#she said that some plastic surgeons already reached out to her to ‘fix her body’ and 😭…..

[tariah23]

That Ceechynaa girl’s music is whatever but she’s cute (when I first saw her, at first glance, I thought she was Megan because of her outfits and hairstyle) but she seems alright. I think it’s cute that she posts enthusiastically about her dolls that she collects 🥹.

[sashi-ya]

Hello! I hope you are doing fine! Can I request the rough sex OS (the jealousy one) with Law? And with a shy s/o? I have a soft spot for a possessive Law.

Hi! 👋 I loved this request in specific, I love possessive Law too!. I wrote this little OS on a modern AU. She is a coffee shop barista, and Law of course is a surgeon. I hope you like it!! 💖 Thanks for reading! ~

NSFW ~ Trafalgar Law x F! Reader ~ Possessive & Rough Sex 🔥

TW: Explicit sex, violence, nosebleeding.

WC: 2064

A slow morning serving lattes and cold brews finds you bored, gazing several times at your phone screen, maybe your friends or your boyfriend Law sends something to pull you out from the boredom.

All the doctors, nurses and hospital workers are occupied with their duties, including Law. “He must be operating someone”, you think and simply grab a book, because these are the hours when no one enters your coffee shop.

The time flies by when you lose yourself in the written adventures of some books, so the workers begin to arrive at your shop hungry for lunch. You receive them happily, and despite you being a little shy, you always show a smile to your customers.

Mrs. Walker asks you for a special type of salad, but you don’t have it there on display. “I have more on the kitchen, wait a sec, I’ll bring you one from there!”, you tell her and head to the back of the store. When you come back, you see the only customer you wished never enters your store. He is an abuser, a stalker, a harasser. It is indeed Law's colleague. You haven’t told him, because you didn’t want to affect your boyfriend’s career as a surgeon, so you put up with that bastard's constant sexual advances.

You give Mrs. Walker the salad, and she walks away with a smile, because that son of a bitch looks and acts like an angel in front of the others, but when he is alone with you, he won’t stop telling how you should leave Law and instead try a good dick for once.

“Hello darling, have you already left Law?”, he greets you. You smile at him, you think you are not strong enough to confront him, so you just smile, close your hand into a fist and ask him what he is having. “Can I order you?”, he asks you shamelessly, approaching himself closer to you, laying his body against the counter.

You are disgusted, you just wish you had a gun to blow his head off. You smile again, and let a false giggle slip out of your mouth, but your eyes begin to get teary. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I saw you with a bikini on your Instagram post yesterday and I couldn’t resist!!. A vanilla latte would be awesome!”. He says, grinning at you. You nod, and head to the coffee machine and prepare his order.

You hand the plastic cup with the Latte served to the harasser, hoping, praying he would pay and leave as soon as possible. But this time, he goes too far. He has the audacity of snatching your hand when you give the cup to him. He pulls from you making your whole body hit hard against the inner part of the counter. Your face is really close to his, you start to panic, but you can’t make him let go of you. He keeps pulling, approaching his face even more to yours, “don’t act as if you didn't want to be kissed, come on, you little slut”, he says to you.

“She said no, bastard”, you hear Law’s voice and next the disgusting stalker receives a direct punch from Law’s tattooed hands. Yet, he doesn’t give up and stands up, hitting your boyfriend's handsome face. Drops of blood begin to stream down from his nose, and land over his white coat. Law uses his forearm to wipe the blood away and smiles at him. That son of a bitch was hurting, trying to steal what’s his. YOU. And he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

This time Law punches the guy on the stomach, and when he bends due to the pain he was experiencing, your boyfriend uses his knee to finish him. When the stalker finally lies on the ground, spitting some blood because of a pair of broken teeth, Law looks down at him and says “I told you to stay away from her. Get the fuck out of here”.

His colleague stands up and runs out of the store, threatening Law with suing him. “Heh...He’s not going to do any of that”, he says smirking, victorious and still nose bleeding.

You are crying, unable to move, astonished. He looks at you, and says, “Are you ok?”. “Y- yes. It's nothing…” you tell him, still not moving a single muscle. But Law, who had a different expression than he usually has, a more primal one, walks behind the counter and grabs you by your wrist.

“Why weren’t you saying anything to him? Why were you smiling at him? Stop crying”, he says to you, shaking your arm. “How many times I have to tell you you should be fiercer; I won’t be here every single time a bastard wants to fuck you!!”. You know exactly he wasn’t being unfair with you, but this was the way he had to tell you he was deeply worried by you… yet he continues. “I’m starting to believe you wanted him to do that to you, huh? you weren’t telling him nothing”.

“Law! that…. that’s not true”, you tell him. You have stopped crying, and you begin to get angry. “I must show you who you belong to, then”, he says to you with that grumpy voice and pulls you to the back of the store.

“L-Law… stop!! you are bleeding, let me…”, you try to say as he pulls from you, but he interrupts you. “Shut the fuck up!”. He was pissed, but… horny? You try to reach to his nose, maybe to clean him up, because he won’t stop bleeding, but he backs his head up, snorting his own blood. An evil grin draws on his face, and he licks the blood that slowly covers his upper lip.

“Oh…”, you voice, damn how sexy he looks. At first you feel guilty to feel so attracted to him bleeding, hurt, with his disheveled black hair and his white coat stained red. His intense grey eyes are fixed on yours, and shamefully, subtly, almost unnoticeable bit your lower lip…

“You are mine; don’t you know that?”, he tells you and begins to walk towards you. You remain still until his right hand starts squeezing your neck. “L-Law…” you gasp. “What?”, he tells you, pissed, approaching his face to the left side of your face. Your legs tremble, it’s not exactly because you are afraid…

He squeezes harder and harder the sides of your neck, you try to gasp for air and when you begin to feel lightheaded, he orders you to walk to the kitchen counter of the cafeteria. “Babe… the- the store is open. A client could enter…”, you tell him. “I hope so, so they learn who you belong to”, he says. “But…”, you try to complain.

“Shut up”, he tells you, and tangles your hair around his veiny hand, pushing you, in order to bend your body over the cold metal of the counter. He bends over you; you can already feel his hard rock sex against you. Law bites the shell of your ear, and then, without letting your hair go, turns your head to the side so he can invade your mouth with his wet tongue.

A ferrous taste from the blood lingers on your mouth as you make out. He moves his hips with a pounding motion. Your breasts are pressed against the metal table, and the thin fabric of your blouse allows the cold to hit and erect your nipples. “I’m in the mood to fuck you right now, no foreplay”, he says, and slide down your pants and panties with just one hand. You are left completely exposed to him, your ass up, you are ready to be penetrated.

He lowers his zipper down and frees his hard member. Law plays with it over your ass, pinning you to the counter, threatening to fuck you rough there. You beg him “please, no no”. “Haha, I know I know babe, I’m not gonna hurt you”, he says laughing with his lips pressed against your ear.

You are more aroused than you should be, but also really worried some customers might enter, so for a second your mind focuses on hearing if someone is there. But suddenly you are brought back to the kitchen, when Law roughly, violently, and with a grunt, penetrates you. Fast thrusts, fast and deep thrusts, stretch your walls, and the tip of his dick hits exactly that perfect point.

“So wet and tight… babe…”, he gasps as he feels your sex pulse around his dick. You can help but whine and moan his name, as he hits over and over that spot inside you.

You suddenly hear the bell of the door announcing a new customer entering the store. Panicking, you whisper Law “Babe… someone… e-entered…”. Your voice cracking with every thrust. “So what? you want to show them?”, he tells you laughing and fucking you even harder.

“Is anyone here?”, a man asks from the store. “Fuck fuck fuck”, you think trying to cover your mouth not to be heard by the customer. But Law has other intentions… “I got an idea…”, he says and pulls from your hair, still without detaching from you, to make you stand up. “Go tell him, you’ll be right there”, he tells you, with a devil grin. “What?”, you ask him, how are you supposed to tell him, being half naked, and with Law’s dick still inside you. “B-but Law… stop it” you tell him, mortified. “What? Are you ashamed of being fucked at work? Go tell him, don’t show your body…”, he commands and pushes you softly to the door.

Your heart races, your cheeks are red with that sex glow, your hair is a mess, you are sweating. Picking through the kitchen entrance, you greet the customer, “Hey, S-Sir… I’ll be right t-…” Law thrusts you, deep. “Theeeere… in a se-cond”. You barely managed to tell the guy those words, your heart -and your core- is about to explode. You have spoken to a customer while being fucked behind the thin wall that separates the kitchen from the counter…

“Good girl”, says Law enjoying your suffering and turns you around. He lifts you up and sits you over the table where you normally knead bread for the cafeteria. He takes off his white coat covered in blood stains from his nose hemorrhage and takes off his pants. He crawls over you on the table and begin to fuck you so rough, and while he does it with one of his hand, he pinches one of your nipples and twist the hell out of it.

He bites your neck; you carve your nails over his back. You are getting there, and he is too. Flour flying everywhere, your breasts look like cakes ready to be baked. Law has baking powder all over his nose. Pounding you, calling you “MY little slut”. You try to hold your moans, but Law slaps your cheek, and you are now whining, and crying his name. You have forgotten any shame, the customer, the food, the cafeteria.

You are about to come when you hear your name being shouted in horror. “Y/N?!”, your manager is right there standing, witnessing your spectacle… “What the fuck? a customer is waiting for you there… and you are... FUCKING OVER THE FOOD?”.

Law looks at you and hopes off. “Tch, I hate bread, fucking flour”, he says while brushes the rest of the white material off his shirt. You are sitting there, with your whole ass over the table, covered in flour, a white mess, half naked. You are a shy person… yeah… until today. “I’m sorry, boss. I’m leaving my apron and imma head out”, you tell him. “Right”, says your manager, still without becoming aware of what has just happened and walks away excusing himself with the customer.

Law and you quickly get dressed, both look at each other and begin to laugh uncontrollably. Once you are ready to leave, you bite the inside of your cheeks just to avoid laughing in front of your now -ex boss-. And while you are heading out, Law stands next to the manager, puts a hand over his shoulder and tells him, “Just for the record, she IS mine”.

You both leave, and continue what you have started at home… 💖🔥

[kinkykinard]

Four Minutes - Epilogue

Fandom: 9-1-1. Pairing: Buddie. Word Count: 2212. Genre: angst. Rating: Teen+. Summary: Eddie has a choice to make after nearly losing Buck in the explosion.  Spoilers for 2x17 and 2x18. Warning(s): mentions of Buck’s injuries, minor medical details. Note: Back by popular demand, the thrilling conclusion to my first ever Buddie fic.  Beta’d by @starshiphufflebadger​.  AO3 link here.  Part 1 link here.

Four minutes was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

It had passed in the blink of an eye compared to what had followed, and as he sat beside Buck’s bed keeping silent vigil, Eddie was reminded of just how bad he was at waiting.  Perhaps more accurately, how bad he was at knowing when to stop waiting.  

He’d almost lost Buck earlier that night.  He’d watched the truck get thrown up into the air and consumed by flames, looked on as Buck was ejected from the cab only to be stopped before he could roll too far as the ladder pinned him at the ankle.  He’d heard the blast, Buck’s screaming, the exhausted whimpers of agony and the frighteningly quiet staccato of Buck’s tired heart as he’d assessed him afterward.  Eddie had tasted blood when his anxiety had threatened to overwhelm him and he’d bitten his cheek to stop the tears that stung his eyes.

Eddie had waited.  He’d waited for the rest of the team to arrive and accompany him into the hospital even though he’d wanted nothing more than to chase the trauma team through the sliding doors, to cling onto the stretcher and not let Buck out of his sight.  He’d waited for news from the OR, a cup of bitter, burnt coffee cooling in his hand as the ticking of the clock on the wall nearly drove him mad.  He’d waited, albeit feeling a little less wound up than he had before, after the surgeon had come to tell them Buck was going to pull through.  He’d waited as Buck woke up in recovery, alone, and was transferred to a private room for observation.  He’d waited as everyone else went in to see Buck, just for a moment, to wish him well until Buck was so tired out he fell into a deep sleep.

With everyone gone, Eddie made his way into Buck’s room.  The nurse that came by to check Buck’s vitals shortly after Eddie had settled into a chair next to Buck’s bed looked like she wanted to shoo him off, but for whatever reason she thought better of it and left him to his vigil.  He settled into the hard plastic chair next to the bed and knotted his fingers in his lap to quell the desperate urge to reach out and hold Buck’s hand.

As Buck slept, snoring softly, Eddie watched the saline in the IV bag over Buck’s bed drip slowly into the drip chamber, his mind far away.  He thought about the last time he’d waited on something and about how much it had cost him.  He’d waited for weeks to let Shannon back into Christopher’s life.  He’d pushed her away, compartmentalized his feelings, avoided the difficult conversations.  In the end, by the time he’d decided he was ready to face her, to face the future, she’d had enough of the waiting.  She’d moved on without him, or perhaps in spite of him.

And then she’d died right in front of him.

But it was different with Buck.  It was different, and it had the potential to wind up being far worse.  With Shannon, Eddie had gotten his feelings out, had left things in her hands, had tried, and while it hadn’t absolved him of all of the hurt he’d caused her in the past, it had given him some measure of closure.  With Buck, though, he hadn’t said a word.  He hadn’t even hinted that he had anything more than platonic feelings for him.  He’d never given himself the chance - given Buck the chance - to pursue anything.

And then Buck had nearly died right in front of him.

His PTSD reared its ugly head at the reminder; the thought that it was all happening again was a wake-up call that threatened to pitch him into a panic attack.  Eddie gritted his teeth, staring determinedly ahead, knowing that if he so much as blinked he would see Shannon’s lifeless body; of Buck’s body in her place.  He fought to keep his breathing steady, glancing up at the monitor screen over Buck’s bed to help himself focus.  It was hypnotizing watching the rhythmic dance of waveforms on Buck’s ECG as they appeared and disappeared again, and eventually Eddie felt himself settle a little bit.  

Buck was okay.  He had a long road to recovery ahead of him, but he was okay, and Eddie was determined to be there for him, to walk that path with him.  Eddie took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, turning his attention back to Buck.  Buck’s features were slack, his lips slightly parted as he slept off the anaesthetic.  He was breathing steadily and Eddie tried to breathe with him as a new and different but no less frightening set of emotions filled him.  

Eddie’s heart nearly stopped as Buck made a soft groaning noise.  He jumped to his feet, planting his hands on the railing beside Buck’s bed, waiting for him to wake up.  He wanted - needed - Buck to know he wasn’t alone.  Eddie hated how long he’d been forced to stand back before running in to help Buck back at the scene and he wasn’t going to let another moment go by with Buck feeling like there was no one there when he needed them.

Eddie waited tensely for a few moments, his gaze fixed on Buck, but nothing changed.  Buck was still asleep, clearly having made the noise unconsciously.  Eddie sagged, relieved that he could put off the conversation he needed to have for just a little bit longer.  He’d made up his mind, he was going to tell Buck, but it didn’t mean he was comfortable with the notion just yet.  He’d never been particularly good at being vulnerable, and opening himself up to anyone, even Buck, was terrifying.

After a few minutes passed without any change in Buck’s condition, Eddie sat back down, shifting the chair slightly so he was closer to the bed.  He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the bed rail, closing his eyes.  He was pleasantly surprised that instead of the horror show he was expecting to play out in his mind, there were some happy memories instead.  The first time he’d seen Buck laugh the day they’d pulled the live grenade charge out of a man’s leg.  It was the first time he’d seen Buck’s vulnerability, too.  Sure, he could feel it rolling off the guy in waves with how threatened he’d been by Eddie’s mere presence at first, but the look they’d exchanged just before Eddie had grasped the ordnance to remove it had spoken volumes.

“Eddie?”

Eddie’s head snapped up at the sound of his name on Buck’s lips.  He met the other man’s confused expression with a small smile, leaning in to help Buck focus through the morphine fog.

“Hey, welcome back,” Eddie said softly.  “How’re you feeling?”

“Fuzzy,” Buck replied, slurring slightly.

Eddie chuckled, reaching out before he could stop himself to fix the neckline of Buck’s gown where it had come undone and was sagging.  He thought it might’ve been his imagination, but he could have sworn Buck had relaxed back into the bed a fraction as Eddie’s fingers brushed his shoulder.  Emboldened by Buck’s apparent trust, Eddie reached for Buck’s hand, giving it a squeeze.  Buck smiled, his eyes drifting closed.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Buck murmured.

