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chiwhorei · 4 years ago

Text

gun bunny

pairing: mafia!s. aizawa x fem!reader

genre: mafia!au, quirkless!au, smut- 18+ minors dni

word count: 2.5k

warning: somnophilia, voyeurism, violence, attempted kidnapping, attempted assault, mentions of blood, mentions of guns and knives, degradation, age-gap (reader is 19 and aizawa is 31), spitting

a/n: hello! this is my contribution to the smut pile mafia!server collab, this is both my first smut pile collab (this is so late i am so sorry sksksksk) and my first full-length bnha piece, be sure to check out everyone else’s amazing work here! thank you to @10millionyearsdungeon and @messwriting for your constant support while i trudged through sad pal hours for a fucking month and crawled out of the pits of writer’s block

hymns: hayloft by - mother mother, i’m on fire - awolnation cover

Blood pours over decades like syrup, the tinny-sweet smell was distinct but all too familiar. A muffled gun’s buzzing frames 19 years of life. The barrel feels cool, sitting precariously by the highest angle of your cheekbone.

“I told you not to cause trouble, brat. Now I have to clean up your little mess.”

Aizawa’s body is tall and broad above you, holding you against him with a protective grip on the small of your back. Every word is sneering, punctuated with a growl-- you feel it reverberate against his chest.

The bullet is resounding even through the silencer; a deafening sound, final bell tolling next to smeared streaks of mascara.

Aizawa Shouta has always been around-- whether bringing your dad a hefty stack of reports to thumb through or loosening his tie in the parlor and toasting him to another job well done. A carousel of chauffeurs and bodyguards encircle you, but all are nameless faces except for the man that can make people disappear in an instant: Eraser.

Otsuka y/n, the only daughter of the most powerful man in Japan, is a weighty title against your shoulders. Your father’s reputation has cradled you for almost two decades, keeping you draped in fur and balancing on red-bottoms. He has more money, more power than God. To most of your father’s inner circle, you are the dutiful, angelic heiress to his blood-soaked empire. You play the part well enough, polite, temperate- your hands are painted red in culpability, but perfectly manicured.

Your father’s business isn’t a secret, no matter his attempts to shield you over the years. There’s only so many nights spent humming to the tune of cracking skulls in the next room before “investments in oil” starts to lose its validity. Whenever you ask him, he pats your head, smoothing stray strands of hair, “I do it all for you, bunny. Everything is for you.”

You decide not to think about rouge splatters of blood and bruises against his knuckles, ignoring the clicking of a loading gun before he leaves for the office.

It’s better this way.

“You can’t be serious, Otsuka.” Aizawa paces across the hardwood, heel to toe with Italian leather from one large bookshelf to the other. A familiar habit, you’ve seen the contemplative marching before and know it to mean one thing: Aizawa is pissed.

“Have you ever known me to joke around? Especially with y/n?” Your father’s elbows hit the table in front of him, the jagged scars lining his face seem even more intimidating when coupled with a harshly set frown. You perch on the side of his large desk, swinging your feet lightly.

“Oh daddy, I’m not a child. I don’t need Eraser to babysit me.” You huff, crossing your arms and providing a pout to your father’s hard expression. You hear the mumbled, “Don’t call me that,” from behind you, but decide against a response.

“He’s going to look after you while I’m in Musutafu. I have to handle some…” he trails off slightly, one of his hands coming up to rub against his bald head, “noncompliance, but I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days.” His disfigured fingers curling around yours, you look up to meet his eye, “Be a good girl, bunny.”

You give your father’s temple a kiss, pulling back to smile sweetly. Your next words have Aizawa snorting, rolling his eyes far enough into his skull to be painful.

“I always am.”

A bend downwards at the hips frames your ass perfectly, the lace of your panties curls around your pussy tightly, hooking against the lips and showcasing your soft skin. Questions swirl in the bowl of cereal in front of him, all but forgotten as soon as a cup“fell” from your fingers and clattered to the floor. The taste, the smell, the feeling of--

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Aizawa is ripped from the reprehensible desires of his senses to meet your eyes, your form still folded over on itself and displayed for Aizawa in the otherwise empty kitchen. You giggle at his scowl, snapping back up and smoothing out your skirt. Aizawa bites down on the spoon in between his teeth, he swears he can feel his teeth cracking. Better his canines than his will.

This only marks the beginning of a long week for your father’s right-hand man. The proceeding days turn to nights at a snail's pace. The past week has been inching towards disaster with every minute of alone time you could steal with Aizawa.

“Eraser, what are you doing up so late.” Your voice curls around his shoulder, the whine tugging him towards your open bedroom door. It’s late, far too late for you to be up to anything good.

You always like to push your luck, playing a game you know Aizawa won’t let himself win. Pressing firmly against the line but never pointing your heel across. Maintaining your immunity, feigning innocence behind a soft pout. Your appointed guardian isn’t fooled by any honeyed façade you build around his associates. He knows what you are at the core.

He tries to shake off your pull, but the way your voice lilts against the long hallway is magnetic. The past few nights have been the same song and dance, your disarming call to him as he trudges to one of the many guest bedrooms. Every night he gets closer, heavy feet and tense nerves guiding him towards your warm voice. He’s weathering a sea, you’re the siren hell-bent on his drowning.

“I told you not to call me that, little girl.” His response to your wanton call is shallow, the nickname is one he hates the sound of, especially rolling past your lips.

“Do you like what you see?”

Aizawa’s brows set harshly as he looks on to where you lie nestled in pillows and silk. You have nothing but a loose, light pink camisole to cover your body, cotton panties pulled down to your ankles with shameless intent. Your legs are spread wide for your viewer’s pleasure, two fingers brush against your lips, dragging lazily- up and back down.

Aizawa knows what you really are, a petulant brat.

You pull at the soft skin, spreading yourself to unveil the tight, clenching hole. He leans his shoulder against the jam, eyes drinking you in where his body shamefully wishes to be. The groan aching deeply in his chest is not lost on you as your other hand pulls the hem of your shirt upwards to catch in between your teeth.

