ended up closing the distance between all of them.

Open tag and tags below

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[obitez]

Three Words

Another Buck/Tommy fic! (Not a Bean one though, one will be out soon 😉)

Summary: Tommy has been waiting months to hear Buck say those three words. (I love you)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they first started dating, Tommy told Buck that they could take their relationship at whatever pace he wanted. 

And he meant that wholeheartedly. 

Sure, things got a little rocky after that first date, but they got through it. It was all cleared up by the second. 

They were going strong. Their relationship was going strong. Their relationship was going places Tommy had never thought it would go. 

Further than Tommy thought his pathetic love life would go with anyone. 

After their second date (if you could call it that), at the coffee shop, they sort of came to an unspoken agreement that they would go at Buck’s pace. Tommy just hadn’t expected that to mean they would be fucking each other in bed less than 24 hours later and Buck would be dragging Tommy around Maddie and Chimney’s wedding. (No one had told him that Buck’s sister was engaged to Chimney!)

Both Eddie and Bobby had told him that Buck liked to do things fast, he didn’t really understand how fast they meant at the time, but he had no problem with it. 

Later, Hen and Karen might have threatened him a little at the medal ceremony, but backed off when Tommy told them he was going at Buck’s pace. 

So for the next six months, that was what Tommy did, go at Buck’s pace. When Buck wanted to introduce Tommy to his parents, he went ahead with him. 

When Buck gave Tommy a key to his loft, Tommy gave Buck a key to his house. 

When Buck asked if Tommy minded if Jee joined them on their hike up a mountain because both her parents were called into a shift at the last minute, Tommy carried her on his shoulders the entire way. 

When Buck hinted at wanting to move in together, Tommy was quick to tell him that he would start moving the furniture in his house for when Buck was ready. 

Tommy was fine with going at Buck’s pace. Really, he was. 

There was just one thing though. 

In the last six months, he had fallen hard for Buck, and he meant hard.

He didn’t think that any of his past relationships have even gotten close to how he felt for Buck now. 

He loved Evan Buckley, from his little birthmark on his adorable face, to his marvelous body, to his penchant for research binges, to his laugh, to his cooking skills, to his everflowing loving heart for everyone around him. 

He loved Evan Buckley, now he just needed to figure out how and when to tell him. 

He thought about how and when to do it for so long, Tommy started questioning himself. 

What would Buck do if Tommy said it? 

Tommy had told Buck he would go at Buck’s speed? What if this was too fast for him? This would bring a new stage to their relationship. What if Buck wasn’t ready for this? Should he just wait until Buck was ready? Until Buck said those three words first? 

He eventually over-thought it as he did a lot of things like this, over-thinking it enough, they reached and passed their six month anniversary. 

🔶 🔶 🔶 🔶 🔶 

The ending credits of Jurassic Park scrolled past on the screen, Tommy looked down at Buck’s head resting on his chest. The man was passed out and spread across him. He swore that would be the last time he let Buck pick a movie out, he always fell asleep halfway through them. Tommy always told himself that everytime this happened, but he always let Buck pick out the next movie anyway.

 Tommy smiled and continued slowly rubbing the hand that he had on Buck’s back. He blinked and then looked at the clock across the room. It was late, neither of them had work the next morning, but they still had plans. He needed to get to sleep soon. The remote to turn the TV off was in reach, but the lightswitch to turn off the overhead lights? 

In instances like these, Tommy really wished he had Buck’s ability to fall asleep no matter the lighting conditions. It was too bright for him right now. But at the same time, Tommy knew his boyfriend was a light sleeper. If he got up now to walk the three feet to the lightswitch on the wall, Buck would wake up and it would be at least an hour of activities before either of them went to sleep again. 

Maybe he shouldn’t listen to Eddie and just bite the bullet and buy a Hildy. Those things can’t be that bad. He’d be able to ring it up to turn off the lights without getting out of bed. 

Tommy carefully got out of bed, moving the pillows around to disturb Buck as little as possible. 

He wasn’t successful.

“Tommy?” Buck’s sleep filled voice asked as Tommy flipped the lightswitch to send the room into darkness. 

“Shh,” Tommy hushed. “Just turning off the lights, go back to sleep.” 

“Hmm,” Buck hummed unhappily as Tommy returned to bed, getting under the covers as pulling Buck back to where he was sleeping on his chest. 

It was quiet for a couple moments, Tommy was just about to fall asleep into deep oblivion when he heard Buck speak. 