The words held so much meaning, but Eddie wasn’t ready to let himself hope that he was reading it correctly.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be more than here right now,” Eddie assured him.  “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry.”

Eddie shook his head, still floored by Buck’s selflessness even though it was already one of the things he loved most about the other man.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eddie chided him gently.  “It wasn’t your fault.  I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Buck blinked a couple of times to clear his vision, glancing down at his splinted leg.  He wiggled his toes, wincing as it caused pain to flare in his ankle.

“Mostly okay, anyway,” Buck amended.

As Buck turned to meet Eddie’s gaze, Eddie felt an uncomfortable swell in his vulnerability.  He was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to look away when the IV pump next to the bed sounded an alarm, startling both of them.  Taking the chance to break eye contact, Eddie let go of Buck’s hand and stood, popping open the infusion chamber on the pump and carefully tapping at a single small air bubble that had been obscuring the sensor.  The pump fell silent again and Eddie closed the chamber back up, deciding to stay standing because it made him feel a little less claustrophobic.

Hazarding a glance down, Eddie found Buck watching him.  Buck’s expression was thoughtful, calculating but blunted by the lingering cobwebs of the anaesthesia and pain medication.  Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie saw Buck’s hand come up; a sign for him to take it again.  Eddie chewed his lip for a moment before relenting and taking a seat again, reaching out once more for Buck’s hand.

“Are you okay?”  Buck asked.

Eddie shook his head, smiling a little incredulously.

“You had a ladder truck dropped on  your ankle a few hours ago and you’re asking if I’m okay,” he reiterated.

Buck shrugged, squeezing Eddie’s hand, stroking a thumb over the back of it.

“I can tell something’s on your mind,” Buck explained lightly.  “My leg may be broken, but my empathy still works.  What’s going on?”

Eddie set his jaw, glancing away for a moment again to strengthen his resolve.  He wasn’t sure he could look at Buck when he said it.  He didn’t think he could bear being face to face if Buck didn’t return his feelings.  Reflecting back on everything that had happened that night, though, he borrowed strength from Buck’s show of courage, will, and resilience.

“This, all of it, scared me so badly because I didn’t know if you were going to make it, and that I wouldn’t get the chance to tell you,” Eddie said in a rush, his words nearly garbled by his haste to say them before his determination dried up.  He hadn’t planned on leading with an outright confession when he finally found the courage to admit his feelings, but he’d been too shaken by nearly losing Buck to wait a moment longer or pussyfoot around.  “I love you.”

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the suddenly faster chirping of Buck’s heart monitor.  Eddie frowned, concerned by the new onset of tachycardia, his mind combing through possible causes for it - pain, pulmonary embolism, anaphylactic reaction to one of his medications.  Buck squeezed his hand again, insistently, and Eddie forced himself to look Buck in the eye.

“You served multiple tours in an active war zone, you rappel down cliffs, you run into burning buildings when everyone else is running out,” Buck said, a quiet incredulity weighing on his words.  “But you were afraid to tell me you love me?”

Eddie’s entire world nearly crashed down at that moment as Buck’s glaringly obvious failure to return the sentiment hung in the air between them.  His own heart rate skyrocketed and a strong feeling of fight-or-flight gripped him.  Buck’s soft, wordless noise of disbelief did nothing to help his nerves.

“Eddie,” Buck said so softly that Eddie thought he might crack.  “I love you, too.”

Eddie couldn’t hear anything over the rush of his own heartbeat in  his ears for a moment as Buck’s words registered.  It took him several long seconds to process what just happened and when he did, he could barely believe it.  

“Yeah?”  He asked, his voice reedy, strained.

Buck chuckled, propping himself on an elbow in an attempt to get closer to Eddie.

“Yeah,” he assured him emphatically.  “Yeah.”

The tears came then and Eddie had not been expecting them.  Relief wasn’t something he was used to crying over, but he hadn’t realized until that moment the enormity of the weight that had been on his shoulders as he’d carried those words unsaid around with him.  He laughed softly, almost slightly hysterically, and let out a long, shaky breath.

“Come here,” Buck said gently, patting the bed beside him.

Eddie didn’t need to be asked twice.  He stood, letting go of Buck’s hand just long enough to drop the bed rail before perching himself on the edge of the mattress.  Buck’s palm landed on his thigh, its weight warm and grounding, and Eddie covered it with a hand of his own.  They sat in a companionable silence for a while, Buck’s eyes fluttering closed as the exhaustion from the day’s events caught up with him and Eddie watching him closely, memorizing his face, the moment, replacing the fear and anxiety from earlier with something decidedly better.  

“Glad we had this talk,” Buck said thickly a while later, his head lolling as the morphine reared its head again.  

Eddie chuckled, reaching out to tuck Buck’s blankets in around him to keep him comfortable while he slept.  He reached up, brushing a loose curl away from Buck’s forehead, trailing his fingertips down Buck’s cheek, cupping his face gently.

“Me too.”

[thejolexgroupchat]

Would love to see a fic of prompt #57 !!! (“So stick that in your juice box and suck it.” ) I have no idea what it would be like but it just sounds fun ahaha

We absolutely LOVE the prompts you all sent us. This fic was written by Nina @doc-pickles and Leya @iamtrebleclefstories

Enjoy the first of many collaborative fics from The Group Chat!

the one with the juice box

It was an unusually hot May day in Seattle, meaning the ER was filled with heat stroke patients that kept everyone busy. Alex had been running back and forth from the peds floor to the ER all day, checking in on new patients while still maintaining his normal routine. To be honest, he was exhausted and all he wanted was to settle in for lunch with his wife. He hadn’t seen her since they’d walked in together almost four hours ago, which wasn’t unusual, but she usually popped by to see him at least once or twice. 

Clocking off for his lunch, Alex wandered down towards the main surgical floor in search of his wife. She’d seemed okay when they were getting ready for the day, extreme morning sickness turned to only an occasional swell of nausea now that she was in her second trimester. Still, Alex couldn’t help the worry for his wife that wound itself through his body. He knew that the pregnancy was taking a toll on her, both physically and emotionally, so, although he was sure she was going to be fine, he couldn't help but worry. 

After searching and finally asking a few nurses he’d passed, he found Jo laying on an empty gurney in one of the quieter hallways. She wasn’t asleep, just laying on her back and glaring at the ceiling with the most adorable angry pout Alex had ever seen. He smiled because the position she was lying in allowed him to see the tiniest curve of her stomach, so small and barely there that he was probably the only one who noticed.

He came up behind her and pressed a tender kiss on her forehead, “Hi.”

“Shut up,” Jo scowled.

“What?” Alex asked, a puzzled look on his face. “All I did was say hi. You can’t be mad at me for that.”

“I’m not mad because you said hi,” Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m mad at you because you did this to me. You knocked me up and now I can barely stand without feeling like I’m going to fall over.”

Alex wanted to laugh, honestly. But he knew if he did, he’d end up in the doghouse. Jo’s hormones had been a whirlwind lately. Most days, he teetered on the edge of saying something equally snarky back or just taking it in stride. Today, he decided to contain himself, “You’re not dizzy because you’re pregnant. Well, it’s not the only reason you’re dizzy. You’re dizzy because you’ve barely eaten anything all day. This morning when I made breakfast, you almost bit my head off for placing eggs in front of you, and proceeded to tell me how you couldn’t stand the smell and didn’t want to eat anything. I had to practically shove that piece of toast down your throat.”

“It’s still kind of your fault. Because if I weren’t pregnant, then I wouldn’t have weird food aversions that keep me from eating.” Jo pointed out. 

“As far as I remember, you’re the one who got us into this situation. You stopped taking your pills, and I told you that I didn’t have a condom but you said and I quote, ‘I don’t care. I’m naked and horny, stop stalling and just stick it in me.’ So really, you did this to yourself,” Alex shrugged.

“Whatever,” Jo glared at her husband. “What do you want?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to come eat lunch with me,” Alex asked sweetly, knowing if he won Jo over with his charm she might not realize he was just trying to get food into her over exerted body. 

“I honestly don’t know if I can even get up from this gurney,” Jo admitted, eyes moving up to meet Alex’s. He could see just from looking at her how much of a toll everything was taking on her. “I think I’m just gonna spend the next few months here, then I don’t have to move when I give birth.”

“I’ll carry you over there if I have to,” Alex offered, holding his hand out towards Jo. “Come on, I’ll help you up and hold your hand if you get dizzy.”

“Fine,” Jo huffed and held on to Alex as she let him help her off the gurney. 

They got to the cafeteria and Jo wrinkled her nose at the available options. Nothing looked appetizing, prompting her to grab an apple and banana and sit down at a table. Alex joined her a moment later, tray loaded with a burger, a sandwich, two bags of chips, and a fruit cup. He grabbed the burger and bit into it before fixing Jo with a pointed stare.

“Please for the love of god, force yourself to eat something besides an apple,” Alex pushed the tray towards Jo who glared at him. “If you don’t eat any of that, I’m putting you on my service so I can watch you all day and make sure you don’t pass out.”

“I’m not a resident anymore, you can force me on your service,” Jo pointed out, eyeing him warily.

“Dammit. That’s right. You’re a fellow,” Alex wrinkled his nose. “Well, good news is that I’m the chief, so technically I can have you follow me around all day.” 

Jo stared him down for a moment, Alex unfazed by his wife’s glare as he bit into his burger. Finally relenting, Jo grabbed a bag of chips and began to slowly eat them between bites of fruit. 

“You know I really hate you sometimes,” Jo mumbled as she took a final bite of the apple, a low groan escaping her as she did so. “Bailey would never abuse her power like this.”

“You didn’t know her when I was a resident,” Alex took another bite of his burger. “Are you sure you don’t want anything else? You can have some of my burger.”

“I’m sure,” Jo shook her head, a disgusted look crossing her face as she settled one hand onto her stomach. “Watching you eat is making me feel nauseous.”

Alex sighed, looking to Jo with a serious expression “This isn’t okay Jo. I can’t have you walking around the hospital alone without having eaten anything. You’re with me today, okay?”

“I don’t need to be babysat Alex, I can take care of myself,” Jo whined, crossing her arms across her chest like an angry toddler. “You don’t need to watch me 24/7.”

“You fell asleep on our bathroom floor yesterday after puking for 30 minutes. How about this,” Alex leaned in towards his wife with a small grin. “Shepherd and I have a Peds case together, you can come and help us so it doesn’t feel like I’m just dragging you around to make sure you don’t pass out in a storage closet.”

Jo eyed Alex warily, he was almost certain she was going to fight him on it, but he wore his ‘I’m the Chief don't test me right now’ expression well enough that she finally conceded. 

“Ugh… fine,” Jo groaned, standing and reaching for Alex’s hand. “Bailey’s out today anyway, so it’s not like I have anything better to do. But this is a one time thing!”

Alex joined Jo, one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder as they headed towards the elevators. 

“That’s the spirit, your enthusiasm is appreciated,” Alex chuckled as they made their way to the Peds ward. “If you keep eating and stop feeling like shit, maybe I’ll let you do more things on your own.”

Alex led Jo into a patient room, Helm and Shepherd already speaking with a young girl and her mom. Amelia was explaining the procedure to them, so Alex and Jo hung back by the door until they’d finished. 

“I brought you something,” Alex whispered, handing a box of apple juice to Jo. “Figured you can keep your electrolytes up.”

Jo rolled her eyes as she snatched the juice box from Alex, sticking it in the pocket of her lab coat. "You're a pain in the ass. Stop hovering."

“Geez, Jo. Why are you so grumpy? I'm supposed to be the grumpy one,” Alex tried joking in hopes of lightening the mood. "You're the nice one in this relationship. "

“Did you forget that I'm literally carrying your genes right now?" Jo stared her husband down. "I am part Alex Karev at this moment and will continue to be for the next five and a half months, so you better get used to this.” 

Alex narrowed his eyes at her and reached for the juice box in her pocket. He removed the straw from the plastic and handed both items back to his wife, "Whatever. You can be mean and grumpy all you want, but you're carrying our kid and they need nutrients. So, stick that in your juice box and suck it."

Jo glared at Alex as she stuck the straw in the juice box. She was about to open her mouth in response when her smart remark was interrupted by Amelia calling Alex over to speak to the mom.

“Gracie and Delilah, this is Doctor Karev. He’s the best pediatric surgeon we have and he’s going to help me fix you up Gracie,” Amelia turned from Gracie to her mom. “Seriously this guy is a miracle worker, you’re lucky I convinced him to come consult.”

Alex pulled Delilah aside, explaining in more detail exactly what Gracie’s treatment plan would look like. He could tell she was worried, but hoped that he and Amelia could keep her nerves at bay. 

“Any other questions before we start doing labs?”

“Well just one,” Delilah blushed, eyelashes batting against her cheeks as she looked up to Alex. “Would it be inappropriate for me to ask for your number?”

Now, it’s not like Alex had never been hit on at work before. He had been, plenty of times, especially being a peds surgeon that dealt with scared moms daily. But since he’d been preoccupied with his Chief duties, lately he hadn’t spent enough time alone with moms to have them hit on him. Not to mention it was the first time Alex had experienced this since he’d gotten married. He also didn’t expect for his wife to be standing on the opposite side of the room when it happened.

So for that very reason, Alex blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, “I’m sleeping with her.”

Delilah looked stunned and a bit confused, scrunching her face as she looked to the doctors behind them, “Which one?”

Alex looked around the room and saw Jo standing with Amelia and Helm talking to Gracie. Jo clinked her juice box against Gracie’s and took a giant slurp. Alex turned back around to Delilah and motioned to Jo, “The one with the juice box.”

“Oh,” Delilah nodded, a strange expression on her face.

“Yeah,” Alex laughed awkwardly, his hand coming up to rub against his neck. “That’s my wife. My pregnant wife, sharing a juice box with your kid. Who I’m about to operate on.”

Alex and Delilah stood in an awkward silence that was only broken by Amelia announcing that Helm was going to run labs for Gracie before they prepped her for surgery. Alex quickly said his goodbyes to Gracie and Delilah, grabbing Jo’s arm pulling her out of the hospital room. 

“Geez you’re eager to get out of there,” Jo joked, sipping off her juice box as they walked down the hall. “What’s up with you?”

“She hit on me,” Alex blurted out, turning to Jo with a shocked expression. “Gracie’s mom hit on me.”

There was a beat of silence between the two before Jo burst into laughter, holding a hand to her chest as she tried to contain the giggles coming from her mouth. Jo wiped a few tears from her eyes, "What did you say? Please tell me you froze like an idiot."

Alex ran a hand over his face in hopes of disguising his embarrassment, "I told her I was sleeping with the one drinking the juice box." 

"Oh God… Alex," Jo's laughter started up again. She laughed in between her words. "Out of everything... that's what you said? Did you at least say that we're married. I don't need patients thinking I'm servicing the Chief." 

"Of course. I'm not that much of an idiot," Alex sighed. "I don't need patients thinking that the Chief of Surgery is a man-whore."

"He used to be," Jo muttered under her breath, nudging Alex with a smirk.

"Shut up," Alex stuck his tongue out, deciding to mess with Jo a bit. "I haven't been like that in years. You know that you're the only person I've slept with in the past six years? You can't exactly say the same."

"Hey!" Jo gasped and slapped Alex on the shoulder. "I thought we agreed to forget about that. Me sleeping with Schmidt was a momentary lapse in judgement. And I only did it because I was trying to get over you."

"Well, would you look at how that worked out," Alex poked her small bump lightly. "You ended up with me anyway."

"I know," Jo groaned. "And now I have to put up with you for the rest of my life."

"You love me," Alex bent down and gave Jo a quick peck on the lips. "Come on, we've got like forty-five minutes before we've got to meet Shepherd in the OR and I'm going to try to force a granola bar or something down your throat."

"We've got forty-five minutes free and all you want to do is make sure I eat something?" Jo shook her head in disappointment. "Gosh, being Chief has really mellowed you out. Who are you and what have you done with Alex Karev?"

"Huh?" Alex looked at her in confusion. "What did you want to do with your free time?"

"Alex, come on. You can't be that clueless," Jo looked at him expectantly. Seeing that he wasn't going to catch on anytime soon, she decided to spell it out for him. "Dude. I'm fifteen weeks pregnant and my hormones are raging right now,"

A look of realization finally crossed Alex's face, "Oh… Oh! You wanna?"