The soft plush of your breasts bounces slightly, nipples peeking out from the folds of fabric, now fully exposed to the inky-black stare of your voyeur. There’s nothing left to his imagination now, the question that haunts sleepless nights, palming a large hand up and down his cock and imagining something softer and smaller. The picture of what his boss’s precious daughter would look like squirming under him becoming clearer beyond all reason.

Aizawa should turn heel and walk away, he should slam your bedroom door shut and count the days until your father’s return with a measured distance. He should walk away. He should-

A soft whimper drags him from contemplation and back to the writhing succubus center stage. Your fingers move quickly against your aching clit, drawing out babbled pleas to hit harshly against the tall, brooding presence at your door.

“I’ve had about enough of your games, bunny. Your father tasked me to keep you out of trouble, but you are the trouble.” Aizawa’s words hit your ears mockingly, but they sound more like an invitation than a warning, especially as his body inches forward, breaching the threshold of your bedroom inch by inch.

Two fingers slip past your lips, pushing in and drawing back slicked with arousal. You repeat the action, slowly, ensuring the boring set of eyes are trained on where you clench desperately; wanting to put on a good show with your bodyguard in the front row.

Aizawa’s head is swimming, dizzy and drunk. He wants to tear you apart, to lay claim to the twitching prize between your legs. If you struggle around two of your own much smaller fingers, it would be nearly impossible to wrap you around his thick cock.

That is, not without breaking you.

The heated pants escaping you pick up in canter, your audience winding a tight cord with his presence alone. Aizawa is unrelenting in his deep, unblinking stare, stepping towards your bed slowly. Once his body is looming over you, the coil in your stomach has turned into a hair pinned trigger.

“Such a messy little slut. Getting off to the attention aren’t you?” You’re rendered dumb at his comment, Aizawa barely has to press his thumb into your chin before your mouth hangs open. You look up with glassy eyes, fingers sore from working against your pussy, chasing a high you can only imagine how fast Aizawa could steal from you. His expression is as neutral as always, but the despondency doesn’t quite shadow the fire burning in his eyes. You watch him lean forward slightly, a string of saliva falling downward to land against your tongue. His spit feels hot, you can taste the remnants of cigar and mint gum as you swallow.

You come undone in a litany of cries, pleading with your captor. His hold is passive as he looks at you, watching you cum against your fingers, the squelching sounds make his mouth dry. The only source of hydration is at the apex of your thighs. Visions flash before his eyes, images of what the curve of your breasts look like as he’s buried tongue deep, lapping you up post-orgasm and pushing you over once more for good measure.

Aizawa retreats, lest he pulls you against his mouth while your cunt is still pulsating, he needs to escape before your knees are pressed to your shoulders. He slams your door closed harshly, leaving you with the taste of his contempt for you on your bottom lip.

You’re quick to sleep, body falling into the warmth of unconsciousness coupled with dreams of what a certain set of fingers would feel like against you. How the scars and calluses would brush against your most intimate inches of spongy flesh, how he would stretch you.

You can almost feel the soreness in between your legs and the heavy slap of something against your stomach. You can almost remember the whispered confessional swimming in the back of your head, the soft grunts from above your sleeping form. As sunlight stretches across your sleep-stiff body, your hand trails down over your naked skin, maybe you aren’t the only one playing games this week.

You could have almost sworn you had gone to sleep with panties on.

The car ride to your father’s bar was filled with unflattering tension. You had protested in vain that going with Aizawa wasn’t necessary, but had been met with a dismissive, “I don’t trust you to behave.”

“I’m not a child, Eraser. I don’t see why I couldn’t just sit at home.” You wobble behind your escort, heeled boots clacking against the gravel.

As you enter the building, a young mop of violet hair flanks Aizawa down with a stack of papers. The man is nameless to you but is familiar enough to be assumed under your father’s thumb.

Aizawa looks over the document’s now held in front of him with care, rolling up the sleeves to his crisp dress shirt as his eyes scan the pages. You note the shimmering silvered skin of a scar under his left eye, pronounced by the harsh lighting surrounding you. His hair is held up partially by a tie, the loose strands framing his face.

“Are you listening to me, little girl?” You're snapped back from watching his mouth curling around syllables to actually make out what they’ve been saying.

“Go sit down, I’ll only be a few minutes.” You nod along and turn to perch at the bar, but stop at the grip pulling you back for one final order. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.”

Aizawa leaves you to stew in the subtle brush of his pointer finger against the tender skin of your wrist, he rubs the skin subtly before disappearing to the back rooms.

The minutes ticking by are agonizing. Aizawa, usually the epitome of brief, has been gone long enough for the condensation on your glass to mar the wood below it in countless ringlets. You twirl the straw against the strawberry liquor, willing time to crank by faster with the action. The drink in your veins isn’t nearly enough to get you drunk but does make the opening of the front door unnoticeable.

Your back is facing the heavy wood, unaware of the two strangers now approaching until the curdling sound of one man’s voice hits the shell of your ear.

“Well, well, look what we have here. Why don’t I buy you a drink, princess?” Each man steals one of your sides, enclosing you into a tight, predatory huddle.

“This is my bar. I don’t need you to buy me anything.” You try to shake off the nauseating feeling of their bodies so close to you, gut twisting uncomfortably as one man’s breath crawls across your shoulder blades. They’re both so close. Too close.

“Wow, this little kitty cat’s got some claws, don’t she?” You feel hands curl around each bicep, a bruising grip right below your armpits. Your body is hoisted up, your balance off at the jarring upheaval.

Possible escape routes flash across your mind but all seem impossible. Would trying to shake off the still faceless strangers even work? And even if you sprung free, would you make it to the back office before they caught up? Should you try to scream? Would Aizawa hear you?

Before you can make any moves, you feel the flat side of a knife at your collarbone. A chill rattles down your spine at the contact, two inches of metal keeping your entire body compliant.