“I love you,” Buck mumbled into Tommy’s ear. Hearing those words, Tommy tensed and turned his head to look into Buck’s eyes. He couldn’t exactly see them right now, it was too dark, but he could feel the stare. 

Those weren’t words Buck mumbled half asleep or only half paying attention. He meant those words. 

He loved Tommy. 

“Oh, thank God,” Tommy mumbled as he angled his neck and kissed Buck on the top of his head. 

Buck hummed in slight confusion and he went up onto an elbow and looked down at Tommy, silently asking for an explanation of what Tommy meant by that comment. 

“I’ve been waiting weeks for you to say that,” Tommy said as he sat up and quickly moved around Buck, pinning him onto the bed lying on his back. 

“Oh?” Buck hummed, taunting him. 

It seemed Buck would be getting exactly what he wanted that night. 

Tommy leant down. “I love you too,” he mumbled into Buck’s ear before he pulled him into a deep kiss. 

[auroralwriting]

the master heist

con artist!bucky barnes x reader

bucky wants you to help him get his money back from an old friend.

warnings: violence, light manipulation, kind of dark bucky, based off of seb's movie sharper!

word count: 2.5k!

"What the hell do you want with me?"

You hadn't even learned the man's name yet. He picked you up off the side of the street after a very public and very loud fight and breakup with your now ex-boyfriend. He pulled up in a Mercedes, walking out, grabbing your duffel bag of personal items. He tossed it in the backset, waving you, telling you to come on in. So, you did. It wasn't like you had anywhere else to go.

"What's your favorite movie?" He asked, ignoring your previous question. He was making himself a drink, holding an empty cup to offer you some. You shook your head.

"Uh," You hesitated, "I guess maybe Jurassic Park?"

The man raised a brow, coming to sit next to you. You tensed at his presence. "Yeah, good plot. Stupid people,"

"Very," You mused softly. "Why would you even want to go to a theme park with real dinosaurs?"

"And that man who died at the beginning?" The man nodded.

You turned your body closer to him, "Yeah, it was so stupid."

"I wouldn't know, I've never seen it." The man suddenly said. Well, wasn't he just full of surprises?

The drink in the man's cup swirled as he set it down. "You've never seen it." Your words came out less of a question, and more in disbelief.

"I'm not really a movie guy," He hummed. "And that's what I'm going to teach you."

Your eyebrow dipped up in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

The man gave an annoyed sigh, "I make people believe I'm someone else to get whatever the hell I want."

"So," You paused, shaking your head in disbelief at the current situation you'd gotten yourself in. "You're a con-artist?"

"No," The man replied, "I'm like, an actor, you could say. I'm not hurting people or anything."

Well that was weird. "I never said you did," You argued back. The man rubbed his chin with a chuckle at your reply. "What? Did I say something funny?"

"You've got fire, I like that." He acknowledged. "What's your name?" You told him your name, he nodded, mouthing it like he was getting used to saying it. "I'm Bucky. Look, I need some help. I can't always get the.. customers I need. That's where you come in."

That made you wonder what kind of gig this was. "What's in it for me?"

"Free place to stay, share of money, someone to cook for you," Bucky listed. "Want me to carry on, or do you get it?" Bucky's tone wasn't condescending, nor was it full of malice.

"Why me?" You questioned. "You don't even know me. Also, how do I even know you're a safe individual? You could be, like, some murderer who wants to sell my parts on the black market."

Bucky chuckled at your words. "One, I don't murder or even consider the black market as a viable option for my work. Two, I'll give you every proof of identity I have, hell, I'll even let you run a background check." Bucky paused, giving you a smile. "But, let's be honest, where else do you have to go?"

He was right. You didn't have anywhere else to go. Bucky was your only option as of right now. Plus, you'd be making an income. "Alright," You sighed. "I'll help you."

"My name is Avalon DeClain, I was born in Mississippi, moved to Pennsylvania when I was six for my dads work." You recited. "I majored in chemistry in college, Penn State, graduated top of my class. I have a dog, Sydney, a german shepard. I'm single and my parents died when I was in high school."

Bucky smirked, "What year did you graduate?"

"Class of '16," You replied. "Graduated college early by a year in '19."

"You're doing better than I thought," Bucky smiled honestly. "Really, good job."

You smiled at his words, a small rush of heat going to your cheeks. "Thank you," It had been a month and a half since you started living with Bucky. As promised, he took care of you. He was teaching you all he knew.