"Yup," Jo nodded and looked at him with an expression that could only be described as hungrily. 

"I could be into that," Alex whispered. "Let's get out of here before someone sees me and decides that they need the Chief."

[lochrannn]

AU_gust: Anatomy of a Heart

Read on AO3

CW: Blood and Injury

prompt no 19: Hospital (joker + taken from 2020 list)

Relationship: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts

Characters: Lila Pitts, Diego Hargreeves

-

“Dr Gill to emergency ER” filters in through the closed door over the tannoy system and Lila’s pulse immediately speeds up a bit.

“Uhm, mum, sorry, but I’ve got to go, they just called for me. You tell Dad I said hi when he gets up, yeah? Ok, love you! Bye!” she finishes her call with her mother back in London quickly.

Sometimes, when Lila has a night shift but is too wound up to sleep, she’ll ring her mum back home, who’ll either just be coming back from the flower wholesale market by the docks or be in the process of opening the shop. That’s how it works, her mum opens up in the morning and her dad closes the shop at night. Lila misses them so much! Even though it was a lot of work, when she was still at uni she really enjoyed helping them out. It was always the three of them.

Now she is all on her own on a different continent. What was she thinking when she took this residency?

She arrives at the ER and is told to scrub up as they are prepping for emergency surgery on a gunshot victim.

When they wheel him in, Lila realises that being shot is not the only thing he’s a victim of, though admittedly, currently probably the biggest threat to his life.

There are multiple lacerations all over his body, probably from a knife, and bruising covering about half his torso. The paramedics have already cut away whatever he was wearing because there are three bullet holes oozing blood slowly. Two in his chest and one in his gut.

It doesn’t look good for him.

Lila tries not to look at his face, tries to not think of him as a person but rather a body that they will do anything to fix but they all know they're working against the odds.

But when he crashes on the table the first of three times before they close him up again, she does catch a glimpse of his face and sees, beside the bruising, a long scar at the side of his head, reaching from the top of his cheek along the fade of his hair all the way to behind his ear.

Some gangster then. Doesn’t make Lila feel any less sorry for him.

She doesn’t believe in miracles, but it is very much against any likelihood that he survives the surgery and is wheeled out of the ER.

There’s no conversation as the nurses start tidying up around them and Lila takes a morbidly fascinated look at the amount of blood that is splattered on the floor and the PPE she is wearing.

They all know they did good, but whether he survives the night or the next couple of days is up to him now.

After her shift ends and before she leaves just before midday, she can’t stop herself from looking in on him.

He is in intensive care, machines beeping away, all sorts of tubes sticking out of him, draining blood, filling him back up with that of strangers and medication.

Lila looks at his face again and now that he’s relaxed and she hasn’t got her hand on one of his arteries, assisting with the suture, she notices that he’s actually quite handsome. He has dark features, like her. She can tell despite the fact that the blood loss has made him decidedly pale. Full lips, strong jaw.

She wonders if anyone’s called his mum yet.

Then she turns around and leaves.

-

He doesn’t wake up for a couple more days.

One time a detective was there when Lila was picking up a medical file from the nurses desk just near his room.

Lila wouldn’t have recognised her as a police officer, tidy pants suit, understated make-up on a very pretty face, she looked more like a lawyer or something, but she was wearing a brass badge on a chain around her neck.

Lila was surprised because she didn’t think they called the cops on victims of violence, even if they did look a little suspicious, so she listened in when one of the nurses walked over to the detective who hadn’t actually entered his room yet and asked, “So is he a criminal?”

“He’s an idiot, is what he is,” the detective answered with a sigh, and Lila thought she might detect some fondness.

“Is he a cop then?” the nurse tried again.

“Pff, he wishes!” the detective half laughed, and Lila relaxed a bit, because whoever the guy was, this detective was clearly not here to arrest him. She must have been a friend.

-

And then he’s awake.

She walks into his room with the other residents and he’s just sitting there with a bit of a scowl but deep brown eyes completely clear. He must have the constitution of an ox.

And then Lila nearly mentally slaps herself when her attention drifts from the head surgeon’s droning voice to their patient’s muscular bare chest, that’s only partially covered by wound dressings.

What is wrong with her? It’s like she’s obsessed with him.

-

The next day, she accepts this fact and walks straight into his room after her shift ends and interrupts him in the middle of eating his terrible hospital jell-o.

“So, what happened to you?” Lila asks brashly.

“I got shot,” he says back in a remarkably even tone.

“Yeah, I know that, dumbass, I helped take out the bullets!” she shoots back and feels just a little insane for insulting one of her patients for absolutely no good reason. But his lip just quirks up a bit as if he’s intrigued.

She grabs his second cup of jell-o off the little table across his knees and says sternly, “I’ll give it back if you tell me what happened!” at the same time as he says, “Hey!”

He scowls at her while she wanders to the end of his bed to pull the medical file out of the little rack and looks over it.

His name is now at the top. Diego Hargreeves. Somehow that rings a very distant bell, but Lila can’t place it.

Diego huffs and says, “Hey listen, what I do isn’t exactly legal, so I can’t really talk about it, ok?”

“So you’re a criminal?” Lila replies and is very confused at the fact that that neither surprises her nor does it make her feel any less interested in him.

“According to the law maybe…” he shrugs but gives no further explanation.

Lila is even more intrigued.

“What could you possibly be doing that you think the law is wrong to call a crime?” she tries not to laugh at this because it seems like the dumbest conversation she’s had in a while.

“Saving lives, baby!” he drawls and Lila wants to get annoyed at his smug expression, but instead she’s distracted by the way her heart skips a beat at the casual endearment.

Yeah… really, what the fuck is wrong with her?

She really has to leave or she thinks she might say something increadibly stupid. So she sets the plastic jell-o cup back on his table, he did kind of answer her question after all.

Then she pivots on her heels and makes her way towards the door but just at the threshold he calls out to her, “Hey doc!” and she stops, not turning around.

“You gonna come visit me again tomorrow?”

She schools her features and throws a bored expression over her shoulder at him and doesn’t miss the way he smiles at her, genuinely warm and really fucking cute, and she leaves.

God help her but she definitely will.

[alexthepartyman]

Fine Line

I’m hoping.

“Fuck you, I’m not the tie-dye king!” I proclaim, pulling my knee up to my chest.

“Says the boy wearing tie-dye,” Lilly jokes, stretching her shoulders across her chest. “When are you coming back full time?”

“After Thanksgiving Break. I think I’m fine. Hey, is Connor doing okay?” 

“Yeah. You think we’ll be on the same team?”

“Well, we gotta figure out how they’re choosing.” I bend down, touching the floor with my fingertips. “If it’s birth month again, we should be good...oh, shit, it’s hockey.” My smile grows as Mr Hubert sets out the hockey nets. 

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Jasmine adds. “And you got Edmonton, nice. Ooh, it’s Gretzky, too.” 

“You know I only worship gods,” I joke. “And Oveckhin is not a god.” 

“You don’t ever wear Caps.”

“Well, yeah, the Caps are bullshit, only teams I hate more are the Penguins, the Flyers, the Flames, and the Rangers. I better get ahold of Pedro and make sure I’m a centre.” 

“Yo, Gretzky, it’s middle school, not the Stanley cup,” Jasmine jokes. 

“Oh, you got jokes?” I tease. “You got jokes, Aetos?” 

“You three! Team up! Seventh vs eighth!

“Later, dude. Try to not get your ass kicked. Vaqueros, we got this,” I say as we head over to the hockey stick pin, pulling out two plastic sticks and taking a centre spot. 

“This isn’t real hockey, Gretzky. This is a shitty gym floor.” 

“You should really see what shit is,” I retort. We start the game, I slam the puck across the floor and run after it, immediately ramming into someone to hit the puck towards the goal. We run around the gym, and I see the puck going towards our goal. Shit! Defense won’t get that! I easily pivot and dash over, slamming my side into the wall as I swing my stick, sending the puck away. I feel the reverberation through my body, but I just shake it off. Can’t be that bad. Can’t be that bad. I’m good. I’m good. I make my way to the other side of the gym as the puck slides my direction. Pedro runs towards the puck, and we swing, our sticks smashing up against each other as my body collides with his, before I end up on the floor with an aching head. Ow, fuck! Fuck! Oh, god. Oh, god. I just did it again. Did I just get another concussion? Who’s the president? What month is it? Uh, uh, uh, shit. Shit, shit. Shit. That...that’s hot. Is that the sun? I open my eyes immediately shut them again, the feeling in my back slowly returns to me. Jesus, that light hurts. I am staring into the...no...that’s not the sun...I...I’m in a gym...yeah...how did I get down here?  I pull myself up onto my feet, using the stick as a support, as well as Pedro helping me up. 

“You good?”

“Yeah,” I grimace, my hands on my knees. “Just, give me...just give me a minute…” I bend back up, before my knees buckle underneath me, and my eyes roll into my skull.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I grimace as the pain returns, I can’t pinpoint where it is.

“Oh, hey, he’s back. Hey, Jamie. You wanna tell us what happened?” Someone asks from above me. I weakly reach for my ears, my eyes, my eyes burn, I gasp for air, my mouth not moving. Pedro! Pedro! Pedro! Pedro...was it Pedro? Dark skin...dark skin…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Rossi, breathe. How far away are they?” 

“Five minutes. Jamie, it’s Mrs Sykkuno, no, no. Don’t hit yourself, you’re already hurt pretty bad.” 

“How did you two not notice?” A gentle hand grabs my arm and rotates it away from my head. 

“He’s in here. We didn’t move him. We called his family, one of his guardians will meet you there, an SSA Aaron Hotchner.”

“Daddy…” I whisper. 

“Do we know what happened?”

“No, he was unconscious.” 

“For how long?”

“Twenty-ish minutes.” Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes?! I could have sworn I sat for like three seconds. 

“Mu...mu-mu-mu…” I struggle to speak. 

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay. My name is Michelle, we’re gonna take care of you. It looks like you got hit pretty bad, do you remember what happened?”

“...fell...crashed...someone...”

“It’s okay, it’s okay….no...Jamie…” Her voice fades away again into the midst of the ringing. “Jamie, stay with me. Get him on the stretcher now. Are there any drug allergies we should know about? Don’t move your head.” I feel something rigid and tight become attached to my neck. “Are you on any medications?”

“Yeah, Nurse Thatcher has his list.” 

“Are there any conditions we should know about?”

“I think I should escort him. We called his father and Aaron…” I let out a whine, slowly moving my fingers. 

“That’s good, that’s good. We’re gonna load him up right now. I need you to hold his neck straight and keep his spine aligned.” I whine as someone places their hands on my neck, on my back. “This is going to hurt a lot, Jamie, and I’m sorry…” I harshly gasp for air as something gets placed on my face. “It’s okay, it’s okay, we need you to stay calm.” My eyelids fly open, and I stare into the white oblivion, before letting every muscle fall limp again. Help me. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stir awake to the sound of repeated beeping and hushed voices, something rubbing against my face, a hand holding mine. “His hand’s so small,” a man heartily chuckles. “Jason, should we be bringing him out into the field with us? He’s just a baby.” 

“He’s fourteen, Hotch, and you know he’s intensely interested in what we do.”

“It’s not safe out there. Elle and Reid were nearly shot a couple of days ago.”

“He doesn’t go far with us, anyways. This wasn’t our fault, Hotch. This is like when he was eight, and he got that concussion from football, or when he got kicked in the head, or when he took that football to the head...god, how many concussions has he had?” I slowly blink my eyes, leaving them closed, and weakly turning my head towards Aaron’s voice.

“Hey, Jamie, how was your nap?” Aaron asks me. “We’re glad you’re back.”

“I got here as soon as I could. He’s awake?” I hear Dad ask from across the room. 

“Aa...y…” I softly whine, feeling the familiar coarseness of Dad’s hands on my skin.

“Hey, mio caro ragazzo. How are you doing?” He gently asks. “Jason, go get Jenny and the doctor. Did you get hurt again, JJ? Huh?” Dad coos, gently stroking my scalp. “You can tell me what happened to him, Aaron. I’m his father.”

“We haven’t gotten anything yet. The principal rode with him to keep an eye on him, but I haven’t seen him since, he said he’d come back after the school day ends with any new knowledge of what happened.”

“You should go home, Aaron.” I hear a female voice say.

“You’re right, Jen. I’ll be back in the morning before work.” Aaron says. I slowly blink my eyes open, seeing little lights sparkling in the dark room. “Hey, there. You’re awake. I was about to go home to Haley and Jack.” He smiles down at me, gently rubbing my head. “I’m gonna go home now, Mr Johnson should be by soon to check on you. He rode along with you in the ambulance.”

“Woo-woo?” I ask. 

“Yeah, the woo-woo,” Dad replies. I look over to him, his brown eyes gently smiling down at me. 

“Aaa...aaadd...addy…” I whine. 

“Ssshh, it’s okay.” I turn my head back over to Jenny as she takes my vitals. “Jenny, how are you and the baby?”

“We’re good, good, everything is fine. How are you doing?” Bright light, bright light, bright light. “Do you know where you re right now?” I quickly sign ‘yes’ and spell out ‘h-o’ before I trail off, trying to think of the next letter. 

“I’d be better if my son wasn’t lying in a hospital bed with no idea what happened to him.”

“Of course. His vitals are good for right now, we’re gonna do some more testing, and then the neurosurgeon will come in and discuss what he thinks should be done now.” Neurosurgeon? “My shift ends at seven, so I will be available until then. I will call Aaron and tell him to get his ass down here, I’m sure he’ll tell the rest of the family. I’m going to write down a list of the entire team assigned to him so you guys have it, so you won’t worry about anybody not knowing his history and his conditions, and the team will know that only you guys, his school team, his family, and his therapists will have access to him.” 

“Thank you, Jenny.”

“Of course. You guys are family. Are you still awake, huh? Are you still awake, Jamie?” Jenny asks, and I open my eyes again and give her a goofy smile. “You’re such a brave boy, yes, you are. Yes, you are. Haley and Jack came by earlier, and so your blanket and turtle are here. Do you know what happened to you?” I close my eyes and try to think, prompting a headache very quickly. “You were hit in the head very badly, Jamie, and it’s okay if you don’t remember.” 

“Seepy...seepy...seepy…” 

“I know, ragazzo, I know. You’ll get to go back to sleep soon, I promise.” 

“But I’m afraid that’s not right now. You’re back again, Jamie, and you’ve done worse this time.” A man says. “Mr Rossi, I thought we were taking it easy.”

“Another school accident. Nobody knows what happened this time. He hasn’t been able to respond much.” 

“He woke back up in the ambulance and then he fell asleep again in the middle of the CT scans. He broke his nose pretty good, along with some facial bones. We just did what we could with our team until the specialist we called gets here from Los Angeles. He’s an amazing plastic surgeon, don’t worry. We just want to make sure Jamie’s face is fixed properly, you get me?”

“Yeah, I get you.” I let my eyes close, and a finger ghosts over my nose and face. 

“The fracture is mostly the nose, but it does span the cheeks, and I worry about the eyes. There were also breaks in the forehead, and as you can see, I’m not actually touching his face, I don’t think he would like it, and it might make this situation worse. The most significant injuries were the nose, and the back of the skull. As you can see, we took out some of the skull to drain out his brain, there was a lot of blood and fluid, and we don’t like blood and fluid floating around in the brain, that is not good.” The doctor says. “We’re leaving a drain in there in case there is more, but we put the skull back.”

“I agree with everything you’re doing, Doctor. I have heard that the school principal, Mr Johnson, is coming by, he’s investigating what happened. How much blood was lost?”

“More than what we would have liked, we have been doing transfusions. We can get a nurse in here so you don’t have to leave him while prepping a bag of blood for him. Of course, we will instate the highest level of security we can for him, and the entire team has been briefed on how to properly handle Jamie, but I will do it again if you feel it is necessary. It also helps that Jenny is here. Call for me when Mr Johnson arrives, I want to discuss with him how to prevent this from happening again and what the school can do for him when he returns...oh...oh...don’t touch your face…” the doctor says, gently pulling my hand away from my face.

“We’re doing what we can, Dave. He’ll be alright.” 