Their intent is clear, you’ll be coming with them, and by the sharp point of a blade digging into the first layer of skin-- you’ll be coming quietly.

A mixture of shock and disbelief compels your body into compliance, dragging you to the front door and closer towards an awaiting trunk.

“Your carriage, princess.” You hear the shorter man on your right, his voice at your neck sounds waterlogged through the blood rushing in your ears. Any protests die at the knife against your skin, digging in shallowly and pricking a small trail of red along your clavicle.

A sharp snap sounds behind you, like a piece of thin wood under a heavy boot. One of your captors falls in a pile next to you. You’re turned around to meet a familiar pair of venomous, black eyes, Aizawa’s words roll from his tongue with a growl.

You’re pulled at the wrist, stumbling back into the strong chest of your appointed bodyguard.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my bunny?”

all writing is dymphnasprose’s original content, please do not repost or modify. do no read my content as asmr.©️

#aizawa smut #aizawa x reader smut #aizawa x reader #bnha smut #bnha x reader #shouta aizawa #tw: somnophilia #tw: violence #tw: blood #tw: weapons

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kimishima-naomi · 7 years ago

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o-tsuru

Cover art by a talented acquaintance of mine.

In her hands was an inch-wide square cut out of filter paper. It was the second attempt; first one eventually tore from a careless movement.

One of her university professors used to say that if you truly wanted to be a surgeon, you would need to fold a thousand paper cranes. He was from the old school of doctors, the ones that – although it was just her opinion – had true skill, true experience. Maybe he meant that you needed good luck – after all, it wasn’t easy to make it into medical school. Naomi chose to take it the other way – a surgeon needed, above all, dexterity.

Plenty of her colleagues, while competent, had heavy hands. Repositioning the tissues in forceps again and again, stopping in the middle of an incision, failing to handle the suture thread with required accuracy – and, as a result, post-surgical complications. She used to think it was the universities’ fault – how could the students learn anything if they hadn’t as much as given an injection in six years? However, later on she observed the same problem in other countries. Besides, if you want to improve, you have to find a way.

On a piece of foam rubber, she practiced suturing, starting with simple interrupted and progressing to harder techniques. With both hands, with right hand, with left hand, and finally placing the material in a table drawer and working by feel, arms contorted awkwardly. She sutured latex gloves to imitate working on blood vessels, honing precision and speed. She riddled her arms with needlesticks, making injections in the hardest veins. She spent her last yen on offal and practiced making incisions until her scalpel could cut through any tissue with ease. And when it came to residency, her training paid off. The Medical Association could say what they wanted – her real talent had been earned, not gifted.

How arrogant she had been to think that.

Her hands were numb, and she had to rely on her eyes to fold the paper. Corner-to-corner, again, then side-to-side. She was having trouble even with that, her once-deft fingers setting the creases in the wrong places.

Since the diagnosis, the dexterity had been the first to go. Ten years of practice rendered null and void within a month. So far, her mind compensated for that, letting her do her job even without conducting dissections personally. That wasn’t going to last long; she already found herself stumbling over the most trivial questions. She hoped to have the willpower to end her life before cognitive impairment set in. But maybe she didn’t deserve a quick death. Not after today.

Her fingertips were sticking to the paper. She laid it out on her knee, smoothing it out with the back of her hand, then wiped her palms on her suit. Again. Try harder.

Stiles must have anticipated that possibility. They’ve had plenty of discussions during her time in Caduceus. Derek thought a fight was always worth fighting. She knew that often the best choice was to fold the cards and cut your losses. Doing that would hurt him deeply, though.

Naomi recalled how they’d completed the preliminary diagnosis, working together for one last time. The future, or lack thereof, before her was clear to both of them even before the test results had come in. Then Derek took his glasses off, pulled out a handkerchief and started wiping down the lenses, head lowered, not raising his eyes to look at her. He was silent. She kept silent, too, waiting for the doctor to speak first, angry at what she saw as cowardice. Only later did she realize he wasn’t scared, just lost. Lost at not being able to help for the first time in his career. Helplessness was truly the worst feeling.

Along the creases, she folded the paper in a triangle, bringing the sides together. No, that was wrong, all wrong. Straighten it out, again.

Stay alive ‘til then, he said. These words had helped. Just one more day, one more week, one more case.

And look at how that turned out.

Pain shot through her chest. Teeth clenched, hands clenched, she leaned forward, trying to breathe in deep, even as each movement echoed in her ribs. Strange, that hadn’t happened before.

Two or three minutes, and the spasm passed as suddenly as it had come over her. Still, the tension remained in her muscles. She opened her hands – the paper was crumpled beyond hope. Great. Third attempt, then.

An old legend – fold a thousand paper cranes and be granted a wish. She’d heard about it at school, during a history lesson; though, frankly, textbooks were quite elusive at telling about the war. Not that she needed teaching, being a kid from Uchinaa – Okinawa, that is. Her grandparents were old enough to remember the bloodshed that took place on the islands. Grandma’s older brother was 15. He got drafted. He was killed.

The ground had been cleaned up since, mostly, but not the ocean floor. Pieces of bone, smoothed by the waves into pebbles, were common. Naomi saw plenty – she was a good swimmer. Once, she’d noticed a broken skull, missing its lower jaw and left temporal bone. Had to swim up for air, though, and couldn’t find the place later. Still, it was a vivid memory. She thought that, now, she could have drawn many conclusions from that skull alone. Race, age, gender; time and maybe cause of death.

Another piece of paper, same creases to make. Of course it was the other way – into a square. Corners to center – in which direction? She couldn’t even recall that, how absurd. Forgetting how to fold a crane was like forgetting how to read.

She used to enjoy doing things with her hands, testing their nimbleness. There was one challenge she liked – making a paper crane small enough to perch at the tip of her finger. A figurine of this size would have taken two minutes.