"What do you say we celebrate tonight?" Bucky offered.

"Celebrate what?" You asked, your knees pulled up to your chest as Bucky stood up to grab some drinks for the two of you. "Is it your birthday or something?"

Bucky laughed, "No, not my birthday. Just," Bucky sucked in a breath, "A celebration of your wild achievements. I'd say you're graduating top of my class."

"Well, I'd sure hope so." You teased as Bucky walked back over. He handed you a glass of champagne, his own filled with a dark wine. "I am your only student, after all."

"And still my best work," Bucky clinked his glass with your own as you both took sips.

For a while, the both of you talked and drank. Somewhere in the last month, you had gotten Bucky to actually open up. He told you about how he grew up doing this life with some friends. However, he refused to speak about one in particular; Steve. Tonight, things seemed different though.

"Look, we've been doing small stuff," Bucky started, his tone becoming more serious. "You're perfect at the small stuff. But, I haven't been honest with you, doll."

"What happened with him?" You cautiously asked, ignoring the burning of your cheeks at the nickname

Bucky's eyes widened for a moment, his face then relaxing as he released a breath. "I knew you were intuitive." Bucky sighed, rubbing his face with his hand. "Steve was my best bud. We did, well, everything together. Until, well, one big job we found." You nodded, urging Bucky to go on. "It was some old guy, Richard. We both decided to become his assistants until he passed; he was old as rocks, if not older. After he passed, Steve and I said we'd split the money. It was around ten grand each. I guess the old man also had grandkids."

The look on Bucky's face almost broke your heart. "He took it all,"

"Not just that," Bucky continued. "He tried to get me fucking arrested. Damn good thing I was friends with one of the cops."

"So," You began. "How are we getting him back?"

Bucky's face was a mixture of relief, joy, and passion. "I love that fire in you," He sighed contently. "Tomorrow night, Steve's going out on his annual celebration. Something to do with his work successes?" Bucky wasn't sure. "His actual job, conning is a side for him."

"All right," You reassured. "I'm ready for this. What's our plan?"

"You're gonna flirt with him," Bucky explained. "He doesn't have a type, just pretty girls with short dresses. You're gonna explain how you need money for grad school, and of course he's gonna give it to you. He prides himself on being some social saint or whatever."

This plan felt way too easy. "That's all?" You remarked. "That feels.. too easy."

"Steve's girlfriend, Natasha," Bucky sighed, "She's gonna be up his ass all night. You gotta find a way to get her out of there."

You internally cringed. Great, that was significantly harder than before. "What's she like?"

"I really don't have a single clue," Bucky huffed out. "That's the one flaw of this, which is why I need to be sure you can do this."

Bucky looked nearly defeated. It was obvious he needed your help, he couldn't do it without you. "I promise you," You grabbed Bucky's hands. "I can get you that money."

No, you thought. I can get you even more.

Bucky had no way of checking in on you to see how things were going. He left his full trust in you to not fuck this up. You could see it in him all day; he was stressed. His hand kept running through his hair, he couldn't stop tapping his feet against the wood floor.

You walked into the bar, a smooth, tight, black dress on, red heels to match. You looked around for a moment, seeing if you could spot Steve.

It really wasn't hard to find him, bright blonde hair, a boisterous laugh that was actually really cute. That was definitely the man you were looking for.

Bucky gave you a script to follow. Steve once knew a guy, Howard, back from high school. The two had zero connection now, but good old Howard was your way in.

"Excuse me," You asked, walking up behind Steve. He and Natasha both turned around. "Are you Steve Rogers?

Steve gave a smile, "Yeah, that's me. You are?"

"Oh, I'm Avalon." You reached out your hand to Steve which he shook. You followed the same action with Natasha. "I'm good friends with Howard."

Steve slapped the counter with joy, "Howard! I remember that son of a bitch. How is he?"

"Great," You smiled. Natasha scooted over a seat, letting you sit between the two. "He's got a wife, good job."

"That's great. I always liked that guy, such a good man. He deserves a great life." Steve gushed as you awkwardly smiled in return. You ordered a drink as Steve rambled.

You shyly began to comb your fingers through your hair as Steve subtly checked you out. "He was actually the one to tell me about you. He thought, well, maybe you could give me a hand."

The bartender slid you the drink, one you failed to catch as it spilled all over the front of you. Both Steve and Natasha gasped. "Oh my god! Oh, that'll never come out." Natasha gasped.