“Gonna wrap him in bubble wrap, just like his brothers,” I hear Dad retort, and I whine at him. “Yes, bubble wrap. You and your brothers, Aaron and Eddie, you three need bubble wrap.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Jenny laughs. “I’m gonna need so much bubble wrap to deal with him and the baby.” 

“Ba….ba...ba...ba...by?” I ask.

“Yeah. Your brother and I are going to have a baby. And they’re gonna be a menace if they’re anything like him and you.” 

“Aaa...aaddy…”

“Mr Johnson, hello. I just saw you last month at the parent teacher conferences.” 

“Yes, yes, yes. Tight ship you guys run here. Doctor Sinclair, Mrs Wallace.” 

“Mr Johnson, hello. Do you know what happened?”

“I brought along a student who may know what happened, and Jamie’s friends have been dying to see him. Mr Meza, please be careful. This is Pedro, he was in the gym when Jamie was hit.” A bright light floods my eyes again, dark skin in front of me. 

“No, no, no, no, no, no, Jamie. Jamie, stay down.” Dad says, pushing me back down. I force my eyes open and cry out. 

“Eeeeh...ehhh...ehhh...ehh…” 

“Pedro, I...I...I advised he shouldn’t come, I’m sorry. He was really concerned.”

“It was an accident. I didn’t see Jamie approaching me - or…” I give him a big smile. “He’s not mad?” I’m trying to piece together what happened...did he hit me? 

“I’m sure he’ll understand you didn’t mean it. Here, here, come say hi.” My hand weakly shoots to the side as Dad pulls away. “I’m here, just someone coming to say hello. Here, Pedro, take his hand, it’s okay. He’ll squeeze as tight as he can. Jamie, someone from school came to visit you. His name is Pedro, he’s in some of your classes.” An unfamiliar touch hesitantly arrives, and I cling on as well as I can. 

“Hi, Jamie. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, I should have seen you there, and I shouldn’t have left you like that.” 

“I….I….wha…”

“Does he remember what happened?” 

“He said he fell and crashed into someone.”

“He crashed into me, trying to get the puck away from me, and I...he told me to give him a minute, but I didn’t see the blood until he fell. I’m sorry, sir, truly, I am.”

“It’s okay, Pedro. Accidents happen. He’s going to be okay, he’s a fighter.” I squeeze Pedro’s hand before letting go, his hand slowly leaves mine, Dad’s hand returns. 

“I’m gonna go, now. I should head home. Thank you, for letting me see him.”

“Of course. Agent Greenaway will escort you out and take you home. You’re not in trouble, Pedro, it was an accident.” The room falls silent for a few moments.

“You can go back to sleep, we’ll wake you up when Dr Nassif gets here.” 

“Saaayyyyy….ssaay…” I whine, reaching for Dad.

“Of course. I wouldn’t leave you. Ti amo così tanto, Jamie.” 

“Tiiii….ammooo…” I smile, letting myself fall limp. 

“He’s not sleeping.” 

“How can you tell?” Mr Johnson asks.

“Half of my grey hairs are watching him sleep in hospital beds, praying he’d make it through the night. His breathing pattern hasn’t changed yet, and he doesn’t sleep without music.” I feel my blanket being adjusted and my turtle being placed in my arms. “Nor does he sleep without his blanket and turtle.” Dad gently kisses a part of my head that isn’t damaged. “He’s a special boy, Tom.” 

“Of course. He’s fourteen?” 

“Surely, you know autistic kids are vastly different.”

“Of course. Mrs Sykkuno should be on her way in, she stopped to talk to Jamie’s friends in the waiting room.” 

“His friends are here? Why didn’t they go straight home?”

“I don’t know. Dr Roman had Lilly and Jasmine all day, they were in no condition to go on with the day. Rumours flew, and we ended up having a bunch of inconsolable kids.” 

“Send them home.” 

“Of course.”

“Oh, is he okay?” I hear another voice enter the conversation.

“He’s surviving. Mrs Sykkuno, I presume?”

“Yes. You guys run a tight ship here.”

“This is a military hospital. Jenny, would you please go inform Jamie Rossi’s friends that they should head home, and then go do your rounds?” 

“Yes, of course. Mrs Sykkuno, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Jen Wallace, Jamie’s lead nurse.” 

“Oh, please call me Charlotte, you all can.” I smile at her voice, she always sounds so happy and lovely. “Agent Rossi, these are from some of the Special Ed students at the school. They really love him.” 

“Of course. Thank you, I’m sure Jamie will love these. He’s doing okay, tell the kids he’ll make it out of this.”

“If there is anything we can do, you just let us know.” 

“Thank you. This is Dr Sinclair, he is the head neurosurgeon here at Walter Reed.” 

“I was just telling Agent Rossi about the injuries Jamie has sustained. There is a very complicated facial fracture spanning across his face, but it is mostly his nose and his skull. I would pay attention to his eyes, the area of his brain where he took the most impact is the lobe in the back of the brain, where all the vision is processed…”

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Goretober (Day 4)

Prompt: Smile

Fandom: Winx Club

Characters: Mirta, Lucy, & Icy

Song Rec: Ween - Mutilated Lips

Summary: Chasing an urban legend, Mirta and Lucy visit a former cosmetic surgery clinic.

She didn’t exactly have the facial structure of a witch. None of her people did. The inhabitants of Dyamond, when it was still teeming with life, had classically fairy faces. Wide eyes and soft noses. Rounded chins and less prominent cheekbones. She supposed that it made sense considering that most of them chose to take up light magic. 

Icy was an anomaly in that regard, having an affinity for the dark. She had no use for the cuter, more delicate features that her people were known for. 

She has had work done before, an operation to give her nose a slight point. And she planned on doing the same with her chin. By the time she was finished, she would have sharper cheekbones as well. Overall, she was going for a more strikingly wicked look. Something like what Griffin had, but with a more beautiful edge. 

She glanced at the time, having another ten minutes before her operation, she scrolled through her texts, none of which were particularly fascinating. The ice witch drummed her fingers upon the armrest. 

She watched a few people with rather unfortunate facial structures step up to the counter and request consultation sessions. At least Icy could say that she wasn’t hideous upon her first entry, she was simply seeking out a more edgy sort of beauty. 

They called her into the room. “Don’t pay any mind to these.” The surgone motioned to pointed tools that line the tables. She had come to realize that, that was her standard greeting. They hadn’t intimidated her the first time she laid eyes upon them. 

Normally, she’d snap with a harsh, “let’s just get to the surgery.” But she thought it unwise to provoke the woman about to work on her face. 

Icy laid herself across the operating table, staring up at the dim and familiar lights. She could hear them humming faintly. Annoyingly. 

The woman fixed a mask over her face. Icy knew the procedure. Breathe in and count to ten, she thought before the surgeon said it. She inhaled and began the count. She didn’t look forward to waking up with bandages around her face, she supposed that it was a small price to pay in the grander scheme of things though. 

Her awakening was much different this time. For one thing, she was still in the operating room. For another, there was a searing pain central to her mouth. She parted it to grumble a, “what the fuck”, but the pain took on a new level of intensity. She almost fell back under. 

She heaved herself up. 

She saw her surgeon sitting at the opposite corner of the room sporting a grotesque grin. It took Icy a moment to register that the woman’s lips were puffy and stretched almost impossibly. They only stretched further when the woman’s smile widened. 

.oOo.

Lucy held up the old newspaper clippings. A chill ran down Mirta’s spine as she read the headline; Plastic Surgeon Murders Coworkers and Mutilates Clients. “I don’t want to read this, Lucy.” She wasn’t sure that she could stomach the details. Lucy, being Lucy, made a point of slowly reading it aloud. A grizzly piece about a surgeon who grew tired of dealing with bitchy clients. She snapped on a fine September day; slitting the throats of her coworkers and botching the surgeries they were in the middle of performing. Mostly, she focused on the mouths, injecting them with obscene amounts of botox or slashing the person a larger smile. To those that she resented the most, she did both.

“Okay, Luce.” Mirta cut in. But Lucy continued, “according to the article, she had one paitent that she hated the most. She saved her for last.” 

Mirta watched her skim the article. 

“Gave her the injections and the slashing. But apparently she gave the woman an unwanted and botched facelift too.” Lucy burst out laughing which had Mirta cringing more violently. 

“How can you laugh at that?” 

“Because it’s like five years old, who cares?” Lucy shrugged. “They shut the place down.”

“So?”

“So, it’s been abandoned for years.” When Mirta didn’t respond Lucy added, “don’t you want to know why?”

“Because what happened was gory and unethical and no one would want to be in a building that a massacre took place in?” Mirta guessed. 

“Correct! Almost.”

Mirta tilted her head. 

“We want to be in there, dumbass.” She gave Mirta a thump on the shoulder. 

“Maybe you do.” Mirta shuddered. 

“Come on. You are the one who said that you wanted to visit a haunted place.”

It was an activity she was beginning to rethink.

“The nurse mutilated her own lips too.” Lucy declared. “They say that she still haunts the place alongside a few of her victims.”

“Great, that’s nice, Lucy.” Mirta pretended to get herself invested with hex homework. Though she knew that she’d be finishing it in the lobby of a cosmetic surgery facility. 

.oOo.

“Come on, before we get caught.” Lucy hissed from the other side of the fence. “Be careful, there are barbs at the top. 

She could see thin lines of blood on Lucy’s palm, furthering her own hesitance. Eventually, with a deep breath, she was climbing over the fence, landing gracelessly when her skirt snagged on one of the barbs. She brushed her knees off and followed Lucy into the decaying building. 

Only five years into neglect and it was already host to a plethora of ivys and weeds. There was a musty smell clinging to the place, with an uninviting tang of disinfectants. Lucy peeled a few boards from the door and ducked under. 

Mirta clicked on her flashlight before making her own entry. The lobby was surprisingly clean, almost ordinary looking save for a single red splotch on the corner of the main counter. Lucy busied herself digging through the draws. She busted out laughing. “Carrie Glenn popped her tit implants and had to come in for new ones.” She slapped the file down. “This happened every other month!” Her voice dropped lower, “legend has it she still returns to this very clinic trying to fix that same boob.” 

“Lucy, that’s just stupid.” 

“Why are you laughing then?” 

“Because it’s so stupid.” Mirta insisted. She jumped at the sound of a metallic clatter. She whipped her head in its direction and then back to Lucy, eyes wide. Her friend only shrugged. 

“I think that we should…”

“Go back to the dorms?” 

“Check it out.” Lucy corrected. She didn’t leave much room for protest in walking down the dark hall. 

“At least turn your flashlight on!” Mirta called. There was no way that she was going to investigate. Not even a teeny chance. Especially if the sound had come from the room that she thought it did. 

She tapped her foot nervously on the tiles, she almost hated being alone as much as the idea of getting anywhere near the surgeon's death room. She began to pace. Eventually she had enough of the silence and called for Lucy. 

No answer. 

She tried again.

No answer. 

Her stomach knotted. “Come on, Lucy.” She mumbled to herself. She found herself going rigid and at first she couldn’t place why. The sound was faint, a rustling of papers. She didn’t want to turn around. But she did, hoping that she simply hadn’t noticed Lucy slipping back behind the desk. 

Instead, her eyes fell upon a tall  woman with long white hair. Her blue eyes were both stunning and piercing. She would have been gorgeous were it not for the unnatural swelling of her lips and the fountain of blood that streamed from them and onto her collar. 

Mirta jolted back, scrambling away until her back hit the opposite wall. She didn’t like the sound of the woman’s laugh. Mirta squeezed her eyes shut. Why was it she who was dealing with the crazy surgone, it was Lucy who had sought her out.

She felt cold fingers cupping her chin and tilting her head up. She closed her eyes harder. 

“Look at me.” The woman demanded. 

Mirta tried to shake her head. The woman didn’t command twice. She didn’t have to, Mirta opened them on her own and when she did she noticed that the skin on the woman’s face seemed to be stretched all too tightly over her skull. 

Some of the tension left Mirta’s body, it wasn’t the surgone that she was dealing with after all. 

“You should go.” 

“But I can’t leave Lucy.” 

The woman dropped her and fell back. It was hard for Mirta to keep her eyes from trailing to the woman’s mutilated mouth.

“I take it that you want one of these.” She pointed at her lips. The corner of her mouth tugged upwards as much as the swelling would allow.

Mirta shook her head.

The ghost opened her mouth but a loud clang and a shout fill the silence before she could. She looked towards the dark hall and then back at Mirta. Without another word, she faded. A deeper chill resonated from Mirta’s core. 

“Lucy?” She called meekly. “Luce?” 

She heard the rustle of fabric. Something shifting in the shadows. Mirta backed towards the door, prepping herself to heed the ghost’s advice. The figure partially emerged and Mirta could see the gleam of a combat boot. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Jesus, Lucy, you scared the shit…” 

Lucy held stiff and bloody hands at chin level, not quite touching her face. Her eyes bulged and tears roamed freely down them. But she was smiling. Smiling and gushing blood. A needle embedded in her cheek and another in her brow. 

She stumbled forward and reached out. 

At best she was a coward, at worst she was a selfish and dreadful friend. 

Mirta threw the door open as a pair of skeletal, scalpel wielding hands wrapped around Lucy’s eyes. 

[fucking-zawa-sensei]

Burned

Title: Burned

Pairing: erasermic

Rating: Teen

Categories: hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, healing

Word Count: 3,800+

Summary: Hizashi’s speaker is decimated, his neck no better, and the stiff back of the hospital waiting room chairs aren’t doing Shouta’s nerves any favors either.

Notes: I couldn’t look at this wonderful, angsty art by @bethhankel and not write a fic to go along with it! I hope this makes you smile and goes along well with the story you were thinking up for this one, Beth. Thank you so much for giving me that sweet hurt/comfort I’d been looking for.

Read it on ao3 here

Burned

Waiting is never easy.

It’s not the first time Shouta has spent hours sitting on a plastic bench in a hospital, arms crossed, slouched, hiding behind his hair the best he can to not show the way his eyes dart frantically toward each person in scrubs or a lab coat that walks through the door.

It just hadn’t ever been quite this long of a wait before.

He lets his body slip a little lower, his shoulders sliding down to rest against the stiff back of the chair.

He feels the pout spring onto his face, doesn’t bother trying to put it away.

At this point, he doesn’t have to hide his eagerness for information, for any kind of update, as everyone seems to be distinctly avoiding eye contact with the area of the waiting room he’s seated in.

He sighs, just a small, soft breath.

He lets his eyes close for a moment, tries taking a deeper breath, holding it, counting to ten the way Hizashi had always told him to when…

The air comes gushing out in a harsh exhale.

Shouta leans forward, his elbows on his knees as he places his head in his hands. He presses his fingers into his forehead.

Please, he sends out a plea inside his head, not quite sure what he’s begging for or who he’s hoping will answer.

All he knows is, I need help.

We need help.

A little over one hour later, his head tipped back to rest against the bench, he finally gets to speak to someone.

The woman is kind, despite the obvious tired strain around her eyes, one he’s very familiar with himself. She smiles at him as she approaches, adjusting the surgical cap around her head.

“Aizawa?” she asks.

Shouta nods, sitting straighter.

“We’ve finished with the surgery. I am sorry for the long wait, I assure you he’s fine,” she says, her voice calm and steady. Shouta feels his shoulders relaxing a bit. “Burns are tricky, so we always want to take our time and be very careful to get out any debris and clean them up properly to avoid any infection. Often, it’s not the injury that makes burns so serious, but the way they leave the patient so exposed to bacteria.”

Shouta nods along. It all made sense. He knew this when they brought Hizashi in, blood dripping down around his collar. They hadn’t wanted to cut off the speaker in the ambulance, not sure what they’d find underneath, and Shouta was grateful.

At the time, he wasn’t sure he could handle whatever they found.

He tries the long inhale again, this time managing to hold almost to ten.

“So what now?” he asks the surgeon, looking up at her.

She sits down next to him, turning to face him.

“Now we give him time to heal,” she says, patting Shouta’s shoulder. “The best we can do is keep the wound clean, treat his other injuries, and let his body do the rest.”

Shouta nods.

“Okay.”

“You can come back to see him,” she says, and then pauses. “But, prepare yourself. With burns, we can’t wrap them right away. We don’t want to get anything in the wound, so it’s not a pretty sight. We’ll have a healer do a few sessions on him over the next couple of days to help the regrowth process along. Once there is a protective layer, he’s going to have to wear a neck brace. There was a lot of damage to the muscle fibers as well.”