Now, her hands would get cramped from hardly a page of typing, so she didn’t strain them much, afraid of failure. Until today.

Fold a thousand paper cranes and be granted a wish. She didn’t believe in that. The legend was there to give hope to somebody… somebody powerless to do anything. Like holding out straws for a drowning man.

Invert, and raise the wings up – less than half a centimeter to work with. Her fingers were trembling now.

There was no time to fold a thousand cranes. There was no reason to fold a thousand cranes. However… Maybe she could manage one, make it as small as she once could. It would mean that at least a trace of her former expertise remained.

Then, maybe, she hadn’t screwed up, hadn’t –!

Her fingers slipped, and the paper fell to the ground. Hastily, Naomi picked it up from the floor and placed it on the chair next to herself. Can’t mess around anymore. The piece of filter paper had only been large enough for three squares, three tries. There was more in her car, but that wasn’t the promise she made.

Why was the filter paper even – oh, right. At CIFM, she had been conducting a study. Pulmonary air analysis, which required fine-pored filter paper they didn’t routinely stock. She ordered some, and, in the meantime, managed to find a pack among her personal lab supplies. But the pack was left in her car, because the FBI had assigned her a case and the study was postponed. By the time she would be done, the filters she needed would have been delivered to her workplace.

As a medical examiner, she received many deliveries.

It hasn’t been different, this one! It hasn’t… right?

Irrelevant. It should have been her. Her, who didn’t even have the decency to crawl away to die. Who had to let this child get close to her. And for what reason? Treating a cat. Just because she’d been called a “doctor”. Just to feel like a hero once again. Pathetic.

Naomi had plenty of experience with treating burn patients. In this case, there were at least seven percent third-degree burns – five percent were a criterion for a burn center; plus age, plus associated injuries. Even after living through an operation, survival unlikely.

They couldn’t even get close to the house at the time – too much heat. Probably a gas boiler, although the specifics were for the arson crew to determine. Whether someone was inside – well, there had to have been – still, they found no survivors. If there were relatives, they should have been in the hospital as well, but they weren’t here.

Her fault. All her fault.

make it stop

She clenched her hands hard, hard enough for short nails to press into skin and for muscles to budge on her forearms. Didn’t help. Didn’t hurt enough.

She raised her right fist up – and slammed it into the neighboring chair. The paper bird flinched as the sound echoed in the hallway.

Pain brought back a semblance of sanity, and she examined her hand. Knuckles reddened instantly, though there was no damage. She knew how to make a fist. Then, maybe if she kept her wrist loose…

Naomi shook her head sharply, getting rid of the impulse. What was wrong with her, thinking like that? Certainly, depression was one of the expected symptoms, but it had never escalated to self-harm. She’d always cared about her hands.

Her hands, which were utterly useless now. She’d give up whatever control she had of them, for the rest of her life, if the girl could then live, if that would help, would ��

make it stop

So she was “the girl”, then? “Patient”?

“Alyssa.”

Her lips moved reluctantly – she hadn’t spoken in… how much time had passed, actually? She didn’t have a watch; her cellphone, she’d switched off and left in her car. In case the worst happened, it wasn’t how she wanted to find out.

She drove back to Resurgam as soon as the FBI and then the police were through with asking questions to her. The sun was beginning to set by then, it was about eight. And she’d stayed in her car for a long time, the coward, because there was a good chance Alyssa was already…

make it stop please

She had to leave the kid in doctors’ hands while she hunted the bomber. Well, Sandra Lieberman was gone – she personally pronounced her dead, she saw what remained of the body. There was nothing more to do but wait. According to a nurse she managed to talk to, the child was alive but critical.

The sight of the small body on the ground, burned and bloody but alive for the time being, was still before her eyes. That was the last clear memory; Naomi had only come to as the chopper was taking her back to CIFM. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember her actions at the scene. Except that she’d helped the paramedic set up an IV. What stellar contribution.

There were procedures for treating burn victims – and she wasn’t recalling them now. There were calculations to make – she handed these over to the paramedic and couldn’t check now if they made sense. Could she have forgotten her training by now? Her hands weren’t good for anything, after all.

She was a risk-taker by nature, and she made one final bet with herself. She cut three squares from a circle of filter paper – it was thin and held creases well. If she could do what once was simple, then, maybe, she hadn’t screwed the first aid up. If she could fold one paper crane, the girl would live.

Her fingertips felt nothing as she touched the figurine. There would be no fourth attempt; it was already clear she wouldn’t make it. Smaller creases made up the neck and tail, and her hands were too numb.

Closing her eyes, Naomi leaned back against the wall. It felt as if one of these nightmares where you wake up unable to move.

just make it stop

This couldn’t be real. The crane meant nothing. She was going to live.

She was going to…

You’ll pull through, right, kid? It could be worse, much worse; these injuries are survivable. You have to pull through. There’s so many things you haven’t seen.

Please, just wake up, okay? Whatever happens next, I’m with you until my death. My relatives – we’re not close, but they’ll understand, they won’t leave you, you won’t be alone. I am still a doctor, I will help you recover… just, please, give me a chance, give me one chance to make it right.

You have to live, it’s not just me – the paramedic, Torres, she promised to do anything she could. The surgeons – the one who made the phone call stop, the lady from Japan… Gabe, too – he called to say you were off the table. Said he had quite a story to tell. Whatever he’s gotten himself into… don’t let it be in vain.

Even if you never want to see my face again, even if it’s my fault – as long as you live, I don’t care if you hate me, I hate myself already. Because I wouldn’t have chosen to live another day if I knew I was going to hurt someone else… hurt you.

Because this case is going to haunt me, and I can’t take any more blood on my hands. If you’re not here, there’s no reason for me to go on, nobody to fight for.

Because I was looking for something to get me through one more day, and found a cause… I needed to know if the cat, my last patient, would recover. Needed to thank you for finding that thing hidden in the clock. Needed to talk to you, because I had someone I could just talk to. I’d pushed everyone away, thinking that would keep them safe, only to realize that I needed conversation as bad as I needed air.