Steve quickly grabbed napkins to help you try and sop some of it up. "Are you okay?"

"Perfectly fine, just a ruined dress. I just bought it, too." You whined. In reality, this was all a part of your perfectly made plan to get Natasha out of there.

"Sweets, I'm gonna run home and grab her a new dress. We only live fifteen away and there is no way I'm letting her spend the rest of the night in a ruined dress." Natasha fell for the bait. This was perfect.

You quickly feigned guilt, "Oh, no. Please, it's really okay."

"No, I insist." Natasha said as she stood up, grabbing her belongings. "I'll be back as soon as I can, Stevie." Natasha left a small kiss on his cheek and rushed out of the building.

"I'm so sorry about your dress," Steve said, eyeing places it did not spill.

"It's fine, really." You said.

Steve was not subtle with checking you out anymore. "So, what was that favor Howard said I could help with?"

"Well," You bit your lip in a fake shame. Steve was quick to use his thumb to remove it from your teeth. "I have a pretty lousy job. I have this shitty apartment and a dog to take care of. I'm still paying off student loans, and I need to get my masters to get a decent paying job," You falsely admitted to Steve, batting your eyes at him as you sighed deeply. "I just.. can't afford to live. I'm eating a meal a day to afford dog food and groceries. Howard said that maybe you could help me out?"

You'd never seen a man nod quicker than Steve in that moment. "I'll do you one better. I'll help you pay off those student loans and get yo you paid off for grad school."

A gasp left your lips. To Steve, it was shock of his kindness. In reality, it was shock your plan worked. "Oh, God no. I couldn't ask for all of that. I was just gonna see if you wanted my dog-"

"Anything for a friend of Howard." Steve shook his head. "How do you want the money? Actually, no. Let me give it to you cash. You don't need to pay more taxes from that." You didn't even notice Steve had a briefcase with him. He opened it, leaving you in shock. You'd never seen so many hundred dollar bills stacked together before.

Steve counted out some stacks, making a pile. "I'm just gonna spit this half with you. Should be, ah, about maybe twenty grand?"

Your eyes almost popped out of your head. "Steve, I really couldn't-"

"Please," Steve scoffed. "I could make this money back in a day. I insist, you deserve a beautiful life for a beautiful woman." Steve's hand rested on your cheek as he thumbed it over softly. For some reason, his touch made you uncomfortable. All you really wanted was Bucky.

"I appreciate this more than you know." You sighed, leaning into his touch. "Thank you, Steve."

"It's no problem, sweetheart. Here, use this to carry all that in. We don't need you getting robbed." Steve handed over a large pouch from the case, shoving the money in it. "Get home safe, and give me a call sometime."

You nodded with a smile, but deep down you felt disgusted. You couldn't wait to show Bucky what you got.

"Bucky?" You called as you walked in. You walked in the living room to see Bucky jumping up from his seat.

"You look scared shitless, doll. What happened?" Bucky immediately rushed to your side. You hadn't even noticed how anxious you were, but it was a good anxious. "Did he touch you? I swear I will fuck him up if-"

Cutting off Bucky, you opened the bag to reveal the money. "He did some light touching, but I made it work to get you a little something extra."

"Ho-ly shit," Bucky breathed out, his eyes gleaming with disbelief. "Doll, how much is this?:

"Steve said twenty grand," You answered. "I thought I would play it up to get some more out of this."

Bucky looked to you, alarmed. "Did you let him-"

"No!" You cut him off again. "God, no. I just let him eye-fuck me and touch my cheek. That was enough for him. You're right, he is some social saint."

Bucky quickly scooped you up, hugging you tightly in his arms. "Fuck, doll! You're a fucking genius. You're actually fucking insane!" Bucky yelled as you laughed. "Why'd you do that? Put yourself through that for this?"

"It was for you, Bucky." You shyly admitted. "You gave me a second chance, so I wanted to give you what you deserved."

Bucky's hands came to rest at your hips as he drew you in closer. "Did you like the way he looked at you?"

"I only like the way you look at me," You breathed out, his face getting much closer to yours. "I just wanted you to be the one to touch me."

"Doll," Bucky muttered, his lips so close to your own you could almost feel them. "You're a fucking dream." Bucky pushed his lips against your own as you wrapped your arms around his neck. You sighed contently into the kiss. "Your dress is also fucking sopping the floors."

You gave a smirk to Bucky, "So take it off, then." He smirked wildly at you as he grabbed your hand, leading you to his room.

"Maybe I will,"