Shouta nods again, not sure what else to say.

He thinks of all the terrible things he’d seen in his time as a hero. He hardly thinks Hizashi’s throat can be more gruesome than watching someone get disemboweled, but...then again...it made him cringe to see the blond come home sporting a busted lip.

“Yeah...okay,” he says softly. He scrubs his hands over his face, then lets them drop down to his knees, gripping his legs briefly to bring feeling back to them. “Will he...when will he wake up?”

The surgeon shakes her head.

“We’ll have him sedated through the initial healing. Waking him up before the regrowth is done would be…” she gives him a painful looking smile, one that he’d seen parents use on children when they have to tell them bad news.

Cruel, Shouta finishes for her.

It would be cruel.

She squeezes his shoulder again and gets up.

“Are you ready to see him?” she asks. Shouta answers by standing as well. She guides him down the hall of the ICU.

He wasn’t prepared.

Somehow, he’d forgotten that the walls were clear here, so the staff could keep a watchful eye on all the patients who needed it most. He usually woke up outside the ICU, not remembering his stay inside the transparent rooms. He wonders if this is how Hizashi felt when Shouta had gotten himself mixed up in things beyond what he could handle.

It takes the surgeon clearing her throat to get his attention. He turns to her and she hands him a mask and some gloves.

“We don’t want to spread germs,” she explains.  

Shouta takes the items and puts them on his face and hands. She then pulls a thin, paper, sleeved gown off a hook and helps him slip that on as well. The process of getting covered up just to sit by Hizashi’s side makes his heart start racing, makes his hands begin to sweat beneath the rubber gloves.

She asks him once more if he’s ready and he nods again. Then she presses a button and the door slides open. She steps aside.

“We can give you a few hours tonight,” she explains. “Tomorrow, after the first healing session, you can stay a little longer. I’m sorry, I wish I could allow more, but…”

“It’s okay. I understand,” Shouta says.

He’d follow all the rules.

He won’t complain.

He’ll do whatever it takes to help Hizashi heal.

Shouta walks into the room. Each step feels too heavy and too slow, like it takes an eternity for his foot to fall to the ground.

When he reaches the bed, a chair already placed there for him, he feels like he can’t bring himself to sit in it. Despite knowing Hizashi could never hear him, knocked out as he was, he doesn’t want to make any noise.

The heart monitor feels too loud as is.

She’d said it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

Shouta takes deep breaths in and out of his nose as his stomach twists.

He wants to turn away, but a voice in his head says, this is your husband and you can’t look at him?

So he stares down at the angry, glossy, purple and red wound. He supposes it does look “cleaned up,” but there are still pieces of skin peeling off around the edges, deep cuts and bruises. His throat feels tight as he briefly wonders just how bad it looked before they spent hours digging out all the little pieces of Hizashi’s speaker.

He shakes his head, letting out a shaky exhale, and forces himself to sit.

He can’t bring himself to touch any part of Hizashi, despite the gloves allowing it.

Hizashi’s left eye is covered as well, but they had assured him the damage wouldn’t be lasting when they’d checked him over in the ambulance. Likewise, his shoulder and upper chest, also wrapped in bandages, would be easy to fix in comparison to his neck. His arms and hands look fine. Shouta could reach out and hold one, but clasps his hands together in his lap instead.

He sits there in silence for the two hours he’s allowed. When he hears someone outside the door getting dressed in their own protective gear, he stands up.

Looking down at his husband, breathing slow and steady, he tells himself it will be okay.

He will wait.

“I love you,” he whispers.

The door opens and the doctor calls him out.

---

Each day gets a little easier. Hizashi’s healing is progressing nicely and the promise of finally bringing him off the sedatives becomes less of an abstract notion and more of a concrete plan.

On the fourth day, when he’s taking off his gown and mask and throwing them into the hazmat bin, the surgeon he had spoken to on the first night approaches him. She’s dressed in a lab coat now, her hair pulled back into a loose bun, and looking more rested.

“Hey! I have good news,” she says.

Shouta lifts his foot off the bin and the lid falls closed.

“What is it?” he asks.

“We’ll be doing another healing session tonight, just a quick one, as Yamada’s vitals have been getting a lot stronger and we think he has some more energy to spare. With this, we think tomorrow morning’s session will be all we need to feel comfortable putting on the brace and waking him up,” she explains, her voice upbeat and excited.

Hizashi’s neck still looks awful. It’s a deep, dark bruise that to anyone else would seem like it was far from “better,” but each day the surgeon had showed him the progress. She had pointed to the edges, showed him where the deep cuts were closing up, where the skin was regrowing, and, perhaps most sickeningly, showed him how she could dab at the wound without the gauze coming away bloody like it had before.

He knew Hizashi would be shocked.

It’s hard not to see your whole throat a disgusting shade of purple and not freak out when you hadn’t been awake to see how far it had improved, but Shouta is immensely thankful for this. As hard as it had been to sit beside a silent Hizashi, to say I love you every night without hearing a response, he was happy Hizashi was spared the pain.

“That’s great,” Shouta says. “I’m happy to hear that. So you’ll wake him up tomorrow?”

“If things go as planned, yes!”

Shouta smiles and thanks her, his heart skipping a bit at the thought of finally seeing Hizashi open his eyes.

He knew it would be hard, that Hizashi being awake would be the start of the real healing, but he was happy nonetheless.

---

When Shouta comes in the next day, they don’t make him put on the mask and gloves and gown. Hizashi is laid out on the bed, a thick white neck brace wrapped around his throat. Shouta snorts a bit at the image. It almost reminded him of plush version of his speaker system.

He hoped Hizashi could find the same humor in it.

The blond would need something to smile about.

The surgeon tells Shouta they’ve weaned him off the sedative and he was just sleeping now, that he should wake up soon. With the majority of the healing done, they won’t have to kick Shouta out, and for the first time that week he’s left alone with Hizashi with no time limit.

As the doctor exits, Shouta finally brings himself to do what he’d wanted to since Hizashi had been placed onto the stretcher. He reaches out to grab his hand, bringing it up to his mouth, and presses his lips against the soft skin.

Shouta’s hand shakes.

It had been so long since he’d felt his husband.

Slowly, he lets his other hand reach out, trying to still the tremble before he touches Hizashi’s head, careful not to jostle him at all, his neck still delicate despite the brace. His hair isn’t as soft as usual, not having been properly washed since the incident. Shouta smiles, thinking about how the first thing Hizashi will want when they get home is a shower.

Home.

The word makes his chest tighten, and a lump form in his throat.

He brings the back of Hizashi’s hand to his forehead, leaning his skin gently against it, hiding behind it as the tears start to gather in his eyes. He bites his bottom lip, trying to keep it in.

Home.

He’d been fine.

Relatively speaking, he’d been fine all week. He hadn’t cried once through the worst of it. Yet, now, here he was, sobbing at the thought of opening the door to their house and helping Hizashi inside. Crying as he imagined washing the other’s hair, changing his bandages, and laying him down in their bed.

Please, he thinks again.

I want to take you home.

This time his plea is answered quicker, as Hizashi’s hand moves, fingers curling around where Shouta is holding it.

Shouta stops breathing, his head flying back and turning to look at Hizashi.

Somehow, despite it all, Hizashi is smiling at him, sending his strength to the tight grip around Shouta’s fingers.

Somehow, Shouta is the one who is a wreck.

“Hi-” he chokes out. He wants to get closer, wants to grab Hizashi’s face, pull him into a hug, kiss him, but he can’t do these things.

So he does what he can.

He says what he’d said over and over each day that Hizashi wasn’t able to hear it.

“I love you,” Shouta breathes out. “I love you.”

Hizashi opens his mouth, but Shouta doesn’t let him speak, scooting closer on his chair.

He says it again, “I love you,” and then one more, for last night, “I love you.”

Hizashi lets out a small laugh, his eye closing for a second, clearly in pain, but it seems to fade quickly.

“Are you going to let me say it back?” he asks quietly, sounding a little horse. He clears his throat a bit afterward.  

Shouta smiles, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand, and nods.

“I love you too,” Hizashi says.

Shouta bites his lip. It’s hard to resist kissing his husband like this.

“Are you okay?” Hizashis asks. Shouta snorts.

“Me? Am I okay? You’re the one in the hospital, Hizashi.”

“You’re making a weird face…” Hizashi squints at him and Shouta realizes not only is he looking at Shouta with one eye, but he also doesn’t have his glasses on.

Shouta lets go of Hizashi’s hand to bend down and into his bag, digging around for the glasses case he’d grabbed this morning. He pulls out Hizashi’s glasses and gets up, stepping closer to gently slide them onto Hizashi’s face.

“Better?” he asks and Hizashi smiles at him, going to nod, but then wincing instead. Shouta frowns.

“Be careful,” he says, brushing his thumb over Hizashi’s cheek. Turning around to look at the chair he’d spent so much time in, he decides to sit on the edge of Hizashi’s bed instead, wanting to be closer to the blond. He lowers himself down as slowly as possible, not wanting to shake it at all.

Hizashi watches him with a look of confusion the whole time.

Ah, yeah, he probably doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

Shouta looks outside the glass walls. No one is paying attention to them. The doctor hadn’t told him that he needed to call them when Hizashi woke up. Shouta was familiar with what had happened, he could explain just as well as them.

He turns back to Hizashi.

“How are you feeling? Does it hurt a lot?” Shouta asks, reaching for the little remote clicker tucked away by Hizashi’s pillow. There was no way Hizashi could have seen it without being able to turn his head, but it hadn’t been necessary to use it before now. He brings the clicker down and places it in Hizashi’s hand.

“This is for morphine,” he says. “If it hurts too bad, you can press this.”

“Okay…” Hizashi says, turning the remote over in his hand. He sets it down on the mattress. “I feel...okay...right now.”

Shouta eyes him, trying to see if he was lying. He certainly seemed to be uncomfortable, but who wouldn’t be with a huge brace tucked under their chin? He was speaking fairly well, and didn’t seem to be wincing unless he tried to move. Shouta decides to let it slide. It was probably better Hizashi had a clear head for a little while after being under for so long.

“What...what happened?” he asks. “I mean...I know what happened, but…”

Shouta nods and reaches down to rub up and down Hizashi’s arm.

“Yeah,” he says, trying not to think about the way Hizashi had looked that night as the EMTs peeled him off the ground.

He sighs.

“You’ll be fine,” he starts. “Honestly, the worst of it is over and you were knocked out for it. Don’t worry about the eye, that will heal, it’s just some stitches. It won’t even scar. The surgeon here is really good. Your shoulder will be back to normal after some physical therapy.”

Shouta watches Hizashi’s face as he explains these things. He seems a little more relaxed to hear his eye is fine. Shouta knows the unease that comes with waking up to no vision, and even if it’s just one eye, it’s never a good feeling to lose something. The shoulder, though, Hizashi doesn’t seem to care about at all, showing no reaction. Shouta wonders if he’s even aware it was injured, as he couldn’t look down to see the rest of his body.

“Besides your neck, there are no other injuries,” he says, hoping to alleviate any lingering fears Hizashi might have about that. “You might have noticed the uhh…” Shouta gestures around his throat. “Brace.”

Hizashi snorts and then frowns, closing his eye again.

Shouta picks up his hand and begins rubbing circles into the back of it.

“Like I said, be careful, Zashi. You got pretty messed up,” he says, waiting for Hizashi’s face to smooth out as the pain calmed down.

“Your speaker took a lot of damage, internal combustion, and you had severe electrical burns all around your neck. They kept you sedated after cleaning it up so they could do enough healing sessions that they could put the brace on. It had to be left open for a while for the skin to...well, yeah...” Shouta trails off, noticing the way Hizashi’s face was getting increasingly disturbed with his descriptions. He didn’t need to tell Hizashi the gorey details, that part was over.

“Your muscles are pretty weak right now, so you won’t be able to move around much and need to wear the brace 24/7 for a few weeks,” he finishes.

Shouta gives Hizashi some time to process it all, continuing to massage his hand.

“How long do I have to be here for?” he finally asks.

Shouta shakes his head. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask the doctor.”

Hizashi pouts.

“I want to go home,” he says.

Shouta laughs at that. “You’ve technically only been here for...what...half an hour?”

He sticks his tongue out and Shouta’s heart sings.

This felt better.

This felt normal.

“I want to go home, too,” Shouta admits. “But you need to get better first.”

“I know…” Hizashi sighs.

“Zashi…” Shouta says, his tone serious. Hizashi’s eye jumps to his face. “It’s not pretty. When you see your throat...it’s not good. It will heal, though. You’ll be okay. It has already gotten a lot better from when they brought you in.”

“Shouta!” Hizashi whines. “I’m not that vain!”

“I know, I just meant-”

“I’m kidding, it’s fine,” Hizashi cuts him off, giving him a soft smile. “Thank you. Not just for trying to prepare me for...what it looks like...but for being here...it must have been hard to watch.”

“It was harder to wait,” Shouta says, squeezing his hand. “I’m really happy you’re awake now.”

“Me too.”

“I love you so much, Hizashi.”

“Yeah? You’re going to be proving that when we get out of here and you have to give me sponge baths!” Hizashi teases, his voice getting a little higher, more like his usual cheery tone.

Shouta groans, but if he’s being honest, he’d like nothing more than to give Hizashi a bath. He has no problem pampering his husband after all of this.

“I suppose I owe you after you did such a good job taking care of me,” Shouta says.

Hizashi closes his eye, his smile smaller.

“Yeah…” he breathes out. Shouta feels Hizashi’s hand shake a bit in his grasp.

He hadn’t meant to kill the mood.

“We should both be more careful,” Hizashi says, opening his eye.

“Please,” Shouta says, this time aloud, this time not just at Hizashi, or himself, but at everyone and everything outside these walls that wanted to take one of them away from the other.

Shouta never wanted or intended to be reckless or get hurt, but getting a glimpse at what it was like for Hizashi after USJ…

Well...next time he’ll go slower.

He’ll take a break.

He’ll listen when Hizashi tells him to stay in bed.

Healing is hard, but that’s the body’s job. The rest...the rest was harder, and often, it wasn’t just the one in bandages who was hurting.

“Shouta,” Hizashi whines, and it brings his attention back to the present. He waits for Hizashi to finish whatever it is he wants to ask.

“Will you kiss me?”

Shouta’s eyes widen. He looks down at the thick brace.

“I don’t know...I don’t want to hurt you.”

Hizashi holds up the little remote Shouta had given him.

“You’re going to give yourself morphine just for a kiss?”

Hizashi smiles.

Shouta rolls his eyes and leans forward, careful not to touch Hizashi’s chest or neck, cupping the uninjured side of his face to hold him still. He comes down slow, pressing their lips together so softly he barely feels it at first, until Hizashi shifts to try and get closer and Shouta caves, not wanting to make the other man work for it.

He gets closer, kisses harder, opening up Hizashi’s mouth with his tongue and diving in deeper. Hizashi doesn’t taste good at all, but he doesn’t care, as he pulls back, the lump in his throat starts growing again.

“I love you,” he whispers, trying to keep the tears from starting up.

“I love you too,” Hizashi says, and his are already spilling over, trailing down his cheek to the corners of his mouth, spread wide into a happy grin.

[imjustthemechanic]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - More Impossible Part 8/? - The Shield Thieves Part 9/? - Reality Sinks In Part 10/? - Preparing a Quest Part 11/? - The Marvelous History of Sir Stephen Part 12/? - Uninvited Guests Part 13/? - So That’s What It Does Part 14/? - The What and the Where Part 15/? - Gearing Up

Ain’t no party like a party with Black Widow’s personal arsenal.

That was a terribly awkward spot in the conversation, so it was a relief on multiple levels when Sir Stephen suddenly shouted, “this is it!”

Everybody looked up to see Sir Stephen burst out of the library room with the book in his hands.  There were a few of the post-its sticking out of the pages, but he ignored them all as he set it down on Sue's desk and reverently unfolded one of the big maps.  It depicted an ellipse with eight extant stones and dotted outlines to show where Lau's expedition had found evidence of four more that were now gone.  The one that had once been at the focus had fallen down and broken in two, and another dotted line showed where Lau believed the one across from it on the long axis had once been much bigger.

Everybody crowded around to look, and Natasha read off the caption. “L'anneau à Cracnesse, sur l'île de Flotta.”  The Ring at Kracness, on the island of Flotta.