Don’t die, please. Don’t leave me here.

Because I’d have to beg for forgiveness in front of another grave.

There’s so many people I’d wronged. All the victims of GUILT epidemic… you’re not going to join them, right?

Even if there’s nothing I could do… Couldn’t even fold a crane, could I? Did I think that would work, that all the pleading wasn’t pointless?

make it stop, please, just make it stop, I can’t take this, anything but this

Let her live! Take me, but let her live! Grant me any death, any agony – it can’t be worse than waiting here like a pariah dog! I beg of you, someone, anyone, let me do something right for once; let Alyssa have the life I forfeited! Let her live!

Naomi wasn’t crying – she couldn’t. There was her inside herself, screaming in despair, and there was her on the outside, as if she was watching herself break down through a one-way mirror.

With stiff fingers, she picked up the unfinished bird. Then, resting her arms on the seat of the empty chair, she lay down, burying her face in the sleeves of her suit – her clothes smelled of ash – wanting to fall asleep and not have to wake again.

“Doctor Kimishima?”

Sleep hadn’t come, but slumber had. She’d thought for a moment she was taking a rest at her shift, and a coworker was shaking her shoulder.

Then she remembered – and sat up abruptly, startling the woman who had woken her up. It was the surgeon she’d talked to, the Japanese one.

“Alyssa is doing well,” the doctor said quickly, seeing Naomi’s expression. “Condition serious but stable.”

Serious condition; then, not critical anymore. That – that was good.

“Thank you. Glasgow Scale?”

“Twelve. We’re letting her sleep for now. It will be a while before she’s fully conscious. You don’t have to stay here.”

“If you say so, doctor –?”

“Tachibana Tomoe.”

“Pleased to meet you, doctor Tachibana.” She decided against asking how the woman knew her – didn’t feel like being called the “devil doctor” again.

Tension eased off her, and she slumped in her chair. The paper crane slipped out from her fingers. The doctor noticed.

“Is that – can I see, please?”

“Feel free.”

Tomoe picked the crane up gingerly and took a close look at it. She was younger than Naomi initially thought; couldn’t be more than 25. A resident, maybe?

“It’s a complex size, isn’t it?”

“Not really, no.”

With a quiet rustle of her kimono, Tomoe sat down beside her.

“You look tired.”

Naomi couldn’t tell if it was a calque from Japanese, so she didn’t reply.

“Do you have someone who can drive you home?”

Little Guy would, but he deserved rest after today. Moreover, she’d need to thank him for several things, and that was the last thing she felt like doing now. Didn’t want to face someone who’d seen her at her worst.

“I’ll call a taxi. Thanks for the concern.”

Probably not – the tremor in her hands was barely there by now, and driving tended to put her mind at ease.

“Maria asked me to say a few words to you.”

“Maria?”

“Miss Torres.”

“Yes, I see. Go ahead.”

“Maria said that she knew really well what it was like to blame yourself for hurting someone. I’m not sure what she meant. She said to tell you to, um, cut that out, because it wasn’t your fault. And that even if it was, it would be better to move on and make amends rather than keep worrying. Well, she didn’t use these words, but you understand.”

“I do. Please tell Miss Torres – actually, I’ll thank her myself.”

Tomoe nodded; then her eyes widened slightly as if remembering something, and she pulled a small black notebook from her sleeve. “Here you go. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

Sharply, Naomi took the notebook back and opened it on the purposefully dog-eared page. Shaky, barely legible ink – her hand though not her handwriting, in the usual mélange of kanji, letters, and symbols that had meaning only for her. She flipped to the other side – yes, there, her conclusions deciphered for the other doctors.

Burn percentages by the rule of nines. Fluid resuscitation – Ringer’s lactate, albumin, et cetera. Pulse, blood pressure – all vital signs recorded. Formulas derived from height and weight estimations…

“It seems correct,” she muttered in surprise, putting her notes down.

“Your notes have been extremely helpful to us. Were you worrying about that?” She seemed to read others’ emotions well.

“Yes. Yes, I was. I’m not a doctor anymore. Could have made a mistake.”

“We double-checked, of course. Everything was accurate. You must have a lot of experience treating burns.”

Naomi tried again to remember her actions, despite the sickening feeling this brought on. Nothing much, only some scraps of memory. One thing made more sense, though – the IV she helped set. Patient’s forearms were burned, and the cephalic veins weren’t available. Metacarpals, though, were. A couple tries – and she hit the vein as if it was on the back of her own hand, her practice paying off one last time.

“Doctor Kimishima, you said you were leaving Alyssa in our hands. Please do that. It would be against the path of honor to place no trust in others. You’ll be able to help her soon, too. Have some rest tonight.”

“I can’t.” The words were out before she knew their meaning.

“Why do you think that?”

For a surgeon, a moment of inaction got people hurt. She was used to acting without a second thought, deciding in a split second. And now, she was forced to wait.

“Because…” the words were hard to say. “It’s as if I’m on duty, again, and it feels like I can’t leave, can’t take my mind off this… since if I do, something horrible will happen to her.”

Wordlessly, Tomoe reached over and covered Naomi’s hand with her own. Her fingers felt hot in comparison. Being shown that kind of sympathy was unexpected. She wanted to say her thanks, but the practiced words crumpled in her throat.

The “one-way mirror” shattered.

And she turned to Tomoe and buried her face in her shoulder, not bothering to hide the sobs breaking out from her chest, her fingers clutching for dear life at the silk of the kimono sleeve. Her body was trembling, but the weight was off her shoulders; slowly, the pain subsided to a dull ache, and she knew she’d be able to put this day behind her, if only for a while. Finally, she drew a calm breath and raised her head.

“Well, that was unsightly. I apologize…”

Tomoe stopped her with a hasty gesture. “Please don’t, it’s fine. I’ll show you to the exit – oh, do you want this?”