Carter was already typing it in to google.  “Okay... according to Wikipedia, Kracness Henge on the island of Flotta is one of the oldest known stone circles in the British Isles.  It is believed to date from around 3500 BC, making it a thousand years older than the pyramids at Gizeh.  The henge forms part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, and is looked after by Historic Scotland as a scheduled monument.”  She looked at Nat.  “Meaning nobody's allowed to dig it up.”

“Meaning you need permission to dig it up,” Nat corrected.  “So if the Grail's buried there and they try, we can have them arrested.”  How well that would work when the offenders were a kobold and a resurrected sorcerer, she was not entirely sure, and the others looked likewise dubious.  “We have to assume that if we can find this, they can, too, so in order to be there ahead of them we'd better get going.”

“Should we not seek permission to be there?” asked Sir Stephen.

“Nah,” said Nat.  “That takes months.”

Knowing Sue would be upset if it were left lying around, Natasha carefully put the book in the 'to be shelved' basket under the library table before they left.  As they descended in the elevator back to the ground floor, Dr. Wilson cleared his throat.

“Not to be that guy,” he said.  “But if we're not actually allowed to dig the Grail up, how are we gonna make sure Totenkopf doesn't get his hands on it.”

“By killing him,” said Sir Stephen grimly.

“Oh?  That easy, is it?” asked Dr. Wilson.

“If it is true, in any sense, that we were both turned to stone, then our duel is unfinished,” said Sir Stephen.  “I have my doubts whether there is any shred of honour in the man, but if there is, he will want to finish it as much as I.”

“That could be a problem when your sword's still in an evidence locker in Inverness,” DI Carter realized.  “They'll have set all that aside while they try to figure out what the hell went on in that room.”

“Then we'll just have to get them out,” Natasha decided, “and the rest of us will have to arm ourselves, too.”  She considered her companions.  “Dr. Wilson, you were in the military.  You must know how to handle a firearm.  Carter obviously has her service weapon, and I've got some stuff stashed away at my place.  But Sir Stephen's gonna need his own stuff.”  She didn't doubt he would be a quick study with a gun, but he might be a little too eager for anybody else's tastes.

“How are we going to get it?” asked DI Carter as the elevator doors opened.  “We can't just walk in here and ask for it.  I seem to remember a conversation about how not even the Queen can do that.”

“I'm a Russian spy, remember?” asked Nat, deliberately doing a stagey, exaggerated accent.  “I'll get the shield before we leave here, and the rest of the gear in Inverness.”  They headed out to the car park.

Rushman cleared his throat.  “I can shoot,” he said.  “I go duck hunting, remem... I mean.  I go duck hunting,” he repeated.

It occurred to Natasha that in the alternate reality that existed in this man's head, he might very well have been the one who taught her to use a gun.  Had the two of them bonded by sitting in blinds together on rainy days, sharing hot chocolate and body heat while they waited for a bird to get within range?  The mental picture was wistfully sweet, at the same time as it made Nat shudder – if she thought like that too much, she was going to start believing in it.  That was the reason people preferred the beautiful lies, after all.  They were just so much more comfortable than the ugly truths hiding behind them.

Anyway, so long as there was a ghost of a chance that Zola either was Rushman or had created him to mess with her, Nat wasn't going to trust him with a gun.  “We'll see,” she said.

Getting Sir Stephen's shield was no problem at all.  After Dr. Hughes had left for the evening, Nat simply slipped into her lab, picked a couple of locks, and slid it out of the safe.  It was wrapped in plastic to keep it from being contaminated by other sources of DNA, and for a moment Nat felt a pang of regret.  She'd wanted to be done with things like destroying evidence and hiding the truth, and yet here she was, doing exactly that, even if not quite for the reasons she might once have.  Maybe if she thought of it as serving the concept of truth rather than any one truth in particular.  After all, at the rate they were going, it might not be long before 'truth' didn't even mean anything anymore.

She unwrapped the plastic.  The stone replica of the shield that had appeared as part of the statue had been huge and thick and looked like it must weigh a ton.  The real thing, though of the same dimensions, was feather-light.  Its leather skin had been painted blue and white, with a star in the center.  Silver-plated rivets around the edge and an embellished boss in the centre, both just barely beginning to tarnish, held the leather in place, and on the back were the two straps for the bearer's arm, fixed to a wooden strut.  The sagas, Nat recalled, described shields like this as being made from linden wood.  Was this one, or had the Lady of the Lake provided Sir Stephen with something else altogether?

Before she left the Life Sciences building, Natasha did one more thing.  She stopped by the office to slide something into Dr. Hughes' mail slot – a bubble envelope containing two swabs with DNA samples, and a short note asking for a paternity test.  At this point is was a little hard to believe that science would actually have any answers for her, but part of an answer would do.

Back at the car where the others were waiting, Natasha presented the shield to Sir Stephen.  It felt like an oddly ceremonial moment, standing there with this medieval object in her hands – an impression that was only reinforced when Sir Stephen reached out hungrily for it, then held it at arm's length to look at as thought it were a long-lost love.

“Thank you,” he said gravely, and put it on his arm.

Nat did a bit of a double-take, as if she had to check and make sure that he was still dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that belonged to Dr. Wilson, still had a little bald patch where the surgeons at Raigmore had sewn up the gash in his face.  He was, and he did, and yet for some reason it didn't matter.  With that shield on his arm, Sir Stephen of Rogsey was a warrior.

“Next stop, Six Burnett Road,” said DI Carter as they climbed into the car.  “I'm really not looking forward to submitting my case reporton all this.”

“Not quite yet,” said Nat.  “I told you, we've gotta stop by my place first.

“Are you all right with coming along?” Dr. Wilson asked Rushman. “You didn't exactly sign up for this, and I have a feeling we're about to break some laws we didn't even know existed.”

Rushman shrugged.  “If I don't exist, they'll have a hard time prosecuting me,” he pointed out.

“I guess that's one way to look at it,” Dr. Wilson agreed, but it was hard to say whether he were interpreting the statement as a joke – or indeed, if Rushman had meant it as one.

Natasha's flat could be entered directly from the street, which was a major part of the reason she'd chosen it – it facilitated getting in and out at odd hours of the night without disturbing the neighbours.  It was certainly useful now, when she wouldn't have wanted to explain why she, normally a loner, had four people with her.  She tuned on the light, revealing a very ordinary-looking kitchen with a bouquet of dusty fake daffodils on the table and a slightly shabby poster of Degas' La Classe de Danse on the wall.  She leaned over the sink to shut the blinds, then turned to pull the fridge out from the wall and reveal the hidden compartment behind it.

“Need some help with that?” Rushman asked.

“No,” said Nat.  She got it out, unplugged it, and opened the hidden door to reveal a row of meticulously maintained Soviet assault rifles.

“I'm, uh, guessing you don't have a license for those,” DI Carter observed, as Nat began pulling things out.

“You can arrest me later,” Nat promised.  She handed the first rifle to Dr. Wilson, who immediately began checking it – his military training made it as natural as breathing.  Natasha nodded approvingly and grabbed a second weapon for Carter.

“Is all that really necessary?” asked Rushman, watching with wide eyes.  He must be wondering what on earth his little girl had gotten herself into.

“We're in a race against time with a guy who can blow up a building with his mind,” Natasha replied.  “I don't think there's such a thing as over-prepared.”  She grabbed a third weapon for herself, then a fourth just in case one got damaged, and began piling up boxes of ammunition.  “I've got a red and black sports back in the bedroom closet tha's got a plce for these,” she said. “Somebody wanna go find it for me?”

“I know the one you mean,” said Rushman.  “I'll get it.”

“It's the door on the...” Nat began, but he'd already left the room, as if he knew exactly where he was going.  A moment later he was back with the bag in his hands.  He'd known exactly where it was, she thought.  Of course he had, he'd been here before.  That was what Nat had told people when she'd taken the flat, that she didn't need help because her father was flying over with her stuff.

“Thanks,” she said.  Nat unzipped the bag and opened the pockets she'd sewn into the bottom to hold weapons and ammo.  “You guys can have something to eat if you want.  I'm gonna pack a few other things before we head out.”  Who knew when, or if, she'd be back again?

“What kind of other things?” Carter asked suspiciously.

“Clothes,” said Natasha dryly.  “Toothpaste.  Tampons.  That kind of thing.”

“Ah.”  Carter nodded, both relieved and disappointed.

Natasha did her packing, trying to keep in mind that even in the summer the Orkney Islands were likely to be cold and stormy.  As she did she began to be able to smell something... onions?  Puzzled, she peeked around the corner into the kitchen, and found that somebody had pushed the fridge back into place, and now Rushman had pasta on the stove and Dr. Wilson was cutting up vegetables.

“You're cooking?” asked Nat.

Rushman smiled at her.  “I figured I might as well do something useful,” he said.  “Do you like spaghetti?”

The hopeful way he said it made her want to grit her teeth.  He wanted her to like spaghetti, because he was looking for something in her of the daughter he remembered.

“It depends on the spaghetti,” said Nat.  “I'll give it a try. Let me wash my hands and I'll be right in to help.”  Getting directly involved would be the easiest way to make sure she could intervene if it turned out to be a plot to poison them or something. As was washing her hands, for that matter – Nat kept her poisons under the bathroom sink, and she wanted to make sure they hadn't been touched.

They hadn't, and as Nat closed the cupboard and got up again, she could hear Rushman talking in the kitchen.

“I had no idea how to cook when I was younger,” he admitted. “After Kathy got sick, I got to realize that Nat and I couldn't have McDonald's every night, so I actually went and took a cooking course at night school, just so I could get it right.”

Natasha turned on the faucet to drown out the voices, and stared in the mirror as she washed her hands.  Rushman did look like he could be her father, she thought.  The two of them had the same blue eyes, the same eyebrows, the same chin.  It made her wonder which was worse: the idea that this was all a conscious lie before he betrayed them, or that he really did have this entire lifetime in his head that had never happened, in which he could show up in Natasha's office and say hi, Ginger Snap, and she would run into his arms.

In the end she couldn't decide.  Both, in their own way, were equally terrifying.

[newstfionline]

In South Korea fortune-telling will soon be a $3.7bn business

The Economist, Feb 22nd 2018

SEOUL--Destiny is usually said to lurk in heavy drapes of purple velvet, in the wicked glint of a crystal ball, behind a veil of heady incense or in the tuck of a gold-chiffon turban. Your correspondent went in search of hers among a crush of Korean schoolgirls at the “Broken Heart Tarot Club” in booming Hongdae, a university district in Seoul. The café’s façade is an inviting jumble of pink neon signs and glowing graffiti. At the next table, a hip tarot reader spread a deck face-down for two girlfriends in oversized denim jackets, who took turns picking out cards and sipping on their lattes. He looked as cool as them, more rapper than rune-reader, in dark glasses with a chain around his neck.

Interrogating the decorated cards costs 3,000 won (about $2.75) a question. A tarot reader assesses the character of her clients first. Two flicks of her wrist, and a pair of Queens appears. “You chose the strongest set in the deck,” she says brightly. “Fame is within reach.” Will a move to a new country go smoothly? The Beggar. “The start will be hard, but you can succeed if you ask for help.” Will the Koreas go to war? Death and The Emperor show up, apparently the tarot incarnations of Kim Jong Un (here a scythe-wielding woman in blue veils) and Moon Jae-in, the leaders of North and South Korea. “Death plays tricks but the Emperor is wise,” the reader assures.

“Broken Heart” is among dozens of fortune-telling businesses on the street, packed between cheap clothes and cosmetics shops. Business is brisk. Other stores offer the Korean arts of face-reading, palm-reading--one entices clients with a detailed mapping of Barack Obama’s raised hand at his presidential swearing-in--and saju. An ancient form of divination, saju analyses the cosmic energy at the hour, day, month and year of a person’s birth from Chinese astrological records and texts. A seer at “Broken Hearts” says she began to study saju two decades ago (she says she found it hard to trust other fortune-tellers), but took up tarot recently to keep up with the times. “The young like it. The cards are pretty, it’s cheap and it’s quick,” she says.

The otherworldly in South Korea will soon be a 4trn won ($3.7bn) business, predicts the Korea Economic Daily, a local newspaper. Paik Woon-san, head of the Association of Korean Prophets, estimates that there are over 300,000 fortune-tellers in the country, and 150,000 shamans, many of whom provide clairvoyance. Unusually in a country of evangelical Christians and devout Buddhists, it continues to thrive as anything from a bit of curious fun to a dependable guide for making everyday decisions.

Duo, an online marriage agency, found that 82% of unmarried women and 57% of bachelors surveyed in 2017 had visited saju masters to ask about their love life. The practice survived government campaigns in the 1970s that urged citizens to junk juju and make their own fate; they were, after all, conjuring their own potent magic by building South Korea’s economic “miracle on the Han river”. (The North has other reasons to dislike diviners, who are banned yet sought after; reports have trickled out of the authorities punishing those who make political predictions.)

Now fortune-telling apps for smartphones are beguiling city kids, taking the occult into the otherworldliness of cyberspace. Handasoft, a software developer, has launched 13 apps in the past five years. Its most popular, Jeomsin, introduced two years ago, has been downloaded over 3m times. Every morning it sends users their personalised fortune for the day (other mobile prophecy-providers sell their detailed user data on to marketers, but Jeomsin makes money only from ads). Proffer your palm to the camera or snap a selfie, and another app provides instant face- and palm-reading. Shin Hyun-ho of Jeomsin reckons two or three new apps are being launched every day.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed by Trend Monitor, a local market-research firm, said they see a fortune-teller at least once a year. Many visit between December and February, to see what awaits them in the new solar and lunar years. At Kyobo, South Korea’s biggest bookstore chain, as many shelves are devoted to deciphering destiny as to understanding Korea’s modern history, with primers including “Your Winning Lotto Number is in Your Dreams”. Diviners appear regularly in television dramas, sometimes as fraudsters but often to foreshadow a plot twist. In “The Face Reader”, a gifted seer employed by a 16th-century king correctly identifies traitors from their facial traits. It was among the highest-grossing films of 2013.

Andrew Eungi Kim, a professor at Korea University, says soothsayers hold an everyday relevance in South Korea that they do not have in the West. He likens dropping in on one to occasional Sunday churchgoing in the West. The practice is passed on within families--as “one possible way by which to make sense of the world”.

Big junctures in life are a common time for a celestial steer. Careers fairs at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, in Seoul, reserve places for tarot readers. Students go to saju masters with lists of potential employers to determine those most likely to hire them. Businessmen might go to one to select a propitious date to launch a new venture. New parents routinely visit name-makers, another branch of fortune-telling, to help decide on the luckiest name for their baby. Couples check their compatibility before marriage, and one or both may be advised to change their first names to improve their matrimonial lot. In the past decade 1.5m Koreans have legally taken a new one.

The clairvoyance business has also been able to thrive because fate is not fixed in Korean cosmology. Bad news can be mitigated with charms, often given in the form of an action: take up a religion, take out health insurance, stop eating red meat, do not even think about getting a tattoo. Repeat clients are thus ensured. Some even drop in for a weekly check-up.

As palm lines and facial features evolve with age, so too, it is thought, does fortune. Rather than put a brave face on a luckless situation, a small number of Koreans simply change theirs. Some plastic surgeons have been educating themselves in physiognomy to advise their clients. (In “The Face Reader”, rivals to the throne modify the face of a contender to get the king to banish him.) Purists in the face-reading business lament that their jobs are getting tougher in plastic-happy Korea.

In the posh district of Apgujeong (part of stylish Gangnam) the entrance hall of a prominent saju café is plastered with autographs from glitterati. Sotdae Saju Cafe offers clairvoyance with cocktails. Its saju master says counselling is the biggest part of his job. “A lot of rich types around here are dissatisfied. Not long ago South Koreans were trying to survive. Now they’re trying to be happy,” he says. Tae-young, a 30-something Seoulite, says she goes for a reading whenever things get too much, or if something worrisome is on her mind. Some say readings help them to accept whatever unhappy situation they are in.

Few of those who see fortune-tellers take the readings as fact. Many say they offer an additional perspective. In a country where mental troubles are taboo, this is useful. Lim Chaewoo of the University of Brain Education in the city of Cheonan, south of Seoul, says that as modern societies have grown more complex, making decisions has become exacting. During the financial crisis in 2008, American stock traders and insurance brokers, themselves givers of advice, turned to psychics for a steer. Theirs seemed as good as any, in the circumstances.