With that, Tomoe handed the figurine back. It was completed. In her palm, the tiny crane spread its wings, raising its nose and tail sharp in the air.

“I do,” Naomi felt herself smiling. “Thank you. Although, well, this is just paper. A little bird wouldn’t have saved anyone.”

Despite her words, she closed her fingers gently. For a moment, it seemed to her that the figurine was fluttering in her hand like a white butterfly.

#trauma center #trauma team #fanfic #naomi kimishima #tomoe tachibana #fanart

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plugrick · 7 years ago

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🌓Rickacurring Nightmare

@tusoypendejo

Dont think about it. Whatever you do, don’t think about it.

Don’t stop running, don’t aid too much attention to the situation at hand, and don’t let thoughts wander back to the nauseating image of the thing following only yards behind. Keep going.

Stay cool. Take the chaos and break it down into digestible, bite-sized pieces. Hone the senses on heaving stuttered breath in, forcing it back out doubletime. Huff! Huff!

Don’t glance over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of the ever encroaching thing that clattered down the catwalk only yards behind, catching up too fast–

Oh god, he looked. “F-fffuck!” Through the layer of blur induced by movement over the split second flash he caught, the sight of massive rippling muscle and rows of finger length, inwardly hooked teeth parted in a snarl was enough to seize his next step and nearly make him stumble.

Don’t think about it.

As long as Rick abided by this internal mantra, filled the blank spaces in his harried brain with repetiveness reminiscent of a broken record, he could get through this. Dont think, it reiterated on a constant loop against the merciless encroach of visceral fear; But it skipped, the needle hit a snag in the worn grooves, and the message became dischordant, whittling away at already weak resolve until it inevitably became a baseline scream signalling imminent danger.

BANG SCCCCRRRHH BANGBANG

Oh sweet fuck, it was gaining ground. The heartbeat pounding in his ears sounded faraway yet deafening, like thunder rumbling underwater. Tendons and sinewy muscle strained hard enough to threaten a snapping of ligaments under the stress put upon them by the full-tilt sprint that he was struggling to maintain. God damn, why hadn’t he worked on his cardio more? All the accumulation of age and unchecked drug abuse had really worn his body down to a shell of his former athleticism. He was too out of shape for this.

Rick felt like he was going to start falling apart at the seams. He knew damn well that he couldn’t keep this up. Hell, it was only by the grace of the adrenaline coursing through his overworked circulatory system that prevented an entangling weight of unpleasant memories and engrained dread to encumber his whirling legs. With each and every impact his feet made with ground, the jarring connection hitched his air intake, which didn’t assist the creeping sense of panic clotting his windpipe. Perspiration beaded down the slope of his forehead from sheer effort, momentum derived only from prey animal escapism. Don’t let it catch you again.

SCRITCCCHBANG BANG SCRRRRH

The pursuants’ long claws scraping like nails on a chalkboard had his wits at their frayed ends. All he could think about was how he didn’t want to feel them curl around his side.

“Fuck, fuck - hhhuh - sh-shit!“

He’d really fucked up the game plan this time. How had he managed to end up here, trying to outpace this thing in its’ own advantageous environment?

The elevated bridge in the hull of this abandoned mothership wasn’t exactly the most ideal place for a chase scene with already disproportionate odds. He’d wanted this thing to feel like it had the upper hand, but maybe that’d worked a little too well. The dim emergency lights rendered the hallway too dark to gauge exactly how much distance he was putting between himself and the unnerving sound of something unquestionably sharp scraping against the studded metal floor, but Rick knew it sure as hell wasn’t far enough behind to provide leeway for even the barest room for error. This choice of location was arguably a poorer decision than using himself as a lure.

“RRRRRRHHHHHHHHHIIIIIICK ”

Oh, hell to the motherfucking no. “Ohhh sweet jesus! Ohhh mother of fucking shit! Ohhhh god–!“

He took it back. Carrying out a performance as live bait was /definitely/ the worst idea he’d ever formulated in his entire pointless life. What kind of shit had he been smoking that made him think this was a solid course of action? Oh yeah, just put yourself on a silver platter in front the giant shape-shifting space lizard hellbent on wrapping jaws around you - how could it go wrong? Fucking dumbass.

Maybe this was over before it ever started.

No! No - this was going to work. It was non optional. Yeah, this - this orchestrated scheme was going to pan out just fine, even if it had only gone about half right thus far. He had the coordinates. He was a Rick. He could do this. And if he truly wanted to be rid of this problem, this waking nightmare terrorizing his life, he just - He just couldn’t afford to spare a single second to hesitate.

Sweat slickened fingers struggled to find traction on the smooth dial on the back of his portal gun amidst jostled steps, the knob softly clicking as he searched for the correct dimensional sequence. C-132. C-137. There it was! “H-hah!”

This glowing number displayed upon a tiny LED screen represented salvation. It encompassed freedom, a chance to leave the past behind and move on. It meant no more watching over his shoulder in paranoia in case he was inevitably found again, no more waking up in cold paralysis with the ghost of claws sinking into his flesh;

He was going to take this abomination somewhere it belonged, leave it to rot in some fucked up dimension full of monstrous things just like it.

C-138. A place as shitty as bottom-barrel, hopelessly ruined earthscapes came, complete with an equally shitty old Rick for this thing to chase around instead. He doubted that the difference with it there would be noticeable at all. Or maybe that was just what he was telling himself to justify pussying out on his own problems and throwing one of his alternates under the goddamn bus. Whatever. Sorry, Rick, it’s not personal.

Focus! It was now or never. He squeezed one eye shut and aimed the nose of his gun as true as he could manage, shooting out a beam of green light that became a swirling green mass of eddying energy projected upon the wall ahead.

This was where things got fucky. The plan was a simple enough concept in theory, but in action? It bordered on madness. He’d figured, hey, if this thing would ram through walls just to get to him, why wouldn’t it dive through a portal for a meager chance at a taste?

Right. Now that it had his trail, lighted up on it like a bloodhound made of cold skin drawn taut over spinal ridges and a widely set skull, it’d follow him through a goddamn wood chipper. Just keep eyes trained forward. Ignore the way air raggedly released from convulsing lungs in sharp gasps, the sound distinctly desperate and unhinged. Push through the agonizing burn taking root in the center of a knotted diaphragm, the cramps from unoxygenated muscles that formed stitches just under the rib cage. Close the distance between here and that portal. Just a few more steps, almost there–!

It all came down to this ballsy leap of faith, legs cartwheeling through the air on a direct trajectory with the warping portal. As he passes through the threshold, he swears he can hear the whistle of claws whipping through empty space just behind the curvature of his spine. He thinks he can feel the slightest tug as slender fingers ripped through the fabric of his flowing overcoat with the ease of a knife passing through butter, effortlessly as though the phalanges were made of razor blades. He grits his teeth. If he glanced over, he was afraid that he might catch sight of massive five-fingered hands swinging from peripheral view to wrap completely around his torso–

And then it hit him: The outstretched hand and the crushing realization of failure.

He hadn’t made it far enough.

The strength behind a singular backhanded strike was equal to the brute force of a dozen people, like a bear on steroids. The sheer force of oversized knuckles colliding with the square of his lumbar snapped his head back, made the tightly curled grip around the portal gun release. All it took was one blow to knock the air clean out of Ricks’ lungs and send him skittering at alarming velocity over wide swaths of broken asphalt blocks and rusted rebar sticking up like grave markers out of dismally grey ruins. They snagged at his clothes and engraved fine cuts in flesh, but ultimately didn’t hinder his path as Rick tumbled like a ragdoll, head over heels –

Until something made of uncomfortable bony angles stopped him mid-flight, giving way with the ease of paper mache under the force of momentum. The two bodies met at an abrupt halfway point, catching each other with an effective gut check that sent Rick sputtering for air all over again. “Hurgh-!” He could only dimly register that he’d collided with someone made of lanky limbs that were now inexplicably entangled with his own, all decked out in shredded clothes and stupid sunglasses and telltale blue hair that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Hhhuuhhh-g-gettoffa m-me,” Rick wheezed incoherently, despite the fact that he was the one in the wrong, offering an unappreciative shove to a shoulder that seemed strangely metallic under his fingertips. He struggled to swiftly separate himself from a heap of entwined limbs to little avail as the dawning realization came over him that he’d been unceremoniously thrown down a mountain of rubble, and subsequently felt the part. His knees were sore from agitated old injuries, bruises blossoming along ribs, palms scraped raw and empty.

Wait - his hands were empty. The portal gun! “W-where is it?!” It must’ve skittered away, bouncing out of his hand upon the moment that he was swiped out of midair suspension like an insect. His flat hands swept over the ground, searching thoughtlessly for the only hope he had at getting out of this in one relative piece. “W-w-where’s the gun?!”

Oh, fuck no. It wasn’t going down like this. He’d spent too long evading, living with the lines carved into his sides for it to happen like this.

“RHHHHHIIIICK”

The release of half-speech, half lungful of breath containing too much volume to belong to anything /remotely human/ hissed out, piercing and predatory. It immediately drew Ricks’ gaze up at the hill of debris that he’d taken the express route down from, wherein he could make out the dark silhouette of reptilian features set on an intimidating frame;

It rose eight feet tall on bipedal legs the thickness of tree trunks, staring down unblinkingly with slitted pupils widened with interest. The parting of hinged jaw exposed rows of snakelike fangs meant to sink deep into anything unlucky enough to find itself sandwiched between them,

Like the glow of the portal gun sitting atop a long tongue.

The very last hope of escape slid down its’ gullet with finality, lost forever. Rick could feel his heart sink to his stomach.

It was as good as over. “Fuck.” The only chance to escape lied within the very alternate dimensional version of himself that he’d been planning on screwing over, who he turned to with the utmost urgency. “F-f-fucking portal us out b-before that thing comes down h-here, asshole!”

#tusoypendejo #rp /#HOPE THIS IS OK #it's fucking long because ~story~ or whatever

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Art F City: The Whitney Biennial: Visual Screen Burn Courtesy of America’s Finest

Raul De Nieves, “beginning & the end neither & the otherwise betwixt & between the end is the beginning & the end”, 2016

Out of the ten Whitney Biennials I’ve seen, this is the first one that could have used a vomit warning. But here we are, in Trump’s America, living a future many of us never wanted to imagine, let alone live through. What is the purpose of art in this New America? This year’s Biennial bears no answers. Art doesn’t exist to defend its purpose and even if it did this exhibition was organized prior to the election. Nevertheless, it does bring then-simmering themes to a boil. So, while almost none of the work is Trump themed, as a whole the exhibition reads as a responsive to the challenges the country faces—increasing income inequality across the board, failing institutions, and the rise of hate-fueled violence. If art is a mirror, then this year’s Biennial should scare the shit out of you.

Considered New York’s most important survey of contemporary art making, politics is at the center of the the work of 63 artists selected by curators Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks. Thanks to the museum’s spacious new digs on Ganesevort, artists are afforded a lot of more space, given plenty of room for conceptual groupings which flow from one to the next. It’s quite literally a pleasure to look at and leaves plenty of room for the nausea to sink in.

This biennial even includes art that made me feel like a despicable human being for having concluded that the show had merit. Jordan Wolfson’s “Real Violence” a 2:25 minute virtual reality, the first 20 seconds of which consist only of a countdown. Said countdown constitutes my most vivid memory of the piece—namely because it was the only section I could only watch in its entirety. Only a wall label few will read prepares a viewer for what’s on the screen, which is two solid minutes of the artist violently swinging a baseball bat into another man’s head and then crushing his bloody skull into the cement. (The man is actually a super-realistic android.) He does so on a city sidewalk surrounded by high-rises. A verbal prayer from a Chanukah blessing plays in the background.