That saju and face-reading are recognised as academic pursuits in Korea also lends them some modern-day credibility. Janet Shin, a saju master and newspaper columnist who also lectures at universities, says that her clients include doctors, professors and religious types. Status within the profession is achieved through study and experience, as in other disciplines, rather than bluster. Kwon Hee-gwan, who offers readings from soothsaying tents near Tapgol Park in Seoul, is a firm believer in this. On a recent weekday evening, wearing a navy-blue cardigan and tie, he delicately examined clients’ palms with a bone-handled magnifying glass. Mr Kwon sees as many as 20 faces a day, and has worked on a total of 10,000 in his career. But that is only half the number necessary, he says, to know a client’s troubles as soon as she enters his tent.

Some contend that this is not as mysterious as it sounds. Face-readers consider cues like posture, body language and tone of voice in assessing a customer, much as people naturally assess physical appearance to guess someone’s emotional state. In pre-industrial Korea, when few people left their place of birth, many thought people’s faces were a record of their lifestyles and so in some ways a guide to their fate. Researchers even suggest that palm lines may be a “fossilised record” of a person’s earliest moments, because they develop early in the womb. Maybe, then, they hint at a baby’s future health.

If computers could process and dissect what contributes to human intuition, might they become the fortune-tellers of the future? In 2016 a computer programme beat Lee Sedol, a South Korean who is among the world’s best (human) Go players, by four games to one. Even the clairvoyants had not seen that coming. Already, robots are being taught how to anticipate human actions--in effect, reading the future. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have trained a system to foresee when two actors will kiss, shake hands, hug or high-five by feeding it millions of hours of television dramas. Chinese researchers have trained a computer to distinguish between criminals and non-criminals nine times out of ten.

For many, all this portends a rather fearsome future. But a pair of South Korean artists at LOVOT LAB, a startup, offer a different vision. The pair tinker and exhibit above an old rubber-and-metals workshop in Mullae-dong, a run-down industrial neighbourhood of Seoul. In a corner of their studio, a small white robot sits cross-legged, surrounded by coils of sweet-smelling incense. “Buddha I” has been programmed to read faces to detect a few basic emotions including happiness, anger and sadness, and dispenses lighthearted prophecies accordingly.

Hong Hyuns of LOVOT LAB has never been to a fortune-teller. But part of his inspiration came from cracking open a fortune cookie. The prophecy told him to “go east”. As he had already decided to move from Chicago to New York, this put him “in a good mood”, he says. Many perfectly rational folk have been found to adjust their behaviour, even in tiny ways, after taking advice from cookies. Mr Hong was struck by how many go to have their fortunes read even as they laugh it all off.

The robo-Buddha stirs from its slumber. “You look happy today,” it purrs. “Good things will come to you.”

[rizegreymon22arts]

I want to clarify first that the following content has some material that is not appropriate for sensitive people.

I want to clarify first that the following content has some material that is not appropriate for sensitive people.

For starters, what is Thrill Kill? Some gamers may know it, but for those who do not know, Thrill Kill is a canceled game that was going to launch into the original Playstation in 1998, the game consists of a hell-fighting championship in hell organized by an evil entity called Marukka, the participants are the souls of several people who were sent here for their most terrible sins, becoming physical manifestations of their crimes, filias and sins, the winner would get reincarnation as a reward and return to earth. This game could have unleashed Mortal Kombat when it comes to bloodthirsty fighting game, but the distribution house EA canceled it at the last moment because with fear that the game would ruin its image they said they did not want to publish a game with such senseless violence , not to mention that the game also had some sexual and sadomasochistic content, so Thrill Kill was never released, but still an incomplete version is found on the internet, but it is not known how more violent the full version could have been.

The game seemed ahead of its time, which is why it was canceled, but it had reasons to distinguish itself from other fighting games, for example they could be played with four fighters instead of two, and instead of the typical health bar or a Percentage bar as in Super Smash Bros., the characters had a power bar that when filled after taking more hits, the character could execute a fatality to eliminate an opponent from the round. There is a saying that says "The forbidden is sometimes the most attractive" so this would be a somewhat retouched version of how the characters would be if the game were something more modern and complete.

TORMENTOR

Previous name: Daniel Carlson

Sin: Sadism, torture and murder

History: Earlier in his previous life, Daniel Carlson lived in Pheonix, Arizona and his former occupation was a vigilant judge, being one of the best in the country. But he had a dark secret, he believed he was the angel of mercy who would cleanse the souls of mortals and punish them with what he thinks they deserve; he acquitted criminals and other prisoners not to prove his sentence, but to take him to his personal torture chamber, to torture them with all kinds of horrible things that man could imagine, chains, whips, fire, punches, etc., for Daniel the The purpose of this is because the system does not punish criminals enough, and he believes he is the judge who decides the type of punishment he felt they deserved, almost always for him the final sentence was death. He was found guilty when he discovered what he did with the missing criminals, and in the end Daniel died when he was executed to the electric chair. Upon reaching hell, Maruka gave him a new physical form based on his acts, an executioner and at the same time an inquisitor, a medieval nightmare of leather and chains whose main weapon for the hell tournament baptized as "Tormentor", are the sentence chains of his adversaries, and although his opponents are already in hell for their actions, for him it is not enough and he is willing to punish them with his own hands.

Finisher moves:

Embed his hook in his opponent's stomach with the chain wrapping around his waist, and then pull the chain tightly by splitting the opponent in half.

He extends his chain on his opponent's neck, jumps over his opponent to stand behind him with his chain hanging him, and after a jerk he cuts off his head.

It invokes four chains with hooks, each one is embedded in one of the four limbs of the opponent, they begin to stretch until each arm and leg of the opponent is torn off, leaving it without limbs.

Throws his chained hook over his opponent's head, piercing it, then rips off the head still attached to the hook of the body, and uses the head as a medieval mallet to destroy the rest of the opponent's body.

ODDBALL

Previous name: Raymond Raystack

Sin: Dementia,Sociopathy

History: Originally as an FBI criminal analyst in Belfast, Maine, he had a noble career and what was thought to be a good life, seeking evidence for horrible people in this world to be put behind bars. However, these criminals put Raymond on the limit, spending years of tracking all evidence and location, driving him out of his mind, until he finally reached the limit; He slowly began to enjoy sadly as other criminals ended up executed, until he admitted to predators that he had promised to track down and become one of them. Raymond was put in a psychiatric hospital, put on a straitjacket and in a bleached room, despite many treatments there was no change, every time Raymond's sanity faded, all that remained of him was his intelligence, cunning, since he adapted to his lack of the use of his arms and was very skilled just using his legs, saying that he attacked one of the hospital nurses and took an ear from a bite. It was decided that Odball had no choice, they had to sleep like a dog. Upon reaching hell for Marukka, he named it "Oddball" which means "Weirdo", with compassion and sympathy outside his vocabulary, representing the incarnation of madness and inhuman anger, with his straitjacket still tied to him even after death, fully adapted like all predators.

Finisher moves:

Jumps on top of his opponent and with both legs hits him in the face and throws him to the ground, crushing his face as if he were a cockroach, and after a leg he rips his head as if kicking a ball.

Throws himself on the head of the opponent and holds him with his legs, then turns at the same time holding the head, causing the vertebrae to break and this turns like a screw, and when released, the head of the opponent will fall.

With a kick he throws his opponent into the air, and with a great jump he ends up piercing the torso with his head, and then gravity takes effect and the corpse hole will be enlarged causing it to fall to the ground and filling Oddball's body with blood .

Throws his opponent to the ground of an onslaught, and begins to jump on his spine, until the opponent bleeds through the mouth and dies.

BELLADONA

Previous name: Bella Linares

Sin: Murder/Nymphomania

History: To think how an entire nymphomaniac was in past life a placid and calm woman, as was Bella Linares, a housewife and librarian who lived in Savannah, Georgia, and happily married. Unfortunately, her happy life plummeted, when she discovered thanks to a detective she hired to find out that her husband was being unfaithful, and yes, Bella's husband cheated on her with no one but Bella's sister. In an attack of hysteria and after an emotional crisis, Bella decided to do the same, betraying her husband with other men, even other women to have had sex, and using sex to let off steam, but there was a time when Bella realized that cheating on her husband and lover were not enough and decided to take revenge in another way. Bella and her husband loved doing sex games, mostly role-playing games where everyone dressed like the characters in that game, so while her husband came home from work, Bella waited for him, wearing a tight maid outfit latex of one of his sexual role plays, and carrying in his hand an electric baton with which he murders her husband, and her sister murders her more discreetly, giving her a pie that was filled with belladonna fruits, which killed her of poisoning Once her revenge is completed, to avoid being arrested with the authorities, Bella committed suicide by electrocuting her electric baton while in the bathtub. Marukka took Bella's soul and gave her the shape of her old form, wearing the same maid outfit and cane with which she murdered her husband, and named her Belladonna, not for being the fruits with the that poison his sister, but Belladonna means "Beautiful, exotic, but lethal." Feeling an untiring appetite for sex, gigmuting pleasantly when he saw his opponents suffer in the game of hell.

Finisher moves:

With her electric baton she puts it inside her opponent's mouth until he buries it to the bottom of his stomach, and then electrocutes the opponent from inside.

In a moment of calm, Belladonna seductively approaches his opponent, hugging it, and then bends down, as if he were about to approach oral sex, but as moves away from the camera, she ends up electrocuting the sensitive parts of the opponent with the electric baton.

Takes a whip and starts pounding his opponents, leaving it lying on the ground because of the intense pain, and that is when Belladonna uses the whip to tie him around his neck and tear his head off.

Extends her electric baton, and when perching behind and below the opponent, it focuses on the face of the opponent, which shows gestures of absolute pain while it sounds like Belladonna was sticking his cane from his anal hole, until finally the end of the stick comes out by its mouth, while killing him.

DR. FAUSTUS

Previous name: Franklin Rodriguez

Sin: Murder, Sadism

History: Franklin Rodriguez was a plastic surgeon at a hospital in Los Angeles, California; Franklin's job was to fix damage to the face and body of his patients, but he had other specialties, since since he has memory he has spent days and nights studying medical books, filling him with great doubts such as the functioning of organs and other things, but his thirst for knowledge would make him go beyond the edges of madness, getting to see some of his patients, and dig deep into his organs, to the point that Dr. Rodriguez interplanted mechanical joints to his patients, which He lost his job. But that did not stop him, since he anesthetized innocent people who had the bad luck that he would find them and took them to his basement to serve with test subjects, having interplanted the same jaws with the appearance of bear traps and use them to Bite by bite, however, an infection caused by grafting your jaws would end up killing Franklin. Already with his soul in pain of hell, Marukka did not doubt that a madman like Franklin would be one of the perfect competitors for the game of hell, shaping and baptizing him as "Dr. Faustus", name of a character of a Work on a doctor who, in order to gain power and knowledge, made a deal with the devil. A depraved combination of bloodthirsty diabolic and surgical steel, who will honor his name by making a deal with the devil's lover to return to the earth and continue his deadly studies.

Finisher Moves:

He throws himself on his opponent and biting his neck shakes him like a rag doll until he rips his body and then spits his decapitated head.

With his scalpel and other metal artifacts, Faustus makes a very bloody operation to the face of his opponent, and in the end we see the face of the dead opponent and with bear traps interplanted in his face.

With his scalpel he makes a huge cut to the opponent's torso forming a huge hole that shows the thorax box and other organs.

He pulls out a huge syringe, digs it into the nape of his opponent, and sucks all of his blood causing the opponent to pale and wrinkle like a raisin and die.

THE IMP

Previous name: Marcus Ronald

Sin: Genocide, rape, megalomania

History: Bad things can come in small packages, as evidenced by the rumor of the three-foot terror is The Imp. Its devastating size is its most unpleasant place, suffering from a Napoleon complex to the end. Originally in his past life in Albany, New York as Marcus Ronald, he lived a hard life due to his short stature, victim of teasing and that no one wanted to give him a suitable job for his state; what led Marcus to devote himself to the world of adult movies, but led to films in the darkest of the network, from pedophilia, gay sex, and his favorite Snuff, where he was lucky to be the executioner and was for him the best part of his work, since they felt him feel a giant ready to take revenge for all the teasing of his stature. His work in the pornography industry gave Marcus very good money, but Marcus knew that he could do something else and not stop degrading, so that with his saved fortune and the hard studies he had in his youth, they were enough to becoming a government employee of the United States, with the dream of becoming president of the country, he was clearly thirsty for power, but Marcus was always bothered by his short stature therefore he thought that no one wanted a president of half a meter, so he put in an operation to transplant long legs for something taller than an average man, but there were several complications in the operation that caused his death. The soul of this man with a Napoleon complex and acts of rape and murder in his youth was Marukka's choice to participate in Hell Den, baptizing him with his pornographic career name, "The imp" and in order to be at the height of his fellow henchmen, he has mounted improvised stilts and has permanently grafted them on the legs and arms. An angry and tortured soul, the Imp doesn't think of anything, but it causes pain to those who dare to belittle him.

Finisher Moves:

Throws his opponent to the ground with a kick, and before getting up he crushes his head with one of his stilts.

With a magic he enters the opponent, and then returns to his normal size causing his rival's body to explode.

With an evil magic he shrinks his opponent the size of a mouse and gives him a bloody stomp with his stilt.

With a spinning kick with one of his stilts with an attached vanaja, he cuts off his opponent's legs by falling on the floor on his amputated knees, and then Imp impacts him by digging his stilt into his chest through him.

SERPENT

Previous name: Violet Santiago

Sin: Misandría, asesinato

History: Violet was born with a strange condition, was taller than a child can measure and could twist her body as if it were made of rubber, the moment that marked the life of little Violet was when she was sexually abused by her biological father, after the child protection society took her father and moved her to a new home, raised by a lesbian couple, after that trauma suffered as a child and that her new moms avoided men, Violet developed a disdain for sex masculine, growing up becoming a young liberal with the aim of protecting the rights of women and the death of the patriarchate, in other words, a feminazi. Violet believed herself independent enough to leave her adoptive family and live alone, so that when the circus arrived in the city, given her condition she could twist her own body, she was hired as a cortorist. One night after her performance, a man entered her dressing room with the intention of raping her, due to the tall stature of the young woman she did not take into account that she was a minor, this brought Violet several disturbing memories of her childhood, so that the young woman decided to defend herself and kill her attacker by twisting her neck, Since then, every man who wanted to take advantage of Violet, was sentenced to death what for her was a step of making a better world, and to avoid conflicts he was going circus in Circus like a parasite. It was not until several spinal problems were detected in Violet after so much writhing, which would end up killing her; The death of all these men and their disgust for male sex were the reason Violet was not welcome to heaven. Although it is barely more than a skeleton, it is a crooked and ruthless opponent capable of twisting and twisting to get out of any situation. Like a thin snake, it is fast, agile and deadly for anyone who crosses his path, hence Maruka brought her to the game of hell with the name of "Serpent".

Finisher Moves:

SHe is held head and back in front of the opponent, with her legs held on to the opponent's shoulders, and then bends his body by splitting his opponent in half like a bear trap.

Bend the opponent's arm in the opposite direction by splitting the bone, then do the same with one of its legs, and with the opponent on the ground it rolls backwards bending the opponent's spine killing him instantly.

She turns her head on the floor and rolls in a circle at high speed with his legs extended, kicking the opponent's face to the point where the jaw is split, then the neck and finally beheading him with one more kick.

Throws herself on top of his opponent, then squeezes it with arms and legs, and hugs it with such strong pressure that he causes his opponent to drown and its eyes come out of his corneas and coughs up blood.