On the one hand, this could be read as a reflection of larger pop culture trends. Shows like Westworld have popularized themes of violence against simulated humans, and perhaps Wolfson is making a connection to Jewish laws against idol worship through the blessing. More likely, though, this is simply a terrifyingly accurate mirror of the America capable of electing Trump. Religion of any kind seems scary or completely misunderstood. (I heard one attendee mistake the Hebrew blessing for Arabic.) Citizens hungrily consume any and all spectacles regardless of their impact on their health. (Who won’t talk about this work?) And that’s to say nothing of the ongoing feelings of paralysis many of us feel. (The piece was made in 2016, and presumably in development long before Trump became president.)

Speaking to this reluctance to see, I spent the better part of two minutes within the VR environment, turned away from the violence, watching an office worker standing on a nearby street corner who didn’t notice the crime. (Like a victim of abuse, it never occurred to me to remove the headset.) According to the wall label, the man taking the beating occasionally makes eye contact with the viewer, an added level of creep, if you can endure it. I could not.

All of this begs the question, how does a critic fairly evaluate the biennial after seeing a work like that? The piece is essentially screen burn—everything seen before or after is viewed through the image of a man being beaten to a pulp. Is that fair to the other artists? The answer, of course, is no.

The fact is, though, the screen burn I was suffering from wasn’t coming just from Wolfson’s piece, but from the Trump presidency itself. The Trump administration casts its long shadow over every Facebook conversation, tweet and social outing, and unfortunately, not even this year’s Whitney Biennial offers many sunny spots.

This context can make conceptual art and formalism lose their resonance. John Divola’s photographs of discarded portrait paintings by students carefully hung inside abandoned spaces look nice enough, but many of the conceits driving the work don’t go much deeper than formalism. Is it too great a luxury now to contemplate how the gaze of the portrait’s sitter makes us more aware of the frame of the camera? It sure feels like it. The same can be said for the work of John Riepenhoff, who makes whimsical sculptures of anonymous figures holding up works the Riepenhoff might sell in his gallery. Haha and all that, but I don’t need to see the legs of an art handler behind a work to appreciate how it got on the wall.

These were outliers in a strong show, though, and work I could see appreciating more in a different exhibition in a different time. Looking through Trump’s lens, I initially read the figure in painter Dana Schutz’s “Shame” as forcefully poking itself in the eye. Perhaps this was too literal a read—the piece was located directly across from Occupy Museum’s horrifying breakdown of the financial ties that run the art world and all student debt. Closer inspection of the painting—gracefully rendered so that even the most layered and manipulated brushwork seemed economical—reveals a head hung between two hands. That, too, worked.

The Whitney Biennial, installation view. From left to right: Cauleen Smith, Torey Thornton, and William Pope L.

Fittingly, a large section of the fifth floor has been colonized by the resistance, which resembles the set of Game of Thrones. Cauleen Smith’s collection of medieval-styled knight’s standards (they’re shield emblems) hangs from the ceiling beside what resembles a pink torture chamber prison gridded with flesh decorations by William Pope L. (In actuality, the medallions are bologna slices affixed with black and white portraits). Both address the subject of race. Smith’s flags, for example, come out of the artist’s dismay for what seems like a never-ending stream of videos evidencing the abuse of black people and are hand sewn with messages like “We Were Never Meant to Survive” and ��Stop.” Pope L’s “Claim (Whitney Version)”, is a bit more complicated. The text tells us the bologna corresponds to a percentage of New York’s Jewish population—though the number of medallions is off by at least two, if not more. This known error supposedly points to big data and its nefarious uses visa vi immigration and voter fraud—a message no one would get without a wall label. Still, the fact that the box reads like a prison for random citizens is powerful enough on its own and thus rightly commands a large presence within the biennial.

There’s a toughness to this work, that cedes to sensitivity elsewhere. Samara Golden created a corporate housing structure against the museum’s westward-facing windows that amounts to infinite tunnel of the homeless. Mirrors on the floor and ceiling to create the illusion of endless floors, each lined with sculptures of people wrapped in sleeping bags. It’s heartbreaking.

Mercifully, there are some breaks. Talia Madani’s explorations of light have almost nothing to do with politics, but she gets a mention anyway for having completed the weirdest painting in the show. “Shafts” is a blackened painting in which rendered light shines from the butts of four babies crawling along a Tron-like grid. In the foreground, a father figure holds up a strip of their lost poo, bathed in the light from their butts. Hilarious.

It was almost a surprise to learn that I still find baby shit and butt lights funny, considering the context of our failing democracy. In some ways, I expected only work like Wolfson’s to be able to speak because that’s the volume we operate at now. But the biennial also reminds us that’s too narrow a vision for art or for America. Communication isn’t about how loud you can speak but about showing up, listening, and taking an interest in new ideas.

Carrie Moyer, “Candy Cap” 2016, 72 x 96 inches

It was a suite of Carrie Moyer abstract paintings that truth most clear, and almost inexplicably gave me hope. If the observations made above had any validity—that art that looked inward or focused to heavy on formalism tended to miss the mark—these paintings shouldn’t have made any impact. And yet, there I stood, marveling at the billow of light that seemed to emanate from inside the smooth green and amber swooshes of “Candy Cap” and the thin ultramarine blue washes that still made dense forms in “String Theory and Daisy Chains.” I left feeling emotionally injured, yet somehow more optimistic than I have in weeks, which is consistent with with the shock of watching America turn into a kleptocracy and fascist regime. The highs and lows are more extreme than I could have ever imagined.

Ajay Kurian, “Childermass”, 2017, dimensions variable.

Puppies Puppies, “Liberty” 2017, performance on the 8th floor of the Biennial.

Dana Schutz, “Shame”

John Divola, installation view

John Riepenhoff, installation view.

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Talia Madani’s “Shafts”, 2017, 55 x 44 inches

Occupy Museums, “Debt Fair”, 2017, Installation view

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#IFTTT #Art F City

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