MAMMOTH

Previous name: Maurice Kingston

Sin: Murder, Wrath

History: Before becoming a bloodthirsty golem, in his past life as a postal counter in Covington, Indiana, Maurice was nicknamed "Mammoth" because of his great stature, as a young man he always had serious anger problems that when he took him to the limit he became violently, he had already spent on psychologists to get him some anger control treatment, but for Maurice his anger sent the devil all the therapy sessions he had paid for. There came a time when Maurice was on the verge of insanity, as if it were not enough to be forced to attend to weak and rude clients at the local post office, and that his salary was not enough to pay the many bills and the demands of his ex-wife for the maintenance of his children, instead of giving him an increase as he requested, Maurice was fired, this was the missing trigger for all the accumulated anger of Maurice to explode as an atomic bomb and in an attack of anger, he murdered all your coworkers and all clients with the strength of an army of one; realizing the similar killing he has caused with his own hands, Maurice knew there was no remedy for this and decided to commit suicide with a shot in the head. The numerous deaths that Maurice caused cost him his entry into heaven, but it was enough for Marukka to make him the next fighter for Hell Den, taking his soul and transforming it into the ure incarnation of primitive rage and brutality, Mammoth, a Nightmare for the eyes. With gigantic size and strength that make it able to crush a man in a pulpy red meatball, or break the spine of his opponent with a simple finger movement. But behind the glassy and blank stare of this beast hides a furious soul and distressed by his lost humanity.

Finisher Moves:

Rips his opponent's arms and uses them to hit him to death.

Load with his fist and with a big punch sends the opponent's torso to the wall to fly causing the head and limbs to fall to the ground.

Grabs his opponent by the legs, starts spinning in circums at high speed causing the body of the opponent to break from his legs causing him to fly out and crash into the wall.

Holds his opponent with his feet and prints him several times against the ground like a carpet, and crushes him bloodyly with his fists.

GOURMET

Previous name: Cleetus Walker

Sin: Murder, canibalism

History: If an old Kentucky farmer and owner of a slaughterhouse, ever invites you to come to eat something, you better pass. This dismissed to the homage to the saying "We are what we eat", in times of famine, to avoid killing some animal of his own cattle, Cleetus used the thieves who entered his enclosure to assassinate them, and use their bodies to satisfy their hunger, the Deranged he found 1001 recipes on how to prepare human flesh, until later he stopped catching the thieves who entered his property, his appetite for pain and suffering has taken him to a new place in the food chain. Not content with simply defeating his enemies, Cleetus prefers to devour them that innocent people entered there. There was even a point that made cannibal food for the rest of the country, since when a health inspector was going to close his slaughterhouse, Cleetus threw it into a machine causing it to be crushed and mixed with the meat, a shame for all those who bought and consumed Uncle Cleetus' sausages. It is a glutton for fresh meat, the rarer the better. No one has escaped his appetite, except one who managed to lose only one leg, which Cleetus leads to good luck. But being a cannibal he did not keep his victims' meat well refrigerated, which caused him to die of a parasite infestation. Marukka saw enough potential to participate in the Hell Den, in a new being called "the gourmet", who uses his victim's escape as a weapon and as a lunch between battle.

Finisher Moves:

Throws himself against his opponent by throwing him against the ground and begins to devour his chest until he opens it.

Rips his opponent's head off with a heavy blow with his leg-mallet, takes it, and then drinks the blood he spills.

Throws his leg-mallet, plucks a leg at his opponent and eats it like a fried chicken leg.

Vomits a torrent of disgusting vomit on his opponent that melts on contact as corrosive acid.

CAIN

Previous name: Lawrence Candito

Sin: pyromania

History: Lawrence Candito is a classic case of an arsonist. From a young age he was captivated by fire. When I was a child, I put fires in his backyard and burned insects with a magnifying glass. In his early teens he began to catch small animals and burn them. By his late teens, he was burning houses and other buildings. Although he got tired of this quite quickly. One day he had an idea. He waited at a bus stop one night, and when a young woman got off the bus, he grabbed her from behind and dragged her to the shed in her backyard. There he tied her and gagged her. Then he covered it with gasoline and put it in a coat of arms. The horror in his eyes as he died really excited him. This continued for some years until one day, he broke into a house and sprayed it with gasoline while the owners slept. When he threw the match and started running towards the door, he tripped and dropped unconscious. He woke up to be covered in flames. He died with a smile on his face.  And just being a pyroman who died in flames, he came back to life as the phoenix in hell Den with the name of Cain.

Finisher Moves:

Throws his opponent to the ground, he releases a small spark on which he burns him completely.

Sets his feet on fire as an exhaust pipe, throws himself at high speed on his opponent and with such a blow he flies it in a thousand pieces.

Causes his opponent to drink a Molotov cocktail, then he swallows a spark of fire, causing the opponent's head to catch fire and his body to explode in flames.

Spit a gust of high pressure smoke that ends up skinning your opponent until it leave it in the bones.

JUDAS

Previous name: Jeffrey Adams/John Simmons

Sin: Murder, ilegal hacking

History: Jeffrey Adams was in his childhood a prodigious child, interested in reading, puzzles, weightlifting and computers. By the time he turned 27 they were very educated in computer programming, advanced enough to work for the United States government. One night, while the other prisoners slept, someone entered the asylum security system and disarmed it long enough for prisoners to escape, it turned out to be Jeffrey, who led a double life as a criminal murderer by the name of John Simmons, since the subject suffered from a double personality disorder. The murderous uproar that followed his escape would not be forgotten soon. Three years later, after several sightings and reports, Jeffery was located in an old condemned factory where he had apparently been hiding. The FBI surrounded the building and discharged a large amount of tear gas into the factory. Minutes later, when the agents entered the building, they found the two-faced man unconscious on the floor. A few syringes filled with cyanide were injected into it and the factory was burned to leave no evidence. That double life was the admiration for Jeffrey to be manifested in hell, but with his other personality, John joined to him instead of his bottom, and his high betrayal of the country was what baptized this being as "Judas," The man with two faces.

Finisher Moves:

Throws himself and holds onto his opponent, and with extreme force and a leap back he rips off the upper part of his body.

Between their two arms, they rip limbs of their opponent to place them in badly placed belts.

Gives several hooks to his opponent which causes his upper half to fly up.

Each half of him takes turns and alternates a series of punches on his opponent until they create a punch at the same time as he punches his opponent's stomach.

MARUKKA

Previous Name: Whendy Jonhson

Role: The devil's lover, Founder of The Hell Den

History: Wendy Johnson was a true satanist. All her life it was she who was chosen and mocked. Having few or no friends, he started reading in company. He especially liked books dealing with the occult. She ventured into witchcraft, black magic and voodoo before engaging in satanism. At the age of 23, she had become an expert in satanism and the occult. She began summoning the spirits with an Ouija board. It is rumored that Wnedy is the only person who has contacted Satan through enchantment. He even changed his name to Marukka, which means: The devil's lover according to what he had read in an ancient black bible. Soon she began to see everyone else as inferior to herself and left in a murderous uproar, seducing and mutilating men. Killing women who were prettier than her. After reading a book about sacrifice and future life, she decided to offer herself to her mentor. She placed a ring of fire around her naked body and began to sing an invocation. He cut his wrists with a snake-handled dagger and drank his own blood. Then, she sank the dagger into her abdomen while she finished her singing. Pleased with his sacrifice, Satan decided to abide by his only desire. She chose to become "the devil's lover" and become a winged demon to rule those below with her mentor! However, Marukka had a great appetite for the most sinister, evil and sinful souls, it was where I created a trap called The Hell Den, a death championship where tortured souls would participate in a death match, with the reward of reincarnating and returning to the land, completely ignoring what Marukka wants is a feast and devour the winner as dessert.

Finisher Moves:

Throws herself on his opponent and devours his head bloodthirsty.

Opens a black vortex where it enters and absorbs its opponent, from the vortex begins to expel limbs, entrails and blood of the victim like a giant crusher.

Take possession of the opponent's body and force it to tear off its own head.

Teleports the opponent from the sky of the earth, which causes a great speed to fall at an infernal height and when he falls he is stamped against the ground turned into a bloody mass.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, the question is, would Thrill Kill receive a second chance? Surely, as I said before, Thrill Kill was a very advanced game for its time, which led to its cancellation, given its content that the gamers of that time, not even the adults of that time were prepared to watch in a video game . Later there were more violent and controversial games, such as subsequent installments of Mortal Kombat, Postal, Dead Rising, Silent Hill, Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, Madworld, God of war,Hatred and others. So in these times Thrill Kill would have been welcome.

[therearemonstersinthedark]

She’s my Ride Home

Chapter 2: Strike a Match, Pour Gasoline

An Avengers: Engame Fanwork

Pairings: Tony Stark & Nebula (friendship)

Genre: Adventure, general

Word Count: 1.9k

Rating: K+

Links: Fanfiction.net || Ao3

Summary:  Nebula thinks she gets it; how her sister came to love a Terran. Those 22 days spent drifting hopelessly through space on a broken ship may have been the best memories she’d ever had.

Author’s Notes: Titles from ‘She’s my Ride Home’ by Blue October.

Chapter 2: I'll be Reaching for the Stars With You

"Looks like a hurricane came through here." The Terran's voice rasped over the hum of the engine leaking from the opened panel.

Nebula carefully wound the plastic insulation tape over the exposed wire which had been sparking and threatening to blow a circuit to the atmosphere control unit. "Hurricanes occur over water."

Tony let out a burst of laughter that left him wheezing a moment later. "A woman after my own heart," he chuckled out between gasps of pain.

Nebula didn't look up from her work. "If I wanted your heart I would have cut it out while you slept."

His chuckles faded into a breathy laughter that sounded a little wetter than it had before to Nebula's enhanced hearing. "Natasha is going to love you."

She could hear him wandering around the room with uneven steps and inspecting various items that had been strewn about in the crash and then, later, her attempts to find the Terran some way to fight the infection that was clearly trying to take over his body.

"Space is like, a kind of ocean," he offered in a painfully transparent attempt at conversation. "Y'know, this is going to be a much longer trip if we can't even talk to each other."

"It's going to be long either way." She finished sealing off the defiant wire and tucked it away, closing the panel back into place.

"It's still nicer to have someone to talk to."

"Not always." Nebula turned to fix him with a sharp look which seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever.

He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders which he must have stolen from someone's bed, and his forehead looked sweaty again, despite the fact that the ship was holding at low temperature right now.

"That brings me to a thought I had a while ago- how did I understand you all? Did your human friend Flash Gordon back there teach you all English or something?"

"You are hearing our universal translators," she said, rising to her feet and moving around him to sweep the items gathered on the table onto the floor. "I am not speaking English."

The Terran's eyebrows rose as he danced out of the way of the falling items. "That's handy. Don't suppose you have any extra ones I could tinker with while I'm here?"

"No." With the table cleared, Nebula retrieved the box of outdated medical supplies from where she had stowed it in a nearby drawer. She dropped the box onto the table and motioned for Tony to climb up. "Take off your bandage."

"I usually get dinner first," he grunted out as he draped the blanket onto a chair and hauled himself onto the table where she could see better in the ship's dimmed lighting. The action left him panting as he began unwinding the bandages she had applied on Titan.

He was struggling to get his arms behind himself without further aggravating his ribs and after a moment she smacked his hands away with a snort and took over.

"You're a lot grumpier than my usual nurses," he told her as she worked, apparently incapable of handling any length of silence. "Unless you count Pepper, then I guess this is about right."

The edges of his wound were puffy and red, and didn't appear to have made any progress towards healing beyond what she had done with the Suturim on Titan. It had only been a cycle and a half since he had received the wound, this infection was moving quickly.

She pressed her fingers experimentally against the flesh and he gave a yelp, jerking away from her touch.

"Don't poke it!" he snapped.

"The infection is trying to take hold. It's probably originating from somewhere deep inside of you." Whatever he had been run through with was certainly not very sterile. "I am not a surgeon, and we don't have anything here to kill the infection. You'll just have to take care of it and fight it off on your own."

"Great. I got space-rabies from a giant purple grape. I gotta say, this is not how I was expecting to go out, but don't worry, I'm a fighter. I've been told I'm too stubborn to die."

"You babble a lot," she breathed out, peeling open a new pack of antiseptic. "Is that normal for you, or has the fever affected your brain?"

"Uh... normal, I think. I'd worry more if it stopped-Ouch!" The Terran squirmed again as she scrubbed harshly against the open edges of his wound.

"Hold still."

"Well, you could be a little gentler about it, you know."

"This way will be over faster," she countered, ignoring his complaints and continuing to scrub away the dying flesh.

-x-

"So tell me about these 'Guardians' or whatever- what were they like?"

Nebula opened her eyes to regard her companion coldly. After spending the last half a cycle working tirelessly to keep the ship running, she was finally resting in the captain's seat. Tony was in the seat next to hers, huddled up under the same blanket from earlier, with strict instructions to wake her if something changed on the monitors. A glance around the cockpit proved that those requirements had not been met.

"Nothing has changed," she informed him, making it clear she was not amused, and closed her eyes.

"Sure it did."

Begrudgingly she cracked an eye open again to find him pointing at a series of numbers at the corner of a screen.

"This symbol here. It used to look like a... squiggly star thing, now it looks more like an upside-down happy face."

"It's the navigational system. The co-ordinates will change as we make progress across the galaxies."

"Oh." He squinted at the numbers. "Is that what it is? I can't read them."

"You wouldn't be able to understand what they meant anyways."

The cockpit was blissfully silent for all of three breaths.

"So this family of yours-"

"They were not my family," she answered tiredly, hoping to put an end to his curiosity. "They were my sister's."

"Doesn't that make them yours, too?

"Thanos stole us both from our homeworlds when we were children. We do not share blood."

"But you were raised together? So you must have been close, right?"

"Our father would pit us against each other in battle. Whenever I lost to Gamora, he would replace some part of me in the hopes of creating her an equal."

His brows raised as he stared at her as though noticing her modifications for the first time.

She leaned back and closed her eyes once more so she didn't have to see his face while he counted the failures immortalized into her flesh.

-x-

"Hey Nebula, what is this?"

Nebula set her tools down to accept the crinkling silver packet he was handing down to where she sat cross-legged on the floor. "It's food," she told him flatly. "You eat it."

"Yeah, I figured that, but what is it? I can't read the print, and I don't know if it's bad or just taste like shit."

She flipped the bag over in her hand to scan over the sparse labeling. "It's expired." That was disgusting. How had her sister lived with these idiots?

Tony tugged the ever-present blanket a bit tighter around his shoulders. "Expired like 'the grocery store can't sell it anymore,' or expired like 'time to call poison control?'"

A cautious sniff of the contents revealed it was just old, not rotten. "It's stale. You'll be fine." She handed the packet back to the nervous Terran. They couldn't really afford to be picky right now anyways. The Guardians had not kept a well-stocked ship, and they were a long way from fresh supplies, with no working radio and no way to send a hail for help. "Just don't break a tooth."

The Terran gave a grunt of acknowledgment and accepted the bag back awkwardly with his left hand, his right one clinging stubbornly to his side. Now that she looked, he seemed to be hunched over even more than he had been when she had cleaned the wound that afternoon. It was nearing what should be the middle of the night cycle now. He'd done little but sleep in the time between, he shouldn't look so terrible.

She took in a deep breath and let it out with a growl of frustration as she rose to her feet, abandoning her current project. It was hopeless anyways. The communication systems had been smashed and fried beyond what they had to the means to repair.

"Get on the table," she ordered, yanking open the drawer she had stored the medical supplies in with much more force than necessary.

"You can't want to change the bandage again already?" he asked, but struggled onto the table as requested. "How many rolls of that stuff do we even have?"

"It doesn't matter," she grumbled through her teeth, locating the medical kit she was after and returning to peel the bandage up enough to catch a glimpse of the discolored flesh underneath. "Your infection is getting worse."

The edges of the cut were starting to ooze an ugly yellow puss and, underneath, parts were turning a deep purple which was spreading through the nearby veins, creating dark spider-webs lacing ominously up his side.

"Stay here." She stalked off into the ship's bathroom, locating a clean towel and ripping it into strips then filling a cup with hot water from the sink. Next, she tore through the cupboards and drawers until she found the salt. It was standard for most ships to carry some, at least. Most life forms required it to survive, and if you were desperate enough it had other uses. She placed her gathered items onto the table next to Tony, who was holding his side protectively and frowning down at her like he was already dreading what was to come.

When the bandage was unwound and the pus and dead tissue scraped from the wound she dunked a strip of towel into the warm salt water and handed it to the Terran who was laying misty-eyed with pain on the table.

"Soak it now."

He swallowed thickly as he accepted the scrap of cloth and pressed it against his raw flesh.

"We'll have to do this several times a cycle. I'll come back later to help you re-bandage it."

She left him on the table and returned to her hopeless attempt to draw the communication lines back to life long enough to send out an emergency hail.

End Chapter